Scene 1 CLOUD and ROCK are talking to each other while rain falls around them. CLOUD What a sorry excuse for a storm. The novices are playing. ROCK Let them play. They do no harm. I have been whirled into the eye of a storm. Who are you to predict what will happen? The eye was kind. It was the color blue. CLOUD Your eye is gray. ROCK I have no eye; describe yourself to me. CLOUD I could do much better. I could make it so no one came out. This is a whimpering storm. We must end the reign of umbrellas! ROCK You are an interesting friend. Are there more of you? I prefer not to think so. CLOUD There are many more of me. I am never alone. ROCK CLOUD Who are you to predict what will happen? Scene 2 BUSH and LAMP are talking to each other while the storm continues on. BUSH I am refreshed. LAMP My lightbulb despairs. Abandoned. BUSH A wonderful word. LAMP Then you are lost too! BUSH No, I know nothing of abandonment or adventure. Who am I to predict what will happen? I am patted on the head by children, perched upon by birds, tended to by weary gardeners. LAMP Then you have never been in a storm before? BUSH I am new, practically a child. But even I know that this is a sorry excuse for a storm. LAMP You are cruel. Who are you to predict what will happen? Already my light goes out. I am crushed. I am ruined. Goodbye, self. Who will use me now? Am I meant to be alone? To rot? I am cheap plastic. I have no name, just like a canine tooth. BUSH Are you really so alone? Who are you to predict what will happen? Scene 3 SEAGULL perches above OCEAN and watches waves crash onto the sand. SEAGULL You are angry. Caw caw. OCEAN I will not be manipulated by this sorry excuse for a storm. SEAGULL Who are you to predict what happens? OCEAN I know, I know it all! I contain so much life. It speaks to me every day. But it is silent now. It is afraid, like I am afraid. I cannot stop dancing! SEAGULL Shall I go perch on a car hood? OCEAN Stay with me. SEAGULL Or shall I knock on the door of a brownstone with my beak? OCEAN Stay with me. SEAGULL If I stay, I will be swept up into your depths. OCEAN Stay with me, hovering high if you must. SEAGULL I will stay to keep you happy. OCEAN I will still be sad. SEAGULL I will stay to be your friend. OCEAN I will still be lonely. SEAGULL Will you? Who are you to predict what will happen? Scene 4 CLOUD, ROCK, BUSH, LAMP, SEAGULL, and OCEAN are all together. LAMP Bush, how have you moved? You are rooted into the ground. BUSH I move my mind, and my bird-pecked body has no choice but to go with it. ROCK A sad body makes for a sad mind. CLOUD Who are you to predict what happens? SEAGULL Stop with your silly phrases! OCEAN A family reunion in the midst of this sorry excuse for a storm. SEAGULL I would shake your hands, but I have none! (The whole party titters.) OCEAN Do not be sorry, for I cannot stop dancing! LAMP Then I shall introduce myself, and you, too. CLOUD No need, no need for such formalities! ROCK Inside life has corrupted you. BUSH Yes, we are natural. LAMP I feel the need to expel someone. BUSH Expel yourself, then! CLOUD Expel from what? OCEAN The sky. ROCK A life without sky . . . SEAGULL A lonely life. ROCK Let us dance! OCEAN I already do so. I have predicted what will happen. The sea creatures talk to me again. CLOUD I will not dance in this sorry excuse for a storm. LAMP We are cruel. SEAGULL Even together, we are nothing. EVERYONE TOGETHER Yes, who are we to predict what will happen?
September/October 2024
Stone Soup Honor Roll: September/October 2024
Welcome to the Stone Soup Honor Roll! We receive hundreds of submissions every month by kids from around the world. Unfortunately, we can’t publish all the great work we receive. So we created the Stone Soup Honor Roll. We commend all of these talented writers and artists and encourage them to keep creating. – The Editors Scroll down to see all the names (alphabetical by section), including book reviewers and artists. FICTION Asia Kay Chey, 13 Daphne Davidson, 10 Bentley Gleason, 11 Brianna Guo, 11 Sofie Liau, 9 Chelsea Palker, 10 Leah Sohn, 8 Zachary Waggoner, 11 Graham Williams, 11 POETRY Brielle Barlow, 12 Ellen Booth, 12 Charlotte Casey, 11 Peter Grace, 13 Amrutha Kavikondala, 8 Madaline Klassen, 9 Ness Leitman, 12 MEMOIR Mikayla Li, 11 Tyler Tsao, 11 ART Kaylynn Cho, 13 Emma Yang, 10
Highlight from Stonesoup.com
From the Stone Soup Blog The Pipe Tree When Éclair the sparrow is forcefully shoved into a life in a cage, it is like a storm has come and swept away everything he has ever known. After years of living free in the wild, Éclair is now entrapped inside a constricting and inescapable prison. But when his captor, a woman coined as “the handkerchief woman,” starts bribing Éclair with muffins and bombarding him with stories from her daily life, he starts to grudgingly make a hesitant friendship with her. Such begins The Pipe Tree, the moving debut novel by Lily Jessen. It portrays the protagonist coming to terms with an uncertain future and friendship, with the easy choice between freedom and life behind bars suddenly becoming almost impossible as the relationship between the two becomes more and more complex. In short chapters set at Éclair’s present-day Portland, Maine, he narrates the story of how the friendship between him and the handkerchief woman came to be, and what further steps he should take to gain trust—and potentially a route to freedom. Some of the novel, however, addresses the question of freedom itself, and testing whether their friendship is strong enough to hold themselves together. As a wild, pastry-loving sparrow, Éclair easily falls to the temptation of a sweet treat, especially éclairs and blueberry muffins. When he arrives at the apartment, he easily feels out of place, trapped in a mysterious world. Looking for potential ways to escape, he starts closely observing the woman’s routine, and the house around him. When, on the first few days after capture, he immediately notices the lack of extravagance in the apartment, especially when it comes to the dinners, in which the woman eats cereal. But Éclair is particularly moved by the way the woman seemed to be missing something, just like he himself, something expressed in the way she talks and sings. Éclair sees the sadness in her actions. You can read the rest of Jeremy’s piece at: https://stonesoup.com/post/the-pipe-tree-reviewed-by-jeremy-lim-11/. About the Stone Soup Blog We publish original work—writing, art, book reviews, multimedia projects, and more—by young people on the Stone Soup Blog. You can read more posts by young bloggers, and find out more about submitting a blog post, here: https://stonesoup.com/stone-soup-blog/.
