Her name was Laquisha Joe Beans. She had two teeth in her mouth, one pointed north, and the other pointed south. She had freckles all over her face, and if you didn’t know it,  you’d think her face was covered in dirt, besides the fact that all she did was play in the dirt. She was 3’8, and was the shortest of 55 kids in the 4th grade. Her hair was an afro of brunette ringlets, and they added a few inches to her height, so she definitely didn’t want to cut it.

She had 6 brothers. Their names were Jonny, Lonny, Tommy, Donny, Ronny, Monny, and Laquisha, the only girl, the youngest of them all. Laquisha wasn’t like most little girls. If you made her mad, she was like a fireball from the devil coming after you. She got in trouble almost everyday for making kids cry or giving them a black eye. At recess she would chase boys around screaming “WEDGIE TIME” and once she caught them you knew it was all over. Laquisha had only one friend. Her name was Megan Lee Jones. She was a very kind girl who always got straight A’s. She had gorgeous red hair that was almost the shade of a tomato and had bright blue eyes. You would never think they’d be friends, right? Complete opposites. But Megan had always been so nice to Laquisha. Megan was never scared of Laquisha and she never judged her for anything. Thats why Laquisha loved her so much. Everyday they would walk to Laquisha’s after school and they would go to the tree fort they had built in her backyard. Well kinda built. It was resting on a strong branch, but the fort was only a pallet sitting on the tree. Their plan was to fix it up that summer and make it so they could hide all their candy stashes and could spend every summer day up there together.

There was only 2 more weeks left of school and there was a big problem. Laquisha never did her homework. Laquisha was so smart, but she never wanted to do her work. The only reason she was barely passing was because she would ace every single test. Her teachers had told her parents, but her parents had already given up. Laquisha was on her own. She had no encouragement and everyone at home was always telling her she was dumb, so Laquisha saw no point at all in doing her homework. Her teachers told her that she would have to do summer school unless she all the sudden cleaned up her act, turned in 50 missing assignments for each class, and could bring her grade up to at least a b. Laquisha was mortified because she had been looking forward to doing her tree fort all summer and now she was gonna have to go to summer school! When Megan heard she was determined to help Laquisha as much as she could to help her get her grades up. Laquisha became determined and was ready to work as hard as she could to get her grades up as much as possible.

On Monday before school, Laquisha went in early to tell her teachers that she was willing to do anything to not have to go to summer school. Her teachers were surprised by her effort, but were very excited that she was willing to try. Her teachers gave her all her work and told her that it was going to be very hard for her to get this all done, but if she worked really hard she would be able to complete it! Laquisha started giving up all her recesses, and her lunch break, and started working morning and night to get everything done. Megan was also doing everything she could to help her whenever she didn’t understand something. Laquisha’s teachers noticed how hard Laquisha was working, but they knew she couldn’t get them all done with only 4 days left. Laquisha had already completed her 50 math assignments, but was just getting started on reading. When Friday came, the last day of school, Laquisha only had 21 assignments done for reading when she had needed 50 to pass. Her teachers knew how hard Laquisha had been working, but they didn’t know if it would be enough. Her teachers looked, and with 20 assignments it only brought her up to a high C. Although they had said that she had to get an A or a B to pass the class, her teachers decided to not make her go to summer school. They had never seen any student work as hard as her to complete something. They were even more surprised because she had no support coming from home at all.

Megan and Laquisha built their tree fort and it turned out amazing. They had stashes of candy everywhere, and it was by far the best summer they had ever had. Laquisha decided that she was always going to do her work from now on, and that she would never again have a missing assignment. Never give up on yourself, even if others have.