Sometimes I wonder if it would all come crashing down. Everything I knew would just fall apart. Buildings would collapse, killing the innocent. Fires would spread burning homes, terrorizing everything in their paths, leaving nothing. In the midst of it all, where would I be? Would I chose to stand, and let it all take over me? Waves of fear would creep up inside, threatening to break on the jagged cliffs of my heart.  But what would happen if I ran? I’d follow screaming people running from their inescapable fates. We all die someday; we can’t run from it forever. If I ran, would I be saved? And what would happen next? Everything I knew would be unrecognizable to my familiar face, a skeleton of what once was. Would living be worth it? My soul would shatter; all of whom I loved gone. I’d be forced to find a new life, new happiness, and nothing could ever erase the memories of their screams. The images of flames devouring all that I saw would haunt my dreams, even my waking moments until there was nothing left but a broken shell of who I used to be. I don’t know where I’d be found if it all started crashing down. Either in darkness, or light, or even soley in the memories of those who survived, one question remains: Who would be the one to look?
    What causes this feeling of wonder, despair about unknown? Conspiracies, maybe, or the fear that 2012 will bring chaos and destruction.  Whatever the reason, my mind always travels back to these thoughts. There is no way of knowing what will happen, and no faith can bring me to believe a thing, so for now I am left in the dark, wondering, waiting, for it all to crash down.

    How many people can say their brother saved their life? I can. It was a sunny morning in April, the snow was melting, and you could hear the constant drip drop of the water running off buildings on our homestead. I was seven that year. My brother, Keaton, woke up wanting to go fishing at the creek, though it had no fish in it. Fishing was always something we did together, so we asked Mom if we could walk out to the creek. After getting approval, we set out with our homemade poles, long sticks with fishing line tied around the end. When we got to the gravel pit where our caretaker, Cliff, was staying, we stopped in for a quick hello. I remember that Cliff always had New York mints, and had me and Keaton split one that morning. After saying good bye, we went through the woods, a shortcut, to the creek. It was thawing. The middle was completely uncovered and flowing fast, but the edges still had ice. Walking down the creek side, my brother called out, “Don't go to close to the edge of the ice. It's melting and you could fall in!”
    I should have taken his advice into consideration because within the next few minutes I ventured out to the edge. “CRACK!” The ice broke, and I fell. Struggling to stay above, and fighting the current, I screamed out for Keaton. I remember going under, fearing that it was the end. I could only see water around me, and I felt so cold. I tried to take a breath, but only swallowed water instead. I was so scared. Then I saw a hand, my brother's hand. I grabbed onto it as hard as I could, but it just slipped through my fingers. The current was pulling me away! I fought to come above the water, and succeeded in getting a breath of air. Then I felt a tug on my jacket, and with all his might Keaton hefted me out of the water, pulling me onto the ice beside him. I was shivering, and I had lost a boot.    
    Knowing he had to get me home, Keaton made me stand, made me walk. I just wanted to sleep, I was so tired. I guess I must have blacked out because the next thing I can remember was being lifted onto Cliff's shoulders, and being carried back to the house. My brother walked beside us in hysteria. He was afraid I was going to die. By the time we got back to the house, I was numb and had little strength. Keaton ran ahead and yelled for my mom to come. Seeing that I was soaking wet, my mother raced out of the house and brought me inside, placing me by the fire to warm up. It took a while, and hurt like no other, but eventually I felt better.
    If it weren’t for the love my brother has for me, I probably wouldn't have ever made it out of the creek that day. I owe it to him forever, and I am very thankful to have him.

     Something a lot of people don’t know about me is that poetry is my life. Since I was young I have read poetry and have always been able to find something moving, or inspiring in the words of others. A few years ago, I picked up a pencil and decided to try to write in the way that I loved reading.  When I first started out, I had a hard time finding things to write about, and most of my poems only got half way finished before I gave up and moved on. But as I practiced more, I started to see improvement in my poems, and some of them were even brought tears to the eyes of people I look up to. I started to notice that writing about activities, items, or anything I felt passionate about always turned out in my poems. Eventually I’d spend days weaving together words without stopping to take a break for anything. It entertained me, and continues to. Recently, Mr. Voley started bringing poetry into the classroom, and I embraced the opportunity to finally let my voice be heard. We read a poem, The Farmer by W. D. Ehrhart, and were asked to write a poem based on what we read. At first I didn’t know what to write, and was surprised when my pencil started moving. The words started flowing out onto the paper. I chose to write about a poet because poetry is what I feel most passionate about, but you’re going to have to be the one to judge the quality of the poem I created.

The Poet
The poet hides behind words
Words that inspire, words that are a spirit
Sewn together to make a mask
Pain, love, sorrow
A slow song, portraying inner beauty
A hope to go on
The poet writes to
Deliver the world from pain
To make a change
Stains of lead
Fingers mangled from years
Of expressing a reason
A reason for living…
A reason for loving…
Wisdom written in lines
In stanzas
In words
For you, the poet has hope
For you, the poet writes on

_     After three months of home school, I am back!  The time I was gone seems to have just flown by. I am now living with my father out on our homestead farm 15 miles out the McCarthy road. One might think that living so far away from everything might be lonely and hard, but honestly I love it! Everyday there is some new obstacle to overcome, or a new battle to fight that always keeps me on my toes.  Whether the generator is down, or the garage doors are falling off, we always seem to be able to get back on top. A couple of times the generator broke down, leaving us in complete darkness for hours until the light came back so that we could repair it. I actually thought it was kind of peaceful without the hum of the electricity flowing through the wires in the house. My dad uses back up batteries powered by solar panels to run the internet and computers so that I can do my school work even when everything else fails. Life is simple, and I feel more at home now than I ever have in my life.

The most prominent reason I love living off the grid, is that when I am going home and hit the McCarthy road, it becomes possible for me to just forget all the drama of the real world, enabling me to concentrate on being happy, and completely content with the life that I am living. An important factor to my life at the homestead is that I have been learning how to conserve. We don't get out much, so we have limited resources, causing me to realize that nothing is going to be there forever, and that I should use what I have to my advantage and not let anything go to waste.

Since returning to the homestead, I have felt far more happy about life. I can honestly say that I have no regrets about coming to stay with my dad, and have no reason to leave. I am content, and that in itself I find amazing!

_ Everyday I wake up with a smile because I know that even if my life starts going down hill, I can be happy. Coming back to school was a difficult choice, and I don't know if I would have come back if it weren’t for my best friend, Harold Love. Harold helped me see that returning was the best thing that I could do to finish my education. He helped me realize that I could recover the credits I was missing faster if I were in public school rather than home school, which was something  with which I was struggling.

While I was gone, he was always there for me when I needed him. I tried to return the favor as much as possible, but I still felt like it wasn't enough. His world seemed to be falling apart, while at the same time mine was sewing itself back together. We both come from broken families, though I never talk about mine to the fullest extent and it’s not as broken as his was. Never the less, I understand where he comes from, and how he got to be where he is today. But some things I can't change even if I want to.

 A few days after the subject of returning to Kenny Lake School came up, I began to realize that without me at school to give Harold the hugs, and the encouragement he needs, he was slowly starting to disengage himself from his work and progress. It seemed amazing to me that I could have that kind of impact on someone, and the fact that someone actually cared about me and what I did was almost overbearing. I also needed help with school, something that I wasn't getting at home. So when it all started falling into place in my head, I made a decision. I chose to come back to the place I previously wanted so terribly to get away from, because I'm my best friend's inspiration, and without him I'd be completely and utterly lost.

    Lately I’ve been having these dreams that I hop into my red truck and leave, which is impossible because my red truck hasn’t run in years, but still I dream. I see myself driving down the road; no real destination in mind, just the pure thought of getting away keeps me going. These thoughts flood my brain, taking over every emotion and desire until there is nothing left but a searing need to continue on. I feel like I am running from something and only I know what that something is, but every time I have this dream the cause for my running changes and I am left in an even more confused state than I ever have been before. These dreams have put thoughts and realizations into my mind that I have never had in my life.

    A few times as I drove to school or back home, I have caught myself thinking, “What if I just kept driving right now? What if I never came back?” It’s frustrating, but I know I will never actually leave unless something major happens that gives me cause to go. I don’t understand why my mind feels the need to put these dreams through my head so frequently. I keep hoping that they stop, but at the same time the adventures are revealed in every one of the dreams are exciting and extremely addicting. I find myself counting down the hours of the day until I can go to sleep and see what journey on the road my mind has in store for me that night. In the end, I think I need a break. I need to go on a trip and just leave my life behind for a while. It might just be good for me.

     When I look back on my life I see so many memories that have touched me. Some are filled with happiness, and some are filled with sadness. What I really want to write about now is the memories I have of my first dog. I don’t remember getting him, but many times I have heard the story. I was a mere three-month-old baby attending my first Kenny Lake Fair. My mom was carrying me in a backpack carrier on her shoulders when a small girl walked up and asked her to take a puppy for a minute while she went to the bathroom. My mom took the small dog and was immediately struck by how cute he was. We stood there waiting for the girl to return and when she didn’t my mom knew she had just received a new dog. The puppy was about five weeks old and was brown, white, and black. At the time we had just bought a Dexter cow and my mom thought that “Dexter” would be the perfect name for our new puppy.

            Upon our return home to our homestead farm 15 miles out on the McCarthy road, Dexter became mine. As new additions to the family we became best friends. Over the next eight years Dexter and I became inseparable. He would come with me to visit my friends, and when we where home we would take turns playing tag around the kitchen island. One of my first memories of Dexter was waking up to him licking me in the face after being kicked across the driveway by a spooking horse. I was four years old and extremely tired, crying because my mom wasn’t paying attention to me. She had been busy trying to calm down a horse that had been spooking. Being a needy child I had followed her down to the driveway and walked up behind the horse only to be kicked in the gut and thrown across the drive way into the grass. I don’t remember passing out or the pain, but I do remember waking up hearing Dexter’s nervous whines and feeling his tongue licking my face. He was always there for me and I was there for him. He was my first best friend and I loved him so much.

            Dexter’s life was cut short on one rainy afternoon when we were both eight years old. I was at the Park Service building in Chitina with my mom working when the phone rang. It was my dad. He sounded really quiet and had a hard time telling me. He told me that he was sorry, that Dexter had been hit on the highway by a Semi-Truck. My dad buried Dex in his favorite spot beneath a tree by our horse tack shed. After hearing that my best friend -- pretty much everything to me -- had been killed, I went into a deep state of depression. I cried for weeks, and wouldn’t talk to anyone. Then one day I finally decided that Dex wouldn’t have wanted me to be sad. He would have wanted me to move on and to be happy. To this day I still remember his watchful eyes and the way he would smile when he was with me. I loved that dog, and I will always have him in my memories.

Hi, my name is Audrey Shepherd. Currently, I am a junior at Kenny Lake School and I am 16 years old. As high school flies by I realize just how little I know about my plans for my future. People I have known my whole life come up to me and ask, “What do you want to do after high school?” After a moment or two of thought I reply that I simply don’t know. As a child I dreamt of being a crime scene investigator, but as I grew older I lost interest in that path. Over the years I have changed my career choices various times. My dreams have gone form CSI to doctor to police woman to oceanographer, and so many more. As of now, my plans are to make it through the remaining two years of high school with an A or B average and to take a trip to Ireland after graduation. Upon my return from Ireland, I plan on attending UAF and finally finding a career path that suits me. Whatever happens, I hope to strive to do my best and greet each day with a smile and a skip in my step.