19 July 2022

Posted by Tabby Hayward

HEATWAVE

In our final session of the term, it made sense to be writing about the heatwave! BUT with a classic end of term young writers BAKE OFF TWIST!

For the signature challenge, the young writers had to come up with a recipe to survive the heatwave - which could be as serious, funny, scientific or magical as they chose!

From Zoe:

How to survive a Heatwave - The complete guide

Resources needed:

• A sofa

• As many
ice creams as possible

• Clips

• WHITE
sheet

• Mini
fridge

• Mini
freezer

1. Take
apart the sofa to make a den

2. Make your
den

3. Make sure
you can still see the TV

4. Cover it
in WHITE sheet to stop the heat being absorbed

5. Take in
your mini freezer

6. Fill it
with ice cream

7. Then get
your mini fridge

8. Fill it
with water

9. Close all
blinds and curtains

10. Watch TV

From Safir - The cooling recipe.

Firstly add some ice, then, add more ice, then more until its only ice. You can
choose to add some flavours like strawberry for extra effect. Also, add some
ice> Thirdly, put a fridge into your ice mix. It is sure to keep you nice
and cool. Also put some icecream in
there for EXTRA COOLNESS

From Anonymous:

Apply a wet flannel to the back of the neck, this helps with
cooling off, especially if you have poor air conditioning.

Find a nice dark spot to relax, beneath a tree, below an
umbrella, a forest, a cave, the silent cupboard underneath your staircase, turn
off your lights and find the Dark, an alleyway eternally shrouded in the night,
a sun that burns cold and casts no light.

Burrow yourself into the earth and rock, I’m sure some of
you may be asking: how would that help? Isn’t it hotter deep in the ground? How
is that practical? Trust us on this one, a good miles long cramped tunnel
beneath the surface is worth it, to travel without knowing which way is up and
having soil on all sides is a great way to escape the heat of the surface
world.

Find somewhere empty, with good airflow: the howling winds
of an empty world, crumbling buildings and desolate wastes of once populated
lands: you don’t know how long ago people lived here but you know they are no
longer.

Keep a good distance from crowded areas if you can, the heat
of a crowd can be a deadly killer, try to stay away from groups of Zero or
more. Do not find others, keep yourself away from as many people as you can,
there is no one out there. There is no one who can find you.

For the Technical Challenge, the young writers had to write an acrostic poem, using either the word 'Summer' or another word related to summer!

From Neelesh:

Swimming together with
friends and my family.
Using sunscreen to protect myself from the heat.
Making new crafts and inventing new things.
Mild weather making me
smile.
Eating
ice-cream on a hot sunny day.
Relaxing and
watching TV like a lazy person

From Gene:

Heat is a wearing a jumper in Africa

Everyone is dead from the heat waves

And I’d rather have snow in Canada

Than having to cope with this today!

From Safir:

Potent in its shining rays
Enemy to ice
Roating as an oven
Igniting its fire
Savage as a madman
Harshly intends to murder

From Liberty:

Burning slowly
Is hard to imagine when one is cool, but it
Renders limbs aching and useless
Drowns in torrents of self-pity and
Sweat
Orders your core to crumple, until you have
Nothing, and I can’t even hear the
Gentle birdsong

From Charlotte:

B Baking in the hot weather like a jacket potato inside an
oven.
L Life seems to slow as the heat rises the sun comes to say
hello
U Underneath the sun
E Everyone tries to keep cool and have fun
S Sometimes even giving into others wish for going outside
K Kites are flying in the wind above everyone’s heads
Y Yes it seems to be summer again

From Aurora:

Scald is the call of the air, sizzling with the ruthless
agony of burning skin. The skies are drowning in vapour, rising like a phoenix
to be reborn, yet not reborn for months yet. Each mirror is a tempest, buckles
and door-handles once familiar friends turned to ferocious fiends, and the
scalding sun is the cause of it.

Waste is the sleep in the sand, the withering corpses that
stretch out and bleed against gravity. Slowly cooked, half-baked, like the
potatoes that would sit on the kitchen table, forgotten and emitting clouds of
thin steam. Dies, dries, out and afraid of the undead skies, and the wasteful
sun is the cause of it.

Early is the eye in the hawk, the uncontrolled squeal of the
squirrel, bullets falling from their backs like carpet-bombs as they strafe the
misty mornings. Not yet are they scorched, razed, disintegrated – for now they
emerge to hunt and hide, survive in the blaze. The latest sun is the cause of
it.

Autumn is the outstretched hand, the tunnel at the end of the desert railroad
tracks. As the leaves switch their delicate shades, we too must learn from
ourselves – turn green to orange, no more green children after the cinders
burnt our shells to the ground, melted them. The Summer sun is the cause of it.

Tears are the blindfold, the no way forward, the flagpole
deserted by the patriotism it grew. Once more from the sands walk the weary,
the down-trodden – sweat-ridden husks escaping the eyes of the Lord. No more
are our sacrifice, no more can we bear this burden, and the tearful sun is the
cause of it. Knows it.

Finally, for the Showstopper, the young writers were challenged to write a horror/scary story - but set on the hottest day of the year, in the middle of the day, in bright sunshine!

From Neelesh:

Well, what else can I say? I always get into adventures with
my older brother Tim who he thinks that he's 'James Bond 2.0' Our mystery
happened at broad daylight. Broad daylight, can you believe it???? It all
started when I saw someone suspiciously trying to follow me every day when I
walked with my brother to the shops. However, just 2 days ago I saw something
delivered something near my door. I had no idea what to do. Was it the guy who
was stalking me or someone else? Surely, Tim and I didn't order anything. Just
today I have found the shocking truth......

From Safir:

the weather man was right. It was time i let my xbox go to
go outside. I stepped out. To my horror, dead bodies lied everywhere. Melted
organs made a river lead to the drains. I dived back in, the sun, instantly
tanning my skin. what was i going to do? Looking out the window, my eyes
started to melt. The suns light reflected to my eyes, too bright for me to take
it. You could hear screams from everywhere. I jumped when I heard one behind
me, my family was melting.

From Charlotte:

The sun continued to give out blinding rays outside.
Everyone had agreed to stay inside the saloon, where it was the coolest out of
the town. The sun hadn’t stopped since yesterday evening and just seemed to be
getting hotter by the minute. The whole town was melting and trying to stay
cool even with the air conditioning on full blast!

Osbourne and Edwards stood near the bar, surveying the scene
around them. Everyone seemed to be a bit too quiet. They put it down to mostly
heat. Either that or the huge fight between Mrs Jones and Mr Wright that had
happened the day before, had gotten everyone in a down mood.

“That seems to be everyone.” Osbourne counted around the
room just in case anyone was missing.

Edwards wiped his brow as Osbourne counted again.

“What’s the matter? Would you like me to make them all stop
moving so you don’t count one person twice?!” Edwards was more frustrated than
ever thanks to the heat.

“It’s not that. Have you seen Mr Wright this morning?”
Osborne said in a hushed tone.

Edwards double checked to make sure Osbourne hadn’t made a
mistake. No he was right. Mr Wright was missing.

Before either of them could suggest going out to look for
him, quiet thunder muttered over the horizon. The whole room jumped as the
storm came closer and closer.

“We’ll look for him later. We can’t risk going out in this.”
Edwards shook his head seeing the black clouds blanket the once blue sky.

“That storm came quickly!” Osbourne muttered.

Before Edwards could respond to this remark, a shout came
from outside.

From Gene:

In PE hottest day of the year and yet we still ran around
playing handball,

My friend who was fielding got light headed and fell to the floor,

We all rushed over to comfort and said, “are you okay!”

I for one panicked as if he were going to faint.

Then he knelt up right and pointed to a bush,

He said there a man. We couldn’t look

My friend rushed to hospital a death bed he was in,

after that hot awful day that was he
last we ever saw him

From Aurora:

The sky is made of light. It may seem obvious from an
outside perspective, but usually, as you might know, the flooded curtain above
our heads is blue. I feel naked under the vicious heat, bearing down on me as
if with talons, and raise a sizzling arm against my forehead that stick
together with glue. My legs are sticks, uncertain and brittle, tapping blind
melodies out upon the uneven cobbles among the grass. There is a long hill that
leads away from my house and up a country road, hedged by once flowering
bushels now turned to wildfire. They glow in the yellow char, and their wicker
nests are silent. There is a tree that the farmer across from me will not cut
down, that he says is planted over a body. It shines radiantly too, emerald
leaves adorning its opal trunk as it rises, melting, from the soft ground. I
bend over my wall to take my post, which, as usual, is left by the side of my
rusted gate, and as I look back up the tree is no longer alone. By its side, it
is accompanied by a tall man.

He is little more than a smudge of my vision, hazy and
unfocused as my glass sight falters, fractures, shatters, and I blink
furiously. He is gone, not down the hill towards me or down the hill away from
me, so I assume I am hallucinating and carry on. My post retrieved, I turn to
walk into my house. The glaring eyes of the burning sun drive drillbits into
the back of my skull, performing its medieval surgery and cutting the demons
out. A loud cough startles me. I turn, and am once again faced with a very tall
man, though no longer is he by the opulent tree. Now, he stands inside my
rusted gate, just a few blind steps away from my feet. He is otherwise silent
and doesn’t look at me. His coat is wide, but his frame is skinny, and he wears
a hat to hide his features all save for his poking nose that emerged from his
shadows.

I blink in the light, my eyelids a tomato red. He is gone.
Now I am worried, for I am sure I heard his cough, and suddenly, the sunlight
is the last thing I need to escape. I turn back to my gate, and pull it wide,
hearing its eerie scrape squeal as it draws open. I listen to nothing for quite
some time, watching my gate.

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