Click. Mary turned on the white lamp next to her bed and squinted as her eyes adjusted to the intensity of the bright light. She glanced at the clock on the wooden night table next to her bed; it read two minutes after three o’clock AM. “Uggh,” Mary exclaimed loudly as a wave of anger surged through her. It was Sunday night—or rather Monday morning—and she had school today. Now that she had managed to get to bed a little bit earlier she woke up again. But it made sense, Friday and Saturday she had woken up at three o’clock and her body had adjusted to the schedule. Then she just stayed up, now she had to get enough sleep to be able to get out of bed at six in the morning. Well, I’ll just go back to bed, Mary thought. She flicked off the lamp and sunk back into her comfortable bed. She turned on her side, pulled the sheet over her shoulder, and tried to relax her mind. She tried to count sheep, but that didn’t work. She tried to think about going to sleep, but that made her apprehensive. She tried thinking about school, but that stressed her out. The longer she thought the tenser she got. The shining full moon outside threw a blanket of light into her room After a while of worrying, bad thoughts crept into her head. I won’t be able to concentrate on my math test. I’m going to be so tired tomorrow. I have to get to sleep, I already got to bed late. I won’t be able to move tomorrow morning. I could fall asleep in class. Mary’s eyes shot open as she realized that she had been lying there forever and she wasn’t asleep yet. She looked at the clock and the green letters read three-forty already. Time always seemed to go so much faster when you were trying to go to sleep. Mary pushed her thick red hair out of her face angrily and switched on the light as she sat up on her bed. She was frustrated, exasperated, and most annoyingly her adrenaline was running. She rested her chin on her hands as her mind raced with possible solutions to this nightmare. She could go downstairs and get a drink of water? No, she might wake someone up. She could try to go back to bed again? No, that would just lengthen this nightmare. She could read her book? Yes, that would make her sleepy enough to go to sleep. She picked up her thick book and studied the cover. It read Anne of Green Gables on the front. It had a picture of Anne running across a picture-perfect field. She never had any trouble sleeping. She plopped back into the bed and turned to where the page was dog-eared. She read, half paying attention and half worrying if reading would really work. After another eternity she looked at the clock. Four-thirteen. She bit her lip furiously, and fiercely pressed her palm into her eye. She pushed loose hair away from her face, turned off the lights, and closed her eyes. She sat there for a while thinking peacefully, very aware of the fast pace of her heart. She opened her eyes gently and looked to the open window next to her bed. The stars outside twinkled brightly against the black sky; the shining full moon outside threw a blanket of light into her room. Mary studied the moon carefully and made out some of the craters to be the cheerful face of the Man in the Moon. As the cool breeze blew against her she drew her beige comforter closer to her body. Although it was cold, the wind felt calming on her face. She breathed it in; it felt cold and refreshing in her lungs. She closed her eyes. She heard the familiar sounds of crickets and trees swaying in the breeze. She loved the sounds of nature, they weren’t loud or abrupt. They were subtle and beautiful. They were a natural lullaby . . . With that thought and a feeling of revitalization she drifted into a deep sleep. Leah Richmond, 11Louisville, Kentucky
School
Phyllis and Me
I ran down the stairs, grabbed my backpack and rushed out the door just as the bus turned the corner. It was the first day of school. I was new. I wondered whether the fourth-graders would like me. What if they didn’t? On the bus, I sat next to a girl who was tall and had long brown curly hair that went down to her waist. She wore a short blue-jean skirt with black platform flip-flops, and a green-and-purple-striped sleeveless shirt. She looked nothing like me. I was short, with straight black hair that went down to my shoulders. I was wearing bell-bottoms with white socks, white sneakers and an orange T-shirt. “Hi,” the girl said, “my name is Meagan, what’s yours?” “I’m Elizabeth,” I said. “Well, Lizzie, since you’re new, I might as well warn you about Phyllis. She’s crazy and she plays baby imaginary games.” I looked down at my lap and remembered the games I used to play with my old best friend Ashley. We would pretend that we were horses running free in the fields, or running away from horse catchers. Ashley never called me Lizzie. She knew I liked my full name, Elizabeth. At recess, I sat on the cement steps in front of the school with Meagan and her friend Jane. “Look at that handsome boy over there,” Jane said, pointing to a tall boy near a grove of trees on the edge of the playground. “Oh my gosh! He’s so cute,” Meagan said. “Look at that handsome boy over there,” Jane said, pointing to a tall boy near a grove of trees All I could see was a tall boy, who looked a bit mean. Behind him, a girl was crawling on her hands and knees and talking to herself. He was teasing her, but she didn’t seem to mind. The girl reminded me of Ashley. At the next recess, I was following Meagan and Jane to the cement steps, when the girl that had been crawling on her hands and knees the day before walked up to me and asked, “What animal are you?” I was puzzled for a moment, but then I thought I knew what she meant. “I was born in the year of the monkey,” I answered. “You don’t look like a monkey to me,” she said, “You look more like a panther. Don’t you think I look like a lion?” I stared at the girl’s red straight hair which was pulled up in a bun with the ends sticking up all over the top of her head. She did look something like a lion. She was thin, and she had freckles all over her arms, legs and face. “Quick! Here comes the hunter!” She pointed to the tall boy who had been teasing her the day before. She grabbed my arm and ran to the grove of trees at the edge of the playground. “Lion,” I gasped, “that was a good escape, but he’ll find us soon. We need to go deeper into the woods!” Lion ran ahead of me, deeper into the grove of trees, and I followed as fast as my legs would carry me. Then we heard the bell. Lion raced back through the trees beside me, when a stick popped out from the edge of the path. I had no time to slow down, or stop, so I tripped over the stick and landed on my face in the dirt. Lion landed beside me a few seconds after I had landed. Lion jumped to her feet and shouted, “I’m going to get you this time, Mike.” It was the tall boy. One of the lunch monitors ran over and told Mike to go to the principal’s office, and helped me get up. Lion had a bloody nose and a skinned knee. I had a scraped chin, and a mouth full of dirt. In the nurse’s office, Mrs. Smackers, our school nurse, gave Lion a tissue for her bloody nose. “Here you go, Phyllis,” she said. Phyllis? I thought. Lion was crazy Phyllis? She sure didn’t seem crazy to me. When I got on the bus, I sat next to Meagan, and she said, “I’m not going to sit with you until you stop playing with Phyllis. I warned you not to, but you didn’t take my word for it.” I had been looking forward to playing with Phyllis at recess the next day, but now I had changed my mind. The next day, I sat on the concrete steps with Meagan and Jane. Mike came over and apologized to me. I didn’t say anything back because I was still mad at him. After Mike left, Meagan said, “You’re so lucky! He likes you!” Then Phyllis came over and asked, “Aren’t you going to play with me, Panther?” Meagan and Jane both laughed. “Don’t you know her name is Lizzie?” “Her name isn’t Lizzie, it’s Elizabeth,” Phyllis said. I looked at Phyllis, then at Meagan and Jane, and I said, “Maybe I’ll play tomorrow, but right now, I’m busy.” Phyllis looked down at her feet and walked away slowly. Meagan and Jane gave me a high five, and said, “Great work!” but I felt like I had done something terrible. I watched Phyllis sit down on the path near the grove of trees. I wished I could be climbing trees and running from hunters, instead of talking about boys. Then I saw Mike walking toward Phyllis with a stick in his hand. I jumped up and ran across the playground. “Mike!” I shouted. I ran up to him and said in a low voice, “I have a message. Meagan and Jane want you to go sit with them.” “They do?” “Well, yeah! Of course. They think you’re the cutest guy in school.” He dropped the stick, and started walking toward Meagan and Jane. Meagan put her hand over her mouth, and Jane’s jaw dropped. I looked at Phyllis and said, “Hey, Lion, let’s get
Ellen’s Sixth-Grade Family
The sixth grade had finally come to a close. Actually, the year hadn’t been too long or hard. The last day dragged by so slowly. Yet here it was, the end of the year, and it seemed it had all passed by in the wink of an eye. Ellen went to the end-of-the-year pool party that afternoon. The whole class was there. Twelve of the twenty-seven were leaving for other junior high schools. Ellen was staying, since she’d only been accepted to one school and she didn’t really like it. That night she lay in bed thinking about all the people who would be gone next year, and about those staying. Most of the girls leaving had been mean to her and all year she’d been happy that they wouldn’t be returning in the fall. But now she would only remember all the nice things they’d done, the funny things they’d said, and how they had changed since she met them all six years ago. Now they really felt like her family, and any past resentment drifted away. She would never see almost half of her family again. Ellen rubbed her eyes to stop the tears, but her breath was already coming up shorter so she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist the crying fit in store for her. Trying to console herself, she thought of all the people staying. Most of them were her friends, but could she really call them that anymore? They had changed so much this year; they became interested in boys and makeovers and pop singers, and Laura had started dating. Ellen recalled that in fifth grade she had always felt a little uncomfortable because she and her friends were such geeks. She had thought that it was they who were keeping her from becoming cool. Yet now, she was a little girl playing with toy horses, and they were out at the mall. Now she started to cry. Whimpers and snuffles and tears grew into uncontrollable wailing until her mother came in and threw her arms around her. Ellen knew her mother understood so she made no effort to speak. She just cried and cried in her mother’s embrace till her tears would come no more. And she slept. Ellen knew her mother understood so she made no effort to speak At about one in the morning, she reawoke. Her thoughts were muddled now. She had dreamed of the first day in seventh grade. The dream began in her home. Ellen watched herself eat, dress, and walk out the door. She got on the bus, the only girl left from her grade, and rode to school. When she entered her classroom, the teacher yelled at her for being late. Her friends, Laura and Cordy, were talking about all the boys they went out with over the summer. They didn’t even acknowledge her presence. She ran to her old sixth-grade classroom. No one was there. There were just rows and rows of empty desks. She saw her own from when she’d sat in it last year. The seventh-grade teacher strode in and yelled to her to get back in her classroom. Then she woke up. Trying to figure the dream out, she finally concluded that it was best to forget it and begin her summer. She picked up a book to read until it was lights out. She turned on the lamp and saw which book she had picked out. It was her class yearbook. Each page of pictures brought another memory to her head. Her first day of school, her first bus ride, her first sleepover. Her friends had been there for each of these. They wouldn’t desert her because they were changing and she wasn’t, Ellen realized. She could always hang out with them. Half of her thoughts were released now, but she still worried about all those people leaving. Would she ever see them again? she wondered. With a sigh she turned off the lamp and went back to sleep. Her father woke her up late in the morning and handed her a list of chores. “This is stuff to do so we can go to the Cape today,” he said. Ellen looked it over. “Mostly packing,” he said, “and if you get it done quick maybe you can invite a friend down with us.” Ellen’s eyes lit up. She could invite someone who was leaving for a different school! That way it wouldn’t feel as difficult not seeing her in seventh grade. Ellen hurried through the packing and called Lizzie. She was the nicest of the girls leaving. An answering machine clicked on. Ellen hung up and tried Sarah. She had other plans. Ellen called every girl leaving that she wouldn’t mind having a sleepover with, and none of them could come. She decided then that what she’d feared had come true. Those girls had all moved on and were trying to forget middle school. And so must she. Ellen decided that the only way to move out of the past was to focus on the future. Next year Laura and Cordy would be there, so she had to think about her friendship with them. She called up Cordy. “Hi, this is Ellen. Um . . . we’re going to the Cape this weekend. Wanna come?” Cordy accepted. The weekend was fantastic. She played games with Cordy that she had been longing to play all year, like tag and hide-and-seek, games that Laura had deemed “uncool.” And on their way back home, they passed a big green van. Inside sat Ann and Abbie, two of the girls Ellen was sure she would never see again. They waved, and she waved back. There was no sting of sadness. She had simply passed by two old friends. They had moved on and she had moved on. Her family was not ripped in half and separated. She had her family always with her, in her mind, in her yearbook, and in her
