student example fiction

The room
By Charlotte Reber
Lamoille Union High School, Grade 10

“And this is my workshop,” said Parral, leading me into another room. The lights flicked on as we entered, and I found myself in a short, square room, made of a pale yellow stone, with columns in the corners that rose up to support the beams running below the pyramid-shaped roof. There were triangular skylights set neatly into the slanted ceiling, with tinted glass that gave the room a pleasant, yellowish ambient light, reflecting off the piles of junk and odd objects that were scattered all over the room.

“I really haven’t cleaned this place up in a while,” Parral said, shoving a crate of oranges off a chair and settling behind the large, curved desk of dark polished wood which appeared to be the cleanest part of the room. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Oh, watch out behind you.”

I jumped and looked behind me, then leapt out of the way as a chain of colored Chinese lanterns fell from one of the beams to dangle where I had been standing a moment ago.

By Colin Doherty
Champlain Valley Union High School, Grade 11

A unique celebration: A Wiccan night

By Camille Bower
Camels Hump Middle School, Grade 8

I crack my window open slightly, and the crisp feeling of almost-winter washes over me, causing goosebumps to pepper my skin. The darkness seeps through my room like magic, which, I think to myself, it is. Tonight, the world is magic.

By Rafferty Parke
Stowe High School, Grade 10

Maddie was terrible at waiting.

Mere moments of idleness were exhausting for her. At this particular moment, as she lingered at the doorway of the Golden Bridges Retirement Home, she was deciding what to do with her arms. When she crossed them, she felt she gave off an unapproachable air. Straight at her sides was too stiff a position; with hands in her pockets, too casual. She wished she had brought a bag to clutch.

Whiskey problems on the boy's mind
By Noah Gray
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

Whiskey. I hate it. The smell? A sour reek. The color? Like old wet hay. And the terrible effect it has had upon my family.

My name is Willy Nickels, and it was a year and a half ago that my brother, Bill Nickels, left our house to smuggle a load of whiskey down from Canada. The Nickelses have always been serious whiskey runners; my father — Robert — my father’s father and his father before him all smuggled liquor into America. My older brother Bill, he was no different.

This piece was written in response to the prompt that asked students to imagine what it was like to be born in a foreign land.

This was one of the 10th grade essays that won the 2005/06 Vermont Honors Competition for Excellence in Writing put on by the University of Vermont. (For the list of winners, click here.) Students in 10th grade were asked to respond to this: Someone once said, "life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by those special moments that take our breath away." Reflect upon your life thus far. Then, in a thoughtufl, well-developed essay, discuss those moments that have taken your breath away. (Students were allowed to write fiction.)

By Kayla Gatos
Champlain Valley Union High School

Her skin was chapped like a river bed during a long drought, and yet the wrinkles around her yes were soft. There was a certain hidden sparkle to her shriveling physical presence and a sweetness to her chocolate skin. Every day on my way to school she would be in the same place on her old front porch in taht rickety rocker just creaking back and forth to a smooth, steady rhythm.

Sometimes, in the eventings, if I didn't have too much to do, I would pick my way up her withering front walk and onto her porch. Ms. Howard knew I was there for I could see a shimmer in her glazed eyes. She never would stop rocking, though.

"Ava," she said, her voice splashing on rough stones, slowly dispersing through the air.

"Evening, Ms. Howard," I would reply. "The sunset's especially vibrant this time around."