My Toy Soldiers
by Jay

They jumped in my backpack and came to school with me.

I was in class when I heard a zipper on a backpack open. I turned around and saw 20 toy soldiers jumping out of my backpack. They marched out my classroom door. I wondered how they got in my backpack.

I remembered that I had played with my soldiers before my dad told me and my two sisters that we had to get ready for school. I forgot to put them back in their box before I left for school. I guess they unzipped my backpack and jumped in. They forgot to close the zipper again because they must have heard me come back up the stairs to get my backpack.

I sat in my desk and thought about the trouble I could get in if they got caught running through the school building. I tried to do my math lesson on times tables but I got them all wrong because I was concentrating on the toy soldiers. I wondered where they were and what they were doing.

Lunch time came and we were in line to go into the cafeteria. I could hear the cafeteria ladies yelling at someone. Then I saw them. They chased something with their brooms. They were after my soldiers! "Oh no," I said to myself. "I'm in trouble now."

The soldiers must have smelled the pizza cooking in the kitchen. Pizza is their favorite food. I like pizza, too. Their favorite topping is pepperoni so I told the cafeteria ladies to put sleeperoni on the pizzas. It looks just like pepperoni and the soldiers would never notice. The sleeperoni would make them sleepy. I invented sleeperoni with my science set that I have at home. I only had a couple slices left in my backpack but I told the ladies that I would get the sleeperoni for them.

I ran back to my classroom and got the sleeperoni and took it to the ladies. They put sleeperoni pieces on the pizza and it wasn't long before the soldiers went to sleep.

I put some of the soldiers in my lunch box but they wouldn't all fit so I gave some to my friend, Darren, who helped me carry them back to our classroom. The sleeperoni would keep the soldiers asleep until I got home from school.

Next time I will be careful and make sure that no toys are in my backpack when I leave the house for school in the morning.

Patti Weeg
patti@globalclassroom.org

April 23, 2002