In two pages write a continuation of chapter 20 of Out of my Mind by Sharon Draper.
I was in shock. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Here I was, thinking that all my hard work in the Whiz Kids competition was just for fun, and now I find out that it was all a ploy to make fun of me. I felt sick to my stomach, the same way you feel when you've eaten too much candy on Halloween night.
I looked around the room, trying to find someone who would understand me, but everyone was laughing and clapping. They all seemed to think that it was hilarious that they had been able to fool me. Even the judges were in on it.
I felt like screaming, but I knew that it wouldn't do any good. No one would hear me, no one would understand. They would just laugh and make fun of me some more.
Finally, one of the judges came up to me and said, "Melody, we're sorry. We didn't mean to hurt your feelings. We just wanted to see how you would react. We had no idea that you would be so upset."
I didn't believe him. How could they not know that I would be upset? Didn't they realize that I had worked so hard for this competition, only to find out that it was all a joke?
But then I looked into his eyes, and I saw that he was telling the truth. He really was sorry. And then I realized something else: I had won the competition.
Amidst all the jokes and pranks, I had actually won. And nobody could take that away from me. Not even the people who had made fun of me.
Suddenly, my sadness turned to anger. How dare they make fun of me like that? I wasn't just some joke to be laughed at. I was a person, with real feelings and real dreams.
So I did something that I had never done before. I stood up for myself.
"I may have a disability," I said, my voice shaking with emotion, "but that doesn't make me any less of a person. You can make fun of me all you want, but you'll never take away my intelligence, my creativity, or my determination. I won this competition fair and square, and you can't change that."
There was silence in the room. Everyone was staring at me, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.
But then something amazing happened. People started to clap. And then they stood up and applauded.
It wasn't just a polite clap, either. It was a loud, thunderous applause, as if they had been waiting for me to stand up for myself all along.
In that moment, I realized that I wasn't just an outsider, or a joke, or a disability. I was me, and that was enough.
As I walked out of the room, my head held high, I knew that my life would never be the same again. I had found my voice, and I would never be silent again.