WRiting Contest #2
Fiction Examples
Where the Wild Things Are
By Maurice Sendak
The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another. His mother called him “WILD THING!” and Max said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!” so he was sent to bed without eating anything.
That very night in Max’s room a forest grew and the walls became the world all around and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day to where the wild things are.
And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, “BE STILL!” and they were frightened and made him king of all wild things.
“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!
Land of Stories – The Wishing Spell
By Chris Colfer
Alex was no longer in her bedroom. She was falling into a world of light.
She fell farther and farther, faster and faster. She was dizzy and scared. She screamed out for help but couldn’t hear her own voice. Would she ever stop falling? Was she going to die? Was she dead? She wondered if she would ever see her family again.
She could hear birds chirping and trees blowing in the wind. The noise seemed to get closer and closer, but she just kept falling and falling, not knowing where she was falling to….
“Ouch!” Alex said, hitting the ground. Her impact was hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to seriously injure her. Had it not been for the rough landing, she would have thought she was dreaming for sure.
Alex quickly got to her feet. She felt her pulse to make sure her heart was still working; she was still alive, from what she could tell. She was so thankful to have finally stopped falling… but where exactly had she fallen to?
She was standing on a dirt path in the middle of a thick forest. The trees were tall and dark with bright green moss covering their trunks. The sun’s rays shined through a light mist. Birds squawked from high in the trees and, if she listened closely enough, she could hear a tiny stream in the distance.
Alex spun around, looking in all directions. Her breathing increased as she took in her new surroundings. Was she overreacting or not reacting enough to what had just happened? And what exactly had just happened?
She looked up to see if there was an opening she had fallen through, hoping to see some sort of window into her bedroom, but all she saw were tree branches and the sky above her.
“Where am I?” she asked herself.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!” As if he had fallen right out of thin air, Conner landed hard on the ground beside his sister. He was pale and screaming, and his limbs were stretched out in all directions. “Am I alive? Am I dying? Am I dead?” he asked from the ground with his eyes tightly closed.
“You’re alive!” Alex told him. She had never been so happy to see him.
The Way Home in the Night
By Akiko Miyakoshi
On our way home, we see the restaurant and bookshop closing for the night. My mother carries me through the quiet streets. Most of our neighbours are already home. I can see their lights in the windows. I hear a phone ring. Who is calling?
Mmm… it smells like pie.
A light flickers. Maybe someone is watching TV.
And it sounds like there is a big party next door.
I look in a window and see someone saying goodbye.
When we are almost home, my father joins us. Soon he will tuck me into bed.
Snug under my covers, I think about the way home.
Are the party guests saying goodnight?
Is the person on the phone getting ready for bed?
Maybe the cook from the restaurant is taking a bath, and the bookseller is reading on the couch.
Is the pie ready to be shared? Have all the lights been turned off for the night?
Some nights are ordinary, and other nights are special. But every night, we all go home to bed.
Goodnight.
A Curious Robot on Mars!
By James Duffett-Smith
Over 100 million miles from home, the curious robot was all alone.
He was on a mission from Earth to find life on Mars.
He loved digging, and he loved exploring.
But Mars was cold, and Mars was empty.
There was no life here.
“Curiosity, this is Mission Control. You’ve found ice, and you’ve found rocks. Your mission is over.”
“Mission Control, don’t leave me here! There’s more to do…Hello? … Can you hear me?”
But they couldn’t hear him.
Curiosity, the robot rover, was all alone.
But Curiosity hadn’t finished exploring. He crawled over the red sand and reached a big crack in a rock.
He saw a flash of light at the bottom of the deep, dark crack.
“Hello?” he called. “Is there anybody there?”
Curiosity got too close to the edge, though, and fell into the darkness.
“Help!” He cried as he tumbled down.
Curiosity landed at the bottom in a big, soft pile of leaves. The light shone through the crack above.
Out of the light, Laika, the space dog, barked at him.
“Rufff! Ruff!”
“Beeeeeep! Beeeep!”
The light grew stronger at the end of the crevice. Curiosity knew that his mission was now over.
“Mission Control? Are you there? I’ve found something…special!”
But there was no response, only silence.
But he didn’t really care--he loved exploring no matter what. So, Curiosity, the robot rover, played with Sputnik, the forgotten spaceship, and Laika, the forgotten space-dog.
As his radio battery ran out, Curiosity sighed a happy sigh. He’d done it. Earth would never know, but there was life on Mars.
Land of Stories – The Wishing Spell
By Chris Colfer
Alex was no longer in her bedroom. She was falling into a world of light.
She fell farther and farther, faster and faster. She was dizzy and scared. She screamed out for help but couldn’t hear her own voice. Would she ever stop falling? Was she going to die? Was she dead? She wondered if she would ever see her family again.
She could hear birds chirping and trees blowing in the wind. The noise seemed to get closer and closer, but she just kept falling and falling, not knowing where she was falling to….
“Ouch!” Alex said, hitting the ground. Her impact was hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to seriously injure her. Had it not been for the rough landing, she would have thought she was dreaming for sure.
Alex quickly got to her feet. She felt her pulse to make sure her heart was still working; she was still alive, from what she could tell. She was so thankful to have finally stopped falling… but where exactly had she fallen to?
She was standing on a dirt path in the middle of a thick forest. The trees were tall and dark with bright green moss covering their trunks. The sun’s rays shined through a light mist. Birds squawked from high in the trees and, if she listened closely enough, she could hear a tiny stream in the distance.
Alex spun around, looking in all directions. Her breathing increased as she took in her new surroundings. Was she overreacting or not reacting enough to what had just happened? And what exactly had just happened?
She looked up to see if there was an opening she had fallen through, hoping to see some sort of window into her bedroom, but all she saw were tree branches and the sky above her.
“Where am I?” she asked herself.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!” As if he had fallen right out of thin air, Conner landed hard on the ground beside his sister. He was pale and screaming, and his limbs were stretched out in all directions. “Am I alive? Am I dying? Am I dead?” he asked from the ground with his eyes tightly closed.
“You’re alive!” Alex told him. She had never been so happy to see him.
From “My Country Is a Ghost”
By Eugenia Triantafyllou
When Niovi tried to smuggle her mother’s ghost into the new country, she found herself being passed from one security officer to another, detailing her mother’s place and date of death over and over again.
“Are you carrying a ghost with you, ma’am?” asked the woman in the security vest. Her nametag read Stella. Her lips were pressed in a tight line as she pointed at the ghost during the screening, tucked inside a necklace. She took away Niovi’s necklace and left only her phone.
“If she didn’t die here, I am afraid she cannot follow you,” the woman said. Her voice was even, a sign she had done this many times before. Niovi resented the woman at that moment. She still had a ghost waiting for her to come home, comforting her when she felt sad, giving advice when needed. But she was still taking Niovi’s ghost away.
Stella paused. She gave Niovi a moment to think, to decide. She could turn around and go back to her home taking the necklace with her. Back to her unemployment benefits and a future she could no longer bring herself to imagine, or she could move down the long stretch of aisles, past the dimming lights and into the night, alone, her mother’s ghost left behind—where do ghosts return to in times like this? Niovi would be a new person in a new country, wiped clean of her past.
Foreign ghosts were considered unnecessary. The only things they had to offer were stories and memories.
Niovi had prepared herself for this, and yet she had hoped she wouldn’t have to leave her mother behind.
She gave the necklace to the impassive woman and let herself drift down the aisle as if a forceful gust of air ushered her away.
Her mother’s ghost waved goodbye behind the detector and Niovi’s thoughts were of the Saturday of Souls. It was a prayer, an invocation as she put more and more distance between her and the security woman, her and the necklace. Without her mother’s ghost she would start to forget soon. But this she had to remember. She needed to hang on to something now that her mother had been pried from her hands.
The Saturday of Souls.
When the ghost finally disappeared, Niovi’s legs felt like lead. Her arms felt like lead. Everything felt like lead and she could barely move.
“Welcome!” Niovi heard the driver say as she boarded the airport shuttle.