Our Summer Literary Festival concludes each year with a celebratory reading featuring Young Writers Camp participants. The focus of this year’s festival was What Would Nature Do? Young Writers Camp instructors Derek Delgado and Donna Peacock explored with students ways they have been inspired by nature and experimented with bringing these muses to the page in prose and poetry.  The following is one of the stories that was created during the Young Writers Camp:

“BIOHAZARD”

By: Javi Fernández, age 11
Julian Maldonado, age 10

A stick and some moss were laying on the ground by a nuclear plant. Suddenly the alarms went off. The nuclear plant exploded, nuclear waste going everywhere and melding the moss and the stick together, giving it a temporarily paralyzed mind.  A month later a 10-year-old boy, Teddy, finds it and takes it to his tree house to use as a duster. The boy uses it once, then leaves it in a corner and forgets about it. Twelve years later the moss stick comes out of its coma realizing it can think and move independently. It names itself “Gorge” and heads into the forest. Thinking he’s still a plant, he tries to put himself in a tree. Suddenly a bird lands on him pushing him off onto a turtle, and he walks away saying, “Why were you in my way?!” Then the turtle says, “Where are your manners?” And Gorge says, “What are manners?” And the turtle says, “Oh, you aren’t educated,” and the turtle taught him everything that Gorge should know. Being educated, he names himself Frederick, and goes out to get a job. He tries to work at a law firm. They all ran away, scared. Then he tries to work as a mechanic, but he gets kicked out. After that he tries to work as a warehouse helper. They all hide from him. Dismayed, Frederick tries to work at McDonald’s. But the workers all walk away. Feeling useless, Frederick goes back to the tree house. Just then Teddy comes back from college. Then, he and Frederick team up to protest against nuclear waste and stuff.

Ed. Note:  Javi Fernández and Julian Maldonado will attend NEISD’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Middle School this Fall. “Gorge” is pronounced “George.” One of the authors explains that when “Gorge” named himself the first time, he was not yet educated.