Page 20 - aprl 2017 Voices

The Orchid Mantis

by Jasiah Hasan

The followng speech won the Future Stars youth gavel club speech contest recently held in Portland,
Oregon.

When an orchid mantis hatches, it hatches whole year. It was a simple review of chemistry,
alongside hundreds of its brothers and sisters. but for some reason, everyone had failed it.
With a name like “orchid mantis”, you’d think Everyone but yours truly. I remember hearing
they’d be pretty, but as they dry out their wet and people argue and complain—“does this teacher
vulnerable bodies, they look a like cross between even know basic chemistry?”—and I was sitting
a fire ant and a gross shrimp on steroids. there just trying to contain my happiness. This
After they’ve dried their outer shells, they sit was a good day. I was feeling good, empowered.
on the large leaves. Hundreds of them. And they Maybe there was an actual hope for me in this
wait. They wait. And they wait. And they wait. class?
No mantis is moving a muscle and it’s deathly Then I hear a boy say, “Ugh, this teacher is
quiet—they’re all just staring each other down stupid. I wrote that ionic bonds are the strongest
with their beady black eyes. and he marked that wrong. Everyone knows ionic
Now many of you (I hope) are looking at me bonds are the strongest.”
and thinking this girl is not an orchid mantis. He kept going on and on like that, belittling
You’re right. So what does this have to do with the teacher, insulting his intelligence, acting like
anything? Well, the reason the orchid mantis he knew everything in the world.
hatchlings are not moving is because they So finally I piped up. “Actually, covalent bonds
innately eat anything that moves or breathes. are stronger that’s why he marked you wrong.”
Anything at all. And that includes their fellow “Um, no. You’re definitely wrong. Ionic bonds
brothers and sisters. are stronger.” Then he rattled off reasons.
The sad thing is, I can relate to the orchid I interrupted him and told him, “in biology,
mantis, just in a less fatal scale. And I know I’m all reactions take place in an aqueous solution,
not the only one out of a certain 50% of so covalent bonds are actually stronger.”
the human population. “Aqueous solutions don’t matter. Have you
Sometimes I feel like an read a textbook in your life?”
orchid mantis that’s just “Yeah they do. Water is composed of charged
hatched, waiting and being ions which interfere with the charged attractions
stared down, afraid to make a in ionic bonds, weakening them.”
wrong move that may lead to And he shot back, telling me I didn’t know
everyone around me eating what I was talking about. So I showed our actual
me alive. textbook where it explained exactly what I said
I remember earlier with diagrams and everything. He told me to get
this year we had just new glasses because evidently I couldn’t read.
finished a bio quiz, Now I was getting a little defensive. Why was
our first one of the this boy not taking me seriously?
“I’m telling you, man! Water is the most
important component of biology. It is
everywhere in our body. H+ and OH-
ions weaken ionic bonding,
that’s why covalent bonds
are stronger.”
And then he
widened his eyes,
held up his hands,

20 VOLUME 3 ISSUE 10 APRIL, 2017