Younger Children's
Section Winner
Halloween
by Sinéad
Bourke, Age 8, Co. Meath
It was Halloween Ciara,
Conor and Niamh were trick or treating they went up to one of the
houses and there was a sign on the window saying DO NOT COME IN OR
ELSE!
So they ran home.
Ciara opened the door but their parents weren’t home and there was
a ghost behind Conor. Ciara screamed for help. Their neighbour came
and said “What happened?”
“There’s a ghost
behind Conor”
“Let me call for
help”
But no one answered so
she drove everywhere looking for help until she found a house that
had lights on so she knocked on the door and someone answered.
It wasn’t a person,
it was a witch, so the next door neighbour ran into her car, but the
witch got her broom. The neighbour drove home but the witch was on
her broom so she saw where she was going, so she followed the car
home. She went down to the grass and ran into the house and got her
phone and called Frankinstein to the house. They had a fight.
If the ghost, witch
and Frankinstein won they got to stay. If Ciara, Conor, Niamh and the
neighbour won the ghost, witch and Frankinstein would have to leave.
So they played rock
paper scissors.
Ciara against the
Ghost, Conor against the Witch and Niamh against Frankinstein and the
neighbour keeping score.
So they played rock
paper scissors. Ciara won, Conor won and Niamh lost. So they have to
go!
“We won!” shouted
Niamh.
The End.
Older Children's
Section Winner
My Spooky Story
by Sophia Ní
Fhloinn Ní Raghallaigh Rang a Sé, Gaelscoil Longfort
On the day of
Halloween, a little boy decided to go and look for houses to trick or
treat at. He came across a big black, old, shabby house falling to
pieces. He asked a few of his friends would they go with him to the
house. As they walked closer to the house they heard ‘BANG, BOOM,
CLAP’. Even though he heard the noises he wasn’t afraid.
His friends Jack, Beth
and Rose told him that a little girl once lived there with her
parents, she was an only child, and she felt very lonely and sad. She
was left in her house all by herself, day and night.
She was constantly
frightened and one night as she walked down her stairs she fell
through the staircase. Suddenly she heard three knocks at her door
and it flung open. She wasn’t hurt just a little worried about the
door opening.
She quietly walked
outside the door to see if she could see anyone but no one was there,
she walked back in quickly to go and get her flashlight. She returned
back outside but still could not see anyone.
Her parents returned
to find their daughter spooked, up sitting in the dark with the
flashlight still on.
Teen Section Winner
The Dance of Doom
by Robyn
Coughlan, Co. Longford
From the light of the
street lamp, I could just about make out the shape of it dancing
forward. The street was completely deserted and the only sound I
could hear was the pitter-patter of it's straw-filled feet tapping
lightly on the concrete.
6ft tall it was... and
its eyes. Oh god its eyes. Red, burning slits, redder than the depths
of hell.
I should have listened
to my grandmother when she told me not to go into the cornfield. The
field that held more evil than it did corn.
I was frozen in fear
as it got closer. I didn't know how those straw-filled legs even kept
it up.
It danced forward -
the same dance it had been doing when I found it in the field. It was
like it was waltzing, but without a partner. As it spun, and leaped
in the most inhumane of ways, I found a tear escape from my eye and
roll lightly down my face.
It was now only a
couple of feet away from me and I could make out the evil grin that
formed on it's cloth face.
I crouched on the
ground, and closed my eyes - awaiting my fate. I could hear it as it
got closer.
Pitter-patter-pitter-patter.
And then, it stopped.
Slowly, I opened my
eyes and looked up. It was gone.
With a sigh, I blamed
it on my over-active-imagination and stood up, beginning to walk away
from the horror I had just endured.
Pitter-patter-pitter-patter.
There it was again. My
heart dropped into my stomach when I turned back and saw what was
there.
The scarecrow.
Only this time it was
right beside me - bent down so that it's face was level with my own.
“Hello,” it
hissed. “Would you care to dance?”
Adult Section Winner
I love your
nails!
Imelda, who looked
after the cosmetics, was a bit “tarty”, to be honest. The
chemist’s son was always telling her that he “loved her nails,
her hair, her frock”, when he was “helping” her in the stores.
I was the messenger boy, so I could hear the stocktaking that went on
sometimes.
One day she didn’t
turn up for work. The boss’s son also failed to materialise, so
when he appeared the next day but she did not, rumours went into
overdrive. In those days, when a woman disappeared like that, there
was usually a good reason. “She’ll be back slimmer” was the
consensus.
No further thought was
given to Imelda. Occasionally, someone would make a smart remark to
the son, and he would go red, but that was it.
About a month after
the bit of excitement, I was in the yard straining the noxious cough
medicine the shop made, through layered muslin. The stuff had been
simmering for weeks in a big cauldron on an old gas stove. It was a
messy job.
I was almost finished
squeezing the last few dollops out, when something caught my eye. I
knew immediately that Imelda was NEVER coming back. A cluster of her
favourite purply-red finger nails rested in my hand.
