Young writers show their skills

Cowes Primary School recently hosted a Phillip Island and Surrounding Primary Schools Writers Competition.

Although this is the first of its kind and entries were modest, the standard was high. It is hoped this becomes a tradition, thus inspiring local junior writers to build their skills and a passion for writing.

Three local wordsmiths were asked to judge the pieces and the winning entries were a unanimous choice. The judges were: Emma Harris (Principal Bass Coast College – San Remo Campus), Alice Hurst (Cowes Primary School Japanese teacher) and Lois Gaskin (Turn the Page’ Book Shop). 

Lois has kindly donated book voucher for the winners of both categories.

Winning entries – Years 5/6
1st Place:    Sailor Wynen, “Them”, Grade 5, Cowes Primary School
2nd Place:    Ksenia Dear, “Diving Discoveries “, Grade 6, Cowes Primary School
3rd Place:    Tessa Marks, “Don’t Go Inside“, Grade 6, San Remo Primary School

Winning entries – Years 3/4
1st Place:     Matilda Cotton, “Star Child Life”, Grade 3, Cowes Primary School
2nd Place:     Asha Carter, “The Fifth Dimension“, Grade 4, San Remo Primary School
3rd Place:     Lucian Hannon, “The Worst Dreams“, Grade 4, Cowes Primary School

All students receive a Writer’s Pack donated by Cowes Primary School. The winners of both categories, also received a book voucher from Turn the Page bookshop.

Sailor Wynen's winning entry, "Them" is published below.

Them

I remember everything. The horrors, the torture, the conclusive endings of lives I could have saved. But nothing compared to the complexity of the torment I went through as they tore me apart. This is my story. This is my life.
I was just seven when it happened. When everything changed. When I saw my family torn apart; my young life was traumatised. My name is Saiwilo. Saiwilo Smit. And I am crazy. Mad. Broken. Lots of words described me but no one ever called me afraid. But I was. I always was. Still am. I never think I. am safe just locked away.
The day I was taken was hot. Very hot. So, my family and I went to the beach. The water was lovely, it felt as if we were gods in a new world. During our swim it rained. Pleasant rain. For a moment. Soon the calm droplets engulfed themselves in ice. We ducked underwater. I saw my sister being taken. She fought it. But the strength of them overcame her. I never saw her again. By then my parents had already been taken. Soon to be followed by me. They took me from the neck until I fainted.
My first day there was a delirious blur as malicious, slimy arms coated in Armor hauled me into my cell. I soon realized that I was a hostage in an organisation of aliens. They all had masks. Masks that covered their mouths and noses (if anything was there). I could hear the other hostages screaming. Children, adults, teenagers, they were all there. I wasn't to move. I was never allowed to move. I was to stay in the same place twenty-four seven.
My mother was alive. Tortured but alive. I saw her once. She had pale skin that implied sickness and no hair. Her arms were longer than I could recall. Probably stretched as a form of torture. After several days of beatings and electrocutions she died.
My first week was atrocious. I had eaten almost nothing, been awake the whole time and been in extreme pain mentally and physically. I needed a break. But a break was hard to come by in ALIENESS. ALIENESS. Really. Am I the only one who thinks that that's a little too obvious? Well according to Lars (My only friend in the entire establishment) we are DEEP underwater.
Now I'll tell you a little more about Lars. He survived. The very second the alien torturers (vemorphs) saw us having a conversation, they hid us away from each other just to prove that in this place happiness is impossible to find. But before then. He was handsome. Stunning blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. When I met him, he was eating very few scraps of potato mush with his recently mutilated shoulder (no right arm). He was crying. Very slightly. He was older than me. I was 11. He was 16. The vemorphs only separated us to break us further.
That night of sleepless, nightmarish rest I had an idea. A crazy, incompetent, desperate but decent idea. It was, what if every prisoner (or kidnapped, as the vemorphs called them) took to the hallways and secret exits to escape ALIENESS. It sounded stupid out loud. But we were desperate. I told my cellmates my plan that morning and they ruminated it subtly to their fellow kidnapped on their schedules of slave labour. Soon my idea was taken as a joke then seriously (as things worsened). So it was silently agreed upon that on the fifth week at ALIENESS we would perform my idea. My stupid, idiotic, jokey, amazing idea.

WEEK 3:
Week three was full of training. As our time at ALIENESS grew our restrictions shrunk. We now were never tortured just working as slaves. We were allowed adjoined breaks to socialise which were called 'sessions'. We had 4 'sessions' a day. Our first session was breakfast, then lunch, then post lunch snacks, then dinner. But all the food we got was mushy potatoes and beans. Not fun.

WEEK 4:
It was the week before the week my plan was going to unfold. Unfold in those stupid vemorphs' faces. The wicked faces of the beings that murdered my family. My eight-year-old sister, My kind, adventurous dad, my powerful and strong mum. All gone. But I was determined to get my revenge. Halfway through the week the vemorphs began getting suspicious of the fact that we were all hanging out as an enormous group. So, to restore the fear in everyone's minds one of them came over and sucked the desolate life out of my good friend Strobe, literally. After that no one spoke of my plan, Strobe, or at all.

WEEK 5; DAY OF THE ESCAPE:
I woke up the morning of the escape with a protruding headache. But I persisted. We were scheduled to escape at four o'clock in the morning. And it was my job to wake everyone. Most were already wide awake, anxious for what dawn will bring. We began by turning off the cameras and computer sensors, so we could walk the grounds undetected.
The pressure really stacked on as vemorphs awoke from their breathless slumbers and killed several of the absconders but we managed somehow to outrun them before they killed all of us. Unfortunately for us the vemorphs that saw us reported our early escape to vexemorph, (the head vemorph, who by the way is the most egotistical, narcissistic being imaginable).
After the sirens began we decided we needed weapons. Luckily, my trusty companion Ayleck had been one of the slaves working on loading room 1234 with guns, knives, swords, maces and even grenades. After we had loaded ourselves with weapons we began to shoot the cameras and sensors so their working status was not regained. Once the streets of ALIENESS have no working cameras and we do not have to have the gruelling push of the anxiety of being caught weighing us down, we headed for the exits.
My throbbing headache was radiating through my body making it ache with every movement. Then I remembered. A whispered riot of words between two conversing vemorphs. Even though I did not understand a word of it, I remember hearing a person screaming before the fire of the vemorphs long masked trunk silenced it, they were screaming something like 'get out' or 'they know'. They know! How is this possible. We had kept it so quiet. And why would they allow us to successfully destroy their home. What if they wanted a challenge? What if our escaping was their personal game of tag? Their own cruel, murderous game of tag where only they can win. I screamed for my friends, for my family, for my life. But they did not stop running further and further. Away from me. I heard the deafening squeal of a vemorph and followed my only instinct; to run.
So I ran. And ran. And ran, Until the small sub was within viewing distance. As fast as I could I ran. Tears streamed down my face. I cried for my fellow kidnapped. For my trusting family. I entered the sub with great satisfaction that my running had stopped. I shut the door and activated the sub to float back to earth. Back to life. To reality. To normality. But it wouldn't be normal. Back home. I hesitated. A slither of memorial for my companions who had died. I had to accept that I was the only safe and alive hostage of the vemorph clan. But, who knows. The next kidnapping could happen. So, remember my story. My life. My misery. Remember my friends. Because life doesn't have to be important to exist. It just needs a little touch of ... them.