Days went by, and when Jennifer’s funeral took place, the community came to support the Cooper family, and some even donated funds to help out. During the funeral, Nelly felt very powerless because she cried all the time, and Ruth was busy welcoming and thanking people for their support.

After the funeral, Nelly’s focus shifted at school because she was depressed about her mother’s death, but the final examinations were around the corner. The teacher that had helped her with her career choice managed to see that Nelly was not in a good space, so he asked her to come to his office. She did as requested, and when she arrived at the teacher’s office, he motivated her, told her many sweet stories, and softened her with sweet quotes from many philosophers and heroes.

After her talk with the teacher, Nelly came back to her senses and started revising her school work and studying hard. She even helped some of the other learners and did some extra classes with them. A lot of Nelly’s teachers were proud of the passion she had when it came to teaching, and they even asked her to become a teacher once she finish her matric, but that was not her dream.

A few weeks after the funeral, Ruth managed to get a piece job in Mafikeng, and because of that, they managed to get extra money and save up for Nelly’s studies. Ruth even bought Nelly a smartphone, but she hid it because she wanted it to be a surprise after she got her results, which was what their mother had promised.

When the final examinations started, Ruth asked her younger sister to pray before they departed from their three roomed house, and after they did so, each of them took their own way out. The school learners, on the other hand, asked the principal to gather an assembly in order to pray for the matric learners during their path of writing their final examinations, and the principal did so.

The prayer went well, and right after it, the time to start with the examinations finally came. After the prayer, each learner went straight into the centre where they would be writing their final exams, and a few days after the students wrote their first exam, the final examinations ended.

After writing their last paper, the learners decided to sing the national anthem out loud in order to thank anybody and bid them farewell with their journey. The teachers were very happy too, and some of them even said that they were going to miss the learner’s presence in school, but they also knew that departure was the only thing left.

Soon after the exams, the festive season erupted, and city workers came back home. Some children from various places also came to Klippel for the holidays. Ruth managed to gather some money for them for the festive season, and she bought Nelly some new clothes so she could be like other kids. She was very supportive towards her younger sister, and she always tried to make her comfortable by any means.

After the festive season finally finished, the new-year got ready to start with a mission, and at some point during the new-year, the education department got ready to announce the matric results in some sources of information like the radio, newspapers, and even electronically through SMS’s, but Nelly had no cell phone.

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Tell us: How do you think Nelly did for her final exams?