BRIIIIIIIIIIIING
The bell rang. School started. So did announcements.
‘Good morning students and teachers, today is Monday, October 2nd, and today, we’ve officially started to accept submissions for our first Child Nutrition Services’s art contest: The ‘Eat Healthy’ Art Contest!’
Snooooooooooooooooore WAIT ART CONTEST
Pretty sure I mentioned at least once last book that I was a little interested in art.
‘Your submission must include a healthy meal, but besides that, you can add anything else you want! Anyone in Kindergarten to 5th grade can submit something in the contest. Oh, one last thing! The winner will receive a treat!’
A TREA- Okay maybe… a lot interested.
I started coming up with ideas for what I wanted to draw. So… hmm. I could draw… like, a big, a big carrot. And that’s my whole drawing.
So let’s scrap that idea, and come up with a new one. How about just… a drawing of a… what’s relatable? The food, right? Cafeteria food at a school is glorious, as everyone knows, and people just love looking at it as well.
So… let’s draw… a top down viewpoint of someone… looking down… at… food.
So let’s scrap that idea as well, and once again come up with a new one.
Let’s… Okay, I can’t come up with any more ideas. I’m a 5th grader, I don’t usually get a ton of ideas easily. Sorry.
So what food do I wanna use? Milk? Carrots? Meat? No, not meat. We all know schools don’t know what real meat is.
So anyway uh ahem I um managed to come up with the food I wanted to use. It was gonna be the (in my opinion) most famous fruit. Apples. It was gonna be cut up into little slices to appear more friendly to kids (and cause I didn’t feel like drawing the different shades of the apple skin).
I grabbed a piece of paper from the art room and started to sketch out my ideas. I continued doing so after art class and after lunch and continued through recess. As I was walking, I… tripped on the curb of the street. Nothing else happened, I just distinctly remember tripping on the curb. Yeah. Weird, huh? No?
I told my friends to shut up and leave me alone while I was drawing (I was obviously not that mean) and I was sitting by myself on the sidewalk. Perfectly un-lonely. It seems like no one else was sitting on the sidewalk, drawing pieces of an apple on a cafeteria plate like me. Scrubs.
“You look so lonely, Becky.”
Oh, great. Caitlyn’s here to mess with me while I’m drawing.
“I like being alone. What do you want?”
“Just wondering why you look so sad.”
“Don’t you have something better to do?”
“Nope. So, what, you entered that dumb art contest?”
She was staring straight at my drawing. I hid it away, putting it off to the side. She plopped down onto the curb, sitting next to me. Uhhhh
“You don’t enter the contest, you just submit a drawing, dummy.”
“Hey- that’s what I meant, duh. Watcha drawing, then?”
I sighed and showed her the drawing.
“Apple slices.”
Silence.
“And?”
“That’s it.”
For now.
“That’s… pretty boring. Why don’t you add something cool, like cookies?”
“You know this is supposed to be healthy, right?”
“Cookies are healthy.”
“Uh, yeah, if you think sugar has nutrients in them.”
“Don’t they?”
Ugh. Annoying.
“Listen, I’m trying to work, and your annoyingness is getting in the way of me winning the contest.”
She laughed.
“Really, Becky? You’re gonna win with that?”
She pointed at my piece of paper that had blotches of yellow and dark red splattered on it. I hid it away from her again.
“Yes.”
“Good luck. You-”
“You’ll need it, I know, I know, you were gonna say that. So you think I can’t win? It’s only out of everyone in the grade, so I have a higher chance of winning.”
“A higher chance won’t help you, it’s still 0%.”
That’s not how the ‘roast’ works, that was addition, not multiplication. Ignore that, though.
“Funny.”
Okay. She thinks I can’t win. She really thinks that.
I’ll show her. I’ll win the contest.
“Hey, wanna make a bet?”
See? I’m so confident, I’ll outright make another bet with her! Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Alan, don’t those always fail? And yes, you’d be completely correct! And you will probably continue to be right after this, but still! Making bets is all that it’s about! Making bets is fun!
“What bet?”
“If I win the contest, you… have to do something for me.”
“Mm… I don’t like it.”
“You don’t- okay, then what do you wanna do?”
“How about… whoever places in the top 3 gets to make the other person do what they want for the day?”
Oh, no, not this aga- Wait, both of us?
“You’re entering the contest?”
“Uh, duh?”
“Really?”
“Duh?”
“How was I supposed to- whatever. Sure, whoever places in the top three wins. Okay?”
“You’re gonna lose, Becky.”
“No I’m no- You are!”
“Mmhmm, sure.”
Ugh…
BRIIIIIIIIIIIING
The bell rang. School started. So did announcements.
‘Attention all students! We are now having our assembly. Meet up in the auditorium if you have not done so already and sit with your class. Your teacher will…”
Didn’t care enough to keep paying attention to the announcements. A month had passed. The time to turn in all of our entries was over. All submissions were now declined, and voting had ended. I had turned mine in earlier that week, all polished and ready to go. If you consider blowing the crayon dust off of a scrubbed piece of paper ‘polishing’.
I sat down with my class and looked around for… a specific person. I found them, and found that they were also looking at me. And she had a huge sneer on her face.
“She- She’s just not happy with me. At all. She looks really, really infuriated. Maybe… she made a really bad drawing. That… sounds correct. She probably completely failed. She knows that. She knows she’ll just lose to me.”
You’d think this unending confidence would bring me down eventually. Uh… no comment.
‘We will now announce the winners of the Art Contest! Starting with Kindergarten…’
We had to sit through every grae, one by one, so it took basically an hour (exaggerating). 4th grade just ended, and now it’s 5th grade. 3rd place first…
Some kid. Dunno who. Some people cheered, most people didn’t care. As expected. Anyway…
‘For the person that got second place… this girl chose lots of food that showed that she cared about creating an absolutely amazing and healthy meal, and didn’t forget to add a lot of sweets, especially cookies, to balance it out. Second place goes to…”
It’s not me. I didn’t really use sweets. Duh. So what some girl scout won second place? Cool, whatever. Unless…
‘Caitlyn Dahl!’
Y’all ever wanna sit inside an oven that’s on?
WHAT
WHAT
Huh, uh, what? WHAT? SHE? wHAT?
“Yes!”
I looked over at where Caitlyn was sitting. She stood up now, and was walking up to grab the treat they had promised. I was watching as she looked at me. She made a mischievous smile and I just sat there. Befuddled. Confused. Confounded. Bewildered. Confused.
Uh, so whatever in the world just happened just happened. Caitlyn sat down, showing off her treat to her class. It was a ticket that said ‘Free Ice Cream’, which probably meant she could go to the cafeteria during lunch and use the ticket to, well, get a free ice cream.
But- But she- SHE GOT SECOND PLACE? HOW IN THE WORLD- I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW!
‘1st place! 1st place is awarded to a young man who used a lot of fruits and vegetables, especially apples-’
Apples aren’t vegetables…?
‘-to make sure to prioritize nutrition over anything else, which is exactly what we’re looking for in a healthy meal! This year’s winner of the Art Contest for 5th grade is…’
Wait that sounds like
“Alan Waylon!”
HOLY JESUS OH MY GOD OH MY WHAT OH MY JEEZ OH MY WOW OH OH WOW OH MOTHER OH WOW
“Huh?”
So.
I won the contest.
I walked up to the stage and took the treat. It was a plastic medal that said ‘Good Job’ on it (wow, thanks), and I also got a ‘Free Ice Cream’ ticket. I walked back to where my class was sitting, making sure to stare straight at Caitlyn.
Her mouth was open. So was mine- well, in my mind, it was. I beat her. In the contest. I BEAT HER IN A CONTEST WAIT OH MY
At the end of the day, we used the tickets. I gloated and bragged and showed off a lot, and she was mad and annoyed and frustrated and every other mad word. Anna walked by, congratulated Caitlyn, looked at me for a couple of seconds, then walked away. Dunno why she didn’t enter the contest, I’m pretty sure she’s drawn some stuff before…
Oh yeah the notebook
Not important. Also, I was just kidding about Anna walking away. She walked back now.
“You cheat?”
Anna said that to me. I stared at her.
I raised my eyebrows.
“What, jealous of my victory? Why didn’t you enter the contest?”
She looked a little mad. Good. I feel better.
“Just didn’t feel like entering. Anyway, good job on winning, I guess.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“But you both realize that you’re the only two sitting at this table, right?”
So, there’s some kind of table system in our cafeteria. There’s circle tables and rectangle tables that our school uses, and the circles go on one side of the cafeteria, and the rectangles on the other. The circles are for the ‘big kids’ and the rectang- you get it. But in between the two, there were a couple of tables that separated the two groups. No one was allowed to sit there, cause it was like, I dunno, off-limits to protect the little kids from the big kids? What, they thought we were gonna start a tiny food war or something? Actually, I would like to watch some kids throw food at each other. Er
So Caitlyn and I were allowed to sit at these tables. Since we won or whatever, they wanted us to feel even more special, so they let us sit at the forbidden tables. The two of us hadn’t even realized we were sitting by ourselves until Anna had walked up and told us about it.
“Ew, what?!”
“Gross! Get away from me!”
I hopped to three seats over, and Caitlyn stood up next to Anna. We made disgusted faces at each other while Anna was laughing hysterically.
“Anna! Why do you always have to do that?”
“Do what?”
I’m glad Caitlyn argues with Anna too, yelling at people gets pretty tiring sometimes.
“Hehehe…”
Anna walked away, Caitlyn following her. She had finished her ice cream, so now I was sitting at the table. Alone.
Crybaby loner kid emo dumb
What did I even just type
Lunch ended, and no actually after calling myself a crybaby loner kid emo dumb I don’t have any other words I can say
But… just think about it… my first major victory against Caitlyn…
Wait a second.
I stood up. Ran over to Caitlyn.
“What about the bet?”
“Uh…”
We both made top 3… what now?
“How about we each make the other one do what they want for a day?”
Anna hopped in the conversation.
“How’d you know about the bet?”
“Uh…”
Caitln looked around aimlessly. She told her, got it.
“Never mind. Uh, definitely not. Even if I get her to do what I want, she’d still make me do whatever in the world she wants me to do.”
And knowing Caitlyn, that could be something absolutely horrific.
“Uh… I agree. I don’t wanna do anything Becky wants me to do.”
“Same.”
I just said same to her- uh… so I don’t want to do anything I want myself to do? That doesn’t- okay, never mind. The bet completely failed. The entire thing failed. Everything failed. I screwed up. Guess I didn’t really get the win here, huh? This sucks. Ugh. Maybe I should try to ge better at making bets… Nah, I’ll continue to continue making terrible bets. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me.
More bets sounds fun. With… Caitlyn. Ugh…
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