Rachel gently set down the next pile of firewood by her mistress’s fireplace. She stood up straight and yawned. It was already 5:3o. She went into the kitchen and fetched the teapot. She crushed up some tea leaves and threw them into the pot of boiling water. The water slowly turned brown, like waiting for the sun to rise. She looked at her dark brown skin. If only she were white. She would have her own personal slave, a big white house, get to eat real food, and get to taste tea! As the water finally turned dark brown she poured it into the teapot. She set out the teacups, the teapot, the butter and bread, the sugar, and the cream all on one tray and brought it out as her mistress, Mistress Sarah, her daughter, Madeline, and her master, Sir John, sat down. They each took a teacup and put sugar and cream at the bottom. As each of them nibbled on their bread, Rachel poured them tea. Rachel looked into the deep brown of the tea in Madeline’s cup. The sugar dissolved quickly while the cream turned it a pale tan. Rachel smelled the delicious taste that was longing to be brought to her lips. Her hands went out to take the cup but snapped back in when Mistress Sarah yelled, “Stop at once! You fool! Tea is only for civilized human beings! Not a negro like you!” Rachel set the pot of tea by Sir John and ran out into the fields where her mother was picking cotton with a few other Africans. She spotted her mother and hugged her. Rachel smelled the delicious taste that was longing to be brought to her lips “What’s happened, child?” asked her mother, stroking her braids. “Have you ever had tea?” Rachel asked. “Once,” said her mother, “when I was a child and working for Sarah, I snuck some tea from the kitchen. It was British tea. I didn’t have any sugar or cream with me, so I snuck some sugar out of the blue cupboard your grandmother kept her spices in.” “Mother, how could you!” exclaimed Rachel. “We’re only supposed to use those spices, especially the sugar, for special occasions only!” “Yes,” her mother continued, “but I convinced myself this was a special occasion. It was the best drink I ever had! Very hot, but so sweet and refreshing. I drank every last drop of it. That’s when Sir John caught me.” “Did he beat you awfully?” Rachel asked anxiously. “Let’s not get into details,” said her mother. “Oh, Mother!” said Rachel, wrapping her arms even tighter around her mom. “Rachel!” cried Sir John. “Go, child,” said her mother. “I’ll be right here.” Rachel ran toward the front door. “A slave owner is here to have a look at you,” said Sir John, pushing her into the house. Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. She held back her tears. The slave owner was sure to take her away from her mother and papa and little Noel, who was only eight months old. She would be thrown on a ship and would be taken somewhere else in the world. The slave owner examined her carefully. The slave owner whispered something in Sir John’s ear. “Girl,” said the slave owner, “get me some water.” Rachel hurried outside and filled a bucket with water. She went into the kitchen and filled a pitcher with the water from the bucket. She carried the pitcher and a glass into the dining room and poured the man some water. “You’ve got this girl well trained, sir,” the slave owner said to Sir John. “Well then, that settles it,” Sir John said, shaking hands with the man. The slave owner took hold of Rachel’s dress and started to drag her. “No! No!” Rachel screamed. They can’t do this, Rachel thought, they can’t take me away from Mama! She was dragged onto a stagecoach. The slave owner put heavy shackles on her feet. “No! Don’t take my baby!” Rachel’s mama called. She was racing through the cotton fields as fast as she could. She dropped on her knees in front of Sir John. “Please,” Mama begged, “don’t let them take her! She’s my baby!” “Mama,” Rachel cried as the slave owner flicked the horses with a whip. Her mother got off her knees and raced after the moving stagecoach. Rachel held her hand out for her mother to take it. Her mother grabbed hold of it and pulled Rachel off the stagecoach. Rachel landed on the dirt road. Her mother whispered in her ear, “Follow me.” Her mother started running into the woods. Rachel’s heavy shackles slowed her down. Mama picked her up and ran as fast as she could. They heard dog barks behind them. Her mother raced inside a cave. She cupped a hand over Rachel’s mouth while several dogs went flying past the cave. One dog stopped. He sniffed around and looked into the cave. Mama carried Rachel deeper into the cave. They found a little hole for Rachel to climb in. But they put Rachel in the hole too soon, for the dog heard her shackles clang against the hard rock floor of the cave. Mama found a big rock to throw at the dog. The dog saw her and started barking madly Mama threw the big rock on top of the dog. She picked up Rachel and started to run. As night fell Mama set Rachel on the ground. “Oh, Mama!” cried Rachel, throwing her arms over her. “Thank you for saving me! I was so scared, I don’t know why I didn’t free myself from him.” “It’s OK,” said Mama, letting go of Rachel, “you were in shock.” Rachel smiled. She stood up. Forgetting about the shackles around her ankles, she tried reaching an apple high up on a tree above her. She tripped on her shackles and fell face first. Her shackles made a loud noise. Then the dog barks
The Faerie Circle
Ariel woke up at 11:55 PM. She tossed off her blanket, stood up and tied her favorite silver sweater around her waist. Silently, like a ghost, she slipped out the door and walked down the hallway She could hear her sister Sophie breathing as she walked past her room. Down the stairs, skip the creaky third step, past the dining table, jump over Fluffy the greyhound (Sophie picked the name when she was six), and out the den door. Ariel didn’t know where she was going, or why she was going there, but it felt… right. It felt like there was something she needed to do. Moonlight poured down on the figure moving silently across the dew-covered lawn. Ariel knew this path by heart. She and Sophie went there years ago to play faeries, but they stopped when Ariel entered middle school. Now, as a seventh grader, she didn’t feel the least bit embarrassed to be visiting one of her childhood haunts. As Ariel’s bare foot stepped into the moonlit clearing, she felt a thrum of… joy? Power? Memories? It felt like someone was watching her. She glanced up at the moon and, as she always felt when she looked up at the sky, was awed by the great white disk sending down rays of milk-white light like so many chords of music. Ariel slowly sat down across the clearing from the Faerie Circle that she and Sophie had played in. The ring of daisies never grew over, and the delicate white blooms always grew back whenever Sophie and Ariel had picked the flowers. Now the daisies were splashed lilac with moonbeams. Ariel sat and waited for Them. She had never seen Them before, but she knew that tonight was the night. They didn’t let just anyone see Them. Slowly, the Faeries appeared and sat on the daisies in the circle like chairs Ariel glanced at her watch, pushing long black hair from her eyes. 11:58. Ariel shifted and promptly sat in a small puddle of water. It had rained during the day and the ground had little wet patches all over. Ariel peered into the shining liquid and saw her reflection—a thin pale girl with large violet eyes staring back at her. Ariel sat back and sighed. She wished her dark hair, now tipped with water, was capable of doing something other than just hanging straight around her face. And then she heard it. Or, rather, she didn’t hear it. Everything went silent. Ariel looked at her wrist again. Beep. 12:00. Midnight. Sparkling points of light poured by the dozens from the grand old oak tree at the edge of the clearing. Slowly, the Faeries appeared and sat on the daisies in the circle like chairs. Ariel could hardly breathe. The Faeries either didn’t notice her or ignored her. They were indescribable in human words. Each three-inch-tall Faerie had a shimmering dress in a color we do not have a name for. As the Queen sat down, her sheet of red corkscrew curls fanned out in an invisible breeze. Then the Faeries slowly unfolded their wings, leapt into the air, and started to dance. Suddenly, they started to sing. The mixture of the Faeries’ dance and their singing, so like angels’ voices, was… incredible. It was moonbeams, light, the sun, stars, the four elements—water, fire, wind, and earth. It was rainbows and poetry. It was more than all of that. It was Magic. Pure and indescribable Magic. It felt like they danced for years, but finally, they drifted back down to the Faerie Circle. Ariel was shaken out of her trance as each Faerie picked her daisy, and they arranged them in a pattern on the dirt. The Queen took her own beautiful daisy and placed it in the pattern, then made a call, like a bird, to the other Faeries. Ariel held her breath. It was over. The shimmering Faeries flew back as softly as they had come—little orbs of shining light—and that is when Ariel dared to move. She looked at her watch. Beep. 1:00. Suddenly curious, she moved to a standing position to look at the pattern the Faeries had created. Her eyes widened when she saw her name, Ariel, spelled out in daisies, with the Queen’s own pulsing daisy for the dot on the i. A breeze swept over Ariel’s arms as she bent to pick up the Queen’s daisy As she watched, the daisy disappeared, and in its place lay a gold chain with a pulsing, glowing, shimmering, iridescent pendant. The pendant was a capital F with Faerie wings. Ariel sighed with joy. She had watched the Faeries dance at midnight on the full moon. She had been accepted. She was one of Them now. Alana Yang, 12Santa Rosa, California Susannah Benjamin, 13Greenwich, Connecticut
So B. It
So B. It by Sarah Weeks, HarperTrophy: New York, 2005; $6.99 So B. It is possibly one of the most moving, wonderful, descriptive books I have ever read. In this story, the main character, Heidi, is living with her mentally disabled mother and her neighbor, Bernadette. Heidi is used to living in a, well, different household, and has lived that way all her life. Her mother only knows twenty-three words, which they keep a list of in the cabinet. But when Heidi’s mother starts saying a word that Bernie and Heidi don’t know, Heidi wants to learn about her mother’s past. Something about this book that intrigues me so much is that Sarah Weeks has the ability to make all her characters incredibly real. Nobody is all good or all bad. They have lives, and, if they do appear mean, there is always a reason. While digging into her mother’s past, Heidi encounters many interesting characters, all of whom are very different. There’s Georgia Sweet, the clever, pretty, body-language expert, Alice, who can talk and talk and talk without the other person getting a word in edgewise, who tricks Heidi into lying continuously, and strange, vague Mr. Hill. This story has little details that many people would overlook. In this book Heidi mentions dinosaur skin, and how nobody really knew what color it was. Heidi was reflecting on what she had just learned about her mother and states, “If truth were a crayon and it was up to me to put a wrapper around it and name its color, I know just what I would call it—dinosaur skin.” She takes a look at something nobody really stops to think about. My mom and I both read this book, and we both cried. The way Sarah Weeks describes things, through the eyes of a twelve-year- old girl, makes it moving and believable—the struggles, the excitement, the sadness, of life itself. So B. It, you may be interested to know, is what Heidi’s mother calls herself. When Heidi and her mother showed up on Bernie’s doorstep, Heidi’s mother called herself So Be It, and Bernie, thinking she had to have a proper name, changed it to So B. It. It is the kind of book that gets you hooked after reading the first page. In Sarah Weeks’s other book, called Jumping the Scratch, it is the same thing. The main character wants to find out something (the meaning of a word, or just a word in general) and will go all out to find it. As soon as you start reading it, you will too! The way it is written gets you interested with the end, and makes you just have to finish it. It is, in my opinion, a very good and tricky writing technique. My grandmother’s sister (my great aunt) is mentally disabled, so I know what it would be like to be Heidi, although it would be very different to have a mentally disabled mother. My great aunt can be extremely unpredictable, sweet one moment, throwing tantrums the next, but we love her very much all the same. She has a full vocabulary, unlike Heidi’s mother, but in many ways they are similar. So B. It teaches an important life lesson, as well as being a fantastic read just for fun. This was a spectacular book, and I hope I have interested you in it! Isabel Bartholomew, 11Salt Lake City, Utah
Greyhound Park
I can hear the crowd around me, talking amongst themselves, just waiting for the race to begin. I can hear people betting, “I’ll take ten on Lightning! Twenty on Bullet!” I’m what you can consider an underdog. Lightning and Bullet, they are the true racers. I don’t necessarily come in last, but I’ve never won. I love the feel of racing, watching the rabbit bounding about in front of me. We know it’s mechanical, but we run for the thrill of it. Suddenly, I get my confidence boost for the race. “I’ll take five on Cassie!” That’s me! I think happily I won’t let you down! It’s an honor enough to hear someone knowing my name. Usually, people refer to the lesser racers by their number. I’m number 2, I’ve actually grown rather fond of the number. I can sometimes pick out individual voices in the crowd, little children talking to their friends. “I like that one the best, number 2i!” “Well, I like the black one the best.” Suddenly a family sits down up front. Next to my pen. “Hi there,” a little girl whispers to me. “Daddy, what’s this doggie’s name?” she asks her father. He looks at the brochure. “Number 2… Cassie…” he mutters. “Hi Cassie,” she says. “I bet she’s the best one!” the girl squeals enthusiastically “Daddy, can we put money on her?” she asks. The man looks down at her, and stares into her eyes for a moment. Finally, he smiles. “All right,” he says softly The man stands up. “Fifty on Cassie!” he shouts. “Go Cassie! C’mon girl!” It’s the little girl from before Fifty! Not even Lightning and Bullet get that kind of money on them! “All right girl, give it your all,” he says to me with a smile. I prefer it on the track, I love having everyone watch me, well, watching us… It’s much better than the kennel that I get forced into when I’m not out. I can’t lose, if I do, then I’m gone. Someday I know I’ll win. I look at the racer next to me. It’s number 12, Manfred. Another underdog. Lightning holds his head up high and gives all of us a menacing glare. Bullet paws the ground and lets out a quiet bark. I think that Bullet will win this one. Lightning strained his paw a few weeks ago and hasn’t fully recovered. Just then, the gates open. I know exactly what to do, I’ve done it many times before. I take off sprinting, I can hear panting behind me, there are at least ten in front of me. Slowly I pass one, I try to pace myself for the rest of the race. Suddenly I hear a noise. Faint at first, then louder, and I tune myself into it. “Go Cassie! C’mon girl!” It’s the little girl from before. With a sudden surge of confidence, I pass another racer. “Atta girl! Keep it up!” This time it is the girl’s father. I pass another greyhound. Soon, their two voices mix together, into one constant cheer. I run faster, and faster. I begin to pass more and more dogs, but I don’t notice, I’m listening to the sound of cheering. Then, the noise grows, more people are standing. “Keep it up!” “Number 2 is number I!” “Cassie! Go Cassie!” Soon I realize that I am neck and neck with Lightning. Bullet is only a few feet ahead of me. I can see the finish in the distance. Now the entire crowd is cheering me. I push myself, using the last bit of power I can muster up, I speed ahead of Lightning. I run harder, trying hard, so hard, to reach Bullet. I can feel Lightning’s dark gaze boring into the back of my head, but I don’t care. Even those who didn’t bet on me begin to cheer. Everyone wants to see me win, everyone wants to see an underdog finally take charge. Bullet shoots a nervous gaze back at me. I move my legs, pumping them faster and harder than I ever have before. I am at a dead tie with Bullet. I can hear a startled whimper escape him. He tries to push forward, but it’s no use. He used all his energy with his grueling pace. I pass him, and soon I pass the finish line. The crowd erupts into one huge cheer. “Cassie! Cassie! Cassie!” they shout my name over and over again. I’ve never felt so tired in my life. I pace back and forth. I can hear the announcer, “Truly an amazing feat, number 2 has won it all!” That night I sleep comfortably in my kennel. I can still hear our trainer’s voice, “Don’t know how you did it, but you did!” I can still feel the sense of importance that rushed over me as I passed the finish line. I can still see the look in Lightning’s eyes. And I can still imagine the little girl, “Go Cassie! C’mon girl!” My dreams of winning come to an end the next morning. I yawn, stretching my legs out as far as the kennel will allow them to move. I can hear the dogs above me shifting restlessly I hear Lightning whimper, his paw must still hurt. Soon, our caretaker comes in. “Hey guys. Good race yesterday, especially you, Cassie,” she says and scratches me under my chin. “OK, everyone, give it your all today,” she says, then she lets us out of our kennels and serves us breakfast. News must spread pretty quickly, because today everyone is betting on me. I look around for the little girl from the other day, but I don’t see her. “Twenty on Cassie!” I hear from a few feet away I look up excitedly, but I don’t see the girl, or her father. Several more people put bets on me, then the gates open. I race off again, passing others, but with no motivation for me to
The Sea’s Hug
The sea opens its arms to me Hugging me by pulling me into its deep cool waters My head goes under The waves crash overhead I hug it back I swim deep To the bottom No rush to get air My feet feel the sandy bottom I swim back up To smell the crisp fresh salty breeze pass by me I see mossy rocks slipping under the waves Seagulls cry loudly for their friends I see bright neon-colored sea glass glittering in the sun I walk onto warm sand But the sea calls me back to play I can’t resist I run into its cool hug once again Annie Rudisill,11Ann Arbor, Michigan
JuJu
Juan (pronounced Ju-an) walked into our living room where my parents were sitting at the table. My mom and dad knew right away that she would be the one. She was wearing jeans and a Barbados T-shirt. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. My sister, Emily, was two at the time and I was not yet born. Emily walked up to Juan and shook her box of Tic Tacs. “You want one?” Juan smiled and shook her head. “No thank you, Emily” Juan had a look on her face that said, I think I’m going to like this kid. Emily gave her the same look right back. Then Juan sat across the table from my parents. When the interview was finished Emily walked up to my mom and said, “Mommy, I like that lady” She was only two years old but even then she knew that Juan was going to be our babysitter. Juan took care of Emily until Emily was five. Then I was born and she would take care of both of us. Juan sat in the waiting room with Emily and then an hour after I was born she came in and held me. I have a picture that the nurse must have taken for my mom of Juan holding me. From then on Juan and I were as close as we could get. She sang songs to me like “Oh My Darling Clementine,” and songs that she knew from when she was growing up in Barbados. Even now I remember her voice clearly singing them to me. I remember one day very clearly. We were in a park (I can’t remember which) and I had stubbed my toe and was crying. Juan picked me up and sat us both down and rocked me like a baby She sang those songs to me and it calmed me so much. Juan or Juju as I liked to call her was like a second mother to me. I sat at the kitchen table while Juan made me drool with all of the great smells of her cooking “How long do I gotta stay with you, girl?” Juan would often ask in a joking manner. “’til college, Juju!” She would laugh and then kiss me on the head. Our family always said that Juan knew our apartment building better than we did. Because later on in the years that she worked for us she was mainly alone in the house with our dog, she was able to do laundry and hang out with all of the staff’ that worked in our building. When she and I were going somewhere and we saw someone new that worked at our building Juan already knew their name. “Hey Pablo!” she would shout from across the lobby “How’s the wife and kids?” “Sharon is good, so are Benny and Samantha,” the doorman or maintenance guy would say Then they would pause a minute and be happy that Juan remembered. “How are Harry and Kenny?” (Juan’s husband and daughter). “They get by,” she would say with that great smile. “See ya later! Stay sweet!” Pablo (in this case) would walk away with a happy feeling, while I would walk away feeling bad that I didn’t know Pablo’s name until then. I used to, and still do, go over to Juju’s house for sleepovers. Juan and I play dominos there. She makes me barbecue ribs for dinner. She lives in Brooklyn so every so often Juan and I take the train to her stop and walk the couple of blocks to her house. Along the way we can’t get a block without running into someone that we know. Juan will say hello and introduce me. “This Natalie, I babysat her since the day she was born.” Her neighbor or friend would widen her or his eyes and say, “This is Natalie?” They would look shocked. “The one you don’t stop talking about?” Juan and I would smile shyly “Well,” they would smile back, “it certainly is a pleasure to meet you.” They would stick out their hand and I would shake it. When we finally got to Juan’s house we would relax and talk to Kenya, Juan’s twenty-three-year-old daughter. She always had stories about college and questions about my school. Soon Harry, Juan’s husband, would come home. He was a doctor. He would ask me how I was and join the conversation. Then Kenny would go do homework, Harry would watch a baseball game or the news, and Juan and I would go into the kitchen. I sat at the kitchen table while Juan made me drool with all of the great smells of her cooking. She would make the best barbecue ribs ever. She usually made peas and corn along with it too. When I asked her once where she learned to cook so well she would smile and say, “I’m from Barbados,” as if that would explain everything. “I remember one day when I was about eight Juan and I were walking hand-in-hand on our way down the street. Two men stared at us with hatred. “Why don’t you take care of kids your own kind?!” they yelled at us. I could see a tear spark in Juan’s eye. “You don’t talk like that to me and my girl!” Juan yelled back and just like that we continued walking, but in silence. Me being Caucasian and Juan being African- American never seemed like a problem to me but apparently some people really needed to grow up. Emily and I just finished doing the dishes when our mom called us into the dining room. We sat down, thinking our parents were going to tell us the plans for the weekend. We were trying to be shocked when my mom told us that it was time to have Juan stop working for us, but we knew that this conversation had been coming up. Juan had been our family’s babysitter for thirteen years.
Domenic’s War: A Story of the Battle of Monte Cassino
Domenic’s War: A Story of the Battle of Monte Cassino, by Curtis Parkinson; Tundra Books: Toronto, 2oo6; $9.95 At the mention of war, some of the first images that come to mind are of troops firing from trenches or a plane dropping bombs. These are the experiences of soldiers; but imagine an ordinary person, a family with children perhaps, just doing ordinary, everyday things, like cleaning up the house or sitting down to breakfast. Imagine doing these things, but with shells exploding all around you, parts of your house being blown to bits. To step outside your front door is to risk death. In Domenic’s War; Curtis Parkinson has Antonio experience such a life living in a town at the foot of Monte Cassino, the mountain where stands one of the oldest monasteries in Italy, now the location of one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of World War II. Antonio is drawing water from his well, when a misdirected shell changes his life forever, reducing his house to rubble and killing his family. While the families near Monte Cassino face such perils, those in other parts of Italy suffer from hunger and poverty. All the food the farmers produced and stored is commandeered by passing German soldiers to whom they dare not give resistance. Thirteen-year-old Domenic Luppino’s father is one of these poor farmers. His family never has enough to eat, and whatever food they do have must be carefully rationed. There is no telling what will happen from one day to the next. When it comes to war, such families are totally helpless. However, it is as easy to pity the soldiers as it is to pity the civilians. Parkinson makes his readers see the soldiers as individuals, men who have been sent by their countries to kill or be killed, but who are, nevertheless, ordinary people, many of whom have families and children of their own. When Domenic’s father and older brother go into hiding up in the hills, Domenic’s house is taken over by a company of German soldiers. Domenic and the German captain develop a rough relationship. The captain is kind to Domenic and shows him a letter from his son, Gunther. It is very sad to see how much the son misses his father and wants him home, sad to see how much the captain wishes to be home with the family he loves. The real enemies, it seems, are those who started the war. At one point in the story, a Canadian soldier tells of how he was sent to drive the Germans out of a town they had occupied and was drawn by a voice into a house that he, himself, had blown up out of sheer anger. He encounters a seventeen-year-old German soldier with his stomach ripped open. “After that,” the Canadian says, “I wasn’t mad at anyone anymore—except whoever it was that got him and me into this mess in the first place.” Parkinson leaves his reader reassured that life will go on for Domenic and Antonio and eventually the war will end. However, something like the war of Monte Cassino, that had such a strong impact on the lives of those who experienced it, will always remain in their minds. Nothing will ever be exactly the same as it was before. Nicholas Rao,12New York, New York
Curandero
It was a warm, sunny, day. The wind chased the clouds playfully across the sky Mejandro rocked contentedly in his chair, but he knew something was not right. However, he was content to sit on his porch and wait for the trouble to find him. It always did in the end. The sun was just sinking below the horizon when a panicked-looking Henry raced up the worn rabbit trail to Alejandro’s house. It was a nice enough house, made of adobe, but Henry was in no state of mind to notice. “Curandero1 Alejandro! Please, I need your help,” Henry cried in a hollow voice as he stumbled onto the porch. “What is it?” Alejandro asked in his most soothing voice. “It’s my daughter, Esperanza,” he sobbed. “Last night she was taken by the flu” “It’s my daughter, Esperanza,” he sobbed. “Last night she was taken by the flu. Now the doctor says she is in the last hour of her life! You must help us, I beg of you.” Henry ended in another sob. The wind too seemed to be struck with grief for it picked up and began to howl with the man. “I will help,” proclaimed Alejandro, “but you must understand that I may not succeed.” Henry’s house was stifling with heat. “We have been trying to sweat out the fever.” Esperanza, who could usually be found on the riverbank, bursting with life, now lay prostrate on the bed. She looked so pallid that Alejandro wondered if death had already visited her. Esperanza was covered in a mountain of blankets, her black hair matted with sweat. “I must ask you to leave the room,” Alejandro said with an air of authority that made it clear that he wasn’t really asking. He then pulled back his wrinkled black sleeves and set to work. He began by brewing willow-bark tea to try and blunt the fever. Herbs flowed from his blue sack in a small river as attempt after attempt failed. The girl’s breath was coming in shallower gasps now. He was going to lose Esperanza, he thought. But La Muerta would not receive her without a fight. Alejandro knew what he must do. He walked quickly to the window and flung it open. In a voice that never should have been able to erupt from such a small old man Alejandro summoned, “Zephyr, to me!” A large owl with feathers that looked like a network of stars on a quilt of night glided in through the window to land on Alejandro’s outstretched arm. Alejandro walked solemnly to the sick girl’s bed. Carefully he placed the owl next to her head. The owl stared hard into the old man’s eyes as if looking for something. He seemed to have found it for he emitted a soft hoot. Zephyr returned his attention to Esperanza. Puffing out his feathers, the owl blew a silvery mist that engulfed the girl’s entire body. For a moment the blanket of mist shone with a piercing light, then it disappeared. With it, went Zephyr. Esperanza’s eyes opened, life seemed to flood into her cheeks. “Mama?” she called. Her voice sounded as if it was coming from somewhere a thousand miles away. Alejandro took two long strides to the door and admitted her parents. The couple took one look at their daughter and burst into tears of gratitude. They clamored to thank the man who had saved their daughter’s life and rushed to her bedside. His work done Alejandro quietly exited the door without so much as a word. Just a smile. Footnotes 1 A curandero is a folk healer. Kiyomi Wilks,12Corrales, New Mexico C.J. Green,13Manassas, Virginia
Haunted Mansion
Haunted houses don’t exist, right? Well, one night when I was about nine, I wasn’t so sure. I was coming home from my friend’s house as the sun was setting, hurrying since I was late for dinner. I was on the east side of the hill, and darkness blanketed me. The last rays of the sun highlighted the tops of the tallest trees. It was a little spooky, so I tried to walk faster. Up on the top of the hill was the old Finster house. To get home, I had to walk right past it. I was already shivering from the gloominess of the darkened hill, and the presence of that old mansion frightened me. Even from the bottom of the hill, I could see the cobwebs cluttering that rickety front porch and the broken windows on one side. Creepy as it was, I couldn’t rip my eyes away The only time I’d ever walked past that house was with my friends in the middle of the day We would dare each other to walk up to the front porch and sit on the old rocking chair. No one ever did it. Usually, we all looked at our feet and hurried on by. Consequently, I never got a good look at the place. Now, if I tried hard enough, I could spot some dusty furniture inside the house. By craning my neck, I saw that the side door hung crookedly in its frame, and blew slightly in the wind. The creak, creak of it sent shivers down my spine. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. I froze, and whirled around. There, in a second story window was a pale yellow gleam. The sun had set by now, and the faint glow cast a square of light on the hill. I wanted to run and hide, but my feet were cemented to the ground. I knew what I had seen. I wanted to run and bide, but my feet were cemented to the ground There had been someone in that room. It was a man, hunched over with age. The light had gone right through him, and his features had been ghostly white. He’d a lantern on the table where it flickered now. If I listened closely enough, I could hear his footsteps on the creaky floorboards. Then, there was the wheezy sigh of someone settling into a rocking chair. My whole body was shaking violently. Now I found energy to run. Before you could say “boo,” I was up the nearest tree. No one belonged in that house. Old Man Finster had moved two years ago. I barely remembered it. The house hadn’t been in a better state, that was for sure. All Old Man Finster had done was keep the cobwebs on the porch at bay I wondered if someone had broken in and was planning to rob the place. Then, I laughed shakily Silly me, who would want to rob that dump? There was nothing worth taking, unless you had an interest in rotting timber. Still, something nagged at me. No one had moved in—the “for sale” sign still swayed in the breeze by the road. Besides, no lights had been on in there ever since Old Man Finster moved out. I was almost certain it was a robbery. That was even worse than a ghost was, I thought. Ghosts really couldn’t hurt you, but real, live people could. What if they had guns? I climbed a few branches higher in my tree. The sky was a deep, indigo blue now, and the entire world was a shadow. The light from the Finster house’s window seemed much brighter. I had just resigned myself to a night in the tree when I remembered something I’d read in the newspaper. People were supposed to be in that house. It had been one of the stops on the Underground Railroad in the Moos. Someone had bought it, and was sending a renovation crew to fix it up so people could visit it. That spooky old Finster house was going to be a museum! I caught another glimpse of the mysterious man. He wasn’t hunched over, at all, nor was he transparent. He was middle-aged, and wearing a baseball cap. A clipboard was clutched in his hand. He made a note on it, picked up the lantern, and left the room. Comforted, I shinnied down from the tree and alighted on the ground. Picking up my jacket from where it had fallen, I strode on down the road, my head held high. Ghosts? Ha! Ghosts don’t exist. That old house wasn’t haunted, and nothing inside was going to get me. I began to jog, since it was now dark. After all, I was late for dinner. Lyla Lawless,13Gaithersburg, Maryland Kamiye Hoang Mai Davis,13Palo Alto, California
Pennsylvania
I turned to watch the Ohio sign fade, merging with the endless road carrying me away from home. What am I doing? The thought swirled around my head, ricocheting off the few other ideas that popped up, shoving them away Restless, I picked up a book and then threw it aside. I loved to read but was too miserable to do any such thing at the moment. I shifted my favorite toy, Kelly, a dolphin, and spread out. My eyes scanned the car for anything of interest to do, skimming over the notebooks, books, Kelly, and the car upholstery till my eyes settled on the back of my dad’s head. “Remind me why I’m moving?” I asked my father, longing to ask a different question: You left when I was two, why are you taking me away from Mom NOW? But the question remained in my head, jumping around. My father half-turned, lowering the volume on the radio but remaining silent. I flipped through memories in my head, trying to recall something of Dad from when I was two. But I’ve got no memories from before the divorce, before my mom swore she would never see my father again, before my father left in the first place. I knew some things, like the way my parents got into a huge argument and weren’t talking for weeks before the divorce. As far as I was concerned, I never heard of my father except when my aunt told stories, which my mother discouraged. Mom had refused to speak of Dad, hear of him, everything he did was wrong, and I agreed. No nice man would forget his two-year-old; no nice father leaves his daughter behind. “Do you still love dolphins?” he asked, shoving a ten across the counter I tried to block Mom and Aunt Suzy out of my mind. I didn’t want to think about them or the house or Suzy’s garden. I didn’t want to think about walking home from school with my friends, or alone with a book in hand. I didn’t want to think about our cat, Tiggy. But I was thinking about all this quite a lot. The vision of Suzy in the flower garden behind the house, Mom with Tiggy on the porch reading yet another book, pushed away even the question What am I doing here? That was home. So why was I on the way to Pennsylvania with the father who once left me behind? “Danielle, you’re moving to Pennsylvania.” It was my mom who had said it, her tone short and blunt like I’d never heard it before. “You’re going to live with your father. I’ll see you at Christmas.” Suzy had come in then, holding an empty packing box. She’d set it down, frowning, and left, silent. My mother pushed graying hairs from her face, shifting her weight, and then sat on my bed, not looking at me. She didn’t say anything as she looked around my room. Then she stood and left. “Did you tell her?” my aunt had asked, and I had heard Mom brush past. I lay my cheek against the cool car window, watching the autumn leaves swirl downward. Cars sped past, trying to avoid the cloudburst that was just beginning, causing the drops to fall like tears on the window. Rain had always been comfortable back home. My Aunt Suzy, my mom, and I used to curl up and watch one of my mom’s favorite movies, call a friend, and play games. Stop it! I ordered. Suddenly words rang in my head: Did you tell her? Why would Suzy ask that? Of course Mom had told me I was leaving. “I guess I just thought it was time you and I got to know each other. It’s been eleven years since I last saw you.” I snapped back to reality, turning to look at my dad’s back, wide and sturdy. “You could have done something before,” I told him, doing nothing to keep my voice low. I willed him not to reply, to let me go back to my misery No, actually, I wanted him to turn around and take me home. “Danielle, you’ve got to understand!” I tried to shut him out. I tried to think, I tried hard, but he kept talking, saying a bunch of nonsense. I was so happy in Ohio—why did Dad take me away? In my head I skimmed back to the beginning of the school year, Mom’s smiling face as I came home. “Danny,” she had said, never Danielle, always Danny, unless things got hard. She had hugged me then, and I’d groaned, pulling back so I could toss away my backpack and book. “How was school?” she asked simply, but then began to chatter like an excited schoolgirl; sometimes I’d thought she was one. I saw Aunt Suzy coming down the stairs then, looking at me strewn across her favorite red chair. “Your dad called.” Those words rang in my head. I’d never remembered this part before, the few times I’d shuffled through my memories. My head had always skipped this part, but now that I thought about it, Aunt Suzy always said it, every year. I frowned the same way she had, sweeping up my own brown hair and pulling it back into a meager ponytail. Dad was pulling into a gas station, having fallen silent. My mind decided on something. Aunt Suzy must have been trying to make me think better of my dad— that was probably all. I skipped the fact that Aunt Suzy didn’t try to make anything of anyone. “I’m in the mood for a Three Musketeers and Vanilla Coke. You up for it?” I looked at him. He’d named my favorite drink and candy. Ironic, I thought as I nodded, trying to cut off the conversation. It didn’t work. “Do you still love dolphins?” he asked, shoving a ten across the counter where a cashier took it, talking into a cell phone
Hope
He sat there for what seemed like an eternity The wind whistled against his head as the leaves blew in a cyclone and rain threatened with a distant rumble of thunder. The man turned, his black overcoat flapping. Walking slowly away, he hoped his memories would not be blown away as the dry brittle grass. His hand felt empty and cold without her small hand gripping his. The streets were empty as he boarded the bus. Staring out of the window the man could almost hear her voice pointing out anything that her little eyes could see. The voice faded as the bus abruptly came to a halt, and the cracked and broken voice of a driver said, “End of the line.” He got slowly up, his back bringing pains that did not hurt around her. Climbing down the stairs he saw with his hazy eyes a candy shop where they always used to get her favorite candy, licorice. As he moved closer he realized all the windows were cobwebbed with boards and tape showing that he was not welcome here. Moving a little farther he came to a park where she used to immediately pull his arm to the garden and jump into the flowers until a smiling park ranger told her to get out. But now all that remained as the old man hobbled up was the cold hard dirt, an old torn-up magazine, and one withered flower. He bent down to pick the last beautiful memory, when a sharp wind flew through the trees and snatched the flower in its fearsome jaws. It continued to howl until the man shuffled away, taking shelter in a gazebo that looked to be a thousand years old. There in front of him was a merry-go-round. The wind pushed it around and around and every time it turned a white horse, now faded gray, brought the laughter of a small girl with it. He sat there for what seemed like an eternity until the laughter faded from his mind. He got up and walked against the wind, his face seeming like an old grape. Leaving the park he entered a subway and bought a ticket for the next train, not caring where it went. Sitting down, he imagined picking her up so she could grab with her small fingers the holding bars and squeak in her delighted voice, “I’m Tarzan.” Then everyone would look up from his or her newspaper and laugh. But no one was on the train today and a single tear full of emotions fell from his eye. He emerged from the subway and he walked on, in front of him a ray of light broke through the clouds. Erik Dinardo, 13Carlisle, Massachusetts Susannah Benjamin, 13Greenwich, Connecticut
Winter
I walk through the silent pasture to the tree swing. I sit down and start to swing. I close my eyes and fall into a silent sleep. When I open my eyes I see the ground is littered with leaves, acorns and plants of all kinds. I sit listening to the wind roar. I am not troubled. I just sit there watching waiting. Riley Grace Carlson, 9Franklin, Tennessee
