Bubble Gum Is Wrong

It was on a frigid, dark autumn night that I entered this wonderful world. November 13, 2000, the date, almost November 14th. My siblings had no idea that my name would be Clayton Wayne Griep, and that minutes before midnight on that night I was their brand new brother. A few days later I would leave that hospital in Zeeland, Michigan and be welcomed to my new house, at 4096 Marion St. in Hudsonville, Michigan. Two of my siblings were more than excited to see me, but one didn’t have any idea what was going on. Cam, who was not even a year old, unbeknownst to him, had a new roommate. Jordan, who was in the 2nd grade at the time, was eager to meet me, his eyes constantly locked on me. Jalen, using her newly found vocabulary, probably babbling

Every afternoon, my mother would take my siblings and I down to the community park. It was a tradition of sorts. The leaves on the trees were brown, only days past Halloween. I sat under the dappled afternoon sun and played in the sand. On this particular day, however, a young girl approached me. Confused, I offered her a friendly smile but was, instead, greeted by the sand she kicked in my direction. Once my mother took notice of this, she came forward and placed a hand over the young girl’s leg without physically touching her. ”Stop,” she said. With this one word, the girl ran off. After a minute or so, an older woman approached my mother and I, with a string of curse words. It was the parent of the girl from earlier. Her husband attempted

For my experiment I picked 3 different brands of bubble gums. Hubba Bubba gum, Bubble Yum and Bazooka. After chewing each piece of gum for 2 minutes, one at the time, I blow a bubble as big as I could. Then, my partner (my mom) measured and I write down the results. I repeated the same steps 3 times and results was collected in a data chart (see data chart # 1). Then, the average size of the bubble was calculated by adding each result and divided by 3. The average size of the bubble made from Hubba Bubba Gum was 3.8 cm, Bubble Yum was 3.5 cm and Bazooka was 3.3 cm. As a result of my experiment, I found that Hubba Bubba gum makes the biggest bubble (3.8 cm).

We tested three different brands of bubble gum. The three brands are Bubble Yum, Bazooka, and Bubblicious. There were 3 people that blew bubbles for our experiment. My Mom, Dad, and myself were the three bubble blowers. We each read a couple of articles on the best way to blow big bubbles. We then chewed each piece of gum for three minutes before blowing the bubble. We used a ruler to measure the diameter of the bubble in centimeters. Through my research, I believe that the bubble gum with the highest sugar content will blow the biggest bubble.

Calculate the average size of the bubble for each brand of bubble gum (adding and dividing by 3)

As kids, we were all warned about the basics. Call 911 for emergencies, tell an adult if someone touches you or even tell the teacher when someone says a bad word. But what happens when something happens to the last person you’d think it would happen to.. Yourself. Who could you actually turn to, and when the time struck, how would the words flow out to confess the crime done to you. Or even worse, would the words come out at all? “Can you tell me what happened exactly?” “It's okay to talk to us, we’re here to help you, not hurt you.” The words kept ringing in my head. But was it okay to talk to them? Speak of the unspeakable with people... people I didn't know, nor trust? Being so young I had no idea what was going on. As my heart was racing,

They wanted me to do their homework and we was only in the 2nd or 3rd grade. There was no excuses why they could not do their own. When I turned six years old, everything changed. I was called to the office and when I got there my aunt was standing beside a woman and they were looking and smiling at me. I just looked and smiled back and automatically knew it was my mom. She looked like me and I could not say anything because my heart was just pounding. I just hugged her. Ever since, I would go to my mom’s house, on the weekend, to spend time with her. When I hit 10 years old, I walked in my aunt house after school one day and a man sitting on the sofa and I automatically knew it was my dad. I knew it was him because I knew where he was. He was in jail. He wrote to me and sent pictures. It had me thinking maybe my mom was in jail also because he told me they had a big fight and she had pulled a knife out on him. I do not know why she did not send pictures or ever write

All I had on my mind was that my little brother was falsely accused of vandalism. When I woke up and went to school the following morning, I immediately got called to the office. There I found Branden, Bryson, and Jack. They are football players that cause a lot of trouble . As soon as I walked in, Jack said; “Jake did it and you know it.” Me, knowing this wasn’t true, raised my voice and replied, “You’re a liar and don’t be accusing my brother of something you didn’t know he did! You and your friends probably did it!” At that point, the principal and resource officer pulled the three boys into the office. Soon after, another officer walked in the door. “Emiley, come with me please.” he said. Once we walked into his office, he had the tapes pulled up from that Friday night. “Which one is Jake?” he asked. I replied, “Jake isn’t in it.” While watching the tapes, I saw a blonde haired girl, she reminded me of Anna. I asked the officer, “Who’s that girl?” and he replied “I can’t tell you, is there any reason your brother might’ve done this? Vandalism may be an act of revenge, a way of expressing a political opinion, or a means of intimidation.” At this point, I was so annoyed I got up and walked out. As I left, I walked past the football players as they snickered and laughed. While I was walking back to class, my phone vibrated. My mom texted me saying, Your dad and I are on our way to

Later that night, as I was falling asleep, I heard muffled voices outside of my bedroom door, and suddenly the door was kicked in by police officers. I jumped out of my bed and ran over to my oldest sister Christine. She held me and tried to shield me from what was happening. I glanced up from Christine’s chest and saw my Uncle in handcuffs and being frog marched out of our conjoining rooms. Then a female police officer walked over to us and in a soft, sweet voice she said “Everything will be alright,” then proceeded to guide us to the living room. We sat on the couch and the female officer turned the television on for us. Christine told me to try and get some sleep. I listened to her, and I didn’t wake up until the next morning.

We chased each other in circles until our little legs could not run anymore, with our dad in view from the back porch. The day seemed as if it could never end. Everything was going great; this is until our mom came home. Now, I don’t know about you, but not listening to my mom has never ended with good results. As soon as her eyes beamed to the three of us in the yard, I know we were all in trouble. “Jaycee Sue, Jayden Harold, and Larry Wayne!” were the only words we needed to hear her yell before we ran inside, to her dungeon, aka the

She vicious placed the piece of paper in my hand then ran away. Curiously I opened the envelope and three crumpled pieces of paper fell out. I opened then and they read “Hello stranger, my name is Anabel I am 16 years old and female. I live with Mum, Dad and older brother(Jason). My older brother is 18 and finished school. I hate my life… and everybody that I care for hates me. My parents are happy together but they hate me. They beat me up, swear at me, deprive me of food and don’t love me.” I read the start of the letter with a smile but then it took a vicious turn. I continued to read with my chin hanging from my jaw. “Every night, morning and during the day I have to find my own food with the money that I make. On school days’ struggle to get there. At school I have no friends everybody teases me for having colourless and holey clothes. I am thinking of moving out of my house because at home all I receive is violent abuse. I lay in my bed every night thinking of what I screw up I am. At about 11:00 o’clock at night Jason comes home extremely drunk he is so tipsy that it looks like he is trying to walk on a sailor’s boat. He storms into my room banging on everything in his attempt to walk. Jason then grabs the first hard thing he sees and starts to hit me with it. I never know what to do because my parents wouldn’t care. In these situations, I grab a blanket run outside and sleep in the tree in our backyard.” My eyes

I was four years old and playing with my cousin in the guest room of my grandfather’s home in northern Michigan. Despite the frigid temperatures and snow piled up to my nose, I looked forward to this trip every year. I rarely had the opportunity to see my father’s family, and I had no idea why. Just as my cousin and I shoved a copy of The Wizard of Oz into the VCR, my father entered and hurriedly scooped me up in his arms. “We’re leaving now,” he said, and exited the room. I pounded on his chest and yelled, but he made a beeline to the door. Just as we were about to leave, I saw a strange woman out of the corner of my eye. She was talking animatedly to my aunts and uncles, and I heard one of them call her “sis.” My dad called her nothing.

It all started when I was around the age of 11, when I thought that I killed my baby cousin. It started when she turned around 1 year old, and my uncle and aunt were visiting us from Nashville, Tennessee. We were all watching this movie late night on what I think was a Wednesday during break. I was snacking on some ranch flavored Doritos, which I enjoyed a lot back in the day and still do. Anyways, I somehow thought up of wanting to have my little cousin to taste some, since I basically wanted to share some of my favorite chips, since I was enjoying it so much and I wanted her to enjoy it as well. Now, I know that I wouldn’t have even tried to share with her some of my “happiness”, whether it is because I believe that I’m a lot “cooler”, my dignity, or who knows what other reason, which is something I observe in almost every

I don't like telling this story and most people don't believe it when I do. It brings back too many painful memories, memories that I've been running away from since I was a ten year old boy. I'd been called a devil, a murderer, a child just desperate for attention. I'm forty now and I'm sure people still question my sanity. I even question my sanity. It's been thirty years but I will never forget what happened in that house, I will never forget what I heard, what I saw. I had saw things and heard things that would give people nightmares every night for the rest of their lives. Things that would leave a scar that can never heal and things that would leave you questioning your sanity. I will warn you, this story, this true story is NOT for the

Ellie and I lay in our beds, neither one of us knew what to say. In the other room, our host parents were arguing. We didn’t know what about, but we knew it was serious. Then we heard a “THWACK” followed by silence. Ellie and I sat up in our beds and looked at each other, I could tell she was as scared as I was. “Was that? Did he just?” she asked me. Then the arguing started back up again. We calmed back down until we heard it again. “THWACK” We knew then, the noise we heard, was him beating her. We got up, our hearts racing; neither of us knew what to do. We got our nerves together to go get help. When we opened the door to our room we saw the children sitting on the couch crying out for their mother. I could see the fear in their face and I knew something needed to change.