"Man, am I glad for the school year to be over!" I yelled as I sat down in Whitney's basement. "No more stupid little kids, we are moving on to middle school!" "Yeah, I guess." Whitney said without a care in the world. I looked over at her. "What's been eating your grape today? You should be glad it's all over now. Summer time is officially here!" "I have to tell you something Cal." She looked down at her hands. "Mommy and daddy are making me move to a different school. A private, Catholic school. Cal, we aren't even Catholic. You know we are Baptist!" I looked at her, surprised. "You're kidding right?" She shook her head. "And it's all girls too! Cal, you already know that a lot of girls don't usually like me. Only the ones at church. What am I gonna do without you?"
I became silent along with her as she leaned her head on my shoulder. I didn't want to lose going to middle school with my best friend either. But I didn't want to make her sadder than she was already feeling. "Well the good news is that we still are next door neighbors. So we at least can see each other as much as we want." Whitney pouted her lips. "But it still won't be the same." "Maybe it won't be so bad." I offered. "It's a new school, so you can actually start over with people who don't know you yet." "I guess you could be right." She muttered. I let out a deep sigh, as I knew I was about to do something I really didn't want to do; but I knew I had to sacrifice. "I'll even start going to practice with you, and MAYBE join the choir." I blubbered out. Whitney sat up and gave me an excited, yet surprised look. '"Really Cal? You will finally come to practice with me?" I nodded. "Yeah, maybe."
Recently, Whitney had been attending church at New Hope Baptist, where her mother was head choir director. Because of that, Miss Cissy strongly suggested that Whitney joined the choir. To every one's surprise, they found out that Whitney could sing her little butt off and was about to take over some song leads. She had clearly inherited her musical gift from her mother and had the voice of a grown up. It wasn't until recently that Whit had started to sing in front of me; it was like she was hiding the fact that she could sing. I knew before that she could when we would sing songs from the radio and stuff, but when I would stop to hear her voice, she would get all shy and stop. One time, I had come over to visit her and Miss Cissy asked if I wanted to see something special, but funny. Of course I said yes, so we snuck to the top of the basement, where Whitney was singing with her mop to Gladys Knight & The Pips' "Midnight Train to Georgia." He's leavin' onnnnnn that Midnight Train to Georgiaaaaaaaaaaaa she belted out the chorus into the mop, sounding as clear as a bell. I've got to go, I'vvveeee got to go, ooohhhh yyyeeeeaahhh. I've got to goooo, I've got to gooooooo. As soon as she hit the last note, she looked up and saw her beaming mom and me with my mouth open and immediately covered up her face in embarrassment. "Whit, that was really good!" I exclaimed. "Why don't you sing more often, like in public? You could get paid big bucks!" In my opinion, she should be on Soul Train or American Bandstand with a record contract with Motown with the kinda voice she had. Whitney humped her shoulders. "I'on know" was all she offered. "I don't know about getting' paid yet, but she sure is about to start singing for the Lord!" Miss Cissy declared. So ever since then, Whitney has been singing in the choir and was about to do her first solo.
"Great! I can't wait for you to come to practice tomorrow. You will like it. It's the most fun that I get to have besides when we play." As Whitney went on with the songs that we would be singing, and how I could probably be a tenor, I knew that my maybe had turned into definitely. I was now apart of The New Hope Baptist Church choir.