The Secret Porthole

• Caleb Ferguson, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2009

One day four friends Caleb, Cameron, Pierre and Angus found a secret porthole. The porthole was at school and the group of friends were trying to open the porthole and Angus succeeded! So they all went down. When they got to the bottom they saw lots of strange animals and plants. Then they saw an evil animal and it said “You have to find at least three things that look familiar from your world to leave this land.” The children were very scared. They were looking for ages until they found another strange animal. The children told the animal all about what happened and he agreed to help them. The first thing they found was a small pine tree. So they gave it to the evil animal. The evil animal found a cauldron and put the pine tree in. A cloud of green smoke rose into the air. Then the group of friends set off to find more things. And they found them all in one hour! So the evil animal said they can go home. But when got to the place where the porthole was it wasn’t there! The children suddenly realized how long they had been there. “Were late!” they all screamed. Their animal friend said “the evil animal turned the porthole invisible and I can make it visible again.” So they all said good bye and the animal turned it visible again. So the children went down the porthole and found not a second had passed! So they agreed to keep it a seceret forever.