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Diary Of A Locked Kid

By Alice Pak, 10

It all started on Thursday, March 12th.
At my Jungle Book Musical practice, my teacher, Mrs. Frost, had some news to share. She looked around, a very sorrowful expression on her face, and then murmured something to another teacher. The other teacher’s face also fell into a frown, but she called us to gather around. As we gathered around Mrs. Frost, she took a deep breath and said, “Students, I know this is going to shock you, and you are probably going to be VERY sad, but I have to tell this to you now. We are going to have a school lockdown for three weeks, and it starts tomorrow.” There was a stunned silence. Then one of the students nervously raised her hand, and asked what a lockdown was. It was obvious that Mrs. Frost was not very comfortable with the topic, but she explained that a lockdown was when a social place was closed, for example, our school, and nobody attended it for a few weeks. In our case, three weeks. She also said that we would have online learning, on our chromebooks. Now, everyone was thinking about another thing; they would not be able to see their friends! Some people burst into tears. Some had sad expressions engraved on their faces. Others still looked confused and puzzled. But nobody was happy, even though that meant missing school.

Thursday, March 12th, evening
When I came home from school that day, I burst into tears. I didn’t want school to end, even if it was temporary! It was so fun at school! All the crafts, books, projects, and other fun activities would have to end. All because that cruel little virus! All because of him, school had to end! I was very upset, so it took my parents a couple of minutes to calm me down. I was very unhappy about the school lockdown, and even if it was not forever. Tonight I went to bed, thinking about what I should tell our friends, because they didn’t know yet.

Friday, March 13th
Today at school we had our Jungle Book Musical. It turned out to be quite magnificent; the audience was constantly laughing and commenting. The cast was also amused sometimes, and they chuckled lightly. The staff loved it also. I was having so much fun, I even forgot about the lockdown… for a while. But when we were back in our classes, and my math teacher handed me a pack of homework, I remembered about it, and went back to my gloomy self. When school ended, and I was saying bye to my friends, I realized how much the coronavirus has changed in this world… even if it wasn’t a good thing.

Saturday, March 14th
I woke up, and remembered what day it was. The first day of Break! That thought stirred some sadness and excitement in me. My mom went around the corner, and smiling at me she said, “ here you are! Happy first day of Break! I have something for you.” She handed me a suitcase-like box. I opened it and saw that it contained a machine that seemed to be able to do something. After a minute of further inspection, I found out that it was called a KumiKreator, and that it braided bracelets. Now that was something! I quickly mastered the KumiKreator, and started making bracelets. The machine would quickly make the threads trade places in a specific order; then, when the bracelet was done, the machine clicked three red lines together, and you had to take off the finished bracelet and put on the clips and… Magnifique! I made four, and they came out fantastically! My break seemed not to be that bad, so far.

Sunday, March 15th
Today, I was ready to have a fresh start on my day. Now, my sadness was slowly melting into eagerness and possibilities. I ate up my breakfast and then we decided to go to a Turkish Marketplace called U.S International Foods, which also contained Russian food, which we loved. We bought a lot of Russian and Turkish food like sausages called “Kolbasa”, different fish, Russian saltless pretzels called “Bubliki”, Turkish bread called “Lavash”, candy, chocolates, and mouth-watering Russian ice cream. As soon as we were out of the shop, we each took an ice cream and ate it all up. Then when we arrived home, we took on the hard job of loading up our refrigerator. Then we ate our soup, and went to Gerspacher Park. We played there for a while, and then went back to our house, and went to sleep. What a great day it was!

Monday, March 16th
Today I felt a bit unsure about staying at home. Even though I knew that we were having a lockdown, I was so used to going to school. Instead, I decided to play the piano. I sat down at our beautiful black “ Pearl River” and started to play all I knew. First I played my small jazz program, then I played “Lady green Sleeves”, followed by Ronda, Minuet, and my Sonatina. I managed to play all 5 pages of the Sonatina! It was very pleasant. My mom is my music teacher: she taught me all of that. My dad played the piano too, so after I finished playing, he sat down and played his music; two of his Waltzes, Nocturne in E flat, another Nocturne by Chopin, Mazurka in A minor, and a French Tango to rival me. Of course, neither was better than the other, so we gave up on our music competition. But my mom enjoyed telling us, especially my dad, that we were playing the wrong note.

Tuesday, March 17th
Today I already got used to the fact that I was not going to school for a few weeks. Instead, I busied myself with the opportunity to make so many arts and crafts during this “off school time”. For example, I loved to feed the ducks and geese that lived in a pond nearby, but I often didn’t have time to do it. Today, though, was a wonderful day to do that. I told my mom, and we set off with my brother also. In a few minutes, we were standing at the edge of the pond, and a small group of ducks and geese were timidly working their way towards us. We started throwing them small pieces of bread. They squawked every time they didn’t get some, so we threw them more and more. At one point, two male ducks started fighting for a piece of bread, and it was very amusing. When we came home, that was the only thing we could think about.

Wednesday, March 18th
Today, we decided to go and feed the geese and ducks again. When we came, a small number of ducks were already assembled at the corner that we fed them by the most. We each took some bread, and a slightly larger number of ducks than yesterday came to eat up our treats. I, then, saw that a few ducks were gathered in another corner. Poor ducks! They probably forgot about us, or maybe were too afraid to go near us. I decided to go feed them too. As I got closer to the farther bank, I saw something brown and furry scurrying around a tree that was growing in the water. Could that be a duck? I thought. No, it couldn’t be a duck, because ducks didn’t have flat black tails and big front teeth. After a minute it came to me; it was a beaver! I ran back to my mom to tell her. But by the time we got back to where the beaver was seconds before, the clever creature had already dived down into the water. What luck it was to see one!

Thursday, March 19th
Today, we went to the Wright State University Park. That is a very big forest near the University of Ohio. When we came, it was starting to look like it was about to rain… But it didn’t matter to us! We walked a few minutes, and then we found an old tree trunk, and we sat on it, while my brother rested. Then, as a surprise, my dad took out a pack of doughnuts! Enough for the four of us! We each got one: mine was plump with plenty of sugar powder on top. When we ate them all up, we went to visit our settlements; we made a series of Teepees in the park, and we loved to visit them and make new ones. Today, we found that all of them were okay, and we built some more. After that, I found a banyan and I had lots of fun swinging on it like a swing. On our way back I saw a deer; she was beautiful with a soft coffee brown pelt, snow white spots, and clear amber eyes. I loved to visit that forest!

Friday, March 20th
On Fridays, we usually went to other forests; today, we went to Arrowwood. When we were walking on the forest trail, I suddenly noticed something small and fluffy: a woolly worm! It was fuzzy and fat, with orange and black stripes, like a tiger. It was trying to scurry away from us: moving its small fat legs. I decided then, to go on. Next, my dad called me to see something: its scaly, long body was moving slowly and silently through the leaves. A snake! I watched it as it hid in a rotten log. After those two creatures, I found a baby woolly worm hiding in a tree trunk, where no predator could get it. It was small and cute: all of them were cute! I told my dad, but he wasn’t pleased: he’s afraid of caterpillars. Still, nothing could ruin such a great day to welcome Spring!

Saturday, March 21st
Today we all were waiting for something special; Skype with our grandparents! My Grandma was a math teacher, and my Grandpa usually sat at home. When they saw us, like usual my Grandma started saying how much she got for us: toys, clothes, and even where she saw good food for us! Then, she started reading my brother a book, like she also always did. He liked it really much. After a while, she talked to me too; we also practiced math, since she’s a math teacher. I loved doing Skype with my grandparents!

Sunday, March 22nd
When we woke up, me and Nicholas, my brother, immediately wanted to do something fun. So we dressed up to go outside, and waited while my mom and my dad hid some eggs for… an Egg Hunt! Meanwhile, I read a book about Easter to my brother. He loved it! When I finished, my parents were done with hiding the eggs. We ran outside, and started looking. I found the first one, in the bushes. Then, my brother found another one on the bushes, followed by me finding another one hidden behind a tree. We spit up, and I found two more in the flowers. We found six already! But that was not all: when my brother sat down to open his eggs, I found out that there was a seventh egg. With the help of my dad, I located it next to a tree stump. Hooray! We have found seven eggs. After we opened them all, I took out some chalk, and we drew an Easter picture: Easter eggs, bunnies, flowers, butterflies, and a big “Happy Easter!” sign. It was really fun! So, this was my diary during the time I felt upset about the school lockdown. The break came out not as bad as I expected, and do you know the secret to it? Well, if you didn’t figure it out yet, here it is. I did a lot of things to raise my spirits, and all of it came out really fun.

And now, I happily say, bye!


 

 

Alice Pak, 10
Beavercreek, OH

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