My watch says 12:55pm. Click. I snap my lunch box shut and toss it unceremoniously into my backpack. Time to go. Lunch period at ASA is great and all, but I wouldn’t be late for my creative writing class for anything in the world! Rumor has it we’re going to meet the Headless Horseman today. As a 13 year old, I’m not superstitious or nervous or anything, but I pick a seat at the table closest to the door... just in case.

“Hello there!” Miss Stephanie calls to me from the front of the room. “Would you mind giving me a hand with this whiteboard?” As I’m helping her get it situated so the class will be able to see it, we start talking about this week’s reading assignment...

“Fifty pages of reading seemed like a lot at first,” I admitted, “but once I got to the part where they were secretly stuffed into barrels, bobbing up and down like corks in the cold river water, I was so into the story, I couldn’t put it down. I had to find out whether or not they escaped from the cave. I ended up reading until my mom came down and made me go to bed.”

“Oh! That happens to me all the time! Except it’s my husband that makes me turn off the lights and go to bed,” laughs Brittany, who had come up behind us carrying a plastic crate full of what looked like costumes and props. (I bet we’ll be using those for some kind of game during class.) Then she, Miss Stephanie, and Miss Amy take turns telling all about how they used to sneak in reading minutes as kids when they were supposed to be sleeping. That’s one of my favorite parts about this class; the mentors tell us a lot of stories.

The whole class is here now, and we are hard at work on the Fix It sentences Miss Stephanie wrote up on the whiteboard. The tip of my tongue is poking out from the corner of my mouth as I try to remember whether or not to capitalize both of the p’s in Peppermint Patty. Grammar principles are like the First Aid Kit of writing; they aren’t anything to call home about, but they help my sentences stay healthy and strong so that I can focus on more exciting creative ideas like planning how to defeat the White Witch, deciding what the best materials are for building a spaceship, or working out exactly how to get Anne out of yet another scrape.

A poke on my shoulder interrupts my thoughts. Sam, sitting next to me, whispers, “Hey! Did you finish writing your screenplay scene?”

“Yeah, I did. Did you?”

“Yep. I decided to do the scene from my anthropomorphism story, where the iguanas go to the bowling alley wearing bowler hats…..get it? Bowler hats! What did you do yours on?”

“I did mine from my ghost story, that scene where the wind blows the candles out and the kids see the ghost for the first time. It’s pretty creepy.”

“Oh yeah! I remember you reading us your first draft. It was creepy, especially after you changed ‘wrinkled white hand’ to ‘puckered bloodless hand’ after we looked up ‘wrinkled’ in the Thesaurus.

“Yeah, so in my screenplay, I’m ending that scene with a close-up on the puckered hand, and then having everything slowly fade to black.”

“That’ll be cool,” Sam agrees.

Miss Stephanie has finished correcting the Fix Its. “Alright everyone, normally at this point in class we’d start our poetry corner,” she reminds us, “But this week we’re going to switch things up because we have a special guest coming to our class. After our guest makes an appearance, we’ll break up into groups and take turns sharing our screenplay scenes with each other. Then Miss Amy has an activity for us that will teach us about protagonists vs. antagonists, and we’ll do poetry at the end instead. Don’t forget…..

”FLASH!

Outside a lightning streak cracks the sky like an egg, and rain as thick as yolk comes surging down, smacking the pavement and jumping sideways, making little rivers to the gutters. Thunder bellows. The classroom goes dark. The storm must have caused a power surge. Nothing like this has ever happened while I’ve been at ASA, but I’m not nervous. Not really. Just a little, uh, excited. Yeah, that’s it. That’s all. But then I hear the soft scuffing of a metal door knob slowly turning the latch. I remember our special guest, and the rumors about the Headless Horseman paying us a visit. My heart is slamming against my throat and the door steadily creeps open, wider, wider, wider…

FLASH!

I’m blinded by a lightning strike. I can’t see, but something is grabbing my arms, and I’m thrashing around terrified, trying to get loose. BOOM! The thunder! Suddenly….

.…I’m sitting up in my bed, my blankets and sheets twisted awkwardly around me restricting my movement. I’m alive!.... and awake. Out the window, I can hear my neighbor mowing his front lawn. Nuthatches are arguing loudly over seeds in the birdfeeder out front. It must have been a dream. I shake my head to clear it. It is still summer, and I still need to pick my ASA classes for next year. That dream was so real, maybe it was a sign. I know what I need to do! I slide down the banister, and clomp into the kitchen.

“Hey Mom! Can we register for ASA classes today? Sign me up for The Creative Page, you know, that new creative writing class? I have this hunch that it’s going to be pretty amazing.”