Falling Petals

Once upon a time, I was in a family with eight kids. My dad was a scientist. He invented a black rose the could turn into any medicine. One day, my family was sitting down and watching my dad invent the black rose. He was using some rose petals, dirt, Mount Everest water, ground cinnamon tree leaves, and mud from the Dead Sea.

My mother said, “Come down and play boardgames with me. Your dad is very busy. Don’t interrupt him.”

My brothers and sisters and I rushed down the stairs. My grandma was on the middle of the stairs, walking up to find my dad. While we were rushing by, her hair went woosh.

Then grandma shouted, “Don’t run, you’ll fall.”

Then my brothers and sisters and I said, “Okay.”

Then we walked fast into the living room, and we saw our mom setting up the board games. It was our favorite board game called Life.

We slowly pulled up our chairs and sat down. But there was one problem: there could only be four players playing at one time. Since there were only four cars, we had to take turns. My three sisters and I were the first to play. The rest waited. They all they looked down with grumpy faces.

I got my favorite color car; it was pink. We went past the obstacles, and I was super excited because I won! When you win in my family, you get a special toy.

But it was the other half of my family’s turn, and finally, one of my sisters won. Her name is Sonya. She is very fun to play with. Both of us got a cool, big Lego set. In our family, we loved Legos. It’s like we had a whole Lego town in our rooms.

Then we heard a little sound coming from upstairs. We heard something — something really heavy — fall on the floor. Everyone, even my mom, ran upstairs. Wooosh. We saw Dad on the floor with blood all over his face. It was dripping on the floor like raindrops falling in a puddle. All of us screamed.

I shouted, “Call 911.” We all ran downstairs, grabbed the phone, and called 911.

Mom said on the phone, “Hello? It’s an emergency. Can you come here quickly? My husband just died!”

“I’ll be there right away,” the man on the phone said.  

Mom said, “While the ambulance comes, why don’t you go to the park?”

All of us ran to the park, and we took turns on the swings. While we were talking about how Dad died, we saw a black rose in the garden.

I said, “That looks familiar. Oh, wasn’t Dad inventing black roses? That’s why it looks familiar!”

We dug the black rose out of the dirt, and ran back to our house to show it to our mom.

Mom got surprised and said, “Hey, that’s the black rose your dad invented! But that’s weird because the one he made is still in his invention lab.”

We were all scared and surprised. I said, “That means they are growing everywhere.”

“No, they’re not growing everywhere,” Mom said.

I said, “Are you sure?”

All of us looked outside. In the dirt, the black rose was slowly rising up.

“Oh my god!” everyone said.

Then we saw a petal slowly dropping down to the floor. My oldest sister got really dizzy. Slowly, something dripped out of her mouth. It was very dark red, almost like a rose. She fell over like a broomstick and made a big thump. She slowly disappeared into dust, and the wind carried it out the open window. Everyone ran over to her, and we all thought, When the petal touched the floor, she got dizzy, fell over, and died.

So that meant — it had to do with the rose! We all stared at the rose and counted how many petals there were. There had been eight in total, before one fell off. We had eight people in our family; My second to oldest sister, Avani, was going to die next.

We were all staring at Avani. She was the most frightened one.

She said, “We’ve got to figure out how to stop this.”

One of the flower petals was kind of loose.

Our mom looked like she was grinding her teeth together. Quietly she said, “It’s getting dark. Maybe you should go to sleep. Today, I think I’m going to sleep with you guys.”

We all took showers quickly, put on our pajamas, brushed our teeth, and went to bed. The next day, someone was missing. It was my second oldest sister. I screamed and said, “Avani is missing.”

My mom woke up and said, “Who’s missing?”

I said, “Avani is!”

All of us were nervous and grinding our teeth together because the next person was Maya.

Then Sonya said, “I have an idea! We can go to Dad’s invention lab. I remember he finished one red rose that can make a medicine to cure anything, but you can only use it once.”

I said, “That’s a great idea!”

As we ran upstairs, we made stomping noises. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Finally we made it to the invention lab. There were tons of testing tubes full of yucky, bubbly, green stuff. X-ray machines. A lot of paperwork. Almost a million binders. There were a lot of math problems on a whiteboard on the wall. It felt spacy.

My sisters and brothers and I looked through some tubes and some of Dad’s stuff. Then Sonya shouted, “Hey, I found it! I found the rose!”

We all gathered up together in a small circle around the red rose. Maya said, “How are we supposed to turn this into medicine?”

I said, “I have an idea! Maybe we have to grind it and mix it up in water and drink it.  Maybe that might work.”

Sonya said, “Just to make sure, I found a binder that said How to Make the Medicine. Just to make sure. Yep, it’s correct!”

We all rushed down to the kitchen and found a grinder. We cut some of the rose petals and ground it together.

Sonya grabbed a cup, Maya put some water in it, and we poured the ground petals in and mixed it up.

I said, “Maya, drink this!”

She drank a big gulp and said, “Ew, this tastes gross.”

Finally, one black rose petal fell to the ground.

Sonya said, “This is your chance! You can live!”

Suddenly, Madison had a big puddle that surrounded her feet. It was this very, very dark red color. She fell to the floor like a big rock and made this huge boom. The wind blew her dust out of the window. We all gasped in surprise.

Mom just stared at the floor and said, “I guess you’re too late.” She stared at the floor and said, “I’ll make breakfast.” While she was slowly walking down the stairs, she said, “I’ll tell you something important later.”

I walked downstairs with the small amount of family I had left.

I said, “I hope we can get them back.”

An idea popped into my head. I thought, Maybe if I finish Dad’s invention, it will stop this madness and get them back again. All I have to do is get to Dad’s invention lab and find the right binder. Dad kept a list of the ingredients, but he forgot to add two ingredients. If I can get those two ingredients and finish it, I can stop it.

Unfortunately, the binder was in a hidden place, and we couldn’t find it. While we were walking down, I smelled a really good scent of bacon and eggs. We slowly sat in our chairs and ate our bacon with our faces down. I thought, Maybe I should check Dad’s invention lab and try to find the binder.

I asked my mom, “May I be excused?”

So I pushed my chair in and walked upstairs. When I entered my dad’s invention lab, I searched everywhere for the binder, but found nothing. I went back downstairs and finished my breakfast.

I whispered to Madison, “Dad didn’t finish his invention, so that’s why the flower became like that. Dad said he hid the binder so we couldn’t find it. We have to find that binder before it’s too late. We gotta figure out a plan.”

Madison said, “We gotta find that binder before it’s too late because I’m next.” Madison screamed out loud, “I’M NEXT!”

We all gasped.

Maya said, “Get the flower!”

Sonya said, “Where did the black rose go?”

I said, “I put in a hidden place. If you touch and break it, all of us would die.”

Madison said, “I don’t really feel well. Can I lie down?”

We had a secret slide in the wall. In case we got injured, we could just go down the slide. We put Madison in the slide, and Sonya and Maya stood at the bottom to catch her.

Maya and Sonya said, “We caught her!” They carried her to the couch, but then they said, “Ew!”

I said, “What?”

Sonya said, “I think Madison threw up blood!”

Then we all rushed downstairs. Instead of Madison on the couch, there was a stain of red.

Sonya said, “Get a towel and some water to clean this up! If Mom sees this, she’ll be really upset and sad.”

Just then, Mom walked through the door with a puppy.

I said, “That’s not our dog!”

Mom said, “I bought you guys this puppy because I thought you were really lonely because all the people are disappearing.”

The puppy had caramel-colored fur. His eyes looked like a flower garden, and he ran like a bunny. He was licking our faces.

Sonya said, “What’s his name?”

Mom said, “I don’t know, maybe you guys want to figure it out?”

So I said, “Maybe Cocoa!”

Everyone said, “Oh yeah, that’s a great name!”

Maya said, “Especially with his caramel fur color.”

Mom had a big bag of dog food, dog toys, and a dog bed. She was setting the stuff up for a dog. She said, “This is a lot of work. Maybe you guys can help me!”

Then Maya remembered what happened to Madison. She said to Mom, “I have something to say. It’s really bad news: Madison just died.”

Mom gawked. “What???”

I shouted, “But we can try to figure it out… Do you know where Dad kept his binder of the black rose flower ingredients?”

Mom mumbled, “Are you sure?”

I whisper-shouted, “Mom, I can keep it a secret. Don’t worry!”

So Mom brought me to the invention lab and twisted Dad’s invention trophy. The floor opened slightly. I was surprised. I never knew that there was a secret hideout in our house. My mom and I went down the ladder, and Mom slowly turned on the lights. There was a huge room full of other binders, but there was one on a table in the middle of the room. A bright purple light was shining on it. I took a few steps forward to the table. On the front of the binder, it said Special Ingredient for the Black Flower.

Even before I touched it, Mom yelled, “Be careful!”

I yelled, “What?!”

She continued, “There’re a few traps so be careful!”

“You never told me about this!”

Mom whispered, “Sorry, I just didn’t trust you then.”

I screamed, “We have to have a huge talk about this!”

Mom whispered, “I’ll explain later.”

I quickly swapped the binder on the table with another one that was similar. My mom and I tiptoed out of the secret hideout and climbed the ladder up to the invention lab. Then we retwisted Dad’s invention trophy and ran out of the room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.

I shouted, “Everyone, we found the binder!”

Maya asked, “Where did you find it?”

I mumbled, “It’s a secret.”

“While you were gone, guess what happened?”

“What?” I asked.

“Sonya died,” Maya replied.

I knew I was next. I thought, I have to finish the black rose before it’s too late. So I quickly grabbed the binder, got the rose that I’d hidden in the cabinet, and grabbed the leftover ingredients that my dad didn’t put in the flower: cinnamon tree leaves and mud from the Dead Sea. I felt a little dizzy, and I was really scared that I wouldn’t make it, so I tried to go as fast as I could. Just before the next petal fell off, I poured the ingredients together. I closed my eyes a little, then opened them slowly. I saw a shimmering light coming out from the window and my whole family standing in front of me. I rubbed my eye to see if it was a dream, but it wasn’t. My family was reappearing! I ran over to them, and we had a big group hug.

Sonya said, “Yeah, you fixed the flower!”  

Maya said, “I knew you could do it!”

And we lived happily ever after.

 

The End