By: Nyla, Grade 1

CC and the Really Big House

CC is at a house. It is her aunt’s place. The house is purple and green and really big … it’s a mansion! It has a home movie theater, a swimming pool, and a gymnastics facility. The house has two dogs, two cats, and two little fish. It has three bedrooms.

CC wants some money because she ran out of money to pay for the house. CC started working at a Jamaican restaurant. The restaurant’s name is 3 Little Birds, from the Bob Marley song. They serve chicken, brown rice, yams, white rice, broccoli and carrots, and to drink, lemonade, strawberry lemonade, Sprite, ginger ale, and water.

She doesn’t have a husband. It’s a problem because she wants to have kids. Her future husband comes into the restaurant. His name is Jack. He has a blue hat, red shirt, green shorts and purple shoes. He is nice to her. He brings her flowers. He brought her roses. She feels great because she likes roses.

On the first day they met, he brought her flowers and ordered his meal. They went to Chick-fil-A. They liked each other because she likes cats and he has a cat.

After ten days they get married. Later they had 500 kids. The first three kids were named Ruby, Tandrew and Games, because Jack really likes games.


Nyla’s story is published in As the Words Rose, available here.

Grade 10

Untitled First Draft

Melissa sighted at her newfound situation, sitting under the table with the intention to overhear what Julian, her brother, said about her to his friends when she wasn’t there.

She, for one, already knew Julian talked about her to his friends, they’d giggle when she passed by them in the school halls, so it wasn’t that hard to notice.

Although she wasn’t sure of what she was even trying to accomplish by snooping into their conversations, she was already waiting for them to come into the living room, so what else was there to do?

As soon as she heard close steps, she moved to the middle of the table in case they sat down too, which turned out to be a good idea, since Julian and his friends all immediately sat down.

“So, about the Melissa thing,” Xavier, Julian’s middle school friend muttered.

Melissa could hear Julian groan in what she thought was irritation before he spoke, “Enough about that! It’s stressing me out, man.”

Stressing him out? Why would it? Melissa was the stressed one if anything. What were they talking about?

Luo Yi, Julian’s friend, hummed before adding to the conversation a comment that made it all bittersweet. “I think she’ll like the cake decorations, why stress? Don’t be silly.”

Huh?

Melissa popped her head out from under the table to find the three friends staring at her and giggling. When she looked in front of her, there was a cake propped up by a small table.

“Happy birthday, Melissa,” Julian said with a laugh.

Luo Yi was right, she loved the cake decorations.


This was a writing exercise from a Young Authors’ Book Project session at Phelps ACE High School. Here’s the prompt that the student used:

Write a story about what is happening in the picture below. Be sure to describe the setting, character(s), the main action of the story, and how it is resolved.

Person under a table
By: Jaylen, Grade 6

Untitled

This is Utopia, the city of peace. Utopia has everything you would ever want in a “perfect world” There is no trash, everyone is peaceful, there’s no violence, the list goes on and on.

Continue reading “Untitled”
By: Tao, age 11

The Myth of How We Have Emotions

Angry ice blob and happy fire blob

Once upon a time when the earth was still, ice tigers roamed the earth. At the time, earth was just a cold giant rock. The ice tigers showed no emotion on their faces. Suddenly, ice catfish came around the corner to where the ice tigers were gathered. Ice catfish was a good friend of theirs. “The fire animals are here!” he yelled. Ice catfish scrambled away before he could get burned. The ice tigers stood up in awareness, and next thing they knew, the fire animals appeared. Because fire can beat ice, the fire animals burnt faces of emotion. The fire people and animals only wanted to see happy, sad, angry, and more emotions on the ice tigers’ faces. Since the earth became hotter, the ice tigers evolved into other animals that were not ice. That is how we have emotions.


Published in The 826DC After-School Writing Lab Reader (Volume 1). Illustration by Tianqiao Xing.

By: Sebastian, Grade 3

Pine and Willow with the Bullies

In the beginning, there was a little tree called Willow. He lived in a park near a little pond with other trees. One day, the trees started picking on him because he was different.

One of the trees said, “Why are you sad?”

Willow said, “Because you are teasing me.”

There was another tree named Pine. Pine looked like a Christmas tree. The other trees also teased Pine because he was the only pine tree.

The other trees said, “Hey Pine! Why do you look like a Christmas tree?”

Pine said, “That’s because I am a Christmas tree.”

The other trees said, “Of course you are! That’s why you are different, and we’re smarter than you.”

So when Pine grew up, he saw Willow getting bullied.

Then Pine said, “STOP!”

The other tree said, “What are you going to do?”

So Willow said, “You heard him, stop!”

And so Pine and Willow became friends, because Willow saved Pine from being teased and Pine saved Willow from being teased. The End.

Illustration of Pine and Willow by Leslie Osmont


Originally published in This Time They Hear You. Illustration by Leslie Osmont.

By: Adan

The Overthrow

Prologue
Rise and shine! Time to overthrow the president! Time to get ready first.
Three hours later: Done! Finally. I should leave now. Well, goodbye house. Maybe I’ll see you again one day.
Hmmm, I think I should follow the highway map, but wait– NO! Dangit, the map says I have to go through the jungle to get to the president, so I guess I have to.
Ugh, here I go. It’s so greeny, so leafy, so… jungly?

Part One
I rip off a piece of jungle leaf. I see a yellow “M” in the distance, and I run to it. It is a McDonald’s– an abandoned one too. I am parched, sad, happy– all at the same time. I have no choice but to look for ingredients for a burger, or be forced to eat an old hamburger from the Dumpster.
I look through the cabinets and I find a bun, ketchup, cheese, ham, and lettuce. I try to turn on the oven and it works! I cook the ham and I make the hamburger. It is pretty good, considering I’m horrible at cooking.
I leave the abandoned McDonald’s. At least my appetite is gone, but now I am kinda worried because there’s dark red eyes like cherries… in the trees? Uh…now I’m really in big trouble. I’ll just…tiptoe…out of here…it might work…almost there…phew! I-I…I made it out! Alive! In one piece! I think the way out is finally near, but first I need to find a scientist lab.
Hey, is that a university? I guess it’ll do. I walk up to it, walk in, and there’s a scientist! I see white coats on the side, bwahehe. I walk up to a scientist and pretend that I am one, too! I comment, “Hi…so…” Then I just leave him, haha. Awkward. BUT! I see some goodies to steal. Bwahehe.
I run up to the goodies and– wait, what? They’re just plastic, and I should be called Mr. Embarrassing. Hey, I see some real goodies. Hoho! What do we have here? Jackpot! I say, “It’s potion of sleepiness!” Time to get out of here. But wait, I see a way, way better potion: a potion of invisibility!
Hehe, that’ll sure be useful to take out the president!
I walk into the jungle and go back to my house. I am here! I never thought I would be back! I guess I’ll go to sleep.
Huem…nom…num…wait, what? Am? I? Having a flashback of my mission from today? I am! In my brain!? I guess so…wait, I remember! The red eyes– wait, no way. My flashback shows me that the red eyes were just bugs. All that excitement for nothing. I’ll go back to sleep now.

Part Two
Rise and shine! Time to overthrow the president.
Go outside. No! No jungle! I’d rather take the long highway path. Forty-five minutes later. I’m finally here. Bwahaha.
Jump over gate. I break into the mansion, haha! Go the president’s main office. I’m right outside his office door. Now for the moment of truth. Wait! The potions– I still have them! I hold them both in my hands! Hehe. Here I go! I open the door.
Wait, what?

Part Three
“Uhhmmm…you are retiring Mr. President?” I put the potions in my pocket. “So Mr. President, can I be the new president?”
“Yeah, sure. Goodbye now.”
“Thanks…bye.”
I close the door and scream, “YES! Yay! YAY! Missssiiioooonnnn COMPLETE!”