Literary Contributions
Carrie Whitcroft, F5
70
Oliver Woodhouse, F5
half bad. How wrong I was. I get back to the house, open the door and shout in, “School was cancelled, dad, because of too many people off.” He doesn’t reply. I search the house for him. Maybe he went out to buy some medicine. Mum’s already gone off to work at the hospital so I know she isn’t here. I walk into the living room when I see dad. He’s squatted down in a pool of blood over the still, lifeless body of Bobby. “Dad?” I ask nervously. He turns around and looks at me. His face is covered in blood and I can see bits of Bobby stuck between his teeth. “What have y-” He pounces on me and pins me on the floor. Then his eyes lock on to my pounding jugular. I interpret his next move and force his mouth away as he tries to bite my neck. I throw him off me and get back up onto my feet. “What’s wrong with you, dad?” I ask him as he too gets back onto his feet. He just looks at me and screams. Then he charges at me. I dodge out of the way as he pounces. He misses me and soars through the air, landing on a set of fire pokers, impaling himself on them. Then silence. “Dad, are you OK?” I ask his still, lifeless body… I walk over to him and look at him. Suddenly his eyes open and he comes back to life. He spits blood out of his mouth at me. Some lands in my eye, temporarily blinding me. I rub it out and when I gaze at my dad again, he is dead for good. I sit down and try to figure out what just happened. As I remember the past five minutes, I feel my muscles starting to cramp and I get a burning headache. I start to taste blood in the back of my mouth and no sooner than later am I coughing up
Jayne Dunlop, L6
blood. I lose all control of my muscles and fall to the floor. It feels like something’s inside me. A red blanket starts coming down over my eyes. I can feel my brain shutting down and within seconds, I’m in a deep sleep. When I wake up I feel only one thing… HUNGER. Harry Brewster, Form IV
PAWS AND TAILS This was it, what I’d been waiting on for months. I looked at the other contestants; we had all made it through the first few heats of the dog show but I knew they were the favourites to win. There was a boxer; a small, fat bulldog with a squished and intimidating face and definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. His owner, Buster, wasn’t much different and to say that a dog looked like his owner would definitely fit for them. Then there was a chihuahua called Princess; probably the most pampered pooch in the world. I watched as she and her owner Polly sat side-by-side getting their nails painted and hair blow-dried, looking in amazement as she treated her like an actual person. Then I saw my last rival, Henry the shih tzu. His owner, Herbert, was one of the wealthiest people in the country, so he lived the ‘high-life’, and he made sure you knew it. Then there was me; the underdog of the competition. I was a cocker spaniel called Toby, and my owner was Tom. He was my best friend and we did everything together, he took me for walks and fed me and played with me for hours every day. He’s been training me for this too, when he