Prize-winning short story
Claudia Kaplan, a Year 8 student at Sydney’s Moriah College, was the Overall Winner of the Sydney Writers’ Festival’s Writenow! Competition.
She won the award for her short story “Give It TIme”.
Read it on J-Wire…
Give it Time
By Claudia Kaplan
Part I
Joel
24th August 2006
It had been 260 days since the world ended in the Flash.
Claudia Kaplan
Even now, no one knew exactly what the flash was, or why it had turned all electronic devices into slush. And no one knew why most of the adults who’d seen it either had died… or become something else. Petey said it was some kind of attack by aliens from outer space, but I wasn’t so sure about that. Petey thought everything was to do with aliens from outer space.
Someone sounded the alarm, a screeching blast of a trumpet that echoed through the underground bunker that was home for me and about a hundred other kids.
Kira couldn’t actually play the trumpet, but she was excellent at making a noise. I rolled off my bed, grabbing for the crossbow that I always kept beside me and running for the trapdoor that lead outside. Probably just a false alarm. We’d already had three this week.
But when I scrambled through the trapdoor and into the open air, I saw it – the tell‐tale cloud in the distance, caused by thousands of clawed feet kicking up the dirt as they ran.
The Screamers were coming.
They—
“Joel, dinner time. Come downstairs please.”
“Ok. Coming.”
It always annoys me when she disturbs me in the middle of writing my book. The first novel I have ever attempted. At this rate, it will never be finished. My Goodness she irritates me!
“Joel!”
“Coming…”
“Now!”
I make my way down the cold marble stairs, to the modern dining room that my mother designed. It is quite bland. Mother is sitting at the sleek glass table with the wooden legs and chairs. My dinner plate is sitting on a black circular placemat, and seems much too big for the miniscule amount of food on it. I know my mother likes modern things, but this is going too far.
“Mother… where is my food?”
“In front of you. Eat up, Peter.”
Peter is my nine year old brother. I call him Petey. We are three years apart, so we are very close. He has light hair, pale skin, and green eyes, just like me. He is also very thin, possibly too thin for a boy of his age. These miniscule portions need to stop.
“Mother, this isn’t dinner. It’s a snack!”
“Joel, stop complaining! Eat your food. Peter is eating it without any complaints, look!”
“Mother! He is becoming anorexic! Are you blind?” I run back upstairs and slam my door. This is not an unnatural occurrence, though. I often don’t get along well with my ignorant mother who can’t see what is going on right in front of her eyes.
30th August 2006
They came in the middle of the night. I was tired, but I am quite certain that they were the ugliest things I had ever laid eyes on. Each Screamer was less than four feet, and all were bald. They had circular heads, with bulbous red eyes and prominent veins all over their four arms and three legs. They had shark teeth, each evenly spaced out along their purple‐black gums so that when they smiled, and onecould see only five.
Most were focused on those running towards us at the front, but I had my eye on a small one trying to keep up. It was running alongside a taller one, with a blank face and hard, cold eyes, not much different from the others in the group.
The small one was obviously struggling, but the tall one blatantly ignored it’s tired gasps and loud cries.
It’s really hard living with my mother, because we haven’t had a good relationship in a really long time. We used to be like your average family, a mother, father, and two children, who seemed to always be smiling. This all changed when my father left us alone, and I haven’t heard from him in such a long time. He used to be so kind, waking me up in the mornings. “Hi Joel,” he
would say, “Rise and shine! The world is waiting for you! Come live another day!” And then I would look into his kind green eyes, a split image of my own, and I would feel like the happiest little boy in the world.
That’s why I couldn’t understand why he left us.
Only now am I beginning to think that it wasn’t my father at all. It was my mother. The one person who the evil characters in my novel are based on.
14th September 2006
We are running at each other at this point. Charging, like animals. Rhinoceroses. I try to run, I try to fight, but all the time I am thinking about that poor little screamer, who has no one to turn to, and probably never will.
I haven’t written in a while. I have had many school projects to finish. School is getting harder now, too. I don’t know if this is because I am becoming older, or that I am not happy with my life at home.
It is probably both.
Mother doesn’t pay any attention to us. We are left alone most nights, sometimes after midnight, and I have to put Petey to bed.
Whenever she tries to talk to me, which is extremely rare, I am on my computer, or at least pretending, so that I don’t need to listen.
I have had myself thinking about my novel. What if I were to include a blurb? Or acknowledgements? What would I write? This novel is based on my broken family, which matches my broken heart?
My mother inspired the characters in this novel? It doesn’t sound right.
Part II
Mother
I am always so tired now. My sons never speak to me. I have no one. Joel is angry all the time. Peter acts as if I am a stranger.
They don’t love me.
I wish I were a better Mother to them.
Maybe I will be.
In fact, why don’t I start today?
I walk up the marble staircase, and down the long hallway to where Peter’s room is situated. I am going to make his bed. The room doesn’t look messy at all. After all, there are no toys or books in it to make it messy. Only a few posters with planets and stars on them. I remember when Peter’s father bought him those.
I leave the room and walk down the hall. Joel’s room is next.
Wow. Empty is the only word I can use to describe what I see. Nothing. No pictures, posters, books, toys… Only a small bed and a desk with a chair. There is one thing that catches my eye. Something black, peeking out from under the bed.
My curiosity consumes me as I eagerly open up the cover.
It is a story.
“The Screamers are coming.”
“They are the ugliest things I have ever seen.”
“The poor little screamer, who has no one to turn to, and probably never will.”
I am shocked. Could this be what I think it’s about? Me? Am I so ignorant as to not even be able to see what is going on in my own home?
I didn’t know I was that bad of a Mother.
Things need to change. I have all of the proof I need.
All I need now is time.
