Turbo Tanski!

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”
– George Patton

Freedom is a rose bush. All along the stem are thorns. Spikes represent all of the soldiers who gave their life to protect our freedom. They willingly put their own lives at stake so that we may live free. Each thorn a penalty paid for what we take for granted every day. At the top of the rose bush is the beautiful rose. The rose is symbolic of our country, its freedom, and the right to say what we want without the fear of being punished for it. The rose is hope that shines through at the darkest time.

On June 6, 1944, 160,000 allied troops landed with along a 50 mile strip of coastline to fight heavily entrenched Nazi Germans on the beaches of Normandy, France. In April and May 1944, the Allied forces lost 12,000 men and over 2,000 aircraft. This has become known as D Day. In Challenger Middle School 8^th grade alone there are about 235 people. Imagine all of the students in 8^th grade and multiply that number by 52. That’s about all of the total casualties suffered on D Day.

Today, America is fighting two wars. One in Iraq and one in Afghanistan; we continue to lose soldiers every day for our freedom and now the freedom of two other countries. It’s true that 50 years ago people died for our freedom. It’s true that 100 years ago, there were people dying for our freedom and it is true today, there are people, men and women alike, dying for our freedom.

Freedom is not just the pedals of the rose, but the thorns as well. It isn’t just the happy-smiley part of it; it’s the men and women who died protecting our country. So next time you think of freedom, think of thorns and flowers and remember the men and women who gave their own lives for you.

Make sure to read part 1 and part 2 first and eventually we will have more parts but for now this is it!

CHAPTER 2

I woke up to find myself in a hospital bed with a male doctor leaning over him.

“Hey, are you feeling okay?” he asked “You took a pretty bad cut to your eye.”

“What? How bad is it? Will I be okay? Where’s my family?”  I questioned.

“Um… your family is outside, and here’s a mirror. See for yourself.” he handed me the mirror.

“Hey, that looks pretty…AHHHHH!!!! What the heck is that?” I screamed as the doctor lifted up a jar of water with a cylinder inside.

“This is your eye,” the doctor said calmly “The one you have in now is just an artificial one, you don’t ever need to take it out unless you want to, but you can’t see out of it. Would you like to see your eye?”

“Um…no thanks, it looks all bloodshot. Oh and can I see my family for a while? Alone?” I asked.

“Yes, I’ll send them in.” he said then left. A few moments later, my family came in. my mother looked tear streaked, and my dad looked like he was holding in tears and Sammy was holding his teddy bear.

“Are you ok, Quinten?” Sammy asked “I’m sorry. Did you see your eye?” Then he set my eye in my lap.

“Guys? Can I have a little talk with Sammy alone” I asked. My parents nodded and left, shutting the door behind them.

Sammy and I were brothers. We were not the best of brothers, though. Sammy annoys the snot out me. I pin Sammy to the floor and make him cry. We have many things against each other. We don’t hate each other, but we don’t love each other. It is just a “buddy” kind of relationship. And this was one more thing I had against Sammy.

“Do you see what you did? You shot my left eye out! I have an artificial eye! I won’t ever be able to see out of it!” I said angrily “You are always hurting me! But this time you have gone too far! I hate you! I wish you were never born!”

At this Sammy walked out of the door miserably, pouting on the way. When he got out there, a shimmer in the air appeared, a cloaked figure jumped out, grabbed Sammy, and jumped back in. On impulse, I jumped out of bed, cords and sticky pads flying, and dove through the shimmer in the air to get my brother back, before I knew what I was doing.

I jumped through the shimmer and for a moment, everything was blue with tinges of purple. It looked just how I imagined a wormhole, but softer. But it was only for an instant. The next moment I was cast out onto rocky ground and rolled along for a second. I looked up and saw the cloaked figure holding Sammy, who was crying, teddy bear dangling limply in his arms. The cloaked man was running away. I jumped up and bounded after him. I still had on my t-shirt and jeans with my air-soft pistol in my back pocket. I kept running after Sammy until I twisted my ankle on a rock and fell down.

In a minute, I saw the doctor from the hospital. I must be hallucinating, or was I dreaming? I pinched myself and realized it hurt very badly. The doctor was shaking me now mumbling something that he couldn’t understand. In another second, I was being hoisted up and carried away. The doctor put some sort of rag on my face and that was the last thing I could remember. The nightmare was ending.

Make sure to read part 1 first!

“I say we get the mean old man that lives in the green house up the street.” I said deviously. Jake and I both hated the old creep who still lived in his house up the street instead of a retirement home even though he was like, 96 years old. We ran up to his house and hit the doorbell. Adrenaline rushed through us as we sprinted away as fast as we could. The old man looked out at us and saw us and said “Get out of here you young whippersnappers!” This just made Jake and I laugh because, seriously, who says ‘whippersnappers’ anymore?

We did that for a while, until our parents called us home. We had to get ready for bed and school the next day.

I walked into school the next day just as it started. I had to rush to my locker and get all of my things for geometry. As I was running to class, Ms. Gritworth, the office lady, stopped me.

“Quinten Murray, is that you?” She asked. “And was that you running in the hallway?”

“Yes, Ms. Gritworth.” I responded.

“Well, here is a detention slip for running in the hall. I’m disappointed, I expected better, Mr. Murray. Now, go to class. I swear she hates me; she is always looking for a reason to give me detention. And the slip she gave me already had my name on it! I walked out of her sight and started to run again. When I got to class, the teacher told me I was tardy and demanded I sit down.

“Now that Quinten has finally arrived, we can have our pop quiz,” Mr. Tavitch told us. “Please get out a scratch piece of paper and here are the quizzes.”

“Quinten! Hey Quinten!” Jake whispered “Have you been paying attention? Because I sure haven’t!”

“No talking!” Mr. Tavitch scolded us. I stared blankly as my test because, like Jake, I had no idea what was going on either. “Let’s see,” I thought “the question: Solve the following equation using the substitution method. Show all work. 2y+ x=3 and 4y-3x=1. Substitution method? Did we even learn about that? And what’s all this about system of equations? Well, multiple choice, if I fill in a random answer, I have a 25 percent chance of getting it right. That’s how I filled out most of my quiz. When we graded it, I got a sixteen percent. That’s going to bring down my grade to about an F-.

“No homework tonight.” The teacher said, dismissing us. I met up with Jake outside.

“That was brutal!” Jake said “A 56 percent is going to bring down my grade quite a bit.

“You think you got it bad?” I said. “I got a sixteen!” Suddenly, Sherri, my girlfriend, came up to me, and slapped me.

“Quinten, it’s over.” She said.

“Why? What did I do?” I asked, rubbing my check.

“I heard from Trent who heard from Joe who heard from Greg that you pushed over Teresia, the head cheerleader and also my best friend at the football game.”

“No, that’s not true, well, maybe a little, but” I stuttered. But it was too late, Sherri was gone.

“Oh, I am going to kill Trent, Joe, and Greg!” I said angrily.

I finished the day and had Jake come home with me again.

When we got home, we decided to watch a movie. It was called ‘The Love of my Life.’ This wasn’t my idea, but my mom made me watch it. It was some story where these people fell in love and all that junk. Afterword, we went outside with our air-soft guns again to start another war until…

“Wait for me guys! I wanna play,” My (annoying) brother interjected. “I can be responsible. Just give me a little gun and I won’t cry I promise.” I looked at Jake and he looked at me, and we both winked.

“Ok,” I agreed. I grabbed the guns off the table and gave Sammy a pistol. We loaded up and went outside. “Ok, ready, set, go!” We all ran off in different directions, but I saw Sammy the whole time. After about ten minutes, I raised my sniper and shot Sammy again. He jumped up and down grabbing his butt while screaming. Jake and I snickered secretly. Now the war was really on, we fired and reloaded and fired some more. I finally sniped Jake and he fell over in melodramatic irony.

“Oh, oh! The pain!” he wailed. “Ahhhh!” In a final attempt to win, he fired the whole 100 round clip at me. Since I was hiding behind the tree, he missed most of them. After he finished, I stepped out and Sammy fired ten shots at me. I thought he had went to the house. But all of a sudden, my vision went back and I landed on my back.

QUINTEN

CHAPTER 1

“Get-out-of-my-room!” I yelled. Sammy was my six year old brother with dirty brown hair and blue eyes, same as me. He loved to wear sweat pants and t-shirts. The cute little devil was playing with my air-soft guns again. This time, it was different because I finally had enough. I was usually patient, but Sammy had been doing this pretty often in the last week.

“I said get out!” I yelled again. Sammy set down the toys and looked at him with those beaten puppy-dog eyes, but I was merciless.

“Out.”

With that single word, Sammy burst into tears and ran out yelling for his mommy. With Sammy out, I looked at the time and saw it was about 11:00, Jake was pulling up in the driveway now. I ran down the stairs and out the door, momentarily forgetting my shoes. Jake got out of the back of the car and tossed me his newest air-soft gun.

“Hey Quinten!” Jake said “What’s up? Do you like the new gun? I got it from this guy who, well, knows a guy who knows a guy and so on.

“Seriously?” Quinten asked.

“No not seriously, I got it for $150 off of EBay; it’s the CougarM49! 400 FPS- it really packs a punch! Try it out!” Jake said.

“Ok,” I replied. I aimed it between his legs and he flipped out! He sprang towards me and grabbed his gun back and aimed it at me. Luckily, I was prepared, so I pulled my pistol out of my pocket and shot him three times in the chest. This obviously signaled the start of the war. He ran back behind a few trees and jumped into my mini-ditch. Then he opened fire with about fifty of his shots, which was half his clip. I put the pistol back in the holster and ran inside and got my sniper and some shoes. I then went out of the back door and ran up my hill.

“One shot out!” I heard Jake yell off in the distance. I was walking around when I saw Sammy following me. “Get out of here!” I thought

“Sammy! Get out of here!” I whispered. “You’re gonna blow my cover!

“But I want to play too!” Sammy complained. “Please!”

“Ok” I said “Go down the hill and find Jake”

Sammy agreed and ran down the hill, which was just my plan. As Sammy ran down the hill, I raised my sniper and shot him in the back. 300 FPS of sheer power was enough to maybe give him a welt but not enough to knock him over, so I knew he was being dramatic. After he got up, he ran inside screaming, so I knew he was out of our game for a while.

Unfortunately, my gas powered sniper was really loud, so Jake probably knew right where I was. I needed to move. I ran up the hill and as I did so, I saw Jake about 40 feet away. I raised my sniper and had him in my scope, but before I did, I thought “Do I really want to do this? Oh yeah!” I just about pulled the trigger when I thought that if I missed, he would find me and light me up like a Christmas tree. Instead, I put the sniper away and pulled out my pistol and shot my whole 12 round clip at him. I didn’t hear Jake yell so I knew I hadn’t hit him. I pressed the release with my thumb and the clip fell out. I slid in a new magazine and went prone. “Great,” I whispered “Now he knows where I am.”

Suddenly, a spray of pellets shot above me. I pulled out my scoped gun and aimed it at him. He was reloading so I took a quick breath and shot. I heard Jake shout and fall over.

“Gosh dang it!” Jake said “I have a red dot in the middle of my forehead; I look like one of those Indian people!”

“Ha! You sort of do.” I said “Do you want to play another game or go inside?” Jakes head hurt so we decided to go inside. When we were inside, I saw Sammy eating Mac & Cheese at the table with a band-aid on his butt. I told Jake what happened, which Sammy overheard. This brought on a whole new round of waterworks.

“Why did you shoot me, brother?” Sammy asked, tears streaming down his face. “That really h-h-hurt!”

Then my dad came in.

“Quinten, what have I told you about shooting Sammy?” Dad demanded.

“Sorry, dad,” I lied “I was trying to hit Jake.”

“Ok, well, don’t let it happen again.” he turned to Sammy and said, “Come here and let me give you your insulin shot.

“No!” Sammy protested “I hate shots!”

“I’m sorry, I hate it as much as you, but you were born with type 1 diabetes, which means you need shots.” Dad poked Sammy, and afterword, Sammy started to cry so Jake and I left.

After we got outside, Jake picked up a box he brought and gave it to me.

“What is it?” I asked, “Oh wait, this is the zip line kit! You finally brought it!” Jake proceeded to open the box for me and take out all of its contents.

“Here,” Jake said “You take this end and tie it to that tree down there and I will tie it to the one up there.” We both tied our ends and tried it out, Jake, went down with his CougarM49, shooting it like some sort of terrorist. I went down with my pistol and didn’t shoot it at all, except one which hit Jake in the head, again. It was getting dark, so we decided to ding-dong-ditch people around the neighborhood.

Thanks everyone for playing the Mini-Saga contest everyone! Well, only one person, and theirs won because it was the best… It also won because it was the only submission. But I really liked it and it was the best. It could have been entered and have been really bad-if that happened there would have been no winner, but it was really good. The winner is Rick Tanski, my dad! Here is his 50 word story.

“Through successful campaigns to conquer and dominate, he led his vast armies. He united and ruled an empire of wealth, opulence, and depravity. As a man, he proclaimed himself god. A brother betrayer felled him at the end of a dagger alongside fellow conspirators. O, Beware the Ides of March!”

I have had a request or two to extend the contest end day, but I have to say no. The contest has been going on for a month and my dad was the only one who took the time to enter a submission. Don’t be sad, you can try again soon!

Be ready for more contests coming up soon in the future!