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This week, we present responses to the following challenge: Twist. Write a story that leads your readers to believe it’s about one thing, but it turns out to be about something else entirely. Make it wacky and surprising!
By Leah Wheeler
Age 15, West Newbury, Vt.
The evening sky slowly fades in the darkness,
turning it to a brilliant rainbow of reds, oranges, yellows, and blues.
The dark blue turns into black as the sun dips down behind the mountains,
and the bright, full moon rises high into the air.
I take a deep breath, smelling the sweet, fresh mountain air.
I slowly let it out, and look up to see the stars popping up in the sky above me.
Breathe in, breathe out.
The stars wink at me as they glow red, blue, and white.
Within five minutes, I can make out various constellations:
Virgo, Leo, the Big Dipper, Canis Major, and Orion.
I lay on my back and cross my arms behind my head, staring up at the beautiful stars.
Breathe in, breathe out.
They amaze me. Those stars twinkle and shine brighter than light itself.
I’m lost in those twinkling stars, and then I find that I’ve been lost within your bright eyes.
Breathe in, breathe out.
By Addison Cadwell
Age 13, Strafford
Last night I had the craziest dream. I dreamed that I was living with a community in the clouds. All of my friends and family were the people who made up my cloud village, but the villages beyond held strange creatures. They made awful noises that confused and annoyed anyone close enough to hear them, so for that reason, no one went to the borders of my village. It was not only because of the sounds, though — there was also an awful stench coming from the strange area.
One day, as I was walking home from my cloud school, I smelled the odor coming from the creatures beyond. I had always been suspicious of what could produce such smells and make such annoying noises. I finally made a plan to go check it out. I told some of my friends, but only one of them, a daredevil, agreed to come with me. My other friends told me that I was crazy. I didn’t care.
My friend and I set out on our journey. As we got closer and closer to the border, the smell became even more overpowering. We made it deep into the strange village nonetheless, hearing the sounds of the creatures all around us, though we couldn’t see them.
Then, all of a sudden, the smell overpowered everything else, and I started to get lightheaded. I ran blindly, stumbling over rocks and divots, not knowing where my friend was. I called out her name, but the smell kept getting stronger … and a bright white light began to shine on my face.
I woke up to find my brother shaking me awake. Apparently he hadn’t showered yet, because the smell coming from my dream was still in my room.
By Layla Hanissian
Age 15, Lyme
It can get so lonely sometimes. These days I’m finding it harder and harder to get out — these old bones won’t last much longer. … I know that someday soon I will fade away to nothing, but I can only bear to go so long without seeing the sun.
So this morning, I took a walk. When I first stepped out into the sunshine, I couldn’t help but feel positively overwhelmed by it all: the warmth and light, the scent of grass and the sound of birdsong, and most of all, the memories they brought me. I saw myself in that spring landscape, as if I were watching a picture film of my life.
There, just atop that hill, I’d knelt as a child in my blue Easter dress and inspected the patch of daffodils before me. I would choose the best ones to bring home to my mother. I can still remember the way she would smile and sweep me up in her arms when I returned home, careful not to crush the delicate blooms I clutched in my small fists. Daffodils were her favorite flower.
My gaze shifted to a bush at the edge of a clearing. On this spring morning, only the daintiest of serrated emerald-green leaves had begun to dot its bare brambles, but I know that it will be flush with raspberries when summer rolls around. My daughter and I used to venture out on warm summer evenings to pick them, hurrying home just before the sun went down. We would walk up the driveway together, her small hand in mine, our fingertips stained red from the berries we had eaten straight from the bush.
And there, beneath a leafless birch tree, I used to sit with my granddaughter in my lap. We always brought her favorite books and seeds to feed the birds, and once, while I was reading to her, she touched my arm and pointed to the spot where we had scattered the seeds. “Nana, look,” she’d whispered. A robin was pecking at the seeds, only a few inches away from a large red squirrel. The squirrel held a sunflower seed between his two front paws and nibbled at it as he stared back at us, his tail twitching. “They must be best friends, that bird and that squirrel,” my granddaughter said happily.
I watched us turn back to our book, the two of us together under the shade of the birch, but the image faded from my mind as the sound of sharp footsteps cut through the air behind me. A couple was coming down the path toward me, solemn-faced and bent into each other. The man cradled a bouquet of white lilies in his arms like a baby. I wasn’t sure which of us they were coming to visit, but I decided to leave them to mourn in peace.
I turned my back to the birch trees and the bushes and the hills, and faced the rows of headstones in front of me. After all these years, it was not hard for me to find my way back to my own. I returned to my grave, taking one last look at the sun and the sky before surrendering to the earth.
Cut short or not, it had been a lovely walk. I smiled to myself in the darkness, remembering the sun.