The jellyfish washed up on the shore.  I looked at it and it reminded me of my jellyfishing days.  I also saw my leg stumps.  Back in 1954, I was one of the world’s best jellyfishermen.  
	Back in the day, it was the world’s most intense sport.  People risked their lives every day in the depths of the ocean.  I was number two in the world rankings.  
	At the time, I did it every day for a living.  I lived right by the Pacific Ocean; so every day I could go jellyfishing. Day after day, I went 100 feet down with only my bare hands and swim trunks, searching through cracks and holes for jellyfish.  
	It was a great life.  But one day ruined my career forever. 
	It was the World JellyFishing Championships.  The Championships that year were held in Honolulu Hawaii, the most challenging jellyfishing spot in the world.  Many people have gone in, but few have came out.  
	It was only my second year in the sport and I was facing Kirk Jones, the veteran jellyfisher who was number one in the world.  I heard rumors that he was part fish; he was such a good jelly fisher!  He had won the last four World JellyFishing titles.  
	I got to the beach and it was a cloudy, rainy day.  I saw 60,000 people (including a TV crew) all of them waiting for Kirk and I to face off.   
	The match was in three hours, so I had time to prepare.  I started walking in the freezing cold water.  I felt pointy rocks rubbing against my feet and the waves drenching me.  I started doing a mile warm up swim along the shoreline.  	
	When I was wrapping up my swim, heading to shore, I saw a cave on the side of a cliff.  In the cave I saw a big, peculiar rock.  I could barely see an outline of a door on the big boulder.  I decided to investigate. I felt the door and it didn’t really feel like a rock.  It felt like it was plastic.  Besides being plastic it was also hollow.  This was strange.  Why was there a giant plastic door built into a rock?  I shoved the door down and saw a winding flight of stairs.  
      I still had two hours till the contest so I followed them.  At the bottom there was another large door.  Through it I could barely here voices.  There seemed to be three voices, all men.  I decided to listen closer so I put my head to the door.  Suddenly the door slammed opened!  Two very Buff men and Kirk Jones came out of the door!  The two buff men were carrying tanks with lots of enormous jellyfish in them.  
      “What are you doing here?” Jones said in his scruffy evil voice?  
      I replied with sarcasm, “Not much.”  
      The two men chucked me in the room behind the door and locked it.  They walked up the stairs with the jellyfish in their hands.
      The room was small and I was surprised that the three men could fit in it.  I tried many methods to bust the door down but nothing worked. I screamed for help but sound did not travel well through an underwater room.  The situation went from bad to worse.  Jones left the top door open so water was leaking in.  If I didn’t act fast I could drown right before the biggest event of my life!  But Jones’ actions may have backfired.  The water had busted open both sets of doors.  Now I had a challenge to face:  Swimming up the stairs against the current.  The current was too strong for me to swim against so I had a different idea.  
      There were lights in the ceiling above the stairs.  If I could climb them I could get out of the phony rock.  Climbing up the stair railing I reached the first light.  Below me water was rushing in and filling the room. I had to climb fast.  
      Reaching as far as I could, I got hold of the next light. The method was working well.  The only difficulty I had was with one light to go.  Even though I was hanging from the ceiling the water was up to my hips.  It was much harder to climb. Suddenly I heard a loud cracking noise.  I looked up and the light I was hanging on was about to fall.  A thin bar was supporting my weight.  The water outside the rock was not that deep and easy to swim in.  Swinging my weight back and forth I used the light pole like a vine.  When I got close to the exit I jumped as far as I could.  I next thing I felt was my body splashing against the water.  I was free.
      After climbing out of the fake rock I was exhausted. My body didn’t want to do anything.  But I couldn’t let being tired stop me.  I had to find out what Jones was doing with the jellyfish.  I headed back towards the beach.
      When I got back to the beach I must have lost track of time; Kirk was waiting at the starting point.  I looked at a clock and I was shocked.  I had 30 seconds until the event started.  I had no time to tell people about Kirk and the men. Nobody would believe me, and the large jellyfish would already be placed in the water.  I didn’t know where they were; only Jones did.  Running as fast as I could, I barely made the starting time.  I had a huge disadvantage.	
      When the event started I decided to follow Kirk.  He knew where the jellyfish were so why not follow him?  I just had to keep up with the best swimmer in the world.  That couldn’t be too hard I thought to my self.  I kept repeating that phrase inside my head.  The next thing I knew, Jones was far ahead of me. I couldn’t catch up.  I decided to just look for jellyfish without Kirk. I knew there were big ones around here living naturally and I might even stumble across one of Kirk’s.
      After Searching for about twenty minutes I had a little luck.  I had caught about three little ones.  The object of the event was to see who could get more jellyfish in a two-hour period.  Kirk probably already had ten huge ones. I needed jellyfish fast. I looked all around me for jellyfish but didn’t see any but I did see a strange long shape in the distance.  I started swimming over towards it.
      On my way over I made a fatal mistake.  I cut my leg on coral.  This was awful my legs were bleeding.  I then realized what the shape was, a shark.  The shark started swimming towards me as fast as it could.  I had to react quickly. The shark was coming at me very fast.  The shark was so close I could see the blood on its teeth. I threw the bag of jellyfish at the shark.  The jellyfish stumbled out of the bag and stung the shark.  This only made the shark angry.  He started swimming towards me as fast as he could I was swimming as fast as I could.  I had already lost the tournament all I needed to do was save my life. I needed to get to shore before I became the shark’s lunch.
      I then saw another shape heading towards me.  I thought it was another shark coming towards me.  But I noticed it was coming way to fast.
      I then felt a horrible pain; the shark had bit off my feet!  Just when I was about to be killed a rescue boat came to help me.  They must have seen the shark fin from the shore.  People on the boat pulled me up from the water and a medical team helped my feet.  My career was ruined.
          
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      I looked out at the ocean dreaming of my jellyfishing days.  It had been 60 years since I had been jellyfishing.  After the incident Kirk went on to have the most successful jellyfishing career of all time and he was never caught for cheating.  Suddenly a shark fin ruined the calmness of the ocean.  The shark was chasing somebody.  It looked like somebody I knew.  The voice sounded like Kirk Jones.  It was.     
                 
         
       
      
      
      
      
      	                     
          
         
           

      

                                                                                                                Jellyfishingys Days
                                                                                                                    8th grade   1