Stylus 2013

“Your peers, your family, your authority figures – your role models - determine the person you are and will be.”

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Featuring the creative genius and artistic flair of the St Margaret’s students for 2013

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This fun quote by Dr. Seuss brings us back to basics, highlighting the essence of creativity; thinking outside of the box. It speaks to the child in us all. Whilst simple, it’s a powerful message that challenges us to be open and engage both the left and right brain to explore new ideas.

We decided to call our inaugural collection of creative work from the student body ‘The St Margaret’s Stylus Magazine’ because of two main reasons. Firstly, due to the fact that the magazine was originally to be selectively a creative writing magazine, the first symbol that sprung to mind was the stylus or pen. To me, ‘Stylus’ is a catchy word that evokes the memory of great writers in history.

The second reason is a little less obvious. Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic who is most well-known for his poem ‘the Raven’ and short story ‘the Masque of the Red Death’. He had a dream of establishing an American journal containing very high standard work to elevate the literature of the time. His magazine, originally named ‘The Penn’ and then renamed ‘The Stylus’ unfortunately never came to be. For a similar purpose as Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Stylus’, we wanted to create a magazine that would showcase St Margaret’s talents in the creative field. After reading about Poe’s magazine, we felt that the name ‘Stylus’ was the most fitting and perfect name for our premier literary magazine.

Creative works speak to the heart and the soul and gives us the freedom to explore sometimes radical and confronting topics and concepts. They can change the world because they open our hearts and minds. They are timeless and therefore speak through the ages; a real legacy for generations of students. With this in mind, I hope you enjoy this inaugural edition of St Margaret’s Stylus.

Sophie Robertson Year 11

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Annabelle Kimmins, Year 10

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Chloe Morgan’s “the Bridge” is a haunting tale of a mother’s relationship with her son.

Nico Whiteford paints the story of an Underlander and how its home was discovered.

Christine Murr’s “Infinite” is about a man who has had one too many drinks of whiskey.

Madeleine Thomas allows us to choose our own adventure in her piece “Adventure Time” .

Matisse Waters’ lost chapter from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest provides the perspective of Charles Cheswick, a patient in Miss Ratched’s ward.

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Sophie Robertson gives voice to Lady Capulet’s untold tragedy.

Gabby Sachs tells the story of a boy named Jacob who is terrified of mirrors.

April Butler reveals the pain of a mourning wolf.

Isabella Pugliese discloses the significance of the Australian flag.

Anonymous explores a dystopian society where strange beings that are half robot, half human walk among us.

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Elizabeth Palmer, Year 10

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Gabby Sachs’ exposes how the increasing ability to create artificial organs and body parts could affect our society.

Louisa Sondergeld warns us about genetically modified foods and what they could do to our community.

Ellen Tuffley provides us with a very insightful story called “Old Die Young”

Louisa Sondergeld gives us this stark account about a heroine, compelled to escape her society’s traditionally held views of womanhood.

Xenia Puskarz-Thomas gives us a worrisome story called “the Airport”

Phoebe Coates provides a poem about “Cold Cold Glass”

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Holly Gall’s witty poem gives us an insight into how it feels to be “Alone”

Alice Jenson discusses “What made the ticking time bomb tick” in her critical review “Smells like Teen Purgatory”.

Anonymous discusses feminism in Victorian literature.

Annabelle Traves argues in her feature article “Mary Smokes—Just the Big Smoke in Disguise” that “Youth isolation is not a product of where you live”.

Louisa Sondergeld discusses whether Australian adolescents are resorting to violence and crime as a result of poor role modelling.

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Chloe Morgan, Year 9 assessment completed in 2011

She walked to that old, arched bridge every clear, starry night, her little son clinging to her hand like it was the only thing anchoring him to the cool grass. She would coo to him, sing to him, laugh with him. She was delighted when he was giggling, his pale, perfect features scrunching together, pointing at something with a delicate finger or doing a silly, unselfconscious dance.

But her husband didn’t think it was appropriate for her to take these walks with her son. He claimed it was unhealthy and unnatural. He was so unreasonable that it made her cry. There were some nights, nights when her son didn’t take her to their bridge, which she sobbed, curled up in a ball at the edge of the feather mattress she shared with her husband.

Her friends also seemed determined to fail her. Ever since she had mentioned her little boy, they had become exceptionally distant. They acted as though it was the strangest thing in the universe for some reason she couldn’t fathom. No one understood her anymore. But, whenever her son glided to the weathered, wooden back door, the silvery crescent of his smile gleaming in the brighter moonlight, she forgot all of her worries. It was like they were the only two people on earth, in the form of every mother and son that had ever existed.

Eventually, her husband filed a divorce. She complied without any arguments. They used to be so in love, she reflected sadly. Now look at them; him treating her like she was an alien, like she needed help. Him, getting so worked up when she visited that bridge at night. It had gotten to the point that they could barely look at each other.

Months later, another man caught her eye. He was similar to her; young, but already divorced and confused. They started dating. He didn’t seem to have a problem with her night time excursions with her son. In fact, he wanted to go with her.

One night, a clear but strangely misty night, she took him into the back garden. As soon as he saw the beautiful little child, he was transfixed. Her son smiled, all dimples, and took him by the hand.

Spellbound, he moved forward with the boy leading him. She smiled softly to herself, trailing behind her son and partner. Her son led them to the bridge, then let go of his hand. Suddenly, without warning, the little boy jumped into the dark waters beneath the bridge, and started to drown.

Her boyfriend panicked, climbed over the bridge railings and disappeared, except for his head, which was bobbing up and down in the calm but lethal waters. He managed to haul himself out just before he would have been pushed under by the current, and yelled at her, why didn’t you do anything? Why are you just standing there?

She waited composedly for his horrified rant to stop before explaining what so many people didn’t understand.

Because, she replied quite calmly, he died ten years ago.

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Chelsea Toomey, Year 8

Phoebe Coates, Year 8

Susanna Lehman, Year 8

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Nico Whiteford, Year 10 2013 There’s nothing I can hear besides the constant dripping from the irrigation sky. To an Upperlander this statement might make no sense whatsoever but I’ll gladly take the time to explain.

All I’ve ever known is this city of mechanics and artificial nature.

Nothing here is real except for the humans and the occasional gecko or rat that’s slunk into hidden existence unknown to anyone else’s eyes.

Little here has changed over the past century. There are people who call themselves inventors or apprentices of inventors; but I know that nothing they have created has proven to be new or exotic, just repeated. The apparent creation of the jukebox or handheld gun is all a lie. We are only repeating what the Upperlanders left behind.

How do I know this? I’m the only Underlander other than my father who has ever made it back from the Upperland. I let my curiosity override my sense of reason which caused me to be lured into their unknown above. I longed to explore the “wonders” of the land and discover their perplexing being. How wrong I was when I finally reached it. Even after finding the answers to everybody’s questions, I don’t have the courage to return to the city and face my people. I don’t understand how my father, king of the Underland could bring himself to lie to the people who trusted him most. They ask the same questions, always.

“King Harold who are these Upperlanders you discovered?”

Day in and day out that’s all he gets and each answer is the same.

“They are misrepresented humans who do not understand us. Ask no more for they are not our concern.”

Only I know what they have done to us. They destroyed our people, changed our dimensions, and altered our system, until they abolished every ounce of humanity in our body. Ever since I’d witnessed the procedure of reforming an innocent human I couldn’t bring myself to reveal the truth to the innocent beings of the Underland. They have taken humans and modified our bones to be ceramic, our brains electric, skin plastic, and our emotions computerized. All of our senses were taken away from us and altered into a robotic organism. Being the only group of escapees we were thrown into the depths of the unknown and

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hoped to have died off. How could humanity have changed so much while we hid?

What motivated them to rid us of our every sense and create this refined population of mechanical humans?

Once I realized what was happening to the human race, I set my own destiny. My only mission was to protect my people from the fate of the artificial humans.

Eventually the Upperlanders were bound to penetrate our hidden community so they could create the same future for our innocent inhabitants. It doesn’t matter if I die now; I travelled the dark mazes of the Underland to prevent those from above from discovering the centre of our carefully manufactured maze. Any clue or scent of the intruder’s presence I tracked down and destroyed at any cost.

The Upperlanders never gave up, each attack was becoming more than one Underlander could take on. I only had the darkness to my advantage. After exploring the depths of the Underland for so long I knew every twist and turn in the maze. The more they tried to discover our city the more likely they were to succeed. With every attempt they were only understanding the Underland more and more. With every attempt they were breaking through our maze and getting closer to my hidden home. I am ashamed to admit that my pride prevented me from calling for help or resources.

Revealing the truth was just too painful to comprehend which was my only real weakness. I am more alike my father than I realised. Not only did I lie to my people but I eliminated their chance of survival which they solely deserved.

My only hope was that they would never be able to discover our underground labyrinth. When our people were first thrown down here, our only option was to stick together. The history books explained the illusions created by the shadows and how many were driven insane before they finally discovered how to survive down below.

It was our ancestors who found the centre of the Underland. They built a maze full of traps and dead ends. Only the centre is safe, and that is where we were hidden.

The Upperlanders skirted around the edges of the Underland more than ever recently.

They became more daring and tried solving the never ending network but only a few came out unharmed. They camped on the outskirts in bigger numbers, far too many for me to take on. All I could do from my point was to watch and defend.

It was only a few days ago when I thought they had finally given up. Until then, they had been stationed outside one of our openings and entering the maze in small packs.

Each time they underestimated our elaborate masterpiece and seldom returned above with good news. Or so it seemed. I was so nervous that they would finally find their way through; for each expedition was getting longer and longer. When they finally left I should’ve known better than to raise my hopes. With their genetically adjusted brains and motivation there was no way they would give up to a bunch of primitives like us.

Now as I crouch alongside our only defence all I hear is the constant drip of the irrigation sky while the army of Upperlanders march towards my home. As I crouch alongside our only defence, I know that they are coming for us.

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Campbell Young, Year 9

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Christine Murr, Year 8 2013 I rounded the corner of the pub, my breath coming out in short, sharp gasps. I urged my legs to push faster, to get away from the curse words and pounding feet that followed close after me. I didn’t know where I was going; I didn’t have anywhere to go. The running must have stirred up my stomach because I felt the whisky slowly creeping back up my throat. Before anything came up, a sharp pain erupted on the back of my head and I staggered forward, throwing out my hands to break the fall. A sharp blow was kicked to my ribs and I grunted in agony, rolling over to escape my pursuers.

Another kick to my ribs.

One to my shoulder.

Once they had finished their drunken rampage, they left, delivering abuse under their breath, and leaving me there to die. I wanted to die.

That was until I saw her.

And everything faded to a dark and eerie black.

I woke with a start, flinching at the pain that settled over my body. I sat there for a while, coiled in a ball, clutching my stomach, trying to find the will to open my eyes and get out of there. The smell of freshly brewed coffee and fried eggs wafted into the area, sending my stomach into a frenzy. I slowly peeled my eyes open, expecting to find myself still in the alley. Instead I was welcomed to a friendly looking lounge. I studied the paintings of families on the walls with their joyous smiles. I felt the warm fireplace which crackled with life, and saw the blur of colour that was the Persian rug that lay across the floor.

As I scanned my eyes across the room, they eventually landed on a girl perched on a stool at a table. Her long brunette hair hung down, shielding her face from my vision. As I sat up to get a better look, my leg brushed against a pillow on the couch which fell to the ground with a sound just loud enough to signal I was awake.

The girl spun around and the first thing I noticed was her eyes. Soft brown eyes locked with mine and she flashed me a small smile. “Finally, you’re awake,” My stomach took a leap, which was enough to have the whisky from the previous night make an appearance…all over the rug.

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Emily Miles, Year 9

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Madeleine Thomas, Year 9 2013 Wizard of Oz and Labyrinth – Intertextuality 4B pencil, shading in the scales of cinder, dragon sketch ... heard a tapping sound at the door… I pushed hard on the paper, pencil broke. Slender bent legs carried to the door… What would you do?

STORY 1. Using my blunt 4B pencil, I began shading the last silver shoe. The door knob began turning and once I heard it click I pushed the pencil so hard into my sketch pad that it broke. A slender shadow quickly escaped into the darkness that was the hallway. My head flicked over to the vintage clock by my hand, it read 9:36pm and mum and dad weren’t home yet. It was just me and Chloe. I peered down the hall. Two green hyperactive eyes lock with mine and then disappeared into Chloe’s bedroom. What would you do? To follow the mysterious being, move to the next paragraph, to abandon your house and flee to the streets move to the third paragraph.

2. The darkness consumed me as I shuffled my way down the hall. Chloe’s bedroom door swung open, creaking, until it finally bumped into the window frame on the opposite side. “Say your right words, and we will take the child to the goblin city. Far away”. Those words rang eerily in my ears from a film Chloe and I loved as children. Constantly ringing and ringing. It started to rain, pour. I heard Chloe breathing heavily. The window in her room burst open like it couldn’t contain itself. The front door blew open. I ran to save my unfinished sketches that nobody got to see, and when everything was still again, I skulked back down into the hallway. No more breathing. I sprinted into Chloe’s room, not caring of the consequences. No one was there, only a blank bed and some mint green curtains that were torn and flapped dreamily in the frigid breeze. I collapsed in fright and placed my hand on a spot of wallpaper that seemed to be replaced. I ripped down the paper. A man-sized hole and an arrow pointing down it. Written on the arrow in black dripping ink was “If you ask, you shall receive.

Follow the road of you heart, I know you love her.” What would you do? If you want to go out of the open window and onto the street, go to the fourth paragraph, if you would go down the man hole, go to the fifth paragraph.

3. Chloe ran out of her room in hysterics, crying and screaming like a banshee. A brand like gash on her left cheek became noticeable as her blonde hair whipped the side of her face. As fast as my legs could carry us, I held Chloe in my arms and I ran through the kitchen, past my sketching studio and hauled myself out the window, abandoning all that was left with that hideous creature. I flew so far that my foot just caught the edge of the road side curb. Chloe tugged my head back around to the window we just came out of. The figure was sitting on the window pane. She screamed as a sharp butcher’s knife trimmed the ends of my dark brown hair. I don’t know who would want to put my loved ones in danger. With Chloe on my shoulders, I ran to the sweets store at the intersection of Cherry

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Lane. Extremely exhausted, I placed Chloe down on the cobbled concrete in front of the sweets store. I could see the shadow gaining on us, another knife in hand; there was a darkened alley way right next to the sweets shop. I looked at Chloe, shivering and frightened half to death. What would you do? To break into the sweets store, go to paragraph six, to swiftly slide into the alley way, go to paragraph 7.

4. I ripped the window open wider, the split curtains still flapping vigorously. I took a long inhalation of the freezing air and jumped. I landed on the front porch, just metres away from the letter box where the creature was sitting, Chloe in hand. She seemed to be unconscious. “LET HER GO!” I shouted, staggering towards the beast. It dropped Chloe and leaped stealthily up onto the corrugated iron roof. A small gun like object descended out of the clothing of the creature, it fell near Chloe’s knees. Chloe had woken but was still dazed. It was a tranquiliser gun. What would you do? Use the tranquiliser gun and shoot the being (paragraph 8) or take cover inside the house (paragraph 9)? Will you find out who did all this?

5. The atmosphere went still. I slid into what seemed like a bottomless pit of despair.

Travelling down further and further through the yellow brick lined chute, I could see myself falling into a maze like arena. Trying to stop myself from falling, my hands continually slipped off the walls. I plummeted down to a maze of confusion. Underneath my legs was a piece of crumbled white paper reading “Follow the yellow brick road, you will find your love at the end.” I ran, as fast as I could. I ran left and then right. I came to an intersection, left, right, forward or backward? The sister-thieving beast was in the paddock just to the left of me, Chloe seemed to be unconscious. “What would mum and dad do?” I mumbled to myself. That was when I realised that they were going to come home and find the house empty, broken windows and no trace of me or Chloe. The creature began approaching me, dagger near chest. “Joe…” it whispered in a hoarse voice “my s…” it stopped.

6. “Your what?” I started. Realising it had revealed too much, it whispered away down the left road leading to the lonely forest. Go to paragraph 10.

7. Blood dripped down my hand to my forearm as I punched in the window of the sweets store. Shards of glass pierced my knuckles and nimble fingers. Chloe pulled her woollen sweat shirt over her face to shield herself from the flying blades of glass. I picked Chloe up by her waist and threw her through the hole in the glass door, next was me. I could see the ‘thing’ outside; I glimpsed long sandy hair which fell into view as it attempted to follow us into the shop. Chloe curled up in the corner next to the red skins and popping candy packets. I grabbed the duct tape from behind the counter. A bloody knife came flying through the window; I had to tape this up fast. I used the duct tape and the bloody knife on the floor to cut it. Like a spider making a web in a thunderstorm, I had to work quickly. Chloe was weeping softly in the corner which caused my nerves to pile on even more. The tape was just enough to cover the giant hole I had created. Yet again, another blood stained knife came spearing through the duct tape net, tearing it to shreds. The beast crawled through the ripped tape, its face covered and blood dripping from its hair.

It approached me but I was to frozen to move, its mask dripped off its face. “Mum?” I croaked. My expression went blank.

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8. I grabbed Chloe’s wrist and dragged her down the deserted alley way. We were running as fast as we could only to realise that we had been running into a police station car park. We rounded the corner; Chloe slipped and fell, still grasping my hand. The footsteps became quicker, more defined. It was running. Using all the strength I had left in my frozen body, I yanked Chloe close to my chest, she was a thin girl, I didn’t expect her to last this long. She could barely keep her eyes open.

Flashing blue and red lights, my eyes opened and pupils narrowed. Just what I needed, the police. With Chloe half asleep, I laid her down in a nearby bush, completely out of vision, a safe spot. The creature which had been stalking us was near a tree on the opposite side to me. Police cars came filing out of the station, alarms on, lights flashing. I jumped into the shrub lying next to Chloe who was sound asleep, the creature hid behind the tree it was standing next to. I couldn’t wait any longer; I took the risk and ran. I ran through the screeching cars, down the bitumen car park and around into the courtyard of the police station entrance. I heard the steps again. Running, running, running. I tried the door handle. Locked. I tried to punch and kick in the glass. Bullet proof. I tried hitting and yelling, to see if anyone could hear me. Deserted. The footsteps were right behind me, coming up the steps.

My prayers went to Chloe, for all I knew she could be dead by now. I turn around slowly making sure I was ready to run. The beasts mask was covering its face. It slid off. “Mum?” 9. I dove across the dirt, my arm extended to reach for the tranquiliser gun. Chloe screamed as she thought I was hurt. I felt the weight of a person on my back.

Without hesitation, I shot. Chloe! She staggered limply to the ground, tears liquefying out of her eyes. The creature still scampered across the rusty roof. I picked up the gun again, hands trembling, I shot at the ‘thing’ and the colourful feathered dart thankfully inserted itself into the beast’s lower back. Rocking, and rocking faintly, then it fell, lifelessly. I could rip of the mask of the creature now, but my only priority was to get Chloe to safety. Up the stairs, through the sketching studio, past the kitchen and through the hall I ran. I ran into Chloe’s room and threw her down on her bed. Still unconscious. I ripped open the brown stained cupboard to the right of her bed and cleared the padlock area. Three, two, one, I lifted Chloe up and placed her in the cupboard, kissed her bruised forehead and shut the doors. I used the padlock and locked her inside, she had to be safe. I left Chloe’s room, the door ajar. As I came to the kitchen, I grabbed the biggest knives I could find and placed them inside my white blood stained shirt. I approached the door, took a long breath and placed my hand on the door knob. Slowly, turning. I opened it, only to find the being walking up, faintly wobbling around trying to get its balance. I ran and jumped on its back and tackled it to the ground, next the mask came off. I leaped back and just managed a croaking sound. “Mum?” 10. I picked Chloe up off the dirt and we ran inside. I took the silver key from underneath the front door mat branded with ‘Welcome’. I pulled open the door and Chloe went running in, straight to the panic room underneath the house. I sprinted in and swiftly lock the door behind me. Bang, bang, bang. Three heavy footsteps let the creature descend off the old rusty roof. Through the kitchen, down the stairs, into the garage and to the panic room door we ran. Click, click. The front door was opening; this means that the fiend had a key to our house. We were vulnerable. A shiver went

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down my spine as the cool breeze came from the front door. I peered through the garage door and up the stairs. It was coming. I shoved the key into the lock, twisted it to the left, we were in. I locked it right behind me. I pulled Chloe down to sit in the furthest corner of the panic room, caressing her in my nimble arms, she slept. I drifted in and out of slumber. Click. It was coming. I held Chloe tight, I couldn’t lose her. We should die together. The beast entered, showing off its extremely womanly figure. It knelt close to me, breathing, softly, in my ear. “Joe…I remember the day you were born. I slaved my whole life for you.”

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Alice Jenson, Year 10

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Lost Chapter from ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ by Ken Kesey

Matisse Waters, Year 11 assessment piece completed in 2012 The water was shiny like Mac’s eyes when he would defy Big Nurse. She’d give him back a slit smile, but his eyes would shine like the water. Sometimes she’d swim off from group meetings, a cunning shark, her smile widened till her tapering teeth I could see. I remember the day Mac said we were chickens. Harding spoke, “McMurphy… my friend… I’m not a chicken. I’m a rabbit. The doctor is a rabbit. Cheswick there is a rabbit.” Both foolin themselves, we ain’t rabbits, we ain’t chickens. We are fish. No pointed beaks to peck with, no sweet noses to sniff with, just gills for breathing in, breathe out.

When I was Cheswick the child, I saw the fish of the Charlie boy ocean, kaleidoscopic colours with dazzling scales. I can observe a stark contrast between the Charlie boy fish and the Ward fish. The Ward fish are gloomier and segregated by species, the Chronics and the Acutes. A fish glides by protectively, petite hands, those of a woman, no fins. Harding. A fish seems fresh from adolescence and supresses a stutter causing his lips to quiver. Billy Bibbit. Nonchalant Mac succeeds them, the biggest fish in the smallest pond. All the while, night comes, night goes, underwater, Big Nurse shark watch and Big Nurse shark wait.

When I was a naughty boy, Mother would grip my head with her nimble, boned fingers and shove it beneath the surface. Nails dug into scalp. Blurred words to my ears, “Learn the lesson Charles! Will you ever learn the lesson?” Her questions were rhetorical, I never answered. I never will. Escaping her harsh grip, my head is not skin, it’s slimy… I’d slip from her grip and swim away. I can nestle into the reefs, dark, deep and safe. Swish, swoosh. I see the fish, and her punishment for being a bad boy is cruel no more. The Charlie boy ocean is my home and my childhood. Acceptance by the water is how I’d imagine a hug to feel, a tender embrace, I feel welcome and warm. The liquid enveloped me, its consumption bittersweet.

A day ago, Mac betrayed me… we were swimming in a school of fish, until the Big Nurse shark… she came. The school is always meant to stay together, always… always. Swim together. Safe together. I looked for his support. His shiny eyes did not meet mine. Next bloody thing I know, I am the only fish. Mac led the school away from me ‘til I swimming solitary in the centre of the group therapy meeting… surrounded. It was the shark’s plan. She is my mother. She smelt the blood, she hunted me down and she came and I know it as true as day, I felt a wicked chill down my spine. It was a god damn feast. I was vulnerable again ‘til the current swept me upstream to Disturbed, flanked by the two black fish of hatred. The betrayal by both, unfathomable, and the pain, unbearable.

In the end, it was instinctive, my return to the water. For the last time, it licks the crown of my bald head… chlorine tickles my nostrils… eyes slowly shut. I am not plunged below, I return peacefully, the terms are my own, I go to my home. Swish,

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swoosh. Blurred words reach my ears again, I don’t know who they come from, but they don’t matter. I feel the skin becoming scales. I am a boy again. It is dark, it is deep, and I am safe.

Zena Burgess, Year 10

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Sophie Robertson, Year 11 assessment piece completed in 2012 Should I enter? Will your ghost be there? Would you come back to haunt me, your mother, for my appalling crime? Perhaps if you understood my story, you would take pity in me. Oh but Juliet, the magnitude of this catastrophe is tearing me apart. I do plead guilty to the charge of abandoning you. Did it take this to make me face my crime? I wish it could have turned out differently. My darling, did it have to end this way?

I was lonely and scared before your birth. I had no friends and a husband already a fully grown man of thirty years. I had been taken away from my family like a chattel. When I gave birth to you, I was thirteen years old, only a child. Your birth gave me hope for a new beginning and a hope to have not only a beautiful daughter but also a friend. My dearest desire was that your life would be different from mine.

At birth, the Nurse came into your life and soon took over. She cared for you as her own and then of course you looked to her as your confidante, friend and mother. She even had the effrontery to list all the moments of your life that should be remembered and that I missed. I wasn’t allowed to breast feed you and Nurse rubbed it in my face “I would say thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy teat”. I wasn’t allowed to care for you. I could not escape being an accessory in your father’s world. I wasn’t jealous but perhaps being so young, I felt inadequate and allowed the Nurse to look after you. But I grieved. Again, I was left alone.

The only one who I could share a true friendship with was Tybalt. I felt his equal and I was accepted for myself. I didn’t have to obey him. He was the friend I never had. This was why I was so beside myself with grief at Tybalt’s death. The only hope of a friend, gone. I know Tybalt was passionate and reckless like a child and this is a trait known well in our family.

Now, I regret the violence we have known.

God knows I did try to talk to you like a mother. I warned you of Paris’s love before the party and asked if you could love this gentleman. You said that you would “look to like, if looking liking move. But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly.” I thought by this that you understood your position. Also remember when your marriage was arranged? I came to your chambers to share what I had hoped would be happy news. I was so hurt when you rejected the arrangement. You acted like a stranger and this cut me to the core. I know I lost my temper which was unfair and I truly regret it.

You may ask why I abandoned you when your father insisted on your marriage to Paris. I was paralysed. I knew so well that once your father decided on a course of action, I could have no influence on his decision. It really was a public decision and your father cared more about our appearances than wellbeing. What happened to you, happened to me and you have to accept what life brings. With our high birth, comes great responsibility. I had no choice. You had no choice. You could never understand the life I have suffered being your father’s wife. But now you will never be subjected to that horror. If that can be any consolation at all.

Further, Paris was a very decent man and despite your age, he would have treated you well. He was kind and thoughtful. He was more than what I could have hoped for. He wasn’t a man like your father; someone twice your age, impulsive and violent. Paris was a gentleman. Remember

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how he brought you flowers after Tybalt’s death? Do you know that he died protecting you?

I could never imagine your father doing such things out of kindness or love.

Juliet, it comforts me to know that you are with your Romeo now and you will be together throughout eternity. I am proud that you had the ability to recognise love and the courage to grasp it with both of your hands. Perhaps you were like your father, impulsive and without regard for consequences. You made your choice.

My darling, I have and never could, experience the love you have felt for your lover and forever I will live in this prison of guilt and envy. Farewell my daughter. The intensity of this tragedy will never fade but hopefully I will be able to find some small amount of peace within my heart.

Madison Donald, Year 10

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Gabby Sachs, Year 10 2013 His whole life, Jacob had hated mirrors.

They scared him, but for a long time he couldn't figure out why. It was always mirrors. A passing reflection in water or silverware didn't faze him at all; there was nothing ominous about a reflection itself. Not as far as Jacob knew. All he knew was that being near one gave him the sensation of ice forming in his blood.

Even the thought of a mirror made Jacob anxious, and the presence of one always ended in his heart thumping uncomfortably at the notion of proximity.

Jacob always tried to distance himself from the thing as quickly as possible.

Nobody understood why Jacob had this irrational phobia. They believed he was being immature, he wanted attention or that he simply didn't know any better. He was only a kid, after all. So many times, his mother had said, "There's absolutely nothing scary about a mirror". Even so, Jacob couldn't shake this fear. It was an icy water that flooded into his fingertips, filling him until his skin felt tight and cold and his head was splitting with pain. Nobody understood.

For a long time, Jacob didn't know why he was so afraid. It took him a long time to figure it out, but knowing why only made it worse. Much worse.

So any people had told him there was nothing to be scared of that he started to believe them. He was still frightened, unbearably so, but he thought maybe it was just in his head. That maybe if he tried facing the fear, it would go away.

Jacob had stood in front of the tall mirror in his sister's bedroom, staring at his pale reflection with wide eyes. Maybe if I touched it, he'd thought, I wouldn't be afraid anymore.

Shaking visibly, Jacob had reached out a hand to press his fingertips to the cold surface, watching his reflection reach at the same time. He noticed something the closer his hand came to the mirror. His reflection was not pointing. The body was still in the same position, reaching out, but the hand was different.

The reflection held its hand palm out, fingers splayed wide.

Jacob had lifted his eyes to his reflection's face. It was scared and pale, but more gaunt than it seemed it should be. The face that was Jacob's but also wasn't kept staring right back. Slowly, painfully, without Jacob moving a muscle, the reflection tightened its jaw and shook its head. Its expression was haunted beyond its years, strange and foreign on the face of a child. Jacob fled the room, never placing his hand on that mirror.

Nightmares plagued him for weeks after that. And when he couldn't sleep, which was often, long nights awake had heralded terrifying thoughts. None more terrifying than what he eventually realised was the truth.

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He was different.

Jacob saw what others didn't. It wasn't his imagination, he knew that much.

Numerous experiments with reluctant friends and family made him certain. From then on, he never let his family members touch a mirror. Only just could he cope with his loved ones being near them, but any more resulted in what was close to a nuclear meltdown. His family put up with it, never realising that what Jacob was actually doing was keeping them safe.

Jacob knew the truth.

Jacob knew that our reflections weren't us, but something else entirely. They protected us. Ever-present and ever-watching. As far as he knew, nobody else had figured it out, and nobody would believe what he told them.

The most frightening thing was why they were there. Protecting. Against what, Jacob didn't know. The reflections weren't really reflections, but that wasn't what scared him. After a long time, Jacob figured out something else.

He found that mirrors weren't so much mirrors as doors.

Chloe Morgan, Year 11

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Claudia Tompkins, Year 9

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April Butler, Year 8 assessment piece completed in 2012 Based on the poem Protection by Mary Guimont I stare helplessly at you, your beautiful face slowly turning sour. If wolves could cry, I would have no tears left to shed. It shouldn’t be like this. We shouldn’t be here. You should be standing at the top of the cliff, howling by my side into the velvet black sky. But you’re not. And it’s all my fault.

We, the pack, were once again on the daring hunt for dinner. Silently, we crept down the mountain we called home and into a deathly black forest. My sensitive ears twitched at even the slightest sound. Food had become scarce in our usual hunting grounds, so I decided we would venture off and explore the land beyond.

We quickened our pace, just as the bright full moon disappeared behind a cloud, shrouding my wolf family in darkness.

I grunted lowly, giving the signal to fan out. I looked around. Autumn leaves carpeted the hard ground, while early winter snow flakes drifted down from the heavens to settle. I softly stepped onto the soft soil, the small shards of ice cooling my warm paws, when a sharp bark rang though crisp, clear air. From you. I dashed over and stopped. I growled lowly as I drew in our surroundings.

A huge terrain of thick grasses and hills spread before us. In the darkness, it was hard to identify all its features but it was clear that anything that was brave enough to explore the vastness would evident to any lurking predators.

I watched, as you stepped forward boldly, excitement dancing in your striking yellow eyes. I should have held you back. Should have told you no. But instead, I joined you in entering the new land. The rest of the pack followed, hesitantly, but definitely, into the place we should have never set paw in.

Soon, we were attacking whatever creatures made their home here, freely howling, our bodies slicing through the night. I suddenly stopped, panting. The pack slowly, one by one, came to a halt. I looked up and smelt the air. There was a something in it. Something I couldn’t identify. The pack also looked around.

We could sense something. That’s when I first saw it. In the corner of my eye. A flash of light.

I crouched in the grass and softly barked. The pack dropped to the ground, ears back. I looked over my shoulder. The forest from which we had emerged from was too far away to escape to now.

Another flash of light, but bigger and brighter. My gleaming moon-like eyes widened. BANG! A vehicle shot out of the forest just as I stood up. I was caught in the headlight, terrified. I barked shrilly and the pack fled. The men in the vehicle were distracted for only a moment. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me into the darkness of the forest. Right then, the moon came out from behind

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the clouds and bearing its light down on you. I skidded to a stop just as a gun cocked. And there was nothing I could do. A gunshot rang through the air. I turned to see you crumple into a heap of fur, bones and blood in the grass. The men drove away and I ran over to you.

I should never have gone off track. Never should have let you explore this place.

Never should have let you go. I just wish I could’ve offered my protection in time. Now every night I stand alone on that mountain, howling out my hearts sorrow and despair. You left me before you knew how I felt. How special you were to me. But now, staring at the yellow moon, I know what I forgot to tell you, and wish you could hear me now. That you and you only, were the passion of my life. And I love you.

Isabella Pugliese, Year 7 2013 Consider all of those Australians fighting for their lives in the war field, hundreds of thousands of people losing their lives just so we could have a country with no invasions. What symbol did these people bravely fight for? Our Australian flag. The Australian flag was our rock. It has been there for 112 years and it helped us remember that we are all one big family through the bad and the good times.

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Alice Jenson, Year 10

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Anonymous, Year 10 2013 Darkness had filled the streets. The only light remaining was a faint yellow glow casting its shadow over the pavement. Steam was rising up from the ground grates and an eerie silence had fallen over the city. A lone figure draped in a cloak of darkness trudged along the cobble stone street. The sound of metal grinding against metal followed him and echoed off the stone cold buildings which lined the footpath. The figure revealed itself fleetingly when it passed under a battered old streetlamp, one of the few that remained in this part of the neighbourhood.

It was a griever.

Not quite a man, not quite a machine but a combination of the two. It was almost as if he was stuck in between the two forms.

His arms were human like with creamy porcelain skin that was in stark contrast to his blackened metal hands. The face of the griever was harsh and mutilated as if the metal which made up his neck and torso had merged with his pearly white flesh creating dark metal streaks up his cheek bones. But what really stood out were his eyes, usually a dull grey, tonight they were pitch black and seemed to smoulder with a hidden anger.

The cogs and switches which made up his mechanical brain whirred to life and started clicking over in thought. The griever then paused for a moment, looking down at his right bicep. The mark.

Before, it was just a mark.

Meaningless. Just a means of identification, a way for your master to contact the factory to order a new cataract or left knee joint if the old one was rusty.

Now, it meant so much more. It represented a lie told, a betrayal, an unforgiveable act, not only affecting him, but all of his kind.

As these thoughts continued to click over in the griever’s hollow metal head, the anger started bubbling, brewing, deep in the pit of his iron stomach. Fuelled by rage the griever continued onwards.

With a loud creak, and then a clunk his legs began moving once again. The same metallic scraping continued to drone on in the background, the sound reverberating around the narrow alleyways. ‘How could he have done this? Kept this from me.

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Why didn’t he tell me earlier?’ thought the griever. He remembered the loyalty and service he and his kinsmen provided for their masters, and how crushing it was when he discovered the truth. How his master, the man who raised him since he was a new born griever, had kept it from him. Thoughts of revenge swirled and clouded in his mechanical brain, he dreamed of clenching his strong metal hands around his master’s neck and squeezing. He could picture him spluttering, trying without success to draw in one last breath, his master’s eyes pleading with him but he wouldn’t stop until the light drained out of him: it was retribution, he must pay penance for his crimes.

Meanwhile the alleyways seemed to be winding less, becoming straighter, the path the griever was travelling on was less random, there were less turns in his path, less switching from laneway to laneway. The trip it seemed was not just directionless meandering anymore, but looked as though it had a purpose.

Thoughts of revenge and hatred began to dissipate as the griever realised that he had almost reached the outskirts of the city and his wandering had come to an end.

Now the only thought which occupied his wire filled brain was once again the mark. And how close the current hour was to the number printed on his bicep. It was almost time. The griever, now wracked with nerves began to understand why the master didn’t tell him the truth about the mark. If he did he wouldn’t have lived, he would have been constantly fixated with those dreaded numbers and forever haunted by the expiration date. Whatever his master’s reasoning he was still in the same situation, one he couldn’t escape, one that was programmed into him since creation. The hands on the griever’s pocket watch began to slowly tick dangerously close to the numbers on the inside of his bicep. It was time.

The alley along which the griever was travelling was narrowing and closing in. Then more grievers joined him; all of them forming a single file line each of them turning in from adjoining alleys. Before long there were hundreds of grievers in the queue both in front of him and behind. A cloud of mist shrouded the grievers at the front of the line hiding them from view. A grinding started and then a whirring as if there was a large machine up ahead even larger than the grievers. The line kept shuffling onwards, the sound of each griever stepping forward in the line as another entered the mist was similar to soldiers marching, their steely boots clunking when coming in contact with the cobblestone street. Soon he was at the start of the line and it was his turn to travel through the haze. With such close proximity the machine sounded even louder and the griever was starting to panic, despite knowing what was to come.

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Large mechanical arms made of shiny silver tungsten, clean and sterile emerged from the vapour clamping themselves to the griever’s bronze coloured feet. Then without warning the mechanical arms gave a sharp tug and the grievers feet were detached from the rest of his body. With an ear piercing scream he fell forward onto his hands and knees, the griever’s head resting on his legs as he attempted to cope with the feeling of loss that the detachment of his feet caused. Then once again the mechanical arms reattached themselves to his body, this time to his torso. The pull was less harsh this time, slower as if the machine to whom the arms belonged was savouring the feeling of wrenching open the metal plates that made up the griever’s body.

The sound of metal tearing open and wires being pulled out like plugs from light sockets filled the air until the griever’s chest cavity had been completely torn apart and his internal organs exposed. While most of the organs were composed of a thin layer of tin attached to cables, the griever’s heart was flesh. A rosy pink colour and soft in texture with small wire thin threads of gold streaked throughout. The griever continued to howl, his head thrown back in agony as the cold, sterile hands clasped themselves around his heart, gently squeezing tighter and tighter. With one sharp yank the hands completely removed his heart from his chest and the griever was cut short mid wail as his entire being began to shut down one last thought travelled through the griever’s consciousness, it was of his master. Now the griever’s eyes dulled from their usual grey, gradually getting lighter until they were pure white. The creaking, clunking and clicking that was normally emitted from the griever’s head as thoughts whirred around stopped; the cogs that made up his brain froze mid motion. A last shallow wheeze was released from the griever before the mechanical arms hastily gathered up the scraps and tossing them into the pile before moving on to the next griever.

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Zena Burgess, Year 10

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Gabby Sachs, Year 10 2013 The skin on my right arm is pale. Soft and smooth, with a pinkish undertone, it is unblemished but for a light scattering of sparse, small freckles and a tiny, circular scar at the top of my shoulder. All in all, it would be a perfectly fine arm, if not for its difference to my left. The skin on my left arm isn’t skin at all.

It’s metal.

Pistons, gears and wire. The limb moves with the slightest of creaks, whirrs with the spinning of the cogs and cables inside. It is strong. Precise. Indefinite.

With it, things which should be difficult, should in fact be impossible, I can do without even thinking. Tightening the gears in a miniature clock, lifting a grand piano, or sewing a perfect series of stitches into the hem of my waistcoat is as easy as breathing. It is the perfect appendage. And I hate it for that exact reason.

Today is the day of my Procedure. They will come at four o’clock, six hours from now.

At the thought of it, my heart gives an unsteady thump, the mechanism within shuddering, trying to keep up with my body. It, too, is false. I would hate it as well if it weren’t keeping me alive. With one fist, I thump my chest roughly, just once, and the heart resumes its rhythm. I’ve begun to think I should stop doing this and just let the organ halt altogether, but I’m too afraid to take that leap.

While I wait for them to come, I’m left alone inside my house. Every moan and hiss of the pipes is familiar. I know every stitch of the tapestries, the broken upstairs banister, and the way the second floorboard in the hallway has a distinctive, groaning creak. I know it, all of it, by heart. And yet despite all my memories of this house, I can never think of it as my home. Homes aren’t supposed to be like prisons, after all. I walk up and down the main hall, letting my fingertips trail against the wood and the tapestries and I wait for them to come for me.

Four hours left.

I was born forty years after the first full Procedure. Four years after my parents broke the law to avoid their own. The Procedure was a necessity, the government said. Nobody starves when there is no hunger. Nobody hungers without the need for food. The pains of emotion, of hunger, of love itself, were deemed not worth the struggle to quell them. The whole point of the Procedure was to remove those needs altogether. It was a logical sentiment, but not necessarily a good one.

My parents ran. It was a harsh life but they were alive and they had each other, and for a while that was enough. But then my mother gave birth to me, an infant daughter cursed with a wrecked arm and a weak heart. It became obvious very

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quickly that I was going to die. In a suicidal act of desperation, my parents turned themselves in, hoping that just maybe their lives would be a fair enough exchange to save their daughter’s. I was ‘repaired’, my parents killed, and then I was alone. A baby with a foreign arm and a metal heart. I didn’t have a name, not one that I can remember at least. They just called me ‘A’.

The laws were tightened after my birth: newborns were not kept, they were euthanized. Children could not undergo the full Procedure, after all, to stop their need to eat, to think, to feel, so wasn’t it less cruel? Wasn’t it better to end a child’s life quickly, before it could suffer a slow, painful death at the hands of starvation? These were the carefully constructed lines they used to convince reluctant but weak-willed parents. As the last child allowed to live, my sixteenth birthday was the date set for my final Procedure. Today.

There were others before me: Nora, Calvin, Betty, Isaac and a number of others.

Older kids, my brothers and sisters in a sense. They all had the Procedure, one by one, and none of them ever came back.

Two hours.

Bones replaced with metal bars. Skin with iron plates. Hearts, lungs, limbs, brains. As I go about the daily motions, my metal arm is an ominous presence; it reminds me what my future is.

Those machines, they like to call themselves human, wearing clothes, staying in family groups, trying and failing to retain the old ways. They pretend that there is still a shred of life in those metal shells, but it is a pathetic mockery of humanity. The irony is that they’re no longer human enough to know it.

One hour.

I used to run away regularly – a sign that I really do take after my parents. There was a loose window-frame in the east kitchens that I could climb out of. Each time I left, I would find myself in the same place: a small, sequestered alley in the east of town. Water dripped from the drainpipe above the alley and pooled in a dip in the corner, a small clump of weeds growing there. The plant was sickly and stunted but living all the same, and while the filthy water it grew by threatened its survival, without its moisture the plant would have died long ago.

Maybe that was why I always went back. To make sure the plant still survived.

The closer it came to the day of my Procedure, the harder it became to sneak out.

Two days ago, the window was nailed shut. I’m sure the plant must be dead by now. It was barely surviving as it was.

Four o’clock.

They are here.

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“Do not go gentle into that good night,” Dylan Thomas. A poem I found in the library. Old, old world stuff.

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

I cannot run, but I can struggle, so I do. I fight, scream, rage.

Eventually, inevitably, they subdue me, and there’s a sick sense of relief. In fighting back I’ve given the masses some illusion of comfort, a confirmation of sorts: finally they’ll be rid of this emotional, wild, profoundly human girl. This is good. This is right.

I am taken to the House of Procedures. The leather straps and buckles on the table bite into my skin, and I thrash in a last-ditch attempt at escape until they manage to sedate me. The final sleep is not quite like being awake, nor is it like dreaming, but somewhere curiously in-between.

There are colours and sounds and bright, clean light. The shelves in the library.

The tattered pink ribbon I used to hide in my pocket as a child. A strange, swirling white substance that makes my lips tingle and my skin prickle with the feeling of it. For a moment, the word doesn’t come to me, but then I remember.

Snow. Like ash, but clean and white and fresh. Nobody has seen the real thing in hundreds of years, not in my parents’ lifetime or the generation before. I wish I’d had time to see snow.

The Procedure takes a thousand years and a fraction of a second all at once. The end, a rush of heat, takes the colours, feeling and my dreams of snow with it.

When I wake up, I am numb.

I know nothing, care for nothing, feel nothing.

It is bliss.

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Georgina Van der Woude, Year 12

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Louisa Sondergeld, Year 12 2013 Prime Minister Joyce surveyed the photos on the hero wall of his panelled office.

His eyes came to rest on the picture of him with Nobel Laureate and Chief Scientist of the CSIRO, Thomas Hughes AC. It had been a master stroke!

Joyce’s National Party swept to power on the platform of a radical new approach to food production. It was Joyce who recognised the political advantage in embracing Hughes’ research into genetic modification. What no one could anticipate, were the dramatic health benefits that would accrue.

A smile played on Joyce’s lips as he swivelled his chair to face the embossed leather of his desktop. Commanding his attention was The Hughes Report which lay open at its Executive Summary. It had been ten years since he had closed Australian borders to all food imports. With the practical implementation of Hughes’ research, crop yields had never been higher or livestock production more efficient. Bordering on the implausible, were the official Australian Bureau of Statistics data: in the last ten years, average IQ on matriculation had risen 40%; in the last ten years, average height for both males and females at age 21 had risen 10%; in the last ten years, more world sporting records had fallen to Australian athletes than to all other nations combined. Joyce’s prime ministerial approval rating exceeded 95%.

Joyce rose and flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his super fine merino wool suit. He strode toward the Chesterfield lounge chair by his picture window.

Sweeping the morning edition of The Australian off the arm rest, he sank into the soft leather. His mood soured as he read the headline, ‘Joyce’s GM Fiasco’.

Abruptly, he stood and hurled the newspaper at the glass. In mock defiance, the pages separated and the headline fluttered to the thick shag pile. The Prime Minister gripped his jaw with an agitated hand.

The Australian Scientific Research Association was at it again with their scaremongering. He had the nation eating out of his hand and could barely suppress his irritation when he saw ASRA’s fanciful notions gaining traction with mainstream media. Hughes’ research and credentials were impeccable. Who were ASRA to suggest that the Australian super race was nothing more than a ticking time bomb? Who were ASRA to threaten the very essence of his power?

For some time, the eminent scientists of ASRA had been increasingly strident in their criticisms of genetic modification. Their studies in mice confirmed the stunning advances seen in humans. Mice fed genetically modified food could complete maze tests in a fraction of the time taken by their counterparts who had been given standard murine fare. The mice were also bigger and more athletic,

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but their lifespans were less than one third than expected. Parallel studies in cattle, dogs and hamsters replicated the results in mice. They peaked early but all died young. The deterioration was insidious, heralded by a fine limb tremor, then a decline into dementia. Post mortem examinations disclosed failure of all the major organ systems, which the scientists tauntingly termed Rapid Organ Transition, or ROT. It was this acronym that had recently found favour with the press.

Joyce’s musings were interrupted by the buzz of his office intercom. He jabbed the flashing button. “What!”

“The Party President has arrived for your 8am meeting, Prime Minister,” intoned his secretary.

“Send him in.”

The door opened to admit the ample frame of Jackson Hurst. Squat and somewhat rumpled, Hurst lumbered with outstretched hand toward the Prime Minister.

“Barnaby!” he exclaimed.

“Cut it out, Jackson. I’m getting absolutely sick of these ASRA pricks. What is it with them? Our rural production has never been better, manufacturing’s at an alltime high and our balance of trade is in the stratosphere. Australians are at the forefront of every scientific discipline and we blitzed all comers at the recent Olympics! The Australian people have given me the power. There’s no going back from here. If these bastards think they can take all this away from me with their lies, they’ve got another thing coming! We’ve fixed things before – we can fix them again.”

“Barnaby, the Party is becoming concerned that you’re letting this rattle you.

Our focus groups are warming to more measured tones. The scientists are coming across as measured – you’re coming across as hysterical.”

“I am not hysterical!” shouted Joyce.

Abruptly, Joyce turned away from his Party President, bringing his hand to his forehead.

“I will not allow them to smear my success or the success of this nation. My dynasty will continue. Look at my son, Robbie – Rhodes Scholar, champion athlete – he typifies what I have done for this country. We’ve agreed that now is the time for him to make his run for the next election. Have you arranged the pre -selection?”

“It’s a done deal, Barnaby. Safe seat – he’ll be a shoe-in. There have been delays

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with the paperwork. I’ve had to remind him a number of times, so I’ve sent one of my people around to make sure it’s been completed and to get him here on time for our meeting this morning,” he said to Joyce’s back.

Joyce’s hostile eyes followed the people in peak hour traffic in the street below.

“I gave them all this,” Joyce hissed. More loudly, “This nation has never been as successful as it is now – and they all know it,” his hand sweeping across the assembled skyscrapers.

The intercom buzzed. Hurst responded: “Yes, Mary?”

“The Prime Minister’s son is here Mr Hurst.”

“Send him in please, Mary.”

The door eased open. Filling the frame was the strapping figure of Robbie Joyce – 190 centimetres, muscled and darkly handsome.

“Son, come in,” effused Joyce Snr. “This is a great day for the family, Robbie.

You are living proof of our great and healthy nation – successful, athletic, a born leader! Now son, Jackson has it all arranged: the seat is as safe as houses. Before long, you’ll be sitting in this office. Did you bring the papers?”

“Papers, Dad?” “You know, son – the papers that Hurst had you sign.”

Robbie patted absently over the breast pocket of his elegant suit. He paused and with blank eyes, withdrew a sheaf of papers. He proffered them to his beaming father.

His barely perceptible tremor escaped the notice of the Prime Minister and his Party President.

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Lisa Krampe, Year 10

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Ellen Tuffley, Year 12 2013 Adrenaline activated Edwards’s lethargic muscles as a deep twist of excitement conjured low in his tummy. An ache from his cramping arm, which was pinned under his head, forced him to roll over. As he shifted, Edward discovered the damp sheets beneath him. His head, along with his heart, sank deep into his stomach at the realization that he would once again be caged in the same place, doing the same classes as he had done, for what felt like a lifetime. Anger seeped through every pore on his face. He snapped his head toward the clock, which read quarter to six.

He knew he only had a very small window of opportunity before Ma would come in with breakfast. Edward was off on an adventure of a lifetime. Succeed or fail, it would change him forever.

Not needing to brush his few hairs, or extensively clean his unstable teeth and un -able to dress himself, Edward commenced his crawl down the formidable corridor. Flinching at every creak that an upturned floorboard made, he passed rooms he was forbidden to enter. His thoughts wandered to the possibilities that lay beyond the doors, until Ma’s voice penetrated down the corridor, approaching increasingly closer, terrifyingly close to Edward’s imprisonment.

Edward ran as fast as he was able. The front door was within reach when a nail clipped his foot forcing his face to meet the floor. The sound echoed through the eerie, narrow hall as a deathly silence split the air. Scuffling to his elbows and now bloody knees, Edward threw himself out the final barricade.

It was big, busy and beautiful. Walking through the imprisoning iron gates, the sweet smell of pollen and fertilizer engulfed Edward’s sensitive nose as the sun cuddled his delicate skin. Unable to remember the direction of his destination, Edward stopped to orientate himself when two teenagers whose pants aligned with their knees, approached on skateboards.

“Little dude, move.”

“Ah, excuse me, do you know how to get to the p-?”

“I suggest you run home before we run you over.” They pushed Edward off the path, forcing him to stumble forward into a garden bed.

“Don’t trample my flowers!” screeched a lady whose mono-brow could be mistaken for the Amazon. Edwards’s eyes darted across the yard, panicked that his clumsiness would attract unwanted attention. Edward picked up the pace again with a fairly un-coordinated lurch. He saw the sign he so desperately desired across the road. Shuffling into the middle of the lane, a van approaching fast around the corner screeched to a halt, beeping so violently that it rattled

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Edward’s spine. Witnessing the near disaster a hippopotamus of a lady, who had a smile that could only be explained as a dental operation gone wrong, waddled toward Edward.

“Would you like some help across the street, dear? You know you really shouldn’t be out here all alone, one of these cars could cause you permanent damage.” Scared that the only damage he would be facing was the crushing of his skull with one strategically placed step from an angry Hippo, Edward slowly nodded and took her clammy, constricting hand while she controlled his whole body by that one limb safely across the road.

After following a crisp white picket fence, Edward felt blood expanding his veins as he placed four dollars; he’d so painfully saved, onto the counter.

“Entry is free for your age,” the monotone, over-sized, baboon of a man grunted at Edward.

Edward’s heart fluttered with excitement as he approached an expanse of shimmering, turquoise water. Everything was peaceful, even the constant hum of the pool filter melted into his un-conscious.

‘Nothing so beautiful could hurt me, right?’ Edward whispered to himself, anticipating how deep the bottom would be. A sudden flood of nerves elated Edward. As he stretched tall upon the block, he took a sharp in-take of breath and soared into the cleansing water. Delving further down and never wanting to re-surface, memories flooded Edward’s mind and intense joy inflated his heart.

For in this moment, there was no retirement home, no iron gates, no patronizing hippos or baboons, no bed wetting charts, no twenty seven year old nurses, named Ma, who refused to take him swimming because of her tan and most importantly, under water there was no one able to treat him like he was a three year old, disabled child. It was just Edward, in his suit of wrinkles, a beanie of grey hair and the lane that he’d swam for the past 55 years.

Suddenly, he felt a very different desperate urgency force him to re-surface.

“Edward!” Ma screamed as she pulled his last few standing hairs to the surface of the bath.

“What do you think you’re doing? You could have drowned. I thought we agreed on sponge baths?”

“Words were few and failing between them as though the silence that sat with them had laid its old lips on theirs and sucked them dry of speech. For where could one begin? With the weather? But here there was no weather. These few sad rooms were the old man's world. His horizons were all walls.” ― Michael Bedard, Redwork

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Charlotte Smith, Year 11

Bella (Dan Dan) Shen, Year 11

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Louisa Sondergeld, Year 11 assessment completed in 2012 “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer…”

-Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë, Chapter 12.

Set against the travesty of the Sri Lankan civil war, The Crescent Moon is the story of a woman transformed, liberated, defiled. A reflection of the central character in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, this stark account in the first person questions the nobility of a heroine, compelled to escape her society’s traditionally held views of womanhood.

The night the soldiers banged on our door, it was unseasonably warm. The moist air lay as heavy as a shroud, muffling the insistent din of the cicadas. Terror danced in Aravinda’s wide pupils as I silently urged our little boy into the pit under the lifted floorboards. The hinges of the door gave up their valiant resistance as the first soldier plunged through the threshold, the splintered door convulsing wildly. His beret skittered across the floor as, in almost comic slow motion, he pirouetted and toppled, his empty rum bottle smashing against the table leg. The shards of glass and the sweat on his pocked neck glistened in the moonlight that now streamed through the gaping maw of the doorway. My husband fled for the door. I saw the baton arc. He recoiled, clutching at his mouth as blood seeped through trembling fingers. The second soldier was silhouetted in a crazy rectangle of moonlight. He swayed unsteadily and he reeked of stale humanity.

"Tamil filth!" he yelled, "show me the moon!" The discreet tattoo of a crescent moon is the mark of the Tamil Resistance Fighter.

"Show-me-the-moon," he hissed with a deliberation born of menace. Once more, the venomous baton swung. My husband's whimpering ceased as the weapon cracked against his face and warm blood sprayed in fat droplets across my lips and left cheek.

His head lolled to one side, exposing an indigo smudge behind his ear - a crescent moon.

The soldier grunted his satisfaction, then slowly swung his malevolent gaze to me.

Power and lust played in the sardonic set of his lips. Then his foetid breath was upon me, his calloused hand stifling my pleas.

The days and weeks that followed are a blur. I vaguely recall the wetness of my face as I stirred to the tears of a distressed and importunate Aravinda. I remember the piercing pain as I swabbed my battered loins with the warm water. I remember covertly placing my bloodied clothes in my husband’s funeral pyre. I remember the shame, the disgust, the desire for vengeance.

I was well acquainted with the ways of men. Absorbed in domesticity, nevertheless I would often be privy to the murmurings of my husband and his assembled friends, close -huddled around our kitchen table. I breathed their bitterness and, deep within myself, denied their barbarous acts as I dared not believe in a world more moral, more

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empowered. This was not a woman’s world – ours was not to show emotion or to taste blood, ours was to provide for our menfolk’s comforts, appetites and pleasures. The simple minds of the men were incapable of conceiving of a woman who could be driven by resentment, who could scheme, whose lusts could extend to revenge. Yet, I knew, first-hand, the pain of loss and the despair of the abused.

The soldier’s name was Jamal – a drunk and a brute with a sour reputation for bastardry.

He was the commander of the Government troops in our area. They presided over a brittle peace, enforced by gratuitous violence and lascivious perversions. He, and his underlings, drank at the local hotel every Friday night, but the fox-like Jamal would never emerge alone. Many were the nights spent in the shadowy recesses of the palms that abutted the hotel entrance, enduring their drunken laughter and stories of foul bravado, comforted only by my unwavering grip on the sweat-slick butt of my husband’s old pistol. Until that fateful night.

The screen door creaked in protest as Jamal emerged – alone. He seemed preoccupied with the horizon as his leisurely stride eased him past the palm trunk to which I was melded. A cigarette bobbed in his mouth as he raised cupped hands – those same, calloused hands – to light it. He breathed deeply, the cigarette glowed, my heart raced.

The pistol barrel rose slowly, inexorably, in my two-handed grip. I had practised this too many times in the jungle to fail now.

“Jamal,” I breathed.

His slightly quizzical look, as he turned, is my last memory of him. I shot his bastard face.

Later, at home, I stood before the wash basin. The lantern gave off a seedy yellow light.

The eyes in the mirror were quiet, changed. I gazed at a woman who had knowingly and deliberately entered the world of ‘man’ and had overcome. Vengeance had been minutely planned and savoured. There would be reprisals, we would have to leave.

There could be no turning back to an existence dominated by knowing one’s place and submitting to an order defined by others.

I pulled my black t-shirt over my head, my arms raised. There, where the swell of my breast met the pit of my arm, was an indistinct, indigo smudge – a crescent moon.

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Holly Sprague, Year 11

Georgie White Year 11

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Xenia Puskarz-Thomas, Year 12 2013 Jane Eyre wisely reflects that “Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil have never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones”. “The Airport” refers to the incorrect preconceptions made about people due to their appearance, especially in regards to their race.

Flights always make me uncomfortable. They mean business and business means stress.

Dawdling passengers from different flights meander and coil like a human snake, entwined in long cordon rope that lead to numerous conveyer belts and scanners.

After smoothing the creases of my blouse that had formed during the flight, I slowly make my way to the tail of the line.

The atmosphere of the bleak customs foyer is dreary and dull, like the surrounding plain white walls. The stale air is punctuated by the pungent smell of hospital grade bleach, which penetrates the nose and pierces the eyes as it emanates from the linoleum floor.

I flick my pale wrist over to survey the metal hands of my watch, but they move hesitantly, causing me to sigh in exasperation. The watch really needs repairing, but I have never had the money. I was told being a doctor paid well, but I only have a large college debt and a broken watch to show for it.

An announcement through the overhead speaker interrupts my frustrations, stating that the luggage collection for my flight would begin in 15 minutes. I dawdle along in the line, only to have my heel wedge in a tiny gap between the linoleum squares. With a semi-discreet wiggle, I manage to pull my shoe free. It was one thing for my watch to stop, but the last thing I need this morning is to have my shoe break.

Suddenly, two ominous figures enter the foyer through a side door. They are somewhat lofty, stolid men in standard blue uniforms, fingers looping their belts and eyeing the area like two territorial leopards. Conspicuously studying the passengers in my line, they make no point to be subtle. Instead, they jeer, point and speak brashly as they survey us. They only deliberate for a minute, gaining interest in a passenger ahead of me. I quickly crane my neck to see who they might be studying.

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Gloomy fluorescent bulbs light the throng of business men in sharp suits. They wait in line, sporting lavish watches; carrying swanky leather cases and speaking into their trendy smartphones. Further up in the queue, a family, possibly American, huddle together, snapping photos of the airport.

They all look like regular passengers to me.

I watch as the two policemen stride across the foyer and pull aside a young Indian man, who is positioned between two businessmen not that far from me.

He is wearing a faded, misspelt baseball cap, which is pulled far over his face.

Biting his fingernails, he follows the men to a nearby table at the head of the queue.

I watch and listen intently to their conversation. However, a gentle buzz of excited whispers rises up from the line, making it challenging to make out their conversation. As the queue progresses, I maintain a better hearing position.

Words of “innocent”, “wrong” cry out in a thick foreign accent. A hostile shove pushes me aside, as a robust woman steps in front of me to take her scan. I am so consumed in the conversation that I do not realise that I am next.

I remove my light shoulder bag and take off my shoes slowly, occasionally glancing sideways at the men as they continue their interrogation. Two voracious leopards tower over their cowering prey. The young Indian man holds his palms together, as if he is praying, shaking them at the policemen’s faces.

He may look suspicious, but I wonder if he really is guilty. Regardless, I am grateful that he is removed and that he will not interrupt my departure from the airport. I turn to take my scan.

Whilst collecting my belongings on the other side, I hear an outcry from the distance. I turn my head in the direction of the commotion, to find a panicked and perspiring face approaching me. His skin is like scorched honeycomb, with tufts of pitch black hair escaping from his cap. I notice he is running in the direction of the arch, but my feet will not move.

I blink my eyes as one of the policemen quickly cuffs the Indian man. They are less than one metre away from where I am standing. That was close.

He struggles against their grip, crying out, “You’re wrong, I ... I am a good man!”

His deep furrowed brows obscure tearful eyes that shine as wide as lamps in desperation and pain, hopeless against the languid, merciless faces of the policemen.

I see the other policeman approach me. I realise I had dropped my shoes in fear, and quickly bend down to retrieve them. I see the man pick one up.

“Are you alright ma’am?” His eyes and forehead are wrinkled in concern.

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“Yes, I think I am,” I gush.

There is a moment of silence, as he stands there smiling. Looking down, he realises he is still holding my shoe.

Chuckling, he gives it back to me with a salute. “Have a nice stay ma’am.”

Was he flirting with me? I wonder.

Whilst putting my shoes on slowly, I occasionally look back to see what happened to the Indian man. It seems that he was being taken away by the policeman into custody.

I collect my luggage after scan, leaving the airport promptly. Despite the commotion, I walk outside in good time to see a car waiting for me. As I walk over to the car, I notice an elderly Indian couple, waiting quietly for someone outside on a bench.

I step into the vehicle, noticing another man already sitting in the back. He is my business partner.

“How was your flight?” he asks warily. “I saw some commotion?”

“Some Indian was arrested, perhaps by immigration services. But other than that, it was a smooth flight.”

“Do you have the packages?” he enquires coolly.

I pat my heel and a firm nod implies that he understood.

This is business as usual.

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Courtney Bartels, Year 11

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Phoebe Coates, Year 8 2013 In the glow of fading light, a small face pressed against the glass, Leaving dearest mother and father behind, perhaps a little too fast.

Loneliness and uncertainty invaded her mind to shout; If certainty is a house, then there is always room for doubt.

Knowing that so close is so far away, and petrol is dearer than tears, She said goodbye like it was the last time, like it had been years.

Not a week passed before she saw her dearests, with welcome open arms, To watch her run for glory, excitement overruling calm.

Within another week, she saw them all, to appreciate Her lovely mother at a feast or rarities to celebrate.

Perhaps she will go home again, and think it’s going to last, To hop back in the car with her face pressed against the glass.

Holly Gall, Year 8 2013 We’re all so alone Nothing to catch us Nothing to hold Step by step We go it alone In the depths of darkness We see no light In the eternal black We think through the night

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Alice Jenson, Year 10 2013

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Nirvana’s 1989 British tour, by humanising, not mythologising, its subject.

As is portrayed with ample clarity, What made the ticking time bomb tick; Cobain was quintessentially human; a critical review including all the good and bad that Who is to blame for the tyranny of accompanies that condition. Showing a talentless musicians in our novel side to the luminary musician, commercialised music industry? When Cross’ assiduous research and did homogenous, monotonous noise accomplished correspondence shows replace the emotion and grit of genuine through in each chapter, with his music? When Kurt Cobain, front man experience as former editor of the of Nirvana, committed suicide in early influential Seattle music magazine, 1994, he effectively signalled the death ‘The Rocket,’ and firsthand knowledge call for grunge culture, which at the of the Northwest milieu from which time seemed as monumental as the Nirvana emerged. Having conducted hippie movement of the 60s. The grim some 400 interviews with Cobain’s finality of Cobain’s act stunned his friends, family and business associates, legion of fans that seemed to the results are reflective of these collectively diligent reporting decide, ‘if this skills. ‘…his legion of fans was the result of collectively decided, self-expression ‘if this was the reCross follows and authenticity, sult of selfCobain's path give us showbiz expression and authenmethodically from the and artifice.’ ticity, give us showcradle to the biz and artifice.’

Though the crematorium, ripples of his breaking down abrupt death chapters by years and months. drove most of his musical peers back Interspersed with extracts from underground or to extinction, his Cobain’s unpublished diaries, you are shadow continues to loom reprovingly provided with visceral insight into the over a pop landscape which, had he private compunctions and pains of the lived, would have been anathema to self-deprecating idol of grunge. A him. Amongst those who awed proletariat child of divorce, he frittered Nirvana, there was the tendency to away his teenage years in Aberdeen, romanticise his memory, with partly Washington, leading the kind of life snide, partly sincere appellations like, that results in jail cells and institutions ‘Saint Kurt,’ awarded posthumously. much more than rock stardom. The Charles R. Cross’ biography of Cobain, high school dropout with a weakness ‘Heavier Than Heaven,’ contradicts its for cheap drugs, beer and rock music gimmicky title, reference to the slogan was out on the streets whilst most kids used by promoters to advertise were still doing their homework. The

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fate of his future seemed to hang over him like a shroud, with one friend remarking, ''He was the shape of suicide. He looked like suicide, he walked like suicide, and he talked about suicide.'' (Pg. 76) Though the accounts of Nirvana’s many tours make living in a van whilst impecunious seem like laughs and fast times, tragedy was never far away. By the time, ’Nevermind,’ was recorded in 1991, Cobain was already embroiled in a sporadic death dance with heroin, the drug which played a major contributing role in his later suicide, as he shot up before putting the shotgun in his mouth.

Of the many revelations, one of the more intriguing was that contrary to popular belief, he was the one who reintroduced the formerly clean Courtney Love to the drug. Though often vilified, Love emerges from the pages as, if not the ideal of perfect companion, than certainly a loving wife. There is not a hint of the Courtney-killed-Kurt conspiracy which swept through some corners of the music industry a few years back.

‘Heavier Than Heaven,’ shows a man divided; whose superficial image of a perfunctory, apathetic being with fame unwillingly thrust upon him is driven by a personal desire for the narcotic of attention, which is attained through premeditation. What could easily be perceived as deception did not diminish my high appraisal of Cobain, instead it intensified my reverence. Upholding his persona with Through an inner such perfection desire to live a life of ‘…he was able to take whilst reaching nihilism, and a his pain and, with worldwide fondness for the the aid of his guiphenomenon and concept of the divinity tar, shape it into conveying his of sin I was songs that clearly general magnetised by the and unequivocally disenchantment pretence surrounded, struck a universal with the state of somewhat taboo genre society in such of grunge. With its articulate splendour is a remarkable act common themes of social alienation, confinement, apathy and the desire for of dexterity. freedom, I empathised deeply with the Among the most powerful voices of his subject matter. Providing rare insight generation, though Cobain was far from into the clandestine life of Cobain, a paragon, he was a deity to a

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generation of apathetic, aimless youth.

As the epitome of grunge culture, Cobain’s years of emotional isolation and inner turmoil were vented only through his heavy, angst-filled music. ‘Heavier Than Heaven,’ lifts the lid on this personal penitence, making for a compelling read. It provides a glimpse into the rise and fall of most unlikely generational spokesman, who by all means had a life worthy of being shared.

That he was able to harbor his pain and, with guitar in hand, use it to shape songs that unequivocally struck a universal nerve, is what propelled him to superstardom. That he was ultimately unable to conquer his demons, which as Cross implies included undiagnosed depression on top of heroin addiction. And with auto tuned, sex drenched noise at the top of the charts, now is as good a time as any to recall Kurt Cobain in serenity.

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Alice Finlay, Year 12

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Anonymous, Year 10 2013 Feminist literature criticism is a way of scrutinizing the roles, stereotypes and gender construction of women. Writings from the Victorian era reveal the oppression of women through the celebrated works of Phoebe Cary, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Oscar Wilde. These authors exposed the social norms of the time through the use of marginalisation in the inequalities of power structures. Cary presents the harsh societal conditions for Victorian women and Browning reveals society’s perception of the role of a mother. Wilde defied the social norms of the period and at the same time, entertained and criticized his audience. His work is incomparable and is still studied and appreciated today.

These authors’ literary works are significant to the 21st century’s retrospective on feminist criticism, as it is prevalent in modern society. Gender social norms were used to oppress the women of the Victorian era through the inequalities of power structures and this is critically reflected through the literature of the time.

Phoebe Cary’s “When Lovely Woman” (1849) represents the harsh patriarchal conditions women were subjected to by the dominating force of men, proven in the binary opposites used throughout Victorian literature. Cary identifies the concept of the pretentious Victorian society where males were privileged and powerful while women were perceived as disadvantaged and passive. This was only an idealisation, as realistically they were in complete control of circumstances that involved using their femininity and is revealed though the poem. This is explored as the poet humorously mocks society’s belief in which men controlled women through the use of freedom of choice, as only males made decisions and females needed confirmation. According to the societal norms, women could not do anything without a man’s consent; subsequently they were deprived of their own decisions by the controlling authority of privileged men. In the first verse of Cary’s poem, this point is highlighted where a woman wants a favour but she is not ‘privileged’ enough to make her own choices. “When lovely woman wants a favour, And finds too late, that man won’t bend” (1-2), indicates the vast power difference between the genders. The female had to convince him to make the judgments because according to the pretentious societal ideologies she could not to make choices for herself. Binary opposition between the genders is revealed where men were powerful and women were passive. This is recognized in her first stanza, “What earthly circumstance can save her From disappointment in the end?” (3-4). This strongly indicates a woman being classified as a damsel and she was expected to accept her passive role in society. Through a feminist lens, evidence of a woman being reduced to a stereotypical helpless maiden is clear. “Whether a husband or a lover, If he have feeling, is, to cry!?” (7-8), accurately identifies the encumbering conditions women were exposed to, and the situation where a woman used her weakness as an advantage. Cary states the only way a woman could get what she desired was to cry, demonstrating the oppressive theories that

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women were pressured in to. Cary presents the dominating force of men in Victorian literature through an exploration of binary opposites and the conditions for women of the time.

The poem “Mother and Poet” (1861) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning reveals Victorian society’s perception of a mother’s role, the marginalised ideals of the domesticity involved with being a woman and the inequalities of power structures. Browning portrays a mother in turmoil because society has made her believe she has failed her role as a mother and therefore cannot pursue her love of poetry. Women had been successfully marginalized by society’s concept of a female’s purpose in life, which was to be a devoted mother and wife. The oppressive presumptions of Victorian society are evident in the literature of the time, which cultivated the belief that a woman’s main ambition in life was to be a mother who would have no other occupation apart from her mundane, domestic duties. Browning presents the prejudice power structures as she reveals society’s ideologies of women. This is demonstrated in the ironically titled “Mother and Poet”, giving indication that females could not be artists and they should only bring up children. This is apparent in the way she addresses the question of whether a woman should be confined to the era’s social norms, since she is unsuitable for poetry because she has failed as a mother. In the second stanza, it indicates the imbalanced power differences between the genders, “And good at my art, for a woman, men said” (7). This implies men were surprised that a woman was excellent at the art of poetry. When analysing this poem through a feminist lens, gender inequalities are clearly revealed. Ideals in the Victorian age are represented in the literature of Browning through society’s perception of a mother, the domestic behaviour with being a woman and the inequalities of power structures.

Oscar Wilde challenges the pretentious representation of women, society’s flaws in the social norms of marriage and relationships during the Victorian era through his play, “The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People” (1896). Wilde defies social norms of the time with his satire, wit and mocking of the society he once belonged to. This is implied in his use of farce which makes social commentary on the representations of women in Victorian times. Women were represented as unequal when compared to men and this apparent in the third act on page 346 when Gwendolen states, “How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes! Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us” (2-4). Cecily then agrees, “They have moments of physical courage of which we women know absolutely nothing” (67). Wilde has successfully illustrated women’s perceptions of themselves that has been forced upon them by society. The use of satire throughout the play emphasise Wilde’s perception and loathing of the Victorian marriage laws which is displayed in the third Act page 351 Jack voices, “Pray excuse me, Lady Bracknell, for interrupting you again, but it is only fair to tell you that according to the terms of her grandfather’s will Miss Cardew does not legally come of age till she is thirty five” (15-18). This reveals the abhorring marriage laws that Wilde clearly despised. He has also effectively emphasised the ridiculous unromantic social norms of Victorian marriage, which is presented in the first

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Act of page 297 when Algernon declares, “I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe.

Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. It ever I get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact” (17-22). Algernon states that proposing is no longer a romantic act of love as it has become all business like. His views are due to the erroneous societal ideals of the time. Through the use of satire, Wilde defied the flawed social norms represented in the oppression of women, marriage and relationships.

Throughout the Victorian age women were oppressed by gender social norms of power structures, which is undoubtedly represented and critically reflected upon in the literature of the time. Through a feminist lens, it is evident that oppressive gender ideals cultivated Victorian society’s views and beliefs in which conforming to the social norms were acceptable. Through the use of marginalisation in the inequalities of power structures, the harsh conditions for women, the pretentious social norms and society’s perception of a mother are all revealed in the literature of the Victorian age. Evidence of this is demonstrated in Phoebe Cary’s poem “When lovely woman”, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Mother and Poet” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.” The works of these talented authors are used today to symbolise the patriarchal conditions for women of the time and the theories used to oppress them.

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Brittany Luhrs, Year 12

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lives and the danger of gang substitution to fill the void.

When youth feel unconnected to their community they will gravitate to each other and form bonds which replace, on a superficial level, Youth isolation is not a product of where you the bonds they would otherwise have formed live argues Annabelle Traves with their family or wider community. These Patrick Holland’s thought provoking novel ‘The gangs can become dangerously myopic in their outlook and, because there is no mentor or wise, Mary Smokes Boys’ is set in a remote country tribal elder, the gang inevitably leads itself town which affords little hope and direction for astray. The gang gives its members a sense, its troubled, disaffected youth. The shell of the albeit false, of empowerment and importance. As unremarkable, country town, sucked dry by the “big city” leaves a carcass with nothing in it but Grey recounts when thinking of the “wild boys” who were to become his the rattling bones of its dispirited youth. Although “As the lonely, country gang at Mary Smokes: “He had watched them every the town of Mary Smokes moon rises above the is a desolate community town of Mary Smokes, so night since his mother’s death, walking through land out of reach of a big city do the hopes and adrenathe problems its youth face line levels of the boys that was not theirs by any title, yet they claimed it as are not a product of the who inhabit it.” the last ones awake when hopelessness or the dark enfeebled all man’s remoteness of the town but claims.” more a product of the weakening of family and

Annabel Traves, Year 11

community values and the problems of class divide.

The youth of Mary Smokes could be the youth of any major city. Their issues are the same. While the loneliness of the dying town is the perfect backdrop for Holland’s exploration of the disintegration of its youth, the same culture of destructiveness, truancy and lack of identity and purpose is experienced by youth in any major city in Australia. Take the surfie gang from Sunny Abberton’s novel “Bra Boys”. There the youth face the same problems but in the outskirts of Sydney, one of Australia’s busiest capital cities. The commonality of themes, namely a struggle for identity and belonging, is advanced as a problem faced by Australia’s youth as a whole in ‘Jasper Jones’ by Craig Silvey. In Silvey’s novel the problems stem from a lack of guidance and support for our youth, the lack of enduring relationships of moral substance in their

The gang pinned their collective hope on each other and found solace and strength in the group.

The Mary Smokes Boys, who share a common philosophy of living only for the moment and a complete lack of hope for their future, find their only pad of stability in the bond formed within their local gang. The gang becomes a replacement, although a poor one, for family.

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will read The Mary Smokes Boys, most do Grey, who suffered the loss and trauma of his watch television and shows like Chris Lilley’s mother passing away after the birth of his ‘Angry Boys’, have a propensity not only to younger sister, like the others, feels dependant reflect youth culture but also to glorify it and to and comforted by the moonlit schedule of the gang, which to him provides an emotional base influence its development. Indeed, such shows and a sense of belonging. But, like the infamous tend to make acceptable, even popular, aspects of youth culture which should be discouraged.

‘Bra Boys’ gang from Sydney’s Maroubra Beach, while the group provides a sense of security, it does not provide the moral guidance That said, the sad truth is, perhaps, that the hopelessness of the youth in the town of Mary that might be found in a solid family. In fact, Smokes is not all that dissimilar to the what the gang does is perpetuate anti- social behaviour, normalising destruction in their quest hopelessness of many youths in our big cities. In for instant gratification via delinquent behaviour Sunny Abberton’s ‘Bra Boys’, the author and a chain of crime. Ook, a prominent member examines a Maroubra gang of adolescents bound by a surfing culture. The of the Wild Boys, sets gang, the boys, and their alight a local horse “With his mother gone circumstances, strongly dealer’s property in a Grey knew he did not beresemble those of the gang puerile act of revenge long to any family. So in Mary Smokes. Both gangs and Grey, in an effort to his thoughts turned to provide a sense of belonging free his family from the wild boys of town, for their members and both serious debt, attempts to who could be found at gangs dictate their sense of steal horses which then any hour of night, for values. The place is not results in Ook’s death. relevant. The more relevant they had no careful The boys, without moral similarity it seems is that in guardians.” compass, do not each case, the gang members understand the are boys in lower economic circumstances, the consequences of their violent and thoughtless hopelessness of their lack of means fortifying behaviour. the conclusion that they are socially immobile and unlikely ever to escape the cycle of Although Holland does seem to draw parallels hopelessness. with the hopelessness of Mary Smokes and the youth who live there, the inescapable irony is One cannot read ‘The Mary Smokes Boys’ and that the place is not to blame. In describing ‘Bra Boys’ without concluding that the problems Mary Smokes Holland says: faced by our youth transcend rural versus city “This was wide and empty country in which the location. Youth can feel disaffected and forgotten wherever they live. At the heart of the world was uninterested”. problem is the significant class divide that While this is undoubtedly correct, the reference remains in Australia. Although this is perhaps could equally have been applied to the youth exacerbated in remote communities, it is the who resided there: they were young people youth of the lower socio- economic group which devoid of ambition and empty of purpose in is unlikely to be able to escape their whom the world was uninterested. circumstances. Although a minority, the problem remains one of consistency and continuity, as the There is a risk that all of these negative portrayals of Australian youth will become self- proverb goes, “like trying to find the beginning fulfilling. While perhaps not many of our youth to a circle”.

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Gina McGagh Year 12

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THE DYSFUNCTIONAL CONTINUUM Louisa Sondergeld Year 11 2012

such children inexorably fall into a similar spiral of despair.

This brought to mind a book I have recently read, ‘The Mary Smokes Boys’.

The author, Patrick Holland, pursues the impact of the role model in Australian society. The choking dust and isolation of Mary Smokes is both metaphor and backdrop for an examination of the interwoven relationships that will determine the ultimate identity of the township’s youth.

Are greater numbers of Australian adolescents resorting to violence and crime as a result of poor role modelling? Does poor role modelling condemn our youth to poor lifestyle choices? Louisa Sondergeld explores these notions with reference to Patrick Holland’s novel, ‘The Mary The main character is a young teenage boy, Smokes Boys’. named Grey, who suffers terrible anguish following the death of his mother. This is an anguish compounded by the reality of Tuesday night is TV night in the Sondergeld household. For some reason, I his father’s deteriorating mental health. The burgeoning relationship between Grey and found myself immersed in the closing his younger sister, Irene, is intriguing and minutes of ‘The Biggest Loser Family’ where an obese mother was paired with her complex, as he progressively assumes the daughter of similar habitus. Knowing that responsibilities of parents now largely the offerings could only improve, I stayed invisible as a result of death and alcoholism: ‘Irene on to watch ‘Law and Order’. The story line “Your peers, your fami- had made of Grey a ly, your authority fig- father, brother and involved a young boy ures – your role models closest ally’ (p69). charged with a horrific - determine the person crime, a crime that It seems almost you are and will be.” mirrored one committed foregone that Irene by his father ten years earlier.

Like mother like daughter, like father like son.

Despite the dubious Tuesday night entertainment, I found myself reflecting on this notion of the role model. It is hard not to harbour a sense of outrage when children’s lives are impacted so adversely by those whom they admire. The lives of

should emulate Grey.

She establishes herself at the periphery of the Wild Boys, a local group to which Grey belongs. She begins to commit crimes similar to Grey.

This same dysfunctional family nexus is not a new idea and has been explored in a number of other Australian texts. Allayne Webster’s novel, ‘Stresshead’, follows Dennie’s struggles with communicating her feelings to her family, her friends and her

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boyfriend. Her mother is similarly taciturn as Violence, theft and deception are constantly she battles the fears and uncertainties of a reported in our media. cancer diagnosis.

These are individuals, stripped of status and Yet, these are not mere book reviews. These hope, who resort to crime to regain a sense of are reflections of life as we know it, where what they believe is rightfully theirs. In a your peers, your family, your authority lonely world that spits out any that are not figures – your role models – determine the high achievers, others stumble into groups to person you are and will be. Each of us needs find an identity that was never theirs as an to “belong” and for some, the only available individual. expression of belonging is within a Thus we see, in Holland’s writing, a dysfunctional family or group. microcosm of contemporary Australia.

For Grey and the youth of Mary Smokes, this Although set in the 1980s, the central themes sense of belonging was within the Wild Boys translate eerily to society as we know it in 2012. Where once Lions, Rotary, the scouting – notorious for committing crime and indulging in reckless behaviour. For Dennie, movement and church youth groups fostered friendships and focussed this was within a family the aspirations of 20th unit where fear and “We see, in Holland’s rumination extinguished writing, a microcosm of Century Australia, there is any meagre flame that contemporary Australia.” now a move to a more insular approach. might have risked the chance of a meaningful relationship. In Such groups are losing their attraction and are current Australian television it translates to being replaced by smaller groups based the adoption of lifestyle choices where people around families, school, university and can be exploited for their bloated BMIs! workplace. This works when families ‘work’ In the absence of stability, example or hope, people cling to what they have. ‘The Gang’ becomes the surrogate family, and its members, the role models – role models that defy both law and authority in a search for identity and control of destiny. In reality, ‘The Gang’ was all that these boys had in a ‘wide and empty country in which the world was uninterested’ (pg 13).

These concepts play out in ‘real-life’ Australia. Well-known are the ‘Bra Boys’, a gang of boys from Maroubra, a place of broken homes in a forgotten town, displayed in the documentary of the same name.

and the influence of peers is not destructive.

However, with escalating divorce rates, family fragmentation and the diminution of the relevance of church and service groups in our society, whose responsibility is it to mentor our youth?

In the township of Mary Smokes, Grey’s family unit ultimately implodes in a haze of addiction, crime and immorality. Holland’s stark note of pessimism serves as a warning to us all. As individuals, the responsibility is ours to promote values of decency, honesty and concern. As a nation, we must provide opportunity and a fair go for all.

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We may roll our eyes and smirk at the sweat and grunt of ‘The Biggest Loser Family’ in their quest for the ideal image - another reality TV show, this time exploiting the obesity epidemic. A liposuctionist’s dream – maybe. Yet, if we do not harness a similar sense of determination and purpose to better role model each other, we risk an implosion of Mary Smokes proportions.

Down will come losers, liposuctionists and all!

Stylus Magazine

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“For the past term and a bit, I have had a thoroughly brilliant time working with the editors team on the Stylus Magazine, and it’s wonderful to finally see it all come together. St Margaret's is overflowing with literary talent and the work produced has absolutely stunned me.”

Grace Anderson, Year 9 “I’ve heard Stephen Fry say before that you know you have found what you live for when you realise what you couldn’t live without. For me, a world without literature would be an inconceivably dark place . Cliché as it sounds, from the comfort of my armchair I can travel the world; become a pauper or an heiress; experience life as it was in ages past; die, and even change gender! I chose to co-edit Stylus so I can help to share that passion for literature with my community and celebrate the talent of St Margaret’s English students (and the wisdom of their teachers!).”

Georgie Quayle, Year 10 If you’ve been inspired by this magazine and would like to participate next year, we will be calling for submissions in term 2. Next year, we plan to extend the magazine to include musical works in the online edition. We will be looking for an avalanche of literary, artistic and musical excellence next year.

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”- Albert Einstein Sophie Robertson, Year 11

Left to right: Georgie Quayle, Sophie Robertson and Grace Anderson

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