Writing Winners 8-10

First place: “The Dream Ghost” by Sophie Culpepper (age 10)

I didn’t know what was happening. I was floating away, farther and farther away, and everything was going black.....

An 11 year-old girl suddenly appeared in the middle of the woods. She looked dazed and confused. How had she gotten here? Suddenly she realized how cold, hungry and tired she was. The child dropped to her knees, moaning. She knew she could never find her way home. Suddenly, she jumped to her feet. There was a light coming towards her. The girl stumbled forward…and found herself face to face with an old woman holding a lantern.

“Why, you poor child! What are you doing out here in the cold!you’re dead on your feet! Come with me, claire, and we shall get you some nice hot soup.”

Claire gratefully took the wrinkled hand, and gasped. “Why ma’am, your hand is cold as ice!”

The lady scowled. “Really Claire, it’s quite rude to make comments like that.Apologize.”

“Sorry,” Claire muttered. This lady was starting to scare her, but there was no way she was going to turn down soup, just becuase her skin was cold! However, had she noticed two other things, she would have been running for her life, screaming.Number one: she knew claire’s name without being told. Number two: she didn’t leave any footprints in the damp forest earth.

“Here we are, Claire,”purred the old lady. Claire gasped. The house was huge! It was of grey and black stone and had no windows. She had a thousand questions at that moment: Who was the old woman? Why was her house in the middle of the forest? Why was it covered in cobwebs? What had the lady been doing in the forest so late at night? However, a glance of warning from the old woman told her not to ask any questions.

The old woman took out a key that seemed to be made of what looked suspiciously like a human finger bone. It took a full five minutes to get the door open. The second they stepped inside, Claire knew something was wrong. The woman slammed the door shut and slid the bolt home, locking the door. She smiled mockingly.

“Would you like some soup, dearie?” She stuffed the selection in Claires face, laughing a truly evil laugh. The choices were: eyeball chowder, liver stew, bone soup and toenail noodle soup.

“No thank you” said Claire shakely. She began to back up. “I’ll be going now.” She turned and tried to run, but the old woman caught her in an iron, icy grip and sneered. “Oh no you don’t. I have very special plans for you.

“At least tell me who, no what you are,” pleaded Claire, desperate.

“Whith pleasure. I am the gost of Mrs. Kimberly black, murderer and kidnapper.

Claire felt sick.At last she managed to choke out “What are you planning to do with me?”

“Why, I am planning to Kill you and with one drop of your blood I will come back to life!” Kimberly laughed the laugh of a lunatic. Then she picked up a knife that had been lying on the counter beside her, unnoticed. She raised the knife slowly, letting it slide up claire’s arm, leaving a long, shallow cut. Claire covered up the blood with her hand, realizing too late that this left her chest unprotected. With a wild war cry, Kimberly brought down the knife. Claire screamed and once again she was floating…..

I woke up, shaking in my parent’s bedroom. I was lying on the couch.

“Claire, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost!” my dad said. Suddenly he saw my arm. “Claire, Whats this?” he cried. There on my arm was a long, shallow cut.

Second Place: untitled story by Tim Lee (age 10)

Chapter 1

Kyle sat in the back yard of his house. He was 12 years old, and his parents had just gone to some meeting at his school. He was old enough to stay home, so usually his parents let him. Unless they were going to be away for awhile, like maybe the entire night. In that case a neighbor would come over to check on him now and then.

Kyle lay back on the soft, slightly damp grass of his yard. His vision slowly went black, although his eyes were open, and he could make out dark forms. He began to see colors and shapes, dancing in front of his eyes. He did not know why this happened, but he enjoyed the sensation. Every time this happened Kyle usually pried himself from the ground before the anything really did something, but tonight he wanted to find out what the climax of his hallucinations was. The patterns got deeper, going into focused detail, but then blurry again. He felt strangely relaxed, pinned to the ground by gravity, his body in another dimension. He started to lift up into the air. Not fully into the air. In the dimension of his back yard, he was laying on the ground with his T-shirt getting slightly wet from dew. However, in the Tachyon dimension, he was in the air, gliding through a tunnel through space.

Tachyons are particles that can travel faster than the speed of light. Scientists have theories that if something could travel faster than the speed of light, unusual things would start to happen, like the tachyon being able to travel through another dimension of earth and space. In other words, time travel.

Kyle stared as the colors turned to dark forms and the hallucinations calmed. He then had enough focus to see where he was. His own back yard. He slowly sat up, disappointed that nothing had happened, and he walked over to the front door. He jiggled at the handle, and then realized it was locked. As he was pulling the key out of his back pocket, the door swung open. An old man stood at the door.

“Yes?” he said creakily, “Are you selling something?”

“No, I was wondering who you are. You’re in my house!” Kyle said uncomfortably.

“I live here. My name is Francis Skidmore. Call me Frank.”

Kyle figured it out. “Oh…” he said softly.

Kyle had traveled into the future. He was now staring at his father, or future father, In about his seventies or eighties. Kyle had discovered a time portal, In his back yard.

Chapter 2

Jason McCrieg walked down the street, weaving and dodging through the throng of businessmen. He couldn’t call them that like he wasn’t. He was a businessman himself. He was an insurance agent for Carlton & McCaster in Washington D.C. His job was boring, violently tedious at some points. But, he was making reasonable income, and he was at a steady job, a job that wouldn’t turn its back on him during the economic crisis.

He was waiting at a street crossing, thinking about his job. He didn’t notice that the walk sign had already flickered on, the timer slowly counting down. At the twentieth count he started to walk. When he had reached about the middle of the cross walk he noticed a bus driving up to the street. He calculated that by the time the bus reached the area that he was in, he would be well across the street. Being distracted by this thought, Jason dropped his brief case. The series of events that followed were the reason Jason McCreig would die, or worse.

Kyle stared. He knew it was impolite. But he stared. He was looking at his father. In the future.

“You are… dad?”

“And, who are you?”

“My name is Kyle Skidmore.”

“Kyle Skidmore?” the man said, “Kyle… that’s my father’s name.”

“What?”

“My father, Kyle Skidmore. What is this April fool’s day?” the man said, getting angry.

“No, I’m…” Kyle said defeated.

“C’mon! Who are you?”

“Kyle Skidmore! You’re my father, Frank Skidmore!”

“Frank Skidmore? Frank? That’s my grandfather!”

It finally dawned on Kyle. He was talking to not his father, but his son.

“I, uh…have to um… go. I have to go now.”

“Was there something you wanted?” his son said.

Kyle started to walk away.

“Oh, well I guess not.” His son closed the door.

Kyle tried to grasp what had happened. By lying in his yard, Kyle had traveled into the future. There he met his father, no- his son, talked with him and left.

Kyle realized his problem. He traveled into the future, yes, that was amazing. But, how did he get back to the past? He considered lying in the yard again, but he didn’t know if it would work. he decided the probability of it actually working was better than walking around trying to time travel, so he went back and found exactly the faded imprint of his form on the damp grass. He lay down, and the show began.

Jason dropped his briefcase. He watched in horror as all the papers spilled out on to the asphalt. He scrambled to pick them up. The bus driver watched Jason drop the case, but his eye was caught something else. A woman walked across the sidewalk, holding her child’s hand. The child was pulling on the woman’s purse, and just has the bus driver was going to look away, in that split second, the seam of the purse burst. Jewelry, coins and belongings spilled from the bottom of the purse. The child laughed, as an old man slipped on the scattered items, regained his balance and started to mutter. The bus driver did not notice Jason, in front of the bus picking up his own briefcase.

Jason looked up and in a fraction of a second his mind processed three things; Moving bus, fallen briefcase and certain death.

Jason looked up and felt nothing. He saw a huge blue form rushing at him and his world went dark, like an invisible hand had turned out any light in the world. He opened his eyes realizing that he wasn’t dead. There was a dull pressure pounding his ears and a constant ripple of hot and then cold air rushing at him. He watched looked around himself and realized that he was now in the bus, floating in almost slow motion over the seats and bus riders. Slowly things began to speed up to normal time, and Jason hurtled through the bus to the back wall. He braced himself for impact, but the only thing he felt was a slight ripple through his skin and a strange sensation through his stomach. He smacked down on the hard pavement. He looked around. Something was different. Because of a formation of molecules and tachyon particles, he had managed to fly through the bus unharmed and ended up somewhere near the 1950’s. he watched the old fashioned style bus drive away in a cloud of dust and smoke. Jason had time traveled.

Note: This is only the first to chapters. It continues, but it was too long to submit all of it.

Third Place: “Pure Jazz” by Coby Gray (age 10)

The music flows out of my bell

A river

Only stopping to take a breath

Cracking sometimes

But otherwise perfect

Come,

Pure,

Jazz.

Honorable Mention: untitled poem by Magnus Aske (age 8)

Frog, green frog, bright green spotted frog,

shinny, slippery melody, still… cattails,

pond… jumping, splashing, swimming, vanished.