“Ugh, an ‘F’ on the easiest test in the world, you’ve got to be kidding?” Becca stared at the paper with hot eyes, just the grade she needed a day before the report card! She hated school with all her heart, but she hated everything. One of the girls sitting next to her giggled at her bad grade. She wanted to slap her but she remembered what happened last time. She just tore up the paper on her neighbor’s desk without a care. The teacher sent her to the principal’s office, more bad news to bring home to her parents. The yelling and screaming never stopped at home. Not that Becca cared. “So ground me, not that it matters because my life is a horror movie. It wouldn’t make much of a difference!” Her parents started tearing up, this couldn’t be the truth, now could Becca feel that when it wasn’t the least bit true? She ran away fearful of what her parents might do. As she was running, she heard them whispering, talking about her. Becca lied in her bed sobbing and asking herself what has become of her, she didn’t understand why she was so upset all the time, it’s not like she always wants to be upset. She stared into her pillow. Regretting the words she had just spoken to her dear parents whom she didn’t mean to hurt, she knew she had to go and apologize to them. But she couldn’t, she was thinking about their feelings and reactions and just decided to leave them to mop up the mess that she had made. She felt horribly about it and wasn’t sure of the decision, but before she could even have time to think her parents called her back into the kitchen. “We need to solve this because it’s just not okay for you to feel this way.” Becca had no desire to solve this nor did she think anything she’d do would change it. Her mom wanted to tell her a story; it was about a girl and her life. In the story the girl had a lot of hardships in her life, but she almost always happy. Becca’s parents told her to think long and hard about the story and what the differences and similarities were between the girl in the story and Becca. Until she did, Becca was not allowed to have any bad thoughts or feelings and every time they got bad news about her doing something bad, they would punish her. She didn’t know if she could not do it but she was willing to try. Becca tried to put her front foot forward for every situation. It wasn’t easy, but she managed to pull it off. Her attitude made a big improvement. She pulled her grades up, was making friends, and was an all-around happy person. Her parents had a bunch of talks with her about how proud they were of he and how all she had to do was to try. She just had to try to look at things in a positive way and it made her feel better, and she was aware of it. Now Becca’s job was to figure out the similarities and differences between her and the girl from the story. She didn’t need to, but she thought that it would show her parents what she was capable of and that she cared a lot about her changing, which she really did. She wasn’t aware of the hardships there would be because she was happier, that because that wasn’t her life anymore it would be hard to compare them. She didn’t know what to do, it wasn’t like she could go back to being that sad person, she would be punished and her parents would be disappointed in her. Plus it’s hard to go back someone who you were in the past, it was hard enough for Becca already. But she was determined to do it for her parents, to show them how capable she was of doing this while becoming a different person, and she knew her parents would feel great about her changing, she wasn’t going to stop until she figured it out. Becca was lying on her bed and thinking about when she was sad and thought about what made her sad. Was it just everything? There had to be an actual reason for it though. She looked at a diary she once had, skipping through the pages and reading her feelings. She was amazed at how far she had come and how far she was going to go. She thought she was never going to figure this out. She kept on trying and as she went along thinking back to the actual time that she was reading. She remembered everything clearly as if it were yesterday, and not realizing it had been a couple months before. She slammed her book down and pushed her hands up to her face thinking as hard as she could, determined that it would come to her when it never would. She decided just to let it come to her because she obviously wasn’t going to figure it out by forcing herself to, so she threw her book into the fireplace downstairs, letting the memories float into thin air. One day Becca was at the movies with some of her new friends whom she loved and adored, she wanted to figure out the meaning of the story, but she wanted to have fun hanging out with her friends also. On her way into the movies she saw a little girl in a wheel chair with only one leg. Becca recognized this girl; she was the little sister of a girl who was in her class who died the year before. Becca remembered that the death of that girl had reminded her of when her grandpa died a couple years before, and when she started getting all depressed. She forgot all about that after a while and was just depressed without even remembering why. The little girl seemed so happy and eager to go into the movies, but it was just a movie, and how could this little girl with nothing be so happy. The question struck her as she walked into the theatre following her friends. As she sat down to watch the movie she was staring at the girl in the wheel chair coming in with her mother through the handicapped entrance, one of Becca’s friends nudged her on the shoulder and woke her up as the movie was about to start. She watched the movie in admiration, as it was adding on to importance in Becca’s day; it was about a girl with many sad and hard actions that kept on repeating themselves, but no matter what, the girl in the movie stayed strong. Now Becca understood why the girl wanted to see the movie so badly. It had to do with her life and possibly gave her hope that things would get better. She watched the movie that brought tears to her eyes and finally understood the meaning of the story in which her parents told her. There was no difference between that girl in the story’s life and her old life, it was just that the girl focused on the positive things instead of the negative and Becca used to do the complete opposite. When she got home, Becca crashed through the doors and shouted for her parents who made their way into the front hall to talk to their eager daughter. She explained to them everything that she had saw that day from the little girl to the movie and explained to them the discovery she had made. They were both proud of her and her accomplishment and showed her so with a big family hug. Then she explained to them how she thought she would’ve never figures it out because of how happy she had gotten, but finally managed to, then she told them about how she remembered what made her so unhappy in the first place. She told them about her grandfather’s death and how badly it affected her, but then she forgot all about it and was just unhappy. Becoming a happier person was something that would stick with Becca. She was proud of herself and ready to move on. “We knew you could do it Bec,” her parents had said, “We’re glad you know now and are better, but we want you to always remember and know that time as if it still exists.” Her parents where proud of her and had a long talk with her about how she changed and what makes her feel different. She told them about how she put her front foot forward and was careful about the way she acted, once she was able to control herself and her actions, she started to become a normal girl with normal friends and was better. Becca moved on and became a different person, but still looked back on that horrible time as if it were yesterday. She remembered the mistakes that she made and thoughts that she had, but always remembered that happiness came from being a good person. She always remembers that time though. 1 Angry Over Everything, 6-8 1