A Horrible Day

 

            Jett knew that when life gave you lemons, you were supposed to make lemonade. At least that’s what his mom always said. But lately, he’d been given so many lemons, his lemonade would be way too sour. He really needed some sugar to sweeten up his life.

            Things had started off badly this morning when he realized he hadn’t done his homework from the night before. He tried to do it on the bus ride to school, but he had been in too much of a hurry and wasn’t able to finish. He handed it in to his teacher, knowing that he wouldn’t be getting a good grade. In math class, there was a pop quiz. Jett wasn’t totally surprised when he got a C- on it. In gym class, they played softball, which he usually loved. But it had rained the night before and the outfield was almost like a pond. Jett ended up covered in wet grass and soaked in mud.

            Lunch wasn’t much better. Jett had made himself his usual lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but somehow, his sandwich had slid out of the zippered bag and smeared jelly all over the inside of his backpack.

            By the afternoon, Jett was starving and upset. His bad mood got him into an argument with Ben in English class that led to both boys going to see the principal. Ben ended up with a black eye, and Jett’s lip was bleeding. When the bell rang, he got out of there as quickly as he could. He had a note he would have to show to his parents. He deflated inside when he thought about what his mom would say. On the bus, he plopped down in his usual seat and closed his eyes, just wanting this day to be over.

            Finally, the bus stopped at the top of his street, and Jett slowly got off. When his feet hit the sidewalk, he realized he must have made a mistake. Instead of looking down his street, he was standing in front of what looked like a bank building. He turned around to get back on the bus, but it was gone. Instead, there was a man wearing a shiny purple suit with a bowtie.

            Jett was so surprised that he just stared at the man before the man said, “Can I help you, young sir?”

            “Uhh, yes. I got off on the wrong stop and I need to get home. Where am I?”

            Jett expected the man to give him an address, but instead he said, “This is where you schedule your re-do.”

            “My what?”

            “Your re-do. If you have a bad day, sometimes you can be chosen to have the day to live over again.”

            Jett’s brain stopped for a moment. “I get a re-do? How come?” He thought back over his day and realized that he could have made some better decisions. If he could go back and do it again, that would really make it so much better.

            The man in the purple suit looked kindly at Jett. “It’s your lucky day! Just go in the front doors and step up to the counter.”

            Jett walked up to the doors that turned out to be purple with pink polka dots. He pushed them open to reveal what looked like a colorful circus. The people inside were all wearing bright colored suits with bowties. There was every color of the rainbow represented.

            Jett walked up to the counter where a woman in a glittery lavender suit greeted him by saying, “What’s your name, dear?”

            “Jett Phillips,” Jett replied a little nervously.

            The woman consulted a list in front of her. “Ahh, yes, it looks like you had a pretty rough day at school today. Lucky for you, you get another chance.”

            “How exactly does that work?” Jett asked curiously.

            “It’s a fairly simple process. Just let us know how far back you’d like to go, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

            “What do you mean, how far back?”

            The woman straightened a stack of papers and said, “At what point would you like to restart your day?”

            Jett thought about when his troubles began. “I know!” he said excitedly. “I want to go back to 8 PM from last night when I should have been doing my homework. If I can finish it yesterday, I’ll be able to turn it in in the morning.”

            The woman wrote something down in a big ledger. When she finished, she looked up and said, “All right, I’ve got you down for 8 PM last night. All you need to do is sign here.” She handed Jett a piece of paper.

            After quickly looking it over, Jett signed his name at the bottom. He handed the paper back to the woman.

            “Okay,” she said brusquely. “Please exit through the orange doors.” She gestured off to her right, where Jett saw some vibrant orange doors.

            “Okay, thanks,” Jett said, grinning. He walked toward the doors and actually had his hand on it when he thought to turn around and ask, “So when do I get to restart?”

            The large circus-like room was gone, and Jett found himself in his own kitchen. Confused, Jett whirled around, but the orange doors were gone too. He must have just gotten a drink out of the refrigerator. There was a cold glass of milk in his hand. Outside the window it was dark. Did it work? he thought, wondering if this could actually be happening.

            Jett ran out into the hall where his backpack stood in its normal place. Looking inside, there was no sticky jelly mess and his homework assignment worksheet was blank. “I really do get a re-do,” he whispered excitedly. He immediately pulled out his assignment and this time, he took the time he needed to finish it correctly.

            Later, Jett went to bed, excited for tomorrow. He fell asleep, telling himself things like, “Go around the giant puddle by first base,” and “Make sure the sandwich bag is totally zipped shut.”

            Jett had a great day after he got up the next morning. He confidently turned in his homework. Because he had done it correctly, the pop quiz didn’t seem as hard as it had been before. Jett spent the entire gym class trying to stay away from the large bodies of water on the softball field. His lunch tasted perfect.

            As he rode the bus home, Jett thought about the re-do circus place and hoped that if he ever had another bad day, he would get lucky enough to get another re-do. He would be totally fine having a do-over for all of his bad days. That would be awesome.