Is it enough to love?
Is it enough to breathe?
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
Is enough to die?
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be anything but ordinary, please…
Celesse sighed and pushed her black bangs out of her eyes as she flipped through another page of the newspaper. She rested her chin in one hand who's elbow rested on the arm of her chair and settled down to scan the page intently. Unbelievable. She had already hit the 'Today' section of the paper and still no contests. This was the Sunday Star Ledger! There had to be some sort of essay contest in there!
She rubbed her usually bright blue eyes and sighed again. Like most days, especially weekends, Cel was bored out of her mind with nothing better to do--which generally signalled scouring the newspaper for essay contests of varying degrees of difficulty. She didn't write them for the prizes (which hardly went over a lunchbox, usually, but every so often they had money as rewards), though…
…It was because she was so damn bored out of her mind.
"Cel dear, what are you doing now?"
Celesse groaned. "Reading the paper, mom."
"Do you mind checking on your little sister?"
Cel was about to mutter something along the lines of, 'Yes. I do.' but something in the way her mother said the question hinted it wasn't the time for smart-mouthing her parents right now. "Nah. I'll go see what she's up to."
As soon as she stepped into the family room, Celesse had a faint feeling that there was something wrong. Perhaps it had to do with the ripped papers all over the floor, the glue dripping from the windows, and the uncapped marker her little sister was about to stuff into her mouth.
"Jewels! Julie! NO!"
She swiped the marker safely away from her sister, bracing herself for the screaming fit of tears that was about to ensue by examining the marker. She bit her lip when she saw the label: Sharpie. Celesse slammed her fist on the table.
"Damnit, Julia! You were touching my Sharpie markers again! How many times have I told you not to do that? Now I'll be in trouble with mom again!" She looked on the ground and saw a markered picture of her favorite character with torn corners and smeared with glue. His silver hair could barely be made out behind the streaks of pink and purple. "Look! You even ruined my picture of Kakashi!"
Julia stopped crying immediately and just gave her the small sly smile six-year olds give their older siblings when they know the did something wrong but won't get in trouble with their parents for it. "Sorry, Cellie."
Celesse rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Now how are we going to clean this up?"
The little girl raced for the door.
"Oh no you don't--"
Cel grabbed for her sister's wrist to jerk her back inside the family room and locked the door. "Nuh uh. You're staying in here and helping me clean, Julie. Got it? Okay."
She set Julia to wiping the windows free of glue as she picked up the papers off the floor. Printer paper, hardly used? Keep. Construction paper cut to bits? Throw. Hastily made art project still dripping with glue and sparkles? Wait until it dries, and then throw. Ripped up newspaper ad--woah. How'd this get down here? Celesse made her way over to the couch to read.
NARUTO ESSAY CONTEST!
Do you like the popular action show Naruto
Do you have a favorite character?
Would you like to meet him or her?
Need a job this summer?
This is your chance!
Write an essay (one page, double-spaced) on what you would do
if you you were to meet this particular character and send it
to the address below. You could win a SUMMER INTERNSHIP
as PART OF THE STAGE CREW on the SET OF NARUTO for YOURSELF
and THREE OTHER FRIENDS!
Submissions must be postmarked by JUNE 1ST
(see for more details)
This is my chance. I can write about Kakashi! That should be easy enough, right? And if I win…I finally get to meet him in person!
"No way," Celesse murmured, her heart hammering. "No…effing…way."
But there it was, sitting in front of her on her lap. Her eyes flicked to the date flashing on her watch. It was May 20th. There was still time. Without another moment lost Cel dashed out of the family room and up the stairs to the computer in her parents' room, leaving her sister alone to finish cleaning.
"Thank you for driving me to the post office, Mrs. Rhimer," Celesse said brightly as she gripped an envelope tightly in her fingers.
Mrs. Rhimer smiled. "No problem, sweetheart. Lynn told me all about what you've got in that envelope and I've never seen her so excited."
Lynn bounced around in the seat next to her, as if to confirm her mother's statement. She turned to her best friend. "I really hope you win!"
"I know! It would be so…awesome, if I did. But…I just don't know what I'll do with the other three internship spots…" Cel saw Lynn's puppy eyes in her periferral vision. "Of course you'll be one!" She pushed her friend playfully. "I just know all my other friends would be vying for the other two, though…"
Lynn's mom stopped in front of the post office and the two girls clambered out. Though not yet even June, the air seemed to be screaming summer with its hazy heat and brighter-than-usual sunlight. Even Celesse's hair knew summer was just around the corner--the blonde streaks that highlighted her hair by the end of July were already showing two months early. But the teenager was too excited to notice or care. She quickly pushed past the hot metal of the blue outbox and began to drop her letter…but stopped herself, if only for a moment, to wish.
Please make it to Hollywood. Please have someone read you. And please, please win. If you do, I'll never want or wish for anything ever again. This'll be my chance to meet Hatake Kakashi, the Kakashi, and the rest of the cast! I'll never get this opportunity again…
"C'mon, Cel! Let's go get something to eat!"
Please.
Celesse squeezed her eyes shut tighter one last time and dropped her letter into the blue metal box.
She waited.
She would sit at her bay window an hour before the postman came, then rush outside to grab the mail and flip through it, only to moan in disappointment when all she found were bills and flyers. Celesse knew that they would decide the winner over the air on June twentieth, but they also said that the winner would get a letter ahead of time…
Her apprehension grew as the twentieth approached, and still no letter came. She ignored her parents' annoyed glances when she still sat at her bay window and waited for the mail on the day that the winner was supposed to be announced on the show. She was cutting it close by mere minutes (depending on whether or not the postman was late); Naruto was going to start at four.
Celesse glanced at her watch. 3:58.
The postman approached her mailbox and smiled, already recognizing her and then he began to shuffle through his mailbag. His grin widened when he held up a letter with the Naruto logo on the cover.
Celesse dashed out the door and the man handed her the envelope. She was ripping it open, not caring about the rest of the mail the postman filled the mailbox with. Her eyes whizzed at top speed as she scanned the letter and sprinted just as quickly inside as she had run outside before, bursting into the family room with a cry of, "I WON!" just as a voice on the television read aloud from a slip of paper, "And the winner is…Celesse Kameron from Union, New Jersey with her essay on Hatake Kakashi!"
Her dad congratulated her and her mom reluctantly joined him. Her sister didn't quite understand what was going on, but she was overjoyed to join her sister in jumping up and down frantically.
"--I--I have to call Lynn! And Bri! Bri will want to know, too--"
At the moment her world was a haze of confusion as her parents talked about plane tickets and hotel rooms and whether they should all go to Hollywood for the summer or not, her sister danced around in circles and laughing and she had no idea why, and the phone ringing off the hook from her friends who knew she had joined the contest (and even those that didn't). But nothing really registered at the moment except for two words, two words she had screamed for the world to hear:
I won.
