Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Lead:  It is my first morning of high school.  I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.

I need a new friend.  I need a friend, period.  Not a true friend, nothing close or share clothes or sleepover giggle giggle yak yak.  Just a pseudo-friend, disposable friend.  Friend as accessory.  Just so I don't feel and look so stupid.

The cement-slab sky hangs inches above our heads.  Which direction is east?  It has been so long since I've seen the sun, I can't remember.  Turtlenecks creep out of bottom drawers.  Turtle faces pull back into winter clothes.  We won't see some kids until spring.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

I love his writing, but the alcoholic-ridden stories get me down after a while.

I was a victim of a high school high school basketball form of Post-Traumatic Free-Throw Stress Syndrome.

Leads and Endings in a short story:

Lead: Although it was winter, the nearest ocean four hundred miles away, and the Tribal Weatherman asleep because of boredom, a hurricane dropped from the sky in 1976 and fell so hard on the Spokane Indian Reservation that it knocked Victor from bed and his latest nightmare.

Ending: But it was over.  Victor closed his eyes, fell asleep.  It was over.  The hurricane that fell out of the sky in 1976 left before sunrise, and all the Indians, the eternal survivors, gathered to count their losses.