Okay, so one of my pressing interests for the new year is to write
stories in the hilo (easy reading) category especially for boys to encourage them to read. This is the first part of one of the stories I have in mind. I welcome your comments. Remember that this category means high interest stories for older children reading below grade level. Type face, size and illustrations will help to carry the story
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| I just borrowed this to help pique your interest |
Porty, Atty and Ram
© Hazel D. Campbell
Nigel, Adam and Omar became friends from the first day of high school. They were the only students from their old school who were in this new school. They lived in the same community. The boys had not really been friends before, but in this strange, new school they stuck together, looking out for each other. Their homeroom teacher started calling them the Three Musketeers.
When they asked the teacher why she called them the Three Musketeers, she told the class to look it up on the Internet. They found that the Three Musketeers were three heroes from a famous book by the same name The Three Musketeers. This book was written by Alexandre Dumas. It seemed to be a pretty cool story about guys with swords who got into a lot of fights. They didn’t really mind when the children started calling them Athos, Porthos and Aramis.Those were the names of the characters in the book.
The other children would soon have stopped calling them these nicknames, but in their craft class the teacher taught them how to paint their names on buttons which they would be allowed to wear. The three friends painted their new names: Nigel became Athos; Adam became Porthos and Omar became Aramis. Pretty soon the children only used these names for them. And pretty soon, too, these names were shortened to Atty, Porty and Ram.
They also adopted the motto of the Three Musketeers in the book - "All for one, one for all."
In the mornings, they waited for each other by the school gate.The students could not enter the classroom until the bell rang. They used the time to catch up on news. Sometimes they helped each other finish homework, and sometimes they played a little football if they were early enough.
One Thursday morning, Porty was late. Atty and Ram were just about to run inside, because the bell had already gone, when they saw him rushing through the school gate.
“Hey,” he called to them.
“How you so late, man?” Ram asked, as they hurried along the corridor to their classroom.
“Have something to tell you,” Porty answered. His face was serious, but there was no time to talk. They walked briskly into the classroom. However, to their surprise and relief, their homeroom teacher was not yet in the room.
The boys took their seats. Ram and Atty looked curiously at Porty. They wondered what it was he had to tell them, but the teacher had separated them . They sat in different rows and dared not make her find them out of their seats. Miss Charles was very strict, and loved to give detentions.
More minutes passed and still Miss Charles did not come in. The students began to get restless. The class monitor, Gabrielle, was just about to start devotions when Miss Charles entered the room. She told Gabrielle to continue and stood with a very serious look on her face while they sang two verses of a hymn, read the scripture passage for the day and said prayers.
When they were all seated, Miss Charles addressed them.
“I am sorry to be late. You know that’s not my style. But something has happened and I need to talk to you about it.”
She sounded so serious that some of the students began to get nervous.
“Last night,” she began, “thieves broke into the canteen. Some things were stolen and the place is a mess. We have to spend the morning cleaning it up, so there will be no lunch from the canteen today. Gabrielle will take your orders and lunch will be brought to the classroom. You can only order patties or pizza and box juices.”
A buzz of excitement went through the room.
“They break down the door, Miss?’
“How they get in?”
“Security never see them?”
“The police come, Miss?”
All the students were asking questions at the same time.
Miss Charles held up her hand for silence.
“That’s what worries us,” she said. “As you know, the canteen is well secured with burglar bars. Nothing was broken, so it looks like it was somebody who had the key.”
“An inside job,” Porty thought. H e turned around to look at Atty and Ram. They nodded to him and he knew that they were thinking the same thing.
“The strange thing is that the key is kept in the principal’s office and was still there when the canteen staff came in this morning,” Miss Charles continued.
“Somebody make a spare key, Miss,” a student said loudly.
Miss Charles sighed. “ Anyway, just give Gabrielle your orders quickly so that we can arrange for the food to be brought in.”
For a few minutes the class was busy writing their lunch orders and after that lessons started in earnest. It wasn’t until lunchtime that the three musketeers got a chance to discuss the situation.
` 2
Atty, Porty and Ram were sitting on the bench under the ackee tree in the school yard.
“How you know they break into the canteen?” Atty asked Porty between bites into his patty.
“I didn’t know,” Porty answered.
“ I thought that was what you said you had to tell us.”
“No. Is something worse.”
“What?” Ram asked, anxiously.
“ You remember Shanique Devon, who used to go to our old school?” Porty asked.
The other boys nodded.
“They can’t find her since Tuesday.”
“What! She run away?” Ram almost spilled his box juice.
“They don’t know. Her mother says she never come home from school Tuesday evening. They all put her picture on TV.”
“She was always a strange girl. What you think happen to her?”
“ I was thinking,” Porty said. “Like how we are the Three Musketeers, maybe we can do some detective work and find out what happen to her.”
“No way!” Ram exclaimed. “That is police work. Suppose is kidnap them kidnap her. Man with gun and things.”
Atty also looked as if he didn’t want to get involved.
“Suppose it was your sister, you wouldn’t want to try to find her?”
“What we can do that police can’t do?” Atty asked.
“ You know how people ‘fraid to talk to the police. Maybe somebody at her school know something about her. We can start by asking the children.’
“And if we find out anything we tell the police, right?” Ram said. His face showed that he was worried.
“Of course,” Porty said.“Agreed!”
They each put out a hand one on top of the other and said the motto they had adopted. “All for one, and one for all!”
