The Amazing Rock Mystery My neighborhood is usually a very quiet place. Nothing exciting ever happens around here, which drives me crazy. My parents tell me I get bored easily. It's not true! I think I have the right to have a little excitement once and a while. Otherwise, I'll never have any good stories to tell my kids about what I did when I was little. So let me tell you, I finally got enough excitement in my neighborhood to last me a lifetime. Believe it or not, it all began with a stupid rock. Karen, Ryan, and I were walking to the park one day last summer. We had nothing better to do. We had already been to the park a thousand times, so we wern't very excited about going again. What we really wanted to do was to go to the beach and swim in the ocean. The beach was 500 miles away and as usual, no one would drive us. We were walking along talking about what we would do if we were at the beach when suddenly Ryan tripped over something and fell flat on his face. |FE| What's the matter with you! Why can't you stand on your own feet like a normal person? Really Ryan, I'am tired of having to pick you up all the time. |MA| Would you stop picking on me, Ryan cried, rubbing his knee. I can't help it if someone left this stupid rock in the middle of the sidewalk! I can't always be looking down. At that moment all three of us looked down and believe me, our mouths dropped wide open. There on the sidewalk was a large, beautiful rock. It was red and yellow and green, and sparkled like the necklaces you see in stores. None of us had ever seen a rock like that before. If we had stopped at that moment and sensibly told our moms what we saw on the sidewalk, things would have probably turned out better. But Ryan immediately reached down and touched it. Without any warning he just dissappeared!