Short Story

This is a short story that I wrote for a short story contest. The first paragraph was the subject given. I kept  on having to shorten it because it was too long for the contest, but here is the end result.

Duke loved going to the circus. He loved watching the acrobats, the fire-eaters, and the elephants, but the one thing he always looked forward to was the lion! It was his dream to be a lion trainer, but his mother would never let him. "It's too dangerous," she would say. "And you have to go to school." But that didn't stop Duke from sneaking backstage one Saturday to see the lions...

           

            It was a dark and chilly night. The wind that blew outside was bitter, and it made the small amount of rain that was falling seem larger than it actually was. It was the middle of December, which made it the cruelest climate of the entire year. The drizzle pounded down on the exterior of the arena that held the most anticipated show in that region of the world: the circus.

            Duke was ecstatic when he learned that his father had purchased tickets to the event. Cheers were heard all over the house. Duke ran all over the place until he could do it no more. Despite his joy, though, Duke’s mother was not at all very happy about the matter. “This is not a good idea, John.” Duke’s mother told his father, “Duke needs to get a good education. This circus thing is only a distraction.” Despite her pleadings, Duke’s father wouldn’t listen. “C’mon, Jen, it’ll be a good experience. It makes Duke happy, and that’s all that matters.” So, on that dark, dreary December night, the three set off for the circus.

            Duke’s family had a great time that night. They each watched the fire-eaters, the acrobats, and the elephants with excitement and joy. Nevertheless, these events did not eliminate the anticipation of the grand finale: the lions. After the elephants were ushered off the stage, Duke knew what was next, and he had a plan. “Father, I really must use the restroom,” he told his father, who answered: “Go ahead, but hurry.” Boy, did Duke hurry.

            Duke ran out into the hall, down the stairs, and into the lobby of the building. The ushers and attendants were all inside watching the finale, so nobody was there to accommodate Duke. He ran around to the doors where he knew that the back of the stage was located. He tried one of the doors. “Unlocked!” he whispered in joy as he entered. Duke was so small that he was not noticed, and it was so dark that he was easily able to sneak past security and find the lions, which were waiting to be guided onto the stage.

            Duke reached out in the dark and felt his hand brush something soft. He heard a low growl. Fear suddenly filled his heart, but he had no time to figure out why before the curtains opened. Lights were shining into his eyes. Next to him were two lions, staring hungrily into his soul. He remembered screaming, and then everything suddenly went black.

            “Ah, you’re awake!” Duke heard his mother’s voice as he opened his eyes. His mother and father were looking lovingly down at him. He found himself in his own warm, comfortable bed. “Duke, you did something brave last night to follow your dreams. I don’t appreciate how you snuck onto the stage last night, but I’m proud of you. You showed us courage.” Duke embraced his mother as a tear of joy rolled down her cheek.

Hero Report on Florence Nightengale

Hey Everyone! I wrote this Hero Report for Leadership week this month! Hope you like it, and feedback please! :) 

The Angel of the Crimean

          My title for this report might sound very strange, but I do believe it is very fitting. In my heart, I do believe that this title was very fitting for Florence Nightengale. During the Crimean War, she was able to save hundreds, if not thousands of lives by her nursing and care. Our nursing program is as great as it is today because of her. I do thank her for it.

            Florence Nightengale was born on May 12, 1820 in the town of Florence, Italy. Her parents were wealthy British citizens, and were on one of their many trips across the globe to Italy when Florence was born. She was named after the city, Florence Italy.

          Back then, it was practically required of young ladies to be married and have children. Florence knew that this was not the call for her. Her mother was a very social person, and loved to have social events and find a husband for her youngest child. Florence on the other hand was quite awkward at social events. She and her mother argued a lot about these things, her mother wanting her to get married, Florence, wanting to do exactly what God wanted her to do. When she was young, she often would tend to the sick or afflicted around her. At the age of 16, she knew that her calling from God was to be a nurse. Nursing was not a very proud position back then, and her mother and father did not approve. At the age of 17, she turned down a proposal by a young suitor, Richard Monckton Milnes. Though she felt she loved him, she knew the right thing to do was to pursue nursing. She left her home and went to pursue her divine mission, and enrolled herself into Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserwerth, Germany.

            After returning from school, Nightengale came back to London and was hired at a Middlesex Hospital for governesses. Her employer was so impressed by her, that just after a year, she promoted her the superintendent at the hospital. Shortly after her raise, Florence came down with Cholera Fever and was sick for some time. Just as she became fully recovered, the biggest challenge in her nursing career began.

            In October of 1853, the Crimean war broke out between the Russian and Great Britain. The war broke out because they both wanted to be in power over the Ottoman Empire. Thousands of British Soldiers were sent to the Black Sea. Supplies vanished quickly, and just one short year after the war started, Britain had 18,000 or more soldiers in military hospitals.

            England did not want to hire any female nurses, because of their past experience with the very selfish ladies, but soon, they were left with no other choice. Fortunately, it was probably the best choice they were to ever make. Florence Nightengale was coming to the rescue.

            Sydney Herbert, secretary of war sent Miss Nightengale a letter concerning their conditions. In the letter, he asked her to make a corpse of women, and come to Crimean as fast as they could. She and a team of 34 nurses left only a few days later.

            Though they had been warned of the conditions of the military hospitals, nothing could prepare them for what they saw. Men, strewn about on stretchers lying on their own filth. Unclean water, and medical supplies was very scarce. The place stunk more than some of the nurses could bare. Rats and bugs going around and eating anything they could find. More soldiers were dying from disease then from their battle wounds. The place was a mess.

            Florence didn’t like what she saw. So, she decided to fix it. She took as many scrub brushes as she could find, and asked the least ill and hurt soldiers to help her clean up. Miss Nightengale herself spent every hour in the day to care for the patients. The soldiers were very moved by her kindness and compassion towards them. They called her the ‘Lady with the Lamp’ as she made her rounds each night caring a lamp. As she would pass, the soldiers would kiss at her shadow because of their gratitude and love toward her. Her work she did during the Crimean War, stopped the death rate by two thirds.

            Florence Nightengale is one of my heroes. The showing of her compassion and mercy to those men through their time of need has made an impact on me. I hope that I can learn and have the compassion she had someday. She taught me a lesson I will never forget. She is The Angel of the Crimean. Miss Nightengale died on August 13, 1910 at the age of 90 in the United Kingdom. Until the day she died, she continued to nurse the sick and wounded. She changed the history of nursing. Thank you, Miss Florence Nightengale, for changing the world. For me, your work will never be forgotten.  

Dirty Trick

This is the story I wrote from the Vanguard Writing Class prompt, "The Hole Waist Deep." I wrote it with a beat, sort of like a poem, but with little rhyming. Enjoy! :)

Dirty Trick
By Jemison Stripes

My sister told me to dig a hole, she said I'd get to China.
So I started out, just my shovel and I, and my dog decided to join me.
Dig--dig--dig! I thought to myself. Digging and digging to China! 
My curly blond hair became a big mess as the dirt flew all around.
My dog became spotted with brown mushy mud. Quickly my skin was turned dark.
I was proud of myself as I kept going down. Deeper and deeper I got.
'Til fin'ly I felt I couldn't get out, but I didn't care, no way!
Determined to make it to China one day, I shoveled more and more.
Then suddenly, the sun went out! I didn't know what to do.
Until my mom's voice came from above, shouting angrily, too.
"Cooper Matthew Davis, what on earth have you done to the yard?!"
That's how my adventure ended, my mom scrubbing dirt from my hair.
I knew then that I had been tricked. My sister would get it someday!

The End!

-Jemison Stripes

Post your writing!

We love hearing your stories in class! Feel free to post your stories on the blog so that we can all read them!

Leadership Inspirement

This is my inspirement for Leadership Academy Master Class:

I Will Persist Without Exception

By: Isaiah Pack

            In 1858, a man was defeated in his run for U.S. Senate. Now, this happens all the time, but you may want to know that it was this man’s eighth time he had been defeated in an election. As he realized his defeat, this man thought back to about twenty-seven years earlier, when all had been going well for him. He’d had a decent job, he’d had direction in his life, and he’d had a future. Nothing could go wrong for him—but everything did. After losing his job, he failed in business. On top of that, his fiancé died, and he had suffered a nervous breakdown, and he had been rejected for a land officer position. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was that man in 1858, I would have quit. But this man had the persistence not to.

            Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860, and in office, he freed the slaves, won the Civil War, and kept together a nation that was falling apart. If Lincoln would have quit that day in 1858, we likely would not be a United States, and slavery would probably still be common and acceptable in our society today. Even after his election and successes, Lincoln bore many failures. More than one of his sons died, he was despised and criticized by many, and was assassinated in 1865. But Lincoln kept going, and he undoubtedly changed the world forever.

            Of course, we have all had failures. Lucille Ball, who later became the first woman to run a major television studio, was once dismissed from drama school because she was “too shy”. Thomas Edison was called crazy as he tried over two-thousand times before finally inventing the first incandescent light bulb. Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school basketball team, only to later become the most talented basketball player of all time. Walt Disney, who won seven Emmy Awards and twenty-two academy awards, was once fired from a newspaper company for “lacking imagination”. Any person who has been successful in this world has failed more than once. The only people who do not fail are those who do not live. Now, you may be thinking, why am I talking so much about failure? Why does failure even matter? Well, you’re right. It doesn’t. What matters is what we do because of failure.

            The book we read this month for Vanguard was called “The Traveler’s Gift” by Andy Andrews. In this book, a fictional character named David Ponder is taken on a journey to see several people from world history. The last person David meets on this journey is the angel Gabriel, who talks to David about persistence. From the angel, David learns that being persistent means having faith that all will be well and that faith is the key to persistence. He learns that giving up does not create any positive results, and that the only way to have success in life is to be persistent.

            I myself find, in my personal life, that persistence is the best way to go when I am having a hard time. What especially helps me is seeing others persist and succeed. Robert Frost once said, “The best way out is always through.” I have seen in my life that this is so true. There is no way to success through any shortcut or easy way. You have to work for what you get, and persistence without exception is an important key to success.

            From the mouth of many other witnesses this principle has been taught. Winston Churchill put it like this: “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” James A. Michener said, “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” Jesus Christ even taught this principle by teaching, “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

I would like to tell another story about a man who possessed the virtue of persistence. Steve Jobs lived not too long ago, and in case you aren’t aware, he was the co-founder of the company called Apple. Jobs came out with his first attempt at a business computer in 1980, and it was called the Apple III. It came into the market with countless issues, and it was abandoned a few years later. Next, Jobs tried “Lisa” in ’83, but at ten-thousand dollars, barely anyone could afford it. The list of attempts and fails goes on and on for Jobs, but not once did he give up trying to design a computer that would work.

Look at what has happened now because of Steve Jobs. Apple is thriving, earning so much money each day that it is hard to count. The technology that Jobs has helped discover is hard to imagine. At the time of Jobs’ death, he had owned an estimated net worth of seven billion dollars. How much more successful can you be? However, none of this would have come about if it hadn’t been for persistence. It has been proved time and time again that with persistence, one cannot fail, and one cannot succeed without it.

I would like to encourage you. When you feel sad, depressed, or you just feel like a failure, always remember persistence. Remember people like Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs. Remember all of the failures that they had, and remember how they persisted. Always remember that because of persistence, they found success. That is how I know that persistence is one of the most important keys to success.



Isaiah Pack Story for Writing Class

Hi guys, here is my story that I wrote for writing class. Sorry that it's really weird:

            There once was a man named Robert Pettit, who had a dog named Murda. Rob (that was what he liked to be called) was very fond of animals, but not very fond of people. He was retired at seventy-two years of age and he had never been married. His dog, Murda, was fairly young (for a dog), because she had been recently purchased after the death of Rob’s fifteen-year old dog, Joe. Rob and Murda lived in a fairly large house about twenty miles outside of Portland, Oregon.

            One day at about noon, Rob went out to feed his dog when a he witnessed a giant bird clasp Murda in its talons and fly off into the woods. Rob desperately tried to run after it, but it was of no use. Rob wasn’t the runner that he used to be, and there was no way he could have even traveled at half the speed the bird was. However, Rob ran. He ran as fast as he could (which wasn’t very fast), straight into the woods. Pretty soon, Rob could not see the bird at all, but was just running in the direction he had last seen the bird go. Rob panted and slowed down, but never stopped. He kept going, because he loved Murda. Suddenly, a protruding root tripped Rob, who fell down, hitting his head on a stone and going unconscious.

            Now, it just so happened that there were two children, brother and sister, named Damian and Lilly. These siblings lived nearby, and they often liked to run into the adventurous forest to play their games. As they were playing in the forest, they saw the old man and stopped. Rob’s forehead was bleeding, but not at a very fast rate. Damian, seeing the blood, instructed Lilly to run home as fast as she could and get their father, who was outside weeding the garden.

Soon after Lilly left, the giant bird landed right in front of Damian and Rob, put Murda on the ground, and prepared to feast upon his lunch. Just before taking a bite, though, Damian caught the bird’s eye. Seeing a bigger potential meal, the bird left Murda and moved towards the stunned Damian. The fear in Damian’s eyes seemed to build the bird’s confidence, so it took off toward Damian. The boy tried to run, but was snatched up by the giant bird to be carried off as a snack.

Just in the nick of time, though, Lilly appeared with her father, who leapt up and grabbed one of the giant bird’s legs. Pulling it down, he was able to bring the bird to the ground. Damian rolled out of its talons and hit the ground hard. Lilly scurried off to get some of the family’s neighbors to help. As his father struggled with the bird, Damian crawled over to Rob, who had been unconscious the whole time. The boy got his handkerchief out of his pocket to stop the blood a little, even though a lot of it was drying by now. Murda was also at Rob’s side, rubbing her nose softly against the side of his head.

At this point, Lilly came back with one of the neighbors, who had his handgun. There was, however, a problem. The neighbor did not want to hurt Lilly’s father (who was struggling with the bird) in the process of stopping the bird. As he attempted to aim around Lilly’s father to shoot, Lilly screamed, which frightened him and he unintentionally pulled the trigger. The next thing he knew, the bird and Lilly’s father were both on the ground.

Both the neighbor and Lilly rushed over to him, but fortunately he got up and declared that he was fine. Then, all three acknowledged Damian and Rob, who were on the forest floor nearby. After seeing the condition of the old man, the neighbor rushed home to give a call to the paramedics, who were there shortly. It took many days of sleeping in a coma, but Rob was eventually okay, and he was happily reunited with his dog. Because of this experience, Rob made friends with his neighbors, and became a people-person. If you asked any of his neighbors now, they would all agree that he is the social butterfly of the neighborhood. For the rest of his life, Rob enjoyed being around and talking to others, especially Lilly and Damian. Through all this, though, he never neglected his beloved Murda.

Blog Posts?

Hi Everyone!

Could all of you reply to this letting me know whether or not you can post on this blog? So far I haven't seen posts from any of you, so please let me know soon! :)

-Jemison Stripes