Winklatsch: Let’S Dive into the World of Stories!!!

By Debbiejo Miranda and Rhea Sajnani

There is a saying, Small minds discuss people. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas. Seriously though, why do we write? As one of the students rightly put it, it is an aesthetic experience. At the Reading Club, our members introduced themselves as writers. The discussions really got their interest to pursue writing stories. They have used written symbols to express all kinds of messages: to share stories, imagine the future; and express love, hatred, humour, or melancholy. We are very proud and confident to say that students are always excited and engage in brainstorming discussions with overflowing ideas. Reading Club updates have been a weekly treat for all club members and staff!

We, as a team, were so enthralled by the stories written by the students that we read it over and over again; each time the stories were as appealing and touching as it was when read for the first time!

These short stories were shared with classmates, and the group unveiled their amazing potential; experiences and interpretations have influenced other writers as well. Some of the stories were written as class work to reflect their learning and demonstrate their narrative writing skills.

Kudos to all the young and quick-witted writers!
Enough to prove that you are all versatile!
We cant really wait for another book to be published . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Feb 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482829785

Debbiejo Miranda

The author for this book is not one but many—as it is a compilation of short stories written by children of The Winchester School, Jebel Ali, from year four to year eleven. This book has been compiled by the English department of the Winchester school, Jebel Ali. Special mention for Ms. Dascel Fernandes and Ms. Persis Verghese in compilation of the same.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 Winchester School, Jebel Ali. All rights reserved.

ISBN

978-1-4828-2969-3 (sc)

978-1-4828-2978-5 (e)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

02/02/2015

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CONTENT

The Dream And The Disappearance: Amara’s Diary

Written By: Anah Busheri

Illustrated By: Rachel Fernandes

Space Adventure With Aliens

Written By: Tanushri Sreedharan

Illustrated By: Dwayne Fernandes

The Kingdom Of Shell-Less Turtles

Written And Illustrated By: Arjun Nehru

Laura’s Plan A

Written And Illustrated By: Khwaab Kapoor

Tangled In Time

Written By: Abdullah Shakil

Illustrated By: Dwayne Fernandes

Reading Club Story

Written By: Mahika Sahyaraj

Moon Flower

Written And Illustrated By: Jessica Liz Peter

A Story Of The End

Written By: Ronit Joshua Prabhu

Illustrated By: Rachel Fernandes

Fragmentary Minds

Written And Illustrated By: Kimberly Chansuyco

The Book I Wrote

Written By: Caryle Angela G. Limbasan

Illustrated By: Dwayne Fernandes

The Spirit Of The Burning Lamp

Written By: Maha Tariq

Illustrated by – Rachel Fernandes

Between Hello And Goodbye

Written By: Niranjana Ramakrishnan

Illustrated By: Devika Dahiya

Happily Ever After

Written And Illustrated By: Adonia Joseph

The Monster Within

Written By: Behshi Behrouzi

Illustrated By: Ysabel Usero

An Eye Opener

Written By: Aeverie Polintan

Illustrated By: Yasaman Andaroudi

Chicken Experience

Written By: Hamidreza Akbari Ebtekar

Illustrated By: Aditya Dahiya

Existence

Written By: Varun Menon

Illustrated By: Omar Labib

The Isolated Thinker

Written By: Bahar Ferdosi

Illustrated By: Zeanne Mendoza

The Scar

Another Life

The Awakening

Fragments

Written By: Mariam Nadeem

Illustrated By: Zeanne Mendoza

Anabelle Anarchy

Written By: Sidra Rahimy

Illustrated By: Zeanne Mendoza

The Silver Samurai

Written By: Zeanne Mendoza

Illustrated By: Ysabel Usero

The Dream and the Disappearance: Amara’s Diary

Written by: Anah Busheri

Illustrated by: Rachel Fernandes

My family

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I am 11 year old, Amara Wood. I live with my dad George Wood - handsome but super busy with work in his head, all the time. My grandfather Henry Wood - hardly moves sitting near the fire every day nor does he talk anymore, he’s got very few words to say now. My stepmother Lily Wood – my dad married her couple of years ago. She actually talks a lot, but is kind of mean to me. My cousin Sera Wood - she is my best and closest friend and also the only playmate I have. She tells me everything. My real mom Bethany Wood died 5 years ago – nobody talks about her much and I don’t know why!

My beautiful dream

Last night, I was dreaming and had a vision where my true mom visited me. Beautiful as I remembered her, she told me "DEAR AMARA COME AND FIND ME." Right after the dream I was awake and amazed, it gave me the feeling my mom was alive. And I kept thinking about what she said to me and decided that I should investigate her disappearance and death. I would find out more about her from my own family in the morning. With that thought I went back to bed.

Investigating

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Today I set off to find out all the information about my mom’s disappearance.

First, I asked my grandfather if he knew anything on the subject. He replied, Dear Amara, it is mostly said to be that your mom died in an accident. The car crashed into another, and blew up in flames. But your mom’s body was never found.

I knew that I would get a vague reply, but I had to ask. So I went up to my stepmother Lily‘s room and asked if she knew about my real mum and she answered meanly, I have no idea and do not discuss this with me again at all.

Next, it was Dad’s turn to get quizzed. For the first time in a long time, he actually sat me down and spoke to me. Maybe because he had loved Mum deeply and had expected me to come up to him someday to ask about her disappearance. Amara, my dear, we searched far and wide for your Mum. But there was no sign of her. After all these years, it still remains a mystery. We don’t know what happened to her, nobody knows and we have no reason to suspect anyone for her disappearance, he sighed to me.

I will find the suspect

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Like always, I discussed the matter with Sera. She said she thought something fishy was going on with Lily. The other day, while she going to college, she saw Lily speaking to a funky business man who looked like her friend. Sera went up close to hear what was going on. Luckily she was not spotted by Lily. ‘‘Those fools haven’t found her yet. Our secret hideaway was a great idea and they don’t doubt me or my motive!" laughed Lily. Apparently at that time, Sera didn’t make much of it but now she says that she thinks Lily knew all about mom’s accident.

Grandfather helps

We thought it was a good idea to bring this information to Grandfather Henry’s attention. He spoke a few words but they were worth a million. He said, Lily takes a basket out every morning, to the market. Sera and I looked at each other; we were both thinking the same thing. Tomorrow, we will follow her and see where she goes.

Playing detective

Today was important. Lily was going to get tracked down by two awesome detectives. She started off as usual, taking her basket and setting off. She didn’t even notice that I hadn’t left for school and Sera for college. We had noticed that the basket carried the faint whiff of marvellous toasted bread and cinnamon coffee. A few minutes later, we took off after her, making sure that she didn’t even get a glimpse of us.

Lily always maintains that she goes vegetable shopping every day, but the route she was taking certainly was not the one for it! We followed her till the start of what looked like a dark tunnel, which nobody knew existed. She had it camouflaged with an old painting that looked like a heap of leaves. Sera and I thought that it was time for us to leave and come back with the police, after she was gone.

The tunnel’s secret

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And we did just that! The police thought that we were very imaginative and there was no truth in what we said. However, they agreed to come when Sera said that she knew the editor of the local newspaper. Not wanting to wait, we set out with them to the site with torches. We heard sounds in the tunnel as we arrived. Lily was just leaving, so we hid. Beth, close the door, she commanded once she was outside and the camouflaged door snapped shut. I was stunned, but now we knew how to open the door!

The police got the door opened with the same commands in a jiffy. This was the moment. My heart was thumping like USANi Bolt’s feet on a race track. I couldn’t wait to see who and what was inside the tunnel. It turned out that the WHO??? was my wise, beloved and beautiful mum – Bethany Wood. I was shocked: it was actually her! After all these years of silence and life without a loving mother, I finally could have it all back. Mum and my tears flowed out uncontrollably upon our cheeks and we hugged and kissed each other for a long time. I noticed that Mum had lost a lot of weight and looked frail.

The WHAT? was the wealth of our family that was being stolen since Dad married Lily! She siphoned out the money that he was working so hard for and stashed it in the tunnel with Mum. We now had to tell Dad about this and convince him that she was behind it all. We also had to find out what was her motive.

The trap

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The police suggested that we set a trap for Lily and catch her red-handed. We did just that and had Mum stay another night in the tunnel – her last one for sure! The next day we caught up with Dad at his job at the bank and insisted that there was something he had to see.

We met up with the police at the tunnel and took positions hiding out of view, as before and waited for Lily to arrive. When she came and entered the tunnel, the police went in after her – just as we had planned. Dad followed them too and couldn’t believe his eyes! He was shaking with relief at finding Mum and with6 anger at Lily’s actions.

The motive

Lily had always wanted to be Dad’s wife, since college. He was her picture perfect man. But Dad had eyes only for Mum. And the fact that her family was poor and Dad had a fantastic pay at the bank was a bonus to the idea of getting Mum out of her way. She had bought herself a lot of jewellery since marrying Dad. And was stashing his cash for her future well-being!

All is well

Now all is well. It took some time for us to solve Lily. Unfortunately for her, she has been sent to jail, while our family reunites. Mum is doing well with her health on the road to recovery. Dad is back to being Dad, the same one that I had before Lily stepped on to the scene and into the Woods’ house.

The End

Space Adventure

With Aliens

Written by: Tanushri Sreedharan

Illustrated by: Dwayne Fernandes

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STRANGE VISITORS

Brian, Erica, Stella, and Andrew were playing in the garden with Steven and Jenna.

Suddenly, Erica tripped on some thing very hard. When she took her leg out, to her surprise, it was a big heart-shaped diamond. Then Jenna quickly took her magnifying glass to check it. She found out that it was kind of a new and luminous diamond. Just then Steven saw something coming towards them from the sky. At first he thought it was just a bird but on checking carefully he realized it was