Heist – By Bruno Davies

Bruno’s stimulus was “I Just Can’t Wait”. From this starting point he created this fantastic thriller.

I just can’t wait. This plan has been coming together for a while now.
Many years of waiting. The ultimate heist.
If we pulled it off – we would be beyond rich.
I shake as we head to the museum. We go towards the roof and open the shutters. We see red lasers – we will have to disable them.
I drop down inside and I feel tense and worried, yet excited.
I manage to disable the alarms, my fingers shake, I steal the paintings and put them in the back of my truck.
Then we race – full speed down the road but there is a road block ahead.
They are searching cars! We are up next.
I am terrified as they search, my heart beats faster, will they find the paintings?
Then, as they lift the rug, I can’t take it any longer – I press the accelerator hard and speed away, leaving the flashing blue lights behind. There is a chase, we swerve, we skip red lights and we crash. My leg is trapped beneath the truck and I’m scared because I can’t feel my leg. I manage to crawl away and hide in the bushes – watching the police pass. Knowing I am safe, but not knowing if they found the paintings, I pass out.
The next thing I know I wake up and a man with a beard is bandaging my broken leg. It is agony but he looks as though he is on my side. My eyes close from the pain.

The Opera of War by Jez Swateridge

Jez was given the brief to write about the beauty in something ugly. This is what he wrote:

Most people think there is no beauty in war. Bloodshed all around, gunshots, grenade explosions and screams. The sight of families, torn apart. My Sargent shouts “we are going to make a run for the camp, cover me!” and then he runs. I see him shot in front of me. He falls like a stone, a dead weight. I don’t think there’s any way he could survive. I don’t know how to feel, I need to tell his wife but I don’t know how to find her. The air feels cold. My hands were frozen. I looked at my friend and we looked at the Sargent. I was second in command and all of a sudden all the responsibility was on me. I panicked and we just fled.
As I ran, the air rushed past my ears and I heard something I had never heard before. It’s Music? Sort of like opera it sounded, rang through my ears like: dossdossssdo ssss bang bang boom itsss.
Helicopter blades whirl and whizz, people shout and scream, making harmonies. Gun shots sound like bass drums and thunder through my body. Shells dropping from the helicopter sound like a cymbal crashing and echoing around me. Bullets whizzing past my ears sound like the high notes of a soaring violin solo. The sound of children crying softly as they see their home destroyed was like a gentle harp gently placed over the thumping of the tank as it rolled past. I am so shocked – it sounds brilliant but it’s not at all what war is supposed to be like – it’s the beauty of war if it’s not too selfish or mad to think that. We get heli-lifited back to base, we are so shell shocked to know that Sarg is dead! That song I heard will never leave my ears, it was like the funeral song he never had.

Journey of a £10 note – By Tom Cottingham

Tom Cottingham imagines a 24 journey of a ten pound note.

6AM: The ten pound note flies out of a man’s hand in the high street outside the co-op. He runs after it and falls. An ambulance is called. No-one is sure if he will be OK.

10AM: An old woman, bent over in pain, hobbles to the Co-Op to collect her pension. She looks down at the ground because she is in pain and lonely. She sees the ten pound note and feels as though she has won the lottery.

2PM: The next day she went to co-op and she bought some tea and bread. The ten pound note gets put into the till, giving her two pound and twenty nine pence back. The next customer is a young child, spending their birthday money on sweets and chocolate. They use a crisp clean £20 note and get the ten pound note as change

6PM: The child is playing out in streets before dinner time and is playing bulldog in the alley ways with his friends. In one move, one of the bigger boys takes him down and holds him down, checking his pockets. He snatches the ten pound note and runs. The little boy screams and cries.

10pm: The older boy goes to a shop close to his home. He waits outside until a teenager meets him, just like every day, to buy him some booze. He knows he shouldn’t and he knows the teenager is taking more money than he should for the alcohol but the younger boy is so angry at his Mum that he can’t see any other way to feel better. The ten pound note goes into the till and the shopkeeper serves the teenager without asking for ID.

3AM: The husband of a pregnant woman arrives in the shop, looking panicky – he has got to buy her some chocolate and gherkins straight away, or else his wife will be mad. He hands over a twenty pound note to the cashier and doesn’t wait to get his change. The ten pound note falls to the floor.

6AM: The cleaner was washing the floor. She was 54 years old, she did this job because she needed the money to feed herself and her family. She quite liked the job but she had always wanted to do mechanics. If only she had worked harder at school. Then she saw a ten pound note in the middle of the floor and knew that this would make a big difference to her family. Maybe they could have a treat tonight, a takeaway, some sweets for the kids. She wondered if she would be caught and lose her job as she put it in her pocket.

At the airport (Amy Revell)

From his seat at an airport cafe, life unfolds around our protagonist as he describes what he can see. By Amy Revell.

So I’m sitting there at an airport for my wife waiting for her to come back from her holiday. Whilst I’m waiting, I’m having a nice hot cup of tea.
I go to take my first sip… and I look up to the sound of screaming. I can see a couple reunited, they run for each other and fling their arms round each other. This makes me happy.
I start to look around and see a little boy with his teddy looking out the window watching all the planes flying up high into the air. It reminds me of a time I was that amazed by planes in the sky.
I’m sitting there and I see an old man looking at his watch getting very sweaty, he keeps looking at the door. Maybe he is waiting for someone. Then he starts to cry and I watch him out the corner of my eye just to check he is okay, just to check this stranger is OK. I look around and see a guard running after a man with brown hair and a giant suitcase. I don’t trust him. Maybe he stole something, maybe he will be caught.
To my left an elderly man is eating a chocolate chip cookie and drinking a delicious hot chocolate. I am jealous. I imagine that he was waiting for someone. Maybe they will come, maybe not, maybe they never existed. And then from around the corner, through the crowd I see my wife, she walks through the door and I feel as excited as the first time I saw her. I jump up and run to her.

The strength of a daisy

A moving creative writing piece by Lacy Streeter

Dear Diary,
Today I was walking to school, just as I do every day. I was staring at the ground because I was thinking, how good would it be if my Mum and Dad never argued any more?
So I was thinking that, and looking down, down the gloomy, dark road, when suddenly I became wide eyed because I glanced at a peaceful daisy in the middle of the concrete path, it was bursting up, full of happy and sweet life through the tough road.
This made me feel really happy, but still, I wondered, how can this weak, pretty flower grow through a road so strong? I thought, as I walked and I realised: that daisy is the strong one, not the road.
That daisy is different and so am I. So it really doesn’t matter if you’re different. My parents may argue but I can burst through, just like the flower.
Rachel

Frosted glass door

Another excellent story by the talented Mr. Palmer

Adam Palmer: Frosted glass door (image stimulus)

I stand still behind the frosted, murky glass, rooted to the spot, frozen, like a statue.
Trying as hard as I can to hold my breath, I can feel my heart pounding in my chest as the shadowy figure approaches the door.
I huddle into the corner of the room but my lungs are aching, screaming at me to let my breath out and free my voice, and I can my heart beating so loud in my ears.
It’s all I can do to suppress my voice from shouting out for help. I feel like I am going to explode, and just as I feel I can’t take it anymore, the thought hits me: this is it, this is where I die, this is it. After all I’ve been through, this is it. This is where I die.

She is my sky

A song written by the wonderful Year 8 students as a whole group:

Every day’s the same.
And no change
Every day the same
But I want you to know
When the sky falls
All I wanted
Was to bring you up here so you could
See the sky fall with me
I’d do anything
For you
I’d run
A thousand miles and poles apart
We will stand tall, we said
We will face the storm together
Face it all together
And now
She drives off every day
That’s the way
Ships upon their way
She’s his girl now
I don’t even know how
This is the end
Hold your breath and count to ten
Let the sky fall
Feel the earth move and then
Hear my heart burst
Again
Again
Let the sky fall
When it crumbles
When we aint kids no more
You can look in my face
See the pain in my eyes
Tears ready to fall
Like rain from the skies
So why
Why can’t we
Come together
Why?
Because this
Is
The end

Smile. Lines. Escape.

Inspire students were given prompts today for their photography. Here are a few of the best shots experimenting with angle, close ups and patterns.
The prompts were:
Smile
Lines
Escape

The air turned – Tom

Out of the blue I felt the air turn nasty. He swung his arm up into the sky and I felt the air rush past my face before his knuckles sank into my jaw. I felt pain searing through my face and flooding my body. Shaking, I felt dizzy and everything spun around me. “Why has he done this?”, I thought. Is this really all because of a stupid fight in school? I was straining to get up. MY legs felt jellied and I struggled to stand but I just managed it. Then I saw him swing his arm again. Black out.

Motionless – Milly

I was driving down a long, misty, plain, strange, unusually dark road when I suddenly hit a bump in the road. I got out of the car to see what it was, worried I had damaged the car, when I saw her laying there. A beautiful, muddy, girl. Her face was pure white, wide eyed, her eyes were motionless. Those shiny, precious, gleaming eyes, just motionless. I was scared, I felt dizzy, what had I done? I went to scream for help when I saw something move. One of her eyes blinked. She was alive…