FreshTalkingKids

DEHYDRATION

Not-So-Perfect Paradise

“We’re going to the Caribbean!” announced Dad. Everyone cheered. We had all been longing to go there and now the fantasy had come true. I could already imagine the crystal clear blue water, white sand, and waving palm trees. Paradise. Right after dinner I ran upstairs to pack my bag even though the trip was in three weeks.

The night before we left, I was too excited to sleep. Finally the day came. It was so awesome to be on the plane for the first time. When I looked out of the window, everything was so miniature. I chewed gum and read magazines and before I knew it I was there. It was paradise. We checked into a monstrous white hotel right on the beach with a balcony to look out from. Of course, the first thing we did was go to the beach. I laid on a striped towel in the sun for awhile, but I felt an urge to go in the water. I got up and saw that everyone was surfing on the huge waves. I grabbed my boogie board and ran to the ocean.

I jumped right in. I was hot from lying in the boiling sun. I tried to catch some waves, but it was a failure. I kept swallowing foamy water and kept ending up with my face in the rough sand. I decided to do something more relaxing. I ran onto the shore and grabbed a float and the book that my friend had recommended. I had to be extra careful with this book in the water, but I had flotation, right? I found one unusually calm place in the water where there was no one.

Wow, this book was good. It was about a girl who was stranded in the ocean with nothing but an old boogie board to hold on to. I was so engrossed in it that I couldn’t even hear the waves anymore. I read and read and read and before I knew it I had finished the book. Then for the first time in an hour I looked up.

The first thing I noticed was that I was moving, fast. Out to sea! The beach was getting smaller and smaller. There was no one around. I looked down. The water was not the aqua it used to be. It was a deep, dark blue. Oh…no. I was in a rip current. I started to think of things I could do;
1. I keep floating.
2. I try to get out of the current, but then I would have to leave my float. And my book.

My book! I was so startled I had dropped it in the water. It had all the information I needed. There it was, bobbing in front of me. If only I could reach it…

I tried to shift my position on the raft which was not a good idea. The raft started squeaking and rocking to and fro. I was going to fall in.

Surprisingly enough, I righted myself. But that book was still far away. I realized the current was getting calmer. I know, I know, I was taking a chance, but I jumped out.

With a little kicking I could get to the book. The pages were soggy but readable. I remembered some of it. But not all. I would have to test my reading comprehension.

Okay, now what did that girl in the book do first? I checked. The book said she found a beautiful, magical, coral reef and caught a fish. Obviously the author wasn’t being very realistic. I hate fantasy. (Well at least now I do.)

So I swam around and looked for a reef. Luckily, I was in an area likely to have them. Finally after ½ an hour of searching, I found a not-so-magical coral reef. Ahh, I could finally stand on solid ground. Ouch! Ow, ow, ow! My foot hurt like crazy! I looked down. Apparently I had stepped on a sea anemone. Great. Now the lethal poisons were going to kill me. No time to freak out, Sarah, just think.

As I tried to think of what to do it grew dark. I was so… hungry. I just wanted someone to come and get me in time for a wonderful dinner at the hotel. That got me thinking; hey, why isn’t anyone saving me? There should be helicopters by now. Aren’t my parents worried sick?

I decided to sleep without the float so I wouldn’t float away. My eyes closed and I was lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean.

When I woke up I knew I had to take action. I stood up, being careful not to step on the sea anemone. I could see the shore, but it was far away. I saw the hotel; it looked so welcoming. I tried to untie the raft from the coral reef from the knot I had hastily made the night before.

Maybe I could swim to shore, but it was farther than I had ever swum before. I started off. Boy, I was weak. I hadn’t eaten since the plane. My stomach was rumbling loudly. I was trying as hard as I could but I was going at an unbelievably slow pace.

When I was about to give up, I heard a familiar rumbling. Gasoline has never smelled so good.

“Help! Help! “I called. A grumpy face looked down at me. “Get on the boat, kid. ” said the man. I was offended for being called a kid. I was almost 12 ½! He must have been a fisherman. His boat stank of fish and there were traps and nets and fish on the deck. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I, I …“ I told him my story. All that he said was, “Darn tourist. ” and cast out a line. “Aren’t you going to take me back to shore?” I asked. “No, I am staying on this boat for another 3 hours. Maybe even longer. You scared all the fish away.”

I ended up sleeping on the boat for 3 hours until the fisherman started toward shore. Finally I was going to civilization.

My family was waiting for me when I got off the boat. “Oh, honey! “Mom gushed. “We’re so glad you’re safe!” dad cried. “I didn’t think you’d survive.” said my sister. “Why didn’t you look for me? “ I asked. The whole beach was staring at us. It was so… embarrassing even though I was very happy to be back.

As we started walking toward the hotel I told my family about my adventures and they told me about the laws here that said they couldn’t look for me for 24 hours and how they were so… worried. Finally I was starting my vacation.

I think what happened made me a better person. Now I know that not everything comes out perfect. I will be more prepared and be careful where I am swimming now. Now that I look back on it, I am a little glad it happened.

Rainbow Haiku

Red orange yellow

Green blue indigo violet

A leprechauns gold!

Everybody Else

Have you ever thought of becoming something that was impossible at your time? Maybe a mythological creature or even an animal. My story was different. It wasn’t becoming something impossible, it was becoming like everybody else.

My name is Aimee. I had always been the one that was weird and out there. My parents encouraged me to be normal, or at least what they thought was normal. I had always said no for how I loved to be me. I loved the way my hair came popping out of my head in a tangled fashion. I loved the weird clothes I would wear to school. Even though how much I loved everything I did or wore, I never did have any friends. Always for my birthday only my relatives came and they didn’t even really like me so much. I never would of thought that one day I would become normal. But that one day it happened.

On my first day of middle school I walked into my homeroom and sat down at the very front of the room. I could hear laughter behind my back, but I was used to it so I just pretended that it didn’t exist. As I saw everyone in my homeroom, I noticed that all the girls wore outfits that some what had a similarity and all the boys were the same too. The rest of the day I noticed the same things around the school. When I got home my mom was waiting for me with a serious look on her face. She took me by the hand and brought me straight out the door and drove me to the mall. I had already done my school shopping, so I didn’t know what was going on. My mom said, ” I am tired of you being alone and people laughing at you. I am too tired of seeing people laugh at you and me. I am making you like everybody else. I first had too let that thought sink in. I didn’t mind, but I couldn’t see what was wrong with me. I had my mom drag me to different stores, but my mind wasn’t on the clothing and the hair styles. It was that my way of everything seemed to be somewhat wrong.By the time we were out I had bought a whole new wardrobe.

The next day I had wore my new clothes. No one seemed to stare at me any more or look at me as if I was an alien. I had enjoyed this, but I was missing how more important I was back then and how now everything is so boring. But as time went on I made more and more friends each day. but I was tired of being normal, so one day I dug through my closte to find my old clothes. I wore them to school the next day and all of my friends loved it. I figured no one wanted to be friends with me because they didn’t want to be laughed at. But I had become the trend setter with my odd fashions. from that day I was not like everybody else. I was me.

Creation myth

I was small. Short, skinny. The smallest child in the village in fact. Being only five years of age, I was perfectly obedient and had no mind except to obey the laboring demands of my parents and older siblings. I was diligent and hard working and was tricked into doing most of my older siblings work (although I did not know it at the time.) I remember my younger, four-year old sister Esuma. She was stiller taller than me though. She was the only one who did not inflict more work on me and she was also more than willing to take on some of my work, but I did not let her do this because I loved her to much. Since I was so young and obedient, I was trustworthy and many people in the village depended on me to be a messenger-girl and carry many private letters to other inhabitants of the large village, although sometimes I was needed, to carry letters outside my village of Sadran. I gave this no thought when I was little, but as I grew older; all this hard labor angered me. I became a mischievous and troublesome girl. When I was handed a letter, as soon as I was out of sight, I would read it and make small changes so that the letters would say strange things that made absolutely no sense. This was great fun to me; to change the usual and boring letters into strange ones. However, one day, when I opened the letter, it was much more than usual. The contents of the letter read as follows:

Dear Ma’at,

As you, the god of justice surely know, there is a great famine in the land of Uslamoon. Although we would have died, a young lad named Esmukar came and when he saw our lack of food, he quickly brought bread, meat, and vegetables. He brought sweet corn, fresh fruit, dreamy white milk, dry wheat and white rice. He even went so far as to bring tiny grains of salt for us. We are now back on our feet and producing more crops than ever. This young boy Esmukar saved hundreds of lives. As you are the god of justice, I beg you to please repay him and give him what you think he deserves. This was a great kindness to us. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and please seriously consider my request.

Sincerely,

Lurak

This letter was marked for the temple in our village. A brilliant idea came to me, and as I made sure no one could see me, I scribbled out the name Esmukar and wrote my name, Shaira, in its place. Then I headed faster than ever to the temple where I deposited the letter into a random priest’s confused hands. Never would I have guessed what happened next.

I soon forgot completely about the letter and went back to my normal life – for a while. After almost a week of mischievous shenanigans, I was going to bed later than usual because of the message I had to carry all the way to the far away land of Childlaborr. I was completely and totally exhausted so as soon as my head hit the pillow, I fell fast asleep.

I awoke to the sound of yelling at me to get up, the slamming of a door and feet stomp, stomp, stomping up the stairs. As the door to my room flew open, I threw the covers over my head. “Get downstairs now! I have been calling you for the last five minutes to come downstairs and chop the firewood. Now stop being lazy and get down here, NOW!”

The door to my room slammed again, and I groggily tripped over my thin sheet and fell out of my bed. I felt unusually clumsy as I tumbled down the steps. “Who in the afterlife are you?” screeched my mother.

“I’m your daughter. Now where is the firewood?” I grumbled, only half awake.

“No you’re not!” she screamed.

She ran around the kitchen for a minute, and then held up a mirror. “See! See!” she yelled.

“Oh my” I whispered.

Then I grabbed the mirror and ran out the door. I stared at myself in the mirror as I ran to the temple. The priests standing guard outside the double doors didn’t even try to stop me and instead just gaped in amazement, I ran to the statue of Ma’at and screamed as loud as I could “What did you do to me? What am I? What has happened?”

“You are a god now, the god of messages because that is what you do; this is the thanks to the village you helped.” A strange voice rang throughout the temple. “I’m- I’m a god?” I straightened up “I’m a god”, I said loudly. “You should be grateful!” Ma’at boomed sounding angry.

And that is when I fainted.

I awoke to all of the priests in Egypt maybe 400 in all pampering me to my every will. They were combing my wings, polishing my shoes and had changed my old ratty dress for a pure white one. It flowed slowly down to my ankles and the sleeves were tight down to my wrist where they exploded into the lightest, but still shiny gold, and hung loosely, but not limply, a good three inches down. The neckline started out huge enough that you could see my collar bones (if not for the next layer) and ran all the way down my dress until it was a neat thin cut, but the second off-white layer ran up behind the cut and peeked out over the neck line where the edge was bordered with brilliant golden stars. It was by far the most beautiful dress I had ever seen.

As I opened my eyes I heard shrieks of glee. The priests were all talking- or should I say yelling at me all at once. All of a sudden, one of the priests walked up to me through the mess of people. His face was excited and his voice was loud and echoed through the temple as he yelled “Calm down, fellow worshippers!” when the room got quiet, he turned to me. He bowed low and stayed like that until the rest of the priests followed his lead and bent into low stances. This felt amazing, to have to the world bend to your every whim, the world felt like soft clay in your hand. I felt like I had to say something and so;

“Hello.” At first I was confused, who was talking, was this really me? Could this perfect piano like voice really be mine? Could I really have changed that much? Gasps flew up from the crowd, were they as surprised as I was? I continued ”I am Shaira, goddess of message. My name means poet, as I write beautiful messages and carry them all over this universe. Now, who are you?” They all started yelling at the same time and I ever so slightly turned my eyebrows and the corners of my mouth down and the crowd stopped making noise so fast that I couldn’t have known they were talking before. My eyes fell on the head priest and he trembled with nervousness “So, who are you?” This time, only he answered, “We are the priests, and we ask you to please stay with us. He pleaded.” My response was quick, as if I had been thinking about it for a while. “I can’t,” I responded tersely. “To deliver messages, I must travel far and wide. I cannot stay. Goodbye!” My beautiful wings lifted me higher and higher and soared above the crowd. Someone threw a letter at me and I swooped down to catch it my talons. Then I flew out the open doors and took off to deliver a message.