A Tap On Her Shoulder
Stopping at a red light, she saw a hitchhiker standing at the corner
"Nah, not a good idea" she told herself
She drove off, but took one more look back
He wasn't there.
She stopped in the middle of the street
Where could he have gone?
Suddenly a tap on her shoulder,
“Hi there, miss”
Today is a lonely day. No one is around to play with, and it’s no fun at all. My name is Rose; I am currently a 4th grader attending Cahill Elementary school. It has been summer for about four days now and it seems I have been miserable since then. My Best friend isn’t here to spend time with me this summer because she went to Florida to visit her grandma. I don’t have that many friends. They think I’m weird and I don’t know how to have fun. That’s why I count on Anna the most. She doesn’t judge me by the way I look. This is why I wish she were here right now.
***
(Knock, knock, knock) “Coming!” “Who is it, I replied” “honey I must have forgotten my keys on the kitchen table, can you open the door?” it was mother. I thought she had left to the grocery store 5 minutes ago. “I’ll go get them for you” As I opened the door to give my mother the keys the phone rang. I handed my mother her keys and rushed to the phone. It was Anna. She asked how I was doing and then quickly told me what her grandmother just did to her kitten. Then she said she had to go because they were going to some fancy restaurant for dinner because her mother desperately wanted to go. I hung up the phone at sat at the kitchen table. I thought why couldn’t I have any fun? Anna certainly sounded like she was. I finally decided to leave the house, even though I was going to be by myself that I would eventually stumble upon something that would keep my occupied. I grabbed my house keys and made sure the house was secured. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote,
“Mother, I have gone out to the mystery field. Don’t worry I will be fine; if I don’t stumble across anything exciting I’ll come back home. Again DON’T WORRY. I need to have some fun, hope you understand. Be Back Later” XOXO ~ Rose
The “Mystery field” was the place that made my world seem to make sense. My world seemed to have meaning when I was at the mystery field. Anna and I go there all the time when we are mad or sad or feeling unusual. We go there to get away from all of the worries, to relax. We called it the mystery field because we have no solution to why it calms us. Why it makes us feel comfortable and relaxed. We also call it the Mystery field because we have found many of wonders here. Once we found a four-leaf clover and we still have it. We take it with us whenever we feel sad or we think our luck has been very bad. I finally reached the field and sat down in the grass, gazing upon the many wonders this place has. All of a sudden, I feel something crawling on me. I yelped and looked down at my hand and saw two beautifully colored caterpillars. I didn’t want to harm them for they may have been injured or as scared as I was. They stopped moving and froze and stared directly into my hazel eyes. The caterpillars weren’t as frightened as I though. After about 10 seconds they started to move again. I whispered “ I’m going to put you in my hand, ok? So that I can take a good look at you alright?” They stopped again, turned around and started to wiggle in the direction of my hand. I was very amazed! They understood me. I pulled my hand closer to my eyes so that I could examine them at better angles. I couldn’t really tell if they were both male or female or even one female the other male. So I suggested they were both boys, because I have not really spoken to any boys besides my father and the ones in my class, but they never respond to me anyways so this was my chance. I didn’t know how they were related, such as “friends” or “brothers” I also suggested they were brothers by the way the smaller one followed the bigger one. I named the smallest one Oscar and the bigger one Alphonse. Oscar was a very beautiful caterpillar. His colors were so luxurious. He had mixed colors or red, orange, yellow, purple. It looked like he had all of the colors of the rainbow all over his body. Alphonse on the other hand, has duller colors. He just has plain old colors of green, blue, and red. I rushed home safely carrying Oscar and Alphonse in my hand. I ran and ran as fast as I could. I tried not to squeeze my hand although I have to say it was a little hard to do this. I wanted to show my mom what I had found; I knew she had to be home by now.
When I finally reached home. I ran into the kitchen thinking that my mother may have been in there. “Mother!” “Mother!” “Look what I found” Mother thought that it was a crystal diamond by the way she replied, “I’m COMING!” We found each other in the living room and I slowly opened my hand. She got down close to see what I had inside. She squatted so low with this anxious little girl face, as if she was a 5-year-old girl opening a Christmas gift. Once my hand was fully flat, she saw Oscar and Alphonse. I could tell they had a questioned look. I knew they were wondering, “WHERE THE HECK ARE WE?” She stared at the two creatures squirming in my hand. She told me to put them into a jar if I wanted them to live any longer. My mother and I made a deal that if I took very good care of them that I was able to keep them. I walked up the stairs and into my room carrying the glass jar. I placed the jar on my work desk and sat on my bed and started to think.
The next day I got out of bed and went directly to see how Oscar and Alphonse were doing. The night before they went to bed with a whole leaf that I had found outside and thought they could have to eat and now it was gone. I quickly got dressed and took the jar with Oscar and Alphonse outside to start having some fun. First I taught them how to squiggle into letters. It was so amazing. It was like they understood me. I brought along a piece of paper and a pen to write with. I explained to them that I was going to teach them how to transform into letters and numbers. First I started with the alphabet. I drew a perfect A. I released the two caterpillars out of the jar and built a barrier so that they wouldn’t escape, but they were noble enough to stay. Alphonse squirmed onto the piece of paper and formed his body into the letter A. Then Oscar followed the lead of his older brother Alphonse. I repeated this technique with every letter and number, until they knew each number and letter very well. Both seemed to understand what they were doing. Now what I did next is something that was very shocking. I started say words such as: dog, cat, ham, etc. They spelt out each letter forming the word. I screamed for my mother and she came running out of the house with just her robe on. I showed her what I had taught them and what I discovered.
That night after dinner I started using the biggest words I knew to see if they could spell it out correctly. The hardest word I chose was technology. Oscar was the first one to show me he knew how to do this. I examined him very carefully. He moved quickly letter after letter spelling out, T-e-c-h-n-o-l-o-g-y. The next word was Catastrophic. It was Alphonse’s turn. C-a-t-a-s-t-r-o-p-h-i-c. He did it! they both did. I was so surprised. How they knew how to do this was a big mystery. I knew that I was going to figure out this mystery in a very unique way. I decided that even though they couldn’t speak that I knew they understood me and could just spell out every letter to answer my question.
I asked them the number one question on my mind, if they could answer this question I had a lot more to ask. I was so anxious I could barely say the question. I was finally able to relax and ask my question. I whispered to them “How did you guys get so smart?” For about 10 seconds there was no movement, until Alphonse started to spell something out. “W-e a-r-e v-e-r-y m-y-s-t-e-r-i-o-u-s c-r-e-a-t-u-r-e-s. W-e w-e-r-e b-o-r-n w-i-t-h h-u-m-a-n k-n-o-w-l-e-d-g-e, h-o-w w-e g-o-t i-t i-s a m-y-s-t-e-r-y t-o u-s t-o-o, w-e j-u-s-t u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d a-n-d t-r-y t-o l-i-v-e l-i-f-e h-i-d-i-n-g t-h-i-s s-e-c-r-e-t f-o-r i-f o-t-h-e-r-s k-n-o-w w-e w-i-l-l g-e-t t-h-r-o-w-n o-u-t o-f o-u-r v-i-l-l-a-g-e. W-e a-r-e v-e-r-y u-n-i-q-u-e g-i-f-t-s f-r-o-m g-o-d. I didn’t wan to ask any more questions Alphonse explained it all. I went to bed that night and dreamt about them.
It has been about 3 weeks now and I have grown completely close to Oscar and Alphonse. They never left my sight and I never left theirs. One day I crept over to their jar and they had seemed to become awfully strange. They weren’t the way they used to be. They were acting extremely unusual. I was concerned, were they okay? I shouted for mother. “MOM!” “COME HERE QUICK!” I thought that if they were sick or something I needed to get them immediate help. My mother was the one to tell. She ran up to my room as fast as she could and asked me what was the matter. “What!” “What’s wrong?” she asked. “The caterpillars, they, they,” She looked at the two caterpillars and stared deeply into their bug eyes. “They’re turning into butterflies,” my mother told me. “You need to let them go, they need to be in the environment they are used to. “I don’t want to, I want them to stay” “I know but they need to be where they are comfortable and able to transform. My mother and I argued. I finally agreed to let them go. I put them in the jar and brought them back to the mystery field. I cried, and cried with tears running down my face. I couldn’t let them go. Agreeing with my mother, I knew it was time to send them on their way. The caterpillars wiggled in her hand spelling out “g-o-o-d-b-y-e.”
Books
Ugh! I am SO angry. Everyday I’m shoved in lockers handled with no CARE at all. What did I ever do to you? I’m harmless; I don’t even have ARMS for crying out loud. Do you want to know what it’s like to be slid across floors or handled by angry demon hands? Well try being a book. I have to sit on shelves, being checked out then get returned in 2 days, and they didn’t even finish me! Ugh, this makes me so mad!
I sit on the shelf with the most fake smile on my face trying to get recognized and once I do I get put back onto the shelf.. What do I have to do for you to realize I need to get off my butt? Sometimes I just sit here, waiting and waiting. When kids come into the library to check out books only a few come my way. They just stare at my cover saying “hmm should I read it.” then the other one will say, “no, that ones borrring, I read it before and it sucked!” Then they giggle and just laugh and walk away.
Man! Sometimes I just want to throw a book at them. I really am I good book I just don’t understand how no one will want to read me. Haven’t they ever heard “don’t judge a book by its cover?” The thing I HATE most is how they just walk by my whole bookshelf and laugh at my friends and I. Do they know we can hear them? Do they know we have feelings too? Oh and something they do a lot is pick me up and literally throw me on the ground. Most of the time I hit my head and let me tell you it does hurt. I’m surprised I don’t have brain damage! Why can’t they just understand that I am something with feelings that also need to be treated right?
I’m very angry with this. Your librarian always says to treat your books with care. Why don’t you ever listen to them? Someday you will know how much it is important. Someday you will know how it’s like to be treated like me, a book sitting on a lonesome shelf with no one to talk to. Then you’ll be separated from your friends. Sitting exactly next to someone you may dislike because of your creators last name. Then when the kids come in to the library and throw you on the floor trust me you’ll know exactly how it feels to be a book. Not only that, but you’ll get treated so bad that you’ll be wondering why they treat you this way and suddenly realize that one day you were just like them.
Then that’s when you know that being a book isn’t just being a piece of hard paper with pretty pictures and lots of emotional writing, you’re something that also has feelings and something that has a lot more to give then what the pages say. You’re something that makes a difference in everyone’s daily life.
Never Ending Day
The clouds covered the sun poorly brightening the sky
The clouds enclosed the gate to heaven
Refraining from whichever path is said to be the unknown
In the high skies above
The tall guarded trees in the background
Out-looked the bits and pieces put aside in the scene
The tall, built big trees stand as a mystery as they were colored black
Showing us no mercy at all
Signaling us that they were the most dominant
Over the horizon you catch a glimpse of a sunset forming
Dusk has overcome us
Finally that time if day which is reminding us
That the day has almost come to an end
Day to night, night to day
Having each bits and piece
Unite, standing proud, transforming into
Something many of artists may perhaps identify as
A masterpiece
Shoes & Flip-Flops
Shoes:
I’m the one that never gets
The chance to breathe
I’m the one that’s closed throughout
C’mon man let that smell
OUT!
For I am, the shoe
Flip Flops:
I’m the one that always has
The chance to breathe
I’m the one that’s open toed.
I am the prettiest I was told
For I am, the flip-flop
Shoes:
I am used to play football
Basketball, tennis and more
I get wet and muddy
Used the most.
For I am, the shoe
Flip-Flops:
I am used for no sport
No sport at all
I am clean and used for fashion
With the jeans and tops
For I am, the flip-flop
Shoes:
I represent
Jordan’s, Nike, even Adidas
From 100 dollars to maybe
40 dollars at the least
The shoe I am, and inside
The beast
Flip-flops:
Unlike the shoe
I represent myself
I am who I am
High prices or not
The flip-flop, I am
Not pretending, no I’m not
Shoes:
See Flip-Flops have no
Manners at all
I wasn’t pretending, me? Not even
If I was tall
I am the shoe no regrets in that
Not even if I looked like a hat
Flip-Flops:
He may be the shoe yes indeed
But has he ever seen the colors
Of orange, pink, and maybe light green?
Those are the colors I can transform
Now tell me this,
Can you re-form?
Shoe:
I come in different colors too
Red, Black even blue
I am the shoe I proudly say
I have the soul of a human
That never fades away
Flip-Flops:
You are the shoe I am the flip-flop
At least when worn I do not talk
With a tongue sticking out
And stinky white socks
No not the shoe I am
The flip-flop
