| Karen's Favorites |
| 2003 KarMel Scholarship Entry |
| Karen's Favorite "Truth or Dare" (story) By Anonymous |
| Karen's Favorites "In a boy's dream" (artwork) By Naz Nami - California |
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| Karen's Favorites "Uncommon Freedoms" (story) By Jessica Kohut - Connecticutt |
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| Meghan and I were a pair, no one questioned that, but we were most importantly part of a pack. I'd found Meg and Emma first after moving into the school district, had arrived at lunch on my third day of classes to find them holding court at the Weird Girls' Table and singing cartoon theme songs, letting out a particularly enthusiastic "THUNDERCATS! HOOOOO..." whenever someone deemed them harmless and made a move to infringe on their table. We were a trio from the moment I joined in, and then later a sextet, though I can't even remember where we found Gabby and Anne and Amber- I know we were all in the Gifted and Talented class, and figured we might as well all like each other because that closed the door on anyone else liking us. We loved G&T but hated school, shrinking into the cinderblock walls in ourhand-me-down sweaters and store-brand sneakers and secretly thriving after school and all weakened in each other's company. We lived like queens together, subsiding on our own thirteen-year-old mood-swing cocktails- exaggerated airs of maturity followed closely by frantic grasps for the kid-selves we were sued to, the ones that didn't feel inhibited by changing into our gymsuits or singing in our classmates' presence. We slipped back and forth effortlessly, like world travelers who couldn't get our languages straight. |
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| "Brenden, your higness! Are you not well?" A knock on the large pine door to Prince Brenden's chambers. The door was not locked, and Sebastian, his squire, and most trusted friend entered. It showed the young man gazing longingly out of his window. His only access to the outside world. A realm beyond the castle walls. A place Brenden had never been. Brenden glanced at his friend, with disheveled hair underneath a flopping hat with ridiculous feather shooting from one side, and with one striking object that hung from his neck. An amulet he had worn since either could remember. It has nothing more than a seashell with a small carving in the cneter. Neither one knew what it meant, or how Sebastian had come to wear it or so long, but it was quite lovely in it's simplicity and was just thought of as normal for him to wear it. "No Sebastian. I am not well. I am not well at all." Brenden contiued his gawking out the window. Perhaps the pampered, jaded life that seemed like a thin slice of heaven for a young boy was the burden he would inherit. Brenden was, in his own eyes, no more fit for king than his kind friend. His kind friend, his best friend, a childhood, and indeed adulthood companion that he loved. But now that he was soon to be king, Sebastian had to treat Brenden like some god that perched atop mount Olympus. It sickened Brenden that royal law demanded that Sebastian know his lower place in life, and never consider himself equal to a person he knew all his life. At the word the prince was ailing, Sebastian's eyes grew larger, and he scurried over to him. He put his own hand on the royal boy's forehead. |
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