THE WINNING STORIES : THE THANKSGIVING RIBBONS
Lydia Sue Brown was 9 years old and couldn’t wait to be 10. This year her birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day. She was so excited and had asked for a new package of ribbons for her hair.
What Lydia didn’t know was that her family was having a very hard time of it. It was rough to live on a farm in Kansas in 1937, but, of course, Lydia didn’t realize that.
One night she overheard her parents talking. Her mother, Mary, said, “I don’t know what we are going to do. It’s either a party for Lydia or a Thanksgiving dinner. We just can’t afford both.”
Mark, Lydia’s father, said, “I don’t want to hurt Lydia, but we’ll just have to make the Thanksgiving dinner into a family party. Lydia will have to understand.”
Lydia was sad for just a moment. Then she realized how much she had to be thankful for, and she knew there would be other parties in many years to come. She had decided what she was going to do. She ran into the kitchen where her mother and father were, and she sat down on her mother’s lap. “I don’t want anything for my birthday except to be here with my family.”
Mary had tears running down her face when she said, “I love you, darling.”
On Thanksgiving Day, Lydia went out to pick flowers for the table. When she came back, her mother French-braided her strawberry-blond hair. In that braid she wove a beautiful new pink ribbon.
Lydia’s father thought that she had never looked so beautiful, inside or out, as she did that Thanksgiving Day.
Grade 7
Santa Fe Middle School, Monrovia
HARRY THE HOLE By Ty Fukumoto
It has been six years since I last saw my ceiling hole friends on the right side of the ceiling of Room 18. In case you are wondering, I am Harry the Hole. If you look straight up in Room 18 of Hillcrest School, you would probably see some of my relatives or friends. I have one unique characteristic. I am very oddly shaped. Unlike the other perfectly round ceiling holes, I am egg-shaped. I literally look like Humpty Dumpty. I got this way when a short and stubby student, Ronald Erwinbacher, who resembled Garfield the cat, threw a crimson-colored Pentel straight up, which got stuck in one of the ceiling holes. It was the fourth hole of the fifth panel on the right side of the ceiling, to be exa1668558368me. It was immensely painful. I was aching for months.
I used to live on the Renegades’ side of the ceiling, which was the right side. The dreaded King Hole became the new emperor of the Renegades by being a Benedict Arnold. He and his powerful army betrayed and overthrew the former emperor and brutally plastered him up. King Hole was a mean, selfish, dirty ceiling hole. There were a few of us that wanted to live on the side of the Alliance, the group of patriotic ceiling holes that lived on the left section in Room 18. They were led by the great General Hole Washington. It was our dream to be with the Alliance. But King Hole made that dream impossible. He threw all of us into the filthy Panel Prison.
We were locked up for approximately five years. But then, all of a sudden in the middle
of the night, an enormous earthquake hit California. It shook Room 18, like it was a tambourine in a band.
When the disastrous earthquake was over, Room 18 looked like Johnny’s Junkyard down the street. We all discovered a new definition of odor that day. It smelled terrible because somehow a garbage bin went through our window during the catastrophe.
After three weeks, 13 hours and 40 minutes of suffering, a construction crew started rebuilding the pitiful-looking Room 18. In the weeks to come, the once hopeless-looking classroom was transformed back into its old wonderful self. When we scrutinized our classroom, to our amazement, we noticed that there were no Renegades in sight.
They were disintegrated during the earthquake. The joyous Alliance now ruled all of Room 18’s ceiling. Finally there was justice and freedom for all ceiling holes.
Now, I live in the middle of the ceiling in Room 18. Other holes look up to me now because I, Harry the Hole, am uniquely shaped. Thanks to a new and fantastic teacher, Mrs. C. Torricelli, we now have marvelous bulletin boards to talk to and make friends with. Now we, the ceiling holes, have to get on with our peaceful lives in the terrific Room 18.
Grade 6
Hillcrest School, Monterey Park
THE STORM By Bich Lien Nguyen
“I want my mother!” I yelled out loud every few seconds as I was crying on a crowded boat. I was about 7 years old, sailing on the Indian Ocean heading for Thailand.
That night, I looked up in the sky and saw nothing but darkness. The moon was fading out of sight as the night went on. I felt cold but was concentrating on thinking about my mother. We parted a day ago when the Communists found out about our secret escape. She threw me on board and ran away because there was no time left. I made two new friends on the boat named Hong and Tuan. They were about my age and cared a lot about me. The two of them succeeded in calming me down.
As I sat there, I heard rumbling thunder coming closer toward me. The sky became its darkest black, and the moon disappeared. A minute later, heavy rain drops touched my cheeks. Fear rushed through me when the rain came down even heavier and stronger. It pounded on me like heavy rocks attacking from the sky. People panicked when the waves rocked our boat and threatened to flip it over. By 3 o’clock, the water had reached up to my feet on the boat.
The temperature became colder and colder every minute. I was shaking all over from the freezing, wet rain. I cried myself to sleep from the fear I felt at the time.
When I woke up, the storm had cleared, and the sun was shining across the ocean. The beautiful, white clouds were soaring across the bluest sky. It was hard to believe that a storm had occurred the night before from looking at the sky, but the memory of it stood in my mind forever.
I soon reached Thailand and reunited with my mother a month later. We stayed in Thailand for eight months. On Dec. 4, we were flying on Pan Am on our way to America where my dad was waiting for us.
Grade 7
Muscatel School, Rosemead