HPA and GSMS Grade Eight LA
Exemplar 2
“Now here’s an accurate map with good lines and color…” my mind trails to the toasted cinnamon raisin bread with peanut butter I had for breakfast. It was straight up delicious, no joke. The example Silk Road map Mr. Bailey parades around in front of us like a blue ribbon poodle obviously belongs to a girl from last year with nothing better to do. I’m being judgemental. Hay are we wasting time looking at it? We need class time to “work” on our masterpieces, Bails. Patches needs to tell me about yesterday’s impromptu meeting between his ski boot and Seth Bartlett’s face. I hear much blood was shed. I sense the oppressively warm, odiferous scent of time, effort and detail seeping from the map. It sickens me. I don’t have the artistic skills necessary to pull off something as good. More importantly, I don’t have that kind of time. What a pointless project. “This is what your maps should look like—notice the legend in the lower right hand…” this exhibition needs to end.
“That girl has no life,” I say a little too loudly to nobody in particular, but directed at Mr. Bailey. Maybe it’ll garner a rise out of my cronies, who are undoubtedly aboard the same train of thought. The boys at my table who are paying attention give an obligatory smile, the girls, as if listening for an approaching predator, stop quietly exchanging words at their tables. The dudes at the back table, perpetually oblivious to Mr. Bailey, continue to go nuts over something which is probably atrociously stupid, and Mr. Bailey smiles. “This is Regina’s,” he says. My stomach drops as my shoe shoves its way into my mouth. I don’t even know her at all, but she’s right behind me. I’m an idiot. “Maybe we should show a little more respect for our classmates?”
Exemplar 3
I glance nervously around the Little White Church in Eaton, while the evening light strains to make its way through the dusty windows. Mom, Dad, Teacher. They are all staring back at me, nodding encouragingly, as if to say, “Anytime now.” I breathe unsteadily as my friend’s bow pulls across the strings of her old violin, releasing the first lonely notes into the stale air between us. One, two, three. One, two, three. I count silently. I clasp my hands tightly, not sure what to do with them as the solo continues. Should I be looking at her, rocking to the music, preparing myself for my entrance? I tick off the time with my fingertips touching the pads of each one like a human metronome. Wishing to have anything but their attention: the flu, a flood, anything. I feel my body shake as each measure brings me closer to the end. And yet, I haven’t even started. I bury my thoughts in my hands, willing them, urging them to move to the keys, sticky with the heat of the night.