At the beginning of Nothing But the Truth, readers meet ninth-grader Philip Malloy through an entry in his diary. Philip is a gifted runner who is eager to join the school track team because he loves running and thinks girls like athletes. He spends much of his spare time training, reading Running magazine, and dreaming that he will one day run in the Olympics. Philip’s only problem is English class, where his unpleasant teacher forces him to read books he dislikes and refuses to laugh when he cracks jokes about them. This teacher, Miss Narwin, tells her sister Anita, in a letter that she actually likes Phillip. However, she finds him frustrating because he exhibits not to learn and shows a resistance to accepting the idea that literature
