Student Blogs

The eerie woods were still, creating a dark, creepy scenery, but something about the dismal weather was not bothering Richard. Hiding under his huge umbrella, all he could glimpse was bushes in the ugly shade of olive green being drenched by the stormy rain. It seemed to him that the trees were calling out to him and screaming, “What do you seek in the dark? Tell me boy, what do you seek in the dark?” A sharp chill went up his spine as he thought, “Don’t be silly, Richard, trees can’t speak! You will be fine in this dark place, you just have to find light with some grit and determination.” He trudged on in the muddy grounds of the forest he was left in. Where to go, he didn’t know, as he was with his family looking for a lost jewel that helped the half dragons and half wizard witches talk to their ancestors to seek advice. Little did he know, this was going to be his adventure that he had always dreamed of.

As the nervous half wizard and half dragon brushed past branches, still trembling from head to toe, his eye caught something. What was that light? Suddenly, all of Richard’s thoughts flew out of his mind like butterflies erupting into sunshine from their cocoon.

“Am I close to my family? Have they already started the campfire? Wait for me!” He ran towards the light only to find a huge redwood tree glowing. A shiny green light welcomed him, but Richard, half disappointed about not finding his father, mother, nor his siblings, and half curious about this ancient tree, was doubting whether he should open the miniature door at the very bottom of the sky scraping tree.

Richard thought of his other options. “I could enter this door and find a way to get back to my family or I can stay in this chilly forest and then get eaten by a tiger.” Richard was born to a family of dragons. His entire family could breathe fire, yet Richard himself, no matter how much he had practiced, could not breathe fire. That left him with only wizard skills and his sharp claws. Being the most frightened in his family, Richard knew it was best to go through the door.

Richard reached his hand out to the handle expecting it to turn but, instead, he heard, “Answer the riddle and you may pass… You see me in the water but I never get wet. What am I?”

“Gaah!” he yelled when the knob spoke with a wicked smile. Dust from his dragon scales shimmered in front of his fear filled blue eyes. A wave of bright green leaves showered him and brought him back to his thoughts.

“Did the doorknob just t t talk to m m me?” His body was still shivering as he continued to think of the door. “I should open it but I should ignore the t t talking knob and focus on my thing.”

He reached out for the handle again and the doorknob shrieked once more, “Answer the riddle and you may pass… You see me in the water but I never get wet. What am I?”

Richard stopped, thinking very carefully. He imagined himself going to the pool for his unsuccessful swim lessons and remembered everything he saw when he stared at the water. After 5 minutes, Richard started guessing, “Water? Beach ball? Coach Alex? Wait… I give up! What is it?”

“No… No… No… For all of them. Think more or you will not be able to pass,” came the reply.

“Uh… Okay, I’m thinking really hard…” Richard was waving his hand as if he knew the answers and was trying to act it out. Then he made eye contact with his wand he had hidden in the far corner of his backpack. It flew into Richard’s hand and, as if his mouth were a volcano, words from a memory spell slipped from the tip of his tongue. “Memory, remember, dear magical majesty, make me remember the answer.”

Just then, a thought sparked in his mind. “My reflection!” Richard exclaimed with a tone of joy. As if on cue, the handle turned itself and the door opened, leading to a world where rainbows were the only thing you could spot.

Richard crouched himself into a ball small enough to fit in the door that only an ant could walk into normally. It didn’t take him that long to get through the door and into the world of rainbows.

Bam! The door slammed shut behind his back as he entered the beautiful lands of what he read from a sign, “Rainbow Land.” Around him, multiple rainbows were chittering to each other, munching on rainbow colored lollicorns (sweet popcorn that can be sucked on like lollipops). Strolling forwards, he drew attention from conversations and everyone stared at him.

A rainbow walked up to him and greeted herself, “Hi, I am Shime! Welcome to Rainbow Land! What is your name?”

Surprised by the unexpected introduction, Richard stammered, “H hi, Shime. Th th thank you for the w w warm welcome! I a am R r Richard.”

“Oh, that is a wonderful name! Mine is Tinly. Everyone calls me Tin for short,” a boy rainbow chimed in.

“Cool,” Richard replied.

“Would you like to have a drink? We have the best milkshakes at the Scream! Scream is a store where they make milkshakes, by the way. We can chat there for some time too!” Shime seemed to be the one with the big mouth.

“Oooh! It is hot! I’d love one!” Richard and Tin said in unison.

As they settled in the enchanted chairs of Scream, Shime hurled questions at Richard. “So, what are you doing at Rainbow Land? Tell me your whole story! I’d love to help with anything you need help with. We would love to help, won’t we, Tin?”

“Yes, we would love to help,” Tin replied while shooting Shime a disapproving look.

Over mint chocolate chip shakes, Richard explained his quest. He gently exclaimed that he would love for his new friends to join him.

Shime offered Richard to sleep in her house as it was getting quite dark in Rainbow Land and, although Richard accepted, he couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “How come Rainbow Land was bright for one second and then the next second it is so dark?”

“I don’t know…”

Shime quietly got to the room which she called the filing room, but hesitated before twisting the handle. Stacks of papers flooded out of the room. “Uh… After we clean this for habitation, this will be a perfect room for you,” Shime stated. Unwilling to be rude, Richard forced a smile, but it barely worked. Together, they quickly moved everything out of the room and slowly organized all the papers.

“There, now you can sleep in this room once I bring out my spare hammock,” Shime panted. Richard continued to explore the rainbow room while Shime searched her vivid house for her hammocks.

Everything in Shime’s house was rainbow in color, from the glowing violet floorboards to the indigo ceiling. As Richard settled into the hammock Shime eventually found, his mind drifted back to the lost jewel. If this land was so bright, could the jewel be the source of the light?

The next morning, Tin decided to take Richard for a walk around the neighborhood. He had to walk across the garden to get to Richard’s room quickly, but the moment he set foot outside, he stopped and yelled, “Aaaah! What is going on? Where is the sky?”

The sky had disappeared. They could see all of the different planets, including the planet of Earth, which was being investigated to find life. Tin ran to Richard, screaming for help, and when Richard saw what was causing the chaos, he stared at the sky, shocked.

High above the swirling planets, a massive creature emerged from the atmosphere. It was a rhino whose horn wasn't made of bone. It was the lost jewel itself, fused to the beast's head and glowing with a ravenous, violet hunger. The rhino opened its massive jaws and began to literally eat the sky, swallowing clouds and stars like they were clumps of grass.

Richard whispered, his scales shivering, “It’s consuming the magic of this world!”

Tin and Shime shrunk behind him as the ground turned to cold, colorless stone. Richard reached for his wand, his heart hammering against his ribs. He couldn't breathe fire to fight a beast this large, and his claws were useless against something that could swallow the horizon.

Suddenly, he remembered the doorknob’s riddle. You see me in the water, but I never get wet.

“Tin! Shime! I need every drop of water in this land!” Richard yelled.

Confused but desperate, the rainbows used their magic to summon a massive wave of liquid from the Scream shop, swirling it into a giant, hovering sphere of water right in front of the rhino’s snout.

As the beast lunged to take another bite of the sky, it saw its own reflection in the water. Richard pointed his wand at the sphere and shouted, “Mirror’s Might!”

The spell didn't attack the rhino. It turned the reflection into a solid, magical cage. The jewel horn on the rhino’s head reacted to its own image, pulsing so violently that it shattered the fusion. With a sound like breaking glass, the diamond snapped off the rhino’s head and whistled through the air.

Richard lunged forward, his sharp claws outspread. The moment his scales made contact with the cold, glowing surface of the diamond, a shockwave of white light exploded from his palm.

Rainbow Land, Shime’s messy filing room, and the sky eating rhino vanished in a heartbeat.

POP!

Richard hit the muddy ground with a thud. The smell of wet pine and stormy rain filled his nose. He looked up to see the ugly olive green bushes and the huge redwood tree, no longer glowing.

“Richard! There you are!”

He turned to find his family, all the dragons grinning from ear to ear, happy to see Richard again. They looked tired and worried, but as Richard opened his hand, the lost jewel illuminated their faces. He still couldn't breathe fire, and he was still soaking wet under his huge umbrella, but as he felt the weight of the diamond, he knew he finally had a story worth telling.

He didn't need to breathe fire to be a hero. He just needed a little grit, and a lot of determination.

Determination is finding the light, even if you have to cast the spell yourself.

A Fiction Story from Nidhi’s Desk