Category: Spring 2018

The first morning of January, they all woke up at 11:00 a.m. from their party which was crazy. They were at their friend’s house last night. The firstborn’s name is Sammy, the second-born is Gideon, the third-born is Schultz, and Lisa is the youngest. Sammy is older than Gideon by three minutes and 30 seconds, Gideon is older than Shultz by one minute, and Shultz is older than Lisa by two minutes. They are all pretty competitive about being better at things like sports, knowledge, and other things, but that’s mostly what they fight about.

It was a Saturday, and all of the siblings went to the gym. They went to the same gym, but only Lisa had a trainer because she had to lose a little more weight than everyone else. Gideon’s workout was 15 minutes on the elliptical and two hours on everything else; he stayed at the gym the longest. Sammy played basketball for his workout, and Schultz ran on a treadmill for two hours.

Then, it was lunch time. They skipped breakfast because they woke up too late. At lunch, they had food from Panera Bread, but they couldn’t drink coffee because they were only 16 and were so tired from their basketball game. Then, they all had homework and their mom, Chresna, made them do their homework right when they got home because on Sunday they all had basketball tournaments. They were in very advanced classes except for Sammy, so they all had a lot of homework.

It took them until 7:00 p.m. to finish. After 7:00, Sammy played Fortnite until 11:00, and the only reason he went to sleep was because his basketball tournament was at 8:00 a.m.. He was on the same team as Schultz and Gideon, but Lisa wasn’t on the same team as Sammy, Gideon, and Schultz because she is too young by two minutes, and she is the best on her team. She is the only girl on her team.

In the morning, they all got up at 5:00 because their games were in Baltimore, and they live in New York. When they arrived at their games, they had a tiny sip of coffee, and they were amazing. They got 20 points each and all won their games and were very tired at the end of the day by having a coffee smash (which is when you have coffee when you are too young, and you just crash to sleep). This night, they went to sleep at 7:00 p.m..

The next morning was school, and they were late because none of them wanted to go to school at all after their weekends, but they made it to school at 10:00 a.m. thanks to their mother. Chresna had to bring them because they had already missed the bus by two hours.

At school, they all were in the same classes except for Schultz and Sammy who got kicked out of Spanish class because his teacher thought he was eating a urinal cake, but it was just a big Pop-Tart. Sammy was just bad. When it was time for Spanish class, Schultz always went outside to get his giant Pop-Tart. He could eat it now because he didn’t have his Spanish teacher to kick him out of Spanish class because he was already kicked out of Spanish class.

At the end of school, they all went home to see their mom playing Fortnite with Sammy’s friends. She said, “Am I cool now?”

Sammy responded, “Yes, Mom. As a matter of fact, you are cool now.”

Chresna said, “You can play now, but I got next.”

That night went on until 12:00. Gideon and Lisa walked into the room and were disappointed in them.

The next morning, no one got up until 11:00 a.m.. When they got to school, their teachers yelled at them for being late two days in a row. They felt embarrassed and just went straight to their classes and didn’t say anything. Sammy was the most embarrassed because everyone got there at 11:59, but Sammy got there at 12:00, so it was even worse. Sammy was not allowed into school and was happy because he didn’t have school and mad because he would have to deal with Chresna yelling at him for being late, and he would also get yelled at so much the next day.

When Sammy got home, he was preparing for Chresna to yell at him, but he saw her lying on the sofa playing Fortnite. This time, Sammy was not laughing but was telling his mom to get off the couch, so he could play.

Chresna asked why he wasn’t at school, and Sammy responded, “I was late by one minute, and they couldn’t just let me go in.”

Chresna screamed, “Why couldn’t you have ran a little bit faster? You can score 20 points in a basketball game, so why can’t you run a little bit faster?!”

Sammy responded, “Schultz was blocking my way, and why did you not wake me up earlier?”

Chresna responded, “Well… you should have just gone downstairs and went to sleep.”

Then, without explanation, Sammy went downstairs and took a nap, so he made sure he wasn’t going to be late to school. Four hours later, the siblings come back from school with a pile of homework for Sammy. Sammy did his homework until 12 a.m., so he had to be woken up by Gideon who jumped on him and broke his tooth because Gideon’s breakfast plate was under him.

Chresna didn’t care anymore. She just wanted to get Sammy to school, so she could play Fortnite. She didn’t care about his broken tooth. She cared about Fortnite because she saw Sammy playing it and thought it was awesome.

On their way to school, Sammy (who had one part of his tooth in his pocket) said, “I don’t need that other half of my tooth because that was my dirty side with mud, but this side of my tooth is the clean side where I have toothpaste.”

Just keep in mind, Sammy has the worst teeth of the family, but that was really hard because everyone had terrible teeth, and that was weird because Chresna had amazing teeth.

When they got to school, Sammy’s teacher said, “Ohh, look who we have here?”

Sammy said, “Who? All we have is a pencil and Lisa.”

Lisa said, “Sammy, you are in trouble.”

But, Sammy said, “Wait, I can explain. Look over there.”

Then, Sammy ran away to his class but then realized his class was with that same teacher.

Sammy was told to come out of class when his teacher yelled at him so bad the other class heard him get screamed at by his teacher. Sammy wondered why it had to be loud. The teacher was saying the same thing but louder and made Sammy more embarrassed. He thought, I feel like teachers just want to embarrass their students, and yelling doesn’t change the message. Just talk, please! When Gideon heard, he laughed to himself because he guessed that Sammy would get yelled at, because he was late for school.

The next night, Sammy was wishing he could be someone else for one day because he was in big trouble, and he wanted to see if everyone had as bad of a life as him. Lisa was also wishing she could be someone else for a day because she wanted to change a little bit, and she wanted to see how it would be to be a boy for a day. She was also getting bored and wanted some excitement.

The next day, on Friday, Sammy and Lisa switched bodies. Sammy and Lisa were really confused because they thought it wasn’t possible to switch bodies, but they were also very happy in a weird way because, as you know, they wanted to be someone else one day. Sammy who was Lisa thought it must be freaky friday, like that Chris Brown song, and also thought, Wow I might actually have good grades without cheating. He could feel the knowledge going to his head, and now he didn’t want to play Fortnite for once, and he knew he would have to be with other friends for a day. He was excited to try something new. Lisa was mad because she did want to be someone else for a day but not Sammy. She felt stupid, and she felt like she had the need to play Fortnite, and all she needed was a smart person next to her to cheat because Sammy was in trouble. But, anyone else would have been better, except for Schultz, because all she would do then is run. Even during class, she would run in place. But, she thought, wait, if she was Sammy then that would have to mean that Sammy was her.

“Shoot,” she whispered, because Sammy usually got up early to play Fortnite, and everyone was asleep.

When everyone got to school, Lisa went to Sammy and said, “How did this happen, and why did this happen?”

Sammy responded, “Maybe it was meant to happen, so you could finally feel bad for me.”

Lisa said, “Why do you need me to see how bad your life is? You have to see how bad my life is.”

When Sammy got with Lisa’s friends, he realized how he was definitely not a girl and would never be a girl.

One of Lisa’s friends said, “How was your weekend?”

Sammy said, “I played Fortnite almost the whole time, except when I had my basketball game.”

Then, Lisa’s friends all said that sounds like the most boring weekend ever.

Then, one of them said, “Last weekend, I went to Long Island and rode horses, but my boot broke, so I had to go back to the mall, but I couldn’t find a horse store, so I was looking for a new boot all weekend.”

The other friend said, “Oh my god, that sounds fun because you got to go to a lot of malls, right? And you got new boots, right?”

The horse friend said, “First, we went to almost all of the malls in America, and I did get the boots.”

Sammy said, “Why did you have to go to all the malls in America, and why couldn’t you have just got it on Amazon? I mean, I think that they have drones now.”

The horse friend said, “Umm, because going to malls is fun.”

Sammy asked about basketball because he knew that Lisa liked basketball, so he thought that her friends would also like it. So, he asked, and they were very confused.

Then, one friend remarked, “Lisa, what has gotten into you? You seem like such a different person.”

Then, Sammy ran away and went to Lisa in Sammy’s body and said, “Do you fake being yourself, because your friends are not like you at all.”

Then, Lisa said, “Who were you talking to?”

Sammy responded and pointed to those people.

Lisa said, “Those aren’t my friends. Those are the pretty girls.” Lisa then pointed at the group in the corner and said, “Those are my friends.” Lisa then remarked on Sammy, “Sammy why are you wearing a dress? I never wear a dress. They must have thought you were Lisa Trodstein. Ha.”

When Lisa went back to her class, she felt way too smart for that class and said, “Teacher, can I get a harder paper?”

The teacher said, “Wow, Sammy you are barely in this grade, but you want a harder worksheet? Wow.”

Lisa in Sammy’s body said, “Yes, yes I do.”

The teacher gave Lisa the worksheet, and she aced it and finished in five seconds. The teacher was very impressed and said, “Sammy, you are not Sammy.”

Lisa in Sammy’s body said, “The whole year I was scared to do harder things.”

Lisa of course lied and realized that this wasn’t her life, so she could do whatever she wanted, but she wanted to see how Sammy would do in a different class. Sammy’s teacher said, “Okay, Sammy you shall have a chance in the higher class, but you have to take a test right now.”

Lisa aced the quiz, and school ended, so Lisa went home with Sammy. When they woke up in the morning, they switched back bodies.

When Sammy got to math class, he went to his class, and his teacher said, “Ohh sorry Sammy, but you’re in that class now.”

Sammy said, “What? Okay.”

The first problem on the paper took Sammy the whole class, but then after everyone was done, the teacher explained the problem and the answer to the problem. But, a miracle happened. Sammy actually understood the problem, and he was actually getting math.

Gideon was pretty happy with this week except for when all of his friends started talking about Fortnite, but he never played before, so he saw that Sammy looked happy for solving his first ever math problem. So, Gideon asked Sammy if he would help him learn how to play Fortnite. Sammy, being the changed person he was, said, “Yes.”

He taught Gideon how to play Fortnite, so as usual, Sammy played Fortnite until one o’clock in the morning. But this time, he did it with Gideon. The next day, Gideon felt so much better at Fortnite and knew the general topic of Fortnite, so now he could talk about it with his friends. Schultz was running around the hall as always, but this time he ran into Gideon and said, “I see you are talking with your friends a lot more.” Then, he said, “I want friends.”

So, Gideon felt lucky that Sammy taught him how to play Fortnite. He was going to help Schultz, so he introduced Schultz to the running club. Schultz made friends easily, but Schultz realized that since Gideon helped him, he should help Lisa lose weight because she is not so skinny. Lisa was offended at first but then gave in and lost a lot of weight. So, everyone helped everyone, and they all had a great week.

But, it was also a weird week because to recap this week, they came home from a huge party, they had a great basketball game due to coffee, they came to school late because they were tired, Chresna got into Fortnite, Sammy was yelled at by his teacher because he missed a day and was late to school, Sammy broke his tooth on Gideon’s breakfast plate, Sammy and Lisa switched bodies, and Schultz finally didn’t run for one second for the first time in his life.

THE END

 

              

Chapter One

There I am, Jerald, 11 years old. I live in a small town called Shuster, and it’s haunted. Well, I think it is, but nobody believes me. No one believes me because I am not popular. There have been 150 deaths this month at least, and nobody knows who it is. Only I know who it actually was, but no one bothers to listen to me.

There I am in school with my friends, and we’re called the nerds, and there are bullies whose names are Henry Frederick, Bob Dillion, and Harold McFerstein. Harold has actually killed someone, but he only got suspended. They go up to my friend Will, and they call him four eyes and other names, and they especially bullied Jerry (also my friend), and my last friend Carolina. People called her very bad names because she’s done bad stuff.

I forgot to tell you this thing about my grandma. One day, it was gusting winds from the west and the east, and something took her somewhere, and now everybody says she’s dead. I hate when people say that because I know in my heart that she’s somewhere out there.

My friends and I get ready to go home on our bikes, but guess who we see?! The bullies. Robert Frost, the new kid. It’s his first day here. He left his last school because they called him fat. He always studies in the library after school. He goes in the shed to get another newspaper about all the people who died 37 years ago, but all of the sudden, the lights flash off. This thing with no head appears, and it says, “Come here Robert.” At first, I didn’t believe him, but I went with it. It starts screaming, and the creepy music plays. It runs after me and turns into my grandma.

 

Chapter Two

I outran it somehow and was out of breath. The librarian came down and asked me what I was doing, and she had a bad expression on her face. I ran away from her. I think she knew what happened to me and is behind that thing looking like my grandma. I don’t know actually. I am just traumatized from what happened before.

I bike home, and I hear something coming from the basement. The wood is making a weird noise, and I see her. My grandma is staring right at me. She says, “Do you want some cookies?” She starts screaming and charges at me in a flash, and I run as fast as the wind and get away by a fingernail. I try not to look at my mom because I really want to go to my friend’s house right away to talk about what happened, but of course she pulls me over to talk about my day. I try to tell her it’s not the time, but she loves bothering me, so I have to sit down with her for 20 minutes.

Finally, I am done with the talk, and I get to go to my friend’s house. I ride my bike there, and I see the librarian, but she looks different. She is all dolled up and just different all around. Anyway, I don’t ask questions. I go straight to my friend’s house and talk to them, and the strange thing was that we all got attacked by a monster that turned into my grandma. We are convinced this is what happened to all the dead kids.

We all went to my basement and tried to find this thing, but we needed some weapons and armor. We went in the basement, and after all, it was just my dog Harold. We came back upstairs, and we put our stuff back on a table, and we are all so relieved we don’t have to do this fight right now.

We all go back home, and night comes. I go to the bathroom before I sleep, and I hear a noise, and it’s getting louder. I think it is my grandma!!! I close the door, and then I turn around. It’s right there, and it’s my grandma. I say, “Hell nah,” and run fast as can. I go to my mom, looking like I am going to hyperventilate.

She asks what’s going on, and I say, “This thing. It’s trying to kill me.”

“That’s child’s play. There’s no such thing,”

“We will see about that.”

It’s 11 o’clock. I asked her if I can sleep with her since I was scared of the thing. I woke up and saw my mom in the shower, and I checked her pulse. She was dead. Oh no. My life is ruined. No mom. Only a dad now who’s not really there for me. I mourned for seven days, and I went back to school with my sweatshirt over my hair. I saw my friends and the bullies, and I ignored them the whole rest of the day.

My friends came up to me at the end of the day, and they asked why I was feeling down in the dumps. I said, “My mom died.” They quickly started apologizing, but I didn’t listen to them, so I walked home. The next day, I apologized to my friends about yesterday, and they understood. My friends and I were in the library because we had study hall, and we heard something downstairs, and we all knew what it was.

 

Chapter Three

The thing is here. We must finish it off once and for all. We take all our dictionaries and head downstairs. It’s right there, and it looks like a giant chocolate chip cookie. We start to nibble on it, and suddenly, it turns into my grandma.

She says, “Your cookies are ready,” and she starts attacking us with her big, fat, intimidating teeth and slobber coming from her nose. I strike her with a dictionary, and she dodges it and bites Carolina. She quickly falls on the floor and starts bleeding from her leg, and my grandma starts laughing creepily.

Then, from above, our librarian comes down and whacks my grandma in the head with a history book. She says, “That’s knowledge.”

The End

 

Killer X knows dark magic from when he was exposed to dark magic by scientists. After a while, he figured out different patterns, and then after that, he figured out how to use it. For example, when he moves his hand around in a certain way, a laser would come shooting down from the sky. Now, he can use it on anyone who gets in his way. He can fly. He has a magic staff which looks like a gold sword. It can shoot lightning out.

Killer X lives in a volcano with his dad and brother in Hawaii. The volcano is a mountain with purple lava. He was possessed. His other scientist “friends” would test magic on him. This one experiment went wrong, and he turned into the Killer X. Before the experiment, he was a normal shop worker. His name was Kevin.

Killer X wants to take over the business that possessed him. In order to do that, he would have to get some help from some people that also know dark magic, so he went online to look for the most known people that know dark magic. He found one that was a criminal living in a beach cave on the island of Hawaii. He sent his contact information over to that guy.

A couple days later, the guy wrote back saying, “Okay, where do you live? I can meet you at your house. Why do you want to see me?”

“I need to see you because I was possessed. My science partners tested this chemical potion called chemical X on me. I want to get revenge on them, and I might need your help because security to get into the lab is really high.”

The other magician with dark magic agreed to break in with him. He added on, “I am only doing it if you pay me.”

Killer X said, “How much money do you want?”

“$1,000, but only if you help me break in,” said the other magician.

The two magicians get to the lab, and once they’ve gotten to the lab, they need to find a way to get in. It looks like a bunker but with less military guns. It’s gray.

The other magician asks, “How do we get inside?”

Killer X says, “Maybe I can use my X-ray vision to see the safest entrance.” He does it, and none of the entrances are safe. It looks like it will be a problem.

When he’s leading the team to break in, he feels powerful because everyone has to listen to him, and he gets to be in charge. They break in, and they are trying to get to the lab where he was tested. Once they find the lab, he’s looking for the potion that turned him into the guy he is now. Once he finds it in the vault in the floor, he punches it open. (That is one of the abilities he has… super strength.) It is black. He puts it into a bottle, and once he puts it in the bottle, he finds an invisibility potion. He drinks it, and then when the people who tested the other potion on him arrive, he has two bottles of the potion they threw at him. He has two bottles of those, and he throws them at the two people. Once he throws it at them, they start turning into evil witches and stuff. Once that happens, they decide to rule the world together.

“I guess I’ll join you because it’s the only thing we have left to do.”

THE END

 

There was some boy named Jeff who got a report card. He was called the funniest kid in the class. He liked to play basketball. The scores he got in school for tests were pretty good, like A’s and B’s. He was waiting day by day for his report card to come. The whole school was talking about it. He was so eager to just ask the principal to see his report card. It comes in June, and school ends in June. It was June 1st. He dashed to the mail, and he saw it, his happiness. He ripped it open and saw…

Math: A+

Writing: A

Reading: A

Social Studies: A

Science: B

Art: B+

He was relieved by what his eyes saw. He ran inside and banged the door so hard he hurt his hand. His mom opened the report card, and he scrambled past her and jumped on the couch. He wanted to go to sleep and wait for the next day. Then, he was learning the capitals of the states for homework. He had to listen to “Tour of the States.” The lyrics were long.

But he listened to it in second grade, so he already knew it. So, he went to sleep and sleepsung. (I don’t know if that’s a real thing.) He sang a song he didn’t even remember. Also, he dreamt about the NBA team Golden State Warriors winning the championships. While he was sleeping, he fell off the bed and didn’t wake up.

He woke up at 12:00 A.M. midnight. He figured out his favorite song. He didn’t like the capital song, so it couldn’t be that. He ate breakfast that early. He didn’t know why. He changed and got ready for school and then slept in a chair, waiting. He went to school that day thinking about the song and completely forgot about the report card, and he didn’t know if anyone was talking about it. He was zoned out. He could barely even finish his work. For homework, he had to type a realistic fiction essay. He was thinking hard of an idea.

He got it! The song! He was thinking about it the whole day. He could write about it! He actually had a big idea about that. He typed three pages until 10:00 P.M. and then fell asleep on the computer. He dreamed of the report card. The same day happened again, except instead of dreaming about the song, he dreamt about the report card. But today, he was chatty. In school, he said to everyone, “What did you get?”, but no one got their report card. He was completely confused.

He finally asked the principal, and the principal said, “There has been a misprint.”

Jeff said, “That means mine isn’t correct?”

“I’m afraid so,” said the principal. Jeff fainted. The principal thought he was dead.

“Oh no!” the principal yelled. “I need to call 911!”

The police arrived, and everyone at school came. The policeman said he is still breathing and then…

“HOLA!!!” said Jeff.

“OOOMMAAYYYGOOODNEEEEES!” said the science teacher.

“Guess you don’t need me no more!” said the policeman like a cowboy. Then, he jumped out of the window.

Then, the mob of people slowly left the room. Jeff got up and asked the principal, “Why was there a misprint?”

The principal replied, “The printer is broken.” One last person hiding behind the printer bolted out of the room.

Jeff asked the principal, “Can I try to fix it?”

“If you think you can,” said the principal.

Suddenly, Jeff started using his black belt karate moves like kicks and karate chops on the printer where the paper comes out. The papers were stuck in a position that they couldn’t come out in, but the karate chop shook it into the regular position. Then, papers started rapidly coming out of the printer. “IT WORKED!!” yelled the principal. Then, the principal said, “Everyone will have their grades by this evening. I need to sort them.”

When Jeff went out of the office, it was already the afternoon, and he had two more classes which were math and language arts. The principal gave an excuse for missing class to the other class teachers. Jeff started carefully running down the hall with joy. He made sure he didn’t get caught. There was a rule against running in the hall at school. Once he was near the class, he started walking, so the teacher wouldn’t see him running. He was two minutes early to class, so he could read. He read the book called Report, and the author was named Jay Tikoo. The moment he opened the book, everyone came in and class started, so he had no chance to read. The word about the report cards easily spread throughout the whole school. Everyone realized what Jeff did, and soon everyone was asking him questions about the printer. When he got home, he was relieved because he had no homework because the teachers heard that he fixed the printer. He wasn’t asked any more questions. He waited the whole evening at the mailbox waiting for the report card to be delivered. He couldn’t wait. He was so eager he was practically jumping up and down. Then, the UPS truck came to their house. The man at the wheel gave the envelope straight to him. He ran inside, threw off his shoes, and ripped it open and saw…

Math: A+

Writing: A

Reading: A

Social Studies: A

Science: B

Art: B+

Then he said, “Whaaaaa?” Just then, he realized that both of the report cards were the exact same. “I am very confuzzled.” He read his book after that and finished it. He realized to never get your hopes too high.

 

Life is a silly thing but what’s even more silly is the people who go through life. How would you feel if you never saw yourself, could never adjust your hairstyle, or brush your teeth in front of the mirror? It is reality for one certain boy. His name is Poncho Zoori Dover, and he has never seen himself, adjusted his hair, or brushed his teeth in front of the mirror. This story is based on him and only him.

Many people see the world wrong. They never see the bright side of things. In the year 2118, a small boy was born. He was from France but was known globally for his unluckiness. Many may ask what was so special about him. Well, he had an extra eye that was predicted by Vava Banga, the old predictor of life. She was an immortal form of God that was born in the 13th century and is still alive. In the 14th century, she predicted a man of poetry and emotion (Shakespeare), a war based on a duke’s death (World War One), an ugly, grumpy, weirdo ruling the country of USA in the year 2016 (Trump), and of course, the Eye of the End. Now she predicted that the world would end when Poncho looked in the mirror so, after Trump got elected, all countries signed an agreement to take care of their problem. What they didn’t know was that their problem wasn’t the end but a new start.

Poncho went to school with a negative mind everyday, knowing that he would be mocked by every student. Each comment would affect him even more everyday, making him wonder why he was even born. Was it karma from his parents or was it just unluckiness? Was it reasonable or was there no logic to it at all?

“Uffff!” Poncho suddenly bumped into a fellow child.

“Oops, sorry there,” said a mysterious voice.

“You just said sorry?” Poncho was confused. He had never heard that word from anyone else except his parents. “What’s your name?” Poncho asked.

“My name is Lucas Moffer,” Lucas responded. “And what is your name?”

“My name is… Poncho… Poncho Zoori Dover,” Poncho hesitantly replied. Lucas was shocked. He was told that Poncho was a curse, that he was a problem and a mess. Lucas slowly backed off.

***

What did I do. I never went out with friends for a reason. So God could spare me in situations like this. All I did was eat chocolate when I wasn’t allowed to. Today I am gonna break the limits. I am gonna eat as much chocolate as I want. I am gonna go out with my friends and become friends with… Poncho.

***

“So hey,” Lucas stammered. “Wanna grab some lunch?” Poncho’s heart was beating as fast as possible. He looked confused.

He said, “Sure,” with an insecure look and tone.

***

As time and memories passed and the world turned black, sitting in my room and talking with Poncho was the only light of my day. Being mocked along with my best friend made me live my life the way it should have been all along. He would share the grief of his life and I would somehow lighten his day. We had no idea that all of that was about to change.

 

May 26th, 2119

The red bell rang while Poncho and I held hands and ran to the main gate. Suddenly, I took a step outside and saw the fate of his best friend. I quickly covered Poncho’s eyes and ran back in with him.

Poncho was confused, and he asked me, “What is happening?“

I explained everything. “Now listen to me carefully. When you step out into the world of triangular glass mirrors, you are gonna have to block all three of your eyes. No one is alive except you and me. If you look there, you know the consequences…”

Poncho slowly put his fingers on my mouth and he hit his head on the wall while saying, “If this is happening because of me, then what is the point of me?” His head slowly started bleeding and then gradually he fell to the ground and died.

I slowly got up and walked outside. Tears dripped from my face. I opened the door and realised the world was the same. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He had risked his life for the world no matter what the world did to him.

I wrote this book and now it’s done. Now, all about the author. My name is Lucas Moffer.

The End

 

Once there was a dog, a cat, a girl, a boy, a mom, and a dad. The cat and the dog both had a collar that turned their barking and meowing into actual words. One day, the dog and the cat escaped. When they were walking on the sidewalk, they saw a beat down toy store. In the window, they saw a brand new teddy bear. Since the cat was good at stealing things, the cat stole the teddy bear without anyone seeing. Since the dog was good at hiding, the dog hid the teddy bear in his fur, and the dog and the cat went home. At the house, the cat and the dog played with the teddy bear for a few minutes and then put it in the basement.

One year later… the dog and the cat figured out that the teddy bear was haunted!!! But sadly, before the dog and the cat could tell the girl, the boy, the mom, and the dad, they died because they were very old.

Then one night, the girl and the boy could not sleep. They were bored of their old toys, but they remembered stories they have heard about a bunch of cool toys that are in the basement. So, the girl and the boy went to the basement and found a flashlight. They heard a noise behind them. The girl turned on the flashlight, and they both turned around. They saw a teddy bear on the floor. The teddy bear rolled his head around with his head still on his body. Then, the teddy bear said in a kind of high pitched voice, “Hi! I am lonely. Do you want to play?” The girl and the boy were so scared that they ran upstairs so fast that they forgot to close the basement door!

The next night, the boy and the girl heard a creak at their door. The girl went down to the bottom bunk to be with her brother who was super scared. They both looked at the bottom of the door. They saw the teddy bear! The teddy bear said, “Hi! I am lonely. Do you want to play?” giving them one last chance. Since the girl was the oldest, she stood up for her brother. So, she went off the bed, grabbed the teddy bear, and threw it out the window. But, both of them were so tired that they forgot to close the window!

When they were asleep, the teddy bear climbed the trellis. It did not bother the kids. Instead, he went to the parents’ bedroom. The parents heard the creak at the door. The parents looked and saw the teddy bear. The teddy bear said, “Your kids won’t play, so you will die.”

The kids heard a scream from their parents’ bedroom. They went to see what was going on. When they opened the door, they saw the teddy bear covered in blood in the middle of the bed. The teddy bear said in a deep voice, “I gave you guys a chance, but now you die!”

THE END

 

“Klara! Carl!” my mother screeches. I wake with a start.

“Wha… Oh, hello Mom.”

“Oh, Klara, they are here! Hide with your brother! Quick, hurry! NOW!” I run to the closet where my little brother, Carl, is crouching. I slam the door shut just in time and lean back against some dusty winter coats, my heart pounding against my chest. We are Jews, so maybe they are here to kill us. I am only sixteen! My brother is eleven! Surely they can’t take us away! I press my ear to the door and catch snippets of the conversation.

I hear, “8:00 tomorrow… All Jews… One knapsack… Transported.”

Suddenly, I feel something that I didn’t even know was there, a dawning realization. They want to take us away! To camps! What’re they called? Concentration camps? I don’t want to go! I don’t want to die! What will we do?

***

RING!!! RING!!! My alarm clock wakes me up. I focus my eyes. 5:45. Why did I get up this early? Ach, the call-up notice, I remember, and roll out of bed. “AAARRRGGGHHH!!!” I keep forgetting that I sleep on the top bunk. I rack my brain for something to do, and as I can find nothing, I grab blindly at the air.

My fingers hook onto something. My mattress! I slowly lower myself to the floor. I breathe a sigh of relief and start to get dressed. I wander over to the breakfast table where my mother, looking very pale, shoves a piece of buttered toast into my hand. Wait… buttered toast? We are one of the better-off families in the ghetto, and I have buttered toast for breakfast? “What is this?” I ask.

“It’s buttered toast, can’t you see?” my mother answers. “Klara, do you know where your brother is?”

Ach, the call-up notice, I remember, and find Carl in his bed. “C’mon, sleepyhead! Time to get up! I’m gonna yank the covers off of you… stupidhead!” Carl jumps out of bed.

“Klara, you are the only stupidhead I see at the moment!”

“Get a mirror.”

“Why’d you get me up so early? It’s 6:15! I — mmmph!”

I had cleverly tied my handkerchief tightly around his mouth. I sigh as I haul him into the living room. Mother gets up and sits down on the couch next to us. “I suppose you should know,” she says. Carl and I glance at each other. I take my hankie off of his face. Mother takes a deep breath. “We’re going into hiding.”

My life is changing forever.

Carl and I have very different techniques for handling this statement. He freezes in his position and rolls back onto the couch. I press for details: “Where? When? How? For how long? Who’s helping us? Are we hiding with anyone else? How do we get there? Why are other people helping us? Why are they agreeing to hide and help us? Why is… ”

“Relax,” my mother says. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get there. Pack your knapsacks. Act like you’re going to the cattle cars. Wear lots of clothes. Pack your prized possessions in your knapsack. We have half an hour. Go!”

I run to my bedroom and take my diary into my hands and my carved wooden box that Opapa made for me. I use it as my fountain pen kit. I keep my three fountain pens and my 30 ink cartridges in there. I grab my first aid kit and my favorite books and shove them in. I put in my pillow, but then take it out.

I put in my fountain pen kit and flip through my diary before putting it in. I put in my stuffed bear and stuffed dog that I still sleep with even though I am sixteen. I pull on four more shirts, three more pants, two coats, and a scarf that I use to cover up my yellow star that says that I am Jewish.

***

I put in my pack of cards and a few joke books. I also grab my camera and film. I shove them in with a flashlight, extra batteries, a second pair of shoes, another coat, a pair of pants, a blouse, my spare pair of glasses and the cloth I use to clean them, my hair brush and spare hair ties, and a headband. Miraculously, this all fits, leaving just enough room for my essential toiletries and some underwear and a little bag of… er… private stuff. I zip the knapsack shut. I am ready. I know that we could be leaving… forever.

Will we all survive this?

I swing my sack onto my back. We are trudging through crunchy snow. It is only 0 degrees Celsius, but I am sweating for two reasons. One is that we are sneaking away to go into hiding. The other is that I am wearing way too many clothes.

Suddenly, I feel something in my back. Thinking it is Carl, I say, “Oh, stupidhead, do you speak English? No? Good. I hate — wait… ”

We are loaded into a stuffy box which I later find out is a cattle car. There is a horrible stink, and the heat is unbearable. I see a woman slump to the floor. A baby’s high-pitched wail rings out, and then its whimper, and then… it is quiet. A tear rolls down my cheek as I sit on the dusty floor.

Now we only have 72 people left out of the 90 people that boarded this musty… portmanteau. (I counted.) I shouldn’t have assumed that the Nazi officer was Carl. I shouldn’t have insulted him.

Carl starts to sniffle. Soon, he is sobbing. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to go!”

“Oh, be quiet, crybaby!” I say, even though I feel like crying myself.

“Who’s a crybaby?” Carl asks, wiping at his eyes vigorously. I laugh at his blood red eyes and him trying to be angry while his bottom lip is shaking more than a jitterbug dancer.

Mother raises her eyebrows at me. “Sorry.” I only half mean it. Carl nods, satisfied.

“You should be sorry.” I can tell he only half means it, too. I pull one of my coats off and use it as a pillow. The rocking of the floor soon lulls me to sleep.

I want to go home.

So hungry… where am I… I want to go home… help… my leg hurts… I must have fallen asleep on it…

“Bewege dich schneller!” (Move faster!) cry the guards. I stumble out of the car, not used to the bright daylight and the sudden cold. Ouch. I’m limping. Why am I limping? Oh, right. I fell asleep on my leg. All these people, traipsing outside… oh, it’s so horrible. And to think we could all be dead soon!

“Schneller!” (Faster!) a guard barks at me. I feel the shattering, hot sting of a whip on my back. Oh, the hot pain! It hurts like nothing has ever hurt before. My knees buckle, and I fall over. Tears spring to my eyes, and a few roll down my cheeks.

“Das wird dich lehren, mir nicht zu gehorchen!” (That’ll teach you to disobey me!) the guard cries.

“Klara!” cries my mother, helping me up. The guard silences her.

“Ruhig! Das ist deine erste Warnung.” (Quiet! That’s your first warning.)

Another guard steps up. “Warnungen, Schmarrings. Sei still oder wir werden dich verletzen. So einfach ist das. A-ya!” (Warnings, schmarnings. Be quiet or we will hurt you. It’s that simple. Aya!) With that, he kicks my mother in the shin with his steel-toed boot. I look and with horror see a big bruise blossoming there. She is brave enough not to cry, but I see her lower lip tremble. We are quiet and well behaved after that.

When will we get out of here?

We are brought into a room. I am forced to lie down in a chair while they bring out razors. I watch in horror as they, with a snip, cut off my thick braid. They then shave the rest of my head so I am completely bald. The floor is soon littered with golden-brown bits. Then, they hold my arm down. A needle goes into it again and again, tattooing a number. A-7630. I’m so scared that I don’t feel anything, although I see Carl writhing in pain. We are led manhandled into another room. A guard kindly instructs us to, “Nehmen Sie ihre Kleidung und gib sie zu uns. Oder sterben,” (Take off your clothes and give them to us. Or die), which he punctuates with a menacing smile.

I yank off my blouse and skirt, leaving my bra and underwear on. I reach for the shower tap and I… stop. A guard is pointing his gun at my head. “Es Abnehmen,” (Take it off), he snarls. Then, he walks away, surveying the scene with the same menacing smile that the first guard had. I slowly pull off my underclothes, and I don’t want to go into detail about it. I take a shower, and the guards give us all wooden, hard clogs, burlap underwear, and an itchy gray dress with a yellow star on it. The men are given the same underwear and clogs, but instead of a dress they have a black-and-white striped shirt, pants, and cap. The shirt has a yellow star on it. Then, we are led outside again. Without my coat, the cold hits me like a slap in the face.

“Alle Rechte, Erwachsene, Kinder und alte Leute auf der linken Seite. 16 Und sie sind Kinder, 17 bis 59 Erwachsene und 60 bis sind die alten Leute. Jetzt wechseln! Ich habe mich nicht zu wiederholen,” barks a guard. (All right, adults to the right, kids and old people to the left. 16 and down are kids, 17 to 59 are adults, and 60 and up are the old people. Now move! I’m not repeating myself.)

Carl and I run over to our parents. All four of us are crying. I say goodbye to my father and mother. “Klara, Carl,” says my father, “never forget how much we love you. We will think of you every day and always, always be with you. No matter how far apart we are, your mother and I will always be right beside you, helping you through life. There is a chance we will never see each other again. But we will always be right here beside you.”

My mother musters up a frail, “Goodbye, wonderful ones…” and we part… perhaps forever.

When will we be together again?

Carl, some 50 other kids, 25 elderly people, and I are led to another spot where girls and boys are seperated. Carl and I cry a million tears, and we go off in separate directions.

Suddenly, a guard comes up to our group and says, “Sechzehner sind keine Kinder mehr. Der Kommandant sagt. Alle, die sechzehn sind, heben die Hand.” (Sixteens are not kids anymore. The commandant says. All of you who are sixteen, raise your hand), the other guard says. I raise mine tentatively, and the guard pulls me and a few other girls out of the group. He leads us to another barrack and pushes us in. I look around hopefully for my mother. I knew she wouldn’t be here. I had raised my hand just so I could see her one last time before she died.

Yes, my mother is going to die. I could tell, in the ghetto, that she was weak and waning. She is hanging on to life by a thread, and if she has to do the work I have seen people doing, the thread will snap. I wanted to be with her while she died.

I squeeze into one of the shelves that I’m guessing are used as beds and fall asleep. I’ll have a long day tomorrow. I need my sleep.

I open my eyes. Where am I? Oh right, a… concentration camp. Oh, Lord, help me! Help me, Lord. A shiver runs down my spine, and my blood curdles. After a breakfast of a small chunk of stale bread and an egg-cup-sized-cup of “coffee,” which is actually just polluted water, we are led outside and paired up to haul boulders. I’m with a girl who doesn’t acknowledge me except to nod. We haul the boulders back and forth. I ache all over, and my hands are raw and blistered. I’m glad when we go back to the bunk for supper — and even more glad when I see Carl’s line of boys parading past mine.

But then he makes a vital mistake — he waves at me. My eyes widen with fear. His eyes widen too, after he realizes that the guard was watching. “In dieser Gruppe wird es keine Kontakte geben!” (There will be no socializing in this group!) the guard cries. He raises his gun. What can I do to stop him? Carl died painlessly, and his body was left on the ground.

And I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t cry out in grief, or…

Save me!

I laugh, the bubbly feeling rising from my stomach. My skates slip around on the wet ice. Carl snickers at my fail. “I’m going to show you how to really do it!” he cries and leaps onto the ice. His right leg goes out and his left in the opposite direction, and he lands in a split. RRRRRRIP! his pants tear. His face scrunches up. Oh no, I think, here come the waterworks, but to my surprise, the tears that run down his face are not from crying, but from laughing. Once I see that he’s fine, I sink down under the weight of much hilarity. Carl’s head rests on my shoulder, for with his guffaws, his neck no longer has the strength to hold up his head. We both fall down on the ice. I forget about everything in that moment but the happiness of laughing with one of my favorite people in the world. Then we go inside to huddle by the fire with hot cocoa, chocolate chip cookies, hot water bottles, blankets, and books.

Three years later, here I am, huddled under a thin blanket, in a concentration camp, slowly starving. The fire in me has completely gone out. I take out a thick blue book and a pencil.

It’s the only thing.

I had taken my diary with me. I hid it under the chair, under my clothes, and behind the shower nozzle. Now, it’s under my pillow. I pick up my pencil and write.

Dearest Diary,

Carl is dead. I don’t know what to do, Diary. Never again will I see Carl, see his hair as it is rumpled in the mornings, see his messy neatness, even his fist as it flies toward my arm in a fight.

I pause and look out the door at the crematoria. I see smoke rising.

They are probably burning his body right now. Diary, is this what humans were born to do? Kill each other because of race, gender, or ethnicity? I’m not sure what Hitler thinks he’s doing. Because of him, Carl is dead. No, I don’t blame the guard who killed him. Diary, I blame Hitler, because he is the one who started this mess of tears that I am. Mangled bodies are everywhere, usually. I never thought Carl would be one. And, Diary, you know what really riles me up? I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye

Klara F. Schmidt

O Lord, bring Carl to heaven.

The block leader opens the door and another girl walks in — I know many fourteen-year-olds, and I can tell she’s fourteen. Fourteen? She’s tall for her age, but why did she join here? She’s a kid, by their standards. Since there are no more shelves left, the block leader puts her in with me. “Cześć,” she says to me.

“I don’t speak Polish,” I answer. I know it’s Polish because of how it sounds, but that’s really all I know.

“Je parle polonais… et allemande,” another girl, in the next shelf, says. “I said that I speak German and Polish. She said hello,” the French girl says to me.

“Powiedziałem że mówiȩ po niemiecku i po polsku. Powiedziała, że nie mówi po polsku,” she says to the other girl.

“Czy bȩdziesz naszym tłumaczem?” the Polish girl asks.

“She asked if I would be your translator.” The French girl turns to the Polish girl and says, “Tak.” She turns to me and says, “Yes.”

Through the translator, the Polish girl says, “My name is Aleksandra Lisowski.”

I say, “My name is Klara Schmidt.”

The French girl says, “My name is Cadence Laurent.”

Klara, Aleksandra, and Cadence. The Three Musketeers.

Not even the promise of new friends can give Carl back to me.

It feels good to have friends. Through Cadence, Aleksandra and I have many conversations. When Cadence is talking to either one of us, she talks in our language. When she’s talking to both of us, she has to say things twice. One day, I ask her why she knows all three languages.

In Polish, then in German, she says, “Well, my father was German, so he decided that I should learn the German. My mother was Polish, so I learned the Polish, too. And, of course, we lived in France. So I had to do the learning of the French language. I can speak the English, as well. Mother used to teach it to students at the… school in the middle. I know not what the Germans call it.”

“Middle school!” Aleksandra cries, and we all laugh. But that night, all I can think of is how she talked of her parents in the past tense.

The next day, I ask her, “Cadence, why did you talk about your parents in the past tense?” Her eyes well up with tears. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s fine,” she answers. She translated what I said for Aleksandra and says something else to her, too. She widens her eyes and covers her open mouth. Cadence then turns to me, but then the block leader rushes us outside and puts us three together to haul rocks.

She quickly whispers, “My dad was visiting a German Jew’s business on Cristal Huit. He was killed. My mother died in our bunk, next to me.”

“Cristal Huit?”

“What you Germans call Kristallnacht.”

“Oh, Cadence… I’m so sorry.”

“It was bound to happen anyway. You can’t change it now.”

I turn to Aleksandra. Cadence has been teaching me Polish and has been teaching Aleksandra German. I use my newly learned Polish to say, “To jest smutne.” (It is sad.)

Aleksandra answers, “Yes it is.”

Cadence looks at us. “But now I have you two,” she says in both languages. She reaches out and hugs us… and suddenly the block leader is right behind us.

THE END

 

     

September 21, 1962

I’ve never really wanted to talk about this, but I guess this day has come. I was sitting in a cafe the day after the tornado hit Hamburg. A young journalist asked me if I had been alive during World War II.

The answer is yes. And here is my story.

 

Chapter One

September 21, 1942

As every person in my synagogue was gathered in a small street, I knew what was going on. Though my sister, who was six at the time, did not have a clue. My parents told her we were going on a long vacation, though what they couldn’t say was that we were on a journey to our deaths. The fear rose in every person as people were being loaded into the cattle cars. My parents, crying, my sister and I, not knowing what would happen next.

I could hear a loud boom. I looked towards the loud sound. It was our neighbors. They had been shot by the soldiers. The neighbors I’d known since I was born. They were there when I got stitches and when my Bat Mitzvah came around. Before I could see more, Mother turned my head the other way.

I could see the fear in my mother’s eyes. Her hand holding mine as tight as possible, I could feel her ring leaving an imprint in my hand.

“Nächster,” I could hear the German Soldier shout at us.

I could hear people praying, hoping somehow they could make it out okay. Genny, my sister, was wondering why people were so scared, “After all, we are going on vacation!” How could she still believe this. The soldier tugged my mother and forced our whole ghetto to the train. So many people fought back, hitting and screaming at the soldiers. I knew I would never see them again.

As we boarded the train, I could feel my heart pounding. All these questions flowed in my head, Why would our country do this to us? Where were they taking us to? And the question no one could answer, Why?

When we got on the train, I heard the cries of everyone and felt the pain that filled every single person’s heart. My mother pushed through the stench and sorrow of people. She took us to the window of the car. She and Father started whispering to each other. Not knowing if it was good or bad, I knew it was bad when they started to sob.

This was when Mother did something only the bravest could do. Father held her up, and she started to spread the barbed wire, making it just big enough for a person my size.

“Get on my shoulders,” Mother said to me.

At first, I didn’t want to. Because I knew if I did, I would never see my family again. After I didn’t do it, she said it in a firm way, holding back tears.

I did as she said.

 

Chapter Two

Before I knew it, I was being thrown out of a moving train. I closed my eyes and held my breath, hoping that when I landed, I wouldn’t die.

I was lying on the ground. No family, no clue where I was. I could see my mom pushing me and the pain I was in. I landed on my hip. I turned to my side, my hip all bruised and in excruciating pain. Can pain truly end? As I looked around, no sign of life. Where am I? We were in the train for about an hour, so I say we were somewhere in Poland.

***

I’d been lying on the ground for around three hours, hoping someone would come and take me inside. Finally, some teenagers, who were speaking in Polish, came and started laughing at me. After a few minutes of staring at me, they took off every article of clothing I had, but they didn’t take my necklace. After they did this, I started to sob. Since no one was around, I started to cry really loudly. I didn’t feel embarrassed. No one was around to laugh at me. So I thought.

 

Chapter Three

I thought that I heard someone. Or something. As I tried to crawl away from the tracks, someone told me something. “Do you need help?” As I heard this person ask me, I turned my head. It was a middle-aged white man with some gray hair and glasses standing with food and water.

After he told me about the townspeople contacting him about a young girl lying at the edge of the tracks, he took me to his church. He was a priest. His church was the biggest I’d seen. Big pillars held it up, and a giant clock was right in the middle of the structure. It was a very clean church. The churches in Hamburg were much dirtier. The white they were once had faded into gray.

He told me, “You are in Gdańsk, Poland.”

When we got to the church, every single person was staring at me. Well, I didn’t have any clothes on because the teenagers took my clothes as a joke. The only thing I had on was the Star of David. I’m not sure why they didn’t take my necklace. Maybe they thought they would be sent to where I was going.

A Jew standing in front of a bunch of Christians. Their faces, disgusted. At any time now, they could get me and the priest killed. The priest told me that he’d keep me, but only for a night. Then, he said he would find a family to take me. I didn’t even know why the priest cared that much about a Jew he found on the side of the tracks.

Before I went to bed, the priest gave me some clothes that didn’t fit me. I couldn’t complain because these would probably be my clothes for a long, long time. While I was sleeping, I realized this person was risking their life just to save me.

***

In the morning, I woke up to the smell of a beautiful breakfast with eggs, cheese, milk, and yogurt with granola. Would someone make this for me? He told me that he found a family, well a couple, and that they were waiting for me. (I guess he put it in the church newsletter.)

Before I left, the priest asked me, “What’s your name?”

“Gina.”

 

Chapter Four

When I saw my new “family,” they didn’t say anything to me. They just took me by the arm and put me in the back of their car. The expressions on their faces were blank. They probably didn’t know what to do with a 12-year-old girl.

I tried to talk to them. They just ignored me. I asked them their names. They showed me a piece of paper. Oliver and Lena. Maybe they didn’t speak German. I decided to keep talking to them. They didn’t respond. They then start talking in Polish. It took about 45 minutes to get to their farm. They had everything, pigs, cows, and so much more. I didn’t think I should tell them I was kosher. They probably wouldn’t listen.

When we got into the house, they directed me right into a tiny cupboard under the sink in the basement. It was small. No light. Sad. I figured I’d be spending the next few years of my life here. I was freaking out mentally. How would I eat? What would I eat? Will I go to school? I didn’t understand how people could be so cruel.

I could see their chicken staring at me. There was a leak in the sink. Drip, the sink went. There was mold on the “ceiling.” It was gross.

I opened the doors. I could see Oliver and Lena. They were talking. They looked concerned. I wanted to get to know them. They seemed like nice people, a nice couple. I stepped out of the cupboard. I’d been in the cupboard for like thirty minutes staring at the ceiling, and I already hated my new life. Wait, no. I couldn’t hate this life. I didn’t know if my family was even alive anymore. I walked towards them. They didn’t see me. I tapped on Oliver’s shoulder. He punched me in the face. Ow. I guess that was his immediate instinct. My whole face was in a little pain. I meant a lot of pain (but obviously not as bad as when I was thrown out of a moving train).

“My name is Gina,” I told them. They started talking in Polish. Lena was (or looked like) she was trying to convince Oliver about something.

Lena started walking towards me. She asked me a few questions in Polish. Since German and Polish are very similar, I knew what she was saying. How old are you? Where are you from? Where are your parents? The questions she asked me almost made me cry. Just as I was going to answer Lena’s questions, Oliver started to push me back into the cupboard.

 

Chapter Five

September 2, 1946

It had been exactly one year since the war ended. I was now fifteen years old and didn’t know what to do. I took a boat to America with a friend I made when I went back to Hamburg to find any of my relatives. I didn’t find anyone, but now that I was here, I didn’t know what to do. The last three years of my life weren’t very eventful, but at the same time, I found things to do. I got a lot of sleep and watched the chickens.

I had no idea what was happening outside my cupboard. Oliver and Lena fed me at nights and in the mornings.

The moment the war was over, they kicked me out of their house. They gave me a ticket to Germany and one to America and told me that they were getting paid by the priest to take care of me. After they said that, they closed the door. I thanked them for everything. Even though they did it for money, they still risked their lives. Did I really want to go back to Hamburg? Hamburg became a mental warzone for me. I was battling loneliness.

I walked to the church to see if the priest was still there. Indeed, he was. I walked up to him.

“My name is Gina,” I told him.

“I know,” the priest told me.

He told me about how he was sorry about paying Oliver and Lena. I told him it was okay. He was doing it to protect me. A car pulled up in front of the church. It was there to pick me up and drive me to the the train station, where I’d take a train to Hamburg, Germany. I decided that all the bad events that happened over the past three years would be remembered but would not ruin my life.

I had no one and nothing except two tickets to completely different places. My journey started now.

 

Chapter Six

October 11, 1992

After I got to America, I married that same friend, Aleksander. He has brown hair and green eyes. We decided on the boat that we would become good friends. Once we got to New York City, we bought a house in Brooklyn (as friends). Something happened, and he asked me to marry him. I said yes. Aleksander was in the same situation as me, in Poland as well. He is really sweet and funny, and we lived together for four years before we got married. Together, we had two kids, Mira and Aleksander Jr.. I educate children and adults about the Holocaust and World War II. I live in Brooklyn, New York. I think it is very important for people to know what happened from 1939 to 1945, how 50 to 80 million people died, and about the Nazis and the people who fought against the Axis powers and the Allies.

 

Blue was sleeping in his king size bed. Then, he heard a noise and sat up. He looked around. Suddenly, the Ghoul Eraser materialized in front of him, and he saw darkness. Then, he slumped onto his bed, unconscious, and he dematerialized.

Red had a dream that Blue was kidnapped by the Ghoul Eraser. He woke up, looked around, and then thought, Must be my imagination. He went back to sleep and had the same dream. And again. And again. And again! Then, Red thought, Maybe, it actually happened! Red walked out of his bed and got to the stairs.

“Blue!” Red shouted.

Then, the Ghoul Eraser materialized in front of him also! Then, he slumped down on the stairs, unconscious, and he slithered down the stairs to the bottom. After that, he also dematerialized.

Purple woke up and looked at his hand. 10:01 A.M. appeared on his hand and he said, “Blue should have woken us up already. Maybe something happened to him!”

***

Yellow couldn’t believe his ears when Purple told the Color Clan what his theory was about the disappearance of Blue and Red.

“But that’s impossible!” Yellow said. “We defeated him, remember?”

“Maybe when White died, we missed something. Like maybe we weren’t supposed to shoot him.” Purple said.

“Even so, we have one-of-a-kind defense. How would he break through them?” Yellow said.

“Maybe he can teleport now,” Purple said.

“That would be bad… say, where did you get this theory?” Yellow said.

“Purple! The goo you found is a 100% DNA match to the Ghoul Eraser!” said Silver the scientist.

“Do I really have to answer that?” Purple said.

“Oh, come on! Anyways, how are we going to save Blue and Red?” Yellow said.

***

Blue and Red found themselves in a desolate, gloomy area with no light except for a strange, glowing ball that had the same unknown coloring as the Ghoul Eraser.

“Red! You got teleported also!” Blue exclaimed.

“So, this is where you were taken. It makes me feel… kind of dead,” Red noted.

“YOU ARE CORRECT…” boomed a loud voice.

“Who are you?” Red and Blue asked simultaneously.

“… YOU WILL FEEL KIND OF DEAD,” continued the loud voice.

“I said, who are you?” Red rashly exclaimed.

“DON’T YOU DARE ‘I SAID’ ME!” exclaimed the loud voice. Then, a shadowy figure materialized into sight. “IT’S ME… THE GHOUL ERASER! NOW, YOU WILL BOW TO ME!”

“NEVER!” Blue and Red shouted.

 

{1}

Then, electricity passed up both Blue’s and Red’s arms, and they were screaming at the top of their lungs.

“MUAHAHAHAHA!” cackled the Ghoul Eraser. “You are now Indigo and Maroon, dark versions of Blue and Red!”

“Yes, Master,” said Indigo and Maroon. The good had been sucked out of them, but they could still look like Blue and Red.

“Hehehe!” chuckled the Ghoul Eraser.

***

“Listen up,” Purple said. “I have a plan. Orange, you go to the Gorge of Doom and see if you spot anything. Green, go to the frozen lava pit and see if anything is ‘out of nature.’ Yellow and I will go to the resting spot of the Ghoul Eraser. I’ll take the blaster. Let’s go!”

“Aye aye, captain!” said Orange, Yellow, and Green.

So, they split up to look for Blue (Indigo) and Red (Maroon).

***

Eventually, Orange and Green returned to find Purple and Yellow talking with Blue and Red!

“Hey guys!” Blue shouted.

“W — what happened to you guys?” Green asked.

“Nothing! We escaped!” Blue answered.

“I don’t know… something seems fishy here,” said Orange.

“That’s because we aren’t Blue and Red. They are still with the Ghoul Eraser. We are Indigo and Maroon, dark versions of Blue and Red!” Indigo cackled as he and Maroon revealed themselves.

Indigo threw a stone at Orange, and he got knocked unconscious.

“Blue! We are friends,” said Purple. “Remember when you helped me not give up on magic when I discovered it? Look at me now! Thanks to you, I almost figured out how to fly by now! All thanks to you!”

“Red,” said Yellow. “Remember when you saved my life by pulling me out of the blacksmith armory trench during the lava refill? Thanks to you, instead of swimming in lava, I’m swimming in gold! All thanks to you!”

“We are not enemies, we are friends, so let this curse and hatred end! Say it with me, Yellow!” Purple said.

“We are not enemies, we are friends, so let this curse and hatred end!” Purple and Yellow said together.

“W — where are we?” Blue asked.

“Someplace safe,” Purple answered with a broad smile.

***

“Δύναμη, δύναμη, Typhon, σας καλώ!” chanted the Ghoul Eraser.

“Why do you summon me?” asked Typhon.

“So I can steal your POWER!!” boomed the Ghoul Eraser. The Ghoul Eraser absorbed Typhon.

 

{2}

“NOW I AM FREE!!” boomed Deathwish. “I AM DEATHWISH!!”

***

Suddenly, the Color Clan saw a giant monster with snakes for hair, blades for teeth, and red-hot rubies for eyes. It drooled and burped lava and cried acid venom.

“W — what… is… that?!” Yellow cried out.

“I am clueless,” Blue calmly said. “RETREAT!!”

Yellow gathered his senses and said, “Listen up. Did we come here to run away? No. We came here to fight for Color World and for ourselves. We will stand our ground and fight to the death! For Color World!!”

Yellow ran towards Deathwish and found a metal pole. He charged toward Deathwish. Suddenly, the metal rod burst with light and he struck Deathwish. Deathwish burst with light.

“NOOO!!” Deathwish screamed. There was nothing left of him.

“Are you okay?” Blue asked Yellow.

“This changes everything,” Yellow said.

 

The End (for now)…

 

Comments:

“With this sequel to COLOR WARS, Elijah has given us not only a fun action-packed tale, but a story about the profound power of friendship.“

-Matthew

More books like this:

Color Wars: The Beginning

Color Wars: The Elements Awaken

 

           

Chapter One

“Wake up! Wake up!” screamed both of my sisters.

“Okay, okay. I’m awake.”

I am Tracy Diamond. I am nine years old. I have two younger sisters who are twins and two older brothers who are also twins. I am the middle child. Right after I say I’m awake, my brothers run into my room and jump on my bed. I am used to this. It happens every morning in my house. I throw my favorite stuffed toy at my siblings, my fairy. I know fairies aren’t real, but I really wish they were. Anyways, I shoo my brothers and sisters away when my mind drifts over to my dream I had last night. There were some keys and a voice saying I had to find out what they were for. They only told me one thing, “Find the keys, find the clue. Find the clue, use the clue. Use the clue, find the meaning. Find the meaning, your journey adjourns.” I wrote this quote down on a piece of paper, stuck it in a drawer, and went to breakfast.

I thought about the quote as I ate breakfast. I had a million questions. Who was talking to me? How was I going to find the keys? Was I going to find the keys? All of these questions and more kept lingering in my mind the whole day. During math, science, physical education, and the rest of the school day, the keys were all I could think about. It was like I couldn’t focus on anything at school except the keys. I nearly slammed into my best friend while walking in the hall. I was glad when the school day ended. I could go home and think about the keys.

 

Chapter Two

When I got home, I noticed the house was strangely quiet. When you’re me, your house is never quiet. So, it was surprising when there was silence in the house. I searched the whole house but couldn’t find anyone. The only thing I kept seeing in each lock or thing that required a key were the keys from my dream. Everywhere I looked, all I saw were the keys. Finally, after seeing them for about the one millionth time, I grabbed at the keys. But, my hand went straight through. I tried again and again, and each time, my hand went straight through. That’s strange, I thought. Every time I try to grab it, my hand goes straight through. It’s like an illusion. That’s when it hit me. Some of the keys were illusions.

I started going through the house, feeling each key. When a slam came from the front door, I knew I would have to finish later. My brothers were home.

You are probably wondering why I couldn’t keep checking the locks and stuff for the real keys, but if you have a sibling, then you would know that siblings are bound to try and stick their heads in your business. So, I headed back to my room and locked the door. But, when I was locking the door, I ran my hand along the keys, and they scratched me. It was then that I realized that I had found the keys.

 

Chapter Three

I took the keys out of the lock and went inside. I took out the piece of paper that had the quote and read what it said to do after finding the keys. “Find the keys, find the clue. Find the clue, use the clue. Use the clue, find the meaning. Find the meaning, your journey adjourns.” But, I couldn’t think of was how some old keys could help me “find a clue.” After thinking about it for what felt like forever, I went downstairs to have dinner but instead found my whole family staring at me.

“What?” I asked, with a confused look on my face.

“You’re late,” my mother replied. I just stared at her.

“Late for what?”

“For dinner,” both of my sisters squeaked at the same time.

“So?”

“You’re never, I repeat, never late for dinner,” said my brothers and dad at the same time in a very firm voice.

“Again, so?” I asked. “Can’t I be late once in a while?”

“NO!” screamed my whole family at once.

“You guys are going crazy. I’ll eat in my room.”

I walked back to my room and ate quietly. I couldn’t believe my parents and siblings were making such a big deal out of nothing. After dinner, I took my plate downstairs and went to brush my teeth. I was at the bathroom door when I remembered my fork was still upstairs. When I got to my room, next to the keys and under my fork there was a message. A pair of socks was taped to the message.

You found the clue. Now, wear these socks for three days. After those three days, you’ll find the meaning of the keys. And the keys will live with you for the rest of your life. Also, you can take the socks off for only these two reasons: you’re taking a bath, or you need to wash the socks. But other than that, you must keep them on.

So, I put on the socks and went to brush my teeth and sleep.

The next day, I wore my socks to school. They were so itchy. I couldn’t stop itching my feet, but I knew if I took them off, I wouldn’t find the meaning, and I had to find the meaning (for reasons unknown). So, I wore them for the rest of the three days.

Finally, I thought. I can take these stupid, annoying socks off. I took them off and threw them into the trash. And from the trash, a blue slip of paper shot out at me. It said that I was the protector of the keys. The most amazing part was that the keys were the keys to the city of fairies.

The End!

 

Harold was in jail with his bike and had no clue how to escape. He thought for minutes, hours, days, and weeks but couldn’t think of anything.

Then, he got an idea after months of thinking. He stated, “I will make a ram with my bike and bust out of here.” Then, he asked the jail guard for a screwdriver and broke his bike into pieces. Then, he cried, “What have I done?”

After finishing making his ram, Harold tried it on the jail bars, and to his surprise it busted open. The jail guard started chasing him, but to his luck he was able to run away!

Harold got to a weird cave that was full of tanks, when he noticed he was at a military camp. Then, he tried running away, but the military opened fire and gave Harold the only option to hand himself in. Now, he was trapped in a place that you know was the worst… jail! He thought, No! How could this happen to me?

Well, now we know Harold is one of the most unlucky hobbits on earth.

Now, he had to hatch a new escape plan to get out of jail. Now, exactly 27 years had passed, and he was 40 years old, and he still couldn’t get a plan on escaping. He realized that it was a waste of time thinking on how to escape, and it was time to trick the guard into letting him out.

So first he made a disguise by scraping the rock wall and getting powder and covering himself in it, so he looked like a monster. Then, he went up to the guard and moaned, “I am the monster of the jail. Let me out, or I will get you.”

Then, the jail guard got so scared he actually gave him the keys. So, Harold got out of jail and ran away. Then luckily, he found a donkey to ride. Then, the donkey led him to an oasis and Harold got so happy he started crying with joy.

Now, Harold took off his clothes and jumped into the oasis, and it ended up to be a mirage. When he went head first into the sand, he got very angry. He kicked the sand as hard as he could, but he didn’t notice and kicked a snake.

He squealed in horror and ran, forgetting the donkey (O-M-G Harold). But, he didn’t care and just ran. Well, now Harold was stranded in the middle of the desert with no food or water. He had no map or anything to contact someone, so he just started walking. He felt miserable.

Then poof, out of nowhere, a wizard appeared. He was holding a staff and was dressed in blue robes. He said, “I understand that you are not guilty of losing the money, so I will help you.”

Then, he was teleported to his house or at least where it used to be. The house was in ruins. Then, when he saw it he started crying, and the wizard turned him into a rock. The wizard thought no feelings would be better than having to cry forever. Now, he still sits there crying for the loss.

 

Step 1. Come up with an EVIL name by eating dead fish and licking lollipops full of WORMS. And then you will get an awesome name like Master Big Booty Evil Skull Face or if you are boring, Temp 1.

Step 2. Get a job at a place that sells fast food, and don’t tell anybody your real name (or I will make you wear clown makeup like Evil Master by bribing you with, I mean, giving you candy).

Step 3. Cause some mischief. (If you don’t, I will stuff your bed with old tuna fish.) Heehee. I mean, give you chocolate with caramel and death. I mean, uhhhhhh, a puppy. Yes, very nice. Oh, I have gotten so good at lying. Uhh, that means telling the truth in Latin!!!

Step 4. Design your supervillain outfit by stealing fabric from a shop. I mean, buying it from a fancy craft store. Then, follow some sort of sewing pattern, or force someone to sew it. I mean, pay someone to sew it for you.

Step 5. Start stealing from shops. I mean, uhhh, buy stuff from shops. Oops, I already used that. I’m running out of lines. I need to delete this document before the police find my computer.

Step 6. Just go away. I’m sick of telling you things.

Step 7. Just go away. I mean it!

Step 8. Why am I still typing? Okay, fine. I’ll actually do something.

Step 9. Publish a story about how you became evil. I mean, how you became an amazing super hero puppy. I first became evil, I mean, a Superhero puppy, in 1876. I mean, 2016. I’m 100. Uhh, I mean, um, 25. Uh, no, no, no. Twenty-five is old for a puppy. Okay, you guys caught me. Call the police. Okay, fine. I just don’t want to tell my story. This is just a fake document, and I’m just a little girl. I mean, middle-aged woman. I don’t want to be me because I don’t want to be allergic to cheese. I mean, avocados. I mean, candy. I mean, what am I saying? I am not evil, but I want to be evil because I can’t buy things myself, and I get 25 minutes of screentime. That’s too little. It’s just against the law. I want to be evil because you can have a super cool fake identity and be an evil, awesome spy. I could be really sneaky. Wait, can’t good people do that too? I should probably think about this.

 

         

Prologue

11/29/1812

5:30 p.m.

The night she left the kingdom, there was a terrible storm. That night, the whole of the village fell silent, watching the storm all night. Even the king, the mightiest person in the kingdom, stopped and stared at the horrible and sudden storm. Everyone was shocked, frightened, even scared. For the village had never seen a storm this violent, rain plummeting from the sky with the size and speed of bullets.

The next day, knights from the kingdom flooded out of the gates and into the little town to see if anyone was hurt by the storm. They found that nobody had been hurt, but one had left. This particular person was a girl, the age of eight. And this eight-year-old girl was indeed the most interesting girl you would ever meet. This little girl, as small as she might have looked, had a deep secret, a secret that no one but she knew. The secret was that she, the little, innocent eight-year-old, might’ve been the king’s great-great-great-great-grandmother, Serena Servedore.

 

Chapter One

4/23/2018

2:17 pm

This is the second day in the police department, the fourth time I’ve been questioned, and the billionth time I have said no.

“Can you tell us your name?” the detective said, patiently.

“No.” One billion and one.

“Can you tell us what you were up to in the museum the night the painting was stolen?” the detective said, less patient.

“No.” One billion and two.

“Can you tell us why you are here?”

“You know that already,” I replied.

“Okay, I give up. What is it going to take to get you to speak?” The detective was losing his temper now.

“I am speaking, am I not?” I replied, quite tired now.

“You know what?” The detective got up and took his keys out of the back pocket. He placed the key in the lock and turned it. He left the room, slamming the door shut. I heard the click of the lock, and then I slowly turned to the left to take a look at the security camera.

“Had enough? I know you’re watching,” I said, acting calmly. I have to keep going. They’ll be here any second. “I know what you’re thinking. How did that girl get in so much trouble? I am only ten, aren’t I?” I paused. “Why can’t she tell us anything? Why is she so smart? Why is she so stubborn?” I mocked. I turned around again in my seat, so the camera could see nothing of my face. I waited. My eyes blinked once, twice, three times, until at last I fell asleep.

***

I woke up to find myself in a chair in a dark room. Much smaller than the one before. This one could fit about two small armchairs from what I could see. A light suddenly clicked on. Its bright, intense light was headed straight to my face.

“What do you want? My name, why I was at the museum the night that painting was stolen, or something different? I am getting rather bored of those questions,” I said, quite bored.

“Boss, can you not even recognize your own first officer?” the voice said.

“Tes?” I asked.

“Who else. Now let’s get out of here before they realize that the hologram of me is a fake,” Tes said, just as we heard a voice.

“Hey, she’s not real!”

“Okay, plan B. Wait, dang it. I forgot to make one! Fine, improvise. Run!”

“I thought I’d told you to always have a plan B!”

“Didn’t I just tell you the plan B?”

“Right now is not the time to argue,” Tes said as she started pushing the doors open and letting the the warm and welcoming spring air into the dusty, thick, dark building.

The light of the sun blinded us so much that she had to cover her eyes with her arm. As the two officers leapt outside, they heard screaming. A few of the kids outside of the police station had started yelling at them to come over.

“At least you brought backup. I thought you hadn’t done anything.”

“I didn’t bring backup. I guess they just tracked me down and came to back me up,” Tes exclaimed.

“So, you’re telling me that you did nothing to support this plan?” I yelled.

“Hey, at least I rescued you from the police. I could have left you there,” Tes argued.

“Point taken,” I stated. “So, are we going to go over there to ‘your backup?’”

“Be quiet,” Tes laughed.

 

Chapter Two

4/23/2018

6:58 p.m.

When I arrived at the main base of the headquarters, everyone celebrated my arrival from the police station. It had been so long since I had been at the base that I barely remembered it. Of course, it would only have seemed like two days to everyone else in the room.

“So, what happened there?” someone finally asked.

“Not much. A bit of rain here, a bit of saving the whole world there. As I said, not very much. I also took a quick peek at my great-great-great-great-grandson, the king. Oh — but something did act weird with the time machine. Nothing that bad. I could work it out,” I explained.

“What went wrong?” the head of engineering asked.

“I was a bit younger than usual — ” I started.

“How young?” the director of engineering asked, sweat starting to drip down his forehead from knowing that his machine had malfunctioned.

“Just eight, no problem. I can manage to be two years younger than now,” I reassured. The head engineer got less tense. “It’s funny how time travel works. If you’re gone for even a whole month, others would have spent only a day or two without you. But anyway, I’m back!”

“You did everything according to plan, right? No, like, messing with the timeline? Has anything changed? Actually, no. Don’t tell me,” the still nervous engineer threw at me.

“No changes in the timeline. No messing up. No changes here,” I replied, happy to have been able to finally calm him down.

 

Chapter Three

4/24/2018

5:30 a.m.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Tuesdays suck. I review my to-do list in my head: 5:45 German; 6:15 Review the Time Machine with head engineer; 7:15 Watch duty; 8:45 Meeting with the head judges about the rules of time travel; 9:35 Check on engineering; 10:20 Snack and chess; 10:30 Review essays of what happened without me; 11:15 Math and computer class; 12:15 Lunch and recreation; 1:00 Argue with military tactics about the infinity bombs; 2:00 Check in with the minister of locations and languages; 3:00 give team A a mission; 4:00 give team B a mission; 5:00 give team C a mission; 6:00 go on a mission; 7:00 Dinner; 7:45 relax for the rest of the day.

“Big schedule,” I mumbled to myself, all ready to go to my German class. I quickly grabbed my identification and sign-in cards and left the bunker. Frau Hinrichs started us off with some conversation. We were to have a whole five minute conversation with a partner. I chose Tessel, Tes’ sister.

“Hallo wie bist du?” Hi how are you? I started.

“Mir ist alles gut, und sie?” Everything is fine, and you? Tessel continued.

“Gut. Wurden sie einen keks haben?” Good. Do you want a cookie? I giggled.

“Nein, danke.” No, thank you. Tessel replied. There was an awkward silence of nobody knowing who would speak first or at all what to say. A few seconds passed. “Was hast du eigentlich gemacht im zieht?” What did you actually do in the time? Tessel asked.

“Ich habe meinen — ”

“Time’s up. You can speak English,” Frau Hinrichs said in a very heavy European accent.

“Well then. I visited my great-great-great-great-grandson, and I stopped him from discovering the secret of time travel. I also may have caused the rain in that big storm. But that always happens when you time travel. So all in all, I basically saved the world from utter despair,” I answered. “Wow, how do I make that sound like like it’s not a big deal at all?” I asked myself in a funny sort of way.

“That’s not what I meant. What I meant is, why did you end up in a museum department. People usually end up in the same place that they left. Which is always the roof.”

“Something may have gone wrong with the time machine,” I suggested. Tessel and I tensed up. “We should check in with engineering.”

 

Chapter Four

4/24/2018

6:15

Tessel and I ran up the escalator from the third floor to the fifth. Huffing and wheezing, we had finally made it to the engineering and mechanical section of the building.

“Identification card please,” an employee asked, looking down at the sign-in sheet. Tessel took her card out and showed it to the young employee. I shoved my hand into my pocket and took hold of my identification card. Tessel was halfway through the metal detector. I showed the card to the boy and went through the metal detectors.

“So, where is Director Zybi?” I mumbled under my breath.

“Found him!” Tessel exclaimed from the other side of the full room.

Pushing through the crowd of people wasn’t easy, but once on the other side of the room, where it was less full of noisy, working people, I could talk to her.

“Where is Director Zybi?” I asked frantically.

“Right here,” a familiar voice answered. I turned around as fast as I could, luckily avoiding getting whiplash.

“We have to talk somewhere more private,” I suggested. Immediately, Director Zybi knew where to go. His feet led the way as I outlined the problem for him. “So when I left to go to the past, I left on the roof, as always. I went into the time machine and got to November twenty-ninth, eighteen twelve.” I paused.

“Yes, proceed,” the director said, calm so far.

“And I followed all the safety precautions. All of them,” I repeated.

“All of them?” Director Zybi asked.

“All of them,” I answered. “Anyway, when I came back here, I arrived at a museum.”

“A museum? Oh no.”

“What?” Tessel and I shrieked, once we had gotten into Director Zybi’s office.

“Someone must have seen you leave in the time machine. You have to go back now,” Director Zybi yelled. We all headed toward the roof.

***

The time machine was exploding with blue streaks. Director Zybi had told me to go through the time machine at exactly 12:00 p.m.. The time machine started to creak. Will it work? I doubted it. I’m going through time and into a world that I messed up, so I might die, but everyone else will too. I’m so reassuring.

 

Chapter Five

5/8/2018

11:49

It was almost time to go. The blue swirls surrounding the time machine were going higher and higher by the second. There are only eleven minutes left before I can rescue the world. Or possibly destroy the whole universe and live in an eternal nothing. The watch on my wrist felt like it was carving itself into my arm. The time machine started to creak. 11:50. Ten minutes till I go back in time. The time machine got louder. Crrrrreeeeeeeeeaaak.

“Serena,” I heard a faint voice whisper. My reflexes made me turn around instantly. I saw Tessel behind me. She was gesturing me to come over. I looked down at my watch, 11:51, nine minutes to spare. My numb and frozen legs started sloppily running over to her.

“Tessel, what are you doing here? I asked that everyone evacuate the area, so I could fix the timeline.”

“But it won’t work. You know that you shouldn’t mess with the timeline. It’s basically your catchphrase here,” she mocked in a cold, hard, and serious voice, letting absolutely no laughter escape.

“I know, I know, I know. But if I don’t try, the universe will stop working anyways. I have to go through the door,” I added.

“But you ca — what door?” Tessel asked, stopping midway in her sentence.

“The door into time,” Serena answered. “The time machine.”

“Please don’t. I don’t want you to go.”

 

Epilogue

It’s 11/29/1812 5:30 p.m., and I am still stuck in time. I’m still with the king. I’m still in this world. I’m still Serena Servedore. Everyone is still dead. Because of me. I told them. I told them everything. Now they are dead. I can’t believe I told him, and now he’s dead. I am stuck in time. Because I traveled back in time. Because I told the king who I am. Because I did what I wasn’t supposed to do. My friends are dead. Because of what I did. I messed with the timeline.

“I messed with time, and now everyone is dead,” I admit to myself. “I am the only existing being in the world. This is my reward for messing with time.” I look at my clothes. They are dirty, messed up. Ripped. Everything is gone. I see nothing. No colors. Not even black. Not even white. It’s not like anything anyone has seen before. “So this is what time is,” I mumble. This is what nothing is. Nothing is nothing. Everything is nothing except for me. I am the only thing in the universe. To be more precise. I am the only thing in the nonexistent universe. It’s not 11/29/1812 at 5:30 p.m. actually. It’s nothing. Because I betrayed everyone. It is literally the day of nothing. The day after nothing. The day before nothing. Because of me.

 

One windy day, on Friday, October 13, Detective Angelina J. Fox stepped from the wet doormat into her brownstone house. She yanked off her soaked rain boots and socks. Then, she turned on the TV to Eyewitness News. The broadcaster was saying, “… criminal has robbed the famous Bank of Rockford. So far, no detective has yet to take this daring risk that could completely ruin their reputation. Because this person was seen to have a mask, it is almost impossible to figure out who the criminal is. Who will step up and try to solve the mystery?” Angelina clicked the “off” button on her remote, and the TV suddenly turned pitch black.

“I need to fix this,” Angelina said.

She reached outside, trying not to get any more wet than she already was, and grabbed the drenched newspaper. She then went to the sink and squeezed the newspaper until it was only damp. Most of the words were faded off and unable to be read, but Angelina made out this: Criminal… mask… Bank robbery… James Poundcracker… sleeping on job while bank robbery… fired… wakes up when beeping… calls boss… robbery… who do you think… has a mask… steals from column five… no detective… too risky… who will… to… it.

“If this person is wearing a mask, then there are three people it could be,” she said, trying hard to sound nice. (This is one of the things that she always did.) “One, Zeeky Mosheek, two, Felisha Zevari, or three, the worst of all, Flamingo Joe.” When she said the last name, her hands made fists, and her face started to quiver and get red. “Angelina, snap out of it. This is not who you are,” she said, putting her hands together and forcing a smile. Now, returning to her usual calm, sweet, nice, kind, and pleasant voice, she decided to go to John Roadsboss’ house to say hello.

When she got there, she sat down and said hi. John had someone with him. She tried to look through the black hat that nearly covered his entire face. She looked at him as hard as she could. Her eyes got very thin, to the point where they were smaller than a squint. She tried to guess what this person was like just by looking at him. She saw that he had the Pranganees sacred Dommy on his hand. This meant that he had been to Pranganova. She also saw that there was a mugshot of him in his pocket. He was looking proud of himself when he realized that Angelina noticed the mugshot. The person in the mugshot had a mask on. She was trying to see who it was, but the mask was covering too much of the face. All she could see were the eyes. Who could it be? she pondered.

“What are you doing?” John Roadsboss said to Angelina, surprised. “This is my friend from my old job as a coach. He was the assistant coach, James Poundcracker. He is telling me about the bank robbery at the bank that he works at.”

“Start again!” demanded Angelina.

The next day, Angelina went back into her house to see what the newspaper was saying about the bank robbery. The newspaper said that interviews have been going on with James Poundcracker.

“Mr. Poundcracker, what did you do the night that this happened?”

“I fell asleep and woke up when I heard the siren go off. I rushed over to the criminal and tried to stop him.”

Angelina slammed the newspaper on the floor with all her might. She was full of rage because she hadn’t asked questions about the bank robbery to James Poundcracker while she was there. Her hands were now fists, and her face started to turn red. She was so surprised with herself. She never sounded that way. What could this mean? It was hard to figure out when during the interview, James had only actually answered one question.

Some of these questions were, “What time of day was it when the bank robbery took place?”

“I don’t really remember, but it was at some point in the afternoon.”

“What is your boss’s name?”

“Logan Miller.”

“Do you remember what the criminal was wearing?”

“No.”

She thought for a moment about this. Then, it came to her. She thought about all the quotes that she replaced her words with.

“See the light in others, and pretend that is all you see.”

“If you are not willing to fail, you are not ready to succeed.”

“We can’t change the past or the future. All we can change is the present.”

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Til good is better and better is best.”

“Some days, she has no idea how she will do it, but every single day, it still gets done.”

“No beauty shines brighter than that of a good heart.”

She combined all of these thoughts. She had picked out these thoughts from her favorites on her laptop. This person had light in them but is just hiding it. This person will fail, and while being a criminal, it is hard to have a true success. I can’t stop him from doing this. I can just make the present better. This person is not giving in and neither am I, so I need to be better than best. I don’t know what I am doing, but I will get it done. This man has a good heart inside but just won’t show it.

She put all theses pieces together. She thought as hard as she could. Now, it was starting to make sense.

That night, Angelina and two large officers sprinted over to the Bank of Rockford. Angelina burst through the doors with the officers close behind her. She looked around, being very aware of her body. She knew that this case would be hard to solve. She was starting to doubt herself. She didn’t want the same thing that happened last time, when someone took credit for what she did. Her eyes immediately glanced quickly around the whole of the bank. Her eyes were pulled towards the dummy sitting in a chair. Angelina crept closer towards the desk. On the counter of the desk it said, “James Poundcracker.” Now she knew that this was his desk. She crawled through the small space between the desk and the ground. She got in and saw that there was a trapdoor on the wall behind the desk. She also crawled through the small door here. She saw some spider webs in the small area. She went to the end, only to end up back where she started — behind column five. She realized something. James Poundcracker must have replaced himself with a dummy, set off the alarm, and robbed column five. She went back to John Roadsboss because James Poundcracker was sleeping at his place. John had ran into James on the subway, and James told him about who he thought had robbed the bank.

“In my opinion, I think that Zeeky Mosheek robbed the bank. It’s what she is known for.” And John wanted to hear more about his case. “Can I stay at your house? Maybe I can tell you about the bank some more?”

“Sure,” said John.

Angelina soon got there and rushed through the house, almost forgetting it was 1:00 a.m.. She crept up to John’s room and saw something glowing under his pillow. She tiptoed closer to the bed and saw that this wasn’t just any glowy thing. It was a bomb! She rushed towards the pillow and grabbed the bomb and threw it out the window. It exploded immediately when it hit the hill with a boom. She went back down to where James was sleeping in the living room. She tiptoed to the chair (which he was sleeping on) and slowly rolled the chair out of the house. She saw the police officers and showed them the man. They greeted her and thanked her for what she did. There. Angelina J. Fox, woman detective, had done it.

THE END!

 

           

Chapter One: The Crime

Just as the sun was rising up, Leo the penguin was getting dressed to go hunt for fish at the local beach. Leo waved to the neighbors as he waddled down the snowy path. When he arrived, he waited until the fish swam up to his bait and froze them all to death. He picked up the floating fish with his net and brought them back home for his mom to cook.

“Good morning, Leo,” said Leo’s mom, Olivia.

“Morning, Mom,” responded Leo. He left the five fish on the ice counter and heard the phone ring in his room. He went in his room and picked up his phone. It was Twaben the panther.

He spent the next few minutes trying to find out whatever on earth had happened to Toitel. When he arrived, he parked his submarine and jumped out of the exit. Twaben and the other TOPP members were waiting for him, all except Toitel. The TOPP organization was an organization of animals that had powers and abilities that could help them defeat animal criminals and save lives of their human companions. The members were Twaben, the pink panther, Cory, the octopus with seven legs, Leo, the penguin, and the rogue turtle, Toitel. Their biggest enemy was WDAP, the World Domination Animal Project or Project WDAP. It was a project made by these rogue animals, seeking world domination, and so far the most dangerous project that the TOPP had to terminate. It consisted of over 17 rogue super animals that were spread along the globe, who were trying to hijack human brains using developing tech and force them all to obey the animals. The leader of WDAP was a serpent called Scar who had venom powerful enough to kill 149 humans with a single bite, instantly. Scar had over 28 confirmed murders and only sought more death. The TOPP organization had never been able to even get a speck of information about who or where this serpent called Scar lived. That’s why they feared him so much.

Twaben was doing some research about leaked WDAP info and at the same time, analyzing the newspaper that said that a savage turtle injured three humans. He thought it was Toitel because of the way the turtle looked, and Toitel wasn’t at work this day. This was strange because he was always early. Leo sat down on his desk, opened his hacking application, and started coding the millions of lines of code they needed to get a little speck of information about Project WDAP.

Hours into the coding, Cory shouted, “I got something!” from the other desk. Twaben and Leo huddled around Cory and glued their eyes onto the computer. “Do you guys remember the report papers we got from the news saying that a serpent escaped from the Bronx Zoo up in New York and killed three zookeepers?” asked Cory.

“Yeah?” responded Leo and Twaben.

“Well, read this article right here,” said Cory.

“Snakes have a genetic based venom. That means that some snakes have more powerful venom than others, not such a great amount, though. Some snakes have traces of their parents’ DNA,” the article stated.

“That means that if we got a human to consult the three dead zookeepers’ blood, they could find some venom from Scar. Then, we could study his DNA, match it with another snake, and that snake could give us who he is or at least some idea of who he is,” explained Cory.

“But how are we going to find a human who can do all this?” asked Twaben.

“Well… I have a friend who can help us with that,” said Cory.

 

Chapter Two: The New Friend

The group of animals got into their private jet and flew to the destination that Cory put into the autopilot. “Sooo, where exactly are we going?” asked Twaben.

“To New York City,” said Cory.

“TO THE NEW WHAT CITY?!” yelled Twaben and Leo. “YOU WANT US TO GO IN A CITY WITH 9 MILLION PEOPLE AND NOT GET FOUND?!?!” yelled Leo and Twaben again.

“No, we aren’t going to land in the middle of Times Square, guys. Don’t be ridiculous,” said Cory. “We are going to land in the Bronx Junkyard.”

“Why?” asked Leo and Twaben, confused.

“I already said I have a friend there,” said Cory, losing his patience.

“Okaaaaay… ” said Leo and Twaben, still confused. Once the plane got into view of New York City, they went into invisible mode and landed on top of a pile of junk in a massive junkyard. The doors opened, and the animals put on their spy clothing. Everyone was wearing a black outfit with golden shades. They walked around for a while, aimlessly, until Cory lifted up a can of soda and pressed a button. Suddenly, a big chunk of trash moved to the side and opened a passage into a large corridor.

Suddenly, they heard, “There is someone here!” and footsteps. They jumped into the entrance and ran. However, they forgot to close the door, and soon the humans caught up with them. The TTOP members had a good head start and had already arrived at Cory’s friend’s house, or a restaurant. When the TTOP members arrived, they found out that instead they were going to an animal restaurant.

They looked around until Cory said, “There!” and pointed to a small cat. They walked over to the cat, and while they were introducing themselves, suddenly the humans arrived.

“OH MY GOD!!” yelled the humans, holding guns.

“SAVE YOURSELVES!” yelled a rat, and then the whole restaurant broke into chaos. Humans were shooting guns, animals were throwing things at the humans, one panda jumped on top of a human, and the TTOP members were trying to escape. They crawled on the floor through animals legs and finally, they got out. They ran up the stairs, outside, and into their jet. They saw that some other humans were looking for their friends, and they had just spotted the TTOP jet. Cory pressed the “close door” button, and just before the humans got in, “DING!” the door shut close.

“Phew!” said all the animals together. They started the jet and flew back to their base in Greenland. Once they arrived, they started asking the cat questions about their human. And thanks to him, the next step was complete.

 

Chapter Three: The Sample

The cat told them that he didn’t hire humans to do jobs for him, but he could make a person to do his jobs. “What do you mean?” asked Leo.

“Well, I make robots,” explained the cat.

“Ohhhhh!” said Leo, understanding.

“It’ll take ten days to make a doctor,” said the cat.

Ten days later, the robot was done. The TOPP members went to take a look at the robot, and it was perfect. “This is great! Now we just need to get this to the hospital!” said Leo with excitement. They got into the jet and flew back to New York. “Okay, so I just found the hospital that the victims are staying in. The problem is that for some reason the hospital has lots and lots of cameras. But I can fix that.”

He jumped out of the jet and landed on the hospital roof. He walked up to the vent at the corner, froze a puddle of water, picked up the ice, and smashed through the vent. He opened his GPS map and found the room where the generator was stored. He crawled left and right until he found the room. There were two workers and a guard. They were looking through the cameras, laughing at funny things, and looking at cute dogs that pooped in the hospital garden. Then, the guard went to use the bathroom. Leo jumped into the room and made no sound when he landed. The workers couldn’t even notice that a penguin jumped into the room because they were laughing too hard. Leo threw an ice cube into the “power” button, and suddenly the whole hospital went black. Leo used his grappling hook to get back into the vent and to the roof where he got the robot. He went back into the vent. He followed his map until he found the room that the victim was in. He froze the floor, and one of the doctors slipped. Leo swooped him off the floor and gave him anesthesia and carried him through the vent. He got out of the vents and called Cory, so they could pick him up. Cory arrived, and they left safely.
After they arrived, they started looking at what the robot could see. Everything was going smoothly. No one noticed that it was a robot. The robot made an excuse to go see the venom in the lab. He got the blood sample and went into the bathroom. He jumped into the vents and found its way into the roof. We picked him up and took the venom.

 

Chapter Four: The Final Battle

They brought the blood sample into the lab and found some amazing results. It turned out that the reason that Scar’s venom was so potent was because of a strange mutation. They found that a strain of DNA was rather deformed. It didn’t have a normal ASOP-13 gene or an ASIP-13 gene. Both of them were glowing, and Leo caught something in the corner of his eye. There was a strange color. It was purple and was glowing so brightly it made him blind.

“What in the world is that thing!” Leo yelled. “Nothing in the periodic table! This might be a whole new material that science had never heard of!”

They studied it for a while, until they finally found out what it was. It was an isotope of curium and was the most radioactive material on earth and the rarest. They found the isotope was growing on the DNA strands, responsible for the overpowering venom. They extracted the curium and exposed it to a rat. The rat instantly died.

The venom was understood, but now they needed to find out the parents. They ran some tests, did some research, and finally found a snake that looked like Scar.

They found where they lived, and surprisingly, they lived in a zoo near Chernobyl. “Oh! That explains the curium!” said Leo. They got in their jet and flew over to the Chernobyl area. They looked around until they managed to find a hole in the ground. “This might be a snake hole,” said Leo. “Let’s go in.”

They dropped a rock in to make sure they wouldn’t die if they jumped in, if it wasn’t that deep. They each dropped in one by one until they were all in. They turned on their headlamps and looked around. Shedded snake skin everywhere, bones, and rotten flesh. “Yep! It’s a snake house,” they said, dashing to get away from the rotting flesh. They went deeper into the cave until they got to a wall.

“Wait, what?” asked Twaben, confused like everyone else. “So this whole thing is not actually a snake hole?”

“HMMM! HMMM!” heard Twaben.

He turned around and saw all his friends wrapped up in snakes! The snakes tried to grab him, but he ran up the wall and jumped on top of the snake and sliced it with his blade. He grabbed his friends and ran out.

“Where do you think you are going?” said a random voice.

“Hello? Who are you?” asked Leo.

“Oh, you know who I am. Perhaps in the light you will see.” Suddenly, there was a sound of dead snake skin being ripped apart as something slithered around them. Suddenly, flames erupted from the floor and so did a giant snake with a huge fang and about 20 different animals with maces and swords. “It’s the time for the FINAL BATTLE!” said the snake.

“IT’S SCAR!” yelled Twaben. Scar lunged forward with his fang right in front of him. They all ran to the side and dodged the fang. They pulled out their weapons and started fighting the WDAP group, but soon the situation seemed bad. They were all cornered!

“Jump on Scar,” said Leo, explaining the plan to the other TOPP members.

Scar came over the cornered group. “Well, well, well, what do we have here? A painful agonizing death is what it is!” said Scar, as he lunged his fang 60 miles per hour towards the group.

“JUMP!” yelled Leo, as the fang got close. They jumped up, and Scar’s fang hit the wall, and he got stuck. “Get him!” yelled Leo. He created an ice sword and stabbed Scar right in the head.

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” screamed Scar as he fell on the floor, and all his friends got destroyed by Twaben and Leo. They were all pinned down. Every WDAP member was pinned against the wall, including Scar.

“It’s time to end this all!” said Leo. Leo then held up both his hands. Suddenly, a huge earthquake began. Then, ice started to form on the floor. It crawled up their legs. Leo started to chant, “Summon the ice gods!” Suddenly, the WDAP members froze. They all became ice.

“THIS CANNOT BE THE END! I WILL BE BACK!” yelled Scar just before he froze and WDAP was defeated. They headed back to the lair.

Leo called his mom. “Hi, Mom. Can you pick me up? I’m really tired,” said Leo.

“Why, honey?” asked his mom.

“Well, we just defeated WDA — ”

“Really honey! Oh, we are so proud of you! We’ll pick you up soon, okay?”

“Thanks, Mom!” said Leo. He had finally done it, defeated Scar and gotten respect from his family. This was the best day of his life. Then, the world blew up.

The End

 

You are a researcher of rare plants and animals in the Sahara Desert. There are many dangers that you have to face while you are there. For instance, there are lions that could pop out of the bushes. It is also one of the hottest places on earth. The company that you work for is flying you across the desert in a four-seater plane, including the pilot and copilot. You close your eyes and lie back but, a few moments later, you wake up to a violent shaking and an elderly woman’s screams. It only takes you a few seconds to realize that the plane is going down. Some passengers are trying to get out of their seats, but you make sure that your seatbelt is fastened. Then, you brace for impact. When you hit the ground, you fall unconscious. A few hours later, you wake up, the desert sun beating down on you. You have a big gash on your head. You crawl around and check the plane for survivors, but no one is alive. You then try to stand up, but the moment you do, you fall back down. The sun is too strong, but you know you could still walk if you try to.

Do you stay with the plane and camp for the day? Scroll down to “stay with the plane and camp for the day.”

Do you keep on walking? Scroll down to “keep on walking.”

 

Stay with the plane and camp for the day.

You decide to stay. You will never survive walking all day in the heat, so you climb into the plane and rest your head on the seat pads. You then close your eyes. When you wake up that night, you stand up and don’t fall back down. You search the plane for food. You find a half eaten sandwich, some trail mix, granola bars, and three bottles of water. You put all of the supplies in your bag and then set off into the desert night. As you walk through the night, you see all different wildlife like snakes, spiders, lizards, and scorpions. As you reach a cave, the sun starts to rise. You put your bag down in the cave entrance. You take out your trail mix and all the other rations and divide them into equal piles. Then all of a sudden, you hear a prickling, like the sound of a waterfall. You look up. Out of the hole, you see a huge waterfall. You run to the waterfall immediately. When you reach it, you dive into the waterfall, expecting the nice, cold water. But instead, it is sand. You look around. You see nothing but sand. You curse yourself for falling for the trick. It was a mirage. You choke on the sand that you just swallowed and die.

THE END

 

Keep on walking.

You think that you can make it through the day. At first you start by walking near the trees. Then, as night approaches and the desert cools down, you walk more in the open. You find a spot to camp for the night. The first thing you do is make a tent out of everything that you have and fall asleep. The next morning, you see a group moving. After a while, you figure out that they are nomads. You flail your arms and shout. They see and hear you, and they get you back to safety in a nearby town. You are safe!!!

THE END

 

Once upon a time, there was a panda who was also a unicorn and had a dream of becoming a popstar. But, many things got in her way. She had to find a way to get through it.

So one day, she decided that she was going to go to Hollywood. So one night, she hopped on a boat and snuck onto a little boat on the ship and put a cover on herself. Her stomach was hurting her, so she started to sing, so someone found her. She didn’t want to be found, so she flipped over to hide. The boat was black and white, so she blended in. And someone came and pulled the cloth off the boat. But, nobody saw her.

The boat honked and then came to a stop. She found a sign that said “Hollywood.” Then, she got off the boat. A day passed, and she became a popstar. And she lived happily ever after.

THE END

 

Once upon a time, there was a baby panda in the great, vast bamboo forests of eastern China. This baby had a massive appetite for anything with color, as long as it wasn’t white. He couldn’t stand it because he used to eat lots of rice. Then, he made a mistake of eating a lump of salt, and he gagged and fell face first into water and drank the whole river, and he sucked up half of the bamboo forest. Then, he knew that he would never starve, and he would never die of thirst. Plus, he could eat his way out of anywhere. The downside of his power is that the more he eats, the less time he sleeps. So, for example, everytime he eats something big, he loses a half hour of sleep.

Smooshy Boosh sleeps until John the Octopus finds him rolling around the sidewalk as cars whizz by them. John loves the Brooklyn Bridge since his home is right under it.

“Hi,” he says, waking Smooshy Boosh up.

“Hi,” Smooshy Boosh says. “Who are you?”

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Smooshy Boosh. What’s yours?”

“That’s not important. You’re coming with me,” he says back.

“Okay,” Smooshy Boosh says, as he follows him off the bridge.

They get to the Natural History Museum and go inside a room cloaked by an invisible spell. No one else is there. They go inside, as Smooshy Boosh eats his strawberry toothpaste, and meet Twabin, the pink panther. They also meet the blue turtle, Toitel, who is drinking a blue liquid. John gives Smooshy Boosh pizza as they sit down to talk. Smooshy Boosh takes a bite with ease as John watches him carefully and amazed. Smooshy Boosh quickly eats John’s off of him. John gets an idea.

“Would you like to join our team?” John asks.

“What team?” Smooshy Boosh replies.

John answers, “A team of supernatural animals trying to save the world.”

Smooshy Boosh responds back, “What’s in it for you guys?”

“Personal gains and whatnot, Smooshy. The gasses, fuels, everything,” John says.

“Why me?” Smooshy Boosh asks.

John says, “You are supernatural. The pizza was metal. We want you to join us, so that we can have another very nice friend.”

“Sure,” Smooshy Boosh says because he is kind of dimwitted. He has an IQ of zero. TOPP has plans to use Smooshy Boosh as a test subject for their inventions and stuff, but Smooshy Boosh is unsuspecting.

TOPP wants to test Scar’s venom on Smooshy Boosh. Scar is a snake who’s wreaking havoc and murdering people. Since Smooshy Boosh can eat anything, they want to give him the venom in a double chocolate frappuccino to test if he is immune to the poison. And if he is, they can develop something to get an edge over Scar, so they can capture him and lead their opposing organization leaderless.

TOPP moves Smooshy Boosh to a test room that they usually use to test their inventions and give him the double chocolate frappuccino. There is a very acrid smell in the chemistry lab.

“For me?” Smooshy Boosh says.

“Yes,” says Leo the Penguin. And then, Smooshy Boosh slurps it right out of Leo’s flipper, and Leo shrieks and runs to the nearest washroom. Smooshy Boosh starts shaking, and then he starts shrinking, and then he grows so big that he makes the room explode. The other animals get smushed against the wall. And just as Leo comes in, he gets smushed into the bathroom. And then, steam starts coming out of Smooshy Boosh’s ears, and he blows up. And then when all of the smoke clears, Smooshy Boosh is normal sized again. Leo comes in and screams shrilly because he tripped on some of the ash on the floor and slipped into the bathroom again. John brings Smooshy Boosh to the examination room, gives him a drug, and Smooshy Boosh falls asleep.

Later, when Smooshy Boosh wakes up, he’s inside a giant tube made of glass. He panics and throws up all over the glass which breaks and shatters over Leo the Penguin, who shrieks and runs to the bathroom again. Smooshy Boosh thinks TOPP is a bit odd, but he still doesn’t suspect anything yet.

“Eureka,” Leo says, as he comes back from the bathroom. And then in the examination room he says, “Smooshy Boosh has an immunity to Scar’s venom because he has a chemical mutation, which allows him to regenerate extremely fast like Wolverine.”

They try to do the same thing on a test rat, but the rat ends up dead. Then, they realize the chemical reaction only works on pandas, and they all groan. At the same moment, Smooshy Boosh is in the room, and then eats the door off the handle, and then gets upset because he heard them talking about using him as a test tube. He eats the room and licks Leo, who shrieks and runs to the restroom again. Smooshy Boosh swarms out of the lab by eating all of the doors. He feels upset, disappointed, and sad.

Smooshy Boosh runs into Toitel, and Toitel says, “Hey, watch it. What are you doing anyway?”

And Smooshy Booosh says, “I’m running away from this organization that wants to use me.”

“Me too,” agrees the blue turtle.

Smooshy Boosh then went back to the zoo and was satisfied ever since then because of all he has been through.

 

The room got dark and I shuddered. The wind fell on my flawless neck, painted of pink roses. The aroma is full of sugar and dark thoughts. I feel evil and want to attack. I look into the mirror, disapproving of what my cat did to my new nose paste. I guess I have to live with a half nose.

Arcoc lifts me off my feet and throws me into the air. The new aroma of blood fills the air. I see a pale figure fall to the floor. Arcoc throws me down to see the new attraction of the pale figure. Blond curls with a floral aroma fill my face as I lean down to see the pale figure.

Storms of people dressed in neon yellow fill my sight. I see men, women, and chimpanzees. I pick up my long dress and run the opposite way, trying to avoid contact with them. They gingerly tiptoe to the pale figure and each kiss her on the nose as a last goodbye. After their kiss, the person looked at the stars, counted to six, and vanished into the starry night.

The following folks and I come to the pale figure with blond curls after the neon yellow people. We crowd around her and look at her. Based on majority, we agree she is dead and bury her in the town graveyard which happened to be in the middle of town, so we can admire our prey.

Here in Yealnbaya, we love to feel satisfied with our work. Just yesterday, I brought a knife into my neighbor’s shower, and just the day past, he died. So proud, huh! Anyways, I continue to dance with Arcoc, and we dance ‘til dawn. When the sun comes out, we all hurry to our houses.

The houses in Yealnbaya are black with broken wood. Outside, they look like a haunted village, but inside they are super modern. They are blood red and glass with lots of windows, yet there are no windows outside.

I return to the Rest-a-roomea and look in my makeup box, taking out my second nose regrowth product. It smells of dogs and takes 97 seconds to harden. The worst part is the only color the medicine shoppe had was green, so once it drys I’ll have to recolor my nose pale peach.

Ninety-seven seconds are up, and the half of my nose that was missing is back. The best part is that it dried white, not green! I grab the pale peach paint from my sister’s Rest-a-roomea and color my nose. Next in my beauty routine, I polish my rosed neck with pink to lighten the color. After this, my routine is over, and I return to my Bed-da-doom and close the door.

Fantasies of the scene with Arcoc and the dead lady haunt me as I try to sleep. As the clock strikes 12:13 p.m., I hear my cuckoo clock chime, my sister’s bell clock chime, and my brother’s howl clock scream.

We arise, dress, and meet in the Grand-a-kitchen-ree where we do our morning routine. We sit on the table and do our dances. Two kicks right, one left, hop down, and freeze for 14 seconds. Then we sit down, awaiting our breakfast. The magic robots come and cook for us. It is delicious, and I love it.

 

        

1. He never listens. Whenever something great happens at work, he doesn’t care. He just lounges around the house doing nothing, as if he expects someone to eagerly attend to his every need. I don’t think anyone would like to do that, so why should he expect it?

2. He always ridicules The System. Ever since I was born, I’ve known what it was like to live in a world where everything is programmed to fit your personality perfectly: your family, your school and job, your health, even what you’ll eat for breakfast the next morning. The select few who program it are called the Givers because they give everyone perfect lives. And he hates them. He thinks that they can’t figure out what’s right for everyone. It makes me silently angry because it’s like he thinks I’m not right for him. I don’t understand why — we’re destined to be together, and I’ve done nothing more than be his servant.

3. He hates dogs. I don’t think I need to explain this one.

4. He tells me to be “more like other girls.” I find this one of the most irritating things he does. When we walk around the streets and see a pretty girl, he asks me — rudely, might I add — why I don’t look like her. It takes all of my strength to not hit him, because the Givers may be watching through their cameras and think I’m insane or have found some sort of loophole through the system. If I show any signs of hatred towards my husband, the Givers will know. They will find me and then probe me because I’m some sort of mistake against the System. They don’t want anyone to know their Mistakes. I’ll be thrown out like week old trash, just like the other Mistakes. Then, I’ll be forgotten. So, whenever he compares me to another girl, I count to ten in my head. Then, if he doesn’t speak in those ten seconds, I remind myself of how much we’re supposed to love each other and that he is my soulmate. He must care. But if he talks in those ten seconds, I’m one inch from losing my mind. I’ll twitch, and he’ll know to stop. Well, if he were really perfect, he would. But, he usually just keeps going. I swear I can see the cameras zoom in on me whenever he does this. Those cameras are the only reason I don’t go mad. It would break my heart if I turned into a Mistake. If my parents would find out, I’m sure they’d question why they’d spent their lives trying to fix someone who was destined to be wrong.

5. He hits me. Whenever I do something wrong, he’ll punch me or kick me or find some way to hurt me. Like if I bring dinner a few minutes late, or I refuse to do his errands for him, or when I get sick. He hates when I get sick. He calls me a “good for nothing, lazy, spoiled piece of — ” I always shriek before he can finish, so I can block out the pain. This makes him even madder. But I don’t like cursing. It breaks my heart when I see him split out of his normal and calm character because of me. At least I hope it’s his normal character.

6. He doesn’t like my family. I’ve read the manual of “The System” multiple times (you know, the one that comes with every house?) because I’ve wanted to see the things that my soulmate actually accomplishes. Chapter 4 – Soulmates pg. 178, rule #256 — your soulmate is especially chosen to like the things and people that you like to assure a perfect match. But if he doesn’t like my family, my friends, or just my life… then how is he perfect for me?

7. He gambles. Every Saturday, Friday, Thursday, and Tuesday night he goes to a new friend’s house from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m.. I tell him not to, especially not on the nights when he has work the next day, but that only makes him even madder. He’ll break vases, threaten to harm me (and usually succeeds), and yell until I cry hysterically. Then, he tells me not to get on his bad side again and stomps away. I stay on the ground for hours, crying from the physical and emotional pain. When he comes home, he makes me make him food, but by the time it’s done, he’s fallen asleep on the couch and doesn’t wake up until noon the next day.

8. I’m the only one working. He quit his job. His boss had a meeting with him about the amount of work that he wasn’t doing, and he decided to quit the “stupid job.” Now he lies around the house, and I’m the only one who makes money. He doesn’t even try to get a job. He just expects me to stay home and serve him more but also leave him alone and make more money.

9. He’s an alcoholic and drug addict. Often, I find spilt bottles of vodka, empty bottles of wine, and shattered pieces of Guinness bottles all around the house. He’s always angry and thinks that his life is the worst, but he never seems to think about me. I’m sure that if the cameras were still in houses he wouldn’t do all of these terrible things as often, but ever since 2015, when the cameras were released from homes, he started to make my life even more miserable. And he buys drugs in alleys where the cameras are shot out. I keep wanting to report him as a Mistake, but I know that they would never trust a woman. Chapter 8 – Reporting Mistakes pg. 421, rule #480 — a woman’s word against a man will not be trusted.

10. I am not his soulmate.

I don’t want to be a mistake, though.

 

       

Chapter One: The Death

Sky burst into the grass with a cry of pain. Tom, her mate, cried at all the blood. Then, Honey was born. She was perfect. Then, Silvermoon was born. Tom knew that his mate wouldn’t live, so Silvermoon and Honey would be the light of his life. But, a third kitten was born! Cinnamon! Then, Sky let out a gasp of pain as she breathed in her last breath. And then, she died. Tom wailed. He would give his kits to Ice. She would help.

 

Chapter Two: Hey!!

When I woke up for the first time, I looked around. Only one of my littermates had her eyes open! Cinnamon! I looked at Honey.

“I guess we should get down,” I told Cinnamon.

Cinnamon said that she thought we should wait for Honey. This is the only time when Cinnamon would be brave in our lives.

So we licked and licked and licked until Honey sat up and yelled, “What? What? Where?”

I know she told you that she didn’t make a big thing about it, but she really did. She sat up and yelled at the top of her lungs.

Cinnamon said, “You’re finally awake!”

I said, “Yeah, so? Now we can get down.”

Honey said, “Where’s Ice? Where are we? What? What? What?”

I told her, “Stop asking so many questions. And stop acting like the boss!” She was taking so much of the spotlight.

Honey said, “We can jump down from this box to this box to this box.”

I just wanted to yell at her “why are you such a know-it-all,” but I didn’t want her to get the spotlight, so I jumped down first.

Honey told you she jumped down first? Not true. That little liar.

Then, it was true that we were halfway across the floor when Cinnamon jumped down, and Honey told you she tried to catch her? No. Cinnamon just jumped onto Honey like a pillow, and they flopped together onto the floor. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen!

I had to keep a straight face as I said, “Come on! Let’s keep going!”

So we ran outside, and Honey said, “What are those? Basketballs?” Oh, did she mention that she was afraid of those basketballs for a really long time?

I said, “Oh, what? Those are just basketballs. Come on!”

Then, a basketball hit Honey in the face.

We scrambled behind the house. Then, we ran back to the garage. In the garage, I slipped, but did Honey tell you I made it? I thought not. She jumped and barely made it. Cinnamon scratched her face, but she was fine. Then when a figure, Ice, our “mother” came in, the look on Honey’s face was priceless. We went to sleep at Ice’s belly.

In the morning, a cat was standing in the doorway.

He said, “Hi. I’m Tom, your father.”

This time when we went outside, there were no basketballs. Honey cowered by the garage entrance. She had said she’d been brave… that little liar! So Cinnamon started sniffing, another thing that Honey lied about. But, we ran into the forest, and Honey followed. Then, we walked down a steep hill with sharp sticks. Did Honey mention that she caught her foot and started whining like a kit? I thought not. Anyway, as we walked I caught a weird smell. I had never smelled it before. Then, an orange creature jumped in front of us. It looked just like a description from the stories that Ice told us. It was a fox. Tom leapt in front of us, and Honey said she was brave? Nuh-uh. She was screaming. So, we ran. And ran. And ran. When we reached the garage, we were tired out. I found the route (put an emphasis on the I!). And then… we slept. It was a good day! Except for the fact that we almost died. We slept that night, the fourth night of my life. And it was peaceful for days after. But will it stay that way? I doubt it.

 

Chapter Three: Hey Ice, Come Back!

When I woke up in the morning, I looked around me. No one else was awake. Hmm, I wonder if I could do something to a certain cat, I thought.

I took Cinnamon’s paw, hoping I wouldn’t wake her up. I succeeded. I unsheathed her claws by pressing on her paw and put it on Honey’s back and made sure it dug into her back. That little know-it-all didn’t tell you? I know why. It would’ve hurt her pride. Anyway, she woke up screaming at the top of her lungs. Funny. Amusing, even. That woke up Cinnamon. She took her claw away really fast. I kind of felt bad but only a little.

Then, I told Honey, “Come on. Get to your feet, troublemaker.”

She said, “No, you’re the troublemaker.”

Then, we realized Ice wasn’t there to scold us. I was about to have a private party, but then I got a bit distracted because Tom came screaming into the garage. He told us to come outside fast. Then, he changed his mind and told us to go inside fast and then to go outside… whatever. Eventually, we went outside. When we were outside, we saw a dog. The dog was big, in other words, annoying. In other words, Honey screamed at the top of her lungs for the second time that day.

That was sorta funny, but then the dog leapt at Ice. I had a split second to think. I leapt forward. You know Honey told you she tried to save Ice? That’s not true. She backed up, whimpering. It would be fine, I told myself, but the dog killed her. There’s no other way to put it. We buried Ice. Sad.

In a hollow tree that night, Tom was trying to think. What would he do now? Tom found himself running over the hillside into the garage and curled around his kits, his family.

 

Chapter Four: Hey! Tom! People Came!

We were three months old!

Tom came rushing into the garage, and he said, “Come look at this.”

A human family was outside. There was a girl who spotted me, closed one eye, and looked at me, me, and lastly, me! She did not look at Honey! We went back to the garage for the last time with Tom in our lives.

The next morning, I looked around me and saw Tom was missing. I’m gonna do another prank, I thought. So, this time I opened Cinnamon’s mouth and put it around Honey’s ear and made it bite. Then, I took her jaw away, and then her ear started bleeding, and I pretended I was asleep. When Honey woke up, she said, “Why is my ear bleeding? Wahahaha Wawawawawawa?”

I told her, “You sound like just as you did when you were first born: a know-it-all and a show-off from the start.”

Honey said, “Hey! I bet this is your doing.”

I said, “How do you know that?”

“Put your fangs in the mark on my ear.”

So I did. They weren’t the same as the cuts! Because everyone knows which teeth I put in there. Then, she asked Cinnamon to do it, and Cinnamon’s teeth fit exactly. She was outraged until Cinnamon was asleep, and then she stared at me again.

“How about this. We duel! If you win the fight, then you get to bite me back. If I win, you owe me a favor, and it can be anything!”

She said, “Deal,” thinking she’d win. Uh-huh…

So, I leapt at her, teeth and claws extended. She raised up on her hind legs, which wasn’t the smartest move, so I scratched her belly, and I landed on her neck, and I flipped her backwards. I heard a crunch, and Cinnamon said, “Pause! Nobody wins. It’s a draw!”

So, she raced over to Honey, and then Tom came in and yelled at both of us for being so careless. Then, he examined her back. He diagnosed her with a bad scratch, and he diagnosed me with a bruised neck, which wasn’t very bad. So, he decided that he would take us on a little trip because he’d seen some cars outside, and the new humans were climbing in them. So, we decided to follow. Honey’s scratched back or not, we had to know where those crazy humans came from. So, we followed them. Honey groaned and groaned until I finally told her unless she wanted me to attack her again, then she should be silent. So, she was silent. I liked having the fear in this family.

Then, I climbed on top of a rock on the road and yelled, “I am the king of everything!”

And then Tom yelled, “Come down! Do you want those humans to spot us?” And then he added, “I’ll attack you myself if you don’t come down.”

I guess Tom held the fear in the family for that, so I got down. I wish I could challenge him, but I didn’t have the nerve to. Then, we followed the car, and Tom told me to forget about the whole attacking thing, and that wasn’t the way cats worked unless they were talking about prey or other things. So, we walked and walked and walked and walked, and I actually know the reason for why the car stopped overnight. We reached a town called, whatamacallit, Rhinebeck. So, we rested that night.

Honey asked Tom, “Can we go back? Can we go back?

I told her, “You sound like a brat. We’ll camp out like proper wild cats.”

She didn’t mention I said that? Figures she’s the best in the family, huh? Well, she’s not. So, we walked the day after and walked and walked and walked, and you get the idea. Finally, the car made a humongous turn and stopped. We were in quite a humongous place with pavement that had been scraping my paws and making them bleed for miles. I saw dogs walk on sticks down the streets. I saw trees that popped up out of nowhere. And I saw huge cars! One almost hit us, so we dodged left, then a dog almost attacked us, so we dodged right. I was not going to like this place. We were outside a big red and white building. I saw the humans get out of their big car and get into the big red building. It’s like it swallowed them. One of those big things opened, and they went inside like it was home… maybe it was. I wasn’t gonna go inside there, but Tom insisted we follow them. Honey didn’t tell you we went inside, because she didn’t. She was too scared. Cinnamon went, but Honey didn’t. That tells you something about how much Honey lies, huh? So, I put one paw up and strained to pull myself up.

I said, “Wow this is hard.”

Tom said, “Yeah, you’ll get used to it.”

Luckily, the humans were not in the lobby when we snuck in. But, we couldn’t get in for some reason. When we tried the second door, it didn’t open. Tom explained something called locks that would keep us out. But then, fortunately for us, a human came in, and there was a very dusty place, so we could hide in one of the corners. And we rolled in the dust so that we would not look so bright and noticeable. The human opened the door, and we scrambled in behind him, and then he shut the door. I didn’t know how we were going to get out, but Tom explained that if we were on the inside we could get out, so that was a relief. And then, the human opened a big flat surface that looked like the one outside except not made of glass. We scrambled inside. I don’t know how he didn’t see us. He was humming, and he had something over his ears, and he was shaking himself in a weird way. I don’t know. Humans are crazy. So, when it stopped, we were on the floor. I think it’s called a floor because that’s what the humans said.

He said, “Now we’re stopping on floor four.”

So, I guess he was talking to himself. Hopefully he wasn’t mad. So, we left the big chamber-like space and went onto the “floor.” We saw a door open and decided to go in just for a peak, and we saw the humans. The woman was about to turn around and look at us, and she caught a glimpse of us as we left. We ran down as fast as we could. Then, we got outside to Honey, and we ran and ran until we came to an alley. I guess “alleycats” fit us that week.

Then one day, the humans came out of their big building and walked to their car.

I cheered, “We can go home!”

Then, the car started moving, so we followed and followed. We were so close, I could smell country air. I was breathing it in. Tom had his eyes closed, and then something made a “vroom” noise behind us. A car! Oh my gosh. I had one second to think. I grabbed Cinnamon’s scruff and yanked her out of the road as far as I could. And Honey ran out of the street by herself. But, Tom was not so fortunate. He died. Again, there’s no other way to put it. But, this was the first time I had been so overwhelmed that I felt grief wash over me. But, the grief hardened into steel. Then, I knew I had to support Honey. She was born first. Even if I did not like her, she was my older sister, and I was the younger brother, and I would step aside so Honey could shine.

 

Chapter Five: Stepping Aside

I feel different. Wow! When I looked at Honey, she was crouched over Cinnamon, who had collapsed. I ran over to them. We wept, but in the end we went home. When we got there, there were three cats outside. One stepped forward. She was black, dark black. “Midnight” is what Honey murmured under her breath.

She said, “Hi, my name is Night. This is my brother Maple.” She pointed her tail towards a ginger Tom.

He said, “Hello.”

Then, Night gestured with her tail to the other ginger Tom who was jumping around with a crazy look on his face.

Night said, “That is Caramel.”

Caramel looked and then jumped around and landed on his face. I did not know what was up there, but I looked away.

“I’m Honey. This is my brother Silvermoon,” she said annoyingly, which I did not like.

I said, “This is Honey, the annoying.”

And Night said, “Who is this?”

“My name is Cinnamon.”

Honey looked behind her again.

Then, she said, “Let me show you to a nice stream up ahead.”

Under her breath she said, “As far away.”

I did not know what was up with her, but she had a problem. Anyway, she led Night off, which means guess who is in control? Me!

So, I told Cinnamon, “Let’s go hunting for some mice.”

When I caught a mouse, I looked at it, and I was thinking about a prank. I took all the meat out of the mouse, quickly ate it, and filled it with water. Then, I put it back together, and I sprinkled some dirt and sprinkles inside. Then, I put one poisonous raspberry from the tree in it.

Then, I took the mouse, put it on Honey’s sleeping place, and said, “Let’s have some food.”

Then, I took a mouse, Cinnamon took another mouse, and Honey took the poisonous mouse. I did not know then, but that would be my last prank. I was cut short by Cinnamon.

“Honey, do not eat that POISONED rat!”

“Who poisoned it?” Honey asked.

“Silvermoon,” Cinnamon said.

I uttered words to Honey I never thought I would say, “I’m sorry”

She stared at me. “Are you feeling alright Silvermoon?”

“Yes,” I said with absolute certainty.

I looked at Honey, she looked at me, and I felt no dislike towards Honey.

 

Chapter Six: Honey? Maple? What?

I woke up. Cinnamon was asleep, but where was Honey? I remember that I made up with her, so I decided to go look for her. I went outside. I couldn’t find her. I looked, and looked, and looked, and I decided to climb a tree and look for her from above. I reached the nearest tree, which they said humans call it, what is it, a weed. I went to the “weed’s” base. Then I looked up, preparing for the climb. I hate climbing down trees. I usually fall down at the end which is annoying because Honey and I usually climb down the tree and see who can reach the bottom first. But then, when I looked up again, I saw the weirdest sight of my life! Honey was snuggling with a stranger. The stranger’s name was Maple. He was the cat that came yesterday with Night. So, I climbed up the tree and yelled at the top of my lungs a silly song that humans love to sing: Honey and Maple… I don’t know why I started singing it, but it ended very fast because Honey stood up, glared at me, and prepared to push me off my branch.

So I said, “What are you doing here? Don’t you know that this guy just got here last night?”

Honey said, “Yeah, but I was taking him to the well, but it was midnight, and I decided to go to sleep, and he decided to join me.” So, I looked around and decided to find the easiest way down the tree and leave Honey to her weird business.

In that month, Honey went on with weird business with Maple. I tried to skirt around them, but then I thought about the other cats there and how Night must be feeling weird as well. Caramel does not think much, so I decided to go to Night’s place. It was a hollow tree by the lake.

I went inside and asked, “Do you think your brother Maple is weird?”

Night looked surprised. She jumped to my surprise and said, “Well, good afternoon.”

I ignored her and said, “Is it good afternoon or is your brother crazy in trying to mate with my sister? Don’t you find that weird?”

Night said, “Well, while we discuss this topic, why don’t we get a mouse?”

So we left the den. I sniffed; nothing. I sniffed again. No mouse. I sniffed a third time. There was not a mouse, but I smelled a vole. That would do. I went towards it. Night went all the away around and jumped on a tree, which I found very impressive. I chased the vole towards her, then she pounced and caught it right away. I was even more impressed. I wondered if we could share the vole, that would be cool. Then, I scolded myself, What am I thinking? Share with a stranger? But, she took the vole, so I followed her. I looked, and she was leading me back to her den. We ate the vole together. I was scolding myself, What are you doing? What are you doing?

Afterwards, I said, “Well, we better get going.”

Night said, “Wait, we didn’t even have our conversation yet.”

I wanted to stay, and after saying that, I know how weird that sounds. So, I stayed. In fact, a little too long. It was midnight. I arose to leave. But, it was time to sleep, so I slept there. And that was the weirdest thing I have ever done.

In the morning, I knew that it was time to leave because I did not want Honey to find me here and give me a payback.

So I stood up, and Night said, “Well, goodbye then.”

I walked out, turned around and went back in. “Hello again,” said Night.

So, I said, “I’m really going to be leaving now, so bye!”

So I left, and I walked and walked and walked. Honey and Cinnamon were glaring at each other in the front of the yard. This did not happen ever. So, I hid and watched.

Cinnamon yelled, “I can move, and you can’t tell me I can’t move to Rhinebeck because I can.”

“Cinnamon, please. I need you.”

Tears rolled down Honey’s face. My heart broke into a million pieces. I ran out of my hiding place now. I knew the feeling I had towards Night, love, and l knew because I was losing some Cinnamon.

 

Chapter Seven: The First Litter

Night and I mated. Feel free to say, “gross.” I would. One day, I went into my new den, the one I shared with Night. She was looking happy. That was good.

She said, “Honey had her first litter! I’m an aunt! You’re an uncle!”

A wave of excitement shot through me. I ran to my old den. A wave of forlornness washed over me. I missed Cinnamon, but she was happy. I entered and saw Honey and five kittens. One was gold like yellow. Another had so many different colors I couldn’t decide what color she was, so I stopped looking at her. Then, there were three brown kittens with blue eyes. Where did the blue eyes come from? Both Maple and Honey had green eyes. But, Night had beautiful blue eyes, so maybe Maple’s kids had inherited some of their aunt Night’s eyes. Then, I looked at the kittens. They were beautiful. I went over to Honey. I woke her up because I still didn’t have too much respect for her. And she snapped at my tail and said, “How dare you!”

I said, “Well, we are almost technically the same age, so I can do what I like.”

The kits were hissing at me for being rude to their mom, but I don’t think they knew what we were talking about. Then, I said, “So, what are the names of your kittens?”

Honey said, testily, “Why don’t you say please first?”

I snapped back, “I can say what I like, thank you very much!”

“So, maybe I won’t tell you,” Honey said. I sighed.

“I thought we’d gotten over this already.” We both apologized, which I rarely do, so Honey better appreciate it.

Then, she pointed to the golden kitten. “This is Golden.”

I said, “That’s very obvious. Can’t you think of something more creative?”

She said, “Do you want to know the names of my kittens or not?”

“I do,” I said with a sigh.

Then, she pointed at the multi-colored kitten. Black, yellow, brown, gold, every natural color I could think of. Her eyes were barely recognizable throughout all the colors.

Honey licked her and said, “This is Tawney.” Tawney was cute, I guess. I’ll give Honey that. Then, she pointed at three gray triplets. She said, “This is Time, Tulip, and Rose.” Really, be more creative. Honey said, “They’re my kits.”

I ran over the hill into my den. Night was beaming.

She said, “I’m going to have kits!”

I was so overjoyed. My heart felt like it would leap out of my chest. I was so happy, I didn’t know what to say.

So, I stuttered, “Ohh, ehh, ehh.”

Great with words, huh? I thought in my head. Let’s try again, Silvermoon.

“Uuhhh, great, yayyy.” Great, now I’m stuttering “yay” and sounding sarcastic. I had to try again. This is so embarrassing, I’m glad Honey’s not here to watch. So, I tried again. She’d laugh at this sentence.
“Grrreat great great!” I sounded like a kit myself. Okay, let’s try a fourth time, Silvermoon. Let’s try and get a complete sentence this time.

“I’m…” waiting, waiting, trying to process another word in my head, “so… ” processing again, “happy.” Wow, saying happy took a while. That’s a big word. Now, let’s try not to space it out so much, and let’s try and put in an exclamation mark, shall we? “I’m… ” processing… “So… processing.” This time I said processing out loud. I said processing out loud! I can say a big word, yay! Let’s try a better sentence. “I’m… spacing it… spacing it… why am I thinking aloud? I’m going crazy. What’s going on.” I’m thinking now. In my head. I’m going to go for a walk. I will tell Night I’m going to calm my thoughts. Nigh — I — ahhh — I, fell and everything went black.

So you know, I fainted from shock. My brain short-circuited. When I woke up, I was stunned and confused. I could not think. I was not feeling great. I could see a blur, then my vision cleared. I stood. Night was looking worried. I was in the same place. I was fine. In a few days, I was helping Night. The day came. I remember vividly Night crying, and then it was over. I went in. There were three beautiful kittens, and they were mine! That fact just made me stop in my tracks. I couldn’t believe it. There was an orange striped kitten that looked nothing like me and nothing like Night. I looked at Night.

“What should we call this one? How about Tiger?”

So, that was what we called him. Then, there was a gray one with green eyes. Leaf, I thought. Then, I looked at the third one. Dawn. That’s what I’ll call her. I said my ideas to Night, and we agreed that those would be their names. Tiger stood up, wobbled, and fell, bonking his head on the grass.

“Ouch, little guy,” I said. “That must have hurt a lot.”

Then, Leaf tried standing and grabbed Night’s ear to pull herself over and suckle. Then, Dawn stood up and made it a few inches before stumbling before Night’s face, and I grabbed her before hitting the ground. Their bones are tiny and breakable. Then, Night started licking her ear as blood poured out. Leaf would be a fierce one!

Then, I put Tiger on a soft bed with Dawn. And then I took Night by the collar like she was a kitten herself.

She wriggled around in my grasp saying, “I’m not a kitten. Let go!”

And then, I took her over to the bed that I called the “Injury Bed.” (I knew we would have a lot of those with kits.) Then, I looked at Leaf, and I was surprised. I saw her eyes starting to open and her ears starting to unseal. But, it would take a few days, and then her eyes and ears would be open. She was an early bloomer. Slowly, everyone fell asleep.

Soon, my kits grew and opened their eyes. One day, the first day of fall and my kits’ first fall, Tiger ran under a tree. A leaf fell on his nose. He sneezed. I went over and brought him down in the backyard. Then, he fell over and bonked his head. I picked him up. Blood poured from his nose. I felt a weird worrying parenting feeling. I rushed him inside and then licked and licked. I was so worried. I felt like I was dying from fear that my son was bleeding. I felt an instinct: save him! Some part of me knows that it was not that bad. Gosh me, Silvermoon, was overreacting! I hate fatherhood! I also hate hoods. They’re the things humans wear, right? The next morning, he was fine.

I loved and hated fall. My kits grew, and Honey already had three litters. And my kits were not kits anymore. One day, I woke and stretched. I left the den. Night and Honey did not join me. Someone ran towards me, Storm. One of Honey’s. Blood poured down her face, and she collapsed. I freaked. What happened? I ran with her in my mouth. Should I go to Night or Honey? Honey. It’s her kit. When I got there, Honey was asleep with Night leaning over her. She looked at me and said, “I have good and bad news. Which first?”

“Good,” I said.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Now bad.”

“Honey is very ill.”

 

Chapter Eight: Second Litter, Another One, Seriously!

I was stunned. How have I been so clueless? I was so confused. What? Honey had never been ill in her life! Night and I decided to bring Honey, who was asleep, to our den because it was more comfortable there. A coughing fit wracked her body. I was absolutely stunned. I never saw Honey like this before. Emotions swirled inside me. I was happy about my new kits, I was upset, and another feeling I couldn’t describe. One morning, Night came out of the den, and Honey was in a coma and probably almost dead. My sister was… she was… she was… almost dead. What?

I was at a loss for words. Then, Honey let out a strangled and tired cough that shook her body. I had to get out! I felt trapped! I ran out for fresh air.

Then, Night told me to check others for signs of sickness. First, I went to Maple, Honey’s mate. The fur around his neck was ragged, his eyes dull, a cough shook him, and I half-carried him to our den. Night’s and my den got full with sick cats.

One day, I was standing by Honey. Now, she was barely breathing. Then, her breathing stopped. I called Night. Night and I were the only two not sick cats in the area now, so we were the cats caring for everyone else. It was scary seeing all these lifeless bodies, especially cats that I found so lively. Night looked like she was catching it, which worried me. The signs were ragged fur, dull eyes, a cough, and trouble breathing. Night ran over. A tear trickled down her cheek. I was too overwhelmed to cry. Did that tear mean Honey was dead? My sister? My only family left? Then, Night picked her up, making sure not to touch her face in any way. We carried her gently to a pile of leaves in the woods, and we buried her there. My heart was shaking. She would never be there again to scold me, to race me, to hate me.

My sister was dead. Wow. I needed to get that out of my system. I was so overwhelmed at the idea that I was alone. No! I had Night! But, a lonely feeling crept over me. I felt my legs shake. I ran. No, no. This could not be. She would come out of the garage and be fine! Tears fell from my eyes. She was not ever going be there again. I — I — I can’t describe the feeling as if my world had been turned upside down. No Honey ever again.

No, no. I would not cry. No tears fell in streams from my eyes. Night looked like she had lost her sister. I crumbled. I wanted Honey to get off that pile shack and say, “what is that look on your face?” She would never be there. Just to hear the sound of her voice would make life worth it again. I wish I could die just to see her. This was worse than any loss before. My world shattered the second Honey died. Nothing could put it back together.

That night, as I went to sleep, I imagined that Honey was just curled up next to me and everything was alright. But, nothing will ever be okay again. My world and all my joy was gone because Honey and Night were my world. And Honey was gone. I lost half my world. That night, I dreamed I was standing in a clearing, and Honey was standing in front of me. That was the best moment of my life. She was there! And she told me, “Silvermoon, you have kits coming, and you’re still groping over me? Listen, I’ll come back for you. I can’t believe that you’re kidding yourself with this. Stop all this. You got this! Come on! And I promise I’ll come back.”

Honey was talking to me! My heart leapt. But then, Honey gestured her tail at a faded figure of Night and three small shapes. “You still have this, and I’ll be there. Come to the leaf pile tomorrow.”

Then I woke up, and I felt like I lost her all over again. I cried. It had just been a dream. She wasn’t really there. That feeling inside me that controlled my every thought, that was grief, but now there was hope like a flower blooming in my chest.

I got there, Honey’s body limp, and then she lifted her tail. And then, a stangled cough. My world was right again. Honey was alive! That alone is the best feeling ever. All my dreams come true.

Honey said shakily, “You look like a stunned cow.”

That meant she was okay! Night came just that moment. Nothing could go wrong again.

Just then, Night collapsed in pain. The kits were coming! Three! There was a pure white one, a golden one, and a gray and white one. The white one was Cloud. The golden one made me remember that I would not name her Golden! Her name would be Sun. Period. Zip. Bananas. Goose eggs.

The gray and white one is Star.

Honey said, “White, Sun, and Gray. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!”

Honey is not creative! Really!

Oooohhh no. There was too much blood! Night’s breathing was short. No, no, nooooooooooooooooooo. She will live, I told myself. But, what if she didn’t? Images raced through my head. A life without Night! No. She will live. She has to. Please. Whatever controls fate, save her, please!

And it was over. But, Night was weak. What was I going to do? If I bring her to my den, she might catch the lingering sickness. But, I had to, so I carried her and the kits back to my den. Sun stood up and wobbled outside. Ooooh noooo!

Outside, Sun fell on the side. I took her back in and then laid her down. She stood and walked towards Night. The other kits followed her. She was a natural leader.

 

Chapter Nine: Our Story Comes to a Close

It’s sad. We are done. Well, almost. My kits grow, and I am happy. Wooh. Honey had another two litters! And little, well not so little, Dawn had a litter of three! I feel so old. My legs are stiff as I walk into the future.

 

Hey, it is Thomas, and it is nighttime. I am trying to find my mom because she has to give me my medicine because I am sick. I have a cold. I am going to my mom’s room to see her, but she is not there, so I get scared. I tried to think where she could possibly be. And then I saw a letter under her pillow that said, We took your mom. Now, when I read that, I felt very, very scared. I got dressed and went to the police station. I took the bus.

When I got there, they asked me for my name and why I was here. I told them that I needed to take my medicine, and my mom was not there, and that’s why I came. I also told them about the letter, and they said they would have to go to my house.

I said, “Alright.” They would be there at 1:00 sharp, and the time was now 12:00. I said, “Thank you,” and left the police station.

I was at my house when I saw some weird light coming from my closet. I went to go open the door, and I saw a portal. I walked out to get my breath, and then I opened the closet door and jumped in. While I was going through the portal, I remembered when I was in the park when I was one year old and going down the slide, and she was cheering for me. I felt happy.

Alright, I was in the world. I felt so dizzy. At first when I saw the portal, it looked light blue, but when I jumped in, it was yellow. All I saw was a pitch black room. Then, I saw a light in the distance.

I walked closer to the light, and it got bigger as I walked closer. I saw buildings and a whole new world. I felt scared, but I had to find my mom. The town looked really sad. Then, I saw someone running with a jar? I saw a little thing in the jar, but I didn’t care about that now. I was running so fast. He just fell on the floor. This was my chance to get my mom back. I was still wondering what was in that jar, so I was still running, and I was looking into the jar, and I saw something moving in there. I opened the jar, and it looked like my mom but tinier. I felt so scared. I wondered what I should do. I didn’t want to get out of this world, but I did want to know how my mom got tiny. I tried to look around for help, but the only thing I could see was a hardware store. I guess I could go in there and say hi to whoever was in there. I went to the hardware store and when I ran closer, I saw somebody in the window saying hi. I said hi back, and then I opened the door and walked in.

The owner said, “My name is Matthew.”

And I said back, “My name is Thomas. Is there anything that could possibly make something bigger?” I felt like I should say that because this world is already weird.

He said, “Yes. There is something in the back, but there is something guarding the door, and I don’t know what it is.”

I said to Matthew, “Can I try to open the door?”

Matthew said back, “Sure, but I hope you come back alive.”

I told Matthew, “If I die, can you hold the jar with my mom inside.”

Matthew said, “Sure, good luck.”

I asked where the door was, and he pointed to where the door was, and I walked through the hallway. The monster looked like a cat. The cat looked like somebody floating in the air meditating. My mom brought me to the movies to watch Star Wars, and it reminded me of Yoda. So I went up to it, and I said, “You don’t seem that harmful.”

And then, all of a sudden, I felt something shake right under me. Then, I realized it was a big hand picking me up.

The cat said back to me, “Why are you here, and what do you want?” The cat seemed angry, when I didn’t do anything to him.

I said back, “I want to go through that door.”

The cat said back, “You have to give me $50.”

So, I gave the cat $50, and I walked through the door. It was pitch black until I saw a big gun. So, I grabbed the gun and walked back through the door, and then the door locked behind me. The cat was still in the air just like Yoda. And then all of a sudden, the cat became bigger. I felt like because I gave him my $50, we were even.

So, I walked to the door where Matthew was, and the cat reached out his hand and grabbed me. This time he said, “What’s that in your hand?”

I said nothing back. And then, I shot him with the gun. All of a sudden, he became bigger. And he was too fat, so he fell, and I took my $50 and left.

I said, “Thank you for holding the jar, and also thank you for the gun.” I gave him the $50.

Matthew said, “Thank you for the $50, and I hope your mom gets better.”

When I was outside, close to where the portal was, I got my mom out and put her on the floor and shot her with the gun. She didn’t turn bigger, and I thought since she was in a different dimension, it might not work here because it would work in the real world.

So when I got that, all of a sudden, I was in my living room drinking my medicine.

 

Once upon a time, there were two dogs named Peroni and Stella and their owner Nicole. Peroni and Stella were not ordinary dogs. They looked ordinary, but they did not act ordinary. For starters, they were talking dogs. They had a super secret device that can translate from dog to English, but it’s secret so don’t tell anyone, okay? P.S. they choose who will and will not hear it. But, Nicole did not know that. She thought they were ordinary dogs.

One day when she went to work, Peroni and Stella went under their bed, and underneath there was a tube. They went in the tube, and it led them into a lair. The lair had an automatic kibble dispenser and a rocket car in a garage.

It had a huge screen with two seats. They went to the seats and looked at the screen. Then, a person came on the screen.

“Hello, Agent P and Agent S. Bombshell is working on a new plan to take over the world and will use his teleporter to teleport to all the syrup in the world and make it cost a lot of money. Bombshell wants to poison all the maple trees in the area so that there would no longer be real maple syrup. Good maple syrup makes people happy, and Bombshell doesn’t like happiness around him.

Peroni and Stella are on the case. They went to the rocket car and drove to the maple syrup factory. Then, they saw a sign saying No Dogs Allowed! And then, they saw Bombshell, and Bombshell just walked in. Then, a worker saw Bombshell and looked at the dogs and made them leave. Peroni and Stella were kind of upset because the factory allows evil turtles that want world domination but not dogs.

Luckily, Peroni and Stella had a human disguise backpack on the back of the rocket car. They put the disguise on, then went in, and passed by the guy. So then, they see Bombshell using his price bombs and throwing them onto the barcodes, which switches their price by adding two zeros to the dollar area.

They had an anti-scanner which could make it back to the normal price. But they had to hide because Bombshell was about to see them. They hid behind a giant box of maple syrup that Bombshell had already changed.

The factory smelled very sweet, especially because they were right next to a box of maple syrup. And Bombshell had accidentally dropped a real bomb, so syrup was pouring everywhere.

Stella whispered, “That was a waste of battery for the scanner.”

Bombshell was using his bombs to up the price of more boxes, but Peroni and Stella think they actually found out his entire plan. They thought his plan was that he would make the prices really high so that no one could buy syrup from there anymore and they couldn’t pay to have the factory anymore, so they’d have to close down. And that was the only artificial maple syrup factory. Then, there wouldn’t be any more artificial syrup in the world.

Then, Bombshell teleported to the the maple patch, and Peroni and Stella followed and heard Bombshell chuckling because he knew they were there the whole time.

 

Chapter Two: The Maple Wars

Bombshell turned around and then gave kind of a boring speech. Stella just barked at him. Bombshell got scared of the barking, and when he gets scared, his shell panels become bombs. He bumped into one of the maple trees. Then, the tree got poisoned, and then Stella realized those were fake trees. Bombshell thought they were real trees (at least that’s what Stella thought…)

So they scared Bombshell into blowing up a bunch of the fake trees. Every time Bombshell gets scared, he loses a shell panel, and he becomes weaker. Eventually, his shell will just be an outline and then shatter. Then, they found something cool on their scanner. It had a portal gun, which allows them to move places within a certain distance, and it stays on that item even if it moves. The portal keeps going forward until it hits something. It moves if what it lands on moves.

So, they shot Bombshell, kept scaring him, got to the end of his shell, broke his shell, and then he teleported to the regeneration room.

Then, he came out but got teleported into the throne room where he saw his leader. And then, the leader said, “I thought I told you to destroy the syrup.”

Then, Bombshell said, “I tried, but the S.A.O.A. had the two best agents against me. I didn’t stand a chance.”

And then the leader said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to regrade you.”

Then, Bombshell said, “No. Not regrading.”

Then, the leader created a cloud over Bombshell’s head. Then it made some thunder go onto Bombshell. Then, he had golden bombs and golden claws. And it made him stronger, even though it hurt.

THE END

 

       

Intro

When Twaben the panther was ten, he loved exploring unknown places. One day, he was wandering in the magical forest of Wandaka, and he (literally) stumbled upon… a tree root! Nothing very special about that was there… however… the magical forest of Wandaka was full of secrets… so like any fantasy story, there was a portal. Twaben didn’t make a decision whether to go in or not to go in… because he already fell in! It seemed like the portal also teleported him through time and space because now he was 22. Twaben had a jacket on which read “TOPPP.” He was very confused and after a lot of thought, he decided that they stood for animals (turtle, octopus, penguin, panda, panther, and he was correct! You’ll find out why later… ) He checked his pockets, and he found a bottle of what looked like his favorite energy drink: Grultimate. He popped off the cap and chugged the entire thing. It tasted strange, and he could feel a very strange substance through his veins. He ignored it and called it a day…

 

Chapter One

Later that week…

It was a beautiful day outside. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and on days like this… TOPPP was starting work. TOPPP was a group of animals: a turtle named Toitel, an octopus named John, a penguin named Leo, a panda named Smooshy Boosh… and a panther named Twaben! They were all outcasts because of what they looked like. Toitel had a blue shell, John had three legs, Leo had black and white stripes, Smooshy Boosh could eat anything, and Twaben was… well… a pink panther! Many of their plans had been spoiled! Just like Twaben’s milk, although unlike his milk, they had been deliberately sabotaged by a member in the group. They knew this because the saboteur wore a TOPPP cape on the security feed. No one trusted anyone. Many people were suspecting Twaben because “it” moved very fast. But Twaben swore on his life he was innocent.

They all fell behind each other and went into the “detective room,” and their leader, Toitel, kicked Twaben out of TOPPP for one month! A whole month! When Twaben started to walk around, everybody stared at him, and they all whipped out their phones and dialed someone. All the beeps around Twaben seriously irritated him and when he gets angry… stuff happens. After Twaben saw all the animal control vans swarming the block, his ability triggered itself. All threats (including weapons and people) within a 12 foot radius were now controlled by Twaben. He forced them to go as far away as possible. Then, he ran on top of the TOPPP HQ. When he was up there, he decided to spy on the TOPPP to find who really sabotaged their plans. When Twaben followed Smooshy Boosh, he saw him eating some paste, and then he saw Toitel sneaking a speed potion! Twaben immediately recalled all the facts and set off the alarm. Toitel ran away and hid in his turtle hole. Toitel was kicked from the club (and Twaben joined back in), then the OPPP workers voted Twaben as their new leader.

 

Chapter Two

They finally finished their multi-dimensional-alien-chicken-cow-computer-train-sheep-horse-dog-cat-paper-ball-translator. (It’s harder to say than to use, trust Twaben.) They called it the MDACCCTSHDCPBT. They fired it into the infinite possibilities of space. Twaben stayed up all night with 17 gallons of coffee. At about one o’clock, a super loud beep echoed throughout their HQ.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Twaben screamed and woke everybody up.

“SHUT UP!” everybody screamed back.

“OUR MACHINE WORKED!” Twaben screamed once again. Everybody ran into the room, and he said, “We reached planet ORegE, home to brilliant scientists that have created clones of all the strange animals. Even us!”

“How do they know what we look like?” Leo asked.

“I don’t know… Do you want to ask them?” The screen flashed on, and they saw some weird aliens that looked like a mound of slime with bushy hair and glasses on.

“Hello.”

“Hey, LeM. Long time no see, eh?”

“Lemon?” said Leo.

“Incorrect. My name is LeM.”

“Okay… I’m just gonna call you Lemon.”

“Sorry, LeM, but I called you because Toitel the — ”

“Toitel the turtle sabotaged your plans… Yes, that happened to us too.”

“Okay, but he is off and getting his own army to counter our armies!”

“Affirmative.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

“We have put trackers on all the Toitel clones. And they are all at… Wait a sec… The Wi-Fi is really slow up here… doo doo dooo… Okay, finally. It appears that the clones are all at… the bottom floor in your lair!”

“Let’s get ready for BATTLE!” Twaben said.

The Toitels came in. Twaben thought, I need to fight back because if I don’t, I’m going to die. (Obviously.) The Toitels had blue shells that they were throwing at pieces of machinery that Twaben had made over the years. Twaben screamed, “I’ll get you for this, Toitel.”

Leo threw fish at the Toitels, and then Smooshy Boosh threw up on all of the Toitels. The fish combined with the barf destroyed most of the Toitels… but then a super Toitel mech burst into the room and threw the roof into the sea to show his strength. Twaben got even angrier because the MDACCCTSHDCPBT was attached to that roof. The humans noticed that there was a giant turtle destroying the building, so they called the police, and then the police came over and tried to shoot, but the bullets bounced right off Toitel. Twaben used his ability (that he got from the strange “energy drink”) to force the Super Toitel to make a rocket out of itself, and they flew to the secret planet of LME (otherwise known as LIME). From there, they watched earth and saw that the big cities were getting smaller and more animals were walking around, not getting attacked. They may not have changed the whole world, but at least something’s changed. And if animals ever got attacked again… OPPP would strike again!

To be continued…

 

You’ve heard the story, you’ve told the tale, but do you know the truth?

 

Cow

Dear Fellow Lover of Grass Diary, a.k.a. FLOGD. My name is Mr. Moody Cow. You have probably guessed by now that I’m a cow. Today is the anniversary of my birth. I’m officially 97 years old. My arch nemesis, the moon, probably does not even know cows have birthdays! Cows have birthdays too, you know! He thinks he’s so great, but all he does is sit in the sky like a sack of floating potatoes.

Moon

Dear Honey Love Space Diary, a.k.a. HLSD. My name is Mr. Moon, and whatever my friend the cow said is not true. Actually, I take that back. He is not even my friend! Today is my birthday. I’m officially 97 years old. My arch nemesis, the cow, probably doesn’t even know moons have birthdays! He thinks he’s so great, munching on grass all the time. Well, guess what? He’s not!

Cow

Remember me? Mr. Moody Cow? Ring a bell? Seriously, I’m shaking like bacon trying to get you to hear this bell around my neck! Moon has probably been boring you to death with all his bragging.

Moon

Hello again. It’s me, the moon. I hate the cow, and you know why… Wait, you don’t? Oh, well then I’ll tell you… It was a dark and stormy night when it happened. We were in kindergarten. I was just a moonstone back then, and he was only a calf. We were singing Mary Had a Little Lamb. I wondered when the land would arrive. I looked over at the cow. I could tell he was wondering the same thing. Then, we went back to our seats to draw. I finished drawing the pictures for my new story. I reached for the stapler to finish off my book. My fingers could almost reach it. And all of a sudden, the stapler was missing! I looked up, and the cow was holding it.

Cow

Hello again. I heard the moon was telling you about what happened in kindergarten. Well, forget what he said. I’m going to tell you what really happened… It was a perfect sunny day when it happened. It was almost Moon’s birthday. I had started making him a card. We sang The Itsy Bitsy Spider. I grabbed the stapler, so I could finish his card and suddenly, Moon got up and tattled on me for absolutely no reason! That little snitch! I had to go to the time-out corner for a whole minute! ARRGH!!! I’ll get you someday, Moon!!!

Cow

I have figured out a way to get back at Moon. It is the most amazing plan in the world! I have decided to challenge Moon to see who can get down the hills faster. He thinks he’s going to win, but I have a (clever) plan.

Narrator

Cow then went over to Moon’s house. Cow told Moon that he would like to do a challenge. Cow then told him the challenge, and Moon accepted. They agreed to do it tomorrow at dawn. Then, Moon and Cow shook hands and grinned because they both thought they were going to win.

Moon

I know that I’m going to win. My fast movements beat Cow’s short, stubby legs any day. And I bet when I win, he will want to do a rematch. I can’t wait to see Cow’s chubby, fat face become sad.

I just realized something… you are a great listener! Thank you.

Cow

In one hour and two minutes, I will beat Moon.

(One hour later… )

In two minutes, I will beat Moon.

(Three minutes later… )

I BEAT MOON!!! OH YEAH BABY!!! I just realized that I am actually kind of sneaky and evil for a character in a nursery rhyme.

Moon

I’M SO MAD! I can’t believe Cow beat me! I had a plan!

Step One: Arrive at the field.

Step Two: Wait for Cow.

Step Three: Win.

Step Four: Have a giant dance party!

But Cow ruined my life, again! Now that I think of it, I’m really dramatic for a character in a fairy tale. Now, I have a foolproof plan to get revenge.

Narrator

Knock, knock. Suddenly, Cow heard a knock on his door. Cow walked over to answer the door.

“Oh, it’s you,” Cow said, as he stared at the moon.

“Yes, it’s me, Mr. Moon. That is my name. Do you mind if I come in?”

“Sure, but I was just leaving. Don’t make yourself feel at home, my enemy.”

Moon

Now, my plan is going perfectly! I can’t believe that Cow left his apartment alone and left me. Time for the rest of my plan to take action.

Step One: Before I go down to earth, make myself a cup of sky tea to go relax.

Step Two: Go to Cow’s house and drink my tea.

Step Three: Make myself at home. Gain access into enemy’s secret lair.

Step Four: Read diary.

Step Five: Come up with a challenge that Cow cannot beat.

Cow

Hey, guys! Guess what?! I’m not really just leaving. I’m going to the Sky to read Moon’s diary! He’ll never see it coming! Once again, I came up with the best plan first.

Three… Two… One… Blast off! I’m taking a trip to Moon’s house. I’m going on a trip in my brand new rocket ship, zooming to the sky, to read Moon’s diary!

Ooh, let me float over to his house. This is like swimming, but with no water! I’m drowning! Oh yeah, we’re in space. I finally reached Moon’s house!

“Dear Honey Love Space Diary, a.k.a. HLSD… ”

This is all junk! Oh wait, I found something… ! Nope, still junk. I need to find his weakness! Or maybe, I can find my strength.

Moon

This is all junk! Oh wait, I found something… ! Nope, still junk. I better keep looking just in case. Oh, here’s something.

“Dear Fellow Lover of Grass Diary a.k.a FLOGD,

I haven’t told anybody this. But I’m scared that Moon might challenge me to jump over him.”

That’s what I’ll challenge him to do! I’ve got my plan…

Cow

You know what? I can’t find anything. I’ve only been reading for a few minutes, and I’m so tired of this! Moon is not a very good writer. Well, let me go back to my rocket ship.

I’m going on a trip in my brand new rocket ship, zooming to the earth, so I can go eat!

Moon

Oh no! I hear him coming! I’m going to get stuck in the door! (Thump.) Oh no, I’m stuck! It must have been the tea…

Cow

Three… Two… One… BLAS — landing! … I’m finally back! Trot, clippity clop, trot, clippity clop.

“AH! Why did you make yourself at home! Get out of my house!” I said to Moon.

“I can’t! I’m stuck!” Moon said to me.

“Well then, just break my roof!” I said sarcastically.

“Okay, then,” Moon said, and he broke through my roof!

Narrator

Moon and Cow discuss the challenge. Even though Cow was scared, he agreed. He was a cow, not a chicken.

Cow

As I headed over to meet Moon, I felt butterflies in my stomach. Oh wait, no. They’re not inside my stomach. They’re on me! Shoo, butterflies! Anyway, I’m really nervous. I don’t know if I am able to beat Moon, but I must try. How did he even know my weakness? Oh, I know. He’s a super psychic from outer space! That’s the only possible answer. Unless he read my diary, but that’s not possible.

Moon

When’s Cow going to get here? Is all that fat slowing him down? Oh, here he comes.

“Hi there, Cow! What took you so long?” I yelled. “Let’s start this challenge already, so I can win.”

Cow

Oh my gosh! I’m gonna lose, but I can’t let Moon know.

“I’m ready,” I said in a deep voice to look brave (and keep from crying).

Three… Two… One… Jump!

Narrator

And time seemed to go so slowly, or maybe that’s because I’m talking slowly. And. Then. Time stopped.

Cow looked into the sky. “Ahhhh, I want my mommy!” screamed Cow.

“Help me!” Moon screamed. When he peered into the large river below them, it seemed as if Cow was winning.

Cow

I lost! I didn’t jump over him!

Moon

Wahhh! I really thought I’d win! I don’t know how he did it, but he jumped over me! I know, because I looked in the river. I saw him; he flew over me. Noooo!

Cow

I need to do one more final challenge to beat Moon. I need to go back into his diary and find his weakness. Does he even have a weakness? He must. Last time, I only read one page. This time I need to read more and look deeper. I must understand the true meaning of Moon’s words.

Moon

I don’t know if you know this, but I love elaborate plans. So, I made another one!

Step One: Get to Cow’s house.

Step Two: Do not drink the sky tea.

Step Three: Read Cow’s diary, again.

Step Four: Have a dance party!

Step Five: Get out quickly before Cow gets home.

Step Six: Have another dance party!

Now, I just have to go down to earth.

Cow

Blast off in three… two… one… I’m going on a trip in my gently used rocket ship, zooming to the sky, to read Moon’s diary! For the second time!

I’m floating again! I could get used to this. Anyways, I gotta get to Moon’s house. Then…

(Five minutes later… )

I finally got to Moon’s house. I got Moon’s diary again. He has to try harder to hide this thing.

“Dear HLSD, my name is Mr. Moon and whatever my friend, the cow, said is not true. Actually, I take that back, he is not even my friend! Today is my birthday. I’m officially 97 years old. My arch nemesis, the cow, PROBABLY DOESN’T EVEN KNOW MOONS HAVE BIRTHDAYS! He thinks he’s SO great, munching on grass all the time. Well guess what, he’s not!”

Hey! That’s what I wrote in my diary! It must be a coincidence.

(Ten minutes later… )

Hey! He copied all of mine! Everything from the birthday to the challenges. It’s like we have the same mind! This is not a coincidence. I have to go tell him!

Moon

I’m entering Cow’s house. Oh, look! I found his diary! He’s got to hide this better.

“Dear Fellow Lover of Grass Diary, a.k.a. FLOGD, my name is Mr. Moody Cow. You have probably guessed by now that I’m a cow. Today is my anniversary of my birth. I’m officially 97 years old. My arch nemesis, the moon, probably does not even know cows have birthdays! COWS HAVE BIRTHDAYS TO YOU KNOW! He thinks he SO great, but all he does is sit in the sky like a sack of floating potatoes.”

Hey! That’s what I wrote! He copied me! It must be a coincidence.

(Ten minutes later… )

Hey! This is exactly what I wrote! It’s like we have the same mind! This is not a coincidence… I have to go tell Cow!

Narrator

Cow and Moon rushed to each other to tell each other the strange news. They met in-between the two houses. Half on the sky, half on the ground. It was as if the rocket ship was a hover ship instead.

“Hey! I have something to tell you! We wrote the same things in our diary!” they said at the same time.

“Wait? How do you know what I wrote in my diary?” once again, they said at the same time.

“No, how you do you know?” they exclaimed at the same time.

“Oh, fine! I read your diary,” they said together.

“Wait, what? I read your diary!” they both yelled.

“Okay, fine, you go first,” Cow said (by himself).

“Okay, fine. I’ll go. I read your diary because I really wanted to win the challenges for once. You kept winning, and I don’t know… I just felt kind of maybe jealous. Now, you tell,” Moon said.

“NO, NO, NO! THAT’S THE REASON I READ YOUR DIARY!” Cow yelled.

“Woah! Cool down. You really are moody,” Moon said.

“Wait, so I just said that I felt jealous, and you said the same thing. You felt jealous of me?” they both said.

“Well, sorta,” said Moon.

“Maybe, yes,” sighed Cow. “Why would you ever be jealous of me? You always say that I’m just a lazy cow, munching grass all day.”

“You say I’m just a sack of floating potatoes in the sky.”

“Well, maybe I just said those things cause I was jealous. I’m sorry,” they both said.

Cow and Moon then hugged it out, but it was kind of hard for Cow to hug it out, since he was half in the sky.

Epilogue

In the end, Cow and Moon invited all their friends to celebrate both of their birthdays. Ninety-seven years of disagreeing, and finally, they were friends.

Cow and Moon shouted, “Dance party!”

 

“Being a superhero is a tough job,” said the man in the suit to the crowd.

“The Guardian, do you consider Crusher your greatest opponent?” shouted one reporter.

“Yes,” The Guardian said thoughtfully to the flashing cameras. “He is powerful, however, I will finally catch him once and for all!” The Guardian replayed the last battle with Crusher in his head. All the flashing lights bothered him, but he put up with the reporters.

The last battle had been close. He remembered how easily Crusher had destroyed those buildings with one sweep of his blocky hands. When The Guardian had shot fire at Crusher’s armor, it had no effect, unlike in the previous battles. The Guardian quickly blocked Crusher’s attack with his shield before it smashed into his head.

“My boss knows all about you and your powers,” Crusher said menacingly. “He improved my armor, so your superpowers won’t affect me at all!”

The Guardian stood powerless before Crusher, who loomed over him. The Guardian quickly leapt out of the way as Crusher brought his hand toward The Guardian’s head. The only way he had won was that when he leapt out of the way, he leapt behind a building which Crusher smashed, bringing all the debris on him. Even though The Guardian always sent Crusher to jail, Crusher always escaped at the end.

The Guardian pondered Crusher’s last words about his boss. He wondered who Crusher’s boss was. He had to be really good at building stuff because the armor he made could withstand even the fire he shot, which melted anything. He didn’t get that much sleep that night.

While The Guardian lay in bed, he remembered the day he decided to become a superhero. He had sworn to protect the city after he saw the famous superhero, the Darrenalexkevinator, protect his parents from a gunman. When he had just started becoming a superhero, he had no superpowers. He saw a robber stealing a woman’s purse, so he ran after him. The robber hid in an old, collapsing factory. When The Guardian caught up to the robber, the robber started shooting at him. Most of the shots missed, but a few hit his legs and body. The bullets that missed hit a few of the supporting pipes, causing the building to start to collapse. Because of the bullets in his legs, he couldn’t escape, while the robber left him to die. It turns out that this factory was used for nuclear energy, and when the building crashed onto him, he survived by a miracle. He got fire powers and some sort of earth magnetism. Basically, he could control the earth and throw fireballs now. Whoever Crusher’s boss was, he knew he had to stop him.

The next day, he read the news looking for the mention of Crusher’s escape. Somehow, no matter how many guards were posted at Crusher’s prison, he always managed to escape the next day. The Guardian was surprised. There was no mention of his escape. The Guardian was relieved. Today he could get a day off from fighting Crusher. While he was watching the TV, suddenly all the power shut off. He got up in confusion and looked out the windows. All around the city, he could see that all the other power in the city was starting to shut off. Since it was so cloudy, there was basically no light.

Unconcerned, The Guardian thought a power line had toppled, causing a blackout. He decided to go to sleep. When he woke up, he had a pounding headache. When he looked around, he found he was in a jail cell. Suddenly, a man stepped out of the shadows. He was wrapped in shadows, like he was controlling them.

“Hello,” he whispered in a creepy way.

“Who are you,” The Guardian demanded. “And why am I here!”

“That doesn’t matter,” he replied. “What matters is that today is the day I will finally take over the world. No one will be able to stop me since I have locked all the powerful superheroes in jail, and all the other superheroes are too weak to stop me!”

Suddenly, the roof broke, and a thousand sandwiches somehow fell from the sky. A woman dropped down. “My name is Alexialalalalasass, and I can control sandwiches, like creating them out of thin air. I have come to save all the superheroes.”

“How did you find us!” The Guardian said.

“I stalked you for your whole life!” Alexialalalalasass said.

“Why?” The Guardian replied.

“Because I had nothing better to do!” replied Alexialalalalasass.

“Did you think you could really destroy me with sandwiches,” the creepy shadow man growled. Shadows came from the man and wrapped around Alexialalalalasass. When the shadows disappeared, Alexialalalalasass wasn’t there.

“What did you do to her!” The Guardian demanded.

“My shadows ate her up because they were hungry,” the shadow man said. “Now, I will invade New York City!” The shadows wrapped around the shadow man, and he disappeared.
How I am going to get out of here, The Guardian thought. When he leaned against the wall, he quickly leaped away. The walls were charged with electricity. As he rubbed his arm, a man in a black police uniform appeared. “Who are you?!” The Guardian asked.

“I’m one of the guards. Here is some food,” he said. He disappeared as quickly as he came. The Guardian inspected his lunch, which consisted of a bottle of water, some extra supa extreme chocolatey milk, and dark chocolate choco double choco triple fudge choco chip cookies. The outside packaging wrapper said they were made by STEVEN co. He tried to eat a cookie but broke his tooth. The Guardian soon got an idea.

The Guardian hid behind a shield made of dark chocolate choco double choco triple fudge choco chip cookies and threw water at the wall. As the electricity came in contact with the wall, the wall exploded. Some debris crashed into the cookie shield. Nothing happened. The Guardian was free! He quickly knocked out the guards and freed the other superheroes.

The Guardian decided to take the cookie with him. The other superheroes had already left without him. He saw smoke rising from the city’s direction. After a few hours, he saw the evil shadow dude. His shadows were eating up people and buildings. The other superheroes were shooting lasers and ice and whatever they had at him, but the shadows were eating them. The Guardian threw some fire and earth balls, but the shadows ate them up.

Many heroes were missing. The shadow man was winning. He suddenly remembered the cookie. As he threw the cookie at the shadow man, it destroyed everything in its path. The shadows tried to destroy it, but when the shadows touched it, they exploded. The cookie smashed into the creepy shadow man guy’s face. The shadow guy fell to the floor. When The Guardian took off the shadow man’s mask, he suddenly realized it was Alexialalalalasass.

“How is this possible!” The Guardian said.

“I used a shadow clone to make the other Alexialalalalasass,” Alexialalalalasass said. The police came and made a dark chocolate choco double choco triple fudge choco chip cookie prison for Alexialalalalasass.

 

Two days later…

The Guardian was walking on the sidewalk when a guy wearing a spy outfit ran up to him.

“The sky will drop a UFO. Bye,” the kid said as he ran off.

The Guardian stood there wondering what just happened. Suddenly, he saw a UFO fall toward him. The Guardian jumped out of the way. A martian guy came out texting on his phone. When the martian looked up and saw the human, he jumped about 90 feet in the air.

“Yowzahs, what are you!” the martian said, as the phone he was holding dropped on the floor. “Now look what you did. I was texting my girlfriend, Alexa, when you made my phone drop. Now I must shoot you with my stasis rifle.”

The Guardian was surprised at how quick the martian was to rage. When a bullet from the stasis rifle hit a pedestrian, it froze her. The Guardian stood with his mouth open, looking at the frozen woman. “You’re next!” the martian said as he ran crazily toward The Guardian, shooting randomly.

Just as a bullet was about to hit The Guardian, he threw a fireball at it. The bullet evaporated. The Guardian decided to spam fireballs at the martian. It turns out he should have done this long ago. Many of the fireballs hit the martian. The Guardian smirked at the martian.

“Hah, that was too easy!” he said to the martian.

A whole army of UFOs appeared out of the sky and began shooting lasers at The Guardian. During that day, Mars declared war with Earth because of The Guardian. Everybody hated him. “It’s because of you that my house was destroyed and we have to live in a nuclear shelter!” a guy screamed at The Guardian, throwing tomatoes at him. The Guardian was sad. He explained to the public that he was just defending himself. Nobody cared. They threw him in a deluxe jail.

Every day, they only gave him patties to eat. A guard named Squidturd visited him every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday to bring his food. Squidturd was the mean, careful guard. Every other day, a guard named Mr. Craps served him food. The Guardian heard from other prisoners that you could actually bribe Mr. Craps to escape. Perfect, the Guardian thought. I just need to find something valuable and bribe Mr. Craps to let me escape in exchange for that, but what could I use. The Guardian looked around, stumped. Suddenly, he noticed something. In the cell next to him was his enemy, Crusher. Crusher noticed him too.

“You’re dead,” he screamed, trying to break his bars. “At lunchtime, I’m going to pound you!”

Just what I need, The Guardian thought gloomily.

At lunchtime, he tried to attract as little attention as possible. It was too late. Crusher noticed him. Crusher barreled toward him. The Guardian looked down and saw his knees shaking at 100 miles per hour. That’s weird, he thought. I fought him before. Why am I scared now? As Crusher ran toward him, The Guardian put his banana peel on the floor and leaped out of the way. Crusher slipped on it and flew into the air, finally crashing into a wall.

“Hah,” he said triumphantly. “You got defeated by a banana peel.”

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!” a voice screeched out. The prisoners parted for a tall, mean looking lady.

“Who’s that old lady?” The Guardian asked a prisoner next to him.

“THAT OLD LADY,” she screamed, spit flying into The Guardian’s face. “How dare you! My name is Sarah! I am the director of this prison, and you two are coming with me for fighting!”

What is this, elementary school? The Guardian thought, but he reluctantly followed the Sarah along with Crusher.

“In all my years, I have never seen such insolence!” she screeched, pacing back and forth. “You both need a good scolding to learn your lesson!”

The Guardian stopped listening after the first sentence. This is boring, he thought. Suddenly, he noticed something on Sarah’s neck. It was an emerald necklace. AHA, he thought. Just what I need. I can steal it and bribe Mr. Craps into helping me escape.

Over the next few days, he spent his days memorizing the layout of the prison. He realized his best chance was to sneak into Sarah’s bedroom to steal the necklace. He bribed some people by giving them his food to pretend that they were him for a few days and for other jobs. While everybody was at the cafeteria, he snuck under the tables to escape. Dang it, he thought as he saw guards posted at each exit of the cafeteria. Oh well, time for Plan B. He whistled. Some of the people he bribed started to start a humongous food fight throwing clam pies, hot dogs, and ice cream. The guards and Sarah tried to break it up. The Guardian quickly snuck into Sarah’s room and put sleeping powder into his drink. He suddenly heard Sarah walking back. Where could he hide?!

When Sarah walked into the room, she felt something was off. Oh well. She sat down and took a drink. She fell asleep. The Guardian leapt out of the closet and grabbed the necklace. However, it said it needed a passcode to unlock. The Guardian decided to hide in Sarah’s bedroom to steal it when she took it off.

The Guardian hid under Sarah’s bed. After what felt like an eternity, Sarah walked in. “I hate being under the mask all day long.” He grumbled. Wait, The Guardian thought. Sarah pulled off a mask and under was Alexialalalalasass. The Guardian almost gasped in surprise. “That was a close match. The police totally thought they took me away, but it was another shadow clone.” Alexialalalalasass took off her necklace and got into bed. The Guardian didn’t take the necklace. He knew what he had to do to be set free. He would need to expose Alexialalalalasass to the world.

The next day, The Guardian had his plan in action. He started another food fight. This got Alexialalalalasass running in. “WHAT IS GOING — ” She didn’t get to finish the sentence. The Guardian had perfectly aimed cafeteria food at Alexialalalalasass’ mouth. While she was choking, The Guardian ran up to her and ripped off her mask.

“Sarah is not Sarah. It was actually Alexialalalalasass under the mask the whole time!” he told everybody. The police came and put Alexialalalalasass in jail. “Wait, she could be useful,” The Guardian said.

 

Two days later…

The Earth was no longer at war with Mars. With the help of Alexialalalalasass, they destroyed all the UFOs. The Guardian was free and now lived peacefully fighting crime.

 

The End

      

(Haven’t read Part One? Read it here!)

Chapter Eight

All three of us started patting the invisible tower, trying to find a door.

“Ugghhhhh! This is impossible!” Minsy exclaimed.

“Yeah, we’re probably not gonna find a door. Let’s just give up,” said Rina disappointedly.

“No! Don’t you realize? You guys wouldn’t even be going on the journey if I wasn’t because I needed to meet the wizard. You can’t just give up. I’ll be stuck here forever.”

“So?” Minsy asked. “You don’t like it here?”

“Well, no. I mean, yes, um. Well, I just want to go home!” I wailed.

Just then, the invisible castle started to fade into its color. First light purple, then dark purple, then darkest purple spread across the castle, and then a door creaked open.

“We did it! We opened it!” all three of us screamed at the same time.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Minsy said, about to go in.

“Are we allowed to just come in to someone’s house?” I asked.

“Eh,” Minsy shrugged.

“Come on. Let’s go. Chop chop, people,” Rina said, pushing us in.

The door closed behind us. We looked around us. Now we were in a huge room. The walls were a bright shade of purple covered with paintings of these people that looked very similar. I read some of the labels. “Jim Zodar,” “Jim Zodar II,” “Jim Zodar III,” Jim Zodar IV,” “Jim Zodar V,” “Harry Zodar,” “Jim Zodar VI,” “Jim Zodar VII.”

“Wooooow, that is a lot of Jim Zodars,” Minsy said. She was reading along with me. I looked up. There was a giant chandelier that hung down about ten feet from the ceiling.

“So, this is a big house,” Rina said. “How are we supposed to find the wizard?”

“Well, we are in his house, so there’s probably not so many people here,” I explained.

“I guess. But we probably shouldn’t wander around, or he may think we’re robbers.”

And just as I said that, an alarm went off. It was so loud that the three of us had to cover our ears, and even when we covered our ears, it was still very loud. Suddenly, we heard a man scream. And then, right in front of us, we saw a very short man with purple overalls and messy hair standing in front of us.

“What are you doing in my house?” he screamed. I was speechless; all three of us were silent.

And then, I heard Minsy say, “Are you Jim Zodar?”

“No,” said the man.

“Well, are you Harry Zodar?” she asked.

“No!” he said again. “My name is Galfred Zodar.”

“Then how come you’re not on that wall?” Minsy asked, pointing to that wall with all the portraits.

“Well, I didn’t earn it yet. Well, you see, every wizard has one job that they have to complete. And I haven’t completed it yet, so… well, I shouldn’t be giving you too much detail on it. Anyways, you three wanted to see me about something?”

“Yes,” said Minsy.

“Oh, very well then,” said the man, calming down. “Why did you need to see me?”

“Um, well, we have a problem,” Minsy started. “So, my friend Patrick, he’s from the Other Side, and we don’t know how to get him back. My mom said you would know, so we came to you.”

“All by yourself?” the man asked. We nodded. “Impressive.”

“Well then, I guess I should help you.”

“Great, thanks,” said Minsy.

“Now, follow me.” And the three of us followed the man.

 

Chapter Nine

As we followed the wizard down the halls of his house, we saw fancy vases on top of gold tables. We then turned left at the corner of the long hall and into a small, blue room. The walls were blue, the chairs were blue, the floor was blue, the ceiling was blue, everything was the same shade of blue.

“Now,” the wizard said, “all of you take a seat on one of the chairs.”

“What are we going to do?” Rina asked.

“We’re going a take a test,” said the wizard.

Rina smiled. So did I. I was excited to see what kind of test it would be. I looked over at Minsy. She didn’t look too thrilled.

“What kind of test?” she asked nervously.

“You’ll see,” the wizard said, taking three pieces of paper off of a blue table. “Now, take the papers I give you, and put them in front of you. And let go of them. I know it seems like they will just drop on the floor, but trust me, they won’t. Just listen to me.”

He put the papers in our laps, and we did as he said. Sure enough, the papers didn’t drop. Instead, a desk formed in front of us, and the papers just lay in the middle of it.

“So, don’t start the test yet, but when you do start it, do exactly as I say,” the wizard told us. “Now, any questions before I explain the rules?”

I raised my hand. “Yes, Patrick,” the wizard said.

“Are we going to use pencils to take the test?” I asked.

“Of course,” the wizard said.

And with that, he flicked his hand, and a million different pencils dropped on the floor, one by one. I watched them fall. Every single one was completely different. Either a different length or color or eraser color or how sharp it was. I didn’t know which one I was going to pick, or if we were even allowed to pick.

Then, the wizard said, “The three of you come around and choose one of these pencils, but remember to choose very carefully because this is a big part of the test.”

So Minsy, Rina, and I walked around the room to try to find the pencil that we liked best.

“It doesn’t matter the shape of the pencil or the color of the pencil, or even how sharp it is. If you pick a pencil that doesn’t have a tip, don’t worry about it. It will still be good,” the wizard told us.

Then, he waited there while the three of us chose our pencils. Two of them looked really good, and I was choosing between them, but then I remembered what the wizard said and tried to choose ones that didn’t look as good. I saw Minsy doing eeny-meeny-miney-moe with two hot pink pencils with gray erasers. One was short and stubby, and the other was long and thin. She finally chose the short and stubby one and went back to her seat.

Rina was at a little section in the middle, counting a group of green pencils. And I was watching them from the very end of the long trail of pencils, still deciding between one with a broken tip and no eraser and one with an eraser that was as hard as rock. One of them had a weird squiggly design, and the other one looked like a plain pencil (except for its hard eraser). I examined the pencils closely, then from far away. I closed one of my eyes and squinted with the other, trying to find any little markings on the sides of the regular looking pencil.

And then suddenly, as I was rolling the pencil around between my index finger and thumb, I saw the letter “P.” I smiled. I knew I had to pick that one. I mean, come on. It’s not every day you see a pencil with your initial on it. I held it tightly in my hand and walked back to my seat. Then, a few minutes after, I saw Rina finally pick a tall, green pencil without a tip. Once we were all in our seats, the wizard walked in front of us.

Then he yelled, “El guardia sebedosa exconigeck em com skavik kravick embey embey!”

The three of us stared at the wizard for a few seconds after that. We couldn’t move. That spell was so startling.

“Now,” the wizard started, “the first rule of this test is to never use your pencil to write with. You must instead think the answer with your mind and only your mind. Second, there is no second rule. Third, you cannot lose your pencil (hint hint). I repeat, you cannot because I need to keep it so afterwards the next people that come and ask for my help can use it. Now, any questions?”

The three of us all raised our hands.

He sighed and put his hand on his forehead. “They never get it. Rina.”

“Yes, um, didn’t you say that the pencils were a very important part of the test?”

“Yes, I did say that, I think,” the wizard said.

“Well then, how come we can’t use them during the test?”

“Ahh, very good question, Rina, but I can’t answer you! Now, you might be asking why I can’t answer you. Well, I can’t tell you that either. Just, like I said before, do what I say and maybe you’ll learn more later.”

“Okay,” Rina said, nodding.

“You may begin,” the wizard projected.

 

Chapter Ten

I looked down at my paper, and I saw a normal looking test. It looked like math, but when I looked closer I saw that it wasn’t.

The first question said, What is your favorite color? in curly, bubble letters.

Blue, I thought really hard in my mind. I kept thinking it over and over again until it appeared on the paper. Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue.

Then, I moved on to the next question:

Are you wearing pink socks with red polka dots today?

No! I yelled in my head.

Do you have any siblings?

Nooooooo.

Do you have a pet?

Noooooooooooo.

Okay, okay. Don’t gotta yell at me! it said. Stop! You’ve reached the end of your test.

Thank god, I thought in my head. I put my pencil on the table and threw my head back. Then, I just sat there waiting for Minsy and Rina to finish their tests too. I heard their pencils tap the tables a few minutes after.

“Is everyone ready?” the wizard asked.

“Yes,” the three of us said.

“Wonderful. Now, I’m not going to check your tests, but I need you to show me your pencils.”

The three of us stood up with our pencils, and the wizard took out his wand and spun it around in his hand, and the three pencils rose up in the air and glided towards the wizard.
“Let’s see,” he said, holding up a stubby, green pencil. “Rina, you picked this pencil.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Mm hmm,” the wizard said, observing the pencil carefully. “Great job, Rina. You passed the test!”

“Um, thank you?” she said and then sat back down in her seat. Then, he took up a hot pink pencil which I knew was Minsy’s. He then checked Minsy’s pencil the same way he checked Rina’s, turning it over and over again with his fingers.

“Wonderful, Minsy. You passed as well!” he cried.

“Yes!” Minsy said and then sat back down in her seat.

Then, he picked up my pencil. He held the eraser carefully and spun it around between his fingers. As he examined the pencil, he made a weird humming sound that kind of sounded like a groan but also like a laugh. I crossed my fingers under the table. The faces he was making didn’t make me think that I was going to pass, and then started to make me wonder, What happens if I don’t pass? Will I still be able to go home? Why did Rina and Minsy have to take the test if they were going to go home either way, or maybe they wouldn’t go home if they didn’t pass? I started sweating and taking deep breaths. But then my wondering got cut off by —

“Patrick! You passed! You passed! You did more than pass! You helped me complete my job!” the wizard cried.

“Whaaaaaa?” I asked.

“Well, I didn’t tell you guys before because I wasn’t allowed to, but I can tell you now. So, remember before when I said that every wizard has a job that they have to complete in order to get their name on the wall?” We nodded. “Well, that job was to make sure that someone I helped got the magical pencil. And the people that don’t pick the magical pencil are the people that don’t actually need help. They just want to say that they met me. But now, because you picked that magical pencil Patrick, I am going to grant you with your wish of going home. But, before I send you home, there is something else that I need to tell you.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“The rules to your pencil,” the wizard said.

“The rules to my pencil?” I asked.

“The rules to your pencil!”

“The rules to my pencil?”

“The rules to your pencil!”

“Yeah, I still don’t get it,” I said. The wizard slapped his head.
“Ahhh, Patrick. You have a magical pencil here! So I’m going to teach you what magical things it can do!”

“Oh okay,” I said.

“The first thing you need to know about having a magical pencil is that you can’t lose it. Once it is lost, that means it is in someone else’s hands, someone who doesn’t know they are dealing with magic and is. They could write a 20-page essay in the amount of time that it would take someone else to write one word. They’d be able to fly. They’d… they’d… they’d… well, you get the point. So, the trick is, don’t keep it in your normal pencil case because you might accidentally give it to someone.”

“Well, the pencil will do anything you want. You just need to tell it. For example, if I want to turn invisible, then I would just say ‘Make me invisible, make me invisible, make me invisible, make me… INVISIBLE!’” the wizard screamed.

I stared at the wizard, and after he finished his weird spell, he vanished into thin air.

“See? Now I’m over here! Now I’m over there! Hoo hee ha ha!” the wizard yelled.

I could hear him running around even though he was invisible.

“Okay,” I said.

Then, I heard the wizard say, “Turn not invisible, turn not invisible, turn not invisible. Turn not… INVISIBLE!”

He reappeared right in front of us.

“Anyways, that’s how you use it. Now you guys have to get going, so, Patrick I’ll show you how you can get back home,” said the wizard.

“You’re so lucky that you get to keep a magical pencil,” Minsy said.

“Yeah, I can’t believe we didn’t all get those cool pencils,” Rina chimed in.

The wizard led us out of the room, and we walked across the hallway until we got to a new room. We walked inside, and everything was clear.

“Patrick, stand in the middle of that circle,” said the wizard.

“Sure, which circle?” I asked looking around. The tiles on the floor were circle-shaped so I didn’t know which one he was talking about.

“Um… that one,” the wizard said.

He walked over to one of the circles and tapped his foot on it three times. After that, the circle started glowing and then grew five times bigger.

“Okay.” I shrugged, walking over to the circle. “Wait. I want to say bye to my friends first,” I told the wizard.

“Oh alright, but make it quick because you have to get home soon,” he answered.

I nodded and walked up to Rina and Minsy. “Bye, guys. I’m going to miss you. And Ethamopia.”

“We are going to miss you too, but you know that you can use your pencil so you can see us again. Right?” Rina said.

“Yeah.” I nodded and turned to the wizard. “Sir, I will take very good care of your pencil.”

“Group hug!” Minsy shouted.

So, the three of us huddled up and gave each other a short, quick hug.

“Doesn’t this remind you guys at all of The Wizard of Oz?” the wizard asked.

We shrugged.

“I think I’ll miss you most of all,” I said in a high-pitched girl voice. “Well, I do a good Dorothy impression.” Minsy and Rina laughed.

“Well bye,” I said and stood on the circle. I pointed my toes outward and closed my eyes on the circle. “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” I whispered in my Dorothy imitation. Minsy and Rina giggled. I clutched my Magic Pencil tight in my hands and waved one last time at my new friends. The wizard took his wand out and mumbled weird words to himself, and soon enough, I was back in my hotel room. The end.

 

Chapter Eleven

“So, that’s the end of your story?” Susan asked.

“Yeah, that didn’t show how you lost the pencil. That just showed how you got it,” Stanley said.

“Woah woah woah. You guys wanted to know why the pencil is so important to me. You never asked how I lost it,” Patrick explained. “But okay, I’ll tell you how I lost the pencil. It’s not a very interesting story though. So one day, when I had the pencil in my room, I was trying to ask it to make me able to fly. So I held it up to my chest, and then it did that glowing thing it does before it casts its spell. So then, to test it, I jumped up into the air, and I wasn’t able to fly. So I asked the pencil again, and it must have heard me wrong because instead of allowing me to be able to fly, the pencil turned itself invisible. But I knew it was still in my hands, so I just asked for it to turn un-invisible. But now I knew that something was really wrong with this pencil since it didn’t hear that right either. Instead, I felt it rise up from my hand and then, well, who knows where it could have gone. It could have left my room because my window was open. It could have flown out the front door, and now it’s out in the world. So basically, I’ll never find it. So, do you have any questions about my story?” Patrick asked.

“I’ve got one,” Marty declared. “How did you remember that whole story in great detail?”

“Funny story. So, before I lost my pencil I asked it to write about my time in Ethamopia, so it did.”

“Follow up question: that whole story fit on your hand?”

“Well no, that’s the beauty of magic. You see, when I want the story to show, then I tell it to,” Patrick explained.

He waved his hand, and the words appeared on his hand. Then he waved his hand again, and they disappeared.

“Also, if I want to scroll down, then I just go like this.” He held up his hand and scrolled down as if he was scrolling on a touch-screen computer.

“Coooool,” his friends said.

“Oh,” Marty said. “Well then how is anybody going to find an invisible pencil?”

“Well, there’s one part I left out of the story. You see, the wizard also gave me this magic sharpener,” Patrick said, taking the velvet pouch with the “Z” on it out of his pocket.

He turned the pouch upside down and dumped a regular looking green sharpener out of it.

“With this sharpener, I can communicate with the pencil when it’s not working correctly. Except this sharpener isn’t working so well either. All I’ve managed to do is get the pencil un-invisible.”

“Well, how do you even know it’s un-invisible if you can’t find it?” Lola asked.

“Well, the ‘Z’ on this pouch glows every time that the pencil follows one of my spells. And that ‘Z’ hasn’t been glowing when I’ve asked the pencil to return home to me.”

“Could I see that sharpener for a second?” Stanley asked.

“Sure.” Patrick handed the sharpener to Stanley.

Stanley held the sharpener up to his face and said, “Return back to Patrick’s house.” The “Z” didn’t glow.

“Oh, sorry, Patrick,” said Stanley.

“Oh, that’s okay,” Patrick said.

“But you’re probably going to find it eventually, right? I mean, everything that involves magic usually turns out alright in the end, right?” asked Lola.

“Eh, I dunno,” Patrick sighed. “It’s going to be pretty hard to find a magic pencil. It could be anywhere in the world right now!”

“True… ” Marty looked down at the ground.

A few minutes later, Patrick’s mom knocked on the door and poked her head into his room.

Smiling, she said, “Hey, Patrick. Your friends have to go home.”

Patrick’s friends started to stand up.

“Okay, bye, Patrick. Thanks for telling us the story!” Susan said, waving. She walked up to Patrick’s mom and said, “And thank you for having me over Mrs. Binny.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, darling.” Patrick’s mom put her hand on Susan’s shoulder.

Lola followed behind Susan. “Bye, Mrs. Binny. Bye, Patrick!” she said quickly and skipped out the door.

“Bye, man.” Stanley smiled. “I hope you find your pencil. Bye Patrick’s mom!” he called back as he ran out of the room.

“Hey, dude, sorry about your pencil. I didn’t understand why it was so important before. I’ll search my whole house when I get home,” Marty said.

“Thanks, dude.” Patrick held up his hand and Marty high-fived it.

Marty walked slowly out the door and said, “Bye, Mrs. Binny,” and walked down the stairs.

“Sorry about your pencil, Patrick. Even though I have no idea what they’re talking about. I’ll buy you a new pencil tomorrow.” Mrs. Binny patted Patrick on the head and messed up his hair.

“Thanks, Mom,” Patrick said. “But I don’t want a new pencil from the store.”

Patrick’s mom shrugged and sighed and made one of those parent faces that they make when their kid gets in trouble at school and then lies about it. With that, she walked out the door and closed it behind her.

 

Chapter Twelve

That night, while Patrick was sleeping, his newly painted walls started to glow. Patrick was in a deep sleep and dreaming about how he would find the pencil and further adventures he would have with it, when suddenly —

CREAK!

Patrick’s eyes went from completely closed to wide open, almost a perfect circle.

“Psssst, Patrick,” a familiar voice whispered.

“Rina?” Patrick exclaimed, sitting up in his bed. “What are you doing here, and how did you get here?”

“I came through that wall,” she said, pointing to Patrick’s wall. “Also, I came to return your pencil to you.”

“You had it?” Patrick almost screamed. “I’ve been looking for it for like a whole month!”

“Sorry, but we didn’t take it. It flew over to us!” Rina argued.

“All the way to Ethamopia? Yeah right,” Patrick mumbled.

“I swear. The wizard called me over here and told me that I had to deliver this to you. He didn’t know exactly why it came here, but he figured it must have something to do with the Ethamopian magic glitch.”

“So, you mean no Ethamopian magic was working?” Patrick asked.

“No, and we had to figure out why, so the wizard has been sending me and Minsy all around Ethamopia and to anyone’s house that had magical objects. We had to see if they misused the objects and possibly broke them,” Rina explained. “So I have to look at your magic sharpener.”

“Uh… okay.” Patrick shrugged, taking the pouch with the “Z” on it out of his pocket.

He plucked the green sharpener out of the pouch and laid it in the palm of his hand.

“Thank you,” Rina said formally, taking the sharpener.

She opened up the top of the pencil sharpener, and sure enough, she saw pencil shavings.

“Just as I suspected. Patrick, have you used this pencil sharpener to sharpen a regular pencil?”

“Maybe? Okay, yes, sorry. I didn’t know that it would start a whole commotion and wreck everything magical forever!” Patrick swooned overdramatically.

“Woah, it’s not that big of a deal. You can chill out, man. We just need to find it. I’m going to bring it back to the wizard, so he can fix it, and then return it to you. But remember, you’re going to have to return the pencil back to us in a few months. Because you only get it for a year, and then you have to return it. And if you don’t, then you will be stuck in a portal between Ethamopia and your own world forever!” Rina screamed, her eyes wide and she was breathing heavily.

“Why?” Patrick asked, suddenly scared.

“Oh, pssh, that doesn’t actually happen. I was just trying to make things dramatic,” Rina laughed.

“Phew,” Patrick sighed.

“Anyways, here’s your pencil. I want to give this sharpener back to the wizard to fix. See you back here tomorrow at this exact time,” she said, looking at her watch.

“Okay? But I can’t promise you that I’ll be awake.”

Rina ignored him and stepped through the wall. Patrick sat in his bed for second, blinked a couple times, and then he pushed his covers off his legs and hopped out of his bed.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” he squealed, dancing around his room. “Oh, pencil, I’ve missed you so.”

Patrick hugged and kissed the pencil for a few minutes. His mom knocked on the door.

“Hi, sweetie. Um it’s one o’clock in the morning. Just wondering, are you alright?”

“Never better, baby.”

“… Okay,” Patrick’s mom said, slowly backing out of the room.

“Yes!” Patrick said one last time and leaped onto his bed.

He slept like a baby, knowing that his pencil was safe and sound. And that’s the story of the missing pencil.

 

     

Chapter One

It was 7:30 in Brucebury Town. Twelve-year-old Patrick Binny was putting up signs. He wanted the whole town to see his sign, so he circled the town and made sure there were at least four signs on every lamppost and tree trunk. His sign was one of those “missing” signs, and he really needed what was lost. Now, you would probably guess he lost his cat or his dog or his guinea pig. Maybe he lost a backpack or a jacket. Nope. Patrick’s sign read:

 

MISSING PENCIL

If found, call Patrick Binny at 262-593-7068 I’d really appreciate it!!! :):) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

REWARD:$700

 

I know. Crazy, right? $700 for a pencil? All the kids in Brucebury dug up their pencil cases and desperately brought all the pencils over to Patrick’s house.

“That’s not my pencil,” he would always say.

And they’d mumble things back like, “How would you know?” or “What a waste.”

One day, Patrick’s best friend Marty came over with a bucket full of pencils. After ten minutes, every single pencil was on the ground, but none of them were Patrick’s.

“Come on,” Marty whined. “Just take the pencils, and give me the money.”

“Sorry, dude. No pencil, no money,” Patrick answered.

“How can you even tell the difference?” Marty snapped.

“Oh, trust me. I’ll know when I see my magic pencil,” Patrick assured him.

“What ‘magic pencil’?” Marty asked, confused.

“It’s my pencil,” Patrick yelled.

“Look, if you really want this… ‘magic pencil,’ why don’t you tell us why it’s important to you… Tell us its story,” Marty suggested.

“Fine,” Patrick said.

 

Chapter Two

The next morning, Patrick woke up and ran across the hall where his mom was cooking breakfast. His dad was sitting on the couch reading.

“Hey, Mom. Can I invite some friends over later?” Patrick asked.

“Of course, sweetie. I just need to know who,” his mom said.

“Umm, let’s see. Marty, Stanley, Lola, and uhhh… Susan.”

“Sounds reasonable. I’ll call their parents.”

“Great! Thanks, Mom! Love you!” Patrick called to his mom as he ran back to his bedroom.

He went over to a cardboard treasure chest labeled PATRICK’S BOX OF THINGS. Patrick opened the box and slipped his hand into a secret compartment. He took out a velvet pouch from it. The pouch had the letter “Z” on it. He peeked inside and then stuffed it in his sweater pocket.

DING DONG!

The doorbell rang. Patrick ran down the hall as fast as he could.

He opened the door and said, “What’s up, man?”

“Hey, dude.” Marty patted him on the back.

Next to come was Susan. She only lived a block away.

“Hi, guys,” she said.

“Hey,” they answered.

All three of them went into the kitchen to get a snack. Stanley and Lola came a little later. After they played two rounds of Monopoly, Marty finally tapped Patrick and whispered in his ear.

“What about the… you-know-what?”

“Ohhh right!” Patrick whispered back. “Hey, guys! Come to my room.”

They all ran upstairs, following Patrick.

“Okay,” Patrick sighed, plopping down on a bean bag chair. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and felt the velvet pouch. “So everyone knows why you’re here, right?” started Patrick. Everyone nodded in agreement. “Well, now I’m going to tell you that story.” Everyone leaned forward in their seats. “Okay.” Patrick took a deep breath and then began.

 

Chapter Three

Two months ago, my mom planned a trip to New York City. The first thing we did when we got there was check into the hotel. Then, we went to our rooms and unpacked. Mom and Dad slept in the same bedroom, and I had a bedroom all to myself.

After I unpacked, I started decorating my bedroom with some of my stuff. My pictures, my book, and my clay statue from kindergarten. Then, as I was taping one of my pictures to the wall, something happened. And when I turned around again, I wasn’t in my bedroom… I was in Ethamopia.

“Wait, what’s Ethamopia?” asked Marty.

“Well, you’ll see if you let me tell the story. Now, let’s get back to it,” said Patrick.

As I was walking through the town, I felt like something was different about it. It wasn’t that the squirrels were purple and pink or that the whole town smelled like cotton candy. It was that everyone was two feet tall. And they had pointy ears!

While I was walking, since I was too busy staring at the people in the town, I bumped into someone else.

“Oh, sorry,” I said.

But when I looked up, I saw a girl that was my height. She had dark brown hair, and she was wearing a green beanie hat that was covering her ears.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” she yelled, and then she pushed me behind a bush. She hid with me. “What are you doing here?” she said again, this time whispering.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

She folded her arms. “I know you’re not from Ethamopia,” she responded.

“Well, you’re not two feet tall either,” I said, annoyed.

“Yeah, but I have the ears.”

The girl pulled off her beanie hat, and I saw her pointy ears.

“Okay… ” I started. “That doesn’t mean anything. Plus, that doesn’t explain why you’re two feet taller than everyone else in the town.”

“Come with me,” she said, pulling me up.

“Where are you taking me, and are you going to tell me why you’re taller than everyone else?”

“Yes,” she said. “By the way, my name’s Rina.”

“I’m Patrick,” I said. “Now, Rina, tell me why you’re like a giant to the rest of the town!”

“Fine,” groaned Rina. “Once, a thousand years ago, there was a man named Gilbert Tallson. He’s actually my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-uncle. He lived in Ethamopia in the year 19. Everyone in the town was short at that time, except he wanted to be taller. Since he was very wealthy, he was able to pay for a shot that made him grow faster. He grew to five feet at the age of fifteen. But that shot stayed in his blood, and since I’m blood-related to him, that went through to me, so now everyone in my family is also tall.”

“Okay, so now will you tell me where we’re going?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, we’re going to my aunt’s house… well, my house. I live with my aunt. My aunt is really nice, and she always loves visitors,” Rina told me.

“But… ?” I asked.

She had a look on her face like she wasn’t telling me everything. “But I have a cousin that’s pure evil. Her name’s Minsy, and she’s twelve.”

“Well, I hope we don’t run into her considering we’re going into her HOUSE,” I screamed. We were walking on a brick path. The bricks were painted pink, yellow, and green. We walked into a big, white apartment.

“Here we are,” Rina said.

Chapter Four

Rina opened the big glass door of the building. We walked in. There were two big, red velvet chairs standing in the long hallway. Under us, there was a long, fuzzy, gray rug that covered the whole floor. Across from the chairs, there was a big, brown wooden desk. Behind the desk was a short man sitting in a blue desk chair. He was wearing a green shirt with the word “Joe” embroidered on it.

“Hey, Joe,” Rina said.

“Hey, Rina,” boomed Joe, spinning around in the chair so he could see her.

He did a little wave to me, too. I nodded back.

“So, um, not to be rude or anything, but about your cousin. What do we do so we don’t run into her?” I whispered, sweating.

I was really nervous because I don’t like meeting mean people.

“Easy peasy.” Rina smiled.

She pressed a dull, gray button for the elevator with her thumb. The elevator door opened.

“Woah,” I kind of yelled.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhh,” shushed Rina.

We stepped into the elevator. The walls were painted bright yellow, and there was a purple line that went horizontally around the elevator. The mirror wasn’t crusty. Instead, it was so clean that I could actually see my face in it, unlike other elevators.

“So how come this is what will drive your cousin away? It’s such a cool elevator,” I asked.

“Well, you see, before I came along and fixed this elevator up, it was the dirtiest elevator of all. It had dark gray walls, and the paint was chipped off. So basically, the walls were brown, there were scratches on the door, and the elevator was covered in guck,” Rina explained.

“Woah, so basically everyone tries to get away from it because they don’t know that it’s so awesome?” I asked.

Rina nodded.

“Wait, but one question, what happens if someone does come in?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Rina. “You know how I pressed the button with my thumb? Well, the elevator has a fingerprint detector now, so if it’s not my fingerprint, then gray wallpaper will cover the elevator, and fake slime will cover the mirror.”

She pressed a button, and we felt the elevator going up.

Ding. The elevator door opened. “Oops, I accidentally pressed for the wrong floor,” said Rina.

“Don’t worry,” she said, pressing the door close button quickly. But before the door closed, a girl that looked about our age walked into the elevator. She had short, blonde hair and pale skin. She almost looked like a blonde vampire without fangs.

“Hi Rina,” she said, waving. Rina tried to ignore her.

“Who is that?” I whispered to Rina.

“That’s Minsy,” Rina replied.
“Who is your friend, Rina?” asked Minsy rudely.

“This is Patrick. And we have to go,” Rina said, pulling me out of the elevator.

As we were walking, I said, “Are you just going to leave her in your elevator?”

“Nope. I always have backup in case of that.” She took a small remote out of her pocket and pressed a red button on it. We heard a scream. I think it came from Minsy.

“What did you do?” I asked her.

“Well, I pressed the button that made the elevator look really ugly. There is no way to reverse it unless you have the remote,” she said, waving the remote in the air.

“Cool,” I said. We kept walking, and the scene changed. Now, there was different wallpaper. We walked up to a blue door.

“This is my aunt’s room,” Rina said. We walked inside the room over to a woman sitting in a chair. The woman had brown hair and light green eyes. She looked nothing like Minsy.

“Hi, Aunt Mary,” Rina said, walking over to the woman. “This is my friend, Patrick,” she said, pointing to me.

“Well, hello there, Patrick,” Aunt Mary said. “I am Rina’s Aunt, but you can call me Mary.”

“Hi,” I said shyly.

“So, where are you from?” Mary asked me. “Not to be rude or anything, but are you from Ethilopia, by any chance?”

“Well, no, ummmm. What’s Ethilopia?” I asked.

“The east side of Ethamopia,” Rina answered.

“I’m not from around here, actually. I’m from uhhhhhh… ”

“He’s from the Other Side,” Rina whispered.

“Oh, you are!” Mary exclaimed. “Well, um, do you know how to get back home?”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” I said. “I don’t. Plus, I think my parents are waiting for me back at home, so do you know how to get back?”

“No, unfortunately not. But I’ve really been wanting to visit the Other Side. It seems as if it would have a lot of interesting things there. Well, there actually is one person that knows how, but I’ve never gotten to speak to them.”

“Well, who is it?” I asked desperately.

“He is a wizard. No one knows him by name, though. He lives at the top of Ethamopia, in a tall tower. The problem is, to get in you have to pass a test and no one has ever, ever gotten into his tower.”

“Well, no one has yet,” Rina said.

“What are you saying?” I asked nervously.

“I’m saying that we can try to go to the wizard’s tower. He will probably help you because he has been studying humans from the Other Side.”

“Well, that’s a great idea!” Mary said.
“What’s a great idea?” Minsy asked, walking in.

“Oh, um, nothing,” Rina said.
“Oh, it would be actually wonderful if all three of you went out together on this adventure,” Mary suggested.

“Go where?” Minsy asked annoyingly.

“Why, dear, they’re going to try to go to the wizard’s tower. Rina wants to get her friend Patrick here back home.”

“Why can’t he just walk?” Minsy teased.

“Well, he’s not from around here at all,” Mary explained. “He’s from the Other Side.”

“Ohhh! No wonder he didn’t look like he was from around here. He looked as if he was Ethilopia, but I guess he could be from the Other Side too,” Minsy said.

“Okay,” I said, and all three of us headed out.

 

Chapter Five

“So,” I started as we were walking, “how are we going to find this wizard?”

“Well, I know someone that could help us,” Rina said.

“Hey, are we going in your secret elevator, Rina?”

“Yes, we’re taking that elevator.” Rina rolled her eyes.

Minsy held her palms up defensively. As we turned the corner, the wallpaper changed. Rina walked up to the elevator and pressed the button. All three of us walked into the elevator in silence, and no one said anything until we got to the first floor.

We stepped out of the elevator, and Minsy said, “So what are we doing on the first floor?”

“Well,” Rina said sternly, “we’re going to see Joe.”

“Oh, that doorman?” Minsy groaned.

“Oh,” I said. “Is that the doorman that said hi to you on the way in?”

“Yeah,” Rina said, annoyed.

She ran up to him and said, “Hi, Joe.”

“Hey there, Rina,” he said loudly, then turned to Minsy. “How ya doing?” he said in a small voice.

Minsy didn’t answer.

“Hey, Joe. Do you know anything about the wizard?”

“Oh, you bet I do,” said Joe, jumping up into the air and turning around.

We followed him to a bookcase behind his desk.

“Hmmmmm… the wizard… ” he said, running his finger across the spines of the books on the shelf. “Oh, here it is!”

Instead of pulling the book out, he pushed it into the bookcase. When he did that, the floor we were standing on started going under.

“Woah!” we all shouted.

Then, the floor stopped moving, and we were down in a big room. Each wall was painted a different color. In the center of the room was a big, round table with buttons all over it. There was a bed in one corner and a huge bookshelf in another. And in the back of the room, there were a few video games.

“Wow,” I whispered to myself.

“I know, right?” Joe said. “Welcome to my study-slash-house.”

“You live here?” Minsy asked, eyes wide.

“Yup! And over in that bookshelf, I have a whole collection of books about this wizard.”

He jumped over to where the bookshelf was and scooped a big purple book into his hand.

“Ah, Wizards, my favorite book. Here you go!” he said, throwing the book to me. “Open up to page nineteen, and you’ll see everything you need to know about him. But may I ask, what do you need to know about him and why?”

“Well,” Rina started, “Patrick here is from the Other Side. We’re trying to get him back, and we heard from Aunt Mary the only way to get him back is if we ask the wizard.”

“Oh, then this book will be very helpful, because it will tell you exactly where the wizard is,” Joe said.

He took the book from my hands and opened up to page nineteen.

“See here’s the map that will lead you to the wizard’s castle. It’ll also help you with other stuff.”

“Wait, but this page is empty,” I told him.

“Hmm, maybe it is,” said Joe, smirking.

He handed the book to Rina, and she said, “Great. Thanks, Joe! Now, how do we get out of here?”

“Oh, here. I’ll show you,” Joe said, and he walked up to a red “X” marked with tape and pressed a button. “Come on guys, stand next to me!” We all ran over, and the floor moved up back to where we were in the lobby.

“Okay, bye guys!” Joe said, waving to the three of us as we headed toward the door.

We waved back to him, and Rina said, “Hey, Joe. Do you want to come with us? You seem to know a lot about the wizard. You could really help us.”

“No, I have to stay here, though I would like to come. Tell me how it goes,” Joe said quickly, sitting back in his chair.

“Okay,” Rina said, and we walked out.

Once the door was closed, Minsy said to us, “He was just scared that he was going to get hurt on the journey. He probably did want to go.”
“That’s not true!” Rina said. “I know for a fact that he wants to come! He can’t though, because he works here, duh!”

Minsy crossed her arms and walked ahead of us.

“So, where are we going exactly?” I asked.

 

Chapter Six

“We have to follow the map,” Rina said, annoyed. She opened the map and pointed to a red dot on the map.
“We’re here,” she said. “Creepy. How did it know where we are?”

“No idea,” I said, shivering.
“Well, it’s probably magic,” Minsy said.

“You mean, like, real magic?” I asked.

“Sure, I mean it is a wizard we’re trying to find, right?” Minsy said. I shrugged.

Rina rolled her eyes. “Come on guys, we have to go. The map said this way,” she said, pointing to the map. When I looked over her shoulder, I literally saw the words THIS WAY on the map.

“Well, how do you know it really means the way that we’re facing now?” Minsy asked.

“Well, like you just said. Magic, right? I’m sure it’s this way,” Rina yelled, marching in front of us. Everyone was quiet for a little while Minsy and I followed Rina, who was still marching. Rina stopped. Minsy ran and I up to her. Suddenly, the map changed again. It had an arrow pointing right.

“So does that mean we have to go right?” I asked.

“No, it means we have to go to left… Of course it means we have to go right!” Rina said.

“Sheesh,” I said.

So, we turned right, and we kept walking until Minsy said, “Wait!” She pointed to the map. It seemed to change again. Now, it had an up arrow on it.

“So, does it mean we can go up or forward?” I said. “Because it can mean either,” I added quickly.

“Actually, I don’t know,” Rina said. “That’s a good point.”

“What if we split up?” Minsy suggested.

“That probably wouldn’t work, since we’re trying to get Patrick to the wizard. So if we split up, and the person who finds it isn’t Patrick, then how will they tell the others?” Rina said.

“Okay,” Minsy sighed.

I looked up and then looked straight forward, and then I looked back up. Now, there was a plane — or at least I thought it was a plane — flying through the air. I blinked, and it was gone, almost like magic.

“Woah!” I started.

“What is it?” Rina asked, nervously.

“I think I know what direction we’re supposed to go.” I pointed up to the sky.

Sure enough, in skywriting it said, Go up, then go straight. Sheesh. Why do I have to spell it out for ya? Thought you were smarter than that.

“How are we supposed to go up?” Minsy asked.

We looked back up at the sky, hoping for an answer.

Ay Dios Mio! Ya fly, duh. I thought that was clear in the other message?

Minsy shivered.

“How is that even possible?” I asked curiously.

“Magic,” Minsy declared.

“Seriously,” Rina muttered, folding her arms.

“Yes, seriously,” Minsy said. “And there’s no time for negativity. We have to learn how to fly!”

As she said this, Minsy jumped up into the air and made a Superman pose, but instead of falling back down (which, of course, would happen because, y’know, gravity) she just stood there. Literally hovering in midair right where she jumped up, Minsy was flying. And I’m not exaggerating!

“Wheeee!” she yelled as she went higher into the air. “I’m flying, yippee!”

Now she was pretty high. She was giggling like crazy. Then, I turned around to see how Rina was reacting to this. One corner of her mouth was kind of up, but when I looked over at her, she quickly straightened it.

“It’s awesome, right?” I asked Rina.

Rina shrugged like she’d seen it a billion times before.

“Do you wanna try it?” I asked, and she did that tiny smile again. “Okay, guess not. Bye!”

After I said this, I ran forward and then did a huge jump into the air. Soon enough, I was flying just as high as Minsy. I felt like I was in a mix between a rollercoaster and the Tower of Terror ride. It felt awesome! Soon, Minsy and I were flying over all the buildings. We flew down a little so Rina could hear us.

“Come on, Rina,” we yelled as loud as we could.

“Yeah, to get to the wizard we all have to fly up here,” I explained, still yelling.

“Fine,” Rina yelled back.

Then, she jumped into the air as high as she could, and soon enough, she was flying with us. We all started laughing. Minsy and Rina stared at each other and then turned their backs.

“Now, come on. We have to get to the tower. Chop chop,” Rina called, now flying higher than all of us.

“How are we able to fly like this?” I asked. “You know, other than magic.”

“Well, we learned about this in Mr. Galfrid’s magic mechanics class,” Rina started. “In the last lesson, we learned — ”

“That if you’re searching for the wizard you get ultimate power!” Minsy finished.

“Exactly, and one of the ‘ultimate powers’ is invisibility, so no one can see us flying and all that. It just makes the mission more secret,” Rina said.

My jaw dropped. I thought she was going to say something rude back, but instead she just said, “Exactly?” Looks like I brought these two together.

“What?” Minsy asked, looking at me.

I quickly shut my jaw. “Nothing! Hey guys,” I yelled, floating up ahead. “I think I see the tower!”

“Let me see,” Rina said, gliding to where I was with Minsy floating behind her.

She took out the map and saw a purple tower. She held it up to the tower that I saw in front of us.

“Yup, that’s it!” Minsy said excitedly, clapping her hands.

“Great,” I said.

Then, I flew down from above, down to the ground. I turned to them.

“Since we can see the building now, we can just walk to it,” I explained.

“Okay.” They shrugged, gliding down to me.

But as we were walking, I realized we couldn’t see the tower anymore.

“Wait, what’s happening,” Minsy said, angrily.

“Oh I know what’s happening,” Rina mumbled. “You know how everyone says the tower is on the tip of Ethamopia? Well, it’s actually on the tip. We can only see it if we’re flying high enough, and then we have to go through the door that is in the air.”

“Ohhhhhh. My bad. Come on. Let’s go back up,” I said, getting a head start.

I flew up into the air, and Minsy and Rina followed me.

As we were flying forward toward the tower I said, “What are we even gonna do when we get to the wizard’s castle?”

“I’m pretty sure we have to take some kind of test,” Rina told me.

“What do you mean ‘test?’” Minsy asked nervously.

“Like a test,” Rina explained. “It could be any type of test actually. No one knows. It could be a math test, the state test, a skill test — like running or something. It could be any kind of test! We’ll just have to find out.”

I nodded.

After a little while, Minsy stopped. “WAIT.”

“What? What is it?” Rina said.

“Well, have you noticed that every time we fly closer to the tower, the tower seems to be going, oh I don’t know, farther away,” Minsy explained.

“Oh yeah. She’s right,” I chimed in. “But how is that working?”

“Hm, I’m not sure,” said Rina, quickly thumbing through the pages of the book that Joe lent us.

I thought back to what Joe had said when we were in his study. “Open up to page nineteen, and you’ll see everything you need to know about him.”

“Wait! Rina, go back to page nineteen. Trust me,” I exclaimed.

“But that’s where the map is,” Rina said.

“Well, since it’s been changing this whole time, I think it’ll just tell us what we need to know, and right now we don’t need to know where we are.”

“Okay.” Rina shrugged and opened to page nineteen.

 

Chapter Seven

Minsy and I looked over Rina’s shoulder. Instead of there being a map, which there used to be, now there was a picture of the wizard’s castle, and in front of it was another picture of the same castle. Then, in front of the first castle, there was a dotted line leading to a red dot that said, YOU ARE HERE.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Rina.

We all were quiet for a little bit, thinking of what the two castles could mean.

“Wait!” shouted Minsy. “I think I might know what they mean!”

“What?” I asked desperately. “What is it?”

“Welllll,” started Minsy, “since when we walk, it looks like the castle is getting farther away, maybe the picture means that the first castle is a fake castle, meaning it’s just air, but it looks like it’s real.”

“Ohh, you’re right! So does that mean we’re getting closer to the real castle, but we just can’t see that we are?” Rina asked. Minsy nodded. “That’s actually… a really good idea!”

“Thanks!” said Minsy. “So let’s test it now.”

Then, the three of us started flying towards the mock tower. Eventually, the tower disappeared, but we kept flying. We knew from the picture that the real tower was straight ahead. We were getting really close to the real tower.

I was so excited. I flew ahead a lot and then looked back and said, “Come on guys!” to Rina and Minsy.

They flew up to me, and suddenly, Minsy screamed, “Owwww!”

“What happened?” Rina and I yelled, flying up to her.

“I have no idea!” Minsy said. “I was just flying, and then my head hurt, as if it got hit on a brick wall!”

“That’s weird,” Rina said, thinking. “Wait,” Rina said suddenly. She put her hand up as if she was feeling something. “That’s it! We made it to the tower. We just can’t see it!”

 

Read Part Two here!