The Incredible Journey
Bethanie Cassard
It all started a long time ago, before humans existed, before Antarctica was a frozen tundra. In fact, that’s where our little story begins, in Antarctica. Before it froze over, that area was another ocean. In this ocean lived a sad little droplet named Mark. He was sad because he thought, “I can’t do anything, I’m not special or important, there are millions of droplets and I am no different from any of them.” Little did he know, he was different; they all were. None of them would take the same path. But they had to start somewhere and, though Mark did not realize, this is where his amazing journey began!
a frozen iceberg. He stayed cold and solid for millenniums until the iceberg started to melt, break away, and drift south. As the ice boulder floated itself into warmer water, Mark returned to his liquid state once again and became one with a new ocean. However, Mark had little time to get used to this new area, because this area was hotter than his last. It was so hot that Mark evaporated into a gaseous state, traveling high in the atmosphere, where he joined other vaporized water droplets like himself. Together, they formed a huge cloud and sailed across the sky, collecting as many water vapors as they came across.
When he was created, Mark was put in an ocean that was not meant to last, but this doesn’t mean that he disappeared along with it. He moved fast and free, nothing or no one to control him. It was quite warm, which made it easier to move about. But one day, the ocean got cooler and continued to do so. Mark started to slow down, eventually slowing so much that he could no longer move! He’d gone from a droplet in an ocean to an ice crystal in
“The view is SO much better from up here,” Mark thought. “I’m gonna stay up here forever!” In cloud form, Mark and his new cloud mates traveled far and wide, gaining vapors left and right. But as they grew the cloud bigger, they made it denser and heavier. Soon, they were at crawling speed and losing altitude. The sudden change in pressure compacted them slightly, yet it was enough to pack some together enough to return to liquid form. Mark was one of
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