School Antics

The School Magazine

Written by Lunur_dragon.

In our school we have something called a school magazine. It has articles by any students who want to write anything about anything and is something that students look forward to every year. In this magazine their are also pictures of all the teachers, a school photo with the whole school and individual class photos. It is a bit like the yearbooks in America. 

     The oldest year gets to design the cover. Anyone in that year can try to make a cover, so we decided to take a shot. We both love drawing and are known for being some of the 'art kids' of our year. Since we sit beside each other  and are friends we decided to team up. We were worried at first, since there are a lot  of talented  artists in our class.

     The editor for the school magazine came to our class to check if anyone had any questions. We both immediately put our hands up, almost vibrating with energy.

     "Can two people work together?" One of us asked. (I can't remember who.)

      "Yes, in fact I would encourage it." He answers.

     We grabbed each others hands and CQ started jumping up and down in their seat.

     "If you two are so excited, I might have to ban it." He says laughing while he walks out of the room. 

     As soon as I get home I start brainstorming what we could do.  The only limitation we were given was that it had to be about this past year and it had to be 2D. I was looking around my room for anything I could use when suddenly an idea entered my head. Our teacher had given out newspapers that had been lying around our classroom. We could use that as our background. I called CQ and they were onboard with my idea. They suggested  that we find away to integrate the Ukrainian flag into it as well in light of the recent events but also to show the Ukrainian students who had moved to our school that they were welcome. I agreed and after hanging up I started cutting out headlines that were appropriate for a school setting.    

     Over the course of the next few days I would go over to CQs house to work on the cover while binging the Heartstopper series. We came up with and scraped many ideas but two things stayed consistent throughout the whole project. The newspaper idea and my insistence on having a dragon in it. You see, dragons are sort of the way people tell that I made something.         "Oh, look at the Christmas posters we made. That one has a dragon on it? Must be LDs."

     And so this has been this way for most of my school life. CQ didn't mind, in fact they actively encouraged it. I ended up coming up with a design for the dragon I was happy with while CQ made a design for the human that was to be in the cover. At first we weren't sure what to use to colour them but  we decided on liquid paint due to CQ owning a set of it with a lot of colours. 

     By the time we were doing this we had already finished gluing the headlines and the art teacher had been kind enough to let us use the art room when we were on our break. Except for one of our classmates catching a glimpse of our cover, everything was going fine until we had to write the text for it...

     We had thought that that would have been one of the easiest parts but it turned out to be one of the hardest and was the reason we almost weren't able to submit it past the deadline. We started making them at CQs house but it took multiple days to finish them and we ended up finishing ithem at my house with only one day to spare. At first our plan was to use letters from newspaper headlines to make the words. Problem with that was that the letters were to small, we didn't have enough of them and they blended into the background so well that it was almost impossible to read. This took us days to realise and cost us a lot of time since we had only been given two weeks to finish the cover.

      We ended up trying to paint the letters on instead but it wasn't working well so my mum came to the rescue and brought markers that we could use and white paint to outline them. It took multiple markers and even more paints for us to get it right but we did in the end.

     We also painted the flag of Ukraine on to our cover. This was the easiest thing to do out of everything and I honestly don't know why we had left it to the last day to paint it. We stuck on our drawings and it looked great. A few days before we had added a subtle rainbow outline since it was Pride Month and we were 90% sure the teachers wouldn't see it.  

     We had one last problem. My mum pointed it out and it became worse the longer  we looked at it. The cover was close to unreadable. The newspaper headlines were pulling all the attention away from the text. Thankfully, my mum saved the day again by helping us apply a thin coat of white paint resulting in the colours of the cover to pop while still leaving the headlines visible.

     We handed our cover in the next day. We got a mixed reaction from the editor which left us anxious. The next art class we were in we asked when we would be allowed to know who won and she said it would be announced next Monday on the day of the school magazines release.

And so we waited...

     The next Monday morning was spent in both  anxiety and excitement as we waited in anticipation. by the time we were finally called to the school hall we were practically bursting with anticipation. We made our way down to the hall and were greeted with the sight of most of the school in front of us. We made our way to the back since we were the oldest class and presumed tallest of the kids in our school. 

The editor of the magazine went the front and started speaking. 

     "This is the sixteenth school magazine and the longest one yet. We had to add four extra pages because you guys wrote so much." I swear he was looking at me and CQ when he said this. We had both written more than a pages worth of stuff in the magazine this year and we hadn't exactly thought of the implications of that. "After a few minutes of thanking various teachers and students alike he finally got to the moment we had been waiting for. "The people who designed this years school magazine cover is..." He paused for dramatic affect. CQ and I glanced at each other and we grabbed each others hand. "CQ and LD!" 

    The hall explodes with applause and we practically jump in the air with happiness.  The art teacher takes us by the hands and leads us to the front of the hall were we bow. We can faintly here one of are friends shouting, "Those are my friends!" loudly. 

     We return to our class who is smiling at us. The teachers lead the smaller kids to get one of the magazines while we stay at the back. The same friend that shouted once we were called up goes up to CQ and tells. "you are my daughter." They says. (It's an inside joke don't question it.) "This is the first time you  acknowledge that." CQ says while mock-crying. "And as your mother I get 99.99 percent of your earnings." They finished. "Oh come on!"

                                                                     ***

     "Our names are in that block of introduction text that no one reads." I complain. "I thought we could get more honour then that!" I stop and think for a second. " Well at least we get some honourless class." I say. CQ giggles. "This is our legacy in the school. Which is not good because all of my past school magazines have their covers missing." We both laugh.

Quote of the day

"Seriously, I am trying, but trying is hard."

-LD