Short Story Competition: School Years 6 to 7 winner ‘The Walk Home’

By Maria Underwood

It is sunny now.

Spring breaks through the last threads of winter; the frost breaks through the afternoon light. It feels comfortable, but nothing like England. It's hot here. Hot in February! It's been this way since December. As I take in the seagulls that glide across the runway with unnecessary noise, I realise that this is one of the only days where there aren't any tourists clicking past me with their cameras glued to their faces.

It really is different here. Instead of the chirping of robins and magpies, there is an alarm that breaks through my dreams and pulls me out of the last trances of sleep that cling to my person. Instead of the soft sounds of traffic on distant roads, there is the electric drilling of the construction of the building in my estate that they still haven't finished.

Any slight reminder of my past transports me back to a simpler time -a time before I had

moved away from home, away from the familiarity of my childhood and the country I had been raised in.

I hear my boots leave soft thuds in my wake, making up for the footprints I fail to leave on the gravel of the runway.

Then I notice it, the distant sound of traffic, the distant sound that would wake me in my

grandparents' country house.

"Tea is ready," my grandmother would say, and as soon as me and my sister made it

downstairs my grandmother would offer us biscuits to dip in our own tea.

Toast, scrambled eggs, salmon, and potato cakes all sat, warm and ready for us to eat at the dining table as my grandfather and parents drank their coffee and helped clean up.

In the evening, after dinner, my grandfather would take us out to see the foxes as they poke their heads out of intricate burrows.

"You'll be like them one day," he'd tell me. "Protecting your family, keeping the most

important people close."

I'm broken out of my thoughts when my keys turn, clicking the door open. As I twist the

handle, pushing the door open, I'm greeted with the meows of my cat. He's new to my

house, I haven't had him long -not long enough to give him a proper name, anyway.

"Hello, there." I laugh, petting him once my shoes are off. It's odd how quickly humans can get attached to animals, but my cat seems to enjoy my company, as well.

I sit there on the floor, watching this cat nudge his face into my fingers that gently scratch atop his head. I feel content. I can't help thinking that, although this place is fearfully different from home, it's not all bad.

Judge’s Comments:

This young writer shows an impressive command of structure and language with effective use of metaphor and a pacey variety of sentences that engages the reader. The title raises questions as to what will happen, and the walk itself is not questioned; it is the internal thoughts and reactions to the sights and sounds on the walk home that trigger a series of recollections and comparisons in the speaker’s mind. The interleaving of the past and present is key and leads us along the path to resolution and acceptance.