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by Emma, age 11    

    It's amazing how your life can change in the blink of an eye. I go back to the day that took my sister Annabell away from us. It started out quite normal. Just like any other day. Me and Annabell were outside playing ball in the yard. Jesse, my older brother, was upstairs listening to music. My mom was in the kitchen making sandwiches and my dad was at work.

     "Lunch is ready!' my mom called just as Annabell kicked the ball into the road.

     "Go get it, Annabell, then come in," I yelled.  I remember turning around as I ran inside. I remember seeing Annabell running, her long strawberry blonde hair wiffling in the wind, her long healthy legs. She was so beautiful. She was my sister.  I think back now that this was one of the most beautiful parts of my life.

     I sat down at the kitchen table and then I heard it. The screech of tires, the shrill cry that I now know was Annabell. The tires screeching, that unforgettable scream that I'll remember the rest of my life.

     "Annabell!" I remember my mother calling, her voice shrill. Mom pushed outside with me at her heels just to see Annabell's limp body laying lifelessly on the pavement. I remember blood, more blood that I'd ever seen that I would ever see.

     "Lilah," my mom called. "Go call an ambulance. Now."

     I vaguely remember running into my house and dialing 911. "Hello?" said a calm voice. I gave him our address and just moments after I hung up I heard the sirens.

     I ran outsie to see Annabell getting put on a stretcher. My mom's face was a blur of tears and her hands were bloody from picking Annabell up.

     "Wait!" I yelled. I saw the stretcher people putting Annabell's gray, bloody body on the stretcher, the once white linens turned deep dark red. Where was all that blood coming from? I wondered. "Wait, let me go."

     "No," Mom cried. "Go back and call your father." And with that the doors closed and the ambulance siren rang out that shrill call of here's another person that I may never see again. That's what the sirens sounded like to me. I ran into the house. My head was pounding. I tried to stay calm. I called my dad. He hung up before he even said good bye when I told him what happened. Jesse came from outside. He looked like I had never seen him.

     "Come on," he said and then walked out the door again.

     "What?" I followed him and saw him hop in the car. At once, I knew what he was doing. He was only 14 but he started up the engine. I got in. He backed out of the driveway.

     We arrived at the hospital and asked a nurse, "Where's our sister?"

     "Oh, yes," she said, that fake smiled plastered against her face like she wanted us to think that everything was alright.

To be continued....

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by Sean, 13

     Yesterday, I went on a walk to the park and, while I was there, I saw two people talking. The one woman was in a motorized wheel chair that she and her many chins were overflowing from.

     “Even I couldn’t handle it with the whole police force,” she said in a voice that indicated a piece of cotton in her mouth.

     “Well, you have to pick your battles,” said a much smaller-by-comparison police woman.

     “Well, I didn’t pick no battles,” replied the first woman.

     I turned and looked around and spied a black, two-sided drinking fountain. I suddenly felt thirsty. I took a long cold sip to relieve my dry throat. I started along the sidewalk following my nose to the smells of pizza but I hadn’t gotten very far before I was nearly bowled over by a stern looking man in a tan business suit, carrying a suitcase that looked like it could hold three watermelons with room for a  few apples.

     Interested in the suitcase, I followed after him at a safe distance, ducking behind bushes and pretending to be a part of groups of people until he stopped in an alley behind a tall building. There were deep-blue dumpsters of the tall, thin temperament. The man touched some buttons on a control panel that was on the wall next to the dumpsters. This caused one of the dumpsters to unfold. He stepped inside as if it were as natural as stepping into the shower and it folded up neatly around him. It shot up the side of the building on a jutting piece of masonry that served as a track.

     I walked up to the control panel and touched some buttons randomly. I got a squirt of water in my face and wiped it off impatiently and thought “it must be the wrong buttons.” The second time, I got lucky and a second dumpster unfolded. I tapped the floor of the dumpster with my foot before stepping inside. The sides of the dumpster sealed around me and I was pressed to the floor as it accelerated upward. When it opened, I peered out feeling afraid and freaked out that I just went up the side of a building in a dumpster. A tall glowing green spire rising from the middle of the roof filled my vision. I gaped at it until I saw the man with the suitcase approaching. My heart leapt as I jumped behind the green structure. He stopped and, after looking both ways, pressed some buttons on the side of the suitcase. It unfolded into a tall piece of machinery, with many wires and components sticking out. The man pressed more buttons on the spire and a panel opened up. He slid the suitcase machine, shaped almost just like the spire, into the heart of the larger structure, securing it with a loud ca-chunk as it clicked into place. He pulled the panel shut and he ripped off his skin suit to reveal the police woman.

   She laughed thinly and cackled. “I was never given recognition as the greatest police officer of all time but everyone will bow down to me now that my mind controller beam machine is complete.” She was about to activate the machine and I leapt out and pushed her hand away. She knocked me over and stood over me with her baton and said, “You’re time is up little boy.”

     I turned my head so that I wouldn’t see the baton coming down on me and in the distance saw a bird? A plane? Superman? No, it was the lady in the wheelchair from the park. She scooped the policewoman up and flew her to jail and then flew back in her rocket chair to pick me up. She dropped me off at my house, saying, “You’ve done good, denshon.” As she flew away into the sunset, I thought, “This was one battle I’m glad she picked, saving the world and saving me.”

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by Grace, 11

     Years ago in New York City, the Mayor of the city was getting sick. Not bad sick, but sick. The wife of the mayor knew if she stayed in New York, his illness would just get worse. So, they decided to go to a nice hotel in Virginia called Yellow Sulpher Springs Hotel. The sulpher in the water helped heal people who were sick from the dirty water in the cities. My story begins the night before they leave. The second of April to be exact.

     Just when sunset started, the Mayor’s eleven year old daughter, Elle, was trying on her new dress that her mother picked out for her. The servants had finished packing everything except for the dress.

     “This dress is ugly,” said Elle.

     “You’re going to wear it,” her mother said.

     “Fine mother, but not so loud.”

     They were in Elle’s room which was blue and green with lace all over. Elle couldn’t stand it. Her brother, Peter, came in. He was eight years old and so annoying.

     “That dress is ugly,” he said and for once Elle agreed. The dress was brown, white and indigo.

     “Mary,” yelled Mr. Mayor from his sick bed.

     “Yes, Will?” yelled back Mrs. Mayor. “I’m in Elle’s room. Don’t come over here, your cough will get worse.”

     “I’m tired I want to go to bed to sleep,” Peter said.

       “Well go,” Mrs. Mayor said. “How about I get the servants to help you go to bed.”

     Several days later, they got to the hotel. The mountains were beautiful and there was a circle of rocks in the middle of the brick road with flowers and small trees.  The hotel was three stories tall, made from wood, painted blue, with flowers and people in fancy dress on the porch. Elle did not care.

     “Mother, can I go outside?” asked Elle.

     “No,” said Mrs. Mayor.

     “But mother…”

      “No.”
     “If you insist,” said Elle.

     As they went into the main house to check in there was a man who showed them to their cottage. “It’s our nicest one,” he said.

     Elle rolled her eyes. The house was small and green with two bedrooms. One for Mr. and Mrs. Mayor, one for Elle and Peter.

     “Mother, do I have to share a bedroom with Peter?”

     “Yes,” she said. “You have to do this for your father.”

      “How long will we stay?” asked Elle

       “Three weeks at most,” answered Mrs. Mayor.

        “Three weeks! Mother, I’m going outside.”

         “Elle come back here,” Mrs. Mayor yelled.

          But Elle didn’t notice. Outside, there was a big tree. Without thinking, she took one shoe off at a time and started to climb. She felt surprised. She’d never climbed a tree before. She didn’t notice the people who were drinking from the healing waters of the sulpher spring starting to stare at her. Then she saw them and she got scared. Elle knew if her mother found out, she’d be in so much trouble. Then she fell. When she landed it hurt so bad. And she knew her mother would be so mad. But it hurt so bad. She could not even see the lace on her dress, it was covered with dirt. The leaves of the tree were too heavy at the bottom for anyone to see her.  Elle sat there for what felt like hours. She looked up and there was a storm coming. The sky was almost as grey as the night. She sat there. The rain started and thunder started rumbling. Still, Elle just sat there.

     Inside the cottage, Mr. and Mrs. Mayor were talking about their daughter.

     “I’m scared about Elle,” said Mrs. Mayor.

      “Yes,” said Mr. Mayor not listening. “Oh look it’s raining. How nice.”

     Outside, the rain had washed away the dirt from Elle’s dress but she was soaking wet. She went in to the row cottage to face her doom.

     “Darling, what happened?” said Mrs. Mayor.

     “I went on a walk and it started to rain,” lied Elle. She thought, what’s come over me? I’ve never climbed a tree before. I probably won’t want to when I get back home.

to be continued...