Isabelle Seldon - Aged 12 - Winner

       The Supreme Leader and the Curse of the Crown

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One day, in mid-January when it was rainy, cloudy and cold, the Supreme Leader Isabelle decided she would go on holiday to a country as hot as the fire in a steam engine ready to explode with heat. However, she didn’t want the world to think she was just taking a week off work, so she announced she would be going on a historical adventure with her faithful butler, “Jerry-Lee, we’re off to Egypt. Please pack the suitcase and don’t forget the tea set. Oh, and don’t forget my fluffy koala socks this time!”  

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Sand snaked around every corner when Isabelle landed in Egypt. Isabelle saw piles of golden minerals trailing across the ground, gathering in heaps against every wall. And at first she thought that was what the pyramids were: pointy piles of sand.

 

“No, no, dearest Supreme Leader” explained Jerry-Lee. “They are the resting place of the great pharaohs of Egypt and they’re meant to be filled with mysteries and treasure”.

 

Naturally, Isabelle realised she needed to explore the resting place of other Supreme Leaders to prepare for her own departure one day. She was very forward-thinking like that.

 

Isabelle and Jerry-Lee found an entrance into the biggest one. They opted to go without a tour guide, as these sort of adventures are often more fun when you go by yourself…also the Supreme Leader didn’t want to spend her pocket money, as she was saving it for ice cream. Inside the pyramid, the walls were covered in mystorical (that’s when historical things are mysterious) pictures that might have once spread words around the world.

 

“Wow look. All these messages must be about me. I think they say I’m going to get an elephant next year and someone is planning a surprise party for me…” she looked over at Jerry-Lee. They decided to follow the patterned paths deep into what was once a temple but was now a lair to evil.

 

Deep underground, the walls were covered with paint and gems in all the brightest of colours. But the floor was covered in sand that kept getting in their shoes and was very annoying.

 

None of this distracted them though from the golden, glistening crown that was in the centre of the room, on a rectangular pile of sand. As Isabelle snatched the crown, the sand blew off of the sarcophagus, but she didn’t notice, as she was too mesmerised by the crown.

 

The crown whispered to her, “please, put me on. I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you all the ice cream. I’ll give you all the chocolate. Just, put me on.”

 

So naturally, Isabelle put it on. The room started to shake, tremble and groan. Jerry-Lee grabbed The Supreme Leader’s arm and made a run for it. By the time they made it outside, the pyramid was gone and so was the real Supreme Leader.

 

Isabelle looked the same. She talked the same. She even ate ice-cream the same. But she was different deep down inside. She was… evil.

 

“Dearest Supreme Leader, are you alright? You’re not normally this quiet” queried Jerry-Lee. And he was right, she wasn’t normally this quiet, and she was that quiet all the way home, as she watched people at the markets squabbling over colourful scarves and bright and vibrant food.

 

Once they were at the mansion, the Supreme Leader was ready to announce her brainwave.

 

“Jerry-Lee, I’ve been thinking.”

 

“Oh no!” responded Jerry-Lee. “Thinking? You must be ill!”

 

“Hush!” she demanded. “My thoughts are this: people get jealous, they argue, they fight. And they do this because they want what other people have. So, if everything was the same, surely that would stop all war? Then everyone can be happy.”

 

As she spoke, Jerry-Lee noticed the colours in the room fading. The cushion that had once been decorated in colourful unicorns farting rainbows was turning grey. The koala socks, that had once been purple because the Supreme Leader was quirky, were also turning grey. And the sky outside that had once been as colourful as Elma the Elephant was no longer blue, but was as grey as the dusty trunk of an elephant.

 

“That’s better. Although, I wasn’t fighting anyone, so I may as well still have colour!” And the fluffy koala socks quickly returned to purple as colour flooded back into the room, but only into her room.

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Over the next year, people were stuck eating grey carrots. They wore a grey uniform. Music and dancing ended. Joy was gone.

 

The Supreme Leader’s palace was still bright and vibrant, and she was convinced that she had helped everyone and essentially fixed the world. She nodded to herself while she ate her ice cream with rainbow sprinkles as she thought about the uniform the world wore: grey dungarees with bow ties and white shirts. It didn’t even matter if clothes got dirty now, as it all blended in. “Yes, I am a genius!”

 

However, people around the world were starting to disagree. For months, the grey had made them hopeless, but recently they were getting angry. They wanted a new leader, a new world, and a new start.

 

After one month of grey, people started to having Marvellous Meetings underground. These involved partying all night long and in the morning participants would discuss ways to overthrow the Supreme Leader. Melvin Mongonery, who once worked at the Mongonery Chocolate Factory, even said, “let’s go invade her palace and steal her food!”

 

Unfortunately, the Supreme Leader heard about this, and she did not like hearing about this. Also, on a totally unrelated note but actually it might be related, one of her socks started to turn grey. “Noooo, no one can steal my food! I’m trying to make the whole world right and to help them all and they’re trying to steal my food.” Jerry-Lee stood in silence, he had learnt weeks ago that something had gone wrong but he also knew it wasn’t safe to challenge the Supreme Leader.

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“I will dig up the ground, so no more underground meetings take place!” she screamed.

Jerry-Lee sighed.

 

“They need to be punished Jerry-Lee,” she shouted. “I know what I’ll do. I’ll take their hope and joy. No pets for anyone anymore!” She laughed evilly, cackling a witch, and Jerry-Lee knew this wasn’t her. He had known her since she was born, for the full 12 years of her life, and she had never laughed like this before.

 

However, if you have a pet, you will understand that most people would not be willing to let them be taken away. This is why when the Supreme Leader tried to take the pets the people went crazy.

 

“We want pets! We want pets!” They marched to her palace with mouldy grey carrots read to throw, dripping mouldy grey water everywhere. Every time they shouted or threw something at her walls, one colourful thing in her palace went grey.

 

“We want pets!”

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Her second koala sock went grey.

 

“We want pets!”

 

Her fluffy farting unicorn pillow went as grey as a very plain water bottle.

 

“We want pets!”

 

Her pink pyjamas turned the colour of ash after a fire.

 

She realised what was happening. “No! You can’t steal my colour! I’ll put you all in jail! I’ll steal every puppy!” She ran down to them to try and stop them throwing carrots.

 

But then, Jerry-Lee figured out what was happening and inspired by everyone chanting, he grabbed a frying pan and whooshed the crown off her head. Bing. Bang. The Supreme Leader fell to the ground. And the crown rolled down the hill into a lake that was once but was suddenly bright blue. Colour flooded back into the world.

 

Jerry-Lee ran to the Supreme Leader Isabelle, who was Isabelle again, “are you alright?” He put out a hand to lift her up and offered her a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows in the other hand (there’s a reason she had hired him to be her butler: he was the best).

 

“Whoa. Where have the sandy triangle things gone?! Gosh, I need a hot chocolate with marshmallows and 56 chocolate sprinkles. Oh yes, this will do nicely!”

 

After years of her being a lovely Supreme Leader (and Jerry-Lee’s excellent explanation), people accepted that it was the crown that had made Isabelle go evil and that she was good again. However, everyone was scared that this could happen again one day. Shivers of fear went through the crowd at the thought.

 

The solution was two more Jerry-Lees (even though this wasn’t their name and they weren’t her main butler). In the future, if drastic decisions were made, they would vote before it went through.

To apologise for her brief evil spree, Isabelle threw the best and biggest party in the universe! If you’ve heard any of her previous adventures, you’ll understand how impressive it was that Derry-Jee and the Trevbaliens attended.

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The End.