Beg Your ‘Pardon’: Read This Book

“Pardon Me, You’re Stepping on My Eyeball,” by Paul Zindel is the story of two lonely teenagers who find friendship in an unlikely way.

Edna Shinglebox is a 15-year-old girl in high school who has never had a boyfriend or a real friendship. Her mother is constantly on her case to start dating and to improve her social life, but Edna feels like there is just no one she can relate to - until she meets Louis “Marsh” Mellow.

He insists on showing her letters, supposedly written by his father from a mental institution in Los Angeles, and makes her promise to help him free his father before they give him a lobotomy.

In reality, Marsh’s father has been dead for a year and Marsh lives with his mother in a run-down little house and has no friends. He also describes himself as an “all-out specialized liar.”

Edna lives with both her parents, who own a flower shop and watch horror movies together for fun. Her mother begs the school psychiatrist, Mr. Meizner, to “help Edna get her hands on a boy.”

I don’t want to tell you the ending, but I definitely recommend reading this story. Despite its wacky title and even wackier characters, this book has a decided ring of truth and realism to it.