by Jylun Spence

It was a summer morning in Nuketown, Florida. The Proud family were in the kitchen eatingbreakfast. Dorquisha’s mom was reading a letter that they got from their grandparents.Dorquisha was so excited to hear from her grandparents because her grandparents live inJamaica. It had been almost two weeks since she last heard from them. The bacon grease was theonly noise in the room. That’s how quiet it was in the kitchen.

Then Dorquisha screamed at the top of her lungs, “I WANT TO GO TO JAMAICA!!!”“You want to go to Jamaica? We’ve never even been to Jamaica! What’s wrong with

Florida?” asked Oscar, Dorquisha’s dad. “Nothing! I just want to see my grandparents that I never even met before.”“Even if we wanted to go, we don’t have the money to go to Jamaica,” said Momquisha. “We can earn the money,” shouted Dorquisha. “I know! A yard sale! That would do it.”“If we can earn the money, then yeah we can go,” said Oscar and Momquisha.So the Proud family cleaned out their attic in search of prized possessions. In the attic,

Momquisha and Oscar stumbled across a vase that could be worth a lot of money. The vase wassparkling purple with four white stripes. They found a lot of other things to sell in the attic aswell.

The next day in the front yard Oscar went over the game plan. “The name of the game is$1,200,” said Oscar coaching out his ideas. He had done his research and found out that 3 ticketsto Jamaica cost about $400 per person. About five minutes later some rich guy came aroundwith a black suit, leather black pants and a monocle.

“Excuse me young lady. I would like to buy that vase for my wife. It’s our anniversarytomorrow and I think this will go great on our mantelpiece,” said the rich guy.

“I know. She’s a beaut,” said Dorquisha. She was so excited to see her first payingcustomer.

“I would like to pay $1,200 for this vase.”Dorquisha’s jaw dropped. “www,ww,ww 1,200 big ones?”“Yes, if that’s O.K with you?”“Yes it’s quite fine with me,” Dorquisha said in a shaky voice.“So you can get the vase and I will write out the check?”

“PERFECT, I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Dorquisha went to go to get the vase from the table, but there was a little problem. The tablewas too high for Dorquisha to reach. Instead of calling for her parents she kept trying to reachthe vase. BANG, CRASH!!!!!!

“Oh, no!” Dorquisha walked back to the rich guy with her head down and her sad face on.“So, where’s my vase?”“Gone,” Dorquisha mumbled.“GONE!? This is an outrage, to think I almost paid $1,200 for this junk.”“Is it possible for me to clean it up and glue it together and you can still pay me?”

Dorquisha wondered in a hopeful voice.“Are you crazy!?” The rich guy stormed out the front yard.A few days later the Proud family shut down the yard sale bizz. They only got $3.00 for a

pillow from a recliner chair. The day after Dorquisha and her parents shut down the yard salebizz, Dorquisha was in her room playing with dolls. She got this magnificent idea. The cheat code

to all little kids money! She raced to the kitchen where her parents were. She shouted, “Mommy!Daddy! Lemonade stand, lemonade stand.”

“Slow down,” said Dad in between sips of his coffee. “What did you say?” Momqiusha asked mysteriously.Dorquisha was too tired to answer the question. She waited a couple of seconds to catch

her breath, then she finally blurted, “le-mon-ade-stand.”

“You want to do a lemonade stand?” Oscar drearily asked.“Yes pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese.”“Otay”, Oscar said confidently.Momquisha and Oscar helped Dorquisha make the lemonade stand. A few days later

Dorquisha and her parents finished their little project. “Yup, time bring this baby outside in the shining bright sun,” screamed Oscar confidently.“We need some lemonade for this to make it perfect,” exclaimed Dorquisha.The Proud family made their “lemonade.”“I’m going to use my parents famous lemonade recipe,” hollered Oscar.“I think you are suppose to put lemons in lemonade,” said Momquisha.“Trust me I know what I’m doing. You are supposed to put color dye in lemonade. How else

do you get it yellow?” asked Oscar.“Lemons,” whispered Momquisha. Dorquisha giggled not too loud though so Oscar couldn’t

hear. The Proud family brought their “lemonade” and their lemonade stand out to the curb infront of their house.

“The proud family’s famous lemonade. Just $5.00, $5.00,” the family shouted. Their firstcustomer was a jogger. He had brown spiky hair, a blue headband, a blue jumpsuit, white sneakersand a Ipod nano. “Hello sir, would like to try our lemonade. You look parched,” Oscar said trying topersuade the man.

“Yes I would. How much?” said the jogger.“$5.00.”“$5.00? Do you know what I can get for $5.00? Two large fries, ......” He went on for

about ten minutes. Finally ending with, “...and a shower curtain.”“O.K, O.K $3.00.”“Do you know what I can get for $3.00? A yo-yo,”he began and went on for another 5

minutes. “And a family pack of Cheetos.”“O.K last offer. $1.00.”“Sounds good.”So the jogger gave Oscar the one dollar and Oscar gave the jogger the lemonade. The

jogger took one sip and...“We, wo, we, wo!” an ambulance siren wailed.“We’re going to have to bring this man to the emergency room,” said the EMT.“Is he going to be alright officer?” asked the Proud family urgently.

“Besides getting food poisoning, he will be alright. In the meantime I’m going to take thislemonade and see what made this poor jogger sick. It’s not like you put yellow color dye in it tomake him sick. How stupid can you be? Am I right?”

“Ya, stupid,” said the Proud family trying to cover their story. “Alright, back to the drawing board,” the family said while eating in the kitchen.

They were eating fried chicken, collard greens, and mac & cheese. Dorquisha’sfavorite. Dorquisha was thinking of one last plan to do. She took a bite of her chicken. The crunchfrom the outside and the juiciness on the inside reminded her of her 5th birthday.

She wanted a puppy from her parents, but she never got it. Then right at that momentshe said, “A dog walk!”

“What?” Oscar said with his mouth full of food.“A dog walk,” Dorquisha hollered again.“That’s a great idea”, said Momquisha. “ Tomorrow you can walk Miss Grandmama’s dogs

next door.”Dorquisha put away her plate in the sink and sprinted to her room into pj’s, into the bed,

and went fast asleep. The next day Dorquisha went to miss grandmama’s. ding dong.“Hi Miss Grandmama I would like to walk your dogs please.”“You would like to feed my hogs? I’m sorry little lady I don’t have any hogs.”“No your DOGGGGGGGGGGS!!”“ O.K barky sparky get out here NOW!” Barky is a golden retriever and Sparky is a German shepard. Now much do you want to

walk them?” “$200 please.”“$400? O.K.”So Miss Grandmama gave Dorquisha the money and Dorquisha went to go around the block

a couple of times. Ater the 3 time Dorquisha stumbled across a $5.00 bill that she found on thebottom of her shoe.

“It must be my lucky day! $5.00,” said Dorquisha in excitement.“O.K stay right here, I willbe right back.”

When Dorquisha went to go get the $5.00 of the bottom off her shoe Sparky and Barkywent on their own little mission chasing after a cat. When she came back to bring Sparky andBarky home they were gone. Dorquisha looked for them for 6 hours and still no dice. Dorquishawent back with gloom face on.It was dinner time in the Proud family household. They werewatching the news on TV.

“So how was the dog walk?” Momqouisha asked urgently a waiting.“I lost the dogs,” mumbled Dorquisha.“Can you repeat what you said please.”“I lost the dogs,” shouted Dorquisha."Oh," said Dorquisha's parents sadly.The room was quiet for a few seconds. The only noise was Oscar and Momqiusha's chewing

mouths.I know, how about we count up the money and see how much we earned." Said Dorquisha."Ok," said Oscar and Momquisha. Oscar got the jar with the money off the shelf. Oscar

slowly open the jar. A is sweat of Dorquisha dripped onto her brow. Momquisha kept her

fingerscross the hole time. Oscar started counting slowly 1, ,2, 3, 4, 5, 25.“That’s all of the money,” said Oscar.“What, thats all of it. There has to be more.”Dorquisha ripped the jar from her dad and looked in and there was nothing, not a hair in

sight. Dorquisha sprinted to her room, face planted on her bed, and cried her eyes out.“Knock knock.”“Dorquisha can we come in?”Momquisha and Oscar waited a minute to let her cool off. Then Oscar busted down the

door.“Dorquisha we are sooo sorry! Is there anything we can do?” said Momquisha.That day Dorquisha and her parents had the best day of their lives at Nuketown beach.

They decided to save up to go to Jamaica next year. This summer they decided to go to the beachas much as they could with as much tropical fruit as they could handle. That’s the story of theProud family trying to make it big.