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 H
aiku
Red orange yellow
Green blue indigo violet
A leprechauns gold!
This poem is dedicated to Hannah, Princess Bobo’s friend who moved away to Germany.
I was just rereading one of my favorite books of all time… The Giver by Lois Lowry. I have read it so many times that I’ve lost count. But I can still remember the first time I ever read it.
I was in fourth grade when I first read The Giver. My teacher had recommended it to me, so I thought I’d try it out. In the beginning I thought it would be the kind of book I was used to: a light story with a bit of emotion. Far from it! I found The Giver to be a beautiful story with characters who were honest and believable.
I started out reading it at school, but I had to bring it home to finish it. I can still remember when I finished it. I was sitting on the couch with my mom baking muffins. She brought a warm muffin over to give me, and found that I was crying. I had never done that with a book before! But the ending of The Giver was so beautiful, I was just overcome with emotions. My mom looked at me, and asked, “Is everything okay, sweetie?” I had to shake my head and explain that nothing was wrong, I had just finished a really good book.
Then my mom decided that she wanted to read the book too. She loved it, and was thrilled that I liked it so much. We researched the author, and I found her two other books in the trilogy of The Giver… Gathering Blue, and Messenger. (And yes, I cried at the end of Messenger too… who wouldn’t?)
The Giver was the first book that really touched me. Sure, I had read good books before, but The Giver was the first time I was really touched by it, and crying with the characters.
The Giver is a science-fiction book, and deals with the “what if?” question. Lois Lowry decided to explore the question… “what if there was a way to lose sad memories? What if we didn’t have to remember all the horrible things that have happened, and we could just move on like it had never existed?” This is a very emotional book, coming to the conclusion, “We need sad memories so we can appreciate good things. Without our sadness, we cannot truly have happiness.”
The author writes in a very interesting way, which was why I loved the book so much. Even though the book was meant for children, it includes some very mature emotions. Lois Lowry didn’t worry that the book would be too upsetting to young children. She just wrote. Most parents, on the other hand, are very protective of their kids. My mom would probably rather have me watch iCarly on TV than read about people fighting in Afghanistan, but I feel like I have a right to know about the real world. My life is very good, but how will I appreciate that if I’m not aware of the pain others are feeling? Children should not be protected from the world outside, but should be able to reach out and touch it if they’d like to.
Of course, I’m not saying that protecting children from the news is wrong. There are a lot of awful things that happen, that kids don’t need to know about. But if it will in any way concern the child, tell them! Authors also make that mistake, putting horror stories in books. For instance, in a book I just read called Unwind, there was some of that. It was a great book, but the author made it overly graphic and shocking in some parts. The best book is where the author slips in sadness as a part of the plot, and doesn’t try to make it really horrible.
That’s why The Giver was so powerful for me. It was my first experience with real sadness in books, and it really made a big impact on me. That was when I discovered how much emotion was woven into writing, and how that emotion was very powerful. When used not to tell a horror story, but simply as part of a touching book, it can make a child look at the world in a whole new way.
And someday, that’s what I’d like to do with my writing.
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.
