Catastrophe: First Steps

time with some gangs from the bigger towns, where he had grown up. He was still causing trouble in the army, and when he got back he became an official member of one of the most notorious gangs around. But something happened which caused him to leave the gang and move here. The questions now circled more frantically around Olive’s brain. Was this gang responsible for or related to his murder? Why did he come here? Was he trying to run away from the gang? What happened that caused him to leave the gang?

Then, on her way back home, Olive decided to stop by and check in on Mrs. Smith, to see what she knew, and, of course, to give her condolences for Mr. Smith. She knocked on the door, and as Mrs. Smith opened it, Olive was overwhelmed with the incredibly overpowering scent of flowers. Daisies, peonies, tulips, poppies, lilacs, every kind, all shoved in vases, and bowls, and cups, and any dish that could hold flowers, all had flowers in them. She stood there for a minute, then comprehended that Mrs. Smith was inviting her in. She gave her condolences and decided on not hugging Mrs. Smith, since she clearly had been hugged, patted, and cried on one too many times. Then, Olive got down to work.

“So, Mrs. Smith, what do you know about Mr. Smith’s past? I know he didn’t grow up here, but what do you know of the matter?” she asked.

The old woman sat down in a giant armchair, then gestured for Olive to do the same, which she did. “Well, I only knew Herbert when he first came here, after fighting in the war. I was born and raised here, whereas he moved

here in his late twenties.” She paused, got some tea, and continued. “He told me very little of his past, just that it was an uncomfortable subject, and that I wouldn’t like him as much if he told me what he had done.” This piqued Olive’s interest. “Did he do something bad when he was younger? Do you know?” The old woman shook her head, “Oh dear, if only I knew. If only. I might’ve understood more, or at least got a grip on who I was marrying.” She sighed. “I—” A tap on the window shook the woman out of the past. Her face turned pale. “You should leave now. There’s no more I can tell you. What happened in the past stays in the past. It’s a nasty business. You don’t want to be involved.” Olive knew the story was deeper than that, it had to be. Why had Mrs. Smith turned so pale when someone tapped on the window? Why did someone tap in the first place? Did they hear what was being discussed? If so, was the house bugged, was every word said being alerted to someone else? No, Olive was being crazy. It couldn’t be, it shouldn’t be. She pushed down her thoughts on the matter and went to bed. The phone rang in the middle of the night and woke Olive from her dream. She dreamed that there was a play, and an actor made a mistake, so the curtain came down, but it was a big, knitted blanket. Olive got up from her seat and tried to get past the curtain, for some reason, but couldn’t. She noticed a loose thread, and pulled on it, unraveling the whole thing, and revealing the stage behind. She rolled over, wanting to see what was behind the curtain, but the incessant ringing of the phone dragged her out of bed, where, when she picked

it up, a dark, muffled, gravelly voice said, “Stay out of the business, and stay in the dark. What’s done is done, or you’ll be our mark. The past is the past, and the choices are made, so forget about this or you’ll be afraid.” Olive stood in the kitchen, shell shocked. A threat? But to be honest, she was rather impressed with the scary rhymes, although she needed to focus. This had to be serious. Anonymous threats don’t get given out like candy on Halloween. She sat at her desk and transcribed what she remembered of the message. The person said “we,” so this was a group of people that were most likely involved with the murder of Mr. Smith and the bloody fingerprints on the cookie jar. But who would have a motive to kill Mr. Smith? Olive then has a flashback to when she was looking at Mr. Smith’s file, when it said he had joined a gang when he had gotten back from the army. Was the gang part of the reason why Mr. Smith came here? Was he running from them? Did they kill him? She needed to slow down, but she wasn’t sure she’d remember all of it in the morning. She brought out her post-it notes and red yarn and spent multiple hours getting down all she knew and where it could lead. The shrill sound of her alarm clock woke Olive bright and early in the morning. Olive was scared. It was possible a very notorious gang had threatened her life, and she wanted to make sure what happened to Mr. Smith didn’t happen to her. She wasn’t sure of what they were capable of and didn’t really want to find out. She needed to talk to Mrs. Smith again, without being listened to, so she could find out more about Mr. Smith’s past.

The Kingdom of Orange Blossom

LILYBROOKS • AGE 9

WRITTEN DURING SUMMER WORKSHOPS

It was a shining, beautiful day in the garden of the Orange Blossom Castle. Princess Alexandra was sitting in the swing among the flowers and watching pizza airplanes fly by in the sky. People on pizza airplanes always used their binoculars to watch out for hungry yetis. (More on that in a little bit.) A benefit of these binoculars was that they were made from only the best glass from Clear Falls. Clear Falls were waterfalls.

Instead of having water crash down the sides of their mammoth cliffs, they had clear glass gracefully falling to the ground. The glass was filled with the magic from the students at the Enchantment Academy practicing their magic in their courses. The magic made all the glass never hurt anyone when crashing down the falls, and could be made into anything from binoculars to glasses.

When people used them as binoculars, telescopes and glasses, the glass always detected when something was wrong. The glass also detected people. As the pizza airplanes flew through the sky, everyone waved and said, “Ahoy!’’ or “Hello from the sky!” Alexandra loved flying on pizza airplanes. She loved traveling through all of the Kingdom of Orange Blossom and seeing everything. She loved seeing the hungry yetis and seeing all the people in the cities.

How the Hungry Yetis Came to Be:

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Orange Blossom, there were many happy yetis who were never, ever hungry. They always had everything to eat. They were so successful in business with their farms (how they always had all the food in the world) that they retired at age 40 and handed over the farms to their families. They always had enough to eat because it was such a long time ago that money hadn’t yet been invented so everyone shared everything.

Then one awful day for yetis (but one wonderful day for humans) something BIG happened . . .

The humans arrived in what is now known as Orange Blossom, but then had a name in Yetinese. The name was Dette-er-Yeti-Lland-Ikke-Kommer-Ind, which in Yetinese means, “This Is Yeti Country Do Not Come In.”

As you can tell from the title of the country, yetis hate visitors. When the humans invaded, the yetis tried to scare them away with their large snarls and their awful breath. (They have bad teeth hygiene.) All of their efforts didn’t work when the humans successfully took over Dette-er-YetiLland-Ikke-Kommer-Ind. But humans aren’t super terrible. King Vhervhine (the human king who took over Dette-erYeti-Lland-Ikke-Kommer-Ind) was ruthless but he had empathy. He was an oxymoron.

Orange Blossom:

Princess Alexandra of Orange Blossom (her shortened title) was walking to the Royal Blossomian Flight Center for Pizza Airplanes, Spaceships, Shuttles, Deep Sea Capsules, Automobiles and All Things that Move. She planned on going to her best friend’s house. Her best friend was Claudia. She was a member of the royal family on Zaberbash.

Alex was going to Claudia’s because there was something only every 87th child of the royal family of Orange Blossom was born with—time travel, predicting the future, telekinesis or talking to animals. Alex was an 87th child and had telekinesis. The same inheritance of Orange Blossom applied to Zaberbash. Claudia was an 87th child of Zaberbash and she had time travel.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

Catastrophe: First Steps

LIAMCHENG • AGE 12

WRITTEN IN A WRITE AWAY WORKSHOP

Chapter 1: Awake

Iawoke in my dormitory. At first, I forgot where I was, but then I remembered—I was still a trainee at the Aldridge Academy. Basically, the Aldridge Academy was for souls like me to train to survive in Gargantia; what you guys know as Earth. (This is an alternate universe, okay?) At the end of each month, every trainee in the whole academy would get the chance to prove their worth in the Death Trial (aka the Doom Gauntlet). To those who succeed, the trial will grant passage to Gargantia and they will be able to visit the Academy again at times. Those who don’t succeed just don’t get to go, and they have to wait an additional month to participate in the trial again. This was only my first month at the Academy, and I didn’t hesitate to prepare for the trial. I completed the extreme tier gymnasium course a million times. I made professional traders go broke in seconds at the trading center. I even beat the academy record for quickly slaying a Bahamut, one of the many deadliest monsters in all of Gargantia.

I had also looked through every document or book I could find about Gargantia. According to one of the documents, Gargantia was somewhat similar to some Earth video game called Minecraft, but there were a lot of major differences, too. Gargantia had an Overworld, Nether,

and End, just like Minecraft, but there were also two other dimensions, known as the Beneath and Aether. Oh, and also, Bedrock is more scarce in Gargantia and is mostly replaced with Arcane Barriers leading to the Beneath. Plus, there are deadlier monsters and more versatile materials such as bronze or onyx, just to name a few differences.

But still, I was unsure about my abilities. I overheard one of the academy veterans say that the Death Trial changes every month, so that it’s completely unpredictable. If I screwed up just one time, it was game over for me. (What? I can’t use Earth phrases? Gargantia isn’t even that different from Earth!)

Oh, wait, I didn’t properly introduce myself. My name’s Casper, and I’m supposed to be the reincarnated soul of Crispus Attucks, who (just my luck) was the first person to be killed in the Boston Massacre, one of the deadliest battles in known Earth history.

Just as I was going to get out of bed, I heard the bell go off with a RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The sound was so loud that I literally jumped off my bed and fell face-first on the carpet. And, just my luck, my roommate, Peony, rolled off his bunk and landed on me. (Yo, gravity still exists.) Peony was a first timer just like me; he had a mop of unruly hair and was kinda muscular. Both of us were the ONLY first timers in the Aldridge Academy, so (obviously) we got to be roommates, and we became friends in the process.

“Ow,” I groaned. “Peony, would you please get off of me?” Peony immediately looked down and finally noticed who he was sitting on.

“Oh! Sorry!” He immediately got off of me, and I could finally move.

“Next time, please don’t roll onto me, okay?”

“Okay,” Peony answered back. I immediately grabbed my agenda sheet. I froze in shock.

Peony noticed my expression and asked, “What’s wrong?” I slowly moved the sheet to Peony and then had the same expression as me. Because today was dated the end of the month, and the Death Trial was RIGHT NOW. Peony and I looked at each other, and we knew what we had to do.

Chapter 2: The Gauntlet of Doom

We took out my teleport pad from the cabinet, and then I found the location of the trial site almost immediately. The teleport whirred to life, and we went in the beam without saying a word. When we emerged from the other side, the trial had already begun, and then we saw an empty hallway with an open door on the other side. I looked at the corridor and thought: This hallway is supposed to be the Trial? There must be some kind of catch.

Just to be safe, I threw a pebble at one of the floor bricks. Strangely enough, some of the bricks had runes on them. The pebble landed on a markless brick. I threw another one, this time on a runed brick. At first, nothing happened, but then a geyser of fire burst from the brick, and the pebble was reduced to ash.

We both stood silent for a moment, then we just ran for our lives. We didn’t even pay attention to the explosions,

screeches, and other chaotic traps we had sprung. We were just focused on getting to the door on the other side. Dodging and weaving, arrows were whizzing past our heads, and I swore that I heard a roar behind us.

After what seemed like only five seconds, we reached the door and went inside. Both of us were panting, trying to catch our breath. I scanned our bodies for any injuries. Peony had a scorch mark on his shirt, but otherwise we were fine. It was then that I noticed a sign on the floor. It read: “Part One of the Trial has just been completed. Please continue on with Part Two of Three of the Trial.”

I did a facepalm. Seriously? After all that, we still had to do two more tests?! Oh well. It was then I realized we were in a small room with a table at the end. On the table, there were two things: a wheat seed and a baguette. I was confused at first, but then when I looked up, I saw there were words on the ceiling that read: “Find out what the two objects mean. Fail once, and you will perish. Succeed and you will reach the final step in order to reach Gargantia.”

“Alright,” I said. “Seed. breadstick. What does it mean . . . ” Both of us just stood there thinking, and then . . .

“I mean, seeds grow into wheat, which can be processed into bread. Does that help?” Peony asked.

“Thanks, bro.” I replied back. We fistbumped, and then thought again. “Wheat seeds technically grow into bread so—” Wait! Grow . . . “That’s it!” I exclaimed. “This symbolizes growing as a person!” I shouted into the nearby mic in the wall. “GROWING AS A PERSON,” I shouted inside it. At first

nothing happened, then some sticky pistons lifted the table into a hole in the ceiling, and another hole appeared in the spot where the table used to be. We immediately jumped into the hole, and expecting to fall to our deaths, we landed safely in a water pool. We were greeted by another sign that said: “Part Three of Three: FINAL BOSS: Bahamut ZERO.” Next to that were two full sets of enchanted diamond armor, as well as some enchanted mythril tools and Assess orbs. But in the center of the gear was an enchanted netherite chestplate.

Peony immediately yelled: “I call dibs on the netherite chestplate!!!” He was so fast and strong, I didn’t have time to object before he was proudly wearing the chestplate. I sighed and started putting on the enchanted diamond gear. After both of us were geared with our armor, tools and Assess orbs, we were ready to face the final challenge. I had never heard of a Bahamut ZERO before, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was stronger than a Bahamut (DON’T LET THE NAME FOOL YOU). I took a deep breath, which didn’t make me feel better at all, and Peony opened the steel doors. We found ourselves in some kind of colosseum with all the students watching us. Then, we watched as the principal of the Aldridge Academy, Victor Aldridge, rose on a hover pad, holding a mic in his hand.

“Welcome, ladies and gents! I am the founder and principal of this school, Mr. Aldridge, and we’re here to watch the only people who made it to the final challenge to tackle the Bahamut ZERO!”

Wait, WE WERE THE ONLY ONES TO MAKE IT TO PART THREE?!!!! Then the gate on the other side of the colosseum