A Major Change

By Nathaniel Chan

Primary 4

Mary had always wanted a pet dog. Whenever she saw her friend’s pet dogs, she would always ask her mother if she could adopt one. Unfortunately, the answer was always a "no" because her mother did not think that she was ready to own a pet. However, when the day finally did come, it changed her life forever...

Mary took a deep breath. The fresh cool air filled her lungs. She was rejuvenated as the tall trees swayed to the gentle breeze. Mary was playing “catching” with her friends early in the morning. It was also her birthday, and Mary was dying to know what her present was. “Is the present going to be a watch? Or a toy?” Mary showered herself in an avalanche of possibilities. She had no idea what was waiting for her at home.

Mary hummed her favourite tune as she went into the lift. When Mary was outside her door, she giggled and squealed in delight. “Mum, I am home!” Her mother immediately opened the door to let her in.

“What is my present?”

“You will find out later,” Mum replied. Suddenly, Mary heard a barking sound coming from her room. She turned her head and saw two pricked ears popping out of the door with its tongue out.

Upon seeing this, Mary smiled gleefully as she punched her fist in the air in jubilation. Mary skipped merrily into her room and found a dog! It was covered in black spots and wagging its tail. Gently picking the dog up, Mary hugged it tightly. She whispered, “Now, I have a friend to talk to in the house. I have no siblings and I was very lonely until you came! Hmm...I shall name you Max!” Max started barking louder when he heard his new name.

Upon seeing Mary’s delight, Mum agreed to building a doghouse for Max. Once she came back with the wood, they got to work, spending three whole hours on it. By the time they were putting the finishing touches to the doghouse, it was nightfall. When Max saw the doghouse, its tail started wagging uncontrollably. Max quickly settled into it and within minutes, he fell asleep.

“Coo, coo!” The sound of a rooster’s squawk woke Mary up the next morning. Mary tottered to the doghouse to meet Max but he was nowhere to be found! Shivering, Mary’s heart galloped like an untamed horse. She started searching for Max under the sofa, under her bed, in the cupboard, but he was nowhere to be found! Soon enough, Mary had enlisted her friend’s help in the search party. They asked everyone in the neighbourhood if they had seen a dog with black spots and sharp ears. Fortunately, instead of asking hundreds of people, the friends only needed to ask eighteen people. The eighteenth person said that he always slept late and this time, he saw a dog running into a nearby abandoned house. He warned that the house had been abandoned for decades but it used to house a couple who loved dogs. It is said that they used to put bear traps at the entrance so no bear could eat their pet dogs.

The friends thanked the man endlessly and ran to the old house. There, the lawn was overgrown with thorny weeds and long grasses. The window was blackened with soot. As the friends tiptoed into the house, the door mysteriously creaked open. Somewhere upstairs, water was dripping from a leaking tap. The dripping sound echoed throughout the house. Cobwebs, big and small, hung precariously from an old chandelier, behind the cabinet and under the table.

Mary and her friend were shivering with fear. It was obvious that their teeth were chattering. They tiptoed into the rooms on the first floor and started looking for Max. Unfortunately, there was still no sign of Max. As Mary walked up the stairs, she thought that she may never find Max and was worried about how he was doing. With goosebumps all over her skin, her eyes swept all over every dark corner and crevice.

After they reached the second storey, they split up. Mary went to the corridor while her friend went to the kitchen. After what seemed like an eternity, they heard a barking sound. They bolted to the toilet where the bark was coming from and saw Max in the toilet bowl! Instinctively, Mary carried him out from the toilet bowl and hugged the drenched Max so tightly that no number of words could describe the joy that she and Max experienced at that moment.

From then on, Mary promised to take better care of Max. As the saying goes, “Money can only buy you a fine dog, but only love and care can make his tail.” After this incident, Mary realised that it is not easy to take care of pets. She was thankful for this wake-up call and the significant change in her attitude and mindset. Now, Max sleeps beside Mary on the same bed. The doghouse? Well, it sits on Mary’s study table as a reminder of what had happened. Whenever she sees it in the morning, she smiles slightly, thinking of that life- changing incident.

A Special Gift

By Aryan

Primary 6

In the future, you would live a better quality of life, all because you took the effort to clean up after the mistakes you made and saved me from destruction. All of you are as special to me as I am to you! You can enjoy my goodness forever if only you appreciate me in return.

Dear earthlings,

I want you to listen carefully to my warnings. I don't want it to be a complete mess.

I always think to myself, "Why don't the governments, or the presidents or anybody else in power want to help save me?"

Probably because they think that the citizens will start hating them, as some would purely disagree.

What about those earthlings wanting more and more and they will still never be satisfied? You earthlings already have done so much that it is killing me!

Come on. Both your future and mine lie in your hands.

Life has given you so many options. You know which is the right option to pick.

Imagine if... you could stop saying, “Spread awareness!” and start taking action right now. Spreading awareness and other things are helpful but it’s not enough. I’m dying, can’t you see? We don’t have all day. My body is getting weaker and weaker.

Imagine if... you look up at the sky, seeing how clear it is. I can’t imagine what you earthlings did to my dirty sky. If you want your home to have a cleaner environment, you have the power to make the change happen.

The oceans, my lovely dear oceans. Imagine if the ocean was so clean, so fresh. My marine creatures are screaming for help. They are whispering to me, telling me how you earthlings are poisoning them. Oh, earthlings. I thought I could trust you but now at this rate, I don’t think so.

Despite the number of times you have betrayed me, I will still trust you but you must change. Please listen to me. This is not a polite request. This is a must as I am crying for help. You can be my salvation and my only hope like I am to you.

Sincerely,
Your broken earth

If I were my country’s Head of Government for the day, it would be my job to help ensure a better future for the new generation by ensuring that they know what to do to have a better and brighter future.

Firstly, I would plant more trees so that the children can learn to appreciate nature and encourage them to not litter as it is harmful to our environment. This way, it would make the world a cleaner, greener, and better place. I would work with the Ministry of Natural Cleanliness to promote recycling, cleaning up trash from beaches and planting trees. This might even interest the children and motivate them to start planting trees, recycling and to not litter. When the children collaborate, they will influence the new generation to save the environment.

Next, I would organise events where children can learn about saving the earth. I feel that saving the Earth is important because if our natural resources run out, our chances of survival will deteriorate rapidly so we must all do our part to ensure a better place for everyone. We can all play a part by recycling recyclable materials. Recycling is very important as waste has a huge negative impact on the natural environment. Harmful chemicals and greenhouse gases are released from rubbish in landfill sites. Recycling will help to reduce the pollution caused by waste. We can recycle almost everything, such as rigid plastic bottles, paper and cardboard, metals, glass, and even more. We can even upcycle, also known as “creative reuse”, which is turning unwanted items into useful objects that we can use every day. I would task the Ministry of Recycling to organise events to promote upcycling and using unwanted plastic bags, cans and paper to make into wallets and pencil cases.

Recycling is as important as protecting the environment. I would encourage both children and adults to save electricity to prevent global warming as global warming is making the icebergs in the north and south pole melt, leading to frequent floods. As a result, many lives would be lost especially for countries that are located near the north and south poles. Other than that, the Earth’s temperature would rise and forest fires would occur. Forest fires create haze and air pollution that can not only spread to other neighbouring countries, but also be detrimental to our health. Animals are also changing migration patterns and it could even cause their extinction. We simply must protect animals and their habitats.

Protecting the environment is important but education is just as important. The Ministry of Education can organise field trips to historical sites so learning will be much more interactive. Individuals will also be able to find out about our country’s history so we will not repeat our mistakes and know where we come from. History helps us understand change and how the society we live in came to be. They can also learn about global issues so that they would be more aware of them and be more motivated to help those who are less fortunate than them.

We should also help them to discover their ambitions so they can begin pursuing their dreams. Having goals would make them feel even more excited and eager to live more meaningful lives. According to research, only 6% of children pursue their ambition so we must help them to make their ambition possible so they would not give up and be successful and have a contented life in the future.

I would also want children to learn about equal rights. Eons ago, men and women were treated differently. Women were always looked down on and we do not want this to repeat. Equal rights between the genders are important, so I will enforce a policy that men would get the same salary as women. After all, people should be judged based on their own capabilities.

Therefore, a well-rounded education is important. I would also improve the quality of education by creating special classes for students who require personal help in their studies. This way, they will gain confidence in their own abilities I will also set up charities so that people can help donate money to the impoverished so that they can have an education and gain better jobs to break the poverty cycle that they are in.

To conclude, I hope that in the future, the world would be a better place and that people would work together to achieve this dream.

Ingredients:

□  1⁄2 cup of cooperation

□  1⁄2 cup of care mixed with 1⁄2 cup of respect.

□  1 teaspoon of modern technology

□  25 ml of ocean mixed with a pint of leaves from conserved forests surrounded by air.

□  1⁄2 cup of quality education

□  1⁄4 cup of fairness in workplaces

□  A sprinkle of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and non-corrupt officials

Steps:

1. Take the 25 ml of ocean mixture, strain it and discard the pollution.
2. Peel away people’s negative behavior by cleaning up the remaining inequality, discrimination and crimes and replace this with 1⁄2 cup of education and mix it with 1⁄4 cup of fairness in workplaces, 1⁄2 cup of care, 1⁄2 cup of respect and 1⁄2 cup of cooperation.
3. Make a batter by pouring the 25 ml ocean mixture in the mixture of education, care, respect and cooperation. Pour in 1 teaspoon of technology.
4. Pour the batter through a strainer and into a mould that is shaped like a sphere.
5. Put a sprinkle of NGOs and non-corrupt government officials and mix the batter.
6. Bake until it becomes a nice, fully baked common future.

Final product:

It will be green and blue, and in the shape of a sphere, and it will be known as a common future. It will be pollution-free, there will be respect, care, fairness and cooperation practised by people who do not commit crimes and not believe in inequality or racism. They will be people who perform good deeds, who are not corrupt and will protect Mother Nature.

Why do we need all these ingredients for a common future?

Cooperation- Everyone has limited time and resources. Therefore, learning how to cooperate with others can boost the productivity and efficiency of societies as well as maximise the possibility of success and competence. Countries will focus on building structures together like houses, skyscrapers, buildings for workplaces, hospitals and other architectural elements instead of discriminating against each other and committing crimes.

Education- With education, we can enable people to shift their level of consciousness from a lower state to a higher state. Along with this shift, we can make immense progress. It is the reason why we have many technological advances today. A high quality education would make someone think about the question, “How can we do this better?” or “How can we push this to a higher level?” and come up with new ideas and initiatives to solve problems.

For example, educating people about conserving nature is crucial and we should learn how to harness new technologies to conserve nature, to stop global warming and the spreading of greenhouse gases. This will prevent the deterioration of the Earth.

Technology- Technology can make our lives easier and more comfortable. For example, we could use smart phones to communicate with people from all around the world; we can also keep ourselves entertained on the smart phones by watching movies and playing games on it. Hence, to an extent, technology is good.

However, the misuse of technology is a major issue. Obsession with technological devices could result in bad eyesight and a lack of exercise and physical activity, leading to obesity.

Fairness- I believe in workplace fairness, which does not exist completely in today’s world. For example, in both developing and developed nations, women are being sexually harassed by their colleagues and employers and are not supported. Evidence of this can be found in the statistics written in articles such as, “Study Finds 75 Percent of Workplace Harassment Victims Experienced Retaliation When They Spoke Up” on the website ‘Vox’. Workers are also treated like robots and not like people. They are expected to work long hours, without much rest and are penalised for not doing so.

Additionally, in several developing nations, sweatshops pay very talented workers who work for a long period of time, a very small amount of money. We should all treat workers with respect and care. In order for countries to practice such fairness, the governments of the countries should lead with integrity and not be corrupt. Furthermore, NGOs could continue to help people stand up for their rights.

Works Cited

Golshan, Tara. “Study Finds 75 Percent of Workplace Harassment Victims Experienced Retaliation When They Spoke Up.” Vox, Vox, 15 Oct. 2017, www.vox.com/identities/2017/10/15/16438750/weinstein-sexual-harassment-facts.

Sweetwoman lives in a sweet mansion suspended in the sky. Her house is made of different shades of pink and sweet cotton candy. It is spacious as there are two levels and on every level, there are five rooms. The other superheroes and superheroines often visit her and together, they experiment with different types of magic to defeat all the villains.

On May 15th 2050, all the superheroines and superheroes gathered at Sweetwoman’s house for an emergency meeting. They passed Sweetwoman the newspaper from the day before and she could not believe her eyes! The headlines of the newspaper read, “Two supervillains take over the city of Wonderland.” Wonderland was 50 metres lower than Sweetwoman’s mansion. They all were confused and bewildered as they did not know what to do. “We came to you because you have the power to say sweet spells to stop them,” Wonderwoman said, “Only you have the ability to defeat those villains causing trouble. We cannot do it because they are invincible,” Batman said. Do they have any weaknesses?” Sweetwoman asked innocently. “Unfortunately not,” they replied dejectedly. “There must be a weakness because every villain has one! I must defeat them,” she thought with conviction.

“However, before she could think of defeating them, Sweetwoman was so famished as she had not eaten her lunch and could even eat a horse. She decided to go to her favourite restaurant, Food Paradise. As soon as she went inside, she saw two malicious and conniving villains. Both the villains had the same physical features as they both were bald, and wore a patch on their left eyes. They had perpetual frowns, evil glints in their eyes and crooked smiles. They looked threatening and the whole restaurant was at their beck and call. They could harm the people by throwing fire and snowballs without getting hurt as no one could even touch a hair on their heads.

Sweetwoman was sure that those two were the notorious supervillains. She lost her appetite and was fuming with so much rage that she could almost see smoke coming out of her ears. She knew that if she shouted at them she might lose her life and so, she held her emotions and flew angrily back home. She had to devise a plan quickly and kept reminding herself, “No time to waste!” Then after a few hours, which seemed like infinity to her, she knew what she had to do. She dressed herself up in a waitress uniform and disguised her face with a mask.

She went into the same restaurant, hid behind a curtain and recited a sweet, magical spell to stop time but surprisingly, the supervillains were immune to it. She was so shocked that she could barely speak. “How could that happen?” she thought disbelievingly. “They turned out to be more powerful that I had expected!” she mumbled to herself. She did not know what to do. Then she suddenly remembered that both the supervillains had a patch on their eyes. “Wait, is that their Achilles’ heel?” she thought, having an idea. She thought of luring the supervillains somewhere and attacking him by taking advantage of their half-blindness. Just before executing her plan, she overheard the terrible twins talking about someone having a plan to defeat them. Then, Sweetwoman had an epiphany. “What if they knew her plan?” Now, Sweetwoman had no plans except one, which was to speak some sweet words to make them realise how evil they were. She almost had no hope of winning but she believed in herself. Once Sweetwoman came out from behind the curtain, she went straight to the villains, without hiding and disguising and said these sweet words:

“Please listen to me, you have done enough damage. You both really have a lot of potential to become good people and everyone will start loving you two instead of fearing you. I promise to be kind and help you to become good people!”

Those words were so effective that to everyone’s surprise, the villains started to cry and promised not to wreak havoc in Wonderland again. They replied, “Your true words have really touched us! Now, we know how much trouble we have caused. Please forgive us! We won’t do any bad deeds in the future!” Sweetwoman decided not to punish them and they joined forces with her to defeat the evil presence in the whole world.

My name is Saamiya and I am 11 years old. I attend Whimsical Primary School in Peaceland. I didn’t always live in a peaceful place. I was living in Wonderland during World War III. I remember hearing a siren blaring and announcement being made throughout the land: “Alert! Alert! Country X is going to invade our land! Everyone is advised to rush to a safe shelter.”

My parents could hardly speak. They were left both shocked and scared. Suddenly, I heard a gunshot outside my house and I was sure that Country X’s soldiers were approaching. I heard their feet marching and our front door breaking open. Then, I saw a few soldiers grabbing my parents. “We know that we cannot escape but you can! Knock three times, clap three times and look at the mirror in our bedroom,” Father told me before he was dragged away. I knew I had to make haste and so I ran into their bedroom and followed Father’s instructions.

Suddenly I fell into an illusion. I felt so dizzy that I thought this was real magic and I was right! I found myself standing on a piece of cotton and thought I was flying. When I looked around, I could see big houses in different types of colours. The air smelled as fresh as morning dew and there were animals, fairies the size of humans, children and fairytale characters. The fascinating thing about the animals was that they were kind and could also talk. I tried to taste the water from the fountain and it was as sweet as honey.

Out of nowhere, a tour guide approached me. “You must be Saamiya. Your parents have sent me a message to take care of you.” You may not believe me but my tour guide was Cinderella! When I looked at myself, I realized that I was no longer wearing my T-shirt and pants but I was decked in a gown, just like Cinderella! I was overwhelmed with joy. “Welcome to Peaceland. In this place you and I will be living in a grand, big mansion painted in purple. I will be showing you around,” Cinderella added. I was excited but at the same time, sad because I had lost my parents.

However, when I entered the mansion, I was awed and mesmerised by its appearance. The floor of the mansion was made of glass and marble and the walls were painted in my favourite colour, purple. My bathroom has a bathtub and a Jacuzzi. I knew I was going to be as happy as a lark living in Peaceland. I went on many treasure hunts with Cinderella and I became more and more familiar with the place.

Every day, I discovered something new about Peaceland. Once, I saw a cat talking to a person. Other times, I witnessed many animals talking and playing with the fairies. I learned that everyone living in Peaceland, including the animals, were very generous. The fairies and people would take care of the animals and in turn, the animals would give them juicy, sweet mangoes from their trees. I also realised how much the citizens loved nature. They would grow plants and crops frequently and no one would pluck flowers.

Everyone lived harmoniously with one another. Even though everyone was rich, they would share their things among themselves. There was no such thing as money or greed and everyone was very kind. On occasions like birthdays, a wedding or a festival, the fairies and animals would give each other rare, precious gifts, that were not commonly found in Peaceland.

Despite the peace in the place, there were a few disagreements. I once witnessed two fairytale characters quarreling about something. One of them said in frustration, “Why did you take my precious diamond book? It’s not yours!” The other replied defensively, “I didn’t take it! Why don’t you understand?” The quarrel was soon resolved by a child. “Calm down, you two!” said the child. “If you didn’t take his book, I will ask the King of Peaceland to give him another book. Now, both of you can be friends again?” the child asked innocently. The two characters agreed, shook hands and asked for one another’s forgiveness.

It’s been three years since I’ve arrived in Peaceland. I never regretted my decision to listen to my father and escape from Wonderland. I don’t think I will ever be leaving Peaceland as it is now my home and I feel very contented living here.

“Darling, what would you like when we get to the hawker centre?” my father asked.

“Hmm... There is a lot to choose from.” Thinking about the lovely fruit scents with their colours that looked like the rainbow always brightened me up, and the strong smell of Hor Fan, just made my mouth water. I could not wait to get there! The tweeting of birds and the people chattering were typical of a Saturday afternoon in a Singaporean heartland. I was in the car with my father going to my favourite hawker centre. After fifteen minutes, we finally arrived.

Many people were queuing for the Mee Goreng. “Jennifer, do you want Mee Goreng?” my father asked. “ Oh! Yeah!” I replied. My father went to queue for the Mee Goreng.

“Here is $1, go buy yourself a drink,” he added. I clutched the $1 in my hand and went to the drink stall. “One sugar cane juice please,” I ordered. “Yi-bei su-gar cane juice (one sugar cane juice),” said the Aunty at the stall to her companion. I smiled at her as I handed her the $1. I carried the sugar cane juice back to the table. My father was already eating his Mee Goreng. “You had better eat this fast or it will turn cold,” my father said. “After this, can we have Lao Ban?” I asked. “Ok,” he replied.

From afar, I saw a hunched-back old lady carrying a plastic bag going from table to table looking for scraps of leftovers and putting it in her plastic bag. She looked famished, but clearly, she did not have enough money to buy her own food. She was wearing a worn out tee-shirt and three-quarter over-sized pants. Perhaps, she could not afford proper meals and had grown too thin for her own clothes.

As she approached the table where my father and I were sitting, I noticed how thin and frail she looked. The skin on her face was sagging and she had many wrinkles on her forehead. Perhaps, she was worried when she would have her next meal. She looked at us, took out the tissue packets from her bag and said in Mandarin, “Mai ti-sue mah? (Want to buy tissue?)” She had a soft voice and her plea was desperate. I looked into her eco-bag, which was still full with tissue packets. Maybe no one had bought her tissues.

I reached into my pocket and felt a one dollar coin. I slipped it out and passed it to her. “Aunty,” I said as I shot a glance at my father, hoping that he would notice my good deed. After he saw this, he opened his wallet and took out a ten dollar note. He passed it to the Aunty. Perhaps he wanted to set a good example for me. She smiled and reached into her eco-bag and took out $9 to hand to my father. My father gently pushed her hand away. “Xie xie! (Thank you),” she said, as she handed us five tissue packets. I watched her walk towards a stall. I could tell she was happy.

“Jennifer, let’s go to the Lao Ban store”, my father said. I held hands with him and walked off. I took one last glance at the “Tissue Packet Aunty”. She was eating Mee Goreng.

I felt glad for her.

As we drove home, I wondered whether there were more “Tissue Packet Aunties” out there. That experience will forever be etched in my mind. I realised that I should not be picky with my food choices because the “Tissue Packet Aunties” and others like her have to eat whatever leftover food they could find. After that experience, I felt that we should be more generous towards the under-privileged people in Singapore.