1st+draft

The hallway. A very unpredictable place where anything can happen; love, hate, friendship, pain, suffering. Each day holds a new event waiting to take place. When I woke up this morning, I never knew today would be the day that would change my life. Baylee says this day means nothing, but I know this was the most meaningful day of my life. My teacher had just finished his daily lecture, right as the bell for lunch hour rang. “Thank god, I don’t think I could have taken much more of that, how much is there to say about Delaware. It’s small and in the US…” Nerissa Quincey the minion of Baylee Griffin babbled on. As they passed me by, they both flipped their long highlighted hair in my face not even noticing my presence. Almost everyone at our school wants to have hair like them, actually most people strive to be just like them. Long silky blonde hair, big color filled eyes, perfectly tanned skin with no blemishes or marks. I find that completely worthless. Why would anyone want to sink down to their level. As Nerissa continued to complain on about her, so called boring day, it seemed to me that Baylee’s was not paying any attention whatsoever to Nerissa. I always thought both of their minds were filled with meaningless junk, like malevolence, fashion, or stupid thoughts about others. Sometimes those thoughts might become words, which can become extremely hurtful. Once, one of my friends Kirsten, was wearing her deceased grandmother’s cubic zirconium necklace, and all Baylee and Nerissa had to say about it was how bad of a “fake diamond it was.” Ever since that comment, I have not ever seen that necklace on Kirsten. I always dreaded coming to school, mainly because of the two fashion zombies, but on this particular day it was worse. Just recently in gym class we had been playing dodgeball. When I play dodgeball, I don’t really care if my team wins or looses, I just try to get “out” as soon as I can, and as gently. Unfortunately, this game was different for me. Right as our gym teacher, Ms. Varley, blew the ear-piercing whistle, a stiff, rubber, kickball came flying at my face. Despite the laughter, I continued to cry. Not only did the rubber sting my face, but it also knocked me right in the nose. As this happened I heard a loud crack, like someone biting into an apple, and I immediately knew something was wrong. regardless of what other people said, like the local wannabe brat who said, “stop over-reacting, and grow up,” the pain persisted and sometimes even got worse. Actually, it was a mean remark from Nerissa that told me I needed to see a doctor. “Crooked nose Rose!” She chanted imitating a second grader. Crooked! I thought. The past few times I have looked at it, I noticed my nose was quite swollen, but I never would have considered it crooked. “Stop it Nerissa!” Baylee chimed in. Why did she want to defend me. “We’ve all been hit by Dana in dodgeball, so I understand how you feel.” She smiled, “see ya’ around.” For a while I just stood there, dumbstruck. Later that day, my parents took me to the doctor. After some x-rays and examinations, Dr. Yori Tsai told me that my nose was broken, and I needed sugary as quickly as possible. She did say though, that I did have the option to not have the surgery, but my nose would then become more prone to later injuries (and become more crooked over time.) Luckily, Dr. Yori told me that she just had a patient back out of her schedule that night, so if I wanted to, I could have it done then. I agreed, and the next thing I knew I was out of surgery and had an extremely large splint on my nose. That next week at school was when everything changed. All throughout the day I got many sympathetic stares, confused stares, and (my least favorite) laughing stares. The one person that I actually expected nothing out of was probably the most sympathetic. On that second day of that humiliating week, Baylee came up to me and said, “How’s your nose feel today?” She asked with a concerned look. “It still hurts a ton,” I replied, “but thanks to the surgery, it’s getting better.” “Remember in fourth grade when I broke my jaw?” I had completely forgotten about that. Baylee had to wear something that looked like a hockey mask for the whole year, and she could only eat extremely soft foods. I nodded and she continued, “When I had that jaw thing on, you were the only one nice to me. I kind of forgot to thank you for that. So, the reason why I'm saying this is because I want to start over and become friends.” “But, what about Nerissa?” I managed to mumble out, I was still shocked by her idea of us becoming friends. “I told Nerissa what I wanted to do, and she said that I was making the wrong decision. She also said that if I did follow through with this friendship, she would not want to be my friend anymore. And I told her that that was okay and if she ever changed her mind, I would be waiting.” “Wow Baylee,” was all I could say. “So what do you think?” she asked “I think that this friendship just might work.” I replied, and since then Baylee and I have been best friends.

-Codi**
 * I really like the plot of this story. You have a lot of really good ideas coming from this, and I like how you have the entire story written out... The only thing I would suggest is that you elaborate a little more. There could be a lot more details. Maybe you could also throw in some smaller problems, that make it more exciting and more realistic. I think the ending should gradually occur, instead of Baylee just asking the speaker to be her friend. Make it exciting :) haha, but overall, super cute story!