Kate dropped her school bag into the back of her mom’s car and sat down in the front seat. The curly blond girl rested her head on the window as her mom drove off, towards school. Kate was incredibly tired because she had stayed up all last night to study for her math test. Her mom hummed along to the radio as Kate fought the urge to just fall asleep.

Once Kate finally arrived at school, she nervously headed to her math class; feet dragging as she walked. The girl walked through Cafe Campbell and down the hall, opposing the direction of the cub stickers on the ground. “Wrong way,” a teacher Kate had never seen before reprimanded from down the long, empty hallway. The teacher pointed at the cubs and forced her to take the long way to class. “Sorry,” Kate replied as she quickly took a right and walked through the first building instead. She made her way back to the second building and finally got to her classroom.

Kate sat down in her pod of desks while her teacher went around to check the students’ homework. “We had homework?” Kate asked the girl next to her. The girl nodded in reply. “Great,” Kate sighed as slumped further into her chair. Kate rested her head on her hand, as she still felt exhausted.

The teacher stopped at Kate’s desk, waiting for her to take out her work. “Where’s your homework?” the teacher asked. “I forgot to do it,” Kate truthfully admitted. The teacher rolled his eyes and marked down Kate’s homework grade as a zero.

The teacher returned to his desk and grabbed the stack of test papers. He passed them out to each student. Kate scanned the first page of the test and began to freak out! She hadn’t studied any of this material. The girl started working on the problems, doing the best she could with what little she could remember.

By the third problem, Kate could barely keep her eyes open. Eventually, she just fell asleep. She was woken up by the sound of the bell and greeted with the sight of her teacher handing her a yellow demerit. Kate accepted the yellow paper and turned to her friends. “We tried to wake you up,” the students defended themselves.

Throughout the rest of the morning, Kate was yelled at by each of her teachers for practically everything. Even in the hallways, teachers scolded her. She could not catch a break. By lunch, Kate accumulated two demerits. It was supposed to be three, but she left before the teacher could write her up. 

She had one demerit for sleeping in class, one for not having her ID in the cafeteria, and she almost received one for her skirt being too short. It was a good thing that the teacher left to give another girl a demerit, or else Kate would be one slip-up away from a detention.

Now, on top of being tired, Kate was stressed out. She received two demerits, failed her math test, and was yelled at by more teachers than she could count, all in one day. She felt like the teachers were going out of their way to admonish her. She just prayed she could get through the rest of the day without any more trouble.

Unfortunately, her prayer was not fulfilled. By the afternoon announcements, Kate had gotten for last two demerits, all four adding up to a detention; plus another demerit; and she dropped her laptop down the stairs, which completely broke it. The worst part was that Kate could not get a loaner computer because the school was out of them. Thankfully, that was the end of Kate’s worst day ever.