Congratulations to Evie, whose short story has been highly commended in the ISEB's 'Time to Write' competition. To celebrate 120 years of the ISEB, pupils were asked to write a short story in which a character discovered a time machine that could take them 120 years in the past or 120 years in the future.
The competition received thousands of entries from 13 different countries. Evie's story 'Lost' placed in the top 10 of the Years 5 & 6 age category. The judging panel was made up of representatives from Eton College, St Catherine’s Bramley, St Swithun’s, the University of Winchester and Oxford University Press, as well as a children’s book author. Evie's success follows that of Naia, Primrose, Lottie and Emily, who made it to the second round of the BBC 500 Words competition earlier this year.
You can read Evie’s story here…
Lost
Liv Stone threw an aged cardboard box onto the already leaning tower of clutter. It landed with a thump which caused a vase to come toppling over, bringing the tower with it.
Boxes thumped and crashed and a cloud of dust exploded into the garage.
A couple of dogeared photographs fell down to her feet. She picked them up and examined them carefully. In one of the photographs there was a family standing huddled together in front of a gloomy cave. In the shadowy depths of the cave stood a glossy machine. A time machine! And the cave looked familiar too, it was the one on Bleakstone Cliff. Written in tight handwriting 17th May 1904. The other photograph was almost identical to the first but instead the handwriting read 11 April 1904. In the first there was a little girl with her hair in pigtails clinging onto her mothers hand tightly. Strangely, the little girl was not in the second picture though the mother and father stood a small distance apart as if the girl was there standing between them gripping their hands like she did the first.
What had happened to the girl in the photo?
Who was that family and why did she have their pictures in her garage?
‘Do you know the family on Bleakstone cliff?’
‘What?’
Liv showed her Mum the photos, who took them from her and fingered the corners gently. She sighed and sat down on the edge of the kitchen island. Mum took a deep breath and spoke in a soft voice.
120 years ago, when my grandmother was only a young girl herself, her sister disappeared. Nobody knew where she went. After that day no one in the family was ever the same. Her family owned a business allowing people to communicate with their deceased loved ones. It was the morning of her 10th birthday. She went for a morning walk by the cave and never returned. She must have been lost in the fog.’
Liv had to find out what happened to the girl.
Liv wheeled her bike round to rest against the eroded edges of the cave. The cave where the little girl supposedly went missing. She held the photographs up next to the cave, shielding her face from the sun. It was a perfect match. Liv squinted into the darkness as to adjust her eyes to the blackness. She could see a strange glint sparkling like a diamond tiara. The time machine!
Liv tiptoed cautiously into the dark. The only sound she could hear was the drip of the water from the stalactites. It was the kind of dark that makes you long for a flashlight and blanket.
There was the glint again. The machine was spluttering. Liv was sure it wasn’t meant to do that, maybe it was broken. On the glossy door was a dial that read 120 in the past and 120 into the future. She pushed the dial so it read to the past.
And as if by magnetic force Liv was being pulled unwillingly toward the open door. She struggled but it was no use.
It was like being on a roller coaster with so many loop-the-loops you lost count. Liv’s organs all leaped around twisting and turning. Each strand of hair wanting to go a different way.
Silence. But like no silence before. Her eyes blurred back into vision, white as far as the eye could see. Liv panicked. She broke down as the realisation dawned on her. She was never going to find out what happened to the girl. She was never going to see her family again. She was lost.
‘There's no way out’ said a cold ghostly voice. ‘I’ve tried.’
Liv recognised her at once. ‘You’re the girl from the photo.’
‘I am.’
The girl did not seem fazed or upset by being lost. She must have been gone for so long she had lost all hope. ‘The time machine is broken. My family used it to talk to people's loved ones in the past. One day it got overworked and broke down. It took me with it. We are lost in time. You and me are the same. We are lost.’
