Simply A Letter From Jessie

Dear Readers, (I'm seriously so tired I nearly wrote "dear Jessie") :P

So I just realized I liked writing poems when Noah (ahem, ahem) just had to go and send one of them off to this contest. I was kinda mad and kinda happy. Anyway, I got second place, so my poem couldn't have been THAT bad.

The poem?

Teardrops brimming, on the verge of dropping,

Falling and sliding down your cheek.

Listen carefully, for the Lord's voice,

For to the sad He shall speak.

"My daughter," He shall say to you,

"I love you do not worry so.

"I am coming soon, my daughter,

Look for the signs of my coming, lo!"

Just hold on until the coming of day,

You know you can just hold on to the day.

For you know that soon He'll come,

And then He shall come and take you faraway.

And you shall be safe in the Savior's arms,

And you shall know that he loves you,

How you ever thought that you weren't loved,

Now you simply just don't have a clue.

Teardrops dried, your eyes sparkling,

No water falling down your cheek,

Now listen carefully, my daughter, dear,

For God listens to the meek.

Yeah, anyway.....

So how'd you like the poem?

I am never trusting Noah with access to my laptop again. EVER.

Well, unless it's like an emergency or something.

He still takes credit for me winning.

RIGHT......

Anyway, so what's been happening in your day?

I hear that yesterday Storyteller was at some kind of sporting event. Hopefully my volleyball match..... ;D But of course she wasn't. But that's OK. :)

Bye!!!!

Love,

The Volleyball Gladiators

Dear Readers,

So it was Saturday, and I had been sleeping when my mom bursts into my room and thrusts her cell phone into my hand. I groaned and murmured, "Hello?"

"Hey, Jessie!" burst Mei's excited voice. "It's me, Mei. Me and the girls were just wondering if you wanted to do like some backyard volleyball after practice today."

"Mmmhmm," I agreed.

"Great!" cried Mei. "So at the park just after practice? If your mom wanted, my mom was wiling to drive us all over there."

Mom nodded and gave me the thumbs-up sign. "Sure," I said.

"Can't wait!" Mei grinned from the other end. "Bye, Jessie!"

"Bye." I snapped the phone and handed it back to Mom, falling back into bed and sleeping about another hour.

After volleyball practice, Mei's mom was true to her word and carted Mei, Amy, Cara, me and some other girls over to the park where the volleyball nets were. Mei grabbed a volleyball from the car and some bottled water and then waved goodbye to her mom, who drove off for the mall. According to Mei she would come and pick us up in a few hours.

"So, let's get a game going," said Cara, cracking her knuckles. "OK, I'll be one captain. Jessie, you be the other."

I was kind of surprised at the sudden rise in command, but nodded quickly.

"I pick Mei," Cara quickly said.

"Amy," I nodded.

We had finally divided everybody out. I was about to serve the ball. I threw it up in the air, but before I could hit somebody else from behind me crushed it down right on my head. I fell to the ground, dazed.

"Hey!" yelled Amy, running over.

I rubbed my head, looking up. In front of me was a tall, athletic boy surrounded by a whole bunch of other boys. And they were all glaring--at us.

"Are you OK, Jessie?" Amy asked, helping me to my feet.

I shook my head to help clear it, but it still throbbed. "I think I'll be OK," I assured.

Then Amy turned to them. "What was that for?!"

"She got in the way," the boy shrugged. "We wanted to play, and she had our ball." The boy twirled the volleyball on his fingers.

"That's my ball!" cried Mei. "I brought it from my house. Now give it back!"

The boys laughed, and the leader stepped forward, narrowing his eyes. "Who's going to make me?"

All of a sudden I had either the brightest idea ever or the stupidest. I quickly stood in between Amy and the boy and narrowed my eyes.

"Fine," I started, "play a game against us. The first one who gets to twenty wins, and the other team leaves."

"What about the ball?" demanded the boy.

"Well, it's Mei's," I pointed out. "If you don't give THAT back, I'll just have them call the police." Amy had already whipped her cell phone out.

The boy glared. "Fine."

We girls went onto our side. Amy whispered to me, "Jessie, that was ingenious! How on earth did you think of it?"

I chuckled. "Either it was ingenious or incredibly stupid. I just hope we don't get creamed."

"Are you kidding?" snorted Cara. "We're like the best team in the state!"

"Girls," I pointed out.

We started the game with Cara serving. As the game progressed, I could tell that the height on the other team was helping them. They were already winning 15 to 12. We had to do better, or else we were going to lose and not get to use the court.

Amy spiked it and the score went up to 15 to 13. She had been one of our lead scorers because she was like the tallest. Then Mei and another girl called Marie did a nice set and scored another point.

But then the guys took over and got another point, too. I was sure it was going to be pretty helpless. But we'd just have to play our best.

Finally, it was 19 to 18. Game point, with us losing.

We all huddled.

"We've got to come up with something that'll get us two more points," pointed out Cara desperately. "There's got to be something." She turned to me. "Jessie?"

I had only given us like three or four of our points, hardly a lead scorer. And yet she was turning towards me. I took a deep breath and outlined a shaky plan. They nodded. It would have to work, and then we would only have on chance to get yet another point.

It was our serve. Cara served it off, and of course the leader hit it. He was definitely the lead scorer on the other team. He sent it flying right towards an empty spot, which was quickly covered by Mei.

Mei faked towards Amy for just a second, where the boys started to look. Then she hit the ball with lightning speed, whipping it towards me. I quickly spiked.

We cheered and hugged.

We needed one more point.

Now they were guarding me and Amy. Mei finally scored the last point. We'd won!

"We won!" cried Cara, moving over to the net so that she was face-to-face with the leader with only the net between them. Her eyes narrowed. "Now leave."

They threw the ball at us and then left.

We'd won!!! =D How awesome is that???

Love,

Some Volleyball and Changes

Dear Readers,

Hey!!! It's Jessie!!!! =D (another note by Storyteller that she wanted me to insert: Jessie's story is now in "not normal" time. End of quote. I really don't like it when she does that.) :) 

So, today volleyball started. I was on the A team, which made me pretty happy because if you're on the A team, it means that you're a better volleyball player than if you're on the B or C teams. So, that was a big compliment for me. BIG compliment. I mean, I may be small and all, but apparently I'm not that bad at the sport.

So, what's my least favorite thing about volleyball? Well, I'll tell you--our uniforms. The pants are like, way way short. My mom was like horrified the first time I played, but we've all kind of gotten used to it, even though it is like really really weird since I don't usually wear that short of pants.

Anywayyyyyyy...... so on the team are some really nice girls that I've been making better friends with. You might ask why I haven't done that before, but it's really because none of them are as, shall we say, explosive as I am.

First of all there's Amy--brown-haired with red streaks, brown eyes, tall, slender, artsy and crafty and a good hand with the volleyball. Her signature move is spiking.

Then there's Cara--blonde haired, blue eyed, tall, well-built, all-in-all sports lady. Did I mention she was the captain of the team?

And the last girl that I'd probably consider being friends with is Mei--a really pretty Chinese girl who, other than being like really pretty, is a beast at all of her sports. It's so funny to watch her layered black hair bounce in her ponytail as she jumps in the hair and slams the ball over onto the other side of the net. I think she's our lead scorer.

Anyway, so I'm usually like "hi" and everything, but Noah and I have always been best friends, so it's not like I've really had to like search for friends.

I walk into practice on Monday morning and the first person who walks up to me is Mei.

"Jessie!" she cried, running up and wrapping her arms around me (I wasn't expecting it either, trust me). "I'm so glad that you're doing volleyball again this year! Our team's gonna rock!"

Mei's also an seventh grader, unlike Amy and Cara, who are eighth graders. So thankfully we'll still be a beast team while I'm in middle school. I knew from experience that our high school team were beasts. I'd gone to a few of their games and watched as an all-out brawl happened (don't worry, our team didn't start it--but they finished it).

Anyway, so I was like, "Hey, Mei!"

She let go of me and took a step back, smiling. "With you on our team, we're really going to be the beasts of Ohio," she declared. "I think that Coach Hardyman has already got us doing games all over the state, and in Indiana, too. Isn't that great?!"

"Yeah," I agreed. "That's awesome!"

"Come on!" urged Mei, starting over to where the other girls were starting into a huddle.

You could kind of say that Mei had adopted me, even though I'd been here longer than she had. But it was kind of nice, because she was in the B clique at school (aka the second most popular group. The A clique consists of Maya and her goonies).

So, I'm not sure what's really going to happen next.

But we'll see. ;)

Love,

P.S. Note from Storyteller: as you can tell, I just set up for myself a very good place where something very interesting happens to Jessie. Keep watching for it!!!

P.P.S. I know I wrote a lot earlier on Dragonmaster about a Jessie Bender letter. Sorry I didn't write it as quickly as I'd hoped!!!!!

Hello! My name is Jessie Bender.

Dear Readers,

Hello!! My name is Jessie Bender, and I am a girl living in a little town called Dayton, Ohio. I enjoy doing lots of fun things!!! Like: soccer, volleyball, my school's newspaper, reading, [sometimes] writing, blogging, and lots of other cool stuff!!! I am twelve years old and going into the seventh grade. Yes, I have an early birthday. =D My birthday is on February 28th. It was on a leap year, so I was really close to being on a changing birth date!!! 

My job on the newspaper: When I do the newspaper, I do lots of fun stuff--either writing up stories, doing reporting, or taking pictures!! Since Dayton's such a small town, we don't have a huge newspaper, but we keep it going!!

My part in [sometimes] writing: I love to write movie scripts that my friends and I can act out!!! We've recorded all of our movies, and they're so funny!! Maybe sometime I'll post one of the scripts on here. I hope you guys would like that!!!

Something that lots of people think is rather cool about me: Before my dad quit his old job and became a writer, we traveled all around the world, mostly centered in Europe. I've lived in lots of cool places, including England, Paris, and Berlin. Danka (thank you, in German) for reading this!!! =D

Random things about me: OK, so ya ready? I can't stand leftovers, I'm left-handed, I start on my left foot when I run, my little sister died before she left my mother's womb, I wear contacts, I did gymnastics and diving for four years, I love throwing football with my best friend, Noah, who's on our school's football team, I LOVE spaghetti, anything beef, onions (yum!!), only original Lays chips (my friends think I'm crazy), hate chocolate (my friends REALLY think I'm crazy about this one), am allergic to strawberries and poison ivy and yellow jackets, and I have an older brother in college by the name of Jake (so if I mention him in my letters you won't be totally confused).

What I look like: Ooh, goody!! =D OK, so I'm about five foot (my friends call me shorty), petite, pale skin that burns horribly and then darkens into a light tan, pointy, pixie-like features, dark brown hair that everybody's always confusing with black, and big bluish greenish brownish violetish hazlish eyes. (if you can understand any of that gibberish)

I hope to get to know you all better!!! Please comment for any questions!!!!

Bye!!!

Love,
Jessie

Note: all of this is fictional, and Jessie is a character of Storyteller's own design.