Lewis and Clark

Lewis and Clark were sent to find the Northwest Passage (a river system going from the east coast to the west coast). At the time the expedition was considered a failure because there is no northwest passage. Later though, their discoveries and maps would make the wagon trails possible.

Map

Thomas Jefferson had thought about sending an expedition before then, but there was a good chance everyone on it would die. There had been other plans for expeditions (2 successful); Lewis and Clark were not the first to cross the continent. There was king Louis the 16 (of France) who sent a “scientific” mission that was destroyed by bad weather after it left Botany Bay in 1788. In 1786 John Ledyard told President Jefferson he was going to walk across Siberia, Hop on a fur trader boat, go across the Bering Sea, then he was going to walk to Washington Dc. He got as far as Russia, and then he got himself deported to Poland.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out with their men and a huge shaggy Newfoundland named Seaman on May 14, 1804. They had spent the last few months making arrangements for their trip. Captain Clark had done most of the packing, but Captain Lewis had bought Seaman for $20!

That was a lot of money back then.

Lewis had declared that the mouth of the Dubois River was the official starting point of the expedition. After they left explored ground, they soon had found out that the U.S.A. was wider than Mexico. They hired Cheribonno and Sacagawea. Until they hit the Rockies they were rowing upstream. Then they had to cross the Rockies. Then there was a lot of rain. So they stayed three months in Astoria. They did not like Astoria (rain rain rain [fleas fleas fleas]). As soon as the weather cleared up they left (but during the storm a whale beached. So they had a good look at a 105-foot long skeleton (and traded for blubber). Then they headed though the land of the kleptomaniac Chinook (who stole Seaman [who they got back in one piece without having to trade for]).

It took them 2 years to get there; three months to get back. They were welcomed as Heros. The nation had feared that they had died (only 1 guy died though [sergeant Charles Floyd, Who most likely died of a ruptured appendix]).

Resources

I. The Expedition of the Corps of Discovery: An Overview of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
 by Al Bredenberg

http://www.edgate.com/lewisandclark/expedition.html

II. Wikipedia: Lewis and Clark

III. Seaman by Gail Langer Karwoski

Artemis Fowl Birthday Party Plans

I am having an Artemis Fowl birthday party. The plans we found on the internet were bad. Here are my plans.

Invitations:

I made them look like little copies of the Booke of the People. I wrote their names in Gnommish and in English on their envelopes.

Food:

Caviar, Earl Grey tea, oysters, fresh fruit and vegies, cupcakes with people's names written in Gnommish. Artemis liked Earl Grey tea and caviar. Some of the fairy people were vegetarian. I love oysters. Cupcakes because it's a party, and Gnommish because that's what the fairy people spoke.

Games:

1. Scavenger hunt with the clues written in Gnommish. Each clue guides you to the next clue. At the end of the hunt there is the pinata. We made a book to help translate Gnommish to English, like the Booke of the People.

2. Troll wars. Have the dads dress up as Trolls (green cloth pinned at the neck as cloaks.) Kids have flashlights and it is played in the dark. When a Troll is hit by a flashlight, the Troll automatically is out for a minute. If the kid gets gotten by a Troll, the kid is out for a minute. You just have to be against the wall when you are out so that you don't trip anyone.

3. Squirt gun fight at the swimming pool. Invite everyone to join! This is the B'wa Kell goblin vrs LEP wars.

Costumes:

I'm going to be Holly Short. I am wearing a long sleeve leotard with tights, all black. We made name tags and acorn insignia, and we got some squirt guns and belts.

Craft:

1. Make wings.

Activity:

1. Plant acorns in the forest.

2. Go to the local rope swing (or playground) and try out wings.

Jack and Farty

There was a dwarf tunneling along under Newport, right below where Jack was walking. Along they went until, KA-BOOM!!!!! Dwarf gas has to 'go' somewhere. That somewhere is down. Or up if the butt is pointed up. Well, in any case, it went up. Right where Jack was standing.

Jack was indeed blasted into the next decade. Jack got a very cool T.V. and took a time machine back to his time, only to appear right above Farty the Dwarf and get blasted again.

How to Ride a Horse

Step One: Put the halter on the horse. Lead the horse out of the stall. Make sure the horse's feet are AWAY from you. I don't think you would want a one ton creature stepping on your feet.

Step Two: Get the horse to the cross ties. The cross ties are the ropes with the hooks on the end that you hook the horse to when you groom him. Brush the horse. Follow the instructor's instructions. Pick feet. If you don't pick the horse's feet, a stone will go up his feet and cause an abscess. Tack the horse. Put the saddle and the saddle pad and the bridle on the horse. The circle on the bridle is the horsey nose part. Are the reins on the horse? The reins hook onto the bridle. Good. Now lead the horse by the reins out of the barn.

Step Three: Mount the horse. There are a bunch of ways to mount a horse. You climb up a block, put your foot in a stirrup, and swing your other foot over.

Step Four: When you ride the horse, pulling back on the reins makes the horsey stop. Kicking the horse hard makes it gallop. Buck is trained that when you kick him, not as a hard to make him gallop or trot, he walks. When you kick him a little harder he trots. Harder than that is canter. Then is gallop.

Step Five: Pulling onto one side on the horsey's reins make the horsey go that way. To steer the horse, look between the horsey's ears. In between the horse's ears you will see where the horsey is going to go. Thinking about falling off will make you fall off. Being nervous will make the horse nervous.

Step Six: Do not use the block to get off. Swing one foot over the saddle so that you have two feet on one side and basically you have your stomach in the saddle. Then you take the other foot out of the stirrup. Then you lower yourself to the ground.

Step Seven: Lead the horse back into the cross ties. Then take the saddle, the bridle, and the saddle pad off. Put those over the wall of the cross ties. Brush your horse, pick feet. Put the blanket on the horse so that he stays warm.

Clatsop Report

Clatsop Report

by Mia Estabrook

Introduction:

The Clatsops lived in north Oregon along the coast from the Columbia River to Tillamook, near Seaside. They flattened their heads. The mothers used strips of cloth and tied their baby’s head to a board. The Clatsops were the only tribe in the United States not moved to a reservation. They are not recognized as a tribe now. When Lewis and Clark met them in the winter of 1805-1806, there were only 3 villages of 200 people each. They had small pox.

Longhouses:

They lived in cedar planked longhouses with two doors and no windows. There were small smoke holes in the roof. A bunch of related families would live together.

Clothing:

Men wore fur robes that covered the shoulders, arms and body. Women wore cedar or arber vita bark skirts and fur robes to the thigh. Women wore lots of jewelry: anklets, bracelets, earrings, and rings made out of brass wire and blue beads. They made mats, hats, and blankets. The blankets were cloth and red or blue.

Food, Hunting, and Tools:

They hunted for sea otters, beaver, deer, elk, fowl, foxes, and wild cats. They also ate porpoises and whales that had been stranded. They used a cedar canoe and nets and gigs to catch salmon and sturgeon. They collected roots such as wappato, shaw na tak que, and wild licorice. They also ate cranberries.

Family Life and Leadership:

They did not have a council of elders or a chief. Each family lived independently.

Language:

They spoke a Chinook Jargon, the trade language used throughout the Pacific Northwest. They had their own Clatsop Dialect which is nearly extinct and is related to the Lower Chinookan language.

Hello, how do you do? 
dush-ALL-uh-NOOH-sh

Tomorrow 
guh-WISH-guss

Good
 duh-HOOTS-nuh

White person
 un-OONS

Tillamook (city)
 nish-da-TOGgy

The tide is coming in
 ‘ts-ull-ULL-leel

--Clatsop Nehalem Confederated Tribes Official Website

Mountain neakahnie

Whale ecola

--Wikipedia: Clatsop

Religious Beliefs:

They had stories of mythical heroes such as salmon, raven, gull, coyote, crane, skunk, crow, robin, blue jay, and panther. Italupus is the coyote. He made the Columbia River and all the fish in it. He taught the people how to fish, make fire and fishing nets. Saddle Mountain is where they believed they were made and it is their sacred mountain. They have ceremonies there.

Bibliography

1. 1. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: 1805

2. 2. Wikipedia: Clatsop

3. 3. The Clatsop Nehalem Condederated Tribes Official Website

4. 4. Longhouses by Karen Bush Gibson

5/ 5. trailtribes.org: traditional and contemporary native culture

Greek Mythology Index

This is an index explaining the different Greek gods. I will tell you who they are, what the major gods' Roman names are, and who their parents are. The Greek name is in bold, the Roman name is in bold, in parenthesis, and italicized. This index is for the major Greek gods. It will not list small ones.

Gaea is the earth. She is the mother of all living things.

Uranus is the sky. He was cruel and flung the cyclops and the 50 headed ones into Tartus (see Tartus.) Gaea the earth and Uranus the sky came out of nothingness so long ago that nobody knows how they were created.

The Titans were the first children of Gaea and Uranus. They were taller than the mountains Gaea created for their thrones.

Mnemosyne was the goddess of memory. She was a Titan and the mother of the 9 muses.

The Nine Muses each had their own special art. Apollo trained them to sing.

Phoebe, Thia, Coeus, Tethys, Themis, and Crios were Titans.

Hyperion was a Titan and the father of Selene the moon, Helios the sun, and Eos the dawn.

Japet was a Titan and the father of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Atlas.

Atlas held up the world and was tricked by Hercules into picking the apples of immortality in one of Hercules' quests.

Prometheus could predict the future.

Epimetheus did stuff with Premetheus.

Oceanus was the father of Metis.

Metis was one of the wives of Zeus and mother of Athena. An oracle predicted that one of the sons of Zeus would overthrow him. Zeus tricked Metis into changing into a fly and then swallowed her. Metis gave birth to Athena inside of him. Athena burst fully formed from Zeus' skull. He was okay. He just had a headache, a bad headache.

Cronus (Saturn) for a while was the ruler of the universe. His wife, Rhea was his queen. Cronus was afraid that one of his children would be stronger than him and overthrow him, so he swallowed them all as they were born. Rhea tricked him when her sixth son, Zeus, was born. She wrapped a stone in baby's clothes and gave it to Cronus to swallow. Zeus grew up in secret on the island of Crete. Metis tricked Cronus into eating an herb that made him vomit up all of his other children. They were the gods Hades and Poseidon, and the goddesses Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. Then Zeus killed Cronus.

Hestia (Vesta) was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea and goddess of the hearth. She gave up her thrown on Olympus to Dionysus.

Demeter (Ceres) was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea and the goddess of nature. She was the mother of Persephone (see Persephone.)

Hera (Juno) was the wife, queen, and sister of Zeus. She was jealous all the time of Zeus' other wives and affairs.

Poseidon (Neptune) was the lord of the sea. He was married to Amphitrite who was the queen of the sea. (I named my fishy Neptune Poseidon!)

Hades was the lord of the dead. He ruled over the dead with his queen Persephone (see Persephone.)

Zeus (Jupiter) was the king of the gods. He was married to Hera. (See Metis and Cronus.)

Persephone (Proserpine) was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus and queen of Hades. Hades kidnapped her and forced her to be his queen. Demeter was so sad that she no longer looked over the harvest of the people. They were suffering and called out to Zeus to save them. Zeus tried to force Hades into giving Persephone back to her mother, but Persephone had eaten 3 pomegranate seeds and could not leave Hades. Zeus made a compromise where Persephone would spend 3 months in Hades every year and the rest of the time with her mother. Those three months are winter because Demeter does not care for the harvest when her daughter is gone.

Hermes (Mercury) was the god of shepards, travelers, merchants, and thieves and all others who live by their wits.

Hephaestus (Vulcan) was the god of fire Aphrodite's husband

Aphrodite (Venus) was the goddess of love, mother of Eros (Cupid), Hephaetus's wife.

Ares (Mars) was the god of war. He was the son of Zeus.

Athena (Minerva) was the goddess of wisdom and war. Ares and Athena did not get along. (See Metis.) Athena and Poseidon both wanted Athens for their city. It was decided that whoever could give the city the best gift would have the city. Poseidon gave a spring of water, but it was as salty as the sea he ruled. Athena gave an olive tree and it was decided to be the better of the two gifts. And so Athens is named for Athena and the Parthenon was built in her honor.

Apollo (Apollo) was the god of music and light and prophesy. (see Artemis.) The Oracle of Delphi is Apollo's.

Artemis (Diana) was the pitiless goddess of the hunt. When Hera found out that Leto, one of Zeus' other wives, was going to give birth, she was ordered that all the lands refuse her shelter. But Poseidon had raised a new island from the sea and it wasn't quite land yet because it was not anchored. The little island welcomed Leto but Hera had prohibited the goddess of childbirth to visit her. The other goddesses felt sorry for Leto and swayed Hera by giving her a necklace of amber and gold. It was nine yards long. So Iris the messenger goddess whisked the goddess of childbirth down the rainbow to Leto. Leto gave birth to the twins of Artemis and Apollo.

Dionysus (Bacchus) was the god of wine. (Mom calls Tuffy the dog Dionysus when he whines.)

A Day In My Life by Neptune the Beta Fish

I was swimming in the little plastic container I will call home until someone adopts me. I am blue with pink, red, black, and silver spots. I have a full, feathery tail. I am a cute fish.

Someone walked into the store. They walked over to us betas. They picked up my tank and walked to the other person and said, "Look at our new fish!" I was getting adopted! The owner of the pet store dumped me into a plastic bag. On the car ride my owner held the bag so I could see out the window.

When we got home I floated in my tank until 15 minutes are over. Then my owner, a girl named Mia, dumped out the plastic bag and suddenly I was swimming in a 10 gallon tank! I swam and dived and had fun.

The End

Egypt and Duat, the underworld

Osiris

Osiris was the Egyptian god of the dead.

Isis

Isis was Osiris’ wife.

Anubis

Anubis was the Egyptian god of mummies.Egyptian priests wore the mask of Anubis when they were preparing mummies. He looked like a human with the head of a jackal. He was the judge when you went to the afterlife, to see if you were worthy.

Bastet

Bastet was the Egyptian goddess of cats, dance and music. She took the form of a cat, or a woman with the head of a cat. Egyptians mummified cats. Cats were sacred and a person who killed a cat was put to death.

The Legend of Osiris, Isis, and Set

Set, Isis, Osiris, and two other gods were all brothers and sisters born from Ra, the sun god, and his wife Nut. Osiris married his sister Isis and became king of Egypt, but his brother Set was jealous. Set tricked Osiris into a lying down in a wooden chest, then nailing it shut and pouring molten lead over it and then floated it down the Nile River. Osiris died and Set ruled Egypt, not a good time. There must have been a drought. Isis hunted down the body of Osiris to Byblos, a city in Syria. Here she found the chest embedded in a tree. She brought the chest back to Egypt. Set found the chest with Osiris and he cut Osiris into 14 pieces and scattered them all over. Isis found all the pieces but one and then punished the fish in the Nile that ate that one.All the other pieces she buried where she found them and built temples to honor Osiris.Osiris became the god of the underworld, called Duat.

Mummies

Mummies were dead bodies wrapped in strips of linen. People made mummies because they thought the body needed to be preserved. When you died, you could take all your possessions with you if they were in your tomb. And you would need your body back, so your body was preserved so that you could use it in your afterlife.

Pyramids

Pyramids were triangle shaped buildings of sandstone. They were made to be dead kings’ and their families’ tombs. Egyptians filled them with the king’s possessions so that he could use them in the afterlife. They stopped making pyramids because robbers would come in and steal all the stuff. Instead they would carve tombs out of rock underground and hide the entrances.

The Afterlife, called Duat the underworld

Egyptians thought the afterlife was a real place. Anubis, the god of mummies, would judge you by weighing your heart against a feather. If it was heavier than the feather, a monster would eat your heart and you would not get to journey into the afterlife. If it was lighter, then it meant that you did good deeds and were worthy of going to the afterlife.

Facts about El Dia de los Muertos

Butterflies

The monarch butterflies carry the souls of the dead back to their graves. The monarch butterflies arrive in Mexico for their winter migration stop at the same time as El Dia de los Muertos is. El Dia de los Muertos starts October 31^st and ends November 2^nd.

Mictlantechutli

He was the Aztec god of the dead. He was thought of a nice god because he relieved people of their sufferings.

The Afterlife

They believed that the afterlife was a real place with mountains and valleys and such. The god of the dead was Mictlantechutli and the newly dead brought him offerings of food and gifts.

Calaveras

Calavera means skull in Spanish. They are cool. People decorate their houses with them to honor the dead. They also dress up with skull masks to show that death is nothing to be feared.

Ofrendas

Ofrendas are tables that families put together to honor their dead relatives. They put on skulls, chrysanthemums and other decorations. They also put on pan de muertos and sugar skulls and their dead relatives’ favorite food.

Cemeteries

They are gay places where people celebrate El Dia de los Muertos by placing marigolds and candles and such on the graves. These help guide the spirits back. The people sell ice cream and sugar skulls. Families celebrate their ancestors together by sitting around the decorated graves and singing, telling stories, eating, and the kids run and play.

Myth of Mictlantechutli

Quetzalcoatl was sent to the underworld to get some bones. Mictlantechutli tried to stop him. The bones shattered and Quetzalcoatl picked them up and brought them back to the mortal world. With these he made the different races of people.

The Greek thoughts on the death and the underworld

The Gods

Hades, the god

Hades was the king and god of the underworld and a pretty gloomy guy. The Romans called him Pluto. There is a planet named after him.

Persephone

Persephone was daughter of Demeter, a beautiful maiden, and the queen of Hades forced to spend three months of every year in the underworld.

Hermes

Hermes guided souls to the underworld. He was also the only being, mortal or immortal, allowed to cross back and forth across the River Styx. He was a god.

Charon, the Ferry Man

He was the shade who guided the newest shades across the River Styx into Hades, the underworld. Charon needed to be paid so only the shades who had a gold coin could take his boat. The other shades had to wander around until they found the beggar’s entrance to the underworld. In a family that had enough money, they put a coin under the deceased’s tongue to pay Charon.

Shades

Shades are the people of the underworld, mortals who have died.

Cerberus

Cerberus was a three-headed dog who prevented anyone from crossing the River Styx back into the mortal world. He was Hades’ pet dog.

The Legend of Hades and Persephone

Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. Persephone was kidnapped by Hades to be his queen and wife.

Demeter was so grief stricken by the loss of her daughter that she no longer cared for the crops of the people. The crops all shriveled and died and no one had anything to eat.

All the mortals cried to the gods until at last Zeus, the chief god, could no longer ignore them and he interfered. Zeus made Hades give Persephone back.

Persephone had eaten a few seeds from a pomegranate, though. If you eat in the underworld, you may never return to the land of the mortals.

Persephone, having only eaten three seeds, was forced to spend three months in the underworld as Hades’ queen. The rest of the time she remained of the world with her mother.

Hades, the underworld

The underworld was a parallel dimension where the mortals go at the end of their lives. The sun shines, all your troubles are left behind, it is no different from earth, except for the fire river, Phlegethon. Bad people got punished in the underworld by select punishments given by the judges Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus. Heroes got to live without work or anything else.

River Phlegethon

A river whose banks are pure fire. It guards Tartarus, the deepest pit on earth, whose entrance was in the underworld. It was the prison for gods.

River Styx

The River Styx was the river that separated Hades from the mortal world. Cerberus, the ferocious three-headed dog prevented anyone from leaving Hades across the River Styx. Charon, the Ferry Man, ferried people across the River Styx, but only the ones who had money to pay him.

River Lethe

The River Lethe was the river that made you forget your very name. The shades could choose to go in or not. A person who had bad memories or strong longings that couldn’t be fulfilled would go in the River Lethe to get cleaned and forget his troubles.

El Dia de los Muertos, memories of Liki and Melba

El Dia de los Muertos is the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead. Butterflies carry the souls of the dead back to where they are buried. It's October 31st to November 2nd. The Mexicans put together ofrendas to honor the dead. On ofrendas are pictures of the dead, flowers, papel picado, skeleton decorations, and other stuff. My mom is a Mexico nut. (El Dia de los Muertos is a Mayan holiday that we celebrate in our house.)

Liki and Melba are our cats that died.

Melba, Baby Fluff

Melba was my dad's cat. She was a one man cat. She only let dad hold her.

Melba was a cat who did not like toys. She liked to sit on the chair in the cat room.

Pipi is Melba's sis. They used to like each other, then they didn't.

Melba ate cat food.

Liki

Liki was my cat. She was completely black with amber eyes. She loved people, and she would always sleep on my feet.

Liki's favorite food was chicken. Once she even stole some from Tuffy.

Liki took baths. Not willingly. Mom wore gardening gloves to give her a bath.

Be careful. CAR killed the cat.

A medley of poems

PIPPI

Cuddly, furry

beautiful and nice

brown fur, green eyes

KITTY

Buoyant

Ocean

Apple

Terrific

Kool

Amazing

No nonsense

State

Apples

Sodas

Terrific

Understanding

Fabulous

Fantastic

Yellow eyes

Smart Tuffy

Over generations the collar has been passed down. It was made in Egypt by the Pharaoh himself. Then it was traded and brought over to England and from there went to Germany. By then the style was out of fashion so it was really cheap. Nobody wanted it except for one family. And that is how it came into the possession of the Estabrooks.

Only three of the owners have known this and the secret was lost in the third generation. In 2004 the Estabrooks got a small puppy. Great Uncle Jim Estabrook saw in our Christmas letter that year the little brown dog named Tuffy. Because he did not have a dog he sent it as a Christmas present. Jim did not know that the collar enhanced a dogs intelligence.

We put the collar on Tuffy at Christmas and three days later he became as smart as a human. He thought his mission is to protect the good and defeat the evil.

Fast forward to 2009.

During the day while the family was on a bike ride Tuffy and his friend QQ the cat were wrestling when a cat came to the window. The cat meowed to be let in and said she had information. Tuffy unlocked the sliding porch door and pushed it open. When she was in she said that she had heard from another cat and did not know if this was true that a cat had seen a fisherman loading boxes onto his boat that did not smell like bait. The cat said she did know the smell of bait when she smells it.

Tuffy decided it was time to let the cat back out and hoped the family wasn't at the jetty. He ran to the jetty and talked to some sea lions about this. They confirmed that those boxes weren't food.

Tuffy decided to set up watch to find out what was happening. Because he had to go back to the house and QQ had to stay inside most of the time he employed a couple of stray cats and the local sea lions to find out what was there. Three days later his messenger out of the stray cats came back to him and reported that it was electronics. So Tuffy decided to put the site under maximum surveillance. The stray cats weren't in it this time but all the sea lions were employed to watch out for the boat although only 18 of them were required to be around the site.

When the family was out he decided to go and ask the sea lions if they had seen anything. They had got the name of the boat and the license number plate of the van delivering the electronics. The name of the boat was The Swordfish. The license plate number was WFE 523. He looked up the license plate number on the computer and found out that it belonged to a man in Corvallis with a record of stolen electronics. He turned on the TV to find out if the news reported a streak of burgularies in the valley. There was, especially in computers and televisions.

The sea lions came back to him with a keyboard that had dropped out of a box. They reported that this had come out of the van.

He ran to the police station to talk to the police dogs. At the end they came to the conclusion that the dogs would smell out the van and then go chase it. Hopefully the police officers would chase them and then catch the crooks.

The dogs chased the van and the police officers chased the dogs. The dogs and the police officers got to the docks at the right time. The police officers caught them unloading the stolen goods. The crooks names were Bob and Sam.

The End

Space Cats

"Wow, Loo, you and QQ are going to be space cats," said Hailey. "It's so exciting. I will make your space suits."

Ding Dong!

"I will get it," said Hailey. "Are you the space guy?"

"Yes, I am," said the space guy, Mr. Space Omlet.

"Wow! I am so, so, so glad to see you! My cats have been waiting so long. They are so excited!"

"Meow mow mow mow meyow," said Loo.

"He said it is very exciting to see you," translated Hailey.

"Meyow mow mow mow meow," said QQ.

"And he said he is so excited."

As much as QQ and Loo wanted to go to space, after 3 days their suits were ready and they grew to the size of tigers and because their suits were magic they still fit.

Via teleportation, Mia, QQ's sister, arrived in time to join the crew. "Ding dong!" she shouted. They were finally ready to go.

"50...49...48..." counted down Mr. Space Omlet.

"We, QQ, Loo, Mia, and Hailey are in SPACESHIPS!" shouted Hailey.

"Meeeeoooow, I in the rocket!" shouted QQ.

"?Donde estas el bano?" asked Loo.

"In principio erat VERBUM!" Mia shouted.

Mr. Space Omlet, the rocket person, counted down. When he got to "down," the rocket engines exploded!

"Watch out, QQ, we are going down!!!!" shouted Loo. Aaaaaaa! Boom! The windows popped open and everyone ran out the window and the rocket crashed.

"Are you okay, Loo?" asked QQ. They all asked each other if they were OK. "You? You? You?"

"Oh, look, a rescue team!" shouted Loo. An emergency rescue spaceship named Ice Cream came to rescue them from the crash.

"We are saved!!!! Hip-Hip Hurray!!!!! I am so happy to see you guys again." shouted QQ.

"Us, too," said Mia and Hailey.

My Cat is the Size of a Tiger

My cat is the size of a tiger. His name is QQ. He's 10 feet long and weighs 660 pounds. I ride QQ to school.

One day QQ decided to run to school. It was hard to hold on. I could not control him. Mr. Capshaw and Mrs. Rau told me that I couldn't ride QQ to school anymore. I had to take him home and I was excused from school for the day. Not expelled. Not suspended. Excused, because I had a cat the size of a tiger and they were practically paying me to take him away. Seriously, Myrna, the secretary, gave me $10 if I took him away in the the next 10 seconds. My friend Desi thought it was cool.

When we were on the way home, QQ started accelerating and accelerating. He went 60 MPH and we were home in about 3 seconds. We ran right past the house and did a U-turn and went straight to Nye Beach. The tourists started running and screaming and I yelled, "I can't control this thing!" QQ decided he didn't need to swim over the jetty. He could just leap. I laid down and used my arms and feet to grip around him. I didn't fall off, but I swung around until I was clinging to his stomach. It was even freakier than falling off.

QQ went down the beach to California. We saw the Redwood Forest and then we went straight back home. It only took 4 hours round trip.

We were home before my parents got home. My parents knew I was excused and about my $10. They did not know I went to California. The school called and said they wanted me to bring QQ back. A class wanted to see a tiger and there was no money for a school field trip. I said, "Okay! I'll have him there in 3 seconds if you want." Myrna said, "We'll see him tomorrow."

By then I swear that QQ was bigger than a tiger.

A Day In My Life, by La Paz the Lizard

The day ended like every other, I hunted my crickets. They were slow and easy to catch. A few minutes later the lights turned off.

As I fell asleep, I started growing. I grew until I was two feet long. I flew into the cool night air. It was a cold December night, but not too cold. I turned to look at my cage. I had pushed aside the lid to escape. I was free at last.

Dad was letting Tuffy out. I paddled frantically. Gas Pedal. Whoosh, 60mph, 70, 80, 90. Whoosh. Outside, 100mph, 120, 130, 140, 150, straight up. Great view. I could see the whole block! "Wee Beasties here I come." 300mph. I see it, I see it. Whoosh. Windy. Whoosh. (turn) Whoosh. (turn) Inside! "Hi Mom, hi Dad." La Paz told his parents that he had a new friend, QQ the cat. He also pushed his brothers' cage open and then released the crickets and his Mom and Dad and aunt and uncle and other big cricket eating lizards. He did not release Spot or the other Savanah monitor lizards. Too dangerous. They finish as the sun starts rising. I have to go home. 300mph. I'm there. I take a nap under the rock.

I read the newspaper on the cage floor. "I'm not the only one who knows where I went."