I knew I was up next. I stared practicing in my head how I was going to present this. It had been digging into me the whole day, just wondering if I would mess up anything during the presentation. My name was called before I could finish thinking. I had thought that I had more time, the kid before me must have sped up his reading. I bit my lip and tasted the minty Chap Stick that covered them. I slowly got up from my seat, and was still thinking how to present. I felt my whole body go heavy and weak. I felt my body warm up and my face felt like it was on fire as if I was going to start to drip sweat. I felt my face to feel if there was a lot of sweat on it, but it was pretty much dry it was just a little damp. I smelled the aroma of my deodorant coming up from the neck collar as my body warmed up. My sweater now felt like a big snow jacket. All the eyes focusing on me, as I got up and made my way to the front of the class. The dead silence of the classroom waiting for me to start. I was taking all the time in the world looking for any excuse not to start. The class quiet as I took the front seat. They were like manikins that were placed in the seats facing me; they were motionless on their seats. All of them sitting up and focused on me. I focused on my paper forgetting everything else, and ignoring all the eyes that were focused on me.

I cleared my throat to get my voice ready and loud. The pounding of my heart was pushing my chest as I began. The first couple of words took forever to come out. I felt that my arms starting to tremble a little faster after each word that came out of my mouth. I took a deep long breath to calm myself, it wasn’t really working so I stopped and I would be able to read like that. I tried isolating myself in brick walls so I would calm down. For those few short minutes sitting in the seat turning into long dreadful hours for me. I tired talking in the loudest voice I could at the time, so that I would have to restart. I noticed that my voice was getting quieter and faster the further that I read through my paper. The paper was a brick now and I had trouble holding it up. I brought the paper down to my lap and looked down for the rest of the presentation. It was only five minutes, but for me it seemed like it was never going to end. I tried looking up, but then shot my head back down to the paper. Everyone was still focused on me with their killer stares shooting me down, and I had hoped that they would have gotten bored and put their heads down. Every word that I said was sour and bitter. I was so close to being done yet it felt so far away still. I slowed down my reading and spoke loud enough so that everyone could hear for the last couple of sentences, and just kept my eyes focused on my paper.

When I finally finished, I shot up from the front seat. All the clapping from everyone made me rush over to my seat faster, but I tried making it so that nobody would notice. I felt my body cool down slowly. My body was calming down and slowly stopped shaking. I brushed my hair up with my hand, and I sat down at my seat. The paper went back to being as light as a feather again. The noisiness of the classroom came back. The motionless bodies were active and moving again. I was so glad that it was over and that I had gotten it over with. I unzipped my sweater a little so that I could cool down. I sat at my seat and tried to pretend that I hadn’t just presented. I was done and moved on.