I WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Can you tell I’m excited?)

In case you’re wondering what it is that I won, I recently entered a short story contest for all the Dakota County libraries. The subject was supposed to be Nail Biters. The description was, ‘Write a chilling, mysterious, suspenseful short story.’ I figured that even though I’m not that great at writing scary stories, it would be good creative practice. So I wrote the story down, typed it out, edited it and sent it in. It was shorter than I wanted it to be, but that was okay. What worried me more was that it wasn’t going to qualify as chilling, mysterious, or suspenseful. It was more dark rather than any of those descriptions. I didn’t think it was my best work, but I thought, ‘What the heck, might as well send it in.’

So today, we went to Galaxie library in Apple Valley, where the winners were going to be announced. Mom and I had to sit through some lame presentation from this organization called P.R.O.P.H.E.T (Paranormal Research Of Poltergeists, Happenings, Entities, and Tragedies. Nice and sunny, hmm?) about the paranormal. After that was (finally) over, the winners were announced. The lady announced the age category 12-14, which was my category. She said that she read through all 89 entries and picked out which ones were the best, than sent them to the two published authors they have on staff to decide the best out of those.

First there was the honorable mention, whose name was Pate. I visibly twitched at that, I thought she was going to say my name. Then she went on to third and second place. When she finally got to first, I thought, ‘Say Patience, say Patience!!!!!!!’

“And our first prize winner is…Patience Stewart!” I could have screamed and danced around, had my voice been working (I have an evil cough), but I settled for whispering , ‘Yes!’ and leaping from my chair as Mom said, “That’s you!!! Yay!”

Here’s the certificate:

I also got a $50 gift certificate for Barnes and Noble, which I wanted to go and spend right away, since there was a Barnes and Noble right across the street. Alas, I must wait for next weekend when we go to the mall.

If you want to read it, I’ve posted it below. It’s not horribly long. Keep in mind that it’s kind of depressing (I was exercising my dark streak), and that I don’t feel that this is my best work. But if it was good enough to be first place…