THE FLAMES

• Jaiden Gatehouse, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

One fine morning in Sydney my family and I woke up and headed to the Central Coast to see a few family friends that we have not seen for a while. It was a decent drive there but when we all got out of the car we could not feel our legs, so we stretched them out as far as we could and then walked into our family friend's house and they greeted us with a brunch. We had very yummy food like a sausage on rolls, bacon and eggs and juice. Then we went on a boat for half the day and just hung out. They also brought along the jetski so the kids could have some fun. We felt bored just hanging out on the boat so we left the boat anchored to the seafloor and drove the jet ski to the nearest beach which was around 50 meters away from us to have some fun.


After a while, at the beach, my dad decided he was hungry and we all agreed and said “same”. The beach was not far from an old rough and tough town so we decided to walk to the old town to eat. The old town was a five-minute walk from the beach, it had 2 pubs, 2 grocery stores, and a few other small shops with a population of around 150 people. We decided to eat at one of the pubs, the pub had an outside eating area. which overlooked a big bush that went for around 2 and a half footy fields out and 3 footy fields across. We thought the view was nice so we ended up eating out there.

We all had our meals and they all looked delicious but of course, mine was the nicest mmmm yum, fresh barramundi with a side of fresh hot chips and tomato sauce, while we were enjoying our food we spotted a bright flame in the bush then looked closer and saw a man lighting a campfire. lighting a fire in the bush is not a good idea but we thought nothing of it so we went back to eating 5 minutes later the fire bursts out, “FIRE FIRE” screams mum, as she was the first to see it, The fire was really big already because of how much bush there was. The fire went on and on it felt like forever eventually we had. to leave so we drove the boat and jetski back to their house and said our goodbyes got in our car and headed back to Sydney where it was safe.

When we got home we checked if the fire was still going and it somehow was! So a few days later we decided to check, faithfully the fire stopped but it went on for three days and on the fourth day it stopped luckily no houses were burnt because of the river in between the bush and the town and everyone was safe.