Mean on the Out Side Soft on the Inside

Ben Rogers was a mean boy. He would often make fun of a boy named Tom Sawyer when Tom had to work on white washing his fence. Ben went swimming while Tom worked. He would pick on Tom and call him names for having to work.
Tom was mad at Ben for being mean to him. He heard about an award show in which a neighborhood kid was going to win an award called Person Everyone Want to Be. In the afternoon Tom called his friend Sam knowing her mom was on the Award Show Voting committee. He asked her to rig the voting to have John Overran win. She secretly liked Ben a lot so she liked the idea to rig the voting but to have Ben win instead. Sam lied and said that she had to go because it took a long time to rig the votes. Tom fell in to the trap and believed him and hung up.
Right after Sam hung up with Tom she called Ben and told him that Tom want her to rig the votes. Ben asked her what she did and Sam told him that she was going to have John win. She did not want to tell Ben that she liked him so she lied. He instantly hung up and is last words were “I hate you.”
Later that week Tom, Ben, and Sam were at the award show. They were all sitting at the same table not speaking to each other. When it was time for Sam’s mom to present the Award for the Person Everyone Wants to Be the crowd went silent. She said “thank you all for coming to the 20th annual Awards show. The grand prize winner of $600 and the smashing trophy goes to……. BEN RODGERS.” Tom gave a dirty look to Sam and dashed out of the building slamming the door closed. The whole crowd turned to see what was happening. Sam smiled at Ben. She told Ben to go outside so she could set up a surprise. When Ben got outside he ran over to Tom. Tom asked him what he was doing there and Ben told him that he wanted to split his prize with him. Tom asked him why he was giving him some of his prize. Ben told him that he realized how mean he was to him and that he has changed forever. Tom rejected the money and told him to keep it and that he forgave him.
The next day Ben went over to Tom’s house and asked him if he wanted to play baseball and Tom said yes he would want to play. Tom offered Ben one of his gloves but Ben told him that he already had his lucky glove. When they got to the baseball diamond they played a nine inning game winning 27 to four. After that they decided to make a baseball team winning every game for two years straight.

Deep Water

Daniel Becker
Mr. Graf


Imagine being a four year old and your dad takes you to the ocean to play in the water for the first time. A huge wave knocks you down and you almost drown. To make it worse your dad laughs at you and does not help you up or help you get out of the water. The short story “Deep Water”, by William O. Douglas, was a great story explaining how when you’re young and something really dramatic happens, it will change your life entirely.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2004, there were 3,308 unintentional drownings in the United States, an average of nine people per day. As of 2004, fatal drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages one to fourteen years old. With these outstanding facts, more people in the U.S. should realize this and pay the money to have their kids learn how to swim. Unfortunately the parents of the main character did not put their son in swim class fast enough.
An example of an accidental drowning was reported by the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office in California. On February 4, 2010 a woman drowned on the Sonoma Coast north of Bodega Bay. The reason for the tragedy was the 51 year old woman was chasing after her dog, which was swept up into the waves. Sheriff's Sgt. Dave Thompson said the 51-year-old woman and her boyfriend were walking two pug dogs along Portuguese Beach when one of the dogs was swept into the waves. The woman tried to save the dog and was also pulled into the waves. Her boyfriend, a State Park ranger, and another person were able to get the woman back on the shore. Unfortunately she had been in the cold water for about 20-25 minutes. State Park’s personnel gave the woman CPR before the Sonoma County Sheriff's helicopter arrived but the woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The dog perished and washed ashore.

Many fears come with almost drowning or witnessing someone drown. According to phobialist.com some of the fears that could come with almost drowning are hydrophobia which is the fear of water. Dinophobia is the fear of depth. People would be afraid of going in to deep places because when people drown it is usually in deep water and if the person would go into a deep place they would remember themselves almost drowning. Agoraphobia is the fear of leaving a safe place. People that have almost drowned would not want to leave the safety of their house because they would not want to risk falling into water and drowning.

The main character in “Deep Water” was bullied by his father because his father saw him almost drown and only laughed and the 18 year old boy at the YMCA swimming pool when he almost drowned the main character. People that have been bullied probably have many fears not necessarily about water but about being bullied. The two short stories “The Glorious Whitewasher” and “All Summer in a Day” were about bullying. All the bullies in the stories including “Deep Water” have things in common. First the bully picks on the weak and that’s how it is in, real life. All three authors of the short stories have probably been picked on in real life and they are expressing their feelings in stories by writing about people getting bullied.

Almost drowning is extremely life changing and very scary and that’s what William O. Douglas the author of the short story “Deep Water” explains. When people almost drown they get angry and feel like it is their fault. Anyone who has almost drowned is scared, but years later they will be able to conquer their fear, and live a happy life.

Break Your Heart

Break Your Heart( I think break your heart means a guy breaking up with his girl friend and to break up with her he sings it)

Woah Woah

Now listen to me baby (telling a girl something)
Before I love and leave you( he is going to break up with the girl)
They call me heart breaker (other girls he has dated have called him heart breaker)
I don't wanna deceive you( he does not want to trick the girl)

If you fall for me( if a girl likes him)
I'm not easy to please(he does not like every girl)
I'mma tear you apart(he is going to break her heart)
Told you from the start, baby from the start.( told her at the beginning of the relationship he was hard to please)

I'm only gonna break break ya break break ya heart. (x4)(He is saying he is going to break up with the girl)

Now listen to me baby( he is trying to tell the girl something)
Before i love and leave you( he is breaking up with her)
They call me heart breaker( other girls he has dated has called him heart breaker)
I don't wanna deceive you( does not want to mislead the girl)

If you fall for me ( if the girl really likes him)
I'm not easy to please(he does not like every girl)
I'mma tear you apart( I’m going to hurt you feelings)
Told you from the start, baby from the start.( saying how the relationship started)

I'm only gonna break break ya break break ya heart. (x4)( going to break up with the girl)

Woah woah

There’s not point trying to hide it( saying he does not want her to hide her feelings (i.e. crying, yelling, punching and so on)
No point trying to erase me( telling her to not try to forget him)
I know I got a problem ( saying he now he breaks with a lot of girls)
By doing this behavior (saying when he does this he…..)

If you fall for me (if the girl likes him)
I'm not easy to please(he does not like all the girls he dates)
I'mma tear you apart (going to make the girl go crazy)
Told you from the start, baby from the start.

I'm only gonna break break ya break break ya heart. (x4)
Woah woah

Blind man

“Bonjour, vieilami”(Hello my old friend). “Avance, mon ami”(Go ahead , my friend). Pierre would say every day to his white horse Joseph. Alongside with Pierre’s horse Joseph they would go delivering milk day after day. If anyone in the world would think that a man with cataracts would wake up every morning at 5:00 to go deliver milk could not succeed. Pierre does and breaks that belief. The short story “A Secret for Two” by Quentin Reynolds was a great story explaining that comedy does not always have to make you laugh it can also make you feel down.
Pierre Dupin an old man that has been delivering milk for 30 years grew a great bond between himself and his horse Joseph and when all the sudden his horse dies his whole life comes to an end….Literally. “Why a blind man could handle my route with Joseph pulling the wagon” Pierre would say.
“A Secret for Two” reminds me of stories on the news about people get hooked to a pet and when their pet dies they die shortly after because of being so depressed. The short story also reminds me of other stories about people who have a weird profession but the person that does the job loves their career and they stick with it even though everyone else thinks it’s a stupid occupation.
I enjoyed this story because it was entertaining and I wanted to keep reading. “A Secret for Two” by Quentin Reynolds was a great short story explaining that people in the world should never get to close to their pet and never judge a person by their look on the outside.

A Man and Women

“A man and women were standing at the train station when all the sudden the train station exploded sending them flying hundreds of feet away. We believe the explosion happened from a Russian train that had been transported to America. Our detectives believe there was a time bomb underneath one of the seats and the seat number was 34 to be exact. So far there are no deaths and no one was on the train, back to you John.” The news reporter said. Blink.
”Wow I can’t believe someone would do that what if someone was killed.” explained Maxwell to his wife.
Ring, Ring, Ring.
“Hello” said Maxwell.
“A..Ya Hello Mr. Jones” Said a man named Rick. “We need you and your wife to come down to the seen of the explosion at n27.”
“Ya, Ya I know it is all over the news. Can’t you find any other detectives that can do this? It is my sons birthday he is turning eight.”
“No we can’t we called all the other detectives and they all can’t make it.”
“How about detective double o seven?”
“Church.”
“Detective four seven, seven?”
“On a date.”
“Detective 500?”
“Kids second birthday. And anyhow you have all ready celebrated eight of your child’s birthdays?”
“Do you have any kids? If you did you would understand.”
“I’m sorry sir if you and your wife don’t get her in 10 minutes both of you are fired.”
“Our house is 20 minutes away from the wreck. Mr. Jones”
“Oh well to bad.”
Beep, beep, beep.
“Let’s go honey we need to go now take John we need to go” explained Maxwell.
“Where are we going?” Asked Mr. Jones wife.
“We need to go to the train wreck and if we don’t were both fired.”
“With an eight year old boy.”
“Yes.”
“…………….Okay let’s go”
10 minutes later
“How much time do we have left?” asked Mr. Jones.
“3 minutes” replied Mrs. Jones.
“Okay let’s go we have to hurry.”
“ I’ll get John.”
“I’ll get the car started.”
Slam, slam.
“Turn on your sirens”
“Honey I know.”
“Sorry I just don’t want to get fired.”
“We won’t get fired”
“Hey is that a Lada?”
“What’s a Lada?”
“A Russian car. They are really bad.”
“Their following us.”
“Yeah probably because we are undercover police officers. Unfortunately they are known to hurt people.”
“Great.”
“We will be okay we are almost there.”
“Okay well I’m trusting you.”
“One last thing I love you.”
“Love you too.”
BANG
“AH what was that.”
WAH, WAH, WAH
“John we will be okay.”
“They tried to kill us.”
“Okay we will be okay.”
“No we won’t.”
“Don’t be negative. Negative people always loose.”
BANG BANG BANG BOOM