Jennifer And The Jumping Pillow

• Emma Sheehan, Grade 3
• Short Story
• 2015

Jennifer Jameson loved to jump. She jumped on her bed. She jumped on the couch. She even managed to jump while she did her chores. She jumped while she fed the dog. She jumped when she set the table, and she jumped when she did her homework.
But Jennifer’s favourite place to jump was on the big pink jumping pillow at the park. Sometimes she could jump away happily for hours. Some days she lost track of the time. One day, Jennifer jumped so high that she didn’t come back down.
Instead she soared into the clouds and kept on going up and up and up. Jennifer rose higher than the tree tops, higher than the birds, and higher than the clouds. And then she slowly stopped going higher and began to slowly drop towards the ground. She went past the clouds, past the birds and back past the tree tops.
She read a tall sign that said “Jumping Land”. Then all of a sudden she landed on her two feet. Jennifer felt good to be back on the ground again, only she wasn’t standing, she was still jumping. And she couldn’t stop. Her legs seemed to have a mind of their own. Jennifer noticed something else: instead of walking, all the people around her were jumping too. Even the dogs and cats were jumping instead of walking. The ground felt like one big bouncy trampoline.
In Jumping Land, people didn’t need cars or bikes. If they wanted to get somewhere close by they took small jumps. If they wanted to get somewhere far away, they took giant leaps. Jennifer took two big leaps and she was at a café. All of her jumping had made her hungry and she drank two chocolate milkshakes. Outside, she took another giant leap and found herself outside a school. It was much like her own school, but, of course, the children inside were jumping at their desks rather than sitting.
After a day of exploring jumping land, Jennifer was surprised at how tired her legs had become. She longed to sit quietly but her legs would not stop jumping. She found the jumping pillow that had brought her to Jumping Land, and hoped that it would take her home.
Jump! She jumped as high as she could, but landed back on the pillow. Jump! Her second jump took her a little higher but still brought her back to Jumping Land. Jump! Her last jump took her higher than the birds, higher than the trees, and just above the clouds. To her delight, Jennifer landed back in her own park, where the people walked and the cats and dogs ran rather than jumped.
Jennifer ran all the way home, eager to tell her mother of her adventures. And when it came time to feed the dog that night, Jennifer found that keeping both her feet on the ground wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

By Emma Sheehan age 9
11 Ivanhoe Place Kuraby Qld 4112
Year 3, Runcorn State School