LHS Pair Runners Up in NYT Writing Contest

"Our Records"
by Grace Bratko

I pull out a dusty vinyl and place it on my record player. You sit in admiration while I tap my fingers on the table. You sing in a falsetto. I flip records and chat about the song. We sip tea, burning our tongues, and our knees touch together. It’s getting dark out, you think of going home early. “Just wait until the end of this side,” I say.  We both know that you weren’t going to leave, that you just wanted to hear me ask you to stay. I’m glad I said it, and the record keeps spinning.

"Going, Going, Gone"
by Helinor (Ellie) Clark 

Filled with prepubescent angst, I attempt to ignore your baseball game antics. Stretching the seventh inning’s lyrics longer than the rest of the crowd. Scarfing down a sixth “dollar dog.” Betting on Mustard to win the Hot Dog Derby (I preferred Ketchup). Still, I sulk into your shoulder in the nosebleeds, wondering why you’d waste our bonus night on baseball. And then the unbelievable happens – the deafening strike of wood on cork and cowhide! I stand, but I can’t see, even from the thirty-second row, until you put me on your shoulders as Tom Hamilton announces, “It’s going, going, gone!”