Chapter 21
Time to Show and Prove

 

Today was the big day. District DECA competition at Patrick Henry Mall was underway. Devanté was beyond nervous. Out of all the DECA students from Denbigh he was the expected to advance to state. He was under extreme pressure especially since his mother confirmed she would be there.
            Devanté got ready in his room for his big day. He heard a knock at his door. “You can come in mom,” Devanté said.
            “Good morning, boy where you learn how to tie a tie?” Ms. Williams asked after entering the room.
“Mr. Randall taught me,” Devanté said as he concentrated.
“Wow this Mr. Randall really working on you,” Ms. Williams replied with a grin.
“Well I hope I do good in this competition,” Devanté said.
“Boy you know you are going to do good. How you’ve been hitting those books it is going to pay off,” Ms. Williams encouraged.
“I’m not really worried about doing good I really want to win. I would just hate to do my best and still get beat by one of those preps,” Devanté stated as he finished tying his tie.
“Even if you lose you want be defeated, right?” Ms. Williams asked.
“You stole that from Grandma,” Devanté smiled.
“It’s the truth ain’t it?” Ms. Williams replied.
“Yes, how do I look?” Devanté asked.
 “You like the young man I knew you were,” Ms. Williams was near tears.
Devanté looked at his watch and saw it was near seven, “oh mom I got to go we are all ‘posed to meet up at seven at the school then ride over to the mall.”
“Well come on I’ll give you a ride on my way to work. Nothing is going to go wrong today. You’ll do fine just believe in yourself,” Ms. Williams insisted.
Devanté knew his mother was already proud because of the way she kept smiling at him. He had hoped to make her prouder by the end of the day. As they drove the short distance to his school butterflies flew in Devanté’s stomach.
“Alright mom, I love you,” Devanté departed.
“You can’t give your momma a kiss on the cheek,” Ms. Williams pouted.
Devanté leaned over and kissed his mother on the cheek without care of who might be looking. Right now she was the woman of his life. He felt honored to have a mother who worked so hard on making him a better person.
“I’ll be there at eleven is that good enough?” Ms. Williams asked.
“Well they give the awards at about two,” Devanté replied.
“Okay, see you then, good luck,” Ms. Williams pulled off.
Devanté located the other DECA members and Mr. Randall. They were all car pooling. Devanté noticed Lynette first; she was looking like a grown woman. He had to fight to take his eyes off of her. Even Donya was dressed professional he was amused by that.
Donya made a big deal of Devanté’s approach, “You think you GQ we waiting on you!”
Mr. Randall was doing a roll call making sure he had everybody. After Donya’s outburst Mr. Randall accounted for Devanté. “Everyone is here now. I’m impress on how everyone looks, but we didn’t enroll in this competition to look good we enrolled to do good. Now does everyone have a ride?” he asked.
A few students including Devanté didn’t have a ride. Mr. Randall counted the students who didn’t have a ride. “Okay you three can ride with me. We’re driving straight down Jefferson to make it easy for everybody. Now if you must go a different way then you can. See everybody there!” he told everybody as they walked in different directions to their cars.

 

 

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