Spooky Story Contest

Both Zoë and Benjamin submitted stories to the Georgia Writer's Museum "Spooky Story Contest" this year. They worked on their stories from July to October, going through plenty of drafts and revisions. Zoë must have tested out five different stories or so. At first she really wanted to set her story at The Devil's Tramping Grounds in North Carolina because that sounded like an interesting place to her, but she was having trouble imaging any details for her story because she's never been there.

So I suggested that she set the story somewhere she's been. 

She eventually settled on Doll's Head Trail, which we hiked last year, and ended up writing a rather hilarious story about a squirrel named Pipipash. We loved that character so much, but Zoë wisely determined that the number of giggles we were stifling meant that her story was silly and not spooky.

Guys—at one point Pipipash passionately called out, "I'm not all fur and no brains!" 

Pipipash was the best. 

But Pipipash was ultimately cut from the story. 

What Zoë settled on was a little too creepy for me. Her doll is a little too blood thirsty for my taste, but Zoë insisted that to water her doll's refrain down would detract from the feeling of the story. 

And that's why I'm not a spooky story writer myself, I guess. 

Anyway, we were checking the website all day for the results...until we gave up...and then we got busy doing all of our Halloween preparations and I didn't think to check until the kids had headed out to go trick-or-treating and I was in the middle of my class and my teacher said something about the emerging scholar award at LRA and was like, "I wonder who won this year...oh, it's so-and-so" and I was like, "Wonder who won, indeed!"

So while he was looking up emerging scholars, I hopped on over to the Georgia Writer's Museum and saw Zoë's name—1st place for fourth grade! 

And then I just had to hold that information inside me until she finally got home from trick-or-treating (she was the very last child to make it home because she stayed up at her friend's house instead of walking home with everyone else). 

Anyway, a very exciting evening for her! You can read her story over at the Georgia Writer's Musuem website!

Benjamin was a little disappointed that his story didn't place in the top three, but he was still very excited for Zoë. And I have a hunch that they might be considering previous winners as ineligible for subsequent contests (but maybe not; thinking so can make us feel better, anyway). Benjamin won a couple of years ago. 

Here's his story that didn't win:

Premonitions in Pripyat (April 25, 1964)

The tidy classroom, with muted blue walls and light gray ceiling was like a storm cloud. In the midst of all of it sat Yuri, daydreaming once again.

“Yuri! I asked a question!” the teacher reprimanded, shattering Yuri’s vision of dragons flying around his head. Everyone was staring at him. 

“Stand up! Answer me!” 

As he stood, the classroom began to dissolve around him. Paint flaked off filthy walls, ceiling tiles sagged, wind whistled through broken windows, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Desks were piled around him like skyscrapers; his alone sat in perfect condition in the middle of the room. Filthy gas masks were strewn across the floor. Frightened, Yuri collapsed into his chair and found himself back in his classroom.

“Detention!” came his teacher’s shrill voice.

*****

After detention Yuri hurried outside to catch up with his classmates on the playground. 

Yuri ran to the slide and began to imagine he was a cosmonaut climbing into a lunar lander. He blasted off and whooshed down, landing in a heap at the bottom. It was eerily quiet; his ears were ringing. He shook his head and looked around. The children he had been playing with were gone. Around him, the once clean, bustling city was empty and dilapidated. No one was walking briskly down the sidewalks, no cars were on the streets. The ringing in his ears turned into an echo, "Внимание! Attention, dear comrades…Эвакуируйтесь! Evacuate!"

Dizzily, he stood up and the city reawakened.

“Come play tag!” called his classmates.

“I need to go,” whispered Yuri, walking away.

“Where are you going?”

Ignoring his friends, Yuri began sprinting past cars and buildings until he reached the narrow winding path that led through the woods to his home. 

Being in the forest where he had grown up comforted him, and he forgot his nightmarish daydreams. Instead, he imagined that he was “The Red Guardian,” his favorite superhero. He jumped onto a log and leaped into the air. The pristine emerald forest transformed into a sickly red the moment his feet left the log. He hit the uneven earth and crumpled to the ground. Yuri saw a yellow sign with a black trefoil. He had seen one before when he went with his father to tour the power plant, but why would it be here in the middle of the forest?

He stood up, bolted to his house, and burst through the door.

“MOM!”

“What is it, Yurochka?”

“I think something bad is going to happen.”

“Yuri, you've got such a big imagination.”

Perhaps he was only imagining things. Yuri went to bed.

*****

At 1:23:45 am, a huge explosion shook the earth. Yuri shot out of bed, rushed to the window. He saw something at the power plant—a big blue beam shooting into the sky. 

What was it—aliens? Absurd.

Sirens filled the air.

 “It's only a dream,” Yuri whispered as his skin began to boil. 

“It's only a dream,” Yuri whimpered.

 Then there was silence…