And I cried that day not
knowing why
Out of sadness and love
That phone call changed
everything
That day, that week, that
summer
And he used to say that the
love we lived
Was the lust we had
We had leftovers
He was generous like that
Even enough to go around.
Stella S.
eighth grade
1. The Moon
I sit motionless on the porch.
2. Sunset View
The sun sinks slowly down to the horizon.
3. Spring
The grass rustles in the field.
Jonah L.
As the sun floated through the window
Reid H.
There's a house on Maple Street that my friend used to live in. It looks like a normal house, but one day something weird happened. They asked me over to have dinner with them. I said sure. I walked over to their house and knocked on the door. Tod opened the door. I walked in and Tod's mom Harriet said, "Go play video games in your room." We ran up the stairs and played Super Mario Allstars. I won, of course.
Tor H.
Silently I look up at the midnight sky.
The moon floats, glowing strangely like a phosphorescent orb.
The shadows lurk in the twilight as the sunset darkens from
maroon,
To violet, to darkest blue.
The night looms ahead.
The wind blows milkweed along the ground.
A sweet smell fills the air, and spring is here.
fourth grade
It landed on my eyes.
I woke up and went outside,
Walked past the fallen leaves,
And past the oak tree gates,
Past the buckeye tree,
And climbed up the maple.
And there I stood
Marveling at
A bird of
Paradise.
fourth grade
Harriet yelled up the stairs, "Come down for dinner!"
"Coming!" replied Tod and I.
We ran down the stairs. Harriet told me to sit next to Tod's dad Stinky. His name is that because he always smells bad because he smokes about two packs of cigarettes a day.
We all sat down for dinner. I said grace. Harriet walked to the oven. She brought out the dinner and the drinks. Harriet took the top off the platters.
"What is that?" I shrieked.
"They're pig noses and pig tails, and for the main course, pig intestines, and to drink, pig's blood," Harriet said.
I ran out the door and went straight home and didn't even stop to look at the traffic light. I didn't tell my mom about this and I didn't talk to Tod for a week. When the week was up I called Tod.
I said, "Are your parents okay?"
"Yeah, it's just that they got this weird cookbook."
I said good-bye and I will call you tomorrow. After I hung up I pondered for a moment. I realized that he was lying. I thought to myself, I have to have proof that they're not regular people. I decided to have a little look-see.
My mom said, "Go to sleep."
I said okay. I went off to bed, but I was going to get up at 12:00 to look inside Tod's house. I waited a couple of hours and then got out of bed. I tiptoed downstairs and over to Tod's house. I looked in the first window---nothing. The second window---nothing. But the third to the last window---Tod was in it. He was reaching for his glasses. Tod was going to take off his glasses, but instead he was taking off his face.
"Oh, my God, he's taking his face off!! Oh, my God, he's taking his face off!!" I shrieked.
I looked in his parents' room---same thing. I ran home and jumped in bed. I shrieked at the top of my lungs.
The next day at seven o'clock I hopped out of bed. I put on my brown baggy corduroys, my snow army t-shirt, my space-jam boxers, my white socks, and my black and blue Airwalks. I ran downstairs and told my mom about the dream I thought I had.
My mom said, "Nonsense. You're just making up stories again."
"I'm serious. I'm not joking."
"Yeah, yeah," my mom replied. "Get your backpack on."
I ran upstairs and got my backpack. My mom gave me a Poptart to go. I ran outside to catch the bus. I could see it a block down, picking up Teddy, my best friend. There was a mud puddle right near where I was standing. The bus was going a good thirty-five mph. It stopped right on a puddle. The next minute I was covered in mud. Everyone was laughing at me except Teddy.
I got to school. At gym we lost our soccer game fifteen to five. Then at lunch I didn't have a lunch. To top it off, I got sent to Barbara's office three times. I came home from school and did all five pages of my homework. Then Tod came over and we watched TV until dinner. After dinner we had a sleepover. We jumped into bed. I waited five minutes until I said, "I know what your are."
"What are you talking about?" asked Tod.
"I saw you and your family taking your faces off."
"I confess!" cried Tod.
The next morning Tod and his family got in their house spaceship and went back to Venus.
fourth grade
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This place I live in. So fiery is the red of the walls That when the raindrops fall through the ancient roof The walls Sizzle. Like hot metal hit by a drop of oil It sizzles. I am Embarrassed By the way I live Tip-toeing over the hot floor. I feel as though a person pointed a finger At me And laughed With big breaths of air that go through my hair Like wind And saliva that hits me and makes me Sizzle Because my skin is Fiery red.
Hallie C. |
It was dark and cold in the kitchen. Kevin was a lawyer for a respected firm in Chicago. He was five feet and eleven inches tall, brown hair and deep blue eyes. Kevin turned on the TV. Instantly a reporter flashed on the screen. "...the sixth bombing so far and police still do not have a suspect, but they say that they are on the lookout as we speak. Next: see how your car can be broken into without the alarm going off. We'll go inside with some unhappy victims next on Channel 12 News." Kevin turned the TV off and sat in the darkness. He looked at his clock on the wall. The clock showed 7:30 in bright digits. He had half an hour to get to work. He ran into the hall and unlocked the door. He was wearing a blue blazer that he had just bought. He jumped into his car, but when he shut the door he accidentally got his pocket stuck in the door and it ripped open. He muttered to himself. Soon it was eight o'clock, and he was outside of his office in his old BMW. All of a sudden, a car whacked him from behind, and his car went forward and he lost all consciousness. When he awoke he saw his car wrecked and two friends from work standing over him.
"Whoa, that other driver was insane! Are you okay? Let's get you inside and call a hospital," said his friend. He was as white as if he had just seen a ghost. Now Kevin was completely aware of his surroundings. He was in the stadium next door to his office. He must have swerved and crashed. He could not remember many of the things that had happened, so he followed his friend. Inside the tower upstairs he found a telephone booth and his friend made the call.
"Busy signal," said his friend shortly. "What a world we live in." Even now Kevin could hear the busy signal---a loud beeping noise causing utter frustration to all that hear it. The noise in his brain seemed to put Kevin into a trance of despair. Then he noticed a small timer on a table across from him. It was hidden under the table and strapped to some strange- looking objects. Kevin screamed and the entire tower blew up.
Kevin woke up drenched in sweat. He looked around him for a minute and then got out of bed. The kitchen seemed foreboding and secretive. He watched the morning news talk about the verdict of the McKane trials and another bombing. He got dressed in his blazer and stepped out of the door. Even when he was driving to work he could not forget the dream or the feeling that something bad was going to happen. He had a nauseous feeling in his stomach. Later at the office two of his friends offered him a ticket to a baseball game. While they were driving to the game, a blue minivan crashed into them and then sped down the road while they went flying into the parking lot. Kevin woke up to see his friends standing over him.
"Whoa, that other driver was insane! Are you okay? Let's get you inside and call the hospital. "
He did not want to go into the building but then realized he was being childish and thought to himself, "It was only a dream and they don't come true." He said he would call. Then he realized he had a hole in the pocket of his new blazer and his change had fallen out of it. His friend made the call. Sweat once again dripped down Kevin's face. He prayed for anything but a busy signal.
"Busy signal." The words fell off his friend's lips like prophecies of doom.
A scream of rage, terror, and defeat, that could only be made by a madman with his dying breath, echoed through the stadium as the tower tumbled to the ground.
Jonathan G.
fifth grade
Once upon a time there lived a selfish king. But one day one of his servants went into the woods for firewood. When she got back, she saw it was gold wood.
So she took it to the king, and guess what he said, "You shall get me more and more of the golden wood, for I am the king."
But when they brought him more wood, it was even more beautiful than the first batch. By that time the servants did not want to go into the woods again for it was dark. But the king said that he would give them some of the wood, so they said okay and went into the forest for more wood.
They got back and gave it to the king and asked for their share.
He said, "Oh, no, of course you wouldn't want this."
But they did!
He said, "No," so the servants cut off his head!
Hana S.
fourth grade
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I was lying in my bed unable to sleep when I began to think about my youth my old house on Clingle St., my long summer days shared with my devilish counterpart Pete Rozier, the times we'd call school and feign an illness so we could go see the Dodgers play the Giants at Ebbets Field. We shared some great times in those days. But at some point we had to let go. I had gone off to college and so had Pete. We lost contact and went our different ways. With time I became a banker, got a married, and had a little girl. Things seemed to look good up ahead. I was on the verge of a promotion, and my wife had started up a travel agency which had become quite popular. But then it happened; in one fast day I blew it all. I don't know how or really when, but everything vanished.
It all started a little like this. I had just entered my office, a large bank in downtown Boston, and I was very excited not only because it was March Madness, my favorite basketball time of the year, but also because it was going to be announced, today, that I would be awarded the highly powerful job of Junior Vice President of Credit and Loans for Bostonians in the Downtown Regional Section of Boston. This made me more excited than I ever had been in my entire life!
I was on my way over to my desk, strutting, not walking as I normally do, when I saw an orange post-it on my desk. It read in caps: SEE ME IN MY OFFICE. ASAP, signed M.K. Lovit. Mr. Lovit was the man who called the shots; he was referred to as "the big man on campus." The second I read the note, I knew it meant I was on my way up in the hierarchy of Boston banks.
I walked in to Mr. Lovit's office and sat down in one of his expensive leather chairs. Mr. Lovit took a sip of coffee and then began to talk. He went on about my loyalty and commitment to the bank and to him as a person. All the while I sat there nodding my head, thinking about what kind of chair I would need for my new corner office. And after some thought, I concluded that a leather computer-type chair would be appropriate. But then, suddenly, out of nowhere, he stopped blabbing and told me that the office pool I was running, the college basketball one, was illegal and against office rules, and last week's pay cheek was my last here at his bank.
I stood for a second and stared at him, saying every curse known to man. I began to throw a fit similar to the one Tom Cruise pulled in Jerry Maguire. I stormed out of his office and started to clean up my stuff. Some of my co-workers gave me pity, others just laughed. I didn't talk to anyone, just cleaned my desk. By eleven-thirty I had packed up all of my stuff and was in my car on my way home.
I was furious. I had worked ten years at that god-forsaken shit hole and they fire me, not for any logical reason, but for running an office pool!
"An office pool!!" I said even louder. Then I stopped the car in the middle of Mass Ave. and screamed so loud and so forcefully I began to cry. And why blame me? The one place where I spent my entire ten-year, working career had fired me for running an office pool.
After the tears were gone and I had finished my commute, I found myself in my kitchen drinking a glass of orange juice, reading Bob Ryan's sports column in The Globe and thinking what a great writer he was, when I began to hear grunting and laughing coming from upstairs. I got out of my chair and walked up the stairs about ready to kill our dog Matty, when I looked up and saw my wife of seven years in bed with another man. My jaw dropped. I began to scream like they do in those dumb scary movies. I couldn't stop screaming and that's when my wife began to shake me and repeatedly ask me, "What's wrong? What's wrong, sweet pea?"
"What's wrong?" I replied forcefully. "I'll tell you what's wrong. You're sleeping with another man, that's what's wrong!"
She immediately knew what was happening and quickly began calming me down. "Honey," she said, "calm yourself. It's all a dream, that's all it is. I'm here with you now."
I looked up and my wife was lying right next to me calming me down. It was all a dream, I thought, all just a dream.
Todd H.
eighth grade
