Germaine made the hardest decision of his life. Today was the day he was going back to his home state, Iowa. Although he was only 12, Germaine had experienced a lot of things. He spent most of his life living in San Jose. He lived in small apartments. He went to school and was a social outcast. He tried to hangout with certain groups and fit in with everybody, but always looked the fool.
It all began when Germain was seven years old during spring time. San Jose was witnessing a beautiful day. The sky was as blue and patchy as Germain's torn jeans during a joyful day at the park. Around seven o' clock, most of the young kids started to return back to their homes for dinner. The rest of the kids, including Germaine, still wanted to play. The day was growing older and the skies started to dim. There wasn't much light out and the kids felt like it was the perfect setting to play a game of cops and robbers.
\ "Germaine is the cop and the rest of us is the robber!" a couple kids shouted because they all knew Germaine loved being the cop. Germaine took his role very seriously. He wanted to show people how good he was at playing this game. Germaine caught everybody very quickly, except for Hidalgo. Hidalgo was fast. Germaine was trying to catch Hidalgo and everybody was shouting. Hidalgo was just very quick. Germaine thought about giving up because he was all out of breathe, but then he thought he had to impress everyone and stop Hidalgo. Germaine saw a rock and he thought about throwing the rock at Hidalgo. He didn;t think of how bad it could hurt him, he just thought that it was the only way he could stop Hidalgo and make everyone think he was cool. Germaine chucked the rock and it smashed and cracked Hidalgo's head. Germaine made the wrong decision and this was when he became a social outcast.
One day at school, Germaine was sitting by his lonesome self during lunch. A group of kids were pointing and laughing at Germaine. The kids noticed Germaine's butt crack was showing due to his unfitting shorts.
"I adore your shorts Germaine!" said Lucy, a pretty girl thought Germaine.
"You do?" Germaine was surprised.
"Yes! You should wear them more often. They always bring a smile to my face," Lucy giggled.
Germaine thought Lucy actually like those shorts, so he wore them all the time, even though he thought they were uncomfortable. He thought he was impressing her. Later Germaine found out everybody made fun of him because his crack was showing. All he was doing was trying to impress Lucy. He did not even like those shorts.
Germaine always fell into peer pressure. He only did things because he wanted to impress people. One time, he let some person cheat off of him during a test and he got caught. He was sent to the principle's office. His Aunt Gemimma had a talk with him.
"Why did you let Hank cheat off you? You are a smart guy. Why would you do a dumb thing like that?" asked his aunt with great concern.
"Well Hank was telling me how awesome I would be if I let him cheat," replied Germaine with tears forming underneath his eye lids. His aunt rolled her eyes
"Did letting him cheat make you feel good and awesome like he said you would be?"
"Not at all. He told me I was cool, but never talked to me again,"said Germaine in a soft low voice.
"You need to understand that trying to make yourself something others want you to be will not always be good. In fact, the only thing that will make you happy is yourself and by doing what you want."
A bit after this incident, Gemaine's aunt died. He had a choice to either live with his uncle and go back to Iowa form where they came from, or stay in San Jose, but live in a foster home. Germaine wasn't as much of an outcast as he used to be. He was known for being the smartest kid in his class, which everybody liked him because he helped others learn. He thought back to his Aunt Gemmima. She told him that he shouldn't do what others' wanted him to do, but do what he wants to do. Germaine decided to return to his home state.
The theme i tried to use was that you have to be able to understand your goals in life in order to make decisions, otherwise you risk allowing others' judgement and wishes to dictate how you live your life.
Some techniques i used was dramatic irony on how we knew that the little girl was making fun of Germaine, but he didn't. This was just to emphasize the theme that you shouldn't do things because of others.
I used a Mentor to pretty much throw the theme out and make it obvious. Although, I just now realized I shouldn't make the theme come out obvious, but i already wrote pastiche.
I used Flashback on Germaine's childhood to show how important this theme is to many people's life and how often it can occur.
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