Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived on a farm far away in Limpopo. The girl had a bright complexion and was extremely beautiful. She was a shy girl, who was trapped under a very dark cloud of bad luck. People around the farm took her for granted because she was extremely sweet, friendly and quite easy to approach. As for her family, to them she was invisible and unimportant.

In her teenage years, she experienced traumatic circumstances, which were way beyond her age, they led her to live a very quiet and meaningless life with no purpose, no dream and no goals in life whatsoever. As she matured, she adopted a dual lifestyle of which she applied at home and outside. It all began when she was in her last year of school in grade 12, she met a guy who was the opposite of everyone she had ever met. At first she pushed him away but he kept coming back and finally she opened up her heart to him. It was as if she was dreaming each time they were together then she finally discovered herself through him.

This guy was weird because he treated her like a queen, even when people discouraged him, telling him how bad and twisted a girl she was. The girl discovered her calling, she was a writer at heart and she was effortlessly good. Whenever she would write, the guy, would take her pieces of writing and urge her to record it. People started to listen to those pieces without knowing that it was her. They wondered who the owner of the recordings were for a long time, it wasn’t until grade 12 she attended that they found out. It was a special occasion where very important people were invited, parents and the community as a whole.

The guy had told the girl to prepare something special for the occasion, even if she could not perform it in person, but what she didn’t know was that she was already on the list of people who were going to speak that day. The day was perfect and organized, and people were performing back to back. The girl was normal and as usual she was beautiful as ever. Then she was called on the stage to perform her piece, she was surprised at first and looked around for the guy but he was not there that day. So, as she stood up to face the crowd, she knew he had designed an opportunity for her to reclaim her respect and honour. The crowd was shocked and asked amongst themselves if their time was going to be wasted, but as she boldly owned the stage with a powerful voice that caused the hearts and souls to shake with amazement, rendering her poem, everyone started changing the way they perceive the girl right on the spot.

After her performance, there was a standing ovation as people clapped their hands endlessly then when she went backstage, there he was, waiting to give her a hug for an outstanding performance. Tears of joy ran down her cheeks, like a peaceful waterfall as she realizes the turning point of her life. The people who lived on the farm were encouraged by how the girl, who was perceived as nothing, showed them her true self as the opposite of what they thought she was -what they thought she would never be.

The girl scored the highest overall marks with several distinctions and she was a good example for her community. The community learned a lesson of not judging a book by its cover as they didn’t know what is inside, until you read it the same way they judged the girl without taking the time to know her. As for the guy and the girl, they moved to Johannesburg to further their studies together as they continue their lives, the guy is an engineer and the girl is pursuing her dreams as a writer