junior
2021
An advertising feature
Falling Forever I don’t think I’ve every run this fast ever in my life. He was catching up to me, the tall skinny man trying to get me. He was yelling all kinds of things at me but I didn’t stop. My heart was beating out of my chest. I didn’t know what to do except run. I kept running until I lost him. I stopped to catch my breath a bit then when I knew he wasn’t chasing me anymore I walked the rest of the way. The walk home was long and nervy, I felt like any second he was going to grab me from behind or come running for me again. I got home and quickly got the key from my bag. I fumbled to get it in the lock, my hands were all shaky. Mum still wasn’t home. She’s a nurse. She probably won’t get home until late, normally about 9pm. Since dad passed away she’s had to work double time, leaving at 5am in the morning and getting back at about 9pm at night, I barely ever get to see her. She works so hard so she can earn enough money to take care of me. Most nights I have to cook for myself, but on Sundays I get a freezer meal mum has cooked, and on Mondays I get take-away because I have netball. I lock the door behind me and go around the house making sure that all the windows and back door are locked. Then I have dinner. Last night I made spag bol, so there’s left overs of that. I put it in the microwave and then turn on the TV. All the good shows have finished and now the news is on. I sit there eating my spaghetti and then go to bed. I’m pretty tired tonight because of all the running I did. It took me forever to get to sleep because I was thinking about the man chasing me and something else I saw on the news. Finally, I dozed off. About 1 hour later I hear the door. At first it startles me and I sit up. I check the time 9.03pm. It’s just mum. My bedroom door opens and mum walks in. She kisses me on the head and says goodnight. I lie in bed wondering why the man was chasing me. What did he want from me? Maybe he had mistaken me for someone else? Or he wanted something and I didn’t know it? Why would he want anything from me? Julie, the girl with the most boring life ever. In the morning I wake to the Beep! Beep! of my alarm. Mum probably left an hour ago. I don’t want to get out of bed. I am so tired because I stayed up for so long thinking about the man chasing me. I slowly get ready. I don’t want to go to school. I never do, but today it’s not because of the kids, it’s because of the man. The man who chased me yesterday. I’m scared he’ll be there today. What if he’s there this morning? What if he was watching
me the whole way home and saw where I live? What if he comes to school? All the other kids will probably laugh if they see him chasing me. What if he takes me? The other kids would probably be happy if he took me too. I still haven’t told mum about him. She would probably say I was dreaming or think that it is just another excuse not to go to school. I force myself out the door and lock it behind me. I walk quickly to school. It takes 7 minutes but it feels like hours. No man chased me. Luckily, I think to myself. The day at school is just like any other. I sit on my own in class, eat on my own at lunch and play on my own at play time. When the bell rings everyone bursts out the school gates, rushing to get back home or to sport training. I walk home slowly now. No man is there, again. I start to think that maybe he had mistaken me for someone else, but it still worries me. What if he had found the person he was actually looking for and done something bad to them. For the rest of the week I walk to school by myself and walk home from school by myself. No man running after me, yelling for me to stop. Like every other week it is boring and lonely. Sometimes I like being lonely, but most of the time I wish I had a friend. Someone else to play with, to eat with and to share secrets with. Someone to laugh with. That would be nice, better than people laugh at you. I am happy because by the end of the week there has been no scary man, but then when I go to school on Monday, he’s there. He’s not chasing me like last time, but he’s walking slowly behind me, about 5 metres away. I walk fast to school so he can’t catch me. When school ends he is there. He follows me home, when I get home he hides around the side of the house. I’m scared and alone. Mum will be busy and won’t check her phone and she won’t be home until 9pm. What should I do? I decide I should hide, in case he breaks in. I squeeze into the small washing draw, hopefully he won’t find me here. The washing draw kind of looks like it is just part of the wall, it should be fine. I’m not sure what time it is but it feels like I have been in here for hours. I hear some banging and then the front door flies open. I’m not sure if it is mum or the man. If it’s mum she should call out to me wondering if I am home. If she does then I will come out. I lie there curled up in a ball. It is hard to breathe in small spaces like that. I try not to breathe too loudly. I hear someone come into the room. They are opening cupboards and knocking stuff off shelves so I assume that it’s the scary man. I squint when the draw gets open. Light streams through. There is a man standing there. Tall and
skinny, he has a bushy beard and crooked teeth. I catch my breath. “Where is it?” the man yells. I don’t know what he is talking about, so I ask him. He yells again “Oh you know!” But I didn’t know. Then he leans forward and puts a small cloth over my mouth and nose. I wake up in the back of a car. The road is bumpy and I bang my head a few times. I am scared and I don’t know where I am. We finally stop. He grabs me out of the back and is mumbling something to himself. I look around and there is a very, very tall building. It kind of looks like the man. Tall and skinny. Scary. He drags me around to a door. He shows the security guard a card or something, then he is let in. We go in and it is silent, apart from the quiet music in the background. We keep going up until we get to the roof. He holds me up in front of him. “This is your last chance!” he yells. I answer back, “Last chance for what?” He’s angry now, “The fortune! All the money your mum has saved for you!” I have no idea what he is talking about. Mum has saved money for me? I wonder how much money mum actually earns as a nurse. “I’m sorry, who are you?” I ask him, confused. “I am Vikram. I used to work with your mum.” I look at him, confused. “We earned lots of money together and then one day she told me that I couldn’t have any of the money and that it was all going away safe for you when you get a bit older,” he said, annoyed. “I don’t know,” I say, annoyed back. “I didn’t even know you worked with my mum or that she had earned so much money for me.” “We earned that money, not just her,” he yells, “so I should get some of it as well! So, do you know where it is?” “No,” I say quietly. “Well then,” he says and he drops me off the building. I hadn’t seen how far up we were on top of the building, but as I was falling. I fell through a cloud. I had never been so scared in my life. I was about to die. How could you not be scared? I could hear a helicopter nearby, so I started screaming, so that whoever was in the helicopter might hear me and come and catch me. I think the helicopter was too loud because I could barely hear myself. I was getting closer to it and I could now see it was a police helicopter. I try to move so that I land on top of the
GP1 G GP P1 1635 6356 60 01
helicopter. It doesn’t really work. I fall straight past the helicopter. I keep falling down. It feels like I’ve been falling for hours. I can see the top of another building under me and just as I am about to close my eyes. Something appears under me. It is a helicopter. The same one from before. They must have seen me! I land hard on the top of it and I hear a crack. I get a shooting pain in my leg and elbow. I can’t keep my eyes open. I can hear voices. “Is this him?” one of the voices says. I guess it was a policeman. Someone picks me up and then I get put down on something. I hear sirens. I wake up in a hospital bed. I have a cast on my right leg and arm. Mum is sitting asleep on a chair next to me. I sit up and shake her. She slowly opens her eyes and then wraps her arms around me. She cries and cries. A doctor comes running with a face that looks worried and then he sees mum hugging me and it turns into a soft smile. Mum explains about the money and that she had to give half of it to Vikram, but the other half is for me. She says that Vikram has gone to jail. She also tells me I have been asleep for 5 days. I’ve never been asleep for so long. We go home two days later and mum stops working so much. She only works from 9am in the morning until 5 pm in the evening on Monday to Thursday now. Mum drives me to school. I am not scared of being chased by Vikram. On the holidays we go to Europe. It is awesome! We are happy. Tessa Brayshaw, runner up editorial winner, St Thomas’ Primary School
Jaylah Heywood, aged 12, Heyfield Primary School Runner-up best advertisement (below), by Lacey Drew, Gippsland Grammar.
GP1634182
Page 2 ~ Junior Times
Times-Spectator, Tuesday, 7 December, 2021
