B

By Nasha Srijunyanont

I woke up one morning from the winter sun peeking through the openings of my curtain. I rubbed my eyes and slowly opened them. I looked at my alarm clock and none of the hands were moving. The batteries died! Oh no, I ran downstairs to look at the clock hanging on the living room wall. The hour hand pointed to the 8 and the minute hand pointed to the 3. “Aw, man, mom! You didn’t even wake me up for breakfast! I yelled running towards my mom’s room. I squeaked opened the door and walked in. She wasn’t in there. Then I went downstairs to the kitchen and there was a note on the fridge that said,

Dear Nikki,

Good morning hon. I’m at a meeting

Right now. Breakfast is on the kitchen

Counter, eat up and don’t be late for

School. I’ll be back around 3:00 to

3:30.

~ mom

“It’s 8:40, I’m already late for school.” I said shoving the toast and bacon into my mouth. Then I grabbed my bike and headed for school. And when I got there, I locked my bike up and went inside. Then my teacher started yelling at me and saying, “Nikki, you have to do more work for being late everyday!” All I said was, “Okay, fine.” He took me into the corner of the room and pulled over a chair and a desk. He put four or five pieces of paper on the desk and told me to finish it. I looked at the clock, it was 9:00. I only finished two sheets when I got very tired. My eyes started to get real heavy. Then I grabbed another piece of paper and started to work on it. I got stuck on some questions and got so bored. So I turned the white piece of paper around so the blank side showed and started drawing a picture of my old dog that had died. He was a black and white Great Dane dog named Duke, he was the sweetest dog I ever had. I added two big wings on his back because in heaven, you probably could fly and you’d probably need wings to do that. And when I finished drawing the dog picture everything started to shake. Then I shouted out, “An earthquake!” And before I could do anything else, everything was white! I was really scared, I looked all around me and could see nothing but whiteness all over. I started running and calling out for help but it felt like I was running in the same spot. Then all of a sudden, I crashed into something hairy! I stopped running and took a couple of steps back. Then, “Oh my god!” I couldn’t believe what I saw! I saw the dog I drew just a couple of minutes ago! I stared blankly at it with my mouth opened. It barked twice and said, “Hi Nikki.” In a friendly voice. My eyes grew wide, and said,

“Duke? You.….…..you could talk?”

“Of course I can, I could do almost anything in dog heaven.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in heaven?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I saw you were kinda bored so I thought I’d visit.” He answered.

“Could you visit me anytime?”

“No, only when our king says we can.”

“There’s a king in heaven?

“Yeah.”

“What about my teacher and my class mates?” I asked. “What about them?” Said Duke.

I stared up at him, I had a lot more questions to ask him but before I could ask him anymore he bent down and said,

“Get on, I wanna show you were I live.” I didn’t say anything, I kept my mouth shut and hopped on his back. Then he flew up. “Hold on tight.” Said Duke. And he flew about 35 miles per hour up. After a couple of minutes, I saw this huge palace with all these beautiful, weird shaped buildings and houses. “So is this dog heaven?” I asked.

“Yep, see that house with the brown roof?

“Yeah.”

“That’s my place.”

“It’s huge!” I told him.

“Yep.”

Then he flew down to the front door and parked. He walked inside and told me to come in. and so I did and the place was like a mansion! I tried to stay close to the front door incase I got lost. I sat down on his couch and he brought me these weird looking omelets. He told me to try one. I took one bite and it felt like I was in heaven. It tasted soo good. I asked what it was made of and he said, “Secret stuff.” That’s what made me suspicious. Then he took me to all these cool places and then I looked at my watch. “3:00!” I shouted. “I gotta get back home, school just got out and my mom’s coming in a half an hour!” “Calm down Nikki, I could take you home in five minutes.” “Okay.” I said calmly. I got on his back and he took off and in about four minutes, the bell rang and I woke up. My hands were crossed on the desk and my head was on it then my teacher came and I looked up at him. He looked down at me and took a look at the papers he gave me when school started. He held them up and put his glasses on. Then he said,

“ Very good, you finished.” “What?” I said confused. Then the picture I drew of my dog faced me on the backside of the piece of paper my teacher was holding. I stared at Duke for a long time, then it seemed as if it winked at me. I blinked hard and my teacher took my paper and said I was dismissed. I had never been this confused in my life! I walked home and my mom was already there. I told my mom what happened and all she said was, “Yeah, sure.