Katrina's Deep Dark Secret

• Taylah Richardson, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2008

Katrina stepped on the 27th step. Tears rolled down her face and her legs were trembling. But she kept on going. Katrina is the top princess at her school and she can’t tell anyone about her fear. She kept on going up the steps until she got to the top of the 20 metre high flying fox. Her teeth were chattering as she got on the bar.
“Don’t be frightened, just be calm, keep going down and then you will not fall off the bar,” she told herself as she was going down really fast.
“No don’t be calm, be frightened,” said the other voice in her head.
“Yes, please go down.”
“No, don’t listen to her Katrina.”
“Yes.”
“No.” The voices in her head kept arguing.
“Just be quiet about my fear of heights!” yelled Katrina when she was nearly down at the bottom of the flying fox.
As she got to the bottom she dropped in the cow poo. She started to cry because she was happy that she went down despite the fear in her face and the cow poo.
Just as Katrina is starting to feel excited her friend Kaylah makes her feel bad again.
“Don’t say a word about being the top princess at school because now we know that you are afraid of heights.”
So when Katrina got home from school camp she had a lot of tears in her face again.
Her mum said she could go to a different school but Katrina is determined to prove to her friends that she’s no longer afraid.