Faith & Grace: A Friendship Story

by Gracie
(Pennsylvania)

Faith & Grace: A Friendship Story
Written by Grace Henderson***********Written for Faith Owen

Chapter 1: Home Schooling

Once there were two best friends named Faith Owen and Grace Henderson. They had been best friends since Faith had moved to Pennsylvania from Colorado. One day, Faith was at Grace’s house and they were sitting up in their special place which they named Death Pit. It was a big hole in the ground filled with sharp rocks. You had to know the rocks in the pit well enough to be able to get around without hurting yourself. Grace was talking to Faith about school.

“What teacher are you hoping to get?” Grace asked. “I really want Mr. Petalino, but I’ll be happy as long as I’m in the same class as you.”

Faith suddenly looked upset about something. “Well, my mom asked if I wanted to be home schooled this year and I um….I’m thinking about saying yes.” She said her last sentence in a rush, as if she just wanted to get the words out as fast as she could.

Grace was really surprised about this, but she wasn’t mad at Faith at all. The look on Faith’s face told Grace that she would miss her in school, and that getting mad at her would just make everything worse. “Oh…well that’s, um … very interesting”.

Faith smiled. “Glad you think so,” she said.

Laughing, they walked back to the house together. There were only a few days left of summer vacation, and Grace was going to make the most of them with her best friend Faith.

Chapter 2: The First Year without Faith

Grace walked slowly to the bus stop- she couldn’t believe it. Summer vacation was over. She was going back to school today. She hadn’t gotten the teacher she wanted. But worst of all, this was the first day ever that she would go to school without Faith. It felt like everything was going wrong. She felt small without Faith by her side. Faith was like an army to Grace. Now, she would have to surrender.

When she got to school, she wandered off to her classroom without even saying anything except “hi” and “Mrs. Planinsek’s class.” She found out that only one of her other friends were in her class. It was Haley Romanko. She had been in her class since third grade.

Yeah, Grace would make new friends, but she wanted at least one other friend in her class, other than Haley. This was going to be a long year.

“So, how do you like our new teacher,” Haley said happily. “I like her a lot, she’s really nice, I can tell she likes me a lot, by the way have you seen Faith? I haven’t seen her at all, on the busses, in the hall nowhere!” Haley said this all without breathing at all.

Grace looked up at Haley’s happy face and watched her smile immediately turn into a frown as she told her about Faith being home schooled. Haley couldn’t think of what to say. Grace sighed. This was going to be a very long year.


Chapter 3: Bad Grades

Grace looked at her test. She had gotten a C-. Again. Now Grace wouldn’t be allowed to invite Faith over that weekend. Again. It was only the second week of school and already Grace had taken three tests and two quizzes. Science, math, and social studies. All C’s. Her quizzes had ‘NEEDS MORE STUDY TIME’ written in blue ink on the tops of them. She put the test away and walked to the cafeteria and lined up for lunch.

When she got there, Haley was talking excitedly about her grades with Nicole Cramer and Emily Bucklen. “I’ve gotten all A’s on every test and quiz we’ve taken, what about you? I can’t wait until we get our mid term progress reports, can you? Oh, I just can’t wait!” Haley said all of this in one breath (again).

Grace got her lunch and headed towards her friends, but changed her mind and sat alone when she heard Haley talking about her grades. Why wasn’t anything going right for Grace this school year? It just wasn’t fair! So Haley gets everything she wants while Grace is the one who actually cares about Faith? If they really did care about Faith, Grace and Faith’s ‘friends’ weren’t doing that great of a job of showing it. But then again, how could she blame Haley for getting good grades? All of Grace’s friends got perfect scores every time. Grace knew she had to do something to keep her friends from forgetting Faith. And she had to do it fast.


Chapter 4: The Plan

When Grace got home from school, she grabbed the phone, ran to her room, and dialed Faith’s number. Three rings later (though it seemed like forever) Faith picked up the phone.

“Okay good, you’re here. You probably already know who this is, but if you don’t, it’s Grace. Anyway, at school, the rest of the Misketeers seem to be forgetting you. And I have a plan to stop that right now.”

Grace told Faith the plan as Faith listened. For once, Faith barely talked on a phone call. When Grace finished, she said, “Do you really think this will work?”

Even though Faith couldn’t see her, Grace stood up and said “Of course it will. It has to.”

The next day, Grace brought a large piece of card board to school. She had painted it white with giant letters all around the edges. The colorful, sparkly alphabet glittered as Grace held it to the light where every one could see it.

“See, you write something good about Faith beside each letter of the alphabet in a different color for each person,” Grace explained.

“Then you sign your name in the middle with the same color.” The class was staring at the beautiful cardboard. Grace smiled. Her plan was working. Who knows how long it would be until the school decided to have time each day just to work on these cardboards things for Faith?

“Just wait,” she said to herself. “You just wait.”


Chapter 5: Good News, Bear news

Finally, Grace got an A+, so she was allowed to invite Faith over that weekend. When she got there, the first thing they did was go up to Grace’s room and start talking about things, like who was dating who and who got what on their report cards. Luckily, there was only 6 more weeks of school left.

Faith began talking about her home schooling and said, “I’m so happy, my mom said that I have a choice to be home schooled or not next year. And now that I see what school is like without me there (Haley, Nicole and Emily were starting to worry about their hair, and Grace was starting too), I know that I have to come back to put everyone’s head right again.”

Grace smiled happily and said to her, “I still remember that vow we made in second grade.” She stood up and recited, “Thy fiveth Misketeers shall nevereth worry about how thy looketh until sixtheth gradeth.” They started laughing and ran to the barn to ride the horses.

About 15 minutes later, Faith and Grace were riding on the trail in Grace’s woods. It was bear season, so they stayed away from where they knew there were lots of bears and hunters. But just in case, they wore bright orange vests, brightly colored pants, and Grace even tied some sparkly rainbow bandanas on her legs, arms, and head. They rode along, talking and laughing when Ice, Grace’s horse, suddenly stopped. She nudged him with her heels and patted his rear end, but he wouldn’t move. Faith and the other horse, Sebastian, also stopped. Grace got down off of Ice and walked around. She heard a deep growl and turned around slowly. There was a seven foot bear standing behind her, ready to attack. It got closer and closer when suddenly, something black with a colorful something on it and something brown came flying at it so fast, the giant bear couldn’t think about what was happening until it was knocked to the ground.

Grace jumped back and stared in amazement as Faith sent Sebastian and Ice forward again and again, attacking the bear until it lay on the ground, bleeding and whimpering. Grace walked up to the bear. She hugged its neck and said she was sorry for hurting it, and tried to patch him up as best as she could with her bandanas and some giant leaves from a nearby tree. She waved goodbye to the bear, climbed on Ice, and rode off with Faith. She thanked her so many times that Faith said not to tell anyone about the bear, because she knew that she would be thanked thousands more times.


Chapter 6: Summertime

“Yes!” Grace yelled as she ran out of the bus. Summer vacation had finally started. Grace thought back on the year. Everything had gone smoothly after her big cardboard idea. But the thing that bothered her was that she was expecting a big fight with her friends, something more exciting than taking a piece of cardboard to school. But then again, maybe it was better that things were so simple. After all, they had the whole sixth grade to have their battles and fights. And Faith would be back next year, so that would eliminate one big problem. Smiling, Grace opened the car door and rode up the big hill.

Grace ran to her bedroom and pulled on shorts and a t-shirt. Faith was coming over in an hour, and Grace wanted to make sure all of her barn work and everything else was done so that they wouldn’t be interrupted for anything. They ran down to the creek the second Faith got there, laughing and shouting the whole way down through the field. They sat in their special tree and talked, and every so often one would suddenly jump out of their perch into the creek (the tree grew at an angle so that it went out over top of the creek), and splash the other. Eventually, they had to go back up through the field to Grace’s house, but they stayed long enough to watch the sunset over the huge, distant hills. Climbing back into their tree, they watched it. Grace sighed happily. Who cares if things didn’t go right next year? She and Faith looked at each other and smiled. Right now, this was pure happiness.