So in my Teaching Language Arts class, we had to write a folk tale, animal tale, or tall tale. Here is my wonderful creation. It should be in the form of a children's book, but I could only write it online so here it is. Enjoy!
The Knapsack Kangaroo
By: Briana Merante
Early each and every morning I trudged my 7-year-old little body down to breakfast where my oatmeal was waiting for me. Plain old oatmeal. Boring oatmeal. Each morning, after I ate my boring oatmeal, I would trudge back up the stairs to my boring, old room. My brown, boring old room. After I got changed into my boring, old clothes, I would trudge out my front door with my boring peanut butter and jelly sandwich, ride on the boring yellow school bus and walk in my VERY boring classroom. After a very boring day at school I would trudge back onto the boring yellow school bus, walk back into my boring brown room and do my VERY, VERY boring homework. I would do this every day. Every Monday. Every Tuesday. Every Wednesday. Every Thursday. Every Friday. And sometimes even on a Saturday. My life was so boring that when people would ask me what my name was, I would just reply, "I'm Boring Brett." My life was as boring as it could be until....
One day I found a red knapsack on the red bench at the park one sunny Sunday afternoon. "It's probably a boring knapsack," I said not knowing that my boring life was about to be turned upside down. I slowly and carefully started to un-buckle the knapsack. But suddenly I felt it move! Startled, I jumped back. Did I really want to know what was in the knapsack? "Well," I sighed, "my life does need something that is un-boring." I opened the sack. At first I didn't see anything, but suddenly a head popped up! I couldn't believe my eyes! It was a baby kangaroo! Did this kangaroo live in this knapsack? COULD a kangaroo live in a knapsack? It couldn't be possible, but I didn't care. This would be my kangaroo and my red knapsack. This sunny Sunday was a day that I was always going to remember. It was the day when my boring little life was boring no more.
I named my knapsack kangaroo Jasper because that was about as un-boring of a name as I could think of. I liked talking to Jasper, and at first, I thought he might just talk back, but of course animals don’t talk. Jasper lived in MY new red knapsack. I didn’t dare bring him to school. I knew better than that! Jasper seemed to disappear every morning, and he never let me know where he went. But as sure as the sun comes up every morning, after school I would find him waiting, in my new red knapsack, for me to return. I would take Jasper to the woods behind my house, and we would play tag. We would play in the streams, eat the berries off the trees and then climb the trees. Well, Jasper couldn’t climb trees, so I just did. We had many adventures in the caves, and Japer even found a secret passageway! Times were good, and I was happy. I didn’t tell anyone about my new friend because who would believe me? Jasper was my little secret, and I would keep it that way.
“Jasper? Jasper!” I called out one day after school. Where was my red knapsack? Where was Jasper? Neither was in sight. I looked in my closet, under my bed, behind the door, and inside my laundry hamper. Nothing. Jasper, my knapsack kangaroo, was nowhere to be found. Suddenly I spotted something that fluttered on my desk. It was a note! A note from Jasper. It read,
Boring young Brett, you are boring no more
A friend, all you needed, to get out the door
As friends it was fun to hop, run and play
But you need a real friend
I can’t always stay.
I hope through this riddle you’ll finally see
True friendship, real friendship will un-boring be.
~ Jasper
I put the letter down. Jasper was really gone! But what did that last line say? “True friendship, real friendship will un-boring be?” I was very confused so I just went to bed.
I got up the next morning, and there again was my boring oatmeal. I got dressed in my boring, brown room. I rode the boring yellow school bus and walked into my VERY boring classroom. At recess I decided to read a kangaroo book that I had checked out of our school library. I sat down against the playground wall to read when a shadow fell across my book. I looked up, and there was a boy from my class just looking at me. “What are you reading?” he asked. I told him it was a book about kangaroos. “Cool!” he said. “Can I look?” He sat down next to me, and I showed him all my favorite pictures. I showed him a picture of a kangaroo that looked just like Jasper, but I didn’t tell him about Jasper.
Each day my new friend (his name was Jamie) would ask if he could look at my kangaroo books with me. He even brought some of his own one day! I really like being friends with Jamie, and one day I suddenly remembered what Jasper’s note had said at the very end. “True friendship, real friendship will un-boring be.” Jasper was my friend. Was Jamie my friend now? Yes! I finally learned what Jasper had been trying to teach me! Jasper had shown me true friendship, and now Jamie had taken his place. “Look at this one,” Jamie said. I looked and smiled. Jamie was my friend, and life wasn’t as boring as it once was. I finished looking at his picture and went to look back at my book, but as I glanced up, I thought I saw a familiar kangaroo hopping in the distance. I looked again, and there was nothing. I was disappointed, but I smiled because I knew that I had found a very special, un-boring friend.
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