Editor's Note: William lives in Australia, so you will
notice some words in his story that are different than what people say
in the United States or elsewhere. For example, do you know what
"brekkie" is? It's what Australians call "breakfast!"
Here's what William has to say about his story, and what
life is like in Australia:
"I'm an eleven year old now, actually, I was since August, but I
wrote the story when I was ten. After the accident I was very
:-(.
My town is Lightning Ridge, a real outback town where there is tons
of Kangaroos, and we've got a pet Galah that's name is John Murray.
John Murray is an artist who draws scenes of bush places. Lightning
Ridge is known for the opals that are mined there."
Here's William's story:
The Hill -
Based on a true story
“Hey guys look, another cow!”
My family and I were just reaching the outskirts
of Mudgee. Mum was trying to cheer us all up by spotting road side
animals.
“Gosh, a horse!”
I groaned silently. The trip to Iona
Cottage was a long way from Lightning Ridge, about several hours, I estimated.
Tuffy, our dog, jumped up and licked my face thoroughly.
The only thing good about this whole thing
was McDonalds. The tastiness of the cheese burger. Just imagining
it made me hungry.
And James. He was courageous and a good
mate to play with. Every year our family and his would camp out in
the Warrumbungles, but this year, we were sleeping in a house. It
was worse than the pits.
I looked out towards the black night sky and
amidst Mum spotting emus and sheep, a shooting star whooshed past me.
I’m not superstitious or anything, but it meant good luck.
“Oh my goodness, a cow and a horse and...’
said Mum, getting more and more excited, ‘two magpies!”
Undoing my seat belt, I crept past my sleeping
brother and asked Mum to cool it for the kids in the back.
“Now Wi!!iam...” Dad started to give me a lecture.
His eyes turned to face me when
"MIAWOW-WOW-WOW! SQUISH!"
Just before I flew back into the kid’s seat,
I caught a glance at a deathly black cat, running towards the tires. It’s
yellow eye balls caught mine and the icy stare made me turn in fear.
“Bl--*#@%!!!” Dad yelled as the witches
cat’s guts flew onto the windscreen. Squinting through the glass, all Dad
could see was red, oozing cat blood. Maybe the family wasn’t going
to be that lucky.
Hugs and kisses were given out as Scott and
Sally, our friends from Newcastle, greeted our messy car. Actually
the car wasn’t too bad because dad had driven it through a car wash.
The car after ours got soaked with red water. I don’t think the owner
will be coming back to this car wash.
At first, James and I didn’t play. Then,
gathering up my courage, Christopher, James and I went exploring.
Iona Cottage was pretty cool. When you
walked in the door, to your immediate right was a couch with a TV sitting
in the corner. Past the TV was a small, but snug, kitchen.
It included an oven, microwave, sink, cups and cutlery. To your right was
a small electric heater (Tuffy immediately made this his sleeping spot,)
that leant against yet another couch. In the middle of the lounge
room was a table. Near the second couch was a corridor.
The first door was a stinky toilet, the
second, Mum and Dad’s bedroom and the third was James’s mum and dad’s bedroom.
It was too dark to see outside but Mum said it was huge.
Sally called us for dinner. After a spicy
meal of ‘chilli con carne’ I drank two litres of lemonade. There
is nothing to quench red hot beans better than lemonade. We mucked
around in the bedrooms for a bit and then turned the couch into a bed to
fit Christopher and James in. I slept in the spare bed. I had
a pretty big feeling I was going to be sleeping in Mum’s bed the following
night.
Daylight splashed onto my face, making it so itchy I had to scratch.
Yawning loudly I peered at James. He was still asleep. Stretching
my arm’s bone-crackingly, I woke up James.
“Pssssssssttt. James. D’ya wanna
go out en climb da hill?” I asked him. He swore then punched me lightly
on the arm.
“D’ya havta wake me up so early?” James asked,
still half asleep.
Dragging him out of the comfort of the bed,
I put him near his clothes.
“Put these on and I’ll go tell the mums and
dads we’re going,” I
ordered.
Halfway through getting our clothes, on Christopher
woke up. Irritated by the delay, I told him to get dressed. When
we were ready, Christopher carried Tuffy with us.
Outside was beautiful. A dozen trees
grew high, spreading shade all over the grassy slopes. A wattely
smell from the wattle trees drifted to our noses, making James cough and
splutter because he had hay fever. Thank the gods Mum told us to
wear warm jumpers; you never know with Mudgee.
We marched across the dewy grass and into desolation.
Prickly burrs covered the ground which stuck onto you if you touched them.
Surrounding the entire grounds was a barbed wire fence. Past the
fence were the prickles that lead up to a hill. Our mission was to
get to the top of the hill before brekkie.
A wooden post joined the fence together and
we had to climb over it, unless you wanted to get scratched to death.
James and I had succeeded in that obstacle. Now it was Christopher’s
turn.
Passing Tuffy over the fence, Chris started
to climb over. But he didn’t want to go over there. So Chris
walked til a fatter post appeared and climbed over that. Problem
was, Tuffy leapt out of my hands and ran for Christopher. The dog
bounded up to Chris, knocked him into the burrs then ran off after some
sheep.
James and I didn’t give Christopher a second
glance. I called out to tell him that he’d had better catch Tuffy,
and off Chris went.
Small shrubs and hot rocks covered the hill.
We could have stayed in Lightning Ridge and it would have been twice as
prickly. ‘Cept for the hill. I headed up the rocky slope and
James followed without hesitation.
Twenty minutes later, Sally came out of the
house to tell us it was time for brekkie. James replied back to her
that we’d gotta make it to the top, it was our destiny.
"Destiny smestiny," I thought. We weren’t
going to make it, even though we were a
few metres til the top. There was a huge forest of prickles ahead
of us. We could see a red and black spot running after a white and
brown spot that was running after lots of little white dots from the hill.
“What a dumb bloke that guy is.” I laughed.
James told me it was Chris. I laughed harder. Suddenly my stomach
started a-rumbling. So did James’. Slowly, we started walking
back down the hill. If you ran down the hill, you wouldn’t stop running
til the bottom. As we headed back down, there was horse poo that
had frozen through the night. James and I cacked ourselves laughing.
By the time we reached Iona Cottage,
all the parents were eating brekkie. Fruit salad with yoghurt
smeared on top. Yucko. I headed straight to the Coco Pops.
After a bacterial infested meal, mum asked
us, ‘Where is Christopher?’ That’s when we really got worried.
“Tuffy, Tuffy, where are you Tuffy? Come
here boy!” were the shouts and cries of James and I.
Mum growled to us hissingly, “There is also
your brother.”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks Mum!”
But all the calls came to no avail. James
asked if I wanted to play passes. Eagerly I said yes. Even
though it was about minus something, a good game takes your mind off everything.
Two hours later, Scott started up his groovy
little four-wheel drive to look for Christopher. A maze of fences
lay before us. Mum and Sally had to help undo them.
Before going to look for my missing brother,
James asked me this, “Do we have to find him?”
“Of course so. Think of the adventure.
Think of Tuffy, lonely and hungry.”
At last we were going up the steep descent.
A beaten road led the way up to the peak of the hill. Looking downwards,
the horizon showed us about another dozen hills. To find Christopher
down there would be like looking for a matching pair of socks in dad’s
wardrobe. Impossible. We tried anyway.
3 quarters of the way up there, a pile of mud
blocked our path. But Scott didn’t see it til the last minute and
we got bogged. The groovy little four-wheel drive pulled into throttle
and a lot of black mud flew out beneath the wheels. Groaning loudly,
the car backed out and went up to it again. It’s muddy Goodyear tyres
revved through until they were back on hard ground. The kids in the
back screamed out in triumph.
Driving a bit further, red rocks made a corridor
to the hills. Not wanting to wreck his new car, Scott pulled up.
“The rest of it is on foot. Peter, you
take the North West hill, I’ll take the Southern two and you boys take
that one over there,” Scott said as importantly as he could.
So me and James headed into the saddle of the
mountains with my dad, until we had to split up. James combed the
hill with a fine tooth comb, I used one that only had two strands in it.
(It was the only one I could find, honest.)
I met up with James at the peak of the hill and started walking down.
As I walked down, I got faster. And faster. And faster until
I was so fast even Superman couldn’t keep up with me.
Faintly James called out to me: “H-y Wi--i-m
-low d-w-n.” Or that’s what I thought l heard. At this point
I couldn’t even feel my legs. Being like I am (no, not full of sick
humour), I planned where I would run, or fall. I would run to the
base of the hill, then up against another hill like a marble in a semi-circle.
Alas, the plan failed dramatically. A
tree stump lay in my path. I could feel water pricking in my eyes
because of the speed. I......... Hooowoosh! (This would’ve
usually taken about three seconds to be over and done with.)
Hello, this is James Lucas narrating because
Wi!!iam is slightly damaged. Another few seconds and he’ll be all
right. Tick tock. Tick tock. Okay Wi!!iam is okay now
and ready for narrating. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....
“This is not happening. Just a dream.
Oh God.” I looked down at my bloodied hands. One eye could
only see because the other was drowning in blood. James was calling
out for help and that a piece of my head had fallen off. I swore.
I tried to roll over but a thousand stings dug into me.
Suddenly dad came running up to me. He
tore off his red shirt and wrapped it around my head. Struggling
to pick me up, the burrs stuck into me hard. Howling in pain, dad
finally lifted me up and started to run towards the car. Trying to
cheer me up, he sang me his version of Jack and Jill.
“James and Bill went up the hill
To look for their lost brother
Bill fell down and broke his crown
And there was hardly any water!”
I tried to laugh but it hurt. Dizzyingly,
I could see Mum and Sally climb the hill. Thankfully, dad reached
the car. Dad got Scott to open his First Aid Kit. Fortunately,
there were still some bandages left.
“Okay guys you can stop it now,” Mum said.
She was in the back and couldn’t see me. Dad lifted up my red arm
then continued wrapping.
“I think I know where that shirt came from,”
Scott said grumpily. He had spotted the ‘Newcastle’ letters that
were soaking up the red blood. Dad quickly shouted out orders.
“Wen, can you please go with Scott to the Hospital?
Me n’ Sally’ll keep looking for Christopher.” Giving Dad the thumbs
up, Scott started the engine. James was slowly walking down the hill
towards Iona Cottage.
Arriving safely at the cottage, Mum ran in
to get her handbag. While she was doing it, Christopher walked up
to the car and looked at me dopily.
“Get lost,” I managed to rasp. He was
in for it big time when I got out of hospital. A few moments later
mum came back and jumped in.
“Let’s go,” I croaked.
At the hospital, I had to hop in with me leaning
against mum. The receptionist took one look at me then called Dr.
Something. I hobbled into the sick bay. Throwing myself on
a white bed, a thousand stings drove into my poor body. Mum had to
pick all of the burs from my clothes before I was okay.
A nurse came up and put an ice pack on my head.
Unwrapping the bandages, she wrote down on a note pad that my head had
split.
“My foot, my foot.” I croaked softly.
The nurse pulled off my Nike shoe. It
looked as though an elephant had crept under my skin and down into my ankle
and then let off gas. (Get my drift? Not the elephant’s drift
though, too stinky.) My foot had bloated up enormously. Then
she said that the Doc wouldn’t be long. I went to sleep.
A couple of hours later, my body had been through
living hell. It had been frosted by the ice pack, been a giant needle
board and that the needles kept hitting my head and stitches drove into
my hair line. The Doc said he could actually see my brain flap.
I was even more amazed that he could see it (I wasn’t sure I had one).
My foot had been x-rayed three times, and after
the third one I knew I wasn’t going in the Cross Country. When the
nurse asked where we were staying, I mumbled,
“Iodine Cottage.”
When I was through with all the torture, the
nurse came over and handed me a bravery certificate. On it was a
picture of Ronald McDonald saying you’re allowed to get a free meal.
Outside I blew my top! I went through
all that just to get a bravery certificate. Oh well, I did get a
free McDonalds meal. I can’t wait to have lunch!
P.S. Christopher got punched with a walking
stick twice then I thought he had got what he had deserved.
P.P.S. I ended up with a twisted ankle, some
stitches in my head and some days off school!
Thank you for reading a story with a twist---of
the leg.
Wi!!iam Counsell
The End
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