Sep 174 min read

Creative Writing Competition - Young People 14-17 Winner

Winner: Isadora Edwards Age 15

Dora says: “I am so happy that I can do and be appreciated for what I love doing the most; writing and telling stories. Ten or so years after my brother and I created the Hife and the world around him for our own entertainment, I am able to share the beginning of his story on paper, and I hope to tell more of it too! I cannot wait for the future, of sharing more stories and ideas, and to listen to new ones. I have to thank so many people for making this celebration possible. Thanks to my little brother, for helping with the creation of Hife Street and its residents, and to my little sister, who keeps me creative too. My wonderful family and friends, for your support, advice and inspiration. Shouting out to my teachers. To other authors, old and young, for inspiring, and sometimes even mentoring and working alongside me. As a Christian, thanking my awesome God too! And I even thank those who were unkind or unsupportive, for the criticism and character ideas. And last, but definitely not least, many thanks to everybody involved in organising and judging this competition! I am so, so grateful.”

Nicola Upson, judge of the 14-17 Category says: “I loved the exuberance of the storytelling here. The author has such a natural, engaging voice, and I was instantly drawn into the story and carried along by the sheer energy and imagination of the narrative. I really admired the transition from the ordinary world of the family home to the fantastic events of the soft play centre; because it’s so confidently written, it’s easy to forget how difficult it is to spin magic from the everyday, but the writer has created both worlds very skilfully through telling details and humour. And it’s so entertaining: perhaps most importantly of all, I really wanted to read on and meet Dotty the Witch!”

This is the Hife!

by Isadora Edwards Age 15

My home was ordinary. I had a TV, a bedroom to share, a purple sofa. A little garden. My brother and I shared a Ps3.

Then, you open the front door. Beyond my front door, everything is utterly out of the ordinary.

I lived on Hife Street, an obscure enough beginning for any kid’s life. It was home to the world’s biggest hife community. A Hife was an intelligent species. They were native to my country, Brimars. Just like humans. Kind of. I figured that most humans didn’t eat acorns, nor were their noses abnormally large, with stubby limbs. But because human and hife were like-minded, they always worked hand in hand (or rather nub, in a hife’s case).

I’d lived on Hife Street since 2004, when I was five. We were the human family on Hife Street. In the story I am writing for you right now, I was ten.

Next door lived the ‘fun outing’ hife. Every hife in the community had a title. Hifes were a species who believed in solidarity and family. The fun outing hife was young and fun. His job was to babysit the local children, take them on outings and keep them out of trouble. One afternoon, he took Dino ,my brother, and I out somewhere fun. As you can probably infer, this is where our story begins.

My Mother had gone over the usual rules.

“And remember George, please keep your brother out of trouble!”

She set off in her Peugeot.

The Hife took us to the soft play, where, rather embarrassingly, neither Dino nor I had visited before. The Hife got some coffee, and Dino raced off, onto the climbing frame, me following not far behind.

We climbed high. I found this fun, yet exhausting. We passed slides and ladders and the sort, before finding the entrance to a tunnel slide at the top level. I saw, from a certain angle, that it would land in a large ball pit, after looping around the climbing frame. I could also see, from the very top of the frame, the Fun Outing Hife, just a blob at a table.

Dino shot off, right into the slide, followed by roughly eleven other children. I climbed in too.

The slide was a little too confined for my liking, but for a while it was quiet. The ride was almost never-ending. Entrance, after entrance, twisting in all different directions, fast, slow. But as I got closer to the ending, I heard sounds of despair.

A large hife, seemingly made of wood, sat in the middle of the ball pit, chuckling. He held a child in each of his ten arms, the last of the twelve making their sweet escapes out of the pit. Dino was in the hife’s highest left hand, yelling, kicking. Despite the shrieks, the adults in the seating area seemed unfazed.

I climbed onto the end of the slide and launched myself at the hife, crashing into his broad, wooden chest. From the probable shock, and the weight of a ten year old child, launched at high speed, he fell backwards and lay hopelessly in the pit, the children escaping his evil clutches and darting through the exit. As Dino and I turned to leave too, the tyrant sprung back into action.

“You little rats!”

The next thing I knew, I was spinning around, seven feet in the air…

“Hoo-doo-doo-doo-doo!” sang another hife, our hife, as he shot out of the slide like a flash. The bad hife yelped, and Dino and I fell.

“Fun Outing Hife?” we gasped in unison.

“Quickly!” he replied, and the three of us scrambled out of the ball pit.

The Fun Outing Hife ran, as fast as his little feet could carry him. Under the slide, something was glowing.

“Get on a star!” The hife panted.

“You what?” I cried

“The star!” he repeated, impatiently, “Get on! Please!”

Dino mounted the smallest, and I got onto the medium.

“Kids! We need to see her! Dotty! Dotty the witch! She’ll know what to do!”

And as the stars headed off at high speed, Dino and I both knew we weren’t to question a thing.