Category: Winter 2017

There once lived a man. He picked his nose and saw a booger. It was so magical. It turned into a boy!

“I’ll call you Booger, Jr.”

They called the father “Booger” for picking his nose. Well, this is weird talking about boogers. But once, they had a fight about whose boogers were better!!!

They said very mean things to each other, like “Your boogers are sloppy! They are so blue because you’re sick, and they’re frozen, so you don’t even have boogers!”

“Well, I’m newer, so my boogers are newer and improved,” said Booger, Jr.

“My boogers gave birth to you, so I should have better boogers!”

Well, let’s say things didn’t go so well after that. They separated from each other. Booger, Jr. tried to find somewhere to live. He stayed in a hotel for a while until he couldn’t pay for it anymore. He took some money from his dad.

His dad was pissed that his son took his money, but he didn’t do anything about it. Booger thought it was reasonable because he kicked his son out of the house. Booger, Jr. was a young man, a little boy. He had nothing.

Booger, Jr. needed to make some money, so he started to pick himself on the street. He did it for an hour and only made five cents to stop doing anything. He tried again, but instead of picking anywhere, he picked in a certain spot. His belly button! Then, he made $100 bucks! He was only going to pay for meals and stay on the street for a little bit longer, so that he could save his money for a home.

Meanwhile, the dad was just a drunk, being a big hunk of funk. He was depressed that he said all those things and that his son left him. He decided to look for him and take him home.

Booger, Jr. was sitting very sadly on the street, regretting all those words he said to his father. Then, his dad came.

“Hi, Dad! I’m sorry I said all those things to you.”

“It’s okay. I was thinking about that too. Now, let’s go home and give our boogers a cup of hot cocoa.”

They walked home, and they had the cocoa.

The End

“Mmmmm! This is good,” said Olracnaig, as he munched on a Big Mac at McDonalds. He was alone, after school, at one of the tables in the back. He loved bottle flipping, but he sucked at it. He couldn’t even flip a regular bottle on the table. He was so jealous of his friends because they were so good at it and he wasn’t. He just wanted to get a little bit better. Maybe eating some more will help me feel better. He thought. He decided that he should try to flip a bottle that he had in his bag. He took it out and prayed to God. “Please, let me make this bottle flip.” He got ready to flip. Three… two… one… flip! He saw the bottle in the air. THUD. The bottle laid flat on the table.

Olracnaig felt depressed. No matter how much he tried, he could not get better at bottle flipping. After he finished his Big Mac and fries, Olracnaig decided to head home. As he was about to cross the street, he saw something on the huge McDonald’s sign. It looked like the bottle that How Ridiculous used. (How Ridiculous is a group of men that makes bottle flipping videos on YouTube). Sure enough, it was. Before he knew it, he was climbing up the pole to get the bottle. At last, he was on top of it. He was about to grab the bottle when he lost his grip and fell off the sign. But, just as he was falling, his right hand grabbed the ledge of the sign and he was able to hold on. He pulled himself up and grabbed the bottle. “Yes!” He said. He now had the bottle. He climbed down from the sign and got on the bus. At least Olracnaig had the bottle.

When he got home, he took the bottle to his room. He sat down at his desk and flipped it. It landed! He tried again. Again it landed! He kept flipping the bottle and it always landed. The bottle always landed. He decided that he needed to test it out. He took the bottle and decided to flip it on top of his building. It was twenty flights up. He took the bottle and flipped in the air. It landed on top of his building! He decided to do a crazy thing. In the morning, he got dressed and put on his clothes, then took the train to Fulton street. To the One World Trade Center. Once he got in, he took the elevator to the top of the building. He got to the rooftop. He looked down. Man! It was scary being up that high! Olracnaig took the bottle and flipped it over the side of the building. Down and down the bottle went. He saw it descend towards the ground.

Olracgnaig woke up in the morning. Feeling drowsy. He got on his phone and went to YouTube. He looked at the most popular video. He saw somebody, on top of the One World Trade Center, flipping a bottle off of the roof and having it land on the street. He couldn’t believe his eyes! All of a sudden, Olracnaig’s phone was ringing. He picked it up.

“Congratulations.” The voice said. “This is the NBFA calling to let you know that you have been accepted into the the bottle flipping championship for the NBFA. Your video was amazing!”

“What does NBFA stand for?”

“National Bottle Flipping Association.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want to be in the finals or not.”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, then what are you waiting for? Say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Alright. You and How Ridiculous will be competing in the finals.”

“Wait, what?!”

“I said, you and How Ridiculous will be competing together in the finals.”

“Great. I’m in.”

“Great. Do you have anything else to say?”

“No.”

“Then, you’re in.”

“Wait, what do I have to do?”

“You have to stop talking to me and hang up.”

“I mean, what do I have to do in the finals?”

“You have to flip bottles.”

“I mean–”

“Just shut up. You’re in the finals. Be happy now. Got it?”

“But–”

“Got it? Alright. Now I’m going to hang up.”

Jesus! They could have been there all night. Who hired that woman? She was so terrible at her job that she only made one tiyin a year (a tiyin is from the country Uzbekistan. It is the world’s least valuable coin. It would take about 2,546 tiyin to equal just one penny). But, at least he made it to the finals.

Olracnaig woke up in the morning, excited. He had a big day ahead of him. Today was the bottle flipping finals. The finals were in Los Angeles. Wooooooo Hollywood! Here I come! I need to start packing. He packed his clothing and his special bottle. He couldn’t lose it or he would be doomed. His dad drove him to the airport and left him there. Olracnaig looked for his plane and got on it. Shortly after he left the ground, he remembered that he forgot to take his pills, so he might do something crazy.

Sure enough, Olracnaig felt an urge to open the window of the plane and get on one of the wings and flip a bottle on the plane while it was moving. So, he smashed the window with his laptop, and the whole thing crashed into little bits of glass. Luckily, no one heard because they were all on their phones listening to music. He pulled himself out the window. Bam! A gust of wind knocked him off his feet. Olracnaig pulled himself up on the wing of the plane. He grabbed his special bottle and flipped it on the top of the plane, and it landed. Bam! Another gust of wind knocked Olracnaig off of the wing and he flew through the air. He quickly grabbed the edge of the wing just by his pinkie.

But, then the bottle flew off the end of the plane and descended towards the ground. Oh no! Olracnaig couldn’t just let his bottle get away from him like that. So, he pulled himself up and laid down, exhausted on the wing. He climbed back through the window and grabbed some rope from the emergency closet in the plane, climbed out the window, and attached the rope to the wing. To save time, he dove off of the plane, next to the rope, so he could grab the bottle when he neared the end of the rope. As he fell, he thought of his family and how they would be so devastated if he died. They would be so sad. He would let them down. But, he was sure it was not going to happen.

So, Olracnaig quickly grabbed the rope. Phew! That was a close call. He grabbed the very end of the rope. The rope was so long that he was just above one of the Great Lakes! He looked around for the bottle and saw it! It was drifting away in the water! Olracnaig jumped off of the rope and swam towards the bottle. At last, Olracnaig had it. He swam back toward the rope and pulled himself onto it. He didn’t have any more strength to pull himself up to the plane.

“Please, bottle,” Olracnaig prayed. “Help me get to the plane. Don’t let me die. Just let out your magic powers and do something. Help me get to the plane so I can win the finals. Please. Just do something.”

At that moment, the bottle skyrocketed up while he was holding onto it, as if answering his prayers. Olracnaig could see the plane! He wasn’t going to die! But, the bottle stopped shooting up and he started to fall back down towards the water. But, he grabbed the edge of the wing with his pinkie fingernail, while still holding onto the bottle with his other hand. But, after ten seconds of holding on, Olracnaig couldn’t use any more strength and fell toward the ground. Bam! He hit something hard. He looked at what he hit. It was another plane! Some people got out of the plane and climbed on top of the plane, where he was lying. They had AK-47s and M-16s!

They were going to kill him! But, he could see his plane in sight too! He was saved! He kicked the guys in the nuts, and they fell off of the plane and died. But, there was only one more guy left to get rid of. He had a gun in his hand and was about to shoot Olracnaig. He heard the trigger click and he saw the bullet coming his way. It was like they were in a world of slow-mo. He saw his fate coming towards him. Closer and closer and closer. But, Olracnaig wasn’t going to let himself die like that.

Olracnaig quickly did a flip, while the bullet passed him and hit the tail of the plane. All of a sudden, the plane caught on fire and came crashing down to the ground. He saw the flames creeping toward him. He saw his plane hovering above him. But, that plane was falling down, too, since everyone in it was freaking out, and the pilots couldn’t control the chaos. But, it was falling faster because it was a jumbo jet, and the one that he was standing on was lighter. Soon, Olracnaig’s plane was below the plane that he was standing on. He couldn’t stay on this plane any longer, so he flipped over the guy with the gun and landed on his plane that was heading to Los Angeles. Or used to be, anyway.

Once he got into his plane, Olracnaig went to the cockpit and thought about flying, but then he stopped. He had no flight lessons, so he could endanger all of the humans on this plane. But, he needed to get to Hollywood, and so did the people on the plane. So, Olracnaig grabbed the handles and started to fly the plane. He had to admit, he was actually pretty good at it. He flew the plane all the way to Los Angeles. Once he got to the airport, Olracnaig snuck off the plane and took a bus to the hotel that he would be staying at. Once he got to his room, he fell asleep on the bed. He was so stressed. It had been a long day.

Olracnaig woke up feeling pumped. Today was the day of the finals! But, how could he beat How Ridiculous? They were so good at bottle flipping. But, Olracnaig had the bottle. He was safe. For now. Then he heard a knock on his door. It was the people who were taking him to the finals. They took Olracnaig to their bus, and they drove off to the building where the finals would take place. The place was an auditorium with three balconies and posters all over of Olracnaig and How Ridiculous. Everyone was screaming. There were two gigantic TVs on the stage.

This was how the finals went: Both teams went out, to any destination they wanted, to do the craziest bottle flip ever, and they only got one try and if the bottle didn’t land, then all the other people just had to flip and land a bottle to win. The two TVs showed footage, from cameras, that were on the teams everywhere they went to do a bottle flip. Olracnaig decided to watch what How Ridiculous would do and then do something. When he walked out of the building, all three members of How Ridiculous came up to him and said all together, “You’re going down, boy. Ain’t no shrimp boy gonna beat us.”

Right when Olracnaig heard them say that, he felt so scared. But, Olracnaig knew he could win. If he just believed it. He watched on the TV as How Ridiculous flipped a bottle on top of the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world). But, then he looked closer and saw that they were using the bottle. And it was no ordinary bottle. It was the magic one! Olracnaig ran as fast as he could to his locker room. He looked in his locker and saw that it wasn’t there. How Ridiculous stole it! What was he going to do? Olracnaig was just going to try. But, how could he beat flipping a bottle onto the Burj Khalifa?

Olracnaig decided to do something crazy. He grabbed a regular bottle and walked just outside the building. Then, he threw the bottle up as high as he could throw. He waited. He walked back in the building and watched on the TV as his bottle soared through the air. Somehow, they had put a camera on the bottle. He saw the bottle going up… up… up. And then, after a couple minutes, they all saw the bottle land on the moon. And then, he won. The best thing was that Olracnaig saw How Ridiculous crying. All of the members cried. He hated that group now. Yeah, that was pretty much it. He won, there was nothing much more to explain. Olracnaig was crowned the greatest bottle flipper of all time. What more could he wish for?

San Francisco, CA 12:00 pm

Christian, a 13-year-old boy, was bored at home because his phone was dead and his PS4 wasn’t working correctly. He watched all the episodes of South Park at least five times. All he had was a water bottle filled up to the fourth line. He held the water bottle by the bottom and flipped it into the air. It landed on the cap.

“Oh my God!!!” Christian yelled, loud enough for the windows to shatter and fall on some angry construction workers below. But he was still thinking about bottle flipping. He went to Rite Aid and got more water bottles. As he practiced flipping the bottle, Christian thought this could be his job. Groups like How Ridiculous and Dude Perfect were famous, and he wanted to follow their footsteps. He could even compete with them! Little did he know that this new hobby would later turn against him.

Fliptopia, a planet in a galaxy not so far away

Fliptopia was a planet covered in water. Bottles of all kinds lived there. They were clever and smart, skilled in parkour and gymnastics, armed with water guns and knives, and they loved to dab. They moved by hopping around and other types of transportation we have never heard of. The bottles could also float, and eat and drink. They played sports and had skillz like a boss. But, they were vulnerable to fire.

One day, Flippy Sr., the leader of Fliptopia, was looking through a telescope and saw Earth. Instantly, Flippy Sr. wanted to take over Earth. He gathered all the bottles to the water rocket. Since the bottles had high tech stuff, it only took five minutes to get there.

Washington D.C. 3:00 pm

When the bottles landed, they headed toward the Washington Monument. Once they got there, they got in the catapult one at a time and launched themselves at the monument. Each time a bottle hit the monument, they would dab. All those hits made the monument unstable, and it started to collapse. The other bottles started attacking, and squirting people, and everything else. The humans were fleeing and structures were being blown up. Washington D.C. was being flooded and destroyed!

“Mr. Trump, what are we gonna do?” asked the news reporter.

“Gather the army,” Donald Trump told the general.

Soon the sky was filled with planes and choppers. There were no tanks, soldiers, or ATVs on the ground because it was flooded. They searched the whole capital for the bottles, but Flippy Sr. spied on the president and knew they were wanted, so he told the bottles to hide in a deli so they would fit in with the regular bottles and look like them. Then one dark and quiet night, Flippy Sr. and the dabbing bottles snuck onto a plane to San Francisco.

Austin, TX  2:00 am

About two hours after the plane left D.C., the plane flew into bad weather and had to make a stop at Austin, TX. The news about D.C. was spread around the U.S, and everyone was on the lookout. The general sent troops all around America, so the bottles had to be very careful. They stopped at a bar for some Hennessy. Luckily, the bartender had bad eyesight and didn’t know the bottles were there. The bottles tried to get on a different plane, but this time they were caught by the sheriff.

“Sonny, where th’ heck d’ y’all thank y’all ‘re goin?”

The other cowboys tied the bottles to the horses. Luckily, Flippy Sr. cut through the ropes and escaped.

“Yo boss, should we kill ‘em, or hand ‘em over to the fuzz?” asked cowboy Bob.

“Y’all can’t kill a bottle. How ‘bout we drink ‘em?” the sheriff replied.

The thing was, the water inside the bottles was what made them intelligent and athletic, so the water was like fuel and energy for the bottles. So they are normal, empty bottles without water. The cowboys were about to chug, but Flippy Sr. appeared, behind the cowboys, with the water rocket, and threatened to blast the cowboys if they didn’t let all the bottles go. The bottles tied the cowboys up and left with their horses.

“You-mmph!” The bottles led the horses to the water rocket and then went to California. It only took them thirty seconds to get there.

San Francisco, CA 12:00 pm

Christian walked to ELA with his friends.

“I hate ELA.“

When he got there, everyone was already working on the “Do Now.”

“You’re 10 minutes late to class, boys,” said Mr. Pittard.

Everybody hated him because he made class hard and boring. He made the 8th graders write a three  page essay every week and gave so much HW, even on break. Once, he made the 8th graders read 500 pages of The Biographies of the 45 Presidents, a 2000 page book the 8th graders were reading in ELA. When someone was the first to finish the classwork, he just gave them another essay.

If you didn’t finish the classwork, you stayed in after-school detention from 3:00-6:30 P.M. He also asked the principal to have an extra period for ELA instead of PE, because he thought one hour was too short. So now, ELA was two hours of prison. But today, Christian brought his drone to school, and during homeroom (thank god Christian and his friends weren’t in the ELA homeroom with Mr. Pittard), the drone flew to Mr. Pittard’s office and took a video of him watching Deadpool and playing Black Ops 3 and NBA 2K17 with a milkshake and pizza, and a poster that had a picture of the whole school with a big sticker that said R.I.P. on top.

Christian first posted the video on Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and it went viral. So many people retweeted and replied to the video with comments that violated, roasted, and put down Mr. Pittard. Then Christian showed the video to the principal and he said he would fire Mr. Pittard after the day ended.

“That’s detention for you boys.”

“I didn’t do nothin’!” Christian and his friends angrily sat at their table.

Later during class, Christian asked, “Can I go to the bathroom?“

“Can you?” replied Mr. Pittard.

“I dunno. Can you get a full time job? You got fired for watching Deadpool and playing Black Ops 3.    

You’re terrible at Call of Duty. You can’t even beat the first level.”

“Ooouuu!” shouted the rest of the class. Mr. Pittard’s face grew red, but then the bell rang.

Aaaaahhhh! When they got outside, everyone was screaming and running all over the place. The bottles were attacking outside!               

Christian didn’t know what to do. He ran home and got some weapons. He got his Nerf Terra scout, RC Car, Drone, and BB and Nerf Guns for his friends. He put on a bandana, snowpants, ski goggles and gloves, a coat, a camo winter hat (it was Friday, December 23rd and it was already snowing), and a leaf blower with some matches. Now he looked like a terrorist. He got all the stuff for him and his friends. He met them at his school and started attacking the bottles.

The bottles were blowing up and water was everywhere! Luckily, Christian brought big buckets and put them under the bottles, but some water didn’t land in the buckets. It seemed like every time a bottle was shot, more kept coming. Christian and his friends couldn’t hold them off much longer. To make matters worse, his BB Gun was jammed, and his friends barely had any ammunition. They had to surrender. Christian looked around for the nearest hiding spot, but then the bottles were closing in. The last thing he saw was bottles inches away from him. Then everything went black.

Fliptopia

When Christian woke up, he didn’t know where he was. He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t move. Neither would the rest of his body. All around him he saw bottles and water. It reminded him of an execution. But, he didn’t know he was right. He was tied tight to the ground and tall gates blocked his exit. Security cameras and bottles, with weapons, were watching his every move. One of them came to him with his whole army. It was Flippy Sr.!

“Bring out the torturer.”

Seconds later, several bottles came back with a dangerous obstacle course. It had swinging blades, axes, daggers, arrows, and every other sharp weapon that kills.

“If you don’t want to die the hard way, you will tell us how to take over Earth, and we will give you anything you want for the rest of your life,” proposed Flippy Sr.

“What about my friends and family, and everyone and everything I know and love?”

“They will not be spared. Only you. We’ll come back in ten minutes. If you haven’t decided then, you will die.”

Luckily for him, Christian had the leaf blower attached to his back and matches in his pocket. But that was his only weapon. He scraped the match across the matchbox and attached the flaming match to the leafblower. By now it was getting dark. All the guards were going to their houses for some sleep. Most of them left their weapons behind. Christian grabbed some and hid in some bushes. When it was all clear, he snuck into       Flippy Sr.’s headquarters. He overheard talking.

“It doesn’t make sense. I sent you to look for that kid ten minutes ago! And you come back with nothing?! Get out of here and gather everyone to look for him!”

Then Christian heard two  guards coming downstairs. He went to the elevator. The doors closed just as the guards reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Phew! Made it. Now what?”

The doors opened to Flippy Sr.’s office. The doors locked behind him.

“I’ve been expecting you, kid,” Flippy Sr. said with an evil grin.

Christian was doomed. Flippy Sr. had an AK-47 in his hands. On the walls were rocket launchers, snipers, uzis, machine guns, shotguns, revolvers, flamethrowers, M9s, M16s, and other guns. Jetpacks, traps, lasers, magazines (the ones you put in machine guns), detonators, and bombs were all over the place. One false move, and Christian would die instantly.

“What did you want me for, your honor?” Christian asked.

“This is the final battle. Your death is coming soon.”

Flippy Sr. loaded his AK-47 and pulled the trigger.

“Ugh!” Christian faked it and dropped to the ground.

“I killed him!” Flippy Sr. said as he walked out of the room.

Then Christian got up and got the flamethrower and started burning up the whole place. “Nooooooooooooo!” Flippy Sr. said. “You haven’t seen the last of me!” Then he disappeared in mid-air.

“You haven’t seen the last of me.”

“O-M-G, O-M-G, O-M-G!!!” I scream. Trey Walker is following me! I am so happy, and I go to sleep. I wake up at 12AM because my boyfriend wants to Facetime me, and I see that I have over 12 million followers on Memed. Memed is basically a social media platform where you make your own memes. I scream softly so I won’t wake up my parents, but then I see that I got featured. Featured is when the Memed company takes one meme once a week and sends it to all of its users!!! I scream softly again.

Then, my phone starts to buzz. It must be my boyfriend, so I pick up.

“Hey girl,” says my boyfriend.

“What’s up,” I say.

He says, “I’m breaking up with you.”

I love the way he talks, I think to myself. But, then I say, “Wait, what?!”

Then, he hangs up. I stuff my face in my soft pillow, and I want to cry all night, but my phone buzzes. It’s a call from Trey Walker.

“O-M-G,” I say. “He can be my new boyfriend!”

I hear a voice in my head saying, “Don’t answer it, don’t answer it!” I answer it, and then I find myself in a black and white dome.

***

“Hello!!!” I scream, and my voice echoes.

“HELLO!” I scream again.

Something is pecking at me.

“Who are you?” I say.

“I’m a heart from Memed.”

“Wait, so you’re a heart?”

“Yep, when you like someone’s meme on Memed, I’m the heart.”

“Do you know where I am?”

“You’re in your phone.”

”My phone! How do I get out?!”

“Well, after the phone runs out of battery, you die! You will die if someone does not charge it. You get out by being on 100 percent.”

“But, my phone is not charging.” Well, I guess my mom will put it in the charger. “What’s that?” I say.

It looks like a rainbow.

“Oh,” says Heart, “that’s Instagram Land.”

“What’s Instagram Land?”

“Instagram Land is a place, where, when you walk into Instagram Land, you’re inside Instagram!”

“That’s so cool!” I say. “What’s that noise?”

“Oh no!” says Heart. “The Glitches and Bugs are coming. They’re trying to destroy your phone! We better hide. Quick, over there!”

I follow him because I don’t really understand what he’s saying.

He says, “Jump in this tube.”

“What tube?”

“The Youtube tube! It leads us to Google, the safest place in your phone.”

“What’s that thing in the air?” I say.

“Those are the Twitter birds. They are fleeing to Google.”

“They’re so cute,” I say.  

I hear a buzz. Where is the noise coming from?

“Is that the bugs?” I say.

“No, that’s the mobile strike army. They protect us.”

“But, I never downloaded that,” I say. “Only my brother has it.”

“Exactly, it’s from the Cloud.”

I look up and see clouds.

“When it rains, stuff drops. For example, your brother’s mobile strike, it knows a secret land in your phone.” Heart says.

“Oh, that makes sense,” I say.

“No more talking,” he says. “Jump into the tube!”

***

I do what he says. When I was in the tube, it went so fast, it only took half a second!

“Whoa!” I say. “Who are these guys?” I ask Heart.

“Oh, those are the googlets.”

“Who are the googlets?” I say.

“They are the people who manage your phone. They are basically your minions,” he says. “Just ask them to give you a bag of chips.”

“Okay,” I say.

I ask one of the googlets, “Can I have a bag of potato chips?”

The googlet says, “Anything for you, Princess Violet.”

Then he says, “Guys, Princess Violet is here! She wants chips!”

A hundred little googlets come running at me, carrying bags of chips. Hundreds of googlets say, “Please, can I have your autograph?”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “I will give you all autographs.”

It must have taken a hour to sign them all. I see one huge googlet walking towards me.

“Hello,” he says in a low voice. “I am your assistant. These are your minion googlets. We just heard some news that the mobile strike army won.”

“YAY!” The googlets scream.

“Oh, by the way, just call me Assistant James,” he says.

“Okay,” I say. “Assistant James, can you give me a tour of Google, please?”

“Of course, Master Violet, follow me. So, we start here at the Youtube tubes, then we come to your minions’ offices, they manage your whole phone, you know. Then, we come to my office. I have computers and everything you could possibly want in an office.”

“Cool,” I say.  

“Here are the bitbots. The bitbots help kill bugs and glitches that are hiding in Google. And finally, here are the emojis. The emojis help manage your texts and emails.”

“Hi, emojis!” I say.

One cute little angel emoji walks up to me. He says, “Should I delete your boyfriend’s contact because he broke up with you?”

“Please, do so.” I say.    

“And that’s the end of the tour,” says my assistant googlet.

“This place is awesome,” I say. “Thanks for the tour!”

“Anytime. You and your heart friend over there should explore your phone some more. There are so many great places in your phone, and if you ever need help, just ask me.”

“Okay, bye,” I say.

Then Heart and I head off to Instagram Land. I ask Heart, “Have you been everywhere in the phone?”

“No, I have only been to Memed land and Google.”

“Well, I guess we’re going to see something new today!”

“We don’t have days here because when you’re asleep, I’m still up.”

***

“Hey, look at the sign. It says Instagram Land is only a megabyte away.”  

“A mega bite?” I ask, “what’s that?”

“Instead of half a mile, we have megabytes. Gigabytes are our miles.”

“Wow. What’s that tall building?” I ask.

“It’s the great battery clock,” he says. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, silly me. There is another way to escape. You have to climb to the top of the battery clock, and once you reach the top, you solve a riddle. After you answer the riddle, you open a door, and then you go into a secret room, which I’ve never been in.”

“Why did you not tell me?!” I yell. “Sorry, I get really mad sometimes.”

“Do you want to go in the tower?”

“Sure,” I say. “Let’s go.”

I walk into the tower. I see a fat googlet, who says in a loud voice,”NO ONE BESIDES THE PRINCESS CAN ENTER.”

“I am the Princess,” I say.

“Oh, Princess, I have heard rumors that you were here. Oh, by the way, I’m Axel, chief of the police.”

“Oh, hi Axel. I’m Violet. I’m trying to escape this phone, but I need to get to the top of this tower.”

“It’s 500 stories, are you sure you can climb up all those stairs?” he asks.

“I’m positive.”

After a lot of walking up the stairs, I’m so tired.

“Are we there yet?” I ask Axel.

He says, “Nope, just 490 more floors to go!”

“Can we take a break?” I say.

“Sure,” says Axel.

After a few minutes of resting, I go back to climbing the stairs. Heart says, “My heart is beating so fast!”

I burst out laughing. “Good one, Heart,” I tell him.

After four hours of walking, I’m finally at the top.

“I feel like I’m gonna faint,” I say.

“Let’s take a break,” says Heart, and we do.

***

A few minutes later, we start the riddle. There is a sign that says the riddle. It reads:

You entered this everyday, everywhere. TW, TW. That is who you love. Dum dum dum dum dum. That is what you sum.

“What do you do everyday?” asks Axel.

“Well, I go on my phone,” I say.

“That’s it,” says Heart. “It’s your phone password!”

“But, what about the sum part?” says Axel.

“I know,” I say. “Maybe it’s the numbers of the password added up!”

This is the smartest I have ever been.

“Wow, that’s a good idea,” says Axel. “But, there is still the TW, TW, who you love.”

Heart says, “It must be Trey Walker. Maybe it’s the numbers added up and Trey Walker!”

“What are the numbers added up?” says Axel.

“Well, it’s 3+4+9+6+2. What does that add up to?” I say.

I am so stupid. Heart does a facepalm.

“It’s 24,” says Heart.

“Look, there is the door to enter the code to get in,” says Axel.

I enter the code “24TreyWalker”. It does not work, so I enter “TreyWalker24”. This time it works. I see an elevator, and it says “To enter the human world”.

“I will miss you guys,” I say. “Tell the googlets I say bye.”

Heart runs up to me and hugs me. After the hug, I step into the elevator. They say bye and I say bye back. I press the button in the elevator, and I end up in my bed.

***

“Wake up, honey,” says Mom. “You have been sleeping for two days!”

My body must have been in the real world, but my mind was in my phone.

“I’m gonna take a break from the phone,” I say.

And for the first time, I turn the power off.

This story starts with a little boy named Adam. Adam was a boy who lived in Ireland, in 1845, when the potato famine happened. He lived in a poor house because he was not the richest kid in Ireland. His family lived on top of a bakery. It smelled like baguettes when they would make them. The floor would creak, the doors would break, and the windows would shatter because the house was so cheap. Adam found a potato in a church, and it was glowing.

He was bullied at school because of his clothes. His clothes were ragged, and he wore the same outfit every two days. He also was sad because his family was very sick from the famine. He could not go to school because he had to take care of his family. Later that week, his family died. He hated life now that he had to quit school and work to keep the bakery.

One day, he saw a man, the landlord. He did not like the landlord. He was very tall and wore way more clothes than Adam.

The landlord said, “You’re a little under the house rent.”

Adam said, “I am not getting as many customers as I usually do.”

The landlord said, “I am sorry, but I will need to kick you out of this building. Take your stuff.”

When Adam was counting his money, he saw he had enough to go to America. Yes, he thought, I can finally fulfill my dreams and have a life. Why didn’t I think about this before? The next day, Adam went to the station to buy tickets for America, but then he realized he was one dollar short. He thought, I would have to work for a week! Oh no, the bakery is gone. I would have to wait on the streets for people to give me money… Oh God, please help.

The next day, Adam was on the street, and one person gave him 99 cents. He was happy and mad, but the next minute, a man gave him a full dollar.

“Yes!” Adam said.

So, he got his ticket and was the happiest kid on earth, until he got on the boat. It was terrible. I mean, he could not sleep, but with the power of his magical potato, he slept that night. But, the next day, he realized his potato was infected with the blight. He knew because it was turning black.

Adam made a friend named Paul. Paul had a family with a lot a food. Paul shared food with Adam because he was his friend, and he had a lot of food.

In the night, Adam was trying and trying to go to sleep, so Paul woke up and helped him go to sleep. Adam was so happy. Paul taught him how to go to sleep, so Paul and Adam had a great ride. On Ellis Island, he was so scared to be sent back to the streets of Ireland. He got inspected for everything, but he was safe. He could go to America and be safe. Yes! he thought.

Now, where would he work? His only real talent was writing. He learned to write because he went to Writopia in Ireland. His Writopia teacher was Kael. He heard Kael was the best teacher in Writopia. Paul gave Adam some paper to write on, so Adam got started. Paul also let Adam stay with him. Adam started writing about this boy whose family died in the famine. Paul did Adam a lot of favors, but Adam still had to pay half of the rent for their house.

He said to Paul, “I will pay my part of the rent when my book gets published,” but before Adam could get his book published, he had to get a publisher. This was another favor from Paul. Paul got him a publisher.

It took four months for Adam to finish his book. When Adam finished his book, he got it published by his publisher, and in a few days, it became a bestseller. Adam could pay the rent! Adam kept on writing, and he became a famous writer. Adam moved to the Upper West Side and bought a home for Paul too. Life was great for Adam and Paul, and Adam had ten best sellers! But, he missed the smell of those old baguettes.

Once upon a Thanksgiving, there was a turkey’s dead friend, who was being eaten on Thanksgiving. The turkey (that was alive) was named Turkusin. He made it his goal to get revenge on the family that ate his friend. He only had one year to do it! So, now, he needed a plan to escape the evil demon cage. The cage was seven feet tall. Turkusin thought and thought, until he came up with a plan!

His plan was to play dead, so when the family came with a refill of turkeys, they would take him out, so that the other turkeys wouldn’t eat him and so the family could eat him.

When the mom took him out, he started to poke her with his beak. Turkusin knocked her out. He grabbed her shirt, and threw her in the basement, and locked the door.

One down, fourteen to go.

If you were thinking that there was no way he could do it, well, you were wrong because I tricked you. So you should be ashamed. It was one down, three to go.

The turkey hid under the porch, sneaked into the house, and hid there until nighttime, and that’s when he attacked. The family (not including the mom) was having dinner. They were talking about the mother and asking where she was. The turkey came out from his hiding place and made the noise that turkeys make.

The dad looked at the turkey and said, ‘’You mother turkey, you killed my wife.”

‘’I locked her in the basement,’’ replied the turkey in English.

‘’Did you just speak English?” asked the dad.

“Yes, I did,” said the turkey in English.

The dad picked up a knife to kill the turkey, but the turkey was too fast and took the dad and the two kids, and locked them up in the basement. He thought that was the end of them.

But the dad still had the knife in his hand, and so, he opened the door and tried to sneak up on the turkey. But the turkey had quick reflexes, and the dad missed him. The turkey took a step back, and the battle began!!!

It was the turkey versus the dad, the mom, the son, and the daughter.

The turkey was surrounded, and when the family attacked all at once, the turkey jumped up in the air, and the family all crashed into each other, and they fell on the floor. When they got back up, they continued to fight. The turkey started to scratch them.

The family went back into the house and locked the door. They packed their bags and ran away with everything they could carry! The turkey took all the turkeys out of the cage, and they kept the house. It was like a mansion for the turkeys! And the day they got it, they threw a gigantic party!

THE END!

Chapter 1: The Underworld

“Where am I?” I said. I wasn’t in the freezing chamber. I was somewhere else. The last thing I remembered was that I was a servant, and the king was mean to me. I got beheaded for trying to escape and wanting to be a king.

I saw people, with green faces, on gray ladders connected to the red floor. They were holding gray hammers and hammering a red ceiling. I saw a green person, with a gray bow tie, walk towards me.

“Welcome to the Underworld, where all dreams are crushed,” he said.

“What?” I said, confused.

“You’re in the Underworld. You’re dead!” the man with the bow tie said.

“I’m dead?!” I said a little too loud. The green people all looked at me.

“Oops,” I said, embarrassed.

“Get to work,” the bow tie man said.

“What?” I said.

“Hammers,” he said and pushed me into a pile of hammers, which would have hurt, but luckily, I stopped myself before hitting the pile. I saw another pile of hammers and thought I could take it. I took a hammer and followed all the other gray people, marching single file.

“Hello, friend!” one of the gray persons said. “I’m Bill. This is Jack, Bob, Simon, Logan, James, Thomas, Alexander, Aaron, John, Philip, George, Charles, Samuel…”

*Two hours later*

“And Noah,” Bill said.

“Okay, let me try. John,” I tried.

“Bob,” Bill corrected me.

*Four  hours later*

“And James,” I guessed.

“Noah,” Bill corrected me.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll try again.”

*Two hours later*

“And Noah,” I said.

“You learn fast. Some people take a year before they get all the names right.”

By the time we were finished, it was time to go back, but before we went, Bill told me that I was in workspace 10,000,002,020,000,456,000,700,001,000,445,006,000,002 with Bill, Jack, Bob, Simon, Logan, James, Thomas, Alexander, Aaron, John, Philip, George, Charles, Samuel, and Lucas. I went to the Agdadey Hotel (their catchphrase is “Where all dreams are crushed”). The place was covered in black and skulls. Instead of having classical music in the lobby, they played scary and dark music, the kind that made you fall to the ground. I walked around the lobby, trying to find someone to help me find my room. Then, I shrieked.

“Hello!” a joyful voice said. “I’m Goodandbad. I’ll be your guide through this wonderful adventure of death!” He said death in a horrifying voice. “I’ll show you to your room!”

“Okay,” I said, a little scared.

“This way!” he said. “Your room is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,034 on floor 67,567,567,480,846,895,067. Yay!” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, and walked into my room and turned the light on.

“Roooar!” a voice said. Then, I got punched in the face by something that fell from the ceiling.

“Ow!” I said to myself. “This is going to be a long Underworld!”

I saw a hammer and a pin on my bed. Then I saw a keyhole. I took the pin and made it like a key, and then put it in the keyhole and twisted it. Then I took the pin out, and a door opened like magic. There was another locked door, but this time there was no slot for a key. I started to feel hopeless. I wondered what was behind the door, but I walked to my bed.

“Oww!” I said. My head hit something. I grabbed it. It was the hammer! I took the hammer, forming an idea in my mind. I slammed the hammer on the door. A little piece broke. I kept slamming it, and soon the door was ruined. I touched it with my finger, and the whole thing went down. I saw a circular switch behind the door. I saw a pointy thing that was pointing to Scary, but there were other things, like Christmas and Amusement Park. I touched the switch and the pointy thing moved a little bit. I touched it again, and it landed on Christmas. Then, the whole room changed to red and green, and a Christmas tree was next to my bed. Under the Christmas tree were lots of presents. I tried to open them, but when I looked at myself in the mirror, I was Santa. I had a white beard and red coat on. I decided to ignore my Santa outfit and open the presents to see if there was anything important. I opened one, and it was a crown.

“Ooh, a crown,” I said to myself.

I tried it on, and it fit perfectly on me. I opened a big present. It was a throne. I sat on the throne, wondering if every hotel room had the same presents. The third and last present was a staff made of gold. I felt like a king, and put the crown and staff on my bed. I moved the throne to right next to my bed. I walked toward the door to see if other switches were like this. I touched the switch in my room, and it changed to Halloween. The lights turned off, and jack-o-lanterns lit up the room. I looked at myself, and I was a skeleton. I saw a pot of candy on my throne, and so I unwrapped it, but instead of having candy behind the wrapper, the candy instantly turned into a crown. Surprised, I unwrapped another one, and it turned into a throne. Another one turned into a staff.

Suddenly the throne, the crown, and the staff, that I had opened in the presents, disappeared. I opened other candy wrappers, but they were just candy. I walked to the door and flicked it to Amusement Parks. The room changed into chaos. There were sounds of people screaming, and in the middle of the room, there was a huge big roller coaster, and there was cotton candy hanging from the wall. I changed this to movie theater, and a big screen on the wall appeared. There were big, red seats in front of the screen. Instead of cotton candy on the wall, there was popcorn. This seemed cool, but I changed it to fancy restaurant, and the room played fancy music. There were candles on each table, and invisible waiters were handing out food. I changed it to the last option, video games. I turned into pixels, and the hotel changed into my course. I ran around the hotel room, but a shell hit me.                             

Chapter 2: Day One

“Wake up. Wake up, room 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,034.”

“Wha-wha,” I said, confused, but the sound of a loud trumpet woke me up.

“You’re late for work,” the voice said. I opened the door and saw Goodandbad standing outside in the hall.

“You’re late for work!”

“Okay,” I said. Then, I raced out of the hotel and onto the main grounds. The elevator ride took forever. I looked and saw hundreds of thousands of people working and hammering on the ceiling. The sound almost made me deaf. A person in a tie and suit gave me headphones. When I put them on, I could hear everything, except for the loud annoying sound of the hammering. I walked toward someone I knew: Bill. I asked him where to go, and he said to go on this ladder and start hammering.

“Where’s my hammer?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” Bill said with a wink.

I climbed up the ladder and at the top step, a hammer magically appeared. I started hammering the ceiling. I hammered and hammered and hammered, until my shoulders drooped, and I could barely hold the hammer. (Also, it was time for lunch.) I climbed down the ladder and followed the hundreds of thousands of people going into the enormous cafe. I grabbed a gray tray and waited in line, till I saw food. The food was mushy and wet. It was also gray. The food was not labeled, so I grabbed the first thing and then sat down. I sat down with my workspace people. They were furiously eating their food like it was the best thing in the world. I picked at my food, not wanting to eat it, but I was starving, so I took a very, very small bite. I expected it to taste like poop, but instead, it tasted like s’mores and candy mixed. I ate another bite, and it tasted like it was supposed to, gray and mushy.

“Yuck,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bill. “Ohh, you have the switcheroo mush.”

“The switcheroo what?”  

“It’s one of the meals where the taste changes every time. Try it again,” Bill said, pointing to my food.

“Okay,” I said, a little bit worried.

Then, I took a bite. It tasted like mashed potatoes.

“Try this one, it’s called the Underworld Heaven.”  

He pointed to his plate. I took a bite, and it tasted exactly like its title, Underworld Heaven. After eating a lot of my friend’s food, it was time to go back to work. But, before we all got back to hammering, we had to do our daily count. We all lined up in a big line. A robot quickly counted all the people and then told the head that one person was missing. Then, after the head person talked a little to his assistant, they told the robot to find the missing person. The robot turned into a smaller robot.

“For disguise,” Bill whispered to me. Then, the robot launched up into the air and, a few seconds later, came back down with a person, who was trying to struggle out of the robot’s tight grip. When the robot landed on the floor, the robot turned into a beheader, and the head of the Underworld pulled the beheader up and let it go. When the beheader thing hit the person’s head, the person disappeared into thin air. I watched like I was in a trance when Bill patted me on my back.

“Get used to it,” he said and then smiled at me.

The next four hours went by like a blur. While I was hammering, some people from the other work were next door.They looked at me and bowed, then they called me majesty. I didn’t know if it was a very weird welcoming gift, or if something was up. Either way, I was gonna find out. While I was hammering, I talked to the other people in my workspace. I figured out that they died a little before I died.

After I was done with work, I headed back to my room. I opened the door and saw that my room was totally trashed. I looked outside and saw all the rooms were trashed too. I followed the people to the elevator. One person told me that we were going to the head of the rooms. We rode the elevator ride down and stormed up to the head of the rooms. When the head of the rooms saw us, he acted surprised and tried to back up, but there wasn’t any room, so he banged his head and ended up on the floor.

“Why were our rooms a mess?!” one person said.

“Yeah, my bed was stolen!” another voice said.

“I-I don’t know,” the head of the rooms said, worried.

“I know,” a person approached. He had a black mustache, buck teeth, and looked very, very suspicious.

“At the bottom of my bed, there was a note. I’m sure all of you had it under your bed too, but you all were too lazy to find it.”

There was mad screaming in the crowd. The note said:

Hello fellow roommates,

I know you are mad

Your room was deserted.

It is very sad.

This is a clue.

To find your luck,

A special person must find you and find you, you’re cluck.

The person is a servant, but only right now, but soon, you’ll see that he is not me.

Your room will be back and so will your bed.

But, if you ignore me, it will be bad. So find the person, take a quiz.

The person is special and that’s no wiz.

The people mumbled to each other and then went back to their rooms. When I opened my door, my room was totally clean! The walls sparkled. Then, I wondered about the mystery person. I told myself not to worry about it and just ignore it. Then, I fell asleep.

Chapter 3: Day Two

This time, I made sure that I woke up early, so Goodandbad didn’t wake me up. When Goodandbad was at the door, I swung the door open, and hit him right in the face. Then, I totally ignored him, even though that was a bad idea because I forgot to close the door. At first, I was really worried because I thought my room was in video game or movie mode, but it wasn’t. Instead, it looked like a normal hotel room, with the bed neatly made and had no special surprises.

“Sorry,” I said and closed the door.

Then, I went to the elevator and started working.

“Good morning,” said Bill.

“Good morning,” I said.

“You forgot your headphones,” Bill said.

I was so happy about the day that I totally forgot about the loud, annoying sound. I climbed down the ladder and walked towards the headphone bin. I put on a pair and then adjusted the sound so that I could hear the people, but not the hammering. Then, I started hammering. I hammered until lunch. Then, I got in line. I waited, but not for too long, since there were 100 servers. I read the labels. Switcheroo, heaven, horrible, mashed potatoes, (they really like mashed potatoes)  dessert, old, boring, lunch, breakfast, dinner, brunch, wet red boots, car gas, page, word, book, and wet white boots. Some sounded disgusting! I looked at the special, “you’ll like it!” I decided on dessert and the special (“you’ll like it!”). I sat with my work space.  

“Yuck,” Logan said.

I looked at my food. It sure looked bad, but I knew that it was actually good. I took a bite of the special.

“Yuck,” I said and spit it out.

“You didn’t tell him?” Bill said to the other people.

“Tell me what?” I said.

“Listen, every other day is opposite day, so you have to take the bad food which is actually good.” Bill said.

“Oh, come on!” I said. There were a lot of things that I would have to learn about the Underworld.

“Is there any way I could clear my plate?” I asked.

“Sure,” Bill said, and then snapped his fingers.

My food vanished into thin air.

“Woah!” I said. Then, I snapped my fingers, but it wasn’t the best move since I pointed my snap to the ceiling. Everything in the room (including the room), except the people, vanished. The crowd turned towards me and started walking towards me, looking very angry. I snapped again and again, but it was no use.

“Ugh,” Bill said. “Do I have to do everything here!”  

Then he snapped his fingers, and everything turned back to normal.

“Don’t make me do that again,” Bill said, glaring at me.

My plate was cleared, so I went back and got more food. I got wet red boots. I sat back down at my table, but before I could take a single bite, a loudspeaker screamed into my ears and told us that lunch was over. I walked back over to my working space but before I got there, someone stopped me right in the tracks.

“Wait, are you the King Charles?” said the man.

“Sorry, what?” I replied, confused.

“The King Charles!” He replied. “Ehh, must be someone else, but you look just like the King Charles that I knew about when I was in the real world.”

And then he walked away.

I was getting kind of suspicious about this king thing. A lot of people were calling me king, even though I was the exact opposite of a king!

That night, I was in bed, and my dream was crazy. I was the king and I had lots of servants below me. I was a very mean king and had a servant as my foot rest. I had a servant who was just like me, who had the same job as me. But later, in my dream, it turned out he was a wizard! That was when I woke up.

Chapter 4: The Tour

I woke up and went to work. I saw Bill, and he told me he would take me on an Underworld tour. We started on the machine room. There was a big robot who had lots of hands.

“That’s the hammer robot,” Bill said. “It’s supposed to be faster, stronger, and quieter when it’s done.”

A guy with frizzy white hair and wrinkles was working on it.

“Wait, is that Albert Einstein?” I asked.

“No that’s Eibert Alnstien, Albert’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson.” Bill replied.

“Oh, I said.”

We approached a door that had a sign on it. The sign read: DO NOT ENTER. MAGICIANS AT WORK.

Bill ignored the sign and opened the door. When I saw the room, my eyes went crazy, and I thought I would die.

“Hey,” one man shouted. “What are you doing!”

Then, Bill quickly shooed me out of the room.

“W-wha,” I said, confused.

“Sorry about that,” Bill said. “It’s a little crazy in there.”

After two minutes, my eyes were back to normal. We went on to the next room, the hammer room.

“It’s where they make all the hammers,” Bill said. We opened the door. There were billions of hammers.

“Why do we hammer anyway?” I asked.

“So we can break through the Underworld and come alive again!” He said excitedly.

We went to the next room. I was surprised to see the label on the door: The Dream Room. There was another sign below it that said: Do not come in!

Again, Bill ignored the sign and opened the door a little so I could see. I took a peek inside. There were a few people. There was a big screen in the front of the room. There were thousands of buttons. I closed the door. Then, I thought about my dream about me as a king.

“Do they actually control the dreams?” I asked.

“Yeah, why?” Bill replied.

“Nothing,” I said back.

I didn’t want to tell him about my dream. After that, we went to other rooms, like the aquarium, the zoo, the kitchen, the holiday room, the party room, and more. After the tour, we went to the cafe for lunch. I didn’t know what to get, so I got some good things and some bad.

At the table I ate in silence, thinking about my dream. If the people controlled the dream, they had to know something that I didn’t! I had to talk to them!

I secretly snuck out of the cafe. I went through the hallways, until I got to the Dream Room. I opened the door very carefully and tiptoed inside. No one had noticed me, so I decided to distract the workers. I pretended to be a worker and said that it was lunch break. That seemed to work, and all the dream workers left for lunch. I stayed back and saw my chance to figure out this mystery. I didn’t know how to control the keyboard, but I soon got the hang of it.

I saw thousands of pictures and people. Some were really cool; for example, one dream was with someone flying over everyone and killing zombies. But, other ones were really disturbing, like the one where an old man was taking a bath with his rubber ducky! I saw a button that would lead me to my dreams, and so I pressed it. I had only a few dreams in the Underworld, so it wasn’t hard to find the king one. I pressed it, and I replayed my dream.

After I watched it (twice), I saw a little writing below it. I zoomed in, and I almost fainted when I saw what it said: Charles is royalty, so make dreams about that.

How was I royalty?! I had to figure this mystery out! Then, I heard the door open. I had to hide. But where? I hid under a table and hoped that I wouldn’t be found. Then, I realized that I hadn’t closed the notes!

“Hey! Someone was messing with Charles’ dreams!”

Charles? That’s what the man said to me before, King Charles! Something was up! (Again.)

“Who was here?” asked another man. Then someone saw me.

“Him,” a person shouted and pointed to me.

I started to run out the door, but there were a lot of workers, and they caught up to me. Two people grabbed my shoulders. I squirmed, but the grip was too hard. I tried and tried, but still, I could not get out. They pulled me into a chair and strapped me down. A man walked into the room.

“What did you see?” he asked.

He was so close to my face. I could even smell his bad breath!

“I was only looking for my dreams,” I said, nervously.

“Didn’t you read the sign?” he asked.

“Yes,” I mumbled.

“Who are you?” he asked calmly.

“He’s Charles!” another man said.

“You!” he said, with a look of disgust on his face. “So, you’re that Charles guy.”

A man came forward and whispered something to the man in front of me. The man in front of me turned white as a ghost. He unstrapped me and let me go.  

I couldn’t believe my luck, but when I got back to hammering, everyone was staring at me. Then, they started walking towards me. I think it was because I missed work. I was too scared to move. They came closer and closer.

“Stop,” yelled the man, who was talking to me in the Dream Room. “He is a former king!”

Everyone gasped. Then, they backed up slowly, like they were afraid of me! I walked toward the ladder and started working.  How could I have been king? I thought. I needed to get back to the real world! I hammered with all my might, nothing. I got two hammers and hammered with all my might, nothing.

I hammered till it was time to leave. But, instead of leaving, I snuck out again. I went around the Underworld. Bill had showed me all of the rooms, except for one. I had noticed it when we were walking around. It was labeled Portal Room. I went inside and saw a round, blue thing. I put my hand in it, and it disappeared. I took my hand out and it reappeared again. I took a step back and saw a sign that said: Do Not Enter! Still Testing!

I shivered a little and took a step inside. Then, I took another.

To be continued…

First of all, you think that gummy bunnies are soft and harmless, but what you don’t know is that they have a secret weapon. It’s gummy, and it’s yummy, and you can’t resist it.

Everybody give it up for gummy bunnies’ favorite gummy men! Gummy bunnies!! That is how tough gummy bunnies really are. Gummy bunnies! Gummy bunnies!

Now that’s more like it. You think they’re just harmless, but they can be tough when they want to be tough. We weaklings just can’t see it in action. That’s why gummy bunnies are transparent. They don’t go around giving out presents and eating mint pie and orange juice. Instead, they go and fight the monsters that attack our dreams and turn into nightmares. Gummy bunnies do the best they can to fight off the nightmares, but sometimes, they miss the nightmares because one of us weaklings are walking by, and they can’t be discovered fighting. The reason we can’t see the nightmares go past us is because they’re invisible to the human eye.

Lesson 101

Which time did gummy bunnies come from?

They’re timeless and more are coming for the nightmares. More nightmares are coming for you too. If you have a dream catcher, throw it away. The dream catchers are useless. They never do anything good, except decorate your house. Bring gummy bunnies to the house, and they will defend your house, but don’t lock up your bunnies, or else they can’t defend your apartment or house, and the nightmares will come get you and take you to the dream world. The evil part, not the good part.  

There’s nothing funny about gummy bunnies… except that they leave gummies on the floor when they need to do their thing, you know what I mean? When they need to go?

Okay moving on to Lesson 102.

Lesson 102

Nightmares

The red gummy bunny means it doesn’t have an owner and is angry that he can’t find one.

The blue one means it’s excited because it thinks it’s almost won its owner. If you have any questions about when I said it’s almost won its owner, don’t ask it because I will teach you about it in Lesson 103.

Anyways, the reason the white ones are white is because uhm… the white one is just reformed out of your butt; it’s white because you sucked up all the color from it.

If there is a bunny that is suffering, it floats, and you eat it. Then, it gets better and is born again, and is also ready to start defending your house. Again.

Lesson 103

Winning your owner

There are tons of gummy bunnies out there wanting an owner, so they have a contest about who can fight the most nightmares in one hour. If you cheat, the same judges always goes with them. The bunnies never die unless they start to rot. Then, they have to join a battle in the underworld.

Lesson 104

The Battle

In the bunny underworld, there is a war between the daydreams and the nightmares which might never end again.

The gummies are on the daydream side, but when every nightmare dies in the underworld, they get transported back to the living. Then, the same thing happens in the living.

There is a way to defeat them but that’s lesson 106.

Lesson 105

Nightmares  

A good girl turns evil when she is possessed by the nightmares. Monn (Moon) is now Nightmare!

Oh, sorry. Let me be more specific. Her first name is Night and last name is Mare.

NM is creating more and more nightmares by the minute! She has been doing this for 10,000 years, and she started when she was only four and then got out of control when she had her nightmare test.

First, it was just a simulation. Then, the nightmare somehow thought that Monn was a good target and opened a portal in the simulation, Monn was so shocked, that she had lost her confidence and strength. So the nightmare went inside her and fought her soul, and since she had no confidence, the nightmare took over easily.

Monn is getting weaker and weaker, and the nightmare is getting stronger. It’s getting harder and harder for Monn to fight the queen and king of nightmares. Her soul is giving us messages, but they are very weak and fuzzy

Hopefully, more and more gummy bunnies are being pooped out and getting ready to fight, even if they don’t have a owner. The resulting color of a ready-to-fight gummy is a blend of red and brown and green. Even if you eat it, it will come back out as the war color.

The dark red stands for the bunny blood that pours out of the melting gummies, but then revives. The brown stands for the underworld and the war. The green stands for the gummies getting squashed, then turning green, and then reforming in the living world as a ghosts. The ghost has to fight a nightmare ghost to become living again. Nightmares are the foulest creatures on the face of the earth, but nobody believes us bunny researchers.

Back to the nightmares. They are called the lords of the dark, the kings of the darkness. Anything you can think of with evil sounding words in it.

In the gummy bunnies nursery, at first, all bunnies are different colors, but when they go through the door of life, they get transported to the human world. They get ready to be put in a bag or a jar. A nature fairy, who has a very close relationship with the lost fairy, takes care of and trains the baby gummies to prepare for the wars or to fight for the wars.

Her. The lost fairy. She can defeat the nightmares, her! She’s weak, alone, and lost, somewhere on the face of the earth. With one flick of the wrist, the nightmares will go away. We don’t know where she is, but she’s hurt.

We almost have enough research to find her and heal her, but we have a contact system. Since we have clear messages, then that means she’s nearby. Her notes are long, so she’s healing by herself, but she needs medicine. We will find her someday, I hope.

Chapter One

It was a dark and stormy night. I was fast asleep when a big flash of lightning woke me up.

I checked the time. It was midnight. I climbed down from my bunk bed, drank some water, went to the bathroom, and got back in bed. My dad woke me up in what seemed like seconds. It was the last day of school, so I was excited. As usual, my dad had to pry my brother out of bed, while I was getting ready. I changed, brushed my teeth, ate my breakfast, put on my shoes and backpack, and walked out the door with my brother and my mom.

When I went out the door, I immediately noticed something strange. It was really windy and very quiet. There weren’t that many people on the street. When I got to school, everybody had transferred from breakfast to our first subject. It was a half day, so we got picked up at twelve o’clock.

Finally, it was twelve o’clock. My babysitter picked me up from school. I was walking home, when suddenly something came out of the ground (which I thought was a white race car going three hundred miles per hour). And before I could tell everyone, it was gone in one big flash of light. When I got home, I started playing on my phone. I decided to forget what had happened on the street.

Chapter Two

When I got home, I immediately started playing on my phone. My baby sister kept tapping on my leg. I asked my dad to bring snacks for the movie that we were going to watch. He said he would. He also said he would get pizza. When my dad came home, we started the movie. When it ended (which was at midnight), we went to bed. I tried to go to sleep. Then, I saw something that made my eyeballs pop out. I knew right away that it was a ghost.

First, it was quiet, and then it said, “I will haunt you.”

And then, in a flash, it was gone. I instantly fell asleep, and in the morning, I washed my face and forgot about what had happened at night. My dad told me that my brother and I had to go to baseball camp tomorrow. I liked baseball, so I immediately got excited. I was not really happy that I had to go to sleep, because the ghost would maybe appear, like it did the other night. But it did not show. I think that meant something, but I did not know.

Chapter Three                          

The next day, I woke up early to go to baseball camp. It started at nine o’clock a.m., so I had to be very quick. I got changed, brushed my teeth, put on my clothes and shoes, and waited for my mom and brother to get ready. Once they were ready, we got into a taxi and went to seventy-fourth street.

My coach told us that we had to go to the park to play baseball. We went down to the park and started a game of baseball. My team won. It was finally time to go home. I took the bus home. But when I came home, I saw something that made me faint. My parents were gone.

I was so stunned, I almost jumped out the window. Once I told my brother what happened, he passed out. It took him a long time to recover. I looked in their bedroom, and they were not there. I looked in my bedroom, and they were not there. Then, I went to the kitchen, and I found a note. It said: I have captured your parents. I have taken them all the way to LA.

“Darn it,” I said. “Now I have to get on a plane, and go to LA!!!”

But I did not have enough money. I went to my parents room. Luckily, the ghost did not take my parents’ credit card. I took the credit card and booked a flight for tomorrow, at seven p.m. I didn’t think my parents were ever going to forgive me for stealing their credit card, but I had to for their sake. I put everything I needed for the flight, and the ghost catcher, because I had to catch the ghost. I also helped my brother while he watched the duck song. I went to bed early. When I woke up, it was four o’clock.

“Perfect” I said.

My brother was already awake, which was good since he usually got up late. We got ready and went to the airport. It was 5:59. We got out of our taxi, checked in, and went through security. Then, we went to Shake Shack and got hamburgers. Our plane was at gate B7. We boarded the plane. I had booked a business class seat for me and my brother. So, that meant I would probably be grounded for some time. But I guess it was worth it. I watched a movie, took a nap, and then we were there!

We got into a taxi and went to the building the ghost said to go to. And they were there. I snuck in, past the doorman, and went to the elevator. When we reached the top, we saw our parents. Still alive, thank goodness.

“Hey,” we both said.

“Hey,” my parents said.

I tried to untie the rope they were tied to, when something hard hit me and made me bleed. It was the ghost.

He shook the ground and said, “Wah-Ha-Ha-Haaa.”

“Let them go,” I said.

“Never,” he said. “They did not believe in me, so I captured them.”

Then, I got an idea. I was going to make my parents fake believe that they believed in the ghost, and then I would capture it and free my parents.

I said to the ghost, “My parents believe in you.”

I gave them the stare that said, “Say yes.”

Then my parents said, “Yes, we believe in you.”

So then the ghost let them free, and then I immediately opened the ghost catcher, and captured the ghost! I untied the rope, and my parents and my brother and I went all the way back to the airport, got on the plane, and went back home.

When we got home my dad immediately started the punishments!

“Punishment number one, you are not even touching your electronics for one month!” my dad said. “Punishment number two, no movie night on Fridays for one month. Punishment number three, because of what happened just now, we will not be going anywhere, anytime soon.”

I shrugged and went to my bedroom to play with my puddy. My parents were back, and I was feeling… okay and my brother was playing with my sister. That night when I went to sleep, I tried to forget what happened. I could not wait for the day ahead of me.

There was a brick named Bobzilla. He was in a mud pile on a grassy field far away from his wall, where his family was. His dream was to fit in with his family.

His family made fun of him. They were normal, red bricks, but he was pink. His brothers and sisters said that they didn’t want a pig in their family. He was really sad. He was crying and making a sad face. So, he ran away from his family, never looking back.

He ran to a field of grass — nice, pretty green, fresh grass. He felt happy because he was away from his family, and there would be no one to call him a pig.

He met his best friend. His best friend’s name was Bob. Bob was a frog. They both loved doing the same games and eating the same foods. But, Bobzilla didn’t know if he could trust Bob completely, yet, because they had just met a few minutes ago. So, he didn’t tell him why he ran away.

They played a game of truth or dare, and Bob told Bobzilla about a secret that he didn’t tell anyone before. Bob’s secret was that he was originally a person, and an evil sorceress turned him into a frog. He started eating things as a frog and doing the things that a frog would do, and he finally realized that it was kind of fun to be a frog because you get to jump around everywhere. He was still himself.

Bob asked Bobzilla if there was anything wrong.

Bobzilla said, “Yes, there is.”

But, Bobzilla didn’t know if he wanted to tell Bob. So, Bobzilla told Bob if he could play a round of truth or dare to tell a secret.

“Yes,” Bob agreed.

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth,”said Bob.

“Tell me your biggest secret,” Bobzilla asked.

Bob said,  “My biggest secret is that I was once a person, but an evil sorceress turned me into a frog, but I like my frog life too…”

The bridge broke! Oh no!!!

He was then stuck in a big pile of cement for a long time, and he didn’t even know how long he was stuck in there because he wasn’t paying attention. So, he thought about a way to get out of the pile of cement. Eventually, he found a way to get out. He thought he could call Bob the frog to come over and help him get out. But, Bobzilla wasn’t an ordinary brick, although he was pink instead of the actual red. That made him unique, he could do tricks, he could walk, he could talk, he could do anything that an ordinary brick couldn’t do.

Then Bob came, and he was so strong that he was able to pull Bobzilla out of the cement pile!

The End

Landon is a boy who wants to go to Colombia by himself. Colombia is like New York, but with houses instead of apartments and trolleys and a lot of nice trees. It smells good because there’s a lot of Colombian food and restaurants. It sounds loud because there are a lot of people trying to get into restaurants.

Landon is all packed up to go to Colombia, and when Landon wakes up in the morning, his mom and dad say that Landon can’t go to Colombia by himself. And that day, at school, Landon is very mad and sad. Also, Landon gets in trouble because he pushes some kids, because he is mad about his mom and dad’s decision. When Landon gets home, his mom and dad are still not letting him go to Colombia. Landon is holding a cold spoon in cold milk. Landon has tears on his face.

Most of Landon’s family in Colombia are from Bogota, and Landon is from Bogota too. Landon wants to go to Colombia by himself because the last time Landon went with his mom and dad, Landon had a very bad time. They were not paying attention to him. They were mostly talking to family members. So, that’s why Landon wants to go to Colombia by himself.

A year later, Landon asks his mom and dad again if he can go to Colombia. Landon’s parents are more convinced, than a year ago, about Landon going to Colombia. They forgot about what happened last time he asked to go, and he has been better. A week later, Landon’s parents tell Landon that he can go to Colombia by himself. In school, Landon has no problems this year because he can go to Colombia by himself. When he couldn’t go to Colombia last year, bad things happened to him.

Landon goes to Colombia the next day and when he is on the plane, the flight attendant asks Landon where his parents are, and Landon says that his parents let him go to Colombia by himself. So, Landon has to go back to the United States, and when he gets home, his parents say, “Why are you back home, Landon?”

Landon says, “The flight attendant on the plane made me come back home.”

Landon’s parents agree to not be annoying and go with him to Colombia, so he can have a fun time. When Landon gets on the plane, he sees the same flight attendant and the flight attendant tells Landon, “I see you brought your parents along.”

When Landon gets to Colombia, it is very warm and sunny. Landon has a house in Bogota that is very big. Landon has a lot of stuff that not all kids have. Landon has a very big and deep pool, and Landon also has a pretty, nice garden with a lot of plants and flowers. Landon’s favorite meal from Colombia is the bandeja paisa. The bandeja paisa is basically ground meat, beans, arepa, charon, rice, and sausage. And with it, you can drink a soda that’s called mazana or hot chocolate.

One day, Landon’s family says to Landon, ’’Do you want to stay in Colombia?’’

They’re in his aunt’s house. His parents are most likely thinking that he is thinking about staying.

Landon says, “I want to stay in the United States.”

His parents are very surprised. Their eyebrows are lifted, and their mouths are open.

“Why do you want to go back to the United States?” his mom asks.

“I want to go to the United States because I actually like to be with you. When I said to you guys that you ruined my trip, I was trying to hide that I really like to be with you guys.”

His parents are surprised, and they are closer to him now. They semi-hug him.

“Okay, we can leave tomorrow,” his dad says.

“That sounds good.”

“If you would have stayed in Colombia, I would have been sad.”

Chapter 2: Kurt

I looked up at the face of a young boy, but he was distorted by some unknown substance. It was evening, so was it just darkness messing up my vision? No, there was some gurgling sound as well. Suddenly, it had hit me. That sound was water! I had never liked the stale biscuits that the boy shoved into my mouth. They tasted like a species of cardboard, and yes, I meant species. They didn’t taste like normal biscuits, they tasted like crap, but delicious crap that I was eternally grateful for. The water flowed across my face, and since my lips were cracked, it gave me brief relief, until I saw the Kaiser’s crest on his shoulder. Wilber! Was he okay? What happened? My mind was prepared to burst with questions.

“Where is Wilber?” I asked with a frantic air.

Was he dead? Wait, wasn’t Wilber evil? Maybe. No. Half? No. Enough to keep an eye on him, I guess. I was delirious. I thought he was my friend, but the real question was: who was this German idiot  who would help soldiers of the Triple Entente? We had the French symbol, and he was definitely German. Something didn’t add up.

“Your friend awake,” said the boy, “vision too fuzzy, but I have pistol to your friend and knife that any moment go into stomach.”

So that was the catch. This German boy was after information. Well, the minute he looked at Wilber, I would take out my knife, and the positions would be flipped. Wilber knew this as well and smiled briefly at me as he slowly edged out of the boy’s vision. When his eyes flicked to Wilber, I sliced his knife hand, and Wilber preemptively jumped out of the way of his instinctive pull of the trigger. The boy screamed and dropped his knife, which was grabbed by me, and the gun was quickly grabbed by Wilber, who stood uneasily with the firearm pointed at the boy, lying in a sort of turtle position with his hands raised in a halfhearted attempt to protect himself.

“Who are you, and why did you come to our camp?” Wilber asked with a now rightly earned air of superiority.

“Don’t have camp,” the boy stuttered out in his broken English. “Have piles of dirt.”

Wilber and I shared another look. He may be German, but insulting your captors tended to yield worse results than complimenting or praising them did.

“You were trying to extract information from us, the least you can do is grovel,” replied Wilber, flecks of spit flying out of his mouth in rage.

Wilber was born in Metz, Germany, a harsh place in a neighborhood where the Germans practiced firing shells. Wilber didn’t really know how to talk to people, a thing that had begun in his childhood when he had lost his home to a stray German test shell when he was eleven. He went to find work, but strayed too far once, and while he was away, his family was accused of being French spies and were put before a firing squad three days before he returned. He finally, after staying in his childhood home for a while, discovered extra money that his father hid. He used it to buy his way to Britain, where he became a newspaper boy until he scraped together just enough money to go to America, where he met me. He was an orphan when I found him in the streets after his immigration from Britain. We had become friends ever since I ran away to France, and we joined the French Army together. The Orphan Duo, as we were known. Our ages had become a carefully guarded secret, and one that we kept with our lives. But this German boy seemed almost fourteen, way too young for an army man even by our standards.

“Grovel? I not bow.” He seemed more confident now. “I never betray Kaiser Vilhelm.”

“Then that will be your own demise,” said Wilber as he leveled the gun towards him.

“Stop!” I shouted as Wilber prepared to shoot the proud German.

Wilber turned to me questioningly.

“Russell, this traitor to the world killed my family.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.

“You know what I mean. Germans. In fact, you do not have a say in this. This is strictly personal between me and the filth he owes his allegiance to. Don’t you know Germans are the filthiest type of organism on the planet? They are lower than scum, not worth the dirt he says our camp is made of. I have every right on the planet and tens of thousands of grieving families to back me up. What do you have? Some foolhardy, chivalrous code that will get you nowhere but death by snakes like this one. You cannot blame this choice on lethargy. You have to capitulate to these instincts, Russell. They are there for a reason,” Wilber said heatedly.

I sighed. Wilber did have a point, but he made a mistake in telling me to capitulate. I didn’t give in to anything, and I wouldn’t start now. I knew Wilber would let down his guard easily with a well placed stroke, and so I began to put on an indifferent and apathetic air.

“Look Wilber-” I began, but Wilber cut me off.

“That was a rhetorical comment. You don’t respond to it. We can either waste time arguing over this and then kill him, or take advantage of the cool night, get back to the Hope Reservoir with his canteen, and be off. Your choice.”

I glared at him. It was hard to argue with someone who wouldn’t let you finish a sentence.

“Wilber, stop and think for a second. If we went from the trenches to the Hope Reservoir, which was parallel to the battle lines, then went in circles, randomly picked a direction, and saw a random German strolling-”

I was interrupted again, but by someone different.

“Then you are in Deutschland, obviously.” The German boy smirked, resembling a gangster from a story, with his word choice and fake accent he put on. I suddenly felt an urge to go with Wilber’s strategy, but I stopped myself quickly.

“As annoying as you are, sadly, we’re going to keep you,” I said to the kneeling teen as he slowly moved forward, now back in his turtle.

Wilber now appeared resigned to the German’s fate, but he still wanted to belittle the German one last time as the boy crawled towards them.

“You know, Napoleon once said that an army moves on its stomach. I’m now sure he was talking about German soldiers.”

I couldn’t help sniggering at that last comment, but I immediately reproached myself as Kurt became flushed, got up, and dusted himself off. I thought that we were somewhere near the French city of Somme, but we could’ve been near Verdun or Switzerland. Anyway, given our predicament, It didn’t really matter.

“So, what’s your name?”

We needed something to pass the time before I could figure out where we were.

“Kurt,” the boy said.

“Where’s your family?” I asked, slightly over eager in my joy at finally making headway.

“They were murdered in cold blood,” he said stonily. “I left them for the army, and when I came back, they were dead. I don’t know how it happened, so I just stayed in the army.”

Okay, that didn’t work, I thought to myself. I was about to try a different angle to get in, but he cut me off.

“What do you plan on doing with me? And your dilemma? How will you handle that?” he said, trying to stop my efforts for enjoyment before anything became of him, his usual strategy.

I was actually now getting very worried about Kurt calling to the Germans, or waving a flag of surrender. It was hard to guard to him from anything white and even harder to have to watch him constantly. It was out of the question, though, to leave Kurt even slightly unattended. Kurt was really getting on my nerves, but he was our only chance out, unless we wanted risk a hit or miss in a random direction and end up in Berlin. The sun was already pretty low on the horizon, and by the time it became too dark to continue, we had laid down in a cluster of rocks, and I went on guard to watch the camp. I turned around and saw Kurt staring at my back. I turned around to look at him.

“What?” I asked, feeling somewhat unnerved.

He kept staring at me until he finally said something.

“Say it again. What you were muttering,” he asked.

“You mean my prayers?”

He nodded.

“If that is what you call them.”

Suddenly, I was struck with a thought. What religion did this boy — sorry, Kurt — identify with? Wilber was an atheist, and I was a Jew, but what did this new member of our crew believe in?

“Are you a Jew?” I asked tentatively.

“No. And no other religion either,” he responded.

Ah, so the boy was an atheist, like Wilber. Darn. I wondered why they hadn’t bonded over the fact yet. Something was wrong. I felt another pair of eyes bore into my back. I turned around, Kurt’s gun in my hand, and prepared to fire as I turned. It turned out to be Wilber angrily staring at me.

“What?” I asked, in a slightly provocative tone.

“He is not an atheist.”

Wilber stared at me with such an unrivaled intensity, it made me flinch.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked him.

I wondered now if there was some kind of aura, a vibe that atheists gave off, or a somewhat secret signal that only other atheists picked up on. I tried to imagine Wilber with a halo or some kind of invisible radio signal that he radiated from his head, or something like that.

“He is too devoted. He fights for something, I can tell. There is something he hides from us, and he better come clean to me.”

A small smile appeared on Wilber’s face, but one devoid of real happiness. It looked more like a grimace or a scowl, but really, it was just a smile with no life. I shriveled away from his smile to make him focus the spotlight on Kurt. His eyes remained so fixated on Kurt, as if he were some kind of grotesque specimen.

Wilber followed his instincts when he ran from the German shell. He followed his heart when he immigrated to Britain from France on his family’s money, and from Britain to America as a stowaway. He followed his heart when he gave up the notion of monotheism and all faith for atheism. Wilber had followed his heart his whole life and would never take orders from anyone or, for that matter, give them. He strongly opposed change, and he had a very clear cut belief system that he would always follow and go by.

But, most of all, Wilber knew people. Wilber knew when people were lying and what they were hiding from him, but his gaping flaw was that he didn’t know himself nearly as well as he knew other people. Wilber could not, for the life of him, decipher himself, and had really only branded himself an atheist out of necessity. He liked to say that he was a powerful disciple and devotee to the heart, and I was fully prepared to see this seemingly innocent conversation go up in flames because of him. Kurt gave him a wolfish grin and stood up, fully prepared to meet the obvious challenge of his loyalty. He stood close to Wilber and paused momentarily.

“I owe my faith to only Germany. Religion is passing thought, no real importance. Loyalty to your nation is what counts. Nations will stand, but atheists are fools. Jews will die out because their numbers are so low, but Germans will always remain the utmost on the egalitarian chain. We are the true heroes of the war, and all who doubt us will fall. Nationality is the only thing that will persist throughout the ages, where beliefs will fail and religion will fall. And yes, my broken English was fake. You, Russell, believed me every moment for your religion, and Wilber here overlooked it, forsaking his true ulterior suspicions for exterior ones. You people are too predictable.”

Wilber and I sat in a stunned silence, too dumbfounded to speak. The wolfish grin still inhabited Kurt’s face, making it look as if he presided over all of this. He then went back to bed using his kingly walk, making him look smugly royal, as if he had just expounded the answer to the meaning of life onto peasants who were struggling to comprehend life at its smallest.
Chapter 3: Rats and Rabbits

After the argument from the night before, I thought that we really needed to watch more attentively while in the camp. We packed our, well, nothing, as our camp was only shrubberies. That day, as we set off to make our way across the French border, a thought suddenly struck me. We had a German prisoner, which we couldn’t take with us across the border. We also couldn’t leave him stranded here without proper provisions, although the minute I told this to Wilber, he raised his eyebrows and muttered “Why not?” under his breath.

It had a certain paradoxical element, not only within itself, but also the fact that it did kind of help me get through the days, weighing pros and cons of both. We covered Kurt’s mouth with my torn jacket and tied it so that he wouldn’t call out to the Germans, but we were still worried about him somehow being like a beacon to German troops, that his mere presence, unless somehow guarded by some kind of shrubbery, would alert them. Hunger now began to gnaw at me, like a feral animal trying to escape the prison that was my stomach. We kept on going, wearily trudging through the landscape that had become all too familiar to me and my companions throughout these past days. Finally, our weary sights turned to the abundance of game that seemed to surround us.

Kurt was almost to the point of trying to shoot the both of us, and to the casual observer, he would have no premise to shoot us besides the fact that we had captured him. But, crazily enough, that was not the case with him. When I had first brought up the irony that we had had nothing to eat since Kurt had exhausted his rations nursing us to health, and yet we were surrounded by game, he looked at me, with a somewhat destabilized look of insanity, and started to yell.

“Why are you complaining about hunger when we have my gun and bullets for the rabbits and rats all around us? You are swimming in a freshwater lake, and you are complaining that there is no water to go around.”

He shook his head half in disgust and half, truthfully, in shock. Where he came from, utilizing nature was a part of life, an accepted fact that everyone seemed to understand and did so without hesitation or thought. He was appalled by the fact that we didn’t immediately understand his perspective and that we struggled to kill the rats and rabbits around us for one simple reason: we held respect for the life around us, and as I had thought earlier, we couldn’t kill with the same intensity of the bullets in our gun. It was different in the haze of the battlefield, when you were shooting at a somewhat unidentified foe, just randomly shooting your gun at what might as well be some kind of deformed beast. It was much different when the eyes of the creature looked at you hard beneath the fur, or scuttled to hide childishly under some remarkably insufficient barrier like a fallen leaf. What person could bring themselves to kill a living, breathing creature that you would then proceed to eat?

In this matter, I was somewhat influenced by Judaism, not a huge amount but somewhat, in my wariness against killing and eating another living creature in cold blood. It seemed much more innocent to eat meat that somebody else killed, knowing in some form or another that it wasn’t my fault, that it would be eaten anyway. Now pictures of the rabbit frolicking in a field harassed my mind. When I turned around, Wilber and Kurt were arguing loudly. I wonder why I hadn’t heard them in my reverie.

“You have no respect for any life!” Kurt screamed.

“I’m not the one who wants to kill your precious life, you are!” Wilber returned with fury.

“I mean life that COUNTS ME!”

“Well, at least I’m not killing my own kind!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re lower than a rat. I thought he had some authority over you! Frankly, I’d rather you have the mind of a rat, it’d be such an improvement.”

Wilber’s tension from the other day had boiled into today. Wilber’s grimace-smile resurfaced again, this time in a more sarcastic form.

Suddenly, a bang rocked the ground around us. We were being shot at! Then, I saw that Kurt, in a quick maneuver, had grabbed the gun and shot the rabbit, leaving the rat to run away. Wilber stared at him with such an anger that I had never seen solicited from him before, and charged the few paces between them. He punched Kurt in the jaw, and I watched Kurt crumble before Wilber’s stocky form. Then, Wilber let out a cry of pain. Kurt had used a rock to hit him in the shins. Wilber jumped on Kurt, elbow forward, and jabbed him straight in the nose, hearing a crack. He got on top of Kurt and was immediately toppled off by Kurt’s hit to his right shoulder. He fell over and as he tried to get up, Kurt slugged him in the stomach.

But Kurt didn’t notice that Wilber’s left hand had moved behind him and only realized the fact when he received a crushing uppercut that almost sent him towards Wilber, but he fell backwards. Kurt then hooked Wilber’s leg and began to pull him downwards, all the while raining punches on his stomach, his mouth, and his cheeks. I suddenly realized that I had just been standing here the whole time, and I moved to intervene. I tried to break them up and received my fair share of punches in the process, but I finally succeeded in stopping them.

“What’s the matter with you?!” I asked heatedly, although I knew both their answers and the real one.

“Here’s the matter,” Kurt said,”You people are-”

“Would you shut up for just one damn second?” I said. Then, regaining my composure, I continued on. “Here’s the reason that you two are squabbling like this: You don’t have any food.”

Kurt started to get the gun, but Wilber stiff-armed him.

“Not yet, Kurt. If I know my friend,” he paused to slam in the emphasis, “he’ll have more to say on the matter, won’t you, Russell?”

He stared at me so hard that I flinched, for the second time in the last seventy-two hours.

“No, Wilber, I hate to concur with Kurt, but he’s right. We need the food.”

The dancing rabbit in my head began to seep blood from the numerous bullet holes I now imagined him with.

“The rats will destroy the rabbit then.” He turned to me.”I thought it was the other way around.”

It seemed like a very vague statement to anyone else, but it made perfect sense to me, and it hurt me to my core. Wilber sat down on one of the rocks in our den in disgust and went to sulk in a corner. Whenever I came near him, he would show his front teeth, chitter, and shy away from me angrily to prove his point. What he meant was that he thought that us, as white, pure, good creatures, were rabbits to Kurt’s alter-ego of a rat. When I had allegedly joined with Kurt in their disagreement, I had betrayed him and became a rat alongside Kurt, allied against the rabbit that was still and would always be Wilber.

Another crack rang through the air. I turned to Kurt, prepared to punch him nearly as hard as Wilber did, when I saw that the gun was lying on the floor near Wilber. We were being shot at! I got a glimpse of grey fabric as I glanced upwards to a tree grove we were planning to avoid for that very reason. During Wilber and Kurt’s fight, we had apparently moved our positions from our previous ones, throwing off our plans to go in one direction and hope for the best of luck. And now, we had to scratch our course because of Wilber’s rabbit drama and Kurt’s obstinacy.

Why was I the one who was caught between these two idiots all the time? Why did I have to suffer for their ridiculous qualms with eating or not eating? Really, I didn’t have to put up with it, I could just shoot the rabbits, shoot Kurt, and start walking, leaving the gun with Wilber. But, that was a crazy thought, especially when we were being shot at. I ran for cover near Wilber under an overhang, and Kurt was seeking shelter in a smaller alcove. Our two hideouts were now under machine gun fire, and there was no real cover. Wilber was too frightened to chitter at me again as bullets rained down on us.

“Damn it!” I whispered to no one in particular.

I picked the gun up off the ground, advanced towards Kurt, and crouched. I had just realized that he was left unattended, no less than 60 feet from the enemy. Kurt reached into his pants and gave me a hard stare. What was he doing? I kept moving. He pulled a bit of his underwear out. What was he threatening me with? He grimly smiled and mouthed the word “white” to me. Oh, his underwear was white. He wanted to surrender with it, show his Eagle. Then we would be killed as Allies. Brilliant. I stayed in my position as rain began to come down. That was actually a blessing in disguise, as rain would hopefully distort the sniper and the machine gunner’s accuracy. Now our only hope was that they would think we were a whole brigade, so they wouldn’t advance. I was only twenty feet away from Kurt, and I was seriously debating shooting him. We crouched there for a while, each eyeing the other, trying to predict their opponent’s next move, a deadly standstill.

After a few minutes, Kurt spoke. “Get the hell away from me now,” Kurt said, “And you know why you better do it fast.”

He held up his underwear. No! I hadn’t realized that he couldn’t get it off in sixteen paces, the distance I’d have to go to get to him, but he could if I stared at him for five minutes looking like a dumb cow. Now I had no advantages, and no Wilber, because any more movement would have the sniper’s gun on me. Then, a body fell out of the tree. More gunshots were heard, and shouts of pain and the enraged buffalo shrieks I knew filled the air. Destruction seemed to reign in this terrible landscape, without even some semblance of authority. I saw that all the Germans actually seemed to be dying and falling out of the tree. There were people in gray-green cloaks, more practical, but apparently no side either. Rogue Germans? Green Berets gone wild? Who knows? But I would soon find out. They were all coming down the trees in droves and looked to be swarming us.

“Leon.”

I heard Kurt muttering a few unintelligible words in German.

“Hello, fellow soldiers!” The man in the front of the leading group of five looked at us and smiled. “Little young to be in a war now, aren’t you?”

Then he looked in surprise at Kurt’s Eagle.

“And a German? One confusing group, I’ll tell you that much, little sirrahs, huh?”

He seemed to quite a merry, jubilant man, but I was still suspicious.

“Who are you?” I asked, a now ingrained distrust of nice people bearing the Kaiser’s Crest.

“His name’s Leon,” Kurt said darkly again.

I turned around to stare at him in surprise. I then became very conscious of everyone else staring at my back. But when I turned around, I realised that they were all staring at Kurt like I was, only they were behind me. I turned awkwardly back to Kurt, and then, ironically, all eyes shifted to me. I decided to break the silence.

“How do you know?” I asked quickly, before anyone could comment on my strange turning.

I knew it was worthless to try to explain, so I made it look like they were the ones being weird, what with their not answering. The rain was pouring down outside our little outcrop, and it almost made me reminiscent of the old days back home. The constant patter had almost lulled me to sleep when I finally got an answer.

“He’s a filthy traitor and a liar!” Kurt screamed.

Leon appeared unfazed by the vocal assault. He, however, was fazed when Kurt ran and got the gun.

“You damn murderer! You coward! You scum!”

Kurt had worked himself into such a rage that he was visibly sweating, even during the rain.

“Crook! Vandal! You have no honor! You are not German, nor are you human!” Kurt shot at Leon, just missing his arm.

He turned to me. He looked at me hard. We had both just realized that he had the gun. In my pity for him, I had allowed him passage to the gun, and as a defense, I reached into my pocket for a lighter. I found it. Then I reached for my extra gunpowder in my army jacket. Kurt was still focused on Leon. I pressed myself against the wall and tossed some powder behind Kurt, and fumbled to light the lighter for a second. It wouldn’t light. Kurt stared at me for a second when he heard scratching. One of Leon’s four men tried to jump on him. That turned out to be a bad move. Kurt shot grimly, and the man slumped mid-jump, staring into the ether that surrounded us, staring into nothing.

I sprang into motion, throwing the powder in his face along with the lighter. An acrid smell filled the air, and the air around Kurt turned into a whirlwind of fire, flaring up around him. He screamed, not in pain but in surprise, more of a yelp than a yell. I ran into the fire, knowing that it only lasted for a few seconds, and grabbed the gun from the ground where Kurt had dropped it. I held it to the back of his head. It felt a little weird to hold something as unwieldy as a rifle to someone’s head. I suddenly wished I had a pistol, which would also look much cooler. Kurt trembled and slowly walked forward, away from me.

Quickly, he pivoted and leaped on Leon before anyone could get a word out, and put his hands around Leon’s throat, his eyes burning with cold fury. Leon delivered a crushing punch to Kurt’s rib cage, and Kurt flew off of him with a loud crunch. Kurt gritted his teeth, and when Leon’s remaining three bodyguards tried to apprehend him, he outmaneuvered them and rammed into Leon’s slightly stout frame, head first.

“DIE, you thief! You damn murderer! You ingrate!”

Kurt shoved his elbow into the outside of Leon’s throat.

“Gurk!” Leon said, in a slightly strangled voice. He again bashed Kurt, now on the side of the neck, forcing him into two of the bodyguard’s arms. His jaw was taut, and eyes wild, thrashing at the bodyguards.

I watched in wonder at Kurt’s outburst, and I wondered exactly what had happened between the two men. I would soon get my answer.

“You lied to me!” Kurt’s left side was sagging, and he was bleeding hard from his dislocated nose. “We trusted you, and you betrayed us!”

I was staring at Kurt in a very new light, a light of determination and ferocity. He turned to me, a smart move on his part, isolating himself from the physical conflict that he actually started. He began to tell what had happened, with sporadic spasms of pain and screaming peppering his speech.

“This vagrant– aaaah!– my family had pity on him — graah! — he destroyed our house — gracch! — stole everything we owned.” He began to sob. “He tried to kill us all, and thank God, that in his blunderous rage, he stepped on some of the nail’s that pocketed our floor.”

“AGH!!” Kurt was obviously in a lot of pain, but I was, in a morbid sense, riveted by his tale. It also seemed to have some truth to it. Leon seemed appalled by the story, like he didn’t believe it. Kurt sat with his jacket to his ribs but immediately threw it away, now a damp cloth full of blood. Leon’s three remaining men began to set up camp near us, driving the stakes through the fabric and into the ground.

Kurt was a wreck, shivering in the corner. I almost made a move to help his pathetic form but a stern glance from Wilber told me not to. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, with Kurt in the corner, Leon’s men and Wilber bonding and setting up the camp, and Leon calling in the rest of his meager force in with a horn. I elected to go and talk to Leon.

“Well hello, mister!” He said jovially “I’m really sorry that your friend, Kurt, feels that way, but I think that he’s just trying to cope with what-”

He pronounced ‘what’ in a weird way, with the ‘wh’ in who, and the ‘at’ like the end of cot.

“-happened in the past. I used to be a beggar, but his house burned down, and he blamed me for it. I didn’t try to kill his parents either. I’m actually from the West, ya know, if you couldn’t tell already, but my parents moved to Germany when I was a young kid. I ran ‘way though, and that’s how I became a beggar. But now I’m just boring ya. What are you doin’ with the little murderer? You know, by the way, the man he shot isn’t actually dead. So I guess he’s not really a murderer, more of a coma-creator.”

He chuckled at his morbid joke.

“Now I’m really prattling, tell me about yourself.”

I was enthralled by the way that he could talk, winding me into his yarn without me noticing anything. I liked him immediately, but I was also wary of it, knowing full well how dangerous a person is when they could do that. But he was very comforting to listen to, and it almost made me want to ask him to just keep going. But, my addled mind went on. He won’t think the same if you keep staring at him like this with your mouth open.

“I-I-”

I couldn’t get through anything, and I didn’t want to either. My past was something that I’d rather not delve into, especially when I could be listening to him.

“I don’t know what to tell you” I said, “I’m a Jew, and we picked Kurt up when he tried to get information from me and my friend, Wilber.”

When I said the word ‘Jew’, his nose wrinkled a little bit, and his warm and friendly face got a little colder. I didn’t really expect that kind of a reaction from this kind of a man, but I was getting used to it. I excused myself and started back to the camp, happy with my discovery of a new friend in our merry band. I settled down on some moss, glad that the overhang protected me from the rain. I looked over at Kurt, who seemed to be doing something to his face. I shook my head in capitulation and laid my head down on the leaves that Leon’s men had gathered for us. I heard another bang and a scream of pain. Kurt had knocked his nose back in place.

Once upon a time, in Horselandia, there was a very poor horse. This horse’s name was Lucy, and she loved to collect stamps from lands far away from Horselandia. Lucy’s parents were famous explorers back in the day. Now, these days, no one cared about the treasures the explorers found. So the family was poor because the parents had searched a lot of lands for jobs, and on the way, the parents collected stamps, just for Lucy. The parents loved Lucy with all their heart.

In addition, Lucy had an interest in education. No one had taught her how to write, so Lucy made up her own language, and she wrote entries about her lifestyle. Lucy wanted to read entries even more than she wanted to write her own. Except other entries weren’t legible to Lucy because she wasn’t able to read the actual language in Horselandia, which was Horsish. The thing was, Lucy’s parents were poor, so they couldn’t afford to get a teacher, even though they loved Lucy so, so, much.

Throughout all the years, Lucy never stopped her love of reading and writing. For reading, Lucy wrote random silly stories that she didn’t revise or edit so that she could get a nice giggle out of her work. Lucy started from writing three sentences to elaborate essays, just in a matter of years, without any kind of teacher! Lucy was destined to do something amazing one day, and Lucy’s parents had faith in her.

When Lucy was 13, something very tragic happened. Lucy’s dad passed away of an unknown disease. There was yet to be a cure, and Lucy was determined to write a story about this in her own language, if someone could inform Lucy about what the disease was. This inspired Lucy to do something that was quite drastic in the measures. Lucy then set her dreams on something totally different. She wanted to become a pegasus. Lucy had no clue what she was going to face, but Lucy was determined to become a pegasus. She would do anything to become a pegasus.

A pegasus was a type of mythical hybrid that either you had to be born as one or you had to become one. To become a pegasus, you had to do something groundbreaking and impress the mythical judges. These mythical judges were a phoenix, griffin, alicorn, dragon, fairy, leprechaun, gnome, mermaid, elf, and unicorn. Of course, all these creatures were amiable and human sized or else everything would get out of hand and crazy. To add on, these judges were very stern and strict, and were very hard to convince, persuade, coax, and, last but not least, impress. Very few horses became pegasuses. The only reason why very few horses became pegasuses was because they were super famous for amusing people. These judges were very lazy. They just liked sitting and watching TV.

That was sort of the problem Lucy faced. She had no idea how to go on TV and contact these judges. First of all, Lucy didn’t have anything that she could contact them  with. Second of all, Lucy had no idea how to schedule a meeting with the judges because she had no idea where to meet and how to get there! Last, but the most important, Lucy had no clue how she was going to do all this planning herself. After all, Lucy was just 13 years old, and her mother was still searching for a job. Lucy most definitely did not see how she could achieve this now, but she still set her mind to it knowing she would, at least, be able to when she was older.

3 years later…

Chapter 1

“Are we there yet?!” Lucy asked impatiently.

“Hold on sweetie, just wait for one more hour, and I promise we will finally be there.” Lucy’s mom answered.

Over the last three years, Lucy’s mother managed to get a new job very close by. The job was like a meet-and-greet kind of thing but with used-to-be-famous horses. Who knew there were a lot of horses that were so interested in exploring?

Anyways, Lucy’s mother had been doing so well with her job that the family managed to get a decent house and a tiny car. To top that off, Lucy’s mother had a secret someone for a while! Lucy was still living in an alley, though, with her mom. Her mom had a car, but the house was very far away. The twist was that Lucy’s mom was working way too much, and she never had the time to move. But now, Lucy’s mother got her big break, so the first thing they did was leave the gross alley and go on a road trip to the new city!

“Screeech!” went the car Lucy’s mother bought.

“Lucy, time to wake up!” said Lucy’s mom in a sing-songy voice.

“Why do I have to wake up? It’s not like we’re here or anything.” Lucy replied very sourly.

She opened her eyes suddenly, saw a mansion, and pinched herself to see if she was dreaming.

“O-M-G! Is this our new house, Mom? If it is, you are really the best mom ever!!! I love you so much. Thank you, Mom.” Lucy squealed very loudly.

“Congratulations, sweetie! We finally got our dream house. It was an awesome deal. Anyways, get your bum up, and let’s get moving and see this place,” Lucy’s mom answered.

Lucy and Lucy’s mom made only two trips back and forth to get the bags, and drop them off by the door, because the family used to be poor, so the family didn’t really have that many things an average horse would have.

“That took forever!” Lucy complained. “But… I guess we can’t really afford movers at the moment. So I shouldn’t really be complaining.”

“Sweetie, time to get our feet on the ground and get to know every nook and cranny of this place that will be ours for the next few years.” Lucy’s mother told Lucy.

“Coming, Mom. I’ll just be there in a minute.” Lucy responded.

Lucy noticed the neighborhood. She felt her heart being completed. The neighborhood looked so average, like the life Lucy dreamed of but thought she would never have. She took a big breath, to take this all in, and put her hand on her heart. Lucy could feel it thumping, full with bliss.

Chapter 2

Lucy ran around the lawn once and felt the breeze sway past her, and the grass skid on her thighs. She then quickly rushed to the porch and rang the doorbell so that her mother would be informed that she was okay.

Ever since Lucy’s father had passed away, Lucy’s mother had been very paranoid about Lucy and what she was doing. Lucy’s mother did all of this because she didn’t want to lose someone else she cherished. Who knows what Lucy’s mother would act like if something happened to Lucy. Lucy had noticed this, so she was trying to do her best at helping her mom with this situation.

Lucy walked in the house.

“Hey, Mom, what are you doing?”

“I’m up here, sweetie. Look at the view! It’s awesome! You get to see the beach and the ocean on one side and the green forest on the other! Come on, sweetie. Come up!” Lucy’s mother yelled.

“Okay, I’m coming, Mom!” Lucy said and walked up the grand staircase of her mansion.

After Lucy was out of sight, a mysterious horse appeared. He was wearing all black and a face mask. He then grabbed his phone and called another mysterious horse.

“Hey, code blue, target acquired. We have gotten our subjects in the spot just like we wanted to. Now, phase two.”

Chapter 3

“Wow, Mom, you were right! This view is awesome! I can’t believe you managed to get this place!” Lucy squealed.

“What can I say, sweetie, it was an amazing deal.” Lucy’s mother replied. “Let’s start unpacking though. Try not to get too caught up with such a great deal. After all, last thing we need is for it to rain so all our stuff, that couldn’t fit on the porch, would get wet.”

Lucy topped off like a cherry on top of a sundae. All of a sudden, Lucy jinxed it and it started raining, but it had to happen sometime. After all, that was a disadvantage of living near a beach in the cold.

“Great, just my luck. And now I predict that it will be very cold and humid.” Lucy said in a magician-like voice.

“Come on, sweetie, just because we live near the beach doesn’t mean that it is the end of the world. So maybe it will rain a lot and it will be super cold in the winter, but in the summer, this beach is usually deserted, so lucky us! We get to play in the sand and run in the waters!” Lucy’s mother sassed back at Lucy.

“Okay. Fine. Maybe you are right. But once this rain is gone and we are done unpacking, I will try to make some new friends, and I will ask them why the beach is lonely. If they say something like, ‘if you go in the water, the Lochness Monster will eat you up’, I will not let you or me go one step near the beach. Okay? But if they say something like, ‘all the neighbors go on vacation there’ I will let you and me go. Is that clear? Just because I am your daughter doesn’t mean that you get to boss me around all the time. I should have a say in some things also. Okay?” Lucy said while thumping a box of clothes near the drawer.

“Sure thing, sweetie. And also, we are done unpacking so you can start getting your instincts around this place. Run free my child!” Lucy’s mom said.

“Got it.” Lucy replied.

Lucy wanted to go layer by layer, so she went up another staircase, looked at the ceiling to see if there was any attic vault, and there was. Lucy kicked the entrance and a ladder fell down. She climbed the ladder and went up.  

To Be Continued….

Suzy Walter was a little girl who wore glasses. She was eight and a half, and her birthday was going to be in two days. She was going to invite a few people to Six Flags. She was super excited for her party.

She invited Sarah and Molly, twins who fought all day long. Suzy sort of liked them because they had lots of cute clothes and awesome toys. But they were annoying. They thought Suzy was their best friend. Her mom told her to invite them because she liked their mom.

And Suzy was inviting a really, really annoying boy named Theodore. Any time someone said something to him, he mimicked them.

The only reason she was inviting him was because her dad told her to invite him. Theodore’s dad was friends with Suzy’s dad.

And she was inviting one more person: Jackie, her real friend. Jackie was always nice to her. She was never mean to her! They always sat together at lunch and talked and laughed. They laughed all day long, for no reason sometimes. Even when somebody else laughed, they started laughing too. Her favorite color was purple, and Jackie’s favorite color was pink.

***

One day later…

Suzy woke up her parents and said, “My birthday’s one day away!”

Her dad was sleeping, and Suzy saw her dad’s tongue bleeding. He was biting it because he thought it was food in his dream!

Suzy said, “Wake up!”

Then, he grumbled grumpily, “I’m up, I’m up,” but he was still sleeping. Then, Suzy tried waking up her mom.

Suzy’s mom said in her dream, “Grandma, I thought you were dead.”

“Wake up, Mom!”

“Okay. Go ahead and make yourself breakfast now.”

Then, Suzy said, “I’m just going to go to Jackie’s house next door. I’ll be back in the afternoon.”

***

Suzy reached Jackie’s door.

Knock knock.

Jackie opened the door.  “Hi, Suzy,” said Jackie.

Then Suzy walked into Jackie’s house.

“Did you come to visit me, or did you come to chat?” asked Jackie.

“Actually, I came here for you to help me plan for my birthday party, which is tomorrow, and by plan… I mean a sneaky idea,” said Suzy.

“Tell me what the plan is,” said Jackie.

“The plan is to tell my mom and dad that I called the twins and Theodore, but they were sick, so they can’t come to Six Flags. Isn’t that a perfect plan?”

“I don’t think that’s a good plan. You might get in trouble.”

“I won’t get in trouble. They won’t know a thing about it.”

Then, Suzy and Jackie went to the cake shop. It was one block away from Jackie’s house.

When they walked in, they saw a whole bunch of cakes. They had all different types of frosting and different flavors. It took a long time to pick a cake because all of them looked good. They saw a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting inside of it and rainbow frosting on the outside. They thought it looked the best, so they picked that one.

The person who worked at the cake shop said, “That will be 67 dollars.”

Suzy and Jackie didn’t have enough money. So they asked if 27 dollars was enough.

“No, 27 dollars isn’t enough.”

They looked at her nametag, and it said “Ms. Grumps.” Suzy and Jackie already knew why her name was Ms. Grumps.

Suzy said, “But it’s my birthday.”

Ms. Grumps said, “I’ll let you pay me 27 dollars, but tomorrow you’ll have to pay the rest.”

“Okay, I promise that I will pay tomorrow,” said Suzy.

***

The next day, Suzy woke up excited.

“Yay! I can’t wait to go to Six Flags and stuff cake in my mouth. Also, I can’t wait for my evil plan. Wah ha ha ha ha,” Suzy laughed loudly.

“Keep it down, Suzy. It’s four in the morning,” Suzy’s mom yelled.

“Yeah, Suzy, whatever your mom said,” Suzy’s dad yelled.

“Stop it, John,” said Suzy’s mom.

“Okay, Michelle, you need to chill out!” said Suzy’s dad.

“What did you just say?” asked Suzy’s mom.

“I-I-I didn’t say anything at all,” said Suzy’s father, John.

“Good, I thought so,” said Suzy’s mom.

Suzy stuck her head in the door and said, “It’s actually 12 in the afternoon!”

After Suzy told her parents, she walked away. She held the phone in her hand and called Theodore and said, “I am so sorry. The birthday is cancelled.”

She hung the phone up and called up the twins. Then she told them the same thing. She hung up the phone again and said, “I can’t believe my plan worked.”

“What did you say, sweetie? I didn’t hear you,” said Suzy’s mom.

“Nothing,” Suzy replied. “When is it time to go, Mom? I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“We will go in 30 minutes, and you were actually only waiting for 45 minutes,” replied Suzy’s mom.

***

30 minutes later…

“Mom! Is it time to go yet?!” yelled Suzy.

“Yes! It’s time to go. we are just getting the cake out of the fridge!”

“Okay, I’ll meet you in the car!”

“Okay, see you in the car.”

Suzy walked across the street and knocked on Jackie’s door first.

Knock. Knock.

“Who is at the door?” Jackie asked.

“It’s me, Suzy! Meet me at the car in two minutes!”

“Okay, I will.”

“I had an exhausting day, but it isn’t over,” said Suzy to herself.

Suzy quickly ran to her mother’s car. She leaned on the car as she waited. Finally, Suzy saw her mom and dad holding all the things for the birthday. Jackie walked towards Suzy from her house.

“Suzy, please open the door for us, this stuff is really heavy,” said Suzy’s mom. Then she asked, “Aren’t the twins and Theodore coming?”

“Uhhhh. I- I called Theodore and he said he had, uhhhh, a stomach ache,” stuttered Suzy.

“You know, Suzy? You didn’t have to invite Theodore and the twins since it’s your birthday.

Then Jackie said, “Suzy and I just wanted some time alone.”

Suzy’s mom said, “What?”

Jackie quickly answered, “Oh, wait, nevermind.”

Suzy elbowed Jackie and whispered, “Jaaackie!”

“Girls, are you up to something?” asked Suzy’s mom.

“No, not at all,” replied Jackie and Suzy simultaneously.

***

2 hours later…
“We are here, everyone!!!” yelled Suzy’s father.

As Suzy’s parents unpacked the cake and treats, Suzy and Jackie quickly ran to the rollercoaster.

“Wow! This is the first time I’m going on a rollercoaster, I am feeling nervous and excited,” said Suzy.

“This is going to be my second time on a rollercoaster,” said Jackie.

“Oh, that’s good for you. Anyway, it’s our turn to go on the rollercoaster!” said Suzy.

“Don’t be jealous, Suzy,” said Jackie.

“I am totally not jealous, Jackie,” replied Suzy.

Meanwhile, when Suzy and Jackie were on the rollercoaster, there was a phone call for Suzy’s mother…Theodore’s parents and the twins’ parents called Suzy’s mom.

Ring! Ring!

“Hello, who is it?” said Suzy’s mom.

“It’s the twins’ mom, Carol. Theodore’s mom, Elizabeth, is here in my house.”

“Weren’t you supposed to come to Suzy’s birthday?” asked Suzy’s mom.

“Suzy told our children that her birthday was cancelled.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You should ask your daughter if you really want to know.”

Beep.

“I wonder what all that was about. Maybe I should ask Suzy?” said Suzy’s mom.

As Suzy’s mom saw Suzy coming from the rollercoaster, she hollered out, “Suzy, get over here now!”

“Oh no, Suzy, this is not going to be good,” said Jackie.

Suzy walked over to her mom while she was looking down at her feet. She bit her fingernails.

Her mom said in a mad voice, “Did you tell Theodore and the twins’ mom that the party was cancelled?”

“No,” said Suzy.

Then Suzy’s mom asked Jackie, and Jackie didn’t respond until Suzy’s mom asked the question again.

“Yes,” said Jackie in a quiet voice.

Suzy’s face turned red and steam started coming out of her face, nose, and ears. Her eyes started to turn really watery.

Then, Suzy’s mom gave the phone to Suzy and yelled in a mad voice, “Apologize to Theodore and the twins now!”

“Okay,” said Suzy.

Then Jackie tried to walk away, but Suzy’s mom said, “Come over here, Jackie. You’re part of it too!”

“No, I’m not!” said Jackie.

“Then how did you know Suzy was coming up with her plan and told me yes?” Suzy’s mom said. “You have to apologize too.”

Jackie stomped her feet and put her hands on her hips and said, “No, I can’t. I didn’t do anything.”

Then Suzy’s mom said, “Yes, you did.”

Jackie still refused to apologize, so then Suzy’s mom said, “If you don’t, I’ll call your parents to pick you up now.”

Then Jackie said, “Fine,” because her parents were mean to her, and she was scared of them.

Suzy said into the phone, “I’m sorry, Theodore. And Sarah. And Molly. For telling you that my party was cancelled.”

Sarah and Molly said, “It’s okay,” but Theodore said, “It is not okay,” at the same time.

Suzy just ignored him.

After Suzy was finished with the phone, she gave it to Jackie, and Jackie said, “I’m sorry,” and gave the phone back.

Then, Suzy’s mom gave it back to Jackie and said, “You have to explain why you’re sorry.”

“Fine. I’m sorry for helping Suzy with her dumb plan!” said Jackie.

Then, Suzy’s mom took the phone back and said, “After we’re done eating the cake, we’re going straight back home!”

Jackie and Suzy didn’t respond. In Suzy’s head, she was thinking that she felt a little bad for telling Theodore and the twins that the party was cancelled. Suzy was mad at Jackie because she got her in trouble. In Jackie’s head, she felt a little bad, just for helping Suzy, and mad at Suzy because Suzy wasn’t talking to her. Jackie knew Suzy was mad because she rolled her eyes at Jackie.

While Suzy’s mom was carrying the vanilla cake to eat, she slipped on a banana peel, and it just fell out of her hands. But then, her husband came out of nowhere, and before she fell on her head, he held her. But the cake still fell on the ground.

Then, Suzy’s mom said, “I guess it’s time to go home since there’s no cake to eat.”

Suzy and Jackie were sad because there was no cake. Then Suzy and Jackie looked at each other and smiled.

“I’m so sorry,” Suzy and Jackie said simultaneously.

“Okay, let’s go home and have your birthday there,” said Suzy’s mom.

“Are the twins and Theodore coming?” asked Suzy.

“No, it’s only us, your dad, and Jackie,” replied Suzy’s mom.

“Good,” said Suzy and Jackie at the same time.

The End!

Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!

“Hello, this is Super Mouse talking,” said Super Mouse into an old-fashioned phone.

He was a white mouse that never took off his superman costume. He was sitting in his brown living room and calling himself on the phone because he never had anything to do.

Today was a special day because today, he could convert his weapons into cheese. This happened two days every year. Whenever he put a bullet into his weapon today, it would turn into cheese. He just remembered all of this and put his phone down. He had to find all of his weapons. He was hungry, so he took a cheese block with him to his cheese cave, which was where he hid all of his vehicles and weapons.

The walls were made of stone and painted to look like cheese. Sometimes he forgot that the walls weren’t actually cheese, and he tried to eat them, just like in a cartoon. Everything, including the vehicles, looked like cheese.

Super Mouse’s phone began to ring in the cave. He was confused. Who’s calling me? he wondered. He hadn’t gotten a call in over a month. He then remembered that he was Super Mouse, not an ordinary mouse. Someone was probably calling him because they needed help.

“Hello?”

“Quick, Super Mouse! A robber is stealing diamonds from the diamond store,” said a screaming little boy with a mouse voice.

“Okay, I’m on my way.”

So he flew to the crime. But it was foggy, so none of the cops or Super Mouse could see the robber.

He flew back to his cave and got one of his weapons that cleared away fog. So then he flew back to the city, where the robbery happened, and the fog was still there. So he cleared back the fog, and the cops took the robber away.

“Thank you so much!” the mouse who owned the diamond store said.

And he gave Super Mouse a billion dollars because diamonds were very expensive. Super Mouse took the money and just flew away.

The next day, Super Mouse spent the money, that he got from the mouse who owned the diamond store, on a billion cheese blocks! Each cheese block was just one dollar, and he loved cheese.

Super Mouse suddenly heard screaming coming out of the diamond store.

A mean rat came flying on a jet pack and took the diamonds from the diamond store again. So Super Mouse flew to the rat and talked to him instead of fighting. But the rat just shot him with a sleeping ray.

Super Mouse dodged it, slapped the sleeping ray out of the rat’s hands, shot the ray at the rat, and took the diamonds. So, the rat just fell on the stone floor of Mouseville.

Then, Super Mouse flew to the diamond store and gave the diamonds back to the mouse who owned the diamond store again! Then, the mouse who owned the diamond store gave Super Mouse two billion dollars. And Super Mouse spent the money on two billion blocks of cheese again. He felt rich and excited to eat the cheese blocks!  

But… what happened to the rat who fell on the stone floor? Find out what happens to the rat in Super Mouse Two!

The End… for now.

Dun. Dun. DUNNN.

There once was a chipmunk. Her name was Cutie. She was a light fawn with white and black stripes. Her feet were pink. One day she went to go have lunch with the squirrels. They were going to have lunch in an oak tree. When Cutie arrived, she found out that her friends weren’t there yet. She waited about five minutes. When her friends got there, she discovered that they had a little baby sister squirrel.

During the picnic, a black crow with a hoarse voice flew in. He sat down next to them.

“Can I have some food too?” he asked.

Everyone screamed and ran away except for Cutie and the baby squirrel, Sarah.

“Everybody ran away because they’re still afraid of the birds. After the war, land animals don’t like them. I don’t mind birds that much, and little Sarah here was born after the war. She doesn’t know anything about it,” said Cutie.

The crow had a yellow beak, and red eyes, and black wings.

“I’m always trying to get the land animals to at least talk to me, but they always run away,” he said.

“I know,” said Cutie. ”At the very mention of birds, all the land animals run away.”

“Well, I’d better be going then,” said the crow.

“No, come back to my tree, please,” said Cutie. “Or there’s a very nice one near mine that you could have if you want it. It would be nice to have someone near or in my tree.”

“You live by yourself?” the crow asked.

“No. I have some pets.”

“Well, if we’re going to be friends, we should know each other’s names. I’m Harry.”

“And I’m Cutie.”

Then, Cutie said, “Can I fly home on your back?”

“Sure,” said Harry.

So they flew back to Cutie’s tree. As they flew, Cutie pointed out the tree where Harry might want to live.

Harry said, “That looks like a very nice, roomy tree.”

“Would you like to live in it?” Cutie asked.

“Yes, especially since it’s near you, Cutie.”

“This tree is my tree,” said Cutie.

“Landing!”

Cutie showed him around her tree, and said, “If you would like to live in my tree with me, this would be your room,” and she led him into a large, empty room. “You can take your bed and stuff and put it in here. There’s a bathroom off to the side too, just like there is in mine, and I can teach you how to weave a grass blanket if you like.”

“That would be nice,” said the crow.

“So you really are going to move in?” said Cutie, feeling very excited.

“I didn’t say that,” said the crow, “but now that you mention it, I think I will.”

“Great,” said Cutie, feeling more excited by the minute.

This was heading towards the best day ever! Then she thought, What about my friends? How will they like learning that there’s a crow living in my tree? But I don’t want Harry to feel left out. But I don’t want my friends to scream when they find all his bird stuff. But he wants to live here, and I don’t want to let him down.

Meanwhile, Harry was thinking, She’s so nice, and she’s not afraid of me, too. I’ve never met a land animal since the war ended. I would love to live with her.

Then there was a knock on the door. Cutie answered it. It was a little mouse. It was white.

“Hello. My name’s Amelia, but you can call me Milly. Are you Cutie?”

“How did you know about me?” Cutie asked.

“We both aren’t afraid of the birds,” said Milly.

“I thought that I was the only land animal who wasn’t afraid of the birds. Wow.”

Then she thought, Maybe Harry, Milly, and I can change a few other animals’ minds. Then we can get a few birds and go all over. When she told this to Harry and Milly, she thought they would explode with excitement.

They both gushed, “Wow, that is a great idea!!!”

“I’m glad you like it. Still, though, if you want,” (this part was directed to Milly), “you can get a few animals to come to me. And you,” she said, turning towards Harry, “can get some birds.”

Then there was another knock on the door.

“Another animal? We’ve two already.” Cutie said.

“Another?” Harry and Milly echoed.

“Mm-hm. Another,” Cutie answered. She went to the door. “It’s a gerbil.”

“Hello. Is this where Cutie the chipmunk lives?” It spoke so quietly that Cutie had to strain to hear it.

“I’m she. How did you know about me? Wait, don’t answer that. I think I know. We both aren’t afraid of the birds?”

“Yup. My name is Dora.”

Then the tree started to shake and groan.

“What’s happening?!” Dora shouted.

“I don’t know! Maybe an earthquake?! This has never happened before!” Cutie shouted back.

The tree became a mess of shouting as the animals conversed with each other. The tree slowly started to topple over a little bit.

“Everyone get out,” shouted Cutie, “and try to push the tree back up!”

The tree slowly started to lean to the other side.

“We did it,” cheered the animals.

“Now to convince the land animals and birds to live in harmony,” Cutie said to her friends.

They cheered again and clambered onto Harry’s back. Harry took off, and they soared over Cutie’s tree.

Cutie reached into her pocket and pulled out a bunch of brightly colored lollipops.

“I always leave home with a snack,” she said, and handed them each one.

“Yum,” the animals said. “Thanks, Cutie!”

“You’re welcome,” said Cutie. “Now let’s review our plan. First, we get a few birds. Second, we split up and go all over. Third, we convince the land and air animals to live in harmony!!”

They first went to Bird Land. Harry pointed out his former tree.

A Few Years Later…

Cutie was making a speech to the crowd.

She was saying, “And the only way we can truly be strong is when we work together, share our amazing ideas, and combine them into one, truly amazing idea. Do you agree?”

“Yes!” the crowd roared.

Cutie and her friends had been traveling around the forest and making speeches wherever they stopped. They had been a humongous success. All of the animals had agreed.

The End

Once there was an octopus who only had five tentacles. His name was Fin. He wanted three more tentacles, but his parents said he just had to live with having only five.

He felt embarrassed because all his other octopus friends had eight tentacles, and he even asked his parents if he could get the other three for his birthday. His parents thought he could be unique with only five. Fin did not like that idea.

His birthday was in three weeks, and he thought his best friends forgot about his birthday because he didn’t know about any party. He spent all his time in his cave because he felt embarrassed that he was missing three tentacles. He had one best friend named Bianca the Catfish, who was missing half of her tail.

But then he overheard Bianca the Catfish say, “I can’t wait for Fin to find out about his surprise party!”

It must be for Finny, Fin thought. Finny was an angelfish who had a lot of friends. I’m not having a birthday party this year, my friends haven’t planned it yet. I’m going to ask Mom and Dad about a birthday party.

“No, honey, you can’t have a birthday party this year because we’re going on vacation,” his mom and dad said.

Come on! Fin thought to himself.

“I don’t want to go on a vacation. I want a party.”

Just then, his mermaid friend, Ariel, came to his house cave.

She said, “Come to the coral reef with me.”

Fin and Ariel swam to the coral reef, and all his friends were there.

They yelled, “SURPRISE! Happy birthday!”

“Is this for me?” Finn asked.

There were seaweed and sea plants everywhere. There was all of his favorite food, like clams and slugs. There was a coral cake.

“Yes!” they all said.

“Thank you, thank you. I wasn’t expecting a party. But why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it was a surprise, and we know you like surprises!”

“I still wanted to know about it in the first place, but thank you.”

“Also, look at your present,” said Bianca the Catfish.

He opened his present. It was three foam tentacles. Finn realized that he liked the way he was before, and that he didn’t need any foam tentacles.

“Thank you! But I don’t want foam tentacles anymore. I like the way I am!”

“Me too!” they all agreed.

They all had a dance party and put lights on the tentacles and made them glow, and they all had a nice evening!

THE END

It was Finley’s first day of preschool. Finley was very scared because she had never actually been to school before. She was three years old. She was feeling very scared because she was worried that everybody wouldn’t like her and they wouldn’t be her friends.

It was time to go to school, so Finley packed her apple for her snack, packed her pencil, packed Lunchables for her lunch, and packed her books. Then, she went off to school. It was very close, so she could walk alone.

When she got to school, everybody looked at her, and she said, confused, “What are you all looking at?”

Then everybody, including the teacher, said, “You, of course!”

Then, Finley thought in her head, Well, I’ll just go to my desk. She went to a desk that said her name at the top, and she learned something new! She learned that the long hand on the clock was the minute hand, and that the short hand on the clock was the hour hand.

And then, the teacher, whose name was Ms. Shelly, said, “Next week, we’re going to have a test! It’s going to be about numbers.”

Finley was very scared because she was worried. What if she got a bad grade? What if the teacher was upset at her?

Then it was time for writing.

The teacher said, “You are all going to write the scariest thing that has ever happened to you.”

Then the teacher said, “Get your pencils from your backpack.”

And everybody got their pencils from their backpacks, including Finley.

Finley tried to write the best she could, “The scariest thing that ever happened to me was when I was on the beach, and I was in the water, and then a big wave came, and then it brought me down on the wet sand in the water, and I didn’t even plug my nose. And I rolled on the beach, and I felt very tired.”

And then, when the teacher stopped at her desk to look at her paper, the teacher put a four on it, which meant that she did a great job.

And then, at the end of writing, the teacher said, “The best one that I put a four on was Finley’s!”

And Finley was so surprised and proud of herself. And then, it was time for snack. So she went to her backpack and got out her apple, and the people next to her were asking Finley questions on what she wrote for the scariest thing that happened.

Then, Finley took a bite and said, “I wrote that I was on the beach in the water, and this big wave came to me and brought me down on the sand in the water, and then I rolled on the sand without even plugging my nose.”

Everybody gasped and was like “Oh!” because they were so scared she rolled on the sand without even plugging her nose. They looked at her like that was an interesting story, and she became popular!

At recess, a girl named Mila was alone and had no one to play with, so Finley asked Mila, “Do you want to play with me?”

Finley thought it was a great idea that instead of them making friends with her, she’d make friends with them.

Mila said yes in a very quiet voice.

And then they played with blocks. They made a stage that wasn’t really one, just for accessories like people.

Then it was time to leave recess and go to the classroom, so they did.

They went straight to the rug, and Ms. Shelly said, “We’re going to sleep. We have blankets for you.”

But instead of sleeping, Mila and Finley talked to each other without Ms. Shelly noticing, because she was also sleeping!

And then, Finley said, “Did you bring your toothpaste and toothbrush?”

Mila said, “Yes.”

And Finley said, laughing, “Me too! Let’s brush our teeth in the bathroom!”

They tiptoed to their backpacks and opened their zippers slowly, so that they wouldn’t make any noise. They got out their toothbrushes and toothpaste, and then they snuck into the bathroom. Then they switched toothpastes and brushed their teeth with the toothpaste they switched. After they brushed their teeth, they went back to their beds, and then in one second, the teacher, Ms. Shelly, woke up and said, “Sleep time is over!”

Everybody woke up except Mila and Finley because they were already awake. So everybody stood up and took off their covers and blankets, and the teacher put the beds back where they belonged. Then it was time for play time, but they couldn’t go outside because, unfortunately, it just started raining.

The next day was Friday, the day before Finley’s birthday! She wanted everyone to be at her birthday, but uh-oh. She thought of something. She wanted to keep it a secret, but then nobody would come to her birthday party except Mila! Oh no!!! How am I going to invite everybody without ruining the surprise!!!

Then she had an idea. She was going to tell everybody to give her their phone numbers. So then, she packed her pencils again, she packed her apple again, and she packed her toothbrush again. And then, she was ready to go to school alone again!

At school, she told everybody in her class to give her their phone numbers, so the teacher said, “Oh, that’s a good idea for a class project! We’re each going to put our phone numbers on a piece of paper, and then we can call each other!”

So everybody did the project without even learning anything. Her classmates, including Mila, gave their papers to Finley. Finley put them in her backpack, and then it was time to go home, so Finley went home alone. She read the phone numbers and called everybody to tell them, “Come to 169th Street tomorrow at 11:00 AM.”

And then, she went to sleep… she didn’t hear her parents coming in. Her parents had all this stuff for her birthday: purple and pink streamers, blue and yellow balloons, a number four candle, and water for water balloons! The colors of the water balloons were all the colors in the rainbow. They were feeling super excited because they were so happy their own daughter would be happy! They started hanging all the decorations up in the backyard.

Then, the next day, when Finley woke up, she called everyone again and said, “Remember to come to my house on 169th Street at 11:00 AM.”

And then, she saw a little bit of streamers and water balloons in her bedroom. Her parents left that for her as a surprise! And then Finley went to the backyard, and she put up the streamers and put the water balloons in a basket, but before that, she saw everything hung up! She thought it was some sort of trick people were playing on her because she didn’t know her parents had come home for her birthday!

Then, for her surprise, her parents popped out of a bush and yelled really loudly, “Happy birthday, Finley!!!”

Finley’s mouth opened, and her cheeks turned as pink as tulips. She yelled back, “You came back!!!”

She was feeling very, very, very surprised.

Then, everybody in her class came out of the backyard door, and Mila was there too! Now, Finley’s parents were surprised because they didn’t know she had called all of these people to invite them to her birthday. They didn’t know she made so many friends on her first day of preschool!

They all said, “Happy Birthday, Finley!!!”

Lesson learned. Finley learned not to be scared to make a new friend… or twenty friends! And everybody ate cake and had a happy birthday party.

Chapter 1: The Incredible Sight

It was so big. Then it exploded. All over everyone. Everyone except me. So, technically, I was an outcast, again. Oh, hello, I’m Jake. You could kinda say I have special powers, but nobody notices when I use them, so I guess that was an upside to my plan.

It all started one day when Aunt Marge was babysitting me. I had just come home from school when she asked me if I wanted to go for a drive. It was my stupidness that made me say yes. We got in her old Jeep and drove off. The ride wasn’t comfortable. She wasn’t a good driver. Once she got on the road, she really stepped on it. We started to come to an area I didn’t recognize.

She said, “Welcome to Circus Mirandus.”

I started to get nervous. I saw the sign, and she wasn’t lying. I had heard of Circus Mirandus in stories Grandpa told me. I was always his favorite grandson ‘cause I was his only grandson. My older sister, Lise, died in World War ll. Lise was such a great sister. But anyways, Aunt Marge had parked the Jeep in a vacant parking lot, right next to Circus Mirandus. She told me to get out and stop daydreaming, as she always did. We walked inside the biggest tent and saw a pig the size of the sun.

That brings us back into the present. Suddenly, it exploded! The pig’s body split in half, and all the goop came flying out. That’s where my powers came in. Everyone got covered in the goop, except me. Aunt Marge had some old shrimp hanging off her T-shirt. Everyone looked at me, and I ran out of the tent and headed to the Jeep with Aunt Marge stumbling behind. I knew I couldn’t drive. I didn’t know what came over me. I opened the door and put my foot as hard as I could on the breaks. An angry mob, followed by Aunt Marge, was right behind me. I went as fast as I could and crashed into some trees not far from the mob. I hid behind the tree, and the mob ran past it, thinking that the car was just a decoy. I stumbled into the woods. My head was spinning, and I fell down on the ground and fainted.

Chapter 2: The Family of Beavers

I woke up in a lodge with a shadowed figure looming over me. I screamed. A hairy paw was put over my mouth. I screamed even more, but it turned into a muffled moan. Some sort of strange elixir was tossed into my mouth. It made me cringe.

I woke up again. There were needles all over my body. I got up and pulled all of the needles out of my body. They tried to give me something that looked like grilled worms. I didn’t want to eat it, so they stuck a needle between my eyes, and then I fainted. They put the worms in my mouth, then pulled the needle back out, and then I was back.

I asked them, “Why did you bring me into your lodge?”

“To save you,” they said.

They were furry. I hadn’t really noticed that, considering they were beavers. Their tails looked like spatulas as they slapped them against the floor. Seven children ran around the lodge, screaming. The mom tried to settle them down. The dad grunted. I thought I saw a grandma beaver. Her fur was all gray. The mom rushed over to me. I was lying in a bed made of leaves. My back ached, and I could feel my butt vibrating.

I can’t believe I’ve been rescued by beavers, I thought.

The mother came over to my bed and said, “Welcome to the lodge. I know you were chased by a mob, so we rushed out to save you. We put you in our boat and traveled down the river to our lodge. Eventually you started to move. We came over to you, but it was just the kids messing around. But when you actually did move, we tried to concoct a potion that would make you spontaneously combust, but we realized that wasn’t right. We searched all over the house to find the life potion. We found it in the the life potion bureau. So convenient!”

At this point, I started to get nervous and afraid. Talking beavers. I must have been mad!

Chapter 3: Three Questions

After a night’s rest, I woke up in the lodge and silently yelled at myself for thinking all this was a dream. The beavers started flocking me with questions about Aunt Marge and my powers that allowed me not to get spilled on by any substance. I know, I know, it was an extremely lame power, but it was given to me by the god, Stains the Magnificent.

The god of stains said, “JAKE, YOU ARE SPECIAL! YOU WILL HAVE THE POWER TO NOT GET ANYTHING SPILLED ON YOU!”

I was scared after that night when the god came. I didn’t eat for a week! Eventually, I tried his gift, and it worked! The beavers gawked at me like I was crazy! I bet I asked like a gazillion questions, but sadly, they allowed me three. So I said okay. It was my only way to really question them.

My first question was, of course, “Why did you save me?”

And they just said, “We saw someone worth saving.”

Chapter 4: Inquiry With The Beavers

I just stared at them. What did that mean, We saw someone worth saving? I was confused. My questions were running out, even though I had two more. And that was enough. But I still couldn’t figure out what made me worth saving. Then, I used my second question.

“Why was I worth saving?”

And they said, “You’re the one in the prophecy, Jake. You’ll restore the moonstone to the heart of the forest.”

“What’s the moonstone?” I said.

“Looks like you’re all out of questions after this one. But, since you asked, I can tell you,” said Granny Beaver from behind me.

“Once, long ago, the moonstone made the forest flourish. But one day, an evil man dressed in a black cloak came and stole it. He took it to his palace high above the clouds, where four evil dragons guarded it. They guard the moonstone to this day. But one day, a voice rang out from the clouds. ‘THE ONE WHO CANNOT BE SPILLED ON WILL COME AND STEAL THE MOONSTONE FROM YOUR CLUTCHES, ISAYA.’ Then the man in the cloak went into hiding and took the moonstone with him. On the eighth of September, 2017, the forest will die, and everything living inside will, too. That is why you, Jake, must go to the palace and find him.”

I want to help them, I thought, but I was too scared.

Granny said, “Even if you are scared, you must do it.”

I was scared, she could read my mind! But I wanted to help my furry friends.

So I said, “How do I get to the palace on the clouds?”

“I’m afraid you’re all out of questions, young man,” said Mother Beaver. ”But I guess we could make an exception, given that you’re going to save the forest and all.” “Thank you,” I said.

“To start,” said Grandma Beaver, “You need to go to the end of the world to find the lighthouse that reaches to the top of the world, and travel across the Bridge of Grace, and then you will reach the palace. But, there is a twist. You must answer a riddle that will open the doors to the palace. The answer is a river. Good luck.”

Chapter 5: The End of the World

The next day, I went to the docks and looked for port 45 ½, like Grandma Beaver told me, and waited the 17 minutes until the ferry arrived. When the ferry arrived, I got on, and the porter took my bag filled with food and supplies. I was directed to my seat and watched the ferry leave the docks, and when I looked to my left, I saw we were heading straight for a wall! The ferry started to speed up, and it went right through the wall. When we came out on the other side, we seemed to be heading down a river towards a lighthouse, the one that would take me to the top of the world. Suddenly, it looked like we had hit the rapids. The boat bounced up and down, and I flew across the room. I fell on the floor, and that was even worse! My body flew up and hit the floor. I felt like I could’ve thrown up. It felt like the end of the world.

Chapter 6: The Lighthouse

Eventually, the rapids stopped and night fell. I went into my bunk and fell asleep to the sound of waves. When I woke up, I saw that we were getting closer to the lighthouse! I felt the boat stop, and I rushed outside. I saw the lighthouse in all of its red and white glory. The porter handed me my bag, and I ran to the door. I handed my ticket to the person in the booth that was in front of the lighthouse. He asked me my purpose, why I was visiting the lighthouse. I told him I was meeting a friend. I lied. I couldn’t believe it. Every time I lied my cheeks turned red, so the guy at the booth became suspicious. But since I was a kid, he let me through.

I tried to rush up to the top floor, but on the 20th floor, I threw up all over the stairs. When did I have pizza? I thought. I tried to get to the top and made it, thankfully. The light flashed around the circular room. I rushed to the door and bolted it open. I saw a gate, but there was no bridge. I tried my luck. I opened the gate, took a good running start, and jumped right off the edge of the lighthouse.

I opened my eyes. I was flying! I flew over the edge of the world and saw the waterfall that took all the unfortunate boats off the cliff. My wings were a striking green. I flew above the clouds and spotted the Bridge of Grace and tried to maneuver my way over to the bridge. The maneuver was successful, but my landing wasn’t very graceful, and I crashed into the bridge. I managed to get up, and I noticed my wings were gone, and so I started my journey across the bridge.

Chapter 7: The Bridge of Grace

As I walked across the bridge, I felt the gentle ocean breeze, and it reminded me of the trips my family and I took to the beach every summer vacation. Lise and I would build sandcastles so big, crabs could come inside and live like kings! We would always have PB&J sandwiches and bask in sunlight, but those vacations were in easy times. After Lise’s death, we never went on any family vacations. After my long stretch of daydreaming, I realized that I was almost at the end of the bridge. I looked up and saw the dark pillars of a castle with angry gargoyles looking down at me like I had done them wrong. I knocked on the door, and it opened with a slam.

Chapter 8: The Castle

The doors opened, and I walked through them. There was a long corridor with a red carpet streaming through it. I started to walk down it, and I saw paintings of kings that had come before Isaya. I entered a throne room, and there was a golden throne plopped right in the center. A figure in a dark cloak sat there with his fingers together, in an almost scheming way. He stood up. His face was covered by his hood. He was a lanky sort of man, his skin was dark gray, and his eyes were a deep red. He lifted up his hood, and I saw his face. I gasped and fell down. Right smack down in the middle of his face was a scar the size of a watermelon.

He said, “Welcome, Jake Conboy. To your death! Muwahahaha! Here in this castle, you may find secret passages and death chambers, but I know why you are here. Not to be accommodated by me, but to steal my precious moonstone.”

Wow, he’s reading my mind just like the granny beaver did, I thought.

He said, “Try your best, Conboy, but you can never steal my moonstone.”

Chapter 9: The Dragons of the Earth

Isaya dropped through a hole in his throne. Water started to fill up the throne room. The clear liquid fell out through the gargoyles’ mouths and pooled onto the floor. I was scared. I didn’t know how to swim! I spotted a trap door in the floor, and I rushed to it. I opened it and dropped down the dark hole. When I got down, I noticed that there was a glass case with some sort of glowing orb inside it.

It looked like the moonstone! I reached out to get it, and then I heard a roar! Something moved in the corner, and a dark shadow rose, then three more. I gazed up at the dark shadows and screamed, but not just any scream. It was the loudest scream I could possibly generate. The dragons did not seem intimidated, so they roared back at me. Then, one of them spoke.

“I’m the Dragon of Water! My three siblings and I have guarded the moonstone for a million years. Now we shall destroy you because you have touched the moonstone!”

At this point, I was trembling. I grabbed the moonstone, and I ran up the ladder. They flew after me, their snake-like bodies slinking around the ladder. I ran through the corridor. The king saw me, and now all five of them were on my tail. I rushed out of the palace.

Then I heard the king shout, “Retract the drawbridge!”

Right then and there, I took the biggest risk of my life. I ran up the drawbridge and jumped right off the edge and landed on the platform that was on the other side. The drawbridge closed just before they could get there, and I could hear curses from the king. I ran across the Bridge of Grace, and came back to the lighthouse with the moonstone still in my clutches. I ran down the 30 flights of stairs, and I saw the ferry pulling out of the docks. I took another risk and jumped right onto the end of the ferry. The wind was almost knocked out of me. The moonstone rolled onto the floor and was so close to falling off the edge. I grabbed onto it just as it started to go over the edge. I looked back at the lighthouse, then I looked up. The bridge started to disappear. The forest was safe for another year.

Chapter 10: September 8, 2017           

The ferry got back to port 45 ½ by morning. I got off the ferry and walked towards the forest with the moonstone in my bag. I checked my watch. The date was September 8, 2017. I gasped! If I didn’t get the moonstone to the Grand Tree today, the forest would perish and everything in it too! I must have lost track of time when I was inside the palace!

I ran into the forest and hurried to the lodge where the beavers lived. I pushed the door open, and I held the moonstone to the ceiling so they could see it. But they weren’t there. Books were scattered all over the floor, the bed sheets had been ripped, and there was blood all over the walls. I ran upstairs and saw them huddling in a corner.

I asked them, “What’s going on, what happened?”

Granny Beaver said, “The dragons came. They attacked the lodge. They asked us where you were, and if we didn’t tell them, they would’ve kill us.”

“You told the dragons? They want to kill me!”

“Did you get the moonstone?” said Granny Beaver. “That’s the only thing that matters now.”

I showed it to them. They seemed to smile, even in this time of worry.

“Go to the middle of the forest,” said Granny Beaver. “There you will find the Grand Tree.”

“Okay,” I nodded.

I ran out of the lodge, took one last look, and ran into the dark forest. I started to see a glow of light in the distance. It must’ve been the Grand Tree! But, when I got closer, I saw it was four snake-like bodies around a dead-looking tree.

“No!” I screamed.

“Welcome, Jake Conboy,” said one of the dragons. “To your doom! Muwahahaha-ughughughugh. Sorry, got a little dust in my throat.”

They stood on their hind legs and blew fire out of their mouths. Then a thought struck me. If the tree is dead, how am I supposed to restore the moonstone? The tree has to be alive and well! I checked my watch. It was 10:59. I had one more hour. Then I asked a question.

“How did you get here? I thought I saw the bridge disappear.”

Then, a grainy voice said from behind, “You are asking all the wrong questions, Jake Conboy.” A hooded figure emerged. “I think we’ve met. My name is Isaya, king of the skies. I hope you like goobly-goo, because I have plenty in store for you.”

“Ah, but you have forgotten! Or, I just haven’t told you, I cannot be spilled on!”

I felt proud. I had stood up to a bully like Isaya.

“Ah, but you have forgotten, again,” said Isaya, “I am a god. Ruler of the skies. You might have heard of me in the life or death prophecy,” he cackled.

I was definitely afraid. Then I thought of something, but for it to work, I needed to ask another question.

“Why do you hate the forest?’

“Because,” he started to say, “When we were given the chance to pick who was to rule the earth, we fought over who would get it. So, we had a competition, and we rolled a dice, and whoever got the bigger number would get the Earth, and as you can see, I lost…”

He kept talking and didn’t notice me slide past his dragons, who were also listening. I gently pushed the moonstone into the hole that was in the tree’s roots, and a golden dust seeped through the tree, and it started to come to life. The sky king turned around and immediately went into a rage.

He shouted, “Idiots!” to the dragons as midnight struck. I felt triumphant for my achievement, but Isaya was still raging.

“Ahhh,” he shouted, and a blast of fire set the tree on fire! I was so scared as the flames blazed around the outside of the tree. Eventually, the flames died out, and all that was left was a smoldering shell of what was once the Grand Tree.

Chapter 11: The Grand Tree

I gasped. The tree was dead! I started to see the ground disintegrate around it. Isaya laughed and took to the skies, to his palace on the clouds. I ran back to the lodge, but I stopped in my tracks. I turned, ran back to the tree, grabbed the moonstone, and headed back. I opened the door to the lodge and went upstairs. The beavers were frightened by me and thought that I was a dragon. As I walked towards them, the wooden floorboards creaked, and my foot fell through the ceiling of the first floor. I pulled it up as quickly as I could, my heart racing.

I came closer to them and said, “The tree is dead. Pack your bags. We’re leaving.”

I slept there that night, and the next morning, I took them to my house. Suddenly, we heard a crash! A tree had fallen right onto the lodge! I saw a tear come out of Mommy Beaver’s eyes, so I tried to speed them up. I took them home and told them that they would stay in the tree house until I had enough guts to go back and defeat the evil sky king.

Chapter 12: Defiant Declarations

Three days later, I traveled back to the lighthouse, flew to the bridge, and walked across the drawbridge. I walked down the same corridor and put a decoy moonstone in the glass case. I went back and then went down the hole that the king had dropped through when he had disappeared the first time. It led to his room. Thankfully, he wasn’t there, so my plan sprung into action! I put death poison in the king’s soap and left without a trace. When the king got home, he thought he needed a nice, warm, eeeevil bath, so he poured the soap into the watery tub, and the water immediately turned black.

Hmmm, poison, he thought. He had been tricked! He went to the case and checked if the moonstone had been returned. He was surprised to see it had been returned! He thought he was back in power and took to the tree to have the power restored through his darkness!

Back at my house, I was getting ready for his return so that I could defeat the evil king.

Chapter 13: The Moonstone’s Triumph

The king traveled down into mortal territory, as he called it, to bloom the moonstone in the presence of the dying tree. He floated on a cloud to the middle of the forest and dropped the moonstone into the hole in the center of the tree, then watched the black dust flow throughout the dead tree.

I was getting ready to leave. I slid down my pole from the treehouse and started to run to the docks. I stopped in my tracks and looked at the forest, only to see a black glow coming from the center of the forest. I rushed toward the glow and was horrified to see the king raising the moonstone up to the clouds as the black dust came and was absorbed into the moonstone.

I rushed towards the king and slid down on the ground and tripped the king! The moonstone now had turned completely black, fell out of the king’s clutches, and was taken into the Grand Tree. The tree came back from its dead form into a black, live tree. The leaves withered away, and the bark started to peel off.

“Muwahahaha,” said the king. “I have defeated you, Jake Conboy!”

“Aha,” I said, “But what you don’t know is that was a fake moonstone all along! I have the real one right here!”

And I pulled it out of my messenger bag and lifted it up so that the lanky king could see it.

“Why, thank you, Jake,” said the king. He took the moonstone out of my clutches and lifted it up to the clouds.

“No, thank you!” I said.

I jumped up and grabbed it.

“No!! Thank you!!” said the king, and he grabbed it once again.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” said Granny Beaver, who came out of the treehouse. “I am going to end this madness once and for all!”

She slapped the sky king’s butt with her tail, and the moonstone slipped out of his hand and dropped into the dirty roots of the grand tree. The golden dust started to flow through the tree, once again bringing life to the forest around it. The tree that had fallen onto the beaver’s lodge came up and resumed its place as a sturdy elm.

The forest sprung back to life, and everything was back to normal!

“Nooo!!!” shouted the evil sky king as the positive, gold dust blasted him far, far away.

“Well, that’s the last we’ll be seeing of him,” said Granny Beaver, with a grainy voice. “Come! We must celebrate in the lodge!” she said.

After all the beavers had moved back into the lodge, they celebrated with a cup of hot cocoa. Dad Beaver banged a wooden drum as they danced in circles.

“Uggghh,” I said.

I spit out my cocoa when I found it was just water and dirt. We danced around the fire.

To this day, you can still hear the faint cries of the evil sky king if you listen very closely. His palace made of clouds is still there, and the dragons still fly around the sky, guarding the palace, and the Grand Tree guards the forest of Hobblenob every day.

THE END

Chapter 2

Opening my eyes, I feel fire swarming my small form. Normal. Then, a jet of magic blasts out of my hand.

“What?” I say simply.

This is my forbidden power coming out. I forgot about this. Well, at least it’s still normal. Walking outside of my small treehouse with the fire-fox that I named Flame, I go over my powers by testing each one.

“Invisibility.”

I look at a hand mirror to see that I completely disappear.

“Shapeshifting.”

I turn into a fire-fox, like Flame, then back into a human (Flame’s eyes are wide open with awe).

“Frost.”

I go over to the lake by my house and freeze the water.

“Psychics.”

I lift Flame and place her on my head (where she curls up, on top of my head, to take a nap).   

“Fire.”

I unfreeze the lake and take a drink.

“And water control.”  

I lift up the water and make it spin above my head. I frown, wondering if I should test my unforbidden power.

“Why not,” I say to myself. “But only for a second.”

Taking Flame off my head, I place her 20 feet in front of me. Then, I unleash my inner demon.

Chapter 3

A fire swarms around me as a white, blinding form comes out of me. This is what I call my inner demon. The first time it ever came out was a nightmare.

We were in the hut, not too far away from town, but far enough so I would have space to roam around freely, which was important to my mom and dad. As I was playing outside with a magic ball, I suddenly stopped. Before my parents could even move to see what was wrong, my eyes started to glow a bright red and my hair shot up like I just got shocked by lightning.

Fire and water chased itself around my head, opening a vortex-like element, where a black demon started to crawl slowly out of the vortex. My mom had the power to create force fields, or “bubbles,” as I used to call them. Wrapping me in a bubble, she carried me into the house while Dad (who controlled the element of fire) burned the demon. When the vortex was gone, I didn’t remember a thing. I just asked why we had gone inside and why I was in a bubble. Mom and Dad told me what had happened and told me that it was just a new power.

As I grew older, the new power happened a bit more often. Mom and Dad told me to only think good thoughts, and that bad thoughts were feeding the demon inside me. That is why I became so optimistic. I’m always scared that the demon inside me will one day come out and never go back into its weak state.

When the flashback is over, and the demon goes back inside my form, I see Flame standing up on the rock I had put her on less than five minutes ago. Now she looks tense, and she’s getting ready to pounce. Taking slow steps toward her, I whisper a calm lullaby.

She grows less tense as I stroke her soft, orange fur. I cuddle up next to her as I realize that I have school tomorrow. Looking up at the sun, I see that it’s starting to set. How long have I been out here? Well, whatever. Flying upwards, I go into my hut and start to fall asleep when the realization sets in. I am starting senior year of high school! Well, sleep comes first. Falling asleep with Flame curled up next to me, I wait for the torture to begin.

“Why do I have to go to a Jewish school? I don’t even know any Hebrew!!!” Emma complained to her mom.

“It will be good for you,” her mom said.

Her older sister, Ruth, was listening in on the conversation.

“You’re going to need to learn Hebrew before next week. You know that we’re gonna be in Israel visiting relatives for a month,” Ruth said, seeming rather calm.

“You really expect me to learn Hebrew at my first week in a brand new school?!” Emma replied.

“Emma, Ruth!” their dad called, “It’s time for breakfast!”

Emma got up and ran to the kitchen. She sat in her chair and started to eat. Her dad had made waffles and syrup. It was delicious, but she hardly paid any attention. She was too nervous because on Monday, she would be going to a small school where she would know no one. A school with a different, unfamiliar environment. A school where she would be thought of as stupid because she didn’t know Hebrew, and it was a Jewish school.

***

Emma’s first day at her new school was a total disaster. Just kidding. All the kids were welcoming, along with the teachers, and no one, I repeat, no one, seemed to think of her as stupid. At one point, Emma forgot the name of the school, but because of how the rest of the day went, she wasn’t afraid to ask. It turned out that the name of the school was Beit Rabban. She made a few new friends. The names of her friends were Rose, Batya, and Isabelle. She even learned a few words in Hebrew. Yes is ken (כן), no is lo (לו), maybe is ooliy (אולי), and thank you is todah (תודה).

When Emma got home, she decided to watch a show. She walked over to the TV room. When she opened the door, she saw her sister watching a fashion show that she hated, so instead of watching TV, she had to do her stupid homework. Emma did her literacy and math homework easily, but when it came to Hebrew, she was stumped. She decided to just tell the teacher it was too hard. Then, she thought about Israel. What would she do?! She couldn’t spend a month with no way to talk to anyone!!

***

The day finally arrived. They were going to Israel for a whole month, and Emma still knew only a few words in Hebrew. After lunch, they went to the airport and did all of the boring things that people do in airports. Many adults call these things “important,” and “a good use of time,” but one thinks otherwise when they’re a child with no computer to play games on. The reason for this should be pretty obvious. If you don’t have your own computer, you are stuck watching all of the adults use their computers.

The plane was no better. All Emma did was sit around, eat, and sleep. Then, as soon as they got out of the airport in Israel, Emma’s life became a lot more interesting. She had heard that Israel was a little bit smaller than New Jersey, but because of all the stuff packed into it, it looked much bigger. They had rented a house in Tel Aviv (תל אביב) next to a bunch of playgrounds (which looked awesome!) While Emma’s dad and sister went to the house, Emma and her mother went to one of the playgrounds. Immediately, Emma saw a lonely looking girl sitting alone on one of the benches that circled the playground. Emma wanted to go up to her and cheer her up, but she knew that the girl wouldn’t be able to understand her, so she and her mother started towards the house to join the rest of the family.

On the way home, Emma and her mother passed a woman, who looked a little confused.

“Aypho hasifria?” she asked.

Emma’s mom pointed at a building not too far away, and the woman nodded, smiled, and said, “Todah.”

All this happened while Emma stood there completely dumbfounded.

Emma went to the playground again and again, only to find herself staring at the girl, who seemed to always be sitting on the same bench. Only once did she see someone talk to the girl. It was a woman, probably the girl’s mom. It sounded like the woman called the girl Tamar. Tamar always had that same look on her face, a look of loneliness, like she never had anyone to talk to. That was one of the main, and most important reasons, why Emma wanted to know Hebrew. If she knew Hebrew, she would be able to cheer Tamar up.

One day, the girl waved to Emma. Emma was shocked, but she tried not to show it, and just waved back. Then the next day, Emma decided to make a move. She walked up to the girl and motioned for her to come. The girl came, and they played together silently, but they constantly made hand motions to tell each other what they wanted to say.  Every day, when they were both at the playground, they would do it again and again and again. Slowly, day by day, they made up a whole language, and they called it Sign Language. A new and original name. When it was finally time for Emma to leave, instead of being happy to get home to her friends, she was sad to leave Tamar. But it didn’t matter. After all, they’d be coming back next year.

3/12/11

Dear Diary,                                                                                                                     

My name is Lucy. I am twelve years old, and I live in Liverpool, England.  I love to write. I wrote seventeen chapter books and five picture books. I like to write fantasy stories. In school, I have no friends. No one likes me, I guess. Whenever they see me, they walk past me like I’m a ghost. The only friend I have is Kaitlyn. She lives in Manchester, England. I go to see her once a month. It takes my family and I one hour and ten minutes to drive there. I’m just quiet.  A lot of girls at school get detention or suspension. These girls’ names are Amelia, Ella, Ashley, Allison, Isabella, and Lily. They’re all in, like, a “gang,” I guess. They are loud, rude, and just mean! I really want to see Kaitlyn more, and I want the girls at school to be nice to me.

From,

Lucy

3/24/11

Dear Diary,                                                                                                                   

Today, in recess, I was sitting down and knitting, when Ella and Alison came over to me and said, “Knitting is stupid, do something else with your life!” Then they took off sixteen stitches and threw what I was knitting onto the ground.

Everyone was playing, but since Kaitlyn didn’t go to my school, I couldn’t play with anyone. The girls from the “gang” were on the slide, the boys were on the monkey bars, and I was sitting on the steps with the teacher. I thought about the time when the “gang” was telling secrets about me.

Lily stood up and said, “Stop making fun of her, she’s kinder than you think!”

So, that day, I asked Lily if she wanted to be my friend, and she said, “I guess so.”

I know that you are probably like, Why did you ask a girl from the “gang” to be be your friend? But she’s nicer than the other girls and quiet like me. Maybe she still makes fun of me though.

From,

Lucy

4/12/11

Dear Diary,                                                                                                                

So it turns out that Kaitlyn is moving. So that’s great. Now we live seven hours and fifteen minutes away, and I have to take a plane there! Well, on the bright side, Lily’s my friend. But the rest of the “gang” are not my friends. Today I’m going to see Kaitlyn, and my family and I are in the car now. We are going to help her pack. I am going to miss her sooo much. We grew up together.

Lily doesn’t know that I’m going to visit Kaitlyn. She doesn’t even know about her, and Kaitlyn doesn’t know about Lily. Well, I mean I don’t want Kaitlyn to leave, but I sort of want to see what happens between me and Lily. Wow, I just saw a family of European rabbits and a pool frog! Well, I better go, I’m so excited! Bye!

From,

Lucy

It was only the second week that Emy’s Jazz Club was open when I broke the rule. I played the piano. I had longed to use it since opening day of the restaurant, but it was prohibited by all the people working there. The only person allowed to play it was my father. When he went on break, I played a short song. It was nothing really. It had just been torture for the past two weeks. Seeing everyone play it, I felt it was mine. And I didn’t want anybody touching what I thought was mine. It just didn’t feel right. But, when my father came back from the break room, I was just midway through the song. The crowd was sinking into it.

“Rene!” he screamed and yanked my hands off of the keys.

He brought me to my room and threw a box of crackers on my bed.

“Goodnight Rene,” he said. “If we wanted you to play, we would have said so.”

And with that, he slammed the door and left me with nothing but a bed and a box of stale saltines.

***

I woke up the next morning to screams and gasps. I ran down the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me. The jazz club was somewhat empty. Not because of the people, but because of something else… the piano!

“I’m sorry,” my father said. “I forgot to lock up the club. Someone must have noticed and stolen it.”

There were more gasps and screams.

“Without the piano, we could go out of business,” another cook exclaimed.

My father gave me a glare and told me, “If you go out and find the piano, you can take over and play it when you come back.”

For the first time, I stared into his eyes.

“I’ll go,” I said like a hero. “Anything for Emy’s.”

“That’s the spirit,” Christina, the barista, said.

Pretty soon, everyone was cheering for me. I walked out of the club with a reassuring “Be back soon!” so that everyone could feel comfortable with me walking around New Orleans by myself. I took a deep breath and set out to find my piano.

I started walking towards Port Trade & Exchange. Mr. Port loved music and would give up anything in his store for something so valuable. I have known him since I was born. He opened his store the day I was born. He was 60, but, hey, who’s counting?

“Good Morning, Mr. Port. How ya doing?” I asked the man.

“Very well, Rene,” he said very casually. “What brings you here, gal?”

“Well, is there any chance that you got a piano yesterday or early this morning?” I asked hopefully.

“No, no, no. What makes you think that? But I did see two men walking with a piano at four.” He sipped his coffee. A couple of minutes passed by. “Hurry along now. Go, go. This isn’t school, this is the proud store of Port Trade & Exchange.” He hurried me out the door.

I had collected some information. The people who stole the piano did so at four o’clock. They were men, two men. I scribbled down all the information I had collected on a Post-it. I headed back to the jazz club. The door swung open.

I walked in and had a seat at the bar. Christina was making me cheese and crackers.

“How was it, honey?” she said.

I ate a cracker. “Good. I found out some information about who stole it and when they stole the piano.”

“Really?” said Cristina, wide-eyed. “Tell me.”

“Ok. Well, they were two men. They stole the piano at four.”

I explained the story to her, telling her what I heard from Mr. Port. Then the band (without the piano) started practicing. The drums and trumpet sounded empty without the piano. I saw Father standing backstage. He was probably thinking about Mom. She worked for NASA and always left early in the morning and came home late at night, if she came home at all. When she was home, she baked cookies and left us enough to last until she came back later. I watched as Father started clapping to the music. When they finished, they took a bow like there were people watching them. In total, they did a good job. They were louder than usual. They weren’t as into the music as they were when they had my dad leading with the piano.

The person playing the trumpet was named Greg, and the person playing the drums was named Stewart. Sometimes, Stewart would let me hit the cymbals after a performance, but I didn’t ask. His band had enough to deal with without me getting cracker crumbs over his new instrument. All of a sudden, I had a thought. Could Mr. Port have stolen the piano? How could he know for sure that two men stole it at four o’clock? Maybe he was hiding the piano in the back closet! That was why he rushed me out of the shop so quickly!

I ran to his shop, and as I got closer, I got stealthier. When I finally got there, I snuck through the back entrance, where the storage room was. It was the only place he could hide a piano. He lived on the second floor of the large warehouse. I walked into the storage room. Things were piled up everywhere. There were statues and rocking chairs of all different kinds. Scarves and photographs with frames were put on any spare space in the stifling room. I wobbled my way over to the back space of the room. I saw a tarp covering something in the back of the room. Could it be?! I uncovered the tarp to find… a Pac Man Arcade Machine? So Mr. Port didn’t steal the piano after all. I felt kinda guilty for suspecting my closest family member (other than Christina) of stealing my father’s most prized possession. He would never want Emy’s to close. I walked slowly back to the club. I took out my cellphone and texted my friend, Nella.

Me: Can u help me with a mystery?

Nella: Sure. Is it about ur dad’s piano?

Me: Howda u know about it?

Nella: GOTTA NEWS projected it.

Me: Ohh

Nella: Am I coming or not?!

Me: Come.

As fast as I could turn off my cell, Nella was standing at the club stoop. Her hair was blowing in the wind as if she were a supermodel. I walked up to her. She was eating a blueberry scone.

“Hey, Nella.”

“Hey, Rene,” she said, giggling.

I guess she thought it was funny that Rene rhymed with hey.

“Let’s go, Nella.” I said.

She handed me a walkie talkie.

“We should spread out. You go in the club, I’ll go to Port Trade and-”

“Already checked there,” I said, not making eye contact with her.

“Okay, then I’ll go to the Instrument Shop instead.”

“Let’s go,” I said.  

I hooked up my walkie talkie to my pants and sprinted into the restaurant. I heard talking in my walkie-talkie.

“If you find anything, moo like a cow!”

Nella can be so weird sometimes. As I walked towards the storage closet, I heard something.

“If you tell Syd, we’re in big trouble.”

Syd was my dad’s name. That was Stewart’s voice.

“Yeah. If Syd finds out that we stole his piano, we’re both dead.”

That was Greg’s voice! They stole the piano! I mooed into the walkie talkie and barged into the closet.

“Ahhh!” they screamed.

The police came and, pretty soon, both of them were put in prison. Later, we found out that they stole the piano because they thought that they were not getting attention from the crowd, so they stole the main instrument. My father later came and put his shoulder around mine.

“Nice job, Rene. You ready for tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Mama’s coming, and you are playing the piano for everyone.”

“Oh, I forgot.”

That night, I put on my dark green dress with lace sleeves and my white flats. They were like ballet slippers. I thought it would be best to wear my flat shoes, because if I was going to be pushing the pedals, I needed flats. My hair was in one braid all the way down my back. Soon, I found myself on the stage with my hands on the keys again. I saw my mama, and my heart raced. I also saw all of my friends, Mr. Port, Christina, and people who came to watch. It was just like the night I last played. Except, instead of my hands being yanked off the keys, the spotlights went on. Click.

Once upon a time, there lived a puppet named Trump. The girl that owned Trump loved him, but she grew old, and she wanted to be queen. She took the puppet to the graveyard and buried him there.

One day, on a full moon, he came out of the grave and said, “I will get my revenge on Georgegina.”

The day after, he was looking for some kind of weapon to kill her, but someone found him, picked him up, and took him to the store. But, good thing he did not move when the man found him. He was at the store, and the guy put him for sale. Someone bought him, and he got shipped to the home of the buyer.

At night, he found a knife and went to the parents’ bedroom and woke them up and said, “Here is Trump,” and stabbed them in the face and ran away.

Then, he saw into another house, and it looked like her, Georgegina, and went to the house and stabbed her in the face. But, it wasn’t Georgegina. It just looked like her. One day later, he found a newspaper, and it said,  “Georgegina, our new queen.”

So, then he said, “She probably has an army by now, so I probably need an army too.”

He went to a library and found a wizard book. He looked in the wizard book, and it said, “If you say ‘hogen blogen,’ then all of the puppets, that had been tortured, will come to life.”

So, he went to the graveyard and said ”hogen blogen.”

They got summoned, and he said, “Yes, Georgegina will die.”

And, by the way,  Georgegina threw all the puppets in the world out because she hated puppets and buried all the puppets in the graveyard! So, he had his army, and they were different. Some had glasses, and some puppets had robotic eyes. But, then he saw a kano puppet, and he knew that the kano puppet was strong because he saw him on TV once, and he was killing everything, so he made him co-captain.

So, he said, “Kano, take 60 puppets and try to find Georgegina.”

Then, he said to the other puppets, “We are going to make a plan to kill Georgegina”.

So, they went to Georgegina’s castle, and they saw the guards and split up and tried to find the room that Georgegina was in. But, the guards were in the way. Georgegina was on the top floor.

They did not know what room she was in. The guards saw them, but the puppets had a plan. They came in from different sides, right and left, and they sliced the guards in half with their knives, and they got past. They were on the first floor, so they found an elevator and went up. They were there, and they saw Georgegina, and then all the other puppets came.

And Trump said to Georgegina,  “You son of a Bush, why would you do this? Now, you’re going to die.”

She said, “What the hell are you guys doing here? Anyways, smell my butthole, suckers.”

So, they killed her, and each of them took turns stabbing her with a knife, and now it is an old wive’s tale, and it happened on January the 13th.

The End

Hi, I’m End. I obviously have the worst spot in a book… the last page.

I mean, who likes a thumb pressing on their face all the time? It’s horrible! I JUST WANT PEACE AND QUIET!!! Prisoners are bad people, and they still get good spots. When I mean good, I mean the reader doesn’t put their thumb on your face. It’s not like I can move in the comic while a person is reading. Then, they would freak out, they would know our secret, and all that stuff. Plus, it’s really annoying when I walk through the book. I always hit my head on the speech bubbles.

This is what I look like: I have a big, round head, pretty long arms, and, I guess, short legs. My house is made out of sticks. My whole world is made out of sticks. I mean, who likes their world being plain black-and-white and sticks? Especially in the worst part of the book.

I really want to find another place.

Recently, the author of this book, Gary L. Henderson, passed away. When the reader closed the book, obviously a bunch of us cried. But me, eh, I didn’t cry a lot. The reason I didn’t cry a lot is because number one, the author put me in the worst place, and number two, I have long arms, but short feet and a big head. Most people call me “Balloon Head,” but whatever.  When I mean whatever, I really mean whatever. I totally don’t care.

When the book is closed, I walk to the very back of the book and sit there. It’s the place that fits me the most in the book. It’s plain, it has no people in it, and when no one’s reading the book, it’s peaceful and quiet.

The president of stick figures, Bob Blob, declared that we should each trace a piece of Gary L. Henderson’s toenail so they could make a really small funeral at the end of the book, where the book cover is. Obviously, that really shocked me.

I climb up the cover. I get a little tired, so I go to the bottom of the book and sleep.

I end up outside. Being outside feels weird because when I come outside, I rip out a piece of paper that will keep me alive. Now, I just have to figure out a way to go back. Well, I actually don’t want to go back. Maybe I should have just figured out a way to hide.

So I wait and wait, until a cleaning lady sucks me up into the vacuum. Inside, there are gross stuff, like hair, dust, spider legs, and flies. It’s disgusting, but it’s okay because I find a piece of paper I can walk onto. A little bigger, but not a full piece of paper. I wait days, and those days turn into weeks.

Finally on the 11th week, the cleaning lady empties the vacuum. She drops a little on the floor, but gladly, I don’t fall on the floor. I find a paper shopping bag in the garbage. I go onto the bag and climb outside the trashcan. That’s when I get worried. I figure Gary L. Henderson has six hamsters. If only I could figure out a way to be a 3D object. Wait, I know, a 3D printer.

I waited another few weeks to go to the 3D printer. I’m an inch away from the 3D printer, but gladly, there’s a bunch of paper. I try to push my paper. It doesn’t work. So, I wait one hour, and the cleaning lady opens the window. A little wind pushes me onto the paper. I walk on the paper. Now, all I have to do is figure out a way to get into that 3D printer. I sadly waste 24 hours and six minutes printing myself when I can’t go into 3D printed-self.

I wake up. What actually happens is:

When I am at the end of the book, I start a huge ink-fire, and set a bone on fire, and go around town setting pretty much everything on fire. I know it’s a crazy thing. I mean, all I have to do is set fireworks all around the town without lighting them, so in my opinion, it is a great idea. Gladly, nobody is around because they are all huddled around the grave. I should burn the toenail too, but then they would kill me, so whatever.

But, I mean, who cares. Once I burn down all the stuff, it is still sticks, and plus, this is a stick figure comic book. I mean, the book’s called Ink City. They can just rebuild the stick city, but it’ll take a long time. But, who cares. All I have to do is, before they come, grab some sticks, and make a small hut by the end of the book.

Two years later…

Finally, they build the Stick Figure State Building. All the sticks do what you do in life. Mostly working, playing, and chilling. Isn’t that obvious?

Well, you see, for the last two years, I’ve been at the end of the book. Readers have not read this book in a while, so I made a creepy forest at the end of the book, so no readers would see me move around. Gladly, there are no speech bubbles that hit my head when I move around. I mean,  that’s the most annoying part about comic books.

The best part, yet, is that nobody dares to come in the woods that people now call, the Stickifying Woods. So, in the end, I don’t get what I want, but at least it’s much better than I thought it would be.

The End

… Or maybe. Or it might be the end if the hamsters attack.