The Contest Within a Contest

The Contest Within a Contest

     “Good morning everyone here at River’s Edge Elementary,” said James Monika. The students were a little rowdy until the loudspeaker above the chalkboard behind Rebecca Wallin's desk started buzzing. They returned or turned around in their chairs to face Rebecca.

     “I only have one announcement today.” Every student started cheering. Rebecca cleared her throat. The cheering stopped instantly. “It has to do with our upcoming holiday celebrations.”

     Questions and comments started coming out of the students. “I can hear you complaining. Don’t worry, it’s not bad. In fact, it’s good news.”

     James paused for a few seconds. “We are still going to have our classroom decorations, our month ending holiday party, and our haunted school. Only this year we will have a painting contest too.”

     “As a lot of you already know the Art Programs in this state are in danger of being taken away from us. I want to show them how much we still need them. So we are going to have a contest to see who is the best painter is in this school.”

     “Now for the good part.” James continued after a slight pause. “What do we get if we win this contest? The winning painter will get $1,000.00. They and their classmates will also get a trip to any amusement park they want. Last but definitely not least is the teacher of that student will get a new car.”

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     “You said we would talk about this contest later,” said Kevin Stevens as he and the other students entered the classroom. They put their backpacks next to their desk as they sat down. “Is this later enough?”

     “You will do anything to get out of history class. Won't you Kevin?” Rebecca smiled. “Okay, let's do it now. Who do you think should represent us.”

     “I think it should be Julia,” said David Bartick. “She’s the best painter we have.”

     “Everyone knows why you really nominated her,” said Kevin. “It’s because you love her.” He said, ‘love’ sarcastically.

     Except for David and Julia Carlson every other student started laughing. Rebecca had to shout to be heard. “Stop it right now. If you don’t everyone will get extra homework tonight.” The laughter suddenly stopped.

     Rebecca looked at Julia. “What do you think? It’s up to you. Do you want to accept this challenge?”

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     At the end of the day, all the students got up, gathered their stuff and left except for Patrick. Once he saw the others leave Patrick walked up to Rebecca. “Can I talk to you about something?”

     “Of course, you can. What do you want to talk about? Is it about your homework tonight or the homework you turned in this morning? Maybe it’s about math. I know you are having some trouble with that.”

     “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s about the painting contest. I don’t think Julia should be the only one trying to win it.”

     Rebecca stopped grading papers and looked at Patrick. “Do you know anyone else who could win this contest?”

     “I do. Me. I’m just as good as Julia. In fact, I think I am better than her.”

     “That’s what I thought you would say. I thought you would volunteer to do it. Why didn’t you?”

     “True, I wanted to do it but I couldn’t. You can’t nominate yourself for something like this. I was hoping someone would nominate me, but no one did.”

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     Rebecca finished writing four words and a phrase on the chalkboard. Then she went to stand in front her desk and used her hands to lean against it. “I have been thinking about this every since we made our decision to have Julia be our representative in this painting contest, and I have changed my mind. It’s not fair to Julia or the rest of you. So I decided that everyone should have a chance to win it.”

     “I have improved on it a little. Write down these words and phrase.” Rebecca gestured toward the chalkboard. Her students took pencils to paper and started writing it down. Several students had already started doing it. “I want you to use these words and phrase in your paintings.”

     “Who decides who gets that chance?” Patrick asked. “Is it going to be you?”

     “No, I'm not going to vote. All of you are. I will give until next Friday and you will decide who represents our class in this contest.”

     “Thank you for not telling them it was me.” Patrick mouthed to Rebecca while she walked past him a few minutes later.

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     It’s Friday and all the students turned in a painting. Rebecca only had a few more to put around their classroom. Once done she went up to her desk and leaned against it again. “You are probably wondering why I did this with your paintings. It’s because this will make it easier for you to vote.”

     The students started looking at the paintings instead of Rebecca. “I’m going to give you until the end of today to decide on your vote. At the end of today, we will see who the big winner is.”

     “I have placed them randomly and have coded them. On your desk, you will find individual pieces of paper with the codes on them.” Some of the students picked up those papers.

     “If you look at them you will notice that your paintings aren’t on the list. That’s because I have only one rule in this contest. You can only vote for one painting, and it can’t be yours.”

     The students got up and started looking at the paintings. Some stood in the middle of the room and looked at each painting. All the others went up to each individual painting. Rebecca gave them about a half hour do that.

     Rebecca smiled as her students returned to their chairs. “I’m glad I don’t have to choice which painting is the best. I think you all did a great job with them.”

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     Most of the students made their decisions before the first recess. Some of them during the lunch break. The others around the second recess. Rebecca looked up at the clock above the door. It read 3:05. She got up and picked up the witches’ head and turned toward the chalkboard.

     Fifteen minutes later Rebecca had six codes on that chalkboard. Four only had two to five lines next to them. The other two had thirteen and twelve lines. Rebecca reached in to get another piece of paper. She looked in the head and saw it was the last one.

     Rebecca looked at the paper then went over to the chalkboard. At first, she had her chalk next to the twelve line code but a second later she placed the line by the thirteen line code. She then returned to her desk and opened up a locked draw. Rebecca pulled out a piece of paper and glanced down at the codes on it. A few seconds later Rebecca looked up at her students with a big smile. “The winner of our little contest is…Julia.”

     “What did I tell you,” said David. “I told you it should be Julia all alone.”

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     “Congratulation Julia,” Rebecca said a few minutes later after the other students started calming down. “I do have a few questions about your painting, though.”

     Rebecca walked over to Julia’s painting. “I asked you to put four words and a phrase into your painting. You did it with half, but not the other half.”

     “This is obviously a Halloween painting. I can also see a few fallen leaves at the bottom center of it, but where are the skeleton and ghost?”

     When Julia didn’t respond David did. “There are several skeletons. We just can’t see them because they are buried.”

     “I don’t see any ghosts either,” answered Patrick. “Wait! Isn’t that one under that thick tree branch and bat? No, I’m wrong about that. That’s just bigfoot. What is bigfoot doing in this painting?”

     Everyone started looking at Julia. After a few minutes of staring at them, Julia finally responded. “You are wrong, Patrick. That is what it’s supposed to be. I’m just not very good at painting them. They either look like floating white sheets or hairy monsters.”

     Rebecca walked back to her desk and turned to face her students. “I’m not surprised that you didn’t put in a harvest moon in your painting. Most people think that it’s another name for this holiday, but it isn’t. It’s a special full moon. We will talk all about that later on this school year.”

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     Rebecca led her students down the hallways of River’s Edge Elementary looking at the paintings displayed on the walls next to the doors. “Look at that one,” said David. “That looks pretty good.”

     “So does that one over there.” Patrick pointed at a painting across the hall from them.

     “This one looks like the winner to me,” said Kevin pointing at one across the hall a few painting ahead of the last one over there. “It’ the best one I have seen so far.”

     “That’s the fourth painting you have said is the winner,” said Patrick. “Why do you want them to win instead of Julia?”

     “I hope that Julia does win,” said Kevin. “It just that there is a lot of competition that looks as good or better than hers.”

     Rebecca broke up the three boys and sent them to different parts of the line. “I disagree with what Kevin is saying about winning, but I don’t disagree with him about the competition. A lot of these painting could win.”

     “Not that one,” said David pointing at the painting next to them. “That’s the ugliest painting I have ever seen.” David bent down and looked at the signature. “Jennifer Monika. No wonder she won. Not only is she the principal’s daughter but she’s the school bully too.”

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     A buzzing sound came over the loudspeaker behind Rebecca. We have our grade winners.”

     James started reading off the names from the lower grades first. Rebecca and her students didn’t pay attention to those winners. When he got to the fifth grade they all looked up at the speaker. “The winner for the fifth grade is…Julia Carlson from classroom 5D.”

     Everyone started cheering and congratulating Julia. They did until James got to the sixth grade. “The sixth-grade winner is…Jennifer Monika from classroom 6C.”

     “No big surprise there,” said Kevin. “She probably threatened to beat everyone up who didn’t vote for her. That included you, the other teachers, and the staff too.”

     “You didn’t vote for her did you Miss Wallin?” asked David. “Of course, you didn’t. Because you voted for Julia, right?”

     “No, I didn’t vote for Jennifer. I didn’t vote for Julia either,” said Rebecca. True, I wanted to. Like our little contest, I couldn’t. I voted for one of the paintings in the third grade.”

     “It doesn’t really matter who you voted for,” said Patrick. “We all know who’s going to end this contest.”

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     “The winner of this painting contest is…Jennifer Monika.” James announced to the whole school a week later.

     “I told you who would win,” said Patrick. “It was probably set up that way right from the beginning.”

     “Why did we have this contest anyway?” Kevin asked. “Was it just for the thousand dollars and the amusement park prizes?”

     “Isn’t Mr. Monika her teacher this year?” David asked. “That means he’s going to get the new car too. I think you are right Patrick. This was a setup.”

     James continued on while they discussed the setup, but they didn’t listen to him. Rebecca did, “Please be quite everyone. I think I just heard him say something important.”

     “There’s a first time for everything,” said Kevin. Everyone started laughing until Rebecca cleared her throat.

     “That’s right everyone,” said James. “We saved our Art Programs. The whole state had a similar contest, and just like our school they showed their best painting too.”

Both Prompts
Word Count = 1,985