Melanie Pastor
The Most Important Lesson
The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.
Etty Hillesum
During my elementary school years, I began to compare my mother with all the mothers of my friends. Most often, I would compare her with the mother of my best friend, Tiffany Sherman.
Tiffany always came to school with the most fashionable clothes, the most beautiful makeup and the most in-style hairdo. Her weekly allowance could feed a family of five in Cuba for a year, and she had more jewelry than I had grass in my backyard. She coordinated her shoes with her outfit and her outfit with her purse. She constantly had a glamorous group of people following her, and more or less, she always got her own way.
All of the boys in school would have killed to have her for their girlfriend. Tiffany was allowed to go to rock concerts, to go places alone with a boy and to have two sleep-overs in a row—three things that my mom had never let me do. Her mom showered her with money for things she did that my mother took for granted, such as getting good grades and making the bed. Whenever I went to the mall with Tiffany, she would whip out a crisp $100 bill, and I would be standing there with two fives and a handful of quarters.
Whenever I didn’t get what I wanted, when I wanted it, I would scream out the classic, “Tiffany’s mother would let her! I wish she was my mother.” My mom would calmly say—every time—“Poor Tiffany.”
Tiffany got to buy that $200 outfit. “Poor Tiffany.”
Tiffany got to hire an interior decorator to redo her room. “Poor Tiffany.”
Tiffany had a television in her room—complete with a DVD player and surround-sound system. “Poor Tiffany.”
I never understood my mom. She shouldn’t be feeling sorry for Tiffany! I thought. She should be feeling sorry for me! Tiffany had everything, and as far as I was concerned, I had nothing.
One day, I had heard it one too many times. I cracked.
“Poor Tiffany?! Lucky Tiffany! She gets everything she wants! She practically has the world at her feet, and you’re feeling sorry for her?!” I burst into tears and flopped down onto the sofa.
My mother sat down next to me and said softly, “Yes, I do feel sorry for her. I have been teaching you a lesson, Hope, that she will never be taught.”
I sniffled and looked up at her. “What are you talking about?”
My mom looked at me with sad eyes. “One day she will want something, really want something, and she’ll find out she can’t have it. Life doesn’t work like that, you know. You don’t get every little thing you want. Her mother won’t always be around to hand out cash, and what’s more—money can’t buy everything.
“But you! I have taught you valuable lessons by not tossing you every dollar you desire. You’ll know how to look for bargains and save money—she won’t. You’ll understand that you need to work hard to get the things that you want and need—she won’t. When Tiffany is a grown woman, she’ll wake up one day and her mother’s money will be gone and she will be wishing she had a mom like the one you’ve got. Life lessons, Hope, are more important and necessary than rock concerts and Gucci clothes.”
I understood my mother’s lesson. It took some time, but I eventually understood it. I look forward to the days when I am a smart woman and know how to fend for myself. And I will truly pity those who won’t.
Poor Tiffany.
Hope Rollins, 13
© 2005 Lahre Shiflet.
Lost and Found Dream
Have faith in tomorrow for it can bring better days.
Never wish for yesterday for it has gone its separate way.
Believe in today for it’s what you’re living now.
And dare to dream all your dreams for it’s not why, but how!
Tonya K. Grant
From the time I was in the third grade, I knew I wanted to be a writer. After winning an award for my story that was chosen to be hung on a board for Open House, I spent much of my free time writing wild stories of strange creatures, kids’ fun adventures and poems of how I felt about my world. I dreamed of seeing my stories in magazines and books. I wrote all through school that year. In the fourth grade, I continued to write, and I put them all into a notebook so I could carry them around and write whenever I felt like it.
When I started the fifth grade, my English teacher was Mrs. Foster. She was the best teacher I’d ever had. She always had something nice to say about everyone, and she never failed to say it out loud. I loved her so much that I showed her my notebook and what I had been writing ever since the third grade. When she returned my stories to me, she had written encouraging notes on them praising my imagination and skill, which made me feel really great.
One day during class, a classmate found my notebook of stories and hid it from me. A friend in my class told me that she’d seen a boy pick up my notebook while I was on the other side of the room working on a group report. I confronted him, but he pretended like he didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. No matter how much I pleaded, he claimed he hadn’t seen it. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find my notebook. All of my stories were handwritten, and I had no other copies. I was completely devastated. I finally gave up on ever seeing my stories again, until one Friday a few weeks before the school year ended.
“Kathy, I wonder if we could talk,” Mrs. Foster asked. As my friends went to wait for me in the hall, I walked over to Mrs. Foster’s desk. She smiled at me and then pulled out a binder labeled, “Second Period Class.” Inside, she browsed through dividers. On each divider, I could see the names of my classmates. Finally, she stopped at one. When she turned the divider, I saw my name. Inside of my section were my stories.
Astonished, I asked, “How did you find my notebook?” She shook her head. “I didn’t find it. These are my copies of your stories. I keep all the wonderful stories my students write. They remind me of each of you and your imaginations.” She opened the binder rings and pulled out all my stories. Then she took me down the hall to the teacher’s lounge, where she made copies of each one and placed them in my hands. They even had her notes on them.
“Don’t give up your dream, Kathy,” she said. “I didn’t give up on mine. I always wanted to be a teacher, and here I am.”
I was so happy! I held my stories tightly, thanked her and ran to find my friends.
I did what Mrs. Foster encouraged me to do. I never gave up on my dream. I won contests throughout school, and now I have had hundreds of my stories published in books and magazines.
It takes strength and persistence to follow a dream. And sometimes, it takes other dreamers to help keep our dreams alive. I’m glad Mrs. Foster was a dreamer too.
Kathryn Lay
A Cheer of Triumph
Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.
Joan Lunden
As I sat in the bleachers surrounded by fifty girls, butterflies did back flips in my stomach. We waited anxiously for the judges to give the final results of the cheerleading tryouts. One by one, each girl leaped from her seat, jumping up and down, ponytail wagging as her number was called out.
Would I be one of them? I wondered.
I was getting more nervous and excited by the second, and each second felt like an eternity.
“Number seventeen,” the judge announced. I leaped from my seat and ran over to stand next to the bouncing girls.
We hugged each other and giggled with joy as we each realized we were part of the ten-girl junior high cheerleading team. Little did I know my happiness wouldn’t last long.
It all began when I showed up to the practice before the pep rally in the wrong uniform. I felt silly. I must have misunderstood. And I was co-captain of the team!
All the other girls on the squad were practicing in their white tops and skirts. There I stood in my blue uniform. It felt lik
e everyone was laughing at me.
“I’ll give my mom a call,” said Tammy, one of the girls in white. “She doesn’t work, and she’ll drive you home so you can change.”
When we reached my house, I couldn’t find my uniform. I looked everywhere. Finally, I opened the hamper, and there at the bottom of a smelly heap of my brother’s clothes was my dingy white uniform crumpled into a ball. I quickly put it on and ran out the door to Tammy’s mom’s car. We had just fifteen minutes until the pep rally started. We barely made it there in time.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I told Tammy’s mom as I bolted from the car. She smiled and waved good-bye.
Humiliated, I ran toward the gym and joined the other girls in front of the school for the opening cheer. I heard waves of laughter ring out from the bleachers as we did the first cheer sequence. We did the cheer again, and the laughter grew even louder.
They must be laughing at my uniform. I felt a sickening feeling growing in the pit of my stomach. But it wasn’t the uniform they were laughing at at all.
The next day, my friend Jay was the one who clued me in.
“Kim, at one point you were doing the cheer with your arms opposite of everyone else. That’s why they were laughing.”
“I couldn’t have been doing it wrong,” I said, feeling confused. “The cheer captain taught me herself and said that I was doing it perfectly.”
I didn’t want to believe that the team captain had done this on purpose. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would be so mean in the first place. But the denial that was keeping me from feeling hurt quickly faded away after the next thing happened.
The team captain told me to meet everyone at her house that morning before driving to the away football game. When my mom and I drove up to her house, we noticed no cars in the driveway. When I rang the doorbell, her dad answered.
“They’re not here,” he said in a gruff tone.
“What! We were all supposed to meet here at nine o’clock.”
I knew he could tell by the expression on my face that I was very upset. Anger was sweeping over me as I walked back toward the car. Now I knew for sure that this time it was intentional—and that probably all the other times were too.
Why don’t those girls like me? What did I do? The heavy weight of pain hit me like a sledgehammer. I felt like crying. I felt like throwing up.
In those few moments, I gave up on believing in the kindness of people. I felt like the world was against me. I wanted to quit the cheer team.
“Wait a minute, Kim.”
I’ve never met this man before and he knows MY name.
Her dad had been watching me as I walked toward the car. “They’re at the McDonald’s on Main Street,” he whispered, as his eyes caught mine.
I knew he wasn’t supposed to be telling me this. To my surprise, there was kindness in the way he was looking at me. It was as if he was saying he was sorry for what they were doing to me. I was deeply touched in the most extraordinary way.
Mom and I went to the McDonald’s and joined the other girls. They told us we must have misunderstood where to meet, and they laughed it off, but I knew that it wasn’t true.
For the rest of the season, I cheered my heart out on that cheer team and tried my hardest not to let the mean girls get me down. A year later, I learned from another girl that it had been the captain and her mother who caused all the turmoil against me. They believed I was their competition and were trying to get me to quit by leaving me out and being mean. I was shocked because I never thought I was that good. Most of the other girls hadn’t had a clue about what was really going on.
It was over the next few years of cheerleading that I began to feel sorry for the team captain and her mom for treating me so cruelly. They continued to act this way until high school graduation.
I had almost lost hope that there were any nice people left in the world until that day I stood in the cheer captain’s front yard. The smallest gesture of kindness that had come from my rival’s own dad had put a spark of hope into my hurting heart.
A few years later, I did something that surprised me even more. I decided to forgive them.
Kim Rogers
3
FRIENDSHIP
AND BFFS
Tight as a knot we are bound together
Although we’re still young we’ll be friends forever.
So many memories, even more to be made
The tears and the laughter . . . may they
never fade.
From birthdays and Barbies to boyfriends
and bras We’ve made it this far like Dorothy to Oz.
The parties, the fun, the jokes played at school
The times when we agreed what was and
wasn’t cool.
I hope I’ll never lose you; you’re my very best
friend I know that we’ll always stick together ’til the end.
Chloe Scott, 13
Soul Sisters
I suppose there is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self.
Edith Wharton
Ku’ulei and I were the best of friends. In school, you would never see one of us without the other. It was like we were Siamese twins, going everywhere with each other, stuck together. Even if we ran out of things to talk about, which was hardly ever, it still seemed like we were talking, just not verbally. It was almost like a silent conversation. She always knew what was going on in my head without being told. To me, that’s what I call a “true friend.” As an example, one time for some reason when I was feeling down Ku’u came over to my house, and I was acting like nothing was wrong. I thought that I didn’t show it, but she already knew.
It was like we were meant to be best friends. “Soul sisters” is what I would call us. Since we knew that we were going to be friends forever, we had a saying—Ku’ulei and Kayla, Best Friends Forever! Nothing can tear us apart! Not years, boys, parents, distance or fights! In our world, friendship is #1! In every letter we would write to each other, this was our “P.S.” It was true then, and it still is.
I always thought to myself, What would I do without her? Now I know—I am living in pain, grief and sorrow. My life seems like it has ended. But I have to know that this is better than having her live in pain from the accident. God did the right thing and took her back home to heaven so she could live a happier life.
It was July 8th. I was visiting Hilo, a town on the other side of the Big Island of Hawaii, where I live. I was staying at my grandpa’s house, and Ku’ulei was at her house, back home where we live in Kona. I woke up that morning and jumped on my golf cart with my cousins to ride around the ranch. As we were coming up the hill, my mom was in the garage talking on her cell phone with a terrible, worried look on her face. My cousins were on the back of the cart screaming, laughing and being silly. I was driving but suddenly felt numb when I saw my mother. I was worried that something bad had happened to my dad back home in Kona. I parked the golf cart and asked my mom what was wrong.
“Kayla, there has been a really bad accident in Kona,” she replied.
“Was it Dad?” I asked.
“No.”
Since it wasn’t him, I wasn’t too worried.
“It was at Ku’ulei’s,” she responded.
I panicked and hoped with all my heart that it was not something that involved her.
“I’m not sure, but either Ku’ulei or Charley (Ku’ulei’s older sister) was run over by their truck and killed. One of the twins, Pua or Anela (Ku’ulei’s younger twin sisters) was also killed. I think you should call Ku’u’s house.”
Even as my eyes filled with tears, my heart filled with hope. I was praying as I dialed their number that nothing had happened to my best friend. A girl answered the phone, and I started to breathe a sigh of relief. I thought it was Ku’ulei.
“Hello? Ku’ulei?”
“No, Kayla . . . this is Charley.”
>
Hearing Charley’s voice, I immediately knew. I knew that it was Ku’ulei who had been killed. I started to cry.
“Charley . . . is Ku’ulei there?” I asked with hope in my voice.
“No . . . Kayla . . . didn’t you hear?”
“What?” I asked.
“My sisters are dead.”
When I heard those words, I choked and fell to the ground. It was as if the world had stopped and my life had crumbled into bits and pieces. For a moment, I thought I was the one who was dead.
“Kayla! Kayla!?! Are you okay? I’m so sorry . . .” said Charley.
“Yeah, Charley . . . I’m okay. No, I’m sorry, too. . . .”
“Well, I’ll talk to you later,” she said in a sad voice.
We hung up, and I walked outside to my mom. As I got closer to her, she asked me who had had the accident.
“Was it Ku’u?”
I was speechless. All I could do was nod my head. She grabbed me and hugged me tight. “I’m so sorry.”
As I hugged her back, confusion ran through my head.
I didn’t know how to act. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I took a walk down the road. I thought of our memories and wondered, Why did this happen to me? . . . to her? . . . to us?
It was like she was perfect. She did rodeo, sports, volunteered at gardens and took great care of her sisters. She was sweet, optimistic, loving and fun to be around. She was EVERYTHING!
I walked back and told my mom that I wanted to go back home so I could go to Ku’ulei’s house to see her family. When we got there, everybody was there; they were digging a hole for her ashes and bringing in a special rock to place on top. I went to her parents and gave them my love. I sat next to her dad, looking at everything.