City Focus, - by R.T., aged 97

City Focus

                          By R.T. aged 97

On this fine day at City Focus with a crowd . . . the speakers will inform us; microphone not too loud. Rotorua Book Month!

Oh what a joy it is to see little children at a stall selling biscuits. Here for all.

At the rear of the mad poets table, writers are writing – perhaps a fable.

Glad I came here to see and honour writers better than me.

Chide the Child, by N.A.

Chide the child

                         by  N.A.

The dreams of beings

Their tufts of hair, loose upon 

Their recklessness chide

The child – one two three,

Beeswax.

'Friends' & 'On the Run' - by S.B. (age 13)

Friends

                                       By S.B. aged 13

I wasn’t ever a fan of parties and social events. I was shy and kept to myself most of the time. I had a few friends around and I had my own thing going on.

I never thought I’d end up here, and certainly not so fast.

It all started at the youth group. There were only a few members, but two girls had come along to see what it was all about. Anna and Beth, 17 and 18 year olds – about four years older than me.

I decided to come out of my comfort zone and try to make new friends. After an hour or two of talking Anna decided to give me a makeover. That’s how it all began.

We started hanging out a bit and talking over Facebook. After a month she asked me to come to one of her parties.

“You mean one of your drinking parties?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry dude. You can trust me." And I did. I trusted her completely.

She was the one person I could be myself with around: my best friend.

But ever since I met her I’ve been getting into trouble. I started drinking, smoking and even

trying to get drugs.

On the run

                           by S.B. aged 13

Boom! Crack! The thunder rolled and lightning cracked in the distance.

John and his sister Susan had been on the run for almost a week. They were twins, born to a poor family in the country.

The family had only really enough money for one child but they did everything they could to keep both. But after 14 years it became too hard. One was to be sent to an aunt in the city. They couldn’t bear the idea of being parted so after forming a quick plan they were off! 

“We must find shelter. It looks like a big storm’s coming,” said John urgently. “But we haven’t come across a house in ages.”

Susan replied, “Even if we could find one, we couldn’t stay there. They would tell our parents.”

“You’re right. We need to find another place to stay while the storm is here.”

Rain started pouring down on them and they broke into a run. After a few minutes they saw a silhouette not too far off. Lightning struck and they saw the shape was actually an old farmhouse. John started running towards it but Susan froze.

“Come on Susan. You’ll get soaked!”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit spooky: that it just popped up when we needed it? And it looks exactly like that place in that movie!”

“Oh, Susan. I told you to stop watching so many horror movies.Come on!

Reluctantly Susan started to run for the shelter.

The door was jammed shut and rotten, but John found a hammer and was able to break some of it down.

They got inside after a struggle and realised it was abandoned.

Eek! - by K.K. (age 13)

Eek!                    by K.K. aged 13

A brown mouse scurried from under my desk and raced under my bed, carrying something in its disgusting mouth.

I leapt up onto my desk and waited a few minutes. Slowly I crawled down and knelt beside my bed. I bent my head and peeked underneath it. In between the junk I spotted the same brown mouse that had scurried across my bedroom floor. I could see something moving next to it. 

Despite my disgust I moved my head further under the bed to see what it was. It seemed to be a mass of wriggling mouldy jellybeans: baby mice! There was a whole family of mice living in my bedroom!

I should really call the exterminators. I thought: ‘who knows what kind of a disease those filthy animals could be carrying?’

The brown mother mouse was feeding her baby mice a corn chip. 

I couldn’t really kill them. They were just innocent creatures. I crawled out and went back to my desk.

Chemistry: full of surprises - by R.F.

Chemistry: full of surprises                                 by R.F.

 

One never knows quite what is going to happen when one adds ‘Part A’ to ‘Part B’, stirs the mix, watches and waits.

On this occasion it was all a bit of a surprise, especially as ‘Part A’ and ‘Part B’ were not clearly identified as to what they actually were. Still, there was a job to be done, and the will to get on with it.

“Do you know what’s in these old bottles?” my student asked.

“No idea,” I replied. “The previous laboratory occupier just walked out and left everything in a mess, and un-labelled, so we just have to guess and go.”

And so the morning went, taking various bottles of left-overs, combining these together ready for disposal. By midday the job was done. The laboratory was clean and tidy, the stainless steel benches sparkling.

“Lunch time,” my student remarked and we left the laboratory for the afternoon. 

Unbeknown to us we had mixed glue mixes with something roughly labelled ‘Nitric acid rinsings’. Slowly, and then with increasing rate the molecules at ‘Part A’ reacted with those in ‘Part B’ and made a new molecule: Trinitrotoluene – TNT!

At some time during the night TNT did what TNT does: exploded!

Next morning we were confronted with an unbelievable sight. The cleaned and spotless laboratory was a huge mess! Every surface was covered with sticky gluey goo and broken glass: shards everywhere.

“Oh, no!” my student proclaimed. “What do we do now?”

“Get out the cleaning cloths and start again,” I insisted. “What else can we do?”

“I think we have to complete an accident report,” the student replied. “We won’t be able to hide this under the carpet!”