Friendly Retribution

Written by, Derek Chow

You can feel the excitement in the air,

The joyous feeling that is rare,

Students whispering, telling lies,

Students fainting, having cries…

The one last day is finally here,

Some of us need to wipe back a tear,

For the last day of junior high has come,

For parents, beer-drinking, wine, and rum.

We sit in the assembly, row by row,

All facing towards the important show,

And slowly he calls us up by name,

The first ones walking the walk of shame,

For the paper has a certain rule:

First students up with the best grades in school,

The others find it quite a joke,

The first ones up are the nerdy folk.

On a normal day I could care less,

I’d have a fun time giving guess,

Except on this day things aren’t fine,

For on the list I’m number nine.

The feelings of nervousness and worry,

Make my vision of the room quite blurry,

I try not to think of what they’ll say,

When they find out I’m nearly first today.

Will they mock me? Joke and leave?

Make fun of how I achieve?

My friends would never do such a thing,

Then the sound of his voice makes a sting,

I slowly walk up from the aisle,

Thinking up ways to reconcile.

The stares of the general student crowd,

Do nothing as to make me proud,

The silence of the grave like room,

Like walking right into my tomb,

No whispers sound within the halls,

No comments, talk, or friendly calls,

Just walking to the far off stage,

Like a man walking into the lion’s cage,

I take the diploma from his hand,

And that’s when someone takes a stand,

Way out there in the distant row,

He makes his small speech loud and slow,

Of how I worked hard to get up here,

Other things I didn’t hear,

And slowly the other ones rose high,

Like clouds moving into the sky,

And soon enough it began to sound,

The clapping echoing all around,

I walk back to my row feeling tall and proud,

With the cheers of my classmates roaring loud,

The euphoria of that happy day,

Made me realize in a way,

That I should have given a glance,

And not have gone off into a trance,

My good friends would not have betrayed,

The one that had given them all their aid,

In the unknown world of school and law,

The new world which we’ll melt and thaw,

Now that we’ve ended middle school,

We’ve decided to follow a newer rule,

We’ll try our hardest, never fail,

Running through the flames and hail,

And when we find we need to stop,

We won’t let the other drop,

Staying together keeps us strong,

If you say otherwise, then you’re wrong.