war paint: fearless
DESCRIPTION
North Cobb High School's second edition of War Paint, a freshman literary-art magazine. This issue features our Halloween creepy contest winner.TRANSCRIPT
War Paint: Fearless
Fall 2012
Editors
Whitney Miller
Abby Buchanan
Riley Swab
Camila Mino
Leah Jean-Francois
Cover Art by Abby Buchanan
Medium: Digital Manipulation
A Note from the Adviser:
It is rare to come across such passionate and enthusiastic freshmen as the ones that
contributed to this issue. From the first day we worked on staff together to help bring the
talented voices and photographers, artists, and digital creators to our student body
and expose their excellent work. Please make sure to tell them what you think at
[email protected]. They would be happy to hear what you thought of this
second issue, Fearless. They titled this Fearless because:
High schoolers are brave
High schoolers have a voice that is sometimes not heard
High schoolers are judged
High schoolers are accepting
High schoolers struggle
High schoolers get over their fears by jumping into difficult situations
High schoolers need to know someone is out there
This issue is dedicated by our staff to Sources of Strength, a fabulous group that works
hard in North Cobb’s freshman academy to help each and every voice that is
unheard.
Thanks,
Lindsay Kovel, adviser
Table of Contents
Artist Title Genre
Riley Swab Four Corners Photography
Kayley Rapp One Step Closer Short Story
Abby Buchanan Cute, Creepy Digital art
Toreus O’Neal Let Me Show You Poem
Riley Swab Snow Flower Photography
Susan Reyes I Have Never Felt a Breeze Poem
So Cold
Kayley Rapp Fighting Fire With Fire Digital art
Susan Reyes Drip Drop Prose Poetry
Whitney Miller Dipper Gravity Falls Digital art
Morgan White Home Digital art
Abby Buchanan Menegua Digital art
Halloween Contest Winner: Whitney Miller
I’ll Always Love You, Harry Stiles, digital manipulation
Riley Swab
Four Corners
Kayley Rapp
One Step Closer
After knowing me for less than two weeks, Destery Ingle decided it was perfectly normal
to show up at my house at 8 AM. No call. No text. Just a knock at the door! Don’t
mind me, Destery. Not sleeping up here or anything like that.
It feels like bricks are tied to my feet as I drag myself to the door and find him standing
there. He has sort of a puzzled look on his face.
“What do you want Destery?”
“Well, if you don’t want me here, just say so. Jeez.”
“Okay, bye!” I go to shut the door in his face, which is far too bright and happy at this
hour to be considered normal.
He stops the door with his foot. “Hey, not literally.” He walks into my house and plants
himself on the living room floor. “Yesterday,” and thus he starts to talk at oh, I
don’t know, two hundred miles per hour. “I was thinking about you, and I realized
something really, really strange about you. You, Storm Williams, live less than a
block from the beautiful beaches of St. Augustine, and since it is summer va-ca,
have all the fee time in the world. Yet…” Insert dramatic pause here. “I have
never seen you anywhere near that large body of water out there called the
ocean. I demand an explanation of this weirdness.”
I just can’t tell him. He would laugh like everyone else always did. It’s not like I choose to
be this way. Once, which seems like a million years ago even though I was only
seven, I loved the water. Dad and mom wouldn’t get me and my sisters out of it,
but that was before mom…no Storm, don’t even go there. You don’t need to cry
again. Not in front of somebody anyway.
“I’m terrified of the water.” I blurt out with courage I haven’t seen in a long time.
When I finally look at Destery’s face, he’s grinning that stupidly wonderful, crooked grin of
his. Awesome. Here comes the laughter! “Unacceptable! A girl who lives in a
beach town should be able to live out her days at the beach!” He bites his lip like
he’s thinking or something. “That’s it. I’m fixing you.”
“Wait? What? You can’t just fix a phobia! It doesn’t work that way, Des.”
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna make it work. Go put on a swimsuit ‘cause that’s what we’re
going to do. Go to the beach.”
“But I…”
“Storm, you gotta do this for yourself.”
I do go upstairs, but the thing is, I don’t even own a swimsuit. When you never go to the
water, there’s no point in getting one. Trust me: it’s a huge money saver for dad.
So, anyway, I have two choices here. One: borrow my older sister Persephone’s
blinged out thing she calls a swimsuit. Two: deal with wearing a wet tank top and
shorts. Ding ding ding! Number two! We have a winner! I throw that on and bolt
downstairs.
“Storm, that’s not a swimsuit.”
“I don’t own one.”
He sighs. “Honestly, that makes so much sense, but you really do need to wear one.”
“But I don’t own one, genius.”
“But you have two older sisters! I dunno. Don’t girls share stuff like that?”
Clearly someone doesn’t have any sisters.
“Okay, fine, whatever.”
I run back upstairs, and this time Des follows me. Why? I’m not sure. So we end up in my
other sister Willow’s bedroom, and it takes a good ten minutes to find one that
actually fits me. I lock myself in the bathroom to change.
Let’s be real for a second. Real talk? Good, real talk. Putting on a swimsuit for the first
time in nine years is so, so weird. Is this how everyone feels in one? I mean…I
guess I look nice in it. How am I meant to look? Willow’s swimsuit (well, mine
now), is bright blue and one of those 40s style one pieces. Well…argh! Let’s get
this over with.
“Better?” I ask as I leave the bathroom.
“Much.” We both smile shyly.
Destery then grabs my hand and practically forces me to run out the door. Maybe he
thinks if we run I won’t have time to change my mind and sprint back. Could I
even run if I wanted to? He didn’t even give either of us enough time to put
shoes on!
I don’t even notice what’s going on around me until I feel the ground below me is wet
and not dry.
“OH HEY! HOLY FUDGE MUFFINS!” I scream. Like an honest to goodness horror movie
scream.
“Storm, Storm, Storm…” I can hear Des saying over and over again. He’s trying to calm
me down, but the screaming is too loud for me to hear over it. Really? Did the
lifeguard really just look over here? Everything’s fine, bro. Go back to guarding
life!
“Storm,” he takes both my hands and looks are me, “Trust me. I promise I won’t let the
water hurt you, okay?”
I shake my head “no” like a two year old, but then I look up at him. He’s totally serious.
Maybe…this won’t be so impossible. Deep breath, Storm. I nod my head and
allow him to lead me into the water. Face first into my fears.
Abby Buchanan
Cute, Creepy
Digital manipulation
Toreus O’Neal
Let Me Show You
I close my eyes
To ignore
The cries before me
Instead of
Facing them.
Dreams running
While I’m
Chasing Them.
Pacing myself,
I’m racing
With Death.
Wasting my breath
To keep up.
I get left.
Now I’m
Tasting dust.
Catching up
Is a must
To prove to my love
It’s more than
Lust.
But it all begins
With trust.
Riley Swab
Snow Flower
Susan Reyes
I Have Never Felt a Breeze So Cold
I have never felt a breeze so cold;
never have I ever been so alone,
and been pleased with desolate silence
that hugged me tightly.
Snowflakes falling as sweet
as the taste of sugar,
wrapped me in a warm blanket
holding me in its lying embrace.
Never have I ever believed
that the snowflakes could drown me,
leaving everything that I loved
to be piled up in my own miseries.
Kayley Rapp
Fighting Fire with More Fire
Susan Reyes
Drip, Drop
Drip…drop…it was like slow angry slaps that soiled me not just on the outside, but my
insides, too.
The empty slick black road mocked me with its perfect looking surface from the rain,
but I knew t wasn’t.
It was like you, perfect, only when you were cleaned. But when the rain stopped it once
again would return to its dirty rough black surface, like you.
You would look into my eyes as if you could see into my soul, but you never could.
You would love me and then leave as if I was a teddy bear, only there when you
wanted me.
I finally could not take this sick thing you called love and left…only to find myself lose…
I never actually knew myself until I left YOU.
I could not smile when I loved YOU…I was not free when you loved ME.
But I thank you for the lesson you taught me…find yourself before you find LOVE.
Whitney Miller
Dipper Gravity Falls
Morgan White
Home
Abby Buchanan
Menegua
Digital manipulation
Halloween Contest Winner
Whitney Miller
I’ll Always Love You, Harry Stiles
Digital manipulation