H I G H LY C O M M E N D E D
S H O RT S TO R I E S F R O M T H E G LO B A L C LA S S R O O M |
2014
CHANGES
J O S E P H K E AT I N G , Y E A R 6
B R I T I S H S C H O O L O F H O U S TO N
Joseph Keating actually makes you feel what it’s like to be a tadpole
growing into a frog, which is a great achievement!
The first thing I remember was trying to pull my way out of some sort of bitter-tasting, translucent jelly. I didn’t
know it then, but apparently I was a tadpole. It took me three long days of pain and anguish until I managed to rip
my prison walls down. I think it was instinct that made me clamp myself to a waterweed. It was a good feeling, no
responsibilities, and no reason to do anything. I stuck on to it for about a week, although after a couple of days I
got bored senseless by the simplicity of its flavour. A week after I escaped ‘jail’, I felt pain in my stomach. It was later
what I found out to be hunger. It was probably instinct again, and in this newly found ‘hunger’, I started ripping a
waterweed to pieces. Then I let it roll down the back of my throat. After a few minutes of doing so, I felt satisfied.
Then I decided to embark on a little adventure. It didn’t take long for me to find something a little strange: hundreds
of little identical versions of me! When I got closer I realised they were actually about the same size as me. All of the
waterweeds in the nearby vicinity were coated by clones of myself. The shoal was slowly drifting through a clearing
in the body of water. It was a little unnerving, so I carried on swimming to see what else there was. It was much
the same, algae everywhere, reeds invading the surface area, more clones of me and some other living organisms.
Talk about chaotic! The pond, which was what I came to know it as, was very wide, but even at its deepest point
it couldn’t quite clip two metres. Then it began to get dark. I just went to lie on a folded waterweed. It made a
reasonable bed.
The next day I felt hungry, so I went to satisfy myself with some helpings of waterweed. As I was doing so, I felt it
suddenly lurch downwards. I nearly went down with it. I looked down angrily at whatever had stolen my lunch.
It was rather strange. It had two claws, eight legs, a paddle for a tail and a long face with two elongated sticks
protruding from just over its eyes. It was also at least fifteen times longer than me and it had a nasty looking mouth
which I could probably fit in. I didn’t want test that theory. Rather than picking a fi