Now by Emma Willemsen                            

I gulped. I lay on my side in bed, staring at the alarm clock. The two dots between hours and minutes are flashing in an as-a-matter-of-fact way. It was an electronic alarm clock but strangely I could almost hear the “tick, tock, tick, tock…”sound. I waited and waited, for my Mom to come downstairs to wake me up. The seconds turned into minutes. I was not sure after how long, and suddenly I heard footsteps coming from upstairs. Uh oh. Time to go. My heart started  drumming uncontrollably.  The light in my room was turned on and I squinted my eyes to the bright light, and my Mom’s cheerful voice came immediately afterwards, “rise and shine Emma! Did you sleep well? Get dressed quickly, or you’ll be late!” The door was closed again. I got up and dressed clumsily like a zombie and went downstairs. “Eat some crackers for energy. Or a banana. Your choice.” My Mom presented the food in front of me. I didn’t want to eat anything and even felt nauseous but I was relieved that I didn’t have to have a “full-scale” breakfast with toast, egg, milk, yoghurt, and fruits…“But I …” I was trying to think of an excuse. My mom stopped me in the middle of the sentence, “ No but. Eat.” I forced two pieces of crackers down the throat with the help of one sip of Pocari Sweat. “What’s wrong, Emma? You look pale in the face! Are you nervous?” Mom looked concerned. I nodded and couldn’t help feeling ashamed. “Oh…” Mom sounded sympathetically, came over and tried to hug me… “Hurry up, let’s save the hugs for later! We have to leave now or we’ll be late!” Dad rushed us into the car. It was 6:30 in the morning and pitch dark outside. The dogs of our neighbor probably heard us and started barking loudly and excitedly inside of  the house. I shook my head, feeling sorry. Mom and Dad were trying to calm me down by asking me various irrelevant questions while we were driving. I didn’t feel like talking at all. I lay down and curled up on the backseat, pretending to be asleep. We drove the rest of the way in silence. 

The minute I stepped into the gym at school, I was overwhelmed by the noise and hassle around me. The teachers were running around, with programs in hands. Moms and Dads were spreading picnic blankets and taking out fold-up chairs to settle down. Children were busy changing and stretching…Everybody seemed to be able to enjoy themselves except for me. “Get grip of yourself!” I started feeling annoyed and tried to snap myself out of it, “it’s not a big deal!” “No, it didn’t seem to work!” my pounding heart sneered. 

“Event 17, 100 meter Breaststroke, all heats, come to the marshaling area please!” IT WAS ME! I jumped up and made my way through the gym, with my teeth chattering non-stop. Mom and Dad accompanied me there, showering me with encouraging words which I totally screened off. I was in the second last heat and Lane 6, which meant I was the slowest in the second fastest heat. It was an awkward position—fast but not that fast. 

Sitting on the cold bench with other swimmers of my heat and moving closer and closer to the diving blocks, I was struck numb with terror. The splash in the pool, the deafening cheers and shrill whistles made by the coaches by the pool were extremely overwhelming. “How old are you?” the girl who was going to swim in Lane 5 asked me unexpectedly. “Emm…10…No, I’m not 10 yet. I’m 9, but I will be 10 in February…” I blurted out. Lane 5 girl looked at me with puzzled eyes for a second and looked away. I thought it was rude that she didn’t tell me how old she was in return but I didn’t bother asking.

Before I even noticed it, I was already standing behind the diving block of Lane 6. I was alone with my thumping heart that was trying so desperately  to jump out of my rip case. Dong-dong,-dong-dong,-dong-dong. My mind ran wild! “What if I messed it all up? What if I didn’t beat my personal best?” Those questions kept popping up. “Swimmers, take your marks!” I stepped onto the block. Oh, it’s cold! A chill went down my spine! “Beep!” I dove into the water. Now the world went quiet. Embraced by the refreshing coolness, every cell of my body woke up and shouted simultaneously “yes!” My troubled mind was released from the cage of ceaseless self-doubt and rested idly   while my body seemed to know instinctively how to function. After second turn, my eyes were fixed at the finish line. I couldn’t see where the other girls were and I didn’t care. I gained speed by treading water faster and faster. The diving block was getting bigger and bigger. “Bang!” both of my hands smacked the time-keeping board at the end of the lane. I looked aside immediately. The swimmers in the other five lanes just arrived one after another. “Am I the first?!” I couldn’t believe it. I looked up anxiously at the scoreboard to confirm. Yes, I was! 1:40! 

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” said Marie Curie. I think through swimming, I’m learning it. 

Now and Then by Abbie Pan

Honestly, blowing up another school is the last thing I wanted to do.

Well, some days I feel like my life is supposed to be different. Right now, I am literally feeling like I am the worst person in this world right now. Every time I try to be better; but sometimes, in fact, it always turns out me making mistakes. My teacher says it is good to make mistakes; but when I do, the teacher goes crazy mad at me. Sometimes, I feel like shouting at them. Should I? No I know that’s wrong. But if things continue to go like this, I’m going to go haywire. And I will show them what’s wrong and right.

Again it’s the next day. Things already feel like it’s the end of the world. Why am I supposed to be in this world? I don’t think I’m even supposed to exist! Here it comes…all it takes is a bit of courage, a bit of trust. “Again! Beth! What in this world are you doing! Stop messing around with glue! How should a high school student behave? Like this? Huh?” Ms. Helens said. “Even primary student can behave tons better than you Beth! If you continue to act like this, you will be expelled!”

“Uhh..uhh….I…, it wasn’t m-my fault! I swear!” I said, I already had a bad start how worse can this possibly get…

“Nonsense! Excuses! I’m tired of all of that! Celia, you are my evidence, what did she do?

“I saw her!” said Celia. “She was playing with glue the whole time!” Celia-the-know-it-all said. SHE was the one who was playing with glue! Why blame it on me? Celia did it not me! I wanted to say that. But I didn’t have the guts to. Why?? What is wrong with me? Am I just a mistake? If I had one wish, I would of course, yes, of course I would want to know if I was just a mistake. If life was meant to be. And, how could things change. Every day I feel like it’s the end of my life. Not just my life, like it’s the end of the world. At home, I know this might sound crazy but I always use up 20 minutes of my time at night, thinking about how life could change, imagining how life could be without all these disasters. Imagining about what there could be so much more to life. When I imagine about it, life is a miracle. But in real days of life, life is literally a disaster. Every day to me, all life does to me is things get worse, and worse, and I wonder how bad it can possibly get. That’s it. I want to protest. And in fact, I am going to protest. In my mind I know I am a brave, strong, and a confident girl. But now thinking in real life, what’s happening right now is I am sitting in a chair, the whole class staring at me and everyone was silent. Awkward. Speechless. Moment. Everyone was waiting for me to say something. I sat there silent for 10 minutes; I must’ve looked like a nerd. Should I just stay speechless? Play dumb? I have no idea! Help! In my mind, I had a million questions that popped out of my brain, which I am eager to ask; but this isn’t a good timing. No, no, NO. Beth, you can do this, I know you can, just believe in yourself, you’ll get it, I said to myself, but I just realized I said it aloud. Really loud. That interrupted the silence. And made things more awkward…

It was the end of the school day. But I was shivering. Tomorrow they will hand out report cards. I just don’t want my parents to see it. They will be so disappointed in me.

Great. It’s another boring school day-and worse than that, it’s the day that they hand out report cards! Reader, I swear I am innocent! You saw it, right? Oh no, oh no, oh no! Now what? Right now, I am sitting on a chair in the school bus, just wondering how my report cards would be like. No, I see it. I recognize this place. We’re close to school. Okay, Beth, you got this. You’ve been through many difficulties of life. Beth, you got this.

No, why are we at school so early?!? Even though the classroom was burning hot, I was shivering. There is a new girl in this class called Ashley and the teacher assigned ME as a buddy for her to introduce her to the school! Why me?? Why not someone else?? I thought I was a disaster?! Why did the teacher specifically choose ME?!?!?! Why?? Well, I mean, it’s not a bad thing (cause it might be a chance for me to make a friend) but still, I don’t understand why in this world would the teacher choose me?!?! Well, things are probably still fine, just live with it, Beth.

“Greetings my dear,” Ms. Helens said to Ashley, the new student. “Would you like to introduce yourself to your new classmates?”

“Sure! I’ll love to Ms. Helens!” said the new student in her cheerful tone, I didn’t really expect that she would react like that, I have a bad feeling about this, everybody would want to make a friend, just, so, like, like such a joyful person! How in this world would she be able to make friends with someone like me?!? “Hi everyone! Name’s Ashley, you probably know that already; I’m from Malaysia and was born in Switzerland. How about you my fellow classmates?” Ashley continued, going on, and on, and on. Two braids from her smooth, gentle hair tied in pink ribbons, just fitted perfectly with her crystal blue eyes and her sweet smile. I didn’t really pay attention to anything she said, cause I was both nervous and excited to be her buddy.

“Thank you my fellow classmates,” Ashley said. “Nice knowing you all now.“Ding-dong-ding-dong, ding-dong-ding-dong!The bell rang. It was time for recess, Ashley walked up to me. I shivered. I tried my best not to hesitate. And for the first time, I smiled. “Hi, um..uhh…”

“Its Ashley,” Ashley said in a polite smile. “You?”

“Beth, I am. Ms. Helens assigned me as a umm..you..uhh..you know.“

“Yes, my friend. So…um…” Ashley chuckled. “What’s first?”

“Oh, uhh…f-follow me, we’ll be um..uhh- heading to the cafeteria.“

Ashley just nodded her head and gave a sign for me to lead on.

Together, we headed to the cafeteria. Things were pretty fine, to be honest. I quite like that Ms. Helens chose me to be her buddy; not that bad after all. But suddenly, a bad thought struck my mind. I began to sweat. What if my other classmates tell Ashley bad things about me? What if Ashley starts to like the other people more than me? What if…what if Ashley thinks I’m too shy? No Beth, stop thinking about this, you’re making things worse. You got this, Beth. I showed her around the place and we shared secrets and jokes with each other. We had fun going around the school and talking to different teachers. The day past quickly, unlike other days. We had the same CCA’s. When we were about to get dismissed, Ashley whispered something to me: “Come to my backyard tonight, promise me you’ll keep it a secret. If you need me, just call this number,” Ashley scribbled her telephone number on my wrist. “Good luck.” And without saying good-bye, she went on the school bus, not waiting for me.

When I got home, I carefully took out the report card. Without reading it, I took a pen, and signed it myself. That was the only thing I could think of, or what else could I possibly do? I put it back in my backpack,  making sure no one saw me. Then, I noticed the scribble that Ashley wrote on my wrist before dismissal. Should I go? Part of me was like ‘no, it’s too risky.’ Another part of me was like ‘you must go, it’s an offer from your best friend.’. Both sides echoed in my mind. It was such a headache. Then, I tried my best to get rid of the headache. But my heart decided to go find Ashley.

I packed my phone and a small mini notebook and a tracker to see how far I am away from home. I called Ashley. There was no answer. I used the tracker to tell where I was, I continued to bike straight ahead. Yes, I eventually found Ashley’s house. I tried to call Ashley again, still, no reply. I knocked on the door; and the door somehow creaked open by itself. Wow. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What I saw was a beauty. A tremendous 8 level floored mansion with a small fountain in the middle of the ball room or something; it was incredible. Then, I turned my head, wondering where Ashley was. But the mansion was empty.

I walked upstairs to see if Ashley was there. But it was completely empty. Did I enter the wrong house? No, it can’t be. Where is Ashley??? That was the thing that echoed most in my mind.

Suddenly, I found a hole in the middle of the mansion. It was deep- I couldn’t even see the end of it. What could it possibly do? Isn’t that suicide to- no, don’t even thinking about it, Beth. Headache. Again. My head was aching worse than last time. I was too busy trying to get rid of the headache I tripped on something, and let me fall down straight in the hole. It was a deep fall. It felt like an hour or something dropping down there. I landed straight on my back. But it didn’t hurt at all; don’t ask me why cause Idon’tknow why.

I managed to stand straight and balance on my feet. I turned my head and saw the same Ashley I knew.

“There you are!” I said, and ran over to Ashley and gave her a big hug, and squeezed her tight.

“You found your way,” she sounded impressed or something. “Perhaps you’re wondering where you are?”

I stopped hugging Ashley. “Yeah…where are we?”

“I always had a question in my mind, you ever wondered what nowreally means?”

“What?”

“Now is what is happening this instant. Now is the feeling of this instant.”

“Now, is the time when you feel is most important.”

“Now is this moment, this time, this feeling, this place. We all have different now’s.” Ashley continued. “What is your now?”

But my now, was the feeling to have a friend like Ashley, it was a dream come true.

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