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// Vinyl, on Ghostwriting 
// Story: Dream On: Vinyl and Tavi's Private Weblog 
// by Koiyuki 
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When I was in school, I expected a lot from myself, and so did my folks. To us, B's were barely cutting it, and although they didn't believe in spanking and all that...let's just say I didn't plan on showing them anything below a C. I remember one time I had a D in Gym about half way through the year, and the next day I woke up to find I was enrolled in a training program. For boxers. With a special focus on sparring. The repeated jabs I took to the eye were a stinging reminder that failure had consequences, something I learned more about as I got to know you, Ms. Strings and Things. 

Your parents wanted the same performance, with about 1/10th the grace my folks gave me towards failure, and 10 times the amount of other crap they wanted you to nail. I was lucky my folks realized that while folks can do more than they think, you can only ask so much before something slips through the cracks. For example, I was hanging out at your place one weekend, watching you plug away at your homework while I bummed off your wifi. Out of nowhere, I hear you scream, "Bloody Tartarus, I still haven't started that writing assignment!"

Turned out you had a 500 word paper due the next morning, along with a pile of other crap they assigned for weekend homework, and you hadn't even seen the movie it was suppose to summarize yet. Before you threw yourself into full on grind mode, you looked dead at me and asked if I could help you with it, knowing I had academic writing on lock, and that I was fully against cheating. The 3 things that kept me from flat out saying no were the pleading(especially those puppy dog eyes. Such a sucker for those), the promise of cash money, and what my mom told my dad about that kinda stuff, e.g. that there's nothing wrong with profiting by easing the burden of a student trying to survive a highly unfair and highly nonsensical educational system that teaches few of the skills they'll need in the real world. With a cleansing breath, I said, "Alright, don't trip. I got this on lockdown," and went to work. 

Couple days later, I get a message from you saying it got an A(as I knew it would), and that I should expect something very good very soon. I was expecting, at best, a trip to a fancy restaurant or some high brand dress, or whatever, given how easily I breezed through it. That weekend, when we met up at the tree I found your iPlayer at, though, I saw you carrying something big in your shoulder bag, which you quickly gave to me to examine. Inside, I saw something white with rounded corners and a bitten into pepper logo on the back, and knew it was that stupidly expensive laptop, the iPepper(plus the crap you'd need to run it, natch). I remember being kinda mystified, and asking, "So, you want me to write you another paper, or you gonna give me that something good?" To which you said,

"This is your something good" 

At first, the only things I could say were...man, I don't even know if a baby would call it intelligible speech. I mean, this was my something good? This? THIS!? After the shock wore off, I straight up told you I couldn't accept it, not only because I thought it was part of my pay for helping someone fleece the system, but also because even if it was legit work, it's getting a bucking laptop for a 500 word paper I basically yanked outta my butt; as soon as I told you as much, you sat me down and told me this,

"Did you think I wouldn't take note of all the times you expressed frustration at using your parent's old Madobe? Of when the computers at the library ate your homework after you ate through your time? Of all the times you wished for a private workspace? The entire reason I went to you over the paper mills my classmates speak of is because I've seen the quality of your work, of how much effort you put into it, despite those setbacks. My parents taught me that none should ever have their potential caged by their means, so to help you open up yours, I'm giving you my old laptop, loaded with everything one needs to sharpen their academic mind... along with a few others odds and ends. Go on, power it up, and see for yourself"

Sure enough, there were a buncha educational programs, some neat music, a few old school games...and a document file titled "Ghostwriting Need to Know Info" After I saw  the definition, the instructions, the list of names, the password for the debit card you gave me and the info for the Pon-3 dummy e-mail account you set, I could tell you had something big in mind for me, especially when you said "Have you ever heard the saying, 'Teach someone to fish, feed them for life?'" 

Not long after I took the plunge, my iPlayer shook like it was chilly from the emails Pon-3 was getting...and it turns out that just as many of those kids looking for a paper were also looking for a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on from all the stress that got put on them by school and junk they were going through with their folks. Even if I wasn't bound by that confidentiality contract you set up, I'm not sure I could put into words how crappily they were treated by their folks, teachers and peers(and how crappily they treated you, in some instances, but that's another matter for another time). It's good to put importance on how you do, but basing your sense of self worth on it like they did is like building a house outta cards, and is just as easy to blow apart

Felt mighty sketchy stuffing my wallet that way, but hey, if the demand is there, they're willing to pony up, and it's easy enough to crank out the work, a gig's a gig. Don't hurt that it felt great to help my folks with stuff, like, say upgrading the family computing situation. My mom was mad jelly when she found out I got this from you, so I decided to make a few investments to help it grow (if you call hustling folks at the pool hall an investment. And I do!), and help her get her own, so she'd stop hogging mine to do her "work," *cough* Photoshocking *cough*. The day we went together to the local Pepper store for her laptop, I could feel something real in that hug she gave me, and I had no doubts that for everything she and my dad did for me, I wanted and still want to do for them, no matter what it took to do it