The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne, by Barry Jonsberg

Something I realized
The book opens with a copy of an assignment from an English teacher, ordering a paragraph or two of similes describing a person, place or thing. It's written by Calma Harrison, about someone she knows. His name is Kiffo. The ensuing paragraphs are really good characterization for Calma, because how many people do you know that can think of similes like this one:

 "Kiffo's nose is like butter on toast. It was put on hot and it spread. His nostrils gape like two huge caves, but it would be difficult to camp in them, or even light a fire in them."

Calma's special like that.  She can be bitingly sarcastic and eloquently rude about a great many things, and the way she chooses to phrase them gets progressively funnier throughout the book. The story is about two kids, Calma and Kiffo, trying to prove their teacher is a drug dealer.

"The new teacher is inexperienced. She thinks she can get through to the kids, bless her. That she can make a difference, mold minds, instill a love of literature into the lumpy heads of Kiffo and the other dazzlingly dysfunctional dumbbells that make up my Year 10 English class."

 As you read the book, you're convinced that's what the book is about, fighting off the drug dealer teacher, but the ending makes you realize that something else was more important. I'm not gonna say if the teacher was a drug dealer and if they proved it, but Kiffo dies in the process. The rest of the book's focus suddenly switches from catching the teacher to Kiffo and Calma's friendship. It's not even something that you can read and realize the difference. After his death, you think more about their relationship than what happens to the teacher. You care more about Kiffo than you do about the teacher. It shows the book was written masterfully, because you don't realize the point of the book before Kiffo dies, just as Calma didn't realize how much she loved Kiffo's friendship until he was dead.