WELLINGTON COUNTY – The winners of the inaugural Olive and Fred Robins Junior Short Story Contest have been announced by the Wellington County Library.
The contest was made possible thanks to a bequest from the estate of the late Frederick Hardy Robins, a strong supporter of library services.
It is open to Wellington County students in Grades 4 to 6, who were invited to submit original short stories between 500 and 750 words.
There were two winners, two runner-ups, and one prize for a name drawn randomly from all entrants.
The Advertiser is publishing one winning story in this issue, The Craziest Farm Day Ever by Gavin Smith, and will publish the other winning story, Home for Christmas by Heidi Smits, in a future issue.
The Craziest Farm Day Ever
By Gavin Smith
One day some time ago Bob took his new girlfriend Alex to his parents’ farm in the country.
Alex grew up in the city, and had never been on a farm before. He thought it would be funny to get the city girl to touch an electric fence.
After meeting his parents, Bob suggested, “How about we go take a walk, and I will show you some things on the farm.”
He put some gloves on and walked with her. He touched the electric fence with his gloves on, and said “If you want to see something very cool happen, you have to hold onto this wire and pull!”
She grabbed onto the wire, and she was blown a few feet away! But she was holding onto Bob’s hand, so he was blown away with her. They landed on a lever and the weight pushed the lever down, and the ground opened up into a gigantic hole that went all the way down to Mexico!
They popped out of the hole into a burrito restaurant and banged into the waiter. She was holding a humungous two feet tall pile of fish, beef and chicken burritos, so burritos went flying everywhere. The Mariachi band in the restaurant grabbed their guitars and sang, “It’s raining burritos, burritos. We all love burritos, burritos…”
Bob said, “Oopsy-daisy!” and saw a lever on the ground of the restaurant. He pulled the lever up. They thought they were going home, but… they ended up in Australia, and the Mexican band fell in with them! When they slid out of the hole, they came out in the Steve Irwin Zoo snake sanctuary! There was a thick barrier of glass trapping them in with the snakes.
Alex exclaimed, “Oh no!” and the Mexican band sang, “We are in a snake sanctuary; we are going to die. We love snakes, but we are going to die…”
Alex ran at the glass and hit it with all her strength. The glass exploded and they were free – but so were the snakes! They ran with the snakes close behind them, while the Mexican band sang, “Didn’t we fall down a hole, so why can’t we go down it again…?” They doubled back and went around a bend, as the snakes reached them. Then Alex saw a lever on the ground. She pulled it, and they fell in a hole, but a few snakes fell in the hole with them.
Luckily, they landed right in front of a snake charmer in Egypt. The snakes were charmed and started dancing to the snake charmer’s music. The Mariachi band got jealous and sang, “We can sing better than you, we challenge you to a duel of music…” and the snake charmer replied, “duel accepted.”
They forgot all about the snakes, and the snakes started to slither towards them. The Mariachi band started to sing, “We are better than you, we are better than you, we will win this musical duel.” The snakes were hypnotized by the band, but then they stop being hypnotized at the end of the song. The snake charmer started to play and the snakes start to dance to his music.
“Who won?” the Mariachi band asked. “Both of you,” Alex and Bob said.
“We better go,” Bob said. “Bye snake charmer, we will never see you again.”
Bob pulled the lever and they fell down the hole again. While they were still in the hole, the leader of the band saw a lever on the side of the tunnel. He pulled it and a new tunnel opened.
The Mariachi band went down that one, and end up back in the burrito restaurant. They sang, “We are home, we shall eat burritos, burritos!”
Bob and Alex kept going down the tunnel and ended up back at the farm. “Well, that was an adventure,” Alex said.
Moral of the story: never get a city girl to touch an electric fence.
