Small moment | Ava Poynter

I saw it. It looked really cool. It was my new trampoline.

I zoomed outside and jumped in my gumboots. I ran up the steps and sprinted through the ground. I jumped on the wood, and kicked off my gumboots. I opened the zip and wriggled my way through it. I bounced as high as I could, and I felt great. Will and Rose scrambled after me.

I was screaming like a crazy kangaroo, jumping up and down saying, “Hey Will and Rose look at me!” Will was mad. He charged up the steps like a Rhinoceros. He threw his mouth open and shouted back, “Hey that’s not fair. I’m coming to get you!”

Hiding | Amy Austin

The straw scratched my shoulder as I held my breath in the hayloft. I could see out only through a narrow sliver between the stacked haybales, so instead I had to listen closely for Helen's brother Joseph. Scuttling noises behind the hay rows reminded me of the mice, wild kittens, and birds that also lived in the hayloft. My still ballooned lungs gave me the space to hear other sounds too: the ducks in the stream outside, Helen's dad's tractor in the distance, the hum of the generator behind the milking shed.

Footsteps approached and I flattened myself against the rough golden wall. As the footsteps grew louder, I didn't dare to breathe, and closed my eyes, even though I knew that wouldn't actually make me any more invisible. I could hear his fast breathing - he must've been running, to be puffing so much. I concentrated on the rhythm of his breath and hoped that that would help me to stay still and silent. In out, in out, puff puff, puff puff.

I heard him stop, right by my row.

"Hey!" he said.

I opened my eyes expecting to see him looking straight at me but he had bent down, and then I heard the purring hum of a kitten.

"D'ya live in here ay?" Joseph said softly. He picked up the kitten, something I'd never been able to do with those wild cats, cooed at it quietly, and wandered out of the barn.

I slipped out of my spot, tiptoed to the back door and sped down the driveway to homebase. Free!

My grandpa | Sylvie Blake O'Brien

My grandpa talks quietly like a sea shell. He also calls me chickadee a lot.

He has white hair, brownish trousers, and a brown and white checked t-shirt.

At dinner time he always says, “Now, what haven’t I got?!” Everyone laughs at it quietly. Grandpa always says things about the pink couch. He is always in the kitchen, interested in what Grandma is making. You can tell when he’s grumpy because he sits down with a huff on the pink couch.

My grandpa is like a snail, walking and then stopping to sit down. He enters the room softly, putting each footstep on the ground carefully. When I am near him I feel safe and warm in side.

When he died his last sentence was, “Good girl, Sylvie.”