Ruby The Red Crayon

• Charlotte Hartell, Grade 8, Kildare College
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

Ruby Red Crayon lived in the crayon box at the back of the store shelf until one day when Shari the first grade teacher bought her families box. Ruby lives inside that crayon box with her siblings Petunia Purple, Benjamin Blue, Orlando Orange and Gabriella Green; As well as her parents, Barry Black and Wanda White. Ruby and her family got shaken about as Shari drops the box in her handbag.
Shari walks out of the store to her car and she drops the bag into the passenger seat of her car. There is an audible snap as Wanda cracks, when the bag is dropped into the car seat.
As Shari drives to her class, she has no idea of the commotion happening right beside her.
“Someone call the Crayola-ambulance!” Benjamin screams!
“Wanda, my love!” Barry cries.
“Mummy!” Gabriella yells.
Shari walks into her class with her handbag and puts it down on her desk.
“Hello class! Today we are going to do some crayon drawings! Here Chloe, I got you some crayons since you don’t have any,” Shari says as she pulls out the box of crayons and hands it to Chloe.
“Let’s get started!” Shari says cheerfully as all the first graders pull out their crayons and start furiously colouring.
Chloe opens the box of crayons and see Wanda has a crack. Chloe finishes the job. She snaps her completely in half. Then she just throws her away like nothing happened. Ruby and her family can’t believe their eyes.
Chloe pours the rest of the crayons on to the table. She reaches out a small, clammy, grimy, hand and grabs Ruby off the table. “No!” Petunia screams, dreading the fate that will come of her sister.
It starts off well, just a simple drawing of a red tomato family. But this nice scene takes a horrid turn when all of a sudden… SNAP. Ruby is snapped in half. She is then used till a stub, then thrown away into the bin.
Her family soon after suffer the same fate when Nathan, the class bully comes and knocks the rest of the crayons onto the floor. Another yet even louder SNAP is heard throughout the class as the crayons hit the ground.
After they already suffered that fate, they were luckily they weren’t alive. This is because after that Nathan trampled them into the ground.
Shari the teacher sends Nathan to time out and puts the rest of Ruby’s family into the bin. Later that night, when everyone has left the school, the garbage man comes and takes Ruby and her family to the dump.
Even though Ruby’s life was short, she had a good one, together with her family in the crayon box at the back of the shelf. Until that one day…