Phobic

Chapter 1

Jumping to Conclusions

I couldn’t do it. No freakin’ way.

            “Jump!” The fat guy with the hideous mustache yelled again, louder, like I didn’t hear him right in my ear the first time.

            My feet felt like they were nailed, no, like, glued to the airplane floor with that industrial glue they stick car parts together with. And by the way, I wasn’t scared because I have a problem with heights. I may be the King of all Phobias, but the ones I have are completely weird, like Peladophobia:fear of bald people.

Jumping out of a plane, strapped to some truck driver lookin’ dude with bad facial hair, was my “wish,” granted by a charity that makes dreams come true for kids like me. If you find out you’re going to die in within a year, you do some pretty crazy stuff, especially if you’re fourteen, well, almost fourteen but whatever same diff.

            Before you start asking totally obvious questions, like, “How can a dead kid write a book?” let me answer that. Duh. Obviously I’m not dead yet. Let me correct that. I’m most definitely dead if you’re reading this, but right now, as I’m writing, I’m completely still alive. No zombies in this story, although that would be seriously beast.

While we’re at it in this annoying little aside that totally interrupts all the action, I should warn you this book will not have some dumbtard Hollywood ending, where it turns out that the doctor didn’t really see a brain tumor the size of a large orange inside my skull, but it was in fact an equipment malfunction or smudge on the film or whatever all along. That would be lame. That is so not going to happen. I am toast. There will not be a sequel to my story. My parents have gotten second, third and tenth opinions and the doctors all said the same thing---six months, maybe a year and a half…tops.

            I’ve already figured out how to put in “the ending.” My best friend Jake, who totally sucks at writing, is going to finish it for me. He’ll tell you, in his horrible, misspelled, grammatically disastrous way, exactly how I finally went. My guess is that I’ll go kicking and screaming, because I do NOT want to die. But who does, right? You’re probably thinking those goth kids that hang out at 7-Eleven, like Grauer and those guys want to die, but you’re wrong. They’re a bunch of freakin' poseurs.

I guess I better tell you what I look like so you can get a mental picture, and then I’ll start from the beginning.  I don’t want to sound like I have a big head, but I’m pretty smokin’ hot. Just kidding. No, but seriously. I’m not ugly. Chicks dig me.  I’m tall and big for my age. I have dark blond, shoulder length hair and green eyes. I’m also decent at sports. Okay. I’m being fake modest. I rip at skate boarding. And snowboarding. And surfing. I actually have a few sponsors.  I’m good at school, too.

Don’t be a hater, just because I’m not the typical kid you read about in books—you know, skinny or average or whatever but then I find out I have super powers and get the girl in the end or like save my parents or the world. If that guy is basically you then I will probably just piss you off, because I’m the popular guy. But on the flipside, I’m not a jerk.  That’s the other guy you read about in books. He thinks he’s the man and gets poned in the end and winds up being the skinny-kid-turned-hero’s sidekick.  Obviously I do a lot of reading and get tired of all the predictability.

Oh shoot! I forgot to tell you my name! That’s because I’m not going to. I’ll give you my pseudonym, or avatar if you don’t know what that is. My name is Sonny, and I live in Cardiff-By-The-Sea, California, so I’ll go by Sonny Cardiff. I have a twelve year-old-sister, Myah, who’s pretty cool, a wimpy, yappy dog that I hate named Shrub and two currently insane parents, one of which is a stay home mom.  I should also probably mention, it being the title of this book and all, that I have a lot of phobias. I’m like, super-phobic. Phobias are what they call “irrational” fears, but I beg to differ. My phobias always make complete sense to me.