The Palisadian-Post has partnered with Paul Revere Charter Middle School to highlight a series of pieces from its 2021 Literary Anthology. The following piece, penned by Natalia Crystal, originally appeared in the Narratives: Prose section of the anthology, released in spring, and has been reprinted here with permission.
It was an early Saturday morning, Natalia and her family had just moved into their new house. “Wow, look at this place!” exclaimed Erin, “It must be gazillion years old!” Erin was a short girl with dark brown eyes and light skin. She had short, wavy, brown hair, it was deep enough to be called dark brown, but not dark enough to be called “almost black.”
“My mom said it was built about 200 years ago,” said Natalia, “though I do agree it looks pretty ancient.” Natalia was also a short girl, she had dark turquoise eyes and pale skin with few freckles. She had long, curly, medium blonde hair.
Erin and Natalia were best friends. Both girls wanted to be an actress, were good students, were 11, they both spent a bit of their childhood in London, England before moving to Los Angeles, California, and you could barely tell that Erin was about half an inch taller than Natalia. Yet the most important thing they had in common was that they both believed in magic.
Natalia started wandering around the house and seeing if there was any undiscovered history from 200 years ago. When she had circled the house four times, she gave up. So she sat down by the water fountain in the backyard and leaned her hand on the rose that the statue was holding. The rose moved and a hidden trapdoor opened in the gate!
“Umm Erin,” Natalia worriedly shouted, “You’ve got to come see this!”
“What is it,” said Erin as she approached, “Oh that, what do we do! Do we go in, do we tell someone-”
“No,” Natalia stated, “Let’s check it out.”
They walked into the trapdoor and were truly shocked by what they saw. “How did- what the-” said a puzzled Erin.
“How- where- what- why- huh?” said an even more puzzled Natalia. After almost ten minutes of confusion, Natalia finally found her words, “So where are we.” The door that they just walked through was now an endless woods with no sign of any way out.
After miles of walking the girls were starting to enjoy the forest and its beauty. They wandered a bit, and wandered some more, stopped to smell a rose here, or ran into a tree praying that it would somehow take them home. The silver birch trees were rustling in the wind, and you could hear the birds quietly chirping. “Hey there’s a river,” exclaimed Erin, “and wherever there’s a river and silver birch trees-”
“There’s always a weeping willow near!” Natalia finished. They found a weeping willow and some comfy sleeping spots for the night. “You know what, it doesn’t matter how we got here, and we’ll find a way back, but until then, let us sleep in our tree cave or whatever you want to call this. Getting home is an adventure for tomorrow.”
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
