Rotary Club of Pismo Beach / Five Cities
Tavis Cote, Third Place
Grade 2, Primary Division
Kathy Metcalf, Branch
Hi, this is me—Tavis. I am an eight year old boy in second grade who was asked to do this 4-Way Test Essay for his homework. I have tried to come up with a topic for several days and I finally have one.
This story is about two friends who have known each other for a long time. We started out as buddies from the time we were three years old. Since we lived close we played a lot together. But when we started kindergarten, my friend became good friends with another girl. They started hanging out together. For a while the three of us would play after school. We played during vacations as well. Then, I met new friends too and we started hanging out.
We all got along okay until something happened. It was so long ago, I am not sure exactly what it was that happened. I just know that when the two girls were together, they were unkind to me. I found myself sometimes being unkind to them. It reached a point when I thought my former friend was my worst enemy. We no longer played together. We called each other names and almost never spoke . This went on and on and on. Eventually, we just ignored each other even though we lived near each other and went to the same school.
It seems that with time we have both gotten past our original fight. Like I said, I can’t even remember what happened. We have started being kinder to each other. We sometimes can play now. Just the other day, I played with my friend and the other girl. They even left me a nice note. It makes me feel better that we have started to get along again. I hope we can remain friends.
I plan to keep playing onward and eventually I hope we will reach the friendship that we had when we first met. I will use kind words. I will play with her more often. I will try to find things we can do together.