Publishing My Book

Hello, and even though I'm not in school anymore, I'm going to be writing anyways. Well, I was so happy when I got my book published. If you don't know, for my eighth grade project I wrote a children's book about a wizard who's trying to save his brother. We got the pages done at boomerang, (high gloss), and book jacket at mypublisher.com, and the binding at Phil's binding company in Seattle. It looks like a real book! I drew my own pictures, and the finished product looked great! And I got an A, yea! So I am going to try to get it actually published this summer, I cant wait!

Nokota

Our owner strutted down the aisle of stalls, and past my stall, stopping at the one nearbye with an array of medals hanging loosly on the wooden doors. She stood, glaring intesly through the black metal bars at the horse that awaited her beatings and lashings. Her long blond hair was pulled up into a tight bun, and her newly polished chaps tapped the ground impatiently. Her red, lipstick caked lips were turned into a frown. Her hands lay crossed over her chest.
"Lets not be impatient now, you wouldn't want the consequences, would you?" came the high, strong voice of the women. A whinny was heard from inside the stall. "Thats what I thought." She hastily lifted the knotch on the stall door, and opened it, swiftly walking inside. A quick slap on the rump, and the noises of buckles and straps being attached and pulled, along with the swish of brushes, and metal being scraped into the hoofs of the horse broke the once, peaceful silence of the warm barn. A grunt of disaproval came from the harrased horse, he had submitted to the beast. The knotch was lifted again, and a chesnut gelding walked out with his lead rope in the hands of the predator. His eyes bore into the ground, too humiliated to see the concerned faces of the many other horses in the barn.

Chapter One: A Kettle O Tea

"Aah, confounded you curmudgeon, the kettles been whistling like mad cant ya hear it?!" The wizard sitting smug in his velvet red chair, with legs crossed just eyed him entertainingly behind his spectacles.
"Now now, Merlin, no need to lose your temper," he said rather calmly,
"I'm sure it wont burn." A smile started to spread from underneath his long, graying beard.
"I know its na going to burn, I'm just saying, its your turn to remove the kettle." said the one from across the room, standing with clenched fists. "Alas Solomon, you are always sitting on your lazy bum eating crumpets."
"Why yes, you noticed. But o course you cant have crumpets without tea, so why don't you get it?"
"No!" shouted Merlin, "If you want tea with your bedamned crumpets, you get it!"
"no," was the simple reply from the wizard in the red chair. This was obviously a normal Monday morning for the brothers. Solomon raised a furry eyebrow, and removed his spectacles, setting them daintily on his lap. He then folded his long fingers and stared at his brother, grimacing.
"well, if you recall, Merlin. Three days ago at 6:00 Am, we were riding past Habibi's Oasis, and you thought (mind you) that we should dismount and have a nice picnic."
"yes, I recall," whispered Merlin.
"Of course you do. Anyways, we dismounted and sat up above on Shavavgo's Peak. I set down my staff, and admired the setting sun that was so graciously set out before us.
"It was actually quite boring," added Merlin, pondering the moment.
"Please do be quiet!" snapped Solomon in agitation. "Merlin's beard you can be annoying."
"Would you be referring to my beard?" questioned Merlin, (well in the know that he was not.)
"O course not, our great great grandfather, I would never be talking about your beard."
"Well then don't talk about my beard, anyways, I know you want it, your jealous." Merlin was agape with horror.
"I was neva jealous,"
"Aah, not was, brother, is is the appropriate word." Merlin was now jumping up and down and waving his long beard in Solomons face.
"You will never grow a beard as long as mine!" He kept taunting. Clearly he was enjoying this. Merlin pushed him away, and pretended as if nothing happened.
"Anyways, you thought a push off the cliff would be just a knee slapper, and thus pushing me off, my staff snapped into two pieces as it fell down with me. Luckily I payed attention in gravology, and preformed the floating kinesis-corpse spell before I fell onto impending death." Merlin chuckled his deep, throaty old laugh, and leaned over, laughing so hard that the throbbing had to have him set his hand on one knee for support.
"Solomon, O course I would of not let you get hurt, clearly you hadn't a clue that I was watching you the whole way down in case you were to flustered to remember anything. And you are right, I never should of done that to your poor old soul." He gave out a devious smile as he said that, knowing Solomon hated being called old.
"Old, old?! Who are you calling old? I am only three years, four months, five days, and sixteen seconds older than you! And I am only 103 years old. So you better shut your mouth you curmudgeon!" Solomon was standing out of his chair, and holding his blue hat, revealing his bald spot exactly were it had been.
"I have battled a dragon, made alliances with the most stubborn troll you will ever meet, rode a Griffin for five days strait, and not to mention the horrible soars that followed. Do you think I could have done all that when I was old? Rubbish, not a chance! And every wrinkle or crease you see on my skin is not from aging, but from the adventures I have been through. They show you what chances I've took, how I have come inches to death! Think of it as that. But you complaisant old man have no ambitions, I actually have a desire in life! And now since my precious staff is gone I can only do half of the things that I was able to do with it in my grasp, If I was to have it right now, intact, I would be able to remove the kettle. But, since it is not, you will do it for me. And that is why I will not remove the tea kettle."
Solomon gratefully sat back into his chair, and lit a carved brown pipe. He closed his eyes with content, and formed some smoke rings. Merlin walked to the desk at the bottom opposite end of the room, and shakily grabbed a florescent bag. He put it hastily to his mouth and heavily breathed into it. He removed it from his mouth before he began to cough uncontrollably. Solomon looked at his brother with pity, wishing that the sudden outburst was never said. The process was repeated again rasp rasp, ruffle ruffle, cough cough. After about 3 minutes, Merlin was done, and sleepily lay down upon the couch across from Solomon. Only the ticking of the grand wizard clock, and the occasional whinny of a horse was heard. Other than that, all was silent.
Solomon got up from his cozy, velvet chair, and removed the kettle. He poured two cups of tea, and set one on the table next to the couch.
"I suppose a cup of tea would be reasonable for this hour,"
the grandfather clock read 10:00. Solomon returned to the warmness of the chair,
"I agree brother," came the whispered voice of Merlin "I agree."

The Beggining Of The Nokota

In the summer of 1884, the HT Ranch near Medora bought 60 Siox mares from the Marquis de Mores, a french entreprenerur who had purchased 250 head, including all the mares from Sitting Bulls confiscated herd which was originally sold at Fort Buford in 1881. Some HT mares unfortunatly had visible bullet wounds from their lives with the Hunkpapa Siox who had fought in the battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. The HT Ranch in addition to buying 60 mares, also purchased the great thoroughbred stallion Lexington from Kentucky, and they crosed him on some of the sitting Bull mares. In the early twentieth century, bands of wild horses continued to roam in the Missouri Badlands with no fences so domestic horses were often turned out to breed among the range brands. But they became targets of political and emotional issues, -and guns. Local ranchers wanted to limit any grazing competition between their cattle and the the wild horses so they often rounded up the horses, took some for using horses, and sold the rest of them so people could shoot them for sport, and slaughter. After the drought and the great depression of the 1930s, federal and state agencies under a great pressure from cattlemen to prevent future dust bowls, teemed up with ranchers to wipe out wild horses from western North Dokota. During the 1940s and 1950s most of the remaining bands of horses were shot from aircraft, or rounded up and sold for slaughter. Also in the 1940s Theadore Roosevelt National Park was being built, and a few bands of wild horses were accidently enclosed within the 70,000 acre parks perimeter fence. Sadly, by 1960, these were the last surviving wild horses in North Dakota. The national park service continued to try to eliminate the horses, but federal laws held them back that were passed in 1971 to protect wild and free roaming horses. The park service won that battle and today it is not subject to the laws and regulations governing wild horse management on public lands. A change of polocy was beggining in the late 1970s when public opposition to the removing of horses and a growing understanding of the importance of their history of the area was thought by the people. Since then the park has managed a "historical demonstration herd." Sadly for those interested in preserving the original type and lines of horses, in the 1980s the park administrators decided to modify the apperance of the horses by adding outside bloodlines. The dominent stallions in the park bands were either shot, or removed. They were replaced with an Arabian, a Quarter horse, two feral BLM stallions, and a part-Shire Bucking horse. At about the same time, several large roundups were held, and many of the parks horses were sold at an auction. Leo and Frank Kuntz of Linton, North Dakota were concerned about the future of these horses, so they began buying as many of the original park horses as they could. They has become interested in them after purchasing a few for breeding and for use as cross country race horses. The brothers became convinced that the horses were a unique and historical type, and they had high respect for their enduance and agility. Researching the origins of the horses, they discovered that the Marquis de Mores (who founded the town of Medora, right where the parks headquarters were later located) had purchased and range-bred Sitting Bulls confiscated ponies. The Kuntzes grew to believe that the Sitting Bulls horses were related to the herds of horses that later were enclosed into the park. Since their discovery of the link to the Sitting Bulls horses, the bothers have devoted their lives to preserving this strain which now survives on their ranch near Linton. The breed name reflects this history of both the land and the horses on it. Until the Nakota Horse Conservancy was founded in 1999, the brothers were the only force standing between these special horses and extinction. In 1994, Dr. Philip Sponenburg evaluated the park horses and the Kuntzes horses and concluded that about twenty animals owned by the brothers, and sadly none in the park were phenotypically consistant with accepted standereds for spanish colonial horses. Since that time, Leo Kuntz has selectivly bred those animals to maintain their spanish characteristics. Indian people and others urged the state of North Dakota to designate the Nokota horse the honerary state equine, wich it did in 1993.

Big Trouble

The next day at school, April was madder than ever. She must of eavesdropped on me and my friends conversation.
"Ha, your mom persuaded Carn to give you private lessons, I mean, Carns never done that to me!" April pouted.
I made my way toward science and sat down next to Hannah once I finally opened the jammed door.
"class, we are going to learn about energy input, and output, when I look at this pencil, it is sitting, and energy is not doing anything. This is called potential energy, when I pick it up, it is kinetic."
"boorringg" said Hannah yawning
"the things she talks about would rather make me want to eat my own puke than listen to her"
"and when I set it down, that is kinetic energy to!" the teacher continued
"Is shutting your mouth kinetic energy?' shouted Hannah, Everyone in the class was laughing their heads off, and putting their knuckles in their mouths so as not to be heard, but it was to late. Ms.Clitch was outraged.
"HANNAH, TORY..........out in the hall NOW!"
"But, I didn't do anything!" I said pleading for mercy
"your sitting next to her, you must have encouraged it, I saw you guys talking to!" She snapped
"But I didn't-"
"Ill believe that when pigs fly!" She retorted
"LOOK, A PIG!" said Hannah in my defence, pointing out the window