I wake up tiredly to the alarm clock on my phone playing my favorite song, which I know one day  is going to get old. As I try to unlock my phone I look around at my room and think to myself “this is going to be another school day,” feeling both annoyed and excited at the same time. I then shut off the music that I think is waking everyone up since it’s blasting in my ear, by doing math problems to unlock my alarm, which is going to take a while, but as soon as I solve them all correctly I then slam my phone back onto my desk from where it was charging and walk to the bathroom.
“This floor is freezing,” I say once I walk into the bathroom lifting up my feet, pretty high so each foot could wait for a while before it touches the floor again. Our bathroom has marble tiles along the walls the color of sand with a glass shower and a white rectangular tub. The sinks are bowls that aren’t dug inside the counter they’re above the counter. As soon as I splash the cold water on my face I say  “Whoah, this water is freezing who would ever use this on their face just to make the pimples go away, I don’t care it’s too cold.” I then look in the mirror to see my teeth clattering and my lips as pink as roses, I grab my face towel and dry my face as quick as possible, the towel feels as warm as something that just came out of the dryer.
My room is a large space almost filled up with everything pink. The thing I cherish the most in my room is the window seat, it has a pink cushion to sit on, drawers full of books to pull out from when you’re bored, and white curtains coming down from each side of the window. My view is of my favorite park filled with cherry blossom trees and a little white fountain located in the middle of the park. I have a daybed across from my window seat with  white curtains coming from the ceiling connected down to my bed.
Once I walk into my room I hear my sister’s alarm clock go off, she usually takes a while to actually get up and shut off her alarm clock, so I walked up to her door  and open it  loud enough so she can hear and say “Esmeralda, Esmeralda, ESMERALDA it’s time to get up it’s already 6:30.” Esmeralda is my 15 year old sister who is in the 9h grade and has a fashion of her own. She doesn’t like to wear brand named clothing or cut her hair so it’s blondish brown and really long. Unlike most people at my school she doesn’t care of what others think of her and when she eats she’s always doing something weird.
“Okay, okay,” she says as she poked up her head from her canopy bed,  the pillows looked like they were swallowing her up. I ran back to my room and slipped on the outfit I picked out to wear yesterday and then went downstairs to eat breakfast.
“Esmeralda, can you wake up Mami,” I say and Esmeralda yells back “ Yeah sure, why not.” I then hear my moms door open and my sister say that it’s time to wake up. After that I hear both my mom and my sister start to get ready.  I start to make breakfast on our new island that is located in the middle of the kitchen.
“What’s for breakfast?” My mom asks while she is coming down the stairs, “Mmm it smells so good, but what is it?” I look down at my tomato basil omelette that smells like it just came from an italian breakfast diner.
“Oh I just made an omelette for myself, would you like one?”
“Yeah sure, please make one for your sister too so she can hurry up.”
My moms name is Claudia and she is  only 42 years of age and looks nothing like me, well at least I think .She can look like my older sister sometimes, since she has not a single wrinkle or a single strand of white hair. She works as a bilingual manager at  at the St.Michael hospital, since she speaks both spanish and english she gets a lot of people to come there and people who recommend her to those who have just come from the spanish speaking countries. She doesn’t have a large Colombian accent but you  can hear a couple of words that don’t sound correct.  Although she works at a hospital she isn’t a doctor or nurse, she just comes to people when they need help and she also helps design the hospital with my uncle to make it look friendly to all ages. She’s known all around town and everyone at my school goes to St.MIchael’s hospital when they get hurt, so they mostly always see my mom.
“Wow, this is delicious,” both my mom and sister say as they eat their omelette. “Okay, can we leave now?” I say as I’m just watching them eat taking their sweet time. “ Not  until I finish my coffee,” my mom says. As I look over to the table that has her coffee on it  I can still see the coffee cooling down.
When I stepped out of my house and into the sunlight I saw a cherry blossom fall off of it’s tree and onto our lawn. As I was studying the cherry blossom that just fell, I feel a light tap on my shoulder, “Are you okay McKenna?”
“Yeah I’m fine, the cherry blossom just caught my attention because of it’s different shades of pink.”
“Wow how can you even notice that single cherry blossom out of all of them on our lawn?”
“I don’t know, let’s leave now sorry for taking up time” I say as I cross my arms. Sanders was usually a 15 minute ride, but my mom always drove so slowly, she tried putting on makeup at every stoplight, and there was so much traffic or kids crossing the street slowly. If you didn’t notice I like to be on time a lot, so I’m usually rushing my family around, except this morning didn’t count since the cherry blossom caught my attention.
On the way to Sanders we always passed by my favorite park, it was filled with cherry blossom trees and had a beautiful white fountain of an angel playing a harp and the strings being water set on top of a flower bed. The thing I loved most of the park was the lights that came only at night and how the park always smelled of fresh lavender. I  always came here, mostly when I didn’t feel so good or  just  if I wanted to hang out with friends. My father used to take me here when I was younger,  but that was before he had this job where he has to travel everywhere.
My father was only a few months older than my mom and he is in Italy right now taking some time off of work since our great-grandmother is sick.  I can still imagine him vividly when he walked through the front doors on Christmas Day,we were all very surprised, even Mom didn’t know he was going to come. We  mostly only see him on holidays and sometimes on birthdays, but on birthdays  he usually sends us gifts with a card saying that he wishes that he can be here with us. But, we all really do miss him after all of the time he has spent away from us.
“See you later Mami, love you pick us up at 5:30 today because we have soccer,” I say as I walk out of the car.
“Remember we have to go to a dress fitting after school for Esperanza’s Quinceanera,” my mom says and while I’m closing the door.
As I walk  into the front doors of the school, the smell of something burning hits my nose as I walk in and all of a sudden I hear the fire alarm go off. “Are you kidding me, I just have to put my stuff in the gym and put my bag down in my class then I can come out,” I say as I think outloud to myself. I start to turn back to walk to where my advisor group has to meet for a fire drill and I see one of my friends Isabelle.
“Hi,McKenna, someone burnt something downstairs in the cafeteria while they were trying to make themselves breakfast and burnt whatever they were trying to make,” Isabelle says once I turn around and start to walk towards our meeting spot.
“Okay thanks,” I tell Isabelle when I think back to myself “did I really have to take so long looking at that cherry blossom, I could’ve just come at least 10 minutes earlier.”As soon as we get there I see Stella all alone looking around confused.
“Hi Stella,” I say once I get close enough for her to hear.
“Oh thank goodness you’re here, I do not want to talk to anyone else in the advisor because they’re just annoying,”Stella says while gasping for breath from talking so quickly. I smile back to her while trying to stand straight with my heavy backpack on my back and my heavy sports bag in a hand. The wind starts to pick up very quickly and my hair is blowing  everywhere into my face,onto my back, and then cherry blossoms start to fall since the wind is blowing so hard.
“Hi Small Stellie,” I hear from behind me, I turn around to see Lexi one of Stella’s best friends standing behind me.
“Hi Lex,” Stella says as she pushes right by me. The two of them start to giggle away and tell each other secrets that were confidential and no one else can know them. I feel  alone just looking like a lonely person, so I try to join their conversation, but they either ignore anything that I say or take a long time to answer my question. It was okay though because I just looked for someone else to talk to I then  look to my right to see my crush just arriving to the meeting point with one of his friends. His name is James and I always thought I saw him staring at me from the corner of his eyes.I always readjusted my hair if I saw him look directly at me. Which when he did I would always pretend that I didn’t really care or that I somewhat kind  of didn’t like him.  His hair was a light brown and his eyes were as green as a granny smith apples. He’s 13 like me and just a little bit taller than me, which makes it perfect for me. 
I then see everyone start to walk back into the building and everyone will go back to their usual daily routine. I then jog a bit up to the front of the crowd where I see Bec and Isabelle talking,”Hey girls, I was actually going to be early today at 7:45, but now I bet it’s already time to start classes, and I won’t be able to put my bag in the gym.”
“Sure, just say that,” Isabelle says with a sarcastic expression on her face. Bec just looked at me with an awkward expression on her face, smiling with her red and blue braces. We then went our separate ways to our homerooms, even though both Bec and I were in the same homeroom we went up different stairways to get their. As I went up the stairs I saw James in back of me just looking up at me, once I saw him I started to skip one step as I leapt up the staircase to the third floor.  I was always first when they called us for attendance since my last name was Andrews, it’s not an italian last name but it came from my great-grandfather's last name and he was from Ireland. As soon as they called the last person for attendance we walked to first period. Today for first period I have English. English is my most favorite subject, I think of it as where you can write anything you want and whatever you wrote can be seen in different perspectives. We just finished reading a S.E. Hinton book called “Rumble Fish,” it’s about gangs and it keeps you on the edge of your seat. Last Thursday we watched the movie, my class didn’t really enjoy it, I secretly loved it!
The day went on until it came to my least favorite subject History,  the other day we just handed in a project and a paper based on a book we read. I worked really hard and stayed up late on the project.
“Hi, class today I will be handing you back your projects and papers, the highest grade you can get on the project is a check plus plus and I felt very generous while grading the projects,” said Ms.Nguyen . At this point I was feeling overconfident saying to myself I’m going to get a check plus plus. As Ms.Nguyen handed out the projects I wait patiently to receive mine, my friend Bill across from me get’s a check plus and he looks back at me and says “That’s still good right?”Ms. Nguyen starts to walk back to her desk and I raise my hand and say “Excuse me, Ms.Nguyen I didn’t get my project back,” I say nervously waiting to get it back. Once Ms.Nguyen handed me back my project, I looked at it with a big smile on my face. Then my smile starts to fade, I had gotten a check on my project, I feel like I’m about to burst into tears and my eyes get a bit watery.
“Okay, everybody I’m going to split you into three groups for the three colonies,” says Ms.Nguyen, everything else is a blur for me and all I know is that I have to move to the other side of the room where my group is. I walk over to the desk with a tablet arm grumpily and I realize that it’s one of those wobbly desk that wobble every time you move. I then drop my supplies on the floor loudly to show that I’m angry and with that I accidently dropped my paper that has all the information with what we are going to do in class with my supplies.
“Nathalie, can you please pick those up for me,” I say in a whiny voice, I guess she didn’t hear me so I reach down to get the paper. As I’m leaning over the desk, with my hand on the ground reaching for my papers I lose my balance and suddenly I fall onto the floor and the desk falls on top of my right wrists.Everyone is staring at me, asking if I’m okay, and I get up as quick as possible and say that I’m okay, but as I look down at my right wrist I see a big purple line across my wrist.
“Natalie, can you bring me to the nurse,” I say in tears and sniffling. During the time we walk to the nurse, Natalie is just rubbing my back telling me she hopes that I feel better. When we step into the nurses office the cold air hits my face and it smells of cough drops and medicine.
“What happened?”Is the nurses first words she says to me as we walk into her office. Did I not mention that to get to the nurses office you have to walk outside and go through the gym,  where most people see you crying when you’re walking through  the school. I try to explain what happened, but I can’t even talk because I’m crying so much, so the nurse told my friend Nathalie to go back to class and for me to take deep breaths. I then tell the nurse what happened and how much my wrists hurts, so then she calls the personal athletic trainer. He then comes and moves my hand around and asks if it hurts and I say yes to every way he moves my hand around. He then tells the nurse to give me ice and put my hand in a sling so I wouldn’t have to hold the ice with my other hand.
“You can go straight to lunch, since this took up most of your history class, McKenna,” says  the nurse. The nurses know me so much, because I’m always going to the nurse when I’m getting hurt. I’m very clumsy, if you didn’t notice and lots of people call me clumsy because I’m always falling or getting hit with something. As I walk out of the gym my sniffles come back and my eyes once again start to get watery.
“McKenna, are you okay?” I hear everyone saying to me as I try to walk to the cafeteria without anyone noticing me. I say to myself “McKenna look for one of your closest friends.” I walk to the cafe and find Isabelle.
“ISABELLE,” I say in tears and I give her a great big hug. I remember then how much Isabelle has been there for me and how much of a good  “cousin” she is. I also remember how much my wrists hurts and I feel like it’s about to fall off. As I hug Isabelle, I feel my wrist press against her and the ice putting more pressure on my arm since it’s pressing on her.
“McKenna, what happened?” Isabelle says  looking directly at my purple wrist.
“A desk fell on it,” I say in a wobbly voice with tears streaming down my face pointing down at my right wrist. I feel extremely sensitive at this point, while the other people in line are just looking at me like I was some weird person.
“Isabelle, I’m going to get my lunch box, save me a seat outside,” I tell Isabelle as I start walking off.
“Whoa, McKenna, what happened?” says a group of girls coming to get in line for food. I hear Isabelle say to them “NOTHING” from a distance.
As I’m walking up the stairs with tears running down my face I see James look directly at me and then back to the stairs as we walk right past each other. I get my lunch box and then walk down the stairs going outside. I see Bec and Isabelle waiting for me sitting on  the wall with everyone else eating their lunch.
“McKenna!” says Bec as soon as I get to the wall and then she throws an arm around me.
“Isabelle told me everything, plus everyone is talking about it,” says Bec. I don’t even feel in the mood for eating, right now.
“I, I got a check on my history project that I worked so hard on,” I tell both Isabelle and Bec, I then feel like more tears come down and run inside to get tissues. Isabelle and Bec follow and say it’s alright and that they didn’t know that right now I’m very sensitive. Once the tears stop coming down my face we come back outside.
As usual I put my lunchbox on the left wall, so I can grab it while coming back in from lunch and then James says to me, “McKenna, what happened?” I just walk back to Isabelle and Bec with my head facing the floor. When I got back to the wall I see Stella look up from her food and smile at me, but I just went back to talking with  Isabelle and Bec, remembering what she did to me this morning of just talking to Lexi pretending that I wasn’t even there. The rest of the day went on with everyone asking me what happened and I told the same story every single time, “ A desk fell on my wrist.” In last period where we usually have a free period to just do our homework, I think to myself, “How am I going to play soccer like this?”When I walk out of the building starting to go to the gym where the nurses office is, I see lots of friends walking past me looking straight to my right wrist and then they would  say, “Is it broken?” I think to myself, “Well I haven’t been to the doctors  yet and it kind of hurts, well I mean it really hurts, so no it’s not broken.” Once I’m walking to the gym my mind wanders off to what my sister is going to think of this, what my dad is going to think of this, and scariest what is my mom going to think of it. They’ll probably think “wow this is a clumsy girl” and I know that they’ll have a laugh when they hear what happened. As I enter the nurses office, the first thing she says is, “How’s the wrist, I called your mom and she says that she is going to take a look at it.”
“It’s okay, um I was just wondering to myself how I will play soccer with a sling on an..” but before I can finish my sentence I was interrupted by the nurse saying “Yeah, me too I can just wrap it up for you, if you’d like.”
“Okay,” I reply reaching out my right wrist to the nurse. For some weird reason I like to feel the pain so I was hardly dabbing my wrist so it can hurt even more.  As she is wrapping it up she says to me to go to the physical trainer once I get to the farm. The farm is where we have all of our sports field. When you probably think of a farm, you’d think of chickens, horses, and other farm animals, but our farm is nothing like that. It has a field house, lots of soccer fields, a cross country trail, baseball field, softball fields, and field hockey fields. Lots of my friends play soccer, run cross country, or play field hockey. I’ve been playing soccer since the fifth grade so I wouldn’t be too great except that I made A team which is at the top of the soccer teams for middle school girls. Both Isabelle and Bec play soccer and they’re on A team with me which is kind of nice.
As soon as the nurse is done wrapping my wrists, I say thank you and go back to my free period for homework. I couldn’t really write with my right hand to do homework, so I just sat there looking around pretending to look like I was doing homework. Once it was about 2:50  I got up, got both Stella and  Bec we’d I changed into our soccer outfits. We didn’t like to be rushed and go straight to the locker room to change because that would take forever.I guess Stella was on my good side because I forgave her for this morning, I would’ve done the same thing if Isabelle or Bec came. When we came back to class everyone was already packed up so I just shoved everything into my backpack and raced to get to the first bus.On the bus all I heard was  Stella calling me crippled and saw Bec playing on her new phone. She was sitting next to Esperanzas soccer coach, Coach Mike, because there was no where else to sit. He looked at me and said, “Hi, Esperanza, didn’t you like that drill we did last Friday, it was very difficult for some people, but I think you did pretty well. What happened to your arm?”
“Sorry, I’m not Esperanza I’m her  little sister McKenna and a desk fell on my wrist,” I tell her coach who’s staring right at me. I knew that I would get a little laugh from that and I did, but he asked me “How did a desk fall on your wrist?”
“It’s a long story,” I say tiredly because I told the story to everyone already.
Lots of people say say that Esperanza and I look alike, well we do look alike except that my hair is lighter, I’m shorter, and I play more sports than she does. We get confused often even by our teachers.
Her coach then stares out the window awkwardly and Bec says “ McKenna, you and your sister look nothing alike.”  The bus then pulled us next to the field house and we all loaded off quickly. When we were walking down to the soccer field we passed the girls field hockey field and the girls junior varsity and varsity field. I can never play field hockey because it looks like you’re always having to crouch down with your stick and run after the ball. As we get to the field I saw some girls sitting on the hill putting on their soccer gear, while I put mine on already on the bus ride, so I was ready to start running once the coaches get here. The sun is hitting my face making me already sweat although I haven’t made a single move to start soccer.
“How long is it going to take unti…” Bec says as she is about to complain but the coaches are walking towards us from the other side of the field.
“Okay, I want two lines and you’re going to do two laps, one indian run and one jog, after split into your team do stretches, A team after your stretches do suicides,” shouts Coach Linda. We all make an exhausted face just thinking of how much running we are about to do. I always like to peer up with either Bec or Isabelle, but Isabelle likes to run in the back with Nathalie. The team and I start to run, our legs getting pumped up after each step we take. If you run our field four times it’d be a mile, so right now we’re running about a half of a mile.
“Go,” says the two captains of the A team as we run our indian lap, so that means that the people at the back of the line have to sprint up to the front and it goes on until the people originally at the front sprint up back to the front. I don’t know why, but usually in one corner of the field it always smells like hay or smoke. When we finish both of the laps we do our stretches which is mostly for our legs but we also do planks, butterflies, or touch your toes.
“Okay, girls let’s run our suicides. You’ll go the penalty box, back, midline,back, and the whole field, back,” hissed one of the 8th grade captain naggingly. I run as fact as I can, but by the midline, I’m as tired as a sloth. Instead I just jog with everyone else, while I see some of my friends including  Stella and Bec racing to  get to the end of the field. When they pass me,I’m only getting to the end of the field.
“Hurry up girls, faster,” shouted one of the girls who already finished doing the suicides and on sipping her water angrily. Today I played pretty good for someone with a wrapped up arm, we didn’t do much drills, we did fun runs around the cross country field which wasn’t too fun. When practice ended I raced Becand Isabelle back to busses to see Esperanza and her friend Leslie loading on the bus.
“Oh great, we have to be on the bus with them,” I tell both Bec and Isabelle, as I look back at them. As we walked on the bus Stella, Bec, Nathalie,  Isabelle, and I started a conversation about how much work soccer was today.
“Oh my gosh McKenna, what happened to your arm, Michelle said that you broke it,” Leslie questioned, with a surprised expression on her face.
“A desk fell on it,” I say with a smile on my face showing my pride about being injured.
“That’s what you get,” Esperanza nagged looking out of the window.
“How rude,” I say and go back to talking with Stella, Bec, Nathalie, and Isabelle.

“That color looks beautiful on you, Esperanza,” my mom whispered, I heard from my dressing room as I slipped on a baby blue dress. I was going to be one of Esperanzas quinceanera maids ( that’s kind of like a bridesmaid except that it’s for a quinceanera). The only reason I wanted to be a “quinceanera maid” was that so I can get my hair and makeup done and be in lots of pictures.
Esperanza was wearing an aquamarine colored dress, that made her look like a fairytale princess from a book that toddlers read and after saying, “I want to be a princess.” The theme of her quinceanera was the World Cup. That means that in the bathroom there would be the fancy soap that was carved as different little things that would be at the world cup. Esperanza’s quinceanera was going to be on November 22, which was about two weeks about. Today we were just checking on the dresses making last minute selections.
My dressing room itself looked like it was in a french boutique, it had shades of pink wallpaper, with a chandelier drooping down from the ceiling, and best of all it had a humongous mirror. I didn’t really like looking in a mirror because I would see all the flaws in my face, but that was okay and some days instead of having a bad hairday I would have a bad face day.I looked at myself in the mirror and say to myself wow, I really like these colors, that Mami and Esperanza picked  out. I then walk out of the dressing room to show both Esperanza and Mami. I was wearing a teal colored dress because Esperanza also likes the rainforest too.
“McKenna, you look just like your sister from when she was 13 like you,” Mami says looking at me.
“Yeah, I really like this color,” I say agreeing with my mom. There was one thing that I needed to tell my mom though, I had to go to my first Bat Mitzvah on the same date as Esperanza’s quinceanera. Of course I knew that I had to make it mandatory to go to  Esperanzas event, but this would be my first Bat Mitzvah. This was no random Bat Mitzvah, it was one of my best friends Bat Mitzvah, Laylie Aaron. We’ve known eachother since we were in nursery, except  we were separated when she came here to Sanders in the third grade, she was like another sister to me. Instead of calling her Laylie I just call her Leah for short and she calls me Kenna. Other than  not staying close friends we always met at my favorite park on the 15th day of every month and go out to get strawberry lemonades with extra cherries at our favorite cafe. That was when we weren’t busy, and if we did have to reschedule we would meet the next weekend after. We’d also spent a lot of time together in the Summer because none of us were busy, so we went down to the beach and we went on vacation together.Right now Laylie was out of school a lot because she was studying her hebrew for her Bat Mitzvah in Florida where most of her family was.
“Hey Mami, um Laylie’s Bat Mitzvah is on the same day as Esperanza’s quinceanera and you know how much Laylie is a friend to me and all,” I say very slowly as my mom interrupts me.
“Don’t worry, Laylie’s mom and dad have talked to me and we are having both of the receptions in the same country club,” Mami says with a grin on her face.
“Even though that is happening, you still have to be at my quinceanera for most of the time,” Esperanza replied ruining the moment.

The same morning routine goes on again, I wake up, brush my teeth and wash my face, wake up my sister, get ready for school, and make breakfast for everyone. Also over the two  last weeks whenever I come out of my house a cherry blossom falls right in my path and I always get stuck staring at it.
“Last night your father called and he said that you great grandmother was healed with special antidotes including a cherry blossom, McKenna, what a coincidence since you always get stuck looking at a cherry blossom when we step out of the house.”
“You’ve noticed?” I say dumbfounded.
“Get in the car, you astonished girl, we’re going to be late to both school and work.” As I sat in the car I stared out the window and wondered how my day going to go. By the way that wrist incident, we just found out that I sprained it, but it’s healed by now, since that happened about two weeks ago. I also started thinking about how Laylie’s Bat Mitzvah was on Saturday and that Esperanza’s quinceanera was on Saturday also.
“See you ladies at 5:30,” Mami says softly as we arrive at school and exit the car. Esperanza and I usually like to walk in together, she usually has a lot of bags to carry so I help her bring them to the gym, where I also put my soccer bag. Now that I think about it soccer season was almost over and our tournament is on Friday, which means that we would get a really really early dismissal(12:30). When I walk into school everyone on my team is wearing their jerseys. It looked like if everyone was crowding around someone, which means that there was someone important here today. I go to the crowd to see for myself and I see that Laylie was back from Florida.
“LEAH,”I shout in a high pitched voice.
“KENNA,” she shouts back to me, as she walks out of the crowd and gives me a hug.
“Guess what, K,” she says to me with a smile on her face.
“What?” I say with a questioned tone and expression on my face.
“James and I have been talking and we want to get back together again,” Leah replied with an even wider smile. This can’t be happening, how did she even, how can she do this to me? 
“Oh, that’s cool, see you around,” I say as my smile fades out and I walk away.
“Kenna, sis,you okay?” Laylie asked with a questioned look.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell Leah so I can go back to my own world of when she was still in Florida.
“Don’t forget about the Bat Mitzvah, we can meet later today at that park you like to go to, to discuss about everything and catch up,” Leah screams down the hall as I walk up to my homeroom. Good thing I had a 12:30 early dismissal, so I wouldn’t have to deal with everything else, I think to myself. Once I entered my homeroom, the bell goes off.
“Right on time McKenna,” the whole homeroom says as they look up from their screens. Everything from right then was different for me, I saw everything differently.
“McKenna, can you please go get the attendance clipboard,” my advisor said. I don’t even reply and start to walk out of homeroom to go and get it. In the hallway I look through the door window to see Leah and James talking and laughing at each others jokes. Isabelle and Natalie walk right past me and say hi, but I don’t even care to notice. Once I’ve already got the clipboard and went back to homeroom, I say “Boys aren’t important, I’m only in the middle school, what good are they going to do?” I guess that made me feel alot better because I was really enjoying my day. In english I got my poems back and my teacher said I did really good on them and that I didn’t need to change a thing. In science I got my test back and I got a 98.5% on it which made me excited. In Spanish class my teacher told me that I was doing a terrific job and to keep up the good work. In my last class of the day because of our early dismissal I had Math. I wouldn’t say that I am a mathematician, but I got lots of homework back and got lots of check pluses. By the time I look over to the clock it says 12:30, “oh great,” I say as I raise my hand as high as it can go. Right now we were about to go to Lunch, so on my ways to the gym slow students will slow me down by walking slow and chatting to friends on their way to get their lunch.
“Yes, McKenna?” Ms. Viveiros says  as she looks over to me.
“Um, I have early dismissal today for our soccer tournament an…”
“Oh, yes, please go, WIN,” she replied interrupting my sentence. I gather up all of my stuff and rush out of the classroom, all the way to the locker room. Once I get to the gym where the locker room is my teammates are saying, “McKenna, hurry up, Mr. Hank has to take a picture of the team, and Mrs. Linda is looking for you.” When I get to the locker room it smells of Bath & Body works mixed in with sweat. I then hold my nose and slip my spandex and shorts on then my shin guards,socks, and cleats, since I already had on my jersey from wearing it all day. I run out of the locker room almost trip down the stairs and get outside just in time to get in the picture. I don’t really like my smile because lots of people say that it looks fake. I don’t know any other way to smile because when I smile I only show my bottom teeth and my lip covers my top teeth, so I pretty much look like a cow ,I don’t like grinning because that just makes me look like an idiot.
“McKenna, where were you, you were supposed to come out at 12:25, not 12:30 on the dot, that’s the time we have to leave at,” Mrs.Linda scolded me as we disassembled from the picture.
“The tournament doesn’t start until 2:30, though,” I say with a little bit of attitude. Isabelle is just looking at me motioning with her fingers tsk tsk.
“Wow Mrs.Linda, look who has the attitude again,” Isabelle says looking at me. Isabelle and I always kidded around with each other because we thought it was fun. As we loaded on the bus I sat across from Isabelle in front of Bec and behind Lexi, so we can all talk. Most of them were also friends of Leah, but not as good friends of both of us.
“Is anyone going to Laylie’s Bat Mitzvah?” Bec questioned with a smile on her face.
“Kind of,” I say with a grin on my face looking back down to my hands which looked dirty from all of the running around I had to do.
“What does that mean?” Stella said with a confused look on her face.
“Well, Esperanza is having her quinceanera on the same day, but the” I was interrupted again by Isabelle.
“So basically, you’re not going,” Isabelle says sarcastically.
“Let me finish, Esperanza and Leah, I mean Laylie are having both of their receptions in the same country club, so I will be able to go running back and forth between the two.”
“You and Laylie are very good friends I see,” Stella says trying to brag.
“Yeah we’ve known each other since nursery, and we meet at my favorite park or call each other and hang out with each other a lot in the Summer.” The rest of the ride was quiet, everyone just put on headphones and listened to their music until coach said it was time to get off of the bus and keep the legacy of winning live still in Sanders. My sister and her team won this tournament and the Sanders teams before her since 2000, so we were feeling a bit pressured from the alumni’s that are going to be watching the tournament. In the tournament we would have to play four schools, which meant four games, but play five games to win the championship.

The tournament was once again another championship win, but it was a bit tricky. Anyways when I got home it smelled like popcorn and pizza and Leah was at my house watching movies with Esperanza before both of their big days.
“Hey Kenna, your sister and I are just watching  movies before both of our big days, you can join us if you want, but first you have to take a shower and put on pjs because you're all sweaty and dirty.”
“I just got home and I need to eat dinner before I do anything, so just calm down,” I reply feeling super annoyed by now remembering earlier today.
“What’s her problem,” I hear as I am walking into the kitchen. On the island lays two boxes of pizza, one hawaiian and one plain cheese. Both of them are half eaten and I wonder how much food can these people eat. Well Esperanza gets hungry quickly, even after she eats a whole Thanksgiving meal, which I don’t get because she is skinny. Leah is the same as me, she eats more only because it tastes good and the weird thing is that when she’s done eating she complains that she’s too fat even though she and I are both in good shape.
Hawaiian pizza was my favorite, I just liked how it was both a combination of both ham and pineapple. I used to give the crusts to our dog Stanley, but he died about a month ago. He was an old golden retriever who was only a puppy back when my mom and dad got married.
“Kenna can you pour me some strawberry lemonade,” I hear from the living room.
“Yes sure, Esperanza would you like any too?” I ask with a pleasant tone. When I bring them their drinks they’re watching Titanic. I don’t know why people still watch that movie because it’s kind of old, but it was Esperanza’s favorite movie to cry to. Tonight my mom was at some meeting with Leah’s mom at Sanders. Once I took a shower and put my pj’s on I come downstairs to watch the movie, but while still on the stairs  I hear Leah and Esperanza talking about James. 
“Oh great,” I say to myself then coming to a running start to the living room and flop onto the sofa where Esperanza and Leah are sitting.
“Hey Kenna, we were just talking about,” but before they say James I ask when Leah was going home to get ready for her big day tomorrow.
“Don’t be rude, she is our guest tonight, so, we were talking about,” please don’t say it,please don’t say it, “James.” After that I was silent and just watched the movie when any of them asked me questions I just nodded my head a little or just shook it with a slow head movement. My mom came back home around 9:15 that night and she came in laughing with Laylie’s mom. I got tired of everything that was going on at 9:30, knowing that tomorrow was going to be a long hard day.

I wake up to the sound of an alarm clock at around 5:30 in the morning. Already I hear my sister and mom walking around talking to each other really loudly and then they say, “Where is McKenna?” I try to look like I’m sleeping when they come in, but what’s the use, it’s Esperanza’s big day. Today I knew that Esperanza was going to get royal treatment, which I knew was going to be unfair.
“McKenna, go brush your teeth and get ready we have to go to the hair salon, and that’s going to take around two or three hours,” my mom says with a loud voice to make sure I’m awake.I get up and go exactly to the bathroom and once again the floor is super cold and once again the water on my face is also super cold. Everything was a blur so once I noticed what I was doing we were at the salon and the hairdresser was washing my hair. My hair is really easy to do except it can give attitude when it want too. The hairdresser was speaking in spanish gossiping to all of the other hairdressers that my hair was too tangled. Once after she finished washing my hair she got a blow drier which of course was going to make my hair frizzy and make it look like a poodle. Don’t get me wrong my hair wasn’t curly and all, it was just different. I felt kind of bad since my hair was taking so much time, now Esperanza’s hair was going to take forever. Her hair was the same color as mine accept it was much bigger and it was frizzy and curly, I wonder what the hairdressers were going to say about her hair.Esperanza wanted some weird hairdo for all of the maids to all have, it had to do with lots of straightening and curling.I guess before getting to the hair salon we went to get some donuts for all of Esperanza’s fourteen friends that were also getting their hair done. We always got our donuts from a donut shop called Angelicas Donuts, it always smelled like sweets and fried butter in there and it was painted all pink which is what I really loved about it.  The baker loved us she was one of my mom’s closest friends and she has known us since we were young.

I take the mirror from my hairdresser, as she hands it to me.
“You look gorgeous, hija,” I hear from behind me.
On the other hand I think: the beauty mark above my lips makes my hair look like it shouldn’t be blondish brown. Once I sit down to wait for everyone else, I see my dad walk in with a tan looking like the sun ate him up and threw him back out.
“Dad,” I yell as I jump out of my seat into his arms.
“Hi honey, you look pretty,” Dad replies looking at me.
“Don’t I always?” I say with a questioned smile on my face.
“Isn’t Leah’s Bat Mitzvah today?” Dad asks when he put me down.
“Don’t even get me started,” mom turns around in her styling chair. About a half hour went by and all I did was look through magazines, looking at how much drama was going on with the celebrities nowadays. The hair salon smelled a lot like Head & Shoulders shampoo. All I heard was the hairdressers complaining about how much hair they still needed to do. Under my magazine I only saw hair fall to the ground.
“Hey, paparazzi time to get back home and get ready for the quinceañera,” my mom suggests as I looked up from the magazine.
“Okay,” I acknowledge, I stood up trying to not get my hair messed up. Walking to the door was hard, Esperanza’s friends were giggling in a huddle with all of the same hairdo.
“Ladies your moms are outside see you later,” my mom grabs everyone's attention in her Colombian accent. Soon in the car we wait to see everyone else leave before we get to drive home. I don’t see why we did that, because that took about ten minutes of our time. The car makes me feel sick because it felt like a never-ending roller coaster that would come to a screeching halt. When we passed the park I saw that they were having an event for veteran families. It was filled with red, white, and blue balloons; there were lots of people standing in a crowd around the stage. All of them wearing a yellow shirt representing the light and faith they want to give to their family and friends overseas.
“McKenna are you excited?” Esperanza broke the silence asking me.

“I guess,” I claimed. I was actually feeling a bit tired thinking ahead. Meanwhile we pulled up to the house. I felt lazy saying to myself, “I could be here all day instead of running around, being just the other child.” That was a bit mean to say since it was my sister's big day. Later on I found out that my mom and Leah’s mom weren’t at a meeting for school they were double checking on the country club. When we entered the house it smelled like smoke.
“Anyone home?” my mom asks as she entered the house. There was no answer so she started to look around. I don’t think she noticed that it smelled like smoke until about two minutes later. After Esperanza and I went up to her room to start to get ready and to gossip about how annoying some people were.
“Girls, is anyone doing anything that has to do with smoke or fire?”
“No” we both reply back. Esperanza and I both hear mom walking into the kitchen with her big high heels.
“Girls, don’t worry it was next door they’re having a cookout, isn’t that funny it’s autumn and they’re having a cookout, in the cold,” my mom says as if it was the funniest thing she had ever saw. I jumped out of Esperanza’s bed and ran down the stairs to see what was going on. On my trip down the stairs I saw the Sun peeking in through the window from the stain glass window making everything look blue and green, this made me good inside.  Mom said that we left a window in the kitchen open and the smoke came through our window making everything smell like smoke. My mom aired it out trying to get the smoke smell out. Suddenly the door opened starting to once smell again like thick smoke. I walked out of the kitchen to see who it was, wondering why we left the door unlocked.  I could hear my heart pounding like it was about to come out of my chest. Right before I had gone to bed Leah and Esperanza were watching a scary movie that was meant to play with your mind. At the beginning of the movie the trailer said to never leave the door unlocked because you never know who is on the other side.
“Ken who is it?” my mom yells from the kitchen as if she was yelling at an airport.
“I don’t know, I’m still walking to the entrance to see who it is,” I reply back trying to spill out all of the words as quickly as possible.
“Why do you take so long?” my mom screeches impatiently.
Once I get to the entrance I see a dark figure  in the doorway holding objects in its hands. My heart was now about to fall as if I was on a rollercoaster. The figure started to turn and I felt that I needed to be on my toes in order to run away.
“Hi Mickey,” says the figure as it turned around. I still couldn’t make out who the person was, but it sounded familiar. Mickey was a nickname for me, the name brought back distant memories of when I was in church getting water poured over my head and then someone who looked like dad and smelled like cologne wrapped me inside of a blanket. My mom comes walking right behind me being too impatient to see who it was.
“Hi Leonardo,” my mom says normally.
“Who is Leonardo?” I ask my mom in a polite term.
“You don’t know who your own grandfather is when you see him?” Later on I found out that he came all the way from Italy to see Esperanzas quinceanera.
“My little Mickey you’re all grown up, I have come for your sister’s coming of age. What is it called again?”
“Quinceañera,” my mom answers nodding.
“What’s in your hands, let me get that for you,” my mom says reaching for two wrapped boxes in his hand. My grandfather looked like my father a lot, just an older version of him. He was wrapped up in a trench coat; underneath the trench coat he was wearing a suit and tie. His skin was the color of a corn tortilla but a crispy one since Italy gave him a natural tan. From right behind my grandfather came my father walking in in an identical outfit, my grandfather and my father looked like twins at the moment.
“Ladies hurry up, it’s around eight in the morning and the limo is coming around nine thirty, so let’s get a move on,” my dad says trying to hurry us up. I gave him a hug and ran upstairs to get ready.

When I passed Esperanza’s room she was in her aquamarine dress looking at herself in the mirror. At this point I saw how much we looked alike and said to myself if that is what I’m going to look like when I’m her age I guess I’ll be pretty with a little critiques here and there.
“How do I look?” she asked while looking at me through her mirror.
“You look like a million bucks,” I reply back being jealous of how pretty she looks.
“Thanks now go get ready, we’re going to be late to my own quinceanera,” she answered shutting the door in my face.
“So much for that,” I say as I walk back to my room. When I entered my room it smelled a lot like my moms perfume which I knew was about to make me feel sick. Don’t get me wrong it smelled good sometimes, but not all the times. I went to my closet to get my dress which was on a hanger in a bag. As I pulled it out I saw all the material that was in the dress and the different shades of blue in the dress. While putting it on I heard the door opening and closing downstairs, I knew that my cousin would be coming because she is an expert at doing makeup. All I got for makeup though was mascara, moisturizer, and lip gloss. I counted how much the door opened and close and it was about twenty times. Once I finished slipping on my dress I looked into the mirror to see how much of Esperanza I looked like. I did feel like I was missing all the fun downstairs because  I heard a lot of laughter and “oh she looks like a model.” Which I knew that they were talking about Esperanza because almost everyone says that she should be a model even random strangers who we have never met would stop us  and tell us how much she looked like a model. I thought that was a little creepy though, how strangers would tell us that.  I knew I had to steal the spotlight so I came downstairs to almost see about thirty people in the living room. Most of them were the parents of Esperanza’s maids and all fourteen of her maids were already in their dresses getting their makeup on.
“Here comes little Esperanza,” I hear when I am coming down the stairs. Everyone stops from what they are doing and turn like they are about to see someone famous. The room is quiet and everyone is looking at me as if I had something that they all wanted.
“Come over here Kenna, I’m ready to do your makeup,” my cousin Tyishia says while sitting there waiting on her stool.
“Not trying to be a brat or anything but this would’ve been better to do before I put my dress on,” I say with a polite voice.
“Yeah, sorry about that I came here a little late,” she replied back. As she said this she wiped a cold and wet wipe over my face. Time goes by and as soon as she finished my makeup the limo arrived to pick us up. It was really fun to come out my house with a fancy dress on because then all the neighbors would be watching wondering where could be going or what are we doing. I did see  The limo was really big on the inside it had lots of lights that changed colors, this was my first time ever in a limo.
“Don’t you just love this limo,” I say once we are all settled in.
“It’s not a limo, it’s a hummer limo,” one of Esperanza’s friends replies with a an attitude.
“Sheesh,” I say loudly. To drink in the “hummer limo” was bottled lemonade and sparkling cider. I didn’t really like sparkling cider, but I wanted to feel fancy drinking it in a champagne glass. At this point I was wondering where Mom, Dad, and Grandpa were, I was feeling a little nervous about their whereabouts. We pulled up at the church with the photographer waiting outside to get our pictures. Right about now I was wondering how Leah was doing at her Bat Mitzvah. Last night while I was in bed I left my bedroom  door opened a crack, so I can hear what they were talking about. I  heard Leah telling Esperanza about how she thinks I’m mad at her, but she doesn’t know why. All I know was that I couldn’t wait to show off my dress at her Bat Mitzvah because I knew mine was going to be better and also I can show it off to James.
I see Mom, Dad, and Grandpa waiting for us to all get out in front of the church. This wasn’t going to be a normal quinceanera because there wouldn’t be fifteen boys but only fifteen girls. In Moms hand she was holding the box of flowers and Dad was helping everyone get out of the limo. Grandpa was just greeting everyone telling them where to go to take the pictures.

I was handed my aquamarine roses and was told to walk down the aisle first, it was a little scary with all of the guest watching me walk down. What if I fell or tripped over the rug, that would’ve been the most embarrassing thing ever. I knew if it did happen that the story of me tripping over the rug was going to be told at all the family get togethers over and over again. I knew I wouldn’t be laughing with my family members I knew that I would just have a fake smile over my face and pretend nothing was happening. The church was packed with family members from both my mom and my dads side, a bunch of them had just come from Colombia and a bunch of them had just come from Italy. It was going to take a while since there would be fifteen of us walking down the aisle not including Esperanza.One of Esperanza’s maids was carrying down the aisle a doll that was like a miniature model of Esperanza. Lastly Esperanza came walking down the aisle with her big aquamarine ball gown dress with Mom and Dad as they got to the altar Esperanza faced my mom and my mom did the sign of the cross on her then Esperanza turned to my dad and he did the same thing of making  the sign of the cross. I ended up sitting all the way at the edge of the pew which I knew was unfair. All I got to see was a pole and half of Esperanza, while all of her friends were sitting there giggling who knows about what. The photographers were everywhere taking pictures I couldn’t even get a glimpse of Esperanza. I thought that was kind of embarrassing and annoying. The ceremony started off with Esperanza receiving  a bible wrapped in silk and once the priest indicated it he talked about the importance of the word of God in Esperanza’s  life. After that Esperanza left her aquamarine rose bouquet at the altar to symbolize  an offering and then Mom and Dad approached her at the altar. They then place a tiara on her head to indicate that she is a princess, the daughter of God and then the priest talked about the crowns that were mentioned in the bible. Finally Esperanza thanked our parents and talked about the meaning of her celebration. Lastly the priest concluded the ceremony with a final blessing.
Once the ceremony ended we came out of the church and spent about a half hour taking pictures. When we entered back into the hummer I took a little nap and a little break from all of Esperanza’s friends. “I couldn’t believe it,  Esperanza is a woman,” I heard all the way to the country club.
“Ladies we’re at the country club make sure to take everything,” the limo driver announces once we reach the country club looking through the mirror. Once again the photographers were waiting for us at the country club. I was sick and tired of them by now because they were always in my way while I was trying to look at something. When we finished taking all the pictures which was for about forty five minutes we got to go inside of the country club and relax. I sat at the bar and ordered as much strawberry lemonades with extra cherries as possible. After a while the bartender got annoyed and told me to go and enjoy the party instead of wasting my time out at the bar. As I walked away a bunch of my friends who were going to both the quinceanera and bat mitzvah greeted me and told me how pretty I looked. I thanked all of them and they told me that they missed me at the service and how much better it would’ve been at the service if I was there. My mom came out of nowhere and told me that all the guest had come and that they were ready to introduce each and everyone of the maids and lastly the quinceanera. I then told my friends see you later and walked off with my mom to the entrance of the party room.
“Here comes McKenna Andrews sister of Esperanza Andrews,” the DJ announces. Once I hear this I walk into the room holding my flowers and everyone is cheering for me. In the crowd I see a bunch of family friends, family members, and classmates including Leah. After I look at her I raise my chin high and act as if I’m better, I knew that was mean, but I had to do what I had to do.  While waiting for everyone else to be announced I think about what I just did and I feel really bad. I think about how Leah is like a sister to me and that I didn’t want our friendship to be like this. When the DJ finished announcing everyone we sat down at the main table and Mami and Dad made a toast by thanking everyone for sharing the time of the celebration. As soon as they finish Esperanza says some words of her own and this symbolizes the first words to her community as a young woman.  Once this is done we do the Last Doll ritual which is when Esperanza gives her favorite doll to me that represents that Esperanza is officially leaving childhood and is going into a mature phase in her life. As I look around the country club it had rose wallpaper with fancy chandeliers and lamps here and there. The cake was nicely decorated with a rainforest theme with lots of blues and greens it was four layers  of marble cake with whip cream in the middle of each layer. It’s nicely topped off with a doll that is supposed to look like Esperanza.
“Now we are going to do the shoe ceremony, Esperanza and her father may you please make your way up to the front,” the DJ announces. I then see both Dad and Esperanza make their way up to the front. Esperanza was then seated in a chair and Dad takes her flat shoe off and puts a heel on her. When they finished they started to do the father- daughter waltz. By now everyone was tearing up except for me because I didn’t want to get my makeup messed up. As soon as they finished I walked over to Leah’s reception.
“They’re outside taking pictures go join them,” Leah’s mom says to me as she greets me with a kiss on my head and telling me how beautiful I look.
“Thanks,” I reply back walking out of the reception room quickly and outside. I see everyone standing in front of the water taking pictures with the wind blowing in their hair.
“MCKENNA,” everyone yells as they all grab me to go take pictures with them. After we took a bunch of pictures we came inside and the DJ hosted. We had lots of fun because the DJ had us playing and dancing altogether. Stella,Lexi, and I were having the time of our lives until my mom grabbed me to go have at the quinceanera. Although I did get to bring a couple of friends over to have fun with me. Right now we are about to do the cake cutting, everyone was recording this special moment. I just wanted some cake and go back to dancing. Dinner that night was okay I had chicken parmesan and tried to not get my dress dirty. When I was eating someone tapped on my shoulder. As I turned around with spaghetti sauce all over my mouth I see Leah. I then turn back around to my food, wipe my face, and turn back around.
“Yes?” I say with a confused look on my face.
“I know your mad at me and I don’t want you to be mad at me on my own Bat Mitzvah day, so can you…”
“I know sorry I was mad at you I just wasn’t use to everything yet,” I say interrupting her. I then give her a hug and hope that everything was okay. I guess she bought it because she then had a surprised look on her face. We both walked back over to her Bat Mitzvah, once I finished my food and went back to her reception. We both went to the photo booth and took pictures together feeling like we were both movie stars. Once we came out of the photo booth I told Leah that I use to be mad at her for the James situation. Surprisingly she understood and told me that she would break up with him.
“Oh great,” I say to Laylie, both of our arms are crossed, we both see James coming our way.
“Hey Lay,” says James not even looking my way.
“I need to tell you something James, we’re over,” Leah says finishing it right there and we both walk away grinning at each other.
“I feel much better,” Leah says once we get to the dance floor. All the lights go off and the strobe light goes on and we start to dance with everyone having the best time ever. Over at Esperanzas party they were also dancing with music. The cool thing at the country club was that the wall in between each of the party reception  went up and we had a blast dancing with everyone. I then look over at my right wrist which looked normal, but didn’t feel too good. The best thing about parties was that I always really liked to embarrass myself, I didn’t care who was watching I just did cool moves that I would make up and everyone would copy me. Now over at Esperanza’s party the DJ called all of our attention to see what my mom and dad were going to give Esperanza. They handed her two boxes, one of them had been our grandfathers box because I remembering him carrying it and the other was from my mom and dad. When she opened the box from my mom and dad it had a beautiful necklace in it with a gold chain and a diamond, opal, aquamarine, and topaz  locket on it. The stones represented the month of all of the family’s birthdays.  The other box had a beautiful shawl in it that was said to have been made by my grandmother in Italy. I was also handed a wrapped box that also had a shawl in it made by my grandma and I first hugged it and then hugged my family members.
“Thanks for having us,” we heard from everyone as we greeted them as they left. Once we finished cleaning we went back home and I knew that there would be a lot of talk about today on Monday.