by Andrei Smith

 

Dear Ms. Bloom, This is why Charles couldn’t bring Randy to Show and Tell:

 

Charles sat up. His eyes were sore, the light outside was bright, and his bed was in a mess. His bear was nowhere to be found, and his moms voice could be heard like the echo of an approaching subway train. He scanned the room for his shirts, but since he couldn’t find them, he just put on a Safeway bag.

 

 

 

It was a bit itchy, but he decided it worked well enough. Another shrill scream came from the bottom of the stairs. It was his mother.

 

“Charles!” His mother screamed, “What are you doing wearing a Safeway bag?!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles was too tired to respond, so he just stretched his legs, but then he realized he wasn’t wearing any pants!

He walked down the stairs, with his hands at his hips holding the potato bag down. When he got to the kitchen, he scanned the room for his pants, but since he couldn’t find any, he just cut three holes in a Potato bag and put them on.

It was a bit airy, but he decided they worked well enough. Another shrill scream came from the laundry room. It was his sister.

 

“Charles!” His sister screamed, “What are you doing wearing a Potato bag?!”

Charles was too tired to respond, so he just looked around the room for something to eat for breakfast.

 

He walked all around the kitchen, looking in every cupboard, but all he found was an old cup of coffee, and some cookies. Putting both the cookies and the coffee into a bowl, he smashed them together and started eating it. It tasted horrible!

 

After he finished his breakfast, he felt much better. This was the first time he had every tried coffee, and it was a great feeling. His eyes opened wide, and he no longer felt tired. He was so happy!

“Charles!” His dad screamed, “COOKIES FOR BREAKFAST?!

 

He heard the rumbling of a nearing school bus, so he had to talk to him later. He remembered that he had to bring his backpack with his homework, but he couldn’t find it anywhere in his house. He decided to take his lizard, Randy, instead. He put the Lizard on his shoulder and ran outside to the bus. All the kids on the bus wanted to touch his lizard, it was great.

When he got to school, he got sent straight to the principles office because he had forgotten his shoes.

 

 

 

            The principle looked him in the eyes, and asked him “What is Love?” as he leafed through Charles’s folder. Charles did not have an answer, so the principle mumbled some legal terms and sent him to the Supreme Court, so that he could confess to his crimes.

 

            Charles did not understand this. He was angry at the man. As for which man, he wasn’t sure. He was angry with all men. He picked up his lizard, Randy, tucked him into his Safeway-bag, and walked to Washington DC, the home of the Supreme Court.

            The Supreme Court was a huge white building with lots of men walking around it. Charles did not like these pompous men, but he suffered through it, because he wanted to solve this problem with the principle so he could go back to class and show off his lizard Randy.

 

 

            When he entered the Supreme Court, he was surprised by how big the chairs were that the men and women in dresses sat in. They were huge, like tree houses. The room was stuffy, and smelled a bit like dusty books from Charles’s basement. Charles put randy the lizard on the ground.

            After Charles sat down, the judge in the black plastic dress banged his hammer against his desk and called for “ORDER”. He was quite an angry fellow, and Charles did not like him or his dress. Charles stopped thinking about the dress when he started talking.

            “THIS COURT CASE IS PURPOSIFULLY PROPOSED TO PENALIZE CHARLES FOR CARING FOR HIS CUTTHROAT, LAUGHABLY LANGUID LIZARD ‘RANDY’ ON THE BUS” Said the man in the dress who had the hammer.

            Charles did not know what any of these things meant, so he decided it might be best just to take a nap instead of being tempted to draw on the very clean wooden desk that he sat at. Charles took off his Safeway-Bag and laid his head on it and fell asleep.
            The judge did not like this. He ordered Charles be sent to Mongolia for 3 weeks of hard labor in a workers camp. Charles decided that this may be fun, so he put his pants back on, and got into Air Force 1, and flew to Mongolia. He was excited to meet Genghis Kahn and his 100 children.

 

            Mongolia was no fun at all. He had to use a pickaxe to pry gold nuggets out of missiles, which was very dangerous. It was dangerous because these were very old missiles, and if you hit them the wrong way with your pickaxe, they might make a huge bang, and turn into a very ugly gorilla. These gorillas were very scary, and so Charles was very pleased that after 3 weeks, he had only made 12 gorillas. He decided that although he hadn’t met Genghis Kahn, the great Mongolian leader should be able to deal with the Gorillas, so Charles headed home.

            Before Charles could get home, his boat sank into the ocean. This was terrible, since Charles hadn’t seen his parents in ages, and was very homesick. Luckily, Charles didn’t get hurt, since a mermaid took him to Atlantis, which turned out to be only 50 miles off the coast from his home in Berkeley, California.

 

 

 

            Atlantis was fun for the few days Charles was there. He met thirteen different mermaids, and even glimpsed the frog king, who supposedly ruled over a mythical land once upon a time. Before Charles could go home, he was given a task that he must complete. He had to go and find the golden dinosaur egg that would please the frog king.

 

 

            So, for thirteen days, he roamed throughout the huge city of Atlantis, looking under every bucket, desk, and trashcan. He figured that if the egg was actually in Atlantis, it would be under one of those three things. After two long hard days of searching he decided to give up, and live out his life in Atlantis. When he returned to the mermaid who had given him the task in the first place, he admitted that he failed in his quest to find the golden egg. The mermaid looked at him long and hard, and then said “Sometimes you must just accept defeat Charles. There is no golden egg, this was only created to teach you a lesson.

            Charles frowned. This made him very angry to hear this. His head turned red, and he took a huge breath of fresh air, and then jumped out a window of Atlantis into the ocean. He was so angry he was able to swim all the back to Berkeley, and he went straight home, where he gave his parents a huge hug. After him and his parents talked about what happened, he walked back to school with new clothes on.

When he got back to school, he was very sad to remember that he had left his Lizard, Randy, in the Supreme Court. He only realized this as he walked into his teacher’s room, and as such, he didn’t have anything to show the class for show and tell. Charles knew that his teacher sure was mad when she sent him to detention for 3 weeks straight.

            That’s the gosh-darned truth, Ms. Orange bum.