Mountaintop dining can be cold -- and dangerous

Mountaintop Dining

Braden, 12

St. Margaret's Episcopal School

San Juan Capistrano

I was once invited for dinner on top of Mt. Crest -- let me tell you that kind of dinner is not the best. My food froze before it reached my mouth; from there everything just went south. My friend Jim broke his teeth on frozen ham and Bill did the same on a Chinese yam.

Well, Bill and Jim, they screeched with pain, then fell off the mountain with a splatter of brain.

"There goes my brain!" the brave Jim cried. And as for Bill, well, he just died.

So the next time someone invites you to a mountaintop to dine -- run away and you'll be just fine.

--

The Beach

Leo, 8

Magic Pen Kids

Santa Ana

The gloomy sea growls as it smashes the shore, as the cry of a scrub jay splinters the air like glass. In the air is the gray scent of rain. The chunky cold drops fall on my head.

--

Feathers

Griffin, 10

Tarbut v' Torah

Irvine

There was a crow named Edgar Allen Crow. It was as black as midnight. It was as silent as a scarecrow. It was as mysterious as an investigation. Crows rarely talk, they usually bawl.

A crow is a poet.

--

The Sounds

Hannah, 10

Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles

West Los Angeles

In my room, all safe and sound -- getting ready to slumber. But all of a sudden, noises abound, and my room starts to rumble like thunder. I get up, run downstairs, wondering what the sounds could be. Could someone be playing musical chairs? To my amazement, mice dancing, is what I see. Maybe it is a mirage. I am sleep-walking I suppose. Now I am feeling jerks, as if it were to come from the garage. Frightened, I'd like to see what this mysterious music has to expose.

With the shrill of horror rushing through my veins, hastening to my chamber with fear in my eyes, worried that these sounds shall remain a conundrum, but jovial to peer out the window to see the sunrise.