About Helen

Hi! my name is Helen and I like to read, write, swim, horse ride, sing, act and dance.
I really like to do Modern, Old time and Latin American.
Here is my homepage! http://www.expage.com/page/hk200
I hope you like it and please sign the guest book.
Thanks for taking the time to view my page on Kids on the Net! Bye!

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Watch Out! Your Teacher's An Alien!

Chapter 1

Okay we all know what teachers are like. Mean, stinking, ugly and…and just plain horrible! With there posh hair do, their posh little specs, their little plum coloured suits and their over made up know it all faces. All right, all right I'll admit it not all teachers are mean and ugly I mean some of them can be really nice and give you sweets and nights off homework. But what I'm saying is the majority of them are. I go to a very nice school with very nice teachers but not all of them are nice (unfortunately I got stuck with one of the not nice teachers.)

But then one day I was coming home from basketball practice. I was just passing the school gates when I saw my teacher Miss. Fatty (Fatso as we call her) and another mean teacher Miss. Smeelyake (Smellyo is her nickname, but she doesn't know that!) coming out the front door their heads were bent low and I heard them whispering. "Don't forget the meeting in hall number 2 Disappearing Lane!"

I'm sure that's what I heard. So that's why I am now convinced that my teacher is an…ALIEN (or a monster or witch but defiantly something evil or scary.) And that she and all the other mean teachers (not the nice ones they're just normal) go to secret places on Fridays or the weekends and think up ways to torture kids. So that is why I Louise S. Keegan and my best Friend Niamh. J Hogan decided to follow Fatso home on Friday afternoon after school!

So it was all planned. On Friday when the bell rang I burst out the main hall doors of our school Ashborne primary school in Ashborne Place in Wicklow, Ireland and ran over to the old creaky swings in the front corner of our school yard. (Niamh has been made stay behind for a while to clean up a spilled paint mess she didn't make. See how mean Fatso can be?) The playground used to hold see-saws and slides and lots more swings but the took all the rest down and just turned it into a normal black tar playground. They couldn't remove this set of swings (don't ask me why) so they left it here. Now it's me and Niamh's secret place. One of the swings had fallen off its hinges so I sat on the other one and started to swing back and forward. It creaked loudly.

After a few moments the creaking got to loud so I sat on the low wall that surrounds our playground and started to root through my bag for the book I was reading. It's called Could this be Love? I wondered and it's by Marilyn Taylor it was so good I could hardly put it down! Just as I was finished the chapter I was on the last person left the yard and the front doors to the school burst open and out stumbled Niamh.

Niamh is a very disorganised person. Her long dark hair was falling out of the pony tail she had put it in and it was going into her eyes. Her tie was missing off her uniform and her top button was open. There was a big stain down the front of her jumper, her face had dirty streaks on it, her runners (which she was not meant to be wearing with her uniform) were all mucky and the laces were coming undone. Her hands were covered in the paint she has been made clean up and her luminous yellow jacket was tied around her waist even though the December breeze was freezing. All in all she looked like a walking hurricane. How ANYONE can get as messy as that in one day is just beyond me. It really is surprising we're best friends because I'm a very organised person.

As Niamh stumbled out her bag slipped out of her hands and all her books and things went all over the place. She sighed and stooped down and started to scoop the things untidily back in. I put my book back in my bag and ran over to her.

"Niamh! Hi!" I called.

She looked up and shined a grin at me that made her whole grubby face light up she is one of those people that when they smile everything about them smiles and all their mess just seems to fade away.

"Hi!" She called back.

I picked her maths book off the bottom step, ran the rest of the way up the steps and put it in her bag.

"You're a mess!" I cried. She blew a strand of hair off her face, grabbed her now full bag and stood up.

"Yea! I know!"

Then we started to walk back to the swings.

"So," I said to Niamh, "how's teacher acting?"

"Actually she's acting kind of excited. Like she's going to a party or something." Replied Niamh, sitting down on the wall and taking her lunch out to finish.

"A- HA!" I cried sitting down next to her. "She's looking forward to the teacher meeting!"

Niamh nodded excitedly her eyes wide unable to speak because she had a mouth full of sandwich. She swallowed and said "She keep hurrying me along and saying 'come on, come on! No there's no time to wash your hands! I want you out! I've got loads of stupid papers to mark that you dumb little kids did and I've got a very important after school MEETING so hurry along!' I got pretty excited when she said meeting!" She took another bite of sandwich.

"This is great! Really great!" I cried excitedly. "Fatso usually leaves about half an hour after us. So we'll just have to wait for about fifteen minutes and then she should be along!" So we waited and waited and waited and about three quarters of an hour later after all the other teachers (mean and nice) had left Fatso hurriedly came out the front school doors muttering something like "Stupid kids… Dumb spelling….wasting my time!"

"Niamh," I whispered urgently, "put your book away! We're going to go on a top secret mission!"

We pushed our books back into our bags and threw the bags into the bushes to be collected later (that's if we survived) and started to tip-toe after Fatso. The sun was already beginning to set and it was spreading a pink glow all over the ground.

"Red sky at night, shepherds' delight," whispered Niamh tripping over her shoe laces, "maybe it's supposed to mean we're going to do well on this mission or…maybe the shepherds are happy we're go going to die."

I giggled, Niamh and her silly phrases and her silly contributes to what they mean.

"Yea maybe! But we have to be quiet and we don't want you to fall and give us away so tie you shoe laces and hurry up!" Fatso kept walking and walking until she stopped in the middle of a field A FIELD! Fatso looked around and Niamh and I ducked behind some tall grass. Fatso reached into her bag and pulled out a small jar. What was inside the jar looked like fairy dust. Fatso opened it, reached in and pulled out some of it's contents. I looked and Niamh and she looked at me. This confirmed our thoughts that Fatso was a bit Psycho (and also maybe an alien) she threw the fairy dust in the air and stood back.

And then as the fairy dust started to float back to the ground there was a loud *BANG!* and in the place of the dust was a dark wooden door with a brass nameplate on it saying 'Doorway to Hall 2, Disappearing Lane'.

Niamh opened her mouth to gasp but I knew her too well and already had my hand ready to clasp over her mouth which I did and no sound came out. I gave Niamh a warning look that meant 'do that again and you'll get us both caught.'

I looked at Fatso as she looked around again then she grabbed the brass door handle, quickly pulled the door open and stepped inside. The door closed behind her. Just as it closed it started to fade FAST. I grabbed Niamh and we ran hell for leather to the door before it disappeared. We were not going to miss this change even if it killed us (okay we were going to miss the change is we knew it was going to kill us but we didn't know for SURE that it was going to kill us so we went in anyway.) I grabbed the door handle and silently and slowly pulled it open. Then we stepped in and we were greeted by a hall full of…

Chapter 2

Teachers! A hall full of mean, stinking teachers! All over the place there were shouts of. "Oh Deirdre! Where have you been, have you caught some awful illness from those rotten children? We really must try and get together more often!" And "Molly dear come sit next to me!"

I looked around desperately for a place to hide. It looked like just any other hall that you might come across but it was called Hall number 2, Disappearing Lane and you had to use fairy dust to get into it so I knew by that that it was NOT a normal hall. Then I spotted an old press at the bottom of the hall and quickly dragged a stunned and speechless Niamh over to it too. I was stunned too but I sort of knew what was coming because I knew teacher was not normal. So I knew I had to take action fast and couldn't just be a dummy or I'd very soon be a dead dummy.

When we got behind the press I had a change to look at the teachers. A lot of them I recognised from our school but there was a few I didn't know. Just then I heard a loud voice that bellowed above all the chitter-chatter of the teachers. (By the way it was only female teachers at the meeting.) I recognised it as our principal's voice.

"That's Mrs. Wart." I whispered to Niamh who was still stunned to silence.

"Hello again ladies. I hope the brats you have to teach haven't brought you too much stress since our last meeting." Then the voice changed and became frosty, bitter and scratchy. Like fingernails on a blackboard.

"All right, enough of the act." She screeched "Take your masks off and reveal your true identity!" And then…and then the teachers put their hands to their checks tugged at them and pulled their faces clean off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Niamh and I both screamed but luckily everyone else cheered so we weren't heard. I was shaking and all of a sudden I felt a cold chill. I looked over at Niamh. She didn't look much better either!

I dared to peek around the side of the press again and what did I see in the place of the teachers' heads? Big fat blue egged shaped heads with two sort of antennae sticking out the top. They went awful with the teachers' plum suits. Which, I'm sure had a blue body underneath. The aliens cackled with laughter and turned to each other and laughed again and it was then that I caught side of the front of their heads with four eyes two long straight lines for the nose and just a big gaping hole for a mouth. This time I screamed everyone heard me and all those blue heads turned towards me and the press and poor scared Niamh.

I looked at her and screamed "RUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNN!!!!"

She didn't need asking twice we got up and ran oh how we ran…but…but we weren't getting anywhere! We were just staying in the same spot and the aliens were advancing towards us. This is it I thought this is the end. Then all of a sudden I was running and I was getting somewhere and so was Niamh!

We had broken out of the alien forces and we were heading straight for the door. The aliens were looking at each other with puzzled expressions on their big dumb (scary) faces. We yanked open the door and tried to close it but it wouldn't close so we just left it and we ran and we ran like we never ran before. I don't think the aliens could get out of the hall when there where like that because they didn't come after us. Maybe they were too stupid to know that now their secret was out in the world…or maybe they knew that no one would believe us. But whatever the reason I'm glad it stopped them from following us! We ran all the way back to my house and didn't stop running until we had slammed the hall door.

"Mum!" I cried "I have to be home schooled!"

So that's the whole story now my Dad (who is a substitute teacher but don't worry he's not an alien substitute teachers never are) teaches Niamh and I and we never had to go back to that alien school (or any other alien school for that matter) again. But before I go take a good look at your teacher in school tomorrow. Is YOUR teacher an alien???…

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Pokémon

1

Pokémon, Pokémon that stupid, stupid game it really, really
Drives me totally insane!
Swapping and shoving, shouting and fighting
I'd much rather be indoors practising my writing!

2

Pokémon, Pokémon that stupid, stupid game it really, really
Drives me totally insane!
Everywhere I look it's cards, cards, cards
I'll swap you this I'll swap you that. That one's really hard!

3

Pokémon, Pokémon that stupid, stupid game it really, really
Drives me totally insane!
I really, really hate it. It really, really stinks
That's obviously not what certain people seem to think!

4

Pokémon, Pokémon that stupid, stupid game it really, really
Drives me totally insane!

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Dream On!

By Helen, age 10, Year 4th Class, St. Colmcilles School, Dublin, Ireland

As I walked around behind our tour guide I gazed intently at the walls surrounding me. Well not really at the walls but at the paintings on the walls. I as in Dublin art gallery. In fact my whole class was. We were on a school tour. Before the gallery we had been to the natural history museum that's were all the stuffed animals and birds are. I had learned a lot at both places. Suddenly I realised that the guide had stopped and my class were finding seats on the floor. I scrambled up near the front.

"This will be our last stop because I can see some of you are getting restless."

She eyed the boys she had to correct in the last room. "Now, this is a painting by a very famous artist called Carragio." You pronounce Carragio like this Car-va-gio. "Carragio liked to paint realism and his pictures always make you feel that you were standing in the painting."

Our guide was really nice and she explained things well and knew a lot about art. "This painting was painted about eight years before Carragio died. Carragio died at the age of thirty-nine."

I put up my hand.

"Yes dear?"

"How did Carragio die so young?" I asked.

"Well you see one day he was playing a game of tennis with another man and Carragio lost. Now he was a very bad loser so he then killed the man that had won." Everyone gasped. "Yes it's true. But now he was in trouble. Deep trouble. So he decide to run away. So he put all his possessions on a boat. But the boat sailed without him. So he through a fit right on the beach. The fit brought on a strange fever that then killed him."

"What happened to his stuff?" I asked. "Well that's just a tale. Who knows if it's true." She smiled. "But it might be fun trying to guess!" We smiled." I hope you all liked the art gallery and I hope to see you again soon and if you come with me I'll lead you out."

She motioned for us to get up and follow her. We got to our feet and trailed after her.

"Pairs!" Teacher called out.

I looked around for my partner. We were told to pick partners for on the bus and for going around the place. I had asked my friend Claire to be my partner. She almost said no because last time we went on a tour I got sick on the bus. But she agreed when I told her I had taken a table and I had a bag. I soon spotted her and she ran over to me. Our teacher ushered us out of the room and down the big flight of steps to the entrance hall. The guide wheeled in the big trolley thing we had put our coats and bags. There was a big scramble but Claire and I waited until everyone had his or her stuff and then we quickly got ours. As soon as everyone had his or her things teacher stood at the top of the line we had formed.

"Now children we will go to the park to meet Mr O' Neil's class," (the class that had come on the tour with us) "and to have our lunch. We will then have a play in the playground." I smiled at Claire. The playground and lunch sounded better then stuffy hot museums.

In next to no time we were sitting on the benches in the playground eating our lunch. We were the only ones they. It was brilliant. I had bought lots of sweets for the tour and I sat there munching them happily. We had a whole hour in the playground so I had plenty of time. I soon felt my eyelids drooping. And in no time at all I was sound asleep.

When I finally opened my eyes. I looked around the empty playground. Where was everyone? Their stuff had all gone. Surely someone had seen me sleeping here. But yet everything seemed quite different. I couldn't put my finger on how but there was something different and I knew it. I quickly stood up and decided to try and find the classes surely they couldn't have gone very far. So I set off leaving the empty playground behind. Soon I found myself in the middle of no where. I had no idea where the gate was or how I got there. I didn't even remember walking. Anywhere there I was standing beside this huge pond…hang on go back a bit. This park doesn't have a pond. It's only a small park in the middle of a large city. Ok now something was defiantly going on.

But wait, what was that floating on the river. It looked like a box and what was that beside it? They soon floated ashore. The box was like one of the seats at the gallery. Big, brown and square. And the thing beside it had been a … a painting. With the name Carragio at the bottom. Could these possibly… could they…could they be the things of the ship that Carragio had missed?

Just then someone called my name. I looked around to see who was called…then darkness came and I opened my eyes. It was Claire shaking me and called my name over and over.

"Come on lazy head! You dozed off! Come on we're playing Ice And Snow and Chloe is on!"

"But Claire what about the pond and the painting…and the box?"

"What are you talking about? You must have been dreaming or something…"

She was cut off when Chloe ran by her and shouted "ICE!"

"DREAM ON!" Shouted back Claire.

Well maybe it had all been a dream but it had seemed so real. All well I guess it was a dream. Oops I better not let Chloe see me I hate being iced!

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A Halloween Surprise

Hi! I'm Jessica and I'm going to tell you what happened to me last Halloween.

I still thought I was a human (or a muggle as humans are called in the witch world) and I had no idea that my Mom was a witch or my Dad a wizard. I was dressing up as a witch for Halloween. Mom had given me a very realistic looking broom and a lovely black dress, hat and boots, I thought I looked super.

Another thing that looked super was our house. Dad had decided to turn it into a Haunted House. He charged 20p into it. People had been coming from all over town. Some enjoyed it so much that turned right back around and came back for another go. Dad made a fortune but he would not tell me how he had made the Haunted House so scary.

Anyway I went "Trick-or-Treating" around the town with my best friend Hannah (after we had been through the Haunted House a few times of course.) When I finally tore Hannah away from the Haunted House to go "Trick-or-Treating" we filled 3 bags full of sweets, chocolates, fruit and lots of other stuff and that's 3 bags each! We had so much fun eating them (although we felt a bit sick afterwards) But then it turned nine o'clock and Hannah had to go in. Even though we are both 11 I am allowed to stay out an hour later then her on Halloween night.

"Bye Jessica!" she called as she ran across the road to her house.

"Bye!" I called back. Well, now I was on my own. I wondered around for a bit and watched the bonfire in the field die down and people slowly start to go home. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes until I had to go home. I was all the way on the other side of town.

"Well," I said smiling to myself, "my broom will take me home." I sat on it not half expecting it to fly, but the minute my hands were gripping it tight it wooshed off the ground and up, up higher into the sky it went. I gripped on to it as hard as I could. The air pulled my hair and it went all over the place. I was so surprised I couldn't think straight.

All of a sudden I heard my own voice, strong and powerful comment the broom "Home!" and before I knew what was happening I was sitting on my front porch on our wicker swing with a motionless broom in my hand. Just then my Mom and Dad opened the door. My Mom was dressed in all black just like me and had a broom just like mine in her hand. Dad was dressed in a blue cloak and pointed hat with sparkling silver moons and stars all over it.

"'See you had your first ride!" he chuckled. Mom was beaming from ear to ear.

"What-is-going-on…" I said slowly with a frown on my face.

"Well," said Dad as he and Mom sat down on the swing beside me. "We have to tell you something…" he trailed off.

"You're a witch!" Mom cried happily finishing the sentence for Dad.

For one moment I thought it was just a big Halloween joke like I played on my friends today in school. But then, all of a sudden I knew it was true. It wasn't a lie or a joke it was true. I was a witch and my Mom was a witch and my Dad was a wizard. I didn't ask questions because for some strange reason I knew all the answers.

"You will learn magic from your mother and myself and from the rest of the family who are also witches and wizards and also from a tutor who will come every day. You will be taken out of public school. If Hannah asked just tell her that maybe one day she'll understand and you can tell her."

The rest of the evening was spent looking through old spell books and Mom and Dad showing me wands and big cauldrons that they had kept hidden in the attic. They told me the stories of how they learned they were witches and wizards and how they had learned all the spells and everything. By the end of the night I could turn our cat Midnight into a dog. I couldn't wait to start learning the big stuff!

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A Wonderful Dream

As I walked down the road, my schoolbag banging on my back, I spotted a crumpled piece of paper thrown on the ground. I stooped down and picked it up. It said:

Tia and Tamera Mowry:
8066-475-475

"Tia and Tamera Mowry!?" They're the twins from 'Sister Sister!' I wonder if they like to hear from fans?" I thought to myself. I ran the rest of the way home.
"Ring-Ring…Ring-Ring." My hands were shaking and little beads of sweat were starting to form on my forehead.
"Ri…Hello, This is Tia. Speaking?"
My mouth went dry. I couldn't talk. Tia was not repeating lines she was actually talking to me! This was just too much for me to take.
"Hello, hello!" She called down the phone.
"Um…um…yes. I'm…I'm H… H… H… Helen. I'm one of your biggest fans. I just love 'Sister Sister." I don't know how I did it. I just did. Taking to Tia was something I did not want to miss.
"Oh, that's fantastic! Tamera and I love to hear from fans!"
"Yes, well, um I found your number on the path and I called you. Where do you live?"
It just blurted it out just like that. Oh I was making a big mess of this!
"Well, Tamera and I and the rest of our family to our favourite country, Ireland after Tamera and I filmed our last episodes in America."
"How many episodes did you make?" I asked.
"We made 130 of 'Sister Sister" Replied Tia. "But then we made the last one and moved to 58 Oak Avenue."
"REALLY!" I screamed so loudly down the phone I'm sure I burst poor Tia's eardrum! "I live at 5 Oak Avenue!"
"Wow that's really cool! Hay, do you want to come over for dinner!"
I almost fainted. My knees gave way and I almost fell on the floor. Somehow I managed to keep myself up. I couldn't speak.
"HELEN, HELEN, HELEN! She called down the phone.
"Yea…yea…yea I…I…I'm still here. Sure I'd love to come over." I couldn't believe what was happening!
"Great! Maybe we can talk about what you think are good points in our programme making and stuff. It would be good to hear from someone who doesn't know us personally. Yet." She added at the end. So she wanted to be my friend! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
"Come over around 5 ok?"
"Ok!"
"See you then!"
"Bye!"
Tia and I hung up and I fell to the ground in a state of shock.

An hour later I was a nervous wreck. My mother had been so surprised when I told her. I made her promise not to tell anyone until I said she could. Before she went shopping she told me to "Calm down!" I tried to take her advice but I couldn't decide what to wear! I tore my room apart looking for the right outfit. I finally decided on a pair of black jeans with a glittery belt. And a black jumper with silver moons on it and I wore black angle boots. I ran over to the Mowry's house and knocked on the door. Two identical faces opened the door but of course I could tell them apart (when you're as big a fan as me you get to know these things) My favourite stars Tia and Tamera Mowry.
"Hi!" They cried. They let me in and we talked and talked and did each others hair and talked some more. Then we had dinner (which I couldn't taste but I was to excited to care) Then my watch went "Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep!"

I opened my eyes and turned over. I whacked my beeping alarm clock. I leaned back in my bed. It had all been a dream just a wonderful, wonderful, dream. I wish it had been real! Well maybe it will happen some day!

Copyright May 2000 Kids on the Net and Helen

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Kids on the Net Editor: Helen Whitehead at this address
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