Zero to hero

• Nicholas Hartland, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2006

Zero to Hero

There I was walking my old,scruffy dog along the old dusty streets of my boring old neighborhood, thinking what to do with my miserable life. I walked past my school and reminded myself what I'm going through, in an attempt to feel sorry for myself. Let me tell you now, I do not have a nice life style. The beginning of my problems was my parents sending me to a posh school partway through my final school year and to top it all off I have zero friends at my new school. Not the most exciting life in the world hey!

I walk down the street of my school only to find a suspicious smell and a person lurking around. I jump the fence to find out what is going on. I come across our school hall where the HSC artworks are on display. I saw a strange person near the hall who sped off into the night wearing unusual, bright yellow shoes. The building was on fire. I quickly react by finding the fire extinguisher and attempt to extinguish the rapid tongues of fire. I was successful at putting it out, everything was burnt except the art works. How lucky am I to have saved all that hard work. The next thing I know is that in a flash my luck had just run out as I hear the noise of Police and Fire Brigade sirens. I was busted, for no reason. Before I had time to think about what was going on I find myself in the back of the Police wagon on the way to the station.

I meet Dad at the Police Station so the officers can start questioning me. I felt like I was a criminal on one of those Police shows on TV. They ask me to give a description of who I think was responsible even though in the back of their minds they thought it was me. The police said I had motive and opportunity to commit the crime but they couldn't charge me without enough evidence.

As we pull into my old, dusty street in my old, boring neighborhood I see something suspicious going on next door, so against Dad's orders I decide to check out what was going on. There he was, the guy in the unusual yellow shoes. He was trying to steal the neighbors car. I ran up to him and tackled him to the ground in an attempt to make a citizens arrest. My dad called the cops and the long, gruelling ordeal was over .

It turned out he was the pyro maniac and was sent to jail for theft and arson. I had won. It was over, my misery was at an end. In one day I had become the hero of Year 12 and possibly the whole school. Things were looking up. My school life might just turn out all right after all.

Nick Hartland
Year 6J
Villa Maria Primary School