The young, sophomore sat in the office alone. The only sound she could hear was the clock ticking and the receptionist typing in perfect rhythm. She inhaled and exhaled slowly and evenly, waiting to be called. The couch was rather soft, with a unique design of greens and blues mixed together. While she was studying the soft curls and special jumps of color here and there, suddenly a sound was heard from within the hallway. Excited cheering and screaming bounced off the walls. It was slowly but surely getting louder. The receptionist looked up and smiled, then returned to her typing. Only the young girl rose to see what the noise was. She knew today was a big day for her school, but she didn’t think they would get away with this much ruckus. She looked through the glass window on the door to see many girls running by with blue clothes on. The color this year was blue, and each grade would pick a different theme to go with the color blue. The seniors were dolphins, the juniors decided on a “beach” theme, freshmen were “blue” ice-cream, and the sophomores were “blue” storm. She smiled softly as they ran past, cheering on the players who would represent our school against our main rivalry: Leonora High School. The two schools had gone against each other since they were first established, surprisingly by twins. One twin, named Leonora built his school upon the theme “The Younger the Generation, the Greater the Knowledge”. As for her own school, Villisca High School, the female twin built the school on her own saying “Education first, Fun later” to show that you had to go through school to live your life prosperously.

“Rebecca Williams.” A voice called behind her.

“Yes?” She asked the receptionist.

“Principal Harrison will see you now.” She said with a gentle smile and went back to typing in the rhythmic patter.

“Yes ma’am.” Rebecca answered and quickly but softly walked to the principal’s office, which was the door to the left after you passed the receptionist. Rebecca paused before opening the door, quickly fixed her shirt and smoothed her skirt, then opened the door slowly. “Sir?”

“Please, come in, Mrs. Williams.”

“Yes sir.” She said softly, quickly went in and closed the door behind her. She stood awkwardly for a few milliseconds, but he soon motioned towards one of the two chairs on the side of his desk, opposite of the side which he sat. She quickly took two steps closer and smoothed the back of her skirt as she sat down.

“Now,” Principal Harrison sighed, looking at a sheet of paper on his desk. “I wanted to see you. Do you know why?”

“No sir.”

“Well then, I believe you will find out now, won’t you?”

“Yes, I guess, I hope so, sir.” She said nervously. She had never been in trouble for anything, nor had bad grades, in fact she was a straight A student.

“The reason is,” he began, “You have the top grades in the school this year.” He leaned forward smiling. The news didn’t hit her at first, but took a few seconds to sink in.

“The… entire school?”

“Yes, the very top.” He chuckled. “This has never happened before here. Usually the top one is a senior.”

She nodded in response.

“And, it would be a shame for this year’s senior class to leave not having a top student. Therefore, not only did I call you in to tell you this, but also to ask you if-”

“Give up the award to the next smartest senior?” she guessed, mostly because she was a little upset about this.

“Yes,” he said. He gave her a concerned look, “I hope you will do the right thing. Look inside your heart, do you really want to take that pride away from the seniors?”

Rebecca said nothing in response but looked down, thinking.

“You will let me know in a week, alright?”

“Yeah, I mean-” she shook her head quickly and stood, “Yes sir.” She darted out of the room, not allowing the principal to see her tears. She ran past the receptionist whom didn’t look up from her computer, ran out the door into the big crowd. Suddenly screaming was all around her. Rebecca’s tears ran down her cheeks, and there were tons of girls all around her screaming, shouting and cheering. Rebecca fought her way through the crowd and was finally able to push open the double doors in the back of the school, only to find the noise suddenly being reduced as the big doors closed. She looked around, finally quiet and stillness again. There was no breeze, no sounds of birds chirping, and the huge doors behind her somehow blocked the noise from inside. She knew soon they too would be charging out of the school to go to the big event at the other school, so she began walking quickly down the small pathway that resided between evenly-placed trees. There was no way to leave school right now; her parents wouldn’t be coming to pick her up until around five and it was only three.

She finally found a secluded area, by the storage rooms. She stayed outside but leaned against the brick wall, only to eventually fall to the ground and place her knees up and cross her arms over them, letting her head down to cry more. Not much time had passed until suddenly a hand rested on her shoulder and she looked up.

“Are you alright?” a boy looked into her eyes, asking gently. She sniffled and didn’t respond, not sure what to say. She wanted to tell someone what was happening, but she didn’t want to spill her guts out to this boy she didn’t even know. The boy squatted down to her level and set his book sack down to their right.

“Are you alright?” he asked again, but this time he rubbed her back gently with his hand.

“I… I’m fine.” She said, looking away, trying to force her tears to stop.

“I can tell it isn’t. Are you sure you don’t want to at least talk about it?”

“I.. um, no. I mean, I don’t want you to miss your ride…” she tried making up an excuse.

The boy chuckled, “I drive myself.”

“Oh, well-” she tried searching for another reason but could find none.

He sighed and sat down in front of her, and put his hands by his sides. “When you are ready to talk just start talking.” He smiled at her. It was not the fact that he was smiling at her, but the fact he cared without knowing her.

She couldn’t help but smile back at him for this compassion towards her, and she whispered “thank you.”

“I’m sorry, what?” he asked, his smile fading.

“I said, ‘thank you’.” She repeated, smiling.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.” He said playfully and she couldn’t help but to laugh a little. He smiled at his progress, “Now that I’ve got you smiling, what’s wrong? Maybe I can help.” He offered.

She sighed, and thought it would be better to just tell him, maybe he could help. She knew very well her parents wouldn’t listen to her, and she didn’t want to put any more stress on her friends. She began slowly but it ended up coming out quicker than she thought.

“Wow,” he began when she finished, “that’s completely wrong of him to do that.”

“I know, but he’s-”

“I know. Still, that’s completely wrong.” He took a deep breath; she could tell he was thinking about it thoroughly. Suddenly he looked up with a smile on his face, “Want some ice-cream?”