Polar Fish
– a horror story “When the snows came to New Zealand they brought something with them. Something dark. Something strange. Something that I knew, deep inside me, was wrong. So wrong that nothing would be the same again.”
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
ISBN 978-91-27-42013-7
9 789127 420137
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Andy Coombs 10-06-09 09.54.51
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10-06-15 14.38.29
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This is my diary. My little blue diary. It is October 20th. Tomorrow is my birthday. But that doesn’t matter. When people open a diary, they normally read the last day first. I hope you are doing that now. This is the last day. I need to write this down. I need to write everything down. Quick. Before I fall asleep. Of course, maybe you already know everything. Or maybe you don’t know anything and this is all new. But read this and you will know something. It may not make any sense, but please, keep reading. Don’t walk away. Just stay and read. This is about me. So I’ll start with me. My name is Reka. I am fourteen years old. I play rugby at school. My best friend is called Kelly. My mum is called Anee and my dad’s name is David. 3
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I have two brothers. Sometimes it’s hard being the only girl. Simon is sixteen and Amiri is eleven. Simon has yellow hair and likes to play football. Amiri has black hair and likes to run and kick things. Mum is a Maori, born on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. She paints pictures. Dad is from Australia. He works at the embassy in Christchurch, New Zealand. We live there – normally – in a little white house with a green door that Mum painted with blue flowers. Now we are in my granddad’s house on Rarotonga. We are trying to hide from everything bad. It hasn’t worked. Remember them. Remember me. That’s important. Now. Go to the mirror and look at yourself. Then come back and read more. Did you do it? But you need to know more about me. The little things and the big things. But I’m tired. I don’t know how long I’ve got.
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I like my eyes. They are my best bit. They are a pale ash-grey with wolf-yellow flecks. Simon says I look like a vampire sometimes. But he is only joking. I know he loves me very much. He told me. Every morning I look at my eyes in the mirror. I’m not vain, I think. I don’t think I’m beautiful or anything. I just like the feeling of trying to see me in my eyes. The me that’s me. Not what anyone else sees – the me that Mum or Dad see – but the me that thinks about my stuff. What I’m scared of, what I like and what I dream about when I’m asleep or awake. So I look. I look through the windows to my soul. And there I am. Me looking at me looking at me. Then I brush my teeth, I go for a wee, get dressed, have breakfast, walk to the bus, go to school, talk to Kelly, learn things, have lunch, learn more things or play rugby, come home, watch TV, eat dinner, do homework, talk to my family, read a book and go to bed. Then I do it all over again. At least I did. But not now. Not since everything happened. And you need to know what happened. How 5
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it happened. And I’m not sure I know. So I leave that to you to work out. I know what I heard and what I saw and what was on TV. I don’t think it will explain things. But then again – how do you explain the end of the world? I think it’s impossible. But I know it’s all about the snow. The falling snow. It started a week ago I guess. So stop now. Go back to October 13th and read from then until now. Maybe the words on the paper – the little black marks I scribbled – will help. And then come back to here and read the rest.
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Polar Fish
– a horror story “When the snows came to New Zealand they brought something with them. Something dark. Something strange. Something that I knew, deep inside me, was wrong. So wrong that nothing would be the same again.”
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
ISBN 978-91-27-42013-7
9 789127 420137
snowfall.indd 1
Andy Coombs 10-06-09 09.54.51