The Three Stooges

Chapter Eight - The Speech

We sat through the assembly and it eventually it was time for 2019 year twelve speeches. Ben and I got up, along with a couple of other classmates and made our way up to the stage.
Ben was the first person to say his speech first, of course getting a lot of laughs. He made everyone happy. After ben finished, there were three more people to say their speeches. I was last to say my speech, and was sh*tting myself. I hate speeches. I walked up to the microphone and got my speech out ready.
"Hi, my name is Charlotte Smith, and I was by far the coolest Chisholm House Captain that has set foot in this school."
I got a few smiles off the teachers.
"My highschool years here have been the best years of my life so far. I had amazing friends and some awesome teachers (I winked at Mr Chard). My experience through highschool was mind-blowing, I learnt so much and had so much fun. I had many dreams about what I wanted to to when I graduated, first a vet, then the navy, and then a vet again, and thanks to this school I was able to make my dream come true. After I graduated from year twelve, I went on a huge gap year with my two best friends, Ben Haddad and Holly Smith. We traveled the world for over twelve months and got to see some amazing sights. You'll see some photos on the slide show behind me. When we got back to Australia, I had found out that I got into a university in america, specializing in Vetinary Science. I said good bye to my family and friends and headed off to america two weeks later.
I studied vetinary science, and four hard years later graduated as a fully qualified vet. I moved back to Australia and set up my own vetinary clinic, that I owned and worked at for three years."

I hesitated. Ben noticed and put his hand on my shoulder.
"You can do it," he whispered
I took a deep breath and continued.

"I was enjoying my life a lot and was having a lot of fun, but at the start of the forth year of working as a vet, I collapsed while giving a man his pet dog, Barry I think, back to him after an operation. My desk girl, Kate, called triple zero and I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Two days later, after loads of x-rays and scans, I was diagnosed with cancer and was told I had 13 months to live."

I pulled off my beanie and heard gasps around the audience.