Winter

There are snowflakes hanging in air

There is a cold feeling for everyone one to bear

There are decorations plastered everywhere.

The icy snow pierces my legs 

As I trudge through the splotchy blanket white snow. 

The pine trees swing their branches like arms waving. 

There is a holiday scent in the air

That fills my body with joy and fun

And in a few days, it’s present time!

The Nuclear Death, Part 1

There once were 2 teams. One of the teams was called the Department of Nuclear Studies, D.N.S. for short.  The other team was called Society of Hitmen, S.H. for short. The two facilities were enemies. S.H. wanted to destroy D.N.S. They wanted to destroy the facility because they didn’t want any mistakes to happen, or else the city would get destroyed. They were in Nevada, where there’s a lot of plains. S.H. was also in Nevada. They were actually right next to the D.N.S. facility. The leader of S.H. wanted to assassinate the director of D.N.S. Today was the day they would do it. 

The leader prepared all of his people. He gave them muskets and bazookas. There were many different groups in S.H. There were the spies, the raiders, and the commando. The commando, along with many other raiders, went in a buggie. The spies went in a black van. There were also the hitmen. The hitmen went with the spies, but there was one hitman who wasn’t sure about this plan. His name was the Blackout. He had a very important role with the hitmen. His role was to assassinate and to heal. He was the chief medic of S.H., and he was the only one who didn’t have a cold heart. So, he told his crew that he would be back. He put the vice chief medic in charge, because he would stay back and control the plan. But that wasn’t what he was going to do. He was going to secretly help D.N.S. 

The Blackout went through a secret passageway to D.N.S., where he would start a new life. He put on some casual clothes, and asked the director of the D.N.S. for an interview. Luckily, he said yes. In the interview, he was asked what his job was before. 

Blackout answered: “I was the chief medic of a society.” 

He didn’t mention that he was part of S.H. and the director didn’t find out. He said yes to the job, and even better, he said he could be the chief medic of D.N.S. Blackout was happy, but he wasn’t so happy about lying to his whole group at S.H. But he was okay with lying to the director of D.N.S. After all, it wasn’t really a lie. It was a white lie. Little did he know that white lie would become a big lie. 

He said to the director that there was a raid party that wanted to destroy D.N.S. The director believed him, so he put the facility at level 5, which was the most secure level. They were right on time. Then, they sent out some of their troops to secure the area. Back at S.H., the leader told them to retreat. When they got back, the Blackout wasn’t there. But luckily, the Blackout wasn’t that dumb. He disguised a person as him and killed that person so it would look like he was dead. Now, the big lie began. The news went out to all of S.H. But then, it was going further than S.H. – it was going to New York City, and other states. Luckily, D.N.S didn’t know about it yet. But they would soon. The leader of S.H. was very sad. Still, no one knew about S.H., though. Blackout was saving people all day. The news spread out. It even spread out to S.H. When the leader of D.N.S. found out, he was furious. Blackout also told D.N.S. about S.H. Like always, the director of D.N.S. believed him. Sadly, now S.H. wanted to assassinate the Blackout, but now his name was Chief Larry.

S.H. snuck into D.N.S. When they all heard that there were threats in D.N.S., Chief Larry sent out many troops with the permission of the director. The troops were able to kidnap the hitmen, the spies, the commando and the raiders. Unfortunately, the big lie became bigger and bigger. 

The leader of S.H. told the director of D.N.S. everything, from the beginning to the end. When the director asked Chief Larry if it was true, he said yes. Luckily, the director of D.N.S. was super nice, and it didn’t bother him at all. The director of D.N.S. said that all people change course in life. And the director always knew that he wasn’t spying for S.H. But nobody knew what to do with S.H. 

“Killing them would be a little harsh,” said Chief Larry. 

Everybody agreed. “Maybe we could keep them in our facility prison,” said the director of D.N.S. 

Chief Larry and the rest of D.N.S. agreed. But the next day, the co-director of D.N.S. had a surprise for Chief Larry. He was the new director of D.N.S., but the ex-director wasn’t there. The co-director said that he was shocked while they were transferring S.H. to their prison. They also said that they could not capture S.H., they were still on the loose. 

                                              To be continued 

Quinn & Kit

“Slow down!” shouted Kit Gold. 

“Okay!” shouted Quinn Wing. They were playing tag. 

“Got you.” said Kit. Then they saw something strange rustling in the leaves. A wind caught them like a tornado and they spun into a different world. They didn’t know where they were. The world had blue leaves on the trees and all the things looked different. Everything was dark and misty, not like in their forest which was bright and sun-shiny. 

“Where are we?” asked Quinn. 

“I don’t know,” said Kit, picking up one of the blue leaves and barking angrily. 

“We’re not supposed to be involved in some kind of magic wind. My mom told me about the magic wind in stories. But I didn’t think it was all supposed to be true.”  

“Yeah, yeah,” said Kit. “But we’ve gotta find a way to get out of here.”

 “First,” said Quinn, “we’ve got to find out how the magic wind got us and brought us over here.”

 “Well, I know the tornado kind of got a little dimmer every time I thought about going 

home. And then it just vanished and dropped us here. Maybe we could think about not going home, to go home.”

“That doesn’t make sense, but we could try,” said Quinn. 

“Okay! Three. Two. One. Go!” said Kit. 

And they both tried not to think about going home. And none of it worked. 

“We’ve gotta keep thinking but first … AH! WHAT IS THAT?” screamed Quinn. 

They saw something weird in front of them. 

All the leaves around them started closing in and fire shot out of the ground. Fire was the same color. Some of it was blue and some of it was orange-reddish. 

And then suddenly, Quinn blinked. They were swept upside down and crashed into a big pile of leaves that were greenish-orangish. They were in the same world, but on a different continent. 

“I get it,” said Kit. “We think about some things, like not going home and then we go somewhere completely different.”

“Like what?” 

Kit said, “Like flying up with your wings. You can fly up and tell me what you see.” 

So Quinn flew up and saw a big, black cloud. 

“Yeah!” screamed Quinn while he was spinning upside down back to the forest floor.

“Well, that didn’t work,” said Kit. “You shouldn’t be looking upwards all the time, not focusing on what’s on the ground. You might get blown up by something.

“What do you mean blown up?” said Quinn.

“You know what I mean. Not actually blown up.”

“Oh, right. Should we just find a way to get out of here?” asked Quinn

“Well, yeah that’s what we’re thinking about.”

“Did you hear that?” asked Quinn.

“What?” said Kit.

“That,” said Quinn, pointing out the boinging sound.

“Oh, right. What is that boinging sound? Should we go check it out?” asked Kit.

“Maybe,” answered Quinn.

“Okay, first let’s figure out what that thing is.”

“Okay!” said Quinn. “But what?” asked Quinn.

“That,” said Kit, pointing to some strange creature. “It was snapping its jaws wide open and closed. I think that’s just a plant, I guess?” said Kit.

“Kit?” said Quinn.

“What?” answered Kit.

“Did you notice how many of them there are?”

Kit blinked. He hadn’t noticed so many of them were there.  

Kit said, “Can you fly us out of here, Quinn?”

“Yes, probably,” said Quinn. “Get on my back,” said Quinn.

Quinn soared up into the sky, trying to find the magic wind again. Suddenly, they found the black cloud again. Quinn flew straight into it. And suddenly it was all quiet. Super quiet.

“So, I think we landed in the middle of nowhere,” said Kit.

“Uh, not exactly,” he said. “Look, we landed on a single leaf.”

“Oh, then I guess we shrunk because the leaf is falling and it seems super super big.”

“Yes,” said Quinn.

“When are we landing?” asked Kit.

“Pretty soon, I think,” answered Quinn.

“Well, I think we already did. Because, look at the trees, they’re gigantic. When we were up there, they were very much smaller. I would guess they were really below us.”

“Well, I think we should get off this leaf. Just, let’s fly,” said Quinn. 

“Yeah, we don’t want to get stomped on by some giant rabbit.”

“Did you forget?” answered Quinn. “They’re only gigantic to us now. But soon when we’re back normal size, they’re pretty much going to be normal size.”

“Okay,” answered Kit. “Just get me on the ground and we can get out of the way of everyone–”

“STAMPEDE!” interrupted Quinn.

Kit quickly got on his back and they soared over all the animals.

“Well, look at it this way, we should just–”

“Just what?” asked Kit.

“We should just try to find something that we could use from here to get back to our hometown Stuffyland.”

“Yeah, let’s look for that thing if there is.” Suddenly they heard rustling in the leaves. Kit looked down and said, “I think I’m floating.” No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reach Quinn.

“I think we’re going DOOOOOWN!” shrieked Quinn. He twirled down and down and down. “We went up quite high,” he said, bonking his head down.

“Well, let’s get searching,” Kit said.

“Okay, but first we gotta find something.”

“Mmhmm,” Kit answered while looking up.

“What’re you looking at?” asked Quinn.

“I think I’m staring at that tree, not exactly up.”

Quinn looked too. What he saw was jewels instead of leaves. “I think one of those jewels is gonna help us get back closer to our home, but not exactly to there. Should we choose one?” asked Quinn.

“Yes, we should,” said Kit.

“Yes, we should,” mumbled Quinn to himself.

They looked at the tree carefully and saw one that was quite different from the others. Quinn flew up to that jewel and plucked it out from the tree.

“Think this’ll work?” asked Quinn.

“It should. C’mon. 3, 2, 1, let’s fly.”

Kit and Quinn soared up high and they saw the black cloud again. Before going in, Kit blew on the jewel four times and then they went in.

They were somewhere closer, Quinn knew it. They hadn’t been here before. “Why was everything so small?” Quinn asked himself. “Before things were huge,” he said, stomping his claws.

“Yeah we are,” said Kit, bounding forward on his four paws. Suddenly they felt like they were shrinking.

“Oh, why are you here?” Quinn asked something on the ground. Kit rolled around and looked at what Quinn was looking at. Quinn was looking at Softy from their world.

“Oh, what are you doing here?” Kit asked Softy the bunny.

 “I thought I might help you,” said Softy. “What are you looking for?” 

“I don’t know.” said Kit. “AHH!” Quinn shouted. Suddenly, everyone was pulled into the ground. They heard a scream. “HELP!” They ran into a big room and saw the screaming Princess Keeah.

“Just what is going on here?” Asked Softy.

“That?” said Quinn.

“Probably,” said Kit.

“What’s that?” asked Softy.

“Oh. That. You mean snakes that are behind her?”

“Uhhh, yes! Now stop fiddling, and let’s go.”

“Okay.”

“Softy!!” groaned Kit.

“Okay, okay.”

Suddenly, Softy started freaking out. He was scared of snakes.

“Guys!” said Keeah. “Should we just go up?”

“How?” asked Softy.

“Like this,” answered Keeah, jumping up on the little ditch that was on top of her.

Softy bounded back on the grass. “Come on, Quinn, Kit, come up!”

“Okay!” answered Kit, boinging out of the ground.

Quinn flew out. “Come on, let’s start running!”

“Sssss.”

“Uh oh,” said Keeah.

“Snakes!” gulped Softy.

“Woah!” said Kit. “Come on, Quinn, you’re the only one that can fly.”

“Okay, get on my back, Kit and Softy. Princess Keeah, you can fly too, can’t you?”

“Oh, yes I can!”

“So let’s go!”

They all flew up into the sky. Kit was looking down.

“You know, we’re all afraid of something,” he said. “And this is not the time for me to be afraid of heights, which I am.”

“Not exactly a problem,” said Quinn. “Because we’re going down now.”

“Oh, phew. That was close,” said Kit when he finally put his paws down on the grass again.

“ACHOO!” sneezed Softy. “Now, I think we accidentally flew through a portal without noticing. Because this place is very dusty.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Keeah.

“Okay. What do we do now?”

“ACHOO!” said Softy.

“Uhh, I think we have a problem here,” said Kit. “I think Softy’s allergic to dust.”

“I am–ACHOO!” said Softy.

“That is a problem,” said Keeah, tapping her head. “Now what do we do?”

“Umm, fly? Because if Softy’s allergic to dust and up there’s dusty, we just might be able to stop him from sneezing all day.”

“So?” Softy got on Quinn’s back and Quinn flew up, up, up.

Suddenly, Softy shouted, “Hey! You guys! Come up here too!”

“Huh,” said Keeah, but took Kit’s paws and went up.

“Well, now that we’re all together, I have something to show you,” said Quinn.

“Here we GOOOOO…” said Softy, bolting with Kit through a big dark cloud.

“Oh, we’re supposed to go through there?” 

Silence.

Then Keeah said, “Why don’t we go in too, Kit?”

“Okay!”

Keeah took a deep breath and also bolted into the black cloud.

The next thing Keeah saw was Quinn and Softy waiting for them on the ground.

“Well, I’m glad we escaped the snakes,” interrupted Softy.

“Well, yes. But I don’t think we exactly saved them from, uhhh, raining?”

Everyone looked up and saw hundreds and hundreds of snakes pouring out of the blackest cloud in the sky.

“Oh dear,” said Quinn.

“Time to get out of here!”

“Uh huh,” said Keeah.

“Maybe we should run!” said Kit, grabbing Softy’s arm.

The next thing Quinn thought was, Maybe I should run too.

“I’m staying,” said Kit when Quinn caught up. “You’re not that fast.”

“Uhh, I am fast when I’m flying!” said Quinn, hovering over the ground.

“Okay, whatever. Now that we got away from the snakes, we can at least have the nuts I still have in my sack,” said Keeah.

“Well, at least we have something to eat.”

“Phew! At least we don’t have any more snakes to deal with,” said Softy, finally getting warm.

“Well, if I thought, now that we finally escaped, we can finally go to sleep like usual.”

After they laid down, Keeah started to worry. What if we never come back to the right place? she thought.

But Softy seemed to read her thoughts. “Oh don’t worry, Keeah, we’ll get back.” And then they all fell asleep.

The next morning, they woke up. Keeah was the first one to wake up and she was really good at making stuff. So she found four curved sticks and stones. She laid them out and decided to crack her nuts. Then Softy woke up, saying he would go exploring.

“Hey, Keeah!” said Softy when he got back. “I found a nearby stream! Except the water’s completely blue there.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just wake up the others, and I’ll try to find that stream.” So Keeah went and found the stream. Keeah grabbed her water bottle and opened the lid. She took out the water and drank. “Mm. Fresh. Water. Looks like Softy could have mentioned that when he got back.”

“Keeah, come on!” said Softy from the distance. Keeah ran back to their tiny hut or cave.

She had her water bottle and she showed Softy how she curved the stones she had washed in the stream.

So while Softy curved rocks into the right shape, Kit tried to find the biggest rock he could find. When he got back, he had a very big rock. Then Keeah grabbed the rock and started pounding it with her fist which she had to use magic until it curved in. Then, she put it around the sticks that she had tried into a cauldron. It made a good one. So Keeah put the ginormous rock in the center.

She said, “Softy, do you know how to make a fire with your magic?”

“Sure do! Why do you need me?”

“Oh, just to make breakfast for all of us.”

So Softy used his powers to light the fire.

Since Keeah still had millions of leftover nuts, so she just poured them all into the water that she had put into the giant rock. Then she found a perfect stick that would make a good spoon and she found many others that looked different but were still good. So after she had washed them and came back, she started mixing the nuts into the bottle. Then she asked Softy to go find something else that would be very good to put in.

Softy came back with apples, and Keeah said they were very good. So she used her power to split them and also put them in and start mixing the nuts and the apples together. Soon all the cooking and working was finished and they could finally eat.

“Mm! This is very good. Where did you learn to make such good stew, Keeah?” Asked Softy.

“Oh, well, when we were back in our forest, we had three cookbooks, and one of them had this recipe in it!”

“Can I have one copy?”

“Ha! Sure,” giggled Keeah. “Okay, now we can go searching for some way to get out of here and get home.”

“Oh, good idea! Just, I’ll grab your water bottle and the sack before we go,” said Kit.

“Good old Kit!” said Softy when Kit came back with all the things in his four tiny paws.

They had very much fun getting across the river.

“Woo hoo!! This is an absolutely crazy walking day,” said Softy and Keeah together.

“Uh, yeah, it is,” said Kit. “Uh, something is making us feel like something’s watching us.”

“Uh, I think nothing is,” said Keeah.

“No, I think something is,” said Kit, pointing. “Something with stripes that was orange with a very long tail.”

“TIGER!” screamed Keeah. Keeah flew up with Softy in her arms and Kit and Quinn decided that they would both go together.

“Well, I’m not sure how many dangers there are on this island.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Quinn.

“Well, should I have something to tell you? We found the black cloud again!”

“Cool! Let’s go in!” said Kit.

So, the four friends zoomed off into the cloud.

“Okay, now I notice something.”

“You noticed what?”

“Hey, where are you guys?” asked Kit.

“Over here!” said a familiar voice. Suddenly Kit saw something. It looked like a bunny covered in dust, but he wasn’t so sure.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Dust Bunny!”

“No! It’s me! Softy!” came an angry voice.

“Ohhh. Where are the others?”

“Over there! You’re also covered in dust, silly.”

“Ohhh,” said Kit when he saw himself. He shook himself out of the dust and took himself to the others who were also covered in dust.

“Well, now we’re just in a giant dust pile!”

“If I get covered in dust again, don’t call me Dust Bunny!”

“Okay,” said Kit. “If I recognize you.”

“Okay, okay you guys. It’ll be much harder to find a cloud in a place of dust. Look, the trees are dust, the river is dust–”

“ACHOO!” screamed Softy really loud.

“…and that too,” finished Keeah.

It was cloudy and was so dusty that Kit thought Softy might sneeze out the whole world!

“I want my mom!” said Softy. “Looks like I’m catching a cold.”

“You’re catching an allergy to dust,” reminded Keeah.

“Oh, right,” said Softy. 

“Guys! I found a way out,” Quinn interrupted Keeah’s humming.

“Oh! Right,” said Softy. “Now I can– ACHOO!” He flew out.

“Well, now that he learned to fly, let’s go!” said Quinn.

“You guys didn’t go to school yet,” said Keeah.

“Stuffies don’t go to school!” said Kit, turning around.

“Sooooooooo,” said Keeah when they got out. “This is dust world, I should say.”

Kit started humming himself a beat, Keeah started cartwheeling, and Softy decided it would be best if Quinn flew up with him so that he didn’t sneeze-a-rama all day.

“Who are you calling sneeze-o-rama?” said Softy, looking at Quinn’s ears.

But Quinn kept flying. He noted that if he found that black cloud again, he would scream so that the others would fly up and see the black cloud.

“Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock,” said Keeah. “When are they coming down here?”

“Eeeeee!” came the ear piercing scream from the sky.

“Sounds like we,” said Keeah. “Let’s go!” So they flew. And they flew. They flew up-up-up and saw the black cloud again. Quinn was still screaming and flying with his eyes closed and Softy to scream in his ears.

“Hello! Quinn! Stop shouting! They’re here!” 

Suddenly, there was a giant growl. Everything went black. Then, “WOWEEEEEE,” Keeah heard, opening her eyes finally. 

“Home! We’re home!” she heard another voice say.

“Well, we better get asking Keeah all the questions we had for her!”

Then Keeah heard a voice saying, “Keeah! We’re home.”

Keeah burst up and looked around. And then she started jumping up and down. Her jumping made the ground shake a little bit so much that the squirrels got kind of terrified.

The end!

Cryptography Through The Ages

A lot of people don’t know what cryptography is or what ciphers are; do you? As a brief overview, cryptography is encoding messages, whether in the form of pictures, online messages, or paper messages. It can take the form of symbols translating for letters or scrambling up words, as one might sometimes do without thinking, like children constructing a made-up language. In this essay I will show you how, contrary to some people’s opinions, cryptography was important in ancient society and continues to be helpful in modern society. I will mainly talk about two ideas: how cryptography was used in “ancient times” like in World War II and how common script uses cryptography in its base as coding for privacy.

Imagine you are a war leader. Whether you lead an army of men in 44 BC, or sneak attacks and bombs on enemy territories in 1940, your tactics must be kept secret from prying eyes. One way that secrecy was protected was with encoding messages or cryptography. Viewers of an informational video by the World Science Fair channel on YouTube can hear a detailed explanation of World War II’s Enigma Machine, a cryptography machine that made and decoded code. The video demonstrates how vital cryptography was to both sides of the war effort. If a message was leaked, a whole attack could be jeopardized, or saved. When the opposing side found the code, it would mean the end of a whole branch of communication. Since radios allowed messages to be sent over great distances, using cryptography to send messages became a crucial means for sharing coded information. In the video, Simon Singh states, “Encryptions are important because if you’re going to send messages you need to make sure those messages aren’t necessarily going to be intercepted and stolen.” Radio became that missing piece of the puzzle for securing the messages. Soldiers no longer had to worry about messenger pigeons being physically intercepted; now you worried about the enemy finding your radio signal and hearing it in broad electromagnetic wave light. The Enigma Machine was made in Germany. The Germans would have someone send what the setting or “key” would be, then the machine would scramble the typed letters into different letters; it is a simple enough process but very confusing without the machine. The letters to send would light up, and for the process in reverse, you could decode the messages through the same setting in the machine. Errors were possible, but it was a much safer way to send messages than the alternative, and therefore the Germans’ best shot.

Speaking of best shots, technology has advanced to become more calculated, but more at risk. Encryption has originally been used to make codes, but also for privacy. While this is very advanced and secure with technology and an understanding of code, one could break through the encryption, which is why it must be secure and top secret. The code is so random that no one knows it; only a randomly generated string of numbers holds your latest browser search from being blackmailed. Not every company does this, nor should you be concerned. There is actually comfort in this random string. The possibilities are endless, practically, so unless one stumbles upon your set of code, it is most likely it is a dead person’s code or invalid. Even then, that is only one step of many towards good encryption. As Khan Academy’s video on cryptography mentions, it is generally safe, but there are ways to interfere, and “the more steps and parts there are, the more complicated it is.” As a rough rule highlighting how cryptography has impacted technology, more complex code usually results in fewer errors smoother computers.

While this essay might be short, there’s more to sort. In the sources list you will find the videos mentioned, to continue your cryptography search, sadly this is no verse. Past and old, present and current, future and new all have you. I leave you with the same question I started with; a lot of people don’t know what cryptography is or cyphers are. Do you?

Sources:

  1. Polyalphabetic cipher | Journey into cryptography | Computer Science | Khan Academy. April 11, 2012, YouTube: Khan Academy
  2. The Enigma Machine Explained. May 14, 2013, YouTube: World Science Fair

Black Magic

Hi, my name is Anthea. I’m also a furry. I’ve always wanted to go to school, but because of my powers, I cannot. My parents say my powers are dangerous. My powers are teleportation, invisibility, and I can make explosions. I want to go to school to find something to control my powers so they won’t be dangerous anymore. I live in a poor village, so I cannot find school in the village around my town. I’m thinking of changing my name so that I can go to school. I would have my cousin take my place. By the way, my cousin’s name is Athena. I need to talk to my parents. If I can go to my friend Jamie’s house, she’s the only one in our village who has a computer, I could find a magic school. That would be great. There are a lot of stories of me destroying things.

One time, I tried helping people fix their house but I ended up breaking it. I don’t want to get rid of my powers, I just want to make them useful. My cousin and I have our own unique qualities. But in singing, we are both good. My cousin and I have always been wanting to go to school, so she wouldn’t mind taking my place. I would have to be escaping at nighttime. Jamie and my cousin are going to help me escape. I’ll be taking the bus to Athens, Georgia. Jamie is helping me pack my things to go. 

“Anthea, are you sure you want to do this?” asks Jamie.

“Anthea, you can always stay here with us,” Athena says. 

“It was our dream, Athena, I want to go,” I say. 

We are saying our goodbyes. I know my cousin is sad but she is also happy that our dream is coming true. I know I’m making the right choice. What scares me is when we get there I won’t know anybody. But luckily, Jamie got me some tickets for a hotel. Dark Side and I have been saving up money since we were little to go to school. So I’ve got my college fund money. Sadly, I do not know what my parents are thinking. Dark Side does have an open mouth, so she’ll probably tell my parents that I left. Tomorrow will be a new day and I will register myself for power school. 

I’m going to my hotel and it looks gorgeous. Now I have to go to bed and make sure my next day will be awesome. 

I wake up this morning and I’m getting dressed to register myself for school. I can’t believe my dream is coming true. I’m going to prepare myself a bagel and cream cheese. Going out and seeing Georgia is beautiful. I’m taking the bus to the school cause it’s a mile away from my hotel. Seeing the school is amazing. It’s big and pretty. Looks like the school is very old. When I go inside the school, it is really big. It looks more like a ballroom. The principal of the school asks me what I’m doing here. I tell him I’ve come here to register myself. He’s glad and gives me a tour. After that, he asks me if I have powers. I agree and tell him I have powers. I’ve come on the weekend, so there is no one really there, except himself. I notice he is fixing the place. And I ask him if I can help. So the principal and I mop the floor, fix the chairs, and fix his office. 

After fixing his office, he tells me to come on Monday, and that I will make some really good friends. By the way, that photo below is a photo I took of myself.

Jamie has always taught me to be confident in myself with my dreams. So after getting out of the school, I go shopping for school supplies. Dark Side recently told me from Jamie’s computer that she’s going to school in New York, which is not that far by car from where we live. I’m really happy for her; she’ll be sending me a photo or an anime drawing. Jamie gave me money for school supplies before I left. I thanked her.

It’s Monday now, now I’m going to school. I’ve already made a friend. I bet Jamie would like her as well. Dark Side would be happy as well. Her name is the opposite of ours, Sunshine. And her sister is Light Side. I recently met a girl who worked in a pet shop, and she showed me a picture of a bunny. The bunny was really cute and fluffy. She said she would give it to me for free and I was really glad to hear the news, because the bunny was really cute. I would have it in a cage, get a phone, and send a picture to Dark Side. I would name the bunny Fluffy. 

But getting back to school, it’s really hard. Today we are going to see what extra powers we have, are they legendary or common? I hope my powers are legendary. But this bully named Chloe and her assistant Lila always bother me and think that my powers will be common. My cousin thinks I’m gonna find a boy and get married. But I told her to stop telling me that, but she did tell me that my parents were happy but sad. At least I’m calmer now that she’s told me this because I know how my parents think. But there is a cute boy named Alexander. But I won’t focus on him — I have to focus on my studies.

Now we’re going outside to a field to see what our powers will be. First, it’s Sunshine. She gets a legendary– a guardian angel. And her sister is a nature fairy. While Chloe and Lila are common demon bunnies. When I hear the news that I’m the legendary person in my class, I am so happy. My powers are a griffin that can read minds. Even though Chloe knows I can read her mind, she still intends to do bad tricks on me. But I really don’t care.

I’ll describe Chloe for you. Blond hair, blue eyes, yellow jacket, and a striped shirt. And she always tries to act like she’s the boss of everyone. She, too, likes Alexander. Whenever she sees him, she always acts so crazy. But I just ignore her. Though I do have a friend who’s a boy, as well. His name is William. He is a really kind friend; he is also legendary. His powers are a fire guardian. Just the opposite of Sunshine.

All four of us are going to have a sleepover, over at Sunshine’s house. It’s going to be really fun, I will bring some chips and Doritos. She says we are going to watch the movie Deadpool. But William disagrees. Soon enough, it’s going to be half of the year. Cause I entered in half of the year. But since there are three more years to go, I’m really happy. Tomorrow’s lesson is going to be about: can you fly or not? I think I can fly, cause griffins fly. Sunshine and Light Side can definitely fly. I don’t know about William, though. There’s this new boy going into school with us. His name is Felix. But I feel something suspicious about him. My cousin is enjoying her time there. I didn’t know that Jamie’s there, as well. 

The sleepover turns out really fun. Her mom is really fun and her house is beautiful. William tells us at night that he likes Sunshine. But luckily she is not there when he says it. We both tell him to tell her so it won’t be too late. Later that night, we do Truth or Dare, and I ask William truth or dare. And not wanting to do a dare, he says truth. So I ask him: who does he like? And he says that he likes Sunshine. But this time, she is there. She is surprised but happy. She doesn’t know what to say, so we continue on. Then they do a truth or dare on me. And I say dare. And they make me sing my least favorite song, Kiki, and play my least favorite video game, Fortnite! I don’t know why, but I do it. But I’m fine. So I do a truth or dare on Sunshine. Sunshine says dare. So I make her do something embarrassing: act like she’s a grandma and help her sister burp. And Light Side ends up burping. It’s really funny. But we keep on. Then, it’s Light Side’s turn. William asks Light Side truth or dare, and she picks truth. So William asks her. But he knows that she already does this.

“Is it true that you used your poo as hair gel?” says William. Embarrassed, Light Side says yes.

***

It’s been three years now since the sleepover. We’ve had many since then. It’s almost prom and I’m really happy. But I don’t know what to wear and who to go with. Alexander recently asked me out, but I didn’t respond. I don’t know what to say. But today I’m saying yes. 

It’s later. So now we’re going together. My only fear is my dress. So Sunshine and Light Side are taking me out to buy a dress. And after that I am going to send a picture to Dark Side. Dark Side has actually agreed to meet me at the airport, cause I asked her where she’s going to live for the rest of her life. And she said here, where we live. I was sad but told her the honest truth: I was going to stay in Georgia. She was really sad, but still, everything came with benefit. 

Prom is fun, they have cake, a chocolate fountain, and Alexander and I are prom king and queen. This year has gone by so fast, it’s already graduation time. During the year, I have earned money so that I can bring my family over. I buy tickets so that my friend, my cousin, and my parents can come over. They all start new lives here. My cousin gets a good-paying job. And my parents have enough money for retiring. I start a family. My kids get powers like me, but they get a better future ahead of them and they have a better hold of their powers. We’re just a big family and we’re happy in our lives right now.

Being a Gumball

CELIA

Hello, my name is Celia Ballington… and I am a gum ball. But I am not any gum ball; I was 2 when I fell out of the gumball dispenser onto the floor. However, I was caught in a bucket of toxic left under the dispenser because they hired people to clean the mall; there was a strange toxic disease in the pipes, but it made me immortal.

Scene 1

Present Day, 10 years Later in the Dispenser

CAMERON

Come on, help me push Connor to the door!

CELIA

Wait, what? He’s going to be stepped on out there!

CONNOR 

(waking up

What’s going on?

CAMERON 

(pushing Connor out the door)

Uhh… nothing… have a good trip!

CONNOR

(falling)

I thought I was awake!

CELIA

Why did you do that, aren’t you my best friend?

CAMERON

Ooh, good idea! Wanna be my partner in crime?

CELIA

No way—

CAMERON

Oh well, down you go then.

CELIA starts also falling. She blows frantically, stretching to make a bubblegum parachute, and catches CONNER. As they float down, a baby nearby stares at them and grabs them.

They are squished between its grasp and they head to the baby’s house.

Scene 2

An Hour Later, at the House, During Lunchtime

CONNER and CELIA roll toward the bed to hide from the mom when she picks the baby, DARWIN, up for lunch. They then decide to explore the baby’s room.

CELIA rolls up the crib, and CONNER sneakily pushes her down to land on a xylophone and rolls under the next door, leaving CELIA to be seen as MOM rushes in.

MOM

I bet it’s that rat!

The baby grabs CELIA and drools over her. 

CELIA

Gross! 

 CELIA rolls away before DARWIN can wipe her on the wall. 

CONNER

Help, I’m stuck!

There was a puddle of water on the bathroom floor and CONNER got sticky and stuck to the floor. CELIA now leaves CONNER behind as she rolls out the door, around the block to be stepped on by TEENAGER. 

TEENAGER

Ew dude, I got some gum on my cool new sneakers.

TEENAGER throws CELIA into the trash, along with the shoe. She slowly crawls into the shoe and fall asleep.

Scene 3

The Next Morning, Before Sunrise

CELIA is woken up by a chitter. 

CELIA

Ugh, I bet it’s just Cameron teasing me for being a scaredy-ball for being scared of Conner falling out. 

Instead, she wakes up to see the face of a rat. CELIA attempts to roll out of a rusty hole in the trash, but she isn’t dry, and instead patches it up. After a while, the trash and the bin are lifted up into a dump truck. 

CELIA

Conner, I’m flying! Oh, yeah he’s not here.

The rat responds, chittering happily to CELIA’s surprise.

CELIA

I must be hallucinating.

CONNER

(the rat)

You know, I am not just a rat. I was crawling through the sewers when I found some green goo. I was incredibly thirsty, so I drank it. Now I can talk!

They become friends, and sneak into restaurants, schools, and factories, picking up knowledge and resources.

Scene 4

Two Years Later

Ring! Ring! 

Celia

(in the tissue hut)

Who could it be? 

(she forgets she has her Chew5 Phone)

The contacts said it was Cameron?!

CONNER THE RAT

Answer it.

CAMERON 

(over the phone)

Hey… Celia?

CELIA

(berry annoyed)

Yeah, I’m still alive, in a home, with a best friend, doing better than I had been with you.

CAMERON

Look, I’m in chew-vie, and I got to phone someone. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.

CELIA

(hanging up)

Nice try, but I don’t want to see your round face again.

CONNER THE RAT

Don’t you have a round face, too?

CELIA

I said it from the top of my head, okay?

Scene 5

Two Years Later

CONNER THE RAT

Hello, my name is Conner and I am a rat.

MAN 1

(chuckling) 

Is this some kind of joke?

CELIA

No. My name is Celia and I am a gumball.

MAN 2

So, you scheduled a meeting.

CELIA

Yes, we are the owners of Big Toxi Curing Co.

MAN 1

Oh, I’m so sorry. Hey, do you need us?

CONNER THE RAT

We were looking for testers for our medicine, but you seem to be a good one.

MAN 1

(drinking green liquid) 

No, no, I only have the symptoms.

Everyone stares at him as MAN 1 then throws up black vomit under the table in a casual way, and then comes back to the meeting like nothing happened.

Scene 6

At the Lab

CONNER THE RAT: 

Darwin, this is Steve.

(points to MAN 1)

Steve, this is Darwin, one of our best scientists.

DARWIN

Pleasure to meet you, come hop into this tub.

Steve 

(walking in)

Ooh, a hot tub?

DARWIN closes the clear curtains, and they observe as a pink fluid sprays him.

STEVE

Cherry flavor!

STEVE’S skin turns vibrant again and he unswells.

STEVE

I feel like a new man. So am I famous now for being the first person cured? Am I super strong, or super fast?

DARWIN/CELIA/CONNER THE RAT

That will be two hundred fifty bucks.

The world is saved and our main character, CELIA, lives happily ever after forever because she is immortal… and what is a story without a happy ending?

The End.

About Conner the gum ball, he was Darwin’s pet until Darwin started working for Celia and Conner the rat, he decided to bring Conner the gum ball to the company as a tester, and Celia still had no mercy on him.

Cameron stayed in chew-vie and then in gum ball adults’ jail for the rest of her sticky life, contemplating how her phone call trick with Celia didn’t work, and just being evil.

Wait, But Before You Go, Read the Bubblegum Glossary:

Scaredy-ball: Basically scaredy-cat but when talking about gumballs

Bubblegum Parachute: Just bubbles you blow with bubblegum, but what bubblegum uses them for

Chew5: iPhone type, like iPhone 12, but when talking about gumball products

Berry: Very

Chew-vie: Juvie

The Fairytale Portal

I looked into the deep lake. I s’pose you could call it a pond. That pond had been there for years, and when a drought occurred, we were afraid it would dry up.

Are you wondering why a retired police officer cares about this lil ol’ pond? It’s simply just very dear to me, my wife, the villagers, an’ probably the inhabitants. It’s dear to me and my wife, ‘cause that’s where I proposed. It’s dear to the village ‘cause it saved them from the drought. Oh, you’re wondering how? It  just seemed that someone “popped out of the pond.” Not literally, but that gentleman said so. It might as well be true, ‘cause he came in the middle of the night all soaked. Sure gave me a fright! And he carried a bucket of “Magical” water. None of us really believed him, thought he might be a little wonky in the head. But it sure did the trick! Rather odd if I do say so myself, for he was wearing a crown and said he was “Arthur.” Never saw him again, the little lass.

Anyways – back to the pond. The pond is a symbol in this town. It has overcome the impossible, brought attractions, and it’s very pretty. Sorta mesmerizing. You look and you see a million people’s dreams come true, just floating in the pond. ‘Course, after you snap out of it, you feel like you’re enlightened. That’s probably why me an’ my wife stare at it in the evening. It’s lovely in the evening.

You said… it might be a – portal?!

You’re kidd- Wait. Arthur, magical, overcame the impossible, mesmerizing – it all clicks…

That was the moment I realized that the pond might be a… portal.

The Hungry Lion

I am so hungry. Oh, hi, I am a nice lion. I love to sleep. I have to go now. Oh no! My tail feels loose! I have to find something to eat! Oh, look, I’ve found some deer, but another lion is trying to eat all of the deer. 

“Hey, you, stop eating all of the deer!” the nice lion said. 

 “Never!” said the mean lion. 

“Fine. If you do not share, I will quickly attack you,” the nice lion said. 

Then, the mean lion ran away from the nice lion. And then the nice lion was so close, but he saw that there were so many more obstacles that he did not know what to do. So then there was a big brick wall that he needed someone to dig under. So then a cheetah asked the nice lion if he needed some help. So the nice lion said yes. So the cheetah dug under the brick wall for the nice lion. But then he saw the antelope running away! But the lion followed them. So then, when he followed them, a very, very big antelope had a big horn, so then the big antelope fought the lion! So then the mom lion found the nice lion and brought him back home, but the mom lion brought him to his starting place! So he had to do everything over again. 

So then he found a big sled so he could ride on it and knock into everything, even into the big antelope with big horns. So then the nice lion found the antelope, but he only ate the hairy parts of the antelope, which was the tail. So then the lion became very mad and he had to run very fast, but he was not as fast as the cheetah! So then he called the cheetah and they became best friends. The cheetah was hungry, too, so they both ate together. 

The End! 

Rolly and Mouse

Once upon a time, there was a dog. His name was Rolly. He loved to chew Mouse, his toy. 

Mouse was a slightly chewed up and dirty bone. One day, Rolly went on a trip with his owner. He took Mouse with him because he loved Mouse. His trip was a road trip, so one day on the road trip, he went with his owner to get food and he took Mouse with him. He chewed him but he was too hungry, so he dropped Mouse and went to the car to eat. But he forgot Mouse! So he ate but then he realized there was no Mouse. 

He went downstairs in the van and he looked at the kitchen. “No Mouse!” he cried to his owner. “Where is Mouse?” But his owner was a person so he did not understand what Rolly wanted. He took him out of the car because he thought Rolly needed to walk cause he was in the car for a long time. He was sad at night, he could not go to sleep. All day, he looked everywhere, no Mouse. He cried so much, but his owner did not know what he wanted. He asked, “Do you want your food?”

Yes, but that’s not what I want, I want Mouse! He nodded, yes, I want food. And the owner gave him food and he tried to find Mouse. He was sad the next night. He went out to get some food in the restaurant he lost Mouse. He saw a dog that was next to Mouse. He barked, “Get out of the way! This is my toy!”

The dog said, “No, it’s mine.” 

His owner said, “What’s wrong?”

 Rolly pointed. “Look at that dog.”

 “He has Mouse!” the owner said. Rolly went close to the dog and he was mad, really mad. 

“You have my mouse.” 

“Come get him.” 

The dog chewed Mouse. Rolly went to the dog and got Mouse. They tugged. “Stop, this is my toy,” said the dog. 

“Hey,” said Rolly. “That’s my Mouse.” 

“No,” said the dog. He tugged harder. Rolly tugged harder. “No,” said the other dog, and he tugged even harder. Rolly tugged harder. They tugged more. The owner of the dog that tugged Mouse came. Rolly’s owner came and tugged at Mouse. 

Rolly said, “I need Mouse, he’s my toy, he’s mine, you took him, I dropped him from my mouth, you can’t take him. Now I can’t sleep without Mouse, I can’t do anything without Mouse, he’s my toy, you can’t take him.” 

Rolly tugged harder. The dog cried. He said, “That was a beautiful sentence. You can have Mouse, I see how much you care about him. I see how much you love him, so he can go.”

 Rolly, the owner, and Mouse went to the hotel they were staying in. After they were there for a week, they went swimming and after that they went home and they lived happily ever after. 

Spelling Bee Champ

On Monday night, Taylor Chris was sitting on her couch next to her mother. They were watching Taylor’s favorite reality show: Spelling Bee Champ. It was the last round and it was a boy, Marc, vs. a boy, Harry. Marc had to spell nefarious. If he got it right, he’d win the challenge.

Under her breath Taylor spelled, “N-e-f-a-r-i-o-u-s. Nefarious.”

Taylor’s mom chuckled. “Taylor, you should be on this show. Every word they’ve shown, you’ve spelled correctly.”

Taylor shook her head. “No way! Hundreds—no, thousands of people watch this show! Maybe even millions.” Taylor shuddered. 

But little did Taylor know her mom registered her anyway. Taylor loved talking and interacting with other people. The only kind of shy she is, is camera shy. She just doesn’t like being on camera. Marc answered nefarious incorrectly. Next was Harry. Harry had to spell claustrophobic – much harder than nefarious.

“C-l-a-u-s-t-r-o-p-h-o-b-i-c. Claustrophobic. Fear of being in small spaces,” Taylor muttered. Taylor high-fived her mom when she got it correct. Maria Spindle was just about to crown Harry the new Spelling Bee Champ when someone in a sweatshirt and headset came and whispered something in her ear.

Maria Spindle smiled. “Guess what? We’re starting a new promotion: The International Spelling Bee Championship! We’re not just in the US any more!”

Taylor’s mom looked nervous. “Taylor… I registered you for the next spelling bee.”

Taylor was laughing until she saw her mother’s face. “Mom, I know you meant well, but next time make sure that I won’t be going up against the best spellers from around the world before you register me for a contest.” Taylor thought for a minute. “Where are we going?”

“All over. But the first stop is Sydney, Australia, then London, England, then Paris, France, then more.”

Taylor was tired so she went to bed but before she did, she packed one carry-on suitcase. She packed two weeks worth of clothes, pajamas, and shoes for any and every condition. And in her book bag she packed her coloring book, colored pencils, encyclopedia, thesaurus, and dictionary. Finally she went to sleep. She supposed she was excited for the trip but she was too tired to tell.

The next morning, Taylor got up quickly. Their plane for Sydney left at 1:00 pm. They could not be late. Taylor choked down her toast and slurped her orange juice as quickly as she could before her mom stopped her.

“Taylor? Stop this nonsense.We have three hours to get to the airport! It’s only 9:00 am.” Taylor slowly calmed down, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the Spelling Bee. Were there going to be a lot of kids? Was everyone going to be much more sophisticated than her? What if she was the only one her age?! But her mom kept reminding her to calm down. It sort of worked. She supposed. S-u-p-p-o-s-e-d. Usually spelling calmed Taylor down. D-o-w-n. But now those questions just flooded through Taylors head like a storm. S-t-o-r-m. Ugh. Not even spelling could get these questions out of her head. H-e-a-d. Taylor didn’t understand. She’d been in spelling bees before. Why did this bother her? Maybe it was because this would be on international television. T-e-l-e-v-i-s-i-o-n. Taylor was starting to relax and let her guard down, until she thought of a new question. Q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n. Aye. She couldn’t stop thinking of words – but what if during the Spelling Bee she stopped completely? While Taylor’s mom drove them to the airport, Taylor flipped through her dictionary. She pointed her finger to the word wicked. W-i-c-k-e-d. Next cerebrum. C-e-r-e-b-r-u-m. Taylor played this game until they arrived at the airport.

“Mom, can you quiz me on some of the words in my thesaurus?” asked Taylor.

“Of course,” said her mom. The first word was crimson, c-r-i-m-s-o-n, the next catastrophe, c-a-t-a-s-t-r-o-p-h-e, the third private, p-r-i-v-a-t-e, and the last extreme, e-x-t-r-e-m-e. Soon they boarded their flight. Their tickets said first class! They were served hot fudge sundaes with peppermint syrup, and brownies for lunch. As it turned out, it was the captain’s birthday. There was a confetti cake with rainbow frosting and white sprinkles and the party favors were huge bags of toys and fancy chocolates.

At the bottom was a dictionary with a note that said, “Bring home the trophy for the good old US of A. Captain Lenora White.” This dictionary was huge, many more words than her beat up old one. Taylor loved it. Taylor flipped to the middle and pointed to the word crustaceans. C-r-u-s-t-a-c-e-a-n-s. Hyacinth. H-y-a-c-i-n-t-h. Taylor always thought everyone should know the beauty of words.

When they arrived in Sydney, Taylor and her mom took a cab to their hotel. Once there, Taylor’s mom quizzed her with words from the new dictionary.

“Disconcerting!”

Taylor thought for a moment before saying, “D-i-s-c-o-n-c-e-r-t-i-n-g.” Taylor clapped her hands.

“Triumphant!”

Taylor immediately answered, “T-r-i-u-m-p-h-a-n-t.”

Taylor’s mom thought for a moment before saying, “Nonchalant.”

Taylor quickly said, “N-o-n-c-h-a-l-a-n-t!”

Taylor’s mom paused for effect, “Last but not least… unforeseen!” Taylor memorized this word in the cab on the way to their hotel.

“U-n-f-o-r-e-s-e-e-n.”

The next day the Bee began. Taylor’s mom tugged her curly brown hair into pigtails with pink ribbons. Taylor pulled on the pink lace dress she brought, the white tights, and pink sneakers. Taylor took her dictionary and she practiced the word demonstrations. D-e-m-o-n-s-t-r-a-t-i-o-n-s. Then mystery. M-y-s-t-e-r-y. And so on. Right before they left for breakfast, Taylor did the word duplicate. D-u-p-l-i-c-a-t-e.

Taylor sat next to a girl with red hair and green eyes wearing a pink sweater and pink jeans.

“Hi I’m Joanna Kelley. Nice to meet you. This is my sister Amelia Kelley. We’re from England.” Amelia smiled.

“I’m Taylor Chris. Nice to meet you too.”

Amelia asked if the girls wanted to quiz each other. Joanna volunteered her dictionary. Taylor got quizzed on malicious, m-a-l-i-c-i-o-u-s, empty, e-m-p-t-y, and harmonious, h-a-r-m-o-n-i-o-u-s. Joanna got quizzed on trivial, t-r-i-v-i-a-l, classic, c-l-a-s-s-i-c, and charisma, c-h-a-r-i-s-m-a. Amelia got quizzed on marvelous, m-a-r-v-e-l-o-u-s, unruly, u-n-r-u-l-y, and admiration, a-d-m-i-r-a-t-i-o-n.

Soon the Bee started. Maria Spindle called a girl named Karen Lee up first.

“Karen Lee, your word is devotee. Please spell devotee.”

Karen said nervously. “D-e-v-o-t-e-y, devotee.” Taylor sucked in her breath and she knew that was the wrong spelling.

Maria Spindle grimaced. “I’m sorry Karen, but that is the incorrect answer. Devotee is spelled d-e-v-o-t-e-e. You may exit through the double doors.” Maria plastered a smile on her face and said, “Next up… Taylor Chris. Taylor, your word is triskaidekaphobia.”

Taylor sighed in relief. She knew this word. “T-r-i-s-k-a-i-d-e-k-a-p-h-o-b-i-a, triskaidekaphobia.”

Maria beamed. “That is correct Taylor! You’ll be moving onto the next round.” After she went, Taylor didn’t really pay a lot of attention to the other people. The last person to go was a girl named Justine Fleur from Paris. Justine got the word sapphire, s-a-p-p-h-i-r-e. She got it incorrect. She spelled it with only one p.

After the Bee, there was a banquet for lunch. There was roast chicken, steamed broccoli, vegetable quinoa, and boiled peppers. Taylor didn’t eat much. She was too nervous about the Bee tomorrow.

After the banquet, Taylor repacked her things. At 6:00 pm, Taylor and her mom left for London. When they arrived in London, Taylor and her mother were escorted to a fancy motel. The man at the front desk gave them the key to room 5 on floor 1. Taylor picked out a pair of faux leather leggings and a blue button down shirt for her outfit for the bee. As Taylor brushed her teeth, she mentally quizzed herself on: horrible, h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e; gangly, g-a-n-g-l-y; pneumatic, p-n-e-u-m-a-t-i-c; and conundrum, c-o-n-u-n-d-r-u-m. All done, she thought.

That night she had nightmares about words, shouting unpleasant things. She woke up quickly and tip-toed out of her bed. She went to the dresser and looked at the clock. It was only 2:00 am. Rats. She went back to her bed and eventually fell into a fitful sleep.

The next morning Taylor dressed into the outfit she picked out the night before, and just pulled back her hair with a headband. Taylor’s mom was still sleeping and Taylor didn’t want to wake her so she just went to breakfast quietly. At breakfast, Taylor got two chocolate glazed donuts and sat down next to a boy wearing jeans and a tee shirt.

“Hi,” Taylor simply said.

“Hi,” said the boy, taking another bite out of his scrambled eggs. The boy tried to comb his shaggy red hair, but it didn’t work. He just waited, and waited.

“So are you waiting for something?” asked Taylor.

“Yeah, my grandad.”

This is awkward, thought Taylor. “I’m Taylor,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Uh, hi, I’m Mason. Okay, so are you here for the spelling bee? I am.” Taylor just moved away from the boy whose name was Mason.

Mason shook his head. “I came on too strong again didn’t I? I do that a lot, sorry!”

Taylor grabbed her plate and moved to a different table.

At 4:00, the Bee started. First they called up the boy Mason.

“Mason Kall, your word is superstition,” announced Maria Spindle.

Mason said, “S-u-p-e-r-s-t-i-t-i-o-n, superstition.”

Maria Spindle did not look that impressed. “Alright, Mason, that is correct. You’ll be moving on.” Taylor had a feeling Maria Spindle found Mason as annoying as she did. 

“Next… Lisa Wu! Your word is desolate.” Lisa got desolate incorrect, then was Louie Martino who got sriracha incorrect, then Georgie Smith who got necessary correct, and Lila Jane Parks who got international correct. Then it was Taylor’s turn.

“Taylor Chris, come on down. Your word is astonished.”

Taylor thought for five seconds. “A-s-t-o-n-i-s-h-e-d, astonished.”

Maria Spindle put on a wide toothy grin and looked straight at the camera, “Correct Taylor! You may sit down at your seat.” Taylor walked back to her seat meekly, when she saw a beefy kid snarl at her.

“Karlo Yang, your word is finance.” The beefy kid walked up.

“F-y-n-a-n-s-e, finance,” the beefy kid said proudly.

Maria Spindle winced. “I’m sorry Karlo, that is incorrect.” 

Veins bulging, eyes bugging out, hands ready to smash some bones, Karlo screamed, “What!” He smashed the podium. Maria stood at his feet and pounded against the hardwood stage.

As even beefier security guards held him back, Karlo screeched, “Lemme at ‘er! Give me Maria Spindle!!! I know I got finance right! You just want me to lose my cool on international TV! Well it will not work!” 

Karlo took one look at the mess he made and fell to his knees sobbing about forgiveness. The beefy security guards hauled Karlo away.

“Well… that was interesting. Next is Mick Torrent. Mick, your word is silhouette.” About a dozen more kids went but Taylor just couldn’t stop thinking about Karlo, the way his eyes bugged and how he fell to his knees sobbing. It made Taylor think about reality, or whether they were all just pawns in somebody else’s imagination. The thought made Taylor shudder. S-h-u-d-d-e-r. When she was nervous she spelled. Ugh. U-g-h. It’s happening again. A-g-a-i-n. Taylor remembered her mom’s sweet voice, and how when it was time for bed, her mom would bring her a glass of milk and sing her a lullaby when she was younger. She thought about how they played double dutch, and checkers, and monopoly. She thought about snuggling together on the couch when Spelling Bee Champ was on and just spotting clouds that looked like bunnies, and lying together on the sun dried grass. These happy memories calmed Taylor down. When they exited the stage, Taylor’s knees wobbled, but this time not with nerves. Excitement.

At lunch, Taylor found out why Mason bugged Maria. Listen: “Maria Maria Maria Maria! Am I winning? AmIwinning? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I?!”

Maria sighed. “Look! Mason I cannot tell you,” Maria said slowly.

Mason just frowned. “Not fair! Not fair! Not fair!” he screeched.

“Security!” Maria cried.

Taylor grabbed a red velvet cupcake, a confetti cupcake, and a chocolate fudge cupcake, with a side of Milky Ways, Kit Kats, and M&Ms for lunch. Taylor took the goodies to the room she shared with her mom. Tomorrow was the final challenge. Whoever got three words in a row won!

The next morning, Taylor went up last. Everyone else only got two words in a row correct. 

Taylor’s first word was skulduggery. S-k-u-l-d-u-g-g-e-r-y. She got it correct. Then burglar. B-u-r-g-l-a-r. Correct. Last, modicum. M-o-d-i-c-u-m. She got them all correct. 

“Jacklin, tell Taylor what she’s won!” Maria shouted to a woman in a red sequined leotard, with bright red lipstick, black tights, and red, six inch heels.

“Well Taylor, you’ve won ten free trips to Disney World, 250 million dollars, and a 40 million dollar gift card to every bookstore in the world!” Jacklin said. “Plus…” the crowd murmured about how much more Taylor’d win, “your own private plane, which includes a coupon for the next 10 repairs, 4 bedrooms that have their own bathrooms, 2 kitchens, 3 TVs, 2 dining rooms, and 2 TV rooms.”

Taylor’s jaw literally fell open.

A lady that looked like Mason climbed onto the stage and said, “My Mason should’ve won!”

Mason looked embarrassed. “Mother.” Security guards started pulling her back.

“He should’ve won!” she screamed.

“Well that was odd,” said Jacklin.

Bob

May something, 2075

Dear Diary,

This is the most stupid thing I did in my life. I mean who writes in a diary these days? My stupid wife told me to write in one so I can get my thoughts on paper. Do you think I care about that? If you said no, then congratulations, you’re right. I’m Bob. I have a few things that I need to tell you about me. First, I have eight sons. Second, I’m drunk and, instead of water, I drink vodka. But really think about it. Who drinks water anymore? It’s either beer or vodka. Third, I am 50 years old. Also I’ve had five wives and I’m obese. Oh and lastly, I smoke a lot.

My wife tells me to eat healthier so I don’t get sick. I don’t get sick so I guess I eat healthy. I eat McDonald’s and Burger King. If my wife makes me eat healthy then I eat corn with a lot of salt (otherwise it’s not OK) or I eat a rainbow bagel with loads of nutella (no lots of nutella, not good).

May something, 2075

Dear Diary,

It’s morning and my wife gave me some yogurt with honey. I was like, “Who eats that?” So instead, I took fruit loops and chocolate milk. Unfortunately, she caught me and threw it away. I started screaming like a maniac because that was the last bowl of fruit loops left. I took the honnynut cereal off the shelf and poured it into the salad bowl which is used for cereal not salad because salad is unhealthy, I think. Please tell me I’m right.

Anyway, my wife said we have to go outside to breath some “fresh” air. Ugh. So, I decided that I’d go to the deli and buy myself some airheads. At least I’m walking a bit. I got there and guess what happened. They were sold out. You’re asking why. Well, I bought them all yesterday. But then I looked to the side and guess what I saw. Cheetos. My friend Jimmy loves them so I’m gonna try it. BRB.

June something, 2075

Dear Diary,  

I’m back at home watching tv and writing in this stupid thing, and guess what’s for dinner. My favorite, not. A burger with lettuce and tomato. Why eat that when you could get a Big Mac at McDonalds for a buck or a really juicy burger from Burger King. That would be much better than whatever burger that cost $18.99.

In case you were wondering, I work at the worst place ever. A buffet with, you guessed it, salads and omelets and, the worst of all, salads. Wait, did I already say that? I think I did. Right. Or did I just think it? You know that feeling when you think you say something and you’re not sure if you actually did? Or did you? Because you could have just thought it or said it. Y’know.

Anyway, so about my job. Well, it sucks. I could’ve gotten a better job and I’d rather get assassinated. I stand at the register being like, “Hey, want to sit at this buffet that is so disgusting you will get food poisining.” It’s more than a nightmare.

June something, 2075

Dear Diary,

I’m going to the gym to get some exercise. And I think that what I’m doing right now is really smart because I always see these ads on youtube that are explaining that to stay healthy, you need to exercise. So I’m gonna try it. My wife was proud and I don’t care. I’m there and I see all these weird things that somehow help you stay healthy. There is the conveyer belt thingy that I see a lot in the buffet stocking area. It brings the food and tins to the kitchen to wash. I wonder what you do with it. I’m going to the info desk to check what it’s for.

So I asked this man what the stuff is for and he started out like this:“I see you’re new here.”

How does he know that I’m new? I never even met him before. He was the skinniest person I ever saw in my life and he is a stalker. I’m gonna call him Stalker Dude. Why not? I mean, he is a stalker. I wonder what being a stalker is like. You get to spy on people. Oh, and in case you’re wondering I’m writing in a really uncomfortable position. I’m on the treadmill (I figured out what it was called) rolling off over and over again. It’s annoying.

Next, I went to the peloton (I only know what that is called from youtube). That stalker dude came and told me how to use it. So I’m sitting on it and it was supposed to help me burn calories, but I don’t think that it’s working really well. Lastly, I went to the dumbbells and I have no idea how those stick men lift them. Stalker Dude came and told me how to use it like I have no idea how. Ill need to put this diary down and lift some stuff.

So, now I’m in an ambulance. You’re asking why. Well, I dropped the dumbbell on my ribcage and I broke it. It was 50 lbs. I have to rest now so I’m gonna write tomorrow.

June something, 2075

Dear Diary, 

I forgot to tell my boss that I’m in the hospital so he called me and threatened that if I don’t come to work then he will rob me and take away Youtube premium. I was raging. No, he is not taking away Youtube premium from me. Youtube is also a part of my life. I cannot live without Youtube and especially not Youtube premium. My rage though. I was just furious. Even all the people that needed surgery who got put to sleep woke up. I was also supposed to be sleeping, but who cares. The doctor said I’ll have to be in the hospital for another month or so, until my rib cage heals, but they said that I have to rest if I want it healed. I guess I do. I mean, who wants to spend a year in bed doing nothing, but sleeping with a bunch of almost dead people?

June something, 2075

Dear Diary, 

So the doctor checked in with me and said my treatment wasn’t working. That sucks. And you know why it didn’t work? Because I was watching youtube to spend my last hours of happiness on Youtube premium. I told my doctor what my boss said and you know what he said? Good for you. Who says that? He’s lame. I’m gonna call him Lame Dude. So, Lame Dude came in and told me to breathe deeply. I don’t know why though. He said it was because he needs to see if my heart is working properly. I was thinking about that and it came to me that what he said meant I could die. And when you die, no Youtube premium! So, I guess this is my life now (that is soon ending).

I don’t know what to do now because, unfortunately, Lame Dude took away all devices and said, “If you keep watching Youtube or playing video games then you might die.” That made me scared so it was the first time in my life that I let someone take away my devices. But still, I’m not so sure I can trust lame dude because he’s lame!! Lol.

June 6, 2075

Dear Diary, 

Lame dude came in and told me that he will start the surgery. I was surprised. He never told me about a surgery. Just then, he pushed something into my leg and I fell asleep. No idea how it happened, but it did. So guess what. Now I need surgery and Lame Dude put me to sleep in like a second. Sounds weird, don’t you think? Ok, now I’m struggling and suffering. I will end now. I will not be writing until, like, next month. Going to the gym was a very bad idea. Very bad idea.

Dear Diary,

I am out of the hospital! In case you want to know, it’s been a month since I wrote here. I actually thought of giving up, but nope. My wife forced me to keep going and this time, no exceptions. Ugh. Why does my life suck?

June 27, 2075

Dear Diary, 

It’s the next day and now I’m getting really frustrated. I forgot to give my boss a note about why I was away and he didn’t believe me when I said my story. He said I was a liar and by liar I mean big fat liar. That’s supposed to be quoted but who has time for quotation marks and grammar? Grammar is stupid. It just takes up a lot of time and even if you don’t use it everyone can understand you. For example, if you text someone R U OK, they will understand it. Anyway, I am going to work now and I have to stop, bye!

 June something, 2075

Dear Diary, 

When I came in, I noticed that the register was covered in tomato sauce. I checked inside and there was no money! Just then, my boss came in and noticed me with the register open and then he barked, What are you doing with our money!!! This is unexceptable!!! Again I do not care about quotes.

So, if you are reading this, which you shouldn’t, don’t comment on any mistakes I make. It’s already a pain in the butt to just write this.

I told my boss that I was just waiting for the first customer to come when I realized that the money was gone. He didn’t believe me so he told me he would go to my house and search all of it for the money. One thing I can say is he’s a dum dum.

In the meantime, I will just serve the customers that come and pretend like nothing happened. I feel bad for them. The only problem for my boss is that he doesn’t know where I live and I live all the way in the Bronx and the buffet is in Brighton beach. I really don’t know how I get here every week day.

Anyway, the buffet isn’t so popular so I had to wait a whole hour for the first customer of the day to come. It was already 12 pm. We open at 10. Something that is really weird about this buffet is that we pre-set everything the night before so we won’t have to do it in the morning And because it also is supposed to save time. Heh, like we need to save time.

June something, 2075

Dear Diary,

So the first customer came and I gave them a table to sit at. They were mad because I gave them the table near the bathroom when everything else was free. I can see that on their faces that they were mad. We don’t have enough money to buy a janitor so the bathrooms stink. I’d rather go to McDonalds to go to the bathroom.

So anyway, the customers went up to get their plates and to get the food. We have a chef that makes custom food and everyone goes up to him. The customers noticed that and quickly ran up to him and asked for something. Don’t ask me what because I don’t know what they asked for. So the chef started working and gave me a wink. You are asking why. Well, you shouldn’t even be asking this question because you shouldn’t be even looking at this diary! I mean I don’t even care. Not like my personal stuff is in here, but still close this right now. Or, if you are snoopy, don’t and keep reading. If you are still reading this then it is obvious that means that you are snoopy and guess what? I don’t care.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh right! The chef giving me a wink and you asking why. Well, we were childhood friends and we were trouble. What I mean by trouble is big trouble. We were pranksters. I remember when we were 5 (or was it 6? Or 10? I don’t know) we put dead rats in the jars of candy at his grandmother’s house. It was a great experience to see her faint. I know what you are thinking. Why is there so much dark humor? Well, again, you shouldn’t be thinking that because you shouldn’t have read what I wrote before. Again, not like I wrote anything personal here but still! So I’m guessing that he is pulling another one of his chef pranks like putting sugar instead of salt on sushi. The customers are heading to their seats to wait for the food when the second customer comes in. I give them the table closest to the second bathroom. The second bathroom is even more stinky because everyone forgets about it. About two people enter it each day. The other bathroom however, I don’t even know.

I started spying on the first customers again. The first bite of the meal and the ladies tongue stuck out. The food was gross. I quickly went over to the chef to see what he did.

What did you do?

Again I have no time for quotes. Anyway, he said that the woman of the couple ordered bread. Turns out that the chef had used his last batch of ground up cricket flour and made it into cricket bread. Then the man of the couple ordered chocolate chip cookies and the chef made chocolate chirp cookies which have crickets in them. He made the crickets not visible in the cookie so when you took a bite there were crickets inside. Their butts were sticking out and eventually into your mouth. Unless you aren’t respectful to bugs and don’t get how nutritious they are and decide that you are not eating them.

Anyway, I see that the second set of customers are going up to get cole slaw. I mean, why cole slaw? Why? It is like the most expensive item on the menu. The coleslaw is supposed to have fresh grown cabbage that is not organic. We have a garden, but nobody ever goes in because it is filled with clouds of pesticides. Ya, the gardener quit his job. Hm, that gets me thinking. I can quit this job, but then what if I don’t get another job and I’ll be homeless? And I won’t be able to pay for… Youtube Premium!!! You know what? I’m better with sticking to this job before deciding to quit. Especially because I’m getting a dog soon. It will be the biggest moment in my life. Only maybe after when I divorced my least favorite wife, which is my fourth! She was the meanest person on Earth!!! She made me eat salad! Like, why salad?! I can’t even hear the word salad, it sounds so gross!!! OK let’s change the subject. Nevermind, next customer.

I gave these customers a seat right next to the corner where everyone pukes because our food is so gross. It always stinks there and there are stains on the floor. I had to go to the bathroom so I went across the street to McDonald’s. Such a disappointment when you work in the worst restaurant and then across the street you look over and you see the best restaurant. The fourth customer came in and this time they were single. It was a woman that had long black hair. She had a dog at her side. I ran up and started petting it. I think it was a siberian husky puppy. It was jumping on me just like any playful puppy would, when I noticed that the puppy was in here because the person wanted to eat, not because the puppy wanted to see me. Again, I feel like I’m starting to go through a phase of depression. I’m going to start looking for a better job. The job I’m looking for is a job that I will get tons of money from. I want to get a job that is not torture like this one. Hopefully, one day that will happen. Anyway, I need to give the customer a seat. I gave her the seat next to the custom food chef. Lol. I don’t feel like writing anymore so I’m going to just end it here. See you tomorrow, Diary. Or should I say stupid Diary. 

July something 4th, 2026

Dear Diary,

It is another day of work and I am not happy. It is Tuesday, which is my least favorite day of the week. That is the day when the restaurant is empty and I don’t get paid as much. So I guess I can come a bit late. I am right now getting off the stop on the train and now walking down the block. I see a group of people standing behind a couple and then they are standing behind someone. The only problem was that they were angry. Their eyebrows were pointed down and according to a Youtube video I watched, scrunched eyebrows meant anger. I didn’t know why, so I went up to the entrance of the restaurant when I saw the customers waiting in line to go in. Uuuh. This was strange. Whatever. I opened the restaurant up and all the tables were filled.

That is when the last customer told me in an angry voice, “Great way to start off a holiday.” I guess he was being sarcastic but wait, what holiday? I asked him and he told me and said that it was the 4th of July. I almost started crying. 4th of July is my favorite holiday of the year and I missed it all. I didn’t even check the date.

Like I even ever check the date. About twenty people everyday ask me the date and I’m like, “How would I know?” It’s very annoying. I can’t even imagine those poor kids having to put the date on every little thing of school work. Now, I’m too scared that the customers are going to leave because of the bad service and writing isn’t really going to help with this so ya, bye.

July something, 2075

Dear Diary, 

So it is the next day and I am taking a day off from work. Work has been really tiring the last few days, so I’m staying home and relaxing, aka watching Youtube and eating Pringles on the couch. I always take a day off of work because once a week my boss goes to a place with no reception so he can’t tell me to go to work or whatever. That day is usually on Wednesdays, like today. But what is funny is that he pays me the same amount as the workers that work there for six days a week. Lol. Wait, I have a call from someone, just a sec. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! I am dead!

The call was from my boss. He had called telling me that he was mad that I wasn’t at work! No, no, no, no, no, no, no! I thought that he was in a place with no reception. He wasn’t! He was in the building where the restaurant is and he noticed that I wasn’t there. I am doomed. He knows where I was all these weeks because he secretly installed an app on my phone that let him see where I was the whole time. I know this because I was looking frantically on my phone for something and I came across a calculator app. Um, why is there a calculator app on my phone? I thought I got rid of math from my life. I opened the app and it wasn’t a calculator (thank god), but as I guessed it was a tracker. My boss was tracking me since the hospital. How did he download it though? I’m not even going to answer that. I’m just going to delete the app and he won’t be able to download it again because my phone is going to be on me the whole time. I’m still not going to work. I’m just going to pretend that I’m sick and tell my boss that. One second. I don’t want to write anymore. I’m depressed again. Maybe I can get away with not writing anymore for a bit. I want to go to the hospital again so I won’t have to go to work or write in this diary again. But the only problem is that I won’t have any Youtube videos to watch because of what my doctor said last time I broke my rib cage. I really want some type of excuse so I can get out of the stupid Earth and into my world, which is a place where everyone agrees with me and there is only the food I like to eat. A world where I can do whatever and won’t have to pay for anything. I will have Youtube Premium for free!!!! That would be great. Ok, so this is getting boring to write now so ya, bye. 

July something, 2075

Dear Diary, 

Now Thursday. I really don’t like Thursdays. Well, to be honest, I don’t like any days of the week except Saturdays and Sundays. All the days at work are boring. It really is time to get a better job. Well, not necessarily a more money job, but a job that is more fun than the trash place where I work at. It literally smells like animal poop. Well, at least I think it does. I don’t really know how animal poop smells. Like, I just think that it smells like someone’s poop that ate beans in their last meal. Hopefully, my prediction is correct. Well, I don’t want it to be correct because if animal poop smells like that then that is just disgusting. This topic is very disturbing and makes me cringe just thinking about it. I’m just really tired of this job now. I’m going across the street to use the bathroom and eat some lunch. If you are wondering, across the street means McDonald’s. I’m going to ask if they have any free spots to work there. Be right back.

Ok, so I’m back and good news! Finally something good! I am going to work at McDonald’s now! I am really happy because I actually get to work in a place where life would be good. I get good food and a clean bathroom. I really hope that I will get enough money from this. I will go to my boss and quit now. I hope that my friend won’t care that I have left him at hell. I will text my boss saying that I quit and I will start working at my second favorite restaurant ever. In case you were wondering, my favorite is Burger King and my third favorite is Dunkin Donuts. Is Dunkin Donuts even a restaurant? If not, then KFC is my third favorite. I’m really tired now so I’m going to stop writing. 

July something, 2075

Dear Diary,

I am now writing this because I am going to try the gym again. My wife is proud of me that I tried again. My goal this time is to get a concussion.

So, I am on the way there. I am hoping that the stalker dude won’t be there. Ok, so I am entering the doors to the gym and there is a different person at the help center. He asks if I need any help. I ask him why would I need any help and he says because I look new. I tell him that I am not new. Then, I start to get annoyed because both help people thought I was new at the gym. Ok, maybe the first was right, but still! I am going to lift a one-pound weight and hope that that won’t break my rib cage. Ok, that was pretty light and now I don’t know how that helps with losing your weight. Now I’m going to the peloton. The peloton is actually pretty fun. I was on it for about twenty minutes. Then I went to the treadmill. I put it on one mile an hour. It isn’t really going so fast but I like it. It reminds me of one of those slides that I used to use when I was a boy. I still don’t get how this lets you lose weight. I am just sliding off the platform. This is boring. Anyway, I’m going to come back here later to go on the peloton more. I’m going to go get some lunch at Burger King and then go to my favorite candy shop, Candytopia, to get some Nerds. I am on the walk there and at a crosswalk, so I should stop writing for now.

Okay, so that was a successful cross. Anyway, I am almost at Burger King so now I am thinking of what to get. I do want a big burger with cheese, bacon, and french fries. That is my usual order though. Then, I will take a large Fanta out of the fridge. I went to my usual table right near the kitchen so I can smell all the good stuff being cooked. The cashier called my name and I went up to get my food. I sat down at the table and began to eat. I don’t want to keep writing while I eat, so I will come back later.

I had my usual order and it was delicious. It was all juicy and chewy, my favorite consistency of a burger. The drink was really fizzy and sweet. I love when my soda tastes like that. I mean, it kind of always tastes like that, so there is nothing special about it. But you know, whatever. I am heading out to go back to the gym. I want to go on the peloton more. It feels relaxing. I don’t really remember where the gym is though. Is it to the right or left? Maybe it’s to the front? I don’t know, but I’m going to figure it out. I might have gone into the subway before and I think that that is right, but you know, it could not be. I am around 70% sure that I went to the subway to the gym. I am going to take the 7 train and hope that the train will take me there. I am not going to write in the subway because it is embarrassing, so I will come back later.

I am out of the train and looking around. I have never been here before. I don’t think that this is where the gym is because apparently this place I am in now is called Williamsburg. That is a strange name for a neighborhood. Is it named after a person named William that ate a burger here? I don’t know and I don’t care. I am going back to the subway to go back to where I was. Let’s see, I went in the L train and got off at the last stop which was… I don’t know. Somehow, from there I need to get back to Burger King and from Burger King somehow get to the gym. I am going to stop writing because I am going to be in the subway now. When I come out, I will write again.

Okay, so now I am out of the subway and writing again. I am so confused now. I don’t see any Burger King or gym. This is really weird. I thought that I got off at the right stop. I know I did. I remember this station and I know for sure that I got off here. Did I go straight to here? I think I did, so let’s try to get there. Ok, so now I am walking to who knows where and hopefully getting to Burger Ling. Now that I think about it, saying and writing Burger Ling so many times makes me hungry again. I need my order. I’m craving it right now. I need my large fries and double burger with bacon and cheese. Wait, I just remembered! I wanted to go to Candytopia! How did I not remember this? I am going to get another order from Burger King and then go to Candytopia to get some Nerds. Why are they called Nerds? You know what? I do not care what they are called and I never will. But something I do care about is how good Nerds are. They are really good and come in many different flavours. I can write you a ten page essay on why they are good, but guess what? Yay! You are correct! I will not write an essay because I need to get my food. I am dying from hunger and nobody can stop me. I need to get to Burger King and eat my usual order!!! It is the only thing that will make me live a good life, even though my life is already bad. Wait, is this what I’m seeing? It’s the gym! Why haven’t I seen this before? I am really pissed off right now. I walked right past it on the way to the subway! You know? I really don’t care about anything right now. I want to go eat!!! Has anyone died from being hungry? I think so. So, where is Burger King?! I thought that it was supposed to be right here. Why is there a sign on the door? You know what? I’m not even gonna try to read it. The lettering is too small, anyway. I am going into Burger King and getting my usual order. The door is locked!!! What is wrong with this place? How can they be closed at a time like this? It is literally 7pm! Oh, um. That took me a long time to get back. Well, looks like I am going home!

July something, 2075

Dear Diary,

So I am back! Yay! No! Hmph. I am going to try to go to the gym and actually get on the peloton again. Hopefully, it’s not very crowded. Pelatons are usually everyone’s favorite thing, which kinda sucks. I am headed to the gym and a second ago I realized I can use Google Maps to help me get there. I am so dumb. Actually, I am the smartest. Only that incident was dumb. I mean, that incident was not dumb. It was just incorrect. Whatever. I am following the GPS and it says that I should be at the gym in a minute, which I am partially happy about. I am happy that I will get in the peloton, but I am not happy about being at the gym in general. I’d rather go get nerds. Wait, I just forgot, I was gonna go to the candy shop. I’m going to go there now and go to the gym later. I search up the candy shop on Google Maps and start walking. It isn’t too far away. It took me a half an hour to get there! Whatever. OK, I will go to the 5th aisle. Wait no, 1st aisle, no, 3rd aisle. Wait no, the Nerds are in the 6th aisle. Ok, I’m starting to get dizzy from all that walking and looking at candy.

I’m breathing hard. I don’t think I have asthma. Or do I? Whatever. I’m walking through the aisles to see if there are any new flavours of Nerds. Everything is the same. I am just walking, getting five packs of each flavour, but still no new OMG, there is a new flavour!! Not of Nerds though. It’s a new flavour of Hershey chocolate. Hershey chocolate is my 3rd favorite candy. After Nerds and Airheads. Anyway. Is it annoying I keep saying anyway? If it is I‘m sorry, but I don’t care so, ya know, deal with it. I don’t even want to write in this so don’t give me a hard time. Anyway, I bought my stuff and went to the gym. On the way there, I was eating my candy. It was a great taste. I got all the flavours of Nerds, all flavours of Airheads, wait—I didn’t even eat the Airheads I bought at the deli before. Whatever. Now for the new flavour of Hershey. Why is there no taste? I thought it was supposed to be a really good flavour. Let me guess, they made so many flavours they decided to make it flavourless. I hope not. Ok, what!? The packaging says extra sweet with enriched flavour!!! Those pathological liars!! I’ll eat the Airheads now because the Hershey bar ruined my day. Finally something actually good!

Wait a second, this has no taste too!!! What is up with this candy? I am going home!!! I got home faster than I thought I would, probably because I was running. It is hard for me to breathe and my wife is concerned. I don’t see why though. We are on the way to the hospital now. Ugh, it’s taking so long and I don’t even need to go there. I am fine. Anyway, I will stop writing because I am literally raging again.

Ok so, we just got to the doctors in the hospital and now I am being tested for this disease that apparently killed a lot of people in 2020. It was a global pandemic. Now, don’t ask me what that means because I don’t know. Anyway I feel weaker right now so I will stop writing and update you tomorrow.

August 2nd, 2075

Dear Diary,

Anyway, now I am in the hospital diagnosed with something called corona. My doctor said there is a low chance that I will survive. Well, it’s not like I care. At least my eight sons will think the same. My wife took pity on me and said that this could be my last diary entry and I should spend my last few months well. I am surprisingly not sad because I do get to spend my last few months of life watching Youtube and stuff. They tried to give me medicine, but it didn’t work. Anyway, I guess all I can say is bye. So, bye, hope you all are not like me and make sure to not get uh, what’s it called? Something with a c. Co, co—oh ya, Corona.

Super Saber-Tooth Tiger

The Saber Tooth Tiger was walking in the jungle and he saw a red door. He knocked on it and Superman and Supergirl opened the door. They had laser eyes, they could fly, they could run really fast, and they were super strong. They wanted to adopt the Saber Tooth Tiger as a pet. The Saber Tooth Tiger said yes! He was going to be a super pet! As a super pet, he could save the world. He had super powers and laser eyes. He could fly and was super strong. He had a cape and was called Super Saber Tooth Tiger.  

One day Superman, Supergirl and Saber Tooth Tiger got captured. 

“ROAR!” said Saber Tooth Tiger. 

“It’s okay Super Saber Tooth Tiger,” they said.

Superman and Supergirl were going to use their laser eyes and sneak out, but there was a guard. Saber Tooth Tiger distracted him. Then Superman and Supergirl snuck out of prison and Saber Tooth Tiger left and followed them 

“Come on, hurry up,” Superman said. “Back to the hideout okay?” 

Before they got to the hideout, Supergirl said “Can we adopt that bird over there?”

They did not know that the bird was from the prison, but they were going to find out soon. The bird had a camera. A few weeks later the bird captured Saber Tooth Tiger but not Superman and Supergirl. He brought him to the prison and locked him up.

“ROAR!” said Saber Tooth Tiger. 

Superman and Supergirl snuck in and unlocked the cage.

“Come on Saber Tooth Tiger,” they said. 

They flew out of there, but the bird saw them and went after them.

Superman shut the windows and doors of the prison. Then they ran, but when they got back they could not find the hideout. They tried to find the hideout, but the people from the prison turned it invisible, so they walked right past it. There was an invisible cage that they didn’t know was right above them, so they were captured again. They went to another prison this time because it was someone else that captured them. All three of them used their laser eyes and they punched their way out of there. When they got out, the hideout was not invisible anymore. They went back to the hideout and locked it. They were safe.

Both of the prisons were having a battle to try and capture Superman, Supergirl, and Super Saber Tooth Tiger, but neither of them did. 

The End

HS Travels the World

Chapter One:

The Battle between GSS and S.E.W.W.F.T.C.R.H

HS went to Egypt and to find the SPHYNX. But before he found the SPHYNX, he found Gus and S.E.W.W.F.T.C.R.H. battling. And then GSS and S.E.W.W.F.T.C.R.H made HS get into battle. They put a force field around him and then GSS and S.E.W.W.F.T.C.R.H used the power of hieroglyphics to defeat him. And then he found the SPHYNX’s magical power teleported him to Madagascar, closer to his destination.

Chapter 2: Robot Spiders

HS went to Madagascar, and then found robot spiders. And then he battled with all the robot spiders, and he used his power of being legit and using the power of hieroglyphics. And then he defeated the robot spiders.

Chapter 3: I Don’t Know The Flea

He teleported himself to the Lost City of Atlantis! But then, he met up with I Don’t Know The Flea. Since that flea is 110,889 times bigger than a flea and he can jump 110,889 times farther and higher, but HS used the power of legit hieroglyphics and Sebas. 

Chapter 4: Legit Legit LeSplit

HS was still in the Lost City of Atlantis. But then he met up with Legit Legit LeSplit. So then they started battling. And the  Legit Legit LeSplit was splitted. And then it erupted like a volcano, and then it started chasing HS. But then, HS used the power of legit, and during the battle he found a little interesting friend named Lappy. And then he used the power of legit hieroglyphics Sebas and Lappy AND Legit Legit LeSplit. And then he defeated Legit Legit LeSplit. 

Chapter 5: Run Away From What?

HS accidentally teleported himself to the Australian Outback. And then all the animals said “RUN AWAY” And then he said “RUN AWAY FROM WHAT?” And then the animals said “RUN AWAY FROM WHAT.” And HS said “What?” And the animals said, “You said it! RUN AWAY FROM WHAT!” 

Chapter 6: Now I Know What to Run Away From

HS was still in the Australian Outback, but now he saw Run Away From What. And then they came together. And they became a team! 

Chapter 7: Entering the Falcon Fury

Run Away From What and Lappy and HS accidentally teleported themselves to the Falcon Fury. “Hey look, it’s Falcon Man and Dynamut.” And then they became a team, but they saw Scooby and Shaggy!!! And then they all became a team. 

Chapter 8: Just Seeing It

Run Away From What, Lappy, HS, Falcon Man, Dynamut, Scooby, and Shaggy teleported themselves to Where. And then Run Away From What HS, Falcon Man, Dynamut, Scooby, and Shaggy saw this giant nightmare character. And then it was coming after them. But then they realized they were stuck in quicksand. And then they realized that all of the greatest carnivores in the world were coming after them. Then they woke up. 

Chapter 9: Who’s This Dragon?

They accidentally teleported themselves to a mysterious place where no one knows what’s gonna happen the next second. And then they saw a dragon and then they said “Who’s that dragon?” DUN DUN DUNNNN! And then the dragon said “Who’s That Dragon.” But there is also an evil dragon behind all of them. And that dragon said “Who’s that dragon?” And also because that’s his name. And Who’s That Dragon went into the team. Everyone worked together to defeat the evil dragon!

Chapter 10: I Think I Found Snoopy!?

The gang (which is called The What No Next) said “I think I found Snoopy!?” And then, Snoopy became part of the gang. 

Chapter 11: (The What No Next) Disappears (or did it…)

The What No Next thought they disappeared because they didn’t see themselves. And they’re like “Oh! Where am I?!!! Oh! Where am I?!!! Oh! Where am I?!!! Oh! Where am I?!!!” 

Chapter 12: (The What No Next) Did Not Disappear

The gang felt everyone else but they didn’t see it because in front of them there was a mirage (a make yourself invisible mirage). And then they found out that it was just a mirage. 

Chapter 13: Entering the new dimension

HS found a new portal that was sucking them into a new dimension, which is the video game dimension!!! Because video games are awesome. It looks like all the characters are little blocks, like minecraft. They found something super crawsome (a mix between crazy and awesome). They found Captain Underpants!!!! And they also found crawsome again: George and Harold. And they found another crawsome thing! Three ultimate villains. Which they are… LaserLightmare! Poopocabra, and Socktopus! But then they realized they were good guys! And then Captain Underpants, George and Harold, LaserLightmare, Poopocabra, and Socktupus went into the team. 

Chapter 13.5: Entering a new dimension part II

They got sucked into another dimension! Which was the Dream Dimension! You can dream what you want in there.

Chapter 13.10: Entering a new time part III

They found another portal and it sucked them in and then they went through time.

Chapter 15 

The World of Yot Dogs 

HS teleportaled to the world of yot dogs. And then, all of the yot dogs became friends and all of the yot dogs became his food, but they are magical. And each one makes a power. He ate all the infinity yot dogs and each yot dog has a power, so he got infinity powers. HS had every single power in the world. 

Chapter 16 

The World of Cot Dogs 

HS accidentally teleportaled himself to the world of Cot Dogs. And they looked exactly like the yot dogs (from chapter 15). He ate all of them and they took away all of his powers. (He didn’t really know that he lost all of his powers.)

Chapter 17 

The World of Bot Dogs 

HS found a portal and then he was go for my life or don’t go for no life. And then he went in the portal. And then he found Bot Dogs. (They look exactly like the Cot Dogs and Yot Dogs from Chapter 15.) And then he ate all of them. And then HS got all his powers back.

Chapter 18

The horrible Hackensack of the horrible Hackensack

HS teleportaled himself to the horrible Hackensack of the horrible Hackensack. And then he found a horrible Hackensack of the Horrible Hackensack. And then they battled. And then the horrible Hackensack of the Horrible Hackensack did a punch in the H and then he lost his powers!

Chapter 18.1

HS to Bot Dog land

HS had one remaining power left for only one minute. He teleportaled himself to Bot Dog land. And then he ate all of the Bot Dogs there as fast as he could and then there was only three seconds and one Bot Dog left! And he tried to eat the Bot Dog as fast as he could. And then when he finished it and then only one millisecond was left! And then HS teleportaled himself back to where the horrible Hackensack of the horrible Hackensack was (HHHH). 

Chapter 18.2

HS returns…

HHHH couldn’t punch HS because HS put a closing forcefield with disintegrating spikes around him. And then, HHHH dies!

Chapter 19

Monopoly Man 

(and he has to get to the top of the castle to be able to get out of the Monopoly World)

(And he only has 2,500 Monopoly coins)

(And if he gets to 0 Monopoly coins, then he dies for the rest of his life!)

(and if he gets three doubles he also dies for the rest of his life!)

(If you roll a double you get a second turn)

HS didn’t realize the forcefield when HHHH died and gave him the same powers that HS had. And then HHHH made him teleportaled to Monopoly Man (with fancy music). And then Monopoly Man forced him to roll the dice and then he rolled the dice. He rolled a 6 and a 6. And then he landed on a hotel and the cost 100 Monopoly coins. (And now he only has 2,400 monopoly coins.)

He rolled another 6 and a 6 and then he gets 200 and more Monopoly coins. (And then he had 2,600 Monopoly Coins)

And then he rolled a 5 and a 6. And he got to the second level of the castle. And then he rolled another 6 and a 5. And then, now, he went to jail. And he paid111 Monopoly coins to get out of jail (and now HS has 2,489 Monopoly Coins) and then he rolled a 6 and a 5. And then he’s to the fourth level of the castle. And now he got a 6 and a 5. And then he got to the 5th level of the castle and now he went out of Monopoly World. 

A giant hieroglyphic keyboard, but luckily HS knew his hieroglyphics. And then he entered the code, which was 

And then it was on the fritz, and then disintegrated. And before it disintegrated, it exploded. But then, HS found someone named AS. There was HM (hieroglyphic monster), and then he battled and battled and battled and battled and battled and battled and battled and battled and battled (x 1000). And HS won. 

A Day Underwater with the Dolphins

I am going swimming this weekend and it’s time to go. Underwater there are fish nibbling at my feet. It is very unpleasant, but I keep walking deeper and deeper into the sea. I see dolphins jumping and doing loops in the water. I see ripples in the water as they disappear in the distance. The fish are a turquoise-yellow with green scales. I try to run but I just bonk my head on the bottom of the ocean. The fish gets scared and swims away. The dolphins gently lift me on their backs and bring me to the dock. I get off and thank the dolphins. I eat lunch at the mini-bar. I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then I go back to the sea. I call Beth the Dolphin and she comes. Beth gently swims out farther and farther into the sea. That is the end of my vacation. 

The Scary Ghosts

One Halloween, the ghosts were trick or treating. A boy saw them, and he scared them and they ran away. The ghosts stole their candy! They were stealing everybody’s candy. 

The kids were mad that their candy was stolen, because they had gone everywhere and had worked so hard to get it. They stole sour candies, chocolate candies, skittles, M&M’s, and regular candies like gummy sandwich candies. 

The ghosts flew up to their treehouse. There was no ladder, since they could fly, and there was no entrance, since they could just float through. The room on the top was where they kept the candy. It was their most secret room. 

The kids went on a long walk in the forest and they walked a long way until they found it. The kids came prepared. They had a truck and a ladder. They had an extra tall ladder and they put it at the top. The ghost house was protected. They pushed hard to get through, but the walls were so hard that they couldn’t get through. A big storm happened and the house blew down. The kids also found a cave. One day, the kids tried going in to get the candy, but they got kidnapped by the ghosts. They tried to hypnotize them so that they could find more candy, because the kids were really good at finding candy. It worked!

The ghosts woke up and they were trapped. But they couldn’t go through the wall, it was a ghost wall! The kids found the candy and then they stole the ghosts’ lair so no one could get in. The kids put extra protection. You even needed a code so that you could get in. They made another ghost wall over the ghost wall, and another one with ghost walls and ghost walls. They were trapped, so it would take them a while to get out. The ghosts hadn’t made any progress getting candy.

After the ghosts woke up from their sleep, the ghosts turned good. They became ghost heroes. They realized that if they were bad, they would starve to death and be stuck in this little room forever. So they screamed and somebody heard them. The person opened the door and another door. They finally opened up the wall and let the ghosts out. 

A few more ghosts came along. They chased after the ghosts and brought them to the ghost planet, where they are all ghosts. There were no ghost walls and no doors. Everything was for the ghosts. The ghosts were happy, and they had all the candy they wanted. (Ghost candy!) 

In the end, they were all happy, because they all had what they wanted and were not in battle. There were two big planets and they were like, “Yaahh!!!” 

The Crazy Meatball Incident

This has been translated from Marshmallowian by The Institute of Marshmallow and English. Except from some parts with a * on either side of it.

One day, on Meatball Land, there was a big enormous explosion from the meatball volcano. On Meatball Land, everyone is a marshmallow and they only eat meatballs. On the day when the explosion happened, all of the tiny marsh-villages got covered completely in meatballs and tomato sauce. The marshmallows had to evacuate before all of the land got covered!!! They had to think of a way out. Maybe they could dig a tunnel to the unknown Cow Land. That’s how it all started.

Chapter Numero Uno

My name is Bart, Bart DeFulletgrominu van Grickenshpein. I am a Jumbo Marshmallow. I am the richest on all of Meatball Land! Right now, my loyal servants are digging a tunnel to Cow Land where only the greatest explorers have been. But now it’s different. It is an emergency for all of Marshmallowanity to evacuate the surface and go underground to where the cows live. It is a hard time for us marshmallows.

“Servants, dig dig dig. It’s going to blow soon. I don’t want to die. Do you? No – so get digging.”

Then suddenly I heard a big boom!! Could that be the volcano? I looked in the direction of where it came from. It was not the volcano! It was TNT. That gave me a good idea. Maybe we could use TNT!

“Servants, get the TNT. We’re gonna blow it!!!”

This turned out to be a bad idea. You will see why later.

My servants piled all of the TNT into the hole they made. From that hole they set a long piece of flammable rope with fire. When it exploded, something very bad happened: the volcano exploded too!! Just then I had forgotten about violation code #45627, which says that if you’re less than a mile away from the volcano, you can not use TNT. This is because it will explode into the meat caverns and will make the volcano erupt! I thought through this. After a little while, I realized that I was the one who made the Meatball Volcano explode!!!

I was astounded! I could not believe I had forgotten about violation code #45627 It was is the most important code in our area! 

*What will happen next in The Crazy Meatball Incident?!*

Chapter 2

Two days later…

I just escaped going to jail because of that TNT incident. I ran away from Meatball Land on a train, a car, my own feet, and a roller-coaster (the roller-coaster was actually kind of fun). Now I am pretending to be a poor marshmallow in the streets of the dreaded Beyond Meatball Land, which is 300 miles away from any real meat. But I am safe here. No real marshmallow would ever come here. That would be disgusting! Well, there are no more things to talk about. I will just go and beg for more moolah. 

Chapter 3

Twenty-four hours later…

Hello. 

I just saw a silver and white airplane fly over.  It had something that said “NASA” on it and it had an alien in a white jumper as the driver. I think it might be trying tooh no I am floating through a green tunnel going to the NASA thing!

They greet me with a taser in my leg, but too bad for them, marshmallows can not be electrocuted.

They try to talk to me: “Hello, we have come to extract you.”

But I cannot understand what they are saying. I try to talk to them, but they cannot understand me! I have only heard of real aliens in fairy tales. But these aliens are much different. You see, they have fluff on the top of their heads and five sausages at the end of their hands.

Wait, I think, these are Humans!!! OMG, are they going to bring me to earth?

Ever since I first read about Humans, I have always wanted to go to Earth. It’s my dream planet! 

Chapter 4

Three days later… 

I am on Earth.

I am so excited.

I want to live here.

This is awesome!

I love this place. I wonder why they brought me here.

I don’t think I’ve said this yet but: this is awesome!

Have I said this is awesome?!

Wow, I really like this place as you can tell. I think I am becoming famous here! There are reporters everywhere and they are asking me questions I do not understand. Everyone is taking pictures of me and one of the kids is eating a marshmallow! Holy moley! They do that here?! I hate Earth now! But I guess that is just one kid, so I love Earth now, again!

Well, that’s all I am going to share of my life (the rest is private), But it was a fun experience sharing it with you. So until then, adios!!!

What are you looking at? The story is over!

You’re still looking at this! 

You are still looking, now go and drink your coffee or go finish your life.

The ABCs of Animals

A is for alligators who bite people

B is for bees who sting people

C is for cats who meow a lot

D is for dogs who bark a lot

E is for elephants who drink water from their trunk

F is for flamingoes who stay near water

G is for gorillas whose fur is black and cozy

H is for hippos who love water

I is for iguanas who are green and other colors 

J is for jellyfish who live in lakes, oceans, and rivers

K is for kangaroos who hop

L is for lions who RRR AAA!

M is for monkeys who swing on branches 

N is for nocturnal animals who sleep in the morning and wake up at night

O is for owls who hhhoooo in the night

P is for penguins who live in the arctic

Q is for quails who are birds 

R is for rabbits whose fur is white 

S is for snakes who go sss and slither

T is for turtles who are small

U is for urchins that are in food

V is for vultures who eat carrion

W is for whales who live in the water

X is for x-ray fish who live in the water

Y is for yaks who have their own type of big yap

Z is for zebras who have black and white stripes

The Value of a Trophy

I stare up at the mountain, my legs ready to give out beneath me.

My ski coach announces, “I know this is challenging, but we’re going to try to ski down this easy green.” So far, my beginner ski group has only skied down the Magic Carpet. 

Glancing down at my feet, seemingly permanently stuck in a pizza shape, I tell my coach, “I think maybe I will be injured on that super steep trail.” 

My coach laughs. “It’s basically flat. You’ll be fine.” The basically flat trail looks like it is 90 degrees steep. My coach calmly skis to the lift, completely parallel and with poles in his hands. I keep peeking up at the mountain as I slide over to him and my group. Distracted, I trip over my own skis and sprawl on the ice. My face burns, and I jump up as fast as I can and jump on the lift. Soon, I regret doing that. I just hurried up the process of getting to the steep trail. Under my new, soft, warm mittens my hands tremble, and I am glad I don’t have ski poles, for I would have dropped them. The wind stings my face like evil grains of sand. I lean back on the ski lift, my heart pounding. But I soon realize that in doing that, I am making the lift go a mile a minute. It seems like a couple seconds when we come off the lift. 

As I look down the rugged terrain of the easy green, I wish I never came. As soon as I had turned 12, I should have given up hope of skiing. But no. I persisted and begged my parents to take me. My tired, busy parents. They had work, but they did bring me, and for what? I was in the little kids group, and I saw other kids my age, even younger, skiing down the mountain in a blur of color, their manageable skis skidding against the icy ground with a loud crunch. But…really, I’m still a kid, and it’s never too late to start stuff when you’re a kid.

I know I’m a kid, I think confidently. After all, I can still order from the kid’s menu at restaurants. So I can always improve! Even if I am three times the age of the other kids in my group and still not better than them, so what?

“We’re going down now.” My coach yells. 

I blurt out, more to myself than him, “I’m not afraid!” 

My coach gives me a weird look. “That’s – that’s great, Olivia!” Then he starts down the mountain. I clutch my legs, steadying them. I close my eyes and the pounding in my head stops.

 “I will get good – great – at this sport,” I whisper. I force my skis to turn parallel, and I fly down the mountain. “Yeahhh!” I cry. “I’m so fast!” But after scanning my surroundings, I realize that I’m the slowest person on the trail. Before I know it, I fall head over heels. My skis are teared off and my poles are wrested from my hands. I scream, then I realize that I am still, for I am on a flat part of the trail, called a catwalk. 

My coach bends down to help me. “Whoa, that was a big yard sale fall for a catwalk!” I’m so embarrassed. I will never get good at skiing. I trail behind as we ski to lunch.

A month ago

I hurried down our stairs, wriggling into my scratchy school sweater. I heard sounds of enthusiastic and loud talking in the dining room. “Mom, Dad-” They weren’t even at breakfast. Mom was in her office, writing, and Dad was probably at his lab in the middle of the city. The only people that were there were my younger brother and sister. They were six and twins, and had brown hair. Sadly, six is when kids start to annoy you and stop being quiet and obedient. 

George whispered loudly to Lily, “Olib looks sad.” 

I scowled at them. “Don’t call me Olib.” George and Lily giggled and threw stale cereal at me. I stomped into my mom’s office, wrenching the cold, silver door handle open and immediately I got hit by a stuffy smell. It seemed like my mom’s office didn’t have any oxygen in it. It looked like a common, messy office. Mom was sitting at her desk with her back to me, typing furiously on her laptop. Her trash bin was overflowing with crumpled pieces of paper, but random pieces floated through the room, and my mom was forced to look up and snatch at the air once in a while. “Mom, I really want to go skiing for spring break,” I say, choking on the musty air.

My mom turned around, bags under her eyes. “Olivia, for the last time, NO! How many times do I have to tell you?” 

“But, we’ve never gone for my whole life! All my friends have gone since they were small, and everyone except for me knows how to ski. Besides, it would be good for me, don’t you think?”

“Your father and I have jobs. What about George and Lily? We can’t bring them. You never want them to come anywhere with you.”

“Ugh, don’t other people have families too? They take time off for trips. We’ll bring George and Lily. Mom, it’ll be good for you and Dad’s health too.” 

My mom smiled and said, “Alright, we’ll go for a week and a half for spring break. Lucky for you, your dad’s boss is expecting a baby, and I just completed a piece of writing so I get a break. Your father or I will bring you tomorrow after school to buy ski gear for the whole family. Now get ready for school, the bus is coming soon.”

“Thank you, Mom!” I cried, hugging her. Then I hurried out of her office.

Back to the mountain.

I stomp into the crowded lunchroom with barely enough space to move, and the scent of french fries and chicken nuggets hit me. I am glad that we stopped skiing for now. I am also glad that George and Lily are not in my group. Imagine, my own siblings, in the same ski group as me. I sit down, yanking my ski helmet off. Suddenly, a group of kids come clamoring into the cafeteria. I hear an animated voice. “Nuh-uh, Scooby Doo! Barbie sucks!” I immediately recognize it as Lily. That meant George must be with her. I see his bright green ski helmet bobbing above the helmets of the four year olds in the group, and he seems to be ordering them around somehow. My siblings must be young enough to fit in, but old enough to have authority to be the leaders of this group. Lucky them. I scuttle to the lunch line, avoiding my siblings. But oh, I had to buy a neon rainbow ski helmet. George and Lily see me, and they cry out, “There’s our sister, Olib! She is on the same level  as us!” The whole cafeteria looks at me, every person turning in their black metal chairs to see. The food on the round, ugly table is forgotten, and as my siblings’ group erupts in raucous laughter, I erupt in fury.

I turn away, not wanting to show my bad side in front of so many people. My eyes well up, so I widen them to keep tears from spilling out. I grab the nuggets and fries from the lunch lady and hurry back to my seat. When I pick up the food, I squeeze it forcefully in my rage. In a moment, my hand starts to throb painfully. I release the soggy, wretched, and deformed chicken nugget, and I see that it has burned my palm and left my hand oily and shiny. I pick the nugget  up, and with no mercy, I shove it in my mouth. My favorite food has always been chicken nuggets, but it doesn’t taste so good anymore. The mood at lunch guarantees my mood for the rest of the day, and I decide to ask my parents to go home when I get back to the hotel.

“Can we go home?” I ask my parents at the hotel when my siblings are sleeping. They look at me in disbelief.

“But, didn’t you beg us to come here?” My dad asks, glancing at my mom to confirm.

“Yes, but it’s horrible. I came here too late, and now I’m so much older than all the other kids in my group. George and Lily are on the same level as me, and the kids my age are skiing like, double blacks and blacks!” I cry.

“Honey, you’ll improve,” my mom says. “If you try harder than everyone, you’ll improve faster. Soon, you’ll be rushing down the mountain like wind!” My mom pushes her hand in front of her as fast as it would go and makes a whoosh noise with her mouth. She thinks it sounds like the wind, but she is wrong.

“Sure,” I mutter. “But how much more of this do I have to endure? George and Lily taunting my every move?”

My parents look at each other, and my dad ruffles my hair. “You can do it, kiddo.” They climb into their bed, and sighing, I walk over to me and my brother and sister’s bed, shove them over, and climb in. I’m sure that I cannot sleep.

A year ago, at school

I walk into middle school. It is crowded by ugly and dented maroon lockers that are overflowing and people hurrying around to get to class. The lumpy gray walls are stained with who knows what, and the doors required full effort to be opened and the hallways smelled like rotten eggs. Hurrying to my locker, I open it and grab out my mini fluffy pink carpet. It feels so soft! I need it for school, because of the rotten egg smell. I press the carpet to my nose and inhale the smell of detergent. Without warning, I hear a crackling sound of the static of the speaker. The principal’s voice blares, “Class time,” and everyone rushes to their different rooms. I slam my locker closed and suddenly, a shadow falls over me.

Jessica, Britney, Hawke, and Ace stand over me. They are the Mean Machines. Ace and Hawke are famous for being loyal accomplices, Jessica is famous for being the heir to Britney, and Britney is famous for her hundred different expressions and being able to tell whether someone was lying or not.  I tremble all over. Hawke and Ace block my route to safety and Jessica and Britney advance toward me. “You don’t have any fashion style, do you?” Britney asks with the first of her one hundred different expressions, and I looks down at my purple sweater, green pants, and yellow sneakers. It hits me that she was right. “And, uh, what level did you say you were at skiing?” she asks.

“I never said anything about that,” I answer defiantly, regretting that I had discussed that topic so loud, so close to the Mean Machines during homeroom. “Now why don’t you get to class, it’s getting late.” Britney rolls her eyes and acts like she didn’t hear me. 

Jessica adds, “Britney and I go skiing every spring break. We’re skiing hard trails.” I didn’t say anything. She continues. “And I just can’t accept your fashion choices. Also, you’re not good at anything. You can’t play any sports, and skiing is easy. So why don’t you give it a try? I’d love to see you tumbling down an easy Magic Carpet trail.” The Mean Machines turn and walk away, Hawke and Ace flashing evil smiles at me.

I cry. There is nothing else to do but feel sticky tears run down my cheeks. When I walk into class, my nose is runny, my eyes puffy and red, tear streaks on my face, everybody stares at me. The teacher murmurs lazily, “Sit in your seat. You’re late.” He turns back to the chalkboard. I am staring at my desk the whole class.

Morning at the mountain

I wake up from the dream. The Mean Machines’ faces swim in front of my eyes, and I grit my teeth. But there is nothing I can do. They have continued tormenting me all the way up till now. I eat breakfast with my family, then I go to ski school.

Going there, I get a nasty surprise. Jessica and Britney are there with their parents, in matching pink skin tight ski suits. “Oh…hi, Olivia,” Jessica says. “Remember how Britney and I skied hard trails a long time ago? Well, now we’re racers, and very fast and good.” I look at her. She looks at me. 

Without warning, Britney interrupts in her sickly sweet voice, “Olivia, are you going to be here next week Tuesday?”

I think about it, then I say, “Yes, that’s my last day before I go back.”

“Well,” Britney says, “There’s a skiing competition at the back of the mountain. We would love it if you’d join.” She smiled, and the real meaning was clear: We would love to watch you make a fool of yourself. But that wasn’t going to happen. 

“Sure,” I said. “Do I need a skin tight suit?”

“No, you can wear that ski suit of yours. But be warned, you’ll be slowed down by the bulkiness.”

“Thanks for the tip!” I smile. Jessica and Britney walk past and their parents follow.

As Jessica walks past, she whispers, “It’ll cost money. You might want to rethink your choice, because it is pretty expensive.” She flips her hair and continues walking. 

“Where’s Ace and Hawke?” I call after them. 

Jessica glances at me and shrugs. “They’re back at home, gaming together. Why would you care anyways?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, but links arms with Britney and skips away, which is a feat I do not know how she manages with the awkward ski boots.

I practice as much as I can, and even after class ends I ski down trails by myself.

At night, I beg my parents for something again. But this time, it is the money to participate in the ski competition. But they say, “We don’t want to waste the money, there’s no point. It’s not even going to help you, and it’s not fun anyways. You’re probably not going to win anyways.”

“Please!” I implore. “Just this one competition.”

My parents look at each other, and my mom says, “I saw it on the ski map. It’s way back behind the mountain, and two hundred dollars. Olivia, do you really think we’re going to spend that money just so you can not even have fun?”

“I will have fun!” I cry out. “I have to beat Jessica and Britney!”

“What?” My parents ask, and I tell them what happened. 

My mom grinds her teeth in anger, and she says, her brown eyes flaming, “Olivia. You’re entering that ski competition, and you’re winning it.”

I ski hard. Every day, I stay out late, practicing. I work harder than anyone in my group. I level up quickly. And finally, I’m ready for the ski competition.

Jessica and Britney stand close to each other as my parents grudgingly hand over the money that is crumpled from them clutching it so hard. Jessica and Britney see me, but I cannot see their expressions under their ski helmets, but I’m pretty sure it’s not pleasant. A man in a ski cap talks into a gold microphone that says SKI on it. “Welcome to the Annual Kids Ski Race! All participants get on the ski lift to the trail.” I look back at my parents, who give me encouraging nods and thumbs up. I follow the other participants. My legs tremble a little bit, and the butterflies in my stomach start fluttering again. I almost regret my choice of joining, but not quite. 

After we’re on top of the icy trail, we get into a line. I’m nearly the last one because my last name starts with an X. I stop and inhale. I’ve come to love the cool and fresh smell of the mountain. When Jessica goes, it’s perfect. She’s like a bullet, whizzing around the obstacles. Britney isn’t so successful. She teeters for a moment in the middle, but regains her balance very fast. But one second in skiing is enough. It’s for sure, she can’t win. At the bottom, Britney screams and throws her poles on the ice, making a weird aaaaahhhh And boing sound. I smirk a little bit.

When it’s my turn, I crouch and lean forward. As soon as the buzzer sounds, I’m off, skiing like mad. I can’t believe how much I’ve improved since the first day I arrived at this ski resort. I forget everything when I ski, with the wind whipping around me. Jessica and Britney stare at me, and I can see Britney tremble in anger. I focus on turning my feet parallel. I’m skiing so fast that I can feel a shudder run through my legs as I ski over the bumpy ice. I stop at the bottom, and my mom and dad erupt in cheering. They aren’t the only ones. Most of the people there are clapping and nodding at me. I hardly notice the last couple of racers coming down the mountain.

The man in the ski cap talks into the microphone again. “It was very close, there were some ties. But third place goes to…Goyle Fredericks!” A burly boy takes the tiny trophy made of bronze and  snorts in disgust as he walks away. “Second place goes to…Jessica Hall!” The Ski Cap man says. Jessica looks so happy when she takes the medium sized trophy made of silver. I cross my fingers. “And,” the Ski Cap man yells, “The winner is…Olivia Xu!!” He holds out the huge gold trophy to me. My parents are screaming. I feel like I’m in a trance as I walk over to the man and take the trophy. My mom snaps a few pictures, and we start to walk back to the hotel.

On the way back, Britney catches up with us. Her parents, Jessica, and Jessica’s parents are way behind talking. Britney looks nervously at my parents. “Cengrejulshins,” she mutters without moving her mouth. 

“Sorry?” I ask. 

“Cengrejulshins.”

“Oh. Would it be any easier for you to spell it out?”

“I just wanted to say congratulations, okay?” she says.

“Thank you, Britney. Remind me why you hate me again?” I ask. She frowns and stalks away, but my spirits are too high to be quelled by her annoying manner, so I skip in front of my parents to the hotel. I realize that if your spirits are soaring, they can lift up your feet in those clunky ski boots.

My mom opens the door with the room card and I run inside. I’m upset when my parents don’t look happy. “Why are you guys looking sad?” I demand.

My dad glances at my mom. He seems to need confirmation for every word he says. “Well, uh, there’s this, um, problem with our jobs, er, we left, so, ah-”

“That’s enough,” My mom says. “I will explain it without hesitation. Do you remember when, in my office, I told you your dad’s boss was expecting a baby and I just finished a piece of work? Those were all lies. Our bosses don’t let us off, for some reason. That is why we haven’t brang you and the twins on vacation, ever. But we did, because your dad and I decided that you guys deserved it.”

It takes a moment for me to realize. “YOU LOST YOUR JOBS?” I scream. “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME? WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU DO THAT? THAT IS THE LEAST WORTHIEST SACRIFICE EVER!”

My dad winces. “Olivia, you waited so long to go skiing, and look, you got a gold trophy! We didn’t want to worry you.”

I glare. “THAT WAS NOT WORTH IT! YOU GUYS BOTH GAVE UP YOUR JOBS SO I COULD GO SKIING????!!!! AAAAAAAAAH! WE COULD’VE NOT GONE!” I remember when my mom and dad had locked eyes when they were paying at a ski shop, and how they so grudgingly handed over the money for the ski race. “THAT’S WHY YOU DIDN’T WANT TO PAY FOR ANYTHING! DID YOU GET A NEW JOB?”

The foolish humans peek at me and my dad says, “Uh, I got a job as a trash guy, because nobody else wanted it. Your mom, nah.” I groan and roll my eyes— in classic Britney-style. Britney! Britney’s family has billions of dollars and they live in a mansion. Now, they are residents in the most chic hotel in the mountain. How badly does Britney want this trophy? Would she pay money for it? But those thoughts would have to wait for later. I have to get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow I will be going back home.

I shove my backpack into the car and squish into the backseat with George and Lily. It is very early in the morning, so thank god, the twins had fallen asleep as soon as they got into the car. My dad drives a tall car rolling on huge wheels. He starts the monster, and I lean my head on the window and stare out. Suddenly, I see a crazily flat car, looking like it got bashed with a hammer but stayed sleek and cool. I recognize it as Britney’s family’s car, and it’s driving right next to us. She looks despondent, so I sit up tall in my seat to look at her phone. Britney is watching a replay of herself skiing. Their car rushes past us, and I stare after it, pondering, for a long time.

When we get home, I throw my bag on my bed and collapse. The trip had been so long! It is already evening, so I decide that I need to do some research on Britney and her family, and then I would sleep for 11 hours.

Morning, I jump out of my soft and warm bed. The air is alive with the yells of George and Lily – and my mom and dad! Then I remember why I am hearing them. Because they are not at their jobs! It is the last day of spring break, so I take the chance to wear my fluffy sweater and sweatpants. Grabbing a handful of Fruity Cheerios and my gold-plastic trophy, I hurry out the door. I don’t even bother yelling at my siblings when stale cereal hits me on the back of my head, but I do bother yelling a good morning to my parents.

I run all the way across town to Billionaire’s Row. The biggest house looms in front of me. It is similar to the White House, just smaller. Still, it is very intimidating, with its white walls and floor-to-ceiling windows. I stare up and I see a window decorated with pink window stickers. I can just see the ceiling, which is pink. I know it is Britney’s room. I ring the doorbell, with much coaxing from the brave half of me. A narrow face flashes in front of Britney’s window and disappears. A couple of seconds later, the huge door creaks open.

Britney is standing at the door. “What?” she snaps, then spots the trophy and her eyes narrow. She probably thinks that I’ve come to brag in her face. “Fine, you won. I don’t care,” she growls.

“Did you want to win or did you want the trophy?” I ask. Some people like to just have trophies shining on their shelf. I hope Britney is like that. Her eyes widen, and I know that she’s deciding whether to lie or tell the truth.

“Just the trophy.” She lowers her head, miserable, like she just revealed her life’s biggest secret.

“Would you like to buy it?” I ask.

Britney’s head jerks up and she stares at me suspiciously. “Why would you want to sell it? It’s first place, and plastic mixed with gold.”

“I know.” I say, nodding.

Now that it is confirmed, Britney’s eyes light up with greed. She reaches into her pocket and extracts a pink purse. Then she freezes, and says, narrowing her eyes, “Why? What is the reason you would want to sell it? I am not buying it until you tell me.”

I try to coax her. With difficulty and with both arms, I lift the trophy up and wave it in front of her face. Then I tilt the trophy so it catches the glare of the sun. Britney does not move a muscle. I groan and say, “I want money to buy my favorite thingamajig from a store, alright?”

“Lie,” Britney says simply. She waits. I wait. She waits. I wait.

“I’m sure there are plenty of other people who would want this trophy and don’t want the reason.” I snap, but I don’t walk away. 

Britney smirks and starts to giggle. Then she starts to snort, then laughs full time. Suddenly her face becomes expressionless, and she looks at me and says, “Enough. Just tell me.”

So I do. It spills out of my mouth like a waterfall. It seems to me that I wanted to tell it before, but I didn’t want to at the same time. It is a relief to get it all out. Britney stands like a statue, her eyes fixed on me. When I’m done, Britney looks at me with a weird expression on her face. Then I realize that it is concern. I remember that her family used to be very poor. “Britney,” I say seriously. “I think you’ve just gotten your number one hundred and first expression.”

“Come with me,” Britney says. I’m pretty confused, but she leads me to an ATM machine and she inserts her credit card inside. Then Britney turns to me and frowns. “Don’t look, Olivia, I’m entering my passcode.” I turn away and look around. We appear to be inside a bank, and it is pretty empty. An old woman with white hair and glasses is slowly moving around behind a desk, doing stuff to papers from time to time. 

She looks up at me, takes around thirty seconds to process that I’m there, and says, “Oh, hello, may I help you?” Without waiting for an answer she turns and walks to the other end of the desk. 

Then Britney calls, “Okay, come here, Olivia.” I turn around and I see cash flowing out of the ATM machine as fast as words had flown out of my mouth. Then it jerks to a stop. “This is, I’m guessing, 500 dollars or so?”

“Oh my gosh, that’s so much, thank you!” I gasp.

She gives me a weird look. “That’s not enough! I’m giving you like, 200 million dollars. It’s just that the machine won’t give me anymore. ” I nearly DIED right then and there. 

“NOOOOOOOOO! Just pay the amount the trophy is worth!” The fact that I can take SO MUCH of someone’s money without doing anything will be enough to to make me guilty for the rest of my life.

“Okay, okay, 100 million dollars!” she cries.Without waiting for an answer, Britney marches up to the old bank lady. “Helga. 99 million, 999 thousand, 500, please.” She holds out her ATM card.

Helga smiles. “Hellllooooo, Britney.”

“Hello, Helga. 99 million, 999 thousand, 500.”

“How may IIIIII help you?”

“I would like you to take 99 million, 999 thousand, 500 out of my bank account.”

“Sooooooo. We are taking money out of a bank account.”

“Yes. 99 million, 999 thousand, 500, please.”

“Nooooooo. IIIIIIII cannot. You are underaged, Britney.”

Britney sighs in exasperation. “Okay, fine then. My parents will let me anyway.” She calls her parents. She glares angrily at Helga for being difficult. Helga blinks back at her slowly. Something similar to a staring contest happens between them, except Helga blinks constantly while Britney does not.

There’s a whirring sound outside the bank door and the flat car pulls out. Britney’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Tucker, walk arm in arm. “Yes, Britney? If you called us here for nothing, I shall be extremely upset,” Mrs. Tucker snaps.

I’m pretty sure Britney shrank a little. “Can Olivia get…100 million dollars?” She asks in a small voice.

“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY?” Mrs. Tucker roars. The sudden movement nearly jerks Mr. Tucker off his feet. Mrs. Tucker is furious. A hundred daggers shoot out of her eyes, ten at Britney and ninety at me. “DON’T YOU DARE TAKE MONEY FROM US, YOU UNSCRUPULOUS RASCAL!” She yells at me. Now she turns to Helga. “WHY DID YOU LET THEM DO THIS?” Mrs. Tucker screams.

Helga blinks. “Wellllllll, Mrs. Tucker, what is your question?”

“WHY DID YOU LET THEM DO THIS?”

“Because they-”

“TOO SLOW! WHATEVER!” Mrs. Tucker turns her angry gaze on everyone. This had never occured to me, but right now, Mrs. Tucker seemed 50 feet tall, while everyone else is as tall as an ant. At any second, she can stomp on us and crush us. 

Britney says, “Your motto is, ‘No act of kindness no matter how small is ever wasted.’ So…?”

“BRITNEY! I NEVER SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU MY MOTTO! I MEANT FOR THAT MOTTO TO MEAN THAT EVERYONE SHOULD BE NICE TO ME! I ONLY SAID THAT ON MOTHER’S DAY! AND YOU GUYS WERE LOUNGING AROUND, AND PROBABLY FORGOT THAT IT WAS MOTHER’S DAY!” Mrs. Tucker howls in frustration.

“Mother, you don’t want to be hypocritical, do you? And Dad and I did remember, it was SUPPOSED to be a surprise at night!”

Mrs. Tucker looks like a volcano, ready to explode. Her feet are shaking in their 7-inch thick heels. “Why didn’t you give me the surprise? Also, an act of kindness that I was referring to is like, giving a beggar a crumb!”

“No, your motto says any act of kindness, no matter how small. We didn’t want to because you were being mean to us.”

“YOU ARE BEING PLAIN HORRIBLE!” Mrs. Tucker stamps her foot, screeching like a howler monkey. She takes a deep breath. “Well then, isn’t it our choice how much to give?”

“Yes, OUR. Now I think we should give $100 million. Also, she is not taking money. I’m paying for this trophy.”

“Okay, pretend the trophy is an act of kindness from that human and let’s get out of here.”

“NO. I AM NOT DOING THAT.” Suddenly Britney stops, a smile on her face. “I’m sure that my followers on Instagram and Snapchat would love to hear about EVERYTHING my hypocrite of a mom did.”

Mrs. Tucker blanches. “You wouldn’t. I forbid you. Give me your phone RIGHT NOW.” 

Britney takes out her phone, takes a few steps backwards, and says, “I can send it immediately, but I’m not. Are you giving Olivia money or not?”

Mrs. Tucker hesitates. “Fine. Just don’t send it.”

But I didn’t want the money! I racked my mind to think of an excuse. “Guys, NOPE. I can’t bring it home anyway.” 

There is a triumphant look on Mrs. Tucker’s face as she looks smugly at Britney.

But Britney asks me, “What’s one of your parent’s phone numbers?”

“Uh, 4975935676.” 

“No it’s not.” Britney is using her crazy power again.

“9368036854.”

“Stop lying to me.”

“9175694589.”

“That’s better.” Britney dials the number and my mom picks it up. “This is Britney. Hi Mrs. Xu, you have to come to Bank of America. It’s an emergency. Bring Mr. Xu if possible. Olivia and I are on the third bank on Billionaire’s Row.” Then Britney hung up. “They’re coming,” she said, smiling widely. 

I know that my parents will be here any minute, because our once-happy house is right next to Billionaire’s Row, so I plead for Helga to help me, to hide me behind her desk. Britney forces me away. I start hyperventilating. Britney grabs my shoulders. “Stop it, Olivia. $100 million dollars is only a small portion of Dad’s money. It will not make a dent in it. So stop hyperventilating and take it!” 

Suddenly my mom and dad burst into the bank, panting. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” they cry. 

I glower at Britney, and she grins at my parents. “May I talk to you guys privately?” My parents shoot me worried looks as they follow Britney to the other side of the bank, glancing at the pile of cash at the feet of the ATM. I am in a trance as I watch them talk.  I groan and cover my eyes. 

“Mr. or Mrs. Xu, do one of you guys have PayPal? The money I have here is…” Britney checks the ATM. “$500, so you guys are going to get $99,999,500.” 

My dad nods slowly, almost as slow as the woman behind the desk. He takes out his phone. My hands take over. I run over to him and snatch the phone from him, clutching it tightly. “We are NOT receiving 100 million dollars. This trophy is more plastic than gold. It is worth less than 100 million.”

“Oh. Kay. Fine. Then. One. Mil. Lee. Un. Dol. Ar. S,” Britney says in something close to a growl, and I know that she isn’t going to take no for an answer. “But…….that’s x200 less than what I was going to give you, so how about-”

My dad and I speak at the same time with me saying: “No no no no no, that’s okay” but with him saying with a shrug: “Um, sure.” There is a tiny gleam in his eye.

My mom just frowns. Finally she says, “Don’t pity us. We can get on fine.”

Britney turns to me and my dad. “So I’ll give you $1 million. And there’s an extra $500.” I regretfully hand my dad his phone and turn away. He’s going to take the money. 

 I decide I should constantly be giving Britney’s family stuff, but there probably isn’t anything I can give her that her dad can’t get or doesn’t have. “Britney,” I say, “What is your biggest desire, your need, your want?” I want to know so I can get her something.

But she shrugs and answers, “I don’t have one. I don’t need anything.” 

“What is your biggest secret?”

“My secrets aren’t big, they’re barely even secrets.” Wow. This is getting to be way harder than I thought it would be.

“Well then, tell me your biggest.”

“The biggest…why do you want to know?”

“AAAAAAAAH, WE ARE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN!” I scream.

“Okay, okay, the biggest is Jessica does my reading homework for me.”

“Why?”

“Um, I kind of am bad at reading.”

“Oh my. Okay,” I say thoughtfully. “Do you have any books at home?”

“No. And don’t push it.” Britney’s face is as red as a tomato. I don’t. Mrs. Tucker grabs Britney and marches out the door, growling like a starved animal the whole time. Tomorrow, over to Britney’s I go.

When I wake up, I don’t want to get up because my bed is soft, but then I remember why I even woke up, and I jump out of bed. My dad has to leave now because of his job as a trash guy, so he is wearing his old and faded Snoopy T-shirt, cargo pants, and a cap. He waves as I grab some cereal from the box. We walk out together, but I turn right and he turns left at the crossroad. We did not speak for the whole time, not even a “bye” when we split. It was a good kind of silence though.

I go into Barnes & Nobles with some money and buy the best books I can think of, the Harry Potter series. The line is long, and the cashier is about as slow as the lady in the bank. Finally, carrying the bag of books, I step out of Barnes & Nobles and continue on to Billionaire’s Row.

Once again I knock on the tall wooden door, and once again the door is opened by Britney. “It’s so early….” she yawns. “Whaddya got in that bag?” 

I hold it out to her. “It’s yours. I got it for you.”

“What’s in it?”

“Books.”

“Oh. That’s nice.”

“They’re Harry Potter.”

“Uh, the problem is, I can’t read Harry Potter.”

“Oh man. I’ll teach you!”

“Haha.” Britney smiles, then she gasps. “Wait. You’re not joking?”

“No, of course not.”

“Okay…”

“This time every morning, on your doorstep?”

“Sure…”

“You’ll try hard, right?”

“Yes. Duh! I am the queen of trying hard! Come to think of it, I am the queen of everything!”

I leave Britney, who is flipping through the first book with doubt. True to her word, Britney works crazy hard, as hard as I did on skiing. Every day we struggle through a chapter or so, and finally, one day, we finish Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone.

“I’m going-to have a lot of fun…with Dudley this sum-mer.” Britney stutters through the last sentence. She flips the page, but the only thing there is the About the Author. Britney looks up at me in shock. “I finished the book?” she asks in disbelief. I nod, grinning a little bit, and she starts to laugh. It is crazy. She throws back her head and shrieks, which I assume is manic laughter. Then she stands up, still shaking with laughter, and says, “Thirty minutes are up. I’m getting back inside.”

We speed through the rest of the books and finish all seven. It is nearly summer already. When we finish Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Britney turns to me. “I will ask my repetitive question. Why?”

“It’s a long story…” I say.

“I have time. And tell everything, and what you thought of it, and how you processed it.” So I tell her. Fun fact: when she is interested, Britney is very good at listening. Once I finish, Britney is looking very, very sad. “I’m moving away this summer,” she says quietly. 

I gasp. “On the first day?” 

“Yes.”

“That’s in a week!”

“I know.” We sit side by side. Britney’s head is lowered, the success of finishing all the books forgotten. I don’t know how long we sat there. Finally, Britney stands. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“Just thinking,” I answer.

I left Billionaire’s Row that summer. My dad decided that “we should move to somewhere richer and fancier”. I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t. So on the first day of summer, I stood in front of our fancy car, clutching a book and the plastic/gold trophy. Olivia and her family were there to wave us off. “In the car,” my dad said, and I did, waving to Olivia. My dad started the car, and I looked out the window, waving until the Xu family was out of sight. That was the last time I ever saw Olivia, but she had given me something my dad couldn’t, and I remembered her. I still have the trophy. It sits on my counter, higher and separate than the other trophies. I learned how to write better, in a class in the city, and I wrote down in a journal, my first entry, everything that Olivia told me on the day we finished Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, and I created this. The trophy is a souvenir of my old life in Billionaire’s Row.

Britney

Where Have All The Goslings Gone?

Today the mayor of the town has gone out and stated that the entire pond has been dumped and taken away by an unknown villain. The mayor stated that there would be a $500 dollar gift for anyone who caught the person who stole it. The most important thing is that all the goslings are gone! The police are investigating and so far they have found some clues and suspects. One of them is named Jacob Hendreson. If you see him with a big truck that has animals quacking in it, tell the police immediately. We have seen him at the time of the stealing, but there were a few others there so we don’t know for sure. The other thing is that if you see someone by the pond, you should try to interrogate them. We also know that another suspect is Jimmy, who works at the doughnut store. He was seen close to when the crime happened as well. If you see him with a big trailer or a pond in his backyard then tell the police immediately.

It was early and I was going to get a doughnut from my friend Jimmy. I decided to go to the pond and sit for a bit, since I was tired. I saw a guy pull up in a big red truck and rip out the entire pond!!! I ran over, got into his truck and pushed him out. I drove the truck back to my house. I knew that someone was going to notice so I put the pond in the basement, and the goslings in the pond into my rabbit cage (they were so small that they all fit). A few hours later the police came in. They wanted to know if I had a pond. I knew what they meant and I was really scared.

I fake laughed and said, “No pond here!”

They left and I knew that I had to hide or destroy the pond. But I really did not want to because the pond was the town’s pride! But then I thought, what about the goslings? Where would they live? So I hid the pond in a better place. I put it in my closet. It didn’t fit too well but I didn’t think that people would go searching closets for ponds. I remembered the doughnuts and went and got some.

My friend Jimmy said, “The mayor went out and listed you as a suspect and said that if you saw anything suspicious tell him.”

Jimmy was nice so I was sure that he was not lying to me because he was nice and he was my friend. I was scared about that warning so I went back to my house and didn’t come out for the rest of the day.

I wanted to put the pond back but I would probably go to jail. I had an idea to put the pond back at night when no one was watching. I woke up that night and drove my truck with the pond in the back to the area where the pond used to be. I was about to put the pond down into the hole where it was when all of the sudden a police car went down the road. It was odd because there was no one else out. Then I remembered that it was take your duck to work day and that the police were taking their ducks to the pond to see if people were there. It was the only day of the year luckily. It took so long to remember that by the time I looked up I saw the policeman with handcuffs. Then I was being escorted away to jail.

I was in jail and I had to think of a way out. I saw a few keys that looked like they fit in the lock on a bench across the hall. I picked them up. The hall was very tiny. I opened the jail cell and looked for my car. I found my car with the pond still attached to it. I got in, got my keys, and drove away. I was ready to put the pond back when I realized that it was morning and my friend jimmy would be going to work at the doughnut shop, so I went back to my home. I felt really mad so I didn’t sleep too much so I went to my friend Jimmy’s store. I thought it would be nice to buy a doughnut from him, so I did. After that I looked and found out that there was nothing tonight and that nobody would be out so I could put the pond back. I got up at around 2 am and I got into my car and drove to the old pond area. I was about to put it back again when all of a sudden a bunch of people in birthday hats started singing the happy birthday song. This was the second time this happened! I was wondering what were the odds that this would happen two times? I was really mad so I went back to my house. I ate my doughnut in silence because everyone else was at the party. I then went to sleep. After that I had another normal day and I hoped that that night I would finally put the pond back into the hole that it was once in. I woke up that night and I got in the truck and drove over. I then put the pond in finally and drove back home. I really hoped that nobody would notice the pond back or they would trace it back to me. I was wrong.

The next day police came to my house and put me in court. The judge was Mr. Duck. A duck. He sentenced me to two years in jail. That’s when I saw the bad guy, the man in the truck. He looked super happy, like he was enjoying the fact that he wasn’t going to jail. He looked like a big guy that had too many doughnuts and he had a big scar across his face. Then I knew who it was: it was Jimmy all along! I had him come up and he said that he did it. Finally it was over. And I had ended this craziness. I went back home and got into bed. I saw on the news that the bad guy had gone to jail. I was so happy that I just went to sleep and stayed in bed for a day. Mostly because I was super tired though. I looked in the mirror and was shocked that I was so tired (well not really) and that I looked like I was really hungry. So I got some food and got back into bed. I was just so tired.

Crabby the Crab

It began silently when my mom’s friend bought a box full of live crabs. My mom went downstairs to get the box of live crabs since my mom’s friend was not able to go inside my home. My sister and my whole entire family were waiting for that box for a long time.

I was practicing piano at the time when my mom came home in a hurry. I closed my piano and went to see her. I didn’t see a box of live crabs but I saw one huge black bag. So I went to play with my sister for a while.

Then my mom screamed, “I will now show you what is called big crabs.”

Then she carefully placed a box in front of me and she told me to back off. Suddenly, something came to my mind! That was the box full of live crabs!

The box was yellow-brownish and it seemed like it was made out of bamboo. She opened up the box and then… there were live crabs! I was right. There were live crabs. They were blue female crabs. Their shells were brown. I knew they were female crabs because their backs are not a T shape like male crabs.

After my mom opened the box full of female crabs, I asked her if I could have the most active one. I said that because we were going to eat half of the crabs. We were going to boil them and eat their claws and bodies and mouths. Then I asked my mom if I could have a bowl. She gave me a big silver bowl and then she put the most active female crab in it. I immediately told my sister to give me a chopstick and a cup that was filled with water, but not drinking water. After that, I told my sister to give me the cup and the chopstick. She gave it to me and I started to play with the crab! But before I played with the crab, I poured the cup of water into the silver bowl and the crab was swimming in it!

The game we played was called Try to Catch My Chopstick. The crab was trying to get the chopstick and if the crab got the chopstick, then the crab got one point. If the crab didn’t get the chopstick, then the chopstick got one point. If the crab did a sudden attack and almost got the chopstick, then she won ten points! She did ten sudden attacks so she got 100 points.

We were amazed by how active she was! We went to the sink and told her how to dance! She started to dance! She jumped out of the water! She was beginning to be too wild! I noticed it and I took the chopstick that my sister gave me and I rubbed it against the crab’s shell and she calmed down. This was the time when I knew what to call her. The perfect name for her was… Crabby!

***

Night came and we knew where to put her bowl. We put her in the window because there was a lot of space and she could suntan. Before we put her in her new home, we moved her into a blue bowl. It was big so that Crabby could do anything in it. We made her a sun cover so that she would not become too hot. We looked at her for the last time of the day and went to sleep.

The next day came and we visited her. We fed her salt and day by day went and every morning we checked on her because we were worried that she was going to die. The third day came and we thought that she died, but surprisingly, she was still alive. The fourth day came. In the morning we looked at her for the last time. In the afternoon… she died.

From that day on, I would always remember Crabby. She was active, kind, sweet, and a survivor. I will never forget her, and even though she died, she will never forget me too.

Weird Food World

Chapter 1

Once upon a time… there was this guy named Bob, and stuff, I think. He lived in a house near a gurgling river. And in that river, instead of fish, there were swimming watermelons! And he lived underground with moles that were pears! And the oven was a heated banana! And the world was a hollow coconut! So he went above ground and saw a sunflower seed ant! The grass was hard like coconut skin and a pumpkin seed beetle.

If only I could find the Fruitanator 3000 and reverse it, thought Bob. So he set off to find the Fruitanator 3000. First he found a map and it said to go to The Pineapple Forest. So he went there and found the next clue. It said to get to the other side of the forest and find the next clue. When he got to the edge of the forest he found the Plains of Rambutan. There he found a colony of banana seed termites! They were running toward him. But they weren’t coming for him. He looked behind him. There were about 3000 grape bees! They came in groups from 30-400 per hive! Their hives were as big as fourteen golf balls. But their hive was made of Saltines. The bees could sting and that hurt! So Bob slithered every which way, dodging the bees.

Once that was over he saw an old wall covered in moss. It wasn’t just a wall though… it was a whole house! Who would live here? Bob whispered to himself. He went over to the house. There he saw the second clue! It said: Now go to the tundra made out of whipped cream, there you will find the last clue. Finally you will find the Fruitanator 3000. 

Finally! he thought. 

Chapter 2: The Fruitinator 3000

He found out that it was a long walk to the whipped cream tundras and he didn’t have proper gear. But on the way, he saw a small hut. He went inside and found out that there were a whole ton of jackets, boots, and hats. There were even sweatpants. He found out that it was a shop. He went to go pay for the things he wanted. He grabbed two hats, one jacket, three pairs of sweatpants, and two pairs of boots. Then he paid and it was a total of only thirteen dollars. Then he left to go on his adventure to the tundra.

A few days later he got there and he started looking. After a while he found a huge house and went in. Then he fell down a secret doorway.

He walked down the hallway and finally, enclosed in glass, there was the Fruitanator 3000. But then he realized he would have to go back home, through plains, through The Pineapple Forest, and finally back home where the moles were as green as the grass (FYI they were pears). On the long walk home he met one final animal. It was a giant lion made out of more than a trillion different seeds. He got past it by sneaking past him carefully. Then he went home and reversed the Fruitanator 3000 and zapped everything back to normal. 

UFO Universe

A UFO was spotted yesterday on June 7th over Brooklyn NY.

Meanwhile, mysterios MIBs (men in black) have been popping up all over Brooklyn.

Nobody knows where they have come from. On a side note, local pigeons have gone missing.

Here are some precautions to keep in mind: 

1: Try to have nothing to do with MIBs (men in black).

2: If you see a UFO, STAY AWAY, and call 911.

3: If anyone you know, their pets, or their children disappear, call 911.

4: If you notice a family member acting strangely, call 911.

5: If you see anything weird JUST CALL 911!

Here, Mrs Jane Landrish, 46, tells us about a UFO she spotted; she was one of the first to see them:

“It was 8:00 at night, and I was out for a walk. I was on 11th street and 6th avenue. I saw a shape in the sky. At first I thought it was an airplane, but then it lit up with a blinding white light. I closed my eyes, and felt it whoosh past. I opened my eyes. It was a strange, saucer shaped object, and it was hovering over a stray cat. I watched, as some sort of tractor beam pulled the cat into the ship. (I’ll just call that thing a ship.) I ran, terrified, back home, and locked the door.”

The interview ended there, with Mrs Landrish breaking into a cold sweat.

That’s what the newspaper said this morning. Yes, I read the newspaper, but only because my grandfather leaves it lying around. Anyways, I found that pretty intriguing. UFOs in Brooklyn! I put down the newspaper and turned to lie on my back. Ahhhh, Saturdays. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. No school. As I lie in bed and I stare up at the ceiling, I wonder if there really are UFOs in Brooklyn, or if it’s just a hoax.

I heard my door open. I look towards it. My dad’s standing in the doorway.

“You okay, kiddo?” He asked. 

“Yup.” I replied.

“Phew,” he said. “I was starting to think that you would never wake up!”

With that, he closed the door. I rested my arm on my night stand and knocked over my glass of water. I screamed. The water was still freezing. I heard footsteps. My door burst open. My grandpa was standing there. He took in the scene and then closed the door.

“False alarm!” I heard him yell to my mom and dad. I heard them run back down the stairs.

I sighed. It wasn’t enough that I was unpopular, I had to be clumsy. Plus I lost my favorite manga yesterday. And I was pretty sure I was coming down with a cold. AND a dog bit me yesterday. Thankfully, it was not a stray, it had been spayed. Yay, I didn’t have rabies. Still, stuff was pretty bad for me. I grabbed my phone. It was time to text my best friend, Amelia.

Hey!  Amelia!

What?

U free for laser tag at 1?

Of course, it’s Saturday!

I don’t have any other  plans! 

Oh yeah, how could I forget? LOL

See ya at 1!

I will so beat u today!

That’s what u think!

I turned off my phone. Well, at least now I had something to do. To be honest, just lying here in bed on my back was pretty boring. I got up, went to my closet, and pulled out some clothes: a turquoise size 12 t-shirt, a midnight blue hoodie, and some jeans. Then I checked my apple watch. It was 10:07. I had exactly one hour and fifty three minutes before I had to be at Lighting Lasers, the laser tag place. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a blueberry muffin. I ate it, then poured some orange juice into a cup, and took a swig. Nice and refreshing. Then I pulled on my turquoise converse high tops, and tied them. Then I grabbed my turquoise water bottle. Okay, you can say it. I like turquoise. Nearly everything I own is turquoise or blue. I ran outside and started my morning run.

I stepped outside and felt a warm, fresh breeze. It was a warm, sunny spring day. As I went to close the door, my pomeranian puppy, Emory, came through the open door, running, and jumped on me.

“Whoa!” I shouted, my arms flailing as I tried to regain my balance. Then I fell on my butt. “Ow!” I yelped. I stood up, trying to act as though that hadn’t just happened.

I heard someone say, “That looked painful.” 

I whirled around, trying to find the person who had spoken. It was my brother, who was standing in the doorway. He was fifteen, three years older than I am. He smirked at me, and I could see that he had his phone in his hand, which was replaying a video of what had just happened.

“You *censored* *censored* *censored* *censored* *censored*!” I screamed. “You’d better not post that!” 

“Okay, okay, I won’t post it.” he said.

“Good.” I said, turning away.

“Oops!” I heard him exclaim. I turned around, and he was smiling at me. “Posted it!” 

“Aaghhh!” I yelled. I ran at him, my fists clenched, and punched him in the face. 

“Ouch!” he yelled. It didn’t stop with one punch, though. I had been taking taekwondo lessons, and I was a black belt. I punched him again, hit him with roundhouse and snap kicks, hit him with a neck chop, and punched him some more. By the time I was done, he was sporting a bloody nose and lip, a black eye, several bruises, and a broken arm.

He lay on the ground, curled into a fetal position. He had no idea that I had been taking taekwondo, and he had no idea how good I was.

“You know what?” I said. “I think that’s enough exercise for now. I’m going inside.”

I stepped over his trembling body, and into the house. I set down my water bottle, and picked up my phone. 

At that very moment, my phone rang. It was Amelia. Funny, I was just about to call her. I answered the call and heard her voice on the other line.

“Maia! Come quick! We’ve got a situation at laser tag.”

My dad drove me to laser tag. When I stepped inside, I saw Amelia arguing with two boys. The owner of Lightning Lasers, Josh, was sitting in the corner, reading a book.

“You can’t be here right now!” I heard Amelia saying. “We made a reservation!”

“We?” One of the boys said. “I don’t see anyone else with you. Who are you talking about, your imaginary friend?”

I could see Amelia getting angry. I decided that now would be a good time to step in.

“Oh, hi Amelia. Want to tell me what this is?” I asked, gesturing at the two boys.

“Maia! Thank goodness you’re here! I’ve been trying to tell these two that they can’t be here, because we made a reservation, but they won’t listen to me, and Josh has not done us a whit of good!”

“Huh?” Josh asked, looking up from his book.

“Don’t just sit there like it’s tea time, help us out!” Amelia screamed.

Okay, I should probably explain all the British-y stuff. See, Amelia’s mom is from England, and whenever Amelia gets angry, she starts talking like she’s British. Including a British accent. But the accent is only when she’s really mad, so it probably won’t come up now, over a thing like laser t-oh, the accent has kicked in.

“Listen, we were here first, so just leave and nobody get’s hurt.” She said, now with a British accent. To show that it wasn’t an idle threat, she punched one of the boys in the stomach.

“Hey!” he exclaimed. That’s when a full fledged fight broke out. Fists and feet flying everywhere. 

That’s when I heard a voice.

“Ahem.” I looked toward the sound of the voice. It was Josh. He had finally looked up from his book. “If it helps, we have a new version of laser tag. It’s a four person game.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” I demanded.

“I was occupied.” He held up his book and pointed at it.

“Ugh. You are SO annoying,” I said. “But yes, we will play the four person game, IF we get to be against them.” I pointed at the two boys. 

“Sure, whatever you want,” he said. “I don’t care.” 

I turned to look at the boys. It was payback time!

As I stepped into the huge, darkened room, designed for laser tag, I noticed that it had changed a bit. The walls were taller, and there were a few more power ups on the walls. I strapped on my gear and grabbed my laser tag gun. Then I was ready to go. 

The five minute timer started, and it was time to play. I hid in my favorite spot, in the corner behind the wall with a hole for a window. I saw the boys sneaking around, staying close to the walls. I jumped out from behind the wall.

“Payback time!” I yelled. Then I noticed the laser tag guns in their hands. They looked like something you would see in a sci-fi movie.

“Whoa.” I said. “Where did you get those? Did you bribe Josh?”

“No, foolish human.” One of the boys laughed. “These are ours. And they are real.”

“Wait, I’m sorry, what? A, you’re not allowed to have real guns in here. B, you’re not allowed to scare your opponents on purpose. And C, we’re all humans.”

“Those rules do not apply to us,” he said. Now he and his friend were walking towards me. The lighting was making their skin look grayish.

“Um, yes they do. They apply to everybody.” I said.

  “But not to us.” he replied. Now it looked like his hair was shrinking back into his head, and his teeth were growing sharper. It also looked like his eyes were turning completely white. That’s when I realized that everything that I thought was happening was actually happening!

“Y-you’re aliens!” I stammered.

“Yes. We knew that you would make that connection eventually. You, of all people, believe that we might be real. And we are. However, we are planning to conquer Earth, and if you had figured out that we were real, then you would have been a serious threat to our plan. So, we must stop you from figuring out that we are real. And there is only one way to do that.”

I started backing up. “W-what are you t-talking about?” I asked, fearing that I already knew the answer. I kept backing up, and then tripped and fell on my butt. I kept backing up, using my hands to pull and my feet to push. I felt my back hit the wall. 

The aliens were still walking towards me. I covered my face with my arms. The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was one of the aliens pointing their gun at me. 

French Fries

French fries, french fries you are

so salty, you taste like Greece, but a 

little more foggy How greasy, how greasy

you get my hands wet, I will pick one up 

and not break a sweat 

I get I get on the racing track

and see and see a big french fry

a ginormous french fry zips and zooms 

pass the checker finish line

At McDonalds, there is a line 

That you can see but there’s only one 

That stretches thus far a french fry

The line at McDonalds is all for 

A french fry, the line seams to

have french pies   

Just don’t forget the yellow marranet

A french fry

French fries, french fries, you are so hot,

And is it so yellow and tasty or not?

Oh melo my belo who are you?                              

A supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Or are you a french fry?

French fry, french fry how lovely you are

The Outbreak

Chapter 1: Rising

Buddy was in the house playing games. Suddenly, he hears a voice speaking really loudly outside. Since his parents aren’t home, he went to go see what it was. So, he left the house and started running to the sound. He ran so fast that he bumped into somebody. He bumped into his friend, Fred, and was surprised to see him. Fred whispered into Buddy’s ear, “Don’t go there! There’s a fallen hacker outside!” 

Buddy said, “Who is it?” 

“The captain of the fallen hacker, Vex,” Fred replied. 

So, Buddy and Fred went to their friend Teddy’s house. They knocked on the door and Teddy opened it.

Teddy said, “Come in! Come in!” 

Chapter 2: The Plan 

Teddy grabbed some water for Buddy and Fred. Teddy also knew about Vex. He told them that Vex was about to use the atomic virus to destroy the city.

“What is the atomic virus?” Fred asked. 

Teddy said, “It is a digital bomb just like a regular atomic bomb. If it is fired, we wouldn’t even live here because it would destroy us all.” 

Buddy said, “We need to stop that bomb!” 

Teddy said, “Don’t worry. We have a plan.” He showed Buddy and Fred the SHARD, the Malcom bridge, and the HACKERS TOWER. Teddy told Buddy that they need to go to the Malcom bridge and build a zipline to the top of the SHARD. Then they’d steal the f19 grappler and three javelins to fight the evil guards. Then they started to go to Teddy’s lab.  

Chapter 3: Stealth

As they went to Teddy’s lab, they got mini digital command centers. They got a drone and gave it some money to get some stealth boots. One hour later, they got the boots. They went downstairs with their boots and snuck up under Vex’s stage. 

Buddy wondered what Teddy was thinking. Why are we sneaking under a stage? He thought.  

Teddy grabbed a random rope from one of its wires and cut it. That would affect the stage’s sound barrier, which could barricade Vex’s voice.

Chapter 4: Lift 

They grabbed a grappler from a store and started heading to Malcolm bridge. When they got there, the bridge blinded them with its extreme light. The SHARD was 7,000 kilometers away from Malcolm bridge so they had to go one by one. When they got there, it was already 11:30pm. They were so tired that they had to rest on top of the SHARD. 

So the next morning, they woke up for breakfast. Luckily, Teddy bought some bread. They used the zipline to get to the guard’s outlet. They were lucky because the guard was outside. They explored around the outlet for some javelin. They found three javelins and even some extras! They heard some footsteps coming in the hallway. So they ran out of the door. 

Chapter 5: Escape

Guards started blocking the door so they had to use javelins to get out. After they ran out, they found a treehouse. But, some person was in the treehouse. He told them to come up. When they met the boy, he looked the same age as them. He told them that Vex’s guards have security cameras everywhere. “BEWARE!” He told them. He got them some water and food, and then they went out. 

Chapter 6: Reunite

After they went out of the treehouse, they saw Vex’s guards chasing them from behind. They had a green banner of digits on their armour. They were fierce and quickly gaining on Buddy, Fred, and Teddy. The group went to the retaliated forest. They ran until they couldn’t run anymore. Then they saw some cobblestone and went to see what it was. They found a jungle temple that early hackers built. It was between two digital trees. 

Buddy read about those. He knew that early hackers built it for shelter and the moss on the cobblestone meant eternity. He also knew that there were the most valuable treasures in the chest, but they needed to beware the hidden arrow turret.

Chapter 7: Inside

They went through the door of the jungle temple. They put the levers in the right order and walked in. The temple was as dark as the night. There were a few torches and they saw some symbols on the walls. Suddenly, Teddy froze. He sighed in relief. He almost touched a pressure plate.

He told Buddy and Fred, “If we press on a pressure plate, that means a trap will hit you!” Then, Fred looked at the moss on the side of the wall and he ripped them off only to find that it was hollow. Then, Fred touched something at the end. 

He said, “That was an arrow turret.” They started walking into the door and they found the treasure nestled between two stone blocks. They found diamonds, gold, silver, and marble. Then, suddenly someone ran into the treasure chamber.

It was the boy from the treehouse. He told him that the guards had been chasing him. Then, behind him, there was an ocelot. He told them that his name was Salty. They left the treasure there and started walking out of the temple. They went out of the retaliated forest and went to the city.

Chapter 8: Desire

They went to Hacker’s Tower. There was a sewer there beside the tower. The boy told them to go in. They jumped into the sewer and found a secret base. The boy introduced them to the captain and his dad. They had a huge command center in the base. Everyone in the base also wanted to barricade the atomic virus and stop Vex. The hope was very low because he could launch the virus any time. In no time, Vex’s footsteps were clocking on the sewer cap.  

Chapter 9: Hope

They walked out of the sewer. Then, behind them, Vex’s guard grabbed them. They felt hands go around them. They took them to Vex’s torture chamber. There was a stand with a lever and a pool of lava behind it. The room was all made out of glass and digital technology. They put them on the stand. 

“This could be it for us,” thought Buddy, Fred, and Teddy. 

Then suddenly, a guard fell with an arrow through his head. There was the boy and his dad and an army full of crossbows and swords! 

Chapter 10: Rejuvenation

After they went out, the boy invited them to stay for dinner. The dinner was quite awkward. They were using old fashioned forks and old fashioned plates. 

Teddy asked them, “Why do you use old fashioned stuff?” 

The boy said, “I don’t know.” 

Suddenly, they heard a bomb beeping. Luckily, it wasn’t the atomic virus; it was just a regular bomb. It destroyed the Mercury Tower, the smallest tower in the city. Vex’s guard killed 3,765 people in the explosion. People have to get rejuvenated if they want to survive. That meant plastic surgery.

Chapter 11: Explore

Buddy, Fred, and Teddy went to the scythed mansion to meet the richest man on earth and in the history of the city. They went to meet him because he was the only one in the city who could afford a conduit. They needed the conduit because it was a beacon that could destroy Vex’s evil weapons. They went to Harry Ross (The rich guy). 

They went to ask him, “Can we have a conduit?” 

He started to talk to himself quietly. Later he said, “I will give you the conduit, only if you find the nautilus shell and the heart of the sea.”

Three hours later, they came back with a huge nautilus shell and one silk touch on the heart of the sea. After they gave it to him, he came back with a pure gold conduit. Buddy took it from him and said thanks and turned away to Teddy’s house.

Chapter 12: Split

They put the conduit in Teddy’s safe jar. It was already 12:08am. They said goodbye and went home for some sleep. The next morning, they found a scarf when they took a walk in the retaliated forest. It was the boy’s scarf. 

They went into the jungle temple again. They avoided all the pressure plates and started walking to the treasure chamber. They walked past the treasure and found three levers. They pulled the levers in the right order and there was the boy, tied to the wall. 

After they got him out, the boy said in dismay, “Vex’s guard chased me and then I got whacked by one of its javelins, and that is why I ended up in here.” 

Chapter 13: Sacrifice

After they went out, two heavy guards pushed them against the wall to the torture chamber. Before they got their heads chopped off, there was suddenly a voice. It was the captain from the base. He started fighting and cut the chain off their arms and legs. The sergeant of Vex’s guard shot him with an arrow and then he died. They saw Teddy’s dog. They started heading towards the boy’s treehouse. And when they got there, there was the ocelot, who was Salty. They sat on a bean bag and played on their computers. One hour later, the SHARD exploded from Vex’s bomb! 

Chapter 14: Locating 

The boy told them that there was a new city that people were living in that had an arsenal of troops that could stop enemies. It was way better than the city and it was super protected by good guards. But they need a plane to go there and they couldn’t afford the price of the flight, so they went to Harry Ross for some money. He gave them 8 digital coins and that was enough for four people. Next morning Buddy, Fred, Teddy, and the boy packed up together and headed to the airport. When they got to the plane, there was everything that Buddy liked. 

Chapter 15: Plane

They were in First class and they had everything you could  imagine. The boy read a book to be entertained. Later, the flight attendant said, “Five minutes till landing!” 

When they got there, all of them were excited because they were safe. And they were right, it was safe. They lived in a really fancy hotel and in the best room, all thanks to Harry Ross. The room was filled with quartz statues, four beds, six tables, eight chairs, five bathrooms, two dressing rooms, and a snack cabinet. 

Chapter 16: Regardless

At 8pm, they went for a walk on the hotel bridge. By 10pm, they went back to their room and watched TV. On the news, it said “VEX DESTROYED THREE-QUARTERS OF THE CITY!” “Vex is going to destroy our city,” they thought. 

Buddy said, “We have allies so, we can all defeat him.” 

The next day, they told the king of the city about Vex. He said he would round up all the guards he had. They went to the computer room and located the city that Vex lived in a few years ago. The king told them they have a secret base under the pool. They dived into the hotel pool and pulled the trap door open. Inside, there were a lot of people hacking other evil hackers. The king showed them around the dungeon. There were a lot of cells for the prisoners. 

Chapter 17: Spells

They walked out of the dungeon and started to their room. They slept till 11:00 in the morning and then went to the palace. When they got there, the king showed them the most powerful digital spells they had. The king said if you said the wrong spell, the spell will deflect back to you. That made Buddy stunned. Later that day, they went to the lab and typed in an ultimate bug software to save the city. 

Chapter 18: Conclusion

Next day, they heard the news say that Vex was going to destroy the city that they were living in right now. They went to the palace to tell the king, but the king had already rounded up an arsenal of troops and a lot of royal bodyguards. They heard the planes coming in, but now we have allies so we can defeat them. 

THE END 

The Doll

1865. Adelaide Mason was a well-behaved 9-year-old girl. Her parents were very rich, and Adelaide got everything she could ever want. The Mason family lived in a mansion on Grandiose Drive, in Indianapolis. Adelaide had one older brother named Charles, who was 15 years old. 

Mrs. and Mr. Mason never believed that their daughter would ever run away. How could she? She got everything she could possibly want, and a huge house. But they thought wrong. 

On October 2nd, Adelaide Mason ran away at night. Mrs. Mason was the first to notice. The front door had slammed shut, and it woke her up. 

“What is that?” she screamed

“Probably your imagination,” replied Mr. Mason

The next morning, Mrs. Mason called Adelaide to breakfast. There was no answer. 

“Dorota, go fetch Adelaide from her room. She’s probably not awake yet,” Mrs. Mason said to one of the maids. 

Dorota came down to tell Mrs. Mason what had happened. 

“Adelaide is not in her bedroom,” Dorota told Mrs. Mason.

Everyone searched everywhere, but there was no sign of Adelaide. They searched all the nooks and crannies, and all around the Masons’ property. 

Then, Mr. Mason called the police. The police looked all around town and asked everyone on the street if they had seen a short girl with black curls and fancy clothes on. No one had seen Adelaide.

That night at dinner time, a creepy doll appeared in Adelaide’s chair. The doll looked exactly like her. Tight black curls and a pretty white lace dress on just like the one that Adelaide had. Except that the doll was not as big as her, and really creepy. The doll had a bloody face and blood all over the white lace dress. 

“What is that doll doing here?!” yelled Mrs. Mason

It seemed like the doll was trying to say something to Mrs. Mason, but it was so hard to hear, and she couldn’t make out the words. 

“Ah! Charles, did you take one of Adelaide’s dolls and put red paint on it?” asked Mr. Mason

“I didn’t do anything, I swear,” replied Charles

“Ok, get that thing out of here Dorota!” yelled Mrs. Mason again

Mrs. Mason was very upset. Someone was trying to replace her own daughter with a creepy doll. 

The next morning, everyone walked to the table feeling really tired. At first, they didn’t even realize that the doll was also walking into the kitchen. She even sat at the table. 

“Oh my goodness! What is with that doll!” screamed Mrs. Mason 

The doll was wearing a white dress with puffed-up shoulders, and a green shawl. It was the same dress and shawl that Adelaide had. That sure woke up the Mason family. 

“Dorota, go throw that thing in the garbage. It is disturbing us, and creeping us out,” said Mr. Mason

Dorota went and threw the doll in the garbage can. 

“That doll is concerning me,” said Mrs. Mason, worried.

“Yes, I don’t know what to do with it. It seems to be a doll version of Adelaide,” replied Mr. Mason

“But, but that is not possible!” stuttered Mrs. Mason

“I know it’s not, but what else could it be? It looks exactly like our daughter, and acts like her also,” said Mr. Mason, again making a point. 

“Did Adelaide have any dolls that looked like her?” asked Mr. Mason

“No, I do not believe so,” replied Mrs. Mason.

When the Mason family was done with their breakfast, Mrs. Mason decided to go up to Adelaide’s bedroom to remind herself of her daughter who she would never see again. When she walked into the bedroom, she saw the same doll Dorota had thrown away on Adelaide’s bed. 

“Where in the name of heavens did this doll come from?” screamed Mrs. Mason acting really startled. 

She decided to take the doll out to the garbage bin and hoped to never see it again. 

The same day repeated over and over again. Dorota taking the doll to the garbage, and it coming back every single day. As the same day happened over and over again, Mrs. and Mr. Mason became more aware of it. After over two weeks of the doll coming back, the Mason family agreed to not take it to the garbage anymore because it would do nothing.

The doll began to be the new Adelaide and started to do the same actions as she would take. The Mason family was getting more and more scared and creeped out.

After one week, Mrs. Mason had an idea to kill the doll. She was going to cut up her hair, and just destroy the doll. 

The next day, Mrs. and Mr. Mason got to work. They first cut off some of her hair and made it all frizzy. Then, they ripped up her dress and drew shapes all over her face. Finally, they put her in a garbage bag, tied it up, and brought it to the dump. 

After that, the doll never came back, but neither did their daughter. 

The Mason family never ever believed that they could kill their own daughter, but they just did, not realizing it. 

That night, when Mrs. Mason was in Adelaide’s room, there was a note on her bed. The note read:

You have killed your own daughter. I am the one who turned her into the doll. She was tired of being rich.

Sincerely, 

The witch Beatrix

“Oh my goodness!” Mrs. Mason weeped

She called everyone else into Adelaide’s bedroom. It was a sorrowful night. Everyone cried and had nightmares about the doll that was actually their family member. 

The next morning, Mrs. Mason went on an adventure. She went out into the woods and looked for Witch Beatrix. 

She walked about a mile, and a tall slender woman with a cloak came to her. 

“You must be Elizabeth Mason,” said Witch Beatrix.

Witch Beatrix had a deep voice and never showed her face. She always hid her face under the hood of her cloak. 

“Yes, and you are Witch Beatrix, the one who turned my daughter into that horrible doll,” replied Mrs. Mason. “But, who exactly are you, and why did you turn my poor little daughter into a dol?,”

“I did that because that is what she asked of me. She was tired of being made fun of at school because she was so rich. If I turned her into a doll, she wouldn’t have to go to school and experience it anymore,” Witch Beatrix told Mrs. Mason, “And I am witch Beatrix. I grant people wishes whenever they need me,” 

“It doesn’t seem as though you grant people their real wish,” added Mrs. Mason.

“I grant people what is needed for them,” argued Witch Beatrix. “Now go.” 

“Wait. Adelaide could have just told me. She loves me and would tell me anything,” said Mrs. Mason.

“Ahh, you thought you were a good mother giving your child everything she wants, but actually that is the wrong choice to make,” responded Witch Beatrix

Mrs. Mason went back to her home and thought about what she had done. She had killed her own daughter and didn’t even know it. 

After that, the Mason family learned their lesson. To discipline their children, and to get more information before taking action.

The 2 Cat and 1 Monkey Friend

BUTTERCUP

Hi my name is Buttercup, and one of my best friends is named George. He is a brown, white, and black cat, and one eye is green and the other is blue. I am the color peach and white. One of my eyes is bleached. I was put in the laundry machine, and one day my mom put bleach on my eye by accident. When I looked everywhere, I had x-ray vision. My other best friend is Mr. Monkey. He is dark brown and peachy color. Both of his eyes are black. He loves bananas. He can dance. I went to Peru with George. Mr Monkey didn’t want to go. We came back from the trip, and George was gone. Six months passed, and we didn’t find him, until my aunt said that she found him. When I saw him, I burst into tears. Stuffing was coming out of my eyes. I slept good all the time everytime George was here.

GEORGE

Hi my name is George, and I am going to tell you about what I have been doing during those six months. I have traveled to the kitchen. DUH DUH DUUUN! It was such a journey. There were mountains. The humans were so strong that they picked up the mountains. One of them said they were books, but I think they were mountains. I had to run over the humans. It was so difficult. I started to jump, and a person looked at me and called someone and said, ’’I found him.’’ In my head, I said, “Yeah right.’’ I met my best friend/my brother. I was so happy I hugged him so tight. I went back home and slept right away, knowing my brother is always going to be with me side by side.

MR. MONKEY

Hi, my name is Mr. Monkey. What I did during the six months is sleep, eat, sleep, eat, and so on. I was relaxing until I wanted to get a banana. I had to face the DOG. DUN DUN DUUUUN. I ran as fast as I could, and the dog was chasing me. I jumped on the dog and jumped to the bananas. I did! I ate one and quickly ran back to my room. I am named Mr. Monkey because I am also elegant. I always put a towel around my neck to be clean. I also am a teacher. I teach Buttercup and George. I am in Monkey University. I learn how to use bananas to make different chemicals.

My Journal

Chili was in a closet. The police are outside. He was panicking. He didn’t know what to do except run. He heard the footsteps and the calling of the stalker. He’s crying, but he couldn’t make any noise OR HE’S DEAD.

1 week before all of this happened

He was at home doing his homework before he heard a noise in the wall, and next to Chili’s wall was just cement that’s all. The noise was louder and louder just like his heart beat. He went closer to the wall and his sweat was running through his skin. He couldn’t breathe. 

Was this normal? 

Like a flash, he ran to his mom so hard the tiles on the floor broke like pencils. Chili told his mom what he had heard, but his mom told him, “Do you have a fever?” 

Chili went back into his room and heard the same voice. He ran to his mom again, and his mom said she heard a voice too. They called the popo and they came in 10 minutes.

When they were about to go outside, someone pulled them in…

What happened

They got pulled in and they started to scream, yell, kick, punch. The door closed and got locked.  Tears ran down their throats. Their voices were cranky and painful. While they were screaming, the person was getting more angry. 

Chili said to his mom,”I TOLD YOU SO NOW WE ARE GOING TO GET KILLED.YAY”

“IT’S NOT MY FAULT!” Chili’s mom said. While they were getting dragged, Chili was playing on his phone. His mom was like ಠ_ಠ. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU ARE CRAZY!!!! ¿(❦﹏❦)?HIDE THE PHONE!!” 

“My phone died.”chill said. “Wahhhh!  I NEED A CHARGER.”

  (╥﹏╥)LET ME JUST DIE “JUST KILL ME’’ 

Far away, they saw a glowing silver sparkle. It was a knife! They started to scream and scream and scream. 

Chili’s mom kicked the stalker in the leg, and the stalker fell on his face, and they started to run.ヽ(゚Д゚)ノ.

They ran to Chili’s  mom’s room since there were more hiding places than Chili’s room.They hid in the closet  (∩︵∩). While he was in the closet, he felt excruciating pain. He saw he made a big cut on his leg when he ran, since he dropped glass and fell on it. He had covered his cut with his sweater. He must have been so focused on saving his life he didn’t really focus on the cut. He kept on losing a lot of blood. He had a fever and his face had turned green and yellow.(´~ヾ ).His mom was helping him as much as she could. Chili was about to scream because of the pain. Chili’s mom covered his mouth. Chili’s mom peeked through the closet and she saw the stalker distracted. Chili’s mom told him to try to stand up but he couldn’t. Chili’s mom took the risk, put Chili on her back, and ran. But then they heard police with the sound of the guns ready for anything that comes in their way. They heard punching, tasers, and other things. At the end, they caught him. Chili and his mom got out of the house and they saw his face. 

It couldn’t be. Is this real? There he was. Chili’s 5th grade teacher. With a smirk on his face. Chili was happy that he and his mom were safe and sound, but that night haunts him every night. It is a mystery why Chili’s teacher did that.

THE END

(ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ ✧゚・: *ヽ(◕ヮ◕ヽ)

Bob the Dwagin

Chapter 1

Once upon a time, there was a dwagin named Bob. Bob lived in a cave in the middle of nowhere. 

He used to live in a waterfall by a lake named Peace on this land. He was kicked out of the waterfall because he kept breathing fire on tourists and stuff! 

But there was one boy that wanted the dwagin to stay. The boy’s name is Billy. Billy loved dwagins. They were his favorite animals. He loved every type: water, ice, fire, earth. Everyone, except undead dwagins. Undead dwagins were mean and ferocious. They attacked anyone they saw. Billy’s favorite type was fire though, because they were classic. That is why Billy wanted Bob to stay at the waterfall. 

But the other townspeople wanted him to move. They all shouted, “Move! Move!” to Bob the dwagin. But Billy told everyone that Bob shouldn’t move because he was happy with his “company” there. But they all disagreed. Everyone said that he was dangerous and unfriendly. 

Once he moved, Billy snuck away at night to find Bob. It turned out Bob found a cave near the village, but still in the middle of nowhere! It was small and warm and snug, but it was too small to have his friends over.

Chapter 2: The stuff

When Billy found Bob, they decided to go out and play. While they played, Bob found a big wooden box that was lined with real gold, and it was really heavy and locked. Luckily, Billy had a paperclip so he opened the chest. In the chest were diamond and gold, and even a note. It said: So ye found the treasure all filled up with gold, now go to the town and get your reward. 

“Wow!!” said Billy. “Sorry Bob, but you can’t go.” 

Bob was kind of sad because they found the treasure together, and he wouldn’t be able to get his reward. Billy said that he would ask the mayor for his reward. Bob felt better after Billy told him that. So Billy carried the big treasure chest all the way to the town. When he showed the mayor what he had found, the mayor was so happy he let him take two things from the chest, then it would get transported to the museum.                                                                   

Soon after he finished speaking, the moving truck arrived to pick up the chest. Soon, 

everyone wanted to go to the museum and see the chest. 

“You did a good job,” the mayor told Billy. 

Then Billy asked, “Mayor, can Bob come back? Because he was the one who found the chest.” 

The mayor was so happy with Bob that he let him go back to the waterfall. When Bob went back to the waterfall, he hugged Billy. He noticed that everyone was there, and they weren’t scared of him anymore. Bob felt happy. He was smiling. So he lived happily ever after. 

THE END 

The ABCs of Helpers

A for ambulances who help people who fell on the street

B for bus drivers who make sure kids are not late for school 

C for cops who arrest people for robbing banks

D for doctors who help people who are sick

E for Electrician workers who help people who can charge TV

F for firemen who help when there is a fire

G for garbage men who pick up garbage because it is going to stink

H for homework helpers who help people who need help for homework 

I for ice cream helper when it is hot 

J for janitors who clean

K for kitchen helpers who help people cook

L for librarians who help people who need help finding the books 

M for museum workers who make sure people don’t break glass in the exhibits 

N for nurses who make people feel better 

O for office helpers who make sure people who work get money 

P for plumbers who fix toilets when they get broken and when they’re not working 

Q for quilters who make cute quilts to keep people warm 

R for radio workers make sure music is perfect! 

S for sanitation workers who wash the streets

T for teachers who help people learn 

U for umbrella makers who make umbrellas so when it rains people can buy them 

V for van drivers who drive people 

W for waffle makers who make waffles 

X for x-ray workers who check people’s hand, feet, and body 

Y for yoyo makers who make yoyos that bounce

Z for zookeepers who take care of the animals 

Granny

Beep! Blop! Beep! The annoying sound of my alarm clock wakes me up. I am about to go back to sleep when I remember it is the birthday of my grandma, Granny Mary, and what I don’t know is what she wants. I creep down the stairs into her bedroom and open her trunk of memories. That is when I stumble across a ripped-off page of her diary from when she was younger. Here is what it says:

Dear Diary,

Today was my 10th birthday and it was all going perfectly until my brother Tommy “accidentally” threw out all my presents (video games) and birthday treats (Oreos, sprinkles, Chips Ahoy, various other cookies, and ice cream in a wide range of favors). I am so mad and upset at him. I wanted the video games so badly, but I remembered that I am a girl, and a girl is not allowed to have video games or even like them, so I guess that I will get another doll to add to my huge collection of dolls and not have any video games. I really want to have equal rights and be able to get video games. Hopefully next year will be better.

-Mary Blob

That is when I realize what to get Granny for her birthday. I will give her the birthday that she never had. I grab the diary entry and rush to my parents’ room.

“Mom, Dad, wake up!” I say in a rush.

“What is it?” answers my half-awake mom.

“I know what to get Granny for her birthday,” I say.

“Great, what is it?”

“First, you have to get out of bed and get dressed,” I say.

With that, my mom jumps out of bed, gets dressed, and heads downstairs. I go down the stairs and get a bite to eat. We meet in the car.

“So where are we going?” says my mom, still unsure of what we are doing.

“We are going to the Toolfast Shopping Center. There we will see Mathew’s Marvelous Market where you will get…” I take the diary entry out of my pocket and read, “Oreos, sprinkles, Chips Ahoy, various other cookies, and ice cream in a wide range of flavors. I will also get all video game related things in stock at Violet’s Video Game Hut.”

My mom says, “But you will…”

“…not get all the video games in stock—only a few.” I say, completing my mother’s sentence.

“Okay,” she says.

We arrive at the Toolfast Shopping Center. I hand my mom the diary entry. We know what to do. We jump out of the car and head our separate ways. When I arrive at Violet’s Video Game Hut, I notice that all the games are sold out except for Super Mario Brothers, a game from when she was a kid. I guess that is the only game I could get her. I wish I could give her more video games because she really wanted them. Whether or not my mom gets the other stuff right, video games were the main thing she wanted.

 I meet my mom back in the car.

“The supermarket went well,” my mom says in her cheery tone, “I got everything on the list!”

“The video game store was a disaster,” I say. “They were sold out of everything except for Super Mario Brothers, so I got that but not any one of the games she wanted.”

“That is exactly what she wanted. She always told me that she wanted Super Mario Brothers. That is the perfect gift!”

“So what are we waiting for? We have a party to throw!” I say, containing my excitement for the party.

With that, we jump into the car and rush home. One we get there, we wake up everyone, except Granny. We set everything up. We just finish setting up when my sister hears Granny coming down the hallway, so we hide. When Granny arrives in the kitchen, we all jump out and say, “Surprise!”

Granny is very surprised! We all gather around and sing, “Happy Birthday” to her. After that, we play party games and have all the treats on her list. She is flattered. At the end of the party, we give Granny her presents. Mine is the last one to be given. My mom hands her the gift.

“Super Mario Brothers!” Granny says. Her face is full of joy. “I have always wanted this. Mia, thank you for the best birthday ever!” Granny says.

“How did you know it was me?” I reply back.

“Your mother told me. Thank you.”

Granny gives me a big hug. I hug her back. We go back to partying. It is clear that it is the best birthday ever.

Do Aliens Exist?

Yes, they do exist. There was once an article I read in school that said “Aliens do exist, because there is life on Mars.” There is life on Mars because studies show that there used to be water in between the rocks on Mars. This is important because life can’t exist without water and wherever there is water, there is life. Another reason I think that aliens do exist is the one time I actually saw one….

Chapter 1: The beginning and stuff

The first thing you have to know about New Jupiter is that it used to be filled with aliens. Until the basic humanoids (also known as droids) came along. They destroyed every alien in sight. Some got away but the rest were terminated. Once you get to know droids, they’re quite nice. But some droids are bad. They’re never bad on purpose though. They are programmed by Cybermort. He used to be an alien himself. Then some mean aliens kicked him and his followers out of Old Jupiter and into CybaMars (what Mars is called today). Cybermort wanted revenge. He wanted revenge because of a lot of things but the main reason he wanted revenge was to destroy all the aliens, even himself.

Chapter 2: I find the alien

I ran across the stage to door 1-A, as I crossed the theater room and up the stairs.

The assignment was due today and I only had a matter of time before the bus left. I ran like the wind as I sped down the hallway of my house. I raced to my room, opened the closet door, and took out my 7000AMKV Hoverboard. After that, I wasn’t worried, I jumped out the window with my hoverboard connected to my feet, hoping I wouldn’t be late for school.

Our bus driver wasn’t normal. He had two claws for hands, a fish tail, and the head of a velociraptor. He drove the kids to each class, which was in their own building. I had astronomy class first then I headed to my homeroom where Ms. Satan was doing her usual morning routine of yelling at kids, “teaching” math, smoking an electronic eyeball, and looking at her devil tattoo. After I was done with that torture, I had my favorite class yet, science! Science class is my favorite because we get to do experiments and blow up stuff. I also like science because my science teacher has a dark history.

I was making my way to music class, when I got tackled into a locker by a mysterious creature. Suddenly, the creature with big green muscles whispered in my ear, “##! ####! %#####! ^%$$%%@!” Out of my shock, I managed a very loud SCREEEEEEEEAM! Suddenly the doors burst open, and the security rushed in. 

“What happened here?” the security guard said. 

“An alien!” I screamed. Suddenly, my eyes rolled into the back of my head and I passed out.

Chapter 3: The power of the scroll

I woke up in a strange reality that had strange metal ground and some robot-like creatures suddenly the scene changed and I was in an ancient building which I could tell from history class at school. I sat up and looked at my surroundings and saw a very slow creature. The creature had big tusks and scorpion-like legs and a mouth full of black teeth. As it came closer to me, I saw that it was talking in a strange voice. I reached out to touch it, but my hand just went through like it was a ghost. 

Then the scene changed once again. And I was in an ocean. I saw a green magic scroll laid at my feet. I went to reach for it, starting to read what it said.

One will find the ancient being, an innocent supernatural with ancient blood. They must find the secret mask for it will lead you to a final task and there you shall fight with all of your might. For this battle is great and shall lead to your destiny. This magic scroll is still untold of what it can do. But all I know is to give it to you. 

The letter disappears into smoke and a magic, green flame burns around it. I take the scroll and it surprisingly doesn’t burn me. And suddenly, I can’t breathe. I’m underwater for too long. I try to imagine getting out of this place. Suddenly, the scroll starts to glow and everything goes black. 

The Final Battle… or is it? 

I woke up on the strange metal land I was on before. This time, I was inside a giant vase that had two letters on it. C and M. I was guessing this was the final battle. Then gripped the scroll and imagined I had an elemental sword. And when I slashed it, it came out as different elements. A different element for every slash. I felt a tingling sensation in me that told me to hide. I hid myself behind a big beam as three robotic-like creatures came around the corner. I jumped out from the beam I was behind and slashed with my sword a fire that came out and knocked them down before they could even get their shock rifles out. I assumed they were cyborgs by the robotic parts on their head. Then I heard the alarm blaring, twenty five shock troopers surrounded me. Before they could shoot, an alien with super speed came behind all the cyborgs in a couple of seconds, knocking them all out. 

“Hey you’re the alien from school,” I said. I recognized the alien from his muscular green body and his black teeth, like the creature from my dream. But this time I could understand the creature as he talked in his foreign language. 

He said, “Go. Go away. I will distract them. Go. Defeat! Go defeat Cybermort. And avenge us all!!!!” 

Then I start running down the hallway, listening to the alien. Something was motivating me to trust him. As I reached the final port, I saw cybermort sitting in his red chair.

“Well well well,” he said. “The hero is finally here”

I charged at him but he dodged my sword. Then he pointed his finger at me and yelled, “HADOUKEN!”

Suddenly my body was set on fire. I slowly put it out by slashing my sword at me. No damage was done to me, but it was the element of water. I yelled, “Bring it on!” Then I tried to hit him again with incredible speed. Hitting him with a knockout blow. 

“Ooof!” he yelled as electric sparks flew out of his body. Then the most incredible thing happened. Cybermort fell off the railing and all the cyborgs shut down. 

Then my alien friend rushed toward me and held my hand. Suddenly, my eyes closed and the world went black.  

And that’s how I know aliens exist. 

Scary and Short Stories

THE COUPLE AND THE RIVER

A couple, Tom and Julia, were walking on a bridge over a river. 

Tom said, “I love y–” 

Then Julia fell into the river. Tom couldn’t save her. Later, he went home and never went outside, even for her funeral.

“I can’t take it anymore.” He threw himself in the river and drowned.

THE BOY IN THE TRAIN

His name was Sam. He was my love, my sweet, my everything. Then something tragic happened.

When we were walking to the train, he fell on the train tracks. I was on my phone, I didn’t notice, so when I heard the train coming I was looking for him, I called out:

“Sam! Sami!!! Where are you?”

Then he said, “Right here, mommy.”

I screamed, “Help, please!” But it was too late, the train had run him down. It was the saddest time for me, really sad.

Every night now, I scream “Sami.” I can still hear his voice echoing in my head saying, “I’m right here, mommy…”

Love you, Sami.

THE BOOGEYMAN

One century ago, there was a man whose name was Boogey.

When Boogey was a child, he would go to school and the other students would make fun of him for his name. So one day, in high school, he never showed up to class. His parents searched their house and never found him. His fellow students, of course, didn’t care. People say he went into the woods and starved to death, but two weeks later, somebody found his body in his basement. SUICIDE.

Some people say that they’ve seen his ghost in their basements or in the closets. One boy, Jimmy, named him the Boog Monster, but he is well known as the BOOGEYMAN. 

THE TWO GIRLS IN THE LAKE

One day, there was a family, they had two daughters, Helen and Sofia, and a son, Jimmy. They lived in Maine, close to a lake.

One day, when it was very cold, Jimmy wanted to go ice skating. So Helen and Sofia took him outside and helped put his ice skates on. Then he went ice skating, and the ice started breaking under Jimmy’s feet. Then Helen and Sofia pushed him out of the way in time. But then Helen started to feel the ice breaking under her feet and so did Sofia. Then the ice broke. The two girls had drowned. Jimmy ran home crying… 

Two weeks went by and Jimmy wouldn’t get out of his bed. That night he saw two shadows walking on the lake holding hands. It was his sisters. He got so scared that he locked the door to his house. Then the sisters barged into the house, took Jimmy, ran to the lake, and drowned him.  

THE DEAD HAUNTING

One day, there was a town called Death’s Peak. It was actually the happiest town in the world, but that changed one day when it started raining, it rained everyday for years and the town grew sad.

The rain was overwatering the plants and there were many floods, and people grew sick and died. Four years later, the whole town died, but the ghosts of the people still remained in the town and were abandoned for about a century…

Then some people came to the town and built over it. The ghosts grew mad and started to burn and kill each one of the people that had tried to build a town over theirs. Twenty years went by and they had killed over a thousand people. The town still remains and is known as Doodletown or ghost town.

DEJA VU 

One day, there was a girl named Sophie. She had a bunch of problems (mentally) so nobody would believe whatever was about to happen.

When Sophie was walking to school alone because her parents were sick and needed rest, so while Sophie was walking, she saw a big dog, so she took it home without telling her parents.

That night she heard a scream coming from her parents’ room. Then she saw what the dog really was. It was a tall man holding a knife. Because of her mental illnesses, she had seen a dog, not a man, then he stabbed her…

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

There was once a girl named Melissa, and she had no friends. One day, she was walking on the street and she came across a beautiful mirror in an antique shop that was closing up. So she bought it for four dollars.

When she got home, she put the mirror in her room. Then in the night she heard a whisper. There wasn’t anyone in her room so she went back to sleep.

An hour later, she heard another whisper. Then she got up and looked at the mirror. Then a dark figure appeared in the mirror. 

Melissa looked behind her and saw nothing. But in the mirror, there was a man. 

He said, “I’ve been thinking a lot, and I wanted to ask, will you be my friend?”

“Yes,” Melissa said without giving it one thought. They spent the whole night talking and then it was time for school.

Melissa was happy that she had a friend. But that day in school, some girl, Hannah, asked Melissa to be her friend. So she did.

The next day, she couldn’t find Hannah anywhere. She asked the teachers about it, but all they said was that she was probably just sick… They were wrong.

A week later, they found out that Hannah had been murdered. 

So here was the crime scene. She was standing in her room. Her room had a bed, a small couch, a dresser and a mirror… Melissa froze, and then asked her friend if he was anywhere else than in her room. 

He said, “No? I just stayed here and—how was your day?”

“Fine,” Melissa said.

Then he started talking about his life. He said he was never loved by anyone, not even his family. Then his big eyes started to turn black. Then he said his name was Jereld, and that he just always wanted a friend. He also said that when he was three, his classmates made fun of him because of his big eyes, then he said, “You have big eyes.”

Melissa ran as fast as she could outside of her house…

Melissa woke up in her room and checked the mirror. Jereld wasn’t there. But a little later, she found out he changed his name and his gender. Now he is known as BLOODY MARY.

THE ICEBOX MURDER

In 1921, Charles Rogers was born.

When Charles was a young boy, he was physically and mentally abused. Later on in life he was very stressed after a couple of years he went psycho and only stayed in his room, the way he communicated was putting notes under his door. One day, the police came to his house and knocked on the door loudly. They had knocked for five minutes before kicking the door open… They searched the house. 

When they got to the basement, they found a refrigerator, and then they opened the refrigerator and found what looked like hog meat. But, later on, they found out that it was actually his parents’ disassembled bodies. The police looked in Charles Rogers’ room and saw that the doorknob had blood on it. So they left the house because Charles wasn’t there.

One day, in 1975, they declared that Charles had died…

But did he really?

Daisy’s Adventure

There used to be a unicorn named Daisy who lived in California, in a rainbow castle. Across from the castle was a beautiful rainbow. Daisy adored the rainbow more than she loved chocolate cake! Daisy studied social studies at school and learned all about the panorama. She worked very hard on the project of California’s panorama. 

Daisy had always been trying to go on top of the rainbow to see the panorama of California. But each time Daisy tried, there were obstacles stopping her. Today she saw the rainbow and whispered to herself, “Today I have to get past those obstacles and finally get to see California’s panorama.” Daisy, with all her bravery, started to go through the castle’s gates. Once she stepped out of the gates she met a river with no bridge. 

She tried thinking of what to do and thought of it… making a boat! It was a perfect idea because she loved architecture and there were plenty of logs next to her to build a boat. As time flew by, Daisy got more work done. And before she knew it, she was all done with building the boat. She dragged the boat into the river, and hopped on the boat.

“Phew,” she said. “If it weren’t for the logs, I couldn’t have made it.” 

After the river, there was another obstacle: a creepy dark forest. Daisy knew she had a big fear of forests. But, she remembered what her goal was: to finally go on top of the rainbow and see California’s panorama, so she took a deep breath and walked into the forest. As she walked, she met a tiger who was a very scary one. It had sharp scary nails, and dark green eyes, and the biggest roar Daisy had ever heard!

“Roar!” 

Daisy was frightened. Really frightened! But since Daisy was really intelligent, she knew just what to do: stand still and tiptoe carefully behind the tiger until he was out of her sight, and it worked!

“Phew,” she said, “If it wasn’t for all of my intelligence, I wouldn’t have gotten past that scary tiger.”

Finally, there was only one more obstacle: a big scary roller coaster!

“Oh-no!” Daisy exclaimed. “I totally forgot that the roller coaster was the last obstacle. I know I said I would finally go on top of the rainbow to see the panorama, but this is too scary for me.” 

Then she started to run away, but remembered that she was a very persistent girl and that she would have come all this way for nothing if she left. So, she went up to the roller coaster and hopped on. She took a deep breath, and waited for the roller coaster to turn on. And then it did. She started screaming but managed to arrive at her destination: the rainbow!

“Finally,” she exclaimed. “Now I can go on top of the rainbow and see California’s panorama!” 

So she went on top of the rainbow and saw the panorama, and always lived happily ever after when she remembered the time she went on top of the rainbow. And did it again.

The End.

Germ Clash

One day a BIG germ called Shadow was walking then whomp! A huge germ slapped him into a volcano then, KA-KOOM!!!! A huge serpent called Lord Sparr ya-yeted Shadow! Then they all started fighting! Shadow had the bow and sword. Lord Sparr had the whip. The 2 germs clashed loudly as Shadow shot a poison arrow, almost knocking down Sparr! Sparr ran away yelling “Mom!” Shadow chased Sparr into a cave and cut Sparr’s head off! Shadow ran away with Sparr’s head. Shadow ran back to his fortress and put the head on the wall as a souvenir. Then, Shadow wrote on a piece of paper on top of Lord Sparr’s head, “This is what I got from defeating Lord Sparr!” Then he taped it on the top of Lord Sparr’s head.

Then all of a sudden, Lord Sparr kicked open Shadow’s door. CRASH! Lord Sparr kicked the door so hard the whole fortress shook like a shock wave. But Shadow saw that Lord Sparr was a zombie with magical powers. Then Shadow took off running. Lord Sparr chased him. But Shadow took his jetpacks off the wall and he zoomed away at 35,000 miles per hour. Lord Sparr could only run two miles per hour. 

But then when Shadow was about to go back to the fortress to add new batteries, he said, “Oh, I almost forgot!” and he grabbed the head and he added new batteries and then he took off.

Lord Sparr used his magical powers and he guided Shadow back and he used magical powers to lock Shadow in a dungeon. But Shadow just broke the dungeon and flew back to Earth and Lord Sparr followed, but he was very, very, VERY slow.

Shadow hollered, “So long, sucker!” And he hid on Earth. Lord Sparr didn’t know where he was, so he went into a random stranger’s house and the stranger said, “Hey! What are you doing?” And he kicked him out of his house.

“Yow!” Lord Sparr yelled when the stranger kicked him out of his house. “Owie, owie!” Then he ran back and he tried to find a doctor but the doctor said, “Hey! You look like someone from out of this world!” And she kicked him out and said, “I only accept people from this world!”

Then, Lord Sparr finally found Shadow. Shadow said, “Uh-oh!” then when Lord Sparr was about to throw him into the volcano, Shadow was quicker and he tased Lord Sparr and he threw him into the sun.

Then Shadow just bought a house and a Lamborghini and he tested out how fast the Lamborghini went and then “Yoweeee!” The Lamborghini was 2,000 miles an hour.

Then Shadow found a secret button that said, “Push button for jetpacks.” Jetpacks huh?? Shadow thought. This was going crazy! He activated the jetpacks and then, ZOOM! The Lamborghini went so fast it flew out of the world! Then Shadow zoomed in space back to Earth so Lord Sparr could not find him.

Then Lord Sparr just made a house in the sun. But Lord Sparr’s house was a little toasty. Then Lord Sparr caught on fire! “Help! Help!” he cried. Then Lord Sparr quickly sprayed some water on him, but then Lord Sparr figured, “Wait! This is goooood and hot water!” Then he looked down and saw: He was shooting flames on himself! But since Lord Sparr was a zombie, he could stay on fire, so Shadow lived on Earth and Lord Sparr lived on the sun.

THE END

(And they never met again!)

Dragon Story

Once upon a time, there was a dragon whose name was Oliver. He was known as a myth, but not the hero. The hero is still alive, but in hiding because he knows that he is the real bad one.

One day, a girl named Stacey wandered in the woods because she heard a dragon roar. She went farther in the woods. She went even farther in the forest. She heard even more dragon roars. After all the trees she walked past, she saw two caves directly across from each other. Then she saw Oliver who had red eyes. Stacey was scared. She pinched herself to see if it was a dream. It was definitely not a dream.

She stepped closer to the caves. She stood right in the middle of the caves. Then fire came out of one cave and went straight to the other one. Then she heard a groan. It sounded like a lion’s roar. The roar was louder and longer.

The fake hero’s name was Cornelius, but Oliver called him Cornie. She started to climb the cave with Oliver after Cornie flew away. She finally made it to the top. Slowly, she walked in the cave. She saw a tree stump and Oliver was sitting on it. She felt so bad for him. She was determined to cheer him up.

She walked next to him and asked what was the matter?

He said, “Life is just not fair.”

“I know,” said Stacey. “My grandfather is a dragon expert, but he has a different opinion from everyone.”

Oliver said, “That’s why you look like him. Your grandfather and I were best buddies until people took him away because they thought I was the bad guy.”

“Oliver, please tell me!”

“Okay, once upon a time there was a dragon whose name was Oliver. He was known as a myth, but not the hero.The hero is still alive, but in hiding because he knows that he is the real bad one.”

“Wow! I had no idea, I’m so sorry,” said Stacey. “I probably should’ve told you before you told me the story that I can’t keep a secret.”

“You can’t tell anyone, they won’t believe you. You need proof,” said Oliver.

“Oh, I have proof. When I was a baby I put video cameras before that happened,” said Stacey. “Give me a ride down. Everybody needs to know!” she said.

Oliver said, “Why not? You can’t keep a secret and you have proof.”

She hopped. After 13 times of showing the video, they were convinced. Oliver was finally free, but Cornie was punished.

“Thank you Stacey for everything.”

The Unicorns and One Pony

Chapter 1

Once there was a pony. Her name was Emma. Emma wished she was a unicorn. All the unicorns in town did not allow Emma in their group, so every day after school she cried to her mom. Her mom was a unicorn. One day she went to school with a fake unicorn horn and rainbow mane. 

One day she went to the doctor to get plastic surgery. The doctor thought she might die. Emma wanted to die, but her mom said not to do the surgery. Emma was depressed. Then her mom told the principal that all of the unicorns were making fun of her, but the principal was a unicorn so he said, “Well, your daughter has mental issues.” The pony had to move from California to New York because her mom had a job there

They moved. The school that she went to was very welcoming. They even had a surprise. She loved it and on the bright side, it was a private only pony school. And for Halloween, they were all unicorns. When they went trick or treating, she saw a friend from California! 

Chapter 2

Apparently the other unicorn that was from the other school moved to the same place the next day. Emma was relieved that the other unicorn went to a different school. That night, Emma had a nightmare about her old school moving to New York and all the other unicorns were living in her building. 

Chapter 3

When Emma woke up, her mom said that her school moved to New York. 

“Ahhhhhhh!” said Emma. 

Straws Are Bad

Introduction

In this story, you will learn a lot about what damage plastic does to the earth. Did you know that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans? In this story, you will learn what kinds of straws are bad, why they are bad for land animals, sea creatures, and humans, and also my experience with straws.

What are straws?/Why are they bad?

Straws are long pieces of plastic, bamboo, or wood that are used to be able to drink a liquid from a tall glass without having to tip your cup. Straws are bad because they kill animals and humans.              

Land animals

 Straws are bad because they kill animals, plants, and humans too. The reason why plastic kills living animals is when people drop or throw their straws in the trash cans, streets, and woods where they just go to landfills or get eaten by bugs or bears.

Sea creatures and Humans

The way that plastic kills sea life is like how it kills forest animals. It just gets eaten by sea creatures, which is even worse than when a land dweller/animals that lives on land do. The reason why it is worse is because we humans don’t eat land animals that are available to plastic, while we eat almost every type of fish that is discovered to humans. And when fishermen catch the fish to sell to companies, the fish caught sometimes have small pieces of plastic in it. The way that it kills humans is when humans eat the fish, they can choke on the small pieces of plastic.

My experience with straws.

My experience with straws is that when I traveled throughout Southeast Asia  for six months I saw a lot of plastic straws and other types of plastic like plastic bags and plastic bottles all over like in the streets or in the ocean. Another sad story is that when I was snorkeling, I saw a bunch of small fish chasing a single piece of plastic!!!

How we can fix it

The reason we can fix this problem is whenever you have the chance to turn down a straw, do it and dont be scared to say no to a waiter or waitress. Another way you can fix it is that whenever you see a piece of garbage, pick it up. Here’s one of my favorite sayings: “The little things are what counts.”

The Unicorn and the Dragon

Once upon a time, there was a unicorn and her name was Penelope. Penelope lived in a castle. She had servants that kept her company. Every day her servants would bring her back some gold. The servants were tired of digging gold and they gave up. Finally, Penelope decided that she was going by herself! She got everything and left. Back at the castle, the servants were wondering where she was.

They said, “Where is Penelope? I was gonna cook her some cake.” Meanwhile, Penelope was trying to cross a river. The river was very strong. Penelope saw a log and tried to roll it over to the river. But it was too heavy. So, she put one hoove into the river to test if the water was warm enough so she could swim in it. It was warm, very warm. She jumped in and kicked her hooves back and forth. She reached out and grabbed the land.

Penelope climbed out and shook the water off her fur.

Back at the castle, the servants were beginning to worry. The cake was beginning to get cold. Days passed and it was getting colder. Penelope had tons of gold, but she wanted more. One day, she met a dragon. The dragon had dark blue eyes and gigantic wings. She stepped back.

Then she said, “You cannot kill me!”

“I am not trying to kill you. I only want to make friends.”

“If you want to be my friend, you need to help me find more gold.”

“Okay!” the dragon shouted and they walked off to find more gold.

At last, the dragon decided that he would tell Penelope his name. He walked over to her and whispered, “My name is Spike.”

“Good to know.” And Penelope went back to work. Spike looked down and saw a hedgehog. Maybe he would be his friend.

The End

Coco Finds a Friend

Chapter 1: Coco the Cat

Hi. I am Coco. I am a cat. I just got to a new place with humans in it! They are nice, but on my first day I was super scared of them. I’ll tell you about it…

I was in a bag. That’s right, a bag. It was so uncomfortable, but that’s always what happens when I’m going to the vet so you can’t blame me when I say I thought I was going to the vet that day. But then I noticed me and my owners, Dan and Cathy, had been in this moving thingy for a long time. 

So I said, “Dan, where are we going?” 

But since I was a cat and he was a human, he didn’t know what I was saying. 

“Cathy, the cat is meowing a lot, I think we should stop for a snack,” he told his girlfriend. 

I agreed with him since I was hungry.

We were at McDonald’s and they didn’t have cat treats! I was so mad and I begged Dan to give me cat treats. He understood me this time and gave me cat treats! That made me sleepy so when we were back in the moving thingy, I took a nap.

I did not expect to arrive in a noisy city when I woke up, but Dan just had to carry me out of the thingy! I was definitely not at the vet today. We went into one of the tall buildings. I was scared! 

But then Dan said, “Are you ready to meet my sister, Cathy?”

Chapter 2: The New House

At that moment, Dan knocked on the door of a place. It soon opened and a pretty lady was there. This was the start of my new life. I tried to get used to it and now I have been here for about a week. I love playing with these humans! They are so fun and have the best toys! I have to say though, when I first came into the house, I hid under their couch. But this weird bearded man sat cross legged on the floor waiting for me to come out. I was not gonna come out when that guy was there. Then, this girl lay down on the floor staring at me. I thought she was weird too.

But now, I’ve been thinking about my old family. And I don’t mean Dan and Cathy because they already left. I mean my mom and siblings. I’ve already had two litters and I missed them too. What I really needed was a friend. I tried to be friends with the humans but the only human who really was a good friend to me was Dan and he was gone now.

Chapter 3: To Find a Friend

I don’t know why the people put the scratchy thing on the wall, but at that moment I was trying to climb up it. I kept failing! Soon I gave up and went to a human that everyone called a boy, but who had long hair. I was confused. He put out his hand for me to sniff and I did. He was eating cheese! Now my mission was to get the cheese! But that meant I had to go up on the counter and the lady didn’t like when I did that. But if it was for cheese, I’d do it.

When I got to the kitchen however, I saw the lady talking to someone. It was another lady! Oh, how I wish I had a friend like that. Also, I felt so sad that I just left without thinking about my cheese when it was right on the counter!

That night, after the humans went to bed, I searched the whole house! Even the long haired boy’s room! But there was no new friend to be seen. Well, except for my little avocado toy that had an incredibly cute face! But he was not real. He was catnip. So I just went to sleep on the couch. 

Chapter 4: Avocado Man

I woke up in the morning when Long Hair Boy sat on the couch to watch TV. 

“Come on, Long Hair Boy. I was sleeping! Why did you do that?” I shouted at him. But of course, he did not hear me. I was still a little mad from last night so I was cranky at him. I still wanted a friend. All of the sudden, right then, I got an awesome idea! What if the avocado toy was real? What if it was not avocado toy, it was Avocado Man! I was so happy that I ran away and scared Long Hair Boy.

I looked for it and found it right where it was last night. I tried to get it to play with me (or should I say him) but he didn’t want to. I figured that he needed some time to get really awake from last night. So I went to the litter box. 

Some time later, the lady came out of her room and said hi to me. I was soon bored with her so I tried Avocado Man. I think she saw me and came over. Then the most amazing thing happened! She started to move Avocado Man! It was so cool! He was real after all! He could even talk!

Chapter 5: A New Friend

I was really happy! I could kiss the lady! But not really because my lips can’t do that. So I jumped up and down instead.

Well, now I have a friend! My big problem is solved! Thank you for being here with me and listening to my story!

Bye!!!

Lucy the Hedgehog

Lucy, the Hedgehog, was in her hole under the dirt. She really wanted to live in a castle so she decided to visit the princess. She was so excited, she packed really quickly and set out for the journey to the castle where the princess lived… but when she went outside, she saw a river with alligators swimming around and she thought, “I can go across the river!”

Lucy waited till the alligators fell asleep at night and she swam around them. She finally went across the river. 

Lucy found herself in a village but there were a lot of cars and she was so small. Lucy decided to jump on a taxi car and get a ride through the road. When she got across the road, she saw a villain. He said,

“Why are you over here?” Luckily Lucy found a paper bag and she put it over his head and ran away. Just about when Lucy thought everything was okay, she heard thunder. “A thunderstorm is coming,” she thought. So she quickly ran to the nearest cave but she saw that there were two baby bears inside. So she found another cave and she saw a cute little rabbit inside. 

So, Lucy thought she could go inside and help the rabbit. When she went inside, the rabbit woke up and Lucy said, “Where are your parents?” 

The rabbit said, “I don’t have any parents.” 

“Are you scared?” said Lucy. 

The rabbit said, “No I am not scared.” When the thunderstorm ended, the hedgehog saw that the rainbow was really close. She was really excited! But when she saw that there was a very big tiger who was right next to her, she was so scared she wanted to run away. But she was lucky because she had a brilliant idea. She was going to hide until the tiger fell asleep and then she would run away and that’s what she did after he fell asleep. 

Now she was very excited to see the castle. But she saw that there was a big hill blocking her. Just then an idea popped into her head. She saw beavers in the lake and thought, maybe the beaver can be my friend.

THE END

CATS

Chapter 1

Have you ever been in a family where you can talk to cats but everyone else hates them? Funny how that happens… Well anyway, maybe that’s part of the reason why I have a nasty habit of running away. There was an argument… It had started out simple. We were picking wallpaper and furniture for my room. I had wanted to get cat stuff, and a cat. Maybe obvious. But it got real bad, real fast. I had wanted Mom to let me be me. But noooooo! I had to be her! Not me, her! The non-cat loving, awful dinner cooker of a mom.

Well anyway, to take a break from my parents or ‘cool down’ as they put it, I had run out into the woods where I usually wandered when I ran. Then a cat appeared. I wasn’t expecting her but who cares?

“Scram!” I aimed a kick at her.

“Hey,” she recoiled. “I was just trying to comfort you!” she said defensively, before she slunk off.  

“Wait,” I called. ”You can talk?” I was so surprised!

“Of course I can talk,” she said in her refined manner, and I noticed that she was a ragdoll cat. The fur around her neck was all—how do you say it? A bit like a boa? “All animals can talk,” she continued. “But only one person every one thousand years can talk to cats.” She thought for a minute. “I’m not quite sure what the other animals’ numbers are, and they rarely collide.”

“Rarely?” I asked. “Am I-”

“No,” she said almost rudely. “That’s too cliche.”

“Okay,” I said slightly let down, for some reason.

“Come on, we have work to do,” she started walking briskly with her tail held high.

“Wait, what work?” I asked while trying to catch up.

“Your training, of course,” she replied vaguely.

“What?”

“Do you know nothing?” she seemed upset for a reason I couldn’t guess. “Hurry up.” And I realized that her eyes were filled with tears.

“Why-” I started but before I could finish she interrupted.

“We’re here.” she stopped suddenly. She stopped in front of, wait for it… a pile of rocks. I know right! Out of all the places for this ‘training’ thing, it had to be rocks! Rocks!

“Um,” I started.

“What?” she asked, clearly unaware that we were standing in the middle of nowhere.

“This is it?”

“What do you think?”

“I think that it’s gonna turn into something, but I think that you’re gonna say that that’s so cliche and this is actually where the training is.”

“No.”

“Wait what?”

“N-O, no. That clear enough for you?”

“So what is going to happen?” but in my head I added ‘little miss sassy pants.’ Suddenly there was a loud rumbling sound. “What?” I muttered as a cave formed before my eyes.

“Come on,” my companion called. “Don’t worry. It’s safe, you know.” Then she turned back to the cave, started walking, and laughed.

Chapter 2

There were three words to describe the cave: boring, boring and boring. You’re thinking: a creepy cave, cool. Trust me. It’s not! Okay, fine. It’s dark, slightly chilly, but other than that nothing. A soft sunset colored light was coming from the depths of the cave. Then I saw something that totally surprised me. Cat flaps. That might sound a bit random but who knows.

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“Not just me,” she said with a twisted smile. Suddenly I heard loud rock music coming from one of the cat flaps. And I mean loud!

“Ugh, might as well get this over with.” The cat sighed.

“Get what over with?” I started to say, but before I could finish, three incredibly fat cats stepped out singing:

The three fat cats

We like to eat rats

Wherever the bed is that’s where we’re at!

“Ugh,” she sighed again.

“Oh,” I remarked. “That’s what you meant.”

“Meet Steve, Joe and Bob.” She didn’t sound very enthusiastic about the introductions.

“Hi, I’m Layana,” I told them.

“Hey, I’m Joe, but as you probably know, I’m 62,” said one of them. I recognized him as a scottish fold. He was rubbing his belly like he had just eaten an exceptionally large meal.

“None of them are too bright,” the ragdoll whispered, which reminded me, I was tired of calling her a bunch of different words.

“What’s your name?” I asked curiously.

“Not now, the stink’s coming in,” she replied. I held my nose as a foul scent drifted through the room. But later I wondered, once I knew her better, if she had changed the subject on purpose. As we were leaving the ‘Cat flaps’ room, I decided not to mention the subject of the name in case she lashed out at me. We were approaching a chamber filled with lanterns.

“Well that explains the sunset light,” I remarked.

“Don’t get used to it,” she told me. “We’re not staying in here for long.” 

“Then, where are we going?” I asked her, slightly puzzled.

“We’re going to my favorite place in all of Cat Land,” she purred, like cats do, but it was soothing, sort of.

“Wait, Cat Land?” I realized how weird it was. “Out of all things, you guys could name this place you go with Cat Land!”

“What?” she said. “Cat Land, where did you get that from?”

“You!” I cried.

“No.” She was grinning now. “I never said Cat Land. It must be shock or something.”  I fell silent because I knew she had said Cat Land, which meant one thing. The ragdoll was hiding something!

Chapter 3

“Come on,” the cat’s voice echoed through the passage we were in.

“Ugh.” I was getting a bit fed up with my companion’s behavior. Just then I heard a sigh. At first I thought it was my sigh echoing back, but then I realized it wasn’t me. I sped up.

“Layana! Get up here!”

“Coming!” I called.

“Meet Silky,” she said once I caught up, completely out of breath.

“Layana is a lovely name,” said Silky in a sweet delicate voice.

“Uh, thanks.”

“Well,” the ragdoll cut in. “We were about to go outside so-”

“But I haven’t shown her my song yet!”

“Fine, might as well get this over with,” she said with another sigh.

I am siamese 

Give me treats please!

If not then just let me through

If you please

If you please!

“In case you haven’t noticed, songs are kind of a thing in here.”

“You’re turning into a tour guide, Andromeda,” said Silky before slinking off.

“Your name’s Andromeda?” I was so startled that I had forgotten to be cautious. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Come on we have lots of things to see.” She completely ignored me. Outside was quiet except for the chirping from the crickets. I looked up.

“Wait, I need to be home by now, it’s night!”

“Why, do you really want to go back after this!” She lowered her voice. “After that?” 

“You know about the fight?” Surprisingly I wasn’t mad.

“Of course I know about the fight. I know everything about you.” Okay now I was mad!

“What!” I shouted. “Who died and made you in charge? Why should you get to know everything about me! It’s just plain wrong.”

“Oh, we’re doing this thing,” she sighed. “Well if you must know, you are not going home anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Because, you have to start your cat whisperer training.” 

“No, you can’t make me and I refuse.”

“Actually I can make you.”

“How?”

“Ask ‘the teach’.”

“Who’s ‘the teach’?”

“You’ll see.”

“No I won’t, I’m leaving.” I took off down the passageway.

“That’s a dead end, you can’t leave!” Andromeda called after me. I realized she was right.

“Now what?” I asked when she had caught up.

“Come on, I’ll take you to see The Teach.”

Chapter 4

“So, where is this ‘teach’ guy?” I asked after setting down the passageway. “‘Cause I’m starting to think he is kinda shifty.” 

The Teach isn’t shifty,” Andromeda told me. “Besides, he’s one of only humans here besides you. So show some respect.”

“You know, I’m only doing this because I have nowhere else to go.”

“Yes, that is the 59th time you said that.”

“You’re keeping track?”

“Yeah, what else could I do?” Although our voices were pleasant, our faces were tense. The passageway was widening. Incredibly slowly, I almost didn’t notice it.

“Wait,” I said slowly “‘One of the only humans’ here! What do you mean ‘one of’?

“You’ll see,” she told me in total darkness.

“Why is this taking so long?” I complained and asked at the same time.

“We’re here!” she interrupted. A handsome oak door stood in front of us. Suddenly, it swung open, revealing a tall middle aged man.

“Thank you, Andromeda,” he said. 

“Can’t I stick around?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” he said firmly.

“Fine.” She left silently. The man gestured for me to go inside. I did, only to enter a room with no taste in decor! For some reason, I’ve always been picky about things like this. There were odd things like rusty pipes, plastic bottles and garbage bags that were squirming! But the strangest thing above all, was a girl around my age with a rather large nose that ruined the rest of the face. She had sharp, almost purple eyes and was wearing a ripped leather jacket that had silver spikes even though some had fallen out, over a white t-shirt and navy blue jeans, also ripped. But her hair was really cool! It was dark brown hair that she seemed to have tried to dye pale pink but she hadn’t bleached it first so it was barely visible. It stuck up in odd angles at the top, but stuck to her face in the middle. I rubbed the deep blue streak in my bronze hair. For some reason the girl looked familiar.

“Now, girls, you are both on the same page here. I’m The Teach. So something strange happened twelve years ago, when you were born. See, you girls have two things in common. For one, you can both talk to cats, and second you are both twins.” 

“What!” we both said.

“Calm down,” said The Teach. “So usually, when something like this happens the power goes to one twin, but for you, the power got distributed between you.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“You can each talk to different kinds of cats,” he explained.

“How come we have different parents?” the other girl asked. Her voice had a slightly harsh edge to it.

“Those people aren’t your real parents Tina. Your real parents are dead.”

“What happened to them?”

His face froze. “We don’t know.”

Blue’s Story : A Novel By Mae Benne

Chapter 1

Blue noisily walked down the creaking stairs and into the kitchen. Her short brown hair was a mess, but her hazel eyes were glistening in the morning sunshine. Her body was covered in an oversized soft t-shirt and grey shorts. She had been drawn downstairs by the familiar scent of pancakes that had wafted up to her room. She walked right into the scene of her father dressed in a t-shirt he had received from his college and a pair of Nike basketball shorts. He was dancing to the country music on the black radio, sitting on the shelf and setting the wooden oak table that Blue and her dad had just bought. Blue chuckled to herself as her father, Phil, had started to sing along to the song. Phil turned around to see his daughter laughing at the spectacle of him jamming out to the country. 

“You should see yourself when you’re dancing to music.” Phil said, grinning with his soft hazel eyes at his daughter. “So, I was thinking,” said Blue’s father, “We could head over to the park to shoot some hoops after breakfast. How does that sound?”

“Wonderful!” replied Blue, yawning sleepily as she sat down at the table and placed her napkin on her lap and put her elbows on the table. 

“When do you expect the pancakes to be ready?” asked Blue.

“Pretty soon,” said Phil.

“Will there be enough time for me to change before the food is ready?” asked Blue.

“I think so, if you hurry,” replied Blue’s father. 

Blue raced up the stairs into her bedroom. She looked around and peered at the paintings on her wall. She had made a special trip to the local art store, although it had taken her a little while to find it, as she was new in town, just to find decoration for her previously bare, beige walls. Blue walked up to her black dresser and pulled out her drawer to see the faded photograph of her mother in her teen years, and a tattered photo album. She picked the photograph up and studied it and thought of the little memories she had of her mother. She thought about her soft angelic features and long wavy brown hair that she always kept in a tight, beautiful braid. She recalled the sound of her mother’s carefree laugh. Then she would remember the night she left, as she always did when she thought of her mother. She remembered being bunched up in a ball covering her ears, under her forget-me-not blue covers, hearing her father plead with her mother to stay. She remembered hearing her mother say how boring the town was and how miserable she was, and how she felt limited and held back by the lack of resources in the area. Blue remembered hearing the front door slam and running down the stairs in an attempt to get her mother to stay and she remembered her father wrapping his robust arms around her. She remembered trying to break free from her father’s comforting grip, through tears and sobs and finally getting out of his arms to chase after her mother. But by the time she had run out the door her mother had disappeared into the grey, dreary night. 

“Are we going to talk about it?” thought Blue, as she snapped back to reality. That day was the 7 year anniversary of her mother slamming the front door and leaving for good. Blue wiped away a small tear that had fallen on her cheek and gently placed the photograph of her mother back into the drawer. She had found the photograph the day they moved in, as she was rummaging through the brown, cardboard boxes of things she had stumbled on a photo album that contained an old photograph of her mother. She had pulled it out and hid it in her dresser. Blue took a deep breath and picked out a flowy summer dress with flowers embroidered on it from her closet and put it on. She slipped her opal ring on her finger and put on her favorite earrings and necklaces. She picked up her hair brush and combed out the knots that she had developed in her hair as she slept. Blue then walked to her door and down the stairs to the kitchen.

 Chapter 2

Blue dribbled the ball twice, took a deep breath and shot a free throw. She always did the exact same routine before she shot a free throw, during spring break she had made this routine with her coach. He had said this routine would help her with muscle memory and that when she did her routine with pressure weighing on her shoulders in a game it would calm her nerves and let her focus on the goal of making the basket. She shot and watched as the ball swished through the orange net.

Phil cheered her on then said, “But you need to work on keeping your elbow in, form really does matter. If you stand in front of the mirror and pretend you’re shooting a free throw and see what your form looks like and try to improve it just ten times a day, you can make a huge difference in your form.”

“You say that every time I practice.” Blue said, rolling her eyes.

“Ok, ten right hand lay-ups. I will pass you the ball once you get to the basket.” said Phil.

Later that day Blue called her father into the living room. 

“Dad, come here.” Blue yelled across the house to her father.

“Be right there.” called Phil. He then proceeded to walk in. He was wearing a pair of baby blue denim jeans and a grey button up shirt. He had just taken a shower and his hair was dripping wet.

“I found a great summer writing program. Wanna see?” said Blue. Turning her computer in his direction. 

“Sure, honey.” said Phil, as he sat down next to Blue on their leather couch. 

“So, this writing program is in Soho. It focuses on all the genres I love, and Grace is going to the camp as well. Grace and I want to spend as much time with each other as possible since she is moving to Japan. I was also thinking, since it starts at 10, we can grab breakfast before I start.” Explained Blue.

“Sounds like a plan.” said Phil. “Maybe Grace could come with us to breakfast.”

“I would love that. I will go to text her right now.” Blue said while getting up from the black, leather couch and grabbing her rose-gold phone.

Chapter 3

The gravel crunched under Blue and Phil’s feet as they walked on the driveway to the car. Phil climbed into the front seat and buckles his seatbelt and placed his hands on the wheel. Blue opened the backseat door and climbed on to the grey, plush seat and set her bag on the floor. It contained her laptop, notebook, lunch, and her phone. She buckled her seatbelt and yawned.  

Phil turned his head toward Blue and said, “All set?” 

“Yea, love you.” Replied Blue, smiling sweetly at her father. 

“Love you too.” said Phil. “Are you nervous about getting started at this writing camp?”

“A bit, but I am really excited.” Replied Blue.

Phil then drove out into the cobble hill street, and across the 

Brooklyn bridge into Soho.

Chapter 4

Phil drove through a green light. He turned the radio up and hummed to the melody of the music. Then he turned right onto Spring Street. They drove past Becky’s bakery and An Artist’s Heaven art store on the way up to the location where the writing program was occurring. 

“We are almost there.” Said Phil turning on to the right lane and putting his right turn signal on. 

“Ok.” Replied Blue.

A rusty, pale blue car came speeding in with Evan Monatela at the wheel. Phil attempted to swerve out of it’s path but it was too late and the car crashed into Blue and Phil’s car. The car flipped over and bursts into flames. 

A few moments later

“The Dad is D.o.a, but I think there is hope for the girl. Have we ID’d the body, yet?” said an E.R worker that had arrived when the call about a car accident had come in. 

“No, we haven’t yet.” said the E.R worker’s coworker, helping the E.R worker with placing Blue in the ambulance. 

“The girl definitely has a concussion and possibly some internal bleeding. Although she is in critical condition,  it looks like she will make it.” the E.R worker explained. “I feel bad for her she is going to have to wake up with her world turned upside down. One minute she is enjoying a car ride with her father and next moment she’s in a hospital and her father is dead. I hope her mother is around to support her.” 

“Yea, I can’t even imagine that happening to me.” said the coworker peering at the girl lying unconscious in the ambulance.

Blue was flown in a helicopter to the hospital in Philadelphia. She arrived and her doctors performed surgery on her injured head, and the shattered bone in her leg. Blue remained in a coma for three days.

Chapter 5

Blue woke up and groaned from the pain of her pounding headache and a broken leg. A nurse walked in, with a blue hospital uniform on. Her raven black hair was pulled up in a tight bun. On her feet were small black slip on shoes, that made small tapping sounds as she walked around the room. She was carrying a clipboard and she flipped through it and wrote something down with a blue pen that had the Hospital of Connecticut written on it in silver lettering. The nurse looked down at Blue, realized she was awake and said,

“Good to see you awake, Blue.” 

“What happened?” asked Blue, her voice meek and dry. She was croaking like a frog.         

The nurse sighed and looked at Muracke with poignant eyes and said, “There was an awful accident. A drunk man named Evan Monatela crashed into your car. That man killed your poor father and nearly killed you. You are lucky to be alive, Blue. Evan is currently being prosecuted for his crimes.  I hear he will be charged with vehicular manslaughter and drinking while driving and other things.” 

“You’re lying. It’s not true, go away!” screamed Blue through tears.  

The nurse walked over to the side of the bed and peered at the small fragile girl. She wrapped her long, delicate arms around Blue and held her in her arms, as she wept. The nurse explains what had happened and what injuries Blue had. 

“Your father was sprung from the car and was dead on arrival, someone called 911 and paramedics rushed to the accident and saved you. You were flown over here in a helicopter and you had surgery for your injuries. Your leg was shattered and your head was pretty banged up, but other than that you’re doing well. This is a lot to handle and I know it was a very traumatic experience, so we have a psychiatrist on hand that you can talk to whenever necessary,” said the nurse.

Finally the nurse had to leave and attend to other patients in the recovery ward. Blue was left broken by the news that the nurse had just delivered to her. She wept and wept herself into a restless slumber. She dreamt of wonderful days spent with her father, curled up in his welcoming lap. She dreamt of reading books like Owl Moon and The Lonely Book in bed, snuggled next to her father. Then her dream turned into a nightmare and flashes of her father drenched in blood, dying at the scene of the accident appeared in her mind. She tossed and turned during the night until dawn broke across the grey sky, that was mimicking the feeling Blue had felt inside ever since she found out about the death of her late father. All she felt was emptiness and pure anger at the man who had killed her loving, innocent father. The only person she felt really knew her and loved her. She had friends like Grace, her best friend but after Grace would leave for Japan their friendship would fade away and they would never see each other again. She felt alone in the world without him. Evan Monatela, the man who killed her father, when that name crossed her mind she imagined strangling him. Wrapping her arms around his throat and squeezing as hard as she could but then reminded herself that it would be a terrible thing to do. It would be almost as bad as what he did to her father. 

Chapter 6

The nurse who had told Blue what happened to her parents walked into the room with a tray of food. It consisted of packaged pancakes, hashbrowns and 1% milk. The nurse placed the tray on the hospital’s glossy, wooden side table and hugged Blue tightly and whispered into her ear, 

“It will be ok.”

The nurse pulled up a small tray table in front of Blue and placed the tray on the table. She propped a pillow up behind Blue’s back and helped her sit up. She then said to Blue,

”Eat up”

Blue looked up at the nurse with tears in her glossy green eyes and said, 

“What am I supposed to do? I’m completely alone. My mother left me and my father when I was only five years old and now my Dad is dead. I don’t know what to do. I have Aunts and Uncles but I don’t know, they probably don’t even want me.” It was the first thing Blue had said in a few days.

The nurse’s face softened and showed empathy for Blue, she sat down at the end of the bed and said, “When I was about your age, my parents died in a terrible plane crash. I felt exactly the same as you feel now. I felt alone and even abandoned by my parents, but I pulled through. I pursued my dream of becoming a nurse. You are strong, and you will persevere. I know you will, Blue whitener.”

“I don’t know if I can.” whispered Blue through sobs and incessant tears. Her previously warm, olive complexion was now pale and almost grey. Her long, brown, baby hair now seemed to be faded and aged. Her blanket and cast covered her bony figure. 

“There’s someone here to see you. Her name is Bridgit Tate, she is going to be your foster mother. She’s also a nurse at this hospital, she will take great care of you.” said the nurse as a middle aged woman with sharp, icy blue eyes walked in the door and smiled sweetly at Blue.

Chapter 7

“Hello Blue,” said Bridget.

“Hi.” replied Blue, wiping her tears.

“How are you?” asked Bridget. 

“Okay, I guess. I mean I got in a car accident.” replied Blue, weakly.

“Yea, you did. The doctors say you will be up and running in about a week. Then you can come to my house, I’m sure you will love it there. I would love to paint your room hot pink,” said Bridget. She then walked over to the side of Blue’s bed and turned her head towards the nurse, “How much do I get for taking care of her?”

“500 dollars a month, but that shouldn’t matter should it? Blue is an admirable, magnificent human being, and I would be honored to have her in my home even without paychecks every month.” said the nurse, who was quite skeptical of this woman who was supposed to take care of Blue. 

“Yes, I completely agree, but I was just wondering what the amount of money I will get to support Blue is. I would like to know what I should set my budget for her room so that I can get started right away,” said Bridget. Bridget then said, “Well it looks like you are eating breakfast so I will leave you to it. It was very nice to meet you. I am very excited to have you in my home and hope that overtime it will become your home as well. Goodbye, Blue.” Bridget said as she left the room. 

Blue could hear the clicking of Bridget’s heels as she walked down the brightly lit hallway. Then Blue said to the nurse,

”Did you really mean the things you said?” 

“Every single word.” said the nurse, as she flashed a quick smile to Blue. 

“When you go and live with this Bridget woman, keep me posted on how she treats you.” the nurse said. 

“Ok, why?” asked Blue, frowning.

“This woman just doesn’t seem trustworthy. I have learned to trust my gut when it tells me something. I think she should be focused on you rather than the money she gets for taking care of you,” replied the nurse. 

“Ok,” said Blue. She had liked Bridget but thought there was something a little off about her. But she was still not ready for this woman to replace her deceased father, she was barely even ready for her to become Blue Tate.

Chapter 8

The nurse walked into Blue’s hospital room, lit by fluorescent lighting, and brought with her a tray of food. 

“Today is your final day here at the hospital. I am really going to miss you, Blue. It has been phenomenal to get to know you.” said the nurse.

“I’m going to miss you too,” said Blue.

Briget walked in with a purple polka dotted dress, a black shawl and cream colored high heels. She smiled at Blue and the nurse. 

“Nice to see you guys again. Are you almost ready to head home?” asked Bridget, with a smile. 

“I will be ready once I finish with my breakfast. I also have to wait for them to give me my crutches, and I will have to practice walking with my cast and crutches a bit in the waiting room, if that’s ok with you of course,” replied Blue.

“That’s totally fine. I will be in the waiting room if you need me, and let me know when you are ready to leave so I can help you practice and we can go to my car. I parked it right up front so that you would not have to walk far.” said Bridget.                                                                                                                                                     

“Alright.” said Blue as she ate her breakfast of cereal, milk and orange juice. She was dressed in a white hospital gown and on her wrist was a shiny, plastic bracelet that had the hospital’s name written on it. 

Briget left the room and sat down in the waiting room. The nurse then said to Blue,

“Are you sure you are ready to go. I’m sure I can get you permission to stay a bit longer.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Even though Bridget is not that motherly and will never, ever, ever replace my Dad, I think we will be able to form a strong bond. I know you are a bit skeptical of her. I’m sure she is great.” said Blue, hopefully. 

“Alright. If you say so.” said the nurse, sighing. 

Chapter 9

Blue walked with her crutches up to Bridget. They continued practicing and Blue slowly started to get comfortable with her crutches.

“I think I am getting the hang of this,” said Blue.

“Yea, I think you are.” replied Bridget. 

“Ready to go. I really think I am going to love it there.” Bridget said, her eyes bright with excitement.

“Yes, I’m sure I will.” said Blue.

They walked to the elevator and down into the parking lot. Bridget pressed the button on her car keys and a small, white toyota camry beeped nearby.

“There it is.” said Bridget.

Blue and Bridget walked up to the car and got in. Bridget buckled her seatbelt and turned the key and the engine started to hum, she looked back at Blue and saw her struggling.

“Oh my goodness, I am so sorry. I entirely forgot you need help getting in the car. Here, I’m going to go over there.” said Bridget while she unbuckled her seat belt and opened the car door to get out. Bridget assisted Blue into the car and placed her crutches in the trunk. Bridget got into the car and said, “Prepare for the two and a half hour drive to connecticut.” chuckling.

Chapter 10

Finally, Blue and Bridget pulled up to a small brownstone house in the center of a block on Kane Street. 

“This is it. Your new home.” said Bridget, happily as she climbed out of the car.

“It looks wonderful.” said Blue, getting out of the car with Bridget’s comforting help.  Bridget locked the car and opened the house door and led Blue into the house. Blue’s crutches made noises across the wooden floor. Bridget turned on the light to show a brown leather couch and a wooden coffee table with five beer bottles and two wine bottles, thrown on their sides, on it.

“Oh god I am so sorry about that, I did not get to clean up after last night, just please don’t tell anyone about this. I was really nervous about you coming and I should not have had so much alcohol. It won’t happen again.” said Bridget, her face tinted red from embarrassment.

“That was all just from last night.” thought Blue, frowning. 

“Here I will show you your new room.” said Bridget walking towards the back of the house. She opened the door to a small room, which was empty except for a small cot with brown flannel sheets and a small grey dresser, with an alarm clock on it. 

“It’s not much, but it’s something and we will decorate it soon. I wanted you to have complete say in everything, so I only got a small amount of things. You need a bed of course.” said Bridget.

“Thank you so much.” said Blue, as she walked into the room and sat down on the bed. 

Chapter 11

Blue woke up and walked out of bed and out the door. She walked into the kitchen and found Bridget cooking asparagus and BLTs. She was humming and spreading the mayo onto the pieces of brown, toasted bread. She looked up at Blue and said,

“You’re up. That’s wonderful, I’m just making lunch; roasted asparagus and BLTs. I hope you like them.” 

“Thank you so much. I really appreciate what you are doing for me. I honestly don’t know where I would be without you, foster care probably. Just, thank you.” said Blue. 

“Your welcome, I was just so lonely in this house. I don’t have many friends and no significant other and I wanted to help someone so I decided to adopt and sure enough you came along.” replied Bridget. 

They both sat down at the table and ate the BLTs and asparagus. Blue picked up her fork and cut her asparagus and placed it in her mouth. 

“Do you have any hobbies that you enjoy, sports or other things?” asked Bridget.

“I really enjoy playing basketball all actually, I was on my school’s basketball team, along with my best friend Grace. I was even a point guard.” said Blue. “I guess I can’t go to the Blue school. Are there any schools around here with basketball teams?” 

“I am not sure but we can look although I have a niece who went to school around here who loves basketball. We can ask her where she went and if there was a basketball team at her school.” added Bridget. “How is your food?”

“It is delicious. Thank you for making it.” replied Blue. 

Blue put her last bite of food into her mouth and placed her fork and knife on the plate. She wiped her mouth and said, “May I be excused?”

“Of course, Blue.” replied Bridget. 

Blue picked up her plate, rinsed it out in the sink and placed it in the dishwasher. With the napkin in her hand she looked around, looking for a trash can. 

“Where is the trash can?” asked Blue.

“Right behind you actually.” directed Bridget.

Blue turned around and threw her napkin away. Then she walked back into her new room. 

Chapter 12

Bridget walked into Blue’s room and asked, “What would you like to do today?” 

“We could get some clothes.”

“Ok. Before I went to pick you up at the hospital I went to the store and chose some clothes for you. I hope that they will fit you.” Bridget said while she handed Blue a Marshalls shopping bag with three outfits stuffed inside.

“Thank you so much.” Blue said while taking the clothes out of the bag and laying them on the bed. 

“Sorry I did not know what your style was. I tried to pick out something you would like.” said Blue. Blue and Bridget drove to her house.

Chapter 13

Blue climbed into bed and yawned as she drifted off into a deep sleep. She woke up in the middle of the night and looked around at her new room. The walls were cream colored and on the ceiling was a small chandelier, off to the side of the room was a built-in closet with two bronze handles. It was dark and the curtains were drawn but a small amount of moon light was coming. Blue pulled off her covers and walked over to the window and opened the curtains to see a bright full moon in the sky. She remembered her father telling her marvelous stories about the moon. She remembered him pointing up at the moon and his soft, familiar voice seemed to fill her head. Tears fell from her eyes and she wiped them away, but her shirt was now wet and tear stained. She could see a light coming from behind her closed door and could hear the faint sound of the TV in the living room. 

She decided to get up and get a glass of water from the new kitchen. She tiptoed out of the room and peered out the door to see Bridget watching the television and swigging some beer. Blue just walked up to the fridge and opened it to see an abundance of alcohol strewn about the fridge. 

Blue grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with tap water from the sink. She had started walking back to her room when she heard the jumbled words,

“What are you doing?”  

“Just getting a glass of water,” said Blue. 

“Whatever. You know your pathetic. That’s why your mother left you and Dad crashed that car on purpose just get away from you.” said Bridget, walking up to Blue and hitting her. The side of Blue’s was red and stung where Bridget had hit her. “Not one of your aunts and uncles even wanted you.”

“Ok.” Blue said, confused as she looked up at Bridget, scared.

Chapter 14

Blue woke up the next day tired and still scared of Bridget. She got out of bed and squinted at the bright morning sun that was shining in her face. She walked up to the drawer to find it filled with clothing all from the gap. In through the partially closed door came an orange cat that was meowing. She knelt down on her knees and let the cat lick her hand. She sat down with her legs crossed and played with the cat, she even smiled a small smile, for the first time in a while. Finally when the cat lost interest and went to venture off into the rest of the house, Blue went back into the drawer and picked out a yellow romper. She stepped out of the room and endured misery and abuse from Bridget.

***

Blue laid awake in bed devising a plan to escape her misery. She made a checklist of things she would need in her mind. Food, a water bottle, backpack and some clothes, and Bridget’s macbook air. 

“Where will I go? Should I try and find my mother?” thought Blue. “I am going to find my mother.” she finally decided. 

The next day Blue looked up her mother’s name. Immediately, she found a phone number and address. She packed a bag full of the things she needed.

While Bridget was going to the bathroom Blue snuck out of the house and took a train three hours away and then took a bus into her mother’s neighborhood, and then walked until she found her mother’s house. A yellow brick house with blossoming cherry trees in the front yard. She walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. Her mother answered the door with a little baby in her arms.

Blue’s mother stared in shock at Blue and said,

“Hello Blue.” 

“Hello.” said Blue.


Scoot and the Big Bear Mystery Book 1

Scoot is a red panda. The first thing he did when he left the Prospect Park Zoo was to go on a scooter. He has a secret identity. And the secret identity’s name is Ninajet. He wants to defeat Big Bear. Big Bear is the red pandas’ biggest enemy. 

Finally Big Bear said, “I want to see how strong you are, if you want to defeat me. But you’re not going to beat me. You’re like an old time little loser.” 

“Well, you’re the one older than me,” Scoot said. “It’s almost your death day. So you might just need… good luck.” 

“I don’t need good luck, you do.” Big Bear growled. 

Quickly, Scoot grabs his secret magical white sword and starts fighting. 

Big Bear was like, “What? How did you get that sword?” His mouth was open and stretched and you could see all the teeth going together and his mouth was open in a big circle/oval. And finally the sword hit the middle of his neck and bum bum bum… blue glitter came out of his neck. And his soul said, “You killed me now get ready for your DEATH!” 

They battle and of course, Scoot wins. He has his magical sword, which is the strongest weapon of all. The soul died just like its body. “Cool!” Scoot said. The big bear was easy to kill. No one ever tried to chase it because Big Bear started posting links acting like he was “strong.” But really, he was real weak and mad weak. Even his soul is weak. Souls are supposed to be as strong as light. 

Just then, a yellow plane flew over his head. It came down with a transforming thump! It transformed and came down feet first. It came down into the forest in China. The plane’s name was Donny, Scoot’s personal best friend plane. 

“You won over Big Bear,” said Donny. 


The Zombie who Eats Tacos Everyday

Chapter 1 Taco Man 

A guy eats a tomato taco. A guy eats a lettuce taco. A guy eats an egg taco. A guy eats a beef taco. A guy eats a bison beef taco. A guy eats just a taco bread taco. A guy eats a rice and beef taco. A guy eats an ugly hard boiled egg taco. 

This guy’s name is Taco. He lives with wife, Ms. Taco, and his little baby taco Jr. Taco goes into outer space so he can shoot tacos at people who want to eat them. He throws tacos at people. His salary is $1,123 per second because it’s really hard to aim tacos at people’s head. Right now he wants a better life because his salary is only $1,123 per second and he wants a salary of $2,908 per split second. Ms. Taco is old and has alzheimer. 

Mr. Taco goes on the computer to try to get a new job. 7hr5847n nhcv. His computer turns into a hologram. The computer becomes evil, hacks a government computer, and releases an atomic bomb on Mr. Taco. At the time, he is searching for a new job called Sauce eating to see how much sauce he eats. If he eats five truck loads of sauce, he gets a trillion dollars every hour and every hour after that. Every time he does that, after that, he gets one less minute so he gets money easier. But then, he gets hit with the atomic bomb so he dies.

Ms. Taco also dies, sadly. Taco Jr. didn’t get hit because the stroller protected him. Taco Jr. lost half of his whole body. He lost his right arm, right leg, and half of his right face. He gets a mechanical replacement for that part, which is basically computer-infused with lasers. But then, an evil computer hacks it and the computer wants to destroy Taco guy who right now has somehow came back to life as a ghost who is found by taco Jr {aka hologram hacked taco Jr} blasts Mr Taco with a Laser Gun labeled Ingenita Terra BE Mr Taco saw it was an alien gun “what the hell are you doing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Taco Man got blasted back and started to fade away then an unknown knight armored being blasted a red blue beam of light at taco Jr then the knight said in a familiar voice “I am here to warn you about how to kill that half robot half human.”                               

Chapter 2 Lottery

Soon Taco Man saw a glimpse at something on the back of taco Jr’s robotic half it said 2405 7hr5847n nhcv “weird the year is 2393” he said. Then they teleported to a graffiti filled alleyway he asked the knight “what is going on” “I won’t tell you at least not yyyeeetttt”screamed the knight after a flash of red light.

Chapter 3 How You Die

Taco Jr. shot the knight with a laser gun which killed him supposedly. Then the ghost of Taco Man shot taco Jr. with an ice laser. Taco Jr. stumbled backwards and fell into a black portal. The ghost of taco Man also went into the black hole. Taco Man blasted taco Jr. with another ice laser, but this time taco Jr. activated a gadget and reflected it. But taco Jr. lost his balance and fell into a deep dark hole. But they were still in the black hole, but Taco Man doesn’t know that he’s the one who is making everything happen. Whatever he’s thinking about is what happens. He made the deep dark hole when he was thinking about trapping taco Jr. Then taco Jr shoots a bunch of knives while he was still trapped in the hole. Taco Man didn’t know that was going to happen, so when he got hit by the knives, even though he was a ghost he still got stabbed by the knives since they were coated with poison. Then the ghost saw he was turning into a human again. Then he started coming down because he was still floating and his black hole started to disappear. Then before they knew it, they were both people teleported into a coffin. They were pushed against the walls. There wasn’t enough space for both of them. They teleported above an ocean next to the sun next to a meteor shower into the Sahara. Then they stopped in the sky. That’s the last time they teleported. Then they fell. They were screaming. 

Chapter 4 The Truth 

Taco Man and the Mysterious Knight teleported to an unknown city. Taco Man figured out that it was the future. He found Mrs. Taco. Then, they instantly teleported back to their time. And then they realized it was actually the past. Then they saw a Brontosaurus. And then they teleported back into the Sahara. Then, Taco Man realized that other places they teleported were places that Ms. Taco went to. And then Ms. Taco surprised him from behind and said, “So you figured it out.”    

Chapter 5 Revive

Mrs. Taco says, “I was the one who hacked the computer in order to live longer”

“Why”said Taco Man. 

“I was born in 98718,” said Ms. Taco. 

“What?” said Taco man.

“I teleported backwards,” said Ms. Taco. 

Chapter 6 Finish Line 

“Well, goodbye…

“Nooo,” said the Knight.

Chapter 7 Into the Void 

 Then, they disappeared. They saw so many colors. They were in the Void of Time.   


December 19th

We were sitting in the classroom talking about how we wanted to do the athletic ability class, but my mom said no. We wanted to do it because Grace isn’t that good at running, and I enjoy it. It would be a win win! After that, we just talked about our weekend plans.

 I then started to smell smoke. I glared over at my best friend Grace. She has been my best friend for over 10 years. Grace stared back with her eyes WIDE. 

She said to me, “Chloe, the smell is getting really really strong. Should we say something?” 

The smell was getting really strong. I said back to her, “No, let’s wait here until further notice.” Little did I know that I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.

 Just then the fire alarm rang. Everyone in the school rushed out of the building just like we practiced in our fire drills, except this time it was much more chaotic, like our lives depended on it, because they did. I heard a scream and automatically recognized that the scream was Grace’s. 

I ran back into the building, even though my life could have ended right there. I saw Grace surrounded by fire as she let out her final screech. 

I yelled to her, “Never forget that I love you!” 

I ran out of the building screaming for help. Once I was outside, I watched the school burn from a distance. Many were crying. The teacher called attendance to make sure everyone was here and safe. She called:

“Henry?”

“Here.”

“Ben?”

“Here.”

“Chloe?”

“Here.”

“Dan?”

“Here.”

“Kate?”

“Here.”

“Rina?”

“Here.” 

“Zachary?”

“Here.”

“Grace? Grace! GRACE!!! WHERE IS GRACE?”

I knew. Tears were in my eyes. The firefighters came with an announcement. I could hear my heartbeat echoing through the pure pressure of myself understanding what was about to happen. They stated that they found a dead body inside of the treacherous fire. They described the body and asked if anyone knew the person they described so they could call her parents. I told them what I saw and the firefighters tried to calm me down as I sobbed. Grace’s parents arrived at the school bawling. 

“If only I just agreed to leave with Grace earlier.” I said to myself, trying to hold back tears.

Every day felt so empty without her by my side. All the hours were unexciting and lonely. All the minutes were filled with grief. I could never replace her. EVER. The world needed her. I needed her.

TWO YEARS LATER

  My life was surrounded by that day. The day of the fire. December 19th.  Every time someone said Grace’s name, my heart skipped a beat. Today is Grace’s second yahrzeit. I’ve gone to therapy every other week preparing for this day, so I wouldn’t have breakdowns or asthma attacks. Therapy was working fine although it was hard not to cry on December 19th. This year, I prepared a list of inside jokes, handshakes, ideas, art projects, dreams, and most importantly, our talks. I passed around the list for everyone at the gathering to see. Only me, my parents, Grace’s parents, and Grace’s siblings were at the gathering.

I made it out of the gathering without any asthma attacks or breakdowns. I was really proud of myself for being strong. I teared up, although not too badly.

When I got home, I heard some strange sounds. I peeked out of my bedroom door and noticed my mom talking on the phone. She was talking discreetly. She had no idea I could see her. She then said the words into the phone that changed my life. “I did it ok! I did it! I set the fire!”

I yelled at my mom so hard while wailing! She immediately got off the phone. She explained everything to me. She told me that Grace was always doing better than me in school. 

“SO YOU KILLED HER!?!?” I screamed. I was confused, how did my mom know she would die?

The words spiraled around in my brain. My mom told me, “When I first had the idea two years ago, I immediately started planning. I know that Grace is a slow runner. So I didn’t support your athletic ability classes. If I did, Grace would become faster and would have survived the fire. You recognized the huge scream of Grace and ran for her.”

 It all made sense now. I called the police and they took my mom away while I cried. I have no one. No one.

  In school the next month, I was completely productive. I was trying to be more available and open since I noticed I really hadn’t been. I realized that I am grieving however, that can’t take over my entire life. I still need to live it and fulfill the dreams both Grace and I forever wished would come true.

 And they did.

THE END.         


Unicorn

Hi I’m sally. I am 8 years old. One afternoon, I was walking home from camp like I do every day and I passed by a forest I had never seen before. I started walking in the forest. Then I stopped. I saw a big unicorn, so I hid behind a bush. 

The unicorn started coming closer to me. Then I realized that the bush had food on it. I tried to run away but she had already swallowed me whole. Inside the unicorn’s stomach, I was sitting in a swarm of rainbow wet stuff. It smelled like cotton candy. 

So I had been in there for a few hours. I got hungry so I tried the rainbow stuff… it tasted amazing! My cell phone rang. It was my mom. I picked it up. My mom said, “Sally where are you!!???” 

“I’m stuck inside a unicorn!” I said.

My mom laughed. “There is no such thing. GET HOME!!!

I said, “I’m in a forest. Come and get me!!!”

“Ok.”

Mom walked in the forest and stood there. The unicorn came close to mom. She just stood there and she got eaten by the unicorn. Splash. Mom fell in the unicorn’s rainbow stuff.

I told Mom to try it. Mom hated it. She said it tasted like barf… Mom’s phone rang, it was dad.

He said “Where are you??? I made dinner!!!” 

“We’re in a unicorn!” said mom. “Come and help us!”

Dad said, “Where are you?” 

But mom already hung up. So dad just used his tracking device. So he got to the forest and looked around. Mom and I climbed up the unicorn’s mouth. We saw Dad so we pulled him in. We fell and splash! 

Dad said, “Why did you pull me in you could have got out!!” 

“Well it is too late now.” 

Dad said, “I can’t believe I had made dinner!! It’s probably cold now!!! 

“Well it’s your fault you made dinner for the first time!”

“I’m hungry,” said Dad.

I said, “Have some rainbow stuff.”

“I love it!!” said Dad. Dad called his brother Uncle. 

Dad and Uncle never had a great relationship. They are always bickering. Uncle picked up his phone. He said, “WHAT DO YOU WANT???”

Dad said, “Sally, Mom, and I are stuck in a unicorn.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Uncle. 

Dad said, “Do you want me to send you pictures?”

“A swirl that is rainbow and the unicorn is cute,” Uncle said. “Ok I believe you. I’m coming to get you.” 

He went into the forest and saw the unicorn. The unicorn saw him and walked away. Uncle was mad. So he climbed on the unicorn and the unicorn yawned so he went in its mouth. Uncle was in the rainbow stuff.

Dad said, “Did the unicorn eat you?” 

“No,” said Uncle.

 I went in its mouth. “Seriously. You could have got us OUT!!!!” 

“Ok,” said Mom. “Don’t be rude.”

“I’m hungry. My wife didn’t make dinner.” 

Sally said, “Have some rainbow stuff.” 

Uncle had some. He absolutely hated it, but not bad. Aunt likes old fashion things. She didn’t have an iPhone. She was 50 years old and I thought that was very old. So Uncle called her. 

“.futreukiutrce5ujy6usa6wedtfc64esdfbtrycbetrtgh itduiykdv6tj??” said aunt.

“Go put your dentures on,” said Uncle.

Aunt kinda ran to get them. She screamed she realized that a tooth was missing. For some reason, she got tired and just sat on the couch and watched the news. The people in the unicorn got fat because they ate too much rainbow.

THE UNICORN EXPLODED!!!


The Adventures of Julia and Lucia

Chapter !

Julia and Lucia are sisters. They live on a couch. They have one maid to bring them food, clothes, and a potty. 

Julia said, “Bring me some chips!”

Then the maid said nicely, “I’d rather not because I brought you food 20 minutes ago.”

Lucia needed a pencil so she yelled at the maid, “BRING ME A PENCIL!!!” 

Then the maid said, “You need some exercise, so your mom and dad are going on a business trip and I am going to ask if I can get off haha. They are going to be gone for 8 months, and I will be off 8 months.” 

Julia said, “I will make a stove on the couch.”

The maid yelled, “Who is going to get the stove?”

 Then Julia said, “Oooooooooooo!!!!”

 So their parents got on the plane and the maid went to Paris, so they lived for 3 months so far, then they got really hungry!!! So Lucia gave up. She had to get up because she was starving and thirsty.

Julia would not get up. She said, “I will stay here until I die.”

Lucia said, “But I do not want you to die. Remember we are immortal.”

“WHAT! We are immortal?” 

Lucia yelled, “Ooooopppppppppssssssss! I was not supposed to tell you that.”

Julia got so so so so upset that they were immortal. They were immortal, but they still aged. It was a little weird. They still got taller and got fat. 

The maid did not know that they were immortal, so when the maid was back from her vacation she did not believe that Julia stayed on the couch for so so so so so so so so so so LONG. So the maid was like thinking in her head if she actually stayed on the couch for that long, and plus she didn’t switch positions. She thought and thought, but she could not figure it out, but she longed to know what was going on. Julia was still shocked about the immortal thing. 

But then Julia screamed out, “I do not want to be immortal!”

Then the maid heard everything.

Lucia said, “Noooooooo! The maid heard!”

That day they wondered where their parents were, then they saw the news on tv that there was a plane crash, but they did not survive. The girls were devastated because their parents died and they had to live with a rude maid for their lives.

The maid said, “I quit.”

“YES!” said the girls. They were really happy. 

While Lucia was jumping up and down on her bed, Julia was still sitting on the couch. The maid was going to leave the next morning because the maid was like their mom. The maid rushed to the airport, then Lucia ran outside and screamed, “Do not go!”

Then she broke into a random car [the keys were in the car]. She had good driving skills and she got the maid in time. The maid agreed to stay. They went back to Lucia. They lived a nice life then dun dun dun.

Lucia mentioned that their parents were immortal, so they did not die. Julia thought that they were on a fancy island. The sisters did not care as much now because they know that their parents are safe, and that is the story of the couch girls [Julia is still sitting on a couch]. 

Chapter !!

Remember us? The sisters Lucia and Julia. We used to live on a couch, but we quit it. So we are going on a quest to find our parents, with our maid obviously.

“We gotta find them!” Julia thought that they were at a secret island. “We are going to search the world just for them. We are leaving tomorrow. The maid told us that she used to be a flight attendant.” 

The pilot sold the plane to her for very cheap, like 1000 bucks. Then the maid took a flight lesson, then she was a pilot. She thought it was too much, so she went on the Internet, found a job that said maid, and that is the story of most of her life.

The sisters got packed and ready to fly. They were a bit scared because she had not controlled a plane in 10 years. She was nervous too, but nothing could stop them from finding their parents, so they set off on their 10-hour trip. They got on the plane. They kept asking each other how much longer, but at least there were movies on the back of the seat.

“Ahh!” they screamed. 

“There is a bit of turbulence!” the captain/maid said. 

Then crash! The plane fell in the water, but thank god they were close to an island. They swam until they reached the island. Finally, they reached it. 

They were so happy they were immortal, however the maid was not, so she drowned. 

The girls did not like that they were on their own. The island was like a big forest. There were berries that they could eat and the salt water they could drink. They did not really want to drink the salt water, but then they remembered that they were IMMORTAL!!! YAY!!! 

So they still starved, but did not die. There was a coconut tree on the island. They cracked it open and water came spilling out. The sisters saw two people on the island across from them. They headed over there, but they were two bandits so they took a run for it then they ended up on a different island. 

Then they saw their mom but no dad. They hugged each other. 

They asked, “Where is dad?” 

Mom said, “He passed on the plane crash.” 

“I thought dad was immortal?” 

“No. He was not.” She asked Julia, “How did you know that we are immortal?”

“Ummmmm.” Then she pointed to Lucia. 

Lucia put her hands up. Mom was not disappointed because she had to find a way to tell Julia because she always wanted to live but not be immortal. Then they started crying. They really missed Dad. They thought he was immortal, but he was not, so it was very devastating.

They got on a pirate boat and got to the house. There was a lot of seasickness that I do not want to explain. It took a week to get home, but they made it.

They walked through the door and Dad was a ZOMBIE!!!!!!!

 Chapter !!!

Julia and Lucia were terrified!! Their father died! Ok, they got over that eventually, but they would never get over that their father was a ZOMBIE!!!!!

Zombies usually look like they have been beaten up, but he was dressed in a nicely tailored  suit. Mom shouted how much money. Dad was not normal. He was see-through and he had mental issues now sadly. We are lucky to even have him here right now.

“Dad!!!” Julia said, sitting on the couch but not forever anymore.

Dad was going to the park and killing the kids there. He has super strength now, so he suffocates the kids with his hands. Then parents started calling the police.

“Ooooh nooo.” Julia called Mom and Lucia. They came as fast as they could, but they did not make it in time. 

He was already handcuffed and in the police car.

They went to the police station the next day and tried to explain that Dad has issues and he is a robot. They lied about the robot because they wanted to take him out of jail, but it did not work, but it was reasonable.

Then the officer said, “If he is a robot, why do you need him?”

“Umm BECAUSE HE IS MY DAD.”

The officer said, “You lied. You said he is a robot and that is illegal.” 

Yay they were in the same jail cell as Dad. 

So they were trying to escape out of the window with Dad’s super strength. They were secretly going out, but then lunch came early. 

Then they had no lunch and no food for the rest of their lives, but they were immortal so they will live. Then they tried a different way to escape. Then Dad unlocked the lock on the door, but there was someone at the front desk, so that did not work .

The third time, they went on a trip outside for fresh air. But the police was guarding them, but he was dumb and he was on his phone, then he started sleeping. Yay! That policeman took their wallet and used all their money, then revenge! 

They took his wallet then went to the most fancy restaurant ever. After that, they went on a luxury vacation. They flew first class each 8,000 dollars. So all in all, it was 32,000 dollars. The vacation was to the Carribean. They were sitting for 5 hours when they got the food from the stewardess. It was pasta with tomato sauce on it with a side of cheese. The dessert was lemon pudding with chocolate sprinkles. Lucia and Julia went around the plane asking for second lemon puddings, then the flight attendant said to sit down if there is turbulence. The first time they ignored her, but then the plane was shaking, then they were scared. They went to their parents, but they took Dramamine to make them fall asleep. Then a flight attendant walked by.

It was the maid.

They started yelling, “Maid maid!” 

The maid fainted. The girls were shocked about the maid. They thought she was dead. Then she woke up and she passed them. The pilot on the plane fell asleep, and the plane rushed down to the ground.

The pilot woke up when it fell on the ground. It was a long way from the airport, and it was a lot of nausea. The sisters threw up a few times.

And that is the end of my story. They learned that they should always listen to the maid. 


Monkey Spy

When your day gets completely turned upside down, finding out you have a spy in your household is not that big of a surprise. Having a second spy, ok that is a little kooky, but having a third spy, that is a monkey????? Now it is going way too far. First Violet, then mom, now Leland. Ok, well let me start from the beginning. It all starts in Florida…

4 Weeks Previously 

Mom was cooking dinner in the kitchen of our small condo- apartment. It was spaghetti and meatballs, but it didn’t smell like that at all. Me and my sister Violet were playing spit on the dining room table, and the twins (Luca and calvin) who were both one and a half were fighting over a bubblegum wrapper. Suddenly, the phone started ringing.

“Hey mom?” I called “The phone is ringing!” I didn’t pay that much attention to it. The phone rang a lot. I stroked our pet monkey named Leland and watched her slowly walk over to the phone, her face pale. This was very unusual of her. She never did things like that. Now that I noticed, Mom had actually been acting like this our entire vacation. Panicked, stressed, and nervous. I looked away from Mom. Violet seemed to have noticed it too, because she had dropped her cards on the table, very unusual of HER. Even the twins had stopped screaming, and were staring at Mom open mouthed with spit dripping down their chins. What was happening? I saw Violet stand up and walk over to mom. She picked up the phone before mom could. 

  “Hello?” She said. It only took 1 second for her usual smile or grin to turn into a look of complete seriousness. She nodded at mom, then hung up. 

 “Experiment 124679830” She called, looking directly at Leland. He turned his head to face mom. 

“Take action.” As soon as the last word came out of her lips, Leland started scampering around the house, as though he had been programmed to. My jaw dropped. The twins managed a simple

“Ohhhhbegubidaga” Before mom scooped them up and put them in the stroller. Violet was running around packing, like Leland seemed to be doing, and so was mom.

“MOM!” I shouted so she could hear me over the noise of the packing “WHAT IS HAPPENING??” I could make out a quick “I will tell you on the way! We have to hurry! Violet knows what to do! Follow her!” Wait, so Violet knew about this too? My mind was filled with a jillion questions, but I only had one thought.

Follow Violet.

I ran with my bags across the street, barely keeping up with V and my mom with the twins in the stroller and Leland, who I think is a spy robot monkey now.

“Where, are, we, going?” I gasped

“To the train!” My mom shouted. “I will have to leave you guys there! Again, Violet will explain everything!” We had reached the train. Mom gave us each quick but tearful goodbye hugs. I blinked back tears. I had never left my mom before. Not even for a sleepover. I was honest to goodness very very scared. Mom gave Violet the stroller, and Leland jumped out of my arms and onto Violet’s shoulder. We entered the train station just as the train pulled up. It was all going so quickly, and none of it seemed very real. It was all like a blurry dream. The doors opened. Violet pushed the stroller into the train. I quickly looked back to see if Mom was waving goodbye, but she had disappeared. The train doors were starting to close, and Violet had to grab me and pull me in. It was much nicer than I had expected. The seats were leather and there was an old woman with a frilly dress with a cart filled with food parading up and down the train. Violet sat down and motioned for me to sit too. I was hesitant at first but then I gave in. She took the twins out of the stroller and put them on her lap, bouncing them gently. She was nine years older than me and I was only 7. She turned to face me. 

“Okay,” she said. “Now I have to tell you the entire history of our family. It all started when I was 10 and you were just 4. Mom knew that this day would come someday.”

“But what do you mean ‘this day’?” I interrupted. She glared at me and I shut my mouth. 

“The day when the spy attackers would come, or as Mom would call them: SNAKE. I don’t know what it stands for but it sure does sound awfully important.” She paused and stared out the window dramatically.

“She told me this, and I am going to tell you. First off, Mom works for a spy institute where they look into the future and this little monkey,” she motioned to Leland, “is a spy too. And not just any spy, a world class detective.” 

My mouth dropped open. But after all that happened today, this wasn’t that surprising. 

“So she is sending us off with a monkey spy, we don’t know where he is taking us, and we don’t know when we will see mom again?” I asked her, my arms crossed over my chest. Violet nodded. I sighed in frustration. I grabbed Leland off of Violet’s shoulder and put him in my lap. He squirmed to get away, but I held him tight. I started to feel drowsy, and shortly after I had fallen asleep. 

Chapter 2

 I blinked my eyes open. Why were we on a train? Then I remembered it all. My cheek had prints from Violet’s coat on it, and I had a little crusty drool on the corner of my mouth. I wiped it off with my sleeve. 

 “Are we there yet?” I asked Violet drowsily. She shook her head.

“Leland said there are 12 more stops.”

“Wait, Leland can talk now?” I asked. Everything was so confusing now. I just wanted to go back home.

“Monkey Translator. Duh.” Violet looked at me like I was the crazy one. I tried to roll my eyes, but I could really only go halfway. I was glad I had brought my book. 12 more stops seemed like an eternity to a 7 year old. I unzipped my bag that I had been hugging to my chest and pulled out my favorite book of all time: SPACE CATS Into The Spacevolution. I also pulled out my worn out, beat up, patched stuffed animal. Flufster McFlufferson went straight into my lap. I leaned onto Violet again, and curled up with my book.

10 Stops Later

Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Nothing to do. I read my book 4 times, I lost at cat’s cradle 16 times (and won once) and I braided Leland’s hair until he screamed and bit me. Violet said it was my fault, but I think that Leland has cabin fever too. I could tell the twins wanted to go home. They were fighting over the last Annie’s Bunny Gummy. I had the urge to scream at them. 

“Violettttttttttt” I whined. “How many more stopsssss?”

“FOR THE LAST FREAKIN’ TIME, THERE ARE TWO STOPS LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Everyone on the train went quiet and stared at her. She turned beet red and giggled nervously.

“Umm, heehee sorry Ruth,” She said in almost a whisper. 

“I like the color of your face,” I said as I poked her on the cheek. The train pulled to a stop and the doors opened with a swishing sound. I sighed in relief. Only one stop left. So did everyone else including Leland who kind of smiles because his mouth turned up in the corners a little bit. 

Ten people started taking their bags and getting off the train. There were only twenty people including us, so it was a lot less crowded and claustrophobic. Leland said in his monkey translator which is basically a speaker on his chest “Our stop is in ten minutes. Start gathering your things.” His voice was metallic and scratchy and didn’t sound at all like I imagined a monkey’s would sound like. I literally jumped up on the seat and started doing my happy Snoopy dance. Violet shot me a glare and pulled me down. I looked around at the seat and noticed all my things were scattered everywhere so I had to take two trips to my backpack which weirdly enough was ten feet away. I shoved everything in there and zipped it. I didn’t do a very good job zipping it so I dragged it back to my seat–or attempted to– but everything completely fell out again. I groaned. Violet was putting her stuff back in her bag and trying to comfort the twins at the same time. I put everything back in hastily and zipped it up correctly. I continued to drag it to the seat before Violet saw me and rolled her eyes. She walked over and picked it up with one hand, ONE HAND, and walked over to our seat where she rolled her eyes a second time.  I watched as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She groaned in anger. 

“Stupid Battery” She mumbled under her breath. I shook my head. She was becoming a teenager more and more each day.

Chapter 3

I walked back over to the seat and sat down, only to spring up 2 seconds later. The doors opened, and the intercom crackled with life.

“This is NYJ airport. I repeat, this is NYJ airport. Please clear a path for the closing doors.” I grabbed my bag and ran out of the doors. I looked around. So this was an airport. I wanted to go home, where I didn’t have to wonder if things were fake.

 I marveled at the sight of everything. So clean, so shiny, so new. Then I remembered that I was supposed to stay with Violet and the twins. Oh, and Leland. I swiveled to look behind me for them, only to collide with a tall man with a black suit and tie, and tan skin. I was so short I could only see the bottom of his chin at the highest, and with that only by craning my neck so far I heard a snap. I heard the sound of the stroller on the tiled floor. The man looked behind me. I closed my mouth, just noticing that my mouth was a big O. 

“Are you Violet, Ruth, Luca, and Calvin Perolline?” A gravelly voice said. It was the man. I stepped back and huddled closer to Violet. How did he know our names? Violet narrowed her eyes.

 “Who’s asking?” She said, her teeth gritting. I decided that if Violet was mad, I was mad too. I put my hands on my hips and tried to look as angry as possible. Leland seemed to be very suspicious of this man. He was baring his teeth, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. 

  The man cleared his throat.

“I am Sir Cleve-” He screamed a manly scream. I didn’t know why until I saw Leland attached to Sir Cleve’s face. He pinched as hard as a little monkey spy could, and at that point I knew. We could trust no-one. This man was disguised as our friend, yet Leland thought he was an enemy. Nothing was simple now. No black or white. Life was a million shades of gray. Before I had finished my totally deep thoughts, Violet had my arm firmly clenched in her hand. She started running and so did I. We ran and ran until I didn’t know if I could run any more. My legs were the wind, and my heart was my spirit. Carrying me on. (This was probably in a famous book or something) Violet stopped suddenly, and I crashed into her butt. Ouch. I looked for Leland, then realized he was on my shoulder. I was scared. Very scared. I was gasping for breath and wheezing for air. I needed my inhaler. I pulled it from my jeans pocket. I put it in my mouth and sucked up ten breaths of air. I stopped weezing. Then I looked up. We were stopped in front of a mangy-looking motel with the red and black sign hanging off of its hinges and the small double door caked with mud. I stared at Violet with my eyebrows raised as if to say, “This is where we are staying the night?”

Violet shrugged and said, “It’s the least costly.” I opened the door and Violet pushed the stroller in the door. Inside, there was a small desk, with a young teenager with earbuds in and her phone out. That was all. No couch, no TV. Nothing. 

“Um, excuse me?” Violet said. The girl didn’t look up. “Excuse me,” Violet said, her voice a little bit louder. The lady looked up and pulled out an earbud. 

“We would like to stay for one night.”

The lady took out both of her earbuds and hung them around her neck. “How many beds do you need?”

“Um, two please,” Violet said, doubtfully. 

The teenager widened her eyes in disbelief. “Two?! That’ll be fifty dollars per person.” 

Now it was Violet’s turn to widen her eyes in disbelief. “For this tiny little shabby motel?” 

The teenager looked offended and shoved her earbuds back in. We stormed out. 

Chapter 4

I woke up the next morning STARVING. Where were we anyway? And why did I have something wet on my face? I slowly blinked away sleep from my eyes and saw that I was on a couch, with Luca and Calvin  sleeping on top of me. I identified the wet thing as Calvin’s tongue. Gross.  

I slowly pulled the twins off of me and onto the couch itself, not my shoulder and getting off it when something hit me. Where was Violet? And Leland? I looked around the room. It was really fancy. It had I bed, but it was small, and the velvet couch we were sleeping on. Violet was snoring softly in the bed, with Leland curled up in her arms. I saw a big window on the side of the hotel room. It was covered by velvet curtains, the same ones the couch was made of. I walked over there, but discovered that the floorboards were SUPER creaky, and started tip toeing. I peeked through the curtains, and saw that it was still dark out. The sun was beginning to rise, but still dark out. I pulled it back and creeped over to Violet’s bed. I shook her. 

“Violet. VIOLET. WAKE UP!!!!!” I whisper shouted. She sat up in bed quickly and then, seeing that it was only me fell back in bed and groaned.

“It’s too earlyyyyyyy” She whined. I pulled the blankets off her. She moaned into her pillow.

 “Get up!” I said. She sleep walked off the bed. And fell. A muffled groan came from her, but you could barely hear it because her face was mashed into the velvet carpet and her butt was sticking in the air. I rolled my eyes. I quickly undressed out of my clothes from yesterday and into a fresh green t-shirt and blue jeans. I tried to braid my hair like Katniss in the Hunger Games but it turned into a giant knot of hair so I gave up. All the while, Violet was slowly getting ready and dressed. We opened the blinds so light poured into the room, waking up the twins. They started crying.

“We should probably go on a walk. Get some fresh air.” Violet said while putting the twins in the stroller. I didn’t have a better idea, so I nodded and started to put on my velcro hello kitty sandals. About 10 minutes later, we were walking along the block. The weather was perfect. It wasn’t too cold, or warm but it was crisp. It was a perfect day for a walk, but sadly, everyone was ruining it. The twins were screaming. Violet was on her phone, and I was trudging along, ten feet behind. Violet apparently had enough of it and put her ear buds in, listening to music as she walked through the park.

 Then her patience broke. She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled as loud as she could. Now this is a thing you would only know if you were Violet’s sister. She whistles loud. And I don’t mean PE Teacher loud, but loud loud. Loud enough for the president of the United States to hear if he listened. Although I doubt he would be. Loud enough that if WWIII was happening they would pause to listen. 

So, imagine how loud that would be if you were standing right next to her. All of a sudden, we heard a pounding on the ground. Getting  louder. And louder. What was it? And Violet didn’t know either judging from her expression. Then it was ear splitting we had to look up. 

Bad Idea.

  Chapter 5

When I looked up, I had to run to avoid getting trampled by the thousands of feet that were galloping, bounding, and scurrying towards me. Thankfully, my staying alive instincts deflected the worst injuries. I ducked behind a trashcan to watch the parade/stampede. I scanned the crowd, which was gazelles, giraffes, elephants, and zebras. Oh, and snakes-for my sister and brothers. No sign of them. I was getting a cramp in my thigh, when the stampede stopped. Stopped, miraculously, in front of Leland, who was standing on his back legs waving his arms frantically in front of him and squawking monkey nonsense. Oh right. My pet monkey was a world class detective. He motioned for me to come over. There was a part of me thinking “Why the HECK are you following a monkey’s instruction? Are you CRAZY?!?!” (Which yes, I was) But the bigger part told me to just do it. 

I crept out of my hiding spot and crawled towards Leland. I saw Violet and the twins huddled next to Leland. Suddenly, we heard huge stomping. Like BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!!!!!! And there, in front of me was the shortest, fattest man I had ever seen. 

“YOU!! Vy you vuin my plan?! You vuin evevyving!! MY plans! All my plans!!” He said in a strong french accent. “WHY????” He said and broke down sobbing.

   This was the bad guy? This short man with a suit? Who is kneeling on the ground sobbing? Ha. But, there had to be a twist. There was always a twist. And of course, there was. He stood up, grabbed hold of Leland by the neck  and killed him. I heard the crack. I saw him go limp. I heard myself scream. And then I launched myself at the man, half screaming half crying. I didn’t have any reason to believe he was still alive. I was angry. So ANGRY!! I had done everything I could to stop it from happening, and it did. Leland was dead. And I tried to hurt him for how he had hurt me. But I couldn’t. There was a wall. Made of glass, through what I could see from my eyes that were clouded with tears. The mysterious man with the monkey blood on his hands was smirking on the other side of the wall. And then I just couldn’t anymore. So I slid my back against the invisible wall, and tucked my head in between my knees. Was Violet dead too? What about the twins? But I couldn’t just stay here. I had to help them. I couldn’t go home now. I didn’t want to, with all the wait on my shoulders. So I stood up, and put my hands on the barrier. I slid them on the smooth surface until I found a crack, as I had expected. I pulled it and it shifted slightly, and I slid to the other side. The man on the other side looked unamused. I ran up and grabbed his shirt. 

“Where are my siblings?” I seethed, spit flying into his face. He just smirked again and whispered harshly:

“Where your faith crumbles.” I dropped the shirt and he vanished, leaving a puff of smoke behind him and the smell of lingering ash. 

The End

Roman Story

Oceanus attended a school for training to fight in the Roman army. Oceanus was born in Rome. He was 18 years old, in Rome his father was a bladesmith. The Roman army had drafted because since his father was a bladesmith. Oceanus was good with a sword. He had to join the army. The year was 206 BC and Oceanus was training at the school with his friend, Maximus. He wasn’t sad because he wanted to become a centurion. The general himself was going to graduate them.

Oceanus woke up in the middle of the night because the alarm bell was ringing.

“What is going on?!!” asked Oceanus.

“It’s just a drill, keep your hair on,” said his commanding officer. 

“A drill in the middle of the night?” The officer shrugged. 

The next morning Oceanus got dressed and went down to the mess.

“Hey! Oceanus over here!” yelled a very excited Maximus.

“Hi,” Oceanus said as he got to his table. “Did you hear the drill last night?”

“I slept right through it!”

Oceanus rolled his eyes. Maximus could sleep through a fire and he gladly would.

“I figured as much,” mumbled Oceanus.

Fifteen minutes later he was practicing on top of the shallow river. He and Maximus were practicing with their swords.

“Aren’t you excited we’re going to graduate in two days! And then we can-”  Oceanus stopped the sentence by knocking him with the handle of his sword which knocked him on his back in the mud.

The next class was archery.

“So when we graduate will you join with me?” asked Maximus.

“I just want to go home,” answered Oceanus.

“Excuse me, but will Maximus and Oceanus please shut up!” said the teacher with a glare so cold Oceanus felt like the temperature dropped 10 degrees celsius.

“Sorry, sir we’ll be quiet,” Oceanus said and gave Maximus a dirty look. The next class was advanced weaponry which was where you learned how to fire a large crossbow, at least Maximus wasn’t in this class. During lunch Maximus kept trying to convince him to join. Finally after the twentieth time Oceanus gave in.

“Fine I’ll join!!!” yelled Oceanus. 

“Jeez, okay, I’ll stop.”  

The next day was a blur, packing and walking around the campus for the last day. The next day they graduated but there was a surprise.

“You are all joining the army,” said the general, “your instructions are on your bunks.” He turned around and left the whole grade in complete confusion. 

Then five months later he and his group were scouting the approaching army. They had been sent very close to a very large lake which led to the ocean.

“Are you sure that that’s the army? The other scouts said that there were about one thousand others?” asked one of the other scouts.

“I guess that they were off,” said the leader with a shrug.

“Off by one thousand?” asked another scout.

Their leader just shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

“Hey, I think that I see the general!” said another scout.

“No you don’t, he’s over there,” said the leader pointing to the far side of camp. 

When they got back to the camp they filled out a report and wrote how the army was smaller than expected. That night, as Oceanus slept he thought and he felt lonely yet he was in the middle of a heavily guarded fort manned by thousands of soldiers, but they were deep in enemy territory hundreds of miles from the closest border of the Roman empire. Oceanus drifted to sleep.

DONG DONG DONG DONG!!! Oceanus woke with a start as the alarm bell rang.

“We are under attack, this is not a drill!!” His commanding officer’s voice cut threw the words of panic coming from Oceanus’s tent. “Get your gear and get out there you will receive further instructions there!”

Oceanus grabbed his sword and armor and ran towards the nearest exit. He put on his armor and ran towards the gate.

“You there get over to the catapults!” A rough hand grabbed his shoulder “NOW!!”

Oceanus didn’t have time to argue. He left and went to the catapult crew. They told him to release the trigger so he did. The machine fired onto the approaching army but the enemy archeries open fired on them killing all of the crew but sparing Oceanus and one more, six were dead. The camp was burning and the gates were being rammed down, arrows flew and injured soldiers called for medics who they might never see. Just when it looked like they were winning, loud war cries that sounded like a tiger about to pounce on and kill  his prey sounded from the hills from the left and right. They were surrounded. 

In Front, there was the main body of the army to the left, there were about 500 enemies to the right, there were 500 and behind them was the river. Oceanus was thinking about how quick he could run maybe he could run just fast enough to the lake and get on one of the ships and hide. A loud command cut threw his thoughts.

“You go fire the catapults,” said a centurion who had blood on his uniform.

Oceanus went to the catapults and loaded the large heavy rock on the hull of the catapult with six others. Then the commander aimed the catapult at the gates towards the approaching army but the shot would take some of their own soldiers.

“Wait that will take some of our own men!” said a very concerned Oceanus.

“Some people are made to be sacrificed,” was his reply. And he fired the machine. The sound of the rock hitting the ground followed by the sound of crunching bones was enough to drive someone crazy. Oceanus was running. The Centurion mistook it as an act of desertion so did the other five.

“Hey, you traitor-” His words were cut off and so was his head. Oceanus ran. There were five enemies on his tail and he ran faster. 

They chased him, he ducked inside the armory. It was mostly empty because of the battle going on. He grabbed a crossbow off the shelf and aimed it for the door. The door opened and the enemy got a greeting. Three arrows in his chest he collapsed. Oceanus reloaded the crossbow and shot the next enemy. Then an enemy spear came and hit a rack of shields, they came falling down onto Oceanus. Oceanus ducked and protected his head as they came falling down on him. Somehow he wasn’t crushed, he was hiding under the shields and an enemy entered shield raised he lowered his shield and looked around. Oceanus leapt from his hiding place and cut the ropes that held a door. The door shut as the enemy dove for the other side the gate slammed shut. Oceanus was left in the cold dark room. He looked around the room and took the nearest torche off the wall and looked around the room. Where the rack used to be was a hole.

“What was that?” thought Oceanus. He went down the corridor. He took five steps and then he saw two paths left or right.

“It’s a trap don’t go either way go back it’s a trap,” said a voice in his head. He went left. He crept down the hall. He walked down the hall for about 10 minutes before he came to an end. There was dirt completely around him except for behind him. A dead end. Oceanus stood up and smacked his head on the roof.

“OOOOW!!” He suddenly realised that he had hit his head on wood not cold soft mush dirt, hardwood. He pushed upward and a trap door sprung open and a ladder dropped down. Oceanus pulled out the crossbow that was strapped to his back and fired up into the hole that had just opened. No answer. He climbed the ladder and pulled out his sword. Someone attacked him. Oceanus grabbed his attacker’s sword hilt and smashed the sword onto the other person’s face. 

“Oceanus?” said his attacker. 

“Maximus?” 

“Yeah, follow me.”

Oceanus followed Maximus to a stable. There were seven other soldiers there, the highest rank was a captain which was three ranks below centurion.

“Let’s go,” said one of the soldiers.

They all hopped on a horse and rode away from the battle towards the nearest fort to get reinforcements. The soldiers had told Oceanus that the rider sent reinforcements was captured so they had been sent.

Five months later 

Oceanus strolled down the wooden stairs of the fort. He was thinking about what had happened five months ago as they had ridden to the fort. They had been riding when one of the riders grunted and fell off his horse with an arrow in his side. Oceanus pulled the crossbow from his back and steadied it. Twelve enemies had come running through the woods with spears and swords. Oceanus fired his crossbow at one of the enemies. 

Dead. The captain had told him and Maximus to go ahead. They had rode ahead and had gotten reinforcements. They had arrived in time and had won the battle but the death toll had been high for their side. The other riders had never been found. Him and Maximus had been promoted to centurion. Oceanus hadn’t been as excited as he thought he would be. He was just regularly happy, not as happy as he had been when he had realised that Maximus was not dead. Seeing a battle can do that to someone. 


Chalk

Sketching a picture of her.

48 colors I could make her

Orange, blue, pink, red, brown the color of her skin.

Finally, I am done.

I press my right hand on it and hold my left hand in the air looking

for a shadow

Then it comes.

A short girl who in my world would be about 10.

She jumps into me then I get a feeling that washes right through me

and then she’s alive.

She runs down the block and out of sight.


Sub Society

Ben Joy loved his siblings. They were so nice to him and he was the youngest of them. His brother Zach, his 2 sisters Lila and Yasmin. The only thing that he hated was the fact that he was starting school. And today was the first day of school. His brother Zach drove him to school and Ben got prepared for torture. 


Two weeks later

Now my prediction is right, third grade is horrible. The worst part is, let me tell you, the substitutes  they love to yeeeeeeeeeellllllll. 

Everyday this is what happens: 

Where is your notebook? 

It’s right here. 

Where is your work?

It’s right here. 

Get out your notebook

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllll 

They are so mean. Here is a list of substitutes: 

Mrs. B: most annoying.

Mrs. L: most likely to yell. 

Mrs. K: she has red hair. Some classmates think she got red hair from getting so mad, her hair went on fire. Me and my friends made our own club called the Sub Society and do wars against subs. 

One day, our substitute Mrs. B was really annoying. By that time, we were voting for class president and she kept asking us what we were doing and we said, “We were voting.” 

Our teacher, Ms. Abreou, saw us going around to different tables and she asked what we were doing. We were all silent and then suddenly, out of nowhere, Ms. B said that we were voting and we got in trouble for the rest of the day. 

A story about Mrs. L: One day, we were surprised that Ms. Abreou wasn’t here and that we had Mrs. L as a substitute. We got into class and started doing our morning work. There was an announcement over the loudspeaker. It said, “All third grade teachers bring your students down to the cafeteria.” 

Mrs. L didn’t do anything. We told her what the announcement said, but she kept saying that the announcement said, “All third grade teachers come down to the cafeteria.” 

We kept arguing with her, but she still said no. That’s how we didn’t get to eat lunch. 

A story about Ms. K: 

You know how I said earlier that some of my classmates believe that her hair was red because people believe that when she got so mad, her hair goes on fire. Well, we had her today. She seemed pretty calm. The thing I forgot to tell is that sometimes in class she curses. I was sharpening my pencil and one of my classmates, Xavier, said to me “Jasper! Your pencils are already sharpened!” 

The substitute saw him and said, “Shut up and put your hand down!” 


Present: 

Well, me and the Sub Society, which includes my friends Irving, Victoria, Audrey, and Clara, were all discussing how we were going to make a trap.

“First,” said Irving, “We need to write this all down on a piece of paper.” 

So we got started. “We’ll make a trap door inside the classroom floor with a can of hot water underneath. We will tell the sub that we need help and lead her in the direction of the trap door. She will fall inside it, but we still have to be prepared when she gets out, so we will run to the stairs and get heavy cans of metal blocks and put it on top of the stairs. When she comes up the stairs, we will throw down the metal cans, and then it will crash into her. And for the last trap, when she gets to the main part of the school, we will pour a foot of hot water and pour it on her.”

RANDOM (Ridiculously Awesome Neatly Done Ominus Man)

I Am Angered

  When I Lose

  In Fortnite I Threw My Controller Out the window 

     I Nick Nack patty wack The controller 

then pick it up and punch it in the tv 

then kick it down the drain 

then i was jolly 

 just a tad bit jolly 

                                                                                        then i destroyed every one’s ankle  

                                          I’m Just like ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh exposed dddddd !!

                    BAM! Where’s your ankles?  

        In the refrigerator  

          There goes your ankles

                               THAT’S COLD!


Jamie and the Swallow Nest

Chapter 1

Swallows are special birds. They build their nests on the sides of old buildings, in the gaps between the roof and the exterior walls. The foundation is made mostly out of little bits of mud. The inside is lined with grass and old feathers. The entire painful process may take months, even whole seasons.

The Thompsons were an ordinary family living in a very, very old house. There was Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, their three children, and Mrs. Thompson’s mother, the kids’ grandmother. Victoria was the oldest child at the age of thirteen. Gregory, who was about to turn eleven, was the perfect example of an aggressive, obnoxious, video-game-obsessed middle child. Then there was Jamie, the youngest, who had just turned nine. Jamie was quiet and thoughtful, and was therefore a big disappointment to Gregory, who had always wanted a rowdy, competitive little brother to play rough with.

The children’s grandmother had lived with the Thompsons for as long as anyone could remember. Her husband had died of cancer right before Victoria was born. She was a strong and energetic woman for her age, and usually the peacemaker of the family.

 The older members of the family were glad Jamie hadn’t turned out like Gregory—with two Gregorys in the house, it would be a miracle if the roof didn’t come crashing down on the family.

Mr. Thompson worked in a small town nearby, where the kids also went to school and did their shopping. Their father drove them to school every morning, and their mother picked them up in her car at the end of the day.

It was a regular Tuesday afternoon. Victoria was clothes shopping at the mall with her girlfriends, and Gregory had gone to a classmate’s house to check out their birthday loot, which included the latest Mario Kart and a virtual reality set.

Jamie was the only one going straight home. As usual, he went straight up to his bedroom to do his homework.

Some time passed. He heard the screen door slam, a sure sign that Gregory was home.

There was a faint chirping noise outside. Jamie looked up. It was an old barn swallow gathering mud for its nest. Fascinated, he observed it for a while, then went back to work on his math problems.

The nest was finally ready. It had taken so long.

The female swallow, after careful consideration, had decided to build hers right outside a dusty brick house on the outskirts of a small town near a huge lake. The lake was a perfect water source for making mud pellets. The nest was hidden under the roof directly above a second-story window.

After gathering materials for the final touches, the swallow returned to the nest. Her mate was already there. He was painstakingly lining the edge of the nest with grass and old feathers. He had to be very careful—there were four tiny white speckled eggs sitting in the center, due to hatch in one week.

The female added the last bits of mud to the nest corners. Being careful not to move any of them around, she sat on the eggs. Until they hatched, she wouldn’t be able to leave again. Abandoning the nest for those last ten minutes had been extremely risky. 

It was going to be a long week for the two swallows.

Chapter 2 – one week later

The female swallow and her mate silently watched their babies push their way out of their eggs. The nearest one already had its beak sticking out of the shell.

The new parents bent forward to help crack the eggs. It was hard work.

Twenty minutes later, it was done. Four tiny baby swallows were resting in the nest with their eyes closed. They had all survived.

Jamie was doing what he did every afternoon—homework.

He heard cracking sounds and glanced around. Nothing. He looked behind him, in front of him, above him, and even went downstairs to make sure it wasn’t just Gregory breaking something. It wasn’t. He went back upstairs.

More cracking sounds.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pinpoint the source of the sound. Eventually it stopped and he decided he had imagined it.

His mother called him down for dinner—spaghetti and meatballs. Jamie sat across from Victoria, who was staring at her food like it was an alien from another planet, and next to Gregory, who was busy violently stabbing his meatballs for no apparent reason.

“Vicky, eat,” Jamie’s mother prodded.

What’s new? thought Jamie.

Victoria took a deep breath, as if she was about to say something very important, and cleared her throat. “Mom, I’m… I’m going vegan.”

Mrs. Thompson groaned. “I spent so much time on these meatballs. How long will you be doing this?” 

“As long as I can..?” Victoria trailed off, seeing the look on her mother’s face.

Jamie’s grandmother spoke up, turning to her daughter. “ Samantha, let Victoria do what she wants to. She’s old enough to know what’s good for herself.”

Victoria gave her grandmother a grateful look.

Mrs. Thompson looked lost for a second. She glanced back and forth between her daughter and her mother. Even Gregory, sensing the tension, had stopped stabbing his meatballs.

“Fine,” Mrs. Thompson relented.

“I’ll eat your meatballs,” Gregory volunteered.

Victoria transferred her meatballs to Gregory’s plate one by one. “As long as you eat them instead of pretending they’re your enemies in a video game, go ahead.”

“Wrong. They’re my opponents on the race car track. You’re allowed to knock out your opponents.”

“Whatever. Same thing.”

“Whaddaya mean same thing?” Gregory stabbed his meatball so hard, Jamie jumped in his seat. “They’re completely different, Vicky!”

Victoria rolled her eyes. “Don’t call me Vicky.”

“Mom does.”

“Well, she shouldn’t either.”

“Stop arguing, you two,” Mrs. Thompson ordered. 

“But Moooom, he’s the one being annoying…”

“Yeah, well, I’m allowed to talk about video games, Mom…”

Jamie listened to his siblings bicker uselessly. He wolfed down his food, excused himself, and sat on the sofa to read a book. It wasn’t enjoyable to be the youngest child. In fact, ever since he had started fourth grade, his life seemed to be a cycle of school, homework, eat, sleep, repeat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had experienced anything really exciting. He wanted something interesting to happen for once.

Chapter 3

Two weeks had passed. Being in charge of four baby chicks wasn’t an easy job. The swallow and her mate had to take turns finding food and bringing it back to the nest every half hour.

At the moment, she was staying with the chicks and her mate was looking for food. They had opened their eyes only a few days ago and were now hopping about. The new parents had taken careful precautions to build up the sides of the nest so the chicks wouldn’t walk off the edge.

Suddenly a crash resounded from inside the house and the wall shuddered. The nest lurched sideways. The mother swallow let out an alarmed chirp, followed by her chicks. The world tilted.

Bit by bit, the nest was crumbling away from the exterior wall.

It took some time for the swallow to realize what was happening. In a flurrying panic, the mother swallow flew out of the nest. She had no way to save her chicks. She let out one more distressed chirp.

The nest, her beautiful nest that she had worked so hard on, broke apart from the wall and fell, her precious chicks along with it. The nest landed on the ground with a thump.

The mother fluttered down to the broken remains of the nest, fearing the worst, and almost collapsed with relief. All four of her chicks were frightened but alive.

The nest, on the other hand, was a problem. It had shattered into tiny pieces.

The swallow stared at the rubble in shock. What was she supposed to do now?

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Jamie, Victoria, and their grandmother were playing cards in the den. Gregory, who wasn’t blessed with the ability to sit still and pay attention, let alone “stare at numbered pieces of paper,” as he put it, was swinging his plastic club and pretending to be a ninja. Their mother’s china vase sat on the window.

Victoria scanned her cards. “It’s my turn. Jamie, Give me your Jacks,” she said. 

“Don’t have any. Go fish.”

Victoria took a card from the deck. “Gram, what’s Mom making for dinner tonight?”

“I have no idea. It’s my turn… Vicky, give me your sevens—”

CRASH.

The whole house shook. The three card players glanced up to see a guilty Gregory leaning on his club with shards of china littered all over the carpet.

Gregory frowned. “Oops…”

The children’s grandmother stood up. “Jamie, Victoria, clear out,” she said slowly. Her voice was low and dangerous.

Jamie scrambled out of the den after his sister, shut the door, and ran up to his bedroom, which was directly above the den. He would be able to hear the conversation below with no problems.

He closed the door and then pressed his ear to the carpet. His grandmother was busy chewing Gregory out. She was on a roll. 

“…don’t you realize how expensive that vase is? You just wait until your mother finds out, Gregory! You have to be more careful! This was nobody’s fault but yours…”

Just then there was a faint thump. Jamie felt it more than he heard it. It seemed to come from outside. Jamie heaved himself up, opened his window, looked down, and drew in a sharp breath. He didn’t believe his eyes.

Chapter 4

Mr. Thompson was enjoying a peaceful afternoon snack all to himself when his youngest son barreled down the stairs three at a time, yelling at the top of his lungs. “Dad! Dad, oh my God, you wouldn’t believe what just happened – it’s crazy, you have to see this—”

“Is everything alright? I heard a crash in the den,” Mr. Thompson said worriedly.

“Yes, Gregory broke Mom’s vase—”

What?”

“-but that’s not important- Grandma has it under control—what you really need to know is that there’s a fallen swallow nest outside, Dad, come see, c’mon…”

Mr. Thompson followed his son out of the house with one last anxious glance at the den door. Jamie led him around to the back, below his bedroom window. “C’mon, Dad… right here, look…” 

Mr. Thompson looked over his son’s shoulder, awestruck. There were scattered pieces of a swallow nest in the dirt, and huddled together in the middle of it all were two swallows and four baby chicks.

“What do we do, Dad?”

Mr. Thompson bent down to observe the chicks. “I don’t know.”

“Hey, Dad…” Jamie thought for a minute. “What if we make them another nest?”

Jamie’s dad frowned. “How? We can’t piece these mud pellets back together.”

“Like… we could use a box. Or… something.” Jamie realized he hadn’t really thought it through.

“Actually, Jamie, that could work! I could nail it below your window.”

“Below? The old nest was above. That’s why I couldn’t see it until it fell down.”

“You’ll see. Jamie, I’ll be right back…” Mr. Thompson re-entered the house.

He returned a few moments later lugging a tool kit and a small cardboard box in one hand and a long maintenance ladder in the other.

“Dad, I didn’t know we’ve always had a giant ladder in the house!”

Mr. Thompson grinned. “Well, I finally have an opportunity to use it. It’s been in the downstairs closet all this time.”

They got to work. Jamie picked out the strands of grass and feathers that had lined the old nest and set them in the new one. Then, with some difficulty, he and his father placed the baby swallows in what would be their new nest. The swallow parents instinctively flew in too to stay with their chicks.

Mr. Thompson unfolded the ladder, set it up under Jamie’s window, and climbed onto the top step. Hands shaking, Jamie lifted the cardboard box and handed it to his father. He fingered the hem of his shirt anxiously and watched Mr. Thompson nail the box to the wall. He hoped the new nest would hold up better than the old one. 

The hammering stopped. It was done. The nest was now firmly attached to the wall. Jamie suddenly realized why his father was putting the new nest under his window instead of above—he would be able to see it from his bedroom without any difficulty, and he could keep an eye on the swallows.

Mr. Thompson made his way down the ladder. Jamie helped his father bring the tool kit inside and put the ladder back in the closet. As soon as they were finished, he ran up to his bedroom, opened the shades, and looked out his window. The swallows were safe and happy. Jamie smiled to himself.

That night at dinner, Jamie recited the entire story to the family. They listened without interrupting him and seemed impressed—except for Gregory, who couldn’t care less, despite having caused the crash that was the most likely reason the nest had fallen in the first place—but Jamie didn’t mind. He was happy and content. With Mr. Thompson’s help, he had saved a family of swallows. He felt very proud of himself.


Bad Guys Never Win

So you know how there is the super mean and snobby super popular girl with 2 best friends in all the movies and books and shows? Well, that’s Jessica Martinez, Abbigail Streffer, and Flora Nightingale. And you know how there is that super cute and popular boy that every girl has a crush on? Well, that’s Rafa Abascal. He has been my best friend since the first day of first grade. I don’t have a crush on him but Jessica does. And she wants to spend every second that she can with him.

My name is Theora Frincey and I love basketball. I’ve played it all my life and was trained by Stephen Curry because my mom knows him. Anyway, I’m going to tell you about one time at school.

I was at basketball practice when Rafa came up to me.

“Hey, your three-pointer is on point! Could you teach me how to get better at mine?” he said.

“Sure,” I replied. “I’m always happy to help a friend out.”

We both laughed at that because he has been asking me that since third grade. And we’re in eighth grade now.

Right then, Jessica, the leader of the J.A.F. crew came up and interrupted our conversation.

“Why not I teach you, I’m much better anyway.” She said snobbily.

So I got really mad because she always steals the people I want to teach how to shoot. So I did something I wanted to do for five years and threw the ball I was holding straight into her stomach. Really hard. Like as hard as I would throw if I was shooting from the other side of the court hard. She fell to the ground and slid all the way from the hoop, to the half court line. She looked stunned for a second. Then she started bawling.

“Coach Jenkins! Theora threw a ball at me!” she yelled.

Coach Jenkins came over and looked back and forth between me and Jessica with no expression on her face. Then, she smiled and gave me a high five. I was shocked. But not even close to as much as Jessica.

“COACH JENKINS! THEORA THREW A BALL AT ME! WHY ARE YOU GIVING HER A HIGH FIVE?!” she yelled, still crying.

“You are a snobby, annoying, GIGANTIC-egoed, BRAT. I PRAISE Theora for throwing that ball at you. I would do that if I could. Nobody likes you, you know that, right? Not even your friends. They hate you! They are only your friends because if they weren’t, you would get SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO mad and your parents would probably sue their parents.”  

I looked around and everyone was shook. Nobody knew that Coach Jenkins could be so honest to a student. Some boys were shouting, “Whoo!” “Yes!” “You tell her!” and other stuff like that. 

“I also don’t even understand how you could think that you are better at shooting than Theora. You know for a gosh darn FACT that that is a straight up LIEEEEEE!”

“Oh. My. Gosh. I couldn’t say it better myself, Coach Jenkins. There’s nothing left to say except…” I gestured to my friends a gesture that we made up so we could all know to say… “YOU. BETTER. BACK. OFF. HATER!!!” we all said simultaneously.

That was the story of how Coach Jenkins was the best teacher ever. In conclusion, Jessica became popular for being roasted by a teacher so she left the school, and the J.A.F. crew was over.

The End


The Unfortunate Tale of Mr. Dirk Chepe

PART 1:

Dirk at birth…

What a strange baby he was. Even though he was seconds old back then, he had already sprouted his infamous Trump-like orange hair. And he already had a beard, of all things! The doctors decided to examine him for study briefly. Since the parents did not especially care for him, after what he looked like and how many problems he had caused for his poor mother during the pregnancy, they said okay.

It turned out that Dirk (pronounced like “Dirt”, except with a k at the end, then Chepe pronounced like “chape”) had off the charts testosterone levels, and he needed to be treated immediately. So every single day of his life, he would have to inject a part of his lifetime supply of fluids that the doctors gave him in the first weeks of his life.

Enough of that testosterone stuff. Let’s talk about Dirk’s emotions as a baby. Even then, when he was born, he had severe anger management problems. (Now, he isn’t as mad all the time, since he kills and/or severely injures at least 10 kids a week in his toddler skiing “lessons,” or “massacres,” you can pick which you’d like to call them.) Back then, whenever his parents put broccoli on his plate, or anything he didn’t love, or basically anything that wasn’t applesauce, he would throw a temper tantrum that only his mom could calm down, and even that took at least four hours. But it certainly wasn’t just food. There are too many things that he hated to list here, but here are some of the major things:

  1. Food, of course.
  2. Any moment that his parents weren’t holding him.
  3. When he was trying to sleep without his mama.
  4. When he was trying to say his name but it came out like Dirt! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
  5. When everyone else in the world seemed to be holding back laughter if they weren’t already laughing when they said or saw his name.

There shouldn’t even be military school for two-year olds, but there was. And Dirk was such a bad boy, that tearfully, his parents had to send him there.

 PART 2:

Military School

It was very hard for Dirk to adjust to military school, since he missed his parents so much. But it toughened him up, once he finally acclimatized. However, his parents would have never believed this when they sent their darling Dirk to military school, but military school probably impacted their son to kill young skiers…

At the age of eight, Dirk was a skilled fighter, one of the best in his class. When he was fifteen, he was a tall, lanky, muscular boy who could have been an American Ninja Warrior. He never attended a college of any kind. When he was twenty, he joined the military.

In his teenage years, he was quite popular with the girls. Bethany even married him. Except eventually, she would get into a lethal skiing accident.

A year after joining the military, he made a drastic career change and decided to become a professional skier. He thought this was the best decision he had made in his entire lifetime. Others, especially his future students, some dead, probably didn’t…

 PART 3:

Dirk Chepe, Professional Skier

Dirk made a pretty decent pro skier, at least for the skiing part. He preferred it over other contact sports like football or wrestling, because on a flat ground, his opponent would just fall down. But on a steep, icy, snow-covered black diamond, the opponent(s) would bump down the hill, screaming and falling head over heels. It was even better on moguls! Since he did so much contact, he was sometimes disqualified from competitions for life. He didn’t care unless it was the Olympics, that he cared about. By the end of his skiing career, on much more than one occasion, he pushed many people into the trees, mostly in hit and runs. He loved doing that on moguls especially. It was so delightful to see people bumping and crashing, especially when no one on the course, or anywhere except him knew that it was him, except for him.

Then, he was even more handsome (at least according to the girls he dated) than in his teens. Eventually he had eight wives, excluding Bethany. Here they are.

  1.   Emily married him when he was 21. One day, they were skiing out together. The previous morning, they had a fight about Dirk’s aggressive skiing and Dirk pushed her on the moguls. Emily snapped her neck as Dirk said:
    1. “So now you know what competitive skiing is like now, huh? Hahahaha!”And for the rest of the day, the snow there was stained pink.
  2.   Amelia married him when he was 22. Somehow, the ski lift that she was on didn’t meet current safety standards (it was very old). She fell off the lift and broke all of her ribs, one patella, one humerus, her skull, her lower lumbar, two wrists, two ankles, one radius, seven metatarsals, and 30% of what was still not broken in her body. As you could guess, she died.
  3.   Wendy married him when he was 24. They went to the same mountain where Amelia died. Wendy’s chair lift didn’t meet safety standards either, and when she was supposed to get off at the top of the mountain, the lift sped up to 20 mph. When Wendy tried to get off, she broke all of her ribs. During emergency surgery, she died.
  4.   Audrey married him when he was 25. She needed to tighten her ski boots, but Dirk pushed her down the triple black diamond and she died.
  5.   Margaret married him when he was 26. She said, “I love you Dirk.” Dirk said, “YoU CaLlEd Me DiRt?! HoW DaRe YoU!!!!!!” Dirk punched her in the forehead and Margaret immediately died of brain injury.
  6.   Sophia married him when he was 29. Dirk had no idea she was a terrible skier, so he put Sophia on a slalom course. Sophia went too fast and died.
  7.   Sally married him when he was 33. She was a daredevil, and eventually she did a ski course too difficult…
  8.   Winona married him when he was 34. She was a very cautious skier prone to psyching herself out, however with good skill. But then one day, Dirk forced her to do a double diamond, and she had a panic attack and died.

(Please know that no one wanted to anger a professional skier like Dirk, so not even the owner of whatever mountain the death happened on dared to anger the possibly honorable skier Dirk Chepe. Everyone in the skiing world knew of his aggression, and knew that if they tried to report him, they would be a victim of Dirk’s homicide as well.)

PART 4:

Ski Instructor, Dirk Chepe

At age 42, Dirk retired from being a pro, and sought a job in teaching toddlers how to ski, thinking that maybe, just maybe, toddler screams would be even more appealing to him than grown people’s screams. He easily found a job at Whiteface Mountain, NY. After all, he was over half of his life; he might as well enjoy it every winter day on the mountain. And every summer day? He spends his time at Cerro Chapelco, a ski mountain in Argentina, where summers in the US are winters there, and winters in the US are summers. Sometimes, down in South America, when he feels like it, he plucks llamas off of the hills, strangles them to death, takes them home, butchers them, and eats them for dinner. My ski sketch is a good example of what a ski lesson with Instructor Dirk is like. (Also known as torture and/or a massacre). Dirk’s grand total of injured and/or dead skiers right now is 127,489. (I will update the casualty count every time I visit this doc).

In 2018, Dirk started a ski resort on Annapurna, Nepal in the Himalayas (also known as the deadliest mountain in the world), just so that when he had the time to visit, he would always see people looking like idiots trying to ski down the 26,550 summit and slip on the vertical rock face. Luckily or not, Dirk’s resort still made enough money to pay all of the death expenses, though the brochure that advertised his resort did say that skiers would ski at their own risk, and pay all of the medical bills if necessary (which, if you could not assume, was always necessary). After all, paying the bills WAS why Dirk started his resort. Shh!

So, it looks like we have reached the end of this biography. I’m pretty sure that me and the reader can conclude that the skier Dirk Chepe is a terrible person, and unfortunately, that will not change. Oh well. Not all stories have to have happy endings. And neither does this man.

The End.

2063

Two middle-aged people ran down a camp, optimistic to reach the big metal gate that is the only exit or entrance to, or from, the camp. Their names were Jem and Billy. Pursuing them were a set of men dressed in blue futuristic armor. As Jem and Billy reached the gate, Billy said:

“Climb, I’ll run around the camp to stop them from following you!” 

Jem began to climb and bounce around on her back. In a baby cradle was baby Peter. 

One of the blue, armored men followed Billy and the other aimed its guns at Jem’s head. 

A loud bang echoed through the camp followed by the scream of Jem. Then the sound of a lifeless body hitting the ground. 

“Jem!” Billy’s voice could be heard from camp 29. Billy sprinted at the body of his once beautiful wife. 

“Billy,” Jem’s hand trembled as it clasped his. “Take care of Peter for me, for us.”

“I will,” Billy said, tears streaming down his face. “Don’t leave me, please!”

Jem’s arm went limp as the last of her life was drained from her. Billy stooped down in a puddle of blood and picked up baby Peter. Even Peter could sense the sorrow in his father’s face for he began to cry.

The two men shot Billy from behind and tried to tug the baby cradle from his weak hands. He clutched with all the strength left in him, for he did not want to lose another person he loved. As he finally died and they managed to tug the cradle away, the baby began a chorus of crying and wailing at the men. Nevertheless, they held the baby cradle and walked into the dark night.

Peter snapped awake, he was tired of reliving his parents’ deaths the night they had tried to escape the misery of the camp in hopes of raising him in a new life. Unfortunately, that plan didn’t quite work, for both his parents were shot and killed before they could get over the wall. Somehow, the enforcers had known they were going to attempt their escape that night. Who told them, not even the oldest people in the camp know. If Peter were to find out though, he would kill the person who snitched on his parents even if he had to take the death penalty. 

Lucy was Peter’s adopted younger sister. They had adopted her from the orphanage when Peter had his 13th birthday because her parents had been killed by the enforcers. Even though she was adopted, Peter loved her as much as he would’ve loved his parents. He sacrificed his rations that they gave them when she was five and still growing. Now she was nine, and he was 15, and they were both living with Peter’s aunt.

Long ago, in the country once known as the US, a violent dictator built an army of enforcers, soldiers to do his bidding, and built 60 camps and a shining capitol. He had views that only “certain individuals” were worthy to live in the capitol. The rest were forced into camps where they would have to harvest resources used to build and power the capitol. And to remind the camps they were an inferior force compared to the capitol, they set up the Reamble.

Peter walked out of their small hut and ran down to the old abandoned warehouse where he and his friends used to meet. Now it was used as a meeting place for the gang of thieves that Peter was part of, the deadlock. When Peter was seven, and him and his family were starving, they had offered him a place in the gang, and from then on that’s how he fed his family. Today when he walked in, they were already crowded around a small map on table.

“Where are we robbing today?” Peter asked them.

“The barracks,” one of them responded, uninterested in his appearance.

Whoa, thought Peter. This is where the soldiers kept their guns, armor and belongings. They also slept there so this would be super dangerous.

“Are you insane?!” Peter said.

“It’s final. We’ve agreed on it,” the same man said.

That night, Peter prepared for the robbery. He ran down to the barracks but no one was there. Suddenly, a spotlight shone down on him and two men tackled and cuffed him from behind. He saw the boss of the gang getting paid by a policeman then he ran off into the darkness. The two men brought him onto a hovercraft that in the direction of the capital of Eros. 

“Where are you taking me?” he asked the enforcers.

“To the arena,” they responded in an unsympathetic tone.

They arrived at a big arena, and the guard said, “You have one day of training to prepare for the Reamble.”

Peter knew well that the Reamble is the way the capitalists built their elite army.  One hundred criminals are put in a ring with knives and weapons hidden around the map. They have to kill each other until there is only one left. Then the wall opens and you can run at the small pile of weapons and supplies. The winner gets a million dollars and a lifetime supply of food. 

 Peter went straight to knife throwing in the arena until his arm couldn’t throw anymore. Luckily, he had used a knife in his lifetime of robbery. By then, he had mastered it and was prepared for the next day.

Peter went back to his room looking at the capitol on the way. There were huge glinting buildings. Food would never be scarce here. The room he was given was huge with a diamond table and glass chairs. A large TV sat on a wall across from a large fluffy beige sofa. A bowl of fruit sat on the diamond table. Peter walked over to the bowl and picked up a plum. As his teeth punctured the smooth sweet surface of the plum, the sweet juice exploded in his mouth. He turned around and saw a white marble counter with three chairs hovering above the ground.

He walked into his bedroom and saw a large king’s bed with fluffed up pillows placed along the bed back. There were two closets on either side of the doorway filled with clothes that you could choose. He went over and collapsed on the bed. Thoughts of tomorrow swirled around his head.

Peter woke up and got dressed in a black shirt and jeans and took another plum as he walked down to the arena. He entered to a roar of fans and people watching the fight. He got into position and waited for the door to open.

Part Two: The Reamble

The doors swung open and Peter sprinted toward the pile of weapons and supplies. He grabbed a dozen knives and spun around. A large man swung a big iron spiked mace. It landed right to the left of Peter. Peter stabbed him and blood began to flow from his chest. He crumpled to the ground holding his hand to the wound to attempt to stop the blood flow. Peter felt terrible. Then there was a sharp pain in his left shoulder. Blood soaked his shirt where the arrow had hit. He snapped the shaft and threw a knife at the man dressed in the same outfit as him. It hit the man in the leg as he tried to run away from the pile and he started to limp away from the pile as the blood stained the grass he walked on. Peter picked up a large rock and hit the man on the head. His eyes closed as the puddle of blood around his head began to form. He looked down and crumpled by the side of the man and tears began to stream down his face, the bloody body reminded him of his parents. He would have to push through it so he could get back home to Lucy. 

He looked around and saw people hacking away at each other with knives and swords. Now he faced the choice, should he stay and help continue the blood bath. Well, he thought, the less opponents the better. He picked up a mace and ran back into the slaughter. 

He swung the mace at a small boy’s head and heard the crack as the mace hit his skull. By now Peter’s shirt was covered in blood. He gasped as he saw there were only 5 people left at the pile. About 60 had run at the pile and there were now 6 left counting himself.

“Stop!” Peter yelled.

“Why?!”  one girl with a spear asked.

“We could alliance!” Peter yelled.

Peter knew he couldn’t win all on his own. Plus these were the strongest players so they would be good allies. Also when there were very few people left he could kill them. 

“Okay!” they all said. 

They gathered all the weapons and supplies that were in the pile and set up a camp by the pile. Off in the distance he saw smoke coming from what he assumed was someone’s campfire. 

“What’s your name?” Peter asked a girl with blond hair, blue eyes, ripped jeans and a black leather jacket.

“Heather.” She responded in a high voice.

“Guys do you see that?” Peter asked seeing the smoke drifting up about 60 yards away from the entrance of the woods.

“Let’s go kill that idiot who started the fire.” A boy in a leather jacket named John said.

Peter noticed he was holding a knife behind his back as he said it.

They tread off through the forest toward the smoke coming from the campfire of a competitor. As they were about to reach the camp John tried to stab them in the back. He only was able to stab a boy from camp 4. I spun around and impaled him with a knife. He collapsed on the forest floor and another boy from camp 3 tried to stab Heather but she was to quick for him. She grabbed his arm and impaled it with her knife. He screamed as the blood ran down his arm and stained the grass below him. A big boy from camp 2 grabbed his head in his arms and violently jerked them in different directions. There was a loud crack and the boys body fell to the grass.

John turned to the others,

“Why are we even keeping Peter alive what use is he to us?” he asked

They all turned on him and started stabbing him and punching him. 

He tumbled down a hill into the woods and blacked out. 

Peter woke up and noticed there was no one left. He was getting up off of the forest floor when a voice said “Final 2, fight!” So Peter ran through the woods and found John. I threw a knife at him and it hit him in the arm. John shot an arrow at Peter and it hit him in the leg. Peter charged John and stabbed him in the chest. He fell bleeding to death at Peter’s feet. Then a voice came on, 

“Congratulations Peter from camp 25!”

The End


Dude the Cat

Dude the Cat has tattoos and rainbow fur. He has a mean dad who won’t give Dude the Cat a basketball for Christmas. His mom wants to get him a basketball for Christmas, but there has to be a special occasion for him to get the basketball. 

=====

Dude the Cat was at basketball camp, which was called Basketball Dudes. He plays basketball. 

He said, “Can I get a basketball?” 

His dad said no, but his mom said, “For a special occasion, yes.” Dude was sad. He went to his room crying. His mom came and said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t just give you one for no occasion.”

Dude the Cat said, “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at Dad.”

The mom said, “Well, it doesn’t matter about Dad. Just listen to your mom, and your mom says for a special occasion, and that’s that.”

Dude went back to camp and he talked to his friend Joe that he’s going to try to ask his mom to get it from his money. 

Joe said, “Great idea!” 

First, Dude went back home. It was nighttime. He ate dinner and he went straight to bed. The next morning, when he woke up, he ran to his mom and he said, “Is it camp?! Is it camp?!” 

His mom said yes, but his dad said, “I wish it was cancelled.”

Dude said, “Well, I’m going to solve the problem.” 

Chapter 2

Dude went to his camp running. He didn’t even greet the teacher. He went straight to his friend to say, “I have an idea! I have an idea!” The idea was smart. He told his friend, “I’m going to ask my mom to get a basketball from my money.” 

Joe said, “That’s the most amazing idea in the history of the world!” 

Dude got in trouble because he didn’t greet the teacher. At the principal’s office, he got in trouble because the teacher was so strict. They weren’t going to call his parents, he just had to talk to the principal. The principal said, “If you do that one more time, we will call your parents.” Dude was too excited to concentrate. So he got in more trouble. They had to call his parents. 

When his dad got there, his dad said, “I hate you.” 

Mom said, “We’re getting divorced.”

Dude the Cat smiled at the dad. 

Then, when it was bedtime, Mom went to give him a kiss and a hug. 

And then, the next morning, he remembered he needed to tell his mom his idea. He told his mom about the teacher first, and then he told his amazing idea. And the mom said, “On the weekend, you can do that.” 

At camp, he was running to his friend, but this time he remembered to greet the teacher. He went off to his friend and said, “My idea worked!” 

Today was Friday. He was so excited for tomorrow, so he went rushing to camp and he was the first one there. Dude found out he got there at 7. Camp was supposed to start at 10. For the three hours, he ate breakfast while he was playing with the basketball. But every time he looked at the basketballs, Dude got so excited for tomorrow when he would be practicing with his own basketball. When everybody came, he was playing basketball so well, he got an A+. 

When he went back home, he ate dinner, and he couldn’t even fall asleep with how excited he was. 

The next day, he was so excited. He asked his mom, “At what time can we get my basketball?!” 

She said, “After lunch.” 

Dude said, “Awww.” 

At lunch, he only ate half of his sandwich because he was so excited. His mom said, “You can only get the basketball if you eat all of your sandwich.”

After lunch, he said, “You don’t have any more excuses. Let’s go get the basketball.” 

She said, “All right.”

He got a rainbow basketball because it was his favorite color. 

Chapter 3

Dude asked, “Where does Dad live?”

Mom said, “He lives with his sister.”

“Can we have an interview with his sister?” he said. 

Mom said they could have one tomorrow. 

It was the next day. She came over and for some reason, she really looked like his teacher. She was strict, she looked like it, and she was acting like his teacher. She was very weird. But she seemed to be like his dad. That’s when Dude had the greatest idea in the history of the world. Their teacher had a tattoo. That’s not the amazing part. The amazing part was that he could check if Dad’s sister had a tattoo. And she sure did have a tattoo. He was going like crazy. This could not be his teacher. But Dude’s dad was mean so that made sense. He went to school, and Dude ran to his friend. And Dude yelled at him. 

“Our teacher is my aunt!” Dude went crazy. Joe went crazy too. He told Joe this was very bad. But his aunt didn’t know that he knew she was their teacher. 

Joe said,“I dare you to tell her that you know she’s your aunt.” 

Dude said, “Fine.” 

The teacher came to the camp and Dude said, “I know you’re my aunt.” 

She said, “No I’m not!” 

He said, “You have to be honest, everybody knows you’re my aunt because of the tattoo, I saw it then and you have it now.” The tattoo was a rainbow unicorn climbing a rock on her belly.  

“You just have to release the secret. Everybody knows,” Dude said one more time. He felt so, so glad that he found out who the teacher was and why she was so strict. She had to admit it. 

“I am your aunt.”

“I wish I could put an army on you, but you’re not just my teacher, you’re my aunt.” It made sense that she was strict because his dad was strict too. 

Dude told her, “I hate you. You are the worst teacher in the history of the world.” 

She started to cry. 

He was like, “That’s so fake.”  

“Alright. I was faking it. But you gotta admit that you cannot say those bad words.”

“Well, it’s actually true. I do hate you,” Dude said. 

She kicked him. They started fighting. And guess what? Dude won. Everybody cheered

for him. He was smiling at her because he won. She was bleeding. 

He said to her, “You suck.”

“YOU suck,” she said back. 

So Dude said, “You’re looking in the mirror,” 

“Fine, you won. But don’t forget you have to play basketball in the lower level because you suck.”

“Don’t forget you’re looking in the mirror!” he said. Dude went bump, bump, bump, all the way to the highest level easily. 

When he went home, he told his dad, “Your sister is the meanest teacher in the history of the world.” 

Dad said, “You figured it out?” 

“I got the basketball,” Dude told him.

“I wish I could kill you,” replied Dad. 

“I wish I could kill YOU!” 

“I wish I could get a dog. I got one,” Dude’s dad said. He didn’t. He just wanted to make 

Dude jealous. 

Dude went home to hug his mom. And he said, “I hate basketball camp because my aunt is the teacher. But I still love basketball.” 

Mom said, “I know. Your aunt is strict.” 

Dude told her, “You are the best mom in the history of the world.” 

She hugged Dude very tight and said, “You are a very good son.”

               Mom:

Crowned for Nature


Adele

One summer evening when my family had rented a cottage, my sister Juliet and I decided to take a stroll in the gardens that were far away on the edge of the property. As I walked to the back doorstep and over to the top of the hill, I heard Juliet calling for me to wait for her. I slowly turned around to see her rushing out the door with her sweater.

Juliet

I panted as I yanked the rest of my sweater on and called, “Wait,” to Adele. As I ran to the top of the hill, I found Adele staring at the beautiful bridge that was covered with flowers down the big hill. We carefully crept down the hill. The bridge looked like it would break at any second. I looked at Adele, and she looked back at me. Hand in hand, we slowly walked down the bridge. Once we got to the end, we stepped on the soft grass, and I spotted Adele leaning over to a bird as if she were talking to it. I climbed up some rocks nearby, where I saw birds circling above. I creeped toward Adele as the birds fluttered toward her and me. Half of them were bluebirds and the other half were cardinals. The two groups of birds chirped at each other. The bluebirds flew away and circled Adele’s head. Then the cardinals fluttered their way over to me and circled around my head.

Adele

More and more birds flew out from the trees and from under the bridge, some of which possessed long white sheets for me and Juliet each. They were wrapped around me and Juliet. The sheets wrapped around us like cloaks. It was 8:00, way past dinner, and my sister and I both hadn’t eaten. I took off the sheet and the birds cawed in my ear. It was so annoying. Juliet laughed a bit, then stopped when I glared at her but still thought it was funny. I ignored her, but it was really hard. Besides that, she was a really fun sister I guess. 

Juliet had now gone off into the woods. Uh oh. I thought we hadn’t rented that part. I called out for her, but that just woke up my parents. Aaaaauuuggghhh. There was nowhere to go but the woods. I shot toward the woods without thinking. Once I realized what I had done, I heard my parents calling for me and Juliet in the distance. But I couldn’t turn back. I wandered further into the woods and started searching for my sister. I heard the birds, the same ones that were on the bridge before. 

After days of looking, I finally found a bracelet belonging to my sister. 

Juliet

Once I realized my bracelet was missing, I was able to find a log that had been chopped down by a storm, with the inside cleaned out by a beaver. I found some moss and made myself a small home. It took such a long time for me to get to sleep. 

Finally, I heard the birds chirp as I awoke from my sleep. I turned out to really be a sound sleeper. Ow. I moaned when I sat up and bonked my head. I crawled out and dragged it over to a bench, stopped, then continued. At least it’s light, but tiring.  


Candy Sushi Fun

Once upon a time, there was a Candy Sushi girl. Her name was Lucy, and she was 12 years old. She lived in Hawaii (Maui), and she had three sisters named Aryana, Louisa, and Hilary. She and her family were very happy in Hawaii, but one day, Lucy realized that she really wanted to do something. That something was that she and her family had always wanted to go to Florida. So one day, she told her parents that, and they said, “Oh that’s a great idea, maybe we should go to Florida!” 

So one day, the Candy Sushi people had a meeting, and Lucy’s parents told her and her sisters that they would be going to Florida the next day. Her parents told them that they had to pack quickly because they were going on a boat to Florida. So Lucy went up to her room, and she packed all her stuff. She went to sleep, and soon it was the next morning. She woke up, she went downstairs, and she saw that her Candy Sushi mom had made her pancakes. That was her favorite dish, so she had ten of them. Soon it was time to go, and she got on the boat with her family. 

The boat was a three-day boat ride, so she had a room that she was going to sleep in. She went into the room, and she saw that she was sleeping with her sister Louisa. She saw that the boat was a cruise ship, and it had lots and lots of entertainment. So first, she, Louisa, and her sisters went on the water slide. It was super fun and so they went on it ten times! Soon it was the afternoon, so she had tea with her family on the boat. She had a delicious cake with cookie dough pieces on top. 

After that, she went to sleep, and in the morning, she woke up. She had breakfast in the dining hall, which was waffles. After that, she went swimming, and she went in the hot tub, which was very fun. After that, she took a shower, and she played Sorry! with her sisters, which was also really fun. Soon it was lunchtime, and she had a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. That night, there were going to be s’mores so she had a fun time with her sisters. And she had ten s’mores! After that, there were fireworks. 

They next day, she woke up, and there was going to be a scuba diving tour underwater. She and her family were going to do it, so soon they put on the scuba diving gear (including a wetsuit so their Sushi bodies would not break), and they jumped into the water. On the scuba diving tour, they saw wonderful sites, like the glaciers and lots of fish. And they even saw starfish, which were amazing to see. When they got back on the ship, they had lunch, and after that, they went swimming again. Soon it was time to go to sleep, so they went to sleep. 

That next morning, it was almost time to leave the ship, so they got off the ship, and they landed in Florida (Miami). Soon they went to their hotel, which was a very nice hotel. It was almost nighttime, so they went to sleep. 

The next day, they woke up, and they went to the beach. On the beach, they played games, and went in the ocean, and they swam a little. After that they went into a cave, which was really cool, and they explored the cave and found treasure! They found ten pieces of gold, and someone had left a note with it. The note said: If you want to find more gold, go to the hot water beach and dig a hole in the hot water beach, and you shall find the next note. 

In the afternoon, they went to the hot water beach and they dug a hole (surprisingly, the water was very hot), and they dug and dug and dug. Soon they found the note, which said: If you want to find all the gold, dig a little to the right and a little deeper. So that was what they did. Soon they found a very beautiful pirate chest, and they opened it, and they found hundreds and hundreds of pieces of gold. The Candy Sushi people had a meeting that night, and they were trying to decide what to do with the gold, and finally they decided to donate it to a health place back in Hawaii, where they had a friend. 

Soon they wanted to go back to Hawaii because they were missing all of their family and their land. So, they went back on the plane to Hawaii, which was much faster and only took five hours. They played a few board games on the plane, and soon they were back in Hawaii. So they got back to their house, and they went to sleep because it was now nighttime. 

The next morning, they used their allowance to buy stuff, because on their last trip they lost their Kindles, so they went to the Kindle store, and bought a Kindle with their allowance. Their Kindles were very nice, and one day Lucy was reading her Kindle, and she realized that the Kindle had magic, because she went on the app and saw a little note that said, You can do magic on this Kindle. Lucy wondered what kind of magic she could do. The app answered: You can use this on your enemies or your friends to feel better if they’re sick, and you can use it for anything that you want.

Soon it was time to go to school, and Lucy had been in this school for her whole life so she knew everything about the school. This year, she would be in fifth grade, and she had Mr. Clemens, who was a very fun teacher. She knew that because her older sister Aryana had had Mr. Clemens two years ago as a teacher and she had said that he was very nice and really really fun, so she was super excited to start school. 

The next day, Lucy woke up, and she realized that it was the first day of school. When she went to school in the morning, she was really excited because when you start the fifth grade in school, you get a new binder. When she got to school, Mr. Clemens was waiting at the door to welcome his students. When she went inside the classroom, she saw that Mr. Clemens had set up a lot of desks, and soon it was first period, homeroom. First, they played a game called introducing yourself. 

After Lucy introduced herself, she saw a girl named Madeline. Madeline was very nice, and she said that she was from Texas and that she had come to Hawaii to visit her cousins. Her parents had decided to live there because they really liked Hawaii. After that, they had a computer class with their teacher Ms. Jackson. Ms. Jackson taught them how to type really fast. Lucy and Madeline were really good at typing and they were assigned a project for the Brearley school news. Lucy and Madeline were really excited because they had become best friends. Next period was math! 

Math was fun, but a little boring for the both of them. After that, they had lunch together in the cafeteria. Soon, it was the end of the day, and Lucy went home. When she got home, her mom asked her, “How was the first day of school?” Lucy replied saying that it was great, and that she made a new best friend, and her name was Madeline.

After a few weeks of school, Madeline asked Lucy to come to her house. Lucy replied, “Sure!” Lucy went to Madeline’s house and as soon as she got there, Madeline offered her a popsicle and together they watched TV. After that, it was time for Lucy to go home, and she was very upset because she enjoyed her time there. When she got back home, she went to sleep because she had dinner at Madeline’s house. 

The next day, Mr. Clemens said that they were going to go on a field trip. They were going to a horse stable. There, they were going to ride lots of different horses and clean the stables. Lucy discovered her talent for riding horses. She started with a brown horse named Chestnut. When she got on the horse, they taught her how to ride the horse and make it run. The horse manager said, “Wow, you’re very good at riding horses. Maybe you should come to us on Saturday to take classes.” 

That evening, Lucy asked her mom if she could take classes there because she had really liked riding Chestnut. Her mom said yes. The next Saturday, Lucy returned to the horse stables and she saw Chestnut again. She learned how to do jumps over a few classes, and soon, she became a champion kid horse rider. She entered many competitions, and her whole family was very proud of her. 

Soon, she went to the Olympics. Madeline was also very good, but not nearly as good as Lucy. Madeline also entered competitions with Lucy. Sometimes they tied, but she didn’t make it into the Olympics. When Lucy was in the Olympics, her whole family was there cheering her on and she won first place!! 

Soon it was her 13th birthday, and to celebrate, they got her a cookie dough cake, and they went to a movie theater to watch The Grinch Who Robbed Christmas. Lucy, Madeline, and the rest of their friends went to her house to play a few games. They played Sorry!, UNO, and Monopoly. Lucy won UNO, but she didn’t win the rest of the games. Soon it was time for all the girls to go except for Madeline, because Madeline was staying for a sleepover!! Lucy was really excited!

Madeline and Lucy had pizza for dinner. After that, Madeline and Lucy watched movies until midnight, and at midnight, they made smores. It was time to go to sleep, but Madeline and Lucy didn’t go to sleep. Instead, they stayed up until morning and only got two hours of sleep. And when they woke up, they were really tired. Lucy’s mom woke them up for breakfast, and they had frozen waffles. After that, they went to a trampoline park called Rush. There, they bounced on the trampolines, and they jousted with foam blocks. They also played dodgeball. Soon it was time for Madeline to go. When Madeline left, Lucy realized that she still had her magic Kindle. So she went home and decided to explore with it.

 She used it on one of her enemies: a freshman named Eric Sandies. That day, Eric was being very annoying, and was bragging about his new computer. He was telling everyone about how he got the newest computer and newest iPad at the Apple store. Lucy went up to Eric, and she pressed the Kindle button. Eric was ZAPPED into the air, and his head hit the ceiling. He was blasted into the air. He was never seen again.

The next day, Madeline was sick, so Lucy used her Kindle to make her feel better. That was when she realized that her Kindle was actually magic. The next day, Lucy asked her mom for an ice cream, but her mom said no. So she went up to her room, pressed the button, and asked for a cookie dough ice cream sandwich. She discovered that the Kindle was kind of amazing, and she had to savor it. 

Then she went through another year of school (7th grade). Soon it was her fourteenth birthday! She was going to have a sleepover birthday party in her grandma’s house, which was in Kauai. They all traveled to Kauai to visit her grandmother. The house was really big, so all of her friends could fit in. First, they watched Inside Out, and then they watched Super Human (the TV show). While they were watching these movies, they were eating a candy set that Lucy had prepared for them. After that, they made s’mores, which was super fun!! Then, Lucy’s mom said it was time to go to bed, but they stayed up talking about a lot of different stuff. 

In the morning, they made shaped pancakes that were really cool, and Lucy made an Eiffel Tower-shaped one. Her friends made even different shaped ones, which were really good too. After that it was time for her friends to go home. After a month or so, it was time for Christmas. Christmas was her favorite time because they got to decorate the Christmas tree, and it was super fun because she and her sisters always had fun decorating it. And then Lucy said, “I got the angel that goes on the top of the tree!” 

And then Hilary said, “I got the photos of us!” 

And then Aryana exclaimed, “I got the crafts that we made!” 

And then Lousisa said, “I got the letters!” 

Soon, they were finished decorating the tree. After that, they left out the milk and cookies for Santa Claus. 

The next morning, Lucy woke up first. And she said, “Wake up Aryana! Wake up Hilary! Wake up Lousia!” After that they woke up their parents, who were very sleepy but happy. Soon it was time to have Christmas breakfast, which was pancakes. Soon after that, it was time to open presents with their grandma, who was coming over to celebrate Christmas. First, Lucy went and opened the present first. Her first present was a magic kit. She was really excited because that year, she had really gotten into magic. It was Aryana’s turn after that. She got a playdough set because she really liked squishing things. After that, Hillary went. She got Squishies because she really adored animals.  Finally, Louisa went. She got a swimsuit because she really liked swimming. After that, all of them opened their stockings at the exact same time and got the exact same things. They all got a peppermint bark bar, some really cool pens, and some really cool origami paper. 

Next, their parents opened their presents. They had all gotten together and got their mom a new set of really nice black pens she really loved and always wanted. They got their dad a purple and pink shirt. After, they talked to the grandma and played board games. Then, they sat by the fire, gave hugs, and got hugs. After that, they had eggnog, which was really delicious becuase their mom had made it, and she was really good at making eggnog. Lucy got a new horse riding jacket, and her sister got a few board games. Then, they all sat together and played Hillary’s new board games. They were really fun, but challenging. 

Then, they went to this thing they always went to where they made a gingerbread house, which was super fun, and decorated it with candy. This year, Lucy wanted to do something really exciting, so she put a peppermint stick as the chimney and gummy bears on the roof. Then, she decorated the doors with M&Ms and Skittles to make it look really nice. Then, she decorated her gingerbread man with icing. She decorated the roof part with icing. She covered it all with the icing until there wasn’t a single brown spot. Then she smoothed it out and put Sour Patches on both sides. Soon, she was done with her gingerbread house. So she helped her sister Louisa, because Louisa was having trouble shooting out the icing. Soon it was time to leave, so they packed up their gingerbread houses and brought them home. They’d eat some but not all of it, and save the rest for another time. 

Next day, they went to school. At school, Mr. Clemens said that he was going to give a special social studies class. They were going to learn about humans. That day, Mr. Clemens told them all about humans and what they ate, all the places they lived, and what they looked like. Lucy soon became really interested in humans. She would ask Mr. Clemens lots and lots of questions about humans. She really wanted to go into the human world, but knew it was a little impossible. 

One day, she saw her magic Kindle, and thought, “Maybe I can use this to get the human world.”

 She asked it, “How can I get to the human world?” 

The Kindle told her, “You must go to the land of Sour Patches and ask the Queen how to get to the human world. If you’re nice, she might lend you the magic carpet she doesn’t let anyone use unless they’re very nice.” 

So Lucy asked the Kindle, “How do I get to the Sour Patch world?” 

The Kindle said, “That’s easy! You find a hole, dig deeper, and follow the path. After walking for a few minutes, you see a mat, and tell the mat to go to the Sour Patch world. Sit down, and the mat will fly you to the Sour Patch Queen.”

 So Lucy did exactly as the Kindle said, so she dug a hole, followed the path for a few minutes, and found the mat. But she couldn’t remember what the Kindle had said after that. She thought he said sit on the mat, but that was a little strange, so Lucy didn’t think that was right. So she followed the path for a few more minutes, and she found a goblin. 

The goblin asked, “Where are you trying to go, Ms. Lucy?” 

Lucy gasped and said, “How do you know my name?”

And the goblin said, “That’s easy! I am the know-it-all goblin. I know what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to get to the Queen of Sour Patches because you want to get to the world of humans.” 

Lucy was stunned, but decided she was going to go along with the goblin. She asked, “How am I supposed to get there?” 

The goblin said, “Just sit on the mat and tell it to take you.” 

Lucy realized that what the Kindle had said was true. So she went back to the mat, but it had disappeared! She waited, and then said, “Mat, come back!” She thought that might be a way to get the mat back, and she was right. The mat came back immediately. 

So she got on the mat and said “Mat, take me to the Queen of Sour Patches.” The mat took her up, up in the air. Lucy was stunned, she never thought she would be flying, and here she was! She sat back down and enjoyed the ride. Soon the mat was up in the clouds, they floated for a few minutes, but soon the mat started floating down, down, down. They landed in the Sour Patch world. Right outside the Queen’s door. So Lucy bravely went to the door. And went knock, knock, knock. 

A Sour Patch man come out. He looked like a servant but she wasn’t sure. “Who are you? Why aren’t you a Sour Patch person? Get out of our world!” 

Lucy was really afraid, so she went down the hill and saw a Grandma Sour Patch. She went to her and asked, “Please help me, I am a Candy Sushi girl and I need to get into the Sour Patch Queen’s castle.”

The Sour Patch Grandma looked up and said, “Very well. I will take you. You seem kind.” So she told Lucy to hide behind a bush. She went up to the door and bravely knocked. Sour Patch guard greeted Sour Patch Grandma Amy. “Hello, I am here to bring in the Candy Sushi girl!” 

The guard said, “Okay, if you know her.” 

Lucy emerged from behind the bush and walked in with Grandma Amy, whose name she just learned. Then, she saw a beautiful place with stained glass everywhere. She saw a tiny, tiny Sour Patch on the throne. She knew that wasn’t the Queen. So they moved on, and then, they came to a bigger throne with a bigger Sour Patch. Lucy thought that was the Queen, and she was correct. 

The Grandma approached and said, “Miss Queen, I have a visitor for you.” 

The Queen said, “Who’s that? She isn’t a Sour Patch.”

Lucy said, “Miss Queen, I am a Candy Sushi girl, and I really need to know how to get to the human world.”

 The Queen said, “Very well, I can see you are kind and brave. I will show you how to get to the human world.” So she motioned for Grandma Amy to leave. 

Lucy thanked Amy for her kindness, and she replied, “You’re welcome, Lucy. You deserve it.” Then, she whispered, “Go on the magic carpet, and I will say a few magic words. The carpet shall take you to the human world.”

Lucy got on the magic carpet, and whispered a few words. It sounded like the Queen was saying, “Go Lucy, go. Go to the human world.”

Suddenly, Lucy shot up into the air. She was flying! The view was amazing. Then, the magic carpet said, “Lucy! We’re flying! This is an overnight trip. You should click your phone and your room will appear.”

 Lucy did, and a room did appear. She went in, and there was a dining hall and everything. She also saw a bed. She was amazed. Realizing she was really tired from her trip, she went to bed. When she awoke, she was amazed at the beautiful bed. 

The carpet said, “Good morning Lucy, I hope you had a wonderful sleep. Go have breakfast in the dining hall now and we’ll probably land in the human world in 30 minutes.”

 Lucy changed and waited in the dining hall, where fresh donuts appeared. She had them with hot chocolate. The magic carpet called her out. 

She asked, “Are we gonna land soon?”

And the magic carpet said, “Sure! In about one minute.” 

Lucy went to the edge of the magic carpet. She saw tall skyscrapers. Lucy asked, “Where are we?” 

The carpet said, “New York! This is where I’m from.” After, they landed. It was not very bumpy. They landed on a soft patch of grass, which Lucy recognized as Central Park. “We landed in Central Park! That’s amazing!” Lucy looked at a mirror someone was carrying and realized she didn’t look like a Candy Sushi girl. She realized the Queen had also changed what Lucy looked like. 

And the magic carpet said, “I turned into a human too!” Lucy thought the carpet looked like her sister. They both looked about 18. Lucy said, “Let’s go and explore!” 

They saw other humans. 

“Hello, my name is Lucy. And I’m not sure exactly where in Central Park we are.”

And the woman said to Lucy, “Hello, dear. Here’s a map. Are you from here? You don’t look like you are. You look like you’re maybe from India.”

Lucy said, “Oh, yes, I am. Of course.” She chuckled. 

The woman said, “Okay, have a good time in the park.”

Lucy went to the playground, played on the swings, and thought, “If the woman thought I was from India, maybe I should go there!” So Lucy bought a plane ticket for herself and the magic carpet. It was at 6 AM the next day. They booked a hotel, and they slept. 

Next morning, they went to the airport. After checking in, they boarded the flight to India. They were in business class, so they went to sleep for eight hours of the flight. But the flight was 14 hours, so they watched some movies and played games, and talked. They were the first to get off because they were in the front of the plane. Then, they got off, and saw a beautiful sight of India. There was traffic, kind of like New York, but they thought it was much better. They checked into the hotel. They wanted to spend their only day in India to visit the Taj Mahal. They were amazed. It was a beautiful sight. They wanted to see inside, so they asked the security, “Can we go inside?” 

The security guard replied, “Yes, if you buy tickets.” 

They had. So they endured and saw it was beautiful inside. They took their long flight back. They slept and played games. When they got back to New York, Lucy realized she really missed her family and friends. Lucy told the carpet she wanted to go back. The carpet transformed and took her back to the Queen. The Queen welcomed her back. 

Lucy asked, “Where’s Grandma Amy?” Lucy gave her a gift: a picture of the Taj Mahal. 

Lucy got on the mat, waved to the goblin, and arrived home. She said, “Mom! Dad! Hi! Hilary, Aryana, Hi!’ When they asked where she was, she told them she had been at school because to them, she had only been gone for 10 minutes. She wrote a postcard to Grandma Amy. She thanked Grandma Amy.  

Grandma replied a few weeks later. The card said, “Hi Lucy, so nice to talk to you again. Thank you so much for the picture. It’s beautiful.” 

Lucy replied, “Thanks, Grandma Amy!” 

A few weeks later, Madeline was over at Lucy’s house hanging out. She asked Lucy if she could touch her Kindle. Lucy said, “H-How do you know about it?”

“I figured it out,” Madeline responded.

Lucy said, “Okay, I guess you can use it once.”

Madeline used it to make ice cream appear. She ate it, and told Lucy how lucky she was. “You have to savor it!”

Lucy said, “I know, I just don’t know what to use it for except for making sweets appear. 

After some thinking, Lucy said, “I know, I’ll use it to grant people wishes. If someone wants a baby sister, I can grant them that wish!”

Madeline said, “That’s a great idea, then you will be like a superhero, and everyone will like you, and you will be so popular.”

So the next day, when she was in school, she used the Kindle because her best friend Emma wanted a dog. Then she said, “Emma’s mom, get Emma a dog and be pleasant about it.” 

The next day, Emma came back and said, “Lucy thank you so much, my mom got me a dog last night and the dog’s name is Happy.”

 And the next day, one of her friends named Julie told her she forgot her science paper at home, and she really needed it, so Lucy used her Kindle to get Julie’s science paper. Everyone loved Lucy now because she was helping them get stuff like ice cream, science papers, and pets. And then one day a girl named Ruby, who was really popular, asked Lucy “Can I have your Kindle?” 

Lucy said, “I’m sorry, Ruby, but this Kindle is mine.”         

Ruby muttered, “Whatever,” and she walked away.

Lucy called after Ruby, “I’m really really sorry, but this Kindle is mine!”

When she got home, Lucy was reading a really good book called The Thea Sisters about five girls named Paulina, Pam, Collete, Violet and Nicky. She realized she really wanted to become Violet from the book. She turned to her Kindle and said, “I really want to become Violet.” 

The Kindle said, “Sure, I’ll transport you there”

Lucy said, “Thanks!”

The Kindle then said, “Wait, you need to hold on to the desk.”

The desk then flew and flew, and suddenly, Lucy was up in the air. She wasn’t holding on to the desk anymore. When she landed, she saw four other girls and she recognized them as Pam, Paulina, Collete and Nicky. She could tell Nicky was Nicky because she always wore a dark green shirt and red pants. She knew Collete was Collete because she was the most fashionable in all the stories. She knew Pam because Pam always looked relaxed. She knew Paulina was Paulina because she was the only one left. 

Soon she started her adventure! Paulina, Pam, Collete and Nicky didn’t know she wasn’t Violet. They all thought she was. Of course, Lucy wasn’t acting as Violet. She was just there, but the inner Violet spirit was guiding her.  So she was basically just following along looking. They encountered a mystery, worked together fabulously, and solved the mystery.

Soon it was time for Lucy to go home.  She held onto a desk nearby and said, “I would like to go home.” She then flew and flew and flew and flew, and soon landed in the house. When she landed after a few minutes, Louisa, her sister, knocked on her door.  

Louisa said, “Hiiii Lucy, want to do something together?” 

And Lucy said, “Sure.”

Louisa asked, “What do you want to do?”

Lucy said, “How about we play Clue?”

Louisa said, “That’s perfect, I’ll call Aryana and Hilary.” So she called their sisters, and they came into Lucy’s room. They were playing Clue, and Lucy thought it would be Peacock in the garage with the dagger. So she made an accusation and said, “I think it is Peacock in the garage with the dagger.” And she was right.  

The next day, Aryana won. But while they were playing Clue, Lucy didn’t feel very into the game like she normally was. She was feeling spacey, like she was thinking about something else. But she didn’t know what she was thinking about, and then she realized was that she was thinking about her old best friend, a Swedish Fish girl. Her name was Freddie, she was super nice and fun. They had met when Lucy was in kindergarten, and Freddie had come from Swedish Fish world because she had a grandma here. She and her family really liked it here, so they decided to stay. A few months later, Freddie got very sick and was in the hospital and had pneumonia. So Freddie’s family decided to move back to Swedish Fish world for her health, and Lucy never saw her best friend again. For the last three years, Lucy had been missing her best friend a lot, and today she was especially thinking about her because Clue was her favorite thing to do with Freddie. 

Before Freddie left, she said to Lucy, “Bye Lucy! I hope I see you again soon.” But they never saw each other again. Lucy really wanted to see her best friend again though. So one day, she went down to her mom and said, “Mom, did the doctors in Swedish Fish world cure her?” 

Mom said, “They’re still working on her. She hasn’t improved or gotten worse.” 

Lucy said to her mom, “Can we go to Sweedish Fish world and visit Freddie?”

 But later, she heard her mom saying to her dad, “I’ve always wanted to go to Swedish Fish world because it seems so awesome. And because Lucy misses Freddie so much, and Freddie’s older sister Sophie misses Aryana so much, maybe we should go!” 

The next day, Lucy’s mom announced that they were going to Swedish Fish world to visit Freddie’s family. 

Lucy said, “Mom, how are we going to get there?” 

And her mom said, “Well Lucy, I haven’t figured that out yet. I’m going to have to email Freddie’s mom about that. I’m really wondering how she got back to her house.” 

Lucy said, “Okay!” As she went up to her room with Louisa, she was thinking about Freddie, and if they weren’t going to go to Swedish fish world, what would they do?

Lucy realized that she could sit by Freddie’s bed and make her feel better, and maybe even use her Kindle to help her feel better. She went up to her room, and she went to her Kindle and said, “Kindle, can you make Freddie feel better?”

 And the Kindle said, “I’m sorry Lucy, but I can’t help with health problems because it’s not fair to other people.” 

She responded, “Okay, Kindle. I understand.” Lucy went downstairs, and she realized that her mom was talking on the phone. Then, she realized that it was Freddie’s mom. She went up to the door of the room that her mom was in, and she eavesdropped. She heard her mom saying, “I’m so worried about Freddie. Will Lucy be able to go into the hospital to see her?”

 But she could not hear Freddie’s mom answer, so she was really disappointed. She went into the kitchen and asked Mom when she was done with her phone call, “Hey Mom, how are we going to get to Freddie’s house?” 

Her mom said, “We’re going to go there next month!”

TO READ MORE, WAIT FOR PART TWO CANDY SUSHI FUN!

Cookie the Bear

Hi I’m Cookie the bear or you can just call me Cookie. I live in a cave and I’m 3 years old. My mom and dad left me in this dark cave when I was really young… I was alone in this cave for the next 3 years of my life. But I made some friends. I have Rocky (he’s a rock) and I have Sophia the squirrel. I think she’s alive. She doesn’t like to move around much. For food, I eat these berries in a bush around my cave. Sometimes these moving objects come toward my cave and a living thing comes out and starts staring at me. It’s creepy. At night I look up at the shiny things in the sky and count how many there are, but there’s just way to many… Then I just go to sleep. I wake up and I go to the lake and get some fish for breakfast, then I go back to my cave. That’s my daily routine until one afternoon… I woke up from my nap and I see a piece of fish on the ground. “Oh free fish! At least I don’t have to go all the way to the lake for lunch.’’ I reach for the fish but it moves back. I reach again but it goes back. Then I started chasing after the fish until a tall living thing put me in a net! I tried getting out but I was stuck! Don’t forget me, Rocky And Sophia! I’ll come back I promise!” Then they shot something at me and I fell asleep.

***

*Yawwwnnnn* I opened my eyes and saw a cave, trees and bushes. “The living things (humans) probably felt bad and let me go back to my home!’’ I ran to my cave until I hit my head when I tried to go in it. “What!? I can’t go into my own cave?”  It was a flat surface, no place for a home. It was like a wall. I started scratching it until little pieces of paper fell off. “This isn’t my cave! It’s not even a cave!” Something wasn’t right.

 “Well if my cave isn’t a cave, then that must mean the trees are fake and the bushes are fake!” “Dun Dun Dun!”(Dramatic effect) “I have to get out of here! I need to survive! How am I gonna eat or sleep or most importantly PLAY!!!” * Ting ting ting* “What’s that noise?” Then when I turned around I saw a round flat thing (a plate) that had berries on it. “Food!” I was sooo hungry. I ran to the berries and ate all of them in three seconds. “Yumm that was good. But I have to focus on getting out of here. Hmmmmm let’s see, there are 3 see through squares (windows), a tall wooden rectangular board (a door), and a hole where they drop off the food…. Wait! A hole! I can go through the hole where they drop off the food so I can escape! Wow I’m so smart.” So I made my way into the hole and I actually got through! “Wow I never knew it would be this easy!” Then as soon as I stepped out of that hole, there was this noise that went sort of like *beep beep beep beep BEEP!* It was so loud! I turned to make a run for it while the living creatures (humans) were making it out of a rectangular opening (a door) So I was running and running until I looked back and saw 2 living creatures (humans) catching up to my speed with huge nets. I knew that if I didn’t try hard to make it out I would be stuck here, in this place, alone, forever. So I ran and ran and ran and “FREEDOM” I was so happy I made it out. But I had to hide so I made a quick turn to a dark narrow space (alleyway) filled with metal cylinders with stinky food in it (garbage cans). “Ok at least the living things are not chasing me anymore.” I was walking toward the end of the narrow space (alleyway)  until a small round animal with pink long tail (rat) jumped in front of me. 

“AH! Who are you!?” 

“Oh the name’s Ruby and I’m a rat! Tada!” said Ruby.    

“Ummmmm okay, well are the tall living things (humans) chasing you too?” 

“ What tall living things? You mean humans?”  

“Humans, what are those?” I asked.  

“The tall living things!” Ruby told me. 

“Ohhhhhhh that makes sense.” I said. 

“So what is a bear like you doing in the big city?” Ruby asked. 

“Well you see I live in the woods and I’ve been bearnapped by humans and I need to get back home so I can be with my friends Rocky and Sophia. Without them I’m just a bear with no friends.”  

“Well I’ll help you find your home,” Ruby said.     

“Really? You would do that?” 

“Of course, everyone deserves to have friends.” Ruby said.  

“Yay thank you so much!”              

 ***

“Ughhhhh we’ve been walking for hours! Where are we?” 

“We are in the big city!” 

“Ummmmm reality check, but we’ve been in the big city the whole time! All this time we’ve been walking in circles!” “ 

“Oh uh whoops.”  

*sigh* “I’ll never get back home.” 

“Don’t think like that. I’ll get you home but which woods?” 

 “What do you mean?” 

 “There are many woods in the world but which one do you live in?” 

“Oh, I live in the Canadian woods.” 

“WHAT!!!??? Wow that’s very far, that’s like north. Well we’re going to have to take a little trip up north but we’re never gonna make it by foot. So we’re gonna have to get on a plane and go to Canada.” 

“How are we gonna have to get on a plane? I don’t think that they even allow animals on planes not even bears.”

 “Well they allow PETS like birds, cats and dogs. So all we have to do is dress up like one of them.” Ruby said enthusiastically..

“Yeah! They will never notice that its a bear or a rat!” I said happily.

“Okay here’s the plan. First, we go to a shop and steal some kitty ears and dog ears the whole animal fake stuff. Next, we run to the airport and make our way into one of those pet cages. Then, the people at the airport will assume that we’re just ordinary pets, so they’re going to put us in the plane where all the pets are. Lastly, when the plane lands we are gonna land in Canada and we’re going to get out of our cages and make a run to the woods and boom your home.” 

“Yay! But what about you where are you gonna live?” I asked.

“Umm save the questions for last let’s go buy some animal stuff. We have a plane to catch!” Ruby said happily.

“Hey what are those other animals behind the trees they kind of like you-”

“Ummm it’s probably nothing, maybe it’s from all that walking we did you must be very tired.” Ruby said suspiciously..

“Yeah you’re right” I said believing her.       

So we walked all the way to the closest store and bought-technically stole some kitty ears, dog ears and stuff like that.


***

“Wow you really look like a cat, a small one though.” I said.

“Yeah you look just like a dog we are gonna nail this” Ruby said.

“So now since we’re all ready we should be heading to that airport” I said.

“Yeah” Ruby said.


***

We were on our way to the airport but we were still kind of far so we were talking about our past and what we do.

“So where are your parents?” Ruby asked.

“Well they left me when I was very little so I can take care of myself in my cave. I was lonely at first but I met some friends I met Rocky and Sophia and they’re my best friends, like you, your my friend too because you helping me get home.” 

“Well you know what they say you gotta help a friend in need.” she said kind of guiltily.

“Well how big is your cave? You think it’s big enough to fill 100 rats.”

“Probably more it’s really big. Why?” I said.

“No just asking,” Ruby said.

“Okay. Look there is is the airport!” I pointed 

“We made it yay! So now all we have to do is sneak in through the door when someone’s coming out and not get caught. But when we get in we have to sneak in one of those pet cages.” Ruby said.

“But will we fit in the cage?’’ I asked.

“Yeah they’re big. But in order to get in the cage the owner must be distracted so we can open it and get in.” Ruby said confidently.

I turned around and saw the rats again.

“Ruby?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Ruby replied.

“I think those pack of rats behind the trash can are following us,” I said suspiciously.

“Ummmm probably from all that walking. Now come on no fooling around we have a plane to catch!”

***

Now we just have to wait until a person comes out of the door so we can sneak back in.

20 minutes later… 

“The perfect moment… And… 2 more minutes… ” Ruby said.

“By now we probably missed our plane. Why not we go through the back door when someone comes out, like now!”

We ran and ran and ran and we finally made it inside. We quickly found a cage to get into until Ruby had to go to the bathroom.

“I have to go to the bathroom ill be right back,” Ruby said in a hurry.

“You’re a rat! Just use it somewhere else!” I replied.

 But she already left.

10 minutes later…

“What took you so long! I’ve been waiting for ten minutes come on!” 

We quickly got into a cage and waited for the owner to drop us off we’re the suitcases go. Although it was kind of hard because Ruby and i got into two separate cages with some rude cats that tried to scratch us, we just dealt with it until they got tired out.

*Bang* The people that worked at the airport threw us inside the bottom part of the plane where all the pets go.

Ruby and I quickly got out of our cages so when we land we jump out of the plane and run to the woods. But we were gonna land in the next 5 hours.  So we decided to wait and talk it out. But then Ruby and I got really hungry and we didn’t have anything to eat before we got on the plane. So we tried looking in seperate directions of the plane for food. But the only place where they had food was where all the people where, and it would take a miracle for us to sneak up there.  

*grrbrrgle* “Soooo hungry yyy,” Ruby said.

“Me too but just 4 more hours,” I said sadly… 

“Ya know what I’m going up there, and I have a plan.” Ruby said. 

 ***

“ Okay, so now we have to sneak in the snack bar and bring down some food where the animals are so we don’t get caught!” Ruby said excitedly.

“Ok so let’s go now since no one’s looking.” I said.

We were going to get a little bit of the food and bring it down to eat but, I saw that Ruby was getting a lot of food for like an entire pack of animals but I just ignored it. She was hungry…  Right? But as soon as we were gonna turn around to go down, a flight attendant caught us and held us both from the tails. We were gonna run but she was just too fast.

 “Ah, AH let go of me!” Ruby and I said.

Then we struggled so much that we got loose and ran all the way to the bathroom and locked ourselves in until we had a plan. 

 “What are we gonna do?’’ I asked. 

“I don’t know” Ruby said worryful.

 We were so nervous that we thought this was the end of finding my home until the Pilot said, “Welcome to Canada!” We were so happy that we finally got to Canada but the flight attendants and co-pilots we’re trying to knock down the door so we thought fast and there was an emergency escape pod on the top of the bathroom with paraschoots hooked to it. So we put on the parachutes and jumped off the plane. We landed on a small building and slowly went down. 

“Okay well at least we made it out.” I said.

“Yeah but now we just need to look for the woods and then your home!” Ruby told me.

“Yes!” I said

 “Wait the woods!” I said enthusiastically.

“Yeah. What about it?” Ruby asked.

“The woods I can see it! We just got to run a couple more blocks and we’re there. But Ruby I think those pack of rats are following us! I see their tails behind those trees.” I told Ruby.

“Ummm your probably sick from all that running Cookie that’s why we should get you to your cave.” Ruby told me.

“But I don’t get sick,” I told Ruby.

“C’mon let’s get to your home, aren’t you excited?” Ruby asked me.

“Yeah I really am but where are you going to live?” I asked Ruby.

“Ummm i’ll tell you later okay?” Ruby said.

“Okay,” I replied.

***

*Pant, pant, pant, pant, pant* 

“We’re here! We’re finally here! My home!” I said happily.

“Yeah your home” Ruby said weirdly

Then I turned around to look at my cave and I saw the pack of rats that were following us and I think they knocked me out cause everything after was a blur.

 ***

I opened my eyes and I looked around. I was home. But when I wanted to move, I couldn’t. I looked at my paws and feet and they were tied with thorny flexible branches tied to a tree. I couldn’t move.

“Ruby help! Ruby help!” I yelled for help.

“Well, Well, Well,” Ruby said in an evil voice. Well not really she sounded like a baby hahah.

As she turned around sitting on a throne of rats in MY CAVE! Not even helping me!

  “Hey what are YOU doing in MY CAVE, and why’d you tie me up!? Are some kind of crazy psycho rat!?” I yelled at her.

    “*chuckle, chuckle, chuckle* You are so gullible and naive Cookie. I can’t believe you never noticed.” Ruby said.

“Notice what?” I asked.

“See what I mean? This is what i’ve been trying to do the entire time! I wanted to take your cave in the first place when you asked for help. You think you could actually trust a rat? Why live on the streets if I can just take your home all to myself and rats,” Ruby said. 

“Well I don’t know. I never knew a rat or saw one before. I don’t know most things because I’ve never went anywhere else except here. But what I do know is that you’re not my friend and you’re crazy!But why would you do this? To me?” I asked sadly.

“Because living on the streets is for other animals but not me. I always wanted a home so now since I have this cave I am never going to let it go, not even to a nice, gullible, nieve bear!” Ruby said.

“So this was the plan. The question of how big my cave is, the rats following us everywhere, the long bathroom break, and all the food you we’re taking to the animal section on the plane? Why not we share the cave?” I asked persuading.

“What?! Never this is my cave, my food, my home!” Ruby said angrily. 

“But you have a choice. You either become one of my slaves along with the rats, or you’re banned from this cave forever!”

“I’d rather live on the streets, because I never ever want to see you again in my life!” I yelled.

“Well then your loss. No wonder your parents left you. You don’t know anything. But thank you for giving me this cave.” Ruby said evilly.

“Hey it not your cave it’s my cave!” I yelled.

But it was too late. I had lost everything. They threw me on the side of the road, with no home. And I have no one not even my parents. But when I turn my head I see these two big bears. I feel like I’ve seen them before. Mom? Dad? I ran to them so happy.

“Mom, Dad, I missed you so much.” I said tearing up.

“Why did you leave me?” I asked.

“Well we were caught by zookeepers or the humans and we finally escaped looking for you. We missed you so much Cookie. Now let’s go to your cave.” My mom said.

“Well a mean rat took my cave and 100 of her rat friends and they banned me from my cave.” I said sadly.

“Well no one steals our cave!” My dad said.

So we all went in and kicked some Ruby—i mean rat, butt! Then I said to Ruby, “Who’s the gullible one now?”

“Rocky! Sophia!” I said.

“I would like to introduce you to my parents. Mom this is Rocky and Sophia and dad this is Rocky and Sophia. They’re my best friends.”

“Well it’s good to be home.” Dad said.

“Yeah I’m never being friends with a rat.”

Then after that we lived happily with no rats.

THE END


Agent Puppy

Hello, my name is Agent Puppy. I’m actually an agent. I am a puppy which explains my name.

I’m really small, which is why The Puppy Organization hired me. Tomorrow I will be given my first mission. I’m so excited. Usually I would be squealing with joy, but I am a very serious puppy in a very serious puppy organization. I am the most amazing… spy. Of course they choose small puppies because the smaller the puppies, the smaller places they can hide. On top of that, we are very light. Oh, and my breed of course is Chihuahuas, but we aren’t as fancy as a Poodle or as strong as a German Shepherd, but we all love our puppy powers! 

We have so many cool gadgets. Like the Puppy Puller, which is a grappling hook, and Puppy Levitation, which is my jetpack, and of course my favorite is… the almighty, all powerful puppytastic… Boneifide! It shoots bones from my front paws! So amazing, right? Of course the Slipified is chewed slippers being shot from your back paws, but they aren’t that bad. And making them is lit, mostly because we all love chewing slippers! It satisfies our teeth.

Well, enough about me. But I hear that my first mission is going to be… going and stealing the Kitty Organization of Advanced Kitties, but they call themselves BTD for Better Than Dogs. Frowny face! Cats are never better than dogs! But I am kind of just saying that because I am a dog. I have to defend my species! Well, I just received an email on my PC, Puppy Communicator. Well the plan is they are going to launch a spell on fireworks which will make everyone in love with kitties and hate puppies! That’s so low, kitties! Well, what I have to do is dress like a cat and go into the Le Cats Hotel, for cats only. That’s where the kitty boss is staying for the night and with him the secret code to all their security, the code to disable the fireworks, and the secret information to all their field kitty agents! We could win over the humans with all of this, and our field spies have learned that the kitties have been told that all the codes are one word! It could be anything! It could be kitties, or cake, or cats are better than dogs! Wait, that’s not one word… CABTD as in Cats Are Better Than Dogs. Not true! At least we don’t spit hairballs! Sure, we chew shoes and drink from the toilet and use the bathroom outside in public… Wow, dogs are strange. Well, anyway my flight leaves soon… 

In Las Vegas… 

Okay I’m in Las Vegas, and I am dressed like a cat. Luckily cats are pretty dumb, so they won’t notice if I still look a bit like a dog. Hey, they didn’t say what kind of cat! This was what I wore last Halloween for a cat party. I had to blend in! Otherwise how would I have been able to find out that Carl was a double agent! But luckily this time I’ll be able to save our entire organization! If the BTD launches that cat spell, then puppies are done for it! No chewing slippers! No drinking from toilets! Nobody scooping up what I did on the sidewalk and even worse, no one to love me! Pouty face. Anyway, back to the mission. I got them to think I’m a cat, and my room number is 864. Right next to the kitty boss’s room, 865. That’s great! That’s bad! If I’m next to him, who says once I get it he won’t disable a bomb through the wall and get into my hotel room! I know if he tries to do that, I can use my PG (Puppy Glider) to be able to fly off my porch with the important files on my PF  (Puptastic Flash Drive). Okay, I just saw the kitty boss leave his hotel room. I’m going in. Weird, he left his door open. Eh, easier for me. Wait, this could be a trap. I have to use my PP. I know it sounds silly, but it was either that or number two cause. Number one was puppy oil! PP stands for Puppy Powder. I was right! There are lasers spread out across the room. These are state of the art lasers! Yikes. I threw a pebble, and it got split in half. Then Marshmallow comes behind me. Oh, I forgot to tell you that I have a sister. Her name is Marshmallow. She is pretty young. She is two years old. 

“Go back, Marshmallow! I don’t want you to get hurt!” I say.

Fine! But I’m going because I want to not because you told me too!” She says with her baby voice, and she tries to storm away, but she falls a lot, so she hit the floor a couple times to be able to get to our hotel room right next door!

I go under the lasers and do a couple backflips, then I see Marshmallow at the other side of the room.

Woah, that was super cool. I’m going to try!” she said, trying to do a backflip. 

Marshmallow, if you go through the lasers, then no chocolate pudding for dessert! I’m warning you, Marshmallow Belle Summer!” I said with my I-am-in-control-voice, and boy, did she jump. 

No pudding!!! You monster!” she says astonished. “Oh, say bye bye to the puddin — ”

 “Okay okay okay, bye, I’ll go to the hotel room!” she interrupts. 

Finally, I can go and get the flash drive. I hope she doesn’t cause any problems. Okay, I’m typing and hacking all the documents into the flash drive, including their future plans. Oh, if this doesn’t get me a promotion, then I don’t know what will! Okay, it’s all in my flash drive. I’m ready to go. I am disabling… the lasers… okay done!

 “Marshmallow! Come on, we have to go!” I yell.

But Marshmallow isn’t coming. I know what will make her come. 

“Marshmallow, if you don’t come, then I won’t let you have chocolate pudding!” I yell at the top of my lungs. She isn’t coming. Okay if this doesn’t work, then I think something is seriously wrong. “I’ll give you ice cream!” I yell even louder!

But she isn’t coming. I go out of the room and find our hotel room open. I go in and find the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine. I find her collar, where I put a tracking device (because believe me, she can get lost) and I find it on the floor with a post it attached.

It read, If you want your little mutt back, then come to the pool in five minutes, and don’t bring any of your little *gadgets* or else you can forget about seeing your little dog ever again, and if you do find her, you’ll find her at the bottom of the pool. See you then, Agent Puppy.

Signed,

Kitty Boss. 

I grinned and put a straight face on. I left the flash drive in my pocket but first emailed everything to the Puppy Boss, in case I don’t make it out with Marshmallow or alive. Okay, I am at the pool. Maybe they hid her somewhere near the pool. I’m looking behind the vases. I don’t see her. Wait, yes I do, but I see her reflection. 

She’s right on top of — “Oh hi, Kitty Boss,” I say with distaste.

“Hello, Agent Mutt. I see you have come to find your little sister. Too bad you won’t be able to get her back! Unless you want a little negotiation,” said the Kitty Boss. 

“It’s actually Agent Puppy, and I will get her back. I will trade her for all the fish you want,” I say. 

“What I want Agent, is the flash drive. You think I’ll give my power up that quickly. I have the upperhand against you. I want your flash drive with my information on it. You can’t slip out of this dilemma, now can you?” said Kitty Boss. 

“How do I know this isn’t a set-up? Show me Marshmallow,” I say.

 I know what you’re thinking, But the flash drive! Well she is my sister, and I knew this was a set-up of course. So I took out the flash drive from out of my sleeve and showed him the flash drive. 

“There it is. I’ll bring down Marshmallow, after you give me the flash drive,” said Kitty Boss with a grin on his face.

I wasn’t going to give up that quickly. Marshmallow was tied to the bottom of the high diving board, with duct tape on her mouth. She was right on top of the pool. I had my plan already set out since I read that note. I wasn’t giving him his flash drive.

 “I’ll give you your flash drive, but first let Marshmallow go,” I say.

“Oh you want me to let her go. I hope she can swim!” He says as his kitty henchman unties the rope.

No!” I scream, and she goes falling.

Suddenly everything is in slow motion. I see Marshmallow’s tears dripping into the pool. I see her slowly falling, I throw the flash drive towards the pool and leap, I catch Marshmallow and we fall onto the side of the pool just making it as me, Marshmallow, Kitty Boss, and the kitty Boss’ henchman watch the flash drive fall into the pool and sink to the bottom of the pool. 

“You idiot!” he screams. “Not only do I not have my information, but neither do you! And your lives shall end!”

 “Ugh, cats. So dramatic. You definitely didn’t get it from dogs, I must say. But you are fierce. I’ll give you that, Well I’d love to chat, but S’more and I here have to leave! Adios, gatos!” I yell, and I hold Marshmallow tight and jump out the window.

Then I say, “Hold on tight, S’more!” and I equip my secret Puppy Puller and swing back to Puppy Org. Hey, if I told you guys that I had a secret Puppy Puller, then it wouldn’t be a secret now would it. 

“Woah! Never call me S’more ever again! And what about the flash drive? Aren’t you going to get fired???” asked Marshmallow.

“First of all okay, I’ll never call you S’more ever again, and I broke his flash drive, the one in my sleeve not the real important one in my pocket with cat pics on it, not the one with the information on it, and I saved you. I call it less of a negotiation and more of a win win for me,” I say.

And I got my promotion and became a field agent. But there have been some fishy things as in fish being found in the Puppy Boss’ desk. Everyone was happy and perfect, so it seemed, or was it?

The End, or is it

                 Clue #1 

                 T he

                 B oss

                 I s

                 A

                 C at


The House

The house is haunted, and someone is there with you, looking at you right now. 

You hear a sorrow cry coming from downstairs, then you hear footsteps coming. 

It starts to get louder and louder, until you see a shadowy figure. You run, knowing you are being chased. As you run, you hear screaming, and it’s making you more desperate to leave. 

As soon as you run down the stairs, one zombie randomly starts to walk to you. When you look, you see there are people in the building and scream in horror. 

All the people in the building are zombies. 

When you run, one zombie blocks your path out. When you run the other way, you see the shadowy figure. You think this is all over so you start to sweat, but you have an idea. You run towards a zombie and knock it down and run to the door. 

The finger grabs you and chops your head off. 

 The end, literally 


Short story made after a lot of begging

Once there was a billionaire named Billy Bob Bob Bob Joe and his last name was Joe Bob Bob Bob Billy. He could swallow anything and gain the properties of said material if wanted. If he swallowed a machine, then he could do what that machine could do. He had swallowed a jet so he could fly really fast. He flew over to Area 51 because he wanted to break in. The U.S. Air Force saw him coming and said, “No trespassing.”  

“Sure,” he replied

Then he swallowed the gate and the Air Force had no choice but to shoot him. He swallowed a stealth machine and turned it on and then he turned the top layer of his skin to be bulletproof Kevlar. Then he snuck into Area 51. He searched everywhere but he could only find a bunch of test tech like new stealth planes and he could not find a single alien.

He thought, Boring. I’m getting out of here. He went back to his company building in L.A.

“Mr Joe Bob Bob Bob Billy, where were you?” his manager asked.

“Nowhere you need to know and please call me Billy Bob Bob Bob Joe.”

“Of course,” the man replied.

“How is business going?”

“We are churning out more technology by the second. And our sales for our computers are doing especially well.”

     “Can you get my game designers for me?”

“Of course, sir.” The manager got them and they started designing games. After a month he left the rest of the games to his game designers.

I’m all set for life. That was my game plan, I always wanted to know what was in there, I guess. Break into Area 51 and then I’m all set. Area 51 was always so interesting. Government secrets are cool. I just wanna live peacefully. Oh and lemme tell everyone that in  area 51 there is probably nothing there except for a bunch of military test tech, he thought. I don’t want anyone on my back trying to kill me or nothing. And life won’t get boring, I guess. Everything will go downhill pretty fast for me because bad people won’t like me for sticking my nose into things and everyone will try to kill me. Because of this, I can’t focus on my work. A big bounty would be on my head. So no thanks for me. Uh uh. I’m good. Then he continued working because he realized he liked designing games and technology stuff and he didn’t want to coast on his billions. He had a decent life.


Mermaid…Unicorn…Cat

Once in a pretty blue ocean was a mermaid… unicorn… cat. Yes, a mermaid unicorn cat. With long pink, blue, and purple ears, a scaly mermaid tale, and a long unicorn horn.

“I love my life,” she told her friend, Maria, who has short black hair, and doesn’t have a unicorn horn or cat ears. She’s just a mermaid.

Maria said, “Unicaid, you never know what could happen. Your life could turn into cloudy dark skies here in the ocean.”

“But it’s so nice here! How could anything bad ever happen here?”

“You never know.”

Just then, skies did turn cloudy and dark. The water felt less welcoming and more closed. All the rainbows started to collapse and turn into Skittles. Towering over the water was a big fat man in a scientist coat, holding an open bottle, pouring it in the water.

“What- what is that?” asked Unicaid.

“Now that, my friend, is just what I was talking about what could happen.”

“Who- who are you?” asked Unicaid.

“I am the Toxicky Water Scientist named Doctor Unsmartypants.”

“What are you pouring in the water?” asked Maria.

“Toxicky water, because I’m the Toxicky Water Scientist! Duh!”

“We have to stop this!” said someone.

“I know!” said others.

Unicaid asked, “But how?”

“Oh, I know,” said Maria. “We can get a filter from the outside world with clean water and help our world!”

“I have some friends from the outside world,” said Unicaid, “and I know where they live! They all have filters! And I bet they could lend one to us.”

“Okay. It’s kind of creepy that you know where they live, but all right,” said Maria. “Good idea.”

They slipped out of the water and started slithering down the road.

“So… I know the street, but not exactly the house—”

“Wait, what?” asked Maria.

“I’m sorry! But don’t worry. We can knock on all the doors and ask what door Alena Smith is on!”

“Everyone will just scream!” exclaimed Maria.

“Why?” asked Unicaid.

“Ya know. We’re not the same species!”

“Oh… yeah. But I bet it will be alright.”

“Fine!!!” Maria seemed to be getting mad. “Let’s do this.”

They knocked on one door. No answer.

At the second door there was an answer! But it was: “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” The lady screamed.

“Told you!” Maria said selfishly.

“Ayayayay!” Unicaid exclaimed, “Braggy braggy!”

They slithered down to the next door and knocked on the third door. “Whoah!” was the reply, “Who are you?”

“I’m Unicaid! And this is my friend, Maria,” Unicaid said proudly.

“Ahh! Yes! Unicaid!” The lady said, “Alana has told me so much about you! I’m Lea. Nice to meet you!”

Lea had long, brown, curly hair, and skin the color of chocolate.

“You too!” Maria seemed relieved.

“So where does she live?”

“Oh, Alana? Why do you need to talk to her? Is anything wrong?”

“Well,” Maria started, “This toxicy water scientist came and—”

“Toxicated up the water?

“Umm, yeah, basically.”

“So why do you need Alana for that?”

“We wanted to get a filter from her house so we could help save our ocean,” said Unicaid.

“Oh, I have a filter,” Lea said. “You can use it if you want.”

“That would be great! Thank you!” Maria said, seeming even more relieved.

Lea went inside and gave them the filter. Then Unicaid and Maria thanked her as they slithered back into the ocean.

“We got a filter!” They said as they plopped it in the water. It sounded like when you put a penny into a fountain. Dr. Unsmartypants tried to stop them, but it was too late. It was already in. Everyone cheered for them, except for the scientist. 

“Why? Why? Why?” Dr. Unsmartypants said, seeming very, very, very frustrated. He towered over the water and walked away.

“Yay! Hooray for Unicaid and Maria!” And suddenly the water felt more welcoming, less closed, and the dark skies went away. All the Skittles turned back into rainbows, and everything was okay.

The End!


HE. MAY. GO. ALL. THE. WAY!

“Welcome to Super Bowl 100 The Seattle Seahawks vs. The New England Patriots,” said the commentator. “This is going to be a great match. At the half, it is 28 to 27 Seattle. At three quarters, it is tied at 35 with a safety given up by Seattle. Now there are five minutes left in the game, and we are tied at 49. Seattle has the ball on the 50-yard line. Wilson throws to Baldwin, and that’s a first down. Baldwin is still going! Touchdown! Seattle up by seven at 56. Seattle returned! He gets past the defence, touchdown! We are tied at 56 now. Patriots kickoff. Seahawks get five yards on the return. Wilson takes the snap. Fakes the run, Wilson runs past the linemen, he is in the clear. HE. MAY. GO. ALL. THE. WAY! Russel Wilson 80-yard touchdown run to put Seattle ahead by seven. With the touchdown, we are at the two-minute warning. Pats return the kickoff five yards. Brady hail mary to Edelman, he gets to the 20. Brady hands off to Michelle. He is taken down at the one. Brady gets a QB sneak past the line. Conflict on the Pats’ sideline. Brady decides that they will try for a two-point conversion. Brady snaps. Brady runs to the corner, Bobby Wagner chasing him. Wagner strip-sacks Brady. Wagner has the ball; he is running. Wagner goes all the way! Two points for Seattle! Pats try an onside kick. Seattle recovers. Pats use first time out. 30 seconds on the clock. Wilson takes the snap. He runs in the backfield and is just running around. 15 seconds left. Wilson being chased. 10 seconds. Wilson throws the ball as far as he can. Ball is in the air for five seconds. Pats time out. Five seconds left. Wilson takes the snap. He runs to the sideline. Time is up! Seattle wins the 100th Super Bowl. They have done it! No losses in the season and a Super Bowl title. Brady made the biggest mistake in the Super Bowl. Wilson has the longest QB run in Super Bowl history! Let’s hear what Wilson has to say.” 

Wilson says, “I cannot believe this. We played great. This is great.” ______________________________________________________________________________

After the game, the commentator got in his car and started to drive home. It was really late at night, so he was very tired. Then, all of a sudden, he couldn’t see any people or any cars and saw complete darkness. Then his mind blanked. CRASH! He found his car smashed into another car. He had dozed off and didn’t have control. The two cars he crashed into were the Seattle Seahawks’ car and the Patriots’ car. He was hurt, but he got out of the car immediately to see if the teams were hurt. The police were already at the site of the crash, and there was a huge fire. The police called the firefighters, and the firefighters put out the fire and took him to the hospital.  Nobody on the Seahawks or the Patriots got injured. The commentator just got really injured, but he got better really soon. He had broken his collarbone, his neck bone, his backbone, and his arm.  

The Patriots filed a lawsuit because they didn’t like his commentating, and he crashed into them. The Seahawks, though, were okay with it, and they were fine with it.  

His lawyer was really bad because no one wanted to be his lawyer in the case, because they’re afraid he’s going to lose. His lawyer was not that good, so the commentator had to try and deal with that and be his own lawyer.

His lawyer kept telling him, “It’s okay if we lose, it’s okay if we lose.” But the commentator kept a positive attitude the whole time.

The lawyer said, “Man, we’re gonna lose.  I can’t believe you’re even trying. You shouldn’t be trying against the Patriots. They’re gonna have the better lawyer. They’re gonna beat us. Even though I am a lawyer, I have to admit they’re gonna beat us. So it’s okay if we lose.”

The commentator replied, “It’s not okay if we lose because I didn’t do anything wrong in that scenario. They crashed into me. They shouldn’t file a lawsuit on me just because the car ended up in the crash.”

The commentator felt guilty because he knew he fell asleep in the car. The first person to find out he was sleeping was the lawyer, who kept it a secret until his death.

He made a statement where he accused the Patriots’ bus driver that he fell asleep, dozed off, and crashed. That was a lie, because the Patriots’ driver wasn’t sleeping; the commentator was sleeping himself. The Patriots argued that they saw the commentator not paying attention, and they saw him drift off into the lane, and then they saw the crash. The jury thought that the Patriots were wrong because the Patriots had lost the Super Bowl, and the commentator had been speaking about them for everyone in the audience to hear, so the judge had thought that the Patriots were just mad because they lost the Super Bowl and the commentator was saying bad things about them.  This could be revenge.

The commentator went to court the next year and they didn’t know what decision to give, so eventually they went to the Supreme Court.  He won in the Supreme Court with a new argument saying, “The Patriots aren’t admitting that their bus driver fell asleep, and I’m admitting that I wasn’t not paying attention, because I have all a perfect concentration, but you guys never said that you have anything that prevented you from having a doze-off.”

He also said, “They’re trying to get revenge on me, when all I did was comment on the Super Bowl.”    

The Patriots said, “We’re not trying to get any revenge. You almost killed us, and if anyone got harmed, you would have to say that you have to do something about it. If it’s just about the Super Bowl, it’s not gonna be this severe. If I just say something on Twitter, not in court, so basically if someone gets harmed, you should come to justice and say that you did it.”

The judges thought that the Patriots didn’t defend themselves, and just brought up new arguments, so the Patriots would lose.

He won in the court, and he filed a lawsuit on the Patriots for crashing into him, because the Seahawks showed him a camera where the Patriots changed lanes. The Seahawks had hated the Patriots for a really long time, so every time if something went wrong, they would have to get back at the Patriots for the last-second Patriots win during the Super Bowl before. The Seahawks always had a camera in their car, and they happened to be staying at the same hotel as the Patriots, so they were driving on the same road. The Seahawks had the video of the bus driver going into a different lane, which was true, but just because it was earlier in a crash, and they didn’t have film of the crashing, so they only showed him changing lanes. But he did change lanes, which was a factor of the crash. The Patriots lost in court and were fined 1,000,000 dollars. The Patriots were really mad about it, and the bus driver had to go to jail, because falling asleep in a car is illegal, so he went to jail really mad, knowing he didn’t fall asleep and remembering every detail of the crash.

The commentator was relieved that he got away with it, and surprised the Patriots with filing a lawsuit, but was happy that the Patriots’ bus driver had to go to jail. The commentator forever lived hidden because he knew that people didn’t like him because all the Patriots fans didn’t like him because making the Patriots lose in court is a big thing.

Ten years after his death, they found the camera showing that he actually was sleeping in the car, and shouldn’t have won in court because he actually fell asleep in the car. 

The end.


Life of a Boy with Powers

Part One: Ordinary to extraordinary

Place: Annapolis, Maryland

Dimension: Hearth-not-Earth

Once upon a time, there was a fourteen-year-old boy named Leo. He didn’t know it at the time, but he was about to become more than your average boy. On his way home from his best friend Misha’s house (who lived across the bridge), he was hit by lightning. He was walking on the bridge with an Anti-monopoly board game when a thick bolt of lightning struck him. He passed out and his mind went completely blank, and his eyes went white in an instant. Someone found him a couple of minutes later and took him to the hospital.

His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Parker, learned in the hospital that Leo’s eyeballs were great conductors of electricity so the lightning went straight for him while he was crossing the bridge. He was put into a deep sleep until he was sixteen years old without realizing it. He woke up in the hospital, and found out that he had lost his eye. So they left the hospital with an eye patch covering Leo’s eye.

What Leo didn’t know was that he could accidentally control electricity, or that he could do things related to electricity that no one else could do, without realizing it was himself doing it. One time, he was playing Temple Surfers (a combination of Temple Run and Subway Surfers) on his iPhone when suddenly it died. 

“Oh, come on!” He ran out of his room and shouted, “Mom! Can I borrow your charger?”  

“Sorry, but I’m using it because my phone is five plus,” his mom replied (plus is percent).

“Porca miseria!” Leo carelessly said in Italian as he stomped into his bedroom and plopped onto the bed. He was so furious that his bedroom light flickered off and his phone turned on. He looked at his phone screen to check the percentage, and guess what it was? Full charge, or 100%.

“What happened?” he said as he turned the light back on. But then, he remembered the lightning strike two years ago. “Wait, what?!” he exclaimed, and ran out of the house, but with superspeed, like Hercules.

Later on, after doing some thinking, Leo concluded that when he was so mad sparks of electricity probably went into the phone, charging it instantly, and more sparks turned off the light. He didn’t know how that happened, but he was excited because he never found out about it. So he tried testing it out by going home and trying to turn off and on the lights, and so that happened and worked. Then he tried to travel at the speed of light and so he ran as fast as he could, and he could actually see light by his side because, of course, he was running as fast as the speed of light.   

Next he tried flying, but he knew he was really short and the knowledge came to him suddenly that, since he was really short, he could not fly. You have to be really tall to fly. He didn’t know how. He went to Misha’s house and looked inside, and overheard him telling his little sister a story about this magic potion that can make you taller in less than 3 hours, and an evil scarecrow was guarding it.  It was actually a mixture of a robot and an actual scarecrow. You can’t see him because when you get really close, he’ll attack you. Leo knocked on the door and Misha answered it.

“Well you’re back, and that’s awesome!” said Misha, and they did their ‘secret handshake.’ 

“I need to find out where the magic potion is,” Leo said. They went in the house.

“Really? Ok. It’s somewhere in the middle of Romania, Europe,” Misha said. He knew this because he actually, once, tried to get the potion, and he was told that it was in Romania, but he never found it.

“Thanks!” Leo ran with the superspeed he was given.

“Good luck!” Misha yelled. “Man, how does he do that?”

Part Two: The Scarecrow

Place: Somewhere in Romania

Dimension: Hearth-not-Earth

Leo had already told and explained his plan to his parents, and surprisingly, they accepted it. Since he had powers, they knew that he could protect himself.

“Just make sure you don’t die, honey,” Mrs. Parker told him.

“I won’t,” Leo responded.

“Be careful,” she said.

“I will, I will.” And Leo ran to the Annapolis dock, and dove into the warm Chesapeake bay, for what was a long journey ahead of him.

On the way, he found a map to the potion in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He found it because of a storm that drowned him. He floated up because there was a lot of air in his lungs already, and that’s how he found out he could breathe in water.

After finding the location on the map, Leo found that the place was surrounded by fire, and he figured out that the scarecrow might have fire powers. He found the magic potion on a tree stump, but when he was about to touch it, there was something that grabbed his shoulder. He looked around and there was the robot scarecrow, including at least one million other tiny robots.

“Do not touch my potion! I know why you have come for it, and I will put an end to your task!” the scarecrow bellowed in his robotic voice. 

Leo ran away from the scarecrow, surprisingly not touching him at all.  So he ran away from the robot with superspeed, but he didn’t have the potion. So Leon found this little pond and he heard a whisper that is saying, “Clone yourself to get it!”

Leo said, “How?”  But there was no reply.

He figured out that the lake was magic. And then there was some rumbling, and there was someone else that was standing there, and he took a closer look and saw it was himself, and so the clone multiplied and then multiplied again and again and again. Soon, there were at least ten thousand Leos surrounding the pond. It was the lake that had done this, he thought. And so he went back to the robot, his clones following him, but he couldn’t find him anywhere, and figured out that it could be a decoy, or they were hiding behind them. So he went the other way, and found the robot trying to attack them.

The million tiny robots were reduced to one robot, and it was so tall, as tall as Kevin Durant in the Golden State Warriors. 

“This robot used the potion, so if you fight me then you will fight him,” the scarecrow explained in monotone.

So the ten thousand Leos fought the robot first, but failed. 

Then came a thunderstorm, controlled by all of the Leos, and so it was pouring and it dried out all the fire, and a huge lightning bolt struck the tall robot and he was dead. 

“Curse you!” the scarecrow yelled. And then Leo himself jumped up and killed the cruel scarecrow by striking a sudden bolt of lightning, and he was dead too.

“I guess you didn’t put an end to my task.” Leo took the potion, drank a little bit, and he started feeling that the bushes were shrinking, and so when it stopped shrinking he looked down and it looked as though he was 7 feet tall. In fact, he was.

“Hey clones this is aweso—what happened?” All of the clones were gone. Disappeared. 

So Leo tested his flying and he flew all the way on top of Romania and then to Italy, and found out that he was able to fly since he was so tall. He was super happy. So he flew back across the Atlantic Ocean. He didn’t really feel bad about leaving them behind because he had himself.

Part Three: Fight in Dubai

Place: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Dimension: Earth

Leo wanted to fly up Mount Everest on Earth, so he took the Dimension Teleporter to Earth, and flew to Asia and Nepal because he was already in China, to fly above the Great Wall. He was 20,000 feet above sea level when he felt that he couldn’t breathe. So he went back down 2,000 feet to get an oxygen mask, and then flew all the way up and saw the view.  It looked like he was in space, since he was so high up. He could see literally all of Nepal. It was snowing constantly, and everything looked snowy. He felt very satisfied. He wanted to fly up the tallest building in Dubai, called the Burj Khalifa.

Meanwhile, there was someone who liked to be called Nikyl to “seal his secret identity” as he said, who was pulled into a whirlpool, and got water powers, and could manipulate other people into giving him their powers.

Leo heard on TV that Nikyl wanted Leo to be Nikyl’s next target, so Leo decided to fight him. He thought about Dubai and closed his eyes, and after a moment he opened his eyes, but he wasn’t in Nepal. He was somewhere else.

“Where am I?” he asked someone who was passing by him.

“Dubai,” a man replied in a forgein language that Leo didn’t know.

“What?” Leo asked, but the man was already gone.

“He said you are in Dubai.” Leo turned around and there was a kid behind him. He was about Leo’s age, had brown hair, and his face reminded Leo of someone familiar.

“Misha! What are you doing here?”

It wasn’t long when Leo found out that he could teleport. He was thinking a lot about Dubai, so he teleported. This was too much for Leo already! Misha and Leo were at the entrance of the Burj Khalifa.

“You’re going to fly that high?” Misha looked at the top of the tower. 

“Yeah, I flew on top of Mount Everest, too. No biggie,” Leo said confidently.

Misha’s eyes almost popped out of his face. “Okkayyy…”

So Leo was halfway up the tower when he saw the water make bigger waves than before.  He stopped flying and there was someone that appeared from the water. He heard people screaming and saw people running. It was Nikyl. He had blue eyes and black hair. His face was blank. He had a poker face. And then there was this water strike coming from Nikyl, aiming at him. It was blue and foaming with bubbles. It was about to touch him when it immediately turned into ice and fell down.  Leo looked down and saw Misha, smiling.

“Did you do that?” Leo asked.

Misha nodded, still smiling.  

Leo looked up at Nikyl and saw that he was manipulating a water monster, so Leo flew to Nikyl, but stopped because he looked familiar, too, like when he met Misha.

“Sabino?” Leo asked, confused. Nikyl looked a lot like Sabino, who Leo was friends with also. In fact, Misha, Leo, and Sabino made up a trio.

“Who are you, how do you know me, and why are you here?” Nikyl or, as Leo suspected, Sabino asked.

“Oh, let me introduce myself.” Leo struck a huge bolt of lightning that pierced through the sky like Achilles’ sword, and Sabino stumbled, surprised.

“Convenient, Leo, that you’re back.” Leo and Sabino did the same ‘secret handshake’ that Misha and Leo did when Leo went to Misha’s house to ask where the potion is.

“Umm… guys?” Misha shouted from way below, “Could you come down here? I don’t think I can get up there.”

“Be proactive,” Sabino said.

“And you can easily build an ice staircase,” Leo added.

“Nah. I think it’s a little weird that we are up there. Just really, you know,” Misha pointed at the spectators who were mostly taking pictures with their phones, even a newscast.

So Sabino and Leo came down to meet Misha when about a thousand of people came to meet them to interview them. They reminded Leo of his clones. But worse.

A lot worse.

Part Four: Ending

Place: Annapolis, Maryland

Dimension: Hearth-not-Earth

Dum-tek-a-dum

Sabino’s drum gave a unique rhythm that banged through his house like the drum was summoning something. Everyone in the house was doing some movements, from nodding the head, to dancing. At least everyone was having a great time. Misha was playing the clarinet, and Leo, the trumpet. It was a year after the three had met in Dubai. All of them were very blown away that each of them had powers.

The song ended and everyone was cheering, “Happy birthday Sabino!”

It was Sabino’s eighteenth birthday.

They were done with higher school, (or high school) and since it was Sabino’s birthday on the last day of school, the moms of the trio decided to throw a party. A big one. All of the students were invited. 

Leo felt like the happiest person in the world. And so he knew, there were a lot more possibilities than a flash of lightning.

THE END

Or is it…

Yes it is…or maybe not…or maybe…you don’t know…only I do…dun dun dun!


The Amber Ring

Chapter 1

Sharpay

Right now, I am running for my life along with my faithful sibling who is holding the amber ring that we must hide, even though I am only 12.

“To the slope quickly!” Ben yelled. 

Though the villains chasing us had ideas of their own… You must be very confused, but I promise it will all be explained when I am not being chased by 2 people who can kill. 

Oh good, we’re here. The amber ring cave. Now that we’re safe, let’s begin. 

Recap: Ben and I were normal kids, or at least we thought we were. Our mom owned a ring that we always thought was beautiful, but now we know it was dangerous. Inside this ring was a very dangerous specimen, whatever that means. That’s all Mom ever said about it. Oh, I forgot. The people who were chasing us were the leaders of the other side of the fight.

 They wanted the ring because they wanted us dead. 


Chapter 2

Ben 

“Oh wow, that was fun,” I said sarcastically. 

“That wasn’t fun,” Sharpay said, clearly sarcasm was not in her vocabulary. Or readily understood. 

Tomorrow is my birthday, and the biggest gift I can get is being alive and safely having the ring. I remember when we used to throw a big party in the backyard with sprinklers, the yummy cake that Mom always made, and the bouncy house that Dad put together. I miss them. Even though they are just a few miles away, it feels like I will never see them again. 

“Ben, Ben, Ben! What are you writing?” 

“Nothing.” I quickly covered the book. My sister could be so annoying sometimes. Suddenly, we heard buzzing. 

“They’re back!” 

We climbed into the secret hole that was hidden at the base of the cave.

“Sharpay! Quickly!” 

We both jumped into the porthole towards the underground secret base. I quickly started to close the hatch.

“Wait!” Sharpay yelled, “My hair bow!”

Our mom gave each of us a present before we left for the secret mission. I got the journal (but I share it with Sharpay) and she got the hair bow. 

“Come on Sharpay!” 

She grabbed the bow and jumped into the hatch. I was waiting, ready to catch her. 

We ran, even though no one was chasing us. First mission complete. 

Chapter 3

Sharpay

We just arrived at the heart of the busy tunnels. There, our cousin, Will, was waiting for us. 

“Quickly!” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because they tracked me down.”

My heart was racing. My brother was arguing with Will. All I heard were scraps of the ongoing conversation. 

“I told you to be careful.” 

“I tried.” 

“You’re so much smarter than them.” 

“But they have the amber ring.” 

“No, we have it!” 

“Okay, whatever.” 

I stayed silent. I didn’t want Ben yelling at me. But I knew I had to say something, so I did. 

“How did they track you down?” I said quietly. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked this question, I thought to myself. Will looked upset. Then he told us a story that I will never forget. 

He got captured, and the villains said they would track down everyone and release the amber ring once they had it. So he had no choice but to reveal his location. 

“It’s fine,” Ben said. “We have many other bases.” 

“Okay,” said Will, reassured. 

Meanwhile I keep thinking about the sparkle I saw when I left the cave. I screamed! 

“What was that about?” Ben asked. “You’re going to make my eardrums bleed.” 

“We lost the amber ring!” I said, trembling, 

“No, we didn’t, it is in my backpack. Look!” 

It wasn’t there. Without thinking, I ran back to the cave. I only stopped for as much as a breath of air. I didn’t look back. I tried to block the noises of Ben’s screaming. Finally, I made it to the amber ring cave. 

Suddenly, strong arms grabbed me, and then darkness. 

Chapter 4

Ben 

I couldn’t believe Sharpay. She made us go through so much trouble. Tracing and retracing my footsteps over and over again. We finally arrived at the palace that the villains lived in. Somehow, I thought that she would be here. I don’t know what brought me here, fate or coincidence, but out of some magic, I knew she was here. Thank god, the villains weren’t home. 

Plan: 

  1. Go to the back door, and then use rope to hoist ourselves onto the roof. 
  2. Pound a hole through the roof, tie the rope and lower ourselves down.
  3. Find a good hiding place. 
  4. Um, uh, think of a number 4. 
  5. Search the house for Sharpay and look for any breadcrumbs 
  6. Find Sharpay (hopefully) 
  7. Hoist ourselves back up through the roof and down to safety.

Easy. 

Not. 

I couldn’t let this happen to my little sister. She could be annoying at times, but I made a promise to keep her safe. 

“Don’t worry. Nothing will go wrong,” Will said.

“About a thousand things could go wrong.” 

“At least it’s not a thousand and one!” 

I rolled my eyes. “We don’t have much time, let’s go.”

Will and I crawled through the grass to the back of the house.

“Rope,” I said, holding my hand out.

“Check,” Will said.

They had a chimney, so step 2 wasn’t needed. I picked up all the rope and dropped it down the chimney. Then I tied the rope around my waist and jumped. Immediately, I saw that Sharpay untied her bow and placed it on the floor. 

“Why can’t I come?” Will called from above.

“You need to keep a lookout!” I yelled back.

I followed the bow, which had been unfurled, towards the bookshelf, where there was a 

poem:

You must go where the rare orchids grow

then go below where there is no foe                                    

then to the maze where the young does graze

You are in a daze to be amazed                                                                                 

And there you will find me – Sharpay

 Chapter 5

Sharpay

I untied my ribbon and led it to a certain bookshelf, then wrote a small note and placed it within a book. I moved quickly and secretly before the villains noticed. 

“Move on quickly, or else I’ll slap you.”

I moved at a fast pace, hoping to keep up with my captors. I heard them talking to one another. 

“We’re gonna have to leave to search for the ring. Hope the girl doesn’t escape.”

One of the men opened a secret passage. I knew about the secret passage, of course. That’s why I mentioned it in my poem. Mom had been in a similar situation as I was, and if she could escape, then I could too. Even though I knew Ben would come to rescue me, I still wanted to find a way to escape on my own. 

In the secret passage, orchids lined the walls, or at least I thought they did. I was pretty sure they were orchids. I brought my nose towards the bright purple flowers. 

“Get a move on, girl! Get in here and do not make a noise,” the villains said.

I did as I was told. I nodded silently as I was getting pushed and dragged into a cage. I looked out one of the small windows in the cage, I saw a bird and felt a ray of hope. But then, the door clanged shut behind me. I was trapped! At least I had the amber ring. But I hoped Ben would know where to go and would bring his lock picks.

I studied the cage to find a secret code, but instead of finding a code, I found a key! Hidden in the dirt was a silver, curved key. Suddenly, I had a thought. Maybe mom knew I might be captured one day and left a key for me! I smiled, thinking of my clever parents. I opened the door and ran outside. Only to bump into to a horrified Ben!                             

“Aaaaaaaahh!” 

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”

Giggling, I fell to the floor.

“Guess I didn’t need to find you,” Ben said sheepishly.

“Guess not.” I smiled.

Chapter 6

Ben

I almost wanted to kill Sharpay, but she had been kidnapped, so I’d wait to yell.

“I miss Mom and Dad,” Sharpay said sadly.

I did too, but I didn’t dare tell Sharpay. 

“Come on, let’s go!” I said to Sharpay, 

I was not mad but I was scared because the villains could come back any second now. We ran, hopefully to never come back to this horrible place. Sharpay and I ran up the stairs to where we entered the fortress. 

“Will, come on!” I yelled up through the chimney. 

“I’ll meet you outside,” Will responded with a loud echo. 

What does he have, a microphone? I thought to myself. 

Sharpay and I ran outside through the main door. This was easier than the way we came in. Why didn’t we just do this?

 Will… When outside, we saw Will with an ice cream cone. 

“Where’d you get that?!” Sharpay yelled. 

“I got bored, then a little hungry, so I raided the kitchen for something sweet. Then I found this! I really hope it’s not poisoned.” 

“Why did you eat that!” I said.

“I was hungry! This flavor is worth getting poisoned for.” 

Sharpay rolled her eyes with a little smile. 

“Come on, let’s go to the stream. There’s a rowboat there. We can use it to escape,” I said. 

Little Tip from Will: 

If you are on a secret mission, going to a top-secret place, avoid the road and always take nature path. Be careful of poison ivy! 

P.S. always bring snacks. 

We walked towards an abandoned treehouse. We used it as our secret base. Sharpay went up to grab a map. She handed it to me and then we were off! Following Will’s long complaints about how we had no snacks besides peanut butter and apples. After a while, Will was satisfied. 

 

Chapter 7

Sharpay 

After we made it to the rowboat, Ben lifted it up and then dropped it again! 

“What’s wrong Ben?” I said.

“There’s writing on the bottom!” 

“What type of writing?” 

“It looks like mostly gibberish.” 

“Look again, maybe it’s a code!” Will said. 

“Will, can I use your notebook?” Ben asked. 

“It’s mostly just doodles of burgers and fries!” Will exclaimed. 

“Can you spare us one page?” 

“But, it’s my french fries and burger collection.” 

“Fine.” 

Ben flipped the boat over and examined the code. 

“Look at it,” he said.

“Sharpay, remember when Mom taught us to crack different codes?”

“Yeah. I remember my favourite one was to cross out all the even numbers,” I reply. 

“Okay, let’s try that.” 

T S U Y N L N Z E

M L H B F E L E S W

Q I U T H H O M

T O F M P A

N X D 3 D 3 A 3 D

TUNNEL BEE WITH MOM AND DAD 


Chapter 8

Ben

“Sharpay, do you still remember the way to Tunnel Bee?”

“Yes, we just have to go north for 16 miles, east for 7 miles, and then north for 2 more miles, then we go underground.” 

“Will, how long would it take to go 16 miles north?” 

“About an hour and a half.” 

“Only!?” Sharpay said. 

“Yup.” 

“It’ll take a lot longer than an hour and a half, if we don’t go,” I said.

We rowed for a while. I was glad Will doesn’t complain as much about food as before. Suddenly, Sharpay got quiet. 

“What is it?” I asked. 

“That,” Sharpay said, pointing into the distance. 

In the distance, there was a black sky with angry thunder and waves taller than our house. Which was pretty tall. 

“Sharpay! Find the nearest island or place to dock.” I yelled through the wind, but it was too late. Sharpay grabbed me as a massive wave went over the boat. I saw Sharpay drop the amber ring. 

“Thank you,” I mouthed through the wind.

Our boat split into two! I held onto the front of the boat with one hand. With the other, I grabbed Sharpay as tightly as I could. I wanted to say that everything was going to be alright, but I don’t like to lie. Black waves sloshed all around us. Finally, I couldn’t hold on any longer. I let go of the boat, and Sharpay and I were flooded by darkness. Even though I couldn’t see anything, I made sure that my grip on Sharpay remained strong. 


Chapter 9

Sharpay 

In the morning, I woke up on a sand dune. I reached into my pocket and took out the hair bow. I was glad it wasn’t lost in the storm. Just a few inches away, Ben was sitting down, writing in his journal. 

“Morning Ben.” 

“You’re already awake?”

“Where’s Will?”

“I don’t know where he is, maybe he’s—” 

“Look! I have a piña colada.” Will said, holding up a large coconut with a weed straw. Ben glared at Will. I tried to hold back a small giggle, but it still came out. I avoided looking at Ben, because he would probably glare at me too. 

“Where did you find the coconuts?” Ben asked. 

“You mean, piña colada.” 

“No trust me, I mean coconuts.” 

“No, I’m pretty sure you mean piña coladas.”

“Sharpay, what do you think?” 

“Sorry, Ben, but I’m going to say piña coladas.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll show you where the piña coladas are.”

“Since we’re gonna be stuck on this island, palm trees might make a good fort, and coconuts come from palm trees, so we can eat and sleep,” Ben stated, clearly annoyed by the piña colada incident. 

“I can build a fire,” I said.

“Fine with me,” Ben said.

“Will, come chop wood with me.” 

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” Will said. “Can I continue collecting more piña coladas?”

“No,” Ben said. “Now c’mon.” 

Will followed him, dragging his steps. 

“Phew,” I said. I hate chopping wood. 

Will tossed me his lighter. “Good luck,” he mouthed. This should be easy. How hard could it be? Soon, I had a fire burning brightly. A few minutes later, Ben came holding a mound of wood. Will came back holding a handful of berries. I rolled my eyes. We all helped Ben build the walls in the hut. 

Soon, I found that my stomach was rumbling. 

As if Ben read my mind. “There’s a lot of coconuts if anyone’s hungry.” 

“Piña coladas,” Will said. 

“Piña coladas,” Ben said, whispering to himself. 

Soon, my eyes started to close. “Goodnight,” I murmured, and fell into a dreary sleep. 


Chapter 10

Ben    

I shook Sharpay awake. A small boat was pulling up and inside was—

“Mom, Dad!”

Sharpay and I ran up to our parents, hugging them long and hard.

“I thought you would never come back,” Sharpay said, tears streaming down her eyes.

Dad turned to me as if I had something to say. I was speechless. I felt a tear well up my cheek. I ran into their arms.

“I missed you so much,” I said. 

I climbed into their small boat. 

“Will!” Mom said. “Your parents are waiting for you at your house. Come with us.”

“My parents?” Will said and happily climbed into the boat. 

We all sailed away happily.

Will tip:

Family is the best! 

Epilogue 

Ben and Sharpay

When Ben and Sharpay get home, they celebrate Ben’s birthday party. Their mom makes a yummy cake, and their dad puts together a bouncy castle. Soon, the family got used to being home again. 

I know that this is not a fairytale, but they did live happily ever after. 


A New Kind of Freedom

Hi. My name is Ellie-Mae. I am moving from freezing Minnesota to boiling Florida. I am not ready. The whole reason I have to move is because of my mom’s stupid new job. At the moment, I am throwing out out all my pants, long sleeved shirts, and coats. Now I have to buy a ton of shorts and sun hats and sunscreen and popsicles and flip flops and I think I’m losing my mind. I am putting everything into giant garbage bags and in half an hour, we’re taking it to goodwill.

“EM? Where are you?” yells my mom. Sometimes she calls me EM just to save time.

“Right here mom,” I yell back.

“Ellie, we’re leaving in half an hour!” she says, entering my room. “Ellie, stop dawdling, we have to leave!!”

“I know, Mom. You’ve only told me, like, a million times,” I say back. “Also, I’m not dawdling.” I can’t believe she is doing this. She is making me move away from everything I’ve ever known, and now, she is lecturing me for dawdling. Really, mom?

I hear a cry from the next room. “Momma, Holly took my toy again!!” Oh great. It’s the littlies. Holly and Joy are six year old twins, and they are identical in looks, but in nothing else. Joy is a spunky, adventurous daredevil, while Holly is forever cautious, except about stealing everything of Joy’s. They are so annoying. I however, am 12, nowhere near six. I just don’t get them. They act like everything is such a big deal.

Hey, wait a minute. I run into their room. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be packing up your toys?”

Joy puts on her cute face and cute voice. “I sowwy, Ewwie. I didn’t mean too. They just looked like,” she sniffs, “so much fun.”

“OK, fiiine,” I say. Even though the twins are annoying, they are still so cute. They both have streaky blonde hair, like I used to. (Now I have brown) They also have these beautiful blue eyes. Mine are just hazel.

A few hours later…

All my stuff is gone. Everything. Everything for weather under 50 degrees. No more hoodies, or sweatpants. No more winter boots, or winter hats. No more fuzzy fleeces, or heaters. We will need about a kajillion ACs and fans. I’m actually kind of sad. Before I know it, tears are streaming down my cheeks. I know it sounds silly, crying over giving away some old pants, but, for some reason, it’s making me really emotional. Oh well. I guess I’ll just try to get some sleep. After all, it is 11pm and I have to get up early to pack more.

“Ellie-Mae Rose Davis!!! Get up!!!” That’s what I woke up to this morning.

“Yeah, Mom, I overslept. What’s the big deal?!” I responded, because she oversleeps all the time.

“Ellie, it’s 1 o’clock!!!” she said. So now I am rushing to pack up all my books before the van comes at 1:45.

Finally, I’m done. Now I’m gonna go check on the twins juuuuust in case. I open up my door, and march into the twins room. Sure enough, they are sitting on their beds not packing at all. 

“Hey guys, come on, you know what—Joy?” Joy is crying. That’s not like her at all.

I sit on her bed. “Joy, what happened?” I say in my most gentle voice possible. It’s not gentle enough. She grouches.

“Why do you want to know?” Man. I thought I was being gentle.

“Hmmph,” I hmmph and walk away. I go over to Holly. “Holly, what happened to Joy?” I say to her.

“I don’t know!! She just started crying out of nowhere!!” Holly responds. Oh well, I think. I’ll get to this later. We’re moving tomorrow. That’s what I should worry about. I go back into my room, and keep packing up my books. 

OK, so it’s four am and moving day. The twenty six hour drive is straight ahead. Luckily, nobody in our family gets carsick, so we won’t have to do a barf stop an hour in. We are leaving at four so we can get as much driving time as possible. We get in the car. It’s a seven seater, even though we only have four people in our family. My mom in the front, me in the middle row, and the twins in the back. That means I get a big comfy seat to myself. That’s good because it’s such a long car ride. I have my snack bag, with cheetos, chex mix, string cheese, oreos, goldfish, bunny grahams, and more. I get hungry fast. That is why I have so much food. I also have my phone with Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen on it. It’s really all I listen to. If you haven’t listened to those musicals, you really should. They are great for car rides. OK, onward. We buckle in, and zoom off. 

Not five minutes into the ride, Holly says, “Mommy?”

“Yes Holly?”

“Um, I forgot to use the bathroom,” she responds.

My mom pulls over into a gas station. “Go quickly,” she says.

And Holly does not. It’s been seven minutes now. My mom tells us to go in with her. We go in, and Holly is standing in front of the bathroom door.

She says, “I’ve been waiting for them to come out!!”

“Oh Holly!” my mom says. “You’re supposed to ask the employee for the key!! I thought you knew! Come on, let’s go.” My mom goes and asks the cashier for the key. He gives it to her and my mom unlocks the door. Holly goes and comes out.

“Okay, let’s go now,” I yell. We get back in the car and start driving again. I eat my cheez-its. I listen to Dear Evan Hansen. I listen to Hamilton. I listen to Dear Evan Hansen. It gets stuck in my head. Joy hits Holly. Holly hits Joy. Holly cries while Joy hits her again. Ugh. I turn my music up louder. I fall asleep. I wake up and it is 3pm. Wow, I slept a lot. Hamilton is still blasting in my ears. It’s hard to believe how I fell asleep listening to that. I look back and the twins are sleeping. Aww, how cute. Holly is sleeping on Joy’s shoulder. Ooh, Sincerely Me is coming on. (If you didn’t already know, it’s a song from Dear Evan Hansen that’s really funny.) 

One week later…

I am starting school tomorrow!!! Aah!! I have all my stuff. Composition notebooks. Graph paper. A calculator. I think I will be ready. The twins start school too. 1st grade. I know Joy is excited, but I’m not sure about Holly. She’s much more sensitive. I hope to make some friends. So, let’s go!!

Today’s the big day. School! I jump in the car, with my new striped backpack and buckle in. We’re off! It is a short drive, only about 10 minutes. I step out, and the new school is huge! Four stories, and a big grass lawn. It looks very modern, mostly made of blue glass. I cannot believe how big it is. Okay, breathe, Ellie, breathe. I walk in and the hallways are filled with people.

Someone pushes me from behind and says, “Newbie.”

I walk into my classroom and every single person is tan. Tan, tan, tan. Some may be spray tans, but for the most part, natural. While I look like an albino polar bear in the snow. The teacher takes attendance. Emma? Noah? Sophia? Ellie Mae?

“Here,” I say. Everyone starts looking at me.

“Thank you Ellie Mae,” the teacher says, “but next time, you can just raise your hand.” 

Oh no. I’ve already messed up, and it’s not even lunch yet. I hear snickering in the background. Oh, good. It’s time for lunch. No wait. Not good. Not good at all. I won’t have anyone to sit with. Shoot. Maybe I’ll eat in the bathroom like in movies. That’ll really boost my social confidence. The girl who eats in the bathroom. Great. Perfect for my resume. The bell rings. Everyone runs out of the room. Everyone but me. I walk slowly out of the room.

As I’m walking around the school, I see a poster for one free sailing class. Hm. That actually sounds really fun. In Minnesota, nobody sailed at all. I haven’t even seen an ocean yet.

I text my mom and say, “Free sailing class 2 go 2. Can I go? It’s on Sep 12.”

She almost immediately texts back, “Sure. Also numbers are not words.” Yes! I might find something I actually like here in muggy Florida. 

It’s time. September 12th. My first ever sailing class. I’m in my new glittery bikini that I bought just for this. I walk towards the boat dock and I see a girl in the exact same swimsuit!! We both laugh and point at each other. I can’t believe we bought the same thing!! This is hilarious. We start talking and I figured out that her name is Juniper, and she’s lived in Florida her entire life. She told me that she could show me around. Oh my god, this is great!! I think I made a friend. I’m not sure yet, but I think I did. There are three other girls there, all in matching swimsuits with polka dots. I decide to call them the polka dot girls. There are also two boys who are in swim trunks. The instructor comes out, and she looks like she is about eighteen. 

She says, “Okay guys, I am your instructor, Jaylee, and I will teach you the basics of sailing. The number one thing is don’t get hit with the boom! The boom is the bottom part of the sail and it is strong enough to knock you off the boat, which we don’t want happening. The water is cold. So, let’s get started, shall we? First up we have, uh, Nicholas.” One of the boys stands up and goes over to Jaylee. I can see that she is telling him how to control the boat, but I can’t hear what she is saying. He goes out on his own after about 15 minutes, and slowly navigates the boat in a small circle. 

“Umm, Kacy?” Jaylee says. One of the polka dots gets up. She falls in while trying to dance on the boat. “Maisie?” Another polka dot. Maisie doesn’t fall in, but she decides that she doesn’t want to go out alone and Jaylee basically does it for her. “John?” 

“Can you call me Jack?” he asks. 

“Ok, Jack, it’s your turn,” says Jaylee. He navigates the boat very well. It’s Juniper’s turn now. 

“Good luck,” I whisper. She does okay. Jaylee has to yell out a couple instructions. Now it’s Chelsea, the last polka dottie. She also falls in. Finally, it’s my turn.

Jaylee whispers, “I’ve got a good feeling about you.” She explains everything to me, and then, I do it. I turn the rudder, I avoid the boom. I think I did everything almost perfect. I steer the boat back to shore and Jaylee hugs me.

“You did so well!!” she cries, “I knew it.” I am just in awe. It was really fun. I can’t believe I had done so well. I now know what I want to do. I want to sail.


Daisies

Emily was a girl like any other. She lived in a modest good sized house with her mother, father, and older brother Sam. Remember this now you might need this later.

That Tuesday, Emily went and picked daisies from the meadow.

“Ooh, pink daisies,” Emily cried. She quickly scooped them up and scurried home.

As soon as she went home, her older brother Sam ran over to her. As soon as he saw the daisies, he locked eyes with his sister and shared a worried look. Emily was confused. Sam dragged her to the kitchen, grabbed the daisies, ripped them up, and poured them down the drain. 

“Hey!” Emily screamed. “Get back here!” She started chasing him all around the house. As they tore through the living room, their mother was reading a book on the couch. 

“What is the meaning of this?” their mother asked. Sam told her about the daisies while catching his breath. At each word he said, his mother’s face paled even more. Emily was fed up.
“Why are you acting like the daisies are something bad? They’re just flowers!” Her mother didn’t hear her as she was calling for their father. 

Her father raced into the room and their mother started launching into an explanation of the daisies. Like their mother, his face paled at each word she spoke.

And Emily repeated, “What is the deal with the daisies? They’re just a bunch of flowers.”

Her father told her that they would explain in the car as he told her to pack just the essentials. Her mother shoved her blue and pink striped travel bag at her and told her to pack a flashlight and some spare socks. Her mother grabbed her and Sam’s coats and shoved them through the door, and the second they stepped into the car, the door was closed. 

Her father was usually one to go by the rules and he was a slow driver, but Emily was surprised at how fast he was driving, making sharp turns and not stopping at stop signs. 

“Now can you tell me what the deal about the daisies are?” Emily asked. 

Her mother took a deep breath and sighed. 

“This started a long time ago, during which your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother, Agnes, was alive. She was a duchess. In other words, an ambassador of England.”

“Wow,” Emily breathed, “so we’re royalty!”

“Not now, Emily. This is important,” her mother said. So she continued the story, “Agnes was an ambassador of England. Since she was an ambassador, she travelled everywhere. From France, to Spain, even all the way to Japan. One day after a long trip to Norway, she sat down in the meadow. Yes, Emily, the very meadow you picked your daisies from.”

While Agnes was sitting down, she had a question. She thought to herself, ‘Why are the daisies pink? And why do they only bloom at a certain time and at a certain date?’ So she decided to go and ask the landscaper and the gardener. They had no idea. They told her that the daisies were there when they came, so they never bothered with them. A few times they tried taking them out but they wouldn’t budge. 

“So she went to the King. He was a personal friend. She didn’t talk to him all that much because he was a king, but she wasn’t afraid to talk to him. The King didn’t know either. All he knew was that his father’s father met a merchant on the street, and the merchant sold the seeds to him. That day he planted the seeds, and when he woke up, the flowers were fully grown. That was impossible. Agnes knew something fishy was going on, so she headed to the council. The council knew nothing more than the gardener, landscaper, or the King. So Agnes decided to find some information for herself. 

“The next day she headed to the royal library. She knew she was in for a long day because the library was three stories high (that was very high back then because they didn’t have the technology we do).” 

“I’m hungry,” Sam moaned. 

“Shhh,” Emily whispered, “I want to listen to the story.” 

“Here,” Mom said, and she tossed Sam a granola bar and gave Emily a box of yogurt covered raisins. 

“Now back to the story,” Mom said, “as Agnes walked down the long, cavernous hall, she looked at all of the books. She grabbed a big pile of books and settled down into the big, comfy armchair. She read and read and never saw anything about pink daisies, let alone daisies that only show up once a month. All she found was a chapter about glowing pink fungus. When she was about to give up and head home, a book caught her eye. It was titled: Flowers of the Rainbow. 

‘I guess one more book couldn’t hurt,’ Agnes said to herself. So Agnes settled herself once again into the big, comfy chair.

“When she reached the last chapter, the chapter about pink flowers, she found what she was looking for. So she rushed home to the gardener, the landscaper, the King, and the council. They couldn’t believe their ears, but apparently a councilman was taken aback by Agnes’ determination (it wasn’t very common for women to be too determined on a single thing. Mostly they were just there for tea parties), so he asked her to marry him. Of course she said yes. So they lived a good life and had three children. One of them was your great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother Fiona.”

“How did Agnes meet the councilman?” Emily cried.

“How did he decide to marry her right there and then?” Sam asked. 

“Woah, woah,” their mom said. “One at a time, one at a time. But let me finish my story first!

“When she and the councilman were married, they decided to do research about the pink daisies together. They found that the pink daisies were planted by leprechauns. That was the reason the plants wouldn’t budge. They tried to make the petals green, but it was a miscalculation and  they made the petals pink! Leprechauns hate pink, so that’s why the daisies only show up once in a blue moon. So, on the next blue moon, (12 years later) they went to the flowers and met the leprechauns (they show up every blue moon to look at the daisies). So when she went to the leprechaun, Agnes apologized for disturbing the flowers, and that nobody in her family (the Bellinghangrhs) would ever bother the pink daisies again.”

“But why did we have to run away?” Emily asked, still confused. 

“Because Agnes struck a deal with the leprechauns that whoever picked the daisies would have to serve them for 100 years.”

“But I can’t live 100 years!” Emily cried.

“Don’t worry, Agnes made sure that if we had a good, valid reason, we would not have to serve 100 years of servitude. Instead, we would pick them red bell peppers for 2 years. I know you don’t like the sound of that, but Agnes saved you from 100 years of leprechaunian servitude, and that’s harsh!”

“But you still didn’t answer why we had to run away.” Emily said.

“Oh we aren’t running away, sweetheart. We just can’t be late to the place where we meet the leprechauns or else they will think it’s a sign that we think that we’re better than them.” 

3 Days later … 

“Wow, I’m glad we got that over with,” Emily said, slumping on the couch. “I’m pooped!” 

“Haha,” Sam said, “you said ‘pooped’.” 

“Oh shut up Sam!” Emily said.

“Now we don’t use that language,” their mom said. 

“Sorry mom,” Emily muttered. 

“What a day,” their father said. “At least we got out of 100 years of leprechaunian servitude! But your mom almost made it 6 years of picking red bell peppers.”

“But I didn’t!” Mom called from the kitchen. 

“But barely,” Dad whispered.

“I heard that,” Mom said, standing at the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“Ooh, hands on her hips is not a good sign,” Sam said. 

Mom cast a disapproving stare at the both of them. 

“Someone’s in trouble, someone’s in trouble,” Emily chanted, tauntingly.

“I’m gonna get you,” Sam said.

“Get back here you two!” their father said as he tackled them to the couch. Their mother gave them another disapproving glare, this time at Emily too. 

“Ha ha,” Sam said jumping to his feet, “you can’t punish me if you can’t catch me.”

Emily ran with him. Their mother chased after them, their father right behind her as he tried to reason with her.

“Margaret”—(Margaret was their mother’s name, Robert was their father’s)—“they’re just kids!” he tried to tell her, catching his breath at the same time.

As the family tore through the house, Emily thought, “I have the best family!”


World of Women

1/23/19

Running for Change

I was running. Who knew I would be running for my life while I was trying to change the world? My heart was pounding as an angry mob of kids chased me. They threw the flyers that I gave them at me. It was a terrible sight. This was not the day I was planning. I started walking home.

2/6/19

College

I found a place to hide as the mob rush past. I don’t have much time to explain, but I am Violet. I don’t know parents. When I was little, probably five, my parents died. I was left in my brother’s dorm room. Finally I ran away. College classes were so boring. They were not hard. They were just so boring. Even though I’m only eleven, I studied since I was five and a half. I got As on all my tests. I’m even better then my brother, Benjamin.

¨Mom and Dad would be proud,” Ben always said. I never believed him. He is seven years older than me, but I’m much smarter. This is why I ran away once I got better then my brother (that took a year and a half). But now I’́m changing the world, one girl at a time.

2/19/19 

Changing the World

I have a job, a house and a family. I have a job at the Women’s Rights Society. I change women’s lives across the globe. I have a small house in Cape Cod. I live with my cousins Lilian and Nicholas. Lilian works at the Women’s Rights Society with me. Nicholas is a soccer teacher. 

Our house has two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and two bathrooms. Lilian, Nicholas, and I all sleep in one room. Lilian and I sleep on the top bunk and Nicholas sleeps on the bottom bunk. The other bedroom they use for a reading room. 

In the Women’s Rights Society we get groups of people or schools to focus on human rights. People usually thought it was unfair we focus only on women’s rights. They think it’s a problem. They’re the problem! They are the ones who are being so unfair! Since I’m 12 now and already finished college my goal is to save 7,300 more lives in the next ten years.

That means I would save two to four people a day. That’s Lilian’s and my dream: change the world and save it. Lilian just got a new job at the Save The World Society. Her boss and the President of the society is her friend, Brigid. Lilian’s friend, Lily, is the vice president of the society. Brigid and Lily want to save the world, one plastic bag at a time.

3/2/19

Saving the World Society

Lilian works in two societies. Two days at The Women’s Rights Society and three days at Saving The World Society. On Lilian’s second week at her new job, Lilian takes me to her new job. Everyone is so nice. They are all women and they all love The Women’s Society. Today, Lilian has a test to make sure she can do the job. We always have to take a test because we’re kids. People! We graduated college already and we were eleven!! Give us a break!!!

3/12/19

Lilian

When Lilian comes home today, something happened. Lilian walked up to the door. Her brown hair was in a long braid. She walked to the door slowly. She opened the door.

“How did you do?” I asked. She looked so sad I shouldn’t have asked.

4/5/19

The Test

“I did it!!! I passed!!!” Lilian screamed. I was so happy for her. Now she can change the world and save it!

“Lily even said I did better than most of the adults!”

“That is so great!” I said. I was so happy for her.

5/27/19

The Women’s Rights Society

I walked to work the next day. Work was only 1 stop on the F train. I opened the door.

“Violet,” Rio said, “Sam would like to see you.” Rio works at the front desk. She tells people what the company is about. It’s been a few months since I started my goal. I saved 90 people each month. In other words I saved 270 people in three months that means I saved 2-3 people a day. I thought of all this as I walked to Sam’s office. I knock on her office door.

“Come in,” Sam said. It didn’t really think it sounded like Sam. I went in any way. I really regret that. It was dark in the room something jumped on me…

 6/9/19

The Evil President

When I woke up it was dark, but I sensed Sam. She always wore a lot of perfume. I snuck to the door. I opened it. I ran. I really wish I got just a promotion. I ran and ran down 8 flights of stairs. Everyone asked me what was going on. Sam had gone mad. I called the police.

“Hello,” the person on the other line said. 

“Yes,” I said. “Someone’s gone mad.” 

“We will be over in 10 minutes,” they said.

“Bye,” I said. I locked Sam in the worker’s lounge room.

“I guess we need a new president,” someone said.

“Let’s make Violet the President of the society,” another person said.

1/23/29

Women’s Rights Society President

After Sam was put in jail, I became president of the society. It’s been 10 years since I started my goal. I’ve done it! Saved 7,300 lives in ten years! I’m still changing the world, one girl at a time.


The Mermystery

There once was a mermaid named Laura and she was twenty one. Laura had two friends. The friends’ names were Anna and Sophie. Laura was still not married. Anna was getting married in twenty days and Sophie was getting married in thirty days. The next day, all three of them went for a swim in the prettiest reef in seven miles from Anna’s home. In about forty minutes later, they went to their hideout. Then they got there so they swam out and all went back to their home. The next day, while they were waiting, they saw a light, but they ignored it and swam away. They talked about both of the weddings for a while. Then, when they were swimming back before they split up, they saw the light again and were getting curious. They went closer and then Laura’s tail got stuck on a fishing hook. Someone tugged on the line and started to reel it up. Anna and Sophie started trying to get the hook off her tail, but it wouldn’t budge. It was getting really close to the surface and all three of them heard the fisherman saying that he saw something orange, which was Laura’s tail. And they all got very scared. 

Laura made herself invisible quick and the fisherman were surprised because he thought he saw something on the hook. And then Laura dropped on the boat and it made a sound. The fisherman got scared. He knew that he was just hallucinating. Then, she thought really hard to get legs, but that didn’t work. The fisherman started to drive his boat away with Laura. Sophie and Anna started to follow the boat and they rushed in front of it, trying to stop the boat. But they were not strong enough. Laura tried to wiggle off the boat, and her tail was halfway off, but it wouldn’t budge. She was getting too dry and she saw a water bottle on the boat. The fisherman turned around and Laura took the water bottle she saw and poured it all over herself. She was so close to getting off the boat and she flipped off, and it made a huge splash. The fisherman knew that he was not hallucinating, so he jumped in. Laura saw Anna and Sophie, and all three of them became invisible. And they swam off, putting bubbles in the fisherman’s face. The fisherman swam after them, but they were too fast. The fisherman had never been so curious in his life. The mermaids were out of sight to the fisherman, but they were really at their hideout. The fisherman was running out of air and he could not see them, so he gave up and swam up to his boat, jumped on his boat, dried himself with a spare towel he brought, and drove away in his boat, feeling very scared.

For a little bit the three mermaids stayed in their hideout, in case. Right before they were leaving, Laura said that no one should say anything to their parents because they would be furious. The next day, they went for their morning swim over the reef and swam to their hideout and Laura said that the light that they saw was not the boat because she’s seen a boat and that’s not what it looks like. So the next morning, they followed the light and they were seeing something very big after swimming many miles. When they got a bit closer, they saw it wasn’t blurry anymore. They saw a place with lots of guards, but they moved aside to let the light in. The three of them made themselves invisible so that they could go into the palace too.

They saw a big room with everything you could imagine. When they got closer to the light, still invisible, they saw that it was the Queen of Mermaids. She had a light face, and her name was Aquata. Close up, she looked very pretty with very long dark blue hair.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

The three mermaids became visible and said, “How did you see us?”

“I am the Queen of Mermaids. Of course I can see you. I just didn’t tell the guards because they could destroy you,” Aquata said. The Queen says to Laura, “I know you are not married yet and your parents are not happy about that. So I have a great prince for you. I will throw the biggest wedding because he is my son.”

Laura screamed, “Yes!” And then, Aquata said to the three mermaids that she would lead them out so the guards wouldn’t do anything to them. She wanted Laura alive for the wedding. She escorted them out of the castle and swam home. When Laura went home, she told her parents about the Queen’s son and how they were getting married. Her parents had no choice but to say, “yay” because they needed Laura to get married and because she was now going to become the next queen once Aquata dies.

The next day, they tried to go back into the castle by being invisible, but the guards did not open the doors since they only opened for the queen. And then Laura pulled them aside and said that if they swam over them really high up to the sea level, they can get in. It was difficult to get in, but they did it. They walked into Aquata’s room and Aquata was so mad at them. Again, she held them by the tails and told the guards not to let them in again. The guards were surprised that they did not see them come in and were furious because they tricked them. They swam back eighty miles to the reef and talked there. And Anna wrote everything down with water pen. And then Anna gave the water paper to Sophie to take it to her home because it was the safest. 

The next day, Sophie brought the paper which had everything about the castle, guards, and Queen Aquata. Then, the Queen met them on the reef and behind her was her son. Sophie crumpled the paper in her hand. Aquata said in a serious voice that Laura and her friends had to come practice at her castle for the wedding. Sophie took a water pen and pencil to take notes. She and Anna had to come because they were the bridesmaids. They went to the castle and they had to catch up to the Queen and Prince because they were very fast. The three mermaids caught up to them right at the castle and they went to the royal wedding room. After the four hour practice, the three of them went back to their homes and the son stayed to measure his wedding gown. The next day, Aquata came to the reef with her son to practice again and this happened for another couple of months. 

Finally, it was the last practice and Aquata taught them so well that it could not be ruined. During the ceremony, as Laura was about to get married, Laura’s uncle Daileass barged in.

“Uncle Daileass, what are you doing here?! You were not invited,” Laura screamed.

“I want to be King!” Daileass said. Before the wedding, he took the crown that the son was gonna put on as a king, but he poisoned it. The prince looked at the crown and saw some green dots on it. He had experience with it and knew that Daileass did it because he wanted to be King.

The Prince yelled to his guards, “Get him!” The guards took Daileass out and they finished the wedding with the bridesmaids and they lived happily ever after with four merchildren.


Secrets in the Shadows

Carol

My name is Carol Mystic. I am twelve years old and I died. Dying is not that bad. It doesn’t hurt. It just feels like falling asleep. I don’t remember what happened. All I remember is that it happened at the playground and I don’t know who did it. I know what I have said so far doesn’t sound bad but I am so mad at whoever pulled me from my family forever. My story is trying to find life again. Everyone who dies wants something and I want to come back. 

Jase

I don’t feel dead, but I know I am. I am not some angel with feathery wings. I just wander around the site of my death. I don’t leave it and that’s because if I leave, a part of me will stay (it is hard to explain). This rule applies to all spirits.  I am fourteen and I died in my garden. My physical body stays, but my personality watches as my family holds a small ceremony in our yard and as my body is carried away forever.

Shy

My name is Shy Ash and I am still alive. I can see the two dead children. I am thirteen, but I am powerful. I can see the dead. Carol and Jase want to come back and I will try to help them, even if it kills me. After Carol died, the playground closed and Jase’s parents have high security now. But I will bring them back permanently.

Carol

My parents moved after I died, moved to New York from New Jersey. I was going to get to New York by boat. As I stepped outside the playground, I felt half of my personality torn from my body. As I walked, I saw my reflection in a window. My shoulder-length deep brown hair, my extremely rare deep red eyes, and my albino skin, just the way it had been when I face planted in the dirt when I died a year ago. And then I felt it. I crumpled in pain as the aftershock of leaving half of me behind came, but I kept going.

Jase 

“Oh dear,” I said when I realized my perfect brown hair was covered in dirt. At least my brown skin was okay.

“Okay,” I sighed, “here goes,” and I climbed over the garden wall. The pain hit me like a tidal wave and I shut my green eyes and fell to the ground.

“Time to go,” I said and ran looking for the other dead who might be able to help me. And that is when I met the beautiful Shy Ash.

Shy

The way he looked at me was amazing. It was the way my mom looked at me before she died. Too stunned to say much,, I managed to utter one word.

“Carol,” I said.

“You can see me?” he gasped.

“Yes,” I said, “and I bring you back so everyone can see you.”

“But who is carol?” he asked me.

“Another kid who died,” I said. I grabbed his hand and together walked.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To the harbour,” I said. “Carol will be there.”

We walked for a long time and then we found the boat and the gorgeous red-eyed spirit I was looking for.

Carol

One of the two figures was alive and she could see me, but the boy was dead.

“Listen,” said the girl, “I might be able to bring you back, but will have to listen to me.” I nodded. Any chance to be brought back is a blessing. The girl beckoned for me to follow her and I did. We end up stowing away on the boat. I am full of fear, not for myself because no one can see me, but I am scared for the girl who is visible to everyone.

Jase 

After we make proper introductions, Carol asks a question: “What will we say to our families if this works?”

Everyone is silent about this until I smartly say, “If you have magic to bring us back then can you just wipe everyone’s memories about our deaths?”

“No, you idiot!” says shy. “It’s called the spirit paradox and it is nearly impossible to use.”

Then we hear a stomping noise and the lid of the box we are hiding in is raised. A handsome blonde haired spirit is revealed.

“There are rules in death too,” he says but Shy leaps at him and drags him up to the deck. The rest is so awesome. 

Shy

I wrestled the blonde to the ground and held him there until he said, “Fine you can ride free,” but that did not satisfy me. I held him over the edge of the boat and dropped. He emerged, treading water and yelling at us. I giggled and we spent the rest of the rest of the ride in peace. We met more spirits, but I pretended she could not see them so they were all nice. When we reached the shore, Jase asked Carol a question: “Why were you trying to go to New York anyway?” 

Carol

“I just wanted to see my family one last time before they moved to Mexico. They were planning to stay in New York and move to Mexico,” I said.

Shy put her hand on my shoulder and said, “We need to go to find a spot to wait for the paradox to start.” We ended up staying at Shy’s aunt’s house. The building was a sweet pink color, unlike the woman inside.

“Shy. That’s you, I reckon, and I don’t reckon you’re wise to come back here,” she said. 

Jase

There are some things wrong with being a spirit: 1. You can’t fly. 2. You can’t see or walk through walls. 3. You can’t haunt dreams (well, not really). What I would want to do is haunt this woman’s dreams until she was nicer to shy. All through dinner she yelled at Shy about all the ways Shy’s mom’s (her sister’s) death was Shy’s fault.

Shy 

My name is Shy and I have a secret. I love Carol and I think she loves me back. But being in love with her would be weird. What I mean is that we can’t go of being girlfriend and girlfriend because she is dead. But I also have to tell Jase that I do not like him. In fact, I would have liked it better if we had needed a different spirit for the life ritual. I would have been a lot happier. Sometimes I will need to go up to Carol and say that I love her, but what if she doesn’t like me. What if she doesn’t like all the weird things about me, like how I could not bring my mom back or how I ran away and stole from people just so I would not have to stay with my dad or that I hate boys. I just hope she loves me.  

Carol

Once we leave the house I begin to worry. I want to ask where we are going and why we can’t do this at home. All these thoughts are starting to drive me crazy when I see Shy looking at a note:

“←↑→↓↤↔↕→→↓↔→↕↑↔↓→↔↑↓↓←→↕↔←↕↑↓↦↔↝↜↔↕↑←↖”

“These are the steps to use the paradox,” she says, “and I have to memorize them.” That night we stay at a crappy motel. Shy has the room above me and I can hear her thumping around doing the steps on the note.

Jase

I have to share a room with carol, the girl who says that she knows why Shy gets her own room, but won’t tell me why. The next morning we meet in the parking lot and Shy says “we meet at the graveyard at midnight,” and then she leaves to go get the ritual ready. We meet her at the graveyard. Carol holds my hand. Shy stands it front of an altar made of sticks and she has also drawn a circle with shapes inside of it. Shy looks at me and starts to chant.

Shy

Carol and Jase are standing back to back inside the circle (perfect). I begin to dance around the circle. The steps imprinted in my brain: ←↑→↓↤↔↕→→↓↔→↕↑↔↓→↔↑↓↓←→↕↔←↕↑↓↦↔↝↜↔↕↑←↖

“Come on, come on,” I mutter. I dance and dance until the circle starts to glow.

“Wait,” cries Carol, “I don’t want to go back.”

“But I do,” says Jase.

“Step out of the circle if you want to live,” I yell. Jase steps out, but for some reason I step in. Then a bright light comes and illuminates the sky.

“Goodbye, Jase,” I say and I take Carol’s hand and say, “sorry, Jase,” and together the two of us walk into the sky.

Sky (Epilogue)

Carol and I are happy as we are dead and we check on Jase once a month. I know he misses me but I would never be happy in the living world. Carol and I went to find the blonde I tossed off that boat twelve years ago. Carol and I have been married for two years and Jase has been doing fine. One day, Carol and I take a walk when I see a spirit that looks exactly like m, every feature pure white.

“Mom,” I say.

Two years later we adopt a child. We name her Angel and that is how we spend forever.


Hannah and Anabelle

Chapter 1 

W i t c h e s   a n d c u r s e s


Once there was a girl named anabelle who had a pointy nose and a sister that saw a farm. She was thirsty so she got a Gatorade. She drank it and felt weird. “Ohhh…” she neighed. She looked down to see… a HORSE body!!!

 She quickly looked up and saw the farm. She ran to it. She looked and saw hay blocks “Mmm, yummy” she neighed. She ran to the hay blocks. She stopped. She was shocked. There was a VERY BIG fence in front of her. On the other side was SO MUCH hay. She really wanted it. She stepped back and JUMPED over the wall. She walked up to the hay and one block of hay disappeared! 

“WOW” she neighed. She quickly gobbled the rest of the hay blocks up. The world turned purple and green in her eyes. She felt oozy. “Ooo…” she whined. Then she walked up to the fence and bit it. “Owww” she neighed. She fell down and fell asleep. 

Then she suddenly wanted to be rich as a queen, and then woke up. She snuck out of the farm to get a REGULAR Gatorade. She actually STOLE it because she lost her money. What? She’s a HORSE! She drank it all up. “Ahhhh,” she horse-sighed. “Better,” she neighed. 

“Hey, what’s that horse doing out of the farm, betty?” One horse neighed to another. 

“I dunno, crispy!” neighed the other horse. 

“Uhhh, hi?” she neighed 

“Uhh, hey betty?” crispy asked. 

“Yeah, crispy?” betty neighed. 

“WHO IS THAT?!?!?!” crispy screamed. 

“I’m, uhh,  p r i c k ?” she neighed. Her real name was anabelle, but she thought it was too fancy for a horse. It WAS!!! 

“Ok, im betty, and this is crispy,” neighed betty. 

Then prick ran off into the old town. She saw a stained glass window on a VERY old cobblestone tower. “Hmmm, sneaking isn’t illegal as a horse, since you can’t arrest a pony…” prick neighed. So she quietly galloped into the tower. She saw… A WITCH!!! 

“Oh no, it’s a… hey! I can turn into a human now! But how will I tell her if i’m a horse…?” prick whisper-neighed. “I’ll just, uhhh, try to talk i guess,” prick thought. 

The witch turned around just then. “A horse! Get her, enchantments! Get her, human who drank my magic Gatorade and turned into a horse!” the old, ugly witch ordered grumpily. 

“Sis?” prick asked. “SIS!!!!!!” 

The other horse screamed. The they horse-hugged each other. 

“Oh no, they are SISTERS!!! The Gatorade spell will go away then!” the witch thought. The horse sisters turned into… HUMANS!!! 

“Sis! We’re human again!” prick said excitedly. Just then, the witch turned into a… QUEEN?!?!?! “Okay, you caught me. I’m really a queen. I’m a nice one though! Come into my horse and buggy, and I’ll take you to my palace. You’ll get your own room too!” the queen said. She wasn’t nice. Not even mean. She wasn’t even evil. She was  P U R E E V I L . 

The sisters came into the horse and buggy. “Good thing we’re not horses anymore!” prick said. “He he he,” the girls giggled. 

“Be quiet!” the witch ordered. The girls stayed quiet for the rest of the ride to the palace. The palace was really big, and it had big turrets that looked like they would be as big as a dragon. There was a drawbridge, and the girls thought that it was over water but it was over LAVA! The queen got off and told the girls to do the same. Then the girls got off and walked into the palace. 

“Follow me” the queen said. She led the girls into the prison, but the girls thought that they were going to their room. 

“This doesn’t look like we should stay here,” prick whispered to her sister. 

“You’re right!” Her sister said. 

The queen opened a door to a jail cell. “Right through here, ladies,” The queen said mysteriously. 

“But that’s a jail cell, not a bedroom!” prick said to the queen. 

The queen said, “I know that!” as she pushed them into the cell and locked the door. 

“Noooooooooo!!!” The sisters screamed at the queen as she walked away. 

Chapter 2

T h e  d a r k  w o r l d


prick looked around the cell and saw a sink with brown, dirty water coming out of it, a toilet that’s broken and clogged, a bed that doesn’t have a blanket, and a pillow that is a diamond, the hardest mineral. “Hmm, that might be useful some time,” prick thought. 

Then, prick’s sister, hannah, had a wonderful idea! “If we work together, we can lift the heavy diamond and throw it at the bars! It might work!” hannah noticed. 

So the two sisters lifted the diamond and threw it at the bars. It made a hole just big enough to crawl through. They crawled through the hole and escaped jail. “Shouldn’t we take a bathroom break?” hannah asked. 

“Uhhhh, let’s just get out of here!” prick laughed. Then the two girls ran out of the prison and ran towards the door. The queen saw them leave. 

“Huh? GET THEM!!!!!!” the queen shrieked. 

But the girls took the only horse and buggy back home. “YAH!” Hannah yelled in the driver’s seat. They went home and parked the horse and buggy outside on the other horse post. 

They open the door of their cottage. “MOM? DAD? WE’RE HOME!!!” the girls yelled. Their home was empty, except for their pet goldfish, gilbert. “Blub, blub.” gilbert blubbed. 

“Not now, gilbs.” hannah said.“Uhhh, sis?” hannah asked. 

prick wasn’t there. “YAH!!!” prick screamed and jumped out from behind hannah. 

“AAHHHHHHH!!!!!” hannah screamed in fear. 

“Where’s mom and dad?” hannah asked. “They’re-they’re-they’re… GONE!!!” prick said, scared. Then they went outside and looked for someone to take care of them. All the townspeople were GONE!!! 

“WHERE IS EVERYBODY?!?!?!” they both screamed. The sisters were so scared. Then a PORTAL appeared. The sisters linked arms, looked at each other, and nodded. Then ran into the portal. Everything went black. They were in a white, tall, room. There wasn’t a way to escape, except for a large gap at the top. They hooked arms, pushed their backs against each other, and started to CLIMB!!! 

At the top, they were stuck. “How are we going to get apart from each other, anabelle?” hannah asked.

 “Uhh, i don’t know, but my nickname is prick now. Actually, it was my horse name. I’m keeping it. Actually, i know how to do this. Hang by your legs then get your hands up, put your legs down, and climb up,” prick said.

 They did that and prick jumped over to hannah’s side of the top. “Wow…” they said together.

 “A dark world” prick said. There was a nest of dragon eggs and they noticed; the portal back home was GONE! It had somehow glitched onto the other side of the dark world. 

“Oh, you’ve got to be KIDDING me! PLEASE tell me this is a dream! Just TELL ME! Someone PINCH me,” hannah screamed. 

prick pinched her. “Owww!!! What was that for!?!?!?” hannah asked. 

“You asked SOMEONE to!” prick said. 

“Ugh. can we just go home? To the portal?” hannah asked, getting mad. 

“Okay, OKAY!” prick said then a BIG BIG BIG dragon came and scooped them up. 

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” they screamed. “SHHH! YOU’RE NOT SAFE HERE! I’M A NICE DRAGON! MY NAME IS FLAME. DON’T WORRY! I’M NOT LIKE THE QUEEN!” the dragon said. “STAY HERE! MAKE SURE MY EGGS DON’T HATCH!” she said. 

Then she flew off. C r a c k ! 

“sis, what’s that…?” hannah asked. 

They turned around slowly. “THE EGGS!!!” they both yelled together. Then, out of three eggs, popped out… THREE DRAGON BABIES! prick hid behind the nest, hannah didn’t get there in time. One baby pecked at her leg. There was a flowing stream of blood. She tore the sleeve off of her leather jacket and tied it around the wound. The other two babies pecked and missed. 

“SIS! WHERE ARE YOU?!?!” hannah screamed wildly. 

“I’M RIGHT HERE!!!” prick yelled. 

Hannah got up and ran to prick. “FLAME! COME BACK NOW!” they screamed together. “ WHAT!?!? I TOLD YOU; D O N ‘ T  L E T M Y E G G S H A T C H !” she roared.

“I have an idea.” hannah whispered to prick.

“What?” prick whispered back.

“RUN!!!” hannah yelled. Then they ran all the way to the portal with flame chasing them in the sky, shooting fireballs. They leaped through the portal. 

Chapter 3

I ‘ m   f u l l   n o w

“Phew!” hannah said.

“Hello!” a small, cute voice said. “You look like you need help! Come to my hut, and I’ll show you my sisters! My name is coco!” the little girl said. 

So hannah and prick followed coco into her hut. “These are my sisters, clair, chloe, cindy, caroline, cassandra, catrina, cobra, cady, callie, and me, coco!” coco said. 

“Do you want some food, girls?” coco and her sisters said in unison. 

“Uhh, no tha—” hannah was going to say, but prick was already stuffing her face. hannah pulled prick out but she kept going back. 

“I guess i am pretty hungry” hannah thought. She took a pig in a blanket. “Mmm!” hannah mmm-ed. She took more and more. 

“Uurp. I’m full, hannah,” prick said. 

“Me too,” hannah said. 

“ATTACK!!!!!!” the little people said. “RUUNNNNNNNN!!!” hannah and prick yelled together. 

They saw coco and her sister’s car. They saw the key, got it, jumped in, started the car, and hit the road. 

“I don’t have a license, sis!” hannah said in the driver’s seat. Then a portal appeared. 

“Go to the portal! Quick! Quick!” prick said. They drove into the portal. 

Chapter 4

N o t   n e i g h s   a g a i n !

They were in a land full of… HORSES?!?! 

“I want to be a horse now.” prick neighed to hannah. 

“But you ARE!” hannah neighed. 

“YOU TOO!” prick neighed. 

“Hey! prick! It’s me! betty! Down here! I never knew you had a sister!” betty neighed. 

“Hi, betty! How’d you get here?” prick neighed. The sisters got out of the car. Then betty DISAPPEARED! 

“HUH?” the girls neighed. Then, ALL the horses disappeared, except them. 

“Wait, we can’t disappear since we’re actually humans.” prick said. “Hey! I’m a human now! Sorry, sis. Say something smart to show that you’re a smart human.” prick said. 

“Neigh+neigh=two,” hannah neigh-into-said. hannah was a human again! They both were humans again! Then a portal appeared! 

“I hope it’s home, i hope it’s home, i hope it’s HOME!” hannah wished. Then they leaped through the portal. 

Chapter 5

H o m e    a g a i n

Meanwhile, the queen thought, “Maybe, I can take a chance. Try to be nice. I can be a HERO! People will love me.” She went down to the prison, opened up the jail cells by the remote all at once. 

“I’M NICE NOW. :D” the queen announced. All the innocent prisoners ran out and hugged the queen and thanked her so much. 

Back to the girls! They were HOME! Then crispy, betty’s ‘friend’, SHOT hannah with a magic soul-stealer 2000 gun. “You never spoke to me or even told me you had a sister, PRICK!” crispy said. “Yes, i’m human now!” crispy said again. 

“Why, crispy, why?” prick asked with tears in her eyes streaming down her face. 

“You…” hannah said, softly. 

Then the queen came in. “I’m nice now, don’t worry!” the queen said, then splashed a potion into hannah’s dying mouth. “Don’t worry, it will make her stay ALIVE!” the queen said. Then hannah BURST back to life and knocked the soul-stealer 2000 gun and used it on CRISPY. 

“Burned to a crisp!” hannah said. 

“Hah!” prick said, still crying a little.

THE END


The Strange Computer & the Missing Parent

One Saturday night, a girl named Lucy Aqua Rose said to her mom, “Can I please use my computer?”

“Yes.” Her mom said, but Lucy said to herself, Why? She never lets me use my computer at night. She was confused. She heard evil laughs coming from her mom and dad’s bedroom. Her dad was in the air force right now, and Lucy felt like her mom was up to something no good. 

She thought to herself, My mom is probably working with The Evil B’s. Their names are Bianca, Ben, Beatrix and Lucy. Mom’s name is Mila. She looked at the news for clues, and she just remembered that a few days ago, she had read on the news that The Evil B’s were hiring new people. Suddenly Lucy got up and fell smack onto the floor! 

“MOM HELP! I CAN’T GET UP AND MY LEG HURTS SUPER BADLY!” she screamed. 

Her mom said, “I don’t care, get up!!”

As her mom said those words, Lucy felt like her mom didn’t care anymore, as if she didn’t belong. The 16 year-old Lucy Aqua Rose wanted to investigate!

She wanted to investigate because ever since the news article came out about the Evil B’s hiring new employees, she hoped that her mom hadn’t become an Evil B employee. It was getting late, so Lucy took a shower, got dried off, put her hair in a braid, brushed her teeth, put on lotion, got into her pj’s, got into her bed, and then fell asleep. Lucy’s 2 year-old brother Matt came in her room and said, “Lucy, mom is gone!”

But Lucy couldn’t hear Matt because she was fast asleep. She was dreaming about her dog and all the fun they had before he disappeared one hot summer day. The family dog who was black and a little brown, was named Oreo. One hot summer day three years ago, Lucy woke up and Oreo was gone. 

“Mom I’m gonna go for a walk,” she said.

Lucy looked all over the neighborhood. Once she reached the park, she sat on a bench, and then she cried and cried and cried. Finally she called her BFF Lulu for support, well Oreo was her best friend. After a year of searching, she gave up. 

Finally, she woke up. She checked her phone, and she had a million or even billions of texts from her dad! 

The text said: “Help I’ve been captured!” She asked for his location and he replied, “I cannot tell you but I will, I am still on the army premise in a fallout shelter. I am in the basement of the fallout shelter.” 

“But which army premise?” 

Her dad said he was in the army premise in London. She lived in London. 

She got dressed and then packed a backpack. She put on her backpack and called their family babysitter. She came in 2 minutes because she lived right across the street!

“I will be back in about 3 to 5 hours or more.” 

The babysitter said, “Okay, but who will pay me?”

“My dad!” 

So she ran off saying not another word. She called her dad once she started walking to the army premise. But he didn’t pick up! Once she got to the army premise, she looked all around, but couldn’t find her dad. So she called him one more time, still no answer.

She was starting to feel suspicious. She called her mom to see what was going on with her.

She said, “Hi Mom, I was wondering if you were working with the Evil B’s.” 

“No,” she said in a very sarcastic voice. 

“You are then, Mom.” 

“No, trust me.” 

Meanwhile back at home, the babysitter was playing peek-a-boo with Matt. Matt loves the babysitter and peek-a-boo. The babysitter said naptime, and so she picked up Matt and put him in his crib tucked him in and put him to bed. Then the babysitter made his bottle and got him a clean pacifier. She gave the stuff to Matt, then she closed the door. She went downstairs, turned on the TV, and went on Netflix. She got onto her Netflix profile and then watched Flinch, afterwards she watched Home Alone. She woke up Matt when he was waking up. She turned off the TV and went upstairs, and then Matt started whining and she asked what was wrong.

“I want sis,” he said in a very cute voice. 

Lucy couldn’t get into the fallout shelter, so she ran and hid behind a Camo porta potty, and then she took off her backpack, and then she took a special Amulet out of her backpack. She put it on, and then she started gaining the Amulet’s power. She was weak, but strong without it on and so, she zipped her backpack up quietly, and then she put her backpack on, got up, and then ran towards the guards who happened to be guarding the fallout shelter, and so she said, “Fire amulet, go,” and it automatically shot fire.  

“OMG WHAT,” the guards said. “LET’S GET THAT THING, YEAH!” 

Meanwhile in the Fallout shelter, Dad Ben was yelling, “LUCY HELP ME!” She ran back behind the camo porta potty, and she took out her computer to email her cousin who was in the same air force to see if he was okay. But when she opened it, it looked like it had been hacked. She actually happened to know how to unhack.

Lucy tried and tried and tried, but couldn’t. She gave up after 5 hours, sitting in the dirt behind the porta potty. She reached into her camo ripped jeans back pocket for her phone, but it wasn’t there, so she checked all of her other pockets. It was not there either. She started rummaging through her backpack, but once she had reached the bottom, it wasn’t there. Crying inside, she tried to hold her tears in, and she successfully did it, but she needed her phone to call her dad or text him and that phone cost $1,099. She zipped her backpack up. She looked around for her phone. She found it lying in the dirt. She got up. She walked towards her phone. She saw a masked figure take her phone and run. So, she chased the masked figure, and when he looked back, she used her amulet to camoflauge. She kept running and stopped when he stopped. She revealed herself and followed him into the lake. 

“Amulet, give me diving equipment.” 

Her clothes magically went into her backpack, and it transformed into an oxygen tank. She dove behind him, until he stopped. She followed him into an underwater cave. He pressed the wall and a magic door opened. She followed him inside, she could breathe now. Everything transformed back into her normal clothes. 

“Hey, crazy guy, give me back my phones, and tell me the truth. Are you the one who hacked my computer?” 

“Who are you? And what are you doing here!” The masked figure said. 

“My name is Lucy Aqua Rose.” She used the amulet to camouflage and crept up to the masked man to remove his mask. 

She revealed herself once again, she saw that he was her cousin! She started asking questions: “What are you doing here? What is this place? Why did you take my phone?” 

He answered, “I didn’t want to do this, some random person hypnotized me, but the water just unhypnotized me. Do you have your computer with you?” 

“Yes, I do. How did you know you were hypnotized?” 

“I had a GoPro on while the hypnosis was happening.”

Lucy unzipped her backpack and gave him her computer. Then, he took off his hoodie and sweatpants, underneath he had on an air force uniform. He pressed a badge that made the sleeves of his uniform fall off. Then, he started unhacking her computer. After it was done, she turned it on, went into her profile, put in her password and checked her email. All the emails had disappeared. She checked her Google Drive. Everything in there was gone too. So, when she checked for apps all of them were gone except one: ROBLOX. Her cousin returned her phone. 

She swam to the surface, and returned to the fallout shelter. She killed two guards, who apparently were not strong at all. She got her dad and returned home. They returned home to see Matt and the babysitter making cupcakes in the kitchen. Then, Dad went to Matt and gave him a hug. Matt turned around and yelled, “Daddy!” The babysitter said Mom was home. So then, Lucy said, “Dad, ask Mom if she’s working with the Evil B’s. If she says no, give her this truth gummy.” 

He went to their room, and gave Mom the truth gummy. While she had originally said no, she finally revealed she was working with the Evil B’s.

Dad told Lucy, “Your mom is an Evil B.”

And Lucy said, “I knew it all along.” Lucy was VERY MAD. She was as mad as a whale in a whirlpool. 

Dad called the police and Mom went to jail. When the police came, Mom yelled, “No! Don’t take me. This was all a huge mistake!” 

Lucy said, “Mom, I know you are lying.” 

The next day Lucy, Dad, and Matt went to the New York Aquarium. They saw sharks, octopus, and other invertebrates. Then they also saw turtles. They all missed Mom. But they are glad that she got turned in because she did some bad things. Lucy saw a baby turtle and a mommy turtle swimming in the big tank outside. Lucy wondered if her mommy taught her how to swim. 

The end


The TV

The person was bored, so he wanted to do something. He wanted to watch something, but he didn’t have a TV. He wanted to go get a TV. The person started walking down the street. He was bored and wanted to watch TV. He went to the store, so he could get the TV. There were no more TVs when he got there! He went somewhere else to find a TV! So he went somewhere far from his house to get one. Then he got the TV. When he was flying back, the TV fell out of the plane. So he jumped out of the plane. He was falling—he saw the TV! He grabbed the TV. He saw a car on top of a hill, and he fell into the car. As soon as he fell into the car, the car drove all the way back to his house. He fixed his TV, and then he started watching it. 

The end.


The Legend of the Fortune Town

Once upon a time, there was a kind wizard named Confucuis. He and his wife, Liva, lived in a happy town. Confucuis had a wizard hat, a long beard, and a staff. He was as tall as a statue of a man. But earlier, a dark wizard named Lord Black had cast a spell throughout the town, and the town had lost all its fortune. The town was so happy that it didn’t notice Lord Black casting his spell. So Confucuis decided to set off into Lord Black’s dark castle, where he had kept all the town’s gold. Confucuis packed a candle, a cup of tea, and a staff. He set off far, far away from his town. Finally, he found the entrance to Lord Black’s castle. 

“I have found Lord Black’s castle, but how am I supposed to get pass those guards?” Confucuis said to himself.

Then, he came up with an idea. He would hide behind a tree and then whisper his spell at the guards. The entrance lit up and the guards fell into a deep sleep. Confucuis crept quietly into the castle. He hid behind a wall of steel poles. He put his ear into a tiny hole in the wall. He listened to what Lord Black was saying to his servants. 

“I can’t be sleeping when Confucuis is sneaking around the castle. Find him now!” Black yelled to his servants. 

The servants and Black walked away. 

INFORMATION BOX Confucuis teaches a school with his wife, Livia. They teach witchcraft and wizardry. Livia has braces and wears bracelets. Their school is called Boar. 

“Now’s my chance,” Confucuis whispered. He cast a spell against the steel wall and it fell over. Confucuis put on his invisibility cloak. He crept across the throne room and stopped at two temple doors with tiger faces on them. He opened the doors. He jumped through the trap door and ended up inside the dungeon. He saw the treasure chest where his country’s gold was. He suddenly grabbed the treasure chest and put all the gold into his pockets. He put his invisibility cloak back on. 

“Halt!” someone shouted. It was one of the knights. “You’re not going anywhere until you face me,” boomed the knight. 

“Fine,” said Confucuis, “then I will face you. I have a surprise for you while you are standing right there.” He cast a spell at the knight’s feet. The knight was thrown out of the castle and into the moat. Confucuis now put his invisibility cloak on. He walked all the way to the entrance. 

“Now my job is done,” he said, and he headed back to his country and returned all the gold to where it belonged. 

INFORMATION BOX Black has been taught in the dark wizard class in Wizard School. 

Lost

One time a family went to the Big Apple Circus. The oldest was a girl. She was thirteen. The youngest was a boy who was nine turning ten. It was the middle of January. And it was ten degrees outside. So the show started. There were a lot of “oh”s and “oo”s from the crowd. So then the show was over and everybody started to leave, but then the girl and boy had to go to the bathroom but they realized their parents weren’t there. But they were super calm. So they quickly went to the bathroom, then went outside to see if their parents were there. But they weren’t. So they went to see if there was a security guard or police officers and there were a few police officers.

So they went to one of them and asked the police, “Can you help us find our parents?”

And the Police said, “What are your parents’ phone numbers?” The kids told the police their parents’ phone numbers and the police called their parents’ phone numbers and they both answered, but they were talking oddly. So they finished talking and the kids told the police that their parents were talking very oddly. So the police said, “Did they tell you where they are?”

“They said something about the dump.”

They said, “Oh no.”

And the kids said, “What?”

And the police said, “Go home. If anything happens, call 911. We gotta go. Don’t talk to anyone even if it’s someone you know. Also, lock the doors, close the windows, and shut the shades. Don’t answer the door even if it’s us and we’ll tell you when. And don’t make any noise at all. And we will tell you when you can let us in and we will ring the doorbell four times and then you can let us in. We better get going, see you later.”

Their parents snuck up behind them and said, “Boo.”

Then they both woke up to the smell of pancakes.

The End


The Corrupted Candyland

Part One: Before

Chapter One                                            

“We must leave Candyport!” The president said on the TV. “The broccoli monsters have been roaming for almost a decade, and gummy bear dust has been blinding us for five months. We simply cannot survive these conditions, and if we do survive, a supernova will kill us instantly. If someone really wants to stay, then fine. However, I do not recommend staying.”

Basically all the citizens of Candyport agreed with the president, except for two people, who happened to be, unfortunately, my parents, Jane and Michael Buttercup. They were literally addicted to candy; they had to eat at least twelve packs of gummy bears or Skittles every week, or they would have diarrhea for the rest of their lives. Somehow I got lucky and I didn’t get addicted to candy. My mom and dad also wanted to stay because “we’ve never lived anywhere outside the planet,” or “I’ve never even been on an airplane. I could be nauseous and barf the rest of my life with diarrhea,” or “the President said it was our choice to go. We’re choosing not to go.”

So, in other words, my parents didn’t want to go, didn’t have to go, and didn’t go.

But it was also my choice if I would go or not. I wasn’t required to stay with my parents, since now that I was thirteen, I was no longer a minor. That’s how it worked in Candyport. Anyway, conditions were terrible on my home planet. Ninety-foot tall broccoli monsters were killing people with just swats of their deadly florettes, and they were stomping over our beautiful, scenic, prized candy mountains, creating candy dust storms that blocked out the sun, which made it even harder to predict when the sun would turn into a supernova! Ugh!

One day, I met up with my best friend Vera.

“My parents are so annoying,” I complained. “They refuse to leave. That’s fine with me, but I want to leave, and they want me to stay! They treat me like I’m still a baby.”

“Well, maybe my mom could talk with your mom. You could board the spaceship with us. Oh! Gummy bear incoming! Duck, Emily!” Vera says.

“Thank you so much!” I say, as the gummy bear lands harmlessly behind us.

Later at dinner I bring up our conversation with my mom. “Oh, yes. Vera’s mom called me. I’ll have to think it over. You know, I will worry about you. I can’t just leave you with someone.” 

“But Vera and her mom aren’t just someone! We know them!” I protest. My mother just stares at me with that penetrating glance that makes you shut up.

The next day, my mom tells me that yes, I can go with Vera and her mom.

“Thanks for letting me go, Mom. I know that was a hard decision for you and Dad to make.” I hug her.

“When are you leaving, sweetie?” she asks me.

“In three days. Thursday afternoon.”

The days flew by. I mostly spent them eating (considering that not a lot of good food would be available on the spaceship), reading, staying at home (since the candy storms were getting even worse, it was a good thing that I was leaving the planet soon), sleeping, and worrying that the flight would be delayed, or even canceled.

Well, the flight was delayed. Not even the President knows how long we will have to wait. I think that we should just go. Conditions are steadily getting worse and today’s part of the storm will be better than next week’s part of the storm. I sigh, and turn on the TV.

“Breaking news!” A news reporter appears on the screen. “President Gumstein has a message for us. This is him live!”

“I announce that the Escaper Express will start boarding at exactly 5:15 am tomorrow, and will take off at exactly 6:00 am tomorrow. The Escaper Express II will start boarding at exactly 6:15 AM tomorrow and will take off at exactly 7:00 AM tomorrow. This will go on and on until two weeks have passed. In total, there will be three hundred thirty-six Escaper Expresses, if the plan succeeds. Each Escaper Express will have enough room for eight thousand, nine hundred and thirty people, perfectly fitting Candyport’s population of approximately three million people. Each spaceship will be equipped with a high-tech machine that provides infinite food. It has not been 100% approved, more like 98% approved. Our time here is short, as we all know, so we must make do with what we have. That’s it. I know that was a lot of information coming at you, so I will repeat myself…”

I jump up. “Oh my molasses! Dad, did you hear that? I’m leaving in two weeks!”

“Yes, sweetie,” he says. “Stay strong, Emma. I love you.”

That night, I call Vera. “Which Escape Express are our tickets for?” I ask.

“One sec,” she says. I hear some rummaging. “Escape Express XXXVII. Next Monday, starts boarding at 6:15 PM, takes off at 7:00 PM,” Vera reports.

“Well, it could be worse,” I say. “See you Monday!”

I go to the living room. “Hey, Mom. I’m leaving tomorrow evening.”

“Okay, Emmie.” She hasn’t called me that since I was eight. But I have a feeling she just wants to spend time with me. So I let her be thirty-three, pretend I’m still six, and just spend time with her baby, taking in my smell, how I look, everything about me, for the last time.


Chapter Two

Monday afternoon comes all too soon. I hug my parents goodbye and head to the square with a single suitcase of clothes and books, Vera, and her mom. President Gumstein wasn’t kidding—there are probably almost nine thousand people here, and the Escaper Express XXXVII is huge, it barely fits in the main square. And our main square is gigantic, like, two square miles gigantic. I look at the spaceship in awe. The front has a huge, round window surrounded by smaller windows on the circumference of the round window, and the rest of the spaceship is covered in a thick layer of square glass panels that seem unbreakable; I sure hope they are! Suddenly I spot President Gumstein himself!

He shouts into his megaphone, “Okay, everyone! Quiet down!” A hush falls over the crowd. “This is the Escaper Express XXXVII! Not the Escaper Express XXXVI or the Escaper Express XXXVIII! Check your tickets. Okay, everyone’s good? Great. Now, divide yourself into twenty-six sections. Each of your tickets has a letter of the alphabet. Section A to my right, your left. Section B to my left; you’re right of Section A…”

“Looks like we’re Section H,” Vera’s mom says. We walk to Section H. There were still around three hundred fifty people in each group, now I understand why the spaceship had to be so big. It appears that there are twenty-six doors (one for each group, I presume). The president lets each group board the Escaper Express one by one. It’s a good thing that H is towards the beginning of the alphabet, because even just standing outside for fifteen minutes, plus waiting to board in the square, is grueling. One minute, it’s cold, another minute hot. One minute the air is clean, the next minute fruit tape starts to bounce off people’s heads.

Finally, President Gumstein calls Section H to board. I take my last look at the city where I was born, with its oceans of blue raspberry Airheads, its dark chocolate soil, and its trees of rainbow Fruit Roll-Up leaves. I take probably my last deep breath of fresh clean air with the scent of candy. There is no going back now. I step onto the spacecrafts. Yes, plural spacecrafts—one the physical, one the spacecraft of emotions I am feeling. And finally the spacecraft of possibilities that was awaiting me on the other side of the door.


Part Two: The First Weeks

Chapter Three

The first week is definitely rough. I’m not used to so many people living in one place and every day I think about the stuff I left at my former home. For me it’s my bed. Of course all the Escaper Expresses have real beds, but they are never exactly the most comfortable since the planet’s United Council had to manufacture three million of them, plus sheets, blankets, pillows, pillowcases, mattresses, etc. And don’t forget all three hundred thirty-six Escaper Expresses. Enough of that.

When I wake up, I listen for the alarm clock, but it isn’t an alarm clock waking me up. It’s the Breakfast Bell, which always rings at exactly 7:00 AM. All twenty-six sections go to the Main Dining Hall, in the center of the spaceship, where there’s a huge buffet. Well, very occasionally I wake up to an alarm clock, waking up at around 5:00 AM if it’s my turn to help cook food for the day. But this rarely happens to me, since there are almost nine thousand people on one ship, and only about one hundred people needed to cook food. That seems like a lot, but when you think about it, one hundred is tiny compared to nine thousand.

I miss a lot of stuff from Candyport, but there’s still a lot of unique things that you can only experience on a spaceship, like zero gravity. It takes some getting used to, but since I got used to it, I can float and fly around with just a kick of my feet. Plus, you know that huge window surrounded by smaller windows that I talked about earlier? It’s called the Rotunda, and the view from it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I can see the stars, and galaxies, and it feels like I am a mere grain of sand in the dense, endless ocean.

Once, I think I see a supernova in the distance, millions of light years away. It is shades of blue and violet and there are some splashes of yellow, and in the center there is a speck of white, but just for a second. I know it can’t be the supernova that will swallow up Candyport—it has been four days since we took off and Candyport is already fifty light years away—but for that short second, I feel a twinge of pain. I know my parents will be stranded, the only ones on my former home planet. Why didn’t I urge them to go with me? They were there when I was watching TV, and the president said there was an infinite food machine… they probably weren’t listening that closely, but still! They could have had infinite candy and not have diarrhea for the rest of their lives.

I forcefully push those thoughts out of my mind. If I think about my parents for too long, a balloon already inflated from living on a spacecraft (possibly eternally) will pop. And everything will come out.

The food is better than I expected. If you don’t think about the fact that it was made from a machine with who knows what, it tastes pretty decent. I guess in every hundred people, you’re bound to find a good cook. Every Friday, there is even pizza—but not like bad school lunch personal pizzas—real pizza. Sometimes for lunch there’s hamburgers with fries, or maybe a hot dog. For breakfast there is usually waffles or cereal. For some reason, 20% of the food produced by the machine is cereal. Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, every kind of sugary cereal you can think of. For dinner, it’s like lunch, but every once in a while the cooks throw in some pasta.


Chapter Four

Within a week I have mostly adjusted to living on a spaceship. And by mostly I mean, mostly. I still think about my parents every once in a while, but I’ve gotten better at ignoring my thoughts. A little part of me tells me that it’s wrong, but I ignore that too. Also, about every other day I just get a little nauseous. It isn’t too unpleasant—I don’t barf—but it’s just a little unexpected. Like, one moment, it’s been two days since the last time I got nauseous, and I think I’m no longer in the nausea phase. The next moment, I get dizzy.

One day I’m in the Rotunda, just looking out. And Vera comes. We silently talk to each other. And we just hug. I know it sounds kind of stupid, but we just know what each other is thinking. We stare at the stars. And we stay there for fifteen minutes, just thinking about everything, about our old life, and Vera’s dad (his brother murdered him, only three people know it), and my parents. And when our next cooking shift will be, and trying to picture Candyport when the Escaper Express XXXVII blasted off. Were Candyport’s rings turquoise or lavender? Oh, right, they were turquoise with indigo speckles. What color was the planet? Red or gold? Oh right, it was a rainbow…so pretty. My dad had glasses, wait no he had contacts. I can’t remember… isn’t living on a spaceship for a long time bad for your brain? And the radiation is ten times stronger than on Candyport, right? I should have stayed… no I shouldn’t have. I’ll live longer on the Escaper Express…or will I?

Every once in a while, someone gets called to the Candyport Connections Room. If you get called, it’s usually not a good thing. I’ve seen people come out of there, red faced, puffy eyed and teary. The CCR will probably only be in use until the Escaper Express CCCXXXVI blasts off, unless there’s an urgent message from someone staying on Candyport, like my parents. Then it will be converted to a museum dedicated to the future generations of Candyport, so they can learn about their ancestors’ home planet.


Chapter Five

When I was a kid, I thought Candyport was perfect. When a candy storm happened, I thought it was a blessing from the candy gods. When I played Candyland, I thought that it actually was just a small country in Candyport.

When I was a kid, more importantly, I heard fairy tales. I had no idea what a fairy was, or why people called these tales “fairy” tales. One fairy tale Vera and I heard was called “A Planet Called Earth.” It was about this fascinating planet with blue oceans, green and brown continents, flashing lights, and no rings! Plus, the humans of Earth didn’t have any natural candy landforms, and had to make candy in factories! Imagine that! Crazy stuff! There were strange creatures called “animals,” who were every other living thing besides the humans. Whoever came up with that fairy tale certainly had a crazy imagination. The humans of Earth were so big-headed, and all they were doing was just destroying their planet little by little. Amazing to think that the people of Candyport and the people of Earth were the same species. We were beyond being from different planets. It was like we were from different universes.


Part Three: Miracles

Chapter Six

It’s a typical day on the spaceship when I hear the announcement: “Emma Buttercup, Section H, please report to the Candyport Connections Room immediately.” What? Did they just say my name? Or did I hear that wrong? 

“I repeat, Emma Buttercup, from Section H, please report to the Candyport Connections Room. You have a message.” The announcer says calmly and clearly, as if I wasn’t just about to explode into sadness.

I take a deep breath, and walk to the Candyport Connections Room.

“Hello, Emma. I am Diana.” A middle-aged woman greets me as I enter the CCR. “I know you are very concerned, and you have reason to be. Here, listen to the message.” She hands me a phone, and I take it with trembling hands, and hold it up to my ear, terrified of what I’m about to hear. My chest gets tight.

“Emma Butterworth, I regret to say that your candy addicted parents almost escaped death; they boarded the Escaper Express CCCXXXVI, but there was a malfunction with the spacecraft during blastoff that we can’t fix ourselves. If it hadn’t been the last Escaper Express, then we could have gotten help. Unfortunately, the Escaper Express CCCXXXV was long gone. I’m sorry, Emily. I’m calling you as the ship commander of the Escaper Express CCCXXXVII. Goodbye.”

Static. 336 will forever be my unlucky number. A tear falls down my cheek and splatters on the checkered tile of the CCR. I sob. Why did I leave them behind? Why did I ignore the bad feeling in my gut? Why? I knew they were going to die soon. Why did this hit me so unexpectedly? I run back to Section H, back to my bunk, with my head in my hands, and just cry.

My balloon has popped.

I wake up the next day with a spongy pillow and a groggy head. How long did I sleep? I look at my watch. It says 8:47 AM, Monday, December 4th, 1173. I try to do the math. “So I fell asleep after lunch on Sunday, and slept through dinner. Breakfast is ending around now…wow.”

The first thing I need to do is get a new pillow and pillowcase. My current ones are tear soaked. I throw them into the huge hamper outside my dorm. Next, get some food. I’m starving! I go down to the Dining Hall and put a muffin and some eggs into a napkin.

When I come back to the dorm, everyone’s come back up from breakfast.

“You okay?” Vera says.

“Not really,” I admit.

“My parents boarded the last Escaper Express, but something went wrong with the spaceship and everyone died, including them.” 

Vera puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’re handling it better than I did when my dad died.” She gives me a knowing glance. I nod. 


Chapter Seven

I go to the Rotunda. I look at the stars and galaxies. Happiness used to be mine for over a decade. I thought it would stay mine. Now I’m not so sure.

But when I look through the Rotunda, see space, all my thoughts disappear. Even as my life changes, the view is always the same. It’s comforting knowing that even when major things happen, some things have to stay the same.

Life goes on. The spaceship goes on. The food machine goes on.

But I am starting to feel homesick. Not necessarily for Candyport, but just for a home somewhere, to stay in one place and just be there. But every single day is the same here. It should be comforting, but I seek variety in my days now. “I don’t want to live on a spaceship. I—”

Vera interrupts me. “I know it’s hard, Emma. But you have to push through. You can’t let the death of your parents eat you up. I hate to be so candid, but either way you probably wouldn’t have seen your parents for the rest of your life. So I know it’ll be hard, but once you’re done grieving, you have to move along. Or else you’ll feel like this for your entire life. Think about that.”

This is one of the reasons why I love and hate Vera. She sometimes has to be frank to get to me. I know I need it sometimes, but I hate that I’m not strong enough to push through, to banish the bad thoughts from my head.

Vera continues her speech. “I know what you’re thinking, Emma. But this is what friends are for. This is why destiny chose us to be friends. This is why. So don’t worry. We have each other.”


Ten years later…

Part Four: Blue Marble

Chapter Eight

The year is 1183. I turned twenty-three two months ago. I have finally gotten over the deaths of my parents. I am looking through the Rotunda with Vera, something we’ve done every Saturday since we boarded the Escaper Express. Suddenly, I see a cool-looking blue planet. It has little greenish brown patches, and a bunch of beautiful white swirls. It looks different than any other planet I’ve seen. It looks…habitable. Other people think that too, I believe.

Suddenly, the loudspeaker cracks to life. “We are now approaching planet… um, unnamed. It appears that people want us to land on this planet. My data claims that the temperature and oxygen level is suitable for us humans. This Planet X is mostly uninhabited, so yes! Everyone, I am giving you five minutes to get to the dorms. Prepare for turbulence. We are going to land!’’ Everyone on board cheers, then rushes to their dorms.

Once Vera and I are in our bunks, I say, “I never thought we’d make it this far.”

“Yeah. Same.”

“Well, let’s get ready for landing.”

After landing…


Chapter Nine

“Welcome to Planet X, everyone. Please put your oxygen masks on. Though there is a suitable amount in the air, we just want to be cautious. Now, if you can just listen to my instructions. When exiting, Section Z will go first, followed by Y, X and so on. I will notify you when your Section exits,” the ship commander says.

Finally, Section H is called. When we go outside from the spacecraft, I at first laugh. 0.3% of the population of my (former) planet is walking around, astounded by a crazy, new world (to be fair, I was one of them) wearing black gas masks, peering around Planet X.

When everyone is off the ship, the ship commander takes a very forward-thinking looking radio out of his pocket and broadcasts all the other spaceships that we’ve landed on Planet X. Fortunately, since we’re Escaper Express XXXVII, there are only thirty-six ships ahead. And all of them have landed on Planet X, too. The remaining spaceships will try to find Planet X and land. For now we will try to communicate with the passengers of Escaper Expresses I-XXXVI to see where they are on this planet.

“Now it seems like we’re in a corner of a landmass. Pretty hot here, there is a blue mass of liquid close to us, and across from the liquid is another land mass.” This place is the Great Rift Valley of what is now Africa, near what is now Somalia, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, according to Google Maps. It is supposedly the cradle of humanity. 

“I know it’s very vague but sorry,” the ship commander says. Then suddenly I see a bunch of people out in the distance. I report to the commander. And eventually we all start trekking toward the other people, toward life and a new home and hope, with our few belongings and food on our backs. At least we don’t have to wear our hot gas masks anymore.

For about five hours, we walk to the mass of people in the sweltering heat. It is now clear that we are among fellow Candyport citizens.

“Hello!!!” We yell.

“Hello!!!” They yell.

Once we are united, we take a food break, and then decide to find shelter. Unfortunately, this part of Planet X is very dry and barren, except for desert shrubs that appear here and there. We decide that for the first day we will all set up camp under the shrubs and try to get some sleep. But then something very strange to us happens.


Chapter Ten

The entire world goes dark. No, I am not kidding. It’s crazy! No one expects it, and you know that bright thing in the sky that you only notice if you look for it that’s so ordinary (the sun)? Well Planet X’s sun slowly falls down in the water like a ball. And it changes the color of the sky until everything goes black! And it gets really cold too! It’s crazy, we worry the light won’t ever come back. We decide to go to sleep, and then we will plan things.

The next morning…

I wake up to a bright blue sky. Where am I? What is this shrub-like thing hovering above me? Suddenly, I remember yesterday’s events. We finally got off the spaceship, and we met up with our fellow Candyport citizens. Now, we must find the others. Also, we have to somehow get to our infinite food machines so that we have enough to feed everyone. That’s going to be hard. If we get lucky, then maybe an Escaper Express will land close to here. You see, when an Escaper Express lands, it can’t take off again, unless the fuel is completely recharged. While we wait for an Escaper Express to land, we eat a breakfast of energy bars, candy of course, and instant oatmeal.

At about noon, we see a giant spaceship shadowing the land we are living on. We all cheer for life and hope and love in a new place, the song of humanity. The spaceship lands, and the mass of people slowly exits the ship that is now basically a large piece of junk machinery but an hour ago carried 0.3% of an entire planet’s population across our universe.

Isn’t that amazing? Anything is possible. Even us humans living on Planet X (you probably know it as our currently own—but perhaps not original—planet, Earth!) have lived here almost a whole millenium (recall that in this story, at least, we landed in the year 1183 AD) or more depending on when you read this! It could mean that we were once strangers to our own planet(s), and not just to Earth. It could be anywhere, with anyone, anytime.


Footnotes:                                                  

This story was translated from Tamic (first human language) to Modern English in 2019.

I am not requesting the reader to believe anything in this story, including what they just read. But you are allowed to, because that’s what stories are for. A little something to brighten up your day, even if it’s not needed. Even if the title is cheesy. If you are living in a prison cell, or a mansion, it doesn’t matter. Because books are, and should be, for everyone. Because everyone sometimes needs a little enjoyment in their life. That is why I wrote this.

The End


The Rocket Jet Car

Once there was a kid named Max who was 8 years old. He liked to read comics and liked to play baseball. One day he was walking and saw a car that looked like his parents’ and it was unlocked so he went inside. He thought it would be cool if he stepped on the gas, but he thought the car was not on so it would not move. He stepped on the gas and then he saw a rocket engine in the back.

All of a sudden the car was flying and he thought, “I hope I’m just flying and not going to outer space.” But the car went up and up and it broke through the atmosphere. Max started screaming because he thought he was not going to be able to breathe and die. He tried to breathe and… he actually could breathe. 

He said, “Yay, I’m not going to die.” He zoomed through space and then he saw that he was weaving through the Milky Way galaxy.

It was cool and Max wondered if maybe he made it back alive, he could share his findings with NASA.

He wondered what other galaxies were out there. Then he saw a planet that was red and green and blue and white. He decided to land on the planet. He looked at the car and realized it had changed and now had a bunch of buttons and levers. He pressed a button labeled autopilot and he told the car to land. Then he jumped out of the shift and amazingly, he could breathe. He found a planet with life on it. He started to explore by foot. He noticed that there were houses, but they were bigger than any house he’d ever seen. He wanted to go inside, but he was afraid that whoever was living there might not want him there. 

Max saw a store and decided to go inside. It had aliens in it. They were blue and red with one green eye. He remembered that he left his phone in the car. So he ran back inside to his car to take a picture of the aliens but he accidently left the flash on and the aliens saw him. They started chasing after him so he ran back into the car and saw a button that said “weapons” so he pressed it. A laser gun appeared. Max grabbed it, jumped out and ran at the aliens shooting it. But the aliens had laser guns too so Max ran back to the car and pressed the “weapons” button again. A grenade appeared this time. Max ran outside and threw it at the aliens and then he started running and the aliens ran after him. He detonated the grenade and all the aliens exploded. He decided to get off this crazy planet and he looked at the buttons and saw a button that said “home” and pressed it. The rocket zoomed and he was back in the Milky Way galaxy and it zoomed some more and then zoomed just a little more and in no time he was back to earth. 

He used the rocket car one more time and flew to NASA to share all of his crazy findings.

The End


My Life in the Birchwood Forest

Prologue:

I don’t know why I was left here. All I know is that this is where my life began. Right here in Birchwood forest. I can remember how I woke up here, the sun shining down on my face when I was very small. I remember how I sat up and looked around, and it felt like everything around me was a fresh start. This was the only place I remembered. The only place I ever knew as home.


Chapter 1:

It all started the day I woke up in the Birchwood forest. I was all alone. At first I was scared. Scared of this strange new place. Scared of being alone. Scared of myself. But then I realized that if this is where Earth put me, where Earth wanted me to live a life like this one, then this is the life I have to live.

Ever since the day when I woke up here, I tell myself that this is home. I don’t have any other history behind that. Just that this is me, this is where I belong. I wasn’t living in luxury, alone in the forest. I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything other than leaves, which I carefully expected for any signs of insects. Eventually I thought I might starve. The only source of water I could reach was a stream, the tinkling sounds of rushing water musical relief to my ears. By my second year in the forest, I was only turning two, but, of course, I didn’t know that. I wouldn’t have learned how to tell time and the days and the weeks, and the months and the years, or if I would survive living here for as long as a decade or more. And I did. How? It’s all thanks to the deer.

Chapter 2:

If it hadn’t been the fate that the deer had found me, I probably wouldn’t have lasted another week. They had watched me for awhile and saw me abandoned. They came on my second birthday, and ever since then, they had been my family. They found me sobbing under one of the youngest birch trees, the leaves and twigs and grass not been a filling enough diet, and I didn’t think I would survive the next few days like this. I looked up and saw a deer standing over me, looking into my somber face. Then something strange happened. Something I thought no human would ever be able to do. The deer/. It spoke to me. Not the way animals do in fantasy stories-through my mind. It was like a voice was softly speaking to me through every cell in my body. I could feel it vibrating through my heart, my soul, my head, to the tips of my fingers and toes, and all throughout my body. I could make out what the voice was saying, now, as the deer drew closer. I know you’re afraid. I hiccuped a reply. I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t even have to. The words rushed out through my head, not through my mouth. Y-yes. I stuttered through my mind, my new way of speaking difficult at first. Yes I am.  

The vibrations bounced back to me with the deer’s response. You don’t have to be. And ever since that day, I was one of them. I was one of the deer. Raised by them and lived like them, and learned the ways of the deer. I later found out the name of the deer that found me alone. Sage. I loved that name. Just like the plant my mother used to cook with before she abandoned me. I miss the smell of that beautiful plant. And from that day forward, my name–was Twig. 

In this instance, I am reminded that I am loved and probably was, even before I was found by the deer. Maybe Poppa and Momma didn’t want to abandon me, all alone, in the forest years ago. Maybe it was for my own sake, I thought, chewing on my thumbnail, maybe I was in danger, or, someone was coming to take me away! No loving family could let that happen, that’s for sure.

 I resumed positive and tried to focus on learning how to crack open a charcoal nut, a special type of vegetation that grows in the forest. I dropped the nut down on the rocks by the stream and waited for it to hopefully split open and the creamy inside would pour out. Unfortunately, this didn’t work the first time.

 “Really?!” 

Sage gave me a look that clearly meant, “Be patient.”

 I had to try it five more times until I got it right. Learning in the forest was harder than I expected. Grass, bark, twigs, and berries were all a part of a deer’s diet. I had to learn to live like them, so that was what I had to eat, too. I delved into studying the ways of survival. Now knew what was edible and what wasn’t. Now that I knew how to survive here, I wasn’t afraid anymore.  However, I had always been afraid of what I am once I found out exactly what powers I have, but the deer helped me. This is what I mean: At the age of five, I discovered that I was a deer shapeshifter.

Chapter 3:

One day, when I was down at the stream washing my face, I spotted a fox den and noticed three pups. Where had their mother gone? (It had been obvious that their mother had gone in search of food.) I crawled carefully over to the den and peered inside. I gasped as I noticed that one of the pups wasn’t breathing and leaned in closer. The two other pups growled at me and slowly backed away. I hesitated to do so, but I scooped up the pup in my arms and pulled it closer to me to see what was wrong. There was blood everywhere.

  It had seemed that something had attacked the fox pup and somehow had gotten into the den. The pup was dead. I had heard a sound from somewhere in the distance. The trotting of paws. The mother fox was close by. I carefully set down the pup’s limp body. I quickly ducked out of the den, and prepared to run.  But, it had been too late. The fox was getting closer and closer, and broke into a run. I ran for my life, but I had never been that great at running. 

Suddenly, I felt a tingling sensation come over my body. I kept running and running, as the fox picked up speed. The more space I put between the fox and me, the better. But the tingling sensation reached the top of my head to the tips of my toes and all throughout my body. Then, I felt something on my skin, like snowflakes were landing on my arms and legs. My feet turned icy cold, and my hands, too. I looked back and saw the fox racing after me. I looked down at my feet and saw that they had been replaced with gleaming black hooves. I shrieked and looked at my hands to make sure nothing was going on there, but it wasn’t like anything else was going to make hooves on a human any less surprising. There were hooves on both my hands instead of human fingers. Then, I felt my body arch forward until I was running in the position of a dog (now that I think about it, like a deer). I felt big furry ears and antlers sprout up upon my head. This is where I had realized what was going on. I–was shapeshifting into the form of a deer. 

The fox really seemed to have a death wish for me! I thought, as the sweat dripped down my face.  Still in deer form, I was trotting away at such a speed that I felt as if I was flying. It was wonderful to be in deer form! A thought struck me then. I couldn’t let the fox chase me back to the herd! I would put all their lives in danger, and they won’t ever deserve that, not after saving my life. I flew myself around a turn and crouched low behind a huge rock. I thought I would surely be dead deer meat, and I really would be if I died as one. My heart had been pounding in my chest, and my legs shook as the fox drew nearer. I watched from the huge boulder as it sniffed the ground, trying to track my scent. Sweat dripped down my forehead, and the nerve racking thought of dying as something I only was once in my life and having my deer bones being crushed to bits kept floating back to mind. Eventually the fox gave up and stalked away, not happy with its loss of prey.

Well I certainly was. I let out the breath I was holding, which I didn’t realize I was, as I was hiding from the fox, worrying about whether or not I would be torn apart by fox jaws.

I walked back to the young birches that the herd lived in. What had just happened to me? I had thought.

  Later on I realized that maybe if I ripen this raw power, I’ll be able to shapeshift when I want, not only in a scary situation. I had thought. As I carved my skill for shapeshifting, I realized that if I practiced hard enough, I would be able to shift whenever I wanted to. I realized that when I was in danger with the fox that day, my shifting powers came because I needed saving. So, I practiced hard enough, every day, and soon was able to master the skill of shifting by the time I was nine years old.


Chapter 4:

Two years later…

 One night, on my eleventh birthday, I was up in one of the birch trees that I had carved my initials on, which meant “Twig has climbed this tree” and spotted a light– shining– from a little ways outside of the forest. Then, I spotted something miraculous. There was a garden in the front of the house with lettuce and tomatoes and all sorts of delicious foods for the deer and I thought that if I could reach the garden, I could bring back food for the herd and me to have. I jumped out of the tree and quietly crept over to where the garden was, and sneaked closer to the beautiful garden.  I thought I would be able to reach in and grab as many vegetables as I wanted to without being caught, but it was harder than it looked. As I drew nearer, I could see that there was a fence surrounding the garden. It was tall and spiky and it looked like it would be impossible for me to climb over it.

“Oh, honestly, this is to easy!” I smugly said to absolutely no one around me. I stood on my tiptoes and extended my fingers and arms in front of me. I thought about what a deer looks like, the tall white antlers and the slender hind legs. I pictured the whole body of a deer, every single descriptive part about one. This is the way the deer trained me up. Now I do it as if it’s as simple as plucking a flower from the soil. It’s a sweet sadness, happy you have a pretty flower to stick in a vase and stare at it just to admire its beauty. But then again, you miss how you saw the flower, innocent and sweet-smelling, and you know that it will eventually wilt, and you will want to return to what it was before, sorry for taking a life and want to plant another. That’s how it is with me. I can’t bear myself to stay in this form too long, for I know that this isn’t really who I am, I’m the girl who lives with a deer herd, not a deer who has found other deer to live with.

That’s Sage’s title.

With my human form swept away like the tide, I take passion in carefully making sure I use my deer form wisely, only to collect food in a simpler way, so that in case I’m ever near civilization, people won’t send me away!

Well, this time I won’t be in deer form for any of that. I’ll have to be in form just so I can’t tear open a space in the gate wide enough for me to climb through! Then I’ll change myself back and carry as many vegetables as I can back to the herd. Good plan! I thought, as I slowly and silently began to tear open a whole in the gate, carefully not to wake the possessor of the house. Once I had clambered through the tear in the gate (They really could have put better security on it, any animal would be smart enough to find a way to get through to the garden). I shifted back into my normal self and knelt down to reach for the lettuce and tomatoes and any other delicious vegetables I could find. Once I had enough to feed the whole herd, I took my loaded arms to the gate and tossed everything over. Then, I climbed back through the hole in the gate and grabbed everything up from the ground and with my arms full, I hurried back to the herd.


Chapter 5:

Sage had warned me not to go out again for if I was found I would be taken away and never able to see the deer again. Of course, I didn’t want that to happen at all, so I went back to feeding on the things we had before I traveled to the garden. One night, I became restless though, knowing that we had too many mouths to feed and I thought the herd needed more food because one morning the deer and awoke to a loud noise in the distance. It sounded like the calling of a stag but at a thousand times louder. Then, a few bushes collapsed ahead of us. Our berry grove! That meant that there would be less food for us all. That couldn’t happen! I wouldn’t let the herd starve. That night, Sage told me that the world was changing and the humans didn’t always care for the forests. They wanted their own ways and didn’t think ahead of time how nature could be affected. Then, I knew that if the world was changing, and if groves were being cut down as Sage tells me, then I needed to do what I had to do.  

Later that night, I waited until the herd was asleep and slowly crept past the snoozing deer. As I tiptoed past Sage, I stopped in front of her and whispered,

“I’m sorry, but this will do us all good.”

Then I quietly crept out through the tall bushes, separating me from the tall trees that would lead to the clearing where the house was and where the garden was planted. I crept closer to the garden and, planning to climb back through my hole that I made last week, I noticed that it was boarded up. I only had one other option, to dig under the gate and come out the other side. Sighing reluctantly, I quickly changed form in a flash. I began (I would say clawing, but I have hooves) digging in the ground until I had built a deep enough trench to wiggle my body through. 

As soon as I felt fresh air again, I held still and kept my body tucked away in the soil, only exhibiting my ears above ground. I heard a gunshot somewhere in the distance. I gulped. Sage’s warned me about human weapons.

“They could kill a deer in an instant.” She had told me. With my rattling nerves, I crept silently out of my trench, and stalked towards the garden. I changed back into my original form and filled my basket I had weaved from tiger grass a few days after my trip to the garden. I was about to return to the herd when I heard whispering voices coming from the house. As I crept near, I could make out what they were saying. I crouched low under the window and pressed my ear up against the wall. I heard a man’s voice, high-pitched and stupied:  “Yes, we must cut down the trees around this house if we aspire to build the town’s shopping mall here.” 

My eyes widened as I listened for more. 

Another voice, low and demanding, responded, “Certainly. And these trees will make fine 

lumber for materials to sell in the main mall.”  My heart was racing in my chest. Sweat dripped down my forehead. What would I tell Sage? I wasn’t supposed to be out.

“Shall we have a deadline for when we begin building?”

“In a week we may begin construction,” the demanding voice said.  “We have a deal then.” My heart was pounding now and I heard the front door unlocked and click open. I gasped and quickly ran around the corner of the house and pressed myself up against the wall. A skinny man walked down the front steps and out of the cottage. 

“Selfish man.” I heard him mutter.

He put his bowling hat over his head and stalked away, his black jacket billowing out behind him.

 Chapter 6:

My breath was coming out in short gasps, and my lungs burned. I was running as fast as I could, but I had to face it. I sucked at running. I was still in shock from what I had just heard from the two men’s conversation. My bare feet burned and my knees ached horribly. I skidded around a corner as the dirt flew up behind me and I coughed as in inhaled the musty air. I reached the bushes were we all lived and gasped in relief. Regret filled my body, but I dropped to my knees and shook Sage awake. 

“Sage!! Sage!!” I whisper-yelled, careful not to wake the other deer. Sage blinked open her sleepy eyes, and sat back on her hind legs. 

“What is it, my fawn?” (That was Sage’s nickname for me). I clutched at my side, a stitch digging into my skin. I panted, and a sob escaped. I covered my face with my hands as so Sage couldn’t see me crying. Sobs racked my body. I always thought I was brave…

“It’s alright to cry, little one, Sage said as if she read my mind. “Now where were you that you’ve gotten so upset?” I sniffed and didn’t look at Sage as I spoke.

“I…I went back to the garden,” I said with a sigh. Her hazelnut eyes widened. I knew that look. To encourage me to go on. I looked up, finally, and told her about what I had overheard from the two men. “What are we going to do?” I said softly, watching as Sage stares wistfully into the distance. 

“We must move the herd to another forest,” she said, determined.

“No!” I shrieked, the word echoing off the tall trees.

“Twig, there’s no other way to be safe. We can’t stay here and hope our home doesn’t fall on our heads. We will have no sources of food and nowhere to live.”

“That’s exactly why we need to stop this!” I yelled. The other deer arose to the sounds of yelling. “No, we can’t leave!” I exclaimed. Some of the young deer came over to me and nudged me with their small snouts, as if to say, “It’s going to be alright.” I gave them a sympathetic smile and looked up, ready for a fight. “I’m sorry. But Sage, you saved my life. This– this is how I can repay you. And It’s about time, too,” I said, a sensation of melancholy overcoming me. “Twelve years later.” I stood up, my hands balling into fists. “I won’t let this go on. It has to go down.” Then I turned on my heel, deaf to Sage’s “Wait!”


Chapter 7:

 I knew what I was doing. I was going to go up to that horrible man and tell him that there is a herd of deer living in the forest, there are foxes and woodpeckers, there are chipmunks and woodchucks, there is life itself and he just wants to cut it all down. I will not let that happen. As I grew nearer to the house, I noticed how nervous I was. I took a deep breath and knocked. I looked down at my rags. I look like I’m not even taken care of! Of course I am though! By the deer! 

Before I could make another remark on my clothes, the front door swung open and a man with greasy black hair and a lopsided tie approached me. 

“What do you want?” He growled. It was the man with the low and demanding voice! 

I gulped. “I was wondering if I could have a quick chat with you about the current events?” I asked in a weak voice. This guy was scarier than I expected! 

“Do you mean the new mall? Are you here to…complain?” He demanded. 

“Actually, yes!” I said with as much positivity as I could muster. “Do you realize that you are building insanity smack in the face of nature?!” 

He had no answer for this demanding question, except for a forced, “Come inside and explain yourself.” The man dragged me by the front of my shirt forward into a musty room, where three things startled me. One: a mean-looking dog with fangs that formed an underbite. He growled at me, must have been smelling the deer. I slowly inched away from him. Two: the skinny man with the high-pitched voice was cowering in the corner! I gave him a questioning look which he returned. Three: A girl, about my age, sitting on a ripped up couch, looking reluctant as she held a cup of tea which smelled as the fumes of rotting eggs. She smiled at me, a smile which I did not return. I turned to the low voiced man. 

“What is your name?” I demanded of him. “And why should I have trust in telling you any personal information?” 

He growled. “It’s Barney.” The skinny man said, smirking at him. ‘Barney’ glared at him and turned a bright shade of pink. The girl on the couch let a laugh escape, and I almost laughed with her when Barney rounded on her. “You may address me by Mr. Barns!” He yelled, wheeling on me. 

“Seeing as I have no respect for you-,” the girl shoved her fist in her mouth to force back a giggle, “–I will address you as Barney. Do you realize that you’re planning to build buildings and malls smack in the face of this forest? There are herds of deer living here, foxes in their dens, and all sorts of animals that rely on living and surviving here in this forest.”

“She’s right,” said the man with the high-pitched voice. “If there’s so much life here, then we must find a better place to build our houses and malls, or not build them at all.”

“Yes, I agree with that,” said the girl on the couch. This time I returned her smile. I smiled at the man in the corner, too. 

Barney turned pink and exploded at all of us. “Fools!” he yelled. “Who cares about what lies in the forest? We planned all this work out and now we will finish it!”

“No you will not!” I protested. “A great herd of deer live there! I live there!” Everyone stared at me. 


“You live there?” the girl asked. I flushed red and had to say something, so I admitted how I lived in the forest ever since I was a baby. After I finished the story of how the deer found me and took care of me, everyone was shocked at my tale.

“No children should be living in the forest!” Barney exclaimed. “We’ll send you off to a proper school and a proper home.”

“No!” I yelled. “I have to live with the deer! They saved my life, I have to protect them!”

“Now don’t fuss, you’ll be happy there,” said the man in the corner. 

“No, papa, I think she’s happy here. But I also think that you shouldn’t be planning with this terrible man-,” she gestures to Barney. “-to chop down the Birchwood Forest.” It was pure relief to hear her say that. “I mean, if you think about it, you just destroy a chain of life! How would you feel if someone came into town, kicked us out, and replaced it with skyscrapers and tall buildings, and we had to make a long journey to find a better life, and be scared all the while and anxious you wouldn’t be able to find a perfect way to be at ease again? You can’t do that to the animals living in the forest! I agree with–what’s your name?” She asked me. I blushed at the fact that she even wanted to name and, as a matter of fact, my name is Twig, and she probably has a name that has nothing to do with nature or anything strange, probably a really pretty name.

 “I’m Brooke. Named after that stream in the forest you live in! And that’s my father, he goes by Mr. Dave.” She gave me an ear to ear grin. This time, I returned it. “I’m Twig,” I said shyly. 

“That’s a great name!” She examined. 

“Thanks.” I muttered. “Now who’s with me? Are we going to stop this insanity or what?!” I felt like I was rousing a bunch of protesters. I felt so positive I thought I was going to burst. Barney, through all of this, was standing, his mouth hanging open, shocked. He shook his head.

“I will not stand for this. I am heading into town now to borrow a trencher. These trees will be gone by thursday.” At that point, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

 

Chapter 8:

“I’ll be right back.” I whispered to Brooke. She nodded and gave me a promising look. As Mr. Dave and Barney argued, I tiptoed back and out of the house. I turned on my heel and ran. I had to get Sage! I shouldn’t have left her all alone with the others! They need to be safe! And they can’t be when Barney is planning to rip apart our home! I headed for the the grove were we slept, racing along in the deer form (I had shifted as soon as I left), and was now racing along a dry path, my hooves clicking in the dirt. I almost collided with Sage, who seemed to have the intention of racing after me. “Sage!” I exclaimed. I tried to convince them, “I met a girl named Brooke who wants to help me save the forest, along with her father and one other man who completely disagrees with us and still won’t let us keep the forest the way it is.”    

“For the first time I’m going to try to fight back with you. We will make sure our home isn’t destroyed. Change back into your human form, so they won’t suspect anything.”

I heard a voice in the distance. “Twig!” It called out. I spun around and saw Brooke and her father racing after me. Sage backed a few steps away.

“You told them your name?” she whispered. 

“It’s okay, those people don’t want the forest to be teared down. They want to help us.”

Then Barney emerged from the cottage and came running after us. “He–doesn’t want to help. He just wants to be selfish and unfeeling.” I glared at the long shadow of Barney striding across the clearing of trees drawing nearer to us.

“What is this vermin you are standing by?” He questioned, looking up and down Sage. I could see in Sage’s face the terror of standing in the presence of a human as horrible as this. I, for one, was shocked at these words. 

“Excuse you? How heartless can man get if they haven’t grown up knowing the importance of nature in this world? The very deer who saved my life, who, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be speaking to you in this moment, the mere presence of me but a faded existence. I bet you want that, don’t you, me to be a dead goner. Than take me, take me instead of them, instead of the forest. I reached my hands out wide. I’m all yours. Just let them be.” 

Sage stepped in front of me, nudging me back. 

“No,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I got you into this mess. And I’ll get you out, I promise.” I said. 

“I can’t do that!” Barney exclaimed, taken aback. “I can’t kill a human child instead of chopping down a random forest to make way for the new! Those options do not go together.” 

“In my world, they do. But, then, if you are too nervous to take my life instead of theirs because you think society will rat you out for murder, then leave us all. Build your malls, your homes, your tall–rectangular things–somewhere else, in a clearing where you don’t have to chop down my world.” A few minutes ticked by. 

“Please,” a tear ran down my cheek. “You don’t know how much this means to me.” Finally, the words came out that would change my life forever. Barney put his head in his hands. 

“Fine. Go live whatever life you want to.”

 Chapter 9:

Five Years Later…

Brooke

It was my last day to deliver food to Twig before I moved away. After today she would go into town when she needed to. I took the small satchel of food I tied it up to all tall tree, throwing the rope around it. As I pulled the rope up so no animals would eat it, I remembered the girl I met five years ago, and heard her tinkling laugh somewhere in the distance. She must be riding Sage. Or living in the tree house I helped her build last year. I will miss her so, so much.

“Goodbye, Twig.” I whispered into the forest.                  

Death Escape

Chapter 1

The outbreak starts

“Hey Matt! Let’s drive to the outskirts mall! We can go to the arcade,” I said. 

“But I don’t have money for those games!” said my friend Matt. 

“I got enough money to get all four of us covered! Go grab Gary and Al and lets get going!” I said. 

“No problem and thanks Kevin!” With that, we left our house and got into the car since I was the only one with a driver’s license, I drove.

  After a short drive with the guys chatting away about Fortnite because season 60 had flying cars, we finally pulled up to the mall. So we parked and entered the mall. The mall had so many stores with all sorts of fast food places along with other food stores. The mall was almost like a giant food store even though it had a bunch of other toy stores and clothing stores. I looked around and saw that today there weren’t many people there so it was more like a small crowd there. 

We entered the arcade with so many new games.

“Guys! Let’s play the new four-player walking dead!” I say. We run over to the new game and start. After we play for 5 minutes, we get death penalties. 

“Oh my goodness!” cried Gary. 

“Poor guy!” We had failed to save one of the guys which gave us a death penalty. “I sure hope this doesn’t happen to us Kevin,” said Al.

 We kept running around playing all sorts of arcade games. But after 30 minutes, I didn’t want to spend anymore money. So we set off toward the parking lot. We were going to enter the car and we all had received a message that tons of deer were gonna be on the road today.

“Ok Kevin, we should. Just drive carefully just to make sure we don’t kill anything,” said Matt. We then just jumped into the car and zoomed away.

Meanwhile……

“Sir! We have a small nuclear leak in the tank and it’s seeped into the water supply!” said a scientist to the manager who wasn’t very friendly at all.

“If you useless creeps don’t fix the problem or block more from coming out or I’ll go mad!” screamed the manager. Nearby, car washers didn’t seem to realize that their water supply had been a little bit contaminated by nuclear waste. They sprayed a person’s car and the person who had not paid attention to the deer message had already driven away at high speed. He then drove on the road and BANG accidentally hit a deer with his window open. “Ugh dumb animals…” he growled.

At that exact moment…

“Guys did you hear that?” asked Matt. “It sounded like some sort of bang!”

“Yeah I heard it too!” said Al.

“Do you think that’s the bang?” I asked pointing to a dead deer on the sidewalk. “Yeah.. maybe so,” said Gary. We walked out of the car and inspected the deer.

“Who would have done this?” asked Matt sadly.

“I bet it was him!” I said pointing to a person. I took a picture of the license plate and sent it to the police.

***

Later we had arrived home and turned on the Xbox and played Minecraft until 3:00 at noon. Until then we decided to watch some TV. We turned it on. It started with saying,

“A man drove by a deer corpse today and appeared to see it moving!”

That made us all jump out of our seats. “Could it be our deer?” cried Al seeming crazy nervous.

“Here we are with our witness! John! Would you please come up here?” said the reporter.

“Yes sir!” said the man named John. “I was just driving across the road until this seemingly dead deer just came to life!” He cried. “I even saw him get up and pound at a car! I then just drove away with that in film!” The man then said even more. “I then kept driving on the road until I saw some kind of man that looked deranged burst out of his window! Then he started chasing a car!”

“Well folks! That is our scoop for today! A mysterious deer coming to life what do you think? Leave a message on our website news channel 3.org!” he said.

We then were trying to change channels until channel 12 came in and said,

”Everyone listen up! We are here to show you a film of a clip shown from our newscopter! We are taking you there live! Subject! Massive violence and many casualties in the city of US! Here we are! Miles?”

“Yes sir, I can hear you! Now we are right now seeing in this city in Kansas where as far as I can see something wrong with some people! It’s as if they are killing others! I’ll try and go for a zoom in!” As the copter lowered, the camera zoomed in and we saw people with faces that had cracks and blood on them. It was not a pretty sight. But then something happened and the heli exploded on the ground.

“I think we better take a train somewhere else.” I said. Everyone took to that idea right away. So we booked train tickets to leave to Boston.

Chapter 2

Train of the dead


The next day, we were going to the train station. We then had checked in tickets and everything. We got to the tracks and went inside. We just viewed outside the window at the person letting people in. All of a sudden something pounced on him. And we had no idea what had happened. We were totally clueless. But it almost seemed like it was exactly like the people we saw in the news last night.

We knew that the train ride was supposed to be almost a day. But it was worth it to run away from total carnage.

“Guys, do you think it’s gonna be safe in Boston?” asked Gary worried.

“Yeah I’m sure we will,” I said. 

After an hour and a half, we were just sitting there until we saw something strange.

“Guys,” said Gary. “Does anything about this person look wrong to you?”

He said pointing to a woman who was limping our way and looking as if she would tumble down in a few seconds.

“She’s walking weird…” I said. “Do you think she’s sick?”

“Yeah I think so…” said Al. “Do you think she’s…. One of them?”

“What do you mean?” asked Matt.

“One of the creatures.” I told him. We saw her run into one of the train stewardesses.

“Ma’am are you okay?” asked the stewardess, bringing the woman into the back of the train. She laid the person on the ground.

“Conductor, we have a situation. There’s somebody here who seems in need of medical attention,” she said. The woman then got up. She got up and grabbed the stewardess and bit her in the neck. The stewardess fell in front of some passengers including us.

“What the hell??” murmured the passengers.

“Guys… we should run.” I said. We all got out of our chairs. “Hurry people!! Run!” I cried. The passengers didn’t all buy it.

“We aren’t going to listen to no pranks, sonny,” said an old man. A few passengers had already gotten up and were warning others to get up and run away.

“Fine! Just don’t get killed.” I said running off. “Everyone who saw the news last night?!” I said to passengers in car 5 out of 16 so I could get everyone to safety. So as we kept warning people to go to the front cars, we got most of the passengers in. I was getting a few more people out of car 7 where there were some other people. I ran to someone on the ground who was just lying there. As soon as I saw that person only had eye whites, I shoved them across from me and ran into car 6 where all the other people were. I shut the door before the crazy humans were in car 12 just in case something else happened. Two more people had then come, they banged on the door to get us to let them in. I did that and the couple got in.

One minute later, the zombies were in car 7 which is where we were behind them. They groped at the door and banged on it. One man was pressing against the door and said, “Anyone know how to lock these?” he said.

“Yeah I’d try twisting the orange thing on your left,” said somebody. The man did that.

“But what are those people doing with all that blood on them?” said one person. “It’s like a virus or something!”

“That’s it! It’s like a zombie outbreak or something!” I said. 

“Wait a minute, are we stopping somewhere?” I said. We saw a bunch of people approaching the window which made us all back up a little.

“Let us in! Please!” They cried. It took us all a minute to realize the train station had been overrun by zombies.

“Conductor! Open the door!” said a person. The conductor did so which also let the zombies on the train out. A couple survivors got in and slammed the door. Right before zombies started pounding the windows.

We slowly creaked open the door that led us to the train. We opened another door where there was still one or three zombies still hanging there. The few survivors including Gary and Al ran back. We slammed the door and saw someone slowly get killed by the zombie.

“Hey guys we can’t just stay on this train!” I said. “It’s going to reach Boston at one point where the virus might have already reached! We should all stick together.” Everyone was then talking about whether we should ditch the train and go to a stop with no zombies or go straight to Boston.

Everybody had mixed opinions and tried to argue with each other.

“We should stop the train at a stop,” said one man.

“But then we could end up getting ambushed by tons of zombies!” said another. “We should stay on the train.”

“But if we do that, it could get us trapped on a train or something. Besides, those zombies could break through that glass after a few hours!” said a third.

While everyone argued, me, Matt, Gary, and Al looked for something to help us. We all looked around until we could find something. Then we overheard the people deciding that we get off at the next stop. The conductor also agreed.

Once we got to the next stop, we realized nobody was here. We looked around hoping that there were no zombies. We looked around until somebody saw a R.I.O.T shield. We hoped that meant there were more survivors. We kept looking around together to see if there  were were survivors nearby until Al pointed at a baton. Gary had picked up both the shield and a baton which made him look more like the survivor kind. To be honest, he looked like a character from the Walking Dead series. So after he had that stuff, we kept searching for stuff to defend ourselves.

At one point, everybody was snooping around for weapons and shields. What I found was a wooden bat. But I was hoping I’d get a baton. But the thing is, there were hardly any weapons at all. Only three people had shields and about five people had bats or batons.

I was thinking about getting out of the train station until I realized that if there were a few police weapons, there could be police force nearby. Maybe even a military. I decided to look around downstairs for more weapons in the station and that when I saw that there was a broken gun a few feet away from me. At first I thought I was safe and had found a gun. But then I found out that it had blood all over it. That’s when I realized it meant that there could be a military force nearby that was infected.

I went back up to talk to Gary, Al, and Matt and explained what I had thought. They also thought about it and agreed with me.

“But where do you think the infected military can be?” asked Al. “Most likely at the train exit since that’s where nobody has gone.” I said. That’s when we heard a scream and saw a person run out the exit and into the station.

“Run!” he cried. “Run!!!” That’s when we realized that my theory of zombies was correct.


Chapter 3

Military chaos


Suddenly the whole train station had been completely overrun by infected soldiers. Gary grabbed his baton and bashed a zombie onto the floor.

“Let’s get the hell outta here!” he said. We then opened a door with nobody in it.

“Hurry! Get in here!” I cried to the panicking survivors. One by one, people noticed me calling them and ran through the door. After a few people entered, we noticed nobody else was alive. So we locked the door and saw that the zombies were already attacking.

“There’s too many of them! They’ll break the glass! Run!” I scream.

We all run and see that there’s still one train that was almost gonna leave. We kept running and making sure the infected didn’t catch up to us. We got onto the train.

“There’s still more people coming!” I said. “Get them in here!” But it was too late. Zombies broke through a window up top and started falling onto the ground. The passengers had mostly got into the train. So with that, the final person got in and closed the door. We figured we were safe but I had no idea what was gonna happen.

We quickly figured out that the people who were still alive had went into the incorrect train car and they got infected so it was no surprise to me that they were continuing to bang the windows. But me and my friends along with two other people got back into car 1 where nobody else was. We had blocked the glass doors to be sure they didn’t know we were there. Hopefully they had no sense of smell. But at one point we heard that somebody had opened the door for some completely stupid reason.

We soon heard the shrieks of zombies and survivors screaming. But no zombies banged on our door. That meant as long as the zombies couldn’t see us, we wouldn’t get chased. We then went to the conductor. “Hi guys,” he said. “This has been the worst day I have ever lived out of my whole life!” “We should get to Boston soon though,” he added.

Gary was worried. “Do you think that we could make it?” He asked.

“It’s possible, but let’s not lose hope yet.” said the conductor.

After we were 18 hours away from Boston, we looked and saw that zombies had overrun another train station. We were just about to pull away and after we were 11 minutes away from the station, we heard the conductor shout. 

“God dangit!” he screamed. “The engine’s broken!” 

I went over to him.

“We have to exit the train!” I said. “Guys, we have to get off.” I said to my friends. The two other survivors I first thought were still with us, but it turned out that their instincts made them go onto the train station first thing.


Chapter 4

Alone


“We are on our own,” said Gary shaking his head sadly. 

“We can’t stay on this train.

We have to actually survive until we reach Boston,” said Matt. We soon were walking off the train hoping not to get noticed by any really dangerous things. We all ran into the woods. But once we were walking, there were some zombies on the tracks. We were about to assault them until a zombie was right behind us and jumped on the conductor.

“ACK!” He cried, throwing the zombie to the ground. Thankfully he, the conductor, hadn’t been bitten.

“Gary! Hit the shield!” I said. Gary smashed his R.I.O.T shield directly into the zombie’s neck. It was a one shot kill, but this wasn’t a video game and we needed to actually fight those zombies on the tracks if we wanted to live.

We walked over to the zombies. They looked at us and lunged at us. My bat actually came in handy for the first time the apocalypse even happened. I struck at the zombie knocking it to the ground. Gary smacked a zombie’s head with his metal bat and got him killed. I kept continuously hitting a zombie until its blood oozed out.

“Matt! Here!” I said tossing my bat to Matt who was being attacked by a zombie. Matt first took out the zombie’s legs and then shoved the bat at its mouth.

“DIE!” cried Matt, smacking the zombie even after it was already completely dead. That was until there was a zombie right behind him. Gary whacked the zombie aside and shielded himself from getting bitten. Matt then finished the zombie off by punching him and smashing him.

After we had taken care of the zombies, we kept walking until we got to another area with zombies. But we kept either sneaking past or killing the zombies. At one point, we came to an area where there was a whole horde of them. So the idea was that we had to clear them out one by one which would be impossible unless somebody sacrificed themselves. I then noticed a person who had gotten eaten. I looked in his bag. Once I saw what was inside, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

There was actually 1 or 2 guns in there! I could not even believe my luck. At first I thought the gun was broken, but as soon as a zombie ran at me from out of nowhere, I did the first thing I thought of doing which was to grab a gun. But as soon as I pulled the trigger, blood went on the zombie’s head. I grabbed the shotgun for myself and passed the pistol to Al. Then we were ready. Matt and Gary took down those zombies as I took down the small crowd of undead humans. Gary kept giving the zombies a good clock on the head and wiped them out while Matt kept hitting at the guys so hard. He killed a row of three zombies in one hit. After defeating a somewhat endless wave of zombies, we actually managed to keep walking. But then, Al turned around and said, “Kevin, where did you get that gun?” He asked.

“In a pack.” I replied.

“Let’s see if it has food!” He said. “I’m hungry!” So that’s what we did. We finally got to that pack and opened it up.

“A banana, half a bag of chips, bottled water, and six cheese sticks,” said Gary.

“Let’s eat!” said Al. We all split the food.

We soon slept and waited in bushes where we hoped nobody could see us. We had to keep going early in the night so the zombies couldn’t see us. Thankfully we had survived the first day of the outbreak. We later kept going.


Chapter 5

Safe at last


We had a few encounters with zombies. I smashed some zombies to death that day until we finally had gotten to some kind of place where it looked like there had been a train accident. We all ran trying to make sure we didn’t run into a zombie horde. Soon, we saw a whole group of zombies all lying on the ground. But in front of us, there was a ton of zombies all grouped together on a bridge which we for sure had to take down.

We charged at the horde and were smacking them across the ground. I grabbed a zombie by the back of the shirt and broke its head by twisting it. Gary smacked zombies off into the lake which while Al shot his pistol making sure every bullet counted. We all ran toward other zombies knocking them into the river and shooting them all down.

Later, we had already found a tunnel which we thought would make a good base to be for surviving. We were alarmed by the sound of walkie talkies that made us think we were gonna be facing some kind of ultra smart zombies. That’s when we saw some people in army suits. We worried and walked over to get a closer look to see if they were human or zombie. But they then noticed us and said,

“Survivors approaching!” said some men. “Bring them over! Quick!”

Me, Gary, Al, Matt, and the conductor all approached the army men.

“We’re safe.” I said. “We survived the Zombie apocalypse!” We all cheered. Then we heard a noise in the air. “Scientists in the world have developed a cure for this disease! Medical units will now be dropping! Everybody now be calm! You are now safe!” The army men and my friends and me all cheered.

“We are survivors!” I said.

The end


Fend For Yourself

Nora lived right next to the waterfall Forest. The sky around the forest was always in perpetual sunset, so the ways the light hit the waterfall looked as if it was on fire. Nora never really noticed, but a water source kept her alive so she gave it some respect. Actually it was the only water source in the vicinity of fifty miles.  She lived on her own in the forest in a little grass hut. She got her water from the waterfall and salt from the ocean. She gathered roots and berries and set snares to catch the strange skinny birds. She was pretty self-dependent. She never noticed the beautiful setting or the pretty food that she gathered. The only thing about the nature that she really noticed was the crickets chirping that kept her from sleeping as early as she would like. Nora lived alone in her hut, but five miles away lived an old lady that seemed to know everything.

Every night when the crickets started to chirp, Nora started the long walk to the old lady’s grass hut and she learned about the possible plants and roots and edible birds that won’t give you bird fever. In return for the old lady’s knowledge, Nora fed her and shared her own knowledge , but since most of the useful things she knew were taught to her by the old lady, she mostly just told her stories of ancient gods and heroes. 

  One day when she was walking through the forest checking and resetting snares, she was unhappy to find that there were no edible birds, just the bright pink ones that were deadly poison. They were still alive so she let them go and walked over to the ocean to see if there was any fish to spear. None. She walked back into the forest and looked around for some roots and berries. She went to her favorite blackberry bush and found it untouched. She ran back to her hut, found a large basket, and stripped the berry bush clean of any fruit. 

She hauled the heavy basket inside and started eating. “Oh well,” she said to herself. “So much for a large lunch.” She sat down the half eaten blackberry basket and looked into the corner of the grass hut. There was an incredibly cute, little rabbit. Since Nora hardly noticed anything cute or pretty or nice she kicked it out of the hut and continued eating her berries. She set down the few remaining blackberries and wandered outside for a little afternoon stroll.

  After a mile or two, she noticed one of the strange skinny birds lying flat on its face. “Finally!” She said. “A real meal.” She kneeled down to pluck the bird when she noticed the the usually reddish brown skin of the strange skinny birds was paper white. Nora frowned and picked up the bird. Her stomach growled. She decided to consult the old lady. She took the long five mile hike up to the old lady’s house. She came running to the little grass hut. She walked into the hut.

Nora called the old lady Granny. Granny’s hut was strewn with thick, wooly rugs and sheepskin blankets from the real world.  Nora lived in the real world until she turned five. That was eight years ago. Bundles of good-smelling herbs hung from the ceiling.  Granny was sitting in a bundle of blankets cutting up meat Nora brought a few days ago on a large slab of wood that took up half the hut. Nora unclipped the bird from her belt. “Is that for me?” asked Granny. Nora’s cheeks turned red. She hadn’t anticipated this. “Sorry I will bring you your meat at the usual time but some weird things are happening.” Nora explained the vanished meat except for the paper white bird. “First you must not call it a bird. From now on you will call it a Apalaishan forest foul, and second give me the bird.” Granny said all in a hurry. “But you just said—” “No buts. Give me the bird.” Nora reluctantly gave Granny the bird.

Granny examined it for a solid five minutes. When she finally looked up from the Apalaishan forest foul she beckoned Nora to sit next to her. Nora sat down. Granny said, “Look at the slit in the side of your bird’s stomach.” She lifted the feathers that concealed the ugly gash. “The bird is completely sucked dry. There is not a trace of any blood. That explained why it is paper white. Your bird over here looked like he had an encounter with one of those giant leeches,” Granny paused and started plucking of the feathers.

 “You can have your dinner here. My cooking always tastes better than yours anyway.” Nora scowled at the floor, even though it was true. Granny always made good use of her herb bundles. It was starting to get dark. Nora walked over to close the grass curtain over the small hole in the hut and went around lighting candles with the fire that Granny had started to cook the food. Granny had three hundred and ninety-seven candles all stored away in a sheet of plastic to keep dry. It was unfortunate that she only had twenty candle holders. Granny had loads of stuff from the real world. That was the only thing that Nora did not like about Granny. 

After a long time of waiting for the stew to get ready, adding spices and unfamiliar herbs, supper was finally done. Granny spooned the stew into two wooden bowls and ate in silence. Nora was very hungry from her diminished lunch. She secretly thought that it was a bad idea that she showed Granny the bird. She wished she had eaten it all by herself. Even though the bird might have been poison, Nora had herbal remedies that Granny had taught her. 

Twenty minutes later, Nora got up and clipped the rest of the bird to her belt to be salted in her hut. A few years ago, she made a little trough out of sticks that she collected in the woods she filled it with salt. Now she had salted meat hanging from the roof of her hut as well as herbs and remedies. She salted the rest of the bird, hung it up, and crawled under a bear skin and went to sleep.   

The next day was a little more strange. Nora got up and pulled on a t-shirt and jeans that she brought to the from the real world, and went outside to check her snares all she found was paper white Apalashian forest foul. They were strewn across the forest floor. There were ten of them. She gathered them and took them to her hut. She plucked them and skinned them and did all sorts of things that you did to a piece of bird when you were hungry. She salted five and carried them over to Granny’s hut she dropped them off at the “Meat deposit” that Granny had installed for her. Since she already did the hunting and yesterday’s berries were still ripe, she decided to take a swim in the ocean.

 She walked to her hut, put on a bathing suit that used to fit Granny when she was thirteen, and headed to the ocean. Nora happened to be quite an accomplished swimmer, even when she was five and in the real world winning prizes for her back float and such. She went up to a cliff that looked down at the sea around forty feet down or so. She took a deep breath and dived into the blue-green waters once she touched the bottom she swam around face-down with her eyes open and she noticed something very strange. She got to her feet and swam deeper into the ocean and noticed fish lying on their backs. They were already dead. She looked up toward the cliff. There was a white flash of a tail disappearing into the woods. It looked like the rabbit she kicked out of her hut yesterday. 

She swam to the shore and ran to her hut and changed into her clothing. She got the long knife that she used for preparing meat and occasionally throwing a knife at a bird that wandered outside her hut. She silently slipped into her boots knife in hand and proceeded outside the hut. She was going to hunt down whoever was killing the animals. First she decided to tell Granny about her plan. She might give her something to help her. Last time something happened like this turned out to be a poacher. Nora had hit his head hard with a rock. He got amnesia, so instead of getting a buddy for Granny she led him over to the edge of the woods and pushed him out. He was probably now in some weird real world hospital.

Nora arrived at Granny’s hut and noticed that the meat was gone. She stepped into the hut and looked for some possible signs of life in the piles of blankets. “Granny! I need to tell you something,” Nora said loudly. No answer.  She looked and checked a couple of blanket piles. She checked the one nearest to the table. There she was! “Come here,” she croaked. Granny was very pale. As pale as the dead birds. Oh no. Nora hoped she was wrong about what she was thinking… Cause if she was right… “It the rabbit,” said Granny shakily. “The one who is killing the birds.” Her voice was barely a whisper. Granny collapsed. Nora’s eyes widened. She bit her lip. She felt Granny’s heart. Nothing. Nora made a small strangled sound. She carried Granny outside. 

  This could not be happening. Granny said that she wanted to have a proper, real-world burial. Hunting the rabbit could wait. She ran inside to fetch a shovel. She dug and dug and dug. Her hands were dotted with blisters. She set Granny down into the large hole and filled it in with dirt.  She went out to the meadow and picked Granny’s favorite purple flowers. She laid them around the grave. She went into Granny’s hut and collected all the herbs and meat. No use letting it go to waste. She carried them out to her own hut and hung them on the ceiling. 

‘Why did I like Granny so much? I guess she reminded me of my family in the real world. My dad my mom my sister. All of them. Even my infuriating cousins. I guess even Granny had a sassy side. I never actually knew my real grandmas. They died before I was born.  My grandma on my mom’s side died when my grandfather passed away due to a terrible sickness after the bombing of California. No one can even see the ruins because they are still toxic. My family lived In Nevada right near the border of California. Right near the bomb site. It wasn’t  even a normal bomb. It was the one that America swore to never use again. The Atom Bomb. Soon the sickness took hold of my whole family. My mother told me to flee to the Appalachian Trail. I did. I felt safe. But now no one is safe. I will avenge my adopted grandmother.’ Nora’s thinking time was over.

She picked up her knife filled with a new determination. She suddenly realized how ridiculous the whole situation was. A bloodsucking rabbit with a knife or an axe was out to get her. And Nora thought she had seen it all. Oh well. At least she had experience with killing animals. She might even enjoy rabbit stew. 

Nora trekked deeper into the woods. There was still no sign of the demon rabbit. At least he would stick out. There was no white rabbits in these woods. She decided to go in the direction of the cliff. The dead leaves crunched beneath her feet even though it was midsummer. She would scare of an elephant at this rate. Not that there were any elephants. She thought. Well with a demon rabbit who knew what was going to happen. She stepped onto the rocks. There wasn’t a sound. And suddenly behind a rock was the telltale flash of a white tail. She chased after it she threw her knife at it but missed. Appalashian forest foul were much slower. She yanked her knife out of the ground and threw again. This time the knife pinned the rabbit to the ground by its tail. Nora smiled. But something strange seemed to be happening. 

The rabbit’s tail looked like it was spinning. The tail lengthened and changed shape. Longer and longer and a strange square shape on top of the tail. The tail stopped spinning. The knife clattered to the ground. The tail had transformed into a large axe. The rabbit hopped around swinging the axe around and taunting Nora. The rabbit bared his teeth and jumped onto Nora swinging the axe like a madman. Nora did not know what to do. Her knife was still on the ground. All she had to do was get the knife. If that demon rabbit let her live long enough.  The rabbit started to shout meaningless things at her. The axe did not seem to ever get tired of flailing around. The rabbit’s pointy teeth were stained reddish brown from the fish and the birds. And Granny. Granny! She was the one who made Nora hunt the rabbit down not only because the birds were rotting but because the rabbit was the one who killed the only one who Nora liked anymore. Nora was so angry she could not see. She tore the rabbit off of her and lunged to get the fallen knife. She stomped down on the axe-tail an stabbed the rabbit. The rabbit still did not stop screaming. She stabbed it again and again but the rabbit did not cease to chatter. She held the rabbit by its neck and went to Granny ́s abandoned hut and got the big cooking pot. 

She started dumping herbal remedies into the pot that she brought with her everywhere. The water started to boil. She kept dumping random herbs into the pot until the water turned into a murky brown thick paste. Without thinking she dumped the rabbit into the pot and closed the lid on tightly this left her time to inspect her wounds. She had several deep gashes near her ankles and the rabbit left several puncture marks. She applied some dried seeds to her wounds and they immediately felt better. She checked on her rabbit stew. She knew that nothing could kill the rabbit. But she might put him in a state that will prevent them from ever doing harm to her and the forest. 

Nora reluctantly opened the pot lid. The murky brown had boiled down to a liquid that looked like the real world drink called coffee, only Nora’s concoction had brown mush floating around. The smell was overpowering. A tuft of brown sticky fur floated to the top. 

She went to Granny’s cabinet and retrieved a pair of tongs. She went back to the pot and fished around for awhile until she fished around for a while. She hit something. She pulled it out of the murky water and the rabbit was silent and sticky its eyes were closed and it mouth was only opened slightly as if it were asleep. Nora exhaled. She had avenged her Granny. She looked at the rabbit one last time to make sure it was dead. 

The rabbit opened its eyes and gave her a great big smile. “Peekaboo!” it said. The tail started to spin…

THE END   



Abandon School

PART l

Ch1: A bad day.

I feel as if the clouds departed for me today, for the sun is shining all over Akron even though I don’t like the sun. I think today is going to be the perfect day, mostly because tonight is going to be a full moon.

It’s my favorite subject in school, social studies. We are learning about wildlife. I am doing wolves.

“LISA! Are you paying attention?” My teacher Mrs. Moogs says pretty loud.

“I am, I am,” I reply even though I wasn’t.

”Well show us what your speech is about,” Mrs. Moogs says sounding annoyed.

 “Wolves, that’s what I am writing about,” I mumble walking up to the front of my classroom. 

“Well are you going to start?” Mrs. Moogs asks rudely. 

“I am, I am,“ I mumble once again. “I am writing about wolves. Wolves hunt mice, bunnies…”

”Wolves are DUMB,” a student yells out. I look down and see Bratt smirking at me. Bratt is the biggest and meanest bully in my school, P.S.37. He is so mean that he scares his own mom and dad. He is “like” a legend in school. Once Bratt was sent to the principal’s office when he came back the principal was following him, the principal had a black eye on his left eye. “Wolves are high predators and are related to dogs and coyotes,” I say raising my voice a little.

 “Still boring and BOO,” Bratt yells out again in mean voice.

Soon everyone starts yelling BOO at the top of their lungs. 

“SHUSH UP!” Mrs. Moogs screams at all the kids but that just made them louder.

 Mrs. Moogs looks at the kid that was yelling BOO the loudest. “Jack go to the office.” Everyone becomes silent watching Jack leave. “Anyone else that wants to join Jack?” Mrs. Moogs asks everyone in the classroom waiting for an answer. “Good. You may start over Lisa.”

”Most wolves hunt in packs. A pack means -” 

“I can’t hear you all, I can hear is your sassy, little voice,” he tells me.

This time I am so mad at Bratt for interrupting me again. I stare Bratt right across his face making him smile his horrible smile. Bratt stands up staring into my eyes as if he is winning a staring contest. Seeing that he stood up I do the same. Now I am standing up I am five inches taller than Bratt. This makes Bratt mad. He always brags about how he is the tallest in the whole school.

”Oh wow,” Nelson whispers even though I hear him. I look a little past Bratt, looking at my classmates which are Nelson, Max, and Ryla. 

“Hey guys stop starin’ and fight,” says Max with his English accent. Bratt looks at me devilishly as if he is agreeing with Max. But before I can do anything Mrs. Moogs calls me.

 “Lisa go to the principal.”

 I go downstairs without putting up a fight with Mrs. Moogs. 

When I get to Principal Cunningham’s office, he’s on the ground shivering to death. In front of him are two vikings that are arguing about whether they should take the principal first, and not take the students, or take the kids first and not take the principal. After a few minutes, they walk out of the room and decide to take the kids. I try to be silent as possible but they spot me and say,

“Why not start with this one?”

The viking with a red beard tries to hold me still but I bite him and run away to warn my best friends Kayla and Shawn. They are both in the same classroom, which is 3-208. I run upstairs. They can see me through the crack of the door. They both ask the teacher, which is their English teacher Mrs. Tiffany, if they can go to the bathroom, which she replies yes. They run out the door as fast as they can. They know all my secrets. 

“What’s the problem?” They ask at the same time.

“There are these viking dudes that are planning to capture all the students here,” I say in an excited voice. 

“Let’s go and beat them up!” says Shawn. “Give them a lesson.” We swiftly run down the stairs to see that there are seven hundred vikings with axes and spears caging kids. Shawn slows down and says, “I’m not sure I want to beat them up anymore.” 

Kayla bravely walks outside and says, “I demand you to stop!” To which they surprisingly do stop, and they all bow down to her. She thinks it’s a trick, so she takes one of their axes and starts hacking all the cages trying to get the kids out. Shawn takes a spear and starts swiftly cutting a viking’s helmet and starts attacking everybody he can see. After one hour of battling the vikings, we all huddle up together, knowing that there is no hope in defeating them, and we say that we will go home and hide. The vikings keep capturing the kids, but don’t hurt any of them. Kayla swiftly says that she is going to stay here and follow them to wherever they go. 

Shawn says that he is going to go and spend some time making a machine to defeat them. 

I now know that I’m going to be alone in hiding.

In the meanwhile, I keep trying to bite as many hairy arms and hairy legs as I can. We all agree that in two weeks from now, we will do what we need to do. When the two weeks are up, we will meet by the heart-tree. This time, Shawn like he always does, asks, “Why is it called the heart tree?” just to annoy us.

But I should say so anyway. The heart-tree is a tree, a normal tree, but it is shaved into a heart. A cat once got stuck in there when it was a normal tree and it was so scared that it kept going up the tree and down the tree, making it into a heart shape because the cat, everywhere it went, brushed off some leaves. It’s not a very exciting story. But that is the story. Soon all the vikings leave, with Kayla following them and Shawn running as fast as he can to go home and build a machine to destroy them. I look around and make sure nobody’s looking, and then I turn around. And when I’m right about to take my step, Mrs. Tiffany goes up to me and says, “Where are you going?” 

I reply and say, “I am going home.”

“I should call your parents before you go home,” she says.

“They’re probably sleeping,” I quickly say. 

“Then I shall walk you home, for you are only in first grade.”

“No thank you,” I say as politely and calmly as I can. But she insists. So I walk with her until we reach the forest. 

“You live here?” She asks me a little weirdly. 

“Yeah, I do.”

So we walk inside the forest. We walk for five hours until we come upon a cave. I tell her that we should rest there, for it is almost sundown. I don’t tell her this is my home.

Too tired to talk, she nods in agreement. She brings out two blankets and a pillow, as if she needs that in every situation, from her bag, and lays it down inside the misty cave. We both fall asleep very quickly. 

I wake up because I realize that it is a full moon and I’ve turned into a wolf. 

It all happened seven years ago when I was born. I remembered it all too well because I have a wolf’s memory. My mom was there in the hospital with me. It was midnight when I was born, and there was a full moon out. So I was a wolf at that time. My mom, who was also a wolf at that time, for some reason thought I was in danger. A few days later another female wolf, Guard came and brought me to her den with her four pups. Their names are Fluff, Ruff, and the twins, Sapphire and Chocolate.

Mrs. Tiffany wakes up in the middle of the night and looks at my bed and sees that I’m not there anymore. She turns to see me in wolf form gently lapping water in the nearby river. 

“Ahhhhhhhhh!” She screams and faints. When she faints, I put my paw on her to make sure that she’s not faking it. When she doesn’t get up, I curl up into a ball and fall asleep. When I wake up again, I wake up Mrs. Tiffany, who screams again when she wakes up and then thinks that it is all just a bad dream. And then, she looks at me and I realize that I still have my black fluffy wolf tail and my fluffy ears. And then I tell her that it’s not a dream.


Ch2: the explanation

She looks at me in shock and pinches herself to make sure that it isn’t a dream. I tell her that on full moons, when it is night, I turn into a wolf, that explains why I still have a wolf tail and wolf ears. She pinches herself again on the leg and tells herself it isn’t real. But I respond and say,

“It is real.”

She faints again and I dig in her bag and find a bucket and fill it up with water and pour it on her face. When she wakes up again, I tell her that we have to start leaving because I smell poachers, their miles away. The poachers are the worst, they once came into spot’s den. Spot growled as loud as he could. The poachers didn’t go away. They stayed and took a knife and cut off Spot’s leg. Guard rushed over to Spot and put him in his bed made out of wolf hair that they shed in the winter. Spot slept for a week. In the middle of the week, Spot got up, and was whimpering so loudly that Fluff and Ruff, who were in Guard’s stomach, kicked Guard’s stomach really hard.

She complains, “We haven’t even eaten breakfast yet.” 

“Well I’ve made it,” I tell her.

 She looks at me and asks, “What is it?”

“Chicken.”

“Where’d you get this?” Mrs. Tiffany questions me.

“I ran over to a farm and kinda stole a chicken and killed it.”

“We’ll get sued!” 

“Well, probably not, nobody knows where I live.”

“That makes sense.” 

“Well, let’s start eating.” 

“We have to cook it first!”

“Oh, right. I usually eat it raw.” 

Mrs. Tiffany starts pulling out footlong sticks and a packet of matches and lights the fire. I take two sticks and plant one on each side and plant one on top. She takes some string for her bag and ties the chicken to the top stick. I cut off the chicken breast and two chicken legs. She takes the chicken breast and wolfs it down. I take two chicken legs and wolf down all of them and spit out the bones. Mrs. Tiffany looks at me curiously and then remembers that I am a wolf, after all.

She asks, “Why do we have to leave?”

Ch3: run away with me.

“We have to leave because of poachers. They’ll probably kill me and then arrest you.”

“Kill you?” Mrs. Tiffany shouts. 

“And arrest you,” I add.

“Well, shouldn’t we pack some food?”

“Great idea. There are some walnuts that should be ripe by now and some shoots.”

“Walnuts and shoots?” Mrs. Tiffany exclaims. 

“Well, yeah. They’re mostly the only thing that won’t get rotten on our way there.” I should go warn Guard about the poachers, I think. We go over to the walnut tree. She picks some nuts and I pick some shoots. Mrs. Tiffany shoves them in her bag and I tell her to follow me. 

We run together over to Guard’s den. I tell her to wait outside because Guard doesn’t like strangers.

“Who’s Guard?” Mrs. Tiffany asks me. 

But I’ve already run inside. I go over to Guard and tell her in wolf language, “New poachers are in the area and we’re going to have to move until they leave.”

“Okay,” she says calmly. “I’ll go gather everyone up.”

I run back outside. Mrs. Tiffany asks me, “What happened in there?” She claims that she heard a lot of growling. 

“Oh, we were just speaking in wolf language,” I say while turning into a wolf from the moonlight I have been storing inside my body. It used to hurt me, it felt like sticks and stones breaking my bones but now I feel nothing. We run back inside the den and pick up Fluff and Ruff by the scruff of their necks. I set them down and tell them to get on my back.

“Yes, sissy,” they say at the same time. They jump on my back swiftly and I tell Sapphire to follow me and grab Chocolate by the scruff of his neck. I run outside and I see the whole pack of Sage and Stalk and their three pups, Rose, Cinnamon, and Grassy, also Splashy and Firy and their two pups, Rocky and Obsidian, and last but not least, Alpha’s husband, Spot.  It’s a big pack of fifteen, including the Alpha’s kids. 

It doesn’t take long to get to the other den. The whole time I walk next to Mrs. Tiffany for I think she was scared to be next to all the wolves. Most of the time Fluff and Ruff were yipping and yapping. Chocolate and Sapphire were arguing about whose eyes look better. We arrive at the tiny den, by then it is almost sundown. Sage and Stalk fall asleep first because they were carrying Rose, Cinnamon, and Grassy on their back the whole time. Then, Chocolate and Sapphire fall asleep next to Rocky and Obsidian. Splashy and Firy fall asleep next to Mrs. Tiffany. Guard and Spot fall asleep next to the single wolf that had been living there alone. His name was Spice. He is Sage’s dad. I fell asleep on top of Fluff and Ruff. 

I wake up to the sound of a gunshot. The poachers are only one foot away from the cave. I keep trying to wake up Spice, for he can howl the best and make everyone wake up. I realize the only way to wake everybody up was to wake Fluff and Ruff. So I jumped on Fluff and Ruff and they woke up. Immediately, they ran all the way over to Spice and started jumping on his stomach saying, “Wake up! Wake up!” very loudly in his ears. Finally, he is awake, and I tell him that the poachers are here and he is going to have to howl to wake everyone up. He nods in agreement and howls really loudly. Everybody wakes up, but now the poacher is right outside the cave. He comes in with a pistol. Everybody is awake, ready to attack. He blows the whistle and three more poachers come. Fluff and Ruff run to the back of the cave and start digging a little hole. Spice runs over to the hole and sat right on top of it. Guard and Spot jump on the first poacher and steal his pistol and start trying to break it. The second poacher shoots Spot on the stump of the leg that he doesn’t have, which doesn’t hurt at all because every morning he takes a pill to make his leg numb, that Stalk made so he doesn’t feel anything. Chocolate runs over to the second poacher and starts running circles around his leg as fast as he can, which was the whole circle around in five seconds. He is making the poacher dizzy, so dizzy the poacher just sees a flying chocolate bar around his legs. When he tries to grab Chocolate, Chocolate is on the other side of his legs. Soon, the poacher falls down in dizziness and Sapphire comes and started punching him in the face with her paws. Now his nose is bleeding. I jump on the second poacher’s stomach, who is now laying down. I grab his pistol and I throw it over to Mrs. Tiffany, who somehow catches it and starts shooting it at the first poacher’s toes. Sage and Stalk and Rose and Grassy and Cinnamon and Obsidian go over, run outside of the cave when nobody’s looking and start collecting bendable twigs to make a cage with some metal that they have found from recent adventures. The third poacher, who is just standing there in awe, does not notice when Sage and Stalk put the cage above him, and he does not notice it fall. Soon, he is trapped in a cage. The fourth poacher comes out of nowhere and seems to be the chief, takes a rifle and shoots at me at the same moment that I turn back into human. I try not to pay much attention to my pain, which is throbbing. I roll on my back. Mrs. Tiffany stops shooting the guy’s feet and picks me up and takes me to the back of the cave so no harm can be done to me anymore. Everything feels strange. When I try to talk or scream, no noise comes out. The world goes bonkers. Stars and rainbows are everywhere. I finally close my eyes and the pain goes away.


Ch 4: Don’t Lie To Me, I Can Eat You Alive

I’m in a room. Next to me is a donkey with a top hat and a sticker on his fur saying, “Hello, my name is Donkey Kong.” Next to me is a familiar face, one that I haven’t seen in a very long, long time…

The first poacher and the second poacher run away screaming, and the chief poacher runs away saying, 

“I want my mommy!” The third poacher is still stuck inside of his cage, sitting down, chewing on his nails, thinking of how to get out. 

“Hey you!” Mrs. Tiffany shouts at his face, running from the back of the cave. 

“What about me? Are you going to let me go or not?” says the third poacher.

“Well, first you have to answer some questions.”
“Okay, whatever.” 

“The person that your chief just killed name was Lisa. Do you know her?”

“What’s her last name?”

“Moonfire.”

“Oh yeah, I do know the Moonfires. We’re neighbors. And they have two kids, I didn’t know one of them ran away.”

“Where do they live?”

“Cleveland, Shawn Road. But they just recently moved.”

“Where did they move to?” Mrs. Tiffany asks, in suspense.

“I don’t know, they said they moved to somewhere in the forest, five hours away from Akron. They were nice neighbors.”

“Who do you work for?” 

“I work for the military,” he answers while smiling. 

Sapphire, who is usually very quiet, goes over to the third poacher and stands on her hind legs to make her one foot taller.

She grins and says, “Don’t lie to me. I can eat you alive,” in her best human voice.
The third poacher, clearly shaken, says, “Uh, yeah. I work for Queen Setorga. She has like a million viking dudes, they’re so weird. So basically I kinda work for the viking dudes.” Sweat trickles down his neck, scared by little Sapphire. 

“What is your name?” Mrs. Tiffany wonders out loud. 

“Oh, my name. My name. What is it again? Oh, right. It’s, umm… it’s, uhh… uhhh… I’ve clearly forgotten my name. Did you brainwash me or something?”

“No, we didn’t,” Mrs. Tiffany says, a little louder than she expected to say. “Just tell us your name!”

“Oh, yeah, that thing. My name… what does name mean again? So, my name, uh… Let’s see, what is my name again? Oh, right, it’s umm, umm, yeah, it’s Jeff. Yeah, that’s it.”

“Jeff what?” says Mrs. Tiffany, in curiosity. Sapphire takes one step forward and “Jeff” spills the beans.

“Ahh! Please don’t kill me! My name is Kevin Moonfire.”

I look down at my fingers. The tips are bone. You could see where the bullet hit my heart. Am I dead? Why am I still here?

“Hello, I’ve been waiting for you for a few minutes,” says the familiar person.

“Um, not to be rude, but WHO ARE YOU?” I say in a “soft voice.”

“My name is Emily, but you can call me Mrs. Moonfire.”

“Mom?” I’m looking around. There’s a big light above me, in a very big ceiling. There’s grass on the ground and the walls. 

“Yeah, it’s me, honey.” 

This calls me back to my senses. “Wait, what?” I say. “Why are you here?” I ask in confusion. “Why weren’t you there all those years ago? When I was born, why did you just leave me on the patio on the steps?”
“Because you were in danger.”
“How? What kind of danger? So much danger to you that you left me there?” 

“No, I meant danger to you. The person that made me into a wolf and the twins a wolf. He was a werewolf. He realized that when you were created, he could steal you and put you in his army, and then he’d just throw you away, like a piece of garbage.”

“Oh. Well, now that I’m dead, what else is there to do? And how did you die with me?” I wonder.  

“Well, every time a wolf dies that’s half human, I am drawn to it. You are free to leave, you can leave. You probably don’t want to be with me anymore. I’m a terrible mother.”

“I believe in second chances. But how do I leave?” 

“Do you see that tiny hole in the air, the dot in the air?”
“Yes, I do,” I reply.

“That is the way back. It is traveling through space and time. You have to be careful when you go back. If you don’t come back in the right place, then you could lose your wolf life. You would still be human but you need a lot of moonlight  to turn back. There is two sides of you. When you died, you were human. You don’t have that human life anymore. However, your wolf life is asking you for a second chance in life. You do not have to take this chance. But if you want to you can. If you go into the wrong time, and you see yourself as a wolf, it’s over.”

“Okay, okay. Now come with me and let’s get this over with.”
“I hope you have a wolf memory,” she holds my hand and we jump in together. 

I first see the first thing that I can see in the black hole, which is my mom. We move over to her putting me down on the steps. Then Guard finding me. Me playing Duck Duck Wolf, a hunting game, with Chocolate and Sapphire. Poachers coming and taking Spot’s leg. Fluff and Ruff being born. Me turning one year old with my birthday bear. It was delicious. Fluff and Ruff learning to talk. Chocolate turning three. Me turning five. Sapphire running away, and finding her. Me going to school. Me graduating into first grade. The vikings. Me, and Kayla and Shawn huddled together. Me and Mrs. Tiffany. The poachers. And me, dead in the back of the cave. I jump into that picture, my hands still tightly holding my mom’s. 

“Hi guys!” I say very casually in my human voice. 

“Who-what!!” Mrs. Tiffany says confuzzled.

“Yip!” yelps Fluff, poking her head out from the hole she’s in. 

“Yap!” yelps Ruff, also poking his head out from the hole.

Sapphire turns around and says, “Is that another you? A taller you? In human form?” 

“That’s my mom!” I say in an excited tone. Kevin turns around.

“Emily?” he says as if his dream came true.

“Yes?” My mom says. 

“Who is that talking wolf next to you?”

“Oh, that’s Lisa.”

“Who?”

“I’ll tell you later, but she’s our daughter.”

“Should we take her home?”

“Sure, but what about her wolves and that middle aged person?”

“Well, I guess they’ll fit in our seven-floored house.”

“Don’t lie to me, I can eat you alive.” Sapphire says the only words that she can say in human language. 

“Tell me now why you didn’t tell me about her before!” Kevin yells, inside of a cage.

“Why are you yelling at me now? You usually never yell,” Emily shouts at him. 

“Well, this is a reason to yell about!”

“I can’t agree with you.”

“Well.”

“Well, you’re the one that joined the poachers!”

“I guess I should tell you my story.”
“Yes, you should!” Emily shouts. Everybody stares at Emily, including the wolves. 

“One day, I was just cleaning the house ten years after we had gotten married and the viking dudes knocked down my door. Of course, I didn’t know who this was, so I answered, and they said ‘You have to come with us now.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m just doing my spring cleaning. Do you mind coming back maybe in the summer?’ They said no, and I asked them again. ‘No, I will not tolerate this!’ said the viking with the red beard–”

“Oh, I’ve met a viking with a red beard. He’s the one that captured a lot of students,” I interrupt.

“Let me continue with my story!” Kevin says in an angry voice. “They handcuffed my hands behind my back and blindfolded me. They spun me around until I barfed on the red beard viking’s face.”

“Hee Hee Hee Hee Haha,” Chocolate laughs. 

“Can I continue with my story?” Kevin hollers. Everyone nodded at him in agreement. “They brought me into their base a month ago. They said that if I didn’t become an army member they will kill me and my children and my wife. So immediately, I knew they were the bad guys. So I said sure, so I could become a snitch. One day, they told me that I needed to go on a mission to hunt some wolves that have been disturbing people in the wild. I came, but I did not do anything because the place looked familiar . So I didn’t fight any of the wolves. I didn’t do anything when you captured me. So here I am now. I thought it was pretty funny that the Chief, who was also the general of the army, was scared and was saying, ‘I want my mommy!’” 

“Oh, I‘m sorry, I didn’t know,” Emily said. 

“Guys, I just remembered something!” I say. 

“What?” Mrs. Tiffany exclaims. 

“You know how I’ve always been here for the wolves’ adventures. I think that now you should help me on my adventure.”

“Okay, Lisa. I don’t see where this is going,” says my mom.

“My friends said that we would meet together at the heart-shaped tree after two weeks. That’s up in two days. That’s exactly how long it’s going to take us. Do you want to join me?”

“Sure!” All the wolves say immediately, for they had been on all of her adventures.

“Well, Mom, Dad, and Mrs. Tiffany, would you like to come?”

“It would be fun,” Mrs. Tiffany admits. 

“I just met you. I don’t know if I can be with you,” says Kevin. 

“Just trust me, Dad.”

“If you’re going, Kevin, I’m going too,” my mom tells my dad. 

“Okay, then let’s start going!” 

“But wait!” My dad says. “We don’t have any rifles to hunt! The dried food you have isn’t going to last us two weeks!”

“You’re right, but we already have our weapons,” I say, pointing to the wolves. 

“Good point,” he says. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get started!”

“Well, it is late at night,” Mrs. Tiffany says. “We should get some rest before we go.”

“Okay,” all the wolves agree. Mrs. Tiffany gets my Mom and Dad a blanket and a big pillow to share. She flops down with her head on my side. She smiles in her sleep. I think she’s probably happy that the pillow is a soft big wolf. 

I wake up to Spice howling really loudly. “It’s okay, Spice,” I tell him. “I’m awake. I can wake all the humans up.” He stops howling. I jump on top of my Mom, who says something that I can’t understand. She waits for me to respond, but I tell her that I have no idea what she’s saying.

She tells me, “Part of being in wolf form for most of your life is that you won’t be able to hear humans very well.” She says it as if all of this is normal. I jump on Dad and tell him to wake up, but of course all he hears is growling and he thinks that it is Sapphire. My Mom explains to him why he only heard growling. Then, I go and I wake up Mrs. Tiffany. I whisper in her ear, “Wake up!”

She strangely understands me, and says, “Okay, Lisa. I’ll wake up.” My mom, not knowing that Mrs. Tiffany can still hear me, explains to her what had just happened, and she says, “But I just heard her clearly!”

Mom says that it’s strange then I tell her she’s been with me the whole time. Mom says that it is a very rare possibility that Mrs. Tiffany can hear what I am saying. 

When all the wolves are awake, I tell Mom to get on Sage and for Mom to tell Dad to get on Stalk. Mom picks up Rose and Cinnamon and Dad picks up Grassy. I tell Mrs. Tiffany to ride Spot. I let Rocky and Obsidian get on my back and I hold Fluff and Ruff by the scruff of their necks. Guard, who’s next to Firy, puts Sapphire on her back and she picks up Chocolate. And we run for two weeks.

We stop a few times. It’s very exhausting. Finally, we get there and we’re one day early. That whole day, everybody falls asleep, but I stay awake, my eyes open, waiting for Kayla and Shawn. I notice Shawn is wearing tattered armour and Kayla is wearing a crown and armour that’s embroidered with jewels. 

When Kayla and Shawn come, they notice me when I’m in wolf form. They’re surprised to see Mrs. Tiffany, and two other humans. I tell them I’ll share my story later. I tell them they should share theirs first. They nod in agreement, very tired from their journey. Kayla translates to Shawn what I am saying, for I have taught her how to speak wolf language. Shawn asks if I’m hungry. Me and Kayla say yes at the exact same time. He pulls out a donut from his pocket and says, “Do you want to split this dessert together?”

We are very happy. They told me what they did and then went over our battle plans.

Sareen the Blanket Girl

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Sareen. She loved toys and especially her blanket. It was really fuzzy. It could fit as a cape and was made of black, really cozy material.

Whenever Sareen was feeling happy, sad, or any emotion, she wanted her special blanket. One day, Sareen left the blanket alone to go to breakfast and then the blanket started moving by itself. It first went to the washroom to flush the toilet. The next thing he did was he go outside the balcony watching the birds because the bird pooped on him. Then the blanket went in Sareen’s mom and dad’s room. He messed up the bed. Then he went to the guest room. Then Sareen went upstairs and saw that everything was a mess, but the blanket was gone because it was walking down to the kitchen. Then Sareen looked in the laundry room to look for the blanket and she also saw that the laundry room was a mess. The blanket was looking for something. Then Sareen found a little black piece of something because she thought it was her blanket. She started to run after the little black thing and then she got the blanket. Then it was night, so she needed to get her blanket. She looked everywhere and then she finally got it! Then she went to sleep with it. The blanket found a stuffed animal right next to Sareen so it took that instead. 

The next day, Sareen was wearing the blanket as a cape, and then the blanket was moving by itself! The blanket lifted Sareen off the ground, and she started flying in the living room! She then landed on the soft couch. Sareen said, “That was amazing!”

The blanket replied to Sareen by saying, “Let’s fly more!”

Sareen said, “How did you fly?” The blanket said nothing, but instead went on the ground and fell asleep. Sareen took it into her bed and had mint chocolate chip ice cream by herself. She watched a lot of TV because she had nothing to do because her blanket was asleep. She stayed awake all night. She tried to wake up her blanket because she wanted to fly! She shook the blanket. The blanket woke up. Sareen made a paper airplane with the blanket and flew! They flew outside and Sareen accidentally dropped into the pool while the blanket kept flying. The blanket then fell into the grass because it needed more energy. So then Sareen swam to the stairs and then went to the shower. She then changed into her PJs. She slept in her really comfy bed. Her blanket was still in the grass so the blanket walked up the stairs and slept in her bed with her. 

The end.


The Day You Die

One day, a little girl named Emily decided to go for a walk. It was a nice day, and so Emily wanted to go to Central Park. So Emily went to her mom and said, “Mom can you take me to Central Park?” And her mom said, “Yes.”

So they headed out to the park and on the way there, an eagle swooped down and scared Emily. The eagle had a scratch on its nose, which made it look very scary, and it made scary noises and growls that sounded like, “RRR.” 

After the attack, Emily was terrified, and she told her mom that she wanted to head home. But her mom wanted to take her to a big grassy field in Central Park with swings, and so she said, “It’s fine, let’s just move on.” 

“Fine mom, but what if the eagle comes back?” 

“It won’t. I promise, okay?”

“I believe you.”

Then Emily and her mom entered Central Park, and went to the grassy field. And then, the giant eagle was back to scare her!

Emily was so scared that she wanted to leave Central Park. The mom agreed to leave Central Park. On the way out, the giant came out and ate the eagle. The giant was so big. Emily saw Central Park was haunted, and she never wanted to go back. They went back home.

Then it was night, and Emily thought she was going to have nightmares and couldn’t fall asleep. But when it was morning time, she was so sleepy. The moment she went on the couch, she fell asleep. When she fell asleep, she woke up in the nighttime, and she heard so many strange noises that freaked her out, and she ran to her mom’s room. But she wasn’t there. She was so scared that she stayed in her mom’s room and didn’t go out. So she fell asleep in there.

“MOM! WHERE ARE YOU?” 

Her mom was actually there, but it was too dark, so Emily couldn’t see. 

Her mom said, “Lower your voice! I’m right here.”

“Oh, I didn’t see you there.”

And the mom was so mad that she said, “Go back to your room!”

Emily said, “No mom! Remember, there’s a monster?” So Emily begged her mom and said, “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I promise I won’t do it again!”

“I don’t care! Go to your room.”

Emily said, “Can I borrow a flashlight?”

No.”

Emily was so mad that she didn’t even care, and she walked out. “I don’t care. I’m still going to walk out.”

When she walked out, she told her mom that she was going to walk, but she ran instead. She didn’t wake up that morning. Her mom came to her room to check on her. 

And then Emily said, “Get out of my room.”

“Okay. But you can’t stay in there for long.” And then Emily’s mom said, “I guess you don’t want my homemade biscuits.”

And then Emily was so tempted that she ran out of her room. Her mom said, “Aha! What did I witness!” 

“Okay I might have ran out of my room, but I could smell the biscuits a mile away. How can I not smell them?”

“Oh I didn’t know that.” 

“Whatever, I’m still going to eat the biscuits.” 

“Ok. They are on the dining table.” 

Emily walked there and took a seat, and the moment she sat down, she heard something. She thought it was her mom making more biscuits until she asked her mom. 

tap,tap,tap   “Mom, are you making more biscuits?” 

And her mom answered, “No.” 

Then Emily said, “Look outside, mom… there’s an eagle!!!” 

“No there isn’t.” 

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa there’s an eagle in our window! Mom, how can we get it out?” 

Then the eagle said, “I am watching you! You will be in my sight wherever you go. You can go to space, and you will not find me. I have a place where I can hide, and no one knows about it. Not even my family! Sometimes I don’t even know where my own house is, and sometimes I even have to sleep on a cloud because I don’t know where my own house is! Once I didn’t come to my house for a whole month!”

“Well, if you get lost again you can’t sleep in my house,” said Emily. 

Emily’s mom went to the kitchen and got a broom and did this, “GET OUT. HAYAH!” 

And then the eagle got hit off of the window. 

The eagle was flying in the sky, and flew up again, and cracked their window sill, and said, “What was that for?” 

The mom said, “What are you doing here? I thought I hit the jelly out of you!” 

The eagle said, “Oh, I’m already dead. I just want to have company.” 

Then the mom said, “Oh, why do you keep scaring us then?”

Then Emily said, “Yeah, why do you have a big scar on your nose?” 

“Because when I was alive, I had an owner that was so mean, she threw a knife at my nose, but all I did was do my business on her bed! And as in business, I mean… you know… ” said the eagle. 

The mom said, “You can stay a week here, but you can’t do your business on my bed, or Emily’s bed.”

Then the eagle said, “Ok, shall we get this party started?” He went to the kitchen and got the chips, and put them on the fan, and put the fan on, and then the chips flew everywhere!

The mom said, “Don’t make me change my mind.” 

The eagle said, “Sorry, sorry.” He used his magic powers to clean up so fast, faster than a superhero. And the mom was speechless, the same was Emily. 

Then Emily said, “Can you clean my room?”

“No, sorry, I only can clean up when I make a mess,” said the eagle. 

Then Emily said, “Go make a mess in my room.”

“Of course not, then I’ll just have to clean up even more. How boring would that be?” said the eagle.

And then, secret agents knocked on our door and said, “We’re gonna need that eagle, and we DON’T take no for an answer.” 

And then, the eagle hid under the couch and whispered to Emily, “Don’t tell them where I am because they will kill me. That is why I have a secret house.” 

And then the secret agent told Emily’s mom, “When we find the eagle, we will feed it to a big giant.” 

The eagle told Emily, “See, what did I tell you?” 

“What was that?” said the secret agent. 

Emily’s mom said, “That was nothing!”

The secret agent said, “Are you hiding something from me?”

“Of course not! See you later, come back tomorrow.” And she slammed the door. The secret agent was so upset that he didn’t even care. He used his weapon and kicked the door open.

He said, “I know the eagle is here. I am searching, whether or not you say no.” 

First, the secret agent checked Emily’s room. Second, he checked Emily’s mom’s room. Third, he checked the kitchen. Fourth, he checked the living room. 

Dun dun Duuuuuunnnn. 

Emily said, “Hello, who are you? Nothing to see here, please get out of my house.” 

She used her hands to push him back out of the living room, but then the eagle sneezed! 

“AACHOOOOOO!” 

Then the secret agent turned around, and flipped Emily with his hands. 

He said, “Get out of my way, you’re wasting my time.” He went into the living room.

Emily said to her mom, “Mom, what should we do?”

“No worries, look! The eagle is flying away!” said her mom.

Then the evil agent spy said, “We need to get that eagle!” 

He pulled a strap on his bag, and then wings came out of the backpack. And then he flew after the eagle! The eagle flew back to his home, but then he didn’t know where his home was because it was hidden in camouflage! He instead went to a dead tree and camouflaged with that because it was brown, white, and black. 

When the secret agent got near the home where the eagle was flying, he said, “Where did the eagle go?” 

So he used his watch to scan everywhere, and he saw that the eagle was camouflaging with the tree, but the eagle saw him coming closer, so the eagle flew off, back to Emily’s home, and the eagle hid in their dog cage since Coco died. So they stuffed the eagle inside. The cage was very big because a Sammy Smile can be up to eighty-five pounds! When the secret agent came back, he asked where the eagle was. 

The mother said, “Nowhere, it’s just our dog Coco! You must’ve come to the wrong house!” 

The family dressed up in wigs, so that the agent wouldn’t recognize them. 

“Of course, I have! The person in the other house has brown straight hair. You guys have grey, black, curly hair.” 

The agent knew it was us because we didn’t use accents, and then he pulled our wigs off!

Emily said, “It’s a miracle! I’m young again!” 

The agent said, “Where’s your dog?”

Emily said, “In China.”

He said “I know you’re lying.”

Emily said, “Fine, she is in California getting a doggy groom.” 

Then the agent believed them because they gave him the location and why the dog was there. So he flew off!

The eagle said, “Thank you.” 

But really it was just a hologram! The agent was really under the couch the whole time! So really, he knew where the eagle was! 

“Get out of my way where is the dog cage?” 

“Nowhere,” said Emily. 

The End 

Tsega Goes to the Waterpark

I was in the car going to the waterpark, and my dog was coming with me. The color of her fur was brown and white. She was snuggling with me, and when she got up and put her head out the window, she stuck her tongue out. My mom was driving and we pulled into the waterpark, which was in California, and we got our stuff out of the car. We got out our towels, our goggles, and our swimming caps. My goggles were dark blue and violet, and my cap was pink, and I was wearing my bathing suit. My bathing suit was pink and it had a ‘T’ on it, which was light blue. When we went to the gate, we realized we forgot our tickets in the car, so we went back to the car, and then we went back to the gate with our tickets. Then, we got in and went on a water slide. We finished the water slide, and it was really fun. Then, we went on a water-coaster, and it was really long and fun. When we got off, I was really dizzy because it went around in circles. Then, we got some Gatorade and ice cream because it was really hot. I got mint chocolate chip with hot fudge, and my mom got vanilla with caramel sauce. We got to put on our own toppings. We stayed at the water park for the whole day. I also did a throwing game, and I got a little teddy bear. Then, we got lunch. I got mac and cheese, and my mom got a burger. I took my first sip of my Gatorade, and then we went on the water-coaster again because it was really fun. Then, I finished my Gatorade. I took my cap off because it was really tight. My mom’s bathing suit had red roses and a yellow background. When it was almost nighttime, we went back to the car. When we were driving home, there was lots of traffic. My mom was running out of gas, so we stopped at a gas station and got more gas. When we got back on the road, there was much less traffic, so we got back home in one hour. 

THE END


Moving to the Farm

Chapter 1 – A Message from Auntie Julie.

“Wake up!” shouted Mom.

“Why in the world are you waking me up? It’s only 3 o’clock in the morning!” said Joanne.

“Because I just got a message from Auntie Julie that she said that the farmhouse was empty and we could live on their farm forever!”

“Ugh, can I just sleep five more minutes?”

“Okay, five more minutes. Starting now!”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven

Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,

Sixteen, seventeen…

Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock…

“RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!! FIVE MINUTES DONE!!!” 

It was 3:05 now. The sky was dark. There were no lights. It was the middle of the night. 

Joanne woke up and she peaked at the message—it was on her mom’s G-mail. She was amazed after she saw that message because Auntie Julie had discovered a new house that was in her property and was perfect for her family. 

Chapter 2 – Packing Up

“What are we going to do now that we’ve received the message?” Joanne asked.

“We have to pack!!” her mom said. So they called a gigantic moving truck to carry their furniture, so the people who were in the truck loaded the furniture inside the truck. Joanne felt sort of blank in the house, and they used all their six suitcases for their own little stuff. Joanne’s older sister Catherine carried two suitcases, one for her baby sister Maria, and one for herself. Joanne had another sister named Collette—Maria was the smallest. She was one year old, and Collette was two years older: she was three. Joanne was seven years old and Catherine was ten years old! 

So they started packing. They got their blankets and their stuffed animals and their bags plus their clothes. And their books were carried by the shelves. Now, after they all cleaned up, they dusted the floors to make it clean; it was plain white. There was nothing inside. Joanne felt like she was in a very white room like in Hollywood. She felt weird because she had never seen so much white before. It was very strange. Joanne felt like there was a ghost in the room. The ghost was spying on her now. Luckily it was morning, so there was still some light. The family took their butterfly curtains off and Catherine carried them to the truck with Joanne. Their dad carried the drawers and when the house was all cleaned up, the family only saw it blank. They were sad to leave their old house, but also excited to meet their farmhouse.


Chapter 3 – A Gas Problem

So the family told the truck where to go to their new house—‘the farm 28 gates.’ The farm was in Upstate New York, farther than the Bronx. It was on ‘28 gate’ street, higher than 299th st. The truck went there peacefully with some bumps, but that didn’t bother the furniture. But the family car faced a lot of problems. The dad had claustrophobia—which means that Dad couldn’t stand in small and tight places. So they went to the gas station because the car suddenly had no gas. The gas station was very small, and they could only recharge gas one car at a time, so the dad drove in and got very sweaty, scared, and nervous. So the dad closed his eyes while he was doing the gas. Then Mom suggested that she would drive the car out of the gas station, and then they would switch back to Dad, so he could be relaxed in the back seat, close his eyes and not drive blindfolded. So Dad got in the backseat, and Mom got in the front seat. When the gas was finished, they paid by the credit card, and the mom sort of drove out. Then they parked at a corner, and Mom went to the backseat. Dad started driving again.

Then Dad said, “The farm is sort of far. So if you want to sleep, you could sleep. Now we are in the beginning of  the Bronx. We still have to cross the Bronx. But the Bronx is very big. So it might take a long time to cross the Bronx.”


Chapter 4 – The Music Competition

After a few songs, Dad suggested that the family have a music contest. “The contest worked like this: we will play some songs and you have to guess the song’s name. We will only play the beginning or the middle or the end. Me and mom will be the judges and see who knows the most songs. And you kids will be split into teams.” 

“Yeeeeeeeeeeees!!!” Collete and Joanne yelled. 

“We will win the competition,” commented Collette. 

Maria and Catherine yelled, “Nooooooooooooo!!! Boooooooooo!!!” 

“Okay, what are your team names?” asked Dad. Joanne said their team is Lightning Bolt of Songs. Catherine said their team will be Catherinemaria superheros! 

“Yessss,” said Joanne because she knew a centillion songs.  

“One last note everyone, do not say bad things about your sisters!” 

Then they started the competition. ‘Their first song was like this: “We will rock you!” After the middle part, Joanne’s hand shot up. 

“What Joanne? What is the song? “ asked Dad. 

“The song is called we will, we will rock you!” shouted Joanne.

“Lightning Bolt of Songs wins one!!!” 

“Woo hoo!!!’ said Collette and Joanne,

“Okay next song. Eenie meenie miney mo. catch a tiger by his toe. If you holler let him, if she holler let him go. She indecisive she keeps a lie…” 

After the beginning, Catherine’s hand shot up. 

“What is the song’s name?” asked Dad. 

“It is called miney mo!” 

“Nope!” 

Just then Collette’s hand shot up.

“What is the song, Collette?” asked dad.

“It is called eenie meenie!” shouted Collette.

“Okay, Lightning Bolt of Songs wins!” 

“Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” shouted Collette and Joanne. 

“The competition is over now, everyone.” So then they relaxed in the car and went to sleep.


Chapter 5: We are here!!!!

After a while, they woke up. 

They were woken up by dad. “Now we are on the 299th street. We have crossed the whole Bronx. Now we have to cross the 200th avenue, and then we can see the countryside.” 

It was 5 o’clock in the morning and the sun hadn’t risen yet. So the family drove across the 200th avenue and saw 28 Gate Street. They drove onto the property and saw Auntie Julie!  

Auntie Julie led them to the house, and then Auntie Julie told a joke. “What is black and a dog?” she asked.

Joanne guessed Blacky, one of the farm’s dogs, and Auntie Julie said, “Right!” Auntie Julie explained that there were three more dogs too. Their names were Peggy, Rosie, and Maggie. Auntie Julie showed the dogs to them.

The girls played a while with the dogs, while the parents explored the giant house that they would be moving into.  


Chapter 6: Moving in!!!

Then the moving truck arrived. And then they loaded the furniture into the house and the girls helped. First, they moved one bunk into the gigantic room, then they moved another bunk to the same gigantic room, then they moved the bookshelves and the tables and the lamps. And they put some stuff on the balcony. Then on the second floor, they put the parents’ furniture in, and they put the workout stuff in another room on that floor. Back on the first floor, they put the dining table and kitchenware in the kitchen. And in the lounge, they put a lot of comfy stuff there. And in the basement, they put the recycled stuff in there. And their family car would go in there, so they drove it in. And they got the basement key and stored it in the car. 

After that, the parents went to sleep and the girls played with the dogs once again. They were feeling very happy, and Auntie Julie took the four girls to explore the farm because it was morning now! And after lunch, they slept for half an hour, and then they fed the horses and the sheep. Then they played with the horses by riding them, and they had a super duper happy time!

The End!

New York City

The big apple always bustling with people 

Never letting you pass because they are late for work.


The crowded streets filled with food trucks 

Ice cream trucks in the summer 

Hot cocoa in every cafe in the winter

And popcorn all year round. 


Busses and Subways on almost every street.


The city that never sleeps 

Drinking too much coffee 

That keeps them up all night 

But all the same it’s still


Home 

To all those people who never sleep 

And the ones who do.


Natasha

The bell rings. I grab my pencils and notebooks, and shove them into my bag. I rush to the front of the line; today I beat Nina. My class walks silently down the hall. In my head, all my thoughts are jumbled: Will my dad come to my basketball game? What will be his excuse this time? Unexpected business trip, a problem with the company? I can see Natasha looking at me with worried eyes.

”Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I try to shrug off the feeling of disappointment in my dad, but I can’t. As soon as we reach the dismissal door, I grab Natasha’s hand and wait for the light to turn white. The second it does, I race down the block and karate kick the door open; guess I can thank my karate lessons. I hurry to the soda section while desperately searching for Fanta. I snatch the last bottle and watch Natasha put her Sprite on  the counter.

The guy behind the counter says, “5.75.”

I dig into my pocket and pull out a crumpled up five-dollar bill and three 25 cents. Natasha grabs both of our drinks and heads to the door. I glance at my phone and look at the time: 3:20 PM. As soon I glance at my phone, I shove Natasha out the door, and we race down the streets as if it were a competition. When the subway station is within my sight, I walk down the stairs clinging on to my soda, hoping it doesn’t fall.

The F train comes right on time; Natasha and I high five each other and walk into a crowded subway. It smells like sweat and it’s really hot. About five stops later, a lot of the people get off the subway. We finally find ourselves some seats where we can sit and enjoy our soda. Especially since my house is a bit far away. 

All I can think about is Masha, my dad’s girlfriend. Masha always takes me and Nat to get ice cream. Nat always gets two scoops of chocolate fudge, I get two scoops of oreo, while Masha gets one scoop of lemon. But then a sudden thought comes to me, and I remember my father never told me who my mother was or what happened to her. All I know is that my mother loved the beaches. It was almost like a perfect day at the beach, but then the clouds took over the sky, and everyone had to go home. I must have daydreamed too much because by the time I finish my thoughts, we arrive at Coney Island. While we’re walking home, I pass by a school, and another thought comes to me. 

Why didn’t my dad send me to school here where I lived, instead of a school in Brooklyn? 

I decide I’m going to ask my dad tonight. Although something doesn’t seem right.

But then Natasha wakes me from my thoughts.

”You have been really quiet today? Are you sure you’re okay.”

“Am fine. Don’t worry.”

“Ok, whatever you say, Angel.” 

I hate that nickname, but that doesn’t stop Masha from calling me that. She takes the keys out of her back pocket, and unlocks the door. We climb up seven flights of stairs, huffing and puffing as if the stairs are Mount Everest. We reach Apt. 7D and open the door to walk into a cold breeze, which feels very good against the hot May air. 

At first, I can’t believe my eyes, but then I realize my dad is standing in front of us. He is rarely at home and if he is, it’s only because something bad happened or he comes at 2 in the morning. His blue eyes are staring straight at Natasha and smiling. Natasha tells me that she just remembered she had a project, so she has to go home now. I help her get all her pencils in her bag, since we were playing the floor is lava on her stuff. Silently, I stand waving goodbye. I feel as if today will be the last time I will see her in a while. But I know that’s not possible, so I try to get the thought out of my head. My dad takes the trash bag and says he is going to throw it out. I shrug and walk to my room to ponder over all my thoughts. For the first time, I think my dad wasn’t where he said he was. 

I guess I fell asleep because when I wake up, my room is pitch black, and I hear some faint creaking coming from the living room. I pat down my bed searching for my phone. I finally find it under a bunch of blankets. I put my finger on the button of my phone and look at the time. It’s 2:00 AM. It’s probably my dad, I wonder what he was doing at 2 AM. Something seems off again. I slowly get out of bed and open my door. Like a mouse, I creep down the hallway past Masha’s room to my dad’s bedroom, where I have never been. He told me once that if I go into his room, I’ll get in big trouble. So I never do. 

I bring my head back to reality and reach for the doorknob, but then I hear a creaking behind me and a deep voice with a faint Russian accent. I can immediately tell it’s him, but he sounds madder than I’ve ever heard him. Although he rarely even talks to me. I can never forget that he forgot about my birthday three years in a row. 

He flicks the light switch on, and I can see him staring at me. His blue eyes look more unfriendly than before. His face looks so intimidating that it just makes me want to fall in a hole to swallow me up.

“I will ask one more time. Why were you going to go in my room?”

“I um… I couldn’t uh… sleep, yeah, because umm… I thought I saw a, uh, mouse in my room.” It sounds like I’m trying to convince myself more than my dad. 

He quietly walks in front of the door that leads to his room. His eyebrows are pushed together. It looks like he is thinking really hard. I silently walk backwards to reach the safe, reassuring feeling of my room.
“Give me your phone; that will be your punishment, and next time, follow my rules.”

 I feel so relieved nothing horrible happened, so I go to my room to fetch my phone quickly. When I return my phone, my dad is shocked to see me smiling.

“Can Natasha come for a sleepover?” I give him the puppy eyes that Natasha taught me to do. 

Fortunately it works, and he nods slowly, like he is still trying to make up his mind. There is something in his eyes, but I’m too tired to think about it. I manage to drag myself to my room and fall onto my bed. 

The smell of pancakes wake me up. Finally it’s Saturday. I put on some ripped shorts and an orange T-shirt. I open my door and walk into the kitchen where Masha is standing, flipping over a pancake.

“Hey Angel, you hungry?”

 I nod. 

“Ok good, because I made way too many pancakes.” 

Before I can even open my mouth, she says, “And no. Dimitri won’t have breakfast with us. He had to leave because of some problems with the business.”

 I shift uncomfortably and stare at the ground, feeling my eyes tear up. My dad told me to never cry because nothing was worth crying about, and I don’t want to show Masha that I am a 13 year-old who cries.

“Hey Angel, how about you put as much Nutella on your pancakes, just make sure to eat some strawberries?”

 I smile and think to myself how much I wish my dad was like Masha. But he’s not. 

After breakfast, I put on my Jordans and walk to the subway. I think about me and Natasha and the day we met. I chuckle a little thinking about how strange we were five years ago. 

I get to the subway station, walk down the stairs while getting my MetroCard out of my pocket, and wait until the train comes. I get in and sit down. Today, the subway is empty. I take my headset out and listen to “wish you were gay” by Billie Eilish. I quietly hum to the beat, thinking about how I want a family like Natasha, where I wouldn’t be an only child, and I would also have two parents who really cared about me. I remember all the days at school when Natasha would complain to me about how her sister spilled juice over her homework or how her brother spray-painted her hairbrush. And I could never forget when her older brother, Jason, stole all of Natasha’s allowance to buy a PS4. 

I finally arrive in Brooklyn. I walk to her house, looking at the trees and listening to the quiet surroundings. I look at all the houses with beautiful gardens in the front and perfectly-cut grass, and then I come across her house, which really stands out since there are bikes, scooters, balls, empty spray paint bottles, and chalk all over the ground. I try to avoid all the objects and get to the door safely without falling. Thank God I do because I wouldn’t want a sprained ankle for my basketball game or my karate practice. I ring the doorbell and wait for Natasha to open the door, but then Mrs. Smith comes out and asks me, “Why isn’t Natasha with you? I thought you two maybe had a sleepover since she didn’t come home yesterday.” 

I can feel my face become pale and my palms start to sweat. I take a big gulp.

“Well, uh, you see, she told me yesterday she had to go home to finish a project, are you sure she isn’t in her room?”

But before Mrs. Smith can answer, she falls to the floor and passes out. I open the door more to put Mrs. Smith on the couch, when I see Jessie playing with dolls, while Nick is trying to spray paint his hair, and Jason is skateboarding in the house.

“Jason, Nick, come help me get your mom to the couch, she passed out.”

They both stare at their pale mom lying on the floor, drop their things, and run over to help. Jessie won’t stop crying while screaming, her mom is dead. As soon as we put Mrs. Smith on the couch, Mr. Smith walks in and asks us what happened, although his eyes won’t leave his wife. Nick and Jason say they don’t know what happened, and they just heard me asking for help to carry Mrs. Smith on the couch. Jessie won’t stop crying and screaming, “MOMMY’S DEAD.” 

“JESSIE! Mommy is not dead, ok?”

 Jessie hugs her doll tighter and sits in a bean bag. Mr. Smith looks me straight in the eyes and asks me what happened.

”It’s a long story.” 

“Well, I have a lot of time.” 

So I told him about how we went to my house, played the floor is lava, and then Natasha told me she had to go do a project, so she left, and my dad went to throw out the trash at the same time. Wait a minute. Does my dad maybe know something?

”Uh, I have to go. I just realized I have karate in 30 minutes.” It’s not completely a lie because I do have karate class, just not in 30 minutes. Halfway through the door, I shout,  “Bye! Hope Mrs. Smith gets better!” I slam the door shut and run down a few blocks to get to Prospect Park so I can find a bench to sit on. 

Could my dad, no, but maybe. I mean he was staring at Natasha and he did come home earlier. He also went to throw out the trash at the same time Natasha left. But would he do something to her? It was so much for me to process, maybe Masha could help me. I quickly look for her number and call her. Please pick up, please, please, please.

”Hey Angel, what happened? Are you ok? Where are you?” 

“Thank God you answered and don’t worry I’m fine, but Natasha isn’t.” 

“What do you mean?!” 

“Can you just pick me up? I’ll tell you in the car.” 

“Ok, I’ll be there soon. Wait, where are you?” 

“In Prospect Park. I have to go. Bye.” 

“Bye, Angel.”

Now I have to call my dad. I take two big gulps and press the button to call him. I wait and I wait, but he doesn’t answer the phone. I really miss Natasha. Is she… no, she can’t be.  And for the first time in a while, I start crying. I see a black car pulling up on the corner, and Masha rushes out of the car to me and hugs me. She smells like peppermint. I wish she could be my mother. As soon as I summon up all my courage, I tell her about Natasha going missing and my visit to her house. And about how Dad came early and was acting strange around Natasha. He also went to throw out the trash at the same time Natasha left.

Then I look back at her eyes, because my father said, “a person’s eyes can tell you everything.” 

“Angel, I am sorry, but this time, I don’t believe you. Maybe you should talk to your dad. Also, I am going to Pennyslviana to visit my sister for three days, so let’s go back home and I’ll get my stuff when we get there.” 

“Ok.” 

“And I can call your dad so you two can talk.”

I nodded my head, too tired to speak. When we get into the car, I sit in shotgun and change the radio to “Lovely” by Billie Eilish.

”You really love Billie Eilish.”

I stare out the window, looking at the people. Then I remember I forgot about my karate class. “I forgot to go to karate class,” I mutter.

”Nicki, your dad doesn’t like it when you skip karate” 

“I know.”

There is not a lot of traffic today, so it takes us 20 minutes to get home. Masha opens the door, we climb up all the stairs, and for the first time, we don’t say anything to each other, which never happens since Masha and I usually talk a lot. She opens our apartment door, hugs me really tight, and then takes her backpack and her mini suitcase.

Before I close the door she hollers, “Don’t forget to lock the door!”

I laugh a bit and lock the door. I look at my dad’s door and decide that I want to see what I can find in his room. So I text my basketball coach that I’m not going to go to the basketball game because I didn’t feel well. I put my phone in pocket and walk towards his room. I can feel my heart beating. I know that whatever I find in there could possibly change my life forever.

I grab the handle and yank the door open, knowing that if I don’t do that, I would probably back out. I am shocked to see that everything about the room looks normal. Maybe Masha was right. I look around the room one last time to make sure I didn’t miss anything. All I see is a bed, a closet that’s wide open with business suits in it, a desk with no drawers, a rug, and a bookshelf with some Russian and English books. My dad made sure that I could speak Russian, German, and French. When I asked him why I had to learn those languages, he said because some of my family is from those countries, but now I know the only place my family is from is Russia. As I am about to leave the room, I see something under his bed. I pull it out from under the bed and see a big black box with Russian words on it, не открывать, which means “do not open” in Russian. I sit on the rug in case I faint when I find out what’s in the box.

I slowly open the top, and find a black gun with a bit of blood on it. I also find a piece of paper in a wooden frame that says, Мы убиваем за деньги, мы приносим смерть в другие страны, кровь на наших руках, мы убиваем, как медузы в коробке. “We kill for money, we bring death into other countries, blood on our hands we kill like a box jellyfish.” I breathe in and out three times, hoping something else in the box will prove my thoughts wrong. But they don’t. I find a knife and try to convince myself that it’s just an antique or a family relic.

The box has one last object in it. I take out a photo in black and white, with a picture of four men and two women. I see my dad standing next to a man with short blonde hair and dark eyes, and a woman with black hair in a bun and black eyes. None of them are smiling. Their faces give away nothing. In the back of the picture there is a sign in Japanese, ボックスクラゲ. I can’t understand it, so I Google it and figure out it means “box jellyfish.”

All of a sudden, a bunch of questions pop in my head. What does box jellyfish mean? Who are the men and woman in the photo? And why does my dad have a gun and a knife? 

And then I realize my dad is an assassin. I look at my phone and start panicking. It’s 10 PM. I shove everything back into the box and push the box under the bed. I close the door to the kitchen, take two white pieces of bread, and put peanut butter on one and jelly on the other. I put the two pieces together, lick my fingers, and go to my room. I sit on the bed staring at the white walls and eating my sandwich. My phone buzzes and I pick it up. I press the answer button and am about to ask her where she is and what she’s doing. 

But then I hear a deep voice with a Russian accent. I put myself on mute, so that no one will know I am listening. I pull the phone closer to my ears. It’s my dad’s voice. I immediately know what to do. Natasha and I watched so many movies and TV shows about people getting kidnapped. I have to distract my dad. Assassins are afraid of being caught, which means they’re afraid of police. I smirk a bit and call my dad. He has to pick up since Masha probably called him and told him about what I said about him, so he would pick up to avoid any suspicion.

And I am right. He does pick up. “Hello, who is this”

“Hey dad, it’s Nicki. So the police are standing in front of our door and they want to ask you some questions. What should I tell them?” 

  “Tell them I’ll be home in 15 minutes”

“Ok, they want to know where you are.” 

“I am at my office.” And then he hangs up. What my dad doesn’t know is that Natasha and I keep pocket knives in our shoes. That makes me realize that my dad doesn’t know that much about me. Now all I have to do is wait, so I wait and then I hear the door unlock, and my dad walks in the apartment. 

“Where are the police?”

“They’re not here. I lied.”

He takes his shoe off and takes out a gun, he growls, “What did you say?” He walks towards me and I walk backwards. I am pinned to the wall with a gun pointing towards my stomach. 

I hold up my phone. “I’ll call 911 if you shoot.” 

I can tell he is thinking. He moves the gun away from me and suddenly says, “Let’s make a deal. If you don’t call the police or tell anyone I’m an assassin, I won’t kill Masha.”

I hesitate. “Ok. But you have to leave Natasha alone.” 

My dad looks at me, nods, and walks to his room. And I walk to my room, and now I know my father is an assassin and he tried to kill my friend. 


Freedom for Dragons

Once upon a time, before the dinosaur age, there was a dragon named Flame. He was captured by a really big dragon. He was captured in the big dragon’s cave since he was three. Flame was doing a lot of work for the big dragon, and he really wanted to get out. But there was a big boulder in his way, and the only way to move the boulder was to take the key from the dragon’s neck. He was in his room sleeping. Flame decided to try to take the key from the dragon’s neck. But he had to be careful, because the big dragon could wake up at any moment and eat him like he did to the other smaller dragons. 

So Flame opened the door, shivering in fear and thinking about what could happen if he woke the big dragon. Flame bit the key off the chain hanging off the big dragon’s neck with his sharp teeth. Then, he tiptoed to the boulder and put the key through the hole of the boulder. When the boulder rolled out of the doorway, it made a very loud sound. Flame heard the big dragon wake up. 

So Flame flew out. He heard the big dragon roar, “Flame!!!” As soon as Flame heard him, he flew as fast as he could, far away from the cave.

Flame had no idea where he was. It was raining and foggy, so it was hard to see. 

“Where am I?” Flame said to himself. Flame was cold and tired. He soared down to the ground and fell asleep. 

The next morning, Flame had figured out what he was going to do. He was going to find other dragons to make friends with. Before he was kidnapped, he heard of a forest full of dragons. Flame flew away happier than ever and ready for a long journey. 

While Flame was flying, he tried to remember where the forest was. He remembered that it was near an ocean, but he couldn’t remember what ocean it was. He decided to search around every ocean to find somebody to help him. He decided to first search the Pacific Ocean. He first started near the northwest corner of the Pacific Ocean, and he saw a castle. So he decided to go in. But there were two dragon guards. He asked the two dragon guards, “Where am I?”

They said, “You are looking at the Castle of Fire.” 

Then he asked, “Have you ever seen the Forest of Dragons?”

They answered, “No, but maybe the Queen Dragon knows.”

One of the guards asked another guard to tell the Queen Dragon that there was a visitor. A few moments later, the Queen Dragon came down and said, “I do know where the Forest of Dragons is.” 

The Queen Dragon had red scales. She had jewelry embedded in her wings. She had smoke coming out of her nostrils. She had very sharp claws, and she had many pearls on her arms. But the Queen was greedy about treasure. So she said, “I will tell you where the forest is only if you give me some jewelry.”

Flame says, “I have no jewelry, but I will try to find it.” 

So Flame went out on a search for jewelry. 

He asked a guard where he could find jewelries and the guard replied, “There is a mountain full of jewelry. It is nearby, but it is very dangerous. Many of us have still not made it back.” 

Flame thought about this. Would he really risk his life just to meet other dragons to make friends with? What happens if the big dragon finds him? Flame made up his mind. In order to be safe, protected, and happy, he must get the jewelry. 

When Flame reached the mountain, he looked up and saw how tall the mountain was. He thought about how many monsters could be up in that mountain. He climbed up and finally found a ledge. And there was a cave in there! He decided to rest in the cave — until he heard a growling sound. He took a stick he found on the ground, and he put a small bit of fire on the tip of it. He used the stick as a torch. He did not see anything. His teeth were chattering. He went deeper in, and he saw movement. He stepped back, and put his light a little closer. There was a giant worm, and it had many sharp teeth all around its mouth. And blood on his teeth. Flame decided to run for it. The worm chased after him, even though it looked like he just ate something. After Flame was near the exit, he threw his torch at the worm, which ate it. Flame decided to breathe fire, but basically none at all came out. He decided to fly away, but just when he was about to fly out, he sneezed on the worm. A lot of fire came out, and the worm ran away. If monsters like that popped up again, he was just gonna run for his life.    

  Flame didn’t want to see that ugly thing again.  Flame flew up for a long time until he reached another ledge. He saw things flying in the air. Flame did not know what the things were, until one of the things landed. They were giant horseflies! There was even a whole swarm of  them. Flame would not be able to take out all of the flies with his fire like he did to the worm. All of a sudden, the flies stared at him without moving. Then they jumped on Flame and attacked him. Flame struggled to breathe fire (which killed about 10 flies). And then, he started rolling around, which smushed a lot of flies. And then he breathed more fire, which got rid of all of them. 

Then, he flew up higher until he reached another ledge, and he realized he was near the top. But he needed a break, so he sat on the ledge. The mountain looked like a giant rock with very rough edges and with many ledges. He was sitting on one of them. He could see there were jewelries growing on top of it. But he had to rest because his wings were sore. 

On the ledge, he heard pinchers. Flame was not scared because he had faced many monsters already. But what came out was a spider, which was the predator of most bugs. And he couldn’t touch it because it was a tarantula. And a tarantula had hair on its body so when you touched it, you became itchy. He couldn’t run away because his wings were really tired, and he wouldn’t be able to fly well. And he couldn’t use his fire because he hadn’t eaten anything for a while. So he decided to try to throw rocks at the spider. He threw many rocks at the spider. One of his rocks missed and hit the top of the cave, which hit a rock that was holding a boulder in place. And the boulder fell on the spider! The spider was stuck.

After a few minutes, his wings felt okay. He decided to fly more until he finally got to the top of the mountain. Just right when he was about to take a jewelry, something came out from behind it. It was a giant scorpion!

It was a big threat, because it had pinchers and a stinger, and they were also poisonous. It had a hard armor. First, the scorpion jumped on Flame. Flame kicked him off, which took all his energy because he was very hungry. Flame tried to breathe fire, but he forgot he couldn’t. He knocked over a tower of jewelry onto the scorpion, which soon broke out by using his pinchers. Flame flew on the top of a jewelry tower to think about how to defeat the scorpion. 

He thought about what the scorpion couldn’t do that Flame could do. Flame got an idea. He had wings and the scorpion didn’t. Soon later, the scorpion pinched down the jewelry tower. Flame happily flew down because he had an idea. Flame jumped off the ledge. The scorpion followed. The scorpion looked straight and not below him. Then, he fell down the ledge. Flame flew back to the top and could not see the scorpion, because the mountain was so tall, and the scorpion fell so low. Flame took a big piece of jewelry. It looked like a pillar with pointy edging on the top. But it was very light. 

He finally took one more look at the top of the jewelry mountain. It was full of colorful jewelries. He flew back down to the Castle of Fire and asked one of the guards to bring the Queen down. When the Queen came down, Flame gave the jewelry to the Queen. The Queen kept her promise.

She said, “I will show you the way to the Forest of Dragons.”

She walked past the mountain and about a mile away from the mountain, she stood right in front of a forest. Then, she stopped and turned around.

She said, “This is the Forest of Dragons. Keep on walking forward until you see a big space with no trees. Then, you’ll see dragons walking around there. Then, you have reached the Forest of Dragons.”

Flame ran forward until he reached a big space. It was very big. He could see many dragons walking around there. Then, he had figured out he had reached the Forest of Dragons. He asked one of the walking dragons. Flame said he was new to the Forest of Dragons. The dragon was so nice, he gave Flame a big house. 

Since Flame had made it to the Forest of Dragons, he needed to make friends. But how? He went outside to think. He walked forward looking down, and he bumped into someone. He was blue with bits of silver scales. 

Flame said, “Hi, I’m new here.” 

The blue dragon also said, “Hi. If you are new, do you know if there are games here?” 

“No,” replied Flame. They hung out for a while and played many games, such as toss the rock, destroy the doll, and racing. After they ate dinner, it was time to go.

Flame thought about today. He thought to himself, I made a friend.


The Blackout

Chapter One: What Happened?

Once a squirrel called Lilly went into a walnut shop. After she bought some walnuts, she went out. Then she saw something weird. The traffic lights were off, and there were no lights in buildings and in the other shops. They could not cook. The ovens were off. And then Lilly the squirrel wondered why all the lights and the ovens were off. It got even worse when it was very dangerous to cross the streets. The cars never stopped. Lilly was very worried, and then she saw something even weirder. There were fire trucks and policemen everywhere. They were worried too. Some schools and hospitals still had light, which was very weird. She had no idea what was happening.

She talked to one of the policemen and asked, “What happened?”


Chapter Two: A Talk with the Policemen

Then, the policeman said, “The electricity transformer got on fire, so the electricity was cut off. The firemen will fix the problem. Now the firemen are on West 99th Street, so it might take days to have electricity, or if the firemen are fast tomorrow, we will have electricity.”


Chapter Three: A Mystery

When Lilly went into her apartment, she noticed that there was no air conditioner, and everybody was outside getting cold air.

The manager said, “The elevators don’t work, but do not worry because nobody’s stuck in the elevator.”

Then, when she went to the mailroom, she could not see anything except black.

The manager said, “We can only take the stairs,” so she climbed and climbed.

There was only a little bit of light in the stairs.


Chapter Four: In the Apartment

Once she got to the ninth floor, she saw two old women. One of the old women was holding a dog that was grunting.

Then, Lilly asked the other woman, “Is there light in the room? Why are you out here?” 

The woman said, “There’s no light in the room, and we’re out here to get a bit of light.” 

When Lilly got into her room, she saw no light and no air conditioner. It was very hot, so she opened all her windows. She could not sleep because she needed some light to sleep. There was no light, so she used her phone. Her phone had a percentage of 80. On her phone, she set a mode that saved electricity. When she went to the shower, she turned the water to hot, but only cold water came out.

When Lilly was showering, she was freezing and calling, “Ahh!!!”

Then when she got out, she quickly got dressed, but she could not use the hair dryer because there was no electricity. Then she tried to charge her phone, but she could not. Then, when she tried to sleep again, she heard the police and fire trucks sounds, and she was distracted. So she tried to sleep very deeply, but her phone shut off, and she couldn’t have light. Then, she tried her new way of sleeping without light, and she held onto her stuffed animal and fell asleep.


Chapter Five: The Plan

The next day she woke up. There was still no air conditioner and no light, but there was sunlight. After getting dressed, she decided to pack an emergency bag because her doctor told her that she could not live in a house without electricity for three days. Her eyes would hurt a lot if there was no electricity for three days. She started packing after breakfast. This was her list:

EMERGENCY BAG LIST

1. Money ($200)

2. Sleeping bag

3. Books 

4. Toys 

5. Clothes

6. Phone

So Lilly packed her emergency bag, and then she looked for a place to go, and she found the New York Public Library. A lot of animals were there, and they were affected by the blackout. There were a lot of comfy couches for sleeping bags. She unloaded her stuff on one of the purple couches, and she made a friend called Billy. He’s a hedgehog. Together they played games like chopsticks and poker. Billy was very good at chopsticks, and Lilly was very good at poker. Then, they explored Brooklyn by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. They figured out the subway wasn’t working, so they took a taxi to the New York Public Library. Then, at last, it was night, so they fell asleep in their sleeping bags.


Chapter Six: Yes! Electricity! 

The next day, she noticed that there was electricity! She was super happy, and she took a taxi home. She cooked herself breakfast and turned on the lights. She was happier than ever. She marked this day 7/13. She took a little nap and got back to work.


Magic

Chapter 1

The Night Storm

Boom bang crash! Dark clouds covered the sky while I was inside my bedroom with my sheets over my head. I looked at the photo of my father on my nightstand. Me and my mother were looking at a bunch of stuff that was my father’s and found this photo. This was the only photo of him, he hated being in photos! My mother knocked on the door.

“Here is your dinner, Miranda,” my mother, Sarah, said.

Once I saw my mother, a thought just automatically popped into my head. How did Dad disappear? It was just like my mother read my mind. 

“We will never know. That night when he went to the lab, he just disappeared into thin air. Anyway, help your little brother with his homework.”

The next morning I went to my cousin Dawn’s house. We both were determined to find out what happened to my father. So we asked Dawn’s dad to drive us to the lab. He was overprotective of Dawn, so he set up a place where he would question us. 

So he said in a very serious low voice, “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?” he asked me. “I always wanted to know.”

“Um… chocolate,” I answered. Anyway, Dawn’s father continued speaking. He asked a lot of questions, so we thought the easiest way was to lie out of them, of course we learned that the hard way. We just said that there was stuff from the lab that belonged to my father. After A LOT of convincing, he FINALLY drove us to the lab. Okay, now step two, I thought. The guards. Me and Dawn talked about this. Our personalities were very different; I was on the dark side while she was little miss sunshine, so this is how the conversation went. 

Me: why don’t we threaten to stalk them for the rest of their lives?

Her: they will be threatened by two little girls? 

Me: good point. Then why don’t we cut off their toes and put them where they are not

supposed to be?

Her: NOOOO!!

Me: fine.

Her: why don’t we just use the same excuse that we used on my father: to recover my

father’s belongings.

Me: if you want to do it the boring way, sure. Why can’t we just knock ‘em out?

And that’s how the conversation ended. 

Chapter 2

The Lab

Then guess what method we used? Yes, Dawn’s method… such. A. Great. Method. But of course we got in. We went into the lab dressed how people who work in labs dress. White lab coats, goggles, and an evil smile on my face. We went to my dad’s workshop in the lab. It was empty with just a cement floor and a wood table, on the wall was a metal vent. We looked ALL over and found nothing! 

Just as I was checking under the table, Dawn shouted, “Miranda, there’s a switch here on the vent!” I rushed quickly over there and without thinking, I switched the switch down. Just then, the room transformed into a whole different place: potions filled the room, several different robot machines were roaming around from inch to inch. Paper was covering my dad’s desk from corner to corner. The room was pretty messy. Then, a whole different room appeared. There was a gigantic machine—his part was the only place in the room that seemed tidied up. The screen was showing the words “The Jurassic Times.”

Dawn looked really confused and I looked just as confused as her. Dawn was the one with the good eye and noticed a note on the machine. As she picked it up, she accidentally pressed the red button that said GO. Just then, I started to feel dizzy and the world started spinning. After a few seconds, things started to ease down. 

Chapter 3

The Jurassic Times

 I came to my senses and looked around me. I panicked because there were dinosaurs EVERYWHERE! Me and Dawn spent many hours running for our lives. We didn’t even have time to catch our breath. By the end of the day, we found a cave that was animal-free. We set up two beds that were made out of grass and hay. We also created a section for all the berries we picked to eat. We FINALLY had time to rest. Our cheeks were both red and we were breathing really hard. We looked at each other for a long time without saying anything. I  finally broke the silence.

“So…” I said between breaths, “we sure know what the machine is for now.”

“Yeah” she responded.

“I knew that your dad was smart but not so smart that he could make a time machine,” 

she remarked.

“We REALLY need to know how to get back!” I exclaimed.

The next day, we emptied our pockets to see what we had: I had a half eaten chocolate bar, a pack of gum, some money, a picture of my dad, and an iPod. Dawn had the note, she took some string, a pencil and paper. The note said: colonial times 828.

“What does 828 mean?” Dawn asked.

“No idea,” I responded. “Do you think Dad went to the colonial times?” I asked Dawn.

“Maybe? Anything else?” Dawn asked.

I checked all my pockets. “Oh yeah, I have a potion that I took from dad’s office.”

“What is it called?” Dawn exclaimed.

“It doesn’t have a name,” I replied.

Chapter 4

The Colonial Times

We drank the potion, then I accidentally looked at the note, then I went dizzy. After

that, we just blacked out. But this time, we ended up in a place where all girls wore dresses and bonnets, and boys petticoats and baggy pants. We looked down and saw that our clothes were different. Perfect! We wore the same clothes that everyone else wore! The time traveling with the potion came with clothes! Then I realized something! We were in the colonial times!

For the rest of the day, Dawn and I went looking for my father. We searched everywhere! We still couldn’t find him! At the end of the day, we stayed with a nice couple that said their names were Maria and David. They gave us a bedroom for the night.

“What do you think made us go into the colonial times?” Dawn asked.

I looked a bit guilty. “Um… I accidentally looked at the paper that said colonial times 828, that’s what probably triggered us to go here.”

“Ohhh, that makes sooo much more sense to me!”

“Yeah,” I responded. “So tomorrow…”

“Um, do you still have the picture—” I interrupted Dawn.

“Yeah,” Dawn finished her sentence. “We can show the people here it and see if they’ve ever seen him.”  

Every time we showed people the photo, they started murmuring to each other and started pointing at us. One person dropped everything she had in her hands and shouted, “WITCH!!” After that, with every step we took, people started backing away. Then, finally, Maria came out of the house and I showed her the photo. She looked shocked. 

She said, “Child, your father went to the place.”

“The place?”

Apparently I looked so confused that she started telling the whole story.

Chapter 5

“The Place”

“Once, there was a man and that man was your father. One day, he came out of nowhere. Everyone thought he was crazy because he kept saying that he came from a time machine from the future. They officially named him wizard of the year. This was the first time in 20 years they named a wizard of the year. Not since this one man who every time he snapped, a person in the town died. Everyone thought he was dangerous, and still thinks that. They think he is so dangerous that they built a special prison just for him. Anyone who goes in can’t get out. No one knows what to call it. So we just call it the place.

The legend states that the only way to bring a person out of there is if a person makes a potion strong enough to get out of there.”

Dawn murmured something under her breath so quietly that you couldn’t even manage to make out the words. Maria finished her story and nobody knew if that potion even exists. I was shocked! Dawn and I went back into the house. 

Right after we closed the door, Dawn exclaimed, “The potion that we have!”

I answered, “What do you mean? That potion was only for time traveling!”

Dawn explained, “When we went time travelling, do you know how much time it took to get here?”

“No?”

“Um, ten minutes and two seconds. And do you know how long it took to get to the jurassic times? 15 minutes and 56 seconds.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Oh I set a timer,” Dawn said. She continued speaking, “it’s like the potion wants us to be here.”

“Ok then what are we waiting for, let’s go!”

Chapter 6

Dirty Work

We walked and walked and walked and finally got there! It was in the middle of the woods. The place was very simple with stone walls and a moat around it and alligators snapping at you. It was so very welcoming! SO. VERY. We still had two things to do. Get past the alligators and get past the guards. Time to use MY method! This conversation was a bit different.

Me: this time, let’s knock ‘em out.

Her: can’t we just sweet talk them into letting us in?

Me: no!! We did your method last time, this time we’re going to jump on the alligators’ back and then they’re going to bring us to the guards. Then you go in the front and start talking to them. Then I sneak up on the back, knock them over and take their weapons.

Her: you can knock over the guards?

Me: I’m going to try, then you’re going to help me.

We jumped on the alligators’ backs, then they knocked us over.

I shouted, “Change of plans, we’re going swimming!”

It took longer than we thought, dodging all those alligators. We finally got to the castle and had to climb a bit. At least the plan with the guards worked. With a little help from pepper spray. When we got past the guards, we went to find my father.

“Miranda, is that you?”

“Hello? Dad?”

“I’m here.”

I turned around, then I saw him. He was nothing like how he looked in the picture. He looked older, dirty, like he hadn’t taken a shower in months. There were smudges of dirt all over his face. I gave some potion to my father. 

Then to Dawn, I said, “We’re going to drink it on the count of three, okay? One. Two. Three!”

I went dizzy then blacked out. We were back home. I saw my father and Dawn on the sides of me. I knocked on the door. 

When my mother saw me, she exclaimed, “Miranda, thank goodness! Where were you?”

When she saw Dad, all the color drained from her face. She screamed, “Ashton, come down here!”

“Ashton? ASHTON?” My mom went inside to look for my little brother. “Where’s Ashton?”

The End!             

Princessa

I am woken by a bright light. I shield my eyes, only to realise I’m not at home. I’m in a huge, puffy, pink bed with purple pillows. I, for one, hate the colors pink and purple. Those colors are signs of a princess. A butler walks through the door, and I shriek.

 “Sorry, Your Highness. Didn’t mean to startle you, Your Highness. Here is your breakfast, Your Highness,” said the butler. 

 “Uhhh,” I said. What was going on!? Since when was I royalty? The closest I had ever gotten to royalty was our dog named King. “What’s this?” I say. It looks absolutely gross! It’s a big bowl of oatmeal with pineapple on top. I hate pineapple and oatmeal is so plain.

 “It’s your favorite,” says the butler, with a little concern in his voice. 

“Oh, really?” I say, and the butler looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. At this point, I have. “Thanks, I totally love it!”

 The butler is so confused at this point. “Are you feeling alright, Your Highness? I will set up a visit to the royal nurse today, Your Highness.” 

The butler leaves, wondering what just happened. People say you should stay calm in unfamiliar situations, but I think it’s appropriate to freak out in this situation. Here I am, in a huge, comfy, and probably very expensive bed. It is so much nicer than the floor I slept on at the farm. I work there, and the pay is very low, barely enough to support my family. My mother is very sick, so she can’t work, and my father died last year. My brother, Bob, is too young to work, since he’s only five. My grandma lives with us too, but she’s very sick. Now I actually have my own room, with gold jewelry and a very cute, very huge, and very fluffy teddy bear. “Bob would love this teddy bear!” I mumble. 

I get out of bed, feeling like a princess. In this world, I am a princess. 

An old but very stylish lady runs into my room. “Enough sleeping, it’s time for your Proper Princess lessons,” she says.  That’s a thing?! Before I can say anything, she pulls me to a ballroom. 

“Whoa,” I say loudly. It’s gold and huge and gold and beautiful and gold. It’s just like the movies. Did I mention it was gold? 

“Enough dilly dally! We must get to work immediately!” says the lady. She hands me a book. “You know what to do.” 

“Yep,” I say nervously. 

“What is this word ‘yep’? Ug, the slang the children are using these days. You must say, ‘Yes mam’ or ‘Of course’. Do you understand?” 

She gives me a deathening stare. “Yes mam,” I squeak. 

Now, what to do with this book…Maybe I balance it on my head? That seems reasonable. I walk across the ballroom without the book falling once. I was good at this kind of thing since this is what I did for fun on the farm. 

“You’re getting much better at this, good job,” said the lady. “We are done for the day. You may leave.” 

I walk out and there is a grand staircase on the left. It has red carpet and silver railings. Seriously, a girl who was living with all of this for fourteen years has got to be spoiled. I walk up the stairs, and I can’t believe my eyes. There are thousands of gowns in so many different colors. Maybe not thousands, but you get the idea. They are all topped in jewels and more jewels and, well, more jewels!

 “Would you like to choose your dress for today, Your Highness?” asks the butler.

 I shriek, again. This guy has to stop creeping up on me! “Um, sure,” I say, even though I’m unsure on which dress I’ll choose. There are so many options! 

After 20 minutes of searching, I settle for a sea-green gown with blue jewels on top. I look in the mirror, and I can’t believe my eyes. I look like someone else, someone who is important.

“You usually pick a pink or purple one, Your Highness,” says the butler. 

“This one is just fine,” I say. I turn to him, realising he is too nice to lie to. “I have to tell you something, but you have to promise to stay calm,” I say to the butler. 

“I promise, Your Highness,” says the butler.

 I took a deep breath, and broke the news to him. I told him that I’m not the princess. I told how my life was before, with being very poor and working on the farm. I told him how my grandma was sick and needed expensive medicine. I told him I’m the only person who works in my family. 

“Ever since my father died, my mother has struggled moneywise. She has no one to lean on. My brother is too young to work, since he’s only 4. My mother has to take care of my brother and my very sick grandma.”

“Oh my,” the butler says slowly, almost in a whisper.

“That leaves me. Even though I’m only 14 years old, I have a full-time maid job on the farm. The pay isn’t much, only five pence a day. Just enough to feed my family. 

“Life is so much easier here. I just need a little break. I still wonder how I got here,” I say. The butler looks at me long and hard. He stares at me for what feels like hours. I think he’s deciding if this is true, or just a sob story. 

“Fine, I believe you. I won’t tell, but you must figure out who, or what, did this to you. You must return the real princess to the throne.” 

“Thank you!” I tell him, relieved my secret won’t be revealed. 

“Now, you have breakfast with the queen and king, your ‘parents,’” says the butler. “Act like you are royalty and use very formal language.” 

Breakfast was scrumptious and the king and queen didn’t expect a thing. They actually didn’t talk to me at all. They were just talking about work and laws and things kings and queens need to worry about. The real princess must have felt neglected. 

After breakfast, I try to sneak outside. I’m this close to the door when a voice stops me. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” it asks.

 I turn around to see a man with a measuring cup on his shoulder and a scissor in his hand. “We must do the dress fitting for the ball tomorrow night!” 

I’m going to a ball? Wow, that will be so magnificent! 

“Okay,” I say, and I follow him to the dressing room. It’s huge and right in the middle is the most beautiful gown I have ever seen. It goes all the way up to the floor and it has gold jewels all over it. It’s pink, but I actually don’t mind it that much. I wear it, the man and his assistants adjust the dress a little bit. 

“PERFECT!” the man screams. I look in the mirror and I cannot agree more. I get out of the dress and I’m told I have a horse riding lesson. Apparently, I’m some national champion. I don’t know how to ride a horse! Well, let’s just hope I’m lucky…

I come outside, and a lady with the biggest horse I have ever seen is waiting for me. The horse is black and tall. He looks calm, which makes this a little less scary.

”Get on the horse,” she says sternly. After about 15 times, I’m on. “Trot,” she says. Okay, it can’t be that hard. Maybe I just take the rope, and hold it. Then, maybe I fling it. The horse starts moving, slowly. It’s not a trot, but hey, I’ve never ridden a horse before. “TROT I SAID,” the lady screams. 

You need to calm down, I think in my head.

 I fling it even harder, and the horse is running at full speed. I’m scared, but I pretend I’m okay. 

“Yes, good job!” the lady says. 

The lesson continued, and it wasn’t as hard as it seemed. She taught me tips and tricks and by the end of the lesson, I could ride a horse! 

After my lesson, the chef made me lunch. It was handmade pasta with red sauce. It was more delicious than anything I have  ever tasted. For the rest of the day I had Proper Princess lessons. It was a little boring for the first hour, since we were just balancing the books. Then we went over proper tea party attire and manners. It was annoying, because apparently I “keep on getting in wrong”. 

After an amazing-smelling caviar, I go to my bed. It was such an amazing day. However, I feel guilty. My family is probably starving and here I am eating caviar.  I am sitting in the most comfy bed I have ever felt, yet my brother was sleeping on the dirt. I had to find a way to go back soon, and figure out what happened.

It is the day of the ball, and I am already excited when I woke up. An actual ball, that I would be dancing and twirling and being really important in.

“Your breakfast,” the butler says, rushing in with breakfast of waffles. “Are you excited for your first ball?”

“YES, YES,YES, OH YES!” I say in a loud, but not screaming voice. 

The butler leans closer. “Have you figured it out yet?”

“Figured out what?”

“Why you’re here!”

“Not yet, I have to find a plan.”

“Well, do it fast.”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder!”

We start laughing, and then the butler heads to the door.

“Wait!” I say.

“Yes?”

“What should I call you?”

“You can call me Robert.”

“Okay. You can call me Maybell.”

“Okay, Maybell.”

I smile, and he smiles back before he leaves. The same man who did my dress fitting comes in. 

“Time to get into your gown!” he says very loudly.

“Ok,” I say politely, but excitedly.

“Come on, come on, no time to waste!”

“Fine,” I say, a little reluctant to get out of bed.

We go to the dressing room, and I put on my gown. I look astonishing. They then take me to the hairdresser, and they put my hair into a neat bun. This is a literal whole new world. 

Now I have to go to Proper Princess lessons again, in order to prepare for the ball. We go over proper greetings and the way to walk. We also practice walking in heels. It is so painful. I don’t get what’s wrong with sneakers. They are so much more comfy. Besides, nobody’s going to see my shoes. The gown is floor-long. It goes on for hours and hours.  

By the time we are done, it’s time for the ball. I make a grand entrance with the king and queen. Everyone is awing at us, and I feel really special. People talk to me, and I make a lot of things up.

“Hello Your Highness, how are you this fine evening?” asks the duke.

“Very well, thank you. How about yourself?” I say, sounding very formal.

“Very well, thank you. How is the royal swim team doing this year?”

“Very well, we can expect a win this year.”

“Good to hear it.”

I have no idea what the royal swim team is. I don’t even know how to swim! I just came up with stuff along the way. 

It is time for the dancing part of the evening. I am going to be ballroom dancing with multiple young men who want to marry me. Great.

I danced and danced, my feet getting tired and the heels giving me blisters. The last boy I danced with, Henry, wasn’t like the others. His eyes were sweet and calm. He was a great dancer, and our eyes were locked on each other. When it was time to stop dancing, we went over to the side a talked. He was like nobody else, and he was funny and a great listener. It was almost like… no, it couldn’t be… it was almost like… love at first sight. He was staying over at the palace since his father had work to do with the king. 

We spent the whole week together. We ate at the fanciest restaurant in town, Souffle. We went to the water park and went on all the rides. He was a great company. We were having dinner at the palace when I hear something I’ve wanted to hear for a few days now.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you something for some time now. In other words, since the day I met you,” says Henry slowly.

“I’m all ears,” I say excitedly.

“I really like you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” He bends down with a ring.

I have no words. This is one of the best moments of my life. I would normally think he wants to just be king, but Henry’s different.

“YES!” I say, excitedly.

I hug him so tightly, he could pass out. We run to the meeting room, and announce our marriage. Everyone is excited and congratulates me. I know I made the right choice. 

You might be thinking we are pretty young to be married, but we love each other too much to wait. Besides, my grandma got married at my age, so did my mom. It’s kind of a tradition at this point. 

As I go to bed, I am excited to now have a financé. I have so many plans for us. Then I go back to thinking about home. Would mom approve? Would she be mad that I wasn’t there and I couldn’t find her? I have to tell Henry. Maybe he could help me sneak out. 

The next morning, I find Henry. I take a deep breath and tell him everything. I tell him about me not being a princess and my back story. After I finish, he looks at me with those sweet, calm eyes. Is he mad at me for lying? 

Henry looks at me. “It’s not your fault. I’m not mad.”

“Good. Will you help me find the original princess?”

Henry thinks for a minute. Then, he gives me a smile. “Of course.”

“Great!” This is finally getting to a good start.

After lunch, we sneak out of the palace and into the village. We have to disguise ourselves. We don’t want the paparazzi getting in the way. We look around and call out, “KASSY?”, the name of the original princess. Nobody has any ideas on where she could be. 

After two hours of searching, I sit down on a bench. “We’re never going to find her and I’m never going to see my family again.” No matter how much I try to hold it back, tears fall from my eyes. 

“We’ll find her,” says Henry. “I promise you”

“Some promises can’t be fulfilled.” 

I look at Henry. His face starts smiling, almost like he came up with the best idea ever.

“I just came up with the best idea ever!” Henry yells.

Called it. “What is it?” I say excitedly.

“The only thing that has changed is you and Kassy switching lives, right?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“That means your family lives in the same house and Kassy works where you use to work!”

“That’s genius. What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

We run to the house and barge through the door. My brother is playing with his rocks and my mother is cleaning the kitchen. 

My mother looks at us, surprised.

“Who are you and why did you just come inside my house?” she says.

I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her I am her daughter. I want to tell her where I was. I want to say I’m sorry for not being there for our family. But I can’t. I have to wait till everything is resolved. 

“It doesn’t matter,” I say.

“Where is Kassy? I mean, Maybell. Where is Maybell?” says Henry in his stern prince voice. 

“She is at the Mare Berry Farm,” says my mother, a little scared at this point.

I feel bad, but there’s nothing I could do. Not until I find Kassy.

Henry and I run to the farm. I’m full of hope and fear. Would Kassy be mad? Can we fix our lives? At this moment, I’m glad to have Henry by my side. 

When we get to the farm, we find Kassy milking a cow. Wow, she is doing really well, even better than me. We run up to her. She looks at us, scared and surprised.

“I knew I would get caught at some point,” Kassy says, a little sadness in her voice.

“What do you mean?” I say, a little anger in my voice.

“I did this. I was the one who gave you the life of the princess.”

“How, What, Where, When, Why?” says Henry sternly.

“What is this, English class? Anyway, I was bored of my life at the palace.  My parents never talk to me. I feel like I have no family, no shoulder to lean on. Everyone just waits on me at a fancy place. I wanted to have family moments and actually do something for myself.”

“But it’s my family, my life!” I say, a little surprised that anybody would get bored of a life at the palace. 

“I know it was wrong but I was desperate. I made a wish on the magical well, just for fun, but I thought it was a myth. I didn’t know it would work!”

“Did you make the wish of June 27th?” Henry asks.

“Yeah, so?” says Kassy.

“All the wishes made on June 27th come true! There is no way to reverse them!” Henry yells in a worried voice.

“So we’re stuck like this forever?” Kassy and I say at the same time. We look at each other with sad faces. 

“Lets go to my actual house,” I say.

We all walk to the house and come in. My mother is reading a book to my brother, who is now asleep. 

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” my mother says sternly.

Then she pauses, like something is wrong. 

“Take off your hood,” she tells me. 

I do as told, and my mother gasps. She pulls out the birth certificate of both Kassy and I. 

“We’re… sisters?” I say.


20 YEARS LATER

“Remember the day you officially moved to the palace?” Kassy says. 

“The day we came to know we’re sisters?” I say. 

A lot has happened since that day. Kassy and I realised we were sisters. Apparently, the king and queen adopted Kassy. My mom, grandma, and brother moved to the palace. The king and queen bought the farm. We were a huge, happy family. Henry and I got married, and we had a child named Rose.

“Today is your coronation,” Kassy reminds me.

“Thanks for reminding me,” I say sarcastically, a little nervousness in my voice. “What if I do something wrong?”

“You’ll be fine. I gotta go get ready”

As Kassy leaves, I look out the window. It’s dawn, and the sunrise is beautiful. 20 years ago, I was wondering if my family and I would ever find a good home. Now, I live in one of the grandest places in the world. 


The Great Big Ocean

Alexandra had tried everything. She had tried begging her parents, she had tried refusing to come. Finally she agreed, but she convinced her parents to let her bring a couple books. But still, she was going to the beach. Her parents were taking her to the BEACH. Alexandra hated the beach, unlike her three year-old sister. Alexandra was very picky. One of the only things that she loved were books. BOOKS. She thought that there was nothing better than reading a good book on a summer day. She saw the beach come into view. Reluctantly, she climbed out of the car unenthusiastically. She got herself settled on the beach with her book, while her sister started a sandcastle.

“Alex help?” she asked. Alex groaned.

“Nooooo. I’m reading.”

“I’ll help,” said Dad.

“YAY YAY!” Alexandra’s sister, Charlotte, was grinning.

Silently thanking her dad, Alex started on her book about animal waste. Yes, animal waste. She was very interested in this right now. 

Her dad came over to her and asked, “Alex, want to swim?”

“WHAT! NO! I HATE SWIMMING!”

This was true. Alex hated swimming. Even worse, she didn’t know how.

“Alright,” said her dad. “But you need to learn how SOMETIME.”

Alex lay down just to find her book NOT THERE. Alex ran to her mom, yelling, “MOM! DID YOU TAKE MY BOOK?”

“NO, why?”

“MOOOM! ALL MY BOOKS ARE GONE!!”

“Get your other books, don’t bother me.”

Alex looked in her bag and reached in to find her other books on animal waste, only to find that they were also gone.

Alex glanced around to find a group of boys laughing and stealing glances at Alex. They had TAKEN HER BOOKS! 

Alex stormed over to them and yelled, “Give me my books back!”

A big boy, maybe 11 years old, sneered.

“Looks like that won’t happen.”

He had ripped out all the pages of Alexandra’s books and was now working on ripping the covers. Alex, trying not to cry, went back to the blanket and sat down. She loved those books. They had been her favorite. And now she would never get to finish them. She felt someone kneel down beside her. She looked up and found a boy with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes was looking at her.

“I’m sorry. My friends were being really mean to you.”

“It’s fine,” said Alex, even though it was not.

“You know there is a library on an island of the Ocean, right?”

“WHAT? Really? That would be so cool! I wish I could go.”

“You could,” said the boy.

“I’ll ask my parents. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Gabe,” said the boy.

Alexandra went and asked her parents.

“Mom and Dad, can I go with my friend named Gabe to the library across the Ocean?”

Mom looked surprised. “Sure!! But you know that you will have to swim across the ocean, right?”

“WHAT? BUT YOU KNOW I HATE THE WATER AND CAN’T SWIM!”

“Maybe Gabe can help you,” said Dad. “Go try.”

Alex went over to Gabe and said, “My mom made me swim!”

“That’s fine. I can teach you how. I’m on the NYC swim team.”

So Gabe took Alexandra’s hand and pulled her to the Ocean.

“Get in,” said Gabe.

Alex reluctantly got up to her chin in the water. Gabe held Alex’s legs up and told her to kick. Gabe let go and Alex felt herself float. It actually felt pretty good!

“Now move your arms!” Gabe continued directing Alexandra until she felt herself move in the water!

“What’s happening?” 

Gabe laughed. “What do you mean what’s happening? You’re swimming!”

“WOW!”

Alexandra had never felt this before. 

“Do you think you’re ready to swim?”

“I mean, yeah!”

“But will it get deep?”

“Nah, this Ocean’s surprisingly shallow, and I’ll walk with you and hold you up.”

So this continued until Alex spotted something disturbing. A big, big wave was forming a little way away. 

Alex shouted to Gabe, “LOOK, THAT IS THE BIGGEST WAVE EVER!”

“Oh, yeah, that’s the biggest wave of the year. It sometimes can kill people. Anyway, what’s your favorite thing to do?”

Alex was freaking out.

“Why are you asking me what my favorite thing to do is when we are maybe about to die?”

The wave was coming closer and closer, and the closer it came, the more Alexandra got more and more frantic!

“Okay, reeeeeeeeeelax! We can survive. It’s about a mile away, it just looks very close due to the size. But I think we will be okay.”

Alex noticed that Gabe seemed very calm.

“Have you experienced this before? You seem very calm.”

Gabe replied unusually. “Look, this wave is really scary to me too. I have not been in it before. But I have seen it, and this is one of the biggest waves ever. All I am doing is trying to stay calm, but inside me, I am freaking out. Just stay calm and—”

“But I thought you were the best swimmer in NYC! I am depending on you. I COULD DIE. This is really freaking me out.”

“Just because I am on a good swim team doesn’t mean I can swim through a wave as tall as the Empire State building!” The wave was less than 10 feet away from them now. “We are just going to have to face it now.”

Alexandra took some deep breaths.

“Face it,” she said, “FACE IT.”

The wave was about to come at Gabe and Alexandra. Alex braced herself for the worst. She peeked out of her hands— which were covering her face— and saw the wave a foot away. She heard Gabe yelling, “Do what you can! I am holding onto you! JUST BE CALM AND LOOK OUT!”

Alexandra repeated these words in her head. “Just be calm. JUST BE CALM!”

She felt the wave lift her up, high, high into the air. She spotted the beach and her Mom and Dad shouting. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but she could make out “Alexandra!” and “Careful!” She saw tears going down her mom’s face and her dad’s worried look. But she felt the comfort of Gabe next to her. Then, Alexandra felt the sensation of falling. Her brain raced as she shouted, “HHEEELLLLPPPP!!!”

The next thing she knew, she was flying in the air, head first. 

Alexandra felt her head smashed into the surging waves and a surge of pain in her right knee. She felt the sensation of falling into a dark, deep tunnel. She felt someone touch her shoulder. That was the last thing she remembered before everything went black.

***

Blink. Blink. Alexandra saw white. All white. She blinked again and realized that she was staring at a ceiling. She looked next to her and found her mom and dad sadly looking at her. She also spotted her sister in the playroom next door, playing with a toy airplane.  Their faces brightened when they saw Alexandra’s chocolate brown eyes.

“She’s awake!” said Dad.

“Thank God,” said Mom.

She felt her Mom kiss her on her cheek. Alexandra had millions of questions bubbling inside of her. But she surprisingly just couldn’t talk. (Emotionally and physically.) Why was she wearing pajamas with cupcakes on them? Who had rescued her? Was Gabe okay? Wait a second. Alexandra had a thought rush to her head. Was Gabe okay?

Alexandra looked next to her and saw Gabe, lying motionless. She saw a cast on his arm. It was white, but she could see red, probably blood. Alexandra felt so bad for her friend. And now he would never want to swim again, just like her. She saw Gabe’s eyes open and he mumbled, 

“Alexana?” He probably couldn’t talk as well, like her. Alex tried saying something.

“Hhhhiiii Gab.”

Huh. She was probably just tired. She saw the doctor come in, and Gabe did too.

“Hi guys!” the doctor said. “I am Dr. Ring. Gabe, you have broken your arm, as well as cut it on a rock in the Ocean, we think. Alexandra, you have a small crack in your right knee and will get crutches.” Alexandra hadn’t noticed that. She sat up and saw her knee in a cast. “You guys have headaches. You can’t speak very well yet.”

Dad spoke up. “Can we tell them what happened?”

The doctor smiled. “I think they would like to know.”

Dad started. “You guys had concussions. You didn’t feel this, but a lifeguard jumped in and got you guys. Then firefighters came. They used a crane to take you guys out of the Ocean.”

Mom continued. “The lifeguard couldn’t get you out because the waves after the big wave were too strong. Then they put you in an ambulance and brought you here.”

Alexandra felt better talking now.

“Shouldn’t I be wet? I- I was just in- in- in a big wave.”

“Yeah,” agreed Gabe. “How aren’t we w- wet and now both wearing cupcake p- p- p- pajamas?”

Dr. Ring laughed. “We cleaned you guys and dried you up. Oh, and these are the only pajamas we have.”

“Okay,” said Gabe. “But can you please get better pajamas?”

Just then Gabe’s parents arrived.

“Gabe!” exclaimed Gabe’s mom. “You should be resting, not talking about what pajamas this hospital has!”

“But they should have more,” retorted Gabe.

“Oh, hi Henry!” Gabe’s little two and a half year-old brother was staring at Gabe. Henry looked at Gabe.

“Gabee OK?”

“Yes, I’m fine, go play with Alexandra’s sister, Charlotte.”

Henry happily grabbed another toy airplane and started playing with Charlotte.

Alexandra decided that this was the time to tell her mom something important, something that had been waiting to say. Alex took a deep breath and began. 

“Mom?” asked Alex.

“Yes sweetie?”

“Can I learn how to swim?”

“Of course sweetie! But what changed your mind? I thought you would never want to swim now, even in pools!”

Alexandra started explaining. “Well, I don’t want to go in the ocean first, but I could take lessons in our swimming pool at home in Long Island. I want to be ready and not freaked out for a situation like this one.”

Gabe cut in. “Hey, I live in Long Island too!”

Gabe’s dad had an idea. Gabe could teach Alex to swim! “But Gabe, you’re cool because you are the only boy in your group that knows how to swim!”

That gave Alexandra an idea. “Can I get back at those boys who ripped up my books?”

“Oh yeah!” agreed Gabe. “We can push them into the water!”

Alexandra’s mom looked skeptical.

“Maybe that’s a little toooo much!”

Alexandra spoke up. “But can we do something?”

“Maybe just talk to them. But you should stand up for yourself and talk to them with Gabe.”

“Okay, after I learn how to swim because they are going to be meaner to me if I don’t know how to swim like them. Can we go home today?”

Charlotte and Henry came over. “Mommy, go home?” Charlotte asked.

“GO HOME! YAY YAY!” Henry was getting excited too.

“Yes, we are going home today,” the parents said in unison.

After a few more hours of rest, the families headed home. They went home in separate cars but Gabe promised to come visit Alexandra after they got home. (Because he was the one of them that could walk. Alexandra had crutches.)

At home, Alexandra met Gabe on the back porch. Gabe was the first one to speak.

“Well, this incident didn’t result in the best health.”

“Yes, but I learned to not be afraid of the Ocean and to fight through it.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you into the Ocean. This was all my fault.”

Alexandra felt bad for Gabe. “No, it’s not. It’s my fault for going into the Ocean. I wanted to go to the library.”

Gabe leaned over and hugged Alexandra. “You’re the best Alexandra. And it’s definitely not your fault.”

Alexandra leaned over to Gabe. Gabe put his arm around her. Then they heard footsteps coming. Thump. Thump. Thump. Gabe and Alex let go of each other and saw the mean boys coming over to them.

“Hey stupid!” yelled the tallest boy at Alex.

Gabe retorted. “Don’t call her that!”

“And you can call her anything you want, I guess?”

“She’s my friend!”

“Well, Gabe, then I guess you’re not our friends either. Go play with your girlfriend!”

“I’m not his girlfriend!” Alexandra said. “Am I?” 

LOOK ON NEXT PAGE!

THE END!!!!

Epilogue

After Gabe’s arm had healed and Alexandra’s leg healed, Gabe taught Alex swimming. Once Alex had learned how to be a great swimmer, the two of them decided to get back at those dumb boys. Gabe knew that the boys were going fishing, so Gabe and Alex had a plan. They swam in the Long Island river and pulled a prank on these boys. This was how it went. 

THE PRANK

“Allright, I see them.” Gabe and Alexandra were very exhausted having swam for so long. They could see the silhouettes of the tall boy and his friends. Alexandra was curious.

“What are their names?”

“The big one’s name is Parker, and his two friends are Daniel and Joshua. I used to like them, but now I regret EVER being friends with them. I much rather like being friends with you.” Alex blushed at the thought of how he meant “friends.”

Alexandra changed the topic. “So the plan is to push them into the water?”

“Yeah. I know our parents think it’s too much, but I think they deserve it.”

Alexandra agreed. “Surely pushing people into the water isn’t as bad as ripping up all their books, is it?”

“Exactly. Let’s do this.”

“IT’S TIME.” 

Gabe and Alex dove under the boy’s boat and pushed it over. They heard screams from above. Gabe laughed.

“Man, I haven’t heard them scream before. This is AMAZING. And they’re not wearing life jackets.”

Alex just thought of something. “Wait, will they drown? Let’s check.”

Gabe and Alex peered around the flipped boat and found Parker, Daniel, and Joshua trying to get back up on the boat.

“YOU-YOU DID THAT!” Parker was furious. “HOW DARE YOU!”

“How dare YOU rip up all my books?” Alexandra was glad that they finally got back at Parker and his gang.

Gabe cut in. “Here, take this.” Gabe handed them a buoy. “Use this to float home.”

Parker snatched it. “And why do we need this to float home?”

“Because we’re taking the boat.” Alexandra climbed on and helped Gabe up.

Daniel and Joshua yelled “No!” Parker just stared in fury. While Gabe was rowing away, Alexandra called to the boys.

“Hey! I hope the buoy fits all of you! Maybe you could SWIM?”

The boys groaned and started doggie paddling while their arms rested on the buoy. Alex and Gabe grinned and headed back home. 

THAT’S ALL FOLKS! WAIT FOR THE NEXT BOOK!

Endor’s Life

Endor isn’t like everyone else. He’s different for one reason, size. He’s bigger than any other of his species. He’s bigger because of mutation when he was born. He’s as big as the statue of liberty!!! There are monsters bigger than him, but those are different species. Like reptars and skylers, but those are other kinds. He’s only supposed to be 15 meters. But he’s more than five times the height!!! Endor is sort of like a turtle, but has spikes and has sharp teeth. Sadness makes him destroy cities. Anger. Rage. Endor has always been picked on by reptars saying, “Big body, gigantic coward!!!”

“Hey weakling,” said a reptar. His teeth started grinding. His spikes started bulging on his body.

“What do you want?” I asked. I was thinking of burning him with a flamethrower I was powering up in my mouth.

“Why don’t you get out of the way and give me your money, I want to buy something,” he replied with a grin on his face. Then out of nowhere, I blasted reptar. Then I realized I could use my size to protect the cities.

Endor faced many battles with skylers, fenines and more. But today was different.

“ROAR!!!” A huge roar was heard in the city, so Endor went to check it out.

What’s going on this time? I said to myself.

“Oh, just a reptar, wait, a REPTAR!!!” I screamed. Reptars are very powerful. So I went to the city to try and fight him off. But then, he slammed me onto a building. I shot fire at him but he shot me with plasma!!! I fell to the floor, he looked down at me, he was ready to devour me. There was nothing I could do. Except to fall in my fate. And sooner or later, I blacked out.

I woke up laying on the floor of a destroyed city. I did not know what happened. I saw the Reptar’s head on the floor. I saw a station over at the other side of the mountain. So I decided to go. 

I saw a skyler and he said he’d help me. So we made it there. But then the door slammed!!! I looked and saw some footage. I looked and saw me with the reptar!!! It showed me on the floor, and then my eyes turned red. I was shooting magma, shooting it toward the reptar, his skin started melting and then I fell. I was being tortured by the idea of being in this rusty station.

“HELP!!” I screamed. “PLEASE,” I said. “I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE!! JUST HELP.”

“Just calm down,” skyler said. “Calm’. It’s okay.’’ He calmed me down.

He managed to get me out, so we left the station. I realized, I was dangerous. But I was okay. I would still protect the cities.

THE END!!!

The Hair Salon


Chapter One

“Mommy, I don’t want to go to the hair salon! Please, leave me here by myself!”

“No, you have to go with me, because you’re the one that has to have the haircut.”

“My hair’s long! I want it to be like this!”

“Well, you have to cut your bangs.”

“Your bangs are way too long.”

“I know it’s up to my chin, but I’ll just move it to the sides and put a clip. Please, Mom! I just don’t want to cut my hair! Please, please, just respect me! I’ll stay here with Teddy.” 

“If you want to stay here with Teddy, you have to have a babysitter.”
“Not the mean one again! Not Sophia!”

“Well, that’s the only one I can find online.”

“Please, Mom! I want to stay here, I don’t want to cut my hair! My hair is the most beautiful thing right now. I don’t want it to be horrible! Please, let me Mom. I’m voting for you!”

“Silly, Sandy.”

“But Mom! Please! Or I’ll stay here with Daddy.”

“Well, he’s going to come at nighttime.”

“Well, I’ll wait for him at nighttime when he’s back from the day.”

“Well, I’m going to be back from the day,” said Mom.

“But Mom, I’m already ten. Why can’t you leave me here by myself?”

“Let’s not argue. Your hair is getting way too long, and it’s already touching your toes.”

“So? I like it there. I can make longer braids, tie it up into a bun, etc.”

“I know, but I want it to get shorter like this.”

“No, that’s way too short! I looked horrible when I had shorter hair when I was a baby like this.”

“Then, your hair was almost touching your knees. Come on, let’s just go.”

“Mommy, don’t pull my hair here! I’m not Sleeping Beauty. Even though I liked the movie.”

“Well, okay, fine. Only this once.”

“At least it’s up to my knees. I like my hair this long.”

“Well, sweetie, we have to go. It’s going to close any second.”

“That’s what I want to happen! Well, okay, fine. I’ll go with you. The hair salon is going to be bad. Oh, I have an idea. I can hide from the person that cuts my hair. Well, I think that won’t work. Because I went there last time, and they cut my hair up to my hands, and then I tried to hide, but they found me really easily under the chair. Oh! They never found me under the table. Let me try this time under the table.”

Chapter Two: The Bad Haircut

Oh, I’m here. Where’s the table around here so I can hide? I hope they don’t cut my hair like that guy: his hair, like, stripes. Mom says they put hair dye on his hair. I want pink hair dye.

“You’re not getting hair dye, because you’re too young.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m ten.”

“You have to be 14 to get hair dye.”

“Please, Mom!” 

“Okay, fine, only because your birthday’s coming up.”

“Which color do you want?”

“I want light blue that goes to pink. Dark pink.”

“Fine, okay. I’m going to ask them if we can do that.”

“We can do that!”

Yay!! Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome. But I won’t let you do this again.”

“This is the last time I’m going to do this. I promise this is the last time. But Mommy, there’s a mistake. Tie dye doesn’t come out of your hair.”

“What? No!”

“But we already paid for it.”

“Okay, only this once.”

“But it won’t come out! For this whole year.”

“Fine. It will never come out.”

“Even when you’re a grandma it won’t come out.”

“Can I take my money back?”

“No.”

No,” said Mom. 

“I’m going to have tie dye, ya ya ya ya ya.”

“Okay. I’m going to ask them if there’s any shampoo that can take it out of your hair.”

“No, there’s no shampoo.”

“Oh my gosh, I was almost caught there. I have to hurry, in case Mom says my birthday’s coming up. Can you not cut my hair and only put hair dye?”

“Okay, okay, okay, fine. Only because your birthday’s coming up, okay? You hear me?”

“Yes. Mom. Are you going to put the hair dye on? Or are you going to cut my hair?”

“She’s going to put the hair dye.” 

“Well let’s do it, yay!”

Snip.

No! My hair is ruined!!!

“Oh, I’m sorry. Now it’s time to put hair dye on.”

Chapter Three: The Hair Dye

Sandy was sad that the hair lady cut her hair. She asked not to, but she did. Sandy was super sad.

“Mommy, I don’t want to stay here in this place. She cut my hair when I didn’t ask her to! I love my blond hair! Please, please, I want to get out of here, and I want to get a wig. Please! Because if she cuts everything off, I can get a wig!”

“If you get a wig, it’ll just fall off.”

“Just… please, Mom. I promise you.”

“No, you can’t do that.”

“I asked for a shark hair, with teeth.”

“I know, that’s why she made those big things. You can’t paint them.”

“Oh, that’s why. Please keep doing what you’re doing, Ms. Hairstylist. I forgot that I said I want shark hair. But don’t make it too big, because I still want to make rays on my hair.”

“Okay, I’m sorry that I cut it and you didn’t say to, but you said to make shark hair, and I’m sorry that I did. I can put your hair back with glue, then.”

“What? You can?”

“Only if I cut all of your hair out and put a wig on your head.”

“Which type of glue?”

“It’s like edible glue.”

“What? I don’t get what you’re saying, Ms. Stylist lady.”

“Well, I believe in you. Do you believe in me?’

“It’s not a poem.”

“Well, you know that you, miss little lady…”

“I’m not a little lady, I’m a kid. I’m ten years old. I’m turning eleven. I hope that you keep on doing your shark teeth, but not up to my forehead, because then I’d be really sad.”

“Okay,” said the hair stylist. “I’ll make them up to here, is that okay? To your knees?”

“Sure. Well, no, only up till my ankles, okay?”

“Okay. Up to your ankles. One cut, shark teeth, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and then… well, okay, I’m done. Now to put the hair dye on! First I’m going to get a brush and start putting the hair dye on your hair.”

“Okay! I hope it shines like my friend’s does. Wait, why are you putting my hair in the water? The hair dye will come out!”

“No, it’s to get your hair wet, and then it’ll come out lighter.” 

“Okay, fine. I love my hair. It’s wonderful. I’m going to look in the mirror! Ooh, I look like I’m in a shark place where the sharks play, at the end of the sea.” 

“You’re welcome! That’s 24 bucks!”

“What?? That’s way too much, I need to go to the bank. Wait, there’s Cece and her mom. Let me ask them if they have some money.”

Sandy asked Cece if she had any money.

“Oh,” she said. “Hi, Sandy?”

“Do you have any money for my haircut?”

“Oh, I love your hair!”

“I know, that’s why I need money to pay for it. Do you have any money?”

“Oh, I only have 24 bucks.”

“Wow, that’s perfect! Because I only have 100 dollars. So only give us 24 bucks, cuz that’s the right amount that I need to pay for my hair. Yay! I can pay for my hair, and I’m going to show dad when he gets home. He’s going to love it.”

Chapter Four: Getting Home

“Wow, my hair is so adorable! No wait, there’s a problem! There’s going to be a thunderstorm coming, and we’re only going to arrive in 30 minutes. And there’s so much traffic! If we get late, Dad will be mad, and also, we can maybe even get hurt, because our car is made out of metal. We need to go quick.”

“Okay, let’s hurry! Let’s take the shortcut.”

“Okay, let’s get home. Go down to 32, veer 34. It’s only one block. No wait, we’re in Columbus. We have to be in Broadway. We live in Broadway, not here. But this is where our cousin lives. Let’s ask them if we can sleep there for one day.”

But when they got there, they already had someone at their house. 

“Oh man, I guess we have to take another traffic the right way.”

“Okay, let’s go. Oh wait, wait a second! There’s no more traffic and no more thunder! Yay, we have all the street for ourselves!”

“No we don’t, because look. There’s still a little bit of traffic up ahead.”

“But still, I’m happy that we’re almost home, so I can show Daddy my hair. Yay, yay, yay, we’re almost home! Let’s go home. I’m so worried that Daddy gets hit by thunder.”

“That will never happen! He’s already home.”

“Let me call Daddy. I have a phone cuz I’m ten.”

“You’re actually eleven.”

“Well, I’m not eleven yet. Well I know tomorrow’s my birthday but tomorrow’s gonna be raining like today so we have to do it today at home, because we are going to vacation tomorrow to celebrate there. But we can’t go, because there’s a traffic jam- a big one!”

“Finally, the traffic jam is done and I can see home. FINALLY! Finally, we got here at home.”

“Where were you?” Daddy said.

“We were at the hair salon, and I got a new hairstyle!” Sandy said.

“I love it! I want to go there! 

“Not now, please. I can’t drive anymore. So many traffic jams.” Said Mom.

“Okay fine, another day.”

“I’ll go by myself tonight.”

“Don’t, please, it’s terrifying getting back home.”

THE END


Far from Normal


Emma wanted to have a normal life where you can chill and get food at the store. But normal doesn’t apply when you live in a city infested with annoying sea dragons who go around asking for stuff. So it was a regular day at school when one of those things stopped her on her way home and asked for a fruit. She told it that she had none and walked on. However, the sea dragon did not stop. It followed her back to her house. She did not notice this until she got home and turned around to hang up her backpack and saw it standing right there, in the middle of a water spill on the floor.

“What do you want!?” she asked, exasperated.

“Can I have some fruit?” it asked.

“I told you, I don’t have any!”

She took her homework out of her backpack, went to her bedroom, and started it. Then the sea dragon tapped her on the finger. It had shrunk itself and was standing in the cup of water on her desk. 

“Can I please have a fruit now?”

That’s when she totally lost it. 

“Can you please shut now up now!!! For the last time can you not follow me everywhere?!” 

That’s when the sea dragon disappeared. For real, this time. Good, she thought, I can use some space. However, as she finished her homework she couldn’t help thinking that she had been a little bit rude. Don’t be silly, she told herself, it’s the thing’s fault that it can’t keep its big fat mouth shut. This still didn’t make her feel better about yelling at the top of her lungs. Then she smiled, and picked up a book. She read the title. “How to get rid of annoying creatures.She flipped the pages until she got to the page of sea dragons. This is what it said:

  1. Bore it out. Try patting your hair or blabbering nonstop about the newest book or movie. You might also want to talk about hair and makeup. They have no interest in that stuff. 
  2. Ignore it. Make it so tired of sitting there that it just leaves. 
  3. Don’t yell, or satisfy it. It will only ask for more, or keep asking for what you didn’t give it

Whatever. They shouldn’t expect us to do it that easily. It is not like sea dragons are cute little siblings. They don’t have any right to follow people all over the place. 

So what?

So they shouldn’t bother people!

Maybe you don’t have the right to yell!

Well, it was wasting my time!!

Well, two wrongs don’t make a right!!!

Fine. But it was still acting like a pain.

After that, Emma knew what would be the best plan. Just then, the door opened. It was Emma’s mom.

“Oh hi, Mom,” she said. “Can Kayla spend the night tomorrow?”

“Yes, but please do not stay up all night talking. If I hear a peep past midnight, I’m sending her straight home. Understand?”

“Okay fine.”

After her mom left the room, Emma sighed. She wished she and Kayla could spend the night giggling about the haunted comb at last summer’s sleepaway camp. (She knew Kayla had thrown it, Kayla liked to think it flew by itself.) Kayla was Emma’s best friend. However, unlike Emma, she seemed to think sea dragons were cute. At least they could stay up until midnight. It wasn’t a very long time for a sleepover, three hours, but it was something. After the incident with the comb, Emma had gotten a new white comb on a pink cloth. 

Okay, so it was a bit fancier than she expected. Honestly, she kind of liked it. Soon her mom called her out for dinner. They had pizza, which was one of Emma’s favorites. But she couldn’t focus on eating. She was too busy daydreaming. 

The next morning, Emma put on her favorite pink blouse and sparkly white lace skirt. She put little care into breakfast and brushing her teeth, as she had never cared for her morning routine. Then she ran off to meet Kayla at the bus stop.

“Hi, Kayla!”

“Hi, Emma! You seem quite cheerful.”

“Well, TGIF, because my mom says you can sleep over!”

“Cool! I’ll text my mom before we get there. And guess what?”

“What?”

“They expanded the bus system. So we don’t have to walk home!”

What? Are you kidding? This is the best news!!!”

“Um, what is so interesting about a bus system, may I ask?”

“Um… so we can get some rest?”

As close as the girls were, Emma could not explain that she did not want to be followed by an annoying sea dragon because Kayla seemed to adore them.

That was when the bus driver said, “C’mon girls, everyone is waiting for you.”

“Coming!”

Kayla put down her phone. “She said… Yes!”

“Sweet! So my house, right?”

“Yeah! So when should I be there?”

“Just right after school. I’m so happy about the bus system!”

“I never knew how much you hated walking.”

They chatted for awhile, until they realized they were they only ones on the bus. 

“Oops!” said Kayla.

“Come on, we’re going to be late for class again.

So as usual, they were late for class. In fact, the only times they weren’t late were when they had nothing to talk about on the bus, which was rare. 

“Ladies, what has been making you late for the past few days?” said the teacher, Miss Philips. “You both missed attendance. So you were marked absent. I guess I’ll have to adjust my notes.”

Emma sat down at her desk. So did Kayla. 

“Now, I hope you have memorized your times tables.” (The whole class sighed.) “Rose Miller, please recite the two times tables.”

Rose zipped right through (although this was probably because the two times tables are very easy).

The next five or so went through smoothly.

“Kayla Wexler, please recite the eight times tables.”

Kayla stood up and said them quickly, “Eight times one equals eight. Eight times two equals sixteen. Eight times three equals twenty-four. Eight times four equals thirty-two. Eight times five equals forty… ”

“Emma Taylor, please recite the nine times tables.”

“Nine times one equals nine. Nine times two equals eighteen. Nine times three equals twenty-seven. Nine times four equals thirty-six. Nine times five equals forty-five. Nine times six equals fifty-four. Nine times seven equals sixty-three. Nine times eight equals seventy-two. Nine times nine equals eighty-one. Nine times ten equals ninety. Nine times eleven equals ninety-nine. Nine times twelve equals one hundred and eight.”

After school, Emma and Kayla got on the bus. 

“Emma, did you ever wish that we could see the sea dragons more often? I mean, they are so cute.”

Oh boy, she is crazy sometimes. 

“Um, I never really thought about it.”

Because they are so annoying sometimes, she silently added. 

“Oh, this is our stop! Come on! I’ll run to my house and get my stuff, okay?”

“Sure, I’ll set up the sleeping bags. Or do you want to share the loft bed?”

“Sleeping bags sounds good. This way we can watch a movie or something. Should I get my own sleeping bag, or do you have a spare one?”

“Your choice. By the way, we can’t say anything past midnight. Or you get sent home.”

“Got it. Now I need to get my stuff.”

After that conversation, Emma took out a sleeping bag. It was pink with white stars. She laid it out in front of the TV. Then she went to her room and took out “How to get rid of annoying creatures.” Then Kayla came into the room. Emma instantly slammed the book down on the wooden floor.

“Hi, I put down my sleeping bag in the living room next to yours. Um, what’s that green thing on the floor?”

“Hi. That’s just a book. Why?”

“Let me get a look at the title. ‘How to get rid of annoying creatures.’ You’re not telling me you read this book? Also, why did you choose the green cover? I thought you would choose the pink. Or even white. Not green. I mean, it’s a nice color, but it was never your taste. Anyway, don’t you think this book is stereotypical?”

“Um, it only had green left. Plus, my room is pink enough.”

“But why did you get this book? It includes some of the cutest things ever. Look, sea dragons. Wait a minute, you bookmarked this page.”

“So?”

“So, you have been reading it.”

“So?”

“So, you agree with it.”

“Honestly, I do kind of think that they’re annoying. I mean, they always ask for stuff.”

“Fine. Let’s agree to disagree. But they are kind of cute in that way. Plus, they share whatever you give them.”

“Now that I think of it, they are kind of cute. Come on, let’s go get a snack. Glimmer chips? This time I did get them in pink.”

The girls giggled. As they walked to the kitchen, they passed their sleeping bags. The sleeping bags reflected their differences. Kayla’s was blue with a green dragon wrapped around it, while Emma’s was just pink with white stars, as most of her possessions were either pink, white, or both. Her only non-pink-or-white thing was “How to get rid of annoying creatures.” Kayla, on the other hand, owned anything with a cute animal decorating it. She was especially fond of sea dragons, and she hardly ever forgot about their cuteness. 

“Mmm, these are good,” said Kayla. “Are you sure you got these with your own money? Because they taste expensive.”

“Uh huh,” said Emma, who was sucking the chips, then chewing. Emma’s older brother, Eddie, burst into the house. 

“That is the slowest way to eat chips that I’ve ever seen,” he said. “You don’t suck off all the glitter and then chew. You start chewing as soon as it’s in your mouth.”

Emma rolled her eyes.

“I can eat chips however I want, glutton,” she responded. “You don’t burst into the living room and say” (says this in a squeaky voice) “Eat it like this, not that, you have to eat before it rots’ like, that is so rude and nosy. I mean, keep your big fat mouth shut.”

By the time it was Emma and Kayla’s bedtime, the girls got into their sleeping bags and watched a movie. It was about a girl who was riding a sea dragon. Suddenly, Emma changed the channel.

“What was that all about?” asked Kayla. “We just started that one. We didn’t even get to the green ice cream part.”

  “Um, let’s watch The Sound of Music.

“Sure, but why don’t you like this movie? Do you still hate sea dragons?”

“No, but I still find them annoying.”

“They’re nice though. They share whatever you give them with all their friends. I find it sweet.”

 “I guess I kind of like them. But I prefer nuns and children, thank you very much.”

“Okay, let’s watch The Sound of Music.”

“Sounds good. Remember the line of kids?”

“Hey by the way, did you see those adorable water alicorns?”

The End


Just Edward

On Monday morning, Edward the snobby lobster lost his memory but he didn’t lose all of his memory. For example: he remembered his name and he knew how to talk. 

Suddenly, Edward felt hungry, but he didn’t know it, so he started wandering around in a huge, dark, black room with a small machine. But because he had lost his memory just a minute ago, he didn’t care.

He wandered around the room trying to find a door or a way out. After five minutes, he finally found a window that led outside to an open grass field. There was a little dirt road. Edward followed that road and ended up by a convenience store. He tried opening the door, but it was locked and the lights were out. He looked around, trying to find another way in.

Eventually, after five times circling the convenience store, he broke down the door by breaking it with his sharp claws. He crawled up a shelf, grabbed a bag of Cheetos, and started smacking his face into it because he didn’t remember how to eat. The bag broke and he started chewing the Cheetos. When he was done, his face looked like a giant orange. 

All of a sudden, someone walked in, studied the door, looked Edward right in the face, grabbed a broom, and ran at him. Edward climbed up a ladder that led to the roof, jumped on the guy, and started cutting his hair to the point that the guy was bald. Then, Edward ran out the door without him even knowing. 

Suddenly his friend, Luke, came out of the ocean and said, “Hey Edward, long time no see! How are you doing?”

Edward stopped, stuttered and said, “Who are you?”

Luke said, “You know who I am, stop playing around!”

Edward slapped Luke in the face. 

And then, Edward said, “I’m not playing around.” 

Luke shouted, “Hey! Why did you slap me?” Luke slapped Edward back and Edward slapped Luke, and that went back and forth for about two months.

Two months later…

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” shouted Luke as he jumped into the ocean. “It burns!” complained Luke. “WHY, EDWARD, WHY!” But Edward just ignored him and went on his way. 

Five days later… 

Edward’s face was still red and bulging with pain as he walked down the road heading towards Azweiture city. Edward was crawling to Azweiture city when the ground started to shake and a huge black and silver circle rolled past him and hit him with a wave of air. Another black and silver circle rolled past; Edward looked behind him and saw two big white lights speeding towards him. He crouched down and when it was right over him, he grabbed a bit of metal and pinched as hard as he could. Edward climbed on top of the beast, broke the glass, climbed in, and buckled his seatbelt. 

Ten minutes later, the driver got out of the beast and screamed when he saw Edward. He pulled out a thin brick with a screen on it and hit three numbers, 9-1-1, and hit a button that said “call” on it. One minute later, animal control came and tried to grab him, but Edward cut all their hair off. Everyone was too busy crying and feeling their head to notice the oversized lobster crawling away into the darkness.

Thirty minutes later, Edward had walked all 328 miles of Azweiture city and broke into house 229 Tin Street. He dug a hole in the ground and up into the Romanus’ house. In the house, Edward saw flashing lights coming from a big room. The light hurt his eyes and he didn’t like it at all. He scampered in and saw it. The source of all of that light was from a small penguin, but its belly had a rectangular blinding light. He climbed up the wall and onto the ceiling. He left little dents in the wall as he walked. Finally, he jumped down behind the penguin and cut everything he saw, even the wall. The penguin’s belly turned black. Then, Edward heard a “What?” from a fat guy with a brown bottle in his hand. He walked up to the penguin and tapped its belly. He looked behind and when he saw Edward, he ran.

Three seconds later he came back, but instead of a brown bottle in his hand, he had a big metal tube and a red strap on his head. Edward jumped on the metal tube and onto the man’s belly. He climbed up to cut all of the man’s head but when Edward got to the top of the man’s head, he found out he had none. The man grabbed Edward and threw him out the window and onto the street. Edward ran up to a woman with a big purple square on her back. He jumped on and squirmed into a small dark cramped chamber.

Five minutes later, the woman dropped the square and shrieked when she opened it. A man came running over and grabbed Edward. Edward pinched him and he yelled something that Edward couldn’t make out. Thirty seconds later, two men ran in with a small metal bar. Edward knew it was dangerous and pinched a triangle on one man’s face and and on the other man’s face. One man dropped his bar and ran away. Edward crawled over and pulled a small, thin metal piece with his leg, which was attached to the bigger piece. A metal ball shot out of the bar and hit a girl in the leg. Red stuff spewed out of where the metal ball hit her and she fell to the floor. Edward heard sirens and he saw red and blue lights shining through the glass walls.

Six men rushed in and saw Edward standing by the metal bar and the injured girl. They pointed their medal bars at Edward and they pulled the little trigger. A small metal ball came right at him. He jumped over the ball and rushed for cover. One man ran away and came back with a stretchy brown circle. The man ran toward Edward and tied the stretchy brown circle around his claws and put him in a cage. The cage was brought to a big beast with a big metal square behind it. The man put Edward in the big square and shut the two big metal plates behind him. He was trapped!

To be continued…

Arstina and the Shadow King

Arstina was an evil doll. She had long since escaped the nursery and now roamed the underworld where she lived looking for something. She didn’t know what it was. Her hair was rough and knotted. Her eyes had splotches of paint on them. Her crippled body was stained with all sorts of things. Suddenly one day she knew what it meant.

She felt the rough spot on her stomach. She rubbed it, and it came off in flakes. She bent down and licked it off the hot floor of the underworld. Ice cream. In that moment, Arstina felt something odd. Desire. She longed for another taste. Sadly, though, that would be hard. 

There was no ice cream in the underworld. The shadow king ruled it all. And he did not give out sugary treats. He was very greedy. Arstina decided to beg the shadow king. Maybe he would show compassion.

She walked over to his palace. She rapped on the tall, black door. A guard answered. Arstina explained why she was there. The guard growled something and went to get the shadow king. Arstina hoped he would listen.

Soon, two guards came out. They both grabbed one of her arms and carried her in.

“What’s happening?” Arstina asked.

“The king is not pleased with you,” one guard responded in a gruff voice. “He thinks you are inconsiderate, horrible, lazy, annoying, and an overall nuisance. He wishes to kill you.”

Arstina gulped. Then she snapped back into reality. She started to yell at the guards.

“You are horrible people, and you should let me go! All I wanted was some ice cream!” Four words into her sentence, though, one guard stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth.

Six minutes later, she arrived in a courtyard out back. There was a big pile of wood in the middle. The shadow king walked up to Arstina and smiled. 

He said, “Hello, Arstina. I expect we’ll have some fun together. Simply jump on that pile of wood and allow us to tie you up.”

Arstina gulped and decided against it. The shadow king was holding a bunch of matches.

“Do you not want to?” Pause. “We can do this the hard way or the easy way.” Another pause. Arstina still stood firm. “All right, the hard way.”

The shadow king grabbed a rope and tied her up before she could respond. Then he forced her to march to the wood pile. He then tied her down. The shadow king struck a match and smiled devilishly. He gingerly placed it on the pile and then stopped for a second to watch Arstina burst into flames.

She cried out in pain. “I just wanted some ice cream!”

The king paused for a moment, as if he was thinking of something. Then he ran into the castle to get something.

The last thing Arstina ever saw was the shadow king laughing maniacally as he licked an ice cream cone. 


Maybe Sorta Kinda Grounded

Chapter One    

Once there was a girl named Emilly. Her sister’s name was Julie. And they always played. They had nicknames for each other but they were never that mean. One day, Emilly and Julie had a big fight. Emilly had a very mean, mean name to call her little sister Julie. It was “Stinkbreath.” Julie’s name for Emilly was “Meanie.” They kept on calling each other that and they never stopped the fight until their mom came home.

The mom said, “Why is this place is a mess?”

They both said at the same time, “She did it!”

The mom said, “Well, you two are grounded for a whole week! You’re going to pick up all this stuff and clean it up, and tidy my room AND yours. And your dad’s room.”

And then their dad came home. “What is this whole big mess?”

They both said at the same time, “She did it!”

Their dad made another punishment. “You two both have to do ten chores a week until September! Every day I’ll write you a list.”

They both said, We’re sorry,” and got to work. They didn’t have much time to go to school but their mom said, “I want this place tidied up by the time that I get home tomorrow.”

The mom picked up Julie’s stuffed bunny and said “Throw this in the garbage.”

Julie said, “No! That’s my only stuffed bunny!”

“Then why did I find this whole stack of stuffed bunnies in your candy jar?”

She said, “Ummmm….” She was speechless!

Her mom said, “Now! And you can save one if you want, but I want you to throw all of the rest out.”

Julie did as she was told, but secretly she kept all her bunnies in another place… in her lollipop drawer!

Her mom said, “I found these in your lollipop drawer! You’re grounded til November!”

Julie said, “Do you have anything for me to do?”

“No, what did you ever do?”

“Really? Thanks, you guys.” 

“Julie was the one who started the fight, not me,” said Emilly.

The parents believed this, so they called “Julie! Stop watching a show, give the phone to Emilly and start doing this now! No more discussions, now! Go to your room and pack. I’m sending you to your friend’s home to tell her about what you’ve done. Just this once. But I’m not going to pack for you this time.”

“Oh my god. Seriously? I really really have to get to work. Can you please pack for me?”

“Fine. Only because you’re doing work.”

By the time mom was finished, Julie was finished with everything. But secretly, she put it all in the backyard. 

Her dad said, “You cleaned up very quickly! I’m going to go and get my car from the backyard.”

“Julie!! I have a surprise for you!” said Dad.

“What is it?”

“The smashing robot that I made out of all of your very cool and fun things.”

“Dad!! I didn’t think that you’d be so mad at me! I thought only Mom would be, cuz you’re nicer than mom!”

“I am? I mean, yes, I am. Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll take all of the stuff out.”

She cleaned up very quickly, but this time, she actually did it. Julie was a very quick cleaner, so she finished, and her dad took her for a ride. 

“When you said that I was nicer than your mom, I’m going to take you for a little ride, just for fun. But it’s going to be a short ride and it’s going to go very quickly. This is where I go when I pretend to ride my bike. I go to this tractor, and nobody is here right now because it is night time. This is my real work. I used to work in a gas station, so everyone is feeling bad for me. But I’m a racecar driver now, so I get paid a lot of money!”

“You should tell that to the whole family.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Chapter Two

When they reached the tractor, Julie said, “This is the coolest thing ever! I wish Emilly was here!” 

“Well, I don’t really want to bring Emilly. She knows how to drive a car, soo… and then your mom will be the only person who doesn’t know what my job is. So I don’t really want to tell her that I have this. You have to keep my secret though. If you don’t, you’re going to get a humongous punishment,” said their dad.

“Sometimes, I tell Emilly some of my secrets, and she tells me some of hers, and we both keep them secret.”

“Emilly tells me all of your secrets.”

“What!! That’s so mean, I kept all of hers in!”

“That’s so mean.”

“Well, not really, you told me all of yours, too. I told Emilly I read your diary.”

“Emilly didn’t tell me! I don’t want you to drop me off. Emilly actually taught me how to drive a car, so hop on, I’m going to take you back home and tell mom that I want her to drive me.”

Then dad says, “Whee! Emilly sure knows how to drive.”

“I’m not Emilly.”

“I know, but I’m just saying that Emilly really knows how to drive.”

“But I’m better than her, right?”

“Ummm… no.”

“Now I especially don’t want you take me. You’re being very un-good at parenting right now. But Mom is nicer, and you are not nicer than mom! You are the meanest dad in the whole entire world!”

“Well then why did I pack you rice krispies for all of this?”

“You did?”

“Well, not anymore.”

“Uh oh, let’s go back to the tractor. I’ll drive.”

So then dad says, “Who’s nicer now, me or Mom?”

“Ummm… you.”

“Really? Am I actually, or are you pretending?”

“No, you are, actually, for real! Now can I have the rice krispies?”

“No, you get to share your rice krispies with your friends. Let’s go there. Mom’s probably wondering where you are and probably so is my friend.”

Chapter Three

They finally reached Coco’s house. 

“Coco! I’m so happy to see you!”

“Me too,” said Coco. 

Julie said, “I’m starving! I should have ate them before?”

“What?”

“The yummy yummy dumplings. At least I have some in my bag.”

“Julie? You have dumplings in your bag?”

“No.”

“Let me check your bag.”

“Oh, no dumplings.”

“Bye, dad!”

“Bye! Hope you have a good time!” 

At the sleepover, Julie’s like, “So, I started a fight with my sister Emilly, and I lied to my parents about not starting the fight, but then Emilly told them and they believed Emilly, and then I told the truth, and then they felt bad for me so they told me that I could come to your house just for one time. And she said it like this: just for ONCE! And I was like ahh, and then I said, okay, deal.”

They had lots of yummy rice krispies and the yummy yummy dumplings, which Julie hid in her bag, and they slept. 

Her dad was there to pick her up.

“Dad, can we go to your tractor, please?”

“Okay, we can go to the tractor. But just this once. And I mean just this once!”

“Okay. Yippee! Bye, Coco!” She gave Coco a big hug.

Coco gave Julie a big hug too. “Woohee!”

Chapter Four

They went to the tractor. They finally got there. “Whee! This is so much fun,” said Julie. And then they left. “Already, dad? Please can we get just one more?”

“Okay, but just one more.”

“Wheee! This is so much fun,” said Julie. 

Then they left. “Emilly, it was so much fun at the tractor!”

“What tractor?”

“Dad’s job tractor!”

“Julie!” said the Dad. “I told you not to tell them!”

“Tell us what?”

“Julie, stop. Be quiet and get to your chores. Otherwise you’re never going to go there again.”

“Okay, I’m just going to talk to her for one second.”

“Julie, you cannot do that ever again. It’s so, so, so bad. And then they’re going to know what my job is.”

“Why don’t you tell them what your job is?”

“Because your mom hates racecar drivers. The only one she likes is Derek.” And Derek is the dad’s name. “And I am Derek, the one that she likes.”

“Then why don’t you tell her?”

“I suppose so.”

Then they came out.

“Dad has something to say!” said Julie.

“What is it, Dad?” said Emilly.

“Go on, dad, tell them!”

“Ummmm… I sort of have a new job that’s a racecar driver and I’m Derek the driver!”

“You are? Is that why when you go the bathroom when we all see racecar drivers and you are Derek?”

“Yes.”

“Well now we know, so you can always get prepared earlier. Why wouldn’t you tell us that before?”

“Well… so I took Julie to the tractor and we raced so much and it was so much fun, because Emilly taught Julie how to drive a car. So we raced and raced and raced, and then we left. Julie was like really? Do we have to leave already? And I was having so much fun so I said maybe not already, and then I probably should not have taken the grounded girl to the tractor, but I really wanted to go there myself, and I didn’t want to get in trouble by anybody, so I always had to keep it secret.”

“Emilly knows about this!”

“Dad! You lied to me?”

“Maybe sorta kinda…” Then her dad said, “Yes.”

“But Emilly and you would have kept it a secret, but then I had to tell the whole family. And now I’m happy that I told the whole family.”

The mom made the decision that “You both do not have to be grounded. Your dad and I will clean all of this up.”

“We’ll help! Do we have to do the chores until November?”

“No!”

“Yay!! Let’s get to cleaning!”

The End. 


Bep-Bop’s Shopping List

  1. Dolls
  2. Cars
  3. Legos
  4. Pizza
  5. Fish
  6. Meat
  7. Ice cream
  8. Chocolate
  9. Art
  10. Ice cream cone

Bep-Bop wants all of these things on the list above because if he doesn’t get them, he might die from starvation and be bored for the rest of his short life.

He goes to the mall called Dean’s Mall and buys the things on the list above. 

There is a problem though: the mall is crowded with people, so it is hard to find the store that he needs to go to to get the things on the list above.

 He finds his way to the store that has everything he needs, apparently. It is called Dean’s Happy Store. The name means, everything you need to buy is in this store. So, he gets the things he needs, and then another problem happens. It is still crowded! So, he needs to find his way to the register.

He finally pays for the stuff, and then he gets distracted by another store that has games for the Switch that he had bought for another time. He tries to resist it, but he can’t. He gets one game, at least one, and it is called Super Mario Maker 2 + Online.

Then, he gets to his car. This time it is not crowded. Then, he drives home and has a happy day.


Carter & His Mad Lunchbox

“Carter! The school bus is here!”

“Coming!” I shouted.

“Don’t forget to bring your lunch bag!”

“Yeah, I know, whatever.”

I rushed to the bus just in time to see the fat bus driver wave his chubby, fat hand goodbye. Carrying my lunch bag, I trudged along the path to go to school. I was half a subject late just because the bus driver drove off without picking me up!

Fast forward, and we’re in my classroom after staying an eternity in the principal’s office to explain why I was late, which delayed even more of my time. When I entered my classroom, everyone looked at me, and half of them stared straight at my lunch. I looked down and saw water leaking through the paper bag. Like seriously, why do parents give their own child’s lunch in a paper bag?! No? Only me? Okay then, I guess only my parents are harassing their child even though I don’t even know what that word means or does, but it sounds like “spilling.”

Anyways, I sat down in my seat, and when I put my lunch down next to me, it went plofltp! My classmate made a disgusted face at me and quickly whipped her cube head back to the teacher and snickered under her putrid breath.

Fast forward again, and I finally made it to lunch with just a soggy sandwich. Long story short, everything else fell out. We went to the lunchroom, and I sat down with my only friend, Andy, who people also made fun of for being really short. 

Andy and I first became friends in first grade. One day at recess, Andy was being bullied by the school bully, Barter. I walked over and told Barter to stop.

He said, “No!”

Then he started kicking my leg and I fell over.

Then the teacher came over and said, “What’s going on?” 

Barter lied and said, “He tried to kick me.”

“But he’s on the ground,” the teacher replied. Then the teacher said, “Come with me, you’re going to the principal’s office.”

Then Barter started bawling, and Andy and I became friends at that moment. 

Every time Andy had even a little problem, Barter would come over and bully him for no reason at all and I thought, Please don’t bully me because my lunch is gone. Then, Barter came over and started bullying me. Barter snatched the lunch away.

Then, he realized the bag was wet and soggy, and he was like, “Ew, what did you do?” And he threw the lunch bag across the lunchroom, and it landed on a teacher’s foot.

The teacher hobbled over and shouted at Barter, “What happened here?”

I started to say, “He threw my lunch across… ”

And then Barter interrupted me and said, “He threw the lunch across the room, and it landed on you.”

And then the teacher said, “That doesn’t sound like a thing Carter would do.” 

Then Barter ran out of the lunchroom.

I whispered to Andy, “What’s up with him?” 

A classmate walked over and whispered in my ear, “How’s your lunch?” 

I bit my tongue to prevent the words I hate you! from coming out. So instead, I said, “Go away.” 

“No!”

“I am going to stay right here and watch you eat your lunch of air with a side of air and air for a drink!” She walked away, sneering and snickering to her friends. By the way, like half the class was her friend and the other half wanted to be her friend.

Andy said, “Why is it always us that gets bullied?!”

“Well… for one you are quite short for your age, no offense, and I am just bullied for my downsides.”

“I am talking to myself,” Andy replied.

The teacher came over and said, “I’m sorry for all the trouble about Barter and Victoria.”

Victoria was the second bully that came over to bully us. She was never nice to anyone except to her friends who actually didn’t support her bullying, but kept it a secret. Don’t ask me how I know, like please don’t. So now school just ended, and guess what?! I missed the bus to drive the students back home! That fat bus driver!

When I got home, I told my mom about the absolutely horrid day I had in school with my lunch bag.

“Call the principal, now!”

“I will… tomorrow…” Mom replied.

What?! Why not right now?!”

“Ohhh… alright, I will call them in a second.”

(She started casually phone calling some stranger, while tapping random numbers.)

Ahem? Where’d the call go?¨

“Didn’t you hear the phone? I just called them.”

“You cannot fool me, Mom. I know you were just tapping numbers and calling a random person.” Then I put on my I am disappointed at you for not calling my principal because two bullies bullied me because of my lunch on a Friday face.

I bet you’re out of breath from reading that, right? Well, to make it easier for you, it was my pouting face.

“Well, maybe you should change schools then,” Mom shot back at me.

“This was all my lunch’s fault because water started leaking from the bag. If it was Victoria, everyone in the class would go and help her in any way possible and would give her unnecessary amounts of towels. See how hard my life is?”

The very next day… 

We were driving to somewhere I wasn’t familiar with, and usually at this time we’d be pulling up to the school’s parking lot.

I asked my mom, “Where are we going?”

“To your new school…”

THE END


The Flower of Cator

I run around in my backyard, playing a fun game called Red Light, Green Light. I am playing with my four best friends: Morgan, Miranda, Miriam, Mira, and me, Madison. 

“Caught you!” Miranda shouts in glee at me as I wobble over. Suddenly, I fall to the ground, clutching my side. It feels like a side stitch, just worse; a million times worse. I scream in agony and I can barely stand up. 

After staying there for a while, the pain finally begins to subside and I slowly get up. My tear-streaked face looks around. All of my friends are staring at me oddly. Finally, Miriam takes me by my arm back into my house. Then, all my friends leave. 

My mother knows that something is wrong with me. However, she doesn’t know what. She thinks that I’ll be alright, I probably just got a cramp. She was wrong, and not doing anything was the biggest mistake she has ever made. 

The next day is my 14th birthday. Little do I know that it is my last. The pain gets so bad that we go to the hospital, but the doctors can’t find out what is wrong with me. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I keep getting sudden pains all over my body. Once, my heart stops beating. Luckily, there is a nurse in the room and she rushes for help. 

Everyone comes into my hospital room to give me get-well cards and presents. They know that I will be alright. After all, I am only an eighth grader, I’m not going to die or anything. They are horribly wrong. The pains get worse and I begin having a hard time breathing. The doctors put an oxygen mask over me while I sleep or else I might suffocate. 

The next day, things start getting out of control. I wake up in excruciating pain. There are doctors and nurses shouting “Code blue in 4-8.” 

I already know that my room is 4-8. I wish that someone would take me out of this misery. There are sirens going off of my heart monitor and all the other fancy machines around my bed. Soon, those sirens began to fade away. I know what this means. When the sirens fade away, I fade away too. My whole body is in agony, every muscle tense and screaming. I want to curl up into a tiny ball and melt into a puddle on my bed. 

I see a helpless doctor that is standing right next to my bed. He doesn’t know what to do and is staring at me as I slowly die. I let out a strangled gasp and that is my last breath. I close my eyes, see a bright flash, and leave this world.

***

It is a dark and stormy day when I see Courtney Quinn walking down the sidewalk. I jump back in surprise, for she died three years ago from cancer! Then, I realize that it is probably Miriam Quinn, her daughter, and also one of my best friends. She is walking around in the rain without an umbrella or a care that I am staring at her. I get a closer look and know, this can not be Miriam. She is way too old and looks exactly like Courtney did before she died, even with the same exact clothes on. 

I turn around and I don’t know where I am. It looks like a hotel, or a very fancy apartment. The room is very decorated and doesn’t look like anything that I have ever seen before. I search through my memory, looking for some kind of information that would tell me how I got in this mysterious place. However, I draw a blank. I can’t seem to remember anything except the fact that I belong here. Still, I know I remember some things because I remember Courtney and Miriam.

I wander out of my room and spot someone else in the hallway. There is someone that has their head down, slowly counting some kind of currency. When that person lifts his head, I see his face. It is my great-grandfather. My great-grandfather had died before I was born, but the pictures that we had were a spitting image of the man in front of me right now. 

I am starting to get freaked out. I see a group of girls pass by me who look suspiciously like the group of girls in the newspaper that had died in a forest fire. 

I don’t know where I am, and I am starting to get creeped out by the fact that there are a bunch of people walking around that are supposed to be dead. 

Everyone in town has an odd look about them. Some people are wearing very old-fashioned clothes, clothes that I have never seen someone wear before. There are girls and women wearing really uncomfortable-looking dresses, very old-fashioned dresses. Others are wearing headdresses made of feathers. Then, realization hits me. Those girls and women wearing those dresses are from a long time ago, from the pioneer times! And those people wearing headdresses. Those are probably Native American chiefs. How are they still alive, and what are they doing here?

I am so confused, and I don’t even know how I got here! No one even talks here! Over half of this town looks like they are going to a costume party! I open my mouth to say something, anything to myself. 

Hello, I mouth to myself. I want to scream, and I probably would if I could make any sound. I am like everyone else! I can’t talk! I feel so confined, so limited and it makes me feel claustrophobic in some kind of weird way. And then, that’s when I figure it all out. Why I am here, how I came here, and what all these people are doing here: I am dead, just like the rest of the people around me. And my room…

I lean outside to confirm my suspicions. On the exterior wall, there it says, 

M.L.M 

R.I.P

My room is a gravestone. This place is a graveyard. And I will never be able to escape. 

As I figure this out, bits and pieces of my past return. I see myself leaning over on the ground, holding my side. Then, I see it. Nurses calling “code blue,” then me. Myself dying. My sight is blurred by tears and I wipe away the tears. I never got to say goodbye to my parents. Not to my friends. Now, I am stuck in this wretched place where only dead people are. I want to go back. I want to return back home. 

I realize that I can leave my grave and go out on the street. When I do, I look down and realize that I can see down on Earth! I see people at a funeral and realize it is my funeral! I spot Morgan, Miriam, Miranda, and Mira huddled together with tears streaking across their face. Then, I see my parents crying together. I wish that I could go down into my funeral and comfort them. I wonder if I can! 

In this place, life is not fun. In this place, life is a void of emptiness and nothingness.  There is nothing fun to do here. My theory behind this reasoning is that most people that go to the graveyard are very old. Many people all over the world die from old age and infirmity. Usually, people that die from sickness are older as well, around my parents’ age. However, there aren’t many children in this place. In fact, I haven’t seen a single person my age. 

When I go to the graveyard manager, I write down a question for him.

How do I go back to Earth and get my life back?

“One second,” the manager says while flipping through a book. It feels relieving to hear at least one person talk in this silent and horrible world. “Here, found it! You must find the Flower of Cator and crush it along with some Amberse Water. Then, you must spread the poultice on your head and temples to rejuvenate the life there in your brain, for it is believed that your soul is actually in your brain. The only thing that I can help you with is this.” And with that, the manager leaves, leaving only a glass vial and a piece of paper behind. 

I pick up the vial, wondering what it is. Then, I realize that it contains that Amberse Water, which I needed to mix with the Flower of Cator! Then, I pick up the paper and see that they are directions on how to find the Flower of Cator. I read the first instruction. 

  1. Find the Master of Meditation. After doing this, ask him for help finding what you seek. No one has succeeded in doing this before, so the rest of the instructions are unknown.

Okay, so I know that I need to find this ‘Master of Meditation’ person. I see an old man that is sitting down with his legs crossed and arms in front of him. He is meditating. He will probably know how to find this Master of Meditation person. I walk up to him and show him the paper and Amberse Water. 

“You are looking for the Flower of Cator?” the man rumbles. I jump back in surprise, both because of the fact that he can talk and also that he already knows what I need. The man taps me on the throat and I fight the urge to run away. What is this creep doing? Then, I realize. This man is the Master of Meditation. “Speak!” the man announces. I look at him oddly. After all, shouldn’t he know that I can’t talk?

I clear my throat and attempt anyway. “H-hello?” I mutter under my breath. “Hello!” I exclaim in excitement. “My voice! It’s back!”

“Wow, I totally couldn’t tell,” the Master of Meditation groans. “Call me Mac. That was my name before…” his voice trails off. I decide not to question him because it’s obvious he doesn’t want to talk about it. “Now, you seem to be pretty confident about this Flower of Cator.”

“Yes,” I agree. “I really need to find this Flower so that I can get my life back and return back to Earth. I really miss my family and friends.”

“Well, I don’t think I can help you with that,” the man says to me, beginning to leave. 

“Wait! Please! I’ll do anything!” I plead to the man.

“Anything,” the man says with a smile beginning to creep up on his face. “You say? Well, then, I will help you. However, you must do everything I ask of you.”

By now, I am so desperate to get back to Earth, I accept. If I don’t get back to Earth, I’ll be stuck in this place forever! I don’t think I can survive with so much boredom in this place! We agree to meet at Dead Man Hill the next day. 

When I wake up the next day, I stretch and get ready to head for Dead Man Hill. When I get there, I see Mac already standing there underneath the hill. He seems impatient and irritated that I am late, but we never even had a certain meeting time. He just said, morning. Technically, if he is annoyed that I am so “late”, he is to blame for not telling me when we were going to meet up. After all, he was pretty vague on the time for meeting.

“Finally, you’ve come here,” Mac grumbles softly. “And don’t talk too loudly. After all, we don’t want those old grumps to be suspicious at you.”

I want to tell him that he has no right to call those old people old grumps because he is one himself, but I bite my tongue. I don’t want to annoy Mac because he is the only chance of me ever returning back to Earth with my family and friends! 

Mac has a lot of drills for me to do, and they are all puzzles. Puzzles to test my logical ability and other things like that. Here is one of my puzzles:

If

34+5=36

56+2=39

27+6=45

47+5=48

28+1=33

then

41+5=?

I don’t understand what help this will be to me. All I need is directions that lead to the Flower of Cator. However, I don’t want to question his way of thinking. 

After all of those puzzles, Mac makes me do all of his housework. He makes me mow his lawn and do his laundry. After I finish cleaning two extremely large windows, I realize now I’ve been bamboozled. 

“You’re not really the Master of Meditation, are you?” I accuse to Mac.

He shrugs. “I never said I was,” he replies. “You always just assumed it. Anyway, I got a lot of good things out of this. Thanks Mad.”

And I am very mad. Just like my nickname. In fact, I am furious. I storm out of Mac’s house, making a point to spill dirty water all over his floor and windows, then toss the dirty sponge and towel at his chest. 

I can’t believe that he tricked me into believing that he was actually the Master of Meditation. I was so stupid. 

The next day, I set out to look for the real Master of Meditation. And then, I realize something. How did Mac return my voice if he wasn’t the real Master of Meditation. It hits me like a car. The real Mac was at the place two days ago. However, yesterday, the real Mac didn’t show up. Meaning Mac was probably locked somewhere, or was taken somewhere! I have to find him, now! 

I head to the place where I first met Mac, in the lobby of my graveyard apartment. I don’t see anyone there, but I suddenly hear some muffled screams. I hear them coming from the janitor’s closet, so I rush over there. 

The door is locked. Luckily, I have a bobby pin with me because I need to hold back my long hair while playing soccer. I quickly pick the lock and open the door. I see Mac in there all tied up with a gag over his mouth. 

“Mac!” I cry out in horror. I quickly untie the ropes that are holding him back. 

“Uh oh,” Mac mutters. “Look behind you.”

I slowly turn around and see that every single person in the lobby is staring at me with disbelief as if I had grown another arm. Then, I realize why they are staring at me! I cried out ‘Mac’ really loudly and other people must have heard me. I want to run away but my legs aren’t functioning properly right now. 

The crowd closes in on us. It’s like a zombie apocalypse is attacking us, millions of people. Finally, my instincts return and I grab Mac’s arm and we run out of the building. 

“Are you crazy?” Mac asks me. “What are you thinking, talking that loud in front of all those people out there!” 

“I’m sorry, okay?” I retort. “I’m still trying to get used to the fact that I can’t speak with freedom.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that you found me. I thought I was going to suffocate if I had to stay there any longer. Luckily, oxygen was coming through the bottom of the door. I’m very claustrophobic, you know. What took you so long?” Mac rapidly asks. I am so annoyed. 

“You’re lucky I even came to save you. Instead of complaining, you might want to thank me for saving your butt right there!” I yell at Mac. 

“Geez, I’m sorry,” Mac mutters. 

We head off in silence. We can’t hear the crowd of people anymore, but we couldn’t hear them in the first place anyway. After we travel a long way, Mac stops me to talk. 

“Look, it’s time that I tell you how you’re going to get the Flower of Cator,” Mac tells me. “I can’t come with you because if I come in a one-mile radius of the flower, you and I will get trapped forever. This flower is very heavily guarded. There are only two. There used to be three, but I took one of them. The reason why I’m not on Earth is because I only had time to put a little on my head before they caught me. Don’t ask me who they are. There is a certain scent that will knock out the guards. You must carefully pluck the flower with its roots as well, for it must thrive or it will disintegrate if it dies.”

I process all the information that I have learned. Then I ask a question to Mac. “Where will I get this scent from?”

“I have it,” Mac takes it out of a heavily padded container. Then, he takes out two sets of nose plugs. “Here, open it after putting on the nose plugs.”

I open the container and I can smell it, even through the nose plugs! It smells horrible! I feel like I’m going to hurl. If it weren’t for the nose plugs, I probably would have passed out from the smell. I quickly close the container. Then, I reach to pull out my nose plugs, but Mac stops me. 

“Don’t,” he warns me. “The smell stills lingers for a couple hours. Leave them in until we go to bed.”

It is a couple hours ‘til it was time for me to sleep, so I decided that decision to be wise. We head over the hill and soon, the sun sets. I can see a faint blue glow very far in the distance. 

“That’s the natural glow of the Flower of Cator,” Mac explains after seeing me looking. “When the glow begins to fade, the flower is dying. This species of flowers used to be invasive, but soon, they began to die out. Rangers tried to destroy these flowers with acid and poison but it didn’t work. In the end, they destroyed it with fire. However, the chemicals from the acid and poison caused the flowers to become supernatural. They got a blue glow to it and possessed supernatural healing and rejuvenating powers.”

We set up camp and I remove my nose plugs. I can just barely smell the scent of the liquid in the vial. 

“It’s Aceart Water,” Mac explains to me. “It’s sucked from the Aceart plant.”

I nod in interest. This world turns out to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would have been when I had first died. 

The next morning, Mac tells me his whole story. Mac isn’t dead; he is very different from everyone else in this world. In fact, Mac is in the real world right now, but he’s also in this world. The reason is that Mac got into a really bad accident and he fell into a coma. When he fell into a coma, the doctors tried really hard to wake him from that coma. However, for the past nine years, Mac had never woken from his coma. Mac came very close to death many different times. Because of this, he became a part of this world. However, Mac says that he is kind of in between this world and the world where he is in a coma. 

The reason why Mac has the ability to return my voice and do many other things is because he messed up. Mac wanted to return back to the regular world, all rejuvenated, but he failed to do so. Like me, he attempted to get the Flower of Cator. He did get the flower, but he didn’t get Amberse Water. Mac thought that it was Amberse Water, but it was more of a copycat, a type of liquid that would give supernatural powers. This was called Ravenkint water. He spread the poultice over his head and temple, but only had enough time to use a little bit of it before he was caught. Mac only got small bits of abilities, but he used them to his advantage. Unfortunately, due to this mishap, being caught anywhere close to the Flower of Cator will be big trouble for Mac if anyone finds out. 

After he tells me the story, we begin traveling once again. I can tell that we are close to the flower; I can feel it. It is like a sixth sense to me. After long, hard traveling, we finally reach the botanical garden where the two flowers are being kept. 

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Mac tells me. “Blow this if you need help, and make sure to use that Aceart Water,” and hands me a whistle. It kind of looks like a dog whistle, and I wonder if it works like one too. I decide not to attempt blowing into it unless I got into a lot of trouble. 

Mac slips away and I slowly creep towards the flower. At the last second before I enter the building, I remember to put on my nose plugs. I rummage through my bag for the nose plugs, but I can’t find them! I realize that I must have left them with Mac! Uh oh! I’m in big trouble now. What am I going to do without the nose plugs! Suddenly, I spot some really nasty smelling plant. I form a plan in my head. 

I walk towards the group of guards surrounding the plant with those smelly plants stuffed up my nose. I must look really weird with those plants up my nose because one of the guards stare at me as if I’m mentally ill. Before any of the guards get the chance to ask me something, I open the vial of Aceart Water and one by one, the guards topple over like dominos. 

After they are on the floor, I reach over to pick one of the flowers. There are two, one seeming younger than the other. I pick the older one and quickly flee the place. 

Outside, Mac is waiting for me. “Did you get it?” he whisper-shouts. 

“Yes,” I reply. I am about to take the Amberse Water out of my backpack when suddenly Mac reaches for the flower. My reflexes kick in and I jerk the flower away from the reaching hands of Mac. “What are you doing?” I demand. 

“Madison, you are such a gullible child,” Mac laughs. “Don’t you know that I tricked you? That I wasn’t actually helping you?” All the pieces come together. Of course! Mac had played me. He just tricked me. He needed the flower to heal himself! 

“So all my hard work was for nothing!” I shout at Mac. I am livid. 

“Of course not!” Mac protests. “I need you to do all the manual work and get the flower for me, for I couldn’t get it myself after the last mishap.”

I am furious at Mac for tricking me, and myself for falling for it. I run away, trying to escape from Mac. All my hard work had gotten me this flower and Mac hadn’t done a thing! Unfortunately, Mac was unusually speedy for someone his age. However, I knew that Mac would never be strong enough to climb a tree.

I never climbed a tree, not even when I was a little girl. I hated getting dirt on my hands and also, my hands were really soft and it hurt when I even tried to do the monkey bars. Climbing trees was never my type of thing. Although this crisis was just hitting me, I tried to channel my inner monkey and grabbed a branch and began to climb. When I was close to the top, the branch broke and I almost went tumbling down 15 feet, but a stray branch broke my fall and also knocked the wind out of me. 

I was right about Mac being unable to climb the tree. He lingered at the bottom shouting, “You can’t stay up there forever! You’ll come down eventually for the Amberse Water!” However, he didn’t know that I had the Amberse Water in my backpack. 

I slowly pulled it out of my backpack and yelled back at Mac, “I have the Amberse Water right here!” and waved the vial. That was it. That’s all it took to set off Mac with shouts of anger. 

I took out the flower and I remembered that I had to crush it. However, I didn’t have a rock or anything to crush it with, so I knew that I only had one choice. 

I popped the flower in my mouth and began chewing on it. I pleaded that this flower wasn’t poisonous. The Flower of Cator actually had a fruity taste to it! After the poultice seemed pretty chewed up, I spit it out on my hand and poured in some of the Amberse Water. After mixing it together, I spread all of it over my forehead and temple. I even put some on my scalp. 

After this, I could still hear the faint shouting of Mac as my skin began to glow. I was going back home. 


The Adventures of Chester Lansbury

Part One

My name is Chester. I am a cat of high society. I share a home with a human named Angela Lansbury. My life is simple yet exquisite and luxurious. 

Like most cats, I like sticking to a routine. This is my routine:

  1. Wake Angela up
  2. Meow until Angela feeds me
  3. Eat 
  4. Let Angela dress me
  5. Dress Angela
  6. Groom myself
  7. Get in the “kitty carrier”
  8. Go to tea with Angela

So naturally, I am stressed to death when I hear a knock at the door at approximately 7:13 A.M. just as I am eating my tuna and caviar salad. Angela (still dressed in her bathrobe) shuffles over to the door and cautiously peers through the eyepiece. Then she attempts to open the door. It takes her a minute to get the latch undone, but when she does, a tall, broad, important-looking man flanked by two police officers step into the foyer.

“Officer Lincoln!” exclaims Angela. “What brings you to my penthouse so early in the morning?”

“Official business.” 

“Official business?” she asks, taking a seat on an antique sofa. “What sort of official business would concern me?”

“Your safety of course, Mrs. Lansbury,” he replies in a most casual tone. “Someone, you see, has been targeting renowned Broadway actors and actresses.”

At this, Angela lets out a small shriek. She opens her mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. A moment passes.

In a small, shaky voice she manages to say, “You mean to say, Officer Lincoln, that I am in danger of being assassinated?”

“Yes, I do,” he replies. “I hope you understand, Mrs. Lansbury, but you are not safe here, so you must go into hiding.”

“Hiding?! But who will take care of my darling Chester?” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know the details, just that a caretaker has been arranged and that you must come with us immediately. Your cat will be dropped off with the sitter shortly after we leave.”

A sitter? They’re leaving me with a sitter?

“Can’t I at least meet the sitter?” Angela begs.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’ve got orders to follow!” says one of the officers who is standing around in the background.

Angela, Officer Lincoln, and I shoot him a look. The officer blushes and trains his small, watery eyes on his shoes. 

“Well,” Angela declares, “I must get packing for wherever it is that you are taking me.” 

“I’m afraid we were given strict instructions to leave your apartment untouched. It would look suspicious to anyone who set foot here if you took many of your things with you,” says Officer Linclon.

So, still dressed in a bathrobe, Angela, the two police officers, and Officer Lincoln ‘discreetly’ leave the building. It’s hard to be discreet when you have a celebrity with you. I climb to the top of the ‘cat castle,’ which actually is a fairly large structure that is carpeted in a soft, furry fabric that smells lovely. Ahh… I think. Unfortunately the smell isn’t enough to distract me from the dark cloud on the horizon in the shape of a cat-sitter. Also, there is the fact that Angela is in potential danger. My stomach knots itself. I am not used to being so nervous right after breakfast. I wonder to myself: what will this sitter be like? Would she even feed me?

 Then, all of a sudden, I hear keys in the lock. Could it be? The new sitter? I curl myself into a tight ball and watch, concealed from my castle, as a tall, thin woman wearing all leather steps inside the room. She opens a large, leather cat carrier and from it emerges a particularly malevolent-seeming pair of leather gloves which she pulls on as she scans the room for me. I hope she will have to check all 21 rooms of the penthouse before finding me. She tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder. I shrink back to the corner of the cat castle, hoping she won’t find me. But then the worst thing happens. I step on a squeaky toy. The sitter whips around, her pale blue eyes fixed on mine. 

“There you are, kitty.” She smiles, and I notice for the first time since I had met her that she has a long scar that runs from one corner of her mouth down to the base of her neck. “You and I are going to have a lot of fun together.” She is grinning now.

Then before I know what is happening, she is aiming what I recognize as a tranquilizer gun from watching soap operas with Angela right at me. The room starts to spin. I take one last glance at the sitter, her icy eyes bear right into mine, and then she is gone. And I am alone.

Part Two

I shiver awake and find myself in a freezing cold room. I long to go out and explore or possibly escape the clutches of the evil cat-sitter who tranquilized me who knows how long ago. As I start to get up, however, my face squishes against what seems to be a metal grate. Of course, I am in a cage. I can’t just expect her to let me walk around doing whatever I feel like. My ears perk up at a noise in the background. It is like lots of glass beads clinking together. The door swings open, and I recognize the police officer who had snapped at Angela earlier, followed by the dreaded evil cat-sitter.

“Where do you want the arsenic, Ms. A?” asks the officer.

Arsenic?! They have arsenic? I knew they were evil, but what do they need arsenic for? They’re not planning to kill anyone, are they?

“Right there is fine, Robert,” replies the cat-sitter, aka Ms. A.

“Well, who’s it going to be tonight, Ms. A?” asks Robert. 

“Lansbury.” My eyes bulge. I can’t believe my ears! “A little bird told me… ” Ms. A continues, “that you know exactly where Angela Lansbury is hiding.” 

“On 128th St in Luke’s Donut Shop,” mumbles the officer.

I gulp. I know saving Angela is entirely up to me. So when Robert comes to feed me some crumbly brown balls, I bite him so hard he lets loose a shriek, and I manage to scamper out of the freezing cold room, which turns out to be a huge refrigerator. I turn a corner into a room filled with tables and chairs, which I instantly recognize as a restaurant. I spot the doorway, which very conveniently has a catflap at the bottom which means this had to be the place Angela liked to go to with me when I was a kitten. Also, I am two blocks away from home! I am not quite sure what I will do what I get there. Whew. I need to stop talking so fast. All this sprinting is getting to me. 

As soon as I get home, I jump on the doorman’s desk, pumped full of adrenaline. Henry, the lonely doorman, would do just about anything for me. I pounce onto his keyboard, and after a series of pokes and prods, I manage to type in the address. He is so surprised that he doesn’t even notice that I am not accompanied by a human. 

“You want to go get some donuts, buddy?” he asks me. I nod my head like I’ve seen many other humans do. “Okay!” he says, abandoning his post. He is a good friend but not a very good doorman. He hails a cab, and we clamber aboard. The driver doesn’t even notice I am there. “Luke’s Donut Shop, please,” requests Henry.

The cab smells like incense. It is a long ride. Finally, we arrive. I leap out of the cab and swiftly race into the donut shop. I dash around the cashier counter and into the back room. 

“Chester!” cries Angela. “What are you doing here! Where’s the sitter?”

I let out a pained meow. Officer Lincoln seems to get the message. 

“We need to move!” he barks. “Now!” Angela, an officer that I don’t recognize, and I sprint out of the store, pursued by the lady behind the counter who tears off her apron to reveal a crisp, blue uniform. On the corner, we run into Ms. A and Robert dressed up as business people carrying briefcases. I hiss as an indication that these are the evil ones.

“Hands up!” chime all three of the police officers, brandishing pistols at them.

Ms. A and Robert, who are not expecting to be caught, drop their briefcases and bolt in the other direction. What happens next is so bewildering I myself can’t believe it is happening. Angela takes a tranquilizer from who knows where and shoots them both square in the bottom. They drop to the floor. As the officer cuffs Robert and Ms. A and pries open the briefcases to reveal a syringe loaded with arsenic and two pistols, Angela engulfs me in kisses. It feels good after what I have just been through.

Epilogue

I am perched on top of a soft, furry stool made of the same material of my cat castle back home.

A news reporter squishes her powder-caked face against mine for a photo. When I agreed to have a news feature done about me, I didn’t know that people would be invading my personal space and rubbing their grubby little fingers on my sleek, glossy fur. I am so relieved when it’s time to go home to all my new friends. Officer Lincoln, the other two officers, Henry, and Angela are throwing me a ‘surprise’ party. Henry let it slip, and now I know. Life is good.

The Ghost

Nia’s mom suddenly collapsed on the floor. Nia knew what this meant; her mom was dead. This maybe happened because her mom had a serious disease. Nia rushed to the hospital with her mom immediately and asked her mom’s doctor if her mom was officially dead.

The doctor checked if she was breathing and said, “She is officially dead because of a rare heart attack.”

Nia burst into tears. 

Later that day, her dad gave Nia a Ouija board. Nia didn’t know what was this was, so she asked. 

Her dad responded, “It’s used to summon dead people, like your mom, at three o’clock in the morning.”

Nia knew exactly what to do: summon her mom. It was already nine, and Nia’s dad told her that if she wanted to summon her mom, she needed to wake up at three in the morning. 

Nia was thinking how strange it was that her dad gave her a free gift, but after she thought that, her dad said, “And after you summon your mom, do the chores.”

Nia went straight to sleep and set an alarm for two in the morning. 

Ring ring ring! The sound of the alarm woke up Nia, and she went straight to her computer and searched up how to use a Ouija board. There were lots of suggestions, and they were all the same, so Nia picked a random one. She followed the instructions and prepared the Ouija board, and when she heard another timer, she knew it was time to summon her mom.

She said the old and un-understandable words, and she said, “Mom, come alive.”

Nia saw the lights flickering, and she heard a soft breeze. It started smelling weird, like yogurt with perfume in it. The windows were opening and shutting closed, along with the door. Suddenly, she heard a voice, and she saw a strange shadow come out of the Ouija board. She knew it was her mom. 

Her mom said, “Why did you wake me from my peaceful sleep?” in a low, dark voice. 

It was spooky, but Nia answered, “Because I want you to come back.”

Nia’s mom asked her, “How are you going to do that?”

Nia responded back, saying, “Well, I’ll just keep you a ghost, and you’ll just stay with me forever. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” 

Her mom said back, ”You’re such a child! Of course you can’t do that, silly.” Nia noticed her mom’s voice was cranky. Maybe that was because she had a hard fall. Her mom suddenly said, “I want to go back to sleep. Bye bye.” 

Nia followed the steps and said bye to her mom. Her mom disappeared, and all the creepy things suddenly stopped. Nia thought that the Ouija board wasn’t as scary as she thought. It was sort of like FaceTime. Nia knew she was going to look at her mom every day, but now she needed to do the chores.

After she was done with the chores, she plopped down on the sofa and took the remote and put on Birdbox. Since Nia was only 12, she felt really brave facing her fears of the Ouija board. When the movie was on, she was thinking about why her dad gave her the gift of the Ouija board. She paused the TV and went to her dad. 

Her dad said, “Shoo away little fly, I’m trying to focus!”

He was playing Fortnite on a video game console. She felt okay because she was used to her dad saying this to her. 

Nia asked her dad why did he gave the Ouija board to her. 

The dad answered by saying, “Well, it’s been in the family for generations, and now I’m passing it on to you. My mom also died, and my mom’s mom also died, and so on and so forth. And this time your mom died, so I’m giving the board to you.” Nia understood and went back to the TV. Nia’s dad said right after that, “Well, I think you missed a spot. A big one.” 

Nia went back to work and when she was finished, she went back to the sofa. But before her eyes, she saw her dad watching his favorite movie on Netflix called Shine. Nia was used to this, but she always thought to herself, What a creepy movie. But she also thought to herself, What a creepy family I have. Nia suddenly heard in the movie that a girl lost her mom and summoned her on the Ouija board. That girl sounded like Nia. She wondered if the story was based on her, but she was sure it wasn’t. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, she thought to herself. She plopped on the sofa again with her dad, but this time she was slouching. She started watching the show with her dad. The dad looked at her with sad and fierce eyes combined. Nia thought that maybe her dad was scared, so she grabbed the remote and paused it.

But Nia’s dad said, “Hey, don’t pause it. I want to keep on watching!” 

Nia asked, “Then why do you have fierce and sad eyes all at once?”

“You know how this story is kind of based on our family?”

”Yeah,” Nia said.

“In the movie the dad dies, so I’m worried that I will die like the dad in the movie scene, since it might be based on our family.” 

“I don’t want you to die,” said Nia. 

The dad said, “It’s fine if I die. At least I won’t need to be with you. If I die, you will need to stay home by yourself and cook and sleep and make the beds, but at least you will have the whole apartment to yourself.”

The next day when the dad was calmly eating breakfast, he dramatically collapsed on the floor, just like Nia’s mom. Nia was still sleeping. When she heard her alarm, she woke up. She had forgotten to call her mom. When Nia woke up and saw her dad, she put her knees on the floor and started crying as loud as she could. Tears were flowing down her cheeks like a waterfall. Nia decided that if her whole family was dead, then why couldn’t she be dead? Nia planned to kill herself with the sharpest knife she could find in the kitchen, but right before she was going to go on the Ouija board and summon the ghosts of her parents. She got her computer and the Ouija board, but it was not three o’clock yet, so she went to her bed and started dreaming about how Shine was correct about how her dad died. She woke up at exactly three and started saying the words on the Ouija board. Then the creepy things happened again, like the windows opened and shut, and it smelled weird, and this time she heard lightning outside. Two shadows now appeared, coming out of the board, and this time it was her mom and her dad.

She heard voices saying, “Hello.” 

She saw her parents on the board and said, “Hello,” back. 

The mom said, “I miss you so much.” 

Nia said, “I’m seeing you every day.”

The mom said back, “Well, it’s not like I can actually see you in real life. Now, I just remembered that today, your grandparents are going to move to Hawaii so they can see you. The Philippines is having some trouble with politics and your grandparents lived in the Philippines. Maybe you can go live with Grandpa and Grandma.”

Nia said to her mom, “That’s a much better idea than killing myself.”

The mom said, “You were gonna kill yourself?” Her eyes and mouth were wide open. 

Nia said back, “Yes I was going to plan to kill myself, but now since you gave me the idea to go live with Grandma and Grandpa, I can finally have a happy ending! When are they coming?”

Mom said, “Today!” 

“What time?” Nia said. 

“Right now!”

Nia said, for the last time, “Do you think that they’re here right now? What house are they gonna move to?”

The mom said, “They’re going to move to the open apartment on our apartment floor.”

“Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad,” said Nia. 

The dad ignored her, but the mom said, “Bye.”

Nia followed the steps to pause the Ouija board, and then she took the keys and unlocked the door. She ran to the apartment on her floor. She saw her grandma and grandpa waiting for her, and they looked surprisingly young.

They said that they were only 44 years old and Nia said, “Hey, that’s just as old as my parents, and they’re dead already!” 

They looked at Nia, surprised and shocked, and they said at the same time, “What? They’re dead? We’re their parents!”

“Yep. They’re dead.”

Then the grandparents pulled out a surprise for Nia. Nia had forgotten that it was her birthday. Their present was an iPhone X Super and a picture with Nia’s grandparents that had more than a billion dollars. 

Nia lived happily ever after with her grandparents. 

The End


The Mystery of the Missing Egg

One day in the middle of summer, Mummy Dragon was sitting on the top of the mountain in her dark and narrow cave, sitting on her eggs. Then she was hungry, so she flew off to the top of the woods to find food. As she flew off, her feet pushed one of the eggs down the mountain. The mummy dragon didn’t notice that one of her spotty eggs slipped out of the cave. 

Meanwhile, Lucy was in the house of her stepmother because her real mother got stuck in a car crash. Her stepmother had just kicked her out of the house. She went to the mountain to think about her lovely mom by the bushy bushes. Suddenly, the egg rolled out of the bush. Lucy was shocked. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. She ran back home with the egg in her arms. When she got there, her stepmother shouted at Lucy and said, “Get that smelly egg out of the house!”

Lucy then walked up a hill and found a palace. The palace had big cones at the top and had soldiers guarding the gate with big, fluffy hats. I think this is because the queen wanted to be mean by making them hot. It was so hot that the soldiers felt like it was cold, so they didn’t really mind.

So, back to the story. Lucy went into the palace and met a queen that was very wicked. She would always trick people with her nasty tricks. Lucy told the queen that she found this egg near the mountain of dragons.

The queen made a wicked smile and said, “Come here, my dear, and I’ll show you a cozy bed for your eggs to stay in.” Lucy followed her into a dark room. She said, “Bye, have fun!”

But as she closed the door, Lucy fell into something’s mouth. What could it be…?

It was a dragon! It was actually the egg’s mom that the queen’s servants had caught before. Lucy kicked and shouted, but the dragon wouldn’t let her out. Then, Lucy had an idea! She could rub the dragon’s tummy and make her sneeze, and then she shot out of the dragon’s mouth. That’s when the dragon noticed that the egg Lucy was holding was one of her babies because the egg just hatched. The mummy dragon got mad at Lucy and thought Lucy was trying to steal her babies, but the egg didn’t call her Mummy. She called Lucy Mummy, so she knew that Lucy had taken care of her babies and thanked her. So, she decided to fly Lucy back home. 

When they got there, Mummy Dragon noticed that Lucy’s face fell, so she asked Lucy, “Why are you looking so sad?

Lucy sadly told Mummy Dragon the story of her stepmother. 

Mummy Dragon decided to secretly burn the stepmother. So, they made a plan to burn the wicked stepmother. So, when the stepmother went out to call Lucy to do her chores, Mummy Dragon blew fire at the stepmother, and the stepmother turned black. 

So right now, Lucy lives with the mummy dragon, and the mummy dragon teaches her how to be a dragon. So she turns into a human dragon.

The End


Molly’s Birthday

Once upon a time, there was a girl dog named Molly, and she could run super fast. Molly was very energetic. All Molly wanted was to go to explore the galaxy.

Molly’s mom was a cat, and her dad was a dinosaur. She also had a little brother named Austin, who was also a dog. In two days Molly was going to turn 13 years old. So, her family started to plan a trip to explore the galaxy, just like Molly wanted. The dad was trying to get some rocket fuel for their rocket so they could have enough energy for the rocket to see everything in outer space.

On the day of Molly’s birthday, her parents told her about the trip they were going to have for her birthday. When everything was ready, the mom started the engine for the rocket and they blasted off into space. They saw all the stars twinkle in the sky.

But, there was a hole in their rocket, and fuel started to fall, well, float away. Molly was trying to think about how she could block the hole. She saw that her brother was chewing on mega-stretchy gum. She got a stick of gum, and she started to stretch it out. When the candy was big enough, she was able to block the hole, and no more fuel was coming out. 

Molly’s mom started the engine of the rocket again, and they were off. Molly saw so many different planets she had never seen. She saw Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune so far. Austin, the brother, took some photos on his camera. The dad was feeling a bit hot, so he opened a big window.

There was a big turn up ahead, however. When the mom turned the wheel, Molly fell out the window. Luckily, she had her space helmet on. She was floating away from the rocket. The family was freaking out. They went to go stop at a gas station, and they saw her getting farther and farther. Near the gas station was a shop. So, the dad bought some rope to swing the rope like a lasso.

Meanwhile, Molly saw herself getting away from her family. She started to relax, and she saw more planets, like Jupiter, Mars, and Earth. Earth was Molly’s favorite planet. She saw her family going to the shops, and they bought rope. Molly was very confused. Then she realized that her family was trying to save her. So, Molly tried to float closer to her family. 

The dad swung the rope, and Molly caught it, and they went back to their rocket. They saw the last and final planets. They saw Venus and Mercury. Then Molly saw… the sun!

Molly had the best birthday ever, and she would never forget this day.

It was a bright and sunny day outside on the planet Pluto, and Molly was in her house and had her favorite yellow hat on (she couldn’t put on a shirt or pants because she was a dog). She was also taking out the photos from her birthday, which was yesterday. Molly was thinking that she could go back to space. However, from what happened on her birthday, Molly’s parents wouldn’t want to go back out there. Her mom and dad did not want her to go and lose her again. But, Molly remembered she had a telescope, so now she could always see the stars and planets in space. 


Experiment Gone Wrong

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, my team and I, an elite group of ninjas, sat in our protective tent and did a final run-through of our plan. 

“Okay, first step?” asked August. August was a trained dancer who used to work in the circus. Just like all of us girls, she’s a GEM (Genetically Engineered Mutant). August’s DNA was mixed with a feather, so she had the ability to become weightless at will. August was thirteen years old.

“Sneak up to Dr. Penski’s secret lab,” replied May. Dr. Penski was the mad scientist who created us. He mutated animal life as a hobby, and we are all sworn to stop his evil plots. May’s DNA was mixed with coral. She could communicate with sea animals.

“Next step?” questioned June. June’s DNA was created with glass. She could turn invisible whenever she wanted.

“Take out the guards and sneak in,” said December. December’s DNA was mixed in with clouds. She could control the weather with her feelings. December was 16. 

“Final step?” quizzed January. January’s DNA had a piece of a dead person’s brain in it (yes, I know, sounds kind of creepy, but if you see it, it’s really cool). She could summon and control the undead. January was 17.

“Crush Dr. Penski!” I exclaimed, pounding my fist into my hand. I was 18. My name is April. My DNA is mutated with a bit of all animals. Don’t ask me how, but Dr. Penski is more powerful than you think. I was supposed to be his ultimate weapon, able to morph into any animal. But for an IQ of 300, he’s pretty clueless in keeping ‘henchmen’ in his favor. Because if you ask me, if you want people to stay with you, don’t leave them in tiny, cramped cages with barely enough food or water. And now look at us, escaped mutated beings out to kill him. Nice move, Dr. Penski! Anyways, lesson of the day, kids: Don’t imprison genetically engineered beings and expect them to work for you.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” yelled December, jumping up to her feet as a burst of brilliant sunlight illuminated her face. 

“Um, it’s that way,” said January, a rotting hand reaching out of the ground and pointing.

We swiftly jumped into the trees and ran quickly towards the secret lab, pulling up our masks and carefully sticking to the shadows.

Finally, we reached the secret lab. The entrance was hidden behind a curtain of moss, and the lab was disguised as an enormous stone. The lab was surrounded by guards.

Step one, complete, I thought. Now for step two.

Now!” yelled May. 

“So much for a covert mission,” I said to myself.

Then all hell broke loose. Literally. Because January yelled and zombies rose from the ground and started attacking the guards and dragging them underground. 

August started floating around and kicking guards’ heads. She whirled around, kicking up, down, left, right, and around. Unconscious guards littered the ground.

June turned invisible and started pranking the guards, pulling down pants, yanking ears and noses, giving wedgies, and generally having a great time. She was just seven, after all.

December summoned a tornado that swept up the guards. She also made lightning strike the guards and fried them till they were crispy — the way I like my toast.

May just kicked and punched since she couldn’t really summon sea animals on land, but I wouldn’t be worried because man that six-year-old can hit.

I morphed into different animals and slashed, scratched, bit, and tackled until I felt like collapsing.

Finally, all the guards were either unconscious, dizzy, fried, pranked, or sucked to hell never to be seen again. Your average day in the life of a genetically engineered mutant. Pretty simple stuff.

“Okay, guys, be careful when you go in. We haven’t taken out all of the guards yet,” reminded June, turning visible and looking slightly out of breath from all of her vicious pranking. She turned invisible again, and we heard her say, “Let’s move!” 

Step three initiate! I thought excitedly as we crept stealthily inside. 

I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the dark, gloomy atmosphere of Dr. Penski’s laboratory.

“Brings back bad memories, doesn’t it?” June said, shuddering as she turned visible.

I shivered as I remembered being trapped in a tiny cage, unable to shapeshift or move.

“Let’s get this over with quickly,” said May, whimpering and grabbing hold of my hand. 

“Yeah,” I agreed, squeezing her hand gently.

We moved through the dark hallway, silent as a group of ninjas. Which I guess we were. 

We reached the end of the hall and peeked past the wall. We saw the hunched back of Dr. Penski, who was leaning over another one of his poor test subjects. He was chuckling evilly.

“A drop of spider DNA, a scorpion’s tail, ten strands of monkey fur… Complete!” he cackled. “Behold my latest creation: the spider-monkey!” A hulking monkey rose from the mist. But this wasn’t just some ordinary monkey. The monkey had eight long, hairy legs and a scorpion’s tail. The guards cheered and clapped. Dr. Penski stood proudly and admired his creation. “Beautiful!” he bragged. He clapped his hands, and the guards dragged the creature into a cage alongside the many other cages filled with mutant beasts, then exited the room.

The beasts were truly, well, gross. They snarled and clawed at the bars of the cages. Honestly, they had a speck of my sympathy. Technically, they were like us: genetically engineered mutants trapped in cages.

Come to Dr. Penski’s Mutant Emporium! (At your own risk)

  • A whale/shark
  • A donkey/monkey/snake
  • A snake/scorpion/spider
  • A zebra/lion/tiger/leopard
  • A wolf/lion/cheetah
  • And much more!

Entry fee: Your life

“He’s been at work since three years ago,” June muttered, flickering in anxiety. 

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get him,” said May.

  But something was wrong. My senses tingled as I scanned the room. The target was easy. Too easy.

A second too late I realized, “Wait, why did the guards leave?”

But it was too late. May, June, January, December, and August were already rushing into battle. 

Dr. Penski turned around and smirked. “E for effort, girls! Nice try. But you can’t scream ‘now’, annihilate my guards, and not expect me to notice! Guards, get em’!”

Guards rushed into the room, swarming around them. I knew we should have gone with covert, I thought, charging into battle.

The guards outnumbered us 20 to one. And no matter how amazing our powers were, we couldn’t defeat them. Eventually, they tied us up with rope and dragged us before Dr. Penski.

“Nice to see you again, daughters!” he cackled.

“Call us that one more time, and I swear, I will rip you apart piece by piece, you [this part was taken out by the editor]!” said January.

“I’d like to see you try!” Dr. Penski sneered. He clapped his hands, and the guards dragged us together. “I have a proposition for you. Work for me, and I’ll set you free!”

No way!” we all declared simultaneously.

He started pacing around and muttering under his breath. Then he brightened.

“What if I told you that I would feed you to my mutants?”

We glanced at each other. “Still no,” we said.

He sagged.

“It’ll be painful… ”

“Nope.”

“Please?”

“Nuh-uh.”

He slumped. “Fine!” he declared. “The beasts it is.”

The guards pulled us towards the cages. I tried to shapeshift, but I couldn’t. The ground shook with the undead trying to surface. Thunder rumbled outside. June… hold on, where was June?

“Where’s June?” I whispered to January. 

“Uh… hold on, where is June?” she whisper-shouted.

“That’s what I asked you,” I pointed out.

“Do you think… ?” she trailed off.

“Just maybe… ?” We grinned at each other.

“Prepare to meet your doom!” screamed Dr. Penski. His robots started dancing. 

“D-O-O-M!” his robots chanted, standing on each others’ shoulders and waving pink sparkly pom poms in the air. “Your doom!”

“O-kay?” said August. “I’m not pretending that wasn’t terrible coordination and flips back there. They were. Now, I really thought you could have added a backflip at the end followed by a front handspring. The choreography was not too shabby, but you had too much transition time. Now, remember if your velocity downwards reaches over six miles per hour, you need to go down head first and tuck into a shoulder-roll 4.009 seconds before you make contact with the ground, and — ”

Enough!” thundered Dr. Penski. “No one messes with my beautiful choreography and gets away with it! I will release my — !” He reached down to press the button to open the cage doors. 

“Not so fast!” An invisible hand reached over and plucked the remote control out of his hands and threw it to the side.

June turned visible, and we all cheered. She planted her hands on her hips and smiled triumphantly. She began working on our ropes, using a shard of glass. Finally, I was free! I shook myself out of the ropes, morphed into a jaguar, and used my sharp claws to free the rest of our GEMs. But just as I turned to smile at June, a shadow lurked behind May, grabbed her, and pressed a dagger to her neck. 

May!” we all screamed.

“Stop attacking, and move silently into that cage, no funny business — or the girl dies!” snarled Dr. Penski.

“How could you?! She’s only six years old!” I screamed at Penski.

“The more reason to threaten you!”

“Leave her alone!” yelled January. 

“Ten, nine, eight!” He pressed harder, and May gave a stifled scream. 

Maybe… I thought.

The other GEMs moved into the cage, but I stood my ground, hatching a plan. 

“Seven, six, five!” he glared at me.

“April, please! What are you thinking?!” shrieked December.

Rain splattered the ground outside.

I didn’t move or respond, pursing my lips and steeling my nerves. If we wanted to be free, I had to take this chance. 

“April! Don’t be selfish!” yelled June.

“Four, three, two — ”

I kicked into action. I morphed into a cheetah and charged into Penski at lightning speed. Everything slowed down.

No!” he shrieked. 

Yes!” cheered May.

I rammed into Dr. Penski at full speed.

Oof!” he grunted.

I let the GEMs out of their cages. June hugged May so fiercely that May’s face turned blue. 

“You had us worried sick!” she scolded. 

But in all the excitement, Dr. Penski reached the remote control! He grabbed it. “Mwa ha ha ha,” he cackled. “Prepare for the end of your worthless little lives — my worst monster! Meet Cerberus!” He slammed his hand on a button, releasing a cage door. An enormous three-headed dog leaped out. 

The beast had a scorpion’s tail, three sets of dripping poison jaws, and monstrous wings. The GEMs and I gaped in horror. 

“Attack!” yelled Penski. The monster lunged for us.

“Dodge under!” commanded January.

We slid under the giant dog and joined together behind him. 

“Okay, guys, you know the drill,” January sighed.

We assumed a fighting stance and gathered all our power. Zombies rose from the ground. Electricity crackled in the air. I morphed into a dragon. June turned invisible. August became weightless. The sea animals sloshed around in their tanks.

Cerberus turned around and roared. August and June jumped and climbed on top of the dog as a distraction. They pulled at his dark, grisly fur and screamed in his ears. The confused beast lumbered around and looked for the annoyance, leaving the coast clear for the rest of us. January’s zombies clambered on top of him. The sea animals churned up water and engulfed him. Lightning struck the water and electrocuted him. We had him pinned down… or so we thought.

Suddenly, Penski’s creation rose up and shook off the attacks. 

Ha ha ha! Well done, my baby!” yelled Penski.

Cerberus struck down my sisters and hooked them up with his claws, choking them. My blood boiled. No one harms my siblings and gets away with it! I roared with fury as I spread my scaly wings. Rushing towards the monster, I struck him with my foot. He stumbled back and slashed me painfully on the face. I slapped him with my tail and pinned him to the ground. I raised my claws for the kill. But just as I brought my hand down, I hesitated. 

This beast is like us, I thought. Maybe it doesn’t deserve to die. Maybe it’s like another GEM, a mutant designed to kill. Maybe if I just let it go… Hold on, April, what are you thinking?! It hurt my sisters! But also… 

“April… I can’t breathe… ” choked May. 

“What are you waiting for?” gasped August.

That set me off. Once again, I brought my claw down, this time harder. I shuddered and closed my eyes when I heard the beast’s pitiful whimper as it took its final breath and went limp under me. I turned back to a human and closed my eyes in sorrow. A single tear slid down my cheek as I sank to my knees. I let out a sob and squeezed my eyes shut.

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“You did the right thing,” January said. “I know it’s hard, but you did.”

“I know how it feels,” August said. “Remember the Chicago Mission?” I nodded, remembering Penski’s snake/bird.

May walked up to me, her big brown eyes shining with tears. “Thank you, April,” she whispered.

“Wow, that was beautiful! But I’m going to destroy you!” declared Penski half-heartedly.

“Face it, Penski! It’s over for you!” December said, planting her hands on her hips.

“Fine, but if it is, it’s over for you too! Guards, initiate self-destruct!” 

The GEMs and I stared at each other in shock.

“He wouldn’t do that, would he?” January asked.

“I think he just did,” I replied.

“Let’s go!” yelled June.

We rushed towards the exit.

“Blocked!” screamed December.

A hole in the roof blew up, and I had an idea. I morphed into a dragon.

“Get on my back!” I yelled over the sound of crumbling debris. They obeyed, and I soared into the starry night sky, seconds before the lab blew up. 

Then everything was quiet. A light breeze ruffled the GEMs’ hair as we soared above the clouds. We shared an understanding moment of silence. 

“Wow,” January murmured.

“Yeah,” June agreed.

And that summed it all up. Our dad commited suicide, I killed a sibling, May almost died. But it was all okay. Because being there, flying with my sisters on a beautiful night, I knew that I didn’t need anything else in the world as long as I had them. And I did. I had my GEMs. My beautiful gems.


My Most Important Object

One object that means a lot to me is a plush toy that a father from my church gave me once. It means a lot to me because it is a little Jesus and he gave it to me when I was five years old. It has sandals. They are little brown sandals (my brother ripped one off) and it also has a little white crown. It also reminds me of the father because he is in Europe. The toy feels fluffy. The toy smells great (obviously when you wash it it smells like soap). Right now, I have it in my bed and I don’t let anyone touch it.


Treating Things with Respect

My Black Wii U could hold 32 GB of space. It cost $300 plus the tax, which I know was about $326. It felt very smooth and looked like a box that you put the disk in and a pad that looked like a switch. When you played with it a lot, it would overheat and smell like fire. You could also hear a whirring sound when you used it too much. I never tasted it, but it must taste like Japanese plastic since the Wii U was made in Japan.

I distinctly remember that bleak December. December of 2014. I told my dad I wanted the Wii U in the past few months. Then, a few days before Christmas, my dad showed me what he got me for Christmas. You guessed it, a black Wii U. I had not opened it yet because it was for Christmas. He did not open the box, but it did not have any Christmas wrapping, so I saw the big letters that spelled Wii U on the box. I thanked my dad for the gift that has not been forgotten, even now. Sometimes on the weekends, I use it in the morning. It is my first ever gaming console I ever got. Therefore it must not be trashed like most people did when they got a Nintendo Switch. The reason I say this is because there was this YouTube video.

People say that the Wii U was one of Nintendo’s biggest failures, but I consider this a lie. It is honestly one of the best consoles in history and is considered great.

I still use it to play Mario games from the 80’s, 90’s, and one from 2014. I did not just trash it when I got my Switch. I just stopped using it for a while. It is not lost, or framed, or squished behind something, and of course, not lost. It is right next to the TV in the living room. Every time you are watching TV in the living room, you can see it right next to the TV plugged into the power outlet there. It still looks brand new, because I clean it to take off the dust. I had also taken much care of it when I got it up until now because it is not damaged. So, concluding this piece, my Wii U is a cherished item in my home. People treat it with care, I treat it with care, and it will stay right next to the TV for as long as… who knows? It is the best console I own. Then goes the Switch, then the PS4, and last is something that is not mentioned, which is the PS3. That is a completely different story to be told, but the Wii U is the best. 10/10 object. 


Elijah’s Memoir

I remember I had a snow globe. It was from Canada, and it said Niagara Falls, and it had a waterfall. Every time I shook it, it was like sparkly confetti falling inside. On the letters, there were sharp corners but a smooth ball shaped surface. There were buildings and boats. It doesn’t smell or sound like anything, but it is glass, so if you drop, it will make a pretty loud sound like shattering ice.

I was on the plane with my mom and sister on our way to Canada. When we got off, the first thing I did was beg my mom to take me to the gift shop. So she did, and the whole time my eyes were planted on the snow globe. I didn’t have to say anything. My mom already caught on to what I was looking at. After the gift shop, my sister and I went up this tall building in an elevator, and there was a glass part of the floor where you could see the city. My mom didn’t come because she had claustrophobia.

When we got to the glass floor, I was scared to go on it, so I was clenching my globe so it wouldn’t fall, and my sister was there right beside me.

My snow globe said Niagara Falls, and I asked my mom, “Is that a place?”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “Well, can we go there?”

“Yes,” she replied. “But change into your swim trunks.”

We got there. It was a beautiful sight to see. I looked back at the buildings, and they were the same as the ones in the snow globe. The sun was beaming on my face while I was in cool water. The sun was setting, so it was time to go to our hotel room, although my sister stayed a couple of minutes because she wanted to take pictures with the setting sun.

When we got to the room, I put my globe in a safe place where I could see it every time I woke up. It was like my energy source. When I see it, I feel like I can do anything. If I feel like it could be a bad day, I would put the snow globe in my bag like a good luck charm. I thought the only way the luck would work is if I shook it three times. 


The Woman

There was a woman who had a secret that she had never told anybody. She would go dark every night and did not know what she did. Every morning, she would see a new report on the news about a crime that she committed. She would always know that she did the crime, but she did not know how. She would be left clueless just like everybody else who was sitting in their living room or dentist office staring at a television screen, clueless to what was going on. 

There was one particular night that seemed like every other. When everybody was sitting at home waiting for another crime to happen, there was no crime because the woman was tired of seeing a crime on TV every day that she commited. To prevent another crime from happening, she stayed up that night. Every single day, her guilt built up higher and higher inside her, and she felt bad every day. She had not smiled in 10 years about what she had done to the world. 

One day she left her house to remind herself of all the damage she had caused and would probably keep causing. She wished she could stop every day, but she could not stop just by staying up. She stayed clueless as always.

One year later… 

Three hundred and sixty-five more days equaled to 365 more crimes that had been committed. The woman had made friends with the person within her body. The crimes had gotten better; they were small crimes now. They were crimes like stealing money from the elderly, stuff like that. She did not feel that much guilt and shame about the crimes because she barely committed murders and robberies and other crimes like that anymore. One day the woman was talking to the voice in her head, and she had a question that she wanted to ask the voice.

That question was, “What does it actually look like when you are committing these crimes?”

As soon as she finished asking her question, the voice got quiet. She did not hear the voice until that night. She was sleeping peacefully and felt lightheaded and then woke up but felt extremely light. She looked at her bed and still saw herself sleeping. So she just waited. Then she saw herself moving and putting on clothing, like dark clothing. She followed herself walking out of the house. Then she heard somebody calling out to her, so she turned around to see if there was something behind her. She did not see anything, so she turned back around to see if herself was still standing there. When she turned around, she was staring at herself then the voice started talking but from her body.

It said only two words, “Follow me.”

The creepiest thing about it was that when she was watching the voice, she did not look like herself. She looked more rugged. Her hair was all frizzy. It was a mess.

The voice started walking down the street to the closed bank and turned back around and said, “Be very quiet.”

Then the voice somehow opened the bank door like it was magic. The voice went straight to the vault with no problems. Then the vault door opened. Then the voice took a bag then kept putting more and more money into the bag. The voice took about 25 million dollars. Then the voice turned around and punched the woman in the face. When the woman woke up, she quickly checked the news, but when she turned it on to the news, there was no report on the crime. She was confused. She felt a sense of relief. 

She had not heard about any crimes in over a week. She did not hear from the voice either. She thought everything was over. One night she woke up to a familiar voice. It was the voice.

It said, “You will forget about every crime and every law you have ever broken. You will feel like a new person.”

The next day, the woman felt like she had just won the lottery. 

Two years later… 

The woman had two children and a loving husband. Every day she felt good about life. She was always smiling. She still saw crimes on the television, but something told her every single day that it was not her, so she had nothing to worry about. She ended up living a happy and healthy life with committing any crimes or breaking any lose. That’s what she thought… 

The End


Escape from the Ant Farm

Hi, I’m Lilah! I’m an ant. I hope you know a lot about ants, otherwise this story is going to make no sense. In my humble opinion, it’s pretty cool. FYI, ants are mostly girls. The males kind of just sit around the anthill until they go on a mating flight. Then they die. Anyway, the queen of this hill is all our moms. She gave birth to us. My job as a worker ant is to find food. But I’d rather watch the humans. They are really interesting. And I can actually understand their language.

We live right next to the house of Tony Relez. He recently divorced Elena W. His daughter is named Lucy. Now I’m hearing something really interesting.

“But Daddy, I want an ant farm!”

Wait — what?

“Yes, Lucy, but where would we get the ants?”

Oh, good. They can’t have one now. They won’t find us.

“There’s an anthill out back!”

Oh no. She knows! This is bad news. I need to tell mom! What? The queen is my mom.

I run in and to the queen’s private chamber.

“Mom! The people outside are going to capture us and put us in an ant farm!”

“Really?” Mom says skeptically. “I don’t remember that the humans know we exist.”

“Yes, it’s true! I heard them! Come see for yourself!”

“Very well,” Mom says.

We crawl out, and I show her.

Tony was just saying, “Okay, I’ll order the ant farm today.”

See?” I say, annoyed.

“Oh no!!!” Mom says, ignoring me.

“We have to run away!” I sigh.

She never notices me.

Mom starts yelling to everybody. “We need to start packing up! Everybody, gather your things! Food! Don’t forget food! Carry as much food as you can!”

See? She never notices me. The bad part of this is, our anthill is so big. It can sometimes take days to notify everyone. I hope the ant farm takes a long time to deliver. 

It doesn’t. After three days, a package arrives. I can read human language. It’s the ant farm. The problem is, we are still packing up. Oh! Good news! We’re almost done. Uh-oh. The people are coming over with the ant farm. I get a lurching feeling in my stomach. They’re putting sand in. Tony has a funnel in his hand, Lucy a shovel. They take sand from the sandbox and fill up the ant farm. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. This is my fate, and I’m just sitting and watching it? I guess I just love to watch humans. That will never go away.

Mom yells, “Okay, we’re ready!”

“Wait no!” I yell.

Tony has finished filling up the ant farm. They’re ready to look for ants now.

Lucy yells, “Look!”

The whole population of the anthill is streaming out. Blast it! Blast, blast, blast it. Talk about bad timing! They’re definitely going to capture us now. Tony grabs an index card and holds it on the ground. The other ants are walking up to the card and checking it out.

“No!” I yell, but it’s too late.

In one quick movement, Tony picks up the card, opens the ant farm, and taps in the card. I feel like I’m next, and I’m right.

Tony puts the card in front of me, his hands blocking the sides. I have no escape. Sighing, I step onto the card. He puts the card on the hole to the ant farm. I’m doomed! I’m slipping… I can’t hold on much longer. Finally I give up and let go of the card. I fall in. 

“Ow!!!” It hurts. A lot. Instead of moist soil like I’m used to, I land on hard-packed sand. I see lots of ants here, too. Ella, Mya, Lou, and others. But not Mom. That’s good, I guess, but without her we can’t reproduce. We’ll all die here eventually.

Old woman Lina speaks first. “The humans have sealed our fates. We will… ” Her voice drifts off.

“Can I just be the one to say it?” I ask. I don’t wait for an answer. “We’re going to die here.” They all stare at me with did-you-really-have-to-say-that-we’re-already-in-a-bad-situation looks on their faces. I’m like, “Jeez, someone had to say it.” Now they have seriously-you’re-so-dark looks on their faces. I tune out then. These people are too much. I’m watching the humans now. 

Tony says, “I think that’s enough ants. Let’s go back inside and water the ants.”

I take this as a big insult. We’re animals, not plants! We don’t need to be watered! But soon I see what he meant. He takes a dropper and squeezes water into the sand. Now the sand is nice and moist. I lick some of the drops of water. It tastes delicious. I’ve been thirsty for a few days. There’s only so much water on the front porch, where our anthill used to be. I don’t know. I could get used to this. 

One month later… 

Living in an ant farm is actually not bad. We get water every day and food every week. And not bad food, either. Yummy stuff like pizza cheese that’s still melty and honey nut granola. The water is always nice. There’s only been one crisis. 

Okay so — about a week into when we got into the ant farm Lucy said, “Daddy, they’re not tunnelling… I don’t like them!”

“Okay,” said Tony, “We can get new ants.”

I gasped — what were they going to do? My question was answered soon enough.

Tony said, “Let’s dump these out where we got them.”

“Okay!” said Lucy.

Luckily I heard them.

“Guys, start tunnelling!” I yelled.

Why?” asked Mya.

“Because, trust me, the humans are going to dump us out if you don’t.”

“Okay whatever,” they said.

“It’ll be something to do. We’re getting kind of bored.”

We started tunnelling as fast as we could. Actually, I was the only one really tunnelling because I was the only one that really cared. Fortunately our hard work paid off.

Lucy said, “Daddy, look! They’re tunnelling.”

Tony said, “Okay then, sweetheart, we don’t have to dump them out.”

Well, that was pretty much it for the crisis.

 Anyway, everything continued normally, pretty much. That is, until that one fateful day.

That day Lucy came downstairs from her bedroom crying. I wondered what had happened. Maybe Tony was getting remarried? But those weren’t happy tears.

“But Daddy, I want to keep them!”

Uh-oh. Is she talking about us?

“Honey, we’re moving.”

Wait — what?

“Your ants couldn’t possibly survive the drive.”

Wait — what? They’re moving and leaving us behind? This is horrible. 

“Like I said, we can leave them on a stoop sale and some other kid could take them.”

“But Daddy, I don’t want to move,” said Lucy.

“Yes, but we have to go today,” said Tony. “The rent is going up.” I’m devastated. Are they just going to leave us behind? This is horrible. “And we have to go today. I already ordered a moving truck.” Even worse! 

Even worse! I can’t leave her. It’s embarrassing to say, but I’ve really gotten attached to Lucy. And she’s gotten attached to us. I need to think. I really like Lucy. I can’t go with another kid. They might not give me pizza and granola. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going with them. But by now they’re getting in the truck. There’s nothing I can do… is there?

“Guys!” I say. “We have to go with them! We have to get out of here!”

“Why?” they ask.

“Because!” I sigh.

They will never understand me. I climb up and to the top of the ant farm, leaving them behind. In all the rush, Tony left the hatch open. I scamper out. By now the truck is pulling away. I can still make it! I run as fast as I can. It pays off. I grab onto a wheel and run up to the top. I jump up. I’m now on the big part of the truck. I run over to the window. It takes a long time. But thankfully Tony left it open. I climb in, unnoticed. I’m with Lucy, finally. 

The End


The Princess’s Daughter

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named Helen. She was married to a prince named Connor. They had lived a happy life together, but they wished for something more. A child. They had a child but couldn’t agree on a name. Princess Helen wanted to name her Ella. Prince Connor wanted to name her Rose. But the prince gave in, and so they named her Ella, but then decided her middle name would be Rose. Though, the prince and princess drifted apart over the years. Connor thought the princess was too selfish, his reasoning always being that they had chosen Ella as their daughter’s name instead of Rose. Princess Helen always said that Connor gave in in the end, and he agreed so it was fair. And, she said they had given her the middle name he wanted.

By the time Ella was two, Princess Helen and Prince Connor couldn’t stand each other. They would do everything separately. They also would fight over who would get to take Ella somewhere. For example, if Princess Helen went shopping, she would want to take Ella with her, but then Prince Connor would want to take Ella to an amusement park. Of course, he did this so that Ella would want to be with him instead of her mother. Ella would’ve wanted to go to the amusement park with her dad, because that would be fun, but she wouldn’t want to disappoint her mom. Even though she was little, she was very smart. Ella understood why her parents were fighting, but she didn’t understand why they got together in the first place. Why would they decide to marry each other in the first place, she thought, if they’re constantly fighting? She didn’t really remember anything from when she was little, so she didn’t remember how her parents acted before they started fighting. 

It was the day before Ella’s fourth birthday, and she was super excited. She was playing with her dolls in her room when she heard her parents fighting. She peeked into the living room where her mom was yelling at her dad.

“You can’t just walk out before Ella’s fourth birthday!” Princess Helen looked furious. 

“It’ll be better for Ella if I leave! How do you think Ella feels about us fighting all the time?”

Princess Helen paused. Ella held her breath. Prince Connor picked up a suitcase from the floor and walked to the door. He opened it. Ella ran out of her room and went to where her father was standing.

“Y-you can’t leave!” she cried.

Her father looked back at her with his watery blue eyes. He didn’t say anything at first. 

He gave her a hug and said, ”I love you. I will never forget you.”

And with that, he walked out and shut the door behind them. Ella stared at the door for a moment, tears in her eyes. Then she ran past her mother and into her bedroom. She flopped onto her bed and pushed her face into the pillow. She started to cry. Why did he have to leave? she thought. At least he understood what it was like for me to be in this situation, but there were other ways to solve the problem!

Princess Helen came into Ella’s room and sat on her bed.

Her face pale, she said, almost in a whisper, “I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t think of any words to comfort Ella, so she just sat on her bed for a while, until it was time for dinner. It was a very grim night that night. Neither Ella nor her mother said much. Princess Helen asked Ella if she wanted to sleep with her that night, but Ella refused. She didn’t want to think about what happened. She hugged her bear stuffed animal and tried to fall asleep. Why did he have to walk out like that? she thought as a tear rolled down her cheek. Why? After a while, Ella fell asleep, and the darkness of night fell upon the town.

December 28, 2006

It was Ella’s first day of sixth grade. Ella sat at her desk in class. She was taking a math test. Even though Ella had just started going to this school, at her elementary school, a few people recognized her and would follow her around and try to be her friend. But of course, none of her “admirers” understood what she was going through. It was also hard for her to make real friends because people might just want her for her fame. She had had a “friend” the year before at the beginning of fifth grade named Ashley who had seemed nice enough, but then one day, Ella saw Ashley on her phone. Here, let’s rewind. It was the end of the day, and Ella and Ashley were walking home together. 

“What are you doing?” asked Ella. 

“Just posting pictures on my story,” said Ashley. 

“Your story?” Ella asked. 

“On Instagram,” Ashley explained. 

Ashley showed Ella her phone. She was posting a picture of her and Ella.

“Don’t post those on your story!” Ella said.

“Why not?” said Ashley.

She paused and thought for a moment. 

“Actually, good point. They only stay for 24 hours. I’ll just post it regularly.”

Ashley tapped something on her phone. Then Ella realized something.

“Why do you need to post those on your story?” asked Ella.

“Uhhhh… ” said Ashley. “‘Cause we’re friends?”

“Let me see your phone!” Ella demanded.

They stopped walking. Ella scrolled through Ashley’s Instagram posts. Almost all of them were of her and Ella. Ella quickly scrolled down to the bottom where the first picture Ashley had posted was. Ashley looked worried. The first picture Ashley had posted was a selfie of her and Ella. It was also the day she had started the account. Ella knew this because Ella had asked Ashley what she was doing on her phone and Ashley had said she was setting up an Instagram account. And Ella also remembered that that picture was taken on the first day of fifth grade, which was when Ashley started the account. When Ashley had asked to take a picture with Ella, Ella had just thought, Eh, whatever, it can’t hurt. I’ll let her take a picture with me. But after seeing Ashley’s Instagram posts, Ella knew that Ashley had only been using her for her fame and popularity. Ella handed back Ashley’s phone and walked over to her limo driver’s car. Because of people like Ashley, Ella moved to a new school to get a fresh start. There she met Hannah. Hannah became Ella’s real and true friend. She was always there for Ella when she needed her. Coincidently, they got into the same middle school. But anyway, back to the math test. Ella looked at her paper. X=15-10. Solve for X. Ugh, what’s the point of these tests? Ella thought. She answered the question, then moved on to the next.

When Ella and the class was done with the test, everyone filed out of the classroom. They had a free period. 

As Ella walked out, a girl named Jessica from her class caught up to her and said, hurriedly, “Are you Ella Rose Welton?” 

“Umm, yes?” answered Ella awkwardly.

Jessica gasped and ran over to her friends, Elizabeth and Bridget. “It’s true!” she said excitedly.

Elizabeth and Bridget squealed. 

Eeeeeeeee!!!” they screeched.

What the heck is wrong with them? thought Ella. They sound like dying pigs!

Jessica, Elizabeth, and Bridget talked together for a few seconds and then came over. 

Elizabeth asked, “Want to be friends with us?”

“Oops, I’m late for class, gotta go,” said Ella, pretending to check her watch.

She quickly walked away. 

“But it’s free period!” said Bridget, but it was too late.

Ella was gone.

When Ella was walking with Hannah to have lunch later that day, Jessica, Elizabeth, and Bridget walked over.

“Hey, want to have lunch with us?” asked Bridget, looking hopeful. 

“Sorry, I’m having lunch with Hannah,” said Ella, trying to be polite. 

“Ugh, whatever,” said Jessica. “Let’s go, girls.”

They walked away.

“What is up with them?” said Hannah.

“They asked me if I wanted to be their friend after the math test was over,” said Ella. “I said I had to go to class.”

“Ha,” said Hannah.

Ella and Hannah could tell that Jessica, Elizabeth, and Bridget were not the types of girls they would want to be friends with. They started to walk towards Pizza Hut together.

Then, another girl from Ella’s class (Emily) walked up to Ella and Hannah and said, “Can I eat lunch with you guys?”

She seemed nice enough, so Ella said, “Sure! We’re going to Pizza Hut!”

Hannah smiled. Ella and Hannah looked at each other and nodded.

Ella, Hannah, and Emily walked into pizza hut together. They had lunch together and had a really good time. As they walked back to school, Emily skipped ahead. 

“Want to come over for dinner?” asked Hannah. 

“Sure!” said Ella excitedly.

One and a half hours later… 

It was the end of school, and Ella and Hannah were walking home together.

“Hey, want to stop at the pastry shop?” asked Hannah. 

“Sure!”

They walked to the pastry shop and got their pastries.

“Oh my gosh, these are so good!!” said Ella, eating her pastry. 

“I know, right?” said Hannah.

They stayed in the pastry shop for a while and then headed to Hannah’s house.

“Will your mom be mad that we’re a bit late?” asked Ella.

“Nah, I texted her, it’s fine.”

Ella and Hannah turned the corner and walked up the steps to Hannah’s house. Hannah walked in first, then held the door open for Ella. 

“What are we having for dinner?” asked Ella.

“Probably spaghetti and meatballs again,” said Hannah, chuckling.

 “If we keep having spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, I’m going to stop coming over,” Ella joked as she walked in.

Hannah rolled her eyes, smiling. 

“I’ll have to — ” Ella stopped mid-sentence. 

“What is it?” asked Hannah.

Ella ran out of the house as fast as she could and went down the road.

 “Ella!!” yelled Hannah. “What the heck?!”

Hannah slammed the door behind her and ran to where Ella was crouching at the end of the street. She sat down next to her. 

“What happened, Ella?”

 “M-my dad,” said Ella quietly.

 “What about your dad?” said Hannah. 

“He was there,” said Ella even more quietly than she had before. 

“I’m so sorry,” said Hannah. 

“What?” said Ella, looking up at Hannah. 

“Well, I… I kind of… knew before… ” Hannah trailed off.

Ella stood up, anger in her eyes. 

“You knew?!”

 “I… I couldn’t tell you!” said Hannah, backing away slowly. “It’s just… he’s my mom and dad’s friend, and… ”

Dark clouds came into the sky. It became dark out. It started to rain. Hannah could see tears in her friend’s eyes. Hannah had never seen Ella cry before. Hannah met Ella after her father had left, and after her father left, Ella didn’t believe that there was anything else worth crying for. Ella started to cry, and she crouched down on the ground again. Hannah crouched down too.

“Ella, let’s sit on my stoop, and I’ll tell you what happened,” said Hannah gently. They walked over and sat on the front steps of Hannah’s house. Hannah started to explain. “Okay, so my parents have a lot of money, right? They’re pretty wealthy. So, my mom and dad were invited to this cocktail party. My mom’s friend hosted it and invited her and my dad to it. At the party, my mom and dad met your dad, Prince Connor. They quickly became friends. And this was when you and me were already friends. 

“Go on,” said Ella. 

“The night my parents came home from the party, they didn’t say anything to me about meeting your dad there. But, when I was in bed, I heard them talking in their room, and I heard my mom say ‘Connor.’ I ignored it and went to bed thinking that it couldn’t possibly be your dad. But the next day my mom told me how she and my dad met your dad at the cocktail party. Now I understood why she had said ‘Connor’ the night before. I guess my parents were talking about how they met your dad.”

“Oh,” said Ella. She wiped her tears. “How come you didn’t tell me?” 

“Well,” said Hannah. “It’s complicated.”

“Tell me about it,” said Ella.

“Okay,” said Hannah. “For one thing, I didn’t really see why you had to know. But, also, one day, your dad came over for dinner like he did tonight, and my mom told him I was friends with you. I guess she hadn’t told him before, because he had no idea. Just like you had no idea that my mom and dad knew your dad. Well, anyway, after my mom told him that, he told me not to tell you. He said it was because he knew if you knew, you would tell your mom and she would be mad at him for leaving, or something like that.”

“Oh,” said Ella. “Well, does my dad even want to see me now if he didn’t want you to tell me that he was here? And did he see me when I started to walk in?”

“Relax,” said Hannah. “I’m sure he’ll want to see you. Are you sure you’re not mad at me for not telling you?”

“It’s complicated,” said Ella.

She smiled. Hannah could tell Ella was back to her old self.

“Actually, Ella, I asked my mom and dad to invite your dad over for dinner tonight so that I could bring you over and you could see him.”

“Aww, Hannah, that’s so sweet,” said Ella. “I haven’t seen my dad in seven years.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. She smiled, but it was a sad smile.

“Well, enough sitting around,” said Hannah. “Go in and see your dad.”

Ella got up from where she was sitting, walked up the rest of the steps, and put her hand on the doorknob. She hesitated for a moment. 

“Go on,” said Hannah.

Ella twisted the doorknob and opened the door. Her dad was sitting at the table. He got up. Ella and Prince Connor looked at each other.

THE END


The Sacrifice of Traxon Laxon

Traxon Laxon is a 24-year-old person from Neptune. In his world, he is a person who is worth a lot of money because everyone wants his special powers. Those powers are flight and fire. People want these powers, so they send their soldiers to capture him, and he always has to hide, and he feels sad because that’s all he does every day. One day his friend told him about a mysterious place called earth. His friend said that nobody ever went to earth and it was a safe place to hide. So one day, he took a spaceship and went off, and nobody has seen him since.

When he got to earth, he didn’t want to be seen because people were going to think that he was from another planet trying to kill them. But then he remembered that he has the ability to transform into anything he touches and so he did. He transformed into a human and was walking around safely.

Three days had passed, and Traxon Laxon had a job as a police officer and friends that were called Zack, John, and Ben. But one day, Traxon Laxon was at his apartment building in Manhattan, and someone rang his doorbell. Traxon Laxon was confused because it was so early in the morning. So he got up to get the door and saw something he never wanted to see. It was the people that were trying to kill him. He knew it was them, because they were holding all kinds of weapons. So Traxon Laxon punched the first two guys with a fist of fire, the next person got hit by a chair, and the last person got hit with a pan in his face.

When he finished fighting, he thought he was done but, no… 

A giant one-eyed monster came into the room and grabbed Traxon Laxon and threw him out the window of the building. So Traxon Laxon flew up to the giant monster and gave him a fist of fire. The one-eyed monster was hurt, so he sent his minions to take care of Traxon Laxon. All of the minions were on top of him, even the one-eyed monster.

There are too many of them, he said in his mind as he looked at the damage he did. He realized he put these people in danger, and his friends. He told himself, I never wanted people to get hurt, especially my friends. But then Traxon Laxon realized if he won the fight, they would still keep looking for him, and he would start hiding all over again. So he did what he had to do and grabbed all the people that were trying to kill him and brought them up to the sky and self-destructed, which killed himself and the people who were trying to kill him. 

One day later, after the big fight, Traxon Laxon was dead, and people were having a funeral. Everyone cried, but they knew it was the best for the city.


My Bracelet

My bracelet is light, colorful, bright, round, and the colors are like mountains going around and around. This bracelet brings up a lot of memories that will always stay in my heart and will always be remembered.

When I got my bracelet, it was unexpected, so I asked my mom, “What is this?” ¿Qué es esto?

She responded, “It’s something your dad left for you.” Es algo que tu papa dejo para ti.

I was in shock and didn’t know what to do. I loved it for who it was from, what it looked like, and because it would make me feel closer to my dad.

    The emotional feeling could be sadness because it reminded me of my dad because he had passed away when I was only five.

 The bracelet is on my arm right now, and it will always be there no matter what. I like that I will never feel like my dad is not still there with me.


The Last Wizard

Once, there was a young boy from the realm of magic. He was a young wizard and an apprentice of the greatest wizard in all of the realm. His name was Golgemort. And the apprentice’s name was Leo. And in the Earth realm, there was a girl named Rose who knew of the realm of magic in her grandmother’s stories. 

One day, Rose discovered a door covered in symbols in a different language. She tried to open the door, but it didn’t budge. But then, she found a small chest hidden in the snow. And inside was a key with strange handwriting on it. She assumed it was the key to the door. And it was. She opened the door and there was a hall of blue, glowing crystals. And at the other end of the hall there was another door. She walked down the hall and on her way down to the other door, there were little fairies flying around. She opened the door and she saw something beyond her imagination… a young boy… 

A few weeks earlier…

Leo was walking in the woods when he stumbled upon a little hut. Inside it he saw glowing lights. He looked inside and saw an old man. The man looked like the great wizard Golgemort. He tried to enter the house quietly without the man seeing him, but he tripped on a magic wand lying on the ground.

Then, Golgemort turned around and saw the boy lying on the ground. 

“What are you doing in my house?” Golgemort said, his eyes full of rage.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to invade your privacy, I was just curious,” Leo said hurriedly as he took a few steps backward. Not seeing where he was going, he slipped on a puddle of spilled water. As he plummeted towards the floor, he reached out towards the ceiling. Suddenly, his descent slowed to a halt. He was levitating.

Golgemort was shocked. “How are you doing that, boy? I thought I was the only wizard left…”

“The only wizard? I thought there were many wizards.”

“Well, a long time ago, there was a war between the magic realm and the Trolls. We won, but the Trolls kidnapped all the other wizards, but I escaped and I thought I was the only one left.”

“The only what?”

“Were you not listening to me, boy?”

“Not really, no,” Leo replied glumly, looking down at his worn boots. 

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Leo,” he whispered. 

“Speak up, boy!”

“My name’s Leo!” he yelled. 

“Calm down,” Golgemort said. “What is it you want?”

Leo looked up excitedly. “If you truly are the great mage, Golgemort, then you could train me to be a real wizard! Please, oh great and mighty sorcerer, be my teacher!”

“No, child, I can’t. I’m not a real wizard anymore. I’m far too old. You’re better off going somewhere else.” 

He looked up excitedly. “Could you please teach me?”

“Fine!” the old wizard snapped. “5:00 a.m. Your training starts then. Don’t be late or you shall suffer. Now get out of my house.“

Leo nearly jumped five feet into the air. “I won’t let you down, master!”

“Alright, alright. Now go! Don’t tell anyone about my existence! Everybody thinks the wizards are all dead.”

Leo quickly stepped out of the ramshackle house and ran with excitement towards his village. 

He was so tempted to tell all his friends about Golgemort, but he remembered his promise to the great wizard. He couldn’t let anyone know that magic still existed…

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Earth Realm…

“Let me tell you a story, my child… about the realm of magic…”

“Grandma, I’ve heard this story a million times already!”

“Fine, if you don’t want to hear my story again, go play outside,” Rose’s grandmother said, leading her to the door of her room. 

Rose sat in her bedroom, thinking about the classic tale that her grandmother would not shut up about. A long time ago, there was a war between the wizards of the Magic Realm and the Trolls. The great wizard, Golgemort, led an army of the greatest wizards against the Trolls.

“Nasty creatures,” her grandmother would always say. 

After thinking for a while, she elected to go outside. There was a thick layer of snow covering her backyard: perfect for building a snowman. 

“I’m going out, Grandma!” she called up to the half-deaf woman. 

Her grandmother grinned. “Alright, just don’t be too long now.” She knew Rose would find the door eventually.

Rose went out into the snow. She walked until she came upon a door with strange gold handwriting. She tried to open the door but it didn’t budge!

It was 5 a.m. Leo had been waiting outside for 5 minutes. When the old man came out, it was 5:06. The man said to Leo, “You’re here,“ the man said, surprised.  

“Yes,“ Leo said. “Alright, I’m ready to get into it, what kind of powerful, Troll-killing spells do you know?”

Then Golgemort said in his face, “Why do you want to learn any Troll-killing spells?”

Then Leo said, without thinking, “We never know when the Trolls are going to attack!”

Golgemort sighed. “You have a lot to learn.”

“Okay, then. What’s the first step of sorcery?”

“Well, the first step is using your wand. We have to get you one first.”

Then, Golgemort took him down into a dimly-lit cave with a gold door at the back. 

“So, I can choose any wand I want?” Leo asked. 

“No, no, no, child. The wand chooses you.”

“How do I know that it chooses me?”

“Well, if the wand doesn’t blow up in your face, it’s the one for you.”

“It blows up in my face?!” Leo exclaimed, horrified. 

“Yep!” Golgemort said excitedly. 

Leo gulped. “O-okay… ”

Golgemort unlocked the golden door, revealing a room with shelves upon shelves of different wands. Then, Leo picked up a wand and it exploded in his face. Golgemort stood in the corner, a smirk on his face, as Leo pushed himself up from the ground, his hair charred and ruined.

“Not the one,” Golgemort said. “Try another one.”

Leo gulped, even more terrified than he was before. He went over to another wand and picked it up. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Leo looked back to his master with a grin on his face.

“Hey, master, I think– ”

BOOM!

“… never mind.”

Golgemort looked around for a moment. “Maybe we should try a different type of wand,” he said, bringing the ashen boy a beautiful golden box, with only the tiniest hint of wear. “Maybe this one will do it,” Golgemort said, opening up the box to reveal a wand inlaid with phoenix feather, with gold and silver vines wrapping around the base. 

“Try it out,” Golgemort said. Leo took it, holding it gingerly away from his face.

“Please don’t explode, please don’t explode, please don’t explode… ”

After a few seconds, it didn’t explode. Nothing happened.

“Well, it didn’t explode within five seconds. I guess this is your wand.”

“Really?” Leo asked, a look of utter joy crossing his face. He jumped up and hugged his master.

“Get off me, boy!” Golgemort said, pushing him off. Leo was too ecstatic to even care

about his master’s hostility. 

“Well, we better get to training, then,” Golgemort said. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Leo said, still thinking about his wand. 

Then, Rose found a small chest with a key inside. She assumed it was the key to the door and it was! 

Inside the door was a blue crystal hallway with small fairies flying around. And at the end of the hallway, there was another door. She opened it. And she saw something beyond her imagination. A boy, wielding a small stick with multi-colored lights coming out of it. The boy appeared to be in battle with a dirty old man. She realized that the boy was fending the old man off, and needed help. She quickly jumped on the old man’s back and pulled him to the ground. 

The man grunted. “What are you doing, child. Didn’t you see that we were practicing?!” 

Rose looked at him quizzically. “Practicing? It looked like you were fighting!” Golgemort saw the girl’s clothes. She wore a strange skirt lined with stripes and odd buttons. Not the traditional robes of the realm.

“What are you wearing?!” Golgemort exclaimed. 

“You’re really asking me that?” Rose said, irritated. “I’d like to know where I am!”

“You are in the Realm of Magic,” Golgemort said. “Don’t you know that?”

“No, not really,” Rose responded. “Although…I have heard about a world like this from my

grandmother’s stories…”

“Where are you from?” Golgemort asked. 

“Um… Earth?”

“Ah, yes, the Earth Realm,” Golgemort said, looking off into the distance. “And how did you get here?”

“Well, I was playing around in the snow, and I found this door in the tree. I tried to open it but it wouldn’t open. Then I looked around for a key somewhere and I found a small chest with a key inside.”  

“I see,“ Golgemort said. “You can come to my house.” Then he yelled, “LEO, LET’S GO!”  

“Okay!” Leo responded. 

“Um, sure,” Rose said hesitantly.

So they set off to Golgemort’s house. Rose turned to the strange boy. “So what’s your name?”

“Leo,” he replied, looking down at his feet. “What’s yours?”

“Rose,” she said energetically. “So what’s the deal with–”

“We’ve arrived,” Golgemort interrupted. Rose laid her eyes upon the filthy shack that sat within the middle of a green swamp. 

“Really? This is your home?” Rose said incredulously. “This looks horrible!” 

Golgemort chuckled. “That’s what they all say.” He opened the splintered door, revealing a gorgeous home. The ceiling was a diverse array of different colors, all blending into each other, making everything seem infinite. Tiny fairies buzzed about the room, serenading Rose with an ethereal melody. Invisible maids were doing the dishes and cleaning the floors and cooking one of the most wonderful meals Rose had ever seen. 

Golgemort turned to Rose, a cocky smirk on his face. “Is it really that horrible?”

Rose looked down, filled with embarrassment. “No, not really, I guess.”

“Anywho, welcome to my humble abode,” Golgemort gestured to the space. A filthy grey dog popped out of its hiding space in the corner.

“What is that!“ Rose said.

“That’s just a dog,”  he said.

“Oh,”  she said. “This place is a bit strange. Are you sure that was a dog? It didn’t look like a dog.”

“Yes, I’m sure it was a dog. Now we have to find a way for you to get back home,” Golgemort said firmly, because he was getting a bit irritated with her and her billion questions.

“Easy, I just go back through that door and go home.”  

“Ha! The door doesn’t stay in one place for too long. It could be anywhere now. The dragon realm, the giant realm, even the realm of the mermaids, and that’s under the sea.”

“Then how do I get home?” she said a bit nervously, thinking she would be stuck in the realm of magic forever.

“Well, the door stays here for at least two days before it leaves for a different realm. And you came here a few minutes ago. So there’s a good chance we can still find it. But it’s dangerous, since in some parts there are dark wizards.” 

Rose gulped. 

“You know, The Cave of Wizards, where I got my wand, I saw some armor and a protection spellbook and we can give Rose a wand,” Leo said.

“You’re right, but she doesn’t know anything about magic,” Golgemort said.

“So what?” Leo said. “I learned magic and I knew nothing about it.”

“Yes, but it took you at least a few weeks to master it, and we only have two days to find the door.”

“Then we’ll only teach her the basic spells, to protect herself,” Leo said.

Golgemort was getting a bit annoyed with the back and forth and finally he said, “All right. Let’s go.”

“Where exactly are we going?” said Rose. 

“The Cave of Wizards!” said Leo. “We’re going to get you a wand and teach you how to protect yourself from the dark wizards.”

“But I don’t know anything about magic!”

“Well, it’s easy. All you have to do is–”

“We’re here!” Golgemort said, standing in front of two big gold doors. 

“Wow,” Rose said.

“This is where we’re going to get you a wand,” said Leo. Golgemort was looking for a wand while Leo told Rose how it works. “But you’d better hold it away from your face, because it’s the wand that chooses you, not you who chooses the wand. So you should be prepared for it to explode in your face if it’s not your wand.”

“Do I have to have a wand?” Rose said.

“Do you want to get killed looking for the door?” Leo said.

“No,” Rose said, a bit frightened.

All of a sudden, Golgemort said, “Try this.” It was a wand in a box, made out of wood with golden feathers wrapping around the bottom.

Leo yelled, “Remember to hold it away from your face if it explodes!”

“If it doesn’t explode within five seconds, it’s your wand,” Golgemort said.

Then Rose said in her head, five… four… three… two… one… Nothing happened, and Golgemort said, “Well done, this is your wand! It took Leo at least three tries to get his. Now we need to teach you spells. The first step is knowing how to hold your wand.”

“Like this?” she asked, holding the wand firmly.

“Yes, but you need to hold it a bit looser.”

“Like this?” she asked.

“Perfect.”

They spent all evening practicing. “Well, it’s getting late, and I think you’ve mastered all the basic spells. I think you should go to bed. Tomorrow morning we can start looking for the door,” Golgemort said.

The next day, when the sun rose, Rose woke up. Golgemort and Leo were already up.

Golgemort asked, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Rose all of a sudden said, “Oh yeah! I forgot my wand!” 

“And?” Golgemort said.

“And I have to get dressed.”

Five minutes later, Rose said, “Now I’m ready to go.” 

“Then let’s go,” Leo said, very excited to go on his first adventure using magic. 

So they set out into the dark part of the woods, where Golgemort assumed it would be, since he had gone into different realms before, and he knew the pattern of the door.

“We’re entering the dark part of the woods,” Golgemort said. “Everybody should get their wands out. Leo, do you have yours?”

“Yes.”
“Rose, do you have yours?”

“Yes.”

“Now we have to enter very quietly,” Golgemort said. “The dark wizards could be watching us.”

They walked for at least an hour. Nothing happened.

Rose said, “We have been walking forever. Are you sure there are dark wizards in the woods?”

Then all of a sudden, the dark wizards knocked them out with a magic spell. 

When they woke up, they were sitting in a small throne room in front of the leader of the dark wizards, Azulon. He had white hair, and one eye looked like it was blind. It was very creepy.

Azulon said, “Golgemort.”

Golgemort said, “Azulon.”

“Whaaaat?” Rose said. 

“I guess I haven’t introduced myself,” said Azulon. “I am Azulon, commander of the dark army, ruler of death, king of the dark wizards.”

“I guess you’re really into darkness,” Rose said. 

“Never mind,” said Azulon. “Why are you in the dark parts of the woods, Golgemort? You know that we are here and you know we kidnap anybody who trespasses.”

“We’re only looking for the door,” Golgemort said.

“So the door is here,” Azulon said, fascinated.

“Yes, why do you want to know?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Azulon said. “To conquer all of the realms!” 

“I should have known,” Golgemort said. “You still have that desire to conquer all the realms.”

“Of course I do. I am the greatest wizard in all of the realms.”

“Wrong!” Leo said. “Golgemort is!”

“Shush! Child,” Azulon said, and put him back to sleep with a spell.

“Why do you want to conquer all the realms so badly?” Rose asked.

“To prove I am the greatest wizard of all time!” Azulon said.

“Won’t that just terrorize people?” Rose said. 

“No! They will think that I am the greatest wizard ever!”

“Enough with saying you’re the greatest wizard! We get it!” Rose said.

Golgemort said, “Just let us pass. It’ll be easier this way.”

“No! I need to keep you here so you don’t find the door before I do.”

“Okay,” Golgemort said, knowing that they had their wands so they could escape.

When Azulon and his guards left, Golgemort used a spell to get him out of the chair. Then he said, “Leo! Wake up!”

“What? What?” Leo said. “How are you out of your chair?”

“Are you blinded, child? I used a spell!”

“Get me out of this chair if you got out of your chair using a spell,” Rose said.

And soon, they were all free. “Now we have to find a way to get out of this building. There are the dark army guards everywhere.”

“What about through the window?” Leo said.

“We can’t do that. The guards are surrounding the building.”

“What if we used a spell to make us invisible?” Leo said. 

“Yes, but we would need a rope, and we would have to make that rope invisible too.”
“Simple. The invisible spells last up to an hour,” Leo said.
“Okay,” Golgemort said, “But first we need to find a rope.”

“Good point.”

“We can only look for one in here, because there are guards outside the door,” Golgemort said. 

“There’s one!” Rose said, pointing to a rope on the wall. 

“Good spotting,” Golgemort said to her. 

“Now we’ve got to make this rope invisible,” Rose said to both Leo and Golgemort. “Could one of you do that?”

“Sure,” Leo said, taking out his wand and making the rope invisible. “Now we have to make ourselves invisible.” 

Golgemort said, “I’ll make you two invisible, but Leo will have to make me invisible.”

Golgemort made Leo and Rose invisible. Leo and Rose put their hands in front of their faces, but they couldn’t see them.

“Where are you guys?” Golgemort said.

“Right here,” they said. 

“Well, you guys shouldn’t move, otherwise you could get lost because I can’t see you. Leo, I’m right in front of you, you can now cast the spell with your wand.”

“You are now invisible,” Leo said.

“I already knew that! Now we have to find a place to put the rope where the guards aren’t.”

“Right here,” Rose said, while pointing. 

“Great spotting,” Golgemort said again. 

So they opened the window, placed the rope in between the guards, and climbed down the rope as silently and quickly as possible. When they were all down, they started running into the woods, as silently and quickly as possible.

They ran for twenty-five minutes and at least two miles away from the secret lair. Then they had been running for an hour, and wouldn’t stop, knowing that they might get caught. Then, they collapsed. They couldn’t even see the secret lair anymore, so they knew that the dark army hadn’t caught up with them. 

When they woke up, they saw the door in the distance. But then, they realized that there was a big river with crocodiles. They had to figure out a way across it. 

Then, they realized they had forgotten their wands back at the secret lair. 

Then Golgemort said, “It’s all right, I can do magic with my hands.” Then he did a spell that created a very high bridge across the river. 

They crossed the bridge, but then they realized that the door was moving slowly, so it was farther away than it was before. So they kept walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, until they saw flying books in the air.

“Careful, they’re really dangerous,” Golgemort said. 

“How dangerous can flying books be?” said Leo, so he walked up to them and they started flying around him and hitting him on the head. “Yep, they’re definitely–” he collapsed. 

“We better wake him up,” Golgemort said. “Azulon could come into the room where we were kidnapped and find out we escaped any minute. Leo! Leo! Wake up!”

Rose yelled, “Look! The door is moving again! We have to wake him up!”

“Okay, I’ll use my spell to wake him up.” Golgemort woke him up. 

Leo said, “Ugh, what happened?”

Then Rose said, “The door is moving quickly! We gotta go!”

Leo stood up and said, “But we’re going to need a protection spell to get past the books.”

“Good idea,” said Golgemort.

“Great,” said Rose.

“How do we cast that spell?” Leo said. “All our wands are in the secret lair.”
“Golgemort can do hand magic,” said Rose. “That’s how we got across the river, remember?”

“No, not really,” Leo said. “And can’t you remember I was hit by a bunch of books so I don’t remember stuff?”

“Oh, right,” Rose said. “Either way, the door is moving faster and faster. It looks like it’s going to go into another realm. We have to catch up with it.” 

So they started running towards the door, but then they stumbled upon the flying books.

“Now we need to protect ourselves,” said Rose. “Golgemort, can you make a protection spell?”

“I can try,” Golgemort said. “Aluminos devatos!” He said. And when they walked by the books, they didn’t get hit by any. 

“It worked!” Rose said. 

“I know,” Leo said.

“I told you,” Golgemort said.

Then Rose yelled, “Look! The door is moving even faster than before! We’ve got to move!” 

So they started to run and run and run. They couldn’t catch up to the door, so they decided to run even faster. Then, Leo spotted Azulon and his dark army behind them. 

“Um, I think we’ve got company,” Leo said. 

“Oh, no,” Golgemort said.

“Not them,” Rose said. “How are we gonna get away from them?”

“I don’t know,” Leo said.

“I think I might have a way,” Golgemort said. “If we keep running, we’ll tire them out. The Dark Army can’t stay alive for long, they’re from the dead.” They kept running and running and finally caught up to the door when the door stopped. 

Then, all of a sudden, a voice said, “We’ve got you!” They turned around and it was Azulon, holding up his wand. “Surrender now!” Azulon said. 

Golgemort and Leo yelled at the same time, “Rose, go!”

“No!” Rose said.

“Just go!” yelled Golgemort.

“No! I’m not going to just leave you to die with Azulon!”

“It’s fine! I’ve dealt with him before!”

“I’ll come back to help you!” Rose said, a bit sad. And she went through the door.

Berniece and her Amazing Adventures

So once there was a beautiful raisin with beautiful hair. Her name was Berniece. She was going to the supermarket to get more salt and sugar to make salty sugary water. Berniece put on her sun hat and stepped outside. When she got outside, Berniece burned her wrinkly skin and got a rain jacket to not get burned. Once again, she got outside with her beautiful sun hat, rain jacket, and taco bag.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” a random stranger yelled. “I’m having a — I need a taco bag. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Berniece was very annoyed by this random guy’s tantrum. Luckily she had a 30-inch sized megaphone in her taco bag.

Stop throwing a tantrum! Jeez!” yelled Berniece.

So the random stranger rolled away. He had no gender, so it was just trying to get lots of attention like the song “Attention.” A very good song. It also wanted lots of tacos because it was broken and also wanted a taco bag. After all that commotion, Berniece was only 120 centimeters away from the supermarket and her salt and sugar. She was walking and walking, but then a giant wrecking ball came out of nowhere and blocked the pass to the supermarket. The only way to get to the supermarket was to be Miley Cyrus and swing on the wrecking ball.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Berniece screamed with joy.

After the new Berniece Cyrus was done with her musical number, she dropped, stopped, and rolled right into the supermarket into the salt and sugar aisle. She put her salt and sugar in her taco bag and got them for free. So she got outside with her free groceries, but then Miley Cyrus popped out of nowhere and swung away with her wrecking ball.

So Berniece was driving her beautiful Lamborghini home after she finished swimming in 300,000 gallons of cranberry juice. When she went to go park her Lamborghini, she saw her jam jar of mail, and there was a magical golden letter that said… 

Congratulations! You are invited to the most fancy clancy lunch ever.

Berniece was flattered that she was going to eat fancy lunch in a fancy house. So she got her most fancy taco suit with her matching taco purse, not a bag. After she got her outfit done, she put sugar in her hair so she could be sweet. (Cringy.) Berniece was all ready for her fancy lunch. At the fancy clancy lunch there were 1,000,000,000 pizzas. There was also a guy with bunny slippers and french fries as a hat and 100,000,000,000,000,000 tacos. The host of the fancy clancy lunch was wearing a pink, fluffy unicorn outfit with 100,000,000,000,000,000 Chipotle sandwiches. It was a beautiful fancy clancy lunch. So Berniece left the fancy clancy lunch with 300 gallons of cranberry juice and 50,000,000 chipotle sandwiches.

So, after Berniece left her fancy clancy lunch, she went to her muffin house and made 300 gallons worth of cranberry gelatin in her house to last her 69 weeks of pure gelatin. She would leave the leftovers for when Russia and America start a feud.

Berniece is very stubborn because she keeps on getting invitations to important missions that just randomly happen. Very, very suspenseful… so, Berniece went to her jam jar of mail and saw… (suspense)… another letter to join the Russia Government Corporation. Berniece got her 300 gallons of cranberry gelatin for the one year in Russia. After she got to Russia, she got a computer and exploded McDonald’s, Chipotle, Wendy’s, and Burger King by exploding all the food and tables and chairs.

After Berniece finished exploding food and furniture, the Russian government wanted Berniece to destroy Taco Bell with boom boom explosion. So Berniece was very disappointed that she needed to destroy Taco Bell. Berniece didn’t explode Taco Bell, but she exploded Russia instead. So, at the end, Berniece left Russia with new, cool hacking skills and secrets. She went home with her gelatin and new computer from Russia. And her brand new car from Russia. So Berniece went to go drive in her new car all the way to the Los Angeles beach. And she got her tan on.

Berniece was burning in the sun. She was in raisin form, so she saw the sun burned a hole in her muffin house. So, Berniece got her pool noodle and 50,000 beach chairs and her Dora towel and (temporary) boyfriend Barney and her DJ set. Barney went to wrinkly beach because they are raisins. The beach was in a sandbox. So, they put down their stuff and music. Berniece put on the song “Señorita.”

So, Berniece was the new Jesus because she separated the water with her pool noodle because she dropped her spoon. So, she washed her spoon and ate her Taco Bell taco and fed the birds tacos and put some in jail because they attacked her. Then after the birds attacked Berniece, she got all the sand and her 1,000,000 meter shovel and dug a hole all the way to her muffin house because she forgot her sunscreen. She also needed her Berniece limited edition figure. Barney got lost at sea on a cruise. So, Berniece left the beach single.


Lefty

There was once a man named Lefty. Nobody knew his real name. He lived in the woods. He also loved flowers. Red flowers, blue flowers, and yellow flowers. But he always did everything with his left hand. 

But one night, he was heading to bed when two motorcycle people came in.

“MY GARDENS!” Lefty screamed. 

  The motorcycle dude did a trick with the stick that sent the knife flying and cut his left hand off.

“MY HAND, MY HAND!” Lefty screamed. He ran back to his cabin, but by then, it was too late. He had already bled out.

***
About a year later, a few kids came into the camp. They were staying up late when one of them went into Lefty’s cabin. But he did not come out, so the others went in to get him. They heard a scream. The kid’s head came rolling out of the room. They went inside the room. They all gaped in horror at what they saw. Not someone but something. Nobody ever heard from the kids again!

The Cupcake and the Jelly

Once upon a time there was a cupcake. A wise old tree had once told him his fortune was to have jelly. This wise tree was his mother. You should listen to your parents.

So he went to McDonalds because there was food there and said, “Hi. I’d like some jelly please.” The McDonalds waiters were very rude and instead of giving it to him, they threw the jelly in his face. Then the cupcake cried and his tears washed it off. 

He then walked to a laundry place. He walked in and asked, “Do you have any jelly?” 

“No,” said the person at the front desk. “You should try that jelly store across the street.”

So cupcake went over to the jelly store. “Hello. Do you have any jelly?”

“No.”

“But this is a jelly store.”

“It’s a jam store.”

“What’s jam?”

“Jelly.”

“I’ll take some jam then.”

“We don’t sell cars.”

I did not ask for a car! I want Jelly!

“I thought you said you wanted a traffic jam.”

“I’m leaving,” said the cupcake. So he left. He then arrived at a strange creepy door. It screeched when he opened it. Inside was a giant. He was holding a bat.

“Do you have jelly?”

The giant grunted, “Try that store.” He was pointing at the jam store.

“That’s a jam store.”

The giant shouted and hit the cupcake with his bat.

The cupcake woke up in a hospital cot. His mother, the wise old tree was leaning over him. She said, “I did not tell you your fortune was to have jelly. I told you that you had a fat belly.”

The cupcake turned red.

The End.


Advice of the Century

Sama Daga, student, best advice giver ever, and comedian is in her room, filming on you tube. She is giving million dollar advice for free. As you can see, she is really nice. She also answers questions from callers and comments. 

SAMA: Hello world! I give you the best advice you can ever get! It’s so good, it changes your life forever.  Let’s start with the stupidest game on earth.

Don’t play Fortnite

If you play Fortnite, you will get addicted

If you get addicted, you will play it all night and not sleep

If you don’t sleep, you will not pay attention in class

If you don’t pay attention in class, you will do badly in the surprize pop quiz

If you do badly on the surprize pop quiz, your parents will be mad

If your parents get mad, they will send you away

If you get sent away, you will go to a land called Mathominium

If you go to Mathominium, you will have math cramped in your brain

If you get math cramped in your brain, you will turn into a monster

If you turn into a monster, you will kill the world and you will die too because you have nowhere to live

Don’t play Fortnite!

I give great advice, right? Well, guess what? The next piece of advice is even better. This has to do with one of the scariest animals on earth.

Don’t hug a bear

If you hug a bear, you will get attached to him

If you get attached to him, you will think about him a lot

If you think about him a lot, you will go back in the forest

If you go back in the forest, you will get a rare spider bite

If you get a rare spider bite, you won’t be able to walk anymore

If you can’t walk anymore, you will be stuck in the forest

If you get stuck in the forest, a week later, the bear would text you

If the bear texts you, he will say he doesn’t like you.

If he says he doesn’t like you, you will cry and become depressed

If you cry and become depressed, you will die alone because no one found you in the forest

Don’t hug a bear!

So, seriously, don’t hug a bear. Million dollar advice here people! Pay attention! Now, I’m going to look in the comments to find a good question to answer. Oh, great question! Matts question is,”Should I flush my book down the toilet if i don’t wanna read it” My answer: for your own safety, please don’t

Don’t flush a book down a toilet

If you flush a book down a toilet, you will clog it

If you clog it, it won’t work

If it doesn’t work, you will have to drive all the way to the gas station

If you drive all the way to the gas station, the toilet there won’t work either

If the toilet doesn’t work at the gas station, you will go home sad

If you go home sad, your whole house will be flooding

If your whole house is flooding, you will run in to save your dog

If you run in to save your dog, you will find him swimming in the living room

If you find your dog swimming in the living room, you will run out with your dog

If you run out, you will find that your whole neighborhood is flooded

If you flood your whole neighborhood, your old neighbor will chase you with a 90’s newspaper

If you get chased, you will slip and break every bone in your body

Don’t flush your book down the toilet!

Matt, you really need life support. Get help soon. Now we have a request from… my brother. My brother asked,” Should I hit my sister if she is hogging the computer with her stupid you tube show?” First of all… this YouTube show is not stupid! I give good advice to the unfortunate: anyone but me! It has a billion fans! Make that a billion and one. Second of all…

Don’t hit your sister ever

If you hit your sister, she will slap you

If she slaps you, you will cry and tell mom

If you tell mom, she will yell at your sister and send her to her room and let you go to the park with your friends

If your sister goes to her room, she will sneak out the window.

If she sneaks out of her room, she will find you in the park

If she finds you in the park, she will give you a wedgie in front of all your friends

If she gives you wedgie in front of all your friends, all your friends will run from fear

If all your friends run from fear, you will have no friends

If you have no friends, you will be sad and depressed

If you are sad and depressed, you will try to invent a happiness machine

If you try to invent a happiness machine, everyone will abandon you because they think you’re weird

If everyone abandons you, you will die alone 

Don’t hit your sister ever!!!!

My brothers have always needed help. My mom won’t let me put him up for adoption. Seriously, I don’t see the problem with the idea. Mom only has to deal with one child. I’m making her life easier! Whatever, guess mom can’t see good ideas when they are right in front of her! Moms… Again, whatever. Now, we have a call in from Charlie.

(Charlie waves excitedly. Sama just waves with smile.)

CHARLIE: OMG, I can’t believe I’m on my fav show! Like, wow! 

SAMA: Yeah I know I’m generous.

CHARLIE: Totally! I wanted to ask you something… 

SAMA: Since I’m so generous, go ahead and ask your question!

CHARLIE; I cheated on my chem test. It’s just so hard! Should I tell my teacher I cheated?

SAMA: Charlie, that is a great question! Here’s my advice… 

Don’t tell your teacher you cheated on a chemistry test.

If you tell your teacher, she will pull the disappointed card.

If she pulls the disappointed card, she will tell you to take an even harder one.

If you have to take a harder test, the stress will get to your head.

If the stress gets to your head, you will forget all the chemistry you ever learnt.

If you forget all the chemistry you ever learnt, you will do badly on the test.

If you do badly, the teacher will make you go to chemistry summer school.

If you go to chemistry summer school, you will bore your eyes out.

If you bore your eyes out, you will become blind.

If you become blind, you will accidentally fall in a manhole.

If you fall in a manhole, your best friend will be an alligator. 

If your best friend is an alligator, he will eat you at one point because he’s hungry.

Don’t tell your teacher you cheated on a chemistry test!

Hope this helped guys! I’m so amazing for giving you advice right?! Well, this is the last piece of advice for today. It’s pretty short but very meaningful. 

Hit the like and subscribe button and all the other stuff that youtubers want you to do at the bottom of this video

If you hit the buttons, I will think that you are somewhat decent

If I think that you are somewhat decent, you’re cool

If your cool, your life is complete

Hit the like and subscribe button at the bottom of the video!

Sama waves goodbye with smile.

BLACKOUT.

The End

All About the Oceans and Reefs

Lloyd is in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. He has always loved the ocean and is amazed by all the creatures in it. He swims to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine and sees a six gill shark. He sees a reef octopus, a great reef shark, a luminescent jellyfish, and anglerfish. 

Inside his submarine, Lloyd is always prepared. He has water, food, and tools to protect him in case an octopus attacks the submarine. One of Lloyd’s tools is a mask, so he can swim in the ocean when he leaves the submarine. He also has a suit with air tanks so he can breathe. In his submarine, Lloyd travels to the Arctic and he sees Arctic krill. Arctic krill can grow only up to two inches.

Lloyd came to the Arctic to learn about the ocean because he is a marine scientist. Lloyd loves the ocean because he wants to learn about how it changes over time. 

He is always angry that people were harming the ocean by throwing trash into it. The ocean is dying because of the trash being thrown in it every year and global warming. This makes it a hard place to learn about. This is because the fish, bottlenose dolphins, grey reef sharks, and all the other animals are dying.

Lloyd wants to save the ocean by building a special machine that sucks up trash from the ocean. When he gets back to shore, he puts back his submarine, and then he goes to his lab. He starts building his machine. To start building he needs metal, a screwdriver, screws, and all his other materials. Lloyd works by himself at the lab because he is a private marine scientist. But he does have a crew that works with him. Only tonight, Lloyd comes into his lab late and the rest of his crew is sleeping. Lloyd is best friends with his crew. 

A few hours later, he goes to bed, and then wakes up at 12pm. He goes out of bed and goes back to his lab to keep working on his machine. He works on his machine for seven days. After one week, Lloyd is super happy that he finished his machine. 

Before he puts it in the ocean, Lloyd has to do a test run. He sets up the experiment in his bathroom, and pretends the bathtub is the ocean. The test is a success! Now Lloyd knows that the machine works and he is ready to bring it to the ocean. 

The next morning he wakes up very early, and goes into the ocean in his submarine. He brings the machine to the ocean and turns it on. 8,000,000,000,000,000 pounds of trash are sucked up by the machine. Lloyd did it!  The ocean is saved. 

But he forgets one thing. Today is his birthday. He puts all the trash in his trash can and goes to the store to buy supplies for his birthday. 

He sets everything up and even bakes a cake. He looks at his watch and wonders why no one has arrived. Then he realizes that he forgot to send invitations. He decides to send invitations to his crew. A few hours later, his crew arrives, and he has his birthday party. They play bob the apple, spin the bottle, catch the cannonball. They split up into teams and play cannonball, which is when you throw an 1,800 pound bowling ball into the air and have to catch it. And then they play basketball for 18 hours. 

After their game, Lloyd heads to the ocean to discover more about it. He goes back to Australia’s Great Barrier reef and sees an electrical eel and a wedgehog shark. 

At first he doesn’t see the wedgehog shark because it blends into the environment. Out of nowhere, the shark jumps out at Lloyd’s submarine and starts chomping on the side of the submarine.

The wedgehog shark loses its teeth because the submarine is metal. The shark travels back to his friends to search for clams with them.

After the shark leaves, Lloyd goes to the Pacific Ocean. He sees a blue whale. It is the biggest animal that ever lived. It’s two times bigger than the biggest dinosaur. Its cub drinks 200 gallons of milk from its mother each day. 

Lloyd travels to the Atlantic Ocean. He sees a giant squid, which is called Caribbean Reef octopus. The giant squid has eight arms, one eye, and can eat two crabs at a time. He also sees a horseshoe crab. The horseshoe crab has ten legs and they can be many colors, like black and brown. He travels to the bottom of the ocean and sees a cookie cutter shark. The cookie cutter shark is bioluminescent, which means that it glows in the dark. The baby cookie cutter sharks stick onto whales and make cookie shaped bites. The adult cookie cutter sharks make large cookie shaped bites. Cookie cutter sharks eat squid, dolphins, and baby whales. 

The last ocean Lloyd goes to is the Indian Ocean. Lloyd goes there to learn about the sea creatures living there. The Indian Ocean is the youngest ocean. It was formed 64 million years ago. Lloyd sees a spinner dolphin and a dusky dolphin. Lloyd also sees a Great Reef Shark, which mostly eats fish. The biggest dolphin is an orca. Another name for the orca is killer whale. The reason why people call this killer whale is because it looks like a whale, but it is really a dolphin. An orca is the biggest kind of dolphin on earth. The Indian Ocean has the least amount of creatures of all the oceans. 

Lloyd goes back to the Atlantic Ocean and sees a lionfish. He also goes to the Coastal Waters of South Australia. There are whale sharks, which have spots and eat plankton. Cookie cutter sharks also feed on them. He also sees a manta ray. Manta rays are the size of three king sized beds. Manta rays can jump as high as 7ft outside the water, so they can jump over a seven foot wall. They eat mainly plankton. Phytoplankton use the sun as their food. Phytoplankton are 2 millimeters.

Then, Lloyd visits an American Coral Reef. At the American Coral Reef, Lloyd sees a family of wedgehog sharks. One of the shark’s dorsal fins slaps the side of the submarine. Lloyd quickly turns the submarine the other direction and travels for eight days. 

After eight days, Lloyd goes back home. It’s about time that he goes back to the lab. When he gets there, his crew his ready to work. 

Once he gets to the lab, Lloyd starts making statues of the animals he saw. He wants to put them in the museum and show all the people what he saw. The first animal Lloyd starts working on is the Caribbean Reef octopus. 

One animal Lloyd didn’t look for was the Great White Shark, but he still makes a statue of one. He remembers what it looks like from when he saw one when he was six at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. When he went there all those years ago, Lloyd also saw a bull shark.

Lloyd keeps making statues and starts working on the one of a blue whale. Lloyd works on his statues for eight months straight without sleeping. He only sleeps for 5 minutes each day. 

After eight months, Lloyd is finally finished with his project. After he puts them into the museum, everyone gets to see them and learn about the oceans and reefs. Lloyd gets a million dollars from the museum manager. 

THE END


Toyland

One day a cow named Lucas is playing at the park with Nobey, and then he wants to pee, so he does, but instead he is playing in the bathroom. He’s playing with the toilet and stuffing toilet paper inside the toilet. The toilet starts to gurgle and it explodes, making all the other toilets explode too. And then, he explodes the whole bathroom. The cow throws the bricks into the park, and the park starts exploding too. The cow then explodes the whole city by throwing bricks everywhere. There’s only one person left on earth, and the only person is the cow. The cow wants to take over the world and explode the world. He is going to make his own cows. He will have an army of cows so no one will come. The cow lays eggs to make more cows to fill the whole city. They build new buildings and doors shaped like cows. All types of food in the world are shaped like a cow, even poop. They make more cow-shaped things like cups, dishes, rugs, chairs, and boxes. Then, pigs from space come to take over the cows. Other animals that come from space come to make teams to battle to take the city. The winners get the city. The other animals have to go home to space.

They use their whole body to fight each other. The cows, lions, jaguars, and the elephants win. Everyone else goes back to space. They change the city and break it all up into fourths. They make the shapes of what they are in the cities. Cows make cow-shaped things, jaguars make jaguar-shaped things, lions make lion-shaped things, and elephants make elephant-shaped things. And then they all battle each other to see who will take the whole city.

And everything explodes. It was too much of a racket! It is now a pile of dust and stones. It blows away into the ocean. Most of the sea creatures die because of the pollution. Only squids survive.


Mr. Eel’s Revenge

Mr. Eel is 15 and wants to go to Eel World for freedom. He has been trying to go to Eel World for eight years. He first started going when he was seven. Every time he tries to go to Eel World, Mr. Shark chases him away. Mr. Shark chases him away because eels are sharks’ dinner. Mr. Shark is never able to eat Mr. Eel because he runs away. But Mr. Eel is a weirdo eel because he never uses his electrical powers on Mr. Shark.

Mr. Eel doesn’t like Mr. Shark because he ate Mr. Eel’s brother. Mr. Eel’s brother wasn’t a weirdo eel, so he was going to use his electrical powers, but Mr. Shark was too fast. Mr. Eel and his brother were both 13 when Mr. Shark ate him. They were twins.

Mr. Eel wants to get revenge for his brother. He wants to kill Mr. Shark, but he’s too dumb to use his electric powers. He thinks he’s a normal eel. He doesn’t know he’s an electric eel.

In the beginning, Mr. Eel’s brother killed Mr. Shark’s brother. And then Mr. Shark killed Mr. Eel’s brother.

The first thing he does is think of a way to kill Mr. Shark. He thinks of a trap. He’s going to pretend he’s swimming near a pretend fish so that Mr. Shark will chase both of them. The real Mr. Eel and the real Mr. Fish are friends. After Mr. Shark chases both of them, he licks his lips. But they’re both really fast. Then they stop, and he tries to eat them. But then the spike comes out and traps him, but he gets away using his fins to stop the spikes. He’s quite injured and goes to the shark hospital.

While Mr. Shark is in the hospital, Mr. Shark’s sister comes along. Mr. Eel notices Mrs. Shark. So then he notices that he has a yellow spot and thinks that it is a strong spot and uses it, and then electricity start shooting everywhere. He points it at Mrs. Shark, and Mrs. Shark dies. 

Mr. Shark finds out in the hospital, and he gets really angry. He gets a lot of lollipops, and he eats them. Then he gets really strong. He plays some soccer. He finds out that his fins are fine. He looks around for Mr. Eel and Mr. Fish. Mr. Eel spots him and goes toward him. He presses the yellow spot that shoots electricity. He misses on the first shot. He misses on the second shot. He misses on the third shot. He misses on the fourth shot. He misses every shot until the 1,000th shot.

Mr. Eel celebrates by throwing a party with all of his friends: Mr. Fish, Mr. Seahorse, Mr. Starfish, Mr. Frog, and Mr. Dolphin and Mr. Whale. Then they go on a cruise, but the cruise sinks, so they jump off of the ship and get on a speedboat and go all around the world. And then they come back to their ocean, go home, and get some rest.

The End.


Cardinal the Kitten

There was a girl who owned a cat, and that cat had baby kittens. The girl was named Lulu, and she wanted to keep Cardinal, her favorite kitten.

Cardinal was orangey and had black all around its eyes and mouth, and that’s what made her look like a Cardinal.

But her mom said, “Lulu, you have to sell them.”

Lulu felt very mad. She tried to hide the kittens—she put them in her bedroom and locked the bedroom door. But she thought her mom would make her unlock the door, so she hid them under the covers in her bed. Her mom found out where she hid them because Lulu’s brother told the mom. 

Next, a kid walking along the street with their mom asked to buy Cardinal. The kid’s mom had told her that Lulu’s family was selling kittens and her kid was looking for a pet. Cardinal the kitten wanted to stay with Lulu. She tried to run away and hide, but Lulu’s mom caught Cardinal. The kid was named Mary.

Mary loved cats. Cardinal squirmed in the cage. Mary walked to her home holding the cage. She looked very, very happy. When she got inside, she opened the cage and hugged Cardinal. Cardinal was happy but still missed Lulu. Meanwhile, Lulu was sitting on her bed thinking about Cardinal. She wondered if Cardinal escaped from the cage and was coming to her house. She wondered if Cardinal loved her new owner, but Lulu hoped Cardinal would come back. Cardinal was having a happy life with Mary, but she was hungry.

She walked towards Mary and said, “Meow,” and Mary wondered if Cardinal was hungry.

So she got a kitty bowl and filled it with cat food. Cardinal gobbled it up. It was delicious! She never had wet cat food before, only dry cat food. But now that she tried wet cat food, she really liked it. She drank some water and went to the couch to take a nap. Lulu, on the other hand, thought Cardinal was having a happy life. She knew Mary was a nice girl and that she knew how to take care of Cardinal because Mary had a pet cat before her, and Lulu came to Mary’s house to see the cat. The next day, Cardinal woke up to a fresh new day. Cardinal looked around and noticed Mary was still asleep in bed. She walked to Mary’s bedroom, pushed the door open, and jumped on Mary’s bed. She licked Mary’s face and laid down on her floor. Mary got out of bed and walked to her mom and dad’s room. 

“Mom, can I go outside?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Mary walked outside, and with her chalk, she drew a picture of Cardinal and thought about activities she could do with Cardinal. She came back inside and got breakfast ready for the family. She poured cat food into Cardinal’s food bowl. Cardinal smelled the food and ate it while Mary’s family ate breakfast. Cardinal wondered what to play with Mary now that she got used to the new home. Mary walked to Cardinal. She told Cardinal she was going to the pet store to get a collar for her because she wanted to play with Cardinal in her backyard. Mary’s mom walked with Mary to the pet store. Mary got a collar that was Cardinal’s size, and it was red. She wrote Cardinal’s name on the collar and the address of the house. When Mary and her mom entered the house, Cardinal came to Mary. Mary put the collar on Cardinal. Cardinal tried to look at it but couldn’t. She still loved the collar!

Mary took Cardinal outside to play. Mary drew with chalk. She drew a picture of her and Cardinal. Cardinal, on the other hand, ran around in the backyard chasing a rubber ball. Mary told Cardinal that she was really good at soccer. Cardinal scored another goal in the soccer net. Mary’s mom weaved the soccer net before. The next day Mary’s mom was on the phone calling Lulu for a playdate at Mary’s house. Mary was excited because she hadn’t seen Lulu in a long time.

When Lulu came, she asked, “How is Cardinal doing?”

“Cardinal is doing great!” Mary replied.

“Awesome,” Lulu told Mary. Lulu told Mary that she could take care of Cardinal for the rest of Cardinal’s life until Cardinal had babies just like her mom. Cardinal licked Lulu, and Lulu hugged Cardinal. Lulu and Mary played for a little while until the playdate ended. The two girls and Cardinal had happy lives.

The End.


The Dolphin’s Adventure

Once there was a dolphin coming from school. Then there was a hurricane. It pushed her away from going home. It pushed her deep in the ocean where there was a giant squid who blocked her way. He pushed her from leaving home. The squid was as big as a ten story building. When the squid wasn’t looking, the dolphin went right past its arms. But then the squid caught him again. The squid held him and squeezed him. The dolphin was stuck with the squid until somebody saw him.

A seahorse saw them and tried to help the dolphin. It tried to distract the squid while the dolphin went out. It worked, but then it didn’t work. The seahorse got captured by the squid too. The seahorse and dolphin grabbed the squid’s arms and escaped. And then they finally got out and become friends. But the squid tried to chase them! And they ran around in circles five times. And then the squid trapped them with the net. But the dolphin and the seahorse found scissors buried in the ground, and they cut a hole in the net. And then they swam away.

They were going to go play in the park without getting seen by the squid. They played on the swings and on the slide and then they played tag. Then they went to meet the seahorse family and played until it was time to go. On the way home the dolphin saw the squid, and the squid saw the dolphin, and the dolphin was surprised because the dolphin thought that the squid would not come back. The squid grabbed the dolphin, who screamed for help. It didn’t work, so he screamed again. And then the seahorse came, and he saw what was going on, so he tried to help. He grabbed the dolphin from the squid, and they swam away. The squid followed them and tried to get them. But the dolphin and the seahorse were too fast. And then they hid, and the squid couldn’t find them. And then they said goodbye, and the dolphin went home, and they never saw the squid again. 

The End.


The Tundra Rulers

The tundra is a place where two predators rule. The gray wolf and the wolverine. Although gray wolves eat wolverines, scientists have found out new things about gray wolves’ strategies to catch wolverines — they are called offenses. An offense is like a defense to catch your prey. 

Wolverines eat berries, moose, and elk. Wolverines sometimes hide in the snowy thicket. So when the predator comes near, the wolverine pounces, and then if the prey is taken by surprise, it will run away. 

Gray wolves eat wolverines, elk, and moose. The gray wolf’s predators are brown bears, polar bears, and cougars. Gray wolf pups are the size of fennec foxes. Wolverine pups are the size of baby kit foxes. The gray wolf is vulnerable because it is endangered. The wolverine has a close predator/prey relationship to the gray wolf. 

Sometimes gray wolves and wolverines have fights for prey. When a gray wolf sees a wolverine hunting, for example running towards an elk, it will also run to the elk, and whoever snatches it first gets to take it back to its den or burrow. 

Wolverines dig burrows underground. Gray wolves, on the other hand, have their babies in dark dens where predators can’t see anything — even if they have good night vision. But the wolves make their way around by sniffing. A gray wolf can recognize its den by its paw prints, which are unique and different from wolverine prints. Wolverine prints are the size of flat fossils. Gray wolf prints are the size of large stones or rocks, bigger than a flat fossil.

Gray wolves hunt in cold areas because they’re built for the cold and have a lot of fur and big paws to walk in deep snow. But wolverines prefer warm places and have small paws and light fur.  A wolverine’s fur is orange-ish and black. Wolverines are solitary. Gray wolves are not. They hunt in packs. Wolverines and gray wolves live in Canada.

The wolverine is a relative of the gray wolf and also its prey because gray wolves eat wolverines. They are both rulers of the tundra!


Cakes, Tennis, and Moving!

“Steven, will you please come up here and show everyone how to draw a cake?” Ms. Clinton asked me.

I stood up and slowly walked to the whiteboard, hoping the bell would ring. I grabbed a marker and tried drawing a cake. Oliver, the school bully, teased me, saying that my ‘cake’ looked like a broken down house. I tried again. And again. And again. I came up with a circle with a few dots in the middle. I told everyone that it was a bird’s eye view to a cake. Luckily, that’s when the bell rang. Art is my last class, and Eddy and I grabbed our backpacks and walked home. Eddy is my best friend and also my neighbor.

Since it was a Monday, I luckily had my allowance from Sunday. We stopped by Sydney’s Sweets and walked in.

“Two Tinker bars and a large bag of chips, please,” I told Sydney, the manager. 

“That will be $3.50,” Sydney said, handing me the treats.

I gave her a five-dollar bill and collected my change. I handed Eddy a Tinker and stuffed the chips in my bag.

After a few seconds of walking and a few minutes of talking, Eddy and I stopped in our tracks. We saw my parents standing in front of my house, putting everything into a truck that said MOVING MASTERS on the sides. My parents were talking to someone who was helping them put the suitcases and furniture in the truck. I ran to my parents and asked them what was happening. My mom told me to pack my stuff and that she’ll explain it to me later.

Eddy came upstairs with me and helped me pack. I took my suitcase out of the shelf and stuffed my clothes in it. Eddy asked me if I knew what was happening. I shook my head and finished packing. Eddy said that he should go home now. My mom came upstairs and sat on the bed. She told me to sit down.

“Steven, your father was promoted to Vice President of his company. His new office is on the other side of the state. We are moving to Oaktown.”

I froze. That was three hours away! A lot of thoughts rushed through my head. Which school will I go to? Will I make friends? Is our house going to be big? Are my teachers going to be nice?

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, thinking about what my mother said. Tossing and turning, I looked at my full suitcase next to the door. All of my furniture except my bed was inside of the truck, including my reading chair and my desk. Even my closet! I still didn’t know when we were leaving.

“Steve, wake up!” That was my dad. “We are leaving on Friday. I’ll pick you up from school, and Mom and Molly will be waiting in the car outside.”

Dad made me pancakes—my favorite—for breakfast. The maple syrup was dripping down my chin as the puffy pancakes melted in my mouth.

It was a normal school day; I had epic fails in art class but crushed PE. At the end of the day, we had an announcement. The principal, Mr. Mikelly, told us that a tennis tournament was coming up. Tennis was my favorite sport! He showed us the trophy, and I started jumping with joy. It was a golden man in trophy position. On the side of the stand, it said Tennis Tournament 2019 – Awarded to 

I imagined it saying my name, Steven Trenton. I was the first one to sign up for the tournament.

The next day was tournament day. I was playing Hudson Matts. It was my serve. I served and won the point. Soon the game. Soon the set. And then the match. Time for the quarter finals. Won. Semifinals. Won. Finals time. I was playing Oliver Frenzy. I lifted my racquet and smashed the ball. He hit it back to me. Slice! After a few sets, I looked up at the scoreboard. It was a deuce. The match point for both of us. Oliver served, and I played a backhand. Unfortunately, he smashed it, and it was his point. Advantage for Frenzy. Then it was deuce again. Advantage for Trenton. Deuce. My advantage again. I hit a powerful forehand with the win. I received my trophy and medal. I spotted Oliver on the bench, with sweat all over his face. I walked over to him.

“Tough game.”

He didn’t reply. Eddy ran over to me. 

“Great job, dude!” he said. “Nobody here is as good as you!”

Friday was the day before I moved. That morning when I went to school, the day flew by. In the afternoon, we had another announcement. But this time, Mr. Mikelly called me up on stage. The last time I went up there was my play in second grade! I was kind of nervous when I went up there. 

“Today, we have a very special announcement. One of our students, Steven Trent, is moving to Oaktown today. He is also our tennis champion. We will miss him.”

My dad came into the room. I gave Eddy a hug, and Dad and I left.

In the car, I stared out the window. I saw the trees and suddenly the big city. The tall buildings were gleaming in the sunlight, and the cars zoomed through town. People wearing suits and ties walked from one building to another. This must Oaktown, the big city. Finally, I saw a big apartment building. It had a swimming pool and a playground. I was astonished. I read a big sign. Now, I lived in Pretcot Towers. Awesome!


How I Write

My pencil dulls while I write and write.

Only my paper is fully in sight.

I could write for days and nights, while I write and write.

My pencil goes on scribbling, which I find addicting, and I go on, pencil directing.

I wrote ‘til three pages were crumpled and wrote on,

“I wish I could go on!”

But it all came to a stop, and my pencil dropped.

My eyes were opened wide, as my hand ached,

“Is there anything else I can make?”

I knew there was, and I thought and thought, until my thinking came to a stop.

“A poem!”

I got it!

So, I sought paper, and a pen.

I didn’t know if THIS was ever gonna end.

There I again wrote away, wrote away another day.

And that is where THIS poem makes way.


Pilla and Pimilla

Pilla and Pimilla were sisters who lived in a small town by a great big mountain called Mount Zilla. There had always been a town legend of an evil queen of snakes, Quilla, who lived atop the mountain. After their parents died in a “mysterious accident,” Pimilla and Pilla were each other’s only family. As they grew older, they noticed that they had strange powers to transform into animals. One day, the two girls went to their favorite restaurant, and Pilla suddenly disappeared. 

***

“Pimilla! Wake up sleepy head! Come outside with me and get some lunch! It’s 1:00! You have been sleeping for 16 hours,” she said.

“Just five more minutes,” she replied.

Five minutes later, they were on the path to Bear Burger.

“What am I going to eat? When I get to lunch, I’m going to have a turkey sandwich with a brioche bun and avocado on the side,” she sang.

“Pilla! Stop singing that annoying song!” Pimilla roared.

When they got there, they sat down, and it took over an hour for the waitress to deliver their food. They both fell asleep at the same time. Then Pimilla was so bored that she went to the bathroom and transformed into a beetle, then a horse, and back to a human. Then she finally walked back to their booth. She realized that Pilla was not there!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, she thought. Maybe she was kidnapped… hold on.

There was no time to lose, and she set off to the waitress, and even though she was just nineteen, Pimilla had a credit card.

“Hurry up!” she said… People were like sloths.

“Sign this, please,” the waitress asked patiently.

She held up her screen and Pimilla signed it very quickly, and the waitress gave Pimilla her card. Since Pimilla was 10 years older than Pilla, she could drive a car and she had a license. However, she was too hurried and forgot all about her car. Instead, she ran. Since the cement was still wet, she made out straight lines where something had been. She could also make out Pilla’s footprints, and she followed them for an hour until she found a mountain where the footsteps stopped. Pimilla transformed into a horse, and she galloped to the mountain. She knew all about the stories, so she predicted that Pilla was hidden there. The mountain itself looked pretty scary. On top was a big stone snake, and it looked very old, and then it came alive! 

“What do you want?” it asked.

Pimilla was too shocked to speak. Was she really seeing a stone animal speak to her? 

Answer!” the stone snake said.

“I came here for my sister,” Pimilla answered.

“Ahh. Well, that’s not going to happen. If you want your sister, you will have to get yourself and whatever-her-name-is out of prison.”

Before Pimilla could answer, there was a rumbling sound, and she could feel herself being dragged into the mountain! Then she heard a high-pitched squeal. She turned, and she saw Pilla. Then a huge snake pushed Pimilla into her cell and closed the door behind her. Pimilla pushed with all her might, but the door didn’t budge. Then she looked around the cell to find a way out. Instead, she found an old silver dagger.

“Don’t worry, Pilla,” Pimilla said. 

“I am never worried,” Pilla said.

Not paying attention to what her sister said, Pimilla freed herself from the cell by digging into the metal with the dagger. Then she freed Pilla next. Pimilla hugged her very tightly.

“Oh, Pilla! We will escape together! I just know it! As long as there’s magic and hope in the air, we know we can escape from these brutal, scary, and mad snakes! Now, let’s get a move on!”

They started to run away when one of the snakes stopped their path and the twins skidded to a stop.

“Oh! You are not going anywhere. I’ve heard that you can transform into a horse and beetle just like your mom! We captured your dad and your mommy who traveled to Mount Zilla. Lucky for us, our God Villa day is tomorrow, and on God Villa day we will murder you. This is because Quilla will awake for a sacrifice. And if we don’t feed you to Quilla, she will destroy Mount Zilla!” said the snake, seeing the confused looks on their faces.

Then he took a deep breath. These words struck Pimilla. What did the snake mean when it said that her parents had been here? Had the snakes killed her parents?

“Did you really say all of that in one sentence?” asked Pilla.

Pimilla jumped as she had forgotten that Pilla was even there, and she shrieked.

“What?” asked Pilla

“I’m sorry, I forgot all about you. You scared me half to death, also,” she added.

Pimilla cut the snake in half with the dagger and cut out the door. Over 1,000 snakes came chasing them, and they were poisonous too! It was turning dark, and Pimilla knew that in the morning the snakes would try to feed them to Quilla. There was a door at the base of the mountain and a button to close the door to the outside. The snakes pressed it, and the door slowly started to close. Pilla and Pimilla ran at full speed and slid under it just as started to close.

“We made it,” Pimilla spluttered.

They started to go back Bear Burger, and none of the snakes followed them because they were dueling Quilla. Quilla had awoken and was eating the snakes because she was angry that she hadn’t received a sacrifice. Now the snakes were defeated! When they got back to Bear Burger, there were two ghosts sitting in their booth. They were the sisters’ mom and dad. 

“I was so worried, so your father and I thought we should come and visit, so here we are. We also want you to know that no one else can see us except you both,” said their ghost moma.

Pimilla told them about their adventures, and they believed every single word of it. They were so glad that their daughters had defeated the evils of Mount Zilla once and for all. Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!


THE BEST PLAY EVER

Audrey’s character: Ali

Natalia’s character: Cam

Relationship: Cousins


Scene One: Subway

Ali: Hey, do you want to go get a sub sandwich?

Cam: No way. You are buying me Shake Shack!

Ali: Ugh! Fine. But you’re paying me back. 

Cam: Can I not pay you back and just buy you ice cream?

Ali: Umm… no? Ice cream is a lot cheaper! I want the money I paid for Shake Shack back.

Cam: Fine! If you are going to be that way!

Ali: I’m going to be that way. Oh my god fine. Just buy me ice cream.

Cam: Ok what train do we need to get on?

Ali: I mean, we could take an Uber. The train is delayed.

Cam: I will pay for the Uber, let’s take Uber Limo!

Ali: Okay, I’ll pay for the food and the dessert because Uber Limo is expensive.

Cam: Fine. I am a billionaire so it’s ok.

Ali: Well I’m a trillionaire so I insist.

Cam: Let’s order the limo now.

Ali: Okay.


Scene Two: Street

Cam: It’s 39 minutes away. What the heck ahhhhhhh!

Ali: Okay let’s cancel and just ride in my BMW.

Cam: On the way back we better get a limo. If not I will be depressed. 

Ali: Oh wow. That’s not dramatic at all!

Cam: Whatever dude!

Ali: What?! I didn’t say you’re dramatic.

Cam: Can we just get the food? 

Ali: Yes. 

(They walks to Ali’s car. Ali looks in her pocket for her keys)

Ali: Uh oh… I left my keys in the car.

Cam: That’s helpful huh?!

Ali: Oh wait! I just remembered that I can unlock it with my fingerprint.

Cam: Then do it. 

(Ali put her fingerprint on the door handle and the car unlocked.)

Scene Three: Inside Car

Ali: Go to the other side and get in the passenger seat. I’m driving.

Cam: Ok.

(Ali started driving and a cop stopped her)

Cop: Miss, can I please see your license?

Ali: Sure. 

(License says: Age, 12. Name, Ali Smith)

Cop: Okay! Thank you!

(Ali continued driving)

Cam: There’s a chicken on the road

Chicken: Bok bok bok bok

Ali:  Oh my god!!!

(Crash)

(Ali drove into a trash can while she was trying to avoid the chicken)

Cam: Really, a trash can?! I think I should drive.

Ali: No! It’s my car and I didn’t want to drive into the chicken.

(Ali and Cam look at the car and it is not damaged at all, no scratches or dents)

Cam: Ummm you can’t drive. No offense.

Ali: Like you can drive better!

Cam: Just let me drive for a couple.

Ali: Oh my god no.

(Ali ran to the car and got in the driver’s seat before Cam. She turned on the car) 

Cam: If we don’t get food then I am going to be hangry.

Ali: Okay fine. 

(Cam got in the car and Ali drove to Shake Shack)


Scene Four: At Shake Shack

Cam: I will order for both of us. What do you want?

Ali: I’ll get a cookies and cream shake, a shack burger, and cheese fries.

Cam: I’m going to get a strawberry shake, a shack burger, and bacon fries. Let me go order. 

(Cam went to order and Ali got a table. Cam brought the food over.)

Ali: Ooh yum! I’ll get some straws.

(Ali went to go get some straws. She came back to the table, sat down and gave Cam a straw. They finished eating)

Cam: Let’s go shopping!!!

Ali: Okay, let’s go to Bergdorf Goodman. 

Cam: Gucci!

Ali: Versace!!

Cam: Jimmy Choo!

Ali: Dolce and Gabbana!! 

Cam: Let’s walk there.

Ali: Okay. It’s on 57 st and 5 ave.

Cam: Okay.

Ali: Let’s go.

(They walked all the way to Bergdorf Goodman.)

Cam: This store is horrid, let’s go to Gucci! 

Ali: Yeah, I agree. Fine we can go to Gucci but after that we go to Louis Vuitton.

Cam: Ok.

Ali: Let’s go.


Scene Five: Gucci Store

Cam: I have to buy a new pair of pants at Cucci so we need to be able to have enough time. 

Ali: Ooh okay!! We can get matching pants!

Cam: Ew, but ok. 

Ali: You’re so mean! That’s just a normal thing that cousins do!

Cam: It’s cringe.

Ali: Um… I was just kidding in the first place! You’re the paranoid one. 

Cam: Let’s buy what we want and go to Nike please. A new store opened close to here.

Ali: Ooh yessss! I need a new pair of Air Forces.

Cam: Yeah my Air Max 270’s just broke. 

Ali: Oh god. Yeah I don’t think I want a bag or a pair of shoes from Louis Vuitton. I was just kidding.

Cam: I agree let’s go!

Ali: Okay.

(Ali and Cam walked to the Nike store)


Scene Six: Nike Store

Cam: Ok the guide says floor two for teens let’s go!

Ali: Okay, I’m going to get a pair of shorts as well.

(Ali and Cam pick out their stuff and bring it to the cashier, two pairs of Air Force 1’s and 6 pairs of shorts)

Cashier: That will be $12,500 please!

(Ali and Cam pay)

Cashier: Thank you kind ma’am!

Cam: Let’s go to our mansions.

Ali: Okay. Mine or yours?

Cam: Mine!

Ali: Okay, okay.

Cam: Where’s your car? It’s pouring outside. Take this umbrella and go get the car. I will wait here for you. Leave your bags with me.

Ali: Okay.

(Ali goes to get the car, she drives back to the nike store and Cam gets in the car. Ali starts driving)


20 minutes later… 

Scene Seven: Cam’s Mansion

Ali: Your house looks like my cats’.

Cam: Teehee! I’m a cat lady. 

(Ali slaps her forehead)

Ali: You mean, crazy cat lady!

Cam: Sure!

Ali: Anyway… want to watch TV?

Cam: What do you want to watch?

Ali: Umm… Barney!

Cam: NO!

Ali: *chuckle* I was just saying that to see your reaction! I took a photo! *starts laughing*

(Ali shows Cam a photo of her face while saying, “No!”)

Cam: Fun, fun, fun in the sun.

Ali: Ummm… okay?

Cam: Ali, go follow me on insta.

Ali: I only follow my friends, or celebrities.

Cam: I’m more important than your friends. Follow me!!

Ali: Fine, I guess.

Cam: My account is cam.lopezz

Ali: Okay, mine is alis.graciie

Cam: Let’s take my Bugatti.

Ali: Okay.

Cam: I’m driving.

Ali: Okay, I’ll sit in the passenger seat.

(Ali looks outside the window and sees a robber)

Cam: Where should we go first?

Ali: Robber!!

Cam: Aaahhhhh!!!

Ali: There’s a robber in our houses!

Cam: Run!!!

(Ali and Cam run into their houses)

Ali: Get out of my house you evil robber!!!

Cam: All our money!!

Ali: He’s getting away!!

(Cam and Ali are worried and furious)

Cam: Run!!!

Ali:  No!! Call the cops!! We won’t be able to get him!!

Cam: I don’t have my phone!

Ali: I Do!! Well, I have mine… but it’s not charged.

Cam: He has my phone and is calling the cops!

(The robber calls the cops on Ali and Cam and frames them for robbing the houses. The cop comes)

Cop: Hands up and do not move!!

(Ali and Cam put their hands up)

Cop: You’re coming with me!

Cam: What?!

Ali: What? We didn’t do anything, this man robbed our mansions!

Cam: Exactly!

Cop: Well a man called and said two females identified as the famous Ali Grace and Cam Lopez robbed him! How do you explain that, huh?!

(Two police put handcuffs on Ali and Cam and take them to juvie)

Ali: Let me go! Let me go!!

Cam: Stop please!

(Ali bangs on the window)

Cam: What should we do?

Ali: I don’t know! I guess we have to deal with it.

Cam: Ugh ok.


Scene Eight: Court

Ali: We swear that we didn’t do it!

Judge: Where is your lawyer?

Ali: Here sir.

(Lawyer walks in)

Lawyer (Mr. Chimmins): Hello sir.

Judge: And why might your clients not have done this crime?

Mr Chimmins: You see, I was doing a photoshoot with Ms. Ali’s sister. She is a model and I am also a photographer. I just happened to take some photo evidence of the robber and the scared crying faces of Ms. Ali and Cam.

(Mr. Chimmins shows the Judge the photos)

Judge: Case closed! You two are proven not guilty but you have a fine. Ali: $1,000,000 and Cam: $1,000,000 as well

Cam: Let’s go Ali.

Ali: Okay fine. I guess I still have more!

Judge: Oh then I’ll take that too. 

Ali and Cam: Ugh!! We’re broke!!

The End

A Painted Life

My homeschool teacher kept rattling off about algebra and other math facts, but I was paying no attention whatsoever. I was busy daydreaming. I was on a grand stage with thousands of eyes on me. I danced like an elegant swan as people cheered for me. I could hear my teacher’s faded voice outside my fantasy.

“Margaret!” my teacher yelled.

I suddenly popped back into reality.

I hate being homeschooled, but children like me aren’t able to go to normal school. I got very sick when I was little. My whole family was disgusted by me. They all vanished except for my mother. Although I was really young when that happened, young enough to forget, I still felt devastated. Because of my sickness, I lost my ability to talk and walk, but my mother is very strict about it. She would always scream at me if she couldn’t understand my sign language. Though I think dancing and painting are the best ways to communicate my feelings, my mother discourages it.

After homeschooling, I picked up my pen and wheeled to my mother’s room. I slowly placed my pen on the wall with unsteady hands and drew a beautiful dancer elegantly dancing as if she were a dove. This can prove to my mother that I have a passion for painting and that I would love to dance, even though I’m in a wheelchair. While I was painting peacefully, I could hear my mother’s loud stomps come nearer. The door swung open, and I could tell just by looking at her eyes that she was anything but happy. She stomped towards me and grabbed the handle of my wheelchair forcefully. She dragged me up the ramp with one hand and jerked me into the attic. She didn’t say a word to me. Then she slammed the door shut and left, fuming. The silence was chilling. I could have heard a pin drop on the floor. It hurt when my mother didn’t understand my way of expressing myself. As tears ran down my cheeks and dripped into my shirt, while I was wheeling back across the room, I noticed something weird. In the corner of the room there was something glowing behind a bunch of boxes. I came closer to this shiny object and picked it up as if I were holding one of my dirty socks. It was an ordinary looking paintbrush. It felt like an ordinary paintbrush as well.I carefully lowered it in a tin of paint and dipped a bit of it onto the paintbrush. I slowly but steadily placed the paintbrush on the wall and painted a small puppy about as tiny as my hands. My painting was good enough to look like a real dog, at least. Suddenly, out of the blue, my painting started to glow. If I could have screamed, I would have. The warm glow of the painting was glowing brighter and brighter until I had to look away. Finally, the light dimmed, and when I turned back around, a silky, soft puppy lay in my arms.

The Gingerbread Man

Chapter One

There was a Gingerbread Man. There was a Gingerbread Girl. The Gingerbread Girl and the Gingerbread Man got into a fight. The Gingerbread Man was evil. The Gingerbread Girl was evil too. The Gingerbread Girl and the Gingerbread Man wanted to kill each other because they’re evil. The Gingerbread Girl met a new Gingerbread Girl. The Gingerbread Girls fought and tried to roast the Gingerbread Man. They threw him into the wall and threw him into the air conditioning to cool him off. Then they threw him into the microwave to blow him up. The Gingerbread Man didn’t blow up yet. The Gingerbread Girl had a cute Gingerbread Dog. It was not even close to Christmas for the Gingerbread people to fight, but they still got out of bed, and they tried to roast him. Then the Gingerbread Girl got an axe. The Gingerbread Girls were named Eileen and Maxi. With the axe they chopped his arm, but it came back to life.

Chapter Two

The Gingerbread Man decided to be good.

The Gingerbread Man said sorry to the girls, and the girls said, “We’re sorry too. We don’t want to be bad anymore.”

They put away all the bad tools, and they all said sorry, and then the princess said, “No more fighting in this town.”

And they were so happy!

The End


The Cheetah Who Loved Coca-Cola

Once upon a time, there was a cheetah named Max. He loved Coca-Cola. Each meal he drank five Coca-Colas. One day, he was drinking Coca-Cola and read the news. He read to stay fit. The next day in the newspaper, the cheetah saw there was going to be a race. Then he packed a Coca-Cola for the race and once he got there, it was about to start. When it did, he was stuck in last place because of all the Coca-Colas he drank. He felt like he was about to burp and then once he did, he still ran slow because he drank too much Coca-Cola and he couldn’t keep up with everybody. He kept on burping until he had to stop and burp and then once he started running again, his stomach started to hurt. Max’s stomach pain got so bad he quit the race. He felt ashamed of himself. 

The next day, Max was by himself at home. He read the newspaper again and saw there was a race tomorrow. This time he didn’t drink any Coca-Cola. Instead he went and got vegetables from the store and he only ate them for dinner, lunch, and breakfast. The next day, he was ready for the race. When the race started, the cheetah was in the first place. Max felt really good and then he won the race! The moral of the story is not to drink too much Coca-Cola. 

The End


Anything for Bacon

Let me tell you, there is nothing better than the smell of bacon in the morning.  Even if it isn’t coming from your apartment. The neighbors were having a better breakfast than me again.  I looked down at my bowl of Kibble in a Can and sulked. 

“Kibble in a Can, the world’s chewiest dog food, yuck!” 

Would you eat dog food?  If you’re reading this, you’re likely a human, so I don’t think you would. If you’re a dog who has managed to read this, you are probably too advanced to eat dog food. So, naturally I had to get some bacon. 

What else was I supposed to do other than jump from fire escape to fire escape until I found someone cooking bacon?  After five fire escapes, nearly falling twice, and five minutes of barking at a particularly annoying cat, I found the bacon apartment. Now, I just had to get through one window, three people, and another dog to get to the bacon. You know what they say: take it one step at a time!

First thing’s first, the window. Maybe if it gets hot enough, they will open the window. The air conditioner was right next to the window! All I had to do was break the AC! This was starting to be easier than expected! Little did I know how hard it is to break an AC without hands. Have you ever tried turning off an AC from inside the house without your hands? (I don’t recommend it).  Well imagine that, but from the outside of the house, the side without the off button. As I got closer to the AC, I could feel hot air shooting out at me. I had to tear off the panel with my mouth so I could rip the wire. Have you ever seen those cartoons where the character turns black when they get electrocuted. That’s how I felt. Turns out I wasn’t electrocuted, I was just shocked. The good news was that I ripped the wire and I’m pretty sure it turned off because hot air stopped shooting at me. (I know this seems a little extreme, but anything for bacon).

As the cold air stopped going into the apartment, the people inside seemed to notice. A woman walked over to the window. As this was happening, I had a daunting thought: what would she do when she saw a dog on her fire escape? I needed to hide. I used the basic thought that if I can’t see her she can’t see me. I covered my eyes with my paws, but somehow she managed to find me! It’s crazy! She must be a witch who can see through walls! When she found me, she took me inside and showed me to the other humans. There was a small female human and a large male human. Due to the fact that I jumped out the window, I didn’t have my collar on. The worst time to forget. Once I was in the apartment, the small female started making a high pitched squealing noise. This really hurt my ears, so what else was I supposed to do other than start running wildly around their apartment? Big mistake! Remember earlier when I mentioned that other dog? Well he started chasing me around the apartment and this guy was big! Big dog means big legs and big legs means fast. Soon the large dog started to catch up with me. If only I could find the kitchen, then I could get the bacon and get out of here. 

After a bit longer, I ducked under the sofa where the big dog couldn’t get me. If my owner was here, he would call me a good boy! After looking around the apartment (from under the sofa), I had a strong sense of where the bacon was. Again, I’m such a good boy! I made a mad dash for the what I thought was the kitchen. I was right! I was in the kitchen, with a big dog, a large female human, and a small female human on my tail. I jumped onto the counter, where was the bacon?  I saw it! Right there in front of me waiting to be eaten, so I ate it. Not all of it, but most of it. After that, I didn’t know what to do. I had my bacon, but how do I get out? I had no idea. Oh, oh, I know! I can just go back home using the fire escapes. I am such a good dog.         

The Cow-Pocolips

One day, a cow named Grass was eating grass. He liked grass because of his name.

Mmmmmmmmmmm. He said, “Grass is good.”

Then he sang his song. It was: grass grass grass grass grass-grass-grass grass-grass-grass grass grass grass grass grassy grassy grass grass. He liked his song. But one day, Grass woke up. There was no grass!!! Grass looked around. The cows ate the grass! It was like a cow-pocolips! Oh no! Grass was the only thing cows ate!

Suddenly, all the cows said, “Moooooooooooo!”

Then the farmer walked out the door and heard… “Moooooooooooo!”

All the cows stopped because he said, “Shh, I’m trying to have tea!”

Then, right when he was walking in the door… he stopped!

Grass was hoping the farmer would notice the grass, but instead he just said, “Oh, I forgot to say bye.”

Grass was disappointed because he wanted more grass.

He ran towards the farmer and said, “Wait,” but all the farmer heard was moo.

The farmer went into the barn and closed the door. Grass walked up to the door and picked up his hoof and opened the door.

He went in and said, “Um, farmer, I think that we need more grass.”

The farmer actually understood. Grass was surprised. Well, at least Grass thought he understood because the farmer was going out with planting seeds. Grass thought it was grass seeds. But, instead, he saw the labels on the packages, and it was sunflower seeds and corn!! Grass was allergic to corn. How dare that farmer!!!

Grass said, “Farmer! I will get revenge.”

So he walked back, away from the farmer. Grass was not very happy. So he fell asleep. 

Grass dreamed about having so much fun in the grass. For a second, when he woke up, he thought it was real, but it was all a dream. He looked around him, and as if things could not get any worse… he was surrounded by corn! 

He yelled out his cousin’s name, “Banana!”

And Banana loved corn so much. So Banana came over and noticed Grass surrounded by corn. He ate all the corn. Grass was finally free! Grass went along, trying to pretend that he was in the grass, but it didn’t really work out. He wanted his precious grass back. He imagined being in tall, tall grass. Taller than him. He could eat all he wanted and poke his head out and act like a cool cow. He really wished that dream wasn’t real. And he was glad that the corn did not grow as high as an elephant’s eye. And he thought when the farmer came back, he should say, How dare you not give me that grass. I need that grass. Now I am starving and so thin. That could be his revenge. 

Today was not a moo-tastic day for grass. He sang his song sadly. He was too sad to sing it. He was super sad. So instead he sang this: Moo.

Grass was very sad, so he went to Banana, hopped on Banana’s back, and said, “Giddy up, horsey!”

Grass was talking in his sleep.

Banana suddenly woke up and said, “I’m not your horse, Grass.”

Grass woke up and said, “Why am I on you? Oh, are you my horsey? I’m sorry, Banana! I’m just very sad about the grass.”

Banana said, “Well, just keep your hooves off me! Anyway, I have an idea. How about you just go sneak into the dude’s office and just steal those grass seeds and say, ‘um thank you. I stole your grass seeds.’ It’ll just come out as a moo, so you’re good. So yeah, just sneak in there tonight and say, ‘I stole your grass, so bye now!’”

“Okay…” said Grass, “But am I not too big? I think I’m a little too big.”

“So what? Just steal those away. But just think of how you would hold them—okay, Banana? Well anyway, I need to go to sleep even though it’s midday.”

When Grass woke up, he wanted more grass. But then he saw Banana was standing right in front of him with a little teensy pack.

“Could it be? Is it Grass?” Grass whispered.

Then Grass spotted a quokka.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Phredd (fr-ehd).”

Grass was was like, “Say what? How do you spell your name?” 

“P-h-r-e-d-d.”

“Seriously?” Grass said. 

“Yeah. My name is Phredd, and it’s spelled like that. And I am a party animal. I’ve high-fived a camera before and just said hi to this person who was facing this camera thingy-majiggy at me. So yeah,” said Phredd.

“Um, well, we kind of have a problem with this grass,” said Grass. “So could you help us? Just distract the farmer with your party thingy-majiggies while I go sneak in, get the grass seeds, and grow some grass for me to eat. So could you just sneak in there and sing your song thingy-majiggy-thingies?”

“Okie dokie,” said Phredd.

So the next morning, they snuck in there. Grass asked Phredd to go in first and wake up the farmer and say, “Howdy dowdy, how are ya, dude?” 

“So then I can just sneak in there, get my grass, and sing my song once again!”

“So let’s go!” said Phredd.

“La la, loo loo,” they sang as they went to the farm.

“This is very fun. Now it’s time to sneak in,” said Grass. “So you go in first.”

“Okay, I’ll throw my party and have so much fun and high-five cameras and say hello to farmers.”

“La, la, la,” Phredd sang.

Grass could hear Phredd and the farmer screaming, saying, “Ah! What is this?”

He could also hear Phredd putting on a party. Grass knew now that he could go in and do it. So he did and he went in and thought, Where would the grass seeds be? This was very frustrating for him. But finally, he found them. He planted the seeds when he got out and got Phredd. He told Phredd to come back sometime soon. And a few weeks later, the grass grew. But now he needed to deal with the cow-pocolips.

He said, “You will leave. Now leave.”

And now there were only a few more cows: him, his cousins, and a few others. And he met another cow. He figured out that cow was his sister. She had a big bow and was black and white. And we will talk about that in the next story.

The End


The Calf Who Lost Her Mom

Once there was a calf who lost its mom, and he needed to pass an obstacle full of lava. It was a river, and the calf thought he would have to swim through to get to the other side. 

But the lava was actually water that lights up. The calf stayed at a hotel to sleep for the night. The next day, the calf was ready. He was ready for the challenge up ahead. He was going across the world to the ex-lava river.

He went to the ex-lava river, and it felt comfortable and warm. He swam across, but he didn’t know he was starting to drown. And then he sank down under the ex-lava river. He could still see the water, and then he walked under water and spotted a ramp at the end. He climbed up the ramp then got to his mom.


The War

Chapter One: The War

In a village called Lightling, people were living in peace. They would buy food from the markets, they would get their milk from cows, and they would have their toothbrushes made of horses’ tails. And in this village there was a woman and a man, and the woman was having a baby. But that was bad. Because when she got pregnant a war was starting. And the father was in the war. Luckily, she had the baby. The baby’s name was Spy. Spy was weird and funny. He also wore a ninja suit a lot. Spy was very tall because his father was tall. When Spy grew up, he got to go to the pool. When he was twelve, he went to the pool one day and he saw people leaving the pool and he was thinking something was wrong. But he stayed in. Then he heard a bang! Lightling was under attack! He got out of the pool and dried off and quickly got all his protection and went out. He saw thousands of buildings down and a lot of banging. Then he heard a rumble. It was so loud it cut out all of the sound. Then he saw what it was: it was a tank! And it was coming right for him! He ran as fast as he could. He turned around. But to his surprise the tank did not move. He thought it was a Shadow Spy (one of the most powerful people) and Shadow Spies were on the bad side. But it was not. 

It was his dad!!!

Spy’s mouth dropped. He ran to him so fast that he was out of breath when he got to him. But when he stood up he hugged his dad.

“I brought you something,” his dad said. “Spy, I brought you a navigation system.” 

“Thank you so much!!!” Spy yelled back. “But why will I need this?” said Spy.

“Because if you have to be in the war you can find targets. To see where bases are and roads,” his father explained. 

Then Spy went into the house and when he went to bed he saw something coming toward him. It was small and had big black letters all over it. When it got there it stopped in mid-air. 

“Do you want to join the war???” it said.

Spy was so surprised when he heard that he jumped out of bed. He looked at the plane and said “Yes!”

“Hop aboard!” the driver said. But he remembered to bring the map. When he got it he jumped out of his window and onto the plane. The plane was cozy, and it had beds. He asked where they were going. The driver said they were going to a castle. Then Spy went to lay down. When he woke up he was in a castle. The castle was big, sturdy, and had cannons. He looked around.

Someone came in and said, “Hello new air force commander. Would you like your uniform?”

Spy said yes. So the nice man came back with a uniform. It was nice and soft. He put it on. It was cozy. 

“Would you like a tour?” the man said.

Spy said yes. So the man gave him a tour. He told him where the tanks were and airplanes and other stuff. Then he went to the Great Hall and ate. After he went to his room and he took the map.


Chapter Two: The Person in the Castle

When he went out, he saw something turning a corner. Spy wanted to see what it was, so he followed it. First he was quiet. 

“Who are you?” Spy said. The person turned around.

“I am Dare,” he said. “My dad is in the war too. I am Spy’s brother. He doesn’t know that I’m his brother.”

“But he does,” Spy said angrily.

“How does he?” Dare said. 

 “Because I am a Spy,” Spy said.

Dare looked at Spy and paused. They had some quiet until Dare said “Now you know me.”

“But why did Mom and Dad not tell me?” Spy said, crying.

“Because I was once a Shadow Spy, and if Mom and Dad showed you then you would probably get mad,” Dare answered.

“But still probably I would cool down after that and I would like you,” Spy said. 

“No you would not. I did not like people on your side. Because I made the army of the Shadow Spies. Think. I made the Shadow Spies,” Dare said, emotionless. 

Dare suddenly began to cry. “I’m sorry,” Dare finally said. “Let’s be friends.” Spy hugged Dare. 

All of the sudden Spy heard lights flashing in the castle. 

The castle was under attack!!! He saw what it was. It was boats with Shadow Spies on them and they were shooting the castle! He saw a knife on the ground. He picked it up. He went outside. He dodged nineteen bullets.

He aimed at the leader of the spies. He threw the knife at the bottom of the boat. The boat sank. Just five more boats. He saw Dare shooting down more. He saw a watch-tower. He went in it and started shooting the boats down. He saw more and more coming, but he got those too. And finally they had victory!!! And partied all night long!  

But they didn’t know that the Shadow Spies were getting sleep. The Shadow Spies were ready to get revenge! So when they were asleep they dropped heavy balls and almost knocked them down. Then Spy woke up from sleep and saw even more Shadow Spies. He defeated all of them, working together. And then Dare and Spy traveled back to their parents in Lightling.

Then they had a turkey and mashed potato dinner and were all happy. 

Then they went to bed. His brother tucked him to bed, got him water, got toothpaste on his toothbrush, and he went to bed. The next morning the mom had a surprise for them: french toast, pancakes, and waffles with whipped cream. They even had a chocolate milkshake with hot chocolate!!! They ate the whole thing of pancakes, french toast, and waffles!! After they had to lay down. They laid down so long they fell asleep for an hour!!! After they called the jet that started how they got to the castle. And when Spy and Dare got there they were elected leaders. They told everyone that they can go to their beds and rest. After they told them to get in their planes and go to do tricks and have an air show.


The Mess

Chapter One

Hi, I’m Rayan, and my family is going to Puerto Rico.

“Hurry up, and get your bag. We have to go,” said my mom.

“Okay,” I said.

I love Puerto Rico. I go at least once a year, and I have so much fun! 

When we got to the security checkpoint at the airport, we were so sloppy we couldn’t even walk. We had to get up so early after we stayed up all night packing our bags, and we were tired! 

When we got on the plane, it was so hot. The flight attendant told me that my bag was too heavy and that it would have to go under the plane. I felt fine with that because I didn’t want to deal with my bag on the plane anyway.

When the plane was up in the air, the beverage cart came around. I had a Sprite, but it made me want to go to the bathroom. So I got up to go to the bathroom.

Chapter Two

When I got inside, the whole bathroom was shaking! At first I thought someone was playing a trick, but when I got out, I realized the whole plane was shaking.

“The turbulence has broken down the beverage cart,” the flight attendant said.

“Hey, folks, we just hit a patch of bumpy air,” the pilot said.

That did not seem right to me.

Chapter Three

The turbulence lasted for about two minutes more, but before you knew it, we landed. We were so tired.

When we were in Puerto Rico, we went to our summer home. Our summer home is big. It was dark, so I just went to bed.

Chapter Four: Pool Party

The next day, we went to my cousin Gabrel’s pool party. When we saw my cousins, we went to get a hot dog.

“Umm,” I said. “This is good.”

Chapter Five

I didn’t go in the pool. Last time, I fell in the pool with my normal clothes, and that was not fun. After five days, we had to leave for our flight. We left Puerto Rico, and we got on the plane to go back home. It was a great trip, and I had lots of fun!

THE END


Endangered Turtles

Turtles have been around for more than 100 million years, making them some of the most ancient creatures on earth. They even survived the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Though turtles can live for 80 years or more, they are still in trouble in terms of population in current times. Turtles are endangered, and that fact could affect the entire ecosystem if they go extinct. Though many of the problems for turtles are caused by other species, most are caused by humans.

Turtles face many kinds of danger from the time that they are born to the time of their deaths. Every year, thousands and thousands of hatchling turtles appear from their nests along the US South Shore and follow the Atlantic sea. Sadly, scientists estimated that only 1,000 to 10,000 of these turtles live to adulthood. The physical obstacles encountered by turtles are astounding. Nowadays, four of the seven kinds of turtles are endangered, one is critically endangered, and two are vulnerable. Throughout their life, sea turtles face many challenges that are made by both animals and humans. Predators such as raccoons, shellfish, and ants attack eggs and hatchlings, even at the nest. Once they grow, hatchlings create bite-sized meals for birds, shellfish, and many other predators in the sea. After growing to maturity, however, sea turtles are not faced with as many predator attacks except for the occasional shark attack. Yet, these predators are not the largest cause for sea turtle populations plummeting toward extinction.

Several different humans actions are responsible for turtle endangerment. Commercial fishing is one of the many things that humans are doing to cause turtles to be endangered. According to conserveturtles.org, 250,000 sea turtles are accidentally captured, injured, or killed by US fishermen each year. Many of these injuries and deaths take place while turtles are migrating through fishing areas. The turtles either get caught on the hooks because they are attracted to the bait, or they get caught in fishermen’s nets. Another thing that people are doing to affect turtle endangerment is that sometimes people kill turtles to eat their meat. Conserveturtles.org says that, “in many coastal communities, especially in Central America and Asia, sea turtles have provided a source of food.” During turtles’ nesting seasons, turtle hunters watch the beaches at night to look for female turtles looking to lay their eggs. These people will often wait until the female has laid her eggs, and then they will kill her and take the eggs.

Even less direct human actions can affect the turtles. For example, sea turtles mistake plastics and other garbage as food, (such as jellyfish) and ingest it. According to seeturtles.org, “hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales, and other marine mammals, and more than 1 million seabirds die each year from ocean pollution and ingestion or entanglement in marine debris.” Marine debris is man-made waste that is directly or indirectly disposed of in oceans, rivers, and other waterways. This mistake causes blockages within the turtles digestive system and eventual death. The waste that is dropped into the ocean tends to accumulate in something called a gyre. A gyre is an area of slow spiraling water and low winds. In the Pacific Ocean, there is a gyre called the North Pacific Gyre. Within this gyre, there is something called “The Great Garbage Patch.” This “garbage patch” is approximately the size of Texas with plastic debris extending about six meters under the water. It’s estimated that this “plastic island” contains 3.5 million tons of trash. This island shows how much plastic is collecting in the ocean and the amount of plastic going into the ocean is rising each year.

Though turtle extinction is a major problem, there are many things that we can do to save the turtles. The first thing that the average person can do is to reduce the amount of garbage you produce and clean up trash you see on the beach. By doing this there will be a lot less garbage in the ocean and a lot fewer turtles who die from a mistake of thinking a plastic bag is a jellyfish. Another thing that can be done for the turtles is to remove recreational equipment like chairs and umbrellas and to fill in holes and knock down sea castles in the sand (fisheries.noaa.gov). When these things are on the sand, they become obstacles for the nesting turtles and for the baby turtles to get to the ocean. A third thing that can be done to help turtles is to turn out all visible lights from the beach and avoid beach bonfires. According to defenders.org, “sea turtle hatchlings use light and reflections from the moon to find their way to the water at night.” That means that if they see the artificial light or the light from the fire, they will go toward it thinking it is the ocean. Finally, a chemical reduction can be used to help turtles. Even if you don’t know it, the chemicals you use on your lawn and in your home can somehow wash away into the ocean, killing plants and animals. Instead, use alternate products like biodegradable solutions.

It is important for people to know about the problem of endangered sea turtles and learn how to fix it. If people don’t help turtles soon, they will go extinct. If sea turtles go extinct, it will damage the ocean’s ecosystem. For example, sea turtles play an important role in keeping the seagrass bed healthy. When green sea turtles graze, they increase the productivity and nutrient content of seagrass blades. Without constant grazing, seagrass beds become overgrown and decompose and provide a good habitat for the growth of slime molds. Finally, if turtles went extinct, this would also affect humans. If there were no more turtles, then the jellyfish population would grow because sea turtles eat jellyfish. If this population grows, these jellyfish will travel in swarms across the ocean and do many things to affect us. For example, jellyfish may go to areas where there are a lot of fish and sting all of the fish, affecting what people eat and the fisherman’s catch. Therefore, the fishermen will not have any fish to sell, and they will lose a lot of money. Another thing that would happen if jellyfish population grows is that jellyfish may clog nuclear plant cooling water systems all over the world. This shows that our ecosystem is fragile, and we need to protect it. 

WORKS CITED

“Information About Sea Turtles: Threats to Sea Turtles.” Sea Turtle Conservancy, conserveturtles.org/information-sea-turtles-threats-sea-turtles/.

Noaa. “What Can You Do to Save Sea Turtles?” NOAA Fisheries, 6 June 2016, www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/what-can-you-do-save-sea-turtles.

“Ocean Plastic.” SEE Turtles, www.seeturtles.org/ocean-plastic.

Pattavina, Peter. “Sea Turtles.” Defenders of Wildlife, defenders.org/wildlife/sea-turtles.
“Tour De Turtles Spotlight on the Race’s Biggest Competitors: The Leatherbacks.” Sea Turtle Conservancy, 13 Sept. 2016, conserveturtles.org/tour-de-turtles-spotlight-races-biggest-competitors-leatherbacks/.

Sprinkles the Donut

Once there lived a donut, and her name was Sprinkles. She had chocolate icing and rainbow sprinkles.

Sprinkles really wanted to take a bite out of a muffin, but they were far away from where she was. She tried to roll, but the glass was blocking her. She was in a bakery. She was also next to one mean cupcake who did not let her move. The cupcake was too busy teasing her about being a donut and saying that they were better than her. She sometimes cried, but she learned to ignore them. Sometimes she wished she was a cupcake.

And then someone picked her up and put her in a brown bag. She was happy that she was leaving the cupcakes. But she was wondering where she was going. Sprinkles was a bit nervous but happy at the same time. Then she thought that she was moving for a long time. She was not happy anymore—she was scared.

Sprinkles didn’t know where she was going. Until she got put on a plate. She looked around and saw that she wasn’t in the bakery anymore. She didn’t recognize this place at all… until she realized that someone was making coffee. She didn’t know what they were doing. So she started rolling off the table, and then she saw a dog under the table. It looked like it was a bulldog. She froze. The bulldog chased her. The guy looked at Sprinkles and picked her up and… put her in the trash can. Ahh!

Sprinkles landed in a big pile of brown stuff. She sniffed it to see if it was a muffin. It smelled terrible. She didn’t know what it was… until she remembered that she had poked a hole in the brown bag before she was on the plate and saw the bulldog pooping. She screamed.

Sprinkles went to the opposite side of the trash can. She tried to climb out. She failed the first time, but after she tried a few more times, she did it. She pushed on the lid, and it worked! Sprinkles got out of the trash can so she hopped upstairs, making sure the bulldog didn’t see her or smell her to go take a shower.

She was thinking that the bulldog would find her any minute now, but no one came in the bathroom. When she saw the sink dripping, she went on the toilet, on the toilet paper, and then hopped on the sink. And she took her little shower. 

After she took a shower, she went to the edge of the sink and rolled to the other edge of the sink and jumped through the nearest window. She wouldn’t dream of living with a bulldog! She was terrified of it! She landed on a soft pile of grass. Then she saw the Bulldog sitting behind the back door screen—she didn’t care because he couldn’t get out.

“Do you want to go outside, Pumpkin?” someone said.

She quickly hid in a bush. The screen door opened and… Pumpkin ran outside and started chasing a butterfly. It was beautiful—it was purple with black swirls. She wanted the Bulldog to leave because she wanted to go back to the bakery and find the muffin. The dog stopped chasing the butterfly and started sniffing the floor. Sprinkles suddenly felt scared. When the dog came to the bush, she got very nervous too. So she backed up. The dog went around the bush and saw a little, tiny brown spot, and he went closer and saw Sprinkles. 

Sprinkles ran out of the bush and started going to the bakery. The person in the house started chasing after Pumpkin and brought him back to the house. She slowed down her pace. She didn’t know where she was going, though. So she tried to retrace her steps. When she got back to the house, she remembered the way to the bakery. So she went to the bakery. She had a problem when she reached the bakery. The door said, “Closed.” When she tried to open the door, it was locked. So she found a tree and climbed it. It was a small tree, so she jumped into one of the bakery’s windows. She landed where she remembered she was made. She thought it must be the kitchen. She went out the door and looked for the muffin. The muffin was sleeping, so she was very quiet so that the muffin wouldn’t wake up and get mad at her. She was about to take a big bite out of the muffin when the muffin woke up and looked at her. 

The muffin asked, “What are you doing?”

So she told the muffin the truth. The muffin wasn’t very upset, but the muffin said not to do it again. So Sprinkles said okay. Sprinkles could see that they were starting to make friends. She liked the muffin very much, so she asked if they could be friends. The muffin said yes, and she was very happy because now she really liked the muffin. The muffin asked if she could go back to sleep, and Sprinkles said yes because she didn’t want to lose a friend. She was very tired, so she fell asleep too. In the morning, she saw the bulldog and the man. The muffin was still sleeping, but she hid behind the muffin. The man was picking cupcakes next to him, and Sprinkles was glad that he didn’t like the cupcake because she knew what would happen to the cupcake. The muffin finally woke up, and he said that he should’ve introduced himself, so he said his name was Blueberry because he was a blueberry muffin. Sprinkles said that her name was Sprinkles. Now she realized that she didn’t want to eat a muffin but that she wanted to make friends with a muffin.


The Cupcake and the Cake

Chapter One

Once upon a time, there was a cupcake named Sophie. She lived in a bakery in New York. Sophie had everything but cake. Sophie really liked cake. When she was four years old, she started eating lots of cake. She would sneak into the kitchen in her house and grab a piece of cake and eat it in her room in a cabinet.

She had heard lots of people saying, “Can we have that piece of cake for a birthday party?”

That made her decide that maybe she could have a birthday party and have some cake. 

One night, when everybody was gone at the bakery, Sophie went out of her little house, out of the bakery, and went to go find a piece of cake.

On the news it had said, “Whoever gets this strawberry cake can have it for the rest of their life, and it is in Queens.” But Sophie had arms and legs made out of cupcakes. She started heading toward Queens on foot. She had to walk down the sidewalk, and when she was heading for Queens, a fox came by. It was a fox with a sword to block Sophie. 

The fox was getting ready to chop Sophie in half. The fox didn’t want Sophie to get the cake because he wanted it. Sophie was holding a basket of cherries just in case there was something blocking her, so she could just throw it at it. And then, when Sophie got to the fox, she threw the cherries at the floor, so the fox could catch them. So, the fox started catching the cherries with his sword, and after a couple of cherries, Sophie ran right past him.

When Sophie got past the fox, she was getting close to the bridge. She could see the bridge over the buildings. Sophie started to feel something really hot on her. Then, she looked up to the sky, and she saw red spots coming down from the sky.

“What in the world is going on?!”

It was raining hot sauce!!! Sophie tried to dodge the hot sauce. But, when the hot sauce started coming down hard, she still had to go under things so she could make it to the bridge. She saw an icy stand across the street. I think I should run super fast across the street to get to the icy stand to hide under! Then she climbed up a tree and jumped onto another tree, and there was a very long branch, and since there was a very long branch, she could balance on it and go the next tree on the other side of the street. When she dropped down from the other tree, she quickly ran to the icy stand, and she wanted a cup from the icy stand, so she could hide under. She saw it next to an icy bin and while the customer was ordering, Sophie quickly took a cup and hid under it. She got close to the bridge, the raining hot sauce stopped, and then she started walking towards the bridge.

Then a lion quickly ran in front of her and blocked her.

Sophie said, “Uh oh, why is there a lion in front of me??”

The lion heard her, and the lion said, “You’re not going to get to that cake because I want to get that cake also!”

And then Sophie said, “Well, I’m going to get that cake before you!” 

And then Sophie said, “Well, I will be able to sneak behind you and get that cake before you.” 

He said, “Are you sure? But I’m definitely going to block you.”

And then Sophie started hiding behind a rock right next to her. And the lion looked at the sky, and the sun started to rise up. So then, when Sophie was behind the rock, the lion looked back, and he was really confused where Sophie was. The lion looked where Sophie was standing, and the lion thought that Sophie just quickly went invisible. It was the lion’s first time seeing a real cupcake in his life that could move, so then the lion wouldn’t eat the cupcake because the lion didn’t like cupcakes, but the lion could smell the cupcake like animals. So then the lion looked for the cupcake, and then Sophie started to go on the bridge and walk.

The bridge had vines to swing on for fun. Sophie looked very confused. She never saw a bridge with vines. She saw points from the road and wondered why. 

Next, there were swords sticking up, and Sophie had to swing on vines and not fall on the swords. Since Sophie had arms and legs, she took her arms and hung on the vines, and she pumped her legs so she could swing. When Sophie was swinging on the vines, she could feel the breeze. When she swung onto the last vine, her hands almost slipped, and she almost fell. She quickly jumped on the other side of the swords. 

“Phew! I can’t believe I almost fell. I can’t wait to enter Queens!”

Queens seemed so close. In Queens, it looked so much different than in New York. There were no big people. There were only tiny people. All the buildings were are also tiny. She continued walking. She was heading to a park where a birthday party was. Sophie was really excited to go get the cake.

Chapter Two

Sophie saw the park and knew where to go. She was about to walk off the bridge, but then   there was a gorilla! The gorilla had an axe to block Sophie. When the gorilla blocked Sophie, the gorilla thought he could have the cake all to himself. 

“I’m going to go get that cake before you do!”

“Well, since I’m tinier than you, I can get it first!”

The gorilla saw the cherries that Sophie had in her basket.

“Those cherries look yummy.”

“Do you want these cherries?”

The gorilla said, “I’d love to take your cherries for dinner.”

“You can have all of these cherries for your dinner.”

Sophie brought the cherries for the gorilla to eat for dinner. When Sophie put the cherries to the gorilla to chop up, Sophie started tiptoeing past the gorilla until she got to the cake. It was strawberry cake with two levels, lots of vanilla frosting on the top, with rainbow sprinkles, and a cherry on top. Sophie was really surprised at how big the cake was.

“This strawberry cake looks very yummy!”

She licked her lips and made a delicious face. She thought she could share with her friends if she had enough to eat by herself. Sophie promised her friends that she would give some of the strawberry cake, and now Sophie was thinking, Should I keep it all to myself?

Meanwhile, the gorilla was thinking. After the gorilla chopped all the cherries into small pieces, the gorilla walked over to Sophie and said, “Can we trade these really small pieces of cherries for the whole cake?”

Sophie said, “No because I’m sharing it with my friends.” 

“Okay, fine, but one day I’ll get that cake!”

Then, the gorilla left and had his cherries for his dinner. 

Sophie decided to share with her friends because she promised them that she would share a piece of cake with them. And if she didn’t share with her friends, she thought that her friends wouldn’t want to be friends with her anymore and tell a lie to her friends. 

She called with her very tiny phone. Her phone had cat ears with strawberries. It has sprinkles all over it.

She said, “Do you want to have some cake with me?”

And then one of her friends, Emily, said, “Okay.”

She said, “I’m at a birthday party! Take a tiny car, and drive it to the Queens.”

And when Emily came, they had cake together.

Sophie said, “But, the thing is, I don’t know how to cut this cake!”

So then Emily quickly ran to the bakery and got a knife to cut the cake. Sophie and Emily cut the cake together, so they could share the cake. The cake was really good!

Sophie called her next friend with her tiny phone. She called her friend Lucy.

And Sophie told Lucy how to get to the birthday party. “So first you take a tiny car and you take it to the Queen’s. First when you get off the bridge, and you look to your right, the birthday party’s right there.”

And then when Lucy came to the birthday party, they shared one piece of cake together.

“Another day we’ll share the cake again.”

The next day, when they went back to the birthday party, they ate the rest of the piece of cake, and it took about nine hours. They felt hyper, and then at night they all went back to their homes in New York with their tiny cars and went to sleep.


The Days at the Museum

Part One: The Great Museum

One day in the Met, all the Greek mythology and royal statues and animals wanted to be free and move around, so all of the statues and animals came up with a plan to sneak out in the night and move around. But then they remembered that the museum had guards to defend the outside, and inside, the watchers would see them move. Then they took a risk to just move around inside, and when the watchers pointed their flashlights, they would stand still. So at 2:00AM, they started to get out their bases and started playing tag and running, but then the night watchers started searching around. Once they heard a flick of the flashlight, they all needed to go to their base, and when they went away, they could start moving again. But one time when the watchers went away and the people started moving, one of the statues fell! He broke off a piece of him! The watchers turned around, and all the statues were moving but were too slow. They got caught! They ran to try to make a run for it towards the door, and once they got out, they jumped into the water in the fountains to hide. Once the watchers left, they moved to the back of the museum, so they would trick the watchers, but they didn’t because they stayed in the back. But instead of the watchers pulling them to their base, they screamed like girls and ran to the front of the museum. They didn’t pay attention to where they were running and ran their head right into a fountain. While that happened, all the statues went to the park and played more tag, but right before they knew it, it was 7:00AM.

Part Two: The Running Statues

At 7:00AM, they could have been seen, so they stayed up in a place where they were covered. Well… not really. They stayed up in a closed playground on 13th Street, and they said they would move to places and act like the thing they were. A statue or animal. They all split up. Some people went to the Empire State Building, Freedom Tower, Madison Square Garden, and more. When they got to their places, they even did some pranks. They split up, so one of the knights went to a playground, and he stood on a rock and stayed there. Once, he stayed still when people came and they actually thought he was a statue! They walked past him and touched him, and he stayed as still as a statue. After a few minutes, The Knight was ready to do a prank. He was right next to a bench that a dad put out a bag next to him. So first, he was starting out easy. The Knight tapped the dad on the bench. He tapped him and then went back to his pose. Tap pose tap pose. The dad was so confused! The dad was so scared that when The Knight tapped him, he jumped eight feet! It was so funny! Then The Knight took it to the next level. He kicked the dad in the butt and made him fly. He then grabbed the bag, put it in his pocket, and went back to his position. This time, the dad flew 50 feet! Then The Knight left on a car he snuck into. 

Meanwhile, the Greek Lady in a robe went to the Freedom Tower and stood on the street and waddled around the city. She went to the 9/11 Memorial and she stood there, looked down the hole and up to the Freedom Tower. She looked at all the names that died. She felt kind of sad and also kind of happy for the things that happened when she was made. It reminded her of her mom and dad and the memories they had, but they got destroyed. She also felt curious. Why would they destroy a cool building like this? Then, she waddled closer to the thing and looked deeper into the hole. More people came and it would be easier to be visible by more people, so she waddled backwards and went back to her normal statue position. 

While Greek Lady statue went to the Freedom Tower, the Baby Royal Horse statue went to the Natural History Museum. He was one foot tall and two feet wide. But, the Horse wondered how he would get in. Then, he saw a bag a little bigger than him and he thought he could sneak in that. So, he tapped the owner of the bag on the back. That made him look somewhere else, and then the Baby Royal Horse snuck into the bag and the owner of the bag didn’t notice. The owner of the bag went into the Natural History Museum and talked to the ticket people. After that, he knew he snuck in. The owner of the bag went into the marine animals exhibit to see the great blue whale. A lot of people adored the whale and some people were watching the TV. The guy who was carrying him went under the blue whale and looked around. He walked around for about two minutes. After he checked out the blue whale, he went back to the space area, where there’s also a big TV to watch about all the eors, shapes, stars, and planets. He didn’t go first to the TV. He went to the chunks of rocks from eors. He went to read about the different planets. The Baby Royal Horse was thinking, What’s is space? What are eors? What are planets? While the Baby Royal Horse was thinking that, the man went to the TVs. A lot of people were on the benches looking at the TV. They were very focused. The TV had a man on it saying things about stars and how fast they go. He thought, What are stars? After the man watched the video about eors, stars, and planets. He went to the land animals exhibit. There were rhinos, monkeys, elephants, tigers, bisons, and way more. The Royal Baby Horse had so many things in his mind. What are these animals? Are they alive? What is that background?

While the Royal Horse was in the Natural History Museum, Hercules went to the Guggenheim Museum and snuck in at night, but of course, there was a guard. So he snuck in very silently and quietly. He got caught one minute after, but the guard was dumb. The guard ran up the spiral, stood next to Hercules, and said something nobody could understand. Something like, “Yutiderawn cooooew!!!” Then Hercules punched him in the stomach, and the guard flew off the staircase and said something like, “Futfdssjsbnvjbhsaj!”  The guard flew 200 feet in the air and smashed through the wall. Then Hercules looked at the paintings and thought, Wow they look so colorful and bright and cool. Then he thought, I get why people love looking at things like me and these paintings. I want to get the attention again and respect. I’m going to tell the other statues and animals ‘Hey guys when I went to the Guggenheim Museum, I was amazed by the paintings and I thought I want respect, like how I liked the paintings. We’re cool and I bet people would like us.’ And he said, “I’m going to tell them how I want to go back!”

Part Three: The Lazy Guard

They were up in Central Park at 9:45PM, and Hercules told the Horse, Knight, and Greek Lady about the things he thought in his mind, and also the part when he punched the guard through`the wall. He got them pretty convinced to go back to the museum, so they agreed to go back and sneak into a car/truck and break the car with the mighty Hercules!!! So they saw a truck. It was a Whole Foods truck, and they jumped on it. Hercules winded up his arm and threw his best punch!!! Pow!!! And all of the truck parts broke in half like a knife through a piece of meat. Then they ran away because it was their last prank. They didn’t know where the Met was and they didn’t know where they were going.

They all went running in weird ways! They only knew the street the Met was on was 86th street, but they didn’t know which way went to 86th. Then they looked up and noticed the street signs. The number was 44th, and then they went to the next street 45th, next street 46th. They wondered, If we keep on going this way, will we go higher and get to 86th street? And then they said out loud the same thing they wondered. They agreed that they would go the way they thought was right. They got tired when they got to 54th street, so they took a break. They stole a drink and a bag of Cheetos from a pharmacy.

They waited for about five minutes and continued on their journey on getting to 86th street. Then they took a break at 70th street, and they were almost there! This time, they stole a big bottle of coke from a grocery store. Then they took a break at 81st street! They were so close this time, they stole a cake from a bakery for celebration, but when they thought they got out safely, they didn’t notice the camera caught them. They got caught!!! They ran out of the building like The Flash, while eating the chocolate cake, but they didn’t even get seen by anybody because the security guard was sleeping, so no need to worry. They celebrated with cake and walked to 86th. The guard screamed like a girl again, while they went to their bases and went to their poses.

Part Four: The Security Tapes

When they got to the Met, they thought they got back safely, and they didn’t think they got caught by the security camera. But the person controlling the security at night would check the tapes because he knew he fell asleep, and he would see the statues steal the cake and he would see the way they went. And so in the morning, the security guard checked the tapes and saw the statues. He wondered, Where did the statues go when they left? Then he thought, Wait… statues live in the museum and the Met is close to here so… they should be in the Met, right? So he went to the Met at 7AM, but it was closed, so he could not come in. So at 9AM, he went in. The statues were very scared, but when he went in, he got distracted. He looked at everything. He stayed at the water animals exhibit for 15 minutes and at the land animal exhibit for 20 minutes. He even stayed at the mummy exhibit for one hour!

He forgot about the statues, and the statues were not worried about him anymore, but then he remembered about the statues. He first went to the royal exhibit to find The Knight and Baby Royal Horse. When he got there, The Horse and Knight were scared when they saw him. They stood really still. The guard tried to touch one of the knights, but instead the guard for the museum tackled him like a football player. Unluckily, he broke his ankle and could not get up. There was one person that could look through walls and he looked through the bakery, where the security guard would be while it was closed because it opens at 2:00 for some reason.

The guy looked and saw nothing in the seat and screamed “Free cakes!” One million people came running at the bakery. The security guard tried to get back outside, but he just rested on the street, and the statues lived happily ever after.

The End


The Fire Breathing Flying Cow and the Cake and Cat

Chapter One

Once upon a time, there was a flying cow that breathed fire, but only when she wanted to. Her name was Agatha. She lived in a cave in the Netherlands. Her life was good, but she just wanted cake. 

The only things that were in Agatha’s way were a bat with a sword and a giant tarantula fish. The cake was guarded by the bat and the giant tarantula fish, and there was quicksand at the bottom of the cave that the fish and bat lived in! And there were rumors, ranging from a village boy in a shop to a knight-in-armor, that whoever went in there, no one came out alive.

Agatha had tried once, and almost got her head chopped off! But she was willing to do anything to get that cake. Over dinner, Agatha decided to go and get the cake, even if she did get her head cut off. She would even die just to get a bite out of the untouched cake she had heard about so much about from the newspaper bear. She started her journey.  

Chapter Two

When Agatha was halfway there, a sudden thought hit her brain with a bang. She felt worried. What if I fall in the quicksand before I get a taste of the cake? What if the bat kills me? Suddenly, she tripped on a rock and fell flat on her face! 

“Aah,” she said, and then giggled a long snorty giggle. Ignoring all her worries, she still kept going.

When she got there she eyed the quicksand, the giant tarantula fish, the bat with the sword, and the slightest hint of cake. It also smelled horrible in there. Since she was a cow, she didn’t have awesome athletic skills, so even with thoughts racing in her head she still shouted out, “Hey! I want cake! You’ve been keeping me from cake. I’m going to get that cake!” 

Suddenly everything was silent, then the bat flew at her from behind, and scratched the tip of her tail, not her body, but it hurt a lot. When they started the battle, the bat seemed to have the upper hand. He was slashing her with the sword, almost hitting her. It did get a few hard blows on her, on her black spot. Then Agatha got the upper hand. She tried to get the sword and held onto it with hooves and it did not cut her hooves. Then she was able to swing the bat around because the bat wasn’t supposed to let go of the sword. It threw it and then the giant tarantula fish caught it. 

Chapter Three

Agatha was triumphant!!! She went to the glass box that housed the cake, and looked at the keyhole. “Rats, darn it,” she said. 

But then she noticed the key. It was right next to the keyhole, just hanging from a peg! She giggled that snorty giggle of hers, and then the giant tarantula knocked her off her hooves! She got ready to cut off the creature’s head, the sword in aiming position, but as soon as the creature saw the sword, it squealed in horror at having its partner dead.

Then, it suddenly shrunk down to the size of a kitten and grew a tabby cats fur. Then its fins became a red collar, and it became a tabby kitten with a red collar that said, “My name is Sunny!!!” So Tabitha picked up Sunny, got the key, and unlocked the glass case. She reached inside, got the cake and then, to her horror, she found out it was soooo heavy! 

She couldn’t even fly because of the weight of the cake! But Sunny meowed along the way, even getting her clean paws dirty! So finally, she asked Sunny, “Would you be my pet?”

Chapter Four

Sunny meowed and it sounded like a yes kind of meow, and that gave Agatha the cow confidence. So she finally got home after a few stumbles and the occasional tripping on rocks and small animals. When she got home, she finally got to share it with her friends and family and she ate the biggest helping of cake. She also toasted s’mores with her breath and gave some to her friends, but ate the most s’mores Hadn’t she deserved it?

The End


4012

December, 15, 1587

Dear Diary,

Daddy said he’ll be back soon. But I want to go with him just so bad. In England, here, there are not many opportunities for women. Hardly any, really. In what daddy calls ‘The New World,” people must farm. They must work. Even women. So maybe I’ll get a break from laundry, cooking, and cleaning all day. Maybe I can help build with my hands. Maybe I can learn how to fish! Here in England I did a task as simple as walking into a store in which they sold wood. The seller looked at me and said, “Hello, there. Um, the fabric store is just one avenue down. I can walk you if you’re afraid you’ll get lost.”  The man had a thin beard, just as thin as the ice he was standing on if he said anything like that to me again. No one will be on the land Daddy and I will venture to. Last night, Daddy had a man named Walter over for dinner. I call him Sir Rohlly, though. He wore a rugged blue coat and white shirt. He wore brown pants and shoes. The land will be called Roanoke, after my grandfather. I am begging my father, John White, to come along.

December, 15, 1804

Dear Diary,

Lewis just bosses me around. He knows of my many tongues, several skills, and connections so I can’t be too angry he is scared. Clark is no help, either. He simply buries his head in his hat. Sometimes they can be nice to each other, but most of the time, they fight like cats and dogs! “No, North is this way, Clark!” “No, Lewis.” And I sit there with the compass and laugh, because neither is right. But I breathe in and smell the trees, hear the hum of birds, see all the color, and most of all, wish I was back home, with my people. Instead of on the Lewis and Clark expedition. At home, they would include every one. We would share everything we had. I remember lending countless items to neighbors because they said please. “Please, Sacagewea, may we borrow your fishtrap?” We were all so polite. Ahhh, how I miss that.

December, 15, 1853

Dear Diary,

Tonight was a bigger group. Thirty, thirty-five, maybe. They all may be scared, but that sure doesn’t stop most of them. They travel through with me fast. Whenever they’re scared I tell them to think about the South. They start whispering with their neighbor when they’re scared, or they start to slump. They cross their arms at any sign of sound to think about how badly they were treated there. They quiver more thinking about the South than when they’re scared following me. Usually, it gets them going. Ten of the ones I rescued tonight were from my own plantation. Back when I left, the idea was next to insane. But now, people are flocking to hitch a ride on my railroad, with the best conductor. I must keep going back because I can’t think about those people I left behind. Even if they’re strangers, because of this, we’ve become friends. My brother is a Tubman, too. I wonder when he’ll want to leave. When I left, he wouldn’t leave. He would rather stay there, in the South, than travel to the North. He said he would rather be oppressed than get caught by people who approve of slavery. 

December, 15, 1903

Dear Diary, 

Not to brag, but I just won the Nobel Prize! For the second time! I recently discovered a green rock. It glows. I can turn it into liquid and find more. I call it Radium. Here, I’ll use it in a sentence; I discovered a new element: Radium. How about a song? Or a poem? You know what? I have to go to dinner soon, but maybe next time. This new element could do so much! It could save lives! Well, maybe. I’m worried about my husband. Ever since we started this project, he’s been very weak. But, as I’m sure you know, Curies are strong. He’ll recover.

December, 15, 1921

Dear Diary, 

Robert Abbot gave me a place to go. I want to fly so bad. And I will. In France. Not many will teach a black girl to fly in this era. I guess that means I’m ahead of my time. In France, I fly on a small plane. There are more buttons than there were sharecroppers on my field back in Texas. But I eventually learned what they all meant. As soon as the plane’s wheels start turning, I see the path growing shorter and shorter until I could no longer see the rock-filled road. Until I could see that very same road grow into nothing but one line amongst greenery so lush, it looked like second clouds. Until I could no longer see the road anymore, just a quilt of green. Until finally I could see the faint line of the road, then it grew bigger, and bigger and bigger, until the wheels of my plane smoothly touched the road. I remember the dirt roads in Texas. How when I walked my heels kicked up red dirt. It took me a while to get used to the city.  After many days of being up in that plane, I am handed my flying license. It has a picture of me and next to my picture the index card says “Bessie Coleman”.

December, 15, 1921

Dear Diary,

My father says that no woman should be in the cockpit. That they shouldn’t even be in the passenger’s seat. Well, to all those who think that, I will prove you wrong. It’s my third week flying on The Canary. It’s bright yellow and has an upgrade: cup holders. But I am fully focused on the air, the sky, and the cockpit when I am flying. When I was small, my father took me to an airshow. The male pilots did amazing things that took real courage and moxie. They did figure eights and loop-de-loops! I was absolutely marveled as they spun round and round. I told my father, right there, “Daddy, I want to do that. I want to fly.” My father told me to just see what happens. And now, fifteen years later, I am in the cockpit. First, the heat is so hot it’s like I am in a desert in the summertime. But I still climb into the tiny plane and flick up some switches. Then I start to move. When the wheels take off I feel like I’m on top of the world, though by this point I’m only 50 or 60 feet in the air. I have nothing to worry about. The blue goes on forever. And when I’m up in the clouds, I leave behind every one who thinks women shouldn’t fly. And I just do. I just fly. But what comes up, must come down. The plane’s wheels hit the ground again. And I get ready to re-enter reality. Because flying  in that plane up there seems almost to good to be true.

December, 15, 1935

Dear Diary,

It’s my husband’s second year serving as the president of the United States. And it’s my second year serving as the first lady. I drive the car to grab groceries, cook dinner, clean, and give speeches about civil rights in the very same day! Of course our maid, Mary, helps with chores, too. Living in the whithouse does have its perks. I am to speak tomorrow as well. I have it all prepared. When Franklin was campaigning, he would practice each of his speeches at least fifty times. And he would speak them to me. So I present my speeches to Franklin. Every night. He gives me terrific feedback. Our goals are different, yes, but Franklin supports me a whole lot. I am grateful to have such a wonderful husband and think we make a wonderful team. 

December, 15, 1872

Dear Diary,

I went through the streets today. Seventy-five women followed me, holding up signs saying “RIGHTS FOR ALL” and “EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN”. I held up a sign that said both. A couple of months ago I voted. They said it was illegal, but ,no, it was right. Three women came with me. Everyone stared, but we put in our ballots and walked out of there like we owned the place. I had dinner last night in my apartment. I cut out the words in articles that all citizens are supposed to trust. Usually, I love seeing my name in print, but not in these articles. They say things like Susan B. Anthony voted illegally for the U.S. president. She will be questioned.

December, 15, 2000

Dear Diary,

I know that everyone deserves a fair trial, so I give them one. I am the second female Supreme Court Justice. I don’t have much to write about. Yesterday I argued a murder case. It’s really quite exhilarating. Looking at evidence, hearing both sides, (it makes it easier when my kids are fighting) and getting to decide the fate of these people. I am working on a case for a woman named Mrs. Boji. She says while she, her husband, daughter, son, and sister were on the beach for ‘Splash Saturday,’ there car was stolen. In the car, there was a necklace of diamond and gold. I am writing now, but Ms. Boji, Mrs. Boji’s sister, is supposed to come by and talk so we can figure out more about this case. I must look over some documents and papers before she arrives.

December, 15, 4012

Dear Diary,

This is the first time I’m writing. I thought it might be a good time to write considering I am going on an adventure. I am in my space pod right now traveling back in time about 3000 years to meet Elizabeth White. Then I will keep recruiting influential women from the past. Why? Oh. Because an evil man named Xoron Zomm is trying, and succeeding, to destroy planet earth. He wants to put us back in the dark ages. My name is Quinn Quile. My father is… well… our version of a president. So, he chose his only daughter to save the world. I’ll write back soon, but I think I just landed In England. December, 15, 1587.

***

Alright, Elizabeth’s on my ship. I was so brave! Elizabeth was sewing on a rocking chair when I walked in. I told her of the future. She was actually looking for adventure. Of course, it took me an hour to get Elizabeth to that state. At first she held her needle up like I was an intruder. But she wanted more. She knew coming with me would give her that. So, she followed me onto my pod.  She gladly followed me on my ship with her needle and thread. She is now looking all around like she’s never seen an intergalactic starship before! Daddy taught me of each of these times and constantly, up to the moment my pod left 4012, to not tell of these women’s individual futures. So I couldn’t tell Elizabeth that Roanoke disappears and that she could not venture there with her father. But I could venture myself to retrieve the next woman on my list. Sacagewea. 

Sacagewea is now on my ship. I found her three hours ago sharpening a wood knife. She pushed another sharp object away from her. She didn’t look up from her task until I said. “Ma’am…” I mean, sure, ma’am might not have been the best thing to call Sacagewea. You call a Prodfert ma’am. 

Prodfert: Noun

Meaning 1: A 4000 century version of a president.

(The Prodfert in 4012 is Zomp Quile)

Meaning 2: A small water bug that is green and microscopic.

(That atom is as small as a Prodfert) 

Or

(Another name for a female Prodfert is ma’am.)

But, I mean, I was super nervous! Even in my time Sacagewea is a legend. Anyway, she looked up from her knife, and she said, “Hello…”

I took a deep breath. I was talking to the Sacagewea. Deep breath. But before I could say anything else, she said something. “Why are you wearing such funny clothes?” I looked down, forgetting for a moment that the clothes I was wearing Sacagewea did not know of. I was wearing a Jupingoe.

Jupingoe: Noun.

Meaning 1; A garment of silk cloth that important people of 4012 wear.

(I saw Quin Quile wear a Jupingoe on Sunday.)

Now, before I continue I would like to alert that I am only writing explanations of these words because Daddy says we might get this book published. They will sell my book in every year in every place. Anyway, I told Sacagewea I was of a different world, which was more or less true. I could tell her everything as soon as she was looking around my pod like Elizabeth, like she had never seen one before. Sacagewea wore Shoshone clothing and her long black hair was in two braids. I recognized the two men behind squabbling about something. Sacagewea looked at me. Sacagewea wasn’t going to come with me by will, but maybe by fear. “I am a Nimerigar. Go pack.” Sacagewea looked quite scared. But she listened. I know it was cruel, but daddy told me to use any tactic necessary in order to get the women we sought to cooperate. I will tell her the truth in the pod.

Nimerigar: Noun

Meaning 1: A Shoshone myth of a person that eats people.

Sacagawea followed me, brown bag slung over her shoulder, knife in hand. When I showed her my pod she put her knife in her bag.

“You are no Nimerigar! This is not a Nimerigar home!” Sacagewea turned to go back.

“Wait!” I screamed after her. She turned back.

“Yes?” She said harshly. “I know you do not like Lewis and Clark. But you are talented. I need your help. Please.”

“How?” she answered skeptically.

“The future is in peril. And we need you to save it.”

“Why would I help a liar?”

I sighed. “Because if you stay, you, yes you, will be a legend.” Then realizing what my father had said I added, “Maybe. But, you can change the world if you come with me.”

And she said “Okay.” And that is how I got Sacagewea on my pod. Next stop; 1853.

***

So…that was hard. Harriet came after many attempts, but eventually, I knew just what to say. Three down, six to go. Marie Curie. I got out my radiation suit.

***

Marie Curie was easy to persuade.

I found her where she spends most of her time. In her lab. She swirled the glowing liquid with a spoon. “Marie Curie…” She wasn’t as surprised as I’d expected.

“Hello. I always have time for fans.” 

“No, no” I stammered. “Well, yes, I am a fan, but that’s not why I came. The future is in peril. We need your help.”

“Sure,” said Marie. “Really? Just… just like that?”

“Well, yeah. I think it’s a great opportunity. Besides, I’m quite curious.” Curious Curie down. Five more to go.

***

Both Bessie Coleman and Amelia Earhart jumped at the chance to come to the future and fly. They became great friends when I brought them back to my pod.

“I think we deserve a nickname.” Amelia said.

“I agree.” Bessie found a spot next to Amelia who found a spot next to Marie. “How about…. The Future Flyers!

“Brilliant, Bessie!” Amelia cried.

***

Eleanor Rooesvelt I found cooking smoked salmon with her maid for dinner.

“Mary, will you give us a minute?” I smiled a little. So did Elanor.

“So, how’d you get in? Through the front door?” The truth is, I used my flantro.

Flantro: Noun

Meaning 1: A device that makes you shapeshift.

I turned into a ma’am. But of course I didn’t tell Eleanor that. I told her the same thing I told Marie. It’s just getting easier and easier.

***

I now have seven women on my pod. I just retrieved one more. I found Susan eating alone in her house. She wasn’t all that scared to see me.

“Susan—” but before I could go on Susan interrupted me.

“I prefer Ms. Anthony,” she said sternly.

“Ms. Anthony.”

“Oh, yes.”

“The future needs you.”She looked down. “I must stay here. Women need me.” “Exactly. In the future. No time will pass.” Ms. Anthony nodded.

***

One more. Ruth was in a courtroom. She was alone. “Ruth.” She looked up from the paper she was reading.

“Ahhh. You must be Ms. Boji, sister of well, Mrs. Boji.”

“No, sorry.”

“Oh. Then why are you here?”

“The future is in great peril. We need your help.”

“We?”

“Everyone in 4012.”

Ruth studied my face. “I am a judge,” she said. “I can tell if you’re lying or not. And my conclusion: I believe you.”

Nine down.

December, 16, 4012

Dear Diary,

Alright, I have nine women who are strapped in. Elizabeth has had eight… incidents… if you know what I mean. About to be ten. Of course I’ve only traveled this far through time once. And that was to England to meet Elizabeth. Ms. Anthony still seems a bit confused. But this is not a problem. She will soon see the peril the earth is in. I still have pictures in my head. Xoron wears his hair back slick, and says I am his niece. By blood, I am. But I do not love Xoron in the slightest. He says he is trying to cure the world of a terrible illness and only three stand against him. I stand against him and so do my parents. The visuals give me nightmares. Silly. Big twelve-year olds like me don’t get nightmares. The women are growing to be impatient now. So, I climb in the cockpit, turn on The Super Lukspower 3000, and start the engine.

The Super Lukspower 3000: Noun and Proper noun

Meaning 1: a super time travel thing that me, Fomal Cruston, the writer of this dictionary, does not understand. It helps with time travel. I think.

Meaning 2: An amazing futuristic cereal that I, Fomal Cruston, the writer of this dictionary, invented. Try it!

Not really my first choice to include a dictionary, but everyone from everywhere and whenever may read this book, so I kind of have to include one.

The engine revved and then I saw black. In the back I heard nine groaning noises. What a mess that must have made. I thought, too afraid to look back. Such a shame these women left their journals and diaries back in their time zones. That was three hours ago.

When I landed in an intergalactic port, one which we call, Intergalactic Port #14. (I think it’s got a nice ring to it). No one realized my return or that I brought nine women out of my pod or the different cultures each came from. Why? Xoron. Xoron’s view on how to “cure this wretched planet” (his words, not mine) was to absorb everyone into their phones, holograms, TV’s and video games. So, as I, and my nine recruits walked up the cobblestone road, only Ruth and I recognized the oldest of the technology that someone was holding to their face. An iphone x. There was a big building and in front of it were the words “You will be processed for weaponry and other security needs, but welcome to earth. Or welcome to 4012.” Elanore Roosevelt and Marie Curie took great lengths of time feeling the walls of the building. I don’t know why. I’m sure even in 1903 and 1935  they had extra-condensed-super-absorbing-foamy-incredibly soft metal that looked and smelled and felt like vanilla cake (ECSAFISM), but if they didn’t, I suppose I understand why they had their noses glued to the wall. I let the girls sniff the wall while I tried to get us Country Enter Forms. The accountant was clicking his mouse furiously. He clearly had had that computer for a very long time if it still had a mouse.

“Excuse me?” I asked in the most polite way I could considering everything with Xoron. 

“I’m on my break,” said the man not looking up. “Try Sarah.” He then groaned and started clicking again.

“The thing is,” I tried again, “We need Country Enter Forms… now.” I said this in  a very harsh, stern voice. The man playing video games kept his right hand to the mouse and his eyes locked on Pac Man, but with his left hand he grabbed a box of Country Enter Forms from under his desk. 

“Man! You messed me up!” The man looked up at me. His pupils glowed… blue. “If you ever mess me up again I… oohh! A new round’s starting!”

Country Entrance Forms: Noun

Meaning: A form which you need in order to legally be on Earth in the 4000 century.

The girls followed me outside. Several people, kids and adults, sat cross-legged in the shrubbery behind Intergalactic Port #14’s parking lot. I took the biggest flying van. Sure, you could call it theft…

Then, I drove home, situated my recruits, greeted my parents, and am now writing to you back in 4012 in my nice bed. I need something to call my recruits. The Recruits. No. The Maybees. Nuh-uh. The Time Capsule. Yes. I made a small… index I guess you could call it that. Here it is;

The Time Capsule:

A cool team of heroes

Elizabeth White

Their Supername: A Braver Snow White

What They’re Good At: taking on risks

What They’ll Do: they’ll work in the field

Sacagewea

Their Supername: Mother Nature

What They’re Good At: many tongues, is one with nature, and is brave

What They’ll Do: they’ll work both in the field and as a detective

Harriet Tubman

Their Supername: The Conductor

What They’re Good At: brave and daring

What They’ll Do: they’ll work in the field

Bessie Coleman

Their Supername: The Perfect Pilot

What They’re Good At: adventures

What They’ll Do: they’ll work in field and specialize in flight

Amelia Earheart

Their Supername: The Amazing Aviator

What They’re Good At: adventures

What They’ll Do: they’ll work in the field and specialize in flight

Marie Curie

Their Supername: The Mad Scientist or Curious Curie

What They’re Good At: curiosity

What They’ll Do: at home base

Susan B. Anthony

Their Supername: Superb Suffragette

What They’re Good At: determined

What They’ll Do: both

Eleanore Roosevelt

Their Supername: The Revving Roosevelt

What They’re Good At: persistent

What They’ll Do: both

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Their Supername: The Judge

What They’re Good At: fair

What They’ll Do: at home base

Quinn Quile

Their Supername: The Leader

What They’re Good At: brave

What They’ll Do: both

 I  have a plan on how to defeat Xoron.

December, 17, 4012

Dear Diary,

I met with my father and The Time Capsule after breakfast. The room we were in was dark and dank with only one computer. We had to keep our plans secret. I gave each Capsule a Jupingoe to fit in. They still don’t. Not like anyone is paying attention.

“My father and I believe Xoron has the control of all technology wherever he is. So we find that, turn it off, and then, the electricity in all technology shorts out worldwide. No more tech, no more zombies.” The women nodded reassuringly. I read aloud the chart I wrote last night and they all seemed pretty pleased, so I was pleased.

“Well, you know your uncle, where would he go?” asked Ms. Anthony. I knew my uncle not, but my father grew up with Xoron.

“Dad?” I asked.

He looked ahead. “Syshy Valley,” my dad said, snapping back. “We used to go there for summers. But then one summer, Ma’ams had infected the place. It took years to rid them, so we bought another house during those years. We never went back to Syshy.” I nodded. “Thanks.” The seven women who were out in the field with me followed me. Bessie and Amelia flew for backup.

When we arrived in Syshy Valley, I could tell there used to be houses; plots of land were bare without the grass, but only one house remained, well, if you could call it a house. Wood panels were torn from the base and I could only see the faintest bit of teal paint that was once oh so bright.

“Ready yourselves,” I told my girls. We easily broke the rotting door down. Empty. Well, except for a striped couch that had so many holes, you could call it swiss cheese.

“Dad,” I said through the intercom, “it’s empty.” There was silence for a moment, but then my dad said. “The boathouse.” We walked another mile to a smaller house with similar appearance as the last. Again we knocked down the door smoothly and with ease. There was indeed a man hunched over a table and a ball-type thing which I assumed was the tech controller. Beakers with blue liquid and pastry dishes with red filled the table, cluttering it beyond my belief. The butterflies in my stomach would not stop flapping, but I walked forward.

“Oh, my niece,” said Xoron, not turning around, “you brought friends. How quaint.”

“Go,” I whispered. Eleanor was punched in the eye by Xoron. Girl down. “The ball thingy. Get the ball thingy.”

“I can hear you, you know. Now, before I punch anyone else, I’ve prepared a speech. A villain speech.” The walls were rotting like those zombified people. “Good.” Xoron smiled. “The blue light that shines off of tech is great! For every year you look at it, you live an extra five years. It’s great! And the pupils glow a pretty blue. Always was your father’s favorite color.”

“No, Xoron!”

“Ahh, so uncle is a thing of the past. Last chance. Does no one not want to be punched?” Elizabeth put up her fists. “Start punching.” Each writhed in pain for 20 minutes. Harriet knocked her head on the wall. Xoron punched Sacagewea three times in the stomach and Elizabeth five times. But I led Xoron outside. This gave Bessie and Amelia time to sneak in and grab the ball. 

“Sorry, unc.” And I threw metal cuffs over Xorons hands.

“You’ve stopped me, but you will never stop the world I created!” I’ve been working on the police force since my tenth birthday. My father always taught me to never listen to a freshly arrested criminal.

“You’ll never stop me…” That’s mostly what they say. So, I walked back to my van with Xoron and put him in shotgun.

December, 17,  4012

Dear Diary,

I think each of these women brings different things to the team. Marie is a scientist, Ruth is a judge, so she can get the truth out of people, and all of them are just so brave; they’re perfect for the field. Almost everyone in 4012 is zombified by their tech. I’m with Marie working on how to work the ball so we can turn off all the phones everywhere. Ruth is questioning Xoron. She came out with no definitive expression on her face.

“He’s telling the truth,” Ruth said as she came out of the prisoner wing. “The ball is what controls the tech.”

“Can’t we just… cut it,” Suggested Harriet.

“Cut it. Cut it!” Marie said sarcastically. “Wait… ” she said, “that could work.”

“Bessie. Amelia. Do you have… a wrench or something? For your plane?”

“Yeah. I was helping Amelia work on the fuselage last night!” Everyone except Amelia stared at her blankly. “I’ll go get it,” she said. I think she was embarrassed.

Seven minutes later she came back. Marie took it from her and pounded. It didn’t budge. After several more tries, it split. It split! Marie took out the important wires. We had done it! Our one computer screen turned off. We really had done it. All nine of us have saved the human race! 

December, 18, 4012

Dear Diary, 

Every rose has its thorn; every cloud rains; every up has its down. Today I must return all of the women back to their respective time zones. 

***

Alright. I’ve returned them all. I cried at every one. But each of them said if there’s anything that ever happens to call them. That it was super fun working with everyone. I also told them to tell no one of this adventure. No time had passed. I had completed my mission and made a few friends on the way. I kind of hope another peril happens. I could assemble The Time Capsule again.

Epilogue

May, 11, 4013

Dear Diary,

When I awoke this morning I heard a loud, blaring alarm. My father ran in and shook me. He looked worried. I’ve never seen him this worried before.

“Xoron’s escaped,” he said, painting, “and so has every other villain in our cells.” I knew that I could assemble The Time Capsule again! Time for another adventure.

Sugar on Her Quest

Once a upon a time, there was a giant named Sugar. She lived on top of the clouds. Sugar had very curly hair. She was 53 years old. Her favorite color was dark blue. Her whole life she had been looking for a dark blue sandal. The sandal was special because her great-grandmother wore it everywhere. Her great-grandmother lived far, far, far away in a different part of the sky.

One day, she decided to look for it. So she went into her closet and pulled out the box that her great-grandmother left for her, and then she found the map. She also found a note that said, “Go down to Earth, and make a left, and you will find the guy who sells the sandals.” Then, she packed her bag with something to trade with the guy who was going to give her the sandal. She also packed food just in case.

Just then, a wind blew past. Then the map flew away! She also was only a quarter of the way down the ladder! She felt stuck. She was thinking about the dark blue sandals and missed wearing them.

Then she saw bluebirds. Sugar knew how to speak bird language.

She asked the birds, “Can you help me?”

The birds said, [tweet translation] “Yes, do you have any food?”

“Yes I do.”

Sugar gave them the food. So they went on. They helped her get down from the ladder. Sugar said bye and thank you to the birds, and they flew away.

She looked around and saw a bunch of small people. Even though she was born on Earth many years ago, she was confused. All of a sudden, she shrunk. She felt like one of her toy dolls. Sugar knew that she was smaller because even though she was a giant who lived on the clouds, now she was on Earth. So now, she started to look for the sandals salesman. Then she saw the man who sold them to the left of the ladder. She went up to him.

She asked him, “Can I have those sandals?” 

The man said, “Yes, do you have something to trade?”

“Yes, I have a pair of white shoes that make you fly.”

The man said, “I’ll take them.”

Sugar gave the man shoes, and she felt upset because she was going to use those shoes to fly back up to the clouds. The man gave Sugar the sandals, and she put them on, and she started to fly. She thought, Wow! I’m flying! These are even better than my rocket shoes!

Sugar got back to her home in the clouds happy and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.


Blobby’s Problem

“Pack your stuff, Blobby! We’re going soon,” says Blobby’s mom, Blobba.

His sister, Blooba, says, “I’m finished packing!”

“I’ll be there in just a sec!” says Blobby.

He’s bringing clothes and a suit that can fly, and if he falls out of the thing that goes, he can fly. He’s feeling like he doesn’t want to go, and that’s why he isn’t finished packing and everybody is. He brings the stuff downstairs, and he sees all the seals waiting in the car for him. There is his father, Blapa, his grandpa, Bloopa, and his grandma named Blocka. And he sees his brother, and his name is Bloobo. They’re in a limousine, but it’s called Bloopausine. 

As they drive, they play slug bug. So first, Blobby sees a bug and picks Blooba. He hits Blooba. The first person to find the bug does it. Blooba starts looking, and then everyone does. Then, Blooba finds a bug and hits Blobby, and then Blobby’s mad at Blooba.

He says, “You hit me harder than I hit you!”

And then Blooba and Blobby keep on hitting each other until the car stops at the Cliff of Doom. Then they all go out, but they need a flying car! Luckily their Bloopausine has a thing where it drops the wheels and it brings up jets. So they fly their Bloopausine off the cliff, the Cliff of Doom, and it falls through the Hole of Doom and it goes through a pathway, the Pathway of Doom. Then it falls through another hole, and it crashes at a store, but the Bloopausine starts failing, so they have to walk with flashlights. 

Blooba says, “Where are we?”

Blobba says, “The pathway to the forbidden world.”

Bloopa says, “How long will this be?”

Blapa says, “It will take about a blobuy year.”

The floor starts rumbling, and then this huge tentacle comes out of the floor, and it grabs everybody except Blobby. And then Blobby is scared, so he tries to get back on Bloopausine and fly back out of the Cliff of Doom. When he flies out of the Cliff of the Doom, the Bloopausine is way too fast, and it goes all the way around to the North Pole. That is where he builds his house. 

Twenty years later… 

Blobby wants to eat his stomach.

Blobby is mad at himself because he can’t find the forbidden world. Blobby goes to a store in Tennessee with lots of sweets, but he forgets his wallet, so he has to go way back to the North Pole to get his wallet but has to get back before all the sweets run out at the store. He’s blobbing by, bouncing up and down on his belly. He finds the Tennessee store, but they ran out of everything, so he goes to another galaxy named Blobby-Bloo-Bloo.

He takes this magical train that can transport him to the other galaxy. The train looks like a normal subway 2 train, but it has sparkles around it.

It says, “Blobby-Bloo-Bloo Express.”

It goes 20 million miles per hour. Blobby is shaking really fast, and then it stops at a sudden point, and it booms him to the back of the train. That’s when he gets there.

Blobby walks off the train, and there are magical stairs going down to North Blobbie. He’s in Blobby-Bloo-Bloo, and instead of countries, there are bobbies. Bobbies are like countries, but they’re a different name.

Blobby goes to a bobbie, and this bobbie is named North Bobbie, and he goes to this place to find more sweets. North Bobbie has Bobbie Chocolate, Bobbie Popsicles, and a famous sweet called Blobbies Blue. Blobby goes to find it because it’s the most unhealthy, so it can make his stomach much bigger and faster. It’s made of seal stomach and dots of chocolate and vanilla and milkshake poured in and made of dough. He finds it, but it’s 22 billion dollars! Right now he has 22 million, and he needs 100 times more money than he has now to get that. So he tries to find a job in North Bobbie. He gets a job bloobing, which is like cleaning but it’s called bloobing on North Bobbie. He’s cleaning a window in a top house with his paw, but he has a problem. For every year he gets $10,999, at the end of the year he has $22,010,999, but it’s still not enough. So he has a solution of running for president! Then he realizes that in this country there are already two other seals running for president. So he tries to protest that there can be three seals running for president, and he wins the protest with other seals. Blobby gives a speech.

He says, “Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah bloo blah blah blah blah.” I will make so many sweets in North Blobby that everybody will be happy!

They all clap for him and cheer!

Then, the professional Blobbie that used to be president counts up all the votes that the other seals did and says, “Blobby wins!”

Then, Blobby throws the microphone up in the air like how you would throw your hat up in the air if you won something. He gets elected! He makes lots and lots of sweets and gets lots and lots of money! One year passes with him as president, and he gets lots of money, and now he has a really good life. He realizes he doesn’t want to eat his stomach anymore because he’s president of this galaxy, and his life is so good, and he doesn’t want to die anymore. 

So, maybe Blobby thinks he doesn’t have to always eat his stomach. Instead he thinks he could just eat his hand!

So Bloby is in the White House with his bandage around his hand. And he is in bed. The blood is dripping out of his bandage, and he decides to go to the hospital. So, he goes to the hospital, and they say that he should have another bandage to have protection over his hand. So, they give him another bandage to put around his hand, and they give him an extra one in case the blood comes dripping again. That night, it isn’t dripping, so that is good. During the day, he goes to see all of his money in the huge room that all of his money is in. When he opens the door, the money is gone. He blobs up and down in disapointment, and then he realizes he put all of his money in the bank. So, he blobs over to the bank. So, he goes to the bank, and one person is very, very, very mean and shoots Blobby. He is lying on the ground.

Blobby wakes up in the hospital. He finds himself wrapped all in bandages, and he looks like a mummy.

He asks the doctor, “When will I be back at the White House?”

“Never for the rest of your life,” he says.

And he says, “Do I have to pay for this?”

They say, “Yes, you have to pay two million dollars for this.”

But then, he realizes he forgot where all his money is and that somebody stole it. And payment is due on Monday. He has two days. So, he races out of the hospital before anybody can catch him. With all bandages around, he can’t blob anymore, so he’s just rolling around the street. He thinks he should go to the jail to see about the guy who shot him to figure out where his money is.

So, he’s at the jail. The jail has bars that looked like a tic-tac-toe board. One person is in a room, and the bars are going up and down. Blobby is really small, so he is able to climb through a hole in the tic-tac-toe board. But, he decides not to because somebody could just smash him, and he’s already really hurt. He is just looking around to find the guy. 

He passes people, and randomly someone says in a hoarse voice, “Hey yo, help me!”

Blobby looks at the guy. This guy looks like a seal that has goose bumps all around him, and his hair is all crinkly and going down. He doesn’t have shoes. He does not look like the guy who shot him. Blobby is looking for the guy who has a black hat with the brim in the back and Tony Stark glasses.

He asks that guy, “Do you know where this seal is with a cap with the brim facing on the back of his head and Tony Stark glasses?”

He says, “I’ve seen him around at lunch, but I don’t know where his jail cell is.”

And then he coughs. He starts having a conversation about stuff that he was innocent of. So, Blobby just walks around looking for the guy who shot him. Then out comes a seal that actually looks like him. He has all the same things he remembers him wearing! 

So Blobby is talking to the seal who shot him, and he says, “Do you have any idea where the money is?”

The seal who shot him says, “I have no idea where the money is. I also didn’t know that I shot you. I might have been hypnotized by someone else to do that and the other seal might have your money, but I don’t know who that other seal is.” 

So Blobby rolls out of the jail, and he rolls to the White House, and a quarter of the money is at the White House, and he’s rolling towards it to jump in it, but a creepy, huge tarantula swoops up all the money and starts crawling away. Blobby is too frightened and just stands there and then faints. When Blobby wakes up, he’s in his North Pole bed, back at his home in the North Pole, and realized his whole journey had to be a dream!

Blobby says, “Blah bloo!!!”

THE END

Blobby’s problem… do todo da do Blobby’s problem… do todo da do 


Lightning Thunder

Chapter One

One day, a long time ago, there was a big storm. Rain was pouring. Lightning was flashing. Thunder was rumbling. People were getting very sick because the rain went very hard on them. Stores were crashing because of the lightning, but the rain, lightning, and thunder loved this. They loved it because they wanted everything to go away so that then it would only be Rain, Lighting, and Thunder to rule. They were laughing very hard because they wanted the whole world to belong to them forever!

Chapter Two

But they didn’t know that sea creatures were watching them and trying to kill them! On the team, there was a dolphin, a whale, a shark, a stingray, and the last sea creatures were an alligator and crocodile, and they were twins. The team of the sea creatures wanted to defeat Rain, Lighting, and Thunder, because that team was the bad team and they were a good team.

Chapter Three

They both were fighting. The whale slapped the clouds until they went to dusk. The shark was biting into all of the clouds until they turned to dust. The dolphin was ridiculously thirsty, so it was sucking up all of the rain. The stingray was slapping the thunder. And the alligator and crocodile were stepping on the sky. Even though they got stepped on, they fought back against the feet. Rain, Lighting, and Thunder vs. the Sea Creature Team.

Chapter Four

They were all trying to fight the shark and stingray and the rest of the sea creatures. The Sea Creature Team was defeating them. The Sea Creature Team won!


The Not-So-Ordinary Hero

My name is Shealia. Don’t be surprised when I tell you this, but I am not a person. My true identity is a printer. I work at the FBI. You may be thinking, That can’t be terribly interesting. But in my 24-year life, I have soaked up thousands of juicy secrets. Don’t get me started on them!! 

I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 5:21 am. Smash! Crash! The sound of broken

glass filled the empty floor. I heard frantic yelling, then, a man in a pitch black full body-suit raced down the hallway and dove under me. I was astonished! I knew the FBI held very important documents that any decent crime-committee would want, but not to brag, my building is probably the safest in the state, even the country. I wish I was allowed to move, but the still-object code requires that I (you guessed right) stay still.

All of a sudden, a whole police brigade broke into the building, adding to the chaotic environment. The head police officer accidentally bumped my print button. That was it! I printed out in my neatest font: Under me! 

The police spun around, looking extremely confused. The head police officer read my message carefully, then motioned to another police officer who checked me for booby traps. Of course I did not have any. Why would I in the first place? A third police officer shrugged and as quick as lightning, the head police officer got down on her knees and crawled under me where the robber still was. I could tell that he was petrified. The police officer neatly captured him in one swift, silent move.

Fifteen years later… 

My name is Shealia. I am the most famous printer in the world. (The only one for that matter too.) I have won the Purple Heart for my bravery and the Nobel Peace Prize for my peaceful approaches to robbery. I am the best friend to the head of police, an activist protesting against the still-object code, and a detective to the police, all thanks to that fateful night.


Save Natural Resources – Before It Is Too Late!

Some people may think we have tons of resources on this planet, so we don’t really need to save them. Actually, we do need to save and wisely use our natural resources before we run out of them. Some resources, like oil and water, are re-generated, while others, like vegetables, organic meat, and sugars are being depleted. Some people are too optimistic, believing that new technology, such as 3D printing, may save our lives, and artificial food may replace our real food. I have a different opinion: saving natural resources is a must for now and also for the future even though technology develops rapidly.

Per Google research, one of the most important natural resources, oil, will only last 47.3 more years! Oil is needed for many applications, such as making plastics and lubrication. Oil, gas, and gas condensate are among the most important energy sources in the world. One thing we know for sure is that we need oil — currently around 90 million barrels of crude oil are used a day. Oil is used for many other purposes other than fuel for energy or transport. If we don’t save oil, our lives will be much less convenient and after 47.3 years we will have to use other resources to replace it, which will be difficult to adapt to.

Natural food is another natural resource that we need to save before it’s too late. In the future, our daily food may taste different than it does now; this is also one reason why we should save it, not only for human survival, but also to keep the original taste of food. Small things, like chocolate, to big things, like water, all need to be saved, since they are becoming more and more expensive and the demands are rising! Research estimated that in 2039, chocolate will be very rare and very expensive! Keeping in mind, everything needs water to survive —  how can we cook without water? If we don’t save water, how can we farm? Without crops, there will be no food left. Just imagine the life of kids without chocolate! Save chocolate for you and also for your children!

Some people are thinking technology can save our lives, which is true, but if we don’t save natural resources, technology like 3D printing will not really help. Technology created a digital food database that stores information about the flavor, color, shape, texture, and nutrients of different kinds of foodstuffs. The user can select the type of food they want from the database and their 3D printer can create small cubes in the shape of that food, which is then injected with the corresponding flavors, colors, and nutrients. For a long period of time, the 3D printed food won’t last long and the taste will be odd, not like real food that people have been enjoying for centuries!

Industrial-scale bug farming is not yet a reality, though we can later use it as food. Even some Israeli companies have recently started to produce insect-based foods commercially. We can’t really feed our ever-growing population with these kinds of artificial food; we have to save and wisely use our natural resources so that we can really survive comfortably — people in Africa and the Far East can keep eating their favorite kinds of bugs whole and Westerners can continue to use insect powders which they add to their traditional items like steak, burgers, mashed potatoes, etc.

Scientists predict that in the year 2038, sugar will be the new drug; we miss it so much that we are addicted to it, especially as kids. Let’s think of the following situation: we live in a society where we eat fruit grown using genetics; we drink synthetic wine. Scrambled eggs do not come from chickens; grilled meat was not taken from animals; roast fish never saw the sea. If we don’t save our resources, our world in the future will be exactly like the situation described above.

Now you see, other than wisely utilizing technology, we definitely need to save the natural resources as we have proved here. According to the UN, if the amount of food wasted around the world were reduced by just 25% there would be enough food to feed all the people who are malnourished. Even one small group of people can make a difference. Join us now to save instead of wasting our Natural Resources!


Nogill Origin Story

Once upon a time there was a fish, and this fish was destined to go on a journey somewhere unknown. Bem bem bem beeeem beeeeeeeem bem bem bem bem beeem beeeeem bem bem bem bem bem bem bem bem bem bem bem beeeem bem! So one day, a fish was swimming in an ocean, and it was very hungry, and just so you know this fish had no friends or parents, so he was all alone. Every fish in the sea would always make fun of him just because of how he looked, so he tried getting a haircut, but that made it worse, so he wore this hat forever to show that he was strong. But that didn’t work either, and one day the fish threw him out of the sea. Remember that hat he wore? Yeah, it had magical powers, so he was able to breathe out of water. All the fish in the sea were very surprised, and all the fish in the sea all of a sudden respected him. This fish finally got a name. Nogill. So anyway, Nogill set off to find his meaning in life. He saw lots of things and went on a great adventure. When he was walking through a dark aisle, he saw two men wearing black. The two men lunged at him, and right at that moment, a scar fell out of the sky, and that is when fishsticks fell in love. With guns, he head shot the two men wearing black, and they fell to the ground. Then another man appeared, but this man was wearing white. The man looked Nogill up and down. You will be fine.

To be continued…  


Help the Animals

In this article, I will be talking about a couple animals: a horse, an elephant, and a dog. These are some of the many abused animals in the world. If we do not help these animals, they will die and go extinct. On the surface, these animals seem different. Horses are more farm animals, elephants are wild animals, and dogs are mostly pets. But they all share something in common: they are getting threatened and mistreated.  

Horses

Did you know that out of the 9.2 million horses in the U.S., 100,000 horses in the U.S. get killed every year? When horses get killed, people use them to make baseballs, gelatine, glue, dog food, and beer. They get sent to slaughter houses and get crammed in dangerous trails. 92.3% of the horses sent to slaughter are in good condition and should not be sent to slaughter since they are healthy and could still last you a while. The bipartisan bill was introduced to Congress on January 3, 2019 and is trying to end horse slaughter. We need to speak for horses since they cannot speak for themselves.

Fun Facts About Horses:

  • Horse meat is not safe for human consumption.
  • Taco Bell and Burger King in England used horse meat pretending it was cow meat.
  • The end of domestic horse slaughter will not damage the US market.

Elephants

Elephants are treated very poorly by humans so we need to help them. The world is losing more elephants than their population can reproduce. Captive elephants are used for tourism. They are kept in horrible conditions. Elephants with big tusks are the most endangered. Less than half of the female population survives, creating lots of orphaned elephants. 100 African Elephants are killed every day by poachers, leaving only 100,000 remaining. The number of elephants in the world dropped 62% over the last decade. Poachers are after ivory, meat, and body parts. Ivory tusks are carved into jewelry and ornaments. We can take them in to protect them so they are not let out in the wild and killed.

Fun Facts About Elephants:

  • Elephants have the biggest brains of all the land animals.
  • There is only 40,000 Asian elephants remaining

Dogs

We need to inform more people that dogs are being abused and treated badly. Dogs are the most abused animals with the highest reports of animal abuse. Two million dogs are killed each year (mostly in Eastern Europe) for their fur to make dog fur coats. The puppies are kept in horrible conditions and are bred purely for profit. Even though it’s illegal, there’s still dog fighting going on in the US. Dogs are hurt, often killed, and kept in isolation. Some have their ears and tails cut. Puppy mills are places where purebred dogs are churned out and ripped away from their mothers. Dogs are in need of help from humans.

Fun Facts about Dogs:

  • There are about 100 dog breeds in the world.
  • A one year old pup is as physically mature as a fifteen year old human. (Caesar’s Way)

This article was about the abuse of animals, but now we have to not just talk about how they are mistreated, but how to resolve this situation. We can donate to companies that help these animals or we can spread the word that we should respect and help these animals. This topic really interested me because I love animals, and I love researching about them.  Overall, all of these animals are treated badly and this is not how they should be treated.

Bibliography:

Elephants Sources:

Online article: “Why Care?” World Elephant Day. http://worldelephantday.org/about/elephants

Horses Sources:

Online article: “A Humane World.” The Humane Society of the United States. https://blog.humanesociety.org/2019/01/bipartisan-bill-introduced-in-congress-to-end-slaughter-of-american-equines.html

Dogs Sources:

Online article: “10 FactsYou May Not Know About Dogs.” Cesarsway. https://www.cesarsway.com/10-facts-you-may-not-know-about-dogs/

Online Article: “Animal Cruelty Facts and Stats.” The Humane Society of the United States. https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/animal-cruelty-facts-and-stats

Hidden Under

Anna

I inhale deeply. The noise of rich Overs listening to the lies their “leader” tells them makes me sick. I almost feel bad, but no, he deserves this. They deserve this. Even if they knew the truth, they would never help us. To them, we are nothing. There is no turning back now. If I do, they will catch me. I need the money for my family. 

While I may have a ruthless job, it is common among people like me. Poor people, Unders, I mean, the dirt on the bottom of the rich people’s shoes. Since all the jobs that are kindly provided for us are dangerous, have long hours, and very little pay, most able bodied people end up in the black market. Although my job may be common, no one in my family knows, not even my talented sister, especially not my talented sister. Everyone thinks I work in the factories, making the ornate decorations that adorn the halls of the castle.

I ready my crossbow. It is an odd weapon, fashioned from household items because I am too poor for anything else. Since I am the best shot in the black market, most people have heard of me and want me to do their dirty work. I can pick and choose which jobs I take. That is how I got this particular deal. My client is very mysterious and I still don’t know who it is. It must be some Over who’s going to run for King.

I take a deep breath and the world around me goes silent. I close one eye to get a closer look at the target. I take another breath and then steady my hands. This is by far the most impactful job that I have ever been hired for. My hand pulls back and the world slows as the arrow flies through the air and punctures my victim’s heart. 

I put my crossbow away and start to turn around. My eyes widen and my breath stops short. My eyes narrow as I grab a knife from my bag. I feel a hand close around my mouth to stifle a scream that I know would give my location away to the hundreds of people watching the speech. The hundreds of people who would just love to see a public execution right now. Realization dawning, I put my hands in the air and sigh.

Ella

I pull my hair back as I walk to school. I have a gift, or so my mother tells me and one day that will save me from my horrible fate of working in the factories like my boring sister. While I am only twelve, I am the smartest girl at my school and know that when the Inspectors come, they will take me with them. It is a stupid attempt at trying to show that Overs don’t actually hate Unders. I am really just an exception to the wretched fate of being born a lowly Under.

I will spend the rest of my days in fancy outfits, an always full belly, and riches unimaginable. I will leave this dump behind and never look back. 

At school, we get our math tests back. I got a perfect score of course, but it still makes me a little sad. This is the last time I will get a test back while I am still an Under. My teachers all act kind to me, even though I know they must hate me. They act as if I am already their better. 

I practice saying my new name over and over again. Aravella. I still don’t know why the Overs are making me change it. I don’t care why though. As long as I can get away from my Under parents and sister who still think that they can protect me even though they know that I am better in every way than them. 

Everybody practically worships me here. They hope that when I go Up, I will treat them with respect and kindness because I was once one of them. I laugh out loud in class. Some people turn and stare but quickly turn away. Like I said, I have them wrapped around my finger and soon they will have no choice but to worship me for the Over I am.

I have decided which Under I will take Up with me to become my personal servant. It will be my sister because she has no real skill and I do really love her. She deserves a reward for supporting me even though she knew all along that I was better than her. 

I decided to play a trick on my classmates. I started lifting everyone’s papers in the air and showing off all of the grades. I noticed that some students looked hurt and some looked angry. At that point, I knew that going Up would be fun. 

Anna

A million possibilities of who these people could be come to mind but only one makes sense. They must be part of a rebel organization, but why would they have come for me? Sure, I may be good at shooting, but that’s about it. They can’t have come for money because I have none. 

The heavily armed men take me to a car. Half an hour later, we arrive at a building that is shabby, even by Under standards. They take me to a room that is completely bare except for a table with three chairs. Only one of the men sits down. He gestures for me to do the same. I sit. A woman walks in. Somehow, she looks familiar, but how? 

“Anna, I am the leader of a secret organization called the Hidden Sword. You are here because of your sister’s current situation. And, we need to recruit you. You are the best Under shooter, even if you don’t have a proper weapon. Our situation is dire. The Overs must be defeated,” the woman said. 

I pondered her statement. Suddenly, I realized that I had never told her my name. Something very shady was going on here and I seemed to be the only person who didn’t know what it was. 

“Well, if you are going to harm a hair on my sister’s head, I will not do anything for you. If you are going to attack the Overs, make sure my sister is nowhere near. But, other than that, I think that I hate the Overs as much as you do, so I’m game on,” I responded. 

I hoped that this lady had some sense of mercy, because otherwise, my minutes were limited. That wasn’t exactly the most endearing thing I’ve ever said.

“Anna, this rebellion isn’t about revenge, or hating the Overs. It’s about justice for the Unders. If we just go around killing people, we will just make Overs Unders, and Unders Overs. That will get us nowhere,” the woman said. “And besides, we need to have a new kind of society.” 

Ella

I look around my room and silently say goodbye. It isn’t much, but it has been my home for twelve years. Last night had been my last night as a lowly Under. I will be leaving Ella Craft behind and entering into the world of Aravella Swift. 

I put on my nicest clothes, brush my hair, and prepare for the Turnover. While I know that the Inspectors have to choose me, there is still a small sliver of doubt in my mind. What if they aren’t looking for somebody like me?

At school, everyone is tense and on their best behavior. They know that the Inspectors, and soon me, can end their lives with the snap of a finger, for something as simple as talking back, with no questions asked. My sister has always said that it is one of many faults in our twisted world. I used to believe her until this “twisted world” offered me a chance. She will need to change her thinking if she expects me to take her Up. 

The Inspectors come in. They are three tall men in long, black trench coats and dark pants. One of them is carrying a clipboard. They look around at their surroundings with distaste. Obviously, they are used to better decorations than our measly carpet, desks, chairs, and belongings.

I turned around to look at my teacher. She is biting her nails and looks like she is trying to make herself as small as possible. Contrary to her usual attire, she is wearing a long, modest, brown dress that makes her look like a carpet. She appears to have bags underneath her eyes. If three people in my class fail, so will she. She will be shamed, her job taken away. She will be sent to the factories, or worse, the mines.

The Inspectors go to talk to our teacher. They ask her about her students. She hands over our legal files, the files that will say that I deserve to move Up. 

They look through the files, concentration on their faces. They put aside three files. My teacher sighs in relief. Her job is safe.

“Thomas Splint, Michael Sander, and Ella Craft please come to the front of the room. All three of you are done with this school,” the Inspectors said. 

Anna

I walk through the corridor with the woman who has said her name is Wil. She is taking me further into the maze of rooms, halls, and doors. I suppose that it is better for them to have the weapons room farther into the building than on the outside but still, this is crazy!

Once we get there, Wil shows me dozens of bows, arrows, and crossbows. She says to pick one and that I can keep it. I am drawn toward a navy and silver crossbow. I can tell that it is no weapon used by Unders. This weapon is from Up. 

“How did you get this?” I ask. “This must have been worth hundreds, maybe thousands!” 

“We have more power than you think, Anna. And it isn’t that hard to intercept an order of hunting weapons,” Wil responded. I am starting to get that this rebellion doesn’t exactly follow the rules. They’re my kind of people. But, something clicks in the back of my mind. What if this is nothing more than a luxurious bribe, to get me to do something for them?

It isn’t that hard to believe and I wouldn’t put it past them. Still, even if they are trying to bribe me, it seems like we want similar things and it isn’t like they have me at gunpoint.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask. Better get this over with. Hopefully it’s something easy like killing someone of importance or maybe even simply stealing something.

“Anna, we need you to be a spy. You need to get your sister to take you Up with her. Likely, it won’t be that hard. Then you will listen in on everything you can. Politics, battle plans, or demographics will work. We also have some people who are already stationed there and should be able to alert you if you ever need to do anything extra. Keep a close watch on your sister and don’t tell anyone that you are apart of this organization at all costs. The King still thinks that we are nothing to worry about and I would like it to stay that way. I trust your instincts, so do what you have to. I will give you a transmitter so you can report back to me,” Wil says.

I am shocked. This will be extremely dangerous. Even though I think that I can handle it, what if I’m wrong? What if someone finds out and I am executed? What if my sister doesn’t decide to take me Up and the whole mission is canceled?

A few minutes later, I say yes and gather my things. Wil walks me back to the room where I entered and hands me my transmitter. It is smaller than I expected, but it doesn’t seem that complicated. I head home just as the sun is setting.

Ella

I walk to the front of the room. Unlike Michael and Thomas, I am not scared and walk proudly. Someone else might have felt bad for the two boys, but not me. They have controlled their own fate by failing the year. 

The Inspectors tell Michael and Thomas that they are expelled. They will graciously be provided with jobs in the mines. There will be no opportunity to switch jobs when the dust gets into their lungs or if they are injured in an accident. They have dug themselves a grave by not doing well in school. 

The Inspectors turn to me. They tell me that because of the kind and loving King Rexano, I will be going Up and I will be able to take one person with me who will become my personal servant. I will be taught in math, science and the arts. They tell me to go home for the last time.

At home, I tell my parents and sister triumphantly that I am going Up. 

“Anna, since I am going to let you come Up with me to be my servant, I expect you to gather my belongings and pack them. We will be leaving at sundown,” I say.

Surprisingly, Anna seems relieved. She does as I say and scurries upstairs. I look around at my surroundings and decide that I will not miss my tiny home.

Anna comes downstairs and says a tearful and emotional goodbye to my parents. She hugs them one final time and finally comes over to me.

“Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” she asks.

“Why should I?” I reply. The quicker we go Up, the better. Besides, I am an Over now, I can do what I want.


Another Year Without You

Chapter One

I stood near the old maple tree my family planted about five years ago in our backyard. I was 13 years old, and it was 6:00 p.m. I had been standing there for hours. I finally sat down, and let the wind blow my hair around. It had been a week since my dad died, and I still couldn’t get over the fact that he was gone. Really, truly, gone. Since then, I felt off. I was broken, way beyond repair. He was gone with the wind. I just wish he could have told me. I wish I could see him, just feel his strong arms wrap around me. I wish he was still here most of all. I truly loved him.

I soon heard my mom call out, saying “Blair! Come back in! You know I hate it when you stay up too late! Plus, your first day of 8th grade is tomorrow!” I stood there with the maple tree, touched its gnarly bark, and went back in. That night, I laid in my bed, thinking about our tree in the backyard. It was the only thing that I could truly remember him by. Before I knew it, I was fast asleep. 

***

I woke up to sun streaming through my window and my new uniform laid neatly on my bed sheets. I groaned, and got out of bed. Just for a fact, I hate first days! My mom, she loves people being organized. Every time after summer break, she tells us to make goals for ourselves. Mine this year is to make at least one or two friends. The thing is, when you’re the new kid, you can choose who you are. For instance, you can be the doodler. The prankster. The mean girl. Or the oddball. I’m hoping I don’t have to be in that position. Everybody gives you these looks, and, well, they think you’re weird and that you aren’t good friend material and all that. So I shovel down my breakfast, brush my teeth, put on my uniform, grab my backpack, and get out the door. I walk across the street and try and think about how school will turn out. I walked along, and tried not to think about how embarrassed I could get or—and then I found myself at school.

Chapter Two

I gulped, and walked inside. I had prepared for any possible consequences or embarrassing situations that might have occurred at school. I finally felt like I was ready. I pushed open the door, and winced. Everybody was staring at me. I felt my face go hot. I did not expect this. Guess I was the oddball.

A girl suddenly asked, “We heard the news. Your parents?”

I replied, “W-well my mom is at work and…” I trailed off.

Then she asked, “Then what about your dad? Can’t he come?”

I paused, then said, “He… he died in the army. He was at war. Can we talk about this later? I have to get to class now.”

She then said, “Uh, sure, ok, but you never told me-” I walked away before she could finish her sentence.

I heard another girl say to the girl who asked about my dad say “Hey! She’s new! You shouldn’t pressure her like that.” Then she ran up to me and said, “hey sorry about my friend, Melissa. Can I talk to you at lunch maybe?” I then turned to her, and nodded slowly. Then I went back on my way to math class. I then thought, that right then was the most awkward first day of my life.

***

“So that’s it for that problem. Who knows what 122 to the power of 6 divided by 3 is? Blair? Are you paying attention?” Ms. Robins asked.

“Hm?” I answered. “Oh uh, yes ma’am.”

“Good. then can you participate next time?” she said.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll try next time.” I said.

“Ok, bye people!” Ms. Robins yelled, not paying any attention to me. “Hurry along to your next class or you won’t be going to class at all!” 

***

The next few periods passed by quickly, and then it was lunch. Then I remembered how I promised that other girl I would sit with her today. I looked around, trying to find her through all the other people. When the crowd cleared up, I saw her in the corner of my eye. She was waving me over, so I decided to walk up to her table.

Once I sat down, she said, “Melissa, she thinks all the new kids are weird, because when she was the new girl, she got embarrassed. So now, well, she turned out like that.” Then she said, “I feel really bad for you, hearing how he died, in a war. It must have been unbearable.”

I then said, “it wasn’t just the war, actually. He was the one who couldn’t bear it. He-”

She then said, “I get it just… don’t say the word.” She then got up from the table and she said, “I don’t want us to miss class now. We should go.”

But before she walked away, I shouted, “Hey! Uh, I never got your name!”

“Oh!” she said, turning back to me. “The name’s Kara. can we hang out after school today?”

“Yeah, sure.” Then I smiled. She wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Chapter Three

“So you came,” Kara said. I shrugged. What else could I do? We waited awhile in silence. Soon we had to go home. I had never known silence could say everything. That one night, I realized I had never, ever, ever, heard nothing. Absolutely, truly, nothing. It was quiet that day, and I was tired. Maybe one day it could happen again. Just one more time.

A few months later

Chapter Four

It was Winter now, and I was going to meet up with Kara at the skating rink. I skated once, but it didn’t seem that hard. I clutched my bag with my ice skates a little harder. Yeah, it won’t be too hard, I thought.

***

Ok. I might have missed a little bit. Yes, I had skated once. Once as in, well, five years ago! Yep, so when I got onto the rink, my legs turned to jelly. Kara came over to me and laughed. Then she said, “Here, let me help. I can teach you. But didn’t you say-” This time I cut her off. 

“Ehhhh, let’s talk about that later.” Then I started to laugh, and Kara joined me.

She let go of me and said, “Here! Try It on your own!” I tried it, then found it, well, not so freaky. I laughed, then spun around. I remembered how it was like, five years before. I remembered how free I felt. I remember I was skating with—no. I opened my eyes. I felt a wave of nausea and fear wash over me. I started spiraling out of control. I screamed.

All I remember was Kara rushing over to me, yelling, “Hang on! I’m coming!” and me falling through thin ice.

I could hear muffled voices through the water, but I could make out Kara’s voice saying into her phone, “Hello, my friend just recently-” her voice muffled through the freezing cold water. It sliced right through me. I desperately tried to take a breath, but nothing came out. I felt nauseous. Yes, I wanted there to be absolute silence again, but not this way. I could feel my chest breaking apart. Then everything went black.

***

I woke up in the hospital, with Kara beside me. I was going to move my arm to get in a sitting position, but a nurse next to me and said, “Don’t move just yet. We have to run a few brief tests on you first.” My chest still burned, but I stayed still after I heard that.

Some men in white coats came in and said something to the nurse. After they left, the nurse said, “You’re one of the lucky ones.”

I then asked, “What do you mean the lucky ones?”

“Well, most of the others pass away, but you, you are a strong girl. But your friend…” the nurse said. I had wondered what she meant, but before I could ask, more men in white coats came in and then I was quiet again.

***

After a bit, I was done with my tests, and Kara was still what seemed to be sleeping at the moment. I got up and tried to walk over to the door to ask for something to drink. I fell down the first time, but then got to my feet, sort of waddled around the place, and then I waddled to the door. I was going to open the door when I stopped. There were people talking right outside my door. I stood there, trying to listen in on their conversation. I could hear two voices that I thought I knew. One belonged to the nurse, and one was my mom’s! I was overjoyed. I wondered If she came to visit me!

I was going to open the door when I heard the nurse say something. “Your, your daughter. While she was ice skating with her friend, she fell into freezing cold water that was about 70 degrees fahrenheit. Her breathing was indiscernible, but she’s ok now, but her friend, after she called 911 and they hadn’t come yet, she jumped in too. They came soon after that, and hauled her out before things got worse. Now, her friend is in a coma.” That was when I realized she hadn’t been sleeping. When we had a sleepover at my house two months ago, I woke her up just by me opening the door. She was never such a deep sleeper. I fell to the ground and started to cry. I was bawling like a two year old.

The nurse then said to my mom, “Sorry, give me a second.” she then rushed into the room and said, “Blair! Blair, honey, what happened?”

I then answered, trying not to cry, “No. You don’t have to lie anymore. I know the truth. The real truth.” Well, I had learned. Even if you weren’t superstitious, thirteen was still an unlucky number.

Chapter Five

After that, I just blurted out the rest to her, not thinking about it at the time. I went on and on about it, even the parts with my dad. Then, the nurse told me a bit about herself too. Her name was Parker Thworp, and she grew up in Minnesota. She then told me that my friend ( “Kara,” I corrected. “My friend’s name is Kara.” “Ok then, Kara” she said), she was in a coma (which I knew, but I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt), and that a coma can last for more than a year. More than a year?! A year seemed like a whole lifetime to me.

I then asked, “Parker, err, Ms. thworp, can I ever go visit her? Like ever?”

“Well,” Ms. Thworp responded with a hint of uncertainty in her voice. “It matters how she’s feeling. Maybe, If everything goes well.”

Well. I think hate is a strong word, but I hate the word well. It was the last word my dad said to me before he went off to war. I still remember his exact words. “Everything will go well, my dear Blair. Just remember, I will always be in your heart no matter where I go, no matter what happens.” 

***

So far, it’s been at least a year, and I have gotten out of the hospital. I sighed, then stared at the blank paper in front of me. Nothing had been going on since Kara had gone. I still visited her, but mostly I wrote to her. I couldn’t bear looking at her, so pale and thin. She looked like a ghost of her former self. I decided to leave the note paper there, and stayed there for the moment instead. It’s like I’ve been sending the notes for nothing. She was like Sleeping Beauty, but without the prince who heroically saves her by kissing her. It was not such a happily ever after at all, really. Another year without you has passed, and I can’t imagine another one like this.

***

A few days later, my mom got a phone call. I thought it was something about work for my mom, but then she said, “Blair? Yes she’s here. Why?” She then waited while the person at the other end of the line spoke.

Then she said, “Blair, hon, somebody wants to talk to you, this lady from the hospital.” I gasp, then grab it from my mom.

“Ms. Thworp? Is that you?”

I heard a few shuffling noises, then a female voice answered, “Hi, Blair! About Kara-” 

Then I said, “Oh, no.”

Then she quickly responded, “No! It-it’s not bad at all! It’s exactly the opposite! She’s coming out of her coma!”

I then quickly, almost yelling, said, “Oh my gosh! Thanks! Bye!” I then hung up, gave the phone back to my mom, then said, “Bye! I need to do something right now! Love you!” Then I slammed the door.

***

When I got to the hospital, I was out of breath, but I kept running. I ran all the way to where Kara’s room was, but before I could run to the door, more men in white suits came and one said, “Sorry, no visitors. We can’t risk-”

I shoved past them and ran into Kara’s room. I knelt near her bed and held one of her hands. I fished around in my pocket and then plucked out a bracelet. A friendship bracelet. I was hoping to give it to her when we were done ice skating, but, well, you know what happened. I slipped on her bracelet, and rolled up my sleeve to reveal one exactly the same.

I felt Kara’s hand tighten over mine, and then she whispered, “B-Blair?”

“Kara!” I yelled.

Chapter Six

Kara suddenly sat up, as if snapping out of some sort of spell. She then hugged me tight.

“I shouldn’t have let you go that day on the rink,” Kara said. “Look at me now, sitting in a hospital bed. That day-”

I then said, “No. That day we both messed up. It wasn’t just your fault, or just my fault. We’re in the same boat right now. Just hang on.”

***

I stood near the old maple tree my family planted six years ago. But this time, I wasn’t alone. We sat down in the grass, wet with dew that sparkled in the light, and Kara whispered something in my ear. something I can’t be sure if you won’t tell anyone, or if you will.

She whispered, “I couldn’t live a year without you.”

The End

Portal

Maria  

I live in Sydney, Australia with my parents. They own an animal clinic named Animals for Life! Yes, I don’t know why it’s called that. So, anyway it’s summer and I get to spend it all with the animals. Wait, I didn’t tell you who I am. Oops! My name is Maria Trier. My mother is Puerto Rican and my father is Australian. I was born in America so I’m Auserican. Yes, that’s not my joke it’s my mother’s. I am on my way to the horse pasture to see my favorite horse, Star. My mother has gone missing. She has been gone for the past few months since she came to see Luna, her horse.  Time passed in a blur since I noticed she was missing. One minute she was there and the next thing I knew I was being interviewed by the police. Annoying police. Don’t they get I just wanted to be alone? Of course I did. The mother I loved so much was gone and I might never see her again. I can’t think about it without crying. It’s so sad. And to make matters worse, Dad confiscated any picture with my mom in it. Anyway, Star was eating like usual. (What else is new?) That was the last usual thing of the day. 

Star

I’m a horse. At least, I am to Maria. To myself, and my mom, and my dad and my sister, and my cousin, and you get the point, I’m an Alicorn. I live in Maria’s home but also my world. I am the royal Alicorn of my world, and I was sent by the Queen to watch over Maria. I go to my world every night when the family is sleeping. The stars tell me if anyone disturbs Maria and her dad. I was not picked for this mission randomly, after all. I have control of the stars. I am named Star, my mother is named Luna, my father is named Sun, and my sister is named Celie, short for Celeste. As you can see, my family controls the times of day. To get to my world, you have to go into my favorite pasture and jump into the lake. Other horses don’t go into it because I made it invisible and put a force field around it. (Of course I can do that! I am an Alicorn after all. I’m  offended!) The Queen wanted to make sure no other normal animal could walk through the portal. That would be disastrous! Im guessing Maria wants the pen back because she looks like she’s going to explode.

Maria   

Excuse me! I am not going to explode!!! Don’t listen to her, she’s crazy!! So, where was I? Yes, that was the last normal thing that day. So, I was going to ride Star, so I straddled her. We started riding, and then Star’s mane started glowing red and a horn popped up. I wondered if I was hallucinating.

Star     

So ya, I might have hidden my horn and wings. Who cares? My horn started glowing red and that meant I was being called back to my world. Then I started being pulled by the horn toward the portal.

Maria 

Suddenly I saw a lake that hadn’t been there before. We fell through it and… “Star! What is the girl doing here?!”

“Where are we and who is that and why do you have wings and a horn and what?” I asked, looking at Star. “Okay, now that I got that out, why is that my mother’s voice?”

“Because it is my voice,” said a beautiful, musical, familiar voice.

“Mom!” I exclaimed, as a figure walked out into the clearing. It was my mother.


Detective Frog

Detective Frog was looking into the murder of Ribit Wonton, the wealthiest frog in Frogville (some monkeys lived here too). Detective Frog went to the scene of the murder in the biggest place in the whole world quintillion stories high!

Dang it! I can’t reach the top — that’s where the murder happened. Uhhhhh!

“Well, if you want to finish this creepy case, then you’re going to have to suck it up, buttercup,” said Sergeant Monkey, his best friend. 

“I guess I will then. Hey, will you come with me? I’m so scared I’m going to pee in my suit. Please!!!

Detective Frog’s suit was the best in the country, equipped with heat sensed missiles, rocket launchers, machine guns, and laser guns. It was called BOB.

“Why are you scared? You have a freakin’ BOB — why do you need me?” asked Sergeant Monkey.

“I don’t know how to use it… ” replied Detective Frog.

Fine, you are so dumb!!! Uggg!

Detective Frog and Sergeant Monkey took an elevator all the way to the quintillionth floor. 

24 hours later… 

Bleh!!!” Detective Frog said in disgust.

“Dude, there are just guts spilled everywhere. His tongue ripped apart in pieces everywhere, and blood spilled on the whole entire floor.”

“What? It looks beautiful,” Detective Frog said.

“What is wrong with you? Are you mental?”

“No.”

“I’m fine!” Detective Frog shouted.

“Okay, let’s get to work. I’ll take part of the tongue and analyze and see who murdered Ribit Wonton.”

Leave it to me!

Out of the elevator a large, fat pelican jumped out his fat chest and pushed in his stomach. Detective Frog could notice that he was trying to be a hot shot.

“What’s up, dudes? I’m the scientist here, and I am going to see this body and analyze it and catch the killer. Isn’t that awesome?”

Um, no it’s not, and you can’t speak proper English,” said Detective Frog and Sergeant Monkey in unison.

“This guy is so dumb,” Sergeant Monkey whispered to Detective Frog.

“I heard you say that,” Bobby said (the pelican).

He pulled a knife on both of them and stabbed Sergeant Monkey and knocked Detective Frog out. (Detective Frog thought he liked him.)

Four hours later… 

“Uhh, what happened?”

“I knocked you out. I am Buuuuuuooooooooby. Muhhhahahahahahahhahhahhahahhah!”

“Bff, your name is Buuuuuuooooooooby? That name is so dumb. Are your parents idiots, or is that a pelican thing?” Sergeant Monkey said.

Dude, what is your problem? That’s a cultural thing, and I am the one who murdered Ribot Wonton. I have all the money here. Muhahahahhahahahahhahaha.”

Behind him was so much money.

“Dude, what are you going to do with all this?” Detective Frog said.

“I am going to buy a Ferrari and a mansion and a lot of stuff.

“Well, I’m not going to let you.”

Detective Frog tried to use the BOB and fired a laser beam at Buuuuuuooooooooby. Buuuuuuooooooooby deflected it.

“You really think it would be that easy? I have super powers. Muhuhauahaauahahauahahahaa!”

“What?” 

“This… ”

Buuuuuuooooooooby fired a laser beam out of his eyes. Detective Frog teleported out of the way, and right behind him was Buuuuuuooooooooby. He knocked out Buuuuuuooooooooby and put him in jail and untied Sergeant Monkey. 

Ouchy!!!” Sergeant Monkey said and passed out.

Seven hours later… 

Sargeant Monkey started hyperventilating. 

“I have to get to Buuuuuuooooooooby. He’ll know what to do,” Detective Frog said to himself.

Detective Frog flew to Buuuuuuooooooooby.

“He got cut by a special sword called jshjkabjhkfbsfhhjfksakbhas. He can only be healed if you go to space and retrieve it. You will need me to guide you… ”

Nope!” And he murdered Buuuuuuooooooooby.

THE END… 

Detective Frog will come back soon… in… Detective Frog in Space… 


Appalled at the Art Museum

Wendell and Monico Milk Goats were at the art museum. It looked cool on the outside. It was golden and ancestors were etched on the sides. They were ancestors of gods. Wendell and Monico Milk Goats booked tickets to go inside and take a tour. The manager warned them they might smell like a dirty diaper for at least one month.

They said, “I don’t care! I just want to see what else is cool inside.” They booked it for five months later, and exactly five months later on the exact same second they went to the museum. 

They didn’t know that inside was just a huge garbage dump. It was only chewed up food. Also, they might smell and look like a dirty diaper for at least a month.

Monico Milk Goats said, “Uh, this is not an awesome museum.”

In Monico’s head, the manager said, “Uh, I warned you!”

Monico said, “We shouldn’t have gone. The manager warned us.” They had to stay in the garbage because they booked to stay in it for five years. 

They were really dumb and greedy and rich. There were these plants that were sweet in a circle in the museum. They were sweet, like they were good to eat.

Monico Milk Goats said, “That’s interesting!” Then he said, “That’s odd.” Then they tried to pick the plants and they turned out to be alive. It stirred because it was sleeping. Then they backed away, but then they were like, “Oh, it’s fine,” because it didn’t leap at them.

They whispered, “Let’s rip it out of the ground,” because they wanted to eat it. It was the only food.

So, they said, “Hey, it’s your friend!”

And the plant came closer and closer and the plant said, “What are you gonna do?” 

And they said, “Oh, nothing. Just gonna rip you out of the ground to eat you.” The plant had sharp teeth and almost killed them.

They ran out of the garbage and people were like, “Ew, why would a dirty diaper be let in there? The museum’s so cool!” And then a bunch of people went inside and it was the same story so Monico Milk Goats and Wendell were marked the greatest people in the world because they ventured inside, but actually it was just so they wouldn’t get mad at the people for calling them dirty diapers. Plus, they looked like dirty diapers before they went into the garbage dump, because they were rich and dumb idiots.


Jack’s Saviors

Chapter One: Lily

Hi there. My name is Lily Bolt. My brother is Jack Bolt. Our mother is the boss of The New Press™ (a writing company), and our father is a high school teacher. We go to MS:11 (a middle school). I am in the same homeroom as my brother! We are always together. It’s annoying (sometimes).

As we walked to our homeroom, I started to write.

“Ms. Bolt? Can I have your attention? Please stop writing in your diary,” my teacher, Ms. Miller, said, interrupting my thoughts.

“Ms. Miller, it’s… it’s not a… a diary. It’s a journal,” I stammered as other kids snickered. I’m not good with talking to adults (in front of other kids, at least).

“Ms. Bolt, do you think I care if it is a diary or not? Just close the book,” Ms. Miller said.

After math class, Ms. Miller called me as I was leaving the classroom. “Ms. Bolt?” She tapped me on the shoulder. “Please meet me in the classroom during lunch.”

I tried to ignore her but it was hard. Like, really hard.

“Okay.” I crossed my fingers, hoping Ms. Miller would forget.

“What happened?” Jack asked me.

“Nothing. Just getting pizza with Ms. Miller,” I lied. As I walked away, I looked over my shoulder. Jack was still standing there, jaw dropped. He is kind of like the teacher’s pet.

As he stood there, a jock walked over to him and said, “Hi, teacher’s pet!”

He punched him in the shoulder and laughed as he walked away. Jack rubbed his shoulder and walked to the boy’s bathroom, glaring at me.

“What did I do?” I yelled at the boy’s bathroom.

As I walked away to the library, the jock looked at me. Before I didn’t see the jock’s face when he punched Jack. Now as he looked at me, I had a gush of anger. The jock that punched my brother was Jeff, the popular athlete, and he had a huge crush on me. Everyone knew that. Maybe that’s why Jack glared at me.

I stormed up to Jeff and screamed, “Why would you do that?! That was my brother!”

As I walked away from Jeff to the library for computer class, Jeff ran up to me and gave me his “dashing” smile.

“I’m not falling for that again.”

Last week he ran to me after I did cheerleading tryouts and said, “I hope you got in,” and gave me his dashing smile.

I fell into my brother’s arms and fainted. (I used to like him).

“I’m not… I’m not… ” I muttered to myself as he said, “Look, I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t know that was your brother!”

“Huh. Totally. I saw you when you punched him! You said, ‘Hi, teacher’s pet!’ And you then punched him. He is the only ‘teacher’s pet’ around here!” I yelled at him, right outside the library.

“Look, people will get punched around here! I don’t want you to get hurt,” Jeff said to me kindly.

“Why? ‘Cause I’m pretty? Huh?” I said to him.

Then I ran into the library, right before the bell rang. Students ran into the library. Girls gossiped, boys threw footballs, nerds read while they walked, loners walked, you guessed it, alone. Then I understood what Jeff meant. People will get hurt.

One girl ran up to me, hair in her face, yelling, “Lily! Lily!”

“Yes?” I asked calmly. 

“Lily, come,” the girl said.

Her hair was purple-blue-green-brown. Then I recognized her. She was Ms. Miller’s daughter, Amy Miller. As I followed Amy, Jeff was talking to his jock friends, glancing at me at random times, girls were still gossiping, and other people were sitting on the ground, reading or playing video games.

“Come on!” Amy said.

When we got to where Amy brought me, I gasped. It was beautiful. School was suddenly over! (But that wasn’t the beautiful part.) The beautiful part was the snow. There were five inches of snow already, and it was still snowing! I ran to my locker and heard something.

“Everyone, there are already five inches of snow, and it is still snowing. So go to your locker and get your bag. No homework, just get home. Oh, wait, you do have homework. Don’t go outside when you get home!” the speaker said.

I got my bag, and put on my coat. I ran outside. It was still snowing. I felt a snowball against my back. I heard laughing. I turned around. Three boys were laughing at me. I felt anger. I ran home. Winter has begun. So have mean boys.


Chapter Two: Jack

As I walked home, I looked at my arm. I remember Lily saying, “It can’t be that bad.” I know she only said that because of Jeff. My shoulder looked badly bruised. I sighed. It is bad. It is, I thought. I took out my phone and noticed that Jeff wasn’t in the group chat. It was only me, Amy, Lily, and Noah (my best friend).

Hey sis. I noticed that Jeff isn’t on the group chat anymore. Why? Is it that you two broke up…? I texted Lily in our private chat

She didn’t answer for 10 minutes. She was usually on her phone or in her journal.

“Huh,” I muttered. “Whatever. Maybe she hates me. I don’t care anymore.”

I opened the door to our house, and Lily wasn’t in her special chair. Okay, this is getting suspicious. Of course she would be in the special chair either when she is sad or if she is… lazy, I thought.

I saw a note that said, Go upstairs. Or else. It wasn’t Lily’s handwriting, or Mom’s, or Dad’s. It couldn’t be Mom’s or Dad’s. They stayed at work for another five hours. I didn’t like threats, so I hurried up stairs. Nothing was in the hallway, except for another note.

It said, Go to your room. Stay there until your sister comes home. I walked into my room and sat on my bed. I waited there for about one hour. I got really impatient (and I don’t really get inpatient) and walked downstairs. I saw a bucket of paint hanging on the door, and I swear I saw, like, five boys around our house, with snowballs. Then I saw three boys and two girls with Nerf Guns.

“Huh.” I wondered aloud.

I quickly put my hand on my mouth and stood really still. Then I quietly walked over to the fridge and took an apple. Then I saw all the people that surrounded the house scurry away. Then I saw a girl, snow all over her back and front.

“Lily?” I said. Just then she opened the door. I screamed, “Noooo!!!”

Paint splattered all over her. She was wearing a bright green shirt. The paint was pink. Believe me, it looked like… gross. I had a yellow shirt. I jumped in too. I didn’t want Lily to be alone. But then she pushed me away and ran outside, just to get more snow on her. I ran outside too, and I got Nerfed. Those three boys and two girls shot Nerfs at me.

I pulled Lily inside. “What happened!?” I screamed at her.

Lily started to cry and ran into the bathroom. I felt guilty. I got towels for her and knocked on the door.

“What is it?!” she yelled.

“I… I just… brought… some towels,” I stammered. I opened the door, not looking in, and threw the towels in. Then I said, “You know… I’m really good at handwriting… You want me to do your homework?”

“Sure,” she said.

I ran downstairs, took her homework out of her bag, and saw a note. It said, Ms. Bolt, come early tomorrow to school. Come to my classroom. – Ms. Miller.

I gasped. I’ll tell her later, I thought. I finished her homework with a, Ms. Miller, I will not write in my journal during class anymore. I did my homework and then ran to Lily’s room. Lily was dry, all clean in her pajamas. 

“I know who made those notes. Those kids out there,” she said out of nowhere.

“Um… here,” I handed her the note.

“Ugh,” she groaned.

“What? You get to have pizza and ice cream with Ms. Miller!” I was shocked.

“That’s during lunch! Right now… tomorrow morning… I’m going to be in big trouble!” She groaned again.

“No you’re not. Just show her your homework, and then she’ll let you go,” I said.

“Why?” Lily asked me.

“Because I wrote, Ms. Miller, I will not write in my journal during class anymore,” I replied.

“You have to ask me when you write stuff like that before you write it!!!” Lily said.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“It’s okay,” Lily said quietly.

I put my pajamas on and went downstairs. I heard the door click open.

“Honey… darling,” a voice came from outside.

I opened the door and then I didn’t know if it was just me or a real one, but there was suddenly a blackout. 


Chapter Three: Amy

Ding dong, the doorbell rang. The door opened.

“Yes?” A girl answered the door.

“Hi, Lily!” I said excitedly.

“Go away,” Lily said.

“Why?” I asked, trying to be annoying (believe me, I can be really annoying!) but sometimes Lily knew me better than I knew myself!!

“Don’t try,” she said, grunting and slamming the door in my face.

I took out my phone. I looked at my phone case. I got it on my 10th birthday, in London. Lily was there with me (and Jack), and she gave me a phone case with leaves all over it. Then I got a PopSocket with a puppy (collie) barking. I smiled. I turned my phone over to the front and texted Lily.

Hey Lils, whatcha doing? Y didn’t u answer me?! What happened? And y didn’t u let me come in?! I’m still standing outside ur house. Waiting 4 u!!

After one minute, she answered. Ugh… y u, of all peeps?! Y u!? Ok, i’ll give u 10 mins in my house. Mom and dad aren’t home yet.

She opened the door, and said, “Come in, quickly.”

When we got in, she set a timer for ten minutes. “Wow. I’m starting to feel rushed,” I said to her, joking.

“Okay, so basically I got ambushed by some kids, (whatever!) Jack did my homework, (lucky!) and he… ” I didn’t listen to this part. It was already nine minutes!

“And then… ready for the mystery?” Lily asked me.

“Yeah!” I said, nervous, but still excited.

“He… he went… down… downstairs… but… but he never… never came… came back,” Lily said, sadly.

“Oh, Lily!” I said.

I felt really bad. I don’t have any younger siblings, so I don’t really know how it feels to lose one.

“Oh, Lily,” I started.

But just right then the timer rang. 

“Goodbye!!” Lily said and pushed me outside.

I took out my phone again and texted Jack this time.

Hey jack. Where r at? Lily’s worried mad. She just kicked me out of the house. I know u don’t text a lot, but I need u to text me back now! Like, right now!! Or I’ll have to tell ur parents that they need to hire some detectives.

He didn’t answer after five minutes. Then he texted back. 

Amy. Help. I’m kidnapped. Right now I’m in a sack. Just woke up. Tell Lily. I need you, Lily, and Noah. Get Jeff, if Lily wants. I just need all the help I can get!

I sighed. He was still alive. I ran back to Lily’s house and wrote a note to her.

Lily. Meet me in the girl’s bathroom, middle stall.

I got a text from Jack. Tell you details then. We need a team. I like, ‘Jack’s saviors’ cool, huh? Wait, getting off topic. Bye! Text ya at 9:00. K? Bye.

I put the note under her door. As I walked home, everything seemed… different. So many things would happen tomorrow. The high school dance would be in one week (Valentine’s Day dance). I also had so many questions. Who would I go to the dance with? Who kidnapped Jack? Would this “team” work out the way I thought it might? Would I make more friends? Would we invite Jeff? After that last question, I was home. I sighed.

I unlocked the door and yelled, “Mom? Dad? Y’all home?”

“Yes, honey!” my dad said calmly from the kitchen.

“Mom isn’t home yet?” I asked, surprised.

“No. She has a meeting about how to deal with girls or boys who like to write during class. I think you know who I’m talking about,” he said, glancing at me.

“Lily,” I sighed. 

“Honey, your food is at the table. Eat quickly,” he said, smiling. 

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise!” he teased me, laughing. “Fine. I’ll tell you. We are going to Avengers: Endgame with some friends from preschool.”

“Ugh,” I groaned. I’m usually really friendly, but I haven’t seen them since I was two years old!

“Honey. You love Marvel!” he exclaimed.

“I know, but… I haven’t seen them for a while,” I said sadly.

I finished eating and went upstairs to get my Marvel merchandise. When I came down, I looked in the mirror. I wore a baseball cap saying, Avengers: Endgame: Friday, April 26, 2019. I had a ponytail up under my cap, a shirt that said, Captain Marvel will return in Avengers: Endgame on the back and on the front it said, Captain Marvel. I wore pants that on the side said, Black Widow. I wore simple shoes that were gray.

“Okay, dad, I’m ready!” I said, running to the living room.

I heard a buzz from my phone. I looked at the text message. It was from Lily, and it came with a picture.

Hey Amy, saw note. I gtg to ur mom’s room early tho. When Jack disappeared, I saw 2 peeps (adults) leaving my house. I took a picture of it. I sent it to u. I’ll go to ur mom’s room (fingers crossed u might be there!) and after our ‘talk’ w/ ur mom, I’ll meet ya at bathroom. Bye!

I smiled. Kk, I texted her back.

Then I put my phone in my pocket and saw my dad running downstairs.

“We are late! Five minutes ‘till movie!!” he yelled. “Hop in! Hop in!”

We quickly got into the car and drove to the movie theater. We got our seats and sitting right next to me was a girl. Sitting next to her was another girl. Then a boy. Then five more girls. I recognized them all. They were my preschool friends! Laila, Willow, Liam, Maya, Georgia, Sole, Ciri, and Alison. I smiled. I knew they went to my school. Eight more people on our team now.


Chapter Four: Noah

I am really worried, worried sick. I saw Amy texting Jack on her private chat. Oh, I’m a hacker. My name is Noah. I texted Jack, but he didn’t answer back. So I hacked his private chat with Amy and saw the texts. I knew it was Jack texting Amy ‘cause… he kind of has a crush on her. Jack was kidnapped and in a sack full of apples! (I know it’s apples. In every book/movie it’s apples.) I’m so worried! Okay, get back in the present. Noah, get back into the present. Okay, so now I just got a text message from Amy.

Hey Noah. Meet me and Lily. We are making a team to find Jack. Don’t call the police. They will take you and me out of this.

I’m still really nervous, but I am Jack’s friend, not his overprotective friend like his mother. No. I’m his friend. The next morning, I got up at 5:00 and met Amy in Ms. Miller’s classroom. Lily wasn’t there yet. Neither was Ms. Miller.

“Where’s your — ”

“Shhh!” Amy interrupted, gesturing around her.

“What?” I whispered.

Amy ran up to me. “There’s a secret room around here. That’s where Mom and Lily are,” she told me, like it was obvious.

“Okay… why Lily though?” I asked her.

“She’s in trouble. And be quiet! Mom doesn’t know we are here!” she hissed at me.

I took out my phone. Jeez. Okay, Ms. Bossypants! I texted her. Amy glared at me.

Don’t you even dare, she texted me back.

K. yeesh, I texted her. Since I got in the classroom, I could hear distinct chatter. Now it stopped.

“Uh oh,” Amy said. “Out, quick.”

As we scurried away, Lily and Ms. Miller came out of a door with a blue handle. The room was pink. How could I have not noticed that?! I wondered. As I saw Lily leaving, her face was pale, and she was holding her math notebook.

“Good job, Lily!” Ms. Miller called out.

“Thanks,” she said back.

Ms. Miller was holding her homework. We went to the library, which was open from 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM. When we came in, eight people were in there already.

“Um… who are these people?!” I asked Amy, who was smiling, and Lily, who was just as puzzled as I was.

“These were my friends from preschool, and now they are in our team!” Amy said. “This is Ciri,” she said, pointing at a girl with dark brown fuzzy hair. “This is Solé,” she said, pointing at a girl with cool earrings that were made out of yarn. “This is Georgia,” she said, pointing to the tallest girl there. “This is Maya,” pointing to a girl with brown hair. “This is Liam,” pointing to the only boy there. I waved to him. He waved back. “This is Laila,” pointing to a girl with short black/brown hair. “This is Willow,” pointing to a girl who had a green bow in her hair. “And this is Alison,” pointing to a girl with round, redish-pinkish glasses.

“This is Lily,” she said, pointing at Lily. “And this is Noah,” she said, pointing at me. “And, well. I’m Amy, as you all know!” she said, trying to be humorous.

Kids laughed faintly. So did I.

Lily stepped in and said, “Okay, everyone. My brother, Jack, got kidnapped at 8:30 PM, yesterday night. It’s now 5:30 AM, nine hours after he got kidnapped. Amy here, knows something we don’t know.”

“Okay, so here. Do we have a board or… ” Amy started.

“Oh, yes! Yes!” I said excitedly. I was happy to help, but then with those ten faces all looking at me, my happiness quickly faded away. I said, “Um… I mean, there’s a Smartboard… ” I walked to the Smartboard and asked for Amy’s phone.

“Why?” She asked me.

“Because… because I need to connect it to the… ”

“Okay!” she said, putting her phone in my hand.

I felt her hand for a second. It was soft and smooth. I sighed. It made me feel better. I took the phone and connected it to the Smartboard. Then I gestured to Amy to take the lead.

“Thank you, Noah.”

“You’re… you’re welcome,” I said, sheepishly. I saw her eyes. They were beautiful. They were golden brown. I… I think… I started to like her. As in, like like like her… 

“Okay, everyone?” she asked, bringing me back to the present.

“Um… what?” I asked her, completely forgetting the text message I hacked into.

“Um… the text message??” she said.

“Oh yeah. Okay.” I read it through again and said, “Yep. I’m done reading.”

“Okay, everyone. The picture of the adults only reminds me of one family. Jeff. I met his parents, and one was enough,” she said, joking.

“Okay, let’s question him first,” Lily said. 

Just then I got an idea. “Hey guys. Um… Jack’s message… it said invite Jeff if wanted. Should we? He might know more than us, if that’s his parents. I know he would help Lily.” I glanced at her. “For anything.”

The school bell rang.

“Everyone, we will meet at lunch, table three!” Lily shouted over the ringing bell.

Everyone got their bags and ran to their homerooms. Eleven kids in the team. Only one kid to find. How hard can it be, really?


Chapter Five: Jeff

Hi. I’m Jeff. You might think of me as a cool, tough jock. But on the inside, I’m a small writer and a boy who wants a girl. My parents did something incredibly, horribly awesome. They kidnapped someone!! And they still aren’t in jail! I’m not going to tell the police anything. But what happened with Lily and Jack… Okay, I’ll be honest. I meant to punch Jack. I knew it was him, but… it was only because Ms. Roma (our homeroom teacher) let us do trivia.

She asked the only question about sports, and it was, “In inches, how big is the diameter of a basketball hoop?”

“I am really bad at math,” I said.

“But you are really good in sports,” Ms. Roma challenged me.

“Yeah. I remember last year we had to measure it in gym,” a girl, Rose, said.

“Just what was it?” Ms. Roma asked us all. “Put a thumbs up when you know it. Don’t yell it.”

Everyone suddenly remembered (or so I thought). I lied, and put a thumbs up.

“When I count ‘three, two, one’, raise your hand first,” Ms. Roma said. “Three, two, one!” she yelled.

Everyone quickly put their hand up.

“Ms. Rose, what do you think it is?” she asked Rose.

“Ten,” Rose said triumphantly.

“No, Ms. Rose. Now you are out of the game.”

“Mr. Outi, what do you think?” she asked Outi.

“Five!” he shouted.

Before Ms. Rome could even say, “I’m sorry,” he jumped on a table and screamed, “I’m the winner of this round! Me, me, me!” he screamed, louder. It hurt my ears so much!!!

“Mr. Outi! You are out of the game and of the classroom,” Ms. Roma shouted.

Ms. Roma is pretty nice, so we were all surprised when she shouted.

“Next?” she said quieter than shouting but still loudly. “Ms. Alison? What do you think the answer is?” she asked calmly to Alison.

I met Alison before. She is Lily’s friend, Amy’s, friend. (I mean, I think so.)

“Sixteen,” Alison said.

“Close, Ms. Alison, but no,” she whispered. No one heard except for me, since I was right next to Alison.

“I’m sorry, Alison, but no,” Ms. Roma said loudly, as she would call it, “inside voice.” 

When she first said that, Outi said, “I lost my inside voice in an accident.” It was funny. 

“Mr. Jeff?” Ms Roma asked me.

“Um… seventeen?” I said the closest number to sixteen.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Jeff. Maybe the top star athlete will not be the top star in athlete facts,” she said to me.

Many people laughed or snickered.

One of them patted me on the back and said, “Next time, low star in athletic facts.”

Everyone laughed. I was blushing.

“You’re out! You’re out!” people teased.

As I walked to the section with Alison and Rose, I asked them, “Are you guys embarrassed because of losing?”

“No! Everyone loses at something,” Alison replied.

“Yeah. Agreed, but what I’m embarrassed of is you asking things a little kid would ask,” Rose said.

She said that last part loudly so everyone could hear. People laughed again.

“Hey, Jeff. Don’t be a sore loser. I like what Alison said. ‘Everyone loses at something.’ Like me. I lose at sports but I still have friends! And no one is perfect,” a boy said, named Jack. 

Ms. Roma cleared her throat. “Thank you, Jack, for the pep-talk.” Everyone laughed, including Jack. “But can we please get back to trivia?”

“Yes, Ms. Roma,” everyone said in harmony.

“Okay, Ms. Chelsea?”

“Call me Chels,” Chelsea said.

Everyone likes her. Not because of her singing, or how she looks, but because she takes everything chill. People call her Chill Chels. Everyone is her friend. 

“Um… let’s see… sixteen and up?” Chill Chels said.

“Ms. Chelsea, you have to pick an exact number,” Ms. Roma said.

“Oh then… okay… fifteen?” Chill Chels said, but in a question sort of way.

“No, Ms Chelsea. But thank you for being like Rose and Alison. Not some boys.” She looked at me. “And thank you for being ‘chill’ about it,” Ms. Roma said calmly.

“Okay,” Chill Chels said.

She walked towards me, Alison, and Rose, only to invite them to come to her house today.

“Sure!” Rose said.

“Yeah, I’m free!” Alison said.

They walked to a different corner, talking. Then Jack got it correct, and I got really mad. That’s why I punched him. But don’t get me wrong, I had no idea that Jack didn’t come to school the day after I complained to my parents about him, and then they kidnapped someone!

At lunch today, I ate at table three, all alone. But then eleven people came up to me and sat at that table. The one in the lead was Lily. In the cafeteria, there were security guards because of the kidnapping. But outside, anything could happen. And guess what? We could go outside!

So Lily said, “Outside, now.”

When we got outside, we picked a place with lots of grass. I thought we were having a date, and the people behind her were guards, so we wouldn’t get harmed (even though the kidnappers were my parents)! Lily introduced me to the gang behind her. I only knew three people. Alison, Amy, and Noah. So they questioned me about my parents, if anyone knew who was missing, and Noah said if I gave them the information they needed, I could help look for Jack. I told them that my parents did kidnap Jack, but I didn’t know where he was or why he got kidnapped. I told them no one knew who got kidnapped, but I could go tell a guard that I knew who it was.

They quickly said, “No! No! No! No! No! No!”

Then I said, “Why?”

And they said because they would hire a real detective, and only Lily would be in this, but they wanted to help. I answered their questions and soon enough, Noah’s promise was correct. I got on their team! It was private though. No telling anyone, ect. The team was called “Jack’s Saviors.” We all made a group chat called that. I couldn’t wait to help! I wasn’t just helping because I was nice, but I was also doing it for Lily! (And her friends, but… yeah.)


Chapter Six: Jack’s Saviors (Group Chat)

December 15th 2020, 7:50 AM

Lily: Hey saviors. 3rd day already and NO CLUE OF JACK! Well, that was my turn of investigating. Whose turn is it? Oh yeah, Jeff, it’s your turn. Try to ask your parents about Jack, and he’s been missing for 3 days already and maybe he might have been kidnapped? Before you do this, do your parents know that you know they are the kidnappers? And also say it was weird how Jack disappeared the day you complained about him. And say you two are friends. Make it seem like you like Jack as a friend and you miss him, or just spend lots of time with your parents to figure out where he is.

December 16th 2020, 7:40 AM

Jeff: Ok. Just did that for a whole day!!! Didn’t find out where Jack was, sadly. 

9:50 AM

Alison: Aw… I haven’t met Jack yet. He seems like a nice guy worth saving for!!

9:59 AM

Georgia: Hey! He’s Lily’s brother! We made new friends! Come on. We would save him for Lily and for Amy!

10:00 AM

Amy: We should all look for Jack at the same time to move faster. Here. I’ll send a photo of him. 

IMG.3958

10:17 AM

Noah: Ok. I think we should all look at where this kidnapping thing started. Lily’s house.

Ciri: Agreed. But, everyone should bring a microscope or something that would let us see closer in. 

Sole: Yeah. Lily’s at home with her mother and father, rushing them to go work. Just texted her on private chat. She said they still think that Jack is sick in bed. LOL!! 

Maya: Really?! I’m still so happy winter break just started!!! So many days to investigate!

Liam: Maya, you’re ALWAYS happy! And I think Noah, Jeff, and I should go for more clues. Maybe at Jeff’s house? I dunno.

Laila: Yeah. Maybe I can go sneak into my mom’s science room. I might find some good tools… 

Willow: YEAH! I’ll find some books about solving kidnap mysteries in the library. We could all meet at Lily’s house after. We all know where she lives… so yeah. See you guys there! GO SAVIORS!

11:11 AM

Lily: GUYS GUYS GUYS!!!! STOP DOING WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING!! WE FOUND HIM! Well, at least we know where.

Amy: where?

Noah: where?

Ciri, Alison, Sole, Georgia, Maya, Liam, Laila, Willow said the same thing: where?

Jeff: MY PARENTS HAVE A SECRET LAIR IN D.C. HE’S THERE!!!

11:20 AM 

Lily, Amy, Noah, Ciri, Alison, Sole, Georgia, Maya, Liam, Laila, and Willow said the same thing: Yay!!!

To be continued… 


Bonus Chapter: Jack’s Saviors (Group Chat)

Jeff: Hello? Anyone? Well, in my parents’ room, I found a paper. I’ll post it. But… I’m sorry. I have to leave the team. I won’t tell my parents, but I feel guilty reading this. Here. I posted it. 

We have a secret. We are secretly kidnappers, because our son, Jeff, has a public crush on this cheerleader, Lily. He punched her brother, by accident (well, he said that). He told us what happened, how Lily got really mad at him and left him. He told us that before Lily got mad, he told her, “Listen, Lily. People will get hurt around here. I don’t want you to.” After he told us that, he ran up stairs and didn’t come down. We didn’t disturb him because he was making a phone call. But we heard some words. “On 12th avenue, on 6th street. Yes. I know that’s where they live. I’m sure. Yes. Nerfs and snowballs. Okay. Bye.” And he hung up. So we went to their house, and there was paint all over the door. Nerfs were on the ground. We tried to open the door. We had a huge sack of apples. A boy opened the door, and instead of being nice to Lily, we knocked him out. Yes, I know. Mean and rude. But this boy stopped our Jack from getting the chance to have Lily like him!!

-Jeff’s parents


The Time When Unicorns Existed, or Shall I Say the Time When I Got Famous, or Maybe Not

Just remember, if you’re reading this story, don’t freak out. If you freak out, just stop reading this story right away.


Chapter One

Do you know the time when unicorns used to exist? Well, I know when. So this is the story: once I was dreaming about some unicorns — I saw unicorns flying in the air. That was amazing, really just to tell you. I loved it.

Guess what happened next: the unicorns were dancing for real! I know right.

Then the unicorns started to dance — it was so funny that I woke up and started laughing.

Crazy!

My mom said, “Hey, why are you laughing like that?” I was still laughing. That was surely crazy. My mom said, “Come on, stop laughing. Come on, get up.”

I still sat there. I was laughing like crazy.

My mom got so mad that she carried me up to the table and said, “Explain, explain, explain to me what this nonsense is all about!”

I said, “It was nothing to worry about, okay.”

Then my mom said, “The next time you do that again, you are going to get a toy.”

I was so surprised!

That was just one sentence that I loved!

Loved it!  

I think I just saw a unicorn right now in 2019 — dun, dun, dun.

That means unicorns really do exist. It looked so beautiful, and it had so many colors I couldn’t believe. I was sitting there on a chair in the morning just waiting for something. Then a unicorn just popped up running through the house! That was so amazing. It wasn’t my dream. It was in real life, actually! I really couldn’t believe that. I was the first person in 2019 to see a unicorn. Maybe I would be famous one day because of that. But I’m not actually sure if other people know about that. I know that my family knows, but… I am not really sure if other people know about this. Or people from the news, or anyone except for my family. That was really odd.

I said to my mom, “Did you see the unicorn just run in our house? It had so many colors! It was so cool! I was the first person in 2019 to see a unicorn! Isn’t that amazing?”

My mother said, “I know! I know! I saw that too!”


Chapter Two

I remembered when my mom said that when I have a crazy dream and laugh all the time, she’ll get me a new toy. I thought it was suspicious. So I did that again.

Then something weird happened. She actually didn’t give me a toy. She gave me something else.

It was a toy unicorn that you can ride on when you push the play button, and when you reverse it, you can go backwards. You can do that without even moving your legs. It does it by itself! That was actually kind of cooler than a toy.

I play with it all night and all day. I never stopped riding on it. I play with it all night, all day, every month, and every year. I got it when I turned eight years old. But I wonder if that was just for my birthday present or because… I was… laughing.

I was so confused. I was afraid to ask because if I asked my mom, she would take advantage of it and maybe take away the unicorn. So I didn’t want that to happen, so I just took it away from my mind and not care about it anymore. Then I just had fun with it as usual. I was thinking to myself why my mom would get something like that for $1,339.

I think I’m losing my mind! Is it actually true, or am I just dreaming? Are my eyes working right now?

Okay. Now let’s get to a new topic. Do unicorns actually exist? (That’s the title of the story.) I think they do. If I told the news that unicorns actually exist, I might be famous in some way. But I don’t know how.

I think I got an idea! I will go to the Mayor of New York.

I arrived there and said to her, “You dare call me a liar? But I was the first in 2019 to see a unicorn. This is true. I could even show you a photo, if you’d like. Put it on a newspaper, and send it to everybody in the whole world. Then I would be famous!”

“Neighhhh… ”

“What was that?” I said. “It’s a unicorn! Unicorns actually exist! I will look here, and you look there. And if I see a unicorn cross by, I will tell you to look there. And if you see a unicorn cross by, then you will tell me. Then we will see if unicorns really exist. This is my time to prove to you.”

The mayor said, “If it’s true that unicorns actually exist and you really saw it, I will make you famous.”
I said, “Hold on, hold on. Are you serious? You’re going to make me famous? No kidding? Are you?”

The mayor got frozen for a while. She was staring at something — it was huge and enormous. I looked there, and I saw a unicorn. The mayor was shocked, really shocked! I tried to unfreeze the mayor, but she kept staring at the unicorn. It was no joke. She was truly shocked.

Then the mayor unfroze.

I said to the mayor, “You see. Unicorns actually exist, and I was the first one in 2019 to see it. You see?”

The mayor said, “That unicorn that just crossed by… it was so beautiful. It had so many colors. My eyes were about to explode.”

I told the mayor, “Okay. Okay. Okay. Calm down now. If you want a photo of that unicorn, luckily, I took a photo. I have a printer at my house! I can print out a picture of the unicorn that crossed by and send thousands of pictures of it around the world. And give you one.”

I was willing to give the mayor one the next day, and printed off thousands of the photo, but then I forgot and fell asleep. I forgot and the mayor forgot to make me famous… dun dun dun. Man, the mayor was just totally off. All my work of being famous was off. And that was just bad. I couldn’t believe it.

The next day I woke up, and I stretched out. I took a deep breath, and my memory was wiggling. My memory caught up and at just that second, I remembered something big: do you know what it is? If you said I forgot to send the mayor a picture — you are correct. *Ding!* If you did not say that, you are wrong. *Err!*


Chapter Three

Okay, this story about when the unicorns existed is starting to get… totally out of hand. Anyway, let’s just get back to the story. If you’re still reading this story, great. If you like it, tell your friends about it. Okay, let’s just get back to the story.

Remember when I told you about when the mayor and I saw the unicorn? That was a way better unicorn than I saw at my house — it had more colors and was way more beautiful. And to be honest with you, that was actually good. Really good.

It was getting dark, and the sun was going down. The moon was rising, and the stars were out. Some feeling I have… in the night, I feel like I’m lonely for some reason. Maybe because it’s dark. Maybe unicorns liked to be in the dark, and people think unicorns don’t even exist. Oh yeah! Did I or did the mayor forget to make me famous? This is the worst day ever. I was supposed to be famous, and I am not. I must go back to that mayor and should have a plan to do something. I know! I’ll go to the mayor and tell her, “Weren’t you supposed to make me famous? Did you lose your mind?”

Then I went to the mayor and said to her, “Wasn’t I supposed to be famous?”

But the mayor said, “You forgot to give me the photo.”

And I said, “Oh yeah.” I had hidden the photo behind my back, and I said, “Do you want the photo? Surprise!!!” I pulled out the photo from behind my back. 

The mayor said, “Okay! Now let’s make you famous. Tomorrow, watch the news. I’ll make you famous on the news. I promise.”


Chapter Four

I woke up the next day, and I watched the news.

The news guy said, “Unicorns! Lovely unicorns!”

For some reason the news guy didn’t even mention my name or anything about me.

I was so mad about that, so I went back to the mayor and said to her, “I was watching the news just today, and the news man didn’t even make me famous at all or even mention my name or anything. He just said ‘unicorns lovely unicorns!’”

The mayor looked at me, with fake surprise.

Then I said, “You’re just faking, so if I go to the building where the news people go, and I ask them if you told them about me, or even mentioned my name, what do you think they will say? Every day I drive past the building, and I have written the name and address of where it is.”

The mayor said, “Okay okay. The only reason I didn’t make you famous was because… um… okay, I didn’t make you famous because usually when people make you famous the news people give out the address of where you life, and they might come to your door and ring your bell and do something. They might kidnap one of your daughters or your sons.”

I said, “I have daughters? I have sons? Well that’s cool, and plus that is new news for me!” 

The mayor, “No! No! No! You are getting off track. You have no kids. You are only a kid. Anyways, let’s just get back to what we were talking about before. So remember when I told you that when you get famous on the news, they tell your address and someone can knock on your doorbell and when they open the door they can do something bad to you.”

I said, “Okay, you’re right, but I’m thinking that usually no one does that.”

But the mayor said, “Do you want to live a nice and peaceful life or keeping on working to be famous because once you are famous people can forget about you once you stop doing your work of being famous.”

Then I said, “Actually, you are kind of correct.”

So the mayor said, “What do you think now?” 

“I have a plan actually. With your advice that you just told me, now I don’t want to be famous anymore. Now, for the news, I have a plan! A very special plan! Do you know what it is? Something special and crazy!!! I’m going to tell you something cool. Here we go! Are you ready for it? You’re going to go tell the news to someone named Mr. Piko Piko. Let me tell you a secret. That’s a fake person and a fake name. But don’t tell the news especially! Okay, let’s get back to what we were saying. Next, you are going to say about Mr. Piko Piko to the news and that he lived on 97th Street between Columbus Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue. So you got it? I’m going to write it down on a paper, and tomorrow I’m going to give it to you. And then after tomorrow, you’re going to go to the news and say everything that I told you about Mr. Piko Piko.”

The next day, I woke up and got a loose piece of paper and wrote everything about Mr. Piko Piko. Then, I went off and gave it to the mayor.

The mayor said to me, “Could I tell you something? Your plan is excellent! Give me a high five! And when someone tries to go to Mr. Piko Piko’s address and rings the bell, someone will open the door and the person who came will ask, ‘What is your name?’ They will say something else than Mr. Piko Piko. They are going to be so surprised!”

The next day, the mayor went to the news people and said there’s someone named Mr. Piko Piko and he lives on 97th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenue.

The news people said, “Okay! Sure, no problem! But in the first place, why are you telling me this?”

“I’m telling you this because Mr. Piko Piko is willing to be famous.”

The news people said, “Okay.”

The next day, the mayor and I sat next to each other and watched the news.

Then the news people said, “Mr. Piko Piko is famous! He lives on 97th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenue.”

He became famous at Rock and Roll music bro. The mayor closed the TV. Then the mayor and I started laughing so badly.

“Where did the news people get the Rock and Roll bro?”

“That was so crazy!”

We laughed for a while. It was a success!


Chapter Five

The mayor and I gave a high five to each other. But then, someone went to Mr. Piko Piko’s house and remembered that Mr. Piko Piko is not real. So, they rang the bell on the door and a guy opened the door.

He asked him, “What’s your name?”

The guy said, “My name is Pearator.” Pearator said to the man, “But who are you?!”

“Nevermind, I shall say.”

Then, the man just closed the door and left.

Pearator said, “That’s odd.”

The man went to his house.

The next day, the man went to the news people, and he said to them, “You guys tricked me! Guess what happened! You said the guy, Mr. Piko Piko lived on 97th street between Columbus and Amsterdam, but when I went there and knocked on the door and asked what his name was just to make sure and he said his name was Pearator.”

The news people said, “Wait, hold on. the mayor clearly told me in front of my eyes and ears this information and it’s not true. Something’s fishy around here. Time to animate the plan! We’re going to go to the mayor and go capture her.”

The guy said, “That’s a good plan. High five! If they are going to trick us, then we are going to trick them.” 

The next day, the news people and the guy went to the mayor and said to the mayor, “We went to ‘Mr. Piko Piko’s’ house.” When the news people said this to the mayor they used their hands to make air quotes. They continued and said, “We rang on the door and asked what his name is and he said his name was Pearato.”

The mayor looked at me and said to them, “Just one second. We need to go and do something.” 

The mayor and I went to this private room and said to each other, “Uh oh, they got us.”

“Time to operate another plan. So, we’re going to go back to them, and we’re going to shout ‘run!!!’”

So, we went back to them and said to each other, “Run!”

And the mayor and I ran away as fast as we could. But they still caught the mayor but not me because I’m too fast. Too bad for the mayor. She lost her job.

I said to the people, “You might have caught the mayor but not me because I’m so fast and you guys are so slow.”

They said, “Whatever, we don’t care.” And that was the end.

 THE END


Amber Diaries

If found, please contact Amber Charleston.


Monday, January 20

I can’t believe this is happening to me. I’m in the girl’s bathroom panicking! There is no way I’m going to make it through eighth grade. I just made a complete fool out of myself in front of my crush (Matt)! Oh no!

And to make matters worse, I sit next to Rebecca Hills in just about every class, who, by the way, is the most popular girl in the whole school. Calling her vain is an understatement. She’s a killer shark with sparkly lipstick and a designer jacket. 

But, for some reason, everybody adores her.

Rebecca and I do not get along!

She is always gossiping behind my back saying super mean stuff, like our school mascot Manny wears cuter clothes than me, which could be true, but still, she doesn’t have to say it.

I do not appreciate that girl blabbing about my personal business like that.

Today, Matt asked me to be his partner for math class, and I was so happy that I flipped, and I bet Rebecca was super jealous, because right before French class she said, “He’s mine, Amber, so don’t you dare get close to him, or you’ll be sorry you ever met me.” In my head I said, “Then why does he never pay attention to you?” But on the outside I just ignored her like I always do.

Anyway, I just had the best math class ever, even though all Matt and I did was stare into each other’s eyes like lovesick puppies, and when he said, “Um… Amber could you pass me the pencil” it was so romantic I thought I was going to die.

Tuesday, January 21

Ugh! That was me screaming, by the way. My parents just told me that I’m grounded for three months just for getting an F in math. Geez! Parents can overreact so much sometimes. I bet Rebecca Hills never has these problems. She’s an only child and her parents’ sweet little girl.

And to make matters worse, when I walked into my room I discovered that my two younger siblings, Juli and Lolo, had completely trashed my room — my door was scribbled all over with purple marker. Unfinished homework was flying everywhere. My bed was soaking wet. I couldn’t tell if it was water or pee. Eww. “Mom, Dad, I can’t believe you let Juli and Lolo do this.” Their answer was, “Oh really, um, what did they do? Can’t be that bad, can it?” I was so frustrated with my parents and my siblings I kicked them out of my room and then had a very good private scream.


Wednesday, January 21

Yes! After all the drama from yesterday, I’m happy to have something good to say for once — today was the best day of my life I just won $3,000 dollars in a fashion design competition. Just a week ago my best friends, Estella, Emily, and Luna, entered a dress (without telling me of course) that I had made in second grade. Surprisingly, it won! Who would have thought an old dress would beat Rebecca’s awesome 3D fashion crush designs.

My friends and I are going out for pizza tonight. Then we’re going to go to my house for a celebration party and a sleepover — it’s going to be the best and the good news is: there’s no school tomorrow in honor of me, so we can stay up as late as we want!


Thursday, January 22

Well, the party’s over. I’m kind of sad it’s done. We had the best time. We ate so much junk food and drank so much soda that we were practically bouncing off the walls. Around 5 AM we finally decided to settle in and sleep

We slept till 1PM. By that time it was time for Estella, Emily, and Luna to go home. We said our goodbyes, and they left anyway. I just had the best night of my life!


Monday, January 26 

I cannot believe that girl. I just got home from school to find my entire front yard trashed. Plus our fancy rocking chair was broken, and when I went inside it was an even bigger mess glasses, and bowls were shattered, my siblings’ toys were scattered everywhere, and my entire wardrobe was on the floor. I have to clean this mess up before my parents get home, or I’m going to be in big trouble, and I’ll get all the blame. So excuse me, but I have to clean up a big mess and there’s not enough time to do it.

It’s half past midnight, and I’ve finally finished my homework. I’m so bored. Plus I’m not one bit sleepy — I have nothing to do but play with my Barbie dream house tucked away in my closet in case someone comes to visit. Yes, I’ll admit it. I play with Barbies, but if anyone is reading this, don’t you tell anyone or you’ll be sorry — I’d die of embarrassment if they knew.


Tuesday, January 28

I can’t believe what I just did! Right now I’m lying in bed pretending to be sick all because of my SSSBFF (super super secret best friend forever) Rebecca Rainbow Sparkles, who is the daughter of the senator of Rainbow Republic. I’m not supposed to tell anyone about it, but I figured writing about it wouldn’t hurt. The reason I’m lying in bed is to help Rebecca plan the upcoming war against pink fluffy unicorns, and I totally support her plan to dress up as a boy and join the war, but to make it clear Rebecca Rainbow is not Rebecca Hills. I hate that girl. So when I say Rebecca, I mean my friend, not my enemy. Note to self: Never stay up answering your SSSBFF emails.


Tuesday, January 29

Ahhh! I really don’t think that I’m going to survive this war. Rebecca Hills just joined the pink fluffy unicorns against me. Hopefully I make it out alive.

One year later… 

Okay, this is Amber. Still me, just one year older, and I’m not entirely sure if the war is over, but it seems to have paused for now. Anyway, last night I got the weirdest text from Rebecca saying, What’s your name?, Was it bongly boo boo?, or something like that. And then she made a promise to stop Rebecca Hills from torturing me. I totally believe in her, but let’s face it. There’s only so much a talking rainbow can do.


Friday, January 26

O-M-G! I am so excited. Rebecca is finally coming to the human world to stop Rebecca Hills. I offered to let her stay at my house. She can sleep under my bed, and so far it’s been working out really well. We have so much fun in the night. The only catch is I have to leave meals three times a day. I convinced mom and dad to let me stay home from school for a month if I did all their chores plus my chores in one day. It was a lot of work for one day, but I did it, so now I can spend all day at home!


Monday, January 30 

I am so happy!!! Rebecca just came inside. She’s finally here. I’m going to show her to my room. I’ll be back when I’m done with the tour. Also by the way, Rebecca looked different. She looked like a human. I asked her why, and she said it was a magical disguise. I’m glad she will be easier to hide now that she’s not as big. But I just want to say she looks fabulous. I wish I could have hair like her.

Saturday, February 17

O-M-G!

Today Rebecca and I were at the mall, and guess who showed up?!

Rebecca Hills!!!

We were enjoying ourselves and hanging out when all of a sudden we saw her with her friends. When she spotted me, she smiled one of her big fake smiles and wrapped me in a big “bear hug” as if we had been friends for life (which we had not) and then she walked right up to my face and said, “Amber, I’m so happy to see you. Congrats for winning all that money. Had I known the judges wanted old clothes, I would have brought my little sister’s poodle vomit stained dress.” I was both appalled and insulted by her rude ”compliment.”

Why is my life so miserable?!


Saturday, January 24

I am so nervous. Today Rebecca and I are finally going to get revenge on her by pushing her into the void.

Here’s our plan:

  1. Trick Rebecca into boarding a chariot to Rainbow Republic
  2. Disguise ourselves as pink fluffy unicorns, and when we’re close, we’ll push her in

Though seriously, this disguise might take some getting used to. You might be wondering what the void is. Well, it’s a pitch black space where anyone who falls in disappears forever. I have to go. Our chariot is getting impatient.

O-M-G, we just did it!!!

As soon as she got on, I made sure to act convincing. Boy was she pushy. No wonder the unicorns love her. They’re identical twins separated at birth. Anyway, I looked out the chariot and told her that the view was spellbinding, and just when we were about to enter Rainbow Republic, I pushed her, and she fell into the void never to be seen again.


Epilogue 

Rebecca and Amber went on to live long, exciting lives. Amber moved herself and her whole family to Rainbow Republic and lives there now with her mom, dad, and little brother and sister, who are now two and six. For more info, read pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows.

The Anderson Sisters

Chapter One: Meet the Anderson Sisters

Once there were five girls. They were sisters. They weren’t just sisters. They were orphans, too. They were trying to sleep on the hammocks near the horse pen because they were assigned to that sleep there. But they couldn’t because the horses were so loud. 

The Anderson sisters’ names were Ashlyn, Allison, Alice, Anna, and Audrey. 

Ashlyn and Allison were both nine-year-old twins that had different personalities. Ashlyn always wanted adventure. She was dark haired and had beautiful brown eyes. She was silly and always made Allison laugh. She also wanted to be free. She had a million plans to escape. But their evil orphan teacher was always on the lookout. Allison, however, was shy and had thin, lightish brown hair and rose pink cheeks. She never ever wanted anything to do with adventure. But she wanted to be free too.

Alice was seven years old with a ponytail. She had dark hair like Ashlyn. She was silly and wanted to be free also. Sometimes she would be upset, and she would be impatient with the orphanage teacher. But the orphanage teacher really deserved it.

Anna was five years old and was more silly and rough than Alice. She had blond hair with a few light brown streaks. She was small and never kept things to herself. She was a real chatterbox and always wanted to be the center of attention.

Audrey was three and loved animals (except the scary and mean ones). She wasn’t good at spelling or reading. That’s because their parents died when she was one year old, and the orphanage teacher never taught her. She didn’t exactly speak as much as the others. She had beautiful blond hair. 

That night, the girls at the orphanage were either assigned to sleep on tables, hammocks near loud horses, beds, or cauldrons.

Although the sisters had different personalities, they always worked together, like once when the orphanage teacher made them do the hardest thing in the world (picking veggies and sweet stuff and making a treat out of it).

They never fit in with the other girls in the orphanage. Everyone else had no siblings while the sisters, well, you know, had siblings. So the other girls thought that they would be weird. Also, they didn’t like them because Audrey would cry almost every night about their old dog. 

They used to have a dog named Hamlet, but he ran away after the orphanage teacher threatened to hunt him if he didn’t leave the orphanage. They have missed him forever. 

The orphanage teacher was named Mrs. Quincy. She was very wealthy and had everything she wanted. She wasn’t nice to the orphanage girls. That was because she thought they would go wild if they didn’t follow her orders. So she had been pretty tough and rich.

The Anderson sisters were very busy on their plan to escape that night. It was their turn to sleep on the tables the next night. They were planning to do it at twelve o’clock. But Ashlyn was too excited. She took a newspaper to keep her occupied. 

What is on the news now? she thought as she picked it up from the floor. 

That’s when she saw that the footprint mystery has been solved.


Chapter Two: The Footprint Mystery

The footprint mystery had been going on since four years ago. There was a person who walked in the mountains. Someone found the footprints, and there was a named carved right beside them. It said, Lily Rockstone, but no one knew who Lily Rockstone was. That’s when the footprint mystery began.

Ashlyn has been dying to find out who it was. It turned out that “Lily” was a 16-year-old girl who was an orphan, too. Her mom collapsed in a boulder accident when Lily was three years old. She left the mountains four years ago. All Ashlyn could see of her was her long, dark brown curly hair. Ashlyn was shocked and surprised. She kept reading more about Lily. She was so into it that she didn’t even notice her sisters wake up at twelve o’clock. 

“Ashlyn,” whispered Allison. “Ashlyn!”

“Sorry,” said Ashlyn. “You guys won’t believe what I just read in the newspaper!”


Chapter Three: Escape Plan 264

All the girls were shocked when they heard the news, except Allison.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Allison as the girls paid no attention to her and kept asking Ashlyn questions. “So, the plan, everyone?”

“Yes!” said Ashlyn. “Now we had, like, 262 plans. Right?” 

The girls nodded. 

“Well, this might be our final straw, so make it good!”

After the girls were finishing listening to Ashlyn’s instructions, they leaped into the air and landed on the fire escape. But Anna’s stomp was way too loud, and Mrs. Quincy woke up. 

All the girls glared at Anna. 

“What?!” exclaimed Anna. 

I see you!” screeched Mrs. Quincy. “Get back here!” 

The girls raced for their lives, but it was too late. The girls got trapped. 

Mrs. Quincy dragged them all the way to the orphanage. 

“Guess what?” said Mrs. Quincy in a weird voice. “How about you spend the night in the snowflake?”

Oh no! thought Ashlyn. The “snowflake” wasn’t nearly as cute or pretty as it sounded. 

The snowflake was an awful dome that was below temperature. Girls would go in there if they tried to escape from the orphanage or did something really bad, like the sisters did just a few minutes ago.

There were still girls from about 30 years ago stuck there all frozen. 

Mrs. Quincy led them to the “snowflake.”

“In you go,” she said. 

She shoved them in, and they were freezing already.

They slowly ran almost all the way to the end of the snowflake. 

Once there, they found sticks and coal and frames and wood and bricks!

They built a warm house there in no time! 

They also tried to discover who killed their mom. They know who killed their dad and who killed the murderer who killed their dad.

It happened two years ago. Ashlyn saw a dark man. He had a suitcase. Then when their dad just opened the door, they saw a crazy stranger that looked like a robber. Then he killed their dad. Then some other stranger killed the robber. When they ran away, they heard crying. Then mumbling. Then loud noises. Then the next thing they knew, they were knocked out and in a strange place called the orphanage.

They had no idea what happened to their mom.

“Okay, people,” said Ashlyn. “We need to escape and find where our mom is.” 

“First things first,” said Allison. “Get your suitcases.” 

The girls quickly got their suitcases, clothes, cookie jars, and books. 

“Okay,” said Anna, munching the sixth sugar cookie she had that evening. “Whath nexth?” 

“Now, who’s a really good climber?” asked Ashlyn. 

“Me! Me!” said Allison.

“Are you really strong?” asked Ashlyn suspiciously.

“Positive,” said Allison.

“You sure?”

Yes!!!

“Okay, Alice. Can you tie ropes?”

“Yep,” said Alice.

“Okay. Allison, after I throw the rope really high so that it goes over the hole on top of the dome, you climb up the rope to the top. I need you to carry each of us one by one. But first carry Alice to the top, so she can tie the rope on the hole. Then after you take all of us. I will get the luggage. Are we good?” said Ashlyn cheerfully with a thumb up. 

The girls nodded.

“Great! I’ll go check on Mrs. Quincy,” said Ashlyn. She put her coat on, grabbed all the luggage, and secretly crept out of the dome. The other girls couldn’t do this because they weren’t really trained to. 

Ms. Quincy was in her fancy room, on her bed.

Ashlyn noticed a frame on top of Ms. Quincy’s desk. 

Ashlyn didn’t have time to see who was on it. She had to meet her sisters on time. 

Ashlyn got to the door and waited behind a fire escape. Her sisters were running down the fire escape next.

“Free!” Ashlyn whisper shouted. They went to a bush to rest.


AL the Alien

In a world very, very far away, there lived an alien named AL. He was a very good Sweed, the species of alien. One day, he was in Sweed’s camp for boys. They were going to sell cookies to other Sweeds.

“Hello,” I said from the table to a man walking around.

Hello,” he said back, staring straight at me. Trust me, it was creepy. 

“Do you want some cookies? It’s only 20 ockes a b — ”

No!” 

“Why?” I asked. I didn’t know anyone who would not take a box of cookies from us. 

Because I said so!” 

I could not hold it in. I started laughing like crazy. “You never said ‘so!’” I managed to say. I thought that he would be smart enough to know that.

Aahhh!” he yelled.

I noticed that he was getting bigger by the second. He was also getting boxier. He was a Gacter, the Sweed’s mortal enemy!

I did not know what to do. But then, I remembered our safety code. 

“Ghfksotkswlbjsjuf!” I yelled.

This means that my friends would come and help me with what I needed. In this case, destroying the Gacter.

“Here!” said all of my friends, Fany, Eswat, Yater, and Gutony.

I told them about the problem. What happened next was awesome. First, you need to know that we have magic powers. When we think about a happy moment, a dim spiral of light comes out of our antenna and can destroy small life forms and plants. However, if we combine all of our spirals of light, we can destroy a Gacter, if we wanted to. 

“Go!” I yelled.

All my friends did. I thought of when I won the SSEHC tournament and got a gold medal. A dim spiral of light came from my antenna, and same with my friends. It created a black ball of power, and then, bam!

“We won!” I yelled.

The Gacter was dead, and we were getting azzip (pizza) at the best restaurant. We did it.

THE END


the big issue

Crash is the sound I hear. I quickly grab my brother. He was hit in the crash. I throw him out my door just before I get out. I grab my phone and call 911. The ambulance arrives. I help them take my brother in the car, and they drive away with me running. I trip. Bang, I hear as my head hits the pavement. I reach for my phone. Dang. It broke when it hit the pavement. My vision is fading. I prepare myself for a bright light, but it doesn’t come. Then I pass out. I wake up in the hospital next to my brother, who isn’t moving. I’m worried. The doctor comes in.

I ask him, “What happened?”

He says I fell, but I don’t understand. I have fallen before. Why is this different?

Then I ask, “Is my brother okay?”

He says, “He’s fine, just in a coma.”

Then I ask, “Where are my parents?”

He says, “Outside.”

Then I say, “Wait, what happened to my brother?”

He says, “He was with you in the car.”

I say, “I wasn’t hurt?”

He says, “You were not.”

“How about my parents?” I say.

He says, “Your parents were not harmed.”

Three days later… 

“But Mom, I don’t want a new car. I will not get in it in my whole life.”

“Yes you will,” says Mom.

“No I won’t,” I say.

“Okay, no dinner for you,” says Mom.

“Fine, I would rather not eat than take another chance at death,” I say.

Four days later… 

“Fine, I’ll get in the car,” I say as I take a load of food and put it on my plate.

One day later… 

I get in the car, horrified of what happened one week ago.


Cloudy With a Chance of War

Chapter One

One day in Southern Foodafonia, the King of the Hot Dog Empire called a meeting with the Lord of Hambergria.

“We must go to war!” shouted King Hot Dog.

“With who?” asked Lord Hamburger, who was more intelligent than the hot dog.

“The humans!” shouted King Hot Dog.

“Okay?” said Lord Hamburger.

Back in human land… 

“La la la!” shouted the King of Lord of King 2 of Human Land. “I am so cool!!” he shouted. 

“King!” shouted a random person who ran into the throne room/bathroom/kitchen/cheese storage.

“King Hot Dog and Lord Hamburger have gone to battle!”

“With who?” asked the king.

“With you!” screamed the very random person.

“How do you know?” asked the king.

“Because they told me,” answered the person. 

“What? How? Why did they tell you?” asked the king.

“They told me, so I can kill you!”

Then he fell down. Confused, the king looked around the room.

“Die!!!” 


Chapter Two 

The King of Humans spun around and saw a hot dog running from the person who was actually a hot dog in a costume. The king ran from the room, shouting more curse words than a normal person should know — with the hot dog still running after him. The king ran into the town and jumped into the well. The hot dog fell into the water and died.

One hour later… 

After the king was pulled out of the well, he made an announcement. “The hot dogs have attacked us! They tried to kill me! And they ruined this nice shirt I had on — but anyway! We will now go to war! To war! To war!! To war!!!


Chapter Three

“Sir!” said the man.

“What do you want?” snapped the general of the weapon makers of the humans.

“The king needs 40 cannons by Flusday!” said the man.

“Fine,” said the general.

“Oh, also can you make me a carrot gun?” asked the man.

“Why?” asked the general.

“For fun,” replied the man.

“Okay,” said the general.

“Excellent… excellent!” said the man who was rubbing his hands together.

“Wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo!” screamed the Hot Dog King as he danced on the toilet. “Wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo!” he shouted.

“Uh… what are you doing?” asked Lord of Hambergria.

“Wo!” shouted the King of the Hot Dog as he shook his red butt at Lord Hamburger.

“Um… I need to go now,” said the Hamburger King as he walked out the door.

“Not so fast!” screamed the Hot Dog King as he pulled a lever behind him.

Suddenly the door slammed shut and locked itself.

“Lock activated,” said a computer voice.

“Eat some bread,” said the Hot Dog King as he tossed a loaf of bread at the Hamburger Lord.

“Fine,” said King Hamburger, and he started to cut the bread. 


Chapter Four

Ding dong! rang the doorbell.

“Who is it?” asked the person inside.

When no one answered, he came to the door. The man opened the door. He was the general. The general looked around and saw a letter on the ground. The general picked up the letter off the ground. He started to read the letter. Suddenly his face looked angry.

“Boom boom monkey!!!” he shouted.

“Sir, the cannons are ready!” said the general of the weapon makers.

“Good… they will pay for what they did to my shirt!” said King Human.

“And they will pay for the letter they sent to me!” said the general as he ripped up the letter in his hands.

“The hot dogs and the hamburgers will die!!!” screamed the king and general at the same time.

“Ho ha ho ha ho ha he he he he he ho!!! With cheese and peas! So go to come!!! Come! Come! Come! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

“Yay! It’s my birthday today!”

“Do we get cake?”

“And fun?!”

“Yes!”

“Yay!” screamed a group of kids at a birthday party.

“Stop screaming! Stop it!” shouted an angry parent.

“Yay cake!” screamed the kids. 

Boom!

“Run for your life!” screamed someone outside. “The hot dogs are attacking!”

The kids ran to the window to see what was happening.

Soon they started to scream, “The city is gone!”

“Mommy!”

“Run!”

“I want my mommy!”

Suddenly the building exploded. Boom!


Chapter Five

“We need help! We must defeat the hot dogs! So I asked for help. Meet… the cows!!!” said the King of the Humans as he opened the door behind him.

“Moo,” said a cow.

The general blinked. “So all the humans in this world are ruled by a crazy person who hires cows to do his bidding?!” said the general.

“Yes!” said the king as he shook his head.

“Well… hello!” said a voice.

The general jumped. He looked around the room but saw no one.

“I’m over here!” said the voice again.

The general looked at the cow. “You can talk?!” said the general.

“I am smart, so I can talk,” said the cow, “and I have a suit, so I am a business cow.”

The general’s mouth dropped. “Bu-bu… ” he said.

“Pizza army, come come come come!!!”

“Pizza!”

“Pizza!”

“Pizza!”

“If hot dogs win this war, we all die! So listen up! This is the battle strategy! We sneak the 100-foot tank past the great hot dog wall, then boom bam boom boom boom bam boom!!! Ha ha ha!” said the King of Humans. “Now… go!!!” he screamed.

The human army ran up the hill as fast as they could.

“Stop!” said a voice.

The man?” said the king. “What are you doing?” asked the king.

“Killing you! Pizza, attack!!!” said the man.

“Pizza!” screamed a lot of voices.

Then everything went black.

“Moo!”

“Moo moo moooooo!”

“Moo!” said a lot of cows.

“Yes… okay. Tom, more pizza… no… no pepperoni!” said the cow in a suit.

Beep-boop-beep.

“Yes?” said the cow in a suit as he picked up a phone.

“Help!!!” screamed a voice from the phone.

“Okay — but who are you?” asked the cow.

The King of Humans!!!” screamed the human phone.

“Okay, but can you wait a few hours? Tom wants pizza,” said the cow.

“No, come now!” screamed the king.

“Fine,” said the cow.

“He has no interest in business,” said the cow sadly.


Chapter Six

“Moo.”

“No. Not now, Fred. We need to save them.”

“Moo!”

“I said no! No more talk.”

“Moo!”

“Fine… you can go… but be quick!” said a cow who was wearing a suit.

He watched as Fred ran off to the bathroom. Beep… boop… beep!

“Who is it?” asked the cow as he picked up the phone

“Help!” screamed the person who called.

“Is this the King of Humans?”

“Yes!” screamed the King of Humans.

“Help!” he screamed again.

“Okay, I’m coming,” said the cow.

“Come faster!!!” screamed the king.

“Do you have an army to come save me?! And me only! Who cares about everyone else?” said the king.

“Yes, I have an army of cows with me,” answered the cow.

“Cows?! What can cows do?!” screamed the king.

“My cows know kung fu,” answered the cow calmly. “Bye,” said the cow, and he put the phone down.

Boom!

“No!” said the King of Humans.

“Don’t blow my head off!”

“Pizza pizza,” said a voice.

“No!” he screamed 

Crash!

“No!” he screamed.

The king closed his eyes.

Please no,” he whimpered.

“Get up,” said a voice.

The king slowly opened his eyes and saw… a cow standing in front of him.

“Cow!” shouted the king happily.

“Business cow,” corrected the business cow.

“Come with me please,” said the business cow.

“Okay,” answered the king.

“Can I have water?” he asked. 

Ten minutes later… 

“Are the tanks ready?”

“Yes.”

“Are the cannons ready?”

“Yes.”

“Are the guns ready?”

“Yes.”

“Is all the other stuff ready?”

“Yes.”

“Good… ” 


Chapter Seven

“Charge!!!” screamed the general as the two armies crashed into each other.

Boom!

“General!” screamed a soldier.

The general ran to him.

“What?” he asked.

“This person exploded!” said the soldier.

“What?” asked the general.

“This person exploded!” repeated the soldier.

“I know that!” said the general. “But people don’t explode?!”

“But he did!” said the soldier. “And if you don’t believe me, your brain is smaller than dirt!!!”

Then he fainted.

Boom! The head of a soldier came flying and hit the general in the head.

“What was that?!” the general said to no one.

Boom!

“Die!!” said a hot dog.

The general jumped out of the way and ate the hot dog.

“General!” said a soldier.

“What?” asked the general.

“My friend blew up!” said the soldier.

“Another person?!” asked the general.

“Yes!” said the soldier.

“Did something seem strange today?” asked the general.

“Um… yes, the food person seemed really old, and he had a lot of carrots,” said the soldier.

“The man! He must have used the carrot gun!” exclaimed the general. “How many people ate the carrots?” he asked the soldier.

“Everyone! But not me. I hate carrots,” answered the soldier.

“No… ” said the general slowly. “Run!” he screamed to the soldier.

Boom!!! The general and the soldier ran as fast as they could. Boom!!! Boom!!! Boom!!! Boom!!!

“Ow!” said the soldier.

“What?” asked the general.

“Something hit me… ” said the soldier, then he fell asleep.

“Wha… ?” said the general.

Then everything went black.

“Wake up!”

“I said wake up!”

“Wake up!!!”

“Blok?” said the general sleepily.

“Wake up!!!”

“What? Where am I?” asked the general.

“You’re in the kingdom!” The general blinked twice and then looked around.

“The king?!’” the general exclaimed.

“Yes,” said the king.

“What happened? Did we win?” asked the general.

“Yes,” answered the king.

“Why am I tied up?” asked the general.

“I was bored,” replied the King of the Humans.

The general looked around the room — the soldier was asleep next to him. Suddenly, somebody in a different room screamed.

“Who was that?” asked the general.

“That was the man,” said the king. “We found him running toward the cheese city. We put him in the fart chamber with the Hot Dog and Hamburger King,” said the king.

THE END

What Happened?

Olivia’s Chapter

Jessica is hosting a perfectly calm birthday sleepover at her house until her mother hears “Ahhhh!” She gets nervous, so she quickly runs upstairs to us. 

“What happened?” Jessica’s mom questions us.

“Nothing,” Jessica and I say at the same time.

“Okay, but where is Bella?” Jessica’s mother, Ms. Jada, asks.

“In the bathroom,” Jessica quickly answers.

Then her mother stares at us suspiciously as she walks out of the door. We think that she leaves, but she is actually still standing by the door eavesdropping.

“Do you think we should tell someone?” I say. 

“Someone like who?” Jessica replies.

“What are you two hiding?” Jessica’s mother says in a really serious voice as she sticks her head in the door.

“Nothing,” we say at the same time again.

“Tell me now, or I will send Olivia and Bella home and never ever let you have a sleepover or a playdate again,” Jada says as she crosses her arms.

Jessica and I stare at each other and don’t talk. But after a while, we stare at each other again and nod.

“The news we are going to share to you is good and bad,” Jessica says in a serious voice. But finally after a silent moment, Jessica blurts out really fast, “The bad news is that we dared Bella to do Bloody Mary in the bathroom, and when we went back in there to check on her, she was not there.”

What?” Jessica’s mom yells.

“But the good news is that we found on the mirror a note written with lipstick that said Kiss Your Friend Goodbye.

That is not good news!” Ms. Jada shouts at me.


Jessica’s Chapter

After Olivia finishes sharing her “Good News” to my mom, she rushes quickly into the bathroom and sees the red letters and starts to panic. Bella is a really good friend of mine, but she is not as close to me as Olivia. Olivia and I have been friends since we were three years old, eight years ago, and I met Bella when I was 10, last year. The only reason that I dared Bella to do Bloody Mary is because before she went missing we were playing truth or dare, and I dared Bella to do Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary basically is a folklore legend consisting of a ghost, phantom, or spirit conjured to reveal the future. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is chanted repeatedly. At first I am a little mad at myself for daring Bella to do Bloody Mary. But at the same time, I am dying on the inside. I am dying because my mother is having a dramatic seizure panic attack thing. For the past like 10 minutes, Olivia and I have been exchanging weirdly confused looks.

After a while of no one talking, Olivia speaks up and says, “Should I go home?”

And before I even get to answer, my mom comes out of her panic attack, grabs Olivia’s arm, and yells no.

After another ten minutes of not talking, my mom says, “We have to write a note back to whoever took Bella.”

“What?” Olivia and I shout.

“What do you mean by ‘what’? You got yourself into this mess, and you’re lucky I am trying to get you out of it,” my mom yells.

“But this is not our fault,” I say to my mom.

“Oh, yes it is,” my mom snaps. 

Then I look over at Olivia and ask, “This isn’t our fault, right?”

But all Olivia does is look down on the ground and doesn’t say anything.

But after one minute of silence, Olivia speaks up and says, “It is our fault.”

Then I yell out, “What?!

And from out of nowhere, my mom says, “What did I tell you?”

“Cut it out. Right now all we need to do is find Bella. Am I right?” Olivia says.

Then my mom and I look at each other, nod, and say, “Yes” at the same time.


Olivia’s Chapter

Jessica, Ms. Jada, and I sit in a circle on the carpet in the living room and brainstorm what could have happened to Bella.

Before anyone can speak, I say, “Maybe she is just pranking us.” 

“No she isn’t,” Jessica replies.

“How do you know that she isn’t pranking us?” I respond.

“How do you know that she is?” Jessica questions back to me.

“Girls, I think that is enough. We should go back to brainstorming,” Ms. Jada says.

Then Jessica walks over to the sofa and turns the news on, and on the news is a big muscly man on TV, and the headline is Criminal Released out of Wisconsin Jail after several months of incarceration.

“O-M-G, I think I know what happened to Bella!” Jessica yells.

“What?” Ms. Jada and I say at the same time.

“Olivia, do you remember when Bella told us about her father and how he is a criminal,” Jessica says to me.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Well, maybe he was the one who took Bella!” Jessica yells.


Jessica’s Chapter

So Bella told Olivia and I that her dad got arrested a few months back for robbing people, and he would be released some time late October, and it is late October! She says that she and her mom moved from Wisconsin to California so they could hide from Bella’s dad. Bella loves her dad even though he is a criminal. She says that she misses him so much sometimes. And they have been getting lots of voicemails saying, “I know where you live,” and stuff like that.


Bella’s Chapter 

O-M-G! I am so freaked out. A big muscly man with a mask on grabs me by the neck and jumps out of the window with his hand over my mouth. I do not get hurt because there is a mattress that these other men with masks are holding. But right now I am in the back on a black van yelling and screaming for help with my hands and feet tied together, and one of the men hops in the back. He puts tape on my mouth and puts a blindfold on my eyes. After a while the van stops, and all I hear is the backdoor of the van opening and someone hopping into the back, which makes the van rumble and shake a bit. Then this person takes the blindfold off of me, and all I see is a man with a black mask and cut out patches where his eyes are. But then he takes off his mask, and I recognize this face. While I am staring deeply at this person, he is untying my hands and arms.

After five minutes, I shout out, “Dad, is that you?”

And my dad nods. I am just so shocked and filled with questions, but all I do is hug him.


Jada (Jessica’s Mom)

To be honest, I am not worried about Bella being missing because anyone who would take that girl will return her the next minute. She is cute and all, but her attitude isn’t. Her mother is a pretty nice person, but she gets on my nerves when she gives me that fake smile of hers. When Jessica showed me that guy on TV who was Bella’s dad, what I said in my head was, No surprise that Bella’s mom would marry a criminal.

“Hey, Jessica, can you pass me the phone?” I ask Jessica.

“Sure,” Jessica replies and hands me the phone.

Then I hold the phone in my hand and ask Jessica, “What is the number of Bella’s not so good, fake smiling, no good taste in men mother?”

“Well, Mom, stop being rude, and by the way, here’s her number.”

Then I enter the number and press call. Then Bella’s mom answers the phone.

“Hey, Jada, how are you and the girls doing?”

“I am doing good.”

“And the girls?”

“Olivia and Jessica are good.”

“What about Bella?”

“Sooo… Bella technically went missing, and the girls think her father took her, and by the way, you have no good taste in men. Bye,” I say, then hang up the phone.


Caroline (Bella’s Mom)

Right now I am literally freaking out! I am taking a cab over to Jada’s house. Oh that… rat is going to get what she deserves. She will never ever be able to watch Bella, and Bella will never be able to be friends with Jessica. The kid is a nice girl, it’s just her mother. I never really liked Jada, but I let Bella go because I do want her to make some new friends, and I do not want to get in her way. I know that Bella’s only friend is Jessica, and I really don’t want to break their friendship. Then, there’s this other girl named Olivia who’s always trying to take Jessica away from Bella. Bella tries to tell me that they’ve been friends for a while and they can talk, but that’s not what I think. When Jada first told me Bella went missing, my heart jumped. Bella is my only child, and I really do not want to lose her. And if her father took her, and I catch him, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. When I first found out that Bella’s father was a criminal, I was shocked, because at home he was the most caring husband. I would not have thought that he would ever do that. But ever since we moved away from Bella’s dad, Bella has felt like not having two parents in her life is the worst thing in the world. I always tell her that it isn’t, but I know that Bella and her father have always had a strong relationship that I never wanted to end, but I could never trust someone who was a thief around my child. That is just a bad influence.


Alex (Bella’s Father)

Bella, Caroline, and I have always had a strong relationship. But ever since they found out that I was stealing, they started feeling uncomfortable around me, I guess. I get why they would feel uncomfortable, but it broke my heart. The only reason why I was stealing is because there’s an agency, and I used to work for this guy named Jeffrey Siegel, and basically he paid people $100 a week for every five items we stole. I stole many things, but I never told Caroline or Bella the reason why. Bella and I have always had a really close relationship. Even Caroline and I had one too, but Bella is a forgiving person. But on the other hand, Bella’s mother, Caroline, is not. Once, I accidentally broke one of her favorite hair accessories, and she wouldn’t talk to me the whole day. I even offered to buy her a new one, but she refused. And once, I broke one of Bella’s squishy foam balls, and she forgave me and said I didn’t have to buy her a new one. There’s a big difference between Bella and her mother, but I still love them both equally. I’m not sure if I already mentioned this, but Bella’s mother is a drama queen. She just wants to make everything she says a big deal, around me at least. I regret taking Bella, but if I had told Bella to come with me, I just know she would have refused. After all the stealing I’ve done, I probably lost her trust. All the people who helped me “kidnap” Bella had told me that if I do this, I will lose her trust even more, but I told them I desperately wanted to see my daughter.


Bella’s Chapter

I just remember that I had my phone in my back pocket, so I ask my dad if I can call my mom. 

“No! Please, no! She is going to get really pissed off, like really really pissed off!”

“Please, Dad!”

“No.”

“But what if she’s worried about where I am?”

“Okay, fine.”

Then I quickly pull my phone out of my pocket and call my mom. Before I dial my mom’s number, I see that there are 27 missed calls from her. I know that she is definitely worried about me. Then she picks up. 

“Hello, Mom?”

“Bella, is that you?”

“Yeah, Mom. Were you worried about me?”

“Yes, absolutely. Where are you?”
“I… actually don’t know.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean by that is, long story short, Dad kidnapped me when I was in the bathroom at Jessica’s house, and he put me in the back of a van, put a blindfold on me, and now he’s here with me in the middle of nowhere with his crew.”

“What?!” Mom shouts. “Pass the phone to your dad right now!”

Then I take the phone off of my ear, cover the microphone, and I mouth to my dad, “She wants to talk to you.”

My dad takes a deep breath and grabs the phone out of my hands. “Hi, sweetie,” my dad says over the phone in a scared voice.

“Who you calling sweetie, ‘cause I know you’re not talking to me!”

“I’m so sorry for what I did to Bella.”

“One, you should not be apologizing to me, and two, why would you do it?” 

“I only did it because I knew that if I asked your permission to spend time with Bella, you would say no, so the only way I could get Bella is to kidnap her.”

“Seriously? You had to kidnap her? I would’ve let you spend time with Bella if you just asked, because I know that Bella has missed you over the years.”

“I am very, very, very sorry, and I hope you and Bella forgive me.”

“I do forgive you. I just have one question. How did you find out that Bella was having a sleepover with Jessica?”

Right now I just love this moment but hate this moment. I love how my dad is apologizing and being all nice, but I hate how my mom is just asking so many questions, and she seems very annoyed. I really hope that will change later on in the conversation.

“Well, there’s a guy who lives around there, and I asked him if he saw a girl around there with long brown hair and hazel eyes, and he said yes.”

“Are you serious? You did all of this just to find out where Bella is?”

“Yes, I’ll do anything to see my daughter again.”

“Well you did not have to kidnap her.

“Well I kind — ”

Then my mom interrupts before my dad could finish and says, “Well you kind of what?”

“Well I kind of think your face is… pretty?”

“My face being pretty should not be something you kind of think. It should be a true fact for you. Bye.”

Then my dad hands over the phone to me and mouths the word “crazy” to me.


Jada’s Chapter (Jessica’s Mom)

I suddenly hear a ring coming from my door.

“Who is it?” I shout. 

“It’s Bella’s mom, Caroline,” she says in an angry voice.

Then I yell back, “Before you come in my house, you have to lose that tone!”

“Fine,” Caroline says, sounding annoyed.

“I still need you to fix that tone.”

“Okay,” Caroline says in a sweet voice.

The first thing Caroline does when she walks in is roll her eyes.

I hate it when people roll their eyes at me, so I say, “Keep rolling your eyes, and maybe you’ll find a brain.”

Then she fires back and says, “Excuse me? I don’t even want to be here. I’m just here because you lost my daughter,” she says while pointing her finger directly at my face. 

I slap her finger out of my face and say, “I didn’t even want your daughter to be here. Jessica did.”

Then she moves one step closer to me, and this time her face is two inches away from mine. She starts screaming stuff at me like, “I trusted you with my daughter!” Blah blah blah. And all I do is cover my nose because her breath really stinks.

“It’s not my fault your daughter got kidnapped. You think I’m going to expect her to get kidnapped while she’s in the bathroom? No. Not my problem.”

We suddenly hear a knock on the door, and I yell, “Who is it?

The answer is, “Bella and my dad, Alex.”

Caroline runs to the door, opens the door, and picks Bella up and kisses her all around. For Alex, she just gives him a glare.

He goes in for a hug, and she responds. “I never thought I’d see you again, Caroline.” 

Then they reach in for another hug, but I push them out the door and yell, “Go home!” 

Then she says, “Bella, come on, let’s go!”

Bella gives Jessica and Olivia a hug and runs out the door. On her way out, she yells, “Thank you, Ms. Jada, for letting me come over!”

“You’re welcome, Bella.” 


Part of Book Two


Bella’s Chapter 

One year later… 

Jessica, Olivia, and I are at school. My mom has been dead for a few months now. She died from breast cancer, and the doctors said she was going to make it but… she didn’t. This is our first day back. I really hate school. We are sitting at a smallish rectangle table in science class. James, an annoying boy in our class, keeps on throwing wet paper balls of paper at our heads. Right now we are doing an experiment to see what is more dense between cold and hot water. Jessica and Olivia tell me that they hate science (like me), so Olivia is slouching down on the table with her long light brown hair over her face. One of her eyes is closed, and the other one of her hazel eyes is open. And Jessica is lying her head down on the table with her black hair beside her shoulder, and there are bags under her blue eyes. Sometimes I wish I could just be homeschooled because there is no getting in trouble by your principal, no learning with annoying kids, and no getting snitched on, but unfortunately my dad can’t afford it. Suddenly, my very old science teacher falls to the ground.

Ten minutes later… 

Right now all I see are doctors, and all I hear are sirens.

I also see Principal Lee on her knees by the door wailing and crying, “No, not you too Uncle Stanley.”

I am just so confused right now, and I bet Olivia and Jessica are too. The expression on theirs face are saying that they are very confused.

One hour later… 

Right now this lady with tall heels and a blood red dress walks in, and a man with a suit walk in too. 

“Mom!” Jessica yells.

“Yes,” Ms. Jada says.

“Dad!” I yell.

“Hi, Bella. Jada and I will be your new science teachers,” my dad says as he holds Jada by the waist.

What?!” Jessica and I yell simultaneously.

“Dad, can we talk outside privately?” I say to my dad.

“Can no be the answer?” he responds.

No, oh my god you are so annoying!” I yell on my way to the door.

“That is no way to talk to your dad. You are very disrespectful just like your mother was,” Jada says to me right before I open the door.

Then I turn around and say, “Excuse me.”

Then Jada says, “Yes, you heard me.”

“First of all, you can’t tell me what to do, and second of all, you are not my mom, and you never will be, and third of all, never put words in your mouth about my mother again.”

My dad says, “About that… I have something important to tell you outside real quick, Bella and Jessica. Jada, come on.”

Then we all step out of the room, and my dad is the first one to speak. “Jada and I have been thinking about it, and we want to get married.”


Spring Has Sprung

         

Spring has sprung, spring has sprung

I hear that chant from everyone

As I frolic from here to there

The breezy breezes breeze my hair


Walking down the cobble lane,

The change of weather feels so strange

But I look up and grin at the sun

‘Cause spring has sprung, spring has sprung


Ma puts the hats and coats away

We all go on outside to play

And my seashell necklace is finally strung

Spring has sprung, spring has sprung

The Dark Lord and the Prince

One day there was a prince who lived in a beautiful blue 15-room tower. The prince loved dogs. The prince decided to go to the adoption center to get a cat and dog. On his way to the adoption center, he heard something crawl through the bushes. He ignored it.

He heard it again, and he said, “This is getting weird.” 

He continued walking until he heard a voice behind him that said, “Run… ” 

The prince was scared, so he ran. When he looked behind him, he saw the Dark Lord! The Dark Lord was the most dangerous villain. For years he attempted to kill the prince, and disguised himself as the prince. When he did, he planned to kill the king and take over. This was his tenth attempt. The Dark Lord ran after the prince with a knife, mace, and a bag. The Dark Lord caught up and put the prince in the bag. The prince tried to talk, but the bag was too tight. The Dark Lord succeeded.

When the prince woke up, he found himself on a table with cuffs on him. He saw knives, chainsaws, swords, and a juicer. He was very scared. He had tape on his mouth, so he couldn’t talk.

Back at the king’s castle, the king was watching TV, and the newsman said, “A young prince has been captured by the Dark Lord. Who’s going to save him?”

The king was shocked. He gasped a very long gasp. The king decided it was time to defeat the Dark Lord. The king took his army to the Dark Lord’s lair.

At the Dark Lord’s Lair, the Dark Lord kicked open a huge wooden door. A dragon slowly approached out of the door and then… roar! The dragon roared very loudly. The prince was terrified.

The Dark Lord said, “Get eaten by the dragon or get cut up with all of these weapons. It’s your decision.” The Dark Lord took the tape off of the prince’s mouth. The prince was speechless. The Dark Lord said, “Choose, or I will kill you with my bare hands.”

“Hmm… maybe I’ll choose nothing.” The prince whistled, and his horse, Sir Jonathan came. 

“Uh oh,” the Dark Lord said.

Sir Jonathan charged through the door, and as fast as a blink of an eye, the Dark Lord was lying on the floor moaning and groaning. The Dark Lord came back up all weak.

He said, “You’re no match for me! Dragon!” 

The Dragon stepped out from his cage, “Roaaar!”

“Eat him,” the Dark Lord said. 

Back with the king, his army was lined up behind the Dark Lord’s lair.

“King, what are we going to do?” Justin the Knight asked. 

“We fight!” The king raised the lance in his fist. 

“Charge!!!”

The king broke the door open and said, “Well, hello there… ” 

The Dark Lord was standing next to the prince who was lying on a table. There were a bunch of ceiling lights on and a feast with big chairs for the dragons. “Brother,” the Dark Lord said to the king.

Everyone gasped. 

“Dad, you never told me that the Dark Lord was your brother!” 

“I had to keep it a secret so no one thought I was evil, which I am not. Let’s just forget about this and get you out of here.”

“Not so fast,” said the Dark Lord. “I’m going to press this button and your son goes in the juicer.”

Beep. “Justin, get your hammer to break the metal cuffs,” said the king.

“Got it, King.” Click! Justin swung the hammer and broke the cuffs.

“Son, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine.” 

“Let’s fight the Dark Lord,” the king said. 

“I always have a plan,” said the Dark Lord. 

“I hear footsteps, King,” Justin said. 

Roaaar. A bunch of dragons came out, and everyone gasped.

The king said, “Let the fight begin. Charge!”

The dragons started breathing fire and spitting out acid, and the king’s army started running for their lives.

“Hahahahahahaha,” the Dark Lord laughed. “Now who’s the winner”

“Everyone retreat!” said the king.

Everyone got back to the castle safely but one… Sir Jonathan! 

The prince went back for Sir Jonathan, but Sir Jonathan was down on the floor next to the Dark Lord.

“There is nothing to do now, prince.” Before the Dark Lord did anything, the prince took Sir Jonathan and ran back to the castle with the rest of the army and the king. 

The second the prince got to the castle, he took Sir Jonathan to the vet. The veterinarians put Sir Jonathan on the table and said they would need a few minutes. The prince was worried. A few minutes later, the prince came in to check on Sir Jonathan. The veterinarians said that Sir Jonathan needed a few days to rest. The prince was relieved. 

The prince went to talk to the king.

He asked “What’s going to be our next move?” 

“I don’t know yet, but soon I will come up with a plan,” said the king.

Since the prince had a little free time, he went to the pet store to adopt a dog.When he got to the pet store, he got a Golden Retriever. The prince named him Goldy. A few days later, the prince went to the vet to check on Sir Jonathan. Sir Jonathan was okay! The prince hugged Sir Jonathan and went back to his room. When Sir Jonathan went in the room, he started playing with Goldy. Goldy also played with Sir Jonathan. They bonded really well, and the prince was happy. 

The king knocked on the door, and the prince let him in.

The king said “I have a plan. The plan is make silent acid. Then come from the back door, and when the dragons are sleeping, pour the acid on their wings. When the dragons wake up, they won’t be able to fly, so we’ll put them in a dragon-proof net. Then bring them back to the castle and… tame them!

“Wow, Dad, that is a really good… and crazy plan! How are we going to tame dragons?!”

“We obviously give them whatever they want.”

“That’ll actually work,” said the prince.

The next day, the prince and the king went to the forest to collect gems, crystals, and acid bugs. The prince collected five gems and three crystals. The king found two crystals and five acid bugs. They went back to the castle and mashed everything up and mixed the ingredients in a pot. There was enough acid for everyone to use on the dragons. The king gave everyone in the army a bottle of silent acid. At midnight, everyone went to the Dark Lord’s lair and silently walked through the back door. Everyone picked the dragon cages’ locks with paper clips.

Then the army poured acid on the dragons, and the dragons started screaming. “Rooooar!”

Quickly they put the nets on the dragons and went back to the castle to their rooms. They fed the dragons and bathed them. Then the army put the saddle on their dragons. They all went on a test fly. It worked!!! They all quietly went to the Dark Lord’s lair. They left their dragons out of the door and busted the door open.

The Dark Lord saw them, and they said, “We surrender!”

The Dark Lord said, “Now let me kill all of you!”

“But wait you forgot our… dragons!” the king shouted, and the dragons flew into the lair, destroying everything in their path.

“Rooooar!”

“Where did you get those dragons? 

“They’re yours! Well… they were yours! We have tamed them!” said the king. 

“You wouldn’t!”

“I already did it… Fire!”

The dragons all shot the fireballs to the Dark Lord.

The Dark Lord said, “Nooo!”

The fireballs were thrown so close to the Dark Lord they blasted him away into the sun.

“I will get my revenge!!!” he shouted, right before he burned.


Cinnamon’s Story

Prologue

Cinnamon! Cinnamon!

Please wake up, Cinnamon! 

Tears filled Branch’s eyes. Cinnamon’s body was lifeless. 

She was not breathing. Was that a breath?!

No, it was just the wind. No no no! Please no! But his mate’s body was lifeless as stone. Blue, his daughter, buried her nose in her mother’s flank. 

“If only Wise were here,” sighed Goose.

Branch’s son looked as lifeless as Cinnamon. First Wise left and now Cinnamon… Please, oh, Cinnamon. No!


Chapter One: New Thoughts 

I crouched at the edge of the road in pure shock. Honey, my sister, slowly crept toward the ginger body in the road. Tom, our father, was dead. Silvermoon, my brother, paw by paw crept down his tree. Shock rippled down his spine. But I was too terrified to move. It had all been so sudden, a loud roar and one of the cats I loved most in the world was gone. No, no, I thought. Honey slowly dragged their father’s body off the road.

“Let’s go home,” Honey said.

We plodded along, no one saying anything. Grief was strong in the air. I looked up as they reached the driveway. I squinted at the end, three cats were there. Who could it be? I wondered. As we approached, the black she-cat stepped forward.

“I’m Night,” she said.

A ginger tom stepped beside Night. “I’m Maple,” he said. “And this is our brother, Carmel.”

Night finished with a glare at her brother.

“I’m Honey,” Honey said. “And this is Silvermoon,” she continued.

I tried to pull myself together, but part of me did not want to. “I’m Cinnamon,” was all I could muster.

Honey twisted and licked her dark brown tabby fur.

“Well, where are you from?” Silvermoon asked, stretching, his silver fur gleaming in the sunlight.

I looked at my own ginger fur. It looked rough and scarred. Just like I felt. I just wanted to go somewhere to start over. Rhinebeck! In a flash, I remembered the town. All those human and cars, yet something had drawn me. The happy spirit, the friendly cats. What was I thinking, my family. But something tempted me, drew me to Rhinebeck.

Silvermoon drew me out of my thoughts. “I thought we were going hunting! What had I missed.”

“Honey’s showing Night and co. a place they can stay.” I nodded mutely.

I quickly caught a mouse and a bluebird, then I followed Silvermoon. He caught three mice. Then he opened its jaws. What are you doing? I thought. Silvermoon went to the new bush. The berry tree was poisonous. Then he brought all three mice back. I saw cold, hard anger in his eyes. Anger at the world. All I felt was grief, grief that nothing would be the same. After the whole I can’t believe you tried to poison Honey nonsense, we went to sleep all together. Well, Honey and Silvermoon fell asleep. I turned over and over in my nest. I contemplated over and over as the first light of dawn shown in the garage with absolute serenity I made my choice.

Chapter Two: The Journey Begins

I woke up to Silvermoon prodding me.

“What?” I said groggily, a bit annoyed.

“Honey’s missing,” he said worriedly.

“How do you expect me to know where she is?” I snapped, very annoyed now.

He ran out. Twenty minutes later, Honey came in.

“Silvermoon’s looking for you,” I said.

“I know we had a run-in,” she answered.

“Can I confess?” we said at the same time.

“You first,” I said awkwardly.

“Okay, well I have a mate.”

 “Maple is so nice.” she said.

At that moment, my decision was confirmed.

“Oh, Honey, I’m leaving. Going to Rhinebeck, for good.”

“W-what,” she sputtered.

“Oh, Honey, I never really had a future here.”

“Oh, Cinnamon. Oh, Cinnamon.”

Tears flowed down Honey’s face.

“Oh, Cinnamon, no, I need you.” I licked her.

“I’ll always be right here in your heart.”

I said, “I love you.”

It was all words, but the look Honey and I shared said it all more than words could ever.

“Silvermoon, I love you.” I turned to my brother. “Oh, I love you.”

I walked up the driveway. Then I knew I would never see my siblings again. The journey began. 

As I walked, I looked around at the familiar street as I left forever. I left , I turned down the corner where Tom had died.

“I hope you’re with me,” I said to his grave. “I’ll need all the help I can get. I love you.”

The sun was setting, and I slept on his grave. When I woke up, I was sitting on the road, and Tom was sitting next to me.

“Tom!” I cried.

“Cinnamon,” he said warmly. “I am always with you. Now listen close. You will find your friend and savior in a place you don’t expect. Don’t turn down my gift, Cinnamon.”

And with that, he vanished. The dream faded around me, and I woke with a start. Then I looked around Tom’s grave. Right time to move. I walked up a road.

“Ruff.” A cat’s worst enemy: a dog. “This is my house. Get out, scoundrel.” The dog growled in a queer way.

I bared my teeth, and the dog the yellow dog leaped. I twisted and bit his ear hard. Then as I dropped to the ground, he scared my face.

“Errrrrrrr, get out right now, tyrant cat.”

I will, stinky dog.” And with that, I ran.

It was noon, and I was hungry. There was a house and a huge grass lawn with a small pond that trickled into a woodland stream. Water and food. The water was fresh and cold. Mouse! I found a used squirrel nest with a squirrel in it. It made up for mice. I continued on. The ground started sloping, and the sun started sinking. I slept by the road that night. Something icey woke me. Someone was watching me. At the end of the hill, I looked down the road. There was a big building. It looked warm and cosy. I saw cars and more cars and then wam! And there was a dog, a despicable dog. But at the sight of anything killed by a car, even a dog, I felt horrible. That dog had been killed like Tom. 

Then it struck me. No matter what, cat or dog, no one deserved this. Because we are all the same inside. I slowly dragged her body out of the road, and I saw a pup in her jaws dead too. She was a mother, and I thought of Sky and Ice. My mothers. A young life never lived. At that moment, I despised humans with a bitter hate. Hated life. Why so many lives and this pup would never feel joy, happiness and sadness. Then a thin yelp of, Momma! The pup. It was still alive. I looked at the mother dog. I would save her. The pup was my life now. Death couldn’t have her. The pup was injured. It needed care. I looked at the building. Humans might have been this pup’s only chance. We would look for help there. I picked up the pup.

“What is your name, little one?” I asked.

“Wind,” said the pup pitifully.

I put Wind on the grass.

“What’s your mother’s name, little one?” I asked.

“Rebecca,” said the pup, then promptly passed out.

I looked at the road, No cars. I raced onto the road. Vroom Mmmmm! I grabbed the body and ran. Safe. Then the terror of the whole thing hit. I was far far away from home with only this injured pup for company. I picked up Wind. We, or I, ran to the big building. There was someone outside.

“Kitty. Oh, and a puppy,” the child squealed, and a mom came (to us cats, you humans say uwqgdiuqgyuiefyq or other weird things, but the editor has translated to human.)

“Sweetie, come. Ooh, cat and dog?

“Come, sweetie, can you watch the pup for a second?”

Yay! Puppy!!!”

The sound would have deafened me, but it did not.

“Teddy!” she called.

“Yes,” said a gruff man’s voice.

“Teddy, this cat was trying to bring an injured pup.”

“Well, this cat does not look well.”

“Bring the pup.”

A second later, Wind was lying next to me.

“I’ll take um… ”

“Ohh, thank you!”

Then the two voices ceased I realised. She was unconscious, then the world faded around me.


Chapter Three: Farm Life

I walked through the field. I knew I should not. I felt disappointed in myself, my life. Living as a pet. With a human. I saw Honey and Silvermoon flourishing as wild cats. They would have been disappointed in me. Yes, this was my life now, living with humans. A tear surprised me by trickling down my cheek. I lived for Wind now. Without her, I would crumble of self shame. My life out the window for this. For Wind, I reminded myself. I gave my leg for Wind. Literally. It had been broken. I looked at it. I sat and remembered. One year ago came to the farm. Wind had always had an interest in the road where her mother died. One day, Wind ran into the road. A car was barreling toward her. I ran into the road and pushed her out of the road, with a crack! and a fiery pain. Then the world went black.

Now I was healed and fit again and I wanted to go. Wind sat next to me. 

“Wind, I’m leaving.”

“I know, and I’m coming,” said Wind in her normal gruff voice. 

“Oh, Wind, you have such a nice home here… ” 

I have it because of you. If you go, so do I.” 

Her sentiment warmed me, but I could not let her abandon her life for me.

“I have a deal,” I said.

What.

“You will come to Rhinebeck and come back.” 

Deal.

Then I started second-guessing myself. She would come back by herself… If she went with me would that be fair? And if she was that devoted, shouldn’t I be too? I should tell her not to come. But inside me, selfish me, I wanted her.

“Elosa!” This was from Teddy. He called me Elosa. 

When I walked into the FarmHouse/Farmers Market, it was a large white ‘building,’ I think you call them. There was a large ‘door,’ another word I picked up from living near humans. I walked in. As I did, I thought, Can I let Wind give this up for me? She might never come back… No, l would not let Wind… l would not even think it. And that’s when I found a CMail.

(Editor’s note: CMail is a cat version of Gmail, but for cats. It’s not on an iPhone. It is a long distance thing where they feel the message, but for your reading abilities (since I don’t think you read cat) it is formed like a letter.)

Dear Cinnamon, 

We miss you at home. I would like to talk to you more like this. I just had my first litter of kits with Maple! Their names are Golden, Tawny, Tyme, Tulip, and Rose! Silvermoon is mated with Night. He will write you soon. Silvermoon and I wanted to know, where are you? Do you have a mate, Kits? Please write answers to help your worried sister and brother. And I will ask you and ask you, will you come home? You still have a home here, Cinnamon! The CMail was sprinkled with tears. Probably Honey’s. Well I hope you are okay at least.

Your Always And Deeply Devoted Sister, 

Honey

The letter made me think, would it be easier to just go home? A second time in my life I wrestled with a big decision, but by morning I knew in my heart that I would not be able to go back, but as a sister I had to write back.

Here was my CMail:

Dear Honey,

I miss you a lot too! I semi had a pup (yes a dog). Her name is Wind, and her mother got hit by a car, and I adopted her. I am at a farm called Small Queen Farms and Market. My owner is Teddy Wert. I am leaving for Rhinebeck tomorrow. Also l can’t come home. Sorry. You and I, we miss each other equally. 

Sincerely, 

Cinnamon

Then I turned around. Wind was next to me. 

“Okay, time to go,” I said. 

“Yes,” said Wind as she looked around for what I did not know then but would be her last day, if I had known I probably would have made her stay, but I did not know, so we walked away. 

First we passed a big house and a sleek cat out on the lawn.

I am Queenie, and I am Queen!” said the cat. 

“Okay?” said Wind. 

We kept walking.

“Where is Rhinebeck?” Wind asked. 

“Across the road, then jump the big gap with the stream at the bottom.” Seeing the worried look on Wind’s face, I added, “Don’t worry, I jumped it as a kitten.”

Winds face relaxed. I should have known Wind would never see the other side of the chasm. At the road I watched. Wind made it. Barely three seconds slower and she would have died. Yeah, roads are rough. I didn’t know why those humans made then. (So if you are human, please stop killing us with your roads.) My turn. With five seconds to spare, I reached the other side.

“Well,” I said, winded (no joke intended).

Well is right,” said Wind, gasping and laughing. 

We forged on. When we arrived at the chasm, I jumped. For a second I felt myself plummeting. And then I landed, safe.

“Your turn!” I called.

“Okay, by the way, I’m glad I came.”

“I am too,” I said.

Then Wind jumped, and then the wind and Wind changed direction (joke intended), and she slipped away crashing into the other side hard, too hard. I ran to her. Wind was still.


Chapter Four: Without Wind (which is a short chapter)

Without Wind we could not breathe, without Wind, our earth would die… 

Bored, just kidding or stalling rather… I could continue my boring and factually incorrect poem. No, I thought not, okay, back to the story then… 

I stood over the body of the closest I had come to family since leaving the big greenhouse (sadly enough now back to the poem… okay, are all readers this mean?!) I stood there a long time. At nightfall, I picked up Wind. Then I thought, We must look strange, a cat with a dead dog in her mouth. Then I came upon a grove, and I… without Wind we would never shiver without Wind our hats would not fall of…

(Don’t laugh, I’m making myself feel better.) 

Without Wind our jackets would be useless, Without Wind We Will Wane! 

(Okay, I feel better now, well not really… But if you insist… okay)

I buried… Wind. There, I said it.


Chapter Five

I walked on aimlessly. Then I saw a big red barn, the Center for Performing Arts.

I realized I had made it. You know that empty feeling when determination and anxiety fill you up and then it is over? I do. That’s how I felt. I realized that I was alone. For the first time I felt lonely. And hungry. So I caught a mouse. Then I saw a brown tom-cat. 

“Hello!”

“Who are you. Are you a new member of Bee’s pack? If you are I’ll shred you for killing.”

“Hold your mice!” I said. “I’m Cinnamon.”

Then I told him my story.

“Bee is the leader of a group of cats who what to rule,” he told me. “They kill cats who don’t listen. I am a member of Cecilia’s tribe. We are fighting, Jenny is my mother.” 

This cat had lost his mother. I know that tearing feeling, a feeling of the world turning upside-down. He took me to Cecilia. She was kind and understanding, almost like the mother I had never had. The first moon was challenging. There were 16 cats in the tribe. My first mission was learning to fight. A cat, Deer, was supposed to teach me.

“So, I want to see what you know. Attack me.”

I crouched. I was exhausted when I got back to the tribe. 

A month later, Cecilia was standing on a tree. 

“Cats of my tribe. Today is the day when we will fight. I invite Woody, Deer, Cinnamon, Evelyn, Branch, and Rachel.” 

“M-me?” I said.

“Yes,” said Cecilia. So we lined up. 

We walk through the town that had become home. Right toward Bee’s camp.

“Attack” sliced through the air. I ran in. I slashed and bit everything in sight. I faced a cat I recognized, Typo. He stepped over a body. A cat who would never know victory. I yowled.

It was Woody. I carefully balanced on my front paws, and Typo reared. Perfect. I slashed his belly with grim determination, then imagined killing the thing that had killed my mother so I never knew her, my father right when I was little, Wind in that chasm, and I felt no fear. I would fight to the death. I knocked over Typo, finishing him, not killing. But if no one helped him, he would die. I felt Sky next to me.

“Evelyn, my love, she’s dying, help. I love you. You will be an amazing mother that I never was to you to those kits.”

“Sky!” I gasped. My mother!

“Go, my love. I’m right next to you.” 

So I sprang on the attacker. 

No one,” I hissed, “can mess with my tribe and get away with it. I cut a long line down Yu-Yu’s back. He tried to roll and shake me of but, and I wasn’t not proud of it. Another cat would never see the light of day. I felt Yu-Yu go limp. I ran to Evelyn.

“Are you okay,” I said.

She was alive. Rachel ran over. 

“I will take her find Cecilia and Branch. We won!” she said. 

“Okay.”

I looked around. Branch was leaning over a body. 

“Cecilia!” I wailed and raced over, grief radiating from me in waves.

“It’s okay, my love,” Branch said. “She is alive for now, but dying quick.”

“I’ll take Cecilia, you take Woody. He is dead,” I said. He raced off. I gently picked up the only motherly figure in my life. Then it hit me. I was expecting Branch’s kits. Okay so in the month I’d been with the tribe, Branch and I had gotten close.

Branch!” I called.

Yes,” he yelled back. 

“I’m expecting your kits!” 

“W-What.”

When we got back to camp, we put down the bodies. Uina, the healer, came over. 

“So, Woody’s alive, Evelyn’s dead and — and Cecilia’s dead.” 

I knew before she said it. 

“Katle is second, so now leader, and Kamel, being her brother, is second,” was the announcement. I did not care. Life was so beautiful and so short, and as Branch came over, I felt pure joy at life. And soon I hoped to enjoy it with my kits.

The End (for now)


The Story About How A Banana’s Face Got Peeled Off

The banana’s face was a little face on the banana peel. On all of the sides, the banana had emotions. On one side it was sad, on the other side it was happy, and then on the other other side it was angry. When he was feeling an emotion, his body made him turn to that side of the peel. Then a person peeled off his peel! The person took a bite out of it! But, luckily there was a baby banana and a mama banana left. The dad got eaten. His name was Frederick. They felt really sad.

The baby said, “I wuv Daddy. I miss him.”

Then, the mommy said, “Me too.”

They walked home sadly. They were hanging their heads. 

Then, they had to go to the funeral. A banana funeral is when bananas get together and talk about how much they loved how he smelled. He smelled like a banana that loved to smell other bananas. Then, they went around the house and looked for the last thing he did, and then they found it! The last thing he did was… dun dun dun… scream!

The mommy banana said, “I banana love him.”

The baby banana said, “I want banana jaddy.”

Everyone was so sad. Even his boss was sad.

He worked in the hospital as an MRI technician. The MRIs were so noisy. They sounded like a tornado. There was a baby who did the MRI once.

The baby banana was calling, “Banana peewing! Banana peewing!”

The MRI was five hours long. 

Then later the baby sang, “Smell banana, smell banana, smell banana, smell.”

In the middle of the song, a monster came out for 120 hours. One hundred and fifty-seven years later, everyone died, because a Lolo monster, which looks like a human but with pointy teeth, ate them, and they went to the Land of Bananas. It looked like bananas were dancing in the sky having fun, smelling each other.

And there was Daddy!

He said, “Hi, Sweetie, you’ve grown up so fast.’’

Then he gave her a hug.

The mother thought, “Excuse me? Someone else needs a hug!”

Then the dad gave her a hug. He showed them around. They saw a statue of his great-grandmother. His great-grandmother looked like a banana that had never died, but she had died.

Then he showed them the banana house, the banana house bouncy house.

The daughter said, “Can I pwease go in?”

The mom said, “Yes!”

The mom and the baby were jumping there for 24 hours. Then they were tired. Then they went to the kids arcade. Then they really needed a nap. They went home and took a nap for three days. But then they wanted to do the banana air balloon ride. They went to the by (banana sky).

And then… they went to the castle!! There was a king, queen, and princess. They were also bananas. The princess and the daughter became great friends. Then they went to the children’s museum. Everybody went. They played restaurant. The baby banana was the waiter. The princess was the chef. 

Another friend of the princess was there at the museum.

She said to the princess, “How wong has it been?”

The princess said, “Too wong!”

Then, the baby banana said, “Do you guys know eachuddar?”

Then, they all started playing all together.

The friend asked the princess, “When did you meet this cwazy banyanya?”

The baby banana heard.

She said, “Ecuse me? I not cwazy! I smart, and if you shink I cwazy, then you the cwazy me!”

Then they started slapping each other on the face for one hour.


Tsunami Boy

There was a boy named Peter. He went surfing, and a big wave came and washed him away, and he was never found again for three years. Then a girl named Despina, Peter’s fifth cousin, didn’t know until now. She called her brother, Demitri, and they went to the beach. They took their oxygen tanks and their best swimming gear and went to the beach. They started searching for Peter. After three hours of searching, they realized he wasn’t there, and they were hungry. So, they stopped their search for the day, and they went home and ate some pizza. The next day, they took their surfboards and went to the beach. Despina knew how to surf, but Demitri didn’t, so Despina had decided to teach him. Despina didn’t know how to fight, but Demitri did, so he taught her how to fight. While Despina was teaching Demitri how to surf, he fell off. Despina had to save him before he drowned. While Dimitri was teaching Despina how to fight, he accidentally punched her unconscious. When Despina woke up, she was furious.

“Why’d you punch me unconscious? You know I don’t know how to fight yet,” Despina said. Then Despina took a shoe and started hitting Demitri.

“You know, I still don’t know how to surf, and by the way, ow!” Demetri yelled at Despina. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Despina

They got on their surfboards and saw a big wave, so they started paddling. The wave went over them, and then they got trapped in a different dimension. There was water everywhere, and monsters, and Peter was sitting on his surfboard, and he looked like he was eighteen.

Help!” Peter said when he saw them.

Despina and Demitri saw 123,456,789,012,345,678,901,234,567,890,123,456,712,345,678,901,234,556,678,913,267,890,213,456,789,023,456,789,036 monsters. They were scared of the amount of weird-looking monsters that they saw. Some had long spikes everywhere, and they were shooting fire from their mouths and hands. Despina and Demitri were dodging the fire that was being launched in their direction.

“These monsters are crazy!” they both yelled over the roaring waves. They started to surf on the waves, avoiding the fire at the same time.

Davuuutiii, Davutiiii!!” one of the monsters yelled from the shoreline.

They surfed to a clear area on the shore and took off running when they reached it. Despina was the faster one out of the two and sprinted toward the barn where Peter was. Demitri, however, was extremely slow by comparison, and Despina had to run back to carry him the rest of the way. Half way through, Despina started to stumble under the weight of Demitri. Behind her she heard the monsters yell, “Gooongalaaa!!”

Despina tried her best to hold Demitri, but the monsters eventually caught up with them.

They captured Despina and Demitri and threw them into the barn with Peter. The monsters chained them up and left them there. Peter sat in front of them in the darkness. The inside of the barn was dim, and it had horses inside of it. Peter had dirt all over knees. His hair was extremely long and unkempt. His vest and jeans were torn.


Looking For Joy

Part One

The Book

One night, the boy Jack was reading in his room, when the smell of his grandma’s brownies replaced the plain, old, airy smell. Just a month before, his pops died. Later on, feelings still carry through the tragedy. The day this all triggered, his mom came up to him; tears came dripping down her face. ¨Son,” she takes a heavy sigh, ¨Pops died.¨ That was it. Those were the only three words she said before walking out the door. In memory of him, he was buried in the graveyard across the street from Jack´s house. Every night, Jack would view the picture of Pops that he placed under his pillow. Tears would roll down his cheeks, just like his mother’s when she told him about Pop’s death. But this night, this night felt different for him. Winds howled at the milky white moon and blew through the dark lonely streets in a hurry. Clouds started to group together; the sky grew darker as he kept reading.

He thought and thought. There were some hmms and ahhs then an aha! He discovered the thing behind all this. Jack thought about this for a long time. The winds continued to howl, followed by the lightning striking out of anger. Jack yawned, and, as he did that, put his book away and into bed he went. He tucked the covers on in one swift move and fell dead. 

The bell struck twelve o’clock, and in one shake Jack woke up. In a panic, he got out of his bed and took a look around. Winds still blew and howled, but not as much as before. The book, that was what was on Jack’s mind right now. Slowly and carefully, he took the handles on the window and nudged it, aware to not make a single sound. A small mouse squeaked as he pulled the window. He kept doing this motion despite it making a little noise. Now, the window was big enough to fit an entire human, enough to fit Jack. Thinking, Jack leaned towards the window and took a look down, not too deep. His body trembled and shook. He was thinking and wondering. He started back to his bed, then turned around, making his final decision. He ran the edge of the room, where there were closets and posters and down to the left corner, a door. He took two big steps toward the window in a fast pace and one giant leap, flying out the window. Kicking his legs, Jack managed to have a decent landing right in front of a rose bush. At the time, a car hustled by, and Jack ducked in the sharp rose bush, making sure not to be seen. 

The lights lit up the sidewalk, shining almost as much as the full white moon that stood out in the pitch black sky. Jack, who was very scared, made a sprint, staying very low across the street, and climbed over the low graveyard fence. He checked his watch: 12:10. He still had time, but not a lot. He crawled across the graveyard. Jack had memorized where his grandpa was buried to rest. One left, two rights, another left, then the final right turn. He kept repeating this to himself over and over again until he felt confident. He kept going through the graveyard, passing stones carved with letters. Though Jack was used to the graveyard, as if it were a normal thing, and it never really scared him, now was when he was really tested. Shaking and shivering, from not just the cold but the intensity and how freaked out he was, Jack continued step by step on the clumpy dirt through the graveyard. He took his final turn as a light shined on him. Jack froze. I’m dead. The light though continued to shine throughout the graveyard and left him frozen in his tracks. Jack, now with more caution, took his last steps to get to Pop’s grave. He took his frozen, bare hands and started to dig on the hard, dirt ground. Jack’s hands started to bleed with pain, but the boy Jack didn’t stop. Shoveling the dirt with exhaustion, he took a breath. The boy Jack studied the head stone, reading everything, then fixed his head down, staring at the dirt. Though, not just dirt was in his sight, but a golden, thick book stuffed with pages you could see sticking out. 

Now, the boy Jack was not just any boy. He was a smart boy. And with that, what he was searching for was positively lying right in front of him. Any other kid wouldn’t know that his or her desire lied right in front of them. 

Jack immediately identified this book, unlike others could have done. He snatched the book and made a run for it. Jack traced his steps back, following them back home. He looked up at the sky and couldn’t help it but stop and stare. The stars were twinkling in the pitch black sky and the moon showed the path for the lost aliens who were probably trying to find their way home.

Jack suddenly realized what he was doing and went back to running, clutching the book so tight that his palms were starting to turn a bright pink just like his face from the cold, intense weather. Jack climbed over the fence and froze in his tracks. How do I get back up there? Jack clutched the book even tighter and then jumped on the tree, hugging it. He climbed the tree, grasping every part he could. Jack then switched over to climbing the nearest branch to the window. Though there was quite a big gap between them, Jack was up for anything, my reader. You should know that. Jack gripped the book one more time, and then risked himself, and then made the jump.

At first, Jack just closed his eyes as he was flying through the air, then opened them, then hit the floor followed by a thud that could have woken everyone up. Jack threw his clothes off, closed the window, ran to bed, and then placed the book under the pillow where Pop’s picture was.

“I cracked the code, Pops. I did it.” 

The next day was Saturday. It was seven o’clock when Jack’s alarm clock went off. No one was up yet, but Jack felt something peculiar. He dug under his pillow and found the dusty, golden book. He opened the book and blew off the dust, and it flew in his face. Jack started to read; it was hard, but he put his all into it. 

In big, bold, handwritten letters the book said, “One left, two rights, another left, then a final right turn. This is how you found this book.”

Jack found this odd, because it was right. He peeled through the pages. “There are three steps to joy. One: Find it. Two: Use it. Three: Share it.”

Step number three was scribbled out. Jack also found this odd. What could this mean? He closed the book and thought. Now was when his brain was really working. 

Jack was stunned. He decided to go down for breakfast. Grandma was cooking downstairs; the smell of juicy bacon and gooey eggs combined in the air. Everybody else was sitting at the table, Grandma, Mom, Dad, everybody except Pops. He knew he couldn’t tell them about the book. Jack’s dad was reading the newspaper, sipping his coffee. Jack tried his best to act like it was a normal day, but he failed, still thinking about the book. He sat at the breakfast table when the smell of eggs and a subtle amount of bacon combined onto a plate that lay right in front of him. Everybody dug into their plate, devouring the beautiful smell of the meal, though, Jack wasn’t very hungry. In fact, he wasn’t hungry at all. 

“Jack, aren’t you hungry?” His mom asked.

“No, I’m fine.” 

Jack would have gotten up, except he knew the rule: you sit at the table until everyone is done eating, only then can you be excused. So as a result, Jack waited. 

When breakfast was over, he climbed the stairs and into his room, shutting the door behind him. He hopped onto his bed and curiously decided to keep reading. He picked up the golden hardcover book.

Jack found nothing. He started to get his hopes up and then, he found more information. “Looking for joy?” That’s what the book said. Jack stumbled upon the words, trying to make sense of them. 

“Land of dead”

This wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. 

He started to sweat.

To chatter.

To imagine.

To wonder, most of all.

All of this was blended in Jack’s brain.

This couldn’t be. There was something else; Jack knew it. He flipped through the pages once again. Examining every detail. Most of the pages had designs on them in golden ink. Swirls and curls were carefully printed on each piece of paper. Jack opened his laptop. “The land of the dead,” he typed in the computer. Nothing. The screen went black, dark. 

His quest for joy just had begun. However, there was no telling what was out there.

Again, it was night. Thunder ruled the sky and lighting cackled away. Jack was puzzled about the book. He knew going back to the grave would bring him more clues and ideas. A full moon just appeared up on the big, blue, black sky. That was the signal. Jack carefully opened the window, and again, jumped. This time, he was not scared. Yet. As he crossed the street, he was starting to see everything. Dead bodies rising, ghosts floating. And that was when he fainted. Face first. When he woke up, the first thing he saw were zombies with scabs. Ghosts. White, clear. A big, deep black dropped jaw. If there was one thing Jack knew about ghosts, it’s that you can walk right through them. And that’s what he did. If there was one thing Jack knew about zombies, it’s that you can’t walk through them. So that was when he encountered a zombie. The zombie’s scabs were as red as fire. Jack, though, wasn’t giving up. He ran right past it, being as free as a bird. The investigation just started. Jack scanned the area, while still being aware of the fact that he was engulfed by the dead. He just didn’t understand. He was stunned.

Now, my reader, the expected is never going to be expected, not in Jack’s case.

So, when a big, black hole popped up, he didn’t know how to react. However, even in the most troubling, hard times, you can always learn or realize something. Jack was just uncovering another layer to the mystery. The big, deep, purest, darkest, blackest hole. Now, what this was, was unknown to Jack. Except, there is one thing he realized, that the zombies were guarding it, and when this discovery was made, another layer was peeled off and swallowed just like an onion. Now, it wasn’t that easy, Jack now had to make it back to his apartment, and safely.

Except, he wasn’t done. There was a feeling, a buzzing signal that flowed through his body. He did not know what this was and neither do I. Except, Jack had a clue, it meant to stay. He daringly, boldly stayed. Although, one moment later, no matter what, Jack knew he had to go. And fast. Except, something caught his eye. More and more zombies and ghosts were appearing out of the hole, more and more. Jack’s head was debating whether to leave or stay. Eventually, he had to leave. It was too dangerous. The hole clearly mattered to the dead though. He had to think more.

The next day, Sunday, was time for more investigating. However, last night left a mark on his head, and Jack was especially curious about that. And so, not much happened on that day, until, of course, the signal. It was, again, twelve o’clock. Jack woke up, but this time just took the stairs down and walked across the street. But that’s when he saw it. He had woken up a little before 12, now, he didn’t know this. As the narrator, it is my job to inform you of this information. And so, what he saw were whirling winds, tornadoes, and hurricanes. They were all forming one black hole. The winds were getting faster and faster, the hole was getting bigger, and the winds howled louder and louder. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it stopped. Jack knew he had his opportunity, so with no thought, he stuck his hand into the hole, blindly. Now, when I said it’s my job to inform you on important information, I didn’t mean all information, though. This is something I can’t tell you, though, and what Jack saw in the hole. But all I know is that soon the zombies and ghosts came to defend the hole, and like yesterday, he had nowhere to go besides home, and that’s where he went.

And today was Monday. And that means school. As Jack left the house, he felt as far away from Pops as he’s ever been.

The bell rang, giving the entire school the symbol of recess. As Jack packed up his stuff, he felt a great deal of relief of excitement. Finally, an opportunity.

However, reader, life isn’t problem free. And that’s when Jack ran into Polly Jones, a seventh grader, which made her one year older than Jack. As she was heading out for recess, Jack realized she was talking about the same topic which had been on his mind all morning, and was holding the same book that was hidden under his bed. 

“And I figured out a way to see the dead!”

 And so, there are more people than just Jack with the same mission. 

And after school, Jack did his homework, however, from what I saw, everything was incorrect:

What is X in 4,043+X=7,657 pops

4,567+6,123=  land Of Dead

(5+7) * 42 – 17=  The book

And tonight was the first night that Jack went to bed, with a mind clouded with thoughts.

And the next morning, Jack didn’t eat breakfast; he wasn’t hungry. And so, with an empty stomach and a full mind, he went to school.

The first person he saw was Polly Jones of the seventh grade. She was reading a book, but not just any book, the book Jack also had. I guess Jack knew it was his time to act, because right then he said, “Hi,” to her.

“Whatcha readin’ Polly?”

Polly just glared at Jack and kept reading.

“Where’d you get that book from?”

This time, the minimal response. “A graveyard.”

“Which one?”

“The one my grandmother was buried in.”

And then Jack walked away, and that could’ve been the longest conversation he had and will have with Polly Jones of seventh grade.

The bell rang and all the middle-schoolers piled into their classes. However, Jack is different from your average sixth grader. He was smarter, faster, stronger, more athletic, and, most of all, more curious. And, due to these traits, Jack turned away from school, in search of a trash can to dump all of his questions into.

His mom and dad both had jobs, so they weren’t home at this time of day. But, Mrs. Moretti always left keys under her mat outside the door. He dumped his backpack onto the floor, and, immediately, with no more thought, rushed out the door. Instead of going to Pop’s grave, Jack had the intention to go to another grave instead. He dug and dug until there was a hole in the ground with a golden, dirt-covered book. He went from grave to grave, and at every grave he saw the same thing: dirt-covered golden books.

And on every book, it read, “Looking for joy.” And when you flipped the cover it said, “Lost your loved one? Bring them back by reading this book.”

And so, Jack concluded that in every death, there is a way to see the dead once again.

And that is when the binder clicked.

Today was the day Jack was going to face Polly Jones of the seventh grade.

“I need that book!” 

A group of sixth, seventh and eight graders surrounded the two right after they heard Jack scream at Polly. 

“Well, get it.”

And so, Jack swiftly swiped the book out of her hands, but she swiftly canceled his move by taking it back. 

“Who do you think you are?”

“Uhhh… A guy searching for his grandpa!”

“And I am a woman searching for my grandma, so out of my way!”

Jack swiped the book from her once again, and ran. This time, all the way home. To Polly Jones, it seemed as if she’d never get the book back again. But that was soon to change…

End Of Part One


Goo Goo’s Story

Chapter One (The Whole Story)

One day in X-City, there were three Friendly Monsters, and one was a baby. The baby’s name was Goo Goo, and Goo Goo wanted to have a flower on her head. It’s hard to get one on your head. You need to get a bubble from the Bubble Store, and then you can get a flower on your head. You pick the flower and push it into your bubble, but the bubble doesn’t pop. 

It sounds easy, but not for Goo Goo, because when she goes to the Bubble Store, she’s too small, and the person at the counter can’t see her, so she never gets a bubble. She’s staring at a bubble that can change colors and has a star on it. One side of the star can be blue or pink, and the outside can be pink or blue. She says, “I want a bubble!” But it sounds like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!” They clap because they like the song, but they don’t even know who’s singing, so they don’t know who they’re clapping to. Then Goo Goo shouts at them, and then they hear her. Then they ask, “Who are you?!” and then Goo Goo jumps up so they can see her, and then she says, “I want the Star Bubble!” In this world, you have to say “I want.” If you say, “Please, may I have it,” people will ignore you. 

They gave her the wrong bubble. They gave her a pink and black bubble that had a star heart. Instead of a point at the top, there’s a heart shape at the top. It kind of looks like a bug. The bugs have lassos, and if you get caught in a lasso, then you will get banished to the bug’s lair, and somebody who so, so much cares about you has to get rid of the bug, since there’s only one bug to a cage. Three-thousand, 6,000 100 people can be in one lair, so there’s only two or three bugs, since they can fit a lot of people in the lair. People pop their bubbles, and the bubble traps the bug when they see one. People who don’t have bubbles share one with another person. If you’re brother and sister you can share, but dad and daughter can’t share and son and mother can’t share. Goo Goo shares with her mom. They have a Book Bubble. You can get any book out of the bubble. She likes to get baby books. But Goo Goo wants her own bubble so she can have a flower on her head.

Goo Goo’s mom doesn’t always use the bubble. It’s only helpful for bugs, cooking, and books, and it helps her take care of Goo Goo. Her dad always is in the bubble because the bubble has every power and he needs it for work. They don’t have cars so they float in bubbles everywhere. Everyone has their own level. Her dad has the highest level. He’s a lawyer. When Goo Goo gets her bubble, she will be on the same level as her dad. Her dad has something on his head. It’s a piece of work. Her mom doesn’t have one because she only needs a couple of powers, not all the powers. Goo Goo wants all the powers because she wants to be able to do everything everybody else can do. 

Then, Goo Goo shouts at the man in the Bubble Store again. “I want the other Star Bubble! The pink and blue Star Bubble!” she shouts. When she starts getting angry, mad or frustrated, she starts sprouting two other arms. When she stops being angry, mad or frustrated, they go back in, but if they’ve grown all the way to the length of her other arms, they won’t go back in. They’ll keep on growing until she stops. When she sees the arms and sees if they’re growing too long, she thinks of things that she liked when she was littler and in her mom’s tummy to calm down. She thinks of going upside down, some colors of mashed up foods, spinning around in a spinny chair, and her mom’s heartbeat, and the arms go back in. 

“I want the Star Bubble because you gave me the wrong bubble, and that’s not really a star. I want the Star Bubble because I’m sick of being a baby,” she shouts because she got mad again, and everybody turns and looks at her. Then, her mother comes running up to her and shouting at her in her face. Now they both had six arms, because they started with four.

Goo Goo does not feel good. “Sorry,” she says. Her mom says, “Thank you.” She got the bubble, but the flowers are still rare, even if you have a bubble. The flowers look like how you would draw flowers, with a center and petals around it. They smelled like white chocolate. 

Goo Goo went to sleep. She dreamt that she got the flower. Her mother gave it to her. Goo Goo said, “Thank you.”

In the morning, Goo Goo sets off to find the flower. Goo Goo found many things, but not any flowers. She walked 30 miles. After 65 more miles, she found a flower. Then she put it on the bubble, but then the bubble popped. But then the bubble reappeared when she took the flower off of it. Then she even more lightly put it back on the bubble, but then the bubble popped. Then she dropped the flower onto the bubble, and the bubble did not pop. Soil went on the top where the flower was, and the flower grew bigger and bigger.

Then suddenly it started to grow smaller so then they needed to water it. Even if they watered it, it would still go smaller. So they took it out of the soil and put it somewhere sunny. Then it grew so small that they could barely see it. Then it grew as tall as outer space. Then it was too heavy for her to pick up. Then it was still that size, but so light that she could hold it with her fingernail. They shortened the flower and then it became so light that she could hold it with her toenail. Then it became so small and so heavy that you had to lift it with a 35,000-pound pickup truck. Then it became so heavy that a pickup truck that was a billion pounds had to pick it up. Then the flower grew so heavy that a million pickup trucks that made a thousand pounds had to pick it up and Goo Goo had to walk around all of them. Then the flower grew so heavy that a million-thousand pickup trucks that weighed a million-thousand pounds picked it up.

But then Goo Good could hold it up with just air. Then the flower went back to its regular size.

The Fennec Fox and the Clouded Leopard

Vapor the Fennec Fox was sitting on a rock when suddenly a No-fur with a stick came over to him. Vapor knew that sticks were dangerous, so he started running as fast as he could when he ran smack into a palm tree. At the same time, hundreds of miles away, Hang-down the Clouded Leopard was chasing a Vole for dinner when a Chihuahua blocked his way. Hang-down was very surprised. Suddenly, the Chihuahua howled in his face!

“Ruh-ruh-ruh-AWOOO!!!”

The Chihuahua started chasing Hang-down. Hang-down climbed up all the way to the forest canopy. Now the Chihuahua could not get him — he was stuck on a branch, and he couldn’t climb any higher.

Hang-down stared down at the Chihuahua and growled, “You little foo — ” when — crrrrk! — the branch cracked, and the Chihuahua fell, his tail getting caught on another branch. 

Hang-down burst out laughing because the Chihuahua fell, and he hated the Chihuahua. Then the branch that he’d been stuck on fell too, and it landed on the Chihuahua. The Chihuahua was stuck in a branch sandwich! And then the branch on top of him started to wobble. Then he started to wobble. And they fell!!!

Hang-down burst out laughing again. The Chihuahua landed on the hard, hard forest floor. Suddenly, a No-fur appeared. He was holding a stick, just like the other one. He also had a big spider web. He threw it at Hang-down, who tried to dodge it but got caught in the big web. There was an opening to the net, so he climbed out, but he didn’t know there was a trap. It looked like a rectangular big shaped spider web, so he went inside, but then it lifted off the ground, and he heard a sound — bririririririr!!! Hang-down zoomed past the canopy of the forest. Then he saw the forest end and a lot of little dots, black and tan colorish. Suddenly, he was over the water. Then he felt himself being lowered until the rectangular spider web was touching the water. It started tilting, and then water started rushing in. Then all of a sudden, the big rectangular spider web hit a rock. There was a big rectangular shaped cave with no entrance. Hang-down was very surprised and frightened.

Back in the desert, Vapor the Fennec Fox woke up to find himself sitting in a dark cave. He couldn’t see a thing and didn’t know where he was. He could hear a strange sound — bririririririr!!! He could hear something clinking below him (which was the big rectangular spider web Hang-down was in). At the same time… the dark place where Vapor was in and the big rectangular spider web got unleashed by something that looked like a scorpion tail. Both went sliding into a little opening of the huge rectangular cave. Once inside, it was very light and they saw a little, little cave which had a scorpion inside. When everything was opened, they saw how the scorpion looked. It was shiny and turquoise blue, and when the light darkened, it was sky blue and transparent.

Poison-Sting, Hang-down, and Vapor looked at each other. Vapor and Hang-down sniffed each other. They didn’t say anything for awhile.

Finally, Poison-Sting broke the silence by saying, “Hello, Fennec Fox and Clouded Leopard. My name is Poison-Sting, the blue scorpion.”

Then Vapor said, “My name is Vapor.”

“My name is Hang-Down,” said Hang-Down.

“Where did you guys come from?” asked Poison-Sting.

“I came from the Sahara — ” said Vapor until he was suddenly interrupted by a baby white devon rex. The baby was one foot and six inches shorter than Hang-Down.

“My name is — ” it said in a baby voice, because it was a baby obviously, “Oakheart.”

Poison-Sting inched his stinger but didn’t say anything. Hang-down opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. And Vapor just wagged his tail. 

He repeated, “My name is Oakheart,” still in a babyish voice. “Hello. I came from an animal shelter, and I escaped. Then some weird No-Fur came and brought me here… Do you want help to escape? I’ve been wanting to escape ever since a No-Fur with a stick that had fur on the end (a broom) tried whacking me with it,” said Oakheart.

“Yes, we would love to,” said Poison Sting.

So the four of them planned their escape that very night. Poison-Sting used his stinger to unlock the hidden cave entrance that the No-Furs would come in and out through, then they creaked open the cave entrance and crept out into the darkness of night… 

To be continued… in the next chapter of this book, Oakheart.


Ketchup Pool

A ketchup packet named Lucas went to the ketchup pool, and he was all red, and people thought he was covered in blood, so they took him to the hospital. Then, the nurse screamed and took him back to the pool, and then he turned pink. The pool turned pink. Then Lucas turned into a mouse. He was the same size, but he had whiskers, a tail, and no hands, and he had a ketchup sign on his chest, and then he got freaked out. 

Then he made a mysterious shoe fly off of someone’s foot, and then it smacked him right in the head. He fought back with his black Sharpie marker. He colored on the top of the shoe. The shoe got really mad and smashed him right in the legs.

The shoe said, “You’re weird.”

Lucas said, “You’re rude.” 

Then they had a battle. They had fire and a stick. Then the mouse got fire, and the shoe got a stick. Then they fought, and the mouse burned the stick, and then he burned the shoe down, and it turned into pieces, and then the shoe died. 

Then he got born again. He was a baby shoe. He was super small. He said nothing. He was in a field of shoes. Lucas went home, and then he turned back into a ketchup packet. He felt tired, and then he went to bed.


The Gingerbread Man

Once upon a time there was a gingerbread man. It started raining, but it wasn’t raining regular rain — it was raining frosting. The gingerbread man, whose name was Melanie, ate the frosting while he was walking to his house. He bought dinner on the way — he never knew it was going to rain frosting. He ate so much frosting that his stomach was too full to eat dinner, and that happened for ten whole weeks. He kept buying dinner on his way home from work because he didn’t think it would rain frosting, but then it did!

Melanie, the gingerbread man, carried a suitcase in his hand because he worked at a watch store: an Apple watch store. He ran the Apple watch store, and he only hired other gingerbread men. The reason he only hired gingerbread men was because they worked well together, but he could only find one other gingerbread man to hire, and he needed more — so one day he decided to make a gingerbread man. 

So he went home and made another gingerbread man, and since he also needed to find a wife, he made it a girl gingerbread man. And her name was Max. In the gingerbread world, girls had boys names, and boys had girls names.

Melanie and Max were walking together one day when he noticed he was late to work, so he said to his wife, “I have to go to work now! I’m late!”

As he was running to work, he saw another gingerbread man. And then four more gingerbread men with him!

So he asked them, “Are you looking for a job?”

And they said yes, so he hired them. 

They all went to the Apple watch shop together, and he introduced them to the other guy who worked with him in the store. But the five new gingerbread men didn’t actually work well in a team. They broke the glass, they made a mess, they threw the watches in the dump, and they stole a hammer and broke the whole store. The store was broken all over the place and was no longer a store. It was a new place for the dump. The owner fired them, but then the five gingerbread men got a hammer and destroyed the whole store, and it fell on them all, and they died. And that was the end of the owner and the five gingerbread men.

His wife was still alive, crying, “Where’s my husband, where’s my husband!”

She laid down in her house.

That was the end of her life.

The End.


The Game Show

So, I am a game show host, and I’m kind of the funny one. I announce the winner — not you! Okay? We have two contestants: Joe and Bob. Okay, I think I should tell you my name… My name is… the host!!! Don’t call me anything else. Especially not my real name, which I’m not going to tell you.

Fine, I’ll tell you. My name is beep.

  I won’t tell you my name. Hahahaha.

“Now it’s time for the Game Show. Bob, you can go first.”

“Hi, I’m Bob! I’m doing this so I can raise money for nothing! And I’m super dumb. Just so you know.”

“Thanks, Bob, for coming to this Game Show. Now Joe, introduce yourself.”

“Name’s Joe! I’m here because I have no reason… Okay. Done with my interview.” 

“Great. I ask the questions, just so you know. You press the button, and whoever gets it first gets to answer the question. And if you don’t get it right, you transfer $1 to the other team. If you have $0, you still lose $1, so you will have -$1. And if you end on a minus, you have to pay us!”

“So my first question is: who won the 2018 FIFA World Cup?”

Beep!

“Okay! Joe, you pressed the button.”

Joe says, “France!”

“He is right. Because he’s an expert in soccer. Also, if you win, you get $10. Actually $15. Actually no, $10. So Joe has $10, and Bob has $0. The next question is: Hmm… let me think. I didn’t prepare for the questions because I didn’t have time. Who won the 2022 FIFA World Cup?”

Beep!

“Spain!”

“Bob is wrong! It’s the future, so nobody knows. So Bob has to give $1 to Joe. Now Joe has $11 and Bob has -$1.”

“Aw. So much for my guess.”

“Now another question. What’s 100 plus 100?”

Beep!

“150!” says Joe.

“Wrong! Okay.”

Beep!

“150!” says Joe.

“You already said that! I said no!”

Beep!

“150!” says Joe.

“Oh my gosh, you’re annoying me so much! It’s not 150!!!”

Beep!

“150!” says Joe.

“Okay, I’ll tell you the right answer! It’s 200!”

Beep!

“200!” says Joe.

“It’s too late! You can’t copy me! You have to give the other team $4! Now Bob has $3, and Joe has $7. Okay, next question. Who is the dumbest person here?”

Beep!

“Me!” says Bob.

“You’re right! You get $10! Now Bob has $13, and Joe has $7! So because this question is super, super hard, it’s worth $50.”

Joe and Bob gasp.

“The question is: where do babies come from?”

Beep!

“Baby co.” 

“No!”

Beep!

“I have no idea.”

“No, you’re wrong!”

“Okay, that’s the end of the question. No one got it.”

No!

“That’s the end of the game show, guys! It’s time to tally up all the work… Dang it! I forgot all of the scores.”

Joe and Bob faint.

The End.

Cactus

Guy and Cactus are punching each other in zero gravity floating in space. They are right above the moon. They’re waiting for a shuttle than can take them to Uranus. They are punching each other because one wants the border wall between Uranus and its moon, Myanus.

Guy

The wall is good!


Cactus

The one between Uranus and Myanus? That one is shit!!!


Out pops a map from behind the stage. It shows “Uranus” and “Myanus,” with a wall between them. Then the map flips around, and it shows what Cactus wants. An empty space and a bridge between them.

The shuttle picks them up. (Cactus and Guy are walking around the stage.)

(They are on Myanus now.)

There is a tree that says, “Welcome to Myanus,” on a sign.

They start punching each other again.

Cactus 

We’re on Myanus?!


Guy 

No, we’re on Myanus!!!


Cactus 

No, we’re on Myanus!!!


Guy

No, we’re on Myanus!!!

Guy runs to the border and starts piling bricks for the wall.

Cactus runs over and starts taking bricks to the bridge.

(This keeps on going for 10 hours.)

(Both people faint.)

The next day… 

Guy eats a Big Mac burger.

Cactus eats a watermelon.

An hour later… 

Guy

We’re on Myanus!


Cactus

No, we are on Myanus!

Random guy wearing a shirt that says “no wall.” Guy whacks random guy on the head.

(Random guy does not like Guy because he does not like the wall.)

Guy is dead.


Cactus 

Hooray! 


He now gets everything he wants (that is reasonable). Some things that are reasonable are gold, gold, and gold. Cactus gets showered in gold.


Aliens Living on Mars

One day Alex was going to work as an astronaut. He was helping them build a spaceship they would soon go to space in. And today was the test for who was going to be on the mission. He hoped it would be him! And he also hoped that the test wasn’t going to be too hard. 

When he opened the door to the work space, Alex found that the only thing they needed to add to the spaceship was the top. The top was the most important part because the driver had to sit there, and it was where they saw from, so they didn’t run into a part of space where they couldn’t go back to earth.

Then Alex went into the part of the workspace where the test was being taken. He took a piece of paper and found the test was 40 pages long. This was probably going to take the whole day, so the ship wouldn’t take off till Monday, and today was Friday. They didn’t work on Saturday and Sunday. After the work day was over, he had 15 more pages to do, so now the ship wouldn’t take off until Tuesday — because there were more people still working on the test.

Alex went home and had his normal routine. He asked his mom if he could go out with his friends, and she said yes, so he went to the bar nearby. He and his friends watched baseball on the TV and drank some tequila. He was feeling good and hoped that he got to be on spaceship soon. 

***

On Monday, Alex got back to work, went into the room, and got his test back. He went back to work on the last 15 pages. Then, an hour before the work day was over, he finished the test. Then he went to see how the spaceship was doing. They’d added the top, and now they were painting it to look like one of the fiercest spaceships because they were painting it as a tiger! Then the work day was over.

When the Tuesday work day started, he saw the sheet of paper announcing the people who were going on the spaceship to space. There were 20 people in total going, and he was number 13!!! He was so happy he jumped up and down! It also said when it was leaving: it was leaving on Friday that week. Alex was so happy. He got out his phone and texted his mom. Right away, his mom texted back.

I’m so proud of u!

Alex needed to go prepare the spaceship for blastoff with all his stuff. He put all his gear in the trunk near his seat — all the seats had labels, and since he was #13, he put it in the one that said #13. Plus, best friend Miles was also in the spaceship. He was #12! He was right next to Alex. Then the work day was over and he was all packed up. As he was leaving, the boss said he could have Wednesday and Thursday off, because he was going on the spaceship. Then he had an idea: he was going to make a whole sculpture on Wednesday and Thursday of space. The only thing he didn’t know was what planet they were going to, so he just made a sculpture of the whole solar system. He hoped he was going to Venus because that was his favorite planet.

***

He got to work on Friday. He was so happy, and then he heard an announcement. It said: “All people on the list going to planet… Mars! Please proceed to the locker room to get your suit, and then please proceed to the spaceship. We will be taking off in 20 minutes.”

Alex went to the locker room to get on his suit. He got it on — it was also designed as a tiger! It had the number 13 on it and his last name, which was Zabbanegan. Then he made his way to the shuttle. He was feeling really excited, but he was also really happy because he’d get to eat those little dehydrated foods, like an ice cream sandwich. Plus he knew he would survive because he had previously been in the marines and survived World War 3!! Alex was sure taking off to space would be cool — getting to see the whole of earth from so far away. The ship would blast off higher and higher into the clouds, higher than an airplane can go — way up into space where you could see the whole galaxy. Alex had really, really wanted to go since he was only six years old, and now his dream was coming true!

Then another announcement came: “Please board the shuttle.” Alex got onto the shuttle using the little runway, and he got into his seat, and Miles was already there. And then he heard the countdown… 

“Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one! Blast off!” 

Then it was true: he was heading to space! A few minutes later, he was deep into space, and they let off the boosters. Then Alex could see all the galaxy from just his window, and he could see a whole world right behind him. He was very excited. Back in the 2020’s space travel took a long time, but now with super speed travel, it took only a matter of hours. 

Deep into space Alex could see a tiny little brown planet which looked like Mars! It came closer and became bigger, and then he saw light…

“How could it be no shuttle blasted off since 2019? Why is there light?” he asked himself.

Then it got closer and then the light was bigger. And Alex wondered what could be that big with all that light. And then they started to look like tiny houses. Then it looked like there were green people walking all over. Then it looked like the people had antennas with eyes and no eyes on their foreheads. Alex felt an exclamation mark go off above his head! He thought aliens weren’t real, but now he knew it was true. It sounded like alarms were going off in his head because he was so shocked, amazed and surprised.

“Aaaahhhh!!!”

And miles said, “What? What happened?”

“I-I saw aliens!!!”

And then Miles said, “Aaaahhhh!!!”

Finally Alex and Miles got tired of screaming. By that time, everyone in the whole ship was staring at them. Alex told them what happened. Then the captain made an announcement that they were going to land on Mars in 10 seconds.

“Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… ” Boom!!!

They landed on Mars.

When they looked out the window, a bunch of green people were staring at the spaceship. But some wore blue caps, which were the exact same as a police officer’s on earth. And they had giant guns! 

But also they were aiming at the ship, getting ready to fire. Quietly, all the astronauts went to get their suits of armor — which were emergency suits with armor on top. And they got their human guns. Dun dun. They got out onto the ladder and down… Then… 

The war began!!! It was 20 human astronauts versus 100 aliens, but they were dumb. The aliens fired first, but he shot space because he was so dumb. He was the dumbest of them all. Then all the other ones started firing, but they were closer to the astronauts. And then things only got worse because all of them started to fire. But Alex — he was the best of all the astronauts because he had marine training. After all, he was in the marines when World War 3 happened!!! But luckily the war wasn’t that long, so he survived. Alex had really good aim and was really good with a gun, and so he killed most of them. But then out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw a giant giant building with more green people heading out of it with giant guns too.

Then he knew he was outnumbered, so then he took his little walkie-talkie and said to earth, “We need more astronauts that are trained for combat, because we have a little World War One in space going on here with the aliens.”

The commander said, “Yes sir, we will send 10 more ships up there.”

In just about ten more minutes, the spaceships arrived, and when the aliens saw that, the smartest guy of them all (but still pretty dumb) said in his walkie-talkie, to that big building probably, “We need more aliens! They sent 10 more ships with about 20 more people, so that’s just about 200. It’s war.

And then it really started to happen. Then there were just about 2 million aliens, and it started to get bloody. But the alien’s blood was yellow. So just about the red Mars turned yellow Mars.

And then one of the astronauts went to go spy in that building, and when he came back, he said into his walkie-talkie, “There’s literally a machine that makes aliens. This is going to go on forever, people!!!”

Soon, Alex’s 20 men were running out of air. They had to go back into the ship, refill, and then go back out. When they came back out there were only half the amount of astronauts because they were getting air too. But they were winning. They kept destroying and destroying the aliens and then finally Alex sent himself and randomly picked 20 other astronauts, not only from his group but also the other — and then went all the way behind that big giant building. Then they broke the window, climbed in, and hid behind the machine. They didn’t want to destroy it right away because then all the aliens would know, and they didn’t have enough people to destroy all the aliens coming out of the machine.

The machine looked like a giant door — which opens and closes — and when it opened, five aliens came out at a time, each holding a gun. The sound went — brum brum brum brum brum brum brum. A smell coming from the machine smelled like rotten eggs. The first thing Alex knew they had to do was destroy the aliens operating the machine: there were five of them. Because they could make as many aliens as they wanted to. But before they almost destroyed those aliens, they saw the commander come in and say they were losing the fight, so they could turn up how many aliens were coming out of the machine. The aliens operating the machine switched it from ‘5’ up to ‘100’! And then the door turned almost as big as how tall the building was, and the aliens were floating in the air and then fell down, balanced on the ground. Then Alex knew just what to do — he shot the five, and then all the aliens started to look behind them — and then Alex took a grenade out of his back pocket and threw it at the aliens, and it kind of hit the machine and exploded. Basically all the aliens got destroyed — and the machine!

They had basically won the fight, but there were still a lot of aliens out there. And so Alex and his crew destroyed all the aliens that had survived the grenade, then they exited from where they came from and went outside to destroy all the remaining aliens. But when they went out to Mars, all the aliens were already dead, and almost all the astronauts were gone, and even some of the ships. So it was over a long time ago. There was one ship remaining for them. The 20 soldiers got on board, and they went super-speed all the way back to earth! When they got back, basically all the astronauts were waiting, and they were celebrating, and they had a secret surprise party for Alex. They had a cake shaped like a rocket ship and cupcakes shaped like green aliens, with yellow lemon flavored filling. And then they had lemonade with tequila. Meanwhile, they were sending more people to Mars to clean up all the yellow alien blood and destroy the buildings, because humans were going to build a dome up there for scientists to study Mars. The 200 men who fought the aliens went to the news tower, and they told the president of the network to put it on the news and make them famous. That night, Alex’s mom saw him on the news, and she was so proud! She messaged him to say:

Wow saw u on news! what happened??

And then Alex texted back:

It’s a looooooong story!

THE END


Leg Breaking

Once I was with my mom, sister, and dad. My sister and dad were ahead a lot. My mom and I were behind. I told my mom that I was going to run to my sister, so I waited until we were on a road, and then I ran to them. I was almost there, but I slipped and banged my knee on the bricks. There were three puddles of blood on my right knee. I started to cry. My mom hurried over. She told me that we would be home soon.

She said, “I’ll get you a Band-Aid when we get home.”

I stumbled home. I plopped on the bed and said, “Owwww!”

My mom gave me three Band-Aids because the bruise was very big and bloody. My sister gave me a Danimals drink. I felt scared. I started to cry. 

The next few days, I went to summer camp, and we had a field trip to the playground. I climbed, but fell down, and then there was a bruise on my left knee and big bloody puddles. The instructors gave me an enormous Band-Aid.

Then it was snack time. So, I sat down on a bench. There, I rested my foot and ate some pretzels and Goldfish. After we went back home, I had to go to shower, and I had two plastic bags around my knees. When I slept, I was very, very, very scared because my knee was bloody. When I touched it, it felt like I was dying, so I didn’t touch it.


Lea’s Unicorn (Books One and Two)

Book One

Once upon a time there lived a girl named Lea. She lived in Toronto, Canada. Every night Lea had always dreamed of owning a unicorn, but she was bullied at school for believing that unicorns were real.

Her friends and classmates told her things like “Unicorns aren’t real” or “You’re stupid.”

One day, Lea met a woman at a museum in a unicorn section.

“Are unicorns real?” asked Lea after the woman was done saying about Unicorn magic.

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Where do they live?” asked Lea.

“They live in Cloudymay Falls, just above the clouds you see in the sky,” said the woman.

After Lea and the woman talked for a while about unicorns, Lea eventually left and went home. When the time came when she had to go to bed, she looked up in the sky instead of falling asleep. Finally, at 12:00 midnight, she saw a big group of unicorns flying through the clouds. 

“Unicorns! Here! Right now!”

Lea ran to get her phone from downstairs and took a picture of the gorgeous sight. She could not believe her eyes! Lea wished she could meet and get a unicorn! But, there was a problem. How could she get up in the clouds? Lea had to use her creative mind right now. Poof! She had an idea. What if she could search up ‘how unicorns can use magic?’ Then, she could use magic to make her be able to fly! The next day she searched it up, hoping for an answer. Today was a great day! She followed the steps carefully and after about half an hour, she got it! The first thing she wanted to do was use magic to give her body extra rest, since she was up really long last night. With a few magic words and hoof movements (which she used her feet for, since humans did not have hoofs) she felt a lot more rested than just a few seconds ago.

“I can’t believe it!” gasped Lea.

I can use magic now! Lea thought. Now I’ll wish for a Unicorn! She tried to say the magic words, but instead of a unicorn appearing, she started rising in the air and fell down on her back.

“Ouch!” cried Lea, in pain.

She tried to search why that just happened, and she found that you couldn’t wish for unicorns. Lea thought again.

“I know!” said Lea in excitement. “I can wish to be up in the clouds, and then I can meet Unicorns there.”

But she couldn’t try right now, because she had to go to school soon. Lea got dressed, brushed her teeth, and put away her breakfast dishes from earlier. Then Lea put on her backpack, shoes, and coat and headed over to school. All day, Lea thought so much about meeting unicorns in the clouds that she could barely focus and almost couldn’t hear the teacher. Once she even got stuck in a daydream for half an hour! During recess, her friend Goldie showed her a diamond ring.

“I can control it with my mind!” said Goldie.

Lea watched as Goldie made the ring fall and fly and do loop-the-loops with her eyes.

“Wow!” Lea said, thinking even more about magic.

“I can do magic too,” she said. “Look!” Lea whispered special words underneath her breath, and then she started to fly.

Goldie was so shocked. She almost fell over.

“How — Wh-wh-what?!” Goldie cried. “You need to show me how to do that!”

Lea thought for a moment. “I would, but if I tell you how, the magic will take advantage of me and will break our friendship forever!

Lea had learned that morning as a little part of her research. Goldie quickly changed her mind and shuddered at the thought.

“Okay!” Goldie quickly spluttered. Goldie handed Lea her ring. “Would you please examine this ring for magic?” she said. “I want to see if it has any magic you have.”

Lea looked at it closely. She made sure not to miss even a speck of the ring. Lea handed the ring sadly to Goldie.

“The only magic I can find is the magic of controlling the ring,” she said, frowning.

“It’s fine,” Goldie said. “You’re a very lucky girl.”

After school, Lea went to her backyard and made sure no one was watching her. Then, she made a crystal orb appear in her hands, and, with that, Lea shot up into the sky like a rocket and landed into the clouds.

She heard unicorn noises.

“Hello!” said Lea, to a unicorn beside her. “I’m Lea. It’s a dream to meet you!” The unicorn slowly backed away. “Don’t be shy,” Lea persuaded her. “I’m a nice person, and I know what it’s like to be shy. When I was in first grade, I wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even my parents!” Slowly, the unicorn walked back to Lea.

“I’m, uh, I’m… ” The unicorn got quiet. She was now shaking. She felt like crying, when finally, she spoke up a little. “I’m Celestine,” she said, almost bursting into tears. “Sorry, I’m just a very shy person. That’s how I was created to live in this world.”

“That’s definitely okay,” said Lea. “I totally understand. I have a question. You don’t have to say yes, but it would be a dream come true if you did. Can I please own you?”

Celestine thought and thought. “Sure!” she said. “I’d love that so much!”

Lea couldn’t believe her ears! She was accepted to own a real life unicorn! Lea and Celestine flew back down to where Lea lived.

“Would you like it if I used magic to make a home in my big backyard for you?” Lea asked.

“Sure!” Celestine nodded happily. She was not at all shy anymore. She loved Lea! Lea whispered some words under her breath, and then the most magic cloudy colorful cloud house appeared in her backyard!

“O-M-G — ” Celestine paused. “Thank you so much!” Celestine flew straight into the cloud house with Lea. “This is so big, colorful, and fluffy!” Celestine giggled. “Wait — are those unicorn cupcakes?! This is the best!” Celestine cried.

“I totally agree!” Lea said.

“This is 75,000 times more fun than my house!”

“Can we both come in here whenever we want?” Lea asked, with hope in her eyes.

“Of course!” Celestine said.

The next day, Lea went to the library after school. She was reading a book called ‘Unicorns Past and Present.’ She had just finished it and put it back when she noticed a book with something glowing behind it. Lea was curious. She simply took out the book.

“Sparkles and magic, would you look at this!” Lea cried. Where the book was a pink thing that looked exactly like a portal. “I want to go in!” Lea bounced. She took a few steps back and ran straight in the portal! “Wow!” Lea said.

The portal was smooth and nice. At the end it was super bright! She got to that part and landed on a huge gummy bear! It felt like a squishy dream! Lea looked around. She saw candies of all sorts, from huge Skittles to huge lollipops, and huge lollipops to huge cupcakes!

“This is so yummy looking!” Lea said. She took a bite of a gummy bear. “Ow!” Lea said. She looked at the gummy bear. “A stick was in here!” Lea said disgusted. “Eww!” Lea found a different gummy bear and ate it. “Ah!” Lea said. “Much better!”

She used magic to make a magic phone appear in her hands. She called Celestine.

“Come to the Emerson Library and find a bright pink glowing portal” Lea said. “Jump in that, and you’ll find me!”

Celestine agreed and flew to the library and jumped straight into the portal.

“This is so smooth!” Celestine said, rubbing her hoofs against the walls of the portal. Then, Celestine came to the end, the super bright part of the portal. “Ah!” Celestine cried, falling. She landed on a cupcake.

“Celestine!” Lea said. “Nice to see you!”

Celestine looked a bit angry. She had frosting all over her.

“Want me to help you get the frosting off” Lea asked.

Celestine nodded happily. After they got off the frosting, they looked around.

“Look at those candies on the ground!” Celestine said. “I want to try one!”

Celestine picked up a raspberry gummy. So did Lea.

“This tastes kind of funny,” Lea said.

All of a sudden, Lea and Celestine turned into raspberry gummies! Then, they shot up into the sky and back in the portal.

“Why did that happen?” Celestine was confused.

Lea picked up the phone she made earlier and Googled why that happened.

“I think those were poisonous gummies,” Lea said, putting the phone away. “But we aren’t poisonous anymore.”

Lea and Celestine landed back in the library, and they both flew back home.

“This day has been so fun!” Celestine said. Lea agreed.

“I hope we have more adventures like this!”

The End!

Book Two: Lea’s Surprise

Chapter One: A Nice Morning

Lea was sitting on her couch. She was thinking about the portal in the library. I can’t believe that was only one book ago! thought Lea. It was 9:30 am, and Saturday, Lea’s favorite day of the week.

“Hey, Lea!” Celestine called from the basement, rather sadly. “Look what I found!”

Lea flew to the basement. There was a big, probably bigger than Lea, hole in the wall.

“Oh no!” Lea cried. “How did this happen?”

“Well,” Celestine said, “I was eating Cloud Cake, a food from the Unicorn world, when a big flash appeared. Then what do you know, the wall was broken!”

Lea studied the hole. Something looked odd. Very odd. Extremely odd. What was that little blue glowing thing? It started growing. Now it was inside every bit of the hole. Oh! It was a portal!

“It’s a portal!” Lea said. “Should we jump inside?”

Celestine thought, staring at the hole. “Okay,” she said.

“Three, two, one, go!” Lea said.

Celestine followed Lea.

“This portal is huge!” Celestine said.

“Oh no, aahhh!” Celestine and Lea fell from a 350-foot drop. Luckily, so luckily, of everything, including a chokie to land on, they landed on a huge cotton candy cloud.

“Thank god I landed on something so soft!” Lea said, panting.

“And tasty!” Celestine said, with a mouth full of cotton candy.

Lea wondered why the cloud was on the ground. Whatever. Lea and Celestine looked around. They looked like they were in a magical, tropical place. They saw a sign that said ‘Wavie Swirl.’

“That must be the name of this place,” Celestine said.

Lea nodded. She glanced at a castle. She read the sign beside it.

“It said something about an extremely magical and famous baby. Can we go in?” Celestine asked Lea.

“Of course!” Lea said. They walked in and went to the third floor. It said the baby would be there. 

“Who are you guys?” the baby asked. “Are you guys from Wavie Swirl? And by the way, my name is Cameron Green.”

Lea was shocked. Since she knew she lived in a book, she jumped out of it. She flipped the pages to the beginning of her own story you’re reading right now. What?! It said the author’s name was Cameron Green! She flipped back to the page she was on before she left.

“We are visitors,” Lea said. “Also, how are you in this story, but also the author of it?!”

“Long story,” Cameron said. “But, I can tell you the reason I’m so famous is because, since I can write this story in my head, I can decide my future and everything that happens in the book you and me and Celestine are in.”

“Cool!!” Lea and Celestine said together.

“Hey, um, can you make this book so that me and Celestine can go to Disney World tomorrow?” Lea asked.

“Fine,” Cameron said. “But, can I please come too?”

“Sure,” Lea said.

Celestine agreed. Then Lea and Celestine left Cameron and the magical building, and headed toward some coconut trees.

“How can we get back home and cover up the hole?” Lea asked Celestine. “I don’t want to worry my parents.”

Celestine and Lea looked around. Lea spotted the cloud Lea and Celestine had landed on. The portal to Lea’s house should be above it. They could fly up to the portal. Lea told Celestine her plan.

“That sounds unicornilliant!” Celestine said.

Lea stared at Celestine. “What does that mean?” Lea asked.

“It’s just the unicorn way of saying brilliant. Unicorn language is slightly different from humans.”

“Oh, aha. Now it made more sense. Let’s go!” Lea smiled.

They started flying toward the cloud. They hopped on it, staring closely at the swirling blue portal. “Ready?” Lea asked, grinning.

“Ready,” Celestine replied, also grinning.

“Three, two, one, go!” Lea yelled.

Lea and Celestine went shooting up into the sky. Whoops! Might have gone 100 feet too high. They tried again. Ugh! Twenty feet too low. Three’s a charm, right? Let’s hope so. Yes! Just high enough to reach the portal.

Chapter Two: A Note From Fairyland

“Hey, what’s this?” Lea asked.

In the portal, she saw a piece of paper. She picked it up. It said, This note you are reading right now is from a fairy named Ariela. And since I’m magical, I know your name, yes, Lea.

“Wow!” Lea gasped.

She continued reading, I also know your unicorn friend, Celestine.

“Osh kosh my gosh!” Celestine said. They giggled and giggled.

Then they continued. The note said, I know you two are very smart, with you, Lea, getting all fours on your report card this year. Lea blushed. I challenge you two to a very important task. I live in fairyland, as you probably guessed, but there’s a problem. Kayla, a super smart and talented fairy, just (I start to cry) Kayla just died last week. The whole kingdom is crying and really misses her. I’ve been looking at you since one book ago, Lea’s Unicorn, with my magic globe, and based on how creative, determined, sweet, and clever you are, I was wondering if you’d take her place. Please write a note back to me and drop it in the Marigold Lake, near your home. You don’t need to write any addresses, because, since that lake is magical, its magic can send the note straight to me, as long as you say Ariela, my name, at the end. Hope I hear back from you soon. Have a great day! 

“The portal is ending!” Lea said. Celestine and Lea carefully landed on the couch. “I can’t believe we get to go to fairyland!” Lea said. But. Lea started to cry. “I feel so bad for that fairy!” she said. “Poor Kayla!”

Celestine started to cry too. Then they stopped.

“We should write a note back saying that we’d love to!” Celestine said.

Lea agreed. Celestine wrote the first part.

“Dear Ariela, we’d love to hlep!”

“That’s not how you spell help,” Lea said. “It’s H-E-L-P.”

Celestine corrected herself. She continued, saying, “We need to kno- 

“The word know is not K-N-O,” Lea said. “It’s K-N-O-W.”

Celestine corrected herself and continued saying, “where FairyLand is, and if you kud –”

“You don’t spell could K-U-D, it’s C-O-U-L-D. Can I please do the rest of this so you don’t make silly mistakes?”

“Fine,” Celestine said, rather sheepish.

Lea wrote the rest of the note, ignoring Celestine. Celestine was upset that Lea had treated her like if Lea was a teacher, and that Lea was completely careless about her (or it seemed like that). Celestine tried to hold in her tears, and, since Lea was paying no attention, she opened the Wavie Swirl portal, went through, and closed it like it had been before. Not long after, Lea finished the note.

“Hey, Celestine, the note is finished!” she said. “Come! Hello? Celestine?” Lea looked around the house over and over. An hour later, there was still no luck. “Where are you?!”

Oh brother, Lea thought. She was about to cry.


Chapter Three: Celestine’s Gone Missing!

Celestine landed on the same fluffy cotton candy cloud she had landed on with Lea. She grabbed a handful, and with that, bounced of the cloud. Celestine saw a little girl, so beautiful, on a swing. Her shirt had a tag with her name, which looked like it was Candice. Celestine saw a paper beside her with her name on it. It was math she did.

She’s really smart! Celestine thought, eyeing the paper. When she looked up, Candice was smiling at her, really happily.

Are you a unicorn?!” Candice said, almost falling off the swing.

“Yep!” Celestine said.

“Can I please own you?!” Candice said, with hope in her eyes.

Celestine thought. Lea was kind of a witch to Celestine, so Celestine was glad to get rid of Lea. “Sure!” Celestine said, smiling.

Candice screamed in excitement.

“Want to visit Cameron Green?” Celestine asked.

Candice nodded, still speechless. They went up to the third floor of the building and saw Cameron, looking just as before.

“How may I help — wait — Celestine!!! You were supposed to be in the human world with Lea! I’m the author of this book, and Lea is your owner. Why did you not tell Candice you already have an owner?”

Celestine snorted. “Because — well — I’m about to reach my boiling point.” Celestine’s face turned red. “Because Lea’s a brat!”

Cameron and Candice gasped.

“That’s it,” Cameron said. “I’m making Lea appear here and controlling your mouth to tell her what you said!”

Nooo!!!” Celestine cried.

She used her magic powers to make Candice appear on her back, and they disappeared into the sky.

“This is fun!” Candice squealed.

Although, Cameron had just made Lea appear.

“Why am I here?” Lea said confused. “I’m busy. I’m on the lookout for Celestine.”

“Celestine was just here,” Cameron said. “But, she has a new owner now named Candice. Celestine said you were a brat.”

Lea gasped. “But — how?!” Lea cried. “Well then, I don’t want to be her owner anymore.”

“I can make her appear,” Cameron said.

In a flash, Celestine was standing there with Candice.

“How could you act like such a beast?!” Lea yelled at Celestine.

“Me?!” Celestine gasped. “No, no, no. I’m pretty sure you meant to say you are the beast!”

“How could you though?” Lea said.

Lea started to cry. Celestine started to feel like someone poked her in the stomach with a knife.

“I’m sorry,” Celestine said. “It’s just, you were acting like you knew it all, and you were ignoring me like a brat, and you acted like I was the dumbest person ever. I’m pretty good for someone who just learned English not that long ago!”

Lea looked sad but guilty. “I’m sorry,” Lea sighed. “I guess I was a brat kind of. I really am sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Celestine said. She turned to Candice. “With all due respect, you are no longer my owner.”

No!” Candice screamed. That was really loud! Oh. My. Goodness. The room felt a little shaky. More shaky. The floor crumbled. The walls broke. The building tilted.

Emergency escape!” Cameron yelled. “Follow me!” Cameron led everyone to a small door that hadn’t gotten damaged. It led to a big cupcake. “Jump inside!” Cameron yelled. They all jumped into the cupcake. 

“This icing is amazing!!!” Candice yelled. After breaking — and eating — through the cupcake, they landed on the nice grass.

“Phew!” Lea said. “We made it!” But the building did not. It was all in a bazillion pieces. Only about one small quarter of the building stayed undamaged. Celestine came over, sliding on a giant gummy bear.

“Who knew gummy bears could be so slippery!” she smiled.

“I want to try!” Candice and Lea yelled together.

Cameron agreed. Just a few moments later, everyone was sliding on gummy bears. Candice was going to do that too, but she ate her giant gummy bear instead. Candice was an audience member.

“Okay, guys,” Lea said. “Three, two, one, go!”

Everyone went sliding across the field. Some people even went to watch. The gummies were so powerful that they were sliding for 20 minutes.

While the race was happening, Celestine asked Cameron a question. “How are you a baby but are so talented?”

“It’s because I’m magical,” Cameron said. “I spent 20 weeks training to be ahead in my speech and abilities!”

“Oooooooh,” everyone said.

“There’s the finish line!” Lea said.

So far, Celestine was in the lead. Cameron was next, and Lea was last. Oh! Lea just got ahead of Cameron! Just before Celestine got to the finish line, Lea got ahead of her!

“Yes!” Lea said. “Good game, guys.”

“Congrats, Lea,” Cameron said as they all shook hands.

“Thanks,” Lea smiled.

Woohoo!” Candice cheered.

After they spent a little longer in Wavie Swirl, Lea and Celestine went back home.

“Today has been an unbelievable adventure!” Lea said.

Celestine nodded. “I’m so lucky to have you, Lea. I can’t believe I tried to get rid of you!”

“It’s fine,” Lea said. “I kind of deserved that.”

“Anyway, I really hope we’ll do this again!”

The End


Gummy Bears V.S. Pirates

Gummy Bear is a red gummy bear in a stinky cardboard box in the jail cell of a pirate ship. He’s thinking it smells bad and hoping he could get out. He’s inside a box with other gummy bears because they are in the pirate’s feast. The pirates are going to eat the gummy bears. They don’t know the gummy bears are alive. 

He says, “I need to get out or else I will throw a bunch of old stinky feet at you!”

The pirate says, “Those are our ancestor’s stinky feet.”

The stinky feet are in the box next to the gummy bears.

The next night, the gummy bears have a little bit of blueberry shampoo for their smelly belly buttons. They’re upset that they’re going to get eaten, but the pirates don’t like blueberry anything, so they put on the shampoo so that the pirates won’t eat them. Then, they take out their knives, and then they smash the box and get out of the box. They packed the knives. They didn’t do it earlier because they had to put on the blueberry shampoo, and you could only put it on in the gummy bear box. 

So one of the gummy bears accidentally sprains his ankle because they were trying to open the box of stinky feet, and then that gummy bear’s ankle got cardboard cut by the box. Gummy Bear does a silly and weird dance because it cures the sprained ankle. Fingernails are also inside the stinky feet box. The pirates are going to eat the gummy bears tomorrow. Mr. Burke is the rich king of the strong pirates.

Their ancestors fought an army of blueberries, and the pirates lost, so the pirates’ ancestors had to give away most of their smelly feet to the blueberries that were inside their laundry, so they gave away the laundry. 

The gummy bears see a speed boat floating next to the pirate ship, so the gummy bears climb inside it and escape.

They say, “In your face, pirates!”

THE END


The Lost Princesses

It was 10:00 am in San Francisco, and our main character, Angel, was getting out of bed and ready for the day. The sun was shining, and the birds were chirping. It was a normal day and a school day. 

“Get ready to go to school,” said Angel’s mother.

“Okay,” said Angel. She got ready, ate breakfast, and went onto the school bus.

Hey!” screamed Carol, Angel’s best friend.

“Hey,” Angel muttered, obviously embarrassed.

Angel climbed into the seat next to Carol, and they talked about random things like ads. The bus got to school, and for some reason, Kathy, the popular girl, was all by herself. 

“Why is Kathy all by herself?” asked Carol.

“Well, that is a strange sight, but to be honest with you, I don’t care all that much,” whispered Angel.

The bell rang, and everyone ran inside. Kathy walked inside slowly, looking very miserable. The teacher, Mr. Q, was confused as well because he was used to yelling at Kathy to be quiet because she talked so much in class. Then at lunch, Angel saw Kathy’s two best friends Adrian and Alison. They were talking to the other popular girls at the school, snickering and looking over at Kathy. Then Alison went over to Kathy and snatched her weave, and then Kathy went over to the bathroom crying, but who cares? Angel and Carol were eavesdropping because they wanted to know what was going on with Kathy and her friends.

Adrian said, and I quote, “I don’t know why Alison and I even hung out with her. She is so lame.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that Alison and Adrian had such high standards for friends,” said Carol.

“They are snooty, popular girls. What did you think?” said Angel.

The time passed by quickly, and it was time to go home. Carol and Angel were going to have a playdate at Angel’s million dollar mansion, because why not? They were going to play Fortnite, and Angel was going to beat Carol so hard in Fortnite. So they went to Angel’s mansion, and they started to gossip because they could. On the news it said that a chicken tornado was coming to town. Carol was running in circles because she was terrified. Angel was scared, but thought it was a good chance to get chicken nuggets. Then they heard a big bang. A chicken tornado was outside, throwing chickens everywhere. Suddenly, a strange glowing started coming from the ground, and the walls were twisting up. It was obvious that they were entering another dimension… but that’s not possible, was it? The two girls were hearing an explosion somewhere in the distance. They were in mist, seeing a strange figure coming out of the fog. Carol was obviously freaking out because she was choking for air, but was alright… somehow. Angel was in shock, but was slowly putting the pieces of the puzzle together, and that explained where her parents were. It was a person, with long wavy hair and crystalized eyes.

“Hello,” said the strange being.

“Hello, what’s your name?” asked Carol.

“My name is Tyra, Carol,” said Tyra.

“How do you know my name?” asked Carol.

“I am the being that controls the whole earth. You can say that I’m basically Mother Nature,” said Tyra.

“Oh okay. Wait, what?!” said Carol.

“Well anyways, I am glad that I have brought you here, since the world is in danger, and I need your help,” said Tyra.

“Why our help?” asked Angel.

Well, let me tell you a little backstory,” said Tyra, doing some weird magic do to a flashback.

It was a beautiful day on Mewni, the dimension where Angel was from, and Angel was the princess of that dimension. There was a war between Mewni and another dimension called The Terror Dimension. The Terror Dimension wanted to take over all of the dimensions, starting with Mewni. Angel’s parents, Eclipsa and Dusk, sent Angel to earth so that she wouldn’t get hurt. The butler, Alfred, was actually from Mewni, and he was sent to protect Angel, since she was the princess.

A similar tale of events happened to Carol’s dimension. Carol was also a space princess that was sent to earth. The dimension that she was from was called The Blessed Dimension. The Blessed Dimension was also under attack by The Terror Dimension. Carol’s parents were named Mythil and Peridot. Carol had to leave The Blessed Dimension when she was very young. But since she was a space princess, she had super memory.

The two girls heard their backstories and were amazed with how this secret was kept from them for a super long time. Since the two girls were space princesses (which totally makes sense), for some odd reason they could remember everything, so their memories were wiped. They still had their super memories, but they were not activated for some reason.Then something random happened. The girls started to float, transforming into weird but useful space princesses. Then something magical happened. A sudden blast appeared, and Angel had a magic royal wand. It had a crystal star on it, and the star was made out of who knows what. The wand also had two devil horns on it. Carol’s wand had a heart on it, and it also had a material of who knows what. When Angel touched her wand, it glowed, and a blast came out of it. All of a sudden, there was a hole in the space time continuum. The blast of the magic wand had literally ripped a hole in the space time continuum. But Tyra quickly patched the hole up. 

“Hmmmmm… ” said Tyra.

“What?” asked Angel.

“I don’t remember the royal magic wand being this powerful. Maybe it has something to do with your persona,” said Tyra.

Carol tried to blast her wand, but it was an epic fail. A little fart noise came from the wand and a little sparkle came out.

“Hey! Why doesn’t my wand work as well as Angel’s wand?” asked Carol.

“Well it might be because of your aura and your personas,” said Tyra.

The two girls continued to practice their wand magic stuff, and Angel was doing way better at the magic than Carol. Carol was about to rage quit when suddenly a spark came from her wand. Then, when she tried doing the spell lumos — a spell that would make the tip of her wand light up, producing a source of light — her wand produced a source of light. But that fantasy only lasted about 3.1 seconds. She tried to smash her wand on the ground, but it smacked her in the head. 

“Are you okay?” Angel asked.

No! I’m not okay! My wand just hit me in the head!” she sobbed.

Carol was upset. She couldn’t deal with this. but then she had a ‘smart’ idea. The quotation marks mean that this was actually a horrible idea, but who am I to judge? I mean it’s her decision, right? Anyways, let’s get back to the story. When Angel wasn’t looking, Carol snatched her wand and tried to use it. Turned out that both wands had attitudes, so Angel’s wand sent a blast towards Carol’s face. Turned out that it was a strange but effective tickle spell. Carol fell on the floor and hit her head on… the dimension floor! Angel turned around to see Carol. 

Okay, Carol, we might be best friends forever after, but that was so rude of you,” said Angel in an obviously upset tone.

These wands are evil and corrupted!” Carol screamed. “I don’t want to do this anymore.

“Well, it is only a couple of days from now that the world will be destroyed. I guess I will have to summon another warrior to fight alongside Angel,” said Tyra, popping in from out of nowhere.

What! You can’t replace me. I am irreplaceable!” screamed Carol.

“Sorry, girl, but you are not all that!” said Tyra.

Carol had a tantrum in the corner, while eating ice cream. Where did she get it from? Nobody knows. Eventually Carol came around because I need to get back to the story. Carol actually managed to make a spark come out from her wand, without it making a fart noise.

Ahhhh! Progress!” said Carol. She actually managed to do a spell without almost blowing herself up. Then, her wand lit up, and she tried to do a powerful spell, and it almost worked. Angel was obviously determined to get the spell right, since she was always succeeding in life. Angel wasn’t really practicing her spells since she didn’t want to make Carol feel bad about her “magic abilities.” But then Angel was going to do a spell that could easily rip a hole in the space time continuum. Being the child that she was, she did the spell, and it succeeded. Tyra didn’t notice, and somehow Angel easily patched up the hole. So it turned out that Tyra did notice and gave Angel a book of spells. 

“Use this book to study, and then you’ll be ready,” said Tyra.

“Ready for what?” asked Angel.

“To save the world from The Terror Dimension,” says Tyra.

Wait a minute. You’re saying that she gets to be advanced, and I don’t?! This is an outrage!” screamed Carol.

Tyra had to seal her in a magic bubble to stop her from murdering someone. Angel was becoming more advanced with every passing moment. The wand seemed to glow more. 

“You are ready,” said Tyra.

“But what about Carol?” asked Angel.

“Well, she will have to use what she knows already to help you in this battle,” answered Tyra.

“I can train her!” blurted out Angel.

“It will be a challenge, but it’s good to take risks and stuff,’’ said Tyra.

Angel used all of her energy to try to train Carol. It had an outcome. The outcome was that Carol actually knew how to do magic. She wasn’t as good as Angel, but it would do.

“She too is ready enough to face pure evil,” said Tyra.

“Why don’t you help us out?” asked Carol.

“Well, I’m lazy. Well, good luck,” said Tyra.

Tyra started to open up a portal so that Carol and Angel could go and face the mastermind behind The Terror Dimension.

“Well, like I said, good luck.”

They went on a journey like no other. They went through galaxies, and they destroyed meteors. Finally, they made it. Well, not to the Terror Dimension, but to the entrance to the Terror Dimension. They went in. They needed a way to get past the guards, because they did not want to use their magic because they were being lazy.

“Okay, so let’s sneak past the guards by sneaking past them,” said Carol.

“That’s not a very well-thought-out plan, but okay!” said Angel.

So basically they snuck past the guards somehow. They entered the Terror Dimension, and it was horrible. There were lost spirits everywhere, and they looked lost. With all of their courage, they carefully walked to the dark castle, where the mastermind of the Terror Dimension was reigning. 

“Okay, so let’s knock on the door,” said Carol.

Before Angel had a chance to respond, Carol knocked on the door. So that was a mistake because then the guards found them out and put them in a jail cell. They escaped because they had magic, after all. The two girls that had no idea what they were getting into were about to face the evil mastermind himself. Oh and by the way, nobody knew his name, just because. Anyways, they snuck into the throne room, seeing that the ruler of the Terror Dimension was playing Monopoly, all by himself. They somehow snuck behind his throne and managed to do a sneak attack on the ruler.

Ahhh!!!” screamed the mastermind.

But somehow he dodged the sneak attack. Probably because Carol wasn’t really contributing to the spell. The mastermind was silently laughing.

“What are you laughing at!” screamed Carol.

“You girls can’t even do a spell, and you have been sent here to end my reign? Well, I’m afraid that you won’t be able to stop me,” said the mastermind.

The two girls attacked, fighting for the whole universe. Not like there was any pressure, or anything. They tried to defeat him, but the mastermind was too strong for them. Then, something happened. Angel gained spade marks on her cheeks. They lit up. Then she said a spell that she never learned before. I call the spell which has no name, created by my mother from which she reigned, I call this spell for all its power, now stand before the queen and cower. The spell had no name. 

The wand let out a big blast that made a big explosion. The mastermind was harmed a lot, but he didn’t die since this story is kid friendly. You’re welcome.

“Woah, what was that!” screamed Carol.

“Well, I don’t know,” replied Angel.

“Your mission is complete,” said Tyra, coming out of nowhere.

What!” said Carol.

Tyra explained how since Angel was in need of a really powerful spell to “defeat” the mastermind, it was something that the wand did automatically for people with a really strong persona. 

“Now what is going to happen? Will we be going to earth? Or will we be going to our own dimensions?” asked Angel.

“Well, I recommend that you stay on earth, not to call any attention,” said Tyra.

“What about these cheek marks that just showed up out of nowhere?” asked Angel. 

“The cheek marks will disappear only if you think hard enough. They appeared because of your persona. This has a lot to do with your magic,” said Tyra.

Angel thought hard enough, and then the cheek marks disappeared from her face. 

“Now I will open up a portal so that you can get back to earth. Keep practicing magic. I will give Angel some dimensional scissors so that you girls can visit any dimensions any time you want to. Just think of where you want to go, and pretend to cut the air. That’s how you create a portal. Come to me for training anytime you want to,” said Tyra.

“Okay, bye!” said Carol and Angel at the same time.

Angel made them a portal to earth. They arrived, processing what just happened. 

“Okay, so let’s study some magic. Tell me all of your magic tricks!” said Carol, like their situation didn’t affect her whatsoever.

“Okay,” said Angel.

They studied their magic, with Angel eventually getting her own indestructible training room for very powerful spells. They eventually visited their dimensions, seeing their families for the first time. 

The End


Went to the Movies

On a dwarf planet called Ceres, there was a telephone booth. No one knew how it got there. It was just there. No one used the telephone booth. The telephone booth did not want anything. Then, one day, the telephone booth disappeared. Then, there were two telephone booths. And then the scientists thought that the second one was a clone. They asked someone to volunteer to visit Ceres, but no one volunteered. Then the two telephone booths disappeared. And then they appeared with four telephone booths. The scientists asked someone to volunteer, but no one did. 

Then the four telephone booths disappeared and appeared again into eight. Still no volunteers. So they decided that they didn’t need to visit Ceres. Then one day, all the people fell asleep for five days. And when they woke up, the scientists found out that there were 128 telephone booths on Ceres. And then they fell asleep for another five days. By the end of that, there were 2,048 telephone booths.

The telephone booths stopped multiplying. Then the 2,048 telephone booths jumped off Ceres and landed on the moon. And then all 2,048 telephone booths ran to the movies. Then they went to the movies again. Then they went to the movies again. Finally, when they had seen all the movies, they jumped off and onto Earth. They got popcorn. And then they jumped back to the moon and went to the movies. They saw movies about 2,048 telephone booths. They wanted to know what the people on Earth thought about them.

Then they jumped back onto Earth and got candy. Then they went back to the moon and went to the movies. And then, somewhere in the movies, purple stuff came from the telephone booths. And then they all touched the Earth, and the people fell asleep for five days. 

And then more purple stuff came from the telephone booth and landed on Earth. The people slept for five days. And they also touched the movies. And the movies fell asleep for five days. And they also touched the moon, so the moon fell asleep for five days. And they also touched Ceres, so Ceres fell asleep for five days. 

When they woke up, they just went to sleep again for five days. One day, the telephone booths fell asleep for five days.

The scientists discovered what was really going on. The telephone booths were purple. And then, for no apparent reason, the purple color turned into purple stuff, and people fell asleep for five days. All the people in the world fell asleep for five days. And then the 2,048 people landed on the Earth, and the people fell asleep for five days. 

Then the telephone booths went back to the Earth and got popcorn and went to the movies. And then the purple stuff landed on the movies, and the movies fell asleep for five days. And the moon also fell asleep for five days. And then Ceres falls asleep for five days. 

And then the telephone booths ran out of purple stuff. And then they jumped onto Earth, and got popcorn, and jumped back to the moon, and went to the movies. And everyone else woke up and went to the movies. And then they went inside the telephone booths. And then they made a movie about telephone booths with people in the telephone booths.

And the people on Earth got popcorn and went to the moon and went to the movies. And when they watched the movie, they saw people inside the telephone booths. And then people started calling the other people on the telephone booths. And then the moon went to the movies. And the movies dropped onto Earth. And then the moon got all the movies. And then the moon bounced on Earth. And then people jumped on Earth and got candy and jumped back onto the moon and went to the movies. 

And then all the people jumped back on Earth. And then there was news about the telephone booths. And then, one day, a person touched the telephone booth, and the person turned into a telephone booth. And another touched a telephone booth, so he turned into a telephone booth.

And the 2,050 telephone booths jumped back onto the moon and went to the movies. And then 50 animals touched the telephone booths, and they all turned into telephone booths. And then 900 more animals touched them. And then 3,000 telephone booths jumped onto the moon and went to the movies. 

And then 7,000 animals touched the telephone booths, and then they turned into telephone booths. And the 10,000 telephone booths jumped onto the moon and went to the movies. And then 90,000 animals touched the booths, and then the 100,000 telephone booths jumped onto the moon and went to the movies. And then all the people and animals were gone. 

And they went on Earth and went to the movies. And after the movies, they jumped on Ceres and went to the movies. And then they filled the whole Earth with telephone boxes. And the telephone booths disappeared. And then the 100,000 telephone booths landed again on Pluto. And then they went to Earth, and got popcorn, and jumped back on Pluto, and went to the movies. And the movie was about a chicken in a spaceship that was in space, and the person was inside the egg. And then all the telephone booths fought the spaceship, and they saw a place called Earth. And on Earth, they got popcorn and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. 

They jumped back on Earth and went to a place called Writopia. And then they picked a random place, and, when they went inside, there were comics and popcorn. And they took the comics and took the popcorn and went to the movies. And then they jumped back on Earth and got ice cream and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. 

And then, one day, all the planets turned into telephone booths, except Earth. And then all the planets jumped back on Earth and got ice cream and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. (Pluto did not turn into a telephone booth because it was a dwarf planet.) And then they jumped back on Earth and got purple stuff and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. And then purple stuff came from the movies. And everyone fell asleep for five days. 

And then they jumped back on Earth, and went to Writopia and got comic books and got popcorn and jumped back onto Pluto and went to the movies. And then they jumped back on Earth and got a toilet and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. And then purple stuff came from the movies, and then everyone fell asleep for five days. And then they jumped back on Earth and got a potty, and then they jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. And then they jumped back on Earth and went to Writopia and got more comic books and popcorn and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. And then they jumped back on Earth and got paper and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. And then they jumped back on Earth and got chocolate and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. 

And then they jumped back on Earth and got a rocketship and went back to Pluto and went to the movies. And then they jumped back on Earth and got beds and jumped back on Pluto and went to the movies. And then they jumped back on Earth and got monsters and jumped back onto Pluto and went to the movies. And then they jumped back onto Earth and got markers and jumped back onto Pluto and went to the movies. And then they saw a planet that wasn’t called anything. And then they used the rocketship to jump onto that planet. And then there were 1,000 more telephone booths. And then they talked to each other all day long.

And then they got fish tanks from the planet. And then they started going to the bathroom. It took four hours. And then they saw two rainbows. And then they turned into donuts. And then they divided. Everybody got donuts. And then they got rainbow cream cheese. And then they went to sleep for one day. And then purple stuff came out of the planet, and everyone fell asleep for five days. And when they woke up, they got popcorn, jumped back onto Pluto, and went to the movies. 

THE END


The So-Called First Book of Stickman

Prologue

A note from Stickman: Hi, my name is Stickman, and I am the richest person in the world! Not to brag or anything… but today I will tell you how by going in this time machine!!! Um, guys… I said — in this… time machine.

The TV producers looked at each other. “We forgot to bring the fake time machine.”

Cue to an hour later…

Producers call, “Action!”

“As I was saying… the time machine!”

Two seconds later, Stickman ends up in his kindergarten class.

Oh, that’s why when I was little random time machines appeared out of nowhere.


Chapter One

It was a Saturday. He sees himself as a little kid trying to sell everybody Pokémon cards and gum. 

Stickman: “Yes, I was selling products since I was a kid. But I did get in trouble once or twice. Or three times. Or the whole school year… ”

All the cool kids had Supersoaker 3000’s and leather jackets. But me? Probably just wearing my Ninja Turtle’s shirt and my bag full of products. And at the end of the day, I always have a hand full of money and put them in my piggy bank! It was full of 1, 10, 20, and even 100 dollar bills! I even bet my family tries to steal my piggy bank! And that’s why ever since I was 10 years old I spent 500 dollars on a high tech laser lock and a pressure plate trap, which was later used as a chair… Anyway, that’s why my family probably hates me from the overwhelming alarm. By the time my brother goes to college, he will probably be deaf.

Speaking of college, when I was 18 I got accepted into Harvard Business School. At first I got a $1,000 scholarship, but soon enough I did magic and got a full scholarship (by scolding the school council) and started my first year. I threw away all my Pokémon products and filled my backpacks with instant coffee! I became an instant hit (soon enough I went into instant tea and instant noodles).

And no, it is not magic or anything…

Anyway, that’s when I met Centman.

Centman was a jerk. When I sold Cup Noodles, he would tell on me, then sell them himself to have less competitors. You might be asking, “Why didn’t you tell on him?” Well, my little fans, he would lie and find any way to change the topic and get me in trouble! Da da da da!!!


Chapter Two

Ever since kindergarten, this little rascal and I were put together in the same classroom.

The teachers would always say, “Ohhh, you’re best friends. You’re just debating, not arguing.”

But to tell you the truth, we hated each other. And hated each other’s guts. He was very annoying, and he was just horrible. He would always wear a beanie and a red T-shirt I didn’t like. (Sometimes I think he’s wearing the same shirt every day. Ew!) Not only that, as I mentioned for some reason we always get put to the same class every year! By the time I was in sixth grade, we both expected to be put in the same class and have the teacher say “you two are friends!” over and over again! And that is why he will always be there and haunt me… 

For example, when we were seven years old, at recess he tripped and cried, and once the teacher came to ask what happened, he told them that I pushed him even though I was like 300 feet away!!!

That’s why we hate each other. But now I think that I was the person who pushed him because I got a little carried away when I came thought the time machine… Anyway I’m not in NASA, so I don’t know how the time thing works. Oh, that’s why we hate each other… Anyway, uh, now I feel bad for him. So back to the story! But even though I did push him once, what I did to him was not even close to what he did to me. I bet if I counted the thing I did to him compared to the things he did to me, it would probably be 1 to 100,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.000,000,000,000,000,00.

You might be wondering, When is the story of how you got rich? Well, hold your horses because that story will start at the next chapter.

(Note: There will be a big prank I will do to Centman in the end. Stay tuned.)


Chapter Three

Today I am back in the present thinking of my big master plan.

So I ran to my table and put a big piece of paper and started my plan. And this is when I realized that in all of those action movies it is harder than it looks to forget everything and think of a plan. So for the next three hours I thought and I thought. In the end I came up with a bunch of lame pranks and in the end none of them worked. Oh no, I forget to tell my life story, so stay tuned.

The End… for now


Sneak Peak for Book Two. Rules: Do not tell anybody. 

Stickman: “Hi fans, I’m back and better than ever, and today is the day I will tell you the story of my life… after I drink this coffee.”

One hour later… 


“Ahhhhhhhhhh, much better. Back to the time machine.”

*This is not sponsored by Back to the Future.*

“If I can find the on button… ”

Two seconds later, he ends up at his college.

“Ah, back in the day… ”

To be continued… 


The Stolen Diamond

On a February morning, everyone was crowding, waiting for the opening ceremony of the new and only diamond shop in town. My name is Jake, and I’m the owner of the shop. I was really excited for the opening ceremony, because when I looked out, I saw a huge amount of people waiting for it to open. But then I got this feeling. I thought, If many people are here today, that means that I will have to be sure that no one will try to steal any of my precious diamonds.

On July 14th, in Napoli, Italy, I inherited a jewelry store in the city center. The store was owned by my father, who, sadly, had passed away about a week before. I was extremely sad, and yet I was happy.

I was happy that I was going to continue a business that was owned by my father. Another reason that I was happy was because I was going to have the experience of being a shop owner, which was new for me. The reason that I was sad was because it made me think too much about my father, whose name was Jake, just like mine. Well, my name is Jake the Second, so, technically, it is not the same name.

At 9:00 am the next day, I woke up, and it was my first day being the owner of the shop. I opened the doors and stepped into the store, and, far back behind the counter, I could see a small motion. I walked further into the shop — I took a peek behind the counter and saw nothing. Eh, it was probably just something that I was thinking about, I thought. When I dropped off my backpack behind the counter, I saw all of the employees walking in. After I saw the security guard walking to the front door, all of the people came flooding inside. Then I saw an employee named Ali walk to the security guard. They both whispered to each other, and then Ali walked off back to his counter. I walked to the cashier to see if there were people there.

I took a look and saw a line that went all the way to the exit. But soon I got the suspicion that someone was going to walk outside the door with a diamond, and I would not know about it. Then, I saw a guy walk out of the store with a small bag and little case. 

“Hey, security guard, follow that guy,” I said.

The guy started to run and so did the security guard. Since I was a track and field runner when I was younger, I started sprinting to the guy. We turned the corner, and I heard my voice huffing and puffing. I almost had — 

“Ah, I got you,” I said.

 I turned back and saw the security guard making his way over. 

“Call the police,” I said.

 I took a look at the case that he had in his hand and got a sudden flashback.

***

I was peeking through the keyhole in the door, and saw my dad putting one of the most valuable diamonds inside this case. He closed the case, put it inside his backpack, zipped it up, and put it in the corner of the room. Then he made his way to me, which was near the exit. I started to run away from the door. I rushed down the stairs. As soon as my front foot hit the ground, the door upstairs opened.     

***

The guy who was trying to run away from us had the exact same black case as my father. I heard the sirens of the police cars in the distance. My heart was still pounding from when I had chased the guy all the way here to where we had caught him. I knew the policemen were going to be here any second, so I grabbed the case and started sprinting to the jewelry store. I felt my heart pounding so hard, like it was about to explode. All I had to do was make it to the top room without the police getting me and asking me what the case had in it, and all these other questions. Come onnn. I am almost there. Just two more steps. Onetwo. I sat down, and apparently there was no one in the shop. Everything that I saw was getting blurry, and I felt my body falling to the ground. I put all my effort in, and I was just barely able to tuck the case under the desk.

The next time I woke up, I was in the hospital bed with a lot of doctors around me. 

“He is alive. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes,” I replied, still wondering why I was there. “Excuse me, I have a quick question. Why am I here, and what happened?”

“Okay, so this morning when one of the employees who worked at the shop was coming in, they found you laying on the floor with your clothing from the past day still on. So they called us, and now we are making sure if you are okay,” the doctor said.

“Okay.” I said, acting like I was listening the whole time.

I had this feeling in me that they had taken the suitcase and did not tell me about it. I tried to get up, but then I felt this thing that pulled all of my chest hair off. I started screaming at the top of my lungs. All the doctors turned around with a shocked face.

“Why were you moving so much? We were trying to see if your vitals were okay.”

I didn’t want to end up having to pay so much money to the hospital for nothing. Meanwhile, as the doctors were talking, I slowly detached all of the vital cords. At night, when all of the doctors were gone, I slowly got out of my hospital bed, put my shoes on, and made my way to the front of the hospital. I thought that it was going to be super easy to get out of the hospital without getting caught by the security guard, who was probably sleeping, like always. Instead, the security guard was wide awake on his phone. On the side of the desk, there was a water jar from a hookah. Somehow, I managed to grab the jar. I threw it on to the other side of the desk, where the security guard was sitting. He ran over to the glass jar. Meanwhile, I snuck my way out the exit. 

Outside, I saw a person who looked familiar smoking. I took a good look at him. Then, I suddenly realized that he was the guy who attempted to steal my father’s case. As soon as I saw the guy, I also noticed the black suitcase that looked like the one he tried to steal from me. For some reason, he still did not see me, probably because he was in the distance. I tried to creep my way up to him. I made no noise at all. When I was so close to him, my foot crunched on top of a leaf. In the guy’s hand there were some broken pieces of glass. They looked so familiar to the ones that were part of the hookah, and he also had a green tube in his other hand. I grabbed his hand. Since I was so amazing, I had pepper spray in my pocket. I grabbed the pepper spray out of my pocket, and sprayed it directly into his eyes. The guy screamed in pain and fell to his knees. 

I was still confused why he had a green hookah in his hand. I walked into the hospital to see if the security guard was there. But he was not, and not even the green part of the hookah was there. I was so confused, but then realized that it was the security guard. I turned my back to the thief and tied his arms behind him. Then, I picked him up and carried him on my shoulders to the bus, throwing him in the luggage space underneath the bus. When it was our stop, I got off and brought him to my very big house. Once we got inside, I laid him down on the couch and slapped his face to make sure he was awake — since he had passed out due to the pepper spray. 

He suddenly got up and asked, “Where am I?” 

And then I came out from a corner to scare him and said, “You’re at my house.” 

“Wha, wha, wha — I’m — what?” he asked.

“Yeah, I pepper sprayed you and then you fainted, and then I brought you here using public transportation,” I said.

“Well that’s stupid,” he replied.

“Shut up and listen to me. Now tell me why you stole that suitcase from my store, then why you attempted to run away with it,” I said.

“Because as a little child, my mom and dad would always come to the store and admire how beautiful all of the diamonds and gems were. As I got older, I realized that I could be crazy rich if I stole some of the diamonds and sold them. One day, when your father was still working at the shop, I saw him bring into his office a black suitcase that had a mold of a really big diamond. On it was labeled ‘122 carats.’ I was shocked. So when he left the store, I snuck in before the store closed and waited until everyone was gone. I went up to his office and looked for the diamond. Then when I had found it, I closed the drawer and left the store. Before I got out the store, I checked the time and I saw that it was 4:30 am. I was so tired that I sat down on the bench and fell asleep. In the morning, when the store opened, the people saw me laying down on the bench. So I went to jail for two years for committing grand larceny. Your dad, the owner at the time, got really mad at me. So I went to jail and also got banned from the store.” he said.

After a while of explaining, I finally understood everything. I eventually called the police on him and the policemen took him away. 

When the policemen were about to put him in the car I said, “I hope you have a good time in jail.”

“Ohhh I will come for you” he said. 

That night I heard the guy’s voice repeating and repeating in my head, “I will come for you.”

But after that night I was all fine.

And then I lived a happy life with no more people stealing from my shop.

The End


Trumpet

Once upon a time there was a bunny, and he had a friend. The bunny had no name. His friend was a piece of paper, who also didn’t have a name. They lived in a blanket. It was really cozy. They wanted a Trump. No one knew why. The bunny asked his parents for a Trump.

They said, “Go find coins.”

The bunny and the paper went to find coins. They went to a hill in the grass. They couldn’t find any coins. They felt disappointed. They went to tell their parents.

Their parents said, “Go back to bed.”

But they didn’t listen. They ran out, and then they started goofing around. They still wanted a Trump. They tried to find it. They went to a store, but they couldn’t find it. They went to the mall, but they didn’t find it, so they went back to bed. They felt really sad.

The end.


The Humbug

Chapter One

This is the ship that the Humbug owned. He was an immensely rich Humbug. But he was also a thief. One day, he went to the temporary bank, a.k.a. the school, to steal a high security and top secret object. It was an iPad that could hack into anything. He dodged the lasers and ran past the almost always sleeping security guards. They were called Unael and Arwen. Then he started fighting the security robots with his mega-sword. One robot, called Sam, started winning a baseball bat fight with The Humbug. (The mega-sword could transform from a giant broadsword to a baseball bat.) But suddenly, Sam tripped. And the Humbug started whacking Sam. Sam fell down with a broken robot leg. And Unael awoke and started chasing The Humbug. The Humbug ran up the stairs, and Unael ran down the stairs. The Humbug went down the stairs and went into Ms. Maverick’s classroom. He started looking for money, but then he saw animal tracks on the floor. He followed them to a slightly opened closet. Then, suddenly, a giant dog jumped out of the closet and started chasing The Humbug. The Humbug ran down the stairwell to the bottom floor. He ran into the science room. And something happened… 


Chapter Two

The Humbug started making a potion to turn the giant dog into a regular dog. When he was done, he snuck out and started looking for the giant dog. It was 1:00 when he found the dog gorging itself with the cafeteria’s leftover food. Then, the Humbug stabbed the syringe that held the potion into the dog. Instead of growing smaller, the dog grew bigger! It started charging towards The Humbug. The Humbug thought fast and threw his really cool shoe at the monster. The monster got really mad and started punching the floor, but that really hurt. The monster started punching the wall, but that hurt also. It tried to punch the ceiling but he fell over.

And it said, “I want my mommy!”

Then it fainted. Then The Humbug turned the corner and bumped into Unael, the lazy security guard. They started sumo wrestling, and backup for Unael came, such as 909 S.W.A.T. teams and 101 C.I.A. agents. The S.W.A.T. teams were waiting outside. The C.I.A. was wrestling The Humbug. The Humbug epicly defeated every single S.W.A.T. officer and C.I.A. agent. 

Then The Humbug started running. He jumped over everybody and punched and kicked every security guard that wasn’t already knocked out. Then he jumped into his hover car and drove into the skies. He drove to Fez, Morocco and landed in his private airstrip. Then he took off his cool burglary suit and changed into his awesome auction suit. He drove to the auction house. He owned it. Then he sold every single object that he stole from the school, whether it be pencil or bills each worth 9,999,999 for $9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999. People bought the bills because they worshipped Bsmzzcd, the god of no money. After 100 years, 9,999,999,999,000 S.W.A.T. teams and 1,000,000 military police officers besieged The Humbug’s mansion. But The Humbug sumo wrestled every officer to the ground. Then he lived happily ever after. Until he died.

To be continued… 


3041

Chapter One

Alleyville, L.A. Year 3041

It all started when you got to school. You practically dropped your e-book when she told you. 

***

It was a normal morning. You had gotten up, told the computer a quick good morning, and went into the kitchen. But, that day, nothing had felt right. It was quite foggy out, unlike the normal sunny LA weather. You shoved some dry cereal with milk down your throat and headed into your room to get dressed. 

“Benny, clean my shirt.” The washing machine whirred.

(Benny was your computer.)

You slid on your newly clean shirt and some jeans.

You then hopped on your flypod and headed over to school. On the way to school you met up with your friends. One of them had a mischievous smile on her face — your friend Abby. She had been your friend since kindergarten, but you had recently drifted apart when she had started to become popular. When you got to school, Abby’s mischievous smile got bigger. When you were getting your ebooks from their ports, you looked at your friend, and her face looked like she was about to pop!

Finally you turned around and said, “Okay, what do you want to say?!”

She released her smile and said, “You know how everyone and everything is microchipped, right?”

“Yes,” you said.
“Well, my brother and I found an artifact from way back from 2017!” she squealed. You gazed at her in amazement.

“It’s called the iPhone X, and you can only see the person you are calling on the screen. Unlike now, the person is virtually standing there!!”

While you were getting your head together, Abby was ranting on and on about how she was going to have a party and everyone could see the phone.

While the school day droned on, you kept thinking that the police might find out. You are the person who always worried about grades and getting in trouble.

Finally, the day ended, and you went over to Abby’s house. You still felt a little unsure about having the phone without permission. Not even an adult knew about this phone! If the police found out, Harvard would not be happy. Once you had arrived, Abby let you know that she and her friends had decided to make a video to sell the phone to collectors on eBay, and she wanted you to film it. You took out your phone and clicked camera and started filming:

“I found an iPhone X in my backyard. It is retailing on ebay for 7.5 billion dollars. All the apps are in perfect condition and the settings work fine,” Abby said.

You and her friends all took a close look at it. You were all amazed as you scrolled through all of “Allison’s” old texts from 2017. You then heard a siren. The police were coming. You all ran into the closet, hiding the phone. The siren came closer and closer. You felt like the world was going to end. Abby was the popular girl. She would always take easy classes so she could get straight A’s without even cracking a textbook. All the teachers liked her and even got her special gifts when no one was looking. Unlike you, who would always be worrying about your grades and projects and things like that. 

But at this moment — no, you were not worried about your grades. You were worried that you would not be able to go to an Ivy League college! Harvard would never accept a criminal. Unlike everyone hiding in the closet (where the police would obviously find them), you hid Abby’s dads bathroom cabinet. As the sirens neared even closer, you thought you were going to faint. A few seconds later, you heard the police knock down the front door. Your heart was thumping so hard, you thought the police officers in the other room might hear it! You heard screams, shouts, and all your friends plead for their lives.


Chapter Two

“Is this all of you?” the police officer said sternly.

In your best friend’s best strong voice, she said the dreaded… “No!!! The person who brought the phone is in the other room!” 

You thought you were going to die. You heard the police push down the door to her dad’s room. Haven’t they ever heard of opening the door normally?! Anyways, you had to escape. For Harvard, you thought, for Harvard. Like a snail, you crept out of the cabinet, you slowly climbed on top of the toilet, and you opened the window. You looked down. Thank goodness her house was not a tall building. You slowly slid out of the house and delicately hopped into the backyard. What you didn’t realize was that the living room window (where everyone was) overlooked the backyard. 

There she is!!!” you heard a voice say.

You turned around to see four of the cops scrambling out of the door frame. You rolled your eyes and took out your phone and had it make a teleport and you stepped into it. Your world soon turned into a wavy black and white picture. Everything lost its color. Everything came into a wavy type of form. You waved obnoxiously at the cops, and seconds later you regretted it. 

You landed in a forest. Your watch told you that you were located in the Davy Crockett National Forest. Great, this was about an hour away if you took a flypod. You rolled your eyes. With today’s technology, it would take a snap of a finger. You were walking around for a few minutes, and then you heard a whirring noise. You looked up. Against the sapphire-blue sky, you saw a camo looking helicopter. The deafening noise of the helicopter soared above you. So they invented a talking toilet, but not a helicopter that does not have an ear-splitting noise? Sheesh. You ran so briskly that the S.W.A.T helicopter had to wait a few seconds before chasing after you. The wind blew around your ears, and they turned as red as a stop sign. At a quick glance you saw what looked like a tent and got a whiff of what smelled like beef soup. It smelled out of this world amazing. You glanced up to see the S.W.A.T. team was gone. A notification popped up on your watch. 8:08. Your stomach rumbled. It would have been so nice to have some dinner around now. You turned around to see all of these tents in a horseshoe. Just looking at it made you starving. You made the decision to go into the group of tents. You walked into the horseshoe of tents and knocked on one of the tent flaps.

A kind looking old lady greeted you with a not-so-subtle: “Who are you!!!” What seemed like her sons came running towards you. They were both wearing two rings in the shape of a skull. Their dirty hands came closer and closer to your face. They reeked of old cabbage and turnips. In a moment that was completely unlike you — who was usually meek and little — you slapped them both in the face. 

Never touch me without permission!” you yelled. This made their faces turn red and embarrassed. The grandma soon shoved her boys behind her and welcomed you into her tent. 

Before you could make out an answer she said, “Excuse my boys, they can be rowdy.” She reached into a gold box of tea, pulled out a travel cooker, and started to boil some water and took out some eggs. She took out a pan and said, “Fried or scrambled?”

“Fried please,” you replied.

She cracked an egg over the pan. The egg sizzled and bubbled over the pan. She motioned for you to sit down on a tiny velvet cushion. Her two sons sat behind her and as she flipped the egg over the tea kettle whistled. You quickly ran over to the kettle and poured the steaming hot water into the mugs she had laid out. She thanked you and turned back around. You sat back on your cushion. She sprinkled in some peppers, cheese bits, and onion into the omelets. The smell danced under your nose. As she placed the last omelet on the plate, she smiled at the delicious smelling food. 

“So, what brings you to these parts?” the lady inquired. She brought over the plates, and before you took a bite of the delightful looking omelet, you answered.

“It’s a very long story,” you said. You stared down at your plate. 

“Tell me,” she said. So then you sighed and told the whole story including the flypod, the phone. Through the whole entire story all she did was nod. 

At the end of the story, she glanced at her boys and said, “Well, some of my kids are looking for a friend. They are really lonely. You see, us backpackers are always traveling, and we could always use a fourth addition.” You felt your face turn red. You obviously wanted to say no, but you didn’t want to hurt her feelings. 

“Sorry,” you said. “My mom is very protective about where I go.” She hardly let you go to sleep-away camp. You forced a quick smile.

When she turned around to tend the stove, you exhaled. How were you going to get home, clear your name, and blame all the other people and tell them the truth?! Later that night, as the kind lady propped a pillow over the sleeping bag, you put your watch to vibrate for 4am.

4AM… 

You groaned as your watch vibrated. You rolled over and threw on your checkered Vans and sweatshirt. You slowly unzipped the tent’s flap and headed out. You walked for around 20 minutes and then stopped to check your watch: 4:21.

As you turned your head around, you heard, “Put your hands in the air in the name of the law!!!” the officer yelled through the microphone.

He sent down a ladder, but as he could tell by the look on your face, you yelled, “Nope! Not today, bro!

You ran as fast as your feet could take your. The helicopter followed you as you ran. He yelled in the microphone more and more about how he was going to catch you, so you gave in and climbed up the helicopter’s rope. But, as you were halfway up, you realized that this was not a cop helicopter. Instead of the camo pattern, it was covered in graffiti. You jumped off of the helicopter and into a tree. Behind the fake helicopter was a SWAT helicopter. You waved your hands in the air, and that somehow got their attention. 

The next day… 

As you stepped out of the chamber that you were kept in to get to the courtroom, you dusted off your now clean Vans that you spent all night trying to clean, along with your lifeguard sweatshirt. Twenty minutes before you had braided your hair. All of this was because you parents were going to be there, and they always knew you as smartie and a good girl. As you entered the courtroom, they handed you a paper. It talked about how to address the court. Your throat started to hurt. As you looked around, you heard a familiar laugh. You whipped your head around so fast your two braids slapped your neck. You saw all of your friends who were at the party. They all looked so confident that they were going to convince the judge that they were just innocent little girls when they were really annoying little brats. While the judge was talking, they all had their heads down in their phones. They took you out of the cage and into a seat — and you remembered to look straight at the judge when talking to him and say “your honor.”

“Order to the court, order to the court please,” the judge said.

He had gray hair, but was balding and he had a very raspy voice — he looked like he was a grandpa. He looked at you with a smile that said, ‘you’re going to win.” For once, you felt your heart be warmed again.

The judge looked at the other side of the court, at the other girls, and then looked back at your lawyer and said, “Proceed.”

Your lawyer had been assigned to you. She had blonde hair and freckles, and had a strict face.

Her name was Rachel, and she stepped forward and told the judge, “My client would like to tell her part of the story, if this pleases the court.”

You stood up from your seat and found yourself saying, “Your honor, our world is being watched over by the government. So much so that each person has to have a microchip implanted in their hand. Now, I’m not saying that it’s stupid that our government wants to watch over us. But, what I think I did wrong was to let my head take me places. Meaning that I let my head tell me to go to the party where the phone was held. Now, let me point out that I was not the person who brought the phone. It was Abby Lee-Ann Diaper!”

Abby’s face turned bright red. She stared so hard at you, you could swear she would have thrown daggers if she had them. Her mouth looked like she was about to yell at you so hard that it was going to knock down the whole entire building. She was about to say something, but her lawyer put his hand over her mouth. He whispered something to her parents, who were sitting in the row ahead of her. Her face turned even redder. Her face was now the color of flames. 

You felt a smile creep onto your face, but you quickly realized that it was better to keep to yourself. You turned your face forward towards the podium. Your lawyer stood up to speak and your mind started to wander. You started to imagine that you won the case, but everyone still decided to hate you. You groaned and turned your head back to the judge, who was still rambling on about how the government made the decision to have every single living thing microchipped (including smart-things).

Minutes later, while the judge was getting more and more off topic, you shook your head. You had been here for hours.

While the judge was getting water from his cup, you stood up and said, “May this please the court, for I have something to say. I think that we are getting a little off topic. May we please resume to the case?”

The judge turned his head at you with an annoyed glance. 

“Well, we have been talking here for two hours,” he said, “and you are the cause of this case.” 

Your hands rolled up into fists. Your face turned bright red. You looked at him straight in the eye. 

“Don’t give him what he wants,” your lawyer said.

Your face turned into a sly smile. You remembered your mom always telling you to not yell at your brothers when they would annoy you. You started thinking about what to say to the judge. This could be an opportunity, you thought.

“Well, me being the cause of the case is a little off,” you said.

Then you pulled out your phone and clicked on your photos. The judge gave you an odd look. You clicked on the recent category and started scrolling through to find pictures from the party. Your eyes lit up when you saw a video from the party. The video was you filming Abby talking about how they found the phone. 

“Perfect!” you murmured under your breath. You then went up to the judge with your phone in your hand.

You tapped your finger on the phone and the video started to play.

“I, Abby, found an iPhone X in my backyard. It is retailing on ebay for 7.5 billion dollars. All the apps are in perfect condition and the settings work fine.”

And then the video ended.

Later… 

Saturday, June 19, 3041

You woke up the next morning feeling refreshed with all the stress off of your shoulders. You were in your room. Not in a forest with a bunch of backpackers. Not in a jail cell or in a courtroom. You turned over to grab your phone from your nightstand and swiped up on your phone screen. You frowned when you saw the wallpaper on your phone, with all of your friends from the party. You quickly went to settings and changed your wallpaper to a picture of you and your camp friends. You smiled as you rolled out of bed. Your parents were already out of bed, making what you liked to call a “guilty breakfast.” The smell did what felt like cartwheels under your nose. 

The End

A Bad Day (Kinda)

Tom, Steve, and Bob were driving a car. But the gas ran out in three seconds. So, Bob went to get money.

“Bob is dumb,” Tom said.

He took some quarters out of his pocket, filled the tank, and both of them took off in the car. Steve was dumb too. Let me tell you why.

“Let’s run this cliff,” Tom said.

What do you think happened? They missed by 300 feet.

Presenting… the three stories about Tom, Bob, and Steve… 

So, Steve came along, crashing with Tom because he thought Tom was stupid. Anyway, Tom went back to the garage to see what was happening to Bob. But when he got there, all he saw was an armored truck with a heavy machine gun or a four-DC Tri-blaster rifle. He didn’t know which one.

“Hey, Tom,” said Bob, “I pickpocketed a rich dummy who was smoking.”

“Gimme that money!” said Tom.

Steve came to see what was going on. “What are you doing?” Steve said.

Bob literally crushed Tom and rolled away.

“Let’s team up,” said Tom.

So Tom and Steve bought a wrecker truck and sped up to the heavy truck and burned a tree so that Bob couldn’t get away.

“Hey,” said Bob.

“Stop trying to burn my… Boom!”

“Wrong type,” said Tom.

“Sorry.” Steve smiled.

Tom was actually trying to invent a potion that would blow up anything and was called a super TNT. It would have been able to blow up Bob’s truck, except for a tiny problem. How do you get into Bob’s truck? So Tom tried to use his brains, but he ended up getting blown up and flew into Steve who went driving like crazy, and literally died. 

Meanwhile, Bob entered the story. Tom and Steve bought a car with the money Tom stole when he head-dived into Bob’s truck (thank goodness) and made a run for it. They drove all the way into the city. Just then, the car ran out of gas. So they ran to the police office and busted the safes to steal the money so they would strike it rich. Meanwhile, the villain enters the story. Officer Thug went inside and saw Tom and Steve.

“What is going on here?” he said.

He was a regular person and a skilled officer. So Tom and Steve were locked in jail playing with VR goggles. Since Tom and Steve had snuck into college, they were also fumbling with potions. Tom was making a poison potion to kick the guards in the butt. And Steve was trying to make a hole in the cell. First, Tom enchanted a bow and shot both guards in the butt. Steve invented a chain saw and sawed through the whole cell.

“We are free!” said Tom and Steve.

And they rushed out of the prison. Tom got an enchanted diamond sword and armor. They were in Minecraft! (They were in it all alone.) Tom went to rob some clothes because there weren’t any cops around now. Tom head-butted some dudes.

“Hey, I found a good place to make a house,” Steve called out to Tom.

It was an old castle. They gathered up their trusted team and fixed everything up. Soon, it looked awesome and even had an epic potion room. Tom and his friends were bombing other cities and crushing enemies they didn’t like. They burned cities until they rusted. Soon, they were making complicated potions and enchantments. Tom was the engineer, and Steve was the leader. Everybody was alive and had everything they needed, so they all were wise and kind of strong.

THE END!


Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows

Prologue

Hi. My name is Rebecca Rainbow. I am a rainbow, if you’re curious. I hate pink fluffy unicorns. Oh, you don’t know why? I’ll tell you.

I was out one day, settling another argument between Sally sun and Randy rain (the sun, Sally, and the rain, Randy, are my best friends) when my pink fluffy unicorn friend asked me to dance. We did, but then she started dancing on me! Then all the other unicorns started dancing on me! And that is why I hate pink fluffy unicorns.


The Story

I stomped home. I decided to talk to my dad about how the pink fluffy unicorns had danced on me.

“Dad?” I called when I got home.

My dad immediately popped up when he heard what I had to say. I soon discovered that this had been happening to other rainbows, and now they were ticked off. Since my dad was a senator in Rainbow Republic, he could recommend declaring war on pink fluffy unicorns.

I was so excited!!! My dad had said that the president of Rainbow Republic had agreed to declare war on pink fluffy unicorns. I had my heart set on joining the war against pink fluffy unicorns, but I would have to convince my dad first.

I was home after hanging out with my friends, Sally and Randy.

“I have something to tell you, Dad.”

He asked me what it was.

I told him that I wanted to join the war against pink fluffy unicorns.

“No way!” he screamed. “It’s much too dangerous,” he added in a quieter voice.

Fine, I thought. I’ll go to war myself.

In the morning I woke up early so I would have time to disguise as a man and run away to war. I got on all his armor and grabbed his color gun, then slinked out of the house and over to the battlefield. 

Battle was not dangerous for rainbows, unicorns, and other magical things. Us rainbows used classic color guns, which pink fluffy unicorns hated, because they did not have sparkly pink. Pink fluffy unicorns used sparkle guns, which irritated rainbows like me. 

Today was the first day of battle!

Sorry. My hands are so tired it takes a while to switch from one letter to the next. I never knew how tiring shooting Dad’s color gun would be!!! It was so not my size. I was also covered in sparkles!!! Those pink fluffy unicorns had their guns loaded!

I don’t think I liked this fighting so much. I was pretty sure that the only thing that was pushing me on was my hate against pink fluffy unicorns.

Wow!!! Something amazing happened. I met a human girl named Amber, and she was fighting on the rainbow’s side. Turned out that humans were great fighters. The battle went great. We won the war!!! The only thing that went wrong was that this horrible girl named Rebecca Hills joined the pink fluffy unicorn’s side. She was almost as good as Amber! Luckily, the classic color guns drove her away. But Amber would still have to deal with her. I thought I’d try to help her.

The End


Unicorn Academy

Hello, my name is Cornpuf, and I am a pink fluffy unicorn. After being banned from Rainbow Republic — my original home — forever, we started a new life in the sun, since we had to get as far away as possible from the rainbows. Thanks to our shield-protected ship and our super power sun gear, we landed safely, so now we all lived inside a giant bubble that stretched up to six miles, so as you could imagine, it was pretty crowded here. We struggled to survive and ate whatever we could find, even broccoli. Bleh, we hated broccoli, but even with that we still had to go to school. It was called Unicorn Academy. Since we planned to get revenge on the rainbows one day, all of our classes involved skills. They were all taught by Rebbeca Hills’ family even if she was no more.

 Staff

  1. Defense Against Rainbows: Professor Reea Hills (little sister) 
  2. Color Gun Use 101: Mr. Hills (dad) 
  3. Unicorn Heroes and Heroines: Ms. Hills (mom)
  4. Surviving Life on a Different Planet 302: Mr. Alex Hills (little brother)
  5. Surviving a War: Mr. Aron Hills (uncle)

See what I mean? Anyway Professor Reea was really nice and so was Ms. Hills, but Mr. Hills and Mr. Alex were a little sharp, and Mr. Aron was really fun. Today Professor Reea Hills’ lecture was about the properties of hitting the unicorn way.

“You cross your arms, then release and punch,” she said. Then she told us how to blend in with rainbows and some new words, like pharaoh. Yeah, it never hurts to learn human words.

O-M-G! Today I got excused from Mr. Aron’s class to go to the principal’s office. I was totally paranoid that they discovered that I cheated in my How to Kick a Human’s Butt test, but no, the case was they had a secret mission for me tomorrow. At midnight, when everyone was sleeping, they would send me in a rocket and disguise me as a rainbow (all the humans love them) to another planet which I would investigate and see if it had all we needed.

Today I landed in Star Statues. Oh boy, I landed in the middle of Rainbow Republic, and I didn’t know how to get back. Ugh, there was also Rebbeca Rainbow’s new book on the shelf. She was such a show-off.

It was called “Encyclopedia of Rainbow Republic.” Yeah right, as if she knew anything, and I bet she didn’t mention what the poor pink fluffy unicorns had endured! She started the war, and I was going to end it. It was not our fault we were addicted to dancing on rainbows.


Journey to the Rest of the Universe

My name is Universe. I like the possibility of infinity. Infinity means the highest number possible, which I like to say means anything is possible. I like that anything is possible. My favorite class is science. Anyway, my journey started one day after a long, boring day of school. I was talking to my friends.

Suddenly, the science teacher popped up and said, “Universe, the U.S. wants a kid to go to space, and I thought about you.”

This was the chance of a lifetime.

I said, “Of course!”

The very next day I went into the rocket.

I heard them say, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, blast off!”

Next, I went to look at my suit. It was a smaller, newer version of the other suits. The other astronauts helped me put it on. It was a little bulky, but otherwise comfortable. It was hard to get up once you fell down in it. When we finally got up to the moon, I went in space for the first time! When I first stepped on the moon, I fell because of the lack of gravity. After that, I grew accustomed to the gravity, and didn’t fall again.

I asked, “Can we go to the rest of the universe?”

They laughed and said, “Can we? I don’t think we are allowed to do it, Universe.”

They were being really weird, but I expected that. What else should I expect from grownups? If they expected me to put up with them, I would jump out the window. I wished that grownups wouldn’t be so weird. I did jump out of the window. It was fun. I climbed in and jumped out a couple more times. I had a jetpack with me. I liked the jetpacks best. You could steer them, and mine gave you candy, roasted marshmallows, and s’mores. I loved space because you feel like you could do anything if you could breathe in space. I started to go to the sun. Soon, I shifted it to heat protection, and a suit of fire appeared to shield me from the heat.

“Yahoo!” I yelled when I flew to the surface.

I wished that I could do that again and again and again. Instead I explored the sun. Through the suit, I could see the light and heat particles. They were so full of light that I couldn’t believe that on Earth you couldn’t see them. I could’ve stayed there for hours and hours, but I had to leave almost too soon. I wanted to see more particles. The particles were much better than the weird grownups. I wished that I could stay there forever, but too bad that I couldn’t.

Suddenly, I heard something say, “Hello.”

I nearly wet my pants. It was an alien. It looked surprisingly human, but no other human has gone to the sun. It was weird, but it wasn’t something from the weird grownups because they weren’t that smart. (For the grownups that are reading this, yeah, I really said that, but it’s true. Grownups are naturally stupid and weird.) It wasn’t that surprising, because I’d seen many crazy things. I went to Mercury to see if I could make another remark about grownups being stupid. There were a lot of craters, but I didn’t even need my fire protection. I found a lake of good drinking water. This was proof that grownups were not that smart after all. They were easy to fool. Their robots had a lens that made them see a desert. They were very gullible. I wished teachers were that gullible with homework. Actually, I take that back. They forget that they’d given it and they gave more. Now, grownups couldn’t deny that. They should go to jail. It certainly was a crime to abuse kids with homework. Abuse was a crime! They couldn’t deny that, could they. Recesses were abusively short, and school was abusively long. There were twelve months in a year, and there were ten months of school. Horrible! Why weren’t there six months of school and six months of vacation. That was also abuse. I went next to Venus next to clear my mind of grownups. Venus helped. It only helped because Venus was so boring. Or maybe because nothing ever happened. Wait! That’s just the same thing.

Next, I went to Mercury. At Mercury, I had a close call. Grownups were there, and for all I knew, they were still there. I decided to play a trick on them. I danced in front of them and put blindfolds on their faces. They were probably still swiping at the air. It reminded me of my friends doing my boring homework. At home, I spent my time reading or exploring. At least I brought my books. I still liked the Harry Potter books. The people at home thought that I was crazy to like books. I didn’t miss them at all. I definitely didn’t miss the homework. I hated homework, but who didn’t?

Next came Venus. It was very, very hot. You thought the sun was hot? Go to Venus! I was protected, so I wasn’t affected, and neither were the aliens. They were made of fire. (They also agreed that grownups were too much trouble.) They could talk and do everything that humans could do, as well as the things that they couldn’t. They were good friends, so we kept in touch.

I went to Neptune next. It looked cold, and it was just as cold as a snowstorm, but without the wind and snow. Those aliens were made of ice. Their sad, surprised faces reminded me of my teachers when they realized that I hated their classes. It just showed how crazy grownups were. I didn’t want to think any more about grownups. The aliens gave me drawing paper, since I left mine at home. I drew croctupuses and illigels for them. A croctupus was an octopus and a crocodile. An illigel was a lion, a snake, a butterfly, a cat, and an elephant.

I visited the rest of the universe next. It was really hard to go to another solar system. You had to run through the portal before it disappeared. It took me eight tries to make it. I visited a planet that I named Planet Chocolate because it was made of chocolate. As soon as I bit off a piece, it grew back. There were chocolate aliens. Everything except me was made of chocolate. The aliens gave me a bucket of everlasting chocolate. It was the best planet.

Next, I visited Planet Cheese. It was made of cheese, stinky cheese. I held my nose the whole time without even visiting the aliens. Then, I visited Vanilla Planet. It was made of vanilla. Of course the aliens were made of vanilla. They gave me a bucket of everlasting vanilla. I was pretty sure that Cheese Planet was the only disgusting planet. Next up, Vegetable Planet. I made a mistake. That was a disgusting planet. I spent about two seconds there. I hoped that the next planet would be better, and it was! It was Cotton Candy Planet. Yummy! They gave me a whole box of everlasting cotton candy. After that, I went to Lollipop Planet. The lollipops were delicious. I loved the chocolate lollipops. I got a lot of lollipops. Next, I went to Eclair Planet. It was one big eclair. It had a lot of cream. I got so many everlasting eclairs. I loved it! Next up, Macaron Planet. It was made of chocolate, vanilla, caramel, and so much more. The best part of each planet was getting the everlasting candy. After that, Ice Cream Planet! That was the best planet yet! There were so many flavors! I took most things from there. Then came Cookie Planet. That was a flat planet. It was a giant chocolate, chocolate chunk, sugar cookie. When I got my loot I started eating the everlasting cookies right away. They all smelled fresh, right out of the oven, and so did the planet. I couldn’t help it. To stop my mouth watering, I went to Planet S’more. (I didn’t want to offend them.) I thought that this solar system should be called the food solar system. Though Planet S’more was so mouthwatering, it was the best planet ever! The marshmallows weren’t too dark or too light. They were toasted to perfection. The chocolate wasn’t too syrupy or too hard.

Next, I went directly to Planet Fruit. It had all kinds of fruit. All of the fruit was in season all year long. The fruit that they gave me would never spoil, and it was everlasting fruit. After that came Planet Gummy. Everything was made of gummy. Yummy yummy! Hey! That rhymes. The people were even made out of gummy. It was the first planet I had gotten up the courage to talk to the aliens.

“Hi,” their leader said, “You are the first visitor. Sorry it looked deserted. We were afraid a grownup had come.”

“Nah, grownups aren’t that smart,” was my response. “Don’t forget that.”
“Won’t,” they promised.

Then, suddenly, a little boy asked the leader, “She help us?”

“With what?” I asked.

“With war.”

“A war with who?” I asked.

“With Bob,” they said.

I screamed. Bob was the name that struck fear in everybody, everytime, everywhere.

“Is he the B… B… B… Bob?” I stuttered.

“Bob. Real Bob.”

“I’ll help,” I said, trembling.

I soon learned that Bob put the poison in the gummies food that prevented them from growing back when bitten into. After that, he bit them. That was why they were scared. Bob was a grownup. Now do you see why I was so prejudiced against them? And it was not just Bob. It was all of them. Teachers especially. The homework. Anyway, enough about grownups. We would have a war across the galaxy. We would beat the legendary Bob. I just thought of something.

“Bob and his accomplice?” I asked.

They answered, “Bob accomplice.”

Bob’s accomplice was Pink Fluffy Unicorn. The last time they were heard from was when they danced on rainbows. They were brave. Very brave. I wouldn’t dare fight Bob. I was crazy. So were they. We were going to warn the other planets. They wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe they would help. I did it. The other planets would help. We had an army. We would beat Bob!  Bob fought with boxes of textbooks. Scary. We fought with everything we had. I nearly got hit! We were beating him back. We saw him wetting his pants.

Suddenly, he shouted, “I surrender!”

We won! The shout we gave was so loud that we fell.

We shouted, “We beat Bob! We beat Bob!”

After, I asked, “Can I move to S’mores Planet?”

The answer was, “Yes.”

The End


Afterword

I wrote a letter:

Dear Mom and Dad. I live on S’mores Planet. I will never do my homework or brush my teeth. Or brush my hair. If you care. I most certainly don’t. Just in case.

Love, 

Universe


The Mom and the Sweetie and the Dad

First, the mom was getting food for the little girl. Then, Dad was fighting with Mom.

The little sweetie turned off the lights of the kitchen, and then she put the lights back, and she said, “Stop, don’t do that.”

Then the sweetie put the dad back in his own room and her mom in her own room. And then they went to sleep, and there were bad guys coming in from the pool door. The family woke up, because the bad guys opened the door and hid behind the door. The family came down and saw the bad guys hiding behind the door, one in the mom’s room and one in the dad’s room. And then another bad guy came, and he was behind everyone in the whole family and even the little girl. He tapped everyone’s toes. Then there was a small bad guy the size of the little girl, but he had more big numbers on his head, and that meant how old he was. The number was 20 because he was 20 years old. Then another one came from the little girl’s room and went in front of the people, and then they looked behind, and they counted how many bad guys that were there. There were seven. They stole all the toys from the little cat, and the mom was letting the cat play with her toys from when she was a little girl. And then they went under the bed with the toys where they played. The bad guys were trying to find the cats, and they went on top of where the beds were, and then those bad guys didn’t find those cats, but only the toys. But they didn’t look like the same thing because one of them had pointy teeth, so they took all the toys out of their bags and gave them back to the cats. They didn’t find the cats, and they thought they went to the bathroom, but they weren’t there, and they checked in the bathtub, and they didn’t find them under the bed anymore. The cats ran downstairs and bit one of the bad guys and then bit all the bad guys. That made the bad guys go away. The family called the police.

The little girl said, “Hello? A bad guy came into my room.”

And then she gave the phone to her mom. The police caught the bad guys.


The Rabbit and Her Mom

There is a baby bunny named Lucy, and her mom is a bunny named Urwut, and her daddy’s name is Simon. Lucy wants a baby sister to take care of like a mom. She’s going to try to wish for her mom to get a baby. She is going to wish to herself, and then maybe her mom will get a baby. Then she can be the older sister, and then she will have a baby to take care of, like her mom. 

She imagines they will work together, play together, do fun stuff together, and even help, like if she can’t reach stuff, Lucy can reach, because she’s a big sister. She goes to a place where if you wish for something, it will come true. It is at West Side East. It’s called University Come True. Lucy has to come through the bushes, through the park, and through her house. Her friends are trying to get her to play with them, but she just moves away. Even when they do something, nothing will bother her at all. She’ll just look back, and go on. 

Finally, she arrives to University Come True. It looks like lots of people are wishing because they want to have something that they don’t have. She goes to University Come True without her mom looking. Her mom says she is going to sleep for 20 hours because she’s so tired that then she’ll wake up in the afternoon. She thinks, That’s so good, because then, tomorrow, I can have a baby sister, and Mommy would not even notice that I went out to University Come True.

University Come True is a big place, and there’s a king and a queen, and they’ll answer you and then tell you if they can do that or not.

Lucy says, “I wish I had a baby sister so I could act like a mom, and I don’t have one, so can you please help me to have a baby sister to take care of?”

The king says, “I can help with that, but it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl. If it’s a boy, then don’t get mad because I know you want a girl, but it doesn’t mean that you get mad. You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

Lucy says, “Okay, but if it’s a girl, then you give me all your money. If it’s a boy, then I give you all my money. That’s a deal.”

He says, “Okay, that’s a deal.”

Then she goes home.

She says, “Yay, yay, now my mother’s not even going to notice. I’m going to pretend to be asleep, and she won’t even know that I went outside. But first I need a set-up. I need to get my sweater and my coat and make it look like I am sleeping, and then when she wakes me up she won’t even notice that I went outside.”

The next day her mother is like, “I have a baby in my tummy. I need a doctor. Go call a doctor!”

Lucy says, “Okay.”

The doctor comes, and Lucy has a baby sister!

Then she goes to University Come True, and then she tells the king, “I got a girl, so now you give me all your money.”

He says, “Ugh. It’s not fair, but whatever it is, I can’t get upset because I can’t act like a perther, which is a bad person. Okay, here’s all my money.”

The king is angry that she has a baby girl because he doesn’t want to give her his money. 

Then she leaves home and tells her mom, “You didn’t even notice when I left the house for 24 hours. I went to University Come True, and I said to the king that I want a baby sister, and my mom doesn’t have one, so can you please make it come true? But the king said if you get a boy, don’t get upset, and it doesn’t matter what baby you get, so don’t get upset at all. And I said okay, but if I have a girl, then I get all your money. If I have a boy, then you get all my money. And then the next day I got a girl baby, so I went back to University Come True and said give me all your money, and he said okay, that’s not fair, but you get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

The mom is surprised.

She says, “Wow!”

The End


The Crime Kitty

Hi! Sorry I scared you there. My name is the Crime Kitty. No, it actually isn’t. My name is Cuddles! I am a black, fluffy, tiny kitty, but I have a dark side. You may not know me, but I am more than this so-called “adorable, cute, fluffy, and innocent” kitty. So, let me tell you why.

It was a dark and stormy night in New York City! I was with my owner (Emma). She is a 24-year-old adult who is in college, but she is super mean! I don’t remember her being mean when she got me from a pet store! Or maybe it’s because ever since she got me I made her life even harder. But she could have thought of that before! Well, back to the story. When I was with her, all of a sudden she told me, “Sorry, Cuddles, I have to go to the mall with my friends. Bye.” And then she just threw her sandals at me and left with a new pair of shoes. I mean, how rude! I have been planning for an escape ever since, and tonight was the perfect shot.

***

Ughhhh. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Why is it so hard to reach the doorknob!!! Oh wait!

Ten seconds later… 

Finally! I knew there was a stepstool around here. Now I can reach the door knob and wait! I need to pack necessities for the long trip ahead! Let’s see… 

Mini kitty backpack: check

Cat food and, well, food: check

My favorite cat jacket: check

And my milk: check

Well, I’m ready. Wow, I’m leaving now. Well, goodbye, house!                      

***

Doo doo doo doo doo do. Hmmm, well, since Emma’s not here to boss me around, I can do whatever I want! But I have to keep a low profile, so here are some personal rules for myself:

1: No making friends! (Keep a low profile. Tell no one your real name! Try not to be seen.)

2: If someone sees you, quickly run away without a trace!

3: Have fun! Do whatever you want!

Now I’m going to get a donut!

***

Hmmm, hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmmmm, hmmmmmm.

I love donuts! But I have to focus on getting money! How am I going to buy stuff for myself if I have no money! And how are humans supposed to understand me when I want to buy something! Ugh, it was so much easier when Emma was taking care of me! But she was so mean! Wait a minute, I can just steal stuff. It’ll be much easier. I won’t have to lose a single penny! Well if I had one, but that’s not the point! But stealing is bad. Oh no, I’m hyperventilating again. Agh! Breathe in, breathe in, breathe out. Whoooo, that was way better. Hmmm, let’s see what time it is. If only I had a watch. Oh wait, there was a watch store near the city that Emma used to go with me. I think I have a clue where it is.

***

Creak. Wow, I never realized how creaky this door was. I guess the owner isn’t here today. Well, let me just take a look at this clock, and I will be heading out — Beee oooh, beee, oooh, beee, oooh!!!

Argh!!! So loud! Sensitive ears can’t take much longer! Meow.

***

Beee oooh, beee, oooh, beee, oooh!!! Ugh! What, where? Where am I? Am I in kitty heaven?! Tick tock tick tock. Oh, I guess not. Oh wait, I’m in the clock shop from last night. Hmm, I must have set off the alarms and passed out. Well, off I go.

Doooo, doooo, do, do, do,do — 

“Psssssssttttt.”

“Aghhh! Who was that?”

“It’s me,” someone whispered.

“It’s who?”

“Wow, I can’t believe you don’t recognize me!’’ A kitty stepped out of the shadows!!!

“I can’t believe it. Is that really you?!”

“Yep, it’s me!” My best friend of all time came towards me.

“I can’t believe my eyes. I’m so happy to see you. Whiskers, I haven’t seen you since you got adopted!

“You too! I missed you so much! But what are you doing here in the middle of the city unattended?” Whiskers said to me curiously.

“Ummm, what are you doing here in the middle of the city unattended?”

“You tell me first,” Whiskers said.

“Fine, well I ran away.”

“Why?’’ Whiskers asked.

“Well because I don’t like my owner. She is always so mean to me, and I just can’t stand it! I don’t even know why she’s so mean to me. Reow reow reow.”

“It’s okay, Cuddles. You have me?” Whiskers tried cheering me up.

“Yeah, I do have you. Thanks for cheering me up. But why are you in the middle of the city unattended?”

“Well, my owner took me to the park, and guess what?! She said she was going to go to the coffee shop to get a ‘latte,’ and when she left, she never came back!” said Whiskers angrily.

“Well, maybe she just forgot about you?”

No, she left! So I was left all alone in the park until I got hungry, so I went to the donut shop to the city,” Whiskers told me.

“Well, I have to get going. I am going to go explore. Want to come?”

“Sure,” Whiskers said happily.

So we went off to seek adventure! But then it was turning dark, and we saw nowhere to stay or sleep until we saw a jewelry store. So we decided to go in. But the door was locked, so we started walking away until there was the animal control truck came rolling in our direction! I knew that they were going to take us to the pound, and I will not go back there again, so we started running around the block.

Ahhhh we’re going to die!!!” yelled Whiskers.

“Don’t worry, Whiskers.” I panted. “We will lose him. I just know it.”

So we went running and running until we came back. But then, when I was running, I got shot with something, and I fell asleep, but then I saw Emma running towards me and saying, “That’s my cat!”

But when I woke up, Emma was hugging me, saying she was sorry she was super mean to me. I was so happy that she starting to act nice to me! But yeah, that was my story! I told you I am dark inside, so bye.

The End.


The Adventures of UNICAT!

Hello, I am a unicorn. Well, sort of!! I am in the slammer. I am a unicat to be exact! I got put here after I used my dark magic to hypnotize a man to do my evil bidding! Okay, so maybe not all of that is true! Okay, none of it is true!! Okay! I actually just used my half unicorn magic to get a free corn dog in McDonald’s and then tried to escape using my kiddy car after the cops came and told me to stop, but then I didn’t get far after I forgot to change the battery in that thing! They put this mask on me, and I imagined flying. Then I was on the moon! I think that mask had some of this gas that makes me feel all woozy and stuff!

Anyway, I have to escape!!! So I have a brilliant plan! As a unicat I need to keep my creative mind open. After all, brilliant ideas like mine come naturally in a unicat like me. Well the only unicat like me. I am the only unicat in the world! So lonely! Well anyway! I will use this plastic spoon to dig my way out of here! According to my calculations, I should be getting out of here in about… umm… years. Oh well! I am still digging, and I am super exhausted! Ahhh! I am a unicat, not a manual labored slave!!! That is it! I will use my amazing power to escape this place! If I spend one more day in the slammer, I think I’ll break! Okay, so this is my plan. I’m going in. First, I have to use my magical unicorn powers to bend the steel bars and squeeze between. Then, I have to drop kick the cops! (If that is possible.) After I do that, I’ll kick open the gates with my mighty strength (not really, I’ll just use my magic) and then I’ll try to get another free corn dog! I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. I need to learn my lesson… I need to get two free corn dogs, duh!

Five minutes later… 

*Sounds of missiles crashing into the ground.*

Ahhh, these people are trying to kill me! I just open the gate quietly and start prancing to my freedom! I am also running with another one of my cellmates called Screamy Sam. He is a pony, and I should have known that he would have freaked once I opened the gate! Well anyway, we had a deep conversation about why he shouldn’t scream in the middle of operation escape prison and don’t scream! Well, I told him we couldn’t scream.

He says back, “Fine, then I’ll go, and you can stay here. I don’t want to close the gate on you by accident.”

I reply maybe a bit too brutally, “Why? ‘Cause you think that when I trip and fall and then the gate closes on my hoove that I’ll be limping and you’ll be calling me Limpy for the rest of my life and there will be a huge hideous scar across my eye, but all the real scars will be on the inside where my heart should be?”

He says, sounding a bit concerned, “ Ummm… are you okay, or should I call Dr. Phil?”

I say back, “No. Sorry you had to hear that.”

Anyway, recap. I am running as fast as my little hooves can go. I would fly, but I don’t want to leave my new (and only) friend, Screamy Sam.

A few seconds later… 

Yes, we are finally off! You may be wondering where, but we are going to… McDonald’s (to get two corn dogs, well, three for Screamy Sam)!

Anyway, Screamy Sam says he wants to go and visit Las Vegas, and I am all like “Who needs Las Vegas when you got all the corn dogs in New York?

Then he says back, “Umm… everyone?”

I go right up in his face and practically scream, “Wrong! Dude, ya gotta keep up with the program!”

We finally get there, and the owner of the McDonald’s throws a broom, and it lands on Screamy Sam’s hoof, and guess what! Turns out he sprains it! So I have to carry him all the way to a cloud, so he can rest! Man, boys are complicated. I have to go dumpster diving and find a bandage. This reminds me of the story my cat mom used to tell me about my birth.

She said, “Oh, Caticorn, when you were born, the day was bright and sunny and warm. The breeze smelled as if someone sprayed Febreeze in the air, and when you finally were born, your unidad was so happy, and so was I. You practically flew out of there. You were always the seeker of adventure we raised you to be. So wrap this bandage around your leg, so your scrape will feel better. You’ll be flying around in no time!”

Well anyway, I go back to the cloud, and then I wrap the bandage around his hoof. After that, we both just daze off into sleep mode I guess. Oh, I guess I might have forgotten to tell you that Screamy Sam has a black hood that covers his mane. He is pretty weird though. When I tried to yeet his hood off, he dodged my hoof!

I was all like, “It’s hot, dude, take off your hood! You’re going to get a heat stroke!

But he wouldn’t budge for anything I tried! So I just let the dude do whatever he wants. To be honest, I refuse to tell him this to his face, but he is pretty fun, okay. He has a sense of humor! But there is no way we could be best friends since he is a pony and I am a unicat! Other species can’t be friends! It’s part of RuleBook of Animaltopia, rule five, page two, paragraph 16, sentence eight: You shall not be friends or have any sort of relationship with other species other than your kind. It kind of sucks to be honest.

Anyway, Sam — I mean Screamy Sam — just woke up, and he sounded like an alarm clock. He almost scared the glitter out of me. When he woke up, instead of like normal animals, he screamed his head off!

I am like “Dude, are you okay!!! Do you need the hospital or anything!

He responds very calmly and rationally as if nothing at all happened. “What are you talking about? I just yawned, yeesh. I think you might need the hospital!” And then he laughs a little.

I am like, “Ummm, you’re joking right?”

He looks so puzzled I think even maybe I was wrong and I was crazy, not him! But then I remember I am never, never wrong, so that isn’t exactly an option. I really don’t know who is crazy (probably him), but it totally doesn’t matter at all to me! (It really does.) Anyway, his hoof is feeling better, so I decide why not — like civilized savage animals — we go to a diner for breakfast. So, I have to go dumpster diving to try and find a little bit of money while Screamy Sam just watches me go dumpster diving! It is so embarrassing. He has to take a banana peel off of my head after I get out of there. I smell like a dog barfed all over me that had eaten pickles, a squirrel, smelly gym socks, moldy bread, and a part of a shoe for breakfast. Speaking of breakfast, we are still Screamy — what am I saying? I meant to say screamingly hungry! If I don’t get my morning cat juice with rainbow unicorn sprinkles on top, I think I’m going to die of immensely low sugar! Do you even know what that can do to a unicat?!

I need to survive!” I tell Screamy Sam, while running in circles panicking.

“You mean we need to survive, right?” he says, looking a bit concerned.

“Uhhh, yeah did I say I? I meant we. I meant we totally,” I blurt out.

So we go to this diner place. It has an organic smoothie (ew) but whatever. At least I get to eat my pancakes with maple syrup topped with some whipped cream, frosted edible bananas, with rainbow sprinkles, and a unicorn toy on top of it all. These pancakes are my usual everyday breakfast. I really think I need more sugar in my body! That “organic, good for your health smoothie” totally makes my mouth bitter! Talk about yuck! Anyway, after Screamy Sam finishes his confetti flavored cupcakes we steal — I mean borrow — we head to the police because we found this stray cat on the street, and when I tried to clean it with my tongue like how mommy cats do to their young, it clobbered out of my hooves with drool leaking from its mouth and started chasing a car! Screamy Sam thought it was a dog! Pshhh he is so, wait a second, maybe that cat wasn’t really a cat! Oh! It was obviously… a tiger! You find them all the time in those shops. Except they don’t really move, and they are usually on display. I thought maybe tigers would be at least a little more territorial. But hey I’m not hating, just stating!

So once we get there, I see some really cool photos of me and Screamy Sam on a pole! I can’t really read, but it has a number on it and some words on it, too. I think they are going to give us money or something! You don’t think we are wanted right… Nah! Well, the police sure must have been jealous of us or something, ‘cause they keep on saying we’ve got ‘em or something. Then there are these silver thingies that they pull out, and they look like pretty stylish bracelets. So when I ask them if I could have one, they say, “Get ‘em!

But before I could say, “Hey, that’s not really nice,” Screamy Sam grabs my hoof, and we start flying. We settled on a cloud to get some sleep and rest since it is getting dark out.

When I wake up the next morning, I find Screamy Sam’s hood on the floor. But he is nowhere in site.

Scream Sam?!” I scream. Hey, that’s kind of ironic!

Then when I look down, I see another unicat! I am like, O-M-G, I’ll catch Screamy Sam later! I have another friend now, maybe!

So I fly down to the floor, and when I see the other unicat, I say, “Hey! What’s your name? Are you just like me? Are you nice? Are you funny? Are you competitive? And most importantly, do you have magical powers and can fly? Wait, that’s not important. What is, is… do you puke hairballs, too?

The other unicat totally ignores me! So I go up and turn their face around, and it is a boy unicat, with sky blue and turquoise hair colors, and he has light blue eyes.

“Ummm, hi?” I say, totally bewildered for I don’t know what reason.

“Ummm, hey Unica — ”

Actually more importantly, can we be friends?” I say.

“Ummmm, Unicat — ” says the boy unicat.

“I have another best friend that is called Screamy Sam, and he is great, really, did you know — ” I say, being interrupted by the boy unicat.

Unicat, I am Screamy Sam! Well, actually, my name is just Sam, but whatever,” he says, staring at me and smiling.

Then everything goes black, and I wake up staring at the sky.

Then I murmur, “How long was I out?

Then I hear Screamy Sam’s voice say, “About an hour or so.”

Then I fly up and say “What have you done to Screamy Sam???”

“I am Sam!” says Screamy S-Sam.

“Oh, forgot” I say. “So you have been pretending to be my friend , too?” I say, hurt.

“What! Are you crazy! You are so much fun! Of course we’re friends!” replies Sam quickly.

Oh good,” I say, relieved.

Well anyway, I guess we are friends now.

But I say to Sam, “But I wish I knew I was the only unicat in the world. I felt so unique and special. I don’t know, I kind of liked feeling I was special and one of a kind.”

Then Sam puts his hoof around me and gives me a big bear, well, unicat I guess, hug. 

Then I say, “Okay, that got weird, so where are we going now?”

Sam and I just stand there bewildered.

Then he says, “Vegas… ?”

I don’t want to disappoint the guy, so I say, “Okay, let’s take our wings and fly to vegas!”

So after a few hours by flight, we crash onto a cloud and are waiting for the snack cart to come around until I realize we aren’t in an airplane. Anyway, I get there, and we meet a nice walrus called Wally T., but I just call her Wally. She helps us “borrow” some pizza, and she asks us if we have a place to stay for the night.

I say, “Hmmm… well that bench looks pretty comfy!”

She is shocked and grabs us by our manes, then brings us deep into the woods, ties a string to what she calls “the special trees,” then she hangs a carpet thing onto the string (it looks more like a clothing line if you ask me) and then throws us in there. Then I see white or black, but I don’t really remember… Anyway back to the story, we are in the North Pole! But Sam says that walruses live in the Arctic, but I complain and say that she is magical. Hey, she never had a life-threatening crisis or anything! That makes her pretty magical to me. Anyway I’m going to have to leave now, but I’ll write again in a few days! (Wally T. is serving crumpets. But they feel and taste more like rocks… ) Anyway, bye!!!

The End!!!


The Hot Dog Robber

One day a very nice man came to his house right next door to my house. His name was Alexander. He never robbed and never bullied people. He never said bad words, but sometimes my mom went to his house and gave him cupcakes. He always said “thank you,” but one day he wanted some hot dogs. So, he went to my mom’s house and asked her for some hot dogs.

And my mom said, “No more hot dogs. I gave you enough hot dogs.”

So Alexander ran home. Then one day, everyone was sleeping. I saw Alexander come out of his house. I got scared because he never came out of his house at 2:00 in the morning. I knew that as a fact because every time my mom and I tried to come and visit, he was always sleeping. And when we tried to go to the park with him to run, he was still sleeping, so we never could go to his house. So I didn’t expect him to be up at this time. So I decided to lock all the doors. Then after I locked all the doors, I looked out my window. He was standing in front of my door, ringing the doorbell so many times and knocking at my door.

And then I screamed out the window, “Leave us alone!”

He said, “I want hot dogs!” very loudly.

I decided to give him 21 hot dogs, so he could leave us alone.

He said, “I want more.”

I told him, “For what?”

And he said, “I have a huge family.”

And I kind of felt bad until I heard that he was lying. I knew he was lying because his lights were off. I knew he was lying because if his family was there, it wouldn’t be closed.

He told me, “Fine, I am lying. I just want hot dogs.”

Then Alexander ran to another house, and the woman gave him a lot of hot dogs because she trusted that he had a lot of family to feed. He just ate them. I got frustrated and went to go talk to the lady, but she didn’t believe me because she hated my mom because my mom didn’t want to work with her in the store because she didn’t know how to make cupcakes. So she closed the door in front of me.

And she said, “Leave me alone.”

So I decided to go to his house and knock on the door.

I said, “Give me back my hot dog.”

He said, “I’m never going to give you your hot dogs back.”

I said, “Why?”

“Because I ate them already.”

I said, “Poop them out or something.”

“I am not pooping them out because I do not have them. My dog has them.”

“Then tell your dog to give me your hot dogs.”

Alexander said, “No. I can’t afford much food for my dog. He might die.”

“Couldn’t you tell me that earlier,” I said. 

“No, because you would get mad at me.” 

“If it was for life, I would never get mad,” I said.

I gave him 100 hot dogs, and we got along for the rest of our lives.


The Classroom Escapade

Chapter One

“Lilly! Feed Bon-Bon, and quickly!”

“Okay, Mrs. Sanchez. Yes, ma’am.”

I walk up to the class pet hamster, Bon-Bon, and drop in some hamster food, only to be nibbled myself.

Ring!

Great, I missed the late bell for chorus and Miss Loxern will be mad because I stayed to feed a stupid, stupid hamster. I can hear her from here, saying, “Quiet, please. Single file lines only. Jeremiah, please stop chattering this instant!”

I better hurry up before the ice fountain starts up. “Shhhh!” Too late. It has started. The school’s wonky hours from 10-12 have begun, and I am trapped in unsafe zone (the only one). The hall.


Chapter Two

Gahhh! The ice has spread to the bathrooms! (And I really need to go!) I better seek shelter, quickly.

Okay, I am now in the janitor’s closet, and my pencil is getting its time to shine. I mean, it was at the bottom of my book bag, and I never use it. Oh great, here comes the liquor stage. As the ice from the ice fountain melts and turns into fog, the smoke detectors are set off, but instead of water, they rain liquor. I can hear it coming. 

Burp!

There goes Mr. Mcgail getting drunk, and Mrs. Berkowitz.

Just the typical, and I should probably stop eavesdropping on their dropping of glasses.

For my second time getting trapped in the schools wonderland-symmetrical labyrinth, this isn’t so bad… 

Aaaahhh!


Chapter Three

As the dragon stage commences, I scream in terror as an assortment of colored dragons roam the halls, turning everything into smoldering dust. The ash stings my eyes as I break the glass on the emergency fireproof shield that the school keeps for any stranded students in stage three and hold it up like an umbrella, ella, ella,and run continuously towards the gazebo in the economics classroom, daring myself to not look back. Suddenly, I come to a bump in the speeding lane. There is a gaping hole between the gazebo and the floor. I start to wonder if this is a curse anymore, or if it’s starting to get real. I mean, even back in 856, the dragons stayed in the halls. This is very unusual. Then again, everything is unusual about dragons. 

Anyway, there I am, about to die, when some marauder-like figure emerges from the dust and whispers into my ear, jump. To make a long story short, I did. As I look back to thank him, I realize he’s gone, and wonder if I was hallucinating, from all the ash. At the same time, I also want him to have not left and to stay and tell me what the heck was going on. Without realizing, an hour has passed, yet somehow I am still in the third stage, which makes no sense. Last time, I fainted from the liquor and didn’t wake up until I was in the nurse’s office. What the — nothing is moving! What is happening? Did everything just stop? This must be the fourth stage, then.

“Time stop.”

Just great. Then why are the biggest dragons moving? Am I stuck in some nightmarish world?

Lilly!

Bah! Did someone just speak to me? Here?


Chapter Four

Wait a minute, is that my grandma? What is she doing here? How did she get here from our house in Westchester? I saw her at home when she was sending me off, but, how did she get in? There are a million jillion things I want to ask her, but then again, I might overwhelm her.

“My dear Lily,” she said in a so un-grandma-like voice. I mean, she sounds like a Korean pop idol. “How long I have waited for this moment to tell you the truth; hiding it has been so hard.”

Suddenly, spikes start coming out of her head, and her arms start issuing slime from tiny slits in her arms while her head starts turning snout-like and rockish. Standing before me, I see a huge, cute, but still terrifying dragon who, based on the facts, I assume is my grandma. 

I am speechless. How could she keep this from me? Like seriously? If she is my grandmother, am I a dragon too?

As if reading my thoughts, the dragon, who I will call Grandma, says, “I am not your grandmother, but yes, you are a dragon. You are a morphUs — a being that has the ability to turn from a dragon to a human, who of course has mind reading powers that manifests at 13 when you establish a close relationship with an animal, which in this case, is that hamster Bon-Bon that you are always raving about.”

Okay, info overload, but instead of joking about it, I just rub my temples to try and process this new “vital” information. Anyway, as I try to blow my auburn brown hair from my eyes, even though I know that even if I succeed, the ash will still obscure my vision.

“Pay attention please.” Geez, for a grandma, she is pretty sassy. “Young woman, I can hear you thinking!” Okay, if you can, you are hands down so creepy! “Now, listen to me. You are the lost dragon heir, and you have to save us from the tainted King Erik. He was cursed, when you left, and until the true heir shows the greatness of good to him, he will reign over the dragon realm with terror. So now, concentrate on yourself as a dragon, and your stripes will light up.”

As I concentrate, my body becomes engulfed in light as what seems to be my skin sheds off and I land on the ground in a heap as a dragon. Whoa, it actually worked!

“Come on, quickly, Siena!”

I assume it is my dragon name as I take flight for the first time, admiring my shining burnt sienna and flame-like scales, absorbing the wind and feeling free. As we approach the palace though, my stomach twists itself into knots when I see all the poor citizens working in coal mines. Barging in is easy, but his face, his deep wounds and blood red eyes, his gleaming scales and spikes, I am not so sure of myself anymore. But when I see him snicker at a child begging for mercy, that is when I swallow any last feeling of pity or fear, because that is not how to treat a child of any sort.

“King Erik,” I state. In fury, I bellow out my speech that had suddenly burst from my heart. “You are, in my opinion, a good person who has been tainted, and I believe in second chances, so I wish no harm to come to you, unless you want that.”

He interrupts, saying only this, “Puny girl, you’ll never turn me back!”

By this time I have spotted an amulet on his horn and have realized it as the source of evil.

I continue, “I believe in you, if you would let me just… ”

Then I lunge. Straight for his head, I rip the amulet off and shatter it into a million pieces, never to be seen again. As the newly restored king awakens, I realize something. I might miss school, have to make new friends, and start a new life, but no matter how hard I fall, I will always, always, get up, because I am strong.


Lily Big Help and Her Idea

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Lily. Lily was seven years old. She lived in Paris. Lily’s parents had work that was very bad because they got $10 per hour. She lived in a small house with five rooms. There was the living room, bathroom, kitchen, and two other rooms. That was not enough space for herself, her two brothers, her mom and dad, and her grandparents. They all had to be squeezed together in two rooms. They were not comfortable. Lily wanted to help her family to get a bigger house, so they can have a bigger house. 

The next day, an idea came to her. She would do a lemonade stand in the park because she was seven years old. First, she had to get all her supplies. But that cost money, and she didn’t have any. She would ask her parents for some. She got $20 from her parents. She went to the supermarket and got the cups, lemons and sugar. When she got home, she started making the lemonade right away. First, she put water, then she squeezed the lemons to get the juice out and then put the sugar and then she mixed. Lastly, she put ice. She made her stand and put it up in the park where everybody runs. The first day, she didn’t get any customers. She was very sad for not getting any customers. But that did not stop her from trying again.


Sydney’s Poems

A lovely room

The opposite of the night,

Drapes a shimmery white,

A plant of bright dark green,

Nothing you’ve ever seen.

White doors opening wide 

To a sandy beach.

You’ll love the room so much, 

You won’t be able to speak.


What teachers seem to be!

My teacher’s name is Ms. Plumpagee and she is very plump.  

She acts like she’s stuck in the 1900s and her hair is rather a stump.

She never washes her hands, after a lesson of history.

I’ll ask my father to sue her, yes he is really quite rich, you see. 

Then next year I had a teacher, she was horrid and a snitch.

Then I really wished Ms. Plumpagee, was mine and was here stick.

I was really rather quite generous,

After I sent her away. Wow, a year ago I was rather quite mean to Ms. Plumpagee.


Witches

All skinned in black,

Can’t say no to drab,

Mysterious creatures.

Hidden in the cape of black are feelings,

Not well known,

Be them from the dead or be them from the alive.

Who knows the beauty, the flaws, the ugliness, of these power stricken people?

And I am one of these people,

Safe from being underestimated.


My piece of hope

My lips are blue

My hair turned blue

My skin turned blue

Everything blue

A cry of sadness 

And despair

A grave of white

Surrounding by few

A willow hanging

On top of a pond

With grass surrounding

Like your front lawn

A swan of white

With an orange beak

You’ll love her too

So to speak

Lily pads 

On the water blue 

A girl praying 

Crying too

A rising sun 

A golden hope

Falling hills

A golden rope

Climbing up

And climbing down

But you can’t ever

turn around

The journey hard

The path so clear

Don’t turn around

You’re nearly there

Don’t let the blues

Get in your way

For your mountain

Is here today

Climb it first

Climb it next

And you’ll find

Your golden rope

A piece of sun

And some hope.


Panda Spies

PROLOGUE

Screech!!! The truck with the panda inside was finally here. Oh right, I forgot. My name is Eve, and I work at the AAC (Awesome Animal Center).

Right now we just rescued a panda from the RIA, Rebel Inc. Agency (or as everyone else knows them) the government, which was doing an experiment on the poor panda. They stole him from the rainforest to see what would happen when they took him away, and when nothing happened, they decided to kill him. But we knew about this plan, and we came to the rescue just in time. 

Let me tell you what happened to me and my BFF Mia. We ran after the truck holding the panda which was a pretty stupid idea considering we were just kids and that was a giant truck. If Mia wasn’t an amazing inventor (she had invented rocket shoes that carry you above the ground going six times faster than the truck) we would have been toast. We put the shoes on our feet, flew after the truck, and caught it up in no time. But one thing remained: how we would get in. We tried to lift the latch on the back of the truck, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally we got it open, and we saw the panda inside. It was so adorable! We got her back to the rescue center and fixed up her scratches and got her to her pen. The rescue center called the zoo manager, and he said we could keep the panda because we were the ones who had saved the panda. And from that day and on, us girls became best friends and never left each other’s side.


Chapter One: The Voice

Back to school. Ugh, stupid school. Eve and Mia carried themselves into class. The dumb teacher Mr. Beg boodey or Big boody wrote something that looked like neat gibberish. Then he suddenly collapsed and started snoring.

“Finally!” Mia said sarcastically. “Something exciting today!”

Something was wrong. He didn’t usually snooze off like that, if you didn’t count the time that he did snooze off. And if you didn’t count the other time he also snoozed off. Eve observed him. Suddenly, Eve and Mia heard a faint voice.

“My name is Lunala. I am the ghost of the panda that you saved. After saving me from the government, you have proved that you are worthy of being spies! There’s a new mystery you must solve. But it won’t be easy alone. Go to the stone wall in the park. Wait for me there… ”


Chapter Two: I Spy with My Little Eye… 

Mia turned to Eve. “Did you just hear what I just heard?” Eve was still looking towards the man.

“I wonder why he collapsed when this case may have nothing to do with him?” 

“I don’t know how or why, but it probably does have something to do with him. And if it does, I’m going to fire him and get a less boring teacher,” Eve said with a grin.

“Well, don’t get your hopes up!”

She started walking towards the door but noticed that Mia was still grinning and staring, so she went back and slapped her in the face. Mia popped out of her “revenge bubble,” grabbed her backpack, and followed her. When they got there, Mia leaned on the stone wall.

“I think this whole thing is a dumb prank that pranksters set up,” she said.

And at that moment, the wall she was leaning on opened up and revealed a long misty hallway. Mia stumbled backwards. There was a ghostlike woman that was so faint that the girls had to squint to prove to themselves that she was actually there.

Excuse me?” she said with the same ghostlike voice as the voice they had heard before.

“No prank, no prank,” Mia said, stepping away.

“Are you the ghost voice?” said Eve with curiosity in her eyes. The woman only turned around and started walking down the misty hallway. “C’mon!” Mia said.

“No way.”

“Why not? You were the one who was all, ‘Are you the ghost voice?’ — she’s getting away!”

And Eve was pulled after her. The hall turned into a slanted slope that seemed to get steeper and steeper. But the girls kept following her. When they got close enough, they saw a wall in the distance. It led straight up, and there was no way around it. As it got closer, they started to wonder how they would get past it. Lunala didn’t stop walking when she got to it though. Suddenly, as if gravity had changed, she walked up the wall, sideways. Eve gasped, and Mia grinned.

“And she expects us to do that?!”

“Poor you,” Mia said.

“Why? You know that we both have to climb that wall right?”

“Well, I think you’ll be on your own for that, because I have these.” From out of her bag, she brought out her rocket shoes.

“Better start climbing girl!”

She was right. There a long way to go. After a few minutes, instead of climbing, she felt as if she were crawling. Slowly but carefully, she stood up. And a few seconds after that, Mia, on her rocketties, fell to the ground. (She liked to name everything she invented. For example, her Ultra-Dishwasher who also did all the cooking and cleaning in her house was named Suzie.)

“What happened to the gravity?” she asked.

“I had the same question. It must be what happened to Lunala.”

Eve and Mia jogged the rest of the way, catching up to Lunala. They stopped at a vine-covered wall. Lunala faced the girls.

Put your hands on the wall.”

The girls looked at the wall and found two bloody but dry hand shapes carved into the wall. Lunala blew away the blood and the vines on the wall with one blow. They placed their hands on the stone carved wall, and suddenly, all the concrete in between the small square stones started to light up. So much light came out that all the stones flew out of the places and turned into ash. Soon the hand shapes also turned into ash. Even though the holders were gone, Lunala still held their hands in place.

When there was nothing left but light, she said, “Step into the light.”

And they walked in together, holding hands. Inside was warm; the light was getting brighter. Eve looked back only to see more light. They were holding their breath (except Lunala) as if they were under water. But they weren’t. They were in a light teleportation wave that was impossible to hack. Only the chosen ones could open it. Well, as long as you had a key card you could get in. They moved closer and closer to the light until Eve could just make out a beautiful technology-filled inside of a building with many testing rooms with new inventions waiting to be tested. They finally entered the palace like world.


Chapter Three: New Dimension

It was beautiful. It was bustling with people. A girl on floating shoes whizzed passed everyone and into their view.

“Hi! I’m Lia, and I’m going to show you around.”

The girls liked her already. She was wearing headphones, a dark blue tank top with a hoodie, jeans, and those floating shoes Mia was jealous of. Out of her watch, she popped out a hoverboard. “Get on, and try to keep up.” She put on her hood and turned on her music.

“Go. She will be important to your mission.”

“How? She doesn’t seem to be that helpful anyway.”

“You will see. Now go.”

They were as obedient as ever. They hopped on, she tapped the hoverboard twice, and it zoomed to the Grand (but very plain) Stairway. Lia was sitting there looking at her phone. She looked up.

“Oh! You made it! I didn’t expect that actually… Well, that doesn’t matter. Follow me.”

She showed them so many different rooms, including her own workout rooms and inventing rooms. (She is an inventor, and she built the shoes and the watch/hoverboard.) There were amazing rooms. Some rooms were beautiful and peaceful. Some were huge and full of people working out. After the tour, the girls were surprisingly tired. So Lia showed them their room. It. Was. Huge!!! I wouldn’t even call it a room. It had waterfalls and gigantic beautiful flowers. It was pretty much a hotel paradise if you ask me. It was getting dark, so they went to bed for the night, and suddenly, the voice appeared again. Out of nowhere.

Meet me at my office. Lia is outside to guide you.”

“Well, I guess we should go?”

“Duh!”

They raced out the door and almost fell into Lia. Lucky for their reputation, Lia dodged them just in time. They stumbled into the hall, missing her by a tinsy winsy millimeter. Also lucky for them, they fell on the hoverboard. And within a few seconds of zooming around people, they were outside a wall. The board hovered for a few seconds, and once the wall opened, it zoomed through. Inside was another beautiful estate. And they weren’t alone. Many other people were sitting around a table and smiling. Some were floating around. And some were ghosts, like Lunala.

“What is going on? You haven’t even told us where we are!” Mia said.

That’s why we called you here. Also to explain your mission.

Mission???” Lunala grinned.

“Hehe, yup. This is a long story, so get comfy. Once upon a time, there lived two royal blooded sisters. One represented nature, birth, sky, and light. The other represented destruction, death, lava, and darkness. They hated each other, as they were opposites, and they made no attempt to hide this. They harmed each other and the world around them to show who was stronger and more powerful. But they had no idea what was happening to them. An evil sorcerer known only by a rhyme… dark as the night, swift as a kite, wins all his fights, with a jaguar’s sight… had taken their good side and was sinking bad into it. The sister of light quickly realized and tried to tell her sister, but the magic was too powerful. She was only so powerful until the sorcerer showed her a chance to become his apprentice. Now this, was a chance she could not deny. In her eyes, it was like, ‘This man is giving me the chance to take over the world. Ha! Foolish. I’ll skin him ALIVE once I get everything out of his knowledge.’ But in real life, he was using her to do all his crimes FOR him. Now this was a smart move. In fact, he made such smart moves that he even kept his identity a secret. And that’s pretty impossible to do in a place like this especially if you are a well-known threat to everyone. Now, everyone knows the BAD sister as, ‘the sorcerer’s apprentice.’ It’s a proven rumor that she and her master are planning something. Something big. And we NEED to know what or else… or else…


Chapter Four: The Mission

“Or else what?” Eve asked.

Or else all the dimensions in the whole unalaxy will be controlled by one evil man.”

But how can one man control the entire unicycle-thingy that you were talking about that sounded really big?!” Mia asked, baffled.

This man is much more powerful than you think, and he’s a master of disguise. On his first attempt to control the whole unalaxy, he killed many lives. But luckily, unlike the rest of the people that died, the royal blooded ones, instead of perishing into thin air, turned into ghosts.” Lunala smiled.

 “You are the good sister!!!” Eve and Mia exclaimed in unison. “I can’t believe it!!!” they said again.

“Keep the celebration short, because things have only gotten worse now. So far, we’ve sent two spies, and only one has come back, barely escaping death. She said that the pair had created their secret base somewhere in the amazon. And that ‘spy,’ is actually Lia. And do your, ‘I can’t believe it!!!’ thing inside your heads this time.” Eve and Mia took Lunala’s advice and did it in their heads.

“… Okay… Well, anyways, you’re going to be the next spies. Lia will — ”

Wait! Don’t we need training before we go on our first real mission?” Eve asked.

“You were born to be spies. You don’t need training. Now, as I was saying… Lia will show you how to teleport. Then, you can start your mission however and whenever you want. This is just about getting information, so you can come back anytime you want. Oh, and also, this might help you get started.” She gave them an old, yellowing photo. Eve studied it and looked to Mia.

“It’s of a dragon bracelet. It might come in handy, so keep an eye out for it.” 

“Just know that I’ll always be with you!”

Okay…

“Suis moi!” Lia said. “Uhhhh, follow me, in French.”

Eve stashed the photo in her pocket. Suddenly, the world started to fade. A couple moments later, they spawned to Lia’s workout gym. It was quite a sight.

“Just now, you teleported. To teleport, first think of the place that you want to go to. Discuss it before you do so because you can’t do it without each other. Then say who you are to the Atom Spirit, one of my old friends who will give you advice. So in your case, say Eve, Mia, Panda Spies. Go ahead. Try it.”

“Eve.”

“Mia.”

Panda spies!!!” And for the second time that day, the world around them faded away.

So, where should we go?”

“Definitely to our classroom,” Eve answered.

Why? It’s Sunday, right? Or is my calendar another cheap New Year sell 50% off?”

“Ummm… I don’t have an answer to whatever you’re talking about, but we need to go there because we need to investigate. Yesterday our teacher fainted, and we think it has something to do with this ‘bad guy’ we were informed about,” Mia said.

Say the word, and I’ll send you straight to your destination!!!”

“Well, what’s the word?” Eve asked.

Your mom!!! Hahahahahaha, I’ll never get tired of my jokes!! Haha oh, umm, well, the actual word is cute cat puppy dog. I made it myself.”

Eve and Mia looked at him with a ‘seriously?’ look.

What! I can’t resist them!!!”

That’s what you named the word?”

“Well, I guess we should get going,” Eve said.

Cute cat puppy dog!” they said together. And then the world started spinning into their old classroom. 

The teacher should have still been lying there because the nurses wouldn’t bother to come to their classroom. 

“That’s weird. He’s not here.”

“Maybe the nurses decided to for some out of their minds but reasonable reason to check this room?”

“Probably not.” Something caught Eve’s eye.

“Is that a dragon bracelet on the floor???

“O-M-G, it is!!!” The girls danced around happily as if they had completed the mission… but soon came to realize they hadn’t. 

So, now what?”

“Uhhhhh, how am I supposed to know?” Eve asked putting the abandoned bracelet on. Something shot through her. Maybe magic. But whatever it was, it was growing fast. 

Ugh!!! We’re getting nowhere!!!” Lunala said that the photo of the dragon bracelet would help us. Well now that we’ve found it, something should happen right?”

”Mia? Something weird is — ” But before Eve could finish her sentence, they found themselves in the atom spirit’s home, and then in a deep in a dark wood, nowhere they had ever been before.

“ — wrong. Wow. Where are we, and how did we get here?”

“I don’t know, but it looks like we’re in the amazon.

The magic, or whatever that was inside of Eve had taken them to this forest! They heard footsteps and scrambled behind a tree before they could be spotted. The footsteps, were in fact two people’s footsteps. They were both unrecognizable, wearing dark cloaks and were discussing something.

“… need you to do this. I’m too old to do this stuff.”

“I’m starting to think you’re just using me. Even if you are too old, you can at least step through a portal! Besides, you don’t seem to be getting older at all!” The first voice was dark and low, a man’s voice. The second was a young woman’s voice, and she was about Lunala’s age, but a little younger.

“Just hustle, someone might see us!”

The duo shuffled over to a mysterious tall rectangular shape covered by a black sheet. The girls hadn’t seen it when they entered the forest, and there was a strange opening around the shape in the repeating cluster of trees. The man pulled the sheet off the shape and revealed an old dressing mirror.

“Ahhh, here it is. The portal to Earth. Now, I want you to slowly step inside and retrieve the materials that I had you remember last night.”

“How am I supposed to find them? It’s not like I know where it is already.”

“Just look for a yellow M, which’ll stand for McDonalds. Once you get the things, protect them with your life. Sacrifice anything to get them safe and sound in my clutch. Then, you are dismissed.”

And with that, the man disappeared into thin air. The woman took off her hood and revealed a beautiful face. She seemed familiar, and yet the girls couldn’t remember who she was. She stepped into the mirror.

“Well, she seemed pretty familiar!” Mia said.

“Yeah! I can’t remember what I know her from though!”

“I think the ‘materials’ they were talking about has something to do with our case!!!”

“Well, either way, we should follow her into the portal before it’s too late!”

“Good idea.”

They hopped into the mirror just as the magic was fading from it. The portal was just like the one that had led them to where Lia and the other ghosts were.

“I wouldn’t think earth is important to any of these things going on,” Eve said.

“If it has anything to do with it, maybe we should follow her.”

“Yup.”

And with that, the girls followed the distant cloaked woman. She was fast, and following her required lots of skill. But the girls managed by teleporting to her every few minutes. They arrived in a restaurant with a giant yellow M as its mascot. Ugh. McDonald’s. The woman seemed very interested in the fact that all of the customers had gathered in this particular spot and went around asking innocent people questions about why they had came here while the girls were busy crawling to the kitchen. 

“Now what?” Eve asked.

“Just fit in until she takes action. And worry not, I’m a pro at fitting in.”

“Uh-huh,” Eve said sarcastically. 

“Jealous?” Eve rolled her eyes, and Mia stuck her tongue out. “Okay so here’s what we’re going to do… ”


Chapter Five: The Plan

Mia reached inside her backpack, spread out a long sheet of blueprints, and grabbed two soda cans.

She placed them on the print and said, “This is us. First, we make some noise when the mascot is nearby and lure him over into the kitchen. I’ll throw a sack over his head, tie his hands and feet, and you’ll push him down. Once he’s lying down, I’ll pull off the person’s costume and hop inside. You help me up and also get inside. Then we’ll be ready to explore outside without being caught!”

“Let’s do this!

“Also, lets try to do all of this quietly… ”

But, how am I supposed to be loud when I’m trying to be quiet???”

“Just do what I do okay? Monkey see monkey do.” Eve nodded, and they started their loud improvising band.

Eventually, the mascot guy came in. They did as planned, and when Eve pulled the costume off the man, she didn’t just notice the man. She noticed that the man was a very handsome man indeed. Mia was in position to throw the sack over his head, but when he turned to look at her, she nearly trampled him and ended up falling in Eve’s arms, laughing hysterically. She hit her head on the counter top and went nuts.

 “Oh, hello, my dear old granny Bob!” Her words didn’t match her confused expression. “Oh, and what is Mr. Big boody doing here?”

“Uhh, is she always like this?” the handsome guy asked.

“No, she just hit her head on the counter top.”

“You should get her back to the Central Spy Base.”

“Wha — how did you know?!” Not every day did someone know that they were spies.

“I used to work there. And you two have the same sparkle in your eyes as another spy I know.”

“Well,” Eve said looking back at the mysterious woman. She sighed. “Okay… but I was in the middle of catching the woman… oh wait! Why don’t you go take Mia there while I deal with the case? What? What a great deal!!! I would definitely take the job.”

“Nice try, but I’m prohibited from going back.”

“So you were a spy. Hmm, interesting! So tell me, why why why did you become prohibited from the Central whatever it’s called?”

“Chickens eat barf-arf-arf! I’m a pig!!!” Mia exclaimed after taking a self tour of the kitchen.

“Let’s not get too personal. We should probably get going, and fine, I’ll go with you. So it’s fair.”

“Oh, and what’s your name?”

“Jason. And yours?”

“I’m Eve, and this is my friend Mia.”

“Mia, Mia Mia — ”

“And Eve,” Eve cut in.

Jason picked up Mia and held Eve’s hand. It was warm, and it seemed like such a gesture even though it was only for a short time. 

“Jason. Eve. Mia. Panda spies!!!” Eve said. The world spun into the misty land of the Atom Spirit.

“Hello up there, fat guy!” Jason turned, and his rocket shoes blasted him upwards so that he and the Atom Spirit were face to face. Well mostly nose to face (because the Atom Spirit was so huge!!!).

“You again??? I thought you were banished from the Central Spy Base!!!”

“Well, yeah I was banished. But I’m going to sneak in.” Jason started walking towards the opening in the floor, but the Atom Spirit blocked him.

Nu-u-u!!! Where do you think you’re going???

Eve just stood there while Jason defended her.

“Uhhhh, the YKW. Duh!!!

“… ”

“The you know where. Now get outta my way so I can go. Besides, I have a girl to save” For the first time, the Atom Spirit noticed Eve, standing there behind Jason.

“Ohhh, so it’s you creating all the commotion?! I thought you were on a mission to save the world??? I guess you’re going to be in lots of trouble!!!”

“Whatever, just let us pass,” Eve mumbled pushing past the Atom Spirit.

Just before she stepped in, she motioned Jason to follow her. Jason tipped his imaginary hat to the Atom Spirit and skidded off with Mia on his shoulder.


Chapter Six: Revival

The Central Spy Base was strangely deserted. Normally, there were at least a hundred students roaming about, but today, absolutely no one was there. As if there was something more important than taking a walk!!! Okay, nevermind, there were things more important than taking a walk, but who cared!!!

“I-it’s been such a long time since I’ve been here… ” Jason said, “that I, I forgot how beautiful this place is… ”

Eve noticed he had dropped Mia and that she had started to wake up from a nap.

“It’s strange, nobody here. We should probably stay quiet and alert.” Eve nodded.

“Why?”

“Something is going on… Uhh, I don’t want to talk about it, so yeah!”

“But then what are we going to do about… ”

The pandas brought us together!!!” Mia fell back into her sleep.

“Her.” Eve sighed, looking down.

“Do not fear, Jason is here!!! We’ll just drop her in this closet!!!” When Eve looked up, she saw him slam a closet door closed, lock it, and mash the key into pieces.

No!!! She was like a sister to me!!! Why!!!” 

“Jeez, I was just kidding.” Jason stepped aside, so she could see where he had really hidden her.

“On the shelf, huh? I like your sense of humor, but we should seriously get going.” Eve walked towards the stone wall, Lunala’s meeting place.

Wait!!! You might want to know, the reason I wanted us to be quiet, is because… because… whenever someone comes here, the place automatically knows. Lunala’s been on the search for me for a long time so now that I’ve shown up, she’s obviously looking for me.”

So why’s that bad???”

“I wanna stay hidden, because if Lunala finds me, I’m going to become the future ruler of the Central Spy Base. And I don’t like the whole, ‘ruling’ process.”

Eve nods, not in understanding, for she did not get why he didn’t want to be ruler of the Central Spy Base, but because she wanted him to think she was cool. Eve started to think about how Mia would turn out. And about how life would have been like if she and Mia hadn’t saved Lunala. Something grabbed her and pulled her out of her day dreaming and into another room. 

“What did you do that for???” Eve yelled, pushing away from whoever it was that pulled her. Noticing that it was Jason, she shrank back into her usual hunched position.

“Lunala just walked in, so I ran here, but you were just standing there, so I grabbed you and got over here. If it wasn’t thanks to me, we would have been caught.

“Oh… well thanks,” Eve mumbled without meaning it. Eve looked around to see what room they were in, but she was startled by what she saw.

“Jason? I think you brought us into Lunala’s meeting room!!!” Jason turned and saw what she saw. Tons of people, including Lia were staring at them.

“J-Jason… what are you doing here?” She stepped forward.

“I thought you had left us for good… ” Eve glanced at Jason. He had turned red.

“Guilty as charged,” he murmured. Lia looked straight into his eyes. Her dangerous side had come out.

“You said we would come back together.” She grabbed him by the collar.

You said we could share the deal.” She stopped. She took a deep breath. 

“Excuse me. I will work this out myself, alone.” With that, she walked out of the room, still holding Jason.

“Whoa! That was crazy!” Eve laughed, but nobody else did. They stared at her. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, was that not funny to any of you?” She looked around and saw a snail in its cage laughing along with her. “See, the snail agrees!!!”

Eve plastered a fake smile on her face. She slowly walked out of the room, not wanting to deal with any more snails or grumpy ghosts. Suddenly, it came to her. She took out the picture of the dragon bracelet, and in the background was a forest, too familiar to miss. That was where the magic inside of her had taken them. Just before that, they had found the dragon bracelet in the classroom. She decided to go there. But before she did that, she grabbed Mia. Poor Mia had a scar from the counter incident. 

“Eve. Mia. Panda spies!!!” She tried to do her best imitation of Mia. The world turned white and the Atom Spirit appeared.

Well hello there, Eve dear!!!” he said, patting her head. Eve appreciated it, especially because recently there had been nobody around to love her.

“I would like to go to my classroom.”

“… ”

“Even though it’s Sunday.” The Atom Spirit nodded, and in a blink of an eye, the smokey colorless place became her old classroom. Summer break had sent all the kids sprawling out on the fresh grass. Jealous, Eve rolled her eyes at the thought of it. I need to focu — Ow!!! When she looked down she saw Mia, grabbing her foot. 

“W-what happened?” She looked around. “How did we get here? What’s going on???”

“You passed out when your head hit the counter top in the kitchen of McDonald’s.” Mia nodded in understanding.

“Ohhhhh, I think I remember that… ”

“You need to help me figure this out. I-I can’t do this alone.”

“Well tell me the clues!” Eve explained everything that had happened that day. But she left out the part about Lia and Jason.

So, can you help me???” Eve pleaded with pleading eyes.

Mia smirked and said, “I think I know what the evil man’s plan is!”


Chapter Seven: The Truth

“Eve, I need you to teleport us to the forest using your magic inside of you. It is a place where only special magic can take us. 

“How did you learn all of this stuff?” Eve asked.

“While I conked out, I learned a lot of things you may have not known,” Mia said. 

Eve used the magic inside of her, and it came swirling out of her chest into the world. The forest appeared. Mia walked up to one of the trees. She jumped and grabbed a leaf. She smelled it.

“I knew it!!!”

“Knew what???” Eve had no idea of how a leaf could be so important.

“These leaves are called dragon leaves, and that’s what the picture was supposed to represent, not the actual bracelet. And it makes sense. Mr. Beg Boodey likes and knows the agriculture of dragons by heart.”

“But why is the tree important?”

“The dragon leaf tree’s leaves are the key ingredients to the hypnotizing spell. I think that the evil man was planning on taking over everyone’s minds. They went to McDonald’s to collect supplies.”

“Well, that explains a lot” 

“It would have been nice if Lunala had put in the word, ‘McDonalds’ in her story.”

The story! The man and the woman must have been from Lunala’s story, uhhh, what was his name again, Mia? “

“The evil man.”

“Thanks, pal. And Lunala’s sister. We need to deliver this info before Lunala and the CSB get hypnotized!!!”


Chapter Eight: Surprise!

As Eve and Mia ran down the hall and pounded on the hard stone wall leading to Lunala’s room, Eve felt a sensation of worry drift through her. What if she was too late? What if everyone was already hypnotized??? No, it couldn’t happen. No! No! No! Eve pushed harder and harder on the wall, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally, Mia smiled as she realized.

“Eve, just use your magic!” Embarrassed from not knowing, Eve took a step back and let her miracles begin. She had learned about it when it had magically transported her and Mia to the forest. When she opened the door, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“SURPRISE!!!” everyone yelled. “HAPPY PROMOTION!!!”

Eve couldn’t believe it. She and Mia were getting promoted! She glanced over at Mia, whose eyes bulged out of her face. Music and laughter filled the room. 

Hey, so nice job… on the job! I heard that you’re getting promoted to professional spy with Mia!” Lunala said.

“Yep. But how did you know we were here?” Mia stammered. Lunala smiled.

Remember when I said just before you left to go searching for clues that I’ll always be with you?

“Yeah… what about it?” Eve asked.

So I never left you. Like you never left each other after you saved me. I guess panda Lunala really brought you together.”


Killersx

Today I was going to the beach. Then I realized something, something very strange. I saw dead bodies wash up to shore and slowly come to life. I ran but saw only more and more, like they were invading New York. I don’t know where they came from, but I want to know. Badly.

Back in 2010, the first wave of the apocalypse hit, and my family was taken and murdered, and now — by the beach — I saw them all coming up. I saw my cousin Jeffrey, my dad Bobby, my mom Rhona, my brother Tim, and my sister Shelby. They were all the same people, but they’d been dead for a long time. Before, they had bright orange hair, but now their hair has been darkened and looked maroon, with streaks of black. Their skin was all bloody, and their clothes were raggedy, ripped, and had blood stains on them. 

I know that I’m probably going to die or life is going to be like this forever. For my kids and then theirs too. But I also have a good feeling I am going to have to fix this fast. I really have to find how they got here and how to get rid of them. I don’t know how, so I might need some help.

***

I have been really questioning where the sugar honey ice tea they came from. So I have been calling everyone, hoping to find some people to help me do this thing, even though I think I am the last person because of the apocalypse.

So, I have been dialing a ton of random people, and so far I only have one. His name is jyeugwdgwhd. I can’t pronounce it. It sounds just like gibberish.

Life is hard. Life is hard. Life is hard.

I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Todd, and I hate horror movies. I get really nervous, and now I’m experiencing one by myself. I’m thirteen years old, and so far my favorite thing to do in life is not die. It’s not that I want to be immortal. It’s just I don’t want to die the hard way.

Because I’m not rich, all I’m living in is my basement, and yes, you think I could go to some house like somewhere fancy, but most of them have been destroyed burnt or just plain gross. So far it has worked well because there hasn’t been another wave of the apocalypse since years ago in 2016. The waves come every three years, and I don’t know why. And I really want to find out.

Right now I hope I’m safe because dead bodies have been arriving on the shore, awakening from some place in the middle of the ocean. And I don’t know how I can do all of this with a guy that doesn’t even know how to spell his name.

***

The guy said that his backstory is that he was a sad man that lived at the end of gfhj j street. I think he is from another world. Another another.

***

Hmph… the guy is actually named Gus, and he lived in Angola, Africa. He said he was just joking with everything he said. Though he told me something dark and freaky. He said he has a photographic memory, and he saw his parents one day when he was a kid. He was one month and three days old. He saw one thing, a “person” with ripped clothes, and he saw them with scissors and then stabbed his mom and dad in front of his eyes. And he thinks it was a zombina (zombie), and so he wants to get revenge and kill all the zombinas in the world.

Well one, his backstory it is really disturbing and gross. But he might help me… 

Ten days later… 

So, ummm, zombies have been really invading our houses, and well, I found one more person named Hope, and she is not that smart, but her name might be the key to win this. 

I feel like all of this was a dream, and it is all not real because before all of this, when I was nine, everything was normal. So do we live in the Matrix or what… Nevermind. 

Thirteen days later… 

Hope said that this is all a dream, and she can read the future with her magical sword, and her sword’s name was rebelitoticomarama and her name is really I’m going to take a walk. 

I started walking, but then a blue green blue portal came out under my foot, and I slipped, and I screamed, but then all of my friends came in and half of a zombie and then I saw something amazing… 

To be continued… 


Untitled

Chapter One

What in the world was happening!!! Everything seemed blurry. I was trying to take in my surroundings, so I went and grabbed onto something. It could not hold my weight, and it fell on my head, making me see things ten times worse than I could before, and a glass of some sort of liquid fell on me and shattered. Then, I looked around and saw numbers everywhere. Somehow I found a pattern and began making the numbers into shapes and real things. I did not know how this happened. I was never really sharp in math. In fact, I got D’s in math. I kept on looking around, and I saw a nice futuristic building. It had an all you can eat fro-yo station, a massive safe, a bunch of computers, and a bunch of iPads, iPhones, and Apple watches. That’s when it hit me! There were so many products from Apple. I knew it was the huge company’s storage room! Then suddenly I was turning a shade of yellow. I got so freaked out that I screamed!! I heard footsteps coming, so I ducked behind a nearby shelf full of iPads. The door creaked open, then a dark shadow pounced onto me.

I heard a little voice say, “Savanna, what in the world are you doing here?”

I recognized that voice.

“Mr. O’Malley?” I asked.

Even in the dark I could see him looking surprised.

“How do you know it is me?” he asked me.

I did not know why I told him the truth, but it just slipped out. “Your breath smells like onions.”


Chapter Two

The next thing I knew I was in the math room, which is where Mr. O’Malley taught. I was really drowsy, and I checked my pulse. I had been knocked unconscious for about two hours. I got up and steadied myself with one of the desks in there and went to the vending machine. I was so hungry. However, when I wanted a healthy energy bar, after I entered the code, the tile underneath the floor started to open. The next thing I knew, I was on a trampoline that broke my fall. I looked around and did a quick scan of the room. It had a nice and soft couch, a vault, a bed, and a huge TV screen. Then I decided to sit on the couch and reflect on what had just happened. I was so confused. Why did I check my pulse to see how long I had been unconscious? What was suddenly making me so smart? How did I fall into the floor? Is Mr. O’Malley evil? Is this his hideout? I thought I was on to something. I knew how this happened. Mr. O’Malley needed privacy, so he picked the only thing in the vending machine that he knew we would never touch. Wait, this did not add up. How was I suddenly becoming so smart? I saw the tile slowly creeping open. Therefore, I jumped to safety under the couch. I heard a creak coming from the trampoline. I took a little quick peek, and I saw Mr. O’Malley. Thankfully he did not notice me. He went straight to the computer and began typing something. He kept on looking around to see if anyone was in there spying on him.

This was what made me to jump out and say, “What are you doing!!!”

Instead of responding with an answer, he asked me, “What are you doing here?”

“I asked you first!” I said in response.

He gave me a hard stare and said, “If you don’t tell me now, I will give you an F on your report card.” 

Here is what I found for, “If you don’t tell me now, I will give you an F on your report card.”

I don’t know how, but I sounded like Siri. I was so freaked out. Wait!! I’ve got it. This was all caused by the liquid thing that fell from the table. Everything was falling into place! Since we were at the Apple store, I was accidentally exposed to their top secret liquid that made Apple products so smart. That was why I was so smart, and that was why I knew so much suddenly. Also Siri was part of Apple. That’s why I sounded like Siri, and that’s also why I was turning colors based on my mood. That’s an app called D.I.Y. mood clothes and skin. I couldn’t believe that I just found that out! That was so awesome! Now I could know every strategy, be smart, and know every app that would either help me or just be really fun.

Mr. O’Malley on the other hand seemed a mix between mad, shocked and horrified!!!

He instantly started to yell at me. “How did you figure that out!”

After I sounded like Siri, I replied, “I started thinking about pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, and right then and there I started to say the entire definition of pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Noun, an invented long word said to mean a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust. Do want to hear the definition of Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?”

Mr. O’Malley instantly said, “No!”

He sounded like he didn’t want to hear another word from me. 

Also I knew myself well, so I knew that I would have never known the definition to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. I would only know that if a miracle happened. Other than that I would probably not know, like, not even at the end of time. That’s how bad I was at vocabulary. Wait, hear me out. I have a good reason for not studying vocabulary. I personally thought that was a waste of time. For example, vocabulary was just a harder and fancier way to say a simple word. Therefore it was absolutely useless to waste your time to memorize them.

Then Mr. O’Malley inched in my face… I woke in my bedroom, and I thought it was all a dream until looked at the clock. It was 4:00 pm. Therefore, it wasn’t possible that I slept from morning to 4:00PM!!! I was actually an early bird. I woke up everyday at 6:30 to catch the bus, so I had a habit of waking up early. Ugh, Mr. O’Malley was so obsessed with knocking people out. Also not to mention, how did he get me in my bedroom? For now, all I could conclude was that he had a problem.

O-M-G! I totally forgot all about my science project. It was due tomorrow, Monday!! I kind of got distracted and ended up eating my project supplies, and there was no time to get more. (Also did I mention I lived in the Apple store? My parents worked there and didn’t have much money, so we slept in my mom’s and dad’s office. Also they worked for a long time, and I was not supposed to go outside without permission.) The assignment was to make an electron out of candy. Also, it was assigned like three weeks ago. Oh no, I just realized that if Mr. O’Malley already hated me for figuring out some classified stuff, he would hate me even more for forgetting to do my assignment that was assigned three weeks ago. Three weeks was literally the longest time he’d ever given us to do the assignment. I was dead.


Chapter Three

Monday.

At school.

I ended up with no assignment, so I got detention.

“Great, nothing like thinking about what I have done for an hour.”

(Our school was strict about detention. There were even rankings to see how long you needed detention. Once, a kid named Blade got detention for five hours every day for the rest of the school year. It was September. He got this because he skipped school for a week. That probably explained why he moved to Alaska. Also he said he went there to “study penguins and how global warming is impacting the Earth” in October. However, we all knew that he was still here because I saw him around my house in December, and I told it to my bestie, and she spilled the beans to my other friend, and just like that everyone knew. I don’t know how, but then I was elected class president, and we never had a class president!) 

Finally, detention was over. I was walking back from school when Mr. O’Malley ran like his legs were on fire from a doughnut store across the street. Then a person who looked like the manager came out running, and his face was red to the point he looked like tomato.

Then, Mr. O’Malley came running towards me and looked into my eyes and said, “If you tell anybody about me stealing doughnuts, I am telling Teddy Herman to fire your parents.”

And just like that he ran away. Ugh, I hated how he was so close to Teddy Herman! 

When I got home I scanned the whole room for bugs. I actually found three, one under the couch, another one resting on the pipes in the bathroom sink, and another one in the light hanging from the ceiling. I took them out and went into the store for a “stroll.” I put all three of the bugs in random peoples bags, and I was on my way home. (By the way, Teddy Herman was the owner of Apple.) I had decided to tell my parents what happened.

As soon as both of my parents were home, I made them sit down at the dining table, and it got serious. I told them everything that happened so far. Then they freaked out and gave me a lecture about not telling them sooner. And they were planning to sue the company because I found bugs in our apartment. Then I told my parents about how Mr. O’Malley stole a bunch of doughnuts from Delish Doughnuts. Then I kept on rambling on about how I hated him and how he threatened me.

Then in the middle of that, my dad said, “You shouldn’t hate him. He’s your uncle… ”


Emma Williams

Preface

Hugo reaches his hand out to mine. Our fingers touch and stay like that. It may be the happiest moment of my life, if M. Clément hadn’t just stormed in the room.

“You lied to me!” I snarl at M. Clément.

Watch out!” he yells.

Just then, something very large hits my head, and I black out.


Chapter One: M. Clément’s Bakery

On my walk to school, I always pass M. Clément’s bakery on the corner. 

“Hello!” I say and wave.

M. Clément waves back, and I smile.

“Come for your usual?” he asks me.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m a little late for school.”

He shrugs. “Next time.”

I look back at him one last time and make my way to school.


Chapter Two: The Hourglass

The next day, Mr. Clément motions to me to come inside his bakery. It is the weekend, so I have time to spend with him. I give a little tug on Daisy, my dog’s leash, and we cross the street.

When I walk in the door, Penny, M. Clément’s cat, greets me with her usual rub on the leg.

“Bonjour! Mon petit assistant,” he says, grabbing a croissant de chocolat for me.

He passes it to me, and I sit down in one of his boutique coffee tables. I munch away vigorously, and when I am done, M. Clément sweeps my crumbs off the table with one graceful motion of his little broom.

“Merci, M. Clément,” I say to him. I love how it is now, like old times.

“Always,” he smiles. Then he pauses and adds, “Emma, I have to talk to you about something.” That’s weird, he never uses my first name, I think it’s because he doesn’t think it’s classic French.

“Yeah, about what?” I ask, suddenly getting very interested.

“Come, I will show you something.” M. Clément leads me to the back of his bakery. 

I see Hugo Bergeron kneading the dough for a croissant — or maybe an éclair, I can’t tell. 

I wave to him, and he gives me a toothy smile. I silently laugh.

“Hey,” Hugo says to me and goes back to kneading his piece of dough, and when M. Clément pulls me along with him even further back, Hugo replaces his “hey” with “ou, au revoir!”

M. Clément leads me further than I have been before, and we enter a small room with the label M. Clément on the door. 

It is very cozy in here, with furniture lining most of the walls, except for the wall with the door and the one with the fireplace. I do not know how M. Clément manages to get the fireplace in his little suite he rented for his boutique bakery. It just grows and grows every time he shows me a little more of what I had thought to be un petit boulangerie.

M. Clément motions for me to sit down, so I find myself seated in the most comfortable sofa I have ever sat on and with peppermint tea (my favorite type).

“Emma Williams,” he says, rummaging through a knapsack he has lying on the floor. “Do you know what this is?” M. Clément finally finds what he is looking for and brings it out, so I can examine it carefully. 

In his hands sits an hourglass with two oiseaux winding around it. The birds look like white swans but with red stripes forming around their necks. 

“They look to me like regular oiseaux, swans, M. Clément,” I say. 

“Emma, look closer, look inside!” M. Clément says with much enthusiasm.

Inside there is clean, white sand flowing forever toward… the top? Okay, I admit, that’s a bit odd but otherwise… I don’t know.

“Well, the sand’s going toward the top — is that what you’re getting at?” I ask M. Clément.

“Yes yes, but don’t you feel it?” I have no idea what M. Clément is talking about.

I rack my brain for anything I might feel and surprisingly, I feel something. I just have this feeling that something is getting low. I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to refill the thing or else… I trail off. 

“Is… is something getting low?” I ask, feeling very stupid in doing so. 

“Yes yes, now you’re getting it,” M. Clément says. “We have one more minute.”

“Sorry?” I ask him, getting confused.

“Emma, do you notice the draining feeling?”

“Yes,” I do actually feel it.

“When it feels this depressing… there is only one more minute,” M. Clément pronounces minute like minuuuuuuuuuuute. Well, I guess everyone here does.

I think M. Clément sees my puzzled face because he says, “When someone spreads a bad rumor around about me, the hourglass will slowly start losing its sand, and if not stopped, will cause mass destruction. An old friend gave it to me as a gift, but over the years, I have started to question if it is really a gift or a curse in disguise.”

“What kind of destruction will it cause?” I ask.

“Well, the sand will start slipping out of ze hourglass, and then I do not know. Anything could happen from there!”

“Like what?”

“The ‘ole city of Paris could be consumed by sand for all I know!”

“Is there any way to stop it?” I ask in my very American accent.

“Well I do not know! I would guess you could somehow prove the rumor wrong,” M. Clément says with a sigh. “It has never worked.”

“But — but every problem has multiple solutions, if you are thinking! Being creative!” I pause. No one says anything for a few moments. “Isn’t that what you always tell me?”

“Yeah, yeah… I guess.” 

“Um, M. Clément? Are you okay?” 

“Yes, of course,” he says quickly. “Why don’t you go back to your house and spend some time with your papa?”

Well that was the end of our little discussion. I head home for dinner.


Chapter Three: Family

Mama has dinner ready for me. It is pasta and potatoes. Matthew, my brother, is already sitting at the table. We don’t talk much, and that is when I get lost in thought. 

I realize now that I haven’t yet told you that my family are immigrants from the United States. Well, my papa went to university here in Paris and met my mama — and he stayed. I guess we are originally from Africa ‘cause we’re African American, but you get the idea, anyway. 

I have frizzy dark brown hair like milk chocolate. I have the same bright sky-blue eyes as my Mama — very much unlike my Papa’s hazelnut eyes. And of course my caramel skin. I love caramel. It is my favourite thing in the world.

Now back to dinner. Mama is already washing the dishes. Wait — dinner is done? I look at my plate. I have eaten a half a potato, nothing else.

“Yes, that’s right Emma,” Mama says. “You have a lot more eating to do.”


Chapter Four: The Bergerons

I, yes, you’ve already guessed it, stop by M. Clément’s Bakery this morning. I rub Penny’s tummy, say hello to Hugo, and follow M. Clément to the back.

He tells me almost exactly what he told me yesterday, but with one more thing that catches my eye — or wait no, my ears?

After the part where he tells me about proving the rumor wrong, and the “It has never worked” part, he says, “Unless … no, never mind.”

Of course, I say, “What? Please tell me, M. Clément!” 

“No no, it wouldn’t work.”

“Just tell me,” I urge. 

I think he gives up on my obstinate attitude, because he says, “Oh, okay. If we must.” He pauses to clear his throat. “Well, I’ve tried and so has most of the generations of people here in Paris, but never has anyone else. So, I thought partly because your father is originally from the United States, well maybe you would be able to help me?”

“Yes, yes, M. Clément! Of course I’ll help you!” I say in excitement. “So, what is the rumor, and who spread it?” 

“Well, I believe one of my old friends from school still holds a very nasty grudge on me. His name: Monsieur Thomas Bergeron.”

“You mean Hugo’s father?” I say very loudly. 

“Yes, I do indeed. And that is why I would like Hugo to come with you on your little adventure. I think he will be key. Do you agree?”

I blush almost as red as a tomato. I have a crush on Hugo Bergeron. There, I said it to you. Yes! Now it feels so much better. I have so many secrets. And sometimes it’s hard to keep them totally sucked inside. So they come out in emotions. 

And here’s what I say to M. Clément: “Yes.” And then all of my emotions I have been trying to keep in come rushing out, all right in front of M. Clément. 

Anger. Guilt. Fury. Joy. And something in between all of them. And I start crying. 

M. Clément just sits there. Then he walks out of the room. He comes back carrying a little brown bag. He holds it out to me, and I open it. Inside is a croissant de chocolat. 

“Go home, Emma. We can get started whenever you feel ready.”

“Thank you, M. Clément.”

“Of course.” He smiles mega-big.


Chapter Five: Thoughts

When I get home, I lie down on my bed and just think. I think about my whole big life. All the years I’ve passed, all the years to come.

In French, we say, instead of I am (how old you are), I have (your age) years.

I like it better that way. (No offense, English.)

I have so much longer to come, and I’ve only lived a tiny bit of my life. 

I have honestly considered saying no to M. Clément, and just ignoring him. Never going into his bakery again. But he’s the only true friend I have. I mean, I have some friends from school and other places, but none of them really understand me, and how hard it was to leave New York. And not just the city, but all my friends, my family, and my apartment. 

We moved to Paris because Papa found a spot in a big law firm here. We were all so happy for him at the time, but I didn’t realize then what it would mean in the long term. 

So, on the weekend, I will go to M. Clément’s bakery and be ready to confess. 


Chapter Six: My Confession

He sits me down in one of his awesomely comfortable armchairs, and I tell him everything. I don’t even miss the part about New York. And I tell him about my crush on Hugo. 

“Emma,” he says once I am done. “I will go get Hugo now, and we can keep your little crush a secret.”

“I will if you will.”

“Deal.” The few minutes of waiting for M. Clément to come feel like hours. 

Finally, M. Clément comes back with Hugo trailing behind him. 

“Oh, hey, Emma,” Hugo says. “I didn’t realize you were here, too.”

M. Clément saves me from a very embarrassing answer by saying, “Yes. We want you to help us.”

“Help you with what?”

M. Clément tells Hugo our plan. While he is talking, Hugo just nods. “I know it’s a lot to ask you, Hugo. You know, asking you to believe your father spread this horrible rumor and then getting you to work against him,” M. Clément finishes. 

“I know,” Hugo says.

I am suddenly all confused. “You know? What?”

“My father. He hated when I told him that I had been going to M. Clément’s bakery.”

“Then how do you still go?”

“I sneak away after school.”

“But you have after school, right?” I ask. “With Madam Dejardin.” I know that because my older brother is in grade eight with Hugo. 

“I sneak away from that.”

“But my brother said you’re always at after school.” This will go on forever: me asking something, Hugo proving me wrong, me trying to prove him wrong, etc.

“That our little secret,” Hugo says with a hint of a smile. “Now anyway, Emma, are you free next Saturday?” 

“Yeah.”

“Okay, cool. You can meet at my place, then.”

And that was it. Hugo walked out of the room leaving me and M. Clément alone in the room.

“Okay then,” I say and walk out.


Chapter Seven: Papa and Me/Our Sleepover

Friday night, I cannot sleep. I stay up all night wondering what will happen. I don’t understand. It just seems so vague. 

Papa knocks on my door at 3:43. 

“I don’t hear you snoring,” he says. 

“You’re back?”

“Yep.” He sits on my bed. “Fill me in on what’s happening in your life. School. Friends.”

“Can we pinky promise you won’t tell Mama, Matthew especially, or anyone?”

“Promise.” We latch pinkies. And shake. “Now you tell me.”

I spill. Everything.

“Wow,” Papa says when I’m done. “No kidding you’re having trouble sleeping.” He pauses. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t we have a dad-daughter sleepover?”

“Sure!” We talk about things the rest of the night. And I kind of just drift to sleep, listening to my father’s soothing drawl.


Chapter Eight: Waking Up

Papa is shaking me in my dream — wait no, not a dream. I bolt awake. 

“Hey, kiddo,” he says. “Time to have breakfast.”


Chapter Nine: The Bergeron’s House/Mansion

I arrive at Hugo’s place at exactly 11:26. I’ve never realized how big it is. 

There is a gateway in which I open and follow a stone path with lamps along it surrounded with trees. 

I finally get to the big wooden door. I ring the bell. Hugo greets me with his classic toothy grin. 

He leads me through a living room and to another, smaller living room. M. Bergeron is sitting there. 

M. Bergeron has teal eyes, quite like Hugo’s, which compliments his jet black hair. 

“Are you Matthew’s sister?” he asks. 

“Yeah.”

M. Bergeron opens his mouth to speak again, but is cut off by Hugo. 

“So, getting to the point, we were wondering if we could go up to my room.”

A woman, I’m guessing to be Hugo’s mother, walks into the room. 

She has a bob in her perfect dirty blond hair, just like her son. 

“Sure,” she says. “I’ll make you guys a snack.” She smiles.


Chapter Ten: The Diary

Hugo leads me to what I’m guessing to be his room. It is so big. One wall is covered with windows from ceiling to floor with long ornate drapes covering the view. Dirty clothes line the floor, and his shelf is covered with photos of him, Matthew, and Oliver. 

“So, I snuck into my dad’s office, and here’s what I found,” Hugo says. He is about to bring out a piece of paper when I cut him off.

“Wait — you snuck into your dad’s office?!” I smile really big now. 

“Yup,” Hugo shoves a battered black leather book into my face. “My dad’s diary from 19 years ago. I figured out that’s when the person, my dad, as you’ll see, gave M. Clément the hourglass.”

 I open up the diary, very curious. Curly cursive covers the pages in French, but I will translate it for you. Here’s what it says:

03/09/00

Dear Diary,

I gave my old friend the hourglass today. It feels like such a big weight lifted off my shoulders. M. Clément will pay for what he did to our family. Tomorrow I will spread the rumor. He was the rich, famous one. I had to fight for my position. Not him. Now everyone will think he lied. He will be fired, and I will be the next mayor. My son will be happy. We can live as a family. Not a broken family because of Hugo Clément, but a real, happy family. 

M. Bergeron

“Wow, Hugo,” is all I can say. 

“Yup.”

“That changes everything.”

“We have to tell M. Clément!” I yell. 

“No, but I think he already knows. The rumor makes him look really bad.”

“Hey, you’re right!” I say. “Am I ever mad at him. I trusted him!” I start pacing. 

“Hey, Emma. Don’t get so upset. Just face it. One o’clock tomorrow in front of my house.”

“Cool.”


Chapter Eleven: Back To the Unfamiliar Yet Familiar Bakery

I get to his house at 1:02. Two minutes late. Whatever.

I ring the doorbell, and Hugo emerges.

“You ready?”

“Yup,” he says.

We walk to the bus stop near Hugo’s house and take it seven stops. We get out exactly two blocks from M. Clément’s bakery.

When we get there, I open the door and take a deep breath. M. Clément is nowhere in sight.

Hugo reaches his hand out to mine. Our fingers touch and stay like that. It may be the happiest moment of my life, if M. Clément hadn’t just stormed in the room.

“You lied to me!” I snarl at M. Clément.

Watch out!” he yells.

Just then, something very large hits my head, and I black out.


Chapter Twelve: At the Hospital

I wake up in a bed that is not mine. I realize I am in a hospital because a nurse comes up to me.

“You have lots of visitors,” she says in French. 

“Who?” I ask.

“Do you want your family to come in?”

“Yes.”

The nurse opens a door and Mama, Papa, and Matthew rush in. They hug me super tight. 

“You have a concussion,” says Matthew. “Apparently it’s really bad and could cause severe brain damage if not treated properly.” 

“Don’t just say it like that,” Mama scolds. 

“Sorry.”

“Are you okay?” Papa asks. “We’ll always be here for you.”

“I know. I love you.”

“We love you too, always.”

I smile.

The nurse enters the room again. She says, “You have more visitors. Hugo Bergeron, and M. Clément.”

“You can let them in.”

She opens the door again, and Hugo rushes to my side. “Are you okay?” he asks. “That was a really big piece of concrete that hit your head!”

“Wait — that’s what gave me the concussion?”

“Yup, and you’re lucky you survived!” 

M. Clément pushes past Hugo. He says, “I am so sorry, Emma. I guess there isn’t anything that can make up for it.”

“What about a croissant au chocolat every day?”

“Sure. And hey, you should really get your ceiling fixed!”

M. Clément smiles. I smile even bigger. 

The End!


Dragon Time (Part Two)

In New York City, Maria and the dragons were fooling around in Maria’s new room. They were making a mess and knocked a mug off a dresser, and it was a mug that Maria hated, so Maria was okay with it. And then they burned the dresser for fun. Nothing was in it, so Maria was okay with it. She knew that the dragons liked breaking stuff.

When the dragons were about to break her bed, she said, “No! That’s my bed!”

The dragons said, “Fine!

They went into the kitchen, and then Maria heard screaming. It was the cook! The dragons made her omelette burnt. Then, she had to make bacon, and when she left, the dragons cooked it for her and shoved it on a plate, took it to Maria’s room, and started eating. They snuck a bottle of beer into Maria’s room. Maria knew the dragons loved beer, so she was okay with it. The dragons drained the bottle very quickly. The dragons then trooped back down to the kitchen. They grabbed a jar of jam, took some pancakes, and trooped back up. And they gobbled them down. And then they drained up a whole jar of jam.

Maria was like, “Guys, what are you doing?”

And just then their tails were disappearing behind the door. Then the cook heard someone screaming. It was Maria. The tails had closed the door, and she heard the lock. And then she heard it again. When she tried to open the door, it opened smoothly. Then Maria heard someone screaming.

The cook was yelling at the dragons. “Bad dragons! Bad dragons! No beer for you!”

Then they heard something being scratched. It was the dragons scratching at the walls. Maria went to the wall and sighed. The dragons had completely ruined the wall. Then the earth dragon trooped in and fixed the wall. He used his mind to transport himself to Maria’s room. Then he flew out the window and circled over the city doing what everybody desired. But when somebody needed a shower, he used his mind to bring the water dragon into the house, and he gave a shower with nice and cool water. When somebody needed some quiet, he made earmuffs and put them around somebody’s ears. And when people were building a building, he always used his mind to make it spring out of nowhere.

Wowy made cars appear when somebody needed to go somewhere, and he delivered mail. He came home and had some beer.

Maria said, “Look, I found something!”

She pointed to an enormous black egg. Then she hit it with a hammer, and a dozen little brown dragons came out. And they looked exactly the same as Wowy! Then all 13 dragons made a pink egg. When it hatched, a pink dragon came out. And then it made a cupcake go on to a plate. It also made a delicious steak.

And then Maria said, “Pretty cool, huh?”

No!” screamed the dragons.

Then Maria said, “Why not?”

They said, “Because we can do that!”

Then the dragon made an exact copy of Wowy. Then, it made an exact copy of the sun and moon dragons. Then it made a copy of their pet unicorn. Then it said that it could make things duplicate and it could make things appear. Then it made an exact copy of some ground beef. Then it made a really tall beer bottle appear. He did this process several times, and there were ten beer bottles. They also made an exact copy of dreamer and the earth dragon. It also made a copy of itself. Then there was an ultimate dragon battle… 

In the end, the pink dragon won. Once they finished, they duplicated all the bushes with the pink dragon. The pink dragon also sneakily made some apple trees appear. Then she duplicated them, too. Then she duplicated herself, and she made her second self go around duplicating everything she saw, except for living things because otherwise things would get mixed up. Then, the real pink dragon made an illusion appear and an obstacle course. She made the dragons go through it. Most of the dragons failed. Once they failed, the pink dragons made them appear in front of her and were disqualified from the second challenge. The others who succeeded went through the rest of the course. Eventually, there was only one left, the earth dragon. 

The pink dragon went to oppose the earth dragon. The last stage was a battle. They shot fire and water, and they used everything they had, until suddenly the earth dragon used his power which no one else had found out. The power was… 

Instant Death.

The earth dragon used his power, and boom, the pink dragon lay dead. And then the pink dragon dissolved into powder, and the powder melted into the ground. The powder then exploded out of the ground in the shape of an egg. 

It was an egg! Then the egg collapsed, and there stood a snake. (Do snakes stand?) Then the snake laid eggs out of its mouth.

And to the snake, Maria said, “Be gone!”

The snake walked away. (Do snakes walk?) Then the eggs opened, and there were many tiny pink dragons. But they were vicious and sinister! They started swarming, the dragons, except for one… that one grew and grew until it became the healing dragon! 

Maria ran toward it and told it to heal the others. The dragon healed them, and then he became invulnerable, which meant his skin turned to iron except for one spot. His weak spot was his toenail. And then it just so happened that the dragons attacked him in the toenail. And it so happened that the healing dragon ran. And then he flew away, the pink dragons after him.

Then he screamed, “Incoming!” and he flew straight into a hospital.

The pink dragons went after him, but he used his power on hospitals, and they exploded as soon as they got in range. And on that happy note, he flew back. And while he was doing his hospital thing, Maria found out the pink dragon’s weakness. The weakness was beer! It was weird because all the other dragons loved beer — that was all they wanted to drink. That’s why they couldn’t defeat the pink dragons with their own weapons. And it was sad because they had beer. 

Only one dragon was left, and he charged. And then Jack had a brilliant idea.

“Burrito fight!!!” he yelled.

They got out frozen burritos, defrosted them, and hurled them at the pink dragon. The pink dragon dodged a guacamole one with no problem, but then the salsa one smacked him in the face. He went spiralling into the air, and with a quick swipe from a potato one, he crashed down. 

Then for the final thing: the earth dragon hurled a pork one and made the pork burrito grow fists, a head, feet, and wings, and then it started punching the pink dragon, and it was a sumo wrestling fight in the air. And so the burrito faked left, and the dragon faked right, and then the burrito whirled around kicked the dragon in the face.

Maria yelled, “Yeah!” and then the pork burrito opened up, and a flying pig charged out and finished off the dragon by blowing beer out of its mouth.

And they flew back to Dragon Land and lived happily ever after. The end.

Not!

The pink dragon fell onto the ground, and the ground absorbed him. And there, the grass started singing. The earth dragon groaned and fell. The green dragon danced a jig and also fell. Then Jack extinguished Mark. Mark dried up Jack in the process. And then, all of them got back up and forgot the earth dragon’s power was instant death. It was actually knockout. So, they all got back up, including the pink dragon. It was the good one, not the vicious and sinister one. Then the flying pig became a pet. The pig started playing with the unicorn. And then the dragons played tag. The earth dragon made walls in front of the others while Wowy made them disappear. So they were playing tag, and Maria was playing with them. Then the earth dragon made bigger walls, so Maria couldn’t jump over, but he made weak walls, so she crashed through them. Then the earth dragon made them harder, so she couldn’t break them, but she tried to dodge them. But the walls just kept moving themselves in front of them.

Then the dragons raided the kitchen for some beer. The cook was nice, so she let them have it. Then they fried an omelette and ate it. Then she got mad.

Then a new dragon dropped from the sky and said, “Wh-at’s n-ext?”

And another dragon of that type dropped from the sky onto his head and said, “What’s next?” Then the dragon made a shield and threw it into Dragon Land. Then he said, “What’s next?”

Then the shield hit him on the head, and he tried to stay conscious as he said, “What’s next?” Then he passed out. When he was conscious again, he threw a sword into Dragon Land. Then he said, “What’s next?”

Then the sword came back and struck the new dragon in the heart, but nothing happened. The dragon said, “What’s next?” Then the shield slammed him in the face and killed him.

Then the dragons drank some more beer because the dragons were being obnoxious. They were partying because he died. They didn’t exactly not like them. It’s just that they were being annoying. If anything, they wanted reinforcements for their army.

What the dragons didn’t know was that Maria was a cannibal monster who was going to overthrow the dragons once they took over the world.

Not!

Actually what the dragons didn’t know was that the dragons they killed were very annoying but had extraordinary powers. Their powers could even heal death. The powers absorbed into the ground, and then the ground could heal death. But it could only heal those dragons. It healed those dragons, and then they became actual earth dragons as the earth had their powers. And they had the earth’s powers. Those dragons again began to be annoying, but when they got mad, they rose evil enemies from the ground. And then they had to defeat them again. The worst time was when they rose the pink dragons. They walked around trying to kill the humans (the pink dragons, I mean. Not the annoying ones). But one of the annoying dragons powers was making death. 

The dragons flew around, and the annoying dragons also flew around. When the annoying dragons saw someone, they pestered them by throwing rocks, and then when they wanted someone to come back from the dead, they made that someone come back. Afterward as a sacrifice, they killed that flying pig. But after, it blew beer in their faces. But before it could reach their faces, the water dragon manipulated the water and the beer to make it rapid fire machine gun mode at the pig. The pig got soaked, and then it ran toward the wall and slammed its head into the wall. Then the dragons flew, and the fire dragon barbequed the pig. They killed the pig, but the annoying dragon made the pig come back to life. The dragons walked away, and they lived happily ever after. Not!

Then an army of vicious snakes, which could fly, attacked. They fought them, and they got bitten, but it didn’t affect them. After the siege of the snakes, they partied… not! Another army of snakes attacked. These had a different weakness. Not claw. Their weakness was unicorns. But they didn’t know that, and they did the same strategy that they did with the pink dragons. The healing dragon did his thing with the hospitals, and they did a burrito fight. But this time they were pizza burritos. A pizza burrito the size of a grenade hit the army of snakes and exploded. Pepperoni flew through the air, blinding the snakes. The snakes slithered around, bumping into each other, and then Maria figured out the weakness. She got out a regular burrito — it was a pork burrito. She made the dragons breathe on it and… she threw it! It landed in the army, and a unicorn charged out. The unicorn romped around until all the snakes were dead, and that was what the dragons called The Siege of the Snakes.

And then they lived happily ever after… 


The Weird Pig

Once there was this pig named Kograt. He was 1,000 years old and very young for a pig.

One day, Kograt felt ill. He thought, Is it the potato smashed with tomatoes or the hay smushed with onions? Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and the illness still didn’t get better! 

One winter morning, Kograt found himself farting ice cream!

So immediately he yelled, “Author!!!

And a pig dressed as a doctor came running,  “What is it this time?” the pig doctor named Author asked. 

“I’m farting out ice cream!” Korgat sang in an opera voice.

“You’ll be fine. It’s just a sign that you’re becoming a computer!” Author said in a calming voice. (That, my friends, was totally not true. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, so just saying!) 

“Lskdjf lkjoijehoiuk jslkdjf iw jlsejf sdlkfj dijweoifjio jwijfihrglkjdhfglksjdfhglsjfdh bla bla boiufijfjjd lba lb bla bla b6la,” Author said.

While Author was babbling on about scientific stuff, Kograt slowly dozed off and suddenly woke up, and he felt he was sinking in his bed of hay. And he dropped down a portal that led him inside a toilet. Since he was a weird pig, he had taco wings. So he used them to fly around the toilet and then after a few laps, the taco wings got smelly and just broke off. Now the pig had nothing to do, so he searched around the toilet and found a computer.

And he said, “Hi, my future self. You do know that I am going to be a computer someday, right?”

But the computer just answered him back with a funny cat video.

Sixteen hours later… 

Kograt had nothing to do, so he just wandered around the whole time. Suddenly a snake appeared in the bathroom and ate him. And he turned into an owl. He didn’t know he turned into an owl at all, because he was dumb. In the snake’s belly, all he found was dust. So he tried eating the dust, but that didn’t turn out so well because the dust had poisonous snake venom. It was the exact type that will turn any owl into a pig, then a rabbit, then a sofa, then a tissue box, then a pig again, then a rabbit, then a sofa, then a tissue box, then a pig, then a rabbit, then a sofa, then a tissue box over and over again… so… Kograt changed back into a pig. Then changed into a rabbit. Then changed into a sofa. Then changed into a tissue box. And finally, after many, many, many changes, he finally changed back into a pig, then stopped.

But Kograt wasn’t the only one having a bad day. (Well, it wasn’t bad for Korgat since he was dumb). The snake was having a bad day too, a bad flu day. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and the snake’s flu still didn’t recover.

One autumn afternoon, the snake started farting books.

So he immediately called out, “Gunther!”

And a snake dressed as a doctor came slithering. “What is it this time?” Gunther asked.

“I’m farting out books!” the snake howled.

“You’ll be fine. It’s just a sign that you’re going to puke out a pig,” Gunther said calmly.

That, my friends, was true. After eating a lot of medicine, the snake finally puked out Kograt. Since Kograt was free, the snake was hungry. So the snake ate Kograt again. And the same thing happened over and over and over again.

First, the snake felt sick.

Then, he called out, “Gunther!”

Then, he ate medicine. Then, he puked out Kograt. Then, he ate Kograt again and on and on and on!

Finally, Kograt escaped and then went and tried to get out of the toilet. But then he found an X-ray, and he tried it on himself. And he found out that all this chaos happened because he ate hay smushed with onions, plus tomatoes smashed with potatoes together (which gives all pigs constipation).

Being in and out and in and out of the snake’s belly made him smarter, so he put his taco wings back on, since the smell had drained away, and sang, “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” in an opera voice as fast as he can.

And so that made his taco wings charge up and out of the toilet.

But suddenly, a dark shadow appeared behind him, and there was a Frankenstein. Not like other pigs, Kograt was really fond of Frankenstein! He even read all Frankenstein’s comics! So, Kograt climbed on his back and pulled off his head and used Frankenstein’s mouth to shrink Frankenstein’s head to keep as a souvenir. That, Frankenstein found really interesting — that his mouth was a shrinking machine and that he could still see even though his head had been pulled off by a pig to keep as a souvenir.

Kograt suddenly felt his taco wings droop down slowly… 

“AAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

Korgat was falling backwards down a 100,000,000,000,000 foot toilet! Then Kograt woke up, his heart still racing, and realized it was a dream! Relieved, Korgat felt something bumpy underneath him, and he looked, and it was a teeny tiny Frankenstein head… 

The End


The Head Family

Mr. Big Head

When Mr. Big Head was a little kid, his parents told him not to get so angry. But did he listen? No. Mr. Big Head is an angry man. Every day he gets madder and madder and madder. One day that got too far. It was a normal day for Mr. Big Head. He was mad because his breakfast was a tad bit too hot and spicy. Mr. Big Head was really grumpy. When he went to work, he was really mad because his computer wasn’t starting. So he smashed it! Everybody in the room stared. That made Mr. Big Head even madder. Then he went over to his boss’s computer. Boom! He smashed it! And he kept doing that until everybody’s computer was smashed.

“Okay, now everything’s fine!” said Mr. Big Head.

Then a little kid was making too much noise on the street. That made Mr. Big Head really angry. He took his broken computer and threw it out the window at the little kids. All the little kids ran home.

And Mr. Big Head ran after them yelling, “Puny little kids!”

Work was over for Mr. Big Head. He decided to take a cab. Somebody by accident on the way bumped him lightly. So he punched them out of the atmosphere! Finally he got into his cab. The cab was smelling bad. So he started yelling at the driver. Eventually he punched him. He Finally he reached home. The door wasn’t opening for five seconds, so he kicked it down. The cat was in front of his way, so he kicked it to who knows where. He was eating dinner, and he was getting angrier and angrier about his dinner. His dinner was yuck in every way.

“Me want candy!” he screamed.

Finally, it happened. Kaboom! Mr. Big Head’s head exploded. After he died, the rest of his body lay in jail because he assaulted a cab driver.

The End.

And the moral of this story is don’t be like Mr. Big Head in any way. I mean, unless you want to die by getting too angry.


Mrs. Little Head and The Deadly Laughter

Mrs. Little Head was a really happy person.

When she was a little kid, her parents told her, “You should control your emotions. You shouldn’t be too happy all the time. It isn’t good for you.”

Did she listen? Well, no. She didn’t really have a choice — she was just happy all the time! It was a special day for Mrs. Little Head. New neighbors had joined the neighborhood, and two little puppies were giving birth to other puppies. Mrs. Little Head was really happy. She set off for the ceremony of the puppies. She had arrived just in time. The ceremony was starting. Mrs. Little Head thought the ceremony was really good. She was super happy. On her way out of the ceremony, she passed the two new neighbors.

She said, “Hi, new neighbors, what are your names?”

The neighbors answered, “Mason and John.” And they added, “Stay away, or else!”

Mrs. Little Head was like, “Okay! I’ll stay away!” She smiled at the neighbors. 

She overhead the two neighbors saying, “That woman is too happy. She should really not be this happy.” 

Then Mrs. Little Head said, “It’s good to be too happy! It’s not too good to be too angry like Mr. Big Head, my brother.”

Mrs. Little Head set off for work. Today was a big day for their company. They were getting so many orders all over the world. Can you get me one pack of pencils and two pillows? was one of the orders. Can you get me one king bed and two twin beds? was another order, etc. 

Mrs. Little Head was really happy. She was known throughout the office for being really cheerful and happy. At lunch break, a lot of people came up to Mrs. Little Head and started telling her jokes.

One of the jokes was, “What do you call someone who steals burgers?”

Mrs. Little Head said, “What do you call someone who steals burgers?”

“A burger-lar,” they said.

Mrs. Little Head started roaring with laughter. Then other people also started laughing really loud, which made Mrs. Little Head laugh even louder and harder. Soon the whole neighborhood was laughing. Because of one man. Mrs. Little Head laughed so hard that she choked on a piece of rotting bologna sandwich and couldn’t breathe. Nobody realized she was choking because they were all laughing so much. Five minutes later, Mrs. Little Head had passed away. The guy who told the joke went to jail because Mrs. Little Head had died. Nobody ever forgot about Mrs. Little Head, and the joke was added to the “don’t-dos” around the world.

The End. 

Mr. Normal Head

Before you start reading this chapter about Mr. Normal Head, there is one thing you need to know about him. He is very different than Mrs. Little Head and Mr. Big Head. Unlike Mrs. Little Head and Mr. Big Head, Mr. Normal head has absolutely no feelings whatsoever.

Mr. Normal Head was waking up on a normal day. Any day was normal for Mr. Normal Head. It didn’t matter if he won the lottery or not, pooped in his pants, or received a bill from the bank, or was robbed. His trademark reaction was just to shrug. He didn’t really know what to do in any situation.

Mr. Normal Head was eating cereal for breakfast. He accidentally spilled it on his pants. He just shrugged. “Eh, whatever. Just cereal. Could have been worse.”

Mr. Normal Head went outside to work. It was pouring really hard, and there were thunderstorms and tornadoes and any bad thing you could think of. Even Mr. Big Head. He shrugged. “Eh, it’s just all the bad things in the world that could ever happen. Who cares?”

Mr. Big Head came over. “Hey, I care!” Mr. Big Head said.

Mr. Normal Head said, “You may care, but I still don’t care.”

Mr. Big Head got so mad that he punched him.

Mr. Normal Head just continued walking as if nothing had happened.

Mr. Normal Head arrived at work with one arm missing, a chunk of his leg missing, and a black eye. Everybody started staring at him. Mr. Normal Head shrugged with one arm. Suddenly a man came rushing into a room.

He said, “Which of you do I want?” Then he said, “Oh, this guy looks like General Material.” He looked battle-scarred, that’s why the man picked him. He said, “Do you want to be a general, sir?”

Mr. Normal head shrugged with one arm.

The man said, “Okay, I’ll take that as a yes.”

The man took Mr. Normal Head away and started his training immediately. 

Mr. Normal Head just kept getting the best grades for his training, except when it came to the guns. Mr. Normal Head just stood there doing nothing. 

Soon enough, World War I, one of the deadliest battles ever, started. The problem was that Mr. Normal Head the General was assigned with a gun. He didn’t know how to operate it. So, he just stood there. And that wasn’t good for his health. Later, he was dying. He had several wounds, none of which were good. The doctors tried to revive him. But the wounds were just too much, and Mr. Normal Head passed away. 

The End.


Mrs. Blue Head

Mrs. Blue Head was crying one morning because she didn’t have any food, and she had to go to the supermarket to get some. The supermarket was only 15 feet away. She trudged along, depressed, to the supermarket. Then she finally entered the supermarket. Everybody was staring at her. That made Mrs. Blue Head cry even harder. She got her food and exited the supermarket as soon as she could.

She cried all the way back home. Then she ate her cereal. Then she left for work.

Mrs. Blue Head worked in a private office because no one wanted to hear her crying, wailing, and howling. She entered her private office. There were no people in the building because Mrs. Blue Head was really loud, and her crying could give you a headache. Mrs. Blue Head didn’t get right down to work. For the first hour, she was crying. The second hour, she was working and crying. And for the rest of the hours, she was mostly working and crying.

Mrs. Blue Head was proud of herself. She had done a lot of work today and a lot of crying today. She exited the building and saw someone crying. That made her cry even harder and harder! All the cars sped by — no one could bear to hear Mrs. Blue Head’s wailing. Even the person who was crying left. When they all left, she started to cry even harder. Mrs. Blue Head was crying so hard she was literally covered in water. She ran to the store to buy a muffin. All of the people in the store closed their ears, and the customers ran out. Mrs. Blue Head cried even harder.

Finally, all the protein that she had eaten was lost. She grew very pale, and she fell to the ground. Somebody called 911. But even before they called 911, the medics came and said that she was already dead.

The news made everybody cry, but then someone said, “If we cry, we will end up like Mrs. Blue Head.”

The End.


Mr. Thrilled Head

It was not a normal day for Mr. Thrilled Head (unlike Mr. Normal Head). It was his birthday today! And he was going on a sleepover, a vacation, and he was getting his driver’s license, and a promotion, and he was moving, and throwing a party!

The first thing on Mr. Thrilled Head’s schedule was to brush his teeth. Then eat his breakfast, then take his morning jog. But Mr. Thrilled head was too excited for a jog — it was more like a sprint! Mr. Thrilled Head had eaten ice cream and cake for breakfast (like he always did). After his morning sprint around his house, which was pretty big (the perimeter was 57 feet), Mr. Thrilled Head went to work.

He had an essay to write. That didn’t take him long. He was so excited he finished in five minutes. And his essay was so good that he got a double promotion. Now he was his boss’s boss.

Next on his list was his office party! They were having a really good time for four hours until they agreed to call the party off.

Then he had his birthday party. When he arrived at his house, he saw so many presents! He was so excited he ran straight through ten buildings, knocking down zero presents. Then he ran up to his office room and started circling around and around, searching for something. Then he was like, “Whatever!” and fell and broke his head, which wasn’t good for his health. Then he died.

The End.


Mr. Lightbulb Head and His Great Ideas

“I have an idea!” said Mr. Lightbulb Head. “I will eat breakfast today! I have another idea! I will prepare breakfast before eating it! I have another idea. I will eat oatmeal for breakfast.”

Okay readers reading my book. You understand that Mr. Lightbulb Head has a lot of ideas, and his superpower is to be annoying. Nobody liked Mr. Lightbulb Head from his neighborhood to seven neighborhoods down. Whenever he went to the supermarket, he said, “I will buy a watermelon! I will buy a mango! I will buy everything!”

“Ugh!” everybody would say.

Mr. Lightbulb Head would not reflect on his past. He thought he was a great person who was not annoying. Like Mrs. Blue Head, he worked in a private office.

He said, “I will invest in Whole Foods! I will invest in Trader Joe’s. I will invest in everything!”

Recently the building next to him was demolished because no one wanted to hear him say, “I will invest in Whole Foods! I will invest in Trader Joe’s. I will invest in everything!”

They just left a sidewalk there because if they had put a park there, they wouldn’t be able to maintain it.

He was getting a promotion party today. He may be annoying, but his boss couldn’t deny his good work. He went to his boss’s office. His boss couldn’t deny his good work, but he could have a wicked plan. And that he had right now. His plan was to use champagne, and the cork would hit Mr. Lightbulb Head in the head, and it would shatter and he’d die.

Mr. Lightbulb Head’s boss was not having a good time at the party.

He asked, “Can I have some champagne or wine or whatever you have?”

“Sure,” said the boss.

Mr. Lightbulb Head said, “I have an idea!”

“What’s your idea?” said the boss.

“I will drink champagne, not wine,” he said.

The boss started laughing. Then everyone started laughing. Then the boss opened the cork for the champagne, and it flew and hit Mr. Lightbulb head square in the face. His lightbulb shattered on the ground, and he died.

The End.


The Murder Mishap

Clarice was running up the stairs of the old abandoned building. Suddenly a dark figure jumped out of the blackness.

“Hands up!” His voice shattered the darkness.

Boom! He had a cannon, too. Clarice fell swiftly to the ground. It was the end… 

William turned on the light. He looked at his witness, Arry. “Where were you last night?”

Arry looked startled. He was sitting in the chair across from William. “You know where I was. In the building.”

A smile crossed William’s face. He loved it when a case came together, and he was the detective.

Arry looked nervous. No surprise there. He had just seen a murder yesterday.

“Yes, but what were you doing there?”

Arry started sweating. “I was… sightseeing… because… it’s for school… ”

Sweat was trickling down his neck. He suddenly got up and ran out of the room.

“Poor kid,” William muttered. “He has no idea what’s going on.” 

William walked down the moonlit street. He sighed. Why can’t things be better for me? he thought. If I just had something nice in my life… It would be okay. My job is hard. I don’t have any family. I just need something good.

Arry was pretty scared. He sat down at the kitchen table and waited for his dad to come in. But his mom came first. She was dressed in a pink overcoat.

“Arry, I’m going out tonight. Your father is on a business trip, so be good. He’ll be gone for a week. I might not be able to see you. Be responsible, okay?”

Arry sighed and heated up some leftovers. His mom left and slammed the door.

Mr. Davies sat in the van. He was leaving his home on a business trip. He thought about his son, Arry. Then he thought about the success of his latest… recreation. He smiled. “So I murdered Clarice. Amazing. I have also left my home on a business trip. I don’t care. This isn’t even my real job! I’m crazy!”

William sat down again across from Arry. “So, Arry, can you tell me, what were you doing last night?”

Arry sighed. He didn’t want to give his game away. But his dad was away and didn’t really like him anyway. So it wouldn’t hurt… 

“William, my dad is the murderer. I can’t tell anyone. But I just… ” Arry burst into tears and dashed away.

That was unexpected for William. William had no idea who Arry was or who his dad was. So this wasn’t much of a clue. He sighed. “Nothing turns out right for me,” William said to himself. “I need a coffee.”

Mrs. Davies sat on the plush chair in the library and sighed. She pulled her favorite book out of her handbag. Even as she read, her mind drifted elsewhere. She was sad about her husband, who was leaving them without saying goodbye. She was worried for her son Arry, who was only ten and left alone. She slammed down her book and walked out.

“I need a break,” she told herself. 

Outside it was raining. William walked into a cafe and ordered a coffee. He sat down and started sipping. Then something caught his eye. His gaze traveled to the door, where a young woman in an attractive pink coat was walking in, complaining about the weather. Wiliam leaned in close to her and started to sweat. He walked up to her, got up close and personal — then coughed, unexpectedly.

“Oh, well ex-kee-yooz me,” she said.

Everyone there laughed. William felt his face turn red. He sat down feeling angry at himself.

“This was my big break!” he told himself. “I can’t ruin this. I still have my ace in the hole.”

So, William gathered up all of his courage and walked up to her again. He started feeling nervous and blushed.

Mrs. Davies looked at the man with disgust. He had coughed in her face, for goodness sake. But he was young and charming. Give him a chance, she thought. She smiled at him. “Hello, charmer. Did you remember your tissues this time?” She knew that telling a joke was a good way to be friendly. But this guy didn’t look so happy. He looked worried, embarrassed even. He smiled at her hopefully. She laughed and said, “So, you want a piece of me, hmmm? I think that can be arranged. 

Mr. Davies was sitting in the back of the van. He was a crazy person. So he almost didn’t notice when his cell phone buzzed. It said: You have a message from #AriannaDavies… click here to read. Mr. Davies clicked it. She had written: You need to come back ASAP srsly! No detours srsly!

“So my old wife is up to something?” he muttered. “I wonder what this could be.”

Arry picked up his head from the kitchen table. The sound of his mother’s high heels, click clack, had woken him up.

“Mom? What’s going on?” he asked.

“Shhhh, honey,” she soothed him. “Go to bed. Your father and I just need a little talk with each other.” She led him up to bed.

Arry was confused. His dad was here?

Mr. Davies looked across the bed to his wife. She said she needed to talk to him.

“It must be something big,” he reasoned to himself, “because I came from half across the country in Oregon.”

Mrs. Davies looked at him seriously. “I need to talk to you about us,” she began. “I… met a guy. I like him. He likes me too. A lot. You… I don’t think you are the most devoted husband. So I want to marry him and you… you and me can end. For his sake and mine… I’m sorry. But this is my choice.” 

Mrs. Davies was very hopeful. She looked at her husband. Tears were almost forming in her eyes. She looked like a begging child.

Finally Mr. Davies nodded. “Sure, I don’t care,” he said, willingly.

William sat down in the hard chair. “Once again, Arry.” His voice struck the silence. “What were you doing that night? You have told me your dad was a murderer. I take it you were at the crime scene. But is there anything else you have to tell me? Anything at all?”

Arry shivered. He looked worried once again. He took a deep breath. “He’s not my dad. They’re divorced, and no one wants the kid. I’m a nobody to them… Wahhh.” Arry was crying very hard.

William frowned. There must be something I can do, he thought.

Mrs. Davies and William Davies walked out of the real estate company. By chance, they passed the orphanage. A sad Arry was sitting by the window.

“I feel bad for him,” William told her.

“Make your move, then, William,” she told him.

They walked in.

“Excuse me,” said Mrs. Davies to the manager. “We are the Davies couple, and we would like to adopt Arry?”

The manager looked surprised but willing. “Of course, ma’am.”

They walked out a happy family.


Laura on 318th Street

Prologue

Laura Wilder Ingalis stared out of the car window. New York City was so busy and packed, while London was much quieter. Laura decided that she liked her old home much better than this one. She adjusted the strap of her seatbelt and squeezed her suitcase with her legs. Laura’s suitcase was turquoise with lightning bolts embroidered with her initials. She took it wherever destiny took her (or, erm, wherever her foster parents lived), and it was caked with memories. She glanced at the driver, but he kept his eyes on the road.

“How much longer?” she pondered out loud. The driver didn’t answer right away.

“About ten minutes,” he slowly responded.

Her shoulders sagged. The driver was about 50 years old, judging by his beard, which was covered in gray. He wore an old brown romper with a red and black checkered shirt underneath the dirt colored overalls. The Jeep he owned was the same age as him and was groaning with every right turn.


Chapter One

When the driver announced that Laura had arrived, she was ecstatic. Then the driver took out her folder of records, and her grin turned into a sour frown. That record held all the things she wanted to keep secret. All the things that had happened to her and by her. All of that important information slipping through her fingers, and into theirs. Yes, she did not like that manilla folder. Not a bit. The chauffeur of some kind opened the door, and Laura stepped out. Outside was a little restaurant called Delilah’s Diner. It was a small brick house with a door that jingled when it opened. On top was a red brick house with two little windows perched in the wall. Her gaze shifted to the narrow hallway in between the restaurant and the cheery bright green house next to Delilah’s Diner. 

“Well?” the driver asked. “Come on!”

Laura grabbed her suitcase and ran after him into the restaurant. Her brown hair flowed behind her as she ran across the street. A strong gust of wind sent chills down her back. Then she jumped onto the curb and rolled her suitcase into the restaurant with her. The door opened with a creak. Laura jumped. The inside of the restaurant was not that different from the outside. There was a long drapery of white fabric above the doorway. She pushed through the drapery and entered the restaurant. It was a small shabby one, with wood planks as the floor. The walls were covered in peeling crimson wallpaper. There were tables crammed into every corner. They each had napkins and utensils and water glasses, but they were all empty. Laura turned around to face the door and saw that it was closed. She peered around, then suddenly noticed that the driver was missing. 

“Hello?” she said, her heart beating. She heard stairs creaking.

“Laura? Is that you? I thought you wouldn’t be arriving until noon!” said a female voice.

Laura moved forward, avoiding tables and dodging boxes until she came across a staircase with a woman standing on top. She smiled warmly. Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun, and she had on a neat black dress with a white apron tied at her waist. Her eyes were a deep blue and were weirdly familiar. The driver followed her down the stairs as she stepped down the stairs. She pulled her into a tight hug, and Laura dropped her suitcase to her side. She smelled faintly of cinnamon. 

She pulled away and said, “I’m Murial. You can call me Miri. I heard your parents were umm… ” Miri hesitated. “Anyway, I have your room all ready for you, and you must be starving, so I will make pasta or something for lunch. Is that okay? Here I’ll take your bags… ”

Laura found it easier to nod to all Miri’s questions and say as little as possible as she followed her up the squeaky stairs. When she entered the next floor, she was surprised. It was much neater than the down stairs. Miri recognized the look of shock on Laura’s face and explained.

“We own the second floor. Mr. MaCaya owns the restaurant. I work here, and every morning I come downstairs and wait on all the people, which isn’t a lot. If you can’t tell, we aren’t getting that much mon — ” She stopped speaking for a moment, and Laura’s head shot up like a rocket and looked Miri right in her sad eyes.

She shook her head and walked down the hallway, Laura at her heels. She gazed around. The walls were a robin’s egg blue and basically, you entered the stairs and there was a room a few feet before you had a room, which Miri told Laura was her room, and then on the other side of the room was another room which was the bathroom. She took her to the last room in the hallway, and here Miri informed Laura that this was her room. She opened the wooden door and pulled along her suitcase. Caplunk, kerplunk, went the suitcase as she slid it over the cracks in the entrance. She looked around. The walls were a beautiful yellow, and a large window was opposite to where she was standing. She gasped. There was an old fashioned bed with blue sheets and a blinding white pillow. There was a fancy patterned rug on the floor and a large desk with a blue spinning chair. There was a lime green beanbag chair right next to the bed. This room was much fancier than Mr. Joseph T. Pennyworth’s “room” as he called it. Laura thought it was a retired broom closet. The curtains were covered in little hedgehogs, and Miri parted them and switched on the light.

“Why don’t you put that suitcase on your bed? We will unpack your things later,” Miri said cheerfully.

“Okay,” she said and obliged to heaving her almost bursting suitcase on her bed.

When she plopped it down, a cloud of dust flew into her face. Laura coughed. She heard the stairs creaking and knew that Miri was going downstairs. She turned around and walked down the stairs toward the dining room. On the way there she crashed into a large man squished into a tiny tuxedo. He turned around. His face looked so much like a pig that Laura snorted and then tried to cover it up with a cough but failed miserably. 

“Hello,” the man said with a forced smile. Laura immediately recognized this person. It was Mr. MaCaya.

Chapter Two

That night, after a helping of bread and potatoes, Laura couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned and tried the trick someone at her old school taught her, but it was totally useless. So she went downstairs to ask Miri for a cup of warm milk or tea, but came across someone speaking. Laura could barely make out the noise, and so the young girl crept quietly down the stairs, bent over the railing and strained her ears to hear the conversation. It was definitely Miri’s voice. 

“I know, I’m living off my savings now. It’s a shame really. He won’t let us tell anyone. Barely pays us a dime a day.” 

Laura suddenly felt a pang of guiltiness for eavesdropping. She ran up the stairs as quickly as she could and jumped under the covers. The next morning, she woke up tired. She suddenly remembered everything that happened that night. It all rushed back to her. She sat up in bed for about ten minutes, thinking and going over everything she heard in her mind. One thought came across her and stayed in her mind for the entire day. The young girl couldn’t stop thinking about Miri and that she was not getting paid. She knew that it was illegal of course. But because he was technically paying them, there was nothing Laura or Miri could do. Unless Laura made up a new law that he couldn’t pay his employees less than ten cents a day. It was just wrong. It wasn’t the way this was supposed to go. Miri should have been paid fairly. All the other people probably quit. Why didn’t Miri? It was a puzzling question.

I’ll start with what I know, she thought. Laura checked for her suitcase and saw that it had been unpacked. The curious girl zipped it open and found her secret pocket on the back. Unzipping it, she dug around for her notebook, and finally felt the familiar grip of her journal. She sighed in relief. Quietly, Laura tiptoed over to the window and opened the curtains, but it was still dark out, so Laura turned on the light switch which was conveniently located right next to the window. She slunk noiselessly back to her bed and jumped into the bed. She fished for a pen under the bed. Then she opened up to a blank space (which were scarce) and started writing:

 What I Know About House 365 on 318th Street

  1. It is home to Murial and me
  2. The boss is Boston MaCaya
  3. They barely have any customer

Laura stopped writing. Then, the answer hit her like a sack of potatoes. That was it. They had no customers, no money. They couldn’t afford to pay the workers, let alone the rent. Laura suddenly remembered a book she read about this. It was really funny, but this wasn’t because it was actually happening.

It was real.


Chapter Three

Laura had terrible sleep last night. It wasn’t just because of last night. It was the feeling in her gut that she was missing something. Mr. MaCaya was a liar and a thief. Why was she feeling differently about that? And, to push those thoughts out of her mind, she got dressed and thumped down the stairs, only to remember that the kitchen was on the one floor Miri could afford. She ran back upstairs, got momentarily lost in the hallways, and finally found the kitchen quiet. The table was covered in a tattered tablecloth, and the chairs were pointed in all directions. There was a bread basket that was left over from last night with a few pieces of half eaten slices of them lying alone on the table. Suddenly, a shadow rose from the darkness of the kitchen. It was large. It was tall. And it picked her up and put her in a sack. Everything went black.


Chapter Four

When Laura woke up, she found herself lying on the floor of a strange house. Her head was beaded with sweat. Her eyesight was fogged and cloudy. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. The puzzled girl looked around her. She was in a small cottage with wet walls that were caving in like a sand castle, but made of straw. There was a small chair and table in the middle of the only room in the house. The one window opened the dark sky into the cottage. Laura stood up from the floor. On the table, there was a small white scrap of paper. As she walked over to the table, she looked around, but there was nothing else to see. It was scary. The paper lay flat on the table. She snatched it up in her hands. It said:

This is the place that you will be staying in for the rest of your life. You have witnessed a crime, and you are willing to tell others. Your precious Miri will be nothing against me when I get ALL the money of the world. I will be in control. I WILL RULE THE WORLD whether you like it or not. The door is locked. You will never stop me, for I am the amazing BOSTON MACAYA.

Laura was shocked. She thought Mr. MaCaya was doing it for a reasonable reason. But he wanted to rule the world. Laura was the only one who knew the truth. But she would never get to anyone in time before Mr. MaCaya finished his plan. She would have to save everyone. The world was depending on her.


Chapter Five

Laura knew how to get out. The window, of course. But the thing she was worried about was actually getting back to her home in Wisconsin. This was Colorado. Toot toot.

“I got it!” Laura said. She would ride a train to Wisconsin. The problem now was how to catch a train. But, that was easily solved because there was one right outside the “House.” Laura ran outside, the note clenched firmly in her hand, and ran outside. She barely made it. Now, she was in a crowded train with no idea where she was going. Hopefully it was Wisconsin. Tweet tweet!

“Police coming through. Make way! Make way!” a gruff voice said. She looked up and saw a police officer glaring at her.

“Where is your parent, young lady?” he said. And Laura began. By the time she finished, the police officer said, “You are on the wrong train, princess!” Laura cursed under her breath. “I’ll take you home, and we’ll sort this MaCaya thing out.” Laura grinned. 

“Thank you, sir!” she beamed. And she was almost home.

WISCONSIN NEWS! 

YOUNG GIRL GAVE PROOF! BOSTON MACAYA ARRESTED! GIRL ADOPTED.

A young girl named Laura Wilder Ingalis saved the city! She was adopted by Murial Smith! See more on page 16!

The End. For now.


The Quail

I had a quail who drank ginger ale

and always got the mail. 

It was great, 

amazingly great 

but I had to grate cheese, 

wait that’s the same word

but spelled differently,

it’s a homophone!

Okay, back to the poem

and my quail surprised me

by eating a whale.

Before she ate the whale,

I wondered if it was

my pet whale, 

but it wasn’t 

then I gave my quail

a slice of blue whale 

and she swallowed it

before the mail.

Then she got up

and asked for ginger ale 

with her slice of blue whale

and she said that she failed

on her test of hammering nails.


Circus of Talents

I was in the garden of the Queen of England’s palace when it happened. Let me explain. My name is Haven Shelly Dean. I’m thirteen years old. My father sold me for a new house and a flock of sheep. Now I live as a servant for the Queen of England. I work in the kitchen. Now, from 2 pm to 3 pm is my only off-hour.

I was walking next to the pond, when I saw a duck. And that’s when I found out my magical powers.

The duck said, “Quack quaaaack!” But to me, it sounded like, “Hello Haaaaven!”

I blinked. Then I blinked again. Then twice more. Then again. I was sure I had heard wrong.

“How do you know my name?” I asked. 

Except my voice sounded more like, “Quack quack quick honk quaaack.”

I ran back to the palace to start cooking early. I volunteered to make the salad, which was a hated thing to make at the kitchen. I did that so I wouldn’t have to help with the duck.

***

It must have been a coincidence. It must have. Because, two days later, on Lesson Day (Lesson Day is the day that all servants under the age of 15 have off to learn math, writing, and reading) I saw a notice. The notice said, 

Do you think you have a talent?

Servants, come to the Library on May 2nd to show off your talent. You will be viewed privately, and the winner will join the Circus of Talents. Sign up on the sheet below!

I was the third one to sign up.

***

May 2nd was the next day, and since so many servants were trying out, the Queen’s Advisor gave us the day off. We gathered in the library. 

A man with important looking clothing on was standing on a table.

“Hello,” he said. “My name is Carter Marlon. I am the director of the Circus of Talents. You will be viewed one at a time, and then I will announce the winner. You will be viewed in the order that you signed up in.”

“First up: Benny Dennis.”

Benny stepped forwards. He was a skinny kid who worked with the laundry. He went into the next room. A few minutes later, he came out practically crying. He ran out of the room. 

“Next up: Matilda Scott.” 

A girl who I didn’t recognize walked up. She walked into the room and came out with a worried face. She sat at a table in the back. 

“Haven Dean.” 

I walked into the room.

“Hello, Haven,” said Carter. “What is your talent?”

“Umm… I think I may be able to talk to ducks?” I said. 

Carter looked so happy, I thought he was going to explode. “Yes, yes! This is exactly the talent!”

Carter snapped his fingers. A duck, the duck I had seen in the garden, appeared. “Yeah, that’s my talent. I can summon things.” 

“Um, hello?” I said.

“I heard quack!” said Carter. “Perfect! You’re hired! But I still need to test everyone else, just to be fair. But go sit at the table across from Matilda.” 

I nodded and left the room. My head was exploding with thoughts. How did this happen? Am I really actually leaving the palace? Wow! This is crazy! Is Carter always this way? Wow!

About thirty minutes later, Carter got back up onto the table. “The winner is… ” he paused for dramatic effect. “Haven Dean!” The whole room clapped and cheered.

***

I got into the back of Carter’s van. He said we were driving a little to the real site of the Circus. Almost everyone had come to see me off. Even the Queen of England was there. After the palace had disappeared, I turned around to face Carter.

“Are you ready?” he asked. 

I nodded my head. Yes, I thought. I’m ready.


Clueless

The door opened to the front of my office. My assistant walked in looking flustered. 

“There has been a murder!” he yelled. I looked at him and shook my head. 

“We see murders every day,” I said.

“Not like this,” he said. “This person was brutally killed, then the body was stolen while the cops were searching the house.” 

Let me tell you a little about me. I am a detective. I work on a lot of murders, but usually they’re easy to solve. Like once, this man killed his high school enemy, and when I walked into the room he confessed that he was getting payed $100,000 to kill that man. Then, he was found dead in his jail cell, but the stupid man who had killed him had forgotten to put on gloves, and we found him right away.

“Who was murdered?” I asked. 

“This lady named Yvonne Harrison,” said my assistant.

“Rich?” I asked.

“So-so,” he said.

“We have to search her house,” I said.

***

Her house was small, about the size of my office. I looked around. There was barely anything around. A small television and a rag couch sat in the middle of the room. There was a patch of dry red blood stuck to the rug. 

“Have you tested her blood?” I asked a CSI man.

“Yes. And we found it didn’t actually belong to the Miss Harrison.” Interesting!

“Who did it belong to?” I asked.

“It belongs to a man named Gregory Doff,” said the CSI guy.

“Where does he live?” I asked.

“In a cemetery. He died a year ago.” 

Right now, I had no suspects or clues. Just a mere ‘the pool of blood this lady was lying on is not actually hers! It belongs to someone who’s been dead for a year!!’

I searched the bedroom. There was a Rolex watch on the bedside table, and next to it was a lamp. The bed had flowered linen sheets over a three inch thick comforter. I walked out the door. 

“Who are our main suspects?” I asked Jonathan Fedley, the head of the CSI. 

“Well, for starters, we have her brother-in-law. He is her only living relative.”

“In-law? Miss Harrison was married?”

“Yeah. To a man named Greg Doff who died in January of 2002.”

I have a good memory, so I don’t know why I thought my mind was tricking me of that name being familiar.

“Who?” I asked.

“We don’t have much information on him, except for that he was very poor and he probably married Mrs. Harrison for her money — ” There were suddenly shouts from across the hall in the crime scene.

At first, it sounded like the CSI investigators that were investigating the murder were shouting, “This house has been clean!” but then I realized they were saying, “The house has been swiped clean!”

In police code robbery equals 211, but this was not a robbery. Even the flower sheets were gone!

“How is this possible!” I yelled at the same time Mr. Fedley yelled, “This is not acceptable!”

The CSI investigators didn’t even find a trace of a footstep. Or a fingerprint. The only way we knew anything was stolen was because it was missing.

“Inspector Krysley, we have found out more information and a motive for Tristen Doff, Mrs. Harrison’s brother-in-law,” said Jonathan after we had searched the entire house for clues. 

“What did you find out?” I asked.

“We found out that Mrs. Harrison hated on him because of some sort of romance with her sister.”

“Anything else?”

“Oh yeah. We found out that Mrs. Harrison supposedly hit Doff with her car almost over a decade ago. We still don’t know why.” Another mystery!

Now it was time to round up the clues. Also, round up the suspects, motives, and alibis.

“Blood on the ground suggests she was either shot or stabbed,” said a clueless CSI member.

“But it’s blood of another person!” said another CSI member.

“Blood of another person suggests someone unlawfully blood banked Greg Doff’s blood,” said Jonathan. I groaned. It was hard to work with someone who was as smart as me.

“Small house and rag couch suggests revenge and not money,” I said.

“Stolen body in plain sight of cops suggests disguise,” said Jonathan.

“Rolex watch suggests a small wealth,” I said.

“Flowered comforter suggests living mother,” said Jonathan.

“But that’s absurd!” I said. “All her relatives are dead except Tristan!”

“But maybe she died, like, a few days ago!” said Jonathan.

Everyone gasped. There was no police code for Double Agent, but everyone in the system knew the signs. I started suggesting more stuff.

“Dead husband suggests grief,” I said. Jonathan glared at me.

“Everything stolen in plain sight suggests more than one person working for someone,” said Jonathan.

“Suspect affair with victim’s sister suggests connection of families,” I said.

“Suspect hit by victim in car suggests private connection with each other,” said Jonathan. I wrote everything down, except the silly stuff.

  • Blood of another person suggests unlawful blood bank
  • Rag couch and small house suggests revenge and not money
  • Stolen body in plain sight of cops suggests disguise
  • Rolex watch suggests small wealth
  • Dead husband suggests grief
  • Many items stolen in plain sight suggests more than one person/double agents
  • Suspect affair with victim’s sister suggests connection in families
  • Suspect hit by victim in car suggests private connection

And I added something.

*Jonathan knows something we don’t

How did I know Jonathan knew something we didn’t? Well, he’d been showing lots of signs. For example, Jonathan knew that Tristan Doff was the brother-in-law before the conversation. And I know that because he was one of the people searching the house. He didn’t have time to discuss it with the CSI people. And if he knew that, he must have known more about the case than we did. And I was going to get it out of him. 

When we finished our meeting, it was time to go home. I called my assistant, and he got me a car. The driver dropped me off at the front of my apartment building.

“Thank you,” I said.

I walked into the building and rode up to the 12th floor. I was the only person who lived on the 12th floor. The rest of my neighbors probably had vertigo or something, but I liked the 12th floor. It was so quiet and never smelled like food. I opened the door, and what I saw was a big surprise. A few CSI investigators were in my house, poking around in my kitchen. 

“What are you doing!?” I yelled at them.

They turned to me, then each of them talked at the same time. Luckily, when they stopped, one of them who I recognized as Rupert Hackett told me something that sounded pretty much like the truth.

“Mr. Fedley, he suspects you,” he said.

I knew that’s what they thought, but I was pretty sure that Jonathan was lying. 

“Where did he go?” I asked him.

“He said he was going to investigate more,” he said. 

“Where?” I asked.

“At the crime scene,” said Rupert. 

“Thank you!” I said. “Get me the camera footage. I think he’s guilty.”

Rupert looked at me uncertainly, then pulled up the camera footage. 

Jonathan is not alone. He is with Chief Inspector Harper and most of the crew. He looks around at the numbered evidence. He picks up evidence number 33 and talks to Miss Harper about it. Then he picks up a lot more evidence and talks to many different inspectors about it. I recognize Johann Dreyfus, Blanche Mac Lottery, Lauren Aaren, and Henry Kensington. So many detectives! They can’t all be Double Agents! Then, Jonathan writes something in his notebook. Dreyfus nods at him. Jonathan says something, then hugs Dreyfus, and walks out the door.

“See? He’s innocent!” said Rupert.

“Wait. Go back to when he’s hugging Dreyfus,” I said.

Rupert rewound the video.

So many detectives! They can’t all be Double Agents! Then, Jonathan writes something in his notebook. Dreyfus nods at him. Jonathan says something, then hugs Dreyfus — 

That watch!

“Zoom in on his hand!” I said.

Rupert looked at me like I had three dinosaur heads, then did as I said. 

“Jonathan is the killer,” I said. “At least one of them… ”

I rode in a cab to Jonathan’s house with my assistant. The lights were on, and I knocked on the door. The lights suddenly were turned off, and the curtains were closed. An old lady answered the door. 

“Are you looking for Than?” she asked. Than.

“Yes,” I said.

“He’s out. I’m his mother. Visiting from Orlando,” said the old lady. 

“Where?” I said doubtful and suspicious. 

“He’s gone,” she said. I frowned.

“Do you want a cup of tea?” she asked.

“Sure.” It would give me a chance to search the house. “Come in,” she said.

I walked into the house, following the old lady. She sat me down at the table, and I put my hands on the checkered tablecloth. The lady faced away. 

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Leana Krysley. I’m a detective,” I said. 

“Leana. Such a beautiful name. Why do you want to see Than?” she asked. She poured the hot water into the cup.

“Well, we need to question him — ”

“Ahhhh,” said the old lady.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“My name is Carla Fedley. And I know Jonathan is not guilty of the murder. And yes, I lied. He is in the house.” Then, the old lady smiled and got back to my tea. “Do you want your tea to go?” she asked. 

“Yes please,” I said.

Then I turned and walked out the door without my tea. Jonathan wasn’t the murderer. He couldn’t have been if he was at home. It only took me three minutes to get to my house to his house, but from Mrs. Harrison’s house to his house, it took an hour. So he couldn’t have taken that much time from Mrs. Harrison’s to his house, so he was at his house all along. There were only two questions. Why did Jonathan say that he was going to investigate, and who had rigged the camera system in Mrs. Harrison’s house? 

When I got home, I saw a letter on the table from my assistant.

Dear Leana,

I am really scared that I am going to get killed. Since you told me everything you know, will they kill me first? I ran away to my upstate house. I QUIT!

Sincerely,

Your Assistant

I put the letter down and went to bed. 

The next day, I returned to the crime scene. After all, nobody had ever solved a murder in just a day. 

Dreyfus was there to greet me, and Jonathan was there too. They were investigating like it was any other day. I looked over at Rupert, and he looked away. So he didn’t tell Dreyfus. I looked around to see a new piece of evidence. A note.

“Where did this come from?” I asked Dreyfus.

“I found it under a floorboard. Read it. Maybe you can figure out what it says,” said Dreyfus.

1/4/02

A chara Yvonne,

Tá a fhios agam gurb é seo an uair dheireanach a scríobhfaidh mé chugat, ach táim ag imeacht ó New Jersey chun cónaí le mo chara is fearr a bhuail tú le cúpla bliain ar ais. Mar sin féin, chuir mé litir chuig Than agus Tristan Tá mo dheartháir ag teacht go Nua-Eabhrac ach níl mé ag iarraidh aghaidh a thabhairt air tar éis duit é a bhualadh le You-Know-What. Bí ullamh aghaidh a thabhairt air.

Grá,

Greg

“I didn’t know Mrs. Harrison was Irish!” I said. “I’m Irish!”

“So read it!” said Dreyfus.

January 4, 2002. Dear Yvonne, I know this will be the last time I ever write to you, but I am running away to New Jersey to live with my best friend who you met a few years back. Anyway, I have sent a letter to Than and Tristan my brother is coming to New York but I don’t want to face him after you hit him with your car. Be prepared to face him. Love, Greg.” THAN!!!

Then I remembered the day before on the first day of investigation. 

I had asked who the suspects were. Then, Jonathan had said it was Mrs. Harrison’s brother-in-law. I had asked if she was married, and Jonathan had said yes, to a man named Greg Doff! Greg!

“You were friends with Gregory Doff?” I asked. And then I remembered the date.

“And the last time he was ever seen alive was January 4, 2002! That means you were the last one to see him alive!” I yelled in realization. Jonathan looked at me sheepishly. “And did you… kill him?” I asked quietly. Jonathan nodded.

“But I swear I didn’t kill Mrs. Harrison. She was nice! And I would never kill her!” I frowned.

“But what about the watch?”

“That’s my watch.”

“Then who killed Mrs. Harrison?” 

I wrote suspects, alibis, and motives in my notebook.

Suspect: Tristan Doff

Motive: He hated Mrs. Harrison for some reason

Suspect: Gregory Doff

Motive (Or what we think is a motive): He knew that he would never see her again/needed the money?

Alibi: He was murdered before Mrs. Harrison, so he can’t be the murderer

So I crossed him off.

Suspect: Johann Dreyfus

Motive: Found the letter; maybe knew what it was?

Suspect: Carla Fedley

Motive: (Unknown)

Suspect: Police Chief who guarded the house

Motive: (Unknown)

Jonathan was arrested the next day, and the next day was also a return to the crime scene.

“Let’s meet some new suspects,” said Dreyfus. He brought in five people. 

Suspect: Karen Calhun (Best Friend)

Motive: (Unknown)

Suspect: Jeremy Rolfson (Brother in-law’s best friend)

Motive: Helping his friend

Suspect: George Harris (Friend’s husband) 

Motive: Stealing away time with his wife

Suspect: Doctor Trenton Murray (Victim’s doctor)

Motive: (Unknown)

Suspect: Jenny Wolfson (Best Friend)

Motive: (Unknown)

I questioned all of them, but none of them seemed to have a motive except Tristan Doff’s friend who might have done something for his friend and killed her.

“I’m really stuck,” I told Dreyfus. 

“Then let’s do a walk through of the crime scene.”

We entered through the front door. I walked to the kitchen. 

“Have you guys checked the fridge?” I asked. Dreyfus nodded.

“We have, but you can check again.” 

“Okay.” I opened the fridge and gasped.

Dreyfus gasped when he saw too. In the fridge was a dead body. On it were carved letters.

Good Work, Detectives! -C .F 

“Who’s initials are C F?” asked Dreyfus.

“I think I know,” I said.

When we got to Carla Fedley’s house, Dreyfus knocked on the door. No one answered. Dreyfus was about to knock again, but I said no. He drove me back to my house. There, I rode the elevator to the 12th floor and went into my house. I made myself some tea, then got disgusted and drank matcha instead. Then, I watched some TV, and at 12:00, went into my bed and fell asleep.

It must have been just a minute later when I woke up. I checked the time, but it was only 12:46. I heard a rustle. I turned my bedside light on and looked around. Suddenly, a figure emerged from the shadows. Carla Fedley

“Leana, you figured it out at last,” said Carla Fedley said.

She held the knife above my head. I ran out of bed, grabbing my phone on the way. I ran out of the door and locked it and called the police. They came in an instant, and I showed them Carla. She was arrested the next day.

It turned out, Tristan Doff bribed Carla into killing Mrs. Harrison by saying he would expose Jonathan’s secret if she didn’t kill Mrs. Harrison. When the body was still in sight, she told everyone to check the fridge masked as a CSI member. After they checked the fridge, she put the body into the fridge disguised as a CSI person. Then, she and some of Tristan Doff’s friends stole everything, all dressed as CSI members. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to drink tea again.


Princess Lou’s Adventure

Once upon a time, there was a princess named Lou, and she had one sister and one brother, and she lived in a castle in a place called London. One day, she went on an adventure with her brother, mom, and sister to an island called Wasabi Island. So they took their family’s royal boat. Once they got to the island it was already dusk, and so they all went into their rooms on the boat and slept until a bright light woke the mom up.

She opened her room’s door on the boat, and she said, “What are you?”

The thing said, “I am a good witch. Really, I promise, but my old best friend’s mom put a spell on me. I am really a good witch, so please don’t hurt me please.”

The mom said, “Oh fine, I won’t hurt you. But why are you here?”

The witch said, “I am here because the spell made me get trapped here too.”

The mom said, “What spell did she put on you?”

The witch said, “I have no idea.”

The mom said, “One minute.”

The witch said, “Okay,” and then there was a big cloud of smoke, and she disappeared.

The mom went and got her daughters and her son, and then somebody else came onto the boat.

He said to the queen, “I am really your husband. I just got trapped here somehow.”

All the children said, “Daddy!”

The mom said, “Now now, kids, we don’t know if it is really Daddy. So I am going to ask you some questions alright. Kids, go into Lou’s room and watch TV on my computer. Here is my computer.”

The kids said, “Yes, Mommy.”

“Okay now here is your first question, where was our wedding?”

“Here is my answer, at Sunken Gardens.”

The queen said, “Yes. Here is your second question, what is your mom’s friend’s dogwalker’s full name?”

“Here is my answer, Jessie Rose Robinson.”

“Correct,” the mom said. “Here is your third question. What is your sister’s boyfriend’s favorite color?”

“My answer is gold.”

“Yes, correct. Here is your fourth question. Where was our first date?”

“My answer is Daisy’s Diner.”

“Correct. You got all of them correct, so you must be my husband.”

She hugged her husband, and the mom said, “Kids, let’s go home now. But first say hi to Dad.”

They all said “Daddy” at once.

The dad said, “But who will drive the boat?”

The mom said, “I will.”

The dad said, “Alright.” 

So once they got home they all took a nap, and something woke Lou up. Surprisingly it was her brother and her sister, whose names are Dorothy and Charlie.

They said in childish voices, “Lou, there is somebody at the door!”

“Don’t worry, guys. I’ll get the door.” So she checked her phone because they had a Ring doorbell, and she checked the app, and it was somebody with a hoodie on that said anonymous on it, and she was freaked out.

So she said to her little brother and sister who were two, “Please go into your room or go into Mommy and Daddy’s room.”

They said, “Okay, Lou.”

So they went into their room and locked the door and watched their favorite movie on their tablet. So Lou locked all the doors and windows, including the courtyard. Lou wanted her mom and dad and sister and brother to be safe. The human tried throwing a brick at the window from outside, but it didn’t work, so he tried climbing over the fence. It didn’t work. It seemed there was no way of getting in.

She said to herself, “I only do this because somebody is forcing me to, and I don’t want to do it.” She sighed.

The next morning she checked her Ring app, and she was gone. So she called her best friend, Emma, and told her what had happened. But first Lou had to tell her parents what had happened. So she did. After that, she called her best friend Emma.

The end.

The Adventures of the Cat Club

Mittens is a brave little kitty. He is black, and his paws are white. He loves to travel around the world! He has a treehouse with lots of toys, blankets, and robotic machines. He loves fish and has a talent to catch them with his paws. But the most impressive thing about Mittens is that he is a tap dancer! He performs everywhere, like in France, New York, and Bubble Gum City! He lives on cat island, and since he has a ton of money… everything is made for cats! But, out of all the money, fame, and cat toys, Mittens has always wanted to travel to Hawaii to become a hula tap dancer! He also has a best friend named Jerry. Jerry is very funny and orange. They decided to travel to Hawaii together.

On the plane, Mittens asked Jerry, “What is your dream?”

Jerry said, “Probably to learn the alphabet!”

“Interesting!” Mittens answered, hoping his best friend really would learn the alphabet. 

As Mittens ate a few fancy treats and played tic tac meow with Jerry, he became tired, so he went inside his fluffy mini house that has his bed in it and is shaped like a star and fell asleep. 

In at least an hour later, he woke up from Sally, the waiter, saying, “We’re all going to die!”

All the workers were screaming. Catnip was flying everywhere.

Mittens meowed, “What happened?”

“You mean what’s happening?!” Jerry meowed back. “Birds were flying by, and John, our pilot, saw them and tried to catch them but didn’t realize that he couldn’t break through glass and lost control of the plane!”

“Oh, John!” Mittens sighed as he looked at John. “Have you been eating too much catnip? You know we’ve been telling you to stop! It’s bad for you!”

“Well… ” Mittens whispered to Jerry. “It’s pretty good!” John scrambled away, and Jerry laughed.

But his laughing stopped shortly after the plane crashed and all the cats meowed.

“Is everyone okay?” Mittens asked.

Meow!!” they all answered.

“Okay then… !”

So it turned out that they crashed in Hawaii and were near a volcano.

“It’s not going to explode, right?” Jerry asked.

“Of course not,” Mittens answered.

“People live here.”

People!!” Jerry screamed and fainted.

“Well ya,” Mittens scoffed as he got Jerry back on his feet.

“Oh my, I had a bad dream!” Jerry said. “Your plane crashed, and we went to Hawaii, and you said people were here. Mittens, I mean really!”

“Jerry? Jerry?” Mittens asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah! Of course! Why would I not — Oh no no no no!

“Jerry, calm down!”

No no no no no!!! Wait, Mittens, can I have some water please?”

“Umm yeah, yeah! Catnip flavor or plain?”

“Catnip flavor!” Jerry said as he wobbled into a tree and fell down.

“Okay!” Mittens said, partly laughing. “Here,” Mittens said as he gave the water to Jerry and splashed some on his face.

Hey! You got my fur wet!”

“Jerry, let’s go!” Mittens said.

“Okay, okay,” Jerry said, walking behind Mittens.

“Everyone else, try to find or rebuild the plane.”

They said, “Meowwwwww,” which meant okay in cat language, or as cats call it, Meowster talk.

As Jerry and Mittens ran into a restaurant, Mittens spotted a white, fluffy, beautiful female cat!

He stopped in his tracks, walked in a weird way that he thought looked cool, grabbed some shades, and said, “Hellooo, kitty.”

Mittens flexed his tail and put on his handsome face.

“Hi,” the girl cat said. “What’s your name? Mine is Snowflake.”

“My name is Gregory Von Chad the III Meower. Ummm, I’m Mittens! You like to hang around these parts of the woods — oops, I mean these parts of the restaurants? Umm, I mean you like fish? Ummm, no I mean I-I-I like your eyes. They’re so blue!”

“Thanks! Yours are nice too, and Mittens is a cute name!” Snowflake said dreamily or that’s what Mittens thought.

“Thank you, do you like tap dancers?”

“I guess, because you’re one!” Snowflake gave Mittens a piece of paper and then ran off.

Mittens opened the paper, and her number was on it!

Jerry found Mittens, and they ran through the restaurant when Jerry asked Mittens, “Who was that girl you were talking to?”

“Snowflake,” Mittens replied. “The most coolest, prettiest, mysterious kitty!”

“Cool… Got her number?” Jerry asked, gesturing toward the paper in Mitten’s paw.

“Yeah! We’re going to the movies tonight… or at least I think that’s what her eyes said… girls are confusing!”

“You’re telling me!” Jerry laughed. “My mom once liked peanut butter, and I said I do too, but then she kicked me in the basement! I’ll never eat peanut butter again!”

“Okay, good to know… but let’s find the hula place… I want to fulfill my dreams!” Mittens said heroically.

So Mittens and Jerry found the hula place, and Mittens tap danced with a skirt and blew people’s minds away!

“Go Mitty the Kitty!” Jerry screamed. 

As Snowflake ran, she stopped at a store to get some catnip. As she was walking out of the store, she saw a little gray mouse with an eyepatch and then blacked out. She woke up and found herself underground, tied to a chair, and a mouse was in front of her.

“Hello, pretty one,” the mouse said. “I am Cheesenstine! (The evil mouse who captured you and is now going to torture your kind!) I come from Cheesetopia, and I will trick your little boyfriend Mittens into coming to the movies with you and then capture him, and then steal his popcorn, and then watch the movie with you two tied, and then bring you back to my lair and keep you there while I destroy cat-kind with my Robotic Cheese Cat Exterminator 1000! And if you’re wondering why I’m against cats, it’s because I’m a mouse of course, and because one time someone stole my cheese, but mostly because when I was a little mouse, cats invaded my family’s hole we were living in and ate my mom, dad, and two sisters. I was the only one left, and I barely made it alive! That’s why I have this eyepatch! Because the cat stole what was supposed to be under it. So I will get my revenge! Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha!” He coughed loudly. “Ha-ha-ha, okay I’m done!”

“That was a lot to say for a little mouse like you!” Snowflake teased Cheesenstine.

“Oh you think you’re so tough!” Cheesenstine said, offended.

“Well… ” Snowflake said as she untied the ropes that were around her wrists with her claws. “I think I am actually pretty tough.” Snowflake busted out of the ropes and jumped on Cheesenstine.

“Yay!” Jerry continued screaming. “You’re the best hula tap dancer ever!”

“Thanks!” Mittens said as he took a water break. “Oh, I need to go! I have a date with Snowflake!” Mittens exclaimed.

“Go get her!” Jerry said proudly for no reason.

“Okay, I will!” Mittens ran off to pick up Snowflake at the restaurant where they met and couldn’t find her.

So he decided to call her with his cat phone (much more high tech… buy one today!) She picked up the phone apparently but seemed busy.

All he heard was, Meow meow. OW, STOP IT! HELP ME! MEOW! Oh hi, Mittens, I’m at Oloha Street, underground, where the sign is. Come quick. This guy is feisty.

Snowflake hung up, and Mittens ran to Oloha Street.

He looked at the ground and up at the sign and jumped. The ground opened, and he slid into a tunnel that led to an underground lair. There he found Snowflake and a mouse with an eyepatch and a bad temper fighting.

“What’s going on?” Mittens meowed over the noise.

They stopped fighting, and Snowflake said, “You’re here. Good. Now help me get this guy tied up!”

“Wait, what?” Mittens asked. “Who is he, and why were you two fighting?”

“Hello!” Cheesenstine said evilly. “I was going to capture you during your date at the movies, but this will work too! I am Chesenstine! And I captured your little friend to lure you into coming so I could keep you two from keeping me to destroy all cats with my Robotic Cheese Cat Exterminator 10000! Now you two are stuck here! Wonderful, right? Now bye bye!”

Cheesenstine said that he dug a hole upward? That made no sense, but Mittens and Snowflake were stuck.

“We have to find a way out of this!” Snowflake said as she stomped her paw in a cute way.

“Yeah totally,” Mittens agreed. “But what about the movies? I mean, like, is our date off?” Snowflake looked at him and instead of her slapping him, which is what he thought she was going to do, she smiled and laughed! “You really are a special cat,” she said to Mittens.

He blushed and quickly said, “Let’s go!”

“Umm, how again? Aren’t we trapped?” Snowflake asked.

“Yes,” Mittens said. “But… remember you’re with a really special cat?”

“Of course I do,” she exclaimed, laughing a little.

“Okay,” Mittens sighed. “But it’s crazy!”

“I’m in for crazy!” Snowflake assured.

“Okay, you see right there?” Mittens asked, pointing to a dark space in the lair.

“Yeah,” Snowflake said. “There’s nothing there.”

“That’s what you think,” he said smartly. “Look.” He walked in the dark and pushed out a black machine that digs threw dirt and throws cats around. “It has two seats, so we can dig upward and throw around Cheesenstine!” Mittens said happily. 

“Okay. Let’s try it!” Snowflake said, hopping into one seat, and Mittens hopped into the other.

They drove the machine through the dirt and came to the surface. 

People and cats were screaming and running everywhere as Cheesenstine destroyed buildings and tried to throw cats with his machine.

Jerry ran up to Mittens and Snowflake and asked, “So, no movies?”

“No movies!” Mittens answered.

“Let me guess,” Jerry started. “That mouse wants to destroy all cats because cats destroyed his family and his name is Cheesenstine?”

Mittens and Snowflake were stunned.

“What?! I watch a lot of movies!”

“Yeah, Jerry,” Mittens managed to say. “Now let’s destroy that guy.”

The three ran and jumped up on the Robotic Cheese Cat Exterminator 1000 (because cats can jump high) and started to bite the thing with their sharp teeth.

“This is useless!” Snowflake started.

“Yeah, we need a stick,” Jerry said. “That breaks everything!”

“Okay, then get your stick!” Mittens told Jerry.

So Jerry jumped off the machine and grabbed a big stick that was actually a log with his mouth, jumped back up on the machine, and hit the thing.

Ahhhh!” Cheesentine screamed from inside the Robotic Cheese Cat Exterminator 1000. “You stupid cats will pay!!!

Thunk!

The Cat Exterminator 1000 hit the ground, and Snowflake said to Jerry, “Wow, sticks really break everything!”

“Well, big sticks,” Mittens corrected.

“Yeah yeah,” she said. “So, Mittens, now that Cheesenstine is destroyed, want to go to the movies? I think Captain Meower is still playing tonight at 6!”

“Yeah, of course!”

“Ummmm, Jerry, want to go grab cheeseburgers?”

“Okay, dude, but never say ‘cheese’ again after what happened today!” Jerry said.

“Okay, let’s go… Bye, Snowflake!”

“Bye,” she replied.

After Jerry and Mittens got cheeseburgers, it was already 5:59, so they picked up Snowflake, and Jerry said bye when they got to the movies. Mittens and Snowflake went in the theater and started watching the movie Captain Meower!

As it got to the middle of the movie, Mittens said to Snowflake, “I thought my dream was to become a hula tap dancer, but now I realize it was to meet you. To find love.”


The Library

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

PLUTO is sitting in the library, reading books. This is the only place where he is not bullied. A lot of people in his class make fun of him for reading a lot.

PLUTO

Excuse me, Miss Agnes? I wanted to know if you had the book under the library code 6712.

MISS AGNES

Let me check the system. I suppose it’s here. Not many people read about law enforcement.

PLUTO

Thank you very much.

After PLUTO receives his book on law enforcement, he heads over to his classroom.

BULLY #1

Ha ha, you’re spending your whole recess in the library!

BULLY #1 says this while punching PLUTO in the stomach.

BULLY #2

Stupid boy here was in the library, it seems.

BULLY #3

Oh shut up, I have worse things to say about him. He’s a cake-sniffing brat. And he eats pizza.

BULLY #2

What type of insult is that?

BULLY #3

It’s a cake-sniffing brat pizza eater insult.

BULLY #1

Okay.

BULLY #3

Oh, and did I tell you he loves to eat pasta?

BULLY #2

He eats pasta? What the heck?

BULLY #3

Also, he watches television.

BULLY #1

He can’t. He spends all his time in the library, don’t you?

As PLUTO walks away, he sees MISS AGNES in trouble. MISS AGNES is trying to put back some books according to library code, but seems to be tripping. PLUTO runs as fast as he can and catches MISS AGNES before she falls off the ladder. As MISS AGNES thanks him, he hears the bell ring. He runs to the classroom to see his teacher waiting.

TEACHER

You’re late. I heard from a lot of kids that you were spending your time in the library. You’re supposed to be outside playing. And you skipped lunch. What an embarrassment! Now shut up and get to your seat. Oh, and did I forget to tell you that Owen, Justice, and Michael said you punched them in the stomach and said they were cake-sniffing, pizza-eating, television-watching, pasta-swallowing brats? What an embarrassment. You are the worst kid in the class, and you shall be banned from the library. You will sit out all of your recess in here, reading the Bible. And you shall skip lunch, and I will starve you until you die! And, as your punishment for today, I will dump you in a box full of box jellyfish, the most venomous jellyfish in the world. I hope you’re happy!


ACT TWO

SCENE 1

         PLUTO dumps himself in a glass showcase full of Australian box jellyfish. The stage goes black, and a huge nest appears out of the black. An egg hatches, and out comes a lightbulb, and a very deep voice comes out:

BRAIN

Bring food to school.

Another egg hatches.

BRAIN

Kill box jellyfish using a Band-Aid. Put the Band-Aid on top of the jellyfish, and the jellyfish will stop and drop to the bottom of the tank.

All eggs hatch.

BRAIN

Use modern witchcraft and wizardry!

Stage goes black


ACT THREE

SCENE 1

In “prison cell” a.k.a box jellyfish tank.

TEACHER

What does it say on page 397,000?

PLUTO

As God sent down the ten commandments… Oh, I’ll just stop talking. I already know the whole history of the golden lamb.

TEACHER

You have to keep on reading or else I’ll kill you. You have to keep on reading or else I’ll drive a knife through your stomach. I’ll also shred you like cheese. Or I’ll bring in my pet cobra!!!

PLUTO

5556677mkilopuutg

TEACHER
Stop that! And keep reading!

PLUTO dissolves.


ACT FOUR

SCENE 1

PLUTO enters the locked-up library.

MISS AGNES

Pluto, what are you doing here? And how did you — Oh. I know. I should have never let you look at that modern witchcraft and wizardry book.

PLUTO

I need books 667, 789, and 2394.

MISS AGNES

Okay. I’ll search the system. It seems they’re all here.

As PLUTO starts reading the books, MISS AGNES locks the library and leaves. She knows that PLUTO will be able to leave on his own.

PLUTO

1234567890-=[][ppoiuiyt54rfgbhytgytfhfjgjhgbvv cdftghbvdhdtfghb erhgfeyjk,.kiuhtfdsete6d5g3ef!!!!@#$%^&*()

PLUTO disappears into a book.

END OF BOOK ONE


The Sloth Who Gave Up Being Mean to the Pythons

Once upon a time there lived a sloth named Bob. Bob liked his name. He liked it because it was the only name he had. But… when Mom left with Ms. Python to get breakfast, the kid pythons stayed, and they had very sharp teeth. They ripped his toys. And when Mom got home, she would blame it on him.

He said, “I’m getting revenge.” And he did. Dun dun dun!

The next day, he set up a camera, and he turned on the camera when the pythons slithered in. Then he started the camera, and then they came in. The mother python left, and Mrs. Sloth left, and they started ripping and ripping and chewing the toys, and Bob got it all on footage. The next night he showed his mom, and his mom never invited those pesky snakes again.

At night, they slithered in the house and started chewing up his toys. He got it on footage and showed in to his mom. She locked the door extra tight and even used the slither block, which is a cage that drops on baby pythons, but not on Mrs. Snake. Then, the pythons hid in the bushes when she set up the trap. So, they knew to put a fake snake in the trap so it would drop and then move it to the side, so then they could get in the house again, but the door was locked. So they tried to slither under the door, but she even put out the little slither pincher, so it would pinch them if they went under!

The next morning, Mrs. Python came over and said, “Can we go out to breakfassssssst?”

“Sure!” said Mrs. Sloth.

“And can I leave the ssssssnakeesssss here?”

“Just this last time.”

Bob was really, really mad that the snakes stayed over again, but it was surprising. They didn’t chew up any more toys. They didn’t take any branches. They didn’t take anything!

After breakfast, Mrs. Python and Mrs. Sloth came home.

Mrs. Sloth said, “I know why they’re chewing up the toys. Because they don’t have a home, so they need fur blankets and shelter, and they make them out of the sticks and cotton.”

Bob said, “Oh. You can share a home with us! We have two extra rooms.”

They said, “Thank you! We’ll be back in a few minutes. We need to grab all our stuff.”

THE END


What Blood Can Do

Preface

Sara was a vampire, and everyone who knew her noticed something unusual about her the moment they saw her.


Chapter One: People

(Sara)

I opened the front door and walked out into the fresh spring breeze of L.A. and started walking down my block, keeping my pace quick and swift. That was mostly why everyone stopped me on the street to ask me why I was walking so fast. As I walked, I spotted a nice patisserie shop, and I walked in to avoid the people that would mostly look at me and question why I was walking so fast. And you know, I really don’t know why I walk so fast, but actually I do. It’s because I’m a vampire. I knew that before my mom did. When I was born, the people at the hospital noticed something that shone in me and that was that I was a vampire. It’s not that bad being a vampire. I actually like it.

“Excuse me, miss, is there anything we can help you with?” the man at the counter in the shop asked.

“Oh, yes! Could I get a hot chocolate with whipped cream please?”

“Yes, coming up! And that would be $5.30,” the man said.

“Sure,” I said as I handed him the money.

As I left the store, I noticed how the man looked at me, like I was different or suspicious, but I totally ignored him and kept doing my things.


Chapter Two: Walk

(Sara)

My walk back was actually pretty good, not so many stares. (At first).

But then a girl that looked about my age stopped me and asked me, “Are you magical? ‘Cause you walk unusually fast!”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I said, “I guess some people just walk fast.”

“Okay, I guess so too,” the girl responded. Then she stuck out her hand, “Emma,” she said.

“Sara,” I said.

Emma decided to walk to my house with me, and I was okay with it, so it wasn’t weird. We talked about random things that usually come to girls’ minds when they hang out.

Then when we got to my house, I said, “Do you want to come in?”

“Is that okay?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“K.”

***

Soon enough, it was time for Emma to leave, and she did.

But before she left she asked me, “Can we meet again tomorrow?”

I thought for a moment and then said, “Yes.”


Chapter Three: Friends

(Sara)

The next day, Emma came over, and she already had plans for us. I was actually really happy that she already had plans because then we would have probably been doing nothing since I’m not very good at making plans. Anyway, since Emma had plans she decided that we would go to a science museum.

“Does this museum have any blood or anything that has to do with blood?” I asked.

“Why?” Emma asked. “Do you faint at the sight of blood?”

“N-no, just does it?”

“Yeah, it does have a human body exhibit, and that includes blood.”

“Okay, then we better not go to this museum,” I mumbled.

“We can skip that part,” Emma suggested.

“Yeah, true, but still let’s do it another day,” I complained.

“Okay, fine!” Emma said, clearly annoyed.“Then where do you want to go?”

“Let’s go to a park. How does that sound?”

“Okay, I guess.”

I probably shouldn’t have been so picky, but how could I have resisted killing things, even people, maybe. You may not know how much I have to try not to kill Emma when I’m with her, and it would have been even worse at a museum with a blood exhibit.


Chapter Four: Blood

(Emma)

It was pretty annoying because Sara was being really picky about where we were going to go for fun. I suspected something about her that might have been the reason for why she didn’t want to go to this museum. But honestly I have no clue! Why would someone not want to go to a museum? Like, it’s just a museum! I thought, but then again blood. Blood was what was stopping Sara from going to this museum. Then I wondered why blood was stopping Sara.

“So which park do you want to go to?” she suddenly asked.

Since I was annoyed with her I said, “My friend texted me earlier and said that she was going to go to Griffith Park, and I said that I might meet her there, so let’s go there.”

“Okay, that sounds reasonable,” Sara murmured, clearly not very excited at my park choice with another friend.

When we got to the park, I spotted my friend (Madison), and I ran over to give her a hug!

“This is my friend, Sara,” I said as I introduced Sara to Madison. I noticed that Sara didn’t seem to mind how I had said the word friend.

“Hi, I’m Madison,” Madison said cautiously.

“Hi,” Sara whispered.

“So, what should we do?” Madison asked.

“Let’s go to the lake!” I suggested. “It will be about a 5-10 minute walk from here, so we can chat along the way! How does that sound?”

Madison and Sara just nodded. While we walked, I noticed how Madison stared at Sara just the way I had yesterday when I met Sara.

“I heard that you guys just met yesterday,” Madison said still looking at Sara.

“Uh, yes,” Sara whispered again.

“You don’t have to whisper you know,” I said.

Sara just shrugged. It was too peaceful. I didn’t think that Madison would notice Sara the way that I did. It was just very quiet, and it felt silent. Suddenly we heard a scream. We all turned around. There was a boy crying on the ground, and there was blood. Lots of blood. I glanced over at Sara. Her teeth were clenched, and she was shaking.

“Sara?” I asked.

“Yes?” she whispered.

“Are you okay?”

“Sort of.”

Madison glared at Sara. “Why are you whispering?” she demanded.

“Leave her alone,” I mumbled.

Then Sara lunged forward on top of the boy and then almost, just almost (and that is if I hadn’t come in and grabbed Sara) bit the poor boy.

What were you thinking??” I yelled at her.

“Okay, okay I should have told you!” Sara moaned.

I looked over at Madison, and she was glaring at me and at Sara.

Then Madison started to scream, “Sara, why did you just do that?! That kid was already hurt, and you just went to hurt that kid even more?! I can’t believe you! You can be such a jerk!

When I looked at Sara, she had tears in her eyes. Then when I looked at Madison, she was glaring at both of us very hard. She looked furious.

“Okay, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m a vampire!!! I couldn’t help it” Sara burst out.

“I’m sorry. I may have heard you wrong,” Madison said. “But I don’t think vampires exist. Is this some kind of joke?”

“You don’t understand!” Sara protested.

“Okay, whatever you say.”

I was so confused. Sara was a vampire? That must have been why she didn’t want to go to the blood museum, and that was also probably why she lunged for that poor boy. I was upset with Sara for not telling me, and I was upset with Madison because she was being so mean to Sara.

“Okay, let’s go, Emma. I’m done!!” Madison said.

“Bye,” I whispered to Sara.


Chapter Five: Friendless

(Sara)

I walked home unusually slowly. I was miserable because I didn’t know if Emma would still be my friend. It was for sure confirmed that Madison hated me. Why did I have to be a vampire? Why couldn’t I be normal. Why did Madison have to be so annoying? I wish that I hadn’t done what I had done. Oh, that poor kid, and it was all my fault. If I wasn’t a vampire then I would have never done any of the things that I did. Now I was totally friendless. Yay, I guess? This is how it was before I’d even met Emma and Madison, though I didn’t consider Madison a friend.

When I got home I went to my room and dialed Emma’s number. She didn’t answer, so I decided to text her. Here is what I texted:

To: Emma

Hi, it’s me, Sara. I hope you forgive me for what I did.

From: Sara

Then I decided to email her instead:

To: Emma

Hi, it’s me Sara I just called you, but you didn’t answer which is okay.

I am emailing you to tell you that I would like to be friends again and to explain what/why I did what I did earlier today at the park. Here is my explanation:

Since I told you earlier that I am a vampire, and it’s true, that’s why I lunged for the kid. Vampires have to try not to kill people, or rather humans, when they are near each other. I’m not trying to scare you. I promise that I will never kill you. We are attracted to human blood, so that’s why I went for that kid (because of all the blood on the floor).

I really hope you forgive me.

From: Sara

All I had to do was hope that Emma would respond quickly.


Chapter Six: Email (Part One)

(Emma)

Madison and I walked with me to the ice cream truck where I got chocolate and she got vanilla. We ate in silence.

“I have to go,” I told Madison when we were halfway through our ice cream.

“Why?” she asked. “Need to apologize to the jerk?”

I rolled my eyes. “No.”

“Okay, fine. Bye! Can we meet up tomorrow?”

“No,” I whispered.

“What! Why?”

“Let me go please. I’ll text you later maybe.”

“Bye.” She waved at me.

I walked home quickly. I knew that I needed to talk to Sara. Not that I was sorry yet. I actually started to run. I ran home, fast. I opened the front door and quickly locked it behind me. I ran upstairs and opened up my MacBook to Gmail. I had gotten an email from Sara! Yay! After I was done reading it, I understood why she had acted so weird. I quickly responded:

To: Sara

Hi! I got your email, and now I am responding.

I understand why you did what you did. Madison will never forgive you just so you know, but I will.

I hope that we can be friends again even though we were never not friends.

From: Emma

All I had to do was hope that Sara would respond quickly.


Chapter Seven: Email (Part Two)

(Sara)

Yes! Emma responded. I really hoped that she wasn’t mad, and from reading her email I could tell that she was not mad!

I decided to write Emma another email:

To: Emma

I am so relieved that you will still be my friend even though I probably don’t deserve it. Thank you so much!

Also, can you come over tonight or tomorrow?

From: Sara

Chapter Eight: Email (Part Three)

(Emma)

I read Sara’s message and responded this:

To: Sara

Hi! I’m glad that you are willing to be friend, and yes you deserve it. What could you have done? You couldn’t help yourself. I obviously forgive you as I said before. Earlier Madison asked if I could meet her tomorrow, and I said no! But we can definitely meet tomorrow. Can we talk on the phone instead? I think it would be much easier. Also, sorry that I didn’t pick up the phone earlier. I was still at the park, and my phone was silenced.

Talk to you in a sec (on the phone).

From: Emma


Chapter Nine: Phone Call

(Sara)

I read Emma’s email and then called her on my phone.

“Hi, Emma?” I asked.

“Hi, Sara!” she said.

“So I’m really sorry for what I did earlier.”

“It’s fine, really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, positive.”

“So you said that Madison asked to meet tomorrow and you said no?” I said.

“Yup.”

“Why? For me?”

“Sort of, mostly because I got pretty sick of her, and if you didn’t know she is someone who is very easy to get sick of, and because I wanted to make it up to you.”

“Oh, thank you, but shouldn’t I be the one apologizing?” I asked Emma.

“Only if you want.”

“Yes please!” I cried.

Emma just laughed. “So should I come over tomorrow, or do you want to come over. Actually I think you should come see my house for once.”

“Okay! Sounds good” I said excitedly.

“Bye, Emma!”

“Bye, Sara!” And we hung up.


Chapter Ten: Fake Friends

(Madison)

We are totally fake. Me and Emma, no way am I ever going to like her or her friend “the jerk.” How could she leave me to go home and probably go talk to “the jerk.” Oh well, I’m never going to forgive her anyway, so she better be sorry. We are fake friends. I wonder was she faking it the whole time because I sure wasn’t. When I first met Emma she seemed like such a nice girl, but now? Oh, god! I should probably call her to see if maybe, just maybe I can convince her to meet me again tomorrow.

I dialed Emma’s number, and she responded almost immediately

“What do you want?” she asked, annoyed.

“Could you please meet me tomorrow?”

“No, I already told you.”

“Ugh.”

“Plus I made plans with Sara for tomorrow. She’s coming over!

What?!” I yelled.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

You betrayed me to go with — ”

Emma stopped me and and said, “She is not a jerk.”

Fine!” I yelled. “If you don’t want to be my friend then I guess I’m better off without you!

“Same here.” Emma agreed.

“Why are you so mean?!” I asked.

“You are the one who is mean,” she remarked. “I’m just standing up for my friend and what’s right.”

I didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Emma. I just hung up.


Chapter Eleven: Hiking

(Emma and Sara) or (2nd person)

The next morning, Sara walked over to Emma’s house, and Emma explained that she thought that they should go hiking. Sara agreed and went back to her house to get a sandwich and hiking gear. When she was done, Emma and Sara met at Emma’s front door.

“Let’s do this!” Emma said.

“Cool!” Sara responded.

The two of them hiked in Griffith Park (the same park where Sara and Madison had met). They started to hike at the very beginning of the trail, and all they really talked about was what had happened earlier.

They hiked and hiked until Sara stopped in her tracks.

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“I smell something.” Sara said.

“What!”

Blood,” Sara whispered. “Also you probably don’t want to see this, so you should go.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m probably going to hunt.”

“Wouldn’t that be cool?” Emma asked.

“No,” Sara said. “Please go, I don’t think you want to see me hunt.”

“Can I just watch from a distance?”

“Okay fine, but a far distance.”

“K,” Emma said.

Emma walked away from Sara about 20 steps and stood to watch her.


Chapter Twelve: My View

(Emma)

As I moved back, I saw Sara take a deep breath. Then I saw a wolf come into view.

“Ahh,” I gasped.

“Shhh… ” Sara said looking back at me. “Move back five more steps.”

I moved back and watched as Sara lunged for the wolf…


Chapter Thirteen: What’s Going On

(Madison)

I was really upset, but maybe just maybe I could call Sara and see if she would pick up. So I dialed Sara’s number and waited. Ugh she didn’t pick up, I thought. I wonder where she and Emma went, but apparently they are not at Emma’s house or Sara’s house. Don’t tell me that she went to a park or rather Griffith Park. No, no, no! I thought. To me Griffith Park is a devil. I decided to leave my mom a note about where I was going, it said:

Hi mom.

I went to Griffith Park, and I’ll be back in about 1-2 hours. See you then!

-Madison

I headed out, and when I got to the park, I was very annoyed. If Emma and Sara were here, then I would have to check all over the park. Ugh! How was I ever going to find them? Oh no, I thought to myself. I had just gotten hungry, and I would have to go get food before I could go look for my “friends.” I decided to go to Taco Bell since I love tacos!


Chapter Fourteen: The Wolf

(The wolf)

I was just strolling nearby, and yes I did hear some voices, and maybe I should have gotten scared, but I didn’t. Then I saw two girls talking, and then one of them backed away from me or from the other girl. (I don’t know.) No one needs to be scared of me. I’m just a wolf. Wait — are people scared of wolves? Is that normal? I know that I’ve been pretty calm, but something else happened. Suddenly the girl closest to me lunged at me! I was not expecting this. Ah, now I understand this girl is a vampire, and she wants to eat me.


Chapter Fifteen: Kill

(Sara)

As I jumped at the wolf, I thought, Should I be doing this? Yes was the answer. The wolf dodged me. I bared my teeth at him and jumped on top of him and dug my teeth into his neck. (Yum!) The wolf tried to shake me off, but I held on and bit deeper. I took a quick glance at Emma. She was frozen to her spot. I bit again, and this time the wolf stopped moving. He just fell peacefully on the ground… dead.

I looked at Emma again. She looked really sad and amazed at the same time.

“You just killed a wolf,” she managed to say.

“Yeah, that’s kind of how we hunt,” I said.

“But that was a life that could have lasted a couple of years more,” she protested.

“I’m sorry that’s just how we hunt,” I said.

“Well, that was cruel!” Emma said.

“I’m sorry, but you were the one who wanted to see this,” I said.

“That’s true. Let’s go now,” Emma said.

“Umm… you can go, but I’m hungry.”

“Oh yeah, sorry. I guess I’ll wait for you.”

“You probably don’t want to see this. It’s a little bit disturbing.”

“Okay, right. But it’s okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

I devoured the wolf’s blood quickly and then just left it like that.

“You’re just going to leave the poor wolf alone like this?” Emma asked, worried.

“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.

Emma did not look too happy about this.


Chapter Sixteen: How It Feels to Be Dead

(The Wolf)

Now I’m dead, and I was just trying to live, and now I’m dead. Oh well, what can I do? Nothing I guess. That other girl did not look too happy to see her friend kill a wolf. Vampire. I officially do not like vampires. Not at all! They are dirty little creatures who go around sucking blood from other things. I wonder if they think that they can kill teddy bears? Or objects in general! Well, it doesn’t matter because I am dead, and being dead feels like being dead, or it might feel like lying on the ground and reflecting on your bad life where an annoying girl just randomly jumped on top of you and killed you. Not so fun if you ask me. Now what will happen to me? Will I become a wolfire (wolf-vampire)? Or will I just melt into the ground? If I become a wolfire, I will go kill the girl who thought she had an appetizing meal of a magical wolf who came back for her in the next life! Haha, revenge!


Chapter Seventeen: Found Them

(Emma, Sara, and Madison) or (2nd Person)

When Madison finished her lunch, she went to the part of the park where there was lots of grass, and she sat down to wait and see if Emma and Sara would show up. And yes, just as Madison sat down, she saw Emma and Sara come into view.

“Emma! Sara!” she yelled as she jumped up.

“Hi, Madison,” Emma said wearily.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, well, something.”

“Can you tell me?” Madison asked.

“Okay,” they both said.

So Emma and Sara told Madison what had happened, and Madison finally understood. She apologized to Sara, and they were all at peace.

“You know we should all go to my house!” Madison said.

“Cool, yeah!” Sara agreed.

“Okay, let’s go!” Emma said.

And the three girls walked off to Madison’s house in the quiet evening.

The End

A word from the wolf:

This is amazing. I came back to life as a wolf, so yeah I’m the same, but I’m fine with it. I don’t think I’m ever going to go near that girl again. But I do hope that wolves can be more friends with humans.


Softy the Unicorn

Softy gazed at the sky as beautiful fairies flew past with shimmering wings that made her dreamy. The sweet grass tasted bitter on her tongue. If only she could fly, the grass would have been sweeter than ever.

“Wings,” she whispered. She always wanted wings. “This is it, I’ll start researching now.” She went to a tree. There she lifted up a map with her magical horn spell and brought it down. She stared at the map for a while. “Aha! Magical lands of unicorns, here I come!”

Softy always imagined going to a ball with her pink hair and white wings.

That night, she could not sleep. A blue magical light was leading her to the magical lands of unicorns. Somehow she knew it.

She packed the map and pink, yellow, green, and blue potions. One book of magical spells fell down, and she kept it too.

She was walking through the pumpkin patch. It was about 12 o’clock. All the pumpkins would eat her if she didn’t make it through in time. Pumpkins can only wake up at 12:00. She figured out that she can command the light, then she commanded the shimmering light to turn black, surrounding her on all the sides. At 12:01, she started walking again.

That night, at 1:30 she fell down into the world’s deepest sleep as the light turned into a soft, cozy blanket.

“Oh no! I think the big bad wolf and gingerbread man are coming.” She took the map out as she ran quickly. She ran down a hill and turned left at a cave. “Let’s go inside the waterfall of the cave.” After a quick drink, she and the light continued on the path again.

A day turned into night, and she was working hard, walking with the quick light, making her trot. A gate appeared, her destiny. “Finally!” A huge gasp broke the silence, but she needed to unlock the gate.

Peeping from the gate, it looked like an abandoned garden not touched for ages. The grass was dried out, and moss was covering the trees. Taking the potions she brought, she took four drops of green, mixed it with a drop of pink and blue together and one drop of yellow.

She dropped it around the place, and life came back with green growing up the roots, and the gate opened. “Wow!” she exclaimed.

She entered the palace named The Castle Maze. It was a crystal castle. It had blue crystal carvings, and it was the most magical castle in the land. Spookiness was shattered in between unicorns’ deadly neighs and ticking clocks.

She found something that she didn’t know existed. A button. She pressed it. She stepped in an elevator — again, she didn’t know it existed, so she was scared to get on at first.

In the top of the palace, unicorns were captured in a cage. There was a bomb, but nobody knew. They were cursed by humans. Blood kept bleeding from the unicorns, and they had deadly magical horns.

She opened the last item, an ancient looking book. There was the hardest spell, the only one to free and bring everything to life. Her strongest magical powers came together in a burst of magic.

As she opened her eyes, she had wings, and the light turned into a star-shaped crown. The unicorns happily looked at Softy and bowed. They were finally free. The last unicorn leader bowed. She had orange hair and wings. Softy looked curious for just a second. Then, she had the biggest smile. She saw her mother and father bow in front of her.

They told Softy that this was a curse by the humans, and they had left this magical land where she was born. “It was raining,” they said, “and every magical element was closing one by one, except this castle. There was no hope now, and all of our kind was trapped, and we were the only ones where we were living, called the Magical Lands of Everything. We were scared that all of our kind would die after three minutes exactly because of the fiery ball in the corner.” Softy named it a bomb. “We never knew that you would run out of our sight and come here. But this is great, you freed us all.”

Softy blushed, and inside her a tear was saved. She almost cried, but she kept it inside.

She took her first flight, and success! She was whooshing through the land and found another waterfall, the source of water for the land of unicorns. She stood on a rock in the middle, and she looked up to the sky. She knew that she could protect this land as long as she could live. She looked at her wings and tried to look at her crown. It was raining, but this time not for sadness but for happiness as a rainbow appeared in the sky.

The End.


Star and the Dilemma

Chapter One: Hi

Hi, my name is Star. I like to sword fight with my brother, Ash. I am a really good archer. I get a bullseye every time I shoot the arrow.

“Bullseye!” my dad shouted every time I shot.

Then Ash said, “Can you teach me?

So I said, “Not now.” But today I said, “Okay, Ash, but tomorrow, okay?”

“Fine,” said Ash.

“Oh, and did I tell you I am not allowed to use my bow without grown-up supervision?”

The next day I woke up to the delicious smell of pancakes and my brother jumping on me yelling, “Wake up! Wake up! Dad made pancakes!”

I was annoyed. “Did you have to wake me up by jumping on me?” I said.

“Yes, yes I did,” Ash said as he walked out of my room.

I got out of bed and put on my slippers, then went downstairs.

When I got downstairs, I saw a delicious looking plate of pancakes.

As soon as I saw the pancakes, I ran to the table and started to shove pancakes in my mouth.

Then Ash, rubbing his hands together and grinning evilly, said, “Time to teach me.”

I stopped shoving pancakes in my mouth and said, “Mumumumu,” but I meant to say, I’m going camping with my friends.

Ash said, “What? I thought you were going to teach me how to shoot the bow and arrow correctly.”

I said, “Sorry, but I already arranged the sleepover in the woods with my friends.”

Ash ran upstairs and slammed his door. Then I went upstairs into my room and started to pack.

Chapter Two: The Camping Trip

After I finished packing, I went to my friend’s house and knocked on the door.

She opened the door and said, “Hi.”

I said, “Hi, Julia. Is Abby here yet?”

Julia said, “Not yet, but she’s coming soon.”

I said, “Great!”

“Did you bring your equipment for the trip?” Julia said.

We heard a knock on the door, so we opened it. It was Abby!

Chapter Three: It Begins

We went outside into her backyard. We saw the path to the forest. As we stepped in, I realized that I forgot something.

I said, “Be right back,” and I ran home.

I grabbed my bow and arrows and snuck out of the house. Then I ran back to my friend’s house. Her mom let me in, and I went back to the forest. They had already set up camp. So we started to make dinner. We made pasta, corn, and salmon. And for dessert we had packaged cake. After we finished eating, we went to bed. I woke up first, and then I fell back to sleep. I woke up for the second time to the sound of a scream.

I stuck my head outside and said, “What’s wrong?”

And that’s when I saw it… a giant black bear. I went back into the tent and grabbed my bow and arrows. Then I remembered I wasn’t allowed to shoot it without grown-up supervision. Then I thought, Would I rather have a giant black bear chasing me? Or would I rather be safe? I went outside the tent and told them to go to the side of the forest. I raised my bow, and I shot. I got the bear right in the arm, and it got pinned to a tree.

Chapter Four: The Plan

The bear was pinned to the tree. I felt bad for it and so did my friends. So we tied the rope to the arrow. Our plan was to pack up everything that we had, get far enough away, and then pull the rope, so the bear would be set free. We started to pack up things, and then we started off toward the house. And then we tugged the rope. The bear was set free. It was scared, so it didn’t run toward us. It just turned around and ran farther into the forest. When we got inside, we were panting. We ran because we thought the bear would chase us. But luckily it didn’t. Julia’s mom gave us a snack. The snacks were chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow icing. Then I went home.

My dad saw me with my bow and said, “Why do you have that? I thought you left it in your room.”

I told him that I used it to save my friends.

Chapter Five: The Conversation

My dad told me that I shouldn’t have brought my bow and that I was grounded for a month. Then I told my dad that there would be a bear scratching at my window if I didn’t bring my bow. He still thought it was wrong, but he took back the punishment after a while. I went up to my room, and I unpacked. I ran over to my friend’s house, and I invited her to my house to camp in my backyard.

She said, “Okay,” and she started to pack.

She went to my backyard, and she saw that there was a tent, a campfire, and there was some food. We went inside, and we got a few snacks, like cookies, strawberries, whipped cream, and hot cocoa mix. We started to make dinner, and then we went to bed. The next morning we woke up, and it was 8:00 in the morning. All the lights were off in the house, and that was unusual for my family. Everyone woke up early. Neither my parents nor my brother were there. They always woke up early. I was the only late sleeper in the house. We went inside, and we heard nothing. We were scared.

“What do we do?” said Julia.

“I don’t know,” I responded, staring at the dark kitchen.


Lost in Outer Space

Everyone around was panicking because they only had two more hours of oxygen. His head hung low. The whole reason they were about to die was his fault, and everyone was shouting at him. The whole reason it was his fault was because he was driving the cramped, smelly form of transportation, and he had crashed into something that they didn’t know about.  Actually, he was happy. His boss, who hated everything and was so mean, had lowered the pay, fired all of his best friends, and while he was driving, his boss had turned his phone on too loud.

When they had crashed, they couldn’t turn around, and they were going to get lost, but they only had a limited amount of oxygen.

The oxygen would only last for two hours. Then the rocket burst open, and they all died except him, who stole the yellow oxygen tank and ate his spaceship by cutting it up with a knife that he had in his pocket. Then he ate a planet. First, he felt a weird, tingly feeling in his head. Then, he got bigger and bigger and became a spaceship!

Then he crashed into Earth, and humans went everywhere. Some ended up on Mars, some on Jupiter, some on Saturn, but none on Pluto. Pluto, which was the first place that he looked at and loved, was nice and empty, so that’s where he chose to live. After years of living alone, he decided that he felt sorry for the humans who could no longer live on Earth. Then he decided to get a job selling groceries on Mars, and the pay was good.

He liked Mars because there, nobody cared if he was a rocket. He liked Jupiter because it was a nice, safe place. He hated Saturn because everybody there despised him because he was a rocket, and there were a lot of burglaries. One day, on Pluto, he found his boss. Pluto was too cold, so he had to live on a different planet. So then, he tried to get his boss a job on Mars, but Mars was packed. He couldn’t live on Jupiter because people didn’t like him because they knew he was mean. Finally, he got a home on hateful, miserable Saturn. After about a week, he was a nicer, changed man. The best thing about him was that he always turned his phone on mute, so he could live on Jupiter.

One day, a person who lived on Neptune was dead and was having a funeral. Then they went to Neptune, but once they had launched, they got lost. He did not want to get lost because he had already gotten lost, and he didn’t like it one bit! At last, he realized he forgot the oxygen tank! They wandered around space for awhile. Suddenly, they saw another rocket! The rocket had oxygen, so the people climbed onto it, and the rocket showed them the way to Neptune, where they attended the funeral. After the funeral, they got more oxygen and flew back to Mars. After a few weeks, his boss died of pneumonia, and he was very sad, but he had gained a lot. He had made friends with his boss, had gotten a job at the grocery store, and had lived a nice, happy life.

The End!

Thank you for reading!


The Happy Dragon

There was a big, green, happy dragon from California who wanted a spiky banana split. They tasted like love. There was another dragon, and he was right in front of the happy dragon, and he bought the last spiky banana split, but then it had mold on it! So, he threw it out, but it was not actually mold. It was purple sprinkles.

The mad dragon went to the back of the line, and his arms were crossed. The happy dragon started to laugh because he knew it was sprinkles the whole time. The happy dragon was now a sad dragon.

He started to turn around when he saw this new ice cream store, and he walked in, and he saw no line and one last spiky banana split, so he ran in line, but he didn’t make it. Someone got in front of him, and they were thinking of getting the spiky banana split.

The dragon started shivering, but that person didn’t get it because he actually wanted the rainbow smoothie, and then the dragon could get it, and he went home and ate it. He was really happy, and he ate it, and it was super good, and then he went back to the store to get the recipe.

They didn’t have a printer, so they had to go somewhere to get it printed, and they decided to go to the printer’s office next door.

The happy dragon said, “Hi, can I print the recipe for the spiky banana split?”

The printer said, “Yes.”

“Yay!” the happy dragon said, and he started flossing.

He ran back home to go bake it.

When he got home, his little sister ran to get the door. She was small and purple. All younger dragons were purple, and all older ones were green.

She said, “Hi!”

His mom said, “Why are you home so late?”

“I went to the printer’s office to print something.”

The happy dragon took a shower, ate dinner, made the banana split for dessert, and then went to bed.

In his dream, he saw the ice cream man and the long line, and one person was talking in front of him.

He kind of looked like a banana split, so the happy dragon went up, and he tapped him on the shoulder and said, “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting my babies back,” said the banana split.

The dragons helped cut in front, so they could get the babies. They were a bit hot because it was a hot summer day. Then an alien invaded the banana babies and took them and the parent to their home because they were from outer space.

The dragon woke up and got dressed and ate breakfast and went to the store and yelled, “Those are babies! Not spiky banana splits!”

But the people thought they were just spiky banana splits.

Then, he saw the new flavor, which was the kiwi spiky sundae, but he got it, and it was super good. It tasted like a rainbow.

That night, he dreamed about the kiwi saying, “Don’t eat me! We have lives too.”

It was trying to swim back into the ice cream, and he didn’t eat it.

He wanted to shut down the shops, so he went to the mayor. The mayor lived downtown, and the happy dragon lived uptown, so he had to take the train. He saw people eating fruit, so he was really scared because he thought they were babies, and then he finally got off at the stop, and he saw this big fruit garden. He went into the fruit garden. He picked the fruit and put them in a shed and talked to them. He talked to them in the shed so that no one knew he was talking to them, so no one thought he was really weird.

He said, “Why do you keep appearing in my dreams?”

The bananas answered first and said, “Because you eat us.”

Then the kiwis answered, and they said, “Because you eat us.”

Then the raspberries answered, and everybody answered,  “Because you eat us.” He ate them every day for breakfast on his pancakes.

“I’ll bring you to the mayor, and you can discuss with him,” he said.

At the mayor’s office, the fruit wrote on a piece of paper, Shut down all the shops. The banana wrote on a little stick, We don’t like you mister mayor, and then the tomatoes wrote, We don’t like your cooking, because the mayor never washed his hands.

The mayor had red clothes, green hair, and red cheeks, and he looked like a tomato.

I know that’s weird… but it’s true.

The end


Is a Kiss Just a Kiss?

Content Warning: The content of the following piece includes an active shooter situation in school

Chapter One

Awww!” I groan. I peek into my locker at school.

“What’s the issue?” Erika says. Erika says it with an attitude, so I wonder why Erika is acting so rude.

“Oh jeez, why do you have to say it like that? I just forgot my history book at home,” I say.

“Did I ask you for your personal information? I did not need to know that,” says Erika.

I slam my locker shut and start walking to my next class.

Bang!!! Chase and I bang heads, but we are okay. Chase is the cutest boy at Washington High.

Owww!” I say at the same time as Chase.

“Sorry,” Chase apologizes.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“Well, well… ” Chase says nervously.

Chapter Two

“Yeah?” I say. “You can tell me anything.”

“I was just wondering if you would like to see a movie with me?” Chase says nervously as he looks down at his blue jeans.

I don’t know what to say because I am shocked. I have liked Chase since sixth grade when we met at Washington Middle.

“Ummm… “Sure?” I say that like I am going to ask a question.

“What movie do you want to see?” Chase says that excitedly. “Oh, what about Bird Box?

“Sure,” I answer. I am confused why Chase asked me to go out with him. I secretly like him, but I didn’t know that Chase actually wanted to go out with me. “So what time and day,” I ask, “and I’ll need your phone number.”

“Tomorrow night, 6:00,” Chase says.

Chase takes out his phone and hands it to me. I put my phone number in his phone and hand his phone back.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.

Chapter Three

I set my alarm for 6:30 am. I am a bit nervous for my date. I am not sure if I should bail on him or go on the date.

I pick out a sweater with ripped shorts and a tank top with my favorite pair of Vans. I switch the sweater and don’t like it, so I pick out another sweater, and I hate it so much that I just go with the even worse sweater that I put on.

When I arrive at school, Chase runs to me and gives a hug.

“Hey bae — I mean Evelyn,” Chase says.

“Hi?” I say weirdly. It is weird how Chase called me “bae” because I thought Chase liked Erika, not me. Maybe he likes me, maybe he doesn’t. I don’t know.

“‘Kay. I’m leaving. Bye.” I walk away to English class, but before I leave…

Chapter Four

“Wait!” Chase says. He runs to me and kisses me. His soft lips pressing against mine feels like heaven.

“O-M-G!!! Was that a dream?” I say. I feel really good, but I am worried that someone saw the kiss.

“No. It wasn’t. It was real. I’m in love with you,” Chase says. I can’t believe that he’s in love with me!

“Ummm… I have to go to class right now. Love you — I mean see you later,” I say nervously.

“See you later, Ev,” Chase says.

During English class, there is an announcement.

“Hello, students, can Evelyn and Chase come to the principal’s office? Evelyn and Chase to the principal’s office.”

“You know what that means, go to the office,” the English teacher says.

I am confused. I don’t know why I have to go to the principal’s office, but I just go along with it. I am also confused why Chase has to go as well.

“Hello, Chase and Evelyn. You have come to the office because there has been a rat infestation in your locker Chase.”

“What?” Chase freaks out so badly that his face turns red, like the color of blood.

“And Evelyn, you have an empty locker next to yours, so we have decided that Chase is going to be next to you.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… ”

Chapter Five

“Excuse me, Ms. Campbell. Please bring Chase to his new locker,” the principal says.

“Okay,” I say. I show him to the locker next to mine.

“See you later,” I say.

“See you,” Chase says. I walk to my class blushing. I was going to kiss him, but don’t want to make a scene and also I don’t want to be late for class. I’m kind of starting to have feelings for him, but I know that he doesn’t have feelings for me.

Wait!!!” Chase yells. “Here is a letter for you.”

I open up the envelope and start reading:

Dear Evelyn,

I have to confess this to you. I love you. I’ve loved you since middle school, and I’ve been nervous to tell you this, so I put it in a letter. You are the most prettiest person I’ve ever met, not Erika. I love you, and I hope you feel the same way.

– Love, Chase

O-M-G!! He loves me! Ya! But why say it now when we already went out on a date, or just a hang out.

A few minutes later, I’m in math class.

Ring! Ring! Ring! The principal makes an announcement that someone broke into the school.

“Everyone! There is a robber in the school! Everyone form a line, and evacuate the school ASAP!!!” the principal says.

We are now standing in a line, being very silent because I’m scared. Now I’m with Chase to evacuate the school. I can see a man with a gun!

He’s aiming his gun at Chase. I have to save him. I have to be brave. I jump in front of Chase to save him.

Oh no! Evelyn!!” Chase cries…


Under The Same Stars

Why are things stressful? I don’t know! Then why did I ask myself? That I don’t know either! My thoughts are so weird. I thought.

Why do people have to write book reports? I DON’T KNOW? I have to stop asking myself these questions!

Face in my hands, out of my mind, trying to write a book report that is due tomorrow, this is torture. I wish James was here to help me… NO, don’t think different thoughts. James will be back soon enough! Think Moby Dick thoughts!

After what seemed like HOURS (it was more like 30 minutes) I got my book report done. James would be SO proud… I miss him. Maybe when I go to Hollywood to visit him I can show him this, it being my one of my better book reports.

***

“Time for dinner!” my mom shouts from the kitchen, her voice echoing through the silent hallway where James used to rant the poems that had wrote moments before. All of them hitting you with the feeling and passion they were written with. But now it is just echo.

This feels so unnatural… Why would she shout??? She KNOWS it is going to echo! Okay, NO, it is not her fault, Sam! How dare you think that!

I run down stairs with my eyes shut and sniff the air.

I know exactly what this is!!!

“It is soup dumplings!” I shout, excited about my guess.

“Correct!” my mom exclaims with a smile. “Now as your prize for guessing correctly, you don’t have to do the dishes after dinner!”

Does she sense my loneliness? She would NEVER do this if she didn’t. I hate that she can read my mind! If James hadn’t left then I wouldn’t feel so lonely! SAM! How dare you put your own good in front of your brother’s dreams! James deserves to take this chance!

“Yes!!!” I exclaim, hoping that my mom doesn’t notice the awkward tone I say it in.

“Let’s go sit down,” she says in a more melancholy tone.

Holy crap! She figured it out. Shoot shoot shoot shoot No….

We go and sit down at the table, and by then I have a plan for not talking.

I am going to ALWAYS keep my mouth full to the brim with soup dumplings. That way I can’t talk and if I wolf it down like that, then I can be excused then BOOM! No sharing feelings!!! Why do i not want to keep my feelings to myself? Again, Sam, STOP IT WITH THE QUESTIONS!

I sit down to a full plate of 10 dumplings. The aroma is irresistibly incredible.

This is going to be a piece of cake…

I gather my composure with a smile and pile three dumplings into my mouth at once.

And then it hits me…

These are soup dumplings… They have hot broth in the center… I just bit into THREE OF THEM without poking the dumpling and letting the broth cool down…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” I holler, mouth sizzling and burning like an egg in a frying pan.

Ice, ice, I need ICE!!!

I jump from the table and sprint to the freezer.

***

That was embarrassing… Why didn’t I think that through!? Maybe because I was so focused on getting things in my my mouth swallowing and running back up the stairs that I didn’t consider the ABSURDLY HOT BROTH! Why am I so stupid!? Again. Sam… STOP IT WITH THE QUESTIONS!!

My mom looks at me with that pity look she uses only when someone has truly embarrassed themselves.

Great.

“Honey… ” she begins awkwardly. “You need to start to talk about your feelings! You’ve always been a quiet introverted person, but lately it has been abnormal and depressing.”

Hey, Mom, ever heard the phrase TOO MUCH INFORMATION??

“Meh,” I respond, quieter than I have ever been attempting to make a joke. “Not a big feelings person. More into baggy sweats and graphic novels.”

OH GOD I literally NEVER make jokes OUT LOUD. Was that funny? SAM, YOU WILL FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF IN JUST A MOMENT!! NO. QUESTIONS!!!

“I never hear you make jokes. You are incredibly funny! You should really use those skills more!” my mom suggested after a fit of laughter.

And right after I feel like I have actually socialized. (I know, shocker.) The doorbell rings.

***

There is a letter. From James. For me. MY BROTHER HAD FINALLY WRITTEN!!!

My mom grins at me, her pearly whites flashing with intensity, and if I am right, a little bit of hope.

“Go up to your room and read it, since it is for you specifically then come back down and I can reheat your dinner,” she says with a wink, and then swiftly glides back into the kitchen.

I am so excited!!! But also nervous… What if Hollywood changed him? He is my brother. I want the best for him, and when he wrote a play for his high school, never in a million years would I think that a famous producer and director would want to turn his play into a Hollywood production. To be honest, I would be TERRIFIED. But nevertheless, I must read this. To tell the truth, I would still read this if he had shoes growing out of his forehead.

Okay… moment of truth…. Let’s read this letter.


Sam,

You are probably wondering if Hollywood has changed me, and in fact it has for the better. I have learned life skills and improved my abilities in the driving. Now let me ask YOU a question. Have you done the same?

Oof. Way to give me a punch in the gut. He knows I have always compared myself to him. Anywho, I have to continue.

Look, I know you have been a reserved, introverted person, but you have ruined your social life! And to fix this, I have a challenge for you.

Man… the dude may be a soon to be superstar, but he sure remembers how to catch my attention. He knows I love challenges. And before I read the rest, challenge accepted.

I challenge you that in ten MONTHS you will have a big group of friends, soaring grades, an appearance that pleases you, and what you feel is a healthy, fit body. But I know you can’t accomplish this without having a little comforting poetry before it.

Think about this:

When you’re in bed

And looking up through your skylight

Watching the bright, gleaming stars

Think about this:

We all sleep under the same stars

We all have a connection

Through thick and thin

Through light and dark

Through the stars above your head

So tonight in bed remember that

And hopefully

It’s comforting

I hope that you know I love you with all my heart,

James


Wow, what an inspiring letter. I wish I could be that inspiring.


Epilogue

Hi… Remember me? The trainwreck of a girl where the person inside her head was bubbly and funny and outgoing but the girl on the outside couldn’t manage to bring her to life. But you would never imagine how now the sixth grade me is a whole new girl. And now walking down the brightly colored hallways with the neon yellow lockers and the locks that make the soft clicking noise when you spin them, I don’t feel like I am in a death trap at the bottom of the world and praying it didn’t come crashing down on my shoulders. Instead I feel like I am on top of the world and pulling my friends and family up with me. And now you’re thinking, friends?! Since when did Sam have friends? And my answer to that is: since ten months ago. I have built up my self esteem, built up my social life, improved my grades, and the amount of things I am actually sharing and explaining to my (rather large) group of friends. And even now I am entertaining many of my friends with a rather entertaining and enlightening story.

Also my appearance changed quite a bit too! I used to wear baggy sweats and loose T-shirts that usually hung to my knees and my hair in a big frizzy ponytail. But now? I wear a number of jeans and leggings (especially high waisted ones with belts. black preferably) I wear neat, flowy T-shirts in soft creamy colors. And wear my hair in neat double buns. It’s funny, I never ever thought a letter could change my life. I thought I would always be the annoying introverted girl with no friends yet, here we are. And remember, you can always make a change in your life, all you have to do is let someone motivate you and put your mind to it and you can always get it done.


Christmas Eve Tree

I wake up to Leo, my brother, screaming in my ear, “Wake up! It’s Christmas morning!

I jump out of my bed and whack him with a huge pillow. I look at my alarm clock, and it says 3:00, the witch hour. My brother runs downstairs to the Christmas tree and is amazed about how many presents are under the tree.

Then he screams my name, “Grace!

I see him reach for a present. “Don’t!” I shout. “Didn’t Mom tell you about what happened to Grandpa when he touched a present before he was supposed to?”

“What happened?”

“He almost died.” After I tell my brother that, he touches the present and disappears.

I go and get my parents from their bedroom and yell, “Leo is gone forever!”

“Why? What happened?” my mom asks.

My dad is still snoring.

But then I scream in his ear and wake him up. He screams and jumps out of bed. Then I tell them what happened.

Then we rush downstairs and see the present that Leo touched. Then my mom and dad grab it and disappear. And then I look around to see an old mirror that I’ve never seen before. Then I run to the present and touch it.

I land in a dark place. Surprisingly, I see my mom. Then shortly after that I find my dad. We all look for my brother, but he’s nowhere to be found. This place smells sweet, like candy. Then suddenly a light turns on. And then we see a rabbit, and we find a door and we walk through it.

Then the rabbit says, “I’m your brother.”

But I argue with him. I say, “If you’re really my brother, then what’s your name?”

“My name is Leo, Leo Maxwell.”

“What’s your full name?”
“Leo James Maxwell.”

“That’s not my real brother’s middle name,” I say.

“Imposter!” I shout. Then I suddenly see my mom and dad in a dark room with checkered floors. Then I see my brother in the same room. But then when I go and walk up to them, they don’t reply.

The next thing I see is a small glass bottle on a bookcase. It looks interesting, so I drink the green liquid without even thinking.

Then I’m back at home with my family.

I suddenly wake up in my room. I feel tired. I look around and see my bright blue walls, but my room is dark. I run to my parents’ room, and turns out it’s just a dream.

I go downstairs and see the Christmas tree, and I quickly touch the present.


The Dryplace

October 2, 1996

Dear Diary,

My name is Lee Jordan. I am an explorer for the Australian Nature Society. Yesterday we set off on my first expedition. We are in the outback. In my giant backpack I packed three big water bottles, six days of food, three changes of clothes, a raincoat, a compass, a pocket knife, a box of matches, this diary, a sleeping bag, and a tiny tent.

Your very own,

Lee

October 3, 1996

Dear Diary,

It’s currently 5:00 AM. Everyone is asleep. Today we check if this part of the forest’s koalas are healthy and strong. We set out at 8:00 AM. Oh, Alex just woke up. We are supposed to make breakfast for the other troupe members.

Your very own,

Lee

October 3, 1996

Dear Diary,

OH MY GOD! Somehow I ended up in the desert!!! Let me tell you about it. So we had set out on the trail, and I stopped to tie my shoe. I was tying my shoe for two minutes. When I looked up, the troupe was all the way across the field. So I ran to catch them, but they had turned a corner. When I caught up to where I last saw the troupe, it was dark and full of rocks. They had turned one of two corners. I turned the other one, and I ended up here!!! Now I don’t know what to do. Like I told you, I have six days worth of food, so if I don’t get out of here fast enough I am dead meat.

Your very own,

Lee

October 3, 1996

Dear Diary,

I finally found a place to stay tonight. It’s in a little valley surrounded by sand dunes. As soon as I set up the tent, I got a fire started and cooked a sausage. It was okay. Oh, and did I mention that it is fa-reezing, like so cold. I have my sleeping bag and tent, but that’s about it for warmth. I mean, I could heat up rocks over the fire and stick them under the sleeping bag. But that would give warmth for about an hour. I think I’m going to bed now.

Your very own,

Lee

October 4, 1996

Dear Diary,

I just woke up 15 minutes ago, restarted the fire, and started making some breakfast when I realized that I still had my emergency transponder in my backpack. When I went to look for it in my backpack, I found it in the lower right inside compartment. But to my “pleasant” surprise, the transponder was smashed from when I dropped my backpack two days ago. Now I have no idea what to do unless I can figure out how to get this thing fixed soon.

Your very own,

Lee

October 7, 1996

Dear Diary,

I know I haven’t written in a while, but I was busy working on the emergency transponder. But I think I finally cracked the code. I have some emergency parts in my backpack, and the part that was smashed was not the satellite, and I finally figured out how to take the satellite out of the transponder. So now I have to send the emergency signal with my location. It’s starting to warm

up in the desert, but at night it gets absolutely freezing.

Your very own,

Lee

October 8, 1996

Dear Diary,

I finally fixed the transponder!!! I reattached the wire that connected the microchip and the satellite, and I had sent the distress signal. They should be here in about three hours, and I am going to explore a little bit of the wildlife for now until the helicopter gets here. I will kind of miss the desert because it’s a world of wonder and exploration, and I will be sad to leave it. But hopefully I will get a chance to come back another day.

Your very own,

Lee

July 16, 1997

Dear Diary,

Hi… Remember me? Lee, the girl who got lost in the desert? Today, I’m in my lab. After the incident, I decided to keep up my research on the Australian outback. So the Australian Nature Society has agreed to help me with my research on the outback. The society and I have created a team made up of wildlife professionals and naturalists, including me. I try not to speak of the incident, but when I have to, people find it a very interesting topic. I would like to become a naturalist for all the world to see some day.

Your very own,

Lee


Taco

Once there was a small King Charles Spaniel named Taco. He lived at an animal shelter in California. He was very shy. His only friends were his brothers, who already were adopted, so actually Taco didn’t have any friends. All Taco really wanted was for a nice little girl to come and adopt him, so they could live on a farm together. Across from Taco there was a big Great Dane. Taco was very scared of the big Great Dane. In fact, he was terrified of the big Great Dane. The really bad thing was the big Great Dane thought Taco was cool which meant he was always trying to talk to Taco, which made him even more terrified. Next to Taco was a super cute Golden Retriever puppy that came to the shelter only two days ago. The Retriever puppy sometimes liked to play with Taco. Another thing about Taco was that he loved to chase things. Whenever Taco was bored he would chase his tail, and he was usually bored.

One Sunday morning at 8:00, Taco was about to start chasing his tail. He stood up, but then he stopped. He heard the door open. He saw a bunch of kids come in. They came and toured Taco’s aisle. Taco saw the kids turn the corner. Taco started wagging his tail. All the kids looked at the super cute Golden Retriever puppy. They all ran over to the small Golden Retriever. Taco stopped wagging his tail and sat down and tilted his head staring at the kids. A little girl came out of the crowd and came to Taco. She bent down in front of him. Taco stood up and started wagging his tail again but this time even harder. She was about to say something to Taco. He could tell. But then out of nowhere there was a big, loud, deep bark. The girl jumped. She looked behind her. It was the Great Dane. (By the way, the little girl’s name was Sophie.) Sophie forgot about Taco and went to look at a different dog. Taco stopped wagging his tail and frowned. He laid down and fell asleep.

When Taco woke up, he was not in his cage anymore. He was in a small moving box (also known as a car). Sophie was sitting next to Taco. Taco didn’t know what was happening, but he walked onto Sophie’s lap and licked her face.

Hi, what is your name? Do you want to be friends? You smell good. Can I chew on your hair?

Sophie giggled. Sophie’s mom said, “We’re here.”

Taco and Sophie hopped out of the car.

“Come on, Taco,” said Sophie.

As she ran Taco followed her. They were in a big yard in front of a barn. Taco ran as fast as he could, his ears flopping behind him. Taco was so happy. Sophie was too.


The Mirror

Hello! My name is Penelope. I am 12 years young. I am an orphan. I have the most boring life on the planet. People think it would be fun being an orphan. But it is not fun because there is no one to talk to. The moms and dads always choose the little “cute” kids while us 12-year-olds are starving to death, literally. Also, the room is so dusty it’s hard to even breathe!!!

There are no other 12-year-olds, but there’s a 24-year-old who is so strong it’s scary!

It’s now officially been 10 and a half years since I came here. Crazy, right?! I want to find a way to get a family, not a way to sneak out. I want to look mature and nice at the same time! I walk in front of the broken mirror. While I do a smile, the mirror does big eyes.

“Ahhhhhh!!!” I scream.

“What?” says the mirror.

“You can talk?” I say in a confused voice.

“Yes, yes I can,” the mirror says. “I’m the better you, if you didn’t know.”

“That’s rude!” I say.

“Well, you couldn’t get any worse,” the mirror says.

“I would shatter you if I could,” I say.

“Why can’t you? Are you too shy?” the mirror says.

“Try me,” I say. I put my hand on my hip.

“I would if I could,” the mirror says.

“Why can’t you? Are you too shy?” I say.

“Hey, I said that!” the mirror says.

“Hey, I said that!” I say.

“Hey! Stop copying me!” the mirror says.

“Fine,” I say.

The mirror starts making weird motions. I don’t know what they are. Maybe she’s trying to help me get my parents. Probably not. She starts posing in weird ways. The mirror starts grinning. It’s smiling as well. She puts her hair to the front of her head and looks slightly up.

I start to cringe. I go into the bathroom and look in the mirror that’s not broken. I put my hair to the front and look slightly up.

“I do look mature and nice,” I say. I go back to the mirror. I say thank you.

When I walk away from the mirror, somehow the person’s not there anymore. I shrug. I look out the window, since I’m on the first floor. I put my hair to the front and look slightly up. The person who owns the orphanage rings my door. I open the door, and there they are, my two new parents.

The End


Pencils and Alligators

“Oy yoy yoy! Another cat and doggy day. I can’t believe it. Our home is going to be destroyed in about a week when we have another cat and doggy day!” Jaz was ranting again. Her brother, Josh, always listened to her. That was the problem with Josh. He was too submissive. And Jaz was way too talkative and extroverted. The siblings were complete opposites, yet they were the only friends each of them had.

“Well, that would be longer than the last one,” Josh said.

“Josh, why do you always look on the bright side even when there is none? All the pencils we’ve been in have lasted longer than the last but still not long enough. I hope one day we will have enough money to finally move into a mechanical pencil. Those things last forever. Once you’re there, you pretty much have a spot there for the next one or two years. Sometimes they do get damaged, but they’re always okay in the end.” Jaz leaned forward in her seat, daydreaming about mechanical pencils. Doing so, she exposed herself to the falling cats and dogs outside and quickly leaned back in with the dreamy look still on her face.

It was Sage PM, which meant it was two hours until the glowing point went down in the sky. When the glowing point went down in the sky, everybody had to be inside their homes. That was when the greater forces controlling the pencil tried to wipe everybody away. They might succeed if you aren’t inside, but ever since Steven, people have been less against that rule.

Jaz and Josh’s favorite part of the city was their small deck. They put up a small tarp, so they could sit on it even when it was raining alligators or it was cat and doggy out. The weather in this pencil was especially bad. They have been in warm pencils, cold pencils, humid pencils, and dark pencils. But they had never been in a pencil with this much bad animal weather.

“I have to get to the kitchen. My shift starts in 20 minutes,” Jaz said.

Jaz worked at an alligator restaurant. Every time it rained alligators, they got a whole new batch of food to cook. Everyone loved it, and it was a good way to get rid of the extra alligators roaming the streets. Jaz was the best alligator chef the restaurant had.

“Okay, just come right home. You don’t want to be stuck outside when the glowing point goes down,” Josh said.

“I know, I know,” Jaz said. “Why is it that we’re the same age, but you are always telling me to be safe and come home on time. You’re not my parent. I know what to do.”

Jaz winked at Josh before grabbing her cat and doggy-proof umbrella and coat and walking out of the tarp. Josh sat there, waiting for his sister to come home. Little did he know he would never see her again.


Looking For Joy

Chapter One: A Book

One night, one cursed night, the boy Jack was reading in his room when the smell of his grandma’s brownies replaced the plain old airy smell. Just a month before, his pops died. Later on, feelings still carried through the tragedy. One day, the day this all triggered, his mom came up to him, tears came dripping down her face. “Son,” she took a heavy sigh, “Pops died.” That was it. Those were the only three words she said before walking out the door. In memory of him. He was buried in the graveyard across the street from Jack’s house. Every night, Jack would view the picture of Pops that he placed under his pillow. Tears would roll down his cheeks just like his mother when she told him about Pops’ death. But this night, this night felt different for him. Winds howled at the milky white moon and blew through the dark, lonely streets in a hurry. Clouds started to group together. The sky grew darker as he kept reading.

He thought and thought. There were some hmms and ahhs then an aha! He discovered the thing behind all this. Jack thought about this for a long time. The winds continued to howl, followed by the lightning striking out of anger. Jack yawned, and as he did that he put his book away and into bed he went. He tucked the covers on in one swift move and fell dead.

The bell struck, twelve o’clock. In one shake, Jack woke up. In a panic, he got out of his bed and took a look around. Winds still blew and howled but not as much as before. The book, that was what was on Jack’s mind right now. Slowly and carefully, he took the handles on the window and nudged it, aware to not make a single sound. A small mouse squeaked as he pulled the window. He kept doing this motion despite it made a little noise. Now the window was big enough to fit an entire human, enough to fit Jack. Thinking, Jack leaned towards the window and took a look down. Not too deep. His body trembled and shook, thinking and wondering. He started back to his bed, then turned around making his final decision. He ran the edge of the room, were there were closets, posters, and down to the left corner, a door. He took two big steps toward the window in a fast pace and one giant leap flying out the window. Kicking his legs, Jack managed to have a decent landing right in front of the rose bush at the time that a car hustled by. Jack ducked in the sharp rose bush, making sure not to be seen.

The lights lit up the sidewalk, shining almost as much as the full white moon that stood out in the pitch black sky. Jack, who was very scared, made a sprint staying very low across the street and climbed over the low graveyard fence. He checked his watch, twelve ten. He still had time but not a lot. He crawled across the graveyard. Jack had memorized where his grandpa was buried to rest. One left, two rights, another left, then the final right turn. He kept repeating this to himself over and over again until he felt confident. He kept going through the graveyard, passing stones carved with letters. The bitter cold air pinched on Jack’s tongue. Though Jack was used to the graveyard, as if it were a normal thing, and it never really scared him, now was when he was really tested. Shaking and shivering, from not just the cold but the intensity and how freaked out he was, Jack continued step by step on the clumpy dirt through the graveyard. He took his final turn as a light shone on him. Jack froze. I’m dead. The light though continued to shine throughout the graveyard and left him frozen in his tracks. Jack, now with more caution, took his last steps to get to Pops grave. He took his frozen bare hands and started to dig on the hard dirt ground. Jack’s hands started to bleed with pain, but the boy Jack didn’t stop shoveling the dirt. With exhaust, he took a breath. The boy Jack studied the headstone, reading everything, then fixes his head down staring at the dirt. Though, not just dirt was in his sight, but a golden thick book stuffed with pages you could see sticking out.

Now, the boy Jack was not just any boy. He was a smart boy. And with that, what he was searching for, was positively lying right in front of him. Any other kid wouldn’t know that his or her desire lied right in front of them.

Jack immediately identified this book, unlike others could have done. He snatched the book and made a run for it. Jack traced his steps back, following them back home. He looked up at the sky and couldn’t help it but stop and stare. The stars were twinkling in the pitch black sky and the moon shown the path for the lost aliens who were probably trying to find their way home.

Jack suddenly realized what he was doing and went back to running, clutching the book so tight that his palms were starting to turn a bright pink just like his face from the cold, intense weather. Jack climbed over the fence and froze in his tracks. How do I get back up there? Jack clutched the book even tighter and then jumped on the tree, hugging it. He climbed the tree, grasping every part he can. Jack then switched over to climbing the nearest branch to the window. Though there was quite a big gap between. Jack was up for anything, my reader. You should know that. Jack gripped the book one more time and then risked himself, then made the jump.

At first, Jack just closed his eyes as he was flying through the air, then opened them, then hit the floor followed by a thud that could have woken everyone up. Jack threw his clothes off, closed the window, ran to bed, and then placed the book under the pillow where Pops’ picture was.

“I cracked the code, Pops. I did it.”

The next day was Saturday. It was seven o’clock when Jack’s alarm clock went off. No one was up yet, but Jack felt something peculiar. He dug under his pillow and found the dusty golden book. He opened the book and blew off the dust. It flew in his face. Jack started to read. It was hard, but he put his all into it. In big, bold, handwritten letters the book said:

One left two rights, another left, then a final right turn. This is how you found this book.

Jack found this odd, because it was right. He peeled through the pages.

There are three steps to joy. One: find it. Two: use it. Three: share it.

Step number three was scribbled out.

Jack also found this odd. What could this mean? Jack closed the book and thought. Now was when his brain was really working.


Knights At Sunset

Chapter One

There was a person named Jack. He lived in a big house, and there was a lot to do where he lived, like biking, a lot of sports, mountain climbing, video games, and more. His mom always told him to put sunscreen when he went outside. As usual, he never did it. He lived in a place called Piermont. It was in New York state. It was fun. His dad was always working and did nothing else and worked from six to eight. Mackie, his cousin, came once a week. They got along very well. They did a lot of naughty plans, like going outside of the house at 12 o’clock. He was 10 years old.

Jack exclaimed to his mom, “I want to go to Mackie’s house one time.’’

Jack and Mackie were very adventurous. They did many adventures, but there was one thing they were crazy about, going in a castle! They thought about going in a castle in their house for about five minutes every day.

The problem was that they didn’t like to go to school because they wanted to go on adventures a lot, but they still wanted to get educated. They went to the same school. On weekends, they woke up at about 9:30. They wanted to play outdoors a lot. It rained often in Piermont.

He liked the winter because he could play in the snow; they liked to have snowball fights in winter. Jack liked pizza. Jack and Mackie started to go out of the house and did not tell their parents. They went on the street and walked to 72nd Street. They started to wander off, and they got lost.

Mackie said, “Where are we?”

Jack responded, “I don’t know.”

They kept walking around.

They asked somebody, “Where is 89th and Columbus?”

But he thought they knew where Jack and Mackie were going. The man said, “Look for yourself.”

They were still walking and bought some cupcakes.

Jack said, “I found something! It looks like it’s far. It looks like a really big building. I think it’s two miles away.”

And Mackie said, “Wow, let’s go to it!”

They walked to the place. Mackie and Jack said, “I’m tired, and we have to walk about three more miles.”

Mackie said, “Let’s just take a break as we go.”

Jack said, “Good idea!”

They got eight more bars from Bob’s Cafe. They were very excited about the really big building. They thought, Why is there a forest around it?

Jack said, “Going by myself somewhere is not that bad.”

“I know,” responded Mackie.

Jack was feeling determined to go to the castle. Suddenly, they didn’t know where they were.

Jack said, “Where are we?”

Mackie said, “We’re in a forest!”

Jack exclaimed, “That’s fun. Let’s explore.”

“Look at this tree,” exclaimed Mackie.

The trees tilted.

Jack told Mackie, “Let’s get back to going to the castle.”

Mackie said, “Let’s explore for like five more minutes.”

Jack said, “Okay, but we’re going to leave right after that.”

Mackie said, “Okay.”

Jack said, “Woah, look at the plant.”

Mackie came over and said, “I think it’s a tobacco plant. There’s a bunny next to the tree.”

“Let’s feed them some carrots,” said Jack.

“Okay,” said Mackie.

They fed the bunny carrots.

Jack said, “We have got to go to the castle now.”

They kept walking to the castle.

Jack said, “Actually, it looks very distinguished from a castle.”

“Oh yeah,” said Mackie. “It looks like a very, very tall building with stone and bats all around it.”

Jack said, “We’re still pretty far away from the building.”

Mackie said, “We have to keep going.’’


Forever

Chapter One

Hi, I’m Anastasia Forever. My mom is a queen, and my dad is a king. I also have servants. They are really fun. I finally realized that I was getting more attention than my older sister (Sofia Forever). Everyone in the kingdom always wondered why my family’s last name is Forever. No one really knows actually. But I think it’s a cool last name. Sometimes when I go to school, I pretty much know all the answers. Most of the time I usually wander off in the woods by myself.

One day, while wandering off in the woods, I thought I found this animal I’d never seen before. I bent down, so it would not see me. I examined the unknown animal. It looked like a wolf. But instead the wolf had the same exact mark that was by my eye. Was this my own type of animal?!


Chapter Two

The animal got closer to me, and the animal said my name.

“Anastasia.”

“H — how do you know my name?” I said with fear in my voice.

“Do not be afraid. I’ve been by your side since the day you were born.”

I felt kind of nervous at first, but I started to believe the unknown animal. I actually had fun with the unknown animal.

Before I left, I stopped.

“Wait, I never asked you your name.”

“Well, my name is Emily Forever.”

That really made me wonder. Why does she have the same name?


Chapter Three

The next day, I went over to the woods to see the unknown animal. The animal came out. Before I could say anything, the unknown animal gave me a necklace.

“Use this if you want to get in contact with me anytime of the day.”

Before I could say anything, she said, “If you see any other animals like me, our animal names are jewel ivy.”

I finally said something, “Thank you!”

As soon as I came home, Sofia was in my room.

I said, “Hey! What are you doing in my room?!”

“Tell me where you’ve been for the past days, and I’ll get out.”

I felt annoyed by her disgusting behavior. “I won’t tell you where I’ve been because it is none of your business!”

“Well, if you don’t tell me, I will tell your teacher you cheated on your test!”

“You would not dare!”

Before she could take another step, I trapped her in the dungeon for two hours straight. We were allowed to do that to each other. I was glad she did not notice my necklace…


Chapter Four

After a couple of hours, I let her free of course. She told on me. I called Emily with my necklace before I could get in trouble. I put some sporty clothes on. I hopped on Emily and escaped from the castle. I was so tired I fell asleep on Emily.

Hours later, I woke up. I was hungry, so I decided to eat.

I asked Emily if she could take me back, but she said, “I must show you something.”

I agreed to let her take me there.

“River.”

When she said that word, I felt like there was color to it.

She said this, “River is magical.”

I felt a little a bit of a shiver go down my spine. It was really cold. I fell fast asleep…

When I woke up, she took me straight home without saying anything. Before I went back on my porch, she told me to clap three times to a beat. I did what she told me to. When I did what she told me too, I went invisible.

“Cool!” I said.

I snuck into Sofia’s room, and I saw her crying. I asked her why she was crying. She got a low score on her test. She printed out a copy for me to do. I did it, and she came back home with a 100. My parents were full of joy!


Chapter Five

Sofia was in her room crying. Mom, Dad, and I went to check up on her. My mom and dad sent her to the dungeon while we were feasting on delicious food, while Sofia was sobbing sadly.

I kind of felt bad in a way. I always wondered why my older sister got treated differently.

The next day at school, our teacher Mrs. Villa asked the class what their favorite type of animal was. I politely raised my hand.

I said, “Jewel ivy.”

The teacher looked at me like I was crazy or something. I said it was real. I called Emily with the necklace she gave me.

Emily crashed through the wall and was in the class. My teacher fainted. The whole class was surprised. When class was dismissed, a whole crowd came running up to me and asked what my necklace could do and where I got it from. For the first time, I felt like I meant something to my school.


Chapter Six

As soon as I got back home, I rushed to my room and jumped on my bed. Relief!!! I changed into my sporty clothes and called Emily with my star necklace. She came. I hopped on her back, and we headed to that magical river.

We got there. I hopped in the water and started to splash Emily. She disappeared.

“Where did she go?”

Before I could finish what I was saying, she jumped up behind me and threw a big wave at me. I laughed. I was soaked. I went home and put my cozy p.j.’s on and fell into a deep sleep.


Chapter Seven

The next day it was Saturday. I decided to play on my laptop when I noticed that someone had done something to my laptop. I clicked on a video. It was my sister who sent me a video. I listened. She said she would get revenge. I was scared, so I told my parents, and they told me it would be okay. I was scared of my older sister who I was never scared of. I was so surprised…


Chapter Eight

The next day I went to school. My teacher asked me to speak with her, so I did. She asked me to take off my necklace and put it in my bag. We had a test today. She gave me the test, and I started to take the test. The next day we got the scores, and of course I got a 100. When I got home, my sister said that she found out where I been every day. I was super frightened. So, she told me I had to bring her. I said I was sorry so many times, but she decided to just laugh.

Right at that moment, my mom came in the room saying, “Hide hide hide!”

I did not know what was going on, so we just hid under my bed. I asked what was going on, and she said that our kingdom was having a war with my dad’s brother’s kingdom (Uncle Charles). I was disappointed. I always relied on him.

My mother said that we might have to use the secret door under my bed to have safety for now. We landed in the secret room and waited for two days. Our messenger had bad news for us. My dad would not be coming back until the next two years. My mom did a really long sigh. Sofia cried, and I just did the silent treatment…

Chapter Nine

The next day, I didn’t go to school. I was very sad. I would not be able to see my dad in the next two years. I did not do anything. I just sat there thinking. One day I told myself, Wait, what about Emily?! I jumped out of bed and ran to the cave. She was sitting there with my sister?!

For the rest of the day I just stared at the ceiling. But something unordinary happened. My father was back?! Wait, wait, what was going on! They pranked me. I was so angry I stormed off to my room, and I just decided to talk to Emily. I went to the cave, and she wasn’t there. I felt confused because she was usually there. I decided to go back to the castle. But when I got to the castle, no one was there either. So I decided to go lay in my bed and go to bed.


Chapter Ten

It was a couple of weeks, and I still hadn’t seen anyone. I just wanted to see my family and Emily again, so I decide to go on a short adventure. The first stop was the magical river! I checked there. I didn’t really see anything. But I did see the paw prints of Emily. I decided to follow them. There was a puzzle. I looked around, and when I did, I saw something that would help me solve the puzzle. I solved it. Then a door opened. I crossed the swap. And I saw them. Wait, a surprise party.

They all said, “SURPRISE!!!”

I was so happy. My parents told me that Emily was my great-grandma. Everything went great ever since.

THE END


Moon

Moon

                                   ivory rolling in the sky

                                                       A balloon of drunken silver

                                                         Dancing, bouncing through the

Delicious chocolate sky as a dollop of

                                                                          Milky whipped cream

                                                        Shining steel across the sea in the deep swirling night across the slowly churning sky sober on the final

steps to the gates of dawn

                                          for a needed rest upon the

                                                                                                           pillow of soft green hills


The Amazing Fluffy’s Adventures

Once there was an orange kitten named Fluffy. And she wanted a lifetime supply of cat treats. Salmon flavored was her favorite. But there was an evil kitten blocking her way. She had a superpower, so she shot lasers out of her paws. And it got in the evil kitten’s eyes and blinded him. Fluffy, by the way, found an envelope on the ground. And what was in there were two 1,000 dollar bills.

She thought, Wow, that’s enough for two lifetime supplies of cat treats. But the problem is, I don’t have two lifetimes. She had magic, so she made herself another lifetime. By the way, how she got magic was she was born with magic because her father was a cat and her mother was a unicorn. She thought, I’m so happy! And then her owner went to the pet store, and she bought the two lifetime supplies of cat treats.

The End! (Oh no!)


copy and paste adventure: part one

Once upon a time there was a robot chicken, and he looked like a normal chicken.

He lived in a robot village. It was Earth, but robots. Robots took over Europe, and they turned French words and food and other French stuff that’s in France into English.

“Cockadoodledoo! Cockadoodledoo! Cockadoodledoo! Cockadoodledoo! Cockadoodledoo! Cockadoodledoo!” the chicken said.

And by the way, his name was Copy And Paste. His nickname was Copy. He had a friend named Rainstorm. He had powers that were the same as his name was. And one day, they went on an adventure with weapons. He met the elemental powers, and they chose him. He was lucky because the powers stated that they would go into the wrong hands. But they always saw Copy And Paste do good things.

Then they met a random goblin. And Copy And Paste tried to use his new powers. Fire came out of his hands. And then when he killed the goblin, he got a random whiteboard. Then he tried his teleportation and jumped off a cliff and teleported back up.

When they walked around, they found an evil Santa. They killed the evil Santa because he was about to kill them with their lightning powers. They then earned a marker for the random whiteboard.

After the long journey beating up monsters, they found a powerful demon, and they had to fight it because they had seen him try to kill people for many, many years. Then they used their magical swords to fight the demon, but the demon blocked them. They teleported to the back of the demon and used their firepower on the demon’s back. It hurt him a little bit, but then the demon punched them. They fell down and almost couldn’t get up. They got up and made their hands giant and punched the demon super hard.

“This is how you’re going to live now!” they yelled.

The demon exploded, and they found a spaceship! They flew to the moon with their space helmets.

PART ONE OVER…


Jonas and Matthew

This book is dedicated to Jonas, my good friend and also a creator of Jonas and Matthew.

Hi! My name is Matthew, and I live with my friend Jonas in a mansion. We’ve got an arcade, a zoo, a water park, and an amusement park. One morning at our mansion we were in our arcade playing the Transformers game.

“Yeah! This is awesome!” said Jonas as we were finishing the hardest level.

“How about let’s play the Angry Birds game,” I suggested.

Soon we were at the Angry Birds game. In the middle of when I was playing, suddenly a crazy pig took up the whole screen! Jonas and I burst out laughing. Jonas laughed so hard that he fell to the ground, rolling with laughter.

That night it was Halloween, so we dressed up in our trick-or-treating costumes, so we could scare other people trick-or-treating. I was dressed up as a vampire, and Jonas was dressed up as a werewolf. We both hid next to our door and waited for some trick-or-treaters to come. First, a kid with a bunny costume rang our doorbell. Ding dong! The doorbell rang. Jonas jumped out of the bushes.

The trick-or-treater screamed, “Get me out of here!!!” and dropped his candy and ran away.

Then, a kid wearing a sheet with holes cut into it for eyes (which I realized later was a ghost costume) came up to our door and rang the doorbell. Ding dong! I jumped out of the bushes.

The ghost kid then dropped his candy and screamed, “Mommy!” and ran away.

After a whole night of scaring, we picked up all the candy and went inside our mansion to our room to check out the candy. We started eating the candy, but the pile in front of us just would not grow smaller. Then we started stuffing candy in our mouths frantically. Soon, all we could hear were the sounds of ourselves munching on candy. Suddenly Jonas had accidently ate some slingshot gum. Slingshot candy is a candy that makes you go crazy trying to get it out of your mouth. He chewed some and made a bubble. The bubble expanded until it was almost touching me from across the room and then shot back. Splat! All of the gum landed back onto Jonas’s face. After an hour of pulling gum out from Jonas’s face and hair, we got the mess cleaned up. Then I saw something in my bag. It was a soda bottle. Before I could take it, Jonas took it and drunk it all up.

“Hey! I was going to drink that… ”

Jonas spat out the soda. It was slingshot soda! Before I knew it, Jonas was chasing me down the stairs.

“Aghhh!” I screamed as Jonas spit all the slingshot soda on me.

“Sowwy bubby,” said Jonas. I got angry really fast. I started chasing Jonas around the room as fast as I could.

“Get back here!” I said.

Finally, after I stopped chasing Jonas, it was already midnight. I decided to have one last candy before I went to bed. I grabbed a random candy and opened the cap and drank it. Uh oh, I thought. I had drank slingshot soda. Jonas had realized that too, because he was already getting out of his blanket tent, ready to dash out of the room. Ptoooooooo! I spit out the slingshot soda all over Jonas.

“Why you little… ” said Jonas as he chased me all over the house.

An hour later, we finally came back to our bedroom and collapsed on our beds from exhaustion. It seemed like we had only slept for one second when our alarm clock started beeping. Beep! Beep! Beep!

“Hey!” I said as the alarm clock fell off of the nightstand and onto the floor with a crash.

“We need a new alarm clock,” groaned Jonas as he woke up.

We decided to turn into our animal forms. We had gotten the powers when we were born because our whole family had the same powers. My mom and dad and his mom and dad were very rich and could turn into animals, so they got enough money for us to have our own mansion and explore our powers.

First, we both turned into dogs. We snuck around town, looking at things from a dog’s eye view. Suddenly, a hand scooped us up and put us in a car.

“Hey, let us go!” I said, but I am pretty sure it came out as, “Ror, ror, ror!”

Jonas and I clawed at the door, trying to get out as the car drove away. (We could not turn back into our human forms because we could only turn back into humans in our mansion.)

Being in an adoption center is a lot worse than you think it is. As soon as we pulled up in front of the adoption center, I knew it was bad news. Outside the center, there was a rusty sign that said Doggy Doo-Doo Adoption Center. The inside was not any better. All of the dogs, cats, turtles, birds, lizards, fish, frogs, and other animals were buried under piles of dog poop and looked like they had not eaten in two days. When Jonas and I got in, I immediately started trying to think of a plan to get out. Then I had a idea! I told Jonas to get us out of the adoption center.

“First, let’s bark very loudly to attract the staff’s attention. Then, while they are distracted, we run away.”

After we made it a far distance away, we turned into snakes and slipped down into the sewers. We slithered in silence for one sewer snake day until we passed another manhole that was lined with muck and dirt. We slithered up into the sunlight.

The first thing I saw was that we were in a grassy field that looked like a savannah.

“What! Are we in Africa?!” we both said at the same time. We slithered back into the sewers.

Another sewer snake day later, we passed by another manhole. This time, it was spray painted with a lot of graffiti and smog was drifting into the sewer tunnel.

“Should we check out what is out there?” I asked Jonas.

“Yeah, I think we should see what is up there,” said Jonas. I knew what he was also thinking. It could be right under our mansion. We slithered up above the ground again… only to find ourselves wrong.

We saw that we were in a bustling city. Everywhere, smoke billowed. A truck zoomed down the road, almost smooshing us. A big wall loomed far in the distance. There was only one place this can be…

“What? We are in China!?” said Jonas.

“This is worse than before!” I said. We were about still halfway across the world from our mansion.

We retreated back into the shadows of the sewers and started slithering the way we thought our mansion.

Finally, we came upon a manhole that said Jonas and Matthew were here!We gazed up at the manhole.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked Jonas.

“Let’s go!” we both said at the same time.

We emerged onto the street near our mansion, startling a demented chicken. “Bok-bok-bokao?!” it said angrily.

“I think we should be… running!!!” shouted Jonas as he turned back into a dog. I turned into a gecko and held onto Jonas’s tail for my life.

The demented chicken flapped its black wings and hobbled after us.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed from Jonas’s tail.

We jumped through the doors of our mansion at the last second as the demented chicken flapped and hobbled and rolled towards me.

After we got through the doors of our mansion, I sighed in relief. We were back in our mansion. Jonas jumped into the elevator and pressed the button which said Jonas and Matthew’s room in big letters. Ding! The elevator doors opened, and Jonas jumped out. With me still on his tail, he collapsed right in front of his bed, tired. We both slept, knowing that tomorrow would be a good day.


Stranded in Paradise

I, Vera Richardson, woke up sweating. I quickly looked around to make sure it was just a dream. Then I slowly sat up in bed. I swung my legs over my flower patterned blanket and slipped my feet into my soft, fuzzy slippers and got out of bed. While I walked over to the closet, I felt a shiver go down my spine. Was the window open? No, something was not right. I quickly got dressed and hurried downstairs.

The stairs creaked under my weight. I tried my best to noiselessly slip down the stairs and quietly open the door to my parents’ room. The door opened silently, and I walked in. I walked over to my parents’ bed and shook my mom.

“Mama! Mama, wake up!” She didn’t answer. She stayed still. It looked as if she couldn’t see me.

I tried my dad, but I only got the same response. Now I was starting to get pretty freaked out. I tried sticking my hand through her face. It didn’t go through, which wasn’t exactly comforting, but confirmed that I was not a ghost. Now the only question was: where was I?

Roaming The Underworld

I couldn’t explain where I was or what I was doing here, but I did know that I was trapped in some sort of dream. A dream where, I couldn’t wake up. A dream where when I woke up, if I woke up, I couldn’t say it was just a dream. I was pretty much about to pee my pants. I decided to go outside and see what was happening.

I shuffled into my shoes and opened the door. I was bewildered by what I saw. In the little town of Greensboro I had never seen any monsters. And even if I did, it would never be as many as these. They all had at least one extra leg or a wart on their face. I wanted to run back inside and never come out again. I wanted to cry for help. I wanted to barf. But I couldn’t move. My bones just wouldn’t do it. My brain screamed to run. My bones did. My hands did! But I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, and I didn’t. Until I came to my senses. I had to find the person who ran this place, or something. I gathered my courage and asked a monster.

“Excuse me? Mr. Hairy guy with warts?” He looked over at me. “Ummm, pardon me sir, but is there a high king or president here? I need to speak to him.”

“Eerfnooblegarfpuiyrtfegds,” he said and pointed to a tall building.

“So, the tall tower?” I confirmed.

“Erftooknjihgty,” he mumbled, which I took as a yes. And so off I went to the high king. (I hope.)

I learned a lot of things while I was looking for the head person.

  1. That monsters can smell really bad when it is 93 degrees out (or they just smell in general)
  2. That you get very thirsty very fast when you’re hiking up the avenue
  3. Lastly, I’m craving a cheeseburger
  4. Now I want a hot dog
  5. With lemonade
  6. That sounds really good
  7. But I’m getting off track
  8. I should stop writing like this
  9. Yeah, I should
  10. Okay this is my last comment

The High Queen

When I finally reached the top of the hill I was… wait for it… wait for it: Parched, thirsty, hungry, tired, I probably had athlete’s foot, I was having heat stroke, and I really needed to pee. So, in other words, I was pooped. I couldn’t move one more inch. Unless, unless I had some sort of inspiration, something that would give me power and would motivate me to do it. I collapsed on the ground, and rolled over. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was big. And purple. And it looked very fancy and queenie. Somehow, the only thing I could think about at this second was that this was a huge coincidence and that it just so happened that less than ten seconds ago I was thinking that I would never ever ever get home and I would be stuck in this nightmare land forever and I would never see my parents again. But somehow I rolled over, and there was the High Queen’s castle, just waiting for me. Again, this was all a coincidence.


Trying To Convince The High Queen To Release Me (But Not Actually Convincing Her)

I was so relieved to finally get to the High Queen’s palace. I knew she would immediately let me go, because I was not a monster and she was obviously not evil. Or at least I really hope she wasn’t. Now that I thought about it she probably was evil and would probably not let me go because she was probably the Queen of Nightmare Land. This made me a whole lot more nervous. I used to be a lot more excited, but now I just felt like giving up and being trapped in Nightmare Land instead of being trapped in a prison cell with no food, water, or sunlight. I decided that I should go back and live as a ghost for the rest of my life. But then my survival instincts kicked in, and I knew that if I wanted to escape this land, I needed to go to the High Queen and convince her to let me go. And if that turned out well, I would ask her about why she trapped me in this land and that she should never do that again. And so I proceeded to walk to the door.

I walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell. Ding-dong. I waited. There wasn’t an answer. And so I tried again. Ding-dong. I twiddled my fingers behind my back.

Oh well, she’s not here. I better go, I thought to myself when suddenly the door opened.

“Hello?” the man said.

I turned around slowly, and stared. My mama told me it’s rude to stare, but I couldn’t help it. He was just so short. His head barely was up to my hip, and he just looked so ridiculous in his mini suit from the kids department store.

It was stunning. The walls were a bright red with gold drapery on the magnificent windows. There was fancy furniture everywhere you went. When I looked up, the ceiling was covered in glass paintings. I was dumbfounded. But I didn’t have time to look around, because he had already grabbed my hand and took me inside without even asking my name or why I was here. While we walked, I studied him a little closer. He was a short, stubby man. His chin was rounded, but his mouth was covered by a huge, bushy, curly mustache. Like the ones you see in the movies. It was accompanied by a tuxedo and black dress shoes. His eyes kept shifting around, like he was late for something, or he was going to get in trouble.

“Umm, excuse me? I need to see the queen. I don’t know where I am or why I’m here or why you are taking me wherever you are taking me, but I need to see the queen.”

I was surprised by myself. I was usually not this forceful, but I was mad. I was mad at the queen and Mustache Man here for taking me to a place I didn’t know how to get out of. I breathed heavily. My chest heaved up and down. The man stared at me.

“Okay,” he said.

“Um, yeah! And take me to the queen!” I responded, a little confused.

I had expected him to start a fight. He turned around and started off in the other direction. I didn’t move.

“Well? Aren’t you coming?” I shrugged and followed behind him. On the walk, he asked me my name.

“Vera Richardson,” I had responded. “What’s yours?”

I just wanted to stop thinking of him as the Mustache Man.

“Picher Lennox. Mr. Lennox to you,” he snapped.

The rest of the walk we walked in silence. It was probably just one minute, but it felt like a century. We finally arrived at the High Queen’s office.

“Here we are,” he said.

He opened the door and let me in. I was floored. It was by far the most amazing place my eyes had ever laid sight on. It was better to look at than a lottery ticket or an all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet coupon (not that I have seen one of those before). My jaw hit the floor, not literally, but it might as well have!!! Well, now I’m keeping you in suspense, so you really want to know what it looks like don’t you? Okay, okay I will tell you.

The walls were painted a wonderstruck shade of gold, and the floors were covered in a velvet carpet with yellow on the edges. There was a desk in the middle of the room, with two large windows on each side, pouring light into the dark room. Then there were the shelves. There were shelves. Lots and lots and lots of shelves. They carried books and games and toys, they held marvelous things that lured you in, wanting to touch them so badly. I looked at the desk, and peering down at me was the queerest woman I’ve ever seen. She was tall, with red hair on one side and blue on the other. She kept them each parted down her slim shoulders, like she didn’t want them to mix. She wore the glasses that you see librarians wearing, hanging from a chain on her ears. She wore dreamcatcher earrings, and her face was wrinkled up like she just sucked on a rotten lemon. I thought, Hey, she looks just like a bulldog, but of course I didn’t say that to her face, because she looked pretty scary, and I was afraid to make her angry so she didn’t blast me to ashes.

“Who are you?” she asked.

I didn’t hesitate to say my name.

“Vera Rihcardson, with an H before the C.”

“And do you know, Vera, why you are in the land Paradise?”

“Ummm, no,” I responded.

“You are here because you have been having dreams, Ms. Rihcardson. Very lively dreams. And, as you might know, I feed on human dreams. If I notice that you have started to have very juicy, very, very scary dreams, I send for you here. As your time here grows, you will turn into a monster, like these.” She pointed to the monsters outside. I shuddered. “To have the dreams you dream, my dear, is very unnatural. And so I bring you here, to the land of nightmares. To the land we call Paradise. And so all of your soon to be equals outside are all, I guess Stranded in Paradise.”

I gaped. I didn’t actually think that I was here for a reason. I thought that there was a mistake. I was dumbfounded for the billionth time today. I looked at the wall behind the desk. To my suprise, there was a giant dreamcatcher hanging on the wall. As I looked closer, I noticed that it was the exact same dream catcher as the earrings the High Queen wore.

Huh, I thought. I wonder what happens when I touch it. I ignored all of the High Queen’s yammering, and I started to walk over to the dreamcatcher, my hand stretched out in front of me. Something was pulling me towards it.

Don’t touch that!!!” she screeched. I jumped back in surprise. She smoothed her skirt and adjusted her glasses. “Sorry about that. Just do not touch that dreamcatcher!!!

I cowered in fear. But of course, as soon as she told me not to touch it, all I wanted to do was touch it. We just stared at each other for ten minutes. The door opened, and Mr. Lennox stepped inside.

“Um, sorry to interrupt, your majesty, but there has been a plumbing problem, and you are the only person who knows the plumber’s phone number — ”

“And the kingdom needs me, I know,” she cut Mr. Lennox off. She started to turn around and then faced me again. “And you, Vera Rihcardson, do not move a muscle, or there will be consequences.”

I nodded my head and stayed where I was. The High Queen turned around and headed out the door. The door slammed behind me, and I turned around. I walked inch by inch slowly getting closer and closer to that marvelous dreamcatcher. It had a dark wood outline with holes everywhere and rainbow string coming from all the holes, tied in the middle with a bow. Red ribbon hung from all the sides and tied together in a knot. It was hung on the wall by a simple red hook. I couldn’t help myself. I touched it.

The Ending of the Story You Are Reading Right Now

The world started spinning. I saw blurs of the castle falling apart and coming back together again. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning. I was getting dizzier and dizzier and dizzier and dizzier. And then it all stopped, and I was right where I was in my bed, laying there, panting. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. My dream was so… vivid. So real. I got out of bed, but I heard the High Queen yelling in anger when I brushed my teeth.

The End


I Am Not Friends With My Nose Anymore

I am not friends with my nose anymore

We used to be the best of friends

We’d play for hours in the park

Then I would go to school

But I would take my nose with me

And then he would show me

Smelling things

Just the two of us

But then

Winter came

No more park

I was sad

At least I had school

He didn’t like the cold either

Then he turned all red

I would rub him

But it would only hurt more

Then no more school

A little bit later I stopped being friends with him

Then my nose stopped letting me smell

No more anything

In about two weeks my nose gave me a lesson

It started to bleed

We couldn’t fix it

My nose wouldn’t stop

He was being a meanie

Then we went to the hospital

They gave me something round and green to swallow

It didn’t really help

More and more blood

Then my parents were whispering to the people in the white suits

Then I suddenly felt really sleepy

When I woke

And now we’re not friends anymore


Allergens

I had to get out of the space. There was a faint smell of Goldfish and Fig Newtons, and it was warm. The hives were starting, and I couldn’t resist itching them. Although the hives seemed to always be there, I hadn’t gotten used to them. Besides, I usually had the goggles. They didn’t eliminate the allergens completely from my body, but they certainly helped. I lay down on the rug in a hopeless attempt to get away from the allergens, but they were everywhere. The rug smelled like mango bubble tea, probably from a spill the day earlier. I needed out, but was trapped. I asked myself for the billionth time: what the heck am I doing here? I thought I could stay here to hide from the allergens, but it did not work. In fact, it epically failed. But I had to do this for Batina. Batina, my beautiful best friend.

Batina was like me. She was the only one that got it. The allergens everywhere. The weird looks we got when walking down the street. We met here, and I had to be here. I knew she wouldn’t come back, but I needed to try. Her death had scared me. Her death was because of the allergens. No one on earth has the same condition, but I’m scared I won’t be able to keep my secret any longer. If I get discovered, I’ll become something like a display case and scientific wonder. By the way, that’s not a good thing. But if I just look like a moron who wears funky goggles in the summer, no scientist is going to put me on a lab table.

Anyways. I survive. But I admit it’s extremely annoying. Humans are obsessed with the allergens. They wear them all over their body, but only Batina and I seemed to care. Only Batina. We used to buy each other packs of goggles every year for New Years.

We were the best of any friends, more similar and different than any other friends. The allergens ruin my life, but I admit, they led me to what keeps me alive. Kept me alive. Emphasis on kept. When Batina died, I’m ashamed to say that I did not attend her funeral. She wouldn’t have wanted me to anyway.

The allergens were getting stronger. I could feel them crawling on my skin like grubs. I shuddered, thinking of The Bug Incident. Let’s just say it involved bugs crawling on me. I’ll leave it at that.

People sometimes ask my favorite hobby. Actually, that’s not true. I’m extremely antisocial, so no one asks me anything. But… my favorite hobby is reading. There are no allergens. Wait. No. There are mentions of the allergens, which causes my throat to itch, but there aren’t actual allergens.

But sometimes I think I see Batina in the distance, but of course, it’s not her. I really hope that, wherever she is, in whatever dimension, she can be around the allergens. The colors.


My Sacred Friend

Chapter One: The Real Stuff

One morning, I, George Lonerfin, my older brother, Hugo Lonerfin, and my friend, Gande Hulkin, were playing at our HQ, which is in an abandoned house near the theater on 1387th st. in Alabama in an imaginary dimension. It’s outside the solar system, which is in my fiction story from my elementary school called, “Space Bananas.”

“Hey, who wants to know the secret of this abandoned house?” Hugo said, holding a flashlight under his chin. He knows that that scares me and Gande. Even though we were scared, we nodded.

“Listen up, boys, because I’m only going to tell you this once,” Hugo said.

He knows that we hate being called boys, because that’s the worst name to be called by, but he got away when we tried to hit him last time, so we got closer like he wanted to. I think.

“In this abandoned house, there lived a scientist. He made technology and tried to invent things that helped the world, and they all failed, and when I mean all of his inventions failed, I mean all of them. Rumor has it that one night, on 2/2/2222 at 2:22, one of his inventions was a success.”

At first I thought this was a normal, non-scary story, but then I thought about two things that made no sense at all. First of all, it was 2019, and the house says it was from 1375, and second, that’s a little weird. They all have 2s! I tried to talk over him, but it was no use.

“He made an ogre. An ogre that can eat your soul!!!” Hugo said. He raised his eyebrows under the flashlight that made him look scary under the flashlight. Well, I thought it was scary, but Gande looked satisfied.

“Well, it’s a rumor. It’s not like anyone would believe in those stupid rumors,” Hugo said so casually, but all of a sudden, there was a swift wind in the room.

Then, all of a sudden, I saw a glimpse of a green, war-prepared monster! Then we saw it. The green, war-prepared monster was an ogre! He must have been from the story! He must have heard Hugo saying that ogres weren’t real!

“How dare you say ogre not real?! You die for saying nonsense!! I’m not just an ogre! I’m an ogre spirit!!!” the ogre said.

When I heard about spirits, my head got dizzy. My eyes got blurry, and then I passed out. Then all I could see was darkness. When I opened my eyes 30 seconds later, I was in the hospital.


Chapter Two: One More

When I was at the hospital, I was on a squishy bed and those cool pillows which are so huge. I really wanted to see who was around me, but I just sank into the huge pillow and all I could see was a mix of black and white. But it’s okay, because I heard them.

“What happened at your so-called-hideout?!” I heard Mom say. I think that she was screaming at Hugo.

“Why are you saying that I did it?! Look, it’s not my fault that an ogre came into our hideout! Well, like you say that so-called-hideout, which we do have. It’s in the abandoned house that’s near the theater! Remember? We took you there for our show and tell, right?” Hugo whined.

I remembered that show and tell, and I don’t want to take fatty Joe, big fat Bill, and big Stanley to the house anymore. How much do they weigh?! Joe, Bill, and Stanley are the top three fattest people in the school! And the weird thing that’s impossible is we’re the youngest grade. They’re eight grades older than Joe, Bill, and Stanley, but Joe, Bill, and Stanley are heavier than each and every kid! And I have never seen them eat junk food. That was until they went to our hideout and went to the junk food section. Next day, they came to school saying to people that they finally had diabetes. I was surprised about two things. One: they didn’t have diabetes until that day. Two: they were happy that they had diabetes. Back to the story.

“You mean that wretched place where those three fat boys were also there? The day after that, I got a scolding from all of the boys’ parents. Back to this scolding.”

Wow. Just, wow. I can’t believe that Mom just said that to her own son! She would never scold me like that! Now we know who’s Mom’s favorite, I thought in my head with no guilt at all. I was smiling like crazy, and no one even noticed. Fake sleeping has a lot of upsides.

“I don’t care what kind of excuses you have, but we will not tolerate with your excuses with an ogre!” I heard Mom screaming.

So the ogre was real. I wasn’t dreaming at that part.

“You are grounded for making your brother pass out no matter what excuse you have, young man!” Mom screamed.

I decided to “wake up.” I twisted my head, and fortunately it looked like I was waking up. I owe one to the acting class that Mom forced me to take. I felt bad for calling it a piece of cake though. Then I saw Hugo getting angrier and angrier and getting hairier and hairier turning into a car-sized ogre. I don’t know how it happened, but it turned out horrible. He wrecked the machine that turns your bed up and down. Then the ogre saw me with his bloody, green eyes. I freaked out, sweat dripping down my face. The ogre who’s supposed to be my brother, stomped his feet so hard that everywhere he stomped, the floor cracked. He looked at me freakishly and grabbed me by the shirt.

I am going to die!!! I thought with horror.

Then all of a sudden, the crack in my head was now fine! He let go of me and then became human. He wasn’t awake though. He was actually thinking of his girlfriend, Liz.

“Liz… will… you… ” Hugo moaned. I didn’t want to hear the rest. Then all of a sudden,  Mom, Dad, and all the nurses and doctors dashed in through the door.

Oh my God. I’m glad you’re safe!!!” all the strangers and non-strangers screamed joyfully.

“Liz… let’s… marry… at… my… house… ” Hugo moaned.

His cheeks looked pinker than usual. Then he got my pillow, and you don’t want to know what happened next. All the people in the room either barfed, looked to the other side and went to the corner, or left the room and ran to see if other people got hurt. I still think that that’s just an excuse to leave this one room after what Hugo just said right now.

But why did he turn into an ogre?It makes no sense!! I thought. Then all of a sudden, he opened his eyes. I’ll tell him about the Liz thing later. But before I could even talk to him, Mom and Dad shoved me to the side and screamed at Hugo.

“What happened to you?!” Mom and Dad said.

“I don’t know, but I met Gande in my head. He said that I’ll give you the power to heal your brother. Of course, ‘cause he’s my friend. By the way, ogres are real, and they’ll come for people’s souls. We need to refresh anyways. Then he left out of my memory, and then I slept!” Hugo said.

I believe that’s true, and I need more details, but Mom and Dad interrupted when I was trying to talk to him.

Why were you tired?!” they said in unison.

Well, I guess, why was he tired is about to be answered.

“I don’t know, right after Gande left, I felt a poke in my head, and then I went sleepy. Anyways, what happened here?!” Hugo questioned after he answered our question.

The room was still full with blood and quarks and stuff. By the way, when I mean “quarks and stuff,” I mean bent doctor utensils, broken beds, and ripped up lab coat-like stuff. When all the doctors came in and saw the room, the doctors all fainted on the clear floor. They fainted for three days. Back to the story.

We went back to our house, and Mom, Dad, and Hugo had a huge conversation. I was stuck in my room doing homework.

“56 times 7, 42, carry the 4, 35, 35 plus 4, 39, 392. Next!!!” I speak when I do my work.

“45 minus 72, 72 minus 47, 25, minus 25, 34 times 675, 3 times 600, add the zero, 3 times 70, add the zero… add them all up… next.”

I think I slept. Then, I looked up. I was in a new dimension. I thought this is a dream. But it didn’t feel like a good dream…


Chapter Three: A Dream

I was walking in a pitch darkness. When I ended up in a wall, it had a sign. It was a wanted sign for a scientist. I took it just in case. It was for a guy named June. June was a boy who made all kinds of stuff. Then all of a sudden, I ended up somewhere else. It looked like a village. It seemed like a peaceful one.

“I’m telling you the truth!!!” I heard a boy say from a big crowd. When I turned around, I saw a boy who I thought that I would’ve seen here. It was Gande. Here he was, standing like a president. Like he was standing saying a speech.

“June, it’s 3,548,672,197. After that big explosion that blew up earth, we barely have any technology. All we have is this planet that the ogres gave us politely,” a villager said.

After I heard that news, I fell down. Strange thing is, I fell on a villager’s feet, but I went through his feet.

“AAAHHH!!!” I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could, but no one heard me.

Am I a ghost? Am I going to die? Am I dead? What do you mean by OGRES? What do you mean by earth exploding? What number is that? Is that a year?! I don’t know what’s going on?! I thought in my head while I also listened to mini future Gande.

“Please believe me. I know who the ogres really are. Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa Gande’s journal told me.”

Mini-Gande had to grab onto his dad and left. I really wanted to know more, but I had to go in a library and search for more information. I watched in a movie that I forgot what it was called, always something something. I forgot. I knew that I had to search for more information about this place, so best place to look, the library. Normally, I hate going to the library and studying, but I had to. I walked around, but no library was found. I was actually kind of bummed that there was no library. I was stuck to a villager’s rusty ol’ shoe. Then all of a sudden, everyone around me and every place that was in my sight also vaporized, and then I ended up in that black pitch again. Now I know why Hugo called me a crybaby, and now I know that I still am. I was a crybaby then and a crybaby now and a crybaby then. Then out of nowhere, I appeared at my house again.


Chapter Four: Mysteries

What are you talking about?!” Hugo said to me while we were in our treehouse. Ever since that day, we weren’t allowed in that abandoned house anymore. Instead, we had to deal with the treehouse that had many dead rats. We got it last year, and Dad said that he wouldn’t touch it, Mom wouldn’t touch it, and none of us would touch it. We avoided it for a while, and it was there ever since. Back to the story.

“You had a dream about the future? Why isn’t your dream seeing your nephew?” Hugo replied. I think he’s still thinking that Liz agreed to marry him. I had to say that he was wrong, but that’s not the important part. I told Hugo everything. And when I mean everything, I said everything. I told him about the wanted June poster, the town, and all about Gande.

“Well, I still think that you should start having dreams about you being an uncle, but I still don’t really believe you. Sorry.”

I couldn’t believe that out of all these people, my own brother, who became a ogre, wouldn’t believe me! I thought that he was the only person who would believe me.

“Then why did you turn into an ogre, huh?” I complained back. I knew it was bad to complain to people who are older than you, but I got permission from destiny this time.

“I don’t know! Okay? I don’t know everything!”

“Oh no you don’t,” said a voice from afar. (When I say afar, I mean eight feet away.) Then, when we looked at who it was, it was Gande, wearing his midnight robe. His midnight robe had full moons all over them. He knotted it in a double knot, like he always did. He must have been in his meditation class. I really know everything about Gande. Well, I thought I knew everything. Turns out not…

“What do you want?“ I asked. Then I was scared at what Gande was going to say, and I knew it was going to be scary, and it was.

“I want my best, successful invention back,” he said.

What are you talking about?!” I screamed. The wind was coming all at once. Then I couldn’t hear him, but I knew what he said. Those words pierced my heart so badly.

He said, “I want your brother, the ogre, back.”

Then all of a sudden, Gande was gone.

“Why was he here?” Hugo asked me.

“I don’t know. But I think we’re going to go through a lot this year.”


Chapter Five: Lost

I was now pretty much scared of Gande now. The next day at school, I tried to avoid Gande as much as I could. I couldn’t imagine that nice Gande being so mean! I know that he was on the wanted poster, but I didn’t know what he did! Did he do something wrong? Did he do something so horrible? I didn’t know! Today was going to be hard avoiding Gande, because we were reading buddies, writing buddies, math buddies, science buddies, and social studies buddies!

“Gande? Do you remember, uh, I don’t know, that time you came into my house last night and told me that you really wanted my brother because he’s the ogre and a swift wind came and then all of a sudden you were gone?” I asked, with my lungs out of breath.

“What are you talking about?” Gande said like he had no clue at all.

What is going on?! How can he not remember what he did to us last night?! As a matter of fact, how is it possible?!

“You don’t remember last night?” I said, trying to be calm. Unfortunately, my face blew my cover. I should have got into that lying class that Hugo recommended for me. It was a lesson that Hugo and his friend Mason made up. I was such a good kid. Back to the story.

“What happened last night, George? Did you have a bad dream?” Gande asked me. A bad dream?! No way that was a dream.

“I have to tell you something,” I said. It seemed like Gande was listening to me. When I tried to open my mouth to say a word, someone pushed me into the school president, Emily. She was the strictest president in the world. The person who pushed me was Andrew, a person who had a crush on the school president. If you want me to say this lovey dovey-like, I’ll do it.

Lovey dovey mode: on.

We fell to the floor with quite a fall. Our eyes met, and our lips touched. We were all shocked, especially Andrew, but we didn’t care. We lost track of time, and the teacher came in.

Lovey dovey mode: off.

Basically meaning, we kissed. Andrew was jealous, and the teacher came in. Emily pushed me away, ran away, and it looked like she was blushing. I got in trouble by Andrew and Emily, but mostly, Andrew was screaming at my face, and Emily was punching me lightly, but the more she punched me, the more Andrew got jealous and yelled at me. That took a whole day. I got detention, and Emily always looked away whenever I tried to talk to her. Andrew always tried to pick a fight with me, but because of that, he got 45 detention slips.

When this was all finally over, I told Gande to come to my house. Gande said that he would, but he had to bring Mila and Samantha. Mila was their dog, and Samantha his sister. And that was not all his family members. There were still his three older sisters, Ava, Amila, and Sivan, his two other younger sisters, Milan and Tammy, his two older brothers, Nicholas and Nathaniel, and his four younger brothers, Christ, Alex, Bob, and John, and he had five dogs, including Mila, two cats, three hamsters, four birds, and two gorillas. His parents were veterinarians, and sometimes they had to take the animals home. Their house was big, and they did need a big house. He had 30 family members, including the animals and him. The older brothers and sisters were all married, had babies, were pregnant, or in college. Must have been hard for Mr. and Ms. Hulkin to have 14 kids and 16 animals to deal with. They always had to pay for all the food, and they always made the food on their own. They made their own dog food, cat food, all kinds of food! Gande had a lot of babysitters. It was crazy. I wondered what harm he did to his family if he had this power… especially Nicholas. He bullied Gande for his whole life. And everybody had teased him once in a while, but the thing about Gande was that he didn’t know what the difference between a joke and the truth was. Oh boy… Back to the story.


Chapter Six: Track Team

Gande did bring Mila and Samantha, and Liz was here. Before Gande, Mila, and Samantha came, I told Hugo about the confession thing. He was crying in his room for 30 minutes when he heard that he couldn’t have his nephew. He said that it was a waste of time and life. He said that he was wondering why he was first in our beach house, and then we were in a hospital, but just not quite the right hospital. Then he came out when I said that I would try to invite Liz over.

I did invite Liz over when I said. She popped up, closed her computer, ignored all her phone calls, and then told me to get my butt up and start walking. (My butt was already up though).

We walked to my house. It was actually pretty quiet and pretty normal. The only thing that wasn’t normal was that her ex-boyfriend came and said that he wanted to make up. He was a pretty cool guy. That’s what I thought until he pushed me away and walked away with Liz. Geez. But then she pushed him away, pulled me back up, then grabbed my hand and ran away. I felt like a teddy bear blowing away by the wind. It was weird.

Thirty seconds after, we were at my house. I was actually surprised because our house was one mile away from where she was. My arm felt like it was dislocated after Liz ran. I wanted to have credit for some running, but it was impossible to stop Liz running away from her ex. I told Liz that she could be on the track team, and surprisingly, she took the advice.

When Hugo came to the door, he saw Liz, and he invited her to his room. They were all lovey dovey like they always were. I felt bad for the ex.

Gande was already at the treehouse. Mila and Samantha were playing in my room. Hugo said that he let them touch my skyscraper model that I worked one year on. I told Hugo why in the world he would do such a thing to me. But that wasn’t important to me. All I was worried about was Gande.


Chapter Seven: Panic, Run, Dream?

When I came to the treehouse, Gande was still fine. When I got up to the treehouse, he was looking around like he was trying to find something. When he was done looking around, he grabbed on to my shoulders and said,

“ListenverycloselysomethingiscomingforyouandthebookthatyouhaveIneedyoutorunfarawaywithallyour — ”

I told him to calm down. He took a deep breath and just grabbed a piece of paper from my homework and grabbed my lucky pencil from my lucky notebook. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to get something from my lucky notebook or lucky pencil. They’re the reason why I got a 100% on my test. Gande wrote a lot down. He was a fast writer, but he was writing faster than ever.

Then he handed the piece of paper over to me, and when I thought I wanted to run away, I was running as fast as Liz could run. Then out from the bushes behind me, the ogre was chasing me. I tripped over a rock and I fell. My knee was bleeding. It felt like this life was going to be over as soon as I was about to be eaten, then I tried to think of all the positive thoughts. Then when I wished that I wanted to die, I closed my eyes, trembled, and suddenly, the next thing I knew I was in my bed. It felt like nothing happened. Same bed, same Rolling Stones poster, same old bedroom that I always had since the Gande incident. Then I finally noticed that it was just a freaky nightmare. I noticed the time. 10:54 AM!!! School started 2 hours and 34 minutes ago!!! I ran over to the door with my pajamas, and I just went to school. Then I found out. It was a Sunday!!

I ran back to the house. At the dining room, Hugo called me a stupid little dummy. I stuffed my sandwich into my mouth.

My mom asked me in shock, “What kind of dream makes you wake up at 10:54 in the morning???

“A weird dream,” I replied, and the strangest thing is, I never had that dream again.


Winter and Scott

Chapter One: The Beginning

“I still can’t believe you two got the best-looking girls in the year,” muttered Seamus as the boys left the dorms.

“Don’t be jealous, Seamus,” Charlie said, catching James’s eye. James couldn’t blame Seamus, because he was going with Lila Brown, who was not very, ummm, attractive?

Sylvia Winter, James’s date, was very pretty and very popular. Charlie was going with Sophia Smith, who was also very pretty, and smart. Sophia, Sylvia, Lila, and Katie Chiu, who was Harry’s date, were waiting at the foot of the staircase leading up to the boy’s dorms.

“Hey, Harry. Hi, Charlie. Hi, Seamus. Hi, James,” Katie said when she spotted them.

“Hi, Katie,” said Harry. “Hi, Sophia. Hi, Lila. Hi, Sylvia,” Harry said, returning a smile to Katie.

“Shall we go then?” asked Sylvia awkwardly.

“Yes, alright,” replied James, taking Sylvia swiftly by the arm and leading her towards the Entrance Hall.


Chapter Two: The Fall Dance

The Entrance Hall, when they arrived, was filled with couples, all waiting for the music to begin. The Entrance Hall looked great for the fact that it was almost always covered with a coat of baby blue paint. There were rather large oak leaves hanging on the ceiling in brilliant shades of yellow, orange, brown, and red. There were pumpkins and apples piled in the corners and against the walls, and to top it all off, there was a large banner designed with pumpkins, acorns, and apples and the words Fall Dance on it.

When the doors opened, Professor Blume was standing in the doorway,

“The Fall Dance is now open. You may enter,” said Professor Blume wearily. “Mister Scott, a moment if you will, please.”

“Go on, Sylvia, I’ll be there in a moment,” James told Sylvia.

Turning back to Professor Blume, James’s mind started racing. What did Professor Blume want with him? Sure, he hadn’t handed in his Care for Magical Creatures homework two weeks in a row, and it was the subject Professor Blume taught. Or was it about the argument he had with Peter Paterson the day before, where he had accidentally hexed Peter.

“Mister Scott,” said Professor Blume. “The headmistress has ordered me to give you this.” She handed him a neatly rolled piece of parchment.

James unrolled the parchment and read it:

Mister Scott,

It has come to my attention that the sister of Miss Sylvia Winter has recently been taken ill by the deadly disease of Dragon Poxs. Mr. and Mrs. Winter would like to come and pick Sylvia up to visit Ms. Sadie Winter at the Mooniago Medical Center for Magical injuries, and have asked me to ask you, Mr. Scott, if you would like to join them. Please send me your cat with your answer.

Sincerely, Professor Pythonia

James’s stomach tied itself into a hard knot at the pit of his stomach.

Why hadn’t Sylvia told him? She had been his girlfriend for two years and seven months, and she trusted him… or at least he thought so.


Chapter Three: James’s Question

Professor Pythonia,

The answer to your question: please tell Mr. and Mrs. Winter that I would like to go with them to visit Sadie at Mooniago’s. But before that, could I ask something? Why is it that Sylvia never told me about Sadie’s Dragon Pox? Surely she trusts me, right?

Sincerely, James Scott

James reread the letter, then rolled up the parchment and sealed it. He tied it to Whisker’s black, slim torso.

“Go, Whisker,” he muttered to his cat. “I’ll be here.”

James collapsed into an armchair, thinking about Sylvia.

Normally, he would never, ever ask a professor about Sylvia or his personal feelings or problems. But Professor Pythonia was different. She was James’s mum’s best friend when they were in school. So, Padme Pythonia was basically his aunt.

Whiskers returned a half hour later, a new piece of parchment tied neatly to her back.

My Dearest James,

Sylvia knows you well enough to trust you. But do you know her enough to trust her? Ponder the question, my dear. Send Whiskers along if you’ve got any questions, James.

Sincerely, Aunt Padme

Chapter Four: Dragons

When Eva and Eric Winter arrived a week later, James had his black duffle bag packed and Whisker was napping in her woven traveling basket. He put on his navy blue traveling cloak and walked out into the cool courtyard to find Sylvia, in her sky blue traveling cloak, sitting on the Winter’s Diamond-light dragon, Loche. She had her cat, Scotty, napping on her lap.

“Hello, James!” said Mrs.Winter. “You can sit next to Sylvia, dear.”

James walked over to the far end of the courtyard where Loche was sitting.

He climbed onto Loche, sat next to Sylvia, and scratched Scotty behind his ear. Sylvia looked out onto the lake and slipped a small piece of parchment into James’s duffle bag, before he could notice.

Chapter Five: Sylvia’s Note

When they arrived at the west wing of Mooniago’s Medical Center, where the families of patients stayed, the witch at the front desk greeted them and showed them to their rooms.

James would be sharing a room with Sylvia, and Eva Winter would be sharing with Eric Winter.

When James started to unpack, a small piece of parchment fell out of his duffle and onto the carpet. James read it:

My Dearest James,

I’m sorry I’ve been a bit… off lately. You see, Lila’s older sister, Lulu Brown, she works with Dragons. And the Dragons, well, they went a bit mad and they… killed her. They slashed her across her chest. I promised Lila you would be at Lulu’s funeral. I hope you’re not angry.

Love you always, Sylvia Winter

James glanced over at Sylvia. She was sitting on her bed, tears streaming silently down her face.

“It’s okay, Sylvi, it’s okay,” James cooed. Sylvia looked up at James.

“You’re coming?” Sylvia asked. James sat down next to her,

“Of course, Sylvi,” James whispered. “Always.”


Chapter Six: Mooniago’s

The following morning, James awoke early, dressed, and tapped Sylvia softly.

“Wake up, Sylvi,” James whispered. “It’s time.”

Sylvia stirred, opened her brilliantly blue eyes sleepily, and snuggled closer to James, resting her head on his lap

They headed down to breakfast ten minutes later, meeting Mr. and Mrs. Winter as they went.

After breakfast, they fastened their cloaks and headed towards the east wing, where Sadie lay, half dead, and infested with Dragon Pox.

“Hi, Mum. Hi, Sylvi,” said Sadie weakly. “Hi, Dad.”

“Oh, Sadie,” Mrs.Winter, tears pouring down her flushed face.


Chapter Seven: Sadie’s Fate

They left for lunch when Sadie had dozed off three hours later.

“Mum?” asked Sylvia, as they headed back to the west wing, where they would have lunch and then head back to the east wing.

“Yes, dear,” Mrs. Winter responded, dabbing her sooty-gray eyes with a tissue.

“Sadie will be alright, won’t she?” Sylvia asked, every ounce of her hoping her older sister would be cured.

“Of course she will,” replied Mr. Winter, his face white with blotchy red spots. “We’re in a hospital, remember?”

***

When they returned to the east wing, Nurse Suki greeted them sadly.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Winter,” said Nurse Suki. “We couldn’t save her.”

No!” shouted Sylvia, tears pouring down her red cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Sylvi,” James whispered, as he pulled her into his arms, trying to comfort in any way he could.

Chapter Eight: The Return

Sylvia, James, and Mr. and Mrs. Winter headed back to school the next day, after a great deal of tears, tissues, white and blotchy faces, and more sobbing.

When Loche landed softly on the green grass just beyond the courtyard, Professor Pythonia, Charlie, Seamus, Harry, Lila, Sophia, and Katie were all rushing across the courtyard towards them.

“Well?” asked Charlie, when James slid off Loche and onto the ground.

“Guess,” James replied, cocking his head at Sylvia, who was in tears again and being comforted by her friends and Mrs. Winter. James had a strong urge to run over and hug her, but he resisted.

“Dead?” Charlie guessed. James winced and nodded slightly, eying Sylvia, who was hugging Lila.


Chapter Nine: Two Funerals

A few months later, once the grief had blown over the Winters and the Browns, two funerals were scheduled. One for Sadie Winter, the other for Lulu Brown.

“You okay?” James asked Sylvia quietly, as they took their seats.

“Y-yeah,” Sylvia said, her face white and blotchy again.

“You sure?” Sylvia sighed loudly.

“Yes.”

The funeral ceremony lasted forever, and it looked as if it was torture for Sylvia and Lila. The graves were dug on the edge of the woods surrounding the courtyard, where two headstones were placed.

Sadie Winter

1972-1991

Beloved daughter, sister, and student

Lulu Brown

1973-1991

Beloved sister, student, dragon trainer, and daughter

“C’mon Sylvia, I want to show you something,” James said, taking Sylvia by the hand and strolling down to the lake’s edge.

“Sit,” he said, patting the ground beside him. Ten minutes passed in silence.

“This,” said James, “is what I do when I leave dinner early.” He gestured towards the lake in front of him and the beautiful sunset reflecting on the water.

“Wow,” murmured Sylvia softly.

“Sunsets,” whispered James, “always make me feel good.”

“I agree,” Sylvia whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes, imagining what it would be like to have Sadie standing on her other side.


Tippy Toothpaste

Tippy Toothpaste was a very good boy. He was very polite, and he helped old ladies cross the street. He was still in fifth grade, and all of his classmates made fun of him! It was because of his name: everybody laughed and laughed and laughed. That made him furious, furious, and more furious. But he was a smart boy too. He was the smartest kid in his class and knew how to build robots, time machines, and stuff like that.

When he got out of college, his face was red. The teasing had continued all the way through. He got so furious that he tried to take over the world and destroy laughter! He built a robot, made a time machine, and went back in time with the robot. He went back to fifth grade and threw all the people that were laughing into a cave that had a lot of tacos. The only person who was left was Tippy Toothpaste from back in time.

He told young Tippy, “Let’s go forward in time and try to take over the world! Yes, yes, yes!

“What’s our plan?” asked young Tippy.

“Let’s take all of their toilets away, so they can pee in their pants! That’s just the first step. Mwahahahaha,” said old Tippy.

So, they unscrewed the toilets in all of the towns, and all of the people went baonds in their paonds. They went aooooOOOO! And did the pee pee dance.

Then, small Tippy said, “Which one should we do next?”

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” said old Tippy.

That was your plan?!” small Tippy yelled.

“Yeah. So what?”

“I’m going to crush you!!!” And small Tippy got into the robot and crushed him.

“Mwaahahaha, I’m taking over the world now!” But he didn’t notice that if you killed someone that’s actually you, you die too!

So, you know. That’s the end.


A Lesson Learned for the World

What Happened

The Twin Towers were two of New York City’s most famous skyscrapers. The towers were built in 1973, and they were knocked down in 2001. They stood for 38 years. They stood where the two pools are today. They represent where the two towers were. They are two fountains. 2,996 people died at the Twin Towers. A terrorist group called Al-Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks. They do not like the United States. The group was led by Osama bin Laden. He was killed by a team of US Navy seals in 2011.

They also hit the side of the Pentagon because that was also a big landmark of the USA. Only 27 people died there, and it was fixable. You can go to Washington, D.C., and you can see it there. Also, a plane was coming from Newark Airport going to San Francisco, but it was hijacked, and that was going to go into the White House or the Capitol, but it took too long. Passengers attacked the hijackers, who crashed the plane in Shanksville. The crash killed 40 people, including the crew members. The Pentagon is the main office for the military, and if that got knocked down, then that could’ve been even bigger than the Twin Towers when they came down.

The Story

The first attack was from the same terrorist group (Al-Qaeda). Ramzi Yousef rented a van and parked it in the garage of the North Tower, and the van was filled with bombs. They hoped that it would blow up the South Tower, but it didn’t work. That attack happened in 1993. So, it took eight years for them to plan 9/11, which happened in 2001.

The Timeline

At 7:59 am on September 11, 2001, flight number 11 was going from Boston’s Logan Airport to Los Angeles. The reason why all of the flights were going to the west coast is because the more fuel that is used, the bigger the fire. Flight 175, coming from Boston’s Logan Airport, was also going to Los Angeles. Another flight, number 77, was leaving from Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport and going to Los Angeles. Finally, at 8:41 am, Flight 93 took off, coming from New York’s Newark Airport going to San Francisco. Five minutes later, at 8:46 am, Flight 11 smashed into the North Tower. Then 17 minutes later, at 9:03 am, Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. 34 minutes later, at 9:37 am, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Finally, 26 minutes later, at 10:03 am, Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

What Will Happen Now?

I think that the World Trade Center will be a big part to New York City. There is the 9/11 Memorial, The Oculus, One World Trade Center, Greenfield Mall, Two World Trade Center, and Three World Trade Center, and there is still more to come. Also, it’s not hard to get there. There are 12 subways that are connected to the Oculus and one that leads you straight to One World Trade Center, and also the PATH train from Jersey City. Also, it is on one out of the two highways in New York City (the West Side Highway). I think that the World Trade Center is going to become a big landmark of New York City and Manhattan. I think that it will be a big trademark of New York City and Manhattan.

One World Trade Center

One World Trade Center is one of the tallest buildings in the world! The World Trade Center is one hundred and four stories tall, and it is one thousand seven hundred seventy-six feet tall. If you don’t believe me, you can see it for yourself. Tours are available! For a standard trip it is 34 dollars, for an ungraded experience it is 44 dollars, and it is 54 dollars for the best experience. It’s a great view of Manhattan from the highest point in the city (great pictures!). But don’t be worried to see it. The city is doing everything they can do to keep it safe, because it cost 2.3 billion dollars and they don’t want to waste that money. I don’t think that the World Trade Center is coming down anytime soon. It is pretty new. It opened in 2014. So far, the city says that it was a good investment.

Two World Trade Center

Two World Trade Center is going to be One World Trade Center’s big brother. It will be one of the tallest residential buildings in the US. Two World Trade Center is a futuristic building. It might not be done by 2023 because they haven’t even started the building and the process. They’re still coming up with designs for the building. But I don’t think you’ll be living there if you aren’t rich or you haven’t won the lottery.

The Oculus

You might think from outside that it’s just a cool design, but inside it is a very big mall. There are more than 30 stores in the mall and 12 trains connecting to it. The Oculus was finished on March 3, 2016, and it was built because there is another mall on the other side of the street (Brookfield Place). People have been waiting a long time for something like this to be in New York City. Plans for the Oculus began in 2003. People thought that it would never come to life, so when it opened, everyone was very happy! The Oculus is one of the three malls in Manhattan. The other two are the Time Warner Center and Brookfield Place. So that’s what the Oculus is. It is bigger than the Time Warner Center. That’s what I know about The Oculus. People like the Oculus because it’s connected to the PATH and subway trains.

Brookfield Place

Brookfield Place is a large mall in Downtown Manhattan. It is the biggest mall in New York City. It has more than fifty stores in it. It also has a huge food court with great food. Brookfield Mall opened on March 25, 2015, about a year before the Oculus opened. People call Brookfield Place the Oculus’s brother. The Brookfield Mall also holds private events. The mall is known for the great food court because they have more than 20 restaurants. People love it for their dumplings and pizza. Everything is great there! But they were planning for it to hold more stores, and when it it was constructed that’s when they realized it couldn’t, so they made the Oculus. Some stores there are the same ones in the Oculus. They are trying to have more stores there, but everyone wants the Oculus because it connected to the PATH and subway trains. But it is connected to the 9/11 Memorial. It is just a huge mall overall. It has a lot of stores!

The Pools

Each year on September 11, thousands of people crowd around the memorial pools to cry together about the horrible deaths that occured. All 2,996 names are engraved on the rims of the pools. Pools lay where the towers stood, and also if this happens to One and Two and Three World Trade Center, then it is designed so that the building will fall into the pools. It took seven years to make the pools, three for the South Tower because it wasn’t as wide as the North Tower because more people worked in the North Tower, and it was also taller, and it had the garage under it. So many people go there all the time to see their former friends and family. So many people come there every day that they needed to make sections for everybody by last name. There are 450 sections, 30 people in each section.

The Survivor Tree

The Survivor Tree is a tree that survived the 9/11 attacks. The tree only had its stem left. They took it to the Bronx Zoo, and it took more than six years to regrow. It was ready in time for the new grand opening, and people loved seeing it. I am wondering how the leaves on this tree are always green, in all seasons. What I’m thinking is that maybe they are fake leaves because they never fall, and they never change the color. Even when the seasons change, they stay green as grass. I wonder if it was at the zoo for so long because they needed to put the fake ones on it and make sure when it is a wind storm or a snow storm, they don’t fly away. I think all the roots were wiped away from the attack, and you can’t put new veins in a tree when the stem is only left. So, I think that they are fake leaves, and they don’t even feel real at all. I say that they did that for the media, and so it will be known as the Survivor Tree.

How We Honor Loved Ones

People from all over the world honor their loved ones who died in 9/11. In NYC, streets are named after people who lived on those streets. This happens even in Japan, France, Mexico, and England. People were affected by this all over the world because so many people lost so many family members. Marianne Simone was one of the people who died in the attack.

There was a firefighter that was a first responder, and he unfortunately died. His name was Paul R. Martini, and there was a street named after him. Many more people are honored all over the world because of this event. Even in China. Maybe one day it will become a national holiday all over the world. I think that all of us should take a very good lesson away from this unfortunate event. At airports, security got much tighter. This was a big lesson for people all over the world.

Bibliography

O’Connor, Jim. What were the Twin Towers?

“9/11 Timeline.” The History channel website. https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/911-timeline-video

“9/11 memorial timeline.” The 9/11 memorial website.

https://timeline.911memorial.org/#Timeline/2

“2nd Plane Hitting WTC – LIVE News Coverage – 9/11.” BoulevaradeTV, youtube.com

PLANES: Chapter One

One Saturday morning, I sit up in my bed, get up, and run to my window. I lift up the shades and peer out the fogged up glass. I see the pond my older brother, Kyle, built yesterday in my backyard. I’d only helped him with a little bit, until I got tired and went back inside. Last night, Kyle’s college break ended, and he had to drive back to Massachusetts, so he didn’t get to finish his pond. I just stare at that unfinished pile of wood in my backyard. I guess I have to finish it myself if I want something done about it. I don’t mind about putting proper clothes on, so I stay in my saggy, old pajamas. I don’t ever care about my hair, mostly because I’ve just given up on tending to it.

I call to my mom as I drape myself over the railing and slowly slip down. “Mom, I’m hungry,” I say as I mope over to the kitchen.

“Get your breakfast yourself, weasel.”

I give her the stink eye as I attempt a grab at the cream donuts we got last night at The Donut Parlor. My mom doesn’t even have to turn around and look at me to say, “No.” I growl at that and slide open the glass back door that leads to our backyard.

“Put some shoes on, Anne, it’s bee season.”

I stare her down as I shuffle into my worn down flip-flops. I stumble outside onto the brick patio and run into the grass, until I get to the unfinished wooden pond at the end of our fenced-up yard. I look down at the slabs of wood.

“Better get my hands on this,” I say to myself, grabbing a plank of wood and holding it up to where it will be once this pond is finished.

“Whatcha doin’?” Mom says from the kitchen window. I growl again.

“Stop being so nosy. You don’t have to know what I’m doing all the time,” I say, not thinking.

Mom makes a face that looks hurt, but I know she doesn’t really care on the inside. “Okay, weasel, just get inside soon. Breakfast will seem to eat itself in this family.”

I grab the piece of wood again. I need gloves, nails, a hammer, and… that’s pretty much it, but whatever. I run back inside and grab a tiny index card from one of our island’s drawers. I shuffle around the drawer for a few more seconds, until I realize there’s no pens in there. I run down the hall to Mom’s office, where I think I can find a pen. I rustle and scramble through her stuff — twice — until I just can’t find any pens.

Mom! Do you know where any pens are?” I call.

I enter the kitchen, and she shrugs. “I don’t know. Uh… maybe my office? I’m not allowed to barge into your life, anyways.”

I growl once more.

“Please, Mom, I need to finish this! I want to make Kyle proud, y’know?”

“Awww. You want to be a handywoman!” Mom gushes.

I pout. “Just ‘cause I want to make a pond that I promised Kyle I’d finish doesn’t mean I want it to be my full time job when I’m older.”

Mom shrugs. “What’s with the attitude, weasel? Anyway, why do you even need a pen to make a pond?”

I grumble. “You’re so annoying! And immature! Stop acting more childish than me! And I’m the actual child here.”

I feel kind of bad after I storm out of there, because Mom has this sad look in her eyes. She was only trying to help, and I got mad at her.

I’m about to go down to apologize, when I hear a voice that’s unfamiliar, yelling my name. “ANNE! ANNE!” I turn around my whole room and look out all the windows. “Hi, Anne. I’m up here.” I look up on my ceiling, and a strange blue substance is oozing off my ceiling.

“AAAAA!” I run downstairs, panting. I slide on my socks into the kitchen. “MOM! I think I’ve got a fungus or something in my room. It’s blue and disgusting! Can you help?”

Mom sighs. “Sorry, honey, I’m trying to be more adult-ish, like you said. I’m texting Alexandra, the insurance woman. I was looking through my work and found out about the money for the house we got lost year that we didn’t buy. We didn’t pay for the special fee to ignore the business emails the buyers would send us. I have to cover that up.”

I sigh. “Okay, you don’t have to help me. Anyway, sorry about earlier.”

I slouch upstairs and look at my little sister, Liliana. She’s holding a fluffy bear that’s on Care Bears.

“Play,” she says, holding out the pink bear to me. I pat her on the head and go to my room, scared. Liliana follows me. “Play!” she says, stuffing the bear into my stomach.

“Not right now, Lili,” I say. “Don’t come in, okay?” Liliana sadly walks away, and I feel bad for the second time in the last hour. “Wait,” I say, gently grabbing her arm. “I can play.”

I follow her into her and my other little siblings’ room and sit on the floor next to her. We shake around Barbie dolls, have tea that’s actually hot water from the bathroom sink, play with her Care Bears, and put on a princess fashion show. I’m pretty tired, and I have homework to do, so I start out the door.

“Play? More play?” says my three-year-old sister, waddling out of her room in a princess dress.

I sigh. “Sorry, Liliana. I can’t. I have work to do, Okay?”

She tilts her head. “You job like Mommy?” she babbles, hugging the bear close to her chest.

“No, it’s easier. I only have to read a book.” I give her and her bear a big hug. “When I’m done, we can play some more, okay?”

She nods. After I pick up my book, The Candlemaker’s Son #4, I read at least seven chapters before going down for breakfast.

“Mom? Can I have some breakfast?” I say, looking around the kitchen to see if she’s still here.

She’s yelling in the next room. I try not to snoop into her business, so I head out the door, feeling bad yet again. Whatever trouble she’s in, it’s my fault, because I forced her to do work she didn’t have to. I go up to Liliana’s room, and she’s playing with my other younger brother who’s older than her. They are playing ninjas, and she seems to hate it. I run to my room. I have to get rid of this weird slime, I say inside my head. I run down to the kitchen with a great idea. I grab a dirty spatula from the sink, the stepstool from the upstairs bathroom, duct tape, another roll of duct tape, another step stool, my beanbag chair, gloves, science goggles, a doctor mask, two headbands, a large tin bucket, and some pillows. I take the pillows and put them on the sides of the bucket. I duct tape the two step stools together and place my beanbag on top of them. That’s there for me to stand on when I remove the substance. I put the pillows out in case I fall. I have the goggles, so nothing gets in my eyes. I have the headbands, so none of it gets in my hair. I have the gloves for the removal. The only thing I don’t have is confidence, which I need most. I feel silly in my little costume as I tightly grip the spatula and step onto my wobbly structure. I go on my tiptoes and almost vomit when I see the stuff up close and personal.

“Hey there, how’s it goin’, weird thing. Well, I’m about to scrape you from my walls, so I can dispose of you. Goodbye!”

I push the spatula against the ceiling and the substance, and it easily glops off into the bucket, and a bit of it is on the pillows. I climb down and take a close look at the blue stuff. I don’t poke it, because no death please, thank you very much. I collect the extra bits that snuck onto my pillows and throw the cases into the wash. I go back upstairs and carry the large bucket downstairs, holding it away from my face. I gag as I pour the blue stuff into a trash bag. I throw it out front, since trash day is two days from now. I go back inside. What even was that? I really should tell Mom. But I realize she’s still working, yelling at the phone. I slump back upstairs, feeling that my room is unsafe, even though the substance is gone. I go to Liliana’s room instead of my own. I sit down next to her. My brother that was playing with her, George, has left.

Liliana looks really sad, so I say, “What’s wrong?”

Lili sighs. “Georgie only let us do what he wanted to do.” She pouts.

“I’ll do what you want to do, okay?”

Liliana nods, and before I know it, we’re drawing pictures of her imaginary friend. Actually, she’s just scribbling, but I don’t think about it too much. My worries seem to wash out of my mind like a big wave in the ocean at the beach. Then I look over at my shoulder, because it’s hurting. I notice something there.

“OH MY — ”

There is the blue stuff, on my favorite Ramones shirt. I almost wipe it off, but I run to get my gloves instead. Liliana is calling for me.

“Play!” she screams, but I don’t listen.

It must’ve been from the removal, or maybe when I was reading in my room. This wasn’t funny anymore. I washed the slime off. I could die! I run yelling to Mom.

“MOM!” I yell, about to cry. The blue stuff is all off, but I have to tell her. She is cleaning up plates from breakfast, but I am not hungry anymore. I feel like fainting, or vomiting. “Please, please, please, Mom, listen! I could die. Please.

Mom sighs. “Honey, I tried all I could, but the buyers were fine, absolutely fine. I don’t have any work to do, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to die, so maybe I can do my taxes early, I guess — ”

I shake my head as I say, “Mom! No, it’s not that. I don’t care about that anymore! There was this weird fungus, and it dripped, and I read, and I removed it, and there was a step stool, and a trash bag, and it was blue, and it knew my name, and — ”

Mom stops me. “Wait, wait, wait just a minute! Why didn’t you tell me?”

I sigh. “Because you were so busy” — I did finger quotes — “That I didn’t want to disrupt you.”

Mom laughs a little bit. “Oh, Anne!” Mom says, leaning over to give me a squeezy hug. “You could’ve told me! I would’ve loved to have an excuse to stop that call!” I chuckle. “Well, wait here. I’m going to call Dr. Gantome, okay? I’ll see what he can do. That stuff fell on you, right?” Mom runs to the home phone and dials Dr. Gantome’s number. We haven’t seen him in a while, since Mom went on her healthy diet and forced us to go along with it. “Hello? Oh, you’re there! Dr. Gantome, hi!” There’s a short pause. “Oh, yes, I’m well.” Another pause, except shorter. “Liliana’s growing up! Oh, yes, everyone’s okay, healthy, and Kyle’s good!” Another pause, longer than the other ones. “Oh, it’s actually Anne this time. George and Mia are okay.” A very short pause, and then, “Well, she says there was a weird fungus… ? Right, sweetie?” I nod. “Yeah, and it was blue.” A pause as long as all of them combined. “Well, she got rid of it herself, and I was working… and she threw it out, but we just found a bit on her sweater.” Dr. Gantome talks on the phone for so long that I decide to leave. I hear Mom yelling to me, and I come back downstairs. “Did you get it off?” she whispers, holding the bottom of the phone. I nod, and she gets her phone back to her ear. “Dr. Gantome? Hi, yes, yes, I just couldn’t hear you — what? No, my hearing’s fine, it’s just there was static — Dr. Gantome? I’m sorry, yes… no, she hasn’t been acting strange since the incident. Actually, she just told me before our call… ” A short pause is there. “No, Dr. Gantome, everyone else is fine, everything’s okay, it’s just Anne… ” She pauses and talk and pauses and talks. I’m tired of listening by now.

Dear Diary, “Amelie”

“Amelie” 9/10/18

Dear Diary,

I have a secret. I have a fake name because my real name is really long, and the reason is very embarrassing. My fake name is Amelie.

My real name is Amelie-Ellen-Ann-Emma-Katie-Emily-Rebecca-Susan-Jullian-Julia-Caroline-Ally-Amelie-Ellen-Ann-Emma-Katie-Emily-Rebecca-Susan-Jullian-Julia-Caroline-Ally-Hannah-Kate-Daina-Ella-Ellenor-Isla-Mary-Nora-Hannah-Kate-Daina-Ella-Ellenor-Isla-Mary-Nora.

The reason my name is so long is because my great 11-times-more great grandparents, for some crazy reason, I don’t even know why, decided to keep each name for every generation. Today is my first day of school because my old school is only K-4. My new school is called Jefferson Middle School. I think I am going to die during attendance. Also, I have ten classes a day. That means ten times each day for attendance. And school starts tomorrow. I don’t know what I am going to do. I am doomed.

“Amelie” 8/11/18

Dear Diary,

I am on the school bus, so I am writing really messy right now. I don’t think I am going to survive. I am going to write again at breakfast.

P.S. It is at school. Bye And I think I have a headache. Oh great, my stomach hurts now.

“Amelie” 8/11/18

Dear Diary,

It is first period. Well, it’s not exactly first period. It is called Breakfast, but it’s more like a brunch, since school starts at 10 o’clock. Oh no, it’s time for first period. I am doomed!!! Bye!

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

It is now lunch finally. First period was terrible we had attendance first thing. Since my last name is Bailey I was called first. My teacher had to say my whole name, and everyone was cracking up. I was so embarrassed. After I said, “Here,” I told the teacher to call me Amelie for short.

However, she said, “Don’t be embarrassed by your name.”

So already I have detention. My teacher is stupid. That’s why I have so much time to write right now. Luckily, detention just makes you sit and be quiet. Nevermind, spoke too soon. Oh great. Here comes Ms. Bradly. See you soon.

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

Ms. Clarck gave me another detention. Middle school is the worst!!! Sorry, let me backtrack. Now it’s snack, and I just had a meeting with the principal. Great way to start the day!! I just realized that the principal has the worst breath. (I bet she eats onions for breakfast on purpose to make us faint.) I literally fainted. Then, the principal thought I was making a joke and judging her. I actually fainted with I guess a dumbo like her of course wouldn’t understand. She sent me to another detention and had me sit outside because she needed to “calm” herself. However, I actually heard her crying like a baby. And I couldn’t hold myself in, and I burst out laughing. The vice principal heard the principal, and he heard me laughing. Oh great, another detention. She also tells me if I get five detentions in a day, I have to get suspended. Now I have to stay two hours after school, since detention is an hour long and I got two detentions. Oh! That’s the bell, got to go.

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

It is now lunch, and I got another detention because this time the teacher asked me if I wanted a nickname so I said, “yes.” Then he asked me what I should be called and since I had experience with the other teacher I said I think my name is the best out of everyone else’s and I don’t need a nickname. Then I didn’t realized that this teacher is really nice and hates obnoxious people. One more detention until I get suspended. Got to go, bye!!!

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

Phew!!! Finally didn’t get a detention. Oops, late for class. Got to go. I have to run.

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

Wow!!! I just got yelled at for not listening, but it’s not my fault. My teacher is most boringest teacher. Even her name. Her name is Ann. So, I just yelled at my teacher and told her that she is out of her mind and her voice is boring.

But then the teacher said, “What do you mean I am out of my mind and my voice is not boring?! That’s not how you talk to your step-grandmother!!! That’s it. I knew you were bad. That’s another detention for Amelie-Ellen-Ann-Emma-Katie-Emily-Rebecca-Susan-Jullian-Julia-Caroline-Ally-Hannah-Kate-Daina-Ella-Ellenor-Isla-Mary-Nora. In case you haven’t noticed, the name ‘Ann’ is in your name. Now go to detention, and don’t talk back to me!!!”

And the worst part was all the other kids started whispering to each other. I am never going to have friends!

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

Oh no. I am on my way back, and my mom is going to ground me. I hate my life. I got suspended for a week!!! And my mom is taking away my diary when we get back home!!! My life has officially ended.

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

My mom just yelled at me so badly. I am grounded, and I have to do my homework even though I am completely clueless of what we are doing, and I can’t even use the Internet. My mom punished me to never use the Internet or my phone for the rest of the month. I am completely doomed. My phone is like my life. Also, this is the last time I am using my diary. Bye!!!


Three Poems

The Weirdo

A person that is crazy

Under sand

The name of this person is purple


The Crazy Airplane

First, airplanes are at a beach on land

The airplane’s going as fast as a person

The lame unicorn ate a dragon

This unicorn loved a person

The airplane was going so fast that it crushed the unicorn right before it kissed the human


Insect Eve

The silly person on Christmas Eve

that has a beetle on a spider

And had a cruel butterfly

Had a dream that there was a weird genie on Christmas Eve

And she gave them presents

Even though they didn’t know each other


The Bad Ghost

There was a ghost. He was a haunter. He would haunt people, animals, and objects. One day, he lifted a pig that was going to be eaten, but kaboom, a ghost car smashed into the ghost.

“Dang it. Why does a car always crash into me,” said the ghost right before the car actually pulled over.

Out of the car came Garlic Man, a loaf of muscly garlic bread. He was mad at the ghost for trying to eat his pig and said, “Step away from the pig, buddy.”

“Who in the world are you? And why do you smell so bad?” the ghost said, holding his nose.

Uh because I’m Garlic Man, duhhh?”

And the ghost killed the Garlic Man. Hahaha, that was so funny! The next day, the ghost went to a haunted house that was by the crooked crook. There was a tale that says if somebody drinks from the river, a ghost will haunt them forever. The ghost knew this tale and wanted to prove it right.

So, he hid behind a tree because the one man was really stupid and told the crowd, “I’m going to drink from the river!”

He bent his knees, crouched down, and took a sip! Then, the ghost appeared from behind. Then, the ghost lifted the haunted house and smashed it on the group of people. The people that got smashed by the haunted were flattened! Then, the lightning struck, and now the flattened people turned into a huge pumpkin with laser eyes. The pumpkin with laser eyes lasered the whole town like mad! Suddenly, the ocean splashed on the town. The ghost got on the pumpkin and rode away!

THE END.


Elephant

The jungles of South Asia are noisy, warm and dark;

Then titan longhorn beetles stand up and chirp the dawn,

And Borneo goes silent as footsteps shake the bark,

While a strange, gigantic creature lumbers out onto the lawn.

It lifts up its proboscis and bugles in delight;

Its dark gray wall of iron hide scrapes branches of bamboo;

It has large arrays of wrinkles and scars from many a fight;

Instead of many animals with no tusks, it has two.

In the middle of that forest, in the brightening light of day,

The elephant loudly yodels another morning-call.

Why not believe in goblins, in pixies, trolls and fey,

If such a marvelous creature even exists at all?


MAE

Once there was a flying elephant. To fly, all Mae had to do was flap her ears, and she would start floating, and then she could fly, but the bad thing was all the other elephants were jealous of her. Their names were Grumpy, Unlucky, and Unhappy.

So, one day, Mae went for a fly. All the other elephants were so jealous they stuck their trunks up in the air and grabbed Mae’s foot and pulled her down.

Mae was furious. She yelled out, “Why do you hate me so much?

Right away, the other elephants yelled out, “You can fly, and we cannot! Uhhhhhhhh, do you not see we are jealous of you!!! We want to fly too.” The elephants started crying and said, “We are sorry. We were jealous. We did not mean it.”

Then, Mae said, “To be able to fly like me, you have to travel through the Blue Creek Woods and under the Serpent Sea.”

So, the other elephants went on an extremely long journey to the Blue Creek Woods. The Blue Creek Woods had a bunch of really tall trees, and the trees made the shape of a really big letter B, which was so big it took up the space of the whole forest. But the danger was the animals could kill you with one scratch. Also, the animals looked very intimidating, but the elephants kept on walking. They were starving. They thought they might as well starve to death. But no way. They grabbed their ladder and walked up the ladder to some apples in an apple tree. The apples were rainbow, and inside there was a bunch of blackberry jelly.

“We’ve got food to eat, and we’ll even eat it for dinner!!!” they said.

They made a fire, so they could stay warm and eat the apples, which tasted like apples. Then, they went to sleep in their sleeping bags made of grass and bamboo and some rubber bands.

The next day, they had a nice walk to the middle of the woods, and even better, they had left over apples to eat for dinner and some leftover matches to stay warm. In fact, they had so much they could eat it for a living. A cyclops jumped out of the bushes, but they took the beast on with no fear. They fought. It was a hard fight, but they won. By that time, it was night again. The elephants made another fire, ate the apples, and went to bed. The next morning, they travelled out of the forest and made it out alive!!!

When they got out of the forest, there was a path, and it led to the sea. The path was under the water, but then the elephants transformed into ellaphmermaids. They had copper-colored mermaid tails with scales shaped like C’s and hooves at the end. They swam along the path, but then there was a siren. She had a very disturbing face with a mermaid tail with a shark fin on it, and she had gills instead of a nose. The siren lured the ellaphmermaids over by singing with her beautiful, luring singing voice, but the little ellaphmermaids had tricked the siren and grabbed their daggers and stabbed her. They had defeated a monster for the second time. They were undefeated.

So, they kept on swimming across the path. Then, a giant shark came, but the giant shark had tiny eyes like this. They were so tiny it could only see the tiniest things on earth. The shark couldn’t see them, but it could hear, so the elephants had to be super quiet like ninjas. The shark couldn’t see them and they made it. But then there was a surprise! In real life, Mae was following them the whole time, and in real life, she was a magical queen with powers.

Her powers were she could make anything fly, so the magical queen said, “You are very smart, and I trust that you will use your flying powers well.”

So, she gave them the power to fly.

But then the ellaphmermaids thought for a minute, and they were like, “Wait a minute, you tricked us?!” But then they said, “Whatever, we’re getting our wings!”
They flew all the way home. But then… They all lived happily ever after.

Crossing the North Pole

Chapter One: Starting a New Life

This is a story that starts in the North Pole. Pezzy was a candy man, and he made a magical lollipop that talked and moved. It was shaped like a penguin, and its name was Pengui. Because Pengui was a penguin shape, he could talk to the other penguins at the North Pole.

Seals in the North Pole thought Pengui looked tasty. Pezzy had to make another lollipop that was a monster to scare away the seals. Then, there were other seals who were stronger, and they weren’t scared…

Pezzy was scared. He thought the seals might eat Pengui. So, he put Pengui in his pocket. To talk to Pengui, he made a tiny walkie-talkie for Pengui and a headphone for himself, so the seals wouldn’t hear them talking to each other. Their goal was to get a break from human beings. They didn’t want Pengui to end up in the New York Aquarium. If the scientists knew that there was a talking penguin lollipop, they would surely put him in the New York Aquarium.

But there were also scientists at the North Pole. The first scientists they met were in a truck. Pezzy hid behind a block of ice until the truck passed. Then, they saw a little town that had a hotel. They went to sleep there and warmed up. They heard ice cracking in the night and a snowstorm. They liked those sounds much better than the ambulances and all the trucks and yelling people of New York. They slept a long time, and when they felt rested, they left the hotel, and they built a home in the town made out of chocolate for the walls and gummy worms to help hold up the roof. They used more chocolate for the cozy floor. They made a brick place for the stove so that the fire wouldn’t melt the chocolate walls.

It was still cold, so they built a heater. The heater was made out of cotton candy, but there was no electricity. So, they called the city to ask if they could connect to the city’s electric cables. For now, they had a great start to life in the North Pole.

Chapter Two: Catching Food

They were hungry for candy. Pezzy was too tired to make some candy, so Pengui went to catch fish. They were still hungry. Afterwards, Pezzy took a nap, and he was not tired anymore. They were still hungry, but Pezzy wasn’t tired after, so he could make more candy, so he made Twizzlers for candy pasta. It was starting to get late, so they went to sleep. At night, a seal started to attack the walls. The walls started to shake so hard it woke them up. Two minutes later, the seal went away. They were so scared from the shaking walls. Seven hours later, they went to eat breakfast. After they ate, they went to a clothes store to buy a warmer jacket for Pezzy. Pengui, being a lollipop, didn’t get cold. The clothes store was closed, so they went to a different store. But it was the only store in town, so they made clothes for Pezzy from yarn they found at another store. They slept better.

After a while, it was time to wake up again. Accidentally the clock was broken, so it was still the middle of the night. Then, they swam in the water of the North Pole. After a while, they were cold, so they made a heating system in the pool. After that, they swam in it. They were freezing in there too, so they made the heating system even stronger. Then it was time to go to sleep, and they travelled back to where Pezzy wanted to go. Pengy needed to stay by himself at the North Pole.

Pezzy wanted to go home, so he did.

The End.


Arctic Jungle Adventure

Chapter One: Confusion

Once upon a time there was a polar bear named Poley, and he had a friend named Pandy. Pandy lived in the jungle because he was a panda bear, and Poley lived in the Arctic.

Pandy once came over to the Arctic to visit Poley and said to him, “Do you want to come to the jungle, so you can see how I live”

“Yes, I would like to!” said Poley, and so Pandy brought Poley to the jungle.

Once they arrived, Poley was burning, burning hot with sweat, and Pandy said, “Are you okay? Are you getting tired?”

And Poley said, “No, I don’t know.”

Then, a jungle ranger came walking by, and the ranger said to Poley, “This is not your right habitat. No wonder you look so sweaty and hot. We have to get you back to the Arctic!”

But Pandy said, “No, I want him to stay!”

But the ranger said, “But he has to go, or he will get very sick.”

“Okay, fine,” Pandy said. “You can bring him, but only if I’m allowed to come with.”

“Okay, you can come with. But if you get hurt, I’ll take you back.”

Chapter Two: Going Back to the Arctic

They finally made it back to the Arctic, and once they got there, Poley still was a little sick but felt a teensy weensy bit better. And the ranger called a medical ranger… because Poley was still not feeling well.

The medical ranger was on his way. Finally, he arrived, and he said to the ranger, “What is going on?”

And the medical ranger said, “This polar bear was very sick because he went to the jungle and got very warm, so we brought him back here, and now this panda came also, and even though I brought Poley the polar bear back to the Arctic, he is still very sick. So… can you help?”

“Yes, I can help,” said the medical ranger.

Chapter Three: Helping Poley

So, the medical ranger took Poley’s temperature, and it was very very high. And then he checked his heartbeat, and it was slower, and he said, “Even though the heart beat is slower and the temperature is high, I know how to help him.”

“Phew! That is a-okay,” said Pandy in a not-very-well voice.

The medical ranger did everything he could, and Poley almost died, but in the end he was a-okay.

Chapter Four: Pandy Not Feeling Well… Uh oh.

Since Pandy spoke in a not-very-well voice earlier, he fainted.

“He is way too cold in the Arctic!” said the medical ranger. Nobody knew, but Pandy was actually faking.

So, did you guys like my trick about how I was faking being sick?!” Pandy said.

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm… ” they responded questionably.

“Okay, okay. I guess it wasn’t the best trick ever,” said Pandy.

“Yeah, it wasn’t. I was really going to try and help you, and I was really worried,” the medical ranger said angrily, while the normal ranger was watching over Poley while he was laying in a bed of ice.

Pandy said, “Now that we’re all done arguing, let’s have some fun!”

Then, everyone else said, “Yeah!

Then, they all went ice skating.

The End


Killer Refrigerator

Chapter One

Once upon a time my mom was going shopping. She was getting ice cream and yogurt. Just as she slammed the door, a part of her hand got caught in the refrigerator, and her skin fell off. On our way to the doctor’s, I saw a bird that had been sucked into a car’s exhaust and was all smashed up. My mom got to the doctor’s, and they stitched her hand back together. She passed out for three days. Meanwhile, at the store, the janitor was cleaning the refrigerator, and right as she was about to wipe the blood away, it disappeared. The janitor was very curious and cut her hand a little and rubbed the blood onto the refrigerator. The refrigerator groaned and then snapped its door open and ate the janitor up!

Chapter Two

The refrigerator had fortunately been sleeping when I bought ice cream the next day. But when I went to get some ice cream from my home refrigerator, I realized there was no ice cream, but instead there was an eyeball in the tub. I decided to investigate the refrigerator. I set up a spycam at the supermarket, and the day after that, I remembered to check the footage. At midnight the previous night, a manager had gone to restock the ice cream. What I saw shocked me so much I almost passed out. The refrigerator had chomped up the manager, and I saw what its plan was. He used the janitor’s feet, and they popped out from the bottom of the refrigerator, and he used the manager’s hands to push himself up. I was about to save the files when my computer died because I’m bad at charging it, and it deleted all the footage.

I ran to the supermarket, and the refrigerator was gone! I decided to call a detective. I knew without the footage the police would never believe me. The detective’s name was Sherlock Holmes — just kidding. I can’t tell you because he’s a secret agent, so let’s say Sherlock for now. So, Sherlock came over to the house. He asked where the supermarket was, and I told him downtown. He went over to the store, and he used a new gadget that had only been available for one hour: it was a detective spyglass with a thermal camera on it that could show you where the criminal’s footsteps were. He asked the janitor what they’d seen, and they said the janitor had worn Crocs. We tracked the footsteps to an old abandoned theme park. The refrigerator had gone to the haunted mansion. We went to the place, and we heard noises coming from the back. I told Sherlock to stay back, and I snuck up. I remembered the refrigerator seemed to hate ketchup. I thought I would throw the ketchup. When I looked up at the refrigerator, he swallowed me whole!

The End… for now.


The Disney Cruise

One afternoon, Mckenzie went to her parents. She was curious about what she was doing today. Her mother said they were going to Upper Rapids Water Park. Mckenzie knew that Rapids Water Park existed, but she had never heard of Upper Rapids Water Park, but she knew her mother would never lie to her, so she trusted her. So, at 9:00 am, they left: Mckenzie, Mema, Mom, Dad, and Ives. It took about three hours to get to the water park, and then Ives pointed out a waterslide in the middle of the sea.

Ives yelled out, “It’s a Disney Cruise Ship!”

And then Mckenzie yelled, “You probably won’t be able to ride the water slide!”

Then Ives got a closer look, and when he saw it, he knew for sure it was a Disney Cruise!

But Mckenzie was not too excited… “I wish we were, but we’re not.”

Suddenly, Mema said in a soft voice, “We’re going on the cruise!”

Then, Mom screamed, “We’re going on a Disney Cruise — you are wearing your bathing suit because we are going on that cruise ship.”

Mckenzie stopped her in the middle and said, “Stop it! I’m not stupid!”

And suddenly, Mema showed Mckenzie the tickets, and Mckenzie asked, “How did you do it?”

Mckenzie said, “Ohhh! How did you get into our room?”

And then Mom said, “You were fast asleep.”

And then Dad drove up to the ticket inspector, who looked at the tickets and told them where to go. And Dad drove into the parking lot, and there she was: the Disney Cruise Ship.

Suddenly, when they got out, there was a man taking their luggage and checking them in. He asked them questions. Then, a man came up to them — he told the Miller family about the aquaduck. That’s the ride on the Disney Cruise Ship. And then he started making a duck squeak like, “Bok bok bok bok bok,” or however you do it. And then it was time to walk towards the ship. There were big escalators, and when you walked on it, the family had to get tags and go through a big Mickey door — that’s where you get onto the boat.

The Millers then went through security, and afterwards they took a picture of all of them. Then, they checked their cards to get on the ship — everyone, even babies, get a card. It kind of looks like a credit card. It says your name and has a picture of Mickey on it, as well as your room number. The Millers went through, and there were eight people standing there, and one of them asked the family their first and last names, and the grandma said, “Miller.”

And then the lady that she told the last name to said, “Welcome the Miller family aboard.” And then all those eight people started clapping!

Then, the family walked into a lobby with big, tall ceilings and beautiful chandeliers and staircases like you’d see in movies. There were wide elevators, singers, dancers, and instrument players, and there were photo booths and characters all around the ship. After that, they all got into an elevator and arrived on the 12th floor — there were big pools, big slides, and self-serve ice cream bars. Then, everyone was standing in the big parts where the pools and the slide were and music was playing. There was a big screen with a camera moving around the audience, so you get to be up on the board, and Mckenzie and her dad decided to go wait in the long line to ride the aquaduck.

It took about 20 minutes for them to get up there. There was a really long line as it was just when the ship was about to sail. When they finally got their time to go on it, Mckenzie’s mom had been waiting for her and her dad to go across it, but when it was their turn, her mom decided not to do it because she didn’t see them going up, and she missed it. And when Mckenzie and her dad got it again, her mom got the picture. Everyone was clapping and singing because the boat had just set sail. Then, everyone went back to their rooms.

About 30 minutes later, the Millers had to do a life vest training thing, and every family would stand in one line. Groups of three families had one coach, and it took about 30 minutes for them to start because they had to get everyone out of their rooms. Then when it was over, the family went to lunch. The ship had a big cafeteria with oysters, pizza, lobster, and many other delicious things. Mckenzie got chicken tenders and a Coke. And that’s what she got every single day after that. Dad, Ives, and Mom got that too.

Then, they went to the kids club, and since it was the first day on the cruise ship, the parents got to come. There was an animation center, cooking, boat driving, and there was this big light up floor where you could play games. Then, the parents left, and Ives and Mckenzie practiced being alone there. Then later, they left when their parents came to get them. Every night they would go to a different restaurant where all of the food was already paid for.

There was the Animation Palate. That was where the Millers had their first dinner. The second night, they would be going to the Enchanted Gardens. The third night, they went to the Royal Palace.

Every night, there were crazy characters like Cinderella, Rapunzel, Ariel, Mickey, and other fun things. Finally, it was Saturday night, and that meant it was the pirate day on the ship. Every Saturday night, there is a pirate night. It is where everyone on the ship would dress up as a pirate. Everybody was out on the deck, when suddenly Captain Jack from Pirates of the Caribbean came out. He was singing and dancing, and he had loads and loads of jolly deck pirates. Soon, the night was over, and the Millers went to sleep. The next morning, the boat arrived at Castaway Cay: Disney’s private island. Everyone walked onto the island, and Mckenzie’s dad grabbed everyone some towels, and suddenly there was someone counting his towels. Can you guess who it was??? Captain Jack Sparrow.

It was super cool. Suddenly, before they knew it, it was 4:30. That was the time everyone had to get back on the boat. The Millers showered up and went to dinner and then went to bed. When they woke up, they were docked to go back to Florida.
That was the tale of the Disney Cruise.

The end.

The Time I Was Left in the Elevator

I was staying in a hotel in Montauk, New York with my grandma and my uncle from Seattle, and I was having a wonderful time in the pool. I tried to do these cool dives, but I was only three years old, so it was impossible. I did not want to risk it and belly flop hard. As soon as we ended swimming, I suggested to my family that we should go into the hotel room and relax, so we did.

We got into the elevator. We were with these 70-year-old people in the elevator. I pressed the number seven, which was the floor that we were staying on. When we arrived at our floor, I did not notice because I was looking at my Nemo towel, even though I don’t like Nemo. When I looked up, no one was there except the old people. That is when I realized that my parents had accidentally left me. The old people held my hand as we went back down. I was so scared.

When we got down, the nice people stayed with me even though they had to go to their floor. I arrived at the seventh floor, hoping that I would see my parents. The doors opened. I saw my whole family. I was so happy to see them. I hugged them.

This was a true story…

The End.


Thrasi’s Pot of Gold

Rudy was a little confused. Was it a dream, or did it really happen? Then, he saw the brass pot of gold that said ÞRASI in fancy lettering. A few days ago, Rudy’s family arrived in Iceland. The first tourist trap they visited was going to be the waterfall, SKOGAFOSS. His four sisters were arguing about who would get to decorate their cousin, Elaine, and Rudy was almost going to just shout out and just tell his sisters to stop talking or get out of the car when they reached the waterfall.

Riley skipped along the dirt path. One thing you should know about her is she loved to swim. Today Riley was going to the SKOGAFOSS waterfall. It was a special day. Riley loved being near water, where she felt like a bird. Little did she know that today would be different. She would bump into Rudy and find a great treasure.

One hour later…

Rudy got out of the car. Riley walked down the seven steps of the bus, clutching her tote bag. Clunk! They bumped into each other.

“Hi,” said Riley.

“Bonjour,” said Rudy sarcastically.

Riley was just about to walk off when a golden glint caught her eye. Half of a brass chain was sticking out from the waterfall, at an angle, so if Riley was one step forward, she wouldn’t have seen it at all.

”Look over there!” Riley shouted to Rudy.

Rudy suddenly yanked at the top of the fence, and he now had an iron bar. Rudy hooked the end of the strong iron bar to the end of the chain and then grasped the end. Riley quickly grabbed the bar too. All Rudy’s siblings started pulling, and his sisters completely forgot about decorating Elaine. Then, Rudy realized that the girl he had bumped into wasn’t behind him. Just as he thought that, she appeared with a swimsuit and goggles on. She leapt into the water and swam perfectly behind the waterfall. Rudy had watched in awe. Then suddenly… YANK! The thing behind the waterfall leapt into the air and landed in Rudy’s arms.

It was a pot of gold. Now what really happened was that Riley had swum behind the waterfall and pushed the pot as hard as she could. The reason Riley was so excited about the brass chain was because she did research on Iceland, and the book said that a settler named THRASI had hidden a pot of gold behind the waterfall, where it would be hard to reach.

You can imagine it was pretty hard for Rudy’s family to get the gold back. They had split the gold with Riley’s family, and it was loaded up in their trunk. Rudy’s brother clapped him on the back and said, “Ya gotta real treasure today, eh?”

But the real treasure was the adventure they had.

THE END


A Trip to Yellowstone

August 5

Hello. My name is Kelly Jones, and the only reason I am writing in my new, so secret, red leather diary that locks is because I am bored. I have always not liked airplane rides, especially because they make me dizzy. I am on my way to Yellowstone National Park because, well, frankly, I am very excited. I am very into science, and I heard there are wild animals in Yellowstone and erupting geysers. But, my uncle says there is going to be a great surprise. I don’t expect that it’s going to be much because my uncle’s surprises are never exciting.

August 7

We arrived one day ago. Our hotel is kind of cozy, and our room has a soft gray rug, a huge TV, a springy white sofa, and three nice, cozy beds with green tea colored blankets. My dad is sitting in one of the plum colored squishy chairs and sipping his coffee and reading his newspaper.

August 8

So far, my father hasn’t stumbled upon any good news in the newspaper, considering that he’s had his nose in the newspaper for the last few days. He has been keeping us home, so we can watch TV and play Chutes and Ladders, and he reads newspapers. He’s made up his mind that we aren’t going to go out until he finds something good. He has also been searching for something interesting, because, unlike me, he thinks Yellowstone is going to be pretty boring. Finally, this morning, Father found something good.

“Aha!!”’ my dad exclaimed. “Kk, come over here.’’

I came. This is what I saw:

YELLOWSTONE SCIENCE PRIZE

This prize is for children from 8-16. Competitors must present a report about Yellowstone Wildlife and Yellowstone geysers. Adults can help if needed, and the project must be turned in by 3-5. The essay must be about a way to prevent hunting. The prize is a gold trophy for each participant of the winning team, plusa salary of 6,000,000 dollars for the winners to split up. If you are interested, please contact Bill Gates, creator of Microsoft. Submission due AUGUST 15.

Okay. It’s still August 8.

And Daddy is loading up the car, and if you were paying attention, you’d know why. Right now, we are off to Old Faithful, so I can take notes for the competition and also take a chance at finding who to work with on the competition. Meanwhile, my aunt is helping my mom register for the Bill Gates competition, and my father is doing the happy Snoopy dance because he is so happy.

Now we are at Old Faithful, and I am looking for some nice looking girls to do the competition with. Just as I was going to give up, I spotted a familiar face.

“Hello, Kellania.”

“Hello, Josephine. What are you doing here?!”

“Don’t panic, Kell. I was invited by your uncle. I am here to help you out, with your contest thingamabob. Speaking of Bobs, how about I take you over to Bob’s Pizza for Lunch??” Things were going on in my mind. Why had Josephine wanted to help anyways?? Besides, I barely knew her. She was the smartest, the prettiest, and the most perfect girl in the school, maybe even in the world!!! And her parents were billionaires!!! Man, gazillionaires!!!

Over at Bob’s Pizza, a girl and boy that were probably twins were arguing about something. When they saw me, they stopped arguing and waved at me. When I went over to them, I said, “Do you want to join me in the competition???”

“Sure. My name is Jack, and that is Julie,” the boy said.

Now only one more person, I thought.

“Time for the eruption,” Jack and Julie said together.

We ran to get a last slice of pizza and then caught a bench in front of Old Faithful. The boy sitting next to me had blonde, almost white hair and was reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and looked as if he was in sixth grade. Every once in a while, he would look at his phone and text to Mom.

“Hey.” I was startled by his voice and glanced at his book.

“I have read Jane Eyre too,” I said. “Care to join me in the contest??”

“Sure.”

“Isn’t it weird when the jerk who runs the school makes Jane stand on the stool??” Him again. End of conversation. Deal made. Then, just about when he picked up Jane Eyre again, Old Faithful erupted.

August 11

Today I am supposed to meet Josephine, Julie, Jack, and James (this is the boy who was reading Jane Eyre yesterday) at James’ house, just a few blocks away from our hotel. At eight in the morning, I set off for James’ house for our meeting. Once I walked in, I knew James’ parents were well-educated. James told me to guess what his parents’ jobs were. It was pretty easy to tell what his mother’s job was. I mean, whose house plays flute music on the stairs and has sheet music on the coffee table and a music stand with a silver flute laid across it? Next, James made us guess what his father’s job was. That was also pretty easy because the moment we went into one of the upstairs rooms, a man with a white lab coat stepped out of the room.

“Hello. My name is Michael. Nice to meet you. I am a science professor.”

After, we had some pretzels, we went into his room, which was huge, and sat down on his big huge couch that could probably fit way more than five people comfortably, and Josie (Josephine) began.

“First things first, what is a problem about the animals?”

“They poop too much,” said James.

“Very well, James,” said Josephine. “You may do an extra report for the competition on how animals digest and the shape of the waste and how to identify their footprints.”

James groaned.

“Okay, now for you,” Josephine said.

“Josephine, you are acting way too much like the boss. I think Kelly should be the boss.” Julie stuck her hip out and glared at Josephine. Josephine blushed.

“I think that we should do a report on geysers and animals combined,” I said. Jack thought that was a great idea.

“And by the way, James, you do not have to do your poop report alone. That extra report will be very important, so Josephine can help you with it.” Julie smirked. Now it was Josephine’s turn to glare.

Jack said, “Don’t the geysers come from under the crust of earth?”

“Isn’t the earth supposed to have a lot of minerals?” Josephine was now madly typing on her silver and diamond computer. “It says here that the geysers are exposed to a lot of different metals and moreover, exposed to, drumroll please.” Jack and James made a drumroll on a fake army drum. “Arsenic!!!” shouted Josephine.

“Okay, so you guys get to go to different geysers and actually have fun, while Josephine and I have to go to parks to collect dung??” James whined.

“That’s not fair,” wailed Josephine.

“No one asked for your opinion,” Julie retorted.

“Well, you never have to collect dung,” Josephine shot back. The two got into a fight and were rolling around in the bed. Basically, they were just shouting. (“Excuse me, I am not going to collect dung!!”)

Meanwhile, I was sitting on the couch thinking. Then, I rolled around on the couch, and I thought, Isn’t the water supposed to be hot? If it was hot, wouldn’t it lure animals in the winter?? Maybe it would. What would happen if the animals drank the water, or even worse, bathed in it? Something was forming in my mind. “Josephine, Julie, come over here!! I ran over to them and pushed them apart. The two girls stopped fighting and walked over here.

I said, “Okay. So if James and Josephine collect the dung, I’ll explain.” Josephine had a defeated look on her face.

“Oh, all right. Now get on with it.”

“So what if the animals drink the geyser water!”

“Big deal.” Josephine snorted. Clearly she was still angry with Julie.

“But, that means they have arsenic in them!!” Julie said. “So, if the hunters hunt the animals and eat them, they’ll get sick!!

“Absolutely!” I shouted. The boys had went out to collect some elk and bison dung, and now they came back with a plastic bag with brown stuff. I am not lying, they look funny. They had nose plugs, too large plastic lab coats, and yellow rubber gloves with matching boots.

“So, have you guys figured out anything yet?”

“Loads,” I said, or I squealed.

“Hey, isn’t your father a science professor?” Julie asked.

“Bring the dung to your father, James, he’ll have it analyzed, and you, Jack, go get us some more pretzels,” Josephine ordered.

“Josephine,” said Julie warningly.

Anyways, Dr. Michael says that he can get the dung analyzed in a few days. I guess I won’t have time to write these days. It’s okay. I think I could fill you up once I have time. James’ mother had an exercise to keep us going. Basically, she wanted us to write a paragraph on what we love. That was a pretty good exercise, but I couldn’t stop thinking about The geyser’s animals and how they connect. I guess I got so distracted that I fell asleep.

August 16

Okay. Don’t get mad. I will fill you up on everything, after I am done eating this pretzel. Jack is talking away about how the pretzels at June’s Super Deli are really good and that we should really try them and the Cokes there have frost down the sides. It’s driving me crazy. Right now, we are sitting on one of the plum colored squishy chairs in the hotel, and my older sister is lounging on the springy white sofa that she has made into one of her private lounging places.

She says that all younger children, “Don’t have the responsibility to recline on regal couches with beautiful ladies.” She is annoying too.

We have just gotten a reply from Dr. Michael, which you might remember if you cared. The results are coming out on the 20th of August, and Dr. Michael says that the dung shows definite signs of Arsenic. Josephine and I wrote up the report about the geysers, and James and Jack are still working on the extra poop report that they still have to do. Josephine got out of doing it by who knows how. Our report is mostly finished and Julie, who is good at arts and crafts, is making a beautiful diorama that shows the geysers, the animals, and the hunters, creeping up behind. Then, all of us pitched in to write a few words about how we came up with this idea, and I helped Julie write a few words about what was in the diorama. Josephine figured that she needed to help the boys because she thought they were getting on too slowly. While all the ladies sat down to see when the prizes of the competition would be given, all the men, and I am not kidding, were sitting and reading newspapers just like my dad.

Jack was responsible for getting the pretzels from June’s Super Deli. Except, he ate them all before he could get back. The boys are really close to finishing because, as a matter of fact, Josephine is writing for them. I am really anxious because well, if you were paying attention, the results are coming out in four days. Only four days!!! Now Josephine is coming up with an ending sentence for the boys, which means they are almost done. Okay. The ending touch. Julie is now pasting the extra report and the main report to the diorama then adding the sparkly sign I had made to the diorama. It was finished. In four days, we are going to The Yellowstone Caldera, where the contest is going to be held. It is said that Bill Gates himself is going to make an appearance to announce the winner of the contest. There are butterflies in my stomach. Also, we have to pick out the clothing for the contest/party. Josephine already has her gown picked out. It is a silver gown studded with diamonds. Pretty cool. James’ suit is a red tailcoat and green army pants. At first, Jack wanted to wear a blue sweater and jeans but Josephine plainly said no. Instead, Julie picked out a blue army coat for him and yellow smart-looking pants. I still can’t choose between a slim, wide skirted green gown and a full skirt blue and silver dress. Julie is wearing a yellow dress with hoops. I am just so tired and stressed out. Maybe I should take a break.

August 20

Ahhh!

It’s the day. Yellowstone Caldera is just a few miles away. I am just trying to be calm, but I can’t!!! Our diorama is tucked safely under a blanket in a cushiony basket in the trunk. My head is spinning around in circles. My brain is singing a song.

It’s the day. Yellowstone Caldera is a few miles away. Bill Gates is eating lemon ice cream, but everyone else is screaming!!!

I can’t stand it!! Jack is so annoying. He is actually singing his brain song out loud! This is his song:

“Bill Gates is eating pretzels la la la la la la la la. I love eating pretzels, so we are similar!! La la la la la la la la la!

Two more miles, one and a half more miles, one more mile, a half mile, we are here!! Ahhh!

By the way, I chose the blue and silver dress for the party, so I have to lift my skirts. Josephine is helping Julie lift the diorama out of the car and into one of the racks. We are five minutes early, and the adults are helping me get the banner saying THE 4 JS AND 1 K STRIKE AGAIN!!! up on to the top of the rack. Okay. Bill Gates is arriving. All the Honda and BMW and Mercedes and Toyota cars follow him. Bill Gates gives the other groups a few minutes to set up, then we clear, and he takes a bunch of looks around. By now, I am the only one not looking at Bill Gates. I am writing in this diary. He stops at our diorama and stares at it for a long time. Then, he moves on. He stops at another report and examines it closely. Then, he whistles to his housekeeper, and she brings a tan colored chair that was probably from India onto the stage.

Bill Gates stands up and says, “The winner is… ” I squeeze my eyes shut, and Josephine pinches my hand. “… The 4 Js and 1K!!!” Did you know that your heart can stop when you are like totally excited??

One year later…

It’s been a year since I have written to you, and you must remember that I won the contest, and that I had loads of help, and that we now have $1,200,000. And a gold trophy. Well, we got a new house, and now I have my own room. Last year included one of the most exciting events of my life. And this journal was part of it.

THE END


Simone La Unicorn

Chapter 1: Simone La Unicorn


Once upon a time, when Simone was an ordinary foal, she was being trained to run. Run, run, run. Every day, every night, and in between. Her trainers were awful. They beat her if she was bad and took away food if she fell down. She hated it there. She really wanted to escape. One day, she decided to try to jump over the fence. She tried three times, and on the fourth try she succeeded. It was dramatic irony because her trainers wanted her to be fast, but then she used that skill to escape.

Now Simone was alone in the world, and she was scared. She wandered for miles. After four days, she met a calf that was hurt. She nursed it back to health, and the calf said he would grant her one wish because it was a magical calf. She wished she could be a unicorn. When her transformation was complete, she had a golden horn and white wings.

She touched her horn on the ground, and a unicorn swept her away to a rainbow land. Then, she was adopted by another unicorn and treated with kindness.

Chapter Two: The Witch in the Woods


The day after she arrived, her adoptive stepmother said, “You must never go into the wicked woods — for a wicked witch lives there and will turn you into a cockroach.”

But Simone was curious. She went into the woods, even though her mother told her not to. After she went deep into the woods, she came across a beautiful house.

She saw stables and lots and lots of carrots. She saw these things and started toward them. She laid down in the soft hay and munched on the carrots. Then, an old lady came out from the house.

She saw Simone and said, “Well, well, well, a unicorn.” And she went back into the house. She came out again with a wand and magically locked the stable. Simone whined impatiently. She kicked the door to see if she could knock it down. She was trapped.

The room she was locked in was a small wooden stable with itchy hay and rotten carrots because the witch had magicked it to look lovely even though it wasn’t.

This must be the witch that my stepmom told me about, Simone thought, and she went to sleep. The next day, the witch came out of her house and woke Simone up. She had rotten oats and moldy bread. Simone didn’t touch her food. Then, she took a nap.

While she was sleeping, the witch snuck up on her with a pair of magical pliers, a sword, and other instruments for extraction. But what the witch didn’t know was that each tool in turn made a very, very loud noise. Simone had woken up from the loud noises that the tools had made. She started fighting. She kicked and stabbed with her horn.
Finally, the witch was trapped in a corner. “Why do you want my horn?” Simone asked.

“It was for a spell, to wipe out all unicorns!” said the witch.

“Why?” said Simone.

“Um well, um… I don’t know!” replied the witch.

“This is why my stepmom told me to avoid you. She was right. I should have never gone into the woods,” sighed Simone. “Set me free!”

The witch had no choice. She said, “Okay.” But as soon as Simone got a few feet from the stable, she was drawn back by a forcefield.

“Hey, you trapped me!” Simone hollered. The witch had snuck back into her house.

Chapter Three: Cockroaches and Fears

The witch had officially given up on trying to steal Simone’s horn, so she turned her into a cockroach.

Bzz bzz bzz!” Simone cried as an Australian Wood cockroach. She tried to find a weakness in the witch’s forcefield, bumping her head until it throbbed. Unsuccessful, she decided to try something else. Then, she noticed she was hungry. She started eating a hole in the witch’s house. Five days passed, and finally the hole was complete! Then, she had to wait a day because she was very full. After that day, she crawled through the hole to see if the witch could turn her back into a unicorn.

When the witch saw the cockroach, she jumped up onto her dining room table and got her feet in ketchup.

“Aah! A cockroach! Mama! Save me!!” the witch cried.

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz,” said Simone.

“Oh, it’s you,” said the witch. “And yes, I can understand cockroaches.”

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz.”

“Oh no you won’t,” the witch said.

Bzz bzz bz bzz.”

The witch grabbed for her wand and started firing curses at Simone, and Simone started scuttling around, trying to avoid the curses.

Bzz bzz bzzzzzzz bzzz bzz bzz bzz!!

“No!” the witch yelled. “Please don’t bite me!”

Bzz, bzz bzz bzz bzz!

“Absolutely not!” said the witch, and magical gavels started banging around the room. Simone scuttled around again, trying to avoid the gavels.

After an hour, the witch had gotten tired and said, “You and I will propose a truce and have tea together.”

So, the witch made a tiny little cup for Simone and then made tiny little cakes which Simone ate all up. “Okay,” the witch said. “Now the truce is over.” And she started throwing chairs at Simone and overturning the tables and smashing all the tea cups. After she had destroyed all of her furniture, she went into her bed and went to sleep.

Well, Simone was also tired, so she crawled back into her hole, so she wouldn’t get smashed by anything and fell asleep there. The next morning, the witch found Simone in her bedroom again, eating her dresses.

“Stop eating my dresses!” the witch said and overturned her bed trying to get to Simone.

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz!” said Simone.

“No they are not, and I should know because I accidentally turned myself into a cockroach and took a bite of my dresses. It tasted terrible,” said the witch.

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz.

Simone started dodging around, avoiding the witch’s hand. “Stop destroying my stuff!” the witch said.

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz,” Simone said.

“Well, I’m tired,” the witch said. “I’m going to go back to sleep… ” And then the witch magicked the overturned bed back to its original position and laid her wand on the bedside table. Simone was hungry, and as an Australian Wood Cockroach, she wanted to eat wood. The witch’s wand was made of wood, so she climbed up her bedside table and started eating the wand. By the time the witch woke up, her wand was destroyed, and Simone was back to her original form as a Unicorn.

“Oh no!” the witch said. “You are now a unicorn.”

And then Simone ran as fast as she could, kicked the door down, and ran back home with her mother.

Chapter Four: The Mysterious Murderer

When Simone got back to her house, she laid down and rested for a million years. Then when she woke up, her mother was an old granny with five hundred kids with a walker and fake golden teeth.

Then, Simone met a handsome young male unicorn named Isaac, and she said, “Will you marry me?”

“No,” he said, very, very rudely. Then, Isaac immediately died. There was an arrow stuck in his throat with poison in it — it said Gunjabar on the side.

“I must find this mysterious murderer!” said Simone. “They have murdered my loved one.”

Then, she went home and consulted the library to find out what Gunjabar was. She found out it was the most deadly poison, and it would raise the dead after an hour. So, she put posters up quickly with her horn, and soon everyone in town knew that someone had died from Gunjabar, but nobody thought it could actually raise the dead. So after an hour, Isaac the male unicorn rose from the dead and terrified all the unicorns into their homes where they shut themselves in with 500 million bajillion locks.

Simone walked carefully and quietly to the library to see if there was a cure for Gunjabar. The librarycorn looked through a little peephole in the door, unlocked the 500 million bajillion locks, let Simone in, closed the door, and locked the 500 million bajillion locks. She read every single book about poisons, and she could not find a cure. But one book called What Happens in Poisons said there was another book that might help cure the effects of the poison before it was irreversible, but she had to do it by dawn of the fifth day. There was only one copy, and it had been lost for a century. She decided to look for it.

She flew across the Atlantic Ocean, in and out of clouds. She finally came to a small island about fifteen feet wide and two miles across. There were two palm trees at each side, and in the middle was a poem and five rocks, and the poem said, The one palm in the middle of the island and five rocks split evenly on the ends will sink the island like a boat until you figure out how the puzzle bends.

“This is… this is… it,” Simone said. “This is where the book is.”

Chapter Five: The Book

Simone dug up the whole island in search of the book. She had dug up a whole island, and it was now a big mound of dirt with two palm trees and five rocks, when she noticed that it was only ten feet across. It had sunk five feet. So, she had two more days. She decided that another unicorn had cast a spell, so it would appear when they solved the riddle. So, she picked up the piece of paper again, read it over, and decided it made no sense because she knew that there were two palm trees not one. And five was an odd number, so it could not be split evenly. Simone decided to try anyway.

She walked around the now seven feet across island and looked at the palm trees from every single angle there could be. Finally, the last angle made sense. She could only see the first palm tree, and there wasn’t another one. But she still didn’t know how to split the rocks evenly, and she only had five hours left. She got an extra rock from the ocean and put three on each side — that didn’t work. She tried to use herself as a rock — that didn’t work either. And Simone was getting tired because the rocks were very heavy. Then, after five more tries, she finally thought of splitting one in half. It still was five rocks, but it had one split in half and two and a half plus two and a half equals… five! Simone saw the book hovering above the island. She made a bag out of the tree leaves and made sure it didn’t blow away by putting rocks on it. She flew across the ocean, landed in her hometown, and locked herself in her house.

She read the book, and she discovered the cure: a corpse flower, a Madagascar hissing cockroach, and rare gems like pearls, amethyst, desert rose, and an especially one of a kind, toucorrall. The toucorrall was different blues, and it looked exactly like the ocean, which made it hard to find because it was found in the ocean. Simone quickly looked up where everything was, except the Madagascar hissing cockroach because of course that was in Madagascar. She flew over the Pacific Ocean and landed on another island, except it wasn’t as small as the first. She covered every inch of the island, even though she thought that the corpse flower would be easy to find because it was as tall as a five story building. She suddenly smelled a repulsive smell. She followed the smell, and she came to a clearing.

“P.U.!” Simone said. What is that?! Simone wondered.

Hello, welcome to … Dun da da duuuuun… What The Heck Is That Thing! The game show in Simone’s mind!

“Okay, Lazy, what do you have to say for yourself?” said the judge. He looked like a carrot, as in he was a carrot.

CHH-SHOO CHH-SHOO, Lazy snored. Lazy is one of the contestants. There’s Lazy, Magic, and Cute. Cute is always cute, Magic isn’t really there because she’s magic, and Lazy is always asleep. Those were all Simone’s personalities.

They had booths, and Mr. Carrot the judge asked, “Now, Magic, what do you have to say for yourself?” And Magic didn’t answer because Magic wasn’t really there.

“MAGIC!” Mr Carrot shouted. “Come here immediately, or you will be severely punished.”

And then Magic appeared and said, “I’m not sure what it is, but I can destroy it or make it live forever or… or… or… or… ”

“SHUT UP!” Mr. Carrot shouted. “Now, Cute, what do you have to say for yourself?”

And Cute said, “I don’t know what it is either, but it’s not cute, and it smells horrible, and it’s going to ruffle my fur.”

“That means only one thing… It is a corpse flower!” Simone said.

Simone took a petal from the corpse flower with some difficulty and used it as an umbrella because it was raining. She went home and added it to a big pot her adoptive stepmother usually used for soups or Simone’s favorite thing ever: hummus. So, she crossed the corpse flower off her list. The next thing on her list was the Madagascar hissing cockroach. She suddenly felt something scuttling up her leg. She used her horn to levitate it and found it was a Madagascar hissing cockroach. I didn’t know this was Madagascar, Simone thought. She put it in the pot and then put a lid on it so it wouldn’t escape and crossed the cockroach off her list. The next were the rare gems. She knew exactly where to find them because her mother sometimes used them for a spell, but they were pretty far. She memorized which gems she needed and decided that if she found any others, she would use them for a spell. She set out for all the rare gems except toucorrall.

She found the pearl first and put it in a little bag she wove from fresh leaves. Then, she flew across a lake and into an underwater cave in a stream a little while off. In the cave, she found an amethyst crystal. She cut the rock in half with her horn and carved out three amethyst crystals. They were purple, and they filled all around the inside of the rock. Simone came up for air and dragged herself out of the stream. Her next target was the desert rose. She flew to the desert. She scoured every inch of the desert and found some jade, some papery diamond, and some coyote skulls. Simone flew to the next desert and immediately spotted a whole pile, about seven stories high, of desert roses. But the moment she took one from the top, a huge — about ten stories high — coyote roared a really loud roar, and Simone smashed the desert rose into powder and sprinkled it over the cactus to make the thorns disappear. The coyote, who survived on his own saliva, leapt aside to lap up the cool cactus water. Simone stole five desert roses and flew to her house and put it in the big pot.

Only one gem left! Simone thought.

The toucorral was found only once in the Tasman Sea. So, Simone mashed up one of the extra desert roses again, looked in the pantry, and mixed it with exactly one gallon of water. She mixed them and produced a sandy colored liquid that would turn her into a mermaid-unicorn. She put it in a bottle, put it in the basket she wove from fresh leaves, and set off across the Tasman Sea to the exact spot where it was found last. She drank the whole bottle of potion and dove in. She swam past the Intertidal zone, the Subtidal zone, through the Bathyal zone, past the Abyssal zone, and all the way into the Hadal zone. She found the cave where the toucorral was found and searched every tunnel, every twist and turn. But she did not find any sign of toucorral. Simone searched five other caves, each bigger than the first, and only found terrifying fish. Then, she scoured every coral reef and lit her horn to see through fish, if they had eaten the toucorral accidentally. She was just giving up hope when she thought of Isaac and the unicorns at home. She decided she would never ever give up for Isaac. She kept her horn lit and dug and dug and dug and dug until her hole was fifteen million bajillion miles deep. She dove into it and was dazzled with what she saw. Toucorral was all around her, behind her and on her sides. The toucorral was exactly like the ocean except much more beautiful and with streaks of yellow, pink, and purple. She carefully inserted her horn and cut out two pieces of the toucorral. She flew back home at superspeed and dropped one part in the pot.

Simone took a wooden spoon and started stirring. It turned into a sun-yellow mixture. She magicked a dummy of herself and pushed it outside. Isaac the unicorn spotted it and galloped toward it. Just when he was about to take a bite of her stuffed ear, she stuffed a spoonful of the yellow liquid down his throat. Isaac turned back to normal!!! He went to all the unicorns and apologized for what he did when he was a zombie, giving Simone time to carve a special pendant out of the second toucorral piece. She gave the special pendant, which was shaped as a heart, to Isaac as their engagement necklace, and he agreed to marry her.

The End


Busch Gardens

We were pulling into an amusement park called Busch Gardens in Virginia. My dad hit the switch that turned off the radio. I was kind of annoyed because it was in the middle of my favorite song from Hamilton.

“Dad,” I said, “turn it back on. That was my favorite song.” There was no response. I saw him out the window walking away. I opened the door and ran after my dad, calling for him. I finally caught up with him. “Dad, you left without me,” I complained.

We kept on walking to the entrance. It read Busch Gardens! I smiled. Today was the day I was going to overcome my fear of big roller coasters. I was a little nervous but still excited. My dad handed me my ticket and told me to give it to the person when we go through the turnstile. I handed the lady the ticket.

She said, “Thank you.”

We walked on to meet Audrey and Brian. Brian had just had a party to celebrate a book he wrote. Audrey was Brian’s daughter. She was 11 at the time, and I was eight.

“Hi,” I said to Audrey in a cheerful tone to make a good impression.

She said, “Hi” back.

We had a conversation until we got to the actual park. She took an iPad out of her bag and showed me videos of all the rides. She pointed at the ride that we were going on first. I looked at it in horror. It had loop-the-loops, big drops, and twists. That was everything I was scared of. I shivered slightly.

We were lining up for a roller coaster called the Loch Ness Monster. I was very confused because everybody was talking so fast. We used our fast passes to skip the line. I sat down in the middle because I was the smallest. My hands were sweaty, and I was shaking. I was so nervous. I had never been on a rollercoaster this big. I felt a small drop down. The ride had started. “Ahhhhh!” I was so scared. The roller coaster was shaking my head back and forth. My least favorite part was when you were about to go down a hill and you’re going up with the cranking noise. My head tilted backwards, and my neck started to hurt. The cranking stopped. There was a small pause. Oh no, we were about to go down the drop. I put my hands up. “Ahhhhhhh!” Then because we were going so fast, the first loop-the-loop was unnoticeable. There was another drop. When going up, I looked down. It looked like 5,000 feet. I could already feel sweat trickling down my face. I had just noticed one more thing. At the bottom of the drop, there was a pool of water. I was so focused on how scared I was that I didn’t noticed that we stopped. I felt a sudden jerk. “Ahhhhhhhh!” I lifted my arms up like everybody else. It felt like we were falling for ten minutes. My arms started to hurt from holding them up for so long. We finally made a big splash in the pool of water. Water creeped up my arms and legs. It got into my shirt. We came to a stop. I unbuckled my seatbelt and stepped off. I was still pretty dizzy because of all the twists and turns. I waddled off with my mouth hanging open.

We went to the bar to get a drink. On the screen I clicked on Sprite. A gazillion different kinds showed on the screen. I never knew there were more than one kind. I wanted to try them all. First, I clicked on the vanilla flavor and put a little in my cup. It was too sweet. I tried every other kind. There was cherry, orange, blueberry, strawberry, and grape. My favorite was original. I tried a mix of every kind. I spit it out and filled with lemon-lime. I jumped up and down from all the sugar. Then, we got ice cream.

I picked up the map and looked at it. It was huge. I had to stretch out my arms to hold the whole thing. I asked my dad where we were.

He pointed to the bottom of the map and where we were going. He pointed to the very top. “There,” he said.

I looked at the map in horror. We had just passed the ice cream store. And even though we had walked for five minutes, we had only walked an inch on the map.

After 20 minutes of walking, we got to the ride. This one was even bigger than the other one. Big drops, five loop-the-loops, and it was going much faster.

“Here we are,” said my dad in an enthusiastic voice.

Neither Audrey nor I wanted to go on this one. Then, I saw a girl who looked like she was younger than me, and when she came back around, it looked like she was having fun. My feet felt like they were locked in place. My dad nudged me to move forward because the cart was here. I took a big step on to the cart. I sat in the middle again. I looked at the ride in front of me.

After the ride, I stepped off, my head still bobbing like a chicken. I was very proud of myself. The biggest ride I had been on before this was the mouse ride at Rye Playland. I think it had one drop, not steep at all and maybe 20 feet. I had definitely loved the first two rides here at Busch Gardens, but I knew there was more to come. After being on those rides, I knew I was ready for anything.

Ruth to the Rescue

Chapter One: The Perfect Life

“Children, time for breakfast!” Papa shouted.

Ruth jumped out of bed, threw on her clothes, and ran downstairs. It was her birthday, so Mama told the best stories.

As Ruth sat down, she thought life never would be better. But soon her life was about to change… very soon.

Chapter Two: The Evil Army

Dogs barked. Wolves howled. Ruth knew something was not right. She tiptoed downstairs and peeked out. She gasped. It was Mama’s story come to life. She remembered every word. But she never thought that it was true. The evil army was here next to her house, and she could do nothing about it. Or maybe she could.

Chapter Three: The Chase

Ruth grabbed food, water, and a bike. She also left a note. She started pedaling. Soon she was so close to the army that she could smell them. They reeked like dead bodies. She chased them for a month until finally she ran out of food, not to mention water. Eventually, they got to the hideout. Ruth went as fast as she could, but she was too late. Her mom was dead, and the army were well on their way. She had to find the weapons.

Chapter Four: The Boy

Ruth saw a small boy and said, “The army is coming, the army is coming!’’ But the real army sent a fake army to distract them. She quickly learned that his name was Deano. “Goodbye, Deano. My name is Ruth,” she said.

He finally found the words to say, “Goodbye, Ruth.’’

And she ran to find the first weapon mentioned in her mother’s story.

Chapter Five: The First Weapon

After three tiring days, she came to the cave entrance and went in, hoping that the army had not come yet. She heard the army behind her. She saw the weapon, which was glowing, and she jumped up, grabbed it, and hid. The army’s leader walked right past her. So, Ruth sort of ran and tiptoed to the entrance, hiding when he looked her way. Suddenly, he saw her and pounced. She remembered his weakness: his neck. She snapped his neck, and he howled. She ran out, snapping necks as she was going. When she was safe, she saw that the weapon was a book, and she knew that it was the real weapon.

Chapter Six: The Second Weapon

Ruth began to tremble; she knew that the army would be after her life for killing their leader. But she knew she had to find weapon number two. She set out for the west to find the weapon — for the second weapon was always in the west in her mother’s story. Ruth made a compass to find the west. Finally, finally she found the desert. She also found the fake rock and crawled through it, grabbed the weapon, and ran out. The second weapon was also a book. She nearly cried with joy.

Chapter Seven: The Third Weapon

Ruth saw the army coming, and so she hid and hoped they wouldn’t notice. But they did, and the new leader came and started to fight her. The new leader was the son of the man Ruth had killed, and he fought even more than his father had. Ruth fought back and finally won. Ruth ran to New York City, to the Empire State Building, and started running as fast as she could to the 600th floor where her mother’s story told her the third book would be hidden. She hid and waited and waited, waiting for the right moment to strike because if someone caught her they would kill her. Finally, she grabbed the book from the pool and then tried to blend in, but she looked suspicious.

Chapter Eight: The Fourth Weapon

Next, Ruth needed to travel to Israel where she knew the fourth book would be hidden. After many tiring days, Ruth reached Israel and went directly to the Kotel to pray and climb. She put her own paper in the wall, with her own note. She started the long climb up and up and up. Finally, she reached the top of the Kotel. Israel was so beautiful from there. She took the book and jumped down. The last place where the weapon was the most dangerous, so she crawled away.

Chapter Nine: The Fifth Weapon

Ruth crawled to a book burning place and winced. She took the book and ran right into the Demon King!

“Your time has come,” he hissed.

“Cut it out,” her mom said. “She did well, and you have lost. Ruth, fight! We will help.” Seeing Ruth’s puzzled looks, she said, “I pretended to die, so you would win, and you have done so well — ”

Suddenly, the Demon King started fighting. Her friends and family fought better, and soon he was dead. Ruth gathered the books together, and they multiplied, so they made a library.

The End.


Lost

Introduction

Hi, I’m Sunny! I’m six months old! I’m a polar bear, if you’re wondering. I live in Antarctica.

Two months ago, my best friend Mark asked, “Do you want to go party in two months?”

I said yes…

Chapter One: The Guy with the Muscat

Now it is three in the morning, and I am cuddled up with my mom and excited to go to the party.

“Is it time yet?” I ask desperately.

“It’s too early,” Mommy says.

“Okay,” I say before I go to sleep.

Now it’s 7:30, and I’m waking up. “Mommy mommy, wake up!!!” I exclaim.

“Yes?” Mommy says.

“Time to wake up!” I say.

I go to the sweater closet and grab my blue sweater. Mommy grabs her sweater, and we head to the party.

We live on Sixth Avenue on the corner of Polo Street.

Now we are at the party, and we are eating cupcakes, and someone shouts, “Piñata time!

Someone smacks a piñata, and a bunch of pondy (candy) comes out, and anyways we all grab pondy, and then we hear big, big footsteps. Then, we see a big human man with a muscat. We all drop our candy and run. I don’t know what to do. I see Mommy, and then I don’t.

Chapter Two: Where’s Mommy?

“Mommy mommy!” I shout. No one responds. I drop to the floor and start crying. “MOMMY!!!” I shout. My tears grow bigger.

Later that day, I find my house.

“Yes!” I shout. I go inside.

There is no one there, and I start to cry even more. I start to think about all the fun things Mommy and I did, and I go back to my first thought.

“This all happened because of the party,” I say to myself.

Now it is close to night time. Time for supper! I go to the waterfall to catch some fish. I am tired. I should go to bed now. Later that night, I hear a noise. “Hoo hoo,” says the noise.

“AHHH! I wish Mommy was here,” I say, trying not to cry.

Now it is 6:00 in the morning. “I guess I can go look for Mom,” I say.

While I am walking, I see a drama sign. What I mean by drama sign is it says, Drama this way. I followed it. Now I am on a cloud. “Where am I?” I say, trying to get someone’s attention. I hear no one. “HELLO!” I shout. I crawl forward. Someone jumps up. “AHHH!” I shout while I fall over in surprise.

“My job is done,” the someone says as she walks away.

That moment, I remember I am on a cloud, and clouds are made of gas and water, and water is a liquid that I can drink. I then stuff my face in cloud.

Chapter Three: Drama

“Well, well, well, look who it is,” a man says.

He is tall and is wearing black boots, a black hoodie, and black jeans. I sit up and brush the cloud off my fur.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“You!” the man says.

I get confused. “Me?” I ask.

“Yes, you,” the man says.

“Oh, okay,” I say.

“Where’s your mom?” the man asks.

“Uhh, I don’t know,” I say.

“Well, that’s a problem,” the man says. “Then I guess I’ll have to take you to the polar orphanages,” the man says.

“No, please, no!” I say. I shiver in fear.

“Okay, fine. You’ll just have to pass this obstacle.”

“Okay,” I say.

The man leads me to the road. He shows me a bunch of cars that have no one in them. He tells me, “If you could jump over all these cars nonstop, you’ll move to the next one. Okay?”

“Got it,” I say.

“No, you’re supposed to say ‘okay,’” the man says.

“Okay?” I say, confused.

“Come on.” He grabs his timer, and then he times me. “Three, two, one, go!” the man says.

I start jumping over the cars. When I’m near the finish line, the man holds out a cone, and I have to avoid it.

“Ah!” I scream, but I avoid it.

Now he leads me to the next obstacle.

“Good, my boy,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say back.

Now for the next obstacle, he leads me to a bunch of cones and a little scooter, and he tells me, “Get on that scooter, and avoid all those cones in under ten seconds!”

That second, I realize that there are not a lot of cones. I feel confident for a second though. I hop on the scooter, and the man says, “Go!”

I go as fast as I can. “I’m making it! I’m making it!” I shout. “Oh no,” I say. There are a bunch of cones in the way. Now I have to avoid them all. I do that in five seconds. I’m at the finish line!

But the man says, “It took fifteen seconds. You didn’t complete it. Say goodbye to your dreams of living away from the orphanage.”

I look to the ground. The man picks me up and throws me in a car.

“Please, no!” I shout one more time.

“You shouldn’t have listened to the sign,” the man says.

“Well, then why do you have it?” I ask.

“Because, to make people fall for this. Duh,” the man says.

He drives away really quickly. Then, he gets out of the car and opens the door of the back seat, and he picks me up. Then, he gets on his boat and goes to another island. I try not to cry. The man looks at me and looks happy. Soon, we are at the other island. He picks me up, and I see a sign that says Polar Orphanage.

He shoves me in a room, and it doesn’t look so much like a room. It looks more like a bunch of bars. He shoves me in with a plate of food. Little does he know that I am strong. When he leaves back in his boat, he does not take the same boat. He takes a different one.

“How come?” I say to myself.

Now, since I am strong, I open the bars. I jump out. I see a bunch of other animals. Some of them like it, and some of them don’t. For those who don’t like it, I open their bars. Soon, I see a gorilla.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Well, I couldn’t find the gorilla orphanage, so I came here. But I really don’t like it. The ceiling is too low.” Bang! He hits his head.

“Okay,” I say.

I open the bars, but it is not big enough. I keep trying and trying, but it’s just not opening. I look around the room. Hmmm. I find the keys to his room.

“Yes!” I shout with excitement.

“Well, are you going to get me out or not?” the gorilla asks.

“Oh, right,” I say.

I run over to his room, and I open it. But quickly, I grab all the food I can and run out with all the animals. Then, I see a big yacht.

I go over and ask the gorilla, “Can you steer boats?”

“In my sleep!” the gorilla says.

“Great,” I say.

Everyone climbs on the yacht, and we drive away, back to Antarctica. I find some instruments on dock, and everyone plays one. Soon, we are at Antarctica. I see someone on their boat.

“Oh no!” I shout. “Quick, everyone, hide!”

We all kneel. The gorilla runs downstairs, because he doesn’t have anywhere to go. We all crawl downstairs with the gorilla.

“Woo, that was a close one!” I say.

We all run back to the main dock. The gorilla keeps steering. Finally, we are at Antarctica. We all see the man. I run into a wig shop with the animals.

“I have a plan. So, we all buy wigs and costumes, so we look like different animals to the man. Then, gorilla, you dress up as a human, so he knows that you own the yacht, okay?!” I say.

“Okay!” everyone says.

I get all of the wigs and costumes, and gorilla is all dressed up. He has a mustache, and a beard wig, and he has on a Santa costume, even though it’s January.

“I’m excited to go on the yacht to go see my gorilla friends!”

Chapter Four: Back to the Orphanage

We all go outside looking different.

“Do you know if there are six bright white polar bears and a big handsome gorilla in the wig shop?” the man asks the gorilla.

“Uh no,” the gorilla says stressfully.

“Oh, okay,” the man says. “Well, I think I know where they are. They might be right in front of my face!” the man says as he rips of all of our disguises.

“I need a new plan,” I mutter to myself. The man throws us in a go-kart. “How come it is not a boat?” I ask myself.

He puts us all in cozy seats and puts the gorilla and three polar bears in a different go-kart and the rest of us in another.

We are now going to a different orphanage, and they put three polar bears in one room, and the other three polar bears in the other room, and the gorilla in a go-kart. The man drives him away to a gorilla orphanage, and his mom is sitting on the steps waiting for him. I wish my mom was sitting on the steps for me. I start to cry again.

The room the man puts us in is very cozy. It has three big cushions that I want to sleep on, it has a big, bright, and shiny window, a beautiful rug, and three little places to do your business… Anyways, I sit in front of the window and sit there a long, long, long, long time, and then I hear a pulling noise. It sounds like a curtain. I turn around, and I see a polar bear pushing a curtain.

“Yay, we have a curtain. So we have some privacy!” I say.

The polar bear who was pushing and pulling the curtain says, “I know! It’s so fun!”

Then, I look around the room, and I also find a bookshelf. I run over to it and start pulling out a million books.

“Whatcha doing?” the other polar bear says.

“Oh, just pulling out a million books,” I say.

“I’m just tired. I want to go to sleep,” the other polar bear says, while he’s pulling the curtain shut.

Once he is fast asleep, I mutter to myself, “This is not going to be fun if everyone hates me because my plan didn’t work.”

The polar bear who was pushing and pulling the curtains says, “I won’t hate you!” He pats me on the back. “I thought your plan was amazing.”

I go over to the polar bear that was pushing and pulling the curtains, and I go over to ask his name.

He tells me that his name is Jeremy.

I tell him mine. “Hi, I’m Sunny,” I say.

Chapter Five: A New Chapter Begins

When the other polar bear wakes up, he goes straight to the business section, and when he is done, I go over to him, and I ask him his name.

He tells me, “The name’s Danie, bro.”

“Oh, my name is Sunny,” I say back.

“Well, then you’re a rare one,” he tells me.

“I am?” I say, confused.

“Yes,” he pauses. “The name Sunny is a rare one, kid,” he tells me and soon says, “I know a lot about the name Sunny, and one thing I know about is that if your name’s Sunny and if you lose your mom, the name Sunny will not grow stronger.”

“Oh,” I say sadly.

Quickly, he says, “But if you really feel like you’re important, you will grow stronger.”

“Hmm,” I say to myself.

“What?” Danie asks.

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

“Well then,” he says. He runs over to the door, and he tries to open it, but it’s locked. “Dang it!” Danie says.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Oh, nothing, it’s just that the door is locked,” Danie says.

“Duh, it’s always going to be locked!” I say.

“Oh,” he says.

I look around the room, and I see a hammer. I walk over to it.

“What’s this?” I ask everybody.

They both tell me, “It’s a hammer.”

“Well, I’ve got a plan, then.”

“Your last plan didn’t work, so how can we trust you?” they say.

“Just watch. Maybe you don’t have to, but I will!” I say.

“Okay, then we’ll just watch,” they say.

I run over to the window, and I take a peek.

They say, “You’re really going to jump out the window? That’s too risky!”

“No, it’s not!” I say. I take another peek. I see how high up we are, and I say, “Yes, it is too risky.”

I put the hammer down and walk away. Then, I try to get on my hind legs. Then that doesn’t work, and I find a stool and jump on it. It’s not high enough. Then, I jump on a higher stool. It’s too high. Then, I look around the room again. I find the perfect looking stool. It’s just the right size! I run over to it and jump on it. Everyone was looking at me the whole time.

“Uh, what are you doing?” they ask.

“Hehe,” I say. “Just trying to get this, uh, thing.”

“Oh, okay!” Danie says.

“I want to see it!” Jeremy says.

“Ugh, fine,” I say. “Just a little peek!”

“What, we never agreed to that,” Jeremy says angrily.

“Even though we didn’t decide on it, doesn’t mean I can’t hide it!” I say.

“Hey!” Danie says. “Rhymes won’t work this time.”

“Hey, you just said a rhyme!” I said.

“You can’t keep rhyming, we don’t have much time.”

“Hey, you just rhymed again!” he said.

“Okay, let’s just both stop rhyming,” we say together.

“Jinx! You owe me a Coke,” we both say.

“No, you owe me a Coke.”

“No, you owe me a Coke!”

“No, you owe me a Coke!”

“No, you do!”

“No, you do!”

“Can you guys shut the noise?!” Danie screams.

“Sorry,” we both say.

“Jinx! You owe me a Coke!” Jeremy says.

“Hey, there’s no vending machines in here,” I say back.

“Well, then why did we just start this huge fight?” he says.

“Uh, I don’t know.”

I run up the stool and go get my thing.

“Hey! You said I could have a peek!” Jeremy screams.

“Stop screaming!” Danie said.

I hide the thing with both of my arms. I fall off the stool. “Ahh!” I fall to the business section. “Ew! Ew! Gross! Gross!” I say.

I hear a loud banging noise. I think it was the window cleaner.

I shout at the window, “Hey, window cleaner! Can you let us out?”

Then, I realize it’s just a fight in the window next door. And then I run across the room and look out the other window. It is the window cleaner! I run over to him and start tapping on the window. Then, I draw a sign that says, Let us out to be free! I hold it up to the window. He ignores the sign. Well, at least I thought. I hear the door unlock. He has three little cages.

I ask him very quickly, “Are you trapping us in those or are you letting us free?”

He hesitates. “Uhhhh.” He runs away. A construction hat falls onto the ground.

“Thanks, window cleaner!” I say.

Then, I go to the corner of the room and say, “I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”

Danie and Jeremy run to their bed. “I call this one!” they both shout.

“Okay then, I’ll go in the middle one,” I say.

Chapter Six: Jeremy’s Life

Now it is eight o’clock. I’m up, but still, no one else is up. I take a look around the room. It looks like someone has been eating my crackers. I look outside the window. I see a creepy man in a hoodie.

“Oh no,” I say. I bang on the window. The man turns around — it’s just the window cleaner. “Phew!” I say.

He takes a look at me — a very strange look. And then I look at his molars, and I see some bits of crackers.

“Hey, you ate my crackers!” I shout so loud that he can actually hear me. He looks at me so strange, but it actually looks more like shock. I immediately say, “Oh, do animals not talk on this continent?”

He falls over. Since we are so high up, he keeps tumbling and tumbling down. There is a man walking on his phone with earbuds on below him. The man who has earbuds in looks up. He sees a falling man coming towards him. He doesn’t know what to do! He doesn’t want to walk away. The man falls on him. Plump! I feel bad for the man. But it would be fun if that drop was a roller coaster… Anyways, wait, what is that? I smell something awfully terrible. It is Danie doing something.

“Nevermind,” I say.

“Hey, Sunny, come over here!” Jeremy shouts.

“Okay!” I shout back. I walk over to Jeremy.

“So the best way to be a friend is to tell them about their life,” he told me.

“Sounds great!” I say.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you about my life,” he says.

“So, are you going to tell me?” I say.

“Of course I am!” he says. “So, when I was born, it was not a good time. My dad died at the age of sixteen, and my mom was very, very brave to make me as a child. And then my mom, she got taken away, so now I was on my own, and I decided to travel around Antarctica. But that was a mistake. Some person found me, and he made me go to an orphanage, but I escaped it through a little hole in the window. I found a bowl of food outside the door, so I ate that and ran. Then, I went back to our house that we used to live in, but it was destroyed. It was practically melted. But there was one thing left in there: it was a piece of my mom’s fur.”

He reaches for the locket on his neck and pulls out his mom’s fur.

“Oh my gosh!” I say.

He keeps on with the story. “Then, I saw this drama sign, and I went the way that it said there was drama. Then, I was on a cloud, and someone jumped up behind me and scared me. I fell over. I got up and kept running. Then, I bumped into this weird creepy man. He picked me up with no hesitation and put me in a boat and locked me up. He steered the boat all the way to an orphanage. And then I met you!”

“Wow,” I said.

Chapter Seven: Escape

After Jeremy told me the story of his life, I take a look back at my life. “Wow, they’re pretty similar,” I say to myself. “Maybe he’s related to me.”

“Huh?” Danny says.

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

“Please tell me,” Danny says.

“Okay,” I say, ready to tell him a lie. “Well, so, basically I was thinking we could escape if someone who’s related to me could get us out.”

“Oh,” Danny says. “Who’s related to you?”

“My sister,” I said.
“Where is she?” Danny asks.

“I don’t know.” I shrug.

He takes a look out the window. He looks at the skyscraper right next to the orphanage building. He sees a bright white polar bear on the street that looks a bit like me.

“Hey, Sunny!” Danny says. “Come over here! I think I found your sister.”

“Really?” I say.

“Yup, really,” he says.

“Great!” I say. I run over to him. I take a look out the window. I shout, “That is my sister!” I take the hammer that I found, and I turn it around and use the wood part to bang on the window. “Hey, Lexi! Here! Open up!”

She looks up. She looks at me with her bright yellow smile. She does not brush her teeth. She runs to the door of the orphanage. She doesn’t ring the doorbell; she doesn’t knock. She finds a hole in the door, and she runs up the stairs.

She peeks through the mail hole, and I give her the hammer.

“Great!” she says. She smashes through the door.

“We’re out!” we shout.

I give my sister a big hug. “Wait, but what about the other people?” I say.

“Oh, right! Let’s go smash down their door.”

“Help! Let us out! Help! Let us out!” they shout.

We smash down their door.

“Yay!” they scream.

We all run out the door.

“Thank you,” I say to Danie.

We run out the building.

“Wait! We’ve got to put on our disguises,” I say.

“Why?” Danie asks.

“Because we can’t look like ourselves, because then they’re going to notice us and put us back in our cages!”

“Ohh,” they both say. “Hey, there’s an ice cream shop. Maybe we can stop and get ice cream.”

“We don’t have any money,” I say.

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says. “I was hoping for some ice cream.”

“Well,” I say. “I only have one dollar, and the only thing I can buy us with one dollar is something from the vending machine over there.”

“Let’s do it!”

I look at the options. There are a lot of gummy options, and I go for the Welch’s pack.

“We’re all going to share,” I say.

“Okay,” everyone says.

I push the button 74. The Welch’s pack falls, and falls, and falls. Finally, it reaches the bottom. I reach my hand in, and I grab the Welch’s pack. I open the bag. Everyone reaches for a gummy.

“Thanks!” everyone says.

“No more time for dilly-dallying. We’ve got to go,” I say.

“Okay,” everyone says. They start skipping out the door.

“What are you guys doing?” I say.

“Ummm, just skipping.”
“I said no dilly-dallying!” I say.

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says.

We walk as if we’re people going over to a boat.

“Hey, someone left this boat on! Let’s go in.”

Before I go over to the steering wheel, I see the guy running back to his boat.

“Uh oh!” I shout. I turn it on, and I go across the ocean.

“Hey! Get back here!” the man shouts.

He doesn’t realize that there’s no fence, and he starts to run over to his boat. He falls into the ocean.

“We’ve caused a lot of trouble today,” I say.

Chapter Eight: Fat Daddy Taco

When I go downstairs, I see a treasure chest. I open it, and there’s millions of dollars!

“Oh my gosh!” I shout. “Everybody, come downstairs!”

“What?” they all shout.

“I found a treasure chest full of money!” I bring it upstairs, up to the dock.

“Woah!” everyone says.

I see a sign. It says New York instead of Antarctica. I accidentally go to New York City. I see a statue. It’s the Statue of Liberty! We get off the boat, and we dock it. Everyone takes a shocked look at our boat, because they all have cars, and we’re the only ones dragging a boat on land. Everyone tries to not look away. Soon, we reach Fifth Avenue.

“Why is it only the Fifth Avenue? Then this avenue must be ancient!” I say. I go down one more avenue. It says Fourth Avenue. “This avenue is even more ancient!” I shout.

All the polar bears look at me, confused.

“Why are there polar bears in blue, and pink, and purple wigs?” one of the humans says.

I ignore it. I look at the avenue. Now that we have millions and millions of dollars, I look at the shops. I see McDonalds. Eh, too cheap! I look around again. Fatty Daddy Taco! I tell everyone to go over there and act like real humans. I see them go up to the counter.

They go in and ask the man, “Hello, may we please have 600 tacos to go, please?”

The man looks at me, but he doesn’t look away. He falls to the ground.

“Oh, do animals not talk in this dimension?” they say.

They go in the back of the kitchen. They find 600 tacos! They take them and run out.

“Here, let’s leave 1,000 dollars behind. This place might be too cheap,” they say.

They leave. I see them come back with the 600 tacos.

“What took you so long?” I say.

They tell me.

“Now I get it,” I say. “We have to find a house that we can live in.”

“Which house do we pick?” they say.

“We can’t just pick a house!” I say. “Here, let’s buy a million dollar house in the suburban areas.”

“Okay!” they all say.

I wander off into Red Hook. I see a giant Tesla shop.

“Ohh, let’s buy one of these!” I say.

I take another million dollar bill, and we choose a Tesla. I choose a bright white Tesla. I give them the million dollars, and that moment I realize that I don’t have a driver’s license, and we all can’t fit in one car! Uh oh!

Chapter Nine: Tesla!

I sit down on the ground. I sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Jeremy asks.

“Oh, it’s just that we all can’t fit into one Tesla, and I don’t have a driver’s license… ” There is something poking me on my tush. I look under me. It’s a driver’s license! “Never mind, I have a driver’s license!” I go back in the Tesla shop. I see a Tesla with six seats! “Our problems are solved!” I see another person in a black hoodie. He takes my briefcase. “Hey!” I shout. I run after them. My wig flies off. “Oh no!” I shout and run back to get it. Then, I realize the burglar is already down the block. “Oh no!” I say.

I see a police officer eating a giant burger. It looks like a skyscraper.

The police officer says to the guy, “What are you doing with that briefcase?”

“Uh, uh… ” He gives it to me right away and runs off. The police officer leaves.

We buy the Tesla, and we drive to New Jersey. There’s a big sign that says New Jersey. I see a house right in front of us. It says For Sale. It’s a giant mansion that costs 10 million dollars. It’s white, it has a large arrangement of stairs going up to the front door, and two big columns that are holding up the roof of the front door. It kind of looks like the White House.

“Eh, not cozy enough!” I say.

We drive down the block a little further. I see two houses right next to each other. They say For Sale. They’re supposed to be connected; that’s why the For Sale sign is between them. It has a fountain right in between both of them, two cars can fit in the driveway, two floors for each house, and a porch swing in front.

“Cozy house! Let’s buy it.” I call the number that is on the sign.

Ring ring ring! goes the phone.

“Hello?”
“Yes, I would like to buy your house in New Jersey on St. Adams Street,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. I look at how much money it is. It’s 20 million dollars! “20 million dollars, please!” the man says. “What’s your credit card number?” he says. I look at the bottom of the briefcase. I see a credit card. It has 30 million dollars on it.

“Okay.” I give him my credit card number.

“Okay,” the man says. “The house is yours! I’ll give you the key in ten minutes. I’ll be there. Goodbye.”

Ten minutes later, I see a black BMW pull up in the driveway. He gets out of the car. He gives me the key. He gets back in the car. He leaves.

“Okay,” I say. I take the keys, and I fit them into the door hole. It fits perfectly. “I’ve never seen something fit so perfectly!” I say. I twist it right. The door lets me open it. “So easy!” I say.

I walk inside the house. It’s full of clutter. It’s a bunch of chairs stacked up and a sofa right on top. Not a lot of dust, though, which is good, because Jeremy’s allergic to dust mites. There’s a sink, and possibly some food in the cupboards, and also some rooms.

“All we have to do is organize this!” I say.

Chapter Ten: Wake-Up Call

As I finish organizing, I see Dannie on the sofa eating chips.

“Really, Dannie?” I say.

“What?” Dannie says.

“I want a chip, dude!” I say. “The Doritos blue pack is my favorite.”

“Okay.” He reaches into the bag and gives me one.

“Thanks!” I say. I take a look around the room. “You know, guys, this isn’t what I really want.”
“Really?” everyone says to me.

“Yeah. I kind of want my mom.” I start to cry again.

That moment, I wake up.

“Wake up, wake up!” my mom says.

“What?” I say. “Mom, you’re not a polar bear?!”

“You were probably dreaming,” she says. “You were sleeping for two days!” she yells at me.

“Oh,” I say.

I get ready for school, and then I go downstairs to eat my cereal.

“Bye!” I say to my mom. I walk out the door.

THE END!

Introduction

Hi, I’m Sunny! I’m six months old! I’m a polar bear, if you’re wondering. I live in Antarctica.

Two months ago, my best friend Mark asked, “Do you want to go party in two months?”

I said yes…

Chapter One: The Guy with the Muscat

Now it is three in the morning, and I am cuddled up with my mom and excited to go to the party.

“Is it time yet?” I ask desperately.

“It’s too early,” Mommy says.

“Okay,” I say before I go to sleep.

Now it’s 7:30, and I’m waking up. “Mommy mommy, wake up!!!” I exclaim.

“Yes?” Mommy says.

“Time to wake up!” I say.

I go to the sweater closet and grab my blue sweater. Mommy grabs her sweater, and we head to the party.

We live on Sixth Avenue on the corner of Polo Street.

Now we are at the party, and we are eating cupcakes, and someone shouts, “Piñata time!

Someone smacks a piñata, and a bunch of pondy (candy) comes out, and anyways we all grab pondy, and then we hear big, big footsteps. Then, we see a big human man with a muscat. We all drop our candy and run. I don’t know what to do. I see Mommy, and then I don’t.

Chapter Two: Where’s Mommy?

“Mommy mommy!” I shout. No one responds. I drop to the floor and start crying. “MOMMY!!!” I shout. My tears grow bigger.

Later that day, I find my house.

“Yes!” I shout. I go inside.

There is no one there, and I start to cry even more. I start to think about all the fun things Mommy and I did, and I go back to my first thought.

“This all happened because of the party,” I say to myself.

Now it is close to night time. Time for supper! I go to the waterfall to catch some fish. I am tired. I should go to bed now. Later that night, I hear a noise. “Hoo hoo,” says the noise.

“AHHH! I wish Mommy was here,” I say, trying not to cry.

Now it is 6:00 in the morning. “I guess I can go look for Mom,” I say.

While I am walking, I see a drama sign. What I mean by drama sign is it says, Drama this way. I followed it. Now I am on a cloud. “Where am I?” I say, trying to get someone’s attention. I hear no one. “HELLO!” I shout. I crawl forward. Someone jumps up. “AHHH!” I shout while I fall over in surprise.

“My job is done,” the someone says as she walks away.

That moment, I remember I am on a cloud, and clouds are made of gas and water, and water is a liquid that I can drink. I then stuff my face in cloud.

Chapter Three: Drama

“Well, well, well, look who it is,” a man says.

He is tall and is wearing black boots, a black hoodie, and black jeans. I sit up and brush the cloud off my fur.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“You!” the man says.

I get confused. “Me?” I ask.

“Yes, you,” the man says.

“Oh, okay,” I say.

“Where’s your mom?” the man asks.

“Uhh, I don’t know,” I say.

“Well, that’s a problem,” the man says. “Then I guess I’ll have to take you to the polar orphanages,” the man says.

“No, please, no!” I say. I shiver in fear.

“Okay, fine. You’ll just have to pass this obstacle.”

“Okay,” I say.

The man leads me to the road. He shows me a bunch of cars that have no one in them. He tells me, “If you could jump over all these cars nonstop, you’ll move to the next one. Okay?”

“Got it,” I say.

“No, you’re supposed to say ‘okay,’” the man says.

“Okay?” I say, confused.

“Come on.” He grabs his timer, and then he times me. “Three, two, one, go!” the man says.

I start jumping over the cars. When I’m near the finish line, the man holds out a cone, and I have to avoid it.

“Ah!” I scream, but I avoid it.

Now he leads me to the next obstacle.

“Good, my boy,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say back.

Now for the next obstacle, he leads me to a bunch of cones and a little scooter, and he tells me, “Get on that scooter, and avoid all those cones in under ten seconds!”

That second, I realize that there are not a lot of cones. I feel confident for a second though. I hop on the scooter, and the man says, “Go!”

I go as fast as I can. “I’m making it! I’m making it!” I shout. “Oh no,” I say. There are a bunch of cones in the way. Now I have to avoid them all. I do that in five seconds. I’m at the finish line!

But the man says, “It took fifteen seconds. You didn’t complete it. Say goodbye to your dreams of living away from the orphanage.”

I look to the ground. The man picks me up and throws me in a car.

“Please, no!” I shout one more time.

“You shouldn’t have listened to the sign,” the man says.

“Well, then why do you have it?” I ask.

“Because, to make people fall for this. Duh,” the man says.

He drives away really quickly. Then, he gets out of the car and opens the door of the back seat, and he picks me up. Then, he gets on his boat and goes to another island. I try not to cry. The man looks at me and looks happy. Soon, we are at the other island. He picks me up, and I see a sign that says Polar Orphanage.

He shoves me in a room, and it doesn’t look so much like a room. It looks more like a bunch of bars. He shoves me in with a plate of food. Little does he know that I am strong. When he leaves back in his boat, he does not take the same boat. He takes a different one.

“How come?” I say to myself.

Now, since I am strong, I open the bars. I jump out. I see a bunch of other animals. Some of them like it, and some of them don’t. For those who don’t like it, I open their bars. Soon, I see a gorilla.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Well, I couldn’t find the gorilla orphanage, so I came here. But I really don’t like it. The ceiling is too low.” Bang! He hits his head.

“Okay,” I say.

I open the bars, but it is not big enough. I keep trying and trying, but it’s just not opening. I look around the room. Hmmm. I find the keys to his room.

“Yes!” I shout with excitement.

“Well, are you going to get me out or not?” the gorilla asks.

“Oh, right,” I say.

I run over to his room, and I open it. But quickly, I grab all the food I can and run out with all the animals. Then, I see a big yacht.

I go over and ask the gorilla, “Can you steer boats?”

“In my sleep!” the gorilla says.

“Great,” I say.

Everyone climbs on the yacht, and we drive away, back to Antarctica. I find some instruments on dock, and everyone plays one. Soon, we are at Antarctica. I see someone on their boat.

“Oh no!” I shout. “Quick, everyone, hide!”

We all kneel. The gorilla runs downstairs, because he doesn’t have anywhere to go. We all crawl downstairs with the gorilla.

“Woo, that was a close one!” I say.

We all run back to the main dock. The gorilla keeps steering. Finally, we are at Antarctica. We all see the man. I run into a wig shop with the animals.

“I have a plan. So, we all buy wigs and costumes, so we look like different animals to the man. Then, gorilla, you dress up as a human, so he knows that you own the yacht, okay?!” I say.

“Okay!” everyone says.

I get all of the wigs and costumes, and gorilla is all dressed up. He has a mustache, and a beard wig, and he has on a Santa costume, even though it’s January.

“I’m excited to go on the yacht to go see my gorilla friends!”

Chapter Four: Back to the Orphanage

We all go outside looking different.

“Do you know if there are six bright white polar bears and a big handsome gorilla in the wig shop?” the man asks the gorilla.

“Uh no,” the gorilla says stressfully.

“Oh, okay,” the man says. “Well, I think I know where they are. They might be right in front of my face!” the man says as he rips of all of our disguises.

“I need a new plan,” I mutter to myself. The man throws us in a go-kart. “How come it is not a boat?” I ask myself.

He puts us all in cozy seats and puts the gorilla and three polar bears in a different go-kart and the rest of us in another.

We are now going to a different orphanage, and they put three polar bears in one room, and the other three polar bears in the other room, and the gorilla in a go-kart. The man drives him away to a gorilla orphanage, and his mom is sitting on the steps waiting for him. I wish my mom was sitting on the steps for me. I start to cry again.

The room the man puts us in is very cozy. It has three big cushions that I want to sleep on, it has a big, bright, and shiny window, a beautiful rug, and three little places to do your business… Anyways, I sit in front of the window and sit there a long, long, long, long time, and then I hear a pulling noise. It sounds like a curtain. I turn around, and I see a polar bear pushing a curtain.

“Yay, we have a curtain. So we have some privacy!” I say.

The polar bear who was pushing and pulling the curtain says, “I know! It’s so fun!”

Then, I look around the room, and I also find a bookshelf. I run over to it and start pulling out a million books.

“Whatcha doing?” the other polar bear says.

“Oh, just pulling out a million books,” I say.

“I’m just tired. I want to go to sleep,” the other polar bear says, while he’s pulling the curtain shut.

Once he is fast asleep, I mutter to myself, “This is not going to be fun if everyone hates me because my plan didn’t work.”

The polar bear who was pushing and pulling the curtains says, “I won’t hate you!” He pats me on the back. “I thought your plan was amazing.”

I go over to the polar bear that was pushing and pulling the curtains, and I go over to ask his name.

He tells me that his name is Jeremy.

I tell him mine. “Hi, I’m Sunny,” I say.

Chapter Five: A New Chapter Begins

When the other polar bear wakes up, he goes straight to the business section, and when he is done, I go over to him, and I ask him his name.

He tells me, “The name’s Danie, bro.”

“Oh, my name is Sunny,” I say back.

“Well, then you’re a rare one,” he tells me.

“I am?” I say, confused.

“Yes,” he pauses. “The name Sunny is a rare one, kid,” he tells me and soon says, “I know a lot about the name Sunny, and one thing I know about is that if your name’s Sunny and if you lose your mom, the name Sunny will not grow stronger.”

“Oh,” I say sadly.

Quickly, he says, “But if you really feel like you’re important, you will grow stronger.”

“Hmm,” I say to myself.

“What?” Danie asks.

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

“Well then,” he says. He runs over to the door, and he tries to open it, but it’s locked. “Dang it!” Danie says.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Oh, nothing, it’s just that the door is locked,” Danie says.

“Duh, it’s always going to be locked!” I say.

“Oh,” he says.

I look around the room, and I see a hammer. I walk over to it.

“What’s this?” I ask everybody.

They both tell me, “It’s a hammer.”

“Well, I’ve got a plan, then.”

“Your last plan didn’t work, so how can we trust you?” they say.

“Just watch. Maybe you don’t have to, but I will!” I say.

“Okay, then we’ll just watch,” they say.

I run over to the window, and I take a peek.

They say, “You’re really going to jump out the window? That’s too risky!”

“No, it’s not!” I say. I take another peek. I see how high up we are, and I say, “Yes, it is too risky.”

I put the hammer down and walk away. Then, I try to get on my hind legs. Then that doesn’t work, and I find a stool and jump on it. It’s not high enough. Then, I jump on a higher stool. It’s too high. Then, I look around the room again. I find the perfect looking stool. It’s just the right size! I run over to it and jump on it. Everyone was looking at me the whole time.

“Uh, what are you doing?” they ask.

“Hehe,” I say. “Just trying to get this, uh, thing.”

“Oh, okay!” Danie says.

“I want to see it!” Jeremy says.

“Ugh, fine,” I say. “Just a little peek!”

“What, we never agreed to that,” Jeremy says angrily.

“Even though we didn’t decide on it, doesn’t mean I can’t hide it!” I say.

“Hey!” Danie says. “Rhymes won’t work this time.”

“Hey, you just said a rhyme!” I said.

“You can’t keep rhyming, we don’t have much time.”

“Hey, you just rhymed again!” he said.

“Okay, let’s just both stop rhyming,” we say together.

“Jinx! You owe me a Coke,” we both say.

“No, you owe me a Coke.”

“No, you owe me a Coke!”

“No, you owe me a Coke!”

“No, you do!”

“No, you do!”

“Can you guys shut the noise?!” Danie screams.

“Sorry,” we both say.

“Jinx! You owe me a Coke!” Jeremy says.

“Hey, there’s no vending machines in here,” I say back.

“Well, then why did we just start this huge fight?” he says.

“Uh, I don’t know.”

I run up the stool and go get my thing.

“Hey! You said I could have a peek!” Jeremy screams.

“Stop screaming!” Danie said.

I hide the thing with both of my arms. I fall off the stool. “Ahh!” I fall to the business section. “Ew! Ew! Gross! Gross!” I say.

I hear a loud banging noise. I think it was the window cleaner.

I shout at the window, “Hey, window cleaner! Can you let us out?”

Then, I realize it’s just a fight in the window next door. And then I run across the room and look out the other window. It is the window cleaner! I run over to him and start tapping on the window. Then, I draw a sign that says, Let us out to be free! I hold it up to the window. He ignores the sign. Well, at least I thought. I hear the door unlock. He has three little cages.

I ask him very quickly, “Are you trapping us in those or are you letting us free?”

He hesitates. “Uhhhh.” He runs away. A construction hat falls onto the ground.

“Thanks, window cleaner!” I say.

Then, I go to the corner of the room and say, “I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”

Danie and Jeremy run to their bed. “I call this one!” they both shout.

“Okay then, I’ll go in the middle one,” I say.

Chapter Six: Jeremy’s Life

Now it is eight o’clock. I’m up, but still, no one else is up. I take a look around the room. It looks like someone has been eating my crackers. I look outside the window. I see a creepy man in a hoodie.

“Oh no,” I say. I bang on the window. The man turns around — it’s just the window cleaner. “Phew!” I say.

He takes a look at me — a very strange look. And then I look at his molars, and I see some bits of crackers.

“Hey, you ate my crackers!” I shout so loud that he can actually hear me. He looks at me so strange, but it actually looks more like shock. I immediately say, “Oh, do animals not talk on this continent?”

He falls over. Since we are so high up, he keeps tumbling and tumbling down. There is a man walking on his phone with earbuds on below him. The man who has earbuds in looks up. He sees a falling man coming towards him. He doesn’t know what to do! He doesn’t want to walk away. The man falls on him. Plump! I feel bad for the man. But it would be fun if that drop was a roller coaster… Anyways, wait, what is that? I smell something awfully terrible. It is Danie doing something.

“Nevermind,” I say.

“Hey, Sunny, come over here!” Jeremy shouts.

“Okay!” I shout back. I walk over to Jeremy.

“So the best way to be a friend is to tell them about their life,” he told me.

“Sounds great!” I say.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you about my life,” he says.

“So, are you going to tell me?” I say.

“Of course I am!” he says. “So, when I was born, it was not a good time. My dad died at the age of sixteen, and my mom was very, very brave to make me as a child. And then my mom, she got taken away, so now I was on my own, and I decided to travel around Antarctica. But that was a mistake. Some person found me, and he made me go to an orphanage, but I escaped it through a little hole in the window. I found a bowl of food outside the door, so I ate that and ran. Then, I went back to our house that we used to live in, but it was destroyed. It was practically melted. But there was one thing left in there: it was a piece of my mom’s fur.”

He reaches for the locket on his neck and pulls out his mom’s fur.

“Oh my gosh!” I say.

He keeps on with the story. “Then, I saw this drama sign, and I went the way that it said there was drama. Then, I was on a cloud, and someone jumped up behind me and scared me. I fell over. I got up and kept running. Then, I bumped into this weird creepy man. He picked me up with no hesitation and put me in a boat and locked me up. He steered the boat all the way to an orphanage. And then I met you!”

“Wow,” I said.

Chapter Seven: Escape

After Jeremy told me the story of his life, I take a look back at my life. “Wow, they’re pretty similar,” I say to myself. “Maybe he’s related to me.”

“Huh?” Danny says.

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

“Please tell me,” Danny says.

“Okay,” I say, ready to tell him a lie. “Well, so, basically I was thinking we could escape if someone who’s related to me could get us out.”

“Oh,” Danny says. “Who’s related to you?”

“My sister,” I said.
“Where is she?” Danny asks.

“I don’t know.” I shrug.

He takes a look out the window. He looks at the skyscraper right next to the orphanage building. He sees a bright white polar bear on the street that looks a bit like me.

“Hey, Sunny!” Danny says. “Come over here! I think I found your sister.”

“Really?” I say.

“Yup, really,” he says.

“Great!” I say. I run over to him. I take a look out the window. I shout, “That is my sister!” I take the hammer that I found, and I turn it around and use the wood part to bang on the window. “Hey, Lexi! Here! Open up!”

She looks up. She looks at me with her bright yellow smile. She does not brush her teeth. She runs to the door of the orphanage. She doesn’t ring the doorbell; she doesn’t knock. She finds a hole in the door, and she runs up the stairs.

She peeks through the mail hole, and I give her the hammer.

“Great!” she says. She smashes through the door.

“We’re out!” we shout.

I give my sister a big hug. “Wait, but what about the other people?” I say.

“Oh, right! Let’s go smash down their door.”

“Help! Let us out! Help! Let us out!” they shout.

We smash down their door.

“Yay!” they scream.

We all run out the door.

“Thank you,” I say to Danie.

We run out the building.

“Wait! We’ve got to put on our disguises,” I say.

“Why?” Danie asks.

“Because we can’t look like ourselves, because then they’re going to notice us and put us back in our cages!”

“Ohh,” they both say. “Hey, there’s an ice cream shop. Maybe we can stop and get ice cream.”

“We don’t have any money,” I say.

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says. “I was hoping for some ice cream.”

“Well,” I say. “I only have one dollar, and the only thing I can buy us with one dollar is something from the vending machine over there.”

“Let’s do it!”

I look at the options. There are a lot of gummy options, and I go for the Welch’s pack.

“We’re all going to share,” I say.

“Okay,” everyone says.

I push the button 74. The Welch’s pack falls, and falls, and falls. Finally, it reaches the bottom. I reach my hand in, and I grab the Welch’s pack. I open the bag. Everyone reaches for a gummy.

“Thanks!” everyone says.

“No more time for dilly-dallying. We’ve got to go,” I say.

“Okay,” everyone says. They start skipping out the door.

“What are you guys doing?” I say.

“Ummm, just skipping.”
“I said no dilly-dallying!” I say.

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says.

We walk as if we’re people going over to a boat.

“Hey, someone left this boat on! Let’s go in.”

Before I go over to the steering wheel, I see the guy running back to his boat.

“Uh oh!” I shout. I turn it on, and I go across the ocean.

“Hey! Get back here!” the man shouts.

He doesn’t realize that there’s no fence, and he starts to run over to his boat. He falls into the ocean.

“We’ve caused a lot of trouble today,” I say.

Chapter Eight: Fat Daddy Taco

When I go downstairs, I see a treasure chest. I open it, and there’s millions of dollars!

“Oh my gosh!” I shout. “Everybody, come downstairs!”

“What?” they all shout.

“I found a treasure chest full of money!” I bring it upstairs, up to the dock.

“Woah!” everyone says.

I see a sign. It says New York instead of Antarctica. I accidentally go to New York City. I see a statue. It’s the Statue of Liberty! We get off the boat, and we dock it. Everyone takes a shocked look at our boat, because they all have cars, and we’re the only ones dragging a boat on land. Everyone tries to not look away. Soon, we reach Fifth Avenue.

“Why is it only the Fifth Avenue? Then this avenue must be ancient!” I say. I go down one more avenue. It says Fourth Avenue. “This avenue is even more ancient!” I shout.

All the polar bears look at me, confused.

“Why are there polar bears in blue, and pink, and purple wigs?” one of the humans says.

I ignore it. I look at the avenue. Now that we have millions and millions of dollars, I look at the shops. I see McDonalds. Eh, too cheap! I look around again. Fatty Daddy Taco! I tell everyone to go over there and act like real humans. I see them go up to the counter.

They go in and ask the man, “Hello, may we please have 600 tacos to go, please?”

The man looks at me, but he doesn’t look away. He falls to the ground.

“Oh, do animals not talk in this dimension?” they say.

They go in the back of the kitchen. They find 600 tacos! They take them and run out.

“Here, let’s leave 1,000 dollars behind. This place might be too cheap,” they say.

They leave. I see them come back with the 600 tacos.

“What took you so long?” I say.

They tell me.

“Now I get it,” I say. “We have to find a house that we can live in.”

“Which house do we pick?” they say.

“We can’t just pick a house!” I say. “Here, let’s buy a million dollar house in the suburban areas.”

“Okay!” they all say.

I wander off into Red Hook. I see a giant Tesla shop.

“Ohh, let’s buy one of these!” I say.

I take another million dollar bill, and we choose a Tesla. I choose a bright white Tesla. I give them the million dollars, and that moment I realize that I don’t have a driver’s license, and we all can’t fit in one car! Uh oh!

Chapter Nine: Tesla!

I sit down on the ground. I sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Jeremy asks.

“Oh, it’s just that we all can’t fit into one Tesla, and I don’t have a driver’s license… ” There is something poking me on my tush. I look under me. It’s a driver’s license! “Never mind, I have a driver’s license!” I go back in the Tesla shop. I see a Tesla with six seats! “Our problems are solved!” I see another person in a black hoodie. He takes my briefcase. “Hey!” I shout. I run after them. My wig flies off. “Oh no!” I shout and run back to get it. Then, I realize the burglar is already down the block. “Oh no!” I say.

I see a police officer eating a giant burger. It looks like a skyscraper.

The police officer says to the guy, “What are you doing with that briefcase?”

“Uh, uh… ” He gives it to me right away and runs off. The police officer leaves.

We buy the Tesla, and we drive to New Jersey. There’s a big sign that says New Jersey. I see a house right in front of us. It says For Sale. It’s a giant mansion that costs 10 million dollars. It’s white, it has a large arrangement of stairs going up to the front door, and two big columns that are holding up the roof of the front door. It kind of looks like the White House.

“Eh, not cozy enough!” I say.

We drive down the block a little further. I see two houses right next to each other. They say For Sale. They’re supposed to be connected; that’s why the For Sale sign is between them. It has a fountain right in between both of them, two cars can fit in the driveway, two floors for each house, and a porch swing in front.

“Cozy house! Let’s buy it.” I call the number that is on the sign.

Ring ring ring! goes the phone.

“Hello?”
“Yes, I would like to buy your house in New Jersey on St. Adams Street,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. I look at how much money it is. It’s 20 million dollars! “20 million dollars, please!” the man says. “What’s your credit card number?” he says. I look at the bottom of the briefcase. I see a credit card. It has 30 million dollars on it.

“Okay.” I give him my credit card number.

“Okay,” the man says. “The house is yours! I’ll give you the key in ten minutes. I’ll be there. Goodbye.”

Ten minutes later, I see a black BMW pull up in the driveway. He gets out of the car. He gives me the key. He gets back in the car. He leaves.

“Okay,” I say. I take the keys, and I fit them into the door hole. It fits perfectly. “I’ve never seen something fit so perfectly!” I say. I twist it right. The door lets me open it. “So easy!” I say.

I walk inside the house. It’s full of clutter. It’s a bunch of chairs stacked up and a sofa right on top. Not a lot of dust, though, which is good, because Jeremy’s allergic to dust mites. There’s a sink, and possibly some food in the cupboards, and also some rooms.

“All we have to do is organize this!” I say.

Chapter Ten: Wake-Up Call

As I finish organizing, I see Dannie on the sofa eating chips.

“Really, Dannie?” I say.

“What?” Dannie says.

“I want a chip, dude!” I say. “The Doritos blue pack is my favorite.”

“Okay.” He reaches into the bag and gives me one.

“Thanks!” I say. I take a look around the room. “You know, guys, this isn’t what I really want.”
“Really?” everyone says to me.

“Yeah. I kind of want my mom.” I start to cry again.

That moment, I wake up.

“Wake up, wake up!” my mom says.

“What?” I say. “Mom, you’re not a polar bear?!”

“You were probably dreaming,” she says. “You were sleeping for two days!” she yells at me.

“Oh,” I say.

I get ready for school, and then I go downstairs to eat my cereal.

“Bye!” I say to my mom. I walk out the door.

THE END!


The Paint Palette


Chapter One

Maya was already plenty stressed about her first day of school. She decided that waking up to her annoying alarm clock and tumbling out of her bed was in the “not a good way of starting the first day of school” column. She groaned and got up. She walked over to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Maya’s mom always told her that her smile was the best good first impression. She brushed her teeth and got dressed. When she saw her reflection in the mirror, she almost screamed. Her hair was a rat’s nest. And it was sticking up in all different directions, not to mention that her eyes were saggy, and she looked like a racoon. She immediately washed her face and started ferociously brushing her hair. At least now her hair looked a little calmer.

“Well, so much for a good first impression,” she mumbled under her breath.

She walked downstairs, where her mom was waiting for her with a plate of piping hot pancakes in her hands. “Mmmmmm,” Maya said, and she sat down and wolfed down her pancakes. After a refreshing drink of orange juice, she flung her bag over her shoulders and went to the door. Her mom stopped her in her tracks and gave her a big kiss on the cheek.

“Mooom,” Maya groaned and walked out of the house.

She had to run to catch the bus. Fortunately, she managed to find a seat that did not smell like dirty socks and boys underwear. By the second stop, the bus was packed. Kids crammed in in any space they could find. Her best friend Clara swooped in next to Maya before a little boy could.

“Sorry, this seat is taken,” she said to the boy.

He pouted and trudged to the back of the bus. Maya had scolded Clara for treating a kindergartener like that.

“Now we are older and wiser. We are in fifth grade now!!!” Maya screamed.

Right. Older and wiser,” Clara responded.

The bus ride to school had been the most suspenseful ride ever. It was almost a relief when they arrived at school. Almost. She knew that she had Mrs. Garnish for homeroom. She was definitely one of the meanest teachers in the world. But she was grateful that Clara was in her class. At least she would get tortured with her BFF. The bus doors opened with a swish, and all the kids filed out. Everyone went to separate places. The kindergarteners to the cafeteria, the high schoolers to their classrooms, and the fifth graders to the stinky, smelly, humid auditorium. Maya walked out of the bus and went up the stairs to the auditorium. She was usually in the cafeteria with the lower graders, so the path to the auditorium was unfamiliar. When she finally arrived at the auditorium, the place was buzzing. She walked over to the place where her class was sitting, and took a seat next to Clara.

“So, how did convincing your dad that you are a fabulous artist go?” she asked.

“Horrible. He started lecturing me on how I should get a real hobby. Again,” Maya replied.

Clara tried to stifle a laugh. At that moment, the bell rang, which meant that everyone needed to go to homeroom. The two girls walked (more like trudged) to their homeroom class. Maya opened the door to the classroom and confidently marched in. She picked a seat, not in the front, but not in the back. Clara took a seat next to her. The teacher walked into the room, and the classroom fell so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The door closed behind Mrs. Garnish. She was a slim woman with black ravens hair. Her eyes were striking green, while her nose was pointed and flat. The dress she wore was black as night and seemed vaguely familiar to Maya. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun. She surveyed the class and walked across the room. Her heels click clacked against the marble floor. They looked so tight on Mrs. G as she walked across the room.

Mrs. G’s personality was much like her appearance. She was a no-nonsense teacher! She was a very strict person, yet there was something kind beneath that rock hard outside.

“As all of you know,” Mrs.Garnish said in a sharp voice, “I am your homeroom teacher, Mrs. Garnish. I have many rules, and I expect you to follow them all. Number one: Listen to me when I talk. Number two: Always be respectful… ”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Maya wasn’t looking forward to spending the whole morning listening to their teacher drone on and on about being respectful. Blah blah blah blah… She didn’t have time for that nonsense! Finally, Mrs. G stopped. Maya was relieved. All that talking had made her brain feel like it would explode. Over the loudspeakers, the principal said, “Fifth graders, the first period is now ended. Please proceed to your second period.”
Maya slipped on her backpack and went out the door. She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. It was was slightly crumpled, but it was readable. It read, For second period, you’ll be having history at room 305 with your teacher Miss McGonagall. She walked over to the classroom, dodging students all going in different directions. She finally reached room 305. Over the door it had the words Miss McGonagall printed in yellow and pink letters. They had flowers all over the door and their walls. It seems like a very cheery classroom, Maya thought. And with that thought, she pushed the door open and walked inside.

There are classrooms, and there are classrooms!!! Then, there are Super Mega Ultra Awesome Classrooms!!! This is what Maya was thinking as she walked into room 305. There were mountains of books piled in every nook and corner. Pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln with bulging heads were staring at him from the walls. The place was humid and steamy, like a sauna, and smelled faintly of toasted marshmallows. Maya was awestruck at the sight of this classroom, but it was nothing compared to the teacher herself.

She popped up right in front of Maya. “Hello, you must be Maya,” she said in a dreamy voice. It took Maya some time to process that this teacher was someone real, and that she was not in fact dreaming. Miss McGonagall had glasses that were simply too large for her face. Her long blond hair was draped around her shoulders. She was wearing a black T-shirt and a short skirt with bright pink stockings. She was wearing blue, sparkly flats and was staring at Maya with much curiosity. The teacher seemed to be wearing lots of eyeshadow, for it looked unnatural on her pale face. Miss McGonagall was so close to Maya’s face that she could practically hear her breathing. “Come, take a seat,” she whispered.

Maya walked over to an empty desk. The only person who was sitting in that room with her was a pale boy with black hair. He was reading a book, and he didn’t seem to notice Maya’s arrival in class. She looked over to the door, hopeful that soon a new kid would come into the classroom and break the awkwardness. Her wish came true. The door opened with a creak. In came three girls. One of them was clearly a leader. She had a short bob for hair, bangs that were pinned to the side, and was wearing the most fashionable outfit that Maya had ever seen. Wow, Maya thought. She is so cool. Maya was convinced she was Taylor Swift’s daughter! She sat down right next to Maya, and the other girls sat next to her. The girls smiled and waved at Maya. Maya felt that she was blushing. She waved back.

“Hi, my name is Carolyn,” the girl introduced herself. She seemed very nice, and Maya couldn’t wait to be her friend.

Maya said, “Hi, my name is Maya. It’s nice to meet you!”

Just then, the door opened, and many kids filed in. Everyone got a seat, but some grudgingly took a seat that was not next to their best friend.

“Settle down, settle down,” the teacher said. “I am Miss McGonagall. I will be teaching you about history and everything you need to learn about it.”

Maya thought that this teacher would be different from other history teachers, but it turned out she wasn’t. This year was no different. This year they’d still be learning plain old boring history. Miss McGonagall introduced them to a lot of famous people from history. By the time she walked out of the room, Maya was humming a tune that went, “George Washington,” with other various heroines. She checked the list again.

Miss McGonagall came running after her yelling, “Everyone in my class, your homework is to read chapter twelve!”

Maya nodded and briskly walked away to her science class.

Suddenly, a magical flyer came out of the blue and hit Maya in the face. (Well, not really. Maybe Maya was just walking and saw the flyer on the wall. But this makes the story more exciting.) The flier said, Join the art club! Fun! Make new friends! Paint! Afterschool. Room 101! Sign up today! Maya took a picture of it and sent it to Clara. The clicking of the phone echoed in the silent corridor.

Clara texted back, OMG you should totally join.
Then, Maya texted, R U Sure? Dad might kill me.

Clara said, BRB Got2Go.

Then, Maya put her phone away.

Chapter Two

Maya had been thinking about the flyer all day. She decided that she would ask her father about it when she got home. When she got off the bus at her stop, she knew what she would say. Maya shouldered her backpack and stepped off the bus. The bus lurched forward and bellowed exhaust into her face. She turned around and started to her house. She knew the path by heart and didn’t bother to look where she was going.

***

Maya dug into her pocket and felt the familiar grip of her keys. She fumbled with the door and heaved it open. “Dad, I’m home!” she called half-heartedly. She knew it was way too early for him to be home. Unsurprisingly, there was no answer. Maya closed the door behind her and turned on all the lights. She plopped her bag on the floor and went up to her bedroom. She took off on the stairs and skipped a few. When she got to her bedroom, she pushed her door wide open and flung herself on the bed.

Her bedroom was the only place that was comforting to her. Maya reached into her back pocket and pulled out the crinkled flyer. She read it again. Maya then decided that she better be ready for when her father came home, so she went downstairs and started microwaving some leftovers. Her father would probably be disappointed. The pesto pasta and fried vegetables didn’t look inviting, so she added a Caesar salad.

She heard her dad (the major chef) creak open the door. Finally, she thought. She quickly busied herself with setting the table. Her dad had probably had a bad day at work, because he heaved himself onto a chair and started shoving pasta into his mouth.

“Dad?” she said, nervously. “I saw a flyer today. It was an art club. I was wondering if I can join it?”

Her dad mumbled something like, “Sceektkiyrimefil.”

“Dad?” she repeated loudly.

“Maya, you know that I disapprove of your fondness over art. I will talk about this with your mother,” he said, without looking at Maya.

Maya’s heart fell. She knew her dad would never give this conversation a second thought, much less mention it to her mom. Maya ate some pasta halfheartedly and slowly trudged back towards her room.

Chapter Three

The next day, Maya had the usual classes. During the day, she was lectured by Mrs. Garnish, bored to death in English, picked at her school lunch, doodled on her math assignment, and then plopped herself down on a bench in the school playground, where she was right now.

She was having an argument with herself, debating whether she should go to the club or not. Sure, Maya’s dad had said no. But she could do it if he didn’t notice, right? Maya finally concluded she would do it. Besides, it was just an art club. Her dad couldn’t get that upset, could he?

Chapter Four

Maya checked her flyer. Yep, this was the spot. Room 101. Just like the flyer stated. Maya hesitated before she opened the door. What was I thinking? Dad is going to kill me!! she thought. But it was too late. Maya pushed the door open. As she looked around, she felt a heavy rock in her stomach but pushed it down. She walked into the room and heard laughing coming from one of the tables. Maya shut the door behind her. She walked farther into the room and saw a tall boy with red hair and freckles spreaded across his face. He grinned.

“Hi! I’m Jacob! Nice to meet you!” he said cheerfully.

“Hi, my name’s Maya. This is the art room, right?” Maya asked.

He laughed. “Yep, this is it!” he said. “We work for the school newspaper. Each week we write a comic strip for it. I’m really glad you could join this place. We only have about six people. It’s really hard to write comic strips with that little people.”

Someone yelled, “Hey, Jacob! Who’s the new girl?”

“Guys, this is Maya. Maya this is Ruby, Patrick, Ava, Jake, and Evan.”

There was a series of people mumbling their hellos. Maya walked over to where they were all sitting. She looked around the room. All around the walls there were paintings and murals and all sorts of different paintings. Crammed into a corner was a blank easel, just waiting for someone to make a beautiful picture out of them. There was a small rug with a couple of chairs around it in the middle of the room. Above the rug was a shelf holding markers, paper, paints, pencils, and brushes. (No, not toothbrushes, silly. That is totally different.) Maya stared at the room. In the direction she was headed was the table they were sitting at. She pulled out a seat and sat down in it. Ruby handed her a sheet of paper with five boxes in it.

“Each box will be part of the comic,” Ruby explained. “When you put it all together, it will be a funny scene. It will have to be a short one to capture laughter, comedy, or drama.”

Maya understood this. She did this at home sometimes. She took a pencil from the table and started. She knew what she would draw. She started sketching her ideas.

Chapter Five

When Maya got home, she was ecstatic. The art club had been a great success. She walked into her house and put her bag on the floor. She pulled her flyer out of her pocket and threw it onto the table and started to make pasta. She hummed a song that she heard on the radio while she boiled it and hugged her dad when he got home. When her dad got home, he picked up the flyer on the table.

“Honey, what’s this?” her dad asked.

“Ummmmmm,” Maya struggled to find words.

“Maya, did you go to this afterschool?” her dad asked furiously.

“Yes,” Maya responded without looking at her dad.

“Maya, this is unacceptable. Go to your room. You are grounded. I told you not to do it, yet you did it anyway. That is why you are grounded.”

“Wait, Dad, I really love art! I don’t want to be a chef! I hate to cook! My real passion is art. It’s the only time I feel at peace.”

Her dad considered this. “Maya, I never knew this. If you had told me this before I would have let you paint a lot earlier. So, yes, you may join the art club.”

Epilogue

Maya was in her bedroom. It was quiet and peaceful. She stroked the easel with her paintbrush. Maya’s hair was pulled back into a messy bun. Her jeans and T-shirt were covered up with a paint splattered smock. Maya surveyed the paining. “Hmmm… more yellow,” Maya confessed. She dipped the brush in the yellow paint and continued to make the painting. Her mind wandered, and she thought about all that had happened lately. She put her paintbrush down on the table and walked over to the window. She pushed it open and stared out at the open blue sky. She thought about her passion for art, how the chef (her dad) had disapproved. How she had shown him the painting she made. How her dad had smiled. How he signed her up for it. How she went to that classroom for the second time without feeling guilty. How she felt at home.


The Life of Ash

One day, Ash was sneaking through the woods near his village, dodging the guards meant to keep things out not in, but his parents had told them to not let him out of the village except if they gave them express permission or if there was an emergency and they had to retreat to Castle Macindaw. Ash recalled the time that he was just wandering in the woods on a dare, and he saw something supernatural that scared him out of his wits. Something unexplainable. Something that would make him afraid of Grimsdell Wood for a long time.

Then, he had raced home and told his mother what had happened. That had led her to not let him outside of the village without permission. “For your own good,” she had said. He smiled ruefully at the memory. But he was twelve now, double the age of when he first got terrified in Grimsdell Wood, so he would not get terrified again. All the same, he went into a different wood just because he felt like it. (Alright, he was a little bit scared.)

The wood that he went into was called Stonebrook, and he had explored the wood when he was a little boy and therefore knew every inch of it. Today he decided to go very deep into the wood, to a spot that he had made a clearing with his father’s axe (“borrowed”) and a good sickle (also borrowed). Today he reached the clearing, then picked up the axe and sickle and decided to go deeper into the wood, where he had never been before. After about ten minutes’ worth of walking, he heard this faint growling noise coming from behind him.

Slowly, he turned around and found himself face-to-face with a bear! He tried to raise the axe, but he was too slow. The bear stepped forward and decapitated him with one swing of his mighty paw. His body (and head) crashed to the ground, covered with something that you should not think about if you are currently eating anything. The bear took one sniff of the air that smelled like gore and dropped to the ground, dead.

Ash’s life flashed before his eyes, particularly the time when he went into Grimsdell Wood on his own, to prove that he was inimitable. He recalled the time that he went deep into the wood and got terrified by that huge warrior and those snakes… Ash shuddered at the thought. He had been terrified out of his wits, then raced home and told his mother. That had led to him eventually being killed by the bear. Therefore, it was his mother’s fault. Then, he thought of her and how heartbroken she would be, and his anger melted away like dew on the sunshine. He eventually became aware that the bear was dead. Vengeance! he thought. Then, he died.

Epilogue

The next day, a fine day, a patrol ventured out of the village and into Stonebrook Wood. He went deep into the wood and eventually came across the bodies and took one whiff of the gore-and-corpe-smelling air. Then, he died.

Author’s Note: When you are done with the story, reread the epilogue until there is no one left in the village.

The End

A Cat Called Sunny

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Pepper. She was 12 years old, and she had a cat called Sunny. Sunny was black and had big white spots. Pepper always thought something was odd about her. One time, Pepper had to do her homework and saw her cat drawing on paper with a pencil!

She jumped and screamed, “What the heck?!

The cat screeched because she got super scared and ran out of her room and went under her parents’ bed. Pepper was done with her homework, and her mom called her for dinner. Pepper was super, super hungry. Her favorite food was sushi!! And her cat also loved sushi (she liked salmon avocado rolls). Her cat came downstairs, and Pepper sat down in her chair. When Pepper started eating, her cat jumped on the table and ate up all her sushi rolls!

Pepper was surprised, and she said, “Bad kitty!!” And she pushed Sunny off the table!!!

Sunny said quietly, “These humans are so rude!”

Pepper heard Sunny and shrieked and said, “Did Sunny just speak?!”

Pepper’s parents said, “Sweetie, calm down. What are you talking about?”

Pepper said, “Sunny spoke. Did you hear? Did you hear?!

She screamed, and her mom said, “Honey, I said calm down, will ya!

Sunny said very, very quietly, “I’m afraid she knows.”

Luckily, Pepper didn’t hear. When Pepper was done with her homework, she went to bed. In her bed, she was thinking about the thing that happened during dinner when her cat talked, and she had the weirdest dream about Sunny! It was about her turning into a cat and Sunny turning into a human, and she was the one talking as a cat. So, it was the opposite! When she woke up, Pepper screamed because of her dream. By accident, she woke up her parents.

They barged in, and they said, “What is the matter with you lately?!”

Pepper said, “Uh… nothing. I just had a, uh… bad dream?”

Her mom said, “Oh, my poor baby.”

Pepper just ignored her and went back to sleep, but they said, “Why are you going back to sleep. It’s 7:50!”

Pepper freaked out and rushed down the ladder of her bed. She had a loft bed. Pepper put on her clothes and ran downstairs to eat breakfast, and her cat was there licking her paw and looking at the toy.

Pepper said, “Don’t worry, my wittle kitty Sunny! I’ll give you food. Here, let me get the cat food.”

Sunny didn’t want food, so she said, “Meow!”

Pepper said, “You don’t want food?”

Sunny meowed again and again and again and again. “Meow, meow meow meow!!!”

And Pepper said, “Ohhhh… you want your toy! Right?”

She meowed, “Yes.” Pepper gave the chew toy to Sunny, and Sunny ripped it like crazy! So, Pepper had to buy a new one that didn’t break easily.

Finally, Pepper brought the cat into her room and said, “Tell me the truth, Sunny. Can you talk or not?!”

Sunny said, “Meow!”

Pepper said, “Dang it!”

Sunny opened the door by herself and left the room. Pepper sighed and went on the computer to play Coolmath Games and played the dinosaur version.

Pepper’s mom screamed, “Honey, time for bed!! Oh wait, you’re right next to me. Sorry.” And then she laughed.

Then, Pepper said, “Seriously, Mom?! My ears popped, and that really hurt!”

Her mom said, “Sorry… I didn’t know you were there… ” She also said, “I’m just saying… it’s time for bed. Kay?”

She said, “Okay fine. I’ll go.”

“And make sure to take your — ”

I know!! My shower. Sure sure.” Her mom rolled her eyes. Pepper took her shower and went to bed. It was the morning, and it was Friday! Pepper was happy but not happy to go to school… at least she could have choice time today and go on her computer. Oh… and I forgot she’s in fifth grade. Pepper got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed her teeth, and went to the bus to go to school.

Her teacher was standing next to the board and said, “Good morning, class, and happy Friday!!!”

Pepper’s teacher was very joyful and happy all the time. Her teacher was nice! Pepper’s class screamed.

Good morning, Miss Heather!!” they said.

Pepper just fell asleep till miss Heather said, “Pepper Smith! Wake up!” She said that when it was time for recess and lunch at 12:00! Right when Pepper woke up, she heard a scratch under her desk. She peeked under it and realized it was Sunny!!

Pepper screamed, “What the!! Why is my cat here?!” The cat just meowed. Pepper just took the cat in her arms and asked the teacher to put Sunny in her bag and zip it up really tight. School was over. Pepper walked home. It was only a few blocks away.

When she opened her door, her mom screamed and scared Pepper and said, “How was your day?! Mine was fine. How about yours?!”

Pepper says, “Aaaaaaaaaaaa, a monster!!! Oh, it’s Mom! What is wrong with you? You can’t just scare me like that!

Her mom said, “Oh… I scared you? Weird, you barely even jumped.”

Pepper said, “Sorry… What was that? ‘Cause I jumped way higher than I usually do!!

Her mom said, “Sorry, I like doing that.”

And Pepper ignored her and went straight to her homework. But Sunny came out of nowhere and grabbed her homework and started to write on it, and Pepper screamed, “Sunny, come back here with my homework!!”

Sunny ignored her and started doing her homework and getting a pencil. Pepper was so confused because she started to see Sunny actually doing her homework and getting some of the problems right!

Pepper screamed and said, “What the freak?! How are you doing my homework and actually getting the problems right?! You’re a creepy cat, Sunny!” Sunny just meowed again and left with the homework paper.

And Pepper said, “Wait! Tell me the truth… what is your secret?” Sunny just… didn’t reply and left. Pepper was so mad at Sunny, and before Sunny left, Pepper grabbed her and said, “Sunny, you better talk ‘cause it’s going to get messy! Talk now!”

And Sunny said, “Okay okay okay. I’ll talk. The truth is I can talk. Please don’t kill me!”

Pepper said, “O-M-G, I knew it. I knew you could talk. Hahahah!!! Oh sorry… don’t worry, why would I kill my own cat? I love cats!” She also said, “Hey… also tell me how you wrote?”

Sunny said, “Well, when I was in your class earlier I kind of listened to what the teacher was saying. So, I copied it down on a piece of paper, and when we went back home, I did your homework.”

Pepper said, “That doesn’t answer my question. I said how did you learn to write?”

Sunny said, “Ohh… my parents taught me, and my mom’s owner taught my mom so yeah… that’s the story.”

Pepper said, “I’m so happy!! I can talk to you whenever I want. You are my BFFL now!!

Sunny said, “Wasn’t I always your BFFL?”

Pepper said, “Oh right. Yeah, of course!”

Sunny said, “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

Pepper said, “Wait, cats can’t eat ice cream. They get sick if they do… ”

Sunny said, “Oh fine, let’s get some sushi then.”

Pepper said, “Sure, quick because my mom is almost home.”


Clean-Up’s Adventures

The girl living in the apartment above him was reading The Legend of Clean-Up. Yup, Clean-Up is a legend because he can make hot dogs fly. The little girl’s name is Zoe Is Awesome (Zoe for short).

Zoe was in her bed arguing with her mom.

“Is Clean-Up real?” Zoe asked her mom.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure that you’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure that I’m sure.”

Meanwhile, downstairs, Zoe’s dad was breaking the TV, so he could fix it again. He was very crazy.

Zoe wanted to know if Clean-Up was real because he was so awesome and could fly when he touched a hot dog!

“Zoe, stop thinking about Clean-Up,” her mom said sharply, as she turned the lights out.

“No! I want to know if he’s real or not,” said Zoe as she opened The Legend of Clean-Up, and she turned on her flashlight.

Chapter Two

The next morning, Clean-Up’s mother said, “Clean-Up, you need to go to school!

No,” said Clean-Up.

“Yes, Clean-Up. You need to,” said his mom.

“Ahem, what about my incredibly fancy shmancy ever so awesome powers,” said Clean-Up.

“You need to go school. Just don’t make any friends that like hot dogs,” said his mom.

“Okay fine,” said Clean-Up. “But I have to change my name. I’ll be… Kevin Up-Clean!”

So, it was official. Clean-Up was going to the six hour torture chamber (school).

Chapter Three

“Today is my first day of school!” said Clean-Up (or Kevin Up-Clean). So, Clean-Up went to school for his first time.

“So, class, today we have a new student who is also allergic to hot dogs, so if you have hot dogs, please stay away!” said the teacher.

Then, Kevin made a friend named Jacob. (He was very nice, and he showed Kevin where everything was, like where the bathroom was.) So then it was lunch time, and someone had a hot dog.

(So, someone had a hot dog. But luckily, they stayed away from each other secretly, so nothing bad happened.)

Then, Clean-Up and Jacob both went home to their houses and went to bed.

Chapter Four

Zoe was getting ready for school when she spotted The Legend of Clean-Up!

“I know he’s real,” Zoe cried.

“Who’s real, honey?” asked Zoe’s mom.

“No one,” said Zoe. Zoe grabbed The Legend of Clean-Up, stuffed it in her backpack, and ran to school.

At school, she told everybody about Clean-Up. When she said he was real, they thought she was crazy. There was still one person she hadn’t told Kevin Up-Clean. She walked over to Kevin Up-Clean.

“Do you believe in Clean-Up ?” she asked him.

“Yes,” said Kevin Up-Clean.

“Really?” said Zoe. She was so excited.

“Totally,” said Kevin Up-Clean.

“I never met anyone who believed in Clean-Up before!”

“Where do you live?” asked Clean-Up.

“86th Street,” said Zoe.

“Me too!” said Kevin Up-Clean.

“Want to come to my house after school?” asked Zoe

“Sure,” said Kevin. After school, Kevin Up-Clean went to Zoe’s house. Zoe’s house was awesome.

“Zoe, I have to tell you something. No one can know. I am Clean-Up,” said Kevin Up-Clean.

Chapter Five

One day, Clean-Up was walking with Zoe and talking. Then, the school bully walked by with a hot dog.

He said, “Clean-Up isn’t real. If he was, he would be really bad and do bad stuff.”

Clean-Up felt really mad. He wanted to eat the hot dog too, but he couldn’t touch it, because he would make it fly with his magical powers.

Zoe and Clean-Up tried to stop the bully from saying mean things.

Zoe said, “Stop it! Go away! Don’t bully a legend because it can be true, and it can also not be true. And it’s mean. And actually, if Clean-Up was real, I’d like him.”

“Yeah, Zoe. You’re right!” said Clean-Up, feeling awesome. Then they both went to Zoe’s house and ate Skittles!

Then, he had two best friends, Zoe and Jacob.

And he liked both of them.

A lot.

Chapter Six

After that, everything was okay until… One day at recess, the school bully came and cornered Clean-Up and then put him in a bag and took him to his secret lair, and he stayed there

for a long time…

Then, Clean-Up said, “I am awesome, so I can get myself out of here, and I am Clean-Up! I will survive!”

Two hours later, after trying very hard, he gave up. Then, he sat down and saw something very mysterious … a box of Oreos and a key to get out. Clean-Up was to scared to go outside because he knew that Dominic (the bully) was guarding the outside of his secret lair waiting for Clean-Up to try to get out. Then, Clean-Up had an idea… He threw the key out the window (because it was useless), and he started writing a letter to Zoe and Jacob … But then Dominic noticed what Clean-Up was doing and quickly took the note and crumpled it up and locked him up in the lair all alone, and Clean-Up was left alone to just have a feeling of hope that Zoe and Jacob would come and find him.

Chapter Seven

The next 20 weeks, when Clean-Up wasn’t at school, Zoe decided something was wrong. She called Jacob and asked him to come over. Jacob and Zoe agreed something was wrong.

Zoe sighed.

“Jacob, I didn’t want to know about Clean-Up because he’s awesome but because I’m a legend too,” said Zoe.

“Really?” said Jacob.

“Really. I’m Zoe Is Awesome. I have had my super powers ever since I was a kid and never told anyone,” said Zoe.

“Well, I’m Panda Jacob. And I can turn into a Panda! I have had my super powers since I was born and have not told anyone too,” said Jacob proudly.

“And I can fly when I touch a chicken and fall when it disappears,” said Zoe.

“Great, we’ll make an awesome team. We will save Clean-Up in no time,” said Jacob.

So that weekend, Zoe and Jacob set out to find Clean-Up, but first… they told Clean-Up’s mom where they were going. Afterwards, they went to Jacob’s treehouse.

“So,” said Zoe, “Clean-Up was probably kidnapped.” Jacob nodded.

“Here’s the list of suspects,” said Jacob as he gave her a notebook.

At the top of the list was Dominic’s name.

“It was probably Dominic,” said Jacob. Zoe didn’t say anything.

“Where could Dominic hide Clean-Up?” Zoe said finally.

“Anywhere,” said Jacob.

Zoe spread out a map. She looked at all the places on the map. “Crocodile Creek, Lobster Lagoon, Carrot Cavern, Crystal Cavern. Where could Clean-Up be?” asked Zoe.

“I say we check Crystal Cavern first,” said Jacob.

“Good idea,” said Zoe. So, Jacob and Zoe set off to Crystal Cavern with Zoe’s pet chicken, Alfred.

Chapter Eight

When Zoe and Jacob reached Crystal Cavern, they saw a crack in the stone wall of the cave. Zoe peered through the crack and said, “I don’t see anything. Check the ground for trap doors. I’ll search the wall for secret passages.”

“Ay ay, captain,” said Jacob.

“Ha, I am not the captain. I just read a lot of stuff about it.” Jacob dropped to his knees and began to search.

After one hour….

“I found a key!” Jacob hollered at the top of his lungs.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Not so loud. Dominic could hear you. Can I see the key?” Zoe whispered. Jacob handed her the key.

“This is the key to unlock Clean-Up,” she said.

“The entrance is over there. Let’s go,” Jacob said. Zoe and Jacob hurried over to the entrance and used the key to open the door…

Bam crash bang. Axes, hammers, and swords wouldn’t stop raining down from the sky. “How do we stop this!” Jacob said.

“We don’t stop them. We’re going through them,” said Zoe fiercely. Without another word, Zoe grabbed Jacob’s arm and pulled out Alfred and started floating, but as soon as she was in the air, she began to sink back down!

“What happened!” cried Jacob.

“You’re too heavy,” said Zoe.

“Me? But I’ve been on a diet for weeks!” said Jacob.

“Turn into a panda and give me your bamboo.” Jacob turned into a panda and handed Zoe his unlimited supply of bamboo. Zoe began to build a tunnel out of the bamboo. Zoe and Jacob walked through the tunnel. When they were at the other end, they saw Dominic guarding a door. It was a big metal door, and it had a big metal lock in it.

“Let us pass,” said Jacob.

“Go ahead,” said Dominic.

Jacob started to walk forward..

“Don’t do it. It’s a trap,” said Zoe. Jacob stopped and turned into a panda.

“What are you doing?” asked Zoe.

Jacob didn’t say anything. He inched forward towards Dominic.

“What are you doing?” asked Dominic.

When Jacob was an inch away, he pounced on Dominic.

“Hey, stop that!” said Dominic. When Dominic was on the floor, Jacob sat on him and smiled. Jacob made sure that Dominic was knocked out and then turned back into himself.

Zoe and Jacob ran over to the door. “How are we going to find the combination for the lock?” asked Zoe.

“I don’t know,” said Jacob. Jacob tried a million different combinations. Zoe was walking around the room, seeing if there were any other ways in.

Finally, Zoe said, “The door isn’t actually locked.”

Jacob was shocked, but he opened the door anyway. They walked through the door and saw Clean-Up chained up in the corner.

“How do we get Clean-Up now?” asked Jacob.

“The key wasn’t only for the door outside. It was also for the cage that Clean-Up was in.”

Jacob and Zoe ran over and unlocked Clean-Up. Then, they locked up Dominic and took the Oreos!

Clean-Up was saved! They paraded out of Dominic’s lair and went back to Clean-Up’s house.

Chapter Nine

Hip hip hooray! Three cheers for Jacob and Zoe!” cheered Clean-Up.

They were in a hot dog shop on 85th Street to celebrate their victory.

Clean-Up touched a hot dog, and the hot dog hovered above it. They ate hot dog cake and Oreos and played tag and Clean-Up was It. He could just tag someone with his string, and then Clean-Up would pull his string up. And when they wanted to tag him, they had to jump up to tag him!

Wherever Clean-Up wanted to go, he was just right above Zoe. If Clean-Up didn’t want to walk to school or he hurt his leg (or any other part of his body), Zoe would give him a hot dog and pull him to school. And then every day, Clean-Up and Jacob went to Zoe’s house to play and have fun and celebrate that Zoe and Jacob saved Clean-Up. And then everything was okay.

THE END


Honey’s Storm

Prologue: The Death

Sky burst into the grass with a cry of pain as she fell. Tom, her husband, yelled at all the blood. Then, Honey was born. Tom knew that his mate would not live, so Honey would be the light of his life. He watched as a new kit, Silvermoon, was born. He was perfect. Then, Cinnamon, a new kitten was born. Sky let out a shriek of pain as she breathed in her last breath. Then, she died. Tom wailed. Then, he looked at the kits. He would give them to Ice, and she would help.

Chapter One: What?

I opened my eyes. “What? Where? Who?” I said.

“You’re finally awake,” Silvermoon said.

“Where is Ice? Can we get down?” Cinnamon said.

“What if we fall? What if we fall?”

From then on, Cinnamon was always the nervous one. Silvermoon, on the other hand, was always the adventurous one. I was in between, but I really wanted to get down from that cramped place. Also, what is that sound? It was loud… Suddenly, I didn’t want to go down.

Silvermoon said, “Those are basketballs. Anyway, let’s just get down.”

So, I found a route by jumping from box to box to get to the floor. Silvermoon followed me immediately.

Cinnamon was like, “Hmmm, should I?”

By the time she decided to come down, we were already halfway across the floor, but Cinnamon leapt a box too high. I caught my teeth and dragged her to the floor, or that is what I intended to do. Instead, she flopped on top of me and jumped onto the cement floor. I leapt and caught her, but then really it just hurt.

Silvermoon was like, “Come on, let’s keep going.” So, we did. Then, I heard the basketballs. I mean, really heard them. Then, I nearly got smacked in the face by one of them.

“Owwww.”

Some big creature with fur on top of its head said, “Oh, cute kitty.”

We ran from that point into a backyard. Then, Silvermoon, Cinnamon, and I just ran back. Then, we didn’t know how to get back up. First, Silvermoon leapt and fell. Then, I leapt and caught something with my nose which hurt, and then I grabbed it with my claws which ripped one of them. Then, everybody joined me. In the end, the worst injury of it was a scraped face which belonged to Cinnamon. No wonder she was always the scaredy-cat. She always had the worst luck. Then, we waited. And waited. Then finally, we saw a white she-cat. We stared at it and asked each other who she was. She was Ice, our adopted mother, according to Cinnamon. Well, apparently she was supposed to take care of us. I stared at her and decided okay, if she can feed me. Then, we went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, a figure was in the doorway.

He said, “Hi. I am Tom, your father.” Tom looked old. Then, he said, “C’mon, let’s explore.”

Then, he lifted me up and set me, Silvermoon, and Cinnamon down. I ran out. No basketballs this time.

Tom led us into the woods. Sniff sniff. Squirrel! And fox! Tom leapt in front of us. I did not know Tom very well. But he was our dad. All four of us ran! From that day forward, Tom came every day. And Ice came at night. But it could not stay that way…

Chapter Two: Ice Gone

I was three months! Tom came as usual.

He said, “Do you want to see something strange?”

We went outside, and there was a cat, Ice, and a dog! The dog leapt at Ice, but she dodged under its legs. The dog ran up and hit her. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So, I thought, I could dodge in, jump on his back to distract him, and then he would buck me, and then he’d land on her anyway. Or, I could dodge under his feet and get myself killed. Well, while I was deciding, and I will regret this, the dog landed on her. We ran to her. The dog ran away at the sight of all three of us. Ice was dead.

We buried her in the woods. Then, we stood by her grave to wait for that dog. And then they could get revenge. Then, we went back. I crawled back that night, but there was no Ice. And from then till now, I regret that I had not died in her place.

Far away, in his own nest, Tom was trying to think. What would he do next? He thought, but there was nothing. He ran over to the hillside, but then he was in the garage. Honey woke with a start. Then, it was morning. It was a normal morning.

Chapter Three: Tom Gone People Come

Tom said, “Come on already.”

We hunted, but the woods were empty. Then, I saw people! Two grown-ups and a child.

Writer here: The child was me!

“Guys, come here,” I said.

And then I ran back inside, but the child saw me. She looked over at me, but gave me a weird look, like she closed one eye and then looked away. She looked super bored. Well, I better go inside.

“Inside,” Tom said. “Those things,” he spat out the word, “are going somewhere. We can follow them and find out where they’re going.” He ran out in front of us.

“I guess we should follow him,” I said. After that, we walked and walked.

Tom said, “Well, it looks like we should stop for the night.”

I said, “Are we going back?”

Tom said, “No, we should just learn how to camp in a place that’s not home.”

It was super hard to sleep that night. I was worried there were foxes…

In the morning, I was tired, but we ran on. We ran behind the car. I don’t know why the car had stopped all night, but we were lucky.

We kept running behind the car. A car was behind us. We ran to the side. We were lucky. The cars passed. And then, we were in a crowded place. I don’t know where. We decided to turn back, but we couldn’t. We kept running and running and running. But soon something was hurting my pads. But soon night was falling. We had to keep going! We had to keep going! The car stopped! Where were we? Who knew. We made camp. We were there for a week, but that’s a story for later. We waited and waited and waited. One day, we saw the car! We could go! We started walking and walking and walking. I smelled country air! We were here!! Then, we rounded the corner. A car!!! I ran, just ran. When I looked, an orange Tom was lying in the street. Tom! His chest was still! I wailed. What would I do now? I felt like a stranger in the world. Where? What? I felt a wave of despair. I wanted to collapse and die. It was the most painful thing that had ever happened to me. But just then, Cinnamon collapsed. I knew how she felt. I felt the same way. But I was the older sister. I had to be strong.

Chapter Four: Older Sister

I felt different, stronger but empty. I was older. But I was like no one, like my soul had been ripped out. But then I looked at Silvermoon and Cinnamon. I had to keep going. Again, I was the older sister, I had to keep repeating that in my mind.

“So,” I told Silvermoon and Cinnamon, “let’s keep going.”

I kind of felt like Tom’s soul was guiding me. So, I kept going too. We walked, and then night started to fall. We reached our home. That would have been a woot woot for me before. I remembered: I was the older sister, the one in charge. But then something weird happened. Three strange cats were standing outside the garage. When I say strange, I mean strange. One was black. I mean all black. I mean midnight black with the darkest blue eyes you’ve ever seen. She was creepy! Then, there was a ginger tom-cat that pained me to look at. He looked so much like Tom. Then, there was a caramel colored one. The black one stepped forward and introduced herself as Night. That made sense. She was as black as night. Then, the ginger tom-cat introduced himself as Maple. Good, it wasn’t Tom!

Right now, Maple is looking over my shoulder grinning at this.

Then, the caramel tom introduced himself as Caramel. Okay, that was obvious. I could tell he wasn’t that smart. He hissed and jumped at nothing. Night had to restrain him from going absolutely bonkers. So, I introduced myself and my two siblings. Then, they said they’d be living here. I was very welcoming, or I tried my best… Night looked a bit younger than me… Oh right, I was the older sister again.

Night came to visit, and now she’s also grinning over my shoulder while I’m writing this, and she said, “I did not look so young!”

Just a second, I have to tell her that she did.

Well, I knew a place where they could stay. I almost turned to Tom, but I stopped. Another wave drowned me in the ocean of despair.

“I’ll show you the way,” I said. I showed them to a nice stream where they could stay. I went back to the garage. I could not sleep that night. I kept seeing Tom lying in the street.

Chapter Five: Honey and Maple Sitting in a Tree

The next day, I saw Maple looking lost. I went over to see if I could help, and I told him the best spot to hunt. He looked completely lost with my directions, so I led him. I hunted with him and shared a mouse. Then, I invited him to the garage. A few minutes later, Cinnamon came in and started singing,

“Maple and Honey sitting in a tree… ” And then I jumped at her and slashed at her. She ran faster than you could say “Honey.” Embarrassment burned on my cheeks.

We went to sleep. When I woke up, Silvermoon was yelling at me. “Why are you snuggling with a stranger?”

It happened several more nights until… I started expecting my first kitten. Well, I felt like everybody was scuttling around me like bugs, giving me food and water. I could hunt for myself, thank you! And I could walk also.

Maple’s peering over my shoulder yelling at me, “I was not scuttling like a bug!”

Now Golden’s here and is peering at this and says to her dad, “You were scuttling.”

“How do you know? You weren’t even there!” That’ll end up in a long argument.

And I started to try and ignore them. It was hard. My kitten was coming and fast! It was a gray morning when my kitten happened. I doubled over in pain. I saw five kittens!

Chapter Six: Kittens

Maple and I sat down. We were discussing the names for our kittens: Golden, Time, Tulip, Rose, and Tawny. Perfect names, except for Maple wanted to name them Sun, Time, Tulip, Rose, and Rainbow. It ended up my way though. I liked it that way.

So, I went back to our kittens, licked Golden’s head, which she didn’t like. Their eyes and ears weren’t open yet. I slept with them for the first time and for many nights after that.

One day, their ears opened and their eyes! Golden waddled around on the floor. Time didn’t even bother getting up. Tulip and Rose weren’t doing so well. They didn’t look very healthy. They weren’t getting up, and their eyes and ears still weren’t open. We waited for their eyes and ears to open. They never did. That got me worried. What if they never did?

The next day, their eyes and ears did open though! But they still weren’t getting up. Their siblings were playing around in the grass, rolling and yelping and jumping. Every time (I’ve learned they’re called humans) the humans came, we hid in the woods and played there and tried not to be so loud to disturb them. But I’ve been seen by that little girl too many times. So have my kits and many other cats around here. It was settling into an everyday life, nothing scary. I was starting to like it.

Then one day, Cinnamon came up to me. She told me that she found a mate in a town nearby called Rhinebeck. I cried. What would I do without Cinnamon?

But things moved on. And I got used to it without her. One day, Golden was prancing through the grass when snow started to fall.

Tawny said, “What’s hitting my head?”

“It’s snow,” I told her. Soon it started to fall heavy though, and I had to bring them in. Maple was sitting in the garage waiting for me. Golden started complaining that she wanted to go outside, and I told her that she couldn’t. It was too cold. Then, she said that she could go outside. I told her to argue with her dad. And she did. Until finally Maple decided to let her out.

He told her, “You’re going to be the one getting cold.”

But she came inside five minutes later and said, “I think I’ll stay inside.”

Tawny was curled up in a corner snoring loudly. Tulip, Time, and Rose were meowing at the dogs outside. We’d learned the humans had dogs and to be wary of them. The small brown one was named Ella, and the small white one was named Phaedra. They didn’t care that it was snowing. Then, when the dogs went inside and the snow was done falling, my kittens ran outside and started rolling and playing. It was so deep I couldn’t see them! I got worried and plunged in looking for them. I found Golden first. She was digging out a tunnel.

I asked her, “You’re making tunnels?”

She said that it was the easiest way to get around under the snow, and they were digging lots of them, and they made a snow fort, and it was really warm in there. She was talking really fast. So, I ducked into the tunnel. When I got to this so-called fort, it actually was warm. They’d managed to build a fire under the snow. And when we got out, it was much colder outside than it was inside, so we went inside. It was very dark. Actually, it was dawn. We’d stayed in there all night! That wasn’t good. Sometimes I felt like the kit, not the mother. So, I kept my kittens inside all the next day. Maple came running towards me talking about how worried he’d been.

I told him, “Calm down. We were just in a snow fort.”

“Can’t we have some fun sometimes,” Golden said.

Maple got very stern and said, “You can’t talk to your father that way, missy.”

I took Golden to a corner of the garage for her to sit in and think about talking to her father that way. My other four kittens played and laughed, and Tulip almost broke her paw on the hard floor, but that’s another story. The main part of it was that I had to lick it and lick it and lick it all day, which was really irritating because my tongue got so cold, and Tulip hated it because she had to sit still all day. Over time, they started to grow older. Soon they were finding their own nests, not in the garage. And I was expecting new kittens.

Chapter Seven: Storm and Barry

My next litter consisted of three kittens. I barely remember their birth. There was a gray one, who had a lot of attitude like Golden. I named her Storm. And a multicolored one who was very shy and still. I thought she’d been born dead when I first saw her. She reminded me of Tulip. I named her Barry. And a third one so sickly and cold, born dead. Barry and Storm were born in the spring, as my other kittens were, and they played and rolled in the grass, or they would when their eyes were open. Storm’s eyes opened the day after she was born, which was strange. Most kittens take a moon for their eyes to open. I guess Storm was ready. Barry opened hers two months after she was born, very late. I was worried about her. Not Storm though — she was rolling and playing and laughing in the grass before you could say “Storm.” The snow started to fall again. Barry ran straight inside as fast as she could, but not Storm. Storm played and played, but there wasn’t enough snow this year to build the tunnels like I’d done with Golden and like I’d done when I was a kit. So, we just played in the sort of deep snow. Once, Storm sunk so deep that she landed in a hole one of those silly dogs had made. The one named Phaedra had made it. So, I had to go dig and dig and dig and dig all day with snow pouring into the hole, until I got Storm out shivering. I brought her back to the garage to warm her up.

And when she was warm enough to speak, she said “Let’s not go in the backyard again.”

But that never made her stop going outside. Looking at my kittens, I knew I was starting to get old. Then, Storm and Barry grew up too. Storm never lost her adventurous touch. She made a nest in the weirdest place she could find — in a tree!

I said to her, “What are you, a bird?”

She said, “It’s cool. You can fly from up here!” And she tried to jump. Luckily, I caught her, but not like I’d tried to catch Cinnamon. I caught her like I’d wanted to catch Cinnamon back when I was a kitten. And when I caught her, I found her a different nest. Storm wasn’t very happy about it. Barry, on the other hand, decided to adopt the garage as her permanent home. I found her a home by the garage, in the trees. I did not want to have my kitten living with me forever. She needed some independence. I was expecting my third litter, and by now I was really getting old.

Chapter Eight: Our Story Comes to a Close

I had four in my next litter, again in the spring. I knew this would be my last litter, but I still lived on strong. I wasn’t dead yet. So, I thought of names for my next litter. There was a black one that reminded me so much of Storm and so much of Golden before her. Why do I keep getting these adventurous kittens?

Then, there was also Flame and Fire, who were so similar they reminded me of Time, Tulip and Rose. Except they weren’t nervous, just not as adventurous as Raven. And then, finally there was Ripple. She was as adventurous as Raven, but she was not as daring. Raven and Ripple had their eyes open first and at a proper time, well, a few days before the proper time. And Fire and Flame opened them at the exact perfect time. Healthy! Very good. I was so happy. I’d had three litters of kittens, and then I took them all outside. When they were outside, they played and played and played. Raven tried to climb a tree. With my previous experience with Storm, I didn’t let her. Well, Fire and Flame decided to try to figure out what was inside the house, and Ripple just jumped around and jumped around and made as much noise as possible to try to lure something outside. I stopped every single one of them and made them play more quietly. And then, at the end of the day, I took them inside. I wasn’t taking any risks of leaving them outside in the night when they were so young. That night, Maple rushed towards me with a grin on his face. He told me that my brother had just had kittens. I was so happy for Silvermoon and Night that I ran right to their nest. Oh, did I forget to mention that they were mates? Well, they are. They had three beautiful kittens. Sun, Feather, and Tiger. Tiger was a lot like Golden, Storm, and Raven. I guess everybody has to have an adventurous kitten. I love them. Then, I ran back to my own kittens. Soon, snow started to fall again and for the last time in this story. My kittens played and played and played, but there wasn’t very much this year.

The people went out in their car yelling, “We’re going skiing! We’re going skiing!”

And they came back very happy. We were too.

And now I’m sitting in my cozy garage, writing this, my experiences. Raven is next to me, looking at this, though she doesn’t understand it yet, and Night had her second litter, who she gave the names of Red, Squirrel, and Bone. She named the white one Bone because he loved dogs for some reason. I don’t know why he loved dogs. And life has a nice, good rhythm. The humans have been coming and going. They’ve been here for a long time this week, like the whole week, which is unusual. But they’re gone. Somewhere, maybe the place I went with Tom. And that’s the end of our story.

Who To Trust

“It was a night just like this one,” said Melody.

“Seriously?” said Nate. “That’s how all stories start. Try something new.”

“Why don’t you tell the story then,” said Melody.

“Okay,” said Nate. “In a forest only a mile away, a little girl was walking in the woods. Suddenly, a big bad wolf came in front of her.”

“Is this Little Red Riding Hood?” asked Melody.

“No way, that’s such a lame story. This is much better. Let me continue,” he said. “Just then, the little girl turned into a dinosaur with squid tentacles and a lion mane and a mermaid tail. She slapped the wolf with one of her tentacles, and the wolf fell down. He was terrified.

‘Why are you hitting me? I was going to ask you to come to dinner.’ The wolf was actually a nice guy.

‘Oh,’ said the little girl. She turned back into a little girl.”

By now, Melody was bursting into giggles. “I don’t know if that was a horror story, but it was definitely funny. You should send that to the writing competition in school.”

“No way, Melody. Everyone will make fun of me. I am 12 years old and a boy. Boys don’t typically write stories. At least that’s what the kids in school think.”

“Who cares what they think? You know we could use the money. Father is suspended, and mother is very ill. We could use $800.”

“I know,” said Nate. “Okay, I will do it.”

Melody smiled. “Let’s go home and start working on it.”

One week later, the results came out for the contest. The loudspeaker announced, “Nate Machine, please come to the main office. You are in big trouble.” Nate’s eyes widened — what did he do?? As he left the classroom, he felt everyone staring at him. His cheeks were burning. His eyes were tearing up. Just then, he heard a voice.

“Can I go with him?” It was Melody. His little sister always cared about him so much. She was also extremely smart. She was only eight, but she was in sixth grade.

The teacher rolled his eyes and said, “Sure.” She got up and went with him. They walked together silently in the hall. When they got to the main office, the lights were dimmed.

Just as they walked in, the lights turned on, and everyone yelled, “Surprise!!!” The principal was holding a check of $800.

That means I won! thought Nate. In a second, all his emotions changed from scared to happy. He looked at Melody and saw his sister beaming at him.
When they got back to class, the whole class saw the check and gasped.

Another kid named Craig whispered to someone, “Melody must have helped him. No way he could have done it on his own.”

He said that just loud enough for Melody, Nate, and everyone in class to hear except the teacher. Craig was always jealous of the siblings. Melody was really smart but wasn’t so good at controlling her emotions. Nate thought she was about to blow. But Melody just breathed.

“Mr. Yellowstone, Craig is saying Nate cheated.”

Mr. Yellowstone said, “Craig, accusing someone of doing something wrong when you know they aren’t is a type of bullying. Our school has zero tolerance for that. Please see me after class about this.” Craig seemed completely fine with it. He was fine with it because he got a picture of Nate cheating in the whole class’s mind. Nate knew this, and he felt mad. Really mad. He wanted to take Craig and push him in the wall. But he controlled himself. Suddenly, the bell rang.

“Class dismissed,” said Mr.Yellowstone. “Craig, please stay.”

Melody and Nate started walking home when a strange man appeared in front of them. “Hello, children.” He looked at Nate and said, “I can make your problems go away.” The man was tall and had a long beard with silver eyes. He was super creepy.

Melody said, “It’s okay, we don’t have any problems.” She started to pull Nate away, but he wouldn’t budge. “Let’s go, Nate.” But Nate was in a trance-like state. “What did you do to my brother, you freak!” Melody cried. Her voice full of rage and fear.

“Nothing,” said the man with a evil smile. “Now run along home, little girl. Your brother and I have some business to take care of.”

“I will never leave him,” said Melody with all the courage she could summon.

“Yes, you will,” said the man. He raised his hand, and a strong gust of wind attacked Melody. “Now run along before I get really mad.”

“No,” said Melody. She loved her brother so much nothing could keep her apart from him.

“Okay, you asked for it.” Suddenly, a tornado appeared and swept Melody away to her home. Melody blacked out. The bright sun woke her up. She blinked.

What just happened, she thought to herself. She pinched herself. Was this a dream? She remembered her brother.

She ran back to the spot her brother and her were separated.

Meanwhile, Nate awoke from his trance.

“What happened? Melody, where are you? Why am I in chains?”

“Don’t worry about anything,” said the man. “Now drink this, and all your worries will go away.”

“No way, psycho. What is wrong with you? Where is my sister?”

“Kids like you are so annoying. Don’t listen to anyone. Your sister is back home — now just drink it, or I will do the same to you as I did to your sister.” The man smirked.

“What did you do to her?” asked Nate, worried.

“Just drink this, and you can go to your sister. She has no idea where you are, and she will never know until I release you. Just drink this, and you can see her.”

“Promise?” asked Nate. “And this is not poison?”

“Why would I want to hurt you my boy? I am your father.”

Nate’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about, no you’re not. I don’t have magical powers.”

“Yes, you do,” the man said with glee. “Try them out. Point your finger at the chains, and wish to be released. Pretty easy.”

Nate did as told, and it actually happened! Nate was so surprised. He pinched himself. Is this a dream, thought Nate. “Does Melody have magic too?”

“Obviously,” said the man. “Kids these days ask the dumbest questions,” said the man with an eye roll. “Okay now that you know, what other questions do you have? Hopefully they aren’t as dumb as the last one.”

“Who is the man I lived with so long? What’s your name?”

“The man you were living with is my brother. He is the only one in our family who doesn’t have magic. I gave you and Melody to your uncle to keep you safe. If the world found out about you, then you guys wouldn’t be safe. Your mother doesn’t have magic, so she agreed to pretend that she was married to your uncle, just to keep you guys safe. Also, my name is Frank. Should I bring Melody here?”

“Yes!!!” Frank used his arms, and then magically Melody appeared.

“Nate?” Melody asked curiously. “What’s going on?”

“This will take a while,” Nate said.

After Nate explained to Melody what happened and Melody tested her magic and Melody went into her shocked stage, Frank said, “Will you finally drink this? You to Melody.” They both nodded. It was weird, but they trusted him. They both drank a sip, and suddenly they felt this magical force come over them. They felt strange. They had never had this feeling before.

“Now you can go,” said Frank without giving any details.

“How?” asked the kids at the same time.

The man rolled his eyes and said, “With magic. Duh.”

The kids wished to get out and… boom they were home.

The next morning, the kids talked about whether they should tell their “parents” about yesterday. They had felt a whole bunch of emotions. They were sad, angry, confused, and most of all, they wondered who they could trust. They knew their “parents” were looking out for them, but they should have mentioned something to them. A little hint so this wouldn’t be such a shock. They also wondered if their “parents” actually knew about their confrontation with the man. They wondered if they were ever planning to tell them about magic.

“What should we do,” asked Melody.

“I’m not sure,” said Nate. “I think we should keep it to ourselves. I feel like they don’t know about us meeting Frank. They haven’t mentioned anything about it, and if they knew, I’m pretty sure they would say something.”

“I think you’re right,” said Melody. They decided not to because they didn’t want to worry them. After all, they were just looking out for them. They acted as if everything was normal. They said hi to their “parents,” ate breakfast, and left for school.

When they reached the schoolyard, they met Craig. Oh great, thought the kids. They tried to walk past him, but he wouldn’t let them.

“So, did you spend your money helping your dad pay for some food. You know when your dad got laid off my dad got a raise.” Unfortunately, Craig’s father and their uncle worked at the same place, so Craig knew about what happened with their uncle.

“Just stop, Craig,” said Melody, annoyed and a little hurt.

She felt like Craig was lying because her uncle said he got laid off because the company had lost so much money, but now she didn’t know who to trust. Nate was feeling the same thing. They suddenly felt a strange feeling come over them. Something they couldn’t control. The ground began to shake under their feet. They started an earthquake. Nate and Melody glanced at each other.

Magic, they both thought.

Wow, thought Nate. Who knew we could do such powerful magic.

A feeling came over Nate. One that had a mix of happiness and pride but also a bit of fear. He was scared that he would never be able to control it. Suddenly, the siblings relaxed a little. The earthquake stopped. The kids gasped. Craig was stuck in a hole in the ground. As the teachers came and helped Craig out, the kids shared a knowing smile.

“You! It was you,” shouted a voice. It was Craig. “You started the earthquake.”

“How could we do that,” said the siblings at the same time. Everyone thought either Craig hit his head or just became hysterical.

“Let’s take you to the nurse,” said their teacher, “and then the psychiatrist.”

“I’m on to you two!” shouted Craig. “I’ll prove to everyone you started this earthquake. Just you wait!”

“Do you actually think he will find out?” asked Melody.

“No way,” said Nate. “But we will have to be more careful. I think we should get some more training from Frank.”

“I don’t know,” said Melody. “Can we really trust him. What if he is lying? Maybe there are more people in the world who do magic. Frank could be tricking us. Maybe that’s why he is running from the government. He didn’t even seem sorry that he left us.”

“Come on, Melody, don’t keep being so negative. I trust him. Have some faith in him and me.”

“I don’t know,” answered Melody.

Oh my God, Melody,” Nate shouted “Why are you being so annoying, Melody? You don’t trust anyone anymore. Do you even trust me?”

“What are you talking about, Nate? I trust you. You’re the only one I can trust,” Melody replied, hurt by Nate’s words.

“If you trusted me, you would come with me to see Frank.”

“But I don’t trust Frank,” said Melody, holding back tears.

“Just forget it, Melody,” said Nate. Nate walked away from Melody. A tear slipped from both of their eyes.

Nate walked to the place where they first met Frank. As if he was expecting Nate, Frank was waiting at the exact same spot.

“Come on, Nate, let’s talk. We can have some father-son time,” said Frank with an evil gleam in his eye.

“Nate, don’t go.” It was Melody.

“What do you want, Melody? You don’t trust me anyway.”

“That’s not true, Nate. I trust you, but I don’t know who else to trust. Frank came into our lives all of a sudden, and now he is trying to split us apart. Can’t you see it?” Melody replied, sobbing at the thought of losing her brother to a guy who had just randomly appeared in their lives.

Nate thought about this. Could Frank have been lying or could he be trusted? Nate felt so much pressure choosing between sides. He looked at Melody then Frank. When he looked into Frank’s eyes, he saw something. He saw promise in his eyes. A ticket to something more. He went with Frank.

“Sorry, Melody,” said Nate. “Faith’s calling.”

That’s when Melody lost it. A ray of pure light shot out of Melody. It hit Frank with every ounce of power she had in her body. It made Frank stagger back, but it didn’t seem that effective.

“Melody, Melody, Melody,” Frank said with an evil tone in his voice. “You can’t become more powerful than me in one day. Seriously, I don’t even know why you try,” said Frank. He shot out a ray of pure darkness. Melody flew across the block and was left unconscious.

“Next time don’t make me angry, Melody,” Frank said in his evil voice. Nate’s eyes widened at the sight of this. But before he could say anything, Frank said, “Let’s go, Nate.” And with a wave of his arms, they were gone.

Meanwhile, hiding in the bushes was Craig. He had gotten everything on tape. He smiled.

“Let’s see you get out of this mess,” he said to himself and tiptoed away.

Nate found himself back in the place where he first tested his magic. The minute they set foot in the warehouse, Nate found himself yelling at Frank.

What’s wrong with you!!! Melody is my sister who you just shot across the block!!! What time of father are you anyway?!”

“Calm down, Nate. She’ll be fine.”

Calm down?! She will be fine?! What are you talking about. Are you crazy. She is eight years old, you idiot!!!” Nate yelled at him.

“Wow, I didn’t know raising kids was so hard,” said Frank “Oh well. Let me explain all this to you, Nate. After this, you will have a totally different type of view,” Frank said with a twinkle in his eye.

“So what actually happened was… ” Frank started. “When you and Melody were born, we found out that you both possessed magic. It was only meant for one of you, but somehow you both got it. Melody’s magic was much purer than ours. But even though hers is purer, ours is more powerful. Basically, you and Melody are opposite. Melody is light, and you are dark. Any questions?”

“Yeah, why is Melody pure and I’m not? Also why does Melody have pure magic if none of us are?”

“Well, your grandmother had pure magic. But she was taken by the government. That’s why I was running from the government. But your sister doesn’t believe me. Also you’re not pure because you have my genes. Do you believe me?”

“Yeah, but what about Melody? How would I act around her if she is suddenly my mortal enemy?”

“You can figure it out yourself. Do you want to go home?”

“Yes,” said Nate in a somber tone. He and Melody were so close, and now they were being pulled away from each other. Then with a snap of his fingers, Nate was home.

Meanwhile, Melody was awakened by the sun. As today’s events flashed by her, Melody felt a pain in her heart. She sobbed. “How could this have happened?” She got up and started walking home.

When Melody reached home, she saw Nate. She had no idea how to react or what to say. Neither did Nate. But as their eyes locked, they knew they had to talk.

“What should we do?” asked Melody.

“I think we need to talk to Mom and Dad.”

“Okay,” agreed Melody. They went downstairs to interrogate their parents.

“Hey, kids, what do you need?” asked their dad.

“Dad, why didn’t you tell us we have magic?” asked Melody and Nate, getting straight to the point.

“Uhhhh, what are you talking about, kids?” he said, nervously.

“Don’t try and hide this, Dad. We already talked to Frank,” said Nate.

“Fine,” their dad replied. “Yes, Frank is my brother and your father. We hid you, so you would be safe.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“Who’s that?” all three of them asked at the same time. Melody and Nate felt as if there was something wrong. Their dad sensed it too.

“Go upstairs, kids.” They went upstairs as their dad cracked open the door.

As the door knob turned, ten government agents charged in.

“Search the house, and find the kids.”

Before their dad could say anything, the agents barged into the house and turned the house upside down. The kids were frightened and hid under their bed. As they hid under the bed, Melody found a trapdoor. She was shocked. How had she never noticed that? There was no time to think.

“Nate, help me push open this door.”

They opened the trapdoor and silently slipped inside and then closed the door. Just then, the agents ran upstairs and pushed open the kids’ door. But they couldn’t find them. The kids sighed a breath of relief as they left the room. But as they opened the trapdoor, they saw the agents still there.

“Hello, kids,” said one of the agents wickedly.

Melody and Nate shook with fear until Melody remembered that they had magic. That’s literally why the government was after them.

“Nate, we have magic powers,” whispered Melody. Then with a sly smile she added, “We should be nice and give them a preview.”

Nate smiled, “Definitely.”

Melody shot a gust of wind at them, and they stumbled backwards, losing their balance and falling on top of each other. Melody and Nate couldn’t help but laugh as they ran down the stairs, escaping the agents. At that moment, they didn’t care if Melody was good and Nate wasn’t. At that moment, they were just a pair of siblings who loved each other. They both smiled at each other lovingly.

Suddenly, Melody realized something and turned to Nate. “We can’t leave our parents here. We can take Dad but not Mom. She is too sick. Nate, what will we do?”

“We have magic powers. Can we use them to cure Mom?”

“Let’s try.”

Melody and Nate went to their mom’s room and saw her lying there, unconscious. She had lung cancer. Melody and Nate felt tears in their eyes as they saw their mom. As they walked to their mom, they felt afraid of what would happen to her if they did something. But, they knew they had to try. They put their hand on her and wished that she would be cured. Suddenly, a bright light came from their hands, and their mom opened her eyes.

“It’s working, Nate,” Melody said with tears in her eyes. Their mom was soon wide awake — she looked stronger. She smiled: she was okay. Nate and Melody cried tears of joy as they saw their mom waking up. But the happy moment was cut short when they heard the agents coming down.

“Come on, we have to go,” said Nate. The kids and their mom went to their dad. But before they could escape, the agents surrounded them. Nate and Melody looked at each other and smiled, while their parents were full of fright. Melody sent a tornado at the agent, and Nate shot out a blast of fire. Melody looked at Nate, and they shared a smile.

“This is who we are,” said Melody, and with that, they disappeared in a blink of an eye.

Epilogue

“Ugh, do we have to move again?” complained Nate.

“We wouldn’t have to if you didn’t blab about everything to your friends,” said Melody.

“Oh hey, my name is Nate, and I have magic powers. My family is running from the government,” said Melody, annoyed with him.

“It’s not my fault,” said Nate. “It just came out.” Melody rolled her eyes at him.

“Come on, stop fighting you two,” said their mother.

“But, this is like the 1,000th time Nate made us move,” protested Melody.

“Did not,” said Nate

“Did too,” said Melody.

They went back and forth like that a couple of times until their father broke it up. The family had been on the run since the day the government came to their house. By now, they had gotten used to moving around.

“Oh well,” said Melody, and just like the first time (and the last 100), in a blink of an eye, they were gone.


Penny Story

I am a penny. I can have different designs, like monuments and shields. Abraham Lincoln is on my head side, and I was born in 2018.

At school, surprisingly, they were giving out pennies to look at for reading. Jacob collected the pennies and gave them back to the teacher. But I am from Jacob’s house. I live in a safe. But today, I was taken on an adventure all around Jacob’s school. This morning, Jacob put me in his sock, and I thought, This feels like a much better place to live than in a safe.

Then, I got a real bump in my back when Jacob started pinball. I went all around and got so dizzy that I got really, really sweaty. I said, “I really think Jacob is very, very active.”

I finally had some peace time when Jacob had quiet time in math and centers. During all those things, I took a very long, long, long nap. I dreamed about me in a knight’s costume fighting a humongous, humongous, humongous dragon. It almost killed me. But once it started its flames, I blocked it and jumped so high with my rocket, and then I turned them off, and I stabbed my sword into the dragon. Then, there was another and another and another. And I woke up because I was so frightened.

Then after school, I took a peek outside, and I went on the bus to go to Writopia. Then, I got taken out by Jacob, and he laid me on my back, and I looked at Jacob’s story, and I thought, Hmmm, that’s not a bad story. I think it’s about me.

The End


The Duck Dilemma

Chapter One: The Duck Dilemma

One day, Alex and her younger sister Sophia had a fight. Alex couldn’t join the same after-school program her sister was part of because her sister didn’t want her in the after-school program.

So, she went and talked to the ducks at the zoo. The zoo made her feel at home.

The ducks quacked back to her. “Hello.”

“What just happened?!” Alex said. Alex whipped her head around to see if anyone else was there. But no one was there.

The ducks start quacking.

“We can talk to you because you have a special power of the duck-adoo.”

What?!

“It is a special ability to talk to ducks.”

“Bu — but I could never do this before.”

“When a child turns fifteen, if they are chosen, they get the power of the duck.”

No way.

“Didn’t you just turn fifteen?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will have the power of the duck for the rest of your life.”

“But can I tell anyone?”

“I am the one to not tell you, for the emperor duck-too must tell you.”

Alex followed the duck to what looked like a miniature beaver lodge. The duck went inside and came back out with a duck that looked to be 100 years old.

“Welcome, Alex of Prospect Park,” said the emperor. Alex knew what to expect.

“Hello, emperor duck-too.”

“I am flattered that you know my name,” said the emperor. “Anyway, now let’s get to business. You must not tell anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Because duck-adoo is a very sacred thing.”

“Not even my closest friend?”

“Sometimes the person that you trust most turns out to be your worst enemy,” said emperor duck-too.

“What do you mean,” said Alex as her stomach flipped. She alway thought that she and her friend Lauren were a perfect match.

Chapter Two: Lauren and Tom

The next day, when Alex went into school, Lauren was waiting for her by the front door.

“Hi, Lauren,” said Alex.

“What do you want,” snapped Lauren.

“I just wanted to say hi,” replied Alex.

Suddenly, Alex realized that Lauren, who had been such a faithful friend since kindergarten, hated her. Suddenly, Alex felt tears sting her eyes. She ran off to the protection of the girls bathroom. As she ran into the bathroom hall, she ran into someone.

“Oh, sorry,” Alex stammered.

“Oh, it’s fine,” said a male voice.

“By the way, my name is Tom, Tom Walter.”

“Uh, hi. My name is Alex, Alex Myther.” Alex suddenly recognized the boy. He was the boy who always sat in the back of math class and never answered any questions.

“Do you like the zoo?” blurted Alex.

“Yeah totally,” said Tom.

“I like seeing the ducks at the zoo,” Alex said.

“Me too,” said Tom.

“Maybe we should go together sometime,” exclaimed Alex.

“That sounds great. Maybe Friday after school,” said Tom.

“Okay, see you then,” said Alex.

Chapter Three: Friday And The Truth

Soon, Friday had arrived. Alex was getting ready for school. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies, or I should say ducks.

As the day went by, Alex went to all her classes, and as usual, Tom sat in the back of math class, never answering any questions and staying quiet. Alex tried to pay attention in class, but she kept looking back at Tom.

After eighth period ended, which was math, Alex got up and was gathering her stuff when Tom brushed by her saying, “4:00. Flatbush entrance, okay?”

“Yup,” said Alex.

When Alex arrived at the zoo, Tom was waiting on the bench reading a book.

“Hi,” said Tom.

“Oh, hi, Tom,” said Alex.

“What should we do first?” asked Tom.

“Let’s see the ducks!” exclaimed Alex.

“Okay,” replied Tom. When they got to the duck pond, there was no one there. The ducks were all bustling around so fast it looked like they were on wheels.

“Wow, what do you think they are doing?” said Alex.

“Don’t know. Maybe getting ready for something,” said Tom.

Suddenly, a duck swam over to them and said to both of them, “Welcome, Alex of Prospect Park and Tom of Greenwood Heights.”

Alex and Tom looked at each other in awe.

“WAIT, YOU CAN DO THAT?” they both yelled.

THE END.


Radioactive

10:18 AM, 7/23/1999

In a city that is busy the whole day, something very extreme happens. The NASA rocket blasts off into space, but the rocket’s screws fall out, and a nuclear blast erupts and starts blasting radiation, gamma, plasma, and energy. Run!!! To the shelter!!! Run!!! Everybody tries. But they all die. The blast reaches high altitudes and blasts the whole earth. The world is gone.

The end of the world.

10:23 AM, 7/23/1999

There is one hope for humanity though. A 23-year-old named Joseph.

“I can’t believe I am the last,” he says. “But I played Fallout,” he shouts.

He goes to the basement and gets his food and puts it in a box. He goes and takes his solar panel and connects it to the circuits. He tries to connect the TV to the news, but no channel works. He then soon finds out that the circuit is limited, and he needs to find resources and dig deeper.

He takes a radioactive suit and puts it in a box. He goes and gets some food. He eats a sandwich and then goes to sleep. Then, he wakes up and starts playing Fallout 2.

Then, he says to himself, “I have a plan!!!”

He looks out the window and sees a really nice looking city. He takes his RMA, and it beeps 530 sieverts per minute. He takes out his computer, and it screeches the Windows XP welcome sound. He searches up how to survive an end of the world scenario, and he does what it says.

He then does some random things and wastes time.

He says, “Tomorrow is a new day,” and goes to sleep…

12:23 PM, 7/24/1999

“A new day,” Joseph says.

He does the same thing as yesterday. He goes and gets a drill to build a bunker, which he does. He goes and takes a drill to make a hatch. But then he takes his suit and goes outside. He goes and gets resources.

“Wow!” he says.

He is surprised at what he sees. He sees animals. But then he goes back home and puts the resources into a box. He walks to the circuit and puts in the electrical transformer and regulator. Then, the electricity goes back on.

… In the middle of 2000

He almost gives up as he stands on the mountain. But all the radiation is gone in this part. He sees a small town, and he says that he comes from a trip that took him over a year, with all the wild animals and living with a bear. Now he has come to rest as he has shown his best. He goes to his little house and lies down on his bed.

But before he closes both his eyes, a man comes in and asks Joe, who has one eye open, something important, “What land do you come from?”

“I come from Atlanta,” says Joe.

“It’s me, Mike.”

“Hello, old friend!!!”

Being on the Verge of Death: Chapter One, Just Great

Chapter One: Just Great

“Being on the verge of death.” There’s a saying like that around town. How great it feels to be like that. Then come back up to your position and fight. Well, those things are for stories. Nothing like that happens in real life.

It’s Valentine’s Day. Well, to be precise, two weeks before it. So let’s just say, it’s Drama Season. The time of the year in our school when there is the sixth grade Valentine’s Day dance. Just great.

Well, since we’re talking about school already, I’m going to do one of the things teachers love. Not Straight As, but Intros. “Clappy Clappy everyone.” So, basic things first. My name is Daisy. I’m in middle school, the class where there is the most drama. That’s it. Intro Shut Down.

Well, anyway, the Valentine’s day dance is in two weeks. Everyone’s super excited since there’s always drama every minute this time of year. People getting accepted and rejected. And it gets worse for the kids who have a lot of friends. That doesn’t mean popular though. It just means a lot of people know you, and sadly, a lot of people know me. That was nice until this time of the year. I know someone might ask me, but I might want to reject them, but at the same time, I don’t want to crush them. Well, fun fact, two of my friends, Alena and Sapphire, attract a lot of boys, so I’m off the hook for a while. Also, attract doesn’t mean boys liking them. They’re the girls that boys say to other boys you like them, but they don’t.

I’m in class now, and the flyers are already up. Great. Just great. Well, I might as well act like nothing has happened until Harmony comes up to me.

“Hey, Daisy. Let’s go tell the class about dance.”

Great. But what choice do I have? I’m part of the student council, and it’s our responsibility to tell the class. Just great.

“Sure,” I reply.

We slowly walk up to the front of the classroom to tell the class about this “fun” event.

“Okay, so we’re going to have a Valentine’s dance. It costs $10 to come to the dance. There’s going to be prizes, games, food, and a DJ. The dance is on February 14, 2019. And you need to get a partner to play some games. But you can’t ask them until each game. We’ll tell you ahead before each game starts, so just keep that in mind. Your partner can be your friends also. It doesn’t have to be a date unless someone asks you at the dance. It starts at 3:00 and ends at 7:00,” says Harmony.

And suddenly, nearly the entire class is coming to pay. Wow. Great. Only one third of the class went to the Halloween dance, and now the entire class is coming. Great. After everyone paid, Harmony and I paid since every student council member has to come. Well, this was a positive start. Rraaahh!


THE WRITER WAS ABOUT TO DIE!!!

Today an ugly truck with mud and dirt scratched my aunt’s bumper of her car. I felt really sad because if the truck came in the car, I would’ve been dead. I felt scared. I felt mad. I felt sad. And I was upset with that big dummy! I should be taking all his money by now! I remember my dad told me how his dad passed away. He told me the story, but I forgot it. I was thinking the truck driver should get 9,000,000,000,000,000 paybacks. He should be in jail. My aunt did call the police about her car, and I was crying the whole entire time. My aunt gave me a tissue to dry my tears, and I felt much better. My cousin Zalah’s best friend named Afeni took lots of pictures and a video of what happened. I only took a video. I am going to show my mom, and I will ask her if can she call her friend who is a police officer and put that big dummy in jail. He deserves to be called a dummy because he crashed my aunt’s car, and that was her favorite car, and the bumper was my favorite part of her car. My aunt was really upset. She called her husband. While we were coming to Writopia, I told him I was on the side of the car. Afeni was holding my hand. Afeni was scared!!!

The next time, I will videotape it and show my mom, and then I’ll ask my mom to show her friend who is a police officer, and I will tell the whole story, and I’ll tell my mom what happened to me. Afeni called her mom, and I told her what happened and what happened to me. I talked on the phone first, and I told her that I was on the side of the car trying to have a nap in peace!!! But then that big dummy idiot almost made me die, and I was freaked out. On Monday I’ll tell my friends what happened and my teacher and my other teacher. My aunt got back the car! Hallelujah!

MARS!!!

Once there was a girl who lived on Earth. She and her family were very happy on Earth, and they all had a great life… until a science experiment went horribly wrong and caused a hole in the center of the Earth. The whole world had to evacuate to Mars before the Earth exploded. All the people had started a new civilization on Mars. Two years later, they had discovered how to get technology and gravity and buildings and houses on Mars. They made all of their shoes out of led so that it would weigh them down so that they would not float away. All of the buildings were made out of led as well as all of the other stuff that needed to stay down.

She wanted to see what the rest of outer space was like. Little did she know she did not have the right equipment or skills to get back to Mars. She took off her big led shoes, and she jumped off Mars. She started floating out into outer space. Her parents said that she looked like a baked potato. They were standing outside in their led shoes. The mom was wearing Gucci Led Special Editions, and the dad was wearing led Air Jordans. Her parents were very young. Her mom was 45, and her dad was 47. The daughter was 11 when she floated off of Mars. Her parents went to the one and only best doctor on Mars, The Therapist. The parents had to get the therapist’s best staff to get a thousand foot long cord and rope to attach to one of the staff members so that the staff member could float out into space to get the girl back.

He started to float out into space, but then bang! The cord snapped! He went floating until he also looked like a baked potato just floating through space until he finally lost sight of Earth. He started to scream on the top of his lungs.

He started to hear a very faint screaming sound in the distance. As he got closer, he started to see a floating object that almost looked like a human! The sound started to get louder and louder until he finally realized that he had found the missing girl. He was extremely proud of himself… until he remembered that he was no longer attached to Mars! He was of just as much use as a floating baked potato in the middle of the very big ocean. So basically useless!!! He was terrified, but he had to remind himself that he had to be strong for this little girl.

“HELP!!!” Lulu screamed. “HELP!!” she yelled again.

“I’m over here,” yelled Nathaniel the employee.

How was he going to help her if she was so far off in the distance and if he couldn’t even find her! What was he going to do?! He looked around him but saw nothing but inky blackness. He heaved a big sigh and continued his journey to find Lulu the missing girl. He finally, after a long time, found her. Her throat was hoarse from yelling, and her eyes were puffy and red from crying. She looked like she had been crying for a long time. Nathaniel floated towards her. She started to squirm away from Nathaniel because she had never met him before, and so in that moment she had no idea what exactly was going on. She didn’t know what was going to happen. She didn’t even know if the man floating was even a man. Maybe he was a martian, and he was coming to kill her! Oh no, she thought. But as the man got closer, she began to recognize him. He went to her school. She started to loosen up and let him take her hand. He started to swim through space until Mars was in sight of them.

They finally touched the ground of Mars. Everyone from her school had been waiting for her to come back down. Once they saw her land on Mars, they all started cheering. She was safe again. Her parents ran up to her and gave her a huge hug. She quite enjoyed it. She then realized that she appreciated her parents and being back with them and back home. In that moment, she finally realized that she liked being back to everything on Mars.

The End


Pengy and His Friends

How to Make a Friend: A Penguin’s Guide (Book One)

Chapter One

Pengy is a penguin for sure. He lives in the New York Aquarium. He is trying to find a new friend, but he can’t. He is on a different schedule than all the other penguins because he goes swimming while they eat. And when they go swimming, Pengy goes to nap, and he naps for the rest of the day. So, Pengy wanted to switch his schedule, so he could be with the other penguins longer.

One day, Pengy the penguin was swimming around looking for friends. They all swam and dropped their eggs in the water, and Pengy went to save them. The other penguins knew that Pengy took their eggs, so then they started a fight. Next, they found that the other penguins laid eggs, so they also took them. Then, the zookeeper found out that the penguins were having a fight, and then they separated all the penguins from Pengy.

So, because of the fight, one of the zookeepers decided to take one of the penguins and train them to be on the same schedule as Pengy. But when Pengy and the other penguin had eggs at the same time, they had a fight because there were penguins falling in the water, and they didn’t know whose was whose, so they fought over them.

So, they split all the penguins away from Pengy and his friend to a different enclosure from all the other eggs that were hatching. Then, one of the eggs started to hatch, but they didn’t have any water or ice to slide on. The enclosure was warm to keep the penguin eggs warm because they didn’t have feathers yet. But once they started hatching, they were moved back to be with Pengy.

Pengy was happy because they were all on his routine, so he got a lot of friends to swim with.

The End… for now.

Chapter Two

One day, Pengy found out that there were new penguins coming to the aquarium. Pengy saw new penguins arriving into his enclosure.

And he started saying, “I’m going to go to surprise them!” to his friend.

Then, the penguins were going to a different shelter. He got so sad. He wanted more friends than just one and lots of baby penguin friends.

Then, everybody thought that the baby penguins were like actual penguins because they thought there were broken eggs in there, but no! There were actually eggs in there that thought they were going to be hatched. Then, they laid their own eggs because that was their only time to lay their eggs again — it was winter — and now there was snow for the penguins. They stayed in their shelter the whole winter until the penguins got a little older, but there was still some snow and ice.

They used their bellies, and they had so much fun!

The End… for now.

Chapter Three

So then the people came there to see the eggs hatch. They were still very small, so they were still in the warm enclosure because they still didn’t have their thick feathers. Peggy’s feathers are still brown instead of black and white.

He liked to play with other brown penguins, but there were a rare number of them. That’s why those brown penguins who were older had a different schedule. They ate before all the penguins, went for a swim, napped, went for another big swim, then stayed out to feel the cold air and get a slide.

That’s what Pengy would do in the winter, But in the summer, he would just keep sleeping until dinner time and show off to the people.

The End… for now.

Chapter Four

Pengy liked to show off to the people. One day, he woke up bright and early for a morning exercise. Except today it was his nap time, but people were bringing him food. All the black and white penguins were awake and ready to eat. While he was sleeping, they fed all the food to the black and white penguins without waking up brown and black and white penguins. When he woke, he was hungry. He wanted to see if there was any food left.

He finally found a way to get out of his tank and tell the people that feed him that he didn’t get any food. So next he told them to give him food, and he also told them that he was sleeping at the same time. So then he actually did not need food because he ate it all in one bite.

Chapter Five

The next day, he finally found a friend because they taught a penguin their new exercise, which was just Pengy’s routine. He was happy.

The End… for now.

Pengy and Pezy at the New York Aquarium (Book Two)

Chapter One: Pengy and Pezy with the Fight Beginning

Pengy and his friend named Pezy liked to swim in the water, but what Pezy liked doing best was snuggling up with Pengy, and the best thing that Pengy liked was playing with Pezy.

One day, they didn’t know what to do, and Pengy said, “Do you want to play? We both love to play.”

But Pezy was tired. “Can we both snuggle?”

Then, they had a fight. Pezy was snuggling, but then Pengy saw that his food time was coming up, but Pezy was sleeping. Then, Pengy went to eat. The food was delicious.

Chapter Two: The Delicious

One day, Pengy and Pezy woke up bright and early, ready for a swim. The swim was really refreshing. Then, they had a morning snack. The snack was fish. Then, they had a little nap. After their nap, they woke up ready for another swim. Then, they ate again. They had crill this time. Then, they did some stretching. Then, he just stayed outside feeling the evening breeze. They ate again. This time they ate lobster. And then they went for their good night sleep.

Chapter Three: The Food Chain

One early, bright morning, both Pengy and Pezy were ready to eat. They ate and ate until their tummies were full. Then, they had a nap until lunch time. Then, they woke up ready to eat again. But then the people that fed them by accident dropped the bucket of fish that they were going to eat into the water. The fish turned alive and swam away. Pengy and Pezzy jumped into the water ready to swim. Pengy clapped his wings and caught a fish, then he swam up to the top and ate it. Then, Pezzy jumped in, and he clapped his hands, and he got one. He also swam up to the shore and ate. Then, Pengy jumped in and clapped and caught a fish. They did this until there were no more fish in the tank.

Chapter Four: Pengy and Pezy and Coconut

One day, they saw a monkey driving to the aquarium. The truck drove zooming into the aquarium! The monkey fell out of the truck and into Pengy and Pezy’s enclosure. They found out that the monkey’s name was Coconut. Coconut loved to do the same thing as both of them liked to do, and he could do them at the same time. He was great at playing.

Chapter Five: Pengy and Pezy with the Solution of the Fight

They played and played until Pengy and Pezy started a fight because now they wanted to do a different thing again!

Pengy wanted to play, and Pezy wanted to snuggle, but then Coconut said, “I could split my body in half? And then you both could do what you want to do with me! You could play with me. You could go to sleep with me!”

Then they slept, ate, and did all their routine

Pengy and Coconut (Book Three)

Chapter One

Pengy was a penguin, and Pengy had a friend named Coconut. They both liked to do the same thing. They both liked to snuggle together, play together, and even talk underwater together! They had fun until Pengy wanted to play again, and Coconut wanted to dive in and have a fresh swim and climb the tree.

Chapter Two

Pengy was swimming, and Pengy saw a truck had a bunny. The bunny fell out right into their enclosure. In the enclosure they couldn’t see the bunny because the bunny was white, and it was lying down on snow because it fell out of the truck onto its front. And then the bunny started standing up to try and show them that he was alive, but they couldn’t see him and kept stepping on him.

Chapter Three

Then, the bunny jumped into the water, and they were finally able to see him! They asked the bunny his name.

He said, “Eeer eeeer eer eeeer!”

Then, they asked the truck driver what the bunny’s name was. Coconut the monkey told them the answer because he spoke monkey, human, penguin, and bunny. He said the bunny’s name was Pezy. They started playing.

The End.

Pangy, Coconut and Sammy (Book Four)

Chapter One

One day, Pangy and Coconut saw a branch from a truck. It was sticking out. Then, they saw an owl. The owl’s name was Sammy. They saw its wing sticking out, and it was about to move its foot up, and the wings were keeping it balanced. Then, they saw Sammy grabbing onto a tree with his back legs. He was about to fly off because he wanted to make a nest, but then the roof of the truck closed, and the back of it opened. But the back was too tiny to fly out of. Then, the truck rode zooming into the New York Aquarium, and Sammy flew out.

Chapter Two

The owl fell out right into his enclosure. He had no friends. His enclosure was tiny. Then, the owl flew out right into the enclosure right next to him. The next enclosure was Pengy and Coconut’s. When Pengy and Coconut asked Sammy his name, he didn’t know because he didn’t speak Penguin or Monkey. But then Coconut had an idea: he knew how to speak all the languages of animals and humans.

So, he used his owl voice and asked him, “What is your name?”

The owl said that his name was Samuel — because that’s his real name — but he said, “I really want to be called Sammy.”

Then, Coconut told Pengy how to speak Owl. Pengy knew how to speak in Monkey because Coconut already told him how. And Coconut taught Pengy to speak Penguin because Coconut already knew how to speak every other language except Penguin. And now he told Pengy how to speak Owl.

Chapter Three

Sammy liked the snow because he was a snowy owl and was used to the cold. But otherwise he was brown, and so many people thought that he was tropical because brown is kind of a tropical color. But how he got defense and stayed safe is that he flew into the snow, and then he stuck his white feathers up and his brown feathers down. And when he opened up his beak, he actually had white inside, so white would be only showing. He closed his eyes, so no water could get in. And then he just bent his feet to the back of him. And he was covered in snow, so he was camouflaged.

He like to play hide-and-seek in the snow, and the snow was as white as his feathers, which were used to the cold. But Pengy’s weren’t because his enclosure was not super cold. Then, Coconut jumped into the snow. He put his white side up and his black side down. Pengy put his brown side up and his black side down. And they all were talking to each other, but nobody could see them. Then, the food dropped onto the snow where they were lying down, but they didn’t see that their beaks and mouths were sticking out ready to eat. Then, they went chop. The aquarium keepers got so scared that they ran out.

Pengy, Coconut, and Sammy ate all the fish and then had a refreshing swim together.

The End!

Pengy, Pezzy, Sammy and Bamboo (Book Five)

Chapter One: The Seeing

Pengy saw a track in the distance, and it was heading near to their enclosure. The truck had a panda named Bamboo and an owl, but they didn’t know the name. So, they tried to ask the driver what the name was because Pengy knew all the names, but Pezy only knew Rabbit. So, he asked him in English, but he didn’t know. So then Pengy switched to his Panda language

Chapter Two: The Eating

Pengy was starting to feel hungry. They asked the owner for food. The owner got them fish, lobster, and crab. They were pleased with the food.

Pengy liked the food and said, “Oh, I like the food. Could you please give me that food again tomorrow? I still don’t know that owl’s name!”

But they didn’t see the truck about to drive in…

Chapter Three: The Knowing the Names of the Owl

Then, they looked over to a big blue truck driving in with a panda standing on top of a branch. They didn’t see the owl because the owl was right under the truck’s roof… They didn’t see the truck driving. They heard “Awoo” coming from nowhere They didn’t see an owl.

They said, “Why is there an owl’s noise?”

Then, they saw something trying to flutter from the sky! They saw wwo wings about to fly off the roof of the truck, which closed. The panda almost got stuck, but Pengy was happy because the people that owned the aquarium in New York saw that the owl was going to the zoo. Just kidding! He told the owners he was going to the zoo, when really he was going to the aquarium. They got so happy they wouldn’t have to have more animals. But then screech, the truck stopped at the gates… The gates went up, and it came in.

Then, they got Sammy and Bamboo out of the truck and into that same enclosure, and they all became friends and lived happily ever after.

The End!


Escape

I can never believe what happened yesterday. I was just flying around in the air happily, sucking on my favorite yellow flower nectar, when a huge thingy just came swinging at me, and I got tangled in it. The huge thingy had white strings in a pretty pattern, and there were holes in between the strings. There was a long red something attached to the strings. There was a round ball with a colorful ball in the middle staring at me hungrily.

I knew at once what those were. Those were the eyes of the big Hoomins! Mother told me about them. She said that they were super dangerous. She said they were the ones who captured Father! Revenge! I want revenge for that! But Mother always told me, “Don’t go looking for trouble!” Does Mother even want revenge? I think she does. She just doesn’t want me to get caught.

Well, I guess it’s too late now. I’ve already been caught. Those big eyes just stared at me even more, and without warning, the Hoomin opened her mouth. I fluttered my wings in terror. She was going to eat me! And before I could escape, a thunderous roar came out of the mouth yelling, “Marty! I caught a butterfly!”

The ground quaked as another one of the Hoomins came stumbling over. This Hoomin had straggly brown hair and big blue eyes. I just found out that his name was Marty. I was never so scared in my life. My hunger was still tingling around in my stomach when that Hoomin named Marty scooped me out of the big tangly thing with this scooper thing. Then, he put this white thing on top of the scooper, where the opening was.

I was trapped. My wings took me to the top of the scooper, and I headbutted the white thing. A big thing. One of the Hoomins Hainds pushed me down again, and I fell to the floor, my wings crinkling beneath me. A few moments later, the big Hoomins released me for a moment, and I flew up in the air gratefully, stretching my wings. But I barely got to fly around when the Hoomins pushed me inside this weird boxy thingy made out of a see-through thing. I’ve never seen this before. I wonder if Father was trapped the same way. When they first pushed me in, I thought they set me free inside their own home, but I learned the hard way. I tried to fly out but got banged in the head. I crumpled to the ground. I have never felt so sad in my life.

As I lay on the ground, I heard voices from the other room. Not just any kind of voice, big, loud, thundering voices. They said this: “Bye, Marty! See you at school tomorrow!”

“Bye, Rio!” A loud bang sounded as the home blocker closed. The girl Hoomin came over to the weird box, the ground quaking again. A bigger Hoomin followed behind, making the ground quake even more dangerously. I felt sick. I wanted to puke, but restrained myself. The big Hoomin gave me the hungry look again, her eyes closer to me than ever. I fluttered helplessly, scared half to death.

Oh, how I missed my sisters Curl and Murl. I missed the feeling of my other sister Twirl’s wings brushing against mine. I missed the days when my other sister Pearl and I went flying through the meadows together. And I missed Mother the most of all. I missed her delicate touch on my wing. I missed her beautiful scent. I missed her everything. I loved the patterns on my sisters’ wings. The pink background and the beautiful yellow circles. I missed my mother’s warm black eyes. And it was the Hoomins’ fault that I would probably never see her again. The Hoomins’ fault that I never got to meet my father. I needed revenge! The Hoomins ruined everything for me. Destroying our butterflies’ peaceful lives! I suddenly felt a wave of anger at the Hoomins. They destroyed my whole life!

Rio was still looking at me with a pretty gleam in her eyes. She turned away from me and straightened up, facing the bigger Hoomin. “She needs food,” she said. “I don’t know what butterflies eat, but maybe we can take some of Tibbie’s food for this butterfly.”

“Okay,” the huge Hoomin agreed. I folded my wings and sat down at the bottom of my cage, planning my revenge.

The Hoomins came back with one cricket. I was like, really? Do they expect me to eat a cricket? They opened the hole blocker and dropped the cricket in front of me. “Eat up, little one,” the big Hoomin said in a softer but still loud voice.

The cricket scrambled to his feet and started hopping around like crazy and chirping loudly as the Hoomins backed away from the weird box. Once the cricket saw me, he calmed down. “You’re not going to eat me, are you?” he asked uneasily.

“Heavens no!” I cried. “Who would say such a thing?!”

“The lizard named Tibbie.”

“Really?”

“Really.” I felt hungry, but not hungry enough to eat a poor cricket. I could still remember the terror I felt when the big Hoomin had opened her mouth, and I thought I was about to be eaten. “What’s your name?” I asked the cricket, hoping to change the subject.

“Nightingale,” the cricket answered. “You?”

“Whirl,” I answered back. Nightingale and I chatted a bit more until we got to the idea of escaping. When Nightingale started talking about escaping, I turned away.

“What’s wrong?” Nightingale asked, sitting beside me.

I sighed. “Father got killed because he tried to escape,” I told him sadly.

Nightingale scooched closer. “But we’re not going to be killed this time,” he said softly. “We’re going to survive.” I sniffled and looked at him. He smiled back. “Do you want to hear or not?” he chirped softly at me.

“Hear what?” I asked him.

“My plan,” Nightingale answered me.

I looked at his hopeful expression and made up my mind. “Yes,” I answered.

Nightingale chirped on and on, saying, “Let’s hide me somewhere, and then Rio and her family will think you ate me. And then, they will drop another cricket. To drop another cricket inside this box, they will have to open the hole blocker. Once they open the hole blocker, we will be able to escape through the hole!” As he was talking, I flew around the box, just in case there were some small holes that I could get through with Nightingale. Finally, when he finished rambling on, I flew down and lay myself on the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Nightingale asked, worried.

“Hungry,” I answered in a croaky voice.

“What do you eat?” Nightingale asked fussily, pacing around the weird box. I shook myself. When somebody mentioned food, I would always have gone trying to find the yummy yellow flower nectar. But now since I had no food, I was nearly dying of hunger. “What do you eat?” Nightingale asked me louder.

“Yellow flower nectar!” I shouted back.

“Mom!” Rio’s voice shouted at the same time, “Stop those critters from being noisy!” Heavy footsteps came to the weird box, and the ground quaked. I folded my warm white wings around me, and my black antennas twitched with fright. I backed away from the Hoomin who was towering over us. A Haind hit the weird box, and it rocked dangerously, and Nightingale and I rocked along with it, clutching each other tightly.

“Try chirping again, and you’ll be sorry!” the mom snarled.

As the Hoomin left the room, I started searching for a spot where Nightingale could hide, so it looked like I ate him. I found a perfect spot under all the pebbles. I felt uncomfortable as I told Nightingale quietly about the hiding spot. I told him that he didn’t need to hide there since it would be very uncomfortable.

But Nightingale just answered, “I came from a pet shop, so I’m very used to uncomfortable places.” So, Nightingale lay in a little hole in the pebbles, and I buried him up.

I looked out this see-through thing and saw the beautiful sunshine. I longed to be out there with my friends. The yellow flowers weren’t in my sight, but I could still feel the tasty nectar down my throat.

The big Hoomins stomped into the room. The big one gasped so loud that it nearly knocked me right over. “We guessed right!” she gasped. “The butterfly ate the cricket!” Rio’s big Haind immediately swept over to the box of crickets. They opened up the hole blocker of the weird box and at that exact moment, I dug Nightingale out of the hole and, grasping him tightly, I flew out of the weird box.

The Hoomins chased after us, yelling like crazy and making the ground quake. We swerved and dived and got to a see-through thing. Lucky for us, it was open. We flew out, and I landed safely in lush green grass. I let Nightingale go, and he collapsed on the ground.

“Did that work well?” Nightingale asked.

“I guess,” I answered breathlessly.

Without warning, the ground began to quake. The Hoomins were coming.

“Watch out!” I hissed at Nightingale.

“No,” Nightingale said, “I’m tired of flying. I feel sick.”

“Well, too late,” I said, and I grasped him once again and flew into the air.

“No!” Nightingale shouted as he wriggled and squirmed, trying to go free.

“Careful,” I warned him, but it was too late. He wriggled free and suddenly, he was falling through the air.

“No!” I screamed. I looked behind me and saw the Hoomins running at full speed, Rio holding the tangly thingy. Then, I looked down once again at the falling Nightingale, screaming in terror.

I dove down towards Nightingale. My wings gave me even more speed as the wind whipped around me and slowed me down. Mother’s flying lesson lectures echoed in my head, and I felt even more determined and sad than ever. I wondered what Nightingale was thinking. Probably thinking of hitting the ground and dying. That’s what I would’ve been thinking about if I were him. And then I did it. I caught Nightingale just before he hit the ground. The wind had tore off part of his left foreleg, and his eyelids were red and puffy from the pollen in the air. Mother said that some other animals were allergic to pollen. I mean, literally! What do they eat?!

My stomach felt so empty that I couldn’t stand it. But I kept going.

“Nightingale!” I yelled over the wind as I flew quickly, “Where do the crickets live?”

“I think they live under the Hoomins holes and habitats!” Nightingale yelled back.

I dove down towards the bottom of the Hoomins home and ducked under the front steps. Footsteps of the big Hoomins shook the ground as they came after us. The Hoomins stopped by our hiding spot. I shivered. Did the Hoomins know that we were here? Nightingale and I stood still.

“Where are they?” Rio demanded.

“Let’s continue looking,” the mom said.

The Hoomins ran off again and at that moment, two eyes appeared from the dark. There was something queer about them. A figure appeared. It was the outline of a cricket.

“Ah,” the cricket said, coming into view, “another cricket.”

He patted Nightingale and said, “I will take care of him. You may go now.”

I nodded and flew out from under the home of the Hoomins and headed in the direction of the yellow flower gardens.

I saw the yellow flower garden ahead, and I sped up, my wings flapping frantically. “Hi, Mother!” I shouted. Mother turned her head in surprise. Her wings flapped with joy as she hugged me tight.

She touched me delicately once more. “Where were you?” she asked softly.

“Somewhere,” I answered mysteriously. She smiled down at me.

“Whirl!” a shrill voice shouted. Murl flew up to me and gave me a big hug. “Curl and I have been looking for you all day!”

“Really?” I felt stunned. “Where’s Curl?”

“She’s looking for you at the other yellow flower garden. C’mon! Curl will be so happy to see you again!”

I smiled to myself. What a lucky butterfly I am, to have the family I’ve got. Murl pulled on my antenna, and I let her drag me to the other yellow flower garden.

Curl’s greeting was the same as Murl’s. A shrill shriek of “Whirl!” and then a big hug. They were twins, after all.

We chatted a bit until a comforting antenna patted me on the back. I turned around… and there was Twirl! “Twirl!” I cried.

“Hello,” Twirl said. “Where were you?”

“Somewhere,” I said in that same tone I used on Mother.

“Pearl said that you were captured by the Hoomins. She was worried sick!”

I laughed weakly. “Oh, silly Pearl. She’ll probably be so glad that I’m here.”

At that moment, a shaken Pearl rose from behind Twirl. “Oh, Twirl. Can you please help with the rescue mission? It’s sooo impor-” Pearl noticed me standing there and flew over. “You’re here!” she cried, “That means a party!”

“True,” Twirl said, giving me a reassuring smile “This calls for a party!”

“You look so skinny! Go get some of that nectar! You’re also stressed out. Take a rest before this party starts!” Pearl fussed with me for a little while.

“PAR-TAY!” Curl and Murl sang, “We’re going to have a PAR-TAY!”

I thought of the scary Hoomins. I changed my mind. I don’t want revenge anymore. They’re too scary for butterflies to deal with. Never ever will I put myself in trouble again and never will I put my family in any.

I felt dizzy with happiness. Not only did I meet my family again, but I’m going to have a party! This is the best return ever!


My One and Only Haunted House Experience

“I can’t wait for the haunted house!” I screeched. It was 2014, and I was with my friend. We were about to go into the haunted house! But right before we went in, my friend somehow started to do a type of penguin dance.

“Wait! I need to go to the bathroom!” she hollered over the noise.

All the excitement washed away from me.

“Uhhhh!” I sighed.

Nine thousand billion trillion hours later…

“Finally! You came back!” I said with joy.

When we went in… we saw a person stab off a women’s neck and a butcher chainsawing off a man’s leg! But the part that locked in my memory the most (like my pool lock whenever I go swimming, I can’t even open it when I come back from the kid swimming section!) was when there was this zombie blocking our way to the next room. But since we were small, we could go under his arms. We just had to somehow distract him. I thought for a few minutes, and I finally came up with a plan. I whispered to my friend, and she agreed.

“You could go in front of me!” I told a stranger behind us.

“Oh! How nice of you!”

But they didn’t know our plan!

I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL!!!” I heard the zombie who was blocking us say.

While all that action was happening, my friend and I snuck under the zombie’s arms, and finally, we made it to the next room! After the haunted house, I was surprisingly proud of myself for making up that plan! You have to admit, it was pretty impressive considering I was only five!!!

THE END!!!

“I will get you next Halloween! For I am… The Human Blocker!”


Ghost

Once upon a time there was a ghost who wanted to terrorize people. His name was Jacko, and he was able to go into things and make them grow and shrink. So first, he tried going into a house, and then he made it shrink to a super tiny size. There was a guy inside, and his name was Bob, and he was so scared that he ran and called 911. And then the police showed up, and the chief shot a gun at him, but it went right through him and hit a factory of gasoline which started a huge fire. Then, the firemen showed up, and the ghost ran away because water would kill him.

Next, he went to a wedding. When they were trying to kiss, the ghost stepped in, and they both kissed the ghost instead. Then, a man threw cake at the ghost, and it went right through the cake and hit somebody in the butt!!! The ghost flew to the Elmer’s Glue factory and took some glue. There was someone named Dodoooducky.

Dodoooducky was walking, and then the ghost squirted glue at Dodoooducky’s butt. Then, Dodoooducky sat on the Empire State Building!! He was stuck to the Empire State forever!!!

THE END


The Journey

A young lion, Egghead, was already a leader of his tribe and was so thirsty, but he couldn’t find any lakes.

The lion Egghead set out to find water, but wherever he went, he couldn’t find water.

He came across a zebra and asked the zebra if he knew where to find water.

“In this juicy patch of grass you will find water,” the zebra replied.

Then, for some weird reason, he saw…

A giraffe with a blueberry!!

Just so you know, blueberries were very rare on this side of the world. And they’re the juiciest fruits ever, in my opinion.

And the giraffe had the biggest blueberry ever!!

Egghead woke him up and said, “Hi, do you think I could have some of that blueberry?”

“No, I have a big family,” said the giraffe. “I need to share it with my two grandpas, two grandmas, my wife, three nephews, and two nieces! I’m almost tired just writing to them!”

But even if the giraffe did give Egghead the blueberry, he would have to share it with his two grandpas. “Ugh!” Egghead hated sharing with people. So, he asked, “Where did you find it?”

“I did not find it. I planted it,” the giraffe replied. “Do you know what I will do? I will give you the seed of this blueberry, and it will grow in a few hours.”

“Wow,” Egghead said “When can I have it?”

“Now,” said the giraffe, as he plucked out the seed. The lion immediately leapt on him and grabbed the seed from him and quickly said thank you.

Grinning, he ran away happily looking at his new prize. He ran home as fast as he could, and the minute he came home, he went to his garden as fast as his muscular legs could carry him.

And as soon as he was there, he started digging as fast as he could, and then he quickly covered up the hole. As soon as you could say, “Spaghetti on bread,” night fell. The lion started reading the seed stories and sang it songs. He didn’t get a wink of sleep.

As fast as night fell, morning came. He was sleeping so hard, so the women lions had to hunt instead of him. When he woke up, the women lions were all mad at him.

One said, “Why in the world were you not awake? We had to do all the work.”

“So do you still believe in that useless legend?” asked the women lions.

“Why did you call the legend useless?” asked the Egghead, now raising his voice.

“We, the mighty lions, respect the legend. You don’t dare insult the lion who was the first ever lion on earth. That’s why you are alive now. Because she produced babies — that’s why you are alive,” said the lion whose name was Egghead the Strong.

He liked his family, but inside his head he was thinking, Why has the seed not grown?

But secretly, the blueberry was growing right in his garden, of course, so he decided to check on it. When he got there, he saw that it was too big to keep there, so he cut the blueberry with his razor sharp teeth and divided it into small parts and ate one piece of the blueberry. The women lions were doing their gardening. One of the lions went to check on him, and when she saw the blueberry, she was obviously thrilled and went to fetch the other lions.

The other lions came, one by one, and had the same feeling as the first lion who saw the blueberry. They all tried to dive at the blueberry, but the male lion punched and kicked in each of the female lion’s face, and they tumbled down the hill, all of them black and blue.

Egghead swung himself onto a tree and scraped off a ton of bark, so he could make a fence strong enough to hold a lot of lions and high enough so they couldn’t spy on him. So, back to the story: Egghead had a lot of skills — he tossed the bark into the the air and kicked them into different places. He was screaming, “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” and finally landed. The women lions watched in disgust and soon retreated.

Egghead karate-chopped the air in triumph. He started walking to the Muffin Montoy, the best place to get muffins, and on the way he met Bring the bird who was always traveling around the world.

He asked, “Where are you going, Egghead the strong?”

“I am going to the Muffin Montoy,” Egghead the Strong replied.

So, Egghead finally arrived at the Muffin Montoy, but just when got there, he froze in fear. His biggest archenemy, Engonto the Terrifying, was at the the gate of the Muffin Montoy, stealing muffins from the other animals.

“If you steal in the Muffin Montoy, you go to jail,” Egghead the Strong said, bravely. “Or I unleash my little pet dragon.”

Engonto was now slowing down from all the muffins he had eaten.

“Oh, and you might be sent to the principal,” Egghead said, chewing a pickle and drinking water. “Oh, and also muffins are ubiquitous in the Muffin Montoy world, even in the bathroom.”

Egghead the Strong was feeling very active and wanted to help all the animals and stop Engonto from stealing from the Muffin Montoy. He was making them run out of muffins and draining them out of business.

So, Egghead the Strong decided to whistle out strongly to the speedy snake jailers who would lock him up, but Egghead the Strong needed evidence. So, he took his lean mean freezing machine and froze Engonto and all his muffins.

By the time the speedy snake jailers arrived and saw him, they sneered, “Well, poor little Engonto the Sneaky isn’t so sneaky after all.” And they took him away.

Egghead laughed and ordered the jazz muffin, his favorite muffin ever, and proudly went home singing happily “The Muffin Man.”

He finally reached home very happily, but found the women lions were not there. Egghead found this super peculiar. He figured out that the women lions had started their tree fiber afternoon weaving, and he knew that he was right because they wouldn’t be doing anything else. And he was surprisingly right because he hadn’t memorized the women lions’ schedule of what day they would do that day and what day they would take a break.

It was very hectic because half the time he knew where the women lions were and what they would be doing.

Today was his birthday, and the date was January 25th, 2028, and he was turning 17, so this was his final year of school. After school, he would be heading into college for 12 years because Egghead was doing many courses like fighting, being a doctor, and the course he was most looking forward in college was the secret agent course because he would learn to spy and do many other things, but also the secret agent course was four more courses thought.

So, he eventually found his partner, and he liked his partner, so he built phones for both of them even though they both knew how to make phones.

One day, he was whispering to his partner, and his partner told him that Engonto had broken out of jail… luckily, he got his partner’s message.

Just then he realized something — he didn’t know his partner’s name. So, he called him up and asked him what his name was.

“Slick!” his partner replied.

Today was the big day because he was heading for college, so he started to run fast. He ran nine miles by the time he took a bite of his blueberry and went to sleep.

He had a weird dream that the giraffe was very evil and was trying to kill him. He suddenly awoke with a start, sweating like crazy. He decided that now that he was awake he should get going so he would reach there earlier, but something was stopping him. He thought he didn’t have enough courage to go on, but he was wrong as usual.

He had recently discovered that a big, ugly, fat bee was so close to him. He decided to swat the big, ugly, fat bee, so he still missed, but he was very happy because the big, ugly, fat bee had gone away.

So, he started back on his journey to the Capital. While he was walking, he met his partner, Slick, and asked how far they were from college. He groaned. Slick the Hyena seemed very surprised.

Slick said, “Why, we’re only 900 feet away. Hahahahahahahahahahaha. You’re wrong. Hey, that’s really weird.”

“What’s really weird?” Egghead whispered.

“Egghead, some warts are on your skin,” said Slick. “Oh, and why are you spinning dude?” whispered Slick, confused.

They finally reached The Cats College. First, they signaled to the guards. Then, they walked through the heavy iron doors at the back of the castle.

Clang clang clang clong clang, the huge bells went, as the time turned 12:00 AM.

Yay, it’s lunch time. Oh yeah, because I get muffins,” exclaimed Egghead.

After they entered the iron doors, they saw a miraculous sight — a bunch of eagles swooping down and dive-bombing at least 100 pigs. But Egghead had two majestic black eagles of his own: a male and a female who were about to have babies.

But black eagles are the rarest and most powerful eagles, at least as big as five of the other eagles. So, Egghead let them loose — they made a deafening skreeleech!

All the eagles stopped to look at the eagles, but because eagles can’t hover, they fell down, down, down into complete darkness.

Kaboom!

A fire ball came down into the pit right after the eagles.

A few hours later…

Slick and Egghead were still exploring the huge castle. While they were exploring, they found a lot of eagle nests.

There were so many chicks with so many mother and father eagles, so as soon as they saw Egghead and Slick, they shooed them away like tiny flies.

Crash!

He stumbled upon something. It was a round, hard map preserved in clear plaster for hundreds, no, maybe thousands of years. Before he could do anything, the lunch bell rang.

THE END


Jiggling Giggling

“Golden spring,” said Ms. Giggling. “Better be on my way.” And then there was a big musical, and everyone started singing on the street.

After the musical, everyone said, “Phew, better be on our way.” And everyone started walking to work again.

“Wow,” she said, and she went to work.

As soon as she got in to the office, all the boys thought she was so beautiful. And then, the boys started a musical number, and then Ms. Giggling said, “Ohh, that was so sweet, boys!” And she clapped for them and gave them stickers.

They said, “That’s for children!”

And the boss came in and said, “My goodness, ma’am, I just came in to tell you, you just became so famous that everyone in the world knows you.”

She was one of the most kind people in the whole world, and word had spread. She put her hand on her cheeks and said, “Oh boy! Does that mean I get to leave work?”

And he said, “Well yes, of course!”

Ms. Giggling said, “Yippee!” and ran out of the building, all the way back home, and threw her clothes into the hamper and started falling asleep. Two minutes later, a lot of her fans came in wearing shirts with her face on them. The door was unlocked!

All her fans started saying, “Wake up! Wake up!”

She noticed she was naked and covered herself and said, “Get out of here!” Everyone laughed.

Everybody started talking. Ms. Giggling was worried she was probably not famous anymore, but she did not know someone took a picture of her naked and sent it to the news station!!! The next day, she woke up and wanted to get the news on the front step of her home. And right on the spot, she saw that picture of that old naked person. She could not believe her eyes when she saw it. She really had a bad night. She began crying her heart out.

Her friend came to the door — she felt bad for Ms. Giggling. “What is wrong?” she asked.

“I cannot explain! Is this the wrong reaction to not being famous anymore?” wailed Ms. Giggling.

“Yes, I joked you into telling me what is wrong,” her friend said.

“Ha ha, very funny,” she said. (She lied.)

Then, her friend said, “Tell me more.”

“I am fine, thank you!” Ms. Giggling replied.
The friend said, “Fine, I will leave you alone.”

Now reader, if you noticed they, um, they, um, stayed apart for a few months. She had other friends that noticed what was going on. She was pretty lonely and now, my reader, it is the end of her friendship for now. Later, the friend came back, and Ms. Giggling gave her a mad look.

She turned her face into a sorry one and said, “I know you had a bad day the other day. I am very sorry, but you just cannot take it out on your friends. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Mrs. Giggling, and now my readers it is…

The End


When Hot Dogs Take Over the World

Written in 3018

Hi! I’m Beatrice! I write books about things that could happen in the future. Everyone must be prepared. The beginning of my story always starts with the object I’m talking about. This story should prepare you for when… hot dogs take over the world!

(This story is not fictional.)

When hot dogs take over the world, here are some things you need to know. If you are eating food right now, stop!!! When hot dogs take over the world, the only way to escape them is to eat the hot dogs. If you are eating, you are a threat to the universe. If you have ever eaten before but you are not a threat to the universe, you are a threat to the world. You have to save space for all those hot dogs. Another thing is that now, every night, you must carry a knife to bed to fight off the hot dogs in the middle of the night. Also, hot dogs hate backpacks, so anyone who has a backpack could possibly die. In that case, anyone who’s reading this should hand me their backpack right now. They also hate pillows. And jackets. And snacks. All those things should be handed to me right now. This is not a scam. Another thing hot dogs don’t like is cars and money. And you should also give me the world. Hot dogs are taking over the storyworld, so they must not like it. That’s the end of my story, but my life isn’t over, so my personal story continues.

Beatrice!!! You are once again late, and this time I will not tolerate it!!! You are three quarters fired, young lady!”

That’s my not best friend, Ashley. She thinks she’s the boss of everyone. She publishes, edits, types, and receives money for the stories I write. Whenever I’m late, she fires me three quarters. Now I’m down to two tenths. Ashley claims that I never contribute to my stories and that’s why I never get paid. But I do!!! Ashley is such a two-faced butthead! I hate her. No. In fact, I hate Ashley. If I could dump someone into a trash compactor, it would be her. And then there’s Sunny. Sunny is my cat. My talking cat. Sunny is everything to me. I come after a very, very, very, very, very long lecture by Ashley. Look at the size of that font. Then times it by the biggest number you can think of. Argh. But the worst part is, when I got home, I saw that my dad had left me a hot dog. He had also left me a note in his scribbly, fancy handwriting. It said… it said… I didn’t have time to think about it, because just then, something hit me in the head, and everything went black. Dun dun dun…

Chapter Two

I woke up in a big, fat, smelly room. Someone was standing over me, and I felt scared. Wait a second. That wasn’t a person! That was a hot dog! Then I remembered. I had forgotten to take off my backpack! No! I was about to die, and it was all my dad’s fault. Then, I heard a small purring sound. Sunny! Yes! I tugged at the hot dog. Then, a layer of the hot dog came off revealing… a person! And it wasn’t any old person, it was Ashley!

“Ashley! What are you doing at my house in a hot dog suit at MIDNIGHT?!”

“Okay, okay! Yeesh! Chill out! I was just looking for the hot dog story, so I could type it!”

“In a hot dog suit?” I say.

“Okay, I was trying to scare you. I thought maybe if I scared you, you would quit writing stories, and I could take all the credit without having to feel bad about it!”

“Yeah… No. I would never quit writing stories, it’s my life!” I said.

“But… but… ” stammered Ashley. Suddenly, Sunny jumped on Ashley. “Help! Get your stupid cat offa me! Are you crazy?!”

“No way!” I said.

“Fine! Type your own stupid stories! ‘Cause I QUIT!”

I was astonished. Ashley picked up the hot dog costume and threw it onto my bedroom floor.

Chapter Three

The next day at school, I noticed a girl at lunch sitting all alone. I felt exactly the same, so I came over and introduced myself.

She looked up at me and quietly said, “I’m Maya. I just moved here from Japan.”

“That’s so cool!” I said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Japan!”

Maya looked up at me. “Really? I thought people would tease me about it.”

“No way!” I said. “I know millions of kids who’d love to meet you. Also, I write stories. Would you like to help me write one? I’m almost finished, but I could use some help.”

“Really?” asked Maya.

“Yeah! We can work on it at my house after school.”

“Let’s be best friends!” Maya said.

“Okay,” I said.

Finally! A friend besides Sunny! A whole new chapter of my life was beginning to unfold. And I couldn’t wait to get started.

The end

The Invasion of the Good Boyes


(Any misspelling is on purpose)

Once upon a time, there was a very thicc boye….. He was a lonely boye, and he wanted new doggo frens, so he did a sacred doggo ritual… Bork bork space boyes come be my fren am lonely boye!!!

And the space boyes came. The space boyes had called the lonely boye and said they had arrived. Lonely boye was so happ. But then the hoomans thought the space boyes had come to take over, so they tried to attack and failed. All doggos of every kind had seen this as war. So, they sent the whole doggo army to attack the hoomans. The doggos had come. The hoomans also did come. Some went to hide in shelters. The doggos attacked! They had a long fight with the hoomans and won. The hoomans had failed the first battle. The doggos are confident they will win the war, after all, aren’t doggos the superior race? Be quiet, yes they are. The doggos began their invasion in Africa. Since they are good boyes, they wanted to help the poor people in Africa. The Africans actually agreed to become part of the doggo empire! But not the governments. The dictators and presidents of Africa’s countries did not agree. And they tried to attack the doggos! But they failed. Another victory for the doggos! And a loss for the hoomans.

So now the doggos have taken over Africa and are now going for Asia. They attempt an invasion and fail! But how?! It is China and Russia, some of the most powerful countries in the world, but then the doggos have a new ally, a long lost brother to return… Gabe the Dog!!! The legendary Gabe!!! Now the doggos have a god himself on their side! They successfully invade Asia, then Oceania, then Europe! The doggos now have control of half the world! But now there is a problem. To get to the Americas, the doggos must swim, but they don’t know how! But they have a special force called… the Swim Swom Boyes! They swim! And they swom! As hard as they can across the Atlantic! And invade the Americas! Canada likes doggos, so they become part of the doggo empire with no problem. But the rest of the Americas put up a fight. Some people even join the doggos to invade the Earth! The swim swom boyes do the best they can! And they succeed! The swim swom boyes have finished the war to take over the world! The people of planet Earth now begin to like being under doggo rule, and so a new era of world peace begins. Also new language called Bork.

Bork.

The Rebellion

Ten years under doggo rule, hoomans are having a good time under doggo rule, a new era of world peace, better food, but new language that was easy to learn anyway! But… there are some people that do not enjoy doggo rule. They are called the bad boyes in doggo language. They come from across the world and have come together to take back the world from the doggos, but the doggos do not like them, so they fire a pointy thing, wait no that’s a big boye, or a rocket that is supposed to explode into a big mushroom. So, they fired it at the Rebellion Command Center or RCC. But the big boye was hacked and landed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The doggos were angery, so they sent the entire doggo army to invade the RCC.

Again… Wait no I said it in English. Knock knock.

“FBI OPEN UP!!!” AAA —

A few years after my prison sentence…

Bork bork bork bork bork. Bork bork, bork bork. The Bad Boyes had already taken over Africa and Oceania. The doggos there have been imprisoned. The doggos do not deserve such punishment. After all, they are some of the goodest boyes. But then the Rebellion won, and the peace treaty said all the hoomans that wanted to go back home with the doggos could go, but the doggos had to return to their home planet of thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverses.

So, the doggos left, and a lot of hoomans with them, and they got in their big spaceships and went to thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverses.

I went with them.

The doggos said, “Bork bork, bork bork bork bork bork, bork.”

Translation: We will arrive to thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverses in about a month. It is very far, but we will make it, and you will all be given homes and government support. After three years, the government support will end, and you will be on your own.

The New World

We had arrived in the doggo world. They were very welcoming. One of them gave me a cookie that said Bork. We got free starter homes and help from the government. It seemed the doggo world had already gained world peace. It was very clean and futuristic, just like the books and movies, though we would have to get used to the new language. The planet was just like Earth, just the continents were shaped different, the native population is all doggos, and there is one language that dominates. Turns out, these doggos have interesting history. There were many civil wars and wars between different clans, but then, the supreme clan bork, had taken over.

It seems the supreme clan bork has had many support from across thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse, and its culture has spread across thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse. It seems on this world Atheism is illegal, so I should convert to Borkism, and start worshiping Gabe the Dog, and besides, I want to convert to Borkism! But first, I must learn about it.

I’m at the library of Borkism, looks like there are more gods in Borkism, like Doge, and it seems there is a Satan in Borkism, and his name is… Cade!

Okay well, time to go to bed, so I’ll see you next week.

The Hooman Invasion

Once upon a time, there was me, in my room, watching BorkTube, when suddenly: pew pew, pew pew bom. Somebody was invading the city! But it could not be other doggos, since there was one doggo clan that rules the planet. I went to my window, and I saw: hoomans! The hoomans were invading thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse! The doggo army was fighting as hard as they could, and even the Bom Bum boyes had come! This was very serious, but the doggo army held off, so all the doggo people and I could escape. Luckily, we escapes, not my chocolate bar though. (Moment of silence for the chocolate bar pls.)

R.I.P. chocolate bar.

Okay, back to story… So, hoomans, invasion, doggos hold off, what’s next? Oh, just thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse blowing up. Yea, that’s right, blown to smithereens, by the evil hoomans! Luckily, the citizens escaped with the doggo army, the doggos (and me) were very angery. So, we simply went to planet Earth and invaded it. And we took every bit. No more hoomans. Only doggos and good boy hoomans alive! So yea like we invaded the Earth and like removed hoomans from power, now doggos rule everything.

Victory

So, since the doggo army invaded the Earth, and thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse was destroyed, the doggo leaders decided the doggo empire’s capital will move to the Earth. It was nice to be home, even though the cleanup was still going on. Some hoomans from before the invasion began liking doggo rule, just like the ones that came back with the doggos. But sadly, the story must end here. Maybe one day the doggos will return, maybe one day the hoomans will rise again, or maybe a new player will join the game. We will never know.

Bork

Extras

Explanation if your confuzzled:

Doggos are descendants of the Doge, which is a descendant of the Dog.

Only some Doggos have glasses. Also, there is not only one type of doggo in this story, there are all different types of Doggo, but, they are all considered Doggos because it would be too confuzzling to call them a bunch of different things, but for example if there was a Sh00berino, he would be considered a Doggo but still is considered a Sh00berino.

The cattos are watching.


The Night of the Hamsaurus

On a dark, stormy night in the hamster factory, one worker who was working late on robo-hamsters named Fred was minding his own beeswax when he suddenly heard a loud boom! And evil laughter. Fred looked behind him only to come face to face with a tall hamster looking thing with a hamster body and dinosaur head. Then after another loud boom, Fred was never seen again. Mwa ha ha ha ha!

But then two years later, a brave shoe named Tom wanted to see what happened to poor Fred, so he headed toward the now abandoned factory. It started raining once he got there. Lightning boomed as the door creaked open — suddenly, smoke started coming out of the 50-year-old chimneys. As he walked in, a loud scream filled the air. Suddenly, Tom was filled with the dreaded feeling — fear! Once Tom stepped in, the huge doors slammed shut! Terrified Tom tried forcing the doors open, but he couldn’t because he had no hands. Suddenly, another loud scream filled the air.

Tom turned around to see who made it, but all he could see was darkness. Suddenly determined to get out of the factory alive, he hopped into the darkness.

“MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!”

“Who’s there?!” Tom shouted into the darkness.

“Not telling,” said the same voice. “Come and get me.”

“Come and get me! Show yourself,” shouted Tom.

“Okay,” said the voice, and then suddenly a 10 foot tall monster stepped out of the shadows. It

had the head of the hamster and the body of a dinosaur. “I am the Hamsaurus.”

“AAAAAAAAAAA!” screamed Tom.

“Hello, dinner,” said the Hamsaurus.

“AAAAAAAAAAA!” screamed Tom. “I’m too young to die! I’ve only been on 426 feet!”

“You’ll taste very nice in a pie,” said the Hamsaurus.

“No!” screamed Tom,

“With extra pickle juice. A shoe pie with pickle juice,” replied the Hamsaurus.

“NOO!” screamed Tom, as the Hamsaurus picked him up and walked away.

Tom felt scared and bad as he was being carried off. He tried fighting the Hamsaurus, but it was

hard because he had no hands.

“Oh, shut up,” said the Hamsaurus.

“AAAAAAAAAAAA!” screamed Tom. The last thing he saw was a fist flying towards his head then he blacked out.

When he woke up, he was tied to a stick, and the stick was over a fire. It was really, really, really, really hot, and it smelled like burnt stick. Tom felt as if his brain was melting, but it was dumb because he didn’t have a brain because he was a shoe. He looked around the room and spotted the Hamsaures making some kind of stew. Then, Tom spotted a strange box in the corner of the room that was marked, TNT. Suddenly a plan formed in his non-existent mind.

He called out to the Hamsaures, “I need to go to the bathroom,” which was also dumb because he was a shoe.

Apparently the Hamsaures wasn’t very smart because he said, “Okay,” then untied Tom and threw him into a dirty, small, strange looking bathroom that had a half-eaten toilet.

Tom stayed in there for ten seconds and started to creep back into the main room which was much nicer than this strange, tiny toilet. After making sure the Hamsaures didn’t see him, he went over to the box of TNT and moved it a bit closer to the fire. He took a stick off the ground and crept over to the fire and set the stick on fire. Then, he crept back to the box of TNT and was about to set it on fire when the Hamsaures caught him…

Dun dun dunnn…

The Hamsaures started running towards Tom, but Tom was quick and kicked the stick onto the box of TNT.

The Hamsaures stopped, dumbfounded, and stared at the box saying, “Bu… bu… bu… but… !”

Tom smiled then heard a really, really, really, really, really, really, really loud boom!!! Then, he was shot to the sky by a huge explosion that was way too big to come from a little box of TNT. It launched Tom all the way to a different country, where he smooshed a hotdog that was about to kill a pillow named Pilo. Then, he hopped away.

Later that day, Tom heard that the factory was blown to smithereens, and the only remains of it was the skull of an odd Hamster looking thing. Tom smiled at the sky, knowing that the Hamsaures wouldn’t be seen again for another 4,468 years. But Tom wouldn’t be around then, so he didn’t care.

The End (for now). Dun dun duh.


Adventures of Hazel Hollyblade

Hazel Hollyblade awoke with a start. Someone was knocking on the door of her little house beside the colorful Delesquari Fields next to the ocean. Red, pink, blue, and purple flowers bloomed, and the fields seemed like an endless rainbow of color, and as Hazel got up to change into a dress, she saw a woman with raven black hair and a rather uncomfortable-looking black and white dress uniform standing near the doorway.

It was Laira, the head commander. Moments later, Hazel opened her door in an emerald green dress that fell to her knees. Gold streaked down her dress and ended in flowers on the border, and the silk swirled around her legs. Her tights felt warm, and brown hair tumbled down her back.

“A monster has broken loose from the prisons!” Laira blurted out hurriedly. “The queen would like to see you.”

Hazel nodded excitedly before reaching out to the saddle gear and mounting her horse, Macadamia. This could be her big chance to actually work as a team with Great Commander Laira. As they rode across the dirt path, the salty sea breeze mixed with the sweet smelling flowers made a wonderful aroma. Once they reached the palace, Hazel dismounted and walked to the queen. She was wearing a white dress with a long red leather coat.

Without even looking, the snowy haired queen said with a regal expression, “You know your job. Now go do it.”

“Yes, Queen Dewri,” said Hazel. She knew that she was supposed to be in the Inner Circle, guarding the Sundew Tribe’s sacred mango tree while the warriors got to fight on the Outer Circle. The OC (Outer Circle) would always defeat the monster before the IC (Inner Circle) could do anything.

She took her place in between her friends, Fern and Lily. Fern had wavy brown hair and was wearing a green dress. Lily had straight dark blonde hair that fell over her shoulders and was wearing a white dress tinged with pink around the edges and a petal shaped bottom.

“I wonder what the monster is like?” pondered Fern nervously. Fern was always very nervous, while Lily was more practical.

“Probably some big, scary, gruesome monster,” sneered Violet, who loved to scare others. Her short cropped black hair and dark purple dress fluttered in the warm breeze. Shy Asphodel said nothing. Asphodel was wearing an indigo dress and had wavy black hair that tumbled down her back.

Suddenly, they spotted a shadow lumbering towards them. Hazel readied her stun sword that was safer than a regular electric sword.

“Who’s that?” wondered Lily.

As it came closer, Hazel gasped. Violet and Fern ran away on the spot. Asphodel and Hazel stepped forward while Lily and the rest of the others stepped back. Another girl named Heather also stepped forward.

Heather had dark brown hair that was tied into a braid and wore a light purple blouse and skirt. The monster had a lion’s head, dragon wings, and scaly legs. His tail whipped back and forth like a whip, the ends curving into a stinging scorpion tail. Hazel jumped towards the monster as Heather and Asphodel flanked the sides.

The monster blew out a cloud of mist, and Hazel could hear a deep voice bellow, “Me is Sharptooth!”

Hazel swung blindly and felt her blade connect with the edge of Sharptooth`s tail. Sharptooth howled in anger as his tail went numb and all the power drained out of it. As Hazel swung and slashed, she could hear Heather and Asphodel fighting too. Suddenly, as Hazel was about to swing down on the monster, she heard Asphodel shouting, “Stop!” Hazel leaped down from Sharptooth.

“What?” she questioned.

“I called the Monster Control. They’ll be here any moment now since they were too scared to come here in the first place,” Asphodel replied. They walked to Heather, and all three of them skipped over to the palace to tell the queen that they had defeated Sharptooth.

Once the queen heard the news, she was delighted.

“For this, you can all be in the outer circle!” Queen Dewri cried, smiling. Hazel looked at her friends and her bullies, and she thought of the uniform, the endless fighting, and the loss of her friends if she went to the OC. When she looked at Asphodel and Heather, Hazel could tell that they had come to the same decision.

“Nah,” said Hazel. “I think I’ll pass.”

Her friends gaped at her, but Asphodel and Heather were nodding. As Queen Dewri dismissed them, and they walked out, laughing and chittering like raccoons, Hazel felt… content.

A few months later…

“Hazel!” Heather called, peeking into her friend’s dusty cabin. “Hazel?” She wasn’t there.

“Woohoo!!!” shouted a voice nearby.

Heather rushed around the corner to find Hazel riding Macadamia the horse onto a hill. Heather smiled as her best friend zipped down the hill and out into the endless fields of Heavenly Plains.

My Swim Test Adventure

As the bugle faintly blurred out, so did my heart. It was time for my swim test. As I walked through the grass, I saw my friend Georgia. She was headed for the lake. She had a smile on her face and her towel in her hand. I slowly caught up to her. She was very excited because she was going swimming. Then when I said that we were having our swim test, her smile turned into a frown. She said she was worried she was not going to pass.

When I saw that she was frowning, I quickly tried to cheer her up by saying, “You’re a really good swimmer. I think you’re going to pass.”

She said, “Thanks,” and ran to get on line.

When I got changed into my bathing suit, I felt I had the power to change my swimming life forever. On my way to the lake, somebody gave me a clip with my name, Jules Alemany, on it. I put my clip on lane two, and then I hopped on the dock. I felt it shaking. So did my brain. I was going crazy. I thought I was going to make it, but I realized I wasn’t.

I couldn’t hop back on land before I hopped back into my lane. My swim instructor or counselor or whatever you want to say said that her name was “Elise” or “Alice.” I couldn’t tell because my ears were full of water.

Then, she said, “Let’s begin.”

The first thing that we had to do was show her what strokes we could do, back and forth. The seaweed was touching my legs, and it felt like it was pulling me down. I was freaking out. Next we had to do five long breaststrokes without breathing. Then, we had to tread water for five minutes, and it was killing me. Instead of treading, I was floating, and I didn’t realize it.

My counselor was looking at me and said, “That’s floating, not treading.” And I knew I wasn’t going to pass.

Next, we had to do the dead-man’s float for five minutes, and I couldn’t do it. Every time I tried to go up for air, my hair got in my face, and it stopped me from floating. The last part, I could not do. I had to float on my back for five minutes. After all the stuff I had to do, I was exhausted. After, when I got out of the water, I put my stuff back and went to change back into my clothes.

When I got out to go and sit and wait for the bugle to blow, the instructor said, “Wait, you didn’t pass. I’m sorry.”

I felt a wave of sadness coming on, but could not let it show, so I pushed it away. I was lucky because next was rest hour, so I went back to my tent and started to think. What did I do wrong? As I thought, I was wondering what my mom and family would think. As I thought that, my eyes felt like crying, but this time I did not hold them in. I let them out.

The next day, I was walking to breakfast. I was so sad I tripped on something shiny. It might have been a rock, but I still took a glimpse of it… I knew it! It said Time Machine, so I picked it up, shoved it in my pocket, and headed to breakfast. I knew that it was a toy and not a real time machine. After breakfast, I quickly took it out and started to investigate.

I noticed that there was a line that you could open at the back, so I did and found a bunch of buttons. I started typing, and all of a sudden, I remembered my swim test, so I said, — while I was pressing the button, which I did not know was the speaker button — “Wow! I really failed on that swim test.” All of a sudden, I felt super dizzy, and I fainted. Everything blacked out.

I felt something touching my head. I opened my eyes slowly, and I saw Piper and Jane, two of my counselors, saying, “Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?”

“Yeah yeah,” I said as I got up from the ground. “I just — wait — what? Where am I?”

“Uhh, you’re at your swim test,” said Piper.

Jane was so worried. She asked me, “Do you want to go to the Mary Nap?” That’s the nurse’s office.

I said, “No, I’m okay. Let’s get swimming!” I just remembered. I could help myself. Because I wasn’t actually there, I could fake it and also get an awesome grade for my swim test, and I would still pass.

Then, they said, “Everyone watch Jane do the examples, and I am going to be speaking while Jane acts it out.” I couldn’t stop staring at her bathing suit — it was atrocious. As she did her example, I was worried. I didn’t want to change the timeline. But I said to myself, Hey, at least I’ll get an A on my grade. I still had that sick feeling in my stomach I wasn’t going to pass.

But I stuck to my gut, and I said, “No, I can do this.” When it was my turn, I got up, and I walked to the lake. I changed my clip to lane two because that’s where I was swimming. Then, I hopped into the lake and began.

It was freezing cold, but I was ready. Once I adjusted to the water, it was not that bad. So, I listened to what the counselors were trying to tell me, and I started to do what they said. I did the strokes, then the breaststroke, the five minutes of treading, and finally I got on my back and did the dead-man’s float. But guess what happened? I got on my stomach and did the dead-man’s float! It wasn’t very hard, so I just kept doing it. I didn’t hear them because my ears were underwater — but what I did hear was, “GRRRLIA! GGRLIA! GT OUTTA THWATER!”

When I put my head up to see what was happening, everyone was in a circle around my lane trying to drag me because they thought I was drowning. I got up and said, “I’m fine! I’m fine!”

But they all were like, “We need the medics, guys!”

At that time, I was thinking, Man I really want to go home. Wait — am I at home? Wait, no I’m not. I’m back in time. I didn’t know where I was. I was lost in the lake. I wanted to get out. I wanted to go back… I wanted to redo it.

I hopped out, and I ran. I ran and I ran and I ran. And then I tripped. I fell on something shiny. Wait — I just remembered, didn’t I do that an hour ago? I picked it up — I found it — it was the time machine. But wait, if I did this, would it change the timeline? I took my chance.

I picked it up, pressed it, and said, “Normal timeline.”

Poof! Everything went black.

I saw the future. Wow, it looked different. Hold on, wait, this wasn’t my timeline — why did I say, “Normal timeline?” I should have said, “2018, 12:05, going to lunch.” I was searching and searching. I couldn’t find the time machine. What happened to it? Wait, was I stuck here forever? I felt terrible and lonely. I wanted my mommy.

I was laying on a concrete floor. It was super uncomfortable. Wait — if I said normal timeline and it didn’t bring me home, where was I really? Was this the normal timeline? Was I an alien? As I ran and ran, I saw nothing but tall black and white and purple buildings. But there was nothing in front of me, so how could I be seeing that? I didn’t know. But what I did know was I just ran into something. I was sitting on the floor — I think I twisted my ankle. Something went wrong, but there was nothing in front of me. So, I tried to stand up, but I fell right back down. My ankle hurt really bad, so I touched the invisible wall, and it was curvy.

I tried crawling around the wall, but it felt like it was a never-ending wall. So I went back — wait, I couldn’t go back. My back was stuck on something, and the walls were closing in. What was it? I had to get out. So, I tried pushing myself up and up and up. I felt an opening, so I took it. I jumped and landed in one of the buildings. There were weird chairs, and it looked like I was in a hospital because it had drips, bandages, shots, and needles everywhere, as well as lots of hand sanitizer. There was one person that looked like my mom, so I ran and I hugged it, but it stabbed me in the back. Then, I realized there was no blood coming out of me, and the not-my-mom paralyzed me and put me in one of the weird chairs, strapped me down, and put something over my mouth that made me go to sleep.

I woke up, and I was still in the chair, but I was in my timeline. So, I tried getting out, but then there was that lady that looked like my mom again, except she wasn’t really there. She had the time machine in her hand, and she started talking.

“Did you use the time machine to change the past? You can’t do that anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “Can I get out of here please? I’m really freaked out. I want to go home.”

The lady said, “Which home? Camp home, where you were when you used the time machine? Or home home, like in Colorado?”

I said, “Camp home, where I was. I’m really sorry — I’ll never use the time machine again. What was that thing?”

She said, “It’s a secret high tech technology. I’ll grant you one wish if you promise to never use any high tech technology that our people make ever again.”

I said, “Okay — please take me home — camp home I mean.”

The lady said, “Okay. Good night.” And she put the mouth thing on me again. I went to sleep, and I woke up. I was home in the exact place I was at camp, heading to lunch. Wow, I will never use that thing again.

THE END