Marigold by Heather Manheim (best books for 8th graders .TXT) 📕

president, this was additional stress added to the United States’ unsure future. After Mr. Cooper, the Secretary of Homeland Security went to his final resting place; there were no more options. The United States was sans a president. With the county in flux and so many ill people, nobody knew what would become of the country or the presidential offices.

Then, a ray of sunshine beamed into the world.

Baby Davis was born. All seven pounds, four ounces, and nineteen inches entered the world screaming on April 21, 2027. Her mother had become infected with the plague, and there was an absolute certainty that baby Davis herself would be born with it. And she had been. In the short history scrapbook of her life Davis received at the state care facility she grew up in, it told of a baby girl who had been born that day. Her mother was on a list to find possible cures and happened to be the top name when labor started. Some unsuccessful tests had taken place before Davis’s arrival, but a new medicine that previously tested well in lab settings was administered to Davis and her mom. Baby Davis and her mother would be the very first humans to receive the Marigold Injection and possibly be the test subjects that would hopefully show the planet a way out of inevitable extinction. As the collective world—at least what remained of it—held its breath to see if the panacea would work, baby Davis was escorted away into a private care facility and monitored by top health professionals and Dr. Everett. They had attempted to inject baby Davis’s mother as well. However, Dr. Everett sadly announced that she had passed because of the virus and a difficult labor and delivery. On the brighter side of things, a week after baby Davis was born, it was reported to the world and told far and wide that the Marigold Injection had been a massive success. Results had been almost immediate in the baby girl. First, she temporarily turned a bright golden-yellow due to the medicine, and then she ceased to have any symptoms of the Lombardi Plague and was indeed found free of the virus in test after test. The world had the first patient ever to survive and be cured of the dreaded Lombardi Plague.

However, with only a handful of senators, congresspeople, and governors left in office, the nation found itself without prominent elected officials. The remaining state and federal representatives organized an emergency election almost immediately after the triumphant vaccination announcement. There were three names to choose from: Mr. Louis, a senator from Wisconsin; Mrs. Chiu, the governor of New York; and Dr. Everett of California. In a monumental election, it was a landslide decision that Dr. Everett would become president, even though at the age of twenty-seven, he was younger than the minimum age to run for president. So many people had elevated him to the role of a savior that it made him unbeatable. The resolution before the election was to return to the system that was used prior to 1804. That system directed that the runner-up in the election was to be the vice president. However, since the vast majority of votes went to President Everett and the other two candidates received so few, they decided no vice president would be appointed. Instead, every remaining politician, totaling thirty-one in total, would form one advisory committee to the president. Another new change was that the new president was elected to an eight-year term. The politicians wagered that after the annihilation that the United States had suffered, it would take a minimum of eight years, or two regular presidential terms, to rectify some of the damage and start to rebuild the country and populace. The last change was to dissolve all state lines and form one United State.

Now, twenty-four years after that historical election, Davis found herself in the audience of this momentous celebration. As the first patient to receive the vaccination that had saved her life and many others, she was included in the celebration. She was looking forward to a speech scheduled to be delivered by President Everett.

Davis shifted nervously in her seat as President Everett took to the podium. She straightened her shoulders, smoothed her glossy golden honey-blonde hair back, and put her best smile on. It wasn’t difficult; it was easy. It was natural to love President Everett; he was handsome, with his dark black hair with some gray peppered in and dreamy brown eyes that always looked as if they had a great thought behind them. He was fifty-one now but not weathered and tired looking. Davis wondered if that was the yoga. President Everett was a known yoga fan and had included twenty minutes every morning in the school-aged children’s curriculum. Every school day, children would line up in the schoolyard or gym and follow along with President Everett himself as a projected image assisted the children in the daily routine. President Everett also had the friendliest smile and such straight white teeth. He was known to be a good husband and father. Even his mannerisms seemed warm and inviting. He had the uncanny ability to speak to an entire audience yet make everyone feel like they were the most important one there. Davis couldn’t be happier to be sitting in the audience to celebrate the anniversary of the end of the epidemic. A beautiful May day for the speech settled on the crowd. It was slightly warm, with the sun shining down and a soft breeze blowing through the trees, rustling the leaves a little as President Everett started to make his inauguration speech on the first day of his fourth unanimous election into the office of president.

“We are the people, and the people are we,” said President Everett, opening his speech with the United State traditional slogan. “The anniversary of our freedom from the horrible Lombardi Pandemic has just passed. We dedicate this memorial today to the approximately two