In May, pupils were challenged to write a short story of a maximum of 500 words following on from Environmental Awareness Week, based on environmental issues we discussed and our school’s commitment to the 5 R’s (Recycle, Recover, Reuse, Reduce, Rot). The competition brought fierce competition from across the whole student body, but the winners were eventually chosen as Lucy (Year Nine) and Jiya (Year 2D). Congratulations girls! Here are the winning stories for you all to enjoy.

The Litter Queen by Jiya (Class 2D)

On a stormy day in the town, there were two queens. One was a good one and one was a bad one. The bad one littered everywhere. That’s why she was called the litter queen. Whenever she ate something or drank, she threw litter in the town. Then she went to people’s houses to litter! She even littered in the sea. In the grass, she wasted paper and also put toilet paper in the toilet and called it the hungry toilet! She also chopped down trees and plants.

When the good queen got the message that the bad queen had been littering, she went to the queen’s house to give her a punishment. Her punishment was to pick up all the litter she had thrown. Then the bad queen became the good queen and she never threw litter again.

The End

As The Skies Darken by Lucy Kiluma (Year Nine)

I stood there watching the environment around me. As everything moved, I wished that I could move too. Feel sand in my roots, feel the breeze on my face and breath the fresh air on the beach with my friends. I wished I had a Mummy who would kiss me goodnight and a Daddy who would buy me candy; but no, I had none of that because my job was more important than human beings’; I was the reason they were alive and kicking. I was why they could go to the beach. I gave them something more expensive than gold. I gave them oxygen.

I was surprised at how ungrateful the humans were. They couldn’t get enough of what they had and wanted more and more and more. They were not satisfied with just oxygen. They wanted wooden houses (as if they couldn’t make them out of concrete) and they wanted paper which they misuse, and they wanted furniture and all of those at the cost of our lives. If only we had legs we would run away. If only we were lions we would show them the type of fear we had to live with, knowing that we might be next.

The sacrifices of my friends’ lives would not please them. Their greed seems to increase and all at the cost of our lives. I could hear Tim’s screams from the bottom of the valley almost two miles away and I knew that sooner or later I would be next.

I was saved by the government for a few years. The happiest days of my life. There they planted Juan; my companion, my friend and the light of my life and my first love. We made impossible dreams: dreams of humans; dreams of having children; dreams that would only happen if we were reborn again.

We went through the best times together. We made cherishable memories, spent the warm weathers trying to cool ourselves and the cold stretching our branches together to keep warm. When autumn came, we laughed at each other’s bold, leafless branches. When spring came, we admired our green leaves that the giraffes would eat and soon this became a habit. Until our dreamy lives turned into a living nightmare.

One unfortunate day, I felt a sharp, killing pain on my back. I saw the eyes full of tears on my loved one’s face and yet they still cut deeper and deeper. The deafening sound of the saw seemed to be the less painful thing. I wondered how Juan would be; the lonely moments he will have, the killing silence surrounding him or maybe Juan would end up like me. I felt my heart break; I felt tears running on the inside. He can’t die. I can’t die.

I saw him break down, right in front of me, when they were taking my body to the pickup they had come with, but these were the words I told him: “cheap is expensive in the final analysis; when we are gone, they will die too.”

That was the moment my skies had darkened. The happy memories I had will remain as nothing but memories.