Yellow

• Zoe Sleeth, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2013

Maybe when we go we all become the wind.
And we’ll dance all through the sky.
And everything will be yellow.


When I go I’ll be a bumble-bee, but I’ll be a special bumble-bee, one with hair.
And I’ll have hair longer than Rupunzel’s.
It will be strawberry blonde and I will plait it every day.

I can’t have hair now, the man with the heart checker-upper-re around his neck said so.
Every time I get a floof a hair, it just runs away.
I get really tired after my hair runs away.

I asked My mum why my hair ran away.
My mum smile-cried.

My mum smile-cries a lot.


Today I am going to get snip snipped.
My mum says that todays snip snip is really important.
I hate snip snip days.
But if I’m good and ‘keep doing what I’m doing’ me and My mum are going to snuggle-buggle and watch ‘Arthur’.

I love Arthur days.


The heart checker-upper-re man coloured me in again.
I have purple and blue swirly splotches all over.
They hurt when I poke them.

I asked the heart checker-upper-re man if he could colour me in all yellow swirls next time.

He’s going to ‘see what he can do’.


I have had my new bedroom for 734 days.
In my new bedroom I have a book about a magic man, who could feed five thousand people with one fish and one sandwich.


My new bedroom is full of loud beeping boxes that wake me up in the middle of the night.
When I first moved into my new bedroom all my friends from school came. They gave me a giant ‘Get Well’ card that everyone had signed, even the principle.

But then they stopped coming because of all my beeping boxes.

My mum said that they still loved me all the same. They just weren’t as brave as me and My mum.


I blood coughed again.
And saw black dots all everywhere.
My mum pressed the red button beside my bed and lots of heart checker-upper-re people where all everywhere.

Then I saw black.


I stayed with My mum for a few more days, but I couldn’t ‘keep doing what your doing’.
Me and My mum snuggle-buggled and watched ‘Arthur’.
My mum whispered that she loved me ‘this much’ and stretched her arms as far as they would go.
And I whispered that I loved her as much as the universe all stretched out.


Maybe when we go we all become the wind.
And we’ll dance all through the sky.
And everything will be yellow.


Written by Zoe Sleeth, 14

-This short story was based on a seven year old girl and her fight against Leukemia.