Category: Spring 2017

Chapter 1

“Can you please tell me the story?”

“Fine, I will tell you the story,” I said to my grandchild.

Although I had told her the story a ton of times, she always wanted to hear it before she went to bed.      

***

Everyone in town thought that I was very strange. They never saw me, they never knew where I was, and the only thing they thought they knew about me was where I was staying. And that was in my house, but I knew that wasn’t where I always was. I knew that I wasn’t normal, but I just didn’t know why. I preferred to eat raw meat, and that was the only thing I would ever eat, and I drank blood. I also knew that I didn’t go to school and just grew up at home with my dad. I was a VAMPIRE!

When the time had come, I had to feed on a human. It was about midnight, but the party was still going strong. The only reason I was going to feed on a human at the party was because I wanted to be challenged. I thought that feeding on humans who were by themselves was just an easy task. As I crept under the table, I saw that someone was walking to my table to get a drink, a drink of blood that I needed to live. When I pushed my fangs into the person’s flesh, I felt very good. Then, the person screamed! That was when I realized that I had bitten a hole that was way too big. Because of this, I was on the run from the Vampire Police.

The Vampire Police was a mean organization that thought vampires were trouble. The thing that was the most strange about them was that nobody knew what they were. All vampires were taught to avoid them. That was why I didn’t go to school. Usually, if someone was in my situation, they would’ve just hid in some dark and miserable place. That was when I got the idea to find out what they were. I knew that it would be a very dangerous journey, so I packed many provisions. These things included a lot of meat, some matches, one special knife that could cut anything, and a bottle of water. I started my trek by walking through some cold woods. I walked for days and days until I came to a little hut. I was desperate for some warmth, so I knocked on the crude door. I could tell that the person who would be living in this hut would be weird. This hut didn’t really feel like it should’ve been here.

I waited for a long time for someone to open the door, and finally, a man opened the door and let me come in. To my astonishment, the man was only wearing shorts and a T-shirt! In addition, the temperature inside the house was colder than it was outside!

I said, “Why is it so cold in here?”

The man responded, “If it’s colder in here, than it is outside, then I will feel warmer when I go outside.”

My first thought was that he may be working with the Vampire Police because he was a little weird.   

Chapter 2

As I moved on, I faced a hard obstacle. I didn’t have anything to build a boat to cross the vast ocean. I searched around to see if I could find some wood, but I couldn’t.

“The Vampire Police must be watching me,” I said to myself. “I guess I must walk back the other way.”

I walked for days and days until I found a massive Vampire Police camp. And now, I was almost 99.9% sure that they were tracking me. I was almost surrounded, so I tried to sneak out as quickly and as quietly as possible. I was almost out, just 20 yards… 15… 10… 5 yards.

“Hands up! You’re coming with me,” said a masked being (Vampire Police.)

He led me to the center of the camp and tied my leg to this huge, metal ball that stopped me from moving. I watched everything going on in the camp around me. The main thing I saw was that everything was so neat. Finally, I fell into a deep sleep.

I awoke to the sound of somebody yelling harshly in my ear, “Get up, you miserable vampire.”

That was when I saw that he didn’t have a mask on. His head was an intricate pattern of scales.

“I need to ask you a question,” the mysterious figure said. “What brings you here?”

I responded with rage, “I was just trying to find out what you people are!”

As the people left me alone, I overheard them say, “We will need to watch this one very closely.”

Chapter 3  

Late in the night, I started to think, I should at least try to break free of this ball. I tugged and tugged, but I couldn’t get myself free, and that was when I remembered that I had my super sharp knife that could cut anything in my pocket. I pulled it out without a problem, and I started cutting the chain. When I almost broke free, something crazy happened. The chain shocked me!

“Not so fast,” the unmasked man said.  “Everyone who specializes in capturing vampires knows that the vampires have created a special knife that can cut anything. So, we made these chains programmed to shock any person that is using the special knife.”

Well, now they knew about my knife. They took it away, and I was completely helpless. As I was just lying down on the rough dirt, below me, someone whispered into my ear.

“It’s me, Gavin. I’ll help you get out of here.”

“What are you doing?” I whispered in a threatening tone. “You will get yourself killed!”

“We’ll be fine. I know how I can get you out.”

“How?” I challenged.

“I will throw my super sharp knife at the chain, and it can’t shock me because the chain isn’t long enough to shock me.” Gavin said.

“Let’s do this.” I said.

Gavin threw his knife, and I was free. We sprinted away from the camp in hurry. We were running for a long time in a direction away from the camp. If I haven’t said yet, Gavin was a trusted childhood friend.

I told Gavin, “Because the Vampire Police is smart, they are probably still tracking us.”

Chapter 4

“I bet the Vampire Police is tracking us right now,” I said.

“I know they are. That’s why we are going to hide.”

“Where?”

“In a place that is only known by me and my ancestors.”

“Sounds good, where is it?”

“Well, that, I cannot tell you. Let’s go.”

It turned out that Gavin was a lot more prepared than I was. He still had his car with him. We got into the car, and we drove for a long time. I didn’t remember much of it because I simply fell asleep. Gavin woke me up at dawn. We were in his hiding place. His hiding place was just a giant, hollow rock. As I was walking into the rock, I put two and two together.

“I know how the Vampire Police are tracking us.” I told Gavin. “They are just following us and being extremely stealthy!”

“Then they must be outside right now. So the only way to avoid them is to be on the move,” said Gavin.

Chapter 5

This time, we knew exactly where the Vampire Police were and what they were going to do, so we planned a little in advance. It was a little frustrating that the Vampire Police were always one step ahead of us. When we drove out of the camp, we drove very fast so we could try and lose the Vampire Police. When we started to slow down, I caught a glimpse of a Vampire Police vehicle. It was very cool and strange. It was a flying car. I told Gavin about it.

He responded, “Well, I guess we can’t really do anything about it. It’s faster than us, it can escape us, and it can shoot us.”

“We should still try to escape it,” I said.

“Fine,” said Gavin. “But if I go really fast, we might run out of gas.”

We took off again driving really fast when Gavin said, “Oops, I made a wrong turn!”

When we turned, we were ambushed!

“Give us all your things, you won’t escape again.”

We gave them all our things, and we were led to a Vampire Police camp. It was the same one but just set up in a different area. The police put me and Gavin in two separate rooms. As soon as they put me in the room, I just fell asleep. When I woke up, I looked through the window on the door, and to my astonishment, I saw Gavin talking with the Vampire Police, and he wasn’t in any sort of captivity! He had betrayed me!

All I wanted to do right now was kill Gavin. He was my best friend. We helped each other a lot, and now he betrayed me. With nobody to help me get out of here, I felt defeated. The only other person I fully trusted was my dad, and he was in no condition to get me out of here. I didn’t grow up with a mom because I was adopted. And my dad wasn’t married, so that was why I didn’t have a mom I could trust. So, I had to get out myself. I don’t know why, but vampires had very strong feet. They were like leather. I kicked the window with my super, strong feet, and it broke open!

Crack!

Everyone looked at my door. I quickly broke out of the door. Hundreds of Vampire Police guards came at me. Luckily, vampires were stronger and faster than humans and these aliens. I figured out that these police were old enemies of the vampires. I knew about them because of old stories my dad told me in my childhood.

When the police came at me, I punched the first few and picked up their weapons. Then it was easy. I just sliced at them with their own swords, and I shot at them with their own guns. The air was filled with smoke and fire. Once I had gotten all of them on the ground, I had to figure out where I was. I went into the communications room, and I found a map. I figured out that I was in the French Alps. I took the map and packed a backpack with everything I needed to go to my home that was in the Swiss Alps. I then borrowed one of the flying cars and made my way back home.

Chapter 6

As I was driving back home, I started thinking about all the possible ways I could use this knowledge about the Vampire Police. Maybe it could help vampires avoid them. Or maybe my knowledge could even help us vampires defeat the Vampire Police.

***

“Goodnight, Flora. Remember, as I always tell you, maybe your generation can be the generation to defeat the Vampire Police once and for all.”

“Do you really think that I can be the one who can defeat the Vampire Police, Grandpa?”

“Yes, I think you can. Now, I really think you should go to bed. Goodnight, Flora.”

“Goodnight, Grandpa.”

Prologue

It happened again. The masked man was back. Lin ran up the stairs as fast as he could. He heard a deep, dark voice say, “You can run, but you can’t hide!”

Lin slithered under his bed when he heard the deep, dark voice. Lin heard him march up the stairs and into his room.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” said the deep, dark voice as he looked around. “I’ll get you next time, I promise,” he said as he went downstairs.

Lin heard something he thought was a scream. He heard a door slam. Lin didn’t know what was happening, so he ran downstairs to his mom and dad. Dead, his parents were dead. Lin cried so hard when he buried them in the backyard, alone. When he was going to his room, Lin heard something… it came from the rug…

Chapter 1: The Jungle

Lin thought he was dreaming, so he ran into the wall. But instead of getting hurt, he fell through the wall. He got up and saw a jungle, and in that jungle, he saw the rug from his room. Lin tried to go back through the wall. Every time he tried to get out, he bounced off. He looked around. He saw that he was in a forcefield. He heard the rug say, “You have magic!”

“I do?” Lin said.

“Yes, you do,” the rug said. “The magic is to protect you when you have to fight.”

“I have to fight?” Lin said. “Why?”

“To find the dragon that will lead you to the guardian. The guardian is guarding the portal that’s your only way back home,” the rug said. “You need to fight the guardian to get home.”

“Do I have to?” Lin said.

“If you want to get home,” the rug said, “you have all the time you need to go home.”

“FINE!” Lin said.

Lin felt something. It felt warm. Lin looked around and saw something not so far away. It looked like a…

“Fire-breathing DRAGON!” the rug said.

“Hey! I was going to say that!” said Lin.

“Well, I said it first,” the rug said.

“Well, but…” Lin tried to respond when he and the rug felt a dark shadow cast upon them.

Lin and the rug slowly turned around. Then they saw it. It had two giant wings, a very, very long tail, and lastly, it breathed fire. Lin tried to run away, but he felt something pulling him back. It was the dragon. The dragon lifted Lin by his feet and started shaking him.

The dragon asked, “What is your name?”

Lin said, “Lin. My name is Lin.”

“Where do you come from?” the dragon demanded.

“America,” Lin replied.

“Where’s America?” the dragon asked.

“It’s on Earth,” Lin said in a nervous voice.

The dragon didn’t do or say anything. Lin was very confused.

The dragon went over to Lin and said, “Get on my back, I’ll get you to the guardian. But in return, you can’t tell anyone that you were here.”

“Deal,” Lin said as he climbed onto the dragon’s back.

“What about me, can I come too?” the rug asked.

The dragon said, “sure.”

The rug floated onto the dragon’s back. The dragon flew gracefully through the sky. Lin looked down and saw only treetops, but when they were close to landing, he saw a portal. A tall man in shiny silver armor was guarding it.

The dragon said, “Now you have to fight.”

“What?” asked Lin.

“The guardian. And no one can help you,” the dragon answered.

“Okay, I’ll fight. Only because I get a chance to go home,” Lin said.

The dragon landed and let Lin off his back.

Chapter 2: The First Portal

Lin walked closer and closer to the guardian. With each step he took, the gray stones shook under his feet.

The guardian asked, “Why are you here?”

“I am here to fight,” Lin said confidently.

The guardian said, “For what?”

“I want to fight to get into that portal to go home,” Lin answered.

As he was pulling out his sword, the guardian said, “Okay. Let’s dance.”

Then Lin pulled out his sword (he had a sword because he had magic.)

Then the guardian asked, “Are you sure you want to fight me?”

“Yes, because it’s my way home,” Lin said.

Then the rug said to the guardian, “Be careful, Lin has magic.”

Then the guardian asked, “Who’s Lin?”

Then Lin yelled, “I’m Lin!”

The guardian started laughing and laughing so hard that he fell down. Lin saw his chance to get into the portal without fighting. When he was halfway in the portal, the guardian grabbed him by the feet and said, “Not so fast.”

Lin said, “Come on, that was my only chance!”

The guardian said, “I thought we were going to fight. Oh, and don’t tell anyone, but it’s my dream to fight.”

Lin said, “Hey, I think I see someone who’s asking to fight with you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

The guardian started running out to the jungle like he was the happiest person alive. Then Lin grabbed the rug and jumped into the portal. When they got out, they weren’t home.

The rug asked, “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Lin answered. “I know we’re not home.”

The rug swooped over to Lin and said, “I think you have to go on another quest to find a map which will lead you to the knight who, I think, is guarding your way home.”

“Are you kidding me?” Lin groaned.

“I am not kidding, Lin.”

“Fine. I’ll go on this quest. But you’re coming with me.”

Chapter 3: The Tropical Knight

Lin looked around. On one side, he saw a castle, and on the other, he saw a tropical island. Then something flew past them. It looked old. They chased after it. Then they found themselves by the castle. They looked at the thing that had flown by. It looked like a map. Lin picked it up and saw it showed the way to the knight.

Lin asked the rug, “Is this the map you were talking about?”

“Yes,” the rug said. “That’s exactly it. Now, you need to follow it to find the knight, and the knight seems to be in the castle guarding your way home, I think.”

Lin groaned, “You think?”

“Yes, I think, but probably. Wait! It shows that the knight is on the tropical island!”

“Are you kidding me? The island is so far away, we’re going to have to get a boat. Wait…  Why can’t I just use my magic to make a boat?”

“Well, your magic has limits, like you can’t bring back the dead, build something without having to do work, change time, or make a portal appear. So we have to get a boat if you want to get home,” the rug said.

“Fine! But I only have $100 in my pocket. It might not be enough to get a boat.”

“We can get a wooden rowboat!”

“But I’ll get splinters!”

“We can sand it.”

“You mean you’re going to sand it.”

“Fine.”

The rug and Lin went to all the huts by the castle. Only one hut had boats. All the boats were wood, so they bought one.

The rug said, “Now I need to sand the boat.”

So, Lin made sandpaper out of the little bits of sand from the ground that people brought back from the island.  The rug grabbed it and started.

“Hurry up,” Lin said. “Why are you taking so long?”

5 hours later…

“You’re still not done?” Lin groaned. “It’s nighttime!”

“Done!” the rug said happily.

“What took you so long?” Lin said.

“Well, excuse me, you didn’t help me,” the rug complained. “Well at least we’re done. Now you have to row.”

“Fine.” Lin pushed the boat into the water.

The rug floated onto the back seat, and Lin started rowing. It was dawn when they got to the island. The rug was sound asleep. Lin had no time to wake up the rug, so he explored the island with the map. He found it, the knight who was guarding the portal.

“Hey, you!” Lin said. “Are you the knight I have to fight to get into that portal?”

“Yes, I am that knight,” the knight said.

“Aren’t you tired?” Lin asked.

“Yes, yes I am,” the knight answered.

“Then why don’t you take a nap, and I can guard the portal?”

“No, it’s my job to guard the portal, and I don’t trust you, little kid.”

“Well, I can make you a deal. I can give you all the gold in the world, but tomorrow.”

“I don’t believe you,” the knight said.

“Actually, I can because I have magic.”

“Fine. Deal. But you better not break your promise.”

To be continued…

Prologue

1483

Today is a day of death. I could feel it in my bones as I lay down on the cold stone floor, each slab cut to my exact specifications to fit together perfectly as if it were a huge jigsaw puzzle. In the middle, I had put a pentacle. I used a mixture of chalk, blood from rats carrying the black plague, blood of a beast so old history had forgotten its name, and a fruit whose juice brought death within days to anyone foolish enough to taste it. I lit candles made from pure human bone, and burnt charred flesh to keep the light. I scattered drops of golden blood and prepared for my destiny…

1776

The Great Fire of New York… as I walk away from the burning buildings with a smoldering torch, I laugh maliciously, and I can still smell the scent of ashes and burning flesh.

As I walk away, grinning, two men walk up to me. They handle themselves with ease and are both armed.

The taller man speaks first. He is willowy and has a pale complexion, almost as if he is a skeleton, but the eyes ruin the look. He has a killer’s eyes, cold and dark, with no regret or conscience.

“Aye,” he says. “Why are you out here so late?”

I look at them warily and say, “Who in the blazes are you?”

I quickly steal a glance at the tall one’s hand, a pentacle. He’s a sorcerer! The little man responds this time. He has an eerie grin that leaves no doubt that they’re here to kill me.

“And right after those nasty murders over in General Washington’s camp. It ain’t safe out right now.”

They both wear tricorn hats and long coats made of leather. As I ponder over my discovery, the littler man pushes past me in a rush.

“Blimey, Johnathan, look at that sight, the city’s burning… Johnathan?”

As the small one is distracted, I act quickly, shoving my fist through Johnathan’s body. As his gasping breaths end, I throw his body at his friend, still damp with gore and blood. As the smaller man turns, Johnathan’s body flies into his, throwing him backward at a literal breakneck speed. And as I slowly walk away, I can still hear the screams.

1861

As I quietly cast my ballot in Congress, I already know the outcome of the vote. Anti-slavery. The South will not be happy. Perfect.

I smile as I walk up to President Lincoln, “So, Mr. Lincoln, where will you be tomorrow?”

“At the play, Congressman. Why?”

“Because I’ll be there too.”

“Good, Congressman.”

One hour later, war is declared.

1865

I slowly creep from my upper booth with my pistol. I have the President’s booth in my line of sight, but there are too many people around to see the act. I step into the hallway, behind the seats, and apply a chokehold on an usher, who manages one breath before it settles in. I hide his body in a trash can and proceed into the booth. I stab both guards in the back and shove them over, then I stab Lincoln in the back. Satisfied, I start walking away. Then I hear a gunshot. I see a man with a thin moustache running away from the booth that I had just been in. He runs straight into me, and I quickly tell him to keep running to a specific barn. He complies, and so, after I kill Lincoln, I lead the police on a chase towards my decoy.

As I circle back around to the White House, I swipe the amulet I am looking for.

“You’re next, Kennedy.”

1914

The wind whistles by my head. I would have rather done this at night, but this might be my only chance to kill my mark. After my hired help failed to kill the Archduke and his wife, the job was left to me. Everything is ready, the real murder weapon lies next to me, and young Gavrilo Princip is set to take the fall for the crime as he stands silently in the crowd. I raise the bow level to my torso and quickly stand up. I pull an arrow from my quiver and slowly draw it back. I shoot it. The arrow takes the Archduke in the stomach, and as soon as his wife moves to pull it out, it crumbles in her hands. Slowly and painfully, a small hole grows from her abdomen until it becomes the size of a small bullet wound. As I telegraph my employer and collect my pay, I walk away from the scene, smiling.

1963

De’ja vu. That’s what I feel as soon as I scope down on Kennedy. I have done this before, yes, I have killed the Archduke. As I hold the amulet up to the light, I see it has turned blood red. It is time. I check the tracker’s location. This is going to be an impossible shot, I think. Fine, I have done the impossible before. As I shoot a high-powered round towards Kennedy’s direction, I focus on the core of the bullet and move it, guiding it towards the President. I don’t see it connect, but I know it does when the amulet starts glowing.

2001

As I quickly grab my bag from under my seat and stand up, a terrorist runs over, saying “Sit down.” But I don’t, and I slip a dagger from my bag, swiping at him.

“Ha, silly man,” he says.“I am wearing a bulletproof ve-”

Then my knife cuts through him like a hot knife through butter. I catch his falling body and set it on my seat. I grab his gun and a silencer and aim up. Suddenly, behind me, I hear a whoosh, and I duck. The man’s knife impales the seat behind me. I roll under his legs and snap off four shots, downing the two men that were charging at me. I jump up, catching the man with the knife’s neck in between my legs. I fall backward, snapping his neck. I flip forward, dodging three bullets, and I spin in the air, shooting the rest of the terrorists. Damn it, five bullets left, I think to myself. I kick open the cockpit door and gun down everyone there. I set us down in a small field and return to my seat. Soon after, a man goes into the cockpit and declares that he has saved us and killed all the terrorists. Concealment magic makes everyone believe him. As I walk out, I see a man scrambling around looking for the bag that I now have in my hands.

He must see me in the corner of his eyes because soon after, he starts running towards me. Yup, this is him. The self-proclaimed most esteemed broker in the Western Hemisphere, and I just knock him out. When he comes to, I am just burying the rest of the passengers. I remove all the bullets to be reused before I bury them, and as I shove the last of the dirt onto the top of the mound, I drag the dealer over to a makeshift bench.

“Hello, Exnious.”

I flinch.

“It’s been a couple centuries since I last heard you were active doing your master’s work.”

“I see you still have that quick mouth, Celver, not even centuries can change that.”

“Ha.”

“Do you have the package you promised all those years ago?”

“Yes, I do. Here.”  

I feel the hard wood shaft of the object and take off the oil cloth to check it. I then replace the cloth, satisfied.

Chapter One

2017, Somewhere in the Himalayas.

I am in a tomb. The air is musty, and the walls are made of sandstone. This is old, I can smell it. There is magic here, old magic. If the Voice led me on a wild chase, I’ll be very angry. I am Exnious, Brander of Hellfire, Slayer of Gods, Punisher of Mortals. Over the course of my long life, I have killed many: politicians, gods, kings, demigods, demons, angels. You name it, I have killed it. I have over 200 kills on target objectives and more in direct combat to get to those objectives. And I’m immortal.

Right now, I’m in the middle of one of those kills. I stop in a wide chamber, where I can see my target. Then the guards of the tomb come to life and raise their swords. They’re golems, ancient beasts made of stone. They’re crude, ugly creatures with huge, humanoid bodies. The stone used to create these would have been hard in the sorcerer’s day, but now it looks crumbly and brittle. I ready myself and tighten my grip on my sword and gun.

“Come and get it.”

My eyes burn away until all that is left is flame. My sword ignites, and my gun begins to glow from the heat. Then I charge. I zip forward and slide on my knees, cutting into the golems’ legs with ease. They fall to the ground, and I flick my wrist. Mid-air, my sword transfigures into a chain-whip. It coils around each of their necks, burning hotter until their heads fall clean off. My chain retracts back into a sword, and the fire in my eyes starts to dim.

I walk forward in the chamber until I reach an altar. Sitting there, proudly displayed for all to see, is a old skull. Its bone is yellowed with age, and more than one tooth is missing from its mouth. I quickly stuff it in my bag and run for the entrance of the cave. I smell it before I see it. A sickly scent wafts into my nose as I round a corner. Then I see it behind me, a thick cloud covering all else, dissolving the walls and the roof of the tomb. The ceiling begins to crumble as I run, and soon, dirt begins to fall from above. Then it starts crashing down in thick waves of rock, stone, and dirt. As a huge piece of sandstone is about to block the entryway, I slide low, reaching the exit.

As I stand up and look around, I brush the dirt off my long coat. I collect myself and walk forward into the wilderness. I have to report in to the Voice, I think.

“Well done. Those golems would have threatened my regime,” the Voice says.

“Thanks, and I don’t care about your bloody regime,” I reply.

“Aren’t we getting a little bit rebellious, my pawn?”

“No, not again. Please, no, don’t do it! AAARRRGGG, IT BURNS!”

“Let me make this clear, I am your master. You will obey me till the end of time.”

“Fine, please, just don’t do this again.”

“Hahahaha. So, pawn, are we ready to kill our next target?”

“Yes, lord. Who will suffer your wrath?”

Two days later, I sit on a rooftop overlooking a church. This church is controlled by the most powerful angel in existence, Saint Michael. This won’t be easy. I use a grappling hook to slide on top of the church’s roof. I punch a hole through the top and fall down. Spinning in the air, I dual wield two M16’s and kill all three of the guards in the church. But there is still one I must fight, the angelic one. I am dressed for holy war with blood iron armor (which is iron burnt with the blood of sinners) around my chest, lower arms, shoulders, and shins. Over the rest, I have a thick link of blood iron. In my right hand, I wield Soulblazer, a sword that hurts like all the pain one has dealt with over the course of a lifetime. It is also indestructible and can cut through any substance with ease. In my left hand, I hold Soulpiercer, a spear that when thrown, can return at will and is also indestructible. Finally, it can kill anyone who has done a sin. Atop my head, I wear a helm molded to seem like the devil’s very face. I am ready to face the angel.

I ready myself, my eyes burning away to show the fires of hell. Both my armor and my weapons begin to glow from heat. Then they, too, ignite. The pentacle burned into my skin all those years ago also begins to smolder. A pair of double doors are all that keep me from the altar and my destiny. With just a thought, I make the doors burn, the hellfire quickly consuming them. I walk into the main room and then fly into a pillar.

The heat radiating from me melts the granite before it can even touch me, and I fly forward at top speed. The angel is tall with silver armor adorning his entire body. Instead of a helm, he wears a white, billowing cowl that conceals his face. He also wears white robes. His wings seem to be made of light and are nearly blinding. He draws his sword and charges at me at the same speed. We clash in the air, trading at least a hundred blows, each countering the other, neither of us managing to land one on the other being.

As we trade blows, all a bystander would be able to see is a red-clad figure and a white-clad figure flying at each other. Such is the power of our blows that all that can be seen are many blinding flashes of light. We continue like this for many hours, both at a standstill with the other. Then, as we are beginning to tire, we each begin to hit our opponent. Finally, after ten hours of fighting, with a quick, decisive blow that he does not see coming, I manage to hack off his arm.

He staggers back in surprise, his arm falling limp to the ground. White blood starts flowing freely from the wound, his once clean garments now littered with blood, gore, and sweat. I kick him back and throw my spear in one fluid motion. The spear pierces his stomach and he flies backwards into a wall. As he hangs there, the spear pinning him, I walk up slowly, then I end him. I pull off his hood and see that this angel is not Michael, it is just one of his underlings. Outraged, I shove the item, a wooden shield, into a satchel.

As I claim what I have come for, I hear my master’s voice in my head once again, “Do you have the item?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Did you face any resistance?”

“Yes, from a one of Michael’s underlings.”

“And you dealt with him?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all.”

Outside, I pull out a hunting horn. It is ivory with silver detailings and is also from 1604. I lift it to my lips and blow. One clear note rings out into the night. Then I hear it, the beating of wings. Suddenly, over the horizon, I see a dragon approaching. Its scales are a mix of copper and red, and it is closing in quite quickly. I pull out a bow and fix a blunt grapple arrow onto the string. Then I shoot. The shot caught on a strap of leather on the saddle, and I hop on.

As I fly on, I reach London, my hometown. I guide the dragon to a safehouse and feed it some raw meat. Then I go inside. This is my armory; it is the size of a small football stadium and is covered in weapons. I have enough to outfit a small nation. I have any weapon you can name and plenty you can’t; these weapons have tasted blood many times and are all still hungry. I hang up all the weapons that I used in the fight against the angel, and I walk into the room adjacent to my armory, the war room.

It is a small room but probably my most important one. This is where I plan assaults. Plastered around the walls are several colorful maps and computer monitors. Then there is the magic part. It is here I have an alpha level concealment spell and a beta level curse if the person entering isn’t me.

There I have some of my most prized items: a forge, and my entire library of grimoires, scrolls, and magical tomes. I have some of the most powerful books in existence. Some are so powerful that without some type of magical container, they would kill everything on the premises. It was here, one day, that I found the most powerful spell in current existence. It allows the user to control the minds of any being that comes into contact with the user. That was back when times were simpler, and I didn’t have this bloody voice in my head. Before I made that godforsaken deal with Him. I steel myself. No use on reflecting on past deeds. That me is dead, he died hundreds of years ago. Today, there is only the servant of the Voice, Exnious. I go into the back of the room and open the vault.

Inside, I have made one of the most powerful sets of armor in the cosmos. The last time I wore this armor, I killed a minor god and nearly died from the true god’s magic. It was a brutal fight with the god just toying with me and testing my limits. I then delivered a vicious blow. He nearly died, but before he retreated, he cut out my eye.

The armor is nearly indestructible and immune to most types of magic. It also augments my powers whenever I am wearing it, and it quickly decays when it touches exposed skin. Finally, it can make hellfire constructs out of thin air. It is made of an alloy that I engineered myself. The alloy is a mix of some of the strongest demonic alloys and holy alloys. It is also lined with titanium and steel for extra durability. My swords are energy based and consume magic as fuel. As a result, I can block most magic projectiles with them. I also have three tomahawks and a shield. The shield is indestructible, and the tomahawks are explosive on impact.

I am taking my battle to a new realm. It’s time to go to Hell.

As I walk through the crowded streets of London in my dark trenchcoat with my duffle bag containing all my weapons and armor, I make my way towards the Underground. There, I will go to Hell. All is ready, but the Voice is growing suspicious. If I am not careful, he might catch on. But, after all, I may as well be playing right into his hands.

As I board a train towards the Thames, I glance quickly at the passengers in the car. There is a young bickering couple, no trouble from them, a young, gothic man absorbed in his iPad, two middle-aged grim and serious-looking businessmen, and a man sleeping on a bench. I can tell that he is faking it and, in fact, is actually awake.

I subconsciously draw a knife, and the small movement alerts the sleeping man. He tackles me to the floor, effectively knocking me down. Almost instantly, he’s on me, putting me in a chokehold with one hand and trying to break my arm with the other. He’s no amateur, I’ll give him that. But he isn’t an expert either, I am. I use my other arm to break his, and I judo flip him hard onto his back. Then I concisely and cleanly snap his neck. It’s my stop now, though, and I melt a hole through the side of the train, jumping through.

I put on the armor and store the weapons through my belt, then grab an M4A1 assault rifle with a under-mounted grenade launcher. This one was custom made, completely red, and each bullet has been merged with the soul of a sinner. Each year, I go down to hell and handpick one hundred sinners for my gun’s bullets. These bullets can hurt celestial beings and hurt like all the pain the sinner dealt out in his or her life.

As I jump through the entrance to Hell, I check my surroundings. Yup, just the way I remember it, red with volcanic rock cutting everywhere. I land with a thud and slowly look around, checking my surroundings. Then I hear the flapping of wings in the air and see three demons speedily flying towards me. They land in front of me, landing with such a force that dust flies around them.

I clutch my gun even tighter and say, “Hail demon brothers.”

“Hello, Exnious. My brothers and I saw you here and were wondering what brings you to our realm. It is not yet time for you to collect your souls.”

“I am here on my own terms. Move aside or suffer the consequences. I once fought the holy one with these very blades, and against his power, yours would pale in comparison.”

“If you are here on your own terms, you will have to turn the other way and leave, unless you want force to be involved?”

I wave a hand over my pentacle, and it burns to life. A thick stream of magical energy flows from it to the side of my gun. I wave my hand again, propelling myself backward, and start shooting. The grenade shoots forth, landing at their feet.

One of the smaller demons catches it and says, “Your mortal toys will not work on us, Exnious.”

Then it explodes, blowing off his head. Bits of his skull and skin land on his friend, and they stare at him in shock.

“How is that possible?” the other small one says.

But huge demonic wings that are jagged and craggy sprout from my armor. As I fly from side to side, dodging fire balls and streams of lava that are sent towards me, I return them with high power shots from my gun. Soon, one shot lands on the other and finally on the small demon’s head, killing him. I throw down my gun and draw two tomahawks, throwing them in rapid succession. They spin through the air, one slicing through a larger demon’s wing and the other slicing through his head.

I charge forward with both of my swords drawn. Hellfire explodes all around me, and what shots I don’t miss, I deflect with my swords. I fly towards the remaining demon at hypersonic speeds, cutting through everything he throws at me until he finally draws his massive broadsword. It is made of a single sheet of stone, and engraved on the surface are tens of intricate runes to empower all the demon’s strikes.

I fly at him, and we connect in air, clashing in the sky of Hell. All of the air seems to explode with a combination of hellfire, magic, blasts of energy, and explosions. The battle is epic, and such is the power of all of our attacks that the landscape around us soon becomes mutilated and disfigured. The battle’s force can be felt in all of the realms, and as soon as I end the battle with a sword in his chest, I feel a giant surge of heat behind me, and I turn to see a huge, burning portal open out of thin air. Out of it steps my boss, know as the Voice by some, the King of Hell by most, and the Devil by all.

Dan the Baker loved baking cakes for the town. People always came in to buy his cakes. Until, starting last week, Dan woke up and saw wrecked cakes. He saw some cakes with frosting surrounding them and barely any frosting on the actual cake. He saw other cakes that had too much frosting, and when you ate it, it didn’t taste good because it only tasted like frosting.

He saw cakes that didn’t have any frosting but were layered, and they had too many layers. Though Dan remembered only putting on three. When he woke up, there were ten layers.

“Okay, I’ve had just about enough of this! I have to get to the bottom of who, or what, is wrecking my cakes,” said Dan.

So, that night, Dan stayed up all night. In case he needed proof, he had a tape recorder too.

“Well, I guess I’m really doing this. I’ve never stayed up all night, except for that time I made a really huge cake. It was a disaster, so I had to throw it out.”

After Dan realized that he was talking to himself out loud, he stayed quiet. And then, he heard a sound. It sounded like someone was spreading frosting across a cake. It also sounded like more layers were being added to cakes. Dan poked his head out from the cabinet he was hiding in.

“Stop right there!” Dan started to say.

Then he realized… he was talking to his cakes! His cakes were adding more layers to themselves! And his cakes were putting extra frosting on and scraping off frosting! Dan felt dumb. He had been worried about his cakes getting wrecked, but it was the cakes that were doing it! And the craziest part was that the cakes could move and talk.

“What are you doing?!” asked the cake.

“Um, um, um, um,” said Dan.

“What did you say? I can’t hear you, you’re mumbling!” screamed the cake.

“Well…” stuttered Dan. “Well, what are you doing in my bakery?”

This time, the cake stuttered.

“Well,” said the cake. “My friends and I don’t want to be eaten. So that’s why we wreck ourselves, so no one wants to buy us.”

“But… why don’t you want people to buy you? Cakes aren’t supposed to think like that!” protested Dan.

“Well, what do you know about cakes? How do you know cakes aren’t supposed to think like that. You’ve never thought about cakes, only about YOU and all the other people in this town,” yelled the cake.

“Well,” started Dan. “I don’t only care about myself and the other people in this town. I care about the cakes when I’m making them, and I think about what people want in their cakes. And sometimes…” Dan talked in a whisper. “And sometimes, I pretend the cakes are all my friends. I pretend to ask them what they want on them, and then I add it to them.” Dan blushed.

“Yeah, we’ve heard,” said the cake. “We’re the ones that you’re talking to.”

Dan blushed even harder. He thought that he was just thinking in his head when he thought all this stuff, but he guessed wrong. Then, a smile slowly creeped along Dan’s face.

“Tell you what,” said Dan, still smiling. “What if I tell the people in the town not to eat you guys,” he said, pointing to the cakes. “But they can buy you, and you guys can become friends.”

Then, Dan waited to hear the cakes’ respond to his idea. They huddled up in a circle.

Dan looked a little confused. Did cakes really think everything through before they did it? I thought they would just do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it, Dan thought.

“Well, Dan,” said the cake in a strong, loud voice. “We’ve made our decision.”

Dan’s heart was beating fast. The cake was frowning. Dan was almost positive the cake was going to say no.

But the cake said, “Yes. We think it’s a great idea. Then we’ll all have friends and won’t have to worry about being eaten.”

Just then, another cake stepped in. He was shorter and wider.

“Wait a second!” he said. “We didn’t all agree on this. I mean, what if the people turn on us like farmers eating cows, and then eat us?! That won’t turn out good. And that’s pretty much what people do when they have cake in the house.”

The cakes looked at each other. Dan hoped they were not about to change their minds. They huddled up into another circle. This time, they were even louder than before. Dan could hear their whole conversation and was not confused at all about what they were talking about.

“Okay,” said the bigger cake. “We’ve made our—”

“Yeah, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that the little cake changed your mind because he has a good point, and you think that the people will eat you anyways because you’re cake,” interrupted Dan.

“Well, you didn’t know that was what we were going to say. And you’re right about part of it. We don’t fully believe the people won’t eat us. But we’ll take a chance. Maybe we can look really disgusting, but they can still be friends with us because we’re nice to them.”

Of course Dan was happy to hear anything that meant he would get money for his business. He hadn’t been able to pay rent for three weeks now.

“Okay. It’s a deal,” said Dan.

Dan was waiting for the cakes to react like they were happy. But that’s not what happened. Most of them were happy, except for the little cake. He walked in front again, pushed cakes out of the way, and licked their frosting off.

“We also didn’t agree on this! I’m still on the side that the humans are going to eat us! Does anyone else agree with me?” the little cake protested.

One cake raised her hand. This cake looked female and looked awfully like the little cake’s sister, which was weird because Dan remembered making twin cakes, but never thinking of them as girls and boys. Just as his friends.

The twin cake walked up. “This is so unfair. My brother and I don’t want to take any risks. Our mom says if we do anything that could get us killed, she will— well, she can’t kill us because we’ll already be dead— but she’ll do something bad! She’ll probably be so mad at the person that ate us, that she’ll yell at them!

“Yeah! We’re so young,” said the little cake.

“Well, I guess you have a point,” said the big cake.

And that’s exactly what Dan is thinking, though he didn’t show it.

“We could make a cake that’s, of course, made of frosting and dough. But it’s not one of us. It’s someone who knows nothing about the world.  Then we test it out. If the person we send it to eats the cake, then we’ll know we shouldn’t send cakes to anyone else.”

“Deal!” all the cakes said.

“Great!” said Dan. “Now let’s get to work to make that fake cake!”

‘’YEAH!’’ the cakes agreed.

The next day, Dan was really tired. He stayed up all night, and he wasn’t just up in his bed. He was up all night talking to cakes and making cakes. Then he woke up. He thought it was just a dream. So he walked outside, and he figured it would just be another day of cakes being wrecked.

But it turned out that he was wrong. When he walked into his bakery that morning, he saw a bunch of people waiting in line. They were all holding posters that said, “If you go to Dan’s Bakery, you’ll make a friend.” Dan looked all around. Those signs were all over. On trees, cars, on the back of people’s shirts. It was definitely the cakes, Dan thought.

“So it wasn’t a dream!” he said out loud, not noticing.

“What?” said someone in the crowd.

Someone else said, “Well, what are you waiting for? Unlock the door so we can all get a friend!”

“Okay, okay,” said Dan, a little bit annoyed.

He unlocked the door. Everyone started running in. Everyone was trying to pick out a cake. And no one even dared to put their finger on it, or lick it, or anything, they just wanted a friend. Dan couldn’t stop smiling. He’d never seen that many customers in his bakery before. Wow, thought Dan.

“So,” started the big cake who was looking at Dan. “I think you’ve noticed what we’ve done.”

“Yes,” said Dan. “I’ve never seen so many people in my bakery before. How’d you know?”

“Well,” said the cake. “The cakes and I have been watching you for a long time. We have gotten to know you very well, Dan.”

Dan’s smile got even bigger. After the store was closed, Dan noticed that there was one cake that was not bought. He saw that it was the small cake. The cake was crying tears of frosting.

“What happened?” asked Dan.

“I didn’t get bought. Everybody has a friend now, except me. Now I see why everybody wanted one,” cried the small cake.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” said Dan. “Tell you what, maybe you could go home with me. I won’t eat you.”

“No!” yelled the small cake. “I don’t want to go home with you. You’re not on my side. You’re not the type of person I want to be friends with.”

Dan smiled the same way he smiled the day before.

“I have an idea,” he said.

“What is it?” asked the cake.

“Well, I happen to have a brother that is just like you.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name is Ben.”

“What are his character traits?” asked the cake.

“Let’s just say he’s just like you, stubborn and annoying.”

“Yay!” yelled the cake.

Dan went back to his house that day. He got his little brother from the house and told him all about the small cake. At first, he really wanted to eat the little cake. He was upset he couldn’t eat it, but then he was glad he finally had a friend. From that day on, Dan thanked the cakes for helping him keep his business open, and the cakes and the town thanked him for their friends.

THE END.

My name is Awesome, but everyone calls me Zombie Awesome… because I’m a zombie. All our first names are Zombie, in our house full of 23 other zombies. My best friend, Cool, is actually Zombie Cool. Read is actually Zombie Read. (He reads a lot.) Then, there’s Zombie Funny. And there’s Zombie Brain. He’s really smart and likes to eat brains, but he’s not allowed to because we zombies die if we eat anything besides candy and chocolate.

Cool and I like to eat candy, and on Halloween, we act like we’re fakes. So when we get candy, we don’t scare the humans giving out candy and chocolate.

But that means I can’t eat food that I like, like Oreos. If I eat Oreos, I die. The only way I can eat Oreos is if I climb halfway up Mount Olympus on Mars (It’s the tallest mountain on Mars, three times the size of the tallest mountain on Earth) and find a scroll with words that makes me able to eat anything I want, but I’ll still be a zombie. It’s the best thing ever made because I like being a zombie, and I like Oreos, and I like Taco Bell!

Even though I’m a zombie, I don’t like to scare people, but I accidentally do because it’s very easy. I just walk into a room, and all the humans go “Ahhh!” It’s kind of funny. But everyone knows zombies aren’t really scary.

When I was human, I was cursed by a wizard to become a zombie. I was 24 years old when I went to kill a bear.  The reason I had to kill the bear was because I made a bet when I was arm wrestling and lost. I went to a place for shelter in the woods, and when I was sleeping, the wizard cursed me. Everyone else was zapped in the palace and became zombies.

It’s been three years since. I don’t want to be a human again because humans are boring. I was 24 when the wizard cursed me. Now I’m 156 years old in zombie years. Every week I become a year older. I am three years old in human years. When I was 52 in zombie years, I was one in human years.

My worst fear is coffee. It tastes disgusting. Also, I am afraid I will die like a regular human.

I’m at my house, and I decide that I’m going to go to the wizard. I want to threaten to kill him if he doesn’t give me a potion that will give me money or another way to eat oreos and Taco Bell.

From my house, I walk to Cool’s house. I tell my friend that he could eat Oreos if he comes to the wizard in the woods. 

“I will join if you pay for the Oreos once a week.”
“Okay,” I say.

***

We’re in the woods. But then a tree falls down! We have to jump, but we can’t do it. We go around, and there is the wizard’s house. We are in the middle of nowhere!

We hear “muhahaha” from the wizard, and we are a little scared. Inca Cola falls out of our arms like human sweat. It becomes fresh right away.  Then, we drink it because it’s like, totally fresh Inca Cola.

The wizard doesn’t speak. We use a truth spell called truthalishous. The wizard has to say the truth no matter what. He says what we want is in his spellbook. Pages 69 and 370 have the scroll. It says, “Candy and chocolate aren’t good for you.” The wizard names it something a zombie of our kind would never say.  Every zombie is able to eat any food.   

We go home and tell everyone, and they are so happy. It is awesome.

The End

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Jake with future senses, although he no had clue he had them. One day, he had dream about a video game. In the dream, he was playing a video game with three other people, and he was playing as some kind of hero with a jetpack and a sword. The second person was huge; he had a huge hammer with a huge shield. The third person was a guy with a machine gun and grenades. Jake thought it was cool, but it wasn’t possible to make the game because he was only eight years old, so he forgot about it.

Ten years later, Jake had to choose a profession because he was going to college. Then he had a tingly feeling that he knew what to do. He remembered that when he was eight, he had a dream about a videogame, but he couldn’t make it because he was too little at the time. So he chose his major, programing video games! Although it was hard, he studied and studied.  He woke up at 6:00 AM and worked until 7:00 PM five times a week. On the weekends, he played video games to get the feeling of how to program good video games. Classes were hard, but he did great. Jake was the teacher’s pet and got straight A+s.

His roommate wasn’t nice to him because he was smart and his roommate was dumb. He pranked Jake by covering his bed with bugs, locking him outside, hiding his food, and even making him pay the rent! These tricks never worked though, because Jake saw them in the future, but they were still hard to deal with.

After a few semesters, he got so good that he could make a video game with his eyes closed. When Jake was done with college, he bought his own place to live and program video games. His two best friends, Gideon and Beni, also lived with him because they were amazing at programming video games. They had scholarships for programming video games, and they worked with him too.

They started working on the game from Jake’s dream, and it was hard as hell. It took five years to make the game, but those years were great. When they were done with the game, they named it War And Destruction. There were 79 characters. One turned invisible, one could heal people and revive the dead, one was a ninja throwing axes and a sword, one could control animals, and so on. Also, the characters in his dream were also in the game. The game had different modes; Survival, Arcade, Custom, 6 vs 6, 1 vs 1, and Domination. Survival is where you have to fight animals and try to survive for the longest time. Arcade is mini games, Custom is where you can create your own game. Domination is capture-the-flag.

They sold their game to Zekrome, and so many people bought the game that it became the most popular game in the world, and everyone was talking about it. They made millions, and they were also on the news.

A news reporter asked them, ”How did you get the idea to make this game?”

Jake said, “Nothing special,” and they lived happily ever after.

                                                                  The End

Princess Awesome was in her castle when she heard Silverback, the King’s speaker, outside in the courtyard.

He yelled, “There is a 100 dollar bill.”

No one had ever had a 100 dollar bill before. The richest person had 99 dollars.

Silverback said, “It could be found in another land called THE TOWN OF AWESOME.” Then he said suspiciously, “I definitely don’t have it.”

Suddenly an arrow flew from a bow and killed him. Someone killed Silverback because they thought he had the $100 bill. People came rushing towards Silverback, searching his coat. Princess Awesome thought, Greedy people, killed a man and now searching him. Something urged her to set off on her adventure. She had never done this before.

On his tombstone it said, “Born 1832. Killed 1855. Born in the town of Penekise.” The next day, a man named Lame Person captured the man who had killed Silverback. His name was Sank Wan. He was only the man who looked like the man who killed Silverback! He disappeared after he was captured, and no one really cared.

Then a mighty eagle swept across the castle. The great eagle was the symbol of the castle. This meant that good luck would happen to those in need. The castle’s name was AWESOME. Princess Awesome knew Silverback was lying about the hundred dollar bill being in the town of Awesome. He wanted to keep the money for himself.

She set off on her adventure. She got a boat and sailed to the island named Gummies. There were a million islands, and she guessed that this was the one. The island had only one tree, and she thought she saw a box. Suddenly, she heard a box fall behind her, and she jumped in horror. She saw three chests. She saw a hundred dollar bill inside one of the chests, then another. There were two of them. She grabbed them and left. She was filled with joy and excitement, but then her boat went loose and sailed by itself.

She was so nervous that she was running out of options. So she swam home. She was miserable and worried that the hundred dollar bills would get soaked. It took her a couple days to get home, and she felt relieved that the money was dry.

When she was in her town, she showed it to everyone and gave it to charity. The charity bought tacos for everyone. All the hungry people, who acted like they hadn’t eaten in 70 days, loved tacos. She felt so good that she partied and ate a taco.

THE END

Original

I was laying on a bed, in a room, not knowing where I was, or even who I was. The room was a bright lime color, just the kind that could burn your eyes out. Luckily my eyesight was not quite recovered from my unconsciousness yet, so my eyes did not burn out. The room was very tall, with a chandelier that had sharp, metal points on the end and crystal-like shapes made of glass hanging higher on the chandelier. The floor was cold stone, and it was polished and reflective. In the reflection, I could see that there were some strings on my head. Oh no! They were stitches.

I was sore, especially my head, and the soreness was radiating from my forehead, where the stitches were. On the wall, there were three doors. One said, Locks from the outside. Another said, Locks from the inside. The last one said, The key. There was one more thing I could see from my vantage point: some small, printed words. They were so easy to see because they were dark red in stark contrast to the lime ceiling. They said, Test Room: Prototype 1 for scientific use only!

Original

I could not have dreamt up something as crazy as this. I was being tested, and I was the first recipient of this experiment. I was being tested, apparently, on my puzzling skills. Now I needed to solve the puzzle.

To look at the first two doors, I needed to confirm which side was outside, and which side was inside. I opened the outside door, and suddenly, crash! A metal sheet slid down and blocked me from exiting the door. The jarring sound terrified me, and I jumped a foot in the air. It made my stitches hurt. There were clear, black words on the white wall that said, You Failed. There was a vent on the right wall. There was also a machine on the floor. I picked it up. There was only one button on the machine. I pressed it.

Original

First, I tried banging on the metal wall. It just made an interesting sound. That was no use. There was also a vent in the right wall. I guess I had no choice but to enter the vent and test my luck. I could hear voices coming through the vent, but I could not understand the words; they were too far away. I kicked apart the weak metal bars and crawled through. I was just small enough to fit. If I had not been put in that cell for about a week, I wouldn’t have fit…

Wow! How did I remember! My memory was accompanied with a jab of pain in my forehead. I think my memory may be returning. As I crawled further into the vent, I could make out the voices now.

The first one, a screechy, high-pitched intonation said, “The cameras have had a small malfunction. They should be up and running in moments.”

Another, a very deep rumble, said, “If we lose subject one, the experiment will be ruined! How would we explain that to the government!”

That meant that the voices, and the people attached to them, did not see me escape.

Suddenly, I was feeling tired. It must’ve been the aftereffect of some drug that they used to put me to sleep during the surgery. I decided to take a little nap.

The Second One

Somehow, the machine with the button had teleported me into the room where I woke up. It was all the same, except for the facts that:

1) The metal sheet had not slid down.

2) There was no bed.

3) There was an open door behind me.

I heard footsteps coming from the doorway that belonged to the open door. I saw a bed on wheels slowly rolling in, around the corner, and soon, the people pushing it followed. I needed to think faster and act quicker. I slipped down under the bed, which was still turning the corner, and grabbed onto a plank underneath the bed. I clung onto the board, and the bed slid into place with a creak that made me wince. The people rolling the bed finally left the room and closed the door.

After the door was closed, it looked exactly like the wall. I knew to wait patiently under the bed, because I did not know when my past self would wake up. Even I knew enough about the space-time continuum to know that it would not be a good idea to meet my past self, or change any of his actions, or else he might not press the button, and my future self, me, would exist, but not exist, and there would be a paradox. The kind that could end the world.

So, I waited patiently until I heard stirring from above. I watched with slight amusement as my past self realized how he had stitches. I waited for the metal to clang down, and then finally, with sore muscles, slipped out from underneath the bed.

Original

When I woke up, I felt much less sore and better overall. I must have slept for a short time, because I could still hear the people talking about the camera malfunction. I could hear the voices switching to a different conversation.

The deep voice said,  “Have you seen the time machine? How many times will you have to learn! Don’t lose the time machine!”

So that was a time machine! That time machine was not supposed to be there. It wasn’t part of the puzzle! I continued to crawl in the vents like the good old days, when I robbed banks all the time… robbing a bank! How could I ever do something like this!

Oh, I must have been a criminal before! That is why they were using me as a test subject, because I am an expendable human. Someone that anyone would be happy to get rid of. After I got out, I would need to convince the public that I was not a criminal anymore. If I ever got out of here.

I needed to go on, further through the vent. I could just hear the people from the room leaving, and one of them muttering, “Lunch break.”

I entered the room. Inside were two computers and two desks, each with three giant drawers underneath them, probably big enough to fit a person inside. I found a pair of scissors that could be used as a weapon and some rope inside one of the giant drawers. I also put on a lab coat I found on top of a chair. I waited, ready to ambush the lab workers, and get a clue of what exactly was happening.

The Second One

Now that I knew where the door was, I could exit. It took a long time to pry open the door because the crack was miniscule.

I eventually got the door open, and then I entered the hallway. There were three doors: one in front, one to the left, and one to the right. I opened the door on the right, because right is right, and peeked around the corner. I saw an empty hallway and a single door at the end of it. I quickly closed the door, so that no one would be suspicious, and I started towards the door at the end of the hallway. As I got closer, I could read the label above the door. It said, Invention Room, and below it, on a post-it, Ed, please do not lose any inventions again. I entered the room, and it was a sterile, clean, white color. Just like the color of the lobby of my old terrorist base… Ahhhh! I actually screamed with this one. I am a low-born, filthy rat! How could I have been so evil! I can never have a life again! I think even my family hates me, whoever they are. At least I liked the smell of it.

I was looking up at the chandeliers when I stepped on something round, and it pushed down when my foot went down. After I stepped on it, it slipped into a hole in the floor, from which I could just make out the words on the white wall, You Failed. I just created myself.

The Third One

I popped up right when I saw a person in a white coat leaving the room, and I saw a machine still whirring. It was labelled, Food Machine. I saw a white coat on a chair, and a thought occurred to me. I could dress up as a lab worker and get into the project’s deepest and darkest secrets. I could attack them and ask them to tell me what was happening.

I quickly got the lab coat on and followed the other worker, trying to look very inconspicuous and unintelligent.

Original

I waited for about five minutes in my position, behind the door, before I heard two pairs of footsteps in the hallway. I waited until both of them had entered the door, and then I threatened them with my scissors, and I asked one of them, who did not look very intelligent, to get into the cabinet already; he would not have any useful information. I asked the other one what was happening and why was I here.

He said, “You were a terrorist, and you disguised yourself as a government agent, and you asked us to conduct this experiment to find people who were smart, and fit to be recruits to the army. That is what you told us. Our agents revealed that you were a terrorist trying to get recruits for your terrorist group, qwertyuiop, and then we conducted the experiment on you, as a punishment.”

This was all very heavy for me. I did not want to be a terrorist, I don’t even like to talk about those things. Note the use of the word “thing.” I tied him up and put him in the drawer, and I left the room.

The Second One

I saw another door at the end of the room. I did not want to go back because they might have seen the machine slip into the room, and they might come here to check it out. Since the hall I came out of looked like a main hallway, I thought I should exit through the other door, since the lab people might come through the door leading to the main hallway. I opened the door slightly, and there were lab workers everywhere. It was like a beehive but with giant, white bees. It was the dreaded, despised cafeteria. At the other end of the cafeteria, there was a door with blue peeking out from the edges. There was an exit sign above it, so it was definitely an exit!

I tried to hear some of the other conversations. I heard, “I’ve always wanted to fly to Zimbabwe.” “Me too!” and, “I wonder how Prototype 1 is faring in the testing. Hopefully not too well. I heard he failed in the first room,” and, “I wish that Ed hadn’t lost the Ice Cream Chip. The machine cannot make ice cream without that computer chip.”

I poked my head farther into the door and looked to the left, and there, peeking out of a locker door, was a computer chip, in a Ziploc™ bag, labeled Ice Cream Chip. An idea was starting to form in my head. I reached out a quick hand and snatched the chip from the locker. I went over to the food machine and put in the chip. First, I ordered a hamburger, a milkshake, and some ice cream. I don’t usually eat like that, but I needed carbs; I was starving and weak from hunger.

After about five minutes, about the time it took me to inhale my food, I called out to the cafeteria, “The ice cream machine is working!”

Then I hid behind the door, waiting for my intended effect. It definitely worked. A stampede of lab workers came flooding out of the cafeteria.

The Third One

The other lab worker in the closet had gotten a letter opener from the cabinet floor, and he was cutting apart the ropes on my arms. After he cut the ropes on my arm, I took off the duct tape on my mouth and cut the ropes around my legs. I put my arms on the back of the drawer, and my legs on the front, pushed, and the door was open.

Thankfully, the lab worker who had ambushed me was gone. I held the letter opener like a weapon and rounded the corner. I was tracking the attacker, and it looked like he had forgotten his way or something, because he was uncertainly turning corners and doubling back on himself. I was very happy that there were no lab workers in the hallways; I think they might have still been eating lunch. When he passed an exit sign, it caught his eye, and he suddenly started running towards the exit.

It just dawned on me that I wanted to get revenge on the person who had locked me in a closet. But how? If he reached the exit, I could not do anything because there would be witnesses. How would I do this?

The Second One

I exited and waited to hear the screaming from all the people gathered around the building, probably waiting for the result of my experiment. I did.

“Subject 1 has escaped!” and, “Help!”

“Wait! Wait! Just listen for one second!” The screaming stopped, and I started talking. I had planned a speech while I was eating my delicious food, and it was pretty good for having been written while I ate a whole three pounds of food.

I started, “I ate a hamburger five minutes ago, and — ”

Poof.

I disappeared, and all I saw was blackness, and then the world was gone.

The Third One

I pursued the man, and I pushed him through a door. I did not pause to look at the label above the door. It said, Bottomless Pit, with a bottom.

Original

I turned around to see who had pushed me, and to my surprise, it was me. I screamed and fell down, and after a few seconds, I hit the ground, and died in the darkness.

The Third One

My own scream was the last sound I heard until I disappeared into nothingness.

The day my mom sued the school was AWESOME! Well, for me, awesome, but for her, “terrible.” I mean it’s not like I meant to tick the bully off so much that he headbutted me! But anywho, I haven’t been to school since because my dad is who-knows-where (my mom won’t tell me a single fact about him) and my mom is a president of a perfume company, so that means I’m left alone at home 24/7 and 365 days a year.

You’re probably thinking, Woah!! Awesome! But no. I would DIE just to go to school because, one day, I saw my old friend, and I asked what were they learning at school, and they said some math problem I didn’t know. My friend asked if I knew. I stuttered. I actually didn’t know. I dashed down the street, sad and left behind that I wasn’t as smart as them.

But it’s okay. Being home alone is awesome because I get to watch TV, eat oreos, and play on my 3DS. Which is a kid HEAVEN!!! Oh, and where are my manners? I’m Flynn Watters, a nine-year-old kid born on March 3rd, 2008.

***

“Flynn! Bye, honey, I’m leaving!” says my mom.

“Yeah. Bye, Mom!” I say.

I’ll note this to you: Mom says bye, fun comes by. So when she shuts the door, what I do is: go upstairs, get my 3DS, come back down, get oreos from the cupboard, sit on the couch, get a blanket, and then turn on Netflix!

“Oh. My. Gosh!! Yes!! Yessss! Wait. NO. Nooooo!!!” I shout.

Sorry, just anime excitement, but yeah that’s how I spend my days of the year. Oh! And obviously I nap! But sometimes, I go out. I mean, just to see all the other houses in Haystack Court which, by the way, is my small, little neighborhood where all the houses make a semi-circle. It’s cute, and my life is cute and calm, but that all changed.

***

Okay, so my mom came home one night, and I was eating a microwaved cup of noodles when she walked in.

“Mind if I talk to you?” said Mom.

“Um. it’s a free country, so yes,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Okay, so I noticed you’ve been a little droopy and sad. Why?” Mom said.

Ohhh lordd.

“Umm?” I said, playing dumb.

“Is it because you don’t go outside much?”

Okay, BIG decision. I’d either admit it, because I want to go to school, or lie and agree that I don’t get outside much. I lied.

“Yeah, I just want to go outside,” I said.

“Okay. So this Saturday, I’ll take you to the beach,” Mom said, smiling.

That was easy.

***

OH MY GOSH! My mom was GIDDY!! She jumped around, cleaned, and got the stuff in the car.

“Ready?” said my mom, poking her head through the screen door.

“YES!!! Oh my gosh, you asked me that, like, 30 times!!!” I said.

My mom shut the door. I got a towel and walked to the car. I hopped in, wondering if this was a good idea after all. The drive was LONG! But, finally we were here. I stepped out of the car and dashed to the ocean.

“Hello, fish!!” I said, screaming as I jumped in the water.

I played in the water for an hour or two. Then mom called me and said that we were going to the boardwalk. We got cotton candy and hotdogs and everything was swell until… we got back to the beach.

I was playing in the sand, and I saw my mom peeking looks at a man with a woman. It was strange because it looked like the two people were being flirty. And get this! The man went down on his knees and PROPOSED!!! But that’s not the strangest part: My mom walked over to the people and interrupted the guy, who was proposing, and scolded him!!! And the guy called me over. Mom’s face said stay back because this wouldn’t go good. But I went over anyway.

“Heyyyy, Flynn!” He said.

“Um, do I know you?” I said.

Look, I know he’s nice, but he’s a stranger!

“Flynn, he’s your dad,” said my mom.

I fainted into a big, sandy mess.

***

Ow, my life hurts. A LOT!

Okay, you’re probably thinking, WHAT?! Okay, I’ll explain.

It turned out my dad and my mom divorced right after I was born. I was left at home with a nanny, named Juidel, who was from the Philippines. But then, one day, Mom sat me down and taught me how to stay at home alone because Juidel left for the Philippines. And for, like, two years after school, I would come home and just be home alone. But that changed when I ticked off that bully.

And now I’m sitting at the dining room table with my mom, my dad, and my dad’s girlfriend/wife (she said yes! And he went to Jared) Brenda.

“Why would you divorce?!” shouted my mom.

“WELL, you became a total different woman!!!” shouted my dad.

And it went on like that for 20 minutes. And get this! Throughout the whole thing, Brenda was staring into space!!!

But soon, things got a little language-y because my mom said some words NOT child approved.

“Flynn, go upstairs. Oh, and your dad asked if you want to help them move their stuff to their new house,” said my mom.

“Sure,” I said.

***

Today was hot, and I walked down the street with my dad, holding big, brown boxes.

“Ey, champ, wanna get ice cream?” said my dad, like he was in those ‘grain berry’ ads.

“Sure,” I said, keeping my cool.

So we stopped in front of the deli. I picked out a king cone, and my dad got an ice pop. We sat on a bench and ate in silence.

“Well, we better hurry. Your mom’s gonna overreact if we’re late,” said my dad.

Oh, I forgot to tell you my dad is moving into Haystack Court. I KNOW!!! He probably did that just to annoy Mom or because the houses in Haystack Court are RICH!!!

After that, we walked home, and I saw my dad’s new house. He said I could move my stuff in to make my own room.

Then I said bye to Dad and Brenda, who was on snapchat. I walked into my house, and my mom practically lunged at me.

“Honey!!! Guess what!” said my mom.

“Umm, you bought your Fitness4U treadmill?” I asked sarcastically.

“NO. I found this flyer in the main desk, and it’s a history report contest! And the main prize is an application to Berkman Elementary!!!” said my mom.

“Ohh my goshhh!” I screamed.

“I know! So I entered you!” said my mom.

“Okay, but what history thing should I do?” I said.

“Well, I made you do World War I,” said my mom.

I rolled my eyes. That’s gonna be EASY!

***

After a month of researching, it was time for the report. I was in the car, driving to the community center, where the event is happening.

“OOH! We’re here!” said my mom.

We walked inside, and a lady gave me a number slip. I was number six. A lot of the reports were good, but now, it was my time. I’m not gonna say my report, but it went like this…

“Blah, blah, drone, drone, gabble, gabble.”

I know! So detailed! Ohhh lord. The lady was announcing the runner ups.

“In third place… Lisa McGuckin! Here is your coupon to Ben and Jerry’s!” said the announcer.

“And in 2nd place… Tom Baloush! Here is your master pass to the Museum of Natural History!!” she said.

“And in 1st place… the kid who gets the application to Berkman is… Flynn Watters!!” she said.

OHMYGOSH! I WON! I WON!!! I stepped up and took the paper.

After the event, my mom hugged me, and my dad congratulated me, and Brenda was on Twitter. Goodbye, lazy Saturdays! Hello, Busy mondays!

The End

Once there was a clown named Clown. Clown dug a hole in the park because he was hoping to find a mouse for the circus. He needed the mouse for a magic trick he wanted to do.

Luckily for Clown, he found a mouse when he dug the hole. The mouse was a normal, gray mouse named Mouse. Mouse standed still and didn’t run away. He was happy! He wanted to be famous.

Clown brought Mouse to the circus, but once he got there the mouse was dead. Mouse got sick because the cage was covered for the whole trip and he couldn’t breathe. The Clown’s water bottle also fell over and flooded one inch of the cage. Clown shaked his fists and he scrunched his eyebrows. Then, he had two tears, one from each eye.

Clown was also mad because he lost money. Since the mouse died before Clown got to the circus, now he couldn’t do his magic trick where he made the mouse disappear. This made Clown sad. Clown still did his performance, but he gave up on his mouse trick. He flipped in the air and landed on his feet. He also got a volunteer and made them disappear.

After his show, Clown went back to the park and gave Mouse’s body back to the mouse family. He learned not to cover the cage and also learned never to put the water bottle in the trunk.

Catherine’s Perspective

“NO, Eddie!” I scream loudly.

I mean, it wasn’t that loud, but I mean, like, it was still pretty loud.

“Okay?”

He is SO annoying. Eddie growls at me but does not say a word.

I am Catherine Rose Henry, and my twin brother is Eddie Marc Henry. We have a game, a really cool game.

Some say it is bullying, but bullying is when you, like, push and shove, and become physical, so they are, like, totally, wrong. Anyways, so first, you have to choose a dumbbell, like Opal or Flora or Ned, or someone like them. Next, you have to find them. The best spot is the old tree by Eagle Street.

Finally, as they pass by, you jump out and make them scream their pants off. Then, you block them, so that they don’t run away. Now, here comes the best part! You start yelling things that are strange or different about them.

So anyway, today, we find John Benson. He loses in practically everything. Even soccer tryouts. (He didn’t get on the team of course.)

“Hello, John,” says Eddie, trying to make John stop to talk.

“Uh, hi,” he says, nervously. (He knows our game.)

“What’s up, loser?” I say, laughing.

  “I am not a loser!” He says, bursting into tears.   

“Bye, cry baby!” says Eddie, smirking.

“See you at school.” I snicker.

The thing is: John does not actually like school. These days, he’ll race to school and back. I am not sure why.

The rest of the way to school, Eddie and I talk about lunchtime plans. We plan to find Bob Tyler. Most people think of him as a soccer star captain for the grade, but we think of him as a maggot with a mop head because of his floppy, red hair.

By the time we get to school, the classroom is almost full.  Except, the teacher has gone to get something, so we have some fun with Lena. Lena is really popular. She has a great, great-aunt, named Rosy. She often says that Rosy is her best friend and that, if anyone dares to hurt her, Rosy would save her. But a few days earlier, Rosy had died of old age.

So, she is a victim in our game. We walk over to her and she moves out of our way, knocking her open backpack off her chair.  Everything spills out of it, and then, something catches my eye: a book. In fancy letters, it spells, “My Diary”.

Slowly, I pick it up, hold it in the air, and shout, “Wittle Wena’s got a diawy! I wonder what wittle Wena wote?”

There is a long, deafening silence, and then suddenly Lena shouts, “Give that back!  It’s mine!” She continues to shriek. Her shrieks are like knives that she lashes at us, like a shark trying to eat a fish out of his reach.

“Come and get it if you want it,” I laugh. Lena starts to jump up to get the diary but doesn’t succeed.

“No more Aunt Wosy to save you,” I say. Suddenly, the teacher, Ms. Cally, walks into the classroom.  

“Catherine, put Lena’s diary down,” she says, sternly. “Opal, take Lena to the nurse.” The backpack had fallen on Lena’s toe, and her toe was bleeding.  

Ms. Cally goes to her desk, takes a post it note, scribbles something quickly, and hands it to me and Eddie.

“Give this to your mother as soon as you get home, and don’t look at it.”  

When we get home, we throw our backpacks on the floor and rush upstairs. Mom, however, looks through our bags to see if we have homework, but instead, she finds the note.  

“Catherine! Eddie!” She shouts.

“Yeah, Mom?” I say, trying to act natural.

“You come down here this instant and sit down,” she clenches her teeth. 

When we are seated, Mom says, “Do you have any idea what this is about?” She holds up the crumpled note that Ms. Cally had written.  

“No,” Eddie and I say in unison, which isn’t true.

“Then read it, and go to your room,” she shouts. “You should be ashamed of yourselves!”

I go to my room and flop on my bed. When you first walk into my room, the dresser is to the right, and my bed is to the left. I have a twin bed, which I used to think I had because I was a twin. My bedroom is painted white, but I sometimes pick at the paint, so it is a little dirty. My floor is kinda messy ‘cause cleaning up is definitely not my thing. I just lay there for quite a few minutes thinking. Then, suddenly, I ask myself: when did this game start? So, I think back to when it started. It was after my parents’ divorce.

***

Here’s the story…

How the game started:

We were in the kitchen.

“Where’s Daddy?” I had asked.

“Gone.” Mom had said, as if it was obvious.  

“Where?” Eddie and I had wailed.  

“Look, we filed for a divorce last night. He moved out, and I don’t know where he is!” She had shouted in a no-questions tone.

But we hadn’t cared about questions. We just raced upstairs to our closet, in our room, that had three sliding doors. One set in my room, one in Eddie’s room, one next door, and one to connect them in the middle. So, Eddie and I had shut ourselves in our closets (with blankets), and we opened the middle doors and cried.

While crying, we had realized something. We had realized that it’s not okay to be different. So, we decided that we had to make everybody seem more different than we were. Then, we decided to make up: OUR GAME.

***

I am still thinking about it when I hear Mom calling us for dinner. By the time we finish dinner, I completely recover from my flashback, and am back to my normal self. But when bedtime comes, I can’t sleep. I don’t know what has come over me.

A few days later, Ms. Cally announces that the fifth grade play is coming up. A great time for our game, I think, and I suspect Eddie would think that too.  

“What’s the story?” Someone calls out.

“Please don’t call out, Robert,” Ms. Cally says.

“It’s Rob, please,” he reminds her.

“So,” Ms. Cally continues. “The whole fifth grade will be doin–” She says, but she is interrupted by Rob again.

“What’s the story?” Rob repeats, more impatiently.

“Robert, please don’t call out,” Ms. Cally reminds him, in a slightly sharper tone.

“It’s Rob, okay?” Rob says.

“Anyways,” Ms. Cally says, ignoring Rob. “As I was saying, the whole fifth grade will be doing it together. For that, we must work together as a grade, okay?”

“Yes, Ms. Cally,” choruses the whole class (except Rob, of course).

“But,” says Rob, “WHAT’S THE STORY??!!”

“Rob!” Ms. Cally shouts angrily. “I’m going to call your mother! Go and sit in the time-out chair!” Sulkily, Rob stomps towards the awful, the dreaded, time-out chair.

Take that, Rob! I think. You deserve it.

Ms. Cally goes on about the play, but I sort of tune it out.

Rob must’ve done the same, because Ms. Cally shouts, “Rob, you just missed the story!”

“What is it?!” Rob says, annoyed with himself for tuning out.

Ms. Cally says, “It is about a mean man, named Tom, and a nice man, named Ned, and they both want to be king, so they split the land, and whomever wants to be on the bad guy’s side stays there, unless they are permanently moving forever, and the same with the good guy. Well, it started out pretty evenly, but then, gradually, people started moving to the good guy’s side, until no one was on the bad guy’s side, and that’s when the bad guy gave up.”

Rob glances at me and then says, “Okay.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Cally?” Opal says.

“Yes, sweetheart?” Ms. Cally answers, glad to have a new topic.

“May I use the bathroom?” She asks. Ms. Cally nods.

“Me too?” I ask.

“Yes, yes,” sighs Ms. Cally. I zoom to the girl’s bathroom. Opal isn’t there yet because she’s pretty slow, but when she comes in, the fun begins. I shove her against the blue tiled wall.

“P-p-please s-s-stop!” Opal cries, trembling. “I-I f-fell on th-that a-arm y-yesterday,” she whispers, still trembling. “C-can y-you l-loosen y-your grip?”

“NO,” I say through clenched teeth. Opal’s legs are trembling. Then, I remember: Opal still has to use the bathroom. Boy, is this going to be fun.

“P-p-please,” Opal manages to force out, through my grip. Suddenly, I have the most amazing idea. If you laugh while trying to wait for the bathroom, it’s really hard to hold it. I am going to make Opal laugh.

“Hey Opal, ya wanna hear a joke?”

“S-sure,” she says, desperately.

“Knock, Knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Orange.” I tighten my grip on Opal’s legs, so that she can’t run away.

“Orange, who?” She asks, and we go on from there with the orange joke.

When I am finished, Opal begins to giggle. All of a sudden, I feel a warm, wet liquid on the hand that is holding her pants. She wets her pants. I feel a leap of triumph within me as Opal looks like a tomato, flushing.

“Hey, Opal. I’m loving those pants!” I tease. Opal’s lip quivers.

Suddenly, she slips right out of my grasp and runs into the classroom. I run after her. As I take my seat again, I sneak a note to Eddie, saying that I made Opal wet her pants. He reads it and grins. Suddenly, Ms. Cally strides over to where Eddie is sitting and lifts the note out of Eddie’s reach. She reads it and eyes Opal.

“Opal, may I speak with you?” Ms. Cally says, leading Opal into the hall. I feel good.

Eddie’s Perspective

I think school is going well. I think. I hope. But, like, I need time to play Our Game, so, besides my MILLION TUTORS, I need to still have time for that. Mom says I fail in school, and I have learning issues. Catherine says that I care too much about how school is going and not enough about Our Game.

“Hey, Cath, a little help with my homework?”

“UGH, okay. So you kind of just long divide here, and then add it with the original number, and multiply it by thirteen, and then write the answer.”

“JUST?!” I cry, incredulously. “My goodness, why do they give us so much homework? And they make it SO complicated.”

“It’s as easy as pie, Eddie, come on.” Catherine say, sounding annoyed.

Finally, I am fed up with her telling me how stupid I am, so I decide to give her a piece of my mind.

“Hey, Cath – the – new – teacher’s – pet / goody – two – shoes / smartest – kid – in – the – universe.”

I can see Catherine’s anger rising, uncontrollably, like a pitcher of hot water spilling.

Finally, we jump out of our seats, rolling on the ground, wrestling, like professional wrestlers. But, of course, I win, pinning her to the ground.

“Now, who’s the ‘Eddie – the – new – teacher’s – pet / goody – two – shoes / smartest – kid – in – the – universe?’” Catherine asks, squirming out of my hold.

I stare at Catherine as if she is the stupidest person.

“Really, Catherine, wrestling class?”

Before I know it, Catherine is upstairs. Well, I don’t waste any time following her upstairs. I know she is in her room, so I run into my room and through the double closet.

The rest is a blur.

The next thing I know, I am in a hospital bed and a stupid hospital gown.

Then, I am at home.

Mom says something through tears, and then, tells me that I had passed out.

Catherine and I aren’t in school because, for whatever reason, Catherine is still in the hospital, (Mom and Dad still haven’t been able to tell me without bursting into tears) and I am still woozy.

Suddenly, without warning, the phone rings.

“I’ll get it.” I lunge for the phone, but Dad gets it first, and Mom holds me back. Then, something that has never happened before happened: Mom starts trembling and clutching me, and Dad’s face becomes white and worried. They exchange worried looks before we all go running to the car. I have absolutely no idea what is going on. All I know is that it is nighttime, and we are in the car.

Before I know it, we are at my least favorite place. If you guessed school, you’re wrong. We are at the hospital.

A rush of understanding flows through me.

“What happened to Catherine?” I ask. I don’t get an answer.

“We’re here to see Catherine Rose Henry.” Dad informs the receptionist.

The receptionist takes one look at me and says, briskly, “How ald ayre ya?”

“Ten.” I say, honestly.

“Ya nat allawed upsais untail ya twailve.” She gives me a huge, fake grin. “Ya cayn staiy dayn here aynd rayd the fayshin maygazaines. Too bayd foyr ya.”

Mom and Dad exchange worried glances and give me a sympathetic look. Dad glares at the receptionist.

I sit down on the bench and flip through the newspaper to see if the sports section is in there. No sports section.

BORING!

Then, an unfamiliar voice says, “Eddie?” It is a kind voice.

“Huh?” I say, looking into the eyes of a doctor.

“I am Catherine’s doctor, Dr. Sellsnack. Apparently, it’s been difficult for them to tell you about your sister. As I have heard, a closet door was opened-”

“That was me.” I tell him before he says anything else.

“That’s okay, but anyways, back to Catherine. So, she was sitting in the closet, and the door hit her head. She was knocked unconscious, and she isn’t responding. We think she may have a concussion.”

Concussion. The word cuts under my skin like one of the sewing needles that my mom has in the tackle box, shoved in the back of the hall closet, from the two weeks that she was in the sewing club before she quit.

“Oh. It’s my fault.” I say.

The doctor pats me on the back and says, “That’s okay.” Then, he leaves.

Okay? Like that was true.

***

A few days later, old Catherine is back. I try to hide that I care.

Back to school. What the heck? I was actually doing okay staying home everyday. More than okay.

Catherine has this huge, bulky cast on her head. Her head is shaved completely.

Back at school, we play Our Game a few times.

The next morning, I awake to ominous, gray clouds that look like gray shirts on a clothesline. I know something bad will happen.

And it does. Well, it isn’t exactly bad, but it isn’t necessarily good either. It is just plain weird: Catherine doesn’t play Our Game. She did, in the morning, but not wholeheartedly. By the end of the day, she has completely stopped.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask Catherine.

“What do you mean, what’s wrong with me?” she snaps.

“Well, you haven’t been playing Our Game this afternoon.”

“It isn’t your business what I do, and what I don’t do.” She replies.

Sheesh.

***

The next morning, Catherine and I walk to school separately, me stopping at the big, old tree by Eagle Street.

Later that morning, Ms. Cally announces who is in the fifth grade play. I’m not. I had tried out, knowing that I wouldn’t get in, but even so, when Catherine is called, I turn green with envy. I always wished that I had the talent that Catherine has.

Suddenly, I see Lena pass Opal a note. As Opal grabs the note with her small, grubby hand, I snatch the note away. On it, in Lena’s dainty handwriting, says:

Look at the big, white-head

Who is the ‘big, white-head’? And then it comes to me. Catherine.

I almost glare at them, but with an afterthought, I don’t.

They’re just big, fat bullies, is my first thought.

They’re copying Our Game, is my second thought.

How dare they make fun of Catherine? is my third thought.

Then, they start to come together.

If they’re copying Our Game, doesn’t that mean that Catherine and I are also big, fat bullies? Did people feel like, “How dare they make fun of _____(so and so)?”

I feel like thanking Lena.

***

That same day, I am walking home from school. Suddenly, I know what I have to do.

“I’m sorry.” I whisper to Catherine, almost in tears.

Catherine’s hard face softens, but then she says, “I’ve got rehearsal” and runs back to the school yelling, “Last one there is the rotten egg!” I follow, waving to Opal, Lena, Flora, John, and Ned, as we pass.

Once upon a time, a little unicorn was only one year old. She went to visit her grandfather. The little unicorn’s name was Lily. While she was with her grandfather, she was sleeping and her grandfather did a magic trick. Her grandfather said the magic words, “Alakazoo! Alakazoo! Make you bad for the magic!” And it happened.

On Lily’s second birthday, she ate some cupcakes made out of carrots and strawberries. After that, she went to test out her magic.

She went inside her magic tree house, and she said the magic words. Only one of the lights ran out of its electricity. It was still Lily’s birthday, so she was going to open her present from her great-great-grandfather. She opened it, and inside, there was a magic rose with a note on it.

The note said, “Every night, if you say something, the flower will do it.”

The next day, the magic trick Lily’s grandpa did did not work anymore. He forgot to say a word. He was supposed to say, “Alakazoo! Alakazoo! Make you bad for the magic and forever.”

During the night, Lily said, “I wish I was bad.” It worked because the rose had special hearing, but did not have ears. It heard by actually using its magic, and the rose was good and bad.

When it was the morning, her grandfather remembered that he forgot to say the words. While Lily was sleeping in her treehouse, her grandfather flew up to the treehouse and said it very quietly so Lily would not hear it. This time, he said “forever.” When Lily woke up again, it wasn’t even night. Lily said something to the magic rose, and during nighttime, it happened. It was kinda funny, because the note said it would only work at night.

So in the morning, Lily said “I wish, I wish that the spells my grandpa did would never work.” Lily had a memory that made her think her grandfather might be making spells every time she took a nap.

The rose did not do that because it was out of its magic. The note forgot to say, “If you use the rose too much, it will run out of magic.”

Lily only knew one trick. The rose only taught her to make unicorns good and bad, but she forgot how to do it.

So then Lily’s parents took her to a magic school. In magic school, she learned the perfect spell to make her grandfather stop doing those tricks. It was not really a good trick, but was a good trick for her because she wanted to make her grandpa stop. The trick said, “Make you go away until forever.”

The trick didn’t work because Lily was a kid.

***

When Lily was a grown up, she had kids and then her rose that she had when she was a kid had its magic again. Her kids all had the same birthday. The rose was for all of them. One of the kids’ names was Emily. The next kid’s name was Isabelle. The last kid’s name was Zoe. When it was their birthday, they finally got the rose.

After they got the rose, Lily’s grandpa was a little sad because he always wanted his granddaughter to not know magic tricks. That’s why he did the spell. After that, he had an idea. The idea was to do a trick on Lily’s kids. He knew it was the perfect time because they were all turning one, and it was almost nighttime. When unicorns are one, they don’t know any tricks. So, that’s why he thought it was a good time. He was actually in his house, and the girls were playing with their new friend.

The new friend’s name was Ellie. They met Ellie on her birthday. The mother of Ellie was Lily’s friend. When Ellie was playing with Lily’s kids, Lily’s grandpa did not use his voice to say the magic trick. He used the magic rose to do it.

Lily had given it to him after he asked, “May I please have the rose back so I can make a lovely rose in your bed?” But that was just a little lie.

The rose said with its magic, “Please please make the magic bad just for a day.” When the kids were playing a game called loops a loops hoops, they jumped over the hoops and spun. The kids had wings but did not know how to fly. Then, Lily’s grandpa sprinkled some of the magic all over the little girls — except for Ellie. While they were playing, all of the kids of Lily were spinning Ellie and they dropped her. The whole day, they kept dropping her. Then, when it was night, their great-great-grandpa came in the room.

When he came into the room, he put the magic rose into a cage. When it was daytime, the cage always went away. It went away in the daytime because the grandpa could go into the bedroom he made a spell. The spell was that the cage would not like the light so it would only come at night.

One day, it was Lily’s kid’s birthday. It was nighttime. When it was night time, Lily was not at the party because she was asleep. The door opened, so Lily woke up. She saw Grandpa Ricky. He was holding the magic rose. It had been hers as a kid. She saw that Grandpa Ricky was making a spell on it. Then Lily made a spell on Grandpa Ricky. She saw that Grandpa Ricky was holding the flower when she woke up. She did the spell because she remembered that she heard what her grandpa did when she was a kid. So she knew it was the same trick, so Lily made a trick.

The trick was to make the grandpa away. When she did the trick when she was a kid, what happened is that it would only work if she was a grown-up. Grandpa Ricky tried to camouflage with his magic, but it didn’t work because he didn’t really have magic. He made a trick. He wasn’t really a unicorn. He just dressed up and used the magic rose that was his and just sprinkled a lot of it. Lily was surprised. She knew it was her friend and the friend was a donkey. She knew what the donkey did. She made a bad spell to make Grandpa Ricky in deep sleep. Her grandpa’s grandpa made a spell so when she looks at the donkey, she would remember what happened when she was a kid. So she saw that the donkey dressed up as Grandpa Ricky and made a spell and he didn’t even know anything about the rose, he only knew what the magic looked like, so he just got the magic. She remembered that she thought that the donkey made a spell on her real grandpa.

So she saw that Grandpa Ricky was in a deep sleep. That’s the only thing she saw, but she did hear the magic words. It was “Alakazam, make you in deep sleep for a long time!” But then when she saw the spell, she saw Grandpa Ricky for real. She knew it was him because she tried to take off the skin and it didn’t work, so she knew it was Grandpa Ricky. Grandpa Ricky was happy because he hadn’t seen Lily in a long long time. Lily was happy too. Grandpa Ricky woke up because the donkey didn’t say forever, and it had been a long time. And because the donkey didn’t have real magic, Grandpa Ricky wouldn’t sleep for that long of a time.

When she was still a kid, and she visited her grandpa, it still wasn’t her grandpa. She saw her grandpa when she was zero, not even one year old. So she is now 37 years old, and Lily always thought that the Grandpa Ricky she saw when she was one was Grandpa Ricky. So thank goodness Lily made a spell on the donkey. It was weird because when Donkey took the costume off, he went back to Donkeyland.

So then they had a party of all of Lily’s friends and her kids, but not Donkey. And so Grandpa Ricky, the real Grandpa Ricky, got to play loops a loops with Lily’s kids and Ellie. Grandpa Ricky spinned the hula hoops and then the kids started to jump and jump and jump! And then their wings grew bigger and bigger and bigger and then they could fly! And Grandpa Ricky was happy and Lily was amazed and the kids were still one. And Lily was amazed because when she was a kid she could not fly, she could only fly two miles, but the kids could fly for three hours. Lily started to run, and she started to fly. She was flying because she wanted to fly with all her kids. So she started to fly nine miles and the kids flew eight miles for the first time ever!

***

Then another big problem happened. It was that there was a cheetah in the sky that had wings. This cheetah was very hungry and only ate unicorns. She is a girl and her name is Nina. She started to run fast in the air, and very carefully running on the clouds, and they didn’t even break because she was running carefully and her tail was made out of cotton. If the clouds were going to break, her tail would just pad it and it would be better right away.

Then the cheetah started to go on land. She saw that all the unicorns were flying, and she had a little power so she would be right in front of them to be ready. She did her spell right away. She flapped her wings super hard, and at the last bit of hardness, she turned invisible, zoomed really fast and then poof! That was how she got there. She was super fast, and she went to the last cloud. She knew if she waited for them to run slowly, they would go faster to the last bit. They thought that she was not there. Then she was going to appear. Then she did another magic spell. She made two of herself so they could not escape. She also made all of her selves everywhere. Her mouth was way open, and her little, sharp teeth were getting hungry. She licked herself.

The cheetah didn’t catch any unicorns, because there was a new ruler of unicorns. The Grandpa of Lily chose Lily to be the queen of the unicorns. She was really surprised and so were her kids. Grandpa Ricky, Lily, and her kids started to use their really, really good magic.

Before they made the cheetah go away, they saw a vision. They saw that the cheetah was not trying to eat them. Lily forgot something about the cheetah. She remembered that the cheetah was also her friend. But the cheetah was from the same mean man. Except Unicorn Land and Cheetah Land were together, but they had different names for where they lived.

She told the unicorns to not be afraid and told Grandpa Ricky and her kids to stop right now. She said, “I forgot that this is my friend. She was my friend growing up. You should remember Grandpa Ricky!”

Then she told Nina to stop. She said, “You were my best friend growing up and you saw Grandpa Ricky and me. All these other unicorns are my friends, and some of the kids are my friends kids. Some kids are mine.”

Nina said, “Okay.”

Then Nina ran back to the queen in her land. She said, “I am really sorry, but the people in your vision are my friends so I’m not going to give you her for your dinner.”

The queen cheetah, Reese, was really mad. She ran all the way to Unicorn Land. She went inside the castle and stopped. “I really wanted you for my dinner,” she said to Lily, “and you wouldn’t let me eat you so I’m going to eat you now!”

She let Nina come in front of her, did a magic spell for all of her friends and Nina, and then she told Reese, “I’m going to leave this place and go to Christmas World!”

Then she said, “I wish Kazoom to go there.”

They went through this magic, magic door. It took them to two places. It was a secret. One side was Christmas World, and one was Halloween. They got mixed up, all of Nina’s friends and Nina went to Halloween World. Lily, Grandpa Ricky, and the kids went to Christmas World. Then there was a problem.

There was an evil queen sitting in an evil chair. It looked like a green monster with yellow hair. She said, “I will take you to this bad, bad world, where you will not see anyone else. Only one person can come to this world, even if they have family.” Then she started running towards them.

Lily made a braid in her hair, and put a sword in it, and started to say the magic words. “Please, please hair and tail. Just this once, when I tell you, do something bad to the evil queen, okay?” And poof! That happened.

Before she even disappeared with the Evil Queen, Lily made a force field to make sure nothing hit them. And then Lily left. She saw her mom and and dad. She was still the same age then. She remembered that she never saw her mom wearing the necklace that she got for her birthday. The necklace was gold with a magical heart.

Mom and Lily did not know that Grandpa Ricky had an evil badge. The evil badge was under his nice, nice tail and Lily saw it and she knew which badge it was. It wasn’t her dad and it wasn’t her mom. She then knew that the evil queen had that badge on.

She had a vision. When Lily had visions, she looked like she was asleep. But actually, she was awake. Lily saw a picture of the evil queen. Inside, there was a magic headband. She saw inside, the headband had a magic badge.

So then she blinked once. She was back home, to the real world where ponies live. But there was no one there. She blinked one more time. She was in Christmas World. There were lots of Christmas trees. It smelled like candy. She heard the sled of Santa and Christmas songs.

She walked towards a castle. There was a fancy cane entrance. In the middle, there was Santa. She saw that her friends were in a cage. She saw the queen. She blinked one more time. When she blinked one more time, she was inside the cage. But then after that, she made herself invisible, so then she sneaked out of the cage. She had the key because the queen hid it inside the Castle of Santa, and then she went into the castle of Santa and found the key. Then she put herself on fire and ran around the queen 90 times in one second. And, then in a dash, the queen was on fire. And then, they never saw the queen ever again.

But Lily was not on fire because she just used a magic trick. She took her friends out, but something was wrong. There were cameras in the middle of Christmas World and Halloween World. And the soldiers saw the queen disappear, so they ran out of their cages. The queen had made cages for the soldiers way high up. They ran out of their cages to make sure that Lily and her friends would never come back. But before the queen could do that, Lily started flapping her wings and sang a signal that they all need to fly, and they did.

When they started flying, they started singing a song, and the song meant their cheetah friend Nina would come. She came flying towards them, above the clouds. Lily had a page that could write anything in cheetah language. So she told the paper, “Go to Nina and say, ‘Can you come down and help Lily fly?’”

Then, it flew up to Nina and then Nina stopped. Nina landed on the clouds, but she did not fall because she had a tail made of cloud fluff. Then, she patted the cloud to make sure that no holes were going to come. She didn’t want any holes that would turn into stones or metal.

Then she read the page. She flew down to help Lily get up into the sky before the evil witch. Because the evil witch cannot fly. Then an old tooth fairy put a spell on Lily. It was a good spell. Then she disappeared into the tiny house.

***

Then Lily turned into the new queen toothfairy. She grew tiny wings, and her horn and four legs turned into two legs and two arms. Then that old tooth fairy said, “You are the new queen tooth fairy.”  

Lily gasped in her head. She was so surprised. Then she went shopping inside the store. She opened her wallet and said, “What? Why is there teeth instead of money?”

Then one of her students said, “We use teeth to buy our stuff.”

Then Lily got shoes. She also got three gowns. One was a ball gown, the second was a gown made out of rose petals, and the third one was made out of dandelions. Then she went to the front of the market and opened her wallet again. She put down all her clothes and shoes on the scanner.

The guy said, “Three teeth please.”

And she gave him three teeth. Then, she saw a horse with wings and there was a guard on it at the castle. He said, “You are now the new queen,” and she hopped on the horse. They flew to the castle door.

Another guard asked, “Who are you?”

The other guard said, “I am the other guard who helped you and I dropped off the queen at the castle.”

Then the other guard put down his sword. The queen went into main area where she saw thirty other good fairies. She asked, “Why are there more fairies in here?”

They said: “We are your helpers, what do you want?”

“I want to know, where is the bedroom for me?”

All the fairies grouped up and said: “Should we show her?”

They decided to. They showed her the master bedroom. It had a bed with white curtains on top, and there were four dressers with three lamps on each one. Then Lily went out of the room and she asked, “Now where is the bathroom?”

The fairies took her into the bedroom, opened the door, led her in, and said: “Here is your master bathroom.” She was amazed because in her own castle, when she was a unicorn, her bathroom was just a circle pond with one little heart on the wall. And in this new bathroom, she saw a nice toilet, paper towel, and a sink where there was a mirror with a gold and pink frame.

She even saw an extra door to go outside faster. She walked out the door, and all the fairies asked, “Did you like it?”

She said, “I loved it!”

“Now, we are going to show you your private room.”

She went to the private room and got her nails done, then she got a massage, and a foot massage. She was so relaxed that she fell asleep in the middle of the massage. Then she woke up and said, “I loved it! I was asleep the whole time.”

Then she went to this massive hall with so many pictures of fairies with crowns on their head. She wondered what room it was. The fairies said, “This was the room where we remember the other queens who lived here.”

Then she goes into another big hall with 77 chairs and five tables. One table is for the west side, and another table was for the east side, the other was for the north, and the last was for the south. The very last table was for the castle people. There were lots and lots of people at each table. She went to another room. It had a humongous golden chair, with two purple crystals on each side, one pink crystal in the middle, two blue on the other, and then, two green as well.  There were 33 chairs that had four golden triangle crystals on the top and cushions on the bottom of them all. That was where they sat when the guards had to give the queen a message from someone else.

Then Lily went to a room that had a lot of gowns and shoes and it had lots of closets too. The assistant fairies said to her, “This is the closet where you put all your clothes and shoes.”

She saw a dress with red ribbons and blue dots. She also saw a tiara with red rubies, green diamonds, and in the lace of the tiara she put brown dots. She also saw two pairs of shoes. One was a shoe that she could wear for that night and another one was high heels. The high heels were red, blue, and brown. The night shoes looked like red bunnies. On the back was blue and red little lines.

Then she went to another room. This was the hospital room. There was a big, big bed and a little crib. This was the room where the people had their babies. Then the guards came. There was a bad message in the card. It said that there was a war between unicorns and fairies to get back the queen or keep the queen.

Lily flew all the way to her village and said to her children, “Please do not fight because I’m both your queens except I had to got to a different village because someone thought the old queen was going to die. So I’m really both queens and please do not go the war.” She went to her grandpa and said, “Grandpa, please take good care of the kids while I am going to rule a different town for two months.”

Grandma agreed with Lily. Then Lily flew back. After Lily was gone, the kids decided that they didn’t want to miss their mom so they wrote her a letter. They drew pictures of them hugging and they wrote, “Don’t worry. Grandma is taking care of us.”

Later, they found a book. The book had a fairy on the cover. “How to Write in Fairy Language,” it said. The girls felt happy because now they could have their letters sent to Lily. Her guards were fairies and only understood fairy language. When they opened it, they saw that one sentence was in their language and the next sentence was in a language that they didn’t recognize and the letters were filled with curls.

The sentence in their language said, “To mom, love, the kids.” Then they went to their card and brought the book. They brought it to the living room and started to use it to finish the cover. Then they sent the card.

Lily was in her chair when the guards came over and said, “You… have… a… message… from… your… kids.”

Lily opened the card, she started to read it out loud, and then she started to read in her normal voice that is a unicorn voice. Everyone was shocked because they never heard her talking in a creepy language! Then, she ran away from the place because she didn’t want them to know her secret ever again.

***

She went back to her town, but first entered the invisible force field. This made her back into herself that was a unicorn. Inside the machine, they put a unicorn horn and sprayed magic to make it look like a horn, then she glued the horn on, and went into this machine, and she was back into her town. Her mom came running back to her and gave her a little snuggle.

Then the kids came running, and they didn’t just snuggle, they tried to get her horn, meaning they were hugging! They ran around and said, “Yippie, yippie, yippie!”

Then she got a message who lived in fairyland who said there is a big wolf. But she forgot she wanted the big bad wolf’s beautiful tiara.

She took all her unicorns and said, “Follow me. Do you have your unicorn wand?”

They all said, “Yes!”

They followed Lily into the machine again. First, Lily said, “Go super fast!” So everyone could look like a fairy in one second. Inside of the machine they got wings, shoes, dresses, legs,  arms and a sword and shield. Then, they went out of the invisible force field. But luckily, the unicorns learned how to speak fairy language because Lily said to the other fairy, “Let’s go!”

Then Lily put her magic scarf that made her invisible and scattered around the place to the wolf castle. She was going to get her most favorite thing in the world: a necklace to make her the queen of every town, village, and kingdom. Then she found it and put it on. But then she felt the earth quaking and felt part of her body quaking.

So she took it off! Because first, she had to save the people. Then she ran back and they made a statue that looked like a carnivore wolf. Then he ran as fast as he could to his house ,but Lily remembered he only had one room. So she decided to make a fake necklace and put it back. She hid into a cave so no one knew that parts of her were falling off because she put on the necklace.

Then all the kings and queens of the villages died. But the parts of Lily turned into more Lillies and some of them changed their shape.

No one knew who the real one was, but every Lily knew that the real one had the necklace. And that’s how they lived, happily ever after!

Once upon a time, there was a princess who got turned into a mermaid. Her name was Jamie. Her legs turned into a blue tail! She was confused, she didn’t understand what happened. She thought it was something magical, and she was right!

When she got turned into a mermaid, she was playing by the water with her puppy. Her puppy’s name was Delilah. She had brown and black fur. Purple dust flew out of the water and touched the princess and her puppy. Delilah also got turned into a mermaid!

Jamie and Delilah were both a little bit scared, but they swam, and then they found a cave in the water. They went inside, but it was a dark cave, and they couldn’t see.

Inside the cave, they found a flashlight. They also found a catfish that was stuck in seaweed.

The catfish said, “I was delivering magical purple dust to someone, but I got stuck, and some of the dust flew out, and I didn’t see it because I lost my flashlight. You can help me deliver my dust to the turtle who needs it! He’s going to trade the dust so I can turn back into a cat. The three of us can go back to land and you can play games with me!”

Jamie said, “That sounds great! You can be my other pet and you can have dinner with me. I’ll give you a different plate to eat on and I’ll tell my father that you’ll be my pet.”

When they got him out of the seaweed, they saw a door in the cave to the turtle’s house. The turtle was rainbow and teensy! The catfish gave the turtle the teensy bag of purple dust.

He turned them back into a human and a puppy and a cat, and they went back to the castle. The dog had his puppy food, the cat had cat food, and the princess had lettuce with rice for dinner. They went to bed and she lived happily ever after.

Chapter 1

“Oh my gosh!” Elsa said. “Thank you so much for inviting me and Sidney to this water park!”

And then Sydney said, “I know right, I just can’t believe that we are staying here for 10 days without your parents. Without your parents!”

“Calm down, guys. It’s just a water park!” I said.

Even though I was excited myself, this was supposed to be New York’s best water park. “Bye, Mom and Dad!” I yelled.

I was 15 years old.

“Hey, do you guys want to go to the restaurant? I’m starving,” Sydney said.

We went to the restaurant, video game arcade, and then we had the best time going down slides and splashing through waves.

“Is it just me or are we the only ones here!” Elsa said.

“Calm down,” Sidney told her.

“I think Elsa’s right!” I said, in horror. “We are the only ones here!” I screamed.

Chapter 2

“She is right, you know,” Elsa said to Sydney.

“And I did scream, and no one even came to tell me to be quiet!” I said again, horrified of the thought that we may be the only ones here!
“But, if we’re the only ones here, shouldn’t we take advantage of it?” Sydney asked.

“Yes, we should definitely do that!” I shouted happily.

“I’m not so sure,” Elsa said. “Shouldn’t we call the police to tell them we are stuck!”

“Calm down!” I told her.

“Yeah, and I wouldn’t call it stuck, it’s more like a dream come true!” Sydney added.

“I guess,” Elsa said.

“What should we do first?” I asked.

“Go on the blue swirl!” Elsa and Sydney shouted in chorus.

“Okay!” I said, excited as can be.

The blue swirl was super fun.

“Watch out! Super Sydney coming through!” she shouted.

Then we went to the cafe and ate some chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles.

“Aren’t you guys worried? We don’t even know why nobody’s here!” I said.

“Okay, let’s go check the main office at the entrance to check if anything happened.” Ella said.

“Good idea,” Sydney and I told her.

When we found the place, we were surprised to find nothing but a note. A suspicious note. Sydney read the note… her face turned white… she fainted.

Chapter 3

“Sydney! Are you okay?” Elsa and I asked desperately.

“I’ll call my mom,” I told Ella.

“Uh oh!” I said.

“What?” Elsa asked.

“No internet connection!” I screamed.

My. Phone. Was. My life! Sydney woke up a couple hours later. We didn’t read the note.

Chapter 4: Tummy Hurts

We wanted to wait.

“I waaaant to go hoooome!” Sydney cried.

“Why?” we asked.

“Read the note. Then you’ll understand!” Sydney told us.

“Why don’t we read it at the cafe?” I asked. “We can have ice cream?”

They agreed. I was starting to grow scared. I missed my parents… we read the note… I screamed!

Chapter 5: Weird Note

The note said:

Hello, Sydney, Elsa, and Lindy! I have trapped you here because Sydney’s parents stole diamonds from me. Then, they turned me to the police and gave the diamonds to them too! I have kidnapped you guys. If your parents don’t pay the ransom note of $2,000, I will drop you in the middle of the forest, where you will be eaten! In ten days, I will be back. There’s no way out! You can thank Sydney’s spy parents! I have kidnapped you.

Chapter 6: Questions and Paper Clips

“Wait, your parents are spies?” I asked.

“Yes,” Elsa answered.

“Well, why didn’t you just tell us?” Sydney finally said.

“I’m sorry I wouldn’t tell you! But when I saw how you guys reacted to finding out that Max’s parents are mad scientists, well… uh… I didn’t want you guys to think I was weird.”  

“Ella Bradforth, I just can’t believe you!” Sydney screamed.

“Look, I understand if you guys don’t want to be friends with me!” Ella told us.

“We were weirded out about Max’s parents because they were eeeeew!!! You parents aren’t eeeewww!!!” I told her.

“Now, let’s escape!” Sydney said, in a determined voice. “Also… watch me swallow a paper clip! I have done it many times!”

Two minutes later…

“Yep, it’s not coming out!” Sydney answered.

“Yikes,” Ella gasped.

“Hey, guys! Look, there’s a hidden door!”

Chapter 7: Almost There

We walked in.

“Hello,” a booming voice said.

“Huh? Who’s there?” I asked.

“Rumplerum.” a voice answered.

“That’s the guy who wrote the note,” Ella answered.

“Oh no,” I said to myself.

Scratching???

“What was that?” Sydney asked.

“Umm,” I murmured.

“Look around,” Ella told Sydney.

There was a cage around us with just one lock.

“Hey, it’s not locked,” I said.

“Now it is,” Rumplerum answered.

“How do we get out?” I asked.

“I know!” Sydney answered.

Then, she began gagging, and out came a paper clip. Then, Ella took the paper clip and hid it behind her back when Rumperum came.

“Hah,” he muttered.

Quickly, Ella continued opening the lock because her parents taught her how.

Ten minutes later, we ran out of the waterpark.

“Hey, come back!” Rumplerum shouted.

But, it was too late.

This is a story about a charm bracelet that leads you to another world.

The first charm is a mint-candy-green cat for friendship. It leads you to a world where everybody is friendly. So, you think it might be the same exact world, but, this time, nobody can harm you there.

The second charm is a lemon-drop-yellow dog that represents fun. It takes you to a world where it is always fun. So, wherever you go, there is always a playground or a sleepover. Anything fun for you.

The third charm is a grape drop, shaped like a shell, that represents peace. It takes you to an ocean where it’s peaceful, and nothing can bother you there. You can never get a sunburn.

The fourth charm is last. The apple heart charm represents love. It leads you to a world where everyone loves you, even though you don’t know who they are.

***

For Finley’s fourth birthday, her great-uncle gave her a charm bracelet.

Finley said, “Thank you, Great-Uncle Charles. It’s adorable,” in a not-so-surprised, but still surprised, way. She thought it was just an ordinary charm bracelet that didn’t do anything special, but she loved the cat, dog, shell, and heart charms!

Her great-uncle said, “Ahh, you will see what’s so special about it,” with a smile on his face, like he couldn’t wait to see something.

It was vacation time from pre-school, so Finley and her family went to Hawaii on a boat. When she landed in Honolulu, she put the charm bracelet on, and she disappeared like POOF!

Nobody said anything because, then, there was just a fake Finley who could also talk and do things. There was a fake Finley because her great-grandpa is an inventor, and he built a fake Finley that could talk and do things just like the real Finley.

Meanwhile, Finley found out that she was up in the clouds, falling down like a piece of rock.

She yelled, “Ahhhhhhh!!!” She was scared that she was going to break every bone she had!

Then, everybody in town looked way up in the sky.

Finley’s friendly great-uncle said, “Look up in the sky!” and everybody held their hands out so that their palms faced the sky, and then Finley fell into everybody’s hands. Their hands were so soft, like a million pillows!

The green cat charm was shining in her eyes. Then, she saw something in her brain. It was the great wizard!

He said, “My name is Marcas. You have been sent to another world.”

Finley said, “Then how come everyone looks exactly the same?”

Marcas said, “This is still another world. It just looks exactly the same, but this time, nobody can harm you here.”

Finley felt a powerful charge of electricity from the charm of friendship. She hurt herself a lot in the other world because she was clumsy, but she felt safe now.

She saw everyone looking at her, and she said, “Why are you all looking at me?”

Her great-uncle said, “Because we’re friendly! Welcome to our world!”

Finley said, with a scared, toothy look, “Well, how come you are my great-uncle?” She could feel her skin stretching in her neck because she was forcing a smile.

In the world of friendship, you always had to be friendly because Marcas would kick you out if you weren’t, and you’d go to the evil world. You would see him up in the sky with a big face in the clouds, and he would say a spell to keep you there forever. The spell was, “Razzle dazzle doozle dreer, make you stay here forever ever.”

Finley felt kind of nervous because she didn’t want to get kicked out of the good world and go to the evil world.

The next day, Finley woke up and found out that she was in the regular world, back in the real Hawaii. Marcas took her because he wasn’t sure that everybody would know her and be friendly enough.

When she got out of bed, Finley dressed as best as she could: a white dress with real, pink diamonds and yellow, sparkly, thunderstorm sneakers. She put on pink lipstick (it’s kids lipstick), curled her eyelashes, and put on kid’s mascara. She had a cute, big head, so she put a crown on top. She wanted to look nice for the beach boardwalk. She didn’t put on the charm bracelet, though, because the paint would wash off in the ocean, and then, she would never be able to get to the all worlds. Marcas told her in her head that the only way she could travel without the bracelet was to go up to the Rainbow Falls in the sky.

“Wow! You look so beautiful, Finley! We should definitely go to the beach,” said her mom and dad.

And they went to the beach. It was soooo hot that they went right into the water to cool off. They saw tiny, yellow and black zebra fish, and then, they saw squid! So, they ran back to the beach. They got cold, so they laid out on the sand and got hot again! They went back to the water, but this time, they saw pink, crowned fish.

Her wrist was still wet, so she didn’t put on the bracelet. She kept it on the dry, dry, dry shelf. When it was time to go back to the ferry to go back home, she brought the bracelet.

But then, when she got home, there was a party with people she didn’t know!

Her mom said, “Oopsie! I think I forgot to lock the door.”

Finley said, “Get out of our home, or else I’ll kick you out on your butts! With my feet!”

So, everybody ran out the door. But there was one guy who didn’t, so Finley kicked him out. She was so mad, but she felt relaxed after she kicked his butt. In the world of friendliness, you couldn’t be mad, but over here, you could! She was so relaxed that she peed her pants. Then, at dinnertime, her dad told a joke, and she laughed so hard that she pooped in her pants!

When they saw the wetness, they said, “What are you doing?!”

She said in a relaxed voice, “I’m peeing and pooping in my pants, and I don’t care.” Then, she kept peeing. She was a little too relaxed.

So, then, she put on her charm bracelet. Then, she figured out that she was somewhere where everything was fun! Everyone was smiling and laughing. There were parks that looked like Central Park, and there were toy trains that were real trains with miniature cabooses that moved around by themselves. There was a cart by the river that sold blueberry lemonade, and an ice cream cart that sold any ice cream you wished (that your parents would normally say no to…). But they would say yes because this is the land of fun, and your parents don’t care if it’s bad for you. All they care about is that you have fun!

Finley’s parents trusted her, so it was the charm bracelet that guided her. If she went forward, and she was supposed to go backwards, the charm would point the direction.

Finley’s dog charm glowed, so she took three more steps, and the charm bracelet turned east, so she turned east. She saw someone, someone from the real world… It was her friend, Mila!

Finley’s eyes got bigger, and there was happy sweat coming out and flicking off of her forehead.

“Milaaaaaaaa!!!” she yelled.

Mila turned around and, with one eyebrow up and one eyebrow down, she said, “How did you know my name was Mila? I never saw you around!” Her hair was blonder than the Mila that Finley knew. When this Mila got happy, her hair got shinier and shiner, and actually lit up!

“Well, I saw you in the other world I live — ”

Mila gasped and yelled, “You are from another world?!” in a high-pitched voice.

Finley said, in a very slow, high-pitched voice, “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.”

Mila crossed her arms and said, “That. Is…” She uncrossed her arms and pointed her fingers down and puffed out her neck. “Awesooome!!!”

Finley said, “Let’s go to Central Park!” And they did.

They went on the seesaw, the monkey bars, the slide, and the swings. And then, they went to the ice cream cart, and Finley wanted chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and so did Mila.

Before Mila got her scoop, she said, “You read my mind!”

Finley said, “You mean you wanted chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, too?”

Mila sang in a loud and proud voice, “Yeees.”

Then, they went to the other park that was also Central Park, and they had different items to play. You could rock in the rocking chair, that was actually a playing horse. Finley got on, but she got dizzy.

Finley put her hand on the left side of her head. “My head is starting to hurt!”

Mila said, “Okay. I’ll let you go back home.”

At the end of the day, Finley went back home. She was glad to be home, because there was not too much fun. And then, the next day, she found out that her purple shell charm was glowing bright purple. Then she disappeared with a Poof! She found out that she was on a beach when she landed. No one was there, and all she heard was a small wave crashing.

Then, she found the original shell from her charm bracelet.

She said, “It’s as small as my charm of peace.” But the shell was different. The shell was grey. It wasn’t shiny, it was dull. And some of its shell broke off, but she found the piece to put it together. Then, she found her old house and put on her pink bathing suit with white polka dots. She went back to the beach to take a swim, but before she even went in the water, she found a stingray.

She stepped around him and said, “I’m not going to creep him out.”

Then, she went back into the store and dried herself with her towel. She took the shell with her and went to her old home. Then, she figured out that it had everything she needed to fix the shell. It had crazy glue, colorback, and a shiny machine. First, she used crazy glue to glue the pieces of the shell back together. The shiny machine was next. Finley shined the glued shell with the shiny machine, and the color of  the shell was silver, but the shell had to be purple. The last step was to put the color back onto the shell, and the colorback was a spray. So, she used the colorback as purple, and then sprayed it on the silver shell, and the silver shell tuned purple. Then, the shell of peace glowed on her bracelet and, all of a sudden, she was back at home without even noticing!

She asked, “How did I get here? Oh well.”

Then the last charm was glowing red, and she disappeared with a puff of smoke. Poof! She was gone. Then, she was in a world where the only colors were red, pink, purple, and blue. Except for the people. They were different colors. Then, around the corner of the big building, she found her friend, Mila. She was wearing clothing Finely had never seen in the original world. She was wearing a dress with pink flowers, and around the flowers, it was purple. She had green shorts, and her shoes were the color orange.

Finely said, “Mila! How are you doing?”

Mila said, “Fine. Whoever you are, how are you?”

Finely said, “What do you mean ‘whoever’? I’m your friend, Finley!”

Mila said, “I don’t know you. Are you from a different world? I see you have a special charm bracelet.”

And then Finley said, “Yes, what is this world? A world of love?”

“Yes, you see, everything here is full of red, and purple, and pink,” Mila said.

“This special charm bracelet was from my uncle,” Finley said.

“From your uncle? I thought he was my uncle!” Mila said.

“You mean Uncle Charles?”

“Yes! That’s my uncle,” Mila said.

“But in the other world, when I was two years old, I didn’t know what he was. But as I grew, my mother said that person is Uncle Charles, my uncle.”

“But in this world things are different. So he is my uncle, and you are my new friend that I never met before because you don’t live in this world!” Mila said.

Then, Mila said, “This world is the world where everybody loves each other, even people who rob banks. They apologize, and the police will believe them since this is the world of love. I know where your parents are. They are on the next block across the street on your right. Your parents will be pleased to see you.’’

Finley did as Mila said. She went to the next block, across the street on her right. Then she saw a small door, tall enough for her to go through, but she knew her parents had to bend down because she measured them before. So she went inside the small door, and there was a big room, decorated with purple walls and pink letters that spelled her name: Finley. The lanterns were much more fancier. They were hanging from the ceiling, looking like glass teardrops. Then, she saw a door to the closet and saw all the fancy clothing! The color of the clothing were all Finley’s favorite colors: pink, red, blue, green, and purple. There was another door. Finley opened the door, and there were her parents.

Finley went into the room and jumped on her parents with a big smile that touched ear to ear.

Her parents said, “Oh, how are you doing? I missed you so much! Did you make any new friends?”

Finley said, “Uh, new friends? I already had a friend in the other world, which was Mila, duh!” Her eyebrows looked sad, but she made a ridiculous face, and was smiling with her mouth open.

Then, her parents said, “You should go on a time out.”

She said, “Nuh uh!” She touched her charm and went back to the other world. She went back so fast, she didn’t even notice. She was so tired because it was already midnight, and so, she got into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, and went to bed while her parents were sleeping. But before she went to her parents’ bed, she went to her old crib with her new stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows. She got out one of her new pillows with pink and purple flowers, with blue around them, and got a brown blanket with pink small hearts. She got her stuffed unicorn animal with big, blue, sparkly eyes, and a purple horn. It was a very, very, light-pinkish purple. She had a dream about the adventures she had.

THE END

Once, in time, there were dinosaurs. But, who knows what other species there were? There might have been aliens but we took over the Earth.

In present time, there were three kids — all boys. Their names were Jay, Luke, and Jason. They were in fifth grade when they had a crazy science teacher. He was a mad scientist, and every mad scientist is crazy. Mr. Dublin hated the three boys for no reason. In the evening, they had science class, and they were all in the same class. While the other kids were working, the science teacher, Mr. Dublin, called the three of them over to speak with him.

Mr. Dublin said, “Meet me tomorrow morning at 9:30,” and then he sent the three of them back to work.

They kept asking each other at a table, where Mr. Dublin couldn’t hear them, “Are we in trouble? Did you do something wrong? What did we do?”

Then the bell rang. Class was over. When the day was over, they left school.

***

The next day, in the morning, they had homeroom at 8:30. Then at 9:30, they told their teacher, and they went to Mr. Dublin. He said he had made a time machine, and he wanted them to help him. He was going to send them to the days where there were dinosaurs. The three thought it would be fun.

Mr. Dublin said, “Okay, and you might need this,” and gave them three swords.

Then, they got sent back in time, and they fainted.When they woke up, they found themselves in a nest. It looked like a tropical area… a dinosaur nest! They bolted out of the nest! Then, they ran into a Stegosaurus! They were back peddling and landed on a Pterodactyl and flew away! They saw two  flashes of light and then saw themselves back in Mr. Dublin’s science room.

When they arrived they yelled, “It worked! It actually worked!”

Then, they ran out of the room and went to their homeroom because they were so excited.

When they left, Mr. Dublin said, “Muahahahaha.”

Their homeroom teacher told the class it was recess. They played soccer together on the same team. They won 23-5. Then it was lunch. Their fat, lunch lady dumped slop on their plates. They threw it out.

Now it was actual science class. When the whole class entered, they got to work. Then, there was a sudden rumbling noise inside Mr. Dublin’s closet. The three boys went to investigate. The door burst open, and zombie clones jumped out and attacked the three boys. The three boys punched and killed the clones.

The professor yelled to the boys, “No, don’t kill them!’’

But the clones were already dead.

The professor yelled, “Nooo! My only clones!”

Then everybody in the room wondered about the clones. They wondered if they were good or bad. The professor said he was going to the bathroom. Then the three boys snuck behind Mr. Dublin’s desk. Without anyone noticing, they searched through Mr. Dublin’s drawers and found a paper, which had the code to Mr. Dublin’s safe. They opened Mr. Dublin’s safe and stole the recipe to the clones. Then, they stuck it in Jay’s pocket. Then, they snuck to their table, and Mr. Dublin came back and class was over.

But Mr. Dublin held them back and said, “I need you to go on a mission for me again tomorrow. Come at 9:30.”

Mr. Dublin sent them off.

***

The next day, at 9:30, they went to Mr. Dublin’s room, and Mr. Dublin had more clones. They wondered how Mr. Dublin had more.

He must’ve memorized the recipe because he said, “Here, take these swords and clones to go.”

They didn’t want to go, but they wanted to get more information. When Mr. Dublin was about to send them back, they hid behind the machine and only the clones went back.

When Mr. Dublin thought he was alone he said, “Muahahahahaha, I will take over the world!”

Then, the three boys took the phone on the wall and called the police and told the police to come there. Then Mr. Dublin found them, but the three boys pointed their swords at him and made him stay there until the police came.

Then, Mr. Dublin got arrested.

THE END

Kendall is a ten-year-old girl who has huge, brown hair with a purple streak. She also really loves hair bows, like Jojo Siwa, and she also likes to dance, like Jojo Siwa. Kendall loves watching Jojo Siwa, her friends, and Abby (her teacher) get into drama on Dance Moms. Today is her first day at a new school, and she is really nervous.

When Kendall looks at the time, it says 7:36 A.M. She is supposed to be at the bus stop at exactly 7:25 A.M. Kendall quickly runs outside and sees her bus leaving.

“Oh shoot!” says Kendall.

Kendall goes back in the house and runs up the stairs to her room and gets her headphones, phone, and backpack. Then, Kendall tries to chase the bus, but she is too slow. She doesn’t want her mom to find out that she missed the bus. So she walks to school because it is a five minute walk. She takes her phone out and sticks her headphones in. She listens to “How Deep Is Your Love” by Calvin Harris. That is one of Kendall’s favorite songs, but Kendall has lots and lots of favorite songs. As Kendall is crossing one of the streets, a moving truck almost runs over her foot. Kendall takes her headphones off and puts her hands on her hips.

“Are you crazy or what?” says Kendall.

“No, I am not crazy! Are you crazy?!” says the guy driving the truck.

Kick.

“Why would you kick my truck, you crazy, little girl?” says the annoying guy in the truck.

Then Kendall flips her hair and walks away from that crazy guy. When Kendall reaches her new school, she puts her phone and headphones away. It’s bigger than her old school, and she can tell from the outside that it looks cleaner. Her old school was all brick and there was only one window, which was on the top floor. This school is made of all glass. She feels like she’s lucky because it’s hard to get into this school. When Kendall is walking up the stairs to the school, she sees her best friend, Isabelle, and runs to give her a hug.

“Ew, who is that giving me a hug?” says a mean girl named Bridget.

“Why are you calling me ‘ew,’ Isabelle?”

Kendall looks up at the girl and notices it is not her friend, Isabelle. Kendall feels very embarrassed.

Another mean girl walks towards them and says, “Hi Bridget!”

Kendall asks, “Who is that?”

“This is my best friend, Hazel. Actually, who are you?” she says sassily.

“My name is Kendall, and I am a huge fan of JoJo Siwa,” says Kendall to Bridget and Hazel.

Kendall tries acting sassy like Bridget and Hazel so she can fit in. She needs new friends because she misses her friend, Isabelle. Isabelle has brown, wavy hair like Bridget. Bridget dyed her hair purple at her ends. Isabelle also has her ends dyed purple. That’s why Kendall thought Bridget was Isabelle.

Then the bell rings, and that means they have to go to class. The first class for Kendall is dance. Kendall is so excited because dancing is her favorite hobby. As she walks, she notices Bridget and Hazel are going in the same direction.

Kendall quickly catches up to them and says, “I can’t wait to start dancing!”

“Me too,” Hazel says.

Bridget says, “Me three.”

Kendall notices that there are only eight kids in the dance class. When she looks into the other room, the music class, there are twenty kids! Maybe music class is good at this school, she thinks.

Then, their dance teacher claps her hands and says, “Get in line everybody!”

The teacher has brown hair, light brown eyes, and she looks really nice.

“Now it’s time for everybody to say our names. My name is Ms. Cheatham,” she says with a huge smile that goes all the way up to her cheeks.

The students’ names are Kristy, Stacey, Mary-Anne, Dawn, Hazel, Bridget, Claudia, and Kendall. There are only girls in the class.

She sees the boys entering the room, saying, “Ew. There are only girls here. We’re only interested in hip hop, not that tap you’re doing.”

Kendall puts on her tap shoes and taps her feet on the floor lightly. Then, she likes the rhythm to it, so she starts dancing and going around the studio and doing ballet and jumping in the air.

Everybody opens their mouths wide, in a shocked way, and starts clapping loudly. Even Ms. Cheatham starts clapping!

Then, Kendall takes a bow and starts tapping to the line everyone is in.

“That was awesome,” Hazel and Bridget whisper.

Now they like her, just because she did something cool.

Then, Kendall straightens her bow out and says, “You guys like my bow?”

She is showing off now. The other girls have fake bows cut out from paper, but Bridget, Hazel, and Kendall have black, sparkly bows. They didn’t even plan it! Kendall has the biggest bow because her hair is so big. Now that she is hanging out with Bridget and Hazel, she thinks she’s the coolest.

Then, Kendall sees one of the weirdest people at her school. She’s wearing glasses, and her nose is all scrunched up. She’s wearing one rainbow sock and one glittery sock that says, “I love Elmo,” and they go all the way up to her knees.

Hazel says, “Hey. Go over to that weird kid, Sally, and do something mean to her.”

Then Bridget says, “Yeah. Something really mean.”

Kendall walks to Sally and says, “Hey Sally. There’s something on your shirt.”

Sally looks down and says, “I don’t see anything.”

Then, Kendall slaps Sally’s chin up really hard, and it hurts because Sally’s mouth is open while she is talking.

Then Kendall smiles and says, “Oh, I’m so sorry. That was an accident.”

Sally says, “Oh, it’s okay!” because she actually thought it was an accident.

Then Kendall says, “Hi-five, Sally!”

Sally says, “Okay,” and tries to slap Kendall’s hand, but then, Kendall bends her elbow, moves her hand towards her head, and leans over.

“Dab on it.”

Bridget and Hazel start giggling.

In a high voice, Sally says, “I thought you were nice, but you’re really mean!”

Then, Kendall steps on Sally’s toes and walks away.

Finally, the bell rings. Briiiiiiing! It’s a half day because it’s the first day of school.

I never heard a bell ring in school before, Kendall says in her head. It’s too noisy. Usually, the teachers walk the kids from class to class at my old school.

She feels bad about Sally, but she feels happier that she’s getting close to the most popular girls at school.  

DDDIIINNNGGG!

“Yay, it’s the end of the day,” says Hazel.

“See you guys tomorrow,” says Kendall.

As Kendall starts walking to her house, she sees her mom waiting outside for her.

“How was school today?”

“It was good,” says Kendall with a sad face.

“You sure?” says her mom.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” she says.

Then Kendall runs up to her room, slams her pillow on her face, and starts yelling.

Her mom, downstairs, says, “I thought I heard a noise? But I guess I was just hearing stuff.”

“I wish I could still go to school with Isabelle,” Kendall says to herself.

Then she has an idea. She’ll just call Isabelle and ask her to ask her parents to sign up for the school she’s going to. Kendall picks up the phone and dials Isabelle’s phone number.

“Hello, is Isabelle home right now, Ms. Jenkins?” asks Kendall.

“Yes! Would you like to speak with her? She has been dying to talk to you,” says Ms. Jenkins.

“Wait, Ms. Jenkins, can I ask you a question first?” says Kendall.

“Sure!”

“Ok, Ms. Jenkins, the question is. . .  would you, please, please, please, pleeeease sign your daughter up for my school? I know she loves to dance, and we get one hour of dance a day! She is my best friend ever, and I miss her so much! So please, enroll her!”

“I’ll think about it. . . ”

***

As Kendall walks up the stairs to her school, she sees Bridget and runs over to her.

“Hey Bridget, I know I saw you yesterday but it felt like forever,” says Kendall.

“My name is not Bridget. My name is Isabelle,” Isabelle says.

“Oh my god, Isabelle! This is the best day of my life!” says Kendall.

Bridget walks in and says, “Who’s that girl?”

Then Kendall replies, “This is my best friend from my old school! And believe it or not, you guys look just like twins!”

Then Isabelle and Bridget examine each other up and down. They both are wearing glittery high-tops and shirts that say “Keep On Dreaming.”

They simultaneously say, “O-M-G, we are like twins!”

The bell rings, and it is time for dance class. They all hold hands together and start walking there.

“I see there is a new student today,” says Ms.Cheatham.

Everybody crowds around Isabelle, noticing how pretty she is. Kendall is standing far from everyone, crossing her arms.

“Now look at who is getting all the attention,” whispers Kendall.

“What did you say, Kendall? Sorry, I didn’t hear,” says Isabelle.

“Nothing, really,” Kendall insists.

“Okay, if you say so,” says Isabelle.

Then, Isabelle and Bridget come up with the idea to do a ballet, hiphop mash-up duet. But Hazel and Kendall feel mad and jealous. Kendall and Hazel also have a plan…

“Pillow fight!” says Kendall.

“It’s on!” replies Hazel.

Kendall sees Bridget and Isabelle from her window doing their annoying duet together. She feels like calling them and saying, “We are having so much fun,” to make them jealous.

“Can we do something? Or can I go home? Because I’m super bored,” says Hazel.

“Okay, what if we sneak over to their house and take their music tape,” says Kendall.

Hazel puts her hands together and starts wiggling her fingers, agreeing with the evil plan.

Kendall and Hazel start walking out of her room and outside.

***

Kendall and Hazel stand in front of Isabelle’s house. There is a huge oak tree right in front of Isabelle’s house that has tons of branches. They climb to the top and reach Isabelle’s window. They climb into the window and see the tape on Isabelle’s desk, shiny and gold! Hazel hears the door opening and loudly whispers, “Hide! Hide, Kendall! Hide!”

Kendall moves her foot and the carpet slightly slides, sending her falling out the window. Luckily she lands in a huge pile of stacked leaves.

Isabelle, Bridget, and Hazel run downstairs and outside to check on Kendall. Bridget asks, “Do you need an ambulance?”

“No, I think I’m good,” says Kendall.

Isabelle and Bridget look on the floor and see crumbled pieces of their gold tape.

“Why would you take our tape?! The song was about our friendship,” says Isabelle.

“It was also about our friendship, Hazel,” says Bridget.

“We are really, really, really, really, really sorry,” they say simultaneously.

“Of course, that’s what friends are for,” says Isabelle.

“Yeah, whatever she said,” Bridget replies.

They all started laughing.

“We will always be best friends,” they say together.

The End

One day, I walked down the dirt road on my way home from school. As I rounded the corner, I noticed a small, blue tassel bag lying in the bushes. As I approached, it I saw the intricate and complicated lines of a thin, gold thread woven in and out of the blue canvas pouch. The thread drew winding, dragon-like creatures with wings and fiery breath. I knelt down to pick up the pouch and ran off.

Later that night I opened up the bag to reveal a small leather rectangular box. I carefully opened the box, holding my breath. I opened my eyes and let out my breath. Inside were seven eggs. Each were completely unique, and none had the same color or pattern. One was all white with thin gold streaks, while another was a navy blue with a small star in the middle. That night I rushed to bed, wondering what could possibly be inside of the eggs.

The next morning, I awoke at the crack of dawn. I rushed to the table where I had put the box of the eggs. I slowly opened it, almost as nervous as the first time I opened this mythical box. I was just in time! The eggs began to crack and out crawled the seven little creatures. The first one to come out was a small cloud-like creature that jumped into my hand only to disappear immediately. I looked around the room, confused as to where the funny creature might have gone. I looked back down at the other eggs and saw the cloud creature reappear right back in my hand! The second thing to come out was a small rabbit with beautiful, intricate lines, forever changing colors and designs. The rabbit itself was exactly like every other rabbit but nearly ten times smaller. Immediately after it hatched, the rabbit sprang away, perhaps in search of food. I quickly realized that the animals might be a tad hungry after hatching. I got up and ran to the kitchen and grabbed pretty much anything I thought might please a mythical beast. I came back with a sliced apple, Chinese leftovers, nuts and seeds, along with a banana. I poured out a bowl of water, too. I hurried back in time to catch the fifth creature hatching. The three others consisted of a tiny silverback or male gorilla—it was currently pounding its chest and running to the apple slices and banana. The fourth was a small fox licking its paws. It had bright red fur with a cream colored chest. Its tail was extremely fluffy, and I was very tempted to pick it up and brush her tiny tail. The fifth was a creature similar to the silverback although it was standing on two legs and looked like a yeti or Bigfoot. The food was being devoured very quickly and I had to make a few more trips back to the kitchen. The sixth creature was a tree. The tree, however, had a face with two eyes, a mouth, and a nose. The tree slowly opened its eyes—they were green with hints of blue and gold. His leaves spread far above his trunk and they were an emerald-green against the soil colored branches. The seventh creature was the strangest of them all. It was a tiny human and he had a stick, a hat, boots, clothes, and a jacket that seemed a bit too big. The human looked up at me while I stared at him in awe. He jumped up on my shoulder and jumped again, over my head onto my other shoulder. He took a final leap into the water bowl.

As I remember that day, I think about how I now live with them, go on adventures with them, and wake up every day with them. They have showed me so many things, given me so many things. Literally just last week the little human, who I’ve named Tam Lin, found an emerald in my toilet pipes. Also, the tree (Arlo) knows the infinite past, even before the world was created. Arlo also knows about everything in the universe. That’s pretty impressive, right? The creatures have their own way of mating too. They break off a part of themselves and mix it together. A couple of days later, the mixture takes form into a hybrid of the two parents. Within months, there were almost 20 new creatures.

All of these creatures are equally interesting. They have showed me more than I could imagine. I wish that everyone in the world could experience something like this. Everyone deserves an abnormal or strange life, you can’t have any fun if your life is just a pattern.

The End

PART 1

I run to the gates with my cheerleading skirt swaying and my blonde ponytail bouncing around. Alexia and Alison hug me as I pant.

“Happy birthday Alex!” I gasp, as she laughs.

“Thanks. I am having a big party! It is tonight and I am inviting the whole cheer squad. My place, 12. Be there, or else.” Alex laughs as she skips off to find her boyfriend. I forgot his name because it is her fifth boyfriend this week so I lost track.

* * * 

I do the rest of my homework and I slip on a dress. My tan skin glows as I rush over to Alex’s house. Alex is at the door, greeting me.

“Welcome to the biggest party of 2009 in Newton, Arizona!” she says with a drink in her hand.

“Is that wine?” I shout over the music.

“Maybe…come on! We are 18! Let’s live it up!” Alex sighs and I laugh. She is right–I need to live it up!

As I dance with Gracey and Em, the door creaks open. Alison comes in with her long, brown hair in a bun. Her red lipstick stands out brightly against her hot cocoa skin. She looks so beautiful. I stare like a madwoman. I fall in love with her instantly.

***

I walk into the halls with my head up high. This year was going to be better, I thought. I was driven out of my school in California. It was all because of me falling in love with Daphie. I loved her from the moment I saw her, but she didn’t love me back.

I told my best friend about me liking her, and she looked at me and ran away. The next day the whole school was buzzing about it, so I moved to my aunt’s place in Newton. Then my parents moved, and we got this big house up in the suburbs.

I walk around the school and I sigh. I am hopeless. I can’t find my way around a two-story school and I am doomed with my sense of direction.

Suddenly, a girl comes around the corner. She has very fair skin. Her blonde hair falls just below her shoulders. I can’t fall in love again. I can’t.

“Hey. You look lost,” she says with a smile on her face. By the look of her outfit, she’s a cheerleader. “Hello?” she asks again.

“Oh, yes. I am lost, I am looking for Mr. Jason’s class. Do you know where it is?” I ask, lifting my shoulders up like a magnet is pulling them.

“Hey! That’s my class! I can show you the way. My name is Alexandra, but people call me Alex. What’s yours?” she asks as she starts to walk. I run up next to her and she laughs.

“My name is Charlotte, but people call me Charlie. I am new,” I say casually. I really want to burst out jumping and screaming, “Yay!” but I don’t.

“I can see! I heard you are from California, right?”

“Yes, I lived in Hollywood. My aunt is a director and my uncle is an actor,” I say, strutting like I’ve made an achievement.

“Oh, famous family, I see. Well, meet us at lunch today, you seem nice. I can introduce you to my friends.”

“See you at lunch!” I say, running into my class.

***

“Alison…” I say, at a loss of words.

“What? Have I got something on my face?” she says, confused.

I want to say, “You look beautiful,” but instead I say, “Um…never mind.” I praise myself silently for not saying that out loud.

But what happened next changed my life forever.

PART 2

A girl enters the room with short, blonde hair above her shoulders. She wears a pink dress and a black purse was swung over her shoulders.

“Hey Alex! Why is there a party here? You know Aunt Kathy said no people are allowed over,” the girl shouts over to Alex.

“Okay Daphie, I will end the party…” She laughs and runs away. The girl rolls her eyes. “Mom doesn’t care, Daphie. I have parties all the time,” Alex says as she goes to her boyfriend.

Daphie… Daphie. There are a million people named Daphie, right? I close my eyes and pray as I feel someone gently tap my shoulder.

“Charlie? Is that you?” I turn around to see Daphie. I sigh and smile. I nod my head slowly.

“Hi!” I say, forcing a smile. I turn to meet Ali’s eyes. “Oh um…I think my friend needs help with…her food! Yeah her food! Bye!” I run over to Ali and she laughs.

“In a mad rush, I see.”

“Tell me about it!”

We laugh some more and she gasps.

“I am so tired…” she says.

“You drank so much Ali, I think I’ll drive you home.” I lead her by the hand into the front seat of my car. The rain is making my hair feel heavy on my head. She starts to giggle uncontrollably. Yeah, she for sure had too much to drink. The car suddenly comes to a stop. Ugh. Flat tire.

Ali looks at me as I sigh. She leans in and her lips land on mine. I push her away and a tear trickles down my cheek.

“I can’t, Ali. I just can’t.” I run out of the car and I sigh. I run home and I cry. I cry myself to sleep because she reminds me too much of Daphie. I go to sleep that night dreaming of them.

PART 3

Four months later …

It is a beautiful night as the wind sprays softly against the leaves. The leaves dance to the howling of the wind.

“Okay, truth or dare?” Ali asks me with a smirk.

“Truth.” I respond, lifting my shoulders.

“Okay, who is your crush?” she asks with a big smile.

I can’t say her. She would hate me. “Um, Kevin,” I say, anxious.

“My brother?” she asks with confusion in her eyes. Suddenly, that smirk turns into a smile.

One week later…

ALISON

Hey! Meet me at The White Lily. It is on 5th ave. Dress nice :). Xoxo Ali

I put on a blue strapless dress and I walk out the door.

Waiting there is Ali and her brother Kevin. Oh god.

“Ali…” I stutter.

“Thank me later. You know he likes you too. You are so lucky!” She laughs and runs away.

Ali is so annoying. I hate her sometimes.

The date was horrible, but I went on a second one, otherwise Ali would get suspicious. And I went on a third one and a fourth one until we were actually dating. I was with someone I disliked. Good for me.

PART 4

Nine years later…

“Honey, I am home!” Kevin shouts as he puts his jacket on the hook.

I hold Rosa in my arms. She has black hair and dark skin. I adopted her one year ago when she was one month old. Her mother died in Africa at her birth. My beautiful Rosa.

I twist my diamond ring as he plants a kiss on my cheek. I smile as I hand him Rosa.

“Where is Emma?” Kevin asks, shrugging his shoulders. I laugh.

“In her room doing homework.” I smile. Emma is seven years old. We also adopted her since I am infertile because of a surgery when I was 16.

***

Two years later …

“29-year-old Charlotte Reynolds today committed suicide at 12:32 pm. Her suicide note only said this: ‘Love is a path everyone should follow.’ It is a sad death that everyone should mourn. It will be a mystery why.”

A picture of a girl with blonde hair and tan skin appears, smiling with her grey eyes.

“We will all gather at the park to mourn her death. She was loved by many.”

Alison Reynolds cried with her brother. Only she knew why Charlie died. She loved Charlie with all her heart. She was her one and only true love. Only now did she realize Charlie loved her back…

THE END

Hi! My name is Bowser and this is my friend, Chip. I am a golden retriever puppy, and Chip is a black, white, and tan Cavalier King Charles spaniel puppy. Right now, we are in the pound. Anyway, this is our life.

In the morning, we wake up on our very uncomfortable beds with this yucky soup in front of our noses and it smells disgusting. Anyway, you get that it is disgusting. Then, here comes the boring part, we bark for the rest of the day until the dog catcher (Bob) comes back with another dog.

One day, two girls came in, and they looked at all of us. I was trying to cross my paws but it was hard. Anyway, getting back to the story, they took 15 minutes. I was surprised, but people choose at different paces. Finally, they chose.

“I want Bowser,” said the younger girl. I was so happy. But what about Chip?

Now I was happy and scared, and then the older girl said, “I want…Chip!”

Chip and I jumped for joy. Bob picked us out of our crates and handed us to the two girls. Then, they paid for us and took us outside. The summer breeze brushed against our fur, ruffling it up. They took us into the car and the younger girl, named Sam, picked us up and put us in the back seat. Then, she sat with us. The older girl, Bella, started driving out of the parking lot.

I stuck my head out the window and started to bark. Chip wanted to get up too, but she was too tiny. So, she climbed on my back. Suddenly, the car screeched.

“We’re here!” said the older girl.

This time, Bella took out Chip and Sam took out me. They put us on the ground and we ran around in the yard. We couldn’t wait to go inside.

Bella opened the door and said, “Mom, we’re home!”

Then, a grown-up came and said, “These dogs are so cute!” I guess that was the mom.

Then, the dad came out and said, “Who wants some lemonade in the backyard?”

I tried to raise my paw. Chip and I ran outside again and Sam came after us. We ran two laps around the house, then she got us, carried us to the backyard, and closed the gate. Their dad poured us a big bowl of lemonade and put it on the ground. We drank it as fast as we could. It was very yummy and sweet. We pushed our bowl to the dad’s feet.

He said, “Oh you guys want more?”

And he poured us a big bowl of lemonade. We were so happy. We drank it, and we drank it all.

“Dinnertime!” called the mom. Chip and I ran through the door.

Sam stopped for a minute and scratched her head. “Maybe we should get a doggie door for them.”

“Okay,” their dad said. “Maybe we’ll go to Petco tomorrow.”

“Great!” said Sam.

Bella and Mom were setting the table. Chip was sniffing the kitchen.“This kitchen smells yummy.”

I sniffed. “You’re right!”

We went out to our bowls. There were yummy kibble all over! I howled and wagged my tail!

Chip said to me, “Finally! Yummy food!”

We ate all the food and licked the bowl clean.

“Bedtime!” called Dad.

Bella and Sam raced up the stairs. Then, me and Chip. I won. I ran to Sam’s room and Chip ran to Bella’s room. They were both brushing their teeth. Sam came out, picked me up, and put me on her bed. I sank into the mattress. It was puffy and soft. It was so much more comfortable than the one in the pound! She got in and, as soon as she laid down on her bed, she fell asleep.

***

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” said the rooster on the roof.

“It’s morning,” I barked. Sam woke up. I looked at her then I rushed down the stairs.

“Wait,” she said as she ran down the stairs.

I waited at the bottom of the staircase with my tail wagging and my tongue hanging out of my mouth.

Sam came running down the stairs and picked me up and giggled, “You’re such a naughty dog, Bowser!”

I gave her a small grin, and she laughed. She put me down. I walked into the kitchen. The sweet smell of my new food was going up my nose. Chip wasn’t down in the kitchen yet. So I waited for her. While they weren’t looking, I jumped up on the chair and grabbed a piece of pancake on the table… but they never noticed! The pancake tasted sweet and sticky! It was one of the most yummiest things I’ve ever tasted in my life.

Then, I heard the soft click of Chip’s nails on the staircase.

“Good morning,” Chip said to me as she walked into the kitchen. “It smells good in here!”

“Yeah, it does, right?” I said.

We went over to our bowls. We smelled it (it smelled like dog food, but not the kind of dog food we had in the pound, the kind of dog food that tastes really good.) and then we ate it all.

“That was so good!” I said to Chip.

“Yeah it was!” said Chip.

We looked out the window. It was a nice summer day. Bella and Sam took us to Petco after breakfast. We walked without leashes, but we were going to get some just in case the dogcatcher came and took us away. Or at least that’s why I thought we were going to get them.

When we got there, we looked at all the doggie doors they had. Finally, Chip and I chose one that was blue and pink, both of our favorite colors. My favorite color is pink, and Chip’s favorite color is blue, so it was perfect for us.

When we got home, Dad cut a hole in the backyard door and installed the doggie door. Chip and I ran through the front door and out through the backdoor. It was so fun, we tried it ten times. Soon we got dizzy, and we fell on the kitchen floor. Sam and Bella picked us up, put us on the couch, and sat with us. When we woke up, Bella was looking on her phone, and Sam was just watching us.

“Why are you always on your phone?” Sam asked Bella calmly, trying to ignore her. “Why don’t you spend some time with the dogs?”

“Can’t you just leave me alone?” Bella said, in a mean voice.

“Sam, Bella, be nice to each other!” Mom called from the kitchen.

“Okay,” both of therm said in a grumpy voice.

Chip and I were watching the whole conversation. We were very confused about what was happening. But whatever, let’s get back to the story. As soon as Bella left the room, we started licking Sam to make her feel better because we thought she looked sad. Then, she got up and stomped around the coffee table angrily. Then, she stomped into the kitchen. Chip and I jumped down from the sofa and ran after Sam.

When we got into the kitchen, Dad was washing the dishes, and Mom was setting up the table for lunch.

“What’s wrong?” Dad asked.

“Bella just won’t spend any time with the dogs.”

“It’s okay. She’s older. Let her do what she wants.”

“Fine,” Sam groaned and walked into the dining room and sat down on her chair. Soon, Dad called, “Lunch time!” to Bella and she came down.

Mom said, “I have special news for you guys!”

“What is it?” Sam asked, her frown turning into a smile.

“We’re going to Hawaii.”

Bella screamed and dropped her phone. The back case fell off, but she didn’t care. “When are we going?” she screamed.

“Tomorrow night, so you have time to pack.”

“I need to start packing right away!” said Bella.

“First, you need to eat lunch,” said Mom and pulled her daughter by the arm back to the table.

“Fine,” she groaned and ate her sandwich as fast as possible.

Chip and I didn’t notice until Sam bent down and said, “We’re going to Hawaii. Please keep the house safe.”

We decided from that moment to be the guard dogs.

The next morning, Sam and Bella woke up at 5:00 a.m. to start packing. Chip and I brought all their stuff to them when they pointed to it. It was kind of fun! We got to carry their backpacks, notebooks, shirts, shorts, and headbands. We wondered why they got up so early, because they had at least 12 hours until their flight. But I guess they just wanted to pack early. So Chip and I brought their sunglasses.

We were a little sad that they were leaving. But we were happy that we could keep the house safe, or at least the nanny that was staying with us would. We heard that they were giving us a nanny. We thought we would be staying here alone, but I guess not. Anyway, we can still protect the house, and that’s what’s important.

Then, Chip asked, “How long are they going to be there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we can go check Mom and Dad’s calendar in their room. Maybe they wrote it in!”

So we ran into the hallway, our paws skidding on the wood floor. Then, we ran down to Mom and Dad’s room. We passed Bella’s room. Then, we passed the bathroom. Then, we passed Dad’s office. And then, we passed Mom’s office. Then, finally, we reached their bedroom. And there it was: the calendar was right on the bed, and July 8th to July 22nd was highlighted in blue.

As soon as we saw it, Chip said automatically, “That’s two weeks!”

I was still counting in my head!

“Sam! Bella!” called Mom and Dad. We ran down the hallway again and jumped down the stairs. Sam and Bella came right behind us.

“Yes?” Sam and Bella said.

“Do you want to go get some tags for Bowser and Chip before we leave in case they get lost?”

“Sure!” They said.

So Mom grabbed the keys, and Dad grabbed me and Chip, and said, “Come on little guys! We’re going to Petco again!”

So Chip and I barked and ran along. Soon, we were at Petco. The sliding doors opened as we walked through. We walked to the tag-making machine, a big square, that looked kind of like an ATM! Sam showed us each color in front of our faces, and if we didn’t like it, we put our ears down. And if we liked it, we put our ears up! At that point, we chose pink and blue tags. I picked pink, and Chip picked blue!

We loved going to Petco because some of our best friends lived there, like Pinky the Guinea Pig and Squeaky the Mouse. And we have one friend that’s kind of unusual… Her name is Silky the Cat and she loves to play with her friends, but sometimes she gets really excited and she scratches them, or she sits on them. And the reason why she sits on them is because they’re mice and they’re tiny. But she’s friendly with us because we’re too big and she can’t sit on us! Bella knew about our friends so she took us to see our friends. We had a fun time.

Then, Bella’s dad told us to come so we said goodbye to our friends and ran to him in the dog food section. We paid for the tags at the cash register and then we left.

When we got home, Dad said, “Uh-oh! We’re a bit late. We’ve got to go now.”

So Bella and Sam said goodbye to us, and they left. We noticed the nanny sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV. Chip started running towards her, but I pulled her back because we had no idea who she was and what she was doing here.

Chip said, “Why are you doing that?! I want to say hi to the nanny.”

I said, “Oh! So that’s who she is!” and I let Chip go over. She ran to the nanny and jumped on her lap.

The nanny said, “Hello! What’s your name?”

Chip put up her head so the nanny could see her tag.

The nanny said, “Oh! You’re Chip! And who’s your friend over there?”

So Chip dragged me over to her, saying, “Come Bowser! Meet the new nanny. She’s really nice.”

I said, “Okay,” because after Chip said hello to the nanny, and she was nice to her so I thought she would be nice to me too! Chip told me to lift up my head so she could see my tag. So I did.

She said, “Oh! You’re Bowser! I’m Kathleen. I’ll be spending the next few weeks with you.”

“Okay!” We both barked.

“And we’ll have a great time. I’ll take you to the park, and I’ll give you lots of yummy food. But not too much! Otherwise, you’ll get sick.”

A few minutes later, she said, “Bowser and Chip, lunch is ready!”

We ran into the kitchen, the smell of our delicious new food came through the air. We both stopped and sniffed the air.

“Yummy!” Chip said.

“Yumzo,” I said.

The last time we had it, it tasted like something so delicious, I can’t even explain it. Wait! I can! It was the yummiest chicken noodle soup in the whole entire universe! The next thing we knew, we were smashing our faces into the bowl. It was so good. Soon, we finished it, and Kathleen gave us some more. We smashed our faces into that too, and then we ate it.

Then, she said, “That’s enough. You guys want to go to the park?”

We barked, “Yes!”

She put on our leashes and collars and took us outside. It was a really nice, sunny day with a little wind. We went to the doggie playground, and we met our friend Ziggy from the pound! He got adopted a few days before us! He was a French bulldog with a French accent. We know a bit of French because he taught us in the pound, but after he got adopted, we didn’t know if we would ever see him again.

When we walked up to him, he said, “Bonjour!”

We said, “Bonjour!”

He said, “Comment ca va?”

We said, “Ca va bien, et toi?”

Ziggy said, “Moi aussi.”

And then we said, “Can we speak in English now? We’re kind of having a hard time…”

He said, “Okay!” And then we had a conversation about how happy we were to be adopted and how we met him again!

Then, we went home and took a little nap. After that, we went to the park again because it was such a nice day. We were sitting on a bench with Kathleen when we saw two people across from us sitting on another bench.

A minute later, Kathleen said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get you guys some water, and me some lemonade, at the little food stand right down there.”

We looked down there. Then, she walked off. A couple minutes later, the two people who were on the bench in front of us got up and ran to get us. We ran away as fast as we could but then one of them caught Chip, because her legs were smaller. So, I decided to give up and let them take us because they took Chip. And me and Chip were best friends. As we were walking through the park, they held us so tight it was hard to breathe. But, I kind of moved around on the person that was holding me, and so her arms loosened up. So Chip did the same too.

Once the two people carried us for about ten minutes, Chip said to me, “I think that those are Bella’s friends. I know that because today when we were in the park, they were looking at us. Also when they were at our house, they were wearing the same clothes that they are wearing today. So, that gives me a lot of information about them.”  

“Oh no, I think they want to steal us! But maybe they aren’t nice to us,” I said in a very, very, nervous voice.

“It will be okay, you’ll be with me the whole time,” said Chip.

That calmed me down a little bit, but still, we were stolen by our owner’s own friends! That was really weird when I said it. Eh, whatever! Soon we were at what seemed to be Bella’s friends’ house. Their house was different from our house, Their house was cream-colored and ours was brick, and their door was dark blue and ours was brown. Then all of a sudden, the door opened and we were in the house. Then, one of the girls called out to her mom that she found some dogs on the street and that she wanted to keep us.

The mom said, “You can keep them if they do not have a collar.”

One of the girls quickly took off our collars and threw them in the yard.

“But I like that collar! That’s my favorite color!” I said in a sad voice.

“Okay,” they said. Then, they ran up the stairs with us in their hands.

Later that night, the two girls were asleep. I pushed the window open and and let Chip jump out. Then I jumped out. Then, we started running down the street. I remembered that we lived on Ellington Road, and they also lived on Ellington Road, so all we had to do was go down a few houses and we would be there! So Chip and I started to go down the street. Soon, we were there. We went through the doggy door and went into our beds and fell asleep.

The next morning, we had our yummy breakfast.

Then Kathleen said, “I thought you guys went home while I was getting us some water and lemonade! Well, Bella, Sam, and their parents are coming home this morning.”

Then, suddenly, the doorbell rang, and we saw Bella’s friends’ mom. Kathleen opened the door.

The mom said, “I found Bowser and Chip’s collars on the ground.”  

“Thank you,” Kathleen said, and closed the door.

She put the collars back on us, and then we heard another ding-dong. It was Bella, Sam, and their parents. They were back. Yay! Chip and I played with Bella and Sam for the rest of day. We had so much fun. Then, it was time to go to bed. Chip and I dreamed about Bella and Sam and how we would play for the rest of our lives. And this was true because we would live with them for the rest of our lives!

The End  

Chip says, “Bye!”       

There is something under the [[bed]]. [[Who]] is it? What is [[it?]] It could just be a [[mouse]]… [[Right?]] No. It [[looks]] too big. No. It [[sounds]] too big for a mouse. [[help]]. [[Growling]] is coming from under the bed. The [[shadows]] are everywhere. You are [[alone.]] [[Alone]]. The wind is howling, the air is [[cold.]] [[Freezing.]] The only thing you can hear is a dark… [[dark…]] [[laugh.]] there is [[positively]], [[definitely]].. [[Something under the bed.]]

Stem curled up in his blankets, attempting to warm himself up. It didn’t work very well, but at least it would warm up in a while. The dark and terrible laughing continued. The wind continued to howl. Trying to go to sleep in the alien forest was such a [[bad idea.]] But the bed was just there! And how was he supposed to get back to the [[satellite?]]

Finally, gaining all of the courage that he could muster, the four-year-old shouted, “Stop it! I’m trying to sleep!”  

The laughing stopped quickly, and the coldest wind blew into the bed. Fed up with all of this nonsense, Stem stood up on the bed and jumped off of the bed. [[Bad Idea.]] Whatever was [[laughing earlier]] grabbed his ankle and pulled  him under.  Stem fell down a deep, dark hole and landed, breaking all of his [[bones]] into a cage. He looked up, with the [[one bone]] that wasn’t broken, his spine. Before him was a being from [[another realm.]] It had two eyes, no, five. There were three under his left eye. All of them were a milky white. Its entire body seemed to be made out of shadows–no, a fire. A fire made out of shadows; a shadow fire. It made him feel like he would never be happy and unafraid. He felt like his heart had [[pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.]] — he was very good with words.

[[“How very interesting. Your soul isn’t enough, though. I’d hate to waste a potential ally. Oh well. Goodbye.”]]

Suddenly, Stem woke up back in his satellite home.

CHAPTER 1

Once upon a time, there was a little boy. His name was Timmy. He loved to play with his pet hamster. One day, they went to the playground to the sand box. He noticed that someone had dug to the bottom. He stepped towards it and fell right to the bottom.

“Grrrr,” something said.

“Grrr,” it said again. He saw a pair of red glowing eyes. They seemed to get closer and closer and then… wham! He got whacked in the face! He woke up about one hour later. He was lying close to a fire. He realised that when he fell down, something or someone had hit him and knocked him back, but what was it?   

CHAPTER 2

He lay there, sad and alone all by himself. Then, suddenly it hit him. It was a dragon!

He saw the end of the cave and started walking. There were dead fish skeletons everywhere. They were gooey and green. It was gross. He saw dragon skin and then, suddenly, there was a pair of red eyes glowing very close to the ceiling. They were enormous! But it was kind of cute when it stepped out. Timmy learned that the dragon was good, and over time, they became friends. Until one day, the world turned upside down. Somehow, the cave seemed different, and the dragon was gone!

CHAPTER 3

He frantically looked around. He was very worried about the dragon. He heard the dragon’s roar. It sounded like he was hurt! Timmy rushed towards the sound of his roar. Then, suddenly, the sounds stopped. Timmy stopped, and everything went silent. His whole world stopped, and the ground shook. Timmy fell to the ground. He saw birds flying around. He was knocked out!

He woke up, and the cave had closed in, and Timmy had hurt his leg badly. He tried to walk, but he couldn’t! And there was hole in the ceiling! He saw the sky, but it wasn’t bright blue. It was dark grey! He realised that it wasn’t an earthquake. It was a hurricane! He leaned over as far as he could, and finally reached far enough so he could push off the rocks. He quickly slumped over to the other side of the cave where there was no hole above him, and he tried to hide. Suddenly, he heard a booming sound above. Then, a crash. He was scared. Then, suddenly, water came rushing down through the hole. He had to get away.

Then, he remembered that one day, that there was a secret chamber by the old fireplace. Before the water could reach him, he tried to climb up above and then, like a monkey, he swung right over to the fireplace and pushed it over. There was a deep tunnel down there with a ladder. He climbed down the ladder and pulled the fireplace back over.  He was breathing very hard now. But, still there was more to do. He continued down the ladder, and found an underground home. There were broken beds, a bent sink, no toilet, and in the middle of the room, there was a gem, a little blue gem. He limped over toward the gem and saw something very peculiar in it. There was this little, small, black dot inside the gem. He decided he probably shouldn’t touch it. He walked away. He tried to fix things up a little bit, at least so that he could stay there until the hurricane passed over.

He found a dirty blanket in the cupboard and put it over the bed. The bed still had a mattress, but it was very dusty. Then, he felt like he was missing something. Or someone. Then, it struck his mind.

“Dragon!!!” he screamed.

He ran towards the ladder, but then stopped.

“I can’t go out there. I’ll drown.” He walked back, but something looked familiar. The kitchen had looked very familiar to him, like he had seen it before or he had been there before. But, he didn’t know when. So, he ignored it.

He was exhausted from what he had done to get up there. He laydown on the bed. When he put his head down on the pillow, dust flew up everywhere. He started to cough, but then it cleared. Soon, he fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER 4

Then, he felt his stomach grumble. He was starving! He jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen. He looked in the cupboard, but all there was in there was some pretzels and crackers. When he got to the end of the bag of pretzels, he found a paper. The paper was a picture of the dragon. It was a picture of the dragon chained up. On the front of the paper, the chains were lit up. He realized it was draining the dragon’s powers. He touched the picture of the dragon’s wing, and it glowed. This was the moment of his goal. His goal was to help the dragon and figure out why he got chained up.

He touched the other wing. It glowed. The whole thing lit up! Then, the black dot in the gem made it light up. The gem turned black. A dark purple portal opened into the cave house. But then, he saw shadows though the gem. Then, something jumped out of the portal.

At first, Timmy was like, “What in the world is that?” Then, something very odd happened. It jumped on him, and more things came over. It felt slimy but heavy. As more things jumped on him, he saw one of them that had one eye. Their ears were very pointy. Then, he thought, I’ve seen those before. They were goblins from the underworld!! He tried to kick them off. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick. He scrambled to the ladder. He went up to the top, but he didn’t push the fireplace over. The goblins tried to climb up, but they were way too short.

He accidentally pushed over the fireplace. He braced for water rushing down. But, nothing happened. He peeked his head out, and he saw some puddles, a tree branch, and the dragon. He was on top of the ceiling. He was clinging to the ceiling.

Meanwhile, the goblins were still after him! But then, he forgot about the gem. He closed the fireplace. He slid back down the ladder and kicked one of the goblins in the face. Wham! And he knocked him all the way back into the portal. Now, he knew what to do. He could kick all the goblins back into the portal by using the tree branch that had fallen over. The gem was getting darker and darker. He whacked them one by one. Whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack! There were three more left. He could get them all in one whack. He ran towards them. They stopped. He hid the tree branch behind his back and suddenly, he hit them right in the face, up the nose like an uppercut punch and back into where they came from. He took the gem off the stand and as the portal was still open, he threw the gem back into the portal and suddenly, it closed. Once the gem was completely into the portal, he ran towards the ladder, pushed the fireplace completely over, brought the stick, and climbed up the walls like a monkey and towards the dragon – as far as he could get.

And he saw the dragon’s wing literally hanging backwards. He gasped.

“Dragon, are you okay?” he screamed.

CHAPTER 5

Timmy scrambled across the ceiling over to the dragon by hanging onto vines and on the last line, it was just close enough to reach for the dragon’s wing and jump right onto it. He climbed up to the shoulder socket and realized that it was out of the place.

“Huhh!” he gasped. He climbed back over to the vine, swung back over to the dragon’s wing, and kicked the wing up.

The dragon roared.

Timmy had popped the wing back in! Yay!!! Now, the dragon could fly. Timmy jumped onto dragon and tried to fly towards the opening in the ceiling.

His wing flapped, flapped, flapped higher and higher towards the hole.

“It works! The dragon’s wing is fixed!”

They saw a bright light.

Timmy cried, “Yess!!”

Timmy was going home.

***

As they emerged from the hole, Timmy saw the destroyed playground. The slide was flipped upside down, the swings were twisted up, and the see-saw was on top of the slide. Everything was destroyed. Except for a tiny sand castle.

The playground was deserted. The hurricane must have made everyone go back to their homes to try and take cover. Timmy and the dragon flew above the clouds, but the storm hadn’t fully passed. It was still drizzling, and the clouds were still grey.

Timmy felt scared. He was worried that he might never find a home. He didn’t know who his parents were, so he wanted to find a home.

“What are we gonna do?” Timmy said to the dragon.

The dragon turned his head to the side and looked at Timmy. Then, suddenly, they saw a small house on top of a hill. He remembered this place from when he was a child. Timmy realized that that was his home.     

Then, he said, “I’m going hooooommme!”

                                                           The End

Chapter One

Once upon a time, there were three witches. Their names were Violet, Aliss, and Kate. They all had magic wands, and the three witches had special magic spells, and a special magic school. They lived on top of the sky of the Earth, and above them was a friendly planet named Perth.

Violet had orange hair and a blue wand. She liked hearts. Her special power was to create heart designs anywhere. Aliss had blue hair and a gold wand. Kate had silver hair and a red wand.

Perth was green because it had pollution from Earth. (That’s why it has a “P.”) Aliens from Mars started to invade Perth because they liked the pollution. It was yummy for them, like cake. The aliens looked like garbage trash cans. Their heads were like smelly toe goo and earwax. Their hair was made of toilet paper tissue, and their brains were popping out. Their brains were made out of boogers. The water they drank was toilet water. These aliens were called Carbon Dioxide aliens.

Earthlings had no idea about these aliens, until Perth scientists came to Earth. They captured one of the aliens in a cage in the 1950s and found out that if you cooked the aliens, they would taste like cake because the garbage in them was cake! But they smelled like rotten fish. Perth scientists fried them and tried them in all kinds of ways. Then they made up the oven zipper, a quick oven that could cook things very fastly!

The three witches were brought from Uranus to live on top of the sky of the Earth, but they didn’t know about the aliens until the Lord told them. They found that above them was Perth! All of them thought it was ugly!

Violet said, “The aliens are ugly too!”

Kate said, “I think the same!”

Aliss said, “Me three!”

So they used their wands, and they made things appear, like weird people who liked to eat pollution, and sucked up all the pollution like a vacuum. Perth looked just like the rainforest without animals. It smelled like nature and pretzels.

The aliens said, “We want more pollution!”  

The witches sent the aliens back to the middle of nowhere.

God thanked them. The people of Earth would have thanked the witches, but they didn’t know about Perth or the three witches.

The End

Chapter 1

It was a sunny, humid Monday morning. I felt the cold breeze against my thrilling face. I walked through my wooden, oak door and quickly ran upstairs to my bedroom. I touched my thin piece of drafting paper and started drawing my new puppy.

“I don’t think my new puppy likes me,” I stated in a low mumbling voice, looking at my worn out dolls. My puppy jumped up and licked my drafting paper, vapidly not caring about the drawing. I looked at Caroline, my dog, and saw her big, blue, puppy eyes shining bright, like a raccoon’s in the darkness. I picked up one of my dolls and looked at them suspiciously, like they were my friends. I could see them walking and staring deep into my soul, trying to stop and warn me about something. I could see their big, shimmery, button eyes glowing luminously in my dark green room. Then, I heard a rumbling noise from the distance. My ears perked up, and I walked down the stairs.

“Mom! Dad! Yay! You’re here,” I yelled excitedly. I quickly saw the doorknob turn, and there were my mom and dad with their golden hair gleaming against the luminous sun.

Chapter 2

Their faces looked stern as usual. They dropped their suitcases and hugged me. They kissed me on the cheek and, mysteriously, asked the same question they always ask me.

“Did you go into the basement?” They asked in a low, lucid voice. I turned my head and looked at the old, rusted, basement door and wondered what was in there. But then I shook my head at them and started into the dining hall for breakfast. They sat down and sighed in relief at my answer.

Day and night I thought about the basement. I heard this voice, echoing through my room whispering, “Go to the basement…”

I quickly had enough of this demon crawling into me. Shattering piece by piece of me each day. Everyday, I would run to my parents and ask them the same question: “Can I go into the basement?”

And every time I asked them, they would reply the same answer they always had: “No.”

But I had enough of their replies pulling me back and forth every time. I always wanted to obey them, but there was something about this basement that I had to find out. Desperately.

One day, at dinner, I asked my father again hoping he would say the answer I always dreamed he’d say. But once my father heard that dreadful question again…there was no going back. He slammed his fist on the table and yelled again, and again, and again.

“NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! YOU WILL NEVER GO DOWN THERE!!!!”  He yelled, fiercely.

I got up from the table, knocking over my milk, and ran upstairs to my bedroom. There was nothing slowing me down. I slammed the door and tears started rolling down my red, rosy cheeks.The tears splattered on the carpet and that was when I saw a red liquid. I looked down on my carpet and there was blood.

Where was my puppy? I looked up at my ceiling. There, was my dog hanging from the ceiling, with its body covered in blood. I screamed. I did it again and again and again. But no one came to my room to help me.

Chapter 3

I walked down my stairs one by one without lifting my head up to see my mother and father. There was silence. I quickly looked up and my mother and father were covered in blood. I turned to the basement door, and it was open.

“Mom? Dad?” I muttered under my hot, deep breath.

There was only one way to know how they died. I had to go into the basement. I ran upstairs and brought my flashlight and phone. I quickly ran downstairs and saw a note on the dining table with blood. I read it carefully:

Search this house address up and then you will know who I am…

Chapter 4

I brought the note with me, and when I reached the basement door, there were bloody footprints going all the way into the basement. It was pitch black. I quickly grabbed my flashlight and turned it on quietly. The flashlight beamed and I could see bloody messages on the old dusty walls. “I Will Kill You” one said.

Then, I came to a stop. I held the note in my trembling hands and read it again. I turned on my phone, searched my house address up, and I was in shock. My mouth dropped, and I felt a shiver down my spine. I read the text carefully…

The Night of Friday the 13th 1765:

In the town of Moonlodge, there was a house that stood out from all sides. A beautiful, wooden, oak house filled with the kindness and respect of a benevolent family named the Sinols. But someone came upon this town, and Friday the 13th struck this house with terror. Robert had lived with his wife, Marie, and his daughter, Adele. Friday had brought noxious horror to this town and to this family.

Robert was a patient in a hospital named the Seanol. Robert had gone horrific. He vapidly killed his daughter and wife. He tried running off to the neighbor’s house, but the police had beaten him to it. He was surrounded by hundreds of them. He became startled and started threatening them. He went to the only place he believed the police would never find him…

The basement.

But one police man was in there hoping to find Robert running down the soulless stairs. The policeman, Jeffrey Gomber, shot him. But the body was never found anywhere. There are rumors in this town about the absence of the body. They say he ran off and faked his death. But we don’t know. No one has seen him in 20 years.

Chapter 5

Her voice lost its rhythm. Her skin turned pale, and her eyes started looking around. Her flashlight lost its power. And she was alone. Alone with Robert…

She closed her eyes and felt a cold bloody knife poking through her. And that was the end for her. The end for Abby Seanol…

Once upon a time, there was a butter named Butter. One day, he got eaten by a man. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he ran away, but fell on a piece of toast. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he ran over the toast, but a can of jelly got poured over him. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he knocked over the jelly and ran over the toast, but he fell onto a pancake. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he ran over the pancake, but a can of syrup got poured on him. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he knocked over the syrup and ran over the pancake, but fell into a waffle. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he tried to run over the waffle, but he couldn’t climb over the squares. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he got a ladder and climbed over the squares, but then another can of syrup got poured on him. Then he got eaten. Then he died.
Then there was another butter. He knocked over the syrup and used the ladder to climb the waffle. Then, he fell onto an English muffin. He got spiked. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. He wore a bulletproof vest. Then he tried to jump over the English muffin, but another can of jelly got poured on him. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he knocked over the jelly and used his vest to save him from the English muffin. But then, he fell onto a bagel. He was about to get eaten, but then he found a hole in the bagel. He jumped through it and escaped. Unfortunately, he hit the ground too hard and died.

Then there was another butter. He got a parachute, and when he fell from the bagel, he landed softly. Unfortunately, he was made of butter and he slipped. The man found him. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. Then he got sticky boots. He walked on the ground without slipping. Unfortunately, he walked into the oven. He melted. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. He walked away from the oven. Unfortunately, there was no exit. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. He got a piece of dynamite and blew up the house. Unfortunately, he blew himself up. Then he died.

Then there was another butter. He ran away but fell into a hole. A bunny found him. Then he got eaten. Then he died.

Then the bunny called all of his friends. They ate all of the butters. Then butter went extinct. The end.

He was playing Pokemon Showdown on an iMac. He wanted to win. He was playing a kid with the username Dank Meme 1738. He was left with one more Pokemon in the battle, Blastoise. Dank Meme 1738 had a Steelix.  LeBron used flash cannon on Steelix. LeBron’s friend, Stephen, had the highest score in the history of Pokemon Showdown.

LeBron’s mom had been away in Florida for three months, and his dad was always working. LeBron had been playing since his mom went to Florida — without any bathroom breaks or interruptions. His room had only Pokemon stuff with images on it. It had a blue Squirtle on it that looked like a little, blue turtle.

When his mom called him, he was multitasking.

“What are you doing, and how are you?” she said.

LeBron stuttered, “Um, um, um… I am just doing my homework.”

“Are you sure? I can tell you’re lying. I know your username. Your username is Deliciousness 123. I am playing you.”

Shoot, she knows, he thought. He was mad because his mom knew his username, and she might call his dad, and his dad might come home and stop him from playing and take away his computer. LeBron wanted to be the best like Stephen, because he sucked at everything else he tried to do.

“No, I’m not lying. I’m doing my homework,” he said. “Mom, what is nine times five?”

“Oh, it’s 36,” she said. “No, it’s 45.”

He didn’t hear her second answer because the music was on, and the game was too loud.

“Mom, did you say something?”

“No, I didn’t say anything.”

“Okay, thanks, Mom. Got to call you later because I just found a really good math problem that I want to solve.”

“Okay, LeBron. I guess your math problem is more important than me.”

“Thanks for understanding, Mom. Bye, Mom.”

“Bye, LeBron.”

He was very mad, so he closed his computer and smashed it on the floor. It broke into pieces. He went down stairs mad and ignored everyone.

An hour later…

LeBron finally started to do his homework.

“Oh my gosh, I found the math problem, nine times five! I remember this math problem. Mom told me it’s 36. I will get that math problem right because Mom told me the answer.”

The next day

Lebron got the very easy math problem wrong. So, he got a punishment for the very easy math problem. He had to go to detention. He learned that he should not play video games all the time because then he would get addicted, and it would affect school.  

There once was a girl who most wanted love. But she lived all alone in a cottage in the woods, where no one knew about her.

“Oh, how will I get love if no one knows about me?” Grace cried.

As she accidentally knocked over her grandma’s ancient spellbook, it suddenly opened, and her grandmother’s ghost popped out of the book.

“Ahhhhhh!” she said.

“No need to scream,” her grandmother said.

Grace said, “Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-who are you?”

She didn’t know it was her grandmother. Her grandmother had special powers, and her parents kept that a secret from Grace.

Then her grandmother asked her, “Why are you in such a fuss?”

“Love,” said Grace. “I want love.”

“I think I can help you,” said the grandmother. “Follow me.”

So she followed the ghost into the basement. It was a dark room, and she’d never been in there because it was too scary. She walked after the ghost, and the ghost showed her to a portal standing upright. The portal was round and swirly, and when she went in, it went poom!

At first it was dark, and then she saw a wonderful place with lots of pretty flowers and a wonderful lake. Then she saw a mean ugly goblin. He had big curved ears, and his nose was really long and pointy.

“Who dares enter my portal?”

“It is only I. I came to get love,” said Grace.

“No love,” said the goblin. “Go away!”

The goblin turned her away, so she went away, very scared. She came back to the lake and snuck into a big tower. Then she saw a flower, the most beautiful flower she had ever seen. The pink, purple, and orange flower bloomed out of magical dust. It shimmered in the light. Then a boy appeared from inside the flower.

He saw the girl and said, “The goblin took me and put me inside the flower. Do you want to be my friend?”

The girl’s eyes opened wide, and she started to smile. She said, “Yes.”

So he went with her, and then, they became boyfriend and girlfriend. They went through the portal, and they went to Boston and found a house.

One day he asked her, “Will you marry me?”

She said, “Yes.”

Grace’s grandmother visited her every once in awhile. They all lived happily ever after.

The End

Alison the mermaid lived near the beach in New York City with her mermaid friends and her pet dolphin, Candy. She liked to play catch with Candy using blue and pink seashells. Alison loved to eat fish, especially salmon. She was happy.

But she wanted another friend, a special friend… a human friend. But she was really scared to find one. She was afraid that they were going to tell everyone in the city that they saw a mermaid. She thought they might take off the rainbow scales on her tail and sell them so they could get rich!

One day in spring, she felt brave and confident that she would find one, so she started looking on the beach. And then, she was going to go somewhere off the beach, but she didn’t know which way because there were so many paths going to different places. Then, she knew which way to go to because the other paths had sand, but there was one stone path. In stories she read, humans lived in cities where the roads were made of stone.

She was really light, so the wind picked her up and took her over the path. She had to steer the wind to go the way she wanted, which was one of her mermaid powers.

She met animals along the way. She met a seagull. Her second power was that she knew how to talk to animals, so she said, “Do you know where New York City is?”

The seagull said, “Just keep on following the stone path!”

And Alison kept on following the stone path. But it stopped at the end of the road. Then, she saw a path, but it had lots of dirt. And she knew if she went on that path, she would be going the right way, because New York City has a lot of dirt! She was a little tired, but she followed the dirt path.

On the way, she met a blue butterfly! She said, “Do you know where New York City is?”

The butterfly said, “Just keep on following the dirt path!”

And Alison followed the dirt path. Then, she stopped because she saw a big hole in the ground. The wind suddenly stopped carrying her because it was now sunny like summer, and she was too far from the ocean, so her powers dried up!

She fell into the hole, but there was water at the bottom! She tried to swim back up, but she couldn’t because the hole was too deep. But then, it started raining! The hole filled up with water, and it carried the little mermaid all the way to the top. And then, when it was up to the top, the rain stopped, and the hole filled up with dirt. It was because she had good luck!

Then, when she got up, the wind started carrying her again since there was moisture from the rain.

Then, Alison found the city. It had big towers and glass buildings and some houses. But it was kind of far away. So she had to go faster. She put her hands forward and used her breast strokes to swim through the air. She wasn’t tired, so she got to the city.

But then, she had to hide because lots of people would see her. She needed a way to get to a school, where she could start finding a friend her own age that wouldn’t be scared of her.

She brought her favorite mermaid doll, and she finally got an idea to test it out to see if a child would see the doll and think if it was a real mermaid and get scared.

Alison tested it by throwing the doll outside the school. When school was over, a little human girl with long, black hair wearing a long, puffy dress found it. She was kind and was not scared. The girl took the doll home, so Alison followed her, and the girl even pretended that the doll was real and it was her best friend.

Alison felt really happy that she finally found one friend. She jumped out and looked at the girl and saw that she wasn’t frightened.

“I know you are not afraid of me,” Alison said. “So can you be my best friend?”

The little girl’s face turned red because she was about to scream out of happiness. She said, “Yes, but only on days that I have school because my mom and dad are not here! I’m so excited I get to be friends with a real mermaid! My name is Rose!”

“Well, I’m really glad to see you!” said Alison. “And my name is Alison.”

When they were done playing with the toys, Rose’s mom and dad came home. They called Rose.

“I have to go home, but don’t tell your parents,” Alison said.

She went home. When Alison got home, she was so happy she found a friend. She bet that Rose was a good friend, and that tomorrow she would be a good day again.

In the morning, Alison’s mother made her a special breakfast celebration for Alison at Breakfast Cafe. It was Alison’s birthday! Alison had chocolate covered waffles, orange juice, and french toast. And then she swam back home. Then she took a bath, splashing around thinking about how lonely she was. When she was done taking a bath, she did a puzzle. She felt sad that she was doing it all alone. The puzzle was a picture of herself in the rain. This made her feel even more sad, but she tried not to think about it.

“Each time your birthday comes, you will get powers,” said Alison’s mom. “Since you are ten, I am giving you extra powers.” It got really bright, and then it turned dark again. Alison felt powerful. The first power she got was changing from a mermaid to human, and then the second power her mom gave her was when Allison wished to get something, she got it right away.

Then she had lunch. She had salmon. This made her miss playing with her friends in the ocean. Then she wanted to go the aquarium, so she turned into a human. When she got there, she wanted to look at the fish first. She wanted to see the angel fish. Ted, Marly, and Happy were her friends from when she lived in the ocean.

“Hello,” Alison said to the fish. They didn’t recognize her at first, but when they heard her voice, they remembered who she was.

“Hi Alison!” They sang.

“What are you doing?” Asked Alison.

“We’re trying to get out of here,” said the fish. “The food here is terrible and we miss all of our friends. Our tanks are so small. We miss being able to swim in the ocean.” Then Alison gave a slight smile.

“In the night, I will come and open the tank,” whispered Alison. The fish screamed with excitement.

Alison went back home and started collecting the things that she needed: a paperclip to unlock the doors, salt water, and a bag to bring the fish back in so they didn’t die. Then, when it was night, she went to the aquarium and locked the door. Then she ran to the tank where the angel fish lived. But there were two guards in front of the angel fish. Then, Alison had an idea to be a policeman. She used her magical powers to turn into a policeman, and then she said, “Hello. Can I unlock the angel fish please?”

The guards thought it was their buddy policeman, so they said, “Sure!”

She put Ted, Marly, and Happy in the bag and brought them to the nearest beach. Then, she put them carefully into the water.

They said, “Thank you Alison!”

She felt really proud because she saved her friends, and the fish were really excited to be back in the water.

Alison the mermaid was once really lonely, but she saved her fish friends and now she had a human friend too!

The End