ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

special microphone.

On the ship, the crew felt a moment of relief. “We are safe,” Colorful said. Sparky was hesitant to celebrate. Sparky wondered why the alien was even chasing him. Suddenly, a large boom was heard and red lights flashed.

“We’ve been hit!” Steve cried. A large hole grew and the group was getting sucked out. Steve had a handy tool to seal the door but the alien was able to grab Colorful and spoke in a foreign tongue. Luckily, Steve had a translator in his ear. He heard, “Come to my planet to save your friend or else . . . ”

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

My Smart House

JIMMY AFOLABI, TORI HERBERT, JASON RIVERS, AND PETER RZEPNIEWSKI

WRITTEN IN A WRITE AWAY WORKSHOP

CHAPTER 1

Ava got up in the morning, stretching awake in their home. Ava went downstairs to eat chocolate chip pancakes prepared by HAL. HAL was House Artificial Life, the AI who managed the whole house and served as its main power source.

There was a bowl with every cereal mixed into it by HAL, except of course, chocolate Reese’s Puffs were kept on the side within their own dish. Who doesn’t love cereal as part of a complete breakfast?

Ava left the kitchen and stepped into a tube at the end of the hall. The best way to get dressed for the day was starting out like this! It blew air all around and styled Ava’s hair and clothes until they looked their best.

It looked like there was a little extra time in Ava’s morning, so they pulled out their phone to get stuff done. Ava knew the best ways to do that. Ava kept going, completely distracted while they stared at the screen. Ava was missing everything around them, including HAL quietly asking if Ava liked today’s pancakes.

With Ava’s focus elsewhere, it was a perfect time to infect the house. So someone came to plant the virus. A van pulled up with a gardener and toolkit, and the gardener went