Hardships
1976 Words
The next Morning, Andie goes to school immediately, she went to her locker quickly as the school bell was about to ring. She gets her notebooks and some books, then goes straight away to her first class, Science.
Inside their classroom, she sits beside Mya, “
Morning”, she told her,
“Hey”.
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by their teacher in front,
“Before we start the discussion, I am going to announce the top ten students in class”, their adviser and science teacher told them. Afterwards she calls some names and their ranks, “For top five Annie Carr”, the class applauded, she calls other students after her,
“top 2 Bethany Marsh. And last but not the least top 1 Andrea Anderson”, her teacher told the class.
Bethany was infuriated by hearing this, all these years she never even had the chance to beat Andie, anger begins to boil inside her, but she can do nothing but stare sharply at Andie while the whole class was clapping,
"Andie, I need to see you in my office later I need to offer you something”, her teacher said to her,
“Yes, ma’am”.
After class, Andie opens her locker, to put their her books and other things, when she opens it, she saw something was stuck inside, and a note appears inside
“Teachers Pet”, she read it, when abruptly the locker door slams,
“Hey Andie, how’s everything going?”, Bethany shows up , “Are you going to study?”, she then picks up Andie’s book from the locker, “Why don’t you add on some glasses so you will be a complete nerd!”, Bethany throws her books on the ground and stomps her feet on to it,
“No! My books!”, Andie picks it one by one, some pages were thorn and distorted,
“Listen to me, you just become top one because you are a teacher’s pet”, Bethany told her, then one of her friends gets closer to Andie,
“You are nothing but a nerdy loser” subsequently, Bethany and her friends left.
Andie was speechless, she paused and thinks how they managed to open her locker, so she looks for the lock, and saw it was destroyed, she sighs and calls Josh,
“Hey, I am here by the locker, would you mind doing me a favor?”, she asked him, Andie can hear the noisy background of boys shouting and the sound of the friction on rubber shoes against the floor of the court, “Uhh, I am in a training right now, what is it?”,
“Oh, it’s nothing, I will watch your training later wait for me”, she said to him,
“Ok, bye”, and they ended the call. She then just call the school personnel to help her.
Andie goes to the basketball court and saw only a few students are watching since it’s just a training, most of them were friends and girls who have a crush on some of the players. She sits to an empty spot where she can be alone and stares at Josh as the training was about to start. He noticed her immediately, and she slightly waves at him.
When the game begins the players at the court does their best moves to score over their opponent. Josh was now blocking his opponent at court, the enemy was trying to pass over him but, he thinks it is impossible, so he passes it to his other teammate, but the player wasn’t able to shoot it into the ring, so Josh teammate managed to grab the ball, they run at the other side of the court, the player was blocked by an opponent so he passes the ball to Josh, and he threw the ball through the ring, and he did a three-point shot. Andie stands up and claps loudly, making Josh notice her.
Two hours had passed, the coach decided to allow them to go home early this time to have some rest. After changing his clothes, Josh goes to Andie, “That’s a nice play”, she told him,
“You think so?”,
“Yeah, of course, why not?”, she asked,
“I just don’t know if I am doing good as my teammates have been playing basketball for a long time and me..”,
“It doesn’t mean you are not, just keep practicing and you can do better than them”, she finishes his sentence,
Josh smiles at her, “Thank you”, their eyes locked with each other, and both of them fell silent for seconds as their minds went blank. Josh then clears his throat, “Let’s go home now, your aunt must be waiting for you”, he said, and both of them walks outside to ride a bike and left the campus.
As Andie arrives, at the house, she parks her bike again outside as usual, when she opens the door, Amy was on the couch and glances at her
“You are late”, she uttered,
“Sorry we have done a school project”, Andie told her,
“Where are your grades?”, she asked, and Andie puts her bag on the ground and searches for the copy of her report card, she then grabs it and handed the report card to Amy. “This better be good, I don’t want us to be wasting our time, instead of you being here cleaning, you are in the school studying”, Amy scoffed. while she wears a pair of glasses and scans the paper “hmm” she just nodded and gives it back to her,
Andie returns it to her bag,
“By the way, I need you to prepare snacks and clean the entire house before nine tomorrow, Wilma’s friend would be here for a little celebration, understood?”, “
Yes”, Andie uttered and then she goes upstairs to her room.
After changing her clothes, and taking a quick shower she gets a notebook and a pen and sits on her bed. “Six, prepare breakfast, seven o clock clean the house, at eight, cook”, Andie sighs and lies on her bed, with her arms spread apart, “I have a lot of things to do”, she then closes her eyes, suddenly a reminder entered her mind, “I need to study for the quiz bee”, she uttered and picks up her science book, but some of its pages were torn because of Bethany earlier, so she gets a tape and tries to put the pages back in.
“Andie! Come down here!” she suddenly hears her uncle Speer shouted, so she immediately goes down, as soon as she heard him.
“Uncle, why did you call, anything I can do?” she asked him,
“Remove your bike here, I need to put something in this place”, he said, and Andie quickly does his bidding,
“Wait”, Speer uttered
She then stops, and turns her face towards him,
“Clean my car”, he added,
“Clean your car?”, she asked in a low voice, and points on herself, while her face becomes expressionless,
“Yes! What else, so now do it”, he walks away.
Andie has no choice but to do it, unless she wanted to be punished so she picks up the sponge and a pail of water and starts cleaning the car.
When the night time comes, that’s the only moment she can spend time for herself, as she goes to her bed, she sees her books were in there, Andie hops on the bed, reads them and take some notes. Time passes by and her eyes become heavy and without noticing they were slowly closing. Andie suddenly becomes conscious and felt it so she pats her cheeks, but her body was still painful especially her legs and arms. She tries to get back to studying yet this time her body and eyes give in, as she now lies on her bed. A loud buzzing sound was heard across the room, Andie suddenly wakes up and gets up, “ugh”, she moaned, “This alarm clock!”, she turns it off. Her books, pens and paper are still scattered all over the bed, so she picks them all up, and fixes her bed. After taking a shower, she looks at the clock it was already six in the morning, it was Saturday so there are no classes, but she still rushes downstairs to prepare breakfast and do what her aunt ordered her.
Three hours had passed, Andie was now done preparing the snacks, and cleaning up the entire house, she feels her arm would fall any minute, and her legs are shaking, her body feels heavy and exhausted from all of the housework she did. Andie wipes the table before putting there the food and drinks, Wilma goes down and comes to the table, and looks at the snacks, “Good”, she immediately goes to the door, afterwards, as soon as they heard a doorbell and opens the door.
Wilma shouts “Sis!”, she and her friend hugged and giggles. Andie was about to go upstairs when she heard her phone ringed, in her pocket, “Hello”, she uttered,
“I am here outside your house”, Josh told her,
“What! Wait for me there” she ended the call and goes to the backdoor, “
What are you doing here?”, she drags him gently outside with her, and closes the door,
“Since its Saturday, let’s go out”, he told her,
Andie sighs, “You know I am not allowed to go out if it is not about school”, she said,
“Well, let’s go inside”,
“There are visitors”, she spoke
Josh opens the door, “I am going to ask for permission from your aunt, and besides we will just be in your room”,
“Fine, but if she says no, you have to leave”, she points at him, and they both goes inside,
“Hi, Mrs. Cook”, Josh waves a little at Amy,
“What are you doing here?”, she slides down her glasses and stares at him while her right eyebrow was raised up
“I just want to ask if I can stay here for a few hours to help Andie on her school works” he told her. Andie looks at him trembling while waiting for her aunt's answer,
“Ok, but stay in her room and don’t make any noise”, Amy uttered, “Thank you”, Josh then grabs Andie’s wrist and they goes upstairs.
“Actually I am busy, I am studying for my upcoming contest”, she then opens her bedroom door, as they get inside, Josh puts her bag on the chair and he gets something from it, “Upcoming contest? Here I brought some chips”, he hands it to Andie, “Thank you”, she said,
“What contest?”, Josh asked,
“My teacher chose me to compete with other schools for the Science Quiz Bee”,
“Oh, wow”, he then sits beside her on the bed, “Let me help you study”, they open the books and get some notebooks and pens while eating some chips.
- Writer
