Short Story: The Grade By Sidney Valdez

The Grade by Sidney Valdez

It was Friday and only a few minutes left before the bell rang, letting everyone know their weekend is here. Three girls, Brooke, Chloe, and Alyson were in the bathroom ditching class. As they leaned against the sink they were talking about going to Alyson’s house for a sleepover, Alyson was hesitant to let them come over. While they were talking the bell rang and they ran to their classes to get their bags. After that they met in front of the Science building, Alyson paused for a minute to gaze around the school and felt overwhelmed by the amount of buildings and the people that pass through them every day. While Alyson was gazing at the buildings Chloe and Brooke were already on their way to the buses, Alyson
Her mom slams it on the kitchen table looking at her grades “What’s this?!” she points to the math section. Alyson looks over at it, “It’s just a C and that’s a passing grade mom”. With a harsh tone in her voice Alyson’s mom says “But this is not a passing grade in my house”. Alyson looks at her mom “But a C is 75% and that's passing” She says while pointing to percentages on the card. Her mom looks her in the eyes “I raised you better than 75%” She takes the card and puts it on the fridge. “For the rest of the year you should focus on bringing this backup” She turns to look at Alyson “We won’t except this grade in this house ever again!” Frustrated and annoyed Alyson walks out of the kitchen and stomps up the stairs to her room, ignoring what her mom said. When she got to her bedroom door she opened it then slammed it shut, she throws her bags on the ground then jumps onto her bed curling up into a ball. She looks at the two Beta fish in the bowl on her dresser then looks at the fish food next to it. She gets out of bed and grabs the fish food and pours food into the bowl, she watches their fins flow in the water while they swim around grabbing the food. They swim so freely and carelessly Alyson thinks to herself “I wish i was free like you guys” she closes the fish food and puts it back, she jumps onto her bed. She lays there
It was her desire to get to it, she grabbed a pair of scissors and starts cutting the thin layer of plastic off the metal. She cuts off the last piece of plastic and puts down the scissors and picks up the flimsy metal. For a minute she thinks about what she’s about to do in a final decision she slaps the sharp and flimsy metal onto her arm. The first one left a tiny red mark but she continues do it about 10 more times but this time it leaves several red marks on top of the others. A tad bit of blood coming up, she puts down the metal and walks to her closet finding a sweater to cover what she had just done. She puts it on and then sits on her bed making sure to sit facing the window. The sun light shines in from her window and she just stares outside, she sees a beautiful butterfly fluttering around through the beautiful blue sky. The butterfly lands on a beautiful pink and purple flower and while staring at it she thinks “I wish i was as free as you to just fly freely through the wind travelling wherever i go.” Suddenly the family dogs is outside holding a dog bone in his mouth going out to go hide it. The dog spots the butterfly and starts to chase it, only thinking “All good thing comes to an end…” she lets out a large sigh and closes the blinds and shuts the curtains then turns on her bedroom