The Bird Who Came Back in Spring

[Note from Mom: The assignment was to write a story about birds migrating back to our yard in the Spring.  This is Amanda's story, and the only thing I changed was spelling and paragraphs.  Well, and a few punctuation marks.]

One day John the bird was flying back to Virginia after the migration.  He was flying along when suddenly it started flurrying!  When he looked down he was in Virginia!  "It can't be Virginia!" he said. "Wait a sec!  It's spring!  It cannot be snowing!"

One of the bigger birds over heard him. "WHAT was that!?"  she said.

"uh... Nothing."

"I heard something from you."

"It was your imagination."

"No it was not."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Stop fighting, you guys!" said John's mother with a laugh.

"I was..."

"She started..."

"I did no-"

"STOP!!!!" John's mother yelled.  

"Oh, alright," said John.

"Well, all I was trying to know was what he said," said the other bird.

John's mother stared angrily at John.  "Was that all she was trying to know?"

"Yes," John said.

"Tell her what you said," John's mother said.

"What I said was it can't be Virginia!  Wait a sec!  It's spring!  It cannot be snowing!"

"Ooooohhh!" John's mother said.

Soon they landed.  Everyone ran and flew to different trees, made nests, and started to go to sleep.  Everyone but John and his mother; they were still flying.  Soon the two birds got to Pennsylvania.  They never found their family and friends.

The end.  Finis.  Fin.

Nellie, the Girl Miner

[Note from Mom: The assignment that is below was for Kaitlyn to write a story that included all ten of her spelling words, which were the vocabulary words in Lesson 7 of the Memoria Press Greek Mythology Workbook.  The underlined words were the ones she was required to use.  The story is 100% original.]

One day, Nellie Jones said, "I want to work with Father in the amber mine."

"Now, Nellie," said Mrs. Jones, as they turned onto Conch Street in a car, then into their drive-way.  "Your father said, when we got divor-"

"NO!'' Nellie shouted as loud as she could, "DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT!!!"  She jumped out of the car, ran into the house, slammed her bedroom door, threw herself on her bed, and sobbed. Late that night, Nellie packed her suitcase with overalls, a pocketknife, a compass, some pencils, paper, books about the Greek gods, and a Bible.  She grabbed her necklace filled with water from the grotto at Lourdes, climbed out her window down the trellis.  She saw a pair of lights coming up the road.  Nellie quickly ducked.  Under a bush, she fell asleep.  When she awoke, the rain was coming down in torrents.  She ran to the barren park and then got under a table and tried to dry off.  When she got dried off, she read in the Bible about King David's prophecies that talked about Jesus.  Then she started running, jumped over a cleft with a trident in it, and soon got to the mines.

She sat down behind some bushes and got on a pair of overalls, snuck in, and found her dad.  "Nellie!" he said.  

"Dad!" Nellie said.  "Guess what?"  Nellie kept talking without stopping.  "I'm learning about oracles and sibyls."

Dad laughed.  "Cool!  But why are you here?"

"Dad," she said, "I want to work with you."

"Okay," he said.  And he carried her off on his shoulders, and they worked together forever, except the mom didn't know where Nellie was until Nellie called her on her dad's cell.

The end.