Behind the Face by Laura Deal

Behind The Face By Mia Leque

I dedicate this book to Madeline Ristey.

Table of Contents Advice from an Adult......................................................................................................!5 Life in Wisconsin!............................................................................................................7 Sports!.............................................................................................................................8 My Neighborhood!...........................................................................................................9 My Name!......................................................................................................................10 A Special Birthday!........................................................................................................11 A Time I Got Into Trouble !............................................................................................12 Favorite Toy From My Childhood!.................................................................................13 A Special Person!..........................................................................................................14 A Happy Time For Me!..................................................................................................15

Advice from and Adult. ! I can’t pick out one good piece of advice my parents or any adult for that matter has given me. It’s all been really good advice. I apply it in my life almost every day. I get a lot of advice from the older people my mom cleans house for. They are really nice people and most of them are retired from the military. When I graduate I would like to go in the military so they give me tips on how to make that happen. Dr. Howard told me to keep my grades up. If you do good in school it shows you’re responsible and that’s what the military wants. He as well as my parents said it’s not important to get a job as a high schooler because you should focus on your grades. They said you should enjoy your teen years because after high school you more than likely actually have to work. Another piece of advice that many people have heard is to keep your friends close but enemies closer. My dad likes to describe it as having your friends an arm length away but pretending you have your hand around their neck so if they do mess up you can pull them close and close your grip. It sounds pretty violent but if you think about it, it’s true in many ways. I’ve gotten many pieces of advice over the years but if I wrote all of them done it would take forever. So that’s the legist of it.

Life in Wisconsin Wisconsin Cheese Cold Snow Ice Hockey Cheering Loud Guns Hunting Farm Wisconsin Packers Vacation South Carolina Brother Air Force Future Planes Germany Smell Food Fair Animals Deer Hunting Farm

Sports Sharks Winning is everything Individual sport Medley relays Team Eat a ton Along with Making friends Time Race Amazing Competitive Keep on running Cheering fans Running Outstanding Speed Strength Courage Outside Undefeated Never walk Time Race Year-long

My Neighborhood ! My neighborhood is quite boring. No one really associates with each other around here. We all do our own thing. The one time we all come together is when the neighborhood gets hit by a bunch of snow. Its like we don’t know one another every other season except winter and then boom, winter hits and we get pounded by snow and everyone is outside helping one an other shovel and snow blow. We have tons of children and dogs around here but don’t have any parks for them to have fun. There’s a big open field a few streets down which is good for dogs to run around or if you want to play soccer or frisbee, I guess. There are two neighbors in particular that we can always count on. One that’s house is connected to ours and one that’s directly across the street. Mike, he lives across the street. He owns his own computer company in which he fixed computers and cleans computers out. Sue, who is connected to us works at a fabric store and sews a lot. Sue also does photography so if we ever want pictures done we can always count on her. Also, when we go on vacation and have to leave the birds home, Sue is always there to take care of them.

My Name. ! In Italian my name means mine, to the military and many people around the world it also means missing in action. To websites it means of the sea or bitter, to me it is simply just my name. ! My mom got my name off a German book titled Max und Mia, and just fell in love with the name. If you were to look my name up in the urban dictionary it would say that I am shy, which is correct. Many people would describe me as excessively shy, but with time it gets better. The fact that my name means mine in Italian says that I can be a caring person and am always willing to listen and help. ! My name is short, my name is unique. It’s not original just like me. If it were to be a color I think it would be a burst of orange. Mia is like burst of happiness. It sounds fun, happy, and upbeat. I’m a very happy person, rarely down in the dumps. I’m a very trustworthy person, but once you break that trust and the bridge is burned. There’s no rebuilding it. My name is three letters long leading only to infer that I can be short tempered. I will stand up for what I believe is right and not quit until I have won the argument. I like to be the one to get that last word in. That is the story behind my name.

A Special Birthday ! A special birthday would be my grandmas. My dad’s mom. I’m guessing this was meant to be about a special birthday of mine, but my grandma’s is more important to me. Her birthday is August 10. She passed away March 5, 2004. This year will mark nine years that she has been gone. It hit us like a tsunami. Back to her birthday. My family and I celebrate it every year. In fact my brother even made it his anniversary. Well, Terence had a small court wedding toward the end of August because with the Air Force it made it difficult. His wife, Kathryn, was stationed in Niagara Falls, New York, and my brother is stationed in Charleston, South Carolina. They wanted to be together so they decided to get married, but when they have the big family wedding it will be August 10 in honor of my grandma. My brother and I were really close to her. Lucky for my brother he had more time with her being older. In a way I guess that would only make it harder on him. That’s what I consider a special birthday.

A Time I Got into Trouble ! A time I got into trouble would be when we lived in Germany. Actually there’s two incidents. The first one was when I was three years old. My dad was in the Army so we were stationed in Vilseck, Germany. Well since he was in the military he had camo sticks to paint your face and some how I got ahold of them. I took the black one and painted my whole face and claimed I was a monster. When my parents found out they weren’t exactly mad, but they didn’t exactly like it either. My brother thought it was funny. It was time to wash it off although I didn’t want to because I knew it would hurt. I was screaming the whole time my mom washed it off with a wash cloth. I don’t remember it but my brother got it on video so I’ve watched it. It looked painful considering my face was as red as a tomato. ! The second time I actually got in huge trouble was in the same time zone. We still lived in Germany and on base. I said I was going to my friend Kayla’s house which was just down the street, but instead I followed my brother who was going to the park with a friend. Well he didn’t want me to follow him so he kept telling me to go home. I refused and stood there and screamed. Eventually a MP, Military Police, came and picked us up and took us to the police station where my parents had to come and pick us up. My mom was mad so she started yelling at us which lead to her being questioned because they suspected abuse. Obviously she didn’t abuse us but she was furious with me especially.

Favorite Toy from My Childhood. ! My favorite toy from my childhood would probably be the teddy bear my grandma gave me when I was stuck in the hospital. It’s a teddy bear with a blanket body. I’ve had it since the day i was born and never gave it up. To this day it’s still in my room. She tried to replace it with one the is similar. It was Pooh-bears head and arms with its body a pink blanket. In the blanket is sewn “Mia Tilly Leque February 12, 1998” I never really liked it. I thought its head was too big or it felt weird. We kept it of course but it sits in a basket in the four season porch. The other bear that I just happened to name Teddy has had his head sewn back on millions of times. Right now he has two big whole making only half of his head still attached to his body. It’s not the only thing I have left of my grandma it’s just the most valuable and meaningful. My parents have tried many times to put it in a case with my brothers childhood sleep toy but I always take it out and put it back in my room. The one thing I won’t to is take it on vacation with me. I fear that I’ll leave him behind which is more than likely impossible because it would be that first thing I’d end up packing. I’m more likely to leave me phone behind. Just because I’m not that attached to it as most people. That is my favorite childhood toy.

A Special Person ! Well since I already wrote about my grandma I will write about the next special person to me. It would probably be my brother. He has helped me through many things and unlike most siblings we actually get along. We use to fight every once in a while when he still lived at home but who doesn’t? He does pick on my a lot but we hardly fight anymore. I know he’ll always be there for me. When I have a question on homework I can’t ask my parents because everything is different from when they were in school, or so they claim. I can just text my brother or call him and he’ll help me. When we go down to visit I don’t have to stay at the hotel with my parents, I get to stay in the spare room of his house. He’s even offered to have me come down there in live. A big dream of mine was to once day be in the Olympics for swimming and since he lives in the south and it’s warm all year round he thought it would be good for me to come live with him and train. Also, my sister in law is a swim coach so she could help me out. ! My brother is special to me and you don’t hear that often from many people. I know he’ll always have my back and be there for me. He tells me what to expect in the Air Force and he told me what to expect coming into high school. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

A Happy Time For Me ! A happy time for me would be every day. I like to live every day to the fullest and always have a smile on my face. I get mad a lot but it normally doesn’t last too long or I find a way to brush it off. If I do get upset its no big deal because I know it will only last a short time. I live by the moto everything happens for a reason so there’s always a reason for something bad that happened. Other than that I really don’t have a happy time in my life. Or something big that happened. I guess it could be moving to Germany but I’d still like to live there. It’s beautiful.