Authors Note: In this essay below you will learn about life as a teenager from the book Fact of Life by: Denise Vega. See if you can make any connections with this story.
What if you were a teenager with only a few friends and got the crush of your life? In this book Fact of Life by, Denise Vega is about a girl named Katima who experiences her crush’s true colors.
There are many characters in this book. We have, Katima who likes to be called Kat, Manny, Kat’s crush for about four years. Christy is Kat’s best friend, who is dating Glen, and obviously Glen is Christy’s boyfriend. Then we have Abra, Kat’s mom. She always calls her mom by her first name, but she doesn’t know why. Lastly we have Libby and Mitch, they are popular people and are dating, for now.
A lot of people have best friends and boyfriends, and this story relates to real life situations. Kat Flynn and her best friend Christy are two girls who don’t care what other people think of them. Christy has her boyfriend Glen, and Kat likes this boy named Manny. Who knew someone could like someone for so long! Christy is the only one that knows about Kat’s secret crush.
Christy is a reporter who likes to write situations down into her note book to make it the front cover of Kats love life. Kat works with her mom, Abra, at “Abra’s midwifery”. She calls her mom Abra, by her first name. I can relate to that, because my brother and sister used to call my dad by his first name. One of the best mothers from the midwifery is Diane and Jeff. They are expecting a new baby soon. Diane loves Kat, she wants her to be there when the baby comes, but Abra doesn’t think she’s ready. Katima says she will think about it, but she knows the answer will be no. Since the answer is no, Kat is helping the couple with planning their big day with the background and music.
Christy, Glen, and Kat all went to the Game Zone. The Game Zone is where all the popular people hang out at, and Kat wanted to find Manny there, and she got lucky. Libby is the most popular girl in their school. She is in a relationship with Mitch who is a popular jock. Manny caught Kat’s eye and walked past her, she smiled and she was happy that he returned a smile back. Libby had just gotten some drinks spilled on her by a clumsy waitress. Isn’t that a great fight from Libby to watch?
Manny sits behind Kat in Spanish. He asked her for a pen and never gave it back for a while, wich I thought was a little odd. Manny gave Kat his e-mail after he had taken her pen. The first e-mail she had received from him was, To: KatBrat@msn.com From: Daman@yahoo.com Subject: The Pen, Message: Meet me in the school parking lot at 7:00 or the pen gets it. The next morning she went to the parking lot and surprisingly Manny was there. He asked her tutor him in Spanish, and Kat had responded a cup of coffee and a dozen mini donuts for the price. The first time they had studied they shared the donuts and each had coffee. Kat tutored Manny three times.
Kat likes to work out and is tri training for a triathlon. One day Kat was running on her trail and then her eye caught Manny. He caught up to her and they were talking about Kat’s tri training and about running. Kat and Manny had this running thing going on for a while until Manny left Kat a note and it said, meet me at the trail 5:45. Kat was going on about all of this stuff, until a big thing had happened. Manny had kissed Kat! After the kiss was over Manny ran and Kat caught up to him. They were talking about how things would go after Manny told her how he felt. For a while Manny and Kat had a secret thing for a while. Kat had told Christy about a while after so Christy didn’t freak.
About a month or two later Kat was in the weight room when she heard voices. It was Manny’s friend Eric talking to some guy about “Yoga Girl’. Kat’s nick name was Yoga Girl, because she did yoga in the school hall ways. Manny has said, “Who’s yoga girl?”Kat had gotten mad that Manny said he didn’t know her. The conversation kept going. The next thing Manny denied was that he didn’t like her and she was only tutoring him for the Spanish final the last thing that was said was, “Once this final is done it will be Hasta Lavista Yoga Baby”.
Kat had ignored Manny for a while and so he showed up at her house. They had a big fight about it until she told him to leave. Christy had been called by Kat about the break up. The girls were on separate pages about Manny. She got so mad that Kat had gotten in a fight with Christy. Kat had gone to school for a while alone, until she had gotten sick of fighting and called Christy. Glen had cheated on Christy and they obviously had broken up.
Kat had received some e-mails from Manny saying, “Kat, I have just realized why you are mad at me. I am stupid for saying that and I didn’t mean it, p.s I heard about Christy and Glen, he wasn’t right for her anyway”, Kat had smiled. Libby had walked in to the midwifery and was surprised to see Kat. She had an appointment with Abra. Was Libby really pregnant? It shocked Kat, I mean it would shock me. About a week later the word got out in school. Libby became more popular, but people gave her space. Abra and Libby became very good friends, more than friends. Libby acted like Abra was her mom and Kat wasn’t very happy about that. Katima was on her own for a while with Christy. Libby had come over for dinner and after dinner for some games.
Kat had gone to Christy’s house and Christy had some news on Manny! Manny had asked her what he could do to make it up to Kat, Christy told him to grow a backbone and he walked away and growled. Kat had woken up at 2:00 A.M to see if Manny was at Libby’s house. If I were Kat, I wouldn’t go outside at 2:00 in the morning for a boy. When Kat had returned Christy woke up and asked her, “Was he there?” Kat had responded with a yes.
The seniors had graduated and now it’s time for the triathlon. Kat had gone to training for the big race. She had met a girl named Amy who was 28 years old. Manny was by a tree and Kat had run over to talk to him. They made up for everything that happened and then he left. After a whole week of training Kat was tired. The day of the triathlon was here and Kat had woken up at four A.M. Libby was having the baby and Abra was with another patient. Kat had taken over and missed her triathlon for Libby and the baby. Abra had arrived and told Kat she could catch the baby. After Katherine was born Mitch had shown up. Katherine was given up for adoption and Kat had met up with Manny. They started over and Manny has asked her out and Katima Flynn had responded, “Yes”. If I was Kat I would say yes too for a fresh new start. A lot of people can make connections with this story just by friend problems. What are some of your connections? Kat had finally learned what her crush's true colors were.
