A Picture Is Worh A Thousand Words

There were women screaming for help. Men fighting. Fire spreading across the field. Horses left were just wandering around. Some left their owners and escaped death. I could see men lying in their back shot dead. Blood all over their faces. All over the dirt, and on the men’s sword. He had slashed the man’s throat next to him. It was one king’s army against the other. Men loosing were the poorest. Our king I should say was like nothing I’d seen. He made this town a world of corruption. He would crush any idea of freedom. The battle had started yesterday night. I could smell the worst, decaying bodies. I have seen the miserable families crying over the dead. Unfortunately I was one of them. My father was a soldier, and he had lost his life just minutes before this battle was over. My mother had tried to get in the field to get his body. She could not. Crawling on the ground she struggled against a soldier. He wore black shields protecting his body. The man had a fierce face, and with his right arm he held my mother by her left arm real hard.

“Run Edwin, run!” she yelled crying.

She was in danger, I wanted to help her. But she insisted. I knew what was coming next. It was what I feared the most. First, my father, and as I ran and looked back, my mother. Both dead. The last that I had seen was him wearing his poor uniform that was provided. My mother was wearing a long old dress; it had been passed down to her by her mother. She was expected to give it to her future daughter. She never had one, she had me, a boy. So, I found myself today walking along this road made only out of dirt. I’ve been walking for almost the whole morning afternoon, it is getting late. There is no food or water.

It is already dark, and I am staying under a tall green tree. It’s next to the road, but a little farther. I don’t know how much time I had spent sleeping, but I woke to a sound. I looked all around. I saw a white horse, his hair was straight and pale white as that of the moon. The horse had a rope tied to him. I used that to tie it to the tree. In the morning we started our journey to get to the next town. I didn’t know what I had to do once I got there, but I knew I had to find a way to survive. I would get a job first.

We crossed a river, but there was a ramp over it. The water was in a rush. If one of us had fallen in there it would take us along with it. Time had passed, but the sun was still in the sky. We finally got to the town. It was very crowded. There was a stand of fruit, the owner, an old man, was nice enough to give me something to eat. He offered me a place to stay. The man’s name was John. He already had a family, He had two kids, and his wife Angela. It was time to close his stand. John made enough family to support his family.

We finally went to his home. I met his son; he was seven, four years younger than me. The little girl was only five years old. John also lived with his wife’s mother. They owned a cute brown and white dog. I think my horse could accept that fact. We all went to bed. They were all so nice to me. John and his wife told me to stay with them, they wanted to keep me as their third child. They could no longer have children. The next morning, I was so hungry I woke up to the smell of pie, and breakfast. John called us downstairs and told us to wash our hand before eating.

We then all gathered, and once I was there I grabbed as much as I could and started eating it. The two kids were there, and we talked so much. After, we were planning to play outside. But I knew that if I was going to live here I had to help around. I was going to help john at his work. In the meantime, John went upstairs to get his coat. Angela was there feeding the horse. The dog was in her lap. And the younger boy stood there watching all of us. I could hear the bird’s chirps outside, flowers blooming, it was spring. I’ll treat John and Angela as I treated my lost parents. I will never forget them.

Pet Peeves

1. It annoys me when they don't pick up tha garbage, and sometimes the alley can't be played on.
2. When he comes and tells us we can't play there.
3. When they don't shut their mouths.
4. When he makes me wash dishes.
5. When he every ten minutes he comes nearby to see what I'm doing in the computer.
6. When I have to give certain things away.
7. How I see a lot people at the mall wearing everything black.
8. When I see her scars in her arm.
9. When she talks about boys.
10. When the people who have dogs do not pick up the dog's waste to throw it away.
11. It annoys me to pass by people who are smoking.
12. When the cash register lady doesn't hurry up.
13. When the buyers too don't know how to hurry up and get out of the way.
14. It annoys me to go to the park, and then be told we can't be there just because they think they own the park.
15. It annoys me when a car driver in front of me doesn't hurry up, or does not pay attention and ends up being on cell phone.
16. When they try copying.
17. When he calls me every five minutes.
18. When they put me in charge of taking care of them.
19. When he acts rude to them.
20. When he doesn't listen.
21. It annoys me when the little one asks me too much questions.
22. When he puts that type of music so loud.
23. When he all of a sudden hits the breaks because he doesn't know what he's doing.
24. When he comes nearby only to try to pinch or hit me.
25. When I have to wake up so early.

The Secret

It was my best friend's deepest, darkest secret and it would be a hard one to keep....



We had been best friends since second grade. And today we are in college. We made it trough a whole lot of years. The funny thing was that my name was Darcy, and her name was Marcy. Like twin sisters. But all that changed heavily, when I found out about her darkest secret. I don’t know the possible things I could have done if I had known earlier.

Marcy was only an inch taller than me. She had nice straight brown hair, with dark brown eyes that made her stand out. She was a very smart student, and she was in almost every sport team. We had earned the same scholarships. Terribly she can’t be here now.

It all started one early morning in the autumn. It was already about three months after the first day of “school”. Marcy came to my house early in the morning like always. I opened the door to see her huge smile. I let her in and she followed me in the kitchen. She wore a light blue top over some denim jeans. She said she had this great idea that can save the rest of our lives being together. For our future we had different plans, but agreed to communicate with one another once in a while. And well, we had only about two more years to go, and jobs to get to pay our studies. Marcy’s plan was not good at all.


She was planning to get money out of a bank. But how? By robbing the bank. When I heard it, I thought it was just a joke. She couldn’t possible do that, she could get herself in jail just by that. Anyways, she started talking about how she was going to bring a gun, and if it was necessary she would shoot someone. Her first step she said while looking in her list was to go in the bank and fire a shot in the air like they normally did in the movies. She went on how she would have her dark mask and stuff. What a joke. I did know Marcy for a long time, I knew she wasn’t capable of hurting someone. Especially after her father’s death. He was shot three years ago when she was sixteen. Eventually she got over it and decided to let her father rest in peace. Surprisingly, Marcy had this “robbery” planned for next week. I started getting nervous, she explained everything so detailed to me. On the other hand, that same day we went to school. Unfortunately we were assigned a project that would take us about a week. I got so into the project I stopped paying attention to her. But I knew she was stuck in the house doing the same thing. It was a cold Friday morning, and I came down to the kitchen were my mom was watching the TV while cooking breakfast. The news was on. Nothing but bad news is what they should call it. All of a sudden a live report came in. that report got my mom’s whole attention. I was grabbing something in the fridge when she called me to watch it. I went up to the screen. I couldn’t believe it. It was Marcy. She wore a black mask, and a black outfit. I recognized her by her height and by her hair. She had it in a pony tail. Apparently, therewas a news reporter, she filmed Marcy pointing a rifle to a man’s head. Though, my mother could not recognize her. I was so scared. I had to go out and get her, I couldn’t let her do this. When I arrived it was too late, I spoke with a police officer. Aparently, they knew it was a woman. They did not know anything else, not even did they get information about the witnesses. She had killed five people who had tried to bring her down. She took about one billion dollars, and had escaped through a back door. That day, I had no other chioce but to go to school. We were supposed to turn the project in. But Marcy wasn't there. After school, I tried looking everywhere for her. No trace. I took a shortcut to get home. I walked through a park. As I walked someone grabbbed me and covered my mouth with their arm. When I turned around I saw it was her.

Her Mysterious Death

Her death was due to mysterious circumstances and I was assigned to the case.


I had immidiately come after the call I got from my boss. Apparently a woman was murdered in her own home. The woman was alone, no children, and no husband. She was in her late twenties. She had brown wavy hair, dark brown eyes, normal body size,about five feet five. Well, her house was located in a street called Aplan, here in a small suburb of Los Angeles.





When I came in, the woman was in her bed. Her covers were from head to toe. There was blood in the floor, bedsheets, and some on a dark brown desk next to her bed. She had mutiple stab wounds.What was the most strangest thing was that only one drop of blood was spattered in the cover. I then grabbed a buccal swab to profile the DNA. Also, grabbed samples from the other blood to make sure every drop of it was hers. I looked around the room for indetification. But it was then not necessary when the victim's maid had come here in the morning. It was she who discovered her body. Possible suspect, I thought. So, I decided to question her.





"What is your name?" I asked, trying to observe if what she was telling me was true.


"My name is Martha, and I am the maid in this house." She answered.


"How did you find the body?"


"I came in as regular at eight in the morning, as I entered there was a strong odor in the whole house. I decided to look around for where it was coming from. And unfortunately, I found Ms. Aiko. Soon I called police." she stated truthfully.



After interrogating her, I asked other neighbors. I asked them questions about her daily life, or if she had any people in her house at the time. A couple responded and simply stated that they hadn't seen nothing. There were no quests or fights. As for her daily life, she was somewhat stressed. Business wasn't going well, and she usually arrived late at night.



Back in her home I found one empty bottle of liquor in the living room. There was two cups. If this cup had DNA, we can catch our last person to see Ms. Aiko. And maybe, the killer. I placed out markings in every part of the scene of crime. Then I took pictures to use it later on as evidence. In the desk right next to her bed was her diary. I sat in the other end of the bed, the other forensic team had taken the woman's body for autopsy. The people were right. She was having a hard time, and only her cousin Emily was with her throughout the whole time. She owned a company, and for some reason their economic status wasn't very good. Some one had been handling the money not very well. I tried to reach for an address of this cousin Emily. One detail that caught my eye was the mentioning of a person. Aiko had desbribed one man as the giver. Apparently, she was purchasing an expensive object she did not mention from him. Back in the lab, I ran the DNA database for the samples I found in the glass cup. There was no match. As for autopsy, Ms.Aiko had apparently consumed more liquor than anyone could of possibly have. There were some high levels of drug use. These were for her DOB. As for her TOD, it was about seven hours ago. It means, that she was murdered around one in the morning. It answers my question. The giver was a drug dealer. It explains why she describes it as expensive. That one drop of blood did not make a match either. After a few days of reading Aiko's diary i had found the cousin's adress. So, I decided to go to her house. It wasn't exactly as I expected, she lived right downtown in an apartment. The woman was no more taller than our victim. She had black hair, and brown eyes, she appeared to have been sleeping. We sat down in her living room and started talking about her cousin Aiko.

"When was the last time you saw you cousin?" I interrogated.
"Yesterday, at work". she said rubbing her eyes.
"I understand that you were very trusted by Aiko, is that true?"
"Yes, I ran many things, and handled money errands."
Do you know who might "the giver" be?"
"It was a man, he lived in a poor town. Aiko would buy drugs from him. She wasn't very good. Everything was falling apart. She owed him some money."

For that day, that was all i could gather. I still had no other clues. So, I decided to return to the crime scene. I didn't notice it at first. But back in the hallway, there was a room. It was an office. There was a desk, and behind it was a safe. The door was open. Money was missing. I searched for any fingerprints, and I did. I ran them in the database abkc in the lab. It was from a man who already had some problems with the police for illegal possesion of drugs. When i went into that poor town i found the man. He looked at me, he knew i was a detective. He started runnign. BUt i was fast enough and got him. I took him to the station.

How To Make Logandale Better

I think that there are three ways that can make Logandale a better school. It can accomplish this by getting more adults or parents involved. Second, to have more activities running in Logandale School. Finally, to make the neighborhood inside and outside of this schools a safe one. Do you think it would hurt to at least try these ideas?

To accomplish this goal, we can try to have more adults and parents involved. It doesn’t consist of participating in school, but you can help out in other ways. One of those ways is to get students to do their assigned work. For certain parents, it is not required to check the work, but to make sure it is done. With this, students can bring up grades and improve the school’s scores. There might be work when you know that these students have lots of classes.

Second of all, to make Logandale a better school, we can have different types of exploratory. Before, the school used to have more kinds of activities as a class. The principal says that all of these classes are going to take up too much time. That’s not the way I think of it, if we have one exploratory every week it can really work out. I think of this reason because many students these days are interested in things such as performing arts. What else can make Logandale a better school?

My third reason as in how Logandale would be a better school is by making it safe to be in. We must make sure that the surroundings or environment is safe, and not threatening to kids from another town or part of the city. Recently there was a shooting real close by to the school. It has to be known that these students can walk home by themselves without any worries. This is what I think can be done, don’t you think the same?

In conclusion, I say that there are different ways to make Logandale a better school. One, by getting more parent or adult involved in a different way. Secondly, to have more programs available. Lastly, to make sure Logandale’s campus is safe. What do you agree on?

Elizabeth Quintana's Life Story

Today, September fifth year 1994, I gave birth to my very first daughter. I have not yet picked a name. My husband and I still disagree over it. He says we should name her like one member of his side of the family I can’t recall. I say it should be Elizabeth. None of our family’s name is similar to hers. It was about four thirty in the morning, and soon enough I found myself in the hospital room holding her. She was covered in a white blanket with the word Norwegian American hospital on it. Her father was next to me, and we eventually decided to name her Elizabeth. The next day we were already in our home. My two brothers, sisters, and one sister-in-law were there. They all got a chance to carry her. After she was only one month old, we took a picture of her. She took it with her dad. She was looking right at the camera while placed in a red-orange blanket. I can’t believe that today she is fourteen and we still have that blanket right in the closet. One day, she had a high fever. We took her to the hospital, and even the doctors couldn't get to lower it down. We actually thought she was at risk of dying for this. But the doctors did all they could and lowered it down. from then o she took medicine. When she was one year old we had a birthday party. A lot of friends and family gathered around the table with her to take pictures. Next to her was her oldest cousin named Jocelyn, which she still hangs out with today. Also her cousin that had just been born was in the room sleeping. But they were still babies and nothing serious happened. She was wearing a pink dress with a funny hat that matched it. It was tiring, she cried and cried and as much as we tried she did not want to take a picture with any of them. It was not until I left the camera to my brother and went to carry her. She finally stopped crying. The party had finally ended, and only my brothers, sisters, and sister-in- law were left. We were opening her presents. She had gotten a guitar with a microphone, a nice shirt and shorts, and the rest were toys. What stood out the most was the guitar. Today she claims we had to keep it because even she liked it. Every one of us was really happy to have her with us. We had only been here in Chicago for about two years and we had the though we needed someone else to be with. Though, there was a saying that my mother had wanted a grandson from me. But I never did have one. When Elizabeth was only five years old I had a second child. It was a girl. I though it was a good idea because now she wouldn’t be alone anymore and have a sister. Though, she did have two friends who lived in the same building as us. A boy named Eric from the third floor, and a girl a year older than her in the first floor. Elizabeth was pretty good at school. I wished the best for her, I had only finished sixth grade. Though she wasn’t like her cousins. Her cousins played the playstation or would be learning how to use a computer. That’s why she now does not have much experience with a computer or how the games are worked out. In the summer of 2004 we took our daughters to Mexico. They met their grandmother, uncles, aunts, and other older cousins. They were very shy and did not speak much. Next we took them to Los Angeles, California. They didn't experience much but they soon hope to come back to that city.Two years later, when she was about eleven years old she had her second sister, our third daughter, no boy yet. As years passed she’s been growing along with her sister. They’re not that close though, they argue a lot and get into many fights. Their youngest sister just gets on her sister’s side, not Elizabeth's. Because I had left work I decided to work again. She is now in charge of the entire house. She’s responsible even though sometimes she gets into serious trouble. Though even I know she doesnt' like to do any of this stuff she does it. She has her own goals, one of them is not being a cook or do chores. The second, she won't get married or have children. Third, to have a career. I'll see if she makes her promises in the future. I don't think of that right now and i also don't expect her to not have kids. I want her to be a mother but at a right age. Now a days, she is in middle school and is getting ready to go to high school. I know her friends and she seems happy to be with them and go out with them too. This is how her life has been so far from then.