"Coming of Age" Rough-Draft Essay

COMING OF AGE
There are a lot of things that happen in our lives that we find embarassing or very disgraceful. But I have found the courage to talk about something that definitely caused me to change my thinking and actions a little bit. It all happened on a normal, but unusually sunny day. I noticed something weird and I had a bad feeling that something terrible was going to happen that day. This took place on the campus of Moanalua Middle School, and I was in 8th grade then. There was news around the school that day that a classmate of mine had a brother that got beat up by a group of boys that were affiliated with gang activity.

From every direction, all I could hear was, "Wow, did you hear about that guy that got mobbed?" The thing that sucked was that I knew some of the guys that mobbed my classmate's brother. As I sat in my Social Studies class, the guy next to me tells me, "Dude, did you know that someone got beat up?" In my head, I was thinking where this guy has been because that was old news to me. I was staring at the ceiling for 2 minutes and I notice he's still looking at me. "What?!" The guy then stops looking at me. But all of a sudden, I feel like I have to urinate so bad.

As I walk outside the classroom with the bathroom pass, I decide to take my time when I walk to the bathroom. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my classmate who was the brother of the guy that got beat up. Since me and him are sort of friends, I yell, " 'Sup!" He nods back at me. The next thing that I do is an action I wish I hadn't done. I jokingly threw up a gang sign, a sign that was affiliated with the same gang that beat up my classmates brother. He looks at me, but nothing happens. He walked away, and I walk into the bathroom to do my business. When I head back to class, the AC (Air Condition) seemed as if it felt colder. But it was just me nervous.

By the time you know it, a security and the vice-principal come through the door asking for me. When I finally get down to the office and sit inside the Vice-Principal's room, she looks at me, sighs, and says, "Do you know why you're here Jonas?" I look down at the floor, and stare at her eyes. My palms are so sweaty, and all I could think of was what the reason was for me being in there. The Vice-Principal was my friend's Mom, and I usually call her aunty because she knows me really good. But I was just speechless. I hear someone talking from her walkie-talkie saying, "Is Jonas in your office?" The VP says, "Yes." Then someone responds, "Okay, I have the parents in the other room." Parents?! Before I could even complete my thought, the VP tells me that my classmate reported me for throwing up a gang sign, and they suspect me for being involved in beating his brother.

Then, a police walks in her office, and sits in front of me. First, I stare at his gun, then realize that he's really muscular, and then look at his face. I'm in that office for about an hour, and they talk to me about terroristic threatning, gang, Chapter 19, and they tell me that I should choose my jokes wisely, and they ask me if I know anything about the beating. To be honest, that hour I spent in that office was the most truthful I've been. I admitted that I never actually was in a gang, I told them I was only joking and I was friends with that classmate.

When the whole "interrogation"-thing ended, I was in in-school suspension for the rest of the day and I was suspended for 3 days. I still remember that this happened on a Wednesday. When school ended that day, I saw my classmate that was the brother of the beating victim, and I said, "Dude, you know I was only joking! Why'd you do that?" "I'm sorry man, I didn't want to but I had to." What?! What does "had to" mean?

As I saw him walk away from me, I definitely knew that jokes aren't always funny...