New Story!

Ok, not exactly that exciting, it's a first draft, and not as good as some of my other ones, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Any feedback would be much appriciated.


SCIENCE FAIR

The eight grade science fair was one of the shining moments in my young life. I won third place for my research and analysis of the disease alcoholism. I read books and looked at pictures. I made graphs and charts and took a survey of my classmates. I put all of this information together and mounted it very neatly and creatively on the three foot by eight foot piece of fold-out cardboard that was provided by my teacher.

The day of the fair, everyone’s boards were set up on tables placed in rows running the width of the school’s gymnasium. Standing on the tables, the boards created the effect of a high trench when you walked down a row, as it was impossible to see over them to the rest of the space. You could only see the projects, rising up on both sides, and the red of the gym mats stuck to the wall at the end of the row. Experiments involving fungi and mould, electricity and solar power sat adjacent to studies on the inner workings of the computer and the anatomy of a cat. High above, on the walls were the pennants won by the school`s various sports teams, reminding everyone that even though science ruled the gym today, tomorrow it would be returned to its rightful owners in the athletic department.

For someone who did very poorly in gym class and usually not much better in science, the day was very intimidating. At least that year I had been given the option of doing a research project instead of the mandatory experiment like the year before. That hadn`t gone very well at all. At the end of the day, when I found the white ribbon attached to my presentation board, I was on top of the world. I couldn`t wait to bring my parents back after dinner that night and show off my success. After the evening show, students were encouraged to take their projects home with them. I did, and set it up in my room in front of the closet where I could see it when I woke up each morning.

After a week of manoeuvring around the board to get to my closet, I folded it up and placed it against the back wall, inside the closet, where it wouldn`t be in the way.

The science fair takes place at the end of May every year; right before the rush of exams that precipitates summer vacation. Two weeks after my graduation from public school to high school in June, my family moved into a new house. Distance wise, it wasn’t very far from out old home, but it was quite a bit larger. My mother likes to purge, and packing all our things to be moved provided her with the perfect excuse to get rid of “stuff we didn’t need.” While packing the contents of my closet into a box, I learned that my prize-winning science fair project fell into that category. Not willing to part so soon with the proof of my academic genius I managed to covertly transport the three by eight foot piece of folded cardboard from one wood veneer paneled closet to another (slightly larger) one.

There it stayed, propped up against the wall, behind my ever-changing wardrobe until two months ago, when in an effort to get the sliding panel door of my closet to close again, I was emptying it of anything that wasn’t completely necessary for my current and future happiness. Folded up the way it was, all that could be seen were the two champagne bottles that I had drawn and cut out, foam bursting, arching together, with the word ‘ALCOHOLISM’ held between them. I stood it up and opened the side panels. There it was; a thirteen-year-olds masterpiece. Four different fonts, word-art titles and multi-coloured graphs, all laid out on squares of construction paper, the whole thing bordered by marching pink elephants.

More than ten years had passed since I had looked at it last, and I was curious why I had felt the need to keep it this long. The first thing that caught my attention was the class survey. Out of thirty-two adolescent students from a middle class suburban neighbourhood, eight-four percent had admitted to having tried an alcoholic beverage. Of that eighty-four percent, ninety percent claimed the drink had been offered to them by a parent or guardian.

As I folded up the presentation board and took it outside to the blue recycling bin, I wondered how different the responses would be if I asked a grade eight class from the same school, those questions today.