I am the river, now flowing through a war-fractured land.

My waters, that once shone like a mirror, are now tainted crimson by blood and ash.

Smoke dominates the sky, no sunlight or clouds to be seen.

Frightening screams and cries envelope my domain. 

The once lively meadow is now a graveyard.

As I flow along, I taste the unmistakable stench of fear.

Yet, I dream of a peaceful world-

misty mornings where children laugh, skipping stones-

not worrying about whether there’ll be a tomorrow. 

My bank would be a green sanctuary, sheltering all creatures- 

scared or brave, big or small, mighty or weak.

My purpose would be to embrace nature as my kin, and reflect sun beams, 

not sharp knives or murderous bullets. 

With every belligerent generation, a new wave of healing arrives-

preparing us for the next wave of grief.

Ziva N G5

Ripples on the water flow.

The sky is quiet.

Clouds part above, showcasing the sun.

Trees grow leaves as green as jade.

Yet the clouds come back.

The leaves become warm colors and fall.

The lake is filled with color, the leaves turning the water red and orange dappled with yellow.

The ground is turning colors too, as the trees’ leaves become scarce.

Until they disappear completely.

The world is covered in ice and snow.

The lake is frozen over.

Its ripples no longer flow.

It is in hibernation, waiting for the sun to come again.

And eventually… it does.

The ice cracks like an eggshell.

Water comes rushing forth.

Blossoms fall as the clouds part, once again.

The sun comes out shining, as the blossoms fall to the ground and the leaves turn bright green.

The land is bathed in light.

The lake is like a mirror, reflecting the light of the sun everywhere.

It is a place of fun now, the surface of the lake choppy as people splash in, squealing with delight.

The lake feels it, and the lake channels the energy all around the lake, with smiles all around.

The happiness of each person is overflowing all over, creating another lake- a lake of happiness and joy, flourishing in the sun’s heat and the lake’s cold temperature.

But the sun cannot last forever.

The clouds start coming over the sun…

Adela K. G5

The Temple of Water

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Flowed smoothly like a vast river.

Values, deep as the core of the Earth,

Built by our successors, by the Builders,

To stand on the core principles of Humanity.

The Temple of Water was built upon this.

Never to collapse.

Never to freeze.

The most important part of the Temple

Was not the columns, or the walls.

Or the floor.

It was the ones who built it from the ground up.

The Builders.

The ones who came from far away.

The ones who made the Temple stand tall.

The ones who made the Temple stand proud.

The Water ran through the Temple,

Vast, like a delta through a valley.

Full of vibrant colors.

As promised by the Builders.

All were welcome in the Temple of Water.

Until the Water froze into Ice.

Shouts, masks, and violence. 

The freezing of the Water.

All because the Builders of the Temple–

The core of the Temple–

Spoke differently.

Ate differently.

Dressed differently.

Worshiped differently.

Even though the Water was promised for all,

It only remained for the Snow,

White, cold, and uniform.

Snow and Ice,

Both white.

Both ruthless.

Both refused to believe the Water was necessary.

Both refused to believe the Builders were the foundation.

Most barely noticed at first.

Some stopped going to the Temple.

The white, powerful Snow

Had taken power once again.

Slowly but surely,

The Water became silent.

Freezing slowly.

Some could tell it was happening.

They stared in dismay.

They tried to stop it.

Foundations got weaker and weaker.

The Snow cheered.

Cracks became prominent.

The Snow cheered.

Water became a cold slush, almost immobile.

The Snow cheered, cheered.

The Snow cheered, until the day

The Temple collapsed.

Then the Snow realized what they had done.

The Temple of Water was gone.

It could not be rebuilt.

A poem written by Claudio P. G8

Regarding the state of the United States and ICE

Have you ever been so bored that you could count precisely how many seconds it takes for paint to dry? Well, back in my childhood, I was that bored. Oh sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Lizzie Brooks. I have brown, wavy hair with blonde highlights. I am 40-years-old and I have a dog. I love dogs!

When I was 12, everything changed. I wanted to explore the city because I was bored out of my mind. I walked into an abandoned alleyway. It was a beautiful sight. The walls were filled with colorful graffiti. It was as if the walls had grown from being painted, and painted on top of, and painted on top of again and again, until they actually grew. The walls of the alley looked as if they had not been painted for over 200 years! 

When I first stepped into the alley I saw a beautiful mountain surrounded by a meadow filled with bright green grass and all colorful wildflowers. There were countless majestic animals I didn’t recognize but was fascinated with. As I walked further into the alley, the scenery shifted into a darker, gloomier environment. While admiring the vivid walls, I almost missed seeing the glowing orange door at the very back of the alley. Was it…..radioactive?  I went up to it and knocked on the door,

 “CRREEEEEEAAAAK! Ah, thank you for finally waking me. I needed a good stretch,” the door said while it opened.

“What?” I said. “ You can talk?!”

“Of course I can talk. My name is Roger. Now, to the point: you were drawn here for a reason. My world is in trouble and you are the only one who can save it. It is your mission! You must walk through and try to make things right. You will appreciate your world when you see what happened to mine.”

“What? But I don’t know ho-”

“No buts,” he says. 

Then I got sucked in and ended up in a different world. This new world was sad and almost lifeless. The birds had stopped chirping, the sky had turned red from smoke, and the trees were dying. I saw a pond with no fish, and I thought of the beautiful lake by my house, filled with koi fish and water lilies. I started following the only signs of life I could see: a bird I first noticed, then a rabbit or squirrel that I passed by, and then another bird. They led me through the forest and into a town. I walked for hours, but finally saw a village in the distance. There were about five houses in the village. Everything was made of concrete and there was no sign of nature. When an animal came near, something always scared it away and sent it to take shelter in the woods. What was left of the woods anyway. I heard a voice. I sprinted, feeling overcome with hope. I could actually ask someone what had happened. When I got to the village, I saw a young boy, about my age at the time, sitting in a landfill that may have been a garden a long time ago. The boy had icy blue eyes and shaggy brown hair that fell over his forehead. His clothes were small and raggedy. I walked up to him. 

“Hi,” I said cheerfully.

“Hi,” he said quite glumly.

“My name is Lizzie. I came here from another world. A talking door told me I am supposed to save this world. What happened here? Can you help me?”

The boy perked up.

“What?” he said.

“What?” he repeated himself. I sighed. 

“Can you tell me why it's so dirty and polluted here?”

“OK,” he said skeptically. “By the way, my name is Will. 67 years ago the world was lush and green. Then, the robots came rolling…”

“What robots?”

“Will you let me finish?!” he said, giving me a look.

“The robots came over those hills," he said, pointing to what was, at first glance, a heap of trash. 

“They attacked our city and started to build their own city. They cut down the trees, used up all the energy, and polluted everything in the process. My grandparents and other adults tried to stop them, but they were killed by the robots. Humans lost everything! There is a myth that someone from a different world will come to save us. Someone who can defeat the robots.” 

“That could be me! Let’s go!” I said happily, and walked off into the woods, having no idea what I was getting myself into. 

We were in the deepest part of the forest when Will whispered, “Sssshhhhhh!” he said.

I stopped.

 “What?”

“Listen! Robots!” 

Just then, a robot came from its hiding spot and attacked.

“Quick, climb the tree!” I said. 

We tried to climb, but the robot was on our tail. It was swinging wildly and it eventually caught up to us. It snatched us off the first branch and stuffed us in a compartment in its chest. 

Inside, there was no comfort. The compartment was about the size of a small closet, with barely enough room for us. The floor was bumpy and made of a cold steel sheet, as if designed for discomfort. The compartment was only three feet tall, so we had to sit in a weird criss-crossy position. 

After about an hour of sitting there, we were thrown into a prison. What did we do wrong? They put us in a dirty cell with nothing in it. A robot came in to make us do their work, and ordered us to go to the kitchen to serve the robots dinner.

We got to the cafeteria hall and saw the food. There was a soup dish that looked like it was made of gasoline and batteries! I wanted to vomit! Will and I tried to sprint out of the door, but the robot guard cornered us and spilled a whole container of his gasoline-battery soup on us.

Reluctantly, we served the robots their food. Afterwards, a robot walked us back to our cell. Then he started turning slowly to leave. Will and I snuck up behind him while he was turning around, exited the room, and locked him in the cage. We were free! 

When we looked around we saw a tall building with red light streaming out of the windows (If you could call them windows. They were just holes in the cement!). I had a feeling deep in my gut that I had to go to it. Apparently, Will also had that same feeling. We ran towards the building. 

Getting inside was impossible at first. There was a lock pad with a 14 letter code. We tried ROBOT POLLUTION. Wrong! Then a robot rolled toward the door. 

“Will, hide! Over there!”

We hid and watched the robot type in the code “ROBOT DOMINANCE”. We waited for ages for the robot to come back out, and, when it finally came, we leapt out and punched in the code.

“Oh yes," I said, and typed in “ROBOT DOMINANCE”.

 I pressed enter. There was a moment of silence, then the door clicked open. We stood there, admiring the beauty of the non-poluted stairs. Then we heard footsteps outside.

“Quick! Put everything you can in the doorway," I said nervously. 

We grabbed all of the furniture in the room and stacked it all up in front of the door. We sprinted up the steel stairs. By the time we got to the top, I was out of breath. At the top of the stairs, there was an AI chatbot. I took a long shaky breath, hoping it would not attack, then I realized that it was the control center and it took written instructions. I told Will my idea and he approved. I started typing.

“Hi! Could you please destroy all of the robots and undo everything they have ever done? Once the world is back to how it used to be, then please destroy yourself. If you could do this as fast as possible, that would be a really nice favor," I tried to sugarcoat, so it would not turn against me. 

“Request denied. Details needed," it said with its robotic voice.

“Please describe how the world used to be.” 

I was about to start answering, but I realized that I did not know how the world used to be. Will was the only one who could answer. And he needed to do that before the robots pushed through our barricade. 

“Will, can you describe it?” I asked him.

“This is the only world I know.  I was not alive before the world got polluted, but I’ve heard stories from my parents," he said.

He stepped up to the keyboard and typed as fast as he could:  

“The world before the robots was lush and green. Colorful flowers covered the meadows and hills and green trees gave shade from the sun. Animals were roaming around happily. People lived off the land, in harmony with nature. They only used what they needed. There were no robots and no junk.” 

As he typed, he realized how beautiful the world should be, and gained hope. Once he finished typing, we waited, crossing our fingers. We kept looking out the window, hoping the robots would not get in. As we looked, we started seeing trash disappearing, robot vanishing, one after another… The grass started to turn green and animals like the ones I’d seen in the alley back home started to appear. Finally, there were no more robots, no more junk, and a lot of nature! Will and I hugged. 

“We did it!”

Just then, the AI disappeared. In its place stood Roger, the radioactive door. Only he was no longer radioactive.

He said, “Thank you, Lizzie! You’ve saved my world. You must leave now. The portal between our worlds will close any moment now, and I will not be able to bring you back.” 

Then a count down started. “10…..9…….8……….”

“Oh no, Will! Should I stay or should I leave?!”

“7…….6………….5………4………………”

“Go back to your world and make sure what happened to my world never happens to yours! I need to stay here and protect my world. Good luck, Lizzie! It was nice knowing you!” 

I opened the door…“3…………2………………”  and I left “……………………1.”

I returned to my world, happy to see the birds chirping, the flowers blooming, and the fish swimming in the lake. Every time I walk by my koi lake, I think of Will. I miss him dearly. I am an environmental activist now, and I help protect nature. I love my job, and if my story teaches you anything, a world is worth protecting well before it starts to fall apart!

Hi, I'm Ammy the axolotl, and this is the story of how I made my best friends Bean and Clover! So c’mon, let's dive right in!

* * *

“Ammy come downstairs, it's time for breakfast!” My mom yelled, “You're going exploring in the coral reef today, no? You have to have a balanced breakfast to do that!”

“I’m coming mom!” I said slowly realizing how stiff my fins were, it felt like I'd been sleeping on a rock! Suddenly I took one sniff and noticed that my mom was making kelp pancakes! My Favorite! I zipped downstairs to get a taste of the delicious specimens. I sat down to dig in and saw a pink blur woosh by me.

“Kody, calm down, no running in the house!” shouted my dad, barely looking up from his newspaper. Kody gave my dad a sideways glance but sat down and started devouring his own pancakes.

When I finished my pancakes I sat up and got all the stuff I would need for my excursion and started heading out when my Mom asked, “Ammy, do you have snacks?” Which I shook my head to and she tossed me some nori wrapped mussels and I left,my heart racing.

* * *

So first I went to the most colorful part of the coral reef and found many very pretty pieces of coral that had broken off. Then I went to the place where all the colorful fish live and found a nice quiet spot to enjoy the snack my mom had given me. Finally I went to the part of the reef that was mostly dead, except for the occasional piece of sea grass. Very few creatures even bothered to go to this part of the reef because there are tons of strange creatures that live there. I started to look around when I had the feeling I was being watched, and I turned around to see a flash of yellow swim away. I gave chase to whoever was watching me and I caught up to them and tackled them into some dead coral.

“Who are you and why were you spying on me,” I asked, I looked him dead in the eye with a serious look.

“Woah there,too many questions!” said the mysterious yellow axolotl, “my name is Bean and the reason I was following you is because you're brave enough to come here so I followed you to what for when to ask you to be my friend.”

“Why didn’t you just come up and ask me like a normal axolotl?” I asked, puzzled, “of course I’ll be your friend! C’mon, explore the rest of the reef with me.” Bean nodded and swam with me through the coral.

* * *

After a while, we found a deep ravine and we couldn’t see the bottom! I tried to convince Bean to come down with me but he refused.

“Don’t die!” Bean said sarcastically but he still wore a worried expression on his face.

“I won’t!” I called back swimming away. I continued to swim downward for a while but it then got really dark. I then heard someone yell “help” but it barely sounded like a whisper. 

“Whose there!?” I yelled swimming towards where the noise had come from.

“Help, please!” They responded. Then I saw it, a small cyan axolotl, about my age, trapped underneath a huge rock. I swam towards it as fast as lightning and tried to lift it but I couldn't move it by myself, I needed help.

“ I’ll be right back i’m going to get help,” I told her but just as I was about to swim away  I remembered something, “ Hey um whats your name?”

“ My name is Clover,” she said weakly. I swam away to go get Bean to help me.

“ Bean!” I exclaimed, “there’s an axolotl down there who needs our help, c’mon we have to act fast!”

“Ammy, wait up!” He said, “isn’t it scary down there?” He looked concerned and scared of going down there.

“Bean, if we don’t help, who knows what will happen?!” I shouted at him. I finally convinced him to come save Clover with me. “What are we waiting for? C’mon!”

It took a while to get back to where Clover was stuck but then we found her, those cyan feelers stick out like a sore thumb!

“Okay,” I said, “On three me and Bean will push and Clover you try your best to swim out. Ready? One…two…three!” 

On three we all pushed as hard as we could and Clover was able to wriggle out safely after that we brought clover to my house to make sure she wasn’t too injured. My mom made us all some food and from then one we were best friends.

I am a firefly and my name is Spark. Now, I will tell you a long story. Get your hot chocolate and a blanket. In the heavens, hundreds of years before the universe existed, there were numerous gods all ruled by one, she was the great Salka. Salka was a very cruel goddess who loved fighting and punishing with her powers. Salka was a very smart governor and she always thought one step ahead of her enemies. Some even thought that she could read minds. Salka's powers were very dangerous, she could control heat, fire, and lightning. But what made her practically immortal was her dragon. The story of her dragon goes back a long time. Long ago, when I was young and before Salka was the queen, she saved my life in a deadly tsunami. In order to express my gratitude, I granted Salka one wish out of the three wishes every firefly has to grant. She wanted to never die. However, my powers were not yet powerful enough to let anyone avoid death forever. Instead, I told her that my powers were only strong enough to make her a guardian dragon to protect her. Salka understood my limitations and agreed to the offer. That is why I created Dullo. Dullo is what made Salka rule for so long. Eventually, Salka became queen but that is a story for another day. After long periods of Salka’s touture, a god called Astria had been born. Astria’s mother had powers of ice and her father had the power of observance. This caused Astria to have very strong powers as well. She could control all forms of water and cold. She always stood up for what is right and was a good observer. One day, in the kingdom of the heavens, Astria observes secretly as someone is dragged into Salka’s private room. I am on a high ledge with layers of dust, so I knew that no one would come. Salka never talks about what happens in that room, but Astria suspected that Salka did evil things there. Astria watched from a crack she had found in the wall while a god was being lectured and burned by Salka as a punishment for suggesting peace instead of war. Astria could not hear what the gods were saying but Salka was likely threatening the god. When the god came out, he would not talk about anything that happened, but he was as white as a ghost. As he turned around, Astria noticed a small fresh burn mark on his neck. Now, Astria felt scared, but knew she had to do something to stop Salka before things got out of hand. She found a few friends who she noticed always seemed upset when walking by Salka. Those friends each found a few more friends with the same purpose. Now they had 12 trustworthy gods on their side. This was far from enough to defeat the whole kingdom of over 300 gods who might side with Salka. Still, their time was running out and they started the fight at midnight. They rushed into Salka’s palace and Salka immediately rose into the sky with a laugh as if she had known their plan. “You will never defeat me,”she bellowed. Without turning back, Astria led the 11 other gods into the fight. I follow along with a blanket over me to hide my light. Salka sends a wave of fire toward the gods, but Astria gathers ice and easily blocks Salka’s favorite attack. Dullo weaves in front of his queen and destroys every wave of magic that comes from my owner. Woken by the noise, every god in the kingdom woke up. Surprisingly, every one of them helped fight Salka. Together, everyone sent a wave of power at Salka and Dullo all at once from every direction. Dullo could not fly fast enough to block hundreds of attacks that just kept coming. When these waves touched they formed two spheres that wrapped around Salka and Dullo. After thousands of years, the spheres containing Dullo and Salka fell into the universe. Dullo’s prison is now known as the moon and shines from Dullo’s light to represent hope. Salka’s prison is the Earth and the inside of Earth is very hot because of Salka’s powers. After Salka and Dullo left, Astria ruled the gods in peace and everyone was happy. The first 11 gods who helped Astria became generals. Down on Earth, Salka realizes her mistakes and occasionally cries, this is why volcanoes erupt.