Jimmy and the Trampoline Bug

One day Jimmy and Lucy were playing on Lucy's trampoline.

They were seeing who could bounce the highest.



Jimmy bounced so high, he hit his head on a branch of a tree.

Lucy said, "Are you all right Jimmy?"

"Yes," said Jimmy, "My head hurts though."

When Jimmy took his hand down from his head, his hand was covered in blood.

"Mum, mum. Jimmy has been hurt."

"Oh my goodness," said Lucy's mum, "We'd better call the ambulance."

It wasn't long before they heard the ambulance come driving down the street with its siren wailing.

The ambulance officers were just putting a bandage on Jimmy's head when they saw something orange and green with purple spots in the cut on his head. With forceps they pulled out an orange and green bug with purple spots on it.

"Wow. That bug looks serious. We'd better take him in a specimen jar to the hospital."


 "Lucy can you run next door and tell Jimmy's mum that he has to go to hospital?"

Lucy ran up to the door and knocked but no one came to the door. All she could hear was someone snoring. "Wake up Jimmy's mum. He has to go to hospital."

Lucy came and told the ambulance officers and they said, "You'd better come in the ambulance with Jimmy then."

When Jimmy was wheeled into the hospital, the doctor said, "My goodness Jimmy, your cut has healed already. How did that happen?"

Lucy said, "Maybe it was the orange and green bug with purple spots."

"You could be right," said the doctor, "We'd better do some research."

They put the bug in it's own insect home in the hospital so it could help heal other cuts on patients.

When Jimmy's mum arrived at the hospital she took both Jimmy and Lucy home.

The next day they moved the trampoline so that no one would hit their head on the tree when they were jumping high.

(This story was created by Daryll Bellingham with Prep C and Prep D at Belmont State School as part of the Book Week Literature Festival.)

Terracotta Magic

One day an iron ore ship was being loaded at a wharf in Western Australia.

A workman stood watching the red iron ore travel along a conveyor belt into the hold of the ship.

He saw something glinting like gold and said, "Stop the conveyor belt. A gold ring just fell into the ship!"

But the foreman said, "No! There are too many ships to load. They are waiting for iron in China."

The ship was filled and set sail for China. No knew that the gold ring was an ancient magic ring and when the ship got to China and was being unloaded the ring grew wings and flew away across seas and rivers.

 

 

 

It flew across a wide plain and across Shaanxi provence where it flew around the terracotta soldiers being dug out of the sand. There were terracotta warriors, terracotta horses and a terracotta general who stood with one hand extended.

The ring flew down and landed on the finger of the terracotta general.

"At last," said the general, "We have been waiting for thousands of years to come to life and fight for the emperor. Army of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang, come to life and march across the land!"

The whole terracotta army marched out of the pits and across the plain with spears and swords. Soldiers on terracotta horses rode with their terracotta bows and arrows.

People ran for their lives as the terracotta army followed the general with the magic gold ring.

 

But the general made a mistake. He marched into a wide valley just as a wild storm broke and as the rain fell and the valley filled with water the terracotta army got soggy and melted in the waters. The ring fell off the soggy generals finger and floated and swam down the river.

Eventually it was swallowed by a fish that swam all the way across the ocean to Australia.

So be careful, if you are ever fishing and find a gold ring in a fish's mouth.

Don't ever put it on your finger. It is a magic ring.

(Created by Daryll Bellingham and years 4B and 4C
as part of the Belmont State School Book Week Literature Festival.)

Vampire Snail for PM

Evening was slowly descending around the French snail farm.

The sprinklers had turned off and most of the snails had stopped eating lettuce and had pulled up inside their shells to go to sleep.

The farmer had gone inside for a well earned rest and to watch TV.

The guard dog had settled down outside his kennel.

All that could be heard was a distant owl.'Tawoot Tawooh, Tawoot Tawooh.'

One snail had not gone to sleep however. It was hungry and it crawled over the edge of the tray, down the leg of the bench and onto the concrete.

As it slid slimely towards the sleeping guard dog, it left a shiny red trail behind it.

The snail was a vampire snail looking for its next meal of blood.

It slithered up to the dog and carefully sank its fangs into the dogs neck.

The snail was not careful enough supping on dog blood however. The dog barked and howled until its owner came outside with his torch and looked all around. All he found was a snail crawling back towards the snail farm. He picked it up and placed in the cage ready for the next day's consignment of snails to restaurants all over France.

 

Now it just so happened that in Paris that day there was an important meeting of heads of state from all around the world. At lunch they went to a famous French restaurant beside the Eifel Tower.

 

The Honorable Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia, was absent mindedly eating snails fried snails from her plate. She didn't notice the snail that left a red trail behind it slide across the plate towards her hand.

 

She popped it into her mouth and ate the vampire snail. It wasn't long after that that she grew pale, swayed in her seat and fell to the floor. An ambulance was called and, with a police escort, she was hurried to hospital.

She wasn't long in hospital. Everything seemed fine with her state of health and she was released the next day. Her private secretary was briefed by the doctor. They assumed it was her busy pace of life or something she had eaten but they had taken blood samples just in case.

"Look after her well," said the doctor, "We don't want any unpleasant surprises."

Julia Gillard flew back to Australia the next day and was met by the media at the airport but she would not talk about her hospital visit. "I am extremely well. Tomorrow night I will be debating with the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbot,  about climate change on Q&A. I'm looking forward to it."

When Julia Gillard arrived at the television studios, Tony Abbot was already in makeup.

Her Press Secretary said, "Are you alright? You're looking a little pale."

The Prime Minister said, "I'm feeling a little hungry. I wish I had had something more to eat before I came."

The production manager came in and said, "Five minutes to start please." There wasn't any time for her to get anything to eat.

Tony Abbot was the first of course. He bounded into the studio and sat down but as Julia Gillard followed him in she seemed to be looking at Tony Abbot quite strangely.

It wasn't long before the Q&A music was playing and the compere of Q&A was introducing, "Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia and Tony Abbot, the Leader of the opposition,"

And as the television camera panned over Julia Gillard the light seemed to gleam off her front teeth.

The first question asked by the Q&A presenter was, "Prime Minister Julia Gillard can you tell our studio audience why your government has cut funding to community organisations services such as the Red Cross and blood banks across Australia?"

At the mention of blood Julia Gillard turned pale, stood up, swayed and fell towards Tony Abbot. Tony Abbot attempted to stop her from falling. He grabbed and held her up and in the confusion of cameras pointing everywhere and people in the audience screaming, nobody really saw that Julia Gillard had sunk her fangs into Tony Abbots neck and had taken a sip of blood.

By the time the confusion had ended she was back sitting in her seat and saying, "Now what was that question? I'm sorry. I missed out on tea tonight."

But do you know what? Tony Abbot was scratching his neck and when he lifted up his hand he saw blood on it. He was looking at the Prime Minister strangely. He looked again at the blood on his hand. He turned pale and fainted falling to the floor with a bang.

The Q&A presenter said, "We regret this interruption to our program but we will just switch to a prerecorded interview with the Leader of the Greens, Bob Brown. We will be returning to our debate between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition very soon."

The TV screen switched to an old interview. Tony Abbot was taken in an ambulance to the hospital and kept overnight. He released the next day but his Private Secretary was told by the doctors, "We think  he is OK but we are a little concerned. When we analysed his blood there was something strange in it. Just be careful."

That night, the Prime Ministers Office got a phone call from Paris, France. It was a haematologist from the hospital where she was treated after eating snails in the restaurant beside the Eiffel Tower.

The Prime Minister's Secretary was told, "We have analysed what was in her blood and we've tracked it down to a snail farm where all the snails have turned into vampire snails."

"A dog that was on that farm was found at the foot of a tree that was a roosting tree for bats. We suggest you take emergency precautions."

 

The next night on the ABC there was an announcement. "We are just crossing to a news flash. Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have been taken away by ambulance to a secure hospital." 

When reporters tried to interview either Julia Gillard or Tony Abbot they were told that interviews were no longer possible. Later that night a camera crew waiting on the lawn outside the hospital saw two strange forms flying away from the hospital. One of the bats had large ears and the other had red hair.

 

(This story was created by Daryll Bellingham and years 6/7 and 7 at Belmont State School as part of the Book Week Literature Festival.)

David and the Lollipop Snake

Once upon a time some students were walking along a bike path on their way to Belmont School.


They heard a kookaburra calling from a gum tree and stopped to look.


'Hello Kookaburra!'


'Kook, kook, kook, kook, kook, kook, kook, ka, ka, kaaaaaaaaaa.'








"Watch out. Here comes David on his scooter!"


"Get out of the way slow coaches!"


"Look at the kookaburras in the gum tree!"


" I don't care about silly old kookaburras!"


David was just about to scoot off when they heard, 'Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss'.



 A snake slithered out of the grass and across the bike path.


"Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, a snake," yelled David.


"It's all right. It's probably looking for breakfast. Mum said to stay still and the snake will leave us alone."

 The snake slithered into the grass and came back with a frog in its mouth.


As the children watched the snake swallowed the snake and kept on slithering into the grass.

"Cool!"


"Gross!"


"Let's tell the lollipop lady at the school crossing."


When they told the lollipop lady she screamed and dropped her lollipop sign.


Mary picked it up for her and the children walked into Belmont School prep.

(Created by Daryll Bellingham and the students of Prep A and B
at Belmont State School as part of the
Book Week Belmont Literature Festival, August 2011)

Belmont Literature Festival - One World Many Stories

Wow, the Belmont Literature Festival is upon us again. Lots of stories to tell. Many stories to create and publish in our world of Book Week stories. The Children's Book Council did a good job of theme and images this year. Gregory Rogers designed their poster art below.

I wonder what will be the first story from the Festival to find its way to Austoryplace?

Fried Chicken Robber

Belmont State School is on the corner of Old Cleveland Road and Scrub Road and after school the Lollipop Ladies and Men have a busy time of it helping children to safely cross the roads on their way home.



One afternoon a group of children were waiting for the lollipop lady to blow her whistle to let them know it was safe to cross Old Cleveland Road. The kids didn't mind waiting for a while because something always happened at that intersection.

Some times they might see an ambulance come speeding along Old Cleveland Road with its siren screaming and lights flashing. Some times there might even be a screech of tires and the bang of two cars colliding. This time however they heard three loud bangs and when they looked across the intersection they saw a strange guy come running out of the KFC shop with a gun in one hand and two buckets of KFC in the other.



"Watch out! Get down you kids!" yelled the lollipop lady but the children were too excited not to watch what happened.

The manager of the KFC ran out of the shop after the robber but when the robber fired another shot in the air, the manager looked terribly worried and ran back into the KFC.





"Bet he's going to ring the police," said one of the boys.

"They'll have to be fast he's jumping over that fence."

"Maybe we could catch him and then we could eat the KFC."

"Yey! Let's go!"

"Oh no you don't," said the lollipop lady, "You're coming right back to the school with me until the police have caught that robber."

"Oh!"

"No Oh's you lot. Come with me." The lollipop lady blew her whistle and used her lollipop stick to push the children back inside the school grounds and into the car park near the Administration building.

"Right, stay here while I tell the principal what's happening," she said.

As the lollipop lady hurried into the Admin Building the children started arguing about where the robber would hide and eat his KFC.

"I bet he'll run into the bush and climb a tree."

"Nah. How's he going to climb a tree when he's holding a gun and two buckets of KFC?"

"I bet he'll run home and turn on the TV and watch the cricket."

"Nah. He jumped over that fence and you know what's on the other side of that fence don't you?"

"The storm water drain. Hey, that storm water drain goes under the road and up under this school."

"He could be eating his KFC right under our feet, right now."

"Hey, we should tell the police."

Just then the lollipop lady and the school principal came out of the Admin Building and the principal said, "Quite please. Mrs Jolly has told me about the robbery and we've organised a special school bus to drive everyone who's still here at school right to their homes but, while we're waiting for it, you had better wait in the library. You can read a book or play a game until it gets here."

"Is some student snoring while I'm speaking? Who's being so rude?"

But no one put their hand up and slowly everyone realised that the snoring was coming from right under their feet.

"That will be the robber. He jumped over the fence into the storm water drain. I bet he ran up the pipe and stopped for a rest under the school."

"Right, I'll ring the police," said the principal pulling out his mobile phone.

The children watched as three of the police cars that had been over at the KFC put on their lights and sirens and came speeding through the intersection and turned into the school car park.



"Down hear. Shhhhh. You can hear him snoring."

"Have you got a crowbar or something to lift up that inspection hatch."

"I want to volunteers to run to the school gardeners shed and ask him to bring a crowbar."

As quick as a flash to of the older boy scurried off. It wasn't long before they came back with the school gardener and a crowbar.

The gardener drove the end of the bar under the metal hatch and the hatch came spinning off the hole.

Two police jumped down with their guns drawn. "Stay where you are you're under arrest for robbery of the Belmont KFC!"





They pulled the robber up through the hole and bundled him into the police car. The students watched as the police put his gun and the two buckets of KFC into plastic evidence bags.

"Hey could we have some KFC please?"

"No way kids. We'll need them for the court case."

The 'Fried Chicken Robber' story
was created by
Daryll Bellingham and
students from 1KE and 1GR
at Belmont State School
as part of the
2010 Belmont Literature Festival.

Fly like an eagle

It was just five o'clock and the children's father poked his head into their tent and said, "Wake up sleepy heads. Today we go on our bushwalk."

A kookaburra was calling from a nearbye gum tree and Sam said, "Why are kookaburra's so noisy in the outback?"

But his sister Lucy didn't reply. She was already out of her sleeping bag and changing out of her pyjamas.

When they crawled out of the tent their parents were already sitting on their camp chairs and a billy was on the fire. The lid was rattling as puffs of steam came hissing out.

The kids grabbed their bowls of muesli and asked where they were going on their bush walk.

"Right up to the top of that mountain kids," said their dad.

"Right up to the top?" said Sam.

"Yep. There's a cave up there and I was told there's a special painting in the cave."

"Heh look at that bird flying around up there. Wish we could fly. It would be a lot quicker."

"I think it's a wedge tailed eagle. Come on if we hurry up it might still be flying around near the top of the mountain when we get up there," said their dad.


"Make sure you wash your plates and put them away," said their mum. "Dingos might come around the camp while we're away."

"Cool," said Sam.

"You wouldn't like it if a dingo licked your plate," said Lucy and she pointed her tongue at her brother.

"You wouldn't like it if a dingo bit your tongue off, ha!" said Sam.

"Mum, Sam said a dingo was going to bite my tongue off."

"Well what were you doing with your tongue at the time miss?"

"Nothing mum."

"She was. She was pointing her tongue at me."

"Come on you kids. Let's get up that mountain. Have you got your water bottles?"

They zipped up the tents, tipped some water on the fire and set off on their walk with Sam and Lucy in the lead as they jumped from rock to rock along the dry creek bed and then up the track towards the top of the mountain.

As they walked past a clump of spinifex they heard a hissing sound but it was only a blue tailed lizard.

"The track goes past those Ghost Gums kids," said their Dad.

"Ghost Gums, oooooooh, ooooooooh. I can see a ghoooooooost!" said Sam.

"No you can't," said Lucy, "but I can see something on the ground."

When they got up to it Lucy bent over and picked up a baby bird.



"Wow. What sort of bird is that Dad?"

"Mmmmm. Not sure kids. Look at it's beak though, it's bent. It could be a baby eagle."

They looked up and sure enough half way up the cliff above them was a nest of sticks.

"Oh, poor little eagle. Fell out of the nest did you? How are we going to get you back up there?" said Lucy.

"I could throw it up there," said Sam.



He took the little eagle in his two hands and threw it upwards as hard as he could. The little eagle sailed up towards the nest but only got half way there and started falling back down again.

"Catch it," called Lucy.

Their mum caught it in her hat.

"Oh, I wish we could fly we could fly up to that nest," said Lucy.

She had hardly got the words out and a wind began to blow around the mountain side, stronger and stronger it blew.



"Hold on," called their dad but before anyone could grab anything a sudden gust of wind blew them up into the air up towards the nest, so close they could drop the baby eagle into the nest as they flew past.




Higher and higher they went until as the wind slowed down they landed right on top of the mountain, right outside a cave.

"Wow! That was fun!" said Sam. "Hey, look inside this cave."

On the cave wall was a painting of a large bird, an eagle, and as they stared at it, do you know what, the eagle in the painting winked at them.







"It knew. It knew we were trying to help the baby eagle," said Lucy.

"Come on you kids, we had better walk down this mountain," said their dad.

















It took them a bit longer than it did to fly up the mountain but, as they walked past the eagle's nest, the mother eagle was perched on the edge with a dead rat in its beak. They watched as the eagle tore off bits of dead rat and fed it to the little one.


"Oh that's gross."

"No that's cool."





"Come on let's get back to the tent, I'm hungry," said their mum.

That night they had a great story to tell their grand parents when they rang them on the satellite phone.

Created by Daryll Bellingham with Years PVP / PJE as part of the 2011 Belmont State School Literary Festival.

© 24th November, 2011.