My completed short story for creative writing! :D
Well, this isn't actually the totally completed one, there's a few errors in it, but I don't feel like fishing them out right now. :/

"Twenty seven years have passed." I whispered as I looked up to the heavens with its brilliant shades of blue. "Twenty seven years..." In two years, I'll be as old as mom ever lived to be. She'd had her life taken from her, unable to raise my sister and me past the ages of fifteen and four. My father had killed my mother. I suppose he was trying to get revenge, trying to be a man. But, already, at just the age of four, I had surpassed being more of a man than my father ever was, or could be. I thought as I caressed the letters of her name on the grave stone. Twenty seven years...

I had only been four when my father killed my mother. It was the first time he'd been home since before I was born, and he killed his own wife.

I remember there being a fight in which my mother struggled to keep her life, but, in the end, failed. I was so frightened as the old woman we had for a neighbor gripped my shoulders as the paramedics carried my mother's lifeless corpse, over to the ambulance along with my sister. And I remember thinking that the very next day, life would go back to the way it used to be. With grilled cheese with ham sandwiches, games of cops and robbers, and mom teaching me how to swim with lessons every Thursday after daycare.

Twenty seven years ago, I lost everything.

***

"Tony, Angela--lunch is ready!" Finally! I raced down from my room, leaving my police car behind. The bad guys may never take breaks, but when my tummy growled, I had to take a break for lunch. Especially for grilled cheese with ham. Yum!

When I reached the bottom of our endless stairs and walked into the kitchen, I saw Angela crying. She pushed her plate away from herself. On one hand, there was more for me! But, on the other hand... Angela, my older sister, my only sister, was sad.

Again.

"Angie, what's wrong?" I really didn't like seeing Angela cry, she never cried. Or, at least, she didn't before. Lately, all she ever really did was cry, cry, and cry some more. She wasn't really as... well, aware of our missions as secret agents, of our duty to our country and mother.

"Angela, honey, please calm down. Tony's right, he and I are concerned that you haven't been exactly... well, happy lately. We love you Angela, and we're here for you; just tell us what's wrong." See? This is why we've got a duty to our mom.

Angela sniffed and wiped away some of her tears with her arm. "I just," She paused, her voice trembling. She got up from her seat, grabbed one of the cups that change color with temperature (so cool!) from the cupboard, and filled it with water. When she sat back down, she took a drink. (Because of the cold water, the cup at turned purple. Awesome!)

"I just haven't really wanted to bother you guys. Ryan... he--"

"Oh, no, Angie-baby! Don't tell me he--"

"No mom, he didn't do anything. It was Hana." She said the name as if it was broccoli. "She stole him from me! And then today is," Angela started to sob again. When I looked down at my plate, I realized just how hungry I'd been--my entire sandwich was gone! But, still, my tummy growled.

"Angie, are you going to eat that?" I asked, pointing to her sandwich. She looked up at me, glaring at me like "Maggot" Mason always did on coloring days in daycare. (I had the bigger set of crayons and I wouldn't share with him. He's a bully.)

"Ugh! You see? He doesn't care! He just wants another damn sandwich!"

"Angela Marie Ray!" Mom shouted, right as I said,

"Ooooh! She said the 'D' word!" I held my hands to my face as I laughed. Boy was she in trouble now!

Angela was out of her seat and stomping off to her room faster than I could... well, eat her sandwich! (Which mom set in front of me as she chased Angela to her room. More for me! Yay!)

I finished eating my sandwich just before mom came downstairs. "Tony, I want you to go up to your room until I tell you to come down, okay?"

What? What had I done? I wasn't the one who swore! I wasn't the one who stomped off! "But--"

"Tony, just go." Mom sounded tired, so I just listened. I hopped down from my chair, leaving my plate on the table.

"Fine." I pouted and trudged up the stairs.

While I waited for mom to call for me, I chased some more bad guys--especially Angela's Boyfriend Stealer, took a nap or two, and called "Mom! Can I come out yet?" from just outside my room at least seventeen times.

Suddenly, I heard the low hum of a car pull into our driveway. It was mom's car. I looked outside, just to check, and, sure enough, there was mom. "So that's why she didn't let me out..." I grinned, waiting to her mom walk back in.

"Tony?" I could hear Angela's voice call from the other side of the door, but I continued chasing the bad guys in my police car I'd been chasing them for a while now, but these guys were a challenge to find, unlike bullies and rude siblings. This Stealer knew my weaknesses, they'd taunt me with cheesecake and ice cream galore! And then, they'd escape. As always.

"Tony!" Secret Agent Angela walked in after a single knock--our secret code. Have you found them, Angela? I wanted to ask, but if someone heard, they would figure out that Angela wasn't just the Thorderson's Friday night baby sitter. That she was the victim of a Stealer.

"Vroom, vroom!" I said, asking her my question in code. I help up my tiny police car and pointed to it when she didn't get the message. "Vroom!" Maybe all this Stealer business was making her go brain dead.

"C'mon, Tony, we've gotta go!" Secret Agent Angela grabbed my hand in hers, and by the tone in her voice, I knew we just had to be close to finding the people who stole Angela's boyfriend.

"'Gela, where goin'?" But Angela didn't answer me, she just lead us quickly down the hall, into her bedroom, and then into her bathroom. Secret Agent Angela locked the door behind us. Could they be...

Under the sink?

Angela let go of my hand to cover her face as she cried. I didn't ask her what was wrong, because I knew the answer to that, and it was the boyfriend stealer. I threw open the cabinet doors, but all that was underneath Angela's sink was the boxes and bags Angela kept her secret agent girl belongings in it, things that even I wasn't allowed to see. There were no boyfriend Stealers inside... but I'd been so close...

"Oh shoot..." I muttered, this case was starting to bore me, but I had to find Angela's boyfriend to make her happy again.

"NO!" I heard mom scream from downstairs. Had the boyfriend stealer returned? Had he made an escape to the TV room downstairs? Or to mom's office? Was he here to make Secret Agent Angela's life even more miserable by taking our mom away? Someone had to be on to us, but who could've spilled our secret about our jobs? Angela herself forgot half of the time, and the only one I'd ever told was... Oh no! He couldn't have!

"Bacon wouldn' tattle!" I whispered as my throat became hurt with tears. How could Bacon the Cow betray us like that? He'd been a close partner of my for forever! But now I understood that his black beady eyes and soft plushness had been a deceiving trait since the beginning...

I had to leave before he could tell anyone anything else.

As if she had read my mind, Secret Agent Angela grabbed my hand and opened the window. "You go first." She said, her voice shaking. Her eyes were bright red, her nose, too--from the crying. Go where thought? Out the window? How could we get down... the pool?

The pool! We'd dive down from the roof to the pool! It'd be so much fun! (But mom would never allow it...)

"Okay!" I grinned, Angela was fun again!

I was just getting on the roof when I heard mom scream again. Oh no! I'd forgotten about the Stealer being downstairs! What if the stealer got mom? It'd be all my fault! Angela would be sad, just when she'd become happy and fun again!

"Mommy, 'Gela! What 'bout mom--?"

BANG!

The sound hurt my ears, but mom's screams had stopped... had the Stealer left? Had mom suddenly become an agent and got back Angela's boyfriend? Suddenly, Angela swooped me up in her arms and leaped from the roof. Tears were streaming down her sad, torn face. She was probably just afraid of the jump, after all, Angela's a girl a total wuss. Or...

The Stealer had taken mom.

Right as we were about to plunge into the water below, Angela covered my mouth and nose, so I wouldn't drown or anything like that. Secret Agent Angela was smart--she knew I was never a good agent when I had water up my nose.

I looked up at her right as we went under the water (the chlorine no longer hurt my eyes--part of the secret agent training was being able to see underwater without goggles.) She looked like a mermaid with her long, flowing brown hair and her tan, tan skin. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight and bubbles were coming out of her nose as we started heading back up towards the surface of the water.

Angela gasped for breath when we hit the air and brought her hand away from my face.

"'Gain, 'gain!" I laughed, it was the most fun we'd had in a long time. I kicked myself free from her, dog paddling as fast as I could toward the ladder. Angela beat me to it--she always did, she was a better swimmer.

"Hurry." She rushed, pulling me up after she'd climbed the ladder. I grinned at her, she hadn't been this excited to do anything in a long time!

I was surprised when she grabbed my hand and started running from the house. Away? Why away? What we'd just done was so fun! Were we going to have a cannon ball contest? Mom would want to take pictures... Mom!

NO! I recalled her voice scream in my head. The stealer! We were close! We'd catch them any minute now. "'Gela! Mommy!" But Angela kept on running. Didn't she care about mom? Didn't she want mom to be safe? "No!" I screamed as loud as I could, but all Angela did was pick me up in her arms and keep on running.

"Shut up, Tony!" She hissed, menacingly. I kicked and I screamed, pulling at her light blonde hair, scratching her pale white skin.

"Mommy, mommy, mommy!" I screamed, louder this time. She covered my mouth with her soft, silky hand. "'Gela, no!" I screamed.

What if Angela had been working with the Stealer all along? What if she had lied to me to get my secrets? What if...

Bacon wasn't the traitor, Angela was.

I looked over her shoulder, trying to see if mom had made it out of the house. I couldn't even see the house. Where was Angela taking me? We were running down the bike path that the dragons lived in. What was she thinking?!

"Help us! Please!" Angela screamed as we approached a house and she pounded on the door. "Miss Fait, Ryan, we need your help!" There was something about her voice that I'd never heard before. Like she was afraid, but nervous at the same time--but also kind of crazy. I think there's a word for that... pancake? No... Panting? No... Oh! Panic! There was definitely total panic in her voice.

The door opened, creaking creepily as it did. It was the house of the dragon tamer--only, she didn't actually tame them anymore, she trained them. Trained them to kill.

"No, no, no, no, no!" I yelled after biting my sister's hand, making her drop me in the process. I fell with a 'thump!' and it hurt my back, but I had to get somewhere safe. I just had to.

"Tony, no!" Angela ran after me, her pale complexion covered in sweat. How long had it taken Angela to get me here? Would I be able to make it back home to mommy before she made me spill all of my secrets? No, I wouldn't. So, on a last second thought, I turned around and bolted back toward the house, running straight under the dragon keeper's arms and into her house. Baby dragons were all over, mewing and purring! As if they were cats!

I jumped past them as they hissed and sprung toward and away from me, out of my path. They feared me; what wise creatures.

Without thinking of where I was heading, I stumbled up a flight of old, wooden stairs. They would have been perfect for a car race, the railings, I mean.

I reached the top and looked around. Where would I go? There were three doors, all old and wooden, but one was painted white. I darted for one of the unpainted ones and stood up on my toes to open the door.

It was locked.

I reached for the other unpainted door, but, it too, was locked.

Only one door left...

"One door..." I whispered, nearly jumping out of my skin when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs behind me. Stomping, the sound pounding in my ears. I pushed on the white door with all my might, and...

It opened.

I ran in, slamming it behind me. There was a bed in the room, and some paintings on the walls (which were blue). The floor inside was just like the stairs and the hallway: old and wooden.

I crawled as quickly as I could underneath the bed, Angela never found me when I hid there at home while we practiced our stealth skills. Of course, Angela never really found me anywhere. Sometimes she'd just walk right past me and say "Where's Tony?" She was kind of dumb in that way.

"Tony! Tony, where are you?" There was more panic in Angela's voice as she opened the door.

"Is he under there?" It was a voice I recognized that said it... not Angela's, and surely not old Miss Fait's... It was Ryan's! Angela's boyfriend! The one who'd been stolen! Wait if he was here, then that meant...

She'd lied.

Angela, my partner in justice, had lied to me. Ryan had never been stolen, there was no Stealer to chase. My very own sister had lied to me!

To me!

Her white tennishoes showed up at the edge of the bed, right across from my face. But she wouldn't find me, she never did. Angela was a clueless girl.

"Angela!" Ryan screamed, his feet running toward my sister's.

BANG!

BANG!

Ryan and Angela fell to the ground like broken crayons. One right after the other. I squeezed my eyes tight and covered my ears, the 'bangs' were not happy sounds. They hurt my head. When I opened them, Ryan's face was right across from mine. He had a hole in his forehead, right between his eyes, and blood was flowing out of it. He needed a Band-aid.

Down by my feet was Angela's face. I turned so I could see her, instead of Bleeding Ryan. Her mouth was open slightly and her blue eyes were wide open, but emotionless. A tear fell from one, and I reached out to wipe it away. "Don' cry, 'Gela."

Angela said nothing.

"They're all gone now..." A grown-up voice laughed quietly. His voice sent shivers down my spine and gave me goose bumps. He sounded like grandpa, kind of, only... crazy. And not as wheezy. A gun fell to the floor, and then, the long silence that followed hurt my ears.

***

The events that followed have never been exactly clear to me. I remember sirens and Miss Fait holding onto my shoulders, and the rain that fell. I'm pretty sure I remember thinking, and so the skies cry, too, but, when I look back on those memories, for rain to fall would make no sense. We were in the middle of a dry summer, a drought. It couldn't have rained.

Soon after that, I was taken into live with my grandparents on my mom's side. They spoiled me, paid for every little thing I could have ever asked for. They told me stories of my family, so I'd never forget my mom and her marvelous, homemade blue berry, huckleberry, and cherry pies.

After grandma passed away, not long after I entered my senior year in high school, grandpa fell into a depression. I took what was left of their savings and put him into the nicest assisted living home I could find, one that I would also be able to visit constantly.

I got a few part time jobs to help pay for college, only to drop out two years into it and decided that I wanted to be a policeman, to catch Anthony Ray, my father, and put him behind bars for killing my family, my innocence. I wanted revenge on him, for he'd taken away my life.

And then I met Jennifer Reese, who taught me how to just let go. I married her about nine years ago, and, since then, we've had two kids, both girls. We named them after our mothers, Corrine Marie and Lillian. Corrine is soon to turn seven, Lillian three.

"Tony, the kids are getting ornery, I think we'd better head out. Besides, it looks as if it's about to rain." I looked over at my beautiful wife with her kind, thoughtful smile.

What better than a summer storm on the anniversary of that very day twenty seven years ago?

"Alright," I said, smiling as I stood up from the graves of my mother and sister.

Alright, one thing I need to clarify: Yes, Angela was a brunette with tan skin (the family is Spanish, actually.) the bit about her having blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale, pale skin was my attempt at symbolism. (Haha.) Yeah... she was supposed to be his "guardian angel" but a lot of people have told me that they didn't really get it...

The Hunger Games

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE HUNGER GAMES.

So, I’ve been sick for the past few days, but there’s been one plus side to this. I read The Hunger Games. After I finished the book, I was shocked! I’ve never read anything so brilliant in my LIFE. The Hunger Games, through the tale of Rue alone, is a heart wrenching story. With characters like Katniss, Peeta, Cinna, Portia, Haymitch, Rue, Thresh, Prim, Gale, Cato, and Glimmer, there’s never a dull moment.

The Hunger Games is about Katniss Everdeen, a kind hearted girl who risks her life so her younger sister, Prim, doesn’t have to jeopardize her own. There’s a point where Suzanne Collins had me holding my breath due to the suspension. “He leans down and rips the bandage off his leg, eliminating the final barrier between his blood and the earth.” Suzanne writes. “’No, you can’t kill yourself’ I say. I’m on my knees, desperately plastering the bandage back onto his wound.”

In four and a half hours, I devoured the three hundred-seventy four pages of The Hunger Games, but it only left me hungry for more. The sequel, Catching Fire, isn’t going to be released until later this year, so I’ll have to wait to see where the story takes off to, but, honestly, this has got to be one of the greatest books ever written!

“Sing.” She says, but I barely catch the word.

The previous line is one of Rue’s last words in the book. To Rue, music is one of the best things in life, it’s all she asks for on her deathbed with a spear through her body. Collins knows how to pull at nearly every emotion. Whether it’s hate, love, betrayal, fear, pain… Collins is a master.

The Hunger Games is said to soon be turned into a movie, adapted by Collins herself. So, hold on folks! We’re in for a wild ride.