Chapter 1 KIDS TIRED OF TERRIBLE FOOD, BEG FOR MERCY Can you keep a secret? I can’t! I’m a journalist, and journalists are all about making secrets public. Anyway, it kills me that I have to keep a major secret from almost everyone I know. Even my best friend, Hailey Jones. But I will tell you, if you promise not to tell anyone, okay? Here it is: I am Dear Know-It-All. Dear Know-It-All is the advice column in our school newspaper, the Cherry Valley Voice. Kids write in with questions about everything from homework to love lives to troubles at home. And each year one of the kids on the newspaper staff is chosen to anonymously write the answers, and this year it’s me! Can you believe it? I myself was shocked when Mr. Trigg, our faculty advisor, called me at home to ask me to do it. But it’s pretty fun, and an honor, even if it’s a lot of responsibility. In my first column, I answered a letter from someone asking what they should do if they liked their best friend’s crush.
