I have been lucky enough over the last six years to get to
help young elementary students write stories each week. In the past I’ve worked
with kindergartners, but this year I got to write stories with first graders.
At the end of each year, I compile them all into a real book that their parents
and grandparents can buy.
Here are a couple samples from this year’s edition. Prepare
yourself for a trip deep inside the mind of the American first grader… Enjoy!
Chocolate Surprise
(alternate title: Extremely Questionable Dentist)
Once upon a time there was a boy named Sparkle who was
eighteen inches tall and always busy looking for one of his friends. He was
friends with a three-foot-tall girl named Elsa who had fire power. They were
both friends with a tall girl, who was at least seven feet tall, named Lilly,
who loved playing with all her friends more than anything in the world.
One morning Lilly and Elsa were helping Sparkle find his
friend. They found him at the beach in Hawaii where they also found one hundred
baby kittens in a treasure box. When Elsa opened the box, all the kittens
jumped out and some of them even jumped onto the faces of the three friends.
While the friends were trying to get the kittens off their faces, some of the
little furry cats got away and ran up a large hill.
Once all the kittens had jumped out of the chest, the
friends saw brown treasure in the bottom of the box that the kittens had been
sitting on. The whole box was filled with chocolate pennies!
Just then, a giant cat came bolting out of a cave near the
water and ran up the big hill after the kittens. All of a sudden, a spaceship
crash landed in the volcano that was next to their beach. The three friends
grabbed the chocolate pennies and ran for the volcano, climbed up, jumped into
the spaceship after the space man had gotten out, quickly fixed it, and took
off into space.
They flew the spaceship for a whole two seconds until they
arrived at Planet Forest, where they landed. As soon as they landed, strange
forest creatures attacked their ship, took it completely apart, grabbed the
three friends, and threw them all the way back to Earth, where they landed in
New Mexico. Luckily, Lilly had hung on to the chocolate treasure, none of which
melted on reentry.
Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, the spaceman had climbed out of
the volcano, saddled up the giant cat, and rode it all the way to New Mexico to
go beat up the friends for stealing his spaceship. As soon as he arrived in
Santa Fe, the fight began.
The massive cat ran over and scratched all three friends on
their faces. Elsa took immediate action and used her fire power to set the
giant cat's tail on fire. The cat screeched and ran a mile away, with his tail
burning all the way.
But as he ran past, his flaming tail swished back and forth
wildly, and it hit all three friends, picking them up, and throwing them all
the way back to Hawaii, where they landed next to their house and their pet
pony.
To celebrate, they ate all the chocolate pennies at once,
then felt a little weird, so they went to the dentist. He told them that they
all had cavities which could turn them evil if they didn’t take care of them,
so they all decided to get them filled with candy, which was a special the
dentist was offering that week.
The end.
Unexpected Love
Song (alternate title: Ratt Sings Cheap Trick?)
Once upon a time there was a monster named Horn, who was
microscopic and lived in the ocean. He was friends with a carrot named Backpack
who lived in the mountains. They were both friends with snake named Sprinkles
who was only two inches long and lived in the forest.
One morning the three friends were waking up from a
sleepover at Sprinkles’ house in the forest. Suddenly, they saw a giant rat
inside the house, coming right for Sprinkles the snake. The mean old rat bit
Sprinkles right on the tail. Backpack the carrot sprang into action and grabbed
his friend Sprinkles and pulled him into the snow outside the door.
Horn, the microscopic ocean monster, grabbed the big rat by
the tail, swung him around in the air three million times, then slapped him
across his ugly rat face and sent him flying five thousand hundred million feet
away. [Just under ninety-five million miles]
Horn and Backpack took Sprinkles the snake to the animal
hospital which was two hundred feet away from the house, and the veterinarian
used his magic powers to heal the little snake's tail.
When they got back to Sprinkles’ house, they went inside and
sat down to rest, but all of a sudden Sprinkles started to yell. The rat had
returned somehow and had snuck out of a hole in the wall and jumped onto the
little snake's back.
This time it was Backpack's turn to teach the big rat a
lesson. The carrot reached under the sink and got a huge rat sticky trap and
threw it at the big rat that was attacking his friend. The rat became
hopelessly stuck to the trap, and the three friends picked it up and took it to
the rat jail that was only ten miles away.
But the rat was so strong that eventually, he unstuck
himself, and broke out of the special rat jail, and ran the whole ten miles
back to Sprinkles’ house. Instead of attacking them again, he sat outside the
house and sang a very special song about love.
As soon as the three friends came outside to hear the lovely
song, the rat attacked them again. The song had been a trick!
Sprinkles, who had had just about enough of this rat,
grabbed it by the tail, and began slamming it into the ground. The rat was undeterred,
and he got away from the snake and chased the three friends away from the
house. But the three friends were much faster than the rat, and they led him
all over everywhere on a wild goose chase, and eventually the rat got lost and
ended up at a Target store.
Since the rat had a little cash on him, he decided to buy
gentlemen’s pants, shirts, hats, and a fake mustache and beard. He dressed up
in his new clothing and went back to their house, pretending to be a person,
and when they answered the door, he tossed a fishing hook into the house,
hoping they would bite it.
Horn the microscopic ocean monster bit down on the hook,
because he wasn't fooled, and knew the gentlemen at the door was really the rat
in disguise. When the rat started to pull on the hook, Horn was planning to
clobber him again, but the snake yelled, "Stop it! We know it's you.
You're not being nice."
The rat said, "I’m sorry! I was only trying to get you
closer so we could be friends, because I never had any friends."
They invited him in to be friends and then the four of them
had a play date at the park with juice boxes and tomato soup.
The end.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen
