I Know This Girl Named Amanda...
I ripped up yet another beginning to an "Amazing
Kids!©" story, and glanced frantically at my Winnie-the-Pooh
clock (Please, no comments, I was seven when I picked it out.) The clock
read 7:58. I hoped to have written a story for the contest before school,
because I knew from experience that I did not work well under pressure.
When I first saw the posting for the contest,
I was very excited, and started to write immediately. Then why, you ask,
am I still stuck without a story? Well, read on and quit being so pushy.
See, I wrote about magical kids that turned
mean people into frogs. I wrote about girls that killed all evil adults,
leaving the world a wonderful place to live in. And I wrote about 12-year-old
princesses that killed dragons with one blow of a sword. Not very realistic,
but hey, the kids were supposed to be amazing.
Sadly, all of these ideas, (and many more,
I am ashamed to say,) ended up in the garbage. Usually I was able to finish
the first paragraph before I got stuck, but that was it. I racked my mind
over and over again, but none of the stories seemed real to me. I just
didn't know amazing kids like these. So, after three months of trying,
(and also a
bit of procrastinating, I might add, if you promise to keep it a secret)
I was stuck, June 1st, with no story.
"Melanie," my mother called. "Your school bus
is here. Hurry up!"
I groaned and desperately racked my mind for
a wonderful, magical, "Amazing Kids!©" idea, but all I
could think of was that my mother was yelling her head off.
I sat dejectedly at the lunch table when I
saw the school bully, Haley, approaching. Luckily, however, she was coming
to Lucy, at the table opposite me. Lucy didn't have many friends, and Haley
always picked on her. She was really small for her age, and shy, too.
"Hey, I smell something. When's the last time
you had a bath, Lucy?" Haley said, holding her nose. Lucy was about to
stammer an answer, when my best friend, Amanda stood up.
"Go away, Haley. Why don't you pick on someone
your own size for once? Here, Lucy, come sit with us."
That entire time, I sat forlornly, not even
caring about Lucy. I didn't have a story for the contest, the one I'd been
thinking about forever. I didn't have a story…I didn't have a story…Then
all of a sudden it hit me in the face.
I didn't need to write a story about a princesses
or wizards, there was an amazing kid right in my own life. It didn't matter
that this girl didn't know magical powers. The kid was someone who stood
up against others and didn't care if someone talked about her. She was
someone that didn't just stand by and let something happen. I grabbed a
notebook out of my back-pack and began my story.
"I know this girl named Amanda…"
The End
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