Nothing But the Truth: a documentary novel by Avi

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and Nothing But the Truth? If you’ve watched enough courtroom dramas, you’ve heard that oath being taken. Telling the truth should be simple, right? Well, I’m here to tell you that the truth can be a little more complicated than you’d think. The thing I find more difficult than the truth would be rules. Rules, rules, rules. They are everywhere and it seems like people are always making up rules to make life harder. But the place they bother me the most is in school. The rules say you have to go everyday for 8 hours from age 5 to 18. You have to listen to some know-it-all teacher drone on and on about stuff that is boring and out of date. Then there are rules that if you aren’t passing every subject you can’t go out for sports. Whatever! My stupid English teacher hates me and that’s why I’m failing her class and why I can’t run track. Now that stupid teacher is trying to tell me there is a rule against humming the national anthem. Excuse me? I can’t believe that something as harmless as humming could cause such a raucous, make news across the country, and affect so many people’s lives. But it has…So there you have it. Nothing But the Truth.