BritSoc Children's Writing Competition, 3rd Prize, Juniors
What did Harry do next?
“Hello Harry we seem to meet regularly!” came a voice from somewhere within the room. Harry was in a tricky position; the evil scientist had tied him up against a black metal pole. The evil scientist’s words brought him back from his thoughts. The pole hung slightly above the ground in the centre of a dark room. The room was enclosed within four plain black walls with one window painted black and a small hidden door, which Harry didn’t even realise existed. Harry could only see four plain walls and sometimes he could hear a faint squeaking sound from the rats.
“I see in about three minutes it will finally become the end of Harry forever! Since there is no one to help you I guess you will just have to stand there chewing hopelessly!” the scientist laughed.
“There I think you are quite mistaken,” Harry managed to say spitting out bits of rope in the scientists face. He had now chewed off a huge chunk of the rope and was free! With one mighty kick of his leg he spun around, untwisting himself from the rope. He landed on the floor completely unharmed and he turned around to face the now startled scientist.
“But how? It’s impossible…why did you have to…?” the scientist began almost speechless. Harry ignored his stuttering and gave him a huge kick in the stomach knocking out the scientist completely.
“Now who’s hopeless?” he asked the unconscious scientist, “One hundred and twenty seconds to explosive time!” Harry said quickly to himself. Once again he clung to the pole and pulled himself up, he kicked open the painted window and climbed out. He found himself on another floor of the building, but to his disappointment guards surrounded him in seconds. He had absolutely no way out, should he go back the way he came or fight his way out? His heart was racing; Harry knew he was wasting time. He always had to make choices but this was definitely the hardest one. What should Harry do next?” Danny read aloud to his little sister, Aimee, “So what do you think?” Danny asked.
“Well it’s a bit short isn’t it? I mean it is all right could be better though!” she replied, “For starters, the story begins in a building. What building? You haven’t explained. It’s just a typical boyish, never-gonna-happen story. I mean why did you have to make the main character a boy? Those stories always have boys; you could at least have made him have some heroic girl partner called Jennifer. Isn’t that a wonderful name?”
“SHORT? What do you mean add a girl with a soppy name like Jennifer? I spent ages writing this when I could have been playing outside with my friends!” Danny exclaimed. “Oh I give up!” Danny said grabbing his jacket as he headed for the door.
“Where are you going? You are meant to be looking after me! Mum and dad have gone out, they’re not going to be back for a while yet!” Aimee moaned, upset at the thought of being all alone in a house at seven in the evening.
“Well, pop into the neighbours or something, they will be back soon anyway,” Danny, said as he rushed outside in a bad mood, slamming the door behind him.
Aimee sat down in the chair biting her lip, furious at her brother for leaving her alone. All the lights were off and two shadows shaped like ghosts stood by the door. Aimee sat still frozen in horror, she tried to tell herself it was only the coats and that she shouldn’t be afraid of such things, but it didn’t work. Suddenly the bin fell down outside the house scattering rubbish everywhere, Aimee heard it loud and clear. She couldn’t take it anymore, she grabbed Danny’s abandoned story and ran upstairs to her room. Finally safe in the comfort of her room she sat down at her desk and had a great idea! She would continue Danny’s story! Show him whose boss! She picked up her pencil and began to write. . . .
Harry made a quick decision to jump back into the room, escaping the guards, where the scientist still lay unconscious. He bounded through a nearby door, which he hadn’t even noticed before. He ran though a corridor until he came up to a fire exit. Outside the building was freezing cold and the place looked like a huge blanket of snow had covered it. Harry made his way through the snow towards the parking place. He ran until he spotted the plane. It was a tiny thing, a Microlight Thruster. To him it looked almost homemade. Every time he boarded he never believed that they would be able to lift off, but as he climbed in beside his partner, Jennifer, he just hoped that the plane would make it!
“Hurry up! There’s no time for chit chat, that building is going to explode in exactly. 30 seconds!” Harry shouted above the noise of the plane.
Jennifer nodded as she began to fly the plane. Harry watched, willing the plane to fly faster. He felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. What if they didn’t make it? Ignoring his thoughts he began to weigh up the possibilities. They had about twenty seconds left and Jennifer hadn’t even got the plane started yet! They had to get away and fast!
After a wobbly take-off they were in the air, soaring away from the building. For a second Harry almost thought they had a chance of getting away. But then the building exploded and Harry didn’t even get a chance to take a look as the plane lurched upwards out of control. Harry was thrown out of his seat; he curled into a ball, unharmed. Unfortunately Jennifer had slammed her head into the glass window and was bleeding from a huge scar on her head. Harry then realised that Jennifer had passed out and the plane was falling from the sky like a burning meteor. Harry’s stomach dropped too and he just managed to grab the controls and steer them back into a better position.
“What happened?” Jennifer asked waking up from her concussion. As everything came back to her she quickly grabbed the controls and continued flying.
“What happened back there?’ Harry asked when everything was back to normal.
“We hit some thermals from the fire,” Jennifer exclaimed examining her cut in the mirror. Harry sighed with relief. That was a close one!
“Another mission completed successfully!” he laughed as he sat back in his seat.
“There! That’s what Harry did next!” Aimee said proud of her story as her brother came into the house.
(1,122 words)