THANK YOU, BARBIE!
International Christian School, Alicia Chiu, Fiction: Group 2
M
um, I have to do a project, again. It’s about the Gobi desert!” I moaned in disgust,
gripping the assignment sheet at arms length.
“You’re great at projects; use your new laptop to do the project. It’s over there.”
answered mum, eyeing my newest Barbie laptop, a gift from my uncle. The secret
was, I despised Barbies. They freaked me out!
That’s not the only problem with the Barbie laptop. The laptop also did a lot of weird things.
For my last project about the Aboriginals of Australia, I tried my best not to make any spelling
errors or grammar errors. But when I printed it…that useless laptop changed the whole thing into
rainbow-colored font with Barbie cursive and lots of errors! It was unreadable! Grrrrr!
At school the following day, I handed in the project on Australian Aboriginals. The teacher
scrunched up the whole thing and dumped my project into the disposable bin. NO! I’d spent two
whole weeks to complete my project!
Now, I wonder should I give this machine another chance? When I switched on the Barbie
laptop, the background was meant to have my name on it “Alicia the great.” The laptop, its own
personality clearly evident, had changed it to “Alicia drools, Barbie rules!” Groaning, I quickly
found a useful website on the Gobi desert. Maybe I could collect some fascinating facts there!
This website had not only great information but it also had an unorthodox cartoon image of
the Gobi desert with a Barbie doll that looked exactly like me on it! ‘I’ was smiling and waving
while riding a Bactrian camel. The Bactrian camel wore a dog-collar with the words “Barbie”
intricately engraved into the leather. The image showed my long brown hair tied up in a ponytail,
the same as what I normally did at school-with my exact same green scrunchie!
My mind was completely mesmerized by this image. I suddenly felt really cold: technically
freezing. My chair suddenly began automatically moving, jolting me up and down, and my rear
end felt shockingly uncomfortable.
I glanced down, and guess what I could see! I was riding a camel! Once the poor thing realized
that a random girl from Hong Kong was on its back, it swung its head around and nipped my big
toe sticking out of my orange flip flops.
If I’m on a camel that may mean that I’m in a desert! I am only ten years old. Am I supposed
to ride this lazy camel all the way back to my own room in Hong Kong?
Suddenly, the same collar that I saw this camel wear on the website emerged, right on her
neck! Her name was Barbie!
I felt really thirsty all of a sudden. Maybe I should reconnoiter this place, check it out for
signs of water. “Okay Barbie, giddy-up.”
No answer.
“Go get some water.”
No answer.
“OR I’LL MAKE YOU!”
Finally, Barbie started trotting straight ahead, searching out water for me. This camel actually
understood me! Great!
“
