Narrative

Narrative Episode 20 - Saturday The Friday

"Hey. You're alarm's going off. It's time to wake up." Greeze said as I checked my alarm. It was 7:00, which felt strange. I felt like I had woken up at 7 but fell back asleep and got up again at 7:15 or something. I was probably thinking about when I woke up at the 5:56 alarm and went back to sleep. I have my 4:20 and 5:56 alarms set so early because sometimes I wake up at them and go back to sleep later on, which also causes my recurring dreams. I have it as 4:20 because of the 4/20 joke/meme, and 5:56 because I wanted it to be somewhere at 5am, but 5:56 seemed like an aesthetic to me. I'm all about aesthetics, even though 5:56 is pretty much 6am. I checked the computer but, the monitor wouldn't respond. It's done this a few times, and I would unplug the monitor and plug it back in. This time however, it wouldn't turn back on, and I deducted that it was dead. Peridot will try to fix later on, but we think we might just need another one. Today felt like a Saturday. I assume that it's because Musicology and events like it are usually on Fridays, and it made today feel like Saturday. I went to sleep before I even finished typing yesterday's episode, so I worked on that during the morning when I finished. I decided to wear the symphonic band shirt. When I was in the line at school, I had finished and was proofreading it. Some boy asked me what I was reading.

Kuiper: Writing, not reading.

Boy: What are you writing about? Are you writing about gangsta life? Or about sex?

Kuiper: No. It's more about my life.

Boi: That's dumb. I would write a book about gangs and sex.

Kuiper: I doubt you can even read.

I had eventually finished finding typos and errors but couldn't post the episode yet because I would have to use a computer to do it. We went inside and I had breakfast and then sat back at the table. Laiylah also joined the table. I had my hug and Jahrell and Racheal came to the table from breakfast.

Laiylah: Hi Racheal.

Racheal: Hi Laiylah, I haven't seen you sit here in a while. I wonder why.

She gestured toward me. Why is it always me? I didn't bring my instrument home yesterday so I didn't have to drop it off when we went to our classes, and I just went straight on to Ms. Burgess. She snuck in and got the computer lab early so we would have it for sure. I went to Ms. Dunkley's room. I had her final exam in her class today, so I stole one of the books in her class and went back to the computer lab. I was done with tenmarks, and although I should've studied, I helped Jahrell and Paola at times that they needed me. It wasn't long before the bell rang and it was time. Before the test, Stanford gave me some words of wisdom. "Malachi, this will become an important part of your grade. Despite failing to study, I know you'll do great, because you always do."

"You can do this. I believe in you."

The test was 20 questions that were simple. I either saw the answer as obvious, or I was only slightly questionable on it. Near the end I figured there were at least 3 questions I could get wrong. 17/20 would mean 8.5/10, and out of 100 that would be an 85%. Ms. Fauntleroy came in and worked with Ms. Dunkley. She expected 100s, but the chances of getting every question right is not that high. I don't know why it works that way, it's a probability thing. Nyla was grading papers for Ms. Dunkley. When Paola finished her test, she helped grade papers too. Nyla and Paola are like a duo. That's friend goals. A lot of people were finished with the test before me and I think some of them didn't get proficient scores, which scared me. Was this a difficult test in disguise of a simple one? I made sure of my answers by going over my test at least 3 times. I answered the questions I was unsure of last by using reasonable guessing. When my paper was graded and Ms. Fauntleroy saw it, she gasped. My heart stopped. I had an 85% like I estimated, but Ms. Fauntleroy expected me to be the chosen one who gets a 100%. I really feel like parents don't know how stressful it can be to achieve the best. That was out of the way, so I had nothing else to worry about other than my retest in Dr. Baker's class. I was apparently still on Nyla's associate level. When we were in the classroom, the band students and those who came to Musicology clapped for Dr. Baker's part of the performance. I asked him about the retest and he said he'd hand it out to me sometime later today. While we were watching Roots I looked over at Ylanie and got a random happiness attack. But then I had a stress attack and that stress cancelled out the happiness attack, so I was just back to normal. Soon another fire alarm went off so we had to go outside again. When we were back, I got the retest and went straight at it. I had studied the answer sheet a bunch before it, to be sure I'd ace it. So far on my sign out sheet I have conducts of 4 and grades all A. It is very impressive, and I'm attempting to do everything I can to get them all like that. I already got Ms. Burgess out of the way, and that would have been a main issue. With this retest I should raise my high B to an A. However, conduct may be an issue. It's not that I'm a badly behaved student, but I'm not sure many teachers really think about the difference between conducts of 3 or 4. But Ms. Cleare has given me a 4 in conduct so Dr. Baker may also give me one. Nyla took my eraser cap. She always does this, so I just continued my work. When she was done playing with the eraser she threw it across the room. I eventually had to go get it so I could erase if I put something on my Roots paper wrong. When I came back she also took my Roots paper. That wasn't really an issue but then she took my test. I really needed that back so I kept poking her in the back with my pencil. Obviously she was agitated by it but I forced myself to go on until she's give it back.

Gray Malachi: Nylaaaaa, I need that back.

Nyla: If you keep poking me I'm not gonna give it back.

Gray Malachi: I wouldn't be poking you if you didn't take my test. I really need that.

Nyla: No, cause you was rude to me.

Gray Malachi: Oh- Come on, I apologized to you 4 fucking times already!

...

He did not mean to say that. As a whole, we curse every so often, but Gray Malachi has never really cursed before until now. It was so unintended that he almost said it as if there was an A after the F and before the U.

Nyla: That's an exaggeration, you did not apologize to me 4 times.

Gray: Y-yes. Yes I did.

Actually I think it was 3, so what Gray said wasn't too far off. Near the end of class, she did give my test back, and we left to Ms. Cleare's class. Ms. Cleare told us to work on the PowerPoint again. This time, I put the PowerPoint on an email draft. That way, I could work on it at home. In Ms. Williams class, I wasn't sure what I'd do. I decided to help Jahrell out again, but then he finished. Nyla came up and asked if I was still upset from 3rd period. I wasn't sure if I still was so I replied "I suppose." She offered me to do some of Paola's tenmarks for a dollar. I decided to. The work wasn't much, but there was a lot of pressure on me. Doing someone else's work is stressful, because what if you mess it up for them? Fortunately I passed it and we went to lunch. They had chicken tenders, but they looked a little burnt. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and wondered if that meant they were just crispy. The usual ones are just kinda soft. I was wrong to consider a good outcome of it, the tenders were very dry. And they had white milk and grape juice again. I do not trust their grape juice at all anymore. One time when I was at Ms. Burgesses after school tutorial, I had the juice they served, but there was some type of gel in it. It was absolutely terrible. A time later when I had nothing but a juice, I tried to drink it, but I couldn't help but imagine running into more gel. Now I don't drink school juice unless it's apple or green apple. The orange juice though, just doesn't taste good in general. Once lunch was over and we were back in the classroom, Nyla asked me to do her tenmarks for a dollar too. She's in algebra, and I haven't had that class since last year. But hey, I'm in geometry now, so how much harder can it be? Then again, I'm doing Algebra 2, which so far is just brushing up on algebra, and I've been doing not as good in that....

In band, some of us were trying to get our sign out sheet done signed by Ms. Fergials, but she wouldn't sign it yet. We have a final test to do. Our scales. If there was a time to work on them, it was now. I'm doing okay on some and took to memorizing the G scale. I needed work on G and F. C is not too great for me either. Seeing how I got down G so easily, I could take down the others with just some practice. In Ms. O's class we worked on our projects. She told me I was close to having an A, as long as I did my project correctly. She gave another A and 4. Now I just needed 3 more classes to get it in to finalize the record. The call for all release went off and I went on my way home.

Stanford: Malachi, it's wonderful that you're keeping up all of your grades and conducts. I just need to remind you how easily that can all tumble down. Don't get too caught up in getting all A's. I know that family wants us to bring home all A's, and pretty much expect it at this point, but remember that that caused your depression for this year. If Mom didn't try to enforce that nothing but the best was acceptable, you would've had a happy start. I might not have even had to exist to help cheer you up back then and that sounds bad but, you have so many other supportive consciences in here.

PPS: Yes, he is right.

Pinkamena: You know we'll always support you!

Stanford: What I'm trying to say is, don't worry about getting all A's. You've worried about it enough times in your life so far.

When I was outside waiting for my car to pick me up, I saw Dr. Howell talking to a student. I decided to show how great I was doing on the sign out sheet. He knows I have 5 high school credit courses and was talking to the student about me but the last thing he said really spoke out to me.

"You're gonna be great no matter what you do."