The 50

• Shayla Frizelle, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

The 50
In South Australia near a remote town there was a lake that formed during a particularly wet year that was 1000 metres long and 1000 metres wide. After 3 years, very dry years the lake was mysteriously still there, 1000m long and 1000m wide.
The lake became popular with the locals and tourists. People came from far and wide to see the lake, and swim there. For hours they enjoyed the clear blue waters. But one day there was a birthday party by the lake. While they were there they kept hearing splashing. They thought it was people swimming or fish jumping but they were wrong! Seven people were swimming; 20 minutes later they had all vanished.
The news spread throughout the town, but few believed it. It must be a joke everyone thought, it is a beautiful shallow lake even if you could not swim you could wade to your neck most of the way across the lake.
A helicopter could easily spot anything dangerous in the lake. So the local police asked a local helicopter pilot to check the lake, after several hours of checking nothing was found.
As it was summer everyone was keen to go back to the lake, there were lots of people swimming when suddenly people started disappearing. Someone started screaming as their friends disappear in front of their eyes. Everyone ran in panic from the lake
As they watched from the edge a strange creature surfaced. It had a mouth shaped like a platypus bill with great sharp teeth like a crocodile, it rose out of the water and walked on its hind legs, one of the local aboriginals yelled bunyip and ran off in a panic, others thought it a duck bill dinosaur.
The local police called the army. The army sent their best experts who waded out into the lake, sceptical about what had been seen, they all disappeared.
The army flew helicopters over the lake with special camera’s that could see the bottom of the lake but nothing was found. The mystery grew now 50 people had disappeared. Little did they know an underwater cave existed that hid the creature? Special night vision cameras were set up to watch the lake.
The next day a toddler who lived with his grandparents near the lake disappeared. He had walked to the edge of the lake where he played with a shiny fork. As he played the creature rose out of the water intent on eating him.
The toddler seeing the gaping mouth of the creature threw the fork lodging it in its throat. The creature fell backwards as it clawed the obstruction in its wind pipe, as it thrashed around on the shore the army ran to attack the creature, but found it had already died from chocking on the toddlers fork.
They gave a special award to the toddler. The town celebrated and a special day was proclaimed for the dinosaur that was placed in the local museum.