Facing Your Fears And Having Fun!

• Ryan Lee, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2010

At seven o’clock in the morning two buses were waiting outside Greenward Public School. Steve, a year 5 boy ran up the steps into one of the buses with his friend Noah. Steve was worried because he had never been going away from his mum and dad before. He was also worried because there were lots of activities that involved going up to very high places. The reason he was worried about heights was because five years ago he slid down a very steep slide and cut his arm two centimeters deep at the end.

When they arrived, they were first showed where their cabins were. Steve’s roommates were his best friends Ben and Noah. They got split into three teams and Steve’s leader was Sparky. Sparky’s team, first activity was the giant swing. The giant swing had two poles parallel about five meters apart. Ahead, about ten meters away stood another pole. All three poles were twenty meters high. While Steve was waiting to have a go, his stomach felt like it was empty and kept thinking about the accident on the giant slide. Soon it was Steve’s turn to go on. He slowly walk to the swing as everyone cheered at him. He slowly went up and up until he reached the top, then 3, 2, 1 GO! WWWHHHOOOOSSS!!! When he pulled the rope he felt really, really proud of himself that he did it. When he came off the swing everyone gave him a clap. His teacher looked at him with the biggest smile he had ever seen.

The second activity was bush walking and looking for fossils. Steve saw a tree kangaroo, some baby alligators, little tiny goanna and a red belly black snake. When the team arrived to the area where there were fossils everyone grabbed a little pickaxe and started digging. Steve was the first one to find one which was a leaf squeezed between two rocks. Noah found one to it was a trilobite. When they went past the mangrove we saw fish darting around in the water and crabs dashing into their holes.

Steve was so proud and shocked he thought he had never been scared of height in the past. When he came home his mum and dad were glad that he was back but were the most happiest when they had heard that he had faced his fears. From then on he always tried activities that had to do with heights.