Elizabeth’s Future
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| English For All: Learn and Earn as you Turn |
Mom says, "Honey, your tests are nearing, have you prepared for Maths and English?" Liza listens not to her mother but the music player blaring on the wall facing her desk in the study that was specially designed to allow her a perfect ambiance for learning.
"Did you hear me, Liz? What's goin' on here?"
"Oh, c'mon mom, you don't understand music, you have in fact no taste for music."
Her mother was pretty upset to hear Liza retort back so rudely and insensitively. She turned behind and a few little drops of tears dropped off her eyes. But before Liza could see it and react, her mother descended downstairs to finish up the breakfast table.
It was Liza's 15th birthday last Tuesday. However, she couldn't celebrate it together with her friends and relatives due to the restrictions in the movement, for Covid-19 was fast spreading. Most of the everyday life activities outside were facing lockdown, but the schools and colleges were running in full swing. Liza was only one teenager among the millions, across the world, who were not as happy to go through the tedious virtual classes and the bulky syllabuses.
Mr. Peterson had just arrived home from his farm. The midday meal was ready. Mrs.Peterson set the table and the food for all three of them. Liza was still in her study. They gave her a call to join the lunch, but there was no response. Mr. Peterson himself went upstairs and asked her to join them in lunch right away. With some imperceptible sulk, she joined them.
"How's your preparation going on, Liz?" asked Mr. Peterson. There was no answer, but only silence. "Well, are you putting all your effort into this test? You know this's gonna be the most decisive exam of your school that leads you to the right undergrad courses in the offing?"
"I quite understand it well, but you both have been underestimating my preparations. Now I am grown up and big enough to separate the goats from the sheep. I know what's better for me. Please permit me the way I prepare for these tests. My Maths were never worse, nor were my English."
"Oh yeah, I know how you performed the previous semester, on average." mother interrupted.
Mr. Peterson quietly listened to their pointing at each other's weaknesses in their own chores. In the meanwhile, he entered her study and started to check her exercise books and project work. To his utter dismay, Liza had neither completed the project that was due for the next day nor started the daily chunks of Maths assignment. For a while, he looked into space and checked if the rest of the things in her study were satisfactory.
He became quite pensive and thought to himself, "Where on earth did I make the blunder that has led us both to see how unexpectedly, Liz had turned out to be such a stubborn and irresponsible child, even at fifteen?"
The Petersons, a resident of New Lenox, had a very hard time before. It was even harder for them to make the ends meet. But after the birth of Liza, their status took a turning point. His farm produce (corn and soybeans) was easily sold in the nearest markets in Chicago at a competitive price and gradually earned good prosperity and repute as a leading farmer.
Despite the poverty-stricken life, the family had no bounds of happiness when Elizabeth was born. They admitted Liza to the best school in town, Alex Martino Jr. High School. The Petersons had worked commendably hard to get their only daughter admitted to this school and even provided her with its boarding facility so that she would not feel the scarcity for her needs and the family struggle, only to ensure her better grades and a refine bringing up. The unfortunate covid proliferation had only compelled them to bring her back home for safety and virtual classes.
Not having regular communication with the school and teachers, the Petersons were under the impression that Liza had been performing as they had expected. It was not that many teachers had not tried to contact her parents and intimate them about Liza's deteriorating studies. Nor was it that she was into bad company. Then what it was that had so much demotivated her to focus on her studies and understand her parents' and the teachers' expectations, was a crucial question of the hour?
Her passion for music was it all that had detracted her lately from focusing on the major part of her duties as a student. The school had recently hired a new music teacher, Mrs. Tessa Stoller who led Liza into the Martino Orchestra for the first time when she was in Grade 8. Since then she started to learn to play the violin and hum the most popular numbers by Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Selena Gomez, and even Celine Dion, besides some male singers like Justin Beiber, Talo Cruz, Adam Levine, Louis Tomlinson, and such others.
Not until late did many know that Liza had so much passion for music. In a parent-teacher conference, prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, Mr. Peterson had already had some hints about his daughter's inclination towards music from Mrs. Tessa. Then he had but not taken it so seriously. Moreover, as a busy farmer, he did not even know how deeply it might root into her and, one day it would go so far that it was unlikely to retract her interests in studies.
That evening, Mr. Peterson and his wife could not go to sleep until late in the night. All they were busy with was in the thoughts as to what they could do to inspire Liza to catch up with her studies without undermining her interests in music. He made up his mind to see the teachers and the Principal, Mr. Oslon, to discuss the ways and means to ensure Liza be more responsible towards her primary goal as expected by her parents. The midnight bell from Lincolnway Christian Church was heard before they fell asleep.
Also read the next story: Liza's Transformation.
