Zigotron's Portal

• Adam Tenaglia, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2018

I don't know what to say about this. I'm in a science class and a kid just threw a beaker while my teacher was writing on the whiteboard and it accidentally hit her in the back of the head. She puts her hand over the back of her head and turns around. She literally grows half a metre taller, and her eyes go red. She turned into a monster! She yells, "WHO THREW THAT!!!?" When she yells, her voice ruptures the ground.

Dead. We’re all dead. If that kid doesn't own up, we're dead. No one says anything. The teacher is just standing there giving us a death stare. And here I am not knowing what to say about the beaker being thrown. Luckily, I have a book about monsters at home. At first I thought they didn't exist. But this tells me otherwise. It said that the angrier she is, the more she grows. So if she got extremely angry, she'd grow taller than the Burj Khalifa. This monster is apparently called the Zigotron, and when she gets angry, you can ask her a science question to distract her and she’ll forget about what made her angry. If she grows more than 5 metres tall, nothing can stop her. Since she only grew 50 centimetres tall, I decide to try. "Excuse me Mrs Zidget," I ask, "Why did your voice shake the ground?" She goes back to normal and replies, "My larynx produced sound waves. Sound waves make everything vibrate but because I grew, the sound waves from my larynx are a lot stronger which make everything shake. Anyway, back to the lesson. Go to page 230 in your textbook and answer questions 1-788. What you don't finish in class is homework, due tomorrow. If you don't have it finished by tomorrow you will be thrown off a 70 metre high cliff into water. Or I will put you in a cage with a cassowary." The class is in shock and nobody says a word. They just do their work.

I spared the lives of 28 students, but now I have to answer 788 questions. But the thing is, video games are much more important. When I get home, I need to get to tier 100 on Fortnite Battle Royale, win a grand challenge and get to ultimate champion on Clash Royale, Upgrade my town hall and my cannon to level 11 on Clash of Clans and build a boat and a mansion in Minecraft. I don’t have time for 788 questions.

The next day, after playing games and not doing 788 questions, I find myself in a cage with a cassowary. I wake up. That was all a dream. I go to the bathroom to find the Zigotron standing there. I run out and slam the door. On the other side there is a cassowary and HEAPS of ibises. Leaning against a wall in my house is a portal with a sign that says, “Zigotron’s world of dreams.”