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The winning essay:

A secret island of my very own

I am a little boy in a village near the Pacific Ocean. Our village is near a bay. My father is a sailor, so I also get the chance to go in the ships. I like to sail very much. So on my twelfth birthday my father presented me a boat as a birthday gift. It was a small boat, but four people can go in it. I loved that boat. It has a small sail, a small anchor and two wooden oars.

So after that when I am free I go sailing in the bay in my boat but I don’t go very far from the bay because my mother said it is dangerous. She also said that there is a legend about this bay and a secret Island. I asked her about that legend. She said there is a small island far from the bay where no one goes because in the legend it says there are ghosts, phantoms and monsters in that island.

She mentioned that many brave people including my great-grandfather, who was a sailor also, went to that island but no one came back. So this island was called Monster Land. For about three hundred years no one went to that island. Ships also don’t go near that island so my mother was a little bit scared that I would go to that island.

But I was not afraid. I was determined to go to Monster Land, the secret island. The next day I went to school. There I said what my mother said, to George and Paul, my best friends. They were all excited.

They also said that they would come with me. So we planned to go to that island next Saturday. We were very happy to think that we are on an adventure. So the next Saturday my friends came to our home. They brought things like ropes, water bottles, a map of this area and some other things needed for our exploration. I took my father’s compass and some sandwiches and a bottle of lemonade.

So we set off to the beach happily. When we came to the beach I unanchored my boat and we pushed to the sea. We kept our things in a corner of the boat and we jumped to the boat. George and I took the oars and rowed while Pail with the help of the compass and the map showed the correct direction. We rowed about half and hour and as the wind was good and as it was in our directed we stopped rowing and put out the sail. It flapped happily and much faster than rowing the boat went towards our destination.

After about two hours we saw a small black dark cloud in the horizon.We thought it was going to rain but after a few minutes we saw that is was the Monster Land. We were fully excited. Then after half an hour we reached the island. We jumped and pushed the boat to the coast. I was feeling like Christopher Columbus. he found America, I found Monster Land.

Then as we were hungry, we went in to the island and ate our sandwiches and we enjoyed our lemonade also. After having our lunch and a small rest we went to explore the island.

We walked around the island first. In our walk we found some rusted guns and swords. We found a large anchor of a ship and lo and behold we found a flag. In it was a skull and two bones drawn on a black background. Then Paul exclaimed ‘pirates! This island was a place where pirates were living’. Then we knew that the ghosts, phantoms and the monsters of the Monster Land were the bad pirates but we knew that there were no pirates now. So after that we explored the middle part of the island there we found a spring which made a small waterfall and a small river. We drank some water from it. The water was very cool and clear.

There were two mountains in this island. There were many trees, plants, flowers, vines and bushes. We also saw some squirrels, birds, rabbits, mice and some other small animals.

Exploring we ate some mangoes and same bananas which we got from the island itself. They were very tasty.

After that as it was the evening we decided to go from this island. So we set off happily but a little bit sad to leave it. We put our boat into the sea and we sailed home. We names this island Adventure Land instead of Monster Land. We decided to keep this island as a secret. We thought now this island belongs to the three of us.

So we left our lovely island. Adventure Land, and came home before dark. Then we went to our homes happily. The three of us are determined to go to that island again, because now it is our secret island.

- Geethika Manukulasooriya
Mahinda College
English-medium Intermediate category:
2010 English medium creative writing competition

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