Every day is the same. Go to school, come home, do homework, eat, sleep, repeat. Same old same old. I am sick of it. I tried walking to school. Still the same. I tried biking to school. Same again. Walking backwards to school. Dangerous, but the same. I tried hanging out with different people. Awkward, but it is all the same.
	One day I was walking to school, but instead of going to the school I took a sharp right turn and went down a long road. I don’t know why it happened I just had the urge to walk this way. So I kept walking. I passed stores and other schools on my way. I hadn’t found anything interesting. I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I just knew it was down this way. Everything was bleak with the life sucked right out of it. I was beginning to grow bored of this adventure although it was hardly an adventure at all. My legs weren’t finished, so they kept on walking. I decided I would continue following my legs and go a little further. After about 3 blocks or so my eyes struck something shiny and distracting. It was off in a nearby alleyway, and I had a feeling that there might be something evil back there. Or some creepy man with a stick with something shiny on it, just waiting for some kid to walk by and get lured into his trap. I couldn’t help myself. I kept walking towards the shiny object. 
	There was no strange man, or evil something. But there was a shiny little top. Not the kind of top that is a lid or cover to something but it was one of the tops that you spin on the ground and it spins marvelously. I took the top in my hands and just looked at it. I stared at it for what seemed like a minute, but it most have been a lot longer because it was starting to get dark. I made my way back home, still gawking at the top’s beautiful shine. I walked in the door to my house. “I’m home!” I said. 
	“Is that you Quintavious?” I heard my mother say from upstairs.
	“Yeah Mom,” I replied
She stumbled down the stairs.
	“And where exactly have you been mister?”
	I quickly shoved the top into my pocket so she wouldn’t see it.
	“Around,” I said 
	“Well I bet you are mighty hungry.”
	This is something I loved about my mother; She didn’t ask too many questions. I have been saved many lectures because of this.
	“Yes, yes I am,” I said with a smile on my face,
	After Mom made me delicious pancakes for dinner. I started to go up to my room. The top felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket. When I got into my room I tried to keep myself from looking at the top, for I was afraid I would be lost in its wonderful shine again. I wanted to see it spin though. I plopped down on the floor and took the top out of my pocket. I felt its weight in my hands. I placed it slowly on the floor. I flicked my wrist and fingers and the top went spinning. It spun and spun and spun. I wouldn’t be surprised if it never stopped. It spun around the room like it didn’t have a care in the world. It was amazing. After what was a very long time I realized I had to sleep or else I wouldn’t get any sleep at all. I left the top spinning silently on the floor. I climbed onto my bed and closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep never came. I kept thinking about the top spinning and spinning carelessly in the middle of the floor. 
	When morning finally came I had gotten roughly two minutes of sleep. The top was still spinning. I was intrigued. That top was the only thing that I cared about at the moment. I stuffed it into my pocket as I went downstairs to where my mother had prepared another delicious meal. Today it was eggs and bacon, my favorite. I shoveled down my meal and raced down to school. I wanted this day to go by as quickly as possible, because I wanted to play with the top that I found down the road again.
	At school I rubbed the top almost all day long without stopping. Ever so often when we had a break or recess I would find a table and spin it. I would try to stop myself, but it was hard to stop looking at it without making myself cry, because the top was leaving.
	When I got home I sprinted into my room and spun the top. I had to figure out the mystery of this thing. I would spin it for hours on end. Looking at it. Trying to figure out its mysteries. I would try to find its mysteries and then give up because the top was just too beautiful for me to care. 
	Eventually I stopped sleeping. My grades were dropping, and I knew it was because of the top. I had to end this. I went home from another day at school, and took the padlock out of the garage. I still had the top gripped in my left hand. My knuckles were white, I was sweating. I walked up the stairs, still with the top strongly gripped in my left hand. I took a toy chest from my closet. I unlatched the lid of the chest and threw the top into it, slammed the lid shut and attached the padlock as quickly as i could. I locked it and opened the window and tossed the key out into the trashcan. I sat on my bed and released a sigh that must have been building up in my chest for a long time. 
	It was hard to forget about that top. Every time I would go to sleep I would end up lying in my bed for minutes, maybe hours thinking about it. Eventually it lessened but the top was still in the back of my mind. I would go to school and talk to friends and work and try to get that top out of my mind. A couple of days passed and I thought I was cured. Another couple of days passed, and I started to feel different. It started out as a twitch in my hands. They were moving like I was spinning the top. It was in the middle of class; I sat on them and slowed my breathing, trying to calm down. After a while I took my hands out and they were red, but they stopped twitching. Eventually it got so bad that I was shaking pretty much constantly. I also thought about the top more and more. 
	I got home from school frustrated and annoyed. I marched up to my room while my mom was cooking something that smelled delicious, but I wasn’t in the mood. I lied on my bed and stared at the closet where I keep that thing. I had to spin it. I just had to. I couldn’t help myself. I jumped to the floor and crawled to the closet. I reached for the door to the closet. I pulled my hand back, and fought against myself. It took all of my strength to pull my hand back. I would reach for the door with my right hand while my left hand would try very to pull it back. I sat in the corner curled into a ball rocking myself back and forth tears steaming from my eyes. I wished I had never even seen that top in that alleyway. I wish my feet never decided to take a walk that day. I wish I never even got out of bed that day. I took the box, opened the window and threw the box as hard as I could. It didn’t go very far because it hit the side of the neighbors house and I flinched exactly when it hit it. I went down the stairs taking two at a time. 
	“Are you alright Quintavious?” my mom said looking over her shoulder see me jumping down the stairs.
	“Yeah mom I’m alright. Just need a little exercise,” I replied. I leaped out the door and ran to the where the box hit the house. I stood where it hit. I dropped to my knees and tried to open the box. The key! Thank goodness I threw out the key. I had a sense of happiness inside me. But that left as quickly as it came, because I needed to open this box. I had failed to notice that the box I threw at the house made a large dent in my neighbor’s house. Luckily they weren’t home so they wouldn’t have known I threw a box at their house. I tried to stop myself from thinking that I threw the key in the trashcan. But by thinking that I reminded myself that it was in the trash can. “The trash people should have picked it up by now.” I reassured myself. Then I also remembered. Today is Thursday. I threw the key in the trash on Saturday. That means that the trash man hasn’t come yet. I knew from experience that they come every Friday. 
	I threw open the trash can lid and started rummaging through it. It smelled horrible. I smelled horrible. My hands were disgusting. I continued looking. “Where is it!? Where is it?!” I was yelling. Eventually the trashcan was knocked over and I was on my hands and knees in the trash can searching. After what seemed like years I found the key in an empty can of beans. I held it in my hands and stared at it. I tried to stop myself from unlocking the box. It was sitting right next to me. It took all of my strength to not open the box, and then I thought that instead of hiding it in a box. I could just destroy the top altogether. I opened the box and took the top in my hands. I spun it on the grass, to my surprise it actually spun. It spun and spun. I looked away. I had to get rid of this top for good, so no one has to endure the poison of this terrible top.
	I went into my dad’s garage and took a hammer off of the wall. I placed the top on his worktable and took the hammer in both hands, and held it high over my head. I smashed my hands down with all of the force that I could muster. The hammer hit the top with a loud Twang!  Pain and vibration shot up through my arms. I had the feeling it had done nothing to the top. I moved my hands and checked to see if it had done anything. The top was still in the same place. Like a fly only attacked it. I took the handsaw off of the wall, I had a crazed look in my eyes. I aligned the saw with the top and started sawing away. It seemed like minutes. It also felt as the I wasn’t even scratching the surface of the top. I put the saw down and examined the top. I held it next to my face. No scratches at all. I was dumbfounded. Nothing could have been sawed and not have shown a scratch. Even a diamond would have some sort of scratch. I decided that the only way to get rid of this thing so that no one will ever come across it ever again would be either to bury it, or burn it in some lava just like the Lord of the Rings. I’m not sure where I am going to find some lava. I decided the only way that no one will see this top would be to bury it. 
	I started to feel weak. My arms felt heavy and my legs felt like they were made out of lead. I took one step at a time. Slowly, I was making my way out of the garage. On the way out of the door, I took a shovel in my hands. Every step I took my body felt heavier and heavier. I was walking towards the woods behind our house. Eventually I was so exhausted I had to crawl to continue. Crawling, clawing the ground I inched my way closer to the woods. I finally reached a spot that seamed worthy of the top. I tried to stand up, my legs were shaking. I tried to pick up the shovel. As I bent down to pick it up I fell over onto my face. “I should just give up here,” I said to myself quietly. I laid down and closed my eyes. I felt like I was drifting off into nothingness, I closed my eyes and let the darkness envelope me.
	I had a dream about the top, its amazing spinning, and the terrible addiction. I saw every day when I would get no sleep and get nothing done, except for staring at the top. That top was evil, and I had to hide it so no one else would feel its wrath. My eyes snapped open; I looked to my left and saw the shovel right next to me. I gripped it tightly in my hand. I looked to my right and saw the top lying next to me. I held that in my other hand. I stood up and felt the weight of the shovel and top in my hands. Strangely the top felt heavier. I stood onto my feet and I grit my teeth. I dropped the top on the ground and started digging into the ground.
	It felt like I was digging a hole to China, although the hole was only about a foot deep. Every shovel full felt like someone was putting more and more rocks onto my shovel. After what seemed like decades, the hole was deep enough. I dropped back to the ground. Looked at the top one more time. “Goodbye you demon. I hope no one ever has to endure your terribleness,” I dropped it into the hole. I brushed the dirt back into the hole until it was a small mound of dirt. Finally burying that top gave me surge of relief. I rested my head next to the mound. I had done well. No one will ever feel the wrath of that terrible top ever again. I closed my eyes and my whole body relaxed. A smile formed on my face as I drifted off. I took one last deep breath and let myself go.
	I woke up in a hospital bed. My Mom was sitting next to me with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. 
	“You’re awake!” she cried with joy. 
	“Wh- Where am I?” I asked
	“In the hospital down the road from our house. I found you laying next to a pile of dirt unconscious,” It started coming back to me. I was burying that terrible thing. Relief flooded my body. I felt as though I could jump a hundred miles in the air. “You must have hit your head or something,” my mother continued. Tears were running down her face now. She wrapped her arms around me. I hugged her back, hot tears streaming down my cheeks. I was happy, not happy about being alive, but happy that no one had to experience the wrath of that top ever again. 
	“Can we go home?” I asked
	“Yes honey, lets go home.”
	?	The boy was playing video games, having a good time when he heard his dog barking outside. He ignored it at first but the dog didn’t stop. Eventually the boy went out to check. His dog was in the neighbors yard yipping at a hole in the ground he dug. No one lives in that house anymore. Only mice live in there. The house was actually kind of creepy, and the boy didn’t like living next to it, not one bit. His dog was still barking uncontrollably. The boy crouched next to his dog to see what was wrong. The dog was pawing the ground next to the hole he had dug. The boy peered inside the hole and lying inside was a little top. Not the kind of top that is a lid or cover to something but it was one of the tops that you spin on the ground and it spins marvelously. He held it in his hands, smiling at its beauty. He couldn’t keep his eyes off it.
	
	
Terrible Top, 6-8, p. 1