ARMY OF 1000 MEN

BY SAM KAVICH, 10

The mirror reflects a girl, just a couple of soft cheeks away from being a woman. She fiddles with the silver chain dangling from her neck, running her fingers over the warm ruby pendant’s smooth surface. Slowly, carefully, her fingers find the necklace’s clasp; she unfastens it, gripping the pendant so hard she can feel the jagged edges threatening to cut into her palms. She listens to the ever-present voice in the back of her mind begging her to let go; the necklace goes onto the silver tray, beside her hairbrush. In an attempt to soften the sudden pangs of vulnerability, she slips off her flats and begins to untie her corset. With every pull of the strings, she can breathe again. It’s a feeling that almost makes up for the loss of her pendant. She tosses the corset to the side, and spares a smile at her reflection in the mirror. That’s better.

Slipping out of her plain grey dress and into trousers and white shirt was like changing skins. The girl’s nimble fingers fumble as she laces up her boots, tying neat bows. Double-knotting. Her armour quickly follows; another glance into the mirror afterwards nearly provokes a hysterical giggle when she sees the Tin Man standing in her place, and she cringes at her failure to control her nerves. Now, all that’s left of her to hide is her hair.

Her hair. Tangled and cascading down to her waist, choppy and uneven in places where she’d been forced to cut it after rougher battles had left it charred. When she was younger, her mother had said her flaming locks made a statement about her to people without them needing to know her; she was bold. A born fighter. She had taken pride in the fact that this was the aura she gave off, and that confidence took her all the way to the front lines of war. If only she was supposed to be there.

She braids her hair to the side as swiftly as she had put on her armour, and pins it up, so when she puts on her helmet, it is hidden.

Her soft cheeks and girlish features, hidden, and her bright eyes overshadowed. When she turns to the mirror again, a figure stands in her place that could have been any one of the men in her army, and she is unrecognizable; she is safe. And it feels wrong.

Her helmet comes off again, and she pulls the pin from her hair, so the braid falls over her shoulder, the exact color of the fire the enemy’s dragons soon will breathe at her and her men. Well, this is her fire, and she isn’t going to hide it. Not anymore.

Her tent flap is pulled aside, and her second-in-command stands in the doorway, his eyes wide in shock when he sees his trusted commander for the first time: a woman. She gives him a smile that dares him to ask the questions she can tell he desperately wants to, and watches him swallow, blink, and shake his head as if to clear his brain. And then, shockingly, he smiles too.

“Commander, your troops are prepared and ready to move. We leave at your word.”

She releases the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She turns her head, only this time, instead of looking into the mirror, her eyes linger on the amulet whose magic had disguised her just so she could get here. For the first time, she feels no need to pick the rock up again. She holds her head high and accepts her sword when her second hands it to her.

“Good. Let’s move out.”

With those words, she strides out of the tent to meet the army of a thousand men that awaits her on the other side.

Up In Flames

BY OLIVIA PAGE, 11

Red

BY ELLERY MITCHELL, 11

a smile that opens hearts and touches souls speaks with a soft, raspy unforgettable voice the kind of voice pain lingers at the end of each self truth a face too precious to reveal to some her features are unappreciated and rugged yet ethereal and entrancing the angel dropped gently on the tainted grounds of earth by god’s saintly hands a genuine heart with good intentions but a tortured soul with sin in her bloodline

Bob the Not a Weed

BY MAGNOLIA LEMMON, 9

It is a simple thing, really. A flat surface with round edges. A neutral grey with specks of white and black. Made to fit perfectly in my palm. A stone. Dull by nature––but not to me.

The dust does a dance of swirls and swoops through the dry air, like it has for many months now. The powerful Mexican sun beams down on the arid ground, but there is still hope for summer––when the rain will drench the earth and life will rule again. But for now, the ground only holds the most resilient of life: the weeds. Thick winding ropes of coiled roots sit just out of view, leaving only rough foliage in sight. My mother and I push blunt shovels into the compact soil and lift the unwanted bodies from their lifesource. An expanse of mangled corpses lies across the nearby sidewalk. We work until almost all the bodies have been removed from the soil, but something catches the corner of my eye. I see a cantaloupe–sized, scraggly weed, with little, smiling yellow flowers. “But, is it a weed?” I think. Suddenly, I am filled with overwhelming guilt that I cannot quite place, but then it comes to me. “A weed is not a weed if it is wanted.”

Looking for a way to resolve my blind sins, I decide that this little plant will be wanted, and with that, I name him Bob.

Bob has arms like wet, wrinkled feathers and legs like frozen yarn. I kneel and run my hand against his leafy side to feel the coarse blades graze my skin. My fingers cut through the ground, like worms, and my palms follow. I cup my hands in an attempt to pry Bob from the earth. But the Earth will not relinquish him, so I reach for my metal liberator and dig furiously around him in an effort to free him.

When the ground finally surrenders, I lift him, bring him close to my chest, and feel his frail body against my skin. Bits of soil still cling to him, and his stiff hair is jostled from the trip up. He sways back and forth as I walk tentatively to a clear patch of soil. I place Bob in a dimple in the ground so that he stays safe while I build his home. I push the wood chips

TATOOINE BY ANNIKA DUAN, 11