Young writers bloom

First Place

The Jump
The little pebbles that are rolling into the water, as you watch them splash one by one. The waves crashing then sliding up the side of the cliff like butter. As you stand trembling, tip-toeing inches closer to the edge, then jump, your heart beating, air passing, water splashing. The water smooth and cool slides across your body.

by Elizabeth Handtke, 12

Elizabeth wrote this piece as part of a class project at Chico Junior High, where she’s in seventh grade. She’s not a huge writing fan—she prefers science instead—but she enjoyed the exercise, and clearly she’s got talent.

Second Place

My Friend
I see my reflection when I look down all broken in places like glass. The air chills my nose as I see the deer leaning down for a drink. He sees me, we meet eyes. His eyes are stern and dark like coals. He is fast and graceful when he runs. He will stay because now we are friends.

by Hannah Buckley, 11

Hannah is in the sixth grade at Forest Ranch Charter School and she loves to write, anything from fiction to poetry. She took her teacher’s assignment for extra credit and had fun with it, writing about one of her favorite subjects—rivers and nature.

Third Place

Eyeballed
On a rather warm spring day a lonely peacock felt observed. He ran thinking the feeling would go away, but it stuck to him. A while later he scratched himself. An eye had appeared. The more he looked, the more departed it looked. At last, he realized his tail was covered with the eyes, and he felt much safer.

by Caleb Angel, 11

Caleb is another new writer, penning this tale in his sixth-grade class at Shasta Elementary. He has major hockey ambitions, loves history and has an active imagination to boot.

Honorable Mention
Crush

You’ve walked down this hallway all your life but this time its different, your looking for her. Looking for her red floating ringlets, her soft cushy lips. You see her by her locker too scared too say a word, you shove your wet, sweaty hands into your pockets. You think she will never go for a geek like me.

by Grace Christianson, 12
Chico

The Let Down
We’re thinking. They’re thinking. The crowds thinking, “What if they score?” I tell myself, they’re coming my way and I’m gunna stop them. Hike, #20 makes a break for it, ball in the air, off his fingertips into mine. Dodging a sliding safety, the ten, the twenty. I’m hit at the legs. A broken arm ends my great season.

by Ryan Prott, 12
Chico

The Key
Sliding the key into the door. I don’t know if this was the best idea. I was told never to open the door but my curiosity got the better of me and that is never good. If I had a hypothesis of how this would turn out, it would just be an empty room, nothing. But I was wrong.

by Mackenzie Zevely-Howlett, 12
Chico

A Fall Leaf

It was a sandy day in the park, and there was one last fall leaf on the tree. The leaf was fighting to stay on, having its stem stretched to the limit. After a very strong gust, the stem finally broke, and it drifted to the sidewalk. There on the sidewalk it laid, and then it was over. CRUNCH!

by Ethan Duran, 11
Chico

Food Fight Havoc!
Who started it? I don’t know. Honestly, all I was worried about was the meatloaf streaked with ketchup thrown by the strongest kid in the school going in the direction of my head. I ducked behind my lunch tray just as it hit. But somebody missed and did the stupidest thing in the world. They hit the school principal.

by Seth Martin, 12
Chico

A Drawing
I wish I were a drawing with no worries or cares. I could be a cute little doggy with cute doggy ears, maybe a kitten that has no fears. Or perhaps a building touches the sky, maybe even birds just beginning to fly. It doesn’t matter what or who I could be, because all in all I’m just me.

by Zoe Karch, 11
Chico

The Midnight Seagull
There once was a seagull that was shot, fell in an ocean and eaten by sharks. The man that shot that bird was stranded on a small island, he was alone and he always heard the seagull’s cry and it rung in his ears for years at midnight. One night at midnight, the midnight seagull ate the hopeless man.

by Mytriang Lo, 11
Chico