Saturday. Finally, Saturday.
I flop on the couch with a croissant, scrolling on my phone. Crumbs fall everywhere. “Kaylee!” It’s the morning, so mom’s yell isn’t as loud. I decide to move to the table. It’s later in the day when I realize that I have a letter to print out, it was part of an assignment. We had to write a letter, pretending to be in early New France in the 15th century, we were writing to tell our ‘friend’ how amazing it was in New France, they would be moving there in 6 months. I had this idea to tea-stain the letter to look old. Ms Lou said it would be a great idea. 2:00 pm: Mom and dad left to go shopping, Kris was upstairs, the kitchen was clean. This was my chance. I pretend I’m in a spy movie - in pajamas. I tiptoe to the counter and start boiling the water for the tea. I searched up how to tea stain the paper. Steep two or three tea bags in a cup of hot water for five to 10 minutes. Use inexpensive tea bags as long as the bag is sturdy and not easily torn. Remove the tea bags from the water and allow them to cool completely before handling them. Brush the front and back of the paper evenly with a tea bag. “Should be easy enough,” I say under my breath. Kris comes walking down the stairs, not taking his eyes off his phone. “Granny is making herself some tea,” he mocks, flickering his eyes up toward me. “Shut up,” I say, “I’m doing this for a project.” He opens the cupboard. “Whatever,” and leaves with a chocolate bar in his hand and runs up the stairs. I roll my eyes and see that the kettle was done boiling. I take some dark tea and put 2 tea bags in a mug, and then start to pour the boiling water in the mug. I only pour a little bit - just enough to cover the bags. No one’s going to drink this anyways. I wait for a while, reading over my letter and printing it out. After the tea was sure to be cooled, I slowly spill out the extra tea in the sink and squeeze the bags against the side of the mug with a spoon. Then, I take a tea bag out with my hands and rub it gently against my letter. The dark tea leaves stains of brown on the paper - it looked spectacular. I keep brushing, side to side, up and down. It left weaves of different colours of brown, threading the colour in between the paper. Once I finished, the paper actually looked pretty old. Some spots got too wet, so I left the paper to dry. “So, I don’t mean to brag, but look how amazing my tea stained paper looks like,” I take out the rolled paper from my backpack and show it to Leo. It was Monday morning on the bus. “Wow!” Leo says, “that does look old. Instead of tea staining mine, I actually put it against the fire. And… well…” Leo takes a piece of paper out of his backpack, it was burnt around the edges and had a big hole in the middle. “Oh,” I laugh. “Oops.” “Yeah,” Leo grumbles. “‘Oops’.” We both laugh and in the end decided that tea staining was much better than setting your homework on fire. **BONUS! KAYLEE’S LETTER ATTACHMENT** May 23, 1556 Hi Amiee! I was so excited to hear that you were moving here! 6 months isn’t a long time. Maybe you can move somewhere near us! I’ve been living here for a year and a half. Getting used to life here was interesting… My sisters were excited though. We go to school every other day. We’re lucky that Mother and Father know how to read and write…. I love to read! But anyways, I’m writing to you because I want to write to you how amazing (and different) life is here. Our land isn’t very big. But, Father started a garden and we have a forest nearby, too. He and his friends go hunting most of the day, while Mother cooks and sews. We aren’t rich, but the meals we have are delicious. My favourite berries to pick are the raspberries, they are the sweetest in the early summer. Mother sometimes makes raspberry jam as a treat. Only sometimes though. Our house isn’t enormous, but I like it that way, it’s really cozy during the wintertime. It only has one room, and there aren’t many windows, either. Mother says that the house was built to face the south, but I never really understood why. When our little lake near our house freezes over, Father sometimes goes fishing. Mother said that the ice is very dangerous, so we play on the other side of the house, where we have a hill to sled on. Autie’s dad made us sleds last year, and they’re still in good shape, so we like to use those to sled. When you come, in the winter you can use mine! I’m so excited for you to come. We can do so many fun things. And there are fun events here, too. My favourite is May Day. There are amazing meals and it’s always warm. We also go to church every week, every Sunday. I think Sunday’s my favourite because Mother makes loads of pancakes for breakfast. It’s much colder here in New France. The first few months here were weird. But, it’s something to get used to. In the winter we like to stay inside and have hot chocolate after school. Sometimes my friends come over - I’m so excited for you to meet them by the way! I’m sure they’ll really like you. My absolute favourite thing to do at home is go to the barn. It’s a small cabin on the inside but the roof goes very high. The horses all know me, but I can only visit once or twice a day. I’ve never even ridden any of the horses but sometimes I get to feed them. I can’t wait for you to meet them, oh, I also hope that these 6 months fly by! I hope you get this letter.. And see you soon!!
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For Thanksgiving, mom and dad promised to get me roller blades so I could roll around our tiny neighbourhood. I got excited… Leo could be skater boy and I could be roller girl.
I’m upstairs, scribbling in my tie dye journal that I got for my birthday. It’s when I hear a ding-dong from downstairs. My face lights up as I run downstairs, knowing that it’s my roller blades from the Amazon order. I get to the door and open it before the delivery man gets to his truck. “Thank you!” I yell as I pick up the large box. He tips his hat as he climbs back into his truck and rides away. I look down, smiling at the box. I bring it to the living room where mom is in the kitchen. The tap is running while she talks. “Are your roller blades here?” “Yeah!” I say, ribbing the tape apart and pulling the box open. I pull out 2 perfect black roller blades and my cheeks hurt from smiling. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… On Saturday, me and Leo take a walk - him on his skateboard, me on my roller blades - and we roll around the neighbourhood, talking a bit. “That song monologue is so hard!” I puff, spinning around on the wheels. “Hey, I’m getting pretty good at this stuff.” “Don’t get too confident,” Leo laughs. “Wow thanks,” I roll my eyes. “Your mom promised cupcakes… I’m going to meet you inside,” Leo skates away before I could answer. I just figure that Leo wants an early cupcake, so I roll around a bit, practising my brake system. Ride fast, glide, stop pushing side to side, then lean on your right heel to stop. I practise leaning on my right heel to slow down. It was a bit tricky at first, because I was afraid to lean back. After a while, I’ve decided that I’ve earned myself a break… and a cupcake. That’s for sure. Plus, I put my hand on my forehead, looking out to the clouds. It looked like it would rain soon. As I roll onto the road, I give myself motivation to go up the driveway. It has a bump, so it could roll me off onto the road. Man, I wish Leo were here. He would help me up. “Leo!” I try calling him. “Leo!” Great. I have to do this myself now. I start from a little far away.. Side to side… slide left and right. Then I bump over the driveway but then fall over because of how fast I went. “Woah-!” Thankfully, my kneepads saved me. But I still had a bruise on my arm. I stand up and pray that no one saw me. Thanks Leo, you helped a whole lot. Well, I guess that’s part of it. Roll and fall. For Thanksgiving, mom and dad promised to get me roller blades so I could roll around our tiny neighbourhood. I got excited… Leo could be skater boy and I could be roller girl. I’m upstairs, scribbling in my tie dye journal that I got for my birthday. It’s when I hear a ding-dong from downstairs. My face lights up as I run downstairs, knowing that it’s my roller blades from the Amazon order. I get to the door and open it before the delivery man gets to his truck. “Thank you!” I yell as I pick up the large box. He tips his hat as he climbs back into his truck and rides away. I look down, smiling at the box. I bring it to the living room where mom is in the kitchen. The tap is running while she talks. “Are your roller blades here?” “Yeah!” I say, ribbing the tape apart and pulling the box open. I pull out 2 perfect black roller blades and my cheeks hurt from smiling. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… On Saturday, me and Leo take a walk - him on his skateboard, me on my roller blades - and we roll around the neighbourhood, talking a bit. “That song monologue is so hard!” I puff, spinning around on the wheels. “Hey, I’m getting pretty good at this stuff.” “Don’t get too confident,” Leo laughs. “Wow thanks,” I roll my eyes. “Your mom promised cupcakes… I’m going to meet you inside,” Leo skates away before I could answer. I just figure that Leo wants an early cupcake, so I roll around a bit, practising my brake system. Ride fast, glide, stop pushing side to side, then lean on your right heel to stop. I practise leaning on my right heel to slow down. It was a bit tricky at first, because I was afraid to lean back. After a while, I’ve decided that I’ve earned myself a break… and a cupcake. That’s for sure. Plus, I put my hand on my forehead, looking out to the clouds. It looked like it would rain soon. As I roll onto the road, I give myself motivation to go up the driveway. It has a bump, so it could roll me off onto the road. Man, I wish Leo were here. He would help me up. “Leo!” I try calling him. “Leo!” Great. I have to do this myself now. I start from a little far away.. Side to side… slide left and right. Then I bump over the driveway but then fall over because of how fast I went. “Woah-!” Thankfully, my kneepads saved me. But I still had a bruise on my arm. I stand up and pray that no one saw me. Thanks Leo, you helped a whole lot. Well, I guess that’s part of it. Roll and fall. I come home from school on Monday feeling grumpy, while Leo makes fun of me for it and tries to cheer me up. I’m sorry, that guy makes me happy, but not on Mondays. Never.
I groan as I open my laptop and load into my schoolwork. Why do Mondays always have homework? I have a daydream about me lying on the couch with a bag of chips, watching on the TV. The happy dream bubbles down and I look at my laptop. I still have work to do. Stellar. I’m interrupted 5 minutes in with a video chat from Leo. I look into the camera. “Hi,” I say, fixing my hair. It looks like a tornado. “Wanna come over to my house for homework? I could help you,” he smirks. Ugh. My grumble bubbles in. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. I don’t need any help though,” I roll my eyes. “Whoa there, here comes the eye-roller,” he pops his eyes out and looks ridiculous. I can’t help it. I laugh. After studying with Leo for a couple hours, I come home, more tired than before. I sling my backpack in the hallway and walk upstairs. “Hey, hon?” I hear a voice from downstairs right after I flop my head face down on my pillow. I scream a what into my pillow. “Can you get me my slippers? The fuzzy ones.” Mom yells. Oh no, her poor feet got cold. I groan a fine and walk as slowly as I can to mom’s room to get her fuzzy slippers. “Stupid fuzzy slippers,” I mumble. Hey!
It's Julia. I know Leo & Kaylee finished a while ago. I posted the last chapter somewhere in October. And I've been wanting to write more since then. But I know myself. I didn't want to start a WHOLE NEW BOOK because I know I wouldn't keep up with it... BUT!: I've come to a solution. By the title of this page, you probably already know what I'm going to say. Yes! I'm posting Leo & Kaylee Short Writes. Now what are Short Writes, you may ask? Well, Short Writes are little... chapters of a random story. These Short Writes are from basic events in my life, and in my imagination. They're just cute little stories after the original book. I really like this idea because it allows me to really express myself in different messages. In one whole book, you originally have one big overall message. In these 'Short Writes', you have little memos or maybe even not a message at all. Sometimes I just write these Short Writes just for fun. And so! I will be posting them. I don't have a schedule, but I'm probably going to post them all at once. So stay tuned! They're fun and short, so I'll post multiple at once. Thanks for reading, and make sure to check back once in a while for a new Short Write!! - Julia |