The Metal Pieces

• Ava Clifton, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

I'm running as far away from the police as I can get, the wind whipping my hair into a frenzy as the rain lashes against my cheek. My clothes are dripping wet and dragging me down as I struggle to breathe. I'm weaving through the everyday crowds of people on the street and people turn to see what the commotion is as I run. I really didn't want to break into that lady's house but I had to, I knew she had the last metal piece. My name is Amber and I have been looking for five metal pieces and I just found the fifth piece, I have no idea why but my boss said it was important.

I'm looking for the laundromat on McKennel road. Quickly, with the police still on my tail I turn onto the road and run into the laundromat. Checking that the police have run past, I walk straight towards the out of order washing machine. I circle the washing machine looking for clues, as I look inside the washing machine I notice the old woman on the other side of the room giving me a strange look. I glare at her and she turns back around to watch her washing. Making sure the old lady wasn't looking, I pull the machine away from the wall and my heart skips a beat, there's a big hole right in the wall, that has to be a clue. I notice that the hole is like a slide so taking a risk I jump in.

I'm sliding down in the dark with butterflies in my stomach and fear in my chest, suddenly my stomach lurches. I stand up with my head pounding. I realise I'm in a rainforest and I see beautiful trees towering as tall as sky scrapers and I smell damp man ferns. I walk through the forest as the birds sing and suddenly I hear a voice, I spin around in fright but then I see who it is, my boss.
"Dr Teamswell, what am I doing here" I exclaim. " You have the pieces I'm guessing?" he asks. I dig my hand into my pocket and feel my hand run over five smooth metal pieces, "yes" I say. "Well done Amber, I will tell you what you need to do with them" he says calmly. "You may have noticed that there have been a few earthquakes lately and we found out that's because the earth's core is very unstable and has been shaking a lot. If it crumbles away, so does the earth so you have to fill the five holes in the core with the metal pieces. You're going to do that by getting down there in this lift". He amazes me sometimes. I get into the lift and travel down, once I get down there I insert the five pieces very carefully. I get back in the lift and shoot up.
"you did it, you saved every one" he says. We hug.