Honourable Mention.

"The Christmas Ball'' My name is Clara and I am going to tell you a story about my best friend Sarah.

Sarah has a brother named Christopher and they live in the beautiful islands of Bermuda. Her family is so very lucky that they live there. Snow or no snow, I wish I could live in Bermuda too. Instead, I live in the cold of dreary England.

Sarah's family, teachers and friends always said that it would never snow in Bermuda. Still she thought that it would be wonderful to have all beaches in Bermuda covered with snow and palm trees fluffy and white. Sarah believed that on Christmas Day she could make it snow.

Sarah described how beautiful Christmas Eve was. The stars shone brightly and the air blew calmly. Unfortunately, Sarah was unable to admire the beautiful night because she spent the night lying in her bed repeating "please let it snow on Christmas Day''. Sarah also told me secretly that the only thing she wrote on her Christmas list to Santa was for Bermuda to be covered with snow on Christmas day.

The next morning Sarah woke up and lay still, wondering if it was snowing at that moment. After about five minutes she rose from her bed. Walking slowly to the window, Sarah was wondering if this moment might just be the moment for which she was waiting. When finally her eyes were wide open she fell back about to cry. There wasn't one single flake of snow on the ground.

She was hardly able to walk down the stairs. When she finally reached the bottom step, she saw her family already awake and waiting to open all the presents. The whole day was turning out to be a disappointment.

At dinnertime, everyone sat at the table eating and chatting away. The dinner looked delicious. It wasn't that Sarah wasn't hungry, but with all the effort she put into making it snow, and turning out to be useless, just didn't give her an appetite. She was fiddling with her fork when Christopher shouted that there was another present under the tree. Christopher quickly picked it up and put it in her lap and exclaimed that it was for her.

Sarah opened the white wrapping paper slowly and carefully. Inside the paper was a beautiful glass ball with palm trees and pink beaches. It looked just the same as Bermuda. The sphere was special, because when you shook it, little snowflakes would dance around the inside of it. When Sarah was busy shaking the ball, she noticed that there was a note attached to the bottom: "It doesn't have to be cold for it to snow! Merry Christmas Santa ARTIST AS WELL AS WRITER -- Christmas drawings by Nathalie West, age 11.

SHORT STORY COMPETITION CPN