I woke up very excited because it was February 89th. Today marks the day that my friends and I will throw rocks at cars passing by. I got ready as fast as I possibly could. We have been doing this tradition for about 420 years, and it has spread throughout the entire world as a way to protest climate change. Every kid in the world also does this tradition. This was our last year before we turned 421, which would mean we wouldn’t be kids anymore. We hoped that our 420th time playing would be the best.

My friends and I met on the highway, which was pretty empty because everyone knew that their car would get destroyed if they drove today. I noticed some odd shapes in the distance. They looked like humvees and tanks. 

“Guys, we gotta go,” I murmured. 

“Why?” Mewt asked. 

“I think the military has a roadblock,” Joe groaned. 

“Wait, why does the military need to patrol? That’s such a waste of time,” Mewt grumbled. 

“I mean, I really want to just throw rocks at their vehicles…” I murmured. 

“Why don’t we?” Joe asked. 

“We might get in trouble with the military,” I whispered. 

“Good point. But I don’t really care,” Joe snapped. 

I found myself biking toward the vehicles, with a pile of rocks in my bike basket. I took out my phone and looked on the news for what had happened. The first article I saw was called “Tell Your Kids Not To Participate In The Event This Year!” I started reading it, and it said that the president was trying to end the protest.

I yelled out to my friends, “The military is trying to stop us, and they’re scaring all the other 

kids to stay inside.”

“That’s sad,” Mewt whined. 

“I’m still going to go and throw some rocks at them. I have been waiting a year for this,” 

Joe yelled back to us. 

“Joe, this is really dangerous. We can even be arrested!” I yelled back. 

“Let’s see what happens. After all, we are only kids. What is the worst they can do?” Joe snapped. 

After a few minutes of biking, I realized that we had gotten to the area that the military had blocked off. I was very confused as to what had happened, and Joe just started pelting the tanks and humvees with rocks. I heard a lot of shouting, and people started running at us. We were tackled by the soldiers and put into a car that was probably going to take us to jail. 

“Damn it, Joe. I knew this was a bad idea,” I grumbled. 

“Don’t worry about it guys. I got a plan,” Joe replied in a calm voice. 

We got locked into a cell, and we took showers trying to wash off our cuts and bruises. Our dinner looked hideous and tasted horrible too. I couldn’t take this much longer. We needed to get out, fast.

At around 11:00 P.M., Joe woke us up and whispered, “In about an hour, we will turn 421 

years old, which means we are going to be adults. We can try to escape when they move us to the adult prison.” 

“Wait, but wouldn’t they know we escaped?” Mewt whispered. 

“This technically wasn’t a real crime when we were put in here. So they can’t do anything 

about it,” Joe replied.

Joe was right. 

At exactly 12:00 A.M., a guard unlocked our cell and said, “You guys are now adults and are going to be moved to an adult prison.” 

We got outside and we took a big breath of the cold fresh air. Joe nodded his head at me and Mewt, and we knew that we had to run. I ran as fast as I could to Mewt’s house, which was the one closest to us. We snuck into his house and slept there for the night. In the morning, we ate a big breakfast and had Mewt’s parents drive us back to our houses. 

Ever since this happened, we knew we knew to lay low and not do anything stupid. We recognized that the second we did something stupid, we would be arrested in an instant.