Limerick

Peanut butter and jellyfish

Is my mile-long shark’s favorite dish

Well, it used to be, until

We put on the windowsill

The tank of Freddy, my goldfish

Giddyup!!

“Ugghhh,”  said Abby, dragging her backpack into her classroom.  “School.”  She hung up her backpack and made her lunch choice.  Then she sat down at her desk and waited for class to begin.   As her teacher, Mr. Smalls, began lecturing them on their lousy grammar in the essay about biology yesterday, she sighed and reached into her pocket.  A piece of paper fell out, and she read the one word on it out loud.  “Giddyup!”  A shiver went up her spine as her chair said “Sure thing, but for heaven’s sake, grab on or you’ll fall off!”  She quickly turned around in her chair and grabbed onto it, ignoring her classmate’s funny looks.  “Giddyup!”  she shouted again.  Her chair reared up, and began to charge at the closed door.   “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”  she screamed as they crashed through the door with a ear-splitting  BANG!  And then, she was tearing down the hall, and the chair was screaming “Yee-haw!”

Hatchet – Next Step

If I were in Brian’s position in the book “Hatchet”, then when I woke up, I would try to find food.  Maybe go fishing, find nuts, or something like that.  Maybe I could find some edible vegetation.  Anyways, I would definitely look for food first.

I might also start looking for a place to sleep.  If I couldn’t find one, I would make one.  I would find materials for a fire, because that would keep me warm, cook food, keep away bugs, and maybe even help me be found.  But, like I said, food first

Thanksgiving from the perspective of a Fly

Buzz!  That is the only sound I ever hear.  Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! The background music of my life.  Wait, FOOD? Is that FOOD? It is! So MUCH food! Yummy, yummy.

Buzz!  Hmmmm?  I’m not flying, and my wings never sound that deep.  I will follow it.  GASP!  He stealing my heart.  Help, he is beautiful! The most handsome fly that I will ever see!  Will you marry me?  I feel my conciousness slipping away.  Or, wait-K-K-K-K-K.  Obviously, she doesn’t like me.  Why else would she die on me. On thanksgiving, nonetheless.  Oh, well. Buh-bye!

Life of a Tree – Chapter 1

At first, I was nothing.  At least, as far as I knew.  But I could kind of feel myself developing.  It is a very weird feeling, to know something even before you are you.  Does this make sense? It makes sense to me. But now, as I’m telling the story, I’m not so sure.

Anyways, as I’m sure you’re wondering, who am I?  What am I?  I am a tree.  You might be thinking, “Oh, sure.  A whole chapter book about a tree? Yeah, right,”.  Well, I totally get that perspective. For a human, it’s perfectly normal.

You are a human, right?  That’s what I thought.

So anyways,  I am a tree, but at the point we’re at right now, I don’t know that, because I do not yet exist.  So I just sit here and listen to the hustle and bustle going on around me.

Soon I am developed enough to be curious.  What are these noises? Where do they come from?

 

Ok, ok, I get it.  If you know anything about plants, you know that they don’t hear.  For that matter, they don’t normally write stories, either.

I get it. I get that if you are an adult or especially sciency kid, you probably don’t believe it.  You’re probably thinking I’m a creepy old dude who thinks he’s a tree and is quite possibly a little insane.  

But, seriously, in this world, what’s the fun without a little magic here and there?  I know, people are brought up being told “Witches are bad” or “Magic isn’t real”.

Seriously? Is this what you believe?  Or, more accurately, is this what you want to believe?

Or do you want to believe that there is magic,

that leaves can talk and hear and write, that unicorns are real and that forest fires are caused by dragons? (we’ll get to that later)

So, if I’m doing my job right, hopefully I’ve gotten you thinking.

If I’m not doing my job right, then I’m fairly sure that a certain woodcutter is going to cut me down because I’m boring and not making him any money.

 

Now, where was I?

Oh yes.  I listened and listened to the sounds of the world.  I got the feeling I was trapped, with all of these wonders happening without me.  I got jittery. I feared that I would die without ever knowing the world.

Later on, I wished I had just stayed put.

But, I was scared.  And fear can often make you do things you regret.  This was one of those times.

I got more and more frightened, and the more frightened I got, the harder I pushed on the walls that were encasing me.  I could sense that some of me was already out, but there was no light, no noise where that part was. I later found out that those were my roots.

But then one day, I saw light, and I was out!  Everything was so. . . big! There were enormous green stalks everywhere!!!

I was nervous, but I was free!  I couldn’t stop looking around. It was a bright, sunny day, though it had been so dark underground that I would’ve thought it was bright even in the darkest night.  I stood there (because what else could I do?) and observed everything.

Suddenly, an enormous oval shape blotted out the sun.

“Hello,” it said. Was it talking to me?  I was just a simple weed, as far as it could see.

“Yes, you.  And I can tell a tree from a weed any day,” it said.  I wanted to say “How are you speaking to me? Also, can you read my thoughts?”  It said:

“First of all, yes, I can sort of read your thoughts.  Even though you can’t think without a brain, and you don’t have a brain,”  Even though it was true, I found it sort of offending.

“Second of all, I am not an it.  I am a girl, and my name is Lulu,” it said.  Suddenly, I realized that maybe I could talk.  I spoke exactly what was on my mind, and it came out sounding kind of silly.

“What is a Lulu?” I asked.

 

Yeah, yeah.  Laugh all you want, but get it over with.  I need to move on.

You done?  Good.

 

The thing laughed and said

“I am a Lulu, and I am a human girl!”

So I said:

“What is a Hoomun Grul?”

 

Get.  It. Over.  With.

 

She said

“I am a female homo sapien,”  

For some reason, the sciency words gave me the message.

“Oh,” I said.  “You’re not a Hoomun Grul.  You’re a human girl. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

Seriously, all this laughter is making me feel like I’m writing a comedy.  I’m not. I’m just writing the very serious story of my life.  

 

So yeah, ha ha ha, very funny.

 

She said,

“Do you mind if I dig you up and plant you somewhere different?  Right now you’re on the school playground, and that’s not exactly the safest place for a tree literally shorter than my pinky toe,”

Instead of answering her question I said,

“Did you just compare me to your toe?”

 

Which is admittedly very funny.

 

“Yes, but answer my question,”  she said.

“Where will you put me?” I ask.

“In a large pot, until you’re big enough to be in my yard,” she says.

“OK,” I say.

And with that, she scooped my up and away from the place I had called home for all of my very short (so far) life.

Life of a Water Droplet

One day,  on vacation, I was lounging with my buds, Charley and Robert, as part of the famous Lake Erie.  We had only been there for a month, and already had gone through the digestive system of 12 fish,  3 turtles, and some algae.   By the way my name is Bill, and I am 55 billion years old, older than earth.  I have been through 57 baryonyx dino digestions.  I tried to keep track of every animal I have ever been through, but that is one of the few I remember.

Anyways, we were riding turtle back when we heard the sun’s voice, muttering the magical words that had summoned us so many times before.  

“Evaporate, evaporate, evaporate,”  it called.  We tried to get deep enough to avoid it, but it was, too late.  We could feel ourselves rising towards the surface, and once we got there, our bodies began to fall apart, which was not at all an alarming process because it had happened so many times before.  Long ago, we droplets figured out that this is what the sun wanted.  We decided to call this process evaporation.  

As we continued to rise, we started going faster and faster, until it was like a roller coaster, shooting us towards the sky.  When we got about halfway there, we began slowing down again.  In about five minutes, we had made it there and were collecting our parts.  Then, as everyone else was, we three joined together.  Then Robert, the legs, began jumping us up and down.  I was the arms, and Charley was the head.  With us and everyone else jumping at the shell of the cloud-egg, it began to crack.

BOOM!!!!!!!!

It cracked.  Because of the force, the sun let out an appreciative ray, and the quick flash of light covered us all.  CRASH!  We hit the ground, splitting into our individual selves.  Then we all ran towards the nearest crowd (pond).  Because of a young Spanish droplet, called Jorge, because of his shouts of

“Let’s run off!  Let’s run off!”, we called this surge of movement runoff.  Luckily, we practically landed on the shore of Lake Erie.

Something like this happened every time the sun’s magical words called us into the sky.  Right now, most of the ones that had flown, including us, were pushing their way to the bottom to rest.  It had been one Erie  vacation.  Ha ha ha!

Friends I like to visit with!

I’m really excited.  Today I’m going to my friend Mikayla’s house.  I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to see her, and I just can’t wait!  I get into the car and buckle up.  I then have to wait a full five minutes for my dad to finish going to the bathroom. He always takes forever when doing #2.  I’m beginning to get impatient with him.  My sister saves me with crackers.  When he finally comes out he looks like he’s going to the beach.  On the way there, he plays country roads.  When we get there, he says, Here’s your stop.  Have fun!

 

I gasp when I get inside. It is most splendiferous (a word I made up).  There are vines hanging from the ceiling.  Hanging from the vines were several carefully constructed robot monkeys, fluff for fur, ranging in color depending on the kind of monkey it was.  There were little robo hedgehogs on the floor, which was covered in a sort of extremely soft sort of grass.  And although there were many more animals, I found that  when I laid down on the soft grass, I saw little switches on the bellies, meaning they were all robots.  Then Mikayla came in and saw me, laying  there gaping.  She grinned. “Gotcha!!!” she says.  I sigh.  “Like my new home?”  she  asked.

 

“You betcha,” I said.

 

“Here, come to my room,”  she said.

 

           “Okay dokay,”

 

“Voila,” she said, throwing open a window.

 

“This is your room?” I asked.  We were in a skinny hallway with an open window.

 

“No.  But stick your head out the window and you’ll see.”

 

So I did. I stuck my head out the window and gasp again.  The door at the end of the hallway stuck into a tree. “Whoa.  That’s totally amazing,” I say, pulling my head back through the window.

 

“I know, right!  Now let’s go in,” she said.  So we did.  When I saw how many pokemon she had, I immediately said,

 

            “Let’s trade.”  

 

“Whatever,”  she said.

 

That day, I got a Heracross EX, a Blastoise, a Victini, a Oshoat, and a Snorlax.  We pretended we were Pokemon.  We (sigh) scared away annoying big brothers and little sisters.  We ran through the woods and climbed in a treestand.  We sneaked snacks, saw snakes, slipped on sticks, and scraped sycamores.  Oh, and we watched Kooper chase squirrels.                                                                                       

I was disappointed when my Dad came back, but he had to go through the whole house to find me, and Mikayla and I both laughed at his awed expression and said: “Gotcha!!!”     

 

 

                             The end         

 

Sergeant Stubby

Before we start, almost all information from this website.  The rest is probably made up.  By Summer and Mae.

 

Sergeant Stubby is a mix of a Boston Round Head, American Bull Terrier, and a Boston Bull Terrier.  He was born on July 21st 1916.  Stubby was found while wandering the campus Yale University in Connecticut while the 102nd Infantry was training.  The puppy stayed with them as they drilled, he learned bugle calls, drills, (like intruder drills and stuff) and even how to salute! One soldier, Corporal Robert Conroy, who before worked at a bakery called Sweets By Summer became fond of little Stubby.

 

When it came time for the soldiers to sail away, Robert hid Stubby on board the troop ship.  As they were getting off the ship, he hid Stubby in his coat without notice.  Only his best friend, James Salsa, asked why he was bending over so weirdly.  So he told him what he was doing and that he better not tell Captain Coo-Koo.  James agreed.  Once they got off the ship, Stubby fell from Robert’s coat for everyone to see.  Oops.  But when Stubby did his cutie salute, everybody wanted him to join the United States Army, even Captain Coo-Koo!

 

A couple of days passed and it was almost time for World War l.  They all got trained hard and well, including Stubby.  When the war started, Stubby marched around like a trained soldier, and that’s what he became.  In Stubby’s whole career, he served for 18 months, 4 offensives, and 17 battles.  At the end of his third battle, he gained the name Sergeant Stubby.

 

When Sergeant Stubby came home, he became a celebrity, and marched in and normally led many parades all over the country.  He also met many presidents like Calvin Coolidge, Warren G. Harding, and Woodrow Wilson.  And then in 1921 General John J. Pershing presented Sergeant Stubby a gold medal from the Humane Education Society, which was the subject of a famous photograph.  And then again in 1921, he became the Georgetown Hoyas’ team mascot.  His job would be to get a football at halftime and nudge it around the field as an amusement to the audience.

 

Unfortunately, Sergeant Stubby died in 1926 while sleeping.  After his death, he was preserved with his skin mounted on a plaster cast, and presented to the Smithsonian in 1956.

 

Thank-you for your service Sergeant Stubby!  ?    

Bermuda

El Capitan

El Capitan     

 

History                                                

El Capitan is one of the amazing sights in Yosemite National Park.El Capitan is a beautiful rock formation.  El Capitan is spanish for “The Captain”.  The formation was named El Capitan by the Mariposa Battalion when it explored the valley in 1851.  El Capitan was once considered impossible to climb.  But, it’s not.  El Capitan rises above the ground at over 3,000 feet!

 

Why Should You Visit           El Capitan?      The summit of the El Capitan can be reached by walking out of Yosemite Valley on the path next to Yosemite Falls, then going west.  If you are going to climb it, the challenge is to climb up the granite face.  The Nose is one of the original climbing routes up El Capitan.  If you get to the top of El Capitan, you have a good chance of spotting some Peregrine Falcons.  But if you don’t want to climb it, you could still have a lovely picnic at the bottom.  El Capitan is completely amazing, beautiful, and awesome!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

All information from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Capitan

https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/formations.htm