☆Make ‘em Proud☆

Made By

 Jane Sawyer

The referee’s whistle blows. The crowd goes silent, all Eyes on me. It’s a one point game and we need that  last point. It took me a bit but I finally threw the ball into the air and hit a deep corner. Everyone’s quiet, the line guard looks at the referee, and nods his head. It’s all up to him . He looks like he’s standing on a throne, kinda like he has all the power. He puts his arms out and blows the whistle. I got the winning point. I look in the crowd and see my sister, the one I’m playing for.

    “This is for you” I mouth to her

      “Thank you” she mouths 

I smile slightly, still sad she’s going back to the hospital tomorrow. My whole team is cheering me on and saying “ Oswald high school forever!”

 I smile at them as they crowd around me. It’s making me very claustrophobic if I do say so myself, but it doesn’t matter since I got the point for her. My sister has had Astrocytomas (brain cancer) since she was 9 years old. She’s been living with it for 2 years now and it has brought our family to Chaos. Mom started her old habit of smoking, and dad is just. Dad’s just not doing as well as he used to be before she developed cancer. But it was just how it always is, them fighting over small things. Stupid small things.

“Why did you make JayLynn walk to school yesterday?”

“Its 70* out Martha, She’s fine. She’s still alive isn’t she?”

“How dare you speak to me like that david!”

“Well sorry you can’t drive your own kid to school!”

Like I said, “Stupid small things” but it doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is that Maddie’s getting better. She got diagnosed on 5/07/2020 it was 1 month after her birthday. She passed out at school at 10 in the morning and no one could wake her up. Not even the teacher could get her up. I was still in the school at the time so they called me down immediately to try and get her awake. The police, hospital,and my parents were called. The paramedics arrived first and then my parents after, the police arrived 15 minutes after the secretary made the call. 

I swore when I saw her lying at her desk and I held her hand. It felt Cold. When the paramedics got there I wouldn’t let them take her away from me, so they had to wait until the police came to restrain me. A 14 year old girl in a private school made a fool of herself in front of her parents. I was so disrespectful to them and everyone else. I was in the fight,  flight or freeze mode and it chose to fight. The police took me to my parents, flailing my arms trying to get out of their grip so I could see my sister.

 I looked over my moms shoulder since she’s so short and I saw my sister being put into the back of an ambulance. I cried harder than I’ve ever cried before. It was about 5 hours later that she got an MRI when she finally woke up right then and there in the front of the hospital my dad finally couldn’t hold back anymore ,and brokedown. I couldn’t tell what it was from . If it was from the bleach on the floor which was his least favorite smell,or the fact his youngest daughter got diagnosed with cancer.

It’s the next day now and my snapchat is filled with snaps from my friends and VB team. Everyones congratulates  me for the serve I made and then I smell the air just to smell pancakes, the best smell in the world.So I get out of bed and get dressed into a fluffy pair of pants and a big sweatshirt. I brush my hair and that’s when my father calls from downstairs. I stop brushing my hair and say to myself “it looks good enough” before I go downstairs and eat the delicious pancakes.

I get downstairs to see Maddie there and I ask her“How did you get here so fast?”I asked smiling

“You’re too old to run fast anymore!” She replied, making me laugh. 

I go over to the table and sit down. My father asks me “why is your hair such a mess Lynn?”

I look at him with a puzzled look and ask  “What do you mean?” 

He laughs and points to the bathroom”Go get a good look at yourself!” 

he says in a playful tone. So I got up and went to the bathroom and shut the door behind me. 

My strawberry blonde hair and light green eyes staring back at me from the mirror.  My bruises from past volleyball games on my arms, and legs basically all over my body. I look at my wavy hair all the way down to the middle of my back and notice how frizzy it is. I use my brush to comb it out, and get it straightened out. After I do that I head out to see the most delicious pancakes in the whole world. They had chocolate syrup, strawberries,and little bites of banana on them too.

I sat down to eat and get a big whiff of this amazing smell. Then those beautiful pancakes sat down right infront of me. I swear I was drooling but they looked delicious. How could I help myself? After my dad passes them around he sits down and we all dig into the exquisite food. My dad only makes this type of food for maddie never me, Whenever she isn’t here i usually just have a slice of toast, or a small bowl of cereal.

After breakfast I clean up the food by taking them to the sink and rinsing them off, so there’s nothing on them. I put them carefully down in the sink and go back to the table. “So Maddie has something to share with us?” 

My father says smiling and anticipatingly. Maddie then stands up like she’s going to make a huge announcement. 

“The doctors  said they can cure me with Mitotic and topoisomerase inhibitors or whatever they call it. They said it would be around 20,000 dollars but I knew you guys had enough money, so I signed your names on the sheet to cure me!”  The room went so silent you could hear mom and dads worry in their heads.

“What’s wrong guys? I can be normal again!”Mom and Dad exchange worried glances. “Of course honey!” Mom has such a worried tone, and Dad has his head in his hands. All of a sudden dad stands up, shoves his chair in and walks upstairs at a quick pace and slams his door to his bedroom.”David.” 

My mom says and goes  after him. I’m just in the dining room with Maddie. She looks at me confused. “Did I do something wrong?”

She asks in a meaningful voice (for once). I didn’t know what to say. If she was being sincere or not.

My mom finally came out of her room “JaeLynn go to your room, im taking Maddie back to the hospital. I’m going to have a little chat with her on the way there.”

 she said. And at that moment, I knew Maddie wasn’t just getting a “Little chat”. So I did as she said, and went up to my room and shut the door behind me. Immediately after I do that, mom starts calling out Maddie. I can barely hear anything, everything is muffled

I look around in my room. The same baby blue walls with green paint splatter on them. I see my white desk,made out of wood with the same green paint splatters. Then there’s my trophies. From my newest one all the way to my first one I got when I was Seven. Such a memorable moment. It was when I got to state for my outstanding performance. I was playing with kids that were Eight and Nine! I felt like such an outcast in that group. 

I was practicing with my team in our personal gym and I was in fourth spot and my friend Maggie did a perfect set for me while she was in second spot and I put that ball in the best deep corner. I think that was the best one my coach had ever seen, especially from a 7 year old.  She was so impressed by me she got me a little statue of a girl spiking the ball over the net and the wording on it said “#1 spiker”, and she gave maddie one that said “#1 setter”. That’s how we became best friends.

She goes to the same highschool as me and she’s on my volleyball team. We’ve been friends for about nine years, soon to be ten. She’s a year older than me, but she got held back for ripping out a kid’s hair in 2nd grade so me and her got in a class together. She scared me at first, and even the teacher was scared of her, but I was her only friend and it was like that forever. We’re in 9th grade together now and I’m 15 and she’s 16.

I get dressed into a pair of pjs and scroll on my phone. I look at the snaps from this morning. Some of them are congratulating me, others are just streaks. I continue to scroll on my phone until my bestie texts me. It’s always bad when she texts first. Bc that means she isn’t tired and we’re going to stay up the whole night talking.Im already tired so i don’t answer her, just for both of us to sleep well tonight. She texts me 

“Nice corner you hit today. I’ve been telling you for months you need to teach me how to do that 😭 😭 😭“, I laughed at her remark, tempted to write back.I smiled at her text then put my phone on my night stand i looked at my easel and i went to clean it off.

After i got my easel cleaned off i looked at my cats food bowl noticing it’s empty. I look around the room and notice I can’t find her. I shrug it off and go in my closet for some cat food. I get the cat food and pour it in her bowl. She always stays in my room.Everyone knows not to let her outside into the wild. Ecsp-ecialy from the Tuna incident. When I was about 10 I got a cat named tuna. He was the best cat I could ever ask for. 

One day Tuna got out of my room.  I don’t know how it happened but he got out. My sister was about 3 at the time and Tuna was scratching at the door to go outside. My sister could actually reach the door handle to let him outside. So she did and shut the door after he went out. My mom was driving me to school at the time and my dad was working in his office since he is a work at home dad. 

He didn’t even notice the door open. It was about 7 hours before I came home from school. We live in the country so it takes longer to get there. When I got home I went to my room and called for Tuna. But he didn’t answer. I particularly thought he was sleeping under my bed, so I didn’t think much about it. 

I filled up his bowl since he always came running to the food bowl once he heard the food against the metal bowl. This time he didn’t come so I looked everywhere in my room. I went downstairs to ask my dad if he had seen him.

 “Dad, did tuna come out of my room today?” He just shooed me out of the room. I guess he was on a business call or something. About an hour later mom finally pulled into the driveway. I ran out in tears.”What’s wrong JaeLynn?”

she asked in such a calm tone “Tunas missing” By this point I was sobbing. She hugged me. 

“He’s probably just in your room somewhere sweetie”

“No mom, he’s not in there, I checked everywhere!”

“Its ok let me rest then we can go look for him” 

“Mama you don’t understand!”

She ignored me and went inside. I followed after her looking everywhere in the house. Looking in the kitchen, dining room, maddies room, and even my dads work area. My dad wasn’t thrilled when he came back to see his room messed up and everything disorganized. Maddie kept following me around the house and saying stuff like “Tutu” , what  she called Tuna.”Kitty”, and  “out out” non understanding what she meant by that but she always said that when she was waiting by the door.

I looked everywhere and I tore up the house. Me and my family came  to an agreement that  Tuna got out, and that my parents wouldn’t be able to trust me with a cat for a while. It wasn’t until a year later when maddie finally fessed up and told us that she let tuna outside, and that she didn’t feel bad about it since she never liked that cat anyway. 

I got so furious at her I yelled at her for days, and she was only 7. I got so angry at her while we were in this quarrel when she teased me about “Not being able to function my emotions”, or something stupid like that. I punched her in her side, and she still has a little scar from me to this day.Lets just say she never came into my room and never touched my cat again. The only time she did is when we got Cookie, my new cat. We got her last year after me and my parents had enough money.

Cookie is a Main coon ragdoll moggy. She has a light brown fur color with little black circles all on her fur. Her fur is super soft, and relaxing to pet on stressful days. I got her 1 year ago when she was still a kitten. She’s always been in my room, and she’s never left my room once. Cookie gets home sick when I leave for school, so she’s always happy when I come home. She would always meow at me, rub against my legs, and bats at her food bowl. Somehow she never got fat. I feed her so much that sometimes I think she will explode!

I hear my mom get back and slam the door.

“David, get out here now.”

“Yes matha?”

“That brat actually signed both of our names on the paper, and now we can’t get them off.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Does my face look like it’s kidding?”

“No martha it doesn’t”

“I’m shocked you’re not even angry. She is your favorite after all”

My dad just stormes back into his room furious. I don’t hear any arguing after that so I think it’s safe to come out of my room. I  open my door and shut it quietly, so then they don’t hear it shut. I slowly make my way down to the kitchen noticing no one is there. I go to the cabinets and pull out some cereal. I pour it into a bowl, and go to get some milk from the fridge. I open the fridge door and notice there isn’t any milk, but i can just eat my cereal without any milk

I take my bowl of dry cereal up to my room to eat it. I don’t have a spoon or anything but cereal is cereal with or without the spoon. I sit on my bed and eat my cereal just scrolling through my youtube feed. I finish my cereal about 10 minutes later, but when i finish it i put down my phone and head back downstairs. I go to the kitchen and hear my dad working in his office with his door shut. I don’t know where my mom is, but I suspect that she’s probably in her room watching a new show or something like that.

I rinse out my bowl and head back upstairs to go snuggle with Cookie. I get to my room and sit on the bean bag chair in front of my bed and turn on the tv right in front of me. I watch a movie and Cookie lays on my lap petting her. She’s purring so loud I feel like the whole room is shaking. Her purr only lasts a few seconds before she jumps off my lap, and jumps on my bed. I look at my clock on my wall and see that its 11:00 p.m. I turn off my tv, and get dressed into a silky shirt and a pair of matching silky shorts. I brush out my hair, and get into my bed. I turn to my right side, and fall asleep.