The Playground Prince

THE PLAYGROUND

PRINCE

Written by Hannah Lee, Vanessa Mendoza and Kat Attia

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Medici Elementary School, there lived a boy named Nick.

Now Nick was the principal’s son, which meant that all the kids knew him and that made him the Playground Prince.

One day, a new kid named Jasper started coming to school. All the kids liked playing with Jasper. He was very fun and nice. This made Nick upset.

Jasper was getting more popular everyday. If Jasper kept making more friends, he would become the new Playground Prince and Nick would have to play in the sandbox- with the third graders! Nick needed to stop this from happening, so decided to become Jasper's friend. He asked Jasper to have lunch with him. “Of course, Nick! My mom packed me extra snacks!" Jasper said.

After eating with Jasper, Nick saw how nice Jasper was. Jasper would be friends with anyone! And nobody could say no to him. So Nick needed to become best friends with the biggest and strongest kids in the class. That way everybody had to be nice to him, or they'd lose their lunch money.

One day, Nick heard his classmates arguing about what to play on Field Day. Jasper suggested that the class play kickball, but this made everyone upset because they always played Capture the Flag.

Why would Jasper suggest such a thing?

Nick wanted to fix all the confusion Jasper had caused. Even though Nick actually liked kickball, he knew the class' traditional Capture the Flag game was important to everyone. So he was going to make sure it happened.

Nick went around the schoolyard every day at recess to convince each kid that they should keep playing Capture the Flag this year. “Most of kickball is waiting. You wait in line to kick the ball and you wait in the field to catch the ball.

Capture the Flag means we get to play the whole time! No taking turns!� he would say.

He did this with his two new big friends next to him, of course.

When Field Day came along, everybody agreed that they should play Capture the Flag, with Nick and Jasper as the two team captains. Nick was excited; he had come prepared. Once the game started, Nick took out his map of the playground to help him figure out how to take Jasper's team's flag.

He mapped out everything. He even included a loose stair on the playground that made everyone trip, and the places with asphalt, that scrape your knees really badly when you fall. This way nobody on his team would get hurt or waste time. Jasper and his team decided to wing it instead.

Halfway through the game, Jasper left his base to find a way to get to Nick's flag. Once Jasper left, Nick quickly snuck up a slide and got into Jasper's base without anyone knowing.

“Red team, victory is ours!” Nick shouted with the blue flag in his hand. “Now who wants candy?”

His team ran over to him and he started giving out his own candy from his backpack. Everybody thought Nick was so nice and generous because he gave out so much, but Nick had actually saved his best and biggest candy for himself and his two big friends. He wanted them to feel special.

When the class went back inside, the teacher had surprised the two teams with their own plate of cookies! Jasper let everyone on his team take many as many as they wanted.

"Take whatever you want, we have a lot!" Jasper said.

Nick did not do the same for his team. “Everyone gets one cookie today, so that we can have enough for everyone for the whole week!�

Nick said.

The Red Team was upset. They wanted to do whatever they wanted like the Blue Team! But the day after, they were happy when they could have cookies again, and the Blue Team who had eaten all their cookies yesterday couldn't have any of it!

Jasper saw how upset his team was and got nervouswhat if he loses all his new friends? So Jasper snuck to Nick's side and stole Nick's plate of cookies. When Nick caught him and tried to stop him, Jasper kicked Nick and made him fall.

“Jasper! Go to the principal’s office this instant!” The teacher demanded.

That was the last time Nick saw Jasper on the playground. Nobody knows what happened to him.

Word on the playground is that his parents must have disowned him for being so evil.

Now that Jasper had gone, nobody was trying to steal Nick's friends or playground from him- and he knew how to fight back if anyone tried again. "I am the Playground Prince" Nick declared from the top of the playground.

And they lived happily ever after. ... Until middle school