Quis Est Maximus

• Beth Goninon, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2010

She strolled outside to grab the paper and started reading but stopped, as there was nothing interesting to read today.
All she’d wanted to do all her life was to scuba dive. Judy’s favourite spot to dive was along the Great Barrier Reef. It is her favourite because of the colours under the water.

When she was swimming once, someone had flung his cigarette literally on top of Judy. It was like she could hear the water choking. The rubbish in the water disgusted Judy. How she wished she could find a way to persuade everyone to stop dumping rubbish into the water! Someone who litters in the ocean obviously has no sense. No one understands the ocean like she does.

Half-heartedly walking inside, Judy flung the paper onto the table for her father to read later. As she dropped it she saw something that caught her eye. There was an advertisement. The ad read:

Environment conference at the south park. Come if you want. All your opinions will be heard. 2:30 - 4:00 Saturday
(Depending on how many people come)

This was Judy’s chance to tell the town how littering can seriously affect the beach.


“Saturday,” she thought. “That’s tomorrow.”

Judy told her mum about the meeting and asked if she could go. Her mum, Jen, told Judy she couldn’t go.

“Why not?” she begged.

“Don’t give me that. You know that Ben has touch football tomorrow and your father has work so he can’t look after you,” she replied.

“Couldn’t you drop Ben off then come with me?”

“You know this is his last game. I promised him I’d watch it.”

As Judy’s brother walked by with his peanut butter sandwich he stuck his tongue out at her.

“Muuummm,” she said. ”Ben stuck his tongue out at me.”

Jen investigated but he swore he didn’t do a thing. This made Judy even more upset.

As Judy woke up the next morning she could hear coughing coming from her parent’s bedroom. Peering in, she saw Jen leaning over her father feeding him cough medicine.

“Yes!” she thought. “Dad can take me to the conference.”

She gathered her materials and started creating posters to show the people the level of litter and pollution in our river Thames.

When it was time Judy’s Dad drove Judy to the cafe. When they arrived Judy saw that there were so many people there.

“Some people do care!” she thought.

The first to start was a man from Peru. He explained how the water where he lived was like the water here and his village found a way to fix it. Then many others followed that made Judy feel insignificant. The man in charge of all this missed her probably because he thought she was someone’s daughter. She spoke out. When everyone laughed at her saying she was too small, she didn’t care. Judy showed what she had done. They were silent. They were shocked. They invited her to join them. Success!