Time Freeze Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I jump out of my seat, point at him and exclaim, “Jordan! What are you doing here?!” I cover my mouth, the second I say that. Everyone looks at me, and starts talking. “Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Haha, well it looks like you two know each other.” My teacher says to us. He turns to Jordan and says, “I’m sure you know Amber too, right?” Jordan nods. “Then you can take the seat next to her.” He starts walking over to me, and all the girls glare at me. I can tell this is going to be a hard year.

I slide down in my chair, hoping Mr. Matthews could start class already, but instead he says, “Oh, yeah, Amber, you will be in charge of giving a tour around the school for Jordan and Serena.” Oh great, I think to myself. It’s going to be a perfect day.

Jordan leans over to me and asks, “Is the teacher nice?”

“Mhm, he’s not bad, really funny. Now tell me, are you still worried about making friends?” I whisper back.

“I think I’m fine, considering that I know you, your sister, and your boyfriend.” I was about to tell him Chase isn’t my boyfriend, but Mr. Matthews interrupts me.

“Are you two done talking? We need to start class, you two can talk after.” I feel my cheeks burn, and all the girls eyes turn into wolf eyes, ready to catch their prey, which is me. I nod, and take out my spiral, and start jotting down the notes Mr. Matthews is writing down. Today we’re talking about nine eleven and the twin towers. After I finish taking the notes, I rip a piece of paper and write,

Chase isn’t my boyfriend!

I hand it to Jordan, who takes it and reads it under the table. He picks up his pencil and scribbles something on the paper, and hands it back to me. I take it and look at it. His handwriting is horrible! It took me a whole five minutes to decipher the two sentences he wrote. It said,

You sure about that? Even though I just met you, I can see he likes you.

I stick my tongue at him and tear up the piece of paper. I grab the papers Abby hands to me.  I take one and give the last piece to Jordan. I scan the paper and see that we are doing it in groups of four. Abby nudges me, and points at me, Jordan, Serena, and herself. I nod.

But Mr. Matthews makes us change our plans. He says, “Because we don’t have many people in this class, instead of groups of fours, we will do groups of twos.” I nudge Abby this time, and she nods.  He continues on, “I will be assigning the partners.”  Everyone groans. I think, please don’t let it be Jordan, not Jordan, please. “I will call two names, and the two people I call will stand up. Drew and Alec, William and Austin.” They stand up; Drew looks upset, and William and Austin high-five each other. “Josie and Kyle, Joshua with Liz.” He continues and I block it out. I hear my name get called and I stand. Then he says my partner’s name, which just happens to be Jordan. I swallow a groan and fake a smile.

“Lucky!” Abby tells me.

“Tell that to yourself,” I grumble. “Who’s your partner?”

“Serena.”

“Not bad, tell me if she’s nice.” Mr. Matthews opens his mouth to say more, but the bell rings. I stand up, grab my stuff and tell Jordan and Serena to put their stuff away, and meet me by my locker.

I go up to Calvina, who is at her locker and say, “You’re never going to believe who is the new guy.”

“Oh really?” She says with a raised eyebrow. “Try me.”

“It’s Jordan.” I wait for that to sink in, but it doesn’t. So I say, “The Changer we met this morning.”

“You’re kidding me right?” She gasps. “No way! Give me proof!”

“I got proof,” I point over to Jordan, who is walking over to us. “There is my proof, and I need to give him and the new girl a tour of the school, so I won’t be in band. Can you tell that to the band teacher on your way to the strings room? Thanks.”

“Yea, who’s the new girl?”

“Serena, she’s Chinese. She looks shy, but I think we can be friends.” The second I finish saying the last word, Jordan comes over. After a minute, Serena is here, and she says hi to Calvina. Then my sister leaves for her next class. Just when I was about to start the tour, Chase comes running over to me.

“What is he doing here?!” Chase demands as he points at Jordan.

“He’s apparently the new student, and now if you excuse me, I need to give them a tour.” I push him out of my way and start leaving. But I hear Chase say, “Watch him closely!” I ignore the last comment and start the tour.

“We are going to go to the music hall first. I’m in band, and I play the flute. Are you doing strings, band, or choir?” I ask.

“I play the alto sax,” Jordan replies.

“I’m in strings, I play the violin,” Serena says.

“That’s cool, the strings teacher, Mrs. Goldmen, is very nice– my sister, Calvina, has her. On the other hand, Mr. White, the band teacher sucks, I like band, but not the teacher.” I walk to the end of a hallway and turn left. “Over there is the gifted room, and the library.” I point to the hallway that is to the right of us. “The auditorium is to the left.” I keep on walking, and I point out where the sophomores, juniors, and seniors have their lockers. We also pass by the swimming pool, and the gym.

We finally reach the music hall, we hear the band and strings people playing their instruments. The two sounds battle against each other, making it sound chaotic in the hallway. I shout over the noise, “As you can tell, this is the music hall, the band room to your left and the strings room to your right, you will keep your instruments in the room. You bring it here every morning and take it before you leave. You NEVER put you instrument in your locker, not that you can fit it in. Oh, the the choir room is next to the band room; you just can hear them.”

I cover my ears, and walk past the three rooms, to the end of the hallway and say, “Over here is the door to the track.” I walk out of the music hall, and to our left is two sets of doors. “This is the south entrance, if you ride the bus, you get off and on here. Also you can walk over to the middle school, which is really close by. And the room in front of us is the counselor’s room.” I hit myself on the forehead and exclaim, “Shoot! Forgot to show you guys the French and Spanish rooms. Oh well, I’ll show you that last. Are any of you taking a foreign language?”

Serena shakes her head, while Jordan nods.

“I’m taking Latin.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you where that is last. Now, to the commons! That’s what we call the lunchroom.” I turn to the left, then the left again. We enter a large open room, with white walls, and colored tiles.

“Tada!” I exclaim. “It’s kind of plain, but hey, the foods good here! And bonus points too! We order food from places like, Burger King, McDonalds, Sonic, and other places like that every other Friday! At the wall that is across from us, the has two doors, one leads to outside, and the other to the nurse. To your left is where you get your lunch.”

I walk across the room, reach the front entrance, and pass the office. “I’m sure you have seen the office and front door, so we just made a circle. Also the Latin room is in the tenth grade pod. So that’s the end of our tour! Third hour is going to start soon. What do you have next? I’ve got reading, with Mrs. Bender.”

“Same,” They both say at the same time.

“Wow… LOL.” I laugh. “Well let’s go. Mrs. Bender hates tardy students.” We walk together back to the locker area and grab our stuff, then head to Mrs. Bender’s room.

We take the three open seats in the back. Chase also walks in and takes the seat next me. I groan and slouch down in my seat. Why? It’s not like I like him, he knows it too. Can’t he just leave me alone?

Mrs. Bender walks into the room the second the bell rings. A guy runs in exactly one second late, panting like a dog.

“You’re late!” Mrs. Bender states strictly. “Is anyone missing?” She starts class when no one answers. “Today we are having a surprise quiz on the reading process. I know this was from a long time ago, four years ago to be exact. But I want to make sure you still remember everything you learned in middle school.” Nobody dares to make a noise, but we all are complaining on the inside. She hands us a paper, and on it is a bunch of lines and numbers. I don’t remember much, but I try my best. Let’s see.. the first step is to set a purpose, next is plan, and so on. When we all finish, Mrs. Bender collects our papers, and starts a long boring talk about the importance of reading. I almost fall asleep, but then Chase sends me a note. I open it up and see,

Meet me after school at the Rock.

The Rock is a rock near the track, people usually meet up there after school. I crumple up the note and decide that the lesson is more important. The day passes by quickly, algebra, science, then lunch.

Lunch is awesome, I love it, like most kids. The food is great, well that’s my opinion, I know people who don’t like the lunch here. Also I can just chillax and talk with friends, have some fun. I go grab a tray, and get some chicken nuggets, a little bit of mash potatoes with a ton of yellow gravy, and a dinner roll. I also get some slices of honeydew melon. This is always my favorite lunch here. I pay, and get a cup of water. I walk over to my usual table were all my other friends are seating. They wave at me to tell me to go over there, but today I want to sit with Serena and Jordan. 1) Because I think they would be great friends, 2) so I can piss Chase off about sitting with Jordan, and 3) because I got to know if Jordan is trustworthy or not. I pick a table that is right next to my friends, so I can still talk to them.

“Sorry!” I tell them. “There’s not enough seats for Jordan and Serena.”

“Oh, okay,” One of my friend, Liz says. “But what’s your relationship with Jordan anyways?” Everyone at the table nods in agreement, curious about it too.

“What? It’s nothing, I just happened to meet him before school.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You were with me the entire time,” Abby notes. Oops, I think. Darn it, need to think of something!

“Uh… I was um…” I stutter, luckily Calvina comes over.

“What’s up everyone?” She asks.

“Nothing much, just questioning Amber’s status with Jordan. You know him too, right?” Liz interrogates my sister.

“Yeah, I know him.”

“How?”

“Does it matter?”

“Well duh!” I watch them talk to each other, it feels like a ping-pong game, back and forth, from Liz to Calvina.

“Fine, Amber met him before, and she introduced me to him, there, it’s that easy.” At that time, I see Jordan, I wave at him to tell him to sit with me, but he didn’t see me. So I get up, out of my seat and walk over to Jordan, who looks like he has no idea where to sit.

“Want to sit with me?” I ask him. He nods. “Well then, it’s this way.” I steer him over to where I am seating.

I introduce him to my friends, “Jordan meet my friends, everyone this is the famous Jordan.”

“Hey,” he says to my friends with a smile, and everyone at that table smiles back at him. I notice that smile is his trademark smile; he shows all his top teeth, and his mouth looks like half a circle. Also when he smiles, his eyes twinkle with something that looks like sadness. I think he actually has a dark history behind him. He could easily be super popular, and Chase could have some competition. Jordan chats with my friends, and Serena comes over. I introduce her to my friends, and she quickly becomes friends with Rachel, who is also Chinese. They have conversations in Chinese, leaving us in awe and wishing we could do that too. Soon lunch is over and class is about to start.

I head to my next class, which is language arts. Jordan’s in in my class… Again. Hip-hip-hooray… Well, he’s not that bad, but still it gets kind of annoying how he seems to follows me around everywhere. He sits next to me, and starts reading a book. I look at the cover and it says, Artemis Fowl. I don’t like that book, once a friend had told me it was good, and I tried to read it, but I didn’t like it. I finished the first book, and a bit of the second book. I have to say, the second was better, but I never finished so I’m not positive about that. Class starts as quickly as it ends. Today, this class was a bunch of fun, our teacher, let us play some games, and talk.

Finally, it’s my favorite class, gym. I love gym, it’s so much fun. Today, I believe we are playing basketball, which is one of my best and favorite sport. I go into the girls locker areas to change. My gym locker is near Calvina’s and Liz’s. I was about to unlock the locker, when I feel the pain again on my arm, this time I don’t think about anything, and just grab onto Calvina and  freeze time. I feel dizzy and cold, but I ignore the feeling and just drag my sister out of the locker room, and out to the gym room. I find Jordan out there too, looking frantic at first, but once he sees me, he calms down.

“Wait, did you do that?” he asks me. I put my hand up, telling him I don’t want to talk now. The world slowly goes dark again, and I collapse on the floor.

Time Freeze Chapter 4

 

Chapter 4

I open my eyes and find myself laying on the seat of the bus, with my head in Calvina’s lap. I forgot what happened at first, but after a second or so I remember: a Changer was trying to go through time in this town!

“Shoot!” I say as I bolt up. I temporarily have black dots dancing in front of my eyes. When I get better I say, “That was not a good idea.”

“What the heck happened?” Chase asks. Darn it, I forgot I had brought him with me to the Pause. The Pause is what I call the stop in time.

“Ugh.” I groan. “Long story, and we don’t have much time. I’ll tell you on the way there.”

“There is where?” Chase asks.

“At the TOP,”  The TOP is the highest and oldest building in our town.

“Why the TOP?”

“Because it is the tallest building in our town,” I answer, as I quickly run out of the bus. Chase opens his mouth to ask another question, but I silence him. “Just wait and let me finish. Hurry up and follow me!” I run to the street where the school is, and turn left. “I’m a time freezer; I can freeze time. And there are people called Changers who can travel through time, and they change it.” I make another left turn when we reach the library. That’s when we enter the old part of town.

“Oh, did I mention I lose a day of my life when I stop time, but that only happens when you turn thirteen, so when you are responsible.” I look back to see if Calvina was okay. I’m the more athletic one in the family, but Calvina isn’t bad. She’s fast, but not good with long distance. Calvina is a bit behind, and I can still see her panting, so I stop for a moment.

“And I know when a Changer is trying to go through time when my mark turns purple and burns. So I stop time and find the Changer. I know who is the Changer because they will still be moving when time stops.” Calvina finally catches up with us, so I start running again.

“And Changers are always trying to time travel at the highest place possible, because the higher they are, the further back or forward in time they can go.” While I’m explaining Chase is listening closely, with his eyes wide. “And about the saving the world part, I stop time, and they can’t go through the portal to go to a different time. So they can’t change it or do whatever they want with it.” By now Chase’s mouth is probably going to fall of his head.

“That’s basically it.” I turn right, then left.

“So the story your grandma told was true?” Chase asks.

“Yea.” I turn right again.

“Wait, why are Calvina and I not frozen?”

“Because I was holding Calvina’s arm, and you grabbed her shoulders.”

“Oh, so that’s why you shook my hand off your arm.”

“Yea.” We reach an intersection, and I run forward. In front of us in the TOP. The TOP is about forty stories tall, we have to tilt our heads back to see the top of the building. It was a business building, but business got good, so they moved to a bigger city. I see a small silhouette of a person. It looks like a guy.

“Come on!” I open the door to the building. The hinges of the doors are old and it makes a loud noise. “So much for a surprise attack,” I mutter to myself. I walk into the dark building; there is dust everywhere. I could see footprints of muddy shoes on the ground.

“I’m guessing those are the Changer’s footprints,” Calvina says, panting. “Because they are still wet.”

“Let’s follow them,” Chase says. We follow the footprints and it leads to the stairway. We walk up the stairs in silence. Chase tries to break the ice by telling jokes, but Calvina and I were in no mood for jokes. Chase eventually stops, after he can tell we aren’t really listening. We continue walking in silence in the dark.

After what seems like hours, we finally reach the top. I open the door that leads to the rooftop, and the bright sun blind me. I shield my eyes, and wait for them to adjust.

When they have adjusted, I look at the Changer. It is a guy, and he looks about our age. He has golden brown hair, and amber eyes. The guy has a tan colored skin, and isn’t exactly tall, but he’s still pretty tall. He’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts, like a typical guy. He looks new to this town, and a bit nervous.

“Who are you?” I demand.

As he opens his mouth to answer, I notice he has braces. They match him, and makes him look cuter. I shake my head to get rid of that ridiculous thought, yeah right, me falling for a Changer? That has to be funny. “I’m… I’m Jordan.” He says in a shaky voice.

“Well Jordan, what do you think you are doing?”

“I was going to go to the future just to see if I am going to make any friends. You see… I’m always shy and never have many friends, so I just wanted to check. I wasn’t going to change anything!”

“Sure,”I say sarcastically. “I totally believe you.”

“No! I promise! Please don’t hurt me!” He actually seems like he is telling the truth.

“I think he is telling the truth,” I say to Chase and Calvina.

Chase shakes his head, “You can’t actually believe him, he is tricking you!”

“Chase, let me make my own decisions!” I snap. I turn to Jordan and say, “You’re coming with us, to go to the bottom of the building. I’m going to let you go now. But I’m still going to watch you, and see if you do that again.”

“Wait, who are you people? Are you all Freezers?”

I shake my head, “Nope. Meet the Freezer of the town, yours truly, Amber Carlson. My sis, Calvina, and Chase, my friend. Now you will tell no one about this meeting, or who we are, ‘kay?” Jordan nods his head. “Now let’s go.” I open the door, and hold it for Jordan, Chase and Calvina. When they all walked through the door, I step into the stairway. The door closes slowly, cutting of all the light. As we walk, we talk together, not about anything in particular, just random stuff.

“Jordan, do you have any siblings?” Calvina asks in a curious tone. Jordan gives no answer, after several attempts of trying to learn about his personal life, we gave up.

“Do you like pets?” My sister asks. Jordan nods his head.

“You don’t like to talk much, do you?” Chase asks.

“I talk, but I don’t want to say too much.” Jordan replies. I understand him and nod. After talking about bananas, hamsters, books, and pencils, we finally reach the first floor of TOP.

“Okay, time to go! You probably have to go to school too. I wish you luck on finding friends. I’ll probably start time again the second I reach my bus, so you might want to hurry up.” I say to Jordan. The three of us go back to the bus, but this time, there is no rushing.

When we get back to the bus, Chase sits down in his regular spot, and Calvina and I sit down too, like nothing happened. Just when I was about to get us out of Pause, Chase gets up.

“How many days do you have left?” Chase asks.

“What?” I’m confused. What is he talking about?

“How many days do you have left before you die, is what I mean.” I stare at him, why would he care anyways? I don’t even want to know the number of days I have left.

“Are you crazy? No! Get back in your seat, I’m going to start now.” I put my hand on my mark again and say “Obcasio  satus, obcasio satus.” Which is time start, time start, in Latin. Everything slowly starts moving again.

“Are you sure your arm is okay?” Abby asks again.

“Yea, I’m sure,” I reply. A couple minutes later, we arrive at school. We hang out in the library until the bell rings. Then we go to our lockers and unpack our stuff. Abby goes section M, and Calvina and I walk to section C. Abby comes over to our lockers and wait for me to finish getting ready.

“Hurry up, you’re always the last one done!” Abby complains.

“Okay, okay!” I say as I speed up. “I’m done!”

“Then let’s go!” Calvina exclaims. We walk together to go to our first hour. Abby and I have the same class, but Calvina has reading, Mrs. Potts, which is the room across from ours. Abby and I go to social studies, and we have Mr. Matthews.  He’s the funniest teacher at our school, and doesn’t give us much homework. Did I mention he’s young too? Well he’s the youngest teacher, I’m pretty sure he’s like, twenty-seven years old. We take two seats in the back together and wait for class to start. As I wait, I listen to the other girls that about the new guy. They say they saw him, and claim he is a model and a pro athlete.

Then the bell rings, and Mr. Matthews walks into the classroom. He claps his hands and announces, “Today we will have two new students joining our class today, first is Serena, who is from Kansas. Will you please come in, Serena?”

The door opens and Serena walks in, she is clearly Asian, Chinese maybe? She has long raven black hair, and large eyes. She wears a plaid headband, a white shirt with a black jacket, and dark jeans with matching boots. “Hello, my name is Serena Tang, and I moved here because of my father’s job.” Serena introduce herself in a shy, quiet voice.

“Okay! Why don’t you take a seat next to Abby. Abby raise your hand.” Abby raises her hand, and Serena walks over and takes a seat.

“Hey! My name is Amber,” I say to Serena. “Welcome to Crawford!”

“Thanks,” she replies shyly. I can tell she is one of those people that is shy at first, but once you get to know them, they are the most insane person you have ever met.

“Next order of business! The next student, is the one the girls have all been waiting for!” Mr. Matthews says, the girls starts to chatter among themselves excitedly. Some squeal with excitement, others takes out their makeup and put on some touch ups.

“Mr. Walker, will you please come in?” Mr. Matthews says over the noise. Even though Mr. Matthews puts it in a form of a question, it really is a command. The door opens again, and in walks a boy. All the girls gape at him, making googly eyes at him. But to me, he looks strangely familiar, the hair and eye color, the height, and clothes. Then it clicks, he’s the Changer!

 

Time Freeze Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“Freak! Pervert! What the heck?!” I say as I whip around, and I see Chase there.  He still stands there hugging me, but I notice that Calvina is standing at the door, watching us with her mouth open, then she runs away crying. He starts to kiss me, for about one second, but he made me mad. I knee him in the groin. He slides to the floor groaning, and I tell him, “Deal with it. This is what you get for making Calvina’s heart break. Watch what you do to me next time.” After I finish talking, I run out of his room to catch up with Calvina.

I find Calvina down in the basement, in the corner on the floor, sobbing her heart out. “Calvina,” I say in my best comforting voice. “Calvina, I’m sorry. Look, it was an acci-”

I get cut of by Calvina’s shout, “Oh really?” She looks up at me, I see her makeup is ruined. “It was an accident that he was hugging? I wonder how that happened, huh? Let’s see, maybe you were just randomly standing there, then Chase comes and ‘accidentally” trips.” As she says accidentally, she makes air quotation marks. “And he grabs onto you and he hugs you, is that how it happened? I’m sure it was an accident.” She says the last sentence in an angry and sarcastic tone.

“Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a total accident, but-”

Calvina interrupts me again, “Ha! I knew it! How could you?! You know I liked him! Why? Why would you do such a thing to me, I can’t believe we are sisters! Sisters would never steal each other’s crush!”

“Could you just let me explain?” I’m losing my patience. “Let me finish my story first, how can you blame someone if you don’t know the whole story?”

“Fine.” She sighs, obviously tired. “Go on.”

“Okay, so the present table was filled, and I didn’t want to have the cake be smashed, so I put it in the fridge.And I was like, I’ll bring it up to his room later. Then I go out to party, and when I was tired, I went to grab a snack. I go inside and finish eating. When I was done, I took the cake up to his room, and placed it on his desk. Suddenly Chase was behind me, and had his hand around me.” I decide to skip the part about the picture collage and the kiss– maybe she can still have some hope. “Now that I think about, how could I have not known the he was following me? I saw you there watching. So I got mad, and kicked him down there. After that, I started running to find you, and here I am now.”

“You expect me to believe a story like that?”

“Why don’t you just ask him?” I snap. The second I snap at her, I feel guilty. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just tired.” Calvina gets up and starts walking away. “Wait! Where are you going?”

“To fix my makeup and to ask Chase a question.”

“Oh, got it, just wondering.” I watch her leave me. I decide what to do next, should I go back to the party or go check on Chase. Nah, I think. The party it is.

I walk out to the backyard, and I see Chase. I turn my head quickly, and walk to Abby. But I change my mind when I see her kissing with Jackson. I was about to go back inside when I hear one of my favorite words, cake. “Cake, cake, cake!” People were chanting. Mrs. Bass, Chase’s mom, comes out of the house, “Okay, quite down everyone.” Everyone shushes, Mrs. Bass walks over the where the cake is, and takes a knife, and starts cutting the cake. She places each piece on a plate and passes it to a kid. I grab a piece and a fork. I take a bite, and it melts in my mouth. It’s chocolate cake and peanut butter icing, delicious!

Calvina walks out of the house looking fresh and new, she takes a piece of cake and walks over to Chase. They start talking to each other awkwardly. Maybe it’s because Calvina saw the two of us kissing, or because Chase knows the Calvina likes him. Either way the conversation ends quickly, and Calvina starts walking my way. She looks sad. My heart hurts to see her this way.

She looks at me in the eye and says, “I’m sorry I doubted you.” I nod, accepting the apology.

Later around midnight, the party ends. One of my senior friends, drives us home. When I get home, I go and change into some comfy pajamas. I was right about to go to sleep, when Calvina comes into my room.

“What?” I ask sleepily.

“Just wanted to say thanks.” She replies.

“For what?”

“For kneeing Chase, and telling the truth.”

“Your welcome, now go to bed, we still have school tomorrow. Oh, and turn off the light for me!” Calvina walks out, and flips the switch. I quickly fall into a dreamless sleep.

The next day, I hear the alarm clock go off. Beep, beep, beep! Ugh, I hate that noise, I think. Of all the sounds they could have chosen, they had to chose this? I hastily press the button on my alarm clock, and the horrible sound disappears. I stay in bed for a couple more minutes, then get up. I put on a gray and purple Aeropostale long sleeved shirt on, and a pair of black sweats. I wash my hair, brush my teeth and hair. I put on my blue wrist watch, and a purple jacket. I run downstairs and eat breakfast. I eat some cold cereal with orange juice. I grab my backpack and put on my favorite Converse shoes, its black, and has three tongues in the colors, light pink, lavender and baby blue. Also the shoelaces are those colors, from light pink, to lavender, to baby blue, gradually changing colors.  I take my book out of my backpack, and start reading. After I read for five minutes, Calvina comes downstairs, her eyes swollen from crying last night. She finishes breakfast right before the bus comes.

“Hurry up, you slow poke!” I yell to her as I walk out the door. I get on the bus and take an empty seat in the front, Calvina comes and sits next to me. Next stop is at Chase’s house. I’m so nervous, we’ve been friends since we were born. But I kind of feel bad for putting him in the friend zone. The bus stops and opens the doors. Chase steps in, he takes his usual seat, which is the seat behind us. I don’t bother saying hi, because one, I don’t know how to face him, and two… Well just one reason.

At the next stop, Abby gets on and squeezes on to our seat. She looks happy, even her eyes twinkle with happiness.

“Jackson likes you right?” I ask. Abby nods. “Told you so!”

“Next subject!” Abby declares. “Have you heard the new rumor?” We both shake our heads. “Well, we’re having two new students! I heard it’s one boy and one girl! And bonus points, the boy is supposedly drop dead gorgeous!”

“Really?” I ask with excitement. “Are they coming today?” Abby nods her head again. Then I suddenly feel a pain on my right arm. “Ouch!” I exclaim while clenching my arm.

“You okay?!” Abby asks with concern.

“Yea…”I say in a shaky voice. Calvina looks at me with worry and question. I nod slightly. I secretly check my arm, my little clock mark is glowing purple and is burning hot. That means that some Changer is trying to go through time. I have to be quick, the second my mark stops burning and glowing, it would mean that they are in a different time period.

Chase leans over from  behind and grabs my arm, I shake it off and grab Calvina’s arm.

After Chase loses his grip on my arm, he grabs Calvina by the shoulders and asks, “What’s happening? What’s wrong with Amber?”

“I’ve got no time! I have to stop before they leave!” I shout to Calvina. “We’ll have to bring Chase!” I close my eyes and put a hand over my mark. I will time to stop, and say, “Obcasio concesso, obcasio concesso.” Which means time stop, time stop in Latin. I open my eyes, and immediately I feel dizzy, I let go of Calvina and put my hands on my head. I feel heat leaving me, and being replaced with coolness. The world spins, and eventually it goes dark.

 

Time Freeze Chapter 2

Please don’t mind the random bolded parts. When I copy and paste it, that just happens… I don’t know why though.

Chapter 2

Calvina pulls me off my bed and says, “Come on! Are we going to bake the cake for Chase or not?”

“Ugh..,” I reply, not wanting to get up. “I can’t get up.”

“Why?”

“There’s a force that is keeping me down on the bed and I can’t overcome it. “

“Oh, really? What is it?”

“Guess.”

“Okay… How about… Gravity?”

“Nope, laziness”

“Wow…” She exclaims in a sarcastic voice. “I can’t believe you are related to me.”

“Okay, Okay, I got it. I’m getting up.” I push myself up and walk to my desk to grab my laptop, then we walk down to the kitchen. When we get down I set my laptop on the island, and turn it on. I go and find a recipe for red velvet cake. “Hmm… Let’s see, I found a recipe. We need 250 grams of sifted cake flour, pinch of salt, fifteen grams of cocoa powder, 300 grams of sugar, two large eggs… Do we even have all these stuff?”

Calvina looks around the kitchen for all the ingredients and supplies we need and answers, “Yea, apparently we do.”

I answer sarcastically, “Surprise!” We stare at each other for a second, and start laughing. I stop laughing and say, “But seriously, I didn’t think we would actually have any of the ingredients. I mean, we haven’t done any baking in so long. So, anyways, let’s start!”

We start off measuring all the ingredients, cake flour, buttermilk, sugar, butter, and all the other ingredients. Next, we mix everything together, but I accidentally turned the stand mixer on high when mixing the flour, so when we finished that part it looks like it snowed in the kitchen. Also when we were pouring in the red food coloring, we got some on our hands and the supplies. And the thing stains!  Finally, we pour it into two spring form pan that is lined with parchment paper. Then, we put it in the oven and wait for it to finish baking.

While it is baking, Calvina puts the cream cheese, icing sugar, and vanilla extract into a bowl, and I mix it together. We eat some of the icing as we wait. Before long, we could smell the goodness of the cake and soon the timer rang. I took the two cakes out of the oven, and let them cool and the cooling rack. While the cake cools, Calvina gets two icing bags ready and puts on a star tip, I both of them up, half full.

When the cake is cool, we each cut a cake in half horizontally, so it can be a four layer cake. I put a tiny blob of icing on the cake turntable to act as glue. Calvina takes some icing out of the bowl and slaps it on to the cake. She then starts spreading it out. I put the next piece of cake on top of the other and repeat what Calvina did. We do this two more times, but on the last piece of cake, we put more to cover the sides and top of the cake. We also took off any excess icing. Next, we take a piece of paper and write the words, Happy B-Day Chase!, in bubble letters and cut it out. Next, we place the letters in that order on the top to the cake. The third step was to put some cocoa powder in a sifter and sift a thin layer of cocoa powder on the cake. After that, we removed the pieces of paper and you could really see ‘Happy B-Day Chase!’ on the cake.

 

Our last step is to use our icing bags and make a border on the top of the cake and around the bottom of the cake. First, we did the top, my sister and I did rosettes, and on each rosette we put a tiny piece of chocolate. Then we move the cake to our serving plate, and did a shell border around the bottom of the cake.

“Done!” I exclaim proudly as I look at our cake we just made. Then I look around the kitchen and frown. “CURSES! Now we need to clean up our mess!”

My sister nods in agreement, “Better clean up before Mom comes home.”

The kitchen is a mess, there is flour all over the place, with red stains on all the supplies, and there is a pile of dishes that needs to be washed.

I groan, “Chase better like his cake. I call dibs on cleaning up the flour!”

“I hate you, Amber! Guess I’m stuck with washing the dishes.”

“Actually, wait… How the heck do you clean up flour? Do you use a broom and dustpan or something like a paper towel? Calvina, help..?”

“Hahahaha! Wow… figure out yourself, I mean, you called dibs on that job.”

“Fine! Be that way!” While Calvina starts her job, I stand there pondering for five minutes.  Finally, I stick with using the paper towel. After cleaning up, I go to my room and start working on homework. Math, science, reading, and all that good stuff.

When my homework is finished, I take a shower, and put on an aqua blue dress. The dress is strapless on one side and the other side has a ribbon and a bow.  I thought about stealing some of Calvina’s makeup, but I probably get laugh at for wearing it. Next, I brush my hair and put a light blue bow clip in my hair. Then I go to my closet and look for a pair of shoes, I decide to wear a pair of navy blue flats. After choosing my shoes, I get out the Xbox game I bought for Chase. I bought Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, so Chase can play with his friends and also because I want to play it too. I wrap the present in a black and silver wrapping paper.

That’s when I hear Mom yell, “Amber! Calvina! Hurry up! You got fifteen minutes!”

“Got it!” I yell back. If I don’t answer Mom will keep repeating the question ‘till I answer, I learned the quicker the better. I grab a piece of paper and make a quick card.  Next, I hold it in half hamburger style, and at the front write, ‘Happy Birthday Chase!’ Inside I write,

Dear Chase,

You never really cared about cards, but since it is polite to give a card, here it is.  Happy fifteenth birthday!

Amber Carlson

P.S. If you really read this far, please let me borrow Black Ops 2. Thanks! You would be my awesomest friend in the entire world!

After I finished the card, I tape it on the present. I run downstairs and find Mom on the couch waiting for us.

“Calvina isn’t here yet?” I ask Mom. “Well that’s expected.” Calvina was always the more girly twin, I was the tomboy. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about how I look, I do, but not as much as Calvina. She’s probably going to take extra long today too, because she really likes Chase. Personally, I don’t think he’s that good looking. He has dark brown hair, green eyes, and a full lip. He’s about six foot five, he’s one the few people that is taller than me. I’m six foot one, and we used to have competitions about our height when we were little, but now the winner is so obvious, I don’t even bother about it. But it still irks me, ugh, even when I think about it, I want to kill him.

He is also one of the populars, all the girls in our high school know his name, even the junior girls that are a grade above us. But despite his popularity, he’s never had a girlfriend before. There are rumors about how he likes other guys, or how he had a girlfriend before, but his heart got broken, and he never got over it. The newest rumor is that he just isn’t the type that ask out girls, so he prefers girls to ask him out instead. I’m pretty sure none of the rumors are true, but I don’t bother asking him about it.

Now back to describing Chase, he is also very athletic; he’s on every sports team possible at school.  He also lives up to his name, he is the star of our school’s track team. Not to mention he’s ripped and super smart. He’s probably the second most intelligent in the entire school, I’m number one. This is one of the few things I can beat him at. Well, I get how Chase can be so popular, with his looks, athletic abilities, and smarts.

That’s when Calvina comes down the stairs, dressed in a short, puffy, brown dress, with a sparkly golden top, with some brown high heels. In her hand is a small golden bag that matches her outfit. Her hair is down, and in her hair is a golden flower hair accessory. She also put on some makeup, a bit of lip gloss, mascara, and eyeshadow.

“Do I look okay?” Calvina asks in a nervous voice. “Do you think Chase will like it?”

“You look fine,” I reassure her. “Chase will love how you look. Now smile and look confident, you’ll look even better.” I smile to boost her confidence more. “Come on, let’s go, we don’t want to be late for Chase’s party, do we? Oh, yeah, where’s his present?”

“Shoot!” She exclaims. “I left it upstairs! Give me a sec.”

“Got it, I’ll bring the cake to the car and meet you there.” Calvina runs upstairs, as fast as she could while wearing high heels, and trust me, it’s surprisingly fast. You will be amazed by what people do for love.

I walk to the garage, and get into our new blue 2013 Scion FR-S. I take a seat in the back and buckle up. Soon, Mom and Calvina walks into the garage, and also take their seats in the car. Mom drives the car to Chase’s house, which is about a five minutes away. In the car, Calvina is still adding touch ups to her makeup, form that you can probably tell how much she likes him. By the time we get there the party has already started.

Calvina and I get out of the car in front of Chase’s driveway. Outside in the backyard, there are people chatting and checking the clock. It looks like their… waiting? As we walk over to the fence to go into the backyard, we hear a loud cheer.

“The princesses of the party is here!” “You’re late!” “Hurry up! Chase won’t start the party without you two!” “Nice ride!” I choose to answer the last comment: “Thanks! we just got it.”

Chase comes walking over with three drinks in his hand, he gives one cup to me, the second to my sister and keeps the third drink for himself. He raises the cup into the air and says, “To Amber and Calvina!” Everyone repeats it and raises their cups to take a drink.

I raise my cup and say, “To Chase’s fifteenth birthday!” Everyone cheers and repeat what I say. They take another sip of their drink.

“To the food!” A guy yells. Everyone laughs and repeat.

“Gah! Can we just start the party?” Somebody in the crowd asks.

“Haha, yea.. Let the party begin!” Chase shouts with excitement. Everyone whoops and starts partying.  Chase is gulped up by the crowd, while I stand where I am and look around. I see so many people, I’m positive Chase invited everyone from school to his party. There are a couple sophomores, and juniors. One or two seniors, the rest are freshmans. At one corner, is a table loaded up with food, I bet my house that it could feed an army. At the deck, is a guy from school being the DJ. Next to all the DJ stuff, was another table, but this table wasn’t filled with food, it was filled with presents. Only there wasn’t enough space for all the presents, half the presents were on the ground. I decide that putting the cake and video game near the pile wasn’t a good idea. I place the cake in the fridge and the game in the kitchen for now; later I’ll bring it up his room. For now I want to start partying. I make my way over to the center of the party, and dance my butt off. A couple guys try to hit on me, but I have no interest in them, so I ditch them. I move over to where some of the popular girls are. As I go over, I noticed how well dressed the other girls are. I feel a bit out of place– they all are wearing dresses that probably costed a thousand dollars. Mine was on sale at the mall. I push that thought to the back of my head, and start talking with Abby, my best friend.

“Hey Abby!” I yell over the music. “Having fun?” Abby nods, but I can tell her head isn’t in this conversation. I follow her stare, and see that she is staring at Jackson. Jackson has been her crush for almost three years. “Go talk to him!” I say.

“What? No! I don’t want to look like an idiot! What if he doesn’t like me?” Abby tells me.

“Go! I heard a little rumor about how Jackson likes you! Who knows, he might make a move on you tonight.” Abby gains a bit of confidence and starts walking to Jackson. I watch her as she goes, when Jackson sees her coming towards him, I swear, his whole face lit up. Those two make a really cute couple; they are a match made in heaven. They both have blonde hair, and blue eyes. Both their eyes sparkle with curiosity when they learn something new. And they have the same interests, like science and Linkin Park. Soon, the two of them are dancing together. I decide it is time for me to take a break from dancing and eat a snack.

I go to the the table that has all the foods and drinks, and grab a can of Sprite, and a bag of Doritos, the Nacho Cheese type, which is my favorite. I go into the living room to eat and watch a bit of TV. Once I finish the chips and half of my Sprite, I decide now is ‘later’ and I am going to bring the cake up to Chase’s room. I take it out of the refrigerator and grab the present. I walk up the familiar stairs, turn left, and open the first door to my right.

Inside the room, is a bed at the right corner with a desk parallel to it at the wall. And all along the beige walls are posters of sports people. Near the foot of the bed is a blue backpack. The room is surprisingly clean for a barely fifteen year old boy.

I place the cake and present on his desk. That’s when I notice a picture collage near his bed. It looks like there is a girl in most of the pictures, when I take a closer look, I can see it’s me. “What the heck?” I mutter under my breath. “Why..?” I see pictures of the time when we went to the beach six years ago, when it was the first day of middle school, my thirteenth birthday party. It brings back so many memories. I was wondering how he gets all these, but then I remember that both our parents love taking pictures; that’s probably how he gets them.

“But still… Why would he..?” I say.

Then I feel arms around me and hear a voice whisper into my ear, “Because I like you.”

 

The Things to Live for Chapter 2

 

By the way, there will be a new chapter everyday. Or at least I’ll try. Kaitlin wrote 15 so far. Now to the story! =]

I’m just going to pretend like last night did not happen. My parents did not yell at each other, I got a shirt to wear, and I didn’t freeze to death when I slept.

 Yeah.

I get up like it’s a regular school day. I pick out a shirt out of the hamper and throw it on. I pile all my sort-of-finished homework into my backpack and gobble down a donut. And then I walk to school.

It’s a cold day and I immediately regret my decision of not wearing a jacket. I have to keep in shape everyday somehow so I just start jogging to keep myself warm. Cars pass me as I run. Once a convertible passed and I saw the girls inside giggle and point at me.

I guess you can say I’m popular. Girls flirt with me a bunch. It’s probably a combination of my name, my abs, and my athletic abilities. I also have amazing grades even if I don’t try. I’m basically the girls’ super cute Ken Barbie doll. I don’t enjoy it at the least. Of course, being a man I don’t say it to their faces.

When I reach school, my cheeks are hot in the cold and I’m sweating a river.

“Rock!” I hear someone yell. I turn around.

“Oh, hey Aaron.” I say.

“Did you seriously run to school?” he asks when he reaches me.

“Yeah.”

“You’re crazy!”

It wasn’t too hard for me, but I know for him it would have probably taken probably like twenty-five minutes. For me it took about five. Aaron’s a little on the pudgy side and is probably considered a nerd in my school. He says the only reason he doesn’t transfer schools is because of me. And the school lunch. He also says it doesn’t really make a difference anyway if he does transfer schools.

“So did you buy Black Ops yet?”

“Nooo,” I groan. “My parents had a fight last night ‘cause of money. I don’t know if we can buy it…”

“Oh, I just got this text and it cost WAY less. Come on! My friend, you must buy it.”

I nod. “I’ll try…”

“Freshman Rock Poency please come to the office please. Freshman Rock Poency to the office now.”

Aaron raises his eyebrows at me. I raise mine back at him.

“Well,” I say. “I gotta run.”

When I reach the office the principal swivels his chair and looks at me. It kind of looks like one of those movie scenes where the bad guy is behind the black spinning chair. Dr. Vitamin folds her arms over her chest.

“Hello Mr. Poency.”

“Hi, Dr. Vitamin.” I love her last name. What’s her first name? Multi?

“I hear you are in the KC Blazers swim team?” I nod.

“Well, we are running low on people who would like to join our high school swim team,” she says getting right to the point.

“And you’re saying that you want me to join?” I ask her. Is this seriously why she called me to the office?

“Yes. But that is not why I called you here. We are also holding an eating contest this year for all the five schools in the Blue Valley District. It is an honor. Each school has two representatives for a contestant. I know that swimmers eat a lot so I would like you to be one of them.”

Are you kidding me? She called me down to ask me of this? One odd of a principal here.

“Umm… Sure!” I quickly say.

“Okay, here is a paper that has all the information on it.” She hands me a purple paper.

“Have fun, Mr. Poency. And good luck.”

I join Aaron later as we sit down in Algebra.

“So what happened down in the office?” he whispers when the bell rings.

“They whipped me,” I say with my usual sarcasm.

“Seriously.”

“Multi-Vitamin asked me to join the high school swim team and to be an eating contest.”

“Seriously Rock.”

“I’m being serious.”

“QUIET CLASS,” Mr. Notrub screeches. “So you know we are holding an eating contest. These are the following representatives taking place in this contest.”

Someone whoops. The whole class leans in, most of them hoping they’re going to be in it. I would gladly switch with them.

“A girl and a guy: two contests. Our girl representative for Blue Valley High is Amelia Natur and our boy representative is Rock Poency.” Several heads turn to look at me.

“Yeah, yeah, it takes place on November 12 here after school. Come watch if you can.” He looks at me. “Yay… let’s give a round of applause for Mr. Rock. You better eat a lot…”

This week… is gonna be weird. I just know it.

 

 

The Things to Live For Chapter 1

This story if written by my friend Kaitlin and she wanted me to post it on here. This was also for the Nanowrimo competition. So please enjoy!

Summary-

Rock Poency is just a swimmer. That’s what he lives for. When he buys a ripoff Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 video game from a not-so-reliable-source, swimming is not all that he lives for. He now lives in the actual video game. Not only does he have to stay alive, he has to find the mastermind of the horror.

Chapter 1

Left, right, left, breathe.

Right, left, right, breathe.

Pull! Flip! Push! 1, flip over, 2, 3, 4. Don’t forget to kick, kick, kick.

Break out.

Left, right, left, breathe.

Right, left, right, breathe.

Repeat. Over and over again.

The throat starts to dry somehow, even with the saltwater pouring into it.

50 yards left!

25!

10!

5!

Do. Not. Breathe.

Fast, fast, fast and touch underneath…

“Paaa,” I gasp. I grapple for that air I had been racing for.

Wait! My competitors. I look left and right. The person left to me just touches. Other than that everyone still has about ten yards left.

“Good job.” My voice is as raspy as a dog trying to speak. I give my hand out. I kind of expect a hi-five back, but I get a strong bro-hug instead.

“You too.”

I jump out after the next racer dives in. I ask the pretty woman for my time.

“56:93,” she answers quickly.

I groan. I need 56 seconds. Whyyyy? Always four-tenths a second off… For three months, I haven’t ever been able to push past that four-tenths a second wall.

I slink off towards my coach. When I get to him he’s watching the race intently. I look too. I see that Mitch is also swimming. Kind of short but still leads the race. How he does it, I’ll probably never know. He’s super good at kicking, maybe that’s why.

“Rock!” Chris claps me on the back. “How about that race?”

“The same,” I answer.

“And that means…?”

“56.93.”

Chris gives a low whistle. He looks at me.

“What do you think you did wrong?” he says.

            I shrug.
“Well… You certainly are breathing off the walls; I saw that.”
“But…”
“It’s a big difference, Rocky. I want you to work on that at practice, ‘kay? You have talent my man.”
I grunt and head off towards the cool-down/warm-up pool.

I put my KC Blazers shirt over my head and slip some basketball shorts over my blue speedo after the meet ended. I slip my flip-flops on and flip my backpack over my shoulder.
I walk out into the chilly air. I see my mom’s Honda a couple feet away.
“Rocky!” she yells like I can’t see her.
“How was the meet?” asks Mom when I sit down.
“Still four-tenths a second off…” I grumble. Today all I’ve been doing is grumble.
“Oh honey, don’t take it so seriously. Don’t turn into that kid who cries when they’re DQed.” I sigh. Parents just don’t understand, do they?
When I get home my brother Ze flings himself onto me.
“Let’s play baseball!”
“Tomorrow, okay? It’s too late now. Go to sleep.”
He whines and I race upstairs to shower.
After I finish, I creep downstairs wearing only some basketball shorts.
“I don’t know if we can continue on like this Emily.”
I stop.
“What do you mean ‘If we can continue on’?” Mom says accusingly to Dad.
“We just don’t have enough money to pay for Ze’s babysitter and his private school! We can’t pay for Rock’s swimming and we’re having a hard time just paying for the house and the food!” Dad exclaims.
“We can move Ze to a public school,” Mom answers.
“What about the swimming? It’s already costing us too much.”
“But that’s what Rock lives for.” Mom’s on the defensive side, but she doesn’t sound too defensive.
“Everything just costs too much!” Dad explodes. He’s literally yelling now and Mom gasps.
“Hon—“
Dad puts out his hand his eyes squinted closed.

 All the while I’m standing frozen on the staircase watching them.

 When Dad opens his eyes he sees me and seems at a loss for words.
“Uhmm… Erm… Rock? What are you doing here?” he stutters.

“Nothing,” I stutter back and I race back up the stairs.

Time Freeze Chapter 1

This is a story I’ve been working on for about two weeks. It was for Nanowrimo, which is the novel writing competition in November. I managed to get my word goal, even though I started two weeks late. I’m sorry it’s a bit long. (or really long… I’m on page 30, and it’s still not done… =.=”) Please enjoy! =]

Chapter 1

Hello to whoever is reading this! My name is Amber, and I am on my bed right now, just thinking about my horribly awesome, yet suckish, life. You have no idea what it is like to be a Freezer. It isn’t what you think it means; I don’t have food inside me– well I mean I do, but not like keeping frozen food. Ugh, so confusing… Here let me tell you in more of a straightforward way. I’m really a time freezer. I have the ability to freeze time.  Don’t you just wish you could do that? Well you shouldn’t. You’re probably wondering, “Why? It would be awesome to freeze time!” Truth be told, it really isn’t fun at all. I mean it is, but there is a price you have to pay. For every time you freeze time, you lose a day of your life. You’re probably wondering how you know how long you live, right? Well, there is one way to tell, once you turn six years old, on your back there will be a thing that is kind of like a tattoo. It marks how long you live with years, months, and days.

As I’m telling you this, my twin sister, Calvina walks into my room. We aren’t exactly identical twins, but we aren’t complete opposites either. We have the same small, round face, big eyes, and tall for our age. I have a darker skin tone than her, and she has green eyes; I have blue eyes. Also, while she has curly dirty blonde hair, I have straight brown hair. You also might be wondering if she is a Freezer too, but she isn’t. The day my family learned that I was a Freezer created a big wall between us two sisters, and it lasted for what felt like forever.

 

I remember it like it was just yesterday. It happened eight years ago on my sixth birthday. It was a bright day with no clouds in the sky. Most of my family and friends were at my house for the party– aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, neighbors and all those other people. Calvina and I were playing tag with our two of our cousins, Mark and Amanda, and our parent’s friend’s son, Chase.

“Haha! You’re it!” I said to Chase as I went up to him and tagged him on his elbow. I ran like a cheetah to as far as possible from him, as he faked a growl. Calvina pretended to scream, and ran with Chase on her heels. She hid behind Mark, but Mark ran away too. Finally after a long chase, Chase got Amanda. It wasn’t long before Calvina was it.

“It’s not fair!” Calvina said to Amanda with a pout on her face. “You and Mark are three years older than us! You should play fair for us!”

Just as Amanda was about to reply, Mom called us over to the table for lunch. I had ran to Mark and hopped onto his back for a piggyback ride. Then, there was a sudden moment of darkness. During that quick moment, I felt a sting on my right arm, at the wrist. When everything went back to normal, I checked on my arm. At first I didn’t see anything, but I looked more and saw a little circle with two lines in it, one line started at the center and reached the edge of the circle, and went upward. The other is slightly shorter, it also started at the center but went to the right. The two lines formed a right angle, it kind of looked like a clock. That was when I noticed that nothing was moving. I was so frightened, you could probably imagine. A little girl, that just turned six years old, stuck in time. Of course, I didn’t know that time had stopped, everything just stopped moving, I was the only thing still able to move. I was at the edge of crying when suddenly, everything started to move. It started little by little. First I felt wind, then the grass started swaying, and eventually Mark was running towards the table again.

When we had finally got to the table, Mark slid me down and put me on a chair. That was when I got over my surprise, and I started rambling on about what happened.

“What..? Huh? What just happened? It got suddenly dark and, and there was this sting, and then… then everything wasn’t moving. No. Wait, I think everything stopped moving then I felt a sting. I think… The sting was on my right arm, and I had this thing on my arm. Kind of like a tattoo. It looked like a clock, see.” I said it while pulling up my sleeve and showing Amada, Mark, Chase, my sister, and Mom. “Then everything started moving again, but slowly, one by one. Then Mark was moving again. And here I am.”

Mark and Amanda starts laughing, “Haha, you have a great imagination! You should tell stories more often!” Calvina and Chase were laughing along without a single care in the world. But only my mom looked worried. Her eyebrows were scrunched up, and I was able to see her wrinkles on her forehead. She went over and told what I said to Grandma Claire. At the exact same time a dark cloud rolled into the blue sky. It hung there by itself, signaling something bad was coming up.

Mom came back later and said, “Who’s ready for dinner?” Everyone exploded with cheers. “I’ll take that as a yes.” As Mom said that she had a thin smile on her face. Back then, I wouldn’t have noticed, but now that I think about it, it was to cover up her concern and worry. It wasn’t really effective.

Millions of plates filled with food was on the table. In the center of it all, was a three layered cake. After, I ate many different types of foods, such as, chicken, sushi, lettuce wraps, pizza, fish, corn, and too many to count.  Soon, it was time for the desserts and cake. We had different flavors of ice-cream, chocolate, cookie dough, rocky mountain. We also baked cookies, and brownie cheesecakes. The cake was delicious! I can still remember the taste, and the design. The first layer was like the beach. It had graham cracker crumbs that looked like sand, on the top and side of the cake. On the top was little buckets, shovels, beach towels, umbrellas, beach balls, palm trees made out of fondant. My favorite had to be the one, lonely sand castle with the tiniest little red flag. Even now, I still wonder how they made it. This layer tasted like a s’more, it had chocolate cake, with marshmallow icing mixed in was graham cracker crumbs and chocolate ganache. The next layer was decorated like the ocean. There was a blue backing, with blue icing gel on it in the shape of waves. There was a bit of white at the top of each wave, other than that and some fish, the design was pretty simple. Inside was a checkerboard cake. It had vanilla cake that was colored a sea blue, and chocolate that was a dark blue. It rotated colors and flavors, sea blue colored vanilla cake, dark blue chocolate cake, vanilla, chocolate, you get the point. The middle was vanilla buttercream with salty caramels, to make it kind of salty like the ocean. The final layer was supposed to represent the sun setting. So it had light pink, orange, and purple, and on that had tiny birds drawn like a m. It was plain vanilla with a cookies and creme filling. And on top of the last layer, was half a yellow circle, that was supposed to look like a sun, on it it said, Happy 6th Birthday, Amber and Calvina!

I ate a little of every cake; I’m pretty sure I gained like, fifty pounds that day! After my stomach was full and the sky was dark, all the kids there went to catch fireflies while the adults were pointing at the night sky and naming constellations. We started playing hide and seek, then shadow tag. Soon, my legs were so tired, and my eyes were forcing themselves to close. I almost fell asleep in my hiding spot. But Mark found me and brought me to my parents, who were around the fire. All the other kids were there too! It was time for us to tell stories. This was like a tradition for us, we did this every time when it was our birthday. We sat on the grass, me on my Mom’s lap and Calvina on Dad’s lap.

Grandma Claire starts off with her story, the one that is passed down in our family, she says it every time. Grandma Claire began her story, “Hundreds and thousands years ago, on a island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, there lived a couple. One day, they were visited by a god. The couple had no idea who it was, but the couple was kind and took the god to their home. The god stayed there for a month, and the couple never rushed him to get out. Finally, on the last day, he revealed to the couple that he was really a god. And because the couple was always so kind to him and took care of him, he granted them one wish. The couple was always lonely and had no children, so they chose to have a daughter. The god also gave them a mission for their heirs. He had said, ‘The daughter you are going to get, is going to have the special ability to freeze time. And all her heirs, that is a girl, and left handed will be a time freezer too. They will be identified on their sixth birthday, and they will receive a mark on their left arm. And be careful of the Changers. The Changers have the ability to time travel, and they go through time and change it. They change it by grabbing something they forgot, or helping someone to change a situation. Which makes the future different, and Freezers need to make sure they don’t change the future. So the point of the Freezers are suppose to save the world from the Changers. Only one shall completely destroy the Changers. All others will only stall time before the Changers completely change the history and future of the world. The one that will finish off the Changers will fulfill the prophecy:

Mark and hand opposite,

Past, present, future, all is possible.

The traitor, the expected, and the loyal,

Shall help bring the world down.

One shall die,

but the world will be at peace.

Then the god just left, without even leaving a name. Later, they went to search his room and found a diary. The diary was written by the god, and had all the information needed to train a Freezer. As the little girl grew, the couple decided that they needed to get of the island. They traveled to Europe, and trained the girl inside their house. Before long, the couple was old and their daughter was going to be married soon. The old couple passed the book down to her, and told her to pass the story and book down to her heir, and have her heir to pass it down to their heirs. They also told her to have heirs trained properly, so that one day the world can be safe from the Changers. Now we still are passing the story, and I believe that there really are freezers and Changers. But who knows? It’s been a long day, I need my beauty rest!” Grandma Claire finished her story and picked up her cane and went upstairs to her room the sleep.

After all the other stories, everyone went to bed. That was when the bad omen began. Mom came to our room when Calvina and I were being tucked in by Dad. Mom began talking to me. “Honey, remember that story Grandma just told, the one about the Freezer? Will it’s true, and you happen to be the Freezer of this generation. I thought it would be Calvina, due to the fact that she is left handed. And our family believes you are going to be the one that will fulfill the prophecy. Because it says, ‘mark and hand opposite’  and you happen to be right handed and you have the mark on your right arm. Here is the thing though, you must not tell anyone about this, got it?” She ask Calvina and I both. We nodded our heads, but Calvina had a pout on her face.

“That’s not fair! She stole my destiny!” Calvina declared. “I deserve to stop time! How could you? We were sisters! You always get everything because you are the older twin!” She turned around and went to sleep. I stared helplessly at Mom, wondering what to do.

Mom patted my back to comfort me, and whispered in my ear, “She will get better, she’s just jealous. She might ignore you for a while, but she’ll come by. ‘Kay? Now sleep tight, tomorrow we need to start your training.” She left the room and closed the door. I tried to sleep, but excitement and sadness kept me up. Finally I fell asleep.

The next day, Calvina still wouldn’t talk to me. That lasted for like two weeks, I tried to make up with her, but… You know what, nevermind. Back to the main story.

My Toothbrush Story (Updated)

    I stand in the center of the woods, watching the leaves dance in the wind, and thought, “This will be my last time to relax here.” In my hand I am holding the  thing that can save the world, the ONLY thing that can save the world from the Dark Council. The Dark Council is made up of 7 big guilds that control thousands of little guilds, and I have the thing that can destroy them. My wand or so I say, “my toothbrush”. My magical toothbrush. Only I can control it and only I have the power. If I do the slightest thing wrong, the world will be at its end.
      I draw a big circle in the air with my wand and say, “Circadendum!” The circle came to life, it starts to glow and inside there is something twirling. I put one leg into the circle, which is now a portal, and it feels like fire is eating my leg. I pull my leg out before you could say Potato Island. I decide to jump in super fast and it work! I am in between space and time. I just have to say a place and a year and I would be there.
    So I said, “Potato Island in year 926!(which is this year)” In a flash I was there, standing in the middle of a battle.I heard people shouting and screaming, everywhere was chaos! There were men fighting for food and mothers trying to protect their children. A person could smell the blood a mile away and could hear the shouting and gun sounds in the next town. I said, “Chronoadum!” and everything froze in place. Then I thought of what Potato Island looked like when everything was fine and peaceful. I opened my eyes and saw what I was thinking about. Then I walked over to the center of the island and turned my wand in a circle and soon in my hand was a sword, The 10 Swords of Trust. You couldn’t use it unless you put all your trust into it. I stab the sword into the ground. Suddenly, the ground was shaking, and then where I stabbed my sword, there was a hole. I jumped into the hole and soon I was in the HQ of the Dark Ravens, one of the many guilds in the council.
     I landed on top of a guard, and I quickly put him to sleep. I turned myself invisible and I walked through a thousand different tunnels and a ton of traps. Finally after 5 hours, I was in the king room, aka Sarge’s room!
    The first thing you would see is the throne with a fat, hairy man on it. Next you would see rows and rows of servants and guards. Because my invisibility will wear out soon, I stepped into the shadows quickly and quietly. I drew a sign that looks a bird. Then I started to float up, higher and higher. In 10 seconds I could see the whole room, it looked like it was about 500 feet long, Suddenly an alarm went off, all the guards looked up and pointed at me. They shouted orders to each other, and got their guns out and aim at me. Soon there was thousands and thousands of bullets flying up on the air at me, threatening to hurt me. I quickly drew a six-pointed star in front of me. A shield appeared in front of me, blocking all the bullets. Suddenly, the shield disappeared! Leaving an open spot and I got shot on the arm. I drew a cross on my arm. Pain shoot up my arm but it was healed in 1 second.
     Then Sarge, the leader of the Dark Ravens, yelled, “Stop shooting this instant! And you, you filthy looking girl, get down here and tell me your name!”
     I carefully floated down. The second I touched the floor two guards grabbed my arms and two guards stood behind me with three guards on each side. I said in a calm voice, ” My name is Maxine.”
    “Hmmm… What a strange name. I am called Sarge, and I am the leader of Dark Ravens.”

“I know who you are,” I reply.

“You do?! Awesome!! I am famous, I am famous!!… Oops. Sorry, anyways, what do you want from me?”

“I am here to destroy you!”

“What!? What did you say?! How could you?! I thought we could be friends! We could have so much fun!”

“No thanks, I prefer to be your enemy, I’m not the dark type of person.”

“I’m not a dark type of person, either! All I do is take people’s land and money, make them do my work, and make them fight in war. I also take their food, but they want to give me the food, right? They like to serve me because I’m their friend, right?”

“I don’t think that is being a great friend, but that’s what someone bad or dark would do.”

Then Sarge started crying, “But… But… I… I thought… We were… Fr… Friends!”

Suddenly, a guard yelled, “She made the king cry! Seize her! NOW!” I reach for my toothbrush, but I couldn’t find it. I turn around to look behind me, and saw that a tall,  blond-haired guard took it when I was talking.

I yell to the guard, “Hey, give it back!” I ran up to him and punch him on the back, but he dodged me. I tried to trip him, but another guard hit me on my head. The world turns black, and I fall on the floor.

Later, I wake up in a jail cell, it was dark and cold. I am laying on the floor, wondering how long I have been knocked out. Then, a guard comes over to me with my food and my toothbrush!! I almost scream out loud because of my happiness.

The guard asks me, “Why do you need that disgusting toothbrush everywhere you go? Is it because you are afraid of getting your teeth dirty or having cavities?” Then the guard and his friends started laughing and walking away. I quickly grab my food and toothbrush.

When they are out of sight, I draw a triangle with the toothbrush and in the air a black square appears. I put most of the food in there for later; I leave a banana and a piece of bread on my tray.  I snap my fingers and the square disappears. I stuff the bread into my mouth and swallow it. I draw a X on the door, and I back up. The door explodes and it showers me with pieces of metal. I carefully walk out while eating my banana, and look around me. I see a big, wooden door with a big, black lock on it. I draw another X on the door, and it also explodes. I walk through the door, and suddenly I hear the alarms sound.

Next, I hear a marching sound. Then, I see all the guards walking in two straight lines in perfect harmony. The first thing I think is that I am in big trouble, but then I smile and think that that is perfect. I run up towards them and push the first guard down from both of the rows. Then, all the guards fall down like dominos, one by one. I laugh at how funny it is. I run towards the exit behind the guards, every once in a while I step on a guard by accident. Right when I was eight feet away from the door that led to freedom, Sarge appeared in front of me.

He advanced towards me while I moved back. I panic, I know I am in big trouble, but I noticed that I still have my banana peel. He narrowed his eyes, and stares at me. Nobody moves, until he finally says, “You are stronger than I thought.”

“No, it’s just that you are too weak.”

“You have left me no choice, I will have to duel with you. Be prepared.”

I snort, “I don’t have to be. What can you fight with?You’re too fat and old to fight with a sword. I bet I can beat you without my sword or wand.”

“You… You little rascal!!” He says, his face is as red as a tomato, and I swear I could see steam coming out of his ears. He runs up to me super slowly, with heavy steps making the floor shake every time his foot hit the floor. I spin in a circle and I throw out the banana peel. It lands right in front of Sarge, he slips on it and he falls hard on the floor landing on his butt. He starts crying like a baby. I take my toothbrush and draw a zigzag line. Blue rope appears and ties Sarge’s hands and legs together.

“You make a single noise, I will snap and make it go around your mouth. You try to escape, I will throw you into a portal and take you to The Place of Punishment. You understand?” Sarge nods.

“Good.” I take my toothbrush and draw a Q and point it at Sarge. He starts to float, and I start walking towards the exit with Sarge in the air following me. I open the door and smell flowers, sweet like candy. I look at the flowers and sigh, just what I needed, green-poison tulips. I whistle,high-low-low-high, hoping that Junsu isn’t busy. Junsu, is my cousin, he has a voice from heaven, when he sings everything freezes. Well, everything but whatever he is touching with his hands. Another power he has is the power of words. He can talk to someone and convince them to do something. We have a special connection with each other since I was little, so if I whistle the special tune, he will hear it no matter what, and know that I am in trouble.

I see a portal open up above me and Junsu comes out. He lands on his feet next to me, looking annoyed, like always. Junsu, is 24 years old, and is five feet nine. He has dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a smile that makes you want to smile. We look alot alike, but he is Korean, and I am Chinese-Korean. After Junsu, Jay  comes out ot the portal. He also lands on his feet. Jay, is Junsu’s friend and is leader of Junsu’s group, Dream High, that is mostly all Korean magications. Here in this world, people did magic in groups, guilds, or by themselves. I chose to be by myself even though Junsu doesn’t want me to, but sometimes I do missions together with DH. Junsu is the second oldest in DH, there is seven members in DH, Jay, Junsu, Nick, Taec, Junho, Jack, and Jason. To me, DH is like family, they are all like older brothers, even Junsu, though he is my cousin. Junsu is like the overly protective older brother. Jay, on the other hand is the clown of DH, sometimes I wonder why he is the leader. Jay, is 25 years old, and is five feet seven. He has dark brown hair, brown eyes and a smile that shows you all his front teeth. Jay use speed and dancing magic. He can run at the speed of sound and is quick on his feet. He can gracefully dance past any obstacles, with tumbling, ballet, breakdancing, you name it. He attacks with dancing, tangoing and throwing them into space, ballet and jumping on people’s head and knocking them down.

“What do you need help with?” Junsu asks me.

“The tulips, and where is everyone else?” I ask Jay and Junsu. I snap my fingers and blue cloth appears and wraps around Sarge’s ears. I do that so he doesn’t hear anything that Jay and Junsu will say. Just to be on the safe side.

“Well, about that…” Jay says. “You see… Nick and Junho are back at the hideout, protecting it. Jack is hurt, and Taecyeon is taking him to a safehouse.”

“What about Jason!?” I ask, worried. “And why is Jack hurt? What is attacking the hideout? Where is Taec taking Jack?”

“Jason… Is…” Junsu answers uneasily. “We don’t know where he is. As for Jack, he was out on a mission with Taec, and Taec is taking him to your house. We got monsters attacking the hideout, because we got a blue pearl back from a mission.”

I sigh, why is there so much for us to do. I nod my head, slowly taking in what Jay and Junsu just said. Then I say, “Ok, we will first take Sarge to The House of Judgement. Next we will go help Jack. Lastly we can go to your hideout, ok?”

“Ok, fine with me. What about you?” Junsu says to Jay. Jay nods. Junsu holds out both of his hands towards us. Jay and I each take one and hold tightly. Junsu takes a deep breath, and starts to sing,

“Don’t leave, don’t leave

Don’t lie like you would erase me

Don’t say those things to me

Lies, just all lies,

Don’t tie me down with empty words,

You’re already too late…”

I find myself smiling, this is one of my favorite songs, Don’t Go sung and written by Junsu featuring Lim Jeong Hee. Of course the song is in Korean, but I still love it. I close my eyes, allowing Junsu to lead me. I let myself relax for once, I feel calm, happy. I miss that feeling. I remember him sing this song to me when I was little, we were playing around in the forest behind his house. That was before I had learned that I held the fate of the world in my hands. Junsu’s power isn’t just a weapon, it can cheer a person on, make them happy, or comfort someone. That’s the true power of music. Soon the song ends, I let go of Junsu’s hand and sigh. I miss all the fun DH and I had.

I turn and face them, and say, “Let me open a portal to drop him off, I’ll be right back.” I run off to the big oak tree near the blue lake at the edge of the field of green-poison tulips.

I draw a circle and say, “Circadendum!Circle number five!” A circle number is kind of like speed dial on a cell phone. Number five took us straight to The Place of Judgment. I watch circle come alive, I throw Sarge in and walk back to Jay and Junsu. They already made a portal and are just waiting around, being bored. I laugh and run forward, then jump. Soon, I land in front of my house.

I fall to the ground face down. I quickly get up and dust myself as Jay and Junsu comes through the portal. We walk up the stone path that leads up to my two-story light blue house. I touch my hand on the blue, wooden door, and the door opens for us. I take off my shoes and run to the door that leads downstairs to the basement. I run down the stairs and find Jack laying on the couch with Taec pacing around the floor. Taec looks fine for a 25 year old. Here is a quick description– he is the tallest of them all, six feet and one inch. Taec has brown eyes, brown hair, and usually a bright smile that shows you all his big, large teeth. But the smile isn’t there today. He has a new, clean haircut, and is wearing some jeans with a T-shirt, but he still is a fashion terrorist. But being a fashion terrorist is another story for another day. Jack on the other hand, is not so well. He is six feet, youngest of them all, 22. He also has brown hair and eyes, and usually he is always smiling. But today he is unconscious, and has the worst cut down the side of his face. His green T-shirt has cuts and stains of blood all over it, and on his left shoulder is  a cut, with the knife still partly in. There is shreds of a white T-shirt wrapped around his arm to keep him from losing too much blood.

My Random Toothbrush Story! Part 2!

I heard people shouting and screaming, everywhere was chaos! There were men fighting for food and mothers trying to protect their children. A person could smell the blood a mile away and could hear the shouting and gun sounds in the next town. I said, “chronoadum!” and every thing froze in place. Then I thought of what Potato Island looked like when every thing was fine and peaceful. I opened my eyes and saw what I was thinking about. Then I walked over to te center of the island and turned my wand in a circle and soon in my hand was a sword, The 15 Swords of Trust. You couldn’t use it unless you put all your trust into it. I stab the sword into the ground. Suddenly, the ground was shaking, and then where I stabbed my sword, there was a hole. I jumped into the hole and soon I was in the HQ of the_________ , one of the many guilds in the council.

      I landed on top of a guard, and I quickly put him to sleep. I turned myself invisible and I walked through a thousand different tunnels and a ton of traps. Finally after 5 hours, I was in the king room, aka Sarge’s room! 

     The first thing You would see is the throne with a fat, hairy man on it. Next you would see rows and rows of servants and guards. because my invisibility will wear out soon, I stepped in t the shadows quickly and quietly. I drew a sign that looks a bird. Then I started to float up, higher and higher. In 10 seconds I could see the whole room, it looked like it was about 500 feet long, Suddenly an alarm went off, all the guards looked up nad pointed at me. They shouted orders to each other, and got their guns out and aim at me. Soon there was thousands and thousands of bullets flying up on the air at me, threating to hurt me. I quickly drew a six-pointed star in front of me. A shield appeared in front of me, blocking all the bullets. Suddenly, the shield disappeared! Leaving an open spot and I got shot on the arm. I drew a cross on my arm. Pain shoot up my arm but it was healed in 1 second. 

      Then Sarge, the leader of the _________ yelled, “Stop shooting this instant! And you, you filthy looking girl, get down here and tell me your name!”

      I carefully floated down. The second I touched the floor two guards grabbed my arms and two guards stood behind me with three guards on each side. I said in a calm voice, ” My name is Katia.”

About the Lorax

On Thursday, Diamond and I went to watch The Lorax. The Lorax is based upon the book written by Dr. Seuss, which was published in 1971. The movie was about a  12-year-old boy named Ted, who wanted to impress a girl named Audrey. They lived in a town where everything was made of plastic and they had to buy their own air. Audrey wanted to see a real, living tree more than anything else in the world. So Ted went pass the city walls, to find the Once-ler, who was the reason why all the trees are gone. But Mr. O’Hare, who is the founder of the town and a millionaire because he sells air to the people, tells Ted that he has to stop going to the Once-ler, because he thinks that trees give people free air. But Ted still goes to the Once-ler and learned why and how the trees are gone. In the end, the Once-ler gives Ted the last seed of a tree, and Ted plants it with Audrey and his grandma.  I really liked this movie, and I think it will tell people to be more eco-friendly.

Annie’s Blog

My friend has a blog to work on for her IEP, and I thought it would be nice if you could go and comment. Thanks!

the link is:

http://anniesthoughts.edublogs.org/

My Random ToothBrush Story… Part 1!

     As a start for the new year I thought I might try to write a short story or novel. Depending on how the story goes. Also I need some help with the title of my story, and other parts in the story. So please comment and help! Thanks! Now on the story…  

     I stood in the center of the woods, watching the leaves dance in the wind, and thought, “This will be my last time to relax here.’ In my hand I am holding the  thing that can save the world, the ONLY thing that can save the world from the Dark Council. The Dark Council is made up of 7 big guilds that control thousands of little guilds, and I have the thing that can destroy them. My wand or so I say,”my toothbrush.” My magical toothbrush. Only I can control it and only I have the power. If I do the slightest thing wrong, The world will be at its end.

       I drew a big circle in the air with my wand and said,”(idk what to put here, im thinking of circadendum.)” The circle came to life, it started to glow and inside there was something twirling. I put one leg into the circle, which is now a portal, and it felt like fire was eating my leg. I pulled my leg out before you could say Potato Island. I decided to jump in super fast and it worked! I was in between space and time. I just had to say a place and a year and I would be there.

     So I said,”Potato Island in year 926!(which is this year)” In a flash I was there, standing in the middle of a battle.

Random Facts on Pocky Sticks! ^^

Facts on Pocky Sticks:

v     Breadsticks covered in various flavors

v     Actually pronounced like Pokey does not rhyme with hockey

v     Were created in 1963 by the Glico Corporation

v     Was not called pocky at first was called Chocoteck

v     First flavor is chocolate

v     Pocky came from the sound pockin’

v     In 1971 a new flavor, almond, came out

v     Six years later Strawberry flavor came out

v     Ever fall a new flavor is out

v     Some flavors are only in Japan

• Grape in Nagano(super rare)
• Lemony-mikan in Kyushu
• Sweet milk
• Tsubu Tsubu Strawberry (strawberry sauce with “real” strawberry in it.)
• Almond crush (chocolate with crushed almond pieces)
• Winter set which contain chocolate pocky and coca powder
• Glico Pocky and Mart (mini series)
  • White and chocolate
  • Custard and Orange
• Glico Pocky Panda- Cookies and cream (makes a LOT of sense… Chocolate breadstick and white cream with black cookie pieces)
•   Salty!
• Black Sesame- white chocolate with sesame seeds
• Brazilian Pudding
• Murasaki Imo- sweet potato

v     There is a Malayisa version from Glico called Rocky

v     Also a Korean called Pepero  not from Glico (people got the idea from Pocky thought)

v     In UK is called Mikado

v     In Hong Kong in 2008 the China Glico made Pocky Men’s

v     Pocky men’s  Chocolate is a Dark chocolate Pocky and is not as sweet.

v     Pocky Men’s Bitter chocolate= very bitter not very sweet.

This was for a speech fo Speech and Drama at my school. ^o^

The Poison Apple (Updated)

It was a normal day. I woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast and walked to school, but then everything change.  When I stepped in the classroom, I looked around. I saw animals everywhere- some were running, some were eating, others were playing. Where are my classmates? I thought.

Then suddenly a beaver said “Hey, Katie! It’s me Justin!”  I was so surprised I was sure I jumped 4 feet high.

 “Geez, it is still your classmates,” Said a monkey.

 “Who are you?” I said. “No wait I know. You are George. I have to say the monkey face matches you perfectly.” Then everyone started laughing. Will it was mostly growls and howls but who cares it is still the same thing. After the ‘laughter’ died down I said

            “I also know why Justin is a beaver.”

 “Why?” asked Justin and everyone else.

“Because you are Justin Beaver.”                 

Then everyone was laughing. Will it was mostly growls and howls but who cares it is still the same thing.

“Very funny,” Said Justin while rolling his eyes. While all the animals are ‘laughing’ I looked around the classroom again. Now I can name all the animals. The penguin was Samrina, the gray wolf was Erin, turtle was Marissa, the snake was Annabeth, flamingo was Gabriel, the cheetah was Quentin, then there was Ashley the poodle, Sally the squirrel, Richard the pig, and Perry the platypus.  There was also a chicken named José, a monkey named George, a kangaroo called Tiffany, and a goldfish named Cooper. Who was in my teacher’s coffee mug. And my teacher, Mrs. Zoroark, is a duck and the principal, Mr. Zory, is a lion.

“Hey where is Abby?” I asked. Then suddenly I see a humming bird flying straight towards my face. I ducked down right before she hit my face.

“Sorry,” Abby said. “I’m not use to flying this fast, but in a way you deserved it. How can you forget me? ”

“I’m sorry, but you were too small. No offense. Will I found Abby but I still want to hear how you guys turned into animals!” I exclaimed.

“I will tell the story because I am the principal,” said Mr. Zory. “I got here early in the morning around 6:45 am. I went in to my office at the front of the school. I sat down in my pink spiny chair and started to spin around and around.” The class started laughing again.  “Hey! Be quiet! You all have detention after school today!” Mr. Zory commanded. “Now where was I … Oh I remember now, after spinning for a while I looked on my desk. I saw a basket of red apples. It had a note on the handle of the basket. It said “Congratulations! You have won the Principal of the Month Award! You have earned yourself 20 apples!” On the bottom of the note there was the letters G.M.W.”  “ After I read the note I brought the apples to Mrs. Zoroark’s room to share because her class was the closes to my office.” “I walked to the classroom and give everyone an apple. Every one took a bite of the apple and turned into animals. There is still one apple left because you came to school late.”

“Hey! Mr. Zory, I have a question. Don’t you ever wonder what G.M.W stands for?” asked Ashley.

“I would search it up on the computer if I could but I don’t have fingers now, I only have paws,” said the principal.

“I will search it then.” I said as I went to the computers. I went on the internet and search G.M.W. There were 1 billion results. 

Most results talked about robberies and animals appearing at weird places.  There was always a note that was signed with the letters G.M.W. Animals appearing in weird places? I thought. Hmmmm. I haven’t seen the Xterment family and the Brown family in a long time. Could they have…..? I suddenly stopped in mid thought.

“Oh, no!” I yelled. “I remember barks and meows in Mr. Xterment’s house. You all know that Mr. Xterment is allergic to furry animals.”

“There is another problem,” Samrina said quietly. “I live next to them and I saw the animal control go in to their house.” 

“But where is the Brown family?” I asked. Then everyone was silent. We were all thinking about the Brown family.

“The lasssssst time I ssssaw them wasss when they told me to take care of their pet dog until they come back from their trip to Europe. And that was like 5 weeksssss ago!” Annabeth the snake said.

 “We have to turn you guys back! And find them! ” I exclaimed. “But how?”   

“Maybe if we find out who G.M.W is we can find out how to switch back!” Erin howled.

“I know someone that could be G.M.W.!” Perry exclaimed. “My great-great-grandma! Her name is Gabriella Margaret Wright!” 

“How about other ideas.” Erin said. “Better ones.”

Then everyone started to shout out ideas! The room was filled with animal noises. It was so loud the other fifth grade teacher, Mr. Spake came in! 

“Why is it so loud in here?” He asked. Then he saw all the animals in the room and said to me

“Why did you bring all your pets to the class room?” Then he suddenly screamed.
 “Is that a flamingo? I hate those creatures! They freak me out!”

“First of all we are not Katie’s pets. And secondly why are you afraid of flamingos? Marissa said. After she finished talking Mr. Spake fainted.

“Call 911! Call 911!! Now! Hurry!” Mrs. Zoroark shouted. While Mr. Zory yelled “No! Do CPR! Somebody do CPR! I said do CPR!!” 

Then Justin started to sing “One Last Lonely Girl” by Justin Beiber. Then Mrs. Zoroark and Mr. Zory stopped shouting. After a few minutes everyone was plugging their ears and yelling for him to stop. Finally after he stopped singing, I looked at the doorway.

“Where is Mr. Spake?!” I shouted. Then everyone looked at the doorway. All we saw was muddy footprints.

“Someone follow the footprints!” Sally squeaked. After that Quentin, Erin, and Abby started to track down where the foot prints lead. Finally after 15 minutes they found out. The footprints lead to an old house. The house needed some painting job and the windows were all shattered. There was also a noise, it was someone talking.

It said in a deep voice “If you came here looking for a cure to the apples you have came to the correct place.” After it stopped talking the door opened, at the door way it stood a man with a broom in one hand and a knife in the other.

He said “You are just in time for lunch!”

After he said that Quentin, Erin, and Abby started to run back to the school but when they were running Abby was caught.

“Help!” Abby chirped as she was trying to escape from the man. “Help me!”

Then Quentin and Erin turned around to save Abby. After clawing, biting, and kicking the man, Abby was finally free.

“I’ll get you!!!” The man shouted at them.

After Erin, Quentin, and Abby got back to the classroom, and told everyone what had happened. We started to brainstorm more ideas.

“Maybe there is like another fruit like a magical banana or pear that will change us back.”

 “Or there is some potion in that man’s house that will turn us back”

After a couple more ideas we decided to break in to his house at night. We were planning for another hour and soon it was time to go to G. M. W.’s house.  As soon as we got there we heard a loud growl. It was from Richard’s stomach.

“Sorry,” said Richard. “We didn’t have dinner today.”

“Can’t you eat some grass and flower like a real pig does,” Complained Mrs. Zoroark.

“That sounds good!”

After he finished eating, we started to go, but we heard something else. It was Ashley complaining about getting her paws muddy.

“Ewwww! My paws! Their all covered in mud! I refuse to go any farther!”

Finally after 10 minutes we got Ashley to come with us. Then we silently entered to house and went in to a room filled with different jars of potion.

“Hmmm. I wonder what this does.” Jose said as he picked up a jar of purple liquid. Then he poured a drop in the coffee mug where Cooper the goldfish was.  Suddenly we heard a ‘poof!’ and we saw that Cooper the goldfish was now Cooper the fuss ball.

“Opps!”  Jose said. “Maybe that was the wrong one. How about this one?” Jose was holding a jar with green liquid. He poured it on Tiffany. We heard another ‘poof!’ and saw that Tiffany the kangaroo turned in to Tiffany the super tiny kangaroo. She was about 8 inches tall!

“Sorry!” Jose said. “Let’s try one more.” This time he was holding a small jar with a tiny bit of a fire red liquid. Before he poured it on someone we managed to stop him.  We decided to get out of the house before Jose caused anymore trouble and before getting caught by that man.  As we walked back Samrina said,

“Weren’t we supposed to find Mr. Spake?”

 ‘Oops,” I said. “Totally forgot!”

Then we started to search the whole house. In the end we found him tied up in the attic. We also found a basket of pears in the kitchen. We brought Mr. Spake and the basket of pears back to the school.  Everyone got back to the classroom and took a bite of the pear. Then everyone turned back to human beings. Finally we all headed back home.

The next day I came to school happy that everything was back to normal, but when I stepped into the class room and everything was the completely opposite of normal. My classmates were all human but they were acting like animals. Great, another problem coming my way. Maybe it was the pears that caused the problem. I thought.

THE END

Sorry if it is too short it is going to be a picture book. Btw this is only book 1

The Periodic Table of Elements

The Table of elements was started by Johann Dodereiner, a German chemist. He made the Law of Triads. The Law of Triads is when you add the atomic weight of elements that are similar and will add up to the third. This was the first try to group elements. 

In 1862, Alexandre Beguyer de Chancourtois, a French geologist, published the first table. The table had columns around the circumference of a cylinder.

In 1863, John Newlands, an English chemist, published the table with elements in the order of increasing atomic weight but because he didn’t allow space for new elements it was criticized.  

In 1864, Lothar Meyer published a table that described how the elements were placed. He grouped them by their properties. This was the first time someone tried to group the elements by the properties.

After five years, Dmitri Mendeleev challenged himself to rearrange the Table of Elements. He arranged them by the atomic weight and properties. He left several spaces for new elements.

Later on in 1913, Henry Moseley used the X-ray and found that the wavelength of X-radiation of the element decreased with increasing atomic weight, because of the he assigned a new set of numbers to the elements. The new set of numbers is called atomic number. The atomic number is the number of protons or positive charges, contained in the atomic nucleus. There are also electrons which are the negative charge, it is the neutral atom. To find the number of electrons you have to take the atomic weight and subtract it from the atomic number. Now there are many different types of periodic tables such as the cylinder, spiral and much more!

The Periodic Table- powerpoint

Just a little writing project I had to do at school.

Poem-6: My dad is the………………………….

My dad is a robot

He is good at a lot of things.

But you have to tell him what to do.

My dad the math magician.

Ask him any question he will answer it.

What is the square root of 2?  1.414

My dad the turtle.

He is slow and always late.

You want him at 7:30, he comes at 7:50!

My dad the quiet one.

He never yells.

Unless he is very mad.

My dad the helping hand.

He is always their when you need help.

By: Faith Zeng

My favorite teacher contest entry

My favorite teacher is Mrs. Mathieson. Mrs. Mathieson is my favorite teacher because she is kind, understanding, caring, fun, and everything nice you can think of. She ‘s kind because she will help us when ever we need help. You are probably thinking that that’s what all teachers would do. You are right, but Mrs. Mathieson is different. She will help during school, after school, and even late at night when you call her for help.

She also understands others because when we forget to do our homework she will give us a second chance. When we are sad or mad she understands how we feel.

Now for some reasons she is caring. We had a class pet her name was Sugar, she was a rat. We all took turns taking care of her, but without Mrs. Mathieson we wouldn’t have known how. When Sugar was sick she brought her home so she could take her to the vet. A few weeks later, Sugar died.During those few weeks Mrs. Mathieson took care of her everyday feeding her, giving her fresh water, and cleaning her cage. After winter break we got a new class pet. She took care of her the same kind and caring way. Now she is also caring to the environment because on Earth Day we went outside to pick up litter.

Another reason I like her is because she is fun. Mrs. Mathieson would read us stories like No Talking. After we finished reading the book, we had a no talking contest. The no talking contest was just how it was in the book!She can also make reading fun. Some kids in my class hate reading, but it all changed when Mrs. Mathieson let us take tests and earn points. After we earned enough points we could spend it on soda, candy, and much more! She can even make studying for states and capitol fun. We always had 10 minutes before class ended to do a few problem solving questions. It was very fun!

Another   reason Mrs. Mathieson is my favorite teacher because she will always participate in after school activities .  Mrs. Mathieson also went to the Comets’ game on January 28, 2011 when the school choir went to sing the National Anthem. She also helped at the school carnival.

She also taught me a lot of new things. She helped me learn new words like depict or enigma. She taught me all the states and capitols in the U.S.  She also showed me some of the best ways to proofread and write stories.  Mrs. Mathieson show use how electricity works and how to conduct a science experiment.  She taught me so many things I can’t even name all of them!

I wish I could keep on talking about all the things she has taught me, but I will soon reach five hundred words. Those are only some of the reasons why I like Mrs. Mathieson. I could go on and on and fill hundreds of pages if I could.

The Poison Apple

 It was a normal day. I woke up, got dressed in my favorite jeans and t- shirt, ate breakfast and walked to school, but then everything change.  When I stepped in the classroom, I looked around. I saw animals everywhere- some were running, some were eating, others were playing. Where are my classmates? I thought.

Then suddenly a beaver said “Hey, Faith! It’s me Justin!”  I was so surprised I was sure I jumped 4 feet high.

“Geez, it is still your classmates,” Said a buffalo.

 “Who are you?” I said. “No wait I know. You are Richard. I have to say the buffalo face matches you perfectly.” Then everyone started laughing. Will it was mostly growls and howls but who cares it is still the same thing. After the ‘laughter’ died down I said “I also know why Justin is a beaver.”

“Why” said Justin and everyone else.

“Because you are Justin Beaver.”Then everyone was laughing again. 

“Very funny,” Said Justin while rolling his eyes. While all the animals are ‘laughing’ I looked around the classroom again. Now I can name all the animals. The penguin is Samrina, the gray wolf is Erin, the cat is Emma, and the mule is Samuel, turtle is Marissa, the snake is Annabeth, flamingo is Gabriel, the  parrot is Jacob, then there is Sally the squirrel, Alvin the chipmunk and Perry the platypus.  There is also a chicken named José, monkey named Mary Rose and a goldfish named Cooper. (Who is in my teacher’s coffee mug.)No wait I forgot my teacher, Mrs. Zoroark, is a bear and the principal, Mr. Zory, is a gorilla.

“Hey where is Abby?” I asked.Then suddenly I see a humming bird flying straight towards my face. I ducked down right before she hit my face.

” Sorry” Abby said. ” I’m not use to flying this fast, but in a way you deserved it. How can you forget me? ”

“Sorry, Abby you were too small. No offense Will I found Abby but  I still want to hear how you guys turned into animals!” I exclaimed.

“I will tell the story because I am the principal,” said Mr. Zory. “I got here early in the morning around 6:45 am. I went in to my office at the front of the school. I sat down in my spiny chair and started to spin around and around.” The class started laughing again.  “Hey! Be quiet! You all have detention after school today!” Mr. Zory commanded. “Now where was I … Oh I remember now, after spinning for a while I looked on my desk. I saw a basket of red apples. It had a note on the handle of the basket. It said “Congratulations! You have won the Principal of the Month Award! You have earned yourself 20 apples!” On the bottom of the note there was the letter G.M.W.”  “ After I read the note I brought the apples to Mrs. Zoroark’s room to share because her students’ got the highest score on the Kansas Assessments.” “I walked to the classroom and give everyone an apple. Every one took a bite of the apple and turned into animals. There is still one apple left because you came to school late.”

  Then I interrupted Mr. Zory and said “Wow! That’s weird!”

“Yea, I know, it is weird that the apples turned us into animals.”

“No that our class got the highest score on the Kansas Assessment.”

“Whatever, Now I need to finish telling the story. Wait there isn’t any thing to tell.”

“Hey! Mr. Zory, I have a question. Don’t you ever wonder what G.M.W stands for?” asked Emma.

“No. I think we should search it on the computers. I would search it up if I could but with these fingers I will crush them in no time, said the principal.

“I will search it then.” I said as I went to the computers. I went on the internet and search G.M.W. There were 1 billion results. 

Most results talked about robberies and animals appearing at weird places.  There was always a note that was signed with the letters G.M.W.

Animals appearing in weird places? I thought. Hmmmm. I haven’t seen the Xterment family and the Brown family in a long time. Could they have…..? I suddenly stopped in mid thought.

“Oh, no!” I yelled. ” I remember barks and meows in Mr. Xterment’s house. You all know that Mr. Xterment is allergic to furry animals.”

” There is another problem,” Samrina said quietly. ” I live next to them and I saw the animal control go in to their house.” 

” But where is the Brown family?” I asked

2010 IMO (International Math Olympiads) Results

President Obama Congratulates IMO Medalist Evan O’Dorney http://maa.org/news/080910ODorneyObama.html 

High School Math Team from USA wins 3 Gold Medals, 3 Silver Medals at the 2010 IMO held in
Astana, Khazakhstan, July 2-14, 2010
http://amc.maa.org/imo/2010imo.shtml

US Team Brings Home 7 Medals from 2010 China Girls Mathematical Olympiad

http://maa.org/news/2010cgmo.html

Chinese New Year Pic #2

I hope it is ok to post a second entry. If I can’t I would like to use my first picture for the contest.