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Winston Burge - Aged 9 - Runner Up!

The very first sentence of this story made us want to read on. The first two paragraphs pull you in like some type of… sinking hole, but THEN Jimmy the Scientist from South Africa makes an appearance. The character of Jimmy was described so well that I had a clear picture of him in my head. This tale had a lovely humorous style and the ideas for blocking the sinkhole made us chortle. The moment about using people to plug the sinkhole had us howling with laughter! All the little extra details in this story really kept our attention and made us laugh... we want a jet covered in embroidered peach motorbikes! You also used so many great descriptive techniques, and this really paid off. Well done!

The Sink Hole

It was a stormy night, and the wind was blowing when the sinkhole appeared. It began at midnight in the middle of the lake. The water was disappearing very rapidly, like waves of sewage down a pipe.

It was 9am when the village realised the hole in the lake was swallowing the water like a whirlwind. They were shocked, terrified and worried. They were scared that they might lose their jobs as fisherman, their food (fish), and their water.

Everyone was screaming, with their eyes expanding, until Raffy and Gruff shouted out, “hey guys, we need to go get Jimmy the Scientist from South Africa. Hopefully he’ll help put this right!”

Jimmy left his massive mansion in the city that he owned to go next door. Next door was where he kept his private jet on his private giant runway. His jet was golden, and the interior was bright white with a pattern of embroidered peach motorbikes all over it.

 

It took Jimmy thirteen hours to get to the small village next to the lake. He was relieved to land as he was treating this like a holiday. Once he had solved the problem, he planned on staying for a week! He started by solving the problem by taking his wife to a very fancy restaurant for a late dinner to eat some very fancy food.

 

The next morning, Jimmy started trying to solve the problem for real. He experimented with a lot of things: he tried to fill it up with raincoats, because they’re waterproof; he tried throwing people down there (this didn’t work, and they did die, and we’re not supposed to talk about that); he tried throwing in trampolines in the hope that everything would bounce back out. Nothing worked.

Finally, he came up with the idea of cutting down some trees. He laid them around it in a circle and built a dam before creating a platform across the top. This finally stopped the water. It worked like a plug in the bathtub.

When he finally fixed it, everyone was happy. People celebrated by throwing a huge party with everyone from town. People called out cheers, music was playing, the smell of BBQ floated through the air. Jimmy the Scientist settled down to enjoy the rest of his holiday and took his wife for a second fancy meal.

The platform became a sunbathing spot in the middle of the lake. Although sometimes, if the lake overflowed from too much rain, they would lift a couple of logs up to drain a little out and keep the sinkhole happy. 

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