The day had come.
Sitting around the table, eight kids fidgeted. Hannah was scribbling in her notebook, writing the percussion part for her composition, Middle School Madness.
"You ready for this, Kimberly?" Simon worried.
"I think so. I don't have any fears about speaking in public or anything."
"Good."
"So, what are you going to say?" Mo pressed her.
Kimberly's eyes opened wide. "I don't know! I never thought about it."
"Well, you know the gist of it, right?" Gabrielle tried to reassure her friend. "You don't like Persevere because it's too sad."
Kevin ripped a piece out of Hannah's notebook without asking, wrote quickly and passed it over to Kimberly. "This'll do."
His small but neat script conveyed a blunt message. "This piece is called Persevere. It's by Felicia Gregory and was written for the band of Springfield Senior High when fellow student Theodore Flit died. A tragic loss, but not ours. Must we feel guilty we are alive? Is Ms. Gregory trying to force pessimism and cynicism upon our society? Or is this just the band piece we're about to play?"
"No way!" Eric cried. "That's just insulting."
"We have no choice," Simon sighed.
"Yes. We do," Kimberly sternly stared.
"What do we do now, then?" Gabrielle wondered.
Kimberly smirked. "We mind our speak and speak our mind."