“Nothing. Just gray. Panic took control of me. Why did we have to drive at night? What if we were driving off a cliff? I was close to tears on the high mountain. My mom tried to put on a reassuring smile, but it was clearly fake. I squeezed her hand so tightly, it hurt for me as well. My sister was the navigator, and my dad was the driver.”
“I say the blessing and take the shamash./
I light from right to left until all the candles glow.”
“‘Twas the night before Halloween
And all through the sky
Phantoms do soar
Both low and high
Pale as moonlight”
“‘George,’ Mom said. Mom had black hair. She was always smiling. She only wore purple and yellow dresses. Today, she was wearing a purple and yellow dress because that was the only thing she wore.
‘Why do we have to go to the stupid hotel?’ George asked.
‘You know, your father wants to go to this hotel really badly,’ Mom said.
“A package appeared in front of Lillie’s door in the middle of the night. She was very confused. Why would someone send me a package at 12:00? She opened the package and there was a stuffed puppy. Lillie took the puppy and went back up to bed, although she could not fall asleep. Who sent it? Why in the middle of the night? Why a puppy?”
“About 5 million years ago, a mermaid lived in a cool town filled with short buildings with fancy carvings and beautiful mosaics. She swam through the fake blue water until she got to her father, the King.”
“Roster lived in New York City, and he loved it there. He had black fur and blue eyes. His best friends were a hamster named Peanut, a cat named Charlie, and the leader of the pack, who was called Rex. Peanut was all light brown with light brown eyes, and Charlie was black and white with blue eyes.”
“And that’s not the only reason she’s strange either. She has the height and slightly rebellious posture of an eleven-year-old but wearing a trench coat made for a 50-year-old brooding detective with a high collar she’s keeping tightly wrapped around her neck, so it’s totally concealed. Though her position exposes her wrists–which are completely covered with bruises and tiny cuts. She’s also barefoot.”
‘”EMMA!’ said a voice so strong in my head that I woke up in fear.
‘MOM!’ I said, frantically getting up from my bed. My mom went storming in my room, opening the door. She opened it so loud that I felt my blood go up and down, up and down.
‘What, Emma?’ said my mom. Her voice sounded like she did not know what to do right now. Her clothes were stained with… hmm, cold water? I think she spilled water while she was getting up here.”
One day, there was a fairy named Lilac. She lived in a cottage in the woods. Most of the stuff she owned, she had made herself. One day, she received a letter from the fairies. They wanted to send her to help the Kingdom of Fairies. The fairies knew that Lilac solved a lot of puzzles, so they knew she was smart. She rushed to her room to pack. She packed a flashlight, clothes, shoes, a notepad, and a pencil.
“The bright stars battle the moon, which hovers above the dark wavy canvas./
Ripples strike the water, taking over the world.”
“Josie Anderson was running away from something unimaginable. She was running away in the Smith Forest, North of Elf Creek. She was running and running and then… splash! She fell into the river. She swam and swam for days. She didn’t know where she was going. She was hungry and cold… but she did not care at all. All she felt was the rumbling of it coming. She felt it stop, so she came out of the lake — a creek now, a creek that was labeled on all the maps.”
“The wind whistled by my face as the waves trashed the ship around. From the bars of my cell and the small window I could see through, we seemed to be in the open sea — no one around to hear my cries for help. The ship jerked to the left, knocking me off the tiny chair that sat in the cell.”
“It was a normal Saturday, and I was taking a walk around town running some errands.
‘Hi Kiki,’ said the baker. ‘By the way, a girl stopped in here and wanted to know where you live. She said her name was Maya.’
How funny, I thought. I don’t know anyone named Maya.”
‘Then, the roof of the house flew off because of the tornado, and that’s how I got here. What is this place called?’ I asked.
He replied, ‘Oh, this place is Champion Island, where there are masters of different games, and there are teams that are trying to beat them.’
“Rocky ran into the woods to get away from his dad. He went so deep into it that he got into a clearing. In the clearing was the very first dinosaur ever to be discovered. Its name was The Dinosaurus Alpha. It was carnivorous and very dangerous but its appearance was simple!”
“I haven’t been what I pictured for as long as I lived. I always pictured myself talking to people and being perfect.”
‘”Zeke, Emma, Timea! Wake up! It’s time for breakfast,’ Mom said.
‘Ok, coming!’ said the kids.
The kids ran downstairs.
‘Honey, can you serve them breakfast? I have to go get dressed. Don’t stay in your PJs on the couch all day,’ Mom said.”
“Olivia and Cathie were hanging clothes up for customers when Maline came bursting out of breath saying, ‘Victory!'”
“As I walked along the trail, I could hear the crunch of leaves and the singing of birds. I had always loved hiking and went hiking whenever I could. Snap! I tripped on a twig and fell face-forward into the leaf litter. Phew, at least the leaves saved me, I thought, and then I was jerked upward. I tried to scream for help, but no sound came out.”
“Night has lots of lamps/
Some that shouldn’t even be on/
But there is one as bright as night/
It lights the world.”
“Moonlight streamed through the open curtains and spilled into the room, penetrating its darkness and washing it with silver. The night had grown warmer in the past couple of hours, and the window was thrown wide open in an attempt to draw any kind of breeze in, but there was none. The scent of the roses from the courtyard below was heavy and sweet, drifting up from the gardens to sit sluggishly in the room.”
“It was just another snowy morning in Minnesota. Anna woke up. She immediately turned on the radio. ‘The schools that have snow days today are West Bridge school, Martin Luther King School of fine arts, Lakeside Middle school, Riverview Middle school, and Oakland Elementary school!’
‘Yes!’ Anna screamed.”
“Once upon a time in the 1500s, there is Gus. Gus is a water dragon, and there are other dragons, but there’s also the sunlight god, Tarima. If you see him in your village, then you’re a goner.”
“‘Hello, hello, hello, Beatrizz,’ Bo said, strutting up to his future wife. ‘Wassup, yo?’ These were the good ol’ days when Botros was a decent (mind, I said decent, not good) person.”
“If there was such a thing as the most lonely yet serene moment, this would be it. The glowing signs of stores and restaurants, the wind flowing through her curly, blonde hair, the memories of what was once a bustling city. How could so much destruction occur in so little time?”
“I was lost. I mean, you can’t blame me. The streets of D.C. are more like a maze than a couple of roads. If you hadn’t guessed, I’m an alley cat. I don’t have a name, but I’ve been called a scoundrel and the like. I have no idea why.”
“Three minutes before the house broke down, Amelia had to get out of the broken house. It looked like a scary mansion. Nobody was there. It was just cracked mirrors and wood. The ground was shaking and the house was about to break, but a fire was outside. She had to get out or she was going to get burnt. The house was about to collapse in 3, 2, 1.”
“Alien Joe lives in Zagburn. Alien Joe has big eyes and can swim in boiling water. Zagburn is a hot planet. It’s 400 degrees, which is why the aliens are all made of water. They’re exactly 65% water. It rains fire on planet Zagburn. The aliens survive in a bunch of water houses that are stabled by gravity so they don’t collapse. Zagburnians have hands that look like mustaches, but they’re not brown. It’s like a blue mustache. They’re actually pretty tall, they’re about 67 and ¾ inches.”
“One day, when the sun was up and hot, Ali the snake was slithering in the desert as usual. Right then, he heard that the latest book was coming out and it had only one copy! He slithered straight to the library only to see that everybody was leaving.”
“Jonathan’s summer was only one day in when his parents sent him to sleepaway camp for the whole summer, right until the day before 6th grade started. He preferred staying home and playing video games rather than trying to catch fish in the middle of nowhere. He decided it couldn’t be so bad. Instead of trying to make excuses not to go, he went straight to the camping store called John’s Way To Nature.”
“My mom was making me walk through the streets of South Africa. My dad had gotten a new job so we moved from New York to South Africa and now I didn’t have any friends. Suddenly, as I was about to turn back and head home, I saw something that made me jump. It was a baby penguin being attacked by a seagull. Before I knew it, I was running at the seagull and screaming, and then the seagull flew away.”
“Smiling, eating sweets in Central Park/
Before it became quite dark.”
“PIZZA
Warm, mouth-watering pizza./
With cheese and tomatoes and all the good stuff./
Pizza, with its smell, its taste… ”
“It came out of nowhere and changed many lives./
We were all living within a lie./
With cases climbing higher and higher./
Masks became most people’s new attire.”
I sat, watching the sunset with Beetle.
Two hours earlier I’d read her a story that I’d written, where a girl’s mom dies and she’s found by the queen and becomes a princess, but then the queen almost gets assasinated, but they flee and live happily ever after. When I’d said, ‘The End,’ and asked if she liked it, she’d squirmed.
“Many moons ago, there were two colors named Blue and Turquoise. They both claimed to be the color of the sky.”
“I would come home from school
And my mother would smile at me in her best smile
I miss that smile
I miss it very much”
“The burrow is a city on a planet that floats just at the boundaries of a black hole.
It is sometimes on the ground and sometimes in the sky*1.
It can fly and has lots of entrances.
One entrance is the gate.
Most people enter the burrow from the gate.”
“Jack was 15 years old and he loved to play soccer. One day, he went to the park to shoot goals against his brother, Miller.
Miller was the goalkeeper.”
“Sam got another fail on his English work. He started to get furious. He really, really, really now wanted to get A+’s on his English and art classes, but then the teacher said, ‘Next test is going to get really, really hard.'”
“Tommy groaned as he sat down in his cage. He looked at Joseph, who was playing with his toys as if they were the best things in the world. Joseph was a little brown rat that had a light pink nose and tiny little whiskers. He was like the opposite of Tommy in every single way.
Tommy was a black mouse with a light brown nose and long whiskers. See what I mean?”
“What are Ortho-K lenses? They are lenses that you wear at night. Every night, the lenses correct your eyesight, and in the morning you have the best eyesight possible. Although they’re expensive (about $2,000 – $4,000 dollars and plus the cost of equipment), kids should definitely wear these lenses.”
“One day, a girl named Giselle came along and found a secret door in the woods. It was locked, so she looked in the bushes and she saw the key. She unlocked the door before she went in, and she looked around and saw her sister, Sydney. She said, ‘Sydney, come quick!’ and ran as fast as she could.”
“One day, I was at a bar and the entire place suddenly lit on fire. I escaped just in time, but the others weren’t as lucky.
The next day, I woke up and went to work as normal. But then I started randomly teleporting. And there were constantly flames on top of my hands.”
“I lie in the grass. I do not remember a single thing. A figure walks up to me. I shut my eyes. I wake up in a bed. 20 people are looking at me. A strong, bald guy helps me out of bed and then asks how I got here.”
“It felt like a nightmare. Maybe it was. Or maybe it never happened at all. By the time you finish reading, you’ll know what I mean.”
“Black is lifeless, death./
Black tastes like chocolate, but also sour and disgusting./
Black is like a wither and its rose.”
“Once, there was a girl named Izumi, and she was an orphan. She missed her parents a lot, and she had only one thing left of them: an emerald ring. Her parents had told her that it would lead her to her freedom, but for the past four years, she had been living on the side of the road, and nothing good ever happened to her.”
“Ruby was born right by a volcano. When her egg cracked open, her mother and father weren’t there. As Ruby got older, she taught herself how to stay safe and gather food by herself.
One day, she was flying around the island and found a castle in the clouds that looked like it was abandoned. She drew near to the castle, and suddenly, a group of knights came out screaming, ‘Charge!'”
“My name is Chloe. My dad is REALLY rich. I can get ANYTHING I want. I bet my friends are so jealous!!! I used to have a lot of friends, but now I only have 6 because they said I was too sassy and boastful. But I don’t really care anyway because the friends I have now are WAYYY better. One day at school, there was a new girl. She looked poor, so I decided to tease her. So I told my friends, ‘We have to make a list of things to tease her with.'”
“Once upon a time, there was a seal that wanted to go to the forest. The seal was one year old. He asked his mom if he could go to the forest. His mother said he could not go because he needed to be in the water.”
“The dark and swervy hallways led to the one room that controlled everything. The walls of the hallways were covered in dark granite and had long, steep stairs. The man got to the bottom of the stairs, and he opened the door to see that the queen was about to leave.”
“An hour before dawn, a mysterious creature was spotted in Roseville Park in Hollywood, California. The police department said it was about nine feet tall. The police also spotted a gem that the creature was holding during the video that they took. People said that it belonged in a museum and that it was worth one million dollars.”
“I was born in 1888. My family was dead. We were investigating some bird, hippopotamus and t-rex when we heard a rumble. Then a volcano erupted and lots of lava was falling down. It was big. There was thunder on the volcano and that was what was making it erupt.”
“Bill was a foodie. He loved food of all kinds, and if you ask him if he had gone to this restaurant or that restaurant, he would always say yes. There were no restaurants in the vicinity of his house that he had not been to at least 17 times.”
“Max sat in his room thinking about the different ways to prank friends and start fights. It was his only thing to do while he was grounded in his room for starting the biggest syrup fight in the Slider’s house history. It was his dad who grounded him, of course.”
“MRS. LADY
Today, we are going to the movies with my friend, Mrs. Knitting, and her dog, Mrs. Bulldog.
MRS. BEAGLE
Ruff ruff? [What movie? Star Wars, King Kong, Frozen 2, Jumanji?]
MRS. LADY
We are going to watch It’s a Wonderful Life!”
‘”Ugh… ‘ groans Leo. ‘I’m sick of eating mashed potatoes for breakfast lunch and dinnerrr!’
‘Blaaah! Me too,’ says Jacob.
‘Kill me!!!’ yells Andrew, a few moments later
The ship starts beeping. ‘That’s a good thing, right?’
‘Uh oh,’ says Leo… ”
“There was an alien that needed an alien spaceship and fuel to get back to his home in space. When his parents were going to go on vacation in space, Alien Bob fell out of the UFO and landed on Earth.”
“Once upon a time, there was a bunny that wanted a carrot. The bunny went everywhere and searched for a carrot, but there was no carrot anywhere. The little bunny asked his mom where the carrots were. Mom said where the carrots were and the bunny hopped to where his mother told him to, but there were no carrots.”
“In the magical world, the weather was the same no matter where you went. But instead of it raining because water evaporates, people in the sky shot water pistols from the sky.”
“It was 8:00. It was time to sleep. Tomorrow was my birthday. My dad said that if I didn’t go to sleep, I would be tired and miss my birthday, so I went to sleep.
The next morning was my birthday. My dad was about to leave when he saw me walking downstairs.”
“SuperMax was one little, very fast boy who got lots and lots of trophies and medals from places like the running championship. He won every time and also did karate. He was a white belt in his second class.”
“Blankets are soft/
Blankets are comfortable/
I need a blanket/
Or I would freeze to death.”
“Crack! The twig made a noise as I stepped on it in the dark, vast forest.
My name is Nancy Simmons, and a week ago something very scary happened to me. I was taking a nature hike with my Girl Scout troop when we got separated and lost. A few hours later, everybody was found. Well, everybody but me. It wasn’t long until they called the cops. Soon, there was a search party out in the woods. But no one could find me.”
“Aunt Lenore was a small old woman with a wobbly bun perched on her head. She had an owl named Agatha who was always perched on her shoulder. Aunt Lenore spent her days sewing and embroidering new clothes, which she sent to my family in big, bright pink boxes. Nobody knew what her house looked like.”
“I walked down a dark hallway, barely able to make out a rectangular box, a closet. I heard whispers from inside.
‘Sssssekdjaboyweneead.’
I couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was an old-looking closet made of wood, and I had a mysterious urge to open it.”
“The waves crashed against our boathouse. Even when it was the worst rain or thunder, Mom would always say, ‘Isn’t this fun, honey?’ and I glumly nodded, trying to be thankful.”
“King: Our sons are married and my daughter must marry the king from the nearby kingdom but she refuses; she says she wants to marry a wizard! (King slams on table as he says wizard.)
Queen: A princess has one job, marry a prince. Marrying a wizard is absurd!
Together: How HORRIBLE!!!”
“Three minutes before the earthquake happens, Izzy has to escape the house. The floor is shaking, the house is falling apart. Three, two, one, the floor fell apart! Izzy almost falls but more trouble is coming, a flood! Izzy gets so scared, she packs all her stuff and runs away to a different town where her family lives.”
“Sneeze! Sneeze!/
This is not a breeze/
I’m sick at home/
Stuck in this dome”
“Hello, player.
You are the player.
You finished this dream. This dream is a dream about a game. A game where you collect resources, fight monsters, and build buildings.”
“Uni the unicorn was staring at the glittering stream, thinking about nothing except for sunlight. Ten minutes later, her little sister named Luna came and plopped herself right next to her sister and asked, ‘Whatcha doing?'”
This is how my day should look today, I think as I get up.
“Joe! Are you up yet?” Mom shouts from downstairs.
“Yes! I’ve been up for about 10 minutes,” I shout back as I log on to Writopia. The next minute, I find that my internet isn’t working. Then, my day goes totally awesome (I’m being sarcastic).