Tyler has loved writing stories for many years. Especially in his younger years, he often would be found at his computer writing a story. He even created a family newspaper and wrote articles about family news when he was in 1st grade. It shouldn't come as a surprise that when Tyler's English teacher entered one of his personal narrative stories in a district writing contest this year, he took 1st place!
We attended an awards ceremony last week and Tyler was honored for his award winning story. His story has now been "published" in the district's anthology and of course we have posted it here as well. Enjoy!
One Hour, Thirty-Six Minutes
By Tyler Ritter
My eyes snapped open. Darkness greeted me. I rolled over and squinted at the red LED numbers. The bedsprings creaked underneath my shifting weight. I wasn’t able to make out the numbers, so I grabbed my glasses an put them on. The numbers came into focus; 6:07 a.m. I softly sighed. I still had an hour and forty-five minutes to wait before my brother and I could race into our parent’s bedroom and wake them up. Even though it was Christmas, they still needed their beauty sleep.
I pulled off the covers and walked over to the doorway and turned on the light. The sudden brightness was too much for my still-adjusting pupils to grasp. I allowed my eyes to adjust before walking back to my bed and popping out my retainer. I set it in its black and silver case. What to do now? I had already killed about three minutes just waking up.
I grabbed my current book, Dune by Frank Herbert, and settled onto my bed to read. Time slowly went by as I entered the world of Paul Atreides. However, one can only handle so much of, arguably, the most revered science-fiction novel in history. Forty-five minutes later I was back to square one with the clock reading 6:56 a.m. and fifty minutes still standing.
I needed some company. I silently tiptoed out of my room and down the hallway, ignoring the light on in my brother’s room; I had strict orders to not enter my brother’s room. I made my way into my mother’s office and looked to my left. Sitting in his crate was my dog, Bogey. I lifted the latch and swung the door open. Before I let Bogey out, I removed his red collar so he didn’t make any noise when he would invariably shake like he had just gotten a bath, which he did.
“C’mon,” I whispered as I led him down the hall. I took him into my room and, as usual, he jumped onto my bed and curled up, and sighed. I sat down next to him and examined the clock. Retrieving Bogey had taken four minutes. I stroked his head and thought up my plan. The night before I had prepared my iPod to play a certain song (Wake Up! Wake Up! By Everyday Sunday) before my brother and I charged my parent’s room, so listening to that was out of the question. The adventures of Paul Atreides had bored me long ago, my old clunker of a computer—it ran on Windows 98—was too loud and it provided me with no form of entertainment, so I was pretty much out of options.
Then, the light bulb went off and I stooped down to open the doors of my desk. Inside was a stack of old Sports Illustrated Kids that could keep me occupied for the next forty-two minutes. I settled into an issue from September of 2008 and skimmed through it. In the following forty minutes, I reread ten magazines.
At precisely 7:43 a.m., two minutes away from the attack, my parent’s double doors rattled. What’s this? I thought. We weren’t allowed to wake them up until 7:45. I made my way to the door when suddenly it burst open and my dad came running in.
“HEY GUYS! COME ON! LET’S GO! HURRY!” he shouted. I laughed as he tackled me onto my bed. Bogey barely scrambled out of the way before I hit the mattress. He started pounding on my chest and I just laughed; even my dad was excited
“What’re you doing up early?” I asked.
“I thought you might still be asleep and I’d wake you up,” said my dad. Again I laughed. My dad and I went to his room to rouse my mom and Christmas began.
