Last Tuesday, on April 21, Massachusetts Gov. Baker announced that all schools in Massachusetts would be closed for the rest of the year, meaning that my birthday, on June 10th, will officially be a COVID-19/quarantine birthday. Millions of children around the world have had their birthdays suddenly upended by the coronavirus. Days when kids usually get together with friends or family for a birthday party, go on a trip, or have cupcakes at school, have been changed to days where kids pretty much have to stay at home. This is really, truly sad. Although I am in middle school now, I remember the days back in elementary school when it was such a big deal to bring in cupcakes for your class. Everyone would hurry to get in a line before recess and pick out which cupcake you wanted. Then, you would go outside and strut around with your cupcake, feeling lucky that someone in your class had a birthday, and, if it was your birthday, feeling happy to be special at school for a day. Having a birthday party with friends and family is always special, too. When people you care about are there just for you, you feel particularly happy. My birthday is in over a month, but still, some things have definitely changed. Because I won’t have school, no one will put a sign in my locker, and I won’t get to go to Boston on a field trip that feels like a birthday trip, because it was coincidentally scheduled for a day near my birthday. Most likely, none of my friends and family will come over, and my cousins won’t play in my backyard and take out all of our backyard games and spread them out all over the place. I probably won’t get to go strawberry picking with my mom, which is a kind of tradition for us. So, what are kids doing on their special days that suddenly don’t feel so special? The answer: many, many things. Just the other day, I was out walking and passed a sign saying “Honk for [name I don’t remember]’s 18th birthday!” People are doing car-parades, as well, where people drive past the birthday kid’s house to wish them well. So far, two of my cousins have had quarantine birthdays. They both had Zoom calls with family and friends and we all sang “Happy birthday.” One more of my cousins will have a quarantine birthday in about a month, and I wonder what she has planned. There is no doubt that COVID-19 and quarantine have messed up a lot of people’s special days. But we are all in this together. It is our natural instinct to try and make the best out of things, and that is what people are doing. I have no idea what the world will look like on my birthday, but I know that I can still make it a happy day. I, and millions of kids around the world, can do car parades, Zoom calls, and many more creative things to make our special days more special and unique than ever before. Anya Geist, 13 Worcester, MA
COVID-19
My Dream Goes On, a poem by Ethan Zhang, 7
My Dream Goes On By Ethan Zhang, 7 Before my basketball dream comes true, The coronavirus began to sweep through. I hope I can be back at the court, To play for my team at our fort. I hope this invisible defender will be defeated, The arena will again be lightened. It seemed now everything was doomed, It felt like everything gloomed. But I know that one day all this will end, My crossover will not bend. From now not too long, My dream will once again go on. Ethan Zhang, 7 McLean Virginia
The Monster, a short story by Haopu (Max) Xu, 10
The Monster By Haopu (Max) Xu, 10 The monster’s name is Ackalasaf. You could find him in the depths of the breathtakingly scary wardrobe in Castle Fagg Ghast on a small island floating in the middle of the Pacific. Ackalasaf smells a trillion times worse than tons of rotten eggs and you can smell it even when you are still 1000 km away sailing towards the Castle. He looks like a giant snake with a quadrillion heads of different species (spider, bat, turtle, scorpion, hawk and any other species you may think of). The monster’s whole body is covered by sharp blackish dagger-like scales with billions of creepy green eyes on them staring at you all the time. It also has a thousand arms and tens of thousands hands with each hand having a very deadly type of poison. If you dare to touch it, you will die in 0.01 second. You could kill the scary Ackalasaf by stabbing it right in its heart one hundred consecutive times with the sharpest dagger you could ever find, but sadly Ackalasaf is as heavy as hundreds of full grown lions and as powerful as trillions of Minotaurs combined together, and your chance to win him is really very low. Feel horrified by Ackalasaf? But to tell the the truth: right now there is something more deadly dangerous and widely spread than Ackalasaf: COVID-19. SO LET’S DO OUR BEST TO KEEP ACKALASAF AND COVID-19 SOCIAL DISTANCE AWAY FROM US. Haopu (Max) Xu, 10 Oakville, ON, Canada
