Missile Tensions with North Korea

Most of the United States have heard about the recent tensions with North Korea on the subject of missiles. Most recently the meeting between the American president and the dictator of North Korea. America and North Korea has had a long history of relations together and none of the talks turned out well for the U.S. and while North Korea enjoyed lessened sanctions while still making missiles. The original tensions came about because of the Korean war in which North Korea backed by China invaded South Korea because it was a communist country and it wanted to spread communism. Then America intervened because it was very scared of the spread of communism and pushed the combined  forces of North Korea and China back into North Korea where a cease fire was made at the 49th parallel. So ever since North Korea lost they wanted missiles to defend themselves most recently they used missiles so the president had a meeting with the dictator of North Korea. Nothing will come of the recent meeting between our president and the dictator of North Korea.

There have been 3 main deals with North Korea. These deals were about maintaining world peace  in exchange for security guarantees for North Korea The first happened in 1994 it was a very wide agreement it was called the Agreed Framework. This said that North Korea will freeze its nuclear program then dismantle it inreturn for oil and nuclear power that cannot be used to make bombs. This means that the places that could be hit by North Korea’s bombs were safe. Then a little time after that, as the NY times says, “At the end of 2002, North Korea expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, restarted its nuclear facilities and announced it was withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty. The Agreed Framework was dead.” This meant that North Korea was going to start testing missiles again. This meant that North Korea betrayed its agreement which means that they cannot be trusted for further deals.With the Bush administration the negotiations happened with six countries and they made a  deal with North Korea but it was never vitrified. The final deal before the current one was in return for food aid North Korea will dismantle its nuclear program. That deal fell apart too so there is a large risk that the current one will fall apart.

The recent Meeting between Kim Jong un and Donald trump was heralded a historic event  because it was the first meeting between two leaders of the united states and North Korea and was supposed to unfreeze the relations on the korean peninsula. Many promises were made this time but they were very broad and unclear especially on  the american side.This shows that the treaty might not be up to standing with all the promises. A very broad promise on the korean side is the complete denuclearization of the korean peninsula. This is a very large promise that will not work because North Korea has many missile facilities and last time it promised this it did not carry through on its promise. Another promise is that  America will provide “very good”economic opportunities in the words of president trump to North Korea. This shows that since the promises are so broad they might be hard to follow through on. This shows that it is very hard to follow through on broad promises.

Many things are expected from the Trump Kim summit but the best that the United States can hope for is Korea joining the nuclear countries and allowing nuclear inspectors in to the country For the U.S. To have safety North Korea must agree to the nuclear treaty. One other thing that was proposed in the summit it North Korea  is a modern North Korea with beach resort hotels and more. This though is unlikely to happen if economic sanctions do not lift Donald trump specified that economic sanctions will not lift unless north Korea gets rid of its nuclear missiles. So this vision is also very unlikely.so the most that the United states and korea can hope for is North korea becoming a safe nuclear nation.

This essay gave a plethora of information about the North Korean missile crisis but what does it mean, why is it important?  The North Korean missile crisis is important because the people of the united states need to be prepared and be ready as to not start world war 3. One way the united states can avoid this is by starting diplomatic relations and accepting North Korea as a nuclear power. Also the people of the world need to be ready to step in and prevent conflict.


Missile Tensions with North Korea

Most of the United States has heard about the recent tensions with North Korea on the subject of missiles. Most recently the meeting between the American president and the dictator of North Korea. America and North Korea have had a long history of relations together and none of the talks turned out well for the U.S. and while North Korea enjoyed lessened sanctions while still making missiles. The original tensions came about because of the Korean war in which North Korea backed by China invaded South Korea because it was a communist country and it wanted to spread communism. Then America intervened because it was very scared at the spread of communism and pushed the combined forces of North Korea and China back into North Korea where a cease fire was made at the 49th parallel. So ever since North Korea lost they wanted missiles to defend themselves most recently they used missiles so the president had a meeting with the dictator of North Korea. Nothing will come of the recent meeting between our president and the dictator of North Korea.

There have been three main deals with North Korea. These deals were about maintaining world peace in exchange for security guarantees for North Korea The first happened in 1994 it was a very wide agreement it was called the Agreed Framework. This said that North Korea will freeze its nuclear program then dismantle it inreturn for oil and nuclear power that cannot be used to make bombs. This means that the places that could be hit by North Korea’s bombs were safe. Then a little time after that as the NY Times says, “At the end of 2002, North Korea expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, restarted its nuclear facilities and announced it was withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty. The Agreed Framework was dead.” This meant that North Korea was going to start testing missiles again. This meant that North Korea betrayed its agreement which means that they cannot be trusted for further deals.With the Bush administration the negotiations happened with six countries and they made a deal with North Korea but it was never vitrified. The final deal before the current one was in return for food aid North Korea will dismantle its nuclear program. That deal fell apart too so there is a large risk that the current one will fall apart.

The recent meeting between Kim Jong-un and Donald trump was heralded a historic event because it was the first meeting between two leaders of the United States and North Korea and was supposed to unfreeze the relations on the Korean peninsula. Many promises were made this time but they were very broad and unclear especially on the American side.This shows that the treaty might not be up to standing with all the promises. A very broad promise on the Korean side is the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. This is a very large promise that will not work because North Korea has many missile facilities and last time it promised this it did not carry through on its promise. Another promise is that America will provide “very good” economic opportunities in the words of president trump to North Korea. This shows that since the promises are so broad they might be hard to follow through on. This shows that it is very hard to follow through on broad promises.

Many things are expected from the Trump Kim summit but the best that the United States can hope for is Korea joining the nuclear countries and allowing nuclear inspectors in to the country For the U.S. To have safety North Korea must agree to the nuclear treaty. One other thing that was proposed in the summit it North Korea is a modern North Korea with beach resort hotels and more. This though is unlikely to happen if economic sanctions do not lift Donald trump specified that economic sanctions will not lift unless north Korea gets rid of its nuclear missiles. So this vision is also very unlikely.so the most that the United States and Korea can hope for is North korea becoming a safe nuclear nation.

This essay gave a plethora of information about the North Korean missile crisis but what does it mean, why is it important? The North Korean missile crisis is important because the people of the United States need to be prepared and be ready as to not start World War 3. One way the United States can avoid this is by starting diplomatic relations and accepting North Korea as a nuclear power. Also the people of the world need to be ready to step in and prevent conflict.


“Good” Schools

For a developed country, American schools — higher-tier ones included — are surprisingly lacking in many different categories, from student admissions to their ineffectual “learning” processes that make it largely ineffective. This directly affects our standing as a nation, as while we head into the future and literacy rates are expected to increase, statistics in this area for the United States stall and even decrease, allowing that of our European and Asian counterparts to put us to shame. In spite of these facts, it can be speculated that the country is in no position to better its school system due to the nation facing political meltdown and there being too many steps toward achieving this goal that cannot currently be taken until they are prioritized by the government (which may never happen). But until then, the vast majority of American schools will continue to suffer.

American schools are far from adequate. The topic has received ample recognition, but little is being done to solve the issue at hand. My school is for the talented and gifted (in fact, that’s even its name). It’s one of a handful of its kind in the state of New York and is currently rated ninth place for middle school. And the reasons why its critical acclaim may be largely undeserved? The answer to that question originates from a matter of the students: Stemming from the issue of the students is the work they are tasked to complete.

In the nineteenth century, the nation’s youth had been expected only to pursue careers in factories, so that was what schools were tailored to prepare them for. If you go to any school in the United States today, you’ll be shocked by how effective this approach must have been, for dozens of students are crammed into rooms for eight hours at a time per day for five days a week (far too much time to be spending there, but that’s an entirely separate discussion). They are forbidden to move or speak amongst one another and only ever do anything when they are told to by their instructors.

Now, more jobs are available, a plenitude of which involve some degree of creative or critical thinking. Schools, on the other hand, do not encourage this sort of thought. I find it particularly ironic that a system intended to be centered around knowledge involves instead what can be identified as forced memorization —no wonder nearly seventy percent of American adults can only read and write at a fourth-grade level! Even major newspapers are written as a reading level no higher than eighth grade. We’ve fallen behind European schools, which are well-renowned, for the very flaw I’m detailing here. Impressive? I think not.

In Scandinavia, around three hours of homework is assigned to students per week (the amount of homework American teenagers are assigned in a day) and their grades are not entirely at the mercy of tests. But in the States? Let me tell you something:

Whether you pass or fail depends on tests. Whether you gain acceptance into a “good” school of your choosing is heavily reliant on test scores.

Basically, whether a student lives or dies depends on tests. Sad to say, but those words carry more truth than quite a lot of people will readily face. Students know this truth, though, and this stresses them out to immeasurable heights. They know that where they go in life will eventually come down to their schoolwork, but the immense amount of pressure this puts on them may cause them to do worse. But this is only what they’re told. As a matter of fact, many influential figures were barely even “C” students. John Lennon. Albert Einstein. Most notably, Winston Churchill, who many know to have failed classes. So why all the pressure? Why all the stress on “good” work?

Returning to anecdotal information, the school I attend is supposed to be one of the better ones, as I’ve said. But a common misconception is between a “good” school and one that is just demanding, the latter of which being a description fitting talented and gifted schools everywhere, while around ninety percent of what a student learns will not apply on any level to what they’ll go on to do in real life.

If you want an example, look no further than math class. Practice problems given to students are often written as word problems in what teachers may call “real world situations” to trick us into thinking we’ll actually need a fraction of what we’re taught. For instance:

Sarah has a science project concerning fluids. She requires 15 9/10 cups of orange juice, 7 3/13 cups of soda and 20 1⁄8 cups of water. How many cups of liquid does she need in all?

(The real answer is, Sarah doesn’t actually need to know. She just has to measure out the right amount of cups for each fluid, which is why we have measuring cups.)

Or in English class:

“When Sarah leaves her house to go outside, what does that symbolize?”

(Nothing at all. In real life we read to pass the time, not to overanalyze every little detail to unlock some “hidden meaning”. We won’t be entirely clueless as to the whole point of the book unless, of course, we’re not really reading.)

If, by any chance, we should need to know any of this information (which I don’t think we will, for obvious reasons), there is Google for that.

As for the topic of students: the entire academic method isn’t helping. You have one or two students who are struggling, a mass that are in a middle ground, and a few kids that have already mastered the material and thus have nothing to learn. Why are all these types of kids doing the same work? I can’t speak for other students, but my own teachers often say that they’re going to divide the class based on skill level so that nobody is confused or bored, but this never happens. Instead of trying to teach in a way where everyone can learn at a good pace in a way that works for them, teachers instead take the route of giving everyone work that is dumbed down to the point where everyone can understand it. But like this, nobody learns memorizes anything, whether it be useful information or not!

Summer vacation consistently appears to be the only way to shed all the mounting pressure of a school year long since past, right? HA! Psych! You’ll be so preoccupied with summer homework and the stress that your very first grades of the new school year will bring that the two months (may be less, may be more) that you have to relax will seem more like a single week of free time! And right after I began sixth grade (exactly following a week’s closure) guess what they do to us?

As if the regular state tests, which are infinitely more intimidating to a student than standard tests, weren’t enough, my school does preparations for the state tests, which isn’t effective either since they aren’t until April. There’s a test for ELA and another for math, each spanning two days. Though teachers constantly tell us that they don’t count for our grade, the preparation state tests can actually make the difference between being stranded with the same old boring, useless work and being stepped up to the next grade to be force fed slightly more complicated but equally useless information.

A student is permitted to opt out of being given the state test, but if they are to do so, they won’t have a grade to vouch for them if they are to apply to a “better” school. Basically, as stressful as it is, students are getting guilt-tripped into taking it anyway.

At this point, one may ask exactly how we can improve the American school system so that it’s actually effective (to some degree, at the very least). However, this is far easier said than done. The United States, as we all should know, is one of the largest countries in the world, and as such, ridiculously large amounts of government spending would be required in order to achieve a nationwide improvement, along with quite a bit of time for the legislative and executive branches to come together on a method of which to make this admittedly vague goal a reality (if they agree on it at all). Additionally, based on the current state of the country politically, it’s hard to say whether any attention whatsoever will be brought to the issue. Due to all of these factors, it’s speculated that little significant change regarding the school system will come about in future years, so maybe the real test is to see how long it takes for everyone else to recognize that the academic system is just digging itself deeper and deeper down into its own grave.


What is Sexism?

What is sexism? Is it when someone says “Boys can’t wear pink!!?” Is it when kids call girls bossy but they call boys captains or leaders? Or is it that girls get paid 20% less than men? These are all examples of sexism. Sexism is when people are discriminated against on the basis of sex. However, we don’t always realize that we are judging people on the basis of sex because of the very narrow gender roles in our current society; these gender roles are caused by the way we are socialized to think and act.

SELF CONFIDENCE

Girls are taught to be perfect, to make their lives a straight line, no excitement, and no grief… no mistakes. They’re taught to stay out of the mud and dress in beautiful clothes. They are told “You can do anything,” but they aren’t shown that. On the other hand, boys are taught to take risks, to let their lives be a roller-coaster. They are taught to roll in the mud and let their hair be a mess. In the Reshma Saujani TED talk, “Teach girls bravery, not perfection,” Reshma Saujani tells us: “An HP report found that men will apply for a job if they [meet] 60 percent of the qualifications, but women [will] apply only if they meet 100 percent of the qualifications.” This comes to show you that men are more self-confident and because of that, they are more willing to take a risk. However, many women lack this self-confidence and as a result, they are more afraid of rejection and they lose more opportunities than men. If we can teach girls from young ages that they are just as smart and powerful as boys, then they will be more self-confident and then the amazing ideas that women have would be recognized.

IS SHE BOSSY?

Why are women called bitchy or aggressive in the same situation in which men would be called captains or leaders? We are used to seeing a man give orders, and we don’t usually see women in a high position. All of our presidents have been men; 182 out of 190 heads of state are men, 87% of parliament are men, and in the nonprofit world at the top 80% are men. Because not many women are high up in the chain of command, we have prejudiced beliefs that lead us to think that a woman can’t give orders to a man, and that it is unreasonable for a woman to be chosen over a man for any job. However, over time and with more laws these prejudiced beliefs could change. If we were able to convince women that they are capable of doing everything a man can do, then our world would advance much faster in science, education, technology, and architecture: with more women — and therefore people — in different fields, new advancements and ideas would be made more frequently.

THE BEAUTY STANDARDS

Women do think about their careers, education, and general success, but outside pressure to follow certain beauty standards are oftentimes equally important. Male beauty standards don’t hold as much weight in a man’s life in comparison to the weight that female beauty standards hold in a woman’s life. These standards have to be challenged and changed. Because of these stereotypical beauty standards, women often feel forced to buy and use beauty products for their hair and makeup to leave the house, whereas men can easily put on a t-shirt and pants and go outside without being judged. However, if a woman walks outside without makeup they will be given comments like, “Are you feeling sick?” or, “You look tired today.” These are the kinds of comments that bring down a woman’s confidence, making them feel that it is necessary to wear and buy beauty products. These comments also prove how over time we have gotten so used to women wearing beauty products that it has turned into the default.

A CHANGE

What we watch, what we read, what we see, and what we hear affects what we think about certain groups of people. We are products of our environment. In the case of women, they are affected by all of these things to uphold certain standards regarding appearance, attitude, and demeanor. To change all of these stereotypes, parents have to be aware of their subconscious biases and educate their children outside of gender roles.

To challenge the beauty standards women have to stand up for themselves when they are given sexist comments. Women can also support each other to look and act in ways that they feel comfortable with. Once these changes are made, women won’t feel held back by the stereotypical gender roles, and our society as a whole can advance much faster.

9/11 A New York Tragedy

9/11 was a national tragedy, but it especially affected New Yorkers. 9/11 changed our way of living as Americans and as a world. However, to New Yorkers it was a very personal time and tragedy. 9/11 literally changed people’s lives mentally, physically and environmentally. The attacks changed New York’s finances and New Yorkers’ way of living forever. 9/11 was a world tragedy but also mostly affected New Yorkers concretely. The media rightfully focused on the victims but should have also focused on the survivors.

A lot of people that experienced 9/11 in New York City got sick both physically and mentally. 1,000s of people from NY are sick from the 9/11 reasons mentally and physically. There are a lot of sicknesses that are linked to the 9/11 attack such as cancer because of all the smoke. Many of the illnesses linked to the attacks were breathing and digestive diseases, cancer and PTSD. Also, there was an increase in mental problems because the attack and its effect paralyzed some people. Some people that worked at 9/11, who were there or even people who had friends or relatives worked there suffered from mental health disorders. Also there where kids near the towers like in Stuyvesant that got mental disorders. Some people even have terrible dreams which affects their sleep.

The people living near the towers got affected just as much as the towers. The buildings surrounding the towers got either on fire or destroyed when the towers fell. Many families had to wait for their houses to be rebuilt and some of them did not even get rebuilt and they had to find new houses. They were permanently displaced. Not commonly known, but students were also displaced and affected by the towers. Famous Stuyvesant High School experienced structural damage and students were displaced for half of the academic year, having to transfer temporarily to another schools building. The towers falling meant that the rest of the school year they would be crowded in this other building with students that they never meet. People don’t think about all the money that they spent making the memorial for 9/11 and rebuilding everything. Some people did not get any money from the government to rebuild their home and they did not get any money to even replace their belongings.

Many of the first responders and people who looked for their families were affected in their sleeping and eating habits. From an interview with Dennis Hanrahan, a first responder firefighter that was at the scene the day after 9/11 said: “I was in shock.” Hanrahan was in shock from the sight of the towers destruction They were searching in pockets of stairways hoping to find people alive. Every day they would get up at 7 am, go to 9/11, and search all day, they wouldn’t even stop to eat. The animals, like the dogs, had to work just as much as the humans had to work. The people would go 24/7, so a lot of them didn’t sleep. Some of them slept at the towers because either they where there late or they did not what to go home. Further, many of the first responders and people who looked for their families were affected in their sleeping and eating habits. People mostly look at all the people that died when they should be looking at all the people that survived.

The media portrayed 9/11 in a terrifying way, emphasizing the horror — and it was horrible. However, the survivors, their families and first responders, who are still dealing with the consequences of 9/11 — should be further highlighted as courageous heros today.

9/11 is not only a national tragedy but also a local one. It mostly realistically affected New Yorkers: their mental and emotional health, the New York economy and many friends and family from New York who were either killed or hurt. People should care about what happened because it might happen in another city. Many people in New York thought it would never happen. We should learn from this tragedy so that it never happens again.

Tippy Toothpaste

Tippy Toothpaste was a very good boy. He was very polite, and he helped old ladies cross the street. He was still in fifth grade, and all of his classmates made fun of him! It was because of his name: everybody laughed and laughed and laughed. That made him furious, furious, and more furious. But he was a smart boy too. He was the smartest kid in his class and knew how to build robots, time machines, and stuff like that.

When he got out of college, his face was red. The teasing had continued all the way through. He got so furious that he tried to take over the world and destroy laughter! He built a robot, made a time machine, and went back in time with the robot. He went back to fifth grade and threw all the people that were laughing into a cave that had a lot of tacos. The only person who was left was Tippy Toothpaste from back in time.

He told young Tippy, “Let’s go forward in time and try to take over the world! Yes, yes, yes!

“What’s our plan?” asked young Tippy.

“Let’s take all of their toilets away, so they can pee in their pants! That’s just the first step. Mwahahahaha,” said old Tippy.

So, they unscrewed the toilets in all of the towns, and all of the people went baonds in their paonds. They went aooooOOOO! And did the pee pee dance.

Then, small Tippy said, “Which one should we do next?”

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” said old Tippy.

That was your plan?!” small Tippy yelled.

“Yeah. So what?”

“I’m going to crush you!!!” And small Tippy got into the robot and crushed him.

“Mwaahahaha, I’m taking over the world now!” But he didn’t notice that if you killed someone that’s actually you, you die too!

So, you know. That’s the end.


A Lesson Learned for the World

What Happened

The Twin Towers were two of New York City’s most famous skyscrapers. The towers were built in 1973, and they were knocked down in 2001. They stood for 38 years. They stood where the two pools are today. They represent where the two towers were. They are two fountains. 2,996 people died at the Twin Towers. A terrorist group called Al-Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks. They do not like the United States. The group was led by Osama bin Laden. He was killed by a team of US Navy seals in 2011.

They also hit the side of the Pentagon because that was also a big landmark of the USA. Only 27 people died there, and it was fixable. You can go to Washington, D.C., and you can see it there. Also, a plane was coming from Newark Airport going to San Francisco, but it was hijacked, and that was going to go into the White House or the Capitol, but it took too long. Passengers attacked the hijackers, who crashed the plane in Shanksville. The crash killed 40 people, including the crew members. The Pentagon is the main office for the military, and if that got knocked down, then that could’ve been even bigger than the Twin Towers when they came down.

The Story

The first attack was from the same terrorist group (Al-Qaeda). Ramzi Yousef rented a van and parked it in the garage of the North Tower, and the van was filled with bombs. They hoped that it would blow up the South Tower, but it didn’t work. That attack happened in 1993. So, it took eight years for them to plan 9/11, which happened in 2001.

The Timeline

At 7:59 am on September 11, 2001, flight number 11 was going from Boston’s Logan Airport to Los Angeles. The reason why all of the flights were going to the west coast is because the more fuel that is used, the bigger the fire. Flight 175, coming from Boston’s Logan Airport, was also going to Los Angeles. Another flight, number 77, was leaving from Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport and going to Los Angeles. Finally, at 8:41 am, Flight 93 took off, coming from New York’s Newark Airport going to San Francisco. Five minutes later, at 8:46 am, Flight 11 smashed into the North Tower. Then 17 minutes later, at 9:03 am, Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. 34 minutes later, at 9:37 am, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Finally, 26 minutes later, at 10:03 am, Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

What Will Happen Now?

I think that the World Trade Center will be a big part to New York City. There is the 9/11 Memorial, The Oculus, One World Trade Center, Greenfield Mall, Two World Trade Center, and Three World Trade Center, and there is still more to come. Also, it’s not hard to get there. There are 12 subways that are connected to the Oculus and one that leads you straight to One World Trade Center, and also the PATH train from Jersey City. Also, it is on one out of the two highways in New York City (the West Side Highway). I think that the World Trade Center is going to become a big landmark of New York City and Manhattan. I think that it will be a big trademark of New York City and Manhattan.

One World Trade Center

One World Trade Center is one of the tallest buildings in the world! The World Trade Center is one hundred and four stories tall, and it is one thousand seven hundred seventy-six feet tall. If you don’t believe me, you can see it for yourself. Tours are available! For a standard trip it is 34 dollars, for an ungraded experience it is 44 dollars, and it is 54 dollars for the best experience. It’s a great view of Manhattan from the highest point in the city (great pictures!). But don’t be worried to see it. The city is doing everything they can do to keep it safe, because it cost 2.3 billion dollars and they don’t want to waste that money. I don’t think that the World Trade Center is coming down anytime soon. It is pretty new. It opened in 2014. So far, the city says that it was a good investment.

Two World Trade Center

Two World Trade Center is going to be One World Trade Center’s big brother. It will be one of the tallest residential buildings in the US. Two World Trade Center is a futuristic building. It might not be done by 2023 because they haven’t even started the building and the process. They’re still coming up with designs for the building. But I don’t think you’ll be living there if you aren’t rich or you haven’t won the lottery.

The Oculus

You might think from outside that it’s just a cool design, but inside it is a very big mall. There are more than 30 stores in the mall and 12 trains connecting to it. The Oculus was finished on March 3, 2016, and it was built because there is another mall on the other side of the street (Brookfield Place). People have been waiting a long time for something like this to be in New York City. Plans for the Oculus began in 2003. People thought that it would never come to life, so when it opened, everyone was very happy! The Oculus is one of the three malls in Manhattan. The other two are the Time Warner Center and Brookfield Place. So that’s what the Oculus is. It is bigger than the Time Warner Center. That’s what I know about The Oculus. People like the Oculus because it’s connected to the PATH and subway trains.

Brookfield Place

Brookfield Place is a large mall in Downtown Manhattan. It is the biggest mall in New York City. It has more than fifty stores in it. It also has a huge food court with great food. Brookfield Mall opened on March 25, 2015, about a year before the Oculus opened. People call Brookfield Place the Oculus’s brother. The Brookfield Mall also holds private events. The mall is known for the great food court because they have more than 20 restaurants. People love it for their dumplings and pizza. Everything is great there! But they were planning for it to hold more stores, and when it it was constructed that’s when they realized it couldn’t, so they made the Oculus. Some stores there are the same ones in the Oculus. They are trying to have more stores there, but everyone wants the Oculus because it connected to the PATH and subway trains. But it is connected to the 9/11 Memorial. It is just a huge mall overall. It has a lot of stores!

The Pools

Each year on September 11, thousands of people crowd around the memorial pools to cry together about the horrible deaths that occured. All 2,996 names are engraved on the rims of the pools. Pools lay where the towers stood, and also if this happens to One and Two and Three World Trade Center, then it is designed so that the building will fall into the pools. It took seven years to make the pools, three for the South Tower because it wasn’t as wide as the North Tower because more people worked in the North Tower, and it was also taller, and it had the garage under it. So many people go there all the time to see their former friends and family. So many people come there every day that they needed to make sections for everybody by last name. There are 450 sections, 30 people in each section.

The Survivor Tree

The Survivor Tree is a tree that survived the 9/11 attacks. The tree only had its stem left. They took it to the Bronx Zoo, and it took more than six years to regrow. It was ready in time for the new grand opening, and people loved seeing it. I am wondering how the leaves on this tree are always green, in all seasons. What I’m thinking is that maybe they are fake leaves because they never fall, and they never change the color. Even when the seasons change, they stay green as grass. I wonder if it was at the zoo for so long because they needed to put the fake ones on it and make sure when it is a wind storm or a snow storm, they don’t fly away. I think all the roots were wiped away from the attack, and you can’t put new veins in a tree when the stem is only left. So, I think that they are fake leaves, and they don’t even feel real at all. I say that they did that for the media, and so it will be known as the Survivor Tree.

How We Honor Loved Ones

People from all over the world honor their loved ones who died in 9/11. In NYC, streets are named after people who lived on those streets. This happens even in Japan, France, Mexico, and England. People were affected by this all over the world because so many people lost so many family members. Marianne Simone was one of the people who died in the attack.

There was a firefighter that was a first responder, and he unfortunately died. His name was Paul R. Martini, and there was a street named after him. Many more people are honored all over the world because of this event. Even in China. Maybe one day it will become a national holiday all over the world. I think that all of us should take a very good lesson away from this unfortunate event. At airports, security got much tighter. This was a big lesson for people all over the world.

Bibliography

O’Connor, Jim. What were the Twin Towers?

“9/11 Timeline.” The History channel website. https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/911-timeline-video

“9/11 memorial timeline.” The 9/11 memorial website.

https://timeline.911memorial.org/#Timeline/2

“2nd Plane Hitting WTC – LIVE News Coverage – 9/11.” BoulevaradeTV, youtube.com

PLANES: Chapter One

One Saturday morning, I sit up in my bed, get up, and run to my window. I lift up the shades and peer out the fogged up glass. I see the pond my older brother, Kyle, built yesterday in my backyard. I’d only helped him with a little bit, until I got tired and went back inside. Last night, Kyle’s college break ended, and he had to drive back to Massachusetts, so he didn’t get to finish his pond. I just stare at that unfinished pile of wood in my backyard. I guess I have to finish it myself if I want something done about it. I don’t mind about putting proper clothes on, so I stay in my saggy, old pajamas. I don’t ever care about my hair, mostly because I’ve just given up on tending to it.

I call to my mom as I drape myself over the railing and slowly slip down. “Mom, I’m hungry,” I say as I mope over to the kitchen.

“Get your breakfast yourself, weasel.”

I give her the stink eye as I attempt a grab at the cream donuts we got last night at The Donut Parlor. My mom doesn’t even have to turn around and look at me to say, “No.” I growl at that and slide open the glass back door that leads to our backyard.

“Put some shoes on, Anne, it’s bee season.”

I stare her down as I shuffle into my worn down flip-flops. I stumble outside onto the brick patio and run into the grass, until I get to the unfinished wooden pond at the end of our fenced-up yard. I look down at the slabs of wood.

“Better get my hands on this,” I say to myself, grabbing a plank of wood and holding it up to where it will be once this pond is finished.

“Whatcha doin’?” Mom says from the kitchen window. I growl again.

“Stop being so nosy. You don’t have to know what I’m doing all the time,” I say, not thinking.

Mom makes a face that looks hurt, but I know she doesn’t really care on the inside. “Okay, weasel, just get inside soon. Breakfast will seem to eat itself in this family.”

I grab the piece of wood again. I need gloves, nails, a hammer, and… that’s pretty much it, but whatever. I run back inside and grab a tiny index card from one of our island’s drawers. I shuffle around the drawer for a few more seconds, until I realize there’s no pens in there. I run down the hall to Mom’s office, where I think I can find a pen. I rustle and scramble through her stuff — twice — until I just can’t find any pens.

Mom! Do you know where any pens are?” I call.

I enter the kitchen, and she shrugs. “I don’t know. Uh… maybe my office? I’m not allowed to barge into your life, anyways.”

I growl once more.

“Please, Mom, I need to finish this! I want to make Kyle proud, y’know?”

“Awww. You want to be a handywoman!” Mom gushes.

I pout. “Just ‘cause I want to make a pond that I promised Kyle I’d finish doesn’t mean I want it to be my full time job when I’m older.”

Mom shrugs. “What’s with the attitude, weasel? Anyway, why do you even need a pen to make a pond?”

I grumble. “You’re so annoying! And immature! Stop acting more childish than me! And I’m the actual child here.”

I feel kind of bad after I storm out of there, because Mom has this sad look in her eyes. She was only trying to help, and I got mad at her.

I’m about to go down to apologize, when I hear a voice that’s unfamiliar, yelling my name. “ANNE! ANNE!” I turn around my whole room and look out all the windows. “Hi, Anne. I’m up here.” I look up on my ceiling, and a strange blue substance is oozing off my ceiling.

“AAAAA!” I run downstairs, panting. I slide on my socks into the kitchen. “MOM! I think I’ve got a fungus or something in my room. It’s blue and disgusting! Can you help?”

Mom sighs. “Sorry, honey, I’m trying to be more adult-ish, like you said. I’m texting Alexandra, the insurance woman. I was looking through my work and found out about the money for the house we got lost year that we didn’t buy. We didn’t pay for the special fee to ignore the business emails the buyers would send us. I have to cover that up.”

I sigh. “Okay, you don’t have to help me. Anyway, sorry about earlier.”

I slouch upstairs and look at my little sister, Liliana. She’s holding a fluffy bear that’s on Care Bears.

“Play,” she says, holding out the pink bear to me. I pat her on the head and go to my room, scared. Liliana follows me. “Play!” she says, stuffing the bear into my stomach.

“Not right now, Lili,” I say. “Don’t come in, okay?” Liliana sadly walks away, and I feel bad for the second time in the last hour. “Wait,” I say, gently grabbing her arm. “I can play.”

I follow her into her and my other little siblings’ room and sit on the floor next to her. We shake around Barbie dolls, have tea that’s actually hot water from the bathroom sink, play with her Care Bears, and put on a princess fashion show. I’m pretty tired, and I have homework to do, so I start out the door.

“Play? More play?” says my three-year-old sister, waddling out of her room in a princess dress.

I sigh. “Sorry, Liliana. I can’t. I have work to do, Okay?”

She tilts her head. “You job like Mommy?” she babbles, hugging the bear close to her chest.

“No, it’s easier. I only have to read a book.” I give her and her bear a big hug. “When I’m done, we can play some more, okay?”

She nods. After I pick up my book, The Candlemaker’s Son #4, I read at least seven chapters before going down for breakfast.

“Mom? Can I have some breakfast?” I say, looking around the kitchen to see if she’s still here.

She’s yelling in the next room. I try not to snoop into her business, so I head out the door, feeling bad yet again. Whatever trouble she’s in, it’s my fault, because I forced her to do work she didn’t have to. I go up to Liliana’s room, and she’s playing with my other younger brother who’s older than her. They are playing ninjas, and she seems to hate it. I run to my room. I have to get rid of this weird slime, I say inside my head. I run down to the kitchen with a great idea. I grab a dirty spatula from the sink, the stepstool from the upstairs bathroom, duct tape, another roll of duct tape, another step stool, my beanbag chair, gloves, science goggles, a doctor mask, two headbands, a large tin bucket, and some pillows. I take the pillows and put them on the sides of the bucket. I duct tape the two step stools together and place my beanbag on top of them. That’s there for me to stand on when I remove the substance. I put the pillows out in case I fall. I have the goggles, so nothing gets in my eyes. I have the headbands, so none of it gets in my hair. I have the gloves for the removal. The only thing I don’t have is confidence, which I need most. I feel silly in my little costume as I tightly grip the spatula and step onto my wobbly structure. I go on my tiptoes and almost vomit when I see the stuff up close and personal.

“Hey there, how’s it goin’, weird thing. Well, I’m about to scrape you from my walls, so I can dispose of you. Goodbye!”

I push the spatula against the ceiling and the substance, and it easily glops off into the bucket, and a bit of it is on the pillows. I climb down and take a close look at the blue stuff. I don’t poke it, because no death please, thank you very much. I collect the extra bits that snuck onto my pillows and throw the cases into the wash. I go back upstairs and carry the large bucket downstairs, holding it away from my face. I gag as I pour the blue stuff into a trash bag. I throw it out front, since trash day is two days from now. I go back inside. What even was that? I really should tell Mom. But I realize she’s still working, yelling at the phone. I slump back upstairs, feeling that my room is unsafe, even though the substance is gone. I go to Liliana’s room instead of my own. I sit down next to her. My brother that was playing with her, George, has left.

Liliana looks really sad, so I say, “What’s wrong?”

Lili sighs. “Georgie only let us do what he wanted to do.” She pouts.

“I’ll do what you want to do, okay?”

Liliana nods, and before I know it, we’re drawing pictures of her imaginary friend. Actually, she’s just scribbling, but I don’t think about it too much. My worries seem to wash out of my mind like a big wave in the ocean at the beach. Then I look over at my shoulder, because it’s hurting. I notice something there.

“OH MY — ”

There is the blue stuff, on my favorite Ramones shirt. I almost wipe it off, but I run to get my gloves instead. Liliana is calling for me.

“Play!” she screams, but I don’t listen.

It must’ve been from the removal, or maybe when I was reading in my room. This wasn’t funny anymore. I washed the slime off. I could die! I run yelling to Mom.

“MOM!” I yell, about to cry. The blue stuff is all off, but I have to tell her. She is cleaning up plates from breakfast, but I am not hungry anymore. I feel like fainting, or vomiting. “Please, please, please, Mom, listen! I could die. Please.

Mom sighs. “Honey, I tried all I could, but the buyers were fine, absolutely fine. I don’t have any work to do, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to die, so maybe I can do my taxes early, I guess — ”

I shake my head as I say, “Mom! No, it’s not that. I don’t care about that anymore! There was this weird fungus, and it dripped, and I read, and I removed it, and there was a step stool, and a trash bag, and it was blue, and it knew my name, and — ”

Mom stops me. “Wait, wait, wait just a minute! Why didn’t you tell me?”

I sigh. “Because you were so busy” — I did finger quotes — “That I didn’t want to disrupt you.”

Mom laughs a little bit. “Oh, Anne!” Mom says, leaning over to give me a squeezy hug. “You could’ve told me! I would’ve loved to have an excuse to stop that call!” I chuckle. “Well, wait here. I’m going to call Dr. Gantome, okay? I’ll see what he can do. That stuff fell on you, right?” Mom runs to the home phone and dials Dr. Gantome’s number. We haven’t seen him in a while, since Mom went on her healthy diet and forced us to go along with it. “Hello? Oh, you’re there! Dr. Gantome, hi!” There’s a short pause. “Oh, yes, I’m well.” Another pause, except shorter. “Liliana’s growing up! Oh, yes, everyone’s okay, healthy, and Kyle’s good!” Another pause, longer than the other ones. “Oh, it’s actually Anne this time. George and Mia are okay.” A very short pause, and then, “Well, she says there was a weird fungus… ? Right, sweetie?” I nod. “Yeah, and it was blue.” A pause as long as all of them combined. “Well, she got rid of it herself, and I was working… and she threw it out, but we just found a bit on her sweater.” Dr. Gantome talks on the phone for so long that I decide to leave. I hear Mom yelling to me, and I come back downstairs. “Did you get it off?” she whispers, holding the bottom of the phone. I nod, and she gets her phone back to her ear. “Dr. Gantome? Hi, yes, yes, I just couldn’t hear you — what? No, my hearing’s fine, it’s just there was static — Dr. Gantome? I’m sorry, yes… no, she hasn’t been acting strange since the incident. Actually, she just told me before our call… ” A short pause is there. “No, Dr. Gantome, everyone else is fine, everything’s okay, it’s just Anne… ” She pauses and talk and pauses and talks. I’m tired of listening by now.

Dear Diary, “Amelie”

“Amelie” 9/10/18

Dear Diary,

I have a secret. I have a fake name because my real name is really long, and the reason is very embarrassing. My fake name is Amelie.

My real name is Amelie-Ellen-Ann-Emma-Katie-Emily-Rebecca-Susan-Jullian-Julia-Caroline-Ally-Amelie-Ellen-Ann-Emma-Katie-Emily-Rebecca-Susan-Jullian-Julia-Caroline-Ally-Hannah-Kate-Daina-Ella-Ellenor-Isla-Mary-Nora-Hannah-Kate-Daina-Ella-Ellenor-Isla-Mary-Nora.

The reason my name is so long is because my great 11-times-more great grandparents, for some crazy reason, I don’t even know why, decided to keep each name for every generation. Today is my first day of school because my old school is only K-4. My new school is called Jefferson Middle School. I think I am going to die during attendance. Also, I have ten classes a day. That means ten times each day for attendance. And school starts tomorrow. I don’t know what I am going to do. I am doomed.

“Amelie” 8/11/18

Dear Diary,

I am on the school bus, so I am writing really messy right now. I don’t think I am going to survive. I am going to write again at breakfast.

P.S. It is at school. Bye And I think I have a headache. Oh great, my stomach hurts now.

“Amelie” 8/11/18

Dear Diary,

It is first period. Well, it’s not exactly first period. It is called Breakfast, but it’s more like a brunch, since school starts at 10 o’clock. Oh no, it’s time for first period. I am doomed!!! Bye!

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

It is now lunch finally. First period was terrible we had attendance first thing. Since my last name is Bailey I was called first. My teacher had to say my whole name, and everyone was cracking up. I was so embarrassed. After I said, “Here,” I told the teacher to call me Amelie for short.

However, she said, “Don’t be embarrassed by your name.”

So already I have detention. My teacher is stupid. That’s why I have so much time to write right now. Luckily, detention just makes you sit and be quiet. Nevermind, spoke too soon. Oh great. Here comes Ms. Bradly. See you soon.

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

Ms. Clarck gave me another detention. Middle school is the worst!!! Sorry, let me backtrack. Now it’s snack, and I just had a meeting with the principal. Great way to start the day!! I just realized that the principal has the worst breath. (I bet she eats onions for breakfast on purpose to make us faint.) I literally fainted. Then, the principal thought I was making a joke and judging her. I actually fainted with I guess a dumbo like her of course wouldn’t understand. She sent me to another detention and had me sit outside because she needed to “calm” herself. However, I actually heard her crying like a baby. And I couldn’t hold myself in, and I burst out laughing. The vice principal heard the principal, and he heard me laughing. Oh great, another detention. She also tells me if I get five detentions in a day, I have to get suspended. Now I have to stay two hours after school, since detention is an hour long and I got two detentions. Oh! That’s the bell, got to go.

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

It is now lunch, and I got another detention because this time the teacher asked me if I wanted a nickname so I said, “yes.” Then he asked me what I should be called and since I had experience with the other teacher I said I think my name is the best out of everyone else’s and I don’t need a nickname. Then I didn’t realized that this teacher is really nice and hates obnoxious people. One more detention until I get suspended. Got to go, bye!!!

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

Phew!!! Finally didn’t get a detention. Oops, late for class. Got to go. I have to run.

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

Wow!!! I just got yelled at for not listening, but it’s not my fault. My teacher is most boringest teacher. Even her name. Her name is Ann. So, I just yelled at my teacher and told her that she is out of her mind and her voice is boring.

But then the teacher said, “What do you mean I am out of my mind and my voice is not boring?! That’s not how you talk to your step-grandmother!!! That’s it. I knew you were bad. That’s another detention for Amelie-Ellen-Ann-Emma-Katie-Emily-Rebecca-Susan-Jullian-Julia-Caroline-Ally-Hannah-Kate-Daina-Ella-Ellenor-Isla-Mary-Nora. In case you haven’t noticed, the name ‘Ann’ is in your name. Now go to detention, and don’t talk back to me!!!”

And the worst part was all the other kids started whispering to each other. I am never going to have friends!

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

Oh no. I am on my way back, and my mom is going to ground me. I hate my life. I got suspended for a week!!! And my mom is taking away my diary when we get back home!!! My life has officially ended.

“Amelie” 8/11/10

Dear Diary,

My mom just yelled at me so badly. I am grounded, and I have to do my homework even though I am completely clueless of what we are doing, and I can’t even use the Internet. My mom punished me to never use the Internet or my phone for the rest of the month. I am completely doomed. My phone is like my life. Also, this is the last time I am using my diary. Bye!!!


Three Poems

The Weirdo

A person that is crazy

Under sand

The name of this person is purple


The Crazy Airplane

First, airplanes are at a beach on land

The airplane’s going as fast as a person

The lame unicorn ate a dragon

This unicorn loved a person

The airplane was going so fast that it crushed the unicorn right before it kissed the human


Insect Eve

The silly person on Christmas Eve

that has a beetle on a spider

And had a cruel butterfly

Had a dream that there was a weird genie on Christmas Eve

And she gave them presents

Even though they didn’t know each other


The Bad Ghost

There was a ghost. He was a haunter. He would haunt people, animals, and objects. One day, he lifted a pig that was going to be eaten, but kaboom, a ghost car smashed into the ghost.

“Dang it. Why does a car always crash into me,” said the ghost right before the car actually pulled over.

Out of the car came Garlic Man, a loaf of muscly garlic bread. He was mad at the ghost for trying to eat his pig and said, “Step away from the pig, buddy.”

“Who in the world are you? And why do you smell so bad?” the ghost said, holding his nose.

Uh because I’m Garlic Man, duhhh?”

And the ghost killed the Garlic Man. Hahaha, that was so funny! The next day, the ghost went to a haunted house that was by the crooked crook. There was a tale that says if somebody drinks from the river, a ghost will haunt them forever. The ghost knew this tale and wanted to prove it right.

So, he hid behind a tree because the one man was really stupid and told the crowd, “I’m going to drink from the river!”

He bent his knees, crouched down, and took a sip! Then, the ghost appeared from behind. Then, the ghost lifted the haunted house and smashed it on the group of people. The people that got smashed by the haunted were flattened! Then, the lightning struck, and now the flattened people turned into a huge pumpkin with laser eyes. The pumpkin with laser eyes lasered the whole town like mad! Suddenly, the ocean splashed on the town. The ghost got on the pumpkin and rode away!

THE END.


Elephant

The jungles of South Asia are noisy, warm and dark;

Then titan longhorn beetles stand up and chirp the dawn,

And Borneo goes silent as footsteps shake the bark,

While a strange, gigantic creature lumbers out onto the lawn.

It lifts up its proboscis and bugles in delight;

Its dark gray wall of iron hide scrapes branches of bamboo;

It has large arrays of wrinkles and scars from many a fight;

Instead of many animals with no tusks, it has two.

In the middle of that forest, in the brightening light of day,

The elephant loudly yodels another morning-call.

Why not believe in goblins, in pixies, trolls and fey,

If such a marvelous creature even exists at all?


MAE

Once there was a flying elephant. To fly, all Mae had to do was flap her ears, and she would start floating, and then she could fly, but the bad thing was all the other elephants were jealous of her. Their names were Grumpy, Unlucky, and Unhappy.

So, one day, Mae went for a fly. All the other elephants were so jealous they stuck their trunks up in the air and grabbed Mae’s foot and pulled her down.

Mae was furious. She yelled out, “Why do you hate me so much?

Right away, the other elephants yelled out, “You can fly, and we cannot! Uhhhhhhhh, do you not see we are jealous of you!!! We want to fly too.” The elephants started crying and said, “We are sorry. We were jealous. We did not mean it.”

Then, Mae said, “To be able to fly like me, you have to travel through the Blue Creek Woods and under the Serpent Sea.”

So, the other elephants went on an extremely long journey to the Blue Creek Woods. The Blue Creek Woods had a bunch of really tall trees, and the trees made the shape of a really big letter B, which was so big it took up the space of the whole forest. But the danger was the animals could kill you with one scratch. Also, the animals looked very intimidating, but the elephants kept on walking. They were starving. They thought they might as well starve to death. But no way. They grabbed their ladder and walked up the ladder to some apples in an apple tree. The apples were rainbow, and inside there was a bunch of blackberry jelly.

“We’ve got food to eat, and we’ll even eat it for dinner!!!” they said.

They made a fire, so they could stay warm and eat the apples, which tasted like apples. Then, they went to sleep in their sleeping bags made of grass and bamboo and some rubber bands.

The next day, they had a nice walk to the middle of the woods, and even better, they had left over apples to eat for dinner and some leftover matches to stay warm. In fact, they had so much they could eat it for a living. A cyclops jumped out of the bushes, but they took the beast on with no fear. They fought. It was a hard fight, but they won. By that time, it was night again. The elephants made another fire, ate the apples, and went to bed. The next morning, they travelled out of the forest and made it out alive!!!

When they got out of the forest, there was a path, and it led to the sea. The path was under the water, but then the elephants transformed into ellaphmermaids. They had copper-colored mermaid tails with scales shaped like C’s and hooves at the end. They swam along the path, but then there was a siren. She had a very disturbing face with a mermaid tail with a shark fin on it, and she had gills instead of a nose. The siren lured the ellaphmermaids over by singing with her beautiful, luring singing voice, but the little ellaphmermaids had tricked the siren and grabbed their daggers and stabbed her. They had defeated a monster for the second time. They were undefeated.

So, they kept on swimming across the path. Then, a giant shark came, but the giant shark had tiny eyes like this. They were so tiny it could only see the tiniest things on earth. The shark couldn’t see them, but it could hear, so the elephants had to be super quiet like ninjas. The shark couldn’t see them and they made it. But then there was a surprise! In real life, Mae was following them the whole time, and in real life, she was a magical queen with powers.

Her powers were she could make anything fly, so the magical queen said, “You are very smart, and I trust that you will use your flying powers well.”

So, she gave them the power to fly.

But then the ellaphmermaids thought for a minute, and they were like, “Wait a minute, you tricked us?!” But then they said, “Whatever, we’re getting our wings!”
They flew all the way home. But then… They all lived happily ever after.

Corn Nut the Chipmunk

One day, Corn Nut the Chipmunk decides to buy a bag of corn nuts. Corn Nut is small, feisty, and loves corn nuts. Corn Nut walks into the busyness of the streets and into the corner store for some corn nuts. Something happens. Corn Nut’s chip bag explodes, and all the corn nuts fall out of the bag.

There is only one explanation for this thing: Corn Nut’s chip bag was already opened. Corn Nut decides then that he has bad luck. Corn Nut walks back, but on the way back, Corn Nut has an idea. He could go to a fortune teller and ask if he has bad luck and get cured.

While Corn Nut gets cured by the fortune teller’s mystic crystal ball, he wonders how he is going to pay the fortune teller. He has no money. So when Corn Nut is cured from his bad luck, he decides to run off.

But on his way home, he gets lost because he is not paying attention to where he is going. Fortunately, he finds a 70-year-old fat flying squirrel named Beth, who makes him happy.

In the end, not all is lost, because Beth is kind enough to tell Corn Nut where he is and tells him the directions to home.


Crossing the North Pole

Chapter One: Starting a New Life

This is a story that starts in the North Pole. Pezzy was a candy man, and he made a magical lollipop that talked and moved. It was shaped like a penguin, and its name was Pengui. Because Pengui was a penguin shape, he could talk to the other penguins at the North Pole.

Seals in the North Pole thought Pengui looked tasty. Pezzy had to make another lollipop that was a monster to scare away the seals. Then, there were other seals who were stronger, and they weren’t scared…

Pezzy was scared. He thought the seals might eat Pengui. So, he put Pengui in his pocket. To talk to Pengui, he made a tiny walkie-talkie for Pengui and a headphone for himself, so the seals wouldn’t hear them talking to each other. Their goal was to get a break from human beings. They didn’t want Pengui to end up in the New York Aquarium. If the scientists knew that there was a talking penguin lollipop, they would surely put him in the New York Aquarium.

But there were also scientists at the North Pole. The first scientists they met were in a truck. Pezzy hid behind a block of ice until the truck passed. Then, they saw a little town that had a hotel. They went to sleep there and warmed up. They heard ice cracking in the night and a snowstorm. They liked those sounds much better than the ambulances and all the trucks and yelling people of New York. They slept a long time, and when they felt rested, they left the hotel, and they built a home in the town made out of chocolate for the walls and gummy worms to help hold up the roof. They used more chocolate for the cozy floor. They made a brick place for the stove so that the fire wouldn’t melt the chocolate walls.

It was still cold, so they built a heater. The heater was made out of cotton candy, but there was no electricity. So, they called the city to ask if they could connect to the city’s electric cables. For now, they had a great start to life in the North Pole.

Chapter Two: Catching Food

They were hungry for candy. Pezzy was too tired to make some candy, so Pengui went to catch fish. They were still hungry. Afterwards, Pezzy took a nap, and he was not tired anymore. They were still hungry, but Pezzy wasn’t tired after, so he could make more candy, so he made Twizzlers for candy pasta. It was starting to get late, so they went to sleep. At night, a seal started to attack the walls. The walls started to shake so hard it woke them up. Two minutes later, the seal went away. They were so scared from the shaking walls. Seven hours later, they went to eat breakfast. After they ate, they went to a clothes store to buy a warmer jacket for Pezzy. Pengui, being a lollipop, didn’t get cold. The clothes store was closed, so they went to a different store. But it was the only store in town, so they made clothes for Pezzy from yarn they found at another store. They slept better.

After a while, it was time to wake up again. Accidentally the clock was broken, so it was still the middle of the night. Then, they swam in the water of the North Pole. After a while, they were cold, so they made a heating system in the pool. After that, they swam in it. They were freezing in there too, so they made the heating system even stronger. Then it was time to go to sleep, and they travelled back to where Pezzy wanted to go. Pengy needed to stay by himself at the North Pole.

Pezzy wanted to go home, so he did.

The End.


Arctic Jungle Adventure

Chapter One: Confusion

Once upon a time there was a polar bear named Poley, and he had a friend named Pandy. Pandy lived in the jungle because he was a panda bear, and Poley lived in the Arctic.

Pandy once came over to the Arctic to visit Poley and said to him, “Do you want to come to the jungle, so you can see how I live”

“Yes, I would like to!” said Poley, and so Pandy brought Poley to the jungle.

Once they arrived, Poley was burning, burning hot with sweat, and Pandy said, “Are you okay? Are you getting tired?”

And Poley said, “No, I don’t know.”

Then, a jungle ranger came walking by, and the ranger said to Poley, “This is not your right habitat. No wonder you look so sweaty and hot. We have to get you back to the Arctic!”

But Pandy said, “No, I want him to stay!”

But the ranger said, “But he has to go, or he will get very sick.”

“Okay, fine,” Pandy said. “You can bring him, but only if I’m allowed to come with.”

“Okay, you can come with. But if you get hurt, I’ll take you back.”

Chapter Two: Going Back to the Arctic

They finally made it back to the Arctic, and once they got there, Poley still was a little sick but felt a teensy weensy bit better. And the ranger called a medical ranger… because Poley was still not feeling well.

The medical ranger was on his way. Finally, he arrived, and he said to the ranger, “What is going on?”

And the medical ranger said, “This polar bear was very sick because he went to the jungle and got very warm, so we brought him back here, and now this panda came also, and even though I brought Poley the polar bear back to the Arctic, he is still very sick. So… can you help?”

“Yes, I can help,” said the medical ranger.

Chapter Three: Helping Poley

So, the medical ranger took Poley’s temperature, and it was very very high. And then he checked his heartbeat, and it was slower, and he said, “Even though the heart beat is slower and the temperature is high, I know how to help him.”

“Phew! That is a-okay,” said Pandy in a not-very-well voice.

The medical ranger did everything he could, and Poley almost died, but in the end he was a-okay.

Chapter Four: Pandy Not Feeling Well… Uh oh.

Since Pandy spoke in a not-very-well voice earlier, he fainted.

“He is way too cold in the Arctic!” said the medical ranger. Nobody knew, but Pandy was actually faking.

So, did you guys like my trick about how I was faking being sick?!” Pandy said.

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm… ” they responded questionably.

“Okay, okay. I guess it wasn’t the best trick ever,” said Pandy.

“Yeah, it wasn’t. I was really going to try and help you, and I was really worried,” the medical ranger said angrily, while the normal ranger was watching over Poley while he was laying in a bed of ice.

Pandy said, “Now that we’re all done arguing, let’s have some fun!”

Then, everyone else said, “Yeah!

Then, they all went ice skating.

The End


The Time I Was Left in the Elevator

I was staying in a hotel in Montauk, New York with my grandma and my uncle from Seattle, and I was having a wonderful time in the pool. I tried to do these cool dives, but I was only three years old, so it was impossible. I did not want to risk it and belly flop hard. As soon as we ended swimming, I suggested to my family that we should go into the hotel room and relax, so we did.

We got into the elevator. We were with these 70-year-old people in the elevator. I pressed the number seven, which was the floor that we were staying on. When we arrived at our floor, I did not notice because I was looking at my Nemo towel, even though I don’t like Nemo. When I looked up, no one was there except the old people. That is when I realized that my parents had accidentally left me. The old people held my hand as we went back down. I was so scared.

When we got down, the nice people stayed with me even though they had to go to their floor. I arrived at the seventh floor, hoping that I would see my parents. The doors opened. I saw my whole family. I was so happy to see them. I hugged them.

This was a true story…

The End.


Funky Fairy Tales

This story draws inspiration from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”

Grammy White and the Seven Foxies

Once upon a time, there was a great, sweet queen who gave birth to a very sweet baby girl named Grammy White. Also, there was once an evil queen who gave birth to an evil baby girl named Snow Black. The two queens were neighbors. They hadn’t met yet, because between their castles there was an enchanted wall that was built by a wizard, and also, they were too busy taking care of their baby girls, ruling their kingdoms, and doing whatever it was that all of the powerful and amazing queens did, like teaching their daughters magic!

One day, when Grammy White was twenty-eight years old, she asked her mom, “Wouldn’t it be nice to go over the wall and explore?”

“Yes, honey! But we’re too busy doing things, and besides, it’s better if we stay here, safe and sound,” the queen told Grammy.

On the other side of the wall, young Snow Black asked her mom, “Mom, wouldn’t it be nice to go to the other side of the wall? You could teach me how to cast a spell on people. Please?”

“Of course, honey! We’ll go next summer at 10:30!”

Then, the two queens went back to work.

Snow Black let out a huge sigh. Grammy White also did the same, but then, the girls suddenly cheered up, and each said to herself, When my mom is in bed, I will sneak over the wall and explore the garden on the other side of the wall.

Then, the girls ate their supper and pretended to be asleep. When the moms left, the girls put on their T-shirts with a huge heart on it, pulled a pair of jeans out, put on their flip flops, pulled their long, beautiful hair in a ponytail, and climbed out the window.

“Wow!” Grammy White said.

“Gross,” Snow Black said when she saw all of the gross pink and yellow flowers.

Grammy White decided to take a very fine walk in the garden, which was more like a forest, between the walls. While Grammy White was walking, she found a very cute cottage.

“How very odd!” she said.

On the other hand, Snow Black was running very fast. She was running to the other wall and didn’t even see Grammy White passing by! While Snow Black was running, Grammy White opened the cottage door. The door made a very loud creak!

Snow Black turned around and screamed at the sight of Grammy White!

“Well, hello,” Snow Black said to Grammy White.

“Hello? Who are you?” Grammy asked Snow Black.

“I might as well ask you the same question,” Snow Black said in her sweetest voice.

“Well, I’m Grammy White. Now, who are you?”

“Oh me! It’s better to not ask! Hehe!” Snow Black said while sweating with guilt. “Hey… I smell… I smell… I smell a good princess standing in front of me,” Snow Black said.

“Well, you sure do!” Grammy told Snow.

“Oh! Good to know!” Snow said evilly, for she had found the perfect person for her mom to cast a spell on.

Chapter Two

Grammy White was surprised by the sight of seven talking foxies.

“Hullo! You have entered MDLV!” one of the foxies with a pink nose said.

“MDL what?” Grammy asked.

“MDLV. It means 1555 in Roman numerals,” a grumpy-looking fox said. “No one ever comes to Synthia ever since the evil Veneficus came here and made everything so bright and happy. It was better when it was nice and shady, but now he’s banished from the forest.”

“Oh, well, can I stay here for the night?” Grammy asked.

“Only if you do our chores.”

So, Grammy stayed and did the chores, like sweeping and washing the dishes, and then slept.

Chapter Three

Meanwhile, Snow Black was wondering which way to go to get home, for she had lost her way, so she cast a spell, so she could turn a stick into a GPS. “Verto hic scipio indu quidam via aquilex!!!” she said while sparkles appeared around the stick. Snow Black picked up what used to be a stick and went home.

Chapter Four

Grammy White made friends with Grumpy and Happy the foxies. She was getting water when she heard, “Apples! Get your free apples!” and she dropped the bucket to get apples instead. Hopefully the foxies wouldn’t be mad for getting food instead of water.

“Excuse me, can I have a bite of an apple?”

“Of course!” Snow Black said when cackling in her head. (Snow Black put a sleeping potion on half of the apple.)

Grammy White took a bite and was fine. But when Snow Black took a bite, she fell asleep. Grammy White found Snow’s spell book and cast a spell to find the closest castle to stay in. She said, “Invenio unus castra etenim memet,” and found one. When she arrived with sleeping Snow, she met Prince Warren, and they immediately fell in love with each other. He let her stay.

Chapter Five

“Where did Grammy White go???” Panic the foxie asked.

“I don’t know,” Grumpy said grumpily.

“Maybe she’s somewhere better!” Happy said, thinking of how happy she might be right now.

Oh, how much they missed her! Even Grumpy was crying!

Chapter Six

Grammy White missed her friend foxies, and she felt bad for not telling them she left, so she wrote them a letter and gave them some chocolates and muffins.

Dear foxies,

I miss you guys a lot, but I have moved to Prince Warren’s castle. I hope you guys like the treats! Also, you can come over whenever you want!

Love, Grammy White.

Chapter Seven

“I told you that she is in a better place!” Happy told the other foxies.

“Let’s visit her today! She said we could visit anytime!!!” Grumpy said, surprisingly happily!

So, they started their journey. When the foxies arrived, the prince and Grammy were dancing! The dancing brought a tear to Grumpy’s eye!

“So sweet!” Grumpy said.

Then, Grammy saw them and said, “Hi, little foxies!”

But when the prince saw them, he screamed, “Grammy! Get away!

But she told the prince that they were nice, so they got to live at the castle now.  

Wedding Day

Many years had passed, and Grammy was getting married.

“Grammy White, do you take Prince Warren for your handsome husband?” the priest asked.

“I do!” she said.

“And do you, Prince Warren, take Grammy for your loyal, royal queen?”

“I do!”

“You can kiss the bride.”

And they lived happily ever after. But Snow Black didn’t. She lived in the dungeon, still sleeping, of Queen Grammy and King Warren.

The End.


Thrasi’s Pot of Gold

Rudy was a little confused. Was it a dream, or did it really happen? Then, he saw the brass pot of gold that said ÞRASI in fancy lettering. A few days ago, Rudy’s family arrived in Iceland. The first tourist trap they visited was going to be the waterfall, SKOGAFOSS. His four sisters were arguing about who would get to decorate their cousin, Elaine, and Rudy was almost going to just shout out and just tell his sisters to stop talking or get out of the car when they reached the waterfall.

Riley skipped along the dirt path. One thing you should know about her is she loved to swim. Today Riley was going to the SKOGAFOSS waterfall. It was a special day. Riley loved being near water, where she felt like a bird. Little did she know that today would be different. She would bump into Rudy and find a great treasure.

One hour later…

Rudy got out of the car. Riley walked down the seven steps of the bus, clutching her tote bag. Clunk! They bumped into each other.

“Hi,” said Riley.

“Bonjour,” said Rudy sarcastically.

Riley was just about to walk off when a golden glint caught her eye. Half of a brass chain was sticking out from the waterfall, at an angle, so if Riley was one step forward, she wouldn’t have seen it at all.

”Look over there!” Riley shouted to Rudy.

Rudy suddenly yanked at the top of the fence, and he now had an iron bar. Rudy hooked the end of the strong iron bar to the end of the chain and then grasped the end. Riley quickly grabbed the bar too. All Rudy’s siblings started pulling, and his sisters completely forgot about decorating Elaine. Then, Rudy realized that the girl he had bumped into wasn’t behind him. Just as he thought that, she appeared with a swimsuit and goggles on. She leapt into the water and swam perfectly behind the waterfall. Rudy had watched in awe. Then suddenly… YANK! The thing behind the waterfall leapt into the air and landed in Rudy’s arms.

It was a pot of gold. Now what really happened was that Riley had swum behind the waterfall and pushed the pot as hard as she could. The reason Riley was so excited about the brass chain was because she did research on Iceland, and the book said that a settler named THRASI had hidden a pot of gold behind the waterfall, where it would be hard to reach.

You can imagine it was pretty hard for Rudy’s family to get the gold back. They had split the gold with Riley’s family, and it was loaded up in their trunk. Rudy’s brother clapped him on the back and said, “Ya gotta real treasure today, eh?”

But the real treasure was the adventure they had.

THE END


Diary of a 10-year-old Artist

September 17th, 2045

Okay. First off the bat, I just want to say one thing. I am not doing this on purpose! My name is Hannah Froll, I am 10 years old, and I am an artist!!! This is just a stupid assignment that I have to do for stupid school. If I don’t finish it by December, my art class will get cancelled!!! This is what Mrs. Beliani (my principal) wrote:

Dear Camilla and Stan Froll,

I regret to inform you that your daughter, Hannah, is failing in all of her classes except for art class. Enclosed, please find a journal that Hannah must complete before September 30th. Otherwise, Hannah will have to stop going to art class.

Deepest Sympathies,

Rholok Beliani

See what I mean?! I wish I could just fill this book with doodles, but no such luck. I have to do only writing, or it doesn’t count!!! Y’know what? I’m just going to start tomorrow. ‘Night!

September 18th, 2045

You would never believe what happened today. After school, I had soccer, and then math club, and then I had to go to this writing practice that my mom makes me go to.

But at writing class there’s this girl named Miela, and she is so mean! The worst part is, all the teachers think she’s an angel because she’s so good at writing. Her stories aren’t even that good!! She just writes about totally boring “perfect writing” stories that are “extremely well-written.” But today Ms. Perfect finally got in trouble. I know, right? Long overdue. The teacher caught her at last, being a jerk to me about my story, which was about a pig with superpowers.

She leaned over and said, “Really, Frolly.” (Her pet nickname for me.) “A pig could never get superpowers. Really.” That was when the teacher walked over.

Miela immediately switched back to “perfect mode,” but it was too late. The teacher had heard everything that she had said.

“Miela! I thought that you were better than that!”

I smiled, and Miela gulped. The teacher walked back to her desk and started filling out papers.

Miela glared at me and whispered through clenched teeth, “I’ll get you for this, Frolly.”

Oh, jeez. I never imagined that I would write this much. So, ‘night, future readers.

September 19th, 2045

Believe it or not, writing class might actually be bearable now!

I just found out that Miela was expelled!!!

She is such a tensndl! Oops. I forgot that I would get in trouble. I have to hand this in!!

But before that happened, I had a really weird day.

First, my best friend and I, Kiriana, had art, so I was really excited. We were talking about how we might get a new student tomorrow, so we were kind of happy (for school). But halfway there, my stomach seemed to contract, and I barfed all the way around the hallway, slipping and falling.

I woke up at home with my mom sitting over me, phone in hand.

“Hey,” she said. “Your writing class just called.”

That was when I learned that Miela had been expelled. I whipped out my diary, but then I realized what I was doing.

So, I’m just letting you know I still don’t like writing. Right?

September 20th, 2045

Today is officially the worst day of my life. You know the new student that I was talking about? It’s Miela!!! So now, I have made three enemies in school: Samson the football star, Onyo the cheerleader, and you-know-what. Mr. Aatri, my homeroom teacher, made an announcement to the class at the beginning of the day.

“Class, please welcome our new student, Miela.”

I was drinking a glass of water at the time and sprayed it all over Kalnis, who was sitting in front of me. He whipped around and glared at me.

“Watch it, dweeb,” he hissed, glaring at me.

At recess, Miela walked over to me, but I noticed a change in the way she looked at me. She looked almost… sorry.

“Hey,” she said. Then, she quickly said something like, “Really sorry. Do you want to be friends?” She looked up, and I smiled. She understood.

September 21, 2048

Guess what? Today, Mrs. Beliani called me to her office. The announcement was met with the typical response.

“OooOOOoooh,” the class said. All except for my now two friends.

I walked up the long hallway to my principal’s office. I was holding this diary in my hands, and I passed it to Mrs. Beliani. She flipped through it for a second, then looked up at me.

“Your work has improved greatly.” I was confused, so she spelled it out for me.

“You don’t have to do this anymore.” She expected me to smile, but I asked one question.

“Can I put in one more entry?”

She let me, but also asked me if I wanted to do it again.

And maybe I will.


The Disney Cruise

One afternoon, Mckenzie went to her parents. She was curious about what she was doing today. Her mother said they were going to Upper Rapids Water Park. Mckenzie knew that Rapids Water Park existed, but she had never heard of Upper Rapids Water Park, but she knew her mother would never lie to her, so she trusted her. So, at 9:00 am, they left: Mckenzie, Mema, Mom, Dad, and Ives. It took about three hours to get to the water park, and then Ives pointed out a waterslide in the middle of the sea.

Ives yelled out, “It’s a Disney Cruise Ship!”

And then Mckenzie yelled, “You probably won’t be able to ride the water slide!”

Then Ives got a closer look, and when he saw it, he knew for sure it was a Disney Cruise!

But Mckenzie was not too excited… “I wish we were, but we’re not.”

Suddenly, Mema said in a soft voice, “We’re going on the cruise!”

Then, Mom screamed, “We’re going on a Disney Cruise — you are wearing your bathing suit because we are going on that cruise ship.”

Mckenzie stopped her in the middle and said, “Stop it! I’m not stupid!”

And suddenly, Mema showed Mckenzie the tickets, and Mckenzie asked, “How did you do it?”

Mckenzie said, “Ohhh! How did you get into our room?”

And then Mom said, “You were fast asleep.”

And then Dad drove up to the ticket inspector, who looked at the tickets and told them where to go. And Dad drove into the parking lot, and there she was: the Disney Cruise Ship.

Suddenly, when they got out, there was a man taking their luggage and checking them in. He asked them questions. Then, a man came up to them — he told the Miller family about the aquaduck. That’s the ride on the Disney Cruise Ship. And then he started making a duck squeak like, “Bok bok bok bok bok,” or however you do it. And then it was time to walk towards the ship. There were big escalators, and when you walked on it, the family had to get tags and go through a big Mickey door — that’s where you get onto the boat.

The Millers then went through security, and afterwards they took a picture of all of them. Then, they checked their cards to get on the ship — everyone, even babies, get a card. It kind of looks like a credit card. It says your name and has a picture of Mickey on it, as well as your room number. The Millers went through, and there were eight people standing there, and one of them asked the family their first and last names, and the grandma said, “Miller.”

And then the lady that she told the last name to said, “Welcome the Miller family aboard.” And then all those eight people started clapping!

Then, the family walked into a lobby with big, tall ceilings and beautiful chandeliers and staircases like you’d see in movies. There were wide elevators, singers, dancers, and instrument players, and there were photo booths and characters all around the ship. After that, they all got into an elevator and arrived on the 12th floor — there were big pools, big slides, and self-serve ice cream bars. Then, everyone was standing in the big parts where the pools and the slide were and music was playing. There was a big screen with a camera moving around the audience, so you get to be up on the board, and Mckenzie and her dad decided to go wait in the long line to ride the aquaduck.

It took about 20 minutes for them to get up there. There was a really long line as it was just when the ship was about to sail. When they finally got their time to go on it, Mckenzie’s mom had been waiting for her and her dad to go across it, but when it was their turn, her mom decided not to do it because she didn’t see them going up, and she missed it. And when Mckenzie and her dad got it again, her mom got the picture. Everyone was clapping and singing because the boat had just set sail. Then, everyone went back to their rooms.

About 30 minutes later, the Millers had to do a life vest training thing, and every family would stand in one line. Groups of three families had one coach, and it took about 30 minutes for them to start because they had to get everyone out of their rooms. Then when it was over, the family went to lunch. The ship had a big cafeteria with oysters, pizza, lobster, and many other delicious things. Mckenzie got chicken tenders and a Coke. And that’s what she got every single day after that. Dad, Ives, and Mom got that too.

Then, they went to the kids club, and since it was the first day on the cruise ship, the parents got to come. There was an animation center, cooking, boat driving, and there was this big light up floor where you could play games. Then, the parents left, and Ives and Mckenzie practiced being alone there. Then later, they left when their parents came to get them. Every night they would go to a different restaurant where all of the food was already paid for.

There was the Animation Palate. That was where the Millers had their first dinner. The second night, they would be going to the Enchanted Gardens. The third night, they went to the Royal Palace.

Every night, there were crazy characters like Cinderella, Rapunzel, Ariel, Mickey, and other fun things. Finally, it was Saturday night, and that meant it was the pirate day on the ship. Every Saturday night, there is a pirate night. It is where everyone on the ship would dress up as a pirate. Everybody was out on the deck, when suddenly Captain Jack from Pirates of the Caribbean came out. He was singing and dancing, and he had loads and loads of jolly deck pirates. Soon, the night was over, and the Millers went to sleep. The next morning, the boat arrived at Castaway Cay: Disney’s private island. Everyone walked onto the island, and Mckenzie’s dad grabbed everyone some towels, and suddenly there was someone counting his towels. Can you guess who it was??? Captain Jack Sparrow.

It was super cool. Suddenly, before they knew it, it was 4:30. That was the time everyone had to get back on the boat. The Millers showered up and went to dinner and then went to bed. When they woke up, they were docked to go back to Florida.
That was the tale of the Disney Cruise.

The end.

Killer Refrigerator

Chapter One

Once upon a time my mom was going shopping. She was getting ice cream and yogurt. Just as she slammed the door, a part of her hand got caught in the refrigerator, and her skin fell off. On our way to the doctor’s, I saw a bird that had been sucked into a car’s exhaust and was all smashed up. My mom got to the doctor’s, and they stitched her hand back together. She passed out for three days. Meanwhile, at the store, the janitor was cleaning the refrigerator, and right as she was about to wipe the blood away, it disappeared. The janitor was very curious and cut her hand a little and rubbed the blood onto the refrigerator. The refrigerator groaned and then snapped its door open and ate the janitor up!

Chapter Two

The refrigerator had fortunately been sleeping when I bought ice cream the next day. But when I went to get some ice cream from my home refrigerator, I realized there was no ice cream, but instead there was an eyeball in the tub. I decided to investigate the refrigerator. I set up a spycam at the supermarket, and the day after that, I remembered to check the footage. At midnight the previous night, a manager had gone to restock the ice cream. What I saw shocked me so much I almost passed out. The refrigerator had chomped up the manager, and I saw what its plan was. He used the janitor’s feet, and they popped out from the bottom of the refrigerator, and he used the manager’s hands to push himself up. I was about to save the files when my computer died because I’m bad at charging it, and it deleted all the footage.

I ran to the supermarket, and the refrigerator was gone! I decided to call a detective. I knew without the footage the police would never believe me. The detective’s name was Sherlock Holmes — just kidding. I can’t tell you because he’s a secret agent, so let’s say Sherlock for now. So, Sherlock came over to the house. He asked where the supermarket was, and I told him downtown. He went over to the store, and he used a new gadget that had only been available for one hour: it was a detective spyglass with a thermal camera on it that could show you where the criminal’s footsteps were. He asked the janitor what they’d seen, and they said the janitor had worn Crocs. We tracked the footsteps to an old abandoned theme park. The refrigerator had gone to the haunted mansion. We went to the place, and we heard noises coming from the back. I told Sherlock to stay back, and I snuck up. I remembered the refrigerator seemed to hate ketchup. I thought I would throw the ketchup. When I looked up at the refrigerator, he swallowed me whole!

The End… for now.


A Trip to Yellowstone

August 5

Hello. My name is Kelly Jones, and the only reason I am writing in my new, so secret, red leather diary that locks is because I am bored. I have always not liked airplane rides, especially because they make me dizzy. I am on my way to Yellowstone National Park because, well, frankly, I am very excited. I am very into science, and I heard there are wild animals in Yellowstone and erupting geysers. But, my uncle says there is going to be a great surprise. I don’t expect that it’s going to be much because my uncle’s surprises are never exciting.

August 7

We arrived one day ago. Our hotel is kind of cozy, and our room has a soft gray rug, a huge TV, a springy white sofa, and three nice, cozy beds with green tea colored blankets. My dad is sitting in one of the plum colored squishy chairs and sipping his coffee and reading his newspaper.

August 8

So far, my father hasn’t stumbled upon any good news in the newspaper, considering that he’s had his nose in the newspaper for the last few days. He has been keeping us home, so we can watch TV and play Chutes and Ladders, and he reads newspapers. He’s made up his mind that we aren’t going to go out until he finds something good. He has also been searching for something interesting, because, unlike me, he thinks Yellowstone is going to be pretty boring. Finally, this morning, Father found something good.

“Aha!!”’ my dad exclaimed. “Kk, come over here.’’

I came. This is what I saw:

YELLOWSTONE SCIENCE PRIZE

This prize is for children from 8-16. Competitors must present a report about Yellowstone Wildlife and Yellowstone geysers. Adults can help if needed, and the project must be turned in by 3-5. The essay must be about a way to prevent hunting. The prize is a gold trophy for each participant of the winning team, plusa salary of 6,000,000 dollars for the winners to split up. If you are interested, please contact Bill Gates, creator of Microsoft. Submission due AUGUST 15.

Okay. It’s still August 8.

And Daddy is loading up the car, and if you were paying attention, you’d know why. Right now, we are off to Old Faithful, so I can take notes for the competition and also take a chance at finding who to work with on the competition. Meanwhile, my aunt is helping my mom register for the Bill Gates competition, and my father is doing the happy Snoopy dance because he is so happy.

Now we are at Old Faithful, and I am looking for some nice looking girls to do the competition with. Just as I was going to give up, I spotted a familiar face.

“Hello, Kellania.”

“Hello, Josephine. What are you doing here?!”

“Don’t panic, Kell. I was invited by your uncle. I am here to help you out, with your contest thingamabob. Speaking of Bobs, how about I take you over to Bob’s Pizza for Lunch??” Things were going on in my mind. Why had Josephine wanted to help anyways?? Besides, I barely knew her. She was the smartest, the prettiest, and the most perfect girl in the school, maybe even in the world!!! And her parents were billionaires!!! Man, gazillionaires!!!

Over at Bob’s Pizza, a girl and boy that were probably twins were arguing about something. When they saw me, they stopped arguing and waved at me. When I went over to them, I said, “Do you want to join me in the competition???”

“Sure. My name is Jack, and that is Julie,” the boy said.

Now only one more person, I thought.

“Time for the eruption,” Jack and Julie said together.

We ran to get a last slice of pizza and then caught a bench in front of Old Faithful. The boy sitting next to me had blonde, almost white hair and was reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and looked as if he was in sixth grade. Every once in a while, he would look at his phone and text to Mom.

“Hey.” I was startled by his voice and glanced at his book.

“I have read Jane Eyre too,” I said. “Care to join me in the contest??”

“Sure.”

“Isn’t it weird when the jerk who runs the school makes Jane stand on the stool??” Him again. End of conversation. Deal made. Then, just about when he picked up Jane Eyre again, Old Faithful erupted.

August 11

Today I am supposed to meet Josephine, Julie, Jack, and James (this is the boy who was reading Jane Eyre yesterday) at James’ house, just a few blocks away from our hotel. At eight in the morning, I set off for James’ house for our meeting. Once I walked in, I knew James’ parents were well-educated. James told me to guess what his parents’ jobs were. It was pretty easy to tell what his mother’s job was. I mean, whose house plays flute music on the stairs and has sheet music on the coffee table and a music stand with a silver flute laid across it? Next, James made us guess what his father’s job was. That was also pretty easy because the moment we went into one of the upstairs rooms, a man with a white lab coat stepped out of the room.

“Hello. My name is Michael. Nice to meet you. I am a science professor.”

After, we had some pretzels, we went into his room, which was huge, and sat down on his big huge couch that could probably fit way more than five people comfortably, and Josie (Josephine) began.

“First things first, what is a problem about the animals?”

“They poop too much,” said James.

“Very well, James,” said Josephine. “You may do an extra report for the competition on how animals digest and the shape of the waste and how to identify their footprints.”

James groaned.

“Okay, now for you,” Josephine said.

“Josephine, you are acting way too much like the boss. I think Kelly should be the boss.” Julie stuck her hip out and glared at Josephine. Josephine blushed.

“I think that we should do a report on geysers and animals combined,” I said. Jack thought that was a great idea.

“And by the way, James, you do not have to do your poop report alone. That extra report will be very important, so Josephine can help you with it.” Julie smirked. Now it was Josephine’s turn to glare.

Jack said, “Don’t the geysers come from under the crust of earth?”

“Isn’t the earth supposed to have a lot of minerals?” Josephine was now madly typing on her silver and diamond computer. “It says here that the geysers are exposed to a lot of different metals and moreover, exposed to, drumroll please.” Jack and James made a drumroll on a fake army drum. “Arsenic!!!” shouted Josephine.

“Okay, so you guys get to go to different geysers and actually have fun, while Josephine and I have to go to parks to collect dung??” James whined.

“That’s not fair,” wailed Josephine.

“No one asked for your opinion,” Julie retorted.

“Well, you never have to collect dung,” Josephine shot back. The two got into a fight and were rolling around in the bed. Basically, they were just shouting. (“Excuse me, I am not going to collect dung!!”)

Meanwhile, I was sitting on the couch thinking. Then, I rolled around on the couch, and I thought, Isn’t the water supposed to be hot? If it was hot, wouldn’t it lure animals in the winter?? Maybe it would. What would happen if the animals drank the water, or even worse, bathed in it? Something was forming in my mind. “Josephine, Julie, come over here!! I ran over to them and pushed them apart. The two girls stopped fighting and walked over here.

I said, “Okay. So if James and Josephine collect the dung, I’ll explain.” Josephine had a defeated look on her face.

“Oh, all right. Now get on with it.”

“So what if the animals drink the geyser water!”

“Big deal.” Josephine snorted. Clearly she was still angry with Julie.

“But, that means they have arsenic in them!!” Julie said. “So, if the hunters hunt the animals and eat them, they’ll get sick!!

“Absolutely!” I shouted. The boys had went out to collect some elk and bison dung, and now they came back with a plastic bag with brown stuff. I am not lying, they look funny. They had nose plugs, too large plastic lab coats, and yellow rubber gloves with matching boots.

“So, have you guys figured out anything yet?”

“Loads,” I said, or I squealed.

“Hey, isn’t your father a science professor?” Julie asked.

“Bring the dung to your father, James, he’ll have it analyzed, and you, Jack, go get us some more pretzels,” Josephine ordered.

“Josephine,” said Julie warningly.

Anyways, Dr. Michael says that he can get the dung analyzed in a few days. I guess I won’t have time to write these days. It’s okay. I think I could fill you up once I have time. James’ mother had an exercise to keep us going. Basically, she wanted us to write a paragraph on what we love. That was a pretty good exercise, but I couldn’t stop thinking about The geyser’s animals and how they connect. I guess I got so distracted that I fell asleep.

August 16

Okay. Don’t get mad. I will fill you up on everything, after I am done eating this pretzel. Jack is talking away about how the pretzels at June’s Super Deli are really good and that we should really try them and the Cokes there have frost down the sides. It’s driving me crazy. Right now, we are sitting on one of the plum colored squishy chairs in the hotel, and my older sister is lounging on the springy white sofa that she has made into one of her private lounging places.

She says that all younger children, “Don’t have the responsibility to recline on regal couches with beautiful ladies.” She is annoying too.

We have just gotten a reply from Dr. Michael, which you might remember if you cared. The results are coming out on the 20th of August, and Dr. Michael says that the dung shows definite signs of Arsenic. Josephine and I wrote up the report about the geysers, and James and Jack are still working on the extra poop report that they still have to do. Josephine got out of doing it by who knows how. Our report is mostly finished and Julie, who is good at arts and crafts, is making a beautiful diorama that shows the geysers, the animals, and the hunters, creeping up behind. Then, all of us pitched in to write a few words about how we came up with this idea, and I helped Julie write a few words about what was in the diorama. Josephine figured that she needed to help the boys because she thought they were getting on too slowly. While all the ladies sat down to see when the prizes of the competition would be given, all the men, and I am not kidding, were sitting and reading newspapers just like my dad.

Jack was responsible for getting the pretzels from June’s Super Deli. Except, he ate them all before he could get back. The boys are really close to finishing because, as a matter of fact, Josephine is writing for them. I am really anxious because well, if you were paying attention, the results are coming out in four days. Only four days!!! Now Josephine is coming up with an ending sentence for the boys, which means they are almost done. Okay. The ending touch. Julie is now pasting the extra report and the main report to the diorama then adding the sparkly sign I had made to the diorama. It was finished. In four days, we are going to The Yellowstone Caldera, where the contest is going to be held. It is said that Bill Gates himself is going to make an appearance to announce the winner of the contest. There are butterflies in my stomach. Also, we have to pick out the clothing for the contest/party. Josephine already has her gown picked out. It is a silver gown studded with diamonds. Pretty cool. James’ suit is a red tailcoat and green army pants. At first, Jack wanted to wear a blue sweater and jeans but Josephine plainly said no. Instead, Julie picked out a blue army coat for him and yellow smart-looking pants. I still can’t choose between a slim, wide skirted green gown and a full skirt blue and silver dress. Julie is wearing a yellow dress with hoops. I am just so tired and stressed out. Maybe I should take a break.

August 20

Ahhh!

It’s the day. Yellowstone Caldera is just a few miles away. I am just trying to be calm, but I can’t!!! Our diorama is tucked safely under a blanket in a cushiony basket in the trunk. My head is spinning around in circles. My brain is singing a song.

It’s the day. Yellowstone Caldera is a few miles away. Bill Gates is eating lemon ice cream, but everyone else is screaming!!!

I can’t stand it!! Jack is so annoying. He is actually singing his brain song out loud! This is his song:

“Bill Gates is eating pretzels la la la la la la la la. I love eating pretzels, so we are similar!! La la la la la la la la la!

Two more miles, one and a half more miles, one more mile, a half mile, we are here!! Ahhh!

By the way, I chose the blue and silver dress for the party, so I have to lift my skirts. Josephine is helping Julie lift the diorama out of the car and into one of the racks. We are five minutes early, and the adults are helping me get the banner saying THE 4 JS AND 1 K STRIKE AGAIN!!! up on to the top of the rack. Okay. Bill Gates is arriving. All the Honda and BMW and Mercedes and Toyota cars follow him. Bill Gates gives the other groups a few minutes to set up, then we clear, and he takes a bunch of looks around. By now, I am the only one not looking at Bill Gates. I am writing in this diary. He stops at our diorama and stares at it for a long time. Then, he moves on. He stops at another report and examines it closely. Then, he whistles to his housekeeper, and she brings a tan colored chair that was probably from India onto the stage.

Bill Gates stands up and says, “The winner is… ” I squeeze my eyes shut, and Josephine pinches my hand. “… The 4 Js and 1K!!!” Did you know that your heart can stop when you are like totally excited??

One year later…

It’s been a year since I have written to you, and you must remember that I won the contest, and that I had loads of help, and that we now have $1,200,000. And a gold trophy. Well, we got a new house, and now I have my own room. Last year included one of the most exciting events of my life. And this journal was part of it.

THE END


Simone La Unicorn

Chapter 1: Simone La Unicorn


Once upon a time, when Simone was an ordinary foal, she was being trained to run. Run, run, run. Every day, every night, and in between. Her trainers were awful. They beat her if she was bad and took away food if she fell down. She hated it there. She really wanted to escape. One day, she decided to try to jump over the fence. She tried three times, and on the fourth try she succeeded. It was dramatic irony because her trainers wanted her to be fast, but then she used that skill to escape.

Now Simone was alone in the world, and she was scared. She wandered for miles. After four days, she met a calf that was hurt. She nursed it back to health, and the calf said he would grant her one wish because it was a magical calf. She wished she could be a unicorn. When her transformation was complete, she had a golden horn and white wings.

She touched her horn on the ground, and a unicorn swept her away to a rainbow land. Then, she was adopted by another unicorn and treated with kindness.

Chapter Two: The Witch in the Woods


The day after she arrived, her adoptive stepmother said, “You must never go into the wicked woods — for a wicked witch lives there and will turn you into a cockroach.”

But Simone was curious. She went into the woods, even though her mother told her not to. After she went deep into the woods, she came across a beautiful house.

She saw stables and lots and lots of carrots. She saw these things and started toward them. She laid down in the soft hay and munched on the carrots. Then, an old lady came out from the house.

She saw Simone and said, “Well, well, well, a unicorn.” And she went back into the house. She came out again with a wand and magically locked the stable. Simone whined impatiently. She kicked the door to see if she could knock it down. She was trapped.

The room she was locked in was a small wooden stable with itchy hay and rotten carrots because the witch had magicked it to look lovely even though it wasn’t.

This must be the witch that my stepmom told me about, Simone thought, and she went to sleep. The next day, the witch came out of her house and woke Simone up. She had rotten oats and moldy bread. Simone didn’t touch her food. Then, she took a nap.

While she was sleeping, the witch snuck up on her with a pair of magical pliers, a sword, and other instruments for extraction. But what the witch didn’t know was that each tool in turn made a very, very loud noise. Simone had woken up from the loud noises that the tools had made. She started fighting. She kicked and stabbed with her horn.
Finally, the witch was trapped in a corner. “Why do you want my horn?” Simone asked.

“It was for a spell, to wipe out all unicorns!” said the witch.

“Why?” said Simone.

“Um well, um… I don’t know!” replied the witch.

“This is why my stepmom told me to avoid you. She was right. I should have never gone into the woods,” sighed Simone. “Set me free!”

The witch had no choice. She said, “Okay.” But as soon as Simone got a few feet from the stable, she was drawn back by a forcefield.

“Hey, you trapped me!” Simone hollered. The witch had snuck back into her house.

Chapter Three: Cockroaches and Fears

The witch had officially given up on trying to steal Simone’s horn, so she turned her into a cockroach.

Bzz bzz bzz!” Simone cried as an Australian Wood cockroach. She tried to find a weakness in the witch’s forcefield, bumping her head until it throbbed. Unsuccessful, she decided to try something else. Then, she noticed she was hungry. She started eating a hole in the witch’s house. Five days passed, and finally the hole was complete! Then, she had to wait a day because she was very full. After that day, she crawled through the hole to see if the witch could turn her back into a unicorn.

When the witch saw the cockroach, she jumped up onto her dining room table and got her feet in ketchup.

“Aah! A cockroach! Mama! Save me!!” the witch cried.

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz,” said Simone.

“Oh, it’s you,” said the witch. “And yes, I can understand cockroaches.”

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz.”

“Oh no you won’t,” the witch said.

Bzz bzz bz bzz.”

The witch grabbed for her wand and started firing curses at Simone, and Simone started scuttling around, trying to avoid the curses.

Bzz bzz bzzzzzzz bzzz bzz bzz bzz!!

“No!” the witch yelled. “Please don’t bite me!”

Bzz, bzz bzz bzz bzz!

“Absolutely not!” said the witch, and magical gavels started banging around the room. Simone scuttled around again, trying to avoid the gavels.

After an hour, the witch had gotten tired and said, “You and I will propose a truce and have tea together.”

So, the witch made a tiny little cup for Simone and then made tiny little cakes which Simone ate all up. “Okay,” the witch said. “Now the truce is over.” And she started throwing chairs at Simone and overturning the tables and smashing all the tea cups. After she had destroyed all of her furniture, she went into her bed and went to sleep.

Well, Simone was also tired, so she crawled back into her hole, so she wouldn’t get smashed by anything and fell asleep there. The next morning, the witch found Simone in her bedroom again, eating her dresses.

“Stop eating my dresses!” the witch said and overturned her bed trying to get to Simone.

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz!” said Simone.

“No they are not, and I should know because I accidentally turned myself into a cockroach and took a bite of my dresses. It tasted terrible,” said the witch.

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz.

Simone started dodging around, avoiding the witch’s hand. “Stop destroying my stuff!” the witch said.

Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz,” Simone said.

“Well, I’m tired,” the witch said. “I’m going to go back to sleep… ” And then the witch magicked the overturned bed back to its original position and laid her wand on the bedside table. Simone was hungry, and as an Australian Wood Cockroach, she wanted to eat wood. The witch’s wand was made of wood, so she climbed up her bedside table and started eating the wand. By the time the witch woke up, her wand was destroyed, and Simone was back to her original form as a Unicorn.

“Oh no!” the witch said. “You are now a unicorn.”

And then Simone ran as fast as she could, kicked the door down, and ran back home with her mother.

Chapter Four: The Mysterious Murderer

When Simone got back to her house, she laid down and rested for a million years. Then when she woke up, her mother was an old granny with five hundred kids with a walker and fake golden teeth.

Then, Simone met a handsome young male unicorn named Isaac, and she said, “Will you marry me?”

“No,” he said, very, very rudely. Then, Isaac immediately died. There was an arrow stuck in his throat with poison in it — it said Gunjabar on the side.

“I must find this mysterious murderer!” said Simone. “They have murdered my loved one.”

Then, she went home and consulted the library to find out what Gunjabar was. She found out it was the most deadly poison, and it would raise the dead after an hour. So, she put posters up quickly with her horn, and soon everyone in town knew that someone had died from Gunjabar, but nobody thought it could actually raise the dead. So after an hour, Isaac the male unicorn rose from the dead and terrified all the unicorns into their homes where they shut themselves in with 500 million bajillion locks.

Simone walked carefully and quietly to the library to see if there was a cure for Gunjabar. The librarycorn looked through a little peephole in the door, unlocked the 500 million bajillion locks, let Simone in, closed the door, and locked the 500 million bajillion locks. She read every single book about poisons, and she could not find a cure. But one book called What Happens in Poisons said there was another book that might help cure the effects of the poison before it was irreversible, but she had to do it by dawn of the fifth day. There was only one copy, and it had been lost for a century. She decided to look for it.

She flew across the Atlantic Ocean, in and out of clouds. She finally came to a small island about fifteen feet wide and two miles across. There were two palm trees at each side, and in the middle was a poem and five rocks, and the poem said, The one palm in the middle of the island and five rocks split evenly on the ends will sink the island like a boat until you figure out how the puzzle bends.

“This is… this is… it,” Simone said. “This is where the book is.”

Chapter Five: The Book

Simone dug up the whole island in search of the book. She had dug up a whole island, and it was now a big mound of dirt with two palm trees and five rocks, when she noticed that it was only ten feet across. It had sunk five feet. So, she had two more days. She decided that another unicorn had cast a spell, so it would appear when they solved the riddle. So, she picked up the piece of paper again, read it over, and decided it made no sense because she knew that there were two palm trees not one. And five was an odd number, so it could not be split evenly. Simone decided to try anyway.

She walked around the now seven feet across island and looked at the palm trees from every single angle there could be. Finally, the last angle made sense. She could only see the first palm tree, and there wasn’t another one. But she still didn’t know how to split the rocks evenly, and she only had five hours left. She got an extra rock from the ocean and put three on each side — that didn’t work. She tried to use herself as a rock — that didn’t work either. And Simone was getting tired because the rocks were very heavy. Then, after five more tries, she finally thought of splitting one in half. It still was five rocks, but it had one split in half and two and a half plus two and a half equals… five! Simone saw the book hovering above the island. She made a bag out of the tree leaves and made sure it didn’t blow away by putting rocks on it. She flew across the ocean, landed in her hometown, and locked herself in her house.

She read the book, and she discovered the cure: a corpse flower, a Madagascar hissing cockroach, and rare gems like pearls, amethyst, desert rose, and an especially one of a kind, toucorrall. The toucorrall was different blues, and it looked exactly like the ocean, which made it hard to find because it was found in the ocean. Simone quickly looked up where everything was, except the Madagascar hissing cockroach because of course that was in Madagascar. She flew over the Pacific Ocean and landed on another island, except it wasn’t as small as the first. She covered every inch of the island, even though she thought that the corpse flower would be easy to find because it was as tall as a five story building. She suddenly smelled a repulsive smell. She followed the smell, and she came to a clearing.

“P.U.!” Simone said. What is that?! Simone wondered.

Hello, welcome to … Dun da da duuuuun… What The Heck Is That Thing! The game show in Simone’s mind!

“Okay, Lazy, what do you have to say for yourself?” said the judge. He looked like a carrot, as in he was a carrot.

CHH-SHOO CHH-SHOO, Lazy snored. Lazy is one of the contestants. There’s Lazy, Magic, and Cute. Cute is always cute, Magic isn’t really there because she’s magic, and Lazy is always asleep. Those were all Simone’s personalities.

They had booths, and Mr. Carrot the judge asked, “Now, Magic, what do you have to say for yourself?” And Magic didn’t answer because Magic wasn’t really there.

“MAGIC!” Mr Carrot shouted. “Come here immediately, or you will be severely punished.”

And then Magic appeared and said, “I’m not sure what it is, but I can destroy it or make it live forever or… or… or… or… ”

“SHUT UP!” Mr. Carrot shouted. “Now, Cute, what do you have to say for yourself?”

And Cute said, “I don’t know what it is either, but it’s not cute, and it smells horrible, and it’s going to ruffle my fur.”

“That means only one thing… It is a corpse flower!” Simone said.

Simone took a petal from the corpse flower with some difficulty and used it as an umbrella because it was raining. She went home and added it to a big pot her adoptive stepmother usually used for soups or Simone’s favorite thing ever: hummus. So, she crossed the corpse flower off her list. The next thing on her list was the Madagascar hissing cockroach. She suddenly felt something scuttling up her leg. She used her horn to levitate it and found it was a Madagascar hissing cockroach. I didn’t know this was Madagascar, Simone thought. She put it in the pot and then put a lid on it so it wouldn’t escape and crossed the cockroach off her list. The next were the rare gems. She knew exactly where to find them because her mother sometimes used them for a spell, but they were pretty far. She memorized which gems she needed and decided that if she found any others, she would use them for a spell. She set out for all the rare gems except toucorrall.

She found the pearl first and put it in a little bag she wove from fresh leaves. Then, she flew across a lake and into an underwater cave in a stream a little while off. In the cave, she found an amethyst crystal. She cut the rock in half with her horn and carved out three amethyst crystals. They were purple, and they filled all around the inside of the rock. Simone came up for air and dragged herself out of the stream. Her next target was the desert rose. She flew to the desert. She scoured every inch of the desert and found some jade, some papery diamond, and some coyote skulls. Simone flew to the next desert and immediately spotted a whole pile, about seven stories high, of desert roses. But the moment she took one from the top, a huge — about ten stories high — coyote roared a really loud roar, and Simone smashed the desert rose into powder and sprinkled it over the cactus to make the thorns disappear. The coyote, who survived on his own saliva, leapt aside to lap up the cool cactus water. Simone stole five desert roses and flew to her house and put it in the big pot.

Only one gem left! Simone thought.

The toucorral was found only once in the Tasman Sea. So, Simone mashed up one of the extra desert roses again, looked in the pantry, and mixed it with exactly one gallon of water. She mixed them and produced a sandy colored liquid that would turn her into a mermaid-unicorn. She put it in a bottle, put it in the basket she wove from fresh leaves, and set off across the Tasman Sea to the exact spot where it was found last. She drank the whole bottle of potion and dove in. She swam past the Intertidal zone, the Subtidal zone, through the Bathyal zone, past the Abyssal zone, and all the way into the Hadal zone. She found the cave where the toucorral was found and searched every tunnel, every twist and turn. But she did not find any sign of toucorral. Simone searched five other caves, each bigger than the first, and only found terrifying fish. Then, she scoured every coral reef and lit her horn to see through fish, if they had eaten the toucorral accidentally. She was just giving up hope when she thought of Isaac and the unicorns at home. She decided she would never ever give up for Isaac. She kept her horn lit and dug and dug and dug and dug until her hole was fifteen million bajillion miles deep. She dove into it and was dazzled with what she saw. Toucorral was all around her, behind her and on her sides. The toucorral was exactly like the ocean except much more beautiful and with streaks of yellow, pink, and purple. She carefully inserted her horn and cut out two pieces of the toucorral. She flew back home at superspeed and dropped one part in the pot.

Simone took a wooden spoon and started stirring. It turned into a sun-yellow mixture. She magicked a dummy of herself and pushed it outside. Isaac the unicorn spotted it and galloped toward it. Just when he was about to take a bite of her stuffed ear, she stuffed a spoonful of the yellow liquid down his throat. Isaac turned back to normal!!! He went to all the unicorns and apologized for what he did when he was a zombie, giving Simone time to carve a special pendant out of the second toucorral piece. She gave the special pendant, which was shaped as a heart, to Isaac as their engagement necklace, and he agreed to marry her.

The End


Busch Gardens

We were pulling into an amusement park called Busch Gardens in Virginia. My dad hit the switch that turned off the radio. I was kind of annoyed because it was in the middle of my favorite song from Hamilton.

“Dad,” I said, “turn it back on. That was my favorite song.” There was no response. I saw him out the window walking away. I opened the door and ran after my dad, calling for him. I finally caught up with him. “Dad, you left without me,” I complained.

We kept on walking to the entrance. It read Busch Gardens! I smiled. Today was the day I was going to overcome my fear of big roller coasters. I was a little nervous but still excited. My dad handed me my ticket and told me to give it to the person when we go through the turnstile. I handed the lady the ticket.

She said, “Thank you.”

We walked on to meet Audrey and Brian. Brian had just had a party to celebrate a book he wrote. Audrey was Brian’s daughter. She was 11 at the time, and I was eight.

“Hi,” I said to Audrey in a cheerful tone to make a good impression.

She said, “Hi” back.

We had a conversation until we got to the actual park. She took an iPad out of her bag and showed me videos of all the rides. She pointed at the ride that we were going on first. I looked at it in horror. It had loop-the-loops, big drops, and twists. That was everything I was scared of. I shivered slightly.

We were lining up for a roller coaster called the Loch Ness Monster. I was very confused because everybody was talking so fast. We used our fast passes to skip the line. I sat down in the middle because I was the smallest. My hands were sweaty, and I was shaking. I was so nervous. I had never been on a rollercoaster this big. I felt a small drop down. The ride had started. “Ahhhhh!” I was so scared. The roller coaster was shaking my head back and forth. My least favorite part was when you were about to go down a hill and you’re going up with the cranking noise. My head tilted backwards, and my neck started to hurt. The cranking stopped. There was a small pause. Oh no, we were about to go down the drop. I put my hands up. “Ahhhhhhh!” Then because we were going so fast, the first loop-the-loop was unnoticeable. There was another drop. When going up, I looked down. It looked like 5,000 feet. I could already feel sweat trickling down my face. I had just noticed one more thing. At the bottom of the drop, there was a pool of water. I was so focused on how scared I was that I didn’t noticed that we stopped. I felt a sudden jerk. “Ahhhhhhhh!” I lifted my arms up like everybody else. It felt like we were falling for ten minutes. My arms started to hurt from holding them up for so long. We finally made a big splash in the pool of water. Water creeped up my arms and legs. It got into my shirt. We came to a stop. I unbuckled my seatbelt and stepped off. I was still pretty dizzy because of all the twists and turns. I waddled off with my mouth hanging open.

We went to the bar to get a drink. On the screen I clicked on Sprite. A gazillion different kinds showed on the screen. I never knew there were more than one kind. I wanted to try them all. First, I clicked on the vanilla flavor and put a little in my cup. It was too sweet. I tried every other kind. There was cherry, orange, blueberry, strawberry, and grape. My favorite was original. I tried a mix of every kind. I spit it out and filled with lemon-lime. I jumped up and down from all the sugar. Then, we got ice cream.

I picked up the map and looked at it. It was huge. I had to stretch out my arms to hold the whole thing. I asked my dad where we were.

He pointed to the bottom of the map and where we were going. He pointed to the very top. “There,” he said.

I looked at the map in horror. We had just passed the ice cream store. And even though we had walked for five minutes, we had only walked an inch on the map.

After 20 minutes of walking, we got to the ride. This one was even bigger than the other one. Big drops, five loop-the-loops, and it was going much faster.

“Here we are,” said my dad in an enthusiastic voice.

Neither Audrey nor I wanted to go on this one. Then, I saw a girl who looked like she was younger than me, and when she came back around, it looked like she was having fun. My feet felt like they were locked in place. My dad nudged me to move forward because the cart was here. I took a big step on to the cart. I sat in the middle again. I looked at the ride in front of me.

After the ride, I stepped off, my head still bobbing like a chicken. I was very proud of myself. The biggest ride I had been on before this was the mouse ride at Rye Playland. I think it had one drop, not steep at all and maybe 20 feet. I had definitely loved the first two rides here at Busch Gardens, but I knew there was more to come. After being on those rides, I knew I was ready for anything.

Ruth to the Rescue

Chapter One: The Perfect Life

“Children, time for breakfast!” Papa shouted.

Ruth jumped out of bed, threw on her clothes, and ran downstairs. It was her birthday, so Mama told the best stories.

As Ruth sat down, she thought life never would be better. But soon her life was about to change… very soon.

Chapter Two: The Evil Army

Dogs barked. Wolves howled. Ruth knew something was not right. She tiptoed downstairs and peeked out. She gasped. It was Mama’s story come to life. She remembered every word. But she never thought that it was true. The evil army was here next to her house, and she could do nothing about it. Or maybe she could.

Chapter Three: The Chase

Ruth grabbed food, water, and a bike. She also left a note. She started pedaling. Soon she was so close to the army that she could smell them. They reeked like dead bodies. She chased them for a month until finally she ran out of food, not to mention water. Eventually, they got to the hideout. Ruth went as fast as she could, but she was too late. Her mom was dead, and the army were well on their way. She had to find the weapons.

Chapter Four: The Boy

Ruth saw a small boy and said, “The army is coming, the army is coming!’’ But the real army sent a fake army to distract them. She quickly learned that his name was Deano. “Goodbye, Deano. My name is Ruth,” she said.

He finally found the words to say, “Goodbye, Ruth.’’

And she ran to find the first weapon mentioned in her mother’s story.

Chapter Five: The First Weapon

After three tiring days, she came to the cave entrance and went in, hoping that the army had not come yet. She heard the army behind her. She saw the weapon, which was glowing, and she jumped up, grabbed it, and hid. The army’s leader walked right past her. So, Ruth sort of ran and tiptoed to the entrance, hiding when he looked her way. Suddenly, he saw her and pounced. She remembered his weakness: his neck. She snapped his neck, and he howled. She ran out, snapping necks as she was going. When she was safe, she saw that the weapon was a book, and she knew that it was the real weapon.

Chapter Six: The Second Weapon

Ruth began to tremble; she knew that the army would be after her life for killing their leader. But she knew she had to find weapon number two. She set out for the west to find the weapon — for the second weapon was always in the west in her mother’s story. Ruth made a compass to find the west. Finally, finally she found the desert. She also found the fake rock and crawled through it, grabbed the weapon, and ran out. The second weapon was also a book. She nearly cried with joy.

Chapter Seven: The Third Weapon

Ruth saw the army coming, and so she hid and hoped they wouldn’t notice. But they did, and the new leader came and started to fight her. The new leader was the son of the man Ruth had killed, and he fought even more than his father had. Ruth fought back and finally won. Ruth ran to New York City, to the Empire State Building, and started running as fast as she could to the 600th floor where her mother’s story told her the third book would be hidden. She hid and waited and waited, waiting for the right moment to strike because if someone caught her they would kill her. Finally, she grabbed the book from the pool and then tried to blend in, but she looked suspicious.

Chapter Eight: The Fourth Weapon

Next, Ruth needed to travel to Israel where she knew the fourth book would be hidden. After many tiring days, Ruth reached Israel and went directly to the Kotel to pray and climb. She put her own paper in the wall, with her own note. She started the long climb up and up and up. Finally, she reached the top of the Kotel. Israel was so beautiful from there. She took the book and jumped down. The last place where the weapon was the most dangerous, so she crawled away.

Chapter Nine: The Fifth Weapon

Ruth crawled to a book burning place and winced. She took the book and ran right into the Demon King!

“Your time has come,” he hissed.

“Cut it out,” her mom said. “She did well, and you have lost. Ruth, fight! We will help.” Seeing Ruth’s puzzled looks, she said, “I pretended to die, so you would win, and you have done so well — ”

Suddenly, the Demon King started fighting. Her friends and family fought better, and soon he was dead. Ruth gathered the books together, and they multiplied, so they made a library.

The End.


Lost

Introduction

Hi, I’m Sunny! I’m six months old! I’m a polar bear, if you’re wondering. I live in Antarctica.

Two months ago, my best friend Mark asked, “Do you want to go party in two months?”

I said yes…

Chapter One: The Guy with the Muscat

Now it is three in the morning, and I am cuddled up with my mom and excited to go to the party.

“Is it time yet?” I ask desperately.

“It’s too early,” Mommy says.

“Okay,” I say before I go to sleep.

Now it’s 7:30, and I’m waking up. “Mommy mommy, wake up!!!” I exclaim.

“Yes?” Mommy says.

“Time to wake up!” I say.

I go to the sweater closet and grab my blue sweater. Mommy grabs her sweater, and we head to the party.

We live on Sixth Avenue on the corner of Polo Street.

Now we are at the party, and we are eating cupcakes, and someone shouts, “Piñata time!

Someone smacks a piñata, and a bunch of pondy (candy) comes out, and anyways we all grab pondy, and then we hear big, big footsteps. Then, we see a big human man with a muscat. We all drop our candy and run. I don’t know what to do. I see Mommy, and then I don’t.

Chapter Two: Where’s Mommy?

“Mommy mommy!” I shout. No one responds. I drop to the floor and start crying. “MOMMY!!!” I shout. My tears grow bigger.

Later that day, I find my house.

“Yes!” I shout. I go inside.

There is no one there, and I start to cry even more. I start to think about all the fun things Mommy and I did, and I go back to my first thought.

“This all happened because of the party,” I say to myself.

Now it is close to night time. Time for supper! I go to the waterfall to catch some fish. I am tired. I should go to bed now. Later that night, I hear a noise. “Hoo hoo,” says the noise.

“AHHH! I wish Mommy was here,” I say, trying not to cry.

Now it is 6:00 in the morning. “I guess I can go look for Mom,” I say.

While I am walking, I see a drama sign. What I mean by drama sign is it says, Drama this way. I followed it. Now I am on a cloud. “Where am I?” I say, trying to get someone’s attention. I hear no one. “HELLO!” I shout. I crawl forward. Someone jumps up. “AHHH!” I shout while I fall over in surprise.

“My job is done,” the someone says as she walks away.

That moment, I remember I am on a cloud, and clouds are made of gas and water, and water is a liquid that I can drink. I then stuff my face in cloud.

Chapter Three: Drama

“Well, well, well, look who it is,” a man says.

He is tall and is wearing black boots, a black hoodie, and black jeans. I sit up and brush the cloud off my fur.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“You!” the man says.

I get confused. “Me?” I ask.

“Yes, you,” the man says.

“Oh, okay,” I say.

“Where’s your mom?” the man asks.

“Uhh, I don’t know,” I say.

“Well, that’s a problem,” the man says. “Then I guess I’ll have to take you to the polar orphanages,” the man says.

“No, please, no!” I say. I shiver in fear.

“Okay, fine. You’ll just have to pass this obstacle.”

“Okay,” I say.

The man leads me to the road. He shows me a bunch of cars that have no one in them. He tells me, “If you could jump over all these cars nonstop, you’ll move to the next one. Okay?”

“Got it,” I say.

“No, you’re supposed to say ‘okay,’” the man says.

“Okay?” I say, confused.

“Come on.” He grabs his timer, and then he times me. “Three, two, one, go!” the man says.

I start jumping over the cars. When I’m near the finish line, the man holds out a cone, and I have to avoid it.

“Ah!” I scream, but I avoid it.

Now he leads me to the next obstacle.

“Good, my boy,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say back.

Now for the next obstacle, he leads me to a bunch of cones and a little scooter, and he tells me, “Get on that scooter, and avoid all those cones in under ten seconds!”

That second, I realize that there are not a lot of cones. I feel confident for a second though. I hop on the scooter, and the man says, “Go!”

I go as fast as I can. “I’m making it! I’m making it!” I shout. “Oh no,” I say. There are a bunch of cones in the way. Now I have to avoid them all. I do that in five seconds. I’m at the finish line!

But the man says, “It took fifteen seconds. You didn’t complete it. Say goodbye to your dreams of living away from the orphanage.”

I look to the ground. The man picks me up and throws me in a car.

“Please, no!” I shout one more time.

“You shouldn’t have listened to the sign,” the man says.

“Well, then why do you have it?” I ask.

“Because, to make people fall for this. Duh,” the man says.

He drives away really quickly. Then, he gets out of the car and opens the door of the back seat, and he picks me up. Then, he gets on his boat and goes to another island. I try not to cry. The man looks at me and looks happy. Soon, we are at the other island. He picks me up, and I see a sign that says Polar Orphanage.

He shoves me in a room, and it doesn’t look so much like a room. It looks more like a bunch of bars. He shoves me in with a plate of food. Little does he know that I am strong. When he leaves back in his boat, he does not take the same boat. He takes a different one.

“How come?” I say to myself.

Now, since I am strong, I open the bars. I jump out. I see a bunch of other animals. Some of them like it, and some of them don’t. For those who don’t like it, I open their bars. Soon, I see a gorilla.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Well, I couldn’t find the gorilla orphanage, so I came here. But I really don’t like it. The ceiling is too low.” Bang! He hits his head.

“Okay,” I say.

I open the bars, but it is not big enough. I keep trying and trying, but it’s just not opening. I look around the room. Hmmm. I find the keys to his room.

“Yes!” I shout with excitement.

“Well, are you going to get me out or not?” the gorilla asks.

“Oh, right,” I say.

I run over to his room, and I open it. But quickly, I grab all the food I can and run out with all the animals. Then, I see a big yacht.

I go over and ask the gorilla, “Can you steer boats?”

“In my sleep!” the gorilla says.

“Great,” I say.

Everyone climbs on the yacht, and we drive away, back to Antarctica. I find some instruments on dock, and everyone plays one. Soon, we are at Antarctica. I see someone on their boat.

“Oh no!” I shout. “Quick, everyone, hide!”

We all kneel. The gorilla runs downstairs, because he doesn’t have anywhere to go. We all crawl downstairs with the gorilla.

“Woo, that was a close one!” I say.

We all run back to the main dock. The gorilla keeps steering. Finally, we are at Antarctica. We all see the man. I run into a wig shop with the animals.

“I have a plan. So, we all buy wigs and costumes, so we look like different animals to the man. Then, gorilla, you dress up as a human, so he knows that you own the yacht, okay?!” I say.

“Okay!” everyone says.

I get all of the wigs and costumes, and gorilla is all dressed up. He has a mustache, and a beard wig, and he has on a Santa costume, even though it’s January.

“I’m excited to go on the yacht to go see my gorilla friends!”

Chapter Four: Back to the Orphanage

We all go outside looking different.

“Do you know if there are six bright white polar bears and a big handsome gorilla in the wig shop?” the man asks the gorilla.

“Uh no,” the gorilla says stressfully.

“Oh, okay,” the man says. “Well, I think I know where they are. They might be right in front of my face!” the man says as he rips of all of our disguises.

“I need a new plan,” I mutter to myself. The man throws us in a go-kart. “How come it is not a boat?” I ask myself.

He puts us all in cozy seats and puts the gorilla and three polar bears in a different go-kart and the rest of us in another.

We are now going to a different orphanage, and they put three polar bears in one room, and the other three polar bears in the other room, and the gorilla in a go-kart. The man drives him away to a gorilla orphanage, and his mom is sitting on the steps waiting for him. I wish my mom was sitting on the steps for me. I start to cry again.

The room the man puts us in is very cozy. It has three big cushions that I want to sleep on, it has a big, bright, and shiny window, a beautiful rug, and three little places to do your business… Anyways, I sit in front of the window and sit there a long, long, long, long time, and then I hear a pulling noise. It sounds like a curtain. I turn around, and I see a polar bear pushing a curtain.

“Yay, we have a curtain. So we have some privacy!” I say.

The polar bear who was pushing and pulling the curtain says, “I know! It’s so fun!”

Then, I look around the room, and I also find a bookshelf. I run over to it and start pulling out a million books.

“Whatcha doing?” the other polar bear says.

“Oh, just pulling out a million books,” I say.

“I’m just tired. I want to go to sleep,” the other polar bear says, while he’s pulling the curtain shut.

Once he is fast asleep, I mutter to myself, “This is not going to be fun if everyone hates me because my plan didn’t work.”

The polar bear who was pushing and pulling the curtains says, “I won’t hate you!” He pats me on the back. “I thought your plan was amazing.”

I go over to the polar bear that was pushing and pulling the curtains, and I go over to ask his name.

He tells me that his name is Jeremy.

I tell him mine. “Hi, I’m Sunny,” I say.

Chapter Five: A New Chapter Begins

When the other polar bear wakes up, he goes straight to the business section, and when he is done, I go over to him, and I ask him his name.

He tells me, “The name’s Danie, bro.”

“Oh, my name is Sunny,” I say back.

“Well, then you’re a rare one,” he tells me.

“I am?” I say, confused.

“Yes,” he pauses. “The name Sunny is a rare one, kid,” he tells me and soon says, “I know a lot about the name Sunny, and one thing I know about is that if your name’s Sunny and if you lose your mom, the name Sunny will not grow stronger.”

“Oh,” I say sadly.

Quickly, he says, “But if you really feel like you’re important, you will grow stronger.”

“Hmm,” I say to myself.

“What?” Danie asks.

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

“Well then,” he says. He runs over to the door, and he tries to open it, but it’s locked. “Dang it!” Danie says.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Oh, nothing, it’s just that the door is locked,” Danie says.

“Duh, it’s always going to be locked!” I say.

“Oh,” he says.

I look around the room, and I see a hammer. I walk over to it.

“What’s this?” I ask everybody.

They both tell me, “It’s a hammer.”

“Well, I’ve got a plan, then.”

“Your last plan didn’t work, so how can we trust you?” they say.

“Just watch. Maybe you don’t have to, but I will!” I say.

“Okay, then we’ll just watch,” they say.

I run over to the window, and I take a peek.

They say, “You’re really going to jump out the window? That’s too risky!”

“No, it’s not!” I say. I take another peek. I see how high up we are, and I say, “Yes, it is too risky.”

I put the hammer down and walk away. Then, I try to get on my hind legs. Then that doesn’t work, and I find a stool and jump on it. It’s not high enough. Then, I jump on a higher stool. It’s too high. Then, I look around the room again. I find the perfect looking stool. It’s just the right size! I run over to it and jump on it. Everyone was looking at me the whole time.

“Uh, what are you doing?” they ask.

“Hehe,” I say. “Just trying to get this, uh, thing.”

“Oh, okay!” Danie says.

“I want to see it!” Jeremy says.

“Ugh, fine,” I say. “Just a little peek!”

“What, we never agreed to that,” Jeremy says angrily.

“Even though we didn’t decide on it, doesn’t mean I can’t hide it!” I say.

“Hey!” Danie says. “Rhymes won’t work this time.”

“Hey, you just said a rhyme!” I said.

“You can’t keep rhyming, we don’t have much time.”

“Hey, you just rhymed again!” he said.

“Okay, let’s just both stop rhyming,” we say together.

“Jinx! You owe me a Coke,” we both say.

“No, you owe me a Coke.”

“No, you owe me a Coke!”

“No, you owe me a Coke!”

“No, you do!”

“No, you do!”

“Can you guys shut the noise?!” Danie screams.

“Sorry,” we both say.

“Jinx! You owe me a Coke!” Jeremy says.

“Hey, there’s no vending machines in here,” I say back.

“Well, then why did we just start this huge fight?” he says.

“Uh, I don’t know.”

I run up the stool and go get my thing.

“Hey! You said I could have a peek!” Jeremy screams.

“Stop screaming!” Danie said.

I hide the thing with both of my arms. I fall off the stool. “Ahh!” I fall to the business section. “Ew! Ew! Gross! Gross!” I say.

I hear a loud banging noise. I think it was the window cleaner.

I shout at the window, “Hey, window cleaner! Can you let us out?”

Then, I realize it’s just a fight in the window next door. And then I run across the room and look out the other window. It is the window cleaner! I run over to him and start tapping on the window. Then, I draw a sign that says, Let us out to be free! I hold it up to the window. He ignores the sign. Well, at least I thought. I hear the door unlock. He has three little cages.

I ask him very quickly, “Are you trapping us in those or are you letting us free?”

He hesitates. “Uhhhh.” He runs away. A construction hat falls onto the ground.

“Thanks, window cleaner!” I say.

Then, I go to the corner of the room and say, “I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”

Danie and Jeremy run to their bed. “I call this one!” they both shout.

“Okay then, I’ll go in the middle one,” I say.

Chapter Six: Jeremy’s Life

Now it is eight o’clock. I’m up, but still, no one else is up. I take a look around the room. It looks like someone has been eating my crackers. I look outside the window. I see a creepy man in a hoodie.

“Oh no,” I say. I bang on the window. The man turns around — it’s just the window cleaner. “Phew!” I say.

He takes a look at me — a very strange look. And then I look at his molars, and I see some bits of crackers.

“Hey, you ate my crackers!” I shout so loud that he can actually hear me. He looks at me so strange, but it actually looks more like shock. I immediately say, “Oh, do animals not talk on this continent?”

He falls over. Since we are so high up, he keeps tumbling and tumbling down. There is a man walking on his phone with earbuds on below him. The man who has earbuds in looks up. He sees a falling man coming towards him. He doesn’t know what to do! He doesn’t want to walk away. The man falls on him. Plump! I feel bad for the man. But it would be fun if that drop was a roller coaster… Anyways, wait, what is that? I smell something awfully terrible. It is Danie doing something.

“Nevermind,” I say.

“Hey, Sunny, come over here!” Jeremy shouts.

“Okay!” I shout back. I walk over to Jeremy.

“So the best way to be a friend is to tell them about their life,” he told me.

“Sounds great!” I say.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you about my life,” he says.

“So, are you going to tell me?” I say.

“Of course I am!” he says. “So, when I was born, it was not a good time. My dad died at the age of sixteen, and my mom was very, very brave to make me as a child. And then my mom, she got taken away, so now I was on my own, and I decided to travel around Antarctica. But that was a mistake. Some person found me, and he made me go to an orphanage, but I escaped it through a little hole in the window. I found a bowl of food outside the door, so I ate that and ran. Then, I went back to our house that we used to live in, but it was destroyed. It was practically melted. But there was one thing left in there: it was a piece of my mom’s fur.”

He reaches for the locket on his neck and pulls out his mom’s fur.

“Oh my gosh!” I say.

He keeps on with the story. “Then, I saw this drama sign, and I went the way that it said there was drama. Then, I was on a cloud, and someone jumped up behind me and scared me. I fell over. I got up and kept running. Then, I bumped into this weird creepy man. He picked me up with no hesitation and put me in a boat and locked me up. He steered the boat all the way to an orphanage. And then I met you!”

“Wow,” I said.

Chapter Seven: Escape

After Jeremy told me the story of his life, I take a look back at my life. “Wow, they’re pretty similar,” I say to myself. “Maybe he’s related to me.”

“Huh?” Danny says.

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

“Please tell me,” Danny says.

“Okay,” I say, ready to tell him a lie. “Well, so, basically I was thinking we could escape if someone who’s related to me could get us out.”

“Oh,” Danny says. “Who’s related to you?”

“My sister,” I said.
“Where is she?” Danny asks.

“I don’t know.” I shrug.

He takes a look out the window. He looks at the skyscraper right next to the orphanage building. He sees a bright white polar bear on the street that looks a bit like me.

“Hey, Sunny!” Danny says. “Come over here! I think I found your sister.”

“Really?” I say.

“Yup, really,” he says.

“Great!” I say. I run over to him. I take a look out the window. I shout, “That is my sister!” I take the hammer that I found, and I turn it around and use the wood part to bang on the window. “Hey, Lexi! Here! Open up!”

She looks up. She looks at me with her bright yellow smile. She does not brush her teeth. She runs to the door of the orphanage. She doesn’t ring the doorbell; she doesn’t knock. She finds a hole in the door, and she runs up the stairs.

She peeks through the mail hole, and I give her the hammer.

“Great!” she says. She smashes through the door.

“We’re out!” we shout.

I give my sister a big hug. “Wait, but what about the other people?” I say.

“Oh, right! Let’s go smash down their door.”

“Help! Let us out! Help! Let us out!” they shout.

We smash down their door.

“Yay!” they scream.

We all run out the door.

“Thank you,” I say to Danie.

We run out the building.

“Wait! We’ve got to put on our disguises,” I say.

“Why?” Danie asks.

“Because we can’t look like ourselves, because then they’re going to notice us and put us back in our cages!”

“Ohh,” they both say. “Hey, there’s an ice cream shop. Maybe we can stop and get ice cream.”

“We don’t have any money,” I say.

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says. “I was hoping for some ice cream.”

“Well,” I say. “I only have one dollar, and the only thing I can buy us with one dollar is something from the vending machine over there.”

“Let’s do it!”

I look at the options. There are a lot of gummy options, and I go for the Welch’s pack.

“We’re all going to share,” I say.

“Okay,” everyone says.

I push the button 74. The Welch’s pack falls, and falls, and falls. Finally, it reaches the bottom. I reach my hand in, and I grab the Welch’s pack. I open the bag. Everyone reaches for a gummy.

“Thanks!” everyone says.

“No more time for dilly-dallying. We’ve got to go,” I say.

“Okay,” everyone says. They start skipping out the door.

“What are you guys doing?” I say.

“Ummm, just skipping.”
“I said no dilly-dallying!” I say.

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says.

We walk as if we’re people going over to a boat.

“Hey, someone left this boat on! Let’s go in.”

Before I go over to the steering wheel, I see the guy running back to his boat.

“Uh oh!” I shout. I turn it on, and I go across the ocean.

“Hey! Get back here!” the man shouts.

He doesn’t realize that there’s no fence, and he starts to run over to his boat. He falls into the ocean.

“We’ve caused a lot of trouble today,” I say.

Chapter Eight: Fat Daddy Taco

When I go downstairs, I see a treasure chest. I open it, and there’s millions of dollars!

“Oh my gosh!” I shout. “Everybody, come downstairs!”

“What?” they all shout.

“I found a treasure chest full of money!” I bring it upstairs, up to the dock.

“Woah!” everyone says.

I see a sign. It says New York instead of Antarctica. I accidentally go to New York City. I see a statue. It’s the Statue of Liberty! We get off the boat, and we dock it. Everyone takes a shocked look at our boat, because they all have cars, and we’re the only ones dragging a boat on land. Everyone tries to not look away. Soon, we reach Fifth Avenue.

“Why is it only the Fifth Avenue? Then this avenue must be ancient!” I say. I go down one more avenue. It says Fourth Avenue. “This avenue is even more ancient!” I shout.

All the polar bears look at me, confused.

“Why are there polar bears in blue, and pink, and purple wigs?” one of the humans says.

I ignore it. I look at the avenue. Now that we have millions and millions of dollars, I look at the shops. I see McDonalds. Eh, too cheap! I look around again. Fatty Daddy Taco! I tell everyone to go over there and act like real humans. I see them go up to the counter.

They go in and ask the man, “Hello, may we please have 600 tacos to go, please?”

The man looks at me, but he doesn’t look away. He falls to the ground.

“Oh, do animals not talk in this dimension?” they say.

They go in the back of the kitchen. They find 600 tacos! They take them and run out.

“Here, let’s leave 1,000 dollars behind. This place might be too cheap,” they say.

They leave. I see them come back with the 600 tacos.

“What took you so long?” I say.

They tell me.

“Now I get it,” I say. “We have to find a house that we can live in.”

“Which house do we pick?” they say.

“We can’t just pick a house!” I say. “Here, let’s buy a million dollar house in the suburban areas.”

“Okay!” they all say.

I wander off into Red Hook. I see a giant Tesla shop.

“Ohh, let’s buy one of these!” I say.

I take another million dollar bill, and we choose a Tesla. I choose a bright white Tesla. I give them the million dollars, and that moment I realize that I don’t have a driver’s license, and we all can’t fit in one car! Uh oh!

Chapter Nine: Tesla!

I sit down on the ground. I sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Jeremy asks.

“Oh, it’s just that we all can’t fit into one Tesla, and I don’t have a driver’s license… ” There is something poking me on my tush. I look under me. It’s a driver’s license! “Never mind, I have a driver’s license!” I go back in the Tesla shop. I see a Tesla with six seats! “Our problems are solved!” I see another person in a black hoodie. He takes my briefcase. “Hey!” I shout. I run after them. My wig flies off. “Oh no!” I shout and run back to get it. Then, I realize the burglar is already down the block. “Oh no!” I say.

I see a police officer eating a giant burger. It looks like a skyscraper.

The police officer says to the guy, “What are you doing with that briefcase?”

“Uh, uh… ” He gives it to me right away and runs off. The police officer leaves.

We buy the Tesla, and we drive to New Jersey. There’s a big sign that says New Jersey. I see a house right in front of us. It says For Sale. It’s a giant mansion that costs 10 million dollars. It’s white, it has a large arrangement of stairs going up to the front door, and two big columns that are holding up the roof of the front door. It kind of looks like the White House.

“Eh, not cozy enough!” I say.

We drive down the block a little further. I see two houses right next to each other. They say For Sale. They’re supposed to be connected; that’s why the For Sale sign is between them. It has a fountain right in between both of them, two cars can fit in the driveway, two floors for each house, and a porch swing in front.

“Cozy house! Let’s buy it.” I call the number that is on the sign.

Ring ring ring! goes the phone.

“Hello?”
“Yes, I would like to buy your house in New Jersey on St. Adams Street,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. I look at how much money it is. It’s 20 million dollars! “20 million dollars, please!” the man says. “What’s your credit card number?” he says. I look at the bottom of the briefcase. I see a credit card. It has 30 million dollars on it.

“Okay.” I give him my credit card number.

“Okay,” the man says. “The house is yours! I’ll give you the key in ten minutes. I’ll be there. Goodbye.”

Ten minutes later, I see a black BMW pull up in the driveway. He gets out of the car. He gives me the key. He gets back in the car. He leaves.

“Okay,” I say. I take the keys, and I fit them into the door hole. It fits perfectly. “I’ve never seen something fit so perfectly!” I say. I twist it right. The door lets me open it. “So easy!” I say.

I walk inside the house. It’s full of clutter. It’s a bunch of chairs stacked up and a sofa right on top. Not a lot of dust, though, which is good, because Jeremy’s allergic to dust mites. There’s a sink, and possibly some food in the cupboards, and also some rooms.

“All we have to do is organize this!” I say.

Chapter Ten: Wake-Up Call

As I finish organizing, I see Dannie on the sofa eating chips.

“Really, Dannie?” I say.

“What?” Dannie says.

“I want a chip, dude!” I say. “The Doritos blue pack is my favorite.”

“Okay.” He reaches into the bag and gives me one.

“Thanks!” I say. I take a look around the room. “You know, guys, this isn’t what I really want.”
“Really?” everyone says to me.

“Yeah. I kind of want my mom.” I start to cry again.

That moment, I wake up.

“Wake up, wake up!” my mom says.

“What?” I say. “Mom, you’re not a polar bear?!”

“You were probably dreaming,” she says. “You were sleeping for two days!” she yells at me.

“Oh,” I say.

I get ready for school, and then I go downstairs to eat my cereal.

“Bye!” I say to my mom. I walk out the door.

THE END!

Introduction

Hi, I’m Sunny! I’m six months old! I’m a polar bear, if you’re wondering. I live in Antarctica.

Two months ago, my best friend Mark asked, “Do you want to go party in two months?”

I said yes…

Chapter One: The Guy with the Muscat

Now it is three in the morning, and I am cuddled up with my mom and excited to go to the party.

“Is it time yet?” I ask desperately.

“It’s too early,” Mommy says.

“Okay,” I say before I go to sleep.

Now it’s 7:30, and I’m waking up. “Mommy mommy, wake up!!!” I exclaim.

“Yes?” Mommy says.

“Time to wake up!” I say.

I go to the sweater closet and grab my blue sweater. Mommy grabs her sweater, and we head to the party.

We live on Sixth Avenue on the corner of Polo Street.

Now we are at the party, and we are eating cupcakes, and someone shouts, “Piñata time!

Someone smacks a piñata, and a bunch of pondy (candy) comes out, and anyways we all grab pondy, and then we hear big, big footsteps. Then, we see a big human man with a muscat. We all drop our candy and run. I don’t know what to do. I see Mommy, and then I don’t.

Chapter Two: Where’s Mommy?

“Mommy mommy!” I shout. No one responds. I drop to the floor and start crying. “MOMMY!!!” I shout. My tears grow bigger.

Later that day, I find my house.

“Yes!” I shout. I go inside.

There is no one there, and I start to cry even more. I start to think about all the fun things Mommy and I did, and I go back to my first thought.

“This all happened because of the party,” I say to myself.

Now it is close to night time. Time for supper! I go to the waterfall to catch some fish. I am tired. I should go to bed now. Later that night, I hear a noise. “Hoo hoo,” says the noise.

“AHHH! I wish Mommy was here,” I say, trying not to cry.

Now it is 6:00 in the morning. “I guess I can go look for Mom,” I say.

While I am walking, I see a drama sign. What I mean by drama sign is it says, Drama this way. I followed it. Now I am on a cloud. “Where am I?” I say, trying to get someone’s attention. I hear no one. “HELLO!” I shout. I crawl forward. Someone jumps up. “AHHH!” I shout while I fall over in surprise.

“My job is done,” the someone says as she walks away.

That moment, I remember I am on a cloud, and clouds are made of gas and water, and water is a liquid that I can drink. I then stuff my face in cloud.

Chapter Three: Drama

“Well, well, well, look who it is,” a man says.

He is tall and is wearing black boots, a black hoodie, and black jeans. I sit up and brush the cloud off my fur.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“You!” the man says.

I get confused. “Me?” I ask.

“Yes, you,” the man says.

“Oh, okay,” I say.

“Where’s your mom?” the man asks.

“Uhh, I don’t know,” I say.

“Well, that’s a problem,” the man says. “Then I guess I’ll have to take you to the polar orphanages,” the man says.

“No, please, no!” I say. I shiver in fear.

“Okay, fine. You’ll just have to pass this obstacle.”

“Okay,” I say.

The man leads me to the road. He shows me a bunch of cars that have no one in them. He tells me, “If you could jump over all these cars nonstop, you’ll move to the next one. Okay?”

“Got it,” I say.

“No, you’re supposed to say ‘okay,’” the man says.

“Okay?” I say, confused.

“Come on.” He grabs his timer, and then he times me. “Three, two, one, go!” the man says.

I start jumping over the cars. When I’m near the finish line, the man holds out a cone, and I have to avoid it.

“Ah!” I scream, but I avoid it.

Now he leads me to the next obstacle.

“Good, my boy,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say back.

Now for the next obstacle, he leads me to a bunch of cones and a little scooter, and he tells me, “Get on that scooter, and avoid all those cones in under ten seconds!”

That second, I realize that there are not a lot of cones. I feel confident for a second though. I hop on the scooter, and the man says, “Go!”

I go as fast as I can. “I’m making it! I’m making it!” I shout. “Oh no,” I say. There are a bunch of cones in the way. Now I have to avoid them all. I do that in five seconds. I’m at the finish line!

But the man says, “It took fifteen seconds. You didn’t complete it. Say goodbye to your dreams of living away from the orphanage.”

I look to the ground. The man picks me up and throws me in a car.

“Please, no!” I shout one more time.

“You shouldn’t have listened to the sign,” the man says.

“Well, then why do you have it?” I ask.

“Because, to make people fall for this. Duh,” the man says.

He drives away really quickly. Then, he gets out of the car and opens the door of the back seat, and he picks me up. Then, he gets on his boat and goes to another island. I try not to cry. The man looks at me and looks happy. Soon, we are at the other island. He picks me up, and I see a sign that says Polar Orphanage.

He shoves me in a room, and it doesn’t look so much like a room. It looks more like a bunch of bars. He shoves me in with a plate of food. Little does he know that I am strong. When he leaves back in his boat, he does not take the same boat. He takes a different one.

“How come?” I say to myself.

Now, since I am strong, I open the bars. I jump out. I see a bunch of other animals. Some of them like it, and some of them don’t. For those who don’t like it, I open their bars. Soon, I see a gorilla.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Well, I couldn’t find the gorilla orphanage, so I came here. But I really don’t like it. The ceiling is too low.” Bang! He hits his head.

“Okay,” I say.

I open the bars, but it is not big enough. I keep trying and trying, but it’s just not opening. I look around the room. Hmmm. I find the keys to his room.

“Yes!” I shout with excitement.

“Well, are you going to get me out or not?” the gorilla asks.

“Oh, right,” I say.

I run over to his room, and I open it. But quickly, I grab all the food I can and run out with all the animals. Then, I see a big yacht.

I go over and ask the gorilla, “Can you steer boats?”

“In my sleep!” the gorilla says.

“Great,” I say.

Everyone climbs on the yacht, and we drive away, back to Antarctica. I find some instruments on dock, and everyone plays one. Soon, we are at Antarctica. I see someone on their boat.

“Oh no!” I shout. “Quick, everyone, hide!”

We all kneel. The gorilla runs downstairs, because he doesn’t have anywhere to go. We all crawl downstairs with the gorilla.

“Woo, that was a close one!” I say.

We all run back to the main dock. The gorilla keeps steering. Finally, we are at Antarctica. We all see the man. I run into a wig shop with the animals.

“I have a plan. So, we all buy wigs and costumes, so we look like different animals to the man. Then, gorilla, you dress up as a human, so he knows that you own the yacht, okay?!” I say.

“Okay!” everyone says.

I get all of the wigs and costumes, and gorilla is all dressed up. He has a mustache, and a beard wig, and he has on a Santa costume, even though it’s January.

“I’m excited to go on the yacht to go see my gorilla friends!”

Chapter Four: Back to the Orphanage

We all go outside looking different.

“Do you know if there are six bright white polar bears and a big handsome gorilla in the wig shop?” the man asks the gorilla.

“Uh no,” the gorilla says stressfully.

“Oh, okay,” the man says. “Well, I think I know where they are. They might be right in front of my face!” the man says as he rips of all of our disguises.

“I need a new plan,” I mutter to myself. The man throws us in a go-kart. “How come it is not a boat?” I ask myself.

He puts us all in cozy seats and puts the gorilla and three polar bears in a different go-kart and the rest of us in another.

We are now going to a different orphanage, and they put three polar bears in one room, and the other three polar bears in the other room, and the gorilla in a go-kart. The man drives him away to a gorilla orphanage, and his mom is sitting on the steps waiting for him. I wish my mom was sitting on the steps for me. I start to cry again.

The room the man puts us in is very cozy. It has three big cushions that I want to sleep on, it has a big, bright, and shiny window, a beautiful rug, and three little places to do your business… Anyways, I sit in front of the window and sit there a long, long, long, long time, and then I hear a pulling noise. It sounds like a curtain. I turn around, and I see a polar bear pushing a curtain.

“Yay, we have a curtain. So we have some privacy!” I say.

The polar bear who was pushing and pulling the curtain says, “I know! It’s so fun!”

Then, I look around the room, and I also find a bookshelf. I run over to it and start pulling out a million books.

“Whatcha doing?” the other polar bear says.

“Oh, just pulling out a million books,” I say.

“I’m just tired. I want to go to sleep,” the other polar bear says, while he’s pulling the curtain shut.

Once he is fast asleep, I mutter to myself, “This is not going to be fun if everyone hates me because my plan didn’t work.”

The polar bear who was pushing and pulling the curtains says, “I won’t hate you!” He pats me on the back. “I thought your plan was amazing.”

I go over to the polar bear that was pushing and pulling the curtains, and I go over to ask his name.

He tells me that his name is Jeremy.

I tell him mine. “Hi, I’m Sunny,” I say.

Chapter Five: A New Chapter Begins

When the other polar bear wakes up, he goes straight to the business section, and when he is done, I go over to him, and I ask him his name.

He tells me, “The name’s Danie, bro.”

“Oh, my name is Sunny,” I say back.

“Well, then you’re a rare one,” he tells me.

“I am?” I say, confused.

“Yes,” he pauses. “The name Sunny is a rare one, kid,” he tells me and soon says, “I know a lot about the name Sunny, and one thing I know about is that if your name’s Sunny and if you lose your mom, the name Sunny will not grow stronger.”

“Oh,” I say sadly.

Quickly, he says, “But if you really feel like you’re important, you will grow stronger.”

“Hmm,” I say to myself.

“What?” Danie asks.

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

“Well then,” he says. He runs over to the door, and he tries to open it, but it’s locked. “Dang it!” Danie says.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Oh, nothing, it’s just that the door is locked,” Danie says.

“Duh, it’s always going to be locked!” I say.

“Oh,” he says.

I look around the room, and I see a hammer. I walk over to it.

“What’s this?” I ask everybody.

They both tell me, “It’s a hammer.”

“Well, I’ve got a plan, then.”

“Your last plan didn’t work, so how can we trust you?” they say.

“Just watch. Maybe you don’t have to, but I will!” I say.

“Okay, then we’ll just watch,” they say.

I run over to the window, and I take a peek.

They say, “You’re really going to jump out the window? That’s too risky!”

“No, it’s not!” I say. I take another peek. I see how high up we are, and I say, “Yes, it is too risky.”

I put the hammer down and walk away. Then, I try to get on my hind legs. Then that doesn’t work, and I find a stool and jump on it. It’s not high enough. Then, I jump on a higher stool. It’s too high. Then, I look around the room again. I find the perfect looking stool. It’s just the right size! I run over to it and jump on it. Everyone was looking at me the whole time.

“Uh, what are you doing?” they ask.

“Hehe,” I say. “Just trying to get this, uh, thing.”

“Oh, okay!” Danie says.

“I want to see it!” Jeremy says.

“Ugh, fine,” I say. “Just a little peek!”

“What, we never agreed to that,” Jeremy says angrily.

“Even though we didn’t decide on it, doesn’t mean I can’t hide it!” I say.

“Hey!” Danie says. “Rhymes won’t work this time.”

“Hey, you just said a rhyme!” I said.

“You can’t keep rhyming, we don’t have much time.”

“Hey, you just rhymed again!” he said.

“Okay, let’s just both stop rhyming,” we say together.

“Jinx! You owe me a Coke,” we both say.

“No, you owe me a Coke.”

“No, you owe me a Coke!”

“No, you owe me a Coke!”

“No, you do!”

“No, you do!”

“Can you guys shut the noise?!” Danie screams.

“Sorry,” we both say.

“Jinx! You owe me a Coke!” Jeremy says.

“Hey, there’s no vending machines in here,” I say back.

“Well, then why did we just start this huge fight?” he says.

“Uh, I don’t know.”

I run up the stool and go get my thing.

“Hey! You said I could have a peek!” Jeremy screams.

“Stop screaming!” Danie said.

I hide the thing with both of my arms. I fall off the stool. “Ahh!” I fall to the business section. “Ew! Ew! Gross! Gross!” I say.

I hear a loud banging noise. I think it was the window cleaner.

I shout at the window, “Hey, window cleaner! Can you let us out?”

Then, I realize it’s just a fight in the window next door. And then I run across the room and look out the other window. It is the window cleaner! I run over to him and start tapping on the window. Then, I draw a sign that says, Let us out to be free! I hold it up to the window. He ignores the sign. Well, at least I thought. I hear the door unlock. He has three little cages.

I ask him very quickly, “Are you trapping us in those or are you letting us free?”

He hesitates. “Uhhhh.” He runs away. A construction hat falls onto the ground.

“Thanks, window cleaner!” I say.

Then, I go to the corner of the room and say, “I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”

Danie and Jeremy run to their bed. “I call this one!” they both shout.

“Okay then, I’ll go in the middle one,” I say.

Chapter Six: Jeremy’s Life

Now it is eight o’clock. I’m up, but still, no one else is up. I take a look around the room. It looks like someone has been eating my crackers. I look outside the window. I see a creepy man in a hoodie.

“Oh no,” I say. I bang on the window. The man turns around — it’s just the window cleaner. “Phew!” I say.

He takes a look at me — a very strange look. And then I look at his molars, and I see some bits of crackers.

“Hey, you ate my crackers!” I shout so loud that he can actually hear me. He looks at me so strange, but it actually looks more like shock. I immediately say, “Oh, do animals not talk on this continent?”

He falls over. Since we are so high up, he keeps tumbling and tumbling down. There is a man walking on his phone with earbuds on below him. The man who has earbuds in looks up. He sees a falling man coming towards him. He doesn’t know what to do! He doesn’t want to walk away. The man falls on him. Plump! I feel bad for the man. But it would be fun if that drop was a roller coaster… Anyways, wait, what is that? I smell something awfully terrible. It is Danie doing something.

“Nevermind,” I say.

“Hey, Sunny, come over here!” Jeremy shouts.

“Okay!” I shout back. I walk over to Jeremy.

“So the best way to be a friend is to tell them about their life,” he told me.

“Sounds great!” I say.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you about my life,” he says.

“So, are you going to tell me?” I say.

“Of course I am!” he says. “So, when I was born, it was not a good time. My dad died at the age of sixteen, and my mom was very, very brave to make me as a child. And then my mom, she got taken away, so now I was on my own, and I decided to travel around Antarctica. But that was a mistake. Some person found me, and he made me go to an orphanage, but I escaped it through a little hole in the window. I found a bowl of food outside the door, so I ate that and ran. Then, I went back to our house that we used to live in, but it was destroyed. It was practically melted. But there was one thing left in there: it was a piece of my mom’s fur.”

He reaches for the locket on his neck and pulls out his mom’s fur.

“Oh my gosh!” I say.

He keeps on with the story. “Then, I saw this drama sign, and I went the way that it said there was drama. Then, I was on a cloud, and someone jumped up behind me and scared me. I fell over. I got up and kept running. Then, I bumped into this weird creepy man. He picked me up with no hesitation and put me in a boat and locked me up. He steered the boat all the way to an orphanage. And then I met you!”

“Wow,” I said.

Chapter Seven: Escape

After Jeremy told me the story of his life, I take a look back at my life. “Wow, they’re pretty similar,” I say to myself. “Maybe he’s related to me.”

“Huh?” Danny says.

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

“Please tell me,” Danny says.

“Okay,” I say, ready to tell him a lie. “Well, so, basically I was thinking we could escape if someone who’s related to me could get us out.”

“Oh,” Danny says. “Who’s related to you?”

“My sister,” I said.
“Where is she?” Danny asks.

“I don’t know.” I shrug.

He takes a look out the window. He looks at the skyscraper right next to the orphanage building. He sees a bright white polar bear on the street that looks a bit like me.

“Hey, Sunny!” Danny says. “Come over here! I think I found your sister.”

“Really?” I say.

“Yup, really,” he says.

“Great!” I say. I run over to him. I take a look out the window. I shout, “That is my sister!” I take the hammer that I found, and I turn it around and use the wood part to bang on the window. “Hey, Lexi! Here! Open up!”

She looks up. She looks at me with her bright yellow smile. She does not brush her teeth. She runs to the door of the orphanage. She doesn’t ring the doorbell; she doesn’t knock. She finds a hole in the door, and she runs up the stairs.

She peeks through the mail hole, and I give her the hammer.

“Great!” she says. She smashes through the door.

“We’re out!” we shout.

I give my sister a big hug. “Wait, but what about the other people?” I say.

“Oh, right! Let’s go smash down their door.”

“Help! Let us out! Help! Let us out!” they shout.

We smash down their door.

“Yay!” they scream.

We all run out the door.

“Thank you,” I say to Danie.

We run out the building.

“Wait! We’ve got to put on our disguises,” I say.

“Why?” Danie asks.

“Because we can’t look like ourselves, because then they’re going to notice us and put us back in our cages!”

“Ohh,” they both say. “Hey, there’s an ice cream shop. Maybe we can stop and get ice cream.”

“We don’t have any money,” I say.

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says. “I was hoping for some ice cream.”

“Well,” I say. “I only have one dollar, and the only thing I can buy us with one dollar is something from the vending machine over there.”

“Let’s do it!”

I look at the options. There are a lot of gummy options, and I go for the Welch’s pack.

“We’re all going to share,” I say.

“Okay,” everyone says.

I push the button 74. The Welch’s pack falls, and falls, and falls. Finally, it reaches the bottom. I reach my hand in, and I grab the Welch’s pack. I open the bag. Everyone reaches for a gummy.

“Thanks!” everyone says.

“No more time for dilly-dallying. We’ve got to go,” I say.

“Okay,” everyone says. They start skipping out the door.

“What are you guys doing?” I say.

“Ummm, just skipping.”
“I said no dilly-dallying!” I say.

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says.

We walk as if we’re people going over to a boat.

“Hey, someone left this boat on! Let’s go in.”

Before I go over to the steering wheel, I see the guy running back to his boat.

“Uh oh!” I shout. I turn it on, and I go across the ocean.

“Hey! Get back here!” the man shouts.

He doesn’t realize that there’s no fence, and he starts to run over to his boat. He falls into the ocean.

“We’ve caused a lot of trouble today,” I say.

Chapter Eight: Fat Daddy Taco

When I go downstairs, I see a treasure chest. I open it, and there’s millions of dollars!

“Oh my gosh!” I shout. “Everybody, come downstairs!”

“What?” they all shout.

“I found a treasure chest full of money!” I bring it upstairs, up to the dock.

“Woah!” everyone says.

I see a sign. It says New York instead of Antarctica. I accidentally go to New York City. I see a statue. It’s the Statue of Liberty! We get off the boat, and we dock it. Everyone takes a shocked look at our boat, because they all have cars, and we’re the only ones dragging a boat on land. Everyone tries to not look away. Soon, we reach Fifth Avenue.

“Why is it only the Fifth Avenue? Then this avenue must be ancient!” I say. I go down one more avenue. It says Fourth Avenue. “This avenue is even more ancient!” I shout.

All the polar bears look at me, confused.

“Why are there polar bears in blue, and pink, and purple wigs?” one of the humans says.

I ignore it. I look at the avenue. Now that we have millions and millions of dollars, I look at the shops. I see McDonalds. Eh, too cheap! I look around again. Fatty Daddy Taco! I tell everyone to go over there and act like real humans. I see them go up to the counter.

They go in and ask the man, “Hello, may we please have 600 tacos to go, please?”

The man looks at me, but he doesn’t look away. He falls to the ground.

“Oh, do animals not talk in this dimension?” they say.

They go in the back of the kitchen. They find 600 tacos! They take them and run out.

“Here, let’s leave 1,000 dollars behind. This place might be too cheap,” they say.

They leave. I see them come back with the 600 tacos.

“What took you so long?” I say.

They tell me.

“Now I get it,” I say. “We have to find a house that we can live in.”

“Which house do we pick?” they say.

“We can’t just pick a house!” I say. “Here, let’s buy a million dollar house in the suburban areas.”

“Okay!” they all say.

I wander off into Red Hook. I see a giant Tesla shop.

“Ohh, let’s buy one of these!” I say.

I take another million dollar bill, and we choose a Tesla. I choose a bright white Tesla. I give them the million dollars, and that moment I realize that I don’t have a driver’s license, and we all can’t fit in one car! Uh oh!

Chapter Nine: Tesla!

I sit down on the ground. I sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Jeremy asks.

“Oh, it’s just that we all can’t fit into one Tesla, and I don’t have a driver’s license… ” There is something poking me on my tush. I look under me. It’s a driver’s license! “Never mind, I have a driver’s license!” I go back in the Tesla shop. I see a Tesla with six seats! “Our problems are solved!” I see another person in a black hoodie. He takes my briefcase. “Hey!” I shout. I run after them. My wig flies off. “Oh no!” I shout and run back to get it. Then, I realize the burglar is already down the block. “Oh no!” I say.

I see a police officer eating a giant burger. It looks like a skyscraper.

The police officer says to the guy, “What are you doing with that briefcase?”

“Uh, uh… ” He gives it to me right away and runs off. The police officer leaves.

We buy the Tesla, and we drive to New Jersey. There’s a big sign that says New Jersey. I see a house right in front of us. It says For Sale. It’s a giant mansion that costs 10 million dollars. It’s white, it has a large arrangement of stairs going up to the front door, and two big columns that are holding up the roof of the front door. It kind of looks like the White House.

“Eh, not cozy enough!” I say.

We drive down the block a little further. I see two houses right next to each other. They say For Sale. They’re supposed to be connected; that’s why the For Sale sign is between them. It has a fountain right in between both of them, two cars can fit in the driveway, two floors for each house, and a porch swing in front.

“Cozy house! Let’s buy it.” I call the number that is on the sign.

Ring ring ring! goes the phone.

“Hello?”
“Yes, I would like to buy your house in New Jersey on St. Adams Street,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. I look at how much money it is. It’s 20 million dollars! “20 million dollars, please!” the man says. “What’s your credit card number?” he says. I look at the bottom of the briefcase. I see a credit card. It has 30 million dollars on it.

“Okay.” I give him my credit card number.

“Okay,” the man says. “The house is yours! I’ll give you the key in ten minutes. I’ll be there. Goodbye.”

Ten minutes later, I see a black BMW pull up in the driveway. He gets out of the car. He gives me the key. He gets back in the car. He leaves.

“Okay,” I say. I take the keys, and I fit them into the door hole. It fits perfectly. “I’ve never seen something fit so perfectly!” I say. I twist it right. The door lets me open it. “So easy!” I say.

I walk inside the house. It’s full of clutter. It’s a bunch of chairs stacked up and a sofa right on top. Not a lot of dust, though, which is good, because Jeremy’s allergic to dust mites. There’s a sink, and possibly some food in the cupboards, and also some rooms.

“All we have to do is organize this!” I say.

Chapter Ten: Wake-Up Call

As I finish organizing, I see Dannie on the sofa eating chips.

“Really, Dannie?” I say.

“What?” Dannie says.

“I want a chip, dude!” I say. “The Doritos blue pack is my favorite.”

“Okay.” He reaches into the bag and gives me one.

“Thanks!” I say. I take a look around the room. “You know, guys, this isn’t what I really want.”
“Really?” everyone says to me.

“Yeah. I kind of want my mom.” I start to cry again.

That moment, I wake up.

“Wake up, wake up!” my mom says.

“What?” I say. “Mom, you’re not a polar bear?!”

“You were probably dreaming,” she says. “You were sleeping for two days!” she yells at me.

“Oh,” I say.

I get ready for school, and then I go downstairs to eat my cereal.

“Bye!” I say to my mom. I walk out the door.

THE END!


The Paint Palette


Chapter One

Maya was already plenty stressed about her first day of school. She decided that waking up to her annoying alarm clock and tumbling out of her bed was in the “not a good way of starting the first day of school” column. She groaned and got up. She walked over to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Maya’s mom always told her that her smile was the best good first impression. She brushed her teeth and got dressed. When she saw her reflection in the mirror, she almost screamed. Her hair was a rat’s nest. And it was sticking up in all different directions, not to mention that her eyes were saggy, and she looked like a racoon. She immediately washed her face and started ferociously brushing her hair. At least now her hair looked a little calmer.

“Well, so much for a good first impression,” she mumbled under her breath.

She walked downstairs, where her mom was waiting for her with a plate of piping hot pancakes in her hands. “Mmmmmm,” Maya said, and she sat down and wolfed down her pancakes. After a refreshing drink of orange juice, she flung her bag over her shoulders and went to the door. Her mom stopped her in her tracks and gave her a big kiss on the cheek.

“Mooom,” Maya groaned and walked out of the house.

She had to run to catch the bus. Fortunately, she managed to find a seat that did not smell like dirty socks and boys underwear. By the second stop, the bus was packed. Kids crammed in in any space they could find. Her best friend Clara swooped in next to Maya before a little boy could.

“Sorry, this seat is taken,” she said to the boy.

He pouted and trudged to the back of the bus. Maya had scolded Clara for treating a kindergartener like that.

“Now we are older and wiser. We are in fifth grade now!!!” Maya screamed.

Right. Older and wiser,” Clara responded.

The bus ride to school had been the most suspenseful ride ever. It was almost a relief when they arrived at school. Almost. She knew that she had Mrs. Garnish for homeroom. She was definitely one of the meanest teachers in the world. But she was grateful that Clara was in her class. At least she would get tortured with her BFF. The bus doors opened with a swish, and all the kids filed out. Everyone went to separate places. The kindergarteners to the cafeteria, the high schoolers to their classrooms, and the fifth graders to the stinky, smelly, humid auditorium. Maya walked out of the bus and went up the stairs to the auditorium. She was usually in the cafeteria with the lower graders, so the path to the auditorium was unfamiliar. When she finally arrived at the auditorium, the place was buzzing. She walked over to the place where her class was sitting, and took a seat next to Clara.

“So, how did convincing your dad that you are a fabulous artist go?” she asked.

“Horrible. He started lecturing me on how I should get a real hobby. Again,” Maya replied.

Clara tried to stifle a laugh. At that moment, the bell rang, which meant that everyone needed to go to homeroom. The two girls walked (more like trudged) to their homeroom class. Maya opened the door to the classroom and confidently marched in. She picked a seat, not in the front, but not in the back. Clara took a seat next to her. The teacher walked into the room, and the classroom fell so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The door closed behind Mrs. Garnish. She was a slim woman with black ravens hair. Her eyes were striking green, while her nose was pointed and flat. The dress she wore was black as night and seemed vaguely familiar to Maya. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun. She surveyed the class and walked across the room. Her heels click clacked against the marble floor. They looked so tight on Mrs. G as she walked across the room.

Mrs. G’s personality was much like her appearance. She was a no-nonsense teacher! She was a very strict person, yet there was something kind beneath that rock hard outside.

“As all of you know,” Mrs.Garnish said in a sharp voice, “I am your homeroom teacher, Mrs. Garnish. I have many rules, and I expect you to follow them all. Number one: Listen to me when I talk. Number two: Always be respectful… ”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Maya wasn’t looking forward to spending the whole morning listening to their teacher drone on and on about being respectful. Blah blah blah blah… She didn’t have time for that nonsense! Finally, Mrs. G stopped. Maya was relieved. All that talking had made her brain feel like it would explode. Over the loudspeakers, the principal said, “Fifth graders, the first period is now ended. Please proceed to your second period.”
Maya slipped on her backpack and went out the door. She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. It was was slightly crumpled, but it was readable. It read, For second period, you’ll be having history at room 305 with your teacher Miss McGonagall. She walked over to the classroom, dodging students all going in different directions. She finally reached room 305. Over the door it had the words Miss McGonagall printed in yellow and pink letters. They had flowers all over the door and their walls. It seems like a very cheery classroom, Maya thought. And with that thought, she pushed the door open and walked inside.

There are classrooms, and there are classrooms!!! Then, there are Super Mega Ultra Awesome Classrooms!!! This is what Maya was thinking as she walked into room 305. There were mountains of books piled in every nook and corner. Pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln with bulging heads were staring at him from the walls. The place was humid and steamy, like a sauna, and smelled faintly of toasted marshmallows. Maya was awestruck at the sight of this classroom, but it was nothing compared to the teacher herself.

She popped up right in front of Maya. “Hello, you must be Maya,” she said in a dreamy voice. It took Maya some time to process that this teacher was someone real, and that she was not in fact dreaming. Miss McGonagall had glasses that were simply too large for her face. Her long blond hair was draped around her shoulders. She was wearing a black T-shirt and a short skirt with bright pink stockings. She was wearing blue, sparkly flats and was staring at Maya with much curiosity. The teacher seemed to be wearing lots of eyeshadow, for it looked unnatural on her pale face. Miss McGonagall was so close to Maya’s face that she could practically hear her breathing. “Come, take a seat,” she whispered.

Maya walked over to an empty desk. The only person who was sitting in that room with her was a pale boy with black hair. He was reading a book, and he didn’t seem to notice Maya’s arrival in class. She looked over to the door, hopeful that soon a new kid would come into the classroom and break the awkwardness. Her wish came true. The door opened with a creak. In came three girls. One of them was clearly a leader. She had a short bob for hair, bangs that were pinned to the side, and was wearing the most fashionable outfit that Maya had ever seen. Wow, Maya thought. She is so cool. Maya was convinced she was Taylor Swift’s daughter! She sat down right next to Maya, and the other girls sat next to her. The girls smiled and waved at Maya. Maya felt that she was blushing. She waved back.

“Hi, my name is Carolyn,” the girl introduced herself. She seemed very nice, and Maya couldn’t wait to be her friend.

Maya said, “Hi, my name is Maya. It’s nice to meet you!”

Just then, the door opened, and many kids filed in. Everyone got a seat, but some grudgingly took a seat that was not next to their best friend.

“Settle down, settle down,” the teacher said. “I am Miss McGonagall. I will be teaching you about history and everything you need to learn about it.”

Maya thought that this teacher would be different from other history teachers, but it turned out she wasn’t. This year was no different. This year they’d still be learning plain old boring history. Miss McGonagall introduced them to a lot of famous people from history. By the time she walked out of the room, Maya was humming a tune that went, “George Washington,” with other various heroines. She checked the list again.

Miss McGonagall came running after her yelling, “Everyone in my class, your homework is to read chapter twelve!”

Maya nodded and briskly walked away to her science class.

Suddenly, a magical flyer came out of the blue and hit Maya in the face. (Well, not really. Maybe Maya was just walking and saw the flyer on the wall. But this makes the story more exciting.) The flier said, Join the art club! Fun! Make new friends! Paint! Afterschool. Room 101! Sign up today! Maya took a picture of it and sent it to Clara. The clicking of the phone echoed in the silent corridor.

Clara texted back, OMG you should totally join.
Then, Maya texted, R U Sure? Dad might kill me.

Clara said, BRB Got2Go.

Then, Maya put her phone away.

Chapter Two

Maya had been thinking about the flyer all day. She decided that she would ask her father about it when she got home. When she got off the bus at her stop, she knew what she would say. Maya shouldered her backpack and stepped off the bus. The bus lurched forward and bellowed exhaust into her face. She turned around and started to her house. She knew the path by heart and didn’t bother to look where she was going.

***

Maya dug into her pocket and felt the familiar grip of her keys. She fumbled with the door and heaved it open. “Dad, I’m home!” she called half-heartedly. She knew it was way too early for him to be home. Unsurprisingly, there was no answer. Maya closed the door behind her and turned on all the lights. She plopped her bag on the floor and went up to her bedroom. She took off on the stairs and skipped a few. When she got to her bedroom, she pushed her door wide open and flung herself on the bed.

Her bedroom was the only place that was comforting to her. Maya reached into her back pocket and pulled out the crinkled flyer. She read it again. Maya then decided that she better be ready for when her father came home, so she went downstairs and started microwaving some leftovers. Her father would probably be disappointed. The pesto pasta and fried vegetables didn’t look inviting, so she added a Caesar salad.

She heard her dad (the major chef) creak open the door. Finally, she thought. She quickly busied herself with setting the table. Her dad had probably had a bad day at work, because he heaved himself onto a chair and started shoving pasta into his mouth.

“Dad?” she said, nervously. “I saw a flyer today. It was an art club. I was wondering if I can join it?”

Her dad mumbled something like, “Sceektkiyrimefil.”

“Dad?” she repeated loudly.

“Maya, you know that I disapprove of your fondness over art. I will talk about this with your mother,” he said, without looking at Maya.

Maya’s heart fell. She knew her dad would never give this conversation a second thought, much less mention it to her mom. Maya ate some pasta halfheartedly and slowly trudged back towards her room.

Chapter Three

The next day, Maya had the usual classes. During the day, she was lectured by Mrs. Garnish, bored to death in English, picked at her school lunch, doodled on her math assignment, and then plopped herself down on a bench in the school playground, where she was right now.

She was having an argument with herself, debating whether she should go to the club or not. Sure, Maya’s dad had said no. But she could do it if he didn’t notice, right? Maya finally concluded she would do it. Besides, it was just an art club. Her dad couldn’t get that upset, could he?

Chapter Four

Maya checked her flyer. Yep, this was the spot. Room 101. Just like the flyer stated. Maya hesitated before she opened the door. What was I thinking? Dad is going to kill me!! she thought. But it was too late. Maya pushed the door open. As she looked around, she felt a heavy rock in her stomach but pushed it down. She walked into the room and heard laughing coming from one of the tables. Maya shut the door behind her. She walked farther into the room and saw a tall boy with red hair and freckles spreaded across his face. He grinned.

“Hi! I’m Jacob! Nice to meet you!” he said cheerfully.

“Hi, my name’s Maya. This is the art room, right?” Maya asked.

He laughed. “Yep, this is it!” he said. “We work for the school newspaper. Each week we write a comic strip for it. I’m really glad you could join this place. We only have about six people. It’s really hard to write comic strips with that little people.”

Someone yelled, “Hey, Jacob! Who’s the new girl?”

“Guys, this is Maya. Maya this is Ruby, Patrick, Ava, Jake, and Evan.”

There was a series of people mumbling their hellos. Maya walked over to where they were all sitting. She looked around the room. All around the walls there were paintings and murals and all sorts of different paintings. Crammed into a corner was a blank easel, just waiting for someone to make a beautiful picture out of them. There was a small rug with a couple of chairs around it in the middle of the room. Above the rug was a shelf holding markers, paper, paints, pencils, and brushes. (No, not toothbrushes, silly. That is totally different.) Maya stared at the room. In the direction she was headed was the table they were sitting at. She pulled out a seat and sat down in it. Ruby handed her a sheet of paper with five boxes in it.

“Each box will be part of the comic,” Ruby explained. “When you put it all together, it will be a funny scene. It will have to be a short one to capture laughter, comedy, or drama.”

Maya understood this. She did this at home sometimes. She took a pencil from the table and started. She knew what she would draw. She started sketching her ideas.

Chapter Five

When Maya got home, she was ecstatic. The art club had been a great success. She walked into her house and put her bag on the floor. She pulled her flyer out of her pocket and threw it onto the table and started to make pasta. She hummed a song that she heard on the radio while she boiled it and hugged her dad when he got home. When her dad got home, he picked up the flyer on the table.

“Honey, what’s this?” her dad asked.

“Ummmmmm,” Maya struggled to find words.

“Maya, did you go to this afterschool?” her dad asked furiously.

“Yes,” Maya responded without looking at her dad.

“Maya, this is unacceptable. Go to your room. You are grounded. I told you not to do it, yet you did it anyway. That is why you are grounded.”

“Wait, Dad, I really love art! I don’t want to be a chef! I hate to cook! My real passion is art. It’s the only time I feel at peace.”

Her dad considered this. “Maya, I never knew this. If you had told me this before I would have let you paint a lot earlier. So, yes, you may join the art club.”

Epilogue

Maya was in her bedroom. It was quiet and peaceful. She stroked the easel with her paintbrush. Maya’s hair was pulled back into a messy bun. Her jeans and T-shirt were covered up with a paint splattered smock. Maya surveyed the paining. “Hmmm… more yellow,” Maya confessed. She dipped the brush in the yellow paint and continued to make the painting. Her mind wandered, and she thought about all that had happened lately. She put her paintbrush down on the table and walked over to the window. She pushed it open and stared out at the open blue sky. She thought about her passion for art, how the chef (her dad) had disapproved. How she had shown him the painting she made. How her dad had smiled. How he signed her up for it. How she went to that classroom for the second time without feeling guilty. How she felt at home.


The Life of Ash

One day, Ash was sneaking through the woods near his village, dodging the guards meant to keep things out not in, but his parents had told them to not let him out of the village except if they gave them express permission or if there was an emergency and they had to retreat to Castle Macindaw. Ash recalled the time that he was just wandering in the woods on a dare, and he saw something supernatural that scared him out of his wits. Something unexplainable. Something that would make him afraid of Grimsdell Wood for a long time.

Then, he had raced home and told his mother what had happened. That had led her to not let him outside of the village without permission. “For your own good,” she had said. He smiled ruefully at the memory. But he was twelve now, double the age of when he first got terrified in Grimsdell Wood, so he would not get terrified again. All the same, he went into a different wood just because he felt like it. (Alright, he was a little bit scared.)

The wood that he went into was called Stonebrook, and he had explored the wood when he was a little boy and therefore knew every inch of it. Today he decided to go very deep into the wood, to a spot that he had made a clearing with his father’s axe (“borrowed”) and a good sickle (also borrowed). Today he reached the clearing, then picked up the axe and sickle and decided to go deeper into the wood, where he had never been before. After about ten minutes’ worth of walking, he heard this faint growling noise coming from behind him.

Slowly, he turned around and found himself face-to-face with a bear! He tried to raise the axe, but he was too slow. The bear stepped forward and decapitated him with one swing of his mighty paw. His body (and head) crashed to the ground, covered with something that you should not think about if you are currently eating anything. The bear took one sniff of the air that smelled like gore and dropped to the ground, dead.

Ash’s life flashed before his eyes, particularly the time when he went into Grimsdell Wood on his own, to prove that he was inimitable. He recalled the time that he went deep into the wood and got terrified by that huge warrior and those snakes… Ash shuddered at the thought. He had been terrified out of his wits, then raced home and told his mother. That had led to him eventually being killed by the bear. Therefore, it was his mother’s fault. Then, he thought of her and how heartbroken she would be, and his anger melted away like dew on the sunshine. He eventually became aware that the bear was dead. Vengeance! he thought. Then, he died.

Epilogue

The next day, a fine day, a patrol ventured out of the village and into Stonebrook Wood. He went deep into the wood and eventually came across the bodies and took one whiff of the gore-and-corpe-smelling air. Then, he died.

Author’s Note: When you are done with the story, reread the epilogue until there is no one left in the village.

The End

A Cat Called Sunny

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Pepper. She was 12 years old, and she had a cat called Sunny. Sunny was black and had big white spots. Pepper always thought something was odd about her. One time, Pepper had to do her homework and saw her cat drawing on paper with a pencil!

She jumped and screamed, “What the heck?!

The cat screeched because she got super scared and ran out of her room and went under her parents’ bed. Pepper was done with her homework, and her mom called her for dinner. Pepper was super, super hungry. Her favorite food was sushi!! And her cat also loved sushi (she liked salmon avocado rolls). Her cat came downstairs, and Pepper sat down in her chair. When Pepper started eating, her cat jumped on the table and ate up all her sushi rolls!

Pepper was surprised, and she said, “Bad kitty!!” And she pushed Sunny off the table!!!

Sunny said quietly, “These humans are so rude!”

Pepper heard Sunny and shrieked and said, “Did Sunny just speak?!”

Pepper’s parents said, “Sweetie, calm down. What are you talking about?”

Pepper said, “Sunny spoke. Did you hear? Did you hear?!

She screamed, and her mom said, “Honey, I said calm down, will ya!

Sunny said very, very quietly, “I’m afraid she knows.”

Luckily, Pepper didn’t hear. When Pepper was done with her homework, she went to bed. In her bed, she was thinking about the thing that happened during dinner when her cat talked, and she had the weirdest dream about Sunny! It was about her turning into a cat and Sunny turning into a human, and she was the one talking as a cat. So, it was the opposite! When she woke up, Pepper screamed because of her dream. By accident, she woke up her parents.

They barged in, and they said, “What is the matter with you lately?!”

Pepper said, “Uh… nothing. I just had a, uh… bad dream?”

Her mom said, “Oh, my poor baby.”

Pepper just ignored her and went back to sleep, but they said, “Why are you going back to sleep. It’s 7:50!”

Pepper freaked out and rushed down the ladder of her bed. She had a loft bed. Pepper put on her clothes and ran downstairs to eat breakfast, and her cat was there licking her paw and looking at the toy.

Pepper said, “Don’t worry, my wittle kitty Sunny! I’ll give you food. Here, let me get the cat food.”

Sunny didn’t want food, so she said, “Meow!”

Pepper said, “You don’t want food?”

Sunny meowed again and again and again and again. “Meow, meow meow meow!!!”

And Pepper said, “Ohhhh… you want your toy! Right?”

She meowed, “Yes.” Pepper gave the chew toy to Sunny, and Sunny ripped it like crazy! So, Pepper had to buy a new one that didn’t break easily.

Finally, Pepper brought the cat into her room and said, “Tell me the truth, Sunny. Can you talk or not?!”

Sunny said, “Meow!”

Pepper said, “Dang it!”

Sunny opened the door by herself and left the room. Pepper sighed and went on the computer to play Coolmath Games and played the dinosaur version.

Pepper’s mom screamed, “Honey, time for bed!! Oh wait, you’re right next to me. Sorry.” And then she laughed.

Then, Pepper said, “Seriously, Mom?! My ears popped, and that really hurt!”

Her mom said, “Sorry… I didn’t know you were there… ” She also said, “I’m just saying… it’s time for bed. Kay?”

She said, “Okay fine. I’ll go.”

“And make sure to take your — ”

I know!! My shower. Sure sure.” Her mom rolled her eyes. Pepper took her shower and went to bed. It was the morning, and it was Friday! Pepper was happy but not happy to go to school… at least she could have choice time today and go on her computer. Oh… and I forgot she’s in fifth grade. Pepper got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed her teeth, and went to the bus to go to school.

Her teacher was standing next to the board and said, “Good morning, class, and happy Friday!!!”

Pepper’s teacher was very joyful and happy all the time. Her teacher was nice! Pepper’s class screamed.

Good morning, Miss Heather!!” they said.

Pepper just fell asleep till miss Heather said, “Pepper Smith! Wake up!” She said that when it was time for recess and lunch at 12:00! Right when Pepper woke up, she heard a scratch under her desk. She peeked under it and realized it was Sunny!!

Pepper screamed, “What the!! Why is my cat here?!” The cat just meowed. Pepper just took the cat in her arms and asked the teacher to put Sunny in her bag and zip it up really tight. School was over. Pepper walked home. It was only a few blocks away.

When she opened her door, her mom screamed and scared Pepper and said, “How was your day?! Mine was fine. How about yours?!”

Pepper says, “Aaaaaaaaaaaa, a monster!!! Oh, it’s Mom! What is wrong with you? You can’t just scare me like that!

Her mom said, “Oh… I scared you? Weird, you barely even jumped.”

Pepper said, “Sorry… What was that? ‘Cause I jumped way higher than I usually do!!

Her mom said, “Sorry, I like doing that.”

And Pepper ignored her and went straight to her homework. But Sunny came out of nowhere and grabbed her homework and started to write on it, and Pepper screamed, “Sunny, come back here with my homework!!”

Sunny ignored her and started doing her homework and getting a pencil. Pepper was so confused because she started to see Sunny actually doing her homework and getting some of the problems right!

Pepper screamed and said, “What the freak?! How are you doing my homework and actually getting the problems right?! You’re a creepy cat, Sunny!” Sunny just meowed again and left with the homework paper.

And Pepper said, “Wait! Tell me the truth… what is your secret?” Sunny just… didn’t reply and left. Pepper was so mad at Sunny, and before Sunny left, Pepper grabbed her and said, “Sunny, you better talk ‘cause it’s going to get messy! Talk now!”

And Sunny said, “Okay okay okay. I’ll talk. The truth is I can talk. Please don’t kill me!”

Pepper said, “O-M-G, I knew it. I knew you could talk. Hahahah!!! Oh sorry… don’t worry, why would I kill my own cat? I love cats!” She also said, “Hey… also tell me how you wrote?”

Sunny said, “Well, when I was in your class earlier I kind of listened to what the teacher was saying. So, I copied it down on a piece of paper, and when we went back home, I did your homework.”

Pepper said, “That doesn’t answer my question. I said how did you learn to write?”

Sunny said, “Ohh… my parents taught me, and my mom’s owner taught my mom so yeah… that’s the story.”

Pepper said, “I’m so happy!! I can talk to you whenever I want. You are my BFFL now!!

Sunny said, “Wasn’t I always your BFFL?”

Pepper said, “Oh right. Yeah, of course!”

Sunny said, “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

Pepper said, “Wait, cats can’t eat ice cream. They get sick if they do… ”

Sunny said, “Oh fine, let’s get some sushi then.”

Pepper said, “Sure, quick because my mom is almost home.”


Honey’s Storm

Prologue: The Death

Sky burst into the grass with a cry of pain as she fell. Tom, her husband, yelled at all the blood. Then, Honey was born. Tom knew that his mate would not live, so Honey would be the light of his life. He watched as a new kit, Silvermoon, was born. He was perfect. Then, Cinnamon, a new kitten was born. Sky let out a shriek of pain as she breathed in her last breath. Then, she died. Tom wailed. Then, he looked at the kits. He would give them to Ice, and she would help.

Chapter One: What?

I opened my eyes. “What? Where? Who?” I said.

“You’re finally awake,” Silvermoon said.

“Where is Ice? Can we get down?” Cinnamon said.

“What if we fall? What if we fall?”

From then on, Cinnamon was always the nervous one. Silvermoon, on the other hand, was always the adventurous one. I was in between, but I really wanted to get down from that cramped place. Also, what is that sound? It was loud… Suddenly, I didn’t want to go down.

Silvermoon said, “Those are basketballs. Anyway, let’s just get down.”

So, I found a route by jumping from box to box to get to the floor. Silvermoon followed me immediately.

Cinnamon was like, “Hmmm, should I?”

By the time she decided to come down, we were already halfway across the floor, but Cinnamon leapt a box too high. I caught my teeth and dragged her to the floor, or that is what I intended to do. Instead, she flopped on top of me and jumped onto the cement floor. I leapt and caught her, but then really it just hurt.

Silvermoon was like, “Come on, let’s keep going.” So, we did. Then, I heard the basketballs. I mean, really heard them. Then, I nearly got smacked in the face by one of them.

“Owwww.”

Some big creature with fur on top of its head said, “Oh, cute kitty.”

We ran from that point into a backyard. Then, Silvermoon, Cinnamon, and I just ran back. Then, we didn’t know how to get back up. First, Silvermoon leapt and fell. Then, I leapt and caught something with my nose which hurt, and then I grabbed it with my claws which ripped one of them. Then, everybody joined me. In the end, the worst injury of it was a scraped face which belonged to Cinnamon. No wonder she was always the scaredy-cat. She always had the worst luck. Then, we waited. And waited. Then finally, we saw a white she-cat. We stared at it and asked each other who she was. She was Ice, our adopted mother, according to Cinnamon. Well, apparently she was supposed to take care of us. I stared at her and decided okay, if she can feed me. Then, we went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, a figure was in the doorway.

He said, “Hi. I am Tom, your father.” Tom looked old. Then, he said, “C’mon, let’s explore.”

Then, he lifted me up and set me, Silvermoon, and Cinnamon down. I ran out. No basketballs this time.

Tom led us into the woods. Sniff sniff. Squirrel! And fox! Tom leapt in front of us. I did not know Tom very well. But he was our dad. All four of us ran! From that day forward, Tom came every day. And Ice came at night. But it could not stay that way…

Chapter Two: Ice Gone

I was three months! Tom came as usual.

He said, “Do you want to see something strange?”

We went outside, and there was a cat, Ice, and a dog! The dog leapt at Ice, but she dodged under its legs. The dog ran up and hit her. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So, I thought, I could dodge in, jump on his back to distract him, and then he would buck me, and then he’d land on her anyway. Or, I could dodge under his feet and get myself killed. Well, while I was deciding, and I will regret this, the dog landed on her. We ran to her. The dog ran away at the sight of all three of us. Ice was dead.

We buried her in the woods. Then, we stood by her grave to wait for that dog. And then they could get revenge. Then, we went back. I crawled back that night, but there was no Ice. And from then till now, I regret that I had not died in her place.

Far away, in his own nest, Tom was trying to think. What would he do next? He thought, but there was nothing. He ran over to the hillside, but then he was in the garage. Honey woke with a start. Then, it was morning. It was a normal morning.

Chapter Three: Tom Gone People Come

Tom said, “Come on already.”

We hunted, but the woods were empty. Then, I saw people! Two grown-ups and a child.

Writer here: The child was me!

“Guys, come here,” I said.

And then I ran back inside, but the child saw me. She looked over at me, but gave me a weird look, like she closed one eye and then looked away. She looked super bored. Well, I better go inside.

“Inside,” Tom said. “Those things,” he spat out the word, “are going somewhere. We can follow them and find out where they’re going.” He ran out in front of us.

“I guess we should follow him,” I said. After that, we walked and walked.

Tom said, “Well, it looks like we should stop for the night.”

I said, “Are we going back?”

Tom said, “No, we should just learn how to camp in a place that’s not home.”

It was super hard to sleep that night. I was worried there were foxes…

In the morning, I was tired, but we ran on. We ran behind the car. I don’t know why the car had stopped all night, but we were lucky.

We kept running behind the car. A car was behind us. We ran to the side. We were lucky. The cars passed. And then, we were in a crowded place. I don’t know where. We decided to turn back, but we couldn’t. We kept running and running and running. But soon something was hurting my pads. But soon night was falling. We had to keep going! We had to keep going! The car stopped! Where were we? Who knew. We made camp. We were there for a week, but that’s a story for later. We waited and waited and waited. One day, we saw the car! We could go! We started walking and walking and walking. I smelled country air! We were here!! Then, we rounded the corner. A car!!! I ran, just ran. When I looked, an orange Tom was lying in the street. Tom! His chest was still! I wailed. What would I do now? I felt like a stranger in the world. Where? What? I felt a wave of despair. I wanted to collapse and die. It was the most painful thing that had ever happened to me. But just then, Cinnamon collapsed. I knew how she felt. I felt the same way. But I was the older sister. I had to be strong.

Chapter Four: Older Sister

I felt different, stronger but empty. I was older. But I was like no one, like my soul had been ripped out. But then I looked at Silvermoon and Cinnamon. I had to keep going. Again, I was the older sister, I had to keep repeating that in my mind.

“So,” I told Silvermoon and Cinnamon, “let’s keep going.”

I kind of felt like Tom’s soul was guiding me. So, I kept going too. We walked, and then night started to fall. We reached our home. That would have been a woot woot for me before. I remembered: I was the older sister, the one in charge. But then something weird happened. Three strange cats were standing outside the garage. When I say strange, I mean strange. One was black. I mean all black. I mean midnight black with the darkest blue eyes you’ve ever seen. She was creepy! Then, there was a ginger tom-cat that pained me to look at. He looked so much like Tom. Then, there was a caramel colored one. The black one stepped forward and introduced herself as Night. That made sense. She was as black as night. Then, the ginger tom-cat introduced himself as Maple. Good, it wasn’t Tom!

Right now, Maple is looking over my shoulder grinning at this.

Then, the caramel tom introduced himself as Caramel. Okay, that was obvious. I could tell he wasn’t that smart. He hissed and jumped at nothing. Night had to restrain him from going absolutely bonkers. So, I introduced myself and my two siblings. Then, they said they’d be living here. I was very welcoming, or I tried my best… Night looked a bit younger than me… Oh right, I was the older sister again.

Night came to visit, and now she’s also grinning over my shoulder while I’m writing this, and she said, “I did not look so young!”

Just a second, I have to tell her that she did.

Well, I knew a place where they could stay. I almost turned to Tom, but I stopped. Another wave drowned me in the ocean of despair.

“I’ll show you the way,” I said. I showed them to a nice stream where they could stay. I went back to the garage. I could not sleep that night. I kept seeing Tom lying in the street.

Chapter Five: Honey and Maple Sitting in a Tree

The next day, I saw Maple looking lost. I went over to see if I could help, and I told him the best spot to hunt. He looked completely lost with my directions, so I led him. I hunted with him and shared a mouse. Then, I invited him to the garage. A few minutes later, Cinnamon came in and started singing,

“Maple and Honey sitting in a tree… ” And then I jumped at her and slashed at her. She ran faster than you could say “Honey.” Embarrassment burned on my cheeks.

We went to sleep. When I woke up, Silvermoon was yelling at me. “Why are you snuggling with a stranger?”

It happened several more nights until… I started expecting my first kitten. Well, I felt like everybody was scuttling around me like bugs, giving me food and water. I could hunt for myself, thank you! And I could walk also.

Maple’s peering over my shoulder yelling at me, “I was not scuttling like a bug!”

Now Golden’s here and is peering at this and says to her dad, “You were scuttling.”

“How do you know? You weren’t even there!” That’ll end up in a long argument.

And I started to try and ignore them. It was hard. My kitten was coming and fast! It was a gray morning when my kitten happened. I doubled over in pain. I saw five kittens!

Chapter Six: Kittens

Maple and I sat down. We were discussing the names for our kittens: Golden, Time, Tulip, Rose, and Tawny. Perfect names, except for Maple wanted to name them Sun, Time, Tulip, Rose, and Rainbow. It ended up my way though. I liked it that way.

So, I went back to our kittens, licked Golden’s head, which she didn’t like. Their eyes and ears weren’t open yet. I slept with them for the first time and for many nights after that.

One day, their ears opened and their eyes! Golden waddled around on the floor. Time didn’t even bother getting up. Tulip and Rose weren’t doing so well. They didn’t look very healthy. They weren’t getting up, and their eyes and ears still weren’t open. We waited for their eyes and ears to open. They never did. That got me worried. What if they never did?

The next day, their eyes and ears did open though! But they still weren’t getting up. Their siblings were playing around in the grass, rolling and yelping and jumping. Every time (I’ve learned they’re called humans) the humans came, we hid in the woods and played there and tried not to be so loud to disturb them. But I’ve been seen by that little girl too many times. So have my kits and many other cats around here. It was settling into an everyday life, nothing scary. I was starting to like it.

Then one day, Cinnamon came up to me. She told me that she found a mate in a town nearby called Rhinebeck. I cried. What would I do without Cinnamon?

But things moved on. And I got used to it without her. One day, Golden was prancing through the grass when snow started to fall.

Tawny said, “What’s hitting my head?”

“It’s snow,” I told her. Soon it started to fall heavy though, and I had to bring them in. Maple was sitting in the garage waiting for me. Golden started complaining that she wanted to go outside, and I told her that she couldn’t. It was too cold. Then, she said that she could go outside. I told her to argue with her dad. And she did. Until finally Maple decided to let her out.

He told her, “You’re going to be the one getting cold.”

But she came inside five minutes later and said, “I think I’ll stay inside.”

Tawny was curled up in a corner snoring loudly. Tulip, Time, and Rose were meowing at the dogs outside. We’d learned the humans had dogs and to be wary of them. The small brown one was named Ella, and the small white one was named Phaedra. They didn’t care that it was snowing. Then, when the dogs went inside and the snow was done falling, my kittens ran outside and started rolling and playing. It was so deep I couldn’t see them! I got worried and plunged in looking for them. I found Golden first. She was digging out a tunnel.

I asked her, “You’re making tunnels?”

She said that it was the easiest way to get around under the snow, and they were digging lots of them, and they made a snow fort, and it was really warm in there. She was talking really fast. So, I ducked into the tunnel. When I got to this so-called fort, it actually was warm. They’d managed to build a fire under the snow. And when we got out, it was much colder outside than it was inside, so we went inside. It was very dark. Actually, it was dawn. We’d stayed in there all night! That wasn’t good. Sometimes I felt like the kit, not the mother. So, I kept my kittens inside all the next day. Maple came running towards me talking about how worried he’d been.

I told him, “Calm down. We were just in a snow fort.”

“Can’t we have some fun sometimes,” Golden said.

Maple got very stern and said, “You can’t talk to your father that way, missy.”

I took Golden to a corner of the garage for her to sit in and think about talking to her father that way. My other four kittens played and laughed, and Tulip almost broke her paw on the hard floor, but that’s another story. The main part of it was that I had to lick it and lick it and lick it all day, which was really irritating because my tongue got so cold, and Tulip hated it because she had to sit still all day. Over time, they started to grow older. Soon they were finding their own nests, not in the garage. And I was expecting new kittens.

Chapter Seven: Storm and Barry

My next litter consisted of three kittens. I barely remember their birth. There was a gray one, who had a lot of attitude like Golden. I named her Storm. And a multicolored one who was very shy and still. I thought she’d been born dead when I first saw her. She reminded me of Tulip. I named her Barry. And a third one so sickly and cold, born dead. Barry and Storm were born in the spring, as my other kittens were, and they played and rolled in the grass, or they would when their eyes were open. Storm’s eyes opened the day after she was born, which was strange. Most kittens take a moon for their eyes to open. I guess Storm was ready. Barry opened hers two months after she was born, very late. I was worried about her. Not Storm though — she was rolling and playing and laughing in the grass before you could say “Storm.” The snow started to fall again. Barry ran straight inside as fast as she could, but not Storm. Storm played and played, but there wasn’t enough snow this year to build the tunnels like I’d done with Golden and like I’d done when I was a kit. So, we just played in the sort of deep snow. Once, Storm sunk so deep that she landed in a hole one of those silly dogs had made. The one named Phaedra had made it. So, I had to go dig and dig and dig and dig all day with snow pouring into the hole, until I got Storm out shivering. I brought her back to the garage to warm her up.

And when she was warm enough to speak, she said “Let’s not go in the backyard again.”

But that never made her stop going outside. Looking at my kittens, I knew I was starting to get old. Then, Storm and Barry grew up too. Storm never lost her adventurous touch. She made a nest in the weirdest place she could find — in a tree!

I said to her, “What are you, a bird?”

She said, “It’s cool. You can fly from up here!” And she tried to jump. Luckily, I caught her, but not like I’d tried to catch Cinnamon. I caught her like I’d wanted to catch Cinnamon back when I was a kitten. And when I caught her, I found her a different nest. Storm wasn’t very happy about it. Barry, on the other hand, decided to adopt the garage as her permanent home. I found her a home by the garage, in the trees. I did not want to have my kitten living with me forever. She needed some independence. I was expecting my third litter, and by now I was really getting old.

Chapter Eight: Our Story Comes to a Close

I had four in my next litter, again in the spring. I knew this would be my last litter, but I still lived on strong. I wasn’t dead yet. So, I thought of names for my next litter. There was a black one that reminded me so much of Storm and so much of Golden before her. Why do I keep getting these adventurous kittens?

Then, there was also Flame and Fire, who were so similar they reminded me of Time, Tulip and Rose. Except they weren’t nervous, just not as adventurous as Raven. And then, finally there was Ripple. She was as adventurous as Raven, but she was not as daring. Raven and Ripple had their eyes open first and at a proper time, well, a few days before the proper time. And Fire and Flame opened them at the exact perfect time. Healthy! Very good. I was so happy. I’d had three litters of kittens, and then I took them all outside. When they were outside, they played and played and played. Raven tried to climb a tree. With my previous experience with Storm, I didn’t let her. Well, Fire and Flame decided to try to figure out what was inside the house, and Ripple just jumped around and jumped around and made as much noise as possible to try to lure something outside. I stopped every single one of them and made them play more quietly. And then, at the end of the day, I took them inside. I wasn’t taking any risks of leaving them outside in the night when they were so young. That night, Maple rushed towards me with a grin on his face. He told me that my brother had just had kittens. I was so happy for Silvermoon and Night that I ran right to their nest. Oh, did I forget to mention that they were mates? Well, they are. They had three beautiful kittens. Sun, Feather, and Tiger. Tiger was a lot like Golden, Storm, and Raven. I guess everybody has to have an adventurous kitten. I love them. Then, I ran back to my own kittens. Soon, snow started to fall again and for the last time in this story. My kittens played and played and played, but there wasn’t very much this year.

The people went out in their car yelling, “We’re going skiing! We’re going skiing!”

And they came back very happy. We were too.

And now I’m sitting in my cozy garage, writing this, my experiences. Raven is next to me, looking at this, though she doesn’t understand it yet, and Night had her second litter, who she gave the names of Red, Squirrel, and Bone. She named the white one Bone because he loved dogs for some reason. I don’t know why he loved dogs. And life has a nice, good rhythm. The humans have been coming and going. They’ve been here for a long time this week, like the whole week, which is unusual. But they’re gone. Somewhere, maybe the place I went with Tom. And that’s the end of our story.

Clean-Up’s Adventures

The girl living in the apartment above him was reading The Legend of Clean-Up. Yup, Clean-Up is a legend because he can make hot dogs fly. The little girl’s name is Zoe Is Awesome (Zoe for short).

Zoe was in her bed arguing with her mom.

“Is Clean-Up real?” Zoe asked her mom.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure that you’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure that I’m sure.”

Meanwhile, downstairs, Zoe’s dad was breaking the TV, so he could fix it again. He was very crazy.

Zoe wanted to know if Clean-Up was real because he was so awesome and could fly when he touched a hot dog!

“Zoe, stop thinking about Clean-Up,” her mom said sharply, as she turned the lights out.

“No! I want to know if he’s real or not,” said Zoe as she opened The Legend of Clean-Up, and she turned on her flashlight.

Chapter Two

The next morning, Clean-Up’s mother said, “Clean-Up, you need to go to school!

No,” said Clean-Up.

“Yes, Clean-Up. You need to,” said his mom.

“Ahem, what about my incredibly fancy shmancy ever so awesome powers,” said Clean-Up.

“You need to go school. Just don’t make any friends that like hot dogs,” said his mom.

“Okay fine,” said Clean-Up. “But I have to change my name. I’ll be… Kevin Up-Clean!”

So, it was official. Clean-Up was going to the six hour torture chamber (school).

Chapter Three

“Today is my first day of school!” said Clean-Up (or Kevin Up-Clean). So, Clean-Up went to school for his first time.

“So, class, today we have a new student who is also allergic to hot dogs, so if you have hot dogs, please stay away!” said the teacher.

Then, Kevin made a friend named Jacob. (He was very nice, and he showed Kevin where everything was, like where the bathroom was.) So then it was lunch time, and someone had a hot dog.

(So, someone had a hot dog. But luckily, they stayed away from each other secretly, so nothing bad happened.)

Then, Clean-Up and Jacob both went home to their houses and went to bed.

Chapter Four

Zoe was getting ready for school when she spotted The Legend of Clean-Up!

“I know he’s real,” Zoe cried.

“Who’s real, honey?” asked Zoe’s mom.

“No one,” said Zoe. Zoe grabbed The Legend of Clean-Up, stuffed it in her backpack, and ran to school.

At school, she told everybody about Clean-Up. When she said he was real, they thought she was crazy. There was still one person she hadn’t told Kevin Up-Clean. She walked over to Kevin Up-Clean.

“Do you believe in Clean-Up ?” she asked him.

“Yes,” said Kevin Up-Clean.

“Really?” said Zoe. She was so excited.

“Totally,” said Kevin Up-Clean.

“I never met anyone who believed in Clean-Up before!”

“Where do you live?” asked Clean-Up.

“86th Street,” said Zoe.

“Me too!” said Kevin Up-Clean.

“Want to come to my house after school?” asked Zoe

“Sure,” said Kevin. After school, Kevin Up-Clean went to Zoe’s house. Zoe’s house was awesome.

“Zoe, I have to tell you something. No one can know. I am Clean-Up,” said Kevin Up-Clean.

Chapter Five

One day, Clean-Up was walking with Zoe and talking. Then, the school bully walked by with a hot dog.

He said, “Clean-Up isn’t real. If he was, he would be really bad and do bad stuff.”

Clean-Up felt really mad. He wanted to eat the hot dog too, but he couldn’t touch it, because he would make it fly with his magical powers.

Zoe and Clean-Up tried to stop the bully from saying mean things.

Zoe said, “Stop it! Go away! Don’t bully a legend because it can be true, and it can also not be true. And it’s mean. And actually, if Clean-Up was real, I’d like him.”

“Yeah, Zoe. You’re right!” said Clean-Up, feeling awesome. Then they both went to Zoe’s house and ate Skittles!

Then, he had two best friends, Zoe and Jacob.

And he liked both of them.

A lot.

Chapter Six

After that, everything was okay until… One day at recess, the school bully came and cornered Clean-Up and then put him in a bag and took him to his secret lair, and he stayed there

for a long time…

Then, Clean-Up said, “I am awesome, so I can get myself out of here, and I am Clean-Up! I will survive!”

Two hours later, after trying very hard, he gave up. Then, he sat down and saw something very mysterious … a box of Oreos and a key to get out. Clean-Up was to scared to go outside because he knew that Dominic (the bully) was guarding the outside of his secret lair waiting for Clean-Up to try to get out. Then, Clean-Up had an idea… He threw the key out the window (because it was useless), and he started writing a letter to Zoe and Jacob … But then Dominic noticed what Clean-Up was doing and quickly took the note and crumpled it up and locked him up in the lair all alone, and Clean-Up was left alone to just have a feeling of hope that Zoe and Jacob would come and find him.

Chapter Seven

The next 20 weeks, when Clean-Up wasn’t at school, Zoe decided something was wrong. She called Jacob and asked him to come over. Jacob and Zoe agreed something was wrong.

Zoe sighed.

“Jacob, I didn’t want to know about Clean-Up because he’s awesome but because I’m a legend too,” said Zoe.

“Really?” said Jacob.

“Really. I’m Zoe Is Awesome. I have had my super powers ever since I was a kid and never told anyone,” said Zoe.

“Well, I’m Panda Jacob. And I can turn into a Panda! I have had my super powers since I was born and have not told anyone too,” said Jacob proudly.

“And I can fly when I touch a chicken and fall when it disappears,” said Zoe.

“Great, we’ll make an awesome team. We will save Clean-Up in no time,” said Jacob.

So that weekend, Zoe and Jacob set out to find Clean-Up, but first… they told Clean-Up’s mom where they were going. Afterwards, they went to Jacob’s treehouse.

“So,” said Zoe, “Clean-Up was probably kidnapped.” Jacob nodded.

“Here’s the list of suspects,” said Jacob as he gave her a notebook.

At the top of the list was Dominic’s name.

“It was probably Dominic,” said Jacob. Zoe didn’t say anything.

“Where could Dominic hide Clean-Up?” Zoe said finally.

“Anywhere,” said Jacob.

Zoe spread out a map. She looked at all the places on the map. “Crocodile Creek, Lobster Lagoon, Carrot Cavern, Crystal Cavern. Where could Clean-Up be?” asked Zoe.

“I say we check Crystal Cavern first,” said Jacob.

“Good idea,” said Zoe. So, Jacob and Zoe set off to Crystal Cavern with Zoe’s pet chicken, Alfred.

Chapter Eight

When Zoe and Jacob reached Crystal Cavern, they saw a crack in the stone wall of the cave. Zoe peered through the crack and said, “I don’t see anything. Check the ground for trap doors. I’ll search the wall for secret passages.”

“Ay ay, captain,” said Jacob.

“Ha, I am not the captain. I just read a lot of stuff about it.” Jacob dropped to his knees and began to search.

After one hour….

“I found a key!” Jacob hollered at the top of his lungs.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Not so loud. Dominic could hear you. Can I see the key?” Zoe whispered. Jacob handed her the key.

“This is the key to unlock Clean-Up,” she said.

“The entrance is over there. Let’s go,” Jacob said. Zoe and Jacob hurried over to the entrance and used the key to open the door…

Bam crash bang. Axes, hammers, and swords wouldn’t stop raining down from the sky. “How do we stop this!” Jacob said.

“We don’t stop them. We’re going through them,” said Zoe fiercely. Without another word, Zoe grabbed Jacob’s arm and pulled out Alfred and started floating, but as soon as she was in the air, she began to sink back down!

“What happened!” cried Jacob.

“You’re too heavy,” said Zoe.

“Me? But I’ve been on a diet for weeks!” said Jacob.

“Turn into a panda and give me your bamboo.” Jacob turned into a panda and handed Zoe his unlimited supply of bamboo. Zoe began to build a tunnel out of the bamboo. Zoe and Jacob walked through the tunnel. When they were at the other end, they saw Dominic guarding a door. It was a big metal door, and it had a big metal lock in it.

“Let us pass,” said Jacob.

“Go ahead,” said Dominic.

Jacob started to walk forward..

“Don’t do it. It’s a trap,” said Zoe. Jacob stopped and turned into a panda.

“What are you doing?” asked Zoe.

Jacob didn’t say anything. He inched forward towards Dominic.

“What are you doing?” asked Dominic.

When Jacob was an inch away, he pounced on Dominic.

“Hey, stop that!” said Dominic. When Dominic was on the floor, Jacob sat on him and smiled. Jacob made sure that Dominic was knocked out and then turned back into himself.

Zoe and Jacob ran over to the door. “How are we going to find the combination for the lock?” asked Zoe.

“I don’t know,” said Jacob. Jacob tried a million different combinations. Zoe was walking around the room, seeing if there were any other ways in.

Finally, Zoe said, “The door isn’t actually locked.”

Jacob was shocked, but he opened the door anyway. They walked through the door and saw Clean-Up chained up in the corner.

“How do we get Clean-Up now?” asked Jacob.

“The key wasn’t only for the door outside. It was also for the cage that Clean-Up was in.”

Jacob and Zoe ran over and unlocked Clean-Up. Then, they locked up Dominic and took the Oreos!

Clean-Up was saved! They paraded out of Dominic’s lair and went back to Clean-Up’s house.

Chapter Nine

Hip hip hooray! Three cheers for Jacob and Zoe!” cheered Clean-Up.

They were in a hot dog shop on 85th Street to celebrate their victory.

Clean-Up touched a hot dog, and the hot dog hovered above it. They ate hot dog cake and Oreos and played tag and Clean-Up was It. He could just tag someone with his string, and then Clean-Up would pull his string up. And when they wanted to tag him, they had to jump up to tag him!

Wherever Clean-Up wanted to go, he was just right above Zoe. If Clean-Up didn’t want to walk to school or he hurt his leg (or any other part of his body), Zoe would give him a hot dog and pull him to school. And then every day, Clean-Up and Jacob went to Zoe’s house to play and have fun and celebrate that Zoe and Jacob saved Clean-Up. And then everything was okay.

THE END


The Duck Dilemma

Chapter One: The Duck Dilemma

One day, Alex and her younger sister Sophia had a fight. Alex couldn’t join the same after-school program her sister was part of because her sister didn’t want her in the after-school program.

So, she went and talked to the ducks at the zoo. The zoo made her feel at home.

The ducks quacked back to her. “Hello.”

“What just happened?!” Alex said. Alex whipped her head around to see if anyone else was there. But no one was there.

The ducks start quacking.

“We can talk to you because you have a special power of the duck-adoo.”

What?!

“It is a special ability to talk to ducks.”

“Bu — but I could never do this before.”

“When a child turns fifteen, if they are chosen, they get the power of the duck.”

No way.

“Didn’t you just turn fifteen?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will have the power of the duck for the rest of your life.”

“But can I tell anyone?”

“I am the one to not tell you, for the emperor duck-too must tell you.”

Alex followed the duck to what looked like a miniature beaver lodge. The duck went inside and came back out with a duck that looked to be 100 years old.

“Welcome, Alex of Prospect Park,” said the emperor. Alex knew what to expect.

“Hello, emperor duck-too.”

“I am flattered that you know my name,” said the emperor. “Anyway, now let’s get to business. You must not tell anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Because duck-adoo is a very sacred thing.”

“Not even my closest friend?”

“Sometimes the person that you trust most turns out to be your worst enemy,” said emperor duck-too.

“What do you mean,” said Alex as her stomach flipped. She alway thought that she and her friend Lauren were a perfect match.

Chapter Two: Lauren and Tom

The next day, when Alex went into school, Lauren was waiting for her by the front door.

“Hi, Lauren,” said Alex.

“What do you want,” snapped Lauren.

“I just wanted to say hi,” replied Alex.

Suddenly, Alex realized that Lauren, who had been such a faithful friend since kindergarten, hated her. Suddenly, Alex felt tears sting her eyes. She ran off to the protection of the girls bathroom. As she ran into the bathroom hall, she ran into someone.

“Oh, sorry,” Alex stammered.

“Oh, it’s fine,” said a male voice.

“By the way, my name is Tom, Tom Walter.”

“Uh, hi. My name is Alex, Alex Myther.” Alex suddenly recognized the boy. He was the boy who always sat in the back of math class and never answered any questions.

“Do you like the zoo?” blurted Alex.

“Yeah totally,” said Tom.

“I like seeing the ducks at the zoo,” Alex said.

“Me too,” said Tom.

“Maybe we should go together sometime,” exclaimed Alex.

“That sounds great. Maybe Friday after school,” said Tom.

“Okay, see you then,” said Alex.

Chapter Three: Friday And The Truth

Soon, Friday had arrived. Alex was getting ready for school. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies, or I should say ducks.

As the day went by, Alex went to all her classes, and as usual, Tom sat in the back of math class, never answering any questions and staying quiet. Alex tried to pay attention in class, but she kept looking back at Tom.

After eighth period ended, which was math, Alex got up and was gathering her stuff when Tom brushed by her saying, “4:00. Flatbush entrance, okay?”

“Yup,” said Alex.

When Alex arrived at the zoo, Tom was waiting on the bench reading a book.

“Hi,” said Tom.

“Oh, hi, Tom,” said Alex.

“What should we do first?” asked Tom.

“Let’s see the ducks!” exclaimed Alex.

“Okay,” replied Tom. When they got to the duck pond, there was no one there. The ducks were all bustling around so fast it looked like they were on wheels.

“Wow, what do you think they are doing?” said Alex.

“Don’t know. Maybe getting ready for something,” said Tom.

Suddenly, a duck swam over to them and said to both of them, “Welcome, Alex of Prospect Park and Tom of Greenwood Heights.”

Alex and Tom looked at each other in awe.

“WAIT, YOU CAN DO THAT?” they both yelled.

THE END.


Penny Story

I am a penny. I can have different designs, like monuments and shields. Abraham Lincoln is on my head side, and I was born in 2018.

At school, surprisingly, they were giving out pennies to look at for reading. Jacob collected the pennies and gave them back to the teacher. But I am from Jacob’s house. I live in a safe. But today, I was taken on an adventure all around Jacob’s school. This morning, Jacob put me in his sock, and I thought, This feels like a much better place to live than in a safe.

Then, I got a real bump in my back when Jacob started pinball. I went all around and got so dizzy that I got really, really sweaty. I said, “I really think Jacob is very, very active.”

I finally had some peace time when Jacob had quiet time in math and centers. During all those things, I took a very long, long, long nap. I dreamed about me in a knight’s costume fighting a humongous, humongous, humongous dragon. It almost killed me. But once it started its flames, I blocked it and jumped so high with my rocket, and then I turned them off, and I stabbed my sword into the dragon. Then, there was another and another and another. And I woke up because I was so frightened.

Then after school, I took a peek outside, and I went on the bus to go to Writopia. Then, I got taken out by Jacob, and he laid me on my back, and I looked at Jacob’s story, and I thought, Hmmm, that’s not a bad story. I think it’s about me.

The End


Who To Trust

“It was a night just like this one,” said Melody.

“Seriously?” said Nate. “That’s how all stories start. Try something new.”

“Why don’t you tell the story then,” said Melody.

“Okay,” said Nate. “In a forest only a mile away, a little girl was walking in the woods. Suddenly, a big bad wolf came in front of her.”

“Is this Little Red Riding Hood?” asked Melody.

“No way, that’s such a lame story. This is much better. Let me continue,” he said. “Just then, the little girl turned into a dinosaur with squid tentacles and a lion mane and a mermaid tail. She slapped the wolf with one of her tentacles, and the wolf fell down. He was terrified.

‘Why are you hitting me? I was going to ask you to come to dinner.’ The wolf was actually a nice guy.

‘Oh,’ said the little girl. She turned back into a little girl.”

By now, Melody was bursting into giggles. “I don’t know if that was a horror story, but it was definitely funny. You should send that to the writing competition in school.”

“No way, Melody. Everyone will make fun of me. I am 12 years old and a boy. Boys don’t typically write stories. At least that’s what the kids in school think.”

“Who cares what they think? You know we could use the money. Father is suspended, and mother is very ill. We could use $800.”

“I know,” said Nate. “Okay, I will do it.”

Melody smiled. “Let’s go home and start working on it.”

One week later, the results came out for the contest. The loudspeaker announced, “Nate Machine, please come to the main office. You are in big trouble.” Nate’s eyes widened — what did he do?? As he left the classroom, he felt everyone staring at him. His cheeks were burning. His eyes were tearing up. Just then, he heard a voice.

“Can I go with him?” It was Melody. His little sister always cared about him so much. She was also extremely smart. She was only eight, but she was in sixth grade.

The teacher rolled his eyes and said, “Sure.” She got up and went with him. They walked together silently in the hall. When they got to the main office, the lights were dimmed.

Just as they walked in, the lights turned on, and everyone yelled, “Surprise!!!” The principal was holding a check of $800.

That means I won! thought Nate. In a second, all his emotions changed from scared to happy. He looked at Melody and saw his sister beaming at him.
When they got back to class, the whole class saw the check and gasped.

Another kid named Craig whispered to someone, “Melody must have helped him. No way he could have done it on his own.”

He said that just loud enough for Melody, Nate, and everyone in class to hear except the teacher. Craig was always jealous of the siblings. Melody was really smart but wasn’t so good at controlling her emotions. Nate thought she was about to blow. But Melody just breathed.

“Mr. Yellowstone, Craig is saying Nate cheated.”

Mr. Yellowstone said, “Craig, accusing someone of doing something wrong when you know they aren’t is a type of bullying. Our school has zero tolerance for that. Please see me after class about this.” Craig seemed completely fine with it. He was fine with it because he got a picture of Nate cheating in the whole class’s mind. Nate knew this, and he felt mad. Really mad. He wanted to take Craig and push him in the wall. But he controlled himself. Suddenly, the bell rang.

“Class dismissed,” said Mr.Yellowstone. “Craig, please stay.”

Melody and Nate started walking home when a strange man appeared in front of them. “Hello, children.” He looked at Nate and said, “I can make your problems go away.” The man was tall and had a long beard with silver eyes. He was super creepy.

Melody said, “It’s okay, we don’t have any problems.” She started to pull Nate away, but he wouldn’t budge. “Let’s go, Nate.” But Nate was in a trance-like state. “What did you do to my brother, you freak!” Melody cried. Her voice full of rage and fear.

“Nothing,” said the man with a evil smile. “Now run along home, little girl. Your brother and I have some business to take care of.”

“I will never leave him,” said Melody with all the courage she could summon.

“Yes, you will,” said the man. He raised his hand, and a strong gust of wind attacked Melody. “Now run along before I get really mad.”

“No,” said Melody. She loved her brother so much nothing could keep her apart from him.

“Okay, you asked for it.” Suddenly, a tornado appeared and swept Melody away to her home. Melody blacked out. The bright sun woke her up. She blinked.

What just happened, she thought to herself. She pinched herself. Was this a dream? She remembered her brother.

She ran back to the spot her brother and her were separated.

Meanwhile, Nate awoke from his trance.

“What happened? Melody, where are you? Why am I in chains?”

“Don’t worry about anything,” said the man. “Now drink this, and all your worries will go away.”

“No way, psycho. What is wrong with you? Where is my sister?”

“Kids like you are so annoying. Don’t listen to anyone. Your sister is back home — now just drink it, or I will do the same to you as I did to your sister.” The man smirked.

“What did you do to her?” asked Nate, worried.

“Just drink this, and you can go to your sister. She has no idea where you are, and she will never know until I release you. Just drink this, and you can see her.”

“Promise?” asked Nate. “And this is not poison?”

“Why would I want to hurt you my boy? I am your father.”

Nate’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about, no you’re not. I don’t have magical powers.”

“Yes, you do,” the man said with glee. “Try them out. Point your finger at the chains, and wish to be released. Pretty easy.”

Nate did as told, and it actually happened! Nate was so surprised. He pinched himself. Is this a dream, thought Nate. “Does Melody have magic too?”

“Obviously,” said the man. “Kids these days ask the dumbest questions,” said the man with an eye roll. “Okay now that you know, what other questions do you have? Hopefully they aren’t as dumb as the last one.”

“Who is the man I lived with so long? What’s your name?”

“The man you were living with is my brother. He is the only one in our family who doesn’t have magic. I gave you and Melody to your uncle to keep you safe. If the world found out about you, then you guys wouldn’t be safe. Your mother doesn’t have magic, so she agreed to pretend that she was married to your uncle, just to keep you guys safe. Also, my name is Frank. Should I bring Melody here?”

“Yes!!!” Frank used his arms, and then magically Melody appeared.

“Nate?” Melody asked curiously. “What’s going on?”

“This will take a while,” Nate said.

After Nate explained to Melody what happened and Melody tested her magic and Melody went into her shocked stage, Frank said, “Will you finally drink this? You to Melody.” They both nodded. It was weird, but they trusted him. They both drank a sip, and suddenly they felt this magical force come over them. They felt strange. They had never had this feeling before.

“Now you can go,” said Frank without giving any details.

“How?” asked the kids at the same time.

The man rolled his eyes and said, “With magic. Duh.”

The kids wished to get out and… boom they were home.

The next morning, the kids talked about whether they should tell their “parents” about yesterday. They had felt a whole bunch of emotions. They were sad, angry, confused, and most of all, they wondered who they could trust. They knew their “parents” were looking out for them, but they should have mentioned something to them. A little hint so this wouldn’t be such a shock. They also wondered if their “parents” actually knew about their confrontation with the man. They wondered if they were ever planning to tell them about magic.

“What should we do,” asked Melody.

“I’m not sure,” said Nate. “I think we should keep it to ourselves. I feel like they don’t know about us meeting Frank. They haven’t mentioned anything about it, and if they knew, I’m pretty sure they would say something.”

“I think you’re right,” said Melody. They decided not to because they didn’t want to worry them. After all, they were just looking out for them. They acted as if everything was normal. They said hi to their “parents,” ate breakfast, and left for school.

When they reached the schoolyard, they met Craig. Oh great, thought the kids. They tried to walk past him, but he wouldn’t let them.

“So, did you spend your money helping your dad pay for some food. You know when your dad got laid off my dad got a raise.” Unfortunately, Craig’s father and their uncle worked at the same place, so Craig knew about what happened with their uncle.

“Just stop, Craig,” said Melody, annoyed and a little hurt.

She felt like Craig was lying because her uncle said he got laid off because the company had lost so much money, but now she didn’t know who to trust. Nate was feeling the same thing. They suddenly felt a strange feeling come over them. Something they couldn’t control. The ground began to shake under their feet. They started an earthquake. Nate and Melody glanced at each other.

Magic, they both thought.

Wow, thought Nate. Who knew we could do such powerful magic.

A feeling came over Nate. One that had a mix of happiness and pride but also a bit of fear. He was scared that he would never be able to control it. Suddenly, the siblings relaxed a little. The earthquake stopped. The kids gasped. Craig was stuck in a hole in the ground. As the teachers came and helped Craig out, the kids shared a knowing smile.

“You! It was you,” shouted a voice. It was Craig. “You started the earthquake.”

“How could we do that,” said the siblings at the same time. Everyone thought either Craig hit his head or just became hysterical.

“Let’s take you to the nurse,” said their teacher, “and then the psychiatrist.”

“I’m on to you two!” shouted Craig. “I’ll prove to everyone you started this earthquake. Just you wait!”

“Do you actually think he will find out?” asked Melody.

“No way,” said Nate. “But we will have to be more careful. I think we should get some more training from Frank.”

“I don’t know,” said Melody. “Can we really trust him. What if he is lying? Maybe there are more people in the world who do magic. Frank could be tricking us. Maybe that’s why he is running from the government. He didn’t even seem sorry that he left us.”

“Come on, Melody, don’t keep being so negative. I trust him. Have some faith in him and me.”

“I don’t know,” answered Melody.

Oh my God, Melody,” Nate shouted “Why are you being so annoying, Melody? You don’t trust anyone anymore. Do you even trust me?”

“What are you talking about, Nate? I trust you. You’re the only one I can trust,” Melody replied, hurt by Nate’s words.

“If you trusted me, you would come with me to see Frank.”

“But I don’t trust Frank,” said Melody, holding back tears.

“Just forget it, Melody,” said Nate. Nate walked away from Melody. A tear slipped from both of their eyes.

Nate walked to the place where they first met Frank. As if he was expecting Nate, Frank was waiting at the exact same spot.

“Come on, Nate, let’s talk. We can have some father-son time,” said Frank with an evil gleam in his eye.

“Nate, don’t go.” It was Melody.

“What do you want, Melody? You don’t trust me anyway.”

“That’s not true, Nate. I trust you, but I don’t know who else to trust. Frank came into our lives all of a sudden, and now he is trying to split us apart. Can’t you see it?” Melody replied, sobbing at the thought of losing her brother to a guy who had just randomly appeared in their lives.

Nate thought about this. Could Frank have been lying or could he be trusted? Nate felt so much pressure choosing between sides. He looked at Melody then Frank. When he looked into Frank’s eyes, he saw something. He saw promise in his eyes. A ticket to something more. He went with Frank.

“Sorry, Melody,” said Nate. “Faith’s calling.”

That’s when Melody lost it. A ray of pure light shot out of Melody. It hit Frank with every ounce of power she had in her body. It made Frank stagger back, but it didn’t seem that effective.

“Melody, Melody, Melody,” Frank said with an evil tone in his voice. “You can’t become more powerful than me in one day. Seriously, I don’t even know why you try,” said Frank. He shot out a ray of pure darkness. Melody flew across the block and was left unconscious.

“Next time don’t make me angry, Melody,” Frank said in his evil voice. Nate’s eyes widened at the sight of this. But before he could say anything, Frank said, “Let’s go, Nate.” And with a wave of his arms, they were gone.

Meanwhile, hiding in the bushes was Craig. He had gotten everything on tape. He smiled.

“Let’s see you get out of this mess,” he said to himself and tiptoed away.

Nate found himself back in the place where he first tested his magic. The minute they set foot in the warehouse, Nate found himself yelling at Frank.

What’s wrong with you!!! Melody is my sister who you just shot across the block!!! What time of father are you anyway?!”

“Calm down, Nate. She’ll be fine.”

Calm down?! She will be fine?! What are you talking about. Are you crazy. She is eight years old, you idiot!!!” Nate yelled at him.

“Wow, I didn’t know raising kids was so hard,” said Frank “Oh well. Let me explain all this to you, Nate. After this, you will have a totally different type of view,” Frank said with a twinkle in his eye.

“So what actually happened was… ” Frank started. “When you and Melody were born, we found out that you both possessed magic. It was only meant for one of you, but somehow you both got it. Melody’s magic was much purer than ours. But even though hers is purer, ours is more powerful. Basically, you and Melody are opposite. Melody is light, and you are dark. Any questions?”

“Yeah, why is Melody pure and I’m not? Also why does Melody have pure magic if none of us are?”

“Well, your grandmother had pure magic. But she was taken by the government. That’s why I was running from the government. But your sister doesn’t believe me. Also you’re not pure because you have my genes. Do you believe me?”

“Yeah, but what about Melody? How would I act around her if she is suddenly my mortal enemy?”

“You can figure it out yourself. Do you want to go home?”

“Yes,” said Nate in a somber tone. He and Melody were so close, and now they were being pulled away from each other. Then with a snap of his fingers, Nate was home.

Meanwhile, Melody was awakened by the sun. As today’s events flashed by her, Melody felt a pain in her heart. She sobbed. “How could this have happened?” She got up and started walking home.

When Melody reached home, she saw Nate. She had no idea how to react or what to say. Neither did Nate. But as their eyes locked, they knew they had to talk.

“What should we do?” asked Melody.

“I think we need to talk to Mom and Dad.”

“Okay,” agreed Melody. They went downstairs to interrogate their parents.

“Hey, kids, what do you need?” asked their dad.

“Dad, why didn’t you tell us we have magic?” asked Melody and Nate, getting straight to the point.

“Uhhhh, what are you talking about, kids?” he said, nervously.

“Don’t try and hide this, Dad. We already talked to Frank,” said Nate.

“Fine,” their dad replied. “Yes, Frank is my brother and your father. We hid you, so you would be safe.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“Who’s that?” all three of them asked at the same time. Melody and Nate felt as if there was something wrong. Their dad sensed it too.

“Go upstairs, kids.” They went upstairs as their dad cracked open the door.

As the door knob turned, ten government agents charged in.

“Search the house, and find the kids.”

Before their dad could say anything, the agents barged into the house and turned the house upside down. The kids were frightened and hid under their bed. As they hid under the bed, Melody found a trapdoor. She was shocked. How had she never noticed that? There was no time to think.

“Nate, help me push open this door.”

They opened the trapdoor and silently slipped inside and then closed the door. Just then, the agents ran upstairs and pushed open the kids’ door. But they couldn’t find them. The kids sighed a breath of relief as they left the room. But as they opened the trapdoor, they saw the agents still there.

“Hello, kids,” said one of the agents wickedly.

Melody and Nate shook with fear until Melody remembered that they had magic. That’s literally why the government was after them.

“Nate, we have magic powers,” whispered Melody. Then with a sly smile she added, “We should be nice and give them a preview.”

Nate smiled, “Definitely.”

Melody shot a gust of wind at them, and they stumbled backwards, losing their balance and falling on top of each other. Melody and Nate couldn’t help but laugh as they ran down the stairs, escaping the agents. At that moment, they didn’t care if Melody was good and Nate wasn’t. At that moment, they were just a pair of siblings who loved each other. They both smiled at each other lovingly.

Suddenly, Melody realized something and turned to Nate. “We can’t leave our parents here. We can take Dad but not Mom. She is too sick. Nate, what will we do?”

“We have magic powers. Can we use them to cure Mom?”

“Let’s try.”

Melody and Nate went to their mom’s room and saw her lying there, unconscious. She had lung cancer. Melody and Nate felt tears in their eyes as they saw their mom. As they walked to their mom, they felt afraid of what would happen to her if they did something. But, they knew they had to try. They put their hand on her and wished that she would be cured. Suddenly, a bright light came from their hands, and their mom opened her eyes.

“It’s working, Nate,” Melody said with tears in her eyes. Their mom was soon wide awake — she looked stronger. She smiled: she was okay. Nate and Melody cried tears of joy as they saw their mom waking up. But the happy moment was cut short when they heard the agents coming down.

“Come on, we have to go,” said Nate. The kids and their mom went to their dad. But before they could escape, the agents surrounded them. Nate and Melody looked at each other and smiled, while their parents were full of fright. Melody sent a tornado at the agent, and Nate shot out a blast of fire. Melody looked at Nate, and they shared a smile.

“This is who we are,” said Melody, and with that, they disappeared in a blink of an eye.

Epilogue

“Ugh, do we have to move again?” complained Nate.

“We wouldn’t have to if you didn’t blab about everything to your friends,” said Melody.

“Oh hey, my name is Nate, and I have magic powers. My family is running from the government,” said Melody, annoyed with him.

“It’s not my fault,” said Nate. “It just came out.” Melody rolled her eyes at him.

“Come on, stop fighting you two,” said their mother.

“But, this is like the 1,000th time Nate made us move,” protested Melody.

“Did not,” said Nate

“Did too,” said Melody.

They went back and forth like that a couple of times until their father broke it up. The family had been on the run since the day the government came to their house. By now, they had gotten used to moving around.

“Oh well,” said Melody, and just like the first time (and the last 100), in a blink of an eye, they were gone.


Radioactive

10:18 AM, 7/23/1999

In a city that is busy the whole day, something very extreme happens. The NASA rocket blasts off into space, but the rocket’s screws fall out, and a nuclear blast erupts and starts blasting radiation, gamma, plasma, and energy. Run!!! To the shelter!!! Run!!! Everybody tries. But they all die. The blast reaches high altitudes and blasts the whole earth. The world is gone.

The end of the world.

10:23 AM, 7/23/1999

There is one hope for humanity though. A 23-year-old named Joseph.

“I can’t believe I am the last,” he says. “But I played Fallout,” he shouts.

He goes to the basement and gets his food and puts it in a box. He goes and takes his solar panel and connects it to the circuits. He tries to connect the TV to the news, but no channel works. He then soon finds out that the circuit is limited, and he needs to find resources and dig deeper.

He takes a radioactive suit and puts it in a box. He goes and gets some food. He eats a sandwich and then goes to sleep. Then, he wakes up and starts playing Fallout 2.

Then, he says to himself, “I have a plan!!!”

He looks out the window and sees a really nice looking city. He takes his RMA, and it beeps 530 sieverts per minute. He takes out his computer, and it screeches the Windows XP welcome sound. He searches up how to survive an end of the world scenario, and he does what it says.

He then does some random things and wastes time.

He says, “Tomorrow is a new day,” and goes to sleep…

12:23 PM, 7/24/1999

“A new day,” Joseph says.

He does the same thing as yesterday. He goes and gets a drill to build a bunker, which he does. He goes and takes a drill to make a hatch. But then he takes his suit and goes outside. He goes and gets resources.

“Wow!” he says.

He is surprised at what he sees. He sees animals. But then he goes back home and puts the resources into a box. He walks to the circuit and puts in the electrical transformer and regulator. Then, the electricity goes back on.

… In the middle of 2000

He almost gives up as he stands on the mountain. But all the radiation is gone in this part. He sees a small town, and he says that he comes from a trip that took him over a year, with all the wild animals and living with a bear. Now he has come to rest as he has shown his best. He goes to his little house and lies down on his bed.

But before he closes both his eyes, a man comes in and asks Joe, who has one eye open, something important, “What land do you come from?”

“I come from Atlanta,” says Joe.

“It’s me, Mike.”

“Hello, old friend!!!”

Being on the Verge of Death: Chapter One, Just Great

Chapter One: Just Great

“Being on the verge of death.” There’s a saying like that around town. How great it feels to be like that. Then come back up to your position and fight. Well, those things are for stories. Nothing like that happens in real life.

It’s Valentine’s Day. Well, to be precise, two weeks before it. So let’s just say, it’s Drama Season. The time of the year in our school when there is the sixth grade Valentine’s Day dance. Just great.

Well, since we’re talking about school already, I’m going to do one of the things teachers love. Not Straight As, but Intros. “Clappy Clappy everyone.” So, basic things first. My name is Daisy. I’m in middle school, the class where there is the most drama. That’s it. Intro Shut Down.

Well, anyway, the Valentine’s day dance is in two weeks. Everyone’s super excited since there’s always drama every minute this time of year. People getting accepted and rejected. And it gets worse for the kids who have a lot of friends. That doesn’t mean popular though. It just means a lot of people know you, and sadly, a lot of people know me. That was nice until this time of the year. I know someone might ask me, but I might want to reject them, but at the same time, I don’t want to crush them. Well, fun fact, two of my friends, Alena and Sapphire, attract a lot of boys, so I’m off the hook for a while. Also, attract doesn’t mean boys liking them. They’re the girls that boys say to other boys you like them, but they don’t.

I’m in class now, and the flyers are already up. Great. Just great. Well, I might as well act like nothing has happened until Harmony comes up to me.

“Hey, Daisy. Let’s go tell the class about dance.”

Great. But what choice do I have? I’m part of the student council, and it’s our responsibility to tell the class. Just great.

“Sure,” I reply.

We slowly walk up to the front of the classroom to tell the class about this “fun” event.

“Okay, so we’re going to have a Valentine’s dance. It costs $10 to come to the dance. There’s going to be prizes, games, food, and a DJ. The dance is on February 14, 2019. And you need to get a partner to play some games. But you can’t ask them until each game. We’ll tell you ahead before each game starts, so just keep that in mind. Your partner can be your friends also. It doesn’t have to be a date unless someone asks you at the dance. It starts at 3:00 and ends at 7:00,” says Harmony.

And suddenly, nearly the entire class is coming to pay. Wow. Great. Only one third of the class went to the Halloween dance, and now the entire class is coming. Great. After everyone paid, Harmony and I paid since every student council member has to come. Well, this was a positive start. Rraaahh!


Adventures of Hazel Hollyblade

Hazel Hollyblade awoke with a start. Someone was knocking on the door of her little house beside the colorful Delesquari Fields next to the ocean. Red, pink, blue, and purple flowers bloomed, and the fields seemed like an endless rainbow of color, and as Hazel got up to change into a dress, she saw a woman with raven black hair and a rather uncomfortable-looking black and white dress uniform standing near the doorway.

It was Laira, the head commander. Moments later, Hazel opened her door in an emerald green dress that fell to her knees. Gold streaked down her dress and ended in flowers on the border, and the silk swirled around her legs. Her tights felt warm, and brown hair tumbled down her back.

“A monster has broken loose from the prisons!” Laira blurted out hurriedly. “The queen would like to see you.”

Hazel nodded excitedly before reaching out to the saddle gear and mounting her horse, Macadamia. This could be her big chance to actually work as a team with Great Commander Laira. As they rode across the dirt path, the salty sea breeze mixed with the sweet smelling flowers made a wonderful aroma. Once they reached the palace, Hazel dismounted and walked to the queen. She was wearing a white dress with a long red leather coat.

Without even looking, the snowy haired queen said with a regal expression, “You know your job. Now go do it.”

“Yes, Queen Dewri,” said Hazel. She knew that she was supposed to be in the Inner Circle, guarding the Sundew Tribe’s sacred mango tree while the warriors got to fight on the Outer Circle. The OC (Outer Circle) would always defeat the monster before the IC (Inner Circle) could do anything.

She took her place in between her friends, Fern and Lily. Fern had wavy brown hair and was wearing a green dress. Lily had straight dark blonde hair that fell over her shoulders and was wearing a white dress tinged with pink around the edges and a petal shaped bottom.

“I wonder what the monster is like?” pondered Fern nervously. Fern was always very nervous, while Lily was more practical.

“Probably some big, scary, gruesome monster,” sneered Violet, who loved to scare others. Her short cropped black hair and dark purple dress fluttered in the warm breeze. Shy Asphodel said nothing. Asphodel was wearing an indigo dress and had wavy black hair that tumbled down her back.

Suddenly, they spotted a shadow lumbering towards them. Hazel readied her stun sword that was safer than a regular electric sword.

“Who’s that?” wondered Lily.

As it came closer, Hazel gasped. Violet and Fern ran away on the spot. Asphodel and Hazel stepped forward while Lily and the rest of the others stepped back. Another girl named Heather also stepped forward.

Heather had dark brown hair that was tied into a braid and wore a light purple blouse and skirt. The monster had a lion’s head, dragon wings, and scaly legs. His tail whipped back and forth like a whip, the ends curving into a stinging scorpion tail. Hazel jumped towards the monster as Heather and Asphodel flanked the sides.

The monster blew out a cloud of mist, and Hazel could hear a deep voice bellow, “Me is Sharptooth!”

Hazel swung blindly and felt her blade connect with the edge of Sharptooth`s tail. Sharptooth howled in anger as his tail went numb and all the power drained out of it. As Hazel swung and slashed, she could hear Heather and Asphodel fighting too. Suddenly, as Hazel was about to swing down on the monster, she heard Asphodel shouting, “Stop!” Hazel leaped down from Sharptooth.

“What?” she questioned.

“I called the Monster Control. They’ll be here any moment now since they were too scared to come here in the first place,” Asphodel replied. They walked to Heather, and all three of them skipped over to the palace to tell the queen that they had defeated Sharptooth.

Once the queen heard the news, she was delighted.

“For this, you can all be in the outer circle!” Queen Dewri cried, smiling. Hazel looked at her friends and her bullies, and she thought of the uniform, the endless fighting, and the loss of her friends if she went to the OC. When she looked at Asphodel and Heather, Hazel could tell that they had come to the same decision.

“Nah,” said Hazel. “I think I’ll pass.”

Her friends gaped at her, but Asphodel and Heather were nodding. As Queen Dewri dismissed them, and they walked out, laughing and chittering like raccoons, Hazel felt… content.

A few months later…

“Hazel!” Heather called, peeking into her friend’s dusty cabin. “Hazel?” She wasn’t there.

“Woohoo!!!” shouted a voice nearby.

Heather rushed around the corner to find Hazel riding Macadamia the horse onto a hill. Heather smiled as her best friend zipped down the hill and out into the endless fields of Heavenly Plains.

THE WRITER WAS ABOUT TO DIE!!!

Today an ugly truck with mud and dirt scratched my aunt’s bumper of her car. I felt really sad because if the truck came in the car, I would’ve been dead. I felt scared. I felt mad. I felt sad. And I was upset with that big dummy! I should be taking all his money by now! I remember my dad told me how his dad passed away. He told me the story, but I forgot it. I was thinking the truck driver should get 9,000,000,000,000,000 paybacks. He should be in jail. My aunt did call the police about her car, and I was crying the whole entire time. My aunt gave me a tissue to dry my tears, and I felt much better. My cousin Zalah’s best friend named Afeni took lots of pictures and a video of what happened. I only took a video. I am going to show my mom, and I will ask her if can she call her friend who is a police officer and put that big dummy in jail. He deserves to be called a dummy because he crashed my aunt’s car, and that was her favorite car, and the bumper was my favorite part of her car. My aunt was really upset. She called her husband. While we were coming to Writopia, I told him I was on the side of the car. Afeni was holding my hand. Afeni was scared!!!

The next time, I will videotape it and show my mom, and then I’ll ask my mom to show her friend who is a police officer, and I will tell the whole story, and I’ll tell my mom what happened to me. Afeni called her mom, and I told her what happened and what happened to me. I talked on the phone first, and I told her that I was on the side of the car trying to have a nap in peace!!! But then that big dummy idiot almost made me die, and I was freaked out. On Monday I’ll tell my friends what happened and my teacher and my other teacher. My aunt got back the car! Hallelujah!

The Tale of Sir Beetle

There once lived a lonely old man named Sir Beetle. He was very rich. He was lonely because no one wanted to marry him. No one wanted to marry him because he was the world’s biggest idiot, at the time. He was very conceited. He had an imaginary wife who was beautiful, kind, and paid for everything he bought. His dream was to make her reality.

***

One morning, Sir Beetle awoke to the sound of kissing. He walked to his bedroom door, swung it open, and there in his hall stood two of his servants kissing. They looked very embarrassed.

“Um, hello sir,” said one of them.

Sir Beetle rolled his eyes and trudged back into his bed. He sighed. He hated the joy of other people. He thought that servants shouldn’t have feelings, or romances. He thought that all servants should never say anything except “Yes, sir” or “Yes, madam.” He thought that they should all dress the same way. He made the male servants wear a thin black shirt, thin black pants, and a gray cap. I do not know what the women wore, simply because no one has ever told me. He thought that servants should only do what they were told to do, and nothing else, and he thought all he should do for the servants was pay them extremely small amounts of money for all their hard work. In other words, he basically wanted his servants to be like golems. And most golems don’t really have a love life.

“Why don’t I have a real wife?” asked Sir Beetle. He obviously hadn’t considered the possibility that maybe it was because he was grumpy, snobbish, idiotic, and would definitely make the worst husband a woman could ask for. Just then, he got an idea. If he died, his servants would be out of work. That was a fact. So, he thought that they would save his life if he was in trouble. And what if a female servant saved his life? Then he could claim that she saved him because she was madly in love with him! He instantly jumped out his bedroom window. He was going to land in the garden. Two female servants were watering the plants. Then, they saw him.

“Sir Beetle is falling!” cried one.

“He’s going to die!” yelled the other.

And then, in unison, they cried “YAY!”

***

Unfortunately, Sir Beetle had not died. He had almost died, but God had taken pity upon him, and he had survived. He had fired the female servants who had not caught him after he had jumped out the window. When he got back to his mansion, he was more determined than ever to get married. Then, he remembered the tale of Cinderella and how the prince found a wife by having a ball. He wrote a letter inviting a girl to his ball:

Dear Elizabeth,

Would you like to go to my Dance ‘n Drink ball? There will be lots of beer and dancing from dawn till dusk!

From,

Sir William Beetle

But Sir Beetle had forgotten one very important thing: he didn’t know any women named Elizabeth. He told his messenger, named Henry Daggerpond, to deliver it to “Elizabeth.” He did not tell his Henry where Elizabeth lived… simply because Elizabeth didn’t exist! Henry Daggerpond got lost in the woods and was eaten by bears. Meanwhile, Sir Beetle had invested heavily in beer for “Dance ‘n Drink” ball. But when Elizabeth never responded, he drank all the beer he had bought. He was drunk. And being drunk, and also being a moron, is not the best way to woo a girl. Not long after he had gotten drunk, Sir Beetle got a letter from the mother of the messenger who he had sent to give the letter to Elizabeth:

Dear Sir Beetle,

The messenger who thou hath sent to deliver your letter was my son. Two hunters found his body next to a bear den. I would like to apologize that your letter was never sent, and I assure you that what happened was not your fault. You were simply sending a letter, and you had no way of knowing that my son would be killed.

Yours truly,

Anne Daggerpond

The idea of being guilty never crossed Sir Beetle’s mind, as it might have crossed the mind of you or I. As he read the letter, he began to think he was a murderer. He thought he was a murderer called Feared Sir Beetle, who was the death of all he could see. As soon as he thought this, he decided to kill anyone who he saw. He would kill all of his servants. He decided that anyone who met Feared Sir Beetle would not live much longer. That night, he told his servants to sleep in his garden. At 1:00 that night, he snuck into his garden. He killed every last one of his servants. Then, he snuck into his barn and killed all his animals. He ran into his house and killed his imaginary wife. He had entirely forgotten about how much he longed for a wife. He ran to an inn. He knew that any decent inn would have many sleeping travelers to kill. He quietly stepped into the inn. Then, he killed everyone in sight. From that day on, he had red eyes.

***

Eleanor of Antique had needed to help her horse’s hoof, which had been infected, all morning. She was not in the mood to judge any trials, but a queen must serve her country, and so that’s why she found herself listening to the story of a wealthy noble who killed dozens of servants and travelers. She was pretty sure he would be guilty, and if she said that he was, then it would be off to the gallows with him. She went to bed thinking about this murderous noble. And as she slept, Feared Sir Beetle killed all he saw…

***

It was still dark outside. The sound of a gavel thumping down on a desk could be heard for miles around. “Order in the court,” boomed Eleanor of Antique’s voice. “Bring in the verdict.” Sir Beetle was kicked into the courtroom by soldiers. He was in chains.

“ROAR!!!” roared Sir Beetle. Then, he looked at Eleanor of Antique. He noticed her dashing red hair. He stared at her dazzling crown.

“Want to go horseback riding after we get out of here?” asked Sir Beetle.

“Are you trying to flirt with me?” demanded the queen.

“Oh, yes,” replied Sir Beetle dreamily.

“I’m already married!” said the queen.

“Well, I am surely better than the man you are with.”

“The man I am with is the king!”

“Not my concern.”

“It should be your concern, because I am going to execute you!” Eleanor of Antique turned to face the court. “The verdict is guilty,” she said sweetly. “Take him to the dungeon,” she said to her guards, who had been standing beside her, looking like giant nutcrackers.

They hustled out of the courtroom, carrying Sir Beetle, who was still in chains. He was brought to a place so gloomy he was reminded of when he was a wealthy noble who had been loved by no one. The windows were very thin and looked as if they were about to fall apart. The most noticeable thing about the dungeon were the rats. They were huge, the size of bulldogs. They scampered and squeaked in a most unwelcoming way. There were no other prisoners in the dungeon; Sir Beetle was alone. This was not an unusual thing for Sir Beetle to be. He had always been alone. But it’s much better to be alone as a rich noble than to be alone as a prisoner in a dungeon. Around midnight, the thin glass windows crashed when hit by a large gust of wind. Not only did shards of glass come into the dungeon at this, but so did several notes. They were all the same thing: ink blotches. And they all ended the same way:

Yours truly,

Anne Daggerpond.

Sir Beetle tried to remember where he had heard that name before. Anne Daggerpond… the name seemed so familiar, but Sir Beetle couldn’t remember where he had heard it before. Anne Daggerpond… he fell asleep thinking about it. He did not know why, but Anne Daggerpond seemed so close by.

***

The day of Sir Beetle’s execution was very cold and rainy. It smelled of wet dog. It was in the courtyard of the Tower of London. Many nobles had come to see Sir Beetle get executed. One of them wore a yellow hoop skirt and had hair the color of a rotten banana. Another wore a blood-red hoop skirt and had hair the color of a dung beetle’s favorite food. They were both gossipping about how ugly Sir Beetle was. Eleanor of Antique was quite eager to get the execution over with. One of her friends, a duchess, was coming to see the execution, so she had decided to come too, but she was really not very fond of watching the lives of outlaws getting ended. The executor was a fat man with a beard that made it look like his face was being attacked by gummy worms. He picked up Sir Beetle with one hand and placed him on a table. He was about to end Sir Beetle’s life when a strong smell filled the air. It was the smell of perfume. Suddenly, a woman stepped onto the courtyard. She had long brown hair and was dressed entirely in purple. She wore a shawl. Her face was covered.

“Hello,” she said. Her voice made everyone feel like they had drunk a bit too much champagne. The executor stopped what he was doing, and so did everyone else.  “I am Anne Daggerpond,” she said. “You must be Sir Beetle.”

“I am, am, amamammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” he said sleepily.

Anne Daggerpond pulled a large wristwatch out of her pocket. She began to hum a little tune. She put the pocket watch on her arm. She admired it for a minute, then did a little dance.

“This is a dance that birds do to attract mates,” said Anne Daggerpond. She tore her shawl. She stared dreamily at Sir Beetle. Her dreamy expression made Sir Beetle think of what it had been like to love, to love someone who didn’t love you back. He remembered pretty girls who he wanted to marry. He remembered a particularly pretty girl who didn’t want to marry him.

Sir Beetle had felt like a crumpled up piece of paper. The 85th girl who Sir Beetle had asked to marry him had rejected his marriage proposal. He was sobbing so hard that his shoulders shook.

“If no one recognizes greatness such as I, life is not worth living,” he had cried.

“And I do not think anyone ever will recognize my greatness. They are too dumb.”

He did not think a girl would ever like him. Not even his servants agreed to marry him, and before they started working for him he told them that if they rejected his marriage proposal, he would fire them. He stopped his crying briefly. Then, he howled loudly and began to sob more loudly than he had been before. He had now confirmed that no one would ever like him. Sir Beetle had felt miserable. And now, as he stared into Anne Dagerpond’s eyes, he remembered love. He remembered life before he had felt obliged to kill. Sir Beetle just wanted to kiss Anne. He knew he would soon be killed, and before that happened, he wanted to kiss someone who might, just might, kiss him back. Anne walked towards Sir Beetle, and as she did, the crowd parted.

“I am a widow,” said Anne now. “I would love someone to kiss, and I think you are the perfect person for me to kiss.”

And so Anne kissed Sir Beetle. It is a wonderful feeling to get kissed after people have hated you all your life. But the nobles were not really impressed that Anne had kissed a criminal.

“This is no place for lovebirds!” said Eleanor of Antique.

“Get out of here, please,” she said briskly to Anne.

“Now, it is so sad that a rich, formerly honorable man must be killed, and I hope this sort of thing won’t happen again. But now, this criminal must be killed.”

And so the executor picked up his ax. The crowd of nobles held their breath. Rain was making everyone absolutely drenched. Thunder was so loud that no one could hear anything. Sir Beetle knew that soon his life would end. He wondered what it felt like to die.

And before he knew what had happened, he was dead.

***

Sir Beetle felt as if he had fallen onto a brick floor. He saw color swirling around him. He saw everything that he had ever seen spin by so fast that it was a blur. He was feeling a strange feeling. He felt as if something was leaving his body. It was life, he thought. It had to be life. He felt a pounding feeling in his heart. He felt like he would see Anne again. And now, he felt as though life was slipping through his fingers. He had to hold on, he had to…

***

A tall figure stood before Sir Beetle. He had a long, flowing beard. It was pure white, and just looking at it made Sir Beetle shiver. He had gigantic wings sprouting from his back. They were as white as his beard.

“I am Saint Peter,” said the tall, winged, bearded figure. He smiled. “One might call me the Santa Claus of eternity.” He chuckled. However, his smile quickly vanished.

“I will determine if you will go to heaven or hell by using the Glass Ball Of Fate.”

He vanished for a few seconds, then reappeared holding a golden spector and a glass ball. He tapped the glass ball with the golden spector and screamed, “Sir Beetle!” at it. The glass ball turned blood red and started to scream. The sound was deafening. Saint Peter frowned and tapped the glass ball with his golden spector. The yelling stopped, and the ball turned clear again.

“Hell for you,” said Saint Peter said sadly.

But then the ball turned a bright shade of blue. Harp music came from the glass ball. And then, from the Glass Ball of Fate, came Anne Daggerpond’s voice.

“He’s not that bad,” it said. “He’s really not such a bad man… ”

The voice and the harp music gradually died out. The bright shade of blue faded. Saint Peter’s frown turned into a smile. Sir Beetle wished that Anne was right next to him. Saint Peter looked a bit confused.

“Well, well, well, what will I do with you?” said Saint Peter.

“I don’t know,” said Sir Beetle.

“Well, I could use an assistant,” said Saint Peter. “I need someone who can guard the Gates of Heaven when I’m not. I need someone who will help me in old age. Would you like to be my assistant?”

“I don’t think I’m worthy.”

“Then there is one more option: reincarnation.”

“Reincarnation?”

“Yes, I can take you back to Earth and turn you into an animal of your choice.“

“I like that idea.”

“What animal would you like to be?”

Sir Beetle’s response was instant: “A beetle!”

“Very well, come with me.”

Saint Peter and Sir Beetle dived down to Earth. They dived through clouds. At last, they landed on Earth. Saint Peter pointed his spector at Sir Beetle.

“SCARABÉE!” he roared. There was a blast of light, a rush of sound, and Sir Beetle was a beetle. He turned his head to thank Saint Peter, but by then Saint Peter had vanished.


MARS!!!

Once there was a girl who lived on Earth. She and her family were very happy on Earth, and they all had a great life… until a science experiment went horribly wrong and caused a hole in the center of the Earth. The whole world had to evacuate to Mars before the Earth exploded. All the people had started a new civilization on Mars. Two years later, they had discovered how to get technology and gravity and buildings and houses on Mars. They made all of their shoes out of led so that it would weigh them down so that they would not float away. All of the buildings were made out of led as well as all of the other stuff that needed to stay down.

She wanted to see what the rest of outer space was like. Little did she know she did not have the right equipment or skills to get back to Mars. She took off her big led shoes, and she jumped off Mars. She started floating out into outer space. Her parents said that she looked like a baked potato. They were standing outside in their led shoes. The mom was wearing Gucci Led Special Editions, and the dad was wearing led Air Jordans. Her parents were very young. Her mom was 45, and her dad was 47. The daughter was 11 when she floated off of Mars. Her parents went to the one and only best doctor on Mars, The Therapist. The parents had to get the therapist’s best staff to get a thousand foot long cord and rope to attach to one of the staff members so that the staff member could float out into space to get the girl back.

He started to float out into space, but then bang! The cord snapped! He went floating until he also looked like a baked potato just floating through space until he finally lost sight of Earth. He started to scream on the top of his lungs.

He started to hear a very faint screaming sound in the distance. As he got closer, he started to see a floating object that almost looked like a human! The sound started to get louder and louder until he finally realized that he had found the missing girl. He was extremely proud of himself… until he remembered that he was no longer attached to Mars! He was of just as much use as a floating baked potato in the middle of the very big ocean. So basically useless!!! He was terrified, but he had to remind himself that he had to be strong for this little girl.

“HELP!!!” Lulu screamed. “HELP!!” she yelled again.

“I’m over here,” yelled Nathaniel the employee.

How was he going to help her if she was so far off in the distance and if he couldn’t even find her! What was he going to do?! He looked around him but saw nothing but inky blackness. He heaved a big sigh and continued his journey to find Lulu the missing girl. He finally, after a long time, found her. Her throat was hoarse from yelling, and her eyes were puffy and red from crying. She looked like she had been crying for a long time. Nathaniel floated towards her. She started to squirm away from Nathaniel because she had never met him before, and so in that moment she had no idea what exactly was going on. She didn’t know what was going to happen. She didn’t even know if the man floating was even a man. Maybe he was a martian, and he was coming to kill her! Oh no, she thought. But as the man got closer, she began to recognize him. He went to her school. She started to loosen up and let him take her hand. He started to swim through space until Mars was in sight of them.

They finally touched the ground of Mars. Everyone from her school had been waiting for her to come back down. Once they saw her land on Mars, they all started cheering. She was safe again. Her parents ran up to her and gave her a huge hug. She quite enjoyed it. She then realized that she appreciated her parents and being back with them and back home. In that moment, she finally realized that she liked being back to everything on Mars.

The End


Pengy and His Friends

How to Make a Friend: A Penguin’s Guide (Book One)

Chapter One

Pengy is a penguin for sure. He lives in the New York Aquarium. He is trying to find a new friend, but he can’t. He is on a different schedule than all the other penguins because he goes swimming while they eat. And when they go swimming, Pengy goes to nap, and he naps for the rest of the day. So, Pengy wanted to switch his schedule, so he could be with the other penguins longer.

One day, Pengy the penguin was swimming around looking for friends. They all swam and dropped their eggs in the water, and Pengy went to save them. The other penguins knew that Pengy took their eggs, so then they started a fight. Next, they found that the other penguins laid eggs, so they also took them. Then, the zookeeper found out that the penguins were having a fight, and then they separated all the penguins from Pengy.

So, because of the fight, one of the zookeepers decided to take one of the penguins and train them to be on the same schedule as Pengy. But when Pengy and the other penguin had eggs at the same time, they had a fight because there were penguins falling in the water, and they didn’t know whose was whose, so they fought over them.

So, they split all the penguins away from Pengy and his friend to a different enclosure from all the other eggs that were hatching. Then, one of the eggs started to hatch, but they didn’t have any water or ice to slide on. The enclosure was warm to keep the penguin eggs warm because they didn’t have feathers yet. But once they started hatching, they were moved back to be with Pengy.

Pengy was happy because they were all on his routine, so he got a lot of friends to swim with.

The End… for now.

Chapter Two

One day, Pengy found out that there were new penguins coming to the aquarium. Pengy saw new penguins arriving into his enclosure.

And he started saying, “I’m going to go to surprise them!” to his friend.

Then, the penguins were going to a different shelter. He got so sad. He wanted more friends than just one and lots of baby penguin friends.

Then, everybody thought that the baby penguins were like actual penguins because they thought there were broken eggs in there, but no! There were actually eggs in there that thought they were going to be hatched. Then, they laid their own eggs because that was their only time to lay their eggs again — it was winter — and now there was snow for the penguins. They stayed in their shelter the whole winter until the penguins got a little older, but there was still some snow and ice.

They used their bellies, and they had so much fun!

The End… for now.

Chapter Three

So then the people came there to see the eggs hatch. They were still very small, so they were still in the warm enclosure because they still didn’t have their thick feathers. Peggy’s feathers are still brown instead of black and white.

He liked to play with other brown penguins, but there were a rare number of them. That’s why those brown penguins who were older had a different schedule. They ate before all the penguins, went for a swim, napped, went for another big swim, then stayed out to feel the cold air and get a slide.

That’s what Pengy would do in the winter, But in the summer, he would just keep sleeping until dinner time and show off to the people.

The End… for now.

Chapter Four

Pengy liked to show off to the people. One day, he woke up bright and early for a morning exercise. Except today it was his nap time, but people were bringing him food. All the black and white penguins were awake and ready to eat. While he was sleeping, they fed all the food to the black and white penguins without waking up brown and black and white penguins. When he woke, he was hungry. He wanted to see if there was any food left.

He finally found a way to get out of his tank and tell the people that feed him that he didn’t get any food. So next he told them to give him food, and he also told them that he was sleeping at the same time. So then he actually did not need food because he ate it all in one bite.

Chapter Five

The next day, he finally found a friend because they taught a penguin their new exercise, which was just Pengy’s routine. He was happy.

The End… for now.

Pengy and Pezy at the New York Aquarium (Book Two)

Chapter One: Pengy and Pezy with the Fight Beginning

Pengy and his friend named Pezy liked to swim in the water, but what Pezy liked doing best was snuggling up with Pengy, and the best thing that Pengy liked was playing with Pezy.

One day, they didn’t know what to do, and Pengy said, “Do you want to play? We both love to play.”

But Pezy was tired. “Can we both snuggle?”

Then, they had a fight. Pezy was snuggling, but then Pengy saw that his food time was coming up, but Pezy was sleeping. Then, Pengy went to eat. The food was delicious.

Chapter Two: The Delicious

One day, Pengy and Pezy woke up bright and early, ready for a swim. The swim was really refreshing. Then, they had a morning snack. The snack was fish. Then, they had a little nap. After their nap, they woke up ready for another swim. Then, they ate again. They had crill this time. Then, they did some stretching. Then, he just stayed outside feeling the evening breeze. They ate again. This time they ate lobster. And then they went for their good night sleep.

Chapter Three: The Food Chain

One early, bright morning, both Pengy and Pezy were ready to eat. They ate and ate until their tummies were full. Then, they had a nap until lunch time. Then, they woke up ready to eat again. But then the people that fed them by accident dropped the bucket of fish that they were going to eat into the water. The fish turned alive and swam away. Pengy and Pezzy jumped into the water ready to swim. Pengy clapped his wings and caught a fish, then he swam up to the top and ate it. Then, Pezzy jumped in, and he clapped his hands, and he got one. He also swam up to the shore and ate. Then, Pengy jumped in and clapped and caught a fish. They did this until there were no more fish in the tank.

Chapter Four: Pengy and Pezy and Coconut

One day, they saw a monkey driving to the aquarium. The truck drove zooming into the aquarium! The monkey fell out of the truck and into Pengy and Pezy’s enclosure. They found out that the monkey’s name was Coconut. Coconut loved to do the same thing as both of them liked to do, and he could do them at the same time. He was great at playing.

Chapter Five: Pengy and Pezy with the Solution of the Fight

They played and played until Pengy and Pezy started a fight because now they wanted to do a different thing again!

Pengy wanted to play, and Pezy wanted to snuggle, but then Coconut said, “I could split my body in half? And then you both could do what you want to do with me! You could play with me. You could go to sleep with me!”

Then they slept, ate, and did all their routine

Pengy and Coconut (Book Three)

Chapter One

Pengy was a penguin, and Pengy had a friend named Coconut. They both liked to do the same thing. They both liked to snuggle together, play together, and even talk underwater together! They had fun until Pengy wanted to play again, and Coconut wanted to dive in and have a fresh swim and climb the tree.

Chapter Two

Pengy was swimming, and Pengy saw a truck had a bunny. The bunny fell out right into their enclosure. In the enclosure they couldn’t see the bunny because the bunny was white, and it was lying down on snow because it fell out of the truck onto its front. And then the bunny started standing up to try and show them that he was alive, but they couldn’t see him and kept stepping on him.

Chapter Three

Then, the bunny jumped into the water, and they were finally able to see him! They asked the bunny his name.

He said, “Eeer eeeer eer eeeer!”

Then, they asked the truck driver what the bunny’s name was. Coconut the monkey told them the answer because he spoke monkey, human, penguin, and bunny. He said the bunny’s name was Pezy. They started playing.

The End.

Pangy, Coconut and Sammy (Book Four)

Chapter One

One day, Pangy and Coconut saw a branch from a truck. It was sticking out. Then, they saw an owl. The owl’s name was Sammy. They saw its wing sticking out, and it was about to move its foot up, and the wings were keeping it balanced. Then, they saw Sammy grabbing onto a tree with his back legs. He was about to fly off because he wanted to make a nest, but then the roof of the truck closed, and the back of it opened. But the back was too tiny to fly out of. Then, the truck rode zooming into the New York Aquarium, and Sammy flew out.

Chapter Two

The owl fell out right into his enclosure. He had no friends. His enclosure was tiny. Then, the owl flew out right into the enclosure right next to him. The next enclosure was Pengy and Coconut’s. When Pengy and Coconut asked Sammy his name, he didn’t know because he didn’t speak Penguin or Monkey. But then Coconut had an idea: he knew how to speak all the languages of animals and humans.

So, he used his owl voice and asked him, “What is your name?”

The owl said that his name was Samuel — because that’s his real name — but he said, “I really want to be called Sammy.”

Then, Coconut told Pengy how to speak Owl. Pengy knew how to speak in Monkey because Coconut already told him how. And Coconut taught Pengy to speak Penguin because Coconut already knew how to speak every other language except Penguin. And now he told Pengy how to speak Owl.

Chapter Three

Sammy liked the snow because he was a snowy owl and was used to the cold. But otherwise he was brown, and so many people thought that he was tropical because brown is kind of a tropical color. But how he got defense and stayed safe is that he flew into the snow, and then he stuck his white feathers up and his brown feathers down. And when he opened up his beak, he actually had white inside, so white would be only showing. He closed his eyes, so no water could get in. And then he just bent his feet to the back of him. And he was covered in snow, so he was camouflaged.

He like to play hide-and-seek in the snow, and the snow was as white as his feathers, which were used to the cold. But Pengy’s weren’t because his enclosure was not super cold. Then, Coconut jumped into the snow. He put his white side up and his black side down. Pengy put his brown side up and his black side down. And they all were talking to each other, but nobody could see them. Then, the food dropped onto the snow where they were lying down, but they didn’t see that their beaks and mouths were sticking out ready to eat. Then, they went chop. The aquarium keepers got so scared that they ran out.

Pengy, Coconut, and Sammy ate all the fish and then had a refreshing swim together.

The End!

Pengy, Pezzy, Sammy and Bamboo (Book Five)

Chapter One: The Seeing

Pengy saw a track in the distance, and it was heading near to their enclosure. The truck had a panda named Bamboo and an owl, but they didn’t know the name. So, they tried to ask the driver what the name was because Pengy knew all the names, but Pezy only knew Rabbit. So, he asked him in English, but he didn’t know. So then Pengy switched to his Panda language

Chapter Two: The Eating

Pengy was starting to feel hungry. They asked the owner for food. The owner got them fish, lobster, and crab. They were pleased with the food.

Pengy liked the food and said, “Oh, I like the food. Could you please give me that food again tomorrow? I still don’t know that owl’s name!”

But they didn’t see the truck about to drive in…

Chapter Three: The Knowing the Names of the Owl

Then, they looked over to a big blue truck driving in with a panda standing on top of a branch. They didn’t see the owl because the owl was right under the truck’s roof… They didn’t see the truck driving. They heard “Awoo” coming from nowhere They didn’t see an owl.

They said, “Why is there an owl’s noise?”

Then, they saw something trying to flutter from the sky! They saw wwo wings about to fly off the roof of the truck, which closed. The panda almost got stuck, but Pengy was happy because the people that owned the aquarium in New York saw that the owl was going to the zoo. Just kidding! He told the owners he was going to the zoo, when really he was going to the aquarium. They got so happy they wouldn’t have to have more animals. But then screech, the truck stopped at the gates… The gates went up, and it came in.

Then, they got Sammy and Bamboo out of the truck and into that same enclosure, and they all became friends and lived happily ever after.

The End!


Escape

I can never believe what happened yesterday. I was just flying around in the air happily, sucking on my favorite yellow flower nectar, when a huge thingy just came swinging at me, and I got tangled in it. The huge thingy had white strings in a pretty pattern, and there were holes in between the strings. There was a long red something attached to the strings. There was a round ball with a colorful ball in the middle staring at me hungrily.

I knew at once what those were. Those were the eyes of the big Hoomins! Mother told me about them. She said that they were super dangerous. She said they were the ones who captured Father! Revenge! I want revenge for that! But Mother always told me, “Don’t go looking for trouble!” Does Mother even want revenge? I think she does. She just doesn’t want me to get caught.

Well, I guess it’s too late now. I’ve already been caught. Those big eyes just stared at me even more, and without warning, the Hoomin opened her mouth. I fluttered my wings in terror. She was going to eat me! And before I could escape, a thunderous roar came out of the mouth yelling, “Marty! I caught a butterfly!”

The ground quaked as another one of the Hoomins came stumbling over. This Hoomin had straggly brown hair and big blue eyes. I just found out that his name was Marty. I was never so scared in my life. My hunger was still tingling around in my stomach when that Hoomin named Marty scooped me out of the big tangly thing with this scooper thing. Then, he put this white thing on top of the scooper, where the opening was.

I was trapped. My wings took me to the top of the scooper, and I headbutted the white thing. A big thing. One of the Hoomins Hainds pushed me down again, and I fell to the floor, my wings crinkling beneath me. A few moments later, the big Hoomins released me for a moment, and I flew up in the air gratefully, stretching my wings. But I barely got to fly around when the Hoomins pushed me inside this weird boxy thingy made out of a see-through thing. I’ve never seen this before. I wonder if Father was trapped the same way. When they first pushed me in, I thought they set me free inside their own home, but I learned the hard way. I tried to fly out but got banged in the head. I crumpled to the ground. I have never felt so sad in my life.

As I lay on the ground, I heard voices from the other room. Not just any kind of voice, big, loud, thundering voices. They said this: “Bye, Marty! See you at school tomorrow!”

“Bye, Rio!” A loud bang sounded as the home blocker closed. The girl Hoomin came over to the weird box, the ground quaking again. A bigger Hoomin followed behind, making the ground quake even more dangerously. I felt sick. I wanted to puke, but restrained myself. The big Hoomin gave me the hungry look again, her eyes closer to me than ever. I fluttered helplessly, scared half to death.

Oh, how I missed my sisters Curl and Murl. I missed the feeling of my other sister Twirl’s wings brushing against mine. I missed the days when my other sister Pearl and I went flying through the meadows together. And I missed Mother the most of all. I missed her delicate touch on my wing. I missed her beautiful scent. I missed her everything. I loved the patterns on my sisters’ wings. The pink background and the beautiful yellow circles. I missed my mother’s warm black eyes. And it was the Hoomins’ fault that I would probably never see her again. The Hoomins’ fault that I never got to meet my father. I needed revenge! The Hoomins ruined everything for me. Destroying our butterflies’ peaceful lives! I suddenly felt a wave of anger at the Hoomins. They destroyed my whole life!

Rio was still looking at me with a pretty gleam in her eyes. She turned away from me and straightened up, facing the bigger Hoomin. “She needs food,” she said. “I don’t know what butterflies eat, but maybe we can take some of Tibbie’s food for this butterfly.”

“Okay,” the huge Hoomin agreed. I folded my wings and sat down at the bottom of my cage, planning my revenge.

The Hoomins came back with one cricket. I was like, really? Do they expect me to eat a cricket? They opened the hole blocker and dropped the cricket in front of me. “Eat up, little one,” the big Hoomin said in a softer but still loud voice.

The cricket scrambled to his feet and started hopping around like crazy and chirping loudly as the Hoomins backed away from the weird box. Once the cricket saw me, he calmed down. “You’re not going to eat me, are you?” he asked uneasily.

“Heavens no!” I cried. “Who would say such a thing?!”

“The lizard named Tibbie.”

“Really?”

“Really.” I felt hungry, but not hungry enough to eat a poor cricket. I could still remember the terror I felt when the big Hoomin had opened her mouth, and I thought I was about to be eaten. “What’s your name?” I asked the cricket, hoping to change the subject.

“Nightingale,” the cricket answered. “You?”

“Whirl,” I answered back. Nightingale and I chatted a bit more until we got to the idea of escaping. When Nightingale started talking about escaping, I turned away.

“What’s wrong?” Nightingale asked, sitting beside me.

I sighed. “Father got killed because he tried to escape,” I told him sadly.

Nightingale scooched closer. “But we’re not going to be killed this time,” he said softly. “We’re going to survive.” I sniffled and looked at him. He smiled back. “Do you want to hear or not?” he chirped softly at me.

“Hear what?” I asked him.

“My plan,” Nightingale answered me.

I looked at his hopeful expression and made up my mind. “Yes,” I answered.

Nightingale chirped on and on, saying, “Let’s hide me somewhere, and then Rio and her family will think you ate me. And then, they will drop another cricket. To drop another cricket inside this box, they will have to open the hole blocker. Once they open the hole blocker, we will be able to escape through the hole!” As he was talking, I flew around the box, just in case there were some small holes that I could get through with Nightingale. Finally, when he finished rambling on, I flew down and lay myself on the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Nightingale asked, worried.

“Hungry,” I answered in a croaky voice.

“What do you eat?” Nightingale asked fussily, pacing around the weird box. I shook myself. When somebody mentioned food, I would always have gone trying to find the yummy yellow flower nectar. But now since I had no food, I was nearly dying of hunger. “What do you eat?” Nightingale asked me louder.

“Yellow flower nectar!” I shouted back.

“Mom!” Rio’s voice shouted at the same time, “Stop those critters from being noisy!” Heavy footsteps came to the weird box, and the ground quaked. I folded my warm white wings around me, and my black antennas twitched with fright. I backed away from the Hoomin who was towering over us. A Haind hit the weird box, and it rocked dangerously, and Nightingale and I rocked along with it, clutching each other tightly.

“Try chirping again, and you’ll be sorry!” the mom snarled.

As the Hoomin left the room, I started searching for a spot where Nightingale could hide, so it looked like I ate him. I found a perfect spot under all the pebbles. I felt uncomfortable as I told Nightingale quietly about the hiding spot. I told him that he didn’t need to hide there since it would be very uncomfortable.

But Nightingale just answered, “I came from a pet shop, so I’m very used to uncomfortable places.” So, Nightingale lay in a little hole in the pebbles, and I buried him up.

I looked out this see-through thing and saw the beautiful sunshine. I longed to be out there with my friends. The yellow flowers weren’t in my sight, but I could still feel the tasty nectar down my throat.

The big Hoomins stomped into the room. The big one gasped so loud that it nearly knocked me right over. “We guessed right!” she gasped. “The butterfly ate the cricket!” Rio’s big Haind immediately swept over to the box of crickets. They opened up the hole blocker of the weird box and at that exact moment, I dug Nightingale out of the hole and, grasping him tightly, I flew out of the weird box.

The Hoomins chased after us, yelling like crazy and making the ground quake. We swerved and dived and got to a see-through thing. Lucky for us, it was open. We flew out, and I landed safely in lush green grass. I let Nightingale go, and he collapsed on the ground.

“Did that work well?” Nightingale asked.

“I guess,” I answered breathlessly.

Without warning, the ground began to quake. The Hoomins were coming.

“Watch out!” I hissed at Nightingale.

“No,” Nightingale said, “I’m tired of flying. I feel sick.”

“Well, too late,” I said, and I grasped him once again and flew into the air.

“No!” Nightingale shouted as he wriggled and squirmed, trying to go free.

“Careful,” I warned him, but it was too late. He wriggled free and suddenly, he was falling through the air.

“No!” I screamed. I looked behind me and saw the Hoomins running at full speed, Rio holding the tangly thingy. Then, I looked down once again at the falling Nightingale, screaming in terror.

I dove down towards Nightingale. My wings gave me even more speed as the wind whipped around me and slowed me down. Mother’s flying lesson lectures echoed in my head, and I felt even more determined and sad than ever. I wondered what Nightingale was thinking. Probably thinking of hitting the ground and dying. That’s what I would’ve been thinking about if I were him. And then I did it. I caught Nightingale just before he hit the ground. The wind had tore off part of his left foreleg, and his eyelids were red and puffy from the pollen in the air. Mother said that some other animals were allergic to pollen. I mean, literally! What do they eat?!

My stomach felt so empty that I couldn’t stand it. But I kept going.

“Nightingale!” I yelled over the wind as I flew quickly, “Where do the crickets live?”

“I think they live under the Hoomins holes and habitats!” Nightingale yelled back.

I dove down towards the bottom of the Hoomins home and ducked under the front steps. Footsteps of the big Hoomins shook the ground as they came after us. The Hoomins stopped by our hiding spot. I shivered. Did the Hoomins know that we were here? Nightingale and I stood still.

“Where are they?” Rio demanded.

“Let’s continue looking,” the mom said.

The Hoomins ran off again and at that moment, two eyes appeared from the dark. There was something queer about them. A figure appeared. It was the outline of a cricket.

“Ah,” the cricket said, coming into view, “another cricket.”

He patted Nightingale and said, “I will take care of him. You may go now.”

I nodded and flew out from under the home of the Hoomins and headed in the direction of the yellow flower gardens.

I saw the yellow flower garden ahead, and I sped up, my wings flapping frantically. “Hi, Mother!” I shouted. Mother turned her head in surprise. Her wings flapped with joy as she hugged me tight.

She touched me delicately once more. “Where were you?” she asked softly.

“Somewhere,” I answered mysteriously. She smiled down at me.

“Whirl!” a shrill voice shouted. Murl flew up to me and gave me a big hug. “Curl and I have been looking for you all day!”

“Really?” I felt stunned. “Where’s Curl?”

“She’s looking for you at the other yellow flower garden. C’mon! Curl will be so happy to see you again!”

I smiled to myself. What a lucky butterfly I am, to have the family I’ve got. Murl pulled on my antenna, and I let her drag me to the other yellow flower garden.

Curl’s greeting was the same as Murl’s. A shrill shriek of “Whirl!” and then a big hug. They were twins, after all.

We chatted a bit until a comforting antenna patted me on the back. I turned around… and there was Twirl! “Twirl!” I cried.

“Hello,” Twirl said. “Where were you?”

“Somewhere,” I said in that same tone I used on Mother.

“Pearl said that you were captured by the Hoomins. She was worried sick!”

I laughed weakly. “Oh, silly Pearl. She’ll probably be so glad that I’m here.”

At that moment, a shaken Pearl rose from behind Twirl. “Oh, Twirl. Can you please help with the rescue mission? It’s sooo impor-” Pearl noticed me standing there and flew over. “You’re here!” she cried, “That means a party!”

“True,” Twirl said, giving me a reassuring smile “This calls for a party!”

“You look so skinny! Go get some of that nectar! You’re also stressed out. Take a rest before this party starts!” Pearl fussed with me for a little while.

“PAR-TAY!” Curl and Murl sang, “We’re going to have a PAR-TAY!”

I thought of the scary Hoomins. I changed my mind. I don’t want revenge anymore. They’re too scary for butterflies to deal with. Never ever will I put myself in trouble again and never will I put my family in any.

I felt dizzy with happiness. Not only did I meet my family again, but I’m going to have a party! This is the best return ever!


My One and Only Haunted House Experience

“I can’t wait for the haunted house!” I screeched. It was 2014, and I was with my friend. We were about to go into the haunted house! But right before we went in, my friend somehow started to do a type of penguin dance.

“Wait! I need to go to the bathroom!” she hollered over the noise.

All the excitement washed away from me.

“Uhhhh!” I sighed.

Nine thousand billion trillion hours later…

“Finally! You came back!” I said with joy.

When we went in… we saw a person stab off a women’s neck and a butcher chainsawing off a man’s leg! But the part that locked in my memory the most (like my pool lock whenever I go swimming, I can’t even open it when I come back from the kid swimming section!) was when there was this zombie blocking our way to the next room. But since we were small, we could go under his arms. We just had to somehow distract him. I thought for a few minutes, and I finally came up with a plan. I whispered to my friend, and she agreed.

“You could go in front of me!” I told a stranger behind us.

“Oh! How nice of you!”

But they didn’t know our plan!

I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL!!!” I heard the zombie who was blocking us say.

While all that action was happening, my friend and I snuck under the zombie’s arms, and finally, we made it to the next room! After the haunted house, I was surprisingly proud of myself for making up that plan! You have to admit, it was pretty impressive considering I was only five!!!

THE END!!!

“I will get you next Halloween! For I am… The Human Blocker!”


Ghost

Once upon a time there was a ghost who wanted to terrorize people. His name was Jacko, and he was able to go into things and make them grow and shrink. So first, he tried going into a house, and then he made it shrink to a super tiny size. There was a guy inside, and his name was Bob, and he was so scared that he ran and called 911. And then the police showed up, and the chief shot a gun at him, but it went right through him and hit a factory of gasoline which started a huge fire. Then, the firemen showed up, and the ghost ran away because water would kill him.

Next, he went to a wedding. When they were trying to kiss, the ghost stepped in, and they both kissed the ghost instead. Then, a man threw cake at the ghost, and it went right through the cake and hit somebody in the butt!!! The ghost flew to the Elmer’s Glue factory and took some glue. There was someone named Dodoooducky.

Dodoooducky was walking, and then the ghost squirted glue at Dodoooducky’s butt. Then, Dodoooducky sat on the Empire State Building!! He was stuck to the Empire State forever!!!

THE END


The Journey

A young lion, Egghead, was already a leader of his tribe and was so thirsty, but he couldn’t find any lakes.

The lion Egghead set out to find water, but wherever he went, he couldn’t find water.

He came across a zebra and asked the zebra if he knew where to find water.

“In this juicy patch of grass you will find water,” the zebra replied.

Then, for some weird reason, he saw…

A giraffe with a blueberry!!

Just so you know, blueberries were very rare on this side of the world. And they’re the juiciest fruits ever, in my opinion.

And the giraffe had the biggest blueberry ever!!

Egghead woke him up and said, “Hi, do you think I could have some of that blueberry?”

“No, I have a big family,” said the giraffe. “I need to share it with my two grandpas, two grandmas, my wife, three nephews, and two nieces! I’m almost tired just writing to them!”

But even if the giraffe did give Egghead the blueberry, he would have to share it with his two grandpas. “Ugh!” Egghead hated sharing with people. So, he asked, “Where did you find it?”

“I did not find it. I planted it,” the giraffe replied. “Do you know what I will do? I will give you the seed of this blueberry, and it will grow in a few hours.”

“Wow,” Egghead said “When can I have it?”

“Now,” said the giraffe, as he plucked out the seed. The lion immediately leapt on him and grabbed the seed from him and quickly said thank you.

Grinning, he ran away happily looking at his new prize. He ran home as fast as he could, and the minute he came home, he went to his garden as fast as his muscular legs could carry him.

And as soon as he was there, he started digging as fast as he could, and then he quickly covered up the hole. As soon as you could say, “Spaghetti on bread,” night fell. The lion started reading the seed stories and sang it songs. He didn’t get a wink of sleep.

As fast as night fell, morning came. He was sleeping so hard, so the women lions had to hunt instead of him. When he woke up, the women lions were all mad at him.

One said, “Why in the world were you not awake? We had to do all the work.”

“So do you still believe in that useless legend?” asked the women lions.

“Why did you call the legend useless?” asked the Egghead, now raising his voice.

“We, the mighty lions, respect the legend. You don’t dare insult the lion who was the first ever lion on earth. That’s why you are alive now. Because she produced babies — that’s why you are alive,” said the lion whose name was Egghead the Strong.

He liked his family, but inside his head he was thinking, Why has the seed not grown?

But secretly, the blueberry was growing right in his garden, of course, so he decided to check on it. When he got there, he saw that it was too big to keep there, so he cut the blueberry with his razor sharp teeth and divided it into small parts and ate one piece of the blueberry. The women lions were doing their gardening. One of the lions went to check on him, and when she saw the blueberry, she was obviously thrilled and went to fetch the other lions.

The other lions came, one by one, and had the same feeling as the first lion who saw the blueberry. They all tried to dive at the blueberry, but the male lion punched and kicked in each of the female lion’s face, and they tumbled down the hill, all of them black and blue.

Egghead swung himself onto a tree and scraped off a ton of bark, so he could make a fence strong enough to hold a lot of lions and high enough so they couldn’t spy on him. So, back to the story: Egghead had a lot of skills — he tossed the bark into the the air and kicked them into different places. He was screaming, “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” and finally landed. The women lions watched in disgust and soon retreated.

Egghead karate-chopped the air in triumph. He started walking to the Muffin Montoy, the best place to get muffins, and on the way he met Bring the bird who was always traveling around the world.

He asked, “Where are you going, Egghead the strong?”

“I am going to the Muffin Montoy,” Egghead the Strong replied.

So, Egghead finally arrived at the Muffin Montoy, but just when got there, he froze in fear. His biggest archenemy, Engonto the Terrifying, was at the the gate of the Muffin Montoy, stealing muffins from the other animals.

“If you steal in the Muffin Montoy, you go to jail,” Egghead the Strong said, bravely. “Or I unleash my little pet dragon.”

Engonto was now slowing down from all the muffins he had eaten.

“Oh, and you might be sent to the principal,” Egghead said, chewing a pickle and drinking water. “Oh, and also muffins are ubiquitous in the Muffin Montoy world, even in the bathroom.”

Egghead the Strong was feeling very active and wanted to help all the animals and stop Engonto from stealing from the Muffin Montoy. He was making them run out of muffins and draining them out of business.

So, Egghead the Strong decided to whistle out strongly to the speedy snake jailers who would lock him up, but Egghead the Strong needed evidence. So, he took his lean mean freezing machine and froze Engonto and all his muffins.

By the time the speedy snake jailers arrived and saw him, they sneered, “Well, poor little Engonto the Sneaky isn’t so sneaky after all.” And they took him away.

Egghead laughed and ordered the jazz muffin, his favorite muffin ever, and proudly went home singing happily “The Muffin Man.”

He finally reached home very happily, but found the women lions were not there. Egghead found this super peculiar. He figured out that the women lions had started their tree fiber afternoon weaving, and he knew that he was right because they wouldn’t be doing anything else. And he was surprisingly right because he hadn’t memorized the women lions’ schedule of what day they would do that day and what day they would take a break.

It was very hectic because half the time he knew where the women lions were and what they would be doing.

Today was his birthday, and the date was January 25th, 2028, and he was turning 17, so this was his final year of school. After school, he would be heading into college for 12 years because Egghead was doing many courses like fighting, being a doctor, and the course he was most looking forward in college was the secret agent course because he would learn to spy and do many other things, but also the secret agent course was four more courses thought.

So, he eventually found his partner, and he liked his partner, so he built phones for both of them even though they both knew how to make phones.

One day, he was whispering to his partner, and his partner told him that Engonto had broken out of jail… luckily, he got his partner’s message.

Just then he realized something — he didn’t know his partner’s name. So, he called him up and asked him what his name was.

“Slick!” his partner replied.

Today was the big day because he was heading for college, so he started to run fast. He ran nine miles by the time he took a bite of his blueberry and went to sleep.

He had a weird dream that the giraffe was very evil and was trying to kill him. He suddenly awoke with a start, sweating like crazy. He decided that now that he was awake he should get going so he would reach there earlier, but something was stopping him. He thought he didn’t have enough courage to go on, but he was wrong as usual.

He had recently discovered that a big, ugly, fat bee was so close to him. He decided to swat the big, ugly, fat bee, so he still missed, but he was very happy because the big, ugly, fat bee had gone away.

So, he started back on his journey to the Capital. While he was walking, he met his partner, Slick, and asked how far they were from college. He groaned. Slick the Hyena seemed very surprised.

Slick said, “Why, we’re only 900 feet away. Hahahahahahahahahahaha. You’re wrong. Hey, that’s really weird.”

“What’s really weird?” Egghead whispered.

“Egghead, some warts are on your skin,” said Slick. “Oh, and why are you spinning dude?” whispered Slick, confused.

They finally reached The Cats College. First, they signaled to the guards. Then, they walked through the heavy iron doors at the back of the castle.

Clang clang clang clong clang, the huge bells went, as the time turned 12:00 AM.

Yay, it’s lunch time. Oh yeah, because I get muffins,” exclaimed Egghead.

After they entered the iron doors, they saw a miraculous sight — a bunch of eagles swooping down and dive-bombing at least 100 pigs. But Egghead had two majestic black eagles of his own: a male and a female who were about to have babies.

But black eagles are the rarest and most powerful eagles, at least as big as five of the other eagles. So, Egghead let them loose — they made a deafening skreeleech!

All the eagles stopped to look at the eagles, but because eagles can’t hover, they fell down, down, down into complete darkness.

Kaboom!

A fire ball came down into the pit right after the eagles.

A few hours later…

Slick and Egghead were still exploring the huge castle. While they were exploring, they found a lot of eagle nests.

There were so many chicks with so many mother and father eagles, so as soon as they saw Egghead and Slick, they shooed them away like tiny flies.

Crash!

He stumbled upon something. It was a round, hard map preserved in clear plaster for hundreds, no, maybe thousands of years. Before he could do anything, the lunch bell rang.

THE END


Jiggling Giggling

“Golden spring,” said Ms. Giggling. “Better be on my way.” And then there was a big musical, and everyone started singing on the street.

After the musical, everyone said, “Phew, better be on our way.” And everyone started walking to work again.

“Wow,” she said, and she went to work.

As soon as she got in to the office, all the boys thought she was so beautiful. And then, the boys started a musical number, and then Ms. Giggling said, “Ohh, that was so sweet, boys!” And she clapped for them and gave them stickers.

They said, “That’s for children!”

And the boss came in and said, “My goodness, ma’am, I just came in to tell you, you just became so famous that everyone in the world knows you.”

She was one of the most kind people in the whole world, and word had spread. She put her hand on her cheeks and said, “Oh boy! Does that mean I get to leave work?”

And he said, “Well yes, of course!”

Ms. Giggling said, “Yippee!” and ran out of the building, all the way back home, and threw her clothes into the hamper and started falling asleep. Two minutes later, a lot of her fans came in wearing shirts with her face on them. The door was unlocked!

All her fans started saying, “Wake up! Wake up!”

She noticed she was naked and covered herself and said, “Get out of here!” Everyone laughed.

Everybody started talking. Ms. Giggling was worried she was probably not famous anymore, but she did not know someone took a picture of her naked and sent it to the news station!!! The next day, she woke up and wanted to get the news on the front step of her home. And right on the spot, she saw that picture of that old naked person. She could not believe her eyes when she saw it. She really had a bad night. She began crying her heart out.

Her friend came to the door — she felt bad for Ms. Giggling. “What is wrong?” she asked.

“I cannot explain! Is this the wrong reaction to not being famous anymore?” wailed Ms. Giggling.

“Yes, I joked you into telling me what is wrong,” her friend said.

“Ha ha, very funny,” she said. (She lied.)

Then, her friend said, “Tell me more.”

“I am fine, thank you!” Ms. Giggling replied.
The friend said, “Fine, I will leave you alone.”

Now reader, if you noticed they, um, they, um, stayed apart for a few months. She had other friends that noticed what was going on. She was pretty lonely and now, my reader, it is the end of her friendship for now. Later, the friend came back, and Ms. Giggling gave her a mad look.

She turned her face into a sorry one and said, “I know you had a bad day the other day. I am very sorry, but you just cannot take it out on your friends. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Mrs. Giggling, and now my readers it is…

The End


When Hot Dogs Take Over the World

Written in 3018

Hi! I’m Beatrice! I write books about things that could happen in the future. Everyone must be prepared. The beginning of my story always starts with the object I’m talking about. This story should prepare you for when… hot dogs take over the world!

(This story is not fictional.)

When hot dogs take over the world, here are some things you need to know. If you are eating food right now, stop!!! When hot dogs take over the world, the only way to escape them is to eat the hot dogs. If you are eating, you are a threat to the universe. If you have ever eaten before but you are not a threat to the universe, you are a threat to the world. You have to save space for all those hot dogs. Another thing is that now, every night, you must carry a knife to bed to fight off the hot dogs in the middle of the night. Also, hot dogs hate backpacks, so anyone who has a backpack could possibly die. In that case, anyone who’s reading this should hand me their backpack right now. They also hate pillows. And jackets. And snacks. All those things should be handed to me right now. This is not a scam. Another thing hot dogs don’t like is cars and money. And you should also give me the world. Hot dogs are taking over the storyworld, so they must not like it. That’s the end of my story, but my life isn’t over, so my personal story continues.

Beatrice!!! You are once again late, and this time I will not tolerate it!!! You are three quarters fired, young lady!”

That’s my not best friend, Ashley. She thinks she’s the boss of everyone. She publishes, edits, types, and receives money for the stories I write. Whenever I’m late, she fires me three quarters. Now I’m down to two tenths. Ashley claims that I never contribute to my stories and that’s why I never get paid. But I do!!! Ashley is such a two-faced butthead! I hate her. No. In fact, I hate Ashley. If I could dump someone into a trash compactor, it would be her. And then there’s Sunny. Sunny is my cat. My talking cat. Sunny is everything to me. I come after a very, very, very, very, very long lecture by Ashley. Look at the size of that font. Then times it by the biggest number you can think of. Argh. But the worst part is, when I got home, I saw that my dad had left me a hot dog. He had also left me a note in his scribbly, fancy handwriting. It said… it said… I didn’t have time to think about it, because just then, something hit me in the head, and everything went black. Dun dun dun…

Chapter Two

I woke up in a big, fat, smelly room. Someone was standing over me, and I felt scared. Wait a second. That wasn’t a person! That was a hot dog! Then I remembered. I had forgotten to take off my backpack! No! I was about to die, and it was all my dad’s fault. Then, I heard a small purring sound. Sunny! Yes! I tugged at the hot dog. Then, a layer of the hot dog came off revealing… a person! And it wasn’t any old person, it was Ashley!

“Ashley! What are you doing at my house in a hot dog suit at MIDNIGHT?!”

“Okay, okay! Yeesh! Chill out! I was just looking for the hot dog story, so I could type it!”

“In a hot dog suit?” I say.

“Okay, I was trying to scare you. I thought maybe if I scared you, you would quit writing stories, and I could take all the credit without having to feel bad about it!”

“Yeah… No. I would never quit writing stories, it’s my life!” I said.

“But… but… ” stammered Ashley. Suddenly, Sunny jumped on Ashley. “Help! Get your stupid cat offa me! Are you crazy?!”

“No way!” I said.

“Fine! Type your own stupid stories! ‘Cause I QUIT!”

I was astonished. Ashley picked up the hot dog costume and threw it onto my bedroom floor.

Chapter Three

The next day at school, I noticed a girl at lunch sitting all alone. I felt exactly the same, so I came over and introduced myself.

She looked up at me and quietly said, “I’m Maya. I just moved here from Japan.”

“That’s so cool!” I said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Japan!”

Maya looked up at me. “Really? I thought people would tease me about it.”

“No way!” I said. “I know millions of kids who’d love to meet you. Also, I write stories. Would you like to help me write one? I’m almost finished, but I could use some help.”

“Really?” asked Maya.

“Yeah! We can work on it at my house after school.”

“Let’s be best friends!” Maya said.

“Okay,” I said.

Finally! A friend besides Sunny! A whole new chapter of my life was beginning to unfold. And I couldn’t wait to get started.

The end

The Invasion of the Good Boyes


(Any misspelling is on purpose)

Once upon a time, there was a very thicc boye….. He was a lonely boye, and he wanted new doggo frens, so he did a sacred doggo ritual… Bork bork space boyes come be my fren am lonely boye!!!

And the space boyes came. The space boyes had called the lonely boye and said they had arrived. Lonely boye was so happ. But then the hoomans thought the space boyes had come to take over, so they tried to attack and failed. All doggos of every kind had seen this as war. So, they sent the whole doggo army to attack the hoomans. The doggos had come. The hoomans also did come. Some went to hide in shelters. The doggos attacked! They had a long fight with the hoomans and won. The hoomans had failed the first battle. The doggos are confident they will win the war, after all, aren’t doggos the superior race? Be quiet, yes they are. The doggos began their invasion in Africa. Since they are good boyes, they wanted to help the poor people in Africa. The Africans actually agreed to become part of the doggo empire! But not the governments. The dictators and presidents of Africa’s countries did not agree. And they tried to attack the doggos! But they failed. Another victory for the doggos! And a loss for the hoomans.

So now the doggos have taken over Africa and are now going for Asia. They attempt an invasion and fail! But how?! It is China and Russia, some of the most powerful countries in the world, but then the doggos have a new ally, a long lost brother to return… Gabe the Dog!!! The legendary Gabe!!! Now the doggos have a god himself on their side! They successfully invade Asia, then Oceania, then Europe! The doggos now have control of half the world! But now there is a problem. To get to the Americas, the doggos must swim, but they don’t know how! But they have a special force called… the Swim Swom Boyes! They swim! And they swom! As hard as they can across the Atlantic! And invade the Americas! Canada likes doggos, so they become part of the doggo empire with no problem. But the rest of the Americas put up a fight. Some people even join the doggos to invade the Earth! The swim swom boyes do the best they can! And they succeed! The swim swom boyes have finished the war to take over the world! The people of planet Earth now begin to like being under doggo rule, and so a new era of world peace begins. Also new language called Bork.

Bork.

The Rebellion

Ten years under doggo rule, hoomans are having a good time under doggo rule, a new era of world peace, better food, but new language that was easy to learn anyway! But… there are some people that do not enjoy doggo rule. They are called the bad boyes in doggo language. They come from across the world and have come together to take back the world from the doggos, but the doggos do not like them, so they fire a pointy thing, wait no that’s a big boye, or a rocket that is supposed to explode into a big mushroom. So, they fired it at the Rebellion Command Center or RCC. But the big boye was hacked and landed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The doggos were angery, so they sent the entire doggo army to invade the RCC.

Again… Wait no I said it in English. Knock knock.

“FBI OPEN UP!!!” AAA —

A few years after my prison sentence…

Bork bork bork bork bork. Bork bork, bork bork. The Bad Boyes had already taken over Africa and Oceania. The doggos there have been imprisoned. The doggos do not deserve such punishment. After all, they are some of the goodest boyes. But then the Rebellion won, and the peace treaty said all the hoomans that wanted to go back home with the doggos could go, but the doggos had to return to their home planet of thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverses.

So, the doggos left, and a lot of hoomans with them, and they got in their big spaceships and went to thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverses.

I went with them.

The doggos said, “Bork bork, bork bork bork bork bork, bork.”

Translation: We will arrive to thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverses in about a month. It is very far, but we will make it, and you will all be given homes and government support. After three years, the government support will end, and you will be on your own.

The New World

We had arrived in the doggo world. They were very welcoming. One of them gave me a cookie that said Bork. We got free starter homes and help from the government. It seemed the doggo world had already gained world peace. It was very clean and futuristic, just like the books and movies, though we would have to get used to the new language. The planet was just like Earth, just the continents were shaped different, the native population is all doggos, and there is one language that dominates. Turns out, these doggos have interesting history. There were many civil wars and wars between different clans, but then, the supreme clan bork, had taken over.

It seems the supreme clan bork has had many support from across thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse, and its culture has spread across thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse. It seems on this world Atheism is illegal, so I should convert to Borkism, and start worshiping Gabe the Dog, and besides, I want to convert to Borkism! But first, I must learn about it.

I’m at the library of Borkism, looks like there are more gods in Borkism, like Doge, and it seems there is a Satan in Borkism, and his name is… Cade!

Okay well, time to go to bed, so I’ll see you next week.

The Hooman Invasion

Once upon a time, there was me, in my room, watching BorkTube, when suddenly: pew pew, pew pew bom. Somebody was invading the city! But it could not be other doggos, since there was one doggo clan that rules the planet. I went to my window, and I saw: hoomans! The hoomans were invading thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse! The doggo army was fighting as hard as they could, and even the Bom Bum boyes had come! This was very serious, but the doggo army held off, so all the doggo people and I could escape. Luckily, we escapes, not my chocolate bar though. (Moment of silence for the chocolate bar pls.)

R.I.P. chocolate bar.

Okay, back to story… So, hoomans, invasion, doggos hold off, what’s next? Oh, just thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse blowing up. Yea, that’s right, blown to smithereens, by the evil hoomans! Luckily, the citizens escaped with the doggo army, the doggos (and me) were very angery. So, we simply went to planet Earth and invaded it. And we took every bit. No more hoomans. Only doggos and good boy hoomans alive! So yea like we invaded the Earth and like removed hoomans from power, now doggos rule everything.

Victory

So, since the doggo army invaded the Earth, and thegreatestplaceinalltheuniverse was destroyed, the doggo leaders decided the doggo empire’s capital will move to the Earth. It was nice to be home, even though the cleanup was still going on. Some hoomans from before the invasion began liking doggo rule, just like the ones that came back with the doggos. But sadly, the story must end here. Maybe one day the doggos will return, maybe one day the hoomans will rise again, or maybe a new player will join the game. We will never know.

Bork

Extras

Explanation if your confuzzled:

Doggos are descendants of the Doge, which is a descendant of the Dog.

Only some Doggos have glasses. Also, there is not only one type of doggo in this story, there are all different types of Doggo, but, they are all considered Doggos because it would be too confuzzling to call them a bunch of different things, but for example if there was a Sh00berino, he would be considered a Doggo but still is considered a Sh00berino.

The cattos are watching.


The Night of the Hamsaurus

On a dark, stormy night in the hamster factory, one worker who was working late on robo-hamsters named Fred was minding his own beeswax when he suddenly heard a loud boom! And evil laughter. Fred looked behind him only to come face to face with a tall hamster looking thing with a hamster body and dinosaur head. Then after another loud boom, Fred was never seen again. Mwa ha ha ha ha!

But then two years later, a brave shoe named Tom wanted to see what happened to poor Fred, so he headed toward the now abandoned factory. It started raining once he got there. Lightning boomed as the door creaked open — suddenly, smoke started coming out of the 50-year-old chimneys. As he walked in, a loud scream filled the air. Suddenly, Tom was filled with the dreaded feeling — fear! Once Tom stepped in, the huge doors slammed shut! Terrified Tom tried forcing the doors open, but he couldn’t because he had no hands. Suddenly, another loud scream filled the air.

Tom turned around to see who made it, but all he could see was darkness. Suddenly determined to get out of the factory alive, he hopped into the darkness.

“MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!”

“Who’s there?!” Tom shouted into the darkness.

“Not telling,” said the same voice. “Come and get me.”

“Come and get me! Show yourself,” shouted Tom.

“Okay,” said the voice, and then suddenly a 10 foot tall monster stepped out of the shadows. It

had the head of the hamster and the body of a dinosaur. “I am the Hamsaurus.”

“AAAAAAAAAAA!” screamed Tom.

“Hello, dinner,” said the Hamsaurus.

“AAAAAAAAAAA!” screamed Tom. “I’m too young to die! I’ve only been on 426 feet!”

“You’ll taste very nice in a pie,” said the Hamsaurus.

“No!” screamed Tom,

“With extra pickle juice. A shoe pie with pickle juice,” replied the Hamsaurus.

“NOO!” screamed Tom, as the Hamsaurus picked him up and walked away.

Tom felt scared and bad as he was being carried off. He tried fighting the Hamsaurus, but it was

hard because he had no hands.

“Oh, shut up,” said the Hamsaurus.

“AAAAAAAAAAAA!” screamed Tom. The last thing he saw was a fist flying towards his head then he blacked out.

When he woke up, he was tied to a stick, and the stick was over a fire. It was really, really, really, really hot, and it smelled like burnt stick. Tom felt as if his brain was melting, but it was dumb because he didn’t have a brain because he was a shoe. He looked around the room and spotted the Hamsaures making some kind of stew. Then, Tom spotted a strange box in the corner of the room that was marked, TNT. Suddenly a plan formed in his non-existent mind.

He called out to the Hamsaures, “I need to go to the bathroom,” which was also dumb because he was a shoe.

Apparently the Hamsaures wasn’t very smart because he said, “Okay,” then untied Tom and threw him into a dirty, small, strange looking bathroom that had a half-eaten toilet.

Tom stayed in there for ten seconds and started to creep back into the main room which was much nicer than this strange, tiny toilet. After making sure the Hamsaures didn’t see him, he went over to the box of TNT and moved it a bit closer to the fire. He took a stick off the ground and crept over to the fire and set the stick on fire. Then, he crept back to the box of TNT and was about to set it on fire when the Hamsaures caught him…

Dun dun dunnn…

The Hamsaures started running towards Tom, but Tom was quick and kicked the stick onto the box of TNT.

The Hamsaures stopped, dumbfounded, and stared at the box saying, “Bu… bu… bu… but… !”

Tom smiled then heard a really, really, really, really, really, really, really loud boom!!! Then, he was shot to the sky by a huge explosion that was way too big to come from a little box of TNT. It launched Tom all the way to a different country, where he smooshed a hotdog that was about to kill a pillow named Pilo. Then, he hopped away.

Later that day, Tom heard that the factory was blown to smithereens, and the only remains of it was the skull of an odd Hamster looking thing. Tom smiled at the sky, knowing that the Hamsaures wouldn’t be seen again for another 4,468 years. But Tom wouldn’t be around then, so he didn’t care.

The End (for now). Dun dun duh.


Adventures of Hazel Hollyblade

Hazel Hollyblade awoke with a start. Someone was knocking on the door of her little house beside the colorful Delesquari Fields next to the ocean. Red, pink, blue, and purple flowers bloomed, and the fields seemed like an endless rainbow of color, and as Hazel got up to change into a dress, she saw a woman with raven black hair and a rather uncomfortable-looking black and white dress uniform standing near the doorway.

It was Laira, the head commander. Moments later, Hazel opened her door in an emerald green dress that fell to her knees. Gold streaked down her dress and ended in flowers on the border, and the silk swirled around her legs. Her tights felt warm, and brown hair tumbled down her back.

“A monster has broken loose from the prisons!” Laira blurted out hurriedly. “The queen would like to see you.”

Hazel nodded excitedly before reaching out to the saddle gear and mounting her horse, Macadamia. This could be her big chance to actually work as a team with Great Commander Laira. As they rode across the dirt path, the salty sea breeze mixed with the sweet smelling flowers made a wonderful aroma. Once they reached the palace, Hazel dismounted and walked to the queen. She was wearing a white dress with a long red leather coat.

Without even looking, the snowy haired queen said with a regal expression, “You know your job. Now go do it.”

“Yes, Queen Dewri,” said Hazel. She knew that she was supposed to be in the Inner Circle, guarding the Sundew Tribe’s sacred mango tree while the warriors got to fight on the Outer Circle. The OC (Outer Circle) would always defeat the monster before the IC (Inner Circle) could do anything.

She took her place in between her friends, Fern and Lily. Fern had wavy brown hair and was wearing a green dress. Lily had straight dark blonde hair that fell over her shoulders and was wearing a white dress tinged with pink around the edges and a petal shaped bottom.

“I wonder what the monster is like?” pondered Fern nervously. Fern was always very nervous, while Lily was more practical.

“Probably some big, scary, gruesome monster,” sneered Violet, who loved to scare others. Her short cropped black hair and dark purple dress fluttered in the warm breeze. Shy Asphodel said nothing. Asphodel was wearing an indigo dress and had wavy black hair that tumbled down her back.

Suddenly, they spotted a shadow lumbering towards them. Hazel readied her stun sword that was safer than a regular electric sword.

“Who’s that?” wondered Lily.

As it came closer, Hazel gasped. Violet and Fern ran away on the spot. Asphodel and Hazel stepped forward while Lily and the rest of the others stepped back. Another girl named Heather also stepped forward.

Heather had dark brown hair that was tied into a braid and wore a light purple blouse and skirt. The monster had a lion’s head, dragon wings, and scaly legs. His tail whipped back and forth like a whip, the ends curving into a stinging scorpion tail. Hazel jumped towards the monster as Heather and Asphodel flanked the sides.

The monster blew out a cloud of mist, and Hazel could hear a deep voice bellow, “Me is Sharptooth!”

Hazel swung blindly and felt her blade connect with the edge of Sharptooth`s tail. Sharptooth howled in anger as his tail went numb and all the power drained out of it. As Hazel swung and slashed, she could hear Heather and Asphodel fighting too. Suddenly, as Hazel was about to swing down on the monster, she heard Asphodel shouting, “Stop!” Hazel leaped down from Sharptooth.

“What?” she questioned.

“I called the Monster Control. They’ll be here any moment now since they were too scared to come here in the first place,” Asphodel replied. They walked to Heather, and all three of them skipped over to the palace to tell the queen that they had defeated Sharptooth.

Once the queen heard the news, she was delighted.

“For this, you can all be in the outer circle!” Queen Dewri cried, smiling. Hazel looked at her friends and her bullies, and she thought of the uniform, the endless fighting, and the loss of her friends if she went to the OC. When she looked at Asphodel and Heather, Hazel could tell that they had come to the same decision.

“Nah,” said Hazel. “I think I’ll pass.”

Her friends gaped at her, but Asphodel and Heather were nodding. As Queen Dewri dismissed them, and they walked out, laughing and chittering like raccoons, Hazel felt… content.

A few months later…

“Hazel!” Heather called, peeking into her friend’s dusty cabin. “Hazel?” She wasn’t there.

“Woohoo!!!” shouted a voice nearby.

Heather rushed around the corner to find Hazel riding Macadamia the horse onto a hill. Heather smiled as her best friend zipped down the hill and out into the endless fields of Heavenly Plains.

My Swim Test Adventure

As the bugle faintly blurred out, so did my heart. It was time for my swim test. As I walked through the grass, I saw my friend Georgia. She was headed for the lake. She had a smile on her face and her towel in her hand. I slowly caught up to her. She was very excited because she was going swimming. Then when I said that we were having our swim test, her smile turned into a frown. She said she was worried she was not going to pass.

When I saw that she was frowning, I quickly tried to cheer her up by saying, “You’re a really good swimmer. I think you’re going to pass.”

She said, “Thanks,” and ran to get on line.

When I got changed into my bathing suit, I felt I had the power to change my swimming life forever. On my way to the lake, somebody gave me a clip with my name, Jules Alemany, on it. I put my clip on lane two, and then I hopped on the dock. I felt it shaking. So did my brain. I was going crazy. I thought I was going to make it, but I realized I wasn’t.

I couldn’t hop back on land before I hopped back into my lane. My swim instructor or counselor or whatever you want to say said that her name was “Elise” or “Alice.” I couldn’t tell because my ears were full of water.

Then, she said, “Let’s begin.”

The first thing that we had to do was show her what strokes we could do, back and forth. The seaweed was touching my legs, and it felt like it was pulling me down. I was freaking out. Next we had to do five long breaststrokes without breathing. Then, we had to tread water for five minutes, and it was killing me. Instead of treading, I was floating, and I didn’t realize it.

My counselor was looking at me and said, “That’s floating, not treading.” And I knew I wasn’t going to pass.

Next, we had to do the dead-man’s float for five minutes, and I couldn’t do it. Every time I tried to go up for air, my hair got in my face, and it stopped me from floating. The last part, I could not do. I had to float on my back for five minutes. After all the stuff I had to do, I was exhausted. After, when I got out of the water, I put my stuff back and went to change back into my clothes.

When I got out to go and sit and wait for the bugle to blow, the instructor said, “Wait, you didn’t pass. I’m sorry.”

I felt a wave of sadness coming on, but could not let it show, so I pushed it away. I was lucky because next was rest hour, so I went back to my tent and started to think. What did I do wrong? As I thought, I was wondering what my mom and family would think. As I thought that, my eyes felt like crying, but this time I did not hold them in. I let them out.

The next day, I was walking to breakfast. I was so sad I tripped on something shiny. It might have been a rock, but I still took a glimpse of it… I knew it! It said Time Machine, so I picked it up, shoved it in my pocket, and headed to breakfast. I knew that it was a toy and not a real time machine. After breakfast, I quickly took it out and started to investigate.

I noticed that there was a line that you could open at the back, so I did and found a bunch of buttons. I started typing, and all of a sudden, I remembered my swim test, so I said, — while I was pressing the button, which I did not know was the speaker button — “Wow! I really failed on that swim test.” All of a sudden, I felt super dizzy, and I fainted. Everything blacked out.

I felt something touching my head. I opened my eyes slowly, and I saw Piper and Jane, two of my counselors, saying, “Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?”

“Yeah yeah,” I said as I got up from the ground. “I just — wait — what? Where am I?”

“Uhh, you’re at your swim test,” said Piper.

Jane was so worried. She asked me, “Do you want to go to the Mary Nap?” That’s the nurse’s office.

I said, “No, I’m okay. Let’s get swimming!” I just remembered. I could help myself. Because I wasn’t actually there, I could fake it and also get an awesome grade for my swim test, and I would still pass.

Then, they said, “Everyone watch Jane do the examples, and I am going to be speaking while Jane acts it out.” I couldn’t stop staring at her bathing suit — it was atrocious. As she did her example, I was worried. I didn’t want to change the timeline. But I said to myself, Hey, at least I’ll get an A on my grade. I still had that sick feeling in my stomach I wasn’t going to pass.

But I stuck to my gut, and I said, “No, I can do this.” When it was my turn, I got up, and I walked to the lake. I changed my clip to lane two because that’s where I was swimming. Then, I hopped into the lake and began.

It was freezing cold, but I was ready. Once I adjusted to the water, it was not that bad. So, I listened to what the counselors were trying to tell me, and I started to do what they said. I did the strokes, then the breaststroke, the five minutes of treading, and finally I got on my back and did the dead-man’s float. But guess what happened? I got on my stomach and did the dead-man’s float! It wasn’t very hard, so I just kept doing it. I didn’t hear them because my ears were underwater — but what I did hear was, “GRRRLIA! GGRLIA! GT OUTTA THWATER!”

When I put my head up to see what was happening, everyone was in a circle around my lane trying to drag me because they thought I was drowning. I got up and said, “I’m fine! I’m fine!”

But they all were like, “We need the medics, guys!”

At that time, I was thinking, Man I really want to go home. Wait — am I at home? Wait, no I’m not. I’m back in time. I didn’t know where I was. I was lost in the lake. I wanted to get out. I wanted to go back… I wanted to redo it.

I hopped out, and I ran. I ran and I ran and I ran. And then I tripped. I fell on something shiny. Wait — I just remembered, didn’t I do that an hour ago? I picked it up — I found it — it was the time machine. But wait, if I did this, would it change the timeline? I took my chance.

I picked it up, pressed it, and said, “Normal timeline.”

Poof! Everything went black.

I saw the future. Wow, it looked different. Hold on, wait, this wasn’t my timeline — why did I say, “Normal timeline?” I should have said, “2018, 12:05, going to lunch.” I was searching and searching. I couldn’t find the time machine. What happened to it? Wait, was I stuck here forever? I felt terrible and lonely. I wanted my mommy.

I was laying on a concrete floor. It was super uncomfortable. Wait — if I said normal timeline and it didn’t bring me home, where was I really? Was this the normal timeline? Was I an alien? As I ran and ran, I saw nothing but tall black and white and purple buildings. But there was nothing in front of me, so how could I be seeing that? I didn’t know. But what I did know was I just ran into something. I was sitting on the floor — I think I twisted my ankle. Something went wrong, but there was nothing in front of me. So, I tried to stand up, but I fell right back down. My ankle hurt really bad, so I touched the invisible wall, and it was curvy.

I tried crawling around the wall, but it felt like it was a never-ending wall. So I went back — wait, I couldn’t go back. My back was stuck on something, and the walls were closing in. What was it? I had to get out. So, I tried pushing myself up and up and up. I felt an opening, so I took it. I jumped and landed in one of the buildings. There were weird chairs, and it looked like I was in a hospital because it had drips, bandages, shots, and needles everywhere, as well as lots of hand sanitizer. There was one person that looked like my mom, so I ran and I hugged it, but it stabbed me in the back. Then, I realized there was no blood coming out of me, and the not-my-mom paralyzed me and put me in one of the weird chairs, strapped me down, and put something over my mouth that made me go to sleep.

I woke up, and I was still in the chair, but I was in my timeline. So, I tried getting out, but then there was that lady that looked like my mom again, except she wasn’t really there. She had the time machine in her hand, and she started talking.

“Did you use the time machine to change the past? You can’t do that anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “Can I get out of here please? I’m really freaked out. I want to go home.”

The lady said, “Which home? Camp home, where you were when you used the time machine? Or home home, like in Colorado?”

I said, “Camp home, where I was. I’m really sorry — I’ll never use the time machine again. What was that thing?”

She said, “It’s a secret high tech technology. I’ll grant you one wish if you promise to never use any high tech technology that our people make ever again.”

I said, “Okay — please take me home — camp home I mean.”

The lady said, “Okay. Good night.” And she put the mouth thing on me again. I went to sleep, and I woke up. I was home in the exact place I was at camp, heading to lunch. Wow, I will never use that thing again.

THE END

Oysumi

One day, Punpun decided to go to the farmers’ market and bought five dead children. She brought them home and dismembered them, cooked them, and served them to the mayor. She was a maid for the mayor. She had plans to murder him though, so she wasn’t employed for long, so she put some poison in his next meal which was roasted child. She decided to go home after stealing all the mayor’s possessions. At the end of the hall, she found a secret door and opened it and discovered a room full of children. It was creepy, so she left the door open for them, so they could leave.

End of Chapter One

Chapter Two

Punpun decided to leave the city and went to live in a small witch’s house. She made potions for a living. One day, two children entered her shop and asked for candy. Punpun forgot it was Halloween! She gave them some caramels. That was her favorite candy, which is why she had caramel. They said thanks and left.

Punpun continued to work, and then an adult walked in the shop and asked for a love potion. She said she was out and to come back next week. The week ended, and she was in stock again. The man came back and asked for his potion. She gave him it. He paid and left.

Five hours later, Punpun’s good friend, Gunsaiso the red panda, entered her shop. Gunsaiso said that she was desperate for a death potion to murder her ex “because he cheated on her.” Punpun said she would check in the back to see if she had any. There was one left on the top shelf to the right. She grabbed a ladder and climbed up to grab the potion. She started to fall, and then Gunsaiso caught her in mid air. Punpun said thanks and said Gunsaiso would have the potion for free.

Gunsaiso said thanks and left to go kill her ex. Punpun said that was a hard day at work.

End of Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Punpun decided to go to her friend’s house, Sharcado. Sharcado was a shark human hybrid, and when he goes to the beach, he does not eat fish. He goes fishing sometimes though. When Punpun got into her car, she put the key in and started to drive. On her way to his house, she noticed a small box on the side of the road. She stopped her car, grabbed a pocket knife just to be safe, and slowly walked up to the box. When she opened it, there was a small kitten girl in the box. She look like she was about three years old. She immediately grabbed the poor thing and wrapped her up with a scarf and put the kitten in her car.. Punpun called Sharcado and said she had found a three-year-old kitten in a box. Sharcado freaked out.

Punpun drove as fast as she could to Sharcado’s house.

End of Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Punpun ran into Sharcado’s house as fast as she could and put the little kitten in Sharcado’s bathtub. The kitten was crying, so she washed her really well and wrapped her in a towel. Punpun didn’t make a potion for her because she was too young, and potions on three-year-olds couldn’t work because of their age. So, she decided to take her to pediatrician. The poor thing had cuts and bruises all over her, so they took her to the pediatrician. They said she would be okay and just to give her a special medicine every day. Punpun said okay. The doctor said the cuts could have been from scissor or a small dog, but Punpun was smart. She knew that those cuts were from a wolf.

Punpun did not say anything. She just nodded her head.

When they left the pediatrician, on the way back to Punpun’s house, she noticed a small growling noise coming from the little kitten’s car seat. It was… her stomach! So when Punpun and Sharknado were at his house, they cooked the kitten some soup. The kitten ate all of it and fell asleep. Punpun said bye to Sharcado and drove home with the little kitten in her lap. Then, they got home. Punpun made a small bed for the kitten, and they went to sleep.

The next day, Punpun was gardening, and the kitten came outside, holding a rag with a stuffed animal’s head.

The kitten said to Punpun, “What’s my name?”

Punpun said, “Hmmm, Starlite. That’s your new name.”

The kitten’s eyes lit up. “Yay,” she said. “That’s the coolest name ever!”

Punpun smiled and went back to gardening. Starlite helped garden.

End of Chapter Four

The next day, the kitten was missing.

End of Story One


Too Short

Once upon a time there was a face. This was no ordinary face. This was a floating face! And what this face wanted to do most was play volleyball. Now this was a very hard thing to do, for as you know, it was a floating face and had no arms. But still, it wanted to play as much as ever. So, the face went along its normal face life — as normal as floating faces lives are — until one day it went to its therapist and asked what it could do to play volleyball. The therapist said that it could write a book and make some money, so it could get a pair of mechanical prosthetic arms. The face thought that that was a good idea and started to write a book. The book went like this:

Once upon a time there was a face. This was no ordinary face. This was a floating face! And what this face wanted to do most was play volleyball. Now this was a very hard thing to do, for as you know, it was a floating face and had no arms. But still, it wanted to play as much as ever. So, the face went along its normal face life — as normal as floating faces lives are — until one day it was walking around its block when suddenly it saw a magical beacon of light in the distance:

“Come, play volleyball,” it said. Then, there was a blinding flash of light, and the face woke up. It had all been a dream! Then, the face reached up and scratched its face with its finger. Wait, it had a finger?! It looked down, and there they were, two perfect, glistening arms attached to its chin. Wait, its chin?! Then, it went and played volleyball for the rest of its life.

The End

Then, he took it to the publisher but got rejected because it was “too short.”

THE END


Hen

Once the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus)

And restricted to Laos and southern Cambodia,

When we noticed the chicken bore no malice,

We traded to farms in the West for some modia.

Now the hen’s plumage is mostly lackluster,

And the tail of the cock has lost all of its gold,

But both of their tempers are all they can muster,

And as a result are aggressive and bold.

As their sons in America continue to flourish,

And spread their loud crowing all through the land,

You must never forget all the birds that we nourished

To bring agriculture right into our hand.

I wonder, on farms, when the sunset has passed, if

The faded and bruised hens stare up at the stars

And wonder, when we have permission at last, if

Our ancestral acres could someday be ours?