A Day In The Life Of A Dung Beetle

One day a dung beetle named Bob was scrambling up the for his morning breakfast. He was especially hungry this morning because the call had gone out that there was a fresh batch of ox dung that the night watch had harvested.

So Bob skittered up the hill as fast as his little legs could carry him. After stumbling over many rocks, he finally reached the top where all the dung beetles were gathered for the feast. He scuttled up to the line.

Captain Rust called for attention. Then he lifted one of this tiny antennae, starting the feast! Bob and his friends *swarmed the ox dung like the first wave of a wave pool*. It was complete chaos.

I'll continue it, but I just don't want to say, "to be continued..." Well, I just said it, so there.

Jacob

*I need help with this part!

4 more tips

1. Change up the venue. If you've been practicing in the same old dark room ever since you were four, change it up! Pick up your your music stand and move it somewhere else. Anywhere. Practice in the kitchen while your mom is making breakfast; in the office; in the living room; even outside. Once I played in Hawaii on the beach at dusk. Sometimes it can feel embarrassing but just picture yourself being the best violinist in the entire world and be confident with the notes you play.

2. Play while standing on your bed. Now, my bed is the top bunk. It puts me high off the ground, which can be a little creepy. But balancing on your mattress at any height while moving your arms to finger and bow makes you a more athletic violinist. I love to see passion and strength and powerful movement in a lot of things: skiing, swimming, soccer, and a violinist's bowing arm.

3. Play a song backwards. It is kind of an exercise for sight reading only it's a song that you know!  

4. Play in front of a dog or a two-year-old (same thing). For one,  you want to try to keep their attention, which is really hard. You want everyone who watches you play to feel attentive and intrigued. Two, dogs and two-year-olds are naturally loud and rambunctious, so it's a good way to practice concentration and avoid being distracted. The minute I took my violin out of its case for my 2-year-old cousin Eli, he yelled, "AWESOME" my entire practice. I gave him my heavy mute to distract him. The next morning I found it under my pillow.


Those are a few that I thought of this week.
LZ

Gollum (again)

I wonder what Dad is doing. I wonder what time it is in London. He is probably just waking up. I look down at Cody lying in his racecar bed snuggling his favorite Tigger blanket that Grandma . . . Sscccrrraaatttcccchhhh! What was that? A big, black gargoyle is scraping at my window! I hear a slow tap… tap… tap... on the ceiling. Tap, tap, tap. It’s getting faster! I wince every time the rain hits the roof. My jaw clenches, my elbows and knees tighten, and I force my eyes shut to drown out the sirens racing down Mt. Rose Street.

My mouth is thick with saliva and it is hard to swallow. Of all the times to be thirsty! I have to get some water or I will not be able to sleep, but I don’t know if I have the guts. If I jump off my bed Gollum will grab me by the ankles and drag me under. I don’t want to die before my kindergarten Halloween party. Oh, thanks to mom my batman costume is laid out on the couch next to the closet!

Clenching my soft Winnie the Pooh blanket and grabbing a bouncy ball for protection I leap out of bed, soccer slide to my knees and with all my strength I chuck the ball under the bed and sprint for my batman costume, grabbing only my mask and cape. Charging out of the room, I run down the hallway and hop over the creaky spot. I race up the stairs and bust open the door to Mom’s room . . . Finally I’m safe!

I climb under the covers and snuggle next to Mom. Did Gollum get Cody?

Mom? Mom? Cody… he isn’t feeling well and he wants you to bring him up here.

She groans, throws off her covers, and lazily walks downstairs. My throat is still dry. I creep out of bed and slurp some water from the sink then crawl back under the covers with Mom and Cody… I wonder what Dad is doing right now.

PERFECT POWDER (2)

"Dropping!" I call.

I send a small cliff and come to a halt. I traverse over to a more open area of the run. Excitedly, I spot a tree, make some turns, and spray it with a rooster tail, knowing that my mom would not be happy with me if she were here. As I swerve around the tree, a patch of perfect powder awaits my clean arc, churning up the fluff under my skis. I make some luxurious turns, straight line up to a cat track for a 360, and weave through some beginner skiers on my way to the main lodge.

Uchk. I wish I wasn’t in Nicholas' guitar teacher's front yard, shoe-skiing down a 2-foot high dirt mound.

Jacob :)

National Book Awards and You!

First, as usual, we helped each other in true writers' group fashion perfect our blogged stories. Logan, Ellie and Jacob, you need to rewrite yours on the blog. They are SO good, we all want to read the improved versions!!! You have your notes.

Second, I read you an excerpt of the 2011 winner of the National Book Award for YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE. It is by Thanhha Lai and is called Inside Out & Back Again.

This is the beginning of the excerpt I read to you...

Black and White and Yellow and Red

The bell rings.

Everyone stands. 

I stand.

They line up;

so do I.

Down a hall.

Turn left.

Take a tray.

Receive food.

Sit.

On one side 

of the bright, noisy room

light skin.

Other side, 

dark skin.

Both laughing, chewing,

as if it never occurred 

to them

someone medium 

would show up.

I don't know where to sit 

any more than

I know how to eat

the pink sausage

snuggled inside bread

shaped like a corncob,

smeared with sauces

yellow and red.

I think

they are making fun 

of the Vietnamese flag

until I remember

no one here likely knows

that flag's colors.

I put down the tray 

and wait

in the hallway.

You wrote your own sparse, concrete pieces:

Jacob:

FISHING

blue background

white aerodynamic,

oblong shape.

steering wheel 

and tan seat.

dark green pole

and clear string.

A jerk, a jump,

and a net.

Dinner for everyone. 

Cody:

SKIING

My skis wait.

One pair out-

side, one inside.

I've already 

built a jump.

But it melted.

There's not

much snow

left. I can't 

wait for ski

team to start.
It's so close

now I can

feel it.

December 3rd 

it's on. I'm 

ready.

Logan:

TOAST

I ate

cinnamon toast

and a 

hard boiled

egg.

Cody puts his 

hex bug on the

table. It

makes a high

pitched farting

noise. Otto and 

my mom laugh.

I put my 

finger in some

cinnamon sugar

and suck on 

it. My aunt 

walks down 

stairs with her 

hair sticking 

up like an 

afro. "Otto...

tell Aunt Jess 

thank you for

breakfast."

"Thank you 

Aunt Jess!" 

he says while 

he stuffs 

his toast in his

mouth. 

Ellie:

CHICKEN

My brother eats his chicken

using his fork to spear the meat.

Piling mounds in before chewing.

I watch.

Seeing his teeth open and close.

Stopping to transfer to some potatotes.

String beans.

Wipe his mouth.

And sip his water.

Moving everything to one side of his mouth.

To avoid the fat, swollen lip

He had on his face from days earlier.

He drops his fork on his plate.

Stands.

Grabs his plate.

And leaves. 

Eleanore:

HURRICANE

"Starting tomorrow

everyone needs

to leave the house."

Our small house

I have lived in forever.

The house that is by the river that mixes with the sea.

Why must I go?

Why must WE go?

Why? Because of that hurricane.

The hurricane that killed:

Father

Uncle Joseph

Aunt Layla

Grandpa Richard

Sister Haylee.

There is no TV 

So Mr. Crawford, the weather man, came

to our house.

More storms are coming

He said.

That is why we must leave.

Mine: 

NIKON

(or JK)

My flash is dead

Dead flashes blur human forms.

Sitting, smiling, posing

people

tremble

and leave 

contrails behind them.

Color bleeds too.

What is pale

turns red

or maroon 

or rust.

Dead flashes, 

for a few hundred dollars, 

are replaceable.

Fathers

are 

not.

Great exploring powerful, sparse writing! 

Have a fun Thanksgiving!

Tip #5 of my book

#5

I forget the tune of songs pretty easily if they are new to my ears. So for example, when my violin teacher, Liz Glattly, gives me a new piece to work on, I usually forget the melody once I get home.  That's a problem when you need to learn a song correctly. But, just in the last few months, I have found a solution for this: My mom's iPhone. Yes. You heard me correctly. During the lesson, my mom records Liz playing the song. This is a perfect way to capture the tune of the song and keep it. Sometimes I even play along with the recording.

Any recording device works, for me it just happens to be an iPhone. 

I am still working on it. I am really just writing 1st drafts for all of my tips right now. I will refine them later. And, I drew a picture for this but I just didn't post it.

LZ

Gollum

I lie down in bed thinking about Dad. I wonder what time it is in London. He is probably just waking up. I look down at Cody lying in his racecar bed snuggling his favorite Tigger blanket that Grandma . . . Sscccrrraaatttcccchhhh! What was that? A big, black gargoyle is scraping at my window! I hear a slow tap… tap… tap... on the ceiling. Tap, tap, tap. It’s getting faster! I wince every time the rain hits the roof. My jaw clenches, my elbows and knees tighten, and I force my eyes shut to drown out the sirens racing down Mt. Rose Street.

My mouth is thick with saliva and it is hard to swallow. Of all the times to be thirsty! I have to get some water or I will not be able to sleep, but I don’t know if I have the guts. If I jump off my bed Gollum will grab me by the ankles and drag me under. I don’t want to die before my kindergarten Halloween party. Oh, thanks to mom my batman costume is laid out on the couch next to the closet!

Clenching my soft Winnie the Pooh blanket and grabbing a bouncy ball for protection I take a leap of faith. With all my strength I chuck the ball under the bed and sprint for my batman costume, grabbing only my mask and cape. Charging out of the room, I run down the hallway and hop over the creaky spot. I race up the stairs and bust open the door to Mom’s room . . . Finally I’m safe!

I climb under the covers and snuggle next to Mom. Did Gollum get Cody? Mom, Mom Cody… he isn’t feeling well and he wants you to bring him up here. She groans, throws off her covers, and lazily walks downstairs. My throat is still dry. I creep out of bed and slurp some water from the sink then crawl back under the covers with Mom and Cody… I wonder what Dad is doing right now.

LOGAN

Perfect Powder

"Dropping!" I call.

I send a small cliff and come to a halt. I traverse over to a more open area of the run. Excitedly, I spot a tree, make some turns, and spray it with a rooster tail, knowing that my mom would not be happy with me if she were here. Swerving around it, a patch of perfect powder awaits my clean arc, churning up the now disturbed fluff. I make some luxurious turns, straight line up to a cat track for a 360, and weave through some beginner skiers on my way to the main lodge.

I am in Nicholas' guitar teacher's front yard, shoe-skiing down a 2-foot high dirt mound, wishing that I was in real snow.

Jacob

Continued... Autobiography of a Pine Cone

Hello, my name is Spike. I am a pine cone. What I am going to tell you is my autobiography. When Josephine (my mom, the pine tree), gave birth to our batch of brothers and sisters, we little ones had high hopes of winning our little war against the evil squirrels that were sure to come.

Once I grew up and was a middle-aged pine cone, mom announced that there was an army of three squirrels attacking. Our first battle! One of the squirrels went for my branch! He ran ready to leap over me and attack my riper sister, Point. The squirrel jumped. I stretched my little talons as high as I could, and caught onto the squirrel's foot. He squeaked and ran away. I had saved my sister, Point!

I saw old Grandpa Tip from the tree next door, drop from his tree and land on a squirrel's tail. "Nice one!" I called to Grandpa. He winked at me and I smiled. My mom called up her old ally, Wind, and he came and blew one of Mom's branches into the last squirrel. We had won the battle!

Unfortunately, we had gotten the squirrels mad, so when I was older, they attacked again in greater numbers. Five squirrels attacked that day, marching slowly up to the tree. Right then, I had this prickly feeling that told me to launch myself from the tree.

Continued...

So I did. I landed in the midst of the squirrels, frightening them. I saw my branch of brothers and sisters, hurtling down from the tree to help. They all landed in a pokey heap on the squirrels. Two of the squirrels escaped, but the other three ran away in mild pain and fright. The remaining squirrels posed a half-hearted attack, but with over half of their numbers gone, we defeated them easily. Our war was over. We had conquered the squirrels. Or had we?

Well, our generation of pine cones had won, but the seeds fell out of me and I slowly grew into a tree. I sprouted younglings and my second war started. The squirrels had new feisty youngsters too, so of course, a fight began!

THE END

Jacob

RE:BEGINNING OF COLOR OF THE SKY

"None of them new the color of the sky" "None of them, and you just killed them, all of them!" she screamed at me with crackling baritone. "You monster!" she yelled at me yet again, "You killer!". I know what your thinking I'm a psycho but truth is I'm just misunderstood, by well everyone, "Oh shut up Mary" I said hoping she would shut it, but she didn't so I shut it for her, "You....." she blurted blood in her word, because I shoved it in silencing her rude yammering tongue. "Do you know the color of the sky Mary?" then I yanked out the bloody projectile.

Ellie

Introduction to my violin book

I love the violin. Ever since I was five I have practiced almost every day (but not quite). 

I have some good days, some bad days, some relaxed days, some intense days. I have had all kinds of days, really. 

Yesterday's practice was typical: I did some scales, arpeggios, a few review pieces; I worked through a couple of trouble sections on the 3rd movement of Seitz's Concerto No. 5  and then I pulled out The Nutcracker for our holiday recital. 1 hour of practice. Check. Sounds pretty dull, right?

As I put my music back in my red bag, I thought about all the other kids out there who might be upset or unmotivated with their practicing, too. I decided that there could be a way to inspire all these kids. And then it came to me! A book! It would be perfect! A book of 100 ways to make violin practice more exciting. And look, it is in your hands now. Enjoy!

                                                                             * * *                                                                                                                                                              

So that is just my second draft. I FOR SURE have to work on it more. Can you tell!!?? :) It is getting there. 

LZ

Gargoyle

I lie down in bed thinking about Dad. I wonder what time it is in London. He is probably just waking up. Suddenly, I hear a jaw clenching sscccrrraaatttcccchhhhhh! It sounds like a big black gargoyle scraping at my window as if he wants to come in, uninvited. I hear a slow tapping on the ceiling, it gets faster and faster. Next thing I know I’m wincing every time the rain hits the roof. I clench my jaw, tighten my elbows and knees, and force my eyes shut. I hear sirens racing down Mt. Rose Street.

Suddenly, I realize I am really thirsty. I don’t know if I have the guts to get up to go get some water. I don’t want to die before my kindergarten Halloween party. I finally decide if Gollum is waiting for me under my bed, I will make a run for it. I clench my soft Winnie the Pooh blanket and jump off my bed. Desperately, I grab my batman mask and cape and run down the hallway, hopping over the creaky spot. I race up the stairs and bust open the door to my Mom’s room . . . Finally I’m safe! I slurp some water out of the sink and lie down on Dad’s side of the bed. I wonder what Dad is doing . . . . .

Writing Galore

 SNOW = STUFF!

We spent most of our day today responding to work posted on the blog over the last week. 

You all spoke your minds and really helped your fellow writers! 

Ellie, congratulations on being able to inhabit the body and mind of a character so unlike herself. So unlike herself that it scares her to write. Your job this week is to re-write, for clarity, your first section. 

Logan, we talked about sadness and how some people do not see their lives as happy enough, even though we see them as charmed lives. If you're sad, it doesn't matter that you work in Willy Wonka's factory or one of the better restaurants in Reno. You just don't see it.

Eleanore, we talked about the power of your story's terror. It wasn't fueled by "Red Bull;" more like "a small up of coffee." Sophisticated terror--not as bloody as you can get it; instead, a former friend, encircling a dying man, within the circle of decaying buildings, under a full moon. Chilling!

Jacob, your ability to find a way to write--something to inspire you--inspired us. It's so good and HARD to inspire YOURSELF to write.  Your pine cone autobiography reminds us anything can be a good subject! I told you, "You successfully PLAYED with language." It's so good to play. Like when you practice guitar, you need to spend some time just jamming, fiddling, hanging out with your strings. Same with words.

Cody, you've been loving up your dad! Yay for you! We look forward to reading something this week!

Some of you have ideas to pursue this week. 

Eleanore, your book.

Logan, your scary hour before sleep.

Cody, your 100 ways to do tricks on skis--something like that!

Ellie, your chicken.

 You all picked scenarios out of a bowl. 

A subject, a scene, an object.

None of you knew you all picked the same scenarios! 

Ha! I tricked you:

A 12-year-old boy

A river

A backpack

I told you to write this scenario in 3rd person.

 Most of you would have rather been outside playing, but here you all were, working hard on writing. 

Off you went to private parts of the house to write.

We came back together, read aloud the stories, laughed at how DIFFERENT they were...and then

began again, this time from 1st person point of view.

 Logan, Jacob and Cody re-writing their scenarios. 

How different these stories were from each other AND how different they were as we switched perspectives.

 Ellie and Cody re-writing their scenario from 3rd person to 1st person. We really connected with Ellie's character in the first person. "I" has a certain power, doesn't it!

 Eleanore, writing her scenario in first person. It's sooooo sad, given both perspectives. Wow. How powerful it is for the reader to know what will happen to a character.

Assignment:

Write 10 minutes a day on your new or favorite project

DO NOT POST UNTIL YOU EDIT YOUR PIECE for spelling, clarity. 

This means:

1. Read it aloud to yourself and be your best editor

2. As Eleanore says, have another pair of eyes read it.

For Ellie

Hi Ellie, I cannot post on the blog, so I'll do it here. 

Thank you for writing so much. It seems like these two ideas have won you over. They have enveloped you! I love that! I can sense your energy and your involvement in them. 

I am struck by how well you can tell the story of a disturbed mind. It’s chilling, really. Your writing reflects serious frenetic mental energy (your characters') and I like that.  There's a place for that, for sure.

I imagine these are first drafts.

Next, I’d like you to re-look at one of them. Take the piece sentence by sentence and really tighten it up. Focus not just on the images (which are terrifying) but on each sentence as a bullet, so to speak. 

If you make each sentence powerful, the piece becomes irresistible.

I know you’re just going with it, but at some point, as I've asked you to do with your duck-counting paragraph, you need to stop your writer-self (that writer self can be so unruly!) and sweat out a paragraph. Be disciplined about each word; demand something of each sentence. Make sure what you're writing is really what you want said. Make hard decisions about each word! :)

That said, Ellie, thank you for always being such an enthusiastic writer and a writer who writes far MORE than is expected. You can tell you sit and lose yourself in your writing. All I want now is for you to find a piece (any piece) to perfect. Really, really perfect. We'll talk more Friday. 

Love, Carolyn

THE COLOR OF THE SKY

"None of them new the color of the sky." "None" "And you just killed them all of them!" she screamed at me with crackling baritone, "you monster" I know what your thinking, I'm a phyco but truth is I'm just misunderstood by well, everyone. "yo..." " Oh shut up Mary!" and right before she could yell in my ear I shoved it in silencing her rude yammering tongue. "Do you know the color of the sky Mary?" then I yanked out the bloody projectile. Turned avoiding eye contact with all the dead rotting body's lying on the ground, the whole town, dead. They didn't understand what it's like to feel the way I do everyday, the torturous ache pounding up and down through my body. Let me start at the beginning, first I was born, then when I was six I saw my dad kill my mom then kill himself, then I went to foster care were I got the beat to a pulp everyday by my foster brothers, then I joined the army, then I learned how to shot a gun, then I got back from the army and meet a girl, then she dumps me for a nerdy know it all with a overbite, then I get mad at everybody and shot them all. That's the short version hears the more detailed starting when my girlfriend dumps me for a nerd. 3 years ago I lost the love of my life we were going to meet for our 8 month anniversary but she did not show, so I run to her house to see of she was alright or if she was hurt, but I found her sitting on the couch with him, I lest that was the last straw she had blown me off three times now. Then about two months ago I couldn't stand it any longer. The old floorboard coughed up a small "Creek..." as I entered the house through a cracked window stepping ever so carefully onto the wood, creeping my way through the dark. I come across his room but then startled by a loud restless snore helping me pinpoint the position of my target, i follow my cordanience down the hall, past the kitchen and into the living room. I sprint to the couch and crouch behind it pull out my weapon and whisper right in his ear,"I truly did love her and you stole her" and pierced his back with my blade the ripped it out. then fled the scene.

Got more but not enough gotta keep going not finished.

Elmo

MEET MAGGIE

"Lizzie, I heard that your goldfish died so to cheer you up I got you two more, Their both named Steven one with an V and one with a PH!!"

"Hope you like them!"I yell to loudly in her ear, handing the to her as she walks by.

Lizzie lives on my street I live with my caretaker Genevieve on 120364 Rosypop Ave. I have hair that falls down my back to my middle. It's red. My ears are shaped like half hearts if you take out my head and put my ears together it would be a full heart. I go back inside and hide in the coat closet so I can think my marvelous plan through fully, then quickly run to under the coffee table, grab the flaming candle above me, a tissue, and the fan Genevieve keeps in the living room for the warmth of summer, and go to work. Turning the fan to face up and twist the on button I plant my tissue right smack in the middle so that it will fly up then when it runs out of air, down. Pinch the candle with my pointer and thumb turn it upside down so that the tissue will catch the fire in it's fibers. I hear Genevieve coming down the stairs so I leave the scene, and head to the bathroom for my morning routine of counting my rubber ducks. Now in the bathroom I turn them all left to face the shampoo's , sit down on the bathmat cross my legs. I count them forwards, then backwards, then forwards one more time, tap each one of them on the head twice for good luck brush my teeth just like every morning, walk down the hall to my bedroom so I can change into my favorite jeans and t-shirt belt and butterfly hair clip, ready to go face m punishment for setting off the smoke alarm.

Elmo

Quote from The Dark Half (pg 226)

"You're dead George, you just don't have the sense to lie down." Gradey walked in a slow circle around the trembling body, its face half gone. The dark half of George's face, the side with the eye and the remnants of the mutilated nose, stared blankly at the blood-spattered ground.

Gradey looked past George's blown-off shoulder. The moon was rising over four buildings, vacant and in pieces. They were towers of what seemed like moldy sheet-rock and shattered windows encircling the war-stricken courtyard where Gradey circled George on that moonlit evening. 

But the moon didn't even seem beautiful that night.


A ray of light struck the courtyard. Gradey winced when the brightness hit his eyes. He was so used to the dark.


The light came again. It pierced the ground.

To be continued...

LZ 

Freaky Story & Autobiography of a Pine Cone

FREAKY STORY

"There are some huge rats in the walls by the sound." Mr. Giffledork never slept in that raggedy, groaning room. Later the next day, he saw two huge rat sized holes in the refrigerator's metal door, and it looked as if it had been visited by massive rats that did not have all their teeth. He inspected the holes in the frig. Then there was a horrible cracking noise, and a dead-looking rat ambled into view. Mr. Giffledork screamed a scream as high pitched as a small girl and froze. The rat climbed his leg then chest, chewed his neck until his head fell off, then morphed its back legs and tail into a very skinny neck and attached itself to where Mr. Giffledork's head used to be.

To be continued...

OK, to cheer you guys up, I have a funny story. I hear you say "Phew!" Hahaha!

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PINE CONE

Hello, my name is Spike. I am a pine cone. What I am going to tell you is my autobiography. When Josephine (my mom, the pine tree), gave birth to our batch of brothers and sisters, we little ones had high hopes of winning our little war against the evil squirrels that were sure to come.

Once I grew up and was a middle-aged pine cone, mom announced that there was an army of three squirrels attacking. Our first battle! One of the squirrels went for my branch! He ran ready to leap over me and attack my riper sister, Point. The squirrel jumped. I stretched my little talons as high as I could, and caught onto the squirrel's foot. He squeaked and ran away. I had saved my sister, Point!

I saw old Grandpa Tip from the tree next door, drop from his tree and land on a squirrel's tail. "Nice one!" I called to Grandpa. He winked at me and I smiled. My mom called up her old ally, Wind, and he came and blew one of Mom's branches into the last squirrel. We had won the battle!

Unfortunately, we had gotten the squirrels mad, so when I was older, they attacked again in greater numbers. Five squirrels attacked that day, marching slowly up to the tree. Right then, I had this prickly feeling that told me to launch myself from the tree.

To be continued...

Jacob

Muriel Dickens 2

Muriel Dickens is a strange hippie. In fact, she is a Russian hippie who lives in the large town of Getersbalb, Montana. She doesn’t have a car so she rides around town on a lawn mower and works at Willie Wonka's Candy Factory. Muriel is married to an odd man by the name of Rory Miracle. Rory is the founder of the successful company Miracle Whip. Muriel and Rory have 36.26 children, 30 goldfish, 6 guinea pigs, a crocodile, five tweety birds, and Bugs Bunny. They live in a sky scraper called The Miracle House, "where miracles happen".

Although they live in the Miracle household they have a pretty boring life. The kids sky dive to school everyday with Fabio. Their eldest daughter is the crazy Muriel Dickens II, their eldest son is the amazingly funny Will Ferrel, and their youngest son is the mini evil master mind that wants to take over the world, but nobody will listen to him...... Stewie (from Family Guy).

One day Muriel rode up the 15 min. elevator and walked into the living room where she saw her son Will watching Looney Tunes on the 455 in. plasma screen. “Oh my goodness! What on earth happened to you mummy? You are covered in chocolate!” Will said in his cute little British accent that Muriel loved. “Is it Bubba again?” Bubba is the biggest, baddest Umpa-Lumpa who has bullied Muriel for years. Muriel looked away. “Mum you need to tell Mr. Wonka about this. How long has this been going on?” She silently walked to the elevator and went to her room. Muriel slammed the door to her room, walked to her bed, shoved her pillow in her face and started crying. She never wanted to go to work again, she didn't even want to ever come out of her room! Muriel had the idea to travel somewhere remote where she would never have to see another human being again. Although, she knew better than to think so negatively. When Muriel started to calm down she plopped on her bed and stared up at the glowing stars on her ceiling, but she could barley see them because her eyes were so swollen and blurred from crying. Muriel immediately started drifting to sleep.

The next morning Muriel wasn’t feeling too well. Will gave her a strange silver and blue can with a picture of two bulls charging at each other in front of a full moon. She took a couple of cautious sips then violently started drinking the odd liquid; spilling half of it all over her peace sign p.j’s. “MORE! MORE!!!” Muriel demanded. She ran to the refrigerator and grabbed the jumbo Red Bull that said on the back “WARNING!!! Serving per size: 1 sip." Muriel totally forgot about her lawn mower keys soooooo….. she ran to the nearest garage and hot wired (which she had no idea she could do) a car, which happened to be her husbands favorite Bugatti Veron. She raced to work while plowing through fire hydrants and newspaper stands. Muriel parked inside the lobby of the factory and raged up to the chocolate waterfall, where she knew she would find Bubba. Bubba was shocked at the maddening look in Muriel's eyes. Muriel charged him, picked him up over her head (even though he weighs a metric ton), and threw him down the chocolate waterfall into the raging chocolate river! Just like he had done to her the day before.