By Huong Nguyen, 11, Hosford Middle School, Portland, Oregon
Reprinted with permission from Light of the Island, © 1982
I live in Vietnam. I go to school in Vietnam. I have three pigs and one dog, but the dog is dead. My mother she was sad. My mother my father my sister is go to work. Me and my younger sister we stay home. Everybody is go to work. We has a restaurant in Vietnam. So my family they work there.
In Vietnam is very awful so we leave.
Fear and disbelief drip down the back of my neck. I am leaning against the wall, feeling cold, hard, merciless brick beneath my palm, hearing things—simple, life-giving things, such as breath and whispers and rustles of skirts—so loudly that I'm afraid my very listening will give me away. On my side, my Jewish charge, and I want to tell her to kneel, to get shorter, to do something other than stand there and look at me with those pleading eyes.
It was a freezing cold winter day in China. My family and I were visiting my beloved paternal grandmother who lives in ZhengZhou, a city in China. And this time we were celebrating the Chinese New Year with her.
It was said that eating oranges during the special occasion is meant for good luck. Being superstitious, my father and I went to the market to buy a few before the big day. The market in China is different. It's usually a street with small booths.
One thing was for certain, she never wanted to go. She never wanted to go to Santa Chiara.
Francesca stared out the huge windows of the dining hall; the rain beat harder and harder against the window, making it almost impossible to hear the nun as she said grace. The ancient Madonna in the painting over the fireplace looked as tranquil as ever.
As the girls started their dinner so did their chatter, almost drowning out the sound of the storm.
By Viet Doan Nguyen, 11, East Point, Georgia
I have been through an experience that I will never forget. When I was about six years old, my family and I escaped looking for freedom in America, because the Viet Cong took over my country. The country is Viet Nam.
The first time we escaped we didn't make it.
It was a beautiful spring morning. My irises and daisies were beginning to bloom. The crepe myrtles had put on their finest display, and pink flowers littered my driveway. It was a perfect day in North Carolina. I stepped out of the house and got into my old truck. Slowly, I drove the few miles to the Carl Sandburg home. On the way up the hill, I met one of my fellow workers, Amy. We chatted together about everything, from baby goats to gardens.
Justine started up the steep, blue-painted platform stairs. Her bare feet plodded through cold, chlorine-laced puddles that gathered on the narrow steps. Every time her foot landed in one of them, water rippled away from her feet, and droplets cascaded down the side of the stair, glistening as they fell to the deck below.
She clutched the metal handrail tightly and stepped onto the 5-meter platform.
“Swim, Amelia, swim faster," Star screamed.
My hands and feet moved faster and faster towards the ship but the pressure of water was pulling me deeper into the sea. I looked at the ship as it moved farther.
"Stop the ship, Jack, please," I heard Star's voice.
"I can't, the waves are moving it," Jack yelled.
"You can do this, Amelia; just a little faster." I knew that it was my mother's voice. I felt a hand grabbing on my ankle. I swam faster but the hand holding onto my ankle was very strong.
As the night breaks into dawn and the sky comes alive, the morning fog rolls through, dampening my uniform and freezing my skin. It billows and curls around the gnarled maple trees and obscures the leaf-strewn ground from my eyes. My dark, sad eyes. Eyes that have been tainted by war. This place would have been beautiful, had it not been for the hellish act that was to be committed here not long from now. May God forgive me.
Chapter 1
I lay on my bed, wracked with worry. Horrible thoughts floated on my conscience. I buried my face in my pillow, my long hair spread over the silk. I tried pushing the thoughts away, with no luck. It was hard concentrating on anything these days. I had pushed my friends away, and spent less and less time with my mother. I knew she was worried too, but I had to admit I was angry. I play the scene over and over again in my head: why did it have to be my family to suffer?
