SAL/ON

A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures

“Marco Strong” by WITS Student Aquel Paine

One day, a person came to his house and asked, “Could you come and fix my door frame? The outer wood is starting to crack.”

“Oh my!” Marco responded. “I can do that. Just give me a few hours to do it.”

“Thank you!” the person said gratefully.

So Marco spent the next 4 hours replacing the door frame. Marco believed that the longest work made the most effort and the best quality builds. But not everyone did.

The next day, Marco went to the Space Needle to see the new remodel. When Marco got there, he noticed just how tall the Space Needle was. It was so tall that at that moment, the needle on the top poked the moon and it deflated and came flying down to earth, straight toward the Space Needle.

“Look out!” Marco said. “The Space Needle is going to fall on us. Run!” Marco ushered gaping people away from the area. Just then, with an almighty crash, so loud that all of Australia heard, the moon hit the Space Needle and it came crashing down. Marco ran to MoPop and lifted the whole entire building off the ground and stuck it right where the Space Needle was about to land. Then, with another crash, 10 times louder than the first, the Space Needle smashed to smithereens on the MoPop building.

Just then, Australia yelled, “What is going on over there, residents of Seattle? You are disturbing our sleep!” Marco stumbled out and coughed. The weird thing was that his pencil was still on his ear and he had his clipboard in his hand.

“Nice remodel! It was totally awesome!” Marco said sarcastically. Then, he walked over and checked on the people, who had scattered into the Arboretum and the Children’s Museum. Luckily, everyone was ok.


This piece is an excerpt from the tall tail “Marco Strong.” Aquel Paine wrote this story while a student at TOPS K-8 School with WITS Writer-in-Residence Karen Finneyfrock.

Posted in Writers in the Schools