THE BOY
Once upon a time, a little boy was born in a village called Dara cha la ka la ka. Yes, it was a strange village. 10 years later, the little boy became a soldier. Now you think “mmmhhh” a soldier at 10 years of age, that IS weird but he was the strongest boy in the village.
A week later, war broke out. The little boy attacked with his sword and he killed 50% of all the enemies so he became stronger than ever. Five years later, he was the hero of the village. The boy’s parents were really proud of him. ‘Our boy, the killer!’ they sighed with satisfaction. The strange thing is that boy didn’t have a name so he was called ”The Boy “ .
Ten years later, he became king of Ka la ka dara cha la, the country where the village Dara cha la ka la ka can be found. He grew stronger and stronger than ever war after war .But then one day he choked on an apple and died.
Moussaab
THE GLOBE-HOPPING KANGAROO
Not so long ago, a young kangaroo called Joey went on a surfing trip with his friends. He was still a beginner, so when a huge wave arrived, he didn’t k now what to do. The wave was so huge that when it broke on the beach, it made another even bigger wave that carried Joey away on his surfboard and out into the middle of the deep vast ocean.
Finally, after many days and nights of travelling, the wave stopped a few metres from the coast. Joey started paddling and didn’t stop until he got to the beach. When a herd of zebras began walking slowly towards him he realized that that he had landed on the African coast. They started to ask him countless questions, such as where did he come from, and what exactly had happened to him. Once he had answered all their questions he was invited into their herd, where he lived peacefully for many years.
The years passed by quickly and soon enough Joey became an adult. Over the years he had become a professional surfer, thanks to all the hard work and effort he had put in to surfing. His house was filled with all the gold medals and trophies that he’d won. Joey, however wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to see the world. One evening he told his zebra friends that it was time for him to leave them. All the zebras were disconsolate, but before he left, they made him promise to come back and visit.
The next morning, after Joey’s going-away party, Joey hugged all the zebras goodbye, then set off with his surfboard in his pouch.
He surfed for two days before arriving in the Hague where he met a group of friendly kangaroo-loving Dutch sailors who taught him how to sail. After he had learned the ropes, he set off to his next port of call: Biarritz, France. As there were excellent waves for surfing, he decided to stay there for two weeks. From there he headed by plane to New York, where they even made a statue of him.
After he had finished his globe- hopping and visited many more wonderful places around the world, Joey finally decided it was time to go home. As they say, there’s no place quite like it.
Laetitia
THE STORY OF MY LIFE THUS FAR
Hi there, my name’s Sebastien! I was born on April 2nd, 2005 in Ottawa, Canada. Until I moved, I lived close by to my grandparents and cousins. I have a younger brother called Dominique who is 8 years old. I used to go to school at l’Etoile de l’Est. I liked it there because of my friends: Adrien, Mathieu, Gabriel, Janik, Erik, Alex and William. It was also the same school my cousins went to. When I was 3 years old, I started to play soccer. In my first tournament, my team won first place!
When I was four, my family got dog and we named him Dolce. Life was great at home in Canada because of family, friends, neighbors…and the swimming pool we used to have in our backyard. But then, in 2011, when I was 6 years old, we moved to The Hague. I hated it at first because I missed my family and friends. When I was 7, I started tae kwon do for 2 years.
In 2014, my grandpa passed away. We were all sad and we went back home for his funeral. We stayed in Canada for 3 weeks. I was happy to go home, but I was upset because he wasn’t there anymore. In 2015, when I was 9, I decided to start basketball (because it was grandpa’s favorite sport). I played for 2 years, and I hope to continue playing. Also, this year my parents bought me a guitar and I started taking lessons.
In conclusion, I am happy with my move to The Hague because I now have loads of friends here and at the same time I’ve managed to keep the ones from home. It is a great opportunity to have so many adventures with my family…and I still see my relatives regularly as they come and visit and I visit them as well.
The moral of the story is, change could seem challenging at first, but with time it can be great!
Sebastien
Three Cats in a Rocket
Once upon a time, 3 cats were in a ROCKET 3… 2… 1… launch !!!!!
The first cat was called Debilos, the second one Stupidos and the third one Cretinos. Their objective was to reach the planet Mustard, but what they didn’t know yet was that they were going to have plenty of adventures.
As they travelled through space, they were stopped by 3 weird green things.
“Stop!” they shouted. “Papers please!”
“We don’t have any ! And we totally DON’T care. So now get out of the way, you stupid fat green alien!” said Cretinos.
Indeed, the aliens got out of the way, but WITH our friends Debilos, Cretinos and Stupidos!!!!
About one hour later, the 3 cats and the aliens landed on a little planet. The ridiculous green things ( the aliens ), told them that this planet was called Ketchup. Yikes! Ketchup was reeeeeeeeeeeeally far from their targeted planet!
After one night with aliens, the three cats decided to escape. But first, they would eat ( Cretinos‘ idea ). Stupidos took a fishing net, and went with his friends and the aliens to catch mice.
“I saw one! HERE! ” shouted Debilos.
Of course, you may think that there are no mice in Space, and you’d be TOTALLY right!So the aliens had been searching in vain all along!. Stupidos, Debilos and Cretinos ran to the basement, took the alien’s flying saucer and returned to Earth. Yes, you heard me right, not Mustard but Earth, because Mustard was too far away and their favorite TV show ( Cats in Space ) was starting. They decided to put off Mustard for another day!
Chloe
THE LOST NECKLACE
Every day, thousands of visitors visit the British Museum in London. One day, however there were no visitors. This day was the 25th of December 1970, the day the famous Egyptian necklace belonging to the wife of Ramses II went missing. This necklace was in the shape of a golden snake; one of its eyes was a ruby, the other was a sapphire. In its mouth, was an emerald and the last precious gem was a diamond glittering at the end of its tail.
Inspector Laloupe was on vacation in the South of France when he received a message that the necklace had been stolen and that he should go to London to investigate and find the thief. Two days later, he arrived at the museum with his young assistant and began looking for clues. He asked the police if he could see all the people that had come in during the day of the theft. He interrogated everybody, even his assistant, who by sheer coincidence had been visiting the museum that day. He questioned the security guard who said that he’d noticed a brown-haired person of about 1m70 wearing sunglasses and a black jacket hanging around the museum all day looking at the necklace. “Then someone called me into another room but when I came back, the necklace had disappeared. I looked out the window and saw a suspicious-looking man running towards Trafalgar Square,” the security guard said.
Then days later, Laloupe’s son was playing with a ball in Trafalgar square when he found a huge emerald in one of the lion’s mouths. He immediately went to the other three lions, where he found the other three missing gems. He went to his dad’s office and exclaimed, “Hey Dad, guess what I’ve just found – those four missing jewels!’’ Laloupe thought to himself for a while until suddenly deducing that the snake must have been in the pocket of his young Egyptian assistant all along …
Marc
WHY CAN’T I BE A SPY?
On that particular morning, Joe woke up with a question bouncing around in his head, a question that wouldn’t leave him alone, so he rushed downstairs and into the dining room. The question had to be answered, right away.
‘’Mum,” Joe said, “Why can’t I be a spy?’’
‘’Because you just CAN’ T’’ his mother answered in a matter-of-fact tone. ”It’s not a job for a child like you. You’re far too small. Now eat up your breakfast and get ready for school, like a good little boy.’’
As he made his weary way to school, Joe couldn’t help thinking about what life would be like if he were a spy. It would be a nice job, he thought, helping people in danger, solving the world’s problems and not to mention all the super-cool secret gadgets he would get for free!
Throughout the entire class, Joe was unable to focus on what the teacher was saying; instead he spent the whole time drawing pictures of himself as a spy. Unfortunately the teacher passed by, saw his nice drawings and snatched them angrily from him. ‘’Joe Bama, what do you call this?’’ he screeched, his face purple with rage. Joe was too scared to answer.
‘’Okay then! Go to the director’s office right now!’’ the teacher thundered. Joe stood up and tried not to cry. He took a deep breath and left for the director’s office, carefully closing the classroom door. A few seconds later he stopped dead in his tracks – on the floor, right before his eyes, was a golden envelope! ‘’That’s weird,” Joe thought. “A golden envelope just lying there in the middle of the corridor!” He took the envelope and opened it. Inside was an unsigned letter addressed to Joe: ‘’Dear Joe Bama, if you really do want to be a spy, be outside the front entrance of the school in three minutes.’’
Mathilde
A DUCK’S LIFE
Once upon a time, there was a duck who wanted to go to his grandmother’s. The duck knew the way to his grandma’s house perfectly. However, he decided to take the shortcut via Cat City. This way is of course much shorter but only a few ducks are courageous enough to take this path. The reason is that the cats, under the dictatorship of King Romeo and Queen Juliet, there was a strictly ‘No-Duck’ policy in the city. The feline citizens of Cat City were obliged to round up and kill all the ducks that passed through their town. And if any cat failed to catch a passing duck and give it to King Romeo and his wife, the cat in question was banished to Dog Country, the neighbouring state.
The innocent duck waddled into the city unawares, but in the middle of the street, an army of cats launched a full-out attack and forced the duck to run away. Unfortunately, in all the madness and mayhem, the duck got lost in town. He spent many hours wandering aimlessly around, until, eventually he managed to leave Cat City. He walked and walked until he finally found a pond with ducks splashing and frolicking in it. He asked the ducks in the pond if he could rest there, but after a moment’s frosty silence, they replied, “No, sorry, there’s no more room in the pond,” and they turned their backs on him.
The duck went to a second pond and asked the ducks there the same question, but again the ducks answered: “No, we’re sorry but there’s hardly room for us in the pond, let alone you!”
The same thing happened in the third, fourth and fifth ponds. By now the duck was growing desperate. He had already fought the cats, the storms, and a tsunami where he had nearly died, not to mention the flea tornado and a duck hunter that he’d somehow managed to survive. At long last, the duck spotted another pond. He guessed that the ducks in the pond wouldn’t accept him, but he tried nonetheless. In that pond the ducks replied, “No, we are sorry but there’s no more room in the pond.”
By this stage our poor duck was almost on the verge of tears. One of the ducks in the pond felt sorry for him, approached him and whispered in his ear: “There’s a big lake in the valley down there, but no duck dares to go there because of the legend of The Monster of the Lake.”
The duck went to see what kind of monster lurked in the lake. By mid-afternoon he had reached the lake. He waded into the water and, much to his relief, everything appeared normal. Ah … it was so nice to have a pool for oneself! The duck relaxed and began splashing water in every direction.
Before he knew it, night had fallen. The duck grew a little scared. He saw waves moving energetically towards him, and he froze, scared to death. But ultimately nothing came out of the water. The duck believed that the monster wanted to come out but had changed his mind. Actually it was only a bat flying over the duck’s head. Eventually morning came. The duck decided to go to a seventh pond and there the ducks asked him where he came from. The duck replied, “I was in the Big Lake. I spent the night there.” The other ducks couldn’t believe their ears – they were so impressed by the duck’s courage that they elected him as their new leader. It was so enjoyable to finally have a safe place for himself! The leader duck was treated as King Duk and his wife Queen Duket.
One day a duck called “Wet Chicken” came and asked whether he could settle there. The leader of the ducks responded: “No, there’s no room here. But there’s a lake there. Everyone says that there is a monster. But it’s just a silly rumour because I was there, and I didn’t see anything.” So the duck waded into the lake, never to be seen again! Recently, I saw the ghost of “Wet Chicken”. But it was just my brother coming home from a Halloween school party!
François
BOB AND THE GOLD
Once upon a time there was a young man called Bob. Bob lived with his mother, Theresa, in a small town called Grizzly. They weren’t very wealthy so Bob had to work every day in the fields to get a bit of money so they could feed themselves.
One day something strange and magical happened. While Bob was working in the fields, he noticed an old woman walking through the fields. He decided to follow her. After walking for ages, the woman entered a small cottage.
He hesitated for a moment, then entered the cottage silently. To his amazement, inside was a huge room filled with gold. Bob was ecstatic to see all this gold just lying there with no one around. But he thought to himself “What if this belongs to someone?”
Soon afterwards, the old woman came into the room. Bob quickly hid under a chair. The old woman walked to an old cauldron. Bob saw that she poured some water in the cauldron. She also added some stones and some iron then took a big wooden spoon and started stirring the cauldron. After a while she stopped stirring, took the spoon out of the cauldron and reached inside with both her hands. Bob saw that she was holding golden stones when she pulled her hands out of the cauldron. Bob watched as the old lady put the golden stones with the rest of the gold.
After she exited the room, Bob came out of his hiding spot and was very curious so he looked into the cauldron but there was nothing in there. He quickly ran home to his mother and told her what had happened. His mother did not believe him, so he decided to bring her to the cottage. But when they entered, the cottage suddenly…
Tristan
A STORY ABOUT ME
This story I am about to tell took place when I was 3. There’s a lot of action in it.
READY…STEADY…READ!
It was a sunny day, like many others but Dad woke me up saying:” Wake up, cheesy thing! We’re going to see the launch of a rocket!” I told him:” Gaa?”
So we got to the base where the rocket was to be launched.
“Darling, did you remember to take the keys?” mum asked anxiously.
“No, I thought you took them!!” my father snapped angrily
“Oh, oh”, I thought quietly” So that’s why my breakfast was so strange and metally!”
Mum and Dad continued arguing about the keys.
When I told Dad what I knew about the keys, he threw me as far as he could.
BUT…
When he threw me…
I CRASHED INTO THE ROCKET AND BROKE ONE OF THE WINDOWS!!!!!!!!!!…
I EVEN LANDED INSIDE THE ROCKET!!!!!!!!!!…
“Stewart, a window has been broken!” said a voice.
“Okay Bebert, I’m coming!” another voice answered.
A few second later, the window was fixed.
“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!“, screamed Dad
THREE…TWO…ONE…
IGNITION!
If there was sound in space, you would have heard:
DAAAAAD!!! WHYYYYY?!!!!!
Thirty minutes later, a voice boomed out: “Grab your equipment; the battle against the aliens will commence in three minutes and forty-five seconds!”
I watched the battle through the porthole. All of my “teammates” opened fire with their laser guns. But the aliens had far better technology: their shields were extremely resistant and they had a stick of metal that could eject a wave of paralyzing “electricity”. So my “teammates” all perished… Then the aliens tried to get inside the rocket…
Did I cry? No, because my instincts told me to run, to take a right, then a left, another left and then a right. And there before me was an escape pod. I opened it and turned on the control panel. With relief, I saw that the way back was programmed.
When I got back home, my anxious parents asked me:” What happened?” But I was so tired after my eventful day that I went straight to sleep!
Thibaut
THE ESCAPE
Once upon a time there was a little hamster called Carrot who was stuck in a cage all day long. The only things he could do from sunrise to sundown was eat and run on the wheel his owner had installed for him. It was only when night came that he could exit this world of boredom and horror and enter the beautiful blissful world of dreams.
One day Carrot’s owner didn’t close his cage well after feeding him, and as it was a very warm day, he’d also left the window open. Carrot slowly walked out of the cage and ran towards the window which was, luckily for him, on the ground floor. He jumped out of the house and scurried into the woods.
After walking for a while, Carrot came to a clearing. It was already late so he decided to stay there for the night. The woods grew darker and darker and Carrot, who was so happy to be free, grew scared. He started to miss the bright electric light of his living-room, the warmth of the house, the voices of the owner’s children.
As the darkness grew and the strange noises became louder, he began to grow terrified. The shadows of the trees became long and scary. Suddenly, Carrot wanted to go back home. He screamed so that someone could hear him but nobody was there. He was lost!
The cute little hamster walked desperately around the clearing all night, until he became so tired that he fell asleep. When he woke up in the morning, it was still very early. At first he thought he was still gently sleeping in his cage but after a moment, when he saw all the scary trees around him, he remembered he had escaped. Carrot looked around and saw a small light between the trees. He walked towards it and it grew stronger. After a few minutes he realized it was the light of a window! He ran and ran towards the light and found his owner running around the house shouting his name. Carrot ran towards him and started tugging at his shoe. When the owner realized that Carrot had come back home he whooped for joy! Both Carrot and his owner learned an important lesson from this adventure: his owner bought a tiny, little enclosure for him so he could go outside and Carrot never tried to escape again.
Eleonore
STRANGE CREATURES
One day I was at school like all the other days. Everything seemed normal. Everyone was working, when suddenly the children around me started making particular noises and changed into very strange creatures with red eyes and blood in their mouths that started running down their necks and dripping onto their clothes. I didn’t understand what was going on so I ran out of the class and saw that all the other schoolchildren had changed too. I quickly ran into the toilet to see if I’d changed, but luckily I hadn’t. Then I went to my brother to see if he’d changed and luckily, he hadn’t either.
I wondered what had happened. I asked my brother if he knew, but he didn’t. We decided to get out of school as quickly as we could and that’s what we did. Just as we ran through the school gates, I saw my best friend Julia and she hadn’t changed either. She came running towards us and told us that she thought it was a zombie invasion. I asked her if she wanted to accompany my brother and I to our house to look it up on the net, and she accepted. On the road, there was no one, which was very strange, but we didn’t stay there. When we got home, my parents were still at work. We looked up “People changing into strange creatures” on Google and we found a warning telling us to watch out because there were dangerous zombies on the loose and that we shouldn’t get too close to them or we might get infected. We tried to look up how to stop them but we had no luck. We all thought “How are we going to prevent them from doing further harm?”
Emilie
A MERMAID’S TAIL
A long, long time ago, during the time of Christopher Columbus, my parents, my brother and I went on an expedition aboard Christopher Columbus’s ship. We climbed on board the caravel, and found our places. I immediately noticed something strange about the ship: there were no sails.
The caravel started to move. I was really curious to know how it moved forward. I looked in the water, but there was nothing.
Soon, we were in the middle of the ocean and the ship started to pitch weirdly. It was quite odd, because the sea was calm and quiet. I still didn’t know how the boat moved forward without sails so I bent down to see what was going on. There was still nothing but the ship continued to move and to pitch. But suddenly, I saw a tail, a green and scaly tail. I reached my hand to try and touch it, but I couldn’t. A strange creature jumped out of the water, grabbed my wrist and dragged me under water.
Later, I realized that I’d just fallen off the caravel and that I was face to face with a mermaid. But not the traditionally nice and beautiful mermaid – no, iIt was a very scary and ugly one with pointy teeth, a ‘’Vampire Mermaid” to be precise.
To my great surprise, I found that I was able to breathe underwater. The mermaid dragged me along until we reached a dark and spooky dark cave. The “Vampire Mermaid” mumbled a strange sequence of words and the doors to the dark cave opened. I was terrified and started to cry (the only advantage was that nobody could see my tears underwater).
The mermaid dragged me kicking and screaming into the cave. In vain, I tried to resist. She was very strong and held my wrist in a vice-like grip. When I saw what was inside, I fainted with the shock: There before me were dozens of terrifying “Vampire Mermaid”.
When I woke up, my wrist was full of blood because of the mermaid’s grip. I was attached to a pointy shell bed so my back was covered in blood as well. All the mermaids were looking at me as if I was the hideous monster. I couldn’t bear to look at them all because they were too ugly, so I closed my eyes and thought of my parents and my brother who I missed so much.
When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe it: my legs had been replaced by a scaly green tail. I cried and cried so much that I had no more tears left to cry. I was fed up with this awful situation. I managed to escape from the shell bed and I fought the “Vampire Mermaids”. I hit them with my tail and one of the mermaids collided with one of the walls. The cave collapsed. A rock fell on my tail. I was trapped. The good news was that a few mermaids were killed but there were still more. They went on beating me and punching me in the face. One of them even bit me. I screamed so hard that some mermaids fainted and died. I was in pain but I continued to resist, until I eventually managed to escape from the rock.
The fight went on for four hours. In the end, there were no mermaids left (except me). But then, I realized I had lost my tail and I couldn’t breathe anymore. I was badly injured, but I had to go back on the ship to find my parents so I swam as fast as my tail could carry me. When I reached the surface, I couldn’t see the ship, but I could see dead bodies floating under the bad weather.
I cried (but without tears) and screamed at the top of my lungs. I had lost my family. I was injured so I let myself float in the cold ocean until I eventually died.
Anna
MY UNDERWATER ADVENTURE
I’m nervous, but at the same time happy. Tomorrow morning I’m going back to school; to junior high school, which is completely new to me, but I am also going to see my friends again, which is good news! I’ll have so many interesting things to tell them! This morning, when I got there, I told my friends about my underwater adventures with the animals: the rays, the sharks… I had to tell them about all my incredible experiences!
This summer, I went to the Maldives, a paradise for aquatic animals. I mostly did snorkeling in Shark’s cove. The second day after we arrived, I was ready to go snorkeling in the waves. Well when I say ‘snorkeling’, what I actually mean is “DIVING” into the water.
The first day went ‘swimmingly’ well but not the second! On the second day the current was very strong and I thought I would never see my family again! I saw a bit of driftwood. I clambered onto it; and waited, and slept…
The next morning, I found myself on an island. My first thought was “I’m going to start by making a house and having something to eat because I’m starving.” Living on an island may be fun but it’s also very difficult. At night, I found a cave house with a plate outside. I looked around me but saw nobody. Then I had a look in the cave house and saw a bear, which scared the life out of me, so I ran outside. To my surprise I saw an empty boat bobbing in the water so I ran up to it, jumped in and rowed away.
A few hours later, I was hungry so I caught some fish with a stick I had taken with me for emergencies such as these. It took me a day to get back to the beach I’d been on before. The first people to greet me were my parents, who were so relieved and happy to see me!
Suddenly, I woke up with a jolt and glanced anxiously around my room. “What a horrible nightmare!” I said to myself, and trundled down the stairs to breakfast. At school, I told my friends all about my real summer vacation in Hawaii.
Caitlin
THE NASTY WEATHER SURPRISE
It was a beautiful day in Minnesota. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. My dad decided to go boating on the Mississippi Lake. So we all got ready and 30 minutes later we were all 8 on the boat. We wanted to go fishing and tubing.
A few minutes later, we stopped to get out the tube, to pump it up and to attach it to the end of the boat. We all got on it and took off. For the first hour or two, we had so much fun but then, without any warning the waves started crashing against the side of the boat, the wind began to howl and we heard the long loud wail of the sirens. We were in the path of a giant tornado!
My dad and the friend that had come with us hauled the tube back into the boat faster than lightning. As my dad was going back to the dock, it started hailing. We kids hid under the tune since the hail hurt so much. The sky was pitch black now and me and my brothers and sisters were scared to death. My dad was going so fast that another boat told us to slow down or the boat will overturn. When we arrived at the dock we got straight into our car soaked to the bone. After we arrived home, we went straight to our basement.
Basements are the safest place to go to when there is a tornado. One or two later, we didn’t hear the siren anymore so we went upstairs to see what had happened. Fortunately, nothing had been damaged around where we lived but there had been serious damage a couple of kilometers away. We all started talking about our first tornado. In Minnesota, tornados can surprise you even if it’s sunny and there are no clouds in sight.
Next time, we will be careful to check the weather forecast before going boating in Minnesota!!
Jade
AN UNFORGETTABLE SUNDAY
Just like every other Sunday, I was doing my homework and of course, my little brother was teasing me about the fact that he didn’t have any to do. In order to get rid of him I offered to go with him for 10 minutes around the block on our scooter. When we came back, my plan had worked – he was so tired he plopped down on the couch and watched TV. Unfortunately, I couldn’t relax like him, as I had 53 maths exercises to do, I had to finish reading a one-thousand five hundred -page French book and write a fifteen- page story about a ridiculous wooden box!
In the meantime, my mom came and asked me if I wanted to bake mint cupcakes with her. I naturally said ‘’YES’’! I was happy that she’d asked me as it meant I didn’t need to do my homework. I skipped to the fridge, whistling on my way, took out the eggs and whisked them into the cupcake mix. Once the mixture was finished the doorbell rang…
William
THE 2024 OLYMPICS
Today is the 5th of August 2024. I’m in Paris. In a couple of hours’ time I will be competing in the first event of the Decathlon in the 100 metres, at my very first Olympic games. One century after Eric Liddell also made history in Paris. Watching Chariots of Fire when I was quite young inspired me. That same year I spent a lot of time watching the Rio Olympics. Mo Farah won the double double and Usain Bolt won the triple triple, which was simply amazing!
I started dreaming it could be me one day, at the Olympics, competing.
Back then, I already liked running. And here I am, after training hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year, until I finally made it here, to Paris, to the 2024 Olympics games! It all seems like some incredible dream!
These have been up the two most nerve-wracking hours of my entire life until now. I listen to upbeat music on my soundproof headphones throughout and watch my team mates win gold in the cycling event. My heart is beating fast and hard. The time has come. Destiny awaits!
I am now walking out of the changing rooms and onto the track. I don’t know what to do when they announce my name so I just smile and wave. I am standing, smiling and waving in front of thousands of people. The atmosphere is electric. The roar of the crowd cheering us on is deafening. But now it’s time to concentrate. I can only hear my coach in my head, word for word saying “keep those legs moving as fast as if you were running on burning ashes and keep your knees as high as the sky.”
Here I go. Wish me luck! On your marks, get set…
Cameron
THE DIARY OF OCTAVIO CAMPANELLO
17 October 1905.
My name is Otavio and I’m from Italy and currently live in America. I remember very clearly the time we decided to emigrate to America. It was August 7th, the day of my birthday, and I had just turned 14. It started in the morning in our house in Sicily. I heard a loud thud coming from downstairs. I quickly woke up my older brother to go downstairs to see what had happened. Everything in the sitting room was turned upside down, the drawers were open and nothing was left in the closets; the bookshelf was on the ground. The thieves had taken the few valuables we had possessed. My brother and I stood there in shock, mouths agape, not knowing what to do.
Our parents came rushing down the stairs when they heard us scream. When they saw the empty ransacked room, they too were devastated. “What will we do now?” my mother whispered, tears in her eyes, her face deathly pale. “They took all our savings.” My father stood there, hands clenched, and said nothing.
Later in the evening, I was in my bedroom, still afraid because I could hear my parents arguing about something. A few minutes later my dad came in with a concerned look on his face “Look,” he said calmly, “your mother and I have been thinking. Now, you may not like it but it’s our only choice. The thing is, we don’t have enough money to feed the whole family, so we’ve decided that I’ll try my luck in a new country. Only one of you can come with me, though – the other one will to have to stay here with your mother.”
After discussing it at length, we decided that I would go with my father and that my brother would stay to look after our mother.
My dad and I packed our clothes, food and everything else we would bring. Meanwhile my mom and my brother sold everything we didn’t need to buy the tickets. In the end we managed to scrape together enough money for two tickets. So with heavy hearts, we said goodbye to my brother and brother and set off for the boat.
As we got on the boat we saw hundreds and hundreds of people waiting in line and even more stillin the ship. When we got on board, it was already very uncomfortable because it was so crowded. I saw a few sick people already in the ship, a lot of people got sea sick along the way as well.
As we finally got there, we saw this huge statue called The Statue of Liberty. We had to wait in line for a while again, to be asked a series of questions by immigration officers. That was followed by another line that led to doctors checking us quickly for diseases; those that were lucky had a ‘P’ written on them.
After that, we could start the walk down the stairs to start a new life. At the time I was so very scared and got jostled and shoved around by the huge crowd.
Of course, life was no bed of roses after that. When we got to New-York, we had to face widespread discrimination on a daily basis. Luckily, we weren’t the only ones because there were a lot of other Italians like us. After a while, we settled in and now I write to my brother and mom every two months. We’re so happy here. I can’t wait for them to join us.
Lucas
THE MYSTERIOUS HOLE
A long time ago there were three friends called Bob, George and Peter. They were living together because their parents had been killed in wars. Every day they needed to cross a forest to get to school. One day when the three friends came back home across the forest, they saw a giant hole. They never had seen this hole before. As Bob bent over to peer inside, he lost his footing and fell in! George and Peter heard “AHH” and then everything went silent.
The two boys were scared. What had happened to Bob? George peered into the darkness of the hole and fell in as well. Now Peter, the least brave of the three, was the only person left. He was terrified but he didn’t know what to do, which why he jumped into the hole as well.
At first Peter felt that he was falling really fast but ten seconds after he felt like he was flying. Soon after, he fell on something soft. It was a huge pillow. There he found his friends, looking surprised but comfy. They looked around them. They could see they were in some sort of a room, but none of them could see any sign of a away out. But then Bob shouted “here’s a door”! They ran to it, tried with all their might to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. Bob spotted a key on a rock. They took the key, opened the door and looked outside. Much to their amazement, the friends saw Romans. They were now somehow in the past!
How were they going to get back to their own time? Were they going to have an adventure? Or were other mysterious things going to happen to them?
But that’s another story!!!
Jolan