Secrets Anthology 2015
Page 2
‘Last night...I....’
‘NO! Don’t do it!! Don’t tell her!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!’ cried out a hysterical little voice from my pocket.
‘Shush! Did you... uh... hear that Leah?’
‘Yup. You stopped talking and then said shushreal loud.’
‘I mean... did you hear him...’
‘Who? Who’s listening to us?’
‘Oh, nobody, I was just being stupid,’ I grinned and stuck my tongue out at her.
‘I noticed! So, what happened last night?’
‘Well, I saw this thing, it was-A scream sliced through the air like a knife through butter. It sounded like a knight in shining armour had been stabbed in the heart by the evil king.
‘Did you hear that?’
‘What, that you stopped in the middle of your sentence again?’
‘No, the-‘ a wail interrupts me. It’s what I imagine to be a banshee's cry.
‘Tell me!’
‘Sorry, Leah I have to do something, it’ll only take a sec.’
‘Maggie!’
‘No, seriously, I have to do this. Just wait here.’ I sprint to the toilets, lock myself in and take my jacket off. In the little bag, is not the grumpy pixie, but dust. Oh NO!!! What have I done?!
The bell rings.
I trudge back to class. Leah brushes past me on the way in.
‘Maggie!! Where did you go? Please don’t run away from me like that!’ she whispers to me.
‘I’m... sorry... I just-‘
‘Leah and Maggie, sit down please.’
I scuttle to my seat and jump up as if a cockroach was sitting on my chair. On the name tag on my desk, someone has rubbed out the second g in my name, the line on the e is gone and the last letter of my surname is cut off. Instead of saying 'Maggie Ald' it says 'this is now the desk of Magic Al.'
The Very Bony Gallimimus
Jesse Perrott
“And here, we found some scattered remains of a gallimimus,” the old man grunted with very little enthusiasm. His dark face peered out from underneath his wide brimmed hat. I don't know if his face was tanned or dirty but it was probably both. It didn't matter. His face could have been purple for all I cared. I was tired and I was bored.
I glanced around the rest of the group. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way. I slumped down on a stump next to the pit, stared down on the gallimimus skeleton and waited. Suddenly, a young man in old faded clothes scrambled over to me. He shouted at me in a language I was unfamiliar with. He waved his hands around and pointed at the gallimimus skeleton. Then he slipped a small scrap of paper into my hand. On the piece of paper, scrawled in old fashioned hand writing was: "Find the glint in the gallimimus and keep it a secret. Also, remember that dinosaurs can leave people frozen with fear." I raised my eyebrows. What did it mean, and what was the glint? I peered back to the gallimimus and I saw a metallic flash in between the bones. That had to be the glint. It just had to be. I peered over the edge cautiously. It could be anything, I thought. Probably a drink can, I thought. But why did I get the note? Another part of my mind questioned. That was it, I had to find out. I glanced at the group. They were ages away. Just one quick look, I said to myself, just a tiny little peep. After checking that the group were still far away, I scrambled hurriedly into the hole. That was my first mistake. Speed. The pit sides were extremely steep and it was hard to find a footing. Except I wasn't looking for a footing. I was tumbling down the side of a pit at what felt like a million miles an hour.
After what seemed like hours of bumping and bruising, I fell to the bottom of the pit. Then I rose among the debris and found the small metallic object nestled among the gallimimus. Except it wasn't like that. Life doesn't work like that. You see, the pit was huge, about a kilometer long, and the gallimimus was right in the middle of it. Sighing, I began to wander slowly across the pit. After six tiring minutes of walking, I made it to the centre of the pit. The gallimimus looked a lot bigger up close and it was slightly intimidating yet somewhat beautiful. After awhile of admiring the bones, I clambered on it and started digging through what used to be a stomach. I was surprised to discover that the metallic object was actually hard to find. It had looked very big from the top of the pit but I realised it was probably just the sunlight reflecting against it and it could actually be extremely small. Giving up, I leaned back on the gallimimus and felt a sharp dig in my back. I whipped around to see the corner of the object digging into me. When I lay back, I must have brushed away the bones.
“Good thing I was so lazy,” I chuckled. I reached for the object and picked it up. Then I stopped. It wasn't a box like I had originally thought. It was something else. It was flat and long like a remote. Unlike a remote, it only had one button. And that button was red.
I groaned. Why was it red, why did it have to be red? I was a sucker for red buttons. I just had to push them. In primary school, I set off the fire alarm and drenched everyone. In intermediate I stopped the bus with the emergency brake and now I had this one. This huge red button waiting to be pressed. I did it. I pressed it. Boom! The response was instant, for I was no longer lying on a pile of bones. I was lying on a living, breathing... pile of bones.
I sat there on top of the rather bony pile wondering if I had missed a science lesson because last time I checked bones didn't breathe or live. I shoved the red button in my pocket and slowly started to step off the breathing bundle o when a head stuck up from the bones. Suddenly they all whirled about in the air until they all stuck together creating a gallimimus. A very bony gallimimus. Suddenly the very bony gallimimus jerked forward and bucked me off into the air. My chin hit the ground hard and my glasses fell onto ground. I scrambled around the ground feeling for my glasses.
“Gallimimus are herbivores, you have nothing to worry about,” I reassured myself. About two seconds after I said that I felt a sharp pain on my left thigh. I thrust my leg up swiftly, whacking the very bony gallimimus hard in the jaw. It made a sort of clucking noise, the sound you’d expect for a normal feathery chicken, but no, I was hearing it from a very bony gallimimus. Suddenly my hands clutched my glasses and I placed them back on my face and peered at the very bony gallimimus. Except it wasn't. The flesh and skin had grown back onto its body and it was a perfectly normal dinosaur. But not a gallimimus, but what stood before me was a velociraptor.
My jaw dropped. I should have been happy because what stood in front of me was normal. Not a very bony gallimimus but a perfectly normal velociraptor. The problem was that, velociraptors were carnivores and the perfectly normal velociraptor could be about to eat me. I ran. Faster than I’d ever run before. You'll probably remember that earlier it took me 6 minutes to walk across the pit. This time it felt like 36 seconds. When I finally got to the edge of the pit and turned around I was hoping I had left the velociraptor way behind. Not a chance. The velociraptor was a meter away from me, wagging its tail like a puppy dog. I glared up the side of the edge of the pit. It was impossible to climb. Almost vertical. Almost. I grinned. I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out a packet of beef jerky I had been saving for an emergency. This was the biggest emergency I had ever had. I smiled a mad crazy sort of smile. This was impossible. There was no way it was going to work. Then again, if there was a perfectly normal velociraptor which used to be a very bony gallimimus then anything was possible. I shrugged and hurled my beef jerky over the side of the pit. The velociraptor sprinted for the side of the cliff. Quickly I grabbed its tail and it ran straight up the side of the pit. As I was dragged up the cliff at a tremendous speed I groaned. The velociraptor wasn't perfectly normal. It was anti-gravity!
When we reached the top of the cliff, the velociraptor sprinted over to the jerky and gulped it down, then it whipped around and started snarling at me. I suppose it wanted more. Then it ran. Straight for me. When we got to the top of the cliff the jerky had been a while away so when the velociraptor ran to get it he’d put a decent 100 metres between us. Just enough time to shout for help
. But nothing happened. I stared around. Why wasn't anyone helping me? Couldn't anyone see the dinosaur that was about to devour me? Then I saw them. I saw why no one was helping me. They were frozen. Not frozen in time but frozen in ice. Solid blocks of ice in fact.
Suddenly I remembered. The DINOSAUR! I spun around just in time to see the velociraptor a meter away from me. This was it. I was going to die. I stuck my hand into my pocket without thinking and I felt the button. I pressed it.
I opened my eyes looking for the velociraptor but it was gone. All that was left was a pile of bones. I laughed and then I cried. I was ALIVE! I leaned down to kiss the ground then stopped for hygiene reasons. I strolled over to the pile of bones. I pressed my ear against a bone to make sure they weren't breathing then I staggered away and collapsed on the ground from exhaustion. Suddenly I stopped and sat up. I was an idiot. When I collapsed, I had dropped the button on the ground and it had fallen on the button side. The ground had pushed the button! I jerked my head around to see if the bones were breathing again but they weren't. They were perfectly still. I glanced around confused. Suddenly the ground erupted around me and a giant T-rex exploded into view. It was a massive hulking bony beast. The creature stepped forward and let an earsplitting roar erupt from his papery lungs. I took one look and slammed my hand down on the red button and the very bony T-rex collapsed. Suddenly I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. I swung around and faced the young man who had given me the note in the first place.
“What?” I demanded. All the other people were still frozen, so why wasn't he? Then he reached into his pocket and produced another note. This one read, ‘Remember to keep it a secret’. I stared at him. That was a big secret. It had to be the biggest secret in the world.
I strode over to the pit and chucked the remote with the red button in, in an extremely dramatic fashion...
I couldn't keep that sort of a secret.
Secrets
Krishi Shah
Secrets can’t be kept,
At least, not for quite a while.
Sooner or later,
Someone will know the secret:
not a secret anymore
The secret place, where no one has been,
A magical place, which no one has seen.
I tell all the other kids,
I tell them all about it.
Everyone wants to come, they’re all keen.
The Key to every Secret: Dark Chocolate
By Raissa Zhang
Okay. Okay. Don't panic. DON'T PANIC.
It's no big deal. All I had to do was save my whole school from a box of chocolates. No problem, right?
Well it might have been, IF the box of chocolates weren't cursed to make everyone confess their deepest darkest secrets. And IF the dark chocolates weren't hungry for secrets, then all the students wouldn't be running around avoiding flying chocolate while screaming their heads off. But that only made matters worse, because the chocolate would just fly into their mouths and force them to swallow, which in turn made them yell out their secret in the loudest voice possible. After confessing their inner secrets, they would fall motionless on to the ground as if shot.
You might think I am telling fibs or just a really ridiculous tale but this whole thing is real. And if you were in my shoes, you would hear all sorts of secrets that no one should be hearing (there's a reason why people write in diaries and then lock them up!). Some of them are weird: "I STOLE A WHOLE ZOO ONCE!" Some of them are supposedly embarrassing for the confessor: "I WET MY BED LAST NIGHT!" But most of them were about crushes. Not a big surprise there. These chocolates had been named “Confession Chocolates”.
However, trouble isn't uncommon in a boarding school where every single student has an unique ability that normal humans don't. This school is called Alice Academy, where the students, known as Alices, gather to study in peace, out of reach, in a hidden third dimension. This is where there was a gigantic mansion-sized school which had the best and most recent technologies in the world, AND a Central Auckland-sized town in its campus. It isn't everyday that you enter your grandiose school hall to find chocolates chasing students.
So, now you might be asking, if you actually believe me, how did I get into this mess?
Believe me, I'm not a gossip that is crazy enough to release a box of chocolates in the middle of a weekly student assembly, especially when the Student President is standing right on the podium announcing the equipment that the students had destroyed with their Alices.
Instead, I was just about to pack up shop when a girl with golden hair rushed into my store, panting: "I have come to collect my order. Here is my code."
Then she almost chucked the sheet of limp paper into my mouth. Pushing down my irritation, I had asked with my most polite voice: "What seems to be the hurry, Miss? I have already packed up all the stock so if it's alright with you, it is best to come tomorrow."
"No. No no no no NO!" she shook her head furiously, tears glistening in her coppery amber eyes. "It has to be today because I promised everybody!”
I had no choice. I unpacked the stock and quickly matched up the number with the correct cardboard box. It was the biggest box of the lot. It weighed a ton and was so big that I couldn't even wrap my arms around it.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay carrying it, Miss?” Even I was struggling against its weight, my mind screaming for me to drop it.
“I’ll be fine.” She didn't even stagger when I heaved it into her arms.
“Thank you, Secret Keeper for helping Amber Lush! Bye~!” She was all smiles again as she gave me a quick wave before zooming out of the store like a dog after a squirrel.
Amber Lush was the school's treasurer and had the Alice which could bring dolls that the user made to life. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to sleep in the same room as talking teddy bears and dolls.
Sighing, I rolled up my sleeves as I packed up the boxes all over again. I could remember that day as clearly as if it was yesterday. “You’ll get strange customers sometimes, being the salesperson "secret" goods and stock, so you better be careful to avoid trouble!” The smirking vice-president had told me when she handed me the keys that decided my fate as the “Secret Keeper” of the Secret Haven. At that time I had thought that what she said was a joke but I learnt that it wasn't, the hard way. Like now.
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I had glanced at the clock on the wall-
3:30?! Already?! The student meeting started fifteen minutes ago! I was going to be in BIG trouble if the president found out.
Closing the door of the storeroom, I did some final checks before locking the main door and running for my life to the Great Hall. There I had opened the heavy gold framed doors to find the very scene of catastrophe and mayhem happening inside a rugby-field sized hall.
So there I was, gazing at this very scene. Already the room was filled with lifeless students and only a few still had the energy to scream and run around like headless chickens. There was a little boy no older than four, a lean skimpy girl that could just be old enough for high school, and then there was a person more wide than they were tall that there was no way to tell if they were male or female. And yet there still seemed to be enough chocolate hearts flying around to satisfy a child with a sweet tooth.
Standing there in midst of all the fallen students, like a quaking mouse, was the very person who had come running to me with a order for trouble. “What exactly did you promise? And to whom? Those were from the black market. Anything could happen to the "confessors" who ate them!" My voice came out more menacing than I intended as I picked my way around the sea of "dead" bodies.
“The students wanted some chocolates for their loved ones in time for Valentine's Day so that's why I went and bought your Confession Chocolates because I thought they would help them with their confessing, but it's all gone wrong now and I'll be in so much trouble!!!" And just like that, she burst into tears like a broken pipe.
Though I could see she was being truthful, there
was certainly no way to solve the problem. There was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind, but I couldn't figure out just what I had forgotten... It was at this very moment when I was almost at the point of ripping my hair out, that the golden doors were flung open-
“All right. All right. Who did this?” The voice that spoke had an unmistakable British accent like no other. Chest high, straight back, obsidian-black hair that hung down to her waist, finally, those deep purple eyes. There was only one person she could be. Amethyst Elswood, the master of telekinesis. Telekinesis was one of the common Alice abilities found in the infamous but hidden school of Alice Academy, but Amethyst wasn't just gifted with it. She had a talent too. There was once a rumour about her lifting a two storey building single-handed. Though she usually wore a grin as warm as the sun, now her expression matched the darkest cloud in a storm.
"I-I thought they were normal dark chocolate hearts, B-boss." Amber stuttered. She was clearly frightened to see the vice president here at the scene of disaster.
"Dark Chocolates?" her expression looked ready to kill.
In that second, I saw what Amethyst was glowering at. There above us was a swarming hive of chocolates hearts. More chocolates were gathering, one by one. It was the size of a tennis ball, now a netball, now a basketball, and now as long as a full grown cat. Then it started to move, gliding around the room like a dark chocolate ghost, it's chocolaty cat-nose twitching.
A shock seemed to numb my senses as it came back.
"This is its last resort! It's looking for the deepest darkest secret to devour. One of us here will have to sacrifice our secret!"
Every head in the room turned as my voice rang out and echoed in the elephantine school hall. Some of the students exchanged worried looks and started to murmur uneasily. Sure, there were only six of us, but confessing your secret wasn't easy.
But the chocolate was in no mood to dawdle. After surveying the whole room, it turned it's little chocolate cat body on us heading towards-