Handball

• Sam Grygorcewicz, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

“John, you’re out!!” John walks outside the court. It’s lunchtime here at school and my friends and I are playing handball. The ball comes to me and I hit it a little bit too hard. It sails up, hits the wall and lands on the top of a high gumtree.
“Damn it!!” I yell.
“What are we gonna play now?” asks Mackenzie.
“Don’t worry,” I say heroically.
I hide behind a hedge and wait for the gardener, Mr Fields, to finish putting new mulch under the gumtree that my handball went into. Mr Fields walks away and I sneak up to the gumtree. I put my hand up and grab the branch.
“ARE YOU CRAZY?!?!?!?!” shout my friends. I turn my head and grin, then keep climbing. I’m about a quarter of the way when a spider appears in front of my face. I stare at it for a few seconds, then brush it away with my hand and continue climbing.
About halfway I hear a swooping noise. I turn to look and an angry magpie is flying straight for my head! I duck and the magpie goes below me to her nest. The magpie looks agitated because I’m near her nest. I start to climb, but the magpie starts to peck me. I try to climb faster but the pecking slows me down. I attempt to push her away, but she doesn’t stop pecking. I start thinking of other ways to stop her, when I feel a tingling sensation on my left hand. I look up, and the spider from the branches below is on my hand! I suddenly get an idea. I grab the spider and dangle it above the magpies head. She stops pecking and starts to rear away. I drop the spider and keep climbing. Hopefully spiders don’t eat magpies.
At three quarters of the way, the tree starts shaking uncontrollably. I sway to the right, then left. I lose grip with my left hand and my feet slip off. I’m hanging with only my right hand and the tree is bending sideways. I’m losing grip. I stay hanging there, then the breeze changes to the other way and I’m upright again. I keep climbing.
I’m at the top and I spot my handball. I reach over to grab it and put it in my pocket and look at the view. Wow, you can see everything from here!
Suddenly my lovely view is interrupted by an angry magpie with a spider clinging to her head. I rear back and the branch I’m standing on snaps. I tumble down the tree and land in the new mulch. The whole school is watching me. The principal is blabbering but I’m not listening. As I hit the ground my handball flies out of my pocket. I look around on the ground and I see it rolling down the hill… straight into the drain. I’m gonna get it back- but this time I’m gonna need to plan this out…