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350 for 50

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350 fo 50_2017We are very excited to announce this year’s winners of our annual writing contest! Writers ages 9-16 were challenged to compose a short, 350-word story that included the sentence “Immediately, it was upside down.” In addition to having their stories illustrated with original artwork, each winner enjoyed a $50 online literary shopping spree. Congratulations to all!

Illustrations by Aliisa Lee

PENCIL
By Xinyi Xie, age 9

I am up high, part of a monstrous Oak tree. Every day is like the one before: I find myself a bit taller, the morning sun hurts my eyes. (I do not have eyes), I wait as creatures pass by, during noon, my leaves gracefully soak the sun, then it gets dim and stars twinkle above me.

Today is like any other day- Suddenly, my ears heard an eerie rumbling noise (I didn’t have ears). A creature uses a thing to cut down me like the ones that they used to cut down my treemates. The creature put me on a truck ( I did not know what a truck is) then the world is black.-I mean it totally wasn’t.

I get put on a track and entered a silver box and when I came out of the box, I am a small cylinder and I have black stuffing inside me, I am coated in yellow, and I have a bouncy pink thing an end of me the thing takes me to a place where my end without the pink thing gets sharpened. “Aaaaaaah!!!” (I can’t scream). I am put in a box where I wait, wait, and wait when I finally get to come out. I look around and I realize that I am surrounded with tons of creatures. I panic.

The box was better than this. Now, a giant creature loomed over me and its sweaty hands were grabbing me. I stared out the window looking at the trees. Immediately, it was upside down. My sharp end smashes into the floor and I shut my eyes because I am scared. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh” I found out that I got shoved into a hole that made me sharper. A big hand grabs me. My heart starts pounding (I do not have a heart) “Marcus! What did I say about using the sharpener in the middle of class?” The big creature taps me with my pink and sharp end. Every day is like the one before. Until I get snapped in half and a creature throws me into the deep, black void.

UNTITLED
By Wonbi Kim, age 11

Today was the day. Deep down, I knew it had to be someday.

I roll out of bed and throw on some clothes. Walking downstairs, I’m not surprised that Dad is not here. He really hasn’t been, ever since…My mom died. On that fateful day when the cancer had finally taken her, everything changed. Now I was alone. But, today, maybe it would be different. Mom had left one last message for me before she passed. I found it a day later, taped under my lamp:

Annabelle,
There is one last thing I must give to you. This joy has been yours all along. Whenever you’re ready, tap on the back of Grandma’s mirror three times. What happens next is forever yours to treasure.
Love, Mom

I don’t know if I am ready, but would I ever be? Trembling with both fear and anticipation, I slowly walk down the hall to Grandma’s mirror. I couldn’t hesitate and I couldn’t turn back now. I delicately turn the mirror around and tap three times.

Everything spins. Streaks of vibrant colors dance before my eyes. The wall in front of me begins to flip. My whole world begins to flip – sideways and backwards and in ways I don’t understand. Immediately, it was upside down. And, in that upside down, is something beautiful. A universe of radiant color and light and life lie before me. Strangely, peaceful understanding settles over me as I gaze into this mystery. I take one timid step into the land before me. I look up into the heavens, searching for any sign of my mom. And, just in case she is up there, watching this land, watching me, I fall to my knees and think: thank you for all that you’ve done for me. Thank you for blessing me with this land of beauty and peace. Yes, I will treasure it forevermore.

And then I whisper the words that I’ve been waiting to say for so long: Thank you so much for being my mother.

THE ACROBAT
By Adela Sullivan, age 14

The girl knew she could fly.

She had only felt it briefly before, the freedom of soaring through the air like a bird freed from its cage. So although she stood firmly on the acrobat’s platform, her legs were shaking. The spotlights made her glimmering costume blink like a golden beacon towards the audience. How easy it would be to simply watch someone else, their lives of no consequence! For the crowd, it was just entertainment. But for her, the amount of things that could fail was enormous. A millisecond of error could mean freefalling to the ground below. She had imagined this moment in her dreams and it followed her around every corner.

All she had to do was jump. Of course she could do it, but only in practice. She could easily visualize the long family line of flyers that came before her. Generations of acrobats soared back long before her time. Sometimes the girl could feel the weight of her lineage crushing her, squishing her into a mould that didn’t quite fit yet. Still, the freedom of soaring through the air released her ever so temporarily.

The acrobat’s swinging bar awaited her.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she bent her knees. Forever, the girl would remember the feeling of leaving everything when she leaped. Nothing but the raw terror of being completely alone filled her now.

With a start, she remembered her freedom and those who came before her. Had they felt the same on their first flight? The thought invigorated her. Adrenaline and euphoria coursed through her, easing her fear. She twisted mid-air. She flipped. She somersaulted! Below her, the world spun simultaneously. Immediately, it was upside down! A laugh of pure joy bubbled out of the girl as she flew from her cage.

The crowd gasped.

The girl’s toes touched the edge of the second platform, her body sighing with relief. A thunderous applause shook the arena as she took a low bow. She steadily recognized nothing else could stop her; she had flown and was free.

A FISHERMAN’S YARN
By Gillian Appelget, age 15

The watch boat lingered on the horizon. The ocean was a mirror held to the silvery sky, and seabirds trailed overhead on long white wings. I knew, however, that the stillness only concealed teeming water beneath, as small baitfish would rise to the surface.

I assumed they sought refuge from the chaos below, but found only the gulls. I, too, intended to disturb the silence here. I dropped my line in and watched the bait fade from white to blue to nothing as sunlight was filtered out by the sea. My kayak cut sharp eddies through the latent water while I pedaled. The gulls circled in the clouds like vultures. A breeze sent small wind-waves running north.

Before I could relax, my rod was almost torn from my hand, bending into a sharp arch. The line flew from the reel with an insectoid buzz. I scrambled to set the drag while the kayak turned sharply to starboard. The line went slack and my stomach sank with disappointment before a form rose violently from the water. The marlin leaped, then crashed back into the sea, dragging my kayak behind it.

Immediately, it was upside down. The salt stung my eyes and the cold water shocked me motionless. The ocean expanded in every direction around me, and a cloud of bubbles swarmed towards the surface. I followed them, gasping frigid air and reaching for my overturned kayak. The marlin, undeterred, nearly dragged me away. I managed to grab the side of my kayak, using my weight to flip it over. Dizzy from the chill, I somehow struggled back in.

I fought the fish until the sun stained the sea gold. Only then did it begin to tire, and my kayak came to a rest off unfamiliar coastline. The marlin’s bill pierced the surface and I apprehensively reached for it, but recoiled after the fish thrashed. The marlin’s fierce blue eye reflected the yellow of my kayak, of which it was nearly as long. I reached out again, and cut the line. The gulls called quietly as it darted back into the deep.

350 for 50

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350 fo 50_2017We are incredibly pleased to announce the four winners of our annual 350 for 50 writing contest! Young writers were challenged to compose a short, 350-word story that included the sentence, “Every movement was in slow motion.” Winners from our four age categories each enjoyed a $50 shopping spree on Amazon. Congratulations to this year’s winners!

Illustrations by Aliisa Lee

OUT IN THE DARK
by Stella Zeng, age 10

“Are you ready?” the scientist asked, pressing a few red buttons on the machine, “Three, two, one, GO!” A blue chair spun around twice, and then she was gone.

“W-where am I? I thought I was supposed to be at my house, not hanging on a branch in some random place two hundred feet above the ground!” She cried for help, and tried to get down from the tree, “Help, help! I’m stuck!” She cried, but her words just drained away into the silence of the night. She was lost, in a gigantic, thick, forest, hanging off a massive rainforest tree. She started to make her way down, but it was taking forever. Every movement was in slow motion.

For a brief moment she looked down to the bottom of the tree and saw a glimpse of her skin. It was brown and furry! Oh no she thought. “I-I’m a sloth. Oh how the heck am I supposed to get back?” She said aloud, “I’m 22 and already getting lost in a bunch of trees in the middle of nowhere. I wish I could have a normal life sometimes.” Around her was filled with wet leaves and light brown tree trunks. She was definitely a sloth. “Wait, how will I get back to the science lab?” She wondered, afraid, “A giant teleporter and shape shifter isn’t going to appear out of nowhere ri… AHHH”

A giant, flying object came soaring through the sky. It looked familiar, like the one she had sat in to teleport here in the first place. It had the same blue chair, red buttons, and it had the same shape. She wondered, is this my way back home? With no hesitation she slowly made her way to the familiar machine, one claw at a time. She was right, it was her way back home.

Slowly, while making her way to the seat, she wondered whether this machine would work or not. Then, with a push of a few red buttons, the blue chair spun around twice and the sloth who was on the chair was gone.

THE HEIST
By Zachary Wen, age 11

Penelope was about to complete her legendary heist of the famed Zephyr Diamond, and her eyes widened at the dazzling diamond. Geometrical-shaped light glinted off the Alice Blue walls. Penelope’s hand trembled. Carefully, she placed her gloved hands on it, and quickly stuffed it in her bag. But something strange happened the second she did. Every movement was in slow motion.

What…? Penelope thought and turned around to see if anyone was behind her. No one. The sensation was unreal. Her skin tingled, her muscles stiffened. She could feel her heart pumping.

I need to get out of here! Her mind yelled. She started to run toward the exit with all her might but had barely moved from her original position.

And that’s when the alarm sounded. It deafened her, and the guards moved in, guns blazing. It was like a scene from The Matrix. Penelope weaved and dodged the bullets, and she felt a drop of sweat start to venture down her neck. The stakes were nothing like she’d ever experienced.

She disarmed the first guard and elbowed him in the face. Slowly falling like an injured bird, his body gave a jerk when he hit the floor and bounced up an inch. Ok, maybe you don’t have to do that for every guard, she chided herself: she was running out of precious time.
The door out was only a couple of meters away, but it felt like kilometers. She ran with all her strength, but still moved slow as a slug. Adrenaline was the only thing fueling her now, and her legs were close to giving out. She turned around to see the guards catching up and willed herself to run even faster. Her muscles burned and her bones ached.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, she made it through the archway, and looked back, to find, to her terror, a silver bullet zooming right toward her. Suddenly she realized it was the magic of the diamond. Now she had a choice: drop the diamond and live, or hold on to it and take what was coming.

MIRRORED FEARS
By Sofia Lachmann, age 13

“Five minutes to curtain!”

Our director’s voice sounded distant compared to the ringing in my ears and the lines I had practiced for weeks spiraling in my head. Every movement was in slow motion. The people around me, putting finishing touches on their costumes. The whispers of everyone backstage, reciting lines. My thoughts seemed to be the only thing in the room that was running a mile a minute. How could they be so calm, knowing they were about to go out on stage in front of hundreds of people, knowing they could ruin the night with one wrong word?

A tug on my dress brought me back from my maze of a mind. I turned to the young girl, who like me, was wearing the blue and white dress that hinted at our role in Alice in Wonderland. With her blond ringlets and round eyes that were filled with worry, I was transported to the memory of when I had worn that dress, feeling the same anxiety.

“I’m scared,” the girl whispered. “I don’t think I can do this.”

I could see the fear radiating off of her, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her skirt and her downcast eyes. It was impossible not to see myself in her, when I was about to go on stage for my first ever performance all those years ago. I softened, smiling as I pulled her in for a tight embrace. Her small arms hugging my waist, I told her the same words I had been told.

“It’s normal to be afraid. The only thing you can do is remind yourself that your fear does not control you. As we go on stage, just remember that being brave is being able to continue, even with your fear.”

As I encouraged her, I felt the words calm my own fears, settling my mind. I smiled again at the little girl, taking her hand as our act began. Together, we took a deep breath as the curtain rose, walking hand in hand onto the stage.

Fearless, even with all eyes on us.

IF THAT MOCKINGBIRD WON’T SING
By Claire Tang, age 16

In Kansas, the land-locked heart of America, fathers like to sing a song about mockingbirds: If that mockingbird won’t sing, Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. It’s a song about replacing good things lost with new and better things, a litany of warranties.

On my eleventh birthday, my Papa gifts me a birdcage painted poppy-pink. Inside is a mockingbird with eyes like night pinned to glass. Papa tells me how he caught it with his two hands, how he climbed a mulberry tree and lay so still on one of the branches the bird mistook him for the sky. He had inched toward it quietly. Every movement was in slow motion. When the avian neared enough, he hugged it with a cold fist. It flailed against his palms with erratic simplicity.

I hang the birdcage up in my room, next to the window that the night fills with stars. The mockingbird doesn’t sing a note for weeks, and I joke with Papa that he owes me a diamond ring.

During the last dregs of summer, Papa tells me about the high-position job he received at a startup company in Singapore. He’ll be leaving Kansas indefinitely; his flight is on Monday.

“How could you leave?” My futile protests catch on tear-salted syllables. “Don’t you owe anything to the people who love you?”

But Papa doesn’t breathe a note. He just walks outside, his arms tight to his sides like folded wings. From my window, I can see him breathing in hard, beating pulses of air, like the flapping of wings. He’s crying. Every now and then, he raises his head to look at the trees or clouds or airplanes. At one point I think of dragging him inside, but it seems too rude. So I only wait, a small thing watching.

Night falls like a soundless film of gasoline, the sun bursting into a million flames of gold, leaving behind a diamond-studded horizon. Papa’s shadow grows longer and longer. I call for him to come home, but he doesn’t respond. Just slants his head back, a creature considering the sky.