Stranger
What if it wasn’t like this? I thought for the trillionth time in my life. No, probably more than a trillion. Maybe the google-plexth time? Windsnap was such a bad school I didn’t even know...
Stories
Original fiction by young writers ages 8-13
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What if it wasn’t like this? I thought for the trillionth time in my life. No, probably more than a trillion. Maybe the google-plexth time? Windsnap was such a bad school I didn’t even know what came after trillion. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t google-plex though.
Every time I would go to the opera with my parents I would hum along to the songs, quietly, barely audible in the din of shuffles, shifting, coughing, and the occasional round of applause. Even when my lovely serenade finished I would continue along with the song. Both my parents would look down from either side of me and smile gently.
Jessica Terry sat in the front seat of the truck, her window half rolled down, willing cool air to come in and blow the sweat off her face and hands. Her thick, dark hair blew, untamed, around her pretty face and large, dark eyes. “How much longer, Dad?” Jessie asked, and felt a sudden flutter in her stomach.
This was what she had been working towards for the past many months.
We’re eating Chinese tonight. Dark plastic bowls filled with rice and vegetables, egg rolls in little cardboard boxes, even the fortune cookies with the lottery numbers on the back of the paper. This is a real treat. Mom doesn’t care for Chinese food, but it’s Dad’s favorite, so tonight she’s putting up with it. In case you hadn’t guessed, I kind of like it, too.
Rain, to Gracie, had always seemed like the tears of hope. Instead of closing all the windows and playing board games, she walks half a mile to the nearest park. Running away from home was simple now. She had gotten used to it. Most of it was to the park, and most of it was in the rain. The two things just clicked.
When Gracie arrived at the park, it was almost always empty.
Every day was a holiday, or so it seemed. You didn’t need decorated trees, fireworks, cakes and candles, or paper hats to celebrate special days, Marty thought. Marty loved her lazy Sunday mornings perched on a high stool in her galley kitchen, eating stacks of buckwheat pancakes dripping in amber syrup, lovingly cooked just the way she liked ’em, crispy brown on the outside and fluffy golden ...
For a few days in mid-September, the temperature seems perfect. It’s not boiling hot, but it hasn’t reached what you would call freezing cold yet. It’s a little chilly, but that makes you feel fresh and wide awake, and the wind isn’t horribly wild and hasn’t started biting at your face.
It was one of those days, and so my dad and I drove down to the local woods to go for a walk.
“We should have known better,” Garu grated angrily. The sparrow perched high in the apple tree, watching helplessly as the gray cat below devoured her kill. “Let’s leave. This is no place for the clan.” His fierce gaze flicked over his now small group: his trusted friend Baklan, Baklan’s mate Teekeh, their grown daughter Kila, and his own son, Liru.
Pain can be felt in all kinds of ways. If you fall off a bike and scrape your knee you could feel pain, put on a bandage and, with time, forget about it. But there is another pain that can only be cured by accepting it because it never goes away. This is the pain I want to talk about.
Jackie Linnely took a big jump into the crunchy pile of leaves in the school yard. Ms. Lunder suddenly blew her whistle as the bell rang, BRRRINNNGG! “Alice,” Jackie called out to her friend, “see you after school!” As Jackie lined up to go inside, she saw Ms. Lunder pull on a sweater. That made her feel chilly, too. Jackie was so happy autumn was here!