Creative Writing Awards sponsored by Matson and Allan Real Estate Ltd
We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2011 creative writing competition.
Senior: 1st prize ($500) – Kelly Eden-Calcott
Senior: 2nd prize ($250) – Carole Haldler
Junior (under 13): Quinn Watkins
The judge, poet Joanna Preston, also awarded certificates in the junor category to Clare Langlands and Tori Bayliss (Highly Commended) and Leigh Walters and Quinn Watkins (Merit). Jo Eden, Adele Langlands and Julia Atkinson were also awarded Commended certificates in the senior section.
Winner – Junior Section
Familiar Feelings
By Quinn Watkins
Adrenalin rushes through my veins
Fearful of vanishing in a foreign land
Screaming, sobbing, shattered poeple
Hopelessness overcomes when you catch a glimpse of your lost friend
Bravery of strangers, lifting the rubble off the stranded
Courage of a soldier, risking his life for his nation
Hope arises like the phoenix out of the ashes
We keep the faith hoping we will return
We were the Gods victims, What did we do wrong
Soldiers battling, all for the same prize
Yellow daffodils shoot through the rubble, their yellow heads defiant against the bricks and concrete
The poppies hold their heads up high, forever a symbol of a time some would rather forget
Who would of known we would live through these days – we will forever be comrades of the day the earth shook
Who would of thought we would make it home with only memories, we will forever be comrades of someone else’s war
Winner – Senior Section
A walk to the shops
Kelly Eden-Calcott
Beth’s feet often walked on their own. They didn’t need her head and she was glad about that. Her head was useless half the time and the other half….well, she didn’t trust it to get her anywhere good anyway- it never had. Her feet she trusted. They always knew where to go. It was like watching the women in “McCloud’s Daughters” ride their horses. Beth had done that a few years ago at a school thing. The horse was one of those trail ones that just needed a kick to start and then it did all the rest- they know the way so well, those horses, that you don’t even have to do a thing. Brilliant!
Today, Beth’s feet were taking her to the shop. They had already taken her down her street and past the park on the corner and now they were heading down the hill toward the sea. They wouldn’t reach the sea though, the shops were one street short of it and then her feet would take her back up the other side, and home. Beth had walked it a thousand times, usually once each day, just to get out of the house that she shared with her mum. Beth’s feet stopped her worrying, which she did constantly if her feet were still. Even watching “McCloud’s Daughters” she had to move, had to jiggle, or clean, or pace.
Beth reached the New World, and let her feet lead her through the automatic doors. The main heading of “The Press” sitting just inside the doors read: ‘Recession Bites The Tooth-fairy”. Beth briefly ran her tongue over her own unwashed teeth; definitely fuzzy. She folded her lips around her teeth and reminded herself not to smile at anyone today. Ducking past a yellow “wet floor” sign she entered the supermarket through a vacant checkout line; the wet lino feeling greasy and slick on her bare feet, and the frayed hem on the bottom of her jeans, like a wick, sucking up a small puddle at her heels. She shuffled to keep from slipping: that would be more embarrassment than she could handle today. Keeping her eyes on the floor Beth slunk past the stacked up beer and wine and tucked quickly into the milk fridge. Just one litre today. Blue is best. Beth ran her hand over her slim tummy, which had been feeling a bit bloated lately. Green milk maybe. But blue is nicer. Beth slid her hand over the blue, to the green, and back again. Grabbing the green, finally, she headed for the tills.
At the checkout only one of the three lanes was open. Beth hesitated at the end next to the magazines and looked at the automatic doors. They seemed miles away. A whole conversation away. Why can’t there be self service checkouts here like she’d heard they have in Wellington. Her neighbour had told her they do everything by themselves, scanning, paying and everything. That would be nice. The greying checkout chick was rubbing lipstick off her sparkling white teeth with a finger and stared at her only customer.
“Um Hel-lo” said the woman, leaning over her till and blocking Beth’s view of the doors.
Beth read her name badge: Marty. Marty leaned back in her perch. Beth, slipping her money out of her pocket, looked longingly toward the doors again.
“Just the milk then today?” said Marty scanning it and collecting the $2 placed on the rim of the bench. She flashed a fake friendly-customer-service smile that didn’t look anything like the women on the New World ads that Beth had seen. Perhaps Marty’s tongue is like my feet, Beth wondered, working without needing a brain. Beth nodded and looked down.
“I couldn’t decide…..” she said.
Marty put out a manicured hand, her long pink nails with tiny stars delicately held Beth’s 20c change. Slipping her hands into her oversized sleeves (to hide her own chewed cuticles and tobacco stains) Beth offered up a cuff which Marty placed the coin into.
“Have a nice day” said Marty absently and turned back to her lipstick rubbing.
Beth, finally released, started heading toward the doors, letting her feet take over again. But just as she reached for her milk a wave of nausea hit her hard and she doubled up against the end of Marty’s counter.
“Woh, you alright love?”
Beth stared at the ground. If I just don’t move. If I just don’t talk. But it was too late.
“Ohh, hey hey, it’s ok, here, puke in here.”
Taking the plastic shopping bag from Marty, Beth finished emptying her stomach and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
“That’s some bad hangover there” said Marty.
“No, no,” Beth protested, her stomach feeling worse as she shook her head.
“Well, better get yourself to a doctor then aye?”
Holding tightly to the plastic bag in one hand and her milk in the other, Beth nodded and shuffled out the door as quickly as possible. The doctor? Great, even worse than the supermarket. Why today? It was just down the street luckily. They usually took you without an appointment; Beth hoped they would today. She felt another wave grip her insides and heaved into the ferns planted between the shops.
At the doctor’s they gave her a pregnancy test. Sitting in the toilet near the waiting room, Beth held the little white stick and waited. She shuffled her feet. Two blue lines. Oh. Back in his office, the doctor read the stick and nodded.
“What do you think you’ll do? Keep it?”
Beth shrugged. What could she do? Her neighbour was always going on about girls who get pregnant when they are young and single, like Beth. It happens by mistake, she always said, and it’s a mistake to keep it. Who would tell her to keep it? Not her mum. Not even the doctor probably. She had to go with that she guessed. Everyone else always seemed so sure; their minds so made up.
Beth started back home and then decided against it. Instead she walked quickly back to the supermarket. Marty looked up at her as she entered and smiled.
“All ok now, love?” she crooned.
Nodding, Beth headed for the milk, grabbed a blue one, and marched back to the checkouts.
“Changed your mind then aye?”
Beth handed her back the green one.
“Nah, you’re ok. Just keep it”
“Yes, thanks” said Beth clearly. She looked straight in Marty’s blue eyes and smiled.
“Yes, I will.”