Author: Writopia LitMag

Gabi knew California would be terrible when she was on the plane, but she never imagined it like this. Gabi wanted a best friend more than anything, but her life made that impossible. She was new to South Middle and needed extra help in every subject. However, nobody gave it to her, so she was public enemy number one. Ms. Honey was Gabi’s sixth grade English teacher. She made her feel special even though the rest of the school thought she was a nobody. She actually took the time to understand how Gabi was feeling and worked with her differences.  When Gabi entered 6th grade, she was sure that it would be a miserable year. Then, she met her English teacher, and she got a sliver of hope. Maybe, just maybe, this year would be different, but it wasn’t. Ms. Honey only helped in English. Now in the middle of math in 7th grade, Gabi felt dumb for even getting a teeny bit hopeful. She was sure now. Things would never change.

Ms. Honey left to teach in another school, and Gabi felt all alone as a nobody in an ocean full of somebodies. Like she was meant to have a terrible, terrible life. Gabi’s math teacher, Mrs. Sparrow, was very strict and seemed to be against Gabi personally. Gabi wanted to fly back to New York where no one made fun of her and where she had so many amazing friends and teachers. She imagined her life back in New York quite well, for she had an amazing imagination and was a great artist, but no one noticed that Gabi. Everyone only paid attention to the Gabi who couldn’t get an answer right to save her life. Gabi liked to doodle during lunch, and sometimes during classes when things got slow, but she hid her drawings from her classmates, fearing that they would make fun of her. For Gabi didn’t believe that she had a talent for drawing.

“Gabi, do you know the answer?”

Uh-oh. Gabi had been daydreaming and hadn’t been listening at all. She looked at the board and read the problem. Of course, she had no idea what the answer could be.

“I-I don’t understand the problem.”

Mrs. Sparrow stared at her with her small, black eyes. Gabi looked away, fearing she would be turned into stone.

“Of course you don’t. I don’t know why I even bother to ask.”

The class started laughing right away, and soon enough, Mrs. Sparrow joined in too. Her laugh was high-pitched and sounded evil. Gabi’s face turned bright red, and she immediately put her head down. Even though this was happening all the time, Gabi still got very embarrassed, and she felt like a pile of dirt. Useless. Just taking up space. Ms. Honey was the only one who made her feel special, and now her specialness was gone.

Gabi’s parents didn’t know that they made their daughter’s life terrible. She had decided to not tell her parents about her school life, for Gabi feared it would only make matters worse. They were nice, but they didn’t make Gabi feel special like Ms. Honey did. They were the reason she was in this mess, after all. Anyway, they were way to occupied with Gabi’s little brother, Gregory. He had joined Gabi’s family of three when she was in fourth grade, a year before the move. Right away, Gabi saw her parents calm him down when he cried or held him close when he got hurt, even if they were just helping her with homework. She realized she would have to take care of herself more often now that Gregory was priority number one.

The ring of the bell brought Gabi back to math class. The bell was Gabi’s favorite thing about school. Well, after Ms. Honey left, it was. It symbolized the end of a boring subject that would get her closer to the end of a horrid day at school. This time, the bell signaled the end of math and beginning of art. The art teacher, Mr. Longbottom, had a round face and was very short. He wasn’t strict at all and didn’t know how to control his students. Because of this, art was basically free time. While Gabi’s classmates made paper airplanes and threw them at the poor teacher, she took the time to quietly doodle at her seat. Occasionally, a paper airplane would be thrown at her too, but Gabi just ignored it and continued drawing. This particular art class, Gabi was drawing a cat in a spaceship. She liked drawing these type of things because they were odd situations, and she felt that she could relate to them since she considered herself an oddball. When the bell rang, Gabi threw out her finished drawing and walked along with the rest of her class to the cafeteria for lunch. Little did she know, Mr. Longbottom had an eye for talent and found a great talent in Gabi, although Gabi herself did not.

Now in the cafeteria, Gabi sat down with her messy peanut butter and jelly sandwich that she had made herself, for her parents were always too busy with Gregory. She sat at the corner of the last table, away from everyone else. Some of the other kids waited on the lunch line to buy their food. Some, however, had delicious food that they had brought. Gabi quietly listened to her classmates conversations, which she had never been a part of.  She heard about Morgan’s  sparkly new shoes that were glistening on her feet and Julia’s new glasses which rested on her nose. Sighing, Gabi took out a piece of paper and a pencil that she always carried in her pocket and started to draw, taking bites out of her sandwich while she worked. This time, she was drawing a chipmunk that could talk. Gabi liked to think that the characters she drew were friendly towards her. Wishing that they would jump out of the paper where they lay and talk to Gabi and listen to her, but she knew that was never going to happen. Not in a million years. When the bell rang yet again, she threw out her garbage from lunch and her drawing, disappointed that the talking chipmunk would not be able to talk to her.

After lunch was social studies. The teacher, Mr. Marazo, was different from the other teachers. He had a sense of humor, but still ran a tight ship. He tried to make his lessons seem fun, but still made them seem like lessons. He was mostly everyone’s favorite teacher, including Gabi, but just because every other teacher was terrible. In social studies, they were learning about ancient Egypt. Mr. Marazo was talking about this and that. At one point, the class laughed. But, Gabi was not listening. She was thinking, New York was great, then came along the job offer for dad, and I had to move to California. Hmmm, then what? Oh yeah! Then, I’d been bullied in school until now. Hmmm. what’s going to happen next? Hmmm. Maybe, a magical unicorn will fly to South Middle and save me! Then, it will take me back to New York. That sounds happy. Impossible, but happy. Gabi sighed. She knew a magical unicorn wasn’t going to save her, but she wanted to believe that somebody would save her. Anybody. Gabi didn’t care who, just somebody.

Mr. Marazo’s loud voice brought Gabi back to social studies, but she still wasn’t in the mood to listen or to learn, so she looked around the classroom. Posters of ancient places covered the wall on Gabi’s right, and quotes were hung on the back wall of the classroom. One of the quotes was, “There are two types of people in the world, those who are Greek, and those who wish to be Greek.” Gabi didn’t understand that one. She wasn’t Greek nor wished to be Greek. Whatever. On the left of Gabi was a row of windows. In the front of the room was a starboard and a chalkboard, and in the corner was Mr. Marazo’s desk. It was quite messy with papers scattered on top and drawers slightly open. That made sense to Gabi, for Mr. Marazo didn’t seem like the neat type.

The bell rang, and Gabi moved on to English. The new teacher, Mrs. Plumpberry, was like the art teacher. Small and round. However, Mrs. Plumpberry’s personality was unlike Mr. Longbottom’s. She was extremely strict and mean to everyone. Gabi wondered if Ms. Honey would’ve left if she knew Mrs. Plumpberry would be her replacement. Hmmm. Gabi didn’t think so. Ms. Honey was just too nice. The most annoying part of English was that you had to listen. If you didn’t, she would catch you and make a fool out of you, and Gabi hated being humiliated. So she stared at the board, listening to boring this and boring that, not understanding a word of it, but listening all the same. Everyone looked alike, staring at the board, and trying not to drift away. It was harder for Gabi because she didn’t understand anything but had to listen anyway, which was basically useless. Gabi watched the clock. Five more minutes till English was over and she could go home. The clock seemed to be going backwards. She kept watching. Four more minutes. Tick. Three. Tock. Two. Tick. One. Tock. RING RING RING! Gabi nearly ran out of the room, eager to get home and take a nice long nap.

When she passed the art room, Mr. Longbottom called her in. Seriously, Gabi thought. She reluctantly walked in and saw Mr. Longbottom, smiling, sitting at his desk with her drawings in front of him. Gabi’s jaw dropped. I had thrown those out! How did he get them? Questions were racing around her mind.
“You might be wondering why you are in here, when you could be heading home,” Mr. Longbottom began.

Gabi didn’t say a word.

“Well, I couldn’t help but notice your wonderfully brilliant talent for drawing. All of these drawings look marvelous.”

Gabi’s eyes widened, but she still was speechless.

So, Mr. Longbottom continued, “I would love it if you could come to my room everyday after school and just draw, and maybe we can play some art games together. Would you like that?”

Gabi took a long time to answer, but finally she said, “I-I yes!”

Mr. Longbottom looked very pleased, and not even a paper airplane could ruin it. When Gabi got home, she shared her news with her mom, smiling the entire time.

“That’s wonderful news, honey. I’m so proud of you.”

Gabi, pleased, walked to her room, which was now pale blue and lay down on her bed, ready to take that nice and long nap, but she couldn’t sleep, far too excited about her new talent. Gabi didn’t consider herself a nobody anymore, she considered herself a somebody with a gift. She decided to draw, so she took a seat at her desk and got a paper and pencil. She drew a pencil that could write by itself. Gabi decided to sign her name in the bottom right corner, something she had never done before. This time, she didn’t throw her drawing out like all the other times. Instead, she hung it up on her wall, pleased with herself for making a teacher proud for once.

When school ended the next day, Gabi joined Mr. Longbottom in the art room. It was a messy room with folded and crumpled paintings hanging on the walls and paper airplanes scattered on the floor. There were paint splatters all over tables and chairs from kids who squirted paint at poor Mr. Longbottom. Looking around, Gabi got an idea, something that rarely happened.

“If you would like, I can help you clean up. No offense, but this room is a mess!” Gabi ended with a smile, waiting for the teacher’s reply.

“None taken, and if you want to help, no problem for me!”

So, Gabi and Mr. Longbottom spent the hour turning the art room into a shining masterpiece, telling stories and getting to know each other through the process. When it was time for Gabi to leave, laughs had burst out and smiles automatically appeared on faces. Both had a great time and both couldn’t wait for the next day.

When Gabi’s father got home from work, she excitedly told him about her first day with Mr. Longbottom, just as she had done with her mother. Charlie, Gabi’s dad, laughed at some parts and looked surprised at others, smiling the entire time. Jen, Gabi’s mom, was so proud of her daughter that she ordered Chinese food for her, even though she then had to make something else for Gregory. Gabi smiled the whole evening, munching on her favorite food and telling her parents more marvelous things about Mr. Longbottom, who was now, by far, her favorite teacher.

Gabi was surprised at herself the next morning when she eagerly got ready for school. She thought the day where she couldn’t wait for school to start would never come, and it was all because of Mr. Longbottom. Gabi wanted to thank him for all he did but didn’t know how. She finally decided to simply draw a picture for him of a hamster painting a picture, knowing that he had said that he loved hamsters the day before. Once she was happy with her drawing, she wrote, Thanks for Everything on the top. Holding the piece of paper at arm’s length to examine it, she finally deciding it was complete and put it in her backpack for school. Then, she put all her materials away and started to get ready.

Through the entire school day, Gabi stayed on the edge of her seat, waiting to jump up and get closer to the end, not because she could go home, but because she couldn’t wait to spend time with her new friend. Gabi suffered through math, drew through art, ate through lunch, day dreamed through social studies, and finally listened through English. Once the final bell rang, she raced through the hallways, till she reached the door labeled Art Room. She nearly flung the door open and ran inside, eager to have a great time once more. However, the art teacher was nowhere to be found. Disappointed and a wee bit curious, Gabi walked around. Eventually, she ended up sitting in Mr. Longbottom’s chair, opening and closing desk drawers which were organized and neat from the day before. Finding nothing important, she looked at all the papers on the desk, picked them up one at a time, and read their contents. Most of the papers contained boring teaching stuff that she couldn’t understand nor cared about. The sixth paper she picked up said “RESIGNATION LETTER.” Horrified, Gabi read the contents and stormed out of the room, crying.

“What happened, sweetheart,” Jen asked when her daughter got home early.

Trying to hide her tears, Gabi lied and said, “He was sick.”

She couldn’t even say her art teacher’s name. Before another sob could burst out, Gabi raced to her room and cried in one of her pillows. How could he do this to me? Didn’t he realize he was my only hope at having a decent life? Questions raced around Gabi’s mind like race cars. Her pillow was soaked when Gabi got up and opened her backpack. She found what she was looking for and took it out. Tears poured down her cheeks once more and dripped on the piece of paper. Anger overflowing her, she crumpled up the painting hamster and threw it in her waste basket.

When Gabi woke up the next morning, she slowly remembered what had happened the previous day and tried to go back to sleep, hoping her dreams would fill her with happiness that the real world could not give her.

When her mother tried to get Gabi up and out of bed, she mumbled, “I don’t feel well,” which was not a lie, Gabi’s stomach was queasy, and she had a lump in her throat.

Jen felt her daughter’s forehead and replied, “You don’t feel too warm. How about you go to school, and if you really don’t feel well, you can come home.”

Gabi wanted to argue, but she knew her mother was not going to change her mind. So, she shuffled out of bed and started to get ready for a miserable day of school.

Unlike the day before, Gabi sat far back in her seat, and when the bell rang, she shuffled out of the classrooms like a turtle. She turned back to the girl who hated school and wanted to fly back to New York on a magical unicorn with rainbow hair and shiny wings. She turned back to the girl whose only friends lay in paper. She turned back to the girl who threw out her drawings without signing her name on them. Gabi became a miserable girl once more. Sighing heavily more and more each day, she never smiled, a sour expression stuck on her face. She wished more than ever to have a best friend. They would have fun together and have each other’s back and share secrets. It would be magical. However, Gabi knew her imaginary friend would stay in her imagination forever and ever. Or at least till she was old enough to fly back to New York by herself. But even then, Gabi knew her old bestie, Jesse, would have a new bestie and Gabi would be all alone. So… it really was more like forever. Sighing yet again, Gabi reluctantly listened to Mrs. Sparrow.

“Jessica and Helena each had two cookies. Jessica ate 0.9 and 0.7 of the second. Helena ate 0.4 of the first one and 0.9 of the second. How much more did Jessica eat than Helena?”

Most of the other classmates said it was easy and raised their hands to share the answer. Gabi, however had a hard time figuring it out. Hmm. It’s out of ten right? So for Jessica it would be 9/10 and 7/10. That’s… 16/10! What about Helena? Hmmm 4/10 and 9/10 is… Hmm… 10/10, 11/10, 12/10, 13/10! Now what? Hmmm. Oh! I have to subtract. Darn it, I hate subtracting! Hmmm. 16/10-13/10 is… 3/10? Hmm. Yeah, cause 6-3=3 so 16-13=3, too! Wait a minute, I solved that answer? Oh my god! Out of her thoughts, Gabi waited for Mrs. Sparrow to call on someone to see if she got the answer right.

She pointed at Josh and he said, “3/10.”

Taking deep breaths, Gabi waited for Mrs. Sparrow’s response.

“That’s…”

Seriously, Mrs. Sparrow? Just spit it out! Gabi hands were sweaty, and she was shaking.

“Correct,” Mrs. Sparrow announced, unimpressed.

That was just a warm-up after all. But for Gabi, it didn’t matter. She got an answer right! She wasn’t useless. Now smiling, Mrs. Sparrow moved on to the next problem, which was much harder. However, Gabi was thinking just as hard and when Mrs. Sparrow said, “That’s correct,” once more, her smile grew and Gabi sat up, eager to answer more questions, but too afraid to raise her hand. Math class went on like this, Gabi’s smile growing bigger and bigger.

The rest of the school day was like this: Gabi never stopped smiling and getting answers right. Nervous to raise her hand, but getting them right all the same. She felt like a somebody again, and she did it all by herself. She didn’t need stupid Mr. Longbottom. After the school day of getting answers right was over, Gabi promised herself that tomorrow she would raise her hand. Her teachers and classmates needed to know that she wasn’t completely useless. So, she walked home, not bothering to stop at the art room. Mr. Longbottom didn’t deserve to have a friend.

“Mr. Longbottom will no longer be teaching for South Middle School.” Mrs. Huggins voice was loud next to the microphone.

It blanketed the students sitting on the floor and crept into their ears. Whispers were shared, and students were shocked. But Gabi stayed expressionless, not caring at all. Gabi wanted to kick Mr. Longbottom at of the school herself. The principal introduced the new art teacher, Ms. Doherty, who looked nice. Curly brown hair and hazel eyes. Her smile was big, and she had glasses. Gabi only hoped she was as nice as she looked.

During math, Gabi kept the promise she made, raising her hand when she thought she knew the answer. Everytime she got called on, she answered correctly. The first time, Mrs. Sparrow and the rest of the class widened their eyes and their jaws dropped. Some of them even clapped! Gabi couldn’t be more proud.

The new art teacher turned out to be super nice and appreciated Gabi’s talent for drawing and even let her practice during class.

During lunch, Gabi no longer sat alone, and she even got to take part in her classmates’ conversations!

Mr. Marazo was getting funnier everyday, and Gabi laughed along with the rest of her class, now understanding why they were laughing.

Even English changed. Mrs. Plumpberry started to get nicer and nicer and even let her students play word games together.

At home, Gabi’s parents paid more attention to her as Gregory got older, and she even learned to have fun with her little brother.

Overall, Gabi knew her life would never be perfect, but she was going to enjoy every minute of it, knowing that she had saved herself.

The Beginning of the Homons

250 A.W. January 3rd

I remember the day when the UN solved the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. The day when it all started. On that day, as soon as the scientists discovered the material that made so many ships and planes become lost, NASA started receiving strange signals. A year went by and nothing more happened until…

251 A.W. June 4th

A strange craft appeared next to Venus, and the frequency got so loud that TVs could intercept it. NASA immediately scrambled three spaceships to go to the craft. As soon as the three ships got within thirty miles of it, they disappeared off the radar. The craft started speeding up, reaching Earth in three minutes. An army started evacuating everybody in a thirty-mile radius of the craft’s predicted landing zone. They were too late, and the craft landed.

Among all the people in the landing zone, there was a kid named Jason, me, the narrator of this story. This is the story of what happened to me, how a kid got his powers, went a bit insane, and became king of the universe.

So I watched from my balcony, and I waited for the door of the craft to open and open it did. Then a guy walked out. If you thought right away that this guy was an alien, you may want to put down this book because I’m trying to make this book not have suspense or a cliffhanger. Because guess what? That doesn’t happen in life! He didn’t look like an alien, but something wasn’t right.

“RUN,” the guy shouted.

I immediately saw what he was talking about. Some strange thing walked out of the doorway of the craft. It looked like a human but not exactly. It had no facial details, no mouth, no eyes, no hair, and no reproductive organs. Also, it was completely white, so white that it glowed. It burned my eyes just looking at it. It was wearing a white, glowing cape fused to its back. Did he burn that cape to his back or what? I still don’t know now. Then it started walking towards the guy, and it touched the guy on his head. The guy immediately crumpled to the ground. The thing looked up, and everyone feared what would happen next. The thing raised his hands and spoke in perfect English.

“Hello everybody. I’m the god, Extinction. I will be hosting the event of your extinction and painful destruction, and yes, if you were thinking that I am evil, bravo! I am evil, so good job on that. It’s time to die!” Extinction said happily.

Nobody moved. Not only did an alien come to their planet, speaking in plain English, but it was also an insane god of extinction. Who can blame him? He’s the god of killing people, and that must take a toll on him eventually. Then things started coming out of his body. First, it looked like a gas, but then it formed into bodies that looked exactly like him, except they didn’t have capes. Bodies started flying, smashing into people and buildings. I looked for a place to hide and decided on the bathroom. Before I could get there, one of the bodies immediately smashed through the window, grabbing my mom. I tried to grab one of the bodies before it could get away, but it just looked at me and smacked me in the face. Then I blacked out. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was that the building I was once in had collapsed. I was under the rubble. Also, my face was pointing towards the platform where the craft landed.

Extinction was holding my mom, and I tried to get out, but there was nothing I could do. I looked up again. Extinction was holding a sword. The hilt of it had a diamond right where the hilt and the blade connected, and it was a large diamond, so large my face could probably fit in it. Then he stuck the sword right through my mom. Immediately, her blood began to bubble on the sword, turning into a gas. I looked around at the other people trapped in the rubble. Their blood was also doing that, turning into a gas under their skin, then bubbling. Then it was popping through their skin and leaving giant cuts until their skin just fell off. But that wasn’t the worst part! Their insides were burning flesh, bones, and guts that were burnt away, leaving no trace that they were ever there, except for the other materials around them.

Then I felt a surging pain as if my insides were trying to light my skin on fire. I painfully looked at my hand, and that was when I noticed something weird. My hand was completely burned, but it wasn’t ripped. I touch my arm and felt it. My skin felt smooth, not rough like burned skin would be. The burning wasn’t over. My arm began to burn, but as soon as the burning past my arms, it became too much to tolerate, and I fell asleep.

***

I was born September 23, 2039. That’s the one thing I knew about my birth. The other thing was that my mother was unable to give birth to me, and soon it would’ve been fatal. Somehow I healed and reformed when they tried an abortion. So they decided to use a serum that would make my body very liquidy so they could suck me out of my egg and put me inside an incubation chamber. It also affected my body. Instead of my bones producing blood, they produced a combination of hydrogen-1, oxygen-1, nitrogen-2, oxygen-1, and nitrogen-2, or what was called at the hospital, “homon.”

Only 1400 people had that blood type. It also affected my strength, agility, fitness, flexibility, and all of the five senses. For some people, they had virtual immortality. Those people stopped aging at 16, could change their looks, get telekinesis abilities to lift objects 200 pounds or less, and turn gigantic. But when you did this, your fat would start burning away very slowly, about one pound a minute. They could also harden their skin and be able to regenerate quickly. I had all of those abilities. I had to go to a school, for only people with those blood types, the day before the extinction event.

As I walked through the street, going to school, I heard someone say, “Hey, Jason.” I turned around, and there were my two friends, Michael and Ryen. They both had the ability of changing their appearance and virtual immortality as well as fast healing. Also, Michael had the ability of making himself gigantic and hardening his skin. Ryen had the ability of being telekinetic.

“Hi guys!” I said.

“Did you hear John got expelled?” Ryen said.

“No. I didn’t. I feel bad for the guy. Hopefully he has a good life in heaven.”

“I heard he got shot down on the spot when he tried to escaped from school for getting an F.”

“Well he would have died both ways. If only he could have hardened his skin. Then he may have been able to survive,” Ryen said as Michael hardened his arm, making it look like iron.

“There it is,” Michael said sarcastically. “School sweet school.”

I looked at school, a steel wall with barbed wire on the top. Surrounding it were 300 guards equipped in riot suits. They were holding guns specially designed for us. It could use the electromagnet it had on its tip. It could shoot bullets at a speed of 10000 km a second. With enough time, it could penetrate our hardened skin.

We walked to the big, iron gate in the front of the school. I put a pass up to the sensors, and the gate opened, revealing the school.

The first class we had was history of the homons. The first homon was a guy named John. His history is very blurry. The only things we knew about him was that he watched his sister die and became extremely interested in bringing the dead back to life. There were rumors that he did bring his sister back to life, but there was no proof. The only remains of John were a giant human skeleton that was estimated to be 18,263,520 feet long. John destroyed all of England and half of America before he was killed by humans who shot every nuke they had in their arsenal. Only then did he die.

***

251 A.W. June 15

When I woke up and tried to get up from what I thought was my bed, I couldn’t. I looked up and saw all the destruction and remembered what happened. I quickly got out of the rubble and started running as fast as my legs could take me. When I reached the wilderness, I saw a strange plant. The strange plant had fruits that seemed to glow, but I kept on running. Somehow I didn’t get tired after non-stop running for 60 miles. That was when I noticed a cave that seemed like it wasn’t under surveillance by Extinction. I ran inside the cave.

It was large, but I found a nice patch of moss and went to sleep on it. When I woke up, I noticed the same strange plant that I saw on my run. I went to touch it, but it immediately started to glow. I stumbled back in surprise, and I decided on drinking from a river near me instead.

When I went to take a sip, I saw my reflection. I looked almost the exact opposite of Extinction. Instead of being white and glowing with no reproductive organs, I was black and everything two inches around me was glowing black. Then the ground started shaking. Earthquake, I thought immediately. In all the shaking, a rock the size of a regular sized house fell off the top of the cave, and it looked like it would collide right near my head. But I couldn’t get myself to move. My legs felt like jello. Before I could think about what to do, my natural instinct kicked in. I tried to grab that rock. I felt the rock hit my arms and the impact go through my body. If you ever want to know what being crushed by a school bus felt like, then try this because that’s exactly what it felt like. I tried for as long as I could to hold the rock, but it was the equivalent of a black ant trying to carry a french bulldog. The ant won’t be able to lift the bulldog. It would just die a miserable death of being crushed and suffocated. I knew that I would be the ant, but I had to try. I saw my life flash before my eyes. The life I used to have. The life I would never get back. I would never see my mom or dad again, my brothers and sisters, friends. I would see no one again because they were all murdered in cold blood. Well actually, they were murdered in boiling hot blood, but that wasn’t the point. I would not die like this. I felt a surge of energy through my veins. My hands started glowing white, and then the rock smoldered.

“Ha ha ha!” I laughed, looking at my hand as it turned black again. “Ah ha ha ha! Oh, what a wondrous time this is! What a great time this is with everything $%$#!@ up and mutated as hell, and well ha ha ha! Jingle bells, jingle bells. Oh what time it is. Oh what time this is. I will kill everything that is not homon or human. Whatever we’re called! Oh ha ha ha ha! And you know what, screw it. If anybody joins the alien’s side as well. Ha ha ha ha ha! This is going to be fun!”

***

When the big bang started, some material collided together, making the first life forms — the gods. When they became aware of themselves, they gave themselves names and positions. There was Rajadewa, or The God King, the king of all gods. Titanos, the god of death. Earthian, the Goddess of life. Janice, the goddess of creation. Out of all the stones floating around in space, Janice used her powers to make all the stones come together and create stalagmites that would link up to other stalagmites, until there was a island. Earthian made grass sprout up off the ground. She made Titanos agree not to let her plants die in the cold, harsh climate. The God King used his powers to create a castle on the island. He decided to make planets. He sent out a mass of energy into the cosmos and heated all the mass into spheres. Some were made of stone. Some were made of gas. Then out of all the rocks, two other beings came out. Extinction and Time.

On a sunny morning, a little girl opened her eyes to see a shadow in the corner of her room. As she slowly got up, the shadow disappeared in front of her. She walked downstairs and saw her mother in the kitchen as usual. Everything was normal. It must have been a mistake. She rubbed her eyes and sat down to eat. Today she was supposed to see her grandmother, who lived in New York, but it would be a little while because they lived in Rhode Island.             

As her mother drove to her grandma’s house, she saw the same shadow appear next to a tree, then disappear as fast as it came. She got to her grandma’s house late at night, so she had a quick dinner and was off to bed. In her room, she replayed the day. Seeing the shadow again in her head got her thinking about what it could be. She was a little scared of what was maybe watching her. As she closed her eyes, all the things that had happened in the past flowed away as sleep washed over her. When she woke up, there was no shadow at all. Sitting there was a sloth! A baby sloth with sparkling green eyes was looking straight at her. She went to touch it, but her hand went right through it. She turned around and saw the sloth crawling to her bed. Confused, she quickly ran downstairs and into the living room where her grandmother sat, knitting. Her grandma was looking at her like she was crazy!

She said, “Why did you send a sloth into my room?’’

Her grandmother looked at her and said, “What on Earth are you talking about, love?’’

This was when she realized that all of the stuff happening around her was not her imagining things or her family members tricking her. These were real things that were happening! If no one was doing this, then it must be some kind of magic. But how? Magic was not real. Who believed in magic? Magic was something made up for little kids.

When her mother came to pick her up, she quickly grabbed her bag and got in the car. Her mother had a quick chat with her grandma, and then her mom got in the car and drove home. When they got home, it was lunch time, although she was not the least bit hungry. She ran straight up to her room and locked the door. She got in bed and picked up her book. Soon, night had come, and she went to sleep. She woke up and heard a voice downstairs. She had no idea who would be up this late. She quietly got out of bed and looked over the staircase. She saw the shadow and the baby sloth talking to each other in the living room, and behind them was the mirror that was on top of the fireplace, but it was swirling. She tried not to make any sound so she could listen to what they were saying. After about half an hour, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She stormed down like a mad elephant.

The shadow looked at her and said, “Well hello, Jane, we are so pleased to meet you.”

Jane looked at them and then said, “What are you doing here? Why have you come for me?”

“Well, it’s a little hard to explain, but you have to come with us.’’

“Why would I ever believe you? I hardly know you.’’

Then the sloth chimed in and said, ‘’Your world is in danger. Please, you’re our only chance.”

Jane just stared at them in confusion. How could she save the world? She was just a 10-year-old. Out of all of the people in the world, how could they pick her? At this moment, Jane realized how much pressure was on her shoulders.

She made up her mind and said, “Okay, I’ll go with you. Let me just get some things.”

But before she could move, the sloth said, “There is no need for things because you will have your own room.”

The sloth grabbed her hand and jumped into the mirror! When they got to the other side, Jane looked around, obviously shocked from what had just happened.

The shadow quickly said, “We have to hurry. One day here is four in the other world. And welcome to Zarcazus.”

Too shocked to move, Jane collapsed, and soon found herself lying on a bed in, I guess, the sloth’s house. When she got up, she could smell this delicious smell coming from outside her room. She got up and walked to the kitchen. She hadn’t eaten all morning, and so she was starving. She picked up some bread and walked around to see where everything was. The house was a regular house, but much more modern than current houses. She walked into the living room and saw the shadow.

She walked up to him and said, “So what exactly am I doing here?’’

“Well, as I said before, you are here to save us all.”

Jane was still unsure that coming here was the right thing to do. Jane had overheard the sloth saying that she would start tomorrow. She was a little frightened of what she would be going against because if the people here couldn’t handle it, then it must be bad. That night Jane went to bed, worrying about what might happen next. The next morning, Jane got a talk about what was happening. She was looking at the ground the whole time. She was so nervous that she would maybe mess up or do something wrong and ruin everything. That evening, she started practicing spells and making things become magical. The first thing she learned was how to make things fly. The shadow told her these different movements for her hands. She had to move her hand in a circle and gesture her hand out towards her opponent.

After a few more spells, Jane went inside to rethink what had happened. She woke up the next morning, and she felt this thumping on the ground that was coming from outside the house. She got up and went outside, and she saw this dark puddle of water, and in it was a vision of what would happen if she didn’t help this world. She saw a dark magic covering the whole world and seeping in through all of the portals into her own world. She also saw the palace, where she assumed the Dark Lord was controlling all the magic, but she couldn’t see who this person was. She ran back inside and decided to tell the sloth and shadow, who were still sleeping in bed.

They awoke with a confused face and said, “What are you doing up so early?”

Jane yelled back, “I just saw a vision of what would happen if I didn’t help this world.”

“How?”

“I woke up and heard this thumping, so I went outside and saw this dark puddle, so the question I’m wondering is why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“Well, you know, we were… going to but got a little delayed.”

“So, what was it delayed by?” Jane asked.

“Fine, we’re sorry.”

“Okay,” she sighed and walked out of the room.

She picked up her notebook and started writing questions that were in her head, like, What did Mother think? Where exactly was she? How did she get in the middle of this? After a few hours, she heard her named called and walked back outside.

She saw Shadow, and he said, “Let’s start our second lesson: turning regular daily objects into gems of all kinds. They aren’t just any kind of gems, though. They explode when you throw them up in the air. To perform this spell, you must wave your hands side-to-side and say, ‘Osia!’ Now, when you perform this spell, you must be very concentrated on what you’re doing. Because if you’re not, the bombs will only hurt you.”

Jane tried many times, but finally, on the fifty-first try, she turned it into a gem without it exploding on herself. After dinner, Jane was pulled aside by the sloth and was told that she had magic in her, but if she didn’t know how to use it correctly, it would be of no use.

That night, she went to bed, trying to remember all the spells she had learned. In the morning, somehow she was exhausted, even though she had no idea why. In her next lesson, she couldn’t help rubbing her eyes and yawning. The shadow kept looking at her like she hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and he was right, she hadn’t. The last spell she learned was the strongest spell of all. It would turn a person to ashes. This spell took her all day, and at the end of the day, she still hadn’t figured out all the hand movements. She went inside, more exhausted than ever, and plopped down on her bed. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her mother and was tired of having to learn all these spells. Tonight, she didn’t want to make the same mistake of staying up too late, because in the morning, she didn’t want to be exhausted like today.

The next morning, she woke up and could smell something delicious that kind of reminded her of cake. She got up and walked to the kitchen, and she saw that the sloth was preparing a full ten-layer cake with chocolate frosting and a rainbow filling. They had hung a ‘Congratulations’ sign above the living room. She wasn’t exactly happy to have finished all of her training, but she was excited. Maybe all her hard work would actually pay off. She spent all day sitting on the couch, practicing spells that she could actually do, and eating cake. That afternoon, she asked the sloth, who seemed more willing to do something for her.

She asked, “Would you ever consider… maybe… letting me visit my old world and let me see my mother and grandmother again?”

“Well, that’s really up to the shadow because I’m just his companion. He’s really the main person here.”

“Would you mind asking Shadow yourself because I don’t think he’d really listen to me as much as he would listen to you,” Jane said.

At night, she snuck out of the house and tried to find the mirror, but she had no idea what it looked like, because obviously it looked nothing like a mirror from her own house. She snuck back into the house because she didn’t want Shadow to know she had been gone. That would probably lower the chances of him letting her go back to her own world.

Surprisingly, in the morning, Shadow came out of his room and said, “Well, Sloth told me that you’d like to go back to your own world, and I think you deserve a chance to visit your family.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious. What else would I be?”

“So exactly when should I leave?”

“Well, that’s exactly your choice.”

“I would like to leave this afternoon,” Jane replied.

“Okay.”

After six very, very long hours, they finally set out. They got to the portal at nighttime and went through, and BOOM, they were there.

“Well, does this look familiar?” said the shadow.

Jane ran up her stairs and looked for her mother. Her mother was in bed, reading a book, but she looked different. It looked like she had been crying for months. Jane ran to the side of her bed and hugged her.

Her mother said, “Oh my god! I missed you so much, sweetie! BUT, where have you been?! I’ve been looking for you for a month!”

“I’m sorry, Mom! But I had to go on an adventure to this new magical world so I could save our own world.”

“What in the world?” her mom said.

“Well, yeah, I knew you’d react that way.”

“I think I need to call a doctor. I think you may have a concussion.”

“Yeah, okay…” I said. “I’m just going to go get the shadow.”

The moment her mother saw Shadow, she let out a tiny screech.

“What in the world have you brought into my bedroom?!”

“It’s okay, Mom. This is my friend, Shadow, who lives in the magical world. I don’t know exactly what he is but… he’s cool.”

“Hi, Jane’s mother,” Shadow said.

The face on Jane’s mother was a mix of confusion, fear, and shame. Her mother asked Shadow if she could have a moment alone with her daughter. When the door had closed, her mother stared at her, wondering about what her daughter had become.

“I’ve tried to believe you all my life, but sometimes it just goes over the hedge.”

Jane stalked out of the room and brushed past Shadow and said, “We’re leaving now.”

“Wait, but… aren’t we going to stay for weeks?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m not going to answer that.”

They went back through the mirror, but as they came out, they were in Australia.

“Where are we exactly, Shadow?” Jane said.

“I think we’re in Australia.”

“So… how are we getting back?!”

“Well… there’s a portal somewhere around here. There’s a portal everywhere, I’m pretty sure.”

The shadow didn’t know where it was in Australia, so they were about to do some exploration! Jane and the shadow wandered around for a little bit until they met a magical creature in the forest. It looked just like a house but had long, smooth wings.

“So, what exactly are you doing here?” asked the magical creature.

“Well, we were trying to get to the magical realm, but our portal broke and landed us here!” Jane said.

“Do you need any help with anything?” asked the magical creature.

“Thank you for asking that question. That’s exactly what we need!”

“Well, to my knowledge, the portal is underwater,” said the creature.

“We’ll need something to help us breath underwater then,” said the shadow.

Surprisingly, the creature had two magical gadgets with him. The gadgets wrapped around your neck and had a button that you pushed that automatically put you in a scuba suit. The magical creature handed the gadgets to Jane and the shadow, and they set off to find the underwater portal. Underwater, Jane could see all different kinds of sea creatures and kept wondering why they hadn’t asked the magical creature where the portal was. They swam for hours, trying to find some sign of the portal, but had no success. It was getting late, and Jane was getting exhausted from all the swimming. She asked the shadow if they could spend the night.

“Of course. Whatever you want.” The shadow replied.

They found a nice resting place and lied down and closed their eyes. When Jane woke up the next day, she looked around, and where she was didn’t look familiar. Then, all the memories flooded back to her of her mom getting angry at her, the portal breaking, and ending up in Australia. Although they had slept in the ocean last night, the area around her still seemed different. It seemed they had been washed away by a current and somehow that current had taken them to the portal. Finally, Jane sighed a sigh of relief.

The shadow woke up and said, “Come on, Jane, we have to go fi-”

“We already found the portal,” Jane interrupted. “It’s right here!”

They entered into the portal and into the magical world. She looked around and her heart dropped. They were too late. The dark magic had taken over the entire place and almost gotten to the shadow’s house. She looked at the portal that was supposed to have taken them here, and it was blocked and covered in darkness. She ran into the house and looked for the sloth. The sloth was fighting off some of the dark magic, and Jane joined in. Soon it had left the house and had vanished in mid air. She looked outside. There was still dark magic everywhere.

“What happened?” Jane asked the sloth.

“How do I know?” said the sloth.

“Who is controlling this magic?” asked Jane.

“I don’t know, but it must be someone that has been practicing for centuries.”

The shadow walked in and said, “Jane, what are you waiting for? This is what you’ve been training for for the past month.”

“I know, but I don’t want to leave you,” Jane said.

‘’We’ll be fine, but not if you don’t get down there,” said the shadow and the sloth at the same time.

In a blink of an eye, Jane was running towards the dark palace. Soon, she was at the large wooden doors of the Dark Lord’s house. She looked up and saw an open window and remembered her flying spell. She had never tried to make herself fly, but the first try was always the charm. The first time she got up halfway, the second time she got up a little more, and the third time, she got up to the window. She got through the window and walked down the hall. She looked from one side to the other. On the walls were pictures of ants and small pieces of armor. What in the world? she thought to herself. She soon got to the double doors at the end of the hallway. She quietly slipped through them and tip-toed into the next room. In this room, she saw a tiny bed with an ant on it that looked as if it was dead.

“What happened?” she quietly muttered.

“Well, a human stepped on me in the non-magical world, and my grandson got really mad and wants an end to the human world. Although, the only way he can do that is by destroying the magical world too,” said the grandmother ant. “By the way, my name is Lily.”

“Nice to meet you, Lily. I’m Jane. Is there anyway to stop your grandson?”

“Not likely. Once my grandson has his mind set on something, no one can tell him to stop.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s in his office.”

Jane practically stepped on the grandmother ant as she ran out the door. Jane was soon standing at the door of the office, looking at the back of the chair in which the ant was sitting. He turned his big chair as he heard her step through the door. The size of the office was just big enough for Jane to fit.

“Why?” Jane asked impatiently.

She was breathing fast and her fists were clenched, as if she wanted to fight but was holding it back.

“Your kind did something unforgivable.”

“It was an accident that someone stepped on your grandma. Can’t you understand that? If that was an ant you didn’t know, would you care so much? Would you still destroy two worlds?” Jane asked even more impatiently.

“No, I wouldn’t,” the ant sadly answered.

“Well, you can still change what you’ve done,” Jane said simply.

Jane looked outside and at the disarray of what the ant had done so quickly.

“I would never change what I have started.”

Jane jumped out of the window and flew up quickly. She was on her way to the shadow’s house. She got there, but nothing was left of it. She quickly waved her hands and the darkness vanished. She could never save the whole world. Under all of the debris were the shadow and the sloth huddled up together. They looked up at her and said, “What are you doing here?”

“I realized that I can not complete this mission to save this world or mine.”

Disappointment washed over their faces.

“This is not what we wanted you to become.”

The thought of losing such good friends tugged at her heart. How could she live the rest of her very short life knowing that she could have saved everyone? You know what? She couldn’t. Determined as ever, Jane set off to seek revenge on this world-destroying ant! As she neared the castle, she turned invisible and flew up to the window. With a thud, she landed perfectly on the window.           

Her first stop was the kitchen. She knew she had to kill the ant, but then she wouldn’t be any better than him. She somehow had to stop the ant, but not kill him. She ran into the kitchen, gathered a few supplies, and dropped them on the table. Soon, she was working on her master plan. She got a big bowl and started pouring supplies in. There was only one potion she knew, and it was a sleeping potion. She decided that if she could put the ant to sleep and put him in the non-magical world, they would all be safe. The only problem was: how would she actually give the potion to the ant?

Soon, all of the work was done, and she was running to the office, ready for the most magical battle of her life. As she walked through the door, the ant turned around in his big chair, as he had last time, and looked at her.

“What are you here for?” the ant asked.

“Well, I’m here to stop you. Would you be willing to drink something first?”

“Well, no. But after two spells, we’ll take a break, and of course, I’ll drink some.”

The first spell she did was turning a pencil into a gem. She threw it up in the air and made an explosion. The ant stumbled, but he counterattacked and threw sparks at her.

Then the ant said, “Okay, time for our little break.”

The ant sipped the potion and started choking.

“Oh no!” Jane said. “What have I done now?”

Then suddenly, the ant was quiet. It looked as if he was actually sleeping peacefully. She picked him up and carried him to the front doors. She walked all through town until she was at the portal of her own house. Soon, she was standing in her house, careful not to wake up her mother. She opened it and placed the ant in a bush. She walked back through the house, deciding whether she would wake up her mother or just go back to the shadow’s house. As she got back, the world was already brightening. The sun was seeping through the darkness of the clouds.

The sky was returning to its light blue, and all of the dark magic was flowing away, as if a giant breeze had just come. She looked down on all the rooftops of all of the magical creatures who lived in this magical world and who had just witnessed all of this darkness. Somehow, the shadow’s house was rebuilding itself. The shadow and sloth were standing in the middle of it, waiting for her to come over. When she got over there, the house was completely rebuilt.

The sloth and shadow came up to her and said, in such cheerful and happy voices, “Congratulations, Jane, you did it. And we always knew you could.”

The sloth stepped forward and said, “I always knew my granddaughter had the potential to save worlds.”

Jane was just like, “What in the world?”

“Yeah, it’s a little surprising, but I’m related to you. And I always have been.”

The shadow said, “Excuse me, now can I have some time with Jane?”

“Of course you can,” said the sloth.

The sloth left the shadow and Jane alone.

The shadow looked at her seriously and said, “I must tell you what I am. I am a person of ash.”

“What exactly does that mean?” Jane asked clearly.

“To you, I’m the first of all of your generations.”

Jane was like, “Why are there so many surprises today?!”

“Well, now you know who we are.”

Centuries passed, and everyone lived happily, until one day, a villager came to Jane and announced, “The doomed ant has returned.”

I would like to invite you to an estate like no other, a magical mansion, which holds many secrets. A dinner party. We will experience things you have never experienced before. I hope you respond to me as soon as possible. If, and when you do, come to the estate in a Victorian fashion. – Jonas Partel

Chapter One: Dinner

“Welcome! Welcome to the Partel Mansion! Let me lead you to the dinner table.”

Ruby, a brown-haired twenty-two-year-old, walked into the house first. Alex, a brown-haired twenty-five-year-old walked into the house after Ruby. He immediately felt that something wasn’t right.

“Where is Jonas? I didn’t come here for nothing?” Alex said.

“Just get in the darn house, Alex.” Olivia, Alex’s girlfriend, a blonde twenty-four-year-old nudged him to get in.

Jaxon, the party animal of the group, entered next. “Wow! This place smells like weed!” he exclaimed.

Chantelle, the 25-year-old stereotypical, sassy ex-sorority leader rolled her eyes and said, “Where even is Jonas? He was the one who invited us to this dump in the first place.”

“You’re calling this place a dump? Call it five million dollars!” Ruby replied to Chantelle.

“Whatevs. Girl, I could be at the club right now.” Chantelle rolled her eyes and continued walking.

“Same!” Jaxon laughed.

Alex, who wasn’t listening to them, tripped on a stair. “Ouch! Why is there a giant ledge on this one? Stupid step!” he ranted.

Olivia, who wasn’t in the mood for helping Alex up, spouted “Get over it. I’m starving.”

“Is no one going to talk about where Jonas is? He’s not even here.” Ruby said, starting to get annoyed.

“Maybe he’s at the table?” Chantelle answered.

Little did they all know that Ronnie, the owner of this mansion, had taken Jonas hostage, and forged his signature. The letter Jonas had “sent” to his friends hadn’t really been from him. The house suddenly got eerier and eerier by the second. The night was only starting.

When they all got to the dinner table, many of them were disappointed that Jonas was not actually at the table, and Olivia was even more disappointed that dinner wasn’t there either. Alex took a look at the scene and saw an older lady staring at him and his friends. He looked down the woman’s side and saw she was carrying a dagger. Straight up, nothing to be hid, she was just holding a dagger. Alex seemed to know something we didn’t, because he went up to the lady and whispered something into her ear. She glared at him and said something that we couldn’t hear. Of course I heard it, but I can’t say it or else I would be a bad narrator. Heh.

“There’s something sketchy about this…” Alex sheepishly said.

“Let’s eat!” Jaxon beamed.

“Here here,” Chantelle replied.

“Where the heck is Jonas?” Ruby low-key bellowed. “I’ve been waiting to see him this whole darn time. I’m done. There isn’t any dinner either. I want to go home.”

“Dinner’s ready!”said the older lady watching over the friends.

She brought out a rare-looking steak.

“Eat up!”

“I don’t trust you, lady.” Alex questioned the food.

Ruby, Alex, Jaxon, Olivia, and Chantelle started to eat. Alex took a bite and started to cough. He coughed and coughed.

“Alex! Are you okay, baby?” Olivia said.

Alex couldn’t answer. He coughed. Soon he started coughing out blood. Alex died.

“And that’s only the first one!” The lady, who was older, turned into a fierce looking witch.

“Ha. Three more to go. That’s what happens when you question the house. You DIE.”

“Are you serious? What the heck? You just killed my darn boyfriend!” Olivia cried.

“Boyfriend? Man, Alex. He was a player. He came to my house so many times.” Chantelle laughed.

“Chantelle, they’re serious about the deaths. I want you to die,” Olivia glared at her.

“You can’t kill me.” Chantelle answered.

Wow. Only three pages in, and we’re already getting some drama between the two girls. Hint — One of them does die. I wish I could wink right now, but I’m a book.

“Hello — ” Ruby slowly waved her hand at the witch. “Do you know where Jonas is?”

“I’ll take you to him,” the witch answered.

When they got to Jonas, he was locked up in a box filled with water; only his head out of it.

“Joe!” Ruby exclaimed!

“What happened? Why are y’all here?” Jonas questioned.

“Why did you send us here?” Olivia screamed. “You killed my boyfriend!”

“Boyfriend,” Chantelle air-quoted.

“Basically, we have to kill three more people to leave this crazy place. That means only two people survive. The witch told me that there are three main rooms in this house, and each of them has a thing that can kill one of us. We have to vote in each room to choose who will die. Two people will be chosen to go against each other. One of them has to die. I’m so sorry, dude. Thought this place was hecka lit,” Jaxon explained.

“Okay. If that’s what we have to do…” Ruby said.

“I’m so sorry guys… I had no idea…” Jonas said.

“Shut it, Mr. Murderer,” Olivia demanded.

“Let’s go,” Chantelle sighed.

Chapter Two: Snakes

As the friends walked to the first room, they heard hisses.

“I want to go home!” Ruby complained. “This sucks!”

“Hey, you hear Ruby? She keeps complaining. Not being a team player. I think she should be the first to go.” Jaxon said.

“I really don’t want to think about this right now.” Jonas answered.

“I think Olivia should go. She’s been really negative, and I think she deserves to be dead with her boyfriend.” Chantelle said.

“I don’t WANT to kill anybody.” Jonas replied. They had reached the first room. A note was waiting for them at the door. Jaxon started to read it.

Two people must be chosen to fight each other in the battle of snakes. Each of you vote unanimously one person and give it to the witch. The votes will be mixed, and the witch will pick two random names. Voting starts now. You may discuss with fellow humans.

“Great. One of us has to die,” Ruby said. “I know who I’m voting for. The person who brought us all here deserves to be the first to die.”

“Excuse me?” Jonas screamed. “This isn’t my fault. I was kidnapped.”

“I don’t know. I think you’re working with the evil,” Olivia said.

“Here here,” Ruby replied.

“I think I’ll keep Olivia until the end because she’s weaker than me. So I’ll vote for Ruby.” Chantelle said.

“Thanks,” Jonas replied. “I don’t want to die.”

The voting ended. The witch pulled two names out of a basket.

“Ruby. Jonas.”

“Who voted for me?!” Ruby screamed, and Jonas said, “Who voted for me?”

“Come on, Ruby and Jonas. I will take you to the snake room.”

“Snakes? You’ve got to be — ” Ruby stopped herself.

She didn’t want to complain in front of her friends — it was probably the reason she was in this position. The witch gave them a paper. It read:

There are three steps to this challenge. The first one: find a key and open a box with it. The second: take the puzzle out of the box and complete it. The third: take the snake out of the box and put it on the completed puzzle. Once someone has completed the third step, snakes will start viciously attacking the other opponent, killing them. Are you ready?

For a quick moment, Jonas and Ruby were scared. But then they started their challenge. Jonas immediately got a head start. He found a key and put it into the box. Ruby still couldn’t find the key.

“Any help, Joe?” she yelped.

“How would I know where yours is?” he answered. Jonas finished the puzzle.

“Darn!” Ruby screamed.

Jonas completed the puzzle, and Ruby had just started it. Jonas took the snake out.

“I’m so sorry, Ruby, but it’s either you or me.”

“Joe! How are you going to put me through this! Spare me!”

Jonas put the snake on the puzzle. Ruby shrieked. The snakes piled on top of her, as she was poisoned with the venom of the snakes. Ruby died. The challenge ended.

Jonas was scared as he walked down the hallway. He didn’t know what his friends’ reactions would be. He killed his best friend. Ruby was dead; how could he possibly live with that? He also had to worry about dying. Would he survive? As he walked down the magnificent hallway, the “Ruby” tinted carpet under him started to move. He saw the wooden floor suddenly become metal, steel, and then mist. He ran. What was the house doing now? What was it planning? Before he ran in the room, he heard a low and haunted muffled voice scream, “Midnight. It always comes.”

Chapter Three: Sweet or Sour?

Chantelle leaped for joy when she saw that Jonas had survived.

“Thank god it’s you, Joe!”

“I feel horrible,” Jonas replied.

He sat down on a ginormous, fluffy couch. The couch soon exploded with candies. On one of the candies, the biggest one, was a note. Everyone groaned.

“How many more have to die?” Olivia said with a grim look on her face.

“Two.”

All four looked at each other like it was the Hunger Games. Well, in a way, it was. They took the note, and it read,

Before you reach the second door, be sure you have an appetite. Things are about to get sweet, so don’t turn sour. Vote for a member that you think can take on this challenge. Two names will be picked. They will be taken to a room to fight for their lives. How sweet!

Chantelle started to talk to Jaxon, and Olivia started to talk to talk to Jonas.

“I’m voting for Olivia. I’m guessing she’s going to vote for me, and I think I’m stronger than her,” Chantelle bragged.

“Okay, I’m going to vote for Olivia too. Ugh! I feel horrible doing this. Just remember, Chantelle, if you do get picked, I want you to come out alive.”

“Thanks, Jaxon.”

The voting ended. As the witch pulled the two names out of the basket, Olivia moaned. It had been a horrible night for her. Alex had died, and she was probably going to be picked out of the hat. The witch pulled the two names.

“Olivia. Chantelle.”

The two girls glared at each other, knowing one would die. But which one? Chantelle took a good look at Olivia. Neither were quite confident, probably because death was coming. She was going to take the high road and talk to Olivia.

“I’m so sorry about Alex.”

“Yeah, it makes me feel better knowing that you had make-out sessions with him.”

“Look, I’m really sorry. Maybe do you want to, like, find a way out of killing each other?”

“Do you really think… whatever.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Just read the note.”

At this moment, Chantelle realized that Olivia was acting. You see, Chantelle was the leader of the Delta sorority of Wesleyan College, and she could tell when a girl was playing dumb-dumb because she wanted to get out of trouble and have fun-fun. Chantelle thought, I’m gonna beat this girl. They finally got to the room, and it was full with candy. Anything you could name; it made my mouth water. M&Ms, Snickers, Hershey’s Kisses, Twizzlers, Reese’s, Kit Kats, Gummy everything, worms, bears, bunnies! There were cakes; all different colors, fluffy and thick, smooth and rough, and even jelly beans in every color you can name. The room had a table in the middle with small cookies on it. There were closets, and Chantelle’s mouth dropped. Out of nowhere, a giant gingerbread man with a knife appeared.

It bellowed, “Eat every single jelly bean that is red. Some of them will taste bad, so you have to figure out which ones are poison. If you eat three poisonous jelly beans, you die. Get sweetened up!”

The gingerbread man poured brown sugar all over Chantelle.

“What! Do you see this dress? Are you kidding? How do you expect me to eat jelly beans when I’m covered in sugar!”

Olivia laughed at Chantelle’s pain.

“Three, two, one. GO!”

The challenge started. Chantelle started sniffing the cherry jelly beans.

“How the #$#@ am I supposed to tell which jelly beans are poisonous?”

“Just eat them,” Olivia said.

Chantelle and Olivia ate and ate. Three-hundred jelly beans later, both Chantelle and Olivia had eaten two poisonous jelly beans each. Both of them were waiting for each other to eat the next jelly bean.

Olivia sneakily said, “I’ll eat the first one. Okay, Chantelle?”

“No. I’ll do it.”

They both raced to the jelly beans. They both grabbed one. They gulped the candy down. In three seconds, one of the girls died.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH.”

A smug face looked down at the body.

“Bye!” she mumbled gleefully.

Chapter Four: Midnight Trouble

Chantelle walked down the hallway. Looking taller than she’d ever been, she knew she was going to get out of the house alive. Or at least that’s what she thought. She walked into the room where Jaxon and Jonas were. They were both talking to each other and then turned to see Chantelle, covered in brown sugar. They couldn’t help but laugh.

“Okay, so Olivia’s dead.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Chantelle.”

Then, out of nowhere, that crazy witch appeared again.

She bellowed, “One of you will be sacrificed at midnight. Hide. Now. You have five minutes.”

“What?”

“Well, I’m going to hide.”

“I’m scared.”

The witch bellowed again, this time telling Chantelle and the two boys what was happening.

“The Schmorezzelachen will come out any time now. It will pick which human it wants to devour. When it does so, the exit to this estate will be opened. God! It’s coming! The Schmorezzelachen! Hide!”

They all recognized the Schmorezzelachen when they saw it. It was giant with wings and a hairy head. It had an aura from a different dimension, creating thin air, making it hard to breathe. It took a step and another. All of them made sure not to breathe. Someone took a breath, but who was it? Ugh! I’m such a bad narrator! I can’t even breathe in here! The Schmorezzelachen pranced out of its slow walk and devoured the body. The door to the house opened, and the two survivors ran out of the house. They ran out of it like it was about to self-destruct. They took breaths and went into their carriage. It was 5 AM, and they could see the little sliver of the sun appear over the horizon. The night was over.

“That was one heck of a night,” one of them said.

“Sure was.”

Oh, did I forget to tell you who survived? Oh, dear me, I’m such a bad narrator. And I wish I could wink at you right now, but I’m a book.

Epilogue: Five years later

Chantelle and Jonas were the only people who survived the house. But the fight was not over. Their friends were all dead, and only now did they realize the consequences. It was time for their police investigation. Who would come out guilty?

“Achoo,” Ari sneezed.

“Are you okay?” Ari’s mom asked.

“No, I think I have a cold,” Ari answered, depressed.

He walked slowly, and he felt weak.

“Have you been out in the cold a lot?” Ari’s mom asked.

Ari said, “Yes, of course. It’s winter, and my friends and I had a snowball fight.”

Ari’s mom said, “Let me give you some medicine, and then you should sleep.”

“No, sleeping is boring. Achoo,” Ari said.

“If you do not rest, your cold will become worse,” Ari’s mom said.

Ari really wanted his cold to go away, but he did not want to go to sleep. Ari invited his friends, Alex, Joe, and Ethan over to help him get rid of his cold. When Ari’s friends came over, they made a drink to get rid of his cold. The drink was made of popsicle juice, apple juice, orange juice, and broccoli. Ari drank it but spit it out, and he stuck his tounge out in disgust. But his cold was still there.

Next, they tried to warm him up since he had a cold. They wanted to cover him with 50 blankets, and they rolled him around each blanket. When Ari stood up, he fell right back down and started rolling toward the wall. But luckily his friends got in front of him and stopped him from hitting the wall. But that didn’t work either.

After, they tried to cover him in a really cold blanket because when you are sick, you might feel hot. So they took a blanket, put it in a case, and in the remaining space, they put snow. Once all the snow melted, they wrapped it around him. This worked a little, but it didn’t completely heal him. So they gave him medicine, Tylenol. Then, after, they were so tired that they slept on Ari’s king-sized bed. They woke up after an hour, and Ari’s cold was better, and Ari felt stronger. He could walk easily, and he didn’t sneeze a lot. Then they had a snowball fight.   

The End

“Can I have an elephant?” Ethan asked his mom in the living room. “Because I want to ride on it, so I can transport easily while having fun, and since I don’t really have any friends, Mom.”

She opened her eyes widely and said, “No way! It’s way too big!”

Ethan said, “I will take care of it and make a big house outside for it.”

His mom said, “Okay, but you are buying the elephant. It is 50 rand.”

But Ethan realized and said, “Oh no! I only have 20 rand that I saved up from previous chores I did.”

So Ethan decided to do chores for his neighbors like cleaning, doing their laundry, and dusting. He felt okay with doing chores because he did chores for his mom and dad. In his opinion, it was not much of a challenge for him.

However, the real challenge was finding a job due to the way he looked. He looked Christian because he was light-skinned, but he was actually Hindu. His mom, dad, four-year-old brother named John, and 23-year-old sister named Camelia, who lived separately from them, all had light skin. He thought it made sense for people to think they were Christian because they had Christian names. There were a lot of Hindus in his South African village, and they thought Ethan’s family shouldn’t be there because they thought he was Christian.

He got a job by researching on the internet, and he saw a person named Joe, who needed help. Ethan went to a different part of his village that was Christian, and he worked for Joe. Joe was Hindu in a Christian part of the village!

“Can I have a job?” Ethan asked Joe.

“Okay, I need help with cleaning, dusting, etc.” said Joe.

Ethan felt like all the chores were fun. He earned five rand for each hour. He decided to work one hour everyday for a week except Sunday, because he did not want to work so long, so he would not get tired. He got 50 rand but had no idea where to buy the elephant. So he asked a young girl on 24th street.

She said, “I don’t know,” so then he asked some teens.

They said, “Um… We do not know.”

Then he asked an adult, and he said, “No one seems to know because they never wanted an elephant as a pet, but I do because I used to have an elephant. But sadly, it passed away. The pet store is five streets east.”

         “Thank you!” responded Ethan, becoming friends with the man.

Then he went to the pet store. There were so many elephants at the shop. He wasn’t sure which one to choose. All of the elephants were really loud. But one of them was quiet, had a short trunk, short legs, and was light. He was a two-year-old elephant.

Ethan started to like that elephant because it was cute, since it was small and young. He eventually bought him. Ethan decided to name his elephant Sanav, meaning sun in Hindi, because it was always so hot in South Africa, and that caused the elephant to be really really hot.

Ethan developed a lot of love for him, so now he had a fear of it dying. This was why he took a lot of care of it. He used it for transportation but also loved it as a pet. With the help of Bob, the adult he met asking for the directions to the pet store, they built a little red house for the elephant to live in and feel comfortable. (Red happened to be Ethan’s favorite color.)

Whenever the elephant felt hungry, he went, “ UHHHRRRRUUHHHH,” and Ethan fed him peanuts.

The villagers felt jealous of Ethan’s elephant because they had to walk while Ethan got a ride from his pet elephant. But they thought it was too much work to take care of an elephant. It made Ethan feel sorry, so he tried to convince the villagers to get elephants and he offered to help them take care of their elephants. They felt happy that he was trying to help, and they began to like him.

Not only did he use his elephant for transportation but also as a pet to have fun with. He had fun with Sanav and his little brother. They played in the sand, which there was plenty of in South Africa, since it was something he loved to do. Now Ethan had a friend to do it with.

The End

Chapter One

Once, there lived a piece of bread named Peanut Butter. Peanut Butter lived in a little cabin with his mother named Cream Cheese. He really wanted to find a friend. 

One Thursday afternoon, Peanut Butter set out to find a friend. First, he came to a sprinkle box. A vanilla cupcake with strawberry frosting was playing there.

“Hello. My name is Peanut Butter. Can you be my friend?”

“Shhhh, you will blow down my sprinkle castle.”

Peanut Butter put his hands over his eyes. He went on.

Next, he came to a bowl of spaghetti.

“Hello. My name is Peanut Butter. Will you be my friend?”

The spaghetti crossed his arms and said, “Did you say you wanted to eat me? Well, you can forget it! I don’t ever want to be your friend!”

“Oh, my!” said Peanut Butter. He bent down his crust and went on.

Meanwhile at Peanut Butter’s house, there was a different problem.

Chapter Two

“Help me! I am being attacked by a giant hamburger. Help! Help! Help!” cried Peanut Butter’s mother, Cream Cheese.

All of a sudden, it started to rain hamburgers!

“NOW IT IS RAINING HAMBURGERS!!” screamed Cream Cheese.

Peanut Butter came to a slice of cheese pizza and said, “Hello. My name is Peanut Butter.”

“Hello. My name is Pizza-Pizza-I-Don’t-Like-You-Go-Away-Now!”

“But I wasn’t—”

“Bye bye!”

“– finished.” Peanut Butter sadly walked away and headed home.

“Son, you have to help me!”

“Hi, Mom. I think I am going to go to my room now,” said Peanut Butter, drooping sadly into his peanut butter room.

Suddenly, a piece of bread with jelly on it named Jells came down from the sky.

“Oh my,” said Cream Cheese. “A piece of bread with jelly.”

“Calm down, Etsy. Sit. Stop,” said Jells to the giant hamburger, Etsy.

Etsy listened and controlled his rainy hamburgers and himself. Peanut Butter heard that there was a guest over. Peanut Butter loved guests. Peanut Butter jumped out of bed and ran downstairs into the kitchen.

“Hello. My name is Peanut Butter. Will you be my friend?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes! I am new in this village, and I need a new friend.”

“My mom and I go swimming in the butter lake,” said Peanut Butter.

“My dad and I go to the Frosting museum!”

“How about we . . . go on an adventure?!” cried Peanut Butter and Jells together.

Chapter Three

Peanut Butter and Jells first went out to the yellow, melted butter lake. Jells jumped in first.

“This is so fun, and I wish my dad would bring me to do this!”

Then Peanut Butter jumped in.

“Cannonball!” screamed Peanut Butter.

Peanut Butter and Jells started swimming. Peanut Butter got out and did another cannonball.

“Hey let me try that!” said Jells. “I’m going to do a pencil jump.”

Finally, when they were done playing, they went out to the frosting museum. Peanut Butter went in first.

“This is so cool! I’ve never seen so much frosting in my life!”

“I know. Isn’t it cool?” said Jells.

“What are you, kidding? It’s so cool!” said Peanut Butter.

“Ooo you know what you would like?” said Jells.

“What?” asked Peanut Butter.

“The Frosting Stairs. Your feet stick to the frosting, and you get sprinkles on your feet,” said Jells.

When Peanut Butter and Jells were done, they started heading home.

Chapter Four

Peanut Butter and Jells were very, very tired. They were so tired, they forgot how to get home! It started getting dark out and very, very green. Suddenly, they noticed they weren’t near home. They were in the woods!

“I have a feeling we’re in the deep, dark forest. Maybe foxes and bears will be out by this time. Maybe we should try to find our way home?” said Jells, chewing on his fingernails.

“Right,” said Peanut Butter.

“But how?” said Jells.

“I bet we could find a way,” said Peanut Butter.

Then, Jells saw a little grey path with light at the end of the path.

“Look! There’s a path!” said Peanut Butter.

So Peanut Butter and Jells followed the path.

“Look,” said Jells. “It’s my house!”

“Hold on! I thought we were going to my house.”

“But don’t you want to visit my house?” asked Jells.

“Yeah. I guess you are right,” said Peanut Butter.

Chapter Five

Peanut Butter and Jells started heading to Jells’s house. Peanut Butter knocked on the door.

“Come in,” said Blueberry Cream Cheese.

Jells opened the door.

“Hello, sweetie,” said Blueberry Cream Cheese.

“I see you found a new friend! Oh, also, where’s Etsy?”

“He’s at my new friend’s house,” said Jells.

“Well, can you please go and get Etsy because we need him to make dinner?”

“Okay, Papa,” said Jells.

And so Peanut Butter and Jells went to get Etsy. When they came back to Jells’s house, they found out that Peanut Butter’s mom, Cream Cheese, called Jells’s dad and said that since they are new friends, they can have a big feast.

“Woah! Why do you have all this stuff?” said Jells.

“We’re going to have a huge feast!” said Blueberry Cream Cheese.

“Oooo, is Aunt Chocolate Macaroon coming? She’s so fun!”

“Even better… your new friend is coming!”

“Really?” said Jells. “That’s even better than Aunt Chocolate Macaroon coming!”

“You think it is, sweetie? Well, I’m glad.”

Peanut Butter was very happy, too.

“I’m also excited, Mr. Blueberry Cream Cheese.”

Etsy was done making dinner. They went out to have a picnic for the feast. Peanut Butter’s mother brought pie for dessert, and Jells’ dad brought brussel sprouts and chicken.

“Yum!” said Peanut Butter and Jells.

And they lived happily ever after!

The End

Hello, I am The Narrator, and I am trying to write a nonfiction book about animals that live above and below us. I just finished eating my breakfast. And I am 37 years old. Currently I am at the beach, and I can see that there is a small bird named Mr. Bi-

“HEY! WHO ARE YOU, AND WHY IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ME?!” the bird says.

“Whoa. What a big voice you got there, Mr. Bird. My name is The Narrator. People call me The Narrator. My full name is Narrator Narrator Narrator the Eleventh.”

“Well, that’s one long name… but WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ME AND WH-”

“Mr. Bird, I wanted to interview you for my book.” Mr. Bird is currently angry about this interview. “Mr. Bird, are all birds like you?”

“NO, OF COURSE NOT!” Mr. Bird screams.

“Mr. Bird, what type of bird are you?”

Mr. Bird — Mr. Bird! Jeez. He flew away. Since it is a bit more quiet now, let me tell you more about what kind of bird Mr. Bird was. Judging by his temper and the color of his feathers, I think he was a seagull. I might have been close to Mr. Bird’s nest where his eggs and baby gulls were. I totally understand. Or maybe he had to go to this important meeting that only seagulls could attend. That would be awesome, wouldn’t it?        

***

I am now going to ride the subway and go to Central Park. Oka — oh. Wait a sec. Urgh… I have to refill my Metrocard… Now, I have arrived at the park, and I am walking towards one of the trees to take a look at what kinds of animals live there.

“Ohh! Mr. Squirrel! Mr. Squirrel!” *Pant pant*  “Wait up!”

Mr. Squirrel turns around and sees me. Mr. Squirrel, surprised, runs away from me.

“MR. SQUIRREL! I AM NOT HERE TO HARM YOU… I JUST WANT TO INTERVIEW YOU FOR A BOOK I’M WRITING!”

Mr. Squirrel waits for me to catch up. Mr. Squirrel stares at me like I’m the craziest person in the world… and that might be true since I am — never mind.

“Sir, do you mind if I interview you for my book?” I ask him politely.

“Sure,” he says while rolling his eyes.

Okay, then. So… Mr. Squirrel, can you describe a little about yourself, please?

“Okay, fine. Hello. I am Mr. Squirrel, and I live in this tree. I hide nuts underground so that I have enough nuts to survive through the winter. I am a gray squirrel, so I sometimes forget where I buried my scrumptious nuts below… but it does grow into new nut trees so… it’s worth it. Uh… Oh! Here’s a fun fact. I have a fluffy tail because I need it to keep myself steady and balanced. And I am able to walk across treetops, thanks to my bushy tail! But remember this. It would be better to just watch us do our work if you spot one of us because we might bite you. That would hurt. Wouldn’t it? Now, I will have to go and continue with my work.”

“Okay. Thank you, Mr. Squirrel. But before you go, here is a giant nut for you!”

“Aww… that’s nice of you,” he says.

Then he scurries up to the top of his tree and starts to eat his nut.

***

Now I am going to ride a plane to East Asia. To be specific, South Korea. Okay, now I have arrived, and I am currently riding a bus to the mountains. On the way to the mountains, I see a pond that looks like a giant jar of glass and see some turtles swimming in it. Maybe I can interview them later if I am lucky. But before that, I hope I can encounter a wild animal there in the mountains. Phew! Finally. Here are the mountains. Now I am going to start climbing. Oh, there is one tigress…
“Ms. Tigress!”

The tigress turns around with a rabbit in her mouth. She puts the dead, little rabbit on the ground and shows her fangs and growls at me and gets ready to attack.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ms. Tigress! I mean no harm.”

“Then what do you want?” she says, still growling.

“All I want to do is interview you. Currently, I am writing a book about animal behaviors. So I was wondering if I could interview you…”

The tigress looks around for traps and takes one good look at me.

“Fine,” she says.

“Why, thank you! Okay. So… can you just tell me more about yourself?”

“Sure. So I am — as you can see, a tigress, and my species of tigers are threatened… I am a carnivore, so I eat meat. I have two brothers. And doesn’t my hair just shine so bright in the sunlight?”

She looks up at the cloudy sky and now looks dreamy. I roll my eyes. *Cough cough*

“ANYWAYS… hmm… oh! You said that your species is threatened, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me more about that?”

“Sure. So currently we, the tigers, are on the threatened list, since we are being hunted down too much than we should be and because of habitat destruction. Korea does have a lot of mountains, but their land is small so they ‘need’ to build more buildings. Then they would cut down the mountains, which we live in. For example, one day a random person that you have never met, and have no idea who he is, just comes up to you and breaks your house down? Would you feel great or miserable? Most likely miserable. Well, you wouldn’t be happy, right? And after we lose our homes, we would start to wander around and then starve to death since our prey lost their home too. It’s just really horrible.”

I feel small tears coming on my eyes. And now it’s running down my cheek. I don’t know why. Fine, I do, but not a hundred percent sure why.

“Thank you, Ms. Tigress. I shall have to run along now. Thank you again for your time.”

“You’re welcome!”

***

Remember the turtles I mentioned along with the pond on the way to this mountain? If you do, great. If you don’t, well, just listen. I am riding the bus that I rode before and going to the pond. I hope the turtles are awake. Ohh! Look at those beautiful birds and their nests on the trees! What a wonderful sight… wait… what? It’s already time to eat lunch… I’ll eat on the way, then.

Ouughph! Gulp. Sorry. My mouth was full. We’re here! Let’s get off. Ohh! Cool! And here’s some good news. The turtles aren’t asleep! I walk closer to the rock that the three turtles are just relaxing on. I don’t want to scare them or anything, so I just kneel down in front of the rock and whisper, “Hello, Turtles! I am Narrator Narrator Narrator the Eleventh.”

“Nar — who?” one of the turtles says while looking up at me.

“Narrator Narra — never mind. Just call me The Narrator.”

All the turtles start to look at each other weirdly.

“Ok-ay…?” the second turtle says while looking at the others. “So what do you want from us…?”

“Oh, nothing much. I just wanted to interview you for a book I’m currently writing. Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, okay,” the third turtle answers.

I can’t hear what he said so I ask, “Sorry. Can you say it again, please?”

“I said, ‘Yeah. Okay.’”

I still can’t hear him very well so I take that as a yes.

“Okay, so what is your favorite thing to do?”

“Well, we like to sleep, eat, be lazy, and swim very slowly,” the first turtle says.

“Ooh. Cool,” I say. “And I‘m guessing that you are a… um… a red-eared slider since you have red ears?”

“Yeah. You’re right,” the third turtle says.

“Yeah,” the second turtle says.

It is getting darker. I turn around and suddenly find myself completely lost in the middle of the mountains. I am so excited about the turtles that I forget everything! I check my phone, and it’s 7:28. Oh no!

“Turtles, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that I have to leave.”

I run to the bus stop, but the bus is gone. Uh oh. I slowly walk back to the pond where the turtles were. But the turtles are gone! Oh. Never mind. They are swimming in the pond. I decide to make myself a bed out of leaves and sleep here with the turtles. So I start to collect dead leaves and make myself a bed. I try to sleep, but I can’t. So I start to count sheep. Then I slowly fall asleep.

The next morning, I find myself at my own leaf bed. I rub my eyes and stand up. I check my phone, and it’s 6:17 in the morning. I walk towards the bus stop again and see a bus there, so I say a farewell to the turtles and go back to the bus stop, but the bus is nowhere to be seen. So I wait a few more hours for the bus in front of the bus stop. While I am waiting, I start to get hungry. I find a few snacks here and there in my backpack, and so I eat them. Oh, I eat ‘em all right. And I eat them real fast. After I finish eating, I wait for the bus to come. After 20 minutes, the bus comes! So I hop on the bus and say out loud, “Ahhh… the air conditioner… what a relief…”

I see that some people are staring at me, but I just ignore them and take a seat.

***

While I am going back to the airport to meet the red pandas, I look outside the bus window, and I see a lot of trees. Now I am at the airport and heading for the plane to New York City. I sleep during the flight, so I can’t tell you much. Here is a little fact about red pandas before we go in. I’ve heard that their diet is 85% to 95% bamboo shoots and bamboo leaf tips. I’m heading for the Central Park Zoo right now, and I am here now. I buy the tickets, and I am now entering the zoo. Oh. Here is the red panda exhibit. Whoa. There are quite a lot of people here! The red pandas are really popular! Oomph! Sorry! Excuse me! Phew. Here we are.

“Hello — Arrgghhh! Please stop pushing me! Ahem. Hello, Red Pandas! Can I — Arrrggghhh… Do you mind if I interview you?”

“Sure!” one of the red pandas says.

“Cool. So… do you think that you are better than normal pandas?”

“Well, you see, we are kind of related to pandas so… and I never thought about before. This question is a challenge.”

“Okay, then. Hmm… then what do you like about yourself?”

“That’s also a big challenge… I, uh… oh! I like my tail. I am really proud of that…”

“Got it. Thank you and have a bambooic day!”

***

Now I am at my headquarters. Mwahahaha! I now finally have all the information in the world! Oh. I forgot. This is my assistant, Ramona.

“Ramona, here is all the information I got about the animals. I’m so proud of myself. Don’t you agree?”

“Um… sir…?” she says while she takes a look at my notes.

“This information you can all find in the internet… ”

What is the internet?

“Well, it is a… um… let’s search it up on the internet.”

I’m so confused.

“Oh. Here it is… so the definition of internet is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.”

Well, that’s one confusing sentence. But WHAT?!

“Sir, this information can be easily found on the internet… I’m sorry to say.”

I am so sad. All this for nothing? But I still learned a lesson. And it was fun.

So there she was, walking around a crossroad in the middle of nowhere. Looking around, 23-year-old Amanda, a puny cashier, was off to a clothing store. It was a sizzling yet gleaming Sunday morning. The cars were driving, and the children were skipping. She saw mixed signals above the clouds, flashing abominations within each space, and anxiousness, rush, and conflict through the air.

Walking into the store, she flapped through everything in her path, stopping once she gazed directly into a piece of an astonishing wardrobe’s immaculate details. She took a while at the cashier as she placed each item on the scrappy counter. Seeing a cashier made her think, Why am I doing this, and where am I supposed to be? Then, she stampeded like a pack of dragons out of the store, storming off with her clothing, her credit card in her hand the whole time. A long line of people was juxtaposing her as she crawled mystically through the crowd and magically appeared in the black chair. Footsteps from her boss’s door filled her ears, and she reversed her previous movements. Her imagery and mind swapped scenes as she had nothing to do with anything in there. Trying to hide from her precariousness, sluggishly limping towards her apartment, she came across a tree, a holy tree, and climbed inside its hole. She went feet first and curled into a ball.

Immediately, she dropped way inside it and changed facial expressions. She went down a deep trench, frightening and pitch black, scratchy and rough. It ripped her jeans and left her in horror as to what was to come next. She ended up in a white room. The room was decorated with candles and roses, smelling like a honeymoon. Sighing, out came a mischievous spark from a hidden door. The spark flew straight for the glass window, shattering it to pieces. She climbed back up the trench as the spark flew south. She found a rope, a slippery rope, and grabbed hold of it. Racing for her life, mist appeared as she backed out. She continued on the gruesome path, attempting to find some grace. Seeing sunlight, she toppled her way up the last few steps and relief took its course. She circled around again, until the tree sucked her in. The wind smashed her, dragging her, until her grip was not strong enough. She was in the trench again and went straight past different stages.

Each stage held a riddle and a challenge. She had to complete each challenge using hazardousness, intelligence, endurance, and agility. However, each stage was less simple than it sounded. She only found this out by reading a scroll enriched by the stench of dirt, which was written by a prophet. His threats melted away in Amanda’s mind, only to reveal an unappealing picture. He also mentioned there was a missing piece, and at some time, it would appear. Ignoring the quote, Amanda fell into despair and fell asleep, dreaming about absolute terrorization. She did not think, did not do anything. She did not know what to do and concealed herself within the very center of the earth. Witnessing the plants maturing, she whispered to God, “why am I here?” There was no answer. God was clueless, and due to that, this quest was clearly impossible as Amanda was blank in thought, all on her own, exploring this second world, which turned out to be complete nothingness and tragedy.

She encountered the first step, which squeaked like a mouse, and screeched its way to freedom, opening up as Amanda returned to solid ground. The staircase cracked, and dirt and sticks fell through the tree, blocking her vision and mere hope. Her first thought was to just wait, but that could take hours. She then gained a lightbulb. She began to pick out certain sticks in the heap and then scratched all of the dirt out of place. Above her lay the world, and the challenges she would have to overcome. She slinked up the stairs drowsily, only to see a squirrel.

The squirrel had a mixture of white and brown fur and was crouching on some tree roots. He shook a very small and very weak tree, only to be enrobed in a immense pile of acorns. Then, the squirrel wiggled his way out, shaking off any remaining acorn pieces afterward. He abruptly began chucking acorns at a very rapid pace. His face was motionless, but his insides were scornful. To work her way out of this horrific procedure, Amanda dug a hole deep into the ground and sat inside it, using the leftover dirt as a fortress to block herself from the soaring projectiles. The fallen tree left behind a stump which was the perfect shield from the acorns. Once all of the acorns had been thrown, the squirrel dug his own hole and was so frightened by what Amanda would do next, he caught air and flew like the wind, lacking the radiance he briefly had before. Amanda climbed her way up the trench, hoping she would skip the second stage.

Unfortunately for her dream and ideal mind explanation, she encountered a bed of nails blocking her pathway. She had no idea how to get past this. A giant appeared who was at least 33-feet-tall, wore massive, red boots, a brown sack, a robe, and was completely bald with a beard as his only form of hair. He granted a command: “I will let you through if you can make me eat something that I do not enjoy.” This very broad message sunk into Amanda’s brain as she thought with agony.

She moaned to the giant, “Okay. Try eating this lovely…”

But what would the giant not like? Urban legends and myths say that giants eat anything from socks to swords. However she thought to herself about cannibalism and how no species likes to eat their own kind, and certainly, their own self. This challenge was becoming frivolous instead of difficult. Well, maybe it was going to be difficult for the giant, she thought, letting out a slight chuckle.

“So, what will it be?” growled the giant, furiously.

“Try eating yourself, head to toe,” Amanda mumbled, with relief covering up her face.

“With pleasure,” replied the giant with no thought as Amanda sought a peculiar look on his face.

The giant started with his toenails. His mouth deliberately moved up and down. To the giant, the toenails tasted like sausages but crunchier. He then moved onto his feet. It tasted like a juicy, hearty, chicken noodle soup. His legs were chomped away in no time. Sweat ran down Amanda’s face through the process. The giant finally got to his head and had already demolished each part of his body, obliterating himself throughout the course. The giant stretched out his mouth to get a slight grip around his head, and poof! Sure, the giant enjoyed his eccentric meal, but the revelation for Amanda was that the giant simply was not there. The giant floated casually up into the sky, resting upon a fuzzy cloud. Amanda crawled across the bed of nails, using the tree trunk to bend each of them, to make the crawl more comfortable. She surpassed the second stage, pinched, but healthy enough to continue. She then ran up the trench to the third stage.

She met an old woman, who looked arrogant and greedy

The old woman calmly said, “I am the best at everything, and you can try and beat me in a competition including any activity.”

Amanda thought long and hard about what activity to choose. She did not have extraordinary talent, and she knew that her talent would not live up to this woman. But she did have a booming personality and heart, which was something that set her apart from her competition. She ordered some servants to enter the room to judge the competition.

The woman copied the giants words, “So what will it be?”

“A respect competition,” mumbled Amanda.

“With pleasure,” scuffed the woman.

The judge wanted both contestants to display acts of kindness from receiving a hideous gift. The gift consisted of a slug, a toaster, and a dead bat. Up went the beggar woman to the stage.

She radiantly empowered to the judge, “I did not travel all of this way to receive such useless items. You are dismissed!”

The judge shook his head in agony and firmly protested to the woman these devastating words.

“I show great remorse for the action I am about to display. However, my eminence, you seem to be flustered with the mess you have trapped yourself in. The girl is the winner.”

And just like that, the woman’s eyes popped right out of her skin, and off went Amanda, heading straight towards stage four.

She started to see some sunlight through the trench, and as she was looking, along came the next obstacle. This time, a man with brown hair brushed back to his scalp wandered around the perimeter.

“Oh well, salutations there,” said the man springily. “Prepare for endorsement in spontaneous combustion.”

Amanda leaped back in terror. First up was the stretcher. The man took out a prisoner, placing him roughly on the contraption. Lacking flexibility, the prisoner’s limbs were flappy and weak. She felt like she was in the dark ages. Next, the man went over to the head crusher. The prisoner placed his head inside of the machine, and the machine jolted south. The prisoner whimpered as his head was chopped right off. Next, was the fire and sword. The man left the prisoner inside a ring of fire, and each time he yelped, swords would create crude scabs on his torso. Next was the lemon juice skin removal. The man quickly removed all of his skin, only to embroider the prisoner in screamingly painful lemon juice. The fifth and last step was the gas chamber, which was used to ultimately turn the body into nothingness as he was burned alive and forever slayed due to the supremely evil man. Amanda nearly fainted, but she found out that the gas chamber was the only machine that actually killed people. This was her chance to fake her death.

Amanda sweetly acknowledged to the man, “I will start with the gas chamber.”

Right before that, she stole the man’s drink and spilled it over the controller to suck her inside the chamber. The man flipped the lever immediately as Amanda stepped right inside without any fear. She got out of the chamber, pushed the old man inside it, and he was never tangible to anything or anyone ever again. She bumped over some equipment as she stumbled out and raced for stage five.

There was no stage five. The prophet left her another note: You must prepare for stage six. This is the hardest stage there is. Stage five is the tendency to not stop. We have provided you with food and water, but you must train. The spirits will be looking over you. In order to pass this stage, you must not sleep. That is how you’ll transport yourself to stage six without defeat and humiliation. This is your only chance, but we are all counting on you.

At that moment, something struck Amanda. She would have to use all of her previous skills she had picked up from each challenge. By combining each skill, she would outsmart the next obstacle. She recapped each one of her moments in the trench and was ready to put her agility and wit to the ultimate test. She sat down to a dinner of steak, wine, cheese, and apple pie. She thought long and hard about stage six. She was secretly terrified of to what was to come next. She just wanted this petrifying journey to end. She was sweating hard as she trained all night, eventually collapsing from exhaustion. She missed her family, the outside world, and her job, but she found a new piece within her. Somewhere, there was a piece. At some time, it had to be found, and it was inside her.

The moment to find the missing piece was now. When sunlight cracked open her eyes, she ran up the trench and saw an unbearable, indestructible, brick wall that was surrounding her. The walls closed, chomping together like jaws eating an almond. It was stage six, and she was trapped in a hamlet.

Amanda tried to use her body to bust herself out and tried to push bricks out of the wall, but no solution worked. Never had she accumulated something so frustrating. Then, it was all obvious. The message said, “go through the cracks and then follow tracks,” but this was not her answer. The answer was butter. She grabbed her packets of butter from last night’s dinner and began melting them into the bricks. Then, she shaved her tree stump, plucking out each nail. She pounded her way out with the nails scraping the bricks. It took three tiring hours, but Amanda was out. As a memory, she took the first brick that fell out of place and the invention she made.

She jumped for joy and began to follow the footsteps of what seemed to be a bear. The bear eventually showed up at the bottom of the tracks and intended to eat Amanda. The bear’s teeth snapped down, intending to reach Amanda’s forearm. Amanda looked at the brick she brought from the trench. She used it to smash the bear in the head, and as a souvenir, she grabbed a bunch of hair that had fallen out during the fight. Next, she realized the prophet had tricked her. She would have to go back up the trench.

This time, another squirrel was throwing acorns at her, but Amanda discovered that the last acorn was right by her side. She then threw it into a hole, and the squirrel whooshed inside it as Amanda covered up the hole with leaves, sticks, and dirt. The bed of nails was still in stage two, but this time, she used her shoelaces to wrap around each nail, tying that nail with amazing force. The nail jolted back, and popped right out of its shell. Amanda took each nail. In stage three, Amanda created a giggling contest, and she used the bear fur to tickle the old woman. At first, the woman let out a slight chuckle, until the room was being eaten up by a wave, which pulsed grand sparks coming straight out of the sky, in the form of an annoyingly high pitch. Eventually she stopped the process. The old woman told a joke. “Why do cups sing? Because they do the cup song!” The joke elicited a disgruntled look from Amanda. She had won the competition according to the judge, but she tickled the old woman again to regain safety from the stage.

For stage four, Amanda grabbed the contraption she had made at stage six, and the man with the brushed hair was punched in the eye and landed in the head crusher. Amanda deployed the crusher and out came blood and body parts, cascading around the floor to create a replica of a gory painting. Amanda ran off to stage five, her breakfast. The meal consisted of blueberry pancakes, eggs benedict, and maple bacon. She devoured each and every bite, leaving behind the distinct smell of grease. She headed towards stage six right, after her divine meal, and punched her way out again. But this time, a huge mess of crumbs was left behind which Amanda stepped in, so she got her shoes very dirty. Once she worked her way out, she took the original scroll as a memory for the prophet’s overwhelming wisdom and because of the recourse she had accumulated from him on how to complete each now imperished stage.

Working her way out of the trench, Amanda received one last note from the prophet. Congratulations. The end is near. You have gone through my tricks, and overcome your fear, but there is one secret you didn’t realize. You didn’t have a message stages one through five.

Amanda wore a ginormous grin as she ran out of the trench and encountered utter freedom. She circled around the tree and climbed right up it. Since she had many nails and more bricks from the second break, she was able to hammer the bricks in with the crusher she had made. She stayed up the tree, lost in thought, for quite a while until the cashier from the clothing store said firmly, startling Amanda, “You didn’t pay for your clothes!”

Once there was a person who wanted to be king. His name was Mr. Poppins. When Mr. Poppins was younger, his father died. He blamed God for his death and wanted revenge. He wanted world domination. He believed God lived on earth, and if he destroyed earth, God would die. However, he wouldn’t want to kill his innocent people that had nothing to do with his father’s death. His plan to do this was to move people to Mars and bring his father’s corpse there. But Nars and his new kingdom would be only for good people. Those who were murderers would get their heads chopped off.

But how? he thought to himself.

So he went on his way to the King of All Kings’ castle. Since King Johnson already had a kingdom and was a king himself, Mr. Poppins wanted to ask for advice to get a kingdom or take over one.

But King Johnson said, “No. But you can battle me, and whoever wins, is king.”

King Johnson was confident that he would win, but he was also scared that he would lose. So that night, Mr. Poppins tried to get as armed up as possible. He thought he might be able to find the transformation world so that he could turn into a werewolf for the battle. But then he remembered he was a fuggle and remembered that only wizards could see it.

So he strolled out, trying to find weapons, and then as soon as he walked in one place, he saw it: a store full of weapons. So he got a lot of weapons: an AK-47, bazooka, BB gun, a mega nerf gun, and a sniper.  He wanted a bazooka because he thought he could use the bazooka to destroy the king’s throne. But when it finally came the time to do it, he forgot that his bazooka was filled with marshmallows. It was filled with marshmallows since he had set up a party the day before, because he thought he was going to win. So when he tried to fire the bazooka, he fired it on the window of the throne and made a huge SPLAT. When he saw it, he then shook his gun because he thought something was wrong and ran away. When he got home, he loaded the bazooka right with bombs for tomorrow’s war.

***

The next day, it was battle time. But the problem was, he was so armed up that he couldn’t even walk. So he tried getting a load up truck (aka a tow truck.) Then he used the tow truck to load his armor onto there and leave. When it finally came to war, the king was stupid. All he had was a knife. Then Mr. Poppins thought, why did I spend all this money on weapons? So he took the knife, and once he took the knife, the king put on an devilish smile. The smirk on his face led him to think that there was something wrong with the knife. Then suddenly the knife began shaking, and he heard ticking. When he heard this, he knew it had to be a bomb, so he threw it away. But he had no idea where it landed, and unfortunately it landed on his house. With anger building in his body, he took his sniper and shot the king. But then, suddenly, a very cold breeze started to brush over him. Then some type of black figure arose and took him by the neck and nearly choked Mr. Poppins. Then the black figure slammed him onto the wall. But the one thing that the black figure didn’t know was that he was holding a bomb, and it exploded. Blasting away the black figure and the king’s throne, he knew that he must be king. But then some other building was still standing, and one half of the building opened up. An army of kings with swords and crowns on their heads came out, and he took the bazooka and blew up the kings. But when he exploded, all the kings in the building still hadn’t exploded. But, suddenly, someone grabbed him by the arms and tossed him into a truck. Then he wondered where he was going and couldn’t see since his eyes were covered. He felt himself on the floor with music, and finally, he could see again.

As soon as he knew it, he was at a surprise party, and in front of him,was the king’s hat with a sign that said, “You are now the king!”

King Johnson said, “That was a stupid war, so I thought why don’t I just let you be king?”

As King Poppins was having fun at the party, he figured out who the black figure was. Since one of his friends was covered in black ink, dust, and smoke, he knew it was his best friend trying to freak him out. Finally achieving this, he lived happily ever after. But only if he knew the real responsibilities of a king…

Once in Old San Juan, there was a doge who wanted an army so that he could lead the army and be their king. But to get to the army, he first needed the iPad in order to suck himself in it and join the game, since doges are magical creatures. In order to get the iPad, he needed to get past a human who didn’t like doges. His name was What’s-his-name, and he was the problem. He hated doges because he almost got killed by one. Ever since then, he has been plotting their final days.

The doge’s name was Sylvia. A doge is the size of a puppy with a human face. A doge has a small nose but a great sense of smell. It also has purple eyes, a big head, and a small body. It has huge ears. They are 20 times the size of a human ear, which would help them hear better.

Sylvia had a problem. He didn’t know What’s-his-name had already spotted him. Then boom!

It hit Sylvia. It was a sleep dart… zzz … Sylvia felt dizzy and sleepy then… boom!!

Sylvia fell on the floor. As he slowly opened his eyes, he woke up feeling lost. Having no idea where he was, or how long he had been lying down, he got up on all four of his legs and began to observe his surroundings.

“Where am I??” said Sylvia.

He was wondering where he was. Using his large ears and nose, he heard a lot of cars nearby and smelled burnt tires and gas, meaning there was a highway close by. Then suddenly, he heard a noise but wasn’t sure what it was, so he turned around to find the king, Mr. Poppins. He was a skinny man with a turban. Mr. Poppins liked doges and found them to be interesting creatures.

Mr. Poppins said, “It’s about time you woke up.”

Sylvia responded, “Who are you? How long was I asleep? Don’t you dare to get close!”

Mr. Poppins lifted an eyebrow and tilted his head. His mouth was turned up towards the right.

Opening his mouth, slightly confused, he responded, “I am not your enemy. In fact, I am helping you. I saw you asleep with a dart in your head. I was surprised that someone could do that to a doge because doges are magical creatures. I saw from a camera of mine what was going on. Keeping my kingdom safe is my biggest responsibility, and thanks to the security camera, I saw who was up to this, and I shall help you find them.”

Sylvia told Mr. Poppins, “I don’t trust you that much… How do I know I can trust you?”

Mr.Poppins responded, “I will help you find an iPad as well.”

Then, suddenly, the door burst open from the back and What’s-his-name was standing there. He was very skinny. His favorite color was blue. He was always wearing a turban. He lived in a very skinny house, and he liked wearing red hats. He was a hunter. Mr. Poppins reacted fast to What’s-his-name’s appearance, and pulled What’s-his-name’s legs, making him fall on his butt screaming, “MOMMYYYYYYY!”

His mom, Julie, came rushing in and saw her son on the floor and demanded someone to explain what was going on.

What’s-his-name stood up and told his mother exactly what had happened and how Mr. Poppins mistreated him.

Julie was slightly frustrated, and she asked, “Did you do this to my son?!”

Mr. Poppins responded, “I don’t care what happens to your son. He is a brute!”

The mom said, “My son is no brute. Who do you think you are?!”

Mr. Poppins responded, “I will not tell you, but I demand you to give me the iPad.”

Then suddenly, What’s-his-name’s dad, Johnny, came in. He was mad as well.

He told Mr. Poppins, “I will fight you!”
Suddenly, a little mouse came flying out of the wall and went into Johnny’s mouth! The wood chipped everywhere, leaving a tiny hole, the size of a mouse, in the wall! This caused him to fall splat onto the floor, stunned, with the mouse hugging Johnny’s tongue.

Everyone exclaimed at the same time, “Well that’s the end of Johnny!”

Then suddenly, they looked around to see that Sylvia had disappeared, and the iPad was right in front of them. They turned the Ipad on and saw the game The Battle Cats on as well and Sylvia was in it. He was in Korea.

Sylvia was running around in the game, breathing heavily and clapping. He commanded that cats to attack in the game.

Mr. Poppins yelled, “Get out of there, doge!”

Sylvia sighed and said, “FINE!”

After Sylvia came out of the Ipad, he stood there. What’s-his-name and his mom asked for Sylvia’s forgiveness.

“We are so sorry, and I guess not all doges are evil trying to kill us. Some could be quite interesting.”

Johnny, still lying on the floor with the rat, mumbled, “Ah-oh-ah” meaning I’m sorry. He wasn’t able to say that since the rat was still on his mouth.

One day, Riley, her mom, and Riley’s new teddy bear, Teddy, went for a walk. Where were they going? Only her mom knew. It was a surprise for Riley. Riley was so happy when she found out there was a surprise.

“I can’t wait!” said Riley.

Soon Riley and her mom were in front of her best friend, Melody’s house. Riley knocked on Melody’s door. What is my mom up to? Melody thought. Suddenly Melody came to the door.

“RILEY!” she said.

Melody led Riley into the house. Her house had blue walls, and pictures of her family were every where. She had a big staircase in her house that lead up to two more floors.

“Look at my new teddy bear.” Riley said.

“That’s so cool!” Melody said.

Melody whispered to herself, “I’m going to steal that teddy bear.”

Riley had to go to the bathroom really bad.

“I’m going to go use the bathroom. Don’t touch Teddy.”

Melody looked at Teddy and said to herself, “Now is the time.”

As Melody began to take the teddy, Riley came back.

“Melody, what do you want to do first?”

Riley said, “I want to play with my teddy.”

Melody said, “Teddies are for babies.”

Riley said, “Hey! They’re not for babies.”

Riley threw her teddy bear. Then Melody caught it. She went outside, threw the teddy up and caught it. Then Melody accidentally threw it far away. She tried to find it, but it was gone.

She said, “Never mind. It’s not mine, so I don’t care.”

***

The next day, Riley went home. She still didn’t notice that her teddy bear was gone. When she got home, her mom said, “Let’s wash your teddy bear.”

Riley said, “What teddy bear?”

“The one I gave you,” said her mom.

Riley said, worrying, “Oh no! I forgot my teddy bear.”

She forgot her teddy bear. She went back to Melody’s house, but Melody was going outside. When Melody came back, she had something in her bag. It was a teddy bear. Melody gave Riley the teddy bear.

She said, “Here you go.”

And they played.

THE END

The baby turtle was searching for its name. It just hatched from its egg and was heading toward the ocean. It took the turtle six hours to reach the ocean. Once it reached the ocean, the waves reached out and grabbed the baby turtle. The baby turtle knew that if she could find other turtles, she would find out what her name was, but the ocean was really big, and it would be a long trip.

The first thing she did was go and get food. She was really hungry! She ran/swam to the banks and then grabbed three crabs and stuffed them in her mouth. Then she scooped up five crabs and stuffed them in her shell. After that, she swam into the river and let the waves carry her. After a while, the waves broke out. The sun started to set, and the baby turtle was all alone. She didn’t know how close she was to shore, and she didn’t know how close she was to the other turtles either.

She began crying, saying, “Wahh! Wahh! Now I’ll never find a name.”

She cried on a land, but she was determined to find a name, so she swam upstream.

On the way, she ate fish. She was thinking maybe she could make her own name, but not now because, soon, the stream emptied into the ocean. Then she saw some turtles.

“Yay!” screamed the baby turtle.

She was so happy, she could not move.

She went over and asked, “Do you know my name?”

And the turtle said, “Yes! We’ve been looking all around the sea for for you, Coral.”

“Is this my name? Coral?”

“Yes! We are your parents.”

Coral felt excited.
“Wow! I finally get to meet my parents, and I know what my name is now. Even though I went through all these tasks, I completed them and got to the sea, and finally met my parents and got some food to eat. And, finally, of all the tasks, I got to know my name!”

“Thank you,” she said to her parents.

Olivia was bursting with joy. She had just turned nine, and she got an iPad for her present. She smiled as she quickly downloaded a million video games and apps. But little did she know that the new love she had just found would soon be lost forever.

One day, Olivia’s dad was dragging her and her two-year-old sister, Veronica, out of the house.

“We must go to this store. Don’t you want to have at least one good-looking couch in this house? We must go to the furniture store. You can bring your iPad if you want,” Olivia’s dad said.

So Olivia brought her iPad. And a purse. And she left it in the taxi cab. Olivia cried and cried when she realized what she did.

“I am so irresponsible!” she cried.

“Well, I won’t get you a new one. You’ll have to save up for it, because I am not spending a thousand dollars because you don’t know the meaning of responsibility,”  Olivia’s mom said sternly.

“It is very expensive. Maybe we should help her out a bit,” Olivia’s dad said.

“Nope. She needs to learn how to keep track of her things,” Mom replied.

“But how will I earn all that money?” Olivia asked.

“You can start by taking care of Veronica when I’m not around. Feed her, love her, give her everything she needs. Babysitting is tough, but I trust you’ll figure it out.”

“Hmm, that doesn’t seem too bad. When can I start?” Olivia asked her mom.

Olivia’s mom handed her Veronica and grabbed her purse and keys off the table in the store.

“How about now? Take Veronica home from this furniture store, feed her, and put her to nap. I expect you will act responsibly, and not lose her like you lost your iPad.”

“Of course I won’t!” Olivia said and hailed a taxi for the two of them.

Olivia’s mom took a deep breath and said,”Good luck. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

She handed Olivia two sheets of paper.

“This paper has the rules that you must follow as a babysitter, and this sheet of paper is Veronica’s schedule. Now goodbye. Oh, look at our daugher, growing up so fast. I remember when you were only Veronica’s age, and now you’re babysitting already!”

And then she began to cry.

“Okay, Mom. Let’s not be overdramatic,” Olivia said.

Mom wiped her eyes and said, “Okay, your dad and I are just going to shop for couches. We’ll be back soon. And remember, make sure you follow the rules.”

Dad frowned. “She is very young. We shouldn’t let her just take the baby.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine,” Mom said.

Then Olivia hugged her mom and dad goodbye and soon found a taxicab.

“Nope, I don’t see my iPad in here,” said Olivia. “Let’s try another one.”

Olivia hailed another cab. It didn’t have her iPad either. After 1,000 more cabs, Olivia gave up.

“I guess my iPad is lost forever,” she said in disappointment.

She hopped in a cab and buckled in her seat belt. She saw in big letters, on the piece of paper her mom gave her: ALWAYS REMEMBER TO STRAP IN VERONICA’S CAR SEAT WHEN IN CABS OR CARS. Olivia did not have Veronica’s car seat, so she just buckled in Veronica’s seat belt. Or at least tried to. When Olivia tried to strap Veronica in, she cried and squirmed and screamed. Olivia couldn’t bear to see her sister so unhappy, so she decided to just let it go. After all, it wasn’t like car accidents happened that much. Veronica could go without her seat belt one time. All of a sudden, Olivia realized something. She didn’t know how to babysit! She still needed a babysitter herself! But she needed that iPad, and she was willing to do whatever it took to get another one. When they got home, Olivia went on Google and typed in: how to babysit a toddler.

The screen said: If you want to learn how to babysit children, visit www.babysitting.com. Olivia clicked on the link. It said: Want to be a good babysitter, but have no idea how to do it? Read How to Be The Best Babysitter. Only $1.99 at Barnes and Nobles. Olivia looked at the link and smiled. She would be the best babysitter ever, and her mom would have to give her an iPad then! But how was she going to drag Veronica to the bookstore when it was past her nap time? The sheet of paper said: NAP TIME IS STRICTLY AT 2:30 IN THE AFTERNOON, and it was almost 3:30! How would she put Veronica to nap and go to the bookstore at the same time? She knew that she had to follow Veronica’s schedule, but what was the harm in letting her skip one nap?

Meanwhile, Veronica was running around the house shouting, “I don’t want sleep!”

“Well, guess what? You don’t have to!” said Olivia.

Veronica stared at her sister. Then she gave a big grin.

“No sleep for me! I don’t have to nap!” she shouted happily.

“That’s right, no sleep for you. Now come with me, we’re going to buy some books,” Olivia said.

Olivia strapped in Veronica’s stroller and pushed it out of the house. Olivia bumped into trees and a lot of people on the street with the stroller. She nearly ran over an old lady! The old lady yelled at Olivia. She chased them all the way to the bookstore!

“You have to watch your stroller, little girl,” she said angrily.

“Sorry,” Olivia replied.

Olivia went to the corner of the bookstore labeled CHILD CARE and looked for the right book. She picked her book and then heard a screechy, annoying noise. It sounded like glass breaking. It was Veronica’s whining.

“But what about me? I need to buy book too,” she said.

She was dreaming about the books with all her favorite characters in them, like Elmo and Thomas.

“Okay,” Olivia replied, and went over to the baby book corner. “I’ll buy a book for you.”

But then Olivia remembered something. It was supposed to be Veronica’s naptime a long time ago! Her parents had specifically told her to follow Veronica’s schedule at all times, and she had let Veronica skip part of her daily routine so she could focus on her own needs. If she wanted to earn money, she had to be a good babysitter.  

“Pick out a book quickly, and then it’s nap time.” Olivia said.

“But I don’t want sleep!” Veronica screamed.

“Well, it’s not a choice. You have to go to sleep anyway.” Olivia replied.

Olivia smiled. She was becoming a better babysitter already, and she hadn’t even read one page of the book yet! She was confident that once she read the whole book, she would be the best babysitter in the world!

Veronica picked out a book. It was called Elmo Loves You. An amazing book for two year olds, but torture for nine year olds. She put Veronica into the stroller and sang her a goodnight song. Then she went over to the checkout desk to pay for the books.

“How old are you?” the cashier asked.

“I am nine.” Olivia replied.

“I must say, you seem very young to be babysitting that girl. Do your parents know you’re doing this?” the cashier asked.

“Yes, they asked me to take care of my little sister. I am going to get paid for it.” Olivia replied.

“I see. Yes, what irresponsible parents. Leaving a nine-year-old with a baby. Who does that? People are so crazy nowadays,” the cashier remarked.

“You know, it’s none of your business. You’re a cashier. It’s not your job to peek into our business. You’re only supposed to help me with checkout.” Olivia said.

“Sorry. Okay, so your total is $5.00.”

Olivia did not have that money, so she decided to not buy Veronica a book. Veronica already had a million books at home — the last thing she needed was another book! Veronica couldn’t go to sleep.

Olivia said, “Do you want me to sing you another song?”

“No. I want my paci. Where’s my paci? I NEED MY PACI!” Veronica shouted.

“I’m sorry, but we left your pacifier at home. You’ll have to nap without it.” Olivia replied.

Veronica burst into tears. She flailed her arms around.

“I can’t sleep without pacifier. GIVE IT TO ME!” she yelled.

Veronica’s parents had been trying to get her to give up the pacifier for a long time, and now it almost seemed like she would hang on to it forever. It seemed like she would be like her cousins who were eight and ten years old and still used a pacifier every single night.

But their parents were still holding onto the idea that Veronica would give up her pacifier before she turned three. They had an idea. Mom’s friends dressed up as fairies and took Veronica’s pacifiers and threw them away. Mom told Veronica that the “pacifier fairy” was coming. But since Veronica was never really into fairies, this plan didn’t work.

The truth was, there was a whole pack of pacifiers in the back of the stroller. Olivia had just said that they had none because the sheet of paper her mom gave her said: DON’T GIVE VERONICA A PACIFIER. IF YOU DO, SHE WILL GET BUCK TEETH. But if it was the only way Veronica would fall asleep, Olivia had no problem. After all, it was just a pacifier. It was so small. What was so wrong with it? Olivia handed Veronica the pacifier. “

Now will you go to sleep?

“Okay, but just a really short nap,” Veronica agreed.

Veronica sucked away at her pacifier. Pretty soon, her eyes began to close. She fell fast asleep. Olivia pushed the stroller back home, recklessly bumping into people again.

When they got home, Olivia tried to put Veronica in the crib, but she was not strong enough to pick her up. She held her for a second, but then dropped her in roughly.

Olivia relaxed in her room and took a break from all the action. Finally some peace and quiet! Olivia collapsed on her bed and opened her babysitting book. The book said, WARNING: NEVER SLEEP ON THE JOB. Olivia was exhausted from all her hard work and just wanted to break the rules one more time, but she knew she couldn’t. But she could not help herself. She fell right asleep. A while later, Veronica started crying again. Olivia groaned. She had been asleep for two hours, but it felt like two seconds. It was time for Veronica to have dinner now. Olivia lazily slouched all the way to Veronica’s room. She got Veronica out of the crib, but dropped her on the floor.

“You hurt me,” Veronica said.

Olivia frowned. Toddlers could be so annoying sometimes.

“Not on purpose,” Olivia replied. “I was trying to get you out of the crib.”

“I’m hungry,” Veronica said.

Olivia did not know how to cook! What was she going to do? She was about to call her mom and tell her that she couldn’t handle babysitting, but then she remembered why she agreed to do it in the first place. She needed that money, and she needed that iPad. She thought about all the virtual pets she wanted to take care of again, and all the video games she wanted to beat her friends at, and she thought to herself, I can do this. She ran over to the kitchen and tried to mix some ingredients together. Then she carefully placed them in the oven. When the food was ready, she gave it to Veronica, and she spit it out.

“This tastes yucky! Give me something else,” Veronica said in disgust.

“What else do you want?” Olivia asked.

“Ice cream and sweets,” Veronica replied.

Olivia was about to say, “No way,” but then she remembered she was not the parent.

She was the sister. She was the one who was supposed to spoil Veronica. She got out the ice cream from the freezer and scooped it up.

“Here you go,” Olivia said.

“Ice cream! Thank you so much!” Veronica shouted happily.

Her face was filled with ice cream.

“You’re welcome. But let’s wipe your face, so Mom doesn’t find out I let you have ice cream for dinner,” Olivia said.

Olivia wiped Veronica’s face and put away the ice cream. She didn’t want her mom to get mad at her. When her mom got mad, she would turn into a monster. She would shout and scream like a baby.

Soon after that, the parents came home.

“How’d it go?” Mom asked.

“Great! So, do I get my money?” Olivia asked.

“Here you go,” Dad said and handed Olivia twenty dollars.

“Keep babysitting and I’ll give you 40 dollars,” Mom said.

So Olivia kept babysitting. And she got better and better at it. She pushed Veronica’s stroller without bumping into anything. She learned how to entertain Veronica. She always followed Veronica’s schedule. She got cooking lessons from her mom. She put Veronica to bed without her pacifier. She was no longer the spoiling sister. She was the star babysitter. After six months of babysitting, Olivia finally got enough money to buy an iPad. She went to the Apple Store with all her money and bought it.

“You have to be responsible with it this time. Don’t take it out of the house, and always keep track of it,” Olivia’s mom said.

“I’m so proud of you!” her dad said.

“Thanks, Dad. And I promise I will take good care of the iPad,” Olivia replied.

Even after she got the iPad, Olivia continued to babysit. But this time, she didn’t do it for money. She did it for free. She did it because she loved it. And Olivia and Veronica became really close. Whenever Veronica was getting put to bed, Olivia would always cuddle with her and read her books. Olivia still had a little money left, so she bought Veronica the Elmo book she had wanted to buy at the bookstore. And Olivia and Veronica were the best and closest of sisters.

And I should know because I am Olivia.

THE END

Let me introduce myself. I am the narrator, Sierra. I will be showing different types of emojis. In the emoji world, there are shops and buildings. Let’s head over to my friend, Heart emoji. Okay, we are here. Heart emoji is very upset, and I wonder why.

“Heart emoji, why are you so angry?”

Heart emoji said, “I WANT A PET, BUT MY PARENTS WON’T LET ME!”

“Well, I guess you could get one without them knowing.”

Heart emoji said, “Good Idea! But where am I going to get the money?”

“I will give you the money.”

***

“Okay. So what kind of pet do you want?”

Heart emoji said, “I think I want a blonde dog.”

“Okay. Now what size do you want it to be?”

“I want it to be small,” Heart emoji said.

“Okay. Let’s get it. Okay, we are here. We got it. How do you like it?”

“What do you mean I like it? I LOVE IT!” Heart emoji said.

***

Next day…

“How is it going?”

“It is going BAD!”

And so, she started crying. Wha! Wha!

“What is going on?”

Heart emoji said, “My mom figured out about the dog, and I told her that it was my fault.”

“I am going to go to your mom, and I am going to tell her that it was my fault because I made you do it.”

***

After school…

“Miss Emoji, this is a misunderstanding. It was my fault because I made her do it.”

Miss Emoji said, “Okay, I understand, but you have punishments. For you, narrator, your punishment will be that you can’t spend a whole week with Heart emoji. And for you, Heart emoji, you can’t play with narrator for a week.”

And that’s how the story ended.

THE END

Super Dog and Super Cat were big rivals. One day, they met on a Japanese mountain.

They fought for a big diamond. Super Cat lost.

“Until next time!” said Super Dog.

Next time, they met on a city street. Super Cat’s tail was trotted on. He gave out a super despair sound wave. Super Dog resisted the wave and fought back. Then, Super Cat used his spiky tail and slashed at Super Dog. Super Dog fought back with his super fang. They battled into the sewer. They were both battered until the cat used super sorrow force field. They got very dirty and battled until it was full moon. When Super Cat tripped, he let out a super sound sorrow bomb. When it was too dark, Super Cat used super sorrow cloak to disappear. Super Dog looked around, but he couldn’t see Super Cat. He activated super claw and slashed into air, knowing that he had used some sort of cloak. They all missed because he had already ran away to his cat base. Super Dog had thrown a tracking device on Super Cat. He followed him to his base.

The next battle was at his underground base bunker. They slashed at the machines, pounded at each other, destroyed machines, bursted pipes, and mixed electricity with water. Super Cat had an advantage. He knew the base and where things were. He lured Super Dog into the super shock chamber and destroyed the machine that made it gas and shock. Then Super Cat lured him into a room where a huge machine that was eating TNT and turning it into sorrow potion. They slashed the walls. Super Cat defeated Super Dog in the dungeon section. They slashed each other, but Super Cat won, and Super Dog was in the cage. Then he broke free by slashing the bars until they fell. But Super Cat was sleeping. He stole all the super gadgets and used the remaining TNT, but he had done something wrong. He had put it under the TNT machine and set the timer for one second instead of 11 seconds. It exploded. Super Dog escaped in time, but the bunker held strong. The super despair machine detected the intruder and sent a super, super sound wave. It affected Super Dog. It knocked him backwards and made him deaf.

Then the super despair machine threw sorrow bombs again and again. It affected Super Dog so much that he was knocked out cold. Super Cat then woke up. They battled on the mountain terrain. They slipped on moss and were blew back by sound. The big, soft grass was easy to fight on, but Super Cat still had the advantage. He knew where he was. He lured Super Dog into his bunker. It was the garage door. He was blown backward onto a super cat tank. Super Dog went into the cat tank. Super Cat knew the controls. He went to the back of the tank and pressed the emergency destroy button. BOOM! Super Dog jumped out and attacked. Up in the Japanese mountains, everyone could hear the big boom. It shook half of the cat base and set the rest on fire. Trees bursted out of their roots as Super Cat’s green house was enveloped in fire. They fought until Super Cat used his super sorrow cloning power. Super Dog was quickly defeated.

Super Cat was using his new super cat tank and transformer when Super Cat saw Super Dog. A big sorrow blaster in Super Cat’s transformer arm shot sorrow bombs, which were very effective against Super Dog. It blasted him backward, made him deaf, and made his ears, eyes, and head hurt. Then Super Cat used an atomic super sorrow bomb, which had the same effects except for sixteen more hours than the normal ninety-eight hours. Super sorrow was Super Cat’s specialty. When he got mad, he got sad, and then it activated his super power.

A super dog dragon affected Super Cat’s veins. His blood got really, really hot. Then, if he had breathed too much hotness from the dragon’s mouth, he would explode. But Super Cat had invented something one step ahead. He had invented the super anti-hotness gas mask.

Super Cat threw the gas mask on his head and battled with him with his super transformer. Now, it was dog dragon versus cat transformer. Super Dog was so mad that he threw fire balls out of his eyes. That was his super power. It was mad versus sad.

The sorrow transformer battled hard. The madness dragon battled hard. Then Super Cat threw a tracking device on Super Dog. Super Cat followed Super Dog into his super snow base in the Himalayan Mountains. When they got inside, he secretly took off the tracking device and then pounced on Super Dog. Then he was battered so much, he surrendered almost immediately but then fought back. Fortunately, Super Cat still had his transformer, and Super Dog had lost his dragon. He had melted in the snow! Super Cat placed super sorrow mines all over Super Dog’s base as he chased Super Dog through the base.

Super Dog yelled, “HA HA! We’re in the labyrinth. I’m sure you’ll get lost and get eaten by my other super dragons.”

But Super Cat had used his special anti-madness/fire rope. He found his way back, defeated all the dragons, and then ran away to find an outpost. He had made it with all his super gadgets that he had recovered from the mess of the last battle. In the middle, he placed a super ruby that could make a hologram. He had put some cameras in front of Super Dog’s base. Super Cat placed some super sorrow cannons, pointed through the trees, at Super Dog’s base. He fired all of them, then activated all his mines, and they exploded. Super Cat saw the damage and laughed.

“Ha-ha!” he said. “It’s all in flames now!”

When Super Dog ran out of the base, Super Cat had made an outpost with an igloo. He had made super sandbags for blocking the door. Super sorrow cannons pointed out and left room for a bed, a cupboard, and a stove. The stove was wood, and he had also put some wood in a cabinet. It had a smooth, wood floor, and in the middle, it had opened up to where the fire stove would be. He was well prepared because he added a thick layer of concrete to the sides and then added some extra ice to the sides. On the outside, there were hundreds of fake wood pictures of Super Cat so that Super Dog would be wasting time thinking that he is firing the actual Super Cat. He would think that the super sorrow coming from the igloo nearby is coming from the fake one. But then there was a huge advantage for Super Dog: Super Cat lost all of his ammo.

Then he made extra defenses with a grenade thrower and a mine layer. He built a small tube that went to a far away place near the seaside, and it was covered by a huge icicle to make it blend in. It was his escape. He used half his wood on lining the tube so it wouldn’t cave in. He then laid mines in the tube, so when he escaped, he could blow up the tube. He also wired the igloo so if he escaped, he could blow up the igloo. There was a button on the hatch that led to the outside, and if he pressed it, it exploded the tube and the igloo since it was wired with explosives. He put his plan into action, running away, and he pressed the button just in time because he took his supa scuba cat submarine.

Little did he know. Who was on his tail? Super Dog! Super Dog on his super madness sea monster! They had a big underwater battle. The monster almost shattered the glass of the supa scuba cat submarine. Super Cat was losing. He activated his biggest weapon. It was the sorrow sound torpedo. It knocked a hole in anything that it hit, and then made a sound wave that knocked out anyone and anything, and made them deaf except Super Cat, who was immune to it. It also knocked them out cold. It was one of his biggest submarine sorrow bombs. A propeller powered it very quickly. It could break the sound barrier while it makes sound! Super Dog had built an underwater castle. Super Cat then bombed it with his super torpedos. All of the sound bounced off. It was very, very strong! It was so strong, that Super Cat used so many missiles that he almost ran out.

Then Super Dog shot fire cannons up at Super Cat, but they missed because they were immediately put out by the water. Super Cat then was mad, now he was sad. He shot hundreds of it, almost running out of ammo, but he immediately produced more by yelling into a machine, which made more bombs, torpedos, and what not. Now Super Cat was so sad that he let out a super, super, super, super, super, super atomic sound bomb. It blasted Super Dog’s castle apart, and Super Dog attacked with his super underwater dragon, which had special underwater fire bombs. He fired it again and again, but he couldn’t get a clear aim at Super Cat! Then when Super Cat activated the special invisibility cloak, he pressed the button, and then all of it disappeared, including his submersible. Super Cat seemed to be flying, and Super Dog tried to catch him, but the wind made the special underwater fire bombs cool down and sink down to ashes.

Then they signed a treaty allowing them to get away if they wanted to. But there some treaty violators. Some dragons couldn’t be controlled, would follow anyone, and attack until all is destroyed, and it couldn’t be stopped. But these kinds of dragons were very rare, and Super Dog had only two. A special sorrow and madness tornado was one of their biggest weapons. If you touched the tornado, you either caught on fire or freezed and became deaf. There was a big crack in the population that liked Super Dog and the population that liked Super Cat. They sometimes fought, and Super Cat wanted everyone to like him, and Super Dog wanted everyone to like him, and there was a big war. When Super Cat saw this, he didn’t want everyone to be fighting. He wanted everyone who liked him to not be fighting, but be against the fighting. But there was a dark side too. Everyone who liked Super Dog wanted to be at war, and most of the supporters of Super Cat turned to Super Dog because they still wanted to have a war. Moving away from that crisis, there was an even more bigger crisis because Super Dog had found sixteen more. The whole tribe had joined in that had dragons that would attack and not stop. There were bigger battles that lasted longer because of these big dragons. Half the tribe had been destroyed. That was a huge, bad blow for the supporters of Super Dog.

This was one of the biggest battles in the book: sorrow won this one. Now, there was a dragon crisis. We heard about it in the last page. There was a huge dragon tribe that had joined Super Dog. Super Cat was testing his new invention: the supa-cat tank, half tank, and half cat. When he saw Super Dog, he attacked. They went into an old bunker. They battled each other. The tricky Super Dog tried to destroy the bunker with TNT. He had set the time correctly this time. He escaped the bunker. He had forgotten about how much armor the supa-cat tank had. Super Dog’s TNT had exploded with no damage to the bunker or the supa-cat tank. They chased each other around into and out of the sea.

They came up in a desert. They shrunk themselves. Both of them jumped up to slash each other. They went down really low and then popped back up, and then they found themselves in a huge ice cream sundae banana split. They threw snowballs at each other, banana peels for slipping each other, and Super Cat used a cherry as a spike ball. They went under it. Super Cat made a bunker out of ice cream. He licked the walls to make them flat and then made furnishings. Banana peels for sides. It was the strongest bunker and surprisingly the warmest. Until Super Dog made a super cannon to blast the bunker. (It was unsuccessful) It only blew up on himself. He used his fire eyes to fire it. It just melted down, and he found himself in a puddle of cold water. Then Super Cat used his super emotion power to fire his cannon (sorrow is cold). It was even more successful than Super Dog’s cannon. He had to go behind a flower bag to shield from the snowballs. He then took revenge by throwing flower balls at the (ice) bunker. He did manage to rip some of the banana apart.

Super Dog built a igloo like the last one. Then they unshrunk and slashed at each other. Accidentally, they flew out of the window and flew away. They had a fight in the air. Their balloons suddenly dropped because both of their balloons had been hit with little pins. They had been dropped in Himalayan mountains. They went to the half destroyed base of Super Cat and went inside. It was very foggy, and some of it was still sparking. The wood was destroyed, and all the crumbling stone was very cool. The remains of the greenhouse was a bunch of shattered glass with half burnt wood, and some of it collapsed. Still smoking, there was a bit of red here and there. They went back inside.

They had a battle on some magical camels. They had red and blue swords. They slashed each other. The cat unleashed his spiky tail and looked inside. Super Cat hid to survey his surroundings. He needed to know where he was because he knew where to go if it wasn’t so burnt. He could see some ashes stuck in a corner with a bunch of metal and some stones sticking out. Half of it was open to air. Some of it was still smoking. If he had gone in the right room, he had some hidden danger. A half exploded flare storage room was still smoking, and it suddenly shot out all the flares at him. He grabbed a box and used it as a shield. Some went out the window, making a huge firework display in the Himalayan mountains. All of the boxes exploded, except for the one that he was holding. He escaped the half burnt room. The flares started to pop again, and one hit the back of his head. The tricky Super Dog made a barrack to stop him from getting out. He broke it with his Super sound wave and threw ashes all over Super Dog. Super Dog escaped on his super fire rocket.

“I’ll get you yet!” said Super Dog.  

Super Cat had a big party for his victory. This was the last battle. Super Cat was testing his new machine. It was a super, super cat transformer. He saw the old, crumbling remains of his base, half burnt with holes on the top, still lightly smoking with his greenhouse. It had many half burnt wood pieces. It had collapsed on itself. Some of the plants remaining were a small tree and some daisies. It also had shattered glass all over it, and some daisies also had shattered glass over them. Then he went inside. He had time to see inside. It had ashes stuck in a corner, a smoldering heap of machines. The ashes of the bunker had metal sticking out of it and some concrete, and in the middle there was a smoldering machine: the catanator. Super Cat jumped in a watch tower. He observed Super Dog with all his dragons! He got down. He observed some old, half-burnt wood in the corner lying around and a destroyed cabinet. He went into a storage room with a burnt metal door with rust and a sign that said: “Catgun Bay.” He went inside.

Some of the catguns in front of the door had been blasted out of the windows when the base exploded. There was a large hole. He covered it up with a few pieces of brick, then he went along the sides of the bay. It was a big semi-circle with two walls coming out of it, but inside and outside, if you looked at the blueprints, the semicircle originated into a full circle. On the sides, there are four guns, and in the semi-circle, there are six. In all, for the sides of the semicircle, he fired them right at all of the dragons. Some of them immediately fell dead, but the already wounded ones charged on. Super Cat unleashed all of his secret machines. They battled for days. Super Cat and all of his machines retreated into the fortress. They kept on firing the guns from the fortress and some grenade throwers from the top of the fortress.

The dragons fired grenades from their cannons, but they cooled down, and they were almost harmless against the fortress except for some ashes on the top, which looked exactly like the fortress in its old state. They battled for more than enough days. All of the new secret machines poured in, destroying most of the dragon tribe. Super Dog was desperate for a final victory so that he could win the war. He was ready for anything, except losing the war. But, he was sure that he would win. But, he was wrong. He was so distracted by telling all of his dragons to fight harder that he didn’t notice that almost all except for three of the dragons were dead.  Super Dog already made a super dragon trench. It was still firing dragon cannons at Super Cat, but they had invented an anti-freeze, anti-dishot cannonball. They were hot, but they wouldn’t cool down! The trenches were never going to hold up! Super Dog put up a white flag. They signed a canine animal treaty.

They became friends because Super Dog overcame his anger issues with canine acupuncture. Then they went swimming. They cleaned up each other’s base and turned Super Cat’s base into their house since Super Dog’s base had been wrecked. All that was left was a pile of bricks and dead dragon bones. They made an indoor pool and a spa, two rooms, and a forcefield bunker in the forest behind the bunker. They played games in the reconstructed greenhouse. It had a seltzer bar. Super Dog liked Coca Cola. Super Cat liked seltzer water. There was a jacuzzi in the greenhouse, where you could look out at jungle plants out of the top of the jacuzzi. There was a desert biome downstairs. Next to it, there was a rock garden and a forest biome. There were three rooms downstairs, surrounded by a desert/forest biome, a pool table with a TV and seats. They had dips in the pool and played pool on the pool table. They installed both mad and sad powers into the cat transformer. Then, they removed the super to their names and lived very happily ever after.

I was a normal girl who lived on Mars until these people came. They landed right in front of my shelter that was at the very top of Mars. They said they were from Earth. I have seen these type of people before, but I have never talked to them. Now I felt I was old enough. Like, come on, I am 22. I should be able to talk to new people.

So I started to talk back to them. “What’s Earth?” I asked them.

I felt so proud of myself. I had never talked to someone that I’d never met.

“What do you mean? You don’t know what Earth is?” the astronaut asked. The astronaut made me feel like I was stupid.  

“Have you always lived here?” asked Steve the astronaut.

Where else would I live? I thought.

“Yeah, I have.”

“What have you been doing here all your life?” asked Steve.

“Well, I play catch with moon rocks. A few people get hit but, you know, it’s okay! For exercise, we run laps around the rings of Saturn,” I answered.

“What about your space suits? Do you ever wash them?”

“Well, I don’t really need to wash them, since I have so many. They never even get dirty. But, for fancy occasions, I have a leopard-print suit and a tiger-print suit. I also have basically any color you could imagine. So I’m pretty set on suits.”

Probably better than you, I thought.

“Maybe you should come back to Earth with us,” said one of the other astronauts, Sophie.

“Why would I want to go to Earth? What do you guys even do there?” I asked them.

All the astronauts’ jaws dropped.

“You think we have nothing to do?”

They took me back to Earth with them just to prove that there were more things to do on Earth than on Mars. I wasn’t too happy when the astronauts tried to prove that Earth was better than Mars. I liked Mars better. They liked Earth better. Why couldn’t they just accept that?

Once the rocket landed back on Earth, we went to an amusement park, the supermarket, Steve’s house, Sophie’s house, and the mall. I thought it was pretty cool, but I liked Mars better. The more time I spent with the astronauts, the more I got closer to them. I moved into an extra room in Steve’s house and bought myself a bunch of Earth suits. Some of the Earth suits were really flowy. They were not as stiff as my Mars suits. I didn’t have to wear a helmet or cover my skin. I could actually breathe! The air was everywhere, not just inside my helmet!

After about a year or two of living on Earth, I decided I wanted to visit Mars again to see my friends and family. Then it hit me. They didn’t even know I left! The astronauts just took me and brought me to Earth! My parents must’ve been worried sick! I had to get back to Mars as soon as possible!

I got in Steve’s rocket and headed straight up to Mars. Hopefully, Steve didn’t mind. I didn’t even bother to say goodbye. They wouldn’t let me say goodbye to my friends and family, so I wouldn’t say goodbye to them.

I blasted off, then I realized I didn’t know how to fly a rocket. I pressed every button and pulled every lever. I flew left and right, up and down. The next thing I knew, I was in space. I saw all of my family and friends. I was so glad that they were okay. They were so glad I was okay.

“I promise I’ll never leave you again!”

Although I never went back to Earth, I sent many letters and presents to all my friends that were back there.

Once, there was a girl, July, from Texas.  Her name came from her parents’ love of the summer season, and she was born in the month of July. July loved to play many games, especially Monopoly, ever since her father taught her how to play. She would play board games everyday after school, even try to sneak board games into school. At night, she would dream of different strategies to win.   

One day, she and her mom, Julie, were playing Monopoly. Julie hated Monopoly because her daughter played it so much, and she was tired of it. But she figured that she would play for the sake of July’s entertainment. Suddenly, they heard a yell.

“I’m rich!”

July and her mom turned around really fast. They stared at the board with fright. Julie started punching the board, because she thought there was a mouse on the board, since it was moving.

“Get the exterminator!” she started screaming to her husband down the hall.

“Ow, ow, ow!” Uncle Pennybags cried, who July recognized as the main character of Monopoly.  

He popped out of the board, strutting around on the floor and around Julie, escaping her punches. He jumped onto the back of Julie’s foot, biting her ankle. Julie squished Uncle Pennybags with her ankle.  Splat!

There was a wet spot on her ankle, and she realized she made Uncle Pennybags pee himself.  He was soaked in the rotten-tomato, inside-of-the-fridge scent of his urine, and he barfed all over July.

July’s teeth were chattering as she watched her mother struggle with Uncle Pennybags.  She remembered buying the board at Toys-R-Us.  It seemed like just another Monopoly board.  She didn’t know what had made it different from the rest, but she found herself absolutely thrilled that the character from her favorite board game had come to life.  She turned to her mom.  

“Can we keep Uncle Pennybags?  Please, please, please, Mom?”

Uncle Pennybags joined her.  “Please put me in a cage! Please put me in a cage!”

Julie studied the 2D structure of the man.  He was skinnier than paper, made out of very thin cardboard so that he was almost transparent.  

“Like a pet?” she said, her voice slightly confused.

The Monopoly man ran out of the room, into the kitchen sink, and onto the drain-blocker, cleaning himself. What he didn’t know was that he was bathing in goo.

“Ahh! What the heck am I bathing in?  This is worse than my own barf! Ew!” he yelled. “I’m soggy!” As he turned, he forgot he was bathing in goo when he saw the cage. “Ooh! A cage! I’m a pet! Can you keep me?”

“No!” Mom shrieked.

“I agree with Uncle Pennybags. I want to keep him. If we keep him, I’ll pay you ten dollars,” panted July.

Her mom continued to yell, “Get the exterminator!”  

Suddenly, the exterminator came rolling in. Julie nearly exterminated this mysterious character, but exterminated an ant instead. The ant froze, and then shredded into tiny pieces.

July said, “Back to Uncle Pennybags. Can we please keep him, Mom?”

Julie said, “Fine, but you have to feed him.”

“Yay, I’m a pet! But what do I get to eat?” asked Uncle Pennybags.

“Dog food,” said Julie.

Uncle Pennybags cried, “Nooo! But at least I get to be a pet.”

My name is Lucy Woods, and I’m fifteen years old. I’ve been an orphan since I was ten. One day I was cleaning the basement of the orphanage, and I found a big, old, dusty book of fairy tales. It looked interesting, so I read a page or two, and after that, I could not stop. I read the whole entire book, and it was… amazing!!! And as I read the final page, it said to say “Big, old, dusty book” three times. It was not wise of me to listen to a book. The next thing I knew, I was transported into the book.

***

The first thing I remembered was seeing a yellow brick road. After that, everything was pretty blurry. I remember seeing a girl with a very poofy dress and a very cute puppy. As I woke up, I heard the girl saying, “Are you okay?”

“I guess so. What is your name?” I said.

“It’s Dorothy. What is your name?” said Dorothy.

“My name is Lucy. Where are you going?” I responded.

“I’m going to see the Wizard of Oz because I want to go home to Kansas.”

“That is the exact problem with me… I was reading this book, and it transported me here.”

***

Meanwhile, at the orphanage, Ms. Periwinkle was looking all over for Lucy. She thought that Lucy was playing hide-and-seek.

“Where are you?!” Ms. Periwinkle said.

***

Back in the book, Dorothy and I were skipping down the yellow brick road, and we saw the Big, Bad Wolf! DUN! DUN! DUN!

And the Big, Bad Wolf said, “Where are you going?”

Dorothy responded, “We are going to go see the Wizard of Oz.”

“OH! I know a shortcut to his castle,” responded the wolf. “It’s just right through the woods.”

“Thank you very much,” said Dorothy, very pleased.

Dorothy and I skipped through the woods and saw a very nice girl with wavy, gold hair, a blue dress with white polka dots, and a blue ribbon around her waist.

“Hello, what is your name?” asked Dorothy.

“My name is Goldilocks. What is your name?”

“My name is Dorothy, and her name is Lucy,” she said, pointing towards me.

“I’m starving! Do you know any places to eat around here?!” asked Goldilocks.

“Nope, but I do see a cottage at least one mile away,” I said.

“Great! Do you want to come and check it out?” asked Goldilocks.

“Sure,”  Dorothy and I responded at the same time.

***

Back at the orphanage, Ms. Periwinkle was getting pretty mad. “Lucy, where are you?!” Ms. Periwinkle said. “If you don’t come out now, you will get in big trouble!”

Ms. Periwinkle went downstairs to the basement to look for Lucy.

“OH NO! SHE READ THE BOOK!” Ms. Periwinkle yelled, walking around in circles.

I knew I should’ve hidden that book better, Ms. Periwinkle thought. This is really bad. Ms. Perrywinkle was now breathing heavily and shaking. “I have to get her out of there. Big, old, dusty book! Big, old, dusty book! Big, old, dusty book!”

***

Meanwhile back in the woods…

“Do you smell that?! AGHHH!” I asked, feeling an ache in my stomach.

“Smell what?!” said Dorothy.

“The porridge! Do you really not smell that?”

“Now I smell it!” Dorothy said.

“This way!” I pointed.

We all ran.

“Finally, we’re here at the cottage. I can’t wait to finally eat something,” said Goldilocks.

Dorothy, Goldilocks, and I all entered the cottage.

“This way!” I pointed to the kitchen. “Look, three bowls of porridge!”   

“I hope the porridge is hot,” said Dorothy.

“I hope it’s cold,” I said.

“I hope it’s just right,” said Goldilocks.

“This is amazing,” we all said.

“We have to go, I hope you enjoyed your porridge,” Dorothy and I said.

“Do you happen to know where the Wizard of Oz’s castle is?”

“Actually, I do!” said Goldilocks. “It’s just about one mile away from the forest. Just follow the yellow brick road.”

“Thank you!” Dorothy and I said.

“Bye now,” said Goldilocks.

“Well, that went well!”

“I don’t think it was wise listening to the Big, Bad, Wolf, but I think Goldilocks was telling the truth,” I said.

“I can see the yellow brick road from here,” said Dorothy.

***

Meanwhile, Ms. Periwinkle was looking all over Oz to find Lucy. She followed the yellow brick road, but they were not there. Then, she asked the Big, Bad Wolf.

“Have you seen a girl with yellow hair and brown eyes anywhere?”

“Yes, I did, and she was with a girl with brown pigtails and a poofy dress. They were trying to get to Oz’s castle,” he said.

“Thank you, I’ll be on my way,” Ms. Periwinkle said.

***

Back in the woods, Dorothy and I were only a mile away from the yellow brick road.

“C’mon, we don’t have all day!” Dorothy said.

“Finally, we’re back on the yellow brick road,” I said.

“Uh oh, what are those things in the sky?”

“They look like monkeys.”
“That would be impossible. Monkeys don’t fly!”

“Well they do in Oz, so let’s get a move on before they see us.”

“Ooo ooo ah ah.”

“Do you hear something?” Dorothy asked.

“Lucy, where are you, Lucy!”

“It sounds like Ms. Periwinkle,” I said.

“Who’s Ms. Periwinkle?” Dorothy asked.

“She runs the orphanage,” I explained.  

“Ahhh!”

Dorothy and I got captured.

“The monkeys captured us,” said Dorothy.

“LUCY!” Ms. Periwinkle said.

“I think they are taking us to the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“She’s the evil witch. Her sister is the Wicked Witch of the East. By accident, my house fell on top of her,” said Dorothy.

“That’s too bad. Was her sister good?” I asked.

“I don’t really know, but Glinda said that she was trying to take over Oz.”

“Well that’s pretty bad,” I said.

“Woof woof,” barked Toto.

“What is it boy?” asked Dorothy.

“Woof woof.”

“I think he’s trying to tell us that we are here,” I said.

“Ow,” we both said.

“He he he he he.”

“Do you hear something?”

“It sounded like an evil cackle.”

“Let the girls out of the bag… he he he he…”

The next thing we knew, we were given a cup of green liquid, and one of the evil monkeys said, “Drink this.”

“No way, Jose,” Dorothy said. “It’s stinky, rotten, fungus feet from an old lady who hasn’t scrubbed her feet in a year. The toenails are from an ogre.”

“Stop!”

“Mrs. Periwinkle!” I said.

“Who are you?!” the evil, Wicked Witch of the West said.

“I am… THE EVIL QUEEN!”

Everyone gasped.

I whispered into Dorothy’s ear, “Ohhh my goshh. This is cuckoo. I’ve been living with the Evil Queen for five years?”

Thunder exploded in the background. The Wicked Witch of the West shot thunder bolts at the Evil Queen.

The Evil Queen said, “Is that all you got?!”

The Evil Queen threw her wand forward and bubbles came out. “I guess I’m a little rusty,” she said.

She thrust it forward again and a thousand lightning bolts shot out.

“Ouch!” said the Wicked Witch of the West.

The Evil Queen threw back her wand and struck it forward one last time, causing all the lights to turn off, and when they turned on, they saw that the Wicked Witch of the West was a frog.

“Now that that’s over, let’s head over to the Wizard of OZ to get back home,” said the Evil Queen.

Poof…

“Finally we are here at the Wizard of Oz’s castle,” I said.

“Oh! Great Wizard could you please take us home.”

“Of course! Drink this potion and you will go back to Kansas.”

“Oh! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” said Dorothy.

“It was very nice meeting you, Lucy.”

“BYEEEE!” said Dorothy.

“ Now, oh great Evil Queen, drink this, and you shall go back to the orphanage. Same goes for you, Lucy.”

“Oh, thank you, Great wizard,” the Evil Queen and I said.

Gulp… gulp… gulp… gulp… gulp… gulp…

“Now that we are back in the orphanage, can you promise me to please not tell anyone about me being the Evil Queen?!”

“I pinky promise,” I said.

The End

The Greyhound dropped him off at jungle square, where he bought a 4×4. As he put the pedal to the medal, he took a sharp right turn and ended up running into a tree. He got out of the burning 4×4 and got a cab. The cab took him to the outskirts of town, where he caught the Amtrak. Once on the Amtrak, he took out his phone and started playing Pokemon Go. When the train arrived at Washington D.C., he went up to the White House and went through security to meet with the President.

Perry and the President had a very long talk about politics and how they were going to work on stopping rates from going up. After that, Perry went to a five-star luxury hotel with water beds, and a hot tub, and went to bed. Early in the next morning, he got up to catch the regional back to Maryland, where he was supposed to catch an Acela down to Penn Station. Instead of taking the Acela Express, Perry decided to take a tour of the jungle. He got separated from the group, and tour guide, and ended up in an uninhabited region of the jungle.

He decided to make a wooden raft to catch fish. Then, he made a pick axe and started to look for metals to make into a sword or knife. Then, he spotted a crocodile swimming to his raft. The crocodile made a hole in the raft, and the raft began to sink. Perry could not swim, so he gathered up all of his strength to make ropes into a lasso to hitch onto the croc and drive to the other side.

Meanwhile, Perry’s friend, Patrick, went looking for him. He tried to go into the jungle, but the security guards would not let him in. Then, Patrick realized that they would not let him in because the jungle was artificial. By the time Perry found that out, Patrick had stolen a Bugatti Chiron and was racing through the jungle. Patrick thought this was a fantasy. There were mango trees and a lagoon with clear water.

As Patrick was speeding through the jungle, his tire hit a nail, and the tire exploded. Patrick thought that a leopard or another animal put the nail there on purpose. Then, he took out his bronze sword, named Riptide, and cast a long blaze of light to come out of the sword. Immediately, a lion pounced out of the shadows. Patrick swung hard against the lion’s mane, slicing off a few hairs here and there. The lion clawed at Patrick’s leg, and Patrick swung and cut the lion’s head off clean. The dead lion swung one last time, causing Riptide to fall into the water. Patrick was defenseless.

Meanwhile, Perry was struggling with framing a bronze knife. As Perry finished attaching the final strand of metal to the completed knife, he heard a roar in the distance.

Instead of running away, Perry said, “Better go to shelter before night fall, or I’m dead meat.”

In the distance, a couple parsecs away, Patrick was walking almost blindly because of the lion and lack of food. He stumbled into a coconut tree, and lots of coconuts fell on his head.

“Oh,” Patrick remarked, before falling on his knees, unconscious.

Instantly, a portal appeared before the unconscious Patrick, and he suddenly woke up.

“What the…?” he remarked, before tripping over a piece of lion and falling into the portal. The portal took him to the Underworld. Suddenly, Patrick saw Perry on the ground, kneeling before Hades and the Furies. Patrick journeyed farther into the Underworld, and found himself in a dark cavern surrounded by serpents. The Furies started whipping Perry, and Patrick reached for the sword. Instantly, a blinding light appeared before Patrick, and there was Hades. Perry tossed Patrick the bronze knife he was working on in the jungle. There was a big battle.

Eventually, Hades called upon Zeus to throw a lightning bolt at Patrick. After being hit, Patrick grabbed Perry and tried to escape, but they were blocked by an army of dead assassins. To make a long story short, Perry and Patrick backflipped over the assassins and jumped into an elevator, which took them to the Upperworld. Patrick was badly injured, bleeding from the chest, leg, and arm. Perry had scars from the whipping, and he cursed in ancient Greek.  

Perry and Patrick dug out a hollow wood trunk and rode down the river to the exit. It was a long ride to the end, and they confronted the security guards. Perry’s knife had blood stains, dripping with golden ichor. Then, they grabbed a taxi, which was pretty hard seeing the two twenty-year-old men: one with spiked hair, bleeding everywhere, and the other having whipping scars. They eventually hailed a taxi to the Amtrak, where they spent six hundred dollars to go to New York City, and they lived ‘happily ’ever after.

There was once a bug named Fred, and he was very stupid. His biggest dream was to become the President of the United States of America. He knew he had to make some money, so he decided to get a job.  He decided he wanted to be a professional eater. There were all sorts of eating contests, but he never heard of any of those.  So then he decided to start his own contest. A leaf eating contest. There were two others at the first contest, thinking it was going to be salad. But they were wrong, terribly wrong. At the second contest, there were two more people there who were fooled again. By the fifth competition, there were about as many people as you would see at a football game.

He ate the first leaf.  “It tastes good,” said Fred.  

He ate the second leaf, and he was getting a little bit full. Then he ate five more leaves.  The others in the competition were only there to be on TV.  

“I’m gonna win! I’m going to get my title!”  

He ended up eating about ten leaves for the competition.  

“I don’t feel too great, but I love leaves.”  

For each competition, he ate ten leaves. At each competition, he grew more and more, and each competition rewarded him $50,000. People had never seen an ant that big before. The crowds got bigger, and people liked him. He was sort of like a performing seal – everybody loved him. He had about two million dollars, and he was all set to run his campaign.  Once he got super big, he ended his leaf eating career to become President of the United States.

Then something happened. He had to design his campaign posters. He didn’t know how to work a computer, and he needed to know how to work a computer to design the poster. So he paid someone to do it for him, and that costed about a thousand bucks. So he got a really nice poster, but then he had another problem. How were people going to vote for him? He looked like an alien. He was all black with three body parts plus an antenna. He has six arms, and he was the size of a thirteen-year-old. He once heard about this thing called plastic surgery. It made you look different. So he decided to get one.

***

Fred was feeling good that he was finally going to change his look. He wanted to look like a human.

The waiting room was full of chairs and magazines. It was all white. There were a few plants. And he smelled medicine. Fred saw a few people coming out of the doctor’s office. They looked normal. But their eyes were wide open, not even blinking.

Fred thought, Well, if that’s what humans look like, I guess their eyes can’t close.

Fred had never been to the doctor’s office, so he was not nervous. He didn’t know what really happened. Then the doctor called Fred in. He went in.

When he walked into the plastic surgeon’s office, he saw a sign that said: WARNING- RAZOR SHARP MATERIALS.

Fred’s eyes went wide open. He couldn’t blink. He was scared now. He was scared of the razor sharp materials. He thought that the doctor could kill him. Fred didn’t want to talk. This surgery was still his best hope to look like a human.

The plastic surgeon told Fred to lie down on the bed. He gave Fred a drink that made him fall asleep for about 20 minutes.

The plastic surgeon did the surgery because he was so talented.

When Fred woke up, he walked out, seeing the razor sharp materials. His eyes were still wide open because of the sign.

Fred felt fine. When he walked out, he went to the house he bought, looked at himself in the mirror, and saw that he looked completely different.

He was still a normal ant, but he was completely orange.

Fred was super mad. He just blew $300 on something that made him like a circus clown. He was mad at himself. The people he overheard mentioning the plastic surgery just said he was going to look different. But Fred had thought he was going to look like a human. He didn’t want to be mad at the plastic surgeon because he didn’t want to be mean. Fred was a nice ant.

And so Fred went to bed.

The next day, Fred heard that there was a National Convention for the Democrats and Republicans. Fred didn’t know which one to go to. Eventually, he decided to become a Democrat.

Fred had to buy a plane ticket to Pennsylvania, where the convention was held. The plane ticket cost Fred about $100.

When Fred went up to speak, he said, “Giant ants are humans too!”

Everybody cheered for no reason. He must have said that about 15 times during the convention. After the speech was over, he saw some people marching around, holding Donald Trump signs. Hmm, I wonder what they’re doing. So he went to the store, and he bought a Trump sign, and he started marching around with them. Then it was Fred’s turn to speak again.  The question was, “There are four other candidates. Why should you be the President of the United States?”  

He said, “Because I’m an orange ant, and people love me.”  

Everybody cheered.  

The next question was, “How do you think you’re going to deal with slavery?¨  

And Fred said, “What’s slavery?”  

Then the people started laughing, and Fred said, “I know. I’m hilarious.”

It was someone else’s turn to speak, and he got off of the stage. Then he went to go watch Hillary Clinton’s speech. Hillary Clinton was talking about how she was going to create peace and freedom in the United States, and Fred said, “Um. Darn, I forgot to talk about freedom. What is freedom?”  

Then he went to the dictionary.  He searched up freedom. But instead he found “free dome.”

He said, “Oh, I can get a free dome.”

He went to the dome store, and he bought a dome, thinking it was free, and he yelled at the clerk.  

The clerk said, “It wasn free.  Where did you get this from?”

Fred said, “The dictionary.”  

The clerk just rolled her eyes and gave him everything he needed for the dome, how much it cost, and where it was. But Fred was still super mad.  

“I’m getting this thing for free because I got ripped off, so I’m getting it for free!”  

As he left, she yelled at him. “I’m calling the cops!”

And then, the next day, the cops arrived at his house and came to arrest him.  He said he was an ant, and they said, “You’re not the suspect. They said it was someone named Fred running for President, who was a very mean person.  And you’re not a person. You’re an ant.”  

So the cops left. The next day, he figured out the election was going to be earlier than normal. It was going to be August 31st. He had to get ready. He had to buy everything he needed for the election, and it cost him a million dollars. So he went there, and he had to be at the election. He tried to take the normal airport, and it was super crowded, so he missed his flight. He had $1 million. So he bought a private jet that cost him $800,000. Then when he got there, he realized that he had to be in Washington D.C. for the election. He also realized, if he was elected, he would have to live in Washington D.C. So Fred bought a house, not realizing he could live in the White House if he was elected. That cost him about $1 million.

Fred thought he could pay it off, but he didn’t have enough money left.

And then Fred said, “Darn it, I can’t be the President of the United States now!”

Then as he was about to leave, someone said, “Hold on, I want you to be my Vice President.”

It was Mrs.Clinton. Being Vice President wasn’t as good as being President, but it was better than nothing!

“Good Morning, Hammy! Just wake up, buddy!” Jay yelled.

The loud noise made him shiver in his cage.  His cage smelled like rotten eggs, but the classroom smelled like spring flowers.  He was the one who actually smelled, but he wasn’t exactly ashamed of it.

Jay always woke him up. It used to bother him, but he got used to it. Since Hammy was nocturnal, he was supposed to sleep till 9:45 a.m., when Ms. Brisbane handed out the tests.  Besides, Jay was always first one in class.

Dinga-linga-ling! It was already class time!

“Aw man! Class already? ‘Cause of what damn reason?” Jay screamed.

The class rolled their eyes in unison. Jay was always disrespectful.

“Jayson Racques!” Ms. Brisbane yelled.“Have you forgotten your manners?”

Oh, who cares about manners these days, big woman? Who said yo big baby could call me by my full name? he thought.

“Alrighty. So the reason I want you to get ready for class now is because there’s someone I’d like you to meet. We have a new student!”

They almost never had new students.  Everyone gasped, but Hammy gasped the loudest. He felt his heart rising with excitement. A new student? I wonder who it is! He looked to the door, and saw a new face looking in. The boy walked in nervously, his footsteps slow. His glasses on his eyes were crooked, and he was reading a big, thick book that Jay thought was a baby book.

“What a nerd, dweeb, and dork,” Jay snorted, smirking.  

The class barely smiled. Hammy liked hanging out with Jay, but sometimes he was impolite and rude. He thought he was so important. They did hang out with each other the most, though.

“This is Bryan,” Mrs. Brisbane introduced. “Would you like to tell everybody about yourself?”

Bryan still stared down at his book. Ms. Brisbane cleared her throat.  

“Ahem! Bryan?” Ms. Brisbane said again, louder.

Bryan finally looked up, his voice tiny. “H-h-huh? U-u-uh, yes.”

“U-u-uh, yes,” imitated Jay in a baby voice. “Still a boring dork!”  

Ms. Brisbane gave Jay a daredevil look.

“Go on,” Ms. Brisbane told Bryan.

Bryan continued. “I-I-I came from Wy-Wyoming. I have an older sister. I a-a-a-also have six-hundred-and-ninety-two worms, thirteen f-f-f-fish, and forty-seven hermit cr-cr-crabs for pets, and –”

”Okay! That’ll be enough for now!” cried Ms. Brisbane.

Bryan had fiery cheeks and sweaty hands, humiliated.

“Wait!” Hammy said, but it was too late.

“You’ll be seated in row A, seat 4.”

Bryan hurried to his seat.

Hammy was worried about him. He secretly whispered to his neighbor, “Hey, do you ever think about the new folks?”

All his neighbor, Og, replied with was three bounces. Boing, boing, boing!

“Well, to think about it, I’m pretty sure you were a new somebody once!”

Og did a backflip. Because of Og, Hammy suddenly imagined how he would look like if he was a frog. He would still be able to talk with Og and understand him, but, no offense, he would look ugly!

“… and that’s how you do the test, everyone!” said Ms. Brisbane. “Oh, Bryan! Do you want help or support?”

Bryan hid his face. “No thanks, ma’am.”

Oh, no! Hammy had been imagining and thinking too much that he didn’t hear about the tests! The word “tests” reminded him of his — wait! Was it truly there? Well, there or not, he did go to look behind his mirror. Oh my gosh! Instead of his chest, he found a portal! It was as black as the darkest night in the galaxy!

You might ask: how would he know that?

Well, guess what? It doesn’t matter!

Suddenly, he heard a big, booming voice with a rough tone, just like Bryan’s, except evil and definitely the opposite of shy. Hammy shuddered with fear. Ms. Brisbane had said I was the bravest hamster, he thought. Then he wondered, am I still the bravest of all now? He hoped so! Especially when he really needed the courage…

He was thinking and wondering so much that  he didn’t realize the portal was almost ending.

Thud. Boom.

He landed hard on his tush, with his paws and claws in the air.

Then, the big, Bryan-like voice yelled, “You have arrived to the land of  ice zombies!”

Ice zombies? The small, hopeless critter was in danger! He was supposed to be in a cage, in a windy classroom. He saw a big, beastly zombie that seemed to be made out of ice! Hammy felt the chill crawl up his spine. What in the world? He quickly dashed to a small can.

“Good move!” he told himself.

He didn’t know that the zombie heard him. Soon, did he know! From behind, Hammy heard a growl. His ears perked up. A yellow button appeared. Hammy pressed it frantically, hoping it would carry him to safety. Instead, it did the opposite, and it carried him to harm. It wrapped him in a sticky net with slight touches of purple and green gue! Bleugh!

Hammy scrambled along the net, his paws stuck in the rope, one after the other.  He tried desperately, with force, to kick the net and rip it open, but failed to do so.  His limb was stuck to the purple glue.

He shrieked in horror. His paw was turning into a blueberry pie!  He attempted to bite the net, but his teeth rotted into eggplant! He came to the end of the portal.

Hammy blinked, and he was somewhere else that turned from navy blue to turquoise. The room was empty, aside from a single chair and a desk, with many mysterious papers. Some strange place it was!

“Welcome to my lair,” Hammy heard the Bryan-like voice say. The chair whirled around, and he had appeared in the chair with a smirk on his face, suspiciously.

“Hello, classroom pet,” Bryan’s posture was confident now, his back straight. His head rose up, and his voice was steady.

Hammy crossed his paws with an arched eyebrow. “Something smells real fishy,” he whispered slowly.

Bryan cackled wildly. “I was just pretending to be shy and dorky so that none of you would recognize me. I lied about the pets and the older sister, so you would think I was a regular young boy. I used to be one at age two.  The big kids would spank me, lift me up, and throw me in the dump, head first, in a ball.  I was so mad, I wanted to push back. So I did lots of studying, mixed potions together, and poured it all on myself. I began to shake, and that’s when I got the power to create a portal and a big voice, and make fake things.”

Hammy jumped back a step or two. His regular face turned yellow. He took a deep breath in and said, “Whoa.”

Bryan grinned.  “Mwahahaha! I created this portal for isolation. All who dare to enter it, I will kill. That means you. Now, if you were smart and brave, you would be tackling me, and busting me out of this world. Isn’t that so?”

“Um, of course, villain,” Hammy said. He hoped his fear didn’t show in his voice. He tried to use good energy.

“Nice try, Hamster. But, I know you’re as scared as a tiny ant versus a gigantic eagle,” said Bryan.  

“Dang,” whispered Hammy.

Nobody noticed, but Og had popped open his cage and came in from a small portal behind them. He’d come in the best time, though. Good enough to create a dis — wait!  I shouldn’t tell you… only if you want me to.

Okay. Then, Og, in a camouflaged disguise, hopped across the room to Hammy and kicked him. Hammy turned around quickly and saw his friend, Og.

“Hey… Og!” he said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Og answered with bulging eyes in the direction of Bryan.

“Oh, right,” whispered Hammy, “Og, you create a distraction. Please buddy.”

He hoped despairingly, and lifted Og’s leg. Og started bouncing up, and Bryan saw him because he had given his disguise to Hammy. Hammy crept to the closest tunnel that he had spotted, hoping to see a light of escape at the end.  He went up the dirty, dark tunnel, seeing some different rodents. Dead. He was grossed out, since he is a rodent himself, you know.

He wondered, Am I gonna die if I go in it? He sure hoped not! He sighed. I may as well take a whack at it!

He carefully dug his claws, or paws, into the inside of the tunnel, and boosted his body up.

For some reason, a small, beeping sound began to sound.

Hammy thought, That must be a security camera. I bet it caught all the other poor rodents who tried to stop Lord Bryan. That’s why they’re all dead.

Meanwhile, Og was doing a very good job distracting Bryan. He was bouncing everywhere and making puddles of water.  Bryan, groaning, had to keep on cleaning them. Hammy thought that Og was doing a bad job, but his assumption was not right.  What can a hopeless frog do?

Quickly but carefully, Hammy tried to make to his way through the tunnel.  When he got to the end, he saw a bunch of red and green wires going in many different directions.  He couldn’t figure out which one to bite and follow.

Red wire? No. Red would mean fire or an explosion.

Green wire? That had to be good.

He headed along the green wire and, just as he exited the first tunnel, he bit the wire. There was good news, but there was bad news.

It was a hot, sunny morning, and Lily’s long, brown hair was sticking to her face. Her blue eyes were watching the cars pass by as she waited for her friend, Emily. Emily had orange hair with bangs and freckles. Look for the red van, thought Lily. Blue car… white truck… red van! She saw Emily’s bright green eyes running out of the car.

“Emily!”

“Lily!”

“I missed you so much!” Lily screamed. “Come into my house. I am so excited you are moving next door!”

“Me too!” Emily said. “Let’s play Candyland.”

“Okay,” Lily said. “Come inside. We should have it… here it is! Hmmm, this says special edition. Oh well.”

“I’ll be the red character! And I’m going first!” Emily called, grabbing the red character.        

“I’ll be the blue one,” Lily said, taking the blue. “Let’s start!”

Lily and Emily placed their pieces on the board. Suddenly a big tornado pulled them into the game!

“What’s happening?!” screamed Emily.

“I don’t know!!!” yelled Lily.

They looked around. All they could see was black. They looked down. They saw the Candyland board!

“We’re getting sucked into the game!” screamed Lily. “Oof! Emily, you’re all red!”

“You’re all blue!” Emily returned.

“What happened to us?” Lily questioned.

“I don’t know,” Emily answered.

“Okay,” Lily said, “maybe we got sucked into the game, and we have to play the game till we get to the end so that we can escape. Do you think that’s right?”

“That’s pretty straightforward, but sure,” Emily said. “No wonder the box said special edition. Well, let’s roll the dice. But first of all, where is the dice?”

“There is no dice,” Lily stated.

“Okay,” Emily said, “then we should pick one of those cards.”

“Aw, we landed on a green. We were one away from the rainbow bridge!” Emily whined.

“Well, we landed on a green, so deal with it,” Lily said.

“Okay, anyway, let’s pick another card,” Emily said.

“We got the Gingerbread man,” Lily told Emily.

“Let’s move to the gingerbread space now.”

They went to pick a new card.

“We got a double blue!” Lily squealed. “To the second blue space!”

“I still don’t get why we traveled into the game… maybe we are special!” Emily thought out loud.

“Yeah, there is such a big chance of that,” Lily said sarcastically. “Anyway, we should pick another card.”

“Okay, we got a yellow card,” Emily said.

Lily said, “You can pick a new card.”

“Can we go to Lollipop Woods when we pass by?”

“Yeah, fine,” Lily said. “Now look, this card says to go to the next two yellows.”

“Yes!” Emily screamed. “We get to go on the Gumdrop Pass. But it’s too bad we didn’t get to go on the Rainbow Trail. That’s closer to the end.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lily said.

When Lily and Emily looked around, they saw so many good stuff. They saw gumdrops, and farther away, they saw lollipops. The mints were huge. There were huge candy canes, and they were all white and red. And the gumdrops were all different colors and had sparkles, and when they saw the lollipops, the lollipops had swirls in the middle. And Jolly was even there! He was a big, blue blob.

Their next card was a backwards card. They had to go back to the last purple.

“Aw,” Emily said. “Seriously?”

“Oh! But now we can go into the Peppermint Forest.”

“We’ll save that for another time,” Lily protested.

“Okay, new card.”

They picked the next red.

“Well, just our luck,” Emily said. “We landed on a licorice space. We have to lose a turn!”

Lily said, “Look! There’s a Gingerbread cookie. Maybe he’s gonna take the next turn. And then we’ll go.”

When the Gingerbread cookie rolled. He got a double red.

“Wow, he’s lucky!” Emily said. “Let’s just pick another card. Here it is. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!! We got the nut card. Can we please meet Gramma Nutt?!”

“Fine,” Lily said.

“Whoo hoo!”

When the girls passed Gramma Nutt, Emily and Lily started laughing. A basket dog was jumping on top of them! The basket dog was literally a basket with a face on it. It was beige with the same weaves that’s on the basket. But when they looked around, they saw trees filled with nuts from bottom to top. And then they saw Gramma Nutt. She looked so nice.

“Come on in, girls,” said Gramma Nutt. And then she asked, “So, what are you girls’ names?”

“I’m Lily, and she’s Emily,” answered Lily.

“Oh, those are very nice names,” Gramma Nutt complimented. “Well come in, what are you waiting for?”

“Okay,” Emily said.

“Would you girls like to try my famous nut pie?”

“I guess,” Lily said.

“Here’s a slice.”

When Emily took a bite, her face was starting to turn red.

“I don’t feel so well,” she said.

And now she was talking weirdly. It was like her tongue was sticking out of her mouth.

“Oh no, Emily, I think you’re allergic to nuts!” Lily said, sounding worried.

“Gramma Nutt, do you have any medicine?”

“Oh of course, dear, this happens all the time. Here’s a nice cup of medicine. You should probably keep that with you in case your allergies come back.”

“Oh thank you, Gramma Nutt,” Lily said very gratefully. “Okay, Emily, have a little and let’s go.”

As they were leaving, Lily started yelling at Emily. “Emily, did you even know that you were allergic to nuts?”

“Um, I don’t remember,” Emily answered.

“How do you not remember your own allergy?”

“Okay then, let’s just say that I didn’t know I had an allergy.”

“Fine, Emily, I’m only letting you go this time,” Lily grunted. “Now, let’s pick a new card.”

“Oh seriously, we got a green?” Emily whined. “That’s one space ahead!”

“Stop whining, Emily. Why don’t you pick a card this time?”

“Fine! I will! I actually wonder how we get all the cards. Does the deck follow us or something?”

“Yes, Emily,” Lily said.

“Oh, good to know. Well anyway, I got a blue.”

“Okay then, go to the blue.”

Lily said, “New card! This one is a double blue again. That means we have to land on a licorice space. Ughhh,” Lily groaned. “And here comes the Gingerbread man.”

“Seriously, how does he always get the best cards? He got the double orange!”

“Okay, anyway, our next card is a lollipop! Yay!” Lily said excitedly.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, can we go into the Lollipop Woods? We have to go into the Lollipop Woods,” Emily pleaded.

“Fine, but I hope you’re not allergic to lollipops too.”

“I won’t be, don’t worry.”

“Okay, let’s go then.”

“Wow, I never knew a lollipop forest would be so scary considering it was made out of lollipops. There are so many sticks! There’s like a wall of sticks. And it’s so colorful. But then there’s a part of it that’s just brown black, white, and gray. It’s so ugly but pretty at the same time. Wow,” Lily said.

“Look, there’s the Lollipop Fairy,” Emily squealed.

She had brown hair, and it was all put in a ponytail. She had dark brown eyes and a sparkly, bright, purple dress with lollipops around it and shimmery blue shoes.

“Hi,” Emily screamed up to her.

“What are you doing in my Lollipop Forest?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, we’ll leave!” Emily yelled.

“It’s okay, it was just a joke.”

“Phewf!”

“So, what brings you here to Candyland?”

“Well, the game board that was at my house — it said special edition but we didn’t really know what it meant — we got sucked into the game, and we’re trying to end the game, and hopefully there’s a way out in the Candy Castle,” Lily told her.

“Oh, I think there’s a portal in the Candy Castle,” said Lolly.

“Oh good,” Lily sighed.

“Well, you two should be on your way. And be careful not to get frosting from Princess Frostine. She gets a little annoyed when you do that.”

But Emily wasn’t listening to her.

“Anyway, we should probably pick a new card,” Lily stated. “And this card is… yellow!”

“Oo, that’s pretty far,” Emily said.

“Oh look, there’s Princess Frostine. Now we should pick another new card.”

“This is going by fast!”

“Ice cream! Wow, we’re really lucky!”

“I bet she won’t mind if I just take a little frosting,” Emily thought out loud.

“Emily, no!” Lily yelled, but it was too late.

Emily had already eaten it.

“What? You think I’m allergic to frosting too?” Emily said, still recovering from her nuts allergy.

“A little, and Princess Frostine hates it when people eat her frosting,” Lily yelled. “Oops, I should not have yelled.”

“WHO ATE MY FROSTING!!!” Princess Frostine yelled.

“Run!!!” Emily screamed.

“You shouldn’t have either,” Lily whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Emily whispered back.

“Now by order of me, you must move back five spaces. Normally you would move back ten spaces, but you didn’t take that much frosting, so I’m letting you go for ten spaces and only giving you five,” screamed the Frosting Princess.

“But…” Emily started.

“Don’t argue,” Lily said under her breath. “Go to the last purple.”

“Fine.”

Emily backed up along with Lily. Lily and Emily picked a new card.

“Red,” Lily said. “Move up to the red.”

“Oh look, we can see the Candy Castle from here,” Emily said. “New card! Let’s see. This one says double green. Okay, now all we have to do right now is just hope that we don’t get any yellow. Lily, you pick this time.”

“And this says… yellow! Seriously? Here comes the Gingerbread man. How is he so good? He got double purple!”

“Losers!” the Gingerbread man shouted.

“Hey!” Emily shouted back. “Okay. Time to pick a new card.”

“This says purple. Go to the purple!” Lily said.

“Oh, we’re so close to the Candy Castle! I can’t wait. Finally, we’ll be able to go back home,” Emily squealed.

“Yeah. This card says another purple. Hm, strange coincidence!” Emily said. “But, Lily, are you sure that there’s going to be a portal in the Candy Castle?”

“Let’s hope so,” Lily said.

“Okay, now what did we get?”

“This card says… ready? Red! Oh, we’re one away from the Candy Castle! Come on, let’s do this! Now, any card will get us there, unless it’s a backwards card and let’s hope not. This card says… go back to the nearest blue!”

“Seriously?!” Emily shouted. “Wow, just our luck. Now we have to go back to the rainbow. Now this card says orange. Seriously. Why does it have to be orange? It is one space away.”

“This card says… blue! We made it to the end!”

“Yes! Now we can finally go back home!” Lily said.

“Hello, kids,” greeted a big man with a white beard and two bushy eyebrows.

“Who are you?” Lily asked.

“Why, I’m King Candy!”

“Woah, do you know if there’s a portal in the Candy Castle to get back home?” Emily asked.

“Sure, kid, you just have to answer one riddle. Come on inside.”

When Lily and Emily looked inside, they were amazed. There were gumdrops and candy canes all in rows, and the long carpet was a fruit roll-up! There was caramel everywhere, and the king’s throne was gummies with candy canes around it and gumdrops on top of the candy canes.

“Woah!” Emily said. “Who made this?”

“Everyone in Candyland did,” answered King Candy.

“Oh my god, we didn’t notice it before, but look, there’s Gloppy, the chocolate monster!”

They heard Gloppy yell, “Good luck getting home, kids!”

He was a big, chocolate blob with the darkest eyes you’ve ever seen and chocolate chips around him and a big smile.

And then suddenly, the king’s face got all serious.

“Now, you have to answer one riddle to get home. You got that?” said King Candy.

“Okay,” stuttered Emily.

“Yeah,” Lily answered.

“Okay. Here’s your riddle: I have stripes, but I’m not a zebra. I look like a hook, but I have nothing to do with Peter Pan. I’m normally red and white, but I’m not a Milk Snake. I can be eaten, but I’m not a strawberry jelly sandwich. I’m minty, but I’m the opposite of toothpaste. What am I?”

Lily and Emily had to take a moment to think about this.

“Let’s see,” Lily said. “It has stripes, but it’s not a zebra. It looks like a hook, but it has nothing to do with Peter Pan. It’s normally red and white, and it can be eaten, and it’s minty. What could it be? First, let’s think what candy has stripes. Well, a mint has stripes. And it does match with minty.”

“But how about the hook?” Emily thought out loud. “It could be… a candy cane! That’s it! King Candy, is it a candy cane?”

“Yes, you are correct!” King Candy shouted.

“Okay, where’s our portal home?” Lily asked.

“Well, all you have to do is go through this curtain made of sugar.”

“Okay,” Lily said. “One, two, three, go!”

Lily and Emily jumped through the curtain. The curtain felt so soft and smooth, and they did get a little taste of the sugar. It felt like so long to get out of the portal back and to their house. But finally, they just landed on the floor. When they looked around, they saw black. But when they looked down, they saw their houses.

“Yes, we’re finally home!” Lily said as she landed on the floor.

“Finally!” Emily said. “Now, I never want to play Candyland again. How about Monopoly?”

“Hmm, that’s weird, this says special edition. Oh well,” Lily said.

The End

This Book Belongs To Mia.

May 9, Monday

Dear Diary,

Today was the best day ever. First off, in Science class, my teacher assigned my two best friends, Bella and Siena, to be partners with me on a project. Then, after school, we got to hang out together. Second of all, my worst enemy, Olivia, didn’t bother me at all today.

May 10, Tuesday

Dear Diary,

Today was the exact opposite of yesterday. Olivia bothered me all day. First, she somehow managed to move lockers to the one right next to mine. Then, she invited 30 or so people over to see her new locker, which totally invaded my personal space. So, today was a disaster.

May 11, Wednesday

Dear Diary,

Today was an even bigger disaster. At school, Olivia spread the word that I am invading her personal space. That girl has nerve.

I swear, if I hear another, “Oh, you’re so awesome Olivia,” or “I wish I could be more like you, Olivia,” I am going to scream.

May 12, Thursday

Dear Diary,

I bet there is no place I could go where it is totally silent. At school, it is loud because of my classmates. At home, it is loud because of my brother and sisters.

May 13, Friday

Dear Diary,

Today, my school day was not at all better. Olivia makes me so mad, I want to punch her in the face. At least I get to sleep over at Bella’s house on Sunday night. I can’t wait for Sunday!!

May 14, Saturday

Dear Diary,

Today I got to go to the mall with Bella and Sienna. I bought a new dress and a couple of new shorts. It was the best trip I’ve had in the mall for a really long time. When I got home, I showed my mom all these things, and she approved. I went up to my room with my best friends, and we tried on our new stuff. So today was a pretty good day.

May 15, Sunday

Dear Diary,

I know this is probably going to be the longest diary entry ever, but a lot happened today.

Today was the most exciting day ever. In the morning, my mom helped me pack my bag for the sleepover. She told me that Bella, Siena, and I were going to carpool to Bella’s house, and tomorrow, we were going to carpool to school together. When I got to softball practice, I headed straight for Bella and Siena to talk about what we were going to do at the sleepover. At different parts of the day, I kept looking over at the clock to see when practice was over. At lunchtime, Bella, Siena, and I continued talking about what we’re going to do at the sleepover. Finally, practice ended.

Bella said, “Go get your stuff and meet me back at my locker. When we get to my house, we can change out of our softball uniforms because my mom’s coming in five minutes. So hurry up!”

I said, “Okay! See you in a minute!”

When I went back to my locker, guess who was there? Olivia. And she was bullying everybody!

I went over to Olivia and said, “Some people just like being left alone, so can you stop teasing everyone?”

She said, “What’s your business to tell me what to do?”

I just ignored her, got my stuff out of my locker, and went back to find Bella. Then we got into Bella’s car and made it to her house. When we went to her house, we went down to her den to set up our sleeping bags!

Then Bella’s mom called us up for dinner.

We went up and said, “Dinner? It’s too early for dinner! It’s only six o’clock!”

Her mom said, “Oh, okay. I guess you can play for a little bit longer.”

“I think that we should prank your little brother, Bella!” I said.

Siena said, “Yeah! And then after that, we can watch a movie!”

Bella said,  “Maybe we can prank my brother by stuffing his favorite stuffed animal with jelly beans instead of stuffing so it’s all crunchy. Then, he’d open it up and eat the jelly beans!!”

I said, “Yeah! That’s cool! Let’s do that to all of his stuffed animals! And each one gets a different candy inside!”

Siena said, “Yeah, that’s cool! But wait, we don’t have that many candies…”

So we made a list of candies that we needed to get. After that, we went to go ask Bella’s mom if we could go out to the store and get some things.

Her mom asked, “What kind of things are you getting?”

“We’re getting all different kinds of candies to make a… a gingerbread house out of!” I said quickly.

“Yeah,” said Siena, “So can we go?”

“Yeah sure, kids! I’m gonna get you money!”

“Nice job lying. Now we have to buy extra candy and make a gingerbread house,” Bella mumbled.

“Sorry, but at least your mom doesn’t suspect anything.”

“Here you go girls,” Bella’s mom said. “Is $50 enough?”

“Yeah that’s fine, Mom. What time should we come back?”

“Around 7:30. That’s an hour and a half. You guys should go now because the store closes soon. Make sure you don’t buy too much.”

“We won’t,” all of us said as we went out the door.

Walking down the street to the store, Sienna said, “Fifty dollars… that’s a lot! Are we going to get that much candy?”

“Well, we do have to stuff my little brother’s stuffed animals with candy and make a gingerbread house.”

“Oh, right,” Sienna said. “Thanks, Mia.”

“Sorry I said that. I was just trying to make sure your mom does not suspect that we were doing something bad.”

Finally, we got to the store after three blocks of us talking about how I was making us buy more candy. When we went to the store, we went straight to the candy section. We got Twizzlers, Tic Tacs, Lemonheads, Skittles, gummy bears, Taffies, candy hearts, and rainbow-colored jelly beans. Now we had to go to the baking section to get gingerbread cookie batter.

“I’m sorry I’ve said that, for the third time,” I said.

We went to the checkout counter, and it all cost exactly $50.

“Wow, that’s some expensive candy,” said Sienna.

We each took one bag of candy and went back to Bella’s house.

Bella’s mom said, “Oh, you got back early!”

“Uh, yeah, Mom, we were just getting a few things.”

“That’s okay, honey. Go down to the den, and I’ll call you up for dinner in a few minutes. It’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Your favorite!”

“Okay, Mom! But if we don’t finish it before dinner, can we continue after dinner?”

“Sure, honey. Just make sure to wash your hands before you touch the candy.”

“Okay, Mom! Let’s go to the den, guys.”

I suggested, “Let’s go stuff — I mean, let’s go make a gingerbread house!” Sienna agreed as we ran down the stairs.

“You almost let it slip!” Bella said.

“Sorry,” said Sienna.

“Okay, let’s stop arguing and work on it now! Your mom might not let us do in it in the morning, and we might not have another sleepover soon.”

“Okay,” I said as we lay all the candy on the ground. “We all have to slowly and silently go get your brother’s stuffed animals. Hopefully he’s not in his room. If he is, we can try it later and make the gingerbread house for now.”

“No, my brother’s not in his room. He’s at basketball practice, but he’s going to be back at 7:45, which is in 15 minutes. so we have to hurry,” said Bella confidently.

“Okay. I’ll go first. Mia, you can go second. And Sienna, you can go third… actually let’s all go at the same time, just to make sure that your mom doesn’t see us. We can grab more that way.”

“Okay,” Sienna said.

So we all went to her brother’s room, grabbed five or so stuffed animals, and ran back. Bella dropped one, and we all ran. Bella dropped all her stuffed animals and ran back to get the one she dropped.

We said, “No, Bella, just leave it! Otherwise, your mom will see us. Wait till the next round!”

“Okay,” she grabbed the rest of her stuffed animals, and we ran to the den.

We all ran back to get the other stuffed animals, but her mom saw us. We all hid the stuffed animals behind our backs and acted like nothing happened.

Her mom said, “Girls, what are you doing up here? I thought you were making a gingerbread house.”

“We are. We just forgot something,” Sienna said, very scared.

We all ran back to the den, and Bella said, “Ooh that was a close one.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s start making our gingerbread house. Otherwise your mom will get suspicious if she comes down and doesn’t see a gingerbread house.”

“Okay,” said Sienna. “You can get the pan out, Bella.”

When we got all the stuff ready, we started putting the gingerbread blocks in the right places. Soon we started to decorate the gingerbread house. Then, we started working on the stuffed animals. Sienna cut them open, and Bella and I stuffed them with candy. They looked exactly the same as when we started, but they’re filled with candy now. We put all the stuffed animals back in her brother’s room, just as when her brother came back from basketball practice. We showed Bella’s mom the gingerbread house, and she loved it. After that, we went down and we talked about school, how Olivia is so annoying, and how she should just leave us and everybody alone. Then, Bella’s mom called us up for dinner.

When we went up for dinner, I said, “This smells delicious, Bella’s mom!”

“Thank you, Mia! This is Bella’s favorite thing to eat! So I’ve memorized the recipe!”

When we all sat down for dinner, we all started eating. When we finished eating, we all brought up our plates to the kitchen counter, and went back to the table for dessert.

“Dessert was delicious!” said Sienna.

“Thank you! This is also Bella’s favorite dessert. You girls can go down if you’re not finished with setting up your sleeping bags. But when you’re done, come up and play a game with us.”

We went downstairs and set up our pillows and blankets. When we went back upstairs, we saw them putting out a game. Monopoly.

I, Jammy, was in my house, getting ready for bed. I changed into my pajamas, and walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth. My teeth were as clean as fresh snow. After a day of continuous running from sports, I was tired when I went to bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was sleeping.

When I was sleeping, I had a dream that I was in my living room, and I went inside a mysterious, purple portal. In the portal, all I saw were places flashing before me. I came out in a weird, hot desert. Then, I woke up from my sleep and felt really hot. I don’t know why I was hot. It was probably because I was sweaty. I was about to get of my bed, but all I felt was…wait a minute. Sand!

I bolted upright, opened my eyes, and noticed that I was in the same place that I was in my dream! The desert had some cacti and sand mountains.

“Welcome to the game!” a booming voice said.

I noticed other people, and they were all wearing pajamas, just like me. I was confused, and the other kids looked confused also.

“In this game, you will work together to survive against some obstacles.” said the booming voice.

I started to shake. The other kids looked like they were shaking also. Suddenly, a leather belt with pockets appeared on me. It had a sword and shield on it. My pajamas turned into baggy jeans that smelled new, and a grey t-shirt that was comfy. All the other kids had the same outfit.

“Level One!” said the loud voice.

Five slimes came out of nowhere. They were big blocks of green goo. I started slowly approaching them, and so did the other kids. When I was finally in front of the slimes, I drew my sword and slashed. I noticed the slime got slower after I hit it, so I kept on slashing until the slime hit me. I got a little sting from where it had hit me, and I started to get a little bit slower. I kept on slashing. The next time it tried to attack me, I did a flip right over the slime, and stabbed it right in the back. It disappeared into a cloud of green orbs, and fell onto the ground. I ran over the green orbs, and it disappeared into my body. I got faster. The other kids were having trouble, so I helped them. For the first slime, I jumped on its head, and jumped even higher. I then slammed my sword into the slime’s head. The slime turned into a shower of green orbs.

“Thanks,” the kid said.

After I defeated the rest of slimes, the announcer said, “Level Two will start tomorrow.”

I decided to go explore, and so did the other kids. When I was exploring, I found a tree! I mean, a tree in the desert…that is rare! And guess what the tree had on it? Apples — about ten of them. I took down the apples, and brought them back to where we fought the slimes.

When I got back, the scene suddenly shifted into a forest. I was really stunned when it shifted into a forest. The other kids looked stunned also. After I recovered, I went over to the other kids. They had water from the cacti, probably. They looked at the apples, and their eyes widened.

“Can I have one?” they all asked.

So I went over to them, and gave each of them an apple. I learned their names. One was named Tomas, and the other three were named Lucas, Max, and Sofia. I noticed that it was getting dark, so I leaned on the nearest tree and rested. As soon as I closed my eyes, I fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of the announcer’s voice.

“In Level Two, you will not fight. You will try to survive in the forest. Level Two will start in ten minutes.”

This gave me time to talk to the other kids. First, I talked to Tomas. I learned that he could speak Spanish, and that he loved to play video games. Then, I talked to Lucas. I learned that he liked to joke around. Then, I talked to Max, and learned that he loved sports. Then, I talked to Sofia, and learned that she liked arts and crafts.

After that, I heard the voice say, “In Level Two, you must get to the middle of the forest. You will have obstacles in your way. I will tell you when you get into the middle of the forest.”

Well, I thought, this is going to be easy.

Plum, the golden retriever, was grazing in someone’s yard and playing with a ball. Plum belonged to a boy named James. Plum really wanted to go to the country, except they lived in the city, and Plum wanted to go to, well… Plum  didn’t know exactly where. The city was too noisy, and Plum didn’t like the smell of cigars.

It was decided he would run away. So Plum started the long walk east. On the way, he met a girl about nine years old. Plum liked the girl. She was much better than James. James was a twelve-year-old who was very annoying and loved to play mean tricks. The girl’s name was Stacy. She had a kind heart, and promised to help Plum go east. Plum caught sight of some trees and grass. Stacy had brought a knife, so she started chopping down the trees to make wood. When Stacy was done, they leaned the wood against the biggest tree in sight. It was tall and wide. Then, they started making something looking like a shelter. They dug a tunnel, and then cut the ground above. Stacy brought a bottle of water and some bread so they had some food.

Plum asked Stacy, “I’m running away from the city because I hate the smell of cigars, and it’s too noisy. Why are you running away?”  

Stacy replied, “It’s my dad. He’s always getting in the way. It was Sunday, one night, and I wanted to go to the playground. He said I had to do my homework. I’d already finished my homework, but my dad made some for me. More homework. Imagine it! So that’s why I ran away.”

Plum said he was hungry, and Stacey gave him a slice of bread, and he started snoring. Stacey made a door out of moist dirt, and went to bed.

The next morning, Stacey took the door down, let the air in, and woke Plum up. Plum was on a trail. At the end of the trail, there were luscious bushes filled with raspberries. Stacey filled her arms with raspberries, and Plum carried raspberries on his back.

That night, Stacey and Plum had a feast of raspberries. The raspberries tasted as good as Plum had ever eaten. When Plum lived with James, he was only fed with bread and water.

It was great sitting there in their small little den, eating a feast of raspberries. Stacey slurped water from her water bottle, and Plum started snoring again. Stacey and Plum went out of their den the next morning. They were walking into the stream to find fish. A wild horse trotted by, and Stacey ripped a hair from its tail. Then, Stacey cut a small piece of wood, tied the string to the wood, and went to the river. She lowered the line and waited for some fish. Plum started barking. A plump trout was swimming his way. Stacey told Plum to be quiet and, soon, they were going back to their den with three plump trout.

***

Back at home (I mean the home of James Barrely, the ex-owner of Plum), James was looking frantically for Plum. James’ mom and dad had spent a fortune on Plum. James was creeping along when he saw strands of golden hair and a golden tail. Then, he followed a long trail of wet footprints and pawprints until he was out of the city. He went around the corner, and saw a golden haired girl with Plum. Plum started barking, and Stacey soon found out why.

Plum was shouting at the top of his lungs, “It’s James!”

Stacy was running as fast as she could, and Plum was still shouting at the top of his lungs and sprinting at his top speed. Stacy and Plum ran until they lost sight of James. Stacy checked her compass, and it said they were on the border of Alabama. Stacy was horrified. Plum was also horrified, but he had a smile on his face. James would never find him in Alabama.

Stacy still had a few shillings in her pocket, so she went to the market in Alabama. She bought some fruits and some water. She also bought three tomatoes and two pieces of lettuce. Then, she had to beg on the street. At the end of the day, Stacy and Plum had thirty shillings due to the fact that Stacy was a very persuasive beggar.

They got a bedroom at a very cheap inn. Plum slept on the carpet, and Stacy slept in the bed. They ate a piece of lettuce for dinner. James had gone back home in despair. He had not found Plum, and he had no idea who or what the golden haired girl was. His mom and dad would yell at him. He slept in his comfortable bedroom, hoping that his mom and dad would not notice the missing Plum.

At the cheap inn, in Alabama, Stacey and Plum had awoken. They ate a very small piece of tomato for breakfast, and set off. Stacey and Plum wanted to get as far away from New York City as possible. Soon, they were at the rich part of the city in Alabama. They slept at a very comfortable bedroom that was lent to them by a very kind person.

***

All the birds were crowding around them. They were giving out very small pieces of bread. The next morning, they set off again. Suddenly, they saw a very big car, black as the night. Plum recognized it immediately. The Barrely’s were on their tail. James hopped out of the car and made friends with Stacey. Plum snuck into Stacey’s handbag, and ate all the food they had bought. The Barrely’s sent Stacey home. They all got into the Barrely’s black car, and drove back to New York.

Plum now really liked New York because Stacey was there. Stacey bought Plum a clothespin to put on his nose so he didn’t have to smell the cigars. And Plum had some headphones on his head to block out the sounds. The Barrely’s always fed Plum very sensible food.

[1]

Once, there was a blue monster from Antarctica. That’s why he was blue. He had one black eye, two white horns, and dark blue patches on his blue body. He came to Brooklyn. He went to school there. Some of the people in the school threw chocolate over his head. All he wanted was love. But he couldn’t get it, because he looked like a big, angry monster whenever they put chocolate on his head.

One day, he found another monster who was having the same problem. She then she licked all the chocolate off him. He was very happy, and he found his love. Her name was Monsterella. She was dark pink, with light pink patches on her body. She had two white horns and one eye. She was a little shorter than George.

They went on a date. They went to a restaurant called Peter Luger. They sold the best steak ever. They ate spinach, bacon, steak. For dessert, they ate schlag, which is a kind of special whipped cream. After the date, George and Monsterella visited Antarctica. He had his mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa in Antarctica. So did Monsterella. They went ice fishing. It was very cold. They didn’t wear sweaters because the stores didn’t have their size. They were too big. That’s the story of Monsterella and George.

[2]

There was Peter and Paulie. They eventually became friends, but they didn’t know each other at first. When school first started, the same boys who were throwing chocolate over George’s head were throwing cheese over Peter’s head. All Peter wanted was not love, but a friend. That’s where Paulie came in. Paulie and Peter were snakes. They were pythons. They had the same black and orange skin. Paulie climbed up, and stopped the boys from pouring cheese over Peter’s head. Paulie started to constrict the boys to scare them, but she didn’t kill them. Then, Paulie carried Peter from the boys, who were throwing cheese over his head, and ran away.

Then, Peter and Paulie met Monsterella and George in Antarctica. They asked for help to stop those boys from pouring stuff over people’s heads. Monsterella and George said okay, and they went back to Brooklyn. Then, Monsterella walked purposely underneath the chocolate to look like a scary monster. Then, she walked over to Peter, Paulie, and George. After a while, Peter slid by with Monsterella, and they scared the boys away. The boys never came back.

[3]

Once there was a monster, who was born with his body in separate places. His head was pink, with wings on the top of his head, and weird octopus legs coming out of it. His head could walk where he wanted in Monsterville. He really wanted to be closer to his body parts, to be connected, and to go to New York. He knew that his torso was in a bakery, because his torso was a chocolate ball with chocolate chips. He only had one leg, which was made out of water, and that leg lived in the Hudson River. He really needed to find his torso.

Meanwhile he was eating breakfast at a bakery, but not the one that his torso is in. He was eating waffles, pancakes with chocolate chips, and a banana smoothie.

“Sorry, I didn’t get to tell you my name. It’s Bob.” Bob said.

As he left the bakery, he wanted to leave Monsterville to find his torso. He said goodbye to all his monster friends and his best friend, Bill.

“Bye!” he shouted, waving his octopus leg.

He started to fly with the wings on his head. His torso was in a bakery in France. He flew for one hour. Finally, he got there. He went into all the bakeries, like Moulin de la Vierge and Boulangerie Patissiere in Paris. Finally, he found his torso.

He whispered to his torso, “Let’s get out of here!”

It said, “Okay.” His torso didn’t have a mouth, so they communicated using sign language.

And then, they connected. Then, Bob tried to fly all the way to the Hudson River in New York, but he couldn’t because his torso was too heavy. So they had to walk to an airplane. But on the way, there were a few things stopping them.

First, there were some people trying to throw glue on them because there were a lot of humans, and they were trying to stick them to the ground. The humans were scared of Bob and his torso. His torso saved them. Only the chocolate chips got stuck, so his torso took the chocolate chips off and ran away, but he still had a few left.

Second, once they got to the plane, the plane had no fuel.

Bob told his torso, “Melt all your chocolate chips, and that will be the fuel.”

The torso said, “Okay.”

“I’ll hold the plane up just in case, because I have wings.” Bob said.

“Okay.”

Then, the plane flew to New York. The plane was white and it looked like a fish, which reminded Bob of his water leg in the Hudson River. Once they got to New York, they swam and swam to the middle of the Hudson River. There, they found his leg! They all connected and swam back. They all had so much fun that they went to a cafe. It was called Inatesso. Bob and his other body parts went to drink coffee there.

And that’s the story of Bob and his body parts.

Chapter One

Crayon Monster wanted to go on the 5 train, but all the trains were out of order. He was furious! He blew rockets out of his head and mouth. They flew everywhere. Nobody got hurt. Everyone else was at home because it was early in the morning. Then he went back home.

He waited for the train to come back in. He went back to the train station, then got on the train going to Brooklyn. That was why he was not furious anymore.

He went to Brooklyn to see his mom. His mom was also a Crayon Monster. He blew rockets of all the colors out of his head and mouth because he was happy. That meant celebration. No one got hurt again.

Crayon Monster and his mom were going to have a pizza party and hang out in a movie cafe. They were going to see Transformers, and then Talking Trains after that, and then Lightning McQueen.

Chapter Two

Crayon Monster spent the night with his mom. He loved spending the night with his mom. He had another pizza party and another movie cafe. After that, he went home and had a nice sleep.

Every day, he went to his mom so they could do another cafe and then spend the night with each other. Then on Friday, he went home, and the cafe was over because it had been 10 weeks. Everybody went home except for his mom. She lived there and slept every day at her cafe home, a movie restaurant.

Every year for Christmas, his mom painted everything a beautiful style. She was sleeping until the Christmas holiday. Crayon Monster came back for Christmas so they could have another holiday.

Chapter Three

When they celebrated Christmas, they had a holiday. When Santa came, during the night while they slept, they got presents. They loved their presents. Every Christmas, they celebrated. He got his favorite Transformers and other stuff.

After Christmas, Crayon Monster went home. He exploded because he was so happy, he could pop. It didn’t hurt his mom. That’s why he went home after Christmas.

Once upon a time, there was a dragon who lived in a castle. The dragon loved adventure. It was red and orange, and was named Fire. Fire hated living in a castle, and he was about to go on an adventure. He had already explored near the castle, but not in the forest.

Fire started walking towards the forest, but tripped on a vine. He blew out fire at it to get it off. Then, he spotted a temple made of stone. He looked at it, surprised. He went down into the temple and found a puzzle. He tried to figure it out. On his first try, it opened a chamber downstairs. He went in and found another puzzle that led to a chest with diamonds and gold. Excited, he walked back to his castle and put it in his treasury downstairs.

Back in the forest, he found a cave. He thought, Perfect! I never wanted to live in the castle anyways! So he started building and moving furniture.

He moved the chest he had found into the cave that had nothing in it. Underneath, he found three diamonds and put them in his treasury in his new home. He was sitting down. He got up and explored more.

He found another dragon, that was light blue and dark blue, named Ice. He had never seen the strange, all-blue color on a dragon before. Ice asked where Fire had come from. He told Ice that he was moving from the castle outside the woods, and was moving into the cave.

Fire saw a treehouse high up. He asked Ice if that’s where he lived.

Ice replied, “Yes.”

Fire told Ice to come to the cave he found. He asked Ice if he liked exploring. Ice replied that he was exploring and that he just left his house. Fire asked Ice if they could explore together.

Ice said, “Yes,” and they started exploring another temple within ten minutes. The puzzle was the same, but the chest had five diamonds and one piece of metal. Fire kept the earnings in his treasury.

He went to sleep when he heard something in the distance. Suddenly, a monster popped towards him!

Fire breathed fire, flaming towards the monster. He won.

Ice popped out of nowhere. Ice asked, “Are you okay, Fire? Those monsters came to our forest to raid our wood!”

Suddenly, another popped out of nowhere. Ice froze it with his freezing fire.

They decided to protect the forest with crystal walls.

One day, Spike the cat was running around in the backyard of his house. He suddenly spotted a fox, perched in one of the surrounding trees. He ran back to his home in fear. It was Spike’s first time seeing a fox, and he did not know what to expect. Spike’s mom had always told him not to judge a person by their looks, so Spike decided to go back outside and take a second glance at the fox. He tiptoed out the front door and faced the tree in which the fox sat. He spoke to the fox.

“Hi fox, how is your day going? I’m Spike the cat.”

The fox responded with excitement. “Hi, my name is Max the fox. My day was going well until I got stuck in this tree, but now it is good again because you have found me!”

Spike, overjoyed by Max’s friendliness, asked him, “Would you like to run around with me?”

Max replied, “I would love to, but I’m stuck in this tree! I was running around, and I accidentally got stuck in this tree.”

Spike exclaimed, “How can I help?”

Max said, “Please find something to get me down! I am afraid that if I stay up here too long, a bear will come and eat me!”

Spike frantically started looking around the forest to find something sharp. He found the top of a knife and a stick. He broke the stick in half and attached the top of the knife to one end. He went back to Max, still stuck in the tree. Spike took his handmade saw and struck the tree once. Nothing happened. Without losing hope, Spike struck the tree twice (this time with more force.) Still, nothing happened.

Max yelled out encouraging words, “You can do it, Spike! I know you can!”

Spike got a sudden boost of confidence and struck the tree three times. There was a loud creak, and Max came flying down out of the tree! Luckily, Max landed on a soft patch of grass and immediately got up and hugged Spike.

“Thank you so much, Spike! You are the best friend a fox could have.”

Spike asked Max again, “Of course! Now would you like to run around with me?”

Max proudly declared, “Yes!”

And so they started running around together and became friends. Both Spike and Max were very smart. As friends, they would play puzzles, board games, and solve riddles.

One day, while playing in the woods, they heard a rustle and saw a hunter stomping through Spike’s backyard with a gun in hand. The hunter was an old man who did not wear pretty clothes at all. In fact, he wore rags and chunky metal boots that clanged together every time he moved. Spike and Max started to run faster to escape the hunter. The hunter kept trying to get them by shooting his gun. Then the hunter stopped because he ran out of bullets. Spike and Max both looked towards each other at the same time.

“Let’s get him,” they said in unison.

Spike and Max started chasing after the hunter, wanting to capture him because he was trying to kill them. They chased and chased the hunter all throughout the woods until they reached the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They soon reached the hunter’s house — a disheveled cabin located near Sheep’s Meadow — where the hunter put more bullets in his gun, and chased Spike and Max throughout Central Park. In the park, Spike and Max chased behind the hunter, who was unaware of the two behind him. Soon they all ran into the police. The police arrested the hunter because, even though he had more than enough food in his house, he was being greedy and still wanted to hunt down and eat Spike and Max.

Spike and Max were so happy that the Hunter was gone, they went to get ice cream. The people working at the ice cream shop were actually Spike and Max’s family. They were overjoyed! Spike and Max had not seen their parents in a whole year and missed them dearly. Spike and Max asked for their ice cream (creamy cotton candy and colorful birthday cake) and decided to stay at the ice cream shop and work with their families. Spike and Max were not only excited that they were able to be reunited with their parents, but they also were overjoyed that they each would be working with their best friend!

The End!

A puppy named Sugarpaws was raised by a boy named Sammy. She was named Sugarpaws because she loved cookies, and always had sweet stuff sticking to her paws. She was golden brown, and she had a beaded flower crown on top of her head because Sammy and Sugarpaws found scraps and put it together. He fed her, slept with her, tenderly stroked her, and was always her companion. Even though Sammy was a slave, he did everything he could to take care of Sugarpaws. Sammy gave Sugarpaws a nickname. Her nickname was Queenie because she acted so royal. Everyday, Queenie thought about how Sammy got punished. One day, she decided that she would help Sammy. Queenie would scout and steal food from Sammy’s owner, and then they would have a feast every night.

Today was the day she would start stealing! She would start going into ninja mode. Queenie knew she wouldn’t get caught if she were camouflaged. She always knew that, like a circus dog, she could walk on her hind legs for a long time. When one of the maids came out of the mansion, Queenie grabbed the maid and put her in the outhouse and took her clothes. Now Queenie was a “maid.” The maid’s clothes were navy and white, and she had a white apron and laced socks, a navy black dress, and black heels. Now, Queenie had to tie up her ears so it would look like hair in a bun. But her ears kinda looked like a cinnamon bun, instead of a hair bun! Queenie was a little worried that she looked furry, but she knew it was okay because she had a lot of clothes on.

Now, it was time to go inside the mansion. Wait! She forgot to put on the gloves so that her paws wouldn’t show. Now, she was ready.

She knocked on the door. The door was made out of thin marble with lots of fancy designs and swirls on the top.

“Who is it?” a deep, growly voice asked.

Queenie thought, I don’t know how to speak. Well, Sammy taught me how to say hi.

She opened her mouth and said, “Hi!”

Then, a bulky, muscular man opened the door. “Stella, what’s wrong? You always know the code.”

Queenie thought, Wait. I know the code? I mean, yeah I know the code! I’m the maid!

She turned her head sideways and shot the man a questioning glance.

The bulky man said in a hoarse whisper, “The code is ‘We love the mistress.’”

Queenie giggled inside her head. Now, Queenie knew the code, so she could deliver it to Sammy! She nodded once and entered the mansion.

It was much, much, much bigger than the old cabin that Sammy and Queenie lived in. She saw a long corridor. On both sides, there were really, really pretty pictures and vases of lilacs and tulips. One of the tulips had a muddy pawprint on them. Queenie knew that those were the bunches of flowers she had picked with Sammy. After every picture, there was a door.

Suddenly, a fat, mustached man popped out of nowhere. Queenie knew at once that he was the “Mister” as Sammy called him. In real life, the man was actually named Eugene Andrew Frances II. The bulky man bowed clumsily, and Queenie knew she was in big trouble! She didn’t know how to curtsy! Thankfully, “Mister” didn’t notice and went to the bulky man instead.

“Thank God!” Queenie squealed silently.

“Arthur, you’re supposed to be serving Mistress her dinner.”

“I apologize greatly, Sir,” Arthur half-groaned.

Arthur rolled his eyes, but “Mister” didn’t notice. He was now staring suspiciously at Queenie.

“Mister” said, “That’s better,” while staring at Queenie even more suspiciously, giving her a look as if he had X-ray vision.

Queenie started feeling uncomfortable and noticed that her heels were not as cushiony as she thought. Finally, Eugene looked away and walked back through the corridor.

“Arthur!” a shrill voice called from a place Queenie assumed to be the dining room.

Then, that’s when she noticed that this voice belonged to the mistress. She felt much more alert now because she knew that she could not steal food while the mistress was dining. She’d either have to go in the kitchen, or take what was left.

“Stella?” Mistress called again.

Queenie took off at a run for the dining table. She stuffed the food inside of the pouches and sacks that she carried, and stuffed some in her paw, and started running for the door on all threes. All three paws, she meant.

Sammy was picking cotton when Queenie burst through the doors. She started fiddling with the lock.

She barked what sounded like, “Arf! Arf! Lock the doors for me!”

Sammy stopped, ran toward the doors, took a safety pin, and turned the pin in the lock. With a click, the doors locked shut. Mistress and Arthur started banging on the doors and screaming loudly.

Out of nowhere, Arthur exclaimed, “We’re so stupid! There’s a back door!”

Oops! Queenie led Sammy to the back door. When she came, he turned the safety pin once again, and the doors were shut. Now, the owners of the mansion were trapped in their own home. At least they had enough supplies to survive for a million years. They would be happy there. At least, that’s what their neighbors thought. Mistress got what she deserved.

Twenty minutes later, Sugarpaws heard the owners and the servants give up and go back to their rooms. She slipped into the now-quiet mansion, took all of their food in a big sack, and dragged it back outside. All the slaves had a big celebration.

Sammy said, “I don’t know where my family is, but you’re my family.”

It started at a school with a kid, named Nigel, telling a story about a substitute teacher who was evil.

“So once in third grade, we had a substitute teacher who was evil. His name was Mr. Broom, and once, I was putting a bin over to one of the shelves. Then the shelves knocked down on me, and he told me to clean it up. And he said for no one else to help. And he wouldn’t let us use the bathroom, so I peed in my pants once. And he was just completely evil. But I heard that he could still be a substitute teacher,” Nigel said.

Femi said, “What? How did he not get fired?”

“Well, he was already there when we got there because he came at 6 o’clock a.m. and waited for everyone to come. So he would still have his job because students can only come in at 7:37 a.m. So he brang everyone up to class right when everyone was there, and everyone wanted to be first to school, so he always came early.”

Zee said, “Then why didn’t you come to school late?”

Nigel said, “We didn’t come late because if we came late, he wouldn’t let us come down until four o’clock p.m. and tell our parents we were being bad, so we would have to stay after school.”

Jake said, “But we don’t have detention in this school. That’s in the middle schools.”

Nigel said, “Well, he did it anyways.”

Zack said, “That’s out of this world.”

Ms. Ingrovalo said, “It’s time to pack your bags. It’s pick-up time. We’re going to go downstairs.”

“Yay, my mom is here,” a random person said.

“And there’s yelling everywhere,” Nigel said.

Jake said, “There’s always going to be yelling everywhere.”

Nigel said, “I know that. I know that already. I’ve been here for five years.”

Zee said, “See you at the park.”

***

The next day in the auditorium

“I wonder what’s taking so long for our teacher to be here,” Zee said, “And why’s there a random person coming to our class?”

Nikhl said, “Well, he’s another kid. Maybe he wasn’t here yesterday because it’s the beginning of the school year.”

Zee asked, “What’s your name?”

Shish Kebab said, “My name is Shish Kebab.”

Zack and Xander both said, “Shish Kebab? No way. We created a book called Shish Kebab, and all it said was shish kebab, shish kebab, shish kebab, shish kebab, shish kebab.”

Shish Kebab said, “I am confused.”

Nigel said, “Why is it taking your teacher so long?”

Zee said, “That’s what I just said. Well, actually, maybe thirty minutes ago.”

A unknown teacher said, “Your teacher is sick, so you’re going to have a substitute teacher.”

Nigel said, “Oh. I don’t like substitute teachers because of Mr. Broom.”

Zee said, “Well, I’m just going to hope that it’s not going to be Mr. Broom.”

The substitute teacher was about fifty years old and had a bad temper. He looked very impatient, and he wore a beige shirt, a blue tie, and black pants. He was bald.

Nigel said, “Oh no. It’s Mr. Broom.”

Shish Kebab said, “Who’s Mr. Broom? ‘Cause I think he could be a broom with sticks as arms and legs covered in some weird paper, and for a head, he could have a paper bag with a mouth and ears and eyes but no hair.”

Mr. Broom yelled at Shish Kebab, “You don’t say that about me!”

Shish Kebab said, “Okay. Now I know not to do that.”

Mr. Broom said, “I remember you, Nigel. Everybody get in line.”

Everybody said, “Okay.”

Mr. Broom said, “We’re going to go up the stairs, and I don’t want to hear a word. Okay everybody. Get to your seats.”

Nigel said, “Uh, I don’t have a seat.”

Mr. Broom said, “Go get one.”

“Nigel said, “Okay,” and got the seats.

He put it at the same table that he was at yesterday.

Nikhl said, “Can I use the bathroom?”

Mr. Broom yelled, “No!”

Nikhl said, “What?”

Mr. Broom said, “Don’t speak back. Now when you’re with me, the rules are different. You cannot use the bathroom. You cannot say anything unless you are at lunch or recess. You cannot get here late. No talking back.”

A random person from the hallway yelled, “Nooooo.”

Mr. Broom yelled, “No talking back!!!”

A random teacher asked, “Is everything okay?”

Mr. Broom said, “Yes.”

The random teacher said, “Okay.”

Then the random teacher left.

Mr. Broom said, “Everyone get out your writing notebook.”

Everyone said, “Okay.”

Mr. Broom said, “I said no talking back.”

Everybody got out their writing notebooks.

Mr. Broom said, “Everybody, I’m going to give you a subject to write about.”

Everyone got a subject. No one liked their subject.

Mr. Broom said, “You’re supposed to be done in a week. Your writing must be twenty pages.”

After a couple of hours, it became lunchtime.

Mr. Broom said, “It’s lunchtime.”

Everyone got their lunchboxes. Everyone went downstairs to the cafeteria. There was yelling and shouting, yelling, yelling, shouting, yelling, shouting, and more shouting.

A random person said, “I want my mommy.”

Nikhl said, “He’s actually an evil teacher.”

People said, “You’re right.”

Xander said, “You’re right.”

Nikhl said, “It makes me not want to be in this class anymore.”

Zee said, “Me too.”

Xander said, “I’m pretty sure that everyone thinks that. I hope that recess is better.”

Zee said, “It is not eight minutes anymore.”

A random coach said, “It’s recess time. Everyone get in line, it’s recess time.”

A random person said, “Yay, it’s recess time.”

Another random person said, “I still want my mommy.”

Everyone played, yelling, screaming, shrieking, and screaming.

Zee said, “I brought a piece of paper and a pen, and I made a map of the school. I have an idea. So we’re going to say that we forgot our lunch.”

Xander said, “Oh, good. I actually did forget my lunch.”

Nikhl said, “I did too.”

Zee said, “Well, I forgot mine on purpose. So instead of going and getting our lunch, we’ll go up to the second level of the school, and go into the main office, and say that we need to see the principal. So, are you up for it?”

Nikhl and Xander said, “Yes.”

Logan said, “Good s — hey can Nigel and I come? We forgot our lunch too.”

Zee said, “Yeah sure. But we’re not getting our lunch until we get Mr Broom fired.”

Nigel said, “Oh. Awesome. I’m definitely in for it.”

“Me too,” Logan said.

Zee said, “Okay, let me tell you the plan. So I made a map of the school, and I also wrote down a plan on some post-its, and I put them down on the parts that they are supposed to be on. So the first thing that we’re going to do is that we’re going to say that we forgot our lunch. Then, we’re going to go into the building and go up to the second floor, and we’re going to say that we need to speak to the principal. And when they let us speak to the principal, then we’re going to tell her what Mr. Broom did. He’ll get fired, and yay. Mr. Broom is gone.”

Nikhl said, “But what if Mr. Broom sees us?”

Zee said, “Mr. Broom is going to be on the third floor checking our homework.”

Xander asked, “What if one of the teachers sees us going upstairs?”

Zee said, “Then we’ll say that we’re checking the lost and found in the main office.”

“Same thing if we are upstairs and that happens, right?” asked Nigel.

“Yeah,” Zee said.

“Okay,” said Logan.

“Come on, let’s get on with it then,” Zee said.

“Okay,” everyone except for Zee said.

They went to the coach.

Logan said, “We forgot our lunch, and we need to get it.”

“Hey, Nigel can you bring them to the lost and found?” the coach said.

Nigel said, “Okay.”

Zee said, “Okay. So now we’re going to go into the school, and we’re going to go up to the second level. Then we go to the main office and ask if we can see the principal. If a teacher asks why we’re going upstairs, what do we do?”

Nikhl said, “We’re going to say we’re going to check the upstairs lost and found because we forgot our lunch boxes at school yesterday.”

“But before we do that, what should we do?” Zee asked.

Logan answered, “We’re going to check the lost and found downstairs.”

“Good,” Zee said, then asked, “What about when we’re upstairs?

“Same thing,” Xander said.

“Excellent,” Zee said.

“Do we go in now?” asked Nigel.

A police officer asked, “Why are you coming in now?”

Zee said, “We forgot our lunch boxes at school yesterday.”

“Okay, go on in,” said the police officer.

“Okay, so now we’re going to go up the stairs. Come on,” said Zee.

They walked up to the second level.

“Follow me,” Zee said.

They went into the main office.

Nigel said, “We need to talk to the principal.”

Ms. Anali said, “Why do you need to talk to the principal?”

Logan said, “It’s because of our substitute teacher, Mr. Broom.”

“Okay, but only one of you can go in.”

Logan said, “I’ll do it.”

Logan went into the principal’s office.

Principal Castiano asked, “Why are you here?”

Logan said, “Because of our evil substitute teacher.”

Principal Castiano asked, “How is he evil?”

Logan said, “Well, he doesn’t let us use the bathroom, and once Nigel peed in his pants because Mr. Broom wouldn’t let him use the bathroom. And once, Nigel was putting away the bin of markers and crayons, and the shelf knocked down on him. The art supplies spilled, and Mr. Broom made him clean it up all by himself, and he was hurt.”

Principal Castiano said, “What?! I’m going to call him down and tell him that he’s fired. But I’m going to ask you to go back to recess now.”

Logan came out of the room. Mr. Broom went in.

Logan told Nigel, Zee, Xander, and Nikhl that Mr. Broom was about to be fired. They went down to get their lunchboxes and go back to recess. When they got back to recess, everyone was lined up at their cones. Logan told everyone in his class what he had done, and how he did it, and that Mr. Broom was now fired.

The End

No one knew when the house appeared. All they knew was that it wasn’t recorded in any construction book. None of the supply companies had a clue what it was either. It seemed like it had just… appeared. All the kids were a little freaked out by it. Actually, thinking back, everyone was scared of the house. All they knew was that the lights turned on at night and were off in the day.

Except one night, they didn’t turn on. It was exactly twenty years since then that the attacks first started. It started with my house.

I was the first one they took, the first step. Phase One.

***

The House

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is… actually, I better not tell you. They watch everything. They don’t know my name yet. I bet they’ll find out soon though. There isn’t much that they don’t know. If you promise not to tell, I can tell you my name.

First, let me tell you a bit about myself. I am in my mid forties so, before you ask, no, I’m not old. I don’t know why they chose me. They could have chosen anyone. I know you are dying to know who “they” are. I’d love to, but I can’t say because they’ll kill me. Well, not me specifically, but never mind. All I can tell you as of now is that Phase Two is coming.

Okay, I’m off the radar now, so I can tell you more. My name is Calvin. I don’t remember much about my life before I came here. I like it here, though. There’s no reason to go back, especially because of what’s about to happen to them.

Let me give you some backstory. The earth does not belong to you. I don’t know why humans think that it does. Even your biggest political leaders are secretly with them. They don’t have a name, although they are sometimes referred to as…

“Hello, humans of Earth. I see our friend, Calvin, here has been trying to contact you. I guess Earth is a bad name for it. We like to call it Phase Two.”

Now do you see why I can’t tell you confidential secrets?! I was off the radar when that happened too. If that happened when I was on the radar, Phase Two would have happened much sooner, along with Phase Three, Four, Five, and every number after. I really wish I could tell you.

I suppose you’re wondering what I meant by the “attacks” near the beginning of all this. Well, people die on Earth all the time. Normally, it’s at an old age. But anyone who has seen the house… well, they are the first to die. They die when–

Wait a minute. If their name didn’t get me killed, then this secret will. I’m struggling to tell you that you’re in danger. Allow me. For those familiar with the house, remember the lights? Now, imagine those lights as lives. They have been off for twenty years.

Now, imagine that all lives could just be turned off by a flick of a switch…

***

Earth, Present

Billy was walking down the street late at night. He was getting some bananas from the corner store. He was going to take a detour around the house but saw an injured frog. He wanted to help it, so he chased the slow-moving frog down the sidewalk. He stopped at the house. The lights were on. One was always cautious when the lights were on.

He saw a window open and, when it did, the light blinded him. He took a step backward. A hole opened under him. He fell down a hole, down and down and down. It felt like he was falling forever. It was getting hotter and hotter. All of a sudden, he was hit by a wave of cold. He fell into a large, open, circular area. He saw a shadow fall over him. The last thing he saw was a blinding light. He was never seen again.

***

Earth, Twenty Years Ago: The First Day the Lights Stayed Off

Everyone hid in their houses, waiting. This was how it went every day. The people stayed in the day and hid in their houses when the lights come on at night. Eight o’clock came and gone. Then 8:30, 9:00, and 10:00, all came and went. Then one door opened. It was the parent of the newborn baby next door. The man went up to the house.

“They have left!!” he shouted, raising his fist.

Cheers broke out. Everyone came out to celebrate. The man and his wife finally got the celebration they deserved for their new baby. Everyone celebrated the newborn baby boy, Billy.

***

Earth, The First Attack

Everyone was walking through the streets. Everything was so peaceful ever since the lights went off twenty years ago. There was a big barbeque to celebrate the twenty-year anniversary of the lights. There was an amazing smell drawing anyone who wasn’t already there outdoors.

Only one person stayed in their house. Calvin skipped out on anything related to the lights or the house. Although he was only forty-four, he was experiencing voices and visions about crazy looking lizard-humans and aliens that he believed were connected. Still, he grabbed some ribs from the barbeque on his way back from the store. No one blamed him. They were delicious.

He sat on his chair to read. All of a sudden, the lights blazed on, and all of the other lights turned off. It made an illusion that the house was glowing. All of a sudden, everyone got a major headache and shut their eyes tight. Everyone saw a brief vision of a massive creature with shining, orange eyes and tentacles instead of a mouth. They saw it use its massive arms to push itself out of the water. Then, a huge beam of light shot high into the air and exploded.

The lights in Calvin’s house started flashing on and off. A blood-curdling scream was heard from Calvin’s house. A man ran in just in time to see the floor coming together to cover up a hole.

“He’s gone!!” he said.

“They’ve never bothered us before. Why’d they start now?” a woman asked.

“I don’t know,” the man said, “but I’m afraid we won’t be able to stop it.”

***

The House

Something happened. I don’t know what it is, but they are excited about it. It’s something about a second sacrifice.

Hold on, I can hear someone coming. Wait a minute. Is that what I think it is?

“Who the heck are you?!”

“I am Calvin. Who the heck are you?!”

“Billy. What is this place?”

“Wait, you mean the Billy that the celebration was about all those years ago?”

“Yeah, when I was a baby. Are you the Calvin that those things took?”

“Yes. To answer your question, you are in the house now. Do you have any other questions?”
“Of course I do! I fell through a hole, down a pit, and was abducted by crazy lizard-people!!”

“Mentioning them might be a bad ide — oh no, you’ve triggered it.”

“Triggered what?”

“They re-populate by using people like us, people deeply connected to the aliens. They clone us in a really torturous, painful way and then turn the clones into them. They can also turn our lives off with the flick of a switch and then turn them back on again.”

“Awesome.”

“You are acting oddly calm about this.”

“No, I’m not. I… I think… I don’t feel so good…”

“It’s starting. Try to stay as relaxed as possible.”

“It is time to commence the process.”

“Wait, aren’t you going to do what you did to me? Torture Billy and clone him to populate your species?”

“No. Billy is going to get a much bigger job. He will be the start of the next phase.”

“What is the next phase?”

“The awakening of our new king.”

“He’s been asleep for thousands of years. What makes you think he will wake up now?”

“Billy.”

***

Earth, Present: Middle of the Sea

“Get that off of the ship!!” the sea captain yelled.

“Sorry,” one of the shipmates replied.

He scrambled to grab the stray piece of sea garbage that flew out of the sea and landed on the deck. When he threw the plastic off the ship, he noticed a huge storm cloud. It started to swirl like an above-water tidepool. Then, from the eye of a storm, a bolt of light shot into the water. It wasn’t necessarily lightning, but more like light itself.

All of a sudden, one of the crew members, who was from the town of the house, doubled over and screamed. He was twitching in agony on the boat floor. He kept repeating the words, “He’s coming,” over and over and over again. He bolted to his feet and pointed a shaking hand at the water. Then, he passed out.

The rest of the crew members rushed to other end of the boat. The man was out cold. They stared at where the man had pointed. Slowly, the waves started to part around a massive body of black scales. Two massive hands, connected to massive arms, came out of the water and slowly pushed up a massive body. Then, the head rose out of the water. It was a huge, round face, but the scariest thing wasn’t the huge horns or the shining, orange eyes. Everything under its eyes was a huge mass of tentacles. The thing let out a massive roar. It took its fist, lifted the boat up out of the water, and slammed it back down.

No one made it back to the surface. In fact, all of the men committed suicide when they were underwater. But the man who was out cold had been awakened by the water. He hadn’t seen the beast, so he swam to the surface. When he saw a stray piece of the mast, he knew something was wrong. An iceberg or system failure wouldn’t completely demolish everything.

Then, he saw a shadow block out what sun was left. He turned, and the last thing he saw was not the beast, but another vision. In his vision, it wasn’t the monster that smashed him. It was one of the men from the village. The man saw Billy reach up and kill him with his fist.

***

Earth, Present

Things were back to the way they were all those years ago. Everyone was walking back inside their houses before the lights came on. But, instead of lights, something else happened.

Billy’s dad let out a scream, like a murder victim in the middle of the streets. He doubled over and screamed out the words, “He’s coming!”

Somewhere deep in the ocean, a sea crew member started twitching deep under the sea.

Somewhere inside the house, a young man started screaming at the top of his lungs.

Back at the village, the man collected himself. With shaky breaths, he said, “It’s coming. The thing from the vision. It’s real.”

Then, he passed out. The man’s wife, who was Billy’s mom, came outside. For some reason, she wasn’t experiencing any visions. She came outside, holding something. It was hard to tell what it was. As she got closer, everyone realized that it was a knife. She took the knife, and dug it deep into her husband’s chest.

“The plan is working as expected. It is the only way. I need your blood for the next phase,” she said.

Her voice sounded like it was not her own. With that, she withdrew the knife. The man crumpled to the ground.

Deep in the midst of the house, Billy screamed.

Far out in the sea, the beast let out a huge sound. It was part-growl, part-screech, part-roar, and part-human.

Then, the woman stabbed the knife into her own forehead. She dragged it down to her neck and dropped the knife. Her skin fell away to reveal a terrifying, scaly lizard-person.

“This is why Billy was connected to our species!” she exclaimed. “Not because we trapped him, but because of his blood.”

Deep in the house, Billy dropped to his knees. He looked at the sky as his eyes turned into slits.

***

The House

“Holy s**t!! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“I don’t know. I feel a deep connection with this species, but somehow… it feels like loss.”

“C’mon, man! Fight the urge!”

“Okay, I got this! I can do it!”

“I know you can! I trust you to fight the urge!! Let me see if I can find out what is going on outside”

“Oh no.”

“What happened?”

“There is a lizard person outside, and a dead man on the floor.”

“Let me see. Wait a minute… that’s not just a man. That’s my father.”

Billy curls his hands into fists. He slowly realizes who the lizard-person was.

“Wait, that lizard-person possessed my mom! Both of my parents are dead because of these things.”

“Billy, you don’t want to get to angry.”

“Why, Calvin? You think that just because you don’t understand human emotions, I shouldn’t go beat up a lizard person right now?”

I punch Billy in the face. All of a sudden, Billy’s eyes turn orange and went back to slits.

“Don’t direct your anger at me, Billy. Use this power to kill a lizard-person, if it is what you must do.”

“Where will I find one?!”

“The one outside, the one that possessed your mom.”

“How will I get outside?”

“All lizard people can get outside.”

***

Earth, Present

Everyone stood, gaping at the lizard-human holding the knife.

“Any other volunteers?” said the lizard-person.

“Me, you dumb lizard-bitch,” Billy said.

He stood with his lizard-eyes and balled up fists. He charged at the lizard and punched it in the face. It was about to fight back, when the sound of gunshots were heard. Helicopter blades could be heard, and shouting too.

Back at the house, Calvin could hear it, too. His face went white as a sheet. He secretly snuck through the house. He jumped at the first lizard-person he saw. He wrapped his arms around its neck and his legs around its waist. Eventually, it passed out. He took its weapon and used it to slice its hand off. With shock, he realized the knife was also a gun. He took the hand, and gun, and ran. He used the hand to bypass security, and he was out.

By the time he got out, a much bigger problem was clear. Not Billy, not the people, not the fact that he was still holding a hand, but the fact that the beast had arrived.

The first clue was that every time he closed his eyes, he saw Cthulhu’s terrifying face. The second clue was that a flaming helicopter was now flying towards him. It crashed right at Calvin’s feet. That’s when he realized. Cthulhu was Phase Two, and he was Phase One. If the aliens used Cthulhu as a second resort, then they were probably afraid of him.

He closed his eyes and tried to see where Cthulhu was. Then, he realized what he was seeing. He was seeing through Billy’s eyes.

***

Earth, Present

Billy was standing over the alien. He was holding the weapon high above his hand.

“Time to die!” he yelled.

He took the knife and dug it deep into the alien’s face. The face imploded, and the blood trickled out from where the eyes used to be.

“Good game,” the lizard-person on the floor slowly smiled.

Suddenly, Billy noticed Calvin. He was staring at the sky. Billy looked up too, just as the sun went out.

Calvin saw Billy look up and pass out when he saw the sun slowly go out. With shock, he realized the sun wasn’t going out. It was getting blocked.

Cthulhu landed on the ground, just outside the house, with two more helicopters in his hands. Calvin noticed the army logo on one of the helicopters. The other was blank, maybe a civilian helicopter. Cthulhu crushed them with his hands.

Calvin knew what he had to do. He took the gun and shot it right between the eyes of Cthulhu. The bullet went right through Cthulhu’s head, but he took no notice.

Billy, however, woke up with a searing pain in his head. Calvin knew he had one choice. He took the knife, ran up to Billy, and stabbed him in the heart. When Billy crumpled to the ground, Cthulhu did too. His massive tentacles wrapped around a few more townspeople, squeezing the life out of them. That’s when Calvin realized something was wrong. The lights turned on. The parts that weren’t windows started to glow. Soon, the whole house became a light. Then, it exploded. Standing in the center of the wreckage was the real Cthulhu.

***

Calvin

I knew what was happening before anyone else did. My biggest secret. I let himself get captured to prove that I wasn’t crazy. Even if I knew this much chaos would happen, I would still do it.

The first Cthulhu was a fake, a lab experiment made by the lizards. It was a ploy to get me to kill Billy. I knew it was coming, but I did it anyways. Billy had to die. If he spent any more time in Cthulhu’s head, he would’ve killed us all. Now, we are all going to die anyways, but in a much more painful way.

Good game.

***

Earth, Present

Calvin slowly approached Cthulhu. With every step, the visions hurt him more. With every thought, he pushed them away. He now stood in front of Cthulhu.

“Take me first!” he yelled.

Cthulhu grabbed him by the neck. He squeezed the life out of him and crushed his rib cage. He threw the bleeding carcass aside. Energy pulsed through Cthulhu. He was trying possess the earth. It wasn’t a living thing, so it would be extremely difficult. All of a sudden, orange energy from his eyes went through his body and into the earth. All of a sudden, everyone who was still living got orange eyes and died. Then, Cthulhu got so much energy that he exploded. His life form stayed in the earth.

All that was left of the earth was a single kid’s toy, a stuffed tiger.

Once upon a time, there was a boy named John who went in the forest alone without his parents and got lost. He lived in the forest for seven years. He liked living in the forest. He ate different types of berries. He made friends with parrots and woodpeckers. When John was first lost, he felt really uncomfortable. He could not sleep because of bears roaring. It was raining, and he was lying down on the floor. He felt really cold and really dirty. Then, he saw a squirrel climbing up a tree.

He said, “Let me see how I can climb a tree.”

And then he did, and he built a treehouse. The wood was light brown and dark brown. It had lots of vines. It was medium sized but kind of tall. He could touch the ceiling with his hands but not with his head. The ceiling was really hard wood.

After seven years, he ran out of ideas. He went outside his house and found a paper in a bottle in the forest river. He took the paper out, and he saw a map. The map was a map of obstacles John had to overcome. First, he had to go through the fire flowers. The flowers were medium-sized, and they shot out purple fire without you knowing. Then he saw the flowers shooting out fire. Then he saw a pattern of the flowers. Then he jumped over the small flowers and rolled under the big ones. Next, he had to go through the lava pit of doom. He had to parkour jump to the other side. The jumps got higher and higher.

Then he said to himself, “I am really afraid of heights.”

But then he didn’t think about it and jumped. After that, there was a river with lots of rocks, and he had to jump on the rocks, but some of the rocks were fake. So when someone jumped on them, you would go down the waterfall. So he thought of something to do. Then, he saw a sign that said, “All of them are booby traps except the yellow ones.” But there was one problem. All of the yellow rocks were really far away from each other. But he jumped as far as he could and did it. On the map, there was another obstacle, and the final obstacle called the sinking swamp.

When John arrived, he knew that this was the swamp because it was dirty, dark, and misty. He had to think of a way to get through. He saw some vines and tried to swing on them, but they were too muddy. He tried to make a bridge, but everything sank to the bottom. He could not think of anything. Then he thought of something. He saw a long rope, and then he found a really big leaf and used the leaf as a zip line. He saw a long, swervy path, but 15 minutes later, the path split into two paths.

But then a wise, old man fell down from the sky. John got so startled, he did three backflips.

The man said, “How did you make it so far into the jungle?”

John said, “Why are you so annoying?”

The man said, “You wanna insult me, huh. Huh?!”

John said, “No, I need help finding the right path that leads to the treasure on my map.”

The man said, “I need to see this map because I have seen thousands of maps”.

The man took the map out of John’s hands, and the man looked at the map.

The man said, “I know what you are talking about. I will tell some history about that treasure. Over one thousand years ago, there was a big stadium. They were having a fighting competition, and the prize was lots and lots of gold. But then a huge tsunami came, and that treasure chest was never seen again. People kept digging and digging, but nobody saw that treasure again.”

“So,” the man said, “let’s go find that treasure.”

John said, “Okay, but the treasure map is very big, so it may take us a few weeks to get to it.”

The man said, “C’mon, follow me. It’s getting dark.”

John said, “Where are we going?”

The man said, “We are going to the spot that I made for travelers to sleep.”

John said, “Okay, I guess.”

The man and John arrived at the camp spot and took a nice nap.

John woke up and said, “What a lovely morning.”

John turned around and saw the man cooking some eggs for breakfast.

John said, “You still know how to cook? You’re like a thousand years old!”

John and the man ate their breakfast and got ready for the trip. They were walking down the road, and then there was a cliff to the other side of the road. So they didn’t know what to do.

The man said, “I’m going to do a little magic so we can get through.”

He said the magic words, “Bippity boppity boo, let’s fly.”

Then a flying broomstick came flying through the air, swooped up the man and John, and flew across the canyon and got them all the way across to the otherside.

John said, “How are you about a thousand years old and still know how to do magic?”

The man said, “I know everything, still, because I’m so old.”

John said, “Let’s get a move on to this trip. I have to find that treasure.”

The man said, “Okay, but just wait up.”

Then they saw a bridge that went to the other side. John and the man were about to cross the bridge, but a little tiny man popped out and said, “You have to say the secret password.”

The man said, “I know the password. 3468773444888TO6.”

The little man said, “How did you know my secret password?”

The man said, “I am the smartest person in the world.”

John was in shock that the man knew that password.

John said, “That password was the longest password that I’ve ever heard before.”

Then they were walking down that path and saw another obstacle. It was really, really hard because there was a tightrope, and if you fell off the tightrope, there would be a thousand foot drop.

And then, a note flew up from the bottom of that canyon.

John read the note saying, “The easiest way to get through is to put your hand on the rope and use your hands to get across.”

The man said, “We don’t have to do what that note said. How about I do a little bit of magic?”

John said, “Okay.”

The man did some magic and teleported them to the other side. Then they arrived and saw the chest on the rock. But then a man fell down and said, “What are you doing here. You’re not supposed to take my treasure. This is mine!”

John said, “What do you mean that’s yours? You weren’t even at the competition!”

The man with the treasure said, “What competition are you talking about? This chest randomly appeared!”

John said to himself, “I think I know what he’s talking about. I think he’s trying to say that a wave washed it up.”

Then the man with the powers said, “You have to give us that treasure just because it’s not yours. A thousand years ago, someone had to earn it!”

The man with the treasure said, “I earned it because I was looking for my entire life. And I mean it because I’ve been looking since I was four, and now I’m 34, so I’ve been looking my whole life.”

John said, “Look, people, you guys have to stop fighting. I deserve that treasure because I never had a chance to find money just because I’ve been living in a wild forest for years now.”

The man with the treasure said, “I’ve been thinking the same thing, but I’ve been living on this island for years.”

The man with the magic powers said, “This island is humongous. Why would you need money for it?”

The man with the treasure said, “What do you mean, money?”

John said, “There’s a thousand bars of gold in there. You thought it was just for display?”

The man with the treasure said, “Yes, but I still want this even though it’s money.”

John said, “Why?”

The man with the treasure said, “I’m trying to make a museum, and I’m going to put this treasure in the museum, so everyone can think I’m not a dork. So they can think I’m cool.”

John said, “Why would you want to make a museum?”

The man with the treasure said, “Because I want people to visit my island. I’m really lonely, and all I have here is a pet pig.”

John said, “We’re here! There’s nothing to worry about. We are talking to you, so you’re not supposed to be lonely now.”

The man with the magic powers said, “Look at the sign I made.”

John read the sign saying, “Welcome to pirate island.”

The man with the treasure said, “Thank you so much. I need to think of some stuff to put on the island just because you gave me an idea.”

John and the man with the magic powers heard him saying so many things, and John said, “Woah! Slow down. You’re talking way too quick.”

The pirate with the treasure said, “Maybe I can make a fountain in the middle of the island and make a sign that says, ‘Welcome to Pirate Island’ again, and then I’ll make some huts for other people and make a castle for myself.”

John said, “What are you going to make these huts and this castle out of?”

The pirate said, “Wood, for crying out loud. Wood is the only thing we can use because it’s the only thing on this island.”

Then the pirate said, “You can take the treasure.”

Once upon a time, a boy named Naruto found a coloring book on the sidewalk, and it came with a lot of different colored crayons. Naruto liked to draw, so when he got the book, he started to draw a haunted house with a wizard who lives in a different universe. Then Naruto went home, and he turned on the TV. On the news, it said that a spaceship found a haunted house in outer space. The haunted house looked like the one he drew! Naruto felt surprised. He thought that he drew this, and now it came to life.

He wanted to make sure this was true, so he decided to test it by drawing a poodle. A poodle suddenly appeared in his room! Then he was really surprised, and right after that, his mom came home from work. Naruto hid the dog in his closet so his mom wouldn’t find it. And then, he got the dog out of the closet and put it in his bag and put a hole in the bag so the dog could breathe. Then he told his mom he was going to the park. He ran to the pet store, and he dropped off the dog.

On the way back home, he was daydreaming. He saw something in his mind — the wizard was telling him to come to outer space or he would destroy Earth. Naruto felt scared. Then Naruto ran home, and he didn’t know what to do. Then he quickly thought that since he could draw anything, and it would come to life, he could maybe draw an army to fight against the wizard.

It was nighttime, so Naruto went to sleep and dreamed that the wizard looked like a person in black, and he would have a red and black book with red and black crayons. And when Naruto woke up, he saw the haunted house coming, so he quickly drew in his coloring book a big missile. And then he shot the missile at the haunted house. He destroyed the magic coloring book, so that if someone else wanted to draw something like that, it wouldn’t happen again. Then he became the first kid president because he saved the world from the evil haunted house.

Chapter One

Once there was a boy named Daniel Shiven Sheth Jr. He was a very well-behaved boy who was never naughty. One day, when he was sleeping, he was awoken by a loud thud. He went to the entrance hall, where the noise came from. He saw his mom sitting in a chair with a cup of tea.

“Mom, where did the loud thud come from?”

“I was just sipping my tea, and I heard a loud thud come from a suit case. It must’ve been your sister messing with it.” she responded.

Daniel looked into the suitcase and found his iPad laying on top of his dad’s computer.

Daniel asked,”Why are there so many suitcases out? Is this for our trip to Mexico?”

“Yes” said his mom.

“If the trip to Mexico is in a few weeks, then why are we packing now?”

“It was just decided at 12 o’clock that the trip will be today. By the way, it is at 4 o’clock  in the morning right now. The trip is at 5 o’clock in the morning.”

Daniel’s mouth hung open like a broken glove compartment.

“What?! 5 o’clock in the morning! I need to get ready!”

“Be quiet! You are going to wake up your sister!” said his mom.

“Which sister?” he asked.

“Both of them,” replied his mom.

He walked quietly to his room.

Once he got to his room, he sighed, “How am I supposed to get ready in time?”

He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and took a shower. Then, he ran to the dining room and ate a two egg omelet. Out of his two youngest sisters, he woke up the oldest one, whose name was Shaleen, once he was done with breakfast. Half an hour later, he and his family left for the airport.

Chapter Two

Daniel ran outside the door. He grabbed his suitcase and went to the elevator. He went downstairs and went under the awning and waited for the car to come. Two minutes later, the car came. He jumped into the car, put his suitcase in the back, and put his seatbelt on. He, his dad, and his sister were in that car. When they got to the airport, they took out their suitcases and went to the metal detector. They put the backpacks on the conveyor belt and walked through the detector.

Daniel said, “Why do they need to check for metal?”

His dad said, “Because sometimes people bring in guns, and they need to make sure they can’t bring them inside.”

“Okay,” Daniel said.

They walked to customs, and they went to the place where they would wait for their flight. Daniel took out his iPad, and he and his sister took turns playing on it until it was time to board. They went on the airplane, found their seats, and sat down. About half an hour later, their flight took off. Daniel started to take a nap. His dad read some magazines, and his sister read a book.

One hour later, Daniel woke up and asked his sister, “Do you wanna play a card game?”

She said yes. They played bingo until the flight was over. Their father took them into a new car, and they drove off to their friend’s house. The oldest one’s name was Francisco. The middle child was Luken, and the youngest was Mila. The father was Javier, and the mother was Loraina. The car took a stop at a place, where they would get some dinner, and where they met up with Francisco’s family. Then they each took separate cars. Daniel went with Francisco and Lorena and his dad, and the other car had Daniel’s sister, Luken, Mila, Javier, and the babysitter, Anji. When they got to the place, each of them brushed their teeth, went to the bathroom, and took a shower. Then they went to bed.

Chapter Three

In the morning, Daniel brushed his teeth, took a shower, went to the bathroom, and changed his clothes. Then, he went outside and met his friends. They ate breakfast and then got in a Jeep and went outside. Soon they came to a place with many cacti, and Javier and Daniel’s dad came on motorbikes. Daniel and Francisco and Lorena went on Javier’s motorbike and Shaleen, Luken, and Meela went on Daniel’s dad’s. Soon, they had reached a nice spot, and they got off. Daniel’s dad and Javier found two cactuses and began scraping off the thorns with a knife. Then they took off the peel of the cacti and took out the inside. Everyone tried it, and it tasted just like the green part of a watermelon.

Then they began hiking. Soon they had found their way to a large tree with fruits that looked like strawberries except they had thorns on them. Daniel’s dad and Javier went up and scraped off the thorns and then everyone tried it, and it was good. They hiked for one more mile and then turned around and went back to the motorbikes. Then they rode back to Francisco’s place. Then everyone took showers and took a nap. After the nap was over, they watched the Peanuts movie in Spanish. Then they had dinner and went to bed.

In the morning, Daniel woke up second to last. After that, he did the things that he usually did in the morning, then ate breakfast. Then he went horseback riding with his friends. They went all around the trail with Luken’s horse, going very slowly.

Luken said, “I understand why this horse is called Slow. It’s way too slow!”
“Of course it’s slow,” Daniel said. “Look at the person on its back!”

Then they went back and changed into their bathing suits. Then they ate lunch. After that, they went swimming. Soon they came out and exercised. They went outside the gate and ran around the gate. Soon they came back and went to the main building and ate dinner. Then they went to bed.

Chapter Four

In the morning, the children were greeted with happy shouts from the grown ups saying, “Happy New Year!” They all had a party. In the party, they all played games and went swimming. Then they went horseback riding. In between horseback riding and swimming, they had lunch. They had pasta for lunch. After that, they went on the motorbikes, and they went around the horse riding trail. After that, they ate pizza for dinner and went behind the main building where they hardly ever went. They took out sparklers and lit them. When they all went out, then it would be New Year’s. Then they all went to sleep.

Chapter Five

In the morning, Daniel and his friends woke up at the same time. They all got ready, and they ate breakfast. After that, they went running around the place again to exercise and swam in the swimming pool. Then they all got ready to go to the airport and went. They ran to the place where you wait and played card games until the plane came. Then they all boarded. Daniel and Francisco sat together with a stranger, and his sister, Luken, Mila, and the babysitter sat together. All the other grown-ups sat in economy, and everyone else sat in business. When the plane took off, Daniel and Francisco played card games and ate lunch. They played Uno and War. After lunch, they kept playing card games until the announcement came that they could use electronics, and then they played iPad until they had to take a nap.

When they woke up, they watched a movie, and after that, they made up jokes until the plane landed. Then they got off, did everything they needed at the airport, and Daniel went to Francisco’s house for a sleepover, and Mila came to his house for a sleepover to play with his sister. Luken also came over but not for a sleepover. He was just going to play for a bit before going home.

At Francisco’s house, they played laser tag, and Francisco’s parents said it was time for bed. They brushed their teeth and went to the bathroom and took showers. Instead of going to bed, they talked for two hours before falling asleep.

The End

It was one busy day in Brooklyn, 2017. Owen was watching TV while his sister was having a playdate in their house, but every once in awhile, Zoe would say, “Turn down the TV!”

But, then Owen would say, “At least you have a friend over!”

That night, at dinner, the parents, George and Gianna, said they were going to Las Vegas. Then Owen and Zoe danced around the dinner table chanting, “We’re going to Las Vegas.”

But then the parents said, “No no, we are going to Las Vegas. You two are staying here because now that you are older, you guys have responsibility of the house. You guys are in charge!”

Womp, womp, womp.The siblings were disappointed a little, but then they realized they could watch rated-R movies, order pizza, and drink sodas all night long. Party without parents.

Their parents left for the airport a week later. Then the next day, Owen and Zoe got back from the grocery store and found a man sitting up sharply on their couch. He was in a tuxedo. They didn’t know the man, he was just there. Owen quickly and quietly ran to the kitchen so he could get a butcher knife in case the man was dangerous.

With the sharp, heavy blade in his hand, Owen felt brave enough to ask the man, “Who are you? And what are you doing on our couch?”

The man replied, “My name is Alexander. I work for the CIA.”

Then Zoe had the guts to get out of her hiding spot.

Owen asked, “What do you want?”

Alexander said, ”I want to recruit you guys for the Junior Agency.”

Zoe asked, “Really?”

Then Alexander said, “Of course. If I’m not going to recruit you, why would I be here?”

Zoe said, “This is so exciting. I can’t wait for it to happen!”

“But before we start, both of you have to approve,” said Alexander.

Then at the same time, they both smiled and said, “Yes!!!”

The very next week, they got to spy camp. Their parents were still at Las Vegas while the kids were at camp. But they were separated because the training divided recruits into boy and girl camps. So the counselors brought each of them to their dorms, and right when Owen walked in his dorm room, he met his new bunk mates. His bunk mates names were Jack, Teddy, and John. Jack had spiky, black hair and had been there for four years. Teddy was short and had flat, blond hair. He had been there six years. John had puffy, red hair and had been there for five years.

Zoe walked into her dorm. Her bunk mates were named Emma, Skyler, and Bree.

Emma had short, black hair that she was wearing in a ponytail. She had been at spy camp for three years. Skyler had long, black hair. She had been at camp for five years. Bree had shoulder length, dark red hair, and she had been camp for seven years.

Owen looked around the dorm. His dorm had two bunk beds on either side of the room with a big, red rug in the middle. There were pictures up on the shelves with spy books, and the walls were painted gray. Owen liked his room. Zoe’s room was just like Owen’s except her walls were pink, and there was no rug in the middle of the room. Zoe wanted her room to have more toys.

After  they unpacked, they went to the lunchroom so they could get dinner. It looked like a school cafeteria. It had white brick walls and long, rectangular tables. Dinner was not so great. The pasta was rock hard. Disgusting, Owen and Zoe thought. But Owen got to meet someone who knew everyone in the camp. His name was Douglas. He had short, red hair, and his arms were tattooed. He waved hi to everyone who passed him. Everyone seemed to like him because he was nice. He had been at camp for thirteen years, and he was nineteen years old. Then a boy with wavy, brown hair walked by and slammed his hand on the table Douglas and Owen were sitting at.

Then Douglas said, “Idiot,” quietly.

“Why do you call him an idiot?” asked Owen.

“Because he is the bully of the camp,” said Douglas. “His name is Chip.”

Then Owen said, “Which dorm room are you in?”

“Oh, I’m in dorm 144,” said Douglas.

“Oh, I’m next to you. I am in room 145,” said Owen.

Zoe didn’t meet anyone new, but she talked to Skyler a lot during dinner. They talked about spy school and said that they liked it here because there were no parents, and they liked the fact that when they weren’t training, they got to use electronics.

“You can stay up late. You can carry a gun everywhere, even the kids,” said Skylar, ignoring the food in front of her. “Because for drills, everyone needs to take their guns and act like there is an enemy in the base.”

“From where do you get the guns?” asked Zoe.

“You have to pass target class before you can get a gun,” replied Skylar. “You get the guns from the armory.”

“Oh, okay, that doesn’t sound too hard,” said Zoe.

Skylar said, “It’s not as easy as it sounds because it’s not just about pulling the trigger. It’s about aiming and loading too. Once the ammo is in, the gun doesn’t automatically fire.”

“You lost me after aiming,” replied Zoe, rolling her eyes.

Owen and Zoe went to bed at 10:00 p.m, sharp, but they didn’t fall asleep until 11:00 p.m. The next morning, they woke up feeling tired and rubbing their backs. Owen cracked his back and yawned while stretching. They had two hours to get dressed before their first training exercise.

Zoe’s first class was target practice. Since she was new there, she didn’t have a gun, so the counselors gave her a gun to keep. It was a medium-sized, black pistol. Zoe was not good at target practice at all. All of her shots missed on the dummy. Only one hit the dummy and she only hit the dummy’s big toe, nowhere close to the bullseye. She felt frustrated, so she shot the floor with her gun, and then shot it up in the air.

“You get no dinner,” yelled her teacher.

I don’t care for dinner here, she thought.

Owen was a little bit better than Zoe. Well, Owen was actually doing hand-to-hand combat, and since he’d already done karate, there wasn’t a big difference. He wasn’t as good as his bunk mates though.

Jack flipped Owen over. He landed on his back.

“Ouch,” Owen said.

Then John kicked Teddy in the stomach, and then Teddy punched John in the face. John had a bleeding nose, and Teddy had a stomach ache because he just ate and he was kicked in the stomach by John. Owen saw it while Jack flipped him again.

Oh god, how am I going to survive? he thought.

Then the kids went to breakfast. Today’s breakfast was pancakes. The pancakes were pure plastic.

Owen said, “I’ll pass on breakfast today.”

So did everyone else. They all didn’t want to eat it.

Some kids said, “This is the worst thing we have ever seen.”

Zoe had lost 12 pounds in two days because of the exercise and the fact that she didn’t eat here.

Today was day 34 at spy camp. Zoe had gotten really good with the gun, and Owen had gotten really good at hand-to-hand combat. Now they pretty much knew everyone at spy school, and they got used to the smell of food at spy camp. They also got a promotion for spy school. They were counselor assistants. They were so excited.

Meanwhile, their parents just got back from the airport. They were inside the house, and they were screaming their heads off and crying.

“I’m calling the police,” cried their dad. He yelled into the phone, “My kids are gone!”

Instead of the cops picking up the phone, an agent was on the other line. He said, “Your kids are at spy school.”

***

The parents heard that their kids were at spy camp. Since they had heard that they were at spy camp, they had been trying to visit them. But the agents said that they weren’t allowed to see them for another five months. Even Owen and Zoe wanted to go home because they were home sick. They also missed their parents a lot. George and Gianna were extremely mad at them because becoming an agent was a big thing. But they were also happy for them because they were growing up.