Student’s Writings

Fab Fours by Kendall Curtis

FAB FOURS…life is full of great foursomes. Some might even grow in your backyard. Kendall literally personifies the life of that rarest (and luckiest) of foursomes.

FAB FOURS

It gets hard being this liked. I have a whole holiday based on me. I’m just “that” girl. People have been looking for me for years, but you’ll never find me unless you have spectacular luck. I may not be a flower but boy, do I have power. If you haven’t guessed already, let me tell you who I am.

I’m a clover. Green and clean, kind of mean. I’m a clover, but not one of those three leaf dirty clovers. I’m a Four-leaf clover. You know the name and don’t wear it out.

BACK TO THE REAL LIVES OF PLANTS…

So over here in Plantville, these weeds and dirt eaters are trying to tell me that I’m too cocky and I’m not down to earth enough. Like how are you gonna tell me I’m not down to earth enough when I’m on earth? Girl, I literally am the Earth. But anyways, other than that mess I have just been chilling. You know, blowing in the wind, eating well, and just doing me. I don’t know why these other plants hate on me when they know they wanna be me. Like, make it make sense!

Imma give y’all a little tour of my 10.5 million dollar house. So up here is my shower because you know I don’t wanna be out here smelling like mulch. Right here is my Fenty beauty chloroplast spritz. (Rihana sponsored me.) Lastly, this is my closet. These are all my different soils. Right here is greeny go go, pink sun love, and orange light compost. Let me take you down here to my kitchen. I have all the good snacks. I got sunshine in a bottle, diet carbon dioxide because I’m watching my figure, and lemon infused oxygen. I guess you can say I have  a perfect life but you know I have a few stalkers like these old Irish grandma’s who won’t stop looking for me. Like I’m just trying to live my life and make this bag so I can get my mother out the ruff and tuff streets of Dandelion Road.

My mom does not got it like me. She got it bad. She only got two clovers left and she is going through it. She doesn’t get any rain , her soil is drying up , and they don’t get any sun down there.

If she had four clovers, her life would be easier, but she will never be me. Nobody can beat the original.

Kendall Curtis
Feb , 17 2023

VR Golf at 80 by Chase Christou

The students were tasked to enter one of three doors, marked YESTERDAY, TODAY, or TOMORROW.

YESTERDAY would allow them to experience any historical event, but not change the outcome. TODAY would place them in the middle of any current event. And TOMORROW would take them forward 12 years to celebrate what would then be Mr. Tom’s 80^th Birthday.

CHASE skips ahead to find Mr. Tom having finally succumbed to the virtual world.

VR Golf at 80

“Take those ugly, good for nothing, spawn of the devil himself goggles off, Chase!” Mr. Tom demanded.

I look at him through my virtual reality goggles.

“But, Mr. Tom! You know my eyes hurt when I’m not wearing them. Ugh, the real world is sooo boring too!” I groan.

“Back in my day, we ain’t have no fake reality goggles.”

“Mr. Tom, your days were the 1960s. Things have changed now. This is the new norm.”

“Ain’t nothing ‘normal’ about living your entire life in a fake, dream world where nothing matters.” He fires back.

“It is normal, though. You get used to it!” I tell him.

“You do get used to it, just like how an addict gets used to crack. You’re more addicted to your virtual reality than a crack addict is in a world where crack is free.”

“Dang Mr. Tom. You didn’t have to go that far. I could stop anytime I wanted to. I just don’t wanna stop!”

“Sure thing, bud. Just don’t come running back to me when your obsession eventually overwhelms you, and you are slowly consumed by virtual reality until it takes control of every single part of your life, slowly draining the soul from your body until you’re nothing more than a lifeless corpse wearing VR goggles in your mom’s basement, slouched over a portable $5 IKEA table as you live out the rest of your ‘social’ interactions in an environment where you don’t make any real friends and make zero actual progress in life.” Mr. Tom says, staring deep into my
soul.

“Haha Mr. T! That’s a good one. I’m gonna go talk to someone else now.” I say, slowly backing away from my deranged teacher. I wonder what happened to Mr. Tom? I guess he just didn’t get the memo.

I see Donald with his VR goggles on, dancing by the stereo, as it plays the most distorted Christmas music of all time. I walk over to him and start dancing too.

“Are you enjoying the Holiday Open House?” Donald asks.

“Yeah. It’s chill. Except for Mr. Tom. Don’t really know what happened to him.” I say as I’m dancing to Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” on the distorted radio.

“Huh? What’d he say?” Donald looks over, confused.

“He said something about virtual reality being the spawn of the devil, VR sucks, I’m gonna die when I’m 30, no soul, something about a $5 IKEA table, and some other stuff.”

“Dang. You’re gonna die when you’re 30?” He asks.

“According to Mr. Tom. Says virtual reality is killing me and stealing my soul.”

“That’s sad. If only he’d try it.” Donald says.

“For real! Just give it a try.” I reply. “Sometimes he says he’ll die the day he puts on a VR headset.”

“He is out of his mind.” Donald laughs. “Plus, look at me! I use VR every day and I lived past 30. If anything, VR will help you live longer. Makes it way easier to do so much.”

“You’re a genius, Donald.”

I go back inside the school, not knowing where I’m going. I sit down in a chair, and I open up Spotify 2 on my VR headset. I open the Lofi Girl playlist, and accidentally fall asleep to the most boring music in the world.

I’m awakened by a shake of my shoulder.

“Chase!!” Ethan yells into my face.

“Huh? Wuh, where am I?” I yawn.

“You’re still in school! Not at home.” Ethan says, yawning too because yawning is very contagious and when one person yawns, everyone else must also yawn.

“No way bruh.”

“Yes way idiot.”

The school is pretty much empty, except for the people cleaning up who decided to just not wake me up.

“Oh my god, well let me go get something upstairs before we leave.”

I get up from my chair, and realize my back is in the most excruciating pain one could experience. God, I’m so freaking old. Mr. Tom gotta get these kids some chairs with lumbar support. This is inhumane.

When I finally recover from the pain, I head upstairs and walk into the upstairs classroom, only to be met by the most horrific sight. I see Mr. Tom, sitting in a chair. I must mention the chair also does not have lumbar support, so his back must be killing him. But there’s something even worse than the condition of that chair. Mr. Tom is wearing a VR headset!

OH MY GOD! I can’t believe it! Mr. Tom has gone against everything he’s ever told us about VR, and how awful it was, and how he’d never use it. But look at him up here. He’s using VR to play virtual reality golf!

I may be 27 now, and freaking ancient, but seeing an 80-year old Mr. Tom in “those ugly, good for nothing, spawn of the devil himself” goggles playing VR Golf. Wow! Well, Happy Birthday anyway, Mr. T.

Chase Christou

12/16/22

A Woman Called Minty by Jayla Nickens-Gill

The students were tasked to enter one of three doors, marked YESTERDAY, TODAY, or TOMORROW.

YESTERDAY would allow them to experience any historical event, but not change the outcome. TODAY would place them in the middle of any current event. And TOMORROW would take them forward 12 years to celebrate what would then be Mr. Tom’s 80^th Birthday.

JAYLA feels the pain of slavery and meets a woman called Minty.

A Woman Called Minty

I open the door to Yesterday. I walk through and it feels like I’m falling until, suddenly, I slam into the ground. I look around and see nothing but African Americans being whipped, people crying out, others picking cotton. Suddenly, a huge force connects with my face. I cry out in pain only to be hit again. The brutal force inflicted on me left me extremely confused. After a while, the hits stopped, and the white man walked off. My body ached. The amount of pain was enough to make someone want to end their life.

“Get up” a woman said. “Get to work before he brings more.”

The woman walked off and went back to doing the tasks given to her. I managed to sum up enough energy to get close to her. I started picking cotton as well, my body still burning from the punishment before.

“Where am I?” I asked

“Dorchester County” the woman said

“W-What’s your name?” I asked the woman

“Minty” she said. “Stop talking before you get us both whipped or worse… killed.”

I nodded and continued picking the cotton. My fingers bled and hurt after 12 hours of picking. Finally sunset came and we were told to go to our slave quarters. It was terrible, the smell was horrible and the bathroom, or bucket, was always filled with poop and urine. Other slaves were getting sick, and most of them died inside the quarter. We were told to move the dead slaves, so the white man could make room for the new ones.

Years passed. It was now 1844, and Minty was long gone. She managed to escape after getting married. I longed for her to come back and save me from the constant punishments. Since she left, I’ve been whipped brutally. I’ve lost two of my fingers, been raped, hung by my arms and feet. I can’t even remember my own name or what I look like. I’ve lost an insane amount of weight, I feel sick and I know I look dead, might as well be dead. My back has fresh wounds that I know are infected. Other slaves try to help with my injuries but without proper medication and medical care, it’s no use. My hands are covered with dry blood and cuts, my legs have markings from whippings, and my hair has mostly fallen out. I can’t walk straight for I fear my wounds that have slightly healed might rip open.

More years pass and the plantation has been looking less full. Many slaves have disappeared. The white man grew angry, whipping any slave he saw slacking, or moving too slowly. Night came, and I was awoken by a familiar face. Minty. She told me to be quiet and never make any sound if I wanted to leave alive. We went through an extremely long journey. I don’t know how many days went by but it felt like forever. Many slaves were lost along the way, many died from their injuries, and many were spotted and killed. Although I felt like I was slowly dying with every step I took, I refused to go back. I had to keep moving.

It was now 1859. I am now a free woman. After Minty, now known as Harriet Tubman, helped me escape, I married and live in a small house. The trauma stays with me. When I look in the mirror, my scars remind me of the past.

I opened the door to my room and a white light flashes me. I’m back in the present, sitting at the table, staring at my computer screen. I think I’m going to write about slavery.

Jayla Nickens-Gill
12/2/2022

The Cadaver Synod – Danny Buck

The students were tasked to enter one of three doors, marked YESTERDAY, TODAY, or TOMORROW.

YESTERDAY would allow them to experience any historical event, but not change the outcome. TODAY would place them in the middle of any current event. And TOMORROW would take them forward 12 years to celebrate what would then be Mr. Tom’s 80^th Birthday.

DANNY takes us into the bizarre 9^th Century papal synod of a cadaver.

The Cadaver Synod

I’m walking down a long, paved road in the countryside, where each house and patch of land is so very separate from another. I go off to a trail, where the trees are marked with crimson stripes of paint, and I arrive at a cave with distinct graffiti on it. I walk into the cave, compelled by boredom. Surrounded by darkness, I use my phone as a flashlight.

After a certain point of depth into this cave, I see architecture and artifacts of which I’ve never seen before. I find artifacts of great technology, almost as If crafted by gods. Things that I cannot begin to comprehend are scattered throughout. I arrive at a room with three doors, all of which have symbols over top of them. Not knowing what each of these doors represent, I reluctantly search the cave for some sort of hint or translation for the symbols. I find 3 tablets, one of which is broken, but the two are in a language I’ve never seen before. From then I connect the dots that this language is very similar to Cuneiform, and I spend several hours trying to connect the dots from experience as an archaeologist.

One stone roughly translates to before, which I assumed meant past, and one translates literally into the word current. The final tablet based on the previous two I assumed translated to the future, but that information was useless considering it was broken. Returning to the room with two of the tablets, and with as many pieces I could find of the broken one, some ancient technology beams from the tablets which illuminate the walls. There were carvings on the walls very reminiscent of religious figures, and in their “divine” nature, appear to perform miracles with these ancient artifacts. I plug in the tablets to their rightful place, and I make up my mind to go into the door representing yesterday. I thought about experiencing the present, but I decided that I would rather observe things as they once were than to be directly influencing the world of today.

I head into this door and arrive in the Basilica of St. John Lateran. It seems as if there’s a trial going on in this room, but the person being tried is a decomposed corpse. I look over and see Pope Stephen 6th insulting and hollering at the corpse dressed in Pope robes, and I realize exactly what’s going on from reading about it in modern day. This is the Cadaver Synod, and the corpse being tried is Pope Formosus.

Pope Formosus was being accused of perjury for holding two bishops against canon law, and becoming pope illegally. In all of its hilarity, during the trial there was a deacon crouched behind the corpse of Formosus answering the questions on his behalf. I try to hold in my laughter while Pope Stephen screams at Formosus in Latin while I hide within the crowd. Pope Formosus was found guilty (who would’ve guessed) and three fingers from his right hand which he used for blessings were cut off. His corpse was thrown into the River Tiber, only to be retrieved days later by a monk.

I enjoyed my time in Rome for a couple of days, hoping not to be executed like a certain man 897 years before this incident, when I see a mob go past me in the direction of the Basilica. I follow the mob, knowing what will happen next, but trying not to be too involved as to be harmed by this mass of people.  Pope Stephen was dragged from the Basilica into prison by the angry mob after a rumor was started that Pope Formosus’ corpse was performing miracles. Pope Stephen was executed by strangulation in August of that year.

I go to sleep smiling in the bed of an absentee Roman soldier. I accept the fact that I’ll likely never return to the present, or do so willingly because this time period is way too hilarious.

Danny Buck

12/2/22

Homeless for Thanksgiving – Hector Rivas

Hector takes his blessings for granted, until an all-too-real dream of being homeless, cold and hungry makes him appreciate what he has.

Homeless for Thanksgiving

I went to bed after arguing with my mom about why the food was not ready. I woke up, lying on the ground somewhere in downtown Baltimore, with a blanket covering me in the freezing cold, my stomach empty and growling.

I was so confused about what had happened. I was just in my room a second ago, comfortable, and warm.

The cold became so unbearable, and my hunger got so bad that I could not sleep at all the whole night. As the sun came up the next morning, I had no money so I had to start asking for anything so that I could get food. I asked many people; some were kind and others were rude and told me to get a job. At the end of the day, I had enough money to get myself a McChicken from McDonald’s and that was the best tasting meal ever. But I regretted arguing with my mom over how
the food was not ready, and I missed all of the things that I had. I took so many things for granted—my bed, my room, a warm shower, having somewhere to stay and call home.

As night came, I tried to find somewhere to sleep. I found a place and laid down. I tried to go to sleep wishing that I could return to how things used to be.

When I woke back up, I was in my bed and my warm house. I felt so happy to be back home. I took a warm shower and went downstairs and got
something to eat, relieved that I was back in my house and not outside in the cold.

After that night I never took anything for granted ever again. I started to think about how hard other people have it and that their situation is way worse than mine. Now, anytime I see a person on the street asking for money, I try to give them a dollar or something that can help them out.

I learned my lesson to not take anything in my life for granted and appreciate what I have.
Hector Rivas
November 18, 2022

Homeless for Thanksgiving – Bre’Onna Clowney

Bre reminds us that family is what makes life complete. “Without them, every day I would be homeless.”

Homeless for Thanksgiving

Many have a different definition of what “homeless” means. Some feel like being homeless means not having a home. Some feel like being homeless is not having a place to stay and rest. Personally, I believe being homeless means not having a family.

You may think it’s odd, but when I’m not with people I call family, I feel out of place, like I don’t belong.

Family is the key to a home. When I go home, the first thing I see is my cat, but I call her my daughter. She stays in the basement, but once she hears the keys touching the door, she runs so fast upstairs to greet whoever is opening it. Greeting them with a loving nose rub and purring, even if she doesn’t know you. One day, if I were to open the door, and she wasn’t there, it simply wouldn’t feel like home.

Running behind me is my little brother, who’s an Ipad kid. Watching YouTube loudly, purposely trying to annoy me, but I’m used to it. Once he puts the Ipad down, he asks for a snack, and I always have to confirm if he can have it, with my mother who was following behind him as he ran into the house. Once I confirm, he eats the snack while again playing his loud video on his Ipad, laughing and teasing me to try and annoy me. I can’t imagine a day where I go
to open the door and not have him following me, laughing and playing around. The silence and incompleteness I would feel if he just wasn’t there.

As my mom is getting prepared to make dinner for the family, I think of how things would be if she wasn’t home. Once again, without my family I would feel incomplete. No noise, no conversation, no love. No concern from the cat, wondering if we arrived home. No noise from my little brother’s loud Ipad or him teasing me because he got a snack and I didn’t. No conversation, from my mother asking for help with dinner. No love, because if family
isn’t there, I don’t feel it.

Family pulls everything together in my book and makes life complete. Without them, my life would be silent, and every day I would be homeless.

Bre’Onna Clowney
November 18, 2022