Escape the Woods

They shoved us into the cabin, slammed the door, and locked it. I heard the click of three chain locks outside. No way to get out by picking the lock now. It was pitch black inside, and I couldn’t see anything except for some faint outlines. It was nighttime, and the moonlight shining through the barred windows provided the most light.
Drew slammed her foot into the door, but it remained perfectly intact.
I heard them laugh, then shuffle away after a while.
“I’m scaaaared!!” Zoey whined. “It’s daaark!”
“Shut up,” Drew snapped, “let’s find a light switch. David, do you still have your flashlight?”
“I did, but he took my backpack,” he said glumly. “My books were in there,” he muttered.
“I’m scared!” Zoey shrieked.
Drew groaned. “Okay Zoey, just sit down on the floor and close your eyes okay? Pretend you’re in your room meditating or something We need to find a light switch.”
“Okay,” I heard her sit down on the floor.
The rest of us groped along the walls, but couldn’t find any light switches, there was a lot of wall to cover.
I stopped and closed me eyes for ten seconds, then opened them. It didn’t help much, but it helped nonetheless.
I could make out a bed, and table next to a nightstand. I walked slowly towards the bed. I could see something shiny under it.
I discovered that it wasn’t a lamp, but a book. I couldn’t see anything, let alone what the book said, so I went over to the barred windows to read it. It was total gibberish. It was written in another language, but it didn’t even look like any language I’ve ever seen. That wasn’t saying much though, since I don’t bother taking the time to learn to recognize which language is which.
I knew David, Drew, and Zoey didn’t know any language except English and French, but I asked them anyway, maybe David would at least know what language it was.
They crowded around me and peered at the book, squinting at it because of the small amount of light.
Drew rolled her eyes, “It’s English.”
“Uh, no it isn’t,” I said.
“That’s obviously not English,” Zoey agreed.
“That’s not any language I know,” David added.
“No, it’s clearly English,” Drew stared at us like we were the stupidest idiots in the world. “It says ‘Spellbook’.”
“I’m not falling for that,” I said.
“I’m not kidding Logan, that’s what it says!”
“How can you read that?”
“Because it’s English!” She looked and sounded highly irritated.
“Okay fine,” I said. I opened the book and looked at the first page. It looked like a table of contents.
“It’s the table of contents,” Drew said. “Give me that.” She took the book and started flipping.
“It’s full of spells,” she told us. She stopped at one page. It had some weird comic about a girl at a beach.

“Dihelio?”

she said it like a question.
Dihelio
Immediately light flooded through the window. We all turned behind us and saw the sun, blazing right next to the moon.
“But…” David looked completely flabbergasted, well, everyone did, “that’s not possible.”
“That was a spell,” Drew said, she was as amazed as we were, “make two suns. The comic shows two suns right beside each other, but I guess using this spell could also make another sun whereever we want it to be.”
“How come only you can read it?”
“How will am I supposed to know that?” She went back to the book. She flipped through a few, “Hey, this one’s cool.”
She held the book away from her a little and said,

“Centceph.”

Centecph
Zoey, David, and I screamed so loud we were probably heard in China.
Instead of one head, Drew had about a hundred heads. All blinking and grinning at the same time.
“Wow,” all the heads said. It sounded like a crowd of people, “your scream is very high pitched.”
Zoey fainted.
David stared in horror at Drew while I just stood there with my jaw hanging open.
“Um,” David said nervously, like her heads were going to chew his head off if he said the wrong thing, “can you…turn back to normal?”
“Monoceph.”
All the heads disappeared except one, leaving her back to normal.
“Ooh this one’s cool,

Polypub”

Polypub
She split into seven identicle copies of her, almost like the other hundred heads spell.
They looked at each other, “Awesome!”
David shook Zoey back to consciousness.
“Okay Drew, stop. Is there anything useful in there?” I asked.
Drew changed back to normal. “Hm,” she went to the table of contents, then flipped to a page.
“Hurry!” Zoey burst into tears the moment she regained consciousness. “They’re burning us!!!”
I thought maybe she was hallucinating, but then I turned to look at what she and David were looking at, and saw that the flames were burning the wall behind us.

“Mobilmacro,”

Drew said quickly.
Mobilmacro
She ran over to the door and pushed with one hand, the other still holding the book.
We heard a loud ripping noise, and the entire door fell down. The chain locks and the hinges had broken completely off, and the deadbolt lock had torn a hole in the wooden wall.
Drew grinned at the wreckage she had caused, “Wicked!”
“That was a bit loud,” David said.
“Pff who cares,” she said, “we have a bunch of awesome spells. Look there’s even one that can control time! It’s very complicated though.” She read a bit more, “And it’s extremely hard to do.”
We ran a bit farther from the burning cabin. Drew found another spell,

“Benescope.”

Benescope
“Whoa!” she looked around.
“What?” Zoey asked.
“I can see everything!” Suddenly she shrieked, “Ah!”

“Petrpopu!”

she yelled.
Petrpopu
I heard something heavy fall somewhere in front of us, maybe ten metres away.
“What was that?” Zoey asked nervously.
“A person,” Drew answered. She scanned the trees around us, “I don’t see anyone else…”
“I hear something,” David whispered.
“I hear you talking,” Drew whispered back.
“No, that’s not what I—”
“I know what you meant, now stop talking,” she said back.

“Inmem!”

Inmem
she shouted. She was pointing at some trees beside us.
A man burst out of the trees, yelling something incoherent as he charged toward us, then stopped and looked confused.

“Zoanthro!”

Zoantro
We stared as he began staggering around with a rabbit’s head for a head. He then dropped to the ground and chewed at the grass.
“Wow,” Drew said, “this book is awesome.”
“Is there anyone out there still?” Zoey asked.
“No, not that I can see.”
David pointed to the right, “If we walk that way for twenty minutes or so, we’ll probably make it back to camp…if I’m not mistaken.”
“Hm, I guess we go that way then,” I said. We trudged that way for a while.
Drew read the spellbook as she walked, “Ooh, this one’s cool,

Decachrom!”

Decachrom

Decachrom


A tree next to us burst into a rainbow of colours
“Why would they lock us in that cabin?” Zoey asked as we walked . “And who are they?”
“You think I would know?” Drew asked. Then she added, “They seemed to really hate me.”
“Not surprising,” I said, “you’re really easy to hate.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
“It means what you think it means,” I answered.
“Stop it!” David ordered. “We have bigger problems. Look!”
Two more men were coming at us.
Drew acted quickly,

“Oligmania.”

Oligmania
The screeched to a stop and started doing the tango while making chicken impersonations, which looked very strange.
“Can I try a spell?” Zoey asked.
“Sure.”
“Uh, I only remember the hundred head one, um…centceph.”
Nothing happened. She looked a bit relieved that nothing did.
David and I tried as well, but our efforts were proved futile.
“Wait,” David said suddenly, “who’s that?”
A woman holding a chopstick was walking towards them. She didn’t look threatening, but of course, looks can be deceiving.
“I have a spellbook!” Drew threatened, “I can make you turn into a frog! With huge and ugly warts!” she added.
“Oh, there’s no need for that,” she smiled. “I was the one who put that spellbook under the bed.”
Drew blinked, “You serious?”
“Yes, I am. I am a witch you see. You are one as well. You can read the Fantasian language, you can do magic while you’re friends cannot. You are a witch.”
“They’re not my friends,” she said quickly. “So why were those crazy lunatics after us?”
“After you to be exact. They hate our kind, burning us is kind of their hobby. You’re acquaintances were caught in this mess by accident, since they were with you, they thought that they were like you, wizards and witches. Those crazy lunatics are magicians, very different from us wizards and witches. They are an entirely different branch of magic. You are special, because you do not need a wand to cast spells. That means you are Extraordinary, with a capital ‘E’. You are the Extraordinary Witch, the first in decades. I am merely an Ordinary Witch. You with a wand, will be very, very powerful.”
“Wow,” Drew said, “cool.”
“But with great power, comes a great price. Magicians will constantly me tracking you, trying to get rid of you. Your friends and family as well.” She gave Drew a sad look, “You will never be safe from harm.”

Change In Plans

Today on November 21, for the time given to me in Valient Ventures I typed this blog post, writing about all of our plans.

I plan to go to her house on Saturday, November 22, to practice, or maybe even go to my house to film the actual video. We’re going to have to hurry if we’re going to have enough time to do Mistletoe. Maybe we don’t have to be in that much of a hurry because there’s a holiday and there’s no school so we’ll have more time to go to each other’s houses.
Also today we might have some time afterschool to do some practicing. Nanako and I are staying to 4:30 to do a video about the story of Amatersaru and Susano for the mythology project. If we finish by 4:00 or something, Teresa and I might have some time to practice. She can also help hold the camera or something, that’ll help us be faster.

We did end up practicing at KAS. We had 20 minutes of time to practice at the blue stage.

On November 22, I went to her house to practice with her. We first practiced with the lyrics video, and we found out that our voices were too low when we were practicing at KAS. So we tried out a couple of songs, but we thought that right now was too late to do another song, so we skipped straight to Mistletoe by Justin Bieber. We split the parts for this song together. Here is the link to the document–>https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1FtvAvQIJtlqIS6izhHjtxx3DKUN7bwsrm_B3iUhlhP0/edit I had to leave right after, so we didn’t have much time to practice Mistletoe.

For the Mistletoe video, we plan to do it at my house at my Christmas Tree, and that will look very Christmasy. 😀

HERE’S THE FACEBOOK PAGE

New Song in the Working

It is official, we have chosen a new song! Who Says, by Selena Gomez. Here is the document where we had split the parts–> https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1ThWopV_UdzdLh0la_cH9rkRkzEXv6wkWtsqmEORX6mI/edit


We have highlighted this song in yellow in this document, meaning that it’s our current song.

This is the music video for that song–>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzE1mX4Px0I
This is the lyrics video that we’re going to use to practice with to get the pitch right–> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C6jG2ZLSq4
Here is the karaoke that we will use for the video for this song–>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWHanw_ZEUw

On November 7, Teresa and I split the parts in the document. Teresa also did the credits at the bottom.

Teresa and I had originally planned to practice at Teresa’s house on Sunday, November 9, but since I had a fever and was sick on the weekends we couldn’t do that. Instead we just practiced at home by ourselves. We plan to practice some times in the weekends. We need to finish this song before December starts, or we will not have enough time to do a Christmas song.

For the Christmas songs, we have made a list of all the christmas song ideas. I think the song we’re most likely to do is Mistletoe by Justin Bieber.

For the time given to us in English class to work on our Valient Ventures, on November 14, I typed this blog post to show you what we have accomplished.

Proverbs

1.) A bar of pure gold is no better than finding true love <3

2.) Don’t start mining for diamonds until you’ve found the coal.

Photo Credit: afternoon_sunlight via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: afternoon_sunlight via Compfight cc

3.) If the sun didn’t take its time, we wouldn’t have the food to eat.

Photo Credit: Eduardo Amorim via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Eduardo Amorim via Compfight cc

4.) If all the fish traveled alone, passing sharks could gobble them whole.

5.) A turtle shouldn’t stay hidden in it’s shell, but it also shouldn’t poke it’s head too far.

Photo Credit: Theophilos via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Theophilos via Compfight cc

6.) Don’t let others build a fence around you.

Photo Credit: Will Montague via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Will Montague via Compfight cc

New Song Is Out!!!

On October 15, afterschool to about 4:20 or 4:30, me and Teresa went to the blue stage so I could help Teresa decorate her mask for the Masquerade. While we were there I put on the karaoke for I See the Light by Mandy Moore, and we practiced while Teresa sprayed glue and sprinkled glitter on her mask. We did some other songs too, not only I See the Light.

On October 17, for the one hour we are provided to work on our Valient Ventures project, I wrote about what we have accomplished, which is the blog that you are reading right now.

On October 26, I went to Teresa’s house from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. We practiced for about an hour, then started doing other random things. Then we began filming the final video. We had planned to do it at my house, but thought that we were already taking too long so much filmed it on that day at her house. So I uploaded the video, and here is it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9nvU2F_MDk
I also put it on our Facebook page–> facebook.com/TheAwesomeWhiteShadows

For the time given to us on Friday, October 31st, I searched for songs that we should do. I was thinking of doing One Thing or Story of My Life, but I remembered Teresa saying that she doesn’t want to do One Direction songs, so I decided against it. I wanted to do a Selena Gomez song, because most of her songs are more low. I’m thinking of Hit the Lights, Love You Like a Love Song, or Who Says, which are my three favourite Selena Gomez songs. This time I want to split the parts so that one person doesn’t have to wait a whole thirty seconds or so for their turn. It’s just very awkward just sitting there in the video when that hapoens.
Here is the singing ideas document–>https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1ly7LLb-rhu0tvAEIDsSjyuVZG4if7O2x-6svuu1-_9s/edit

We plan to try and finish a song before December or so, so that we can do Mistletoe by Justin Bieber for Christmas.

My Life As A Magical Delinquent

“Protomono,” I uttered. It was the spell that would ensure that I would be the first one in line.
Protomono
I confidently took my place at the back of the lengthy line to the check-in for the hotel. After a while, someone called, “You can line up here too!”
I didn’t even have to move fast, I got to the front desk before anyone else.
“How may I help you?” the woman asked. She wore glasses, and her hair was swirled in such a tight bun, it gave the impression that her hair would be pulled out of her scalp.
“Pseudocred,” I told her, “My name is uh, Caitlyn Kate, I’m over 20 and I would like to check-in please.” In truth, my name was actually Drew Hill, I’m 15, and Caitlyn is one of my cousin’s names.
Pseudocred
“All right,” she typed some stuff on a computer then said, “I am sorry, but there are no one-person suites open at the moment.”
“Oh great,” I murmured, “when is there going to be one open?”
She peered at the computer screen, “In an hour or so, but we already have twenty one people reserved for one-suite rooms.”
“Oh,” I said, “how about the double suite rooms? Are there any rooms available?”
“I’m sorry, no,” she gave me an apologetic smile. Ugh, why are you people smiling so much?
To make sure I said, “Veridict,” then, “are you sure?”
Veridict
“Yes,” she said, “I’m sure.”
I considered either breaking into a random room in the hotel, or just break into another house or hotel.
Houses had more useful things, and less security, so I chose the houses.
I went towards the neighborhood, I saw some yellow patches in the grass. Bored, I said, “Bioflor.” Where I went near, the grass turned greener and flowers bloomed. I grinned in spite of myself.
Bioflor
I put my hand over my mouth, “Neohydro.” Water squirted out of my hand straight into my mouth. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve.
Neohydro
I spotted a police car. Instinctively, I said, “Velomega” I turned a bit taller than I was.
Velomega
The police car passed by, then I heard the sound of a car stopping. I disguised looking as sitting down on a nearby bench. I looked at the car through the corner of my eye.
A police officer was coming out, walking not towards me, but to the hotel.
“Benescope,” I muttered.
Benescope
I looked through the window, thanks to my good sight, I could see him talking to the woman at the front desk. Then he pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to her.
At once, I stood up and began strolling away, I knew that that paper must be my mug shot or something.
I had only escaped less than 24 hours ago, so it wasn’t a surprise that the fuzz were looking for me. I had even seen myself on television.
“Are you that escapee from that juvenile prison place?” someone accused.
I whirled around to see a guy around 16 with disheveled dark hair with nerdy glasses, holding hands with another girl. The girl was looking at me a bit apologetically, and the guy glared at me.
How did he know that? I’m wearing sunglasses for goodness sake!
“No…” I said, “what are you talking about? Was there a prison break?”
“Yeah, there was,” the boy said. “You look a lot like the girl who escaped. Same hair, nose, mouth, eyes,” he stared at my face. He must be looking really closely to be able to see through my shades.
The girl rolled her eyes, “You’re an idiot Noah, you can’t just go accusing her of being a fugitive, just leave her alone.” She turned and walked away.
“Alright! Wait!” he turned to me, “I’m watching you…”
Noah turned back around. Suddenly he whirled around again and smacked my sunglasses straight off my nose.
“AHA!” he cried triumphantly, “You look exactly like that girl!” He dug into his pockets and took out a crumpled piece of paper. It was a news article about me.
“Found it on the floor,” he said smugly.
“Are all you New Yorkers this rude?” I snapped. I picked up my sunglasses and put them back on, “I’m leaving. Good day.”
I turned and fast walked away.
“HEY! STOP!” he yelled.
“Ughh…” I’m really getting tired of this guy, “Teletrans”.
Teletrans
I reappeared in an alley near the building. I leaned against the wall and listened to what he was saying.
“Sammy, it’s her! I know it is! Her face is exactly the same!”
“Noah you know—” Sammy started.
“No really! I’m sure! A hundred percent sure!”
“Alright, but if you’re wrong I swear—”
“I’m not! She teleported away!She teleported! Didn’t you see?”
“Well yeah, but—”
“You know how in the news they keep saying her escape was like magic! There were no holes, no broken windows, and none of the other kids there knew how she did it, just that strange things happen around her!”
That was it, I sneaked up behind them, “Inmem.”
Inmem
Sammy suddenly froze, then scratched her head, “What’s happening?”
Noah stared at me with a horrified expression, “What…what did you do?”
“Erased her recent memories,” I said.
“But…you can’t do that!”
“Sure I can, and you’ll get a worse fate than her.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, this isn’t permanent,” I said. “Inmem, Petrpopu,”.
Petrpopu
I strolled away as he slowly turned to stone.
“There she is!” someone yelled.
I whipped around, policemen.
Oh God, I took off running, then muttered, “Polypub.” Immediately five more identicle copies of me took off in other directions.
Polypub
I reached a front yard. I looked at the dark windows, newspapers were everywhere, and I couldn’t hear any sound coming from the inside.
“Teletrans!” I teleported right inside, in front of the front door.
I peeked out the window, no policemen in sight.
I slid down the door with relief.
Some barking got my attention.
Bracing for the worst, I turned and saw a dog.
He growled at me, then got ready to pounce.

STARTING NEW SONG!!

We are now starting another song! We are going to do I See the Light by Mandy Moore. It was in the movie Tangled, which is my favourite movie, I like it way better than Frozen!
Here is our document for our song ideas–> https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1ly7LLb-rhu0tvAEIDsSjyuVZG4if7O2x-6svuu1-_9s/edit
The song we’re doing is highlighted in yellow. When we’re done with this song, we might do Let It Go, the Idina Menzel version. I can’t sing some parts of the chorus, but the rest I’m fine with.
We’re using this karaoke for I See the Light–> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWhgIbxByew
Here is the document where we put the the lyrics and the parts for I See the Light by Mandy Moore–> https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1kdmCuFerMuIhydgmh0NhOUHTqy7E85m_rgY3z4Vr7zs/edit

On October 8th, we stayed afterschool to 4:00 PM to practice together in the library. My computer was low battery and had shut down, and Teresa’s was too so we had to be near an outlet. We split the parts. Teresa is going to sing Mandy Moore’s parts because they’re higher, and I’m going to sing Zachary Levi’s parts because they don’t have to be that high. I can sing pretty high, but I don’t think I should risk it, because sometimes my voice will start cracking or no sound will come out, even though it may sound great at other times.

Today, on October 9, Thursday, I am typing the blog that you are reading right now. I plan to go to Teresa’s house to practice, then to my house when we think we’re ready to film the song. We’re choosing my house because there’s more room to film our video so that we’re not right in front of the camera which looks a bit weird.

We still never got to practice over the weekend, because of having class, or having to go somewhere. So we practiced by ourselves at home. I have been singing this song a lot, especially in the car.

Almost Finished With Our First Video!

On September 19, I searched for good songs that me and Teresa are going to cover next.
This is the link to the document with the song ideas —> https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1ly7LLb-rhu0tvAEIDsSjyuVZG4if7O2x-6svuu1-_9s/view. I tried using songs that were more in my range, like Bad Day by Daniel Powter or Mean by Taylor Swift. We are going to vote on the songs sometime next week at school.

On September 21, I went to Teresa’s house again. I stayed there from 3:00 to 5:15. We practiced songs for about an hour, then we started filming the final one. But we always sung super quietly, you could barely hear us singing, just the music. I suggested that we turn the music down more, but Teresa said that the music has nothing to do with it. So then I suggested that we should just sing without music and add the music later so that we could control the volume without changing the whole video’s volume, but Teresa said she needed the music to sing. So we ended up filming over 20 videos, and I’m not even exaggerating. Sometimes we sung the full song, sometimes we sung some of it to see how loud we were. The last one we filmed was pretty good, but my voice sounded so different. I don’t think there’s really anything I can do about it though. It doesn’t sound that bad actually, so we decided to use that clip. Here is the video link for our COVER!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbGVMBfs4w

On September 26, I worked on this blog post. I think the next time we film the video it should be at my house not Teresa’s, because even though Teresa’s house is way bigger than mine, there still isn’t a lot of places to film it.

This is the link to our Facebook page—> https://www.facebook.com/TheAwesomeWhiteShadows. The name of our band it called White Shadows, I had originally wanted it to be Black Sunrise, but Teresa thought White Shadows was better.