by O.H. (6th Grade)

There I was, comfy in my nest, peacefully sleeping in my nest without a notion that home was tipping dangerously. I didn’t open my eyes, despite the weird sensation I felt of blood rushing to my head. I decided, however, to open my eyes when I realized that I had been transported from my cozy bed that I had warmed up over night to falling round and round comically, the wind whistling in my feathers, and the ground approaching faster than I would have liked. Splat! I hit the ground with a sickening thud. I didn’t particularly want to open my eyes, afraid of the damage that may have been caused to my delicate winged figure. But, I knew no work would be done if I lay there like a dead bird run over by a car.

So I peeled open my eyes, opened them to barely more than the smallest squint. I checked from head to beak and discovered no harm had been done except for the fact that I had lost a few feathers. Shame. I decided my best bet would be to try to fly back up to my home in the trees. I must have looked rather silly, squirming and writhing around on the grassy clearing like a… uh… a bird that had just fallen from the sky! Suddenly, a fleshy pink thing that looked like five worms fused together grabbed me and lifted me up along with my spirits. It was taking me home! Little did I know that I would never go home. Then I realized that a human picked me up! They cuddled and held me, tried to feed me dead ants, though I didn’t have much of an appetite. I remember being put into a kind of sack, and when I was removed from it, I was no longer outside! Every day, I was fed and carried. I even learned to fly! I love everything, especially being up high.

One year later. The broken lamp flickers and flashes with my every move. Birds of various species crowd around me, waiting for me to begin. I wait, anxious for the music to play. The song, Dancing Queen, begins to play and I start to dance. The crowd goes wild. In my time in the wild, I had become a superstar. The hardest part was the dancing, though when I had cleared that hurdle, it was a straight path forward. Competition after competition, win after win, and even just singing and dancing in the road with a walnut in front of me to hold money I made. Bit by bit, I made it. I was a superstar.