Journey of a Lifetime

This story is set in Europe/Asia of the 1470s-1490s.


This is it, this is really it, I can't turn back now, I've done it now. At first I didn't really want to go, but then, not wanting to miss an opportunity of a lifetime, I begged that they would pick me, and they did. Now I have to step it up. I will have to travel from my home town of Florence to China in just three months. They're trusting me with this and if I can't deliver I will face the consequences.


My name is Michele D'Angelo, I'm seventeen and this is my journey of a life time.


I set off today with a caravan with lots of space for gold and spices, and my horse Bic.


After three of four days I found myself in the icy tundra in Russia, lost and freezing cold.


I never thought I'd make it out of there alive, especially when I saw a figure coming out of the snow, as it came closer and closer I sarte to get more scared and then more scared again as it knocked me off my seat and my face landed in the snow, I think that in the cold I survived for about five seconds before going out.


When I wake up, the first thing I see is a young girl, she is saying something to me but I don't understand her language, but she gives a bowl of soup and cares for me for a few days until I can stand up again and walk.


After my first experience with someone foreign, I get back on the road and in a few days I reach MONGOLIA I was so excited!!!!! Finally a new country to explore!! I can't understand what they say, but with some gestures I get to a spice shop and buy my frist set of spices.
I know China is still very far away, but I will keep travelling until I fulfill my purpose.


Just to note, this work is entirely fictional, any refer to actual facts is just pure coincidence.

Twins

There are a lot of “twinned’’ things in this world; cupboards, rings and keys. But usually when you mention to somebody the word ‘‘twin’’, they think of twin brothers.

That’s what Tommy and I are.

Tommy and me. Me and Tommy. That’s how it has always been and that’s how it’ll always be.

We’re homozygotes twins, identical in every single way. That’s mainly because we were born in the same instant, our heads, smaller than other babies heads, went through our mother’s uterus at the same time, not one second apart, so no-one knew who was the first and who the second. 

We liked it that way.

We liked being equal, the same, not different.

The good thing about having a twin is that there’s always someone there for you, no matter what. Our friends could have never understood what it was like for us, they could 

have never felt the bond between our blood.

Anyway, after our birth , doctors checked us and saw that every cell of our body was identical, there wasn’t one that was different from our twin’s. 

Basically, we were clones.

They wanted to take us into a laboratory to study us, but our mother didn’t let them, so our life has always been perfectly normal. In fact, we’ve always tried to make it more exiting.

For example, on our first day of primary school we dressed with identical clothes, so that our teacher would always get confused when we switched places. When we were caught our mother punished us by making us re-paint the walls of the kitchen. Only that we didn’t do it properly and Tommy ended up breaking the chandelier because he swung from it saying that he was angel that had come to rescue us from our ‘‘paint-duty’’.

When we were five, we were racing on our road, when Tommy tripped and fell, he bruised his knees and when my Mum came to see what had happened and saw his knee, she looked at me like I had made him trip. 

I still remember that look in her eyes, and I wasn’t going to understand it until many years later.

Of course Tommy isn’t my only brother; although we are the eldest of all the kids our parents had. We also have a sister, two years younger than us and two little brothers. One three years younger than us and one five years younger than us. Their names are 

Jackie, Gale and Sam.

Our favourite is Sam, or Sammy, as we call him. He’s so cute with his blonde hair and blue eyes and he’s  funny too. Jackie is a pest and she always will be; while Gale is the nerd of the family. 

Thing is, I’ve never actually bonded with my other siblings as much as I have with Tommy. I’ve always felt like an outsider with them.   

I’m going to talk about a few people that really inspired me at school and made understand who I really was.

The first is one of my oldest friends. Thing is, she almost always lived in her own world. One day she came over and told me her theory about tests and interrogations. For her at the start of the year we were all on a plane and then when one of us was interrogated in class, he had to jump out of the plane and, depending on which grade they got their parachute opened well (or not!). Then when we had a test we were all back on a plane and when we all jumped out, the ones who had been interrogated had two parachutes so, even if their test parachute didn’t open so well, their interrogation parachute would save them, but for the ones who hadn’t been interrogated the only had one shot for the parachute to open if not they would be dead.

Another one of her metaphors would be about the ways to do something, for example she would say that clever people would just whisk the components with an electric whisk, meanwhile dumb people would just mix huge lumps of butter and flour with an old-fashioned whisk.

One funny thing about her was how every time we had an English class she sharpened her pencil and opened a book and started to do her funny drawings on the poor book.

I’m mentioning her because she is one of the people who inspired me to discover who I really am and to be myself and not to be afraid to say that. And not to always be the same as my twin. If we lok identical, doesn't always mean that we have to think the same things!!!

The second person I want to mention is my English teacher from secondary school, she was crazy all her ways of saying and making fun of herself and I loved that about her and nobody teased her about it . What she taught me was to believe in my potential and push further until I reached something deep in my writing and this has really helped me with my career today.

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Well, the biggest change between mine and Tommy’s relationship was in fact in secondary school. That’s when social status started to matter and people started to talk to you (or not to talk to you) just if you had a certain status.

Even if we both had trouble fitting in at first, I soon met a popular girl and we started dating. So I was soon entered in the gossip circle, but Tommy didn’t and all those years we spent in high-school I always felt some guilt down my throat when I was striding down the hall with the popular kids and seeing Tommy all alone by his locker watching me with different eyes from the ones I knew.  

Just to note, this work is entirely fictional, any refer to actual facts is pure coincidence.
S.V.

Dive & Dash

Hi, I'm Kirstie M, I'm twelve and I'm a professional diver.


I love diving.


The excitement and adrenaline you get from diving is not like anything you experience in other sports. And believe me, I've tried a LOT of sports before I started diving. And to think it has only been two years since I started diving, I can now do perfect dives from 3, 5, 10 and 15 metres, though I still get butterflies in my stomach when I dive from the 15 platform .


Last week I had my last tournament before the start of summer. I won, I was SO happy. What a great way to start summer vacation!!! Now three weeks of private cruise in the Greek sea await me and also another reason to why I'm so happy, my so_not_called_friend (I hate her because she is SO annoying , but I have to pretend to be best friends with her so that my parents are happy) Ruth, will becoming on the cruise with us and her family, so she can see me perform my Flip & Slip dive (that's how I call it) that I've been practising for weeks and just be furious with ENVY. Ah-ah, I know it's a bit mean, but I am looking forward to THAT, I mean it IS only fair after she stole my best friend and, even if she doesn't realize it, she HAS been trying to keep me and my ex-boyfriend apart, by obviously stealing him from me.


--- 1.5 weeks later


This is it, today is the first day that they are going to let us dive from the 3 metres platform. There is also a 1.5 diving platform, but I can't do my flip from there.
I volunteer to go first.
I hear my big brother cheering me on. ( He knows about Ruth).
I walk onto the platform.
I reach the end point walking in a glorious posture, with my head kept high, I'm going to do this.
I know see just the tip of my fingers, and then the marine-blue Greek sea.
I jump.
I can feel the air around me when I flip.
I feel my back bend as I enter the water. (This would have been a dive that would have scored me an 8.0)
I enter the water.
For a moment, whilst I am in the depths of the sea, there is no sound, just the harmony of the deaf sea, then when my head goes up to the search of air, I hear the cheers coming from the boat .
As I swim back to the ladder, so that I can climb aboard the boat, I see Ruth running into her room, I hear a door slamming.
I know this is bad, but I feel very happy in seeing this, for getting her back and I think: "What a perfect end to the day."


---1.5 weeks later


Today is the last day of the holiday.
Tomorrow we will be going home.
Me and Ruth haven't spoken since that day, we have just been avoiding each other.
I liked the way this holiday went, just peaceful, like it should've been.


All I want to end with is, Ruth is one of the worst people I ever met, she'll always be like this, but to me this does NOT MATTER any more.




Just to note, this work is entirely fictional, any refer to actual facts is just pure coincidence.
S.V.

A Very Special Christmas

Since Christmas is in the air, I've decided to write this story for you all to enjoy.


I used to love our family's Christmases, with the smell oozing from my grandmother's kitchen and all of our little cousins bouncing around, giggling with excitement, but I think you can all agree that that is why we love our Christmases.


Only this year, it won't be the same.

This year there will be no smell pouring from the kitchen and no excited cousins running around.
And this is all because my Dad lost his job.


I don't blame him, of course, only that everything has changed since my Dad lost his job; we had to move into the cheapest apartment we could find as quickly as possible, since the Government took our house and this meant that me and my three brothers and sisters had to change school and try and fit in with people who have known each other for ages, this could be easy if you are seven like my youngest brother, but not as easy if you are twelve, like me and everybody laughs at you because your clothes are old and too small for you (but you can't get any new ones) and you spend every lunch in the girls' bathroom.


Our life has totally changed from Back Then, my Dad's salary is now a fifteenth of what he used to get (and that wasn't a lot Then) and so what we buy now either comes from the local supermarket, the bar next to our apartment or the pound shop.


I love the pound shop, I know it isn't a very good thing to say and it portrays me as a person who really has NO money. I'm not like that, but I still enjoy going to the pound shop; I get really excited when Dad comes home whit his small paycheck and says :"Kids, we're going shopping!!!!". When he says that, I know he doesn't mean that we are going to go grocery shopping or hunting for a cheap buy. I know he means that we are going to the pound shop.


I usually save my allowance until I can buy a few pairs of earrings or something special. My siblings always spend their money on toys as soon as it is in their chubby hands, but I have learnt that if you really want something, then you have got to work hard for it. For example, on our last visit to the pound shop I bought a photo album and I started to fill it with memories of Then.


I don't want to forget.


I CAN'T.


Anyway, today is December 24th and everybody in my house can feel that, this morning we took the bus out of town to go and buy a nice Christmas tree. When we got back, my Dad gave each of us a ten pound note that we could use to buy each other presents. From the pound shop I bought my nine-year-old sister an angel necklace and my seven-year-old twin brothers twin trucks. I bought my parents a picture frame each, and in each frame I put one of my drawings which had gotten an A+.


In the evening we sit down on the floor and eat our canned tuna sandwiches and Pepsi. We put our presents under the Christmas tree and sit down on the sofa to watch the Christmas specials on telly.
I end up being crunched in the middle of the sofa, with my sisters head on my lap and two pars of little feet stuck in my ribcage. 


Whilst my Dad is turning the TV on, I think that his year there has been no Turkey, no Potatoes and it's been a while since we've seen our grandparents and cousins, but it has nonetheless 


A Very Special Christmas. 


This work is entirely fictional, any refer to actual facts is just pure coincidence
S.V.

Life in The Bunker

I hear a loud bang, then something hitting my house, then everything goes black.
I wake up, but just for a few seconds and I see people carrying me into a plane, my family is with me. I am strapped into my seat right next to my classmates Luca and Arianna. Then I fall into darkness. 


When I wake up, the first thing I see is my Italian professor greeting me. She informs me on how when the cataclysms hit the earth the major government organizations decided to rescue all children (plus their families) and to put all of the rescued pople in an underground bunker big enough to fit three quarters of the people on Earth, so the children from public schools were rescued first and the others were going to be rescued only if there was enough time, if not, they would be left to die. Hearing this I screamed at her, telling her that this was a crime against humanity , but of course , there was nothing she could do. She informs me of where the children from Italian state schools were staying and so I dash into the dormitory, eager and scared at the same time to find out if my old friends are still alive. 
As soon as I walk into that door, I feel my heart thump as I read the names on the cots, when I don't see Pietro's, my heart sinks, I realize that my boyfriend was dead and I can't bear that, I want everything to return to normal, but of course, I can't.
I get back to my dormitory and go into my class's safety pen where all the kids from my class would go once they had woken up.
In the pen, I meet my friend Rachele who also knew Pietro and the other kids. When I tell her that some of them are dead, she doesn't seem to be bothered, in fact, she shrugs and starts laughing at some joke. I slap her. She looks at me with bewilderment . I don't remember speaking to her again for all the time we were in the Bunker.


The next day we start school, we take classes divided by year groups so the classrooms are gigantic. I find myself sitting next to an African girl with beads in her hair and a brazilian boy with a nice tan and golden brown hair. The way to get to the lessons is very cool, we step into a tube and we arrive in our seats. My father is recruited to teach. In the Bunker you have to know English very well to make friends, that is why me, Jacob and Sethmi become fast friends ; everyday, after dinner with our families, we meet in the immense gym, were everybody goes, to hang out.


I like my life in the Bunker now, sure it won't be the same as before, but, it's a start.




Just to note, this work is entirely fictional, any refer to actual facts is just pure coincidence.
S.V.

Realistic Introduction 2 My Blog

Hi everyone, I'm going to have fun writing this blog, and maybe you too will have fun reading it.
But now, I want to kick things off on a serious note; this year many things have happened, and we need to understand that because of that, nothing will be the same. So let's just be realistic and not make silly fantasies in our heads.
For example, we all love Apple, don't we? But we have to understand that after Steve Jobs's death, Apple's products won't ever be the same.
Also, for those of us who live in the Eurozone, face it, it's in a crisis and I personally don't think that it'll ever be able to come back from that again, at least, in my time.
But of course, if you're American you don't have to worry about that, you have to worry about providing services for third world countries and recent earthquake victims (Turkey and Japan, e.g.).
But enough with that, time for something more positive, Halloween has just passed and Christmas will be arriving soon, so everyone should be happy for what they have and be GRATEFUL for it!!
I hope that this'll be a funky and almost stylish blog that you'll enjoy reading.
And that will also make you see prospectives of people who have different lives.
See you soon
S. V.