I
wouldn’t go near
By
Karthik Palaniappan
Chapter 1
What a
Life.
“Get down here now Karthik,” my stepmother screamed. “You’re
one minute behind your schedule. You are supposed to be down by
I definitely think she has something wrong with her. She made me a schedule to follow and if I’m not punctual, she gets mad.
I quickly ran downstairs and found my stepmother tapping her foot with her arms folded. A shiver ran through my spine.
School was intentionally boring; all we did is discuss why we thought history is good to learn about in L.A.S.S. Math and other subjects were boring also. Think about being in a middle school where the teachers hate kids and try to run the whole day with torturing people. At least from my point of view
Back at home, it was not any better I had to do homework and chores that my evil stepmother assigned. Today she gave me a list, day by day the stuff that I had to do was much harder. All the time I have to do this and that. I know that she said something went horribly wrong in her high school and maybe that caused her to be so ominous.
1.
Do homework
2. Do the laundry
3. Wash the dishes
4. Take care of your little brother
5. Download new software
6.
Do this all by
Did she think I was a robot? I had to do all of that in 2 1/2 hours. Was all of this all some kind of training for something in the future? There was not much I could do though. Now things started to go horribly wrong, just as I did the laundry, I found a to do list in my stepmother’s pocket. That’s when it all began.
It said “remind him about task.”
I just had to figure out what she was talking about the task code.
Boring school days went on, and no one listened to the boring talk. Then the teacher introduced that there would be a test on what we had learned in the past week. I was stunned; I should have listened in class. We didn’t even get any time to study, and it was on a boring subject.
Chapter 2
That is Just Plain Crazy.
I came home dead silently and my evil stepmother wearing her obnoxious and brash shirt that read “I hate kids,” found out something was wrong. She demanded that she should know what was wrong. It was like she had a lie detector, and so I told the truth mumbling quietly. Once when I was three I lied to her and she grounded me forever, she always can tell if it is a lie or not.
“You idiot, not listening in class, daydreaming, not studying for a test that was coming up. Go up to your room now and study”
“But I didn’t know there was a…”
“No buts, now go.” she cut me off
I didn’t have a list, but I only had to study. In my large, room I had to stay all day except for dinner studying for a test. No breaks and no life, what’s the point of going to school. The day is already bad enough. Maybe I should have listened in class.
Chapter 3
Can it get any worse?
“Karthik in room B39 get down to the office now.”
“Oh my gosh,” I thought aloud, that must be my stepmother; the principal is the nice person in the school
Some people started laughing quietly.
On such a nice day, the sun was out, I had nice clothes on, and Mrs. I’m an evil stepmother had to ruin this. With the utter most hatred, I packed up and headed down the bright hallways to the office where I was greeted by a “hurry to the car, it’s an emergency.”
Chapter 4
The Task
“What is the big idea,” I screamed;
“I’m sorry I’ve been so tough, it was all to prepare you for this task.
From here on you must find this task and complete it before time runs out, the
bomb will explode,” she said panting. You will know in a few days what I am
talking about; now hurry before time becomes the problem
After this she did not
say another word and threw me out near dangerous river and drove off. I did not
understand anything she said, but I did hear task and world falling apart.
“Let me try putting them together”, I thought in my head. As soon as I
thought about it, it clicked, I had to perform a task that would decide if I
blew up or not, and I had to get through dangerous creek and from there it goes
to things nobody can speak of.
First off, I can’t
swim 3 miles, so how do I get across, a raft? So I built a sturdy raft out of
nearby fallen branches until it got dark, then I made a fire and slept. The
next morning I was really happy for school being early because I definitely had
to wake up early to make it 3 miles downstream. It was just before sunrise
right now, I had to start my journey. After about 1 hour, approximately, a
travel of 2 miles, I came to a small town on the river that when I walked in,
had posters saying who will it be this year. Who will do the task this year? If
you find someone rafting or boating downstream he/she is it. Call 390-300-9843
to receive your reward of finding the person who is doing the task.
As soon as I looked
around all I heard were hundreds of cell phones and pay phones ring and people
looking very excited.
Some unknown person
that introduced himself as a kid navigator told me that I should not be seen by
anyone else and to leave quickly. I said thanks and asked him if he could help
in the journey and he accepted after long moments of pause. He said that his
mom always told him “follow what your
heart says; it will lead you in the right direction.”
Momentarily, he brought a boat and we
were off to see what lie beneath what we could see.
After the river came
to its end, we climbed out and explored. I found at once that probably 1,777
feet away there was a cave. He was speechless, and then motioned me to follow
his lead. As soon as we entered, a bunch of booby traps flew at us, we ran
until we hit a large door. We opened it and peered inside a booming voiced
announced “welcome to the secret game show. Today’s game is us opposite people
versus the ugly humans.
Chapter 5
Will I survive?
First off opposite
knowledge, answer these questions and bubble in your answers. It was just like
a regular test, but in all my books, these people that are not that secret did
the opposite of what normal humans did. On my answer sheet, instead of writing
answers, I doodled on the paper. The host collected the papers and shouted at
the other alien, “You lost, remember we are the opposites, we doodle, not write
down answers!” I was the winner and could go home!
We were transported to my house along with my navigator. Suddenly
everything went dark and we were in the wilderness with Mr. Host again” Now
lets test your skills, he said; if you win you go home, if not, the bomb will
explode. Can’t you see that we were terrorists from the beginning? Opposites?
Does that make any sense, the other terrorist didn’t do anything, and this was
all a plot.”
The task was to open
the door to go back to earth, but the catch was that there were 99 doorknobs
that had to be turned at the same time. I had an idea, and went straight into
the dark forest. It was very scary, with animals leaping at you every corner,
then a twig fall on your head. I suddenly had fallen into a ditch. Somehow I
was in a deep well. Luckily for me, there was a ladder and I could get out and
start running again. After dogging animals and twigs, I found exactly what I
wanted, a hundred bendy twigs. I attached 99 of the twigs to the sticky and
cold doorknobs with the help of my navigator. All of the twigs were attached to
the longest one. Then I turned the knobs using the longest twig, and we were
plunged into never ending icy cold darkness. Then after a flash of light we
were at my house.
Chapter 6
The New Show
My stepmother came and
congratulated us. She said we were the first people to come back alive. This is
why I overworked you, you needed to be a hard worker to get into and complete
the task that the world depends on. “You see, I was simply getting something at
your friend’s village when I heard it was going to you that they would kidnap
this year and make you play this game show and pretend that a bomb was going to
explode. They are a well known group for kidnapping people just for the fun of
it. Then if they don’t escape, they are captured and have never been found
after that. If you don’t have the strength to face it, they can almost smell it
out of you.” Ouch,
I yelled, why did something just appear in my pocket? I pulled it out, and it
became a big envelope.
Next was a large pack of gold treasures for me. Then was a mysterious
note that read
Dear Karthik, 7/7/07
Congrats
on winning the game, you are the first ever to win this game show alive over
any person that ever lived. We were evil terrorists and now we’ve been caught
because you revealed our hiding spot. When you opened the door, many people
noticed and one of them was a cop. He called for backup and we could do
nothing. We were trying to stop making people play the game, but if we did, all
the cops could start to uncover our hiding spot much faster. We knew it was you
that you were the one who was going to finally win. The bomb timer has been
turned off.
Sincerely,
Mr.
Alien
I was definitely amazed by this and there was a week long party at my
house, but I still do wonder, who will it be next year?
The next year came and
they decided to make this a public and televised game show. I was the first one
to test it out. It of course had new rules, but you still had to think
differently than normal.
