Running for the Impossible

"This Was Not Going to End Well"

The cold, leathery seat bumped lightly under me as I took the pink packet of papers out of my backpack. I had the whole three-seater to myself today, since my friend Ivan was out, so I luxuriously stretched myself along the length of the seat, with my back against the window as I read. The side of the bus vibrated comfortably behind me.

The bus driver was driving especially fast today, which was good, because I was in a hurry to get home.

The first page of the packet read:

Expectations and Guidelines

You are expected to have at least a B average to run.

You are expected to have good sportsmanship with your candidates.

You are expected to be in school the day of voting; the fourth of October.

You are expected to have a full, five-hundred word speech done and ready to present on the third of October.

That's as far as I got. I turned the sheet face down and sighed. This was not going to end well. Icana might as well get disqualified before she even starts.

First, I wasn't sure Icana had the B average, but since she was already in the campaign, I'm sure she was able to pull a few strings. 

The principal was probably glad that there would be more than one candidate this year. Every year, I can tell that he struggles to make sure Mira isn't the only candidate. In the past years, he had me post all sorts of articles on the school newspaper advertising for the position, saying how good it was, but never saying who else would be running. Usually, it ended up only being one kid who somehow got himself or herself into competing.

Second, expectation number two was going straight out the window. On the outside, they'll probably be praising each other, and congratulating the winner. But on the inside, they're probably cursing at each other. I'm sure the principal wrote the rule about good sportsmanship to try to get the competitors friendly with each other, but this year it wasn't happening.

Finally, the speech... which was a problem. Today was the second, meaning that tomorrow would be the third...  Grabbing my phone, I immediately texted Icana, asking why the heck she didn't bother to tell me about this earlier and that she better have started her speech. The worst that could happen is that tomorrow Mira presents this amazing, thousand word speech while Icana suddenly realizes that she didn't even make one.

Icana really decided to take her sweet time before answering me. Finally, as I said bye to my bus driver and exited the bus, my phone went off again. I grabbed it from my pocket, entered my password, and read through the message. What she wrote in no way matched how much time it took for her to type all of it.

Icana completely disregarded my first question, and sent me a picture of the speech she had started writing. It was a little blurry, but thankfully, it was still legible. After reading it, I realized that the speech was legible, but it wasn't good. There was no way the speech was five hundred words, the wording was too repetitive, and the grammar was awful.

Immediately, I texted Icana a list of suggestions and told her to type up the speech on Google Drive so I could take a look at it later today. The reply was a simple yes, which I greatly appreciated. 

An hour or so later, while I was in the middle of a biology worksheet, I got a text back from Icana saying that she had finished her speech and thanked me for the help.

I dropped my homework down on my desk, opened my laptop, and logged on. Drumming my fingers on my desk as the laptop loaded, I thought to myself, "How much effort is she really going to put into this thing?" Icana wasn't known for her dedication or effort.

Click, click, click. The mouse tapped as I navigated the web.

"What?" I thought to myself, as I entered the document. Inside, neatly typed in size twelve font, was a two paged speech. As I read over it, my heart pounded inside my chest. After reading it, I read it again, this time much slower. A small smile crept onto my face as my fingers reached for the keys. This actually wasn't that bad! Icana did spend some time on writing this!

Without hesitating, I started typing up another list of suggestions, this time much shorter.

As soon as I finished typing, Icana read over what I had wrote and started typing again. Meanwhile, I had read over the guidelines packet from beginning to end. It stated that it wasn't allowed for other people to write your speech, but it never said anything about someone else helping you write your speech.

After a little while, I read over what she had wrote, and made more corrections. Like a machine, we worked through the afternoon. I spent some time texting my friends and finding previous winning speeches from the past years, sending them to Icana. After reading them, she made more corrections.

It was as if a whole new side of Icana bloomed in a few hours. She suddenly seemed like she actually knew what she was doing. For once, I knew why she looked so confident about winning earlier.

That night, I decided to skip swim practice. I spent so much time in front of the computer that my eyes became tired and itchy, but it was worth it. This is what happens when you try to cram in weeks of work into a single night. Finally, at nine, I read over her work one last time, said good-night, and logged off.

Yawning, I rubbed my eyes, got up and stretched. My back and arms had cramped up and my legs had fallen asleep. My fingers were sore from all the typing, but still, I was satisfied. That's what mattered.