I suppose things started getting stranger than normal when the cicadas came to town.  I mean there can be no other explanation behind it.

For starters, Joe Breen, this boy in my class, suddenly started talking to me when, beforehand, he barely said boo to me.  All of a sudden he seems to be noticing me; I'm no longer "Miss Invisible" to him.

Secondly, my mom is acting suspicious.  She suddenly grills me on where I am going, and she is acting like the world is going to end soon.  Daddy is acting weird, too:  all he wants to do is sit holed up in his study or hang out with his drinking buddies, not only on Saturdays, but during the week days, too.

Thirdly, a neighborhood kid dropped dead suddenly while playing football with his brothers.  He was only 11 years old.  There was no inkling that he even had any trouble with his heart until he collapsed in their backyard, suddenly dead, as though he'd been struck by lightning. 

All of this happened in a span of a few short weeks.  And this was even before school ended.

Now that the cicadas are here, things continue to get weirder and weirder.

I had never seen a cicada; had heard of these bugs who don't appear for seventeen years, and now, all of a sudden, they're everywhere.  In the trees, and flying about in the air, scaring people halfway to death if one lands on them.  They are some of the ugliest bugs I had ever seen:  big and black with shiny wings and blood-red eyes.  And their bugsong is constant, high-pitched, and annoying.  Every day you hear them singing in the trees; it's about to drive many people mad, including myself!

Mom and daddy are still acting strangely.  Daddy continues to drink with his buddies, mom is still acting suspicious in nature, and the dead kid's family is still wallowing around in their grief.  And Joe Breen, he continues to chat with me every chance he gets.

I don't konw what is going on, but I really don't like it.  I wish things would return to normal, and I wish these darned cicadas would just take their concert elsewhere and leave us the heck alone!

*To be continued.*