My Mrs. Dubose: A Short Story

My Mrs. Dubose was a girl that I met in my elementary school. It’s not the typical story of two girls that became best friend over time, but how my worst enemy motivated and driven me into accomplishing what I once had thought impossible. When I was younger, books were my only escape from reality. I was never sociable because I did not know how to talk to others. When I talked to other people I would look and examine their face expression because I was afraid of saying the wrong thing―even around my friends. Instead of making friends with other people, I would read, because in books I can imagine and become one of the characters. I can escape the outside world into a wonderland filled with fun adventures and endless journeys.

One day, my mother came up to me and told me that we were moving to California. I was horrified because the thought of meeting new people that I never know frightened me so much, but I had no choice other than to accept my fate. Three days after I arrived in Tustin, California I was immediately enrolled into an

What are you doing here? You are wasting your time.” When I heard this, I became very indignant, but I remained still. When I arrived home later that day, I realized I couldn’t let her degrade me like that. Yes, my English is imperfect, but she shouldn’t have treated me in such an inhumane manner. I was determined to surpass her in every academic endeavor we took part in at school. All my emotions were translated into a drive to improve on my lingual inadequacies. In our reading class, we had a bulletin board that keep track of everyone’s reading point―they gained it by taking quizzes on the books that they read. At that time I had 50 points, I always thought that it was impossible for me to become the top student of the class, so I never really tried. After the incident I pushed myself to read more every single day. Without realizing I had reached 160 points in two