This is Lily's story that she had to write for her project. I think it is is really good for a nine year old child who detests writing. Give her a math problem to solve and she is in hog heaven. There are a lot of blank spaces in it as she had to illustrate it and left herself room to do so when she typed it up. I've posted photos of the finished book at the end of this post. Oh, you aren't expected to read it I just wanted a record of it here.
Dear pen pals.
How are my two fave Jersey girls doing? Anyway, Spring Break is finally here! I can’t wait! Wait for what you ask? An awesome guided tour to koala and kangaroo land... AUSTRALIA!!! And, you are coming. Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control. (This time I really mean it! LOL) How did you’re fabulous pen pal from London manage this you ask? For me to know and you to wonder!
P.S. Dad’s got airplane arrangements done.
Directions for a fab week below:
1) Beg your dad to come (Friday)
2) Go on a shopping spree (remember it’s hot in Oz)
3) Go to Gate B at the airport (Saturday, 9 AM)
4) As soon as you land 6 AM, (now Sunday ), follow my Dad to Gate D, and see me, for a connecting flight to Oz.
5) Chillax in the sun and have a great time
TTFN,
Karen + Carmen’s most awesome friend,
Maisie Burton
①
Can’t wait until Sunday, I think fidgeting in my bed, tired but just too excited to get to sleep. Just one more day and I see my best mates Karen & Carmen. Yawn. Wait a sec. Let me back up. Did I tell you who Karen and Carmen are? Of course not, forgetful me! Karen and Carmen Johnson are identical twins. My half-way-around-the-world best mates, my age, eleven. Also my pen pals. They both have the same wavy, shiny, brunette hair, sparkling emerald eyes, and are both skinny and slender. You can’t tell them apart by their looks, but their personalities are like night and day. Karen is a worrier (and great at her job as being one) while Carmen is an adventurer. Me, I’m a dull brownish-blond, blue eyes, and the smallest in my class. I even the twins out. Now where was I? Oh yeah, just can’t wait- Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Rrrrring! “That foolish alarm clock.” I mutter drowsily. In literally a second I snap out of this god-awful grumpy mood. I whip my head back around towards my alarm clock, which read 6:00 in robotic numbers. I gape. I over slept! GAH!!! In an instant I rush to my closet, slip on some comfy clothes, brush my teeth, grab my excessively tightly stuffed baggage, and fly down the stairs. I run to the lounge to find Mum sipping tea oblivious to the time. “What’s wrong, Pet?” Mum asks innocently. “The time!!!” I reply dragging her out the door. “ Oh deary me!” She commented. Now it was her dragging me to her small Peugeot. In the car about the only conversation is “Hurry up please!” & “I am! I am!” & “I’m going to miss my plane!” After a lot of confusion, we made it.
“Finally, Gate D.” We both sigh in relief. Fortunately for us, there was a mishap and all flights got delayed. We were back on schedule! “That was a close call! Wasn’t it,
②
dear?” “Yes it was, Mum.” I tried to say but after running almost the whole of London Heathrow, it ended up like: “Yes (breath) it (breath) was (breath) Mum.” All of a sudden a lady at the front desk piped up, “All passengers boarding flight 56 from London, England to Brisbane, Australia should all be at Gate D. Sorry for the delay. We will begin boarding shortly.” “Love you, Mum. I’ll keep you updated.” I told her and gave her a huge bear hug. “Be good, you.” She said, tears in her eyes. Then I spotted the twins and sprinted over to them.
“I was worried, I thought you’d miss it.” Karen said. “You always worry.” Carmen taunted. “Oh my gosh guys, you haven’t changed one bit. Always bickering!” I teased. “I missed you so much! I-” The same woman interrupted our reunion with, “Attention passengers we will begin boarding.” So I skipped over to dad and told him, “Thanks for going through with all this, especially for me. Love you.” I gave him a huge hug. As soon as I bounded back to the twins a different lady with a microphone called, “...Maisie Burton, Karen Johnson, Carmen Johnson...” Well, that was all we needed to hear to run up to the front desk. “Present!” We said simultaneously. As a flight attendant handed us our boarding passes I looked down and realized my dad had done us a huge favor. As I turned around to yell thank you, I was ushered into the bridge leading to the airplane. I just about managed to mouth ‘thanks!’
∗∗∗
I decided not to tell Karen or Carmen so when the flight attendant told us to go to first class instead of coach they had no other choice but to go to first. Then when they nervously sat down I told them my Dad bought us first
③
class tickets. They agreed that, as they put it “they were traveling in style.” After that we resumed our conversation that was interrupted, then dozed off.
“Whoa! What was that!?” Carmen exclaimed as she lurched sideways in her seat to land on us. “Caarmeen. Are you serious, you just woke us up.” Karen moaned. “Passengers, please stay seated. We are going through some serious turbulence. Thank you for your cooperation.” Our pilot said. “Whatever, we needed to get up soon, anyway. Oh look,” I pointed, “It’s the food cart, good thing. I’m starved.” “Ugh, airplane food. Hope I don’t get sick.” Karen announced as if the world needed to know. “Lighten up, sis. C’mon.” After an episode of total horror, disgust, and painful complaining Karen ate to her fill. (Which consists of 2 mouthfuls.)
After that we pretty much relaxed, played video games on our personal players, and read magazines. After a few minutes it got really boring so I got the idea to check our flight path so far. Turned out we were already flying over Australia and only had half an hour to kill. “Hey guys, we only have 30 more minutes until we land!” Carmen replied,
④
“Just like they say; Time flies when you’re traveling in style!” We all laughed. When we finally got hold of ourselves, Karen joked, “Now I get it! No wonder Mom gets mad at her for her English grades!” We all had nothing better to do, so we joked around for the remaining, 15 minutes now, of our flight.
“Passengers please stay seated until the seatbelt sign is turned off.” Ping! “Thank you for flying with us. Have a great day!” “Don’t you just love how in first class there are no crowded isles. Plus, your toes never get run over by the suitcases.” Carmen said in her own world. “No, we hate it.” Karen said with sarcasm.
After what seemed like forever, we finally came to the arrivals and departures. So much waiting and so many lines, if you don’t mind I think I’ll skip this boring part.
“Finally, some shops around here! Ooh-la-la! My favorite, Duty Free, gotta stop there. I need a souvenir, too...” Yes, I do sadly admit I am a shopaholic. Wait, a sec am I dreaming or do I really see one of the best mini-shops
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around... “Hurry up Maisie! We’re gonna miss our bus!”
“Just a sec! Let me window shop!”
∗∗∗
“I’m sooo tired!” I bawled. “Good thing because we need to rest up if we wanna tackle the outback tomorrow.” Karen told us. “Lets get to bed.” I yawned. We all headed back to our own rooms calling out goodnights. As I recall I probably slept undisturbed for a whole twelve hours.
“Get up, get up!” Karen urged. “What? W- What happened?” I asked tired. Did I mention I’m not a morning person? Well, if I did tell you then you’d probably already figured out that being screamed at to “Get up, we’re late” isn’t exactly my cup of tea. As soon as my brain got the message that I needed to hurry I felt like yesterdays day of stress was nothing and that it was happening all over again. We all hustled and prepared for our day in the heat. Me with my small handbag which had “Keep Calm And Drink Tea” embroidered into it and the twins with their so called “small” purses were ready to go. ( I myself wouldn’t find that luggage small on any stretch of the imagination. I could never imagine lugging those things with me!)
⑥
“Hey, wait up Maisie!” The twins yelled, weighed down by their “small” purses. I taunted them with my light-weight handbag and recited, “Hurry up twins! We’re gonna miss our bus!” In a sing-songy voice. Freshly up and awake now I skipped onto the bus while the twins barely made it on. It was a good 20 minutes to our destination so I decided to keep Mum updated, like I told her I would, on a post card I picked up at a shop called Souvenir Shop. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Anyways this is what my postcard looked like:
Dear Mum & Dad,
( I cut this bit out as I couldn't make the post card line up as the HTML would not allow me to write it the way she had it)
Immediately after I capped my ball-point pen the bus driver startled me with, “I believe this is your stop, mate. Enjoy it.” I looked round the bus and saw that I was the only person left. As I trotted off the steps, Carmen greeted me with laughing and pointing while Karen said she thought I would forget to get off. Sometimes I think Karen dies her hair brown and is a true blond. She worries, but then doesn’t have the common sense to warn you. When I told the twins this, being my friend and all Karen realized we were laughing with her, not at her and joined in on the joke. Okay, let’s get back to the present. So, our tour guide is pale skinned, olive green eyes, and is a radiant blond. Our Russian tour guide starts to give out brochures and leads us to a place where you can see a wide range of the outback. She starts to speak about something that sounded like ‘Dooz yous sees ow big zee outback is? We need to stay in za group zo vee don’t get lost. Ezpecially not just vandering here and there.’ Of course none of us could understand that so we didn’t get the warning. She said something else that was complete and utter hogwash. She finally realized we didn’t understand so she motioned for us to follow her. We all started toward a small shack that looked pretty run down. Right above the doorframe a sign that looked like it could have fallen down at any moment read: Bicycle Renting in big, blood red letters. Another smaller sign hung next to the door which said: Please Donate Bikes. Condition doesn’t
⑧
matter. Our guide leads us in and introduces herself.
She points to herself and says slowly, “ I am your tour guide. Vy name iz Olga. You can rent a bike here.” As I glanced at the sign I sighed, “Great. Always wanted to ride a secondhand bike.” Only the twins heard me and giggled. We decided that biking would be less exhausting so I chose a fairly new bike with gears. It was a pale green one with Schwinn scrawled all over it meant to look like graffiti. Karen got a flowery one and if you back pedal it brakes, just in case. Both Karen and Carmen got bikes with a fairly big basket behind the seat for their heavy handbags. As we wheeled the bikes to the counter an Aboriginal man popped up and started talking and wouldn’t stop. It went something like this: “Helloladies,whatanicedayit isthatyou’vecometotheAustralianOutback.I’dbe delightedtobeyourcashier.Greatchoice...” It kept on going on like this but you get the point. After this long one-man conversation the man concluded that we had chosen very nice bikes and that our bike rentals cost us 12 Australian dollars. Four dollars per person he explained. We kind of walked away from him mid-sentence to which he was not offended and yelled, “Good on ya, Mate! ‘Ave a g-”
Outside of the straw hut we had a few minutes for the people who rented bikes to adjust the seats, handles, etc. Olga herself rented a bike, so when the tour began the people who were to cheap to rent a bike were in
⑨
sorry shape and were dragging behind. They all regretted that mistake quickly. We kept on having to stop for the slowpokes. B-O-R-I-N-G!
After pedaling (and stopping) for about 5 minutes we stopped at a checkpoint to learn about it and look at an “interesting” rock formation. Well, we thought that her accent was some sort of eleven-year-old repellant so we wandered off a little. All of a sudden, “Cool! Guys c’mon check this out. Look look look!” We all followed Carmen to where she parked her bike. When we got there we found Carmen staring intensely at a huge iguana. It was at least 3½ feet long! Big, fat,
⑩
ugly, bumpy, & weird it was! We stood gazing at that monster for a few minutes. Surprisingly, Karen didn’t even say something like, “Watch out for its tail! They’re dangerous!” That gives you the idea of how wowed we were. Finally I snapped out of the trance, I realized we had probably lost track of time so I turned toward the twins and said, “Let’s head back to the group. I think-” That was as far as I got. As we all looked in every direction we didn’t see a trace of our group. After several minutes we realized, we were stranded in the middle of the Outback. Karen was already freaking out. Pacing, talking to herself, and another of her million nervous habits. Me, trying not to worry failed, badly. I started to hyperventilate. As I said, Carmen, fortunately in this scenario at least, is the total opposite of Karen. So, that means Carmen is an expert under pressure. She calmed us both down expertly and mentioned that we could just follow our bike tracks back. “But, there is a problem or two in your plan. Number one, our tracks all criss-crossed. Number two, the wind blew all the sand over them so you can barely see them. Number three, if we just guess where the tracks are, we could possibly travel the wrong way.” Karen pointed out logically. After that we racked our brains for a few more minutes. When finally concluded we had nothing we realized it was only a few hours ‘till dark so we set up camp by where the iguana was. There were three small shrubs which formed a triangle about two feet away from
⑪
each other. They’re about 3 ft. long. We chose these to partially serve as wind breakers. I pointed out it was actually a good thing that the twins stuffed their handbags to the rim. Then I said, “Hey, we can use the things in our handbags to get someone to help us! Lets get our rest first.” Since we were all so tired no one argued with that. We used our cardigans for blankets. (So that you don’t think we’re pure crazy I’m here to tell you why we have sweaters in the 90 degree Outback. We have our cardies because we thought the tour might be so long that it would get cold. P.S. If you thought that was a totally stupid idea, it was Karen’s idea not mine. P.P.S. If you thought it was a totally awesome idea it was 100% my idea!)
∗∗∗
“What’s the time?” I mumbled reaching for my alarm clock. When it finally occurred to me that it simply wasn’t there I opened my eyes and had a panic attack for a moment. I screamed for a nanosecond and kicked of the jacket. The scream wasn’t very loud, but loud enough to wake up a startled Karen. As I already mentioned, Karen and Carmen are like day and night. Karen’s such a light sleeper while it takes 5 minutes to wake up Carmen. As we shook Carmen up we wondered how we could get help. Carmen finally woke up and asked, “Why’d you wake me up Dad? It’s not time for school yet.” When she didn’t get a reply and
⑫
was answered with a fit of giggles she opened her eyes. At first she was blinded by the Sun’s bright rays reflecting off of Karen’s bike reflectors. As soon as we all truly woke up we started brainstorming. I guess the saying, ‘you never know what you’re capable of doing unless you have to do it,’ is true because we were getting some pretty good ideas. First we made a mental checklist. It was what on average you needed to do to get help and survive. If you had to draw it out it would look like this:
❑Make a HELP or S.O.S. thingamajig
❑ Get water
❑ Get food
❑ Make a proper shelter
❑ Keep focused
❑ Attempt to make fire
❑ Get help
❑ Most importantly: STAY ALIVE
After all of that exhausting thinking I realized, We couldn’t remember all of that stuff! We need to write it down! Awwwww. My nice, comforting postcard to my Mum would be turned into some sort of survival checklist and if we didn’t ace it we’d be dead! That’d be a nice thought for my now worried-sick mother! Right after my depressing thoughts Karen chimed in, “Hey, but we can’t remember all of that! We need to write it down!” Reluctantly I handed over my only pen and postcard. Karen plopped her behind on a nearby
⑬
rock and started to copy down our checklist in her swirly-whirly handwriting she appointed us to start on, ❐Make a proper shelter. We kept our destination for three main reasons: 1) It’s a great windbreaker. 2) Any ground animal can’t clearly see us because of the bushes. 3) It’s spacious and roomy. So Carmen and I unwillingly started to improve it. “Carmen, look! Over there. I think that’s a rain cloud. It just gave me the idea to build a canopy on the top to give us some protection. Maybe just some leaves at the bottom so that sand will stick to the leaves and not us. What do you say?” “I say great idea but what can we use to build it?” “We’ll figure it out on the way. Anyway, lets go get it approved by Karen.”
We ran over to Karen jostling each other all the way and as we got there we saw Karen mesmerized by something behind her so we turned in that direction. Sure enough, about 50 yards out, there was a mother kangaroo with 2 joeys in her pouch. The kangaroo finally scampered off and we gained Karen’s attention. She approved our idea and got off of her lazy bum. “Okay. Karen you,” I pointed at her, moving my index finger to some other bushes, “collect leaves for the ground. Carmen, you’re with me to figure out the canopy. Let’s get to work!” Carmen headed toward camp and thought of what we could use for a canopy. After about 2 minutes Carmen came up with, “I was
⑭
thinking we could find 3 long, flexible sticks and cross them over themselves and stick some wide leaves in between them. Kind of like a dome.” “Let’s start!” We went to some wiry trees and took our needed 3 branches. We checked the flexibility then carefully twisted it off. When we got back Karen was just arriving. “Hey Maisie, Carmen how’s it going?” “Just splintering through. Literally.” I answered. We all laughed. “C’mon. Karen start matting the floor with leaves please.” I had grunts as a reply. After about an hour of hard work we finally got to do this:
☑Make a proper shelter
“I’m so tired.” Karen told us. “Okay then let’s get to sleep.” Carmen said annoyed. We all crawled in our what we now can call a tent and relaxed. All of a sudden, one second we’re awake, the next we’re out cold.
“Wake up! The sun is shining time to get up!” Carmen pounced on us. “Well, you are nice and jolly aren’t you today?” I asked surprised but glad. “Yeah I’m determined to get rescued within a week. Anyway, before we do anything come outside. Look! I collected the rain water. Yesterday I scattered the leaves everywhere to let water collect in them. What you called a mess! Ha! Also our canopy and flooring worked! I’m hungry.” She said very peppy. “Let’s get
⑮
food.” So off we went. “Follow me.” Carmen led Karen and I to the place where we found our twigs. “I’m up for fish.” Carmen said almost practically telling us I have a secret! And you’ll find out soon enough! Karen & I nervously exchanged glances. She brought us to a particular tree where she had pre-laid out three branches complete with three sharp stones side by side. She picked up one set and motioned for us to do so, too. We sat down and she taught us how to strip the wood off so the end was really sharp. All the while I was thinking, When the heck did you wake up. I got the guts to ask her and she just hummed a little. When she said our spears (spears not twigs now. HELP! Mad man on the loose) were sharp enough she brought us to a watering hole. Luckily no crocs in this one. She sat on a dry rock and started poking at what seemed like water. We sat down too and started poking at the water, which was actually small fish. They were feeding on some algae on the side of the rock we were sitting on. Easy enough because the fish didn’t have the brains to simply swim away from a big pointy thing. It wasn’t that easy though so we focused on one fish and within 3 minutes caught 2. So we tried getting one more. One for each of us. We had nothing better to do.
After getting our third fish we headed back to our tent
and made a fire using Karen’s bad breath. S-T-I-N-K-Y!!! We used her emergency lighter and purified our
⑯
water and fried our guppies. After having a satisfying meal, Carmen got out of her I’m-psycho-for-food-cuz-I-haven’t-eaten-for-2-days-and-that-doesn’t-suit-me mood I asked her again, “When did you wake up?” She answered, “I think the break of dawn. Whatever, let’s make a help sign and check off our dumb list.”
☑Get water
☑Get food
☑Keep focused
☑Attempt to make fire
“You mean the list that could save our lives?” I asked, smirking. “Yeah, sure that one. Hey, Karen, do you still have that wristwatch? If you do what time is it?” “Yes, and 8 A.M.” Karen replied. “Okay, Karen. It’s you and me to brainstorm for a little while on making the help signal. Carmen has to get a little rest.” I directed. “Bu-” “Karen!” “Coming.”
“Let me get this straight: We have to find a place that’s not too crowded and that is big enough to write help with some kind of materials that we still need to figure out what they are?” Karen questioned. “Whatever. You’re the smart one here.” I said. “Very helpful. So. We’ll start by questing for material to use. First, lets think of something that’ll stay in place and bring attention to itself. After we’ve got an idea of that
⑰
we’ll call Carmen over to start constructing it.”
“Great plan, but, what is that material? I’ll search over here you can search over there.”
Half an Hour Later:
Me more awake now, “Karen! Go wake Carmen and tell her get herself over her! ASAP! Tell her I have good news!”
“What’s so good?!?” Carmen asked, all pumped up. “Follow me.” I ran to a huge pile of wood. It looked like a tree had fallen down and only gigantic chunks of the trunk were left over. When the twins finally caught up to me they didn’t exactly have the reaction I was hoping for. Instead: “Maisie, I know, it’s great. Just one question,” She turned to Karen as if to say Is this girl loopy or something? So Karen broke in, “What the heck is so great about some pile of logs? I thought you meant there were other humans with help or something.” I told them that we could use these to make a jumbo help sign and have leftovers for like a bonfire to attract attention. Finally they caught on and said I was a genius. We started moving them to camp. It was exhausting. Long story short, it took us about 3 hours to move all the wood we needed. Then an additional 4 hours to build it. The log moving was easier though. Just rolling. It was the bonfire that was a pain in the neck but it came out awesome!
⑱
⑲
We needed extra twigs and rocks to outline the bonfire. It was 4 when everything was finished so we decided to go fishing. This time when we went fishing we were a little less tired and grumpy so we ended up with 8 fish which led to fuller stomachs. Carmen caught 4 and Karen and I caught 2 each. We two are pretty pathetic don’t you think? No, don’t answer that. After fishing we went to bed hopeful that in the night the bonfire would scream out to someone, anyone, that three eleven-year olds were stranded.
∗∗∗
We all woke up at about 7. We were all so determined that someone had surely seen us. When we went down to the lake for a light breakfast Karen told us about her dream last night. If I had to suffer listening to it you will too. Here it is, word for word:
“Last night I had the most awesomest dream about getting rescued. It wa-”
See, wasn’t it horrible! Yes, I know it was a little short. And yes, I do think that it was a little mean for me to cut her off. But, sometimes when she says she has a “dream” it turns out to be a nightmare and it haunts you so you have to stop her. So I didn’t want to hear any of it and didn’t have to. I already heard enough of bad grammar. Awesomest. Gives me the
⑳
chills! We ate sushi once again, and that’s when Karen
started getting delusional.
She started walking toward her bike and started riding it in circles around the bonfire oblivious to anything and everything. “Um, er, what are you doing?” I asked concerned. “I’m riding my very own pony named Sparkles. You want a turn?” “No thank you.” I answered, this time even more concerned. “Carmen, I know I’m her best friend and all and I should know, but, is this normal?!?” I said so that only Carmen could hear. Carmen shook her head a shaky no. Karen tried thrusting her “pony” at me. And before you could say, “Jack Robinson” a jet landed on our shelter and crushed it to smithereens. Before I realized it I started hugging the pilot’s left leg and said, “Save me! I’m stranded!” I looked up and couldn’t believe my eyes. Johnny Depp was standing over me and told me, “I think a handshake makes a better introduction than hugging my pilot’s left leg.” I stood up, dusted myself off, and shook hands with a movie star! I looked around and Carmen looked like the only sensible one. Karen was still riding her “pony” and was now singing “La de dah la de dah” Carmen explained about our scenario maturely and asked if maybe he could fly us back to London in his jet. He surprisingly agreed and let us board his private jet. Help me I’m gonna faint! When we were in the air he explained to us why he was in Oz. I’m sitting next to Johnny Depp! OMG!!!
㉑
㉒
He started off, “Well, I’m out here to make an adventure movie. It’s supposed to be a secret. Anyway, I bet you’re wondering why we landed. First of all, that was a great help signal and a really good bonfire, too. We were about fifteen hundred feet up directly above you when we saw a glow, a fire it seemed like. So we dropped elevation a little and saw a help signal so we decided to land. Now I do believe it is your turn to explain to us why you were there. So once again Carmen explained for us. When she had finished I had finally gotten Karen out of her delusion and told her what had happened. Now, we were both blushing and were both secretly hope Johnny Depp would put that aside. But, first impressions are hard to get rid of. Luckily, he had a great sense of humor and said we all make mistakes.
Did you know it only takes 5 hours in a jet to go from Oz to London? Well, it does. Isn’t it incredibly fast? Well, we all talked our heads off for about 4 hours of the flight and now we’re coming in for a landing. Good thing we forgot to unpack our purses. We still have our passports.:( It’s time to get off the private jet. At least I have a pic of him and me and boy do I have a story to tell. “Um, Mr. Depp, I don’t want to sound pushy but may I please have your autograph?” I asked hopeful. Sure enough he said yes so I gave him a scrap of paper. I can’t believe it! He actually signed it! So, I survived the Outback and got saved by Johnny Depp!
㉓
I looked at my autograph and still couldn’t believe it.
I ran over to the twins and instructed them to stay close and follow me. I led them out of the building and on the curb crowded with taxis.
I searched for a vacant taxi and we all hopped in.
“5 Marmion Street Clapham, please.” This time I did the talking. “All right then. It’s seventy pence per mile.” Oh great. Empty your purses. I thought. Home is about 50 miles from here.
“We’re almost at your destination, ladies. Just a few more minutes. 2 to be precise.” “Thank you very much, sir.”
“Here we are. That would be £42.00 exact.” I almost fainted, while sitting down! “60 miles, it was.” “Th-thank you.” I managed. I rummaged through my handbag and found 20 pounds and lot of twigs? We all looked through our handbags and in total found forty-two pounds and one pence. So much for a tip. We
㉔
handed over the money and our taxi driver counted and concluded we gave him an extra pence. So we mumbled it was his tip, to low for him to hear. We quickly scampered to the door and got ready for a punishment. Both my parents opened the door and I squeezed my eyes shut, not ready to be yelled at. Instead, I was greeted by a group hug and we were all silently pushed into the household. It felt so unfamiliar. When we were in, we all cried and exchanged our stories.
Our parents were so worried, they called on a search party! We told them everything. Then I showed them my autograph, bragging. They gasped at everything and kept repeating, “That’s so dangerous, though!” At the end my mum sarcastically shrugged, “So much for the ‘be good, you!’ That didn’t work!” We all laughed and de-stressed. Coming home never felt so good.
The
End
㉕
The other 3 pages were the publishers page, dedication page and copy of the front cover and name etc. It didn't copy exactly how she had it typed as she used many different fonts etc etc. I also only copied the text not the illustrations.
She did the whole thing solo. I was not allowed to help at all. The finished book looked like this:
Front cover complete with Caldecott Winners medal
Back cover: New York Times review
Inside back sleeve
on of the 28 pages.
One of her illustrations
