Category: winter 2023

A man by the name of Martin Stevens decided to cook a Thanksgiving turkey on a Tuesday evening for no special event, but he didn’t know how, and neither do I. So he got a turkey from the grocery store and put it in the oven. The turkey did not come out well. It was so burnt that it was blacker than the abyss.

The man, a stranger to cooking, decided it looked delicious. He took a bite and he loved it. He invited his neighbors to try the turkey. They loved it as much as he did. He decided to give them the recipe: Place the turkey in the oven and set the temperature to nine hundred and ninety-nine degrees. It was chaos. With this amazing new turkey recipe, everybody was rushing to the grocery store for a turkey. People told their friends about the turkey, so now hundreds of people were rushing to the grocery store before it closed. The store ran out of turkeys and the crazed turkey shoppers started a riot. The employees had to steal turkeys from the local zoo and start butchering them.

At last, after the employees illegally stole turkeys from the zoo and chopped them up, there were enough of the birds for everyone! Everybody got a nine hundred and ninety-nine degree burnt turkey! But the employees from the local zoo realized what had happened and started wrecking the grocery store for stealing their precious turkeys. They destroyed all the fresh produce and stomped on all the bread, once the zoo employees had finished their rampage they left, leaving the grocery store employees baffled. The end. 

One day in California, there lived a boy. The boy had all the toys in the town. The boy wanted to have something new. How hard is it to think of something new?!

“Wait a minute,” said the boy, “I think I got it! All I want is a particular pet! I want an anteater! I want it nice and gray.”

As soon as his dad heard the news, he went to all the zoos that he could find. He asked the zookeepers calmly if they had any anteaters.

“We have anteaters, but our anteaters are not for sale.”

One day later, his dad found a zoo that said “Anteaters for sale”. He found the nicest, grayest anteater and gave it to his son. 

The anteater asked the boy, “Please give me some meat and bread.”

The boy said, “No, you are an anteater and you should go outside and find some ants from my garden.”

The anteater searched night and day, but he couldn’t find a single ant.

Five days later, the boy’s aunt came over. The boy shouted over to the anteater, “Come see my Aunt Samantha! She is over 15 years old.”

The anteater turned around and said, “A giant ant?”

Sometimes people think it’s “a-nt”, but it’s actually, “au-nt”. 

As soon as the anteater heard the word “aunt” he said, “Hmmm, a giant ant.”

The boy said, “Yes, yes, a good big ah-nt”

The anteater came closer and closer and said, “Hmm, I don’t care if the aunt is over 15. I don’t care how old the aunt is. Tonight, when Aunt Samantha is sleeping, I will gulp her down head to toe.”

So, at night he did exactly what he said. He ate her head to toe, toenails too!

In the morning, the boy looked around for his Aunt Samantha. Then, he saw the anteater in Aunt Samantha’s bed. The anteater said, “Since I ate Aunt Samantha for dinner, I will eat you for dessert!”

The anteater didn’t only eat the boy, he ate his whole family and even his plants. 

After he ate everyone and all the plants, he had so much energy, so he dug into the boy’s garden. Then he saw a tiny speck of something black in the dirt moving. He said, “Ah! Another ant!”

       The end.

Chapter 1- The Beginning of it All 

I felt a burst of cold air when someone took the warm, loving covers off me. “Stop!” I yelled, trying to pull the covers back from whomever took them from me. “Hannah banana, it’s hiking day!” I heard my dad say, as hiking was his favored passion. “Why today? I had the best dream, I was jumping on cotton candy clouds and there were waterfalls of gatorade.” Gatorade was my favorite drink on the entire earth. “We’ve had this planned for three  months! Why couldn’t you have saved that dream for another night?” he said as he was sitting down. “Daaaad, you can’t have or not have a dream, silly!” My dad replied, “ Yeah right. We have to get a move on if we want to get to our hiking site by 10:00! Start packing your hiking bag Hannah! Chop chop!” 

As I was packing, I was wondering what to bring, but I didn’t want Dad to get mad at me for not knowing what to bring, so I brought: a six pack of Gatorade, some Band-Aids, and a couple of granola bars. As I was about to exit the front door to wait for Dad at the car, I felt someone stop me. I turned around to look at who it was and it was my older brother, Lucas. He is a total caution freak, so he handed me a keychain with flint and steel and a Swiss Army knife starter set with scissors, a variety of mini knives, a mini saw, and tweezers. Then I hugged him and walked to the car, as I saw Dad was in the car, ready to leave. 

While I was in the car looking out the window, I saw car after car race by; it looked like they would never end. As I felt the car slow to a stop, I readied my things; for the adventure awaits, I thought. I opened the car door not wanting to feel the cold air, as it was the middle of fall. I got out of the car, and Dad was already next to the entrance path, to the hike. I didn’t know then, but this hike was going to change my life. 

We walked through the path slowly, taking in all that was around us, breathing in all the floral, outsidey scents. We looked at all the plants, gawking at animals. Hearing birds *Chirp Chirp* every step of the way. We were walking for quite a while, an hour or so. Then, we came across this little area with what looked like never-ending berries. There were so many berries, heaps and buckets worth. I took a couple of blackberry-looking berries and stuck them in my mouth. “Dad! These are delicious! You should really try some!” I said. Dad replied with a, “No thanks, I’m not very hungry,” answer. “Well, more for me!” I said enthusiastically while shoving some more in my mouth. 

 We walked a bit more until I felt my stomach was not feeling up to shape, so I told Dad, and I sat down on a log. I drank some water and exhaled.

Chapter 2- The Hike

I hear birds sing. I smell all the same outdoor smells. I open my eyes. I put my hands out in front of myself. I see them. I sit up. I am still on a log. Everything seems normal. Until I notice. Dad. Where is he? How long was I out for? I say my thoughts out loud. I get up. I am stressed. I get stressed easily. Calm down. I walk around the log for a couple minutes. Wait. I see something. What is it? I bend down. I grab it. It’s a note. It says Hi Hannah, I am very worried about you when you passed out. So I am going to find some help. I won’t take long. Probably only around 30 minutes. I will be back soon, don’t worry…  Then at the bottom of the letter was Dad’s signature. I read the note carefully, making sure not to skip any words, on accident even. Once I finished reading the note, I placed it in my pocket, making sure not to crumple it. 

I looked around again, focusing on my surroundings, seeing what I would have to deal with for only about half an hour. I saw the sun get dimmer, and I looked up and saw that the sky was gray, filled with clouds. I thought about how not prepared I was. I sat back down on the log, in silence for about four minutes until I realized; I was hungry. I grabbed my backpack, it was leaning against the side of the log. I unzipped it gingerly, how the one of worst things to happen was the zipper to get stuck. I pulled out a chocolate chip granola bar, and with the backpack on my lap, I ripped open the granola bar as I took in a big whiff of the chocolaty, not-very-healthy granola bar scent. I took a big bite of it. Mmmmmmmm. I closed my eyes for a second to take in the granola bar’s glorious taste. I did really miss my dad though, I’m almost never without him, except for school of course. I also started to worry a bit, it had been four hours since I passed out. I didn’t know how time had passed so fast, then I thought he might be in trouble! Oh no! Maybe I should go venture for him! I grabbed my coat,backpack, and Dad’s note and set off to find him! 

I went up a hill, a very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY tall hill that completely exhausted me, but I kept going forward. I also came across this raging river, there was no way around it, so I found this big, long tree that must have fallen over, so I walked right across it.  Then I got, now fully exhausted and I saw this big cave that was kind of hidden. It did look very welcoming though, and it was starting to drizzle, so I went inside. I didn’t want to get wet. 

I walked through the cave, although it wasn’t really that big, and found a little nook, so I put my backpack down and laid on it. It had been a very long day and I was completely exhausted. I didn’t have a mirror, but I knew I didn’t look my best. I could feel the bags under my eyes. I closed my eyes and quickly fell asleep.

Chapter 3-  BATS

I saw my dad, in a meadow with daisies and dandelions with his arms open, waiting for me to run into them. I skipped across the meadow until I reached him, but when I did, he melted into nothing. I awoke with a start, I looked around, nothing had changed, no Dad and still in a cave. 

But then something caught my attention, something had moved quickly. It had darted across the cave. It was a small cave but whatever this thing was, it was fast. Around three minutes later, I had lost interest in whatever it was, so I put my head down on my bag again, but I didn’t close my eyes this time, I still was a teensy bit curious to see what it was that had disturbed me. Then I saw it again and again, like there were 50 of them! I got up and stood in the middle of the cave to see what would happen, and then I saw it. Out of all things of what it could have been, this was what I least expected. A bat. I was no expert on bats, but this one looked poisonous. It had white foam coming out of its mouth, and its eyes were bright red and yellow. I had to get out of there. Then it came at me, it was chasing me! I tried to swat it off with my backpack, but it wouldn’t go away!!! But then I got one really clean shot at it and after I hit the bat, it fell to the floor. But what I didn’t know was that there were a bunch more of them staring at me, they looked like they wanted revenge, wanted to avenge their bat friend (or family, I don’t really know.) Then, one darted at me and bit me! “Ouch!” It didn’t hurt too much but if all of them bit me once, I would be in excruciating pain. I scurried out of the cave, bats attacking me, adrenaline pumping. But thankfully, one by one they started to lay off on me though. I safely (sort of) got out of the cave and sat down on a nearby rock. I started to look at my wounds, they were nothing bad, just a couple of scratches and bruises. I went onward, to look for Dad.  

Chapter 4: The Ditch

I was doing great, just walking and drinking Gatorade, when suddenly, I felt really lightheaded, I also felt I could throw up at any moment. I was really dizzy, faint, and unsteady. I felt terrible. I didn’t know why this was happening right then or there, it was all so out of the blue. I mean, I did also end up alone, in a forest, seemingly all by myself. I sat down on the nearest log, but I was so out of balance that I fell off and blacked out. 

I awoke with a start, my head still spinning, but I wasn’t near the log anymore, I was somewhere else. Then I heard a voice. I thought I was going crazy. How could there be someone here? I’m alone. (Or so I thought.) Maybe it’s an angel telling me I can finally rest. But no. I heard it again, like it was getting closer and closer until…I saw him. It was Dad! I found him! “Oh my gosh, Hannah! Are you okay? I’m so glad you are okay!” I looked at Dad, we talked, he was definitely a bit beat up, but other than that, he’s a tough guy. After a while, I finally came to the end of answering all of his questions about EVERYTHING, but now I had a couple of questions that I wanted the answers for. 

“ OK Dad, a couple questions. Where are we, how did you get here, how did I get here, and how long have you been here.” He answered with, “We are in a big ditch in the ground. How I got here, I was looking for help for you and then I twisted my ankle on an oddly shaped rock and fell in. How you got here, I didn’t see much from inside this ditch but all I saw was you rolling and falling into here.” I cut him off, “Oh and by the way, I think why I rolled in here was because some really scary bats bit me when I was in a cave that I found and I think that they were poisonous and I fell off a log I was sitting on and then I fell off because I came unconscious.” “Awwww, my tough little girl!” He said while giving me a big bear hug. “OK, last answer, I have been here for maybe about like,” He stopped for a moment to think, like his memory of outside of this ditch was blurry. He squinted his eyes so hard I thought they could pop right out!!! “I really don’t know Hannah banana, I’m sorry.” He said it very sincerely. “It’s OK Dad, but now here comes the biggest question of them all…how do we get out of here?”

             Chapter 5: The Plan

Me and Dad talk and talk for hours, thinking of the plan, until we figure it out. I get my backpack and eat the last granola bar without thinking of Dad, although I do offer him water. Then we are ready for the plan. I get onto Dad’s shoulders, then awkwardly he lifts me up onto the edge of the ditch. Then, my hand scrapes on something. “OUCH!” I lose my balance while trying to go one-handed because my other hand was bleeding. I then fell back down, though luckily, landed in Dad’s arms. “Ow.” I say. “You okay? Want to wash it off with some water?” Dad says sympathetically. “Not a bad idea.” I say back to him. I then go to find my water bottle and then realize, I only packed Gatorade. Although I know it might hurt a bit, I take a bit of Gatorade and use it to wash some of the blood off. It stung…a lot, but it did wash all of the blood away. “Ready for take two?” Dad asks, in position for me to get onto his back. “Sure.” Then I get onto his back again, and heave myself up and over the edge of the ditch. “I did it Dad! I’m up!” I shouted happily. “Alright, now tie a vine or something to a rock, I think I saw a big sturdy rock right up front.” I walked around a bit looking for a vine and then I found one on a tree. I rip it off and hold it up to admire it. A perfect length vine. I tie it as tight as I can to a big rock that I found and threw it down to Dad. “Heads up!” I yelled. “Got it! Can you help pull me up? You won’t be doing all the work though, I will mostly pull myself up.” Dad says. “Yup.” I get my hands on the vine and feel Dad pulling me down. But then, I get a burst of energy and I pull as hard as I can, and next thing I know, he’s out of the ditch! “Wow Hannah, have you been working out?” He says, mocking me. “Whatever.” I say sarcastically. “So, what do we do now, Hannah?” “Let’s get out of this place!!!” 

                                                              Aftermath

Hannah and her dad make it out of the woods safe and reunite with their family. Hannah and Lucas become closer than ever. The bats that Hannah came into contact with were vampire bats. They aren’t real vampires but in real life they do bite. Hannah’s dad gets help for his ankle and it heals fast. Even though that whole catastrophe was over, Hannah was scarred forever. She does go to some therapy to help with all of her deep thoughts. 

Does Anabella have to be perfect?

Once upon time in Japan there was a girl named Anabella. She loved going to Japan and she loved playing and helping. She also loved reading, taking walks, and even everyone in her family, and cleaning the house very clean. Every time her mom drops a glass of water Anabella helps her mom clean the wet floor, and Anabella is smart and helps her family whenever her family needs help.

She wants to be a teacher when she grows up so she is working hard so she can be a teacher when she grows up. She reads a lot of books so she could be a teacher when she is a grownup so she works harder than anybody else to do a lot of math like ‘is 100 greater than 1000 or is 1000 greater than 100?’ Anabella would think the greater one is 1000. Do you think Anabella will get it right or wrong? I think she will get it right because it says she is smart. What do you think? She knows everything! Do you think  Anabella will get it right?

She does a lot of work every single day because she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. She is trying to work as hard as the other students. Her teacher’s name is Miss Luna. Miss Luna helps Anabella to get it right. She practices her math, reading, and even hard math without anybody helping her. Her brain is trying to work hard to know the answers. Anabella’s mom said, “Your grandparents are coming here soon.” She tried to finish her math quickly, so her grandparents won’t see her doing her homework. After she was done, the grandparents came. Anabella came to the front door to hug her grandparents. And she said, “hi,” in Japanese. “Hello Anabella, I am so happy to see you,” said Anabellas grandpa. At bed time Anabella screamed in her pillow so loud! Her mom said “Stop screaming, do that at a sleepover!” After she yelled at Anabella she slept peacefully, she didn’t even say one word she just [zzzzzz.] 

The next day Anabella wore her favorite outfit that says ‘I love writing’ with shorts and long socks and sneakers with a headband that has a bow. The color of the headband was blue. She felt very disappointed because she had to do math all over again. She had to do it fast because it was almost her math test. During recess Anabella saw a girl at the next bench. She sat right next to the poor girl. She asked what was wrong. The girl said “I wanted to be a writer when I grow up but I keep on practicing swimming instead of writing.” “What is your name?” asked Anabella. “My name is Cinnamon but my real name is Flora. My family is a god or ghost. I could help you.” Now Anabela knows if she makes a mistake her brain will grow! The End!

Once there was a girl named Sally. Sally loved hamsters. 

One day her mother said, “Sally, I have a present for you!” 

 “What?’’ Sally said.

’’Look in this box,’’ Sally’s mother said. Sally’s mom was holding a big brown box. Sally opened the box and inside the box was a cute hamster. The hamster was a brown cinnamon color. 

Sally said, “Oh, I’ll name you Cinnamon the hamster.” Her mom gave her a hamster pack and a guide, but Sally already knew a ton about hamsters. But she still read the guide, just in case. She let the hamster run in a spinner. Sally fed Cinnamon lettuce and carrots. And she took Cinnamon out for walks. And she gave Cinnamon a school, called Cinnamon school. When Sally went to school, she left Cinnamon a cardboard cut out of her so he wouldn’t be lonely. 

One day, when Sally was taking Cinnamon for a walk he slipped out of her leash. Cinnamon didn’t realize he was out of the leash. Sally didn’t realize he was out of the leash either. When Sally looked at her leash, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Cinnamon wasn’t on the leash! 

When Cinnamon looked, he was in the bushes. But Sally didn’t see him in the bushes. They were very tall bushes. Sally looked everywhere. She looked in one of the bushes, but she didn’t look in the bush Cinnamon was in because she didn’t realize there was another bush. Her mother was at the supermarket and her father was working, so Sally realized she would have to act like Cinnamon so that he would come to her. But she would have to read a book all about hamsters first. The guide! She put food out at night, but Cinnamon didn’t come to her. The bushes were so high that Cinnamon couldn’t smell. 

Cinnamon fed on lettuce, because there was lettuce in the bushes, and he thought that those bushes were the woods. 

And then her mom called and said she wouldn’t be back for a week because she was going to San Francisco for her work. And her dad would be working all day. 

So Sally thought, if she was going to find Cinnamon she would need him to come to her. She walked all over the neighborhood singing her Cinnamon song. “Cinnamon, oh Cinnamon!” She sang up and down the street. But the bushes were too thick and high that Cinnamon couldn’t hear it. 

Then she saw the bushes that Cinnamon was in were rattling. She thought that it just must be ants. She went to check the bushes, but when she looked, Cinnamon thought it was a hungry lion. When she looked he ran outside the bushes, then he came back when she was done looking. 

Cinnamon was scared. Sally was scared too. She didn’t know what to do. 

She thought she should wear her night vision goggles. But since the bushes were very thick, she couldn’t find him. Then she called out, “Cinnamon! Cinnamon!” 

Cinnamon thought it was a snake because he only heard “Sssssssssisss”, so he thought it was a snake. And some of the leaves were cinnamon colored, so he camouflaged in them whenever Sally looked. 

Sally was very discouraged. Then she said, “Maybe mom was right. I should have read the guide all the way through.” She had thrown the guide out when she was just half way through. “Maybe I’ll live my life without Cinnamon. Mom is going to kill me when she finds out.” 

Cinnamon ran out of carrots and lettuce in the bush. So he went into the real woods to find some food. Mom got home and Sally said, “Can I go to the woods to see what kind of uh, leaves there are?’’ 

“Sure,’’Sally’s mom said. But Sally was actually going to look for Cinnamon.

It was summertime and Sally was moving in 62 days and she had to find Cinnamon before then. So when she went into the woods she realized she would have to be like Cinnamon again, which didn’t work last time but she was willing to try again. She saw Cinnamon’s footprints but ended up following a tiny cat that wasn’t Cinnamon and it scratched her. While Cinnamon was trying to find some hope and some food, the cat that scratched Sally came right in front of Cinnamon and it was really big. It was a ginger cat with orange stripes. The cat chased Cinnamon through the woods and out of the woods and back into the woods. He made himself a little hole to hide him and the cat couldn’t get him. Anyways, Cinnamon came out of his little hole and looked around. He wasn’t a very good climber so he couldn’t climb. He was a very good jumper though. Cinnamon wandered accidentally into bullet ant territory. And Cinnamon didn’t realize, but then a bullet ant started chasing him and Cinnamon knew about bullet ants because he went to bullet ant school. Cinnamon jumped over twigs and left and ran very fast but the bullet ant could probably outrun him. He jumped over a big pile of dirt and the bullet ants couldn’t get him.

When he saw the ants leaving, now Cinnamon was really scared. He trembled. When he got out from behind the dirt pile, he started to shake, partly because it was really warm. He didn’t like being warm. He needed to be room temperature. Finally Cinnamon found some lettuce on the ground and it felt very good to eat. Cinnamon started now to find his way home to Sally. He thought he heard her voice but he only heard hummingbirds. Meanwhile, Sally felt hopeless. Just then, Sally saw Cinnamon! Cinnamon ran to Sally. Sally kissed Cinnamon.

  The end.