Character Development Piece

Author’s Note: This is how a character in a book that I read, called Airborn, changes. How he thinks and acts towards other people, and how he manages to do it.

Matt Cruse was a boy who was born in the air; his mother had him while on an airship. Ever since he was born, he had felt like he belonged in the air, and he wanted to be in the air all the time. He got a job as a cabin boy on an airship that his father worked on called the Aurora, and after a few years of that, he wanted to move up to be an assistant sailmaker. The man who owned the ship’s son, named Bruce Lunardi, got the job instead, and Matt has to learn how to cope with the fact that that Bruce got the job that he wanted for so long. Matt also meets a girl on the airship (Kate de Vries), and she is very interested in how the ship works and what Matt does to help. One of the reasons Matt liked Kate was because she was in the upper-class family and Matt was a cabin boy, and she didn’t care that Matt wasn’t rich like her, and they overcome their differences in each other’s lives. The three go on crazy adventures, in and out of the air.

Matt’s story depends on how he reacts towards others in multiple situations, and Matt discovers how jealousy can get the best of you if you let it out of control. He thinks that Bruce is a rich, snobby brat, so he always acts mean towards him. What Matt didn’t realize was that you can’t change someone, no matter who they are, no matter how hard you try. So you just have to learn to like things about someone, and not try to change who they are. Matt couldn’t change the fact that Bruce was the ship’s owner’s son, so he had to cooperate with him towards the end of the book. Pirates, mean-spirited people who board airships and take people’s things take over the Aurora. Matt, Kate, and Bruce are the ones who know how to get the passengers on the ship safe, while keeping the pirates from taking anyone’s life. The three have to trust each other and do their part to clear the pirates off of the ship, in the air, and get the Aurora to their destination.

The Aurora crash-lands on an island due to damage on the ship from the pirates. The island, Matt and Kate discover, is more than an isolated island off of the charts. Kate’s grandfather had once attempted to go around the world in a hot air balloon, but died in the balloon due to weather and disease. Matt works in the crow’s nest, which is where a person looks out of the window for obstacles in the ship’s way. He sees the balloon where he was, but didn’t know that it was Kate’s grandfather, for the Aurora discovered it a year before he met Kate. This is another connection with Matt and Kate. The man died, but when the two, a year after the discovery of the man and his balloon, read his journal, they find out that he had seen mysterious creatures on the very island that they are on. Matt and Kate go on an adventure trying to find things that Kate’s grandfather had seen, only to be found by pirates living on the island. They had to make a quick escape from the island to get back home.

Only a few pirates enter the ship after it takes flight, and in the fight for their lives, Bruce performs a heroic act that saves the ship and every one of the passengers. One of the pirates, who was there while Bruce was steering the ship back onto it’s correct route, shot him. Bruce died while overcoming his fear of situations like the one he was in. The head of the pirate attack, Vikram Szpirglas, was attempting to kill Matt because he was steering the ship to safety, and Szpirglas would’ve been caught if they reached their destination. Matt was almost killed in the fight for his own life, but Szpirglas tripped and fell off of the ship and into the water hundreds of feet below. Matt realizes then that he has to act quickly during those times, and not stall because something bad might happen. That was another way that Matt developed during the book. Kate plays an important role in helping Matt and Bruce fight off the pirates. All three of them figure out that they all have to be brave and trusting when times like that come. When Matt discovered that Bruce had died, he felt horrible for hating him at all. He realized that Bruce couldn’t change who he was. He could only become friends with Matt by overcoming their differences and trusting him with his life. 

People can learn lessons like these in many ways, not just fighting off pirates and surviving on an island with mysterious creatures and secrets. Not only do Kate and Matt become friends, but they discover that there is more to life than being rich and having a great job. They realize that you can be friends with anyone as long as you cooperate and work together during tough times.

Cause and Effect Piece

This is my cause and effect piece. The reason I chose this topic is because I wanted to write something about me.


Sometimes my memory is linked to smells. A few years ago, my parents would always take my brother and I to an indian restaurant. I never liked the smell of curry, so when I went into any indian restaurant, I felt like I was going to throw up. The cause was the curry cooking in the kitchen.

At Thanksgiving, my mom made a soup that had curry in it. Once she started making it, I could smell it all over the house. After a few minutes, I felt like I was going to pass out because the smell seemed so strong to me. So the cause was the smell of the curry, and the effect was my reaction to it: A nauseous feeling. My memory has linked that smell to a negative thought. If curry didn’t smell differently to me, I wouldn’t have that feeling every time I smelled it.