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Teen Writing Contest 2002 Winners
The following is the list of winners in the Teen Writing Contest and their prizes. Click on the name of the story or poem to read it or click here to read all of the winning entries. Poetry 1st
Place - "Life
in the Day" by Evelyn Duffy, 17, Vineland
2nd
Place - "Under
a Tree by a Pond" by Raquel Gonzalez, 17, Vineland 3rd
Place - "Musings"
by Evelyn Duffy, 17, Vineland
1st
Place -- "Codebreakers"
by Evelyn Duffy, 17, Vineland
2nd
Place - "Vosco's
Lair" by Alissa Slavoff, 17, Vineland 3rd
Place - - "The
Boxing Match!" by Olga Martinez, 17, Vineland
1st Place - "A Life in the Day" by Evelyn Duffy, 17 And have you ever gone driving in the back of a convertible, It takes something special, to keep the good when facing the bad. Cor is a word for a thought from the start of time, Close of the day in late September, driving along a deserted road. Dirt in small fields where life began, Entering a small town, And will you remember to live until you die? 2nd Place - "Under a Tree by a Pond" by Raquel Gonzalez, 17 The only two people in the world 3rd Place - "Musings" by Evelyn Duffy, 17 Have you ever stood at the top of the world, Time moves like water, never in the same place twice. What do you do when ghosts appear from long ago, And what of it if I let my mind wander? 1st
Place -- "Codebreakers" by Evelyn Duffy, 17 John and Linda stood nervously in the waiting room, each
clinging to a sheet of paper, wrinkling it with their sweaty palms. They huddled close together in the chilly room. The heat and the lights had been turned off when the staff left for the day, and they imagined they could see their breath against the dim security lights. Linda let her hand drop away from the paper with a gasp. "Maybe we shouldn't do this now," she said miserably.
John stared at her. "We have to, Lin. If we wait another week it'll be
too late to change anything. We'd be putting him in danger." Her
chin started to tremble as she tried to keep from crying. "Come on,
hon," he said, cajoling and impatient. "We want him to be like
Mike Lawson's kid, right? Only we'll make sure ours doesn't get that awful
nose." She giggled despite herself. "That's just the sort of
thing we've got to watch for, too. These doctors charge you for all the
alterations, then don't do half of them. There's no way to know until
the boy's born." "John," she began, craning her neck to look up
at him, "will it hurt much?" He laughed loudly. "Hon, he's still inside," he chuckled, patting
her stomach clumsily. "He won't feel a thing!" Just at that
moment a door opened and a round little man with a bald head and a lab
coat stepped out into the waiting room. "Mr. and Mrs. Crandon, correct? John and Linda?"
They nodded breathlessly. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Doctor Errol;we
spoke on the phone." He hesitated. "Ah, this is awkward, but
I'm afraid I have to ask for the money before we go in. That's just a
general precaution," he added quickly, afraid of offending them.
John held his hand out in front of his wife, and, remembering,
she pulled the money pouch she was wearing around her neck out from under
her shirt and handed it to her husband. He opened it and took out a roll
of hundred dollar bills, and put them in the doctor's hands. He moved
to count them, then thought better of it. "Well then, that's taken care of. Let's head back to
my office." He pushed open the door he'd entered through, and held
it for the couple. They walked down a long corridor, and Linda sidled
up to John's side to whisper in his ear. "I meant to say, would it hurt me?" John glanced
back at her, but kept walking and didn't respond. They arrived in a stark white laboratory, lined with harsh
metal cabinets with a steel examination table under the center lights.
Linda couldn't help but shudder as they paused to let Dr. Errol unlock
his office. She felt a little relieved as she followed John into the
cluttered little room. The doctor had a kindly voice and a friendly smile,
and she was slightly reassured. They seated themselves, and the doctor leaned against his
desk with his hands in his pockets. "This is all pretty straightforward," he began.
"You tell me what you want your son to look like, think like, act
like…" he shrugged. "Pretty much anything you want, I can
do." "Excellent," John began, shifting in his seat
and fishing a piece of paper out of his back pocket. "We have a list
here," but the doctor cut him off before he could continue. "I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Crandon, but there are
some things we must have absolutely clear before we begin." John
leaned back in his seat sullenly. "Now then," continued the
doctor, "while it is legal to manipulate genes in New Jersey, it's
also highly controversial, and dangerous for the doctors who do it. Will
you agree to sign a contract that says you won't tell anyone who performed
the procedure for you?" The couple looked at each other for a moment.
"It's for my own protection. I'm not allowed to perform the manipulation
unless you sign it." "I guess so," said John with a hint of uncertainty.
"Just to make it legal and all. Why not?" The doctor smiled
thinly. "Good. I'll get that for you in just a moment. The
other thing you need to understand is that I perform all modifications
as ethically as I can. I'll get rid of diseases, I'll change eye or hair
pigments, I'll regulate intelligence, and I'll also try to comply with
any special requests to get rid of hereditary problems." John raised
an eyebrow. "So what's the problem?" he asked. "I have final say over what gets changed and what doesn't.
I'm not here to help create a super-race or anything like that; in fact,
I've spent a large part of my life getting rid of the people who are.
So if anything on your list meets that description, I'll give you your
money back, and you can go home." "Oh, that's not it at all," Linda said with feeling,
speaking for the first time. "We just want our son to have a good
life, and to give him a good chance to be happy." Dr. Errol beamed
at her. "That's the sort of thing I love to hear," he
said. "Well, you sound like fine parents." He leaned across
his desk and picked up some loose papers and a clipboard. "If you'd
just sign there," he said, indicating the line on the contract to
John, "we can start going over what modifications you'd like made." Soon they were engrossed in discussion. The new parents
wanted brown eyes and straight, dark brown hair for their son, and they
wanted him to think at a higher than average intelligence with a superior
command of the maths and sciences. John insisted that the boy love sports,
while Linda would not budge from her wish to give him a talent for music
and dancing. After a long hour of discussion, Dr. Errol turned on his
computer and punched in all the gene alterations that would affect the
boy's physical appearance and showed a computer visualization of him to
the parents. He showed them what the boy would look like at birth, at
five years old, at ten, at sixteen, and at twenty. They suggested changes
as they went along, and eventually settled on an image of a handsome young
man with low cheekbones, dark, sensitive brown eyes, and soft brown hair.
He had long, graceful limbs and a strong upper body that made him both
attractive and, as John put it, "a football powerhouse." Turning to nonphysical issues, the doctor offered them the
standard package: elimination of the genes causing alcoholism, obesity,
drug dependency, and any and all criminal or deviant tendencies. In addition,
they asked that their son be born without any genetic risk of heart disease
or diabetes, both ailments that were common in their families. "What…what do I have to do?" she asked in
a small voice. "Nothing, really. I'll give you something to make you
sleep for a while, and then we attach the monitors and do everything else
electronically while you're unconscious." He spoke very reassuringly,
and John reached down to stroke her nervous fingers. "Okay," she said. "Let's get started."
"All right," he said with a smile. "Let me
go get you a gown to change into, and then we can begin. I'll be right
back," he called out as he walked out of the door. Linda turned to her husband with doubt in her eyes. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do?"
John took both her hands in his. "Babe, look at that," he said, gesturing to the
picture on Dr. Errol's computer monitor. "That's our son. Isn't he
perfect? Don't you want him to be perfect?" "Yes," she said, feeling John's sense of certainty
inspire confidence in their decision. The doctor arrived carrying a paper
gown, and allowed her to change in private as he left to show John back
into the waiting room. When she emerged, Dr. Errol led her to the examination room
and helped her up onto the steel table. He made small talk as he prepared for the procedure, setting
out his tools and wheeling over a large horizontal computer that stood
over her and would be used to scan the genetic code of the child inside
her. "Just relax now, and breathe deeply," he said
in a gentle voice as he lifted a mask connected to a long tube up over
her face. She awoke hours later, laid out on a bed in a tiny recovery
room. There was a dim lamp on the table beside her, but other than that
the room was dark and comforting. She didn't feel any pain, though she
was a little afraid at the sensation of so much time having gone by. Some time later, there was a soft knock at the door and
Dr. Errol entered. "Hello there," he said quietly, and examined her
quickly to make sure she had recovered fully from the gas. When he was
satisfied, he went back to the door and called John into the room. He
came and sat next to his wife on the bed, and held her hand tightly. The
doctor stood before them, glancing down at a clipboard from time to time. "Well," he smiled at them, "you're going
to be very proud parents in just a few months," he said. "Everything
went smoothly, and I was able to accommodate all but one of your requests." "Oh, thank God," Linda breathed. John looked relieved,
then puzzled. "What do you mean all but one?" he asked, growing
concerned. "It's not that anything went wrong. I decided something
had to be changed." "What does that mean?" Linda asked, eyes wide.
The doctor shrugged. "My work…it affects me in certain ways. You have
to remember that though I might work primarily with genetic code, in reality,
I work with children. I got to know your child very well, better than
you ever will. I know every part of every gene she carries-" "He," said Linda instinctively. "My son's
a…he," she said, but her words slowed as a terrible thought
occurred to her. Dr. Errol smiled down at her. "No, she's a girl now. I've modified so many boys,
I wanted to see…a daughter, for once." John was standing to demand an explanation as Dr. Errol
headed toward the door, but the doctor spoke first as he paused to addressed
the shocked parents on his way out. "One other thing," he said. "I like the name Sarah, don't you?" 2nd
Place - "Vosco's Lair" by Alissa Slavoff, 17 Suddenly a large green and red dragon comes crashing through the underbrush at you. "Who are you? Why are you here?" He spits out between long, sharp fangs. You stutter for a moment. "Scared, are you? You should be! I am Vosco." You say that you do not recognize the name, and he is astonished. "Not know me, and yet you have entered my home? I will tell you if you wish to hear, but know that my mate Kimi is much better at such things than I. "Where to start? My odd
color perhaps. I hatched from a green egg, bright green. I was myself
bright green at hatching, but the red came in with age and experience.
I am a bit mottled, as you can see. Quite uneven, though I am in perfect
health. A bit gray "Our old home, not that far from here, was also an island volcano like this one. We thought that it was safe, no more lava or exploding or anything like that. We thought it was too old of a volcano; that it had no more left in it. We were wrong. We need there to be some activity left in our home, to heat the sands for the eggs to lay on. One day we received a warning from some science people, and they say we have to leave our home! They say it is no longer safe. We ignored them, what did they know anyway? They said it might blow sometime in the next hundred years, and we should prepare." Vosco pointed off into the distance as he spoke of his old home. "Then, about a week later the ground starts shaking and we are wishing we had listened to them! We grabbed all we could. We ran, flew, hopped, swam, and anything else to get away in time. All the Weyr creatures were told to evacuate." Vosco bent down, showing his fangs again. "You must tell me, have you have ever seen an egg run from danger? I think not. I carried egg after egg away from the shaking sands to the old Weyr's entrance. From there they were picked up and sent to safety by others in a long line ending at a large boat in the old harbor. The sand's heating system was nothing more than pipes full of steam from the hot springs running through piles of clean sand in a deep cavern. When the lava met the water the pressure blew out all the joints one by one. I would be running and SHLOOOP! A pipe would shoot out of the sand and SMACK right back down. Some eggs were shot though by the pipes, but this was not the worst danger. "The worst was the steam. There was so much pressure and extra heat that the sand was melting where the pipes burst. The eggs not shot through were being cooked, but I did my best and saved what I could. There is only so much a man can take. These were my children, but at last I saw there was nothing left worth saving except my own life. As I ran to the cavern exit the main pipe broke beneath me. The superheated steam blasted me out of the tunnel, but melted many of my scales. "I recovered, and am back in top shape, but I will keep this burnt color all my life to show what I have survived." Vosco stood straight a moment to show his full three meter height, then slithered back toward the bushes. "It does blend well with the forest. As long as I keep my wings folded I have some very good hunting." For a minute you try to follow him with your eyes, but soon realize he has completely blended with the forest and left you alone. 3rd Place - - "The Boxing Match!" by Olga Martinez, 17 Life is hard,
and I know many people that have had very hard times. Life is like a I know someone
that has had a very hard life. Her life started with someone that wasn't
her mother. Her mother was doing drugs while she was in labor. She was
taken away from her mother at birth and she was placed in a home with
another family. Her mother didn't try to get better; she just continued
to do what she wished. Her grandmother finally fought for the little girl.
She was given to her grandmother and was raised by her, but her mother
was still around. After her grandmother died, she was given to her mother,
and she always felt that she was never really loved or treated with any
kind of respect. As she grew up, she was thinking about suicide until
she met someone that was there for her. She felt as if she was able to
talk to her all the time, anytime. She then started to really feel better
about herself. The point of this
story is that no matter what has happened to her, she has always found
a way to get by it, and regardless of the fact that she was hit very hard
during her "boxing match," she somehow pulled through the entire
thing. She was in the worst situation and then she fought back with the
help of her friend, who we will think of as the coach in the match. Life
was the competitor, while she fought against it. She received so many
blows and she still got right back up and continued to fight. She didn't
let anything get in her way. Take this information and drive it through your mind. Remember this story when you think of doing a certain thing that just might make you feel as if you're not really worth anything. If you ever feel you're not fitting in or you're not in the best of moods and/or thinking the worst. Just remember that you're not alone. There is always someone else that might be going through the same thing, and you might not even see it or know that they might be thinking that way; most hide their feelings. Just remember it doesn't do you any good to hold anything back: let it all out.
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