Born to Lead
Grade 9
Bob Bord had blond hair and could almost lift the back of a car off the ground. His dad drove a BMW and Bob was the coolest kid in all of the school. His nickname was Boss B! Everything in Bob’s life was amazing except for one thing, Bob thought school completely sucked! It grossed him out, and whenever Bob got mad or bored something really cool happened to him. Do you know what that was? He turned into the Incredible Hulk only instead of being green he was red with blond hair. His rage was great. SMASH, SMASH, SMASH!! He broke the blackboard over the teacher’s head! SMASH, SMASH, SMASH!! All the other prisoners cheered, and then the Incredible Bob Hulk punched a hole in the wall! SMASH, SMASH, SMASH!! All the kids, even the nerd kids, escaped through the hole and then played football. Boss B was quarterback, Caitlin wore her white shorts, and it was awesome.
Sometimes At Night
Grade 10
Sometimes at night I wonder
why some people have so little
and others have so much?
I am strong, rich and good at the shot put,
but other people are poor, weak and bad at sports.
Why is that?
THEY DON’T WANT IT ENOUGH!
My inner voice screams at me,
THEY DON’T WANT IT ENOUGH!
THEY ARE LAZY!!
My inner voice is never wrong!
This truth, like a Rush drum solo pounding in my heart.
Top Gunner
Grade 11
Lieutenant Ross Fordington wasn’t scared of anything, least of all big government or night demons. He was the best pilot in the entire military, even though he liked to do things his own way.
“Get out of my way!” Fordington shouted, “ I don’t need any pencil pusher telling me how to bomb a government-subsidized village!”
Jones, Fordington’s best buddy and wingman, put his steady hand out. “No,” he said to Captain Limp, a washed-out pilot who relied on a bloated salary he didn’t deserve to live a lavish, elite lifestyle and ride a bike. “You’d best leave the Bear alone unless you want a fist in the face!” Limp shriveled up like the small, scared girl he was, and then Fordington went out and bombed the village killing all of his enemies.
After his missions, Fordington was never bothered by night demons. They never haunted or tormented him in the dark hours for the things that he did, and Fordington never, ever woke up screaming and ashamed, soaked in a cold, mortal sweat.
The Night Demons
Grade 13
Fod Rord was a bull of a man. He had a thick, powerful neck, could run fast for his size and was able to throw a football 150 meters. He was also really funny and had lots of money. People loved him and always wanted to come to his pool parties. He had it all.
Until the night demons came.
Sometimes, when Fod was in bed and alone with his thoughts, he’d begin to feel restless, as if somebody, or something, was watching him because he had done bad things. Fod would try to shake it off. He hadn’t done anything wrong! He knew that! That raccoon was a societal leech! Nobody knew if Priynka slipped or was pushed! The gardener could easily have taken that money! Fod knew that he was in the right and that he was strong and destined for great things, but the night demons did not.
Each night they would come to him, their pale, weak faces chattering and asking questions. The night demons, they invaded his privacy, and even when Fod put on his headphones and listened to his greatest football huddles of all time tape, they were still there. They would not go away! They were awful! Because of the night demons Fod would often go out into the night and wander in the wooded area beside his expansive family estate in order to clear his mind. Sometimes he would just yell he was so frustrated. His roars were so terrible and powerful that the birds would suddenly take flight, and Fod would sit down and, not crying, just look up at the moon and the eternal stars that filled the sky.
]]>In front of the Shopper’s Drug Mart there was a busker who likely saw Melissa Etheridge when she looked in the mirror. Wearing a beaten, red leather jacket, her hair was a wild scramble, and she sang with a ferocious, biting confidence. She was middle-aged, and all the songs she was playing were classics from the latter part of the 70s, songs that must have recalled the field parties of her youth when everybody passed joints around the bonfire, nodding along as she sang so fully, her future path seeming so clear.
At Sarah’s Shawarma the woman serving me had big, butcher fingers and the look of a farm worker from Eastern Europe. Her eyes were tender and vulnerable, suggesting that all she wanted to do in this world was help other people. And at the only occupied table in the place sat a thin and pale man wearing a Rush sweatshirt. He was finishing the last of his soup with such a dreamy pleasure that I had no choice but to simply stop and watch—as if bearing witness to a pure and holy moment.
When I stepped out onto the street there was a sudden chorus of Happy Birthday. The voices were in tune, harmonizing, and it was lovely, like music you might imagine hearing from across the water, something passing through time, as if light from a star. I looked around and eventually spotted them, five college-aged boys striding happily down the street singing into a cell phone one of them was holding aloft, “Happy birthday dear Rita, happy birthday to you,” and I thought of Rita in 30 years, one day, for no particular reason, remembering the surprise of this message and those beautiful boys.
