O Painful Tree

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your pine needles fall so much!
It is a pain to clean up your mess.
We are done with you, I must confess.
O Painful Tree, O Painful Tree,
Your pine needles fall so much!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your bright lights burn my eyeballs.
Round and round we go removing lights
I get so dizzy, I lose my sight.
O Painful Tree, O Painful Tree,
Your bright lights burn my eyeballs.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
I’m sick of your ornaments.
We must carefully pack them away.
I want to do this some other day.
O Painful Tree, O Painful Tree,
I’m sick of your ornaments.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
You leave a white emptiness.
We replace you with a brand new hutch
Now you’re gone and I miss you too much.
I’ll miss you Tree, I’ll miss you Tree,
You leave a white emptiness.  

My sister is so stubborn!

“No!” my sister complains.  My sister does not want to go to gymnastics for her first day!  It’s so frustrating!  She is too shy and nervous, and uses it as anger instead.  She is sitting at the kitchen table coloring a Minnie Mouse picture, which she wants to finish as well.

               “Chloe!  I am gonna count to three!  One… two… three!” I shout at her.  Oh, man, that trick doesn’t work anymore, I think.

               “Just let me finish coloring my picture!” my sister hollers.

               “Chloe, you just started, when do you think you’re gonna be done?” I ask in a loud, strict voice.

               “Just give me ten minutes!” she says.

               “We have to be there in ten minutes!” I argue.

               “Angie-e,” she whines.

               “Do you want to be late for your first day?!” I yell. Jeez, I think in my head, she really wants to set a bad impression on the first day, doesn’t she?”

               “I don’t even want to go!  You can go, and I will stay home,” she says with a humph in her voice and face.

               “Nobody will be home to watch you.  And besides, mom already paid for it.  You have to go!” I say with anger and frustration rising in my voice.

               “No!” Chloe says plainly and firmly.

               “Yes!” I say back to her.

               “No!”

               “Yes!”

               “NOOOOOO!”

               “YEEEEEEEES!  Chloe, you have to go, and besides if you don’t want to go, I do.  I love gymnastics, and I have already missed so many practices.  And now I’m gonna miss some more!  And it’s all because of you!  Humph!  You ruin everything!”  I shout back at her.  My arguing isn’t working out so well.  Even though I have many reasons for making my sister go to gymnastics, she is really stubborn and will probably win the argument, and make me stay home with her.  I am almost twelve, so I babysit my little sister, and we walk to gymnastics together.  Today will be her first day on team, so she does not want to go.  She makes the excuse of wanting to finish coloring her picture.  She thinks team is not fun.   During classes she gets to play rather than do real gymnastics.  During team practice, she has to work hard.

               My sister is quiet.  The house is suddenly silent.  I hear a nearby clock ticking away our time.  We have to be there soon!

               “Chloe, are you coming or are you not?  I need to know, so I can call mom to tell her you don’t want to come,” I say suddenly quieter.

               Chloe does not reply.  She looks down, and all I can see is her black, but orange on ends—from swimming— hair covering her face.

               “Are you okay?” I ask.

               “I don’t like it when you shout at me,” she says with her lips jutting out, almost as much as a mountain jutting out of the earth.

               “Chloe, I have to shout or you won’t listen, and it seems like now, when I shout you still don’t listen.  So tell me a way for you to listen to me,” I say.

               “Just talk quietly, and I will listen,” she says.

               “Fine,” I whisper, “is this quiet enough?”

               “No,” she laughs.

               “Is this quiet enough?” I say even quieter.

               “Angie, I meant that’s too quiet,” my sister giggles.

               “Oh, well, how about we go to gymnastics now?” I try to get her to go.

               “No!” she says. Her giggle was now gone.  It was replaced by her old stubborn, frustrated, and unwilling to go to gymnastics face.

               Oops, guess I tried a little too early, I think.  I glance at the clock.  Gymnastics starts in five minutes!  I hope my sister will go, I dream hopefully.

               “Chloe, you better come, or I’m gonna flush Lazy Sheep”—Lazy Sheep is her favorite toy, because he has small eyes, and he’s lazy—“down the toilet!”

               “I know you’re not going to,” my sister says, picking up her crayons and resuming her coloring.  She has a trying-to-be-a-big-girl look on her face, which I personally think looks really silly.  She keeps that face on, until I start laughing.

               “Why are you laughing Angie?  Ugh, you’re such a silly little girl,” she says, rolling her brownish-black eyes way back in her head.

               I laugh some more.

               “Angie, you are the silliest little girl I have ever seen.”

               I figure we will never get to gymnastics if she keeps talking like that, and I keep laughing, so I decide to get Chloe’s toy, which is lying on the couch.

               I walked over to the couch where Chloe’s toy, Lazy Sheep, was.  I gave her many seconds to retrieve her toy back, but she didn’t.  So I sprinted over to the bathroom, hid him in the closet by the bathroom, and flushed the toilet.   This way my sister would think I really did flush him down the toilet—which she did, according to her scream.

               “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  ANGIE!  Did you really flush him down the toilet?” she screams.

               “Yep, I did the right thing—I followed through what I said,” I say calmly.

               “Oh, no!  Lazy Sheep’s gone forever!” she says realizing the “truth.”

               “If you get ready for gymnastics, and we are there twenty minutes from now, then Santa Claus will give you Lazy Sheep,” I say.

               “Okay!” Chloe says with a nod of excitement.  She runs upstairs, and puts on her leotard.  She grabs a water bottle and says, “I’m ready!”

               “But you’ll have to wait till Christmas to get Lazy Sheep,” I say.

               “WHAT?  But I want him NOW!” she shouts.

               “Okay, okay,” I say.  I sprint over to the bathroom and bring her the toy.

               “You had him the whole time?” she asks.

               “No… Santa flushed him back up the toilet,” I say.

               “Really?” she asks, “how come he’s not wet?”

               “He has magic powers that made him instantly dry,” I pretend.  I am a good “pretender,” at least for little kids.

               “Angie, but I don’t want to go to gymnastics, because I am scared that everybody will make fun of me, because I will be the youngest one there, and everyone else will know more gymnastics than me,” Chloe said with a sigh.

               “Chloe, why didn’t you just tell me so?” I ask, surprised.

               “Because… I just didn’t want to,” Chloe said.

               “Well, I have to tell you something.  Team can still be fun, even though we work harder.  You can make new friends, and learn new skills that are a lot harder and cooler than the skills you already know.  And I thought you were a big girl.  Big girls get in team, not in classes.  Plus, you have to try new things, so you don’t spend your whole entire life doing one boring thing.  You have to explore new things as well,” I said, with a much kinder, and gentler voice than before—when I was shouting. 

               “Okay…” my sister sighs, “but I still don’t want to go, because what if the other kids make fun of me?”

               “Chloe, they won’t, and if they do, then I will tell them to stop.  Actually, you know what?  You can tell them to stop yourself.  If people are being mean to you, then tell them to stop being so mean,” I said.

               “No!  Angie.  You do it.  I’m too scared,” Chloe said hugging my arm with a very, very tight squeeze.

               “Chloe, you can’t always be a little girl.  You have to grow up, and be a big girl.  Big girls talk for themselves,” I said.

               “Fine,” Chloe said putting on a brave face.

               My sister, Chloe, and I walked to gymnastics together, and she wears an upside down happy face.  But soon I saw that she was happy, and had a right side up happy face.

My mother and her brother

My mother, Rebecca, was walking over to her brother, Ray’s, school to take him home on a typical Tuesday afternoon in 1977.  She took slow dragging steps in the hot sun.  She was in no hurry.  She felt drowsy, and her brain couldn’t think straight.  She rarely got enough sleep these days.  Most nights she slept at midnight and woke up at seven.  She had to stay up helping do housework, and finishing her homework.  Suddenly, she jumped and straightened up like popcorn popping in the microwave.  She had thought of an idea.  She and her brother would steal eggs from their basket at home.  The basket carried about two dozen eggs.  Her mother never let her and her brother eat full eggs themselves.  Even if they did get halves, they were already spoiled and rotten.  They got the eggs once a month and her mother liked to save them for the end of the month.  Her mother had just brought home eggs yesterday, so they were still fresh and tasty.  She was going to tell my uncle of her scheme.

The street came into view.  Many cars were rushing home in rush hour on this busy street. She waited impatiently, as a red car passes, then a blue, then a white.  She felt like darting across the street, cutting into the long line of cars passing by.  She knew what danger that would be, so she waited on the sidewalk, even more impatient now.  She felt a strong urge to stay back, and so she tries to calm down.  Finally a car stops and the person inside allows her to cross kindly.  She waves a “thanks”, and quickly crosses the street. 

Rebecca started running in excitement.  She could already smell the wonderful warming smell of the egg.  She even tasted the salty and juicy egg in her mouth.  As she approached the school, she hurried Ray out.  She informed him of her scheme and my uncle skipped excitedly.  He had never had a whole egg to himself before.  They were going to steal some from their basket (back then, they did not have refrigerator), and ask a friend—a neighbor—to fry them.  In exchange for her cooking them, they would give her an egg as well.  My uncle can already taste the salty, juicy egg getting chewed up in his mouth.  When he came back to the real world, his mouth watered tons of spit.  Some of his saliva fell on the ground!  My mother told him to shut his mouth because he was embarrassing her.  My uncle was a trouble maker, so he started dripping more. 

Rebecca yelled, “Young man, stop drooling before I call the police!”

So he started to spit at her. 

She screeched, “Eww!  That was disgusting!”—and wiped some of it off her face with her dress—“I am so going to tell on you!”  This did the trick!  My uncle quickly licked of the spit and stopped drooling.  If his mother found out, he would be dead as a roasted chicken!

They fast walked home.  Their house got clearer and clearer, as they ran towards it.  Their throats ached with pain by the time they reached the house.  They were panting heavily, and their faces were shiny with sweat.

My mom told my uncle, “Go grab three eggs!”

My uncle asks, “Why, three?”

“One for me, one for you, and one for our friend!  Sheesh!  How could you not know that?  Oh, I know, because you’re my brother!”

“Hey, that’s not nice!”

My mother shouted, “Hurry up!  Mom’s gonna be home soon!”  Their mother was out shopping, and usually she got home about half an hour after my uncle and my mom got home.  That meant they had about ten minutes to fry the eggs; ten minutes run there and back; and ten minutes to eat the delicious eggs.

My uncle shouted back, “Okay!  I’m hurrying!  Gosh!”  He quickly bolted inside.  He found the basket sitting on the table.  He grabbed one, then another, then a third.  The brown, hard eggs felt smooth, and cool.  He savored the moment for a second; then the eggs turned warm and rather sticky, with his sweat.  He ran to the door.

My mother shouted back, “Well, do you want us to be caught stealing eggs?”  She added quietly, “Even though they are from our own house.”

My uncle ran out holding three eggs in one fist.  The other shut the door.

They run over to a neighbor’s house.  They ask if she can cook the eggs.  She replies with a quick nod, as though she understands why they’ve come, and hurries to fry the three eggs.  They each snatch one and eat gratefully.  They feel like they are in heaven—they feel like they are in paradise.  They wish it could last forever, but it can’t. 

They run back home in a dash.  As they get in through the back door, the front door opens. The back door of the house shuts just as the front door opens.  Rebecca and Ray just stand there awkwardly, not knowing what to do.  They must have seemed weird to be standing next to the back door next to each other.  Her mom drops all the groceries on the floor.  She sighs and brushes some hair out of her face.  She has dark circles under her eyes.  She seems tired but suddenly jumps up.  My uncle and mom think she knows of their escape to the neighbor, but she just says excitedly that they can each have an egg for dinner, because their father got promoted at work!  He had done a good job with getting all his work done.  He also worked for longer than needed almost every day.  They all dance happily.  Rebecca is jumping around with excitement, Ray is running around hollering excitedly, and their mom watching and even doing a little victory dance herself; but this victory would end soon.

As my grandmother starts to cook the eggs, she asks how their day was.  They said that it was great, and they only had a bit of homework left to do.  Suddenly, she yelps!  My mom and her brother snap their heads over.  They seem surprised, as nothing is really even there.  My grandmother says there has been a robber stealing the eggs.  She says she took out four eggs, and there are only seventeen left.  My mother shushes my uncle with a loud cough-ish-sneeze-“ahem” type thing, as he is about to confess that it was their fault.

My mother covers it up, by saying, “Oh, no!  What if the robber took other stuff like our money?”

My uncle catches on and says in an overly dramatic voice, “What if he kidnaps me, and sends ransom notes to you guys?!”

Their mom says, “Calm down—let’s just hope the robber doesn’t come back again.  Go lock all the doors and windows of the house.  That will help keep the house safe.”

My grandmother has a suspicion that they took those three eggs, so she says, “Actually, I am just going to cook an egg for Dad.  I think he deserves it, since he was the one who got promoted.  I also feel that we need to save the eggs, since the robber might steal more.  I am going to hide the basket somewhere, where nobody will know where it is.”

My mom asks, “Can we help?”

My grandmother blurts out, “Sure, if you don’t steal your own eggs that you could have got if you didn’t steal them!”

My mom and uncle say in unison, “What?”

My grandmother says, “I knew you stole those eggs, when I counted.  I had a feeling you were going to since I just got them.  You better not steal anymore eggs young lady!  And you, too!”

My mother explains quickly her point of view.  She also says that her brother came along, but it was all her idea.  Her mother forgives them, and cooks an egg for each of them for dinner.

The Beach

The sea,

Is a huge pit of sea water,

Full of salt, and litter.

I wade into it,

As if it were a pool,

A huge pool,

Instead of the dirty mess it really is.

The stabs of pain in my feet,

I ignore.

All that matters is the wonderful, cool feel

Of the sea water rushing up against my legs.

I sit down,

And as I do, a huge wave comes crashing over me.

I hold my breath,

And soon the water has gone back

Out to the unreachable pool,

Where the continental shelf,

Tips into the abyssal plain.

Suddenly I realize,

This was no ordinary wave.

My leg has been scratched up,

And burned by the hard shells in the sand.

Another wave flows in,

I run to the safe shore,

Where my father and mother lay in the hot sun.

I show them my bruised up leg.

They just say I will be fine,

And to go play.

I feel scared though.

My leg feels swollen, and hurt.

I decide to sit in the sand,

For just a couple minutes, and warm up in the sun.

After a while, I feel hot,

So I go back in the water,

But I feel scared,

Because I could drown,

Like that ten year old boy,

Who is still being searched for.

Well, I guess I shouldn’t worry so much,

Because I want to have fun!

After all, someday I will die,

So it’s now or never!

Lazy sheep by awesomepurplepear, and her sibling

Lazy sheep’s head is big. Lazy sheep’s body is small. That’s weird!  He is funny, because he farts a lot, and says he is full of kisses. He likes to eat and drink, and sleep, because he is lazy. His favorite food is candy, because it is sweet. His favorite color is gold, because it is shiny.

Gorilla on the Loose...the rest of the story

The slimy, disgusting spit of the alligator drooled on the grass. The innocent looking
gorilla sat there staring stupidly into space, not noticing the huge green
alligator casting a shadow down upon him. The gorilla still seemed deep in thought
about the light blue sky and small clouds drifting in and out of the sun. There
was nothing in the sky that could have brought him to his senses! He finally
noticed the huge shadow looming over him. He shrieked like a girl, and ran for
his life. He knew alligators did not try to eat his kind, but he was scared. He
had always been scared of scaly green things. That’s why he was only scared of
mermaids with green tails, not with blue or pink or purple tails; only green.
The gorilla watched Bubble Guppies on TV. He wasn’t quite sure why he was
scared of green scales. He just saw them once when he was little, ran away from
them, and from then on was scare of them.

As for Karrie, she didn’t know what to do! Of course she was scared to death about
this odd scene in her backyard. She was frozen staring at them. “Seems we
have a couple gorillas missing!” bleeped the radio. Karrie took
no attention. She breathed heavily and told herself to calm down.
“… oh my
gosh! We seem to have one alligator missing too!
Karrie jumped. She flipped off her radio and ran
over to the alligator. Oh man, she
thought, its teeth are so shiny. I
hope I can do this. She ran into the way of the alligator barely thinking about
what she was doing. She knocked it off its feet and the gorilla got away. The
zookeeper came and scooped him up. Soon he was back in his cage with his
family. The alligator could not harm him anymore. Karrie was on the news and
all over the internet by the next day. She was, “Random girl saves gorilla from
harm” or “Girl saves the gorilla!”
Everybody was trying to get her picture or some good information out of
her. Reporters were asking, “What was it like? What happened?” She just said,
“I just dove in and they did the rest by themselves! Now get out of here! I
want some peace!” Now I know how the
gorilla felt, she thought.

Persuasive Essay

Who doesn’t like lunch? School lunch is a time of the day I look forward to. During lunch, we don’t have to learn anything; we get to spend time with friends. Afterwards comes recess. But are school lunches as good as they can be? Sometimes we have delicious spaghetti or tacos on Thursdays. On other days, entrees like disgusting veggie pizza ruin my lunch. School lunches should be better quality, tastier and include more choices for students consistently.

As I walk down the lunch line, I see poor quality food. Sometimes, I can tell the food is leftover, because it is the entrée from the day before and is sometimes burnt. For example, once they served cheese quesadillas on Thursday, even though it was Wednesday’s option. They were all burnt and ugly. You could see the dark marks all over it. The chicken tenders are bumpy. The chicken tenders once had huge bumps that looked like warts on them. The milk cartons sometimes leak. To prevent this from happening, the manager should buy from a different milk company. The hamburger meat appears to have fillers. Once, I bit into a hard, white bone. I have also discovered that the hot dogs are bouncy! My friend tried bouncing the hot dog on the floor and it bounced all the way back into her hand. For better quality, the cafeteria should use cleaner, fresher meat and order milk from a better company.

When I sit with my friends and start my lunch, I taste the hard, whole-wheat hamburger bun with too much flour on it. On the bottom I can always see the whiteness of it. Other times, I taste sweaty grilled cheese; it is very wet. To make it tastier, the cafeteria could use yummier bread, like they have at Cheesecake Factory. Some of there bread is crunchy, but some is soft. At the start of your meal the server brings a wide variety of bread to your table. My dad’s favorite is the healthy, multigrain bread. Mine is the baguette.

There are too few choices at lunch. Sometimes there are three main dishes and I don’t like any of them. There could be old rotten pizza, hummus bitable, and peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Peanut allergy students can only have two of those! If you are a vegetarian with a peanut allergy you have even fewer choices. Lunch should be more like a buffet every day, with more choices for students.

Fairfax County Public Schools might worry about the expenses, but why should they? If the students have this than there will be less waste and restaurants will be happy to give coupons and discounts. If school lunches are better quality, tastier and offer more choices, then kids will look forward to school and to lunch.