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Mouse

Roey looked sulkily into her bedroom mirror. She turned around, scrutinizing her nose from every angle, but whichever direction she faced her nose, slightly resembling a ski slope, looked the same to her. It wasn’t that Roey actively disliked the way she looked; just her nose. When you got down to it, she was actually quite pretty, and she knew it. Her flowing, fiery red hair could not match her personality better. Next came her favorite feature: her eyes. Dark brown, nearly black, and combined with her hair, they gave her an almost magical look. But, being human, she always saw the worst in herself and could only focus on her nose, her other features becoming unimportant and of no consolation. Roey sighed in frustration, feeling a little guilty. How could she be so shallow? She had much bigger problems to deal with than her looks. She made her way over to her bed. Out from under her white bed with pink trim, which she was about seven years too old for, she pulled a large book. It was thick and heavy, bound with leather. The pages inside were yellow with age, but being no expert, she could put no number on its years. The writing was not from a computer or a typewriter, but written by hand, with ink and quill, she imagined. There was no name, no one to take credit for all the work they had done. Strangest of all, though, Roey thought, was that there was no title. She had checked over and over through the whole book, but no miraculous change occurred. The cover was that of the type of book Roey would have expected to be engraved with gold letters, but that was not the case. The writing was not from a computer or a typewriter, but written by hand, with ink and quill Roey climbed into her bed and pulled the covers up. She opened the book and could hear the stiff binding crackle as a small trickle of dust came down on her. The discovery of the nameless book had been exciting. There was a minimal amount of books in Paristile. People referred to them as books, but in Roey’s mind they barely qualified. Pamphlets, a historic account of the formation of Paristile, a book of laws, dictionaries, and thesauruses—they weren’t books, though, merely resources. Roey’s definition of a book was something that made you think, made you question, made you wonder. None of these could even begin to make your mind work in the way that her new-found treasure did. Although she loved to read, this was a rare opportunity. It was usually herself and her writing she had to rely on for a bit of creativity. Roey had no idea how she could have overlooked the book so many times, but perhaps it had not always been there. Two nights ago, as she had been climbing into bed, she saw its unfamiliar spine mixed in with a pile of a few other so-called books on her bedside table. How it got there was beyond her. For some reason she decided not to tell her family. Mainly this was because she didn’t want to deal with the inevitable questions from her parents that would follow her vague explanation. “How old is it?” and “Where did it come from?” She felt strange answering questions on a topic she hardly knew anything about. But maybe the questions were what she longed for, what she wanted so desperately to hear. Her sister, Mouse, had been born with insatiable curiosity. You could see in her eyes the longing to explore the world around her the day she was born. Her name was actually Marguerite, but Roey had started calling her by the pet name she’d come up with years ago. When Marguerite was little she always wanted to know what was in cupboards or on counters, and so she would poke her head in like a mouse. Now the bedroom in which the seven-year-old should be sleeping was empty. Instead of her cozy bed, Mouse slept deeply in a hospital bed, with no certainty of waking again. Roey couldn’t bare to face her absence, and mentioning the book to her parents and not being immediately flooded by questions from Mouse would be too much. She would have to truly acknowledge the fact that her little sister may never come home. Roey could never forget a particular day, about two years ago. The memory of Mouse brought a smile to her face, in spite of everything. It had been Mouse’s fifth birthday. Roey could see pure delight on Mouse’s face as Mom brought in a beagle puppy She had never expected such an amazing surprise, and Roey, looking at the huge grin on the little girl’s face, was ecstatic seeing her sister so happy. Mouse had always been grateful for what she had, Roey knew. The littlest things, Mouse had always acknowledged, and it didn’t take much to earn her trust, her love, her gratitude. She had always admired how open Mouse was, never judgmental; Roey wished she could accept everyone that way. But Roey realized that all this happy memory meant now was that Mouse may never smile again. Roey had pushed these thoughts out of her head many times already, and once again attempted to shake them from her mind. She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t an issue, everything would be fine; the book was here now, that was the important thing. Roey replaced her dreadful feelings with the words of the book-with-no-name as she began to read. She was able to make out most of the handwritten words without difficulty. As the setting was described, Roey painted a picture of it in her mind. It seemed no different from her own world of Paristile, with nothing particularly distinguishable from any other place. Roey must have dozed off at some point. As she was reading, she was engrossed in the words,

My Story

I was born on October 31, 1972 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I was very young when my country was in trouble in 1975. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge (the Communist leaders) came into town. They sent us and the other people out of town to other places to work on the rice fields. My family had to walk fifteen days to the new place. We took only things with us like clothes and so on. I didn’t carry anything because I was little. I walked like everybody else in the hot sun in April. The new place where I lived was a flooded region. The natives of that place lived by fishing rather than by farming. We started having our rations because in this new regime people had to eat very little and work very hard. Young children stayed home. They didn’t go to work. But the adults had to go to look for some fish. I lived in that place for five months. Then they sent us to another place. We found that we had to work more than we did in the first place. The people there worked on the corn. Our family life was harder than the first place because we ate only corn. Three months later they moved us to another place. We had to travel by ship to another unknown destination. Our family and my three uncles’ families had to wait for about two weeks to travel. On the ship day my family and my uncle’s family were left behind while the two others had to go on. A week later we had to travel for four days. We arrived at a province and we had to stay for a few days before we rode the train to another place. On the day we travelled the train was crowded with people and their belongings. The train went northwest and discharged us to stay overnight at a railroad station. The place was so dark and deserted. We had to eat the rest of our lunch for dinner. The night was so cold and had a lot of mosquitoes. The night was terrible for us. In the morning, they told us to leave the place for a village about three days’ walk away. Everybody had to carry his or her own belongings. For my family we had a big problem. I had two sisters. My big sister was very sick. A cousin of mine helped us by carrying her on his shoulders. The journey seemed very long for us because we had a lot of stops along the way. We reached a deserted village. Other people had to go farther than we did. That night we slept in a roofless house. The next day they gave us a portion of land to build our house on. My father went to gather some lumber from a temple far away from our place. It took him many days to get enough boards for the house. We used thatches for the roof. Half a month later our small house was finished. My granduncle’s house was next to mine. We started working on the farms. We traded some clothes with the natives for some food. Our condition was getting poorer and poorer. The food ration was scarce. The new people had to work on the road and the ditches to get some food. My sister was getting sicker and sicker. We had no way to cure her illness. She died seven months later. My mom was sick too. She was having chills and fever because we had no food. My father went to work and came back late at night. Three months later my mom was better and she could go to work with my dad on the ditches. We all moved to the work place. My sister and I went to work too. At first, we had enough food, but a month later the food was scarcer and scarcer and the work was still hard. The second month, fortunately, my dad heard of a plan to go away with some friends. The departure day was set. We all knew about it. We pretended that we knew nothing. Some neighbors of ours seemed to leave us alone. That night was so dark. At eight P.M. sixteen of us from four families were ready to leave. We sneaked out of the place and walked very fast with fear in our hearts. I walked with my dad’s friend. He held my hand because my parents had to carry their belongings. My sister walked with my mom. The journey seemed safe for us. We always walked at night. At two A.M. a danger came. Four men armed with long knives walked toward us. We lay down flat on the grass. We were so afraid that we would get caught. We watched them coming in our direction. No one spoke because each of us acted like a dead person. We knew we had no way of fighting with them. As they came nearer, luckily they turned away a little bit and walked away from us. We waited until they were gone far away from us. We continued on our escape and at five-thirty we came to a bushy swamp. We walked into it and stayed for the day. We expected to go on our walk when the night came. Some people slept and some others cooked something for breakfast. We had no food. My dad got some fish from the swamp. We made some soup with some leaves we could pick up from the trees around us. At eight A.M. a man came and we were afraid again. He told us to go to a village quite near the swamp. He said that the village was safe for us. We were a little bit happy. We worked with other people on the farm. I lived away from my parents. My sister did too. We children worked by gathering leaves for fertilizer. During the rainy

Lone Wolf

By Julie Frazier, 14, Licking Heights High School, Pataskala, Ohio Illustrated by Ryan Mills, 10, Santa Cruz, California The day was a cold, crisp spring day, a good day for a picnic. And that’s exactly what Mike and Julie planned to do. They had lived in this Canadian wilderness for almost ten years, so they knew the best spots. They lived in a three-room log cabin, fifty miles from the nearest town, Danville. Mike worked for the Canadian Forest Patrol. His job was to keep watch for forest fires and poachers; generally keep the forest in order. Julie packed a light lunch consisting of four beef jerky sandwiches, a quart of berries, and three pieces of pemmican cake. She knew that once they got out in the woods, they wouldn’t want to take time out to eat lunch. She packed this and a blanket into Mike’s backpack. Mike shouldered the pack with a grunt. They were going to picnic in a spot they had nicknamed “the flowerpot.” It was a meadow full of beautiful wildflowers surrounded by big boulders. It was about five miles from their cabin. The hike through the woods was wonderful. They startled a doe as they walked past a small pond. When they reached the meadow, many spring flowers were already in bloom. It was like something from a fairy tale, it was so beautiful. They spread the blanket out and sat down to eat. They drank the crystal clear water from a stream that bordered the meadow. As they lay basking in the sun, Julie thought she heard something or someone crying. It stopped and she dismissed it as a trick of the imagination. Five minutes later it came again. She decided to ask Mike if he heard it. “Mike, do you hear something?” “I was just about to ask you the same thing. Sounds like someone crying, doesn’t it?” replied Mike. “Yeah. Where’s it coming from?” asked Julie. “Sounds like it’s coming from over yonder,” answered Mike, pointing to a mass of boulders. “Well, what are you sitting there for. Go see what it is.” Mike rose with a sigh and ambled toward the sound. As he approached the boulders, the sound grew louder, then stopped. He walked on and soon had to start climbing, for the boulders had turned into a small mountain. Ten minutes later he stumbled upon a gruesome sight. A large, female timber wolf lay mutilated, almost beyond recognition. Strewn about were parts of her two pups. Mike looked at this scene, his eyes wide with horror. He had just enough time to make it to a clump of weeds before he got sick. As his head cleared, he suddenly realized that the cry had started again. He was glad for the distraction and once again started off toward the sound. A little way off he found the source: a rock. He would have sworn up and down that it was that rock. Examining it closer, he saw that there was a small crevice near the base. Looking in, he saw two yellow eyes staring out at him from the darkness. *          *          * It was about an hour past dawn as Lone Wolf sat among his sleeping brother and sister, awaiting the return of his mother. He had awakened to find his mother gone. This was not unusual; she was probably out hunting. Lone Wolf was the first born of the three little wolves. He was also the biggest and felt like the guardian of the other two when his mother was not there. He took after his father, being strong-boned and muscular. His coat was a fuzzy color but would someday be a coat of pure silver. His mother came trotting down the path, discernible only to the animal eye. She had a rabbit clutched in her jaws. The pups, now all awake, looked on in hungry anticipation as she made her way toward them. She dropped it in the midst of her brood and walked away. Lone Wolf watched as the other two shouldered each other as they ate; both wanted the best. He knew he could have easily taken the whole rabbit, but something was bothering him. His mother’s behavior was quite unusual. Something must be wrong. He was right. The she-wolf was anxiously sniffing the air. She started to whine and pace nervously. She gathered her pups together with a warning bark and placed herself to the west of them. Lone Wolf sniffed at the air. Unlike his mother, he didn’t yet have a catalog of what scents belonged to whom. But he did catch an unfamiliar scent, one that he would not forget for the rest of his life. This scent was very strong, so the source was close by. He figured it was some kind of danger, but what? He couldn’t even guess. He looked at his mother, who was now crouched ready to spring. The she-wolf knew exactly who this scent belonged to: the deadly mountain lion. She was prepared to fight, perhaps to the death, to protect her family. The lion sprang, as though from a cannon, onto her back. She easily shook him off. After that the fight was pretty much one-sided. The she-wolf was no match for a hungry mountain lion. She put up a valiant struggle, one of a desperate mother, but to no avail. As the other two pups sat frozen in terror, Lone Wolf ran. He ran like he had never run before, ran away from the horror he could not understand. He pulled up short, out of breath, and spotted a crevice in which he could hide. He crawled in, the snarls and screams of the fight still audible. A final, piercing scream shattered the air as the mountain lion ended the fight. He went after the two remaining pups which had attracted him in the first place. They were easy prey, and both were gone before they could make a sound. After eating