Chapter 1: Service Project

"Megan" someone whispered. I moaned but wasn't anywhere near ready to get up. "Megan!" Whoever was whispering was starting to get on my nerves. I felt something touch my shoulder. Great, now I was being poked.

"MEGAN!!" I shot up. I looked around to see my little sister standing on my bed. "MEGAN, TIME FOR SCHOOL!" O great, school. And to make it even better it was Monday.

"Amy, chill out, I'm getting up." I looked over at the clock and it read 7:00. I only had 20 minutes until my car pool came. It's almost like the only reason God put my 5-year-old sister on the planet was to get me to school on time.

It only took me 10 minutes to get dressed and ready. Since I went to an all-girls school I really didn't care how I looked. I went downstairs and my mom was there making me a bowl of cereal.

"So Megan, do you get your World History test back today."

"Uhhh…"

"I thought you said you did good on that."

"Mom, I have no idea how I did, I haven't gotten it back yet."

"Megan, if you don't do good on that…" I didn't hear the rest of her sentence because I heard a car horn from out front. "MEGAN!"

"Sorry mom gotta go." I was out the door in a matter of seconds throwing my laptop, book bag and purse over my shoulder. I threw it in the trunk of the car and hopped in the back seat.

"Hey guys."

"Hey, Megan."

Lucy, Elaina and Annie were already in the car, along with Lucy's mom. These were my dearest and closest friends that have been with me since Kindergarten until the present. You would not believe how excited we were when we all got into the same high school.

We were halfway through our freshman year at Saint Cecilia High.

When we got school I threw all my junk in my locker and went to find some people to talk too. My best friend Katherine was by her locker. We clicked the first day of high school. We had a TON in common. Besides the obvious similarities of likes and dislikes of certain things, we both had O.J.B.D. (obsessive Jonas Brothers Disorder).

All of our other friends think we're overly obsessed. That's totally true. We'd be sitting at the lunch table talking about the most random stuff and someone would say something about eating steak for dinner and Katherine and I would blurt out at EXACTLY the same time, "OMJ THAT'S NICK'S FAVORITE FOOD!!" Everyone else would roll their eyes and continue their conversation while Katherine and I would continue rambling on about the Jonas Brothers.

The first bell rang and it was time for homeroom. Lucy, Elaina, Annie and I were lucky enough to be in the same homeroom. When we got there, we took our usual seats in the back corner of the room so our homeroom teacher would notice our usual uniform violation i/e wrong colored socks, non-uniform sweatshirt; you get the picture.

When the morning announcements came on, we ignored them as usual and our homeroom teacher, as usual, tells us to shut up and listen but we, as usual, just keep on chatting.

This was what homeroom was usually like. Once announcements were over, our homeroom teacher took attendance and told us we had an assembly at 9:40 in the gym.

"Gross, I hate assemblies," Annie said aloud.

Our teacher ignored her and said, "This is mandatory and the attendance will be taken there since many of you think you can just skip them." Everyone looked over and Lucy and she started laughing.

At Saint Cecilia's, we have a block schedule which means we have a total of 8 classes, 4 on each day. So we have every class every other day for an hour and a half. It might sound horrible but I totally love it.

So after my first period class, which I had with Katherine, we walked over to the gym and found a seat on the bleachers.

The assembly was going to last for an hour. We had no idea what it was going to be about. Our vice principal turned on the mic and told us to be quiet.

"Attention freshman class, you are probably well aware that we that in order to graduate, you must have completed 100 hours of service. Considering that you're 1/8 through you're high school career, we would like you to get started on your service. We aren't asking you to go on a service trip or anything, just if you do service of any kind, write it down in the logs you will get tomorrow at homeroom. All you need to write down is what you did, how long you did it and you need a signature that shows that you really did do the service."

The rest of the assembly was just about different service opportunities Saint Cecilia's had to offer. Of course, we were encouraged to chose a different service if we wanted too.

The rest of the school day was a blur…mostly because I wasn't paying attention at all.

When I got home, I told my mom about how the principal wanted us to start our service. My mom immediately started listing service opportunities.

"OK so what kind of service do you want to do?" she asked.

"Uhh...I'm not sure yet."

"Well do you want to work with animals…kids…the elderly…?"

"O no, not kids. I get enough kids here."

"Babe, you only have one sister."

"And that is certainly enough."

"OK, so there's a nursing home about 15 minutes from here, South Side Nursing Home. My friend Connie works there and she could probably let you do service there."

"Nursing home, sure sounds fun." I really wasn't paying any attention. 100 hours, I could just do it all in a few weeks if I do a service trip my senior year.

"Ok, so I'll sign you up."

"Great, sounds fun."

The next day I woke up to my 5 year-old alarm clock. 7 o'clock as usual. I went downstairs to eat my cereal. My mom came down into the kitchen and said, "OK, so you have an interview at 4 so the Nursing Home can match you up with an elderly buddy."

I spit my cereal across the table all over Amy. "EWWW!!"

"NURSING HOME? WHY THE HECK AM I GETTING A BUDDY AT THE NURSERY HOME?"

My mom got a napkin and started cleaning off Amy's face. "You said yesterday that you wanted too, so I got you an interview. And it was very unnecessary to spit your cereal across the table."

"Sorry Amy, but I don't want to volunteer at a Nursing Home."

"I'm sorry honey, but I already scheduled the interview and you have to do it twice a week after school. All you have to do is hang out with your buddy for 4 hours and eat dinner with them. You'll be done with your service hours before you know it."

"4 HOURS!! That's a LONG TIME!! And why do you keep calling them my 'buddy' that sounds so weird."

"Well, that's what Connie said the program is called. The 'elderly buddy program'.

"O great. So are you going to drive me there after school today?"

"Yes, so try to get your homework done in your free period."

"Can do."

I heard Lucy's mom outside so I went out and had another glorious day at school.