Rachel Yecco and the Case of the Missing Teddy Bear

When I was seven years old I wrote my first piece of journalism. My beloved teddy bear Crystal went missing. I demanded answers from my sister Allie, who was eight, and brother Petie, who was four. I was even suspicious of my youngest brother Joey who was a mere five months old at the time.

I had my eye on the sticky handed four year old who had a reputation of hiding my stuffed animal friends. When Quackers the duck vanished, I raised my eyebrow, but let it go when Petie inevitably gave her back. When Neon the neon green seal up and left, I gave him the cold shoulder until he ensured her safe arrival back to the center of my bed. But the disappearance of Crystal sparked something viscous in my seven year slender frame.

I began the interview process. The first question I asked was a full description of each subjects history with the bear. Allie was too cool for my childish questioning and left to watch Power Rangers. When Petie began to sweat, I marked his clammy hands in my Lisa Frank notebook.

In the end, Crystal the bear was found at the bottom of my backpack. I had forgotten that I brought her to school that day. But it wasn't until some serious backtracking that I remembered I had stuffed her beneath my religion and spelling books. Once I lifted Crystal from the rubble in my backpack, I questioned her. "Were you scared?" I asked. "What helped you get through this terrifying three hour ordeal?" Crystal gave me all the information I needed to write my first article.

The next day at school I wrote about it in my journal. I titled it "Rachel Yecco and the Case of the Missing Teddy Bear." Granted there was an obvious conflict of interest seeing that Crystal was my bear, my classmates and teacher managed to look past that. It was such a moving story that I even received a big yellow star sticker for sharing it in class. At the time, the sticker was the 1st grade equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize.

I didn't know I wanted to write, I just did it. I think society can be scarily unnatural most of the time, but writing about my fears, goals, experiences, but more so the fears, goals, and experiences of others, always felt natural to me. My mom say it's because I have something in me that makes people want to confide in me, just as Crystal confided her frantic story with me fourteen years ago.

When I was eight, I said I wanted to be a veterinarian, but when I found out you needed to know a whole hell of a lot about science to pursue that, I reconsidered. That was the last time I ever wanted to be anything until recently. It is safe to say my In Ten Years I See Myself class presentations were not terribly inspirational.

It wasn't until I was 16 that an article turned book exposed me to the most powerful kind of writing I had ever encountered. Literary Journalism. It was Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild". We read the book in Mr. Lopez's honors sophomore English class. It was the true story of Christopher McCandless. McCandless was a hardworking young man who left his home, job, and life behind for depths and dangers of the Alaskan outback. He adopted the name Alexander Supertramp as well as some impressive hunting skills. Krakauer uncovered the gritty details of McCandless' journey, his life, and his death, as McCandless helped Krakauer and readers discover the importance of life.

In the end of Krakauer's piece, he helped spread the message that McCandless never got to. On the walls of beat up bus in the Alaskan outback, a bus that was both a home and a final place of resting, McCandless wrote Love is only real when shared. 


As I read those six words, I hoped to someday write something as powerful and true as Krakauer's "Into the Wild."

My name is Rachel Yecco. I am 21 years old and I when I grow up, I want to be a journalist.