Mysterious Chimney

 We live on just under three acres. Not a huge amoount of property, but somehow I had never noticed this: what appears to be a chimney poking up out of the ground at the top of a hill! In my defense, this area is covered with undergrowth and blocked by trees much of the year...

Obviously, this is the perfect fun story starter! (Unless you have seen or read "It", in which case it would be a different kind of story.) Here is what the kids came up with.

Shane

One day, I went for a walk with Mom. We saw a chimney in the ground. I looked in and I leaned too far and I fell down, down, down!

When I landed, I saw a whole bunch of kittens that tried to eat me. I climbed the chimney and the followed me. I went up our chimney and then they tried to follow me but they could not because my Dad started a fire in the fireplace. The end.

(Okay, maybe Shane was thinking of It after all.)

Logan

At the top of the hill next to our garden is a chimney. Inside of the chimney are some little gremlins. 

Whenever the gremlins get turned to slime they reappear there in the little gremlin prison. Then the little troll guards yell, “We got another one!” 

Then the troll king comes and says, “Good job, but there are still twenty more. Once we get them we will release them at night time so they can destroy more stuff. Then when they touch light they will come back here and we will do it all over again.”

Sheridan

Up on a hill by our house, there is a chimney that leads down to a house. The house is buried, and only the chimney is above ground.

In the little house that is underground, there is a family of little dwarves. They have a tunnel that leads to our pantry so they can have food. They probably don't think we know about the hole, because they covered it up with a wooden plank, but we know it's there because every time we step there it wobbles, and it isn't like the other boards.

So, yeah...we are neighbors with dwarves who have a secret tunnel to steal food from our pantry. But we are fine with it because we have plenty, and it's not like the dwarves can just go to Walmart and buy food!! So we let them have some of the food.

Mars Perseverance Stories

 From Logan:

When the robot landed on Mars it started to collect rocks. Then an alien kid came up and snatched the rock from the robot and said,” That's my Mom's favorite rock! He walked off and the robot turned around and there was a huge city of aliens flying cars everywhere and the alien was giving the rock back to its mom. 

The people who sent him were still at home sleeping so they had no idea that there was life on Mars. Since he couldn't be told to do anything  he was not taking pictures. 

The robot went after the rock. He climbed into the house and looked around. There were five other robots just like him, but they were acting like puppies. Then the robot fell in through the window. 

Then the boy said, “Feeding time puppies!” and the other robots went over to their bowls. The robot went to a bowl where there were rocks in it. He started to collect them, he looked over and the other robots were eating the rocks he had collected all the rocks in his bowl so he started taking them from the other robots but he did not know they were like robot dogs. The other robot that he was taking rocks from growled but the robot kept going. The robot dog knocked him over and growled the robot got up and ran away until he ran until the city was out of sight. 

The people that sent him there woke up and said it looks like He hasn't found anything yet besides rocks. That is SO boring. 

                                                   THE END

From Sheridan: 

  As the new rover was driving around Mars picking up rocks and recording the scene live to NASA and the world she heard a voice.

  “HEY!!! That’s my mommy’s special rock, give it back!” 

The rover turned to see an alien and a whole city right by him. The alien looked pretty close to a human. 

  “Well…” the little alien said with her arms crossed and tapping her foot. The rover set the rock down and the little alien grabbed it and ran off.  Everyone on earth just stared and stared.

  Then the little alien came back but this time there was a group of other aliens with her. They oohed and aahed and eeked and screamed and went to change their pants… 

  The little girl that had discovered the robot first picked it up and said, “Mommy can I keep it please please please!!!” 

“uh I guess?” said her mom. 

“YAY We are gonna have so much fun!” she said as she ran off carrying the rover in her hands. 

While she was at her house playing with the rover, everyone on earth was still staring, wondering what the heck just happened. The little girl on Mars was dressing up the rover. “You are such a cute little puppy! I am gonna name you Flarfy! BTW my name is Felicia. This city you are in is called Carclosafludose. My mom says it’s a mouthful to say but it would be a lot more than a mouthful if someone tried to eat the sign that says what our city is called, so I don’t know why Mommy said that ''.

Viking Adventure by Logan

         This might sound crazy, but I stole an elevator and just ripped it off the wires. I brought it home.

        It all started when I read the book Lift. I decided to look in the trash can for some buttons but I just found trash. So I decided to take one of the elevator buttons but I could not get it off So that's why I took the whole elevator. 

There were twenty buttons so last night I pressed one of them. That's when the elevator went crazy, it spun in circles and when the door opened I was in the middle of a Viking village. 

Two Vikings looked at me and said “Catch him!” 

I ran and the two Vikings followed a turn around a corner and dived in a boat. The boat started to sail off so I went over to some barrels and hid. 

I fell asleep and I woke up to shouting. 

I looked around and Vikings were running around a small island chasing people with gold and jewels. I got up and hopped onto land. Then a Viking spotted me and started chasing me. I ran up some stairs and saw a rack of weapons. I quickly grabbed two daggers and a small ax and ran into a room. 

The Viking walked in. Before he saw me I ran out of the room, closed the door and locked it. Then I made sure I had the weapons and ran. There were Vikings stealing and killing people. Then I saw the elevator. The two Vikings from before were looking at it. They were going to steal it.

I ran towards it and pressed a button. They came racing at me. I stabbed one with the dagger and the other one was not close enough to get to me. The door closed and I dropped the weapons as the door opened. I was back in my room. I left my weapons there for the next time I went somewhere and went to sleep.