Kit's Newspaper

One day, Kit was sitting in her room. It was the last week of summer vacation, and she had just finished going over to a few newspaper offices to see if they would take an article she had written.

"Hi Kit, you don't look too happy. Is anything wrong?" Julie asked.

"Well, nothing important," Kit replied.

"Then if it's not important how come you aren't out playing with us?"

"I just got back from a few local newspaper offices that my mom took me to, and all the places rejected me. I thought my article was good enough for a newspaper," Kit told Julie.

"They rejected your article, not you," Julie told her kindly. Suddenly though, Julie got an idea.

"Hey though, Kit, why don't you start your own newspaper?"

"Hey, that's a great idea! Remember when I did that a few years ago? That newspaper was boring though. This new one of mine is going to be action packed! I got to go get writing, bye!" With that, Kit was off to her typewriter. She had a computer, but she preferred to use a typewriter. It seemed to make her write better.   

Kit sat and typed and typed and typed...

Just then, Julie came in to check on Kit and the new newspaper. "How are things going, Kit?" Julie asked.

"Not too good," Kit sighed. "I added a few write ups on a recent movie and a little article about the local schools being out for the summer, but I don't have anything interesting - or that interesting - to put in the paper. When I hand it out to others throughout town, I want to get a huge fan base or at least a few fans. I can't think of anything though."

"Maybe you should take a break - or maybe forget about the idea," Julie suggested.

"NO! I wouldn't ever quit working on the paper. I think it's a great idea. Maybe you're right though, I think I'll take a break and look around the farm. I might get some inspiration." Kit ran off.

Josefina was sitting in her bunk. "Hi Josie!" Kit smiled. "What are you doing?"

"I would be outside, but since it's so rainy and it's thundering, I have to stay inside, so I'm downloading some apps to my Ipad. I found this really cool one that will tell you what is happening around town as all the stuff happens. It's like a kid friendly news thing. You should download it too!" 

"Cool, Josie! Here, I'll go do it right now 

Kit quickly went to her Ipod Touch to check out the new app.

As she sat at her desk looking at it, she saw, very excitedly, that a food fight was going on at the local kids community summer camp! Kit hadn't gone to the camp (no one she knew had), but she figured she could go anyway and get a report on the food fight and see if anything a little more interesting was happening.

Off she went on her bike since the rainstorm had stopped....... 

 

When she reached the community center, she saw a cupcake lying on the ground and half of the community center's camp counselor food table was in disarray and a kid was standing on it throwing food. They were all pretty young and were just having fun. The camp counselors didn't look too happy and Kit saw a few parents leading messy, food splattered children away from the summer camp and the community center head administrator was there on the scene taking notes and calling parents to pick up their unruly kids. Kit entered the room timidly, and almost laughing at the crazy sight of all the kids going wild. It was just too strange to be true! It would make a perfect report for her newspaper!  

 

Suddenly, a pitcher of water flew at her face and bounced off of her face. "Ouch!" exclaimed Kit as she looked down to see the blue pitcher lying next to her on the ground with water spilling out of it. "Maybe this wasn't such a great time to come...Maybe I should've waited until the whole thing was over and then came and reported on it....But oh well, I'm here now."

As she was thinking of whether she was going to risk taking her notebook out to possibly get ruined by food, a big strawberry and raisin glazed muffin hit her in the stomach, smearing all over her dress. "Oh no!" Kit quickly flicked some soggy muffin crumbs away. It was a once and a lifetime opportunity to experience unruly little kids having a food fight, so Kit knew that she had to stay. It wasn't endangering anybody and it was sort of funny, so she knew it would make great news for her paper.

The stain was slowly appearing with it's strawberry glazed jelly coloring. Just then, a few counselors told her to leave the scene, so Kit fled out the door and back onto the bicycle. 

At home, Kit began to type up all the crazy things she had heard and witnessed. "Food Fight Breaks Out at Local Summer Camp"

Just then, Mrs. Kittredge entered the room. "Kit, dear, where were you?"

"I was um, reporting, at a, um, uh, big news event," Kit knew that her mother wouldn't really approve because even though Kit hadn't put herself in any real danger, Mrs. Kittredge would think so.

"Where were you reporting?" Mrs. Kittredge's voice began to get a suspicious ring in it.

"At the local summer camp community center," Kit mumbled looking at the ground.
"What's that stain on your dress?"

"I got it while reporting."

"What happened?"
"Food flew at me - it was a food fight," Kit replied.

"So that explains why your face is all wet - water flew at you."

"Yes," Kit replied, "A pitcher of water."

"Oh it must've hit your nose hard - no wonder it's all swollen up!"  

Mrs. Kittredge who was usually calm and collected, began to go on a rampage. "You didn't even ask permission, young lady! What were you thinking?"

"I, well, I'm starting a new newspaper for around the town. I wanted to get news for it - real news. Not stuff around the farm or stories that people try to tell me. I wanted to experience something."

"Well you should've asked me," Mrs. Kittredge, "I'll discuss your punishment with your father."

"Yes," Kit sighed and went back to typing as a flustered Mrs. Kittredge left the room.

Kit finally typed some more and got Julie to take them out to her mother's store, Gladrags, and use the copier there.  

Julie ran back about an hour later with some papers printed out. The paper's big story was the food fight, then another story about the news app that Kit had downloaded, and a few advertisements for Gladrags and the airline that Julie's dad, the pilot, worked with. She also had some other articles that she had written before she'd gotten herself into all that trouble. The paper was pretty small, but a good first debut.

Kit and Julie went out on bikes to distribute the papers amongst all the town.

Once the girls were back, Mrs. Kittredge received a call. It was from Mr. Cross, one of the head mayors and leaders of the town.

"Unauthorized papers with my daughter's name on them?" Mrs. Kittredge asked in surprise. "Well, yes, it may be the new newspaper she was trying to start up. Yes, yes of course, Mr. Cross. I will speak with her. Yes, she will be out to pick the papers up. Oh, no, I think it is necessary. Yes, thank you, goodbye," Mrs. Kittredge's side of the conversation was pretty vague with a bunch of yeses and thank you's.

Kit sat in her room awaiting her mother's arrival to tell her what had happened. Sure enough, Mrs. Kittredge entered the room.

"Kit, were you distributing the paper that you talked about creating?" Mrs. Kittredge asked.

"Yes," Kit replied.

"You need a permit to distribute unauthorized papers to various houses - some of the people you distributed to don't even know who you are. If you would have at least done it to only people that you know, it might have been a different story. If you do something like that again, you are going to be in trouble with the community and Mr. Cross. Now I think you've had enough 'adventure' for one day - for a lifetime even. I want you to stay in our cabin for the rest of the day - there is no need for you to go out. I am disappointed in your foolish actions. However, it does show that you are a true reporter."

Kit lay on her bed and thought. Well, that certainly didn't work out. Now I'm in more trouble than when I started this idea. I thought it would work. I guess I was wrong. Oh well, who knows. Maybe I'll just join the school newspaper team.

With that, Kit fell asleep dreaming about running the school's newspaper team. Maybe her article had been rejected by the real newspaper and maybe her own newspaper hadn't worked, but Kit knew that if she pushed through, she would really become what she wanted to be and achieve her main goal; being a reporter.

The End

(Sorry I haven't posted in a while - I sort of took a break for the summer with all the vacations and swimming and all that)