KATA And The SWIRLY PATTERN

• Maddalena Linton, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2009

One day a little snail called Kata was out walking when she came
across a huge swirly pattern in the snow. So she decided to try and walk around the swirly pattern but there was a big blue jelly fish blocking the way around. Kata tried going the other way but she couldn’t, there was a big heavy lemonade bottle on its side in the snow and it was much too big for a little snail like her to crawl around. Suddenly Kata felt something soft and cold falling on her tail, it was snowing! This made Kata happy and exited. Do you know why? I will tell you then, well Kata had a clever idea, if she waited long enough the snow would cover the lemonade bottle and then she could easily glide over it and get to the other side. So she waited and waited and waited, finally the lemonade bottle was nearly covered by snow and it was time to go into the middle of the swirly pattern. When she got there it was very slippery and Kata was slipping and sliding around every where. Why is it so slippery? You may ask, well it’s because snails have special slime under their bodies. “Yippee!” She cried as she glided around the swirly pattern, she was having so much fun! All of a sudden an enormous crocodile with six babies on her back wandered across the swirly pattern. “Help me, help me!” cried the jellyfish and Kata quickly crawled past the mother crocodile before she noticed. Then of she went to help the jelly fish. When Kata arrived she saw that the jellyfish had gotten itself stuck in a honey jar. “How did you get in there?” she asked it “I was looking for a place to hide from the snow and I saw this jar so I crawled in and got stuck. Can you help me?” “Sure” she replied and set to work. How am I going to get that poor jellyfish out of the honey jar, she wondered. Kata thought for a while and suddenly it came to her, the perfect way to unstick the jellyfish. She crawled back over to the honey jar and said “I’ve got an idea I’m going to crawl in so don’t move till I tell you” said Kata and she wiggled into the honey jar. Once inside Kata began to slide around d the honey jar. She slid up, down, forward, backward, right way up and upside down. “This is even more fun than the swirly pattern” she cried but Kata wasn’t doing this for fun. Remember snails have special slime on them and slowly the Kata slid honeys on the edges of the jar were becoming less sticky. Finally after lots of slipping and sliding she called to the jellyfish “see if you can wiggle out” so the jellyfish began to wiggle and there was a loud POP as the jellyfish shot from the honey jar. “Thank you so much, you saved me” it said gratefully “anytime” replied Kata and she went happily on her way to the other side of the swirly pattern.