At the end of December, Ángels ran a three-morning workshop called The Storyteller’s Plot. Each child who attended wrote a story which was then added to our Storyteller’s Plot booklet. The children then had to vote on which story they thought should win a special edition of ‘The Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes. Of course, we thought all the stories were winners and could not choose. But the children did decide on a winner and here is the fantastic story that they voted for, written by Anne Sofie aged 11. We think it has the best last few lines of a story – EVER!! Well done Anne Sofie!
The Shot Of A Gun
Jeannex the bee swoops and flies through the bright foreign skies, getting accustomed to his new surroundings. Although the other bees didn’t like his presence. Jeannex longed to try this country’s bee’s honey- the type that the elders used to go on about. This was his chance to taste some!
No friends did poor old Jeannex have to face the British bees. Since they didn’t want to share the honey they stung him to a horrible sleep, and sternly told him never to go to their hive again.
Jeannex’s dreams were not nice. They weren’t even dreams! They were nightmares. What was a french bee doing in England, circling around Wembley Stadium, buzzing up and down Big Ben and flying into people’s houses stealing sacks full of marmite? He didn’t belong here, that was for sure.
A huge burden of pressure laid upon the bee, who was just waking up from his strong nightmare…
Someone had trodden on him, therefore it took a while for him trying to get used to flying again.
“Kick down, wings up!” Jeannex muttered to himself. He repeated these words of motivation, determined to get home.
Although his instinct told him that something was wrong- everybody around him seemed to be an enemy.
Then the most agonizing sound penetrated through the bee’s eardrum. For a brief moment he closed his eyes, trying to retrieve all his memories for that shocking blast. He soon then opened them to a man, blood dripping from his lower calf. Another man walked away from the horrible sight, with a gun in his hand.
Guns were Jeannex’s biggest fear. But he tried not to let fear get to his head, he was on a mission and fear is the least that he could worry about.
Jeannex decided to fly high up in the air; he would be safer from guns, so he flew to a tall tree where he recognized some familiar faces…
Instinctively he knew they were the bees who had stung him to a near death, but it was too late to go back now.
“What are you doing here?” the Queen Bee strictly said.
“Do you see what’s going on down there? War. Guns. Death.” Jeannex replied.
“No. And it doesn’t matter to bees. It won’t affect us.” Queen Bee retorted.
“You are right. But together we could save many lives. Are you in?”
The bees had a small gathering and discussed whether this was the right thing to do. Their answer shocked Jeannex; he thought he wasn’t strong enough with them. Motivation had washed away fear and now that he had other bees on his side made peace seem more realistic.
They went over plans to try and stop killing, they exchanged pollen for more power, and they even made contact with bees from all over the world! This was it. Peace now had the power to strangle the many heads war had.
The next day was the big day- to defeat war…
The bees flew all over the place, stinging killers until they became faintly aware of their surroundings, pollinating guns (then the gunpowder won’t work) and then they waited to see if the world had got their message.
Unfortunately, the world ignored. Peace was a dream, intangible, in a far away fantasy. A fantasy all the bees went to- Jeannex’s home! Although home seemed pointless after the horrible sight Jeannex later saw…
THE QUEEN BEE WAS DEAD. Her wings got shot down, so she couldn’t fly. Though Jeannex got voted as the next Queen Bee! He just couldn’t believe it.
For years and years people suffered as the flowers weren’t getting pollinated, regretting the moment when they didn’t listen to the bees. Peace was all they needed.
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