Green Meadows Elementary School in Frankfort held a writing, composition contest to promote and develop writing skills among students. Grab a cup of coffee and sit down with the winning stories for each grade level, written by 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, age 8 to 11.
Each story starts with the cliff-hanging opening….”It was a dark night.”
You’ll have to read each story below to find out what happened on that dark night. The four winners in each grade were selected by Green Meadows judges for:
- Most Creative
- Most Descriptive
- Funniest
- Scariest, Most Spin-Tingling
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Aliens In The Field by Isael Lopez Couoh
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick or treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open and an old lady was standing there. “Trick or treat!” we shouted. She gave us candy before leaning down and telling us “Don’t go into the cornfield” in a hushed voice.
My friend and I were confused why she would said that. We looked at her puzzled. “Want to hear a story,” she whispered, “come inside and I’ll tell you!” It felt like a bad idea. We’ve been told by our parents forever not to trust strangers, but our curiosity got the best of us. We went inside and sat on the sofa while she sat in a rocking chair and began to speak, reminiscing of the distant past.
“A long time ago,” she continued, “late in the night on a Halloween evening when I was just a little girl, seven years of age, my parents and I were out in a cornfield looking up at the stars above. They were bright, sparkling, and all together brilliant looking. My dad had always been a fan of the universe – looking through telescopes, mapping constellations, and tracking movements of the stars. It clicked that night for him that we were always seeing light from far away places. He decided that night it would be fun to point a heavy-duty construction light up towards the sky so we could be the ones letting the stars see our light… that’s when the unexpected happened!” We sat on the edge of the couch in great anticipation.
“A light up in the sky replied with a pattern of its own flashes. It got brighter and brighter before we realized it was getting closer to us! Something landed in the cornfield, the same cornfield this house and roadway now sits on. We all ran for safety, except my father who stood there, entranced. My mom and I made it away safely, but my father disappeared that night and has not been seen since. I bought this house in hopes that one day he might return to the place he went missing and I can see him again.” She continued to tell us about strange happenings around her house and what’s left of the original field next to it. We thanked her for the candy and headed home to tell my parents. “Well, dear, it sounds like a fun, made-up spooky story – it didn’t really happen,” my mother said. I believed it though. Every night, I heard weird noises coming from the field that I had never noticed before. I wanted to get to the bottom of it, so I investigated myself. I put cameras up around the cornfield to capture anything moving through it, like hunters do when they are trying to figure out where animals are. I thought I might see pictures of a skunk or deer. The next day when I went to check the footage, I found the cameras broken. My plan didn’t work. So, I was left with no other choice. I needed to enter the cornfield myself. That night, I snuck out and ventured into the rows of corn. The noises I was tracking got louder and louder until suddenly, I saw it. Impossible! There were ALIENS! I tried to make a video but stepped on a piece of corn and startled them. I thought I was done for. I couldn’t get my phone out of my pocket in time. I turned and ran for my life, but it was too late…
Isael Lopez Couoh, Author
Fifth Grade – Most Creative
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Mellie Stillwell, Author
It was a dark night. My friend and I were out trick-or-treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open…an old man about 69 years old came and spoke to us with a strained and smoky voice, “Hello girls…Would you like to come in?” Just then, out of nowhere, it started to storm behind us. We shivered from the cold winds, and since Reagan and I are terrified of storms, we agreed to wait inside for the storm to pass.
I don’t want to be mean or anything but the inside of the house looked like if it was 100 years old! The paint was tearing off, there were cobwebs in every corner, the floor was creaking, and there were even old scary dolls on every shelf! As I looked around, I thought to myself, “I’m starting to regret my choice.” Just then, I turned to tell Reagan this was a bad idea. WAIT! Where was Raegan? I yelled out her name but she was nowhere to be found… he old man was also gone. I looked all over the house with no luck. There was one room that I tried to avoid – the basement. No such luck. I wanted to find my friend, so I slowly opened the cellar door and tiptoed down the wooden staircase.
It was so creepy! There were prison cells and bones everywhere! I wanted to leave but I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave my best friend behind. I was looking around when I heard someone scream! Frightened, I ran in the direction the scream came from. It was Raegan! She was locked up in chains and the old man was coming out of a doorway, holding a saw! Our eyes met and he started to walk towards me. Just a few feet away, his phone started make sounds – he was receiving a call. He glared at me, told me to be quiet and stay put. It must have been important because took the call upstairs, saying, “I’ll be back.” I noticed something though. He had left his keys hanging from the lock of the door he got the saw out of.
I grabbed the keys and unlocked the cell, but I didn’t know what to do about the chains. I told Raegan to stay calm and that I would find something to use to set her free. She responded in a nervous and heartbroken voice, “Please make it fast!” And then in a whisper, she added, “And be careful because he can hear Every. Move. You. Make.” I was scared. I crept back over to the opened closet door and looked around inside. I found a hammer! I took it down to where Raegan was and I smashed the chains…“BAM”. The chains broke open, freeing Reagan, but we both knew our time was short. The man had heard it all and came storming down the stairs, yelling angrily. “Where are you brats?! Show yourselves!” We hid under the stairs and let him walk passed us to the other side of the basement. It was now or never. We sprinted up the stairs and slammed the door shut, locking it behind us. We heard the man begin to bellow, but we didn’t stick around to hear what he said.
We ran home, our feet barely touching the ground. We burst through the front door of my house and began to frantically tell my parents about all that had just happened. “Haha. Good story – it’s a spooky one alright!” They didn’t listen then and haven’t listened since. They don’t believe us. My friends and I, however, will ALWAYS remember and be haunted by the events of that night.
Mellie Stillwell, Author
Fifth Grade – Descriptive
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Reagan Johnson, Author
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick or treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open. We went in not knowing what to do. We looked around from just inside the door and saw that it looked like the inside of a home from a horror film. That should have been our clue to get out of there, but the smell of sweet candy caught our attention. We followed our noses through the house, up one hallway and down another trying to find its source. As we got closer, the smell grew sweeter and we could hear rustling of plastic and candy wrappers. There was a half eaten bag of sour skittles. More noises. We crept forward, turning a corner and saw… “Mrs. Queen-Link?! Is that you?!” we all shouted. She turned her head to look at us while eating from my sister’s half-eaten bag of trick-or-treat candy. We stepped forward onto the kitchen floor. It looked to be made of chalkboard material, and it sounded like it was being scratched each time we stepped on it. The high-pitched noise startled Mrs. Queen-Link from her stupor and scared her. She screamed. We screamed. She ran. We ran! We all split up. I ended up in a weird looking school gym only to see our gym teache, Mr. Catron, throwing a tennis ball at the wall back and forth to himself. I walked out of the gym to find another place to hide, but suddenly heard Mr. Ramos singing. I thought to myself that this had to be a dream. I kept walking. A classroom. The cafeteria. Another classroom. Each room I walked past, there was a teacher at the front of the room instructing a classroom of students that were not there! “They must be out of their minds!” I thought. I kept walking, trying to find my friends and slowly, one by one, we met up until we were all gathered together again. We started to debrief with each other, but we were interrupted by Miss Martin. She was holding a stack of papers in her hand, waving it in the air at us, all of them with large red “Fs” written along the top. She asked us, “What are you doing at the Haunted School?” We looked at each other. “This school is only for students who are in seventh grade or higher!” Our mouths opened wide in total disbelief about what we were seeing and hearing. We stuttered but no one could come up with what to say. We walked home, slowly, thinking about and trying to process it all. Suddenly, I had a thought pop into my head that caused me to start laughing. My friends gave me a look. “Did you notice that Mr. Miller had hair?!” My friends started laughing too.
Reagan Johnson, Author
Fifth Grade – Funniest
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EL CHUPACABRA by Francisco Hernandez Reyna
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out Trick-or-Treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open. It was dark inside and no one was home. It made no sense, there was a car outside. We decided to explore. We heard some noise in the basement and decided to go look. We didn’t find anything. We ventured back up the stairs, all the way to the second floor. There was a rusty mattress in one room and walls stained with streaks of red… handprints followed by long lines from fingertips smearing it. Then, it clicked. It was blood! A slight movement in the corner of the room illuminated two eyes staring back at us in the dark room. It was a black cat. A bad omen! We ran out of the house and back through the yard towards the woods. Crunch. Snap. Something was following after us! We made it through the creek and woods to the neighboring animal farm with goats and sheep. Out of breath, we asked the farmer for help. While explaining the situation, we heard a goat yelp loudly. We ran back to the barn and saw two holes in its neck. It laid on its side, lifeless. It seemed like the creature had sucked all of its blood. The farmer did not act surprised, so we asked him if he knew what creature could have done this. He started telling us about the Chupacabra. We listened carefully. There was a noise off in the distance. The farmer grabbed a rifle and looked around for the creature. It seemed like it ran to the woods. The farmer handed us shovels so we would be armed, just in case the Chupacabra came back. The farmer ran to the woods leaving us behind with shovels and crowbars. We heard a sheep yelp. We ran back to the sheep just to see that it too was now laying on the floor with two holes in its neck. We turned to run back towards the farmhouse, but there it was. It was a dog-like creature with spikes coming out of its back. It had red eyes that glared through you, razor-sharp claws and a short tail. Its teeth were daggers, sharp enough to easily cut through one’s flesh. It stared at us. We stared at it. Being nearly 8 feet tall, we knew we didn’t stand a chance. Still, with no other option, we stood our ground, ready to fight. It leapt at us. I swung my shovel. Ouch! It shredded the top of my hand. It reared up over me, ready to take a final blow. That’s when we heard gunshots. The tip of the farmer’s gun still smoking. The Chupacabra screeched an ear-piercing yell and ran away. The farmer grabbed me and took me and friend back to his truck, driving me to the hospital. I had to get stitches and to this day, my right hand remains nothing but scars. I never went trick or treating after that again.
Francisco Hernandez Reyna, Author
Fifth Grade – Spine-tingling
Sawyer Bandy, Author
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick-or-treating when we knocked on this weird looking door, and it slowly creeped open. “Well let’s go in,” my friend said. “Why do you want to go in there?,” I asked. “Can we just go to a different house?” I was outnumbered. My other friend said, “Let’s go in.” As we walked in the house, we were all super scared. We walked forward timidly before making the mistake of looking up. There were skeletons hanging on the chandelier. I was ready to pee my pants from fear. “I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go!” I said. “Well, let’s find a bathroom quickly then,” my friends piped up. We hurried through the house, looking for a restroom. When we finally found one, there was a bat sitting on the toilet inside and another bat taking a bath.
“Ahhhhhhhh!,” we all yelled. We ran to a bedroom door nearby and opened it. What we saw inside was downright terrifying. There were vampires sleeping upside down in a coffin. Did you catch that? Not one. There were TWO vampires inside! “Oh my goodness, run for your lives!” I shouted. We ran. And ran. And ran thinking they would be following us. Looking back over our shoulders, we didn’t notice the closed door at the end of the dark hallway. Smack! Thud. We smashed right into it, knocking ourselves out. We awoke to a strange, yet sweet smell coming from the kitchen. We followed our noses, more slowly this time. As we approached the cooking area, we saw skeletons cooking creepy pancakes with eyeballs in them. They were serving them on plates with blood syrup. I wanted to barf. “I gotta go. I gotta go. I gotta go!” I said again.
Just then, we heard a noise from behind us. It was a giant jack-o-lantern. It began chasing us. “Head to the laundry room!” my friend shouted. We ducked, dipped, and dodged all the scary things before diving into the washroom and closing the door tight. “Whew. We made it,” I exclaimed! It was dark, but we were safe, at least we thought. “Who just touched me?” my friend asked, quietly. “Not me,” I said. “Not me.” “Not me.” We all felt around in the air before finding the hanging string to pull and turn on the light. The room quickly illuminated. Staring back at us was eight eyes. Did you catch that? Not one or two or three or five, but EIGHT eyes! Large ones. A daddy long leg two feet in diameter hung upside down from the ceiling next to the light switch. “I gotta go! I gotta go! I gotta go!” I shouted.
We ran out of the laundry room and towards the stairs to find a way out of this place. On our way, we ran into a giant pair of hairy toes. The stinky feet stood between us and freedom. We ducked into a closet for temporary safety, buying us time to brainstorm a solution. Luckily, we found giant wax strips on one of the closet shelves. We had to face our fears. Armed with the ammunition to help us, we swung open the door and yelled, “Charge!” We waxed those toes. We waxed ‘em good! We made it down the stairs and out the front door. Just as we started to cheer, I said, “I went. I went. I went.”
Sawyer Bandy, Author
Fourth Grade – Funniest
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Skinny by Aspen Hickman
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick or treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open. “GUYS!” Nova exclaimed. “What?” I asked. “It’s time to go home!” She answered. CRACK! BOOM! Thunder and lightning suddenly filled the night sky and it started to rain. “Ahhhh! It’s raining so hard!” Feeling sad our night of fun was being cut short, we decided to take the party back to my house. We ran home and went to my room, and turned on the tv. We gossiped, redid our costume makeup, and sang our favorite songs. In the middle of my friend telling me a story about her dog, I heard a faint scratching noise. “Guys? What is that?” I asked. “That whistling. Don’t you guys hear it?” They all said they didn’t hear anything, but I did, and I continued to hear it on and off for closer to an hour. By this time, the storm had passed and there was a knocking on the door downstairs. “Not it!” we all yelled in unison. My friend, Nova, said it last, so she was the one we made go answer the door. We figured trick-or-treaters had come back out for round two of the evening, but we could not have been more wrong. Nova answered the door and there was a white figure standing there – no face and only little sprouts of hair coming out of what was supposed to be its head. We ran back up the stairs and sought shelter anywhere we could find it. I hid in my closet with Jose and Leland. Nova hid under my bed. Olivia hid behind…. Wait! Olivia was still downstairs! “We never shut the door!” I screamed. I lunged out of hiding into my bedroom and bounded back down the stairs. It was too late. She was nowhere to be found. Whatever that ‘creature’ was had gotten her.
I wept for my lost friend and ran back up the stairs. The tv changed from a static mess to the local news station. The news anchor reported, “Today on EFG News we’ll be talking about the Skinwalkers. Skinwalkers are white figures with only little bits of hair on their heads. They will prey on almost any living being. It is said that they make a sort of whistling sound. If you hear a scratching or knocking sound on your door, you are advised to call the police immediately and take shelter. If one infiltrates your house and gets a kill, skinwalkers are known to morph into the image of that person or animal. Just then, Olivia came slowly walking up the stairs and into my bedroom…
Aspen Hickman, Author
Fourth Grade – Most Descriptive
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Ashley Byrne, Author
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick-or-treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open and we heard a loud scream. It was from one of our friends who had just been with us. “She was here a minute ago,” I said. “We need to find her now!” We followed the scream inside and the door slammed shut behind us. I pulled on the door handle to open it back up, but it was jammed shut. Mela screamed “Layla is gone! We are going to be here forever!” “Don’t worry. We are going to be ok,” I said. When she calmed down, I looked around and all the windows were boarded up and stained with blood. I was terrified. “H-h-hello?” I stuttered. I saw a 10 foot tall figure with dark, glowing red eyes staring back at me from one of the highest windows in the house, above the stairs. I froze, panicked, too afraid to blink. My friends finally noticed and it quickly disappeared. In its absence, the moon shined brightly into the house and over the cobweb covered furniture inside. As we caught our breath, we heard a loud howl outside, “Owoooooooooo!” I glanced away from the window and fixed my eyes back on the stairwell. I saw Layla’s face and melted in happy tears, “You are okay!” She smiled back. The stairs creaked as she moved down them, coming closer. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed sooner. She was upside down, still smiling ear to ear. There was blood coming from her mouth and corners of her eyes. “Nooo!” I yelled. She was clearly not herself. She pounced on us, knocking us all over like bowling pins. We managed to wrestle ourselves free and ran for the door. Running outside, the front door slammed shut once again behind us. We immediately noticed a trail of blood on the ground. It covered the grass and a patch of tall weeds from what once was the house’s flower garden. Feeling like we were safe from the dangers inside, we followed the trail around to the back of the house. We saw Layla, again. She was tied up in ropes and had tape all over her face. She had muffled screams for help and tears were rolling down her eyes. We rushed to untie her, believing this was the real Layla. It was! We darted to my house and crashed on the couch under blankets, Layla telling us what happened.
“Something dragged me behind the house and tied me in ropes and put tape all over me, even my mouth. I could not breathe at all at first, but I managed to get that piece of tape off. The last thing I saw before you guys coming around the house was a big black figure. It stared at me and turned into my eyes, looking into my soul, gently at first before an evil, angry glare came over its face.” “What a fun spooky story,” my mom said. “No! It really happened!” we all clamored. Well then, it seems you won’t be going trick-or-treating by yourselves ever again,” she replied. My parents sent all of my friends back to their houses and we settled in for the evening. I had some candy and dinner. Mom made her famous chicken and noodle soup. When I was done, I went up to bed, and prayed that I never come across another house like that ever again.
Ashley Byrne, Author
Fourth Grade – Most Creative
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The Skinwalker on Cherry Lane by Mason Hodgen
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out Trick-or-treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open and an invisible force pulled us inside. Then the door slammed shut. Nate said, “Uh, is that normal?” I replied with, “No!” We then looked to see a creepy picture of a white thin man that looked tall staring at us through the picture. Jack said, “Do you hear something?” Just then Jack heard whispers saying, “Get out…” We all then heard a buzzing sound.
Just then tons of mosquitoes came swooping down. It sounded like they were buzzing. “You made a mistake!” We then heard an eerie sound coming from upstairs. Jack yelled, “There’s a monster upstairs!” Me and Nate said, “Shut up!” One last mosquito’s buzz sounded like, “He knows you’re here…” I said. “Let’s get into the dining room.” Nate heard whispers saying, “Don’t go in there…”
We then walked in and… BAM! I screamed “Get me out of the cage!” Jack and Nate tried to find a key to get me out. Jack screamed, “Ahhhhh! It’s in my head, get it out!” Nate then grabbed Jack and started to shake his head. Jack screamed, “Stop, it’s out of my head!” We then all heard a dog barking. I yelled, “Get me out first, the cage is rusty and I am hearing muffled voices!” Jack then found a key and got me out of the cage.
We then went upstairs and then we opened a door and we were met with blinding lights. Nate screamed. I said, “What are those things on the floor?” Jack said, “Only one way to find out.” We walked in and squinted our eyes. We then felt crunching below us. We looked down and there were ants all over the floor. I heard a whisper saying, “I see you.” We then saw a set of stairs and we went up them.
When we got up the stairs there was a tall yet thin, white silhouette of a misshapen human in the corner of the attic. We all screamed in horror as it turned around revailing a deformed man smiling with jagged teeth. Then it charged at us revealing thousands of sharp teeth screaming at us. It jumped at Nate. Just in the knick of time, he grabbed a metal baseball bat and hit him hard across his head. It screamed at us again and this time turned to charge at me. Nate jumped on his back and hit his head again. It then fell right out of the window. The cops heard the bang and came to investigate. They took it away, and we got out safely before heading home for the night.
Mason Hodgen, Author
Fourth Grade – Spine-tingling
Adalie Byers, Author
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick or treating when we knocked on a weird looking door and then it creepily opened. It was a small house, not too big. We walked in and all we saw was a dark kitchen. In fact, the whole house was dark and gave off an eerie feeling. We heard a creaking noise and thought it was just the door, but we felt a gust of wind and heard a voice say, “I can see you! Why are you here?!” We both got red faced like a tomato.
Then we heard a voice from outside by the road shout, “Get out quickly! That house is haunted!” That’s when we saw it. The voice inside wasn’t a person, it was a zombie. He stood there next to a vampire, both looking hungry. “We have to get out of here before they eat us”, I told my friend. That’s when the vampire and zombie started to charge our way. The zombie looked angry while the vampire moved swiftly with a grin on his face. “What are they going to do to us?” my friend asked shakily. That’s when we noticed a barren, dost-covered skeleton in the corner of the room – the last person to enter the house! Next to it, there was another skeleton – still in the clothes he had worn into the house years prior. We both cringed and looked away, only to see another zombie, more mad than the one charging our direction. He took one look at us and started to run our way as well. He had a sledgehammer. There were cobwebs on the sledgehammer, along with names written up and down the handle – names belonging to those who were now skeletons found around the house. Our faces were white, drained of emotion. We both saw smoke, the room was filling with it. We struggled to breathe. The door behind us slammed shut and we heard a key jingle in the lock. My friend stepped back and tried to open it with no luck. We were locked in. Trapped. My friend started crying, sobbing uncontrollably. We were scared.
A welcome distraction came from the top of the stairs – a noise. No one but the zombie seemed to know what it was. The noise got louder and a small figure came into view. The zombie welcomed his friend Bob. Bob was a hand that ran around on finger tips, no head. No body. He somehow managed to carry another, smaller sledgehammer – more names written up and down the wooden and worn handle. The vampire, remembering that we were there, again started to run at us with all its might. My friend and I turned to run around the creatures, but quickly remembered that vampires can fly as fast as cars. “We are doomed,” I thought. We ran headfirst, with everything in us, thinking we might get lucky. We managed to move through the smoke and into another room, thinking we had evaded the vampire. When we had gotten far enough away from the smoke, we looked up to see the vampire perched in the corner of the ceiling, ready to leap our way. Randomly, a dancing bunny appeared, telling us his name was Timmy. We looked back to the corner of the ceiling, only to find a man’s beard hanging where the vampire once gazed down. Momentarily, my friend and I allowed ourselves to laugh out loud.
Determined, we continued onward, into a new room trying to find a way to escape. A rolling ball came from nowhere. We hurried along faster in the darkness. We made our way into a spooky kitchen and that’s when we heard Harry Styles singing “Watermelon Sugar”. We started to laugh again, forgetting about all of the other madness around us. I snapped out of it, just in time to look back and see that the gaggle of creatures was still pursuing us. I started to run again, but I slipped on a huge puddle of dark red blood on the kitchen’s tile floor. I tried to get up, but I could not. I felt something heavy around my ankles. When I looked down, Bob and Timmy were there wrapping my legs with chains. The zombie pressed a button and more chains came down from the ceiling. Before I knew it, my arms and legs were restrained. I struggled to wiggle loose. I heard a noise, something from behind me. It grabbed my neck. I never made it out of the house.
Adalie Byers, Author
Third Grade – Most Creative
Adley Lowery, Author
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick-or-treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open and I walked inside with my friends. We were walking around trying to find the owner. Suddenly, a zombie came out chasing us. We screamed trying to find safety. We found a room so we ran in as quickly as we could and hid in the corner of a closet inside. We stayed there, breathing quietly, for a couple of minutes before we felt safe enough to make a dash for it. My stomach was craving something sweet, but our candy stash had been taken. My friend Estrella said, “Before we leave, let’s see if there is candy in the kitchen anywhere.” We ventured that direction, only to have a vampire appear in the opposite corner of where we were standing. We scoured the room for a flashlight and shined it at the vampire. It turned into coal immediately! We continued our search for candy and found some. We helped ourselves before hearing another noise in the adjoining room. It frightened us, so we turned and ran out of the kitchen. I wanted to go home. My friend Emerson said, “I don’t feel really good.” I asked him what he had just eaten. The fourth friend in our group, Benjamin, said, “I saw him eat hard candy eyeballs that had something red inside of them.” Estrella said, “It might be something that is not good for humans.” Immediately, Emerson ran to a nearby bathroom to throw up. He returned just as quickly, out of breath, panting, “I just walked into a room with 1,000 ghosts and they all turned to chase me. We have to hurry!” I had enough. I pulled my phone out to dial 911, but as I pressed the 9, my phone ran out of battery and died.
Realizing that our backs were against the wall and we had no other way out, we looked for things we could protect ourselves with. Benjamin had a chocolate powder launcher. Emerson had a really sticky bubble gum launcher. Estrella had a marshmallow goo launcher. I had a jolly rancher launcher. We pulled our candy launchers out and pointed them at the ghosts heading our way. “On the count of three,” I shouted! “One. Two. Three!” We shot the ghosts with our sugary treats… or most of us at least. Benjamin said, “My launcher wasn’t filled with chocolate powder.” We struggled to reload. Panicked, we looked up and saw a dropdown attic ladder. I scurried up the stairs, only to find skeletons inside… one doing the scary spooky skeleton dance. We allowed ourselves to laugh. It began to chase us. In our haste to exit the kitchen, we had left our launchers downstairs. We were in trouble. We moved slowly over the rafters, but fell through the ceiling into a portal. We somehow teleported from the haunted house to a random place in Texas. We jumped back in, hoping it would take us back home. It did. We landed in the middle of what was called the “Monster Fighting Place”. Every monster imaginable was now present and we were right there with them. We managed to get our candy launchers and the fight began. We shot the monsters one by one until only the vampires were left. We found garlic and threw it at them. We heard more monsters coming from the cellar, though, so we ran out of the house and found a neighbor’s phone to dial 911. Moments later, we heard the police sirens heading our way. Officers arrived and we directed them upstairs to the attic. “Don’t fear. We’ve brought millions of handcuffs with us,” said one officer. We followed behind the officers and watched as they arrested each and every monster in the house. We finally made our way home, hugged our parents, and lived happily ever after knowing we had won the battle with the monsters!
Adley Lowery, Author
Third Grade – Most Descriptive
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Arianna Crews, Author
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick-or-treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open… “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. RUN! It is chasing us! We need to call 911! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! It’s back now!”
My hands are shaking. I was breathing hard. “Lily? Where is Lily? Lily! Lily!” I have goosebumps. This is bad, I thought.
“911 – what’s your emergency?” I shouted into the phone. “My friend is missing!” “Ok we are sending someone out!”
I continued running. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! It has a knife! Wait! Oh my goodness” I saw her up ahead of me. “Lily is here, she’s here!” “Where have you been?” I asked. Before she could answer, the thing running behind me came into view. Lily and I both gave one another a look. “Mr.Ramos?” we said, surprised. “Why are you chasing us?!”
“To give you your work, duh!” he said. “So you’re not holding a knife?” “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Why would you thank that?” “I don’t know, but don’t do that again!”
Arianna Crews, Author
Third Grade – Funniest
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Sophia Mora-Salinas, Author
It was a dark night. My friends and I were out trick or treating when we knocked on this weird looking door. It slowly creeped open. Inside there was dust all over the house. I went upstairs and there were rats everywhere. Blood was splattered on the mirrors. When we were walking you could hear footsteps, but they weren’t our own. We entered another door and saw a couch with cat hair and stuff sticking out of it. We looked in the kitchen to see if someone was there, but we only found a random white dress, stained blood red. My friend said it was weird. “Yeah…that is kind of weird,” I said. We continued forward and bravely opened the last at the end of the hallway. It was a bedroom and inside there was a broken, shredded up mattress, like someone had cut it with scissors. At this point, I thought it was an abandoned house, but we were wrong. We saw a shadow move behind us. We quickly pivoted, looking around us to see what might have been the culprit. We saw nothing. We heard nothing. We decided it was time to get out of the house! We both had an weary feeling about it all. Outside, there were dry, stiff plants in the garden and a black cat meowing a few short feet away. It came closer and as we bent down to pet it, it took off towards the house and jumped into an open basement window. We followed closely behind and say a lady wearing the stained wedding dress from the kitchen! She disappeared before our eyes. Creepy? You bet. We had to go back inside, though. Putting our legs through first, we slid through the window on our bellies and landed on the dirt cellar floor beneath. It was dark and damp inside, the smell of mildew was in the air. We could see a dim light, flickering on the other side of the basement. We cautiously made our way closer. It was a candle, sitting on a small wooden table with a bowl of odd looking candies next to it. Being hungry, we both decided to eat one. We instantly felt dizzy and tired. Everything went black.
We woke up in the cellar, laying on dusty, cob-web covered couches. There were crumbled balls of paper on the floor all around us. We each grabbed one off the ground and began to read what was written. It didn’t take long to realize that they were pages from a diary. It was clear the pages has been written by a little girl because of talk about dolls and dresses and chores around the kitchen at home on the farm. My friend and I were captivated by the entries. We stayed and read one after another. I picked one up, unwrinkled it and began reading. The page contained an entry from October 31, 1883. The little girl was explaining her excitement about going trick-or-treating as a scary bride that night to a neighbor’s house that looked exactly like the one we found ourselves inside of. Another entry outlined how she had been kidnapped and turned into a ghost… My friend and I looked up, frantically, and decided it was time to get out of there, once and for all. The problem was, the window was now boarded shut and there were only two doors we could find – both locked. I tripped over a small music box in the darkness of the room. We opened up and found a key with a note. The note said, “Do not dare read these pages, or you shall pay the price!” We trembled in fear. We took the key and jiggled it in the first door. No luck. We shuffled our feet to the next, put the key inside, and twisted. CLICK! It opened! Inside, the ghost with the stained wedding dress floated in the air. It held another diary entry with today’s date. It said, “There’s no escape. You’re next.” We screamed. Nobody heard us.
Sophia Mora-Salinas, Author
Third Grade – Spine-tingling
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Brandon Doub, Assistant Principal at Green Meadows Intermediate told Kaspar Media the contest is now in its second year. The fun contest is designed to encourage and engage students’ writing abilities and showcase the talents and achievements of Green Meadow students. The Green Meadow’s “Reading Engagement Committee” helped develop the contest and facilitated the project in cooperation of Green Meadow schoolteachers and administrators.
Green Meadows’ “Reading Engagement Committee” is a group of staff members dedicating themselves to foster a love for all things reading and writing. The committee’s goal is to create opportunities for students to engage with reading and writing in enjoyable and meaningful ways. So far this year, Green Meadows has hosted an author visit, held a schoolwide writing contest, and is currently in the process of planning a whopper of an event for the Spring – a “Battle of the Books”.
For the above “Finish the Scary Story Contest”, students at Green Meadows were provided with nothing more than a story prompt and given the freedom to run with their creative juices! Winners were chosen for the following categories in each grade-level: Funniest, Most Descriptive, Most Creative, and Most Spine-tingling.
Members of the Reading Engagement Committee include: Katie Akers, Lizbeth Carrillo, Dan Miller, Connie Sanders, Claire Dehn, Brandon Doub, and Lindsey Bultman
As an aside, Green Meadows is always looking for volunteers to assist around the building, inside and out. If you have the time and would be willing to volunteer, please reach out to Brandon Doub to discuss your talents and how they could be utilized at Green Meadows. He can be reached at [email protected] or 765.659.3233.
