The House At The End of The Street By Sophia Mellis

The Place Where We Play

After putting on my shoes at the back sliding door, I sprinted as fast as I could to beat my brother and friend to the get the “good” swing first. I couldn’t get stuck with the other swing again. So my legs were running on their own now, with their own mind and own thoughts, bringing me to the swing set or wherever else they wanted to go.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make it in time and I had to sit on the long two person swing instead of the regular, “good” swing. It was fine, though, because I knew that soon enough we would go and play in the little “room” that we always went up to. The room was part of the swing set which had a wooden ladder leading up to it and a green slide coming down from it.

Someone said that they wanted to play pirates. I knew that it was my turn to be the captain of the ship and steer with the green steering wheel attached to the wall, so I jumped off of my swing mid-swing and my brother and friend followed.

We began sailing through the rough ocean waters, barely staying afloat. But I wasn’t going to let it sink, so with all of my power and strength I got the ship out of the dangerous waves and we landed on the beach of a deserted island. By then the whole crew was hungry and needed a break. I remembered that we brought a box of Cheez Its on our voyage. My friend grabbed them from the other side of the "room" and we started eating and eating.

After finishing the entire box, I slid down the green slide and everyone followed. We all looked up at the white puffy clouds and decided what each looked like. One was a bunny and another was a whale.

The day slowly turned to night. We knew that the next day would be just as fun and we would go on another adventure soon. .

The Bad Show Turned Good

The cold air conditioned air felt different in the auditorium when we all came in. The show is two weeks away and the show isn’t even halfway done. All the months that we had been rehearsing wouldn’t count for anything anymore now that our director quit or was fired or something.

Our director wasn’t good anyway. She didn’t teach us our music and had another actor teach us dances. This wasn’t how a show should be put together.

Complaint after complaint went to the principal about her and how she wasn’t friendly or helpful.

Last year, our director was the best I’ve ever had. But then she moved away and we got stuck, stuck with the other director.

But then yesterday we heard that she wasn't going to be our director anymore.

I could feel the joy that spread over the entire cast, but also the fear of what was going to happen and who would actually be our director.

Thankfully, the parent of one of the actors stepped in and we got to work. The show was supposed to have a lot of tap dancing, but we didn't learn any, so off to tap class we went. Shuffle, ball change, flap. All of the new moves added to the dances.

After hours of rehearsals and plenty of help from parents, we went onstage and performed without a problem and on the day it was planned to be on.

Our motto soon became "the show must go on." It was even printed onto our show shirts.

The whole cast was overjoyed and couldn't be happier that we accomplished such a hard goal, even without the bad director. My sense of community grew so much and my appreciation for hard work did also.

My Name

In Greek my name means wisdom. I wasn’t named after anyone, my mom just said that she liked the name. At the time that she was thinking of what to name me, no one had the name Sophia. She hadn't heard it in a long time and it was a classic Greek name.

A lot of people must have liked it too because at least 4 other people in my grade are also named Sophia. Every time someone calls out my name, at least 2 heads turn each time.

Its not the kind of name that turns heads in a way that no one has heard of it anymore. Sophia has become more and more common. It has been one of the top baby names for the past five years or so.

Nothing is worse than when someone spells my name with an F instead of a PH. I like the spelling of my name and any other way someone might spell it just isn’t right to me.

My name isn’t short for anything, but I have plenty of nicknames. Some people call me Sophie and others just call me Soph. Whenever someone asks me "Which do you prefer, Sophia or Sophie?" I reply with a simple "Doesn't matter, either one."

I like my name, though, and wouldn’t want to change it. My name is a big part of me and always will be one.

Credits:

Created with images by ~Pawsitive~Candie_N - "swing" • sabinevanerp - "red chair concert hall" • GREGOR - "flower yellow spring"

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