Theo, Age 9
West Sand Lake Elementary
I was reading outside this summer. I had just gone in the pool and had a water gun fight with my annoying older brother. I won. Suddenly a gorgon came out of the woods by my house. (I knew it was a Gorgon from the snakes in her hair.) “Ahhhh!” I screamed and looked away.
Fear not, though, for I knew her weakness. I ran inside. “Where is it? Where is it?” I kept saying. “Aha!” I had found the shiny pan. For some reason there was an owl engraved on it. “I’ve never seen that owl before,” I said. I also grabbed a spatula. I noticed an owl on that too.
I went to my upstairs room and made a plan. At least i was going to, but my spatula turned into a spear and armour appeared on me. I went outside, but now there was more than just the gorgon, now there was also the minotaur, Cereberus ( a three headed dog),and three harpies. (If you haven’t noticed, I pay attention to mythology.)
“First things first,” I said and pointed the pan at the gorgon so she would turn to stone.
She paused and said,”Wow, am I ugly. No wonder I turn people to stone.” Thankfully I didn’t see her or I would be a statue. I used my spear on her, grabbed her head and said, “ I will turn you monsters into stone!” The harpies hissed, “That doesn’t work on us, demigod! We will now eat you, Theodore!”
I said,”how do you know my name? I’m glad I don’t have to hold this, so thank you for telling me.” I attacked one f the harpies. As she fell, she screamed, “ AAIYE” and scratched me, so it felt like red hot nails across my stomach. “AHHH!” I screamed, “That hurt!”
Not that I was wounded, I couldn’t fight as well. To add to my problems, while I was fighting the harpie, a sphinx, and hydra had appeared. By the way, i don’t need to feel any guilt from destroying these monsters. They’ll just go back to Tartarus and eventually come back to life. Well, back on topic. I could avoid being eaten by the sphinx if I could answer the riddle from the lion-person.
I walked up to it and said, “So what will the riddle be?”
The sphinx answered in a voice like nails on a chalkboard, “WELL, RIGHT DOWN TO BUSINESS. I LIKE THAT. GET READY TO BE EATEN. THIS IS YOUR RIDDLE: RAILROAD CROSSING, WATCH OUT FOR CARS, HOW DO YOU SPELL IT WITHOUT R’S?” I thought for a moment, came up with nothing, and tried a different tactic. I ran forward with this battle cry, “Ahh!” and jabbed at him. Well that’s how I wish it went. In reality, he grabbed my spear with me still holding on and put me under his paw, growling, “ Are you going to answer my riddle or can I just eat you?”
“I’ll answer the riddle!” I said frantically. “Um...I-T?”
“NO YOU GOT IT!” He moaned and ran away.
“Next,” I thought, “is the hydra.” I knew I couldn’t cut off one of its heads because two would grow back. “Of course, I can’t,” I thought, “I have a spear.” The answer seemed obvious. I would just jab its stomach. But nothing’s ever that simple, is it? When I tried to do it all the heads came at me. I stabbed at them, but to my dismay, another head came out of the heads which were now alive again. One of them headbutted me in the stomach where my harpie wound was. I fell back on the ground screaming, “ The pain! The pain!” the hydra, now with so many heads that it was as big as my house, started walking toward me, crushing the remaining two harpies. I slid under its stomach and stabbed upward. As it was about to fall on me, a centaur (half horse, half human) rammed into the hydra’s side, pushing it away from me.
The Cereberus came over to me. It wasn’t even close to as hard of a fight. Cerberus came lumbering over to me, and I just got on its back and rode it to attack the minotaur, a real problem. It ran over to me and tried to impale me on one of its horns. Fortunately, it only caught my shirt and flung me into an olive tree. For some reason, hitting the olive tree didn’t hurt. If anything, it made me feel better. With renewed strength, I ran forward and jabbed at the monstrosity. It go sucked into the ground.
I saw something come from the east. It was in the sky. It kept getting closer and closer until it was finally here. I now saw that it was a woman in a helmet holding a spear and olive branch. It was Athena. She said, “Hello Theodore. I am your mother.” Then she left leaving me to ponder that.