Virginia

My name is Virginia, and that’s fortunate. I live in Tennessee and who’d want to walk around with a name like Tennessee? It’s very fortunate that my name is Virginia. I take piano lessons, which is unfortunate, and read a lot of books out of my grade level, which is something my mother likes to tell other people. 

I’ve lived here all of my life and I usually do some pretty exceptional things with my exceptional friends. ‘Exceptional’ was one of our spelling words last week, and I always use our spelling words in sentences. After I look them up in the dictionary. Ms. Harrison doesn’t always tell us what our spelling words mean. 

I have a younger sister named Grace Anne and she’s alright for a little kid, just usually ridiculous (that was a spelling word two weeks ago, but I already knew what it meant). She talks to her grapes, feels sorry for her broken crayons, and is always grouping her nail polishes into little families. And I’m not talking about color families; I mean actual families with moms and dads and kids and I think there’s even a couple of aunts. She got two of the same color for her birthday last year (she really adores nail polish), and she says they’re twins. 

Anyway, that’s Grace Anne. 

My exceptional friends are more interesting, and none of them talk to their grapes. My best friend is Caroline and I’ve always thought that was a coincidence. I didn’t know I thought it was a coincidence until we had it for a spelling word, but now I definitely do. It’s a coincidence because Caroline is very close to Carolina, as in the states. I pretend we’re both named after states, even though Caroline’s mother insists that she is actually named after a great aunt. 

I have other-but-not-best friends that live near Caroline and me: Suzanne lives next door and her mother is on the Atkins diet. Charlotte just moved here last year from Uk, but we’ve stopped making fun of her. Malorie has beautiful golden curls and charming blue eyes and most old ladies who see her stop and say things that don’t make sense. Juliet is lactose intolerant and we all call dibs on who gets the cheese off her pizza or her helping of ice cream. It’s good to have at least one friend who’s lactose intolerant. Margo takes voice lessons from the church pianist and sings in church a lot. I think that’s odd because I actually take piano lessons from the church pianist but I’ve never played the piano in church. Samantha is head of our class in math and science, but I don’t think she reads many books out of our grade level. She can identify poison ivy though, and I’ve always thought that was a really exceptional talent to have. 

Something else you should know about me is that I hold the record for biggest bubble in the bubble gum contest we had this summer. The only other record I’ve ever held is being the hundredth person to order a milk shake at Brady’s, but mother says it was just luck and that they do that every Tuesday. But I got the biggest bubble fair and square, so I guess I’ll just tell people about that one when they ask me about my accomplishments. That’s one of this week’s spelling words and I have been trying to use it in a lot of really exceptional sentences.