Week 14: Shattered Pieces

By Lucy Tirahan

Week 14 was called 'Creativity Defined'. Unfortunately, this was the last session for this academic year. The starter activity was to write a piece based on the stimuli of pictures showing broken glass and the main activity was to complete a personal short story which I had given them a couple weeks to work on.
I decided to end with personal short stories so the students had the freedom to use all of their skills in a way which they were passionate about. I have enjoyed working with them so much and seeing them develop as writers.
Look out for our anthology hoping to be published in the summer which should include all the pieces they have written since September. They have all achieved so much and I hope they continue with their writing as it is a true testament to their creative personalities. Thank you for reading. 

With just one touch

Delicate are her petite hands
But do not underesti-
Mate, for the
Robustness within continues
To consolidate
 
Bad luck they all taunted
Witchcraft was what she dwelled in
Said their deceitful
Mouths
 
What kind of
Family? What species of
Friends? We all thought they were there
Right till the end
 
Trapped she is,
Restrained from their mocking
Glares in somewhere where
It is to be her end
 
Her reflection to be seen wherever she
Went
So solitary, desolated and confined
A prisoner who committed no
Crime
 
It was a secret within,
Not to be shared
That all glass she fixated at
 Would crack into shrines
 
The word still chant in her head
As she shrivels beside the glass walls all those year
Of tears
‘I’m so ugly
That when I look into a glass…
It cracks…’

Ayesha

The Glass Girl

I am fragile; you must handle me with care.
Even just a few nasty words can shatter me
And rough handling can cause me to end up in shards.
Cracks run down my body, symbols of my hard times.

Ria


Shattered Glass

I stood there unaware,
That my dreams,
Had disappeared,
All shattered,
So small,
You can’t repair,
The glass shattered
In pieces,
Like my dreams have ceased,
To exist,
I wanted no harm,
But harmed myself,
And was left in pieces,
Of unfixable glass,
My dreams gone at last.

Harsimran

Broken Glass

Such a pure substance clear and glistening no longer,
to think it could be beaten by all, even those who aren’t much stronger.
By one single blow it’s shattered like hopes and dreams,
the crashing of the shards are like a thousand screams.
Like glass my trust is broken because I have been tricked,
 And like broken glass my heart can never be fixed.
 
Manav

Activity 2: Personal Short Story

Frank Failsalot by Manav
 
This is the epic fail… I mean epic tale of Frank Failsalot. 

We shall start this story with his child hood. On his fifth birthday, Frank was taken to Bela Italia to have a scrumptious meal, instead of experiencing a wonderful time at the party, he was in fact able to burn his extremely tiny eyebrows off with the one minute candle flame. He also totally obliterated the cake with his completely bald infant head.

To top it all off while face down in the cake Frank overloaded his nappy again (yes he still wears a nappy because quite frankly his record breaking amount of accidents spoke for itself) and this one was so huge it caused an explosion; talk about explosive diarrhoea. His parents then had to pay for the massive amount of reconstruction, the guest’s fabulous outfits and most importantly extra strength, durable and nuke-proof nappies; because there is bound to be another boom boom.
 
That's not the worst one, on his first day of nursery, Frank went to Hounslow Heath Infants and during break time (the best time of the entire day if you ask me, no offence to the immensely interesting lessons), Frank miraculously managed to encase his own hand in thick brown clay; which was extremely annoying to remove, trust me.

He was even stupid enough to get himself wedged in between the short green walls of the alligator slide, on the far side of the playground, most kids decided to laugh and be horrid rather than be nice and call the teachers; but to be fair it was very funny. The fire department then had a long talk with Frank about his burger and doughnut intake; trust me, he needed it, (# failed diet). There were very few trips to Bob’s treat emporium after ‘the talk’, and it was worth it.
 
But however many times Frank Failsalot messed up, the biggest one seemed to have a happy ending, and he failed millions of times, allow me to show you. One blissful day Frank was at work at Sid’s Steaks and while trying to grill the tender slabs of meat he made the (slightly moist) steaks catch fire and burnt the building to the ground, (talk about well done steaks).

When he was running for dear life Frank slipped on a napkin and went flying into the shark tank, where the sharks almost had him for their dinner, but he was rescued in the nick of time by the Head chef.
In the heat of the moment Frank decided to help the courageous fire fighters by using the hose but he underestimated the power and went crashing into Melena Messup who tried to catch Frank but then messed up completely. Even though they both ended up in the hospital with severe injuries, they fell in love at first sight.

Later, they got married, went on to have a lovely family and lived happily ever after despite the daily messes & misshaps.
 
The End.

Insterella - A Twist in Time by Ayesha

Later in the future, there will be a beautiful teenager named Cinderella living in New York, Manhattan. Plaited in a French braid would be her silky blonde hair, complementing her fair, flawless and delicate complexions. Emeralds will be her enchanting eyes and heart-warming will be her classy pout. Humble, kind and well- spoken she will be but sometimes the happiest of people with the most abundance of etiquette don't always live a perfect, well-deserved life.
Her beloved mother will pass away with blood cancer when she will be a few months of age, leaving her father depressed and widowed. Despite being showered with fatherly love, Cinderella will always feel the missing presence of her mother.
Her father, who will be a very wealthy man, owner of Samsung, will yearn to fulfil the lack of a mother's love so he will go on a blind date with a lady called Desdemona and will fall instantly in love with her. Desdemona will not go on that date due to genuine love but due to selfish greed of wealth. She will continue to spike alcohol and love potion to any drink he drinks so he will unknowingly marry her into richness.
Utilising her second husband's wealth, Desdemona lavishes herself and her real daughters with vacations and sprees herself with SPA days, jewels and fashion lines, taking full custody of his debit and credit cards. Impatient with the burden of her second husband's grief and boredom she will decide on getting rid of him once and for all.

She will make as though she is going to take a selfie with him on the cliffs of Devon but cunningly will nudge him to a brutal death.

Cinderella will take care of the mansion and slave her ugly step sisters and stepmother who will treat her like junk mail. Her stepmother will oblige her to sleep in a storage room, in the worst designer nightgown colour ever: Yellow!
There is one life support system that will help Cinderella survive, the iPhone 7s+ that she will find in the drawer of unused, outdated phones and secretly own. Hating her 'old age' name she sets her username as 'Insterella' on all her social medias as her favourite social media will be Instagram where she posts pictures of her in her conventional waitress dress, which to her surprise her 5 million fans don't recognise as her low-standard status.

One day, a snapchat invite will be sent to all the ladies in Manhattan. 

‘Yo! Daniel Radcliffe the charming here. I invite you ladies to my nightclub tonight, I'm looking for a stunning fiancé, and guess what? I'm paying the hefty entry price of all you pretty ladies and handsome gents out there, so don't mind coming along!"

Cinderella will be ecstatic to receive this news, her true love would take her away from this prison she will believe. Instantly, she uses her iPhone 7s+ and will redeem her mum's forgotten Ted Baker dress when the dress will be delivered to the door the ugly stepsisters will snatch the dress and will shred the dress to bits, leaving Cinderella in disdain, unable to go.

They will crackle and jeer at Cinderella, tweeting vain, humiliating tweets, recklessly. Cinderella will be forced to adorn and doll up her stepsisters with her pristine, special jewellery and Urban Decay makeup. Despite doing this unwillingly, Cinderella's loving, humble nature will do it whole heartedly and she will work up her magic with their look.
Although Cinderella will have given her heart and soul into this her stepsisters will look twice as ugly and will be twice as ungrateful: It will be impossible to cover up their tainted, disagreeable complexions as what will be inside will be what matters and will shine on the outside and the only thing they will have inside of them is going to be filth. 

They, and their mother will leave for the nightclub, leaving Cinderella with a ‘to do list ‘of all the chores:

To Do List:   (For ignorant brats called Cinderella)
-Do Hilda's Fashion assignment
-Pay all our bills with your lame mother's lame but expensive Diamonds
-Photoshop Hagatha's photo on the beach to make her look less plump,  more tanned and beyond flattering and post it on all her social medias

A tear will well up in Cinderella’s eye. A rainfall of tears will cascade onto the ground. She will think to herself: ‘What is the fault of mine? Why do I have to suffer? I wish, just wholeheartedly wish for freedom, for a life of my own, for TRUE love.” 

Her phone will vibrate, continuously. Brrrrzzz. Brrrzzz. Brrrzzz. attending to her ‘unknown’ call, she will receive the most bewildering shock of her life, thus throws her phone into the air, accidentally. She will have had heard of them in stories. She will have sawn her stepsisters watch programs involving so. It will be inconceivable.

Projecting from her front camera will be a hovering phenomenon. A hologram will appear ahead of her and she will gape in awe.

“Wow. A hologram, can you speak?” 

“Bonjour, lady Insterella, how do jou do? I saw jour Insta and followed jou. So natural, so on fleek, oh so tress chic, will you ever let jour Beauty hacks leak? My French instincts tell me zat jou may be wondering, who on earth is this young mademoiselle and why is she bubbling. I am Godmother of beauty, Guru of Beauty, fashion and trend, I am the one and only, long gone Coco Chanel” The hologram of Coco flamboyantly will chant in a French accent, in an exquisite manner of fashion as she will prance around Hagatha’s room, ejecting from Cinderella’s camera...

“No Way!” Cinderella will exclaim.

“Oh yes way, my young chic. I am here to send jou to zhat nightclub of jours. Now, I'm not Ze fairy godmother but I do indeed have zome magic up my sleeves….”

 PUFF! After a few moments, Cinderella will be transformed into an exotic model trending Coco Chanel. Her eyelashes, as long as a giraffe, will flutter like butterflies as she will blink. The curtains of her eyes will be explosions of smoke. Her eyes will look fierce, enough to kill anyone who will dare stare her in the face. Her Barbie doll figure will be emphasised by the silver glittered party gown she will be wearing. Her newly, half brown, half blonde hair will remain open, crimped and impeccable.

“Now zhat is what I am talking about, my fierce chic. Once stare and he will be killed by your beauty. Now time for my signature perfume, looking fierce is enough, jou need to smell fierce, also.”
Puff! Puff! Puff! 

“Zhere you go dear. Stunning! Now remember one zing. Jou need to be back by midnight, otherwise jour glitter will fall off, makeup will fall off and jour crimps will fade.” 

“Ok, I will take heed of the time. Thank you ever so much!”

“My pleasure. Darling, jou must keep this perfume. Keep rejuvenating za ferocity in jour scent. Now jour Limo is outside. Go and woo zat Harry Potter gentleman.”

Cinderella will grab her phone and jolt for the limo.

                    ***
She will stare at him eye to eye. They will go into another universe. They walk towards each other, and see or hear no one else, only one another. True love is what they both will encounter.
They dance and talk all night long, taking selfies and updating statuses. 

Cinderella will take her phone out for one last selfie when she realises the time and frantically will say,

“Ok Dan. One last snapchat. Oh, My God! It's 11:54!”

Cinderella will sprint for the exit as if her life depends for it. She will jump in the limo which will drive her back to her house.

Whilst her limo will scoot out of the road Daniel Radcliffe will call for Cinderella. “But wait! I didn't get a chance to know your name or take your number! You left your perfume! Where are you going?”

He will instruct his secretary to go house to house in Manhattan and search for the girl who own the exclusive perfume. 

The next day…

“Mom! UURGH! Look, there is this MAN at the door asking if we own this exclusive perfume because the owner of it is that Daniel guy’s mysterious love!” Hagatha will scream from the door.
As Desdemona will heed for her daughters summon, she will see Cinderella gaping and urging to bolt for the door. Desdemona will clasp Cinderella’s arm, karate- chop her and will lock her in her room.

Cinderella will try to yank the door open and is petrified when her phone vibrates in her pocket and Siri will start blurting. “Hello, Insterlla. How may I help you?” An idea will pop in Cinderella’s mind. Why not ask Siri? “How do I open a locked door?”

Siri will reply robotically, “Pick the lock with a pin.”

Like a professional mission agent, she will pluck out a pin and will try to engage it with the door. Click! It will open and Cinderella will burst out and hasten to the front door where she will find her stepmother on the urge of lying. “Oh yes. This belongs to my beautiful, youngest daughter Hil...”
“Me!” Cinderella will interfere, regardless of any consequences.

Her stepmother grinds her teeth and widens her eyes at Cinderella. “You did not just do that young lady!” She will grit in disgust. The security guards will escort Cinderella and she will be released from this dungeon of slavery, whilst being given a death stare by all three of her enslavers. 
Readied by professional fashion artists hurriedly, she will run into the exquisite Royal banquet, yearning to grasp into the arms of Daniel. He will open up with open arms and kneel down on one knee with a ring held in his left arm. 

“Will you marry me, the lady whose name I never knew?”

“Cind... My name is Insterella” she will giggle politely, “and yes I will love to marry you.”

He will push the ruby red ring into her finger and kiss her hand gently, triggering millions of jeers of celebration, “well, Insterlla now that you are my fiancé, I have something to say… I…I...L”

“I Love you!” She will burst out and embrace him, experiencing true love for the first time.

He will blush and embrace her equally whispering the four magical words in her ear “I love you too.”

‘I have Nobody’ by Ria
 
Me and Rebecca had been friends since we were eight and were so close knit, it was like we were tied together at the waist but now, I feel as though somebody is slowly snipping away at the pieces of string that holds us together.

Suddenly, huge droplets of rain are falling down from the sky as if somebody is pouring buckets of water out of the sky. Deep crackling noises can be heard and thunder is flashing in the sky like strobe lights. ‘Oh no! We’d best get inside! Lola, get the project!’ Rebecca squealed.

Without a care in the world but my hair, I dashed inside forgetting the project outside and with it lays the chances of Rebecca forgiving me. I assume that Rebecca does not actually care about the project because, after five minutes, she has not even realised that it is still lying outside on the garden table.

An hour later and the sun has once again, risen. We pull on our tight, faded welly-boots from when we were in year five and giggle- Rebecca’s have ‘Dora the explorer’ on them.

Then, we fling open the back door and walk slowly up to the table; our boots sticking to the mud and squelching making sounds like ducks as we struggle to walk on. Rebecca is ankle deep in mud so I pull her up and we unexpectedly, both fall into a large muddy puddle and begin to cackle with laughter so loudly, that our neighbour Richard begins to stare through his curtains and frown. We then compose ourselves and pick up the monocle. Extremely wet, we leave it to dry in the sun while we plan our lines for the science fair. We run upstairs to play a game.

‘Lola, come get your monocle thingy-majigy.’ My mum shouts at the top of her voice.

‘I’ll get it later!’ I reply, although I am not at all bothered about what happens to it.

Rebecca soon decides to sleep over at my house and we end up spending nearly the whole night sniggering and prank calling food restaurants for things they don’t sell and we covered our mischievous acts with blankets whenever my mum walked in persuading us to go to sleep.

Soon, my eyes slowly begin to shut and all I can hear is mine and Rebecca’s heartbeats…

I wake up to find Rebecca gone-I know she must be at dance practice. Mum is gone too so I know that she dropped Rebecca at her dance practice class.

I am very eager to know how well our project works so I run downstairs, thudding as I go along, unlock the back door, grab the monocle and come back inside. I grip it tightly in my hands, ensuring that I don’t drop it for I know that Rebecca would be fuming.

So, I decide to hurry up with the deed and hold it to my eye, my cold bare legs shaking and the hairs on the back of my neck stand tall like proud soldiers. Within a split second, my heart stops beating. I take a minute to digest what I have just seen and scream. I sprint up the stairs and lock my room door taking the monocle with me. Luckily, my heart starts beating again but what I saw around thirty seconds ago is extremely hard to comprehend.

There were around twenty ghosts or supernatural beings floating around my house and piercing through the air. There were around twenty voices letting out blood curdling shrieks sending shivers down my spine. There were around twenty flickers of each lightbulb in the room and finally, twenty petrifying voices calling my name. I heard them telling me that they were my great, great, great, great grandparents, uncles, aunties and family friends from hundreds of years ago, asking me to join them.

What I have seen with my own two eyes today will scar them forever. My life has changed forever and will never be the same again…

A few days have now passed and I have taken the monocle to school today for our science fair and I see it as the perfect opportunity to tell Rebecca what happened with the monocle. As soon as I catch sight of her, I walk swiftly up to her and burst out: ‘Rebecca, you’ll never guess what I saw yesterday. I heldthemonocletomyeyeandsawaroundtwentyghostscallingmyname!’ 

I have been so tired and have had a lack of sleep because of the amount that I am thinking about what I saw. I haven’t even bothered to brush my hair and have beans dribbled down my blazer. Basically, I look like a zombie.

‘It’s happening!’ I shriek with laughter as I lift my hands up, palms facing the sky. ‘The world will be taken over by our ancestors, the ghosts!’

I hold the monocle to Rebecca’s eye and she also sees thousands of figures and ghost, of these are our teachers from when we were younger. She whacks the monocle out of my hand, her eyes open wide and her eyebrows raise to the top of her forehead.

‘Who on earth are you? ’She questions me.

My eyes swell up with tears and my nose turns pink, ‘Your best friend since we were three?’ I prompt

‘Get away from me you crazy girl I don’t know who you are and I never will!’ She screamed so loudly that all students come running out of their classes chanting ‘Fight, fight, fight, fight!’ Every human and sound blurs out and my eyes focus sharply on Rebecca and burst out in tears.

I give up trying with myself. All of this is MY fault. If I had picked up the monocle from my garden table, none of this would have happened. If I had listened, to my mum, none of this would have happened. And now, I’m sitting wanting to sink into hole and die.

Rebecca was all I had left after my mum and now, I HAVE NOBODY.

Chapter 1 - The Case By Harsimran

“I am so bored!” I sighed.

“We know you are you have been complaining about it for the last week!” said agitated Emily.
“Well if they gave us a bloody case that was worth our time,” I replied, “MAYBE I WOULDN’T COMPLAIN!”

“I know, just cases about missing cats.” Moaned Emily.

Suddenly! Amelia burst through the door, excited, drearily I asked her “What is it-”
Cutting me off, she exclaimed “A CASE!!”

“Is it worth our time?” I enquired.

“YES!” Amelia replied.

“Okay, I’ll read through it, you calm down and fix your appearance.” I told her.
“Let me help you with that Amelia.” said Emily, with a lightened mood.
“No.” I said to her.
“Why?” she asked.
“So I can help you make a pretty rainbow,” I answered in a sarcastic manner,
“Don’t take that sarcastic tone with me.” said Emily in response.

“Fine. Let’s read the case.” I replied to her comment.

Chapter 2 - The Murder

“So Mary died, she was shot to death,” I said, “the bullet unrecognisable.”
“Probably is,” replied Emily, “The police are often asking us to solve the simplest of cases.”
“I checked, silly girl, it says investigated by AMELIA” responded Amelia aggressively.
“Sorry” replied Emily meekly.

“Stop it girls,” I sighed, “So it is decided we are going to investigating the scene.”
We travelled to the victim’s house and by then the police and moved the corpse. DESPITE, my multiple warnings against it.
“Hello Thomas” said Sergeant John.

“What have you done?” I replied exasperated.
“Sorry” responded Sergeant John
“How many times…” I replied to the sergeant.
“My men did it before I came.” He said.

“I-
“Enough let’s get on with the case!” shouted Emily annoyed.
We went to search the body, she was shot in the head and had barely bled, a few days before her murder she had just gotten out of   coma. 
She had been divorced some time ago, roughly 3 months ago.

“Okay which room did she die in?” I enquired.

“Her bedroom.” Responded Sergeant John.

Chapter 3 - Clues
 
 In the room there was no finger prints except from those of the victim’s. There was a playing card, the joker. That jogged my memory. The joker’s gang, a thought to be unstoppable force snatching lives of the innocents.

“It is the joker gang leader” I whispered to Amelia.

“Okay, how do you know?” Enquired Amelia.

“No fingerprints, only a criminal mastermind can perfect that, the joker playing card with a crown drawn on top.” I responded to her question.

We rushed to the analysis room, it took us 5 minutes to get there, the 5 minutes making the difference whether we could catch them or not… Will they escape?

To be continued…

Footprints By Manav

I look upon my grandfather’s face in the picture and remember that horrible, tragic day. My grandfather’s funeral.

It all starts on a blissful day in year two, it was the last lesson of the day (we had R.E.) and I was just about to answer a question about Sikhism and their gurus, when I was called out of class to come down to the office, to be picked up by my dad. I was perplexed as to why I needed to leave because there was still another forty minutes of class? While I was packing my things I thought it must be extremely important as I know how much my parents hate it when I miss school.

 I get to the office and dad is there waiting. From the office I walk down the bumpy pathway to the car with my dad, to go and pick up mum, that’s when I get the horrible news from my mum ‘‘Manav, Shankar thatha (my dad’s dad) has passed away.’’ 

As soon as I heard the news me and dad started to tear up; dad even more so obviously.
Mum tried to console us all by herself, it was incredibly hard as it was a huge loss but eventually we calmed down because we had to be at the funeral so we zoomed home, packed our bags in the blink of an eye and bolted to the airport to get to India as fast as we could, so we could mourn properly and say our goodbyes.

We all go to Huxleys for lunch but none of us are able to eat, as we know that we will never be able to hear his stern commanding voice telling my dad off when he does something wrong, it’s funny how dad seems to act like a kid when being told off, I miss the good times.
On the plane mum tried to put a comedy-family movie on all of our screens to cheer us up, divert our thoughts and keep our spirits high, but none of us could set our minds on something other than the catastrophe back in India, not even mum. As soon as we got to my grandparent’s house all I could see was grieving faces and sad eyes filled with tears surrounding me.

I walk up the steep stone stairs to the first floor where my grandparents’ house is.
My parents are slowly walking up behind me. I feel the heat around me as its summertime here, sweat dripping down my neck and back soaking into my clothes. I reach up to the flat and stop at the open door, there in the middle of the room lying on the floor I see my lifeless grandfather surrounded by our family members mourning. I stop and stare for a few minutes until my aunty comes forward and gently nudges me to my cousin’s bedroom.

My sister & brother are sitting on their beds trying to shut out the horrible tragedy by playing on their devices but I can see the rivers of tears running down their cheeks. My brother let me sit next to him on his top bunk bed. We tried playing together but we could all hear the mourning outside.
Throughout the day the ceremonies and prayers continued.

They took Granddad away on a bed made of bamboo, he was wrapped up in white sheets covered in flowers. We stayed behind, later all the others returned, had showers. Lunch was served on palm leaves and we ate whatever we could manage. I was told by mum that granddad’s body was cremated and his ashes will be kept for some more prayers after which we will spread them into the sea.

That night I dreamt of my granddad, we were playing together, he was rocking me and my brother on his lap and laughing with us. I will always remember him as the strong tough man he was and hope I grow up to be just like him, strong, intelligent and a pillar for our family.

Mum wakes me up for an early breakfast, the priest came and we had to sit in the prayers. We all had the rest of the day in, my brother and I played with our Beyblade. That evening we went to the beach. We sat at the edge looking out at the sea all of us lost in our thoughts, around half an hour later we stood up and walked up to the water.

Dad and aunty walked ahead further into the water until it covered them to their waists, they opened the container with granddad’s ashes and poured them into the sea. When the last grain had fallen from the container we prayed for granddad to rest in peace and slowly we all walked out of the water, walking across the sand towards the vendors that stood along the side of the road. Aunty got us kids an icecream each to try and cheer us up.

I stood there looking back at our footprints in the sand thinking of him………