By Julie

“Far, far, far away in the land of the Bahamas,” my sister began, “There is a meadow in which the children play. In the center of the meadow is a round sand pit which they use as a sandbox. Next to this meadow is a big rocky hill. Under the hill is a little dugout. In the dugout lives an old woman.” I listened in delight. My sister’s stories are the best in the whole wide world. She began again. “This woman is very special. She is the Keeper of Laughter.” I gasped. “Do you mean she keeps laughter inside her house? How does she do that?” I asked. “If you are quiet, Pardo, I will tell you.” My sister answered. “She keeps them in the windows of her very house. Remember how Mama always tells us that laughter is the window to our very brains?” I nodded and Maria continued. “The laughter lives within her windows. Every morning she sends some laughter off to everyone so that they may have an exciting day. Sometimes the laughter finds the way to the person it is looking for, and sometimes it does not.”
“Every night, very late, the laughter comes back to her, and she rounds it all up and puts it back in the windows. In the morning, she unleashes it again and out it goes.” My sister turned to me. “Are you tired yet, Pardo? Would you rather go to sleep than listen to me rambling on and on about the Keeper of Laughter?” I spoke the truth. “No Maria! Your stories are the best in the whole wide world.” So my sister kept going.
“Whenever anyone is sad, the Keeper of Laughter sends them some… extra laughter. When they are sick, she sends them more laughter than usual because laughter is the best medicine. But one day, nobody seemed to use the laughter anymore. Not even the sad people or the sick people. Nobody wanted to laugh. The world became dull.”
“Soon the old woman noticed that her laughter was getting tired. It all hurried out at the start of the day. All day it hurried along beside their people, but never being laughed. Soon it began to get tired. Sometimes when laughter is tired, it gets sick. This laughter got so exausted, it got the fever. So the old woman called it all in and put it to bed.” I interrupted her. “But what if it was sick forever and no one could ever laugh again?” My sister rolled her eyes. “Listen, Pardo, or go to sleep.” she said to me. That zipped my lips. “So laughter stayed home. For weeks, nobody noticed. But then, there was a lovely girl named Mary Lou Parsley.” I interrupted her again. “Parsley?” Maria paused for a second. “Yes. But anyways, Mary Lou was about your age, Pardo. About 10 years old. She was in the 4th grade at a grand school. But one day, a day long ago, Mary Lou Parsley was swinging on the swings. She laughed! But there was no sound! In fact, no sound was coming out of her mouth!
Mary Lou was questioned by news teams, newspaper reporters, and random people she met on the street. As the world became more and more exciting, everyone realized it was true! No one could laugh at all because they had all tired all of the laughter out.”
“Are the Keeper of Laughter and Mary Lou ever going to meat each other so you won’t have to jump back and forth anymore?” I asked Maria. “Yes, Pardo. In just a minute.
Well, back in the dugout, the old woman was gently tending for the laughter. But soon, she had gotten sick from being around the laughter so much! She hurried off to bed and soon enough, Mary Lou made a stop at her house. Mary Lou realized that the laughter was all better, but the Keeper was not. Mary Lou would have to let the laughter out. ‘I’ll open the window for you!’ sweet Mary Lou offered. She slid open the window, but the laughter would only come out for the old woman. ‘Have some bread and butter,’ the woman advised Mary Lou. So Mary Lou opened the cabnet. She saw the Keeper’s cookbook. It was flipped open to a page. It said:
Laughter is the best medicine! Take 1 half-teaspoon every 5 minutes for 10 minutes
Mary Lou Parsley had an idea! She measured out a half-teaspoon and fed it to the old woman as the instructions said. The woman, after 24 hours, was sick no more, and unleashed the laughter! Everyone lived happily ever after.”
“That’s it?” I said. “That’s the grand ending?” Maria tickled me. “Yes, Pardo. Now off to bed with you!”

Purple is royal. A pure royal color. Like the sofa in a room fit for a king, or comfy cushions in a cartoon genie’s lamp. Like a fuzzy hairball character from another planet. Purple is strange, graceful, and regal.
Purple looks deep and bright, a luscious blend of red and blue thrown carefully together into a smoothie of purple. Like the bright electric “Pop-up Purple” in the “Rock ‘n Pop Swirl” ice cream from Baskin Robins. The soft, soothing purple in a lilac bush. Or the in-between sight of a normal pansy in a flowerpot.
Purple sounds like a beautiful two-syllable word. Pur-ple. Pur-ple. Say it out loud. Pur-ple. As clashing and majestic as can be, but something a mere pig might “Oink!” or an old donkey might bray. A combonation of something and nothing. Mild as a spring day on a field full of lambs. Purple is a rythemic word, too. Pur-ple, pur-ple pur-ple.
Purple feels warm and fuzzy like a shaggy old rug. Rougher patches, and places that seemed to have never been touched by human hands. Wild parts fraying and tangling, but softer ones, perfect to sink your feet into. Like skipping through a field so covered with flowers, you can scarcely see the grass. Breezes and petals tickling your ankles.
Purple smells like fresh flowers and a tickling scent of raspberry weaving its way in. Like freshly cut grass, just run over by the lawnmower. Like tea bags right before you’re going to put them in your tea. Even a tiny pinch of both salt and pepper. Purple smells like the humid air of the rainforest, but still the share of dry, thirsty grasslands.
Purple tastes like fruit salad, loaded with grapes and topped with whipped cream and jelly crashing against your tounge. Sweet and sour. A wonderful taste stopping to rest on your tounge. Like grapes right off of the vine, or a raspberry cobbler right out of the oven. It reminds you of a fresh salad or a hot cake. Purple is a vegetarian color, I think.
Purple. What a fresh, royal word. It reminds you of indigo butterflies and birds sailing above your head. Velvet, too. So regal, but then again, so new, fresh, graceful, bouncy, free.

One day, I was playing on the beach with my brother Nick. We had built a little fort on the edge by a little creek that went into some woods. “Crab attack! Crab attack! Evacuate immediately!” Nick screamed. We were pretending, of course. Runninng out of our small shelter, we hid behind a small rock that was way too small to completely hide us. “Jessie, the evacuation plan didn’t work,” Nick said, ” We need to elevate, fast! Crab attack!” So Nick and I climbed the sturdiest tree we could find, barefoot. Suddenly, I saw some glinting purple thing washed up on the beach. I showed it to Nick. Once the crabs, not being able to climb trees, cursed us and scuttled back into the ocean, we climbed down. “It must be an ancient pirate treasure! It could be worth finding! It could be purple jewels washed up from Fantasia!” I told Nick. So we ran over to find the glinting purple thing. Purple sunglasses. Worth finding, but definently not anything from Fantasia.
We went back to our humble little shack. We went back to making our super mud bombs and seaweed casserole. We tested our arrows and slingshots. Suddenly, Nick yelled “Eagle attack!! Get underground fast!”
I looked through the “purple telescope sunglasses” and into the most exiting, wierd, strange, cool, terrifying sight of my life.
There were, maybe, three hundred white eagles, carrying torches in their beaks. They had red eyes, and in their talons were big heavy rocks! Some of the eagles dropped theirs and they made huge splashes in the ocean, soaking me to the bone! I took the sunglasses off to run, and there was nothing there! Just calm blue ocean. Never ending. Swimmers swimming. Nothing was wrong.
Nick was hiding under an old tree root. “Jessie, run!” He screamed. Of course I did! I dashed under the tree root and we plummeted down a gopher tunnel. I looked through the sunglasses. The eagles were landed by our fort. They were still holding their torches. They were very confused. “Where did they go?” One of them said. They were so cute! So evil, though. That was when Nick did somthing amazing.
I don’t know how he did it. He snapped his fingers and ran in a circle and jumped up and down. The eagles got dizzy and tired after a minute. “Relax!” He yelled. “Relax and enjoy the show!” He smiled. “From now on you will be loyal, good eagles. You will perform good deeds and save people. And your eyes will be blue, not red. You will wake up when I clap my hands.” He clapped his hands. Their eyes were blue. They flew away. You could see them in a big cloud. I took of the sunglasses. The cloud vanished. Next came the asking Nick about what happened when I put on the glasses and how he hypnotized the eagles. “It’s all very normal, when you have imagination.” Was all he said. I was really confused now. “Are you saying that I didn’t have imagination 10 minutes ago?” I asked, half awake, half stunned. Nick didn’t answer. Now curious, coming out of my trance, I slipped the sunglasses on and looked at the fort. Same as it always was. A little hut. Nick started inside. Keeping the glasses on, I followed.
Our balloon swords were real, his jeweled serpent green and mine jeweled tickle-me-pink. The colors that the balloons were before I tripled my imagination. The mud bombs were perfectly round and slightly damp in a little bin that had once been plastic, now steel with a lock on it. Our seaweed cassaroles were real, real tortillas, not just jungle leaves, and the seaweed inside looked like lettace.
But I wasn’t surprised any more. It was like Nick said. “It’s all very normal when you have imagination.
A few days later, I was Princess Jessie, not just plain old Jessie. Nick was a noble knight. We still played by the seashore. I didn’t need the sunglasses anymore. I could have a lot of imagination without them. We buried them outside the fort. They grew an exotic purple sunglass bush.
It’s just the same as the day that we discovered the purple sunglasses. Except it’s not strange and mysterious and terrifying anymore. It’s all very normal when you have imagination.

Blue is a fresh flowery color, like bluebells or blue tulips. A short, sweet, sound. Calm as a pond, but crazy as elecric blue fur on a dog or a panda bear. There should be a shiny metallic-colored blue-ish beetle, just called “The Blue Beetle.”
Blue looks like a bluebird flying against a clear, bright sky. Like a butterfly in a painting by a famous artist. An alien planet in another universe in the blackness of empty space.
Blue sounds short, sound, and sweet. Like a song. Something a baby might say, a baby word. The name of some famous reptile, one that lives in the ocean and eats plants. Calm waves and the noise of the great Nigera Falls.
Blue feels soft and furry, with possibly a few feathers thrown in, too. Like some tiny baby bird. Warm, like the crust of a blueberry pie. The core of some small miracle waiting to be discovered.
Blue smells like freshly picked blueberries in a straw basket, after picking them it the mountain bushes. The armoa of fresh, warm blueberry waffles, and the scent of blue raspberry ring pops. Wonderful smell coming from some piping hot tuna fish for lunch when you’re famished.
Blue tastes like cold salty ocean water from a beach where it’s hot. The bursting taste of flavorful, sweet blueberries on your breakfast plate in the early morning. Like blue raspberry popsicles stright from the freezer.
Everyone needs a little bit of blue in their world. A little bit of paradise. A little bit of magic. Fairy dust is probably blue.
Blue is the third color in America. Blue is a babbling brook. Blue covers most of a globe in school. Blue is a blue spruce tree, never losing It’s needles. Blue is sky, genly topped with fluffy white clouds and big black birds flying south.

I got Stripers from a crane machine when I was 5 or 6. I remember that I kept putting quarters into the machine and that, like always, I couldn’t get anything. I started to cry. But my older brother Danial has this special knack for crane machines. He was about 16 then. He put a quarter in the machine and worked his magic. He pulled out a little zebra with a mane that stuck up and and fuzzy tail, and soft little skin with black and white stripes.
He was mine. I stopped crying at once. I loved him! I named him Stripers. I needed him to go to sleep every night, and I dragged him along everywhere with me.
One day, we were going on a vacation to Nebraska, and we drove. We had to stay at a hotel called Zebra Inn. In our room, there were little zebras everywhere, stuffed ones, plastic ones, glass ones, wallpaper ones. Stripers played with them all. I already had zebra wallpaper, and a zebra or two on my bedspread, and Stripers, but I wanted a zebra collection too. It started out small, and then it grew and grew, until it almost completely covered my bedroom! I even had a sign on my door, a lion one, circling the lion in red paint and then crossing it out. “No Lions” it said underneath. Lions eat zebras, I think.
Even now, and I’m 12 now, my collection still remains, and it’s still, very very slowly, growing. If I had too much more, it would by overflow my room. I’ve way overpowered Zebra Inn, my favorite hotel, now. We go there every time I visit my Gram and Gramps now. Even though my room is a little more black-and-white, it’s still one of the funnest places to sleep the night.
Stripers is still always the jewel of my collection. I still need him to sleep at night, and I still drag him around everywhere. He’s still my favorite among all of the zebra posters and figurines, and the zebra wallpaper, and the zebra mask and costume that I wore for Halloween when I was 7. I don’t think it’s because he was my first one, although I do like him a lot because of that. I think it’s because my brother Danial saw me sad and worked his crane machine magic just to make me happy. I think he has happiness in him. He’s made of heart and happiness, and black and white and zebra.