Busy Like You Can't Believe

I'm Lucy Rose, and here's the thing about 4th: that grade is busy like you can't believe! Especially if you are a person who is already PLENTY busy on account of having RESPONSIBILITIES and I am that kind exactly. I am already collecting a vocabulary, plus I have to think up new palindromes and now I have to do the most P-U thing which is the MULTIPLICATION tables, which I would say is a thing I hate, if I was allowed to say hate, which I am not.
PLUS I have to do the greatest thing and that is be in the play of Annie and I'm sure I will get to be Annie because 1. I have red hair and 2. if I don't I will absolutely perish to death.
PLUS there is another thing I have to do absolutely constantly and that is what my mom calls eavesdropping but I call LISTENING VERY QUIETLY SO I CAN KNOW THINGS. But that turns out to be halfway sickening because now I know a thing about my mom and it's that she has a FRIEND that is a MAN and I think they are having DATES. That makes me feel like I'm horrified to pieces and part of me doesn't want to know a single more thing but the other part does because how else can I figure out how to keep those 2 apart?
And here is the thing about that: it can make a girl exhausted.

From the Hardcover edition.