Debby's Memoir

 I grinned to myself smugly, as I watched the sixth-graders stumble confusedly out the door. I shook my head disappointedly. Nope. Not quick enough. The sixth-graders took // way // too long to pack up. It was basically // guaranteed //that half of the sixth-graders would be caught up in hallway traffic-jam and miss their bus. I grinned. Being in the seventh-grade, my brain was newly-flooded with wisdom that I had gathered from last year. I was like Yoda, and the sixth-graders were like the Jedis from Star Wars. I would have to share my wisdom with them someday soon. My fingers were fumbling around the junk in my purse, hoping to find some gum. I doubted that I’d find anything besides empty wrappers and other junk. However, it was worth a try. Suddenly, my fingers whisked across the edge of a sheet of paper in one of my purse’s secret compartments. “That’s not gum..” I murmured to myself. I picked out the piece of paper, and realized that it was a photo. A slow smile spread across my face as I realized that the picture was of me and my best friend in the sixth grade. I had a goofy grin on in the photo, and my best friend was smiling awkwardly because of the chunkily checkered, blue and black braces that the orthodontist had just installed. There was a sea of people shoving their way across the blue-lockered hallway in the backround. All of a sudden, a wave of memories washed over my brain, and I was back in the sixth grade.  The dismissal bell rang, and a stampede of seventh and eighth-graders automatically overflowed from the classes and zipped by with such speed, that the door banged shut. I stared at the door blankly and suddenly, my brain whisked back to life, and I realized that class was over. I had been daydreaming during most parts of my Spanish class, and it was the slamming of the door that seemed to have brought me back from my brain’s long slumber. Slowly, random people in my class began shutting their binders and tidying up their folders. It was the first day of sixth grade, and I couldn’t quite pick out everybody’s names from my memory yet. In fact, it was a true miracle that I even knew what my // teacher’s //name was, let alone the dozens of my classmates.  I scurried hastily out of the classroom and my eardrums nearly exploded. The school hallway was like the deadly Amazon, and I was at the bottom of the food chain.  “YO KID!!”  I scrambled to turn around, and I watched stupidly, as a group of eighth-graders approached me. The first thing that hit my mind was how the boys in the group wore their jeans. The jeans were on the verge of completely sliding down their butts, and // I // was at the verge of bursting into hysterical laughter. I mean, I’d seen people who wore their jeans like that before at the mall and everything, but not ever like this before. It was amazing that the group of boys could even // walk // with their pants like that.  “Kid. Got any gum?”  Before I could answer, I was jostled across the hallway, and I toppled over like a bowling pin. All of a sudden, I was back in the Amazon. I watched in horror as the sea of students mutated into a midst of gorillas and lions. Everyone had gone wild, and my eardrums were vibrating painfully from the shrill, angry screeches of the groups of seventh-graders that were fighting over gum, like gorillas fighting over bananas. The fights over gum were definitely hard-core, and I found myself fascinated at that fact. I never knew that gum could be taken so seriously. Suddenly, an arm flew out of nowhere and grabbed my wrist. I screamed.  “Dude. Calm the heck down. You’re fine,“ a familiar voice spoke.  A sigh of relief washed over me, as I realized that the tan, caramel-brown arm belonged to one of the girls that I had met in homeroom. She had been one of the few people whose names that I had bothered to memorize.  I studied her large, puppy-eyed and sculpted face and began trying to match it up with one of the names that had been scattered somewhere in my brain. “Oh, good. It’s you. Priya.. right? I thought it was another eighth grader.” The first day of sixth grade had beaten all the energy out of me, and I was genuinely exhausted. I honestly looked and felt like I had gone through the Underworld and back. My hair stood up in tufts, and my face was flushed pale and colorless from all the stress that I had gone through. My brain was vibrating in pain from overload, and the only thing that I wanted to do was go home, soak myself in a long soothing bath, and trudge my pruned-up toes to bed.  Suddenly, Priya attacked her striped pink and black purse, searching frantically for something. I watched curiously as she suddenly grabbed her camera from out of her purse. She was the only person that had bothered to bring a camera on the first day of school, which was another one of her perky, lovable features. She held it up proudly in victory, as if she’d just won the lottery. There was so much junk and clutter in her purse that it’d be tough to find // anything //in there. Silently, I gave her a round of applause and cheered for her in my brain. I didn’t have the strength left in me to do it physically. I was like a fully drained battery, and I was on the verge of sinking like an anchor into unconsciousness. Priya and I gave an awkward pose, trying to ignore all the violent jostling going on behind us. Then, we gave the camera our widest grin, and Priya flashed her camera.  “Say pizza,” we said in unison.  A fluttering feeling gathered in my stomach, and I realized how much I truly missed sixth grade. A small grin formed on my lips as I stared at the picture blankly, and I slid it back into my purse for safe-keeping. I hadn’t even remembered that I’d kept that photo, but I was glad that I did. Even though a year had passed and I was a seventh-grader now, the memory was still as fresh and crisp as new. I didn’t talk to Priya as much I did in the sixth grade. Of course, we were still best friends. However, we didn’t have much classes with each other anymore. We still kept in contact, but it just wasn’t the same as it was in sixth grade. Sixth grade had been a great year with my friends, and I missed it. Though it had been like being on the bottom of the food chain, I still wished I could go back in time to sixth grade at times. It had been like discovering a brand new world, and had been like a new adventure each day. It had been a year to die for.
 * __Memoir. __ ** By: Debby Cheng!! [: