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Harlee

Harrisburg South Middle School, South Dakota

My experience with Covid was rough. It began in the middle of my fourth grade year. One of my family members got Covid-19 and I was required to quarantine. After a couple of days in quarantine, they shut down the school. I was so furious I had to do the rest of the school in remote learning. I was falling behind in school.

Sooner or later school ended and summer break began. That summer you couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t travel, couldn’t swim, or visit family or friends. That summer was the worst, but like all summers, it was over in seconds.

School started again, and I was so excited to start fifth grade. My mom told me that we would have to wear masks the whole time. The masks weren’t that bad. When the school year started I never knew that the year was going to be terrible. Around the middle of the year, it was going fine, and we had been close to going home many times but we didn’t. Then my stepmom was sick, and it turned out she had Covid. I had to quarantine. It was horrible. I was so mad. School was going well until that happened. I had to quarantine for 14 days. It was a long 14 days.

Then I was back at school. I don’t like school but I wanted to be there. I was happy at school getting all caught up with my school work. Three weeks later my teacher got a call from my house. My sister got Covid. I had to quarantine again. I was miserable. I had to take care of my sister. My mom couldn’t because she couldn’t get sick because of her job. I had to get all her food. I had to do all her laundry. On top of all that I had my school work to do.

After I had gotten all caught up I fell behind again. Another two weeks in quarantine. The two weeks were so long. But after two weeks I was back at school. I was happy to be back. It was almost summer. We had like three weeks left. I thought that was going to be my last quarantine but it wasn’t.

My teacher told me that I was leaving early. When I got into the car my mom told me that I had a “close contact” with someone in my class. After my multiple quarantines, I had to endure another quarantine. I was devastated. I had to go into quarantine again after three times. It was almost summer. I just wanted to be done with school and rest in the summer. I couldn’t miss the last week of school because the last week of school was the most fun. I was back to school with one week of school left. I was happy to relax for the last week of school, doing no homework, nothing. Then it was summer. That summer was not the greatest. You couldn’t go see your friends, go see your family, you couldn’t go on vacation, or go swimming at any local pools.

Summer passed and I was nervous but excited for sixth grade. I was thinking to myself, “This is gonna be a good year and there will hopefully be no quarantines.” They said that we didn’t have to wear masks so that was good. After I got comfortable in my school and learned the routine that I needed, I was good to go for this year. After like three months in school I got sick. My mom and I went to go get a Covid test to see if I have Covid. The results came back the next day and I had Covid. I was devastated, but this time you only had to be quarantined for one week so that was good. The week went by fast and I was back at school in no time, and I haven’t got Covid since. This made me realize that you just have to keep persisting through rough times even when they get hard.

© Harlee. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.

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