Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Aaron Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 15
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 753 words
Ghosts were all the rage in school over the spring and early summer until classes let out. I feel like everyone in almost every single one of our classes only had that on their minds. It was the only subject that was being talked about before, after, and between classes. I admit that I only half-heartedly listened to them. My passion still remains with all things sea life with a heavy leaning towards sharks but you don’t hear me yap someone’s ears off about it constantly.
I don’t know how often I lost count of the number of them coming in, in the mornings, just tired as could be, claiming that they’d stayed up late to watch this new show about ghosts and that they’d then been unable to fall asleep.
That’s a sort of given, isn’t it? For one thing, I’m pretty sure that this ghost show, whatever it is, isn’t all just sugar, spices and everything nice. I mean, I don’t really know a whole lot about ghost shows but from listening to everyone else just talk endlessly about it all, they’re spooky. So watching something spooky long after you’re supposed to be in bed isn’t going to lead to a restful night and the rest is sort of history.
It wasn’t pretty during finals, either.
I don’t tend to snoop, I have enough on my plate with all my big dreams and studies that I don’t have time to listen to the others complaining or moaning about their grades or even just the rumours going around, but just taking into account that our class averages dropped a whole lot when the grades were handed back in, I’m pretty sure that a lot of others in the class didn’t do great on their finals and I’m not even really all that surprised.
My grades aren’t perfect. I try hard but the ringing in my ear, even though it’s been years and I know what it is and how to work with it, still bothers me every now and again. It gets worse in stressful situations and, one way or another, exams are stressful for me. I try not to let it get to me but it usually does, it’s fine, though. While my grades aren’t perfect, they’re still really good and more than enough for me to get into the places I’m hoping to once I’m done with high school.
Well, when the tests were handed back and the class average was announced, I found myself with a grade that was well above the average. Usually, I’m comfortably above the average but now I was nearly at the top; it felt surreal. The average wasn’t quite a failing grade but it wasn’t far and it made me a little sad. I know that the teachers do what they can to help the students but we still have to do our part too.
In the long run, I guess I’m just glad that I already have my heart set on something and my focus locked. There are three things that are truly important to me at this point. I know that people think I’m too young to really have my mind set this way and yet, it is. Emms is my number one important focus. Sharks and their surrounding sea life, as well as my family, are my two other most important pieces. These are the things I focus on and that’s all there is to it.
So I’m just hoping that once school is back in session, this whole thing with the ghost show is going to be done and over with. It’s clearly a distraction in class and if the students don’t stop talking while the teachers are trying to, well, teach, no one is going to learn and that’s just not something I want. I need to learn. I need to study. I just want things to work out.
Even if I do stop to try and think about it for a moment, I just don’t understand why anyone would find ghosts so fascinating but I guess that this isn’t all that far off from the fact that I tend to find sharks fascinating and other people might just not. We’re all different people acting in different ways with passions for different things so I can’t expect people to understand why I like what I like and that’s why I try not to spend too much time trying to figure out why other people like the things they do, in the end.
Works of JD Beckett 