Believe And Hope

Chapter 4

  With the whole school being in the auditorium, it was super cramped. I ended up sitting by Cora and some other dude. I think his name is Gabe? Anyway, all I heard were whispers and more whispers. It was hard to imagine what Principle Aspen would say to us that would make her call down the whole school.
   Eventually, one of the counselors walked out onto the stage with a microphone in her hand. She must be doing an intro or something.
   "Good morning students and teachers. As you all may have wondered, Principal Aspen gathered you all to share some news with you." She announced.
   Principal Aspen clipper clopped in her heals and grabbed the microphone from the counselor and cleared her throat.
   "Yes thank you Ms. Washington for that lovely intro. Anyway students, as you know the school year is winding down. Our seniors are graduating, our 11th graders bought to be in the last grade of their school careers, and new upcoming 9th graders. Highschool is the most important thing in your lives right now, children. Grades are starting to matter even more,"
   "Colleges are starting to look for more applicants. And our goal is to get you to where you wanna be. In that case, we have a guest speaker to talk with you about this. Would Professor Gari please come up?" Principal Aspen asked.
  Everyone started to applaud and cheer. I clapped extra hard, in fact. Everyone knows about Professor Gari. She helped so many lives, especially black, successfully achieve highschool and college. She even did wonders to the worst kids in school.
   "Thank you everyone for inviting me here. I am honored to help every single one of you. As you hear me talk today, you will learn how to answer the following questions you have probably been asking youselves since you were first enrolled here. How will I get into college? How will I raise enough money for my future self and family? How will I get a job and keep it? And how will I not live in poverty?"
   Now this would be interesting. All I ever wanted to know was how to succeed at this point. I looked around at the people near me. They all were interested. Everyone was.
     "I am gonna answer the first question right here and right now. Feel free to take notes if you like. Getting into college all matters if you smart and make good grades. You hear your teachers telling you to make the good grades they want you to make. Your parents keep nagging you about it. They doing it for a reason. Colleges want smart people to make them better. You see these celebrities and famous people here? Did they just get into the school they wanted? Did they walk in? No they worked their butts off in highschool. Those of you making poor choices and unacceptable grades, you better pull yourselves together. Or you gonna be a bag lady or hobo out in the streets for the next 80 years of your life."
    An instant flashback of Kyeal appeared in my mind. He was one of the worst students here and didn't even know what was in store for him. I mourn for him. But like momma said this morning. He will learn his lesson.
    The rest of the speech was about how to get a good job by working hard in college, to work your butt off while working so you make enough money, to make good decisions,and to never give up.
      "I want you all to know that you have someone there for you. Make the good choices now for the good of your future self. Don't make the bad decisions now that you will regret later on in your life. And like I said before. My goal is to be certain that every single one of you is accepted to and gradutes from highschool and college. Thank you."
    I couldn't stop it. Tears were pouring out from my eyes. And I wasn't the only one. More than enough people were in tears. I felt Cora's hand on my back, her voice trying to sooth my emotions.
    "Exodus it's alright. Calm down, calm down, you know you don't want people seeing you boo hooing now do you?" She soothed.
   I quickly wiped my face and continued to applaud. Everyone was dismissed to their homerooms after that. I ignored the soothing and all that from Abigail and Cora. All I thought about was Kyeal.