Moving-New-Home

The Tree Outside My Window

As he moves to a new room in a new house, a boy recalls the view from his old window As I stood in my new room, as decided at Burger Heaven on Tuesday, I looked around and saw a blank white wall, two closets, and two windows. I looked out the window on the left and saw a beautiful tree outside my window. It was gently swaying in the wind. I remembered the other tree outside my window in my old room. You could see the roughness of the bark, and the leaves slowly turned yellow, orange, and red as we got closer and closer to the end of the fall. The tree was wise and old. It had a posture that was relaxed but knew everything at all times, like Yoda! One day, I asked my dad if I could go play laser tag with my friend Michael. “You know why you can’t,” he said. Unfortunately, I did. My dad was against all types of guns or weapons. I understood why, but I was still frustrated. “But all of my friends are going and I don’t want to be left out because everyone will be talking about it at school,” I told him. He said: “Just because you’re friends do it doesn’t mean you have to.” I stormed into my room. Then I looked out the window, and I thought about the tree. It couldn’t do anything people did. And people didn’t respect it. They even had their dogs pee on it. But it was content to just watch the world go by. Another time, I was watching the news with my mom when they said a hurricane was going to hit New York. I asked my mom if we’d be safe. She said we would but we went to the store to stock up on canned food. At the store, I asked her, “Can a hurricane kill someone?” “Yes, if you’re not careful.” Now I was so scared I didn’t go outside the house at all the next few days, and school was closed, so my parents couldn’t make me. As the storm was raging outside my window, I thought about what would happen if my building fell over. With those thoughts of destruction, I fell asleep. Hours later, I woke to an ear-splitting snap. At first I thought it was lightning, but it was sunny outside. I slid off my bed into the slippers I got for Christmas, and I walked to my window, careful not to step on the Lego creations I had made the day before. I looked around. Something was missing, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Then I realized. “No, no, no, no, no,” I muttered under my breath, progressively getting louder as I went on. I look down at the ground. The tree, my true friend, always loyal, never faltering, so wise, had split in half. It was just lying there helpless, cracked in half, gone. Gone forever. I went into my mom’s room and shook my mom as I did if I’d had a nightmare. I showed her the tree and then she called the super to take the tree off the sidewalk. We watched out our window as he struggled to push it to the side of the road. It was hard to be too appreciative of the beautiful sunny day because my tree was gone. But now, in the present, I had a new tree, even better than the old one. Elegant and graceful. And no storms are going to hit New York anytime soon, so it should be safe for at least a while. Over the years I have learned more and more that you appreciate things more when they are gone, so you should try to appreciate them as much as you can before they leave. Then my mom walked into my room and asked me if I wanted to have lunch. I realized I was very hungry since I had spent the whole morning packing up our stuff from our old apartment. As I walked out into our new living room, I saw boxes upon boxes and even more boxes. I looked in one, and I saw the back of a picture frame. The photo was of me playing in my room in my pajamas with yellow stripes. I was playing with my train tracks, and I was holding my favorite train, Thomas. In the back of the picture, I could just make out the tree. Suddenly, I remembered one day when I found out I hadn’t made the soccer team. I had been outside my old building, and I had kicked the tree repeatedly in my anger. I went back into my room and put the photo on the radiator next to my new tree. Then I ran back into the living room because I was very hungry, and I smelled quesadillas so I knew this would be a good lunch. Daniel Shaw, 11New York, NY

A Great Community

  We were at the airport. We were there for a good reason. To go to America. My dad had stayed in America for two years.The reason for this was to get a job and be able to take me and Grandma Nicole there to live. But while he was there, the stock markets crashed and Dad lost a lot of money. But he did find a job eventually, so we are moving there now. The reason we were moving is because my dad had little money, and, before staying in America for two years, he got fired from his job. Grandma, Grandpa, and I had to work at great-uncle Bill’s sausage factory to get the money for our family while Dad was away. In the sausage factory, it was hot and the pay was not quite enough to sustain four people. While I worked there, I always felt the sweat cling to my face after only one hour of work. We had to carefully place the sausages into the boxes, then tape the boxes shut. It doesn’t sound like much work, but doing it nonstop for long amounts of time is tiring. We were so grateful when Dad returned from America! But, as soon as he got home, we had to get ready for our trip. We were at the airport security desk, getting our passports checked. “Hello!” my dad said in Polish. “This is the Berkes family. I’m Jim, and this is Nicole and Zach. We are here for our flight to America.” My legs were bouncy, and I was biting at the sides of my fingernails, which I do when I’m nervous. And I was. I didn’t know if America would be a good place to live or not. And even if it was, there might be other dangers waiting. Actually, I was probably getting too nervous. We were apparently moving to a place called Miami. The temperature there is always hot or hotter. Here in Poland, it’s usually cold, so I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to stand the heat—especially because we were moving in spring, the second hottest season. We were taking clothes, money, and a plastic sword I got when my dad started his two-year staying period in America. When Dad went to America for his job finding period, I was worried that he would stay forever, not get a job, and not be able to come back. My friend Tim got the plastic sword for me to keep me from thinking about Dad. I have always admired the sword from then on. I wished Tim could go to America with me. I wished everyone could come. The security person checked our passports, wished us good luck in America, and we were on our way to the other security, like the scanners and the bag checks. At the bag checks, the worker reluctantly informed us that we would have to wait so that they could make sure the plastic sword was safe. It took half an hour, and we almost missed our plane, but we made it. I hoped everything won’t be that challenging in America. We had never been on a plane before. We had to look around and figure out where the bathroom was. Another downside of this plane was the disgusting smell of rotten peanuts. I found a pretzel wedged into the crack of the seat that looked like it was two-years-old. These things would have made me gag, but working in a sausage factory that can’t afford fresh meat most of the time drastically raises the strength of your gag reflex. After a little while, the plane started moving. The unsettling sound of the wheels on the runway tortured me. Luckily, a safety video started playing, so I could listen to that instead. The video talked about what would happen if a plane crashed in the water. The video ended when we were in the air. I was afraid that the plane would fall out of the sky. How does a giant metal tube support itself in the air and not fall? When the plane was flying straight forward, the flight attendant came down the aisle and handed out peanuts. I heard him mumbling about how he hates his job. “Do you even want peanuts?” asked the attendant very rudely. “Yes please,” I responded. “Do you have them salted?” “If you want them salted, put salt on them.” “I’ve heard that planes offer a choice between salted and unsalted peanuts.” “Uuugh. Fine. We have them in the back,” he finally admitted. He was extremely rude. I felt my fists clenching, and I even bared my teeth a little bit. I hoped people wouldn’t be this rude in America. It had been two hours on the plane. I really needed to use the bathroom. I tried to walk over to it, but I couldn’t remember where it was. I eventually found it, but somebody was in it. My legs were crossed, and there was sweat beneath my eyes. But it finally opened! Huzzah! I walked in and… All my senses except for my sense of smell momentarily stopped working. I can’t describe the stench that invaded my nose. It was foul. What I smelled was a mix of basically everything that smells disgusting in the entirety of Poland. I gagged, and I kneeled to the ground. I also almost threw up directly onto the floor, which would have made the stench even worse. Yes, even with my enhanced gag reflex. I hoped it wouldn’t smell that bad in all of America. After I was done, I went back to my seat and ate more of my peanuts. The bag said the peanuts were “salted to the finest degree,” but what it actually tasted like was a bag of salt with peanuts dropped into it. If all food in America was like this, I wouldn’t be able to survive. Sometime in the middle of the ride, Grandpa

Swept-Up Fish

The beach was gorgeous. The glittering blue waves lapped onto the shore; it kindly slapped away small children who got too close to the foamy current. Up where I was watching the scene, the sand, sitting peacefully in a tinged butter-yellow color, burned as a victim of the Sun, sifting like powder through my toes and occasionally producing a tiny crab here or there. The faint breeze carried a strong scent of sea salt from the coast, and I gazed again upon the children who had gone all the way down there, deeper to the cold, wet, sand. I thought of when I had charged my toes under it for a few seconds before (and had then quickly run up to the warm sand), watching the current make the sand appear as if it was escaping me, as if I was sliding further away, sweeping shells and fish that belonged there. If only a current could sweep me back into Chicago again, I thought. If only. But here, as if to taunt me, I saw a sign flapping in the wind by the beach gate. “Welcome to San Francisco Bay!” it read; and enough said, too. I did not need to be reminded. As I ate my shrimp po-boy, which was also emitting a salty fume—only a stale reminder of the fact that I was here, not at home—my mother, father, and twin brothers chatted next to me with food cramped in their mouths. They didn’t mind being stuffed; I think they wanted to “do as the Romans do” in Rome, except San Francisco, of course. In unison, other families were either docked under an umbrella to eat or playing at the shore, vulnerable to being swept up by a salty wave. It was a “celebration” of our moving here, and my family posed as ordinary Californians retiring to the beach during the long summer holiday. No wonder we, former Chicagoans, blended into the crowd; there were so many people that were minding their own business here. They would never guess that we had actually moved here in the midsummer; my mom had found a new job. I clenched my teeth inside my mouth at the sight of how pleased she looked. It was all her fault; all of the moving, everything—even choosing such a breathtaking place to replace home. Nothing will make me want to replace Chicago, though. When my ears came back to their senses, I heard the chatter of my family. “Can Henry and I go to the water?” my brother, George, asked with pleading eyes to my mother. They were both 12-years-old, but George was just a minute older. I was 15, and already considered myself (if I were to be a Californian, after all) a sit-and-sunbathe kind of teen. At least they had apparently not been in Chicago long enough to miss its long winters. “Of course. Carrie, would you like to join?” my mom asked. She had chestnut-brown hair and eyes like me, and a sort of electric, party vibe came from her. I knew she was already loving this more than Chicago. “No thanks,” I grumbled. “This is the worst vacation ever. Take me back to Chicago!” I spat, feeling a lump of angry heat in my throat as I said it. I didn’t want to take it back. My parents put on empathetic frowns and offered me ice cream, but I dismissed that as well. I’ll admit, I wanted it, but I continued to glare at my parents and pretend in my head that they were the meanest people on Earth. “ This was it, and I didn’t want to die a fish. I bathed in the sun afterward, and the heat seemed to steam around me. It also made my skin look pinkish. Strange, I thought. Sunburn doesn’t happen that quickly. Soon, I noticed my sunglasses were beside me, and my skin a scaly texture. To my horror, I saw my arms turn to tiny fins and my legs into a small tail. I was becoming a fish. And when I had transformed up to my mouth, I had trouble breathing. Water, is all I thought. Water. I need water. Flopping (literally) breathlessly around the sand, I assessed my situation. Closest water? Nowhere. This was it, and I didn’t want to die a fish. I was hyperventilating, my gills opening and closing rapidly. Just as my eyes started fluttering, and I felt a harsh feeling of restfulness and giving up, I felt a human hand squeeze me gently. Then I heard my body “plop” into a pail of salty water, and it felt amazing. My savior was a small child that looked like a toddler, and he peered into my new tank as if I were a lab specimen. For all I knew, I could have been. Then, with a giddy smile, he called his parents and showed them me. I was on display, and my fish nerves didn’t like it. Unluckily, my fish nerves also wanted to skedaddle, and do so it did. I sprang out from the bucket and onto the scorching hot sand. If I had not been in a bucket of water before, I wouldn’t have had enough time in consciousness to gather myself and create a somewhat plan (though, for a fish, I reflect that I couldn’t have thought of anything better). First, with my fish eyes alert for finding water, I found a sandcastle moat, a watery hole someone was digging, and, for closers, the coast of the ocean. This meant a journey of hopping from water to water to get to the coast. After taking these quick notes, I flopped up to the moat. Easily enough, I slid in. I was just swimming around to the other side when my fins froze in the action—I was having one of those tense, instinctive moments. I shivered, and my eyes darted fearfully to my left, where I had felt something alongside me. A crab, about