Narratives

Narratives are any type of story that has a plot, characters, and a beginning, middle, and end. Fictional narratives can be of any genre. Personal narratives, or momoirs, tell of a true experience for the author. Vignettes are very short stories that stray from the common narrative form and take on a more poetic form.

Fostering Kittens  By: Eleanor P.  Genre: Memoir

My mom and I stepped out of the car into the S.P.C.A. parking lot. I was really excited, the animal shelter had called to tell us that they had a family of foster kittens, and we were going to take care of them. We stepped through the doors and a lady led us to the room where the kittens were. My first glimpse of them could have been one of the happiest moments of my life. There were six tiny balls of fluff, all of them surrounding their mother, struggling for milk. Every once in a while you could hear a tiny squeak coming from one of the little one day old kitties. The worker told us that someone had found them on their doorstep, and had brought them into the shelter. The whole family was put into a cat carrier and we drove them home. I spent the ride home peeking into the carrier, marveling over my family’s new addition. All of the cats were solid grey except for two kittens that had white tiger stripes on their faces. All of the babies still had their eyes closed, and their ears were tiny and pressed to their heads. We pulled up to my house and carefully brought them upstairs. I went to get my sister while my mom put out food for the mama. Marilyn, (my sister) my sister’s friend, my friend Kieren and I all rushed back to the house, and quietly tiptoed up the stairs. We weren’t allowed to pick the kittens up yet because they were too little so we left out some food, water and a litter box for the mama cat. Slowly the kittens started to grow. After a while I was allowed to hold them. The kitty fit into one hand. I still remember its warm, tiny body and its miniscule claws holding onto me. After several weeks, the first one opened one of its eyes. The one wide eye got all crusty at first, and it was a foggy blue color. Pretty soon the kittens started to get bigger, and we let them out of their room. That was when we made our mistake. You know how in all of those books with the cats in them the people always put out a saucer of milk, and the cats lap it up and everyone’s happy? Well those authors obviously have no experience with kittens, because kittens don’t drink cow milk. But of course we didn’t know this at the time. It was in the morning and I was eating my cereal. The newly freed kittens were crawling all over the kitchen; I remember that some of them were trying to attack my dad’s book bag. A few of them seemed to be interested in my cereal, so we had the idea to give them a bowl of milk. They lapped it up, and everything seemed fine, until they got sick. The poor kittens got a disgusting case of diarrhea, and of course this was after we let them roam freely through the entire house. The epidemic lasted a while, and I don’t even want to go into the nasty details, I’ll just tell you it was REALLY gross. The kittens went into the S.P.C.A. for checkups to be weighed, given medicine, shots, and all that other doctory stuff until they weighed two pounds. At two pounds they were old enough to be neutered\spayed, and then put up for adoption. This was a really hard time for us. Although we had gone through hardships, we still loved the kittens a lot. My friend Lillian adopted Runtii, (one of the kittens) and my family still has Luna and mama cat, aka Poesje. I still really miss all of the kittens and the times I had with them, and I hope they all found loving homes.

About the Author
//Eleanor P. is 13 years old. She loves reading, and is a huge __Harry Potter__ fan//. //She also enjoys going crazy with her friends while being possessed by sugar. Besides writing, other activities she does include pottery, singing, and running. Eleanor hopes you like her writing, although her adorable cats tried their best to distract her with their cute and fuzziness while she was doing it.//

__Hurt__ By: Lillian B. Genre: Vignette

It’s that thing that bottles itself up inside of you. It makes you question yourself, wondering if you can even go on. Your head spins, you feel like your heart is shattered, it’s scattered across the world, and you can barely breathe. You doubt that anybody has ever felt this awful pain, the uncomfortable ache eating you away. You think that you will never get through this, even with your family and friends saying, “This is just an obstacle.” And, “Just wait, everything is going to be okay, I promise.” Because inside, you don’t believe them, //how can they promise things that aren’t in their control?// you think. Even if on the outside you wipe away your tears, nod, and try to smile. It doesn’t help though, because you’re just pushing your feelings away, where they never come out from their hiding places until you are alone, with no comfort, your heart pierced, and your soul wounded.

// Lillian B. is an extremely emotional, strange teenager. She loves hanging out with her friends and pretending that she is older than she is while drinking cappuccinos with espresso shots! Her favorite subjects are English, Science, and French because of her teachers, She loves traveling, reading, writing, and is obsessed with strawberries. She also enjoys parties, music, musicals, and watching Glee (she doesn't care if you think this is lame because Glee is awesome.). Lillian loves summer, but she misses her friends and awesome teachers during it. //
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