Top Of The Class
Brittany has her own graduation ceremony.
Brittany painstakingly sets up all of her stuffed animals on the bed in three rows. She gives some of them leftover badges from the senior class president campaign.
After several minutes arranging, the girl steps back and decides that it looks good. Each toy seems to stare back at her, waiting.
She steps into the bathroom and changes into the special outfit. She borrowed it from Santana for a day, claiming she just wanted to look at it.
Once it's on, funny hat and all, Brittany presses play on her iPod.
Her favourite song, TiK ToK by Ke$ha, starts playing. The blonde proudly walks back into her bedroom, striking a few poses for her audience. She smiles and waves and laughs, loving the imaginary attention.
Then comes the important part. Nanny, Brittany's stuffed monkey, holds the special paper in her tail. Brittany remembers it had a fancy name starting with "d", but couldn't quite recall it.
That's why I didn't get to do this with everyone else, she thinks sadly.
She shakes her head and forbids all bad thoughts. This is her graduation party, and it will not be ruined.
Brittany takes the rolled-up paper from Nanny, holding it up and smiling, pretending the stuffed animals are cheering her on. It's the best graduation ever.
Later, once the animals are back where they belong, Brittany looks at her paper. She designed it herself, trying to make it look like the other ones. She had tied a red ribbon around it, and drawn a seal in texta.
The paper read:
Brittany S. Pierce graduated high school.
She was senior class president and a bicorn.
Brittany invented the dinosaur prom.
Her grades were F for Fabulous.
She has the most perfect girlfriend, Santana Lopez.
She is a wonderful girl. She is so wonderful that we are keeping her for another year.
From the school.
She had written it herself, using pencil instead of the usual crayon. She had asked her smart little sister to check the spelling. Brenda had looked at her strangely, but wrote out the correct spellings for Brittany to copy.
Brittany sighs as she reads. She can pretend as much as she wants, but she knows the truth. She isn't being kept back because the school doesn't want to let her go. It's because she failed all of the classes. She had even failed classes she didn't know existed.
Maybe next year, Brittany would get a real outfit and a real party and a real graduation paper. (Brenda called the paper a diploma. Brittany always thought that was a dinosaur.)
Until then, she would keep her home-made pencil diploma, along with some photos of her in Santana's graduation outfit. Brittany promises herself that she'll try harder next year, try for graduation.
After all, it may have been the best graduation ever, but who said it had to be the last?