STUDENT SAMPLES

From Stories with a View, Lesson 2

The Mouse

By Alex

      Once in 1850, when I was a boy, I had three older sisters. One day a mouse got into our house, in the living room. Well, at least my older sister said that she saw one. They all jumped up on the chairs and started to scream. Ellie, the youngest sister, didn't scream. She just looked at me.

   My oldest sister said in a scared voice, "It's by the door. I saw it go over there!" I noticed that she was holding a broom.

   "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

    She gave me a stick. "Find it! Get it out of here!"

   And then I saw the mouse. It was brown with a long, pink tail. It was eating a piece of cheese. I raised up my stick and it ran away. It ran right up toward my older sister and up onto the chair, right next to her! She screamed and hit it with the broom she was holding. Then they ran into the dining room and jumped up on the table.

   "Hey, you can't go up there!" I yelled at them, but they stayed on the table. I saw the mouse still sitting on the chair, stunned by the broom. I picked it up by its tail, walked over by my sisters, and waved it up in front of their faces. They screamed so loud it felt like my ear drums popped out. They ran to the opposite side of the house.

   I took the mouse and put it outside. I felt great because I, the youngest, was the one to get the mouse out and scare my sisters!

   Well, I shouldn't take that much credit for it, because I was the one who brought the mouse in !

Alex writes from Wisconsin.

Theme Essay for The Golden Goblet, submitted by M.P. in PA

    The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw is about Ranofer, an Egyptian boy who lives with his greedy half-brother, Gebu. Ranofer knows that Gebu is stealing but doesn't know how to prove it. Ranofer soon finds out that he must follow Gebu into the tombs of the pharaohs He is able to stop Gebu and warns the Queen. Throughout the story Ranofer slowly learns to trust other people. Learning to trust is one of the main ideas of the story.

    Ranofer is at first afraid to trust other people since his father has died and he seems to have no friends. Finally he makes friends with another boy at the goldsmith shop where he works and an old man who sells papyrus. But, he still has trouble trusting them with all his secrets. Ranofer finally tells them about his troubles with Gebu and how Gebu is stealing. If he never trusted these friends with his troubles, he would always be sad and never find the answer to his troubles. When he lets them be his friends, he has people to comfort him.

    It turns out that it's really important to have trusted these friends when he discovers Gebu robbing the tombs. Ranofer must run to get help and he leaves his friends to guard the entrance to the tomb. If he had never trusted them, he would have no one to help him now. Because he has trust in them, he is able to trap Gebu.

    Of all the bad things that happened to Ranofer, he did his best and received his reward by becoming a goldsmith's apprentice as he dreamed. He is no longer trapped in a miserable life with his half-brother. This could never have happened if he hadn't learned to trust.

Paragraph about a special pet from the guide for Stone Fox, submitted by K.D. in PA

    Moseby was the best dog we ever had. He was smart. He learned everything we taught him very quickly. He was also very cute. He was black with a white patch on his neck. He was hit by a car, though, because he wouldn't stay out of the road. We buried him under the apple tree and everyone cried. We didn't get another dog for a year after that because we loved him so much.