golden keyboard awards

We had a very pleasing response to this year’s writing competition. Due to space restrictions we have only been able to print two of the three winners. Taking out the prize in the 13 to 16 years category is Susannah Hunt. Her story plus the runners-up will be printed next issue.

A Man in the Forest

By Finn Ball, 8 years (8 years and Under)

I grabbed the first trolley I could find and hurried to catch up with my mum, she already had an armful of groceries ready to throw into it. “These biscuits are good and they will make it easy for school lunches,” she mumbled.

I took the packet out of the trolley and read the label.

They contained Palm oil.

The mother orang-utan huddled close to her baby, protecting it from the danger just metres in front of them. Giant diggers, bulldozers, and other demolishing devices were coming closer and closer, ripping down the rainforest. A new plantation of palm oil trees was to replace their rainforest home.

Palm oil is used to make products for super markets and shops. They are burning and bulldozing down rainforests in Borneo to plant more and more palm oil plantations.

The mother orang-utan could feel her baby trembling in her mass of orange fur.

Suddenly a big, steel toothed scoop exposed where the mother and her baby were crouching. The orang-utan leapt up and tried to defend her baby, baring her teeth back at the big scoop trying to ward off the big machine.

It was the squeeze of a trigger that sealed the poor mother orang-utans fate on the damp forest floor.

Crying, the baby buried its face in its dead mother’s fur. Confused and frightened the small ape welcomed the wooden box placed over his head.

Orangutan means ‘Man of the Forest’. They are our closest living relative.

The baby orangutan was driven away from the rainforest to a busy airport. Wide eyed with fear the baby crouched listening to the noises of big jumbo jets and people rushing along the streets of Jakarta.

Many years later it was mating season and our baby orangutan now named Tom was a fully-grown male. He paced up and down in his cage and drew pictures in the sandy floor of his iron prison. He could not be released into the wild. There was now not enough rainforest left. He became bored, naughty, violent, and often tipped food over his head. His minders could no longer comfort him.

He died in that cage of a broken heart.

Today when I am a buying things in the supermarket, I do not let my mum buy biscuits with palm oil in them, even if they are on special!

I do not enjoy fast food outlets with food that has been fried in palm oil. I look and read everything. I try to be aware.

I dream about one day seeing an orangutan in the wild, free with lots of rainforest in which to roam. I dream about Tom finding a mate and loving babies of his own.

Unfortunately by the time you have read my story more orangutans may have died because of people’s greed to get rich regardless of our rainforests.

In the rainforest of Borneo there once lived an orangutan.

IT

By Sophie McGregor, aged 12 (9 to 12 years)

I had a friend.

My friend’s name was It.

It was my best friend in the whole wide world.

People would call me crazy. They would say It wasn’t real, but It was; They were the crazy ones.

It had purple, wrinkly skin like an ancient elephant, emerald green eyes like a wild cat and a gentle, loving face.

It sat with me at the dinner table and helped me eat all that repulsive, cooked cabbage, It sang me soothing lullabies on those eerie nights, It cheered me up when people made me cry and It carried me when I was too tired to carry on.

It’s opinion was my opinion; it was like we were made for each other.

It was my only friend for a very long time. We would do everything together; we were stuck to each other like a wad of bright, happy bubblegum.

It told me It would never leave, It said It loved me too much to go.

But over the years, as I grew older and found other people who loved me, It started to slip away.

It’s purple skin slowly faded, It’s emerald green eyes turned pitch black and then It’s soft face became nothing.

It barely talked.

It was very weak.

Eventually, It was gone, engulfed in nothingness, no It.

I didn’t mind much, I had other friends,

but those nights, once protected by It, were as cold and as lonely as if i had no one.

Suddenly, i realized that I had lost my one true friend, the one who I could always count on, the one who made everything better.

I realized how much I missed that creature,

I realized, all the years without It, I had been oblivious to what really mattered.

Tears welled in my eyes, i felt like a doll, a deep hole ripped out my middle.

But I stayed strong, just as It had taught me.

And I moved on.

Now, whenever I am scared or miserable, I think of it, and I wonder what It’s doing.

I wonder if It has a new best friend, someone new to protect and love.

I wonder if, wherever it is, It’s still having those exciting adventures, just like we used to.

And most of all, I wonder if It is still watching over me, and missing me back.

May