Before The Storm
Ralph:
I woke up remembering that I had a 3-page paper due in English today and I didn't have it finished yet. I looked over just to see that it was 10 minutes before the bus arrived at my house, so I rushed to get my clothes on and get ready. I was just finishing breakfast and saw the bus coming, then I yelled by to my mother "goodbye", and ran out my door to begin the day. I got to the bus and immediately began to try and finish my paper, the paper was pretty rushed but I didn't care at all I cared about was getting it finished and I accomplished that.
Jack:
When I woke the smell of fresh eggs and bacon infused the air, grease and gristle stirring. I ran downstairs to investigate the delicious aroma, but instead, I find the end of my childhood. My father laid there lifeless and cold. I ran to him and tried to not believe what was right before my eyes. He was dead. I had known that he always had heart trouble but I did not understand the significance of it. As soon as I saw him I felt like I was the one having the heart attack, the pain was like nothing I've ever felt. My stepmother ran down the stairs after hearing my cries. After seeing his face she stood there; motionless. I watched as all of the joy in her life was ripped away. One small tear ran down her pale cheek. After the ambulance arrived they confirmed what he had already known. He was gone. My stepmother told me to go upstairs. "Don't tell any of the other kids what had happened. They do not need to know of this" she whispered. So I laid in my bed and covered my face with the soft sheets. Even these could not comfort my soul. I knew that I would not be able to hold it in if one of the others ask me where father was. As I was laying there I thought about what life was going to be like now. "I am an orphan?" I thought to myself. Eventually, I had cried myself to sleep. I really don't know how long I was in my slumber but I was woken up by the sound of a gunshot. I run toward the horrifying noise as I passed the long hall toward the kitchen I noticed that my father's gun cabinet had the glass on the front busted out and only the wood frame remaining. I walked into the living room and saw there Linda Sue Willing; my stepmother lying on the couch covered in blood. I had remembered something that she had taught me about stopping bleeding by applying pressure. I take my fingers and press as I can on the bullet wound on her stomach. I then grab all the towels that I can and push them into the deep wound. Life felt like it was going in slow motion and I could n't move fast enough to plug the sizeable hole in Linda's stomach. The neighbors must have heard my cries because the same ambulance that took my father from me came the stole away the remainder of everything that I knew.
Piggy:
It is a wonderful day to start off the school and have a delicious meal. Kids at my school get bored of eating bacon, egg, and sausage every other day and pancakes or waffles the other but I think that this is the best part of the day. After I get done eating I go to class and start reviewing what we learn the day before. I am usually outside of the classroom waiting for our teacher to get here. I always see a student that passes by me every single day and gives me a weird look. I guess his mornings are not as good as mine. My grandma has a garden full of different kinds of fruits and has this huge apple tree that drops lots of apples during the month of June. I collect most of them and give an apple to my teacher every day. I want to show my teacher how polite I am and hopefully have a good relationship with my teacher throughout the year.
Ralph:
Once the bus got to school I ran in to greet my friends and noticed some lame dork standing outside of a classroom. I just kept walking past him and greeted my friends, we made plans to hang out that night, unless I got homework. So as I went on throughout my day all I got TONS of homework, I just didn't understand how I could get so much homework. I finished the day and got on the bus to go home and once I got home I started on the homework, which took about 6 hours from start to finish. Once I was done I took a shower and went to bed I woke up and repeated this routine for a couple of days until I got a letter telling me of a field trip so naturally I got super excited and went to bed feeling ready to go.
Jack:
The neighbors took us in for the night and called the social workers as soon as the office opened. I suppose they did not enjoy the company of 3 distraught orphan boys. The social worker (my brothers named her Ms. Meany) told us to fill up a small duffle bag with everything that we might need. As we started driving past the town limits sign I started to wonder. "Where are we going?",I asked. "None of your business. " Ms. Meany replied. She then started rubbing the large mole on the tip of her chin. It looked disgusting. My brothers had gone to sleep only 5 minutes into the ride. I close my eyes and doze off as well. We awoke to the screams of the very large Ms. Meany. "Get out of the car you maggots!" she screams. We can see large chunks of ham stuck in between her large corn yellow teeth. She throws our stuff onto the sidewalk in front of a massive brick building. The sign read Stockwell Orphanage. This is not what I was expecting…. At all.
Piggy:
This is my second year in this school after constantly being bullied for many years. I was born with asthma, maybe a genetic thing that is passed to me. My mother died when I was 3 years, and my dad was taken to fight in the war. My childhood was really rough, but living with my grandma for the past 3 years has been a blast! I have so much fun at home, my grandma cooks the best food and lets me do watch tv at night. When it comes to school, my life changes from enjoyment to hell. It all started back in 5th grade, it was a beautiful day during lunch. I was eating a cheese sandwich and a bowl of spaghetti for lunch and there were no forks. I was really hungry and tried to eat with my hands as clean as possible. Halfway done with the spaghetti I look up and see basically the whole lunchroom staring at me, or at least that's how it felt. They wouldn't stop looking at me. I got up and ran to the bathroom until lunch was over. When I returned to class, on my way people were calling me a pig. This has gotten worse since I have kind of not been growing as much as the others. In 6th grade, I moved schools across the county but there are always those kids that transfer over as well. They remembered me from 5th grade and here I thought that I was going to get treated better. Now instead of the pig, they referred to me as piggy. This is what started the bullying.
Ralph:
I woke up on the day before the trip feeling something I can't describe other than a memory of when I was eight. That day is forever stuck in my mind as a day of happiness and sadness. I woke up and I felt like a million bucks, but also anxiety because of what the day had planned. I was supposed to get on a plane with my parents to go see my grandparents in the U.S.A., just for a week visit, but before I knew it the day went sideways. First I got to the airport to get on the plane, everything went well but once on the plan, we started to hit turbulence. That scared me so much that I might have peed myself, but we finally got to our destination and as soon as we got out of the plane I threw up on the ground. I just wanted to see my grandparents, it took us awhile but we arrived at their house in Miami, but I got sick there and couldn't even be with anyone or go outside. Once I got better it was time to leave and I had only been with my grandparents a few days since I was sick. On the plane back home I was asleep most of the way until we landed, that was when my parents had to go to security because our car was stolen while we were gone. Unfortunately, we didn't ever get the car back, so we called our friends to pick us up and take us home. So when I had that feeling I was excited but weary at the same time about that trip.
Jack:
We walk in a delightful woman with silvery hair shows us to a room with three metal cots. It was about 8 pm when we arrived. She told us that it is probably best if we get some rest and that she would show us around tomorrow. She gave us large white tee shirts and fresh underwear and a small toothbrush. We brush our teeth, comb our hair, and changed into our new undergarments. The littluns are still crying so I let them sleep in my bed with me. Eventually, we all doze off almost forgetting about the troubles that have come upon us today. Everyone was woken up by the horrifying sound of a trumpet. First, the nice lady told us that her name was Ms. Walter but we could call her Linda. She explained that one of two things could happen to us. Either we would be adopted out or we could age out at 18. She told us to go ahead and get ready for school. We had fresh uniforms on our beds and a biscuit on our table. A bus pulled up and we were filed on. We came to a halt and were filed off in the same way that we boarded. A thin woman with bright red lipstick and large pearls come in front of us. "Ok if you are new welcome to Westminster School please behave and do your best your future depends on it, now have a nice day. " The school day was awful, I know no one here. confusion was everything. In the last 24 hours, I have lost both my parents, put in an orphanage, and entered into private school. I never thought that one day I would wake up and have my life turn out like this. That whole week we did the same things came back to the orphanage, ate dinner, did homework, and went to sleep. Same routine. Everyday. Then all of a sudden Ms. Linda came into our dorm (I prefer to call it this instead of our room to keep from accepting the reality that this was our home. I thought of it more as a boarding school. ) and said that we had a visitor. I walked and a tall skinny man with a handlebar mustache wearing a plaid suit, following him was a woman almost the same height with bright red lipstick that slightly overlined her lips and a flowy mustard dress. "Boys this is Betty and Joseph Howard, they are here to adopt you. " Linda said. "Nice to meet you, boys. " Betty said in an excited voice. Then the bunch walked just out of my earshot. I saw them whispering and slowly the smile on Ms. Linda's face dissolved. Then the couple started making their way to the front office. Ms. Linda returned to our room with a gloomy look on her face. "Freddy and Ben please get your things together and come with me, " she said looking at my brothers. "Oh boy, Jack we get to leave and go to a new home!"Freddy said in a thrilled tone. We all started packing up our stuff when Linda interrupted. " Jack I'm sorry. "she said, "what do you mean, why would you be sorry?" I replied. "Well, the couple only wants to have two kids in there house so they are only taking Freddy and Ben. " Tears begin to run down my face, but I know that I must stay strong because while I can age out this might be the only time soon that the boys get a chance to leave. "Ok. " I say. She then further tries to explain to me that it is sometimes hard for older children to get adopted, but I didn't care all my mind was thinking about was the anger and hatred I had for that couple that was stealing my brothers away from me.
Ralph:
I woke up the day of the trip and got ready to go, then hurried to the bus to get to school. Once there we got on the bus to get to the museum, when we got there we took the trips around the museum and each exhibit. The trip lasted about the average length of the school day and when we were supposed to leave, we did and on the way back there were screams about how bombs and guns are coming. I noticed we weren't going back the same way we went to the museum.
Piggy:
With all of the hurtful things said to me, I started feeling more anxious about myself. I started to lose focus in some of my classes, although I am still passing with the highest grade in each class. After I was done eating breakfast, I went up to my teacher to talk about some classwork that I haven't been following along with the class. She first complimented me with the new glass that I got. The only reason I got glasses was, in every single one of my classes, they assigned me to sit at the very back. At first, I was fine and everything but then my vision started to get blurry. I felt happy that at least someone is being nice to me, and hopefully, she means it. I got caught up in the class and was ready for the next lesson to be learned. After class was over our teacher said that we will be having a field trip to Natural History Museum.
Jack:
The next morning I went back into the routine of going to school pretending that they were not gone, but in the back of my mind, I knew that I probably would never see my brothers again. When I got back I went straight to bed, but I couldn't go to sleep tears filled my eyes and the room felt so empty. I was alone. So alone.
Ralph:
I asked the driver where we are going and he said the airport, and I wondered why, once we got there they took me and the one kid I saw a couple days ago, to a separate plane because the others were full and when we asked why we were on a plane the simply said because we are evacuating you.
Piggy:
I woke up really excited and looking forward to the field trip that we are going to today. I woke up an hour early to pack up my lunch and prepare my notebooks to take some notes. On my way to entering the school, I saw the buses lined up and ready to go. I got to my class and most of the students were ready. We were just waiting for some students to get to school. After everyone is here, we go straight to the bus that we were assigned and head our way to the museum.
Jack:
I went through the week feeling boredom. On Thursday when I got on the bus there was something different there were sirens going off. The bus driver told us to hurry to our seats. We started driving but not the way back to the orphanage. I came to a slamming halt at a large airport and an officer hurried us into the building. Rumors were being whispered through the air about bombs and guns and fighting. All I wanted at this moment was my dad and stepmom to hold me and make me feel like everything was going to be alright and to have my brothers there and cuddling all together like a family should. But this was not the actuality. I was sent to a different plane than most of the other kids because there was not enough room. When I sat down in my seat there was a large boy with glasses sitting across from me. He was nicely dressed but showed lots of panic in the way he was sitting. And another boy smaller but looked about the same age. They looked back at me and I turned away I didn't want to make any friends, I didn't want to lose anyone else that I cared about. And I knew that this adventure we were about to go on was not going to be a fun ride.
Piggy:
After a really fun experience in the museum, it is sadly time to leave and head back to school. Around halfway back to school we started to see police cars dashing through everyone all going towards where we are going. I got kind of worried that we might make it to school really late. Suddenly I see the teachers in front of the bus getting a call and then changing their facial expressions to someone you would see in a scary movie. The bus then makes a right turn and I starting thinking that maybe we were taking a different route because maybe an accident happened in front of us. After a while, I then realized that we weren't going to school. We were all worried about what the situation we have gotten ourselves into. The bus finally stops and we see ourselves at the airport with other students from other schools there too. I didn't know where we were going and I was hearing is that there were plans for our area to be bombed. I was so scared and then the I heard my teacher saying that we will have to evacuate the city. I am so nervous about what's going to happen next because I don't know where I'm heading to. I get on the plane and just wish that everything turns out good at the end.