Highly Commended Story - A New Beginning

“A New Beginning” by Alexis Burkhart, Willow Creek Elementary, USA, is the Highly Commended story in the junior category of the first biannual Short Story Contest 2019.

A New Beginning

Chapter 1 - Late Again

Alexandra raced down the halls of her school. I can’t believe it, she thought. I over slept again! She burst into the classroom.

“Alexandra!” Her teacher Mrs. Wickenstine said “You’re late again that’s the third time this week. You’re at a boarding school for crying out loud. You should be here on time because you live here.”

All the other girls snickered. Alexandra could feel herself blushing with embarrassment.

“Have a seat.” Mrs. Wickenstine sighed.

Alexandra quickly sat down.

“Alright, where were we?” Mrs. Wickenstine said “Ahhh yes, as I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted.” she said glaring at Alexandra. “Please pull out your Arithmetic books and work in them.”

Alexandera pulled out her book. What is 3,428divided by 10? Her book asked hmmm she thought.

“Alexandra” Mrs. Wickenstine exclaimed “please come out in the hall I need to speak to you.”

Alexandra followed quickly behind Mrs. Wickenstine.

“This is the third time this week you’ve been late I’m afraid I just can’t tolerate this anymore. You have detention for the rest of the week and don’t let this happen again.”

“I won’t” Alexandra said, and they went inside the classroom.

Chapter 2 – Detention

Ding! Ding! Ding! The end of school bell rang. “You’re dismissed” Mrs. Wickenstine said. As soon as almost everyone was out Mrs. Wickenstine said, “Alexandra you stay here I’ll deal with you in a minute.” Alexandra had been dreading this minute all day long. Mrs. Wickenstine came back in the room with a bucket, a mop, and other cleaning supplies. “You’re going to clean the entire school today.”

“What!” Alexandra exclaimed “That’s preposterous no I refuse to do such a terrible thing. I don’t want to get dirty with that repulsive rag.”

Mrs. Wickenstine looked madder now. There was practically steam coming out of her ears.

“LISTEN HERE YOU PAMPERED PRINCESS IF I TELL YOU YOU’RE GOING TO CLEAN THE SCHOOL THEN YOU ARE GOING TO DO JUST THAT!” Mrs.Wickenstine screamed.

“No, I won’t” Alexandra said, “and there is nothing that you can do about it.”

“How dare you disrespect me like that”.

“I don’t like how you’re treating me, so I won’t” Alexandra said and stormed out of the room.

Chapter 3 - Madness in the mess hall

Alexandra ran through the halls and up to the mess hall door. She pulled open the door and everyone stared at her. Alexandra quickly got her food and sat down.

“Veir, were you her French friend” Andrea asked.

“Si, where were you friend” Rosa asked.

“Um I got detention, had to clean the school, refused to do so, and stormed out.”

“You what!” they both said at the same time.

“Oh no Mrs.Wickenstine is going to be so mad” Rosa said.

Suddenly Andrea looked very pale and worried.

“Whatever’s the matter Andrea?” Alexandra asked.

Andrea pointed at the door.

“Oh no” Alexandra said, “it’s Mrs. Wickenstine.”

“ALEXANDRA come over here this instant” she screamed with an ear shattering voice.

“No” Alexandra said.

The entire room gasped.

“Alexandra my office now” their principal Ms. Lily demanded.

“Fine” Alexandra said and followed behind her.

Chapter 4 - The principal’s office

“Alexandra your behavior is terrible. You were late, and you live here, you refused and backtalked a teacher, stormed out of the room then said no to a teacher for the second time today. The student handbook says that all these violations mean that I may have to expel you. I’ve made a call to your parents to discuss the matter. They shall be here soon. We will talk about what you have done until they get here.”

About 30 minutes later they arrived. Alexandra’s Mom had golden brown hair she was tall and pretty.

Alexandra’s dad was short, he had black hair and glasses.

“Alright come in. Alexandra please go out in the hall”, said the principal. “Okay” she said and left.

“What have I gotten myself into?” Alexandra thought to herself “If I just had followed directions then maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Meanwhile inside of Ms. Lily’s office “I don’t understand why she would do this Alexandra’s dad said.”

“I don’t either”, Ms. Lily said “she seemed like such a good kid when you brought her in on the first day of school”.

About 5 minutes later Alexandra heard Ms. Lily say, “I hope you understand my decision.”

“Oh, no”, she thought “I’m probably expelled.”

Just then the door swung open. “Alexandra, come in. Your behavior is unacceptable. Go pack your things, you leave tomorrow.”

Chapter 5 - Goodbye

Alexandra was devastated and she tried to hide it, but it was impossible. She left the office in tears. “How would she tell Andrea and Rosa? Where was she going? Would she do better or worse?” These questions kept spinning in her head. She ran into her room and cried. The next day she got up, she had packed the night before so it looked so empty now. She knew that she had to go tell her friends that she got expelled and she had to go. When she told them they couldn’t believe it.

“You what” they both said.

“I can’t believe you got expelled” Rosa said.

“Me neither” Amanda said.

“Please don’t go” they pleaded.

“You girls know that I haven’t any say in this. Goodbye girls”.

“Goodbye” they said, and Alexandra went down the stairs, out the door, into the car and left.

Chapter 6 - The surprises

The 5-hour car ride was bad enough without her parents scolding her.

“You had the whole school year ahead of you. Do better at you’re next school.” her mom said.

Finally, Alexandra spoke up “Speaking of which where am I going to school at? Is it a boarding school?

Her parents exchanged nervous glances with each other. “Um, honey” Alexandra’s mom said “our businesses recently closed and we lost a lot of our money. So, you are going to something called a one room school house in the country.”

“Since we lost a huge heap of our money, we must move to the country to work as farmers.”

“We have one more bit of news. However, this time it’s good news we just found out that were having a baby.”

Chapter 7 - Small house big party

About 2 hours later they arrived at the farm. They quickly unloaded their items and went inside. “Um mom do we have any money for a baby shower?” “As a matter a fact we do have some money set aside for this sort of thing.”

“Who are we having over?”

“I don’t know” Alexandra’s mom said. “However, we have more important matters to discuss.”

“We have?” Alexandra asked.

“Yes, we have like the fact that you got expelled.”

“Must we mother? It is in the past why must we continue this nonsense.”

“Alexandra” her mother said suddenly changing her tone to a higher level. “You got expelled from a school for goodness sake and you want us to just put it all behind us? “

“Yes, I would.”

Her mother went inside the house and then after a couple of minutes came and said, “Alright we will have a party for the baby and then we shall discuss the matter. Let us go inside and create the guest list. Then we shall send out invitations and get party supplies. We have much to do.” They went back into the house and Alexandra’s mom pulled out a pen and started making the guest list.

Guest List

• Aunt Tizzi
• Uncle Vermon
• Grandma M.
• Grandpa M.
• Aunt Liz
• Grandma S. And Grandpa S.

“Anyone else?”

“Um no I think that we got everyone we know that is still available.”

“Right now, we can move onto other items. I’ll go up to the store to see if they have any decorations. Alexandra you work on invitations.”

Within a few hours everything was ready to go, and they had rsvp’s from everyone.

The party was the next day.

“Wow this is a cozy house.” Alexandra’s aunt Tizzy exclaimed.

Everyone had a wonderful time there was music, dancing, and punch. In a few hours everyone had to go.

“Well that was a swell party” Alexandra’s mother said. “Alexandra go to bed you start school tomorrow.”

Chapter 8 - First day of school

Kaka-a-doodle-do! The rooster exclaimed at dawn and Alexandra dragged herself out of bed “Oh no” she thought “I can’t go to school no one will like me. If I show up, they will all laugh at me because I’m the girl who got expelled.”

She got dressed and went down the stairs for breakfast. When she arrived at the school, she was shocked about how small it was. “This mustn’t be it. I hadn’t imagined that it would be this small.” When she walked into the room it was the size of her bed room. There was only one teacher and a few numbers of desks. Other kids were filing into the room. She saw kids of her age and also kids that were three years old. Alexandra saw kids that were fifteen years old too. Alexandra was overwhelmed by how small the school was and she didn’t want to go to a school this small. As soon as everyone took their seats Mrs. Honeysuckle started to talk to the class.

“Good morning class today we have a new student.” she said looking at Alexandra. “Please stand up and tell us about yourself.”

“Hello, my name is Alexandra and I came from a boarding school to here and”

She didn’t know what to say, she couldn’t tell them that she thought their school was repulsive and that she didn’t want to be there.

“And thank you that’s it” she said.

“Alright then if that’s all then we should start our day. Everyone, today we are going to learn multiplication. Here are some worksheets with multiplication problems on them. I don’t expect you to know this. I just want to see if you have had any introduction to it.” About 30 minutes later, everyone had turned in their worksheets and Mrs. Honeysuckle was examining them. “Alexandra Miller you have 100 percent on this. Have you had any introduction to this before?”

“Why as a matter a fact I have.” Alexandra exclaimed.

About 20 minutes later recess began. There was a small field to play in. The entire school raced outside to the small area of grass to play jacks, tag, and catch. Alexandra went out of the school house and into the grass by a big tree and sat down.

“No one will want to be my friend.” she thought to herself. “I’m better off here alone.”

Just then two girls came up to her. The first one had long, thin, golden hair. She had blue eyes and was very pretty. The second one had medium sized hair it was brown and thick she had big brown eyes both these girls were very pretty.

“You’re the new girl, right?” she asked.

“Yes, I am” Alexandra responded. “What might be you’re names?”

“My name is Gabriella, and this is Alison. But you can call me Gabby.” she said with a smile.

“Hello Gabriella and this is Alison?” Alexandra said extending her hand for them to shake it. Gabby happily shook it.

“Um hi” Alison said. Very quietly.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Alison is very shy. So, I have always done the talking for her.” Gabby said. “Anyway, back to you. Are you really from a boarding school?”

“Why yes I am,” Alexandra responded.

“Wow, what was it like?” Gabby asked.

“Well”, Alexandra said. “There were multiple classrooms and teachers. Each one of them taught a different subject. There were at least half a dozen teachers. Also, instead of going home at the end of the day we would always sleep there overnight. Then at the end of the school year our parents would pick us up for summer break.”

“Wow, that sounds incredible” Gabby said. “May I ask why you aren’t still there?”

“Yes, you may” Alexandra responded. “I was extremely disrespectful to the teachers, so the principal decided to expel me.”

Just then they noticed that Alison was gone.

“Oh no” Gabby said. We were talking for too long and we didn’t notice that the bell rang, and Mrs. Honeysuckle blew her whistle. “We’ve got to run back to class come on let’s go.”

Lucky for those girls Mrs. Honeysuckle was very understanding.

“It is okay girls I know that it was just an accident. Just don’t let it happen again.” she said.

“Really, you’re not going to give us detention?” Alexandra asked.

“Heavens no!” Mrs. Honeysuckle said.

In a few hours it was time for school to be over and she walked home.

Chapter 9 - The Scolding

That night at dinner Alexandra’s mother said that they needed to discuss the fact that she was expelled. “Please mom can’t this wait till after supper?”

“No, it cannot” Alexandra’s mom said. “For the next month as punishment for getting expelled you will do everyone’s chores around the farm.”

“Fine” Alexandra said aloud to her family. “I despise it though.”

“That’s a good thing” her mom said. “After all, this is a punishment. It’s not supposed to be fun and you’re not supposed to like it.”

The next morning Alexandra got up bright and early as she had a lot of chores to do. She wanted to go to school to see her friends.

“I can’t wait to go see Gabby and maybe I can get Alison to stop being so shy around me and talk to me. She might have some interesting things to say.”

She did her mom’s chores first. She gathered the chicken’s eggs and milked the cows. Now it was time to do her dads chores. She harvested and rinsed the crops and put them into bins. Finally, she had to do her chores vacuuming and sweeping the floors. She was very exited to get to school that day.

Now she got to have breakfast and go to school. She was so exited to go to school that she ran the whole way.

They spent the whole day long talking with one another and by the end of the day she had done so many things. She even got Alison to talk a little bit. When she got home she found a huge surprise. Her mother was in bed and her dad was scurrying around the house, grabbing supplies.

“Whatever’s the matter?” Alexandra asked.

“Your mother is having a baby right now. I just called the doctor and he’s on his way here.”

Chapter 10 - Welcome

“He’s here! He’s here!” Alexandra cried.

“Oh, thank goodness!” her dad exclaimed. “I shall go greet the doctor. You go check on your mother.”

“Okay” Alexandra said.

She walked very quickly up to her mother’s room.

“Hello mom, how are you doing?”

“How do you think! I’m having a baby for goodness sake! Her mother screeched. When will the doctor be here?”

“He is right here.” Alexandra said.

“Oh, thank goodness” her mother sighed.

Just then the doctor came up the stairs.

“Alexandra dear, you need to leave the room. You are too young to witness this.”

Within a few hours the baby was born.

“What are you going to name him?” the doctor asked.

“Well I think that we want to leave that up to her.” Alexandra’s mother said.

When Alexandra was told she was hysterical, “Oh my goodness, I would love to name him.”

Within a few weeks Alexandra had a name for the baby.

“I know what I want to name him. Alexandra announced. I believe that I have found the perfect name it is…

To be continued…