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The Scribbler
2015
Volume 62 Grace Church School
New York City
The Scribbler
Joe Geniesse, Catie Littell, Miles McCain, Audrey Rudd, Mabel Smith
Olivia Hult, Isabelle Kaminsky, Susanna
Langan Greer Goergen, Rafe DiDomenico, Eliza Gilbert, Esme Fritton, Rowan Henchy,
Luke Abramowitz
Stella Anderson, Cindy Barbossa, Olivia Berger, Ellie Cullman, Alexandra Blum,
Wenhao Cai, Aaron Hessel, Lola Jakob, Emily Lopez, Lucy Schwalbe, Cub Scott, Anna
Sorensen, Annabel Stevens, Ian Rotheroe, Liya Yaniv
Faculty Technical Advisors
Ilta Adler, Topher Nichols
Faculty Advisor Benham Latimer
Short Story Contest Winners
First Place – Rafe DiDomenico Gone
Second Place – Charlotte Robertson
Water
Third Place – Alina Pearlroth The Unluckies
Poetry Contest Winners
First Place – Greer Goergen Fire and Ice
Second Place – Lola Jakob
Broken Glass
Third Place – Ellie Cullman Lift Off
Art Contest Winners
First Place Cover and Back
Rafe DiDomenico
Second Place Luke Abramowitz
Third Place
Wenhao Cai & Loulou Sloss
CONTENTS
Short Stories Rafe DiDomenico 1 ...... Gone Charlotte Robertson 26 ..... Water Alina Pearlroth 41 ..... The Unluckies Josephine O’Brien 44 ..... The Enslaved Violinists Eliza Gilbert 64 ..... Infinite Katherine Cook 74 ..... A Cat Called Holly Wenhao Cai and Louise Sloss 85 ..... Super Rosy! Bo Goergen 88 ..... Revenge Cadence Plenge 91 ..... Four Eyes Lily Greenberg 100 .... Labyrinth Anonymous 117 .... Koolness in the Kool Klub Lily Greenberg 148 .... The Nobody Man Elliot Flagg 156 .... Stranded Derrick Foskett 166 My Grandfather’s Story Theo Usher 171 .... Death on the Dartboard Elliot Flagg 180 .... For the Sake of Exploration Luke Abramowitz 198 ... Untitled
Poetry Greer Goergen 209 .... Fire and Ice Lola Jacob 211 .... Broken Glass Ellie Culman 212 .... Lift Off Eliza Gilbert 213 .... Beneath Your Beautiful Kat Cook 214 .... Blank Lily Greenberg 215 .... Blundermeecen Eldon “Cub” Scott 216 .... Dogs Cindy Barbosa 217 .... Don’t Shoot Katharine Sorensen 218 .... What For? Katharine Sorensen 220 .... Pour Quoi? Eliza Gilbert 222 .... Knocking on Fates Door Ben Scali 224 .... Untitled Ben Scali 225 .... Untitled Blakely Duskin 226 .... Gymnastics Lola Jacob 227 .... You, Not Me Lily Greenberg 229 .... World in a Nutshell Charlotte Robertson 230 .... My Sag Harbor Advanced Shakespeare Class 232 .... The Story of a
Troublesome Bubble
or Ode to Bubble Wenhao Cai & Lucy Schwalbe 233 .... One of Life’s Many Mysteries Bo Goergen 234 .... Untitled Anna Sorenson 235 .... Seasons Thomas Yun 237 .... An Everlasting Stream Thomas Yun 238 .... The Quiet Forest Thomas Yun 239 .... Life Thomas Yun 240 .... The Blanket of Snow Thomas Yun 241 .... Winter
Thomas Yun 242 .... A Good Day at Work Thomas Yun 243 .... New York City Anna Sorensen 244 .... Untitled Lila Gimbel 245 .... Time Claudia Goodwin 247 .... Waves of Life Ellie Cullman 248 .... Unicorn of Fate Josephine O’Brien 249 .... Untitled Rania Challita 252 .... America Aaron Hessel 253 .... Seasons Change Susanna Langan 254 .... Many Things Alina Pearlroth 255 .... The Feeling of Mad Lila Gimbel 257 .... Water Alina Pearlroth 258 .... What am I? And Who Are You? Cindy Barbosa 259 .... What If? Alina Pearlroth 261 .... Words Alina Pearlroth 262 .... You Don’t Know Me Susanna Langan 264 .... Your Broken Soul
Short Stories
Art by Luke Abramowitz
Rafe DiDomenico grade 6 Gone
The only thing I can do in this moment, is
wait, covering my face from the flame. I sit up in
the tree, waiting for someone to come and save
me from this peril, or something to destroy this
endless fire. That is if anything can destroy it
now. It feels immortal. I feel that the big dancing
light made of glowing orange and yellow and
red, soon will set the whole world into an uproar
of flame.
The smoke is clogging up the air. It’s rising
up to the heavens, so it can ruin them too. I
cough, and catch a quick glimpse of fire. Huge,
massive, red, angry and mean flames, slowly
germinating, catching up to the branch I am
perched upon. I look down the opposite side of
the tree, to see what was there. To see if more fire
2
was coming, or to see if I had one more chance at
life. A big branch with leaves all over it blocks my
view. But I can see Anne-Sophie’s polaroid
camera lying below the flame. I stand bravely. I
look at the pasture beyond the fire that I know
soon will be ash.
Then, I look down at the ground, far below
me. I then lean forward a bit too far. I lose my
footing, and I fall down into despair.
I think to myself as I am falling, ‘I sure hope
I’m dead..’ And then, I silently faint in the air.
Earlier
“C’mon, Anne-Sophie! We can’t be late for
campfire time!” I shout, excited that our cabin is
finally doing campfire and s’mores! “ANNE-
SOPHIE!”
The BEST campfires are at Free-Field
camp. Free-Field is a sleep-away seven-week coed
3
camp! Campfire and s’mores cabin bonding time
is a great way to end the seven-week camp
session. One boy cabin, and one girl cabin have a
s’more and campfire night together! It rocks!
As she is running towards me, with a
lantern, raincoat and her polaroid camera, Anne-
Sophie screams, “Coming! Stop yelling,
Aleksander! I’m gonna catch up.”
“Anne-Sophie! You don’t need SO much
stuff! All we are going to do is eat marshmallows!
LET’S GO!”
“Aleksander! I said STOP yelling! Just wait
for me, who cares if we’re, like, what?” Anne-
Sophie checks her watch. “Like, eighteen minutes
late?”
“That’s A LOT!” I respond. She catches up
eventually, though. We walk up to the campfire
pit, which is about a half a mile from my cabin,
4
and is like, a quarter mile away from Anne-
Sophie’s cabin. We see our counselors lighting up
wood in the huge fire-pit! In seconds, the wood
goes from dry and still, to the source of thick, and
gorgeous flames! Erin beckons us as soon as she
sees us wobbling towards her. Her blonde hair
looks red in the dimming night, against the flame.
Andy Allan, an annoying kid in my cabin,
swipes a bag of marshmallows from Erin, our
counselor, and then shoots up the nearest tree!
“ANDY!” I yell, vexed. I climb up the Maple tree
after him with ease, intending to take the bag of
sweetness back to its owner at the foot of the tree.
But unexpectedly, Andy drops the bag down to
the bottom. Unfortunately, the bag falls in the
fire, and bursts into flame. A huge roaring flame.
I’ll bet 100 bucks he bug spray on it. A low branch
5
catches fire from the bag, and then its trunk.
Andy climbs down fearlessly, but my bravery
only goes so far. I know I should jump while I
can, but my mind doesn’t let me. As I am stuck in
the tree, high above my friends, I watch. I watch
Anne-Sophie drop her camera and flee. Much
faster than she got here. I watch Erin sprint after
the path to safety, leaving me here. I look through
the rapid flames to see if anyone else is left. But
no. I’m stranded. They forgot…..
Present
I wake up in a pile of ash. I’m very dirty,
and breathing is a struggle. All I can take in is
soot. I see a faint patch of light off in the distance.
It’s morning, the sunlight is white and calm, not
orange and fierce and loud. I have a throbbing cut
above my eye, probably from a branch, but I
brush the pain aside. I then look up. My eyes get
6
less blurry as the time rolls on, and I realize that I
am below the tree. The one I was upon earlier. I
can only remember flashes of the evening. The
flame has ceased, except for a few smoldering
branches. All of the trunks are charcoal black.
They all are scorched. Then a flaming thing
catches my eye. Anne-Sophie’s camera! I pick it
up and blow. Blow hard. The fire ends. The piece
of plastic nearly burns me, for I’m not thinking
straight. I am amazed that this piece of plastic had
stayed intact. It’s hot, and it doesn’t work
anymore, but I find it amazing. After some time
though, I feel mad about the matter. Why did this
survive, and not a bird, or a mole. It had to be an
indifferent piece of trash. Now I was mad. I drop
the garbage carelessly.
There is no sign of anyone, anywhere. I’m
all alone, and extremely disoriented. I cannot
7
remember which direction by cabin is. This is
probably because I am super hungry, and my
head is about to explode because questions are
filling it to the absolute limit of its power. The
pounding in my head in loud and distracting. I
trust my instincts, and turn. I walk a while, and
start to recognize my way, but everything’s
burned up. Everything. How did this fire spread
so far? It seems utterly... impossible.
I pass the woodworking shack, all that is
left are the metal machines that cut the wood,
along with a few smoldering boards. In a minute I
pass what used to be the theatre. It has burned
down tremendously, it’s sitting there still
smoking. Hardly recognizable lights racks are in
the middle of a pile of dust.
Did anyone die?, I wonder suddenly. But I
think against it. Camp Free-Field is very safe. We
8
have fire drills once every two weeks. I don’t
think anyone would have passed away in this
incident, but then again, I don’t know how fast
the fire…..blew in.
I walk slowly towards the cabins. I see
“The Lions” cabin. There are six more cabins until
I reach the lake, where I can wash. “The Lions” is
completely burned down, but the tin sign is
hanging from a coaled board of wood by one
tired out screw. I sit, and toy through the boards
of wood, the metal beds, the smoldering sheets
and teddy bears, along with smoking plastic
mattresses laying around, hoping to find
something that wasn’t burned that was of some
value, maybe a counselor's phone that still works?
Instead, I find a scorched flashlight, that
surprisingly still gives off light, so I’ll keep that
with me, but I drop the chewed up boxes and
9
melting polyester shirts and sweaters and such. I
do find a few wool sweaters that didn’t burn
through, but I leave them, for “The Lions” cabin
is for housing younger kids, so none of the wool
products that survived would even fit me.
I keep walking to see the Dining Hall. Half
of the building was scorched, but the back half
remains untouched. The fire must have ended
here. Also, the trees stop being burned here, but
something else stops too. I don’t know where
anything is beyond the dining hall. We are not
allowed to go past it.
I go down to the lake and wash my face
and hands. Then, I see that all of the canoes and
Picos (those tiny sailboats) were taken out. The
camp must have sailed away. But Where? When?
Was I already fainted? Was anyone else left
10
behind? My mind packs itself with questions. I
bend over and clutch my head.
The water is quite brisk, and a fog hangs
over the lake. The little sand between the grass
and the water is moist against my bare feet rawed
by the tough ground. My face feels good,
dripping with fresh water. At last, I see my cabin
in the distance. It is out of the way of the path I
was following to the lake. My curiosity gets the
best of me, so I walk up the scorched hill to my
cabin, “Lakeview.” My cabin was surprisingly
untouched by the fire. Well, not quite. Part of the
wooden structure was damaged by a burned
down tree. It crashed through the ceiling and
destroyed the 2 middle beds and areas. The fallen
tree is my oak. My oak. The oak I used to climb
on. My friends and I would play in it every day.
11
The oak I climbed on just yesterday. Could that
be? Yes.
I enter, to see the small and cozy cabin,
with enormous windows that look towards the
lake from the huge hill it is upon. The beautiful
view that gave the cabin its name. Part of me just
wants to lie down in my bed and sleep until the
morrow, but I quickly dismiss the idea, I need to
find everyone before they get too far. Where are
they headed? And why did they leave me to die?
I go to my small shelves that hold my
limited belongings, and change my dusty and wet
clothes to clean, fresh and warm clothes. As I go
through all of my stuff, making sure there is
absolutely nothing I need, a box of letters from
friends and family crashes to the floor. I pick up
one of the letters, and unfold the yellowish paper.
12
It was from the first week. My grandma. The
letter read:
July 1st, 2014
Dear Alekander,
I have been thinking about what an
experience you are having. What a lucky boy you
are. There is nothing much going on down here in
Florida. we just got a new printer. Gramps is
teaching me how to use it. I’m afraid I’m not too
good with modern technology. I’m sure you are!
Last year, I remember you telling me your
favorite activity at camp was life-skills. Back in
the day, it was my favorite activity as well!
Long ago, when I was about your age, after
a fun filled summer at camp, where I learned to
hike, fish and build fires and forts, my apartment
building caught fire. I was very astonished and
surprised. My little sister, (Your Great Aunt
13
Sherry,)was left in her cradle. A brave fireman
luckily got her out on time, but every time I think
of you building fires and making forts, I think of
that moment because I had learned many life-
skills that summer. It was very scary, but the
event united my family.
Xoxox, Granny Annalise
P.S. I hope you can read my handwriting!
I look across the room at the fallen tree and
go over the line again and again. The event
united my family. The event united my family.
The event united my family. The event united
my family.
I think about it for a couple moments, and
knowing Granny Annalise is an optimist, I can
see her making good out of horrible events but...I
can’t think of anything good that will come from
this. This is horrible. I crumple up the note and
14
stuff it in my pocket, just incase I need a boost in
courage.
I then check by Gregg’s bed. He’s my
friend who always stows food away in his
daypack during mealtime. As I open his bag, I
find two rolls, and an apple. As I am famished, I
eat the apple now, but save the two rolls. I cross
to Erin’s bed. I fish around for some matches,
knowing they are necessary in survival, and stuff
them into my pocket.
I exit the cabin with my flashlight and a
filled up one liter water bottle along with Gregg’s
rolls. I run down the hill, now on a quest to find
some sort of boat I can chase them after with.
Once down at the swim doc, I see a small kayak.
The only remaining boat is the yellow one with
mold on it that no one bothered to take because it
sucks. It’s the worst kayak of all time. But hey!
15
That’s better than nothing. I get in the thing and
get on my kayak skirt, and get my paddles into
place and start. I turn left, because that is the side
of the lake that leads to town. (I learned that in
orienteering.)
After at least two miles I stop, carry my
kayak up onto this rock sticking out from a forest,
and manage to shiver myself to sleep after I drink
some water and eat a damp roll with raisins and
hearty nuts inside it.
***
I am very wet in the morning. My hair is
short, but has somehow managed to tangle itself.
I get back in the yellow kayak laying next to me,
and paddle off into the midst of the morning air.
As I paddle along, the violent sheets of wind
press against my face. They transform my nose
into a numb piece of cartilage. Paddling into the
16
wind on a bad kayak isn’t very pleasant, but
nevertheless, I proceed. I kayak until dawn. I am
getting increasingly hungry, and my water bottle
is only half full. I decide to eat my final roll. Then,
I find it necessary to stop for the night to find
more food. I haul the kayak onto a ledge of land
that leads somewhere, and put it in a patch of
shrub. After ten minutes of walking, I find a lush
bush of raspberries. I eat them by the mouthful,
extremely quickly. I rip off a piece of my
undershirt, to create a basket. I fill the piece of
cloth with the maximum amount of berries, and
then tie the ends up. I carry my goods back to the
bush holding the kayak, and collect pine needles.
I get a crazy amount of them into a pile. Before I
throw myself into the middle of the mass of pine
needles, I take out Granny’s note, and read,
taking deep breaths the whole while. And then I
17
sleep in the pile of pine needles, leaves and
flowers. I have trouble falling asleep, but when I
I wake early, and am lucky to find a box of
matches in my pocket, that hasn’t gotten too wet.
The were Erin’s. I cook up some Robin’s eggs
quickly, and then go. I learned how to cook wild
eggs in fire-building a couple weeks ago in camp.
As I board my boat I cross my fingers in hope that
I will not get sick.
I paddle a while, and I reach the clearing in
the lake. No islands or anything. I feel for the first
time in two days...lonely. I was so caught up on
finding my friends. I didn’t even think twice
about..dying. I feel cruddy, and I need rest on a
soft bed. I paddle, even though my arms lack
strength. And I stay awake to stay alive.
I keep brushing through the water until I
come to the end of the lake. I’m filled with joy,
18
even though I don’t have the slightest clue where
I am. If I hike long enough, I’ll have to find a
house with a person willing to let me use their
home phone. Or, I might find town! My throat is
as dry as the Grand Canyon on the hottest day of
the year. I need hydration. I don’t have iodine to
purify, so I don’t dare drink the lake water.
I get out of the kayak, and let it free. “Bye,
stupid old cruddy kayak.” I whisper to myself.
I walk and walk for an extreme amount of
time, until I find a fresh pond. I make sure the
water’s clean. It’s clean enough. I fill my empty
water bottle and sooth my cracked lips and
parched throat. I slumber under a willow, the
wind swaying me to sleep.
I wake up to the fresh morning breeze,
seeing a wad of smoke rising up into the air. A
person. With a fire. I run towards the smoke. I
19
lose my footing after ten minutes, and fall off a
rocky ledge. I tumble violently down to the lake
and splash into the muddy and shallow water.
I am mad at myself for forgetting that I
was hiking up a steep mountain. The ledge was
so steep, and scrapes on my face, elbows and
knees start gushing. I feel my face swell up.
Way Before Any of This
My mom packs my bags slowly. Triple
checking I have everything I need for camp. I am
very excited going into my fourth year at Free-
Field camp. Adventures await me. Of what sort, I
do not know. I will meet new friends, and have
s’mores on campfire night. I’ll see my best friends
on that night, Lucie Marrant, Cameron Haddox,
Phin Magann, Stella Grinchi, Anne-Sophie
Welder, and Luc and George Parit. The best night
20
of the summer is campfire night. I love campfire
night.
My mother says she will miss me this
summer, and I’ll miss her too, but I am craving
the fun that awaits me.
Once my bag is all packed up, I take it into
the kitchen, and roll it over the white and black
tiled floors, out of the house, and I haul it in the
car, excited for the drive to camp.
“As we roll out of the Hoboken parking
Garage, mom says, “Turn on your phone, and
open Waze. It will tell us the best route to Free-
Field. ”
The trees look like spilled green dye, as our
car races by them. Suddenly the sign for my camp
appears. My mom slows our SUV. I get out of our
car and breath in the fresh air. The crisp, woodsy
air that fills miles to explore.
21
“Anne-Sophie!” I run over to see my best
friend from elementary school. She got into
Hunter, and didn’t want to miss the opportunity.
After she got in, her parents moved to the West
Village. I was left behind in Hoboken. I like it
there though. I used to spend a lot of time at the
skate park near my building with Bruce
Beginsester until he punched me in the face,
breaking my twice-broken nose yet again, and
our family friendship.
Anne-Sophie and I used to take swimming
at the YMCA on the West Side, near Pinkberry.
Our parents used to be friends until my dad left
my mom. I was eight. Anyway!
“Aleksander! I’m so glad to see ya! Meet
Shyla and Layla, two friends from Hunter!”
She’s always been better at making friends
than I am…
22
The Present
I got up onto my feet, and started walking
up towards the fire. It was mid afternoon. The sky
was bright, but not as fresh and watery as a
morning sky. I trekked for hours, being careful
not to slip again. I stop to rest on a big rock the
size of a camp cabin, and sit. I take a sip of water,
and take off my daypack, leaving it on the rock so
I can explore without the load. I don’t go that far
away from the rock, but I find a clearing. I see a
tent.
I’m too excited to think straight. People!
I run around to the entrance. I see a girl
with messy, long brown hair. The girl is wearing
a pink tank-top. Her shorts are ripped, and
bandages cover her left leg. Her white converse
are contaminated with layers of mud. It is Anne-
Sophie.
23
“Anne-Sophie!” I scream. Standing in front
of me is a sickened and dirty version of my best
friend. Her brown hair is sprawled all over her
face. I run to her, embracing her. She is absolutely
bewildered.
“Wha-?” She says. “Aleksander! I thought
you died in that fire. I cried a long time, begging
Erin and Laura and Dameon and Aralia to um..
let us go back and get you but we jus-” Anne-
Sophie is cut off by Erin.
“Sweet Jesus! It’s Aleksander!” She
screams. “Aleksander! Oh my god! I thought you
died in the woods. By the campfire. I wanted to
go back and get you, but we couldn’t it wa-”
“It’s fine.” I say, even though it’s not, and
the camp should be closed, and Erin should be
fired. I corrected myself. “I’m fine. I got out in the
lake using the yellow chewed up kayak. I hiked
24
here and stole robin’s eggs and Gregg’s stolen
rolls and fruit to feed myself. Do you have
anything else I could eat!? I’m sick of under or
over cooked eggs, and damp rolls.”
“Omigod! Of COURSE! Do you want Kool-
Aid? Or.. a Graham Cracker! A Marshmallow?
Cookies! Hot-Dogs! A freshly cooked Burger?!
What ever you want!” Erin squeals.
Aralia, the life skills counselor walks over
and pats me on the back as Erin is screaming
every food imaginable. “Surprise, surprise! I
knew you’d make it! Well done, my little
survivor,” She says.
Aralia puts her pink and whitish-blonde
hair into a messy bun and asks me how I did it. I
stutter. “Umm..Well I just…” I trail off. “I just
remembered everything you’ve ever told me..”
25
I watch her purple coated lips move to say
that I was the best camper she’s ever taught.
26
Charlotte Robertson grade 6 Water
Everyone has a secret. It can be small (you
are accidently wearing mismatched socks) or big
(like my grandma’s belief in being abducted by
aliens). But mine’s a little different.
My name’s Valerie, by the way. I live with
my mom and dad. We live in a house near the
sea. There are a lot of boats. Many people go
swimming, but not me. I’m terrified of water.
That’s not my secret though. The reason is why
I’m scared of water. But it’s complicated. I might
not have started out right. I need to go back to a
few years ago.
***
Ever since I could remember I loved surfing.
Dad taught me and I did it every time I went to
27
the beach, which was often. My board was so tiny
compared to Dad’s and we’d head out in the
water together, laughing, splashing each other,
and Dad would always help me. It was
sensational to me; when I stood up on the gliding
board, rushing through the water I’d feel like I
could do anything. Mom, who doesn’t typically
like to swim in the ocean, would stand on the
sand, cheering me on. In fact, that’s exactly how
the day went.
“Ready, Valerie?” Dad asked. I was seven
years old at the time.
“Yeah, let’s go!” I grinned, grabbing my
mini board.
Mom, Dad, and I walked down to the
beach, my flip-flops kicking up sand as I walked.
Mom set a blanket down near the ocean and I sat
down in the shade of the umbrella.
28
After squirming through Mom applying
sunscreen to me Dad helped me carry my
surfboard down to the water.
Dad waded in the water with me. It was
high tide, so I couldn’t reach the bottom, but Dad
could. He helped me get on my board, and once a
wave came, gave me a little push.
“Woo-hoo, go Valerie!” Mom called,
holding a video camera.
“Again!” I laughed.
“Sure,” Dad smiled, and I got back on.
On my seventh time I rode a bigger wave
than usual. Dad stood behind me, smiling as I
glided on the wave. Mom was waving and giving
me a thumbs-up. I stood up and got into position,
my hands up for balance. But the wave was big.
A bit too big.
29
I went faster than ever before. And the ride
was long. I was gliding when I stepped too close
to the nose of the board. By now I was right in the
shallow water, and I didn’t even see the rock.
My board took a nose dive, and I fell.
Usually no biggie, but as I was stumbling to get
up the following wave pushed me over, which I
wasn’t expecting. I tumbled through the water
and hit my head, hard. I saw all the colors: the
blue of the sky, the white of the clouds, the yellow
of the sun, the green of the water that day. Then
black. I became unconscious.
As my parents tell the story:
“Valerie!” Mom screamed, rushing over to
me. “Nathaniel!” she called to Dad. He ran over.
He looked at my pale face and dialed 911 while
Mom tried to remove the water from my lungs.
30
I was okay, though. The ambulance arrived
just in time and brought me to safety. When I
woke I found myself in a white room with green
curtains on the windows. My parents were next
to me, and a doctor in a lab coat sat in a chair near
the bed I was resting in.
“What is your name?” Dr. Cole asked me.
“Uh, Valerie Evans.” I responded.
“And who are these people?” he gestured
to Mom and Dad.
“My parents.”
“Okay, and where do you live?”
“156 Mulberry Street.”
“She’s going to be fine,” Dr. Cole reassured
my parents.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Mom hugged me
while Dad let out a sigh of relief.
***
31
My parents decided I would be
homeschooled. Because of the accident they kept
a close eye on me. And I was glad, because Mom
had always wanted to be a teacher. She was good
at it, too.
My parents were fun. I liked that I had so
much time at home instead of having to get up
early in the mornings to go to school. Of course
Dad still worked, but he was a book illustrator, so
I still got to see him everyday. And Mom was
now my teacher. But she taught in a different, fun
way and played games with me to help me learn.
A month later Mom announced that her
old friend Diana had invited us all over to her
house for dinner. Her house was huge, all for just
two people. (Diana and her husband). They also
had the most amazing pool I’ve ever seen. It was
gigantic.
32
“Sophie, so glad you could make it!” a
plump woman with black hair came out of the
house. “Oh, is this little Val? You got so big!” she
kneeled down next to me. “Oh, listen to me,
talking too much. I bet you want to go swimming,
don’t you?” Diana took my hand.
“Valerie, would you like to swim?” Dad
asked. I was sitting at the edge of the pool, my
feet in the water. “Valerie?” he asked again.
Valerie? Valerie? his voice echoed in my head.
Water, water, water, water, water. The trees seemed
to chant the word. Water, water, water. The water
slapped against the tile wall of the pool. Its
slippery hands seemed to be dragging me in.
“NO!” I screamed, tears in my eyes. I got
up and ran, going nowhere. I unlatched Diana’s
gate and kept running, ignoring Mom and Dad’s
call. I ran until I couldn’t hear the trees chanting
33
anymore. I ran until I got tired and collapsed
under a bush.
Then the tears came. Big, heavy ones,
spilling off my cheeks and falling on the dirt. No
way. I was not going to swim. Ever. I cried until I
had no tears left.
Eventually, being the seven-year-old that I
was I walked slowly back to Diana’s house. Mom
was standing on the deck, her eyes scanning the
fields beyond the gate. When she saw me, I
expected her to be mad, but she just hugged me.
She was crying too.
I fell asleep in the car.
I’m twelve now. Five years after The Wave.
Knock-knock. “Come in.” I said.
“Valerie?” it was Mom.
“Hmm?”
“Can I talk to you?”
34
“Uh-huh.” I was doodling in my notebook.
Mom sat down. This was serious.
“I think you are ready for a real school.”
she started.
“What?!” I screamed.
“It’s called Cedar Road Middle School, and
I really think you should go. It’s a wonderful
place to learn, and I can’t teach you everything.
Obviously, this is up to you, so I’ll give you some
time to decide.” she explained.
“Okay.”
***
On the first day I walked into the
classroom and everyone dissolved into whispers.
I knew they were talking about me, but I mean,
how couldn’t they? Thankfully the teacher didn’t
make me stand up and introduce myself like I
had read in books.
35
At lunch I sat alone. Dad had made me a
sandwich, so I didn’t have to eat the school lunch,
which was pretty gross. I think it was supposed
to be Macaroni & Cheese, but it sure didn’t look
like it.
My first day was in October, so it wasn’t
like your typical first day of school. When I
walked into History the teacher told us to take
out our pencils for the quiz. Uh-oh. When I got it
back a week later a big C minus was marked at
the top of my page.
Finally (finally, finally, finally, finally,
finally) it was the weekend. My parents love to
sleep in so I passed their do not disturb sign
hanging on the door, left a note at the table, and
walked outside.
My house was very close to school, and
somehow I found my feet leading me there. I sat
36
on the school steps, lost in thought, when a little
girl around five walked up to me.
“Would you like some cookies?” she
asked.
“Sure, how much?” I replied.
“Um, I don’t know. I’m just supposed to
sell them for the Girl Scouts.”
“Well, why don’t you ask your mom?” I
offered.
“I don’t have a mom. Or dad. I go there.”
the little girl pointed to a big building across the
street that I have never, ever in my life noticed
before, even though it was enormous. Engraved
at the top were the words: COLD STONE
ORPHANAGE. I walked the little girl back there.
“Oh thank you for returning Anna. She
likes to wander.” a lady with curly red hair
greeted me.
37
“Oh, no problem.” I replied.
***
On the bulletin board for the orphanage was
a sign that read, Help Wanted! Take care of a few
adorable kids for three hours! Before I knew what I
was doing, I wrote my name on the first line.
Ding-dong. I rang the doorbell.
“Hello, you must be Valerie.” an elderly
lady opened the door. She had an apron streaked
with flour tied around her waist. I walked in.
“The little kids you will be watching today
are in the kitchen. We were just making cookies!”
the lady laughed. Cookies? I thought. Nothing like
what I had read about, like Little Orphan Annie.
Anna was standing on a step stool, mixing
batter in a bowl. A toddler sat in a big wicker
chair, talking to a teddy bear. A girl around seven
was reading an easy chapter book, and a baby
38
was asleep in a crib. Anna pulled me by the finger
into the kitchen.
“You’re the one who was going to buy my
cookies.” she said.
“That’s right. Good memory!” I smiled at
her. Anna hugged me. She was so small
compared to me, so I lifted her up and carried her
into what looked like a living room.
“What’s your name?” she asked as I set her
down on the couch.
“Valerie.” I replied.
“Valerie? Ooh, that’s fun to say!” she
giggled.
***
I worked at the orphanage for a while. I
loved all the kids, but my favorite was Anna. She
was just so sweet and nice to me.
“Valerie?” she asked me one day.
39
“Yes?”
“Can I see your house?”
“Well, sure. Would you like to come home
with me tomorrow?” I suggested.
“Yeah!”
So the next day Anna followed me home.
To get to my house you have to cross a
little bridge about two feet from the water. A
rickety old ladder stands by it, and I like to
imagine who used the bridge so long ago to
swim. I never thought about it much before, just
the way to get home, until fate used it to play a
cruel trick. We were walking across it when Anna
slipped on a piece of seaweed and fell into the
water. Deep water.
“Help!” she gasped. “I--I can’t swim!”
40
I stood there, frozen. The trees began to
chant. Water, water, water. I saw Anna’s head
disappear into the blue sea. Water, water, water.
“No!” I yelled. “I’m not losing you!” Water,
water, water the trees argued. “I don’t care that it’s
water!” I replied, and dove under. I knew what it
was like to be scared. That’s what made me do it.
It was cold, and the salty sea pressed
against me, wondering where I had been for the
past five years. Anna’s body was slowly falling to
the sandy bottom. I swam deeper, my eyes
stinging from the salt. I could hear the muffled
tree chant above. Quiet I told the trees. Deeper
still I grabbed Anna and pulled her to the surface.
Gosh, she was heavy.
But she was okay.
The End
41
Alina Pearlroth grade 7
The Unluckies
The air flowing through my hair. The car
moves further and further from the party. A
simple party it was; a dozen people, some food,
that was it. I stayed with the not adults. We're not
adults because, we're not trusted to make
decisions of our own, or love who we want to
love. Society forms us into these drones of
misunderstoodness. Some of us loud, happy, and
full of life, they are the luckies; the others are
forgotten, but noticed the most. A fake smile is
our mask, and our mask is everything to us. That
mask disguises us as one of the luckies, but we're
not. We sit in our rooms at two in the morning
contemplating if it's even worth it anymore. We
are seen as emo, or an attention seeker; but we're
42
broken. For whatever reason, something inside of
us has broken. And since we're broken we don't
live on like everyone else, we despair on how
we're broken. We're like a handful of patients in
an insane asylum, we all deal with our insanity in
different ways. Some take the knife, some the
pills, others take the pencil and paper. That's how
it begins, slowly, but as our insanity grows, the
marks get deeper and multiply, the pills multiply,
and paper and precious words are wasted. And
as our insanity takes over, the mind begins to die,
that's all it wants, is to die. And some fall victim
to this awful mind bend and end up taking the
gun, the pills, or the rope, and ending it. They
can't move on, so they end it. They are not weak,
but the greatest fighters of them all. Then there
are those who hide, they pick up the headphones
and drown out the thoughts, they, like the rest of
43
us, lock themselves away. They two are the
fighters. It takes bravery to hide from what you
know you can't escape. But every road leads to
the same ending, no matter the twists or turns on
the way, we all go the same way. We all sink
deeper and deeper into that dreamlike state. We
all hear the voices. We all suffer behind closed
doors.
We, are the unluckies.
44
Josephine O’Brien
grade 6 The Enslaved Violinists
I had gone some ten or twelve steps in this
matter when the torn hem of my robe caught my
heel, causing me to stumble till I fell violently,
face forward. I flailed my arms about, bracing
myself for impact on the hard wooden floor, but it
was to no avail. The floor never came. I was
falling headfirst, down a dark and dirty pit.
I came to my senses with my face pressed
into the stone-cold ground. I couldn’t feel the
aches that were inevitably running through my
body, due to my congenital insensitivity to pain.
The air was hot, pressing into my body like a
suffocating towel. I dug my hands into my skirt
pocket, and learned that they had removed my
pocket knife. All I had now was a measly sewing
45
kit. All was dark, except for a speck of light
hundreds of feet above me. I knew that light.
That’s where I was right before I fell. It was the
courtrooms of the Inquisition. They let me go free
of charges, but I should have known better. At the
moment I was in the depths of the darkest
dungeon, my eyes barely able to puncture the
sable black.
I pulled myself up off the slimy ground. I
took a deep breath, and took a step. I walked
about with my hands outstretched, worried I
would fall once more into a deeper, darker
dungeon. After each step I prayed a longer
prayer, over and over again, until my hands hit a
hard, metal wall. To my surprise, when my hands
hit the wall, the room became illuminated with a
dim light. The room I was in was small, and
littered with signs I didn’t bother to read. I wasn’t
46
a good reader anyway. To my right was a tunnel,
which was in no doubt going to lead me
throughout my interminable prison. I was
walking towards the tunnel, when I brushed my
palms against the wall once more. The iron
bindings began to slowly concave. My
subterranean prison was shrinking upon me.
I felt sick. The claustrophobia I had
compressed in my soul for years maneuvered its
way out of my brain. I had myself a dilemma, if I
did say myself. I could die here, in a slightly
horrible death, or I could go on. I was inevitably
going to die in the end, but which death would be
more painful? Not physically painful, but
mentally . Which death would be better? I could
lie here and die, or I could continue on and die a
worse death. I could also die an easier one. My
mind was scrambled like one of my chicken’s
47
eggs. What was I to do? Who was I kidding,
dying was one of those things you want to get
over quick. I knew that in five minutes my soul
would be no more, my body just another one
lying at the bottom of an Inquisition dungeon. I
knew I wasn’t thinking straight; I knew the
rediscovered claustrophobia was creeping upon
my mind. But when something’s invading your
mind, you can’t think straight, you surrender. I
lied down against the stone ground once more.
The walls were closing in, and I knew I was
almost dead. Only a drastic change of heart
could’ve saved me then. I was ready to die; the
walls were almost upon me. I was dying, and
freezing under the pressure of fears past.
Next thing I knew I was rolling out of the
way of the iron jaws. I was on the other side of
the room, in the tunnel. I had saved myself. My
48
life came back to me at the last moment. I
couldn’t die, not as a coward. If I was going to
die, I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. As
soon as I entered the tunnel, the shrinking of the
walls stopped. My tunnel was crude and made of
rock, but it was manageable. It went on for as
long as I could see. It was obvious I’d be doing
some walking. But inside I knew I couldn’t walk
anymore. I was running on the adrenaline left
over from the wall scare, and that was slowly
draining from my body. I was… tired. I needed to
rest. You may not believe I could be tired a
situation like that, but I was. The slumber was
slowly pulling down at my eyelids. I curled up on
the rough stone floor and was asleep within
minutes.
I awoke to the sound of faint violin music.
My dungeon must have been under the town
49
square. That must have meant that if I kept
walking, I could maybe make it to the surface. I
could make it home. I was going to follow that
music, because it would surely lead me to some
undetectable pit in the town square. So I stood
up, and started to walk. You may think it’s easy
to follow music, but it was actually quite tricky.
The tunnel branched off in a few places, so I got
lost numerous times. But I knew I was on the
right track. As I walked, the symphony got louder
and louder. I was able to detect what it was. It
was a children’s song, something about Sebastián
having surgery. My younger sister, Maria, used to
listen to the “Niños Concerts” in the square, and
that song was always her favorite.
“Poor Sebastián,
he’s having surgery,
call the doctor,
50
and call the nurse,
use the knife to cut him open,
now he’s all better,
now he’s not sick.”
I recalled the lyrics in my brain. The
memories of Maria, just a wee child at the time,
dancing in the square pulled at my tear ducts. But
I could not cry, I would not cry. Crying was a
sign of weakness and cowardice. If I knew
anything, it was that I was not a coward. If I was a
coward I wouldn’t be here. My equation of escape
added up, except for one thing. I specifically
remembers “Niños Concerts” being on
Wednesday. If I’d slept for 8 hours earlier, it
would only be Sunday, or even Monday if I slept
for longer. I was too worked up on a new type of
adrenaline to really care about the facts. I walked
on and on, following the music. After what I
51
guessed was a few hours of walking, I came to
room. This room was no “town square.” It was
brightly lit sanitary sanctuary, filled with a dozen
violinists playing the song. They stopped playing,
and looked up. Everyone of them was staring at
me.
I tried to creep out of the room, as their
inquiring eyes gave me a bad vibe. There was
only one problem, there was no way that those
stares would let me. It was just me, against an
army of violinists. I stood there, for what seemed
like hours, although it was only a few minutes. In
that period of time, the enslaved violinist closest
to me came up to me silently. He looked at me
blankly, and I could tell that there was no soul
beneath his eyes. In utter silence, he raised his
violin above my head. I should have fought back,
but I was captivated by those soulless eyes. Before
52
I knew it, he let his violin come down with a
clank upon my head. My vision turned black.
I awoke after what seemed like eternal
sleep. There was a knot atop my head, which was
huge. I was in the same room that I was in before,
but I was lying down. I tried to move, but was
bound to a stiff metal table. Above me dangled
dozens of butter knives, and they were all
connected to some sort of apparatus. Six butter
knives were hanging from one leather strip, and
each of the thirteen leather strips were connected
to a metal cage. It was slightly terrifying, but
inside I wasn’t scared. What could they do to me
with a bunch of harmless butter knives? Sure,
they were butter knives, but unless they were
aimed for my eyes, it wouldn’t be that bad. And if
they did do something horrible, it’s not like I’d
feel it. All of the same enslaved violinists were in
53
the room, and each one of them was huddled
around their own personal “box”. Each box
seemed to have two rusting metal levers poking
out of it, one for each hand. Their concentration
was deep, not one of the violinists even twitched.
They paid no attention to me, I mean, I was only
strapped to a metal table with butter knives
dangling above me. I watched them for a while,
seeing if they would do anything. Nothing
happened, until one violinists’ hand slowly
pushed their lever, and above me I heard a
somber creek. One of the butter knives dangling
from the apparatus moved an exact six inches.
At that mark, every hand in the room
(except mine) was hovered over a metal lever. It
looked as though they were conjuring something,
doing spells or some other illegal magic. Their
hands limply hung there for a second, then each
54
and every one pushed their lever. The butter
knives spun around like a circus trick. The
apparatus started to lower, and the butter knives
approached my skin. They were like miniscule
devils, their sights set on flesh. They got it, their
snouts dug into my skin in the most thrilling race
I have ever seen. The spastic knives dug into my
thick flesh.
It all came to me then. The Inquisitors had
tricked me. Sebastián wasn’t having surgery, I
was. If I was smart, this wouldn’t have happened.
I broke away from my thinking. Since the butter
knives were dull, they still had not broken into
my skin. Beads of blood were forming
underneath my ripped blouse, until the gashes
opened. The spastic knives had a victory. I was
open, and was officially being operated on. I
couldn’t feel anything, yet I hurt inside. It hurt
55
me that I let them get to me. If I had been in my
right mind, I would’ve never have ended up on
the operating table. I looked down at my body.
Flesh, blood, and muscle were everywhere. The
spastic knives were going deeper and deeper into
my skin. Around me, the enslaved violinists
continued pushing their levers to and fro,
controlling my torture device. I knew that the
farther they went, the more blood I lost. My
vision was slowly turning black. I was dying. My
sight finally left me as I lost consciousness.
I awoke. The world was all fuzzy and
foggy, like a dream. Was I in heaven? No, I
couldn’t be. I could still feel the metal of the
operating table through my shirt. I looked down
at my body. My shirt was almost totally torn
apart. Gashes ran up and down my chest, leaving
muscle and bones exposed. I was stained with the
56
worst red, the red of blood. Above me, one of the
enslaved violinists looked down on me. He was
inspecting me. I could see that his face still
showed no emotion. But then he did something I
never saw one of them do. He talked.
“Don’t worry, Don’t lose hope, the sun will
come out tomorrow,” his voice seemed fake, but
it was something. It was the last thing I heard
before slipping into slumber once more.
The next time I awoke, I was no longer
strapped to the table. I was lying on the sanitary
white floor. My wounds were still open, and
silently dripping blood. They had left me to die.
For a moment I pondered this problem that I was
inevitably facing: dying. I wanted to die. I was
faced with the same dilemma from before. I could
lie here and die eventually, or I could continue
on. If I continued on I would eventually die. The
57
thing was, which one would be more painful?
Not physically, obviously I don’t care about that.
Which one would make me hurt mentally? I
could die here, or I could die elsewhere, as they
murdered the citizens of Toledo all because of me.
Compared to that, this death would be a good
death. But I still couldn’t bring myself to suicide. I
was going to get up, and continue on. Next to me
was an oversized men’s shirt and a stack of tissue.
I took off my shirt, which was cut up and soaked
with blood. I could never wear it again. Then I
removed the small sewing kit I had in my back
pocket, and did something no one without
congenital insensitivity to pain would ever do: I
sewed up my own wounds. My muscles and
bones were once again safe under the protection
of my skin. When I was done, I wiped the blood
away with the tissue, and put on the clean shirt. It
58
was very large, but I couldn’t complain. I was
alive, which was a pretty big deal.
I exited the room and continued down the
tunnel. It was once again dark. The door from the
surgery room closed behind me, sealing out all
light. The tunnel was no longer illuminated. I was
lost, and left to hobble around with my arms
outstretched once more. I found the side of the
wall and dragged my hand against it so I
wouldn’t get lost. The rough stone ripped at the
palms of my hands, but I knew that initial
sacrifice wouldn’t matter in the face of death. As I
walked I started realizing that every few feet
there was a tiny metal plaque, like little markers.
As I stopped to inspect one with my hands, I
noticed the plaques were in the shape of suns.
They must have been a sort of “secret code” that
lead inspecting Inquisitors through the rooms.
59
I followed the suns for what seemed like
hours, although it could have been only a few
minutes. The tunnel reached a dead end. Light
came out of a staircase to my right, and I followed
it up. I had reached the outside world, and I was
free. Above me, the sun shone high. Just like the
enslaved violinist said, just like the plaques had
upon them. I was being led here. I entered a
square in town. It was filled with spectators, who
were watching me. In the center of the square was
the Inquisitor from my trial.
“Well I see you’ve made it!” he announced.
“How do you like our little setup? Look at the
sun, coming’ out above you. Just like you heard
about from your littl’ frien’ , but I’m assumin’ this
was not the way you thought the next time you
saw the sun would go.” the Inquisitor’s voice
60
taunted me cruelly, like he was playing a
wretched joke.
“And this man,” the enslaved violinist who
administered the line about the sun came into the
square, “he was working for us the whole time,
and he was never drugged like the rest of them.
We planted him in the surgery room so he could
give you false hope, and you’d continue and not
kill yourself. He works with your sister at the
teatro theater company. I believe his name is
Juan.”
Juan Carlos, I remembered him. He played
Romeo in the teatro theater company production
of Romeo and Juliet. Carla, my sister, played Juliet.
I looked at the crowd. “Hey!” I yelled to
the Inquisitor, “were these people watching me
the whole time?”
61
“Yes, didn’t you see the signs in the first
room? The ones that said, ‘you are being
watched’? I don’t think we could’ve been more
straight forward than that.”
Of course, they were the signs Even if I
was to read them, I would’ve thought they meant
by Inquisitors, not a mob of Toledoeians.
“I can see you didn’t,” the Inquisitor
announced. I heard a spattering of laughs from
the crowd. “Well, we can’t just let you go free, can
we? So we brought some of your family in.”
Carla and Maria were brought into the
square. They were being held onto by Inquisitors.
“Here’s the deal: Andre and Marco will slit
the necks of your sisters, and you have to stand
there and watch until they die. If you cringe, or
yell, or make them stop, this knife will be going
into your chest.” He held up a slick metal dagger.
62
I watched as the two Inquisitors holding
Carla and Maria raised their own daggers to my
sisters’ throats. I heard Maria squeal as the knife
cut her skin. Carla had her eyes closed shut. I
could tell she was in pain. Neither of them
acquired my congenital insensitivity to pain. I
couldn’t take it. I couldn’t let them just kill my
sisters. I looked over at Maria. She could tell I was
going to put up a fight and die. She mouthed a
word. It was: No. Carla mouthed the same thing.
I didn’t do anything after that. Maria and Carla
wanted me to live, and I honored their wishes.
Don’t think I’m selfish for that. I watched them
crumple to the ground in front of me, and it was
the worst feeling I could’ve ever felt.
I’m writing to you from an asylum just
outside of Toledo. They took me here right after I
watched my sisters die, when I broke down in the
63
town square. I have PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder. I made up the name. My visitors tell me
that what happened wasn’t that bad, that I made
a mistake and should get over it. They don’t
understand, no one does. They think it’s great
that I don’t feel pain, but I feel pain now. Maybe
not physically, but the worst pain is never felt
physically; I feel my pain in my heart, on the
inside, and it’s slowly ripping me to pieces. So
here I sit, on the wooden desk of my padded
room, longing for a break from my oppression,
longing for the peace of eternal death.
The End
64
Eliza Gilbert grade 6
Infinite
Infinity Hall, or Fin for short, skidded to a
halt on her skateboard just outside of John F.
Kennedy Middle School. Or should I say, Middle
Skull. At least, that was what was graffitied on
the large black letters above the crowded public
school entrance. She yawned and rubbed her
eyes. Mondays are not the best days for any
middle-schooler. Hoisting her red and black
checkered backpack over one shoulder, she
prepared for another day of annoying high-
energy teachers, and kids who acted like they
were too cool to have anything to do with her,
and Mrs. Argon, perhaps the stupidest math
teacher on the planet. She did a quick kick flip on
her skateboard and trudged into another
65
humdrum day. Yet Fin should have been warned,
that this was no ordinary day. Because Fin, you
see, was no ordinary girl. You see, as she skated
into the school that day, she had her right arm
behind her back.. The arm that, from the elbow
down, was no more than a stump.
“Fin, may I have an answer please.”
“Infinity!”
“INFINITY!”
Fin jumped awake just a Mrs. Perri
charged over to her desk and snapped in her face
several times.
“Umm… sorry. Could, uh, you repeat the
question please?”
“This isn’t jeopardy Fin. What is the
chemical formula for sodium chloride?”
Infinity paused.
“Well. I’m waiting Infinity.”
66
“I, um… I dunno. Sorry Mrs. Perri.”
“You’ll be sorrier in a minute,” Mrs. Perri
declared, exasperated at Fin’s constant fatigue.
“For tomorrow please write a 500 word essay on
the functions of the body when asleep, Fin. Class
dismissed!”
As usual, Fin walked alone to recess. The
other kids honestly had no idea how to talk to
her. When they tried, it was just fake and
awkward. So they left her alone. Which was
perfectly fine with her by the way. The less
attention, the better. Her light blue denim shirt
and camo leggings were just too different for their
sparkles, glitz, and glam. But that was no reason
to think she was disabled. Physically maybe, but
people assumed just because she was born
without an arm, she couldn’t think or she was
“special”. Fin knew she wasn’t your average
67
school kid on the outside but what was wrong
with this generation if they couldn’t see that on
the inside, Fin was unique in a different way. She
knew legally, she could be anything she wanted.
But it didn’t feel that way. And oh, the stares. Fin
of course was used to it by now but when people
pretended not to be looking when they were
gaping; that was the worst. Or when they
constantly apologized, as if she had told them she
had two weeks to live.
Frayed high tops pounding against the
linoleum floor, she grabbed her skateboard from
locker 397 and dashed out to recess, long red hair
flying out behind her. Usually she stayed on the
side practicing tricks, but today she just watched
glumly. Fin was too tired and too annoyed by
science. Jealously, she watched boys chuck balls
back and forth and sighed. After recess came
68
boring homeroom with Mr. Connors. Or so she
thought. Mr. Connors was eerily silent as 6C filed
into the classroom.
“Mrs. Lambros you can bring her in now!”
He called out.
Fin was immediately startled because Mrs.
Lambros was the principal. What on earth was
she doing here. I guess I’m about to find out,
thought Fin, confused. But then the door opened
and Infinity Hall was absolutely shocked at what
she saw. A girl, with long, pin straight brown hair
and deep brown eyes. Her eyes had so much
dimension, it was like you could see directly into
her soul. They were also glaring down at the floor
and the girl’s face was red. From embarrassment
or rage, Fin did not know. And there was also one
more little detail. She was sitting in a purple
wheelchair.
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“Class, this is Kendall Nalley and she is
going to here at JFK Middle School with us for the
rest of the term. I know it’s a quarter through the
year but she just moved and had to… adjust. I
know you all will show her around and be very
supportive.” he said pointedly.
“Yes Mr. Connors!” the class chorused.
After class, his entire speech was
completely disregarded, except for Belle Carter,
the teachers pet, who kneeled down, pointed
Kendall in the right direction of the cafeteria
while talking to her like she was a baby, and then
flaunted off. Fin’s head was spinning. She
couldn’t actually talk to the girl. She hadn’t talked
to a peer at school in forever. But at the same
time, she remembered her first day of school last
year. She had been totally shunned the second
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she got into class. Fin took a deep breath, blinked
thrice, and headed to lunch.
The cafeteria was always packed, but
somehow Fin always managed to get her own
table. When Infinity was really little, she would
go to physical therapy to help her learn how to
use her stump. She had a prosthetic arm, but
never wore it. It was itchy, uncomfortable, and
besides; she had learned long ago not to care
what people thought. So when the new girl rolled
over to Fin’s table and began to eat, she didn’t
know what to think. There was a quick pause
where everyone in the room just stared at the odd
pair.
“There was nowhere else.” Kendall Nalley
said quietly, her head down.
Fin gave a small nod and resumed eating.
She heard Kendall take a deep breath and when
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she looked up, there was a tear running down her
face. Soon, Kendall caught Fin staring, wide-eyed.
She shot Infinity a dirty look and rolled off,
fleeing the cafeteria. Kids were pointing and
whispering, Without thinking twice, Infinity Hall
ran out of the cafeteria but not quick enough to
miss hearing a girl whisper,
“How sweet! The two freaks together.”
After searching and searching, Fin finally
located Kendall. In the 2nd floor girls bathroom.
Quiet sobs echoed through the hallway leading
up to the door and Fin questioned her decision to
seek her out. But there was no turning back now.
Cautiously, she opened the door and found
Kendall sitting in her violet wheelchair, a steady
flow of tears down her face. Infinity slowly sat
down.
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“I’m sorry if I upset you,” Fin attempted to
console her as best she could “I just wanted you
to know that I get it, even if you don’t think I do.
Being this way my entire life, well, trust me it
hasn't been easy.” She said in a hushed tone “ But
I also know that my moms favorite quote helped
through a lot of problems and injustices: ‘It is
during our darkest moments that we must focus
to see the light.’ Sometimes all I would think
about how unfair it was. Why me, you know? But
then I focused and saw the light, and I knew that,
in the long-run, I would end up being okay.”
Fin was quietly crying now and Kendall
looked like she had something to say.
“It wasn’t always like this,” she
breathlessly said, “I was in a crash and… I still
say it not fair. But all I can ever do is try, so I
guess I can try to see the light in the situation. As
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long as I have some help from my friend,” she
looked up slowly and there was a hint of a smile
on her face, “Thank you Infinity.”
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Katherine Cook
grade 7 A Cat Called Holly
My mother always told me that I was born
in Rockefeller Center, underneath the Christmas
tree. It was the day before Christmas Eve, and the
last-minute shoppers sped from one sale to
another, desperately finding gifts. My sisters and
I were all named after Christmas-y things-
Mistletoe, Noel, and me, Holly. We all have jet
black fur and green eyes. We’re cats.
One year later, the tree lighting is about to
begin. I sit on a branch of the huge Christmas
tree, surveying the snow-covered landscape. Pop
stars sang catchy songs that even I knew the
words to. Suddenly, the tree explodes into light. I
fall off my perch in surprise and tumble to the
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ground. “What happened?” I say groggily, slowly
recovering.
“You got too risky, that’s what happened,”
says Mistletoe, stepping out of the shadows.
“And what would have happened?” I say
crossly. “I would be seen?”
“Yes, you would be seen,” adds Noel.
“You don’t want to get put in a shelter, do you?”
“Actually, I might like that. I’m pretty cute.
I’d get adopted, and I wouldn’t have to freeze my
paws off all winter.”
Mistletoe and Noel just stare at me.
They’ve heard this before. “Whatever,” Noel says.
“I’m gonna go to Central Park to catch a squirrel.
Coming, Mistletoe?”
“Of course,” says Mistletoe. “I won’t stay
here with my sister the pet.” They laugh and
quickly walk away, leaving me alone.
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I sigh. I don’t really get along with my
sisters. They enjoy the free life, and would always
laugh at the stories that Mom told us about her
past owners. But to me, it sounds pretty nice.
Regular meals and a warm bed- what’s not to
like? My sisters feel otherwise, and I’ve always
been the third wheel. Resigning myself to another
cold, hungry night, I trod back to the tree to sleep.
***
The sun rises, the birds are chirping, and
I’m starting to get frostbite on my tail. Yuck. I
quickly climb down the tree and stretch in the
winter sunlight before running down to the
nearest hot dog stand. The guy who owns it
always leaves the top open. He must lose a lot of
money. Munching on a stolen hot dog, I begin
walking to Central Park. I think I’ll watch the
skaters today. It’s always amusing to watch them
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knock each other over, and there’s usually some
forgotten food on the ground.
A flash of red fur darts through the trees as
I enter the park. Darn. I forgot about the Park
Cats. Mistletoe and Noel have joined, but that
won’t make them any friendlier towards me. I
hear they sometimes eat intruders. I’ll have to be
careful.
I quickly scale the nearest tree and look
around me. No sign of any other cats- good. I’m
going to travel through the treetops, just to be
safe. I jump from tree to tree, careful to keep my
disturbance minimal. But someone was bound to
notice, and now they do.
“Hey, who are you?” A tiger-like tabby
walks to the foot of my tree. “What are you doing
here?’
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“I’m- I’m Mistletoe and Noel’s sister.
Holly.”
“Oh, so this is Holly. Your sisters
described you well.” The red cat I saw earlier
steps out of the bushes. “Just a pathetic, sneaky
runt. She’s not any threat. Let her go, Maple.” The
red cat and Maple pad away.
My muscles relax in relief. Sure, it’s good
to be ignored, but sometimes I’d like to be taken
seriously. It’s hard always being underestimated.
I bunch my legs and jump to the next tree.
***
It’s a brisk day at the rink, and lots of
people have come to skate. A woman with long
brown hair whips by me in a jump before
spinning off again, knocking several disgruntled
skaters out of her way. I’ve been watching since I
got here. Once, someone started yelling at her,
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pointing to his fallen son. She just shrugged and
spun away. I like her.
A piece of popcorn falls on my head. I look
up to see a girl, about eleven years old, with hair
just like the woman on the rink. It must be her
daughter. I lick up the popcorn and paw her leg
for more. She giggles and pours down a few
pieces. One bonks me on the nose and bounces
away. I chase it, but by the time I return, the girl
is gone.
I should leave too. The sun is starting to
set, and the Park Cats are less lenient at night.
Besides, I don’t want to be late to the concert. I
stand up slowly and exit the rink, my tail
dragging in the snow behind me.
***
The concert will end soon. For almost two
hours I’ve hidden in the rafters of St. Patrick’s
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Cathedral, listening to beautiful music. I attended
this concert with my mom last year. I was a tiny
kitten, so I don’t remember anything except the
twinkling lights and my mother’s voice. She left
after we were six months old, assuming we could
take care of ourselves. The thought makes me sad.
I begin to climb down to the side of the stage. No
one will notice a small, dark cat, and I want to be
in the aisle for the last song.
The prelude of Silent Night begins to play,
and I stand stock-still in the center of the aisle,
spellbound. The cathedral’s doors are open, and I
can see snow gently falling outside amid the
bright Christmas lights. I listen as the choir begins
to sing.
The beauty of the song takes my breath
away. Music like this is my favorite thing in the
entire world. I am a spinning snowflake, drifting
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through the gentle melody. But before long the
song is over, and I land on the ground, back in
reality.
Immediately the spell is broken. The kids
rush toward their parents, jabbering in
excitement. For it is Christmas Eve, and soon
they’ll be home, so excited for tomorrow that
they’ll burst. And where will I be? On the tree in
Rockefeller center, watching as the lights go out,
one by one. I sadly wander down the aisle,
caution forgotten in my loneliness. Of course, my
mistake is noticed. They always are.
A small pair of hands gently scoop me up.
They pet me, from head to tail. It feels good, and I
raise my tail, looking up at the hands’ owners. It’s
the girl from the rink! Her mother sits beside her,
the long hair done up in an elaborate braid with a
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sprig of holly inserted in the end. I bat it, sending
the braid swinging to and fro.
“Mom, can we keep her?” The girl turns to
her mother with a pleading look in her eyes.
“She’s so cute! I saw her at the rink.”
“You did?” The mother turns to me, her
brow furrowed. “She must be a stray. She
probably doesn’t like people.”
Not true! I gently head-but her to show her
mistake.
“Or not.” She laughs. “Well, I suppose so.
What shall we name her?”
The girl scans the church, thinking. She
finally lands on her mother’s hair. “Holly,” she
says decisively. “For Christmas.”
“Perfect.” They smile down at me. “Let’s
go home and introduce her to Dad. I think he’s
home from work by now.”
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The girl grins with delight. She picks me
up, and together we leave the church.
As the Christmas lights flash by, I fill with
happiness. This is the first holiday I’ll spend in a
cozy house with people I love. All I wanted for
Christmas was a family. I’ve gotten my wish.
***
Snow falls gently in the peaceful night.
Amid the darkness, a single window glows, filled
with colored light. A man and women sit side by
side on a couch, watching their daughter play
with a small black cat. Two cats stare through the
glass, enchanted.
Noel and Mistletoe jump off the
windowsill. “I don’t know, Noel, having a human
family seems kind of nice.”
Noel drags her tail through the snow, and
looks up at the bright window above them.
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“Yeah, maybe,” she says. The two cats walk away
into the dark.
The End
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Wenhao Cai & Louise Sloss grade 5
Super Rosy!
In a world, where humans are too
distracted with technology, the only ones that can
save the world from evil and old technology are
animals. The best hero of them all was, Super
Rosy and her sidekick, Wild Wally. One of Rosie’s
powers is shape shifting. Since the food in the
white house was so good, Rosy might be heavier
than the average, which makes the shape shifting
become useful. Sadly, the shape shifting is not
weight shifting. Wally on the other hand has
super speed. She can steal your hair ties or ear
plugs without you even knowing. She also has
super claws. She likes to claw you to the hospital.
One day, President Sloss was going to go to
Shelter Island with her mom and one of her best
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friends, Ms. Cai. Sadly, for President Sloss she
had to leave Rosy and Wally behind. Luckily for
Rosy and Wally, an evil enemy was working it's
way to the white house and they had to be
stopped. So when President Sloss left, Rosy and
Wally went for a walk. They did not let their
guard down though. As they were walking, their
enemy showed up. His name was Television the
old TV.
"We've got you, Teli. You will not escape.
Wally charge!" Rosy said to Wally.
"Don't bother. I'm covered with your real
enemy, Land lines." Arti said evilly.
"Huh..." Wally and Rosy gasped at the
same time.
"Wally, activate the razor claws." So Wally
activated the emergency razor claws and charged
at teli.
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The land lines were cut in half and they left
teli screaming, "No! I paid $399.99 for those!"
Then they sent Teli to the radio shack dumpster
where he will be kept from civilization.
"Another day, another villain gone." Then
Rosy and Wally went back home to enjoy a nice
call on their new iPhones, again.
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Bo Goergen grade 5 Revenge
¨Run, go!¨ Those were their last words. I
have nothing, no family, no friends, no life. Why
did they have to destroy everything? If I had one
wish it would be to snap every bone in their sin-
infested bodies, but it still wouldn’t heal my pain.
What did I do to deserve this miserable fate? As a
walk down this beaten up road their faces flash
before my eyes. Suddenly, red hot flames ignite
inside of me and I silently vow to kill the
murderers that made my life a living nightmare.
My first step is to get my hands on a weapon. I
rack my brain for any mention from my father
about a weapons dealer with no success. So I
decide to head straight to the next town.
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Suddenly I hear screaming in the distance,
I start to run toward the sound. After about two
minutes I come across a clearing in the woods. A
women is being carried off by a group of men and
a small boy is killed right in front of her. I stare in
horror because a light just went off in my head,
these men are the same people who killed my
family. Without thinking, I run straight toward
my prey. But before I can get my hands on the
assassins a scorching hot pain erupts in my foot. I
look down in horror, because a knife has sunk
beneath my flesh, I collapse.
I wake up tied to a group of boys who are
about sixteen, I was clearly the youngest. Why am
I here and not dead? After about one hour two
men tell us it is time to go. We are thrown into an
enclosed carriage. Somebody opens the door to
the carriage and drops us off at what looks like a
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slave market. We are pushed out of the carriage
and on to a platform. One by one groups of men
fill the square to look at me. A man with a whip
steps in front of me and starts yelling prices out
into the crowd. I am bought by a strong man with
an air of authority surrounding him. I am untied
and pushed toward the man. After a regain my
senses, I start to run away from my owner and
into the forest. I stop to rest behind a tree. When I
finally feel safe to stand up I find myself standing
face to face with my worst enemy, the man who
killed my family. I lung at him and start clawing
at his face. He pulls me off and cups his hands
over my mouth and nose, cutting off my air
supply. I have failed my parents, my friends,
myself, it is time to give in. I stop struggling and
close my eyes, dead.
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Cadence Plenge grade 6
Four Eyes
I had gone some 10-12 steps in this
manner, when the torn hem of my robe caught
my heel, causing me to stumble till I fell violently,
face forward. There, right beneath my chin, was a
hole, leading to infinity. My curiosity struck me
once again. I knew the outcome of my fate if I was
to fall. It seemed that if I did, death would
become the only option. But just as I thought that
I had agreed to keep this life I led, no matter how
unbearably solitary it may be, I jumped. The wind
lashed my face and eyes, causing them to swell
with tears. Through the tears I saw a tiny square
that seemed white, but I wasn’t exactly certain,
that was maybe about 100 yards away. Closer and
closer it got rapidly. It was only a matter of
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seconds until I realized that the mattress was
worn to bits. There were stains. Faded red ones.
My eyes closed, while I awaited my last few
seconds on earth. Before I knew it I hit the
mattress. My organs jumped out of place, and
blood seemed to stop flowing through my body.
But just when I thought Death was upon me, my
eyelids lifted clearing my brown eyes into view.
Only, there wasn’t any view. Just a foggy black.
There was light around me, coming from some
mysterious source, but only around me. I tried to
get my eyes to adjust, but I guess the pitch black
was beyond my limit of seeing. Drowsiness
started to overcome me and before I knew it, my
eyelids started to creep together, slowly, slowly
descending.
My eyes opened up to a fluorescent light
above me. The mattress was gone, and the floor
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replaced it. Everything around me remained a
blur. I tried to blink, hoping when I opened them
again I’ll find sight again. I rose from my fallen
state, trying to find somewhere to walk. Out of
the crescent of my eye, I see what appears to be
glasses, on a table, but very, very thick. I shuffle
my way towards them. I outstretched my arms to
reach, and open my hands to grasp them. I hang
the limbs of the glasses, and loop them around
my ears and suddenly everything came to focus.
I could see everything from the hangnail on my
pinky, to the floating strands of hair, drifting
away from my scalp. I began to look around,
staring at the walls in front of me. The details,
with engraved gold, caught me by surprise. My
eyes started to shift, when finally I found a
hallway, a passage if you may.
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Now with the advantage of sight, I found it
much easier to walk. As I left the strangely light
room, and into the peculiar and slightly
unwelcoming passage, I started to hear noises.
Not droning nor humming, just blurred voices.
“They” seemed to be trying to drive me in some
emotional direction which didn’t seem to be a
state of any content. I never heard exactly what
they were saying, but I knew it wasn’t friendly.
There seemed to have been a turn in the passage I
was walking on, so I tuned right, as did the
passage. The voices got louder and louder,
shouting incommunicable. I turned a little afraid,
not of the voices, but of the way they were
screaming at me, almost judging me. After what
seemed like 5 minutes they all stopped abruptly,
making the world around me see silence. Then all
of a sudden, I feel something shift. Not around
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me, but within my very body. That’s when I see
it. No…..see me. But in a way it isn’t. I get a better
look at it, and finally realized the horror behind
the truth. It was me. It had the same hands, legs
and feet as I do, but there was a barrier between
the two of us. I was alive, he was dead. Words
and images started to spin and flash in my head,
and found that my worst fear has driven upon
me. His eyes glared into mine, only causing his to
ablaze with a fire of pure hatred, hatred only the
devil himself would understand. He knew
thinking what I was thinking, then predicted my
next trail of thought, then the next, then the next.
He was breathing the same air as me, and
polluting it with fear every time he exhaled. We
both stood there, only looking at each other,
somehow making time slow. It was only until he
reacted did everything move fast.
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I ran harder than had I ever before. He
didn’t seem to be chasing me, but my initial
instinct was to run. My heart was beating like a
horses four feet pounding on a race track. My
head was swimming with confusion like a duck
in a swamp full of alligators. All the while, my
ears ringing from the air passing me, sounding
like a bull being whipped out of the way. I turned
right, only to find the long, straight passage I had
been on only a few minutes ago, was a short isle,
leading to a left turn. Sooner than I had thought, I
had turned 7 lefts, and 9 rights. By the time I got
to my last turn, I could hardly catch up to the
amount of breaths my lungs demanded. I
hunched my back over, trying to find a leveled
ground between standing up straight, and lying
down. After I took about 5 deep breaths, my
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heartbeat slowed down, and I could finally feel
my feet, I stood up straight.
As I looked around for the next turn in the
corridor, I saw that it was only a dead end. I
looked left and right, searching a way out of this
death trap. But there were no other options, other
than to go the way I went. I started to walk
towards the opening, when he appeared,
grounded in a way that seemed like the earth
only moved when his feet did. I inched my back
to the wall, trying to make myself as far away as
possible. I kept my eyes locked on his hands,
terrified of what awaits me. As he creeps closer
and closer, I try to think of any possible ways to
get away. No ideas come to mind, all I do is stare
at his meaty hands. Just when I think I would
breathe my last breath, I think of something. It
wasn’t anything elaborate, but maybe out of the
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slimmest of chance I would be able to survive. I
take hold of the glasses that had been put around
my ears, and gently replace them from my face.
My eyes close, and when I open, I face a room,
with a capacity of such dense black, it almost
seemed that the blackness would overcome me, to
such a volume, it would seem I didn’t exist.
That’s when it struck me. The glasses. They
had the power to control my fear. They were the
reason I had myself almost kill me. They showed
my innermost fear. But now, since I have defeated
the obstacle that is myself, my harassers
challenged me with, I am now here. As I glare
into the nothing that is the black, I realize that
fear can only harm you, if you decide to cower
beneath it. I breathe in victoriously, I find that my
mind has come to a different and unknown
emotion. Calm, and safety. My head fought with
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my body telling it to walk, but neither my legs or
arms moved. I sat down on what I supposed to be
the floor, and accepted the fact of myself stuck
the mysterious black room, with nothing but me,
and the world I now lived in, collapsed by night.
Forever.
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Lily Greenberg grade 6
The Labyrinth
I had gone some ten or twelve steps in this
manner when the torn hem of my robe caught my
heel, causing me to stumble till I fell violently,
face forward. The scalding metal floor opened its
gaping mouth and I plummeted into its darkness,
the judges’ menacing laughter echoing and
surrounding me as I heard the trap door close
with a final-sounding slam that shouted my
sentence; “GUILTY”. The darkness wrapped
around me like a choking blanket, its tendrils
enveloping me, pushing their next victim further
down into the hole. It was so black that I could
only tell that I was falling because of the wind
blowing what was left of my shredded dress and
long brown hair backwards, cooling my face and,
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after weeks of scorching heat, it was almost a
relief. Relief! Ha! Me and my optimistic
foolishness. When would I ever learn? The only
relief for me was death. The Inquisition made
sure of that the moment they took me away. My
sigh was barely audible over the hum of air in my
ears. Arms and legs outstretched, I plunged
deeper into the seemingly infinite abyss like a
stone carelessly tossed into a black pool. I fell for
a long, long time before I finally hit bottom.
Nothingness. Then sudden stirring. Faces
and sounds flashed before me, swirling in my
mind like a tornado of memories: Catalina and I
laughing as the tax-collector falls down over his
own fat feet. Padre’s pipe smoke shrouding his
book like a cloud. Juan, the house cat, chasing a
loose string as I sew a patch onto my brown coat.
Maria winking at me as she puts pins in Pastor
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Barreto’s favorite chair so that she can stay home
and help me wash. Alejandro stopping by to say
hola after dinner. Abuelita’s fresh tortillas. Madre
smiling as I climb atop my horse for the last time.
When I finally regained consciousness, I
was laying on my back in extreme, blinding
blackness. I opened my eyes, turned, waited for
their white spots to clear away, then stared
directly into the blank, empty eyes of an ancient
human skeleton. I shrieked and shrank back
against the wall which I found myself against.
Hyperventilating, I tried to control the roaring,
pulsing thing that was my heart. Deep breaths, deep
breaths, in and out, in and out. I tried to distract
myself by studying my surroundings. They didn’t
make me feel much better. The walls were slimy
stone, with peculiar thin slits in them every five
feet or so. Penetrating from the thick, suffocating
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blackness were humongous beeswax candles,
about eight feet tall with flames two feet long and
deadly blue-hot, so bright that they hurt my
gloom-accustomed eyes. Farther in front of me,
the darkness continued, but the candles did not.
The heat of many months had taken its toll;
I was plagued by thirst yet again. My parched
lips burning, I decided to examine my
surroundings more closely for some source of
water. I stood up, took a few steps, arms
outstretched, and kneeled, overwhelmed by pain,
my right wrist screaming in protest. On top of
everything else, I had to land on my wrist. I studied
it. Or what was left of it anyway. The sight sent
my stomach hurtling into my throat. The bone
peeked out from inside my arm, white against
red. I tapped it gently and the white spots
returned to my eyes. With a painful groan, I
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tucked my knees under my legs into a sitting
position, looking at the frayed mess that used to
be my dress. My dress! I tore of a piece of the
grimy fabric with my good hand, then tied it
around the wound. This wouldn’t help much, but
at least now it wouldn’t get infected. Probably. I
waited for the spots to clear from my eyes again.
They finally did, but the blackness before me had
begun to have a strange shimmering quality to it.
Wait. That wasn’t my eyes. I scrutinized closer
and suddenly realized that the candles’ light was
reflecting of a mass of closely interconnecting
strings, each about three inches wide.
I looked closer at the web before me, eerily
like the cat’s cradles of my childhood. I shook my
head to rid myself of these distracting thoughts,
assuring myself that these were mere spider
webs, nothing more, but something about them
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was not right. Like a newborn taking its first
steps, I slowly hobbled over to the reflective
strings, wincing the entire way. I hesitantly
reached out to touch the cords. Slowly, slowly,
stretching my hand a centimeter at a time. I
closed my eyes. I took a deep breath. My fingers
brushed the cords. A flash of burning pain shot
up my arm. In that one flash, the string began to
vibrate with a deep hum. In the blackness before
me a similar noise vibrated, on and on, echoing
ominously of the walls, bouncing between them
like a ball of death, seemingly never-ending.
This, I realized, was no ordinary web. This
was a labyrinth.
So this was the Inquisition’s plan; to
ensnare me in the labyrinth. I wanted to tremble,
to run back to the wall, to something steady,
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constant, but I stood frozen still, deciding
whether to retreat or continue into the maze. I
wonder how many innocents had pondered this
decision before me. Pondered what they had to lose. I
wonder how long they stayed here before they plunged
into the maze. I glanced behind me at the skeleton.
And if they didn’t, what other fate met them? I was
going to die; I may as well choose how. Here, I
would die of starvation, if not thirst. Besides, the
Inquisition would just send another deadly
plague upon me. Stubbornness was useless. But
going into the labyrinth…….. would I really risk
that? To give in to the Inquisition’s plans was not
usually a good idea, but…. this time was it worth
it? I stretched every inch of my brain for some
vague answer. Minutes passed. Soon, a
diabolically devilish smile spread over my face. I
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let out a hysterical laugh as I plunged into the
dark unknown.
If they wanted to play their little mind
games, fine. Let’s play.
Black is like a coat, all-enveloping and
heavy. Black suffocates and confuses, depriving
one of sight. Black causes fear. Fear the mind-
killer. Yet it also provides hope, for when you
can’t see, you can somehow imagine if this tunnel
might lead you home. I stumbled over the cords
that prohibited my passage. Again and again they
whipped at my exposed arms and frayed the
remains of my skirt. But I trudged on, stepping
over thread after thread, my body weighing a
thousand pounds, using the wall to guide me. On
and on, for what seemed to be miles. Got to pay
attention now, I mentally chided myself, for the
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candles’ light is far behind me, and who knows what
lies ahead.
“I couldn’ have said it better myself,
sweetheart.”
I whirled around, and there he was,
slumped on the floor against the wall ; the ugliest,
drunkest, most disgusting man I have ever seen. I
could barely see him in the darkness, but he was
there all the same. His wool jacket was slimy, his
cap was ripped, his pants were seamless and
dirty, and since he was wearing no shirt under his
unbuttoned coat I could literally count his ribs.
His skin was covered in a layer of grime, is eyes
red and bloodshot, his breath stinking of beer and
decay so strongly that it made me gag. not only
that, but he had a British accent, of all things. I
better not look that disgusting, I thought. I must
have had a startled look on my face, for the man
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began to laugh a wheezy, coughing laugh,
spraying spit and more bad breath from his
yellow- toothed mouth.
“Didn’t mean to scare ya, sweetheart. Ya
got any rum?”
Gathering up the remains of my torn skirt close to
me in disgust, I finally and firmly spat out, “No.”
He grinned. “Yeah, well, neither do I.
Finished me last bottle a while ago. But that may
jus’ve been a minute ago, ya’ know? It’s hard to
tell time here, ain’t it?”
He weakly kicked an empty bottle into the
forthcoming black. I began to fret. How many
others like him where there?
“It’s jus’ you n’ me, sweetheart. No one
else.” How did he know what I was thinking? Are
you a mind-reader? I thought, staring at him, but he
paid no attention. He instead coughed, then
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wheezed, “ I’ve been ‘ere for years, waitin’ for the
bloody Inquisition to find me. I’ve eaten mold of
‘em bloody walls jus’ to stay alive, when all I’ve
wanted is to go home. I’m not even s’posed to be
‘ere. I shou’ be in Heaven with me wife and kids,
shouldn’ I? “I silently stood there, unsure how to
respond.
“Well, shouldn’ I? Shouldn’ I, sweetheart?
Shouldn’ I be with me lovely Mary? And Janie
and Edward? Do they miss ‘eir daddy in Heaven?
Are they askin’ ‘eir mummy, ‘Where’s Daddy,
where’s Daddy?’ jus’ cuz they got burned on the
bloody stake an’ I didn’?! Cuz the bloody court
thinks I’m the instigator means ‘ey die an I stay
‘ere for years? Years?!? Jus’ cuz I get caught with
me family on a ship outta British territory an’ I
happen to be Jewish means that they torture us,
one bloody man an’ woman an’ child after
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another? Jus’ one plus one to them, huh? To them
black-robed judges and guards and priests and
nobles and the stinkin’ bloody queen? Jus’ cuz the
bloody Inquisition don’ like what I believe means
that I don’t get to see me family in Heaven, eh?
Well, does it, sweetheart? Huh?”
A moment of loud, sharp silence passed.
Finally I mumbled, “It isn’t fair, is it?”
At this, he let out a wheezing, knee-
slapping laugh.
“Life ain’t fair, sweetheart. Anyone who tells ya
otherwise is hiding something.”
He suddenly became very calm.
“But I’m gonna be fine now. Just dandy, even.
Cuz I’m goin’ to bloody Heaven now, sweetheart.
You jus’ watch, and mebbe you’ll learn
something.” He closed his eyes.
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And the dagger entered his bosom. The blade
went all the way through him, impossibly slow,
the once-silver blade sticking through his chest,
soaking the razed flesh with blood. It was then
smoothly retracted back through the wall’s thin
slit from which it came. The man made a sound
like a bird suddenly shot out of air, but on his
face was a smile of relief.
“Remember what I said!” he whispered, “You
might jus’ help a lotta people someday,
sweetheart. I’m countin on ya. An’ I’ll be
watching.”
He stiffened for one moment more, then went
slack and collapsed for the last time. He was gone
from this world.
I was frozen, stiff like the man in front of
me, cold as ice, but not from death. From fear.
Fear the mind-killer. I wanted to move, to run
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away, to wake up and have it all be just a dream,
but no. I wanted to beat on the walls of my mind
until I awoke from my slumber, but no. It was
real. The man was dead. I was standing there,
close to him, too close, frozen still, helpless,
knowing that it could’ve been me. Maybe it
should’ve been me. It still can be me. And that’s
what sent me running, bolting, dashing, hurtling
through string, sprinting from something that
couldn’t be outrun. Never. I stumbled, lost my
balance, and fell on my face.
Frantically, I got up and pressed against
the wall, pounding on it with my non-broken fist.
“Please, be it anyone, god or devil,
unknown creature of the dark, guard against the
door, man or woman, old or young, human or
something else, I am just a girl who lives and
breathes upon this earth and is just like all of you!
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I am just an ordinary woman with beliefs like you
and feelings like you, who sleeps and eats and
drinks like you, who has feelings like you, who
has skin and eyes, and tears and blood, redder
than red, just like you, just like all mortals on this
earth! Please! Please, I beg, you, let me free!” And
as my voice broke, I could go on no more.
In the silence I began to sob, rocking
back and forth, back and forth, clutching my
knees with my arms, back and forth, back and
forth, steady, steady, steady, until I was in a
hysterical calm. I stood up slowly, ready to
continue into the tunnel, and came face to face
with a great wooden door. A small dagger,
similar to the one that killed the laughing man,
hung where the knocker should be, and its
sudden appearance sent a tingle of alarm up my
nose. I stood perfectly still, then slowly, one step
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at a time, retreated back. Why was this door
here? Why this door… here? It couldn’t be what I
thought it was. It couldn’t. It couldn’t be….. the
exit? Could it? It was probably just another of the
Inquisition's tricks….. right? I closed my eyes and
shook my head. This was just too confusing. Was
it the exit or not? I opened my eyes and looked
up, and, pinned to the door, was my answer.
Written on a dirty, crispy paper was a single
word, written in all uppercase in a futile attempt
to emphasis its beautiful meaning: “FREE”. I
trembled with happiness. The paper was
probably lying, but at least now I could fool
myself into choosing it over the dagger. Right? I
considered my options, trying to use logic to
soothe my brain. If it was the exit, I could escape
and find my family. We could escape into a
different country, change our names, start over. If
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they weren’t already dead. If it was just another
trap, I may as well stay here. I could live like the
laughing man for a while. But, I could just take
that dagger and end my life right now. It would
be slow and painful, but still less tortuous than
another planned death. What to do, what to do?
Which choice would help my family? Which
choice would foil the Inquisition’s plans and
bring glory to the memories of all who died here
for their beliefs? Which choice would help me? I
stood there for a long time, not thinking, not
feeling, just being.
And I knew what I had to do.
Acknowledgements
To Kevin Brockmeier, my friend and writing
inspiration, and Edgar Allan Poe, the ultimate master
of suspense. I hope you guys approve.
117
Anonymous grade 6
Koolness in the Kool Klub
Deseray Grondin was having a very bad
day. For one, her blonde hair was a colossal mess.
Additionally, her Ma-ma was in Scranton, and
her Da-Da was running a fashion show in Vegas.
He owned a fashion magazine called, Mrs. Feisty.
It was very popular.
They had both been worried about her
multiple times during the day, and therefore,
Deseray was getting many phone calls from them.
Miss Darla-Jean had to take her out of Spanish
early so she could receive her tenth phone call
from her Da-Da. She hated when her parents
went on “business trips.”
There was only one pro to this. Deseray
could go to “FroYo 4 KoolKids” and eat as much
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FroYo as she wanted. FroYo 4 KoolKids was a kool
place to eat with the kool kids. She always went
there with her BFFFLFRZ (Best friend forever for
life for realzeez) 4 life, Little Pansy Petite. Little
Pansy was a kinda kool kid. Of course Deseray
wasn’t a kool kid. She was a goody-two-shoes
with annoying parents who were known to be
way over-protective. When she had to leave
Spanish Class for the phone call, Big Gabey and
his bully friends laughed. They laughed a lot.
They laughed so much that Ms. Darla-Jean had to
send them to Misses Plank, the principal. Misses
Plank let them off with a warning. She always let
them off with a warning.
After History with Mister Raimund,
Deseray and Little Pansy Petite left the building
and headed towards FroYo 4 KoolKids. It was on
fourth street, two blocks away from school.
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Deseray was only allowed to walk up to two
blocks away from school before coming home.
Her parents were very strict about that. They
even downloaded a tracking app on her iPhone
3G. As they were walking, they were approached
by Britt (a.k.a. Brittney.)
“Hey Girls, going to FY4KK?” Britt asked,
giggling. For some reason Britt always seemed to
be giggling.
“Tots, like my goats,” Little Pansy Petite
answered.
Britt giggled.
“Oh, and you, what’s your name, Deseray,
right? I love your mascara. It’s the newest
collection from MAC, right? Where did you get
it? The shipping is like four weeks on
Newmakeupdotcomdoubledotcom.com, right?”
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“Oh I just got it at Sephora, where else?”
Deseray answered, trying to act kool.
“Did you shoplift it? Cos I heard it was like
50 bucks there.”
“No. I bought it,” Deseray answered.
“Of course you did. I shouldn’t have even
asked, little goodie-goodie.” Britt rolled her eyes
and sauntered off.
“Look at her,” Deseray gossiped to Pansy,
slightly offended.
“C’mon, I think she’s nice. She’s the koolest
kid in school. And she’s a full social status above
us. The fact that she’s actually talking to us is
gonna go down in the history books. Next thing
ya know, we’ll be reading about it in high school!
oh! And Britt is the head of Koolness in the Kool
Klub. I’ve been trying to join that club for years!”
Pansy said.
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“Ya. If you make it to high school. I have
my doubts….” Deseray trailed off, realizing she
was being offensive. Pansy was a D- average
student...
“Hey.” Pansy said.
“Just sayin’.” Deseray said under her
breath.
Just then they passed by the local college.
The College for Dumb Kids. That was literally
what it was called.
Deseray and Pansy were approached by a
group of goths. “Oh no, the goths are coming!”
Pansy screeched and ran off onto Apple Lane.
It was too late for Deseray to run. The
goths would see her, so she dashed under a dying
mulberry bush.
“OMG! Do you think Derek is cheating on
me with Dronning Peterson? I saw him hugging
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her,” Deseray overheard Chelsea say through her
bush.
“C’mon Chelsea, You don’t really have the
right to get mad at him. At least he doesn’t know
about your affairs. And, Derek only hugged
Dronning. C’mon dramatic fuchsia haired
groosling,” Mulan the goth retorted.
“Well Dronning is in the Popular Dumb-
Blonde group. You could re-name her sorority
“The Plastics”, and NO ONE would notice. I
mean Regina George from Mean Girls is basically
based on her! Dronning’s like...The CORE
opposite of what we stand for…..” Chelsea trailed
off realizing how utterly stupid she sounded.
“Anyway--” Dylan started to butt in.
“Wait one second.” Mulan cut Dylan off,
and spun around to the mulberry bush, “I spy
with my little eye….” she leaned closer and closer
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to the bush, “something that looks a lot like my
sister!” she pulled Deseray out from under the
mulberry bush with a scowl on her face
“Yo, ‘sup. You spyin’ on me?” Mulan said
to Deseray, her sister.
“No,” Deseray squeaked.
“Good, cause if you were I would cut you
open and rip your organs out one by one.” Mulan
was the meanest goth. She was also the leader of
the lot. She happened to be Deseray’s big sister.
She wore black leather jackets, and tall high-
heeled booties. She had a black mullet with a
bleached pink streak by her forehead. She liked to
scare little kids, especially Deseray and her
friends. She had a big, fat purple nose ring that
her boyfriend Dylan gave to her last year.
Dylan stood behind her, with his best
friends, Angie and Drex. Dylan had a scruffy
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chin, and wore black eyeliner, under the eyes.
Drex was an emo all the way, and was Angie’s
boyfriend. Angie had platinum blonde hair, but
was thinking about dying it fuschia. Angie liked to
wear crop-tops. She liked to hear pink and black
striped ones.
Then there was also Chelsea and her
boyfriend Derek. Chelsea hated Angie cuz she
herself had fuschia hair, and she didn’t want
anyone copying her. Especially Angie… In
Chelsea’s opinion, Angie was not a goth. If
Chelsea was the head of the goth group, she
would kick Angie out with a home-run. Angie
just happened to be second cousins once removed
with Mulan. That’s why she was part of the club.
Chelsea’s eyes were always covered in
layers of black eyeliner with a touch of blue.
Multiple piercings outlined her ears. She was the
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definition of a popular goth. Even the kool kids at
“The College for Dumb Kids” thought Chelsea
was kinda awesome. All the goth girls who didn’t
get a membership to the exclusive hit goth klub
wanted to be like her, and all the goth guys loved
her. But her heart belonged to Derek...and Dregg,
Zekkhei, Austin and Barkley. (Derek didn’t know
about these other boys.)
“Derek, look at that shrimp,” Chelsea
looked down at 9-year-old Deseray and squinted,
realizing that her thoughts about Derek were
wrong. She had bigger things to worry about.
Ruining these kids lives.
“Yeah, babe, she’s so ugly.” Derek replied
in a deep voice.
“Shut UP!” Deseray screeched back,
unexpectedly. “Don’t talk to me like that! Mulan,
stop your stupid friends! I hate you! You never
126
support me...And your friends. They’re ugly and
STUPID! What’s all that black make-up for
anyway! Makes you guys look like a few
witches!”
“Don’t talk to my friends like that, Dez.
You’re just a little shrimp waiting to be fried up,”
Mulan shouted. She picked Deseray up by the
armpits.
Deseray screamed. “PUT ME DOWN!
YOU WITCH!”
Mulan passed Deseray to Dylan who flung
her over his shoulder. Deseray was suspended
upside down. The blood from inside her body
was dropping from her feet to her face, which
was turning red.
Deseray began to cry. Her new Sephora
mascara smeared all over her face. But these
goths, they didn’t care. They all laughed. Luckily,
127
they were making a loud enough racket for
people to start to notice.
Professor Shingle, art history professor at
The College for Dumb Kids, came out yelling at
Mulan and Dylan. “MULAN! DYLAN! This is the
last time I will catch you displaying inappropriate
behavior in school grounds! You are both
expelled, I’ve warned you many times about the
consequences from your wretched shenanigans.
You may not be on campus at all. This includes
your dormitory with your goth friends. THIS IS
MY FINAL DECISION!” With that, Professor
Shingle trotted back into her classroom.
Mulan and Dylan stared at each other in
shocked silence. They’d been the class
troublemakers since they met in kindergarten, but
they never thought their shenanigans would ever
128
amount to anything. They never thought they’d
be expelled.
“Whatevs.” Mulan said, showing none of
the emotion whirling through her insides. “Bye
guys, I assume you’ll be moving out of our
dormitory and sharing an apartment with me and
Dylan. Not really an apartment, more of a
basement. My basement. We’ll live in the
basement of my house. It’s only right. I mean, we
are friends. We can call it the Goth Klub. I’ll Goth
Text you the address. See ya there.”
“It’s fine Mulie-Mulan. We know where
your house is..” Chelsea said. “Guess the only
thing left to is uh..quit collage! Lez go! I’ve been
waiting to do this! PROFESSOR SHINGLE!”
Chelsea ran to tell Miss Shingle her final decision.
The goth team waddled off in their high heels
129
behind her. The only one left was Mulan. She
approached her little sister.
“It was only a matter of time….” Deseray
murmured.
“Shut UP!” Mulan said.
“Can’t torture me in school grounds!
You’ll get into trouble.”
“I know.” Mulan whispered. “I’ll get you
at home stinker!”
Mulan met up with her kool goth friends.
They sauntered back to their new apartment, or
Mulan Grondin’s parents’ basement. They were
lucky that Mr. and Mrs. Grondin were not home.
They would have freaked if a bunch of smelly
goths barged into their home.
Deseray was different story. She had
planned to tell her mother about Mulan and her
friends secretly living in the basement when she
130
got home from Scranton. But Mulan pounded her
into the wall and said, “If you tell Mom, I’ll
smash your face into a burning fire place again!
Like when you were five!
Deseray had gotten a pretty bad burn from
that. That’s why she ended up getting side bangs.
“I’m home!” Deseray’s mother gasped. She
dropped her various bags full of needless stuff.
She waddled down the hall in her new Prada
heels. Her French 20s style throw-up colored
dress swayed with her every movement.
“DESERAY!” She exclaimed, “how’s my darlin’
babe! You are delectable!” Deseray ran forth
towards her chubby mother. Deseray’s mom,
Lishai Grondin was a plump lady with blonde
hair. Lishai used “at home dyes” to save money.
This just ended up making her hair look green
instead of “golden cocka-doodle”.
131
Lishai Grondin was made up with a
variety of queer colors of eyeliner and mascara.
Of course, her rouge was pink, but her eyes were
surrounded with turquoise.
“Mommy!” Deseray exclaimed. “Mulan
got kicked out of college, so…so..she’s living in
our ba-.”
Unluckily for Deseray, Mulan was hiding
in the doorway right behind her.
“You’ve made a MISTAKE shrimpy!”
Mulan shouted as she pounced on Deseray. “You
RAT! Mom! Light a FIRE!”
You see, Lishai was intimidated of Mulan,
so she played obedient. (As you can imagine, the
Grondins were not the best parents.) Mulan is
living proof of that…
Lishai grabbed a match and quickly lit it.
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“Mommy!” Deseray exclaimed, “Don’t do
it! Mulan’s gonna stick my head in the fireplace!”
“Don’t you think I know that! Sweetie I’m
really sorry but I-”
“So you wanna see me get burned again?!”
“No I-”
“What!?”
“It’s just that I will get bur-”
“So, you aren’t gonna stand up to Mulan,
Ma-Ma?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Ok. Hear me out this time.”
“Fine.” Deseray’s lips were pursed, and
her arms were folded. “Explain, Ma-Ma.” Lishai
was bent over the fireplace, preparing wood to be
set ablaze. Her 20’s French cap fell off as she
pushed it off her head of slightly green hair.
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Lishai sat down on the orange couch next to the
fireplace, kicking off her heels. Her toes were
swollen.
“I don’t want your sister to push me in the
fire….That sounds selfish...Doesn’t it?”
“Yup.I don’t like you, Ma-Ma. I’m going
over to Pansy’s before Mulan gets me.” Mulan
was in the kitchen, making a caramel frappuccino
delight, (Her specialty).
“Okay sweetsies-peepees.”
“Mom. I’m nine. Never call me that EVER
again.” With that, Deseray stomped off across the
street to Pansy’s.
When she made it to the sweet sanctuary
of the Petite house, Deseray broke through the
door without so much as a knock on the door to
tell them she was there.
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“Pansy!!!! I’m a-here!” She ran up the pink
carpeted staircase up to Pansy’s room. She jiggled
her hands on the fool’s gold doorknob and yelled,
“Pansy, ya little brat! Let me in this instant!
I thought we were BFFL FRZs! I will hate you
until you’re 61!”
“Geeez! I thought we were besties too! I
was just copying and pasting things from
Wikipedia onto my English paper. You know I
can’t do it myself, it’s just too hard. I don’t
understand why some of the letters are big, when
others are like, small. Sorry for not lettin’ you in. I
thought you were Mama for a sec. Ya know she’d
kill me if she caught me cheating”
“Wow. You’re so dumb that can’t even
write a paper about Capital Letters?” Deseray
realized she was being offensive again. “Sorry for
135
being offensive, I mean you did leave me with the
goths today. Mulan almost burned my face off.”
“Again?” Pansy replied. “Whatevs. Come
in. Gossip Girl?”
“Tots like my goats!!! I’m like soo loving
the Chuck/Blair stuff this season”
“Actually, wait…” Pansy’s eyes scanned
her little pink room, “I’m out of mascara and eye
shadow. I need more makeup. We’re going
shoplifting.”
Deseray did not like that idea, she was a
goody two shoes and never went shoplifting.
“Oh no…” she retorted to little Pansy,
“You know that I have promised to my folks that
I’d never steal. Mama made me promise after the
first time the police arrested you shoplifting at
Duane Reade.”
136
“Hey! I wasn’t ever arrested! You are a liar,
” Pansy said with a smirk.
“Ya, well the cops took you to the slammer
and called your parents six times, so I think it’s
close enough!”
Pansy looked furious as she yelled to
Deseray, “No, I’m not a criminal! And I don’t
even know what a slammer is! Trust me Dezzie.
UGH! C’mon let’s just go to Sephora. I want the
new MAC lipsticks and their new eyeliners! I
heard they had spring sunflower scented
concealer too!”
“Awesome…” Deseray trailed off, she
hadn’t a clue what spring sunflower scented
concealer was, but she played along. “ Are you
sure we shouldn’t just buy that...thing? My Da-Da
is super rich, I’ll pay.”
“Fun sucker.” Pansy said with a grimace.
137
“I’m just saying, what if we..ya know...get
caught?”
“We won’t. Lez GO!”
“Shouldn’t we inform your mom we’re
leav-”
“NOOO!” And with that, Pansy Petite
dragged Deseray Grondin down the pink
carpeted stairs, and out the salmon polka dotted
door.
Pansy dragged Deseray through the street
and to the big-box Sephora. The local high school
had just let out, so it was filled with a gaggle of
teens. They all started when they say the little
plankton coming in (That would be Deseray and
Pansy.)
Pansy led Deseray into the lipstick isle, and
shoved the whole bucket of $50 MAC lipsticks of
138
all colors into her purple snake-skin hand-bag
(Which was also stolen from American Apparel.)
She ran down the aisle to the mascaras and
eye shadows. She dragged her arm down the
shelf display, pushing everything into her hand-
bag. She then ran over to the eye pencils and dug
her hand into the bowl. Watching Pansy, Deseray
realized why she was caught so many times. She
wasn’t exactly that subtle.
Deseray wasn’t the only one who had
noticed. A crowd of teens had formed around
Pansy, watching her steal bottle after bottle of
foundation and concealer. Deseray realized she
had to make an excuse for her friend, or she’d
surely be caught.
“It’s okay… her Da-da’s real rich,” Deseray
lied, “and she doesn’t like using shopping bags,
139
they have too much germs. She just uses her
hand-bag.”
It was clear no one believed her, but for a
while no one ratted out their fellow Sephora-
lover. That is, until a goth who really wanted to
befriend Mulan noticed Deseray. Ratting out
Mulan’s little sister was the perfect key to
Mulan’s friendship. So what if a few nine-year-
olds got arrested in the process?
Brazy Brandin, snuck out of the crowd to
the unobservant Sephora cop, Pete Stanton. As
soon as he heard of a couple of shoplifters, he ran
as fast as his pudgy legs could carry him, over to
where Pansy was attacking the nail polish.
“Hey there girls, there’s no shopliftin’
allowed in my store. Hey…. I recognize you, your
Pansy Petite, right? Yeah, you got quite the
history. Its time for Juvy, girl.” The guard said.
140
And that was when Pansy was taken away
from Deseray for three months.
2 Months Later
Dear Dez,
Hey, It’s Pansy Petite. I’m in Juvy. It
stinks. I hate it. The Food is so bad. Mrs. Petunia
is my cabin supervisor. She’s So mean. gosh! I
DON’T LIKE HER!!! Juvy’s kinda okay, if you get
past the fact we’re in a maximum security prison.
We’re not even allowed to have pencils, I think
they’re afraid we’ll stab each other with them. We
have to write with special felt tip markers, and we
only get marker privileges for ten minutes a day
besides school. I made a friend. She’s 12, the
second youngest here. I’m the youngest. She got
sent here for shoplifting too. Except she stole
money.. Everyone else did real bad things to get
here, not just shoplifting. I guess I did get caught
141
6 times... I’m sorry for getting you in so much
trouble. I bet yer mom killed u. Ya. Sephora Is
pretty heavily guarded. I din know, key? If u
never forgive me, that’s fine. I won’t blame u. But
remember, I’m still yer BFF FRZ 4 life. I’ll be Back
in a month. Is my Mom sad? how are you? How
is the weather? I love You BFFLS.
Love, your BFFFLFRZ 4 Life,
Pansy Petite
Deseray stared at the crumpled piece of
paper in her fist. Pansy was gone. No one
wanted to hang out with Deseray, cause everyone
knew that she was now “a bad influence”. Little
goodie two shoes went shoplifting and ratted her
BFFL out to the Sephora guard, Pete Stanton. Of
course that wasn’t true, but hey, third graders can
be mean gossips. Deseray dropped four full social
statuses, and if you think she was unkool before…
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“DEZ DEZ!” A bespectacled, pimpled
fourth grader stuck her head into the library
where Deseray was sitting, “Lez go! I want some
Fro Yo! But we can’t go to Fro Yo 4 Kool Kids, you
know we ain’t welcome there. We aren’t kool. Britt
was gonna let you in the klub you know. But
then… You know. ”
“Yeah. I do. Hey do you wanna be my new
BFFL? I know we’re like friends, but BFFLs are
like a whole new level. Maybe soon we can
BFFFLFRZs We are in different grades and all
but…”
“Sounds GREAT!!! I’ve never had a BFFL
before, not even back at Acotta Elementary!”
Deseray had one friend, a new fourth
grader named Dinah. They were both known as
unkool in their grades, so when they found each
other in the library, they became Best Friends For
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Life. Dinah was the only one who talked to
Deseray. Dinah had poured a stinky, disgusting
Yummlies Yogurt Drink that was one month
expired on the popular girl in fourth grade,
Mariana, during lunch on her first day at school.
Deseray “ratted out a kool girl”, so Des and Din
clicked. They were “like peas and carrots”, which
was what Dinah told Deseray was from some
really old movie that she really liked. Dinah liked
old movies, Deseray did not. Dinah was weird.
Deseray and Dinah left their school. They
both loved fro yo, but they of course couldn’t go
to FY4KK. No matter how kool Deseray wanted to
be, Britt would kick them out in 5 seconds flat.
So they headed east three blocks to where
the new kool kids went. Not the Koolness in the
Kool Klub. They were the outcasts, the ones
ousted by the popular kids in their grades. There
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was Deseray and Dinah, two fifth graders, a first
grader who never talked, and 9 second graders.
(There was a real bullying problem going on in
the second grade).
When they entered the froyo shop, they
found Britt and her kool BFFL Sabrina. Sabrina
was crying.
"What's going on?" Deseray put on her best
kool accent.
Britt stood up. "Nothing you should be
worried about. Well, Libby and Emma and Kathy
all got salmonella, and Libby thinks it's from
FY4KK, and so does Kendall and Maddie, but
they didn't get salmonella. Emma thinks it's from
the Chinese restaurant she and Kathy went to last
week that Libby lives next to, and Kathy thinks it's
from when we all ate cookie dough last week.
Anyway, I don't think it's from FY4KK. So,
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Maddie and Kendall and I had a big fight, and
they said they're never going to FY4KK again.
They said that they hated it and that stretched my
last nerve. So I left FY4KK. I mean, they're not
being fair, FY4KK our place. To be in Koolness in
the Kool Klub you need to be true to FY4KK Wait,
was I actually just talking to you?"
Sabrina looked up through her tears,
"Britt's ending Koolness in the Kool Klub." She
started to wail.
"If my trusted BFFFLFRZs aren't true to
our hangout place, then I don't know what to do.
It's over. They need to know that actions have
consequences. Sure, I could just kick them out, but
what would they learn? And I mean,we made a
pact. Without one of us, Koolness in the Kool
Klub will never exist again," Britt announced.
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Deserey had no reaction. All she could
think of was what Pansy would say. Gosh, Pansy
would be sooo mad. All those years she spent
aching to be in Koolness in the Kool Klub, And it
was all gone in a second…
“C’mon, New Kool Kids, lez go…” Pansy
had an idea. She knew it her time to be at the top
of the social food chain. “We need to have our
first New Kool Kids meeting.”
Dinah looked at her with question in her
eyes.
“Go with it,” Deseray whispered to Dinah,
“it’s a good idea.”
“Okayyy….” Dinah whispered back.
“So Britt,” Deseray announced, “you can
stay here. The New Kool Kids, are going to FY4KK,
cause if it ain’t yours, it’s fair game….”
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“Go! Just- just leave me alone!” Britt yelled
with a string of expletives I am not allowed to
print after it.
“Great,” Deseray retorted. She left, with
her string of unkool friends right behind her.
And with that was the founding of the New
Kool Kids. Britt and her slimy minions were
punished for all they did wrong, and Koolness in
the Kool Klub withered away into only a distant
memory.
The End
148
Lily Greenberg
grade 6 The Nobody Man
This is the tale of The Nobody Man and his
tale of woe.
Listen and deduct, but don’t interrupt, and
let’s see how much you know.
The Nobody Man was never born.
Sure he existed, but he never lived.
He didn’t know who his not-mother nor his
not-father were.
And never did.
The Nobody Man, since he was never born,
never wanted to die.
He wanted to live forever, to be immortal,
like an all-powerful god.
He wanted to be remembered forever.
But the Somebody Man got in his way.
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The Somebody man was, well… somebody.
Everyone wanted to be him, everyone
compared everyone else to him.
Everyone knew who he was, everyone loved
who he was, everyone would remember who he
was.
And that drove The Nobody Man a bit too
far.
He had always been a bit too far on that
diving board of craziness, was never quite right.
But this was just a bit too far.
He began to have trouble sleeping at night,
for nightmares of Death always followed sleep.
He began to have splitting migraines that
pressed into his head like a not-existent crown
that was the perfect size for someone else.
He tore out his hair and broke chairs in his
fiery rage.
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He began to have flares of jealousy that
burned like coals, a jealousy that wrapped its
coils around his throat, his mind, his heart.
He swore by his not-mother’s soul that he
would have revenge!
So The Nobody Man decided to crush The
Somebody Man at his own game, his greatest
skill:
Exploring.
That would show that pompous, bloated pig!
So the next day, The Nobody Man went to the
Great Palace and begged the king of his land to
allow him to discover and plunder the New
World in the king’s name.
Now, the king was a greedy man, always
wanting more gold, more land, and more power.
The king was also clever, much more clever
than The Nobody Man, and the king decided that
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this fool would give him gold, land, and power.
And he was just so desperate, so gullible, and so
expendable. The king chuckled and licked his
lips. It was the perfect opportunity!
The offer, off course, was accepted.
The Nobody Man bought a ship, a crew, and
some provisions, then headed out to search out
his destiny: immortality!
He had heard from one of his neighbor’s
slaves that there was a majestic fountain that
would restore spring to the not-step and light to
the not-eyes without erasing his heightened not-
mind with a single sip.
Fons Juventutis- The Fountain of Youth.
This alluring idea captivated his thoughts for
many a night, until, some weeks later, the man in
the crows nest shouted “Land ho! Land ho!”
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The crew kissed the sand under their feet, the
first mate ordered all the rum to be drunk, but
The Nobody Man just stared. For he was sure,
sure with all his nonexistent self, that he had
found the island which held his ticket to eternal
life. This island of flowers would make him
beyond death. Florida would save his not-soul!
The Nobody Man was on the island for about
a day before he took another push closer to the
end of the diving board.
It was because of two things.
The first thing was that the king was getting
impatient for discovery. He had written a letter
warning The Nobody Man that if he did not find
something soon, he may have to discharge him
and find someone who could.
The second thing was that the Calusa were
really getting on his nerves.
153
The Calusa were the natives of Florida, and
they obviously were not happy about The
Nobody Man’s claiming of their home.
Most of the time this would not be a problem,
except that the Calusa could fight. Really well,
actually. They would not back down. And this
was giving The Nobody Man a migraine.
So on that fateful day, The Nobody Man
decided to take a walk.
Not a big deal. Just a walk, right? You will
see.
The Nobody Man didn’t follow a path. He
just walked wherever his not-feet took him,
stepping over branches and leaping over logs,
dodging thorns and poison ivy, until at last he
slowed.
He saw in front of him a little clear pond, no
more than a puddle really.
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But...could it be? No, it couldn’t.
Could it?
He stepped closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
His hand disrupted the calm surface.
The water spilled over his palms.
His breath made it warmer than normal.
It tasted like mud.
And The Nobody Man took a dive into the
deep end of his old, crazy mind.
He began to laugh hysterically. Because he’d
found it. Finally, he’d found it!
He flipped his head back, kneeled onto his
not-knees, raised his dripping arms to the
heavens, and cried with all the not-ness in his not-
self, “What can go wrong now?”
155
Then the arrow wedged itself into his
stomach.
The tip of the arrow shot out of his chest,
soaked with blood and gore.
The shaft was completely embedded into his
body.
The nocking point was stuck in his back.
The Calusa who shot him just walked away.
That was the end of The Nobody Man and his
tale of woe.
He tempted fate by his arrogant gait, and so
he just had to go.
On his old dark gray tombstone is
engraved, “Here lies the brave lion”
But is one very brave if he devotes himself to
not-dying?
156
Elliot Flagg
grade 7 Stranded
My name is Zachary Peck, and I sail for a
living.
I'm here down in the Caribbean on my
boat sailing from island to island because my life
was ruined after my wife left me. I'm 35 years old,
divorced and all alone to sail the open waters for
the rest of my life.
Being down here really isn’t all that bad.
Life is peaceful and uneventful, which is just the
way I like it. The sun is shining every day, and I
haven't a care in the world! No taxes and no work
to hold me up and keep my life boring and
stressful. Every day is a new adventure.
I got up and made pancakes this morning,
god I love a good pancake. The sails are in good
157
condition, no tears, no replacements needing to
be made. The wind is fresh, which means I’ll be
able to relax the whole way to Anguilla.
I'm moving at a steady 8 knots which
means I’ll get there at around lunch time. I
wonder what I’ll do there, the beach is always a
good option. Maybe go swimming and drink pina
coladas, ah, that’s the life.
The wind picked up to about 13 knots so I
had to get on deck and steer. The trip went really
fast, instead of an anticipated 4 hours it ended up
being 2. I decided to get in my dinghy and row to
shore and see what’s there for me.
***
I got a pina colada in my hand and my toes
in the crisp, warm sand, nothing beats this.
Maybe a nap’s in order.
***
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After my nap, I got up, got back in the
dinghy, and rowed back to the boat. It is bedtime
so I guess I’ll just fall asleep.
***
Rumble! Rumble!
What was that! No time for journaling any
more. I better check it out. It's probably coming
from the engine room. Oh! Its dirty in here, god I
should clean this thing out.
Rumble! Rumble! Sway...Sway...
Whoa! The boat is tipping, I better get on
deck. I opened the hatch to the deck, and I looked
around.
I was in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t
see land anywhere. But I was just in Anguilla,
how did that happen?
I looked up and saw that the sky was dark
gray. I was in the middle of a HURRICANE! The
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boat must have drifted away from shore while I
was sleeping. I quickly grabbed my life vest, and
ran to the wheel. Suddenly the wind picked up
and the boat turned, thrashing back and forth.
Then the worst possible thing happened.
CRACK!
I looked just in time to see the mast start to
fall. I jumped out of the way, as it split the boat in
two. Then it all went black.
***
I woke up disoriented with the sun shining
as brightly like a flashlight right in my eyes. It
took a second for them to adjust, and when they
did I was horrified. I saw pieces of my boat
floating around me as I laid on a plank of wood
somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
I had to do something or I would certainly
die.
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I stood up and fell into the water.
Obviously the plank wasn’t stable, but the water
was frigid. I quickly dragged my numb body
back onto that piece of scrap wood as fast as I
could.
I looked up and saw what could seem
helpful, I saw the dinghy floating about fifty feet
away from where I was.
I frantically paddled towards it with all my
might. My fingers ached from the cold water. As I
grew nearer, I gained hope. I grabbed hold, and
pulled myself on. It was much sturdier than I
expected it to be.
While I was in the boat I kept thinking to
myself how I was going to move. I mean, there
were no paddles, just broken pieces of wood and
nails. Then it came to me. I grabbed the nails and
wood, took off my shirt, and began to work.
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I nailed a 4x1 to the bottom of the boat,
then another one across it, like a cross. Then I
nailed my shirt to it, and boom, I had a sail.
Then I made a rudder and nailed it to the
back, and bang, I had a boat!
***
I'm feeling very optimistic. I mean, I never
thought that any of this could be possible, and in
this situation, I think I'm doing pretty well.
Then I heard it, Thud…Thud…
It was coming from the bottom of the boat.
I looked down to see the outlines of what I
thought were large fish. Wait, large fish with big
teeth? Large fish with dorsal fins?
‘Crap, sharks!’
They were scratching at the bottom of the
boat, and rocking it back and forth. The feeling
seemed oddly familiar.
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The boat flipped and I fell once again into
the water. I learned somewhere that sharks are
attracted to blood and rapid movements. So I
kept perfectly still and thought happy thoughts,
so that I wouldn’t freak out.
There was silence. So I pulled myself back
on the boat. All seemed well. I looked down to
see a shadow, but it wasn’t mine. I looked up as
the jumping shark came crashing down on my
boat.
***
My eyes felt crusty, and my body numb. I
was on a piece of my broken makeshift boat. (like
that didn’t seem familiar.) To my excitement I
heard a horn in the distance. Then strong lights
tearing through the darkness. I saw a boat, and on
it my wife? She was calling my name. Then
suddenly there was a commotion on their boat,
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and I shut my eyes just as two hands scooped me
up.
***
There were bright white lights, then tiles,
then people crowding around me, and machines.
Where was I?
“Honey, you’re in the hospital,” a familiar
voice said.
“Beth?” I said.
“Yes It's me!” She replied, “guys can you
give us some time.” The people in the room left.
“How long have I been out?” I asked.
“Two days.”
“How did you find me.”
“The tracking device on your boat.”
“But why, why would you be looking for
me?”
164
“Because, because, because I love you
Zach. I can’t hold it in any longer.”
“It was your idea to divorce me. Why
would you think I would want to get back
together.”
“Oh Zach, I thought you would say that.
Well, your insurance covered everything. Your
new boat is in the harbor if you really must go.”
“I’m sorry Beth, I’m leaving.”
***
The harbor was calm this morning. The
soft breeze against your face, and the pungent
aroma of the salt drifting from the water through
the air. This was home.
I walked down to the docks where she
was. This new boat almost looked exactly like the
old one. I stepped on board, and raised the sails.
165
Then I sailed into the vast ocean... One last
time.
The End
166
Derrick Foskett grade 7
My Grandfather’s Story
“Pop, what was it like fighting in World
War II?” I asked my grandfather.
“Well…. It was tough. A lot happened. I’ll
start from the beginning. We started training in
Nebraska and then moved to New Mexico. We
flew to South America, and then on to North
Africa, where we were based as we conducted
missions over Italy. My plane was named “Vini
Vidi Vici” - Latin for I came, I saw, I conquered. I
was a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator, and was
shot down over Italy, during our 49th mission -
one more and I would have been going home to
the States. It was over Orbetello, in May 1944, on
the west coast of Italy. I was a 2nd Lieutenant at
the time and was part of the 449th bomber group.
167
We went to bomb a causeway that Germans used
to transport supplies. We thought it would be
easy, but little did we know, that Orbetello was a
school for German antiaircraft gunners. The flak
was a deadly, accurate weapon. The plane was hit
it in one of its wings. There were five of us that
got out, myself and the replacement navigator
included.”
“We got to the ground and the navigator
and two gunners made an attempt to escape. The
three of them were killed by Germans with
machine guns. The Germans made myself and the
other gunner carry their dead bodies to the
German headquarters. After, they put me on a
train and brought me to a prison camp in Sagan,
Germany. It was, Stalag Luft III. It was 100 miles
southeast of Berlin, the German capital, and 60
miles away from the Poland-Germany border.”
168
“There were 10,000 or so of us prisoners in
Stalag Luft III. Many of us were US Army Air
Force flyers. There was five compounds making
up the camp. Each compound had to rely on the
rations of the local German towns. The rations
were sour bread, sausages (sometimes with
fingernails in them), potatoes that had mold,
barley or pea soup, and cheese that almost made
me vomit.”
“It was around Christmas when, as the
Allied Forces came into Germany, the Germans
got nervous and made us leave the camp. They
were afraid that the Americans would free us and
we’d be able to fight again against the Germans.
We marched south, as a group, through
Germany. We went from Stalag Luft III to Stalag
VIIA, just outside of Munich. We marched about
700 miles total. I got frostbite while I was
169
marching those 700 miles. Myself and other
soldiers went back north through Germany
taking the same route because the Russians were
closing in and they didn’t want us being freed by
them either. Then when we got back near Stalag
Luft III, we went to Stalag IIIA, a prison camp in
Luckenwalde, Germany, about 50 miles or so
away from Berlin. From there we marched further
north, through Halberstadt and past Hanover and
Bremen, to Marlog Nord, a prison camp
southwest of Hamburg.”
“In the Spring of 1945, as General George
Patton’s Third Army swept through Germany,
the Germans retreated and left us in the camp.
When the US soldiers reached us it was a feeling I
can never forget, but not really explain either. I
had lost 45 pounds from my normal weight and
had some wounds and ailments from the harsh
170
treatment. While I was in service, but before POW
Camp, my oldest son, your Uncle Charlie was
born. I finally got to see him when he was already
almost 2 years old. We returned to the US in late
Spring and after furlough of a few weeks, went
back to training - the Air Force needed
bombardiers for the battles in the Pacific theatre. I
was almost shipped out, but the War ended that
August.
Serving my country was one of the scariest
times in my life, but we all had a duty to perform
and there was only one thing to do - get on with
it.”
“Wow! Pop, you did all that? I’m so happy
you are my grandfather!” I said, “You’re the best,
pop!”
171
Theo Usher grade 7
Death on the Dartboard
I had gone some ten or twelve steps in this
manner when the torn hem of my robe caused me
to stumble till I fell violently, face forward. I was
in a curious position. My head was over a hole, it
seemed, while my body was on the ground. I
reached out into the clammy cold and grabbed for
the sides of the hole around me. It seemed to be
some size, for I could not even reach halfway
around it.
Then, suddenly, there was a flash of light.
It lit up the whole room. I now could see the hole.
It was about ten feet across, I figured. When I
looked into it I couldn’t see the bottom because it
was so deep. Suspended above the pit was a
queer little contraption. It had a large bucket for a
172
body, with water pouring in to it from above. It
was then draining out the bottom, while turning a
rotating paddle. The paddle appeared to be
connected to, and turning a clock face, which had,
instead of hands, sharp knives. Then I looked
around the room. It was circular, about 100 feet
across, with walls going up at least fifty feet. In
rings extending from the hole in alternating
colors of black and grey, I realized that, from
above, it must look like a target. On the ceiling,
there was a giant clock. It was huge, spanning the
whole ceiling, the hands almost touching the
walls. It made a loud tick tock sound. It was
turning, and as I watched, the second hand went
whizzing along, over my head. In what seemed to
be no time at all, a minute had passed.
I stepped back from the hole and, not
knowing what else to do, walked around my
173
prison. I counted the number of circles there were
(18) and the number of steps it took to walk
around my prison.
Soon after I sat down. I wondered, was the
Inquisition going to leave me here, starve me
until I died?
I licked my lips hungrily at the thought of
food. I had no idea how I was going to die. I had
heard the sentence of death but all the judges had
said of how I was going to die was “Take him to
the killing room.” I thought farther back,
wondering if there was any way I could have
escaped the Inquisition. I decided there was none.
My musing was interrupted by the clock. Tick
tock, tick tock. I looked up; it looked like two and
a half hours had passed since I had looked at it.
But yet how could that be, since I felt I had been
thinking for only half an hour. I realized that the
174
Inquisitors were probably messing with me,
trying to destroy my sense of time.
Suddenly, I heard a soft “clunk” from behind
me. A bag with a parachute was lying on the
floor. Inside was a baguette, and a container full
of water. I ate the baguette in a moment, tearing
into it with my teeth. Ahhhhh, nothing had ever
tasted so good. I drank the water next, pouring it
from the container into my mouth. I had not
realized that I was parched until that moment.
Then I started to feel dizzy. I fell down, my
eyesight fading, as these words reached my mind:
the water’s been drugged! Then I blacked out.
Tick tock, tick tock. The sound woke me. I
was lying on the floor, and had no idea what I
was doing until the memory of the drugged food
returned to me. I rolled over and yelped. I had
175
been lying right next to the pit. When I rolled, I
had stuck my legs out over the edge of the abyss.
Carefully getting up, I looked around to see if
anything had changed. It seemed unlikely, as
everything looked the same. Suddenly I heard a
“thunk” from behind me. Experiencing once
again that sudden feeling of hunger, I turned
around quickly and, to my horror, found myself
face to face with a giant dart. It seemed to be
about 6 feet tall, with a razor sharp point
embedded in the ground. It had missed me by
mere inches. My mouth went dry as I thought
about my earlier observations. I recalled that I
had thought that, from above, the floor must look
exactly like a dartboard.
For it was. A giant board with inquisitors
dropping giant darts on me. I looked up, and
saw, in the gloom, little circles all over the ceiling.
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Those must be the holes that, when uncovered,
the darts were dropped from. No I decided. I will
not stand by and let myself get impaled by one of
these horrors, for I had no doubt of the lingering
death that would await me. And what if the dart
hit me in the leg or the arm while I was asleep.
Another long death awaited me there, too.
I would take my life, I decided, because if I
was going to die anyway and a quick death were
preferable to a long lingering one. I would jump
into the pit. So I stood on the edge of the pit, took
a deep breath, and jumped.
I felt a flaring pain in my right leg. I seemed
to have twisted it in my fall. Wait, how was I still
alive? I looked around me. I was in the pit, but
only about 7 feet down. A rough ladder I had not
noticed in my observations seemed to be carved
into the rock. I was being drenched by the water
177
flowing from the smaller clock. Then I looked
down. And felt my heartbeat stop. For I was, it
seemed floating over the pit, on a hard surface.
Closer observations revealed it was glass. I
wondered why it was there. And then the reason
struck me.
I would be denied the quick death of the pit,
denied by the foul inquisitors, those people from
hell. And left to face the darts. Soon my resolve
came back, and I decided that to stay down in the
hole would result in my death even more
certainly than if I was outside of it. So I climbed
up the ladder and out into the open room. On the
edge of the pit, there was a loaf of bread next to
the pit. I ate it in a flash, realizing once again, that
I was starving. Soon however, I became aware of
a change. The clock on the far up ceiling was not
far up anymore. It seemed to me to be no farther
178
off the floor than 20 feet. It was descending on
me, although in a very slow fashion. It would
take quite some time to come down to my head
level. Wanting to show some sign of rebellion to
my captors, I picked up the remainder of the loaf
of bread and hurled it at the clock. It missed, but
on the way down the second’s hand hit it. And
cut it in half.
I watched the pieces of bread fall. I was
frozen to the spot, until I realized what this
meant. I turned to the pit and looked at the clock.
Yes this clock had knives instead of hands. And
so did the one on the ceiling. It would cut me in
half. The clock was speeding up now, coming
lower and lower.
“Looks like my time’s run out” I said. Then I
smiled. That could be the last joke I ever make. I
decided that the only safe place from the whirling
179
hands was into the pit. I crawled over to the
ladder, and climbed down, the hands right above
my head. I stepped down onto the seemingly
empty space were the glass was. And felt my foot
fall into thin air.
I fell, down, down, down. I reasoned that
some of the inquisition might have moved the
glass. After all, they did want to kill me. Down,
down, down I fell. I may still be falling today. Or
I may have hit the bottom. Or I could have
smashed into the sides. I do not know.
180
Elliot Flagg
grade 7 For The Sake Of Exploration
When I crossed a threshold into a new
state, I had to start over with nothing, except a
few seeds.
We’re at base camp. I’m still unsure what
to do. I feel like this is the right thing to do. Wait,
you’re probably thinking, ‘Who is this guy? What
is he talking about?’ My name is Jason Zelda.
People call me JZ. I know you’re probably
thinking, His name sounds like that rapper’s
name, but I swear to god if anyone said that to
me, I would flip.
As I said, again, you’re probably thinking,
‘What is he talking about, what are these seeds?
Why is he starting over with nothing?’ If I were to
tell you what my seeds were, I would probably
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say, ‘My amazing sense of time, and my
eagerness for exploration.’ Actually my parents
named me Jason because of my amazing sense of
time. Jason is the only name with five consecutive
months in a row, July August September October
November December. But enough of me, let’s get
back to the story.
We were at base-camp. It was so cold!
“Jason! How long ‘till we start moving?”
said Harry.
Harry has been one of my closest friends
since before I can remember.
“I just don’t know.” I replied, “but it’s so
cold down here. I’d rather be moving than
freezing to death.”
“Well do you know what time it is at
least?”
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I looked up, the sun was two quarters of an
inch to the left of the horizon, “It’s quarter to six.”
“Thanks,” he said. Then he ran back into
his tent.
***
I woke up in a cold sweat. My pillows and
blankets were on the floor. I sat up and looked
around. In the tent there were ten cots, five on
either side. In the center there was on LED light.
As it shown I could see little dust particles
floating in the air.
‘Man,” I thought to myself, ‘It’s dirty in
here.’
As my eyelids got heavy, my body came
down to the bed. As I was lying there, I slowly
fell asleep. V e r y s l o w y.
***
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I woke up to the sight of Jack. He was
shaking me. Jack was a man that I had met just
before this trip started. But ever since I’ve felt like
I knew him. He said that this trip was “for the
sake of exploration,” whatever that means.
“JZ, get out of bed. We’re getting out of
here.” Jack said
I jumped out of bed, and ran over to my
backpack. It was wet with the condensation from
my water bottle. I pulled out my long
underwear… Then my sweater… My thin
pants… My hat… And finally my snow pants and
jacket. Then I slipped into my boots, grabbed my
backpack… Strapped my skis to my backpack…
And got out.
***
It was blistering cold outside. I already
wanted to turn back… But I couldn’t. My face
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burned, and my eyes went dry. So I put on my
goggles. Still, as I peered through them, all I
could see was solid white.
“Come on Jason! We’re gonna leave
without ‘ya.” Harry yelled through the haze.
You know what, I actually just realized
that Harry is the only person that calls me by my
first name. But that doesn’t really matter, let’s get
back to the story.
***
I started climbing. Even with my jacket on,
I was still cold. I wondered when this storm was
going to stop. As I caught up to the group, I saw a
clearing.
I yelled to the group, “Guys, I think there’s
a break in the storm!”
“Yeah, that’s the ridge,” said Ferdinand.
185
Ferdinand was the leader of the group, I
only met him yesterday but I trust him.
We approached a ladder that was placed
down over a deep treacherous looking crevice.
The men slowly crossed, but I felt very confident.
I said, “Ferdinand, take the ladder down;
I’m going to jump.”
“JZ that’s suicidal!” Ferdinand said.
“Ferdinand, I just have this feeling.”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me.”
He took the ladder away. I took a deep
breath, stepped back, and started running.
Quickly the ledge got closer. My
adrenaline was pumping. My heart, racing. The
men stared, scared, startled. Then… I leaped.
***
186
My arms and legs were sprawled. I glided
through the air with a certain confidence. Then as
I got nearer, it looked like I wasn’t going to make
it. I frantically reached for the ledge. I started to
fall. Then my fingers touched the other side…
And missed. Instead of flying forward, I fell
down. Then Ferdinand grabbed my wrists.
“Not now, not like this,” he said.
“Oh my god, thank you!” I exclaimed.
We continued the hike, and I couldn’t get the
thought out of my head. I was so confident that I
was going to make it. It was all kind of stupid
though. I could’ve wasted my life there and then.
***
“Here we are boys, this is the ridge,”
Ferdinand said.
It was more beautiful than I’ve ever
imagined. We were above the storm. The clouds
187
lingered below, like giant, beautiful cotton balls,
floating, slowly moving. Then I looked to the
right. The mountains were wonderful. Each peak
different, like the snowflakes that resided with
them. But there was no time to think, it was
getting dark and I needed to help set up camp.
***
We were sitting around the campfire,
planning on what we were going to do in the
morning.
“It may be warm now, boys, but be ready for
a cold and hellish night,” Ferdinand said.
“I think we should cut our losses, skip the
detour, and go up break-neck trail,” Jack said.
“I just don’t know, it all sounds risky to me,”
Harry said.
“We all need our sleep, it’s late.” Jack said.
“It’s ten o’clock.” I said.
188
“Yeah,” said Jack, “We’ll regroup in the
morning.”
We all walked to our tents, zipped up the
doors, and eventually went to bed.
***
I woke up cold, and I heard someone scream.
I ran outside my tent, disoriented from the frost. I
saw a tent that was half open, so I ran in. Harry’s
face was blue. Ferdinand stood above him.
Ferdinand wasn’t moving frightened. I was
distraught. My only friend had died. Ferdinand
told me his tent wasn’t closed all the way. But we
had to continue the hike.
***
It was colder than ever before. The snow blew
in our faces as we balanced on the skinny ridge.
Hoping that we wouldn’t get blown off that god
forsaken thing. My goggles had frozen over, with
189
a sort of glow to them. Every minute or so I
needed to clean them, but it was no use. I kept
walking. It was quite sudden when Jack yelled,
“We’ve made it men, this is the peak.”
I was so surprised. It had seemed like only a
small time (with all that goggle cleaning and
such.) As I took off my goggles, I realized that the
wind had subsided. The snow stopped falling.
Everything seemed so silent, and peaceful. I
pulled my jacket’s hood down, I was short of
breathing, so I sat down on a rock.
“It seems so unreal,” I said.
“I know,” Jack replied, with a grin on his face.
“Let’s go men,” Ferdinand said, “Get your
skis.”
We took our skis off of our backpacks, put
them on our feet, and approached the side of the
mountain.
190
***
I could see my breath in front of me. My heart
felt like it was beating out of my chest. My legs
were sore from climbing. But I made it this far,
‘let’s do this,’ I thought to myself.
I scooted to the edge, and leaned my skis over
the side.
Ferdinand said, “Three, two, one, go!”
We jumped off the side of the mountain. The
wind blew our faces like never before. I would
guess at twenty miles an hour. In fact, we were
going so fast that the little snowflakes felt like
rocks when they eventually hit your face. The
pain felt everlasting.
I was dodging trees. The one obstacle that
could cost me this whole trip. All of a sudden I
passed into a misty area. Maybe I would’ve seen
the tree that was about to hit me right in the face!
191
***
I couldn’t open my eyes, but I could think to
myself. ‘Where am I?’ I thought to myself, “What
am I doing here?’ I couldn’t remember what had
happened.
Then I heard an echoing voice, “I don’t think
he’s going to make it.”
“Ferdinand,” someone said, “Let’s face the
facts.”
‘Ferdinand, I’ve heard that name before, but
where?’ I thought to myself.
“I just won’t,” the person they called
Ferdinand said.
I was so angry, I clenched my fists.
“He moved!” The first voice said, “Get an
nurse, quickly!”
‘’I’m in a hospital,’ it was all coming back to
me. The first voice was the doctor, then there was
192
Ferdinand, and Jack. ‘The crash, how could I
forget.’ I thought to myself, ‘That’s why I’m in
this place.’
I heard footsteps running in.
“Doctor, what’s the matter.” She asked. I
assumed it was the nurse.
“This patient is waking up… Help me.”
***
I was sitting up in bed when Ferdinand
walked in.
“You gave us a real scare,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “But what happened after
I fell?”
“You just rolled the rest of the way down the
mountain, but you got lucky that we still weren’t
at the top, because that fall would’ve killed you.”
“Where’s Jack?”
“Outside.”
193
“Could you send him in.”
“Sure.”
As Jack walked in, he said with a grin, “I
wasn’t counting on you waking up.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Don’t you see, I was the one who pushed
you.”
“I wasn’t pushed.”
“I didn’t like you from the start, so I
tempered with your skis and pushed you.”
I was about to yell, but he punched me in the
face, and my vision went black.
***
I woke up in a chair, with my hands tied
behind my back, and a handkerchief over my
mouth. Except I wasn’t in the hospital anymore, I
didn’t know where I was.
194
Suddenly Jack walked in and pulled the gag
out of my sore, dry mouth.
“Gosh, you’re a wreck,” I said to him.
He slapped me across the face.
“Shut up, you irritate me.” He said.
“How ‘bout you explain yourself.”
“Well,” he said, “One day, me and my best
friend were at the playground. We were having a
great time, then he said, ‘Let’s play hide and
seek.’ So we started, I hid. But for some strange
reason, my ‘friend’ of mine, never went looking
for me. In fact, no one ever looked for me. I was
alone in the deep dark city. Do you know what
it’s like to get your first job when you’re ten?
How ‘bout stealing your first car at eleven? Does
that sound fun? But do you want to know the
funny part of that story?” He asked.
“What?”
195
“That little boy was you.”
It finally hit me, “Jack Sawyer, long time no
see.”
“Oh yeah by the way, remember Harry?”
“What about him?”
“I may have been the one who left his tent
open.”
“You monster!”
“What can I say, you left me alone, now it’s
time to return the favor.”
I was getting sweaty, and suddenly my hands
started to slip out of the ropes.
“So what’s your plan for me?”
“Oh, I’m not so mean. I was just going to
leave you here, to starve to death.”
This was my moment, my hands broke free,
and I grabbed the collar of his shirt.
196
“There are going to be some technical
difficulties.”
I tugged him by the scruff of the neck and
threw him out the window. Ten stories, he was
definitely dead.
***
I had made my way back to the hospital.
While I was lying in bed Ferdinand said, “My
golly!”
“Let’s just say I’ve had a rough day.” I said.
“What-”
“Yoohoo!” Someone said.
How could I miss that thick German accent.
As she made her appearance, she came up to my
bed and gave me a big bear hug. ‘Man I missed
those bear hugs,’ I thought to myself.
“Sveet hart, vee haf to make it home before
dinna.” She said.
197
It was my grandma, on my mother’s side.
“Hi Mutti.”
“Mutti” means mother in German. When my
mother was growing up, she called her that, and
it kind of stuck.
“Come on, vee don’t vant to be late.”
“Mutti, let’s go home.”
“Sveet hart, how vas your trip?”
“Let’s just focus on walking.”
The End
198
Luke Abramowitz grade 6 Untitled
I had gone some ten or twelve steps in that
manner when the hem of my robe caught my heel
causing me to stumble till I fell violently face
forward. I fall against the hard stone floor hitting
my head. I stay still barely able to breathe as my
face sears with pain. I know that I won’t stay
conscious for much longer. I stagger onto my
hands and knees, my vision blurs and then I black
out altogether.
I wake up to a throbbing in the back of my
head. I open my eyes and I am immediately sure
I’m not in the same room. I lay in the center of a
room on a cold stone floor. As look around the
room, gazing through the haze, I make out a
faucet a little bigger than my fist in the wall. It
199
stands at waist level jutting out of the wall a good
foot or so. I gaze down at my body and realize
I’m covered in sweat. It soaks into many layers of
rough fabric that cover my entire body, including
my feet and hands. Which are stuffed into warm
shoes and gloves. The only part of my body that
is not wrapped in cloth is my face which is
covered in scrapes and scabs from my fall. My
vision is better now, I can make out four rough
stone walls that are around thirty feet apart with
candelabras holding one candle in each corner.
The ceiling stretches up around fifty feet and is
also stone. I stand up clutching my head. I walk
towards the faucet and an idea of the Inquisition
torture for me pricks at the back of my mind. My
idea soon becomes a reality when I hear the
sound of liquid sloshing through pipes. Then as if
200
in slow motion I see muddy brown water slowly
dribble from the faucet.
The water splatters against the ground in
small clumps spilling across the room. It collects,
making a puddle underneath the faucet that
continually grows larger. I reach out with my foot
and touch the water. The water is ice cold and I
immediately pull my foot away. As the water
slowly creeps into the room I brush my hands
through my hair. I look down at my many layers
of cloths and then at the room taking in every
detail. I look up and then start to examine the
walls when my eyes land on the candelabra. I had
not paid much attention to them but now I realize
that they might be able to save my life. They are
very tall wooden stands that barely illuminate my
place were I will die. I walk towards one of the
four candelabras and grab the candle out of it.
201
However, as I climb onto the candelabra the
candle blows out and I place it back into its stand.
I slowly manage to thrust myself up onto the top
of the stand. A few seconds later I hear a crack
and I splash into the muddy freezing water. The
remnants of the candle stand and blown out
candle float in the water. The water level has now
grown and is up to my ankles. I reach down and
skim my hands through the water looking for
anything that might have gotten in here by
accident that can help me escape. As I run my
hand on the surface I see a glimmering oil that
swirls through the water reflecting a beautiful
rainbow array, that I can just make out. I
continually stare at the oil thinking about my life,
my kids and wife. I take my freezing hand out of
the water and look back towards the faucet and
something catches my eye.
202
I glance at the ceiling and freeze. The
ceiling has descended around seven feet. It is
hard to tell but I can just notice it. I take a step
forward and step on something slippery. I jolt my
foot back but after a few seconds I take the
courage and reach my hand into the gloomy
water. I immediately find a chunk of ice. It is the
size of a green pine cone but it immediately
crumbles in my gloves. As I hold the crushed ice
up to my face I start to think racking my brain
harder than ever to try to stop the water. I slowly
walk towards the faucet. As I near it I see chunks
of ice dribble out the faucet into the room. I
quickly tear a large piece of my robe of and stuff
it into the faucet. Hopefully it will hold the water
back long enough to let it freeze over. I then wait
as the faucet gets clogged and as the ceiling
comes down on me. Then after around forty
203
minutes the noise of dribbling water stops.
However that is not my only problem. The ceiling
has been descending faster than ever and I can
now make out sewing pins stuck into the wall
every few inches. The pins are about the size of
half my pointer finger. They are not big enough to
kill instantly but would dig into my skin causing
severe puncture wounds until the wall crushes
me or I drown.
The water has risen and is up to my calves.
Now my body under my waist is completely
numb and I can barely walk. To add to my
distress the candles have all died out except for
one. I stumble through the water, walking
towards the last candle. As I slosh through the icy
water, almost blind, it splashes up my body onto
my face. I trudge on and when I reach the candle I
quickly grab it. The sting of the icy water is so
204
overwhelming it feels like I’m being scorched by
the coals of a fire. Careful not to extinguish the
flame I walk around the ice room looking for the
faucet. When I finally reach it I thrust my hand,
with the candle in it in its direction to find that no
more water is coming out. I sigh in relief but the
thought of the ceiling and its sewing needles
press down on me and immediately tears apart
any sign of hope I had left. I look up and my heart
sinks to see the ceiling pressing down on me just
about three feet over my head. In my despair, I
drop the candle. I immediately know it’s a huge
mistake. The candle drops through the air just
inches before it hits the water. I take in a breath
bracing myself for what I know is going to
happen next. I should've thought about this, that
the Inquisition had more than one way of killing
me, more than one way of torture. This room will
205
soon be ablaze and I will be just another dying
soul within it. Before the candle touches the water
I close my eyes. As the candle flame makes
contact with the oily water the room bursts into
flame.
The fire swarms the whole room engulfing
me in burning hot flames. They burn through my
clothes and burn up my hair and face. I scream a
blood curdling scream as my face and body waist
up gets scorched. I feel my face melt away from
my body. The pain engulfs me. I then dunk into
the water. The water could be described as no
better than the fire. My body bleeds from where
the flames scorched me. It seeps into the water
along with my charred skin. The water burns me
like the fire but in a different way. It swirls
around my body suffocating me, making me
return back up to the fire for another breath.
206
Chilling my body to the bone. My lungs start to
burn as the seconds tick by. The cold sends
shivers through my body. My body becomes
numb and my wounds can barely be felt due to
the extreme cold. My lungs burn now with such
force I wouldn't have been surprised if a demon
was within me. I brush my hands through the
water trying to clear away as much oil as I can to
take a breath. I emerge from the water and gasp
air into my lungs.
I open my eyes for the first time since I was
burnt but do not look at my body. The thought of
seeing my burnt flesh is too frightening. I see the
ceiling has now lowered to be a few feet above
the water level. My eyes fill with tears and I
choke back a sob. Three deaths, three horrors, but
I'm supposed to die from one. Each as terrible as
the last. I pick my death. I dunk my head back
207
into the ice cold water with my eyes open and
blow, shooting bubbles out of my mouth and
nose. A few seconds after I exhale my lungs begin
to burn again. My blood spreads through the
water like before and I start to shake from the
cold. This will be my last feeling I think to myself
as I get more and more numb. My last thought
my last sight. I exhale more air trying to speed up
the process. My vision gets overwhelmed by
black spots and I lose feeling in my limbs. Ten
lives, maybe hundreds have been killed here and
they all have felt this pain, this distress. I am not
the first and will not be the last. I close my eyes
and have lost feeling in almost my whole body.
My life means nothing in the mass of dead men
and women, animals and living things who have
died. They have all died, why can’t I? Then, my
world closes around me and I see a glaring light.
208
Poetry
Art by Wenhao Cai &
Loulou Sloss
209
First Place - Greer Goergen grade 6
Fire and Ice
Hazy, endless pain. Red Fog,
Ripping, burning through the soul. Blazing cocoon of hate.
Closing in. Walls.
Separating us and them. The pain and the flames,
Licking the cage which binds our minds and traps the soul.
Filled with hate and envy, What you say is not who you are. What you do is not who you are.
Who you love is who you are.
The Cold. White and Blue.
Encircles us in rings of distrust. Drenching us in misery, soaking us in fear.
Wind whipping and cutting the fragileness of faith.
The cracks that form, The peak of resilience,
Closed up by the night, The endless white.
The ignorance, the hate. Suffocating us,
Hiding the fear, keeping us down, Below the surface,
210
What you cannot see is more important than what you can.
Two worlds collide,
Fire and ice. Melting to puddles of grey despair,
Freezing to ashes of hate. Fire and Ice.
The path of blazing hate, The path of frozen misery, Which one will you take?
Thawn out to cold, fearful drops Burnt down to envious hollow logs.
Fire and ice. Lost reality.
Utter emptiness. Fire and ice created the world.
211
Second Place - Lola Jakob grade 5
Broken Glass
As it was stepped on As someone fell
As something was said As something was felt
Pain shot up the body
Blood felt like it was everywhere A mess
Veins popped Cut the skin
Tore the insides Ripped up the mind Making it go crazy
People rushed towards you
Seeing what had happened, they needed to help Comforted you
Cleaned up the mess
Still pieces were there Not all cleaned up
Pain was left To linger in the air To scar you for life
212
Third Place - Ellie Cullman
grade 5 Lift Off
Looking up,
I close my eyes, and open my mind Anything can happen when you imagine Your mind takes you to a magical place
Where anything will take you higher When you imagine
Your heart takes you higher Higher is where anything can happen
But before you go You must believe the 6
3 . . . 2 . . . 1. . . The moment of clarity
Is the moment of the lift off 3 . . . 2 . . .1. . .
Lift off
213
Eliza Gilbert grade 6
Beneath Your Beautiful
Beneath your beautiful I find a demon
Proud and ruthless always scheming Beneath your beautiful
A flame arise Hidden in your perfect disguise
Beneath your beautiful A stone cold heart
Tearing peoples souls apart Beneath your beautiful Joy, gone with the rain
Invading peoples heads, working against their brain
Beneath your beautiful Loathing
For those who have less Knowing your words are adding to their stress
Beneath your beautiful A filter through your mind
Separating “freaks” from normal mankind. Beneath your beautiful
A judgmental brat
Whispering about that girl who you thought was fat
I know sometime back you were misunderstood But beneath your beautiful you soul is not good
214
Katherine Cook
grade 7 Blank
My mind is a blank. A sad, empty blank.
Where ideas used to flow,
there is now nothing.
A blue sea covered the sand, and life abounded.
But now the desert surrounds.
A cheerless wasteland.
It sounds melodramatic. I know.
But I have no creative thoughts, No sudden spark of inspiration.
And this makes me sad. I want them to return.
But somehow they won’t.
My muse has a cold.
My mind is a blank. A sad, empty blank.
215
Lily Greenberg grade 6
Blundermeecen
In Blundermeecen One always keeps their windows open
Believing that something might find its way through
Something that only they could imagine Like a squirrel that writes poetry on a typewriter
Like an old lady on a horsehair sofa Like a temporarily blind boy whose sight has
returned and is marveling at our ever-expanding Universe
Like a giant squid, the loneliest of creatures Like a ghost that is obliged to hold your hand
Sometimes nothing happens and the window is left alone and still
But one does it anyway For it’s the simple act of opening your window
to all the possibilities of this World that soothes the souls
In Blundermeecen
216
Eldon “Cub” Scott
grade 5 Dogs
roof, roof,
bow wow wow, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, the sounds of the dog those cuddly monsters
the ones I live for without them,
I am dead. they make me happy,
but then sad, should I call them good or evil?
217
Cindy Barbossa grade 5
Don’t Shoot
One gunshot can destroy everything One gunshot can cause a life to dwindle out
One gunshot can cause a death Frustration Resentment Grievance
Blame Has this happened to anyone
Has this helped anyone Has it strengthened or
Died out the flowing current of life Have people felt shame
Resentment Guilt small If not
Have they felt Chutzpah
Unstoppable Powerful
Can anyone help Can anyone stop
No But can we change this from happening yes
Make a change and Don’t shoot
218
Katharine Sorensen grade 7
For What?
I study, I thrive, I learn, I strive,
For what? For school, that’s what.
You cry,
You scream, You yell,
You dream, For what?
For love, that’s what.
She hopes, She sings, She prays, She clings, For what?
For joy, that’s what.
We long, We dance, We wish,
We prance, For what?
For peace, that’s what.
You ask, You need,
219
You beg, You plead, For what?
For mercy, that’s what.
They fail, They try, They live, They die, For what?
For life, that’s what.
220
Katharine Sorensen
grade 7 Pour Quoi?
J’étudie,
Je prospère, J’apprends,
Je lutte, Pour quoi?
Pour l’école, c’est quoi.
Tu pleures, Tu hurles, Tu clames, Tu rêves,
Pour quoi? Pour l’amour, c’est quoi.
Elle espère, Elle chante,
Elle prie, Elle raccroche,
Pour quoi? Pour la joie, c’est quoi.
Nous désirons, Nous dansons,
Nous souhaitons, Nous sautillons,
Pour quoi? Pour la paix, c’est quoi.
Vous demandez, Vous nécessitez,
221
Vous suppliez, Vous implorez,
Pour quoi? Pour la clémence, c’est quoi.
Ils échouent, Ils essaient, Ils vivent,
Ils meurent, Pour quoi?
Pour la vie, c’est quoi.
222
Eliza Gilbert grade 6
Knocking on Fates Door
Love Love is unexplainable
Love is every step you take Love is the yearning for home
Alas, for every indecipherable moment in your life
There is but one small word Nothing has the capability or potential to harm
that love But you can waste it
In an instant That love can fly into the black hole
where all forgotten love goes and leave someone deflated
like a balloon hanging in a tree Helpless
And if love dies Then you have a person who is truly evil
So harness your momentum
Fill every corner of your body And use your love to protest the amiss in the
world Because there is too much lack of hope And fate that is deciding to hold back You can generate that illusive Hope
Hope that whispers in fate’s ear To never
Ever Give up on yourself
223
A world without love would be hollow. empty.
But fear can suppress love It can possess and control you like you’re a
ragdoll a child’s plaything
Overcoming fear can be like facing a wall of water Unprepared Unknowing
Understanding. You have to trust that love will come through in
the end And fate will eventually take your side.
If you believe in the people who believe in you.
224
Ben Scali
grade 7 Untitled
Thanksgiving is special, but Christmas is even
more special. One gets presents and one is with family.
The Grand-parents, the parents, the sisters, the brothers, and you!
Christmas is the best day of the year.
225
Ben Scali grade 7 Untitled
L'action de grace est special, mais noel est très
special.
On reçoit des cadeaux, et on est avec la famaille. Les Grand-parents, les parents, les soeur, les
freres, et toi. Noel est le jour favorite de l'année.
226
Blakely Duskin grade 5
Gymnastics It’s not just a sport,
nor an activity I do after school, It’s becoming
Part of my Life
Now it’s part of
Who I am
I always strive to work hard
and do my best
And when I reach the competition,
I feel life that’s where I belong, Do,
Free and flipping
Gymnastics It’s not a sport,
nor an activity I do after school, It’s becoming
Part of my Life
227
Lola Jakob grade 5
You, Not Me It was you,
Always going to be you But finally…
When I was crying, You were laughing If I started talking, You shut me down Not able to speak
Unable, no strength to talk to anyone
You drove away the nice ones They were so afraid to come back
And deal with you again Gone like the wind
In the blink of an eye, Because of
You
I tried to be better, Maybe you’d like that
If you were crying I’d comfort you
But no When you were falling, I was there to help you
But no, your friends came after me You pushed me aside to get to them
I was left in shame
228
To sit in the corner Like the one drop of snow in the rain
Melting slowly Still, that was not the worst...
It was when You said it And did it
I had to run so far and fast, I could have been an Olympic runner
All the way home Still trying to get myself not to do the bad thing
of darkness
I came to a halt It was them
They knew what was going on Soon we left
Never to see you and your nasty words again Far away from my only problem,
You
I finally got it After thinking
I wasn’t the problem, It was You
I had just thought wrong
229
Lily Greenberg
grade 6 World in a Nutshell
Unsheathe your veil,
experiencing a million creations unnamed
a million Stories untold a million letters unwritten, saying things unsaid
a million beings in the middle of a breath a million Ideas sprouting from a million Minds,
surviving not living a million perspectives to a million illustrations of
ordinary, extraordinary life yet to be made
a million possible impossibles, a million forgotten
a million snippets of Human Consciousness Loves Hates Fears
Dreams Pasts
Knows Something
and Everything Else
What a wonderful world
230
Charlotte Robertson
grade 6 My Sag Harbor
The heavy door is embellished, With a whale knocker,
And on the side a doorbell, That no longer rings.
You walk up the porch steps, And turn the cold metal knob,
Pushing against the force, That never wants you to open the white door.
This is my Sag Harbor. The houses are small,
With dogs running out in the yard, As you walk into the town.
Pass the little ice cream parlor, And the restaurant with live lobsters, Watching you pass with fishy eyes.
And pass the toy store, Crowded with kids,
Holding quarters to get their turn on the, Coin operated fire engines.
This is my Sag Harbor. A shimmering turquoise is the color of the,
Wharf. Where huge crew ships, Put down their anchors,
And tie themselves to the dock. The sailboats can be seen for miles,
Clipped to their buoys, Floating on the surface like butterflies,
In a peaceful order, Until a motorboat comes racing through,
231
Creating waves. At the beach you see the rolling sand dunes, And the pebbles that litter the lining of the
incoming wave. Like lace the rocks encircle each other,
On the wet sand contrasting beautifully with The deep blue of the ocean,
And the lighter sky. This is my Sag Harbor. By Charlotte Robertson
November 2014
232
The Story of a Troublesome Bubble
The Advanced Shakespeare Class
Briana Antigua Eliza Gilbert
Anthony Melke Cadence Plenge
Charlotte Robertson
My bubble friend is sick and like to die He lies in soap so desperate for some care
I think about it and I start to cry His tender age just leaves me in despair Our romance started five seconds ago I gave him life, with love I set him free
When first I saw him love began to grow I could not help but watch him near the tree
I wish I could have warned him yet my touch Would cause my dear old friend to then explode
The wicked tree had grasped him in its clutch So now this is my very tragic ode
Alas our love was brief but oh so sweet My beautiful, my only, now complete.
233
Wenhao Cai & Lucy Schwalbe
grade 5 One of Life’s Many Mysteries
In the light, I never seem to be alone
You always magically appear, to guide me along the way
I can always trust that you’ll be there You mirror me in my reflection
I move, you move I walk, you follow
Like a vine you grow Like ice you shrink
What is your purpose? Where do you come from?
Perhaps the world will never know You are…
MY SHADOW
234
Bo Goergen grade 5 Untitled
I am cutting across the woods to my house,
The trees looming and bowing, My horse is lame, And I am blamed.
I wish to leave But I may not.
I am telling my horse the house is near, But I think it may be the year,
When he finally dies. I see the man who owns the forest,
He is looking at me, Waiting for the time that I flee,
He owns the key to endless pain, So I thinks it is time to flee,
Flee, Flee.
235
Anna Sorensen grade 5 Seasons
leaves are falling wind is blowing
weather is changing
snow is ascending the wind is chilling
holidays are
here
rain is tumbling the wind is
soft flowers are blooming
sun is shining
wind is seldom children are playing
leaves are falling wind is blowing
weather is changing The
Cycle Continues
Christmas
the snow is
236
falling the wind is
freezing
hope is coming
people are
waiting
the choirs sing caroling
children are joyful
Christmas is
here
237
Thomas Yun grade 5
An Everlasting Stream On a midsummer morning,
I walk up to a stream. With rock so smooth or sharp.
Flowerbeds and weeds. Birds calling.
And now I have peace. Right here by this Everlasting stream
238
Thomas Yun grade 5
The Quiet Forest
I go from my home. Into a forest. Birds calling,
From high in their nest. Sun shining through,
The everlasting leaves. With twigs on the ground,
Of The everlasting forest
239
Thomas Yun grade 5
Life
Sometimes I wonder, How I am here.
On cold and rainy days. Cause it feels like it was only Yesterday when I was little. When the sun was shining,
On someone who has passed. Then grow up to where
I am now. I will get older. And I will die. I guess that’s
Life.
240
Thomas Yun grade 5
The Blanket Of Snow
Snow. Snow has come like a
Blanket for sleeping mother earth. I look out,
Of my frosty window. Just looking at miles and miles of
Snow
241
Thomas Yun grade 5 Winter
Turning water to
Cold hard ice. Coating trees with colder
Than cold snow. Children sledding on
A snowy hillside. All sleep, but the
Winter
242
Thomas Yun grade 5
A Good Day At Work
On the way home From my New York City Job.
I count my money. I see I have enough From a good day At my NYC job
243
Thomas Yun
grade 5 New York City
If you think
NYC is all tall buildings Your wrong.
There are alleyways. Where people hang out.
Bad people who you don’t want to meet in
NYC
244
Anna Sorensen grade 5 Untitled
Tonight I will go out the door,
To venture out on the earth’s floor
I shall, I will, make it snow, In the winter it will grow
The snow is blowing in my face,
As if it is on a chase
The wind is howling in my ear, As if it is shouting a cheer
I need to get home soon,
I have until down goes the moon
On the longest night, The earth is covered in white
245
Lila Gimbel
grade 5 Time
Time
You don’t need a watch to tell time
You can see it in the world You can see it in people
You can see it in life
One minute you’re at a hospital new to the world
The next you’re at a hospital almost gone
It passes no matter what
always at the same speed, though,
sometimes it feels slower
or faster
When you want it to speed up,
it slows down When you want it to slow down,
it speeds up
You don’t need a watch to tell time
You can see it in the world You can see it in people
You can see it in life
246
You can feel it,
though, it is not there It is in you,
though, its not
It is the most powerful thing in the world
You don’t need a watch to tell
time You can see it in the world
You can see it in people You can see it in life.
247
Claudia Goodwin grade 5
Waves Of Life
It starts at the beginning Where every wave is small
Once your at your highest point You crash
But there is more to it than that You have to be built up to who you want to be
There are good moments Bad moments
And moments in between But you only grow stronger and stronger
As your life goes on You fall
Leaving nothing behind But to find a new life ahead of you
248
Ellie Cullman grade 5
Unicorn Fate
A horned horse A beautiful land
An unknown myth Wings of an angel Heart of a rainbow
Soul of any living person Brings joy to any fly any elephant any one of us
Bringing you higher and higher Closer and closer
‘Till you reach the belief For any unicorn is real As so some people say
249
Josephine O’Brien
grade 6 Untitled
Fear,
I know it is there, fear that is crawling and searching, leading us like pigs to the slaughter,
But I am there, in the darkness and in the light,
the ever present fear.
You’re suffocating, the fear is pulling you down, gripping you like a hot towel,
your deadly last breaths, it’s taking you to the deep unknown,
you’re drowning in the fear.
You must be free, In fear, you must be free, life will send you along,
but you will know, it’s there,
leading you, like a coffin down a rugged pit.
I know it,
you know it, it’s looming like deadly suspense,
it was always there, watching you and teaching you,
following you since you were just a child.
250
It swooped, brought,
it was a dark veil of ever present murkiness,
amber eyes, forever piercing through the darkness
of the fear.
The memories, the pain is taking you back,
haunting you with the memoirs of childhoods past.
There’s a baby on a ratty pink carpet,
it’s rolling, laughing,
but it can sense the fear watching it from a corner of the room,
It knows it, it will grow up,
to be you.
There’s a toddler, roughly playing on a playground jungle gym,
it’s falling, slipping from the rungs of a slimy metal ladder,
the fear was there, it threw him,
pushed him down through the veil of the ever-present fear.
Then there’s a girl,
she’s young, smoothing her dark brown hair
with a nervous habit,
251
her limbs are shaking like branches bending in the wind,
her sweat blocking her vision of the crowds below her,
it’s almost time for her to begin, but the fear is caressing her,
it’s leading her under the bright spotlights, leading her always onward.
Now there’s a teenage boy,
sitting in front of his principal’s oak wood door, he’s scared,
more afraid than he has ever been before, he’s in trouble and he knows it,
it was the fear that led him to do it, the fear that brought him to the principal to
confess, the fear was leading him,
leading him like the sick to their deathbed
The memories end, the fogginess leaves,
and you are left with only the fear, the fear is watching for you,
waiting to take you to your death.
It was watching, it is watching, we know it, it knows it,
it’s teaching, watching, taunting,
we’re living, living with the fear.
252
Rania Challita grade 5 America
Stars and stripes,
They play on pipes, Dancing around
To the great sound.
“O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain.”
We hear the shout and we hear them cry,
“America! America! God shed his grace on thee!” We sing songs of good for all to hear,
“And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!”
Stars and stripes sing their songs,
For now and ever long.
253
Aaron Hessel grade 5
Seasons Change
The seasons change gracefully. Leaves fall,
Temperatures change, And flowers blossom.
Different things happen when the seasons change.
Different colors. Winter,Winter,Winter, Spring,Spring,Spring,
Summer,Summer,Summer, Fall,Fall,Fall.
254
Susanna Langan
grade 6 Many Things
You call me by many names
But I am many things I am the reason you say you don’t hate the dark
I pushed you into that cold lake And pulled you out again
I am your worst enemy And your best friend
I make you scared I make you brave I make you weak I make you strong
You call me by many names But I am many things
255
Alina Pearlroth grade 7
The Feeling of Mad
You know that feeling that you feel when you know that people
are talking about you I know that feeling
I know that feeling too well It makes me mad
It makes me so mad But
I can’t do anything about it I just clench my fists
and breathe As I look over
They look away They whisper
and I can hear them And that makes me so mad
But they keep on whispering I know they’re talking about me
I just know “She’s always hanging out with them”
I wish they would just STOP!
I hate it! I just hate it!
I clench my pen harder and harder
I hate it so much! Just stop talking about me!
I can still hear them talking
256
People tell me to ignore it People tell me not to listen
But it’s so hard not to give in to them I don’t know what it is
What it is about that feeling That feeling you feel when you KNOW people
are talking about you
It just angers me So much
I don’t know what it is about my anger It boils over
More and more
with each whisper My hands grab at nothing
I can’t control it I wish I could
But I can’t I just can’t
so just stop
whispering!
257
Lila Gimbel grade 5 Water
It is everywhere
The source of your body The reason you’re alive
We use it daily, In everything we do
It is mysterious but, everyone
and everything
knows about it
It can be whatever color you want it to be or
whatever you want it to be
It is wet though it is dry
It is the only real
wonder of the world
It grows everywhere
though it doesn't
grow
You can use it, but,
can't make more
258
Alina Pearlroth grade 7
What am I? And Who Are You?
Who am I? What am I? Am I both?
a he or a she
You don’t know me You’ll never know me But I don’t me either
I don’t know what I see a punk a boy
a dancer or just a reflection
I don’t know me at all But who are you?
Are you nobody too? Do you know who you belong to?
Do you know what you are? Who am I
What are you Where am I
Who are you Do you know that I’m a nobody too?
259
Cindy Barbossa grade 5
What If?
Staring at a photo Wondering about where it was taken
was it in America Canada
or Antarctica? Or maybe Australia
Asia Or Europe?
The reply is simple, Maybe
Was it in another time Another world?
The answer is simple, No
Maybe it was taken on mars Pluto
The sun The question is simple,
How? When was it taken?
In 1900 or 3014?
Black and white? A photo that is 3D, That you can touch
That you can see The answer is simple,
I don’t know... That is impossible.
What are you thinking!
260
But still I have been told this More and more
And still a thought lingers in my mind What if?
261
Alina Pearlroth grade 7 Words
Words
they hurt they don’t go away
they’re with you until you’re lasting day Words
aren’t words they’re spears and knives
they cut you up all up inside
Words The sticks and the stones
they can break your bones But words can hurt you more They’ll always hurt you more
As you walk through this world Those words stick with you as you walk this
world of ours They’re like a sign
shining bright upon you forever
262
Alina Pearlroth grade 7
You Don’t Know Me
You don’t know me at all Not even the first thing
Oh you do
then where am I writing this from? What do I look like?
Am I a boy or a girl or both
and if I’m both then why?
and if why then when and if when then how?
See you don’t know the first thing about me
but do you want to know a secret?
. . . . I don’t know me either
yes it’s true
I don’t know what I want to do I don’t know my present
my future and barely the past
I don’t know who I love if I can love at all
Or if I’m even worth loving to begin with But how should I even know any of this
263
How should I know anything? How should I? I don’t know
I don’t know anything Or do I?
I could know where you are while you’re reading this
I could know everything about you if you’re a boy
a girl or even both
what you look like and who you are
and yes if
you were
wondering I am
watching you
with my big brown eyes I’m staring right into you
and if you don’t believe me just turn
around
264
Susanna Langan
grade 6 Your Broken Soul
What happens when you break
Where do you go When all is lost
When all is crumbling around you And how do you rise
How do you fix The mess that has been presented to you
The puzzle pieces fit Somehow
And when you figure it out When you put it back together again
Then you will know What happened to your broken soul
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