The Little Red Paper Clip
By Adrianna, age 15, West Virginia
Catalina always had her little red paper clip. Every morning, she'd wake up, get dressed, and make sure that her little red paper clip was always in her right back pocket. One morning Catalina had woken up late and was in a huge hurry getting ready. She had straightened her hair the night before, but the humidity from the rain all night and morning had crimped it.
As she sat in her mother's car only a few minutes from school, she looked in her bag for a mirror and remembered that she had two important tests that day which she had completely forgotten about. Panicking at first, she calmed down quickly, remembering that her paper clip would save the day. To Catalina's dismay, she felt her back pocket and realized the paper clip was not there. She began worrying and her palms started getting clammy. As Catalina was getting out of the car her mother asked if everything was okay. She took a deep breath and replied with a yes.
When Catalina walked through the school's front doors she just kept telling herself that this was her big chance to finally leave her little red paper clip behind. She decided that she was going to have confidence today, and it was going to be all on her own.
Surprisingly Catalina's day went great. She passed both of her tests with flying colors, and even got a good seat at lunch. As she rode the bus home she was so relieved to know that she did just as well without the paper clip as she had done with it.
The bus stopped just in front of Catalina's house, and she exited and ran up to her room to change her clothes. She dropped her bag on the floor, took off her sweatshirt, began to take off her pants, and then she heard a dreadful noise - dink, dink, dink. Catalina looked down on the floor to find that awful little red paper clip.
