Hands shaking I glance down at the rubric below me, I suddenly feel light headed. The cool air conditioned class got brighter.“150 points! thats half of our grade!” a short boy blonde haired and crystal eyed exclaimed at the front of the class.  “Yes, yes it is and if all of you want to walk out of 6th grade on your feet with a good grade in my social studies class then you all better try your hardest and blow me away with excellent presentations on issues in 3rd world countries and how we can fix these problems. You will have 2 weeks to work on this and about 4 days to work in class I am assigning partners this time.” The class moaned with despair.  “Your partners are on the back of the rubric get together immediately and find a topic.” I slowly turned over my cringing paper. Suddenly my eyebrows un- scrunched and my face flattened who the heck is Nna Houle i groaned in my head.  My ink smeared thumb slid down the paper… oh Anna Houle I know who she is.

          Anna was the loudest funniest person in the class, also the sole reason that Mr. Goetzinger despised 2nd hour.  He hated almost everything about her, her big dark brown curly hair, her sudden urges to sing in the middle of class but most of all her contagious laugh.  Her laugh was like a splash of water in the sunlight.  She laughed at everything, laughed at the snarky comments tommy would make, laughed at the serious warm up questions Mr. Goetzinger, A tall serious teacher would discuss with us, she even laughed at the clock slowly ticking on the hour. I walked back to the desk next to her and sat down slowly “Hi! my name is Anna what's yours?” She was trying to hold back her laughter as I was saying my name. “So what are we going to do this on?” I spoke softly trying to act calm. “I was thinking lost puppies in the hurricanes but whatever you want to do is good with me.” she said with a chill tone.  Anna had a way of thinking a way of talking a way of breathing that just made everyone envy her, she didn’t care what people thought of her, not even any of the teachers.  They all tried to change her but she just laughed it off.  “Oh speaking of hurricanes what about typhoon Haiyan that hit the philippines last summer?”  “Ok sounds like a plan.” The room echoed with the sound of the bell it was time to go to 3rd hour. “Well if I give you my address would you come over and go over presenting it with me?” she asked energetically.  “Sounds good see you tonight!”  I was beaming through the halls, my bright crescent moon smile lit up like all the stars in the galaxy.
         I grabbed my stuff and headed to third hour. You see I have 5 classes with anna. 2nd 3rd 5th 6th and 7th that is a lot of time to be spending with the class clown.  Later that day I rode the bus home with anna.  We are barely even friends what am I doing my anxiety whispered sharply in my ear. I took a deep breath and started talking…  “So how was sch”… “Its our stop!” she laughed. oh gosh I am used to being the last stop on the bus. We walked up her long driveway to her cozy ranch style house.  In a way it comforted me, let me know that she was a good person “got any juice boxes?” it slipped out of my mouth before I could politely ask.  “Yeah and cookie dough want some?”  “sure.” I said with a soft tone.
          For the next twenty ish minutes we watched videos, sipped juice boxes and  ate homemade creamy cold cookie dough from the tub.  I adored spending time with her. She was so sweet and always knew how to make anyone smile. “Ok lets get to work,” then we sprinted up the stairs. We practiced our speech for a long time then got side tracked and heated up the curling iron.  “Anna! Its ready!” I screamed from the top of the stairs.  “Oh ok get the glove and start curling your hair!”  I started to curl my long brown hair.  It fell into soft waves, still warm grazing my neck.  Anna let me borrow one of her dresses to do the presentation with. Smiling from ear to ear she walked in the door.  When I finnished with the curling wand I gave it to her and she took the glove, put it on and started singing in the mirror.  “Ouch thats hot!” she laughed and dropped it on the counter.  “Yeah it is it's a curling wand.” I spoke sarcastically.   I've been having a great time tonight…We sat there and laughed and talked until the sun fell asleep and the moon awoke.  The next morning we did our presentation and got our rubrics back, suddenly I feel light headed.