The Town Crier asked families to share the creative projects they’d been working on while staying home. Here are some of the submissions sent in, including the short story “Snow Day.”

The White family worked together to create a special art piece last week, helping pass the time during the Stay-at-Home order. Each of the five family members illustrated one portion of a landscape drawing that created one big art piece. 
Photo by Josh White
Sydney Alexis, 14 years old, created some digital art to help shine the light of spring. 
Photo by
Sydney Alexis
Sydney Alexis, 14 years old, created some digital art to help shine the light of spring. 
Photo by Sydney Alexis
Sofia Ramirez, 5 years old, used acrylic paints on a canvas creating a colorful piece of art. 
Photo by Jessica Landis-Ramirez
The Johnston family worked on a family project at their home, creating a large chalk drawing in their driveway. From left, Lyliann Johnston, 13 years old, and Kaelynn Johnston, 10 years old.    Photo by Shannon Johnston
Samantha Hoggan, 12 years old, created a drawing about vitamin D. The art piece was for an assignment from her Idyllwild School science teacher Mr. Bob Leih. 
Photo by Heidi Hoggan
Emma Diaz, 7 years old, created this watercolor painting of some birds and the ocean. 
Photo by Melissa Diaz Hernandez

Snow Day

By Indigo Dagnall, 10 years old
Contributed  

Ring, ring, ring, ring. 

Ugh, time to get up. I reached out my arm to stop my annoying blue alarm clock. I sat up on my bed with my brown strands of hair poking out every which way. 

That’s when I glanced at the window and realized it had snowed outside! I wouldn’t have to go to school! I rushed up to the gleaming glass window. There were just feet and feet of pure white, crusty snow piled up outside. The height was increasing wildly as it snowed more and more. 

I must have sat there for about an hour just staring at what looked like a giant piece of white, lumpy paper just covering every square inch of my vision and listening to the birds cry. 

Eventually, the smell of sausages and eggs wafted through my door and my mom was calling me down for breakfast in her usual raspy morning voice. I threw on my soft, blue robe and headed down our glistening wooden steps that my mom tries so desperately to keep clean. 

I made it downstairs to see my whole family already sitting at our marble table in the center of the family room. This was a strange sight because usually my family of four doesn’t eat together. 

Normally, my mom makes breakfast around 7:30 a.m. while my dad is already working out in town and my 7-year-old brother sleeps until 9 a.m. My dad doesn’t get home until 5 p.m. on a usual day and I get out of school at 2:45 p.m. with my brother. 

So, you can tell it was a pretty weird sight. I sat down and greeted my family while my dad started on his usual story of work and why he should get a raise. The rest of us ​normal ​people just have to sit there and nod approvingly when there are pauses.

We all ate quickly and my dad said I should go play outside with my brother in 15 minutes. 

I grunted, but my mom shot me a look that said, “Do it or you’re grounded.” So after breakfast, I trudged slowly back up the stairs stomping on every single one to get on my parents’ nerves and into my room. I started pulling open my gray, wooden cabinet doors and grabbed a handful of snow clothes. 

I have about three to four types of every type of clothing that has to do with the snow. I spent a half hour mixing and matching to get the perfect clothes that would keep me warm. After I was done, I waddled back down the stairs like a penguin and out the front door. 

My brother was already out there building snowmen and asked if I wanted to help him make one. I shot him a disapproving look and shook my head. He gave me the stink eye. I told him I was going to make an igloo to keep warm and I didn’t get a response. 

As time went by, the snow started doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Like at one point, it would start snowing really hard and 10 minutes later it was hailing. There were points where slush started coming down and points where it didn’t even snow at all and the sun peaked out. 

Every so often when I finished building a couple of snow blocks, I would glance over at my brother to see what he was doing, but every time I did, he would non-stop pelt me with a couple of snowballs. So, I chased him around and when I caught him, I would tickle him to death. 

After four hours of being outside, I finished putting my white igloo together and a snowball hit my neck. At first, I thought it was my brother but ​he wasn’t even there! ​When I turned around, I couldn’t even find our house!

There were just large mounds of snow everywhere. It hadn’t been snowing for the past hour, but just then, little things of snow started dropping. When I looked up, I spotted a huge snowball hurling through the air straight towards me. I dove out of the way when another one came down — and another one after that and another one after that. 

This went on for about three minutes when I heard a loud voice telling me to wake up. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I was in my bed. My brother was repetitively smacking my face. So, I guess that was the snowballs and telling me to wake up. It was a dream! 

Written on March 31, 2020.