Leo, Stella And The Stolen Necklace

• Alice Maycock, Grade 3
• Short Story
• 2016

Leo, Stella and the Stolen Necklace

By Alice Maycock, aged 7.

Once there was a cat called Leo who was regal, intelligent and sleek. He lived in the hills with his friend, a palomino horse. The horse was a glossy, elegant creature. The horse’s name was Stella. They had no owner but lived quite happily by themselves. Their most precious possession was a beautiful necklace that could tell the future. One day when Leo went to fetch the necklace, he noticed that it was gone! Bursting with surprise and anger, he ran to tell Stella. She listened intently and squealed angrily. Leo sighed and said, ‘we’d better go and tell Shadow this’. Shadow was a Rottweiler – all black, no brown, even his eyes were black. So off they went. When they got to Shadow, they saw…the necklace! Shadow had stolen the necklace!
The necklace shone and glimmered in the sunlight as it hung on the fence post. The emerald in the centre was sparkling beautifully. The pearls glistened magically. Stella and Leo just stood there, looking at it. Why in the world had Shadow stolen it? They looked at the necklace. Leo felt a stab of anger.
‘Quickly’, he hissed to Stella. ‘Let’s grab the necklace and go.’
Then they heard a growling sound. Shadow was waking up!
Stella grabbed the necklace. Leo jumped onto Stella’s back. Shadow threw himself at them, his muscular legs thudding as he ran. Leo jumped down and clawed Shadow’s nose. Next, he dropped a large stone on Shadow’s head which knocked him unconscious. Then they made their escape. Stella flung the necklace around her neck and ran and ran and ran. She galloped like a cheetah, faster than she had ever had in her life.
When they got to the safety of the tumbledown stable, they started making plans. Leo and Stella decided to talk to Shadow and find out why he had stolen the necklace. So off they went to confront Shadow. Then they returned with a paper full of answers, keeping their anger under wraps. It felt good to know why Shadow had taken the necklace. He had taken it because he wanted a big stack of bones every day and the emerald in the necklace would help him to see if it was possible. This would have made him powerful enough to take over the farm. Leo and Stella had stopped the spell by taking the necklace and saved the farm. Shadow’s red-hot anger eventually calmed down and he was friends again with Stella and Leo.