Brought To Life

• Christian Pham, Grade 6, Durack State School -
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Horizon of Dreams 2018' competition

The pencil was lying next to black school gates, looking all brand new. It was sharp and even had an eraser at the end, but it was white.
John was having another day of school when he found the pencil. He picked it up and dropped into his bag. At the school gates, he met his friends, Zack and Jack, who were twins. They headed to their classroom to get ready for school to start.
The school blocks were rectangular and grey, lined up in a neat array. It was like a prison, with all the students waiting their sentence out. Something interesting is bound to happen, John thought to himself, but nothing came. Through the babbling of their teacher, Mr Plain, John drew a picture of a dinosaur with the white pencil.
Suddenly there was a roar coming from the school oval next to the classroom, which was a dark green. John looked out through a rectangular window and saw a gigantic dinosaur stomping around. It was all white outlined with black. By instinct, John scrunched his piece of paper, and all the stomping abruptly stopped. "That was super cool, John,” whispered Jack, whose desk was behind John’s. ‘This shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands,” John replied. Everyone agreed.
At playtime, a crowd had gathered around the three friends. Zack and Jack had told the whole class about John’s ‘magic pencil’, and he felt popular. But at that moment, the school bully Tim swaggered up to John. The crowd scattered everywhere, isolating the trio. “Gimme this,” he growled, snatching the pencil. Since he was so menacingly tall, John was terrified. Tim took out a ball of paper with his meaty hands, unfolded it and drew a badly-drawn dragon.
At once, the dragon materialised out of thin air and spurted a scribble of red, narrowly missing Zack. “GET THE PENCIL!” Jack yelled. They all ran towards Tim, who was frozen with fear. In thirty seconds flat, they were already at Tim’s location. Tim, however, held the white pencil up high, out of John’s reach. The twins lunged at Tim, knocking him onto his back. The pencil flew through the air, and John caught it in his hands. Mustering the last of his strength, John snapped the pencil in half, making the dragon disappear. The PA system blared for the students to return to their classes, and they obediently did so.
At home-time, the friends walked home, silently recapping all the events that happened. For once something interesting occurred. They separated with smiles on their faces.
A year later a girl named Sally found a white ballpoint pen lying next to the school gates, looking all brand-new.