It's Lit - January 2017

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It’s Lit

A literary magazine by 8th graders

Issue #1 Riddle: I don’t have eyes, but once I did see. Once I had thoughts, but now I’m white and empty? What am I? Read our next issue for the answer!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SHORT FICTION

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SLIGHTLY SCARY TALES “EVE STARLIGHT – APOCAPLYPSE PROJECT #2” “THE CHRISTMAS PARTY” MISCELLANEOUS FICTION “THE FORETOLD KIDNAPPING”

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LOVE DOC WES MARTIN

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MATTHEW BAILEY…. EXPOSED!

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THE POETRY DUNGEON “BAD AND BOUJEE – THE CLEAN VERSION”

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STORY OF MY LIFE: CREATIVE NONFICTION LIVING WITH THE LISKEYS “EMMA”

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Short Fiction

Slightly Scary Tales and more!

Eve Starlight-­‐ Apocalypse Project 2#: A Slightly Scary Tale

The darkness feels almost oppressive, crushing my life and the very will to live from my body. Or whatever remains of me, Eve Starling. I can’t seem to escape, wherever I am. I can only assume it's a forest, or whatever is left of one. I can see rubble on the ground, petrified trees, stumps, small skeletons, and even sometimes the occasional human remains. All of which are rotting, and force me to turn away.

A constant reminder that there is no hope. No escape around me. Yet the sky still turns blue and cloudless, and at night it’s starkly silent, but at night I have to run under the mocking stars to escape the creatures that killed the rest of my group. This forest had a purpose once.

It’s been abandoned from a time before me, before anyone I knew or anyone I used to know, considering it’s been about two months now and the rest of my groups been eradicated.

I shiver at a breeze and manage to take another step forward. Just one more step, then another, then more after that… this routine seems to be the only thing that keeps the madness at bay. It’s slowly approaching sundown, and another day is ending. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep running tonight.

Terror and fear are so much easier to give into than hope. Hope causes too many falsities. I don’t have time for falsities. I only have time to

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“A constant reminder that there is no hope.”

survive. I hear a loud click echo through the forest. I don’t even have the strength to jump, or even feel as much fear as I used to. I start at a slow pace, but I can’t go much faster. I look around for the light and see it through the trees. If I can get there, I’ll be safe. The creatures can’t get to me. Then I’ll get food and clean water.

My knee gives out and I collapse to the ground and roll. I have to bite my lip to avoid yelling. My already shredded jeans have a new blood stain on them. I can see the hundreds of thin white scars stretching across my leg, and a new one letting droplets of blood stain my ragged pants. I stand up as quickly as I can, but I can hear the metallic screeching. I won’t make it in time. I have to accept this. I won’t go down without trying. My knees threaten to give out again but I break out into a run, going as fast as I can to the light. I hear another screech as a creature steps out in front of me.

It takes all I have to stop myself from crashing into it. The creature robotically clicks its head to the side. This one has two long slashes where eyes should be, a grinning mouth with rusty, jagged, and blood stained fangs.

Instead of a nose, there is another gash, except it’s possible to see a disgusting grey-­‐green liquid moving slowly through tubes that run through the entire creature. The creature is on all fours, although one of its hands looks almost human, and that hand is twitching like it’s alive.

It looks like it had two ears, but one was

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Subject: Eve Starling Subject Title: Test Subject Number One (Has won 15 Tests as of Test 18) Recent DataSurvived Test Eighteen: Three Months, Two Weeks, Three Days, Seventeen Hours, Four Minutes, Forty-Eight Seconds Success:. Body is to be Reused for Test Nineteen, Reuse Survival/Factual Memories Thoughts: Maybe Humanity will have a chance now with her… Sixty-Two Tests Left Signing out: Scientist Harcen Thorn, Apocalypse Project 2#

running down its blood splattered neck. It’s completely covered in a grey-­‐green matted fur like substance. From deep within the eye slashes, a red light pulses.

I automatically cringe away. This looks like the one that killed off Jacobi and Sierra. Most likely it is the same one. I try to back off but it springs forward and jabs one of its animal-­‐like paws into my thin leg. It’s claws burrow deep and I screech. My vision becomes tinted black and red, and dots of light dart across what I can see.

I use my arms to push it away with as much strength as I can muster. It drags its claws out slowly, leaving gashes down my leg. I start limping towards the light again, but I hear a metallic screech and the creature is next to me again. It has a tail, and this tail is clicking back and forth. Part of the tail is missing too. It turns its head and digs its teeth into my other leg. I can’t help it when I fall, screaming. My blood is turning black and I realize there is no coming back.

They planned for this. Whoever placed me here planned this out, meant for me to die.

The black blood meant that poison had been added to the claws of the creature. I turned away from it as the creature ran its claws across my back. I screamed at the top of my lungs, although I knew no help would be coming for me anytime soon.

I hear a sound and weakly look up. A ghostly pale figure is weaving through the trees, and as they approach me I still cannot make out a form, but I hear voices. Everyone that died here, it sounded. I don’t feel as the

creature closes its jaws around my neck. The figure takes my hand and I’m gone as I hear bones snap, and a body go limp beneath the spirit and I. I look down in time to see the creature collapse next to my body and fade to a pile of ash. The spirit looks at me.

“You’ve succeeded again, Eve. Congrats.

You shall be used for nineteen in approximately two days,” it says to me and I nod, all the test memories coming back. My “spirit” fades into darkness, before it rejoins the room of other ‘spirits’, who pat me resignedly on the back. We are all just humans, who are slowly losing our humanity to these tests. They use our “‘spirits”’ to run the tests. Every time we lose someone.

Seems since Jacobi lost so early, he’s gone. I have won again. I always win. I always keep my humanity. My name is Eve Starling, and I am a test subject for Apocalypse Project 2#.

By: Claudia Field Claudia’s an 8th grade student in Pennsylvania. She enjoys reading, writing, and heavy sarcasm.

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The Christmas Party: A Slightly Scary Tale It was 9 o'clock on a Saturday, the 24th of December, otherwise known as Christmas Eve. Every year my family has a huge splendid Christmas party with my entire family. Of course there are a lot of young kids in my family and they want to go to bed for the “next day”. That means by 9 there are only about 10 people left, most of which are my really close family.

By 10 o’clock The party still was made up of eight people. We were sharing stories about how our lives were going like most family events in my family. This one was different though, I just did not feel relaxed and calm like past Christmas Eves, I felt as if someone was watching me. This was a feeling most people feel when they are uncomfortable. On top of this, I kept hearing dull thumps all around my house that continued to unease me.

By 11 o’clock, my feelings of unease had started to spread to the whole group left at the party. We started whispering(by the way whispering always freaks me out), whenever we would hear the thumping we would stop talking and listen to it, then we would reflect upon what we were experiencing as conversation. Of course at one of the thumps I saw something at the corner of my eye. When I looked at it I saw a large dark figure for no more than a second before it disappeared in front of my eyes.

By 12 o’clock, these little things kept continuing. I would see something outside or I would see something at the corner of my eye.

Then I heard the grandfather clock go off, followed by the first ding. Only I could have sworn I heard a creak from the bottom of the steps. With the second ding I heard another creak from the bottom of the steps, only slightly louder. This then made me remember something, when my family built this house I had to buy the materials for the steps. I remember the number like my age; it was 12, there were twelve steps. My heart started pounding as I realized that I was not imagining anything. I counted each ding as if they were a year apart, and sure enough with each one the

exactly the twelfth ding, the electricity went out and I could no longer see if there was someone in my house….or something.

The steps in my house allow you to only see the top step from where my family was sitting. For all we knew, there was something else than us in that deep dark room. Sinister thoughts began to come into my head as I sat here in the dead silence.

Then I started to smell what smelled like shaving cream and rotting corpses. My aunt decided that she would be the first to light up the room. She then pulled out her phone and turns on the screen to illuminate the room.

What happened next was the most terrible moment I have ever lived through, standing in the middle of the room were three rough looking men in ragged Santa Claus Costumes. I had no time to act as they simultaneously grabbed us and shoved us downstairs. They had grabbed me, my uncle, and my dad. My uncle and my dad, both being grown and muscular, fought off the intruders. Yet I was young and weak and they were able to push me into the miles of open woods surrounding my house.

Once in the woods, I was stuck with a sharp pain as my confusions slowly died and I drifted into sleep. When I woke up, I was in a abandoned house where there were three things standing in front of me. In the middle of the three things stood a thing, this thing appeared to be 8 feet tall and had a very detailed face. Those details were not good, they were terrifying to the point of insanity. I screamed as I looked into the eyes of pure evil. I felt as if it’s face was worse than any torture that could have been used on me. The thing then said in a fitting dark voice, “You will become a slave of humanity forever”.

“What do you mean?” I said, trembling.

“You will hunt people who are rejoicing on day of such disgust like today, and you will torture and kill those people you find,” he said.

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I then realized why those people tried to kidnap my family; they were doing the orders assigned by something I can only describe as the Devil himself. I knew I could not participate in evil activity such as this so I made a mad dash out the slight crack in the window of the house. After running for five minutes straight I realized that he was not chasing me, surprisingly. Then I was able to locate myself and it took another ten minutes to get back home. When there I was greeted by my scruffed up family and what looked like the entire police department. Of course they asked me to tell the story and show them where the house was, but I told them, “Wait till tomorrow”.

It’s been a month since the incident and all the investigations have been settled, they did not find anyone, but they did find the abandoned house. I decided to pay the house a visit to see if there was anything left and all I found was a note.

“You can run but you can't hide”

By Parker Sarge

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Parker is an 8 grade student who plays basketball, plans to be the president of the United States, and is incapable of whispering.

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The Foretold Kidnapping: Miscellaneous Short Fiction

It was dead silence for two hours. My conscious felt trapped inside a dark room. I was numb from top to bottom. I slowly make a crevice under my eyelids. I look around the room rather nonchalantly. The room was pitch black as expected. Getting kidnapped wasn’t unprecedented for me. In fact, this has probably been the fifth time it happened. It feels like a routine now. The events are all the same. Ambushed in the trees ready to attack me. The world goes blank and I drop to the floor. Then wake up finding myself tied up the same way in stereotypical crime movies. You may be wondering why I witnessed so many kidnaps. The identity I was born with may be the reason. But that’s a whole ‘nother story for another day. I was familiar enough with the situation, I know they will come to my rescue. And at the same moment “BANG!” The door flies open nearly breaking it. I look up and smirk. They’re here. My bros. The Ninja Turtles.

By Amy Chen

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Amy is an 8 grade student who is in NJHS and is currently discovering the wonders of Harry Potter.

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Love Doc Wes Martin

If you have a romantic questionnaire for Love Doc Wes Martin, write it down on a piece of 9” by 12” cardstock paper and leave it in the abandoned lot behind the Mexico City Holy Church of Christ on the second Tuesday of December in the year 2012.

“You don’t want her to get bored of you, that’s what marriage is for.”

-­‐ Love Doc Wes Martin

Dear Love Doc, I have been in a relationship with a lovely girl for a while now, and I really like her, but I am afraid she is starting to lose interest in me. We have been going on less dates and she always seems cold and distant when we do get to spend time together.

What is a poor man like me to do?

Sincerely, Matthew Knowles

Dear Matt, It seems like you need to hook her back into your relationship. Love Doc’s secret to a long and healthy relationship is simple: keep it exciting. You need to mix things up and keep it fresh. You don’t want her to get bored of you, that’s what marriage is for. One thing you must do is spice up your date nights. Instead of taking her on a boring dinner date, arrange a circle of spoons on your kitchen floor and sprinkle pickle skins over them while chanting praises to our great lord Jormyll. Or instead of taking her to the movies, take her to your local bakery and tell the man working at the counter that you love the summer weather in Tunisia. He will take you to the back room and let you bathe in the cookie batter. As you descend into the cookie batter, take her hand in yours. Lean in close, and whisper in her ear “Frosted Flakes- They’re Grrreat!” as you sink beneath the light brown waves of cookie batter never to be seen again.

Best Wishes, Love Doc Wes Martin

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Matthew Bailey… Exposed!

Matt Bailey is a community educator for Safe Berks, a safe place for men and women affected by abuse.

He made a great impact on us.

• How did you become interested in working for Safe Berks?

I became interested in working for Safe Berks because the person, who is now my supervisor, made an announcement at my church that they were looking for a new educator. I’ve always been interested in education, and the more I read about the values that Safe Berks has, the more interested I became because those values line up with my own.

• How long have you been working at Safe Berks I will have been with Safe Berks for three years come February.

• Do you have any friends or family members working with you?

I didn’t really have any friends or family here before I started, but as you work with co-workers every day, often times they do become your friends.

Sometimes the best and longest lasting friendships are forged in a work environment.

• Is it hard to work there sometimes?

It is definitely difficult to work here sometimes. When you hear the things that other people have gone through, it changes your perception of the world a bit. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that there

are good people out there when you see so much bad. That’s called vicarious trauma. Sometimes you just have to get away from the job to remind yourself that not everyone is in an unhealthy

unhealthy relationship, and that most people are not abusive.

Also, another difficult thing is trying to convince certain places that we are needed. I’m not going to call out any names… but there are certain places in Berks County that believe that our educational services aren’t needed because they don’t have any issues like the things we talk about… when of course that’s not true.

Every school has these issues.

• Approximately how many people do you help every day?

Well, my job isn’t geared towards helping people who are trying to get out of an abusive situation, although there certainly is a good amount of that which happens anyways.

My job is to educate people to think about the mindset that leads to abuse so they don’t become abusive someday, and to educate people so they feel empowered enough to stand up for themselves. On a good day, I could probably talk to about 150 or so people… the way that I did with your classes. As far as the people here who help, we’ve got counselors, legal advocates, and folks up in the safe house who make sure that the people who need help can find it here. As far as how many people the agency helps every day… That number can easily be in the hundreds. All of our services are free, and everything that is said here, stays here.

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• How long do people stay there? Is there a time limit for how long they can live there?

People can live in our shelter for 30 days.

Usually people stay as long as they can. Sometimes they will get in contact with someone who can pick them up and take them somewhere safe… sometimes they don’t. The whole time that people are here, we are working to get them to the next place that they will go. Imagine unexpectedly moving to a shelter one night in January, and then living in a different state by February. Thirty days isn’t really that much time for someone to completely change their life.

people are just scared… for good reason. Sometimes people are just confused. It can be anything really.

• What’s the most serious problem you ever had to deal with? What did it result in, if anything?

I don’t know if I really have an answer for that one. I can think of one of the saddest things I’ve seen…(one of them, because there are a lot of sad things). I was called to go to the hospital to offer our services to a woman who had just been beaten up by her partner. You know how when someone punches you in the eye, and the skin darkens around it… the entire top half of her face looked like that. One thing you have to master here is checking your emotions and checking your face.

As shocked as I was, I couldn’t let her know. When we asked her how it happened, she told us repeatedly that she fell on the television… when it was obvious that… that wasn’t what happened. The best we could do then was to let her know that she was safe with us, and that she could talk to us, and no one else would know what was said unless she

• How many people does your shelter hold?

Our shelter holds 50 people

wanted that. We left her our information hoping she would call. I don’t know if she ever did. In a situation like that… the important question to ask is not… “Why is she with that guy?” The more important question to ask is… “What makes anyone think that it’s ok to do this to another person?” My goal is to help people understand that things like this are not ok, and no one deserves to be treated like that.

• What is the most common problem someone has when they come?

Probably the most common problem we see is that people have just gotten fed up with emotional and/or physical abuse, or sometimes

• Are there any improvements you want to do to help your agency?

Of course. I would like to have our education department in more schools. The more people that we can teach to respect boundaries, recognize signs of abusive relationships, and create healthy ones, the less people we will see come through our doors who have been hurt and have nowhere to go. Our goal is to end abuse, and I would like to do that through expanding our education.

• How long do you work every day and how many days a week?

I usually work 8-5, but sometimes we have presentations that are before 8, after 5, and even on a Saturday sometimes. When that happens I have to take a little time out of a regular day so my total work time for the week adds up to 40 hours. For instance, let’s say I have a presentation from 6-8 pm on a Thursday. I can take those 2 hours and either come in late or leave early on another day. I usually work 5 days a week.

• Do you have a part time job? If so what is it?

I play my guitar and sing in bars, cafes, restaurants… “barstaurants,” parties, etc. I also host open mics, and do a little bit of dj-ing/mc-ing at weddings… things like that.

• Are some situations more difficult to deal with?

Of course some situations are more difficult to deal with than others. Everything is relative.

Here’s one thing I always like to remind myself of though. Just because something is difficult, it doesn’t meant that you shouldn’t do it. You should always do the hard thing if ultimately, it’s the right thing to do.

• Is this the only job you have ever worked for or did you ever work somewhere else before Safe Berks?

My career path has been a bit… unorthodox. I’ve worked about 15 jobs (or more) throughout my life doing everything from retail, to food service, to graphic design, to security, street performance, manual labor in

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in factories, door to door sales, and of course music and education. Safe Berks has definitely been a turning point for me, as I really feel fulfilled doing this work, especially when I get to reach students like you all. One thing that you can learn from me is that you should never settle. If plan A fails, there’s always plan B. If we were to continue to go through the alphabet while discussing my life, I’m probably on plan W right now… and it feels good to know that I kept going, and I can keep going.

If you or a loved one is experiencing abuse, we urge you to contact Safe Berks.

Interview arranged by Camille Bertin and Kit Jackson.

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The Poetry Dungeon

The deep, dark abyss for all your poetry needs.

“Bad And Boujee – The Clean Version” Rain Drop Drop Top Paul Blart is a mall cop The mall has a gamestop Where I bought a new robot That showed me the news drop Man shot by a white cop His body went drop drop I then used a photo crop To create a new instagram flattop Went to an IHOP To watch a movie that flopped Some guy started to eavesdrop About my new rooftop I then went to cook some soursop Which is cooked in a crockpot Which is made in a sweatshop For what happened to the toyshop It was brutally stopped By a rude shortstop Who is watching the snowdrop As the world changes from raindrops For at the top of the mountaintop There lay a young Bishop I am the Bishop

By Parker Sarge

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Story Of My Life

Creative nonfiction that’ll make you laugh, or cry, or maybe both.

“Living With the Liskeys: Emma” My sister Emma is a trouble maker. When she found out my dad bought a big pack of cookies in his study, she decided to take action. Here's the thing, my sister really liked those cookies, so naturally, she decided to steal some. One night while my parents were away, she kept disappearing. I couldn't figure out where she was going.

Turns out, she would sneak into my dad's study and grab a couple cookies. Well, my dad found out. When he questioned her, she said the dog did it, but she knew that I knew that she gobbled those up. A week or two later I wanted my sister to do something so I said, “ I might just tell dad that you ate his cookies and blamed it on the dog.” Then out of nowhere my dad walks out and says, “Wait, what just happened.”

Although he was a little angry, he had a grin on his face. My sister became enraged.

She burst into tears and threw everything that she could reach at me. I was just sitting on the couch dying of laughter. I could barely breathe.

By Ethan Liskey

Ethan is an 8th grade student whose strengths include lip-­‐syncing, laughing hysterically, and trying to get his ELA teacher married.

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This is us.

Photo cred: Kit Jackson