Make A Wish

• Austin Bevacqua, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2013

‘Make a wish!’ said mum, right after we had sung Happy Birthday. I closed my eyes and wished what I had been wishing for throughout the last four years, to go to Candyland. Candyland is this wonderful place I saw on TV. There are lollypops sticking out of the ground, chocolate bunnies everywhere and sherbet trees. I closed my eyes and blew out the candles. Everyone would usually start cheering when I blow out the candles, but this time, no one said anything. I opened my eyes; mum or dad weren’t in the room. They must be playing a trick on me I thought. ‘Mum!’ I scream out, ‘This isn’t funny, stop.’ No one replied, so I decided to go outside.

I went outside expecting to see mum and dad, but what I saw…. wasn’t mum and dad. There was melted chocolate everywhere; buildings on fire and every tree had lost their leaves. Where am I? I wondered. Worried, I quickly ran inside and grabbed my dad’s phone. I dialed my friend’s mobile number and waited for him to answer; after about 2 minutes he answered. ‘Dude what’s happened?’ I shouted. ‘THEY’RE COMING’ he shouted, and then he dropped the call.

Confused and scared, I wondered how I got here. Could it have been the wish? I wondered if it was, this isn’t Candyland. I went outside, wanting to get a better perspective of this hellish land. I was outside, walking around. I hadn’t seen any plants, animals or humans yet. After minutes of wandering around, I found 2 crying people that looked a lot like my mum and dad, could it be them?

‘Hello,’ I said, ‘what’s wrong?’
‘Run, free yourself’ said one of them, not even looking at me.
‘From what?’ I replied. The person just looked down and started crying again.
I continued walking around, expecting to find something. After another couple of minutes of walking a came across a couple of people, they were talking. I walked up to them.

‘Hello?’ I said to them. They turned around and stared at me.
‘Its you!’ one of them shouted, walking towards me. Scared, I started sprinting away
‘GET HIM!’ shouted the same person, and they all were running after me; they were slowly catching up with me.

After running for what seemed like forever, I finally came to a dead end. I stopped and one of them grabbed me. ‘He’s waking up,’ he said. I looked at him, confused. Then all of
A sudden, everything was black, I couldn’t see anything. My vision slowly blurred back and I could see my mum and dad, in what looked like a hospital. ‘He’s awake!’ dad shouted.

‘You’ve been in a coma for forty four days’ mum said ‘You blew out the candles, then fell face first into the cake, we had to take you to hospital’
It was just a dream then I thought, then I laughed
‘What’s so funny?’ asked mum
‘I had a weird dream,’ I replied.