The Report: Part One

The Report: Part One
By Jake Heraty

James had always been a simple child growing up; he saw the world for what it was, an ever expanding place where languages, cultures, countries, religions, and beliefs collided together. Where tragedy strikes the inner core of everyone at any second, where joy and happiness is expressed deeply and where beauty is as diverse as people are. James Davids was a simple boy, huh sure! Living in the small town of Withersburg Kansas James wanted to see the world what treasures it stores. James believed in destiny, that everyone is put here to do something great, however small or large.

Our story begins in the tenth grade. January is the month, the twenty-eighth, the day. James is sitting in his desk Mrs. Morrison, his social science teacher is standing in front of the chalkboard, the words are clearly written on the board in white chalk,

What do YOU want to be when you grow up?

Mrs. Morrison walked over to the front of the class and spoke with a gentle voice that filled the silent classroom, “This is your new assignment, you are to write a one to two page report on what do you want to be when you grow up and why. In addition, you must explain how this will help the world. The report is due at the end of the semester.”

Kids sighed and huffed, mumbled complaints. James however sat silent and still, thinking. What did he want to be when he grows up, heck if James knew? James was too focused on trying to make it to high school with good grades not what he would be doing twenty to thirty years later.
The bell rang, and kids filled the halls and James best friend Will met him up as James approached his locker. James unlocked his locker and thrust his books into the locker, as he turned around there was Will.

“Can you believe this assignment? Such a bore! God! Mrs. Morrison is so annoying!” Will complained.

James started to walk towards his next class, his final class of the day, “Actually it’s quite interesting. I think it is difficult, think about it. I mean think of it Will, do you really know what you will be doing in the next say ten to twenty years?”

Will laughed as he shuffled between the crowd of teens scurrying to make it to their next class. “Um Yes I do know I will be a rock star, duh!”

James shook his head and grinned, “Wow, hey I got to go I am already late!”
Will waved, “See ya later man.”

James jogged throughout the halls, Kids doing the same as James trying to make it. As he jogged the door to his sixth and final class, science came into view. Right as he grasped the handle with his hand the bell chimed behind him, James sighed with frustration, he was late.

Mr. Hummel stood at the front of the classroom with his eyeglasses on as James entered the classroom and Mr. Hummel without looking up mumbled, “James Davids you’re late, again. Please take a seat.”
“Yes sir.” James answered quietly. He walked over to the closest table to Mr. Hummel and sat down. He opened his backpack and pulled out his folder placing it lightly on the table.

The class silent as Mr. Hummel talked about the Earth’s inner core and how hot it was in the inner core. James was too busy writing notes for his social science paper.

What do I want to be when I grow up? Who will I be to the world, what will my position be?

The bell rang James ran out of the school. His father was standing there waiting to pick him up. Inside the car James dad asked him how his day was and James said the usual. However, he left out the paper for no reason.
The next few months were normal; James went school, turned in assignments, hung out with Will on the weekends and home was normal too. James completely forgot about the paper until a warm Saturday in May. As James was looking through his things he saw the paper he wrote and it hit him. He sat down at the table and pulled out paper, and a pencil. After two hours of intense writing and thinking, he nailed the paper.

Two weeks later kids filled James’ fifth period class, Social Science. Mrs. Morris sat in the front of the classroom smiling, “Hello class, today your papers are due and I have a opportunity for all of you. If you want extra credit you can come up here and read to the class your paper.”

James raised his hand, “How much is the extra credit worth?”

Mrs. Morrison explained, “Uh well if you read the entire paper I will give you thirty points extra credit.”

James nodded and got up from his seat. He walked slowly giving himself time if he needed to retreat back to his desk, although he wouldn’t because he already was walking it wouldn’t look good to return to his seat. He stood in front of the class silent and stock still. He looked down at his paper and swallowed daring not to look up at his fellow classmates.

He read slowly at a nice even pace, “When I was a kid I read a lot of comic books, spanning from many different heroes like Spider-Man, the X-Men, Superman and so on and so forth, but after I finished a comic book I was left with the feeling of, well, disappointment. I was disappointed that we in our world do not have heroes with amazing superpowers. I was left to the idea of reading those comics that in order to be a hero you must have some unspeakable, no sorry let me rephrase that, indescribable power beyond normal capability. I knew that neither I nor anyone I knew had these amazing abilities, so therefore I believed that heroes were fictional and illogical and that we on our planet would never have heroes. Although as I grew I found my beliefs to change and that everyday there are many heroes, people whom believe enough in themselves to help those who are in danger. I found this to be unbelievable and I saw the amazing things we as humans can do. So now I can finally tell you what I want to be when I grow up, I want to be a hero to someone, anyone. I want people to look at me and say, ‘Now he, he is a good human being. He is a hero’ For all my life I have had everything handed to me that now I want to fight for something I believe in. I want to feel that passion that everyone feels when the fight for their beliefs. How am I going to help the world, now that is the question that I can’t answer to you now, for I have no clue because I haven’t done what I am destined to do. That is what I want to be when I grow up, a hero.”