Golden Pen winners at FORM's Scribblers Family Festival 2024.
Photo by Dan MacBride.
We had many amazing entries to the Golden Pen competition in 2024.
We asked writers to rebel against the norm and explore their wildest dreams with the theme Rebels & Dreamers.
We received over 350 entries, by turns enchanting, hilarious, whimsical, poignant, nerve-wracking, sombre and beautiful, but all imaginative and delightful to read.
The Scribblers Team and our Golden Pen Judges, Renée, Kristy, and Cate would like to extend a huge thank you and congratulations to everyone who entered. We loved reading every single entry and we can’t wait to see what you write next. We would also like to thank CBH Group, Fremantle Press and Boffins Books for their valuable support of this initiative.
If you’d like to see what Scribblers is up to at the moment, make sure you visit: scribblersfestival.com.au @scribblersfest
Happy Reading! Scribblers
Golden Pen winners at FORM's Scribblers Family Festival 2024.
Photo by Dan MacBride.
Carla Smethurst Silver Scales
Maïwenn Carozzi
Starlight Shatters
Margad Batbold
The Wardrobe
Etienne Macmath
Dear Etienne
Maisie Malseed
Caitlin
SilverScales
Carla Smethurst
Winner: Junior (Year 4 – 6)
“Aletheia! If you think you are speaking to those dragon riders or whatever, think again! You will not disgrace the Carmine family name!” Mother grabs my wrist, spinning me round and away from the back door into the garden. Her icy-blue-grey eyes are narrowed and annoyed.
Her long, platinum-blonde hair that I was lucky enough to inherit is pinned tightly into a bun, and she is wearing a dress that has a large skirt and a corset done up tight enough to take any normal human’s breath away. That, however, is the fashion for the aristocrat ladies in Axionel, not to mention the sister-in-law of the Emperor.
Although my mother, Evelynne Carmine, does mention that quite a bit.
Oh come on! Why is she patrolling the manor at five in the morning?!
I try to keep my frustration out of my dark blue eyes as I smile innocently, and curtsy. She eyes my tights and shirt and long, flowing hair with distaste.
“Aletheia, you are a lady. Why aren’t you wearing a dress for goodness sake. You are almost of age; we need to make a good impression on marriage candidates. In fact, I hear Duke Charles Clifford is in town,” Mother adds with a determined look in her eye.
I suppress a shudder. I did not want to marry Charles Clifford. I did not want to marry any man who believed that women were their slaves, unintelligent; that men were superior. Which left about… no candidates that I knew of.
When I was little, I would dream of becoming a Rider. A warrior. But by now I know better; no lady is a warrior; they are merely the wife of their husband.
Still, today was a day that only happened once a year. The Bonding.
“Yes, yes, Mother, I understand your reasoning, but I was simply going to the local market, to buy you some wine,” I lie, my voice as sweet as honey.
“If that’s so, first change into suitable garments. And tighten it properly this time. Yesterday, you couldn’t even tell where the skirt of the dress started.” Mother points me up the staircase.
I know where my dressing room is…
I assure her that I would and darted upstairs. As soon as I closed the door behind me, I crumple to the floor and sigh. I was never going to touch, let alone ride, a dragon. Or hold a sword or bow. Or show myself publicly in ‘masculine garments’.
As harsh as Mother is – which is extremely harsh, for the record – I’m lucky it wasn’t Father who caught me. He’d ground me at best. I wouldn’t be surprised if he married me off to some Duke in another kingdom instead.
I truly am alone. I am running a solo rebellion against the set standards.
And I am the niece of the Emperor and Empress. They do not have children, but I’m not the oldest of my siblings, and not first in line for the throne.
I’d only want to have the throne to change a few standards and laws.
I have two siblings: Celestia and Alastair. They both have the same view as my mother, father, and ninety-nine percent of all aristocrats. They are both nineteen, almost two years older than me. Alastair is a month older than Celestia. He is married to Lady Fiona, and Celestia is engaged to Sir Bradford Augustus.
I quickly change into a silver and navy-blue dress, my breath hitching in my throat as I lace it tightly, and slip through the manor and out onto the street. I leave my hair out.
Instead of rousing a carriage driver, I walk. The markets were close, but I was going to the town square, which was a bit further away.
I don’t mind.
When I get to the square, there is a very small crowd. There were a few ladies, but mainly men. In front of the crowd lay around twenty dragon eggs, shining in bright colours. The one in the center caught my eye. It was pure silver, and was ever so slightly larger than the rest.
Behind the eggs were around fifty men in warrior’s outfits. My eyes spark with jealousy at the gleaming swords hung on their belts in sheaths, and the opportunity to bond a dragon.
I make my way to the front of the crowd, and brush past a tall man. Stupid! Now you have to apologize! I scold myself. I was royalty, but only the youngest niece, and people look over me compared to my siblings. Besides, it’s polite to apologize.
I turn and curtsy, apologizing sincerely. Not sincerely at all, however, when I looked up and my eyes met with very familiar gold-flecked onyx eyes. He wore black and red garments, and his black hair is slicked back.
Damn it, Aletheia!
“I didn’t see you there, Your Grace. I sincerely apologize.” I say through gritted teeth. In front of me stood Duke Charles Clifford, a smirk on his arrogant face like usual.
“Princess Aletheia! Long time no see,” he says in a voice coated in oil. Not long enough.
“Indeed, indeed. Well, it was nice seeing you. Goodbye!” I dart through the crowd away from the duke. He seems to think everyone loves him, which most people do, but he does know I dislike him. Another reason he wants to marry me, in spite.
I make it to the front of the crowd as the second candidate stepped forwards, and touched his hand to each egg. The first candidate had been unlucky, but this candidate wasn’t. The second egg he touched, a pale red, cracked.
I watch in wonder as the eggshell falls off, leaving a small, red dragon hatchling behind. It looks like a large lizard with spikes on its spine, long horns, and a pair of wings as large as its body.
The candidate cries out as it presses it’s snout to his hand, leaving a golden swirl, the dragon rider's mark. Soon they will develop telepathy between them, and the rider will start training.
As the candidates come and go, some with hatchlings, some without, the numbers reduce to one egg, and two candidates.
One of the candidates, who was short and had ginger hair, presses his hand to the slightly larger silver egg. Nothing happens. The man stands up, coughs to obviously hide a sob, and left the square. The last man, tall and blonde, confidently and arrogantly strolls to the egg, and dances his fingers along the shell.
Nothing happens. The whole crowd gasps. The arrogant man yells, “There’s a mistake!”, and touches it again to no avail. Murmurs flood through the square. Even those who aren’t here to watch the Bonding turn to look.
I long to walk up there and cradle the egg, but it would be a crime that would have me disowned by my parents and banished from the kingdom. If only it was easier to rebel against standards. I am fairly good at it in my mind, but I’m not stupid enough to try in real
life. I value my position in life, if nothing else.
What seems to be a higher-level rider steps in front of the crowd.
“Do not worry, ladies and gentlemen, very occasionally a dragonet does not choose a rider, and grows up like the wild eggs we weren’t able to retrieve. Do not forget, no matter how foolish the dragon hatchling seems, that even as a baby they are quite a lot more intelligent than the average male. Don’t forget they remember past lives. They keep the knowledge.” I clench my teeth, willing my fury not to be obvious. ‘More intelligent than the average male’, he had said; women were apparently less intelligent, and were not considered.
A guard joins the rider. “When this occurs, we release the egg back into the wild. If it is not claimed by an adult dragon, we raise it in a confined underground space for safety, as it does not have a rider to help it, and release it when it is full grown.
That concludes this year’s Bo-”
The guard is interrupted by a few shouts and gasps.
I appear to be walking slowly towards the egg. It’s like my soul, intelligence and will are separated from my body; I am telling myself to walk back to the crowd, to not get banished from the kingdom and starve to death, but my legs won’t listen. I try to look around, but my gaze is drawn to the egg, and I have no control over my body.
“Hey! Get back here, dumb girl!” A cold, hard grip on my wrist snaps me back to reality, and I am whirled around to stumble and face the guard who was speaking. His eyes widen with shock as he notices my trademark eyes and hair.
“It’s the youngest princess!” he cried out. Another wave of gasps rippled through the crowd.
The guard ties my wrists together behind my back and pushes me towards a waiting carriage.
“Princess Aletheia Carmine, you are under arrest.”
STOP THIS FOOLISHNESS AT ONCE! A deep, booming male voice sounds. I realize it’s in my mind.
The whole crowd cries out once again; the voice was clearly in everyone’s minds.
The guard pauses, clearly in shock.
Release her, idiot. I was controlling her so we could bond, not for her to get arrested!
The guard fumbles and trembles as he unties the ropes, and apologizes.
The Rider steps towards the egg, and bows deeply. “Great dragonet, may I ask what the meaning of this is? It is illegal for women to ride, or become warriors. They do not possess enough intelligence.”
“Yeah right. I have ears, you know.” My eyes widen. Shoot, did I just actually say that?
The girl is right. Women are treated wrong. They are just as intelligent, and fierce. You stupid male humans brainwash them into disagreeing with their own nature!
Silence… then-
“I apologize, but I think you may have some things muddled up.”
I know what I’m talking about human. You are lucky I’m still in the egg; you would be long dead.
The Rider backs down and bows. Shocked, I glance over my shoulder. Most of the kingdom has gathered by now.
Charles Clifford steps forward from the crowd, and bows so low his nose brushes the dirt. He straightens.
“O great dragonet, forgive me for asking, but why have dragons never mentioned this before?”
This is the first human girl who has this flame of knowledge, fierceness and will I’ve come across. All other ladies are brainwashed, and there would be no point in this fiasco.
Charles looks as though he disagrees to everything the dragonet has said, but nodded and melted back into the crowd.
Come, Princess. Bond.
Amazement and shock are my only current emotions. I step forwards, and uncertainly press my palm to the egg. Immediately the eggshell explodes and flies everywhere. Miraculously, like there is a shield covering me, none hit me. However, I do see a few bloody scratches on the rider, guard and Duke Charles.
In front of me stands a gleaming silver dragonet. It is beautiful. It’s white-flecked dark silver eyes stare into me, and the dragonet is twice the size of all the other hatchlings.
The dragonet presses his snout to my forehead instead of my hand. The crowd was still silent, but a gasp escapes me as what feels like a hot iron bar burns my forehead. My blood tingles, and my senses are suddenly heightened.
I whip out a pocket mirror, and discover a silver dragon swirl on my forehead. Not gold. Silver.
Aletheia. My name is Hyperion. I am honored to be bonded to such a pure soul, and the first female rider. I am different to other dragons, because I am the King of Dragons.
StarlightShatters
Maïwenn Carozzi
Runner Up: Junior (Year 4 – 6)
ONE In The Lamplight
I stared at my Mother’s star, the brightest star in the night sky. The sky reminded me of a midnight black table sprinkled with grains of salt. The cool breeze blew in my face as I walked through the village. The lamplight shimmered, the fire inside barely alive, like a wasted soul.
Night walks were my getaway from chores, farming and my father who checked on me every five minutes. I looked up at the stars, memories of passed ones locked inside them. Without them, the ones who had died wouldn’t be remembered, their lives would be forgotten. I reached the end of the long pathway and stared into the depths of the woods surrounding my town. No one had ever dared to step foot in them, not even my father who was the bravest person I knew. I started to head back to my hut, precious memories of Mother and Grandpa filling my head. I walked home with a smile.
I woke up to the sound of hens clucking and my father cooking breakfast with the campfire. The sky still looked midnight black but I spotted a pale green line in the horizon. I trudged outside, sticks and pebbles poking into my bare feet.
“Morning Silvia” yawned Father passing me a half-cooked egg. I gulped it down and started to feel queasy in my stomach.
“Is this cooked properly?” I asked innocently, hoping I wasn’t turning pale green. He chuckled at my expression.
“It probably isn’t…” he laughed giving me a glass of orange juice. “Freshly squeezed!”.
I swallowed it down and set to work: feeding animals, watering plants, harvesting crops, collecting eggs, making juices and cleaning the hut…
When the sun started to set and the sky filled with joyful colours, I looked toward the woods and spotted crows flapping their wings and cawing. Something was in there. Or was it just in my head? I decided to ignore the commotion in the woods and slumped in the couch like a sack of potatoes. As I was laying there reading my favourite book, my mind kept trailing back to the shaking trees and the birds flying away. I really hoped that it was just an innocent bear…
TWO
The Mystery of the Woods
It was a dark, mysterious night.
I was wide awake, ghostly footsteps, loud creaking and windows slamming, were coming from the attic. The strangest thing of all was that I could hear trees collapsing onto the ground, birds cawing and flapping their wings into the oily night sky. I tried to think of good memories with Ma, but they just didn’t seem to come. Finally, once I realised I just could not remember my mother and grandfather, I looked out the window and tried to spot the brightest stars in the sky… But there wasn’t any stars at all. I crossed my fingers, hoping it was only a cloudy night…
Hours passed. It was now one o’clock on my old analogue clock. I leaped out of bed and changed into some warm clothes. I slipped my feet into my shoes and ran outside of my hut into the village. The streetlight fires had died, leaving only a black dusty candle in the lanterns. Ever since World War III, we haven’t been able to produce any electricity. I wiped that thought away and raced through the darkness all the way to the woods. I halted, staring up at the oak trees. Slowly, I took one step into the woods, shutting my eyes tight. I was having second thoughts… I waited for my father to storm down the street and bring me back home, but it just didn’t happen. Suddenly, a glow appeared amongst the trees and the clouds escaped the sky, revealing a starless night. I gasped in fright the stars had gone. Precious memories stored inside of them gone. I looked back at the glowing light in the woods. A gigantic creature with the head of a bird and the body of a horse stepped out from behind the trees. It had oily black skin sprinkled with glistening stars. I stared at it in confusion. Did this creature steal the stars?
THREE
The Strange, The Suspicious and The Forgotten
I ran back home, legs sore and drenched in sweat. I swung the door of my hut open and stood in the entrance, panting, thinking about what happened. The creature’s sad eyes, its curious expression and calm movements filled my head. It seemed so innocent. I had never seen such a thing before. I stepped out of my muddy boots and hung my coat. Suddenly, a candle appeared out of the shadows followed by my father with a stern look on his face. “Young lady! Where have you been?” He asked in a cold voice.
“S-Sorry Father, I went on a night walk.” I stammered. “I couldn’t fall asleep”.
Father’s frown turned into a smile.
“The stars… They have disappeared!” I babbled pulling him towards the front door. He stared up at the sky. “Oh no!” He gasped. I looked at him suspiciously. His frown seemed fake and I heard a hint of sarcasm in his tone…
Overlapped chatter echoed in the town hall until Chief Philup banged his shoe on the table. We were having a town meeting because several people had spotted the strange creature lurking in the woods and the starless night sky.
“It seems that all our stars have disappeared” Chief Philup announced eying everyone to stay silent.
“Any suspicions on how this happened?”.
All the villagers raised their hand. “Yes, you!” Philup said pointing at a pale red head young man.
“The creature in the woods Chief.” he replied. Murmurs of agreement scattered the room. I gaped at him. Yes, the creature might have appeared when the stars disappeared, but deep down, I knew it was innocent. Chief Philup banged his shoe on the table again and shouted of the continuing noise: “Then it is settled! We will hunt down the monster and kill it!”. The whole town cheered. Why do they just want to kill an innocent creature instead of finding a solution to remember the forgotten.
FOUR
Capturing the Innocent
“Well… I’m glad that monster is being hunted down.” remarked Father “Unless… If you think it’s innocent…”. Ever since the stars had mysteriously vanished, he had been acting strange. I remained silent and stormed up to my room, angry and confused. Why was the creature hunted down for no reason?
I slumped down on my bed and sighed, tapping my fingers on the soft blanket relaxed until I remembered all the farm work I had to do. Just as I was lifting myself up, I heard the strange noises coming from the attic again the thumping, the creaking, the stepping… Curious but afraid, I tiptoed through the corridor and searched for the trapdoor up on the ceiling. I climbed up the ladder, the noises becoming louder the higher I climbed. I pushed through the nerves and entered the attic where my father was making potions. I sighed, relieved it was only my dad but what was he doing? Purple clouds had filled the room, dancing around like ballerinas. I climbed discreetly back down, dazed. Above me, the floorboards were creaking again and I saw a muddy boot appear on the top step of the ladder. I jumped behind a closet holding my breath. Once he was out of sight, I climbed back up. Potion books and documents on magical creatures were scattered on the floor, a dusty cauldron filled with swirling violet liquid sat in the middle of the room. Father published books on magic and mythology, but these were usually kept inside his bedroom, displayed neatly on his bookshelves. Why were they here on the attic floor? I picked up an open book with an ancient and beaten dark blue cover. Printed in faded gold letters, the title read Potions to Bring Back the Dead.
I flipped back to the open page and read carefully How to Forget the Dead: Step 1
At the crack of dawn, burn frog saliva and unicorn hairs, Making sure the smoke fills the air
The raw egg for breakfast… My head was spinning.
Step 2
At precisely 10 o’clock at night
Chant ““Electus Nubibus’ and the smoke will become thunderclouds
That’s why it was such a cloudy night! It was all coming together…
Step 3
After exactly half an hour
The thunderous clouds will part revealing a starless night
I stumbled back, scrambling away from the open potion book.
My father? Why? And why did that creature appear in the woods at that very particular moment. I dug through the pile of books, searching for a title linked to the mystery until I heard the floorboards creaking behind me… I whipped around only to see my father gaping. I looked him in the eyes and asked in the sweetest tone I possibly could “Father, why did you make all the stars in the night sky disappear?”
He just stared at me speechless, then a tear trickled from his eye.
“I couldn’t bear the pain.” he explained in a hoarse voice. “I miss my father, I miss your mother, I just miss them so…” his voice trailed off and he dropped his face in his hands. I place a hand on his shoulder. “But why don’t you want to remember?” I asked. “Because it hurts.” he whispered. “But why is this peculiar creature now in the forest?” I questioned “It’s a Moonlight Griffin”, he sniffed, grabbing a beaten maroon book titled Mythical Creature. “Yes?” I whined. “They are the Guardians of the Milky Way, they protect our stars.” he explained squinting at the open page. “If anything happens to our stars, they come down to Earth to fix them up.” He read on “only if we all show respect.” All these answers came flooding into my head… And then I remembered the villagers who were planning to hunt and burn the Moonlight Griffin tonight!
FIVE - The Return
Torches flared and villagers roared stampeding towards the woods where the Moonlight Griffin lurked. Father and I watched from a distance, planning our intervention. But before we even began to discuss our plan, a glow had revealed itself amongst the trees. Not thinking straight, I dashed through the crowd of yelling people, and just as the chief swung his torch through the air in the direction of the griffin, I leaped in front of it. The flame slashed my face, I felt my skin melt, I screamed in pain, echoes darting through the village. Behind me, the griffin cooed staring at me with a guilty expression. “What did you do that for?’ barked the chief, “Are you insane?” I screeched, the pain was still throbbing on my right cheek but the anger burnt more. I couldn’t believe I was about to admit this and challenge our town people’s beliefs but it felt right:
“We don’t need the stars to remember” I explained calmly, realising I could still see Ma’s shining smile, hear her gentle voice… “our loved ones who passed became stars but their memories are always in our hearts.” I cringed at my corny speech, but at least the villagers were calm, thinking about my message instead of revenge and blood. Then out of the blue, the Moonlight Griffin spread its gleaming wings and soared up and up, sprinkling specks of stars reappeared in the sky. My father was guilty, I was burnt, but the sky was known for its beauty again.
The End
Wardrobe The
Runner Up: Junior (Year 4 – 6)
Margad Batbold
Dear Etienne
Etienne Macmath
Winner: Middle (Year 7 – 8)
Dear Etienne
Hey Eti! I hope things are going well, I am writing this to you in the year 2024.
Remember our dream of becoming a professional AFL player? Well if you don’t, it all started when we were about 5 years old. We started Auskick and that is when our dream started. We have always loved AFL and our dream was to be drafted and play for real. We played footy every year kicking heaps of goals and getting lots of disposals.
We have always known our team from the beginning and we have always had a good relationship with each other. The coaches loved us and we were the guy who everyone thought would always be there for the team and always get them motivated. Every single person in our team was good in their roles but there were some stand outs in our team that just had a bit more skill than our other teammates. After finishing year 6, AFL started to get more intense with finals and more rough teams, but we were still confident that we were a good team. Then in year 7 everything changed and AFL started getting a lot harder and we started to see how good other teams and players were.
High school is going from a big fish in a little pond to becoming a small fish in a big pond, so it was a substantial change for us. We were doing well in high school for about three weeks and then our first ever big road bump happened. We started getting stomach aches every day. At first our parents thought it was just a bit of anxiety but it started getting worse and worse every day. Soon we stopped eating and you could tell our parents were getting worried. We kept telling our parents about our stomach aches and we could start to tell that they were getting more worried and helpless when we kept telling them.
After Easter in 2023 we went to go to a doctor to tell them about what was going on with our stomach. Do you remember when we took our first blood test and how nervous we were? The test we took was to see what was going on with our stomach. We were really worried, and the needle hurt heaps. During that same week we started AFL training again, but we could start to feel that we were not playing like our usual self. Our skills weren’t sharp, we didn’t feel fit. We didn’t even feel like us. We were trying our best, but we were always out of energy.
The week passed and then the results came back. The doctor thought that we had a stomach bug and gave us some medication to take. Do you remember how gross those little tablets were? The worst was we had to take it every day. After finishing the medication we started to feel ok for a few days but then it started getting worse. At the same time, our AFL season started and we had to play through some of the worst stomach aches of our life so that affected how we played our game. Do you remember how hard that second game was were it was a tough team and they just kept on running and we just couldn’t keep up with them? We were disappointed in ourself and I could tell our team was too. We were losing weight and our parents said that we had to cut back on how much AFL we were playing, this made us sad and angry, it was finals!!!
We went to go get another blood test because clearly the medicine didn’t work. This time it was tested for Coeliac Disease. Coeliac disease is an immune response to eating gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. There are little hairs in your small intestines called villi that help absorb nutrients into your body and they fall flat when you eat gluten which makes you lose weight and go skinny like we did. We got our test back and then our world came crashing down on us. We had Coeliac. We were devastated, for the next month we had to eat gluten constantly to do as much damage to our stomach as we could for the endoscopy coming up in 1 month. It hurt us so much, we could barely do anything because every meal made us feel really sick. After a long month we had our endoscopy. We went into the hospital and had a camera go into our stomach and look around. The results came back, and we were 100% Coeliac.
Then we struggled for the next month learning about what we could and cannot eat but we figured it out. There were so many changes we had to learn. The food we started to eat had a higher content of sugar in it, so we got a little bit more stomach aches and it also was less nutritious. For example, a normal Weet-Bix has 14 grams of fibre while a gluten free WeetBix has only 7 grams but the worst thing is that we would get teased about being coeliac. Do you remember going to one of our friend's party last year and ordering a gluten free pizza and the father of the birthday boy came up to us and said “that looks disgusting.” Even to this day people do not care about our disease and always throw gluten foods into our lunch box without caring and it annoys us so much.
The worst part is that our school would organise an event and then when the food came out there would be nothing for us to eat even though mum told them we needed gluten free food and they said ok. How do you feel going into a pub with our mates and not being able to have a beer? Do you remember what bread tastes like? Overall being a coeliac sucks! Oh, please tell me if there is a cure now… I'm desperate for one!!!!
The second thing that we had to overcome was bad anxiety towards eating food. It started straight after learning that we were Coeliac. From the amount of stomach aches, we started getting a fear of being sick from food. Every time we would go out to go to dinner, we thought that since it is not our parents making us gluten free food, they would accidentally put gluten in our food and would make us sick. So that is when our anxiety started happening. Even sometimes when our parents would cook, we would start to get anxious which led to us skipping lots of meals which meant we were not eating enough so we were losing more weight. We were always worrying about it, so our parents booked us with a psychologist to talk about what was going on inside our head. After a couple of sessions, we were starting to feel better than we were a couple of months before. To this day we still have a little bit of anxiety towards certain foods but now 98% of the time we never get anxiety towards food anymore and we have put on a lot more weight which made us look healthier too. That was the second little road bump we had to overcome.
When everything was going smoothly, we hit our third road bump to our dream of playing in the AFL. When we were playing cricket, we swung our bat at the ball too hard and we felt something tear in our back. We did not feel it for a while and then when we were playing districts cricket, we bowled a funny way and immediately our back was in pain. We were in so much pain we didn't train for three weeks. We went to a physio and he did lots of massages on our back and gave us lots of rehab programs. We were feeling good. We had to have an MRI just to make sure we did not have anything broken in our body. So, we went to the MRI place and had a scan. A week later we received some devastating news. We have a stress fracture in the lower part of our back. We were so sad the fracture meant our cricket season was over and AFL was at risk. The worst bit was we had to do absolutely nothing for three months. We were getting so frustrated and restless. We were not allowed to kick our feet playing in the pool, most of the time we would not think and we would do something that would not be called resting your back so our parents would always say “your back”! We started to get so sick of them saying this. The worst bit was giving up cricket for both our community team and our district team half way through the season. We wanted to go watch our teams but we would always get so sad doing this, so we just stopped doing it. After three months of boring waiting, we started rehab.
By this time, AFL pre-season had started again. Our rehab started slowly with a little bit of stretching and a little bit of strength and conditioning. We did that for three months and then we went to a professional sports doctor, she said there was still a small crack that was healing but we could get back into fitness, we might not be able to play this season! So, we took another three weeks getting ready to start running. Our final appointment at the physio said that we had to wait yet another three weeks because we had to be physically ready for the tough tackling of AFL but I could play this season. So, then we did great sprint work drills with lots of contact every single day until the day finally came. Three weeks later we played our first AFL game, our dream was back on track!!! We could have missed the whole season but we worked so hard so we could come back. We got smashed which is ironic but we were glad we still finally made it.
So, with all those things that have happened over the past year, we have no more stomach aches, most of the time no anxiety towards food although we still get anxious for AFL games which is completely normal and no more pain in our lower back. We have been playing AFL now for four weeks and we have been loving it. Kicking goals, getting big marks and most of all we just love playing the game and being back with our team. We always knew that we would go back to playing sport. We just had to never give up on the dream which we had. Going through all this makes us realise how hard it can be sometimes for people to go play professional sport, get injured, and lose their whole season because of it but now we know how they feel. From our experiences we have learnt that if you put the work in and keep your body healthy and treat it kindly when it is not, you will succeed in your fitness or sport goal. Thats why from now on until we get drafted in the AFL, we will always stay fit so we can finally achieve our dream.
Just remember when things are tough, you don’t think you can do it and you feel like giving up - we’ve done this before, you’ve got this!
Good luck, and have Fremantle won a grand final yet? Did we make it to becoming a docker?
2024 Etienne
A Migrant Girl: A AcrossJourneyOceans
Maisie Malseed
Runner Up: Middle (Year 7 – 8)
Lost and Found
She was lost. Anxious. Scared. Cold. The boat was big, and she was small. The noises were loud, and she was quiet. Christina was only three and she just wanted to find her Mum. It was 1949 and the boat named Liguria had left Germany only two weeks before. And this is Christina’s earliest memory.
Christina was a curious child, so curious that she would run off from her mum every now and then. She would get lost occasionally but was able to find her parents again. Getting lost on a boat was different. She wandered off from her Mother to take a look at the water and when she arrived back her Mother was nowhere to be seen. Her little mind immediately filled with panic. Her grassy green eyes scanned the area looking for the slightest glimpse of her mother and brothers. When she decided that she had thoroughly searched the area she started running. Her eyes were like storm clouds producing sprinkles of rain as she desperately darted across the ship, through crowds of people looking for her family.
By this time her family had alerted the boat crew, and they were on the lookout for a little three-year-old girl. Christina was becoming more and more panicked, and those sprinkles of tears were becoming heavy rain. A friendly crew member came up to her and asked Christina her name. “Christina”, she replied shakily. The man told her that her family was waiting for her. The stress was immediately lifted from her shoulders, but she still had to face her father. When her Father came to collect her, he yelled at her like he was an angry lion. He yelled at an ear-piercing volume that she could’ve sworn the whole boat heard him.
The Solitary Sickness
Getting lost was the least of her troubles on her way to ‘The Land of Tomorrow’. In the middle of their long trip her Mum came down with a terrible illness she was bed ridden. “One of my strongest memories on the boat was seeing my Mother so sick. She was such an incredibly strong women I couldn't bare to watch her”. Christina unfortunately caught this virus from her Mother and was also bed ridden. She had an extremely high fever and itchy rash that was spread throughout her entire body. She complained to her parents about how uncomfortable she was and how hot she felt on such a cold day. Her parents decided to take her to the hospital wing of the boat. Christina recalls that she had ‘no tolerance for people prodding me and asking me questions’.
When it was confirmed. She was contagious they told her Father she was to stay in the hospital wing and not to go outside. Christina remembers being ‘wild with emotions’ and she didn’t want to be separated from her family, no child does. Tears rolled down her face like a river as she kicked and screamed for her Father. He quickly left, and the door slammed behind him. Christina was furious she wanted her family. She was sick and didn’t have her parents beside her. A child’s worst nightmare.
First Pride was a The Riot
Caitlin Chesson
Runner Up: Middle (Year 7 – 8)
Caitlin has chosen to share a few panels of her nine-page comic The First Pride was a Riot, which you can enjoy below.
The first pride was a RIOT
Marsha and Sylvie, main characters of this story,
Brought the revolution to new heights and glory
They stood in the streets, shouting
Brought the revolution to new heights and glory
They stood in the streets, shouting
Dryads
Oli Stevens
Winner: Senior (Year 9 – 12)
She went to the lake, as usual. She always did, whenever her thoughts weighed on her back like a cartload of boulders that could overflow and bury her at any time. She walked there in silence, trying to imagine what the sky would look like tonight. She loves watching the sun go down, sinking until it reaches the other side of the world, and the moon beginning to glow. When she arrives, she is not disappointed. The sky is dip-dyed in dusk blue and peach and pink. Above the island in the middle there is a small slice of moon, and near it a single star. She wonders if they are friends, if they speak to each other once a month or once a millennium when their orbits align. The dark water surrounding her destination reflects the sky in a canvas dissected by a thousand lines of darkness. It is streaked by lines of light from the streetlamps that have been captured by the water. She can hear the orchestra of a thousand frogs as she walks to the little-ventured section, the wide-open pasture of grass rimmed with hills. She lies in their cradle and watches the constellations emerge. After the darkness has settled, she will perch in a tree for a while, looking up. Always, she looks up. When she climbs trees, when she stares at the sky and names its clouds, when she floats in the sea. She will look like a ghost in her white dress. It’s an impractical choice, but it was that person’s favourite. When this day turns to tomorrow, she will step into the water. Mud and silt will swirl up and her feet will make popping sounds as she wrenches them from the mud. The reflection of the kissing trees will ripple as she steps onto the raft that took her so many months of Fridays to make. She will look away from those trees as she rows towards the island where her friend died. She will avert her eyes from the memories of the hut they built together, the time they camped there and caught tadpoles and named them after flowers. She will flinch when the boat bumps the shore. She will brush aside the thoughts of when she kissed- No. She does not utter that name, not even in her mind. She will not reminisce on the way she gasped or how her heartbeat thrummed as quickly as that of a mouse. She will not. Instead, she will tie up her raft and set up camp. She will make a small fire, stare at it, put it out and sleep. She will be found in a few days, scolded and lectured and questioned, booked in for therapy sessions. She will tell no one of how, that morning after she arrived, she came running, melting from a willow. Her skin was as dark and gleaming as she remembered. Her eyes were still almond brown. Only her beautiful hair had been replaced with flowing willow branches, and roots trailed from her soles. Each week you can see them, her in her white dress and she clothed in bark and moss and vines. Tread carefully. Do not startle them from their joy, their whispers of sweet nothings.
They are happy.
Years onwards, people will mutter of rocks and cement being rowed across to the island by the crazy lady who somehow got the permits to build a house there. She will not care, as long as her house is a home. She will not care, as long as she can kiss her sweet dryad, once human, once her friend, now more. She will not care as long as they can dance slowly around the fires she builds, as long as they can catch tadpoles and name them after trees. She will rejoice when their daughter, with long dark hair and caramel skin and freckles like constellations is born. They will cry, deep, heart wrenching sobs when she dies a few years later and they bury her in the dark, rich dirt. They will sit beneath the tree that grows there, and they will sit there when she, in her white dress, takes her final gasping breath, lying in the lap of her wife, whose willow fronds tumble over them both. When the tree that grows where she lays allows her to emerge, reborn, see how they will run to each other? See you they will shed tears of joy and relief, how their trees intertwine? And decades onwards, when their trees are cut down, they will fall to the ground at the same time, the thud echoing their heart’s last beats. On nights when the sky is dip-dyed dusky blue, peach, and pink, when a slice of moon and its friend the star crown the island, you can see them still, she in her white dress and her with her willow fronds, their daughter between them, her freckles like constellations. When the lake is filled in and your house is built, take care.
Tread carefully. Do not disturb them.
They are happy.
The LastDoor
Runner Up: Senior (Year 9 – 12)
Jessé-Rose Tinetti
The lab. The cosmetics lab had been freshly cleaned; Millie had watched the stout, black-haired two legs as it pushed the cleaning trolley around the lab. The two legs cleaned all five of the white testing tables, ridding them of all the smeared lipstick and hair product residue that had been left by the cosmetologists.
Five other rats had been lost that day. Millie could not remember their names and had stopped trying to remember a long time ago. She knew nobody would remember her when a two legs chose to test something on her and she was slaughtered like the rest.
She was curled in a tight furry white ball, her tiny head rested solemnly on her pink paws. The box was freezing, her teeth chattered, and she closed her eyes, searching for warmth.
Millie had never journeyed to the outside world; she wondered if it was always this cold out there too.
Her box in the lab was the only life Millie knew, she had no clue who her parents or her siblings were, in the lab every rat looked identical. White fur, pink eyes, and pink skin.
In loitered a different two legs, this one tall and lean. It wore a white lab coat and held in its massive paws a tray, full of tins and tubes holding cosmetics, The two legs’ hair was long and brown, and it had a sour expression on its face.
It was wearing strange white things on its feet, they had a stick that came out of the heel and as the human walked it clicked and clacked on the tiled floor menacingly
Every rat retreated into the corners of their boxes; the fear from each rat was almost tangible.
The human snapped on some chalky white rubber gloves and placed a strange white thing on its head which held its long, flowing brown hair off its face.
The human came closer to the rat shelf and all the rats flinched. The two legs strode over to a large white, plastic bucket. It scooped grain out of it with a silver measuring spoon, then paced over to the shelf and into each box it poured a spoon load of dusty grain into each rat’s box. Millie received her spoon, which was dumped carelessly on her head with no consideration for her wellbeing at all!
Millie shook the grain off her back and rubbed dust from her eyes and whiskers.
She grabbed one grain in her left paw and nibbled it. It was bland, tasteless, and course. After her meal, Millie had to spend ages removing bits of kernel from her two front teeth.
Millie resumed her curled up ball position, she watched the two legs as it created deadly concoctions. It poured boiling ingredients together, it crushed and combined strange and vibrant powders until it burned so hot she thought her whiskers might start smoking. It heated all the ingredients on a Bunsen burner, which Millie had to say, was one of the most interesting things in the lab.
By the end of it, the two legs’ white gloves were no longer white, instead they were covered in a colourful mixture. The steam from the molten potions stung Millie’s little eyes and her vision went a little blurry. She closed them tightly, so she did not see the two legs clicking and clacking towards the shelf.
The two legs removed the dirty gloves and pulled on some clean ones. It paced along the shelf, deciding on it’s new victim. Before Millie’s eyes had even recovered from the fumes, she found herself jerked into the air by her long thin tail, far from the safety of her box. She struggled, flailing her arms and legs helplessly. She watched feebly as her safe, cold box got further and further away. Towering above her, Millie shivered with terror as the two legs put on some plastic goggles to protect its eyes. The goggles landed on its eyes with a terrifying slap, which made Millie shudder with dread. She knew how this story was going to end. She had seen very few lab rats survive this procedure.
Millie’s tiny heart beat harder and louder than it had ever beaten before, she stared in petrified horror as the human collected some of the lethal red mixture onto a hairy white swab. The two legs brought it so close to her face she could smell it’s pungent stench, which promised her death.
When suddenly the most bone chilling core shaking glass smashing, deafening noise Millie had ever heard broke out across the lab. She slammed her front paws over her ears. Every rat in the lab screamed, but the noise was so loud that their voices were entirely drowned out.
Millie felt her tail slip a little in the two legs’ gigantic paw. It looked around in confusion. Millie smelt it at once, the deathly smell of the smoke. Millie dangled in the air awkwardly for a moment trying to figure out where the smoke was coming from.
When without warning the lab went whirling past her as she plummeted perilously toward the hard, white concrete floor. She collided painfully with it, and the world swirled around for a while.
Towering above her, she watched as the two legs bolted out the door on its strange clicky white shoes. She looked around, her ears ringing painfully with the screech of the alarm, still blaring across the lab. Smoke had started to engulf everything, Millie could hardly see her paws in front of her, she coughed, and she realized with dread that it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
She collapsed helplessly on the cold and unyielding white floor. Her pink eyelids began to close over her tired eyes, utter exhaustion overcoming her. Her ears pinned down mournfully to her head.
From out of the smoke, Millie could have sworn she saw the figure of a rat, coming towards her from the darkness.
But then-
The lab went dark.
The city. Adrenaline rushed through him. Duke felt as if his legs were about to crumple below him. He thought with no doubt that his heart was about to burst clean out of his chest and bleed out on the filthy concrete pavement.
With every bound he winced, but his urge to live pushed him forward.
The ginger alley cat lashed out behind him; its razor-sharp claws made the hairs all over him stand up straight like hard sharp black wires.
There was nowhere for him to hide.
Duke had almost gone down the entire length of the alley now; he could see the neon lights of the road up ahead. Humans were stomping about with their gigantic, and deadly shoes.
Like lightning, an idea shot through his head, not an exceptionally good idea, but an idea. He realized, if he could make it to that path, the alley cat would not dare run into a massive crowd of humans like that. But as the path grew closer, Duke realized with a sinking heart that once he arrived there, he would get squashed in an instant.
The retracted claws of the cat were getting dangerously close to his long black tail, which was flailing about behind him.
Only three pavers were between him and the path, and with his last rush of energy he bolted into the light.
Like thunder, the humans' feet came stomping down all around him. Duke wove his way through the chaos, evading the dangerous human feet raining down from above. As he dodged carefully through the mass of shoes, he glanced back for a moment and saw that the cat had disappeared. He let out a relieved sigh, and then a pain filled squeal as a human trod heavily on his tail. In agony, he bolted through the crowd, and popped out like a seed from an orange.
He stood on an empty chip packet, he whimpered with pain and exhaustion.
He calmed himself a little and looked around, he noticed at once where he was. He was in the city centre, where humans bought their strange colourful garments and accessories.
Duke looked to the sky and realized it was getting dark, which meant that more alley cats would soon prowl out from the alleys looking for a meal.
He had to find somewhere to stay for the night.
He scampered along a curb, and it did not take him long until he found a shop which door was open. He darted inside without hesitation.
Tall white shelves loomed far above him, on them Duke could see there were multiple square and rectangular mirrors. Female humans were applying strange substances to their faces. The mixtures varied in colour, from light pink to dark red.
As he padded across white square tiles, he noticed that the white floor tiles he was walking across were strangely cold against his paws.
He scampered beneath the nearest shelf he could find.
His nose and whiskers quivered, and he started to relax. He relaxed a little too much and he quickly fell asleep under the shelf.
He woke up, to find the sun rising, its rays reaching for him under the shelf. He blinked his beady black eyes and yawned.
He loitered out from beneath the shelf and looked around. He sniffed the air and realized there were no humans around.
Duke spent the next 15 minutes or so exploring the shop. He learnt that the shelves were full of little tubes and powders in containers. Hungry, he found a pizza crust in a corner. He nibbled it cautiously before eating almost the entire thing. Suddenly his ears pricked, as he heard the sudden click of a key in a lock.
A human woman walked in and he dashed beneath a shelf.
From his hiding place, he gazed up at the human which towered above him. He recognised that it was a female. She was squat for a human and had short black hair. She walked across the shop, swinging the keys on one of her fingers.
The human walked through a door behind the counter where Duke hadn’t been yet. Curious, he pattered over to it but it was shut moments before he could dash inside.
He slipped beneath it with ease and popped out the other side.
He shook himself and shuddered. He didn’t really like squeezing his body through small spaces like that, but rats sure were good at it!
Duke found himself in a dazzlingly white corridor.
Several doors branched off the corridor, all of which were closed.
He chose a door to his right and squeezed quickly and quietly underneath it.
He popped out the other side.
On one of the biggest shelves he had ever seen, lined up in small, clear white boxes, were the strangest looking rats ever.
They had soft white fur, nothing like the hard black hairs that Duke had.
They had weird pink, ears, eyes, noses, paws and tails.
Intrigued, he sauntered over to the shelf.
“Hello?” he tried.
About three of the rats heard him and they each looked down at him with their cold pink eyes.
“Who? W-what...are you?” one of them replied.
“What do you mean what am I? I’m a rat, just like you!”
The rat who’d spoken put his pink paws against the glass.
The box he was in was no bigger than a human food takeaway box; the walls of the boxes were topped with a clear lid, making escape impossible.
They were all trapped.
Duke couldn't imagine being in one of those boxes. There was hardly any room to stand, let alone walk, run or climb. In that situation, Duke thought he’d probably start to eat his own tail.
This wasn’t fair. He had to do something.
“Listen, I'm going to get you all out of here.” he declared.
He scurried around the lab, looking for plan inspiration. But he couldn’t come up with anything.
“Hey!” said one of the white rats.
“What about the others?”
Duke turned toward the shelf.
“What do you mean others?”
“Well... we don’t know for sure, none of us have ever left this lab in our lives.”
“...but?”
“But, well, some of us think there are others like us around here. What about them?”
Duke squashed himself beneath the door again and disappeared.
In the hallway again, he chose a door to his left and ducked under it.
Another shelf of the exact same size held the same looking sad white rats in clear, enclosed glass boxes.
He had a similar conversation with these rats.
He visited every room in the building, and each had the same number of rats.
He learnt that all the rats were being tested on with dangerous cosmetics. The results of the testing were usually fatal and that none of them had ever been to the world outside. Duke couldn’t think of anything worse.
There was one door at the very end of the hallway that Duke did not bother go behind, he’d seen and heard enough.
He was going to get them all out, but how, he still had to figure out.
Duke sat in the middle of the hallway and flicked his tail. It was something he always did when he was thinking.
Tail flicking, Duke stared upwards. Not really for any reason, it's just where his eyes ended up resting as thoughts raced through his head.
A round red thing jutted out from the ceiling. A fire alarm.
Duke had an idea.
Suddenly Duke’s ears pricked as he heard wheels and footsteps up the hallway. A lean human which towered twenty times his height strode menacingly down towards him.
He swiftly darted under the door he hadn’t yet been through and into another lab. He found a metal chest of drawers and hid under it. He hoped that the human would just keep walking down the hallway, but to his alarm, she clicked her key in the lock and waddled inside.
On its feet, the human wore shoes with what looked to be a thin stick poking out from the heel.
The human was carrying a tray. From Duke’s perspective he couldn't see what was on it. The human placed it down on to a table and he saw immediately what it was. Cosmetics.
He had once heard that some cosmetics are flammable, he thought he could possibly bring that into his plan. Only problem was finding something that made fire, like matches or a lighter
And even if he made fire, how would that benefit him or the other rats at all, all the rats would burn to death before they got to escape.
He decided to wait first and observe what this human did.
It walked over to a white plastic bucket and with a silver spoon it scooped up a spoon of the blandest grain he’d ever seen. Into each rat’s box a spoonful of grain was poured.
The human pulled on some white rubber gloves, Duke watched intently as the human combined an array of ingredients that smelt so bad, that if an alley cat walked into the lab, he would walk straight into it’s mouth without a fight.
Once it had finished, the white gloves it was wearing were covered in cosmetic mixture. It pulled them off and they were tossed into a rubbish bin beside Duke’s hiding place. Something flammable!
The bin was made of wire, so Duke could easily climb it unheard. He leant over the edge of the bin and latched his tail onto one of the gloves.
“Yes!” he squeaked under his breath.
He peered out into the lab to see the human pacing along the rat shelf maliciously.
His beady black eyes suddenly spotted a Bunsen burner in the corner of the room.
Fire!
The human had been melting something over it and had even left it on!
He looked to the human again, and she was now holding a petrified white rat by her thin pink tail.
“Oh, no!” he gasped.
He only had one plan, and it was time he put it in action.
With the glove clutched in his tail, Duke scampered as fast as he could to the Bunsen burner. With his tail, he flung it onto the small blue flame, and it flared into a hot orange one.
The human was bringing something towards the rat’s face that was clutched in her giant paw. When suddenly, by far the loudest sound Duke had ever heard shook the lab. Every wiry hair on his body spiked out in all directions.
The gloves had caused quite a bit more smoke than he had bargained for. In panic, the human dropped the rat she had been holding by the tail. And Duke ran to help her. She had been knocked out but was still alive.
He still had to save the other rats!
The human had not yet left the lab and was trying to ring somebody on a phone. Duke ran to the human and started nibbling on its weird spiky heels. It didn’t seem to notice at first, but when it did it tried to frantically kick him off, shrieking. He held on for dear life, when without warning, the human crashed into the shelf, causing it to topple over with a massive crash. She ran from the room screaming.
All the rats emerged from the rubble unharmed.
Duke ran back to the rat that was unconscious and vigorously tried to shake her awake.
“Hey! HEY! We gotta get going! Wake up!!” he urged.
Millie squinted through stinging eyes to see the weirdest looking rat she’d ever seen.
“Who...are you?” she murmured.
“I’m Duke and we really gotta get outta here!!”
“Everybody! Follow me!” said Duke.
The swarm of white rats stampeded on after him and Millie bounded after them. They squeezed under two doors, until they reached a room with the most two legs Millie had ever seen before.
ModernKnight The
Runner Up: Senior (Year 9 – 12)
Atrox Melior Dulcissima Veritas Mendaciis
Mason Hastings
The Cul-de-sac of Camelot Lane.
White picket fences guarding their kingdom of crimson exposed brick. Home of Arthur, a contemporary king.
Excalibur replaced by a bromidic black briefcase.
His kingly aura dimmed by mundane routines. Arriving home on his metallic steed. Slaying dragons of boredom from his reclining throne. His royal fortune stolen by the higher authority.
His queen runs his kingdom.
His gorgeous Guinevere cleaner of garments, cooker of dinner, caretaker of the castle. Her delicate dulcet tones echo down the halls, Yet behind her magical melody lies a whisper of longing
A yearning for adventures outside of the grocery aisles. Looking to find mystery and magic outside these suppressive walls. A slave to her humdrum life, a slave to suburbia. She needs more.
In those quiet moments where the moon hangs low, When the streetlight shadows dance like ancient spells, Arthur dreams of quests long past. Of grails sought and beasts slain, away in distant dells. He needs more.
But Guinevere with eyes that gleam, Longs for more than routines embrace.
A yearning for adventures of her own A yearning to step out of her spouse’s stately shadow.
Perhaps one day she gets her fill.
Leaving Arthur to head his round table.
The modern monarch without his consort A king without a queen.
