Ezra Marks, a freshman at Middlebury Union High School, wrote this humor piece, Joey’s Biggest Mistake, in response to a Young Writers Project prompt that called for a story about a character who discovers something that has been hidden in the family’s attic for years.
Joey’s Biggest Mistake
By Ezra Marks
Grade 9, Middlebury Union High School
Joey was only 7 years old when he discovered it — the fountain of youth. It was a warm summer’s day when he found the large red sheet, under which lay the greatest and most powerful elixir known to man.
The boy stared intensely at the fountain for hours, perplexed by the white glow coming from the liquid. He inched closer to the fountain until he could touch the small base holding the fountain above the attic floor.
Joey suddenly lost his balance, and into the base of the fountain he crashed. The contents spilled all over him, the attic, and the rest of the house as the fluid seeped through the ceiling.
Finally, the liquid traveled to a small stream outside the house where it flowed and was absorbed by the earth. Suddenly, everything started to change. Joey started to shrink rapidly, and he was ripped out of the trees that he had been inside, the trees that had been a fully formed house just seconds before.
Joey was flung off toward New Jersey to be unborn, a very unpleasant experience. Before Joey could arrive in New Jersey, it had disappeared. Not only that, but there were no continents, there was no earth. All that existed was a little baby egg earth within mommy earth’s tummy.
It would seem that a little goes a long way when it comes to youth elixir.