You_Only_Live_Once_David_Bravo_-_Mark

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Dedication
To all adopted kids everywhere: this one’s for you
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Tuesday, September 5: 8:10 A.M.
Tuesday, September 5: 8:15 A.M.
Tuesday, September 5: 12:37 P.M.
Tuesday, September 5: 6:38 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 8:40 A.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 12:35 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 4:04 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 4:31 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 4:53 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 5:17 P.M.
Wednesday, September 13: 8:15 A.M.
Wednesday, September 13: 8:30 A.M.
Tuesday, September 12 (Again!!!): 2:41 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12, for the Third (and Fourth) (and
Fifth) Time: 2:42 P.M.
Wednesday, September 13: 8:40 A.M.
Wednesday, September 13: 3:49 P.M.
Wednesday, September 13: 6:16 P.M.
Wednesday, September 13: 7:15 P.M.
Friday, September 15: 3:48 P.M.
Monday, September 18: 8:59 A.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 8:40 A.M.
Monday, September 18: 12:44 P.M.
Monday, September 18: 4:01 P.M.
Tuesday, September 19: 8:15 A.M
Tuesday, September 19: 12:37 P.M.

Tuesday, September 19: 12:46 P.M.
Friday, September 22: 12:48 P.M.
Friday, September 22: 8:26 P.M.
Friday, September 22: 8:37 P.M.
Monday, September 25: 7:43 A.M.
Monday, September 25: 8:14 A.M.
October 23, 1956: 9:43 A.M.
April 28, 1961: 9:43 A.M.
Monday, September 25: 8:14 A.M.
Monday, September 25: 12:35 P.M.
Tuesday, September 5: 8:10 A.M.
Tuesday, September 5: 8:17 A.M.
Monday, September 25: 12:40 P.M.
Tuesday, September 26: 2:40 P.M.
Tuesday, September 26: 3:41 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: (For the . . . Sixth Time? Who’s
Counting All This?): 2:44 P.M.
Tuesday, September 26: 3:59 P.M.
Monday, March 26: 4:15 P.M.
Tuesday, March 27: 5:55 P.M.
????
????: (I Still Don’t Know What Year It Is.)
Tuesday, March 27: 4:34 P.M.
Tuesday, September 5: 8:10 A.M.
Tuesday, September 5: 8:15 A.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 8:40 A.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 12:35 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 2:42 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 3:07 P.M.
Tuesday, September 12: 4:30 P.M.
Saturday, September 16: 9:05 A.M.
Saturday, September 16: 9:44 A.M.
Saturday, September 16: 10:23 A.M.
Saturday, September 16: 10:44 A.M.
Saturday, September 16: 11:24 A.M.
Saturday, September 16: 11:59 A.M.

March: Six Months Later . . . But Not a Mistake, This Time
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Mark Oshiro
Copyright
About the Publisher
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Tuesday, September 5
8:10 A.M.
The (ﬁrst) ﬁrst day of middle school
“What if we just
don’t go to school?”
I’m standing next to Antoine Harris, who’s got his thumbs
looped behind the straps of his backpack. His mom left the
two of us here, staring at the steps that lead up to the
entrance of Mira Monte Middle School. Other kids are
rushing up them before the ﬁrst bell rings, but the two of
us? We’re not moving at all.
“That’s a really good idea, David,” says Antoine. “But
what are we going to do all day?”
I scratch at my chin. “We could walk to Target.”
Antoine’s raises an eyebrow at me. “Target?”
“I already came up with the perfect cover story,” I say.
“We were hired by LEGO to assemble the display models.”
“Okay, but I get all the
Star Wars ones.”
I put my hands up. “They’re all yours. I’ll be busy
assembling that huge ﬁre station set they have.”
“That’s a good plan,” says Antoine, smirking, but then he
turns back to those daunting steps. He sighs. “It can’t bethat bad, can it?”

“We don’t have any classes together!” I whine.
“And we have
classes,” Antoine says, frowning. “I don’t
get why we can’t still have the same teacher all day.”
“Whoever made up the idea of middle school is evil,” I
say. “We should turn around right now and head straight to
the LEGOS.”
Antoine hesitates, then scratches his scalp between two
of the intricately braided cornrows he just got a few days
ago. “I think my parents would be mad if I didn’t show up to
the ﬁrst day of school.”
“Well, of
course,” I say. “But think how excited they’ll be
to ﬁnd out we’ve been hired by Target to put together all
their LEGO sets.”
He laughs at that. “How about this?” he says. “Let’s
regroup at lunch. At least then we don’t have to become
clichés and worry about where we’re going to sit.”
“Excellent plan,” I say. “No after-school specials about
us.”
And then:
The Handshake.
We slap the back sides of our hands against each other’s
twice.
“Crisscross,” we say in unison.
A dap, mine on top ﬁrst, then his.
“Always ﬂoss.”
(Because we both care about dental hygiene, okay?)
We grip each other’s hands but only at the ﬁngers.
“Always friends.”
Then we pull our hands apart, so fast that it makes a
little snapping sound.
“To the end.”
Antoine bumps his shoulder against mine as the two of
us ascend the stairs to Mira Monte Middle School. I don’t
know what our ﬁrst day of seventh grade will hold, but at
least my best friend is at my side.

And then, for the ﬁrst time since we met in ﬁrst grade
when his family moved here from Virginia, Antoine veers oﬀ,
waving, and heads to a diﬀerent class than mine.
I have this urge to chase after him, but I don’t.
No, David,
I tell myself, and I stop walking just short of the front gate.You just have to make it to lunch.
I can do that.
I think.
But maybe not. I don’t like new things, like surprises or
anything that interrupts my routines. Starting at this new
school feels like a million surprises and interruptions all
wrapped into one giant mess.
I breathe in. I breathe out. A part of me wants to give in
to the sensation sneaking up on me and just
freeze. I do
that sometimes, especially when I’m overwhelmed.
There’s also a bigger part of me that doesn’t want to be
the weirdo standing outside the school when the ﬁrst bell
rings.
So I make myself keep going, past the iron front gate,
and I join the stream of students at Mira Monte Middle
School, walking into the uncertain and the unknown.
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Tuesday, September 5
8:15 A.M.
First class (not the fancy seats in an airplane,
unfortunately)
I reach into my pocket and pull out the folded piece of paper
I stuﬀed in there earlier. I have all six of my classes marked
in color-coded ink, but somehow, I forgot to include
classroom numbers. So I know I have SOCIAL STUDIES ﬁrst
but absolutely no idea where it is.
Oh, this is going to be fun.
I move to the side as a river of more kids pours into
campus. Mom and Dad brought me here a week ago for
orientation, but they didn’t give us a tour, and this place is
like a never-ending maze. At least I’m not going to the other
middle school—La Sierra Junior High—all the way on the
other side of town. That has to be the ugliest campus I’ve
ever seen.
I’m already sweating as I rush up to the closest building.
It’s always so warm here in California that our schools are
made up of several buildings, spread out from one another.
Antoine told me that his old school out in Virginia was a
single building because it got snowy and cold during the

winter. To be honest, the design of our schools here makes
no sense to me. Who
wants to be outside when it’s super
hot?
Like right now. The sign on the side of the building reads
MATHEMATICS. A drop of sweat runs right into the side of
my eye.
This is the worst.
I turn around and thankfully spot a sign that says
HISTORY AND SOCIAL STUDIES on the building across the
way. I unfortunately have to cut through a bunch of kids to
get there, which earns me numerous dirty looks. Relief
ﬂoods me when I see a paper tacked to an open door with
the name of the teacher I’m looking for.
I walk into Mr. Bradshaw’s class—room 213—and am
immediately faced with another choice to make.
Where do I sit?
“Welcome, students,” says Mr. Bradshaw, a tall white
man with a shiny bald spot in the middle of his gray-and-
white hair. “Please choose where you sit carefully. That will
be your seat for the remainder of the year!”
More students shuﬄe in—tall, brown, Black, white, Asian,
short, chubby, awkward, loud—and desks are disappearing
quickly. I think about sitting next to the girl in the front row
with the freckles and pigtails, but the empty desk beside her
is claimed while I hesitate. Do I quickly make a decision
before more desks are occupied? Oh, absolutely not. There
are only two left by the time I dart over to the rear corner
and sit next to an Asian girl who slams a notebook shut as
soon as I turn to her.
“Hi,” she says, a nervous edge to her voice. “Gracie. I
wasn’t doing anything.”
I blink a few times at her. “Okay,” I say. “I’m David.”
She smiles but turns away.
Well . . . that happened. I put my backpack on the ﬂoor to
my left, then pull out my own notebook and a pen. I don’t
actually know what I’m supposed to be doing. Antoine’s

older brother, Isaiah, told me when he visited over the
summer that middle school was going to be a big change for
me. “You’ll have homework all the time,” he explained. “And
be prepared to have to take notes.”
I’m not really sure what that actually means. What am I
supposed to “note”? What the teacher is wearing? The
things he says?
Everything he says? Everything I’m
thinking?
Wow. This is a lot already, and class hasn’t even started.
The bell rings, and right as it does, the last two kids
come tumbling into class. I don’t need to be a middle school
expert to know that I will
not be friends with them. They’re
slugging each other in the shoulder repeatedly. The taller
and browner of the two—who honestly looks like he’s at
least in high school—sneers at the other. “Man, you’reweak,” he says.
“Please take a seat, gentlemen,” says Mr. Bradshaw,
gesturing to the only two open seats . . . which are of course
right in front of me.
“Where should we take our seats?” says the other kid,
then grabs the back of an empty chair and lifts it up.
“Should we take them outside?”
He’s the paler one, and he’s got this long, stringy blond
hair that looks like what happens when the grass dries out
in the ﬁelds behind my house.
Should I take notes on that? I
think.
“Yeah, let’s go sit right outside the windows,” says the
tall kid.
Mr. Bradshaw’s mouth curls up on one side. He doesn’t
exactly look happy. I glance over at Gracie, and she slams
her notebook shut again and smiles.
O-okay.
As Mr. Bradshaw calls out our names and marks us down
on his “map” of the classroom so he can do attendance
more easily in the future, I learn that the almost-late kids
are Tommy Rodriguez and Walter May. Tommy ﬂashes two

peace signs when Mr. Bradshaw calls out his name. “That’s
me,” he says. “What are you gonna teach us, Teacher?”
Mr. Bradshaw frowns. “This is social studies, Mr.
Rodriguez.”
“Dope,” says Tommy. “You gonna teach us about
Twitter?”
Our teacher narrows his eyes at Tommy. “What?”
“You know,” says Tommy. “Like . . . social media?”
This . . . this is going to be a long year.
There are so many other kids in the room. I don’t catch
all the names, but I know I’ll remember Wunmi Onyebuchi
because hers is so great. She’s got this gorgeous dark skin
and her hair is shaved down short all over. She even has on
a
Julie and the Phantoms shirt, so I’m pretty sure she’s
cooler than me. Gracie’s last name is Lim, and Mr. Bradshaw
smiles at her. “Good to have you here, Gracie,” he says.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Gracie goes red in the face. I have no idea what that
means.
Finally, after Tommy and Walter interrupt about forty-ﬁve
more times (I am guessing, because I didn’t
actually take
notes), Mr. Bradshaw introduces his class to us. He tells us
that we’re going to learn a little bit of history about the
world, but we’re also going to spend time “expanding our
horizons.”
“It’s my job to teach you about this wonderfully diverse
and complicated world,” he explains. “And I can’t imagine a
better way of doing that than assigning you homework.”
I can’t lie; like everyone else in class, I groan when Mr.
Bradshaw says that.
“Homework
already?” says Tommy.
“Yes,
already,” says Mr. Bradshaw. “But it’s going to be
an easy A. I believe everyone here can start the year oﬀ
with a perfect score.”
Gracie ﬂips a few pages into her notebook to ﬁnd a blank
one, and I realize this must be it. It’s time to take notes. I

ready myself, my pen in my hand.
“Each of you is going to introduce us to the cultures of
your home,” says Mr. Bradshaw.
My heart leaps.
“You will give a short presentation—all oral, under two
minutes—explaining what cultures make up your home and
make you
you.”
Wait.
Wait.
“Tell your fellow students about where you and your
parents come from! Do you have interesting cultural
practices or traditions in your home that you’d like to
share?”
My throat tightens, and I try to gulp down all the spit in
my mouth, but I have to choke back a cough.
Oh, no. No, I don’t want to do this.
“I’ll start,” continues Mr. Bradshaw. “My family is
originally from Boston, and I was born outside Cambridge,
Massachusetts. But my grandparents are actually from a
place called Rotterdam, which is in the Netherlands, just
south of Amsterdam! Have any of you been to Amsterdam?”
There are a lot of head shakes, and a few kids softly
mutter, “No.” I want to blurt out that most of us haven’t
even left California before. The Netherlands?! I don’t even
know where that is on a map!
That’s not why my skin feels like it’s being shocked with
electricity, though. As Mr. Bradshaw talks about having
Dutch heritage and all the kinds of food he ate growing up, I
realize just how hard this is going to be. I’m not like any of
these people because . . . well, because I was adopted when
I was an infant.
And I don’t actually know what I am.
I’ve always known I was adopted. I mean . . . I would
have ﬁgured it out if my parents hadn’t told me. My mom is
Japanese, born in Okinawa but raised in Hawai’i. So she’s
got a dark brown hue to her skin, and long black hair that’s
as straight as can be. Dad’s parents are from Mexico and

Brazil, and his skin tone is a lot like Mom’s, though his hair
is intensely curly.
Then there’s me. I don’t look like either of them. My skin
is a lot lighter, though I tan super fast whenever I’m in the
sun. My hair is black, but it’s wavy rather than curly. I don’t
resemble my parents, either, so I usually get lots of weird
looks when we’re out in public.
Mom and Dad sat me down before I was ever in school to
tell me that they loved me very much, which is why theychose to have me be a part of their family. They’ve been
pretty open about it, too; Mom said I could always ask her
questions about my adoption if I wanted to.
But what was there to ask about? The only question I had
—all the way back in kindergarten, when Ms. Wells asked
me if I knew anything about my birth parents—had already
been answered. I was part of a “closed” adoption, meaning
that no one but the adoption agency knew anything about
where I came from. My parents were told that my birth
parents were Latinx, but that’s it. They knew exactly what I
did.
Yet it didn’t seem to matter when I told other people that.
They
always had questions, like Yasi in fourth grade, who
wanted to know if I’d ever met my birth parents. Or Ms. Gull,
the substitute in ﬁfth grade, who asked me what it was like
knowing my past was a “mystery.”
Oh, god, was I going to have to go through all of this
again? I just don’t like thinking about this stuﬀ.
I haven’t taken any notes or heard a single thing our
teacher has been saying when I realize that my fellow
classmates are staring down at textbooks. And there’s
somehow one on
my desk. When did that show up?
I don’t like this feeling, like there’s an avalanche waiting
around the corner and it’s only a matter of time before it
crashes down on me. I look to Gracie in panic, and she
mouths “Page six” to me. I thank her silently and turn to it,

desperate to catch up, but I still can’t escape the growing
panic inside me.
Why do I have to start my ﬁrst year of middle school with
this?
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