Copyright Katherine West 2000-2001

A Picnic in the Woods
by Chantel J. Long

"Its a nice day to go on a picnic", said mother cat Catrunda, as they were driving to the woods. "When do we eat?" asked Buttermilk, Jingle and Bridget. "Well, it's only 11:00, so we eat in one hour", said Bing-Ling, their father. "One whole hour!" whined Jingle, Bridget and Buttermilk.

"Lets go on a walk", said Catrunda who had been sitting quietly listening to them argue. That's what they did, and here are some of the creatures that they saw: a Monarch butterfly, squirrel, red lizard, painted turtle, chipmunk and a robin.

They started walking again; they were really deep in the forest. It was starting to get a little bit cold and a little bit spooky! Suddenly, Buttermilk saw a clearing in the dark woods and said "You guys! Come on, there's a clearing ahead!" They all started to run, even Bing-Ling and Catrunda started to run towards the light. When they got there, Bing-Ling saw a little fireplace under a roof. All of a sudden, right before their eyes, huge drops of water started to pour down on them! "Hurry under here," said their father, who was already under the little roof with walls all around it to keep out the wind and the rain. "Hurry, let's get the fire started before it gets any wetter," their father said to everybody. They finally got the fire started and then started to roast the hotdogs.

When they were done eating, their mother said "let's go on another walk since it stopped raining". They started walking and after they had only been walking a couple of minutes Buttermilk said "Hey, I remember that place up ahead because there's those three stumps lined up in a row!" "Yeah, you're right!" said Bridget.

Pointing at their new black and orange striped jeep, "Well we better be going," said father. "It's getting dark," so they packed up all their stuff and drove away from the woods.

Amy's Goose
By Chantel J. Long

Once there was a little girl named Amy. She was an only child. She was lonely. Each harvest, Amy and her mom and dad would pick corn then they would store it for over the long snowy winter. Whenever winter was just around the corner Amy would see a huge flock of geese flying south to warmer places for the winter. But Amy knew they would be back next spring.

When its time for her to go to bed, she will just be there lying in bed and listen to the geese squawking and honking at each other! She just loved to listen to them, unless they kept her awake all of the night. Then she would jump right out of bed and run over to the window and slam it shut so hard that the whole house would sometimes shake because of it! Then her father and mother came into the room and turned on the light. They said "what is the world happened up here?"

One day Amy and her father went on a walk and all of a sudden they heard a noise like a cry! They saw a goose being attacked by a fox, so they ran and scared the fox off, then took the goose home and helped him. They called the doctor and he said it would probably be about one week until he would be better. So until he's better, they put him in the barn in a cage. Amy hated to see the bird in the cage.

One day, it got out somehow and started to fly around the barn. When Amy came in to check on him, she almost fell over. So she called her parents to come and see it, so they did. The next day, they let him go. Then the flock started flying south again.

The End

My name is Chantel Jacoba Long and I am 9. I love books! I even sleep with books on my bed! I also love animals.... I was homeschooled for a while, but am now in third grade in a public school. Thanks for reading my work!

Hey kids, contact us about publication. You could see your fiction, true stories, informative non-fiction articles, or poetry here!

Princess Purrfect is a cute little cat.
She loves to tumble in the green, green grass.
Her tummy is rounded, even fat!
Princess Purrfect is quite a pretty lass.

Her fur is silky for a tabby cat.
Black, black coat and blue, blue eyes always bright.
On her head, it looks like she wears a hat.
But it's a white, white star that does not light.

Princess Purrfect is a brave little cat.
She's never afraid and has every right.
What a rare cat, her best friend is a rat!
To see these unlikely pals, what a sight!

Princess Purrfect's best friend is Roger rat.
His brown, brown fur is dry, dull, and dark.
Unlike the kitty cat, he is not fat.
But he's slim and trim, and without a mark.

Piercing purple, purple eyes spied the cat.
His bright eyes shining with mischief and glee.
He can act like the biggest, boldest brat.
Such a silly little smirk, Do you see?

Roger is a very fun little rat.
Yes, he is as ornery as can be.
He always plays with his best friend- the cat.
Around the red, red barn they dodge and flee.

Roger nudged his pal, and away they scat,
To have some real fun running and chasing.
So busy, there was never time to chat.
No, they were always racing and racing!

Side by side they ran, tumbled, and went splat!
Right into Duke the dog's water they fell.
Dripping wet, in the gold, gold sun they sat,
Until they heard the ringing dinner bell.

It all started when my little sister had just come home from the hospital. It was a 90-degree day in September. My mom was giving my sister a bath. (Her first one of course.) Her friend, Rhonda, was coming over to see Cayli, my baby sister. Well my mom started to tell her the scary story about my Indian doll and other scary things that had happened in the place where we used to live. You see when I was two or three; I had a little Indian doll that had been my mom's. She got it when she was little.

The doll used to talk to me, and I was scared of the creepy toy. One day my mom and dad both thought that the doll looked just like me, and this creeped us all out. After the eerie doll gave us goosebumps a couple of different times, we threw it away. Almost a week later, the doll showed up again in my room! This was after we thought the garbage man took it away. So we cut the doll up this time. We separated the head, legs, and arms into different bags and threw it away again. Two or three days later I found the head and arm in my bedroom! Finally the third time we threw the doll away, we were rid of it.

Another weird thing that happened was when my dad couldn't find his cigarettes, or so he thought. He had remembered having them because his friend had borrowed one from him on their drive to work. Later he came home and complained that his cigarettes disappeared. While he was at work my mom found his cigarettes in my room! This happened when I was only a three-year-old.

Once mom and dad lost their extra set of keys and had been looking for them for a month at least. One day my grandma came over and happened to look in the toaster. There in the toaster, at the bottom with the crumbs were mom and dad's keys!

My mom told me about another strange thing that happened. She had been looking for my sippy cup all day long. She even stood on a kitchen chair and checked in the cupboards, but she never found it. After looking all over the house, she finally saw it. You will never guess where! The cup was right on the chair she had been standing on twenty minutes earlier.

Just as my mom was finishing this spooky story, we heard a loud sound. All of a sudden a tray of ice that my mom had set on the counter went KABOOSH! It is almost like someone was out there listening to us talk about my creepy Indian doll and the other scary tales. Lots of scary things happened in that little trailer on Oak Street. It almost seemed like we lived on Elm Street.

Copyright Caitlin Moneypenny-Cole 2000-2001