This is the first draft of my Creative Writing assignment for English 10 Honours, please check back soon for the good copy.

EA567

Chapter 1

Elma shut her eyes as the countdown began. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Blast off! The rocket with her inside shot through the air, launching so fast that it was gone and no longer visible in a matter of seconds. Elma kept her eyes closed. She knew that if she opened them, she would not be able to take in everything that was happening around her. Finally, after about 10 minutes, she dared to open one eye, then the other. Straight in front of her was the control panel, with its many buttons, levers, and other instruments that she did not know how to use. She had gone through training on what every single thing on that panel did, but Elma was known for being a little forgetful, so she only had the location of the Emergency button fully memorized.

Elma decided to take a peek into porthole, and was she astounded! Her home, L-32, was moving rapidly away from her, and beyond that there seemed to be nothing but blank, dark space. Suddenly, she felt scared. Why couldn’t she have stayed home? Then, she felt proud. Being the first to go to space was such an honor! But the fear was creeping up on her again, wedging its way between the mounds of pride she had for herself and her home and taking over, spreading like a plague. Elma didn’t know what to do. It had seemed so, so, cool to go to space, but what would she do now that she was up, already so far from her home that it hurt to look back at it?

Then she remembered her mission: she was going to a planet they’d named EA567, one of the many mysteries that had not been uncovered for a long, long time. It was very easy to spot EA567 from her home, as it was pretty close, a mere 384 400 kilometers away. Elma didn’t know much, but she did know that this was closer to her home than any other space object.

They had never been able to go anywhere from L-32, until one day they finally built a rocket and announced that they would be choosing someone to be the first to go to space. Elma got into the contest fairly easily, as many were too scared to go. The lucky individual was chosen partly by chance, but, of course, also by skill. Elma believed she won because she did an astounding job on the Math and Computing portion of the contest, as well as the Psychological Testing in Extreme Environments portion, even though she did poorly on the Practical portion, where she had to be in a spaceship control room simulator. Nevertheless, she was chosen, and now, as she was flying in the rocket, she thought back on all of this and reminded herself both how lucky and at the same time how vulnerable she was. Who knew what she would find in outer space and on EA567?

***

2 days later, Elma found the rocket rapidly approaching EA567, now a huge sphere looming in front of her. She could still see L-32, but it was now a small ball from this distance. She looked through the front illuminator. In a few hours, she would land on EA567 and discover what was on this mysterious space object. EA567 was covered in patches of color, which Elma found bizarre as L-32 was plain and solid-colored. She felt scared, but there was definitely no turning back now. What if there were aliens on EA567? What if they weren’t very friendly? What if her spaceship collapsed and she wouldn’t be able to return to L-32? These thoughts raced through her head as she got closer and closer toward her target.

An hour and a half later, Elma was right above the surface of EA567, looking for a spot to land. She observed very peculiar things: there were masses of green and blue on the surface, covered by white formations. As she got closer and closer, she saw through the clouds (as this is what they’d called the white formations back on L-32) that there were spots of gray as well. All of this was very strange to Elma. She had never seen anything like this! Her view opened up more and more. Elma decided on an open green spot on the surface of EA567 as her landing base. She realized that the planet was a lot bigger than L-32, about 50 times the size, and that it would be impossible for her to explore EA567 as much as she wanted to before she had to go back to L-32. Elma was now 5000 feet from the ground, heading straight for the green spot that she had chosen as her landing base. Then she noticed something. There were moving objects everywhere. There was life on EA567.

A story I wrote in my English 10 Honours class about the time my family got lost while hiking on a mountain.

The Time We Got Lost On A Mountain

Where was my family when this happened? We were in a wild forest, on a mountain, in the middle of nowhere. Hopelessly lost.

On a nice summer day, my family decided to go hiking on Mt. Baker, in the state of Washington, U.S.A. We drove over and started mid-day on a bright, sunny, well-kept trail. There were lots of people around us, too, enjoying the sights and sounds as they walked along.

As the day went on, we started to meet less and less people along the way, but we weren’t worried – we assumed everyone had done the trail earlier, in the morning. The sun was not right above us anymore – it was beginning to set. We decided to stop where we thought was halfway (the trail was a loop) to have a snack and some water. After that, we continued our hike. By then, we saw about 2 people every half hour, but definitely not the crowds of people we’d met at the beginning.

The trail became very narrow, and, sometimes, not even visible. But my dad kept leading the way. In about an hour, we realized something was wrong. There was no more trail. We had been cutting through bushes and trees that had clearly been growing there for a while, with no feet stepping on them constantly. We kept walking anyways. My dad figured we’d turned off of the trail, but we would find it and get back on it soon. My mom told him we should turn back. He didn’t listen. My dad was determined to keep going and finish the loop. The sun was quite low now, it was beginning to get closer and closer to darkness. We also ran out of water because we hadn’t expected such a long walk. My sister and I were scared. What if we never found our way out?

After another 100 years of walking, my dad finally gave in and we decided to come back where we came from. The problem was, we didn’t have flashlights. Blindly, we made our way back to the trail, and, already so tired, went all the way back to our car. This time, though, we didn’t stop to enjoy the views. It was dark and all we wanted was to sit down and have some water. Finally, 8 hours after we started the hike, we came back to our car and exhaustedly plopped down in our seats, immediately taking out the snacks we had in the glove compartment and gobbling them up.

Although this experience was tough and scary, I also learned a lot that day. First off, I learned not to listen to my dad when he so reassuringly says that he knows the way when he really doesn’t. But second of all, I learned to be more prepared. This time, it was about bringing more food and water, maps, and a flashlight, but I know that there will be other situations for which I will have to be prepared. Now, I will bring more than what I think I will need because you never know what can happen. Sometimes, you get lost, but be prepared to find your way out.