“What was that?” I asked my older cousin Adam.

“I don’t know,” he responded,” but I think it’s coming from the garage,”

“Let’s go check it out!” I shouted.

We went to the garage, and guess what we found… MICE!

“Cool, mice,” Adam said, “let’s get them!”

“Wait!” I shouted immediately, “we should probably ask Grandpa first.”

As fast as lightning Adam and I darted up the stairs.

“Grandpa! Grandpa! Can we capture the mice in the garage?” Adam and I both asked at the same time.

“Yes, you can. First you have to clean up your dog Max’s droppings,” he told us. (He didn’t worry because we’ve had mice before.)

As soon as we went outside… “AAhhhhh!” Adam screamed as he saw the half eaten mouse with its rib cage and its skull showing.

Max had eaten it! I guess that’s why they weren’t in the garage.

My favorite subject in fourth grade was science because we got to handle earthworms and it was very fun. We had to see if the worms liked the dark or the light better and also if they would move if we tried to touch them on the back or their head.

The subject that I really despise is math. I am really good at math and I don’t know why I don’t like it. This has been my most favorite grade level. I never want to leave fourth grade, but unfortunately.

“Yes!” I shouted, “I can’t wait until we get there.” 

As we arrived at Burges High School I was so excited about practicing and getting better that I couldn’t keep still. 

Beeeeep! went our coach’s whistle.  “Hi my name is coach Frank and this is your assistant coach, coach Paco,” he said as he introduced himself and his assistant.  “Now! Enough small talk.  Ten laps around the court!” coach Frank said. 

“What!” Joe, a new eleven year old teammate, complained. 

“Make that twenty laps Joe!” coach said. 

“Wow!” Frankie mouthed to me. 

When we finished our ten laps, coach introduced Frankie, Esteban and I to the team.  “This is Frankie, Esteban and Abel.  You will have to know their names by the end of the day or I will make you run!” 

For the first hour he made us do our lay-ups and if we missed one, guess what…we ran! 

“Finally it’s the last hour of the day!” Esteban said to me.  For the last hour they made us do foot fire, which is a what they call the popcorn exercises that we do at school, except we have to do it nonstop. 

Beeeeep! “It’s the end of practice, you may go home!”  coach Frank said. 

“Thank God!” all three of us said together. 

Then came Wednesday of the following week. “Abel, practice!” my mom said. 

“Uugghh!”  I groaned, “not again!”

After an eleven hour drive to Denver from El Paso and an eleven hour nap, my dad, my mom, and I went to see the rest of downtown Denver, Colorado. The downtown area is HUGE and CLEAN, there are skyscrapers everywhere! El Paso’s downtown is NOTHING compared to Denver’s, okay let’s cut the chit-chat and start on our little adventure, shall we?

“Oh, my God!” my mom said as she saw the little Johnny Rockets (a restaurant with a specialty of burgers). We were about to go straight to Hot Topic (a music store), when… sccccrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeech! went the brakes of my dad’s car.

“Dad, why are we turning back?” I asked.

“I’m not just going to say ‘bye-bye’ to our most favorite restaurant in the whole world!” he responded.

We paid for parking and ran to it! The burgers were the best, the patty was juicy, the lettuce was fresh, and best of all the fries had cheese!

We had finally left and were on our way to Hot Topic. Over-there I bought some rock band shirts. That was the best place I’ve ever been to. I recommend that you go sometime, just don’t drive.

photograph by Thomas Hawk

“Hello, my name is Peter and I will be your waiter for the day,” said a young man as he approached us at our seats in the Pepsi Center. I could not believe it, we did not even have to leave our seats to get hot dogs, drinks, popcorn and even candy. I could see some of the Lakers on the court taking practice shots and some of them were standing by a big crowd of fans taking pictures with them and giving them autographs.

About twenty minutes past and then he came out of the tunnel…Kobe Bryant!

“There he is, that is the greatest basketball player in the world,” my dad said to me. We were all so excited to be seeing all of these players in person.

The game started and the crowd was so loud. I felt like we were all alone because we were surrounded by Denver Nugget fans. I did not care though, by the second quarter the Lakers had taken over the game and they were ahead by 7 points at half time. The lead grew to 19 points by the end of the third quarter and that was enough for the fans to start leaving early. Not us, we stayed until the very end to enjoy this wonderful game and an even better victory.