A Note From The Editor
The Sunset Trade is a publication of the Chebeague Island School 3rd to 6th graders. This month's theme is a free choice writing piece. Themes for upcoming months will be either free choice pieces or will be centered around a specific writing prompt. Enjoy!
Len Bogh, November's editor
When I First Came To America
by Vika
When I first came to America, everything was different. It was much better and cleaner than in Russia. The houses were bigger.
My new mom came to pick me up in Russia. When I got to America I saw my real brother and sister, who had been adopted a year before I was. I also met my new dad. A year ago I couldn't talk in English, and I didn't know anything that all my friends were saying. Now I can talk, but I still don't know some of the words. I really like it here, but sometimes I feel like I want to go back to Russia. This happens only when I fight with my brother or sister, or sometimes my mom. I have a lot of friends now. My best friend is Mia. Sometimes I fight with her, too.
The Creatures
by George
One day a troll, a dwarf, and a gnome were in the woods, but they didn't see each other. Their names were Big Rock, Monsterbeard, and Mr. Big Belly. They were all watching the same thing from the trees up high. They were watching an elf and a devil bump into each other and start to fight. Then the troll, the dwarf, and the gnome started to fight, too. After the fight and bruising each other up, they all became friends and shared their gold and split it up evenly and they also shared their secrets. They started helping each other out when they were in trouble.
The Chebeague Island School
by Lida
The Chebeague Island School is the best school in Maine. The grades in the school are K-6. The teachers in the school are really nice to the kids. The teachers take the kids on a field trip every once in a while. The kids get picked up between 8:00 and 8:30, and their bus driver's name is Marshall. He picks the kids up every day and drops them off every day.
When the kids go to school they come in the classrooms and they do work. The teachers' names are Mrs. George, Mrs. Williams and Mr. Bogh. Mr. Bogh teaches grades 3-6. Mrs. Williams teaches grades K-2. Mrs. George teaches pre-school. The helpers of the teachers are Mrs. Putnam and Mrs. Robinson.
Elaine makes lunch for the kids. After school some kids go to the CRC for programs. There are a lot of kids in the school. There are 26 kids in the school. There are 3 special kids in the school. Their names are Denis, Dasha and Vika. They are adopted from Russia.
The school is the best school in Maine.
Skating,
by Katie
I've been skating for three years. It's lots of fun. There are lots of levels. The levels are: Tots 1-6, Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Freestyle. I know a girl who's 6. She is in Freestyle. I am 10 and I am in Beta. I skate at the Portland Ice Arena on Saturdays. There are about 6 people in my class.
What I like about skating is that you can do anything you would like once you've learned it. I know some people who can do cartwheels, handsprings, and backwards crossovers. What I can do now are bunnyhops, backwards crossovers, spins, front crossovers, and front and back swizzles. What I want to be able to do are cartwheels, jumps, and front handsprings. I can't wait to go skating every week!
Nepal
by Zach
If I could go anywhere in the world that I wanted, I would go to Nepal. I would go there because that is where Mount Everest is. Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. It is 29,028 ft. high!
If I could bring or have anthing that I wanted, I would have a shrinking machine that would shrink all my favorite food so I could fit all of it in my bag and it would make it as light as a feather. I would also like an elevator that would take me to the top of the mountain. I would like there to be an animal detector that would stop the elevator immediately when it sees an animal. I would also like to be able to see the animal from inside the elevator on a big screen TV.
I would really, really like there to be a freezing machine that would freeze all the lakes and rivers so I could play hockey on them. I would also like to be able to say hello to all the other climbers. I would shoot a flair up in the air that would spell out HELLO so they could see it. I might even like there to be a communicating device that would let me say things that the whole world would here. If I could go there and have all those things I would consider myself the happiest man on earth.
Practicing Sportsmanship
by Jim
At snack and lunch recess we play kickball. It seems to be fun but the arguments can be horrible. Most of the time we argue over who is going to be pitcher, what the batting order is, and who is good and who is bad. This was a big problem.
After that we lost our privilege to play kickball for a week. We did get to go out, though. Mr. Bogh went out three times to practice cooperation, how we talked to each other, and how to settle problems in a peaceful manner.
My job is to pick fair teams, pick the batting order, and to make sure there are no fights on the field. Usually if someone wants to be pitcher and so does someone else, they do rock/paper/scissors.
After a full week of practice we are now allowed to play kickball again. I really think that things will work out well for everybody.
The Intrepid Trio
by Tyler
Chadny Wilson stared down gloomily at his science project. He had done the bare minimum: the growth rate of lima beans under different conditions. Of course he named it less scientifically. "Growing Beans by Chad Wilson," it said.
"Don't look so glum, Chad,"exclaimed an encouraging voice behind him. It was Sally Green. Her smile cheered Chad up a bit but not enough to keep his mind from racing all over the grade he might get on his science project.
"But it's horrible," he replied.
"No it's not," she assured him.
"You're lying,"
"You're just hurting yourself by not accepting a complement," she said, and walked off. Chad sighed and slouched back into his chair."Seventh grade stinks," he said to himself.
It's not surprising Chad found school difficult. If you saw him, you could probably tell he's bad at school. He was a real sports kind of guy. He loved football and baseball. He wasn't tall and he wasn't short. I guess you could say he was average. But what made him different was that he was incredibly strong. His brawn would eventually prove to be a great virtue.
Chad looked around. The school auditorium was packed with people. He stood up to see where Sally had gone off to. He spotted her ten projects down wearing a very strange pair of goggles. "Billy's project," he grumbled to himself.
Billy winters was very close to being Chad's exact opposite. He had so much brain power that if you stood next to him you could literally feel the energy flowing through his neural transmitters. If he were twenty he would be a world famed genius. But he's a kid, so no one would take his ideas seriously. But it wasn't just that he looked like a kid that made him so hard to be taken seriously. It was because he looked more like a first grader than a seventh grader. For he, as mild as you can put it, was a first-class shrimp.
Chad knew he could pound Billy flat if he wanted to. But he was morally strait and knew that that would be a stupid idea. So instead he held his dismay inside and let it bubble up through him.
Curiosity got the better of him (he was bored anyway), so he walked down to see Billy's project.
"Chad, you've got to check these out!"
Sally was saying as she stared around the room with the weird goggles.
"What are they?" Chad asked her. Billy replied:
"They're a pair of chemical energy magnitude visualizers."
Chad sighed, "In English please". Billy stared up in contemplative thought. He seemed to have trouble not using complex vocabulary.
"They're ... energy reading goggles. Is that easier to process?"
"A little," Chad replied, trying to sound as bitter as possible.
"Let me try these outside!" Sally blurted as she dashed to the gym door. Chad and Billy followed.
"Cool!" She was saying when they reached the door. She took off the goggles and gave them to Chad. "Wanna try?"
"Sure...," replied Chad, unsure of himself. He put the goggles to his face.
"The brighter the area the more chemical energy," explained Billy.
Chad looked around. Most of the landscape looked as if he were wearing sun glasses, but when he turned to Billy and Sally their heads were glowing white (especially Billy's). But behind them was something very strange: a sort of pulsing light. He slipped the glasses down his nose. He saw nothing.
"What is it?" asked Sally.
"Nothing," replied Chad, his eyes intent on the place where the strange phenomenon had been.
"Oh no! I need to get my math book. I left it in Mr. Carter's room," remembered Sally. She turned and walked toward the school, right into the direction of the light! Chad watched intently as she walked forward: step, step, step, step. Then, it happened. It was so quick Chad hardly saw it. Sally was flipped up like a rag doll and pulled into thin air.
"Holy smokes!" yelled Chad.
"Fascinating," stated Billy. He grabbed the goggles out of Chad's hands and looked through them. "It must be some kind of space-time vortex."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Chad.
"If I'm correct, Sally was just transported someplace, sometime. If we're quick we can follow her. The vortex is shrinking." And with that Billy ran forward and was swept into the vortex still wearing the goggles.
Speechless, Chad walked forward. He saw nothing but the normal scenery. Slowly he stretched out his arm. It felt as if Superman grabbed his arm and pulled. He was lifted off his feet and pulled into nothingness.
To be continued next edition.
Moving To Chebeague
by Christi
The first day of school when I'd just moved here, I sat with my sister Britny, which was very stupid of me. When we got to school my sister and I sat together again right next to the teacher's desk. I haven't been that close to a teacher in a long time. I've always sat in back.
The first person I met in the the class was a boy named Jonny Miller. I met him on the boat going to Chebeague Island, but he didn't sit with me at all. He was in the back with a kid named Zach Doughty. Two kids sat with me named Katie Phipps and Sarah Brown. Just by looking at them I knew they were best friends, and I knew I'd start hanging around with them, too. The first day was a half day because it was the first day of school.
When the bus came to pick us up to go home, I sat with Mia Taliento. Katie and Sarah got jealous because I sat with Mia, and I bet they thought I'd only play with them. When I got off the bus I was very shy for some reason, and of course I have a long road to walk up.
Last year every day after school I had to clean my room in order to get my allowance. Britny and I always went somewhere after school, either Tyler Weagle's house, the store, or to the mainland.
I'm glad I moved here, because people in my class were very nice. I had good first year.
My Foot
by Britny
One day I went to the Rec Center for swimming lessons. When I went inside the Rec Center, the swimming teacher, Rob, let me into the Teen Center and I played pool. A lifeguard who was in the Teen Center was playing and pushed me off the couch, and my foot got cut under the couch. My foot had a hole in it. Katie, another lifeguard, carried me into the girl's bathroom and there was blood everywhere. Then they asked me questions. They called my dad. He had to come to the Rec Center, and he carried me inside my house. Then my mom came home and cooked pizza.
It's Called Character
by Len Bogh
I own a 1987 Mazda B2000 pickup. It's mostly blue, a bit rusty in places, and isn't exactly what anyone would describe as being the envy of my friends and neighbors. In the 2 years since I bought it, I've experienced its slow deterioration, to the point where lately I've been thinking of trading it in for something a bit, how should I say, healthier. To see it and drive it, you'd think that would be a pretty easy decision to make: My right front directional light is held in place by duck tape. The bolt that tightens my fan belt is sheared off, so I keep the tension on it by means of a plastic tie that's wrapped around part of my alternator. The driver's side door lock sticks to the point that usually I need to unroll my window and unlock the door from the outside when I want to get out. I reset my trip odometer each time I fill my tank, because my gas gauge is broken. (I used to get over 300 miles to a fill, but recently found out the hard way that it's closer to 280.) My tape deck died months ago, and my front left speaker only works when I make sharp left-hand turns. When I make sharp right-hand turns, the gas tank slams against the side of the truck. I prefer the left-hand turns.
The seats are patched with duck tape.
The engine burns a quart of oil every two weeks.
The passenger-side door handle is purple.
The dashboard lights only work when the defroster is on.
Yep, on the surface it would seem like a no-brainer to trade it in. But for some reason it's not so easy. I'm attached to my truck in a way that could only have come with time, and to get rid of it feels almost disloyal. It's like having to shoot your dog that's gone blind, been hit by a snow plow 5 times, and is bald and dying from skin cancer. It doesn't matter that it makes sense to do it- it pains me in my heart. I get nostalgic about road trips and weekend oil changes. I think about the old desk drawer I got from the dump and refitted to use as the console between the two front seats. I think about all the speeding tickets. No, to sell it would just be wrong. Better to simply keep it intil its time is due, take it on that last drive to the pound, pull off the plates, and watch it get crushed into scrap metal, "gleaming in the sun" of a "real highwayman's farewell", as Springsteen once said.
(Incidentally, I'm asking $850, or best offer.)
About Pandas
by Mia
Pandas are black and white. They eat bamboo and some grass. They play so they can grow and for fun, but sometimes they can get out of hand with their playing. Pandas can walk for days. They climb trees. They can climb mountains, too. I like pandas because they are cute. My friend Vika also likes pandas because they are cute. Sometimes they look really funny because when the babies are born they are white. Pandas live in China. They are endangered. That means that there aren't very many left.
The Haunted House
by John
Once in a town called Lincoln, a family lived next to a haunted house with a vampire. The people in the family were called Tyler, Pam, Mark and Sam. Something weird happened one night. Sam disappeared and didn't come back until the next night when everyone was asleep. In the morning both Mark and Sam couldn't be found, so Tyler and Pam set off to the haunted house to look for them.
They found Sam and Mark in coffins as vampires. Tyler and Pam ran to a hardware store to get some stakes. They went back and killed the two vampires, but knew there had to be more. So they searched the rest of the house, but couldn't find any more coffins. They went to a hotel for the night.
The next morning they went back to the haunted house, found the vampire and killed him. When the vampire died, Mark and Sam came back to life as humans.
Chorus Line
by Denis
When I went to the library I got a movie called Chorus Line. I liked the movie because of the costumes and the music. I went to the theater and saw Chorus Line before I saw the movie. The people in Chorus Line were good dancers. I saw the movie Chorus Line a couple of times. I like the theater better than the movie because I got to sit up in the balcony. Up in the balcony I could see the people below me.
The movie and the theater were each a great time!!!
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