The Last Hour of Summer

The moon is rising, and the stars begin to show there brilliance as the final day of summer is coming to a close. I look and see the sun showing its last spark of light reflected on the clouds in hues of pink and orange. The last cicada creeps into its borough as the first grasshopper sings its tune. All this and more as I walk back to my home viewing it all in both sadness and delight. For tomorrow I wake to a new dawn where the days are spent in a cage of logic and nights on the clouds of dreams. So I look to this last hour of summer and remember the good times I had just two weeks before and on. I shall treasure them forever until the next summer when I go back to the nexus of my imagination.  By Nathan

Roses and Sugar

When the roses grow, the petals bloom,
A whiff of sweet sugar flows.
Covering the field, they fall down and roll in the sugar of sweet aroma,
The wind taking the smell, of feeling all so fresh, afar.

As the sugar falls, it acts as a seed blooming into a rose,
With a glistening coat of sweet sugar, bringing a whiff of happiness.
As the roses grow, so do the petals.
When the wind blows the sweet; sugar flies to me, picking a rose for the one I love. By Kyle, 2010

The Shadow - Prologue

The night was long, but bright under the light of the moon. At the top of Mount Tiful, The Shadow was lurking, watching the calm lands of Astharia shiver in the cold, dark presence of The Shadow. The Shadow is foul, cloaked in darkness with a veil of hate and a heart as cold as space, and eyes that pierce the heart. The Shadow watches the lands of Astharia with a smirk on its hidden face knowing all that is well will soon fall to the domain of Shadow.

The Shadow hisses a few words from an ancient language then disappears. It reappears at the front gate of an Astharian village. The guards at their post become alert and change to an attack stance; all three of them did nothing. One of the two guards ran forward and ran his spear through The Shadow, but that was it. The guard tried to take it back but it was stuck. The Shadow raised one hand and snapped its dark fingers, and as he did so, the second guard collapsed, without a pulse. The first guard was still holding the spear when The Shadow spoke in an ancient tongue. Then suddenly the spear was turning black, and cold, and it started bubble. This curse traveled all the way to the guards hands. The guard screamed in pain and in terror and soon, his entire body was covered in a veil of darkness. He fell to the ground shaking then froze. The Shadow continued to walk forward right on top of the frozen and consumed body of the guard breaking him into chunks of black rock.

The village broke out in screams as The Shadow entered the village. The shadow climbed his way up to the highest point of the village and snapped his evil fingers. Then suddenly everyone stopped cold, and each and every villager began to turn black and sink to the ground where they became shadows.

The village and the rest of the kingdom of Astharia was lost to The Shadow and transformed into the domain of Shadow, on the world on men. No other person has seen one of the villagers shadow, only fast movement s of darkness across the wall; frightened, they ran off.

The Shadow was slowly spreading his darkness across the entire world. But the Shadow was growing weary and his powers were losing their strength. So out of shadow and darkness, evil and hate, The Shadow created a daughter, and later a son, to carry on his rein.

The Shadow had vanished as time continued, and its children took its place. When the children became older, they created children of their own but decided to give them the disguise of a human child to willingly spread The Shadow under the veil of humanity.  To Be Continued - By Kyle

My Challenge - The Unicycle

 One of the challenges I have had is learning to ride a unicycle. It looks easier then it seems but it is very hard to learn. The Lawrence family  taught me on their back porch. My biggest fear was falling and hurting my head or breaking a bone. I never broke any bones or hurt myself in any way. I learned in three weeks because they helped me every day because they wanted me to join their unicycling group. Today I am in a Unicycling group and we ride in parades and do performances. One of the parades we rode in was the National Cherry Blossom parade.  The Cherry Blossom was the most intimidating because thousands of people are watching and the TV reporters record you and put in on TV live. The roads are also really messed up and bumpy. We learn to different tricks like jumping rope, ramps, hula hoops, and one foot riding. I also was up to the challenge when they asked me to move up and go to a six foot unicycle called a giraffe.  I am better at riding the giraffe then riding the regular unicycle. After I learned to unicycle my little sister and two other neighbors learned how to ride. Now we ride all around the neighborhood on our unicycles.     By Ashley

My Challenge

I have always had a love for dolphins. Ever since my parents got me that dolphin towel from Mexico, I have had a fascination about them. But it all seriously changed when I found out what was happening in Taiji, Japan.

One cold, winter night, my mom thought we should watch a movie, so she put in a good looking movie called “The Cove”.  I thought I would enjoy it, so I got warm next to the fire and got ready to see the movie.  It would change my life forever.  The whole documentary was all about what was going on in Taiji, Japan.  Japanese fish year round and would cave in the dolphins found in the river, researchers from around the world would then pick out the good looking dolphins, and separate them from their families.  While for the others not chosen, it would be a horrible doom to their fate, those poor animals would sadly get slaughtered, and sold for fish food.

After crying on my mom’s shoulders for an hour, I felt deep in my heart I had to do something to stop it. Luckily, at the end of the movie, the biologists that tried to save them, offered some websites for anyone to view.  The next morning I went to the websites;  not only did I find great information about the research, but I found I could donate money to different causes to help save the dolphins.  Unfortunately, my mom didn’t let me, but that didn’t stop me.

After some hard thinking, and liking several differant pages on Facebook, I quickly decided I would make my profile picture telling everyone about what was happening and what they can do about it.  Two hours later, I even put some letters into some of my neighbors’ mailboxes telling them how they can help. I soon felt great about what I had accomplished.    By Alex

My Challenge

            I’ve lived in Manassas for most of my life. I’ve become best friends with many people, and when I found out that it was time to move I was both crushed and excited. I was born in Manassas, and loved the little house that we lived in. It wasn’t too big or too small and the backyard had a pool. It was perfect for a kid like me. I went to school when I was five and became friends with some of my classmates. As I got older and went up from kindergarten to fourth grade, we became like sisters. Then my dad broke the news. We were moving into a big house with my sister and her family. I was so excited that I was going to be moving with my sister’s family, but then I thought about moving away from my best friends. It was going to be hard to be away from them and not be able to see them for a while. The last day of fourth grade was the day I decided to tell them. It seems stupid now, but we cried and hugged each other for awhile, and then the bell rang for dismissal.

After summer was over, it was time for fifth grade. A new house, new family, and a new school. I couldn’t sleep the night before the first day. I was nervous  and didn’t know what they would think of me. “Ring, Ring, Ring,” my alarm clock rang at 7:15. It was time for fifth grade. When I was at the bus stop, it was only me and my niece. As we boarded the bus, all I heard were kids talking about what they did over the summer and how much they missed each other. If I hadn’t moved, I would be doing the same thing. When I got to school finding my classroom was the hard part. Once I got there, I felt that awkward feeling, like all eyes are on you. I took my seat and didn’t say a word until someone asked me my name. I stumbled on the first letter, then found the confidence to just spit it out. We learned every one's name. Turned out I was the only one they didn’t know. But as the days went by, I began to fit in more. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but it turned out that I liked this new school, and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.   By Jasmine

My Challenge

         I first went snowboarding when I was ten years old. From seeing all the pros do it on T.V.,I thought it would be easy. When i arrived there with my cousin K, and my Mom I threw on my clothes as fast as I could. K and I ran to the building where you get equipment. After we got our snowboards and learned how to put them on  we went out to the hills. We didn’t realize that they were so big. When we got out there I couldn’t see where the ski lift ended. “Good thing there’s a smaller slope,” I thought to myself.

         I thought I could just stay on the bunny slope the whole time but after ten minutes K said that we should go on the bigger hills. I was shocked by what came out of his mouth because we were both new to snowboarding. I thought he would be just as scared as I was. I told him I wanted to go down the bunny slopes a few more times before I went up. “OK, but hurry up,” he answered. After another ten minutes he asked again. I didn’t think I had a choice but to say yes.  It felt like the longest ride ever going up the ski lift. Going higher and higher, and I knew I would have to go down the hill. When they gave us instructions one of them was no turning back. Right at about the highest point the ski lift stopped in mid air, I was terrified. “Oh no!” I thought to myself. “It’s broken and there’s no way down!” But as soon as it stopped it started up again and we were almost there.

         When I got off, K went straight for the hill leaving me behind. I was frozen, literally, I couldn’t move. It might have had something to do with the freezing cold weather, but mostly me being terrified of going down the hill. I was about to go down when someone else ran into me sending me soaring down the hill. It was amazing, exhilarating even! It felt as if i was flying passing everyone. At one point I saw K with his head completely in the snow. When i got to the bottom it took another ten minutes for K to get down. It turns out that I'm an excellent snowboarder.  

By Jed