“Have a good summer!” yells the teacher as we all surge out the door.
“And don’t forget your report cards will come around the 4th of July.”
Everybody is crowding around the big door and struggling to get out first. During the chaos, I hear a text ring on my phone. It was from my friend Timmy. It read:
“What are you going to do this summer?”
I manage to reply, “Dunno what about you?”
As I walk down the street to my house my phone chimed again. I sigh as I saw the usual peace sign emoji my best friend always sent when he was happy and wanted to show off. I walk through the door of my house and shouted a greeting to my mother.
“Hey Jason how was school?” She yells while coming rushing through the hallways with a handful of towels. She dumps the load and came over to me and gave me a hug.  She was wearing an apron that smelled suspiciously like grilled cheese sandwiches and she looks at me with a look I got so much that I knew exactly coming next.
“Hey, when’s your report card coming? Sometime next week right?”
I sighed with despair since my mom is a total sharpshooter when it comes to grades as I know she will nag me for the rest of the week about how well I did. This was a normal procedure for me.
“But at least I should be grateful since I don’t have parents will ground me because I got a B,” I thought. I zone out while my mom drones on about how important grades are. I keep staring at the wall behind my mom's shoulder. …
“grilled cheese sandwich”
“Wuzzat”
She laughed and said “I asked if you want a grilled cheese sandwich. I nod enthusiastically and she tousles my hair and smiles. I grab my phone and head to the table as my mom pours me a glass of milk and plops the grilled cheese sandwiches on a plate. I check my texts and see that Timmy sent a picture of his plane ticket for Hawaii to me. I sigh with annoyance.
The grilled cheese sandwich was set in front of me and I took a bite, relishing the warm cheese while envying Timmy. I wanted to go to Hawaii my whole life and Timmy already had gone two times. The phone rings, I rush to pick up the phone, hoping it’s my dad telling us that we're going to BJ’s to celebrate the end of the year.
“Hello,” I say hopefully, my sisters’ voices reply. “Hey bro, tell mom to pick us up at the student parking lot will ya?” I tell her “okay” reluctantly and shout to mom to pick Jade and Angela up at the student parking lot. My mom hurried down the hallway and frustratedly kept on asking herself where her keys were. If there's one thing that would cheer up was that mom was going to give her annual speech about how important grades were to both my sisters. I heard the garage and I flopped on my bed to relax.
I jolted awake with my phone ringing. I picked up the phone and groggily said “Hello?’ It was one of my friends who just can’t stop talking, Hannah.
“Hey you want to go to the beach tomorrow?” I groan and laugh at the same time since she promised to ask all of my friends, and me, that she was going to ask us to go to the beach every single day. “Sure. But first, let me ask my mom.” School was finally out.
It was July 4th and we were all pretty excited because 4th of July was a pretty big thing in our family. Since we had our annual family barbecue and strangely, our report cards always came on that day. My sisters and I were playing in the pool, while my dad was striking a match to set fire to the grill. Our doorbell rang, signaling the mail came. Our whole family makes a huge rush to the doors trying to get our report card first. My mom got all the mail and rushed to open each of them but I managed to grasp my letter from my mom’s grasp while both my sisters followed my lead. we all headed out to the backyard to share what we got. Our grill laid forgotten, burning our hot dogs, and we all sat in silence with the only sounds were the sounds of ripping the envelope and unfolding the papers. My stomach was tied up, as I shivered while looking down at my grades. I felt a wave of relief and I blinked a few times. I did very well. I got straight A’s except an A- in Science. I felt really happy since I was worrying about what I could have gotten.
My mom shakily asks, “Jason, did you do well?’ I show my mom and she smiles and hugs me. I show Angelina and she smiles and shows me hers, she got all A’s and when she showed Mom and Dad they were really impressed and congratulated her. Then they happily asked Jade what she got. She slowly folded her paper, put it in her pocket and left out through the back door without saying anything except
“I’ll be back.”
We were so stunned that we just sat there stunned until our hot dogs caught on fire and started to burn the towels that were hanging above the flames. We all got some water and put out the fire, then went back to our business. Every 10 to 25 minutes, I heard Mom calling Jade to see where she was. She never picked up once. Around 7, we heard the door open and saw Jade walk in through the front door.
My mom rushed up to her and asked, “Where were you young lady? We were worried sick and you still haven’t told us what your grades are.”
Jade slowly got out her report card left it on the dinner table and headed upstairs. My mom pranced on the report card and then went to fetch Dad. They both told Angelina and me to stay downstairs, and, we were so surprised that we did what we were told. We heard the door shut and then the conversation slowly grew louder until we could hear word for word.
“How could you not get A’s, you didn’t even get one and your best grade is P.E. you have C’s and D’s in everything else.” I hear Mom yell.
“I think I can read my own grades Mom.” Jade yells back. That startled me since Jade usually never lost her temper. The fight went on to around 9:30 in the night, and Angelina and I were watching Harry Potter, while waiting out the fight. We saw Mom and Dad walk down the stairs looking disappointed and told us to go to bed. To not make Mom and Dad even more mad, we did exactly what we they said.
After that, Jade didn’t talk to us for a few days. She only answered questions Angelina and I asked. 5 days after the fight, Mom went up to Jade to apologize and gave her a movie ticket and told her to cool off. Suddenly, Angelina and I were now the center of attention. Like, Jade kinda became invisible. It was still like before, but it just was a little different without Jade in all  our conversations. Jade did her own thing and our parents never inquired about her grades again. Ever since Jade got D’s, Angelina and me figured out we just couldn’t just get things by not working for it. Come to think of it, school starts next week and we got another whole year to work for.

The End