Bianca’s autobiography

Hello. I’m Bianca Radulescu-Banu. I was born in Concord, at Emerson Hospital. My dad took one look at me and said, “Let’s call her Bianca.”. Was he talking about me?

In that room I felt real cold so I cried out, “It’s cold in here! Is there anything that can keep me warm?” But it came out as, “Whaaaa!”

I gasped at my own voice. I saw on the wall a piece of paper. It said, “July 5th, 2000”. But I didn’t care. I was cold. I was as cold as a girl who didn’t have a jacket on, and who was outside while there was a blizzard.

I made some more sounds. “Gurgle! Whaaa! Snuffle!”

There were moving, fuzzy things in the room. Most of them were white and near the top, they were orange.

A woman took a step toward me.

“Help!” I yelled loudly, but it came out as “Hhhhmmmlp!”

The same woman took me in her arms. “Let go of me!” I demanded, but sure enough, what I heard was “Whaaaa!”

She and my dad took me toward a big blue thing that was bigger than the woman and the man. I later learned it was called a car. To my astonishment, they could actually open it and actually GET INSIDE. They put me on a black thing and tied me up. I felt like I was a prisoner who was captured by the best army in the world. Oh, how I missed my REAL home - the round thing I was kept in!

Later I learned that my name was Bianca and those people were my parents and I was to call them mom and dad. I also learned how to talk when I was about two. But not English! I learned how to speak Romanian. And I also learned the black thing was called a “car seat”, and that I had to sit in it for my protection.



A few years later, when I was two or three I could ALMOST take steps, but I wanted to hold someone’s hand. I was too scared to do it by myself. I was afraid I’d fall down. My mom would say, “Try to, at least. Please!” And I’d say, “NO!”.

So one day, I wanted to practice walking, but there was no one to hold my hand. So I took the telephone, holding onto it, and I thought, “I’m so glad you’re holding my hand, telephone, because if you wouldn’t, I’d be falling down immediately!”.

Just then, Mom and Dad came in and looked at me. There were only a few seconds until they burst out laughing. “Our daughter, Bianca, has learned to walk because of a simple telephone!” my mom chuckled. “NO!” I yelled. “I’m holding… gurgle… hand!” That’s how I started to walk.



When I was about three years old, my parents and I went on a trip to Thailand. It felt so hot there I was sure I’d die of a sunburn. But I didn’t, thank God.

When I got to my room, I was determined to do something and to do it at night. So when it was my bedtime, I got hold of a crayon and drew all over my bed covers quietly.

In the morning, mom and dad had to pay for that. They were so mad! Luckily, I managed to say for the first time in my life, “Accident!” I was so ashamed and my face was so red that people could have thought I’d put myself on fire.

The next day my mom saw an elephant. The hotel had elephant rides. My mom was so excited, she went on one right away. But she didn’t go alone…

My mom clutched me close as she slowly walked towards the elephant. I wasn’t about to get dropped off a huge animal like this. Did I mention I can yell and yell good?

“NO!” I screamed as mom held me as tight as she could. “GREY THING BAD!” I yelled as loud as I could at the top of my lungs.

Mom whispered to me, “Please be quiet!” “NO, NO, NO!” I was about to burst into tears. Why was she doing this?

When finally the torture ride of terror was over, I was in such a fret that I couldn’t move or talk! I could only stare at my mom with a look that was supposed to say “NEVER try to do that again!”. But mom must have thought it as, “I’m about to faint, so I might as well take a nap” because she put me to bed early.


When I was old enough to learn to swim mom took me to swimming lessons. I didn’t want to get in the water so of course I’ve yelled “NO!”. My mom looked at me with pleading eyes as she sat down in a chair to watch me. I sighed, looked at the water, bent over, and touched it. “Brrrr!” I tumbled backward in shock. This would make the gray thing look like one of my teddy bears, I thought. I don’t want to go into something that can freeze you to death. I ran back to my mom and hugged her. This time, I did start to cry. I cried so loud people could have thought I had broken a bone. My mom kissed me, and when I looked back at the pool, this time I wasn’t scared. I had mom’s kisses to protect me! “Yes”, I whispered. And I jumped in.


That winter my dad took me to learn skiing. I was dazed, because everyone in my family wanted me to do something different. I felt a tingling down my spine, and I shivered. I remembered this feeling from my birth day. I hated having it back. “I’m cold”, I told my dad. My dad kept encouraging me to meet the teacher, and I have to tell you, God made me shy. I shook my head so hard I was afraid it would fall off. There was no way I would freeze to death! “NO WAY. TOO COLD!”, I told my dad. “I didn’t come here for nothing. Now GO SKI!” my dad answered. I finally got brave enough to march into the fallen snow and say loudly, “I am Bianca”. The teacher looked at me, then walked off. I followed him, and we started the ski lessons. “HAPPY ENDING”, I said happily.

A few months later, in spring, my dad took me to a zoo for the first time. I was almost five, so I didn’t know what ZOOs were. My dad told me, “ZOOs are places full of animals in cages, like an elephant or a lion.

“There are people in those ZOOs called “ZOO-keepers”, and their job is to take care of the animals.”.

I asked my dad, “Can I have a lion or an elephant for a pet?”. Suddenly, dad was very interested in driving there.

When we got there, I jumped out of the car and into dad’s arms and he carried me there. My dad is a tall man who has black hair and he is very funny. His name is Andrei and despite that, he can be very strict.

In the first cage there was a lion and he didn’t look very friendly. In fact, he threw back his head and roared. I ran back and only stopped when I was behind my father. Dad understood and carried me on. The next cage was tall and long and wide. Inside was a gray thing, and very big. I remembered what it looked like since I’d seen it when I was three.

“Gray thing”, I said in disgust.

I asked Dad, “Is this one going to be mean too?”. My dad told me it might, but it won’t EAT me because it only eats grass. When we finally went home, I was thankful, because I thought I was never going to come back out.




And several months later, when I turned six and a half, I was in first grade and Dad presented me with a gift. I have to tell you, when I was teeny-tiny like that, I wasn’t very thankful for Daddy’s gifts.

“Bianca, I made you your very own Blog!” The sound “blog” seemed exciting, like it was my birthday again. So I acted excited, as if I just got a dog. “Daddy, oh my god, I’ve always wanted a blug!” I shouted, getting the word wrong. “It’s blog. You obviously don’t know what it is. It’s something you write your stories in. Only there’s one special thing about it: you got to do this on the COMPUTER!”. NOW I was excited, and I have the blog to this day.



That next summer, when I was eight, my mom, my dad, my sister and I went to… “Florida!” My sister yelled again and again. I’d become a big fan of books and school and hated it when I had to miss some of it.

One week later, here we were in Florida, resting our brains off, when I suddenly said, “I REALLY, and I mean REALLY, want to go swimming with the dolphins. I mean I never really did that. So on this vacation, can I PLEASE go?” So the next day, I woke up at 6:00 AM to go to Discovery Cove, where you could swim with the dolphins. We had breakfast there and lunch there… and dinner! We had a blast at Discovery Cove, where we went snorkeling, swimming (with dolphins) and eating.



That same summer, we went to Spain too… Wait! It WASN’T in summer… it was in the middle of a school year!

At the airport it was as noisy as a baseball stadium. So earsplitting that I couldn’t hear myself speak.

Mom took off to find the airplane. I followed closely behind. Daria held my hand so she wouldn’t get lost. Daddy walked next to Mom.

“Not so fast!” I yelled. “I can’t keep up!”

“We can’t miss that plane!” Mom yelled back. I bet that day she ran as fast as a cheetah.
We went to three different parts of Spain:

a) A town with trees that had oranges in them (I forget its name),

b) A town that rained a lot called Granada,

c) A town by the shore that had FANTASTIC bread! At the last town there were these sports thingies where you can have REAL FUN! There was also bungee-jumping and I LOVE bungee-jumping because it makes you feel as free as an American Robin, flying wherever it wants to. I had to go bungee-jumping. So I did. “Whoo-hoo! Wow!” I was jumping up and down. I was pumping my fists in the air as much as I could while I was holding my ropes. I felt the wind in my face, and the sun on my cheeks. I never felt so free.



Back at home, a few days later, on a Saturday, I went to Romanian school. It was break time, and we were playing “Fishy, Fishy, Cross the Ocean”. The mistake was: I was wearing crocs.
Cristian was the shark. He is a Romanian boy, bit chubby, who has blond hair and eyes the color of the shining sea. He grins most of the time and he is very talented when it comes to school.
I ran so fast I couldn’t stop and the next thing I knew- BAM! - I had run straight into a brick wall. Tears ran down my face faster than the time mom ran to the plane top-speed.
I was crying so hard that the ballerina’s dress was all the way up. The ballerina’s dress is a way to describe how hard someone’s crying. The harder they’re crying, the higher the dress goes.
And I had to go to the hospital because my eye didn’t look so good. It was swollen. And I had a bump on my forehead that never fully healed. Well, as mom says, nobody is perfect….

A few weeks later Mom signed me up for karate. That turned out to be a big mistake, but there was no warning.

My teacher was Mr Alan, and he was very funny, just like my dad.

He was like my dad in different ways: he was tall, he could also be very strict, and he wore glasses (I’m not saying my dad wears glasses ALL the time, it‘s when he drives that he needs glasses.). But most important of all, he liked me. Later I felt I should quit karate, but Mom would never allow it. So I kept doing it.


A few days later, I wanted to learn to ride a two-wheeler, so Dad offered to help.

All right, I know it was a shock, but I didn’t know how to ride a two-wheeler. So I wanted to learn.

Daddy took the training wheels off my bike, and then said “You try to push off, and I’ll hold you”. And so there I was biking with Dad holding me - wait, he wasn’t holding me! I screamed. No - I screeched like a monkey until I finally fell. “Help!” I cried louder than the loudest sound on Earth.

Even thought that fall lasted only two seconds, I felt like it took one hour. When it was finally over, Daddy told me “It’s okay. You’ll get the hang of it.” And later, I did. But that doesn’t keep me from hating biking!




On a July morning, I woke up to find it was my birthday! I leaped out of my bed, and ran down the stairs so fast I hardly touched them. I did all that with a grin on my face so wide you could stick a basketball in my mouth.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Daria, Mom, Dad and Grandpa called (Grandma wasn’t awake yet). I gave them a look that said “I can’t believe I’m nine years old!”

My mom had bought a cake, and some people bought me presents. I was jumping up and down like a kangaroo, and Grandma was smiling. I couldn’t believe it was my birthday and I was nine.
Later that day after dinner, mom brought out the cake. Chocolate- my favorite flavor. It’s the ONLY kind of cake I like.

The presents weren’t very exciting- compared to my 6th birthday, they were nothing. At least one good thing came from my birthday: I was nine years old!


A few months later, I didn’t want to start the day. I knew I was going to a wedding, and weddings were boring!

I finally got out of bed to slowly wash my teeth. And after that, I ate my breakfast. I wanted to do everything slowly to not go to that wedding. It was going to be very cold outside- and that would be where the wedding was! I groaned. I would probably freeze to death today, because I didn’t like to move when I was cold!

And so of course I had to get ready anyway. Mom picked out my “Mamma Mia” dress to go there (I call it like that because I wore it to the “Mamma Mia!” the Musical first). At least I loved my dress. “Mom, can you help me do my buttons?” I called.

Mom was born in Romania just like my dad and she is short for her age. She has golden-brown hair just like her two daughters and eyes like sparkling stars. “I don’t want to go!” I moaned.

“You have to”, Mom argued.

“No!” I was as stubborn as a toddler who wanted to have its way, but in the end I had to surrender.

To tell you the truth, it wasn’t that bad. There were times when I was bored, but it was the most exciting one yet, even though the wedding was outside and I was as cold as when I was born.
Otherwise I felt fine. They gave my sister and I presents, and one of them was very tasty.
It was okay; the only things I didn’t like were when I was very cold and the jazz music. I don’t like jazz, I don’t know why. I just absolutely dislike it. That’s all.
After the wedding, in the car, I almost fell asleep. I was so tired. But Daria was feeling silly, and when she feels silly, she wants to sing, and to sing loud. This time she sang as loud as three hundred motorcycles, getting ready to take off. I wanted to yell at her to zip her mouth and keep it zipped, but she sang louder. “LA, LA, LA, DI, DA, DA!”


A few months later, when I was nine years old and half, I went to Italy. It was SO beautiful there!

I went to six towns (or cities) and one of them was Venice. It was awesome and beautiful there: canals everywhere, like small rivers connected into one, and tall houses, some like seven stories high. And for the grand finale: ABSOLUTELY NO CARS!

The one city I liked best was Rome. I learned a lot of things there: about the buildings such as the Great Colosseum, about emperors, and about Romulus and Remus. I couldn’t believe emperor Nero could be THAT crazy! He murdered too many people in his life; one of them was his mother!


Well, that's it. An auto-biography of my life. A few days later, I am writing these words. I am 9 and a half with a family just like in the past: always wanting me to do new things, telling me to never give up, and most importantly: always loving me. Bye!

Samantha Greenwood

Chapter 1

Meet Samantha

Samantha woke up to the sound of her older sister's snore. Maddy was exhausted because she had a sleepover last night. She had to be driven home because she got homesick.
Samantha was 5 years old and her sister was 9. She also had a little brother called Danny and he was 2.