Sarah Brennan Funny & Fabulous Blog

2015 – 2017 Competitions

COMPETITION NO. 28: A SUNNY SUMMER POETRY COMPETITION!

Phew! I’ve just finished the judging of my Sunny Summer Poem Competition! It was tremendous fun, but exhausting… I think I need a good long drink of lemonade with ice!

There were a total of 79 fabulous entries this time, from 21 schools in 8 cities around the world: Calcutta, Chicago, Hong Kong, Perth, Seattle, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney! A big thank you to all of you for your very hard work and wonderful creations.

Free verse was definitely the favourite genre, but there were also some wonderful rhyming poems, a few excellent acrostics, and even one clever double-limerick! But no haikus this time…perhaps you were all haiku-ed out in my Hair-Raising Halloween competition last year!

Judging was very difficult indeed this time, as you will see, and I had to strictly follow the criteria set out in the Rules to make sure that I was fair to everyone. I thought it might be helpful if I set out here the criteria I used. If you weren’t among the top ten in your category this time, make sure you enter my next poetry competition, and see if you can apply the following pointers:

1. The genre – did your poem follow the rules of the genre; was it a good example of the genre?
2. Line count – I had to be very strict about this – no more than 16 lines were allowed;
3. Great vocabulary – I was looking for really interesting and unusual words, used appropriately;
4. Originality – I was looking for ideas that were different from the others;
5. Style – overall, was your poem written well? Did it show a lightness of touch? Was the meaning clear? Did it ‘sing’? Style was the most important criterion, carrying the most points. Some of you wrote long poems with excellent vocabulary, but the overall effect was too heavy. Beware especially of the overuse of adjectives and adverbs!
6. Summery and happy – yes, I did ask for this, and unfortunately there were some rather good poems that were really rather depressing, so they didn’t make the final cut!
7. That all important X-factor – hard to define, but what I was looking for was something that made me go “Wow! This writer is a POET.” So I was looking for what I call a ‘poetic sensibility’ which marked your poem out; something a little bit magical and ‘other-wordly’.

The other essential tip to boost your poetry writing is – you guessed it – to read lots and lots of poetry! Ask your librarian or English teacher to point you to some great poets, and fall in love with their extraordinary words and ideas!

Just a quick further note: for schools in the Northern Hemisphere, this competition started just before the end of the school year in June, and ended after the beginning of the school year in August/September. So I allowed students still in Grade 6 in June to enter the competition, even if they are now in Grade 7! So you may find that someone in Grade 6 in the competition is no longer at your primary school; you might also find that the grades mentioned for contestants in other years are now one year higher.

First place winners will each receive a free signed copy of one of my books!

Here are the Top Ten in each category:

YEARS ONE TO THREE CATEGORY

In this category there were 17 entries from 9 schools in 5 cities: in Chicago (Dryden School); Hong Kong (German Swiss International School, Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School); Shanghai (Shanghai United International School); Singapore (Canadian International School Tanjong Katong, United World College SEA Dover, United World College SEA East) and Sydney (Arden Anglican School).

Well done to everyone who entered, especially the younger contestants who were entering a writing competition for the first time! Keep practicing, and entering more competitions, and you’ll get better and better at your poetry writing!

 

FIRST PLACE: Madeline Painter, Grade 3, Dryden School, Arlington Heights, Chicago, United States, 9 years old

Readers will remember that Madeline won the Hair-Raising Halloween Poetry Competition last year. And this time she’s done it again! Congratulations Madeleine on a very sophisticated free verse poem, which conjures up summer vividly with its gorgeous vocabulary. Madeleine’s entry is very clever: take note of her skillful use of imagery (painting pictures), sound and sensation to evoke all the excitement of a water-gun fight, and the way that she has captured summer in such an original way – not by making summer itself the subject, but by writing about a quintessentially summer activity. And what a great ending! Singapore’s loss is Chicago’s gain, and Madeline is well on her way to becoming an accomplished poet.

Squirt

The radiant sun shining on my face,

The swift breeze rushing though my hair,

The iridescent stream of liquid whizzing towards my belly,

Wait, what?

Ahhhhh, now I hear it,

Gleeful cries of “Water gun fight!”

More cries, this time “Cold!” And “That feels gooood!”

The sound of my victims’ guns clattering to the ground as the Warriors surrender,

Yes, it feels good to be victorious in a water gun fight.

I

Am

Triumphant!

Squirt!

SECOND PLACE: Anya Lin Husain, Grade 2, UWC Dover, Singapore, 7 years old

A well-deserved Second Place to one of the youngest poets to enter the competition! It was Anya’s beautiful imagery that impressed me most. I loved especially the opening line, and her description of sunset as it “spreads its colours and throws them into the air”. These original and lyrical lines bear promise of great poetry in the future from this young writer! Keep up the good work Anya!

Summer 

Summer skies are purple and sweet like lavender 

Shining like crystal

A cool wind and a cool scent

Making a girl or a boy say

“Mommy I want some mangoes”

“Daddy where is my towel to dry myself”

Then Daddy says: “Let’s go upstairs” but too late

Girls and boys jump quickly back into the pool

Summer evenings are when the sunset

Spreads its colors and throws them into the air

And little kids count and sing the colors:

Golden red, yellow, pink, brown, silver, purple and 

Then finally black.

THIRD PLACE: Abby Heathcote, Year 3, The Kellett School, Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, 7 years old

Abby was the only entrant in this category to attempt an acrostic poem, and she did so with excellent results! Her brief poem paints a vivid picture of an English summer, and I love the way she has chosen her small snapshots: the sandcastles, the fish and chips, and especially the bare feet in the sand. Great job Abby!

Summer Fun

S un

U nforgettable fun

M aking sandcastles

M y family and me, shout “Whoopee!”

E nglish fish and chips

R unning barefoot in the sand.

HONOURABLE MENTION: Nicolette Ng, Grade 2, Shanghai United International School, Shanghai, 7 years old

A big well done to Nicolette, who at 7 years of age has written a very competent rhyming poem about summer! Her rhyming pattern was spot-on, and I did enjoy her “big beautiful shining sun” and her punchline at the end! Keep up the good work Nicolette and make sure you enter my next competition!

Summer Is Fun

Summer is fun,

We can play in the sun.

Summer is great,

I can’t wait.

We can go to lots of places,

We can see lots of faces.

We eat ice cream every day,

Then I go and run to play.

The sun shines very bright,

I like it in the sunlight.

I love it in summertime,

I lost my tooth and got a dime.

Every time and every day,

I run outside to go play.

The big beautiful shining sun,

I don’t need to get homework done.

 

SPECIAL MENTION: Lucinda Dudgeon, Year 2, The Kellett School, Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, 6 years old

A very special mention for the youngest entrant in this competition, Lucinda Dudgeon. I thought  her poem was adorable, especially her heartfelt plea that we keep our seas clean!

The Beach

The beach has lots of sand,

When I go there it always makes me glad.

The beach has lots of sea,

It says: “I am not a dustbin, don’t throw rubbish in me”.

There are fish living in the sea,

They say: “Don’t throw rubbish near me”.

I love to go to the sea,

I wish it would always be clean.

 

RUNNERS-UP: a big WELL DONE to the five runners-up! I look forward very much to seeing more of your work in future competitions!

 Megan To, Grade 3, German Swiss International School, Hong Kong, 8 years old

Sizzling in the sun with my friends

and family.

Umbrella held up to prevent my

peachy skin from turning brown.

My mom buys me chocolate ice-cream

because I feel very hot in Summer!

Mosquitos buzzing around looking

for my skin.

Enjoying the summer with my family.

Running around in Summer is so

much fun!

Shreya Gudi, Grade 3, Canadian International School Tanjong Katong campus, Singapore, 8 years old

Summer Time

On a summer day,

I would go to the bay,

Watch the waves crash by the shore,

Yes, school is a bore.

Summer seems too good to last

It will soon become my past

For when summer ends,

It will go around the bend,

For now, get in the pool,

Stay cool,

Build a treehouse with my tools,

And have lots of fun,

In the very hot sun!

Thomas Gordon, Year 2 at Arden Anglican School, Beecroft, Sydney, 7 years old

Beach Balls

I like to kick around,

Rolling on the ground.

If I throw it high,

It might touch the sky.

Then it won’t be found.

Max Chen, Grade 2, Shanghai United International School, Shanghai, 7 years old

Summer Day

It’s summer, 

Go out and play!

It’s the best day,

And beautiful trees!

See honey bees,

And play in the woods,

Or read a fascinating book!

Aerin Lau, Grade 3, Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau, Hong Kong, 8 years old

Summer is the best

The children play in the beach

Swimming with their mama’s reach

They go back to the shore for a rest.

If you didn’t have any assignments

We could have a vacation!

We could go to different locations

And you would have a flood of excitement!

Summer is extremely hot

And we would sweat a lot

This is what I hate

And washing is too late!

It is really boring in summer

I wish school would start sooner

With no friend or classmates

Why school always starts so late?

 

YEARS FOUR TO SIX CATEGORY

In this category there were 62 entrants from 21 schools in 7 cities: in Calcutta (DPS Newtown); Hong Kong (Australian International School, Beacon Hill School, Chinese International School, Discovery Bay International School, French International School), German Swiss International School, Kowloon Junior School and Shatin Junior School); Perth (Good Shepherd Catholic School Lockridge); Seattle (Hamilton International School); Shanghai (Shanghai United International School); Singapore (Canadian International School Lakeside, Canadian International School Tanjong Katong, United World College SEA Dover, United World College SEA East) and Sydney (Homeschool).

Congratulations to every one who entered; please do enter my next Clever Competition as I would love to see more of your work, and practice truly does make perfect!

 A special word for short-listed entrants Elisha Xu, Emily Cameron, Mia Santangelo, Rene Xin, Neil Vijayan, Bastien Buwalda, Aisha Zobrist and Kenton To for their fantastic poems. While you didn’t quite make the final cut, you made the top 20 in a very competitive field!

 FIRST PLACE: Aria Fafat, Grade 6, UWCSEA Dover, Singapore, 11 years old

Aria’s free verse poem was a knockout! Her wonderfully original idea of a summer pencil drawing pictures on her Canvas of Life, her superb vocabulary, her summery images and wonderful style ticked every box for me. Aria placed first in the Hair-Raising Halloween Poem competition last year, and this time has won another well-deserved First Place – congratulations Aria on an excellent poem!

The Artist

My canvas stands blank, eager and anticipating.

A shade of grey lead skitters across the corner;

Meandering purposefully through the void of white

Possessing my eyes in a hypnotic trance

Sketching and shading shapes of colors.

A cool splash of foaming surf of blue;

Golden crabs on glowing grains;

Books lounging on a lazy hammock;

A bed of vibrant flowers amidst fragrant breeze.

Charcoal figures come to light.

Smiling faces of family and friends!

With sticky cones of cream and ice

A pause…

Oh! The line hops on me and shades me a lemonade

A hat on head… sunglasses tinting the skies…

Ah! the Canvas of Life, painted by the line of Summer…

 

EQUAL SECOND PLACE; Isha Jain, Canadian International School, Lakeside; Jemma Julian, Homeschooled, Sydney; Sonia Mei Husain, UWCSEA Dover, Singapore 

This time, for the first time, there are multiple entries in Second Place. These are three very different poems, with different strengths and weaknesses, and, try as I might, I found it impossible to choose between them! I’ve explained my reasons below. Taken overall, these poems were outstanding!

Isha Jain, Grade 6 Canadian International School, Lakeside, Singapore, 11 years old

Isha’s rhyming poem scored high for great vocabulary, originality and X-factor – I loved the home setting, with cosily familiar ingredients, the squabble with her brother and the crickets’ duel! I especially loved the penultimate line with its description of nights ‘sheathed in silver’ and days ‘woven gold’ showing a lovely poetic sensibility. There was however a small mistake with tense (past in second line, present in the last lines) and her use of the word ‘berserk’ wasn’t quite right; berserk means hysterical and demented, a negative connotation which doesn’t really fit this happy poem!

Summer paradise

Summer!

I felt my heart aflutter!

Long, blissful days with no end in sight,

Late, lazy mornings, left to my own plight!

Curled in bed, cradling a much awaited story,

Elated to find Albus Potter in Hogwarts dormitory.

Munching Doritos and gorging on luscious ice-cream,

Guffawing uncontrollably at the ludicrous antics of Mr Bean.

Lounging by the cerulean swimming pool,

Observing the progress of two crickets, engrossed in a duel.

Squabbling with my brother and stealing his treasured pen,

(You best an older sibling only now and then).

No assessments and no homework,

Purposeless and idle! I am going berserk!

Nights sheathed in silver and days woven gold,

Oh! How I wish the summer would last tenfold.

Jemma Julian, Year 6, Homeschooled, Sydney, 11 years old

I loved Jemma’s poem about a friend who escapes the tyranny of technology for the joys of summer for many reasons: the great title; the very original ideas; the internal rhyming pattern in every line which was both clever and original; her trademark advanced vocabulary. But I felt that her choice of words was sometimes strained in order to fit the internal rhyming pattern (wildlife, milestone, glummer) and this did take away from the total effect. Jemma is no stranger to the finalists list and has placed in three previous competitions. Well done again, Jemma!

Finding Summer

You were a newcomer to that scorching-hot summer,

Until now had spent your life in a cold place with no wildlife.

Lived inside your precious phone and that’s all you’d ever known,

Until I smashed that thing, told you to believe again in the faerie ring.

Why waste, on technology, a whole lovely day, when you can go and play?

Trapped in virtual reality, when you could be free!

But now we share our imagination to make fun with creation,

Pass long hot hours making daisy chains out of flowers.

Climb up trees with the greatest of ease,

Go to the beach, swim and buy an ice cream each.

Eclipse the boiling sun with incessant fun,

Jump around then roll along the grassy ground.

Defy the heat by sleeping under one sheet…

Before you came here, I bet you were glummer, but now you can enjoy the summer.

Lived inside your precious phone… I’m so glad you overcame that milestone!

 

Sonia Mei Husain, Grade 4, UWCSEA Dover, Singapore, 9 years old 

Sonia’s poem is an exercise in simplicity, clarity and charm. I loved the ‘burning sand under pink feet’, the ‘tan lines’ and the disarming honesty – ‘spying on your neighbors’ and ‘boredom’! Her poem demonstrates that it is not necessary to write a lot of words to create a vivid and effective poem. As is often said, sometimes less is more! However I felt that the last 3 lines did lose a bit of steam. Overall, a fantastic effort, placing 9 year old Sonia right up there with the ‘big kids’ in Grade 6! Well done!

Summer

Summer is crystal clear waves

Under blue skies

Burning sand

Under pink feet

Late breakfasts

Tan lines

Midnight feasts

Visit from grandma

Summer is spying on your neighbors

And boredom 

A surprise visit to Thailand

And finally “start of new school year” shopping

And so when all these things are used

Summer can start again.

 

THIRD PLACE: Filip Janousek, Grade 6, Canadian International School, Lakeside, Singapore, 12 years old

Filip’s poem was all about X-factor, or that ‘poetic sensibility’ I mentioned before. Bells which ‘shout like crows’; long shadows like ‘creatures’ with ‘big long hands and legs waltzing’; the sun ‘wrinkling up your whiskers and fur’, the kids ‘rumbling around’ – wow, wow, wow! And I loved the final prayer. With the use of more sophisticated vocabulary, and more summery description, this poem would have ticked every box! Keep on writing Filip – you have real promise as a poet and a writer.

Summer time

Summer, the awesome time,

When the school bells shout like crows,

And kids rush out of the school doors

To pools and houses to enjoy this wonderful time.

In the mornings, the sun wakes up early,

To wrinkle up your whiskers and fur,

It leaves long shadows looking like creatures

With their big long hands and legs,

Waltzing in the early summer breeze.

Kids shout all around cities and villages

As they enjoy this beautiful time.

They rumble around, playing tug o’ war

And hide n’ seek around the giant peak of a hill.

At the end of the last day,

All the kids pray:

“Summer, oh summer, please come back tomorrow.”

 

HONOURABLE MENTION: Uma Kewlani, Grade 6, Canadian International School, Lakeside, Singapore, 12 years old

Uma’s poem was another beautiful example of poetic feeling. While for me, lines 3 to 5 were unnecessary and let the poem down, I loved the rest of the poem, with its images of movement – running, prowling, flying into the sun – and the close of the poem with the writer’s heart beating to the rhythm of the hummingbird’s wings. Beautiful work Uma; please do keep writing!

The Feeling of Summer

I move through the rustling, lush green grass

My fingers skim across the blades as I race through the plain

I sprint through the maze of grass and fall upon a rock

The rock blazes with heat

I get back up without a second glance

I run to the beat of the birds chirping, the leaves rustling, the wind howling,

I am prowling across the ground

I jump and hit the sky

I fly, fly across the plains, fly across acres of land, fly straight into the sun

My hair blows out behind me like a halo

As I land right onto a tree

I lay down and slowly fall asleep

I hear the crows cawing and the hummingbird’s tiny wings beating

My heart beats along to the wings

And I slowly realize I am finally at home

 

RUNNERS-UP:

 Quinten Buwalda, Year 4, Australian International School Hong Kong, 9 years old

I thought that Quinten’s acrostic poem was clever and contained some great vocabulary for a 9 year old!

Summer Madness

Shinning sun warming my bronzed skin

Umbrella slowly drowning in my melting ice cream

Mermaids swimming in the glittering pool of my imagination

Milkshakes quenching my everlasting thirst

Endless excitement on the balcony of my cosy house

Relaxing on the golden beach with my feet on the warm sand

Majestic mangos adorning the branches of the towering tree in front of my window

Adoring my newfound freedom that was painfully taken at school

Dancing in the cool summer breeze with my dazzling friend

Nothing stopping me enjoying lazy afternoon naps in my comfortable hammock

Extraordinary patterns emerging from the beautiful pink sky treating my squinted eyes

Seagulls harmonically squawking in my sensitive ears

Summer Madness, it couldn’t be further from my reality

 

Ady Lam, Year 6, Beacon Hill School, 11 years old

Ady’s list poem was soooo summery, with some great vocabulary (including four of my Wicked Words J)!

Summer is…

Summer is June,

July, August.

Summer is beaches,

Disneyland, your bed.

Summer is playing,

Watching movies, having fun.

Summer is crystal-clear ice,

Holidays, sunglasses.

Summer is enjoyable,

Exciting, groovy.

Summer makes you effervescent,

Ecstatic, Happy

Do tell, where do you plan to spend your

estival vacation?

Hong Kong, Brazil, Thailand?

Summer is pleasant,

Now THAT’S indubitable!

 

Adya Agarwal Gupta, Grade 4, Canadian International School Tanjong Katong, Singapore, 9 years old

Adya’s lyrical poem contained some gorgeous language and images, especially her bees pollinating and the Buisson (a sort of flowering bush) blooming!

 A Sunny Summers Day

My eyes flutter open

Sunlight streams in

Was this really happening?

Or was I just imagining?

Have the bees started to pollinate?

The flowers can’t wait!

It’s definitely not in my mind,

Winter’s far behind!

Hurrah! Hurray!

A trip to the beach today

Water roars in delight

Covered in shimmering sunlight

The fan spinning on

Playing with my blouse made out of chiffon

A Buisson blooms in glory

For summer is a whole new story.

 

Lillian Lee, Grade 6, Hamilton International Middle School, Seattle USA, 12 years old

Lillian’s double-limerick was perfectly executed, great fun and made me smile! It’s a sad goodbye to Lillian, who has entered every competition of mine for the last three years! Good luck with high school Lillian, and make sure you keep up the wonderful writing!

Billy’s Summer

There once was a boy named Billy

During summer he laughed himself silly

Estival vacations

75 days of PlayStations

He loved every bit of it, really.

But he started to miss his good friends

So he went out and bought some school pens

School’s not so bad

When it starts he’ll be glad

Besides, there’s always the weekends

 

SPECIAL MENTION: Sylvia Chan, Year 6, Shatin Junior School, 10 years old

Finally, a very special mention for Sylvia, who was brave enough to write a Shakespearean sonnet! It’s not quite perfect, but it’s a fantastic attempt, and I thought that the last four lines were inspired! Great job Sylvia, and best of luck with your move up to Shatin College!

Shakespeare Sylvia’s Summer

The school year is ov’r and done,

I despise the heat from the sun.

I hadst no choice than to turn on AC,

Or taking covereth of shadow beneath a tree.

Thy house doth hadst been destroyed,

As thy enemy leaps ov’r thy imaginary void.

The lightsabers flash through the air,

Though madeth out of plastic, causes adults despair.

I enjoy ice-cream fresh from the freezer,

And fresh fruit juice from the squeezer.

Mosquitoes and bugs are my biggest foes,

Biting any bits of skin that hadst been exposed.

Inside the house, to be hot or not to be hot,

The fan, the cooler, the fridge or not?

Shall I compare summer to a summer’s day?

Full of joy and full of play.

COMPETITION NO. 27: A MISCHIEVOUS MONKEY STORY COMPETITION!

Helloooo again all you wonderful writers out there! It’s been a tough job judging this competition, but great fun too: your Mischievous Monkey Stories were so entertaining and varied! I do love the way that you all took my list of ingredients and mixed them up in so many different and original ways! I asked you to write a story including a mischievous monkey, a Chinese Emperor, a magic teapot, a big flood, a Chinese setting and the colour verditer; I also asked you to use at least three of my Wicked Words correctly! Well, I’m delighted to say that not one of your stories was the same, despite using all the set ingredients, and some of you went absolutely wild using lots of my Wicked Words, which of course earned you extra points!

Now the best writers are always looking for ways to write even better, and so this time I’ve decided to share with you a little more about what I’m looking for when I judge my competitions, and what common problems seem to be occurring in many of the entries I have read. Even the winners (announced below) will get a little bit of positive criticism, which I hope inspires them to polish their fabulous writing even more! So please don’t mind if I’ve said something a bit critical; it’s all in the vital cause of creating the great writers of the future!

I really enjoyed reading your stories! You did extremely well including the special characters and events which I asked for, although a few of you forgot to include my Wicked Words. But I’d like to make just a few general comments to help you with your writing next time:

Judging a competition is hard work, and the only way to do it properly, so that the very best writers win, in the correct order, is to make a list of everything I expect to see in good writing, put it on a spreadsheet, weight it for importance, and mark every story accordingly! This means that while the special ingredients I give you, as well as things like length and originality are very important, I do mark more “boring” things which are fundamental to good writing!

•  There were quite a few grammatical errors; in fact nobody’s story was grammatically perfect. The very best way to improve your grammar is to read good books, every single day, for leisure and pleasure. This will give you an innate sense of what looks and sounds right when you are drafting and editing your story;
• The most common grammatical problem was TENSE. Please be very careful when you are editing to ensure that your tense remains consistent throughout the story;
• Speech marks were missing in many stories! Do make sure you revise these, and understand how to use them!
• Commas were either used in the wrong place, or in the place of semi-colons or colons, or sometimes were not used where they should have been! Again, please revise the rules, and make sure when you edit your story that you pay careful attention to your punctuation;
• One great tip to avoid grammar and punctuation errors is to look at your screen when you type up your story! You will find that your computer software will often underline wrong grammar or punctuation in red, and if you click on that, it will suggest the correct version! This is no substitute for knowing the rules of grammar and punctuation for yourself (which you will acquire if you are a constant reader), but nonetheless it will help you to edit your script before handing it in.

 When readers read a story, they start automatically painting pictures in their heads, drawn from the information given to them by the writer. That’s why the more information about setting and character, the richer and more satisfying the story, and the higher you will score in writing competitions. From this arises two points:

• Anyone who knows me knows that I am a setting-fiend! I need much more information from all of you about the SETTING! I need to read descriptions of landscape, weather and season and I also need to know when/in what era the story is set. I love it when a writer uses the weather, or the season, throughout the story to add atmosphere or to drive the plot. I love it when a writer gives me a detailed picture of a place, (in this case, China), which convinces me that they’ve done a bit of research and really understand the place they are writing about!
• I also need to know more about the CHARACTERS! What did they look like, what sort of personality did they have, what motivated them? The more you can tell me, the richer and more interesting the picture I can paint in my mind as I read your story! And don’t forget that details about characters, such as their background, or any special qualities they may have, can become important ingredients in your plot!

 Finally, while most of you made a fabulous effort with the beginning of your stories, I did find that some stories tended to meander in the middle, with no clear build-up to a climax, or with multiple small climaxes and no clear structure. I found even more often that the resolution of the story problem and the ending came in a bit of a rush and was not very satisfying! Please remember that the end of the story is JUST as important as the beginning, and no matter how good the start is, if the ending isn’t strong, the reader will be left with a negative impression.

The solution to all issues of plot structure, setting and characters is, of course, TO WRITE A STORY PLAN BEFORE YOU WRITE YOUR FIRST DRAFT! I can always tell if someone has used a story plan, because their story starts well, ends well, and ticks all the right boxes!

Enough of my little lecture, and on with the announcement of the 12 fantastic winners of the competition (6 in each Category), and the publication of their stories below! And at the end, there’s a little treat from a Singaporean kindergarten! First place winners also receive a free signed copy of one of my books!

YEARS ONE TO THREE CATEGORY

In this section there was a total of twelve entries from seven different schools in Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia! There was some fabulous creativity among the writers in this section, including two very well-attempted poems in rhyme! Well done to all the entrants in this category as follows:

IN HONG KONG:

Discovery Bay International School Hong Kong: Year 3 – Tabitha Peters

ISF Academy, Hong Kong: Year 3 – Amanda Ning Fook Li

IN AUSTRALIA:

Arden Anglican School , Beecroft, NSW: Year 3 – Emily Davis

Dominic College, Hobart, Tasmania: Year 3 – Lucas Atkinson; Bree Bester; Xander Roberts; Jasmin Bailey; Jayden Buckley

IN SINGAPORE:

Canadian International School, Tanjong Katong Campus, Singapore: Grade 3 – Leela Strathern, Manas Agrawal

Stamford American International School, Singapore: Year 3 – Madeline Painter

UWCSEA East, Singapore: Year 3 – Aisha Zobrist

 

FIRST PLACE: Emily Davis, Year 3 Arden Anglican School, Sydney, 9 years old

Readers will recall that Emily came first in the Three Chinese Characters Story Competition last year – and now she has done it again! Emily’s story was complex, very original and contained several clever twists as the plot developed. She managed to incorporate a grand total of no less than eight of my Wicked Words in a story that oozed style and great vocabulary. I loved her use of adjectives, the terrific beginning and the rather wry end. Do be careful Emily with your punctuation: there were a few hyphens and commas missing, and a couple of errors in tense. But overall the story was wonderful! Well done, Emily, on another fantastic result!

Tea 4 Two

 “Fruit, fruit, glorious, sweet fruit” The monkey squealed with delight from his perch high above the grand palace courtyard.  A tantalising smell of ripe mango wafted up to him. Just a few more minutes to wait.  The cook would be out of his way and then it would be all his.

“Quiet, quiet must not draw attention “the monkey thought.

He swung down from the roof dropping onto the kitchen windowsill.  Peering into the room saliva dripped from his verditer stained mouth.

 A glint of gold flashed in the sunlight.  Was it a shiny mango?  He eyed each piece of fruit intensely looking for the glint once more. There.. there it was…. But in the hands of the cook!  Her cheeks were red, her open mouth was huge. His orange fur stuck straight up as her high pitched scream hit him.  Just before the shiny thing followed smashing into his chest.

 “ Hiii Yaaaaaaaahhhh. Take that you pesky monkey!!” screamed the cook.

The monkey fell backwards, wrapping his tiny paws around the gold teapot.  He did a backwards flip, sprung up the drain pipe, across the roof and away. Back to his jungle home.

 The monkey stared intently at his reflection in the gold surface of the teapot.  How elegant he looked, how bold and brave. He stroked it loving, over and over until the surface shone like the Emperor’s golden pendant.

 A blue bird flitted down, its verditer wings glowing in the afternoon sun. Intrigued by the monkey’s precious pot, she cocked her head watching as the monkey muttered to himself in a trancelike state. “Fruit, fruit, gold, fruit,”  “Poor monkey,” thought the bird. “He must be famished.” It was already late in the season and the trees had hardly produced any fruit this year.  She glanced up at the trees and gasped: – they were no longer bare instead they were covered in white blossoms.  To her amazement they started transforming into fruits, hundreds of them.  The bird eyed the scene with increasing suspicion.

“ ..So grand, so amazing, I should be the Emperor,” murmured the monkey.  The blue bird stretched out her beak to nudge the monkey but instead she nudged thin air.  Only the pot remained still glowing like the embers of a fire…

The Emperor’s bed was embroidered with gold thread covering layers and layers of silk bedsheets. No one in the whole of China had a bed so sumptuous. The Emperor opened one eye and screamed.  He jumped up and down on the bed on his hands and knees, ripping the silk bedsheets, his eyes bulging, wild.  Where were his trees? Where was his precious teapot?  He screamed a high, cold scream. Who had dared to part him from his glorious life in the Jungle? Where was he now!?

 Suddenly a servant burst in. ”Sire, sire I heard you scream and and…. “

The Emperor scrambled up the hand engraved wooden bed post.  The post creaked under his weight, the bed canopy sagged down. The servant stifled a screech and ran out.

“Help, help.  The Emperor is unwell, someone help him. Where is the Empress? Find her she will calm him down.”

The Empress swept into the room carrying his favourite tea. “My dear Emperor what troubles you?  Did the servant upset you?  Or was it the bedsheets again?” The Empress glanced at the Emperor and then hastily looked away.  “ Errr.. how about some tea?” She kept her eyes firmly on the ground and placed the filled teacup on the bed.  The Emperor dangled an arm down snatched the tea cup, gulped down some of the tea and then spat it out all over the Empresses face.

“ Aaaaghhgh” cried the Emperor “ as his wife rushed out of the room.

“Ergh that stuff had been atrocious and who had been that ugly woman?” He had to get out of this horrible place. 

Frantically he looked around, spotted the open door of the bathroom and bounded in. Heaving himself up onto the basin to reach the open window above, his foot slipped on a tap.  A torrent of water gushed out into the basin.  The Emperor lurched forward hoisting himself onto the windowsill with a grunt and inadvertently lost his sleeping cap which fell into the basin blocking it.  The water continued to cascade down overfilling the basin and flooding the floor.

The Emperor’s nightrobe caught on the catch of the window tearing a hole revealing his bottom. A drainpipe snaked to the ground. The Emperor clambered out and wrapped his body around the pipe. The drainpipe tore away from the wall under his weight. Landing on the stone courtyard, he stared in disbelief at his hairless paws. He brought his hands up to his face – hairless. The Emperor was completely bamboozled. Just then a pandemonium of servants raced out from every door of the palace to seize him…

The bluebird flew off with the teapot clasped tightly in her beak, watching as the Emperor was chased round and round the courtyard by his servants. Her beak unclasped, the teapot fell. Spinning round and round she prayed she had thought right. Oh please let it be!  The Emperor snatched up the pot with great exuberance. This is how it had started and it was how it would end.   He shut his eyes tightly, grasped the teapot and he thought of being back home in the jungle, back with all his monkey friends.

 When he opened his eyes there were his trees, there were the other monkeys whooping.   He had never been happier in his whole life.

 The Emperor collapsed into the waiting arms of his servant. He was ushered inside and laid down in his bed. He lay fitful and clammy with the Empress by his side.  As she watched, the colour returned to his face.  He appeared peaceful, his eyes not so wild and desperate.

“It must indubitably have all been a dream “said the Emperor and he laughed. The Empress smiled with relief that her husband was once again himself.  The story of the flood and of the Emperor’s chase around the courtyard could wait.

SECOND PLACE: Leela Strathern, Grade 3, Canadian International School, Tanjong Katong Campus, Singapore, 9 years old

I loved Leela’s exciting story set in the future, where a Chinese emperor rules the world with the help of a magic teapot. It was action-packed and good fun to read, although there were a few errors in spelling and especially some missing commas. Overall a terrific story though, which won Leela a very creditable second place!

The Owner of the Teapot

This is a story set in the future. It is not a future you would expect with robots, lasers and drones. This future is ruled by a mystical, magical royalty. A Chinese Emperor rules the world from America to Australia from the north pole to the south. China’s Ang dynasty controls everything, but little do people know that the key to the power of the dynasty was not money, not factories and not armies, but a humble, vertider teapot.

“Oi, get off me!” shouted the mischievous monkey called Lun Kee to his older brother. Lun Kee looked ordinary but was actually sly and sneaky. His older brother gripped him by the tail trying to stop him running off. Life was hard in the monkey kingdom ever since the Emperor took over the world. The Emperor had put all the monkeys to work. All the monkeys had protested but the Emperor had thrown his head back and shouted: “Nonsense!” The monkeys knew that the Emperor was not in power because people wanted him to be, but rather because of the teapot.    

Lun Kee, with a determined look on his face, said “I’ve got to get that teapot.”

“No,” said the older brother whose name was Arn Kay. Arn Kay was fastidious and did not like chaos.

“Huh,” said Lun Kee defiantly. “Arn Kay, you’re not going to stop me”.

But even Lun Kee gasped as he stepped out of the monkey kingdom. Little did Lun Kee know that the monkey kingdom was guarded by soldiers, with guns! Even if Lun Kee was mischievous, he was not evil so when he stepped out of the monkey kingdom he didn’t attack. Instead, he tried to talk his way out of it.

“Um , hi guys!” he said trying to look as casual as possible. “Just erm …popping out… um… fooooor … a well… you know… erm morning walk, he ha ,” he giggled nervously.

But unluckily for Lun Kee the guards looked furious. “GET HIM!” they shouted. Lun Kee had to run for his life!

“Just nearly there,” he muttered. As soon as he took his first step into the Emperor’s kingdom, he gasped. It was not the leafy jungle he was used to in the monkey kingdom. It seemed more like a town square with teashops and a bakery with ladies sitting outside and chatting. Children were playing, weaving round the adults’ legs and robot guards with heads like parakeets were walking everywhere.

Despite Lun Kee’s gulp, he boldly quickened his pace. “Ooof, Ow,” Lun Kee said as he bumped into something tall. Lun Kee looked up. The thing looked down. Lun Kee gasped. It was a robot parakeet!
“Oi, whatcha doin ‘ere?” it said pulling him.

“Nothing,” said Lun Kee before changing his mind. “Oh uh, didn’t the Emperor tell you he, erm, sent for me?” he said, lying.

“Well he must have forgot,” added Lun Kee and believe it or not the guard actually believed him!

“Yesssss” Lun Kee cheered to himself as he ran inside the palace ignoring the pandemonium he caused as he knocked over statues and pottery. Children screamed, running everywhere. Suddenly he ran into what looked like a grove. And it was: the sacred grove of the vertider magic teapot.

“Careful,” said a bossy voice.

Lun Kee looked around and there he saw a young girl – the Emperor’s daughter. Lun Kee looked at his feet like a schoolboy being told off.

“Well I just wanted to have the teapot.”

And the princess answered, in the most unexpected way possible: “Hi. My name is Li Wu, which means beautiful. You can take the teapot. I don’t see why it is so important to Daddy. But only for a joke you understand. You have to put it back.”

You see, young Li Wu didn’t know about the charm the teapot carried. Lun Kee nodded his head, but Lun Kee being Lun Kee, would never return it. It would be his. All his. Lun Kee was excited. The teapot was a brilliant blue, with a glimmer all around it. Lun Kee stumbled and drips of water spilled from it. But even when he stood upright, water came trickling out.

Lun Kee thought: “How could such a tiny teapot carry so much water?”
Lun Kee got worried. Suddenly he screamed and jumped up as water gushed out. There was a flood up to his waist. Panic was everywhere. People screamed and ran and covered their faces with handkerchiefs and were hanging onto the rafters of the ceiling. Children were crying as buildings crashed onto each other.

As soon as all the monkeys (including Arn Kay) heard about the flood they rushed to the Emperor’s land. When Arn Kay saw the teapot he pressed his hand to his heart. His untrustworthy brother. What else would he do?

Li Wu, seeing Arn Kay’s worried expression laughed and said: “Come here monkey man”.

Arn Kay scuttled over nervously. Li Wu whispered and said: “First we rob the teapot from your pest of a brother.

“But I can’t…” he began. But just at that very moment a clap of thunder came. The Emperor rose out of the palace.

“WHO HAS MY TEAPOT!!!!??” he screamed and then he lowered his voice, his face red with sweat trickling from his forehead. “And whoever has it, they will give it back”, he said through clenched teeth.

Li Wu had a brainwave. “Lun Kee, if you give up the teapot all the monkeys will be free of slavery”.

Lun Kee didn’t know what to do. Li Wu ran to the emperor.

“Dad. Come! You can get the teapot if you free the monkeys from slavery.”

Suddenly a change swept over the Emperor. He almost looked kind.

“Alright,” he said.

Lun Kee didn’t have a choice but to hand it over. And from then on the monkeys and the people lived happily and had a party to celebrate. Oh, and they shared that sumptuous teapot.

THIRD PLACE: Aisha Zobrist , Grade 3, UWCSEA East, Singapore, 8 years old

Aisha Zobrist, a first-time entrant in my Clever Competition, has won a well-deserved third place with a magnificent story in rhyming verse! The rhyming couplets were almost perfect; all the necessary ingredients including Wicked Words were correct and present, and the rhythm was not bad too! There were a few very small errors in grammar and punctuation; remember Aisha that the rules apply in poetry too! Overall, it was a remarkable achievement for an eight year old! Well done Aisha!

A Monkey Tale

A monkey so brown, as mischievous as could be

Was sitting up high, on a branch of a big Banyan tree.

In the forest of China with trees so tall,

The monkey climbed high looking over the wall.

Over the wall, in a land so fair,

Lived an Emperor named ‘Puyi’ with very dark hair.

Puyi was liked by almost all of his people;

He entertained in the Forbidden City playing games under the steeple!

None of them knew of Puyi’s teapot, that was magic,

Letting this get into the wrong hands could end up being tragic!

A man named Chan with a mellifluous tone,

He was kind, he was caring and enjoyed walking around all alone.

On his walk one day, in the forest so bright,

He spotted a monkey swinging around at great height.

He watched and he watched as the monkey swung by,

He is up to something, thought Chan, I will find out, I will try!

Now Puyi had the magic teapot hidden away from sight,

It was a very nice colour of verditer and white.  

The teapot was handed down years and years ago,

By Puyi’s great grandfather; his name was Pow.

Chan watched the monkey and followed the sounds;

They were heading through the forest towards the Emperor’s huge grounds.

He watched and he waited and wondered what was going on,

Then he saw something interesting and thought ‘hang on’.

The monkey was trying to stop a young man,

Who was dressed in dark clothes and was hiding his face behind a fan.

He climbed up the walls to enter inside,

But the monkey disturbed him and the man ran off to hide.

Chan asked to speak to the Chinese Emperor right away,

He told him of the monkey and the man that got away.

The Emperor laughed loud and sounded quite ecstatic

Of the thought of a monkey being so erratic.

The Emperor ordered Chan to leave his grounds at once,

He thought what he heard was complete nonsense,

All would be good if he listened to this man,

But instead Puyi carried on and Chan needed a plan.

The next day the rain poured and poured to the ground,

It was heavy and fast and made a very loud sound.

The man thought it would be good to steal the teapot today,

As everyone would be keeping out of the rain hiding away.

The rain did not stop and a big flood began to appear,

The man decided he would hide in the palace and wait until it cleared.

The monkey saw the man and decided to wait,

And see what the man did and would do something before it was too late.

As soon as the man was hiding inside,

The monkey swung off in the trees so high,

The monkey found Chan who decided to follow him,

Running through the rain felt quite tiring and grim.

They arrived at the palace, rang the bell and stood aside,

And as soon as the door opened the monkey went wild.

Everyone followed to see what was going on,

The Emperor appeared and banged on the gong.

Chan told the Emperor of the man hiding away,

Puyi called for security to catch the man right away.

They opened the door and guess who they found,

Yes, the man – hiding with his fan and sitting on the ground.

Security took him off to the dungeons right away with his fan

And Puyi ordered to speak to the monkey and Chan.

Puyi was happy, as happy as could be,

He thanked Chan and the Monkey who smiled with glee.

He asked them to choose something for being so caring

And explained what they did was very daring.

Chan asked for a suit to make him handsome and smart,

The monkey found a banana and held it close to his heart.

The suit was made and Chan looked resplendent and fair,

He helped save the magic teapot because he cared.

The rain had stopped and all was well,

Over the Forbidden City you could hear a loud bell.

Puyi, the emperor had ordered everyone to meet at noon if they can,

He stood and he told them all about the monkey and Chan.

Do you know who would be happiest of all right now,

I know, of course it would be Great Grandpa Pow.

 

FOURTH PLACE: Madeline Painter, Grade 3, Stamford American International School, Singapore, 9 years old

Readers will recall Madeline’s wonderful entries in my last three competitions, in which she gained a Special Mention in the Shaggy Sheep Poem competition, a Sixth Place in the Three Chinese Characters Story Competition, and finally First Place in the Hair-Raising Halloween Poetry competition! Combining her terrific skills in both poetry and story-writing, Madeline has, like Aisha, written her story in verse! Her story was great fun, using six Wicked Words correctly, and displayed a dry sense of humour, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Do be careful though, when writing in rhyme, to make sure that your rhyming pattern is consistent. Here Madeline’s rhyming pattern chopped and changed a little, which lost her some points.

Emperor Shingdai and the Land of the Monkeys

 Once upon a time, before the land was too fertile in China,

There was an illustrious emperor.  He had a verditer colored gown,

And he loved it very much cos’ it fit with his verditer colored crown.

Now this specific emperor ruled the land of monkeys.

But they were kind of crazy and most of all pretty funky.

 This fastidious emperor loved his gown a lot,

But his monkeys were tantalized,

Which made the emperor demoralized,

For he still didn’t know what the monkeys would plot.

 To defend the mighty gown,

He would gather up his men with their donkeys, kids and wives,

Then take them all to war and risk their lives.

 But he did not fear for he had a special teapot,

It had an extra special plaque,

And inside the teapot lived a genie with the gown just on his back.

 The magic teapot was like a good alarm,

For it always started to flood.

Water?

Oh no no. Not water but blood.

 The monkeys didn’t know this so one day they tried to nick,

The gown from that special teapot of brick,

Although it really makes the tea taste thick.

 They snuck into his safe

And tried to open up the hatch,

Just to find it was locked!

And all while they chattered lots and talked.

 The lightning flashed outside.

The thunder rumbled too.

But the monkeys still thought their confidence would make do.

 The waters were pouring everywhere!

At least that’s what the monkeys thought,

There was really blood in the air!

 The emperor saw that blood in the air,

And it made his hair stand on end,

For he knew he would have to defend,

That special, special gown.

 So the emperor marched all the way to town,

He gathered everyone all around,

And told to people of the coming flood.

 He really made ’em pusillanimous,

Like petrified ostriches with their heads in the mud,

When he told them it would be blood.

 As soon as he said that, the blood gushed mellifluously.

It went everywhere in town.

Blood traveled through the bushes, trees, and roads, up and down.

Even on the luscious gown!

 Then the monkeys with the gown came into view.

The men cried charge,

And the babies, well they just cried,

While the women grabbed all the egregious monkeys on cue.

 A while later, the resplendent gown was returned to the pot.

The blood flood had just about dried up.

The monkeys found they were banned from the palace.

Unfortunately for them, they could no longer cause any malice.

 The gown is now safe and all is copacetic.

But the monkeys have never been apologetic.      

The pot, the genie inside and the emperor all rest in peace,

Under the very place where the first drop of blood was ever released.

 

 FIFTH PLACE: Amanda Ning Fook Li, Grade 3, ISF Academy Hong Kong

Amanda’s story was action-packed, with an excellent beginning and a philosophical ending. It was a fun read, and I really enjoyed her description of the terrible flood. But watch out though for those backward speech marks Amanda, and be careful with your spacing!

The Monkey and the Teapot

Slash! Coco’s tail whipped again at the metal bar. The cheeky monkey was in a “special room” with strong walls (no furniture to break). The emperor stared at her from on his throne, fascinated, wondering when she would be calm enough to simply stick her tail straight and hoist herself out of the room.

Suddenly, a servant rushed into the room, dropping to his knees. “FLOOD!” The servant cried. “Your Majesty! The windows and doors are all locked, but we are now floating on the wave-”

The emperor jumped up high. “WHAT!” He roared.’’- and a wall is cracked-’’

Coco had been listening, obviously, but now she started screeching,”Out! Out! OUT!” Again and again, like she wanted to get out of the floating house.”Throw anything you can find OUT! NOW!”

The frantic servants started hurling pictures, pots, papers, and a whole ton of other stuff through the window. A guard made the mistake of ripping a bar from the window of the room Coco was in, and the naughty monkey leaped out. A maid quickly closed the window, but not before Coco swung out, yelling to be back in a “minute”.

The little monkey grabbed a chunk of wood and held on tightly (like her life depended on it. Actually, it did.). It carried her through the storm, past wreckages, over a wave, and finally, stopped in front of a twig. Suddenly, Coco launched herself onto the bobbing stick, staring at the marks on it. She paddled through the waters, until she came to a floating house.

Back in the floating emperor’s now damaged palace, the emperor was YELLING

at the terrified guard. ’’YOU STUPID IDIOT USELESS SERVANT! I ABSOLUTELY HATE YOU! WHY DID YOU LET THAT DARN MONKEY OUTTA THERE!? SHE WAS MY PET, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! ”

The guard fell to his knees.”Your Majesty, forgive me! I beg you! Sorry…”

Coco hoisted herself onto the plank, which seemed to fall apart every second. She stumbled across the broken door. As she stepped on a trapdoor, the monkey fell through the ground to a dark chamber.

 “Hmph! I pity you. But no more chances after this!” The emperor summed up.

”What great kindness his majesty has!”the servants murmured.

When the monkey noticed a load of golden pots, she squealed. Now, Coco was an absolutely fastidious ape, so she picked the shiniest pot, which was hidden among the other rusty ones. When she walked outside, the whole ocean seemed

to bow before her, saying: ”I am now under your command, mistress.”

Coco looked, in wonder, at the shining pot. Especially its glowing verditer rim, which she wondered what it did. She dipped the pot into the sea, making a scooping gesture, hoping she could scoop the flood up, bit by bit. As she bent down, her pinkie touched the verditer rim, making the already glowing pot shine with glory.

 After a blinding flash, the whole flood was sucked up into Coco’s hands. It was absolute pandemonium!

Houses floating on tides suddenly crashed down onto the now dry land. The same happened to the emperor’s completely wrecked one. Coco stared in amazement, then turn to run as the now-not-so-sumptuous ruler of Shanghai turned to grab her.

“DARE NOT ESCAPE!” He roared, and made a wild lunge at her. The monkey

swung from house to house, bar to bar. The emperor could not catch up, so gave up.

 After the monkey escaped, she caused chaos all over China with the flooding pot. A saying was always passed around: ”When there’s the monkey, there’s no peace.”

 

SIXTH PLACE: Tabitha Elizabeth Peters, Year 3, Discovery Bay International School Hong Kong, 8 years old

Tabitha’s story of a hungry monkey who learns how to share was a lot of fun; I especially liked her inclusion of other jungle animals, including the peacock that collected lollipops! There were a few errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling (especially with words that needed to be joined up, or hyphenated; watch out for these when you are editing Tabitha!) But overall, a fantastic effort for an eight year old!

Mike – the Mischievous Monkey

Many years ago, in the deepest, darkest forest in China, there lived a nosey, greedy, bossy, impish and jumpy Monkey called Mike. He was a lot of trouble to the other

Animals and didn’t really care that Winter was coming. Even though some of the Animals did not hibernate, they all hated Winter and going out in the Winter for hours looking for food, would certainly make their feet freeze! All that Mike did every day was cause pandemonium for the other Animals!

One bitter day Mike woke up and was colder then ever. He did not have enough food for the day and did not dare to go out in that horribly horrible day – but he was a little hungry!

So he swung on the vines to Tiger’s house. Suddenly, the vines broke, so he had to walk. When he got to Tiger’s house, Tiger was snoring away peacefully next to a mountain of food. The door was locked, so Mike could not get in. He tried and tried, but just looking at those nuts and berries and a lot more glorious things was making him more and more hungry! He finally gave up trying to get in.

So he walked to Peacock’s house. Peacock was opening a big wooden box, while brushing her verditer coloured feathers. Inside the box were lolly pops, caramel, chocolate, nuts, sugar plums and berries. As you know, Mike can cause a lot of trouble to the Animals. But the Animal he liked to disturb and cause trouble to the most to is Peacock. Peacock never forgot the last time Mike interrupted her. She was resting in the sun and suddenly Mike appeared. He was trying pull of one of her delicate feathers! Mike managed to grab hold of one and pulled it out while Peacock

ran around the wood screaming with pain while blood dripped from her bottom. From that day on, Peacock didn’t like Mike not one bit…

Suddenly Peacock saw Mike and grabbed her hair brush and tried to smack Mike with it! Mike got away easily (Peacock’s a slow runner). Mike was really cold now. Mike suddenly stopped, he was standing in front of a giant tree and at the top was a magnificently ripe mango! He tried to jump but he was far too short. So he went back to his house and got some books. Then he stacked them up next to the big tree. But he did not have enough books to reach the mango! He hungrily walked home.

A few days later the Emperor’s magical teapot said “floods are coming, floods are coming”. The Emperor loves animals and would cry for hours if they were all swept away into the deep dark blue sea! So he stepped up and said “bring me all the

animals you can find and do it fast!” In the morning all the men in the land went

searching for all the animals and gave them shelter when they entered the Emperor’s village.

Mike was lucky enough to share a house with the Emperor, but he was still hungry! He suddenly had a wicked idea. He would sneak into a room of the huge house which had gold, rubies, emeralds and pearls in it.

Now, the Emperor had shown them (the animals) all the rooms in the house; there was the coat room (it was splendiferous), the swimming room (with an EPIC waterslide), the Dino room (with real Dinosaur bones in it) and last of all the jewel room. The jewel room had a pass code and the Emperor told them it, so Mike decided to steal some jewels so he could buy fruit.

When everyone was telling jokes, he tip toed quietly up the marble staircase to the jewel room. He accidentally forgot the way and bumped into the coat room where THE EMPEROR WAS CHANGING FOR DINNER! Mike had to think quickly. But the Emperor saw him! Mike only had time to say “I’m lost, I was trying to go to my room but I got lost! And I forgot where the jewel room is.”

The Emperor was picking up a red and golden coat and put it on while he said “for the jewel room it is down the hall and to the right and for the Monkey room, go down to the sitting room and turn left.”

Mike ran to the jewel room and when he arrived he was amazed. The pearls were iridescent and the crystals sparkled like nobodies business. But he had to act quickly.

So he grabbed some pearls and gold and a crown, but then the Emperor hurried into the room and saw Mike… Mike ran for the window but the Emperor caught the Monkeys tail, “I thought I could trust you, but you’re nothing but a Mischievous Monkey”.

Mike would have loved to say “so what?” But he kept his mouth shut. The Emperor carried Mike like a baby which made him very tired and soon he was fast asleep. Soon they entered the prison where there were murderers and robbers. Mike had a room all to him self which he liked very much. But he would prefer to be in the jungle.

Suddenly he saw a window and next door was the key to open the door! He was too big to fit through the window to get out but his tail was the right size. So he slid his tail into the window and got the key and unlocked the door. Then he went to the market and bought fifty-two bananas and twenty packets of nuts! When he arrived at the jungle, there was no food! So when Mike came along every body was surprised, do you know why? Well because Mike was sharing!

Everybody tucked in and Mike rather liked being good and never did a bad thing again!

YEARS FOUR TO SIX CATEGORY

In this section there was a total of 31 entries from 17 schools in 5 different countries!

 IN AUSTRALIA:

Arden Anglican School , Beecroft, NSW: Year 4 – Mayah Natarajan; Kiran Viranna

Good Shepherd Primary School, Lockridge Western Australia: Year 6 – Aniela Matkowski

Homeschool: Year 6 – Jemma Julian

Hutchins: Grade 4 – Tama Connelly

IN HONG KONG:

Australian International School Hong Kong: Year 6 – Bas Buwalda

Beacon Hill School: Year 6 – Ady Lam

French International School: Year 4 – Antonia Yeo, Aryan Kalliat, Kristan Tse, August Joly; Year 5 – Athene Fox

Japanese International School: Year 6 – Ciara Wan

The Kellett School: Year 4 – Lidiya Chernyavskaya

Kingston International School: Year 5 – Karis Leung

Kowloon Junior School: Grade 6 – Marissa Chow

Shatin Junior School: Grade 4 – Jocelyn Chung, Stefanie Learng, Jannie Kung; Ruby Lee; Sze Long Cheung; Joey Zheng; Grade 5 – Benedict Pang; Scarlett Tse; Grade 6 – Maryanne Ko

IN INDIA:

Delhi Public School Newtown, Kolkata: Grade 4 – Arjya Kanjilal

IN SINGAPORE:

Canadian International School, Tanjong Katong, Singapore: Year 6 – Abigail Bilsland

UWCSEA East, Singapore: Year 3 – Aisha Zobrist; Year 5 – Suryansh Shetty

IN SHANGHAI:

Shanghai United International School, Shanghai: Grade 4 – Nicholas Ng

FIRST PLACE: Abigail Bilsland, Grade 6, Canadian international School Tanjong Katong Campus Singapore, 12 years old

Congratulations to Abigail on her well-deserved first place in the Years 4 to 6 Category! Her very original story of an Emperor’s court comprised entirely of Chinese animals made me smile and her detailed description of the distinctively Chinese setting painted a beautiful picture for the reader. Her choice of vocabulary was also excellent, and I loved the way she managed to incorporate not just three, but eight wicked words into the text! My only comment is to be careful with your punctuation, Abigail, especially remembering when to use hypens and, in appropriate places, replacing commas with semi-colons! Overall a fantastic story – well done! I look forward to seeing more of your work in future!

The Story of Princess Malala Monkey

Princess Malala Monkey stopped for a moment to smooth down her chocolate brown fur then she stepped into the clearing.  She glanced around, taking in the Chinese style curved roofs and colourful walls of the buildings. All the buildings were beautiful, but it was the biggest one, in the middle that really drew Malala’s attention. It was resplendent, with two curved roofs and a flagpole! In front of the building stood an excited and noisy crowd of animals.

A regal looking panda cloaked in sumptuous Chinese style robes emerged from the crowd of animals, and they all fell silent.  “Announcing the illustrious Grand High Emperor Panda-monium, and his wife, the Grand High Empress Pandora Panda-monium” introduced an eagle.  The Emperor fell into a deep bow. “Welcome Princess Malala, pray, allow me and my darling wife to show you around”.

The Emperor and Empress led Malala over to the building in the middle. “Welcome

to Zhú ting ( 竹厅), or Bamboo Hall.  This is where we eat, cook, play, and do almost everything except sleep. We sleep in the huts in a circle around 竹厅.” The Emperor explained. The hall was amazing.  It was wide and tall, with half of the floor covered in rugs.  He led Malala over to a gargantuan circular counter, with about fifteen animals busily working on hundreds of platters of food and gallons of drinks.  “Here is our kitchen, where our chefs prepare food for the entire troop.”

“Now, please humour one of my little idiosyncrasies and allow me to show you our magical teapot.”  The Emperor and Empress sat on the floor and gestured for Malala to do the same. A red panda set a case down at the feet of the Emperor, gave a bow, then scurried away.   The Emperor opened the case, inside was a big teapot and five cups, all ornately decorated with different symbols.  “This is a quilin, it has the head of a dragon, the scales of a fish, the hooves of an ox and tail of a lion.  It symbolises peace and happiness, the dragon symbolises heroism and nobility.  The teapot holds an ancient charm and protects our village from destruction. Oh, it would seem it is time for lunch, I hope you like bamboo rice Princess Malala?”

As Malala lay in her hammock, listening to the rumbling of thunder in the distance, which was quite atrocious for Spring weather, all she could think about was the teapot. The symbols were so delicate, so intricate, she needed to see them again.  She rose from the hammock, and entered 竹厅.   She found the case and opened it, picking up the teapot, she felt the teapot begin to slip through her lush brown fur, she tried to put it back, but it was too late. The precious teapot lay, in six pieces, upon the floor.

Malala panicked, and hastily stuffed the pieces of the teapot back into the case.  She felt a drop of rain, and then another, sliding down her face, intertwining with her salty tears.  She ran back to her room, and took out her own verditer teapot from her belongings and swapped her teapot with the broken pieces.  She quickly returned the case to 竹厅, and went to bed.  Malala had a terrible night, listening to the sound of the lashing rain outside.  In the morning, she stepped out of her hut to find out just how much the teapot really had protected the village.  The constant rain had flooded it!  

As Malala stood there, gaping, the Emperor and Empress exited their cabin.  The Empress gasped  “the teapot!”.  The Emperor yelled “Get the teapot quickly!”  All the animals rushed towards 竹厅.  Malala just stood there, watching as the Emperor started lifting the latch. Suddenly he stopped, and turned his head towards a loud swooshing noise.  All of a sudden, a gargantuan wave appeared, towering over the small village, they all watched in horror as it fell.

It was chaos, the wave thrashed them around.  Out of nowhere Princess Malala felt sharp claws pierce her shirt and she was plucked into the air.  She looked up and saw a stork had saved her.  From her vantage point, she could see the other animals shouting, yelling, drowning below.  Suddenly a hawk swooped down and retrieved the Emperor another saved The Empress.  Malala looked around, and saw hawks, eagles, storks and even albatrosses saving all the endangered animals.  

As the water receded, the birds set them all back down on the ground.  The Emperor opened the case, quickly this time, to reveal the verditer teapot.  Malala slunk off while everyone else gazed, with lugubrious faces, at the verditer teapot.  She miraculously found her own box where she had placed the broken teapot and thought the least she could do was to return the broken pieces.  She slowly ventured back and quietly explained what she had done.  The Emperor looked very grave.  “There is a way to redeem yourself.  The legend of the teapot says if it is ever broken, all the pieces must be put back together with the utmost apologies of whoever broke it”.

The animals sprang into action.  The albatrosses held the top bits in place, the little animals held the bottom pieces.  Princess Malala apologized to the teapot. Cries of “It didn’t work!” rang out across the village.  As Malala broke down in tears, apologizing not only to the teapot, but every animal in the village, something amazing started to happen.  Her tears started levitating.  They floated towards the teapot, gluing it back together, it had worked!  All the animals started cheering.  But Malala knew they were still sad about their beautiful village being completely destroyed.  “I know it’s my fault, I want to put it right.” she whispered to the teapot.  The teapot would have smiled if teapots could smile, instead it repaired the village even bigger and better than before. 

Now the real celebrations could begin! 

 

SECOND PLACE: Arjya Kanjilal, Grade 4, Delhi Public School Newtown, Kolkata, India, 9 years old

A warm welcome to my Clever Competition to Arjya Kanjilal from Kolkata in India. I was so impressed with Arjya’s story about a mischievous monkey with a watergun; her lyrical writing style, descriptive imagery and almost perfect grammar was exceptional, particularly given her age of just nine years. Arjya is, I predict, a great writer-in-the-making! I very much look forward to reading more of her work in future competitions.

 The Great Flood

Once, in China, there lived an emperor whose name was Tai-Wong. He was very rich and kind. His palace was the most beautiful one in the world. It was made of white marble and had gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires embedded in it. It had carvings and sculptures in the carved-out niches. He had a lovely garden, with the rarest flowers. His most favourite flower was the moonflower, a rare flower that bloomed every full moon night. It was pearly silver, the colour of moonlight. He often visited his garden and listened to his little nightingale sing, as he was very fond of nature.

One afternoon in spring, he was sitting in his garden, when he suddenly heard a distant call. “Beautiful teapots at only 50 Yuan!” It was a trader who came to sell foreign teapots at cheap prices. The emperor said, “I’d like one, please!” The trader said, “Which one would you like, sir?

“That one, with the beautiful verditer spoon and intricate carving and designs”, replied the emperor.

The trader smiled and said,” I’ll tell you a secret about that teapot. It’s magic!!! If you take that spoon and dip it into the teapot, when it is filled with tea and wish something, then your wish will come true.”

“Is that so? I would love to take it!” was the emperor’s reply.

He waited till it was dark and the full moon shone bright in the night sky. “Let me test it” he thought.

He went and filled it with tea and then dipped the spoon into it.

“I wish the moonflowers grow twice as big as they are now”, he said.

And the moonflowers grew considerably bigger. He excitedly called his minister who came immediately.

“Yes your majesty?” he said. “I would like all the villagers to get a chance to make their wishes come true.” he said and then related the whole story to the minister.

“Your desire is our command”, said the minister bowing before hurrying off to tell the news to the people of China.

The first villager had a talking pet monkey named George. He was very mischievous always troubling the villagers in their work. He was always up to mischief, stealing valuable things from the villagers.

The villager made his wish. “I want it to rain. My crops aren’t growing very well due to the drought”, he said.

It slowly started raining. The farmer started rejoicing and George made the best use of the moment. He sneaked the teapot away from the table. Following what his owner had done, he dipped the spoon into the tea and wished for a water gun which immediately appeared in his hand. He giggled with glee thinking of the pranks he could play. He sprayed water at the villagers and said, ‘Don’t you want some cooling showers in this hot estival season?”

Now the rain that had started did not stop. The rain poured on and on for days flooding the streets of China. George got onto a tree to avoid the flood with the water gun in one hand and the teapot in the other.

Suddenly, the teapot slipped from his hand falling into the water. He swung from tree to tree trying get the pot but barely missing it each time. Finally he got a grasp on it. However, a voice said, “You can only have one gift – the water gun or the teapot.” The voice came from the teapot itself. George thought for a while then said, “The water gun.” The teapot drifted gradually away from him. He played around for a while with his new toy but soon got bored.

He spotted the emperor sitting in his garden. He seemed to be depressed. The flood was causing danger and havoc in China. It was causing loss of property, and if it continued, people might drown. George understood this and suddenly felt guilty. If he hadn’t taken the teapot, Tai-Wong could have wished the flood away. He badly wanted to help, so he said, ‘I don’t want this water gun anymore. I want the teapot.’

But the voice, which had come from the teapot, said ‘You wished for the water gun and got it. The wish cannot be reversed.’

“What? No! I just want to help!” George said in horror.

“Sorry, it cannot be reversed.” The voice said again.

“Silly water gun! I don’t want you anymore! I’ll throw you into the water and I don’t care if the mellifluous water takes you away!” said George, and threw the water gun into the water.

As soon as it touched the water, it turned into the magic teapot!

“You have well passed my test.” said the voice. It was a little fairy. “I have lived in the teapot all the time. When you wished something, I made the wish come true. You were the first person to wish something to help others rather than satisfy your own selfish desires. Take the teapot and give it to your emperor.” She then flew back into the teapot and disappeared.

The teapot floated into his hand. George swung from the tree and over the flood, and went to Tai-Wong’s garden. “Your majesty? I believe this is yours. Use it to stop the flood, please.” said George.

The emperor wished the flood to go and said,” Thank you. You have saved my kingdom!”

The fairy flew out of the teapot just then. She had a pretty golden crown on her head and wore a long, flowing gown.

She said, “I am Angelina, the fairy queen. Now that the flood is over, I can see that you’re all very happy. After all, “All’s well that ends well”.

She waved her wand and lo! There appeared a sumptuous feast with delicious food to celebrate the occasion.

George realized his mistake, and chose to help others rather than create chaos among them. And thus the citizens lived on peacefully, commemorating George’s brave act every Chinese Year of the Monkey!!

 

THIRD PLACE: Bas Buwalda, Year 6, Australian International School Hong Kong, 11 years old

The beginning of Bas’s story was one of the most impressive in the competition; I also loved his detailed character descriptions of the Emperor and his son, and the mythical quality of the story, not to mention his great vocabulary! But I felt that the action in the story was a little delayed by the long background section at the beginning, so that the story felt unevenly weighted. Careful also, Bas, to make your endings as powerful as your beginnings! Nonetheless, an impressive effort and I can’t wait to read more of your work.

 The Dragon’s Gift

The wind howled through the iron bars and the heavy stomping of boots echoed as guards in flashing, red armour paraded in front of the iron-plated room. A lone figure sat silently in a corner. The prisoner finally stood up and shuffled out of the shadows into the light.

It was a rather peculiar boy. He was a metre and a half tall with his hair a distinguished white colour. He stared at the angry storm flashing outside his miniature window. One of the guards walked past and noticed the boy, “Come here!” he shouted in a hoarse voice and the boy slowly twisted his body so that he was facing the guard. The guard screamed in horror; the boy had no eyes, just empty sockets. Back into the dark confounds of his cell, this time with a bandage around his head, the boy crouched down, the horrible memories swimming around in his mind.

Emperor Quin of China was an honourable emperor who ruled China with a fair and gentle hand. He had everything he ever wanted: a wife, beautiful concubines, food, and a grand palace. A sumptuous life all in all. An intricate network of loyal advisers ensured he was aware of almost everything that was occurring in his empire. However, he didn’t realise that most soldiers serving him were arrogant and cruel. Thinking themselves superior to all the hardworking farmers. These so-called warriors wrecked the farmer’s lands and pillaged their houses.

One evening, a weary messenger ran into the palace garden where Emperor Quin sat quietly praying to the elders.

“Your newborn son has arrived”, “He is with your favourite concubine your majesty” the messenger whispered.

“I shall be there” and with that the emperor dismissed the messenger while he finished his prayer.

Downstairs the Emperor spoke with a mysterious woman in hushed tones, “Are you sure he’s cursed?”

“Either that or he has had to pay a punishing price, losing his eyes for a blessing”,

“Fine, I must be on my way now, for no one must know he is the son of the emperor”

The woman hurried away carrying a basket, a cooing basket. “What’s his name?” the Emperor called out after the women, “Hung” the woman stated blankly, “His name is Hung and one day he will be the greatest man in China” then she left without another word.

Hung was 12 when the warriors ambushed his farm and killed his mum. It was a pandemonium of cries of anguish and fear, bloodcurdling screams and an eerie silence that followed. He had hidden under a nearby Camellia bush and waited there till the night passed.

The next morning, Hung woke up to the sound of heavy breathing, realising he was no longer alone. Hung heard someone softly reciting an ancient chant featuring a magic teapot and recognised him as a member of the Dragon clan: the Emperor’s finest advisors that could wield spells and possessed great wisdom.

Hung took some rice cakes out of a leather sack he had found in the forest and offered it slowly to the man. The man feared him at first but realised Hung meant no harm to him and they ate together and started to chat. The chat became a talk, which became a friendship, which became a bond.

After having spent two solar terms in the woods together, the man blessed the boy with a special gift, a monkey. “Your new eyes” he whispered and walked off into the woods. Hung and the monkey lived in the forest, depending on each other and surviving as to their unbreakable bond.

Two years later during the wet season, Hung and his mischievous monkey friend Chai, were caught in a flood. “Come on Chai” Hung shouted as the water kept rising steadily, “We have to get to the higher ground”.

Suddenly, a piercing scream echoed around the forest clearing and Hung spun around, just in time to feel a body brushing against him in the rushing water. With seconds to spare Hung reached out for it and dragged a man out of the current. The man started to splutter and coughed up water.

“Yuck!” he exclaimed as verditer blue coloured water gushed out of his mouth. The man slowly opened his eyes and stared at the boy in front of him. “How dare you miserable farmer touch a warrior, I will make you pay”, he shrieked. The next minutes were a blur, the warrior swished his sword out of its scabbard and the metal narrowly missed Hung’s head. Then the warrior feinted a dash and leapt at Hung trapping him so that he could not escape. Blackness surrounded Hung as he heard the warrior laughing,

“Wake up!” shouted the guard while he unlocked the heavy reinforced door, “Wake up you lazy bag o’ bones!”, “You’re going to have your trial today”, “Should’ve known better than to touch an emperor’s warrior”.

“I’m sure I will be exonerated from this false accusation” Hung softly replied, “The emperor is a good man”. Hung fought back the tears as the soldiers dragged him to the palace, where he awaited his fate. The emperor looked at the frail boy in front of him, he resembled someone but he couldn’t exactly remember whom. Finally, he asked the boy’s name, “Hung” the boy replied, “My name is Hung”. The emperor’s heart skipped a beat as he calmly asked where the boy’s mother was. This was too much for poor Hung and he collapsed in front of the emperor, his eyes welling up with tears.

“She’s dead!” he cried, “They killed her”. For a moment, Emperor Quin was silent, then he stood, marched up to the boy and hugged him. “Welcome home my son”. The look on Hung’s face was priceless, but he felt strangely at home. Finally, he would be safe with his monkey friend Chai and his dad, the emperor of China.

FOURTH PLACE: Suryansh Shetty, Grade 5, UWCSEA East Campus, Singapore, 11 years old

Suryansh’s story also started beautifully, with a breathtaking description of sunset over the Emperor’s kingdom. I also got really excited by the plot, involving the machinations of a devious counselor, as well as the antics of a cheeky monkey. But again, Suryansh, do be careful to put as much time into your story ending as it’s beginning! Here I felt your ending was a little weak, which let the story down a little. Nonetheless, a very well-deserved fifth place!

Emperor Yang and the Mischievous Monkey

Emperor Yang sat on the silver armchair in his large balcony. He watched across his wide kingdom in fascination. He always loved looking at the busy streets of his kingdom. And sometimes he just liked watching the slow swaying of the lush green trees in the giant mountains across the valley or listening to the birds sing in his garden.

But today he was looking at the bright glow descending into the hills. The Emperor smiled as he looked at the estival sun kissing the mountains in the horizon. It was not like the paintings of sunsets that his royal artists would sketch. It was much more real and it brought a smile to his face. He wished that the sun always shone brightly on his kingdom.

The Emperor rose from his armchair and walked through the silk curtains into his royal bedroom. He lay on the golden sheets of his resplendent bed curling his moustache and thinking about his people and his country. In his happiness and joy at watching his empire prosper, he could not shake off his constant fear about what harm could befall his beloved country.

The next day Emperor Yang was sitting on his throne in the royal court. His courtiers and advisors sat on chairs lining the emperor’s throne on both sides. The Emperor smiled and waved as they rose up to bow in respect.

“I would like to start the proceedings today with the news of the kingdom,” boomed the king. “Minister Huang, give me your report”.

Minister Huang looked at the emperor and nodded.

“The rice farms are growing well, my lord,” said the minister. “The production of silk cloth is rising as well”.

“Excellent! Now let’s proceed on to…”

“WAIT your Highness!”, a voice called. The emperor was furious that some one had interrupted him. He searched around for the courtier who dared to interrupt him.

“It was Kai who spoke, my Lord,” said Huang. The courtiers were secretly happy to see Kai being pulled up, as they were quite jealous of him. Kai was the emperor’s favorite minister. Old but short, Kai was sitting on a small chair looking at the emperor.

“How dare you interrupt me?” Emperor Yang screamed at Kai.

“I’m sorry my Lord, but I met a divination lady today and she told me the future of our kingdom”, he explained in a low voice. Emperor Yang could see the fear in Kai’s eyes and smiled. He liked having power and command over his court.

“She said our kingdom would be washed by a flood!” Kai said fearfully. The Emperor’s smile faded. The courtiers gasped. There was a long silence.

“Although.., my Lord, I believe there is some hope,” said Kai. Kai pulled out a large teapot from under his seat. It was decorated with painted flowers and vines covering it. It had a magical verditer glow to it, which made the emperor curious.

“What is it?” asked the Emperor.

“A magic teapot. If filled with tea leaves and placed at the foot of your throne it will prevent the flood,” explained Kai.

“Do you have proof that this teapot will save us?” asked Emperor Yang.

“Just wait and watch, my Lord,” Kai smiled gently.

 “You shall be rewarded greatly if there is no flood”, the Emperor said to him magnanimously.

“Oh my Lord! Thank you!” Kai replied ecstatically.

“You deserve it Kai, if you are right,” said the Emperor. Kai gave another smile.

Soon the courtiers were talking about the flood and the fate of the kingdom. The Emperor was very worried. If Kai were to be right about the flood and wrong about the magic teapot, his kingdom would perish. But the Emperor trusted Kai.

In the evening after a busy day at the court, the Emperor placed the silver teapot on the footsteps of his golden throne. It was filled with tea leaves. He smiled and was about to walk back to his bedroom when he heard a loud crash. The Emperor panicked. Was there a thief in his palace? He walked slowly towards the throne.

“Who’s there?”, he screamed. To his shock, the teapot was broken. Tea leaves were spread across the floor and the precious teapot was shattered to pieces. He heard a loud screech next to him. Emperor Yang turned around to see a small furry monkey jumping up and down furiously. The Emperor burst into rage.

“GUARDS GET THAT MONKEY!!!” he screamed. Three large men armed with sharp spears charged towards the small ape. The mischievous monkey scampered away as it saw the guards approaching. All night the guards tried to catch the monkey. That night, the Emperor couldn’t sleep properly thinking about the pandemonium that would ensue in his kingdom if there were a flood. His people would drown and his kingdom would be submerged. He tossed and turned on his bed hoping Kai was wrong.

The next morning, the Emperor was very glum. All the courtiers had heard about the monkey incident, including Kai, who looked very scared.

“We all know what happened last night and the blasted monkey is to be blamed,” said the Emperor angrily. “I am also very sorry Kai, for your magic teapot”.

“It’s okay my lord”, said Kai fearfully.

“I am also sad to say, we must make plans to evacuate the kingdom,” said Emperor Yang. “There’s a flood coming and we are cannot stay here for long”.

Hundreds of sweat beads had formed on Kai’s face. He knew his game was up. His plan to seek unjust recognition and reward was now unraveling.

“Actually my Lord, the divination lady said that it was a mistake and the flood was going to happen in another kingdom,” stuttered Kai as he lied to cover up his failed scheme. The Emperor was exuberant when he heard it.

“Splendiferous! God Bless Our Kingdom”, he said. And the kingdom didn’t have any troubles in a long time. Kai secretly vowed to never lie again.

FIFTH PLACE: Jemma Julian, Year 6, home-schooled, Sydney, 11 years old

A warm welcome again to previous prize-winner Jemma Julian from Sydney in Australia, with a clever, witty and very original story about an ageing Emperor and his entry into a Bonsai Competition! Jemma used a remarkable total of no less than fifteen of my Wicked Words correctly, among a large range of other fabulous vocabulary! But I did want to see more description of the Chinese setting and, while there was a teapot mentioned briefly, there was no magic teapot, and this I’m afraid meant that the entry had to be marked down.

Please, everybody, when you enter my competitions do make sure that you take heed of every single ingredient that I’m asking for, as otherwise points will have to be deducted!

But Jemma’s writing is fantastic! Please keep it up Jemma; you have real talent and a very original mind, and I very much enjoyed reading your entry!

 The Monkey House Bonsai

The locals called the palace of their Emperor ‘The Monkey House’. All with good reason, for their Emperor kept monkeys. They also scorned their Emperor’s senility. And his old age. Yes, his subjects had stopped being in awe of his age long ago and couldn’t even remember his birthday! So when the Emperor started collecting monkeys, news came that Emperor Penjing was finally losing his marbles. All the surrounding kingdoms of China thought that the Emperor was mad too…

Emperor Penjing sighed happily. He sat on a splendiferous sofa drinking tea from a verditer teapot with his monkeys. Suddenly one of his monkeys- Mei- rushed in, carrying a golden scroll.

‘Penjing, here is the invitation we have been anticipating! The Bonsai Contest! In two months bring your finest bonsai! The winner gets to take one loser’s land! Ah… a tantalising prize. Shall we participate?’

‘My name’s the Chinese name for bonsai! I think…’ said Penjing gallantly. ‘We must participate! I’ll design the bonsai!’

Penjing was most fastidious about bonsai designs. He created the most resplendent bonsai. Now only the tree and the Spell were needed…

 In eastern China there was a Dragon Tree. Dragon Trees are the most superb trees created. This one’s scaly bark was its namesake, and it had most sumptuous leaves of green.

Penjing sent a quorum of monkeys to retrieve it. When they brought it back the Imperial Being threw off his robes, put some gardening clothes on and pruned the tree to a miniscule size himself! Twenty monkeys then planted and watered the Dragon Bonsai. After the bonsai recovered its pruning Penjing used the Spell.

At midnight, Penjing took five leaves from the bonsai and mixed them with ground dragons’ bones, carried the mixture out of the palace and tottered up the Imperial Mountain, clutching his walking stick. When he finally reached the jagged summit peak, he blew the powder and leaves into the night.

Suddenly the bonsai, which Penjing had took with him, glowed with iridescence! The green leaves of the bonsai changed. The leaves shined bright with not only green, but red, yellow, black and white!

 Penjing wasn’t the only one who’d entered the contest. Neighbouring Emperor’s had entered too, and they all had their eyes on Penjing’s widespread land. They all knew Penjing craziness. They would have little competition with the doddering old fool!

How wrong they were…

 

‘WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!’ The monkeys screeched. The Bonsai Competition was tomorrow, and they were travelling by bus to Tibet, where the contest was to be held!

The journey took a day and a night. By midday the monkeys were causing pandemonium! Penjing tried to subdue them, but his efforts didn’t work. Finally the use of long words caught their attention.

‘Monkeys, stop this atrocious tomfoolery right now! It’s annoying the pink elephant!’

The monkeys spent the next two hours looking for the pink elephant.

They were just about to drive down into a valley when a monk came running up to them.

‘Don’t go down there! That river,’ he pointed to a fast-flowing river. ‘There have been many rains recently, and the river could flash-flood at any moment!’

‘Oh my!’ Penjing cried, ‘We must go into the valley! Beyond the next mountaintop the contest is held!’

‘No! You must go around the valley!’ The monk stamped his foot. ‘Maybe a week ago I could’ve let you go. The river was mellifluous then, but NOT NOW!’

The monkeys started guffawing. What entertainment! Then Mei did a very mischievous thing.

‘Monk-ee monk-ee, you’re as bad as a monk-ee!’ She sang. The other monkeys and Penjing roared with ineffable laughter as they drove onwards. The monk shouted insults after them.

But the monk was right.

At dusk the flood hit. The bus was swept under a torrent of muddy water. The voracious water pulled the monkeys and Penjing out of their seats and spun them through the surge of water and threw the bonsai off the bus.

Suddenly the water seamed to tire of its game, and washed the unconscious Penjing, monkeys, and conscious bonsai onto the bank.

‘Well, I don’t think that Emperor will be much competition!’ Said the Emperor of Japan, and picked up the bonsai.

Mei woke first. ‘Oh no! The bonsai! How…?’ And promptly woke everyone else up.

Penjing and the monkeys were distraught. They spent all night wandering through muddy flood wreckage before Ming, the oldest monkey, had an idea.

‘Perhaps another Emperor took the bonsai while we were unconscious! We’re halfway up this mountain anyway, so let’s see! The contest is held in an hour!’

So Penjing and the monkeys trudged slowly to the next valley…

 

When they reached the valley they realised that they were not nearly the first. Six vibrantly coloured tents were set up, and loud snores were coming from them. So Mei went in searching for the bonsai.

‘Found it!’ She said.

‘Good job!’ Penjing whispered ecstatically.

‘How dare you steal my bonsai!’ The Emperor of Japan cried, emerging from his tent.

‘Your bonsai? You don’t even have a bonsai, you pusillanimous worm!’ Mei cried.

The Emperor of Japan swelled in anger, but everyone could see guilt in his eyes and the way one eyebrow twitched. The Emperor of Japan was known for his eyebrow twitching. It always twitched when he lied.

Several other Emperors had arrived by now and had realised the situation. They were appalled!

‘This is against the Bonsai Contest law!’ An Emperor cried.

‘Penjing is the real winner! You stole!’ Another shouted.

‘You’re the batty one, not Penjing!’

‘Give him your land!’

The Emperor of Japan gulped, and ran away.

The Emperors and monkeys cheered. Penjing won the Bonsai Competition.

 

After Penjing won, his subjects, and other Emperors respected him. This he was happy about, but the thing he was most exuberant about was that people finally had remembered his birthday.

 

SIXTH PLACE: Mayah Natarajan, Year 4, Arden Anglican School, Beecroft, New South Wales, Australia, 9 years old

Well done to Mayah, another talented 9 year old, whose well-structured story of a spangled, magic teapot with a conscience was very entertaining, and contained some wonderful imagery. I especially loved the wind whistling like a hummingbird! There were a couple of errors in punctuation and spelling, and a little more research was needed (Chinese Emperors had no contact at all with individual peasants J!) but it was well-written and the surprise ending was terrific!

 The Spangled Teapot

On a humid summer’s night a gentle breeze rustled the bushes and the wind started to whistle like a hummingbird. As a limp, slim figure appeared at the doorway and a steady, booming voice rang through the moonlight room.

‘Come in, peasant, ‘cried the rotund emperor. ‘Begin’ he boomed.

The peasant stuttered and began. ‘Sir, your father is dead, however you have inherited a teapot that grants wishes for the greater good, a dam leading to the Yangtze River and a palace,’ trembled the peasant .

‘I will keep them all. They sound sumptuous,’ beamed the emperor, ‘Finally something wonderful to have!” The emperor galloped around the room singing.

The peasant called another trembling peasant with the gold sparkling teapot. The emperor placed his rough hands on the teapot and snatched it away. He gave them Yuan notes for their service.

‘You may go now’cried the emperor. He stared at the spangled teapot and grinned. He was amazed, his father was dead and he out of all his father’s sons was the one to inherit all these amazing things. Super, fantastic!

He ran his chubby fingers down the gold teapot. “I have heard of this teapot. It grants your greatest dreams!’ he boomed. He immersed himself in his wonderful thoughts. The emperor envisaged of all the wonderful things he could ask for. A wife, all the money in the world; endless ideas popped into his mind, he would be too tired before he could ask the teapot for everything he wanted.

He placed the teapot on his desk, he asked for All the Riches in the World.

Astonishingly, nothing appeared! He cried in anguish and demanded many impossible things which did not appear and his frustration grew. Day after day the emperor tried again and again but still the teapot failed him and he grew even more impatient. He would yell at his servants and slam doors unnecessarily and started to knock on the teapot ’s sides and yell ,”Are you in there! ” Little did he know that the resplendent teapot was listening, and was in agony.

The teapot really wanted to be left alone but sadly it couldn’t move without the emperor ‘s help who it thoroughly disliked. Then the teapot had an idea. It was genius, maybe his dreams could be granted! He would grant himself a wish for the greater good. These humans wouldn’t go crazy over me anymore when I for fill these plans. It’s really only going to be a few people who will be affected. The teapot praised itself for being such a genius. It was a dream come true : – the teapot’s wildest dreams. It would go on an adventure!

The teapot called upon all nature’s forces and asked them conduct the unimaginable for it. The teapot explained that the emperor didn’t deserve what he had and to teach him a lesson. At first they all disagreed. Then the teapot told them how the emperor treated it. Finally, they all came round.

A few weeks later there were rumours that the Yangtze River would flood. The rumours never reached the emperor who was always bargaining with the teapot. Anyway he wouldn’t listen to those low down peasants. They weren’t to be trusted. The emperor always thought he was too good for them. He decided that he would try one more time and try to get all the Riches in the World..

Later that day the illustrious emperor heard even more bad news, his beloved mother was dead from a heart attack. He got even more frustrated and would shout and shout until he had a sore throat. He was in agony much like the teapot.

He yelled at the teapot for the hundredth time and then the teapot started to shake and the room rumbled. The emperor yelled in anger once more. He lost his balance and fell over planting his face on the Persian rug. He heard gushing water and his ears started to buzz. He couldn’t work out were the noises were coming from. Bad luck, he thought I’m back to square ‘yi’. The emperor was out of ideas. He couldn’t tell the public and ask for ideas, they were bound to steal the teapot once he told them. He was dumbstruck. He pulled himself up and trudged to bed.

Late one night through the open back door came a gurgling sound that filled the night air and a stream of verditer water flowed through the door. The Yangtze River was flooding. There was no sound that night but only gushing from the flood.   No one knew that the agonised teapot was behind it all. How could such a little teapot be capable of this? The teapot was jumping for joy (inside), it had got its revenge.

In the meantime, the Emperor was sleeping soundly in his bedroom shrinking and becoming hairier and hairier by the minute. He was turning into a monkey. As the transformed Emperor glanced around with his sparkling wicked eyes, he noticed that he was being carried down the Yangtze River. The raft swayed from side to side. The Emperor was not angry but happy, for he was fulfilling his childhood dream. Now what mischief could he do?

SPECIAL MENTION

When the competition was first posted on my blog, I was thrilled to hear from teacher Gail Zobrist at Raintrees International Kindergarten in Singapore, who asked if her class of little ones could enter the competition. Of course I said “Yes!”. Mrs Zobrist explained as follows when she sent this terrific entry:

“Dear Sarah.

We have now completed our story, please find attached. The children have written the story together with guidance.  They have learned lots of new words and meanings and have started using these words in their daily conversations, both at home and at school.

Ms. Angie and I are both very proud of our 13 kindergarten children who have all individually had an input to the story. They chose the names, the settings and the main idea of the story. 

Our lunch time teacher Ms. Mel read the story to the children today and kept stopping and waiting for the children say what happened next, she couldn’t believe how well they knew the story and was able to change their voices between characters. 

We hope you enjoy the story. Many thanks for letting us enter your competition.”

Raintrees International Kindergarten. Singapore. Busy Bee class (Matilda, Masanari, Bennett, Martha, Daisy, Rocco, Linnea, Angus, Robert, Manya, Leo, Ettore and Daniel), ages 4 – 6 years old.

Teachers Ms. Gail Zobrist & Ms. Angie Than

I am delighted to reprint their wonderful story below. I loved the greedy Emperor and mysterious but caring Monkey, and the kids were very clever to use three Wicked Words correctly! Well done, Busy Bees, and make sure you keep entering my competitions! For their special effort, I’ll be sending the class a signed copy of The Tale of Ming Kee Monkey!

The Mysterious Monkey in Fujian Province

A long, long time ago in ancient China, in Fujian province, there lived an Emperor. It was summer time, also known as the wet season, but on this particular day, the sky was blue and the sun shone bright.   The Emperor was called Tang Qian and he lived in a large palace made from gold.   Tang Qian lived alone with only a few servants to cook, clean and tend the garden for him. He was a very greedy Emperor and had plans to make his palace even bigger. He was very lackadaisical, and he ordered the gardener to cut down some trees outside of the palace walls so he could make his garden bigger.

Hiding in a tree near the palace was a mysterious monkey. He was mysterious but very caring. He watched the Emperor’s gardener cutting down trees and seemed angry at what the Emperor had ordered the gardener to do!

The mysterious monkey was called Wan Hou. When the Emperor wasn’t looking, Wan Hou entered the palace, climbed through the kitchen window and found himself inside a room called the secret chamber…. Inside this room was a magic teapot. The magic teapot was gold and red. Wan Hou grabbed it and, to his astonishment, the teapot squealed, “Let me go, I belong to the Emperor”.

Wan Hou took the magic teapot and put it inside a big red bag that was left beside a large chair. Wan Hou left the secret chamber with the bag under his arm and sneaked out of the palace and back into the trees.

The Emperor did not know that his magic teapot had disappeared. Nobody saw the mysterious monkey enter or leave the palace. Once Wan Hou was high up a tree he opened the bag, took out the magic teapot and told it to make the Emperor’s gardener stop digging up trees. The teapot told the monkey that if he would not take him back to the secret chamber, he would start pouring water from his spout. There would be lots of water which would fill the rivers running next to the palace and would cause a big flood. That night, Wan Hou made himself comfortable in a tree, not too high, looking over the palace.   He went to sleep with the red bag next to him. He was feeling a little bit worried about what the teapot might do.

During the night, while Wan Hou was sleeping, the teapot started to pour water. The water made a big puddle which got bigger and bigger and bigger. Wan Hou woke up with his tail dangling in the water. He saw the river was filling quickly and was worried there would be a big flood so he grabbed the magic teapot and climbed higher into the tree ordering the teapot to stop pouring water. But, the teapot did not listen. Wan Hou shouted “This is atrocious, stop pouring water right away!”

As the flood got bigger and bigger, the monkey could see the water was heading towards the palace. In the morning, Wan Hou could see the Emperor, in his palace garden, starting to panic as the big flood started to run down towards the palace walls.

Only the Emperor knew the magic word to stop the magic teapot from pouring water. The magic word was ‘verditer’. This was because the Emperor’s favourite colour was greeny blue. The Emperor’s special robe was the colour verditer, so this made it easy for the Emperor to remember.

The Emperor, feeling worried, ran back into his palace and straight to the secret chamber to find the magic teapot to ask for help with stopping the flood. He was shocked and annoyed to see that the magic teapot had disappeared!

He was very disappointed, sad and angry. He summoned his servants to look for the teapot. But, no one wanted to help. They told Tang Qian “You are a very greedy person and you don’t pay us very well… we are leaving to go back to our village to rescue our belongings from this big flood!”

At this point in time, Tang Qian burst into tears as Wan Hou was watching high up in the trees. He saw how upset Tang Qian was. He returned to the palace and told the Emperor that he would return the magic teapot on one condition, “You must not be greedy anymore and be kind and caring.” The Emperor said, “I am sorry… I am terribly sad… we need to stop the teapot from pouring water.” The Emperor told Wan Hou the magic word. Wan Hou went back to the forest, climbed up the tall tree, found the magic teapot and said the magic word. “Verditer!” Instantly, the magic teapot stopped pouring water.

Wan Hou took the magic teapot back to the palace and handed it to Tang Qian who was very happy to see it. Tang Qian kept his promise and was not greedy anymore. He decided to be kind and caring and he opened up his large palace for all of the village people to come and live.

Tang Qian held a splendiferous party in his palace and three cheers were given.

Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray. The Emperor kept his promise and everyone lived happily ever after.

COMPETITION NO. 26: A HAIR-RAISING HALLOWEEN POEM COMPETITION!

Aaaaagh! Eeeeek! Brrrrr! ! That’s how I’ve been feeling while judging all the entries in my Hair-Raising Halloween Poem Competition! It’s been absolutely terrifying – and not just because of the large number of entries! All the poets had great fun with this one, making their poems as gory and horrifying as possible, and I for one have been properly spooked! There were dozens of death-defying zombies, great armies of ghoulish ghosts, fearsome packs of slavering werewolves and countless covens of waspish witches! Graveyards and haunted houses and macabre cellars abounded! Skeletons skulked, vampires vanished into thin air, and evil lurked behind every shadow! Not to mention pools of blood dripping just about everywhere! But in all this gruesomeness there was a lot of fun too, with clever twists and surprises in many poems!

And if you’re wondering why the judging has taken some time…there were a huge 127 entries this time, from 27 schools in Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, Western Australia, Seattle and the UK! There were even entries from some whole classes! And the entries were all so great, making my job even harder! But at last I’ve come to my decision and the top ten entries in each Category are posted below.

Remember I was looking for poems of no more than 16 lines; a strong Halloween theme; interesting vocabulary; original ideas; lots of gory details; poetic style, be that for a rhyming verse, an acrostic, free verse or other form; and that special chill factor to make the hairs rise on the back of my neck!

It was great to receive entries from so many new schools this time! Welcome, and I hope to see your students enter more of my Clever Competitions in future.

Congratulations to everyone who entered on a fabulous effort, and very special congratulations to the following:

YEARS ONE TO THREE CATEGORY

There were a fabulous 52 entries from 11 schools in this section! Well done to all of you, and especially to the place-getters below, and the five further writers who made it to the shortlist: Craig McSheaffrey and Philippa Large from The Kellett School in Hong Kong, Elqui Johnston from Windmills Junior School in West Sussex in the UK, and Keshana Nathaniel and Andrea Overton from Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne. Here are the ten winning entries!

FIRST PLACE: Madeline Painter Grade 3, Stamford American International School, Singapore, 8 years old

Congratulations to Madeline on her very macabre but highly effective free verse poem about a werewolf! Her use of sophisticated vocabulary, strong imagery and economic style made this poem a standout in the competition and is remarkable work for an eight year old. As First Place winner, Madeline receives a free, signed copy of one of my books!

WEREWOLF

The horrifying sight of a werewolf

Standing proudly at the zenith of the mountain 

The fetid smell of bodies 

Half devoured, left to rot 

The salty taste of raw meat 

The yowling and howling 

The predator tantalized by the prey

Then the sight of limbs

And agonizing pain as they are

Gradually

Ripped off

One 

By

One.

 

SECOND PLACE: William Cheong, Class Y02C, German Swiss International School, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong, 7 years old

William’s excellent acrostic poem was another outstanding entry from a young poet. I loved the way William managed to rhyme his acrostic poem so accurately, whilst keeping the rhythm flowing smoothly! For a 7 year old that is a truly impressive feat, and I look forward to reading more of his work in the future!

HALLOWEEN ACROSTIC POEM

Haunted houses and spooky trees,

Alone I tremble at my knees.

Lanterns glow in the dark, dark night,

Loud, scary sounds give me a fright.

Owls hooting and black bats flying,

Witches cackle, cauldrons frying.

Excited children trick-or-treat,

Eager for lots of sweets to eat,

Nocturnal life is so much fun;

Halloween, please hurry and come!

THIRD PLACE: Eloise Roberts, Class 3AW, The Kellett School, Hong Kong, 7 years old

Another terrific effort from a 7 year old here, with a wonderful surprise twist at the end! I loved her idea of a child hiding under her pillow in bed, squeezing her bear and frightened out of her wits, but regretting her fears in the morning. Great work Eloise!

TRICK-OR-TREAT!

Scariness of doom

They send you away

As the shadows creep through

Creeping, creeping, creeping

Into your bedroom window

Pillows there to hide your head.

Slowly the door rattles.

It makes you sleep under your blanket

As you tightly squeeze your bear

And as the shadow goes away

Waking you up all night long…

People asking me (in the morning)

Did you like Halloween?

I didn’t answer because I couldn’t

Get rid of that nasty thought

I was really jealous that I didn’t go trick-or-treating.

 

RUNNER-UP: DeriAnne Mak, Year 2, Oberthur Primary School, Bull Creek, Western Australia, 8 years old

Congratulations to DeriAnne, our very first Western Australian place-getter! I thought this poem was extremely evocative, with its nasty little goblins playing havoc on a housing estate with their screaming and hopping and knocking! I also loved the strong use of simile in the opening lines. Well done DeriAnne – and make sure to enter my next competition!

GOBLINS CELEBRATING HALLOWEEN

The night is as dark as a charcoal

The air is still and as cold as an ice

The clock ticks and tocks at twelve

You see all the little ugly goblins running around everywhere

The goblins’ humongous eyes, balding heads and their sharp pointy claws

Climbing, squatting, screeching and hopping like a humpty dumpty

And the whole of the goblins’ band rock the estate

By knocking on doors and screaming for “Trick or Treat”….

It’s Halloween.

 

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Stephan Roh, Class 3AW, Kellett School, Hong Kong, 8 years old

I thought that Stephan’s rewrite of John Lennon’s classic “Let It Be” was very clever! The timing was perfect and he managed to incorporate the Halloween theme very effectively. Nice work Stephan!

HALLOWEEN IS COMING (In the tune of ‘Let it be’)

Halloween will soon be here,

Feel the air of creepiness

Halloween is coming Halloween,

And when it’s going to come there will be trick-or-treating

Halloween is coming Halloween

Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Halloween

Whisper scary songs, Halloween.

And when those empty hearted spirits walking outside your door

Taking their friends with them

Halloween

I went outside to get some treats until I saw a man with scars

Halloween is coming, Halloween.

Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Halloween

Whisper scary stories, Halloween.

 

Jordan Jao, Year 2, Our Lady of Good Counsel Public School, Deepdene, Melbourne, 8 years old

I loved the vivid descriptions in Jordan’s ghoulish poem. It definitely sums up the hair-raising side of Halloween!

HALLOWEEN

Mysterious, ghostly, disgusting.

Scratches with ugly blood dripping from a frightening vampire.

Greedy wolves howling at a crescent moon.

Sweat dripping on your forehead like red blood.

Trick or Treating with mysterious incredible houses.

 

Eve Williams, Class 3AW, The Kellett School, 7 years old

Great work from Eve, with not one but two Halloween words in this clever acrostic!

PUMPKINS AND GHOSTS ACROSTIC

Pumpkins gleaming

Utterly scary witches

Moonlight shining

People dressed up

Kind of spooky decorations

Icky costumes

Naughty children eating sweets

Scary faces

Glittery gleaming pumpkins

Haunted houses

Obvious monsters

Spiders crawling up my leg

Trick-or-treating children

Surprising scares

 

Ruby Podmore, Year 3S, Methodist Ladies’ College, Melbourne, 9 years old

Another great acrostic based on Halloween, this time by Ruby from MLC in Melbourne.

HALLOWEEN ACROSTIC POEM

Haunted, dangerous and destroyed castle.

Adventurous and heartless.

Lonely and terrifying.

Lifeless and about to die.

Only you know what to do.

Witches, ghosts and spiders around every corner.

Eating heads off people and leaving their bodies behind.

Exciting potions and cauldrons.

Sam Blackburn, Class 3AW, The Kellett School, 8 years old

Sam’s neat little free verse about Halloween proves that you don’t have to write a long poem to make a big impression!

HALLOWEEN

Trick or treating

through the spooky

darkness with my

friends kicking

pumpkins everywhere

witches whooshing past

me stealing candies

from everywhere.

 

Evangeline Fam, Year 3, St Joseph Primary School Rockdale, Sydney, 8 years old

Here is another great effort, this time in rhyming verse. Well done Evangeline!

HALLOWEEN

Put on your costume walk in the street

It’s time for trick or treat

Witches, Zombies and scary things roam

Will they end up in your home?

Lollies to children everywhere

Let’s see who will get them in their hair.

YEARS FOUR TO SIX CATEGORY

In this section there were 74 entries from a massive 20 schools around the world! Congratulations to the ten winners below, as well as the following fabulous writers who made the shortlist: Lillian Lee of Hamilton International School, Seattle; Emily Bemi of Kowloon Junior School, Hong Kong; Ennika Mak of Oberthur Primary School, Bull Creek, Western Australia; Ngoc Truong of Deer Park West Primary School, Melbourne; Hugo Foster, Gabi Brown, Annabelle Slocombe, Laura Ward and Sachin Ng of Holy Family Catholic School, Lindfield NSW; Jemma Julian, homeschooling in Sydney and Neve Trainor, Santa Sabina College, Strathfield NSW.

FIRST PLACE: Aria Fafat, Grade 5, Canadian International School Lakeside Campus, Singapore, 10 years old

Huge congratulations to Aria, whose exceptional free verse poem, full of fabulous vocabulary, vivid imagery, poetic style and a horrifying ending earned full marks! For her First Place, Aria receives a free, signed copy of one of my books!

THE SILENT CALL OF HALLOWEEN

It’s a blood-curdling night, necromancy threaded into the thin air

Bloody hags drift about, aimlessly, pointlessly

Pale and lifeless, I walk to a tenebrous house, its cracked windows beguiling

Dragging me in, a powerful aura; I step inside…

In a maze, I am, trapped, nowhere to go

A never-ending rollercoaster, chilling my heart with despair and anguish

My hands find a bag, opulent with blood-red sweets,

I open one; it’s even more enticing… my mouth’s afire…

A skeletal hand snakes through looming corridors,

Holding a pumpkin, mush dripping from its mouth and eyes, like a waterfall of guilt

Watching my heart quicken and sweat in agony.

Take me… Help me, it pleads; unwillingly, I reach out for it…

A black silence engulfs me, whispering secrets of the unknown.

The wind whips me with answers…to swirling questions never asked

I know now why I am here, how I am here.

It’s Halloween, I have been Summoned; it is now the time to Scare…Them.

 

SECOND PLACE: Sophia Witting, Year 5, Santa Sabina College, Del Monte Campus, Strathfield NSW, 10 years old

I laughed out loud at the ending of Sophia’s clever and very original poem about a strange face in the window at Halloween. She had me completely on edge right to the final line, and then delivered a very witty, unexpected punch-line! Well done Sophia and keep up the great work!

THE GLOWING FACE

There is a strange face in my window

on this eerie Halloween night.

It has glowing eyes of fire

and razor sharp crooked teeth.

A full moon lights up the sky.

Guiding my cat on her prowl

Slinking slowly and silently across the window ledge.

Screech! Bang! Smash!

The glowing beast has vanished.

My knees knock and my palms sweat.

The cat door flaps violently,

Floorboards creak,

Hot breath hits my neck.

My Dad?

I slowly turn to see ……

My cat with a pumpkin stuck on her head!

 

THIRD PLACE: Matilda Hardy, Class 6W, Holy Family Catholic Primary School, Lindfield, New South Wales, 12 years old

Congratulations to Matilda, who wins Third Place with this excellent poem in alternate rhyme. I loved the way her story lures us into complacency with its cheerful opening, then leads us to a truly terrifying conclusion. Great work!

GROUND FLOOR

With all our whimsical costumes and colours,

My merry group ventures out.

With my friends and I and all my brothers,

We’ll have fun without a doubt.

Gaily we knock on the apartments room doors,

Collecting mountainous numbers of sweets.

We jump into the elevator and go to “Ground Floor”

Then finally we emerge onto the car free streets

Suddenly, the dreaded house appears.

Its minions surprising us in troupes

My eyes are brimming with tears,

As we all merge into one horrified group.

They’re swarming around us in numbers,

They have too much power!

With their big black thumpers,

He whispers to us, “This is your last hour”.

RUNNER-UP: Lidiya Chernyavskaya, Class 4, Kellett School, Kowloon Bay Campus, 8 years old

I was hugely impressed with Lidiya’s funny and fast-moving poem in rhyming couplets. Not only was the rhyme great, but the rhythm was perfect! An excellent effort from one of the youngest competitors in this category – I look forward to see more of her work in the future!

HALLOWEEN

Halloween’s an eerie sight,

When you wake, your face goes white.

Werewolves, bats are everywhere,

Hairy spiders – up the stair.

Zombies, goblins lurk about,

Try to bite you when you’re out.

You can never find your shoe,

Evil witches pounce on you.

There’s no point in bawling: “Mum!”

Vampires spot you and growl: “Yum!”

 

HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Isabel Duggan, Grade 5, Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak, 11 years old

I loved Isabel’s poem, with well-executed rhyming couplets, clever story, and witty punchline. Isabel has placed before in my Competition, and her writing is getting better and better!

JACKALANTERN

It’s a mystery how just one sharp knife

Can transform a pumpkin into a pumpkin with life

You’ll walk out the door of your hair-raising shack

Unaware of the eyes stabbing you in the back

You don’t make it far, only a meter or two

When you suddenly realize that you’ll soon be stew

You turn around slowly and see what you dread

An evil pumpkin, that does want you dead.

Ignoring your Goosebumps, and the dark of the night

You build up your courage and blow out his light.

 

Emily L’Estrange, Orange Public School, Orange, New South Wales, Year 6, 12 years old

I loved Emily’s stylish free verse poem, which proves that sometimes simplicity is the most effective way of conveying an idea. Great work Emily!

HALLOWEEN 

Creak, creak the old door squeaks 

The sound of an old woman laughing 

Crunch, crunch big footsteps sound

A wailing meow of a black cat

Trick or treat, children call off the street

Knock, knock a banging sound

The wind howls

The thunder laughs

The trees moan

The rickety shack creaks and groans

The storm is alive

It’s Halloween.

 

Sophie Malek, Class 6W, Holy Family Catholic Primary School, Lindfield, New South Wales, 11 years old

Fabulous free verse from Sophie Malek, who uses some excellent vocabulary and detailed description to scare the reader very effectively! I especially liked the rhetorical question at the end, which begs the question as to exactly who the narrator is and why they are safe!

HALLOWEEN POEM

Can you hear the angry ghosts whispering in your ear?

Or see the cackling witch eyes as dark as coal,

Creeping nearer and nearer.

On Halloween night, the heinous goblins won’t put up without a fight,

Foul wicked vile intruders dangerously roam the night,

Malevolent vicious vampires pouncing and scaring you half to death,

And hoping that it’s your very last breath.

Shrieking pumpkins eyeing your every move,

Can you feel the moaning rotting zombies grabbing you?

“Shoo,” says the atrocious mummies with evil glinting eyes,

There are death-defying pirates, who are full of meanness and lies,

The evil witches stirring up their brew,

I am safe, but are you?

 

Olivia Berry, Class 6W, Holy Family Catholic Primary School, Lindfield, New South Wales, 12 years old

Olivia had me properly spooked with this very original Halloween poem written from the perspective of a blood-thirsty child-eating monster! Well done Olivia!

HALLOWEEN
I hear the laughter of children walking down my driveway,

Is this my next victim?

I run to the front door and wait for my prey.

“Ok you knock,” says one little kid,

One little juicy kid.

Knock, knock, knock goes my door.

I open it and put on a fake smile

“Trick or treat,” the little children say

I grab one of them and all of the others run away.

She screams a high-pitched screech just like running your fingernails down a blackboard

I take her into my kitchen where a pile of innocent delicious children are lying.

I grab my target and pierce my needle like teeth into her neck.

Her thick metallic blood trickles down her neck as she breathes her last breath.

I leave her in the kitchen and go to my front door

I’m hungry for my next prize…

 

Marissa Chow, Class 6A, Kowloon Junior School, 10 years old

Fabulous work again from Marissa Chow, a regular entrant in my competitions. She scared me silly with this action-packed free verse!

THE ZOMBIE IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE

My fingers tremble and twitch;

My body shivers and shakes;

As I approach the lurid haunted house.

Creak! The rusty door swings on its hinges.

Oh why, oh why, did I agree to this dare?

Clickety-clack clickety-clack

I whirl around so fast,

That my head nearly falls off.

Every single hair on me

Is rising on its very end.

I want to screech, I want to shriek;

This is absolutely sheer terror!

A dark shape scuttles towards me,

Looming; towering; blocking my view.

Goosebumps crawl all over my skin…

Help! It’s a cadaverous, macabre walking zombie!

 

Ennika Mak, Year 5, Oberthur Primary School, Bull Creek, Western Australia, 11 years old

Finally, a very impressive effort from Ennika Mak for the only attempt in the competition to cast a Halloween spell! I thought that this one was terrific!

A SPELL ON HALLOWEEN

Smoky spooky air is floating everywhere

Eye of zombie and toe of frog

Wing of bat and tongue of snake

Buzzing wasp and blind ant sting

Goblins eyes and nose of witch

For a charm of powerful spell and trouble

Like a haunted hell, broth bubbles in a creepy town

Double, triple tons of spell and trouble

Creepy crawlies, goblins jumping, talking pumpkins

Skeleton marching and flying broom sticks every where

Smoky spooky foggy air

Is a charm of powerful spell everywhere

Double, triple tons of trouble

Creepy crawlies, goblins jumping, talking pumpkins

Skeleton marching and flying broom sticks dreaming of “trick or treat”

On this freaky spooky Halloween.

 

COMPETITION NUMBER 31: THE WONDERFUL WHALE HAIKU COMPETITION!

What a whale of a time I’ve had judging your Wonderful Whale Haikus! Whales are such extraordinary animals, and they seem to hold a special place in the hearts of people living all over the world! And this competition was no exception, with a grand total of 104 entries coming from 16 different schools in 6 different countries around the world as well! There were entries from Chicago and San Diego in the United States of America, from three cities and three country towns across four different states in Australia, from two big cities in China, and from Hong Kong, Singapore and Kolkata in India! It was great to see a large number of newcomers entering this time – welcome my friends, and please make sure that you follow my blog – or subscribe to my Newsletter – so that you can find out all about my next Clever Competition!

 Now it seems that we all LOVE whales – there wasn’t a single killer/nasty whale amongst the entries, though there was a narwhal – and the majesty, playfulness and mystery of whales were what appealed most to you all! A huge THANK YOU to all the young writers – and teachers – who supported this competition.

 A quick note about the two categories: because entries come from around the world in my competitions, and because kids start school at different ages in different countries, or speak English as a second language, the categories are set by the number of years a student has spent at school, rather than by age. So you’ll find older kids in earlier grades, and younger kids in later grades, depending on where they go to school. I’ve found this is the fairest way to split the categories, and indeed often the younger kids outperform the older kids! Further, where I set a competition before the end of the school year, but judge it at the beginning of the next school year (eg, in the Northern Hemisphere where the school year extends from September to June instead of February to December as in the Southern Hemisphere) I take the student’s grade as at the date of the start of the competition.

 And now to the results! You will remember that I was looking for haikus in the traditional 17 syllable haiku form (five beats in the first line, seven in the second and five in the third) with beautiful imagery and wonderful vocabulary. Above all, I was looking for haikus that really made me FEEL something. I loved reading ALL your poems…but winners there must be, and here they are!

The First Place winners in each category win a free signed copy of one of my books!

GRADES ONE TO THREE CATEGORY

It was wonderful to receive entries from the younger set in this competition – I suspect that many of them had not yet studied haikus in class, which makes their entries even more impressive!

FIRST PLACE: Sophie Zhai, Year 3, Victoria Shanghai Academy Hong Kong, 9 years old

Big congratulations to Sophie Zhai of Hong Kong on coming first in this category! I loved the strong imagery in Sophie’s haiku, and especially the spiraling of the whale’s water spouts. This was a sophisticated entry, and a well-deserved first placing.

On the sea’s surface,

Magnificently, they leap,

Whale spouts spiraling.

 

SECOND PLACE: Layla Newbey, Year 1, Parklands Primary School, Lockyer, Western Australia, 6 years old

Layla’s entry proves my point about high-performing younger writers! At the tender age of 6, she has written a very impressive haiku, full of movement. I could just hear her whale jumping, then diving to the silent depths. Well done Layla!

She jumps from the sea

Whoosh, splash, down she goes again

Silently swimming.

 

THIRD PLACE

Lucia Old, Year 2, Peter Carnley Anglican Community School (Wellard Campus), Perth, Western Australia, 7 years old

Lucia’s entry was a little out of the ordinary; here instead of focusing on the whale itself, she wrote about how the whale made her feel. I loved it!

Black, leathery skin,

Peaceful and relaxed I feel,

Calm, soothing my heart.

 

TWO RUNNERS UP

 Bella Dowd, Grade 3, Quality Schools International, Zhuhai, China

A Whale Haiku

The glorious whale

It is a dark shade of blue

They are beautiful.

 

Emerson Zhou, Grade 3, Quality Schools International, Zhuhai, China

The whale dived down deep

Wow! What a fantastic whale!

Then the whale flipped up.

 

FOUR HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Ashlyn Paul, Grade 2, Milgate Primary School, East Doncaster, Victoria, Australia, 7 years old

Whales like to sing songs

Their bodies are large and long

Hunting whales is wrong

Ricky Lin, Grade 3, Quality Schools International, Zhuhai, China

Great Whales

Hello Mr. Whale

I’m the biggest animal

Bye bye Mr. Whale

Santiago Mosquera, Grade 3, Quality Schools International, Zhuhai, China

I like the turtles!

Whales are cute and beautiful!

Whales are very cool!

Francesca Zobrist, Grade 1, United World College of South East Asia, East Campus, Singapore, 6 years old

Whale swims happily.

Splashing the other whales too.

Whales had lots of fun.

 

GRADES FOUR TO SIX CATEGORY

With 94 entries in this category, judging was extremely difficult and I’m afraid I couldn’t stick to the usual ten finalists! I know you’re going to love the 13 fabulous haikus below!

 FIRST: Madeline Painter, Grade 5, Dryden Elementary School, Arlington Heights, Illinois, USA, 10 years old

Readers will recall that Madeline has been entering my competitions for the last 3 years, and each time her entry gains a well-deserved place! Madeline is an exceptional writer with a highly-developed imagination, a clever wit, and a sophisticated style. This very original entry made me laugh out loud! (And if you’re not sure what a watusi is, look it up! Congratulations Madeline!

Whale Prom

Purple disco suits

Sequins covering blubber

The whale watusi.

SECOND: Nayonika Biswas, Grade 6, Delhi Public School Newtown, Kolkata, 11 yers old

I was bowled over by Nayonika’s excellent haiku, especially the sudden shift between lightness (the bright night, the water spout) and darkness (the fishermen prowling). This sort of shift in mood is a classic haiku technique, and earns Nayonika a very close second place. Keep up the excellent work Nayonika!

In the bright night she

Spews water from her blowhole

As the anglers prowl.

 

THIRD: Sebastian Rodriguez, Year 4, Anglican Church Grammar School, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 9 years old

Sebastian’s haiku was both lyrical and original – and I loved its poetic final line. Remember when reading it that “choir” can be spoken in two syllables (kw-ya).

Whales

The song of whales deep

Choir in the deep blue sea

Hymns of ocean blue.

  

THREE RUNNERS-UP

Fletcher Austin, Grade 4, Anglican Church Grammar School, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 9 years old

The flips and the tricks

What an incredible sight

Oh, so splendorous!

 

Sofia Kerr, Grade 5, Quality Schools International—Zhuhai, China

The Nobility

Turquoise majesty

The musicians of the sea

Swimming wild and free

 

Elke Chaplin, Grade 6, Australian International School Hong Kong, 12 years old

Diving in the deep

Slow, graceful and majestic

Wonder of the world

 

SEVEN HONOURABLE MENTIONS

 Amanda Li, Grade 5, Independent Schools Foundation Academy Hong Kong, 10 years old

A majestic whale

He glides through the dark ocean

A faint murky shape

 

Madeline McFarlane, Year 4, Macclesfield Primary School, Macclesfield, South Australia, 9 years old

Whale

Sing out loud my whale

Live in the sea and be free

My beautiful friend

Ema Poposka, Year 5, Japanese International School, Hong Kong, 9 years old

The humongous mouth

Devouring small crabs and krill

Is no threat to me.

 

Maddison Mulhbach, Year 4, Macclesfield Primary School, Macclesfield, South Australia, 9 years old

Whales

Whales are wise creatures

Much to share, swim up for air

Creatures of the deep.

 

Eleanor Meyer, Grade 4, San Diego French American School, San Diego, California, USA, 9 years old

Whale Acrobatics

Jumping left and right

Having fun while doing flips

Aerial backbends

 

Isaiah Presley, Grade 4, Anglican Church Grammar School, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 9 years old

Whales

Krill small, delicious.

Red white yellow, nutritious

A whale’s favourite

 

Freyja Moring, Year 4, Macclesfield Primary School, Macclesfield, South Australia, 9 years old

Whales

Graceful swimming whale

Monarchs of the sea to me

Amazing creatures

 

COMPETITION NO. 30: THE REALLY RIVETING ROOSTER TALE COMPETITION!

Cockadoodle doo! I’m just about roostered out!!

I’ve had enormous fun judging all the fantastic entries in my Really Riveting Rooster Tale writing competition, but I’ll be quite happy not to see another rooster for a while! Rickshaw Rooster had better watch out – I might just put him in a cooking pot!! Once again, the competition was truly international, with entries coming from 6 major cities around the world: Calcutta, Chicago, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney! This time there were just 24 entries, but what they lacked in quantity they more than made up for in quality! I was thrilled to see some of our previous competitors return, with even better writing, and to see entries from some new competitors who are clearly ESL learners just starting on their English writing journey. It was a great privilege to read all of your stories, and I only regret that I could not give places to you all! Many thanks to all the teachers, librarians, mums and dads who encouraged their students/children to enter – it’s only with repeated practice that truly great writing can be achieved. I strongly encourage anyone who didn’t manage a place this time to make sure they enter my future competitions and see how their writing improves!

And if you didn’t place, or didn’t enter this time, and you want to improve your writing skills, I highly recommend that you read and really take on board my Story Writing Hints at https://sarahbrennanblog.com/story-writing-hints-for-my-clever-competitions/ – then see how you get on next time!

It’s hard to judge competitions, so like all judges I use judging criteria on a spreadsheet to find out who scores what – and the criteria are exactly what I put in my instructions for the competition. This is why, when you enter a competition, it is essential to ensure that you put every single ingredient you are asked for in your story!

In this case I asked for the following:

 You had to write a story of no more than 1000 words;

 The main character had to be a Rooster;

 Your Rooster had to display the characteristics of people born in the Year of the Rooster;

 Your story HAD TO be set in China somewhere – with a really detailed description of the setting, not forgetting the season and the weather;

 You had to include an inquisitive bulbul, a ball of string, the colour coquelicot and a fire;

 I asked for lots of detail about your characters – not just what they looked like, but a bit about their personality, their history and why they were like they were.

 I wanted a great story structure: a great beginning, an interesting problem or conflict or challenge, the development of that problem or conflict or challenge, a thrilling cliff-hanger or climax, a great resolution which made sense, and a  memorable ending;

 You had to use at least 5 of my Wicked Words;

 Lastly, you had to have a TITLE.

Needless to say, I was also looking for great vocabulary, great style and good grammar and punctuation.

If you didn’t place this time, and you really want to do better next time, then it would be a great exercise to go through the criteria listed above to see how your story measures up!

Congratulations to ALL the contestants on their hard work and wonderful entries, and special congratulations to our finalists, whose stories are printed below. And at the end, there’s a special story treat for you all, from past winner Hillary Lo and her friend Winter Lau from Shatin College, who decided to write a fabulous story for the competition just for fun, even though they were too old to enter! Now that’s what I call dedication, and the mark of two future authors! I encourage you all to read their story – it’s very funny, very well-written, and an example of how great your writing can be if you keep on practicing!

YEARS ONE TO THREE CATEGORY

This was a difficult writing competition, with lots of tricky ingredients to include, so I was delighted that some brave younger writers took up the challenge! In this category there were just 5 entries, all from Shanghai United International School, Hongqiao Campus, Shanghai. None of the entrants speak English as a first language, so their entries were truly impressive, and I can only encourage them to keep up the good work! Understandably, there were problems with verb tense and other grammar in all of the stories, but these are very new writers, and there is no doubt that their story-telling skills, imagination and vocabulary are outstanding. My big hint for these writers: read, and read, and read, lots and lots of English language fiction books, in your spare time. English is fiendishly difficult, and reading constantly, and omnivorously, is the only way to absorb its tricky rules and nuances. But at the same time, try to keep your authentic Chinese voice – which makes your writing unique and special. Wicked words are all in bold italics.

FIRST PLACE:         Daniel Song, Grade 3, SUIS Hongqiao, Shanghai

Daniel’s adventure story about a brave warrior rooster, his inquisitive bulbul friend and a spider, who lead a rebel band against an evil Chinese emperor, is packed with action and exciting detail. Daniel included all my special ingredients, used four of my Wicked Words correctly, and some impressive further vocabulary – I sense that Daniel is a bit of a military specialist with words like “deployed” and “morale problems” being used so effectively! I especially liked the way he used the spider as a device to include constant references to that ball of string, as well as the satisfying ending. Well done Daniel, and keep on reading and writing a lot – you’re on your way to being a great writer!

The True Emperor

Once upon a time in China there was a brave, omniscient rooster warrior and a bulbul that flew from U.S.A. and knew nothing about China. One day, while the rooster was stopping thieves from stealing gold, he met that bulbul, which has no food and was fainting. He baked a rabbit for the bulbul to eat and cooked many other delicious meals for the bulbul. When the bulbul woke up, he asked 10 questions about the rooster, 5 about China, 7 about the food after he ate it, and the rooster answered them one by one.

This rooster was once a general of the rooster anti-thief army of China. The thieves have defeated all of the army, but he still bravely battled and won respect all over China. He was currently an independent anti-thief unit, and often was invited to parties.

When he saw the bulbul and heard he was from the U.S.A. he decided to care for him and train him to fight thieves. They gradually became friends. The bulbul has a white belly, black head and feathers, and a little yellow at his tail. The rooster has a red head, dark brown feathers, and black feet. They soon met a new challenge.

One day in China, there was an illustrious evil emperor that got all the gold and silver in the world, only cared about being richer and created rebellious areas all over China.

The rebels were led by the rooster, a spider, and the bulbul. One day, the rooster thought of how to get away all the gold and silver from the emperor. As the other rebels (humans) gathered with knives and axes and swords, the invasion was ready. The emperor had 20 million troops, but they all hate the emperor, so they often have morale problems. All the rebels, as the emperor was deploying troops, were charging to the emperor’s palace walls. Inside the capital came a burst of Chinese troops. The spider immediately launched some balls of string and captured them. The force’s remnants exonerated and joined the attack on the palace. Rebels continued the invasion and fire burned the richly-colored coquelicot walls to nothing and started to kill.

By that time, the leaders said, “Stop killing! Take the gold and run!” So they, together, pulled away a house of gold.

The invasion gave total pandemonium to the palace. By that time, he can finally see from the palace to the outside world. He saw whole cities of broken buildings (the money that originally could be used on fixing them became taxes!). He, under more pain that he had ever glimpsing at this broken country, decided to surrender to the rooster.

As he walked to the rebels’ camp, the rooster ordered not to attack him. Soon, they personally met. The rooster said, “As long as you make China a better place, you can join us, which represents justice in China.” The emperor said, “OK, I will be a magnanimous person towards everyone and everything.”

To fix China, the spider, under the roosters’ command, fixed all of China with the balls of string. Since then, China became peaceful and everyone was rich, not just the emperor.

SECOND PLACE: Abigail Cai, Grade 3, SUIS Hongqiao, Shanghai

Abigail’s story is an endearing tale of friendship, and was very well-written, containing  few grammatical errors, with just a couple of issues with tense and spelling. I loved the idea of the ball of string being used to deconstruct the evil queen! She used her 5 Wicked Words well, and her story was well-constructed. But one BIG issue was that her rooster was a girl…and roosters are, by definition, male birds! Be careful Abigail, and make sure you do your research if you are at all in doubt about your subject! And I did want more description of your characters and especially the setting so I could paint a picture in my head of the backdrop to the action! Overall, though, it was a fantastic effort and a well-deserved second place!

Only Because of A Ball of String

On one estival day of 2017, a rooster was born. The idiosyncratic thing was, the rooster was borne inside a ball of string. And the ball of string was inside a magical cave so it has a lot of magical power. And the magical cave was in Shanghai.

The rooster grew very fast. Within 3 years, she was as tall as a mailbox! But I have some bad news. This rooster called Katrina was cruel, selfish, rude and mean.

She was Queen of all roosters in Shanghai. No rooster in Shanghai ever dared to look at Katrina right in the eye. There were a million rooster soldiers and they were all Katrina’s slaves. Needless to say, the slaves hated their Queen.

The only way to fight their Queen was to pull string away from the ball of string that gave birth to her, because it was the center of her power.

If the ball of string was gone forever, then Katrina would be gone forever and turned into dust. Even if one string was pulled, one piece of Katrina would turn into dust.

They tried. But no one could ever take away all of the strings at once, because Katrina was so strong and never left the ball alone for more than an hour.

One day, Katrina rushed into Shanghai for some quick shopping of sumptuous rooster jewelry.

Crash! She accidentally tripped over a thing; it turned out it’s a bulbul bird.

Usually Katrina would give the thing an evil eye and put up a fight. But as the bulbul called Lily said sorry, like magic, a force forced Katrina to smile and say “it’s Okay”. And so she did.

Lily stood up and said, “Are you Okay? I am truly sorry. Hey, I am going to the bubble tea store. You can come too and I can buy you one tea as my sorry gift. I mean, if it was okay with you.”

Again the magical force forced Katrina again to say: Sure. So Katrina did what the force told her to do.

After that, they became best friends and Katrina forgot about the magical cave and stayed in Lily’s house in Shanghai.

One day, Katrina saw a piece on her tantalizing dress turned into dust. Then another.

That’s when she realized that she had forgotten the ball of string. She dashed back into the cave. When she finally got there, she saw a soldier standing in front of the ball of string and pulling.

“Hey, what do you think you are doing?” shouted Katrina. The soldier ran away. Katrina ran towards the ball of string. It was smaller. Katrina felt like crying.

Then, Katrina’s phone rang. “Katrina, where are you?” Asked Lily.

“ Lily, I need to tell you something. You know the magical cave? Go in and follow the coquelicot dust. You’ll find me. OK?”

Because Lily is a very clever Bulbul, she knew right away where it is.

It was a foggy day. The wind was howling like a crazy wolf in Shanghai. Lily knew something was wrong. She dashed into the cave in what felt like mere seconds.

She saw Katrina at the cave’s gate. Lily was grateful to see Katrina again. Inside, she felt more worrying than happy.

“Is it okay if I tell you something you didn’t know about me?” Asked Katrina.

“I was borne here in this cave and they called me Queen Katrina and lived here all the time before you met me.”

“So you were the mean Queen everybody hated? Why didn’t you tell me?” Lily burst into tears.

Before Katrina could say a word, Lily ran away. Then, Katrina felt some pain on the shoulders. She turned around and could not believe her eyes. There were a million of her soldiers shooting arrows at her.

She still had the ball of string but she didn’t want to hurt the soldiers any more! The only way she could think of is calling for Lily’s help. But after their misunderstanding, she didn’t think it was a good choice. She knew there was no more time for her to think.

She touched the ball of string and used the function that could only be used twice: the magic friendship function. She held on tight to the ball and yelled: “I wish I might the first wish I made tonight; I wish my friend was by my side. “

Then Lily felt the magical force forced her to walk back and help Katrina. So she did.

When she was almost there, some other Katrina’s soldiers came attacking Lily. Just then Lily saw a stone like a secret passage just by her side.

Lily jumped into the hole underneath the stone. “Ah!” It was indeed a secret passage!

Within mere seconds, Lily was right beside Katrina!

Katrina said to Lily: “My dearest friend, I don’t want to be the mean Queen any more. I realize that the force that made me befriend you came from the ball of string that was the center of my powers. Please forgive me. Let us be friends forever.”

Surely Lily exonerated her.

Together, they used the last chance of the magic friendship function.

“I wish I might, the first star I see tonight; to make the ball of string whole again and bring us in front of the soldiers!” They shouted together. Within one second, they were above in the air in front of all soldiers.

And Katrina shouted: “Soldiers and friends, I want to be a good Queen from now on. Please forgive what I did in the past. Feel free to call me Katrina if you like and exonerate me from my wrongdoings.”

From then on, the soldiers started calling her Katrina the Queen We Love. All of them lived happily ever after.

THIRD PLACE: Siyuan (Mia) Wang, Grade 3, SUIS Hongqiao, Shanghai, 9 Years Old

I really enjoyed reading Siyuan’s mythical tale of a rooster with the magical power to spin gold, who is sent by the gods to alleviate the suffering of the poor. His perilous mission, from serving a greedy peasant family, to training as a soldier, to learning about the beauty of the world, with its wonderful conclusion as he is granted immortality in Chinese folklore, had a truly Chinese character, while meeting the definition of a Really Riveting Rooster Tale very handsomely. The beginning was alluring, and this story contained the best character and setting descriptions in this category! But…the story was way above the maximum word count, and did not include many of the compulsory ingredients (string/bulbul/coquelicot/fire/5 Wicked Words). Please be more careful next time Siyuan to read the directions! And you can work on that English grammar by reading lots and lots of English language fiction books – while never losing your authentic Chinese voice, which is truly captivating!

 The Golden Rooster

Prologue: Long time ago, the gods ruled the ancient China, they were looking for poor ones those deserved better. They gave the poorest family an unknown gift, also took away something from the proudest, richest families. They discussed during travels high up in the sky. It dawned on gods when they saw the poorest family ever, they were on the lawn in rags, rooftops with holes, scarcely food in kitchen and their only treasure-a hen. At once, they knew what would be gave to the family to make their wishes come true and have better life.

A golden flash,

It hits the hen.

The hen faints,

Sudden quietness.

Once upon a time, at the central ancient China there was a poor farmer family lived by the Yellow River. Most of harvest was collected by army to support war against intruder. They had scarcely food, the only treasure was a hen.

One day, something rather peculiar happened with coincidence. All food’s gone, in the meanwhile the hen laid seven eggs! Even more amazing one of them was a giant golden egg!

Right on that day, the golden egg hatched! A little creature came out the eggshell. It looked very much like a hen, but it had a red dangly thing at chin and a red crown on head. The family thought it’s a male hen, so the oldest sister – Qiaoqiao Li, gave a name to the new life: Rooster.

Rooster had an incredible ability, he could spin gold! Every day Rooster spun some gold that made the family rich very soon, like other fortunate families. They even bought a new house in a month! But they became very ungrateful little by little. The Li family made him spin gold as much as he could every day, but they were not thankful of it. Among with more and more gold rolling into the ‘pocket’, the family went to be more greedy and selfish.

Finally, at a Friday night, Rooster could not bear it anymore. When the family was sleeping, he escaped and leaped out from a window.

Rooster landed on threshold of the house. He stopped and started sobbing, gold tears slid into the house, broken into fist-sized pieces. After a while, he felt angry and sad, sang and shrieked at the top of his lungs. Not long after, the house’s bedroom window lit up by red candles, and innocent poor Rooster knew what they were up to. The rooster took one last look at Li family’s new plush house, and ran down the wide, golden stairs.

As he ran, all his decrepit feelings flowed out of mind. After all, he knew something new was going to happen, he knew it.

Rooster ran through the little town, fields and sand hills to a plain where he spent last ounce of strength, lied down and instantly fell into sleep …

Rooster woke up from chock, chattering and talking all around. He found it was in a red valley with countless tens, it obviously wasn’t the same place he slept under the starry sky.

“Well, well, well,” a red face general spoke, scooping up curious, nervous Rooster. He showed it to soldiers in front of him. “Our golden baby has woken up.”

“Serve it some food! It deserves when we take its gold.” Rooster struggled to free himself, but it was helplessness, the general was holding him on the neck tightly.

“Is this food okay, General?” A soldier ran close by, with little grains in a cup.

“Fine. It shall be okay for it.” Couldn’t wait the general finished off his sentence, Rooster began pecking tiny grains in the cup. Delicious! He ate every single grain, until nothing left in the cup with few golden saliva.

“Well, it seems to like that.” The general couldn’t help laughing.

“It is pretty easy, we have plenty provisions. em… I do think this rooster may fight with us and talk human language if we train it… do you agree with me?”

“Yes!” A chorus of soldiers’ voice echoed through the empty clearing.

“Very well, then. We shall decide how in 3 days and start to train it right away. Let’s get to work.” As so, some soldier chimed in with the general.

Just in a few days, a tribe had completed their mission. They had thought of ways to teach Rooster Chinese characters, how to fight and things a soldier was supposed to know. And pardon you, they even had plan to teach fortunetelling and cooking.

Rooster studied very hard and quickly, became a smart brave soldier to join many battles after couple weeks. He was not only a rooster, he grew up a ‘roodier’.

Rooster never got injured magically, and not got older, the gods granted him an immortal soul. He led a tribe and his soldiers respected him very much, as they thought Rooster had very much courage and power.

One night, a battle was nearly over. The tribe and Rooster were sleeping in their tents, snoring loudly. It has been a hard day, some wagons broken pieces in the battlefield, nearly all the soldiers were wounded. Some even got killed! Nothing could wake even just one of them up. Nothing.

Another tribe of tired soldiers passed their tents and got an evil idea to grab Rooster. A soldier took a dagger out and sliced down a square from each tent. They saw the exhausted sleeping soundly soldiers, and Rooster was in his private tent. They recognized him immediately.

As soon as they were done with this, one of the soldiers scooped Rooster up like a doll, others pressed dagger into each of the poor asleep soldiers’ chest. Instantly, every Rooster’s soldier was as dead as a piece of torn up paper.

After a few days, the soldier who discovered Rooster was going to quit the army. Nobody wanted him to go, as he was such a good fighter. They all pleaded him to tell all of them his reasons to leave, but he refused.

He left every belonging to the tribe, but only took the golden egg rooster with him. Why? Other soldiers wondered. Why did he want to leave but only take Rooster with him? Has he turned greedy throughout the days? Well, that soldier had his own reasons.

The soldier Tianying had no choice to be a soldier before, he was forced by his Dad. Last month, he got news that both his father and mother had died, his father lung disease, and his mother from influenza.

Tianying’s Dad was a formal leader of the tribe that the soldier was in, but as soon as he got lung disease, he had to discharge and try to let his son to replace him, however Tianying wasn’t a very good warrior back then, therefore he chose someone else to take the leader position.

Although Tianying never wanted to be a soldier, but he also didn’t want to leave his father heartbroken, because the old man already got serious disease.

Tianying knew he couldn’t mess this up and let his father down, but he couldn’t bear these anymore, fighting and killing, too bloody for him. His father kept on telling him this quote: “Someday it will stop, this is how life comes to be. Now my Tianying goes back to work.” But Tianying never understood. He had a own plan.

This plan wasn’t really Tianying’s. The gods had given it to his wife – Lingmei who was a young old-style private school teacher.

Just the night Tianying had decided to quit the tribe, Lingmei was sent a dream from the gods. The gods told her that Tianying would quit the tribe with Rooster. The god gave her the heads-up because of her faith and belief in gods, so the gods wanted Lingmei to change Rooster. To teach him the beauties of this world, to teach him about nature and music, being a good living being. And let him forget all about the bloody fighting time.

Every day, after Tianying went to work at his new soup shop, the couple spent half day time with Rooster, on teaching him new things.

After a year, Rooster was back to its real self again. Lingmei told Rooster to share his experience with the livings of this world – human, animals, plants… And she let Rooster leave to accomplish the mission.

Rooster did what he’s supposed to do very well, he shared his stores to people calling for peace, gave gold to help poor families. He became a famous icon and everybody loved him.

God granted Lingmei and Tianying a wish to thank them for what they did for Rooster. They made a wish to have a child who looks just like Rooster. And so, after 9 months, Lingmei gave birth to a pretty little girl with curly hair. They named her Jier, a similar name named of Rooster.

People believed that Rooster always bring good fortune, happiness and good sign and to the world, as time passes Rooster became one of mascot animals in Chinese folk.

FOURTH PLACE: Ivy Wang, Grade 1, SUIS Hongqiao, Shanghai 8 years old

At just 8 years old, and in Grade 1 with English as her second language, Ivy’s entry was truly impressive! I very much enjoyed her exciting tale of the rescue of a bulbul from a greedy woman by a brave rooster and his animal team – but remember Ivy to describe your setting in detail, and give a bit more information about your characters! As a beginner writer, I was hugely impressed that Ivy was able to use 3 of the 5 Wicked Words she chose correctly! Well done Ivy and keep on writing and reading lots and lots of books!

Rooster, the Hero

One sunny day, a very very fat woman caught a bulbul in Jing An Park because the bulbul could sing mellifluous songs and it could make any unhappy people happy in the world. The woman did not have a baby and her husband was very lazy. The man did not catch fishes. Then she gave bulbul a name that is “Barbie”.

Barbie had many friends in the Ivy forest. There was a very proud brave rooster and he volunteered to be the leader. Then he gave every animal a codename because they all wanted to save the bulbul. The rooster named himself number 1 and he said to the other animals “you the rabbit you are number 2, you, the squirrel, you are number 3, you, the sheep, you are number 4 and the cat is number 5.” The rooster thought the codename would be more secret. They spent all day to plan how to save Barbie.

They set out to save Barbie the next day. The first time the rooster brought a huge candle to the woman’s house. The woman’s house was beside Jing An Park and the rooster thought he would put the candle down by a fishing pool inside the house. The rooster insisted the window behind the woman’s chair was a good start. But the woman carelessly dropped the ball of string and she stood up to pick it up and knocked down the candle. Then the woman sat back to her seat and kicked the candle by her ankle. The candle flew out of the window. The woman’s house was not on fire so that they did not save Barbie.

Everyone was sad that the plan did not succeed. In fact, the rooster was a little fastidious and thought that his idea was the best. So the rooster did not take other animals’ ideas the first time. The rooster apologized to others and he thought that the group was sure to do it next time.

They all thought the woman was very voracious about foods and money. They wanted to make huge pandemonium so they brought some watermelons and a fake copacetic egg-like diamond and a bag of boiled potatoes. The rooster asked number 3 (the squirrel) to put the diamond at the steps outside the front door then the squirrel rapidly hid himself in the backyard. The woman picked the diamond out of expectation and quickly got back into her chair. The rooster said: “all of you go and take the potatoes and threw to the woman.” They all said ok. The rooster shouted: “One Two Three! Go!” The fight began. The boiled potatoes got on the woman’s face like heavy raindrops. The woman just wiped it. They also used the watermelons and the woman felt hurt so that she went to the bathroom hurriedly. Number 2 (the rabbit) and the rooster slid into the room and the rabbit jumped on the table and opened the cage. The rooster asked: “are you okay?”

The bulbul nodded her head and flew outside. Finally, they met together.

The woman realized people should not catch the living things. So they have an ecstatic party! And the woman said sorry to Barbie. Everyone thought the rooster was very kind and was proud of him.

FIFTH PLACE: Sandra Zhao, Grade 3, SUIS Hongqiao, Shanghai

Sandra made a great attempt with her fun story about a talkative Rooster and his bulbul friend who battle a wicked witch. She correctly included not just 5 but 6 Wicked Words which was excellent! But as the title of her story makes clear, she has based it on the Broadway musical Wicked, with the same green witch called Elpha who dissolves in water! Sandra please remember – in story competitions, the judges are looking for original ideas, characters and storyline! You also need to work on your setting,  your tenses and your grammar (see my comments above about reading lots and lots of books) and your story ending – NEVER end a story “to be continued”! But a big well done for entering, and make sure you enter the next competition so you can get lots of story writing practice!

Wicked and Rooster

Once upon a time in Shanghai , a estival summer, 2 friends were on a road to see their new school . A illustrious talkative selfish ROOSTER! He was illustrious for throwing the wildest party in his old school or being on CCTV in school. And his friend (only because his friend for acting like a slave) But how rude of me my name is Sandra Zhao. And his friend the splendiferous bulbul, “Tita” (which is a girl).They met when they were in kindergarten, but they also had problems. Once Tita’s favorite comb got lost and Andy stole one of its large diamonds. But that was just a tiny problem…

So where were we? Ohh, yes! They were on their trip to their school. Something peculiar happened, very idiosyncratic … There was a witch at their school. A wicked witch, she is GREEN. She is called “Elpha”. She had a wand that can curse animals. She wanted to trick everyone.

She was the one who tantelise the coquelicot flowers. Why did Andy want to come here…YOU KNOW WHY? So, as they went on…they saw a thick forest on their way there. But Elpha was making a fire on it, so Tita said “What should we do?” “Let’s use our irridescent coquelicot flowers to unlock the spell!” Andy said.

“Ohh why didn’t I think of it?” They said the magic word and the fire was gone.

They were in Shanghai chasing Elpha, but just then Tita asked “We will never catch her！”“Ohh, there she is!” Andy shouted. They use the biggest power and made all the animals come here and FIGHT!

All the animals were running toward her and chasing her. She wasn’t scared at all. She said “BUDAMMATLALA!” All the animals were thrown away. She started running away, She crossed over the pond. Andy said “She crossed over the pond, she’s afraid of WATER!” Elephant used water to spray her! They went chasing her, all the animals pour water on her and she slowly disappear. “HOORAY! HOORAY!” Everyone shouted.

A ball of string appeared…

To be continued…

YEARS FOUR TO SIX CATEGORY

 In this Category there were 19 contestants, including a large number of excellent writers. Congratulations to everyone who entered this challenging competition – I very much enjoyed reading all your stories! The top six stories were all very well-written, with close attention to all the requirements of the competition. They also all scored very highly for that mysterious X-Factor – a combination of style, easy flow and that certain something which marks a story out as special. So you can imagine how difficult it was to work out the placings; in the end I had to be extremely picky! I’ve given an indication in each case of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the 6 finalists, which I hope will help them in future competitions, and I’ve also added on two well-deserved Special Mentions for reasons I’ll explain later! Wicked Words in bold italics as before.

 

FIRST PLACE: Arjya Kanjilal, Grade 6, DPS Newtown, Kolkata, India, 10 years old

Readers will remember Arjya’s wonderful 3^rd place-winning entry last year in my Mischievous Monkey Story Competition; this time, she has come a well-deserved First Place! I loved Arjya’s exciting adventure story about the adventures of a garrulous rooster and cheerful bulbul who get caught in the clutches of an evil fox-magician. What especially made Arjya’s story stand apart for me were her lyrical descriptions of setting – not just at the beginning, to set the scene, but throughout her story. Anyone who knows me will know that I am a Setting Fiend! Writing is all about painting pictures for the reader, and the more detail you paint about the story setting, the deeper the reader’s engagement in the story. Just look at Arjya’s opening paragraph to see what I mean! Other strengths were her alluring title, her use of exceptional vocabulary throughout, her well-drawn characters, her fast-paced plot with a great cliff-hanger, and the strong resolution and ending. Congratulations Aria – your writing just keeps getting better and better, and I look forward to seeing more of it!

 The Fire of Memories

The sky turned a beautiful coquelicot as the fluorescent red spring sun peeked out of its billowing cloak of clouds, spreading its golden hue over Bird Island in Qiandao Lake in China. Over the lush green meadows, lilies and violets nodded their heads in the gentle breeze as their tightly closed petals slowly unfolded and the hills came alive with the music of the birds. The iridescent feathers of a rooster shimmered in the soft light of the glowing red orb.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” A loud sound broke the roaring silence.

“Oh, Hi Ronnie! Are you awake already?” a sweet chirping voice came from behind him. It was a cheerful-looking red whiskered bulbul.

“You know that I wake along with the sun, Billie! You needn’t say that every morning”, replied Ronnie in his usual garrulous tone.

Billie suddenly shot off towards the sky shouting “Catch me if you can!” Ronnie started off after her, cursing under his breath for the millionth time about how he couldn’t fly.

Billie flew towards the Zhejiang waterfall darting behind a tree now and then. A ball of thread tangled in the branches got caught on her feet. It kept unravelling as she flew further and further but she failed to notice. Soon, she was in a different part of the island, completely uninhabited. Willows, alders and rhododendrons sprang up here and there and poppies dotted the green meadows. Behind the meadows and trees, there was a steep mountain. The rocks jutted out dangerously at right angles from its surface. And halfway up, there was a cave entrance, almost entirely concealed by some hanging ivy.

The dim glow emanating from the cave attracted Billie. Naturally curious about everything, she completely forgot about the game she had started playing and flew into the cave at lightning speed. The thread trailing all the way behind her snapped off when it got caught in the ivy, but she remained blissfully ignorant about it. Little did she realize that her inquisitiveness had led her straight into a trap. Her eyes fell on the magnificent coquelicot fire at the centre of the cave. Her eyes were transfixed on it but she missed the figure lurking in the shadows. The fire was showing her past, the memories dancing in the flames – her parents, herself as a baby, the first time she met Ronnie, all the years passing in minutes.

Suddenly, she heard a cackle from the shadows. Xi-Wang, the illustrious fox-magician said “The fire is connected to my life force. When the fire is fed, so am I, and my powers get enhanced. Now, you will cease to exist as anything but a memory trapped inside the fire whilst I take over the world. Ha!”

* * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, Ronnie was trudging up to the Zhejiang waterfall, but had completely lost sight of Billie. The mountain loomed in front of him. The strange light of the cave drew him near. Then suddenly, he saw a bright pink thread leading up the slope towards the cave. His instincts told him that Billie might be in trouble and the thread had something to do with it. After all, this wasn’t the first time her curiosity had got her into trouble.

“Billie? Are you here?” he shouted into the silence. He didn’t get any reply but he was positive that he was on the right track. “It is just serendipitous that Billie decided to leave this yarn!” he exclaimed.

He then looked up and saw the cave entrance, and how it was glowing with red light. He started to climb up the cliff. It wasn’t easy, but he egged himself on with a “just a little further!” Finally, he reached the cave entrance.

He saw Xi-Wang, the fox grinning from ear to ear, and Billie, helpless in one corner, standing centimetres away from the fire, her face frozen with fear. Xi-Wang pushed Billie forward and her wing seemed to be drawn to the strange fire. Ronnie flew in and let out the most piercing “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” He attacked Xi-Wang with a blind rage that momentarily threw Xi-Wang off balance. He lost control over the fire and Billie suddenly found herself free. Before he could regain his footing, Ronnie pushed him towards the enchanted fire and the magician got caught in his own trap. The fire did not burn him down but rather danced around him as if trapping him and turning him into a memory.

Meanwhile Billie flew back to Bird Island and informed the police about Xi-Wang’s atrocious behaviour. The bird police wasted no time and flew to the Zhejiang waterfall. They wrenched Xi-Wang out of the clutches of the fire and carried him off to the jail on Lock Island.

“Where havw you been all this time, Billie? I have been waiting for ages! Now, enough of adventure in one day, let’s get back”, rattled off Ronnie.

“Thanks so much for saving me my friend, I’ll try not to get into trouble any more”, replied Billie.

Ronnie & Billie went back to Bird Village, their home, where they were greeted by all the others. Ronnie chattered nineteen to dozen with all the other birds. It didn’t take long for the reporters to come too. He was ecstatic that he would be on television. He spoke about his ineffable joy at having saved Billie, and repeated his story at least thrice to every little bird.

Billie flew towards Ronnie and gave him a splendiferous trophy. “It’s a bravery award of the highest honour from the police.” Ronnie’s chest swelled with pride and he hopped off to brag about it to everyone, his coxcomb swaying as he marched.

Suddenly, Billie came up with a great idea.

“Let’s celebrate the victory of Ronnie the Rooster by celebrating the Year of the Rooster every twelve years, starting this year, 1921. Three cheers for Ronnie, Hip Hip Hurray!”

SECOND PLACE: Vedang Deshpande, Grade 6, Canadian International School, Tanjong Katong Campus, Singapore, 12 years old

Congratulations to competition newcomer Vedang on his superb entry. His story of a proud and cocky Rooster King who learns humility, wisdom and the true meaning of heroism with the help of a Himalayan bulbul was highly imaginative and witty! I especially loved the reference to the Maharaja, and the explanation about that colour, coquelicot! His story was a strong contender for first place, but was let down by a somewhat weak climax and a slightly abrupt ending. Overall it was a fantastic effort and I can’t wait to see more of Vedang’s writing!

Yong – The Proud Rooster

In the serene, peaceful village of Tuvas in southern China, “Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!” the King of the birds screeched as soon as the sun broke, interrupting the beautiful silence. Everyone came groggily out of their houses to hear what the King had to say.

Kuai the sparrow squeaked, “Why did you wake us up so early your majesty?”

“I called you here to tell you about how amazing I am!” Yong, the rooster King of the village boasted.

“During the war of ‘Niao’ (birds), I was crowned ‘The Best Warrior’!”

Yong truly was brave but nowadays he had stopped caring about the residents of his village. Yong wasn’t a modest ruler – he was a noisy, conceited, self-centered King.

As the loud rooster ranted on about his ‘real’ adventures, the other birds stealthily crept back into their nests trying not to get noticed by Yong. The only creature left listening to Yong’s far-fetched tales was Xiaoxue, the young myna who was in awe of Yong’s bravery.

As Yong continued to boast, a large silhouette appeared over the village. The birds chirped in panic and gathered their chicks into their nests. There was pandemonium everywhere. A massive human hand reached down and grabbed Xiaoxue. Yong watched helplessly as the human put Xiaoxue into a cage and briskly walked away.

All the birds angrily came from their nests and glared at the King. “This is entirely your fault, instead of just telling your stories of bravery you should have protected the kingdom and my baby would still be here!” Mama Xue sobbed.

“You go get Xiaoxue or you’ll be exiled from the village!!” Kuai shouted.

“But you.. You c-c-can’t do this.. I’m your leader!!” Yong protested as a group of birds dragged him out of the village. “Bring Xiaoxue home or never come back!” Mama Xue hollered.

As the rooster trudged away from the village he heard a squeaky, chirping sound. As he turned around he was hit with a blur of grey and black! Yong had never seen this bird in the village before. “Who are you?” Yong asked the bulbul.

“I-I-I’m Aragon, messenger of the Himalayan maharaja. I’ve come to inform you that some birds from our tribe have also been captured by the people, who keep them in a cage as their pets. My maharaja sent me to alert the bird villages about the same but I guess I was too late in Tuvas,” Aragon sighed.

“Birds should be free!” Yong bellowed, “Do you know where the humans live?”

“Sir, my investigation concludes that they live in the north-eastern parts of this land,” Aragon said, “Maharaja Aditya told me to help anybody who wants to free the birds.”

“COCKA-DOODLE DOOO!!” the rooster crowed, “Sorry Aragon, I always crow when I get too excited, crowing also helps me think!”

“Hehe.. That’s a peculiar idiosyncrasy sir!” Aragon chuckled.

In the pleasant weather Yong and Aragon made their way to the north, the cherry blossom trees with their bright pink flowers made the otherwise dull forest colorful. Yong noticed that there were fewer birds in the trees.

“Hmm, how odd eh Aragon, there are hardly any birds in this forest!” Yong said. “I’m certain that humans captured some of the birds here, and the rest of them moved south to be safe” Aragon squawked.

After a treacherous and tiring ten-days walk, Yong found an appetizing meal. “L-L-look Aragon!! A bucket of worms! I’ve never seen such mouthwatering worms in my life,” Yong drooled.

“SIR! DON’T FALL FOR THE TRAP! THE HUMANS ARE TRYING TO TANTALISE US, SO THEY CAN TRAP US!!” Aragon screeched at the top of his lungs.

“How silly of me,” The King realized, “Aragon, look there’s a string tied to the handle of the bucket, it is reddish in color!”

“Actually it’s more of the shade of coquelicot,” Aragon pointed out.

“What’s coquelicot?” The King asked.

“Coquelicot is a unique shade of red – your comb is also coquelicot, I know this because I have read about every kind of bird species that there is, I used to borrow books from the library!” Aragon told Yong about his learnings as they followed the string.

All of a sudden, the atrocious smell of waste filled the air which made the King nauseous. He heard the shouts of the market and the unmistakable call of a myna nearby!

Yong noticed a ball of the same coquelicot string left outside a hut. Yong craned his neck up and saw some drawings which looked unfamiliar.

“Aragon, what does that say?” Yong asked, pointing towards the drawing.

“If I’m not mistaken that says ‘“Live Birds – For Sale’!” Aragon said excitedly.

They saw a man who was sitting by the birds.

“Do you know how to set a fire?” Yong asked.

“Yes, I know! I’ll start a fire as a distraction and meanwhile you can free the birds!” Aragon squeaked excitedly.

Aragon gathered materials to start a fire.

“Chnk-Chnk-Chnk” Aragon hurriedly struck the stones against each other to start a fire. Finally, he was able to light a fire which quickly spread out.

The man sitting by the birds rushed out to see what was happening and Yong swiftly entered the hut, unlocked all the cages and the birds, thanking him, happily flew back to their own villages!

Yong scooped Xiaoxue, who was scared and couldn’t fly and bolted into the forest. Aragon followed him and they went back to Tuvas.

“Yes! We did it! Thank you Aragon! If we hadn’t saved Xiaoxue then I would’ve broken my promise and I would’ve failed Mama Xue,” Yong said.

After Yong returned the bird village had a sumptuous celebratory feast with Aragon as the guest of honor. Now the King listened to the residents more often and instead of telling preposterous tales, ruled Tuvas very wisely which made him popular and well respected.

THIRD PLACE: Emily Davis, Year 4, Arden Anglican School Beecroft, Sydney, Australia, 10 years old

Emily has become a regular entrant in my competitions, and readers may recall that she placed first in the Grade 1 to 3 Category of my Mischievous Monkey Story Competition last year! Now, in just Year 4, she is becoming a strong competitor among the Big Guys! I loved Emily’s highly original story of an annoying rooster who finally found respect in his village when he outwitted the Red Guards of Chairman Mao’s army! I especially enjoyed her descriptions of setting, her strongly-drawn characters, her use of vocabulary, the fast-moving plot and her use of historical fact to add drama to her story. But the slightly abrupt ending and some mistakes with punctuation were weak points – sometimes a semi-colon should replace a comma, Emily! In conclusion, though, watch out other contestants! Emily is a young writer to be reckoned with, and I can’t wait to see more of her writing!

 The Rooster who saw Red

The morning light stuck its shining head up over the rooftops of Zengchong village. It roused the birds who began their morning chatter among the trees. On hearing their song the sun spilled over into the streets searching all through the village for its one recruit, Hong-Hi. After covering every nook and cranny of Zengchong the sun finally found Hong-Hi curled up under a bench.

Like every rooster Hong-Hi was extremely annoying to anyone but himself. His job, as is true for all roosters, was to rise each morning at dawn to awaken all in earshot of his screeching cry. Hong-Hi was fed up; he felt unappreciated and disrespected. He was the rooster of Zengchong and yet all people did was batter him with their brooms. It was atrocious. Hong-Hi rolled over and let out a loud and lazy yawn. He decided not to wake those ungrateful humans today but instead have a well-deserved sleep in. Hong-Hi yawned again, this time even louder causing his coquelicot wattle to wobble.

Hong-Hi slept for several hours before stirring to find the village deadly silent. No carts squeaked along the narrow streets filled with hay and market goods. No sellers called out to hungry travellers or town’s folk. There was no busy chatter from the workmen as they lugged heavy loads of wood and stone. No horse’s hooves clattered down the cobbled winding streets of Zengchong. All was covered in a hazy fog of impenetrable silence, there was not a rustle or twitch from anything in Zengchong village.

Hong-Hi felt extremely unsettled. He fluffed out his feathers and cowered behind the leg of the bench. Guilt crept over Hong-Hi’s heart, maybe sleeping in hadn’t been such a good idea.

Hong-Hi let out a piercing cry and waited … nothing. He tried again, the village remained stubbornly quiet. Hong-Hi stamped his foot with impatience, what was wrong with this village? Why did no one listen to him? Sulking, he plonked his bottom firmly down on the dusty cobblestones.

Hong-Hi stared mournfully up at the wooden drum tower, its triangular turrets stacked one on top of the other reaching up to the sky. The old tower was splendiferously decorated with swaying straw knots to welcome in the New Year. Tomorrow there would be fireworks and music.

“Chakolee, chakolee” a bulbul bird called down from his perch on a pile of multi-coloured fireworks.

Hong-Hi leapt up, his beating wings causing clouds of dust to swirl like a tornado around him. Scuttling towards the tower Hong-Hi gathered wingfuls of fireworks and hopped up onto the first roof tier. He looked down, all was still. Hong-Hi continued to climb, haphazardly throwing his body up to each new tier, gasping for breath at this unaccustomed exercise. Flopping onto the final tier, Hong-Hi scratched ferociously at the wooden roof panels willing a spark to appear. Placing his claw onto the firework, waiting…nothing. Hong-Hi slumped, his comb drooping across his eye.

“Chakolee, chakolee,” the bulbul bird swept down, a ball of string held in its beak. Spreading his wings Hong-Hi crowed with delight. The bulbul inadvertently dropped the string, diving for the ground to escape the harsh call. Quickly Hong-Hi snatched up the string, tied it to a firework, and scratching with his claw he achieved another spark! As he had expected, the string caught alight!

The firework exploded with a deafening boom, a million fiery stars shot up into the sky.   Hong-Hi peered out from behind a pillar. A crowd of villagers were gathering in the town square, all eyes were fixed on Hong-Hi. Hong-Hi lifted a wing and wiggled it in the air.

A man shouted out from the crowd “Catch the rooster! Get a catapult, he will burn our village down!”

Hong-Hi slowly dropped his wing down to his side. He stared out at the crowd in horror. Some of the crowd had already left to collect their weapons, a boy threw a stick. This was not the recognition he deserved, this was dishonour. Shame flooded through him.

Hong-Hi stared sadly away from the pandemonium of the crowd towards the rolling hills, his attention drawn to a moving patch of red. He squinted, shading his eyes with his wing. The patch broke into smaller patches of red becoming flags as they got closer. These people weren’t villagers or travellers, they wore red armbands and came with sticks of burning wood. The Red Guards!

Hong-Hi cried out and dashed inside the drum tower. He threw himself down the inner stairs. He had to warn the villagers and bang the drum. He had to make them listen. Racing towards the drum Hong-Hi heaved the wooden drum stick up and thwacked himself against the skin of the drum.

“Gooooooooonnnnggggggg’

Hong-Hi shook up and down as the sound reverberated around the room.

Again he threw himself forward.

‘ Goooooooooonnngggg”

His head throbbed, he kept going until all six beats had been sounded. Hong-Hi collapsed onto his back, his legs in the air.

“Intruders! The gong has sounded six times.” The crowd outside began to panic.

A woman screamed “Red guards! Circle the drum tower, we must protect it”. Racing over to the tower the villagers formed a circle around it, their weapons held aloft.

The Red Guards’ faces were filled with shock, they had not expected that the crowd would be armed and waiting for them.

“Step aside, the tower must go. You must honour Chairman Mao. Move away from the old traditions and embrace the new. Step aside!”

The villagers held fast.

“We will never surrender our tower to you” they cried. Outnumbered, the Red Guards turned and fled.

The villagers cheered and dashed into the tower to praise the person who had beat the warning drum but instead found only Hong-Hi unconscious, his claw clasped around the stick.

From that day on an exonerated Hong-Hi was treated as an illustrious god. He was noticed everywhere he went and never again felt unappreciated.

FOURTH PLACE: Madeline Painter, Grade 4, Dryden Elementary School, Arlington Heights, Chicago, USA, 10 years old

Madeleine first burst onto the scene of my Clever Competitions two years ago, when she won 1st place in the Grade 1 to 3 Category of my Hair-Raising Halloween Poem competition, then followed that up with a 4^th place in my Mischievous Monkey Story Competition and another 1^st place in my Sunny Summer Poem, all in the younger age category! Now she’s in Grade 4, and her writing continues apace! Madeline has a distinctive, clear and witty writing style, and I smiled a lot as I read her fun story of a proud and clever Rooster who outwits an evil white cat at the Harbin Ice Festival in far north China. I loved the title, and I thought the story started brilliantly and flowed extremely well until the somewhat weak climax, and a resolution and ending which felt hurried. And a bit of a problem with that fire which burned the statue of the gargantuan rooster! Ice does not burn, my friend!! Madeleine used a grand total of 16 Wicked Words in her entry correctly! Well done Madeleine, and keep those entries coming in!

Treading on Thin Ice

Randy Rooster was having a perfectly splendiferous, wintry night in his hometown of Harbin, China.  Why shouldn’t the night be happy?  He was in the best city in the world, and the best place in the city; the illustrious Harbin ice festival.

It was a brisk, dark night, perfect for the bright, colorful light reflecting off his favorite sculpture. The gargantuan rooster was lit up in a bright coquelicot color.  The whole thing was tantalisingly iridescent. Randy was yearning to touch it, run his feathery wing across its cold surface.

Suddenly, he saw an egregious cat sneaking around from the corner of his eye.  He suspected the cat wanted to cause pandemonium, but he knew that wouldn’t happen.

Watch out.

Randy was confused.  He could have sworn he heard someone talking to him, but when he glanced around, no one was paying any attention. They were too busy marveling at the resplendent statue.  Abruptly, a gasp arose from the crowd.

“What’s going on?” an inquisitive bulbul shouted. “I demand someone fix this!”

“Wait what?” Randy cried out. “What’s wrong? Tell me and I promise I’ll fix it!”

Nobody answered poor Randy.  Instead, his mother tried to cover Randy’s eyes and hurry him through a nearby ice tunnel, but it was too late.  Randy watched as the intricately carved ice rooster in all its glory, was engulfed in flames.

“Mom, I know it’s ridiculous, but I saw the arsonist, and I promised, if I knew what was going on I’d fix it.  Like it or not, a promise is a promise.  A true rooster never breaks his promise,” a loquacious Randy pouted.  “I have very good eyesight you know.  I saw the arsonist.  And get this Mom, it was a cat!”

Randy’s mother sighed, “There is something you must know sweetie.  Your great, great grandfather, your grandfather’s grandfather, was the rooster.  The original rooster who raced for our place in the zodiac.  Ever since the race, the descendants of the cat have been wanting revenge on the other racers.  My guess is, who you saw, was an atrocious descendent of the cat.”

“Then I must find the cat and defend our honor!  I promised Mom!  Does this look like a face that would break a promise?”

“Uhhhhh…”

“Exactly my point!  This face is too innocent-and stunningly handsome-to break a promise!”

“I guess you can find the cat.  You do have a point.  I may not like it, but you did promise.  And a true rooster never breaks his promise.  Although do promise me one thing.  Randy Raleigh Rooster, you will come home safely.”

“I promise Mom.”

“Okay then, run along now.  Good luck and stay safe.”

“Cats. Hmmm.  They live in airports, right?  Or was it rock-climbing places?  I’d better ask around,” Randy muttered to himself.  He walked up to a rhino and asked him where cats live, but the rhino just turned away, spraying slobber on Randy.  Randy repeated this questioning process (slobber included) until he came to his best friend Jacob, who was, surprisingly, a cat. Jacob was fastidiously playing with a ball of string and didn’t look up when Randy asked his question.

“Well, I live here, but most cats live in the technology area.  You know, the computer stores, i-pad stores, those places,” Jacob explained, not looking up.

“Got it. Thanks!” Randy said over his shoulder as he rushed off.  “That cat I saw.  He was… white!  I remember now!  Bright white all over!” Randy stopped talking when he saw the back of what looked like a white cat.  He approached the figure.  “Hey you!” he shouted.

The figure turned around revealing pale white, floppy ears in front of his face. “Huh?”

The white figure was a bunny.  “Oh, I uhh… I thought you were someone else. I…. actually, do you know of any cat who is entirely white?”

“Well there is one who lives on 1210 Kitty Lane, if that helps any.”

“It does!  Thanks a lot!  Bye!” Randy clucked over his shoulder as he ran off. “1210… found it!” Randy exclaimed as he ran up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

“Hello?” a hazel cat asked in a lackadaisical tone.  “May I help you?”

“I was told a pure white cat lives at this house.  May I, uhh… see this cat?”

“Patrick!” the cat called over her shoulder.

“Coming!” a new voice squeaked.

What came out the door bamboozled Randy greatly. “He’s-he’s,”  Randy stuttered. “He’s a kitten!”

“Are you surprised?” the hazel cat questioned.

“I um… wait, have you seen another pure white cat that is not a kitten?”

“Oh, well there’s one who lives across the street.  It’s a dangerous cat though.  A real sourpuss.  I wouldn’t approach it head on if I were you. Good luck,” she said as she promptly closed the door in his face.

Randy was standing outside the door of the house pondering how to confront the cat when he thought of Jacob’s ball of string.  He could use string to lure the cat out!  He ecstatically rushed back across the street and explained his dilemma.  The hazel cat readily agreed to lend Randy a ball of string and call the police.

Once the police arrived, Randy set his sagacious plan into action.  He carefully tucked most of the ball of string underneath the door crack, leaving only a small portion of string to clasp in his wings.  Randy then rang the doorbell and stepped aside.

Before opening the door, the cat saw the string and tugged, but Randy kept a secure hold.  The cat didn’t see the rooster through the closed door and peeked outside to see what the string was caught on.  As soon as paws came into view, handcuffs were slapped around them.  The figure of a white cat in a dress was screaming and confessing her crimes as she was dragged into the police car.

FIFTH PLACE: Kairavi Sivasankar, Grade 6, UWCSEA Dover, Singapore, 12 years old

A warm welcome back to my Clever Competition to Kairavi, a past 1^st and 2^nd place getter in the Grade 1 to 3 Category some years ago when she lived in Hong Kong! Karaivi now lives in Singapore, and continues to excel with her writing. I loved the way her story of an obnoxiously cocky rooster who falls foul of the farmer’s cooking pot started – the dialogue was enormous fun and I loved her detailed description of Peking the Rooster! But there was scant description of the setting, and I felt that the ending was a little bit predictable. But remember, I’m being picky! It was a great story, Kairavi, in a very strong field, and I look forward hugely to seeing more of your writing in the future!

Cocky Chicken

It was an idyllic start to a warm summer morning on a farm near the outskirts of Beijing. The clouds drifted lazily across the sky and all was peaceful. Until…

Cocka-doodle-doo!

“Wake up, everyone! It’s a neeewww day!” Peking the rooster crowed.

Ugay the cow grunted. “I’ve been here for ages and never seen a rooster as obnoxious as Peking!”

Bowai the sheep sighed. “Peking is not his ancestors. They could keep the worms away.”

“Look at you animals, ugly and shaggy,” Peking continued. “Look at me, with my resplendent coquelicot feathers and canary beak!”

The farmer came to get the animals ready for work. They worked, except one… Peking. He fluttered and boasted, taking long naps and eating whenever he wanted. He teased the animals while staying out of the farmer’s view. When the farmer saw that work was unfinished, she punished the bullocks, the cows, and the sheep. Everyone was tired of Peking, but only the farmer could do anything.

That night, the animals overheard the farmer and her husband talking in the house.

“The emperor is coming to the village, and we have nothing to offer him.”

Her husband calmed her. “Should we give him the cow?”

Ugay gulped.

The farmer scowled. “No! Ugay is very special to me.”

Ugay sighed in relief.

Her husband asked, “What about the lamb?”

Bowai gasped.

The farmer disagreed. “Bowai would be devastated!”

Bowai nuzzled her lamb thankfully.

Her husband sighed. “What, then?”

In the distance, a rooster crowed. The farmer smiled. “How about… Peking?”

The next day, Ugay and the other animals voted not to tell Peking, but kind Bowai pitied him and told him. Peking was shocked and horrified. He rushed to the stables where the animals were resting and implored them to help.

Ugay harrumphed. “And why should we do that?”

Peking looked around desperately. “Please… please?”

All the animals murmured and shook their heads shiftily. Peking was devastated. Without a word, he fluttered out of the stables and started to hop out of the farm. He lamented how atrocious the other animals were. Peking refused to accept the fault was his.

As nightfall came, however, he grew anxious and longed for a friend. Then he heard a cheep and a small brown bulbul landed in front of him.

“Hello!” he chirped. “What’s your name? What are you doing here? Where are you going?”

Peking drew himself up and fluffed his feathers. “I am Peking with the coquelicot feathers and canary beak, I am on a journey, and… well, I’m heading somewhere safe. Same questions to you.”

“Well, I don’t have a name. I don’t have a home, either, so I’m just wandering around here.”

“Well, everyone has to have a name, so how about Bulbul?”

Bulbul the bulbul nodded happily. “Very imaginative! I like it! Can I accompany you on your journey?”

“It is imaginative, isn’t it?” Peking said, preening himself. “Sure. Come along.”

As they were walking, Peking told Bulbul about his plight. Then they searched for a sleeping place. As they were, Peking heard the farmer’s voice. “Peking! Where are you? I need you!”

Peking gasped. “Uh oh. That’s the farmer.”

Unfortunately, roosters are not fast animals. Bulbul flew away. Peking tried to follow but couldn’t. He was too heavy. Bulbul watched helplessly as the farmer lifted Peking into a pot. Peking locked eyes with Bulbul. “Get me out of here.” Bulbul nodded.

The farmer heaved the metal pot over the sizzling fire. Bulbul flew in from the window. The farmer told her husband to fetch the herbs and spices because the dish was for the emperor. He told her not to be so fastidious.

Meanwhile, Peking was slowly roasting in the pot. He saw Bulbul and looked pleadingly at him. Bulbul nodded and while the farmer was arguing, soared in and pecked her hard on the ear. She yelled and dropped the pot into the flames. Peking squawked and leaped out of the pot.

“Bulbul!” he hollered, avoiding the farmer’s stick. “Follow me!” He ran for the next room, where an open window awaited.

Bulbul tore for the window… to see a gargantuan cat! She yowled and scratched at Bulbul, who panicked and flew away, but the cat scratched at him again. Peking grabbed a ball of wool, tantalizing the cat. Her attention shifted and Peking flung the wool out of the room, just as the farmer and her husband bounded in. They were distracted by the missile of their cat and had to scatter. Peking and Bulbul shot through the window, just in time, and landed on a bullock cart.

“Phew!” Peking puffed. “Thanks, Bulbul. You saved my life.”

Bulbul frowned thoughtfully. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve heard you use manners,” he said. “That’s why the other animals didn’t help you. You kept boasting about your coquelicot feathers and canary beak. No one likes a cocky chicken. But you have hope yet.”

Peking scratched his chin. “I suppose I did act a bit stuck up… I’m glad my temperament is better now. Thanks.”

Bulbul laughed and shook his head at Peking’s newfound manners.

Eventually, the cart stopped at a little orange orchard, where oranges, tangerines, and clementines were in full bloom. The birds looked at each other, nodded, and hopped out of the cart.

“This is splendiferous!” Peking exclaimed. “Come, Bulbul. Let’s find a nice tree.”

As they walked in, another bulbul fluttered out of the trees. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Bulbette. What are your names?”

Bulbul smiled. “I’m Bulbul, and this is Peking. May I share your home?”

“Of course,” Bulbette chirped. “This is Peka.” A pretty hen came out of the trees. Peka smiled at Peking. “You can share my home if you like.” Peking nodded eagerly.

So that was how it ended. Peking and Peka raised their own little family, as did Bulbul and Bulbette. They lived in the orange orchard for the rest of their lives in peace –

Cocka-doodle-doo!

Oh, yes… except for that.

 

SIXTH PLACE: Nayonika Biswas, Grade 6, Delhi Public School Newtown, Kolkata, India, 11 years old

Nayonika’s story was beautifully written, with a very original story line about a Rooster who learns to love his croaky voice, and some great vocabulary. But it needed more detail about the setting, a stronger climax and a more developed ending! Overall it was a fantastic effort, and I look forward to watching Nayonika’s writing go from strength to strength this year!

 Mǔjī’s Voice

Once upon a time in China, before the invention of clocks, there lived a rooster called Mǔjī. He was very proud of himself and he loved to be the centre of attraction. He was both good-looking and smart with huge coquelicot manes and a draping wattle. The blood-red comb also added to his good looks. But only one thing bothered him – his voice. He was really ashamed of his croaky voice. Whenever he tried to speak, he would always end up making a laugh out of himself.

He longed for the mellifluous voice of Niǎo the bulbul. Niǎo was extremely inquisitive. She would never take ‘no’ for an answer to any of her questions. She was always hopping around, annoying everyone but she did have a melodious voice.

Every morning she would sing a beautiful tune while Mǔjī would only crow and wake the villagers up.

Niǎo was always teasing Mǔjī about his voice; “I am truly serendipitous to have got a voice like this rather than such an egregious voice like yours!” she would say.

What could Mǔjī do? he would try his best to ignore her tantalising voice. “What was God thinking when he made me? Was he in a really bad mood to have made my voice so croaky?” he thought.

One day, unable to bear the constant teasing of Niǎo, Mǔjī prayed to God, “Please make my voice melodic like Niǎo’s; I want to sing in the morning like her”. That night he slept peacefully thinking about his new voice.

Next morning Mǔjī was surprised to find his voice not like its usual croaking self but melodic like Niǎo’s! He was effervescent and was extremely happy. He decided not to crow that day as his voice may get ruined. So he did not crow, nor did anyone wake up. He waited and waited for Niǎo to come and then he would brag about his new voice, but she never came. He walked to her nest and saw that she was asleep and it was already afternoon! The entire town was pin-drop silent and no one made the slightest of noise except perhaps Mǔjī. He pranced and skipped about singing with his new voice.

As soon as it was evening he suddenly began to wonder, why was the entire town sleeping till now? Was it because of him? Was it because he did not crow like usual in the morning? The animals, the villagers, the king and the courtiers were all asleep; nobody had woken up except him.

Then it struck him; he crowed every morning and that was when the entire town woke up. It was only he who woke up without hearing the crowing. So because of his new voice he could not crow and the town could not wake up.

Realizing this he begged God, “God, please make my voice like it was before, I promise I would not be ashamed of it”.

Suddenly a thundering voice spoke up from the sky, a huge ball of fire with gleaming fiery eyes. “A wish graanted by the greeat fire God of the roosters cannot beee reveeersed!” it said atrociously.

“Oh Lord, please do something, I cannot forgive myself for this,” Mǔjī said but as soon as he said this, the ball of fire disappeared. Mǔjī began crying. He did not want to live alone in a town that would never wake up.

He began walking towards his house when suddenly he saw a ball of string. He looked closely at it and nudged it with his wings. It did not move. Then he mistook it for an edible thing and swallowed it whole. Little did he know what was going to happen after this? It was soon stuck in his throat unable to go in or come out.

Mǔjī began gasping for breath and was croaking loudly. He then fell on the ground and the ball of string flew out. Mǔjī breathed heavily as a sign of relief and kicked the ball away. He then opened his mouth to check his voice which instead of coming out as a melodious tune, came out as a loud croak! Mǔjī could not believe his ears! He croaked and croaked to verify this voice. Soon he was jumping with delight realizing his old voice had come back.

Next morning he crowed out loud as usual to wake the town up. Everyone woke up and carried on with their daily lives. Mǔjī was not ashamed of his voice anymore and began crowing loudly. Niǎo came and looked at him suspiciously, “Weren’t you ashamed of your voice Mǔjī?” she asked. “Not anymore,” was the reply from Mǔjī.

From then onwards, every morning the rooster used to crow and the bulbul used to sing in the little town of China.

SPECIAL MENTIONS

Two further entries deserved a very special mention in this Category.

Ashling Walshe, grade 5, Shanghai United International School, Shanghai, 11 years old

Huge congratulations to Ashling, a regular entrant in my Clever Competitions who has placed in previous years! Ashling was the only contestant who bravely attempted the enormous challenge of writing her story entirely in rhyming couplets. And the result was fantastic, coming within a pip and a squeak of the first six places! She even managed to include four Wicked Words! Here is what Ashling wrote in her covering email: “In the slip attached to this e-mail, I have written a little story about the rooster’s curse. In the rooster’s curse, I have tried to use your style of writing – having the words rhyme like a song. I hope you find this story as ridiculously funny and splendiferously interesting as I find your books!”And here is Ashling’s fabulous poem!

 The Rooster’s Curse

In the wetlands of Chongming,

Lived a wily farmer called Ling.

Ling and his wife had plenty of rice

And a secret really quite nice …

The secret no one knew,

Not even Ling’s brother Lew.

Now this secret was good,

Good as good would.

There was nothing Ling was lacking,

He really was cracking,

To boast his luck

And kick up the muck.

“You mustn’t!” cried Ling’s wife,

Waving a knife,

“Arrogance never mends!”

Really, she wanted also to tell her friends.

Oh, what glory,

To tell a good story.

But, she shouldn’t,

She couldn’t …

One night in the wetlands of Chongming,

Sat on a rock was Ling.

The tall reeds swayed in the breeze,

Ling let out a little sneeze.

The coquelicot autumn sun was setting,

Ling’s wife was fretting.

“Get some sticks,

Give me no tricks!

We must make a fire,

Or the consequences will be dire!”

Ling’s wife cried.

Ling got up and sighed.

The fire soon was lit,

Everything was fit.

Ling’s wife sprinkled the fire with an unknown thing,

The air seemed to ring.

Then, as if on a booster,

Out leaped a full-grown rooster.

It started to sing a song,

“I am a being to admire,

I leapt out of a fire!

I bring the Lings’ gold,

As much as they can hold,

Every 10^th night!

Yes, this is right!

That’s why I say in this rhyme,

I am so fine!”

The rooster struck a pose,

The astonished Lings rose,

“Gold! Gold! Give us gold!”

The Lings pleaded.

The rooster gave them much more than they needed…

“Tra-la-la-lee!

Bring this gold to me!”

The rooster sang.

In the Lings’ ears, gold rang.

Ka-bam, Ka-bling, Ka-poof!

Gold came tumbling from the roof.

The Lings cackled in ecstatic glee,

“Gold, gold for me!”

The rooster bowed,

Then he crowed.

He swished his splendiferous feathers,

The air exploded with heathers.

The night was still,

A creak came from the mill.

In the wetlands of Chongming,

The chink of gold came as a ring.

In the wetlands of Chongming,

There was a rumour about the Lings.

They had been suddenly covered in gold,

Much more than they could hold.

They were wealthy at the least.

Everyday they had a king’s scrumptious feast.

Ling’s wife dressed in illustrious gowns made of gold silk.

They drank fat white cow’s mellifluous milk.

Ling wore velvet suits

And gold-lined leather boots.

The townsfolk watched the Lings’ good health,

And wondered what was the source of their wealth.

But soon among the townsfolk, a sick lie bubbled up.

While the Lings were eating sup,

In the townsfolk came crashing.

Sticks they were lashing,

Bloodthirsty and ready,

The townspeople’s rage was steady.

“Thief! Your riches aren’t earned by you!

Not even your homemade stew!

Give us back our riches,

Give us back your wife’s gown’s golden stitches!”

Ling’s wife screamed,

The townsfolk’s eyes gleamed,

They wanted gold,

As much as they could hold …

“Blip! Ca-petey tip!”, water dripped,

Ling’s wife’s dress was ripped.

The Lings were shut in a dark cell,

They could hear the ring of their golden bell.

The townsfolk poured over the Lings’ gold,

And took much more than they could hold.

“Gold, gold for me!”

The townsfolk gurgled with glee.

Ling’s wife cried,

Her freshly picked flowers died.

“Pit, pat, pipitty, splat.”

Came the noise far from where Ling sat.

A ball of string rolled past Ling’s feet,

Did that come from the street?

Suddenly, the Lings heard a sound,

That sounded ever so round.

“Rul, rul, rul, rul!”

Came the sound of a bulbul,

“Rul, rul! Rul, rul!”

There on the windowsill, indeed was a bulbul.

“Rul, rul! Pssst! Hey! Rul, rul!”

Sang the red-whiskered bulbul,

“Rul, rul, rul!

I am a very, very, normal bulbul!

Don’t mind me!

I’m just singing, you see!

What’s your name?

It couldn’t be the same,

As my master’s, Ling!

A name through the villages, they ring!

Now my master has everything he wants,

No one he taunts!

He gives to the needy,

Feeds the weedy!

Even though he has some curves,

He has as much gold as he deserves!

After I give him wealth,

He wishes me good health

And best of all, he thanks me so!

But alas, I have no master like that, lo!”

The bulbul swished its dull feathers,

The air exploded with heathers

And a rooster lay dead.

The room filled with dread.

In the wetlands of Chongming,

You could hear a rooster sing …

 

Erik Lawton, Grade 6, Excelsior Public School, Castle Hill, 11 years old

A warm welcome to Erik, a newcomer to my Clever Competitions! Erik’s story was such fun, it made me laugh out loud. It had real panache and a laconic wit that reminded me of a young Raymond Chandler. But your tenses kept changing Erik!! Remember to choose one tense and stick with it – for your clever, witty style in this story, I’d go with the present tense!

 Are You Chicken?

I’m on the very brink of insanity. I’ve been stuck in this oh so tiny stone room for a week where the walls have learnt to speak Chinese. I mean all I did was “accidentally” turn my owner’s kitchen into a fiery inferno just like that human spy what’s his name? Oh yeah I might’ve overlooked one fact: I’m a rooster.

“Hello” echoed a high-pitched voice from the other side of the window towering about 20 feet above me. “Anyone in there?” I tilted my head upwards and stared straight into the face of a coquelicot Bulbul. Yeah you heard me, coquelicot. “How in Shanghai did you end up like that?”

“I flew into a dye factory” he murmured.

“Say what?”

“I flew into a DYE FACTORY!” The Bulbul remains silent after that.

“So, you happy with the colour?”.

He gives me one of the frostiest glares I’ve ever seen and yeah, I turned on the gas stove, but how was I supposed to know that the Shanghai terrors would light a cigarette?

“The view is breath taking, too bad you can’t see, hey I didn’t ask, what’s your name?” the Bulbul wonders aloud.

“Katchatori, and yours?”

” Al’orange”

” Might want to rethink that, now can you please exonerate me?!”

With Al’orange’s feet digging into my shoulders we’re flying over rural China towards Shanghai. The humidity making his and my feathers damp, the rain pelting us, stinging my eyes. The rice fields and crops passing by underneath us becoming more detailed. Wait, where’s the feeling of feet on my shoulders? Uh Oh. ” Al’orange I’m FALLING!”

I always thought I’d end up as a platter of dumplings but at least this is dignified. Suddenly I feel the reassuring pressure of Al’orange’s feet on my shoulder blades. “Cutting it real close man!”

“Sorry I’m a little rusty”

“Understatement! ,wait Al’orange, Building straight in front of you, 12 o’clock!”

He doesn’t have time to respond but he does manage to swerve into an open window before we come to a sprawling heap on the cold, concrete floor.

“Great thing I pointed that out or we’d be a pile of unrecognisable stuff!”. I glance down at my plumes. My perfectly groomed plumes! Now, they’re sticking out at totally unnatural angles. “Why, why I ask you?”

I didn’t really examine the room during our ‘landing’ but it looks like we’re in a warehouse. Shelves lining the concrete walls, and a reinforced steel door that was graffiti tagged. Security cameras recording every move we make.

” Stop sulking I can hear something!” He murmurs. Wait a sec, he’s right. The faint sound of whispering is reaching us from the other side of the reinforced steel door.

Ca-chunk! “Somebody’s unlocking it’

“Man you are fastidious!” I wheeze.

The door creaks open and a bunch of people walk in, all sporting ski masks and American accents “What’re we going to do with the money?”

A guy with the word Mark tagged on the front of his T-shirt answers “I’m going buy a penthouse in NYC baby, those diamonds are worth millions!”

” Cool it hotshot” Interrupts the third guy “We have to get out of the country first!”

” As the leader, if you follow me to the briefing room, I’ll show you our next move” announced the last person.

They leave, not caring to close the door.

“They were the guys that robbed the Bank of Shanghai, they stole about 35 million dollars worth of diamonds, hello, Khatchatori?”

I don’t care, I’m just staring at a bag of seeds, seething as it tantalises me.

“Sorry, you say something?”

” If we post the security footage online we’ll unmask them!”

” Genius but how are we going to do that?”

” I know how to use a computer”

” I don’t want to know”

The CCTV room is just up the hall and so far we haven’t run into any form of trouble. Al’orange finally makes it to the door, pecks it open with his beak and we’re in.

The room is lit up by the glare of the monitors and a swivel chair is parked in front of a woven bamboo desk. Al’orange flaps up onto the desk and starts tapping the keyboard until the footage comes up of the thieves hauling the diamonds into the ware house.

“And done!” Al’orange exclaims ” All I need is five minutes and this will be all over the internet”

I wander out into the hall, but the moment I step out, Mark and the leader emerge from around the corner. I mean what are the odds.

“Hey look Spike, it’s a chicken!” cheers Mark. I need to buy Al’orange time. I charge at them, flapping my arms. “What’s it going to do, peck our eyes out?” chuckles Spike.

“Great idea guys” I squawk. I flap my wings, giving me enough lift to get up to Mark’s head and then it’s complete pandemonium. The force of the strikes are so hard his skin starts to break. To try and relieve himself of the pain he dives through a window and lands in a sprawling heap on the pavement.

Spike’s hand lands on my throat and he hurls me into the CCTV room. Feathers go flying when I land, and Spike steps into the room, armed with a crowbar. Spike starts trying to pound my face in, landing the blows on my chest, breaking skin and drawing blood. I flap onto the desk and collapse in time to see Al’orange fly at Spike,trying to make him forget about me.

I scramble towards the keyboard frantically tapping keys.

“Cut it out you stupid bird, I really hate chickens!”” roars Spike, as I finally find the right key and tap it with my beak. The footage sends! I turn in time to witness Al’orange wrapping a ball of string around his neck before Spike dives out the window.

” Khatchatori you are resplendent!”

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST…

Below is the link to a fabulous story by my old friend Hillary Lo and her friend Winter Lau (now 12 and 13 years old and in Year 8 at Shatin College in Hong Kong). Readers will remember Hillary from a long string of winning entries right through her primary years at Shatin Junior School. Hillary has always been a gifted writer, and the great news is that she hasn’t let her elevation to upper school stop her writing in her spare time! When I last caught up with Hillary, she told me that she and her friends had started a writing club, and spend many hours each week meeting up to write stories together and entering as many competitions as possible. She and her friend Winter couldn’t resist having a crack at my Really Riveting Rooster Story Competition – even though they knew there were no longer eligible to enter. And here is the result! It’s a long story, but a fantastic read which I know you’re going to enjoy, and admire! And they’ve used EVERY ONE of my Wicked Words! How clever is that?? This is the kind of writing YOU could do when you’re older, if you keep practicing hard! Their story is based on my Tale of Rickshaw Rooster, but is a sort of prequel…this time Tommy Tan, the fastest Rickshaw Runner in Shanghai, is auditioning for an assistant…will it be Rickshaw Rooster or the evil bulbul Plague…click the link below, read on and find out!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fIN5x3P03B0lWfT7tEcF8WACWxN_Vmy2ErJP8SKwp9g/edit?usp=sharing