If anything, this year’s shortlist for the 11-14 age group for UEA FLY Festival Short Story Competition was even more competitive than the older (15-17) group (whose winner we featured yesterday.) The originality of ideas, descriptive turns and ability to evoke often oppressive and frightening atmospheres across the board made choosing a winner very difficult. Ultimately, the judges’ choice was the accomplished Yen-yen Loke, from Wymondham High and as ‘witty and adventurous’ as her heroine Millie. Her winning piece is featured below.
Once again we begin with the ominous opening conceived by YA writer and co-judge Alexander Gordon Smith (The Fury, the Furnace and Inventors series).
*****
“That’s the problem with authors, they’re always late!”
There was an awkward silence in the lecture hall. It was the opening day of the FLY Festival and we had a day off from school to listen to one of the most famous writers on the planet. Everybody was here… except for the author! I was sitting at the back, next to the doors, with my best friend Sam. The only person on stage was the festival organiser. She kept glancing at her watch and laughing nervously.
“I’m sure she will be here in a moment,” she said, the microphone squealing. “Perhaps we should go look for her. Um… You dear.”
She seemed to be looking right at me. I pointed to myself.
“Yes, you, right at the back. Would you be so kind?”
“Er…” I said. “You’d like me to look for the author?”
“Thank you,” she said. “She’s bound to be out there somewhere. Send her in!”
Everybody in the room was looking at me and my cheeks were on fire. I stood up, grabbed hold of Sam, and together we walked out of the lecture hall.
“Where on earth do we start looking?” said Sam.
I shrugged. I had no idea! The university was huge. There was no sign of her anywhere in the hallway, or on the path outside.
“Let’s try there,” I said, pointing to a building across the road. “She might have taken a wrong turn.”
It was a strange looking place with LABORATORY written in big letters above the door.
There was a smaller notice underneath that said: ‘Keep out, dangerous experiments underway!’ The whole building seemed to be vibrating, and there was a strange smell in the air.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go in there,” said Sam.
I was about to agree when through the glass door we spotted the author! She crossed a hallway, looking very confused, and disappeared into a room.
“Come on!” I said.
And before Sam could argue, I opened the door and ran inside…
FIRST PLACE: YEN-YEN LOKE (14) WYMONDHAM HIGH ACADEMY
“Millie!” Sam cried, mouth a spaghetti-hoop ‘O’ of astonishment, expression entirely composed of innocent distress. “Millie!” he repeated, unable to utter buy xanax in usa anything other than the two meaningless syllables which comprised my name (yes, I am a girl, don’t laugh).
Impulsively, I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the dank hallway before realising the cause of his pitiful exclamation – a giant, white dog, spotted murky brown as if sporting several enormous bruises, had curiously been lurking about behind and was frowning severely at me. Plainly the unfortunate creature had indulged in one too many fights. I sighed coolly.
“How much is that doggie in the window?” I sang in my most beguiling fashion, as the baffled animal cocked its large head to one side, gazing out of the glass door at which I was tentatively pointing. After slowly brandishing a single, crumbly, mouth-wateringly chocolate-y cookie (my last one…) as if it were an ancient dagger rather than my would-be mid-morning snack, I hurled the treat across the length of the room. Quite literally barking-mad, our spotty dog followed.
“But Millie, you’ve just blocked the door the author went through,” Sam whined, excusably vexed.
I snorted contemptuously and nodded at a tiny passageway, partially concealed behind rows of conical flasks, which made an attractive potential short-cut. Having convinced my very unassuming companion that this route was far more appealing, we scrambled hastily through the gap and into an innocuous laboratory.
Let us pause a brief moment to analyse the lively emotions pulsing through my narrow frame.
- I felt most pleasingly like Nicola Aribban, detective protagonist of our author Jen Nurrum’s sensational action series ‘Crystal-Snap’.
- As evidence of the above, I recollected that Nicola has also unfortunately been threatened by a giant, white dog.
- Vague misgivings concerning the authenticity of Nurrum’s confused and utterly innocent expression enticed me towards an interesting scent…
I was aware
of little except
my churning stomach and
Sam whimpering softly behind me until
there was a Bang
(With a capital B.)
Two men passed.
I heard a second explosion, though it resonated vaguely and otherworldly, whereas in truth it was not. It was in my world, personified by the burning sensation of a bullet’s graze on my thigh. The first had missed – a sizzling floor-crater crackled and burnt. A faint murmur echoed, mildly reproving “leave them, they will do no harm, they are just silly kids playing hide-and-seek, what we need is to get the crystals, and if anyone else sees, you’re my storytelling assistants and I’m lost.”
Though agonised, I understood that the cast of this particular storytelling had only just been released:
- Nurrum – villian, stealing priceless crystals currently under study at the UEA laboratory
- Millie – playing Nicola, an out-of-the-blue heroine, witty and adventurous
- Sam – Nicola’s faithful sidekick
- an assortment of dogs, bandits and so forth.
And I knew that the final chapter of ‘Crystal-Snap’ was only just being written.