If you believe in yourself

• Jacqueline Nguyen, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2005

In the city of Magnolia there was a girl named Jacqueline who loved to swim but she never believed in herself and that’s why she couldn’t swim that well.

One hot summer’s day she went for a walk to her school because her car had broken down. On the way to school she noticed a little backpack just sitting there in the walk way, it had the word ‘Gem’ written on it. She looked inside the bag to check if there was a name written somewhere so she could return it to the owner. Unfortunately, there was no name on the bag but instead there was a shiny, gold gem. She decided to wear that shiny gem on her jacket as if it was a badge. Jacqueline kept walking to school and she didn’t want to be late for her swimming lessons. When she arrived at school, she went on the bus straight away because she was already late. Lots of people told Jacqueline that her gem looked like a shimmery, bright diamond.

At the swimming centre, the children went straight into the change rooms and changed into their bathers. Jacqueline carefully took the gem off her jacket and stuck it on her bathers. Then she dived into the pool, the water filled her ears and it sounded like the whistling of a haunted house.

Then, Jacqueline got put into a grade for swimming, a nasty girl started laughing at her like a hyena because Jacqueline was put into the lowest grade. There were only three people in her grade, and one of the girls in her grade kept looking at Jacqueline’s gem. She told Jacqueline that her gem looked like the one worn by Ian Thorpe. Jacqueline was amazed and intrigued by this. She thought to herself ‘how great, this lucky gem will make me a good swimmer and no one will laugh at me anymore’.

Her teacher then asked her to swim the backstroke, she did it beautifully and the teacher was really surprised that she was so great. While Jacqueline was swimming, she dropped her gem without even noticing. She still swam really well and she didn’t even sink or drown. A girl came up to Jacqueline after her swim and told her that she had dropped her gem, during the backstroke.

Wow!! She couldn’t believe that she was this good at swimming, and all on her own too, and she didn’t even need the luck of the gem anymore because she now believed in herself. She didn’t need any magic gem at all. By the time Jacqueline was the age of eleven, she was known as the state champion and no one dared laugh at her again.