Together is the Best Place to Be

  Joelle stepped out of her car, grabbed her backpack and walked into Clinstine High School. She walked through the school grounds looking for Sophia, her best friend. Sophia is super competitive and athletic, but underneath that, she is super caring. 

  Normally Soph is in the grass finishing homework. Joelle looked everywhere, and couldn’t find her. She made her way through the crowds at the doors, and once she started walking to her locker she saw Noah.

  “Hey, Noah!” she said, trying to get his attention. 

  Noah was one of her friends from 2nd grade. Their older sisters were best friends, so they knew each other pretty well. In middle school they got teased for being friends, and it got a little awkward for them. Joelle had long brown hair, and a beautiful complexion everyone was jealous of. Noah was tall and had blond hair, he had a funny personality (unless he was hungry). 

  “Hey, what’s up?” asked Noah.

  “Have you seen Soph?” I asked “I can’t find her anywhere”.

  Noah looked around. He shrugged, “Sorry,” he said. 

  Joelle sighed, and made her way to her locker. She put her books in and saw something on the bulletin board. “SENIOR MUSIC COMPETITION” the paper screamed, “ calling all seniors, we want all the musical talent we can get. Winner wins a college scholarship to Smith Anderson University”. Joelle started at the poster. Her family wasn’t very wealthy, and Joelle absolutely loved music. If she could get this scholarship, it would make her family so proud. 

 That night Joelle and Sophia facetimed about the competition. They decided to do a group entry. They wanted to write their own song. They both LOVED singing, and sounded great together.

 “Do you think that Noah and Mason will mind?” Soph asked.

 “Nah,” Joelle replied, “they will survive”. 

 The girls laughed for a little bit and got a little sidetracked.

 Mason was their other friend, he is super kind. He was also super smart, and got bullied for it a lot. Mason didn’t mind, he had been dealing with this kind of thing for a while. Although he was smart and kind, he was also REALLY good looking. Mason has so many attributes to him, and lots of people get jealous. 

 The girls were so excited for their song. It was hard to believe that they were graduating school soon!! Whenever one of them brought it up they would jump up and down and celebrate. All of a sudden, all of the bullies, bad teachers, bad grades, all of it in past years, seemed like it didn’t matter anymore. 

 The two days before the music competition the hallways were buzzing with excitement. Joelle and Sophia had their song written and ready, it just needed some polishing, then it would be perfect. When Sophia was walking to English, she overheard some friends talking. “ I am so sad that we can’t do group entries,” said one girl, “I know, we could have had the perfect entry, because I have…” Sophia stopped listening, she ran to the other side of the hall to look at the poster. They were right. It said, “Single entries only due to limited scholarships”. That seemed dumb, but Sophia understood. She still couldn’t believe it. Thankfully, recess was next so she could tell Joelle, Noah, and Mason then. Mason and Noah were so supportive of them. Soph could not believe it, she could not concentrate in English at all. Every day after school Sophia and Joelle had worked their tails off to create this entry.

 Sophia was so nervous to tell Joelle. Joelle has a history of not reading all parts of a poster, or all the directions. It came time to tell Joelle.

  “Hey Jo,” Soph said, trying to get Joelle’s attention.

  “Yea?” Joelle said, “Oh, and I had an idea for the third verse of our song…”

  “Um, about that,” Sophia said, interrupting.

 “The poster said only single entries are allowed to enter,” Sophia explained “I heard some girls talking about it earlier today.”

 Joelle was shocked. Sophia felt bad. Tears sprang into Joelle’s eyes.

 “I know it's a lot to take in, but I think we can work it out.” Soph explained.

 “This was important to me!! I didn’t do it just for fun.” Joelle yelled. “My parents worked so hard night and day for me to even be here right now!! I needed this Soph, I really needed this” Joelle said as she walked away. 

 Noah saw Joelle running down the halls with tears in her eyes. He ran after her,

 “Jo!! Stop,” He exclaimed. “Hey, what is wrong?” He said embracing her. 

 Noah has always been there for Joelle, and Joelle was so thankful.

 Soph just stood there, and tears sprung into her eyes too, this meant a lot to Joelle. Mason walked over and asked what was wrong, Sophia couldn’t talk, so she walked away. Mason stood there, he decided he needed to find Noah. 

 After looking around, Mason finally found Noah. 

 “Hey, sup’?” Asked Mason

 “Bro, girls are confusing,” said Noah.

 “What happened? Soph just ran off after I asked what was wrong.” Mason explained.

 “They figured out that the competition was only for one entry,” Noah explained.

 “And the scholarship was very important to Joelle because of her situation” Mason realized.

  The girls were so confused and thought about it all of the rest of the school day. Joelle called Sophia that night to apologize about what she had done at recess. They cried for a little while together, and brainstormed together. Little did they know that the boys had an idea.

 The next day the boys pulled a few strings, and were ready to go.

 “You know Jo,” said Sophie “ I have been so busy thinking about the competition that I forgot that prom and graduation is right around the corner!!”.

 “Yea, I guess so.” sighed Joelle. She couldn’t really think about anything else. 

 After lots of thought and tears, the girls decided to not perform in the competition.

 The night came and everyone was excited. There were lots of people buzzing the seats and props. Joelle and Sophia were disappointed about the whole situation. But they were also glad that they got to come, and have fun with each other. The girls were having fun watching the competition when the next entry came up.

 “Hey, Jo,” Soph whispered. 

 “What?” Jo answered.

 “The boys are gone.” Soph said.

 They looked around and figured they went to go meet friends, or they went to the bathroom.

 The next person came up, it was MASON with his guitar!! Noah was on the side.

 “Huh?” Jo was confused.

 “This song is called Prom, written by me,” Mason said, smiling.

 He started playing and it was beautiful, a fuzzy feeling went down Soph from head to toe. Mason started playing, it was a song to ask Soph to prom!! It was the most beautiful song anyone had heard. Soph loved dances and was so happy that she just got asked out. Joelle was so happy for Sophie. 

The night came to an end and the winners were announced 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place got a scholarship. Third place goes to ‘Dance in the Dark’ by Alisha Waymer, everyone clapped, second place goes to ‘Prom’ by Mason Dereks, Sophia was stunned and happy, the girls clapped and whistled and they were so happy. The announcer stopped, “Although Mr. Dereks won second place, the scholarship goes to Joelle Aberney!”. Joelle froze. Noah came over and picked up Joelle and brought her up to go get her scholarship. It was over too soon, but the moment that lasted was worth it for the world. First Place went to the best musically-talented student, James Dewight.

That night was the best night of Joelle’s life. She would never forget it, and Mason and Sophia were so excited for prom. Joelle asked Noah and Mason how they pulled it off. 

 “We knew that we couldn’t have a group entry, but we could still please both of you if everything worked out” Mason explained.

 “Mason was trying to figure out ways to ask Soph to prom. And we talked to Mr. Mike, to see if the entry placed, the scholarship could go to you. Mason and I already have colleges figured out, as you probably already know.” Noah added.

 Joelle jumped into Noah’s arms with tears in her eyes.

 “Thank you so much.” Joelle whispered into his ear.

 Then she gave Mason a hug. Sophia was also in tears, she was so happy. 

 Prom came around, and Sophia went with Mason with beautiful matching outfits. Joelle and Noah went together. They mostly hung out all together, until the slow dances came on. 

 Joelle went to go to SAU for college, and loved it. Her parents were so happy for her. 

 One day Joelle was shopping, and saw Noah. Most people normally don’t recognize their highschool friends at 24 years old, but Joelle did and so did Noah. They talked forever, and then they started dating. On one of their dates, they saw Sophia. This seemed impossible, all of a sudden they had met again, then found Sophia. Sophia was already married to a man named Joseph, and she had two kids. Joelle was so happy. Mason had gone on to be a lieutenant in the military. These friends were childhood friends, grew up and became strangers to one another, and then were reunited.