Romy Scott - Aged 9
This is a terrifying tale that stays with the reader long after they have finished, thanks to its gruesome descriptions. An unsettling suburban folktale, eerily rendered with bleak set pieces, grotesque ghouls, and a gothic plot. The ending was chilling and had us wanting to read more. We particularly admire the use of similes: ‘dark as a midnight sky’ and the contrast of ‘pale as a ghost’. You built tension well, and the black-and-white tear imagery was great. Your story reads like a scene from a horror movie. This sent shivers down our spines. Well done on your spooky ghost story with a shocking twist!
One glistening and glowing morning Lucy woke up to the sound of birds chirping and the bell ringing for 7 o’clock. Lucy was a bright girl - as bright as the morning sun glowing on a summer’s day - and she always found a way to help others.
She got in her car to drive to her nieces birthday party and saw a little girl playing by a window in a distinctive house, it looked black from a distance. As she approached she could see it was covered in crows! A murder of crows, she thought to herself and carried on.
At the party she was talking to Sam and Darcy ( 24 and 20) and apparently Darcy was moving to that neighbourhood, ‘oh that’s such a beautiful neighbourhood! I saw a little girl playing by a window there on the way here in a house covered in crows – it was so strange!’ Said Lucy.
Sam and Darcy turned to face each other ‘which house’ Whimpered Sam. ‘The white house’ Lucy replied. They froze. ‘40 years ago a girl died falling from the window of that house’ said Darcy. ‘And no one has lived there since’. ‘But I saw a girl, I definitely saw a girl!’ said Lucy, shivering.
‘The girl was called Maggie’, Darcy continued. She was my mum’s friend. She had an amazing life nice toys, loving parents. She was very smart but one day she got sick and I don’t mean just the flu - I mean her body co couldn’t keep up with her dazzling mind. She spent her days in bed designing all the extraordinary inventions she planned to build someday but then the doctors came in telling her she only had weeks to live so she designed her own heart - one that would keep up with her dazzling mind. The surgery went fine but the heart made the girl different - isolated and cold. She became one of the greatest people to walk the earth but as she became more smart she also became more cold and different until one nightshe set up an experiment – no one knew what it was. She fell out the window. Her parents rushed to save her but it was too late. They saw black and white tears running down her face. Some say they where as black as the midnight sky. Some say they were as pale as a ghost.
Lucy could not believe what she was hearing. ‘I’m going back there’ exclaimed lucy ‘there’s no way that was a ghost, she was so real! Sam and Darcy both told her not to, but Lucy was as determined as she was bright and wanted to prove there was nothing to be svared of. That it was all just a story made up to keep children away from the old house.
Lucy walked into the house and her skin prickled and the hair on her arms stood on end. She heard a vase falling and saw a colourful broken vase - it was made of china - and somehow it was the only thing in the house that wasn’t black or white. Then Lucy heard breathing. Slow, heavy breathing, right behind her. Her whole body froze as she turned around. Standing there was a little girl—but something was wrong. Her eyes were too dark, her skin too pale and down her face ran tears of black and white.
“I’m hungry…” the girl whispered.
Lucy’s stomach dropped. It was Maggie.
Suddenly, Maggie’s mouth stretched open wider and wider, big enough to swallow Lucy’s head in one bite. Her teeth were jagged and sharp, like they could chew through a shark.
Black slime dripped from her lips, oozing onto the floor.
Terrified, Lucy shoved Maggie into a cabinet and jammed the door shut with a broom. She bolted for her car. But before she could start the engine, the cabinet burst open. Maggie was free—and outside, the sky filled with crows, diving down to attack…