This is a story of the Killer Easter Bunny. Its existence cannot be proven.
I was excited. Easter was coming, and so were lots of chocolates and lollies. It was the year 2003. In a week my family was going to the Easter show! I couldn’t wait. I counted down the days until we were off to the Easter Show.
The day arrived. I woke up early and ate my breakfast, coco-pops and full cream milk with a popper juice. When everyone had finished packing and was ready to go, we all hopped into our Subaru. The trip wasn’t too long. I fell asleep not long after we had left our home. I could’ve sworn that I saw a large rabbit bouncing alongside the road in the rear side mirror just before I fell asleep. I was probably dreaming.
When we arrived I got out my ticket. I raced to the entry gate and waited for the rest of my family. I moved though the metallic turning security metal bars without delay. My mum and dad moved though, and we ventured into the centre of the Easter Show.
There were many events, such as swinging chairs and rollercoasters. It was dawn, and night was closing in. Bright neon lights illuminated food stalls scattered around the venue. It was crowed, so crowed that nobody would notice a giant sized rabbit with massive fangs hiding in the shadows, waiting to pounce.
After I went on many rides, I was starving and very thirsty. I went to a food stall and bought a hotdog and coke. I was sitting down, happily eating my hotdog and I wondered where my parents had gone to. Perhaps they were waiting for me back near the rollercoaster? I walked on, searching for them.
Just then, a massive rabbit with blood hanging off its fangs jumped out of the forest surrounding the amusement park and started hopping towards a group of people. They screamed, and ran for their life. The rabbit caught up to one person, ripping-
I ran inside the nearest structure, too busy not notice what was going on outside. The building just happened to be a warehouse filled with Easter Bags.
The fearsome rabbit followed me knowing I was trapped in there with the only entrance being guarded by the rabbit. Sweat dripped from forehead. I looked for a way out. Some Easter bags, rubbish and some electrical wires hanging from one of the stalls. They must have been damaged from everyone panicking. The rabbit closed in on my position. The cheerful amusement park type music drowned out the sound of the rabbit’s massive claws banging on the cement floor.
Then I had an idea, as I spied an object lying on the ground. I crawled over, careful not to grab the rabbit’s attention. It was a reel of wire… Perhaps if I could lure the beast near, and then I could electrocute it… It was worth a shot. I tied a piece of wire to 2 poles which were holding up 2 stalls.
”Come and get me you killer rabbit!” I shouted. It turned towards me. Its instinct to kill drove it forward. I ran towards the electrical cable, and just as the monster turned the corner, I swung the cable forward. The sparks blinded me. I was knocked unconscious.
A few minutes later I awoke. Or had it been hours? I walked around and gathered myself. The rabbit! I did a 180 to see what had been a massive killer rabbit. Walking towards the entrance of the building, I noticed the rabbits foot had been cut clean by the wire. I washed it in a nearby tap, and tied the wire in a ring to make a necklace. “It can be my lucky necklace, to remind me of the great feat I have accomplished and the lives I have saved.
When I walked out, I expected sirens and police. Instead, everything looked normal. My mother and father ran towards me. I was extremely confused. “Mum! Dad! You should have seen, there was this gigantic rabbit! And it followed me into the warehouse!” I panted to them. They looked at me oddly. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s very late; we have to go home now. Just stay close, we don’t want you to get lost again!” explained my mother.
My mother, my father and I were driving home when I remembered my lucky necklace with the rabbit’s foot. I was about the open my mouth when something caught my eye in the rear view mirror.
On the 19th of July, Carlingford High School held International Day. The school was filled with colours and noise. School started normally, apart from everyone wearing mufti. People were marked off on the rolls and moved to their first period. Forty-five minutes later, everyone proceeded to the second period. The bell rung and people rushed out to recess.
An assembly was announced over the speaker phone. Students lined up their roll call classes and faced the front while teachers made announcements. We were to watch the performances in the hall, so each grade was called out separately and seated themselves in the hall. Inside the hall it was dark, with lights pointing towards the stage. There was a slideshow being projected in the middle of the stage with various quotes. It scrolled up, the curtains opened and the crowd exploded into cheers and applaud.
Everyone settled down and the performances started. There were many multicultural performances, including an Indian dance, an American cheerleader dance and a German slap-dance. There were 2 duets, both by Asian singers.
After everything had finished, the people in the hall left and moved to the different stalls to stuff their faces. I had an American hotdog with tomato sauce. Everyone roamed around doing their thing untill 2:30, when an another assembly was called an everyone moved to the quad. Different cultural groups moved to different parts of the school and cleaned up the school.
The day was a sucess. Everyone headed home, weary after a very exciting day.
Walking into my English class, I knew something was wrong. It was a hot, humid, sweaty sort of day. The class walked in, and everyone unpacked their English books and stationary. Everyone was chatting away, waiting for the class to begin.
“You have to do a speech,” Mrs. Raynor stated. Everyone moaned and groaned. Our cruel teacher handed out some pieces of paper, describing the indescribable torture that she wanted us to go through. It would last 2-3 painful minutes, and had to be based on a recount. I didn’t feel so well. She attempted to prepare us for what was to come, and made us read and memorize a small paragraph of information from a book. We then had to recite what we had memorized in front of the class. I stuttered and could not remember what was written on that page.
The term ended, and the holidays started. I was relieved. I relaxed. A week passed, and I had completely forgotten about my speech. The end of the holidays neared, and I still had not done anything. I continued to relax, play games, with a blind eye to my homework.
I woke up. It was a Thursday; at least I thought it was. Time is difficult to keep track off when it plays no importance in your life. I checked the date on my PC’s clock. “Sunday? Impossible! The speech is due next week and I haven’t even practised!” I said aloud. Panicking, I tried to do what I could. It was to be on my trip to Japan, which would fit the guidelines I had finished half of it by the end of the day, luckily it was due on Tuesday.
I spent Monday afternoon trying to finish the speech. I was pretty nervous and vey tense. I knew I wasn’t going to get a chance to memorize it. Just before I went to sleep, I printed the palm cards out and read them untill I fell asleep.
The next morning, I grabbed my palm cards and my Mum drove me to school. Most of the periods went quick, because it was a Tuesday, and all the periods are shortened so we can go home early. I asked my friends weather or not they had done their speech. Most of them had, but luckily there were a few that hadn’t. “Besides, we won’t get through all the speeches today.”
I sat down a chair in A17, our english room. Mrs. Raynor drew a name out of a purple container. It was Ronald. His speech was on chocolate, which wasn’t a recount. His speech finished 3 mintues later. It was quite good, except it was not a recount. As more people did their speeches, I had high hopes for my marks. Luckily she did not call my name out before the bell rung. The next time we had english was Friday.
I spent the next few days practising and revising my speech untill I had enough of it memorized. I dremt that night, dreaming of something completely irrelevant to this story. Of couse I don’t remember what I dremt of.
The next day I did my speech. I definately wasn’t as nervous as I was the previous year, or as nervous as I had anticipated. I barely stumbled, but my eye contact was mediocre, possibly because of the lack of practice. I was content with my performance.
Afterwards, our teacher told us to think about what we could do better. I could’ve memorized it to the extent that I could say it without palm cards. The palm cards I used had the entire speech written out on them. If I practised it more, I would only have main points on the palm cards.
A week later, she handed out our score cards. I was shocked and dissapointed. I scored a mere fifteen out of twenty. I didn’t know what went wrong. I asked a few people around me what they got, and was slightly relieved when I heard that some other people got scores near 15. David got 16, Giyan’s score was 15 and Brodie scored 17. I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth as the bell rang.
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Early last year, my father asked me that question. Ohio wasamus, good morning. Around the end of term 1 last year, my Dad and I took a trip to Japan to ski. I had never been overseas, so this kind of experience was new to me. My Dad worked at Quantas at the time, and we were entitled to discounted flights, so we took this opportunity and decided to fly to Japan.
We planned for a few weeks ahead, and found out the timetables for planes, trains and buses and learning a bit about their culture. We planned to fly there in the second week of the holidays, and get home a few days before school was due to start. As some of you know, I was very anxious to go skiing again; it’s one of my favorite activities.
On a Monday, April 2005, we flew out. Because my father worked at Qantas, we were also able to fly business class. We sat up the top area of the plane, where there were only 20 seats. There was even a personal entertainment unit and I got to watch a movie and play games. We arrived late the following day at Narita International Airport in Tokyo, the capital of Japan. From there, we caught a 2 hour bus trip across the city to Haneda Domestic Airport, and then caught a plane from there to an airport called Chitose, just outside the city of Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido. Then we caught a train to our final destination, Niseko. Niseko is divided into 3 ski areas; we skied in the largest of the 3, Hirafu. It was a long trip.
The mountains of Niseko rise to approximately 1200 meters above sea level. It has a total of 57 runs, making over 47 kilometers in groomed slopes. The slopes are generally not crowded because of small local population, and because the runs are so large. The area below Hirafu, which was the area that we skied in, had many shops and restaurant, including a KFC. Unfortunately, it was closed. There was a local supermarket, called Seiko mart. We bought a large packet of chocolates from this supermarket which had the Oreo branding. I enjoyed them so much that we ended up buying 3 of these packets.
The skiing was really fun; there were almost no people on the slopes, due to the fact that it was late in the season. The runs were wide and open; the snow was so much better than what we get here in Australia. I skied very fast and aggressively, and I raced and beat my dad a few times. We stayed at a small hotel run by Mr. and Mrs. Bab. The hotel was empty; we were the only ones staying there. Most Japanese people know basic English, so that wasn’t a problem for us. They were very kind to us, and even drove us to the ski fields every day, and picked us up every afternoon. Japanese culture is very different to ours. They have different values, and many things are considered rude or inappropriate, for example eating while on the move. On that subject, the food was awesome; I ate sushi, sashimi, with lots of wasabi and various other Japanese food, although it did cost a lot.
After that week of skiing, I was exhausted. Weary, we packed and left for home. So far, it’s still the only overseas trip that I’ve had. Getting there, the skiing itself, the people I met and the whole trip in general made for a very enjoyable experience and I would defiantly do it all again.
A recent study by the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne has shown that 20% of Australian preschool aged children are obese or overweight. Approximately 5000 children were surveyed. Children aged either 4 or 5 were surveyed, during 2004.
The survey uncovered that an amazing 5% of children were obese, which means that one is 25% overweight, based on height. The remaining 15% were classified overweight.
Researcher and paeditrician Melissa Wake believes the results are “alarming but not surprising”. She states that clear broader social issues need to be adressed urgently. “We need to be looking at how our cities are designed, how we market foods, how we encourage our children to be sedentary,” she said. “All sorts of things that we as a society currently choose to do that seem to be resulting in this epidemic.”
So, to any of you who are reading this, keep this in mind: you are what you eat.
Review for Lord of the Flies
By Aaron Gorka
This review is of the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, written in 1954. It is a book of a group of children’s survival, trapped on a tropical island. The children turn barbaric without society, having no one to look after them and tell them what to do. It tells a story of survival, and the things that humans will resort to in order to do just that – survive.
The main character or protagonist is Ralph, who is a strong, intelligent boy. Leading along with him is Piggy, an overweight asthmatic who tries his hardest to maintain a civilised society. Ralph is elected as leader in the beginning of the book, because of his positive attitude towards rescue and survival. He is in conflict with Jack throughout the book. He becomes a savage and violent boy who turns the choir into hunters and they begin hunting for meat. They start a tribe, where they paint them selves and dance, slowly breaking under the enormous pressure that is survival.
The book is sometimes hard to keep up with, often not explaining what’s going on properly. It has an interesting plot, with plenty of twists and unexpected events, slowly drawing you in. “However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick.” This is an example of the good vocabulary. I found the writing style slightly odd, but the plot was so interesting and the use vocabulary made it a great book to read. It isn’t an action thriller, but it still gripping enough to have a good pace. I think the author managed to convey his message, that without society, mankind will go back to savagery.
This book would not appeal to younger readers; I recommend it to 12 years old and above. The book left me satisfied a good plot with a good ending. It has a dark theme, one which you might find interesting, and one which you might not. There’s only one way to find out, read the book.
