We reminded them that they were a bit late. We laughed I sit at the computer, trying to think of memories to write about. I stare out the window. Then I hear “Crazy Baby,” a techno song by Nightcore II. It comes from our iMac computer upstairs. I start to think about Elliot, about the things he used to do with me when he finished his homework to entertain ourselves. We used to play together with my collection of stuffed animals. He made up the Animal Galaxy, an entire galaxy inhabited by only animals. They had tons of weird, science-fictiony gadgets like The Royal Chair, a chair that could play movies and serve food. He drew awesome spaceships and designed all the spaceships in the Animal Galaxy. I remember how he could turn anything I owned into a machine. He turned my toy golf club into a ray gun and my gel pen case into a keyboard. I remember we used to pretend that my bunk bed was a spaceship. Elliot played the captain, I played the first officer, and our toy bunnies played the pilot and the other officers. Once, Elliot and I pretended that our ship crashed into an abandoned spaceship and our ship became stuck to it. “Board the abandoned ship and self-destruct it,” commanded Elliot. “But, captain,” I objected, “if we blow up the other ship and the ships are connected, won’t we blow up in the process?” Captain Elliot saw my reasoning and canceled the order. We’d have sleepovers on my bunk bed and we’d stay up almost all night talking. One night there was a thunderstorm. A thunderclap shook the house and rattled the radiator. Both of us woke up, extremely scared. “When I count to three, we call for Mom,” Elliot said quietly. “1, 2, 3… MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!” That made us feel better, but we still ran to our parents’ bedroom. I remember one night, before Christmas, we tried to stay up till midnight. We tried sneaking downstairs to get playing cards, with our bathrobes draped over us like invisibility cloaks from Harry Potter. We said Merry Christmas to each other at midnight, then talked a bit. Five minutes after midnight, our parents came in and said Merry Christmas to us. We reminded them that they were a bit late. We laughed. Nowadays, Elliot doesn’t play with me as much, one reason being that we both have lots of homework, the other being that we’ve both grown up now. I’m eleven years old, in my first year of middle school. Elliot is fifteen years old, in his freshman year at high school. Usually, he’s at the computer, chatting on Facebook, playing computer games, maybe doing his homework. He always uses the iMac, which means I usually have to type up reports on our old, slow, Microsoft computer. Most weekdays, after school, he stays at the high school to talk with friends until around six-thirty pm. Also, during dinner, he usually gets a plate, fills it up with a good amount of food, then takes it to the computer either to talk to friends on Facebook or watch Bleach, a Japanese anime. When I’m around him, I feel scared, scared that he’ll lash out at me and yell. When I look at old pictures of him when he was younger, I’m reminded of the carefree, happy, playful kid he once was. Mom says he’s going through a stage. She says that we have to live with it, to get through it. However, I know that deep inside of him, he is still happy and playful, like before. It may seem like he doesn’t care about me anymore, but he’s my brother and siblings love each other. Even if he accidentally told a friend’s dad that I was ten and he said he doesn’t keep track of how old I am, I know that, inside, he cares for me and loves me. I feel like I’m a Pokemon trainer and Elliot is one of my Pokemon. Pokemon change their personality when they evolve. I feel that after Elliot “evolved,” his personality changed, too. I know what I should do about Elliot: don’t annoy him, let him rest a bit before I start talking to him, and wait for him to evolve again. When he evolves, hopefully we’ll become a great team. After thinking back, I found a notebook lying next to the computer. I opened it and found a map of the Animal Galaxy. I looked at the various planets: Bonar, Meoin, Cheezta, Squeakerain, Dragonia, Velveteen… I turned the page and found various drawings of spaceships, like a Bomber, Royal Transport, O-wings, E-wings… So many memories and only one memoir to write… Which one should I write about? I thought. I had an idea, why not write about every one I can remember? With that, I sat down and began to type. Natalie Han, 11Lexington Massachusetts Byron Otis, 13Keller, Texas
January/February 2011
Jessica’s Horse
Jessica Marstell kicked at a stone as she trudged down the dirt road. She was headed for her uncle’s horse ranch in Country Ridge, Arizona. She didn’t like going to Uncle Jame’s ranch because she didn’t like horses. Jessica had to work at Uncle Jame’s ranch all summer, though, because she wanted a new laptop computer, and Mr. and Mrs. Marstell insisted that, if Jessica wanted a brand new computer at twelve years old, she’d have to pay for it herself. Jessica had asked her parents to buy her many things and she had gotten them, but now they decided it was time for her to learn more responsibility and appreciation by earning them herself. “Hurry up, Jessie! Old Speckles is waiting to be ridden!” Uncle Jame called out as soon as Jessica was in sight. “If Speckles is so old, why does he have to be ridden?” Jessica answered weakly. Uncle Jame frowned at his niece. Jessica turned around and gave the horse a sour look. She put her foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle of the broad Appaloosa. Even though Speckles was wearing a western saddle, Jessica still posted to his trot. Jessica was a pretty good rider because her parents made her take lessons at an early age, but now she didn’t always ride the way she was supposed to. Jessica had become a little bit of a spoiled and careless girl. Jessica urged Speckles into a gallop as soon as they reached the trail that led up the mountain, through some trees. Jessica slowed Speckles when she thought she saw something in the trees. “Whoa, boy,” she told Speckles as she dismounted. When Jessica got a closer look, she realized that the thing was a horse! “Hey, Uncle Jame! Look what I found!” Jessica shook her head in disgust when she saw how dirty the horse was. “I think I’d call you Mudcake if you were mine—not that I’d want you.” Jessica was surprised when the horse came up to her and sniffed her face. The horse was a gelding, his coat nearly all covered with mud, but under that mud there seemed to be a shiny dark bay color. “Even though I’m not so fond of horses, I guess the right thing to do is bring you back with me.” Jessica smiled when Mudcake nodded his head up and down. She tied a rope around his neck and got back on Speckles and rode back to Uncle Jame’s with Speckles’ reins in one hand and Mudcake’s rope in the other. “Hey, Uncle Jame! Look what I found!” Jessica said as she motioned to Mudcake. Uncle Jame came over to them and ran his hands over the new horse’s body. “Well, he looks like he’s been abandoned. These cuts and bruises are not that bad, though, and he’s a quarter horse.” “So are you going to keep him?” Jessica stroked Mudcake’s neck while she groomed him carefully. “I thought you didn’t like horses,” Uncle Jame said with raised eyebrows. “Well, um—I kinda like them better now… especially Mudcake,” Jessica blushed. “I can’t take another horse, but I think I know who should have him,” Uncle Jame smiled. “Oh.” Jessica felt disappointed at the thought of someone else taking Mudcake. “He’s all yours.” Uncle Jame handed her the lead rope. “What? Me? Mudcake? Mine?” Jessica sputtered. “Yep, your parents have been wanting you to get back into horse riding again, and your Mudcake can stay here for a while. I’ll feed him for you at first, but eventually you’re gonna have to buy him food and other supplies yourself,” Uncle Jame said. “Oh, of course! I can’t believe I’m saying this—but I think I’m starting to like horses!” Jessica hugged her uncle. “And, I’ll take great care of Mudcake—is he really all mine? I mean, why are you giving him to me? I haven’t been all that nice to you or the horses lately…” “I gave him to you because you are good for each other, and I know you’ll take care of him. If he’s not already trained, I’ll help you with that,” Uncle Jame answered. Jessica had never thought that she would ever love horses, but now she loved Mudcake, and the other horses no longer seemed so bad. “I always thought that horses were just big dirty animals that were unfriendly and unuseful, but I was wrong,” Jessica smiled. Jessica began to realize that Mudcake taught her that horses could be a human’s friend, even though he hadn’t done much. Jessica hugged Mudcake, her new horse—her new friend. The next day Jessica and her mom went to the tack shop. “What made you change your mind?” Mrs. Marstell asked. “Mudcake was just so friendly and funny, and he made me feel good. Then I started to realize how awful I’ve been to horses and I decided to change,” Jessica said as she entered the tack shop. She bought grain, a grooming bucket and tools, a feeding bucket and saddle pad. She’d use Uncle Jame’s saddle until she could afford her own—that new laptop didn’t seem to be so important anymore. After shopping, Jessica went to Uncle Jame’s ranch, did her work chores quickly, and then tacked up Mudcake. She climbed carefully into his saddle. She wasn’t sure if Mudcake was trained to ride, but he stood calmly with her on his back, so Jessica was relaxed. I love having my own horse, Jessica thought with a smile. Then she trotted Mudcake out into the field to start their very first ride together. Ismena Jameau, 10 Sebastopol, California Annie Liu, 13Somerset, New Jersey
Tortilla Sun
Tortilla Sun, by Jennifer Cervantes; Chronicle Books: San Francisco, 2010; $16.99 The thing that first hooked me onto Tortilla Sun was the word “magic.” In the first few sentences of Chapter One, Izzy Roybal is introduced as a discontented, lonely character, unhappy with her frequent moves all over San Diego and wanting to discover the secret of her long-dead father. Finding the old baseball in the bottom of a packing box enables her to take her first steps towards that. The words “because magic” are written on the baseball, with a small space between them as if something was missing. Izzy quickly figures out, from her mother’s confusion and annoyance at seeing the ball, that it was her father’s. Already, clouds of questions are beginning to roll through her mind… and mine. What is the secret of Izzy’s father that her mother has kept to herself for so long? Could the baseball be magic? And what are those missing words? The second thing to grab my attention was the fact that Izzy writes stories… or tries to. Like me, she is always eager to start a story but almost never has the impetus to finish it. The only thing that keeps her writing are the story cards that her fifth-grade teacher gave her. “Small cards aren’t so intimidating for budding writers,” she had said. The final touch, that kept me reading for the rest of the book, was Izzy’s surprise and anger when her mother tells her she must go to New Mexico for the next two months of summer. I had mixed feelings about this. As I live in New Mexico myself, part of me wanted to defend my home state. The other part, however, sympathized with Izzy. Her shock that she is being sent off alone to her grandmother’s—without being told why—reminded me of myself. Even in the beginning, Izzy’s search for the truth is made clear. Izzy’s grandmother—or Nana, as she calls her—is bright and twinkly but very religious and obviously capable of bearing great burdens, as I realized when I first met her. When Izzy is taken aback by how colorful her room is, Nana responds with, “But of course it’s colorful. Life is color, isn’t it?” My admiration for Izzy’s grandmother grew at her first tortilla-making lesson. When she tells Izzy that they must say the Hail Mary three times before starting, Izzy is embarrassed to say she doesn’t know it. But Nana does not say a single derisive word or even show much surprise. This came as a pleasant shock to me, for making fun of someone’s religion—or lack of it—is something almost no one will hesitate to do. Exploring the village, Izzy begins to hear words on the wind. “Come,” they say, and later, the name Bella. Another mystery begins to take shape. Could the wind have the right person, if it is the wind talking at all? How could an Isadora hear the word “Bella” on the breeze, as if it were calling to her? The rest of Izzy’s story cannot be told without revealing the end; however, it can be hinted at. The end of Izzy Roybal’s search for truth includes a talk with Socorro, the village storyteller, and a golden glass “truth catcher”; the shattering story of her father’s death; a near-fatal accident; and a name that is almost new. Does it end happily? To find out, you’ll have to read the enchanting story of Tortilla Sun for yourself. Emily A. Davis, 13Santa Fe, New Mexico
