I ran - by A.B. aged 11

I ran

           by A.B. aged 11

I ran.

My feet pounded against the muddy forest floor.

I looked behind me and saw nothing. Then I looked harder, staring at a patch of moonlight filtering through the trees. 

Then something stepped into the clearing, moving fast, seeming to glide into the starlight, stretching its  . . . its things toward me. I ran all the harder, smashing my feet on the windswept needles like massive bullets, crashing further into the woods.

I turned, frantically scrambling over fallen logs, trying to lose it by weaving in and out of the trees.

Suddenly I tripped on a root, falling flat and scrambling back up and behind the tree. I looked behind me but saw nothing but the moonlit bracken, torn from my dash past.

Then all of a sudden I felt a chill – not the kind of chill you get from a crisp morning air or the chill you get from at the top of the tracks knowing you will fall at any second, plummeting toward the ground, but a kind of chill that crawls up your spine, paralysing your whole body and making your sixth sense scream at your very soul to run.

I turned around about and there it was. The last thing I remembered was a feeling of pure panic before I was gone.

Cats by C. H-S, 11 yo

Cats

             by C.H-S, aged 11

What I like most about Rotorua is not the history or the culture. I mean, that’s interesting – but not as good as Rotorua being the only place in the world where cats can hear and talk English.

Molly, Storm and Sparkles are some of the chosen cats. Molly and Storm are black. Sparkles is black too but with a white chest and paws.

Ashleigh, Jessica and I found out one day that cats can talk. We didn’t mean to.

It was a normal day. Ashleigh and Jessica were at my farm and for some reason they decided to bring their cats.

Ashleigh brought Molly, Storm’s sister, and Jessica brought the 7.5 Kilo Sparkles. Ashleigh and Jessica are always having pathetic fights over that fat tomcat. For example: “He’s mine,” Jessica screeched. “Mine,” hissed Ashleigh in her dangerously quite voice.

“No!”

“Is!”

That’s what they do!

Anyway, back to the story . . .

We went down to our little spot, a hideout that my pest of a little sister Nicole has no idea about. Molly and Storm bounded alongside each other while Sparkles trailed slowly behind.

“That cat is just sad, Jess.”

Two pairs of eyes glared at me. Ashleigh’s voice lowered, Jessica’s rose: “WHAT did you say?” they said in unison.

I gulped. “Uh . . . nothing.” I gulped again. Then I run.

My feet pound the ground as I escape my two best friends. I dived down, hopefully hidden by the long grass.

That’s when I heard it: a pretty voice that wasn’t mine; or Ashleigh’s; or Jessica’s.

“Sparkles the Great. You need to thin down.”

I heard a gasp beside me. I saw Ashleigh and Jessica staring.

It was Molly talking!

And it wasn’t my imagination.