Two prep pupils longlisted in national writing competition

Year 5 pupil Iris and Gabriel has been longlisted for the BBC Radio 2 500 words competition. Iris and Gabriel are two of 5,000 selected at this stage out of 135,000.

Well done Iris and Gabriel! You can read their entries below.

Iris’s:

Harry Shovebuckets Lunchtime Special

Harry Shovebucket walked swiftly past the squeals of laughter and excitement from the playground. There wasn’t much time before the bell. He crept into the cloakroom. He spotted the name he needed – Lavender Rosewater. He reached her bag and opened his lunchbox. Where a sandwich should have been were three of the juiciest, fattest slugs from his garden. He tipped the slimy creatures into Lavender’s glittery pencil-case and zipped them in, smirking with triumph.

You might think Lavender had done something terrible to Harry, but she hadn’t. She was just shy. And today he had something much, much worse waiting for her.

The bell was ringing, time to nip into the loo. Locking the door from inside he climbed onto the back of the toilet, putting his chubby fingers, like a pack of raw sausages, onto the wall. He slung one leg over like he was climbing a tree and thumped down into the next toilet. Within five minutes all the doors were locked from the inside. He hauled his podgy thighs over the last door.

It was art. Harry was late again. Mr Mongelly glared. “The class have got into pairs Harry, you’ll have to pair with me. We’re doing collage portraits of each other.”

Lavender was on the table opposite. She loved art and was doing a beautiful collage of Bella. Harry walked past and snipped an inch from her beautiful golden plait, and stuck it onto his puddle of glue and tissue paper.

“Excuse me Sir, I’ve done it wrong. I’ve given you hair and you haven’t really got any.”

Mr Mongelly’s face went the colour of blackberry juice. He turned to the class. “Open your pencil cases and write your name on your collages.”

There was a high-pitched scream. Lavender threw her pencil case across the room in disgust. A slug landed on Bella’s lap. Everyone ran to see. Harry smiled.

The rest of the morning was quiet. Harry was waiting for lunch. He had been waiting for this lunch for a week. It was beef stew. Under Harry’s jumper was a special jar. In it was dog food, a raw egg, chopped worms and baked beans.

Harry queued up behind Lavender. He waited until she was talking to Bella and quickly tipped the scrumptious jarful into her stew. It disappeared into the brown lumpy gloop.

Harry ate his own stew greedily. He was so busy giggling, he didn’t see Lavender hadn’t eaten anything. She hated stew.

Seeing Lavender was clearing her tray away Harry rushed to join her. Mr Mongelly appeared. He spotted Lavender’s full plate. “Harry, you haven’t eaten your stew. Sit back down with me!”

Harry argued, but he wasn’t listening. “Eat!”

Finally the plate was empty. A loud gurgling, rumbling noise was coming from Harry’s tummy. It sounded like bathwater going down the plughole.

Harry ran towards the boys’ loos, his bottom sounding like a trombone. He shook the first door but it didn’t open. None of them did.

“Noooooooooo!” he shouted.

Gabriel’s:

Snow Music

Brammar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland a long, long way away (well actually 504 miles from London), a long, long time ago (well actually 6 months, 24 days, 2 hours, 7 minute and 38 seconds ago) there were 4 children (yes there were actually 4 children) at an international boarding school called w. Let me tell you a bit more about the four children.

Juha is thirteen, from Finland and speaks English and Finnish. He is an amazing trumpet player and skier, often found trumpeting down his local ski slopes.

Rosita is eleven, from Honduras and speaks Spanish and English. She is a great surfer and plays the guitar, often found surfing whilst playing the guitar at her nearby beach.

Kannika is twelve, from Thailand and speaks Thai and English. She is superb at paddle boarding and plays the double bass, often found playing the double bass on her paddle board (only joking that’s just silly!)

Ilias is ten, from Morocco and speaks Arabic, French, Berber and English. He can play guitar, trumpet, recorder, violin but he can’t ski, surf or paddle board!

One warm day in early October the four of them met to discuss plans for the Christmas holidays. They all decided to go for a holiday in Juha’s ski lodge in Akaslompolo, Finland. That night they all made phone calls home and after long (very) discussions with their parents the holiday was set.

Finally, December 12th came and the four of them travelled by bus to Aberdeen International Hotel where they stayed that night and in the morning, they arrived bright and early for the 7:25 flight for Kittila Finland. The queues for the baggage weren’t long but at customs they all were pulled over because of the number of musical instruments they were carrying (8 in total, as Ilias was planning on learning the flute in the holidays!). Luckily, they just made it in time for the flight.

They arrived at the ski lodge later that day to meet Juha’s mum and dad. The snow-quiet all around wrapped them up in a cuddly blanket and before long all four of them were fast asleep. Juha woke up and it was late and his parents still hadn’t arrived. He tried to open the door but discovered they were snowed in. Juha woke up the others and told them that he was worried about his parents who might be lost in the blizzard.

Ilias started to play his trumpet loudly and Juha was shocked and thought this is no time for playing music as he wanted to go looking for his parents. Then Ilias explained that if they all play their instruments the noise might help his parents find them.

The cacophony cut through the snow and Juha suddenly heard the soft gentle sound of a quiet piccolo and a squeaky harmonica approaching – his face lit up with joy as he knew that sound so well, it was his mum and dad the last two parts of his orchestra coming home.