Candy Land

• Shanae Read, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2013

Candy Land
Oliver was a mischievous young boy until he came to Sunnydale High . His passion for adventuring grew strong as he grew older. At the age of fourteen he loved nature and all of its beauty; the birds chirping, the leaves rustling away above his head and the varieties of animals and plants. This is what he loved; this is why he loved adventuring.
It was the first day back, term 2, 1st hour, 1st minute; he was counting down every second until the school excursion. Oliver could just picture it in his head; the big brown uneven tree trunks, then you would look up into the canopy and see the leaves waving gracefully above your head, almost in sync every time.
Awoken by the bell before recess, not realizing he had slept for two sessions, with dribble on his page and excitement in his body, he knew he had been daydreaming.
“Oliver, I didn’t see you there, come on son its recess.” Came a friendly voice from the front of the room.
“Sorry sir... I’m just, ah...finishing work...” he replied nervously. He continued. “I’m just so excited for the excursion, 25minutes exactly!” he shouted. They both walked out at quite a fast pace. The teacher turned and shut the door behind them.
After recess the class caught a bus to the wildlife park. Although it was the oldest yellow bus, with the oldest wrinkly driver he had ever seen he was the most excited boy on the bus.
When the bus arrived, Oliver was the first one off, front of the line, and the one that asked all the questions. Oliver being adventurous scouted through the wildlife park with the class, with the biggest grin on his face.
Taking samples of different leaves and photos of different animals he soon fell behind.
“Hurry up Oliver!” shouted a teacher from the front of a line.
“Yes miss, just a sec!” he shouted back. Unaware it had been 5 minutes attempting to take a photo of a rabbit that would just not stand still. Once the photo was taken, he rose from the ground and looked at his photo
“What a magnificent photo!” He exclaimed “Miss, miss look at this photo!” He continued... “Miss?!” A serious expression grew firm on Oliver’s face. “Hello...?” he said softly, but no one replied.
A rustling noise came from the bushes behind Oliver. He turned quick but the only thing there was a mouse.
“What are you doing out here little mouse, huh?” The mouse seemed to ignore Oliver and look straight passed him. It looked scared, like something was going to hurt it. Oliver turned around slowly.
A squeal came straight from Oliver’s throat. There standing right in front of him was a big hairy 9ft, brown ferocious bear! Oliver ran! He ran as fast as his legs could go! He ducked under branches, over stumps and when he turned to check, he saw huge white teeth staring straight into his eyes only less than a meter away. He was running down hill so that gave him speed. He ran faster and faster but the bear was still there. It clawed one paw after another. It gave a mighty GROWL! Oliver turned to check if it was still there but it wasn’t there. He continued running only to find a dark and gloomy cave. He hid in the cave until he fell asleep.
When he awoke, Oliver slowly blinked his eyes. Everything was fuzzy and bright, he was cold, lost, alone. The cave revealed a small beam of light witch happened to be in his eyes. He stood up week in the knees. It was weird he smelt something familiar, candy, no... it couldn’t be... could it? He took his hand and placed it on the wall to balance. It was sticky, sticky like candy but soft like a marshmallow.
He took a step, rubbing his eyes multiple times to check if this was real. He couldn’t believe. There was a giant marshmallow blocking the exit, like a giant boulder. He stepped back; suddenly a sticky drop fell on his nose, red and white. He could smell it, strawberries and cream. He looked up, a stalactite, red and white. It was only small so he grabbed it. He licked it once, than again. He fell to his knees and groaned loudly. “It’s so DELICIOUS! Time passed before he had finished the delicious treat.
He stood up and said to himself firmly. “Ok. I need to know what's out there!”
He pushed passed the marshmallow only to leave him blinded by the light that shocked him still. He stumbled to his knees into a puddle of sparkling water. His pants where moving, he started to giggle. “Hahahaaha, stop STOP! Hahahaaha!” there was a blue fish made of jelly, a “jelly fish” in his pants.


He yelled. “Could this day get any better!?!” and before he could say any more he gobbled it up like ice cream, with no precautions. It flipped around in his throat, all slimy and chewy. He could taste the blueberry goodness as it went down his throat.
He didn’t know what was going on, he started to twitch, his hands felt numb and then all of a sudden – blackout, complete darkness, nothing. Once again he woke up; this time he knew where he was. He was scared and unaware of why he passed out.
He refreshed his face with some of the water from the puddle but when he touched it, the puddle turned a dark blue. He couldn’t see the bottom anymore.
He waited for the ripples to fade, to see if he could see the bottom. But when he focused his eyes on his reflection, he fell back in shock.
He was a giant blue gummy bear.
Could Oliver really be in candy land, or is this all just a dream?

By Shanae Read
11/09/2013