English News 

Mullauna Motif Writing Competition

Each year, the junior levels craft a piece of creative writing in response to our Mullauna Motif. 

This year the Mullauna Motif is ‘TREASURE’.

Students then compose a piece that involves this key element.

On the Open Night, there is a competition across teacher selected entries from Years 7, 8 and 9. This competition is to ascertain the very best piece and the public is asked to vote on their favourite story.

Tasmin Davidson

Leading Teacher Literacy|Head of Faculty English

The winner this year is by Georgia 

Giannaris in Year 9 for her piece

 ‘Garden of Youth’. 

Congratulations, Georgia!  

Garden of Youth

Life can end in the blink of an eye, and this knowledge of the dreaded inevitable makes everyone valuable to each other. Since people’s relationships with one another are enduring, the memories they make with each other and the times they cherish together end up being life's greatest treasure.

Treasures can come and go though, just like Livia Katz. Livia was like a gift from the heavens to Effie. Effie Rose Grace was a timid girl, always quiet. Livia was the opposite; that’s why they were best friends. Ever since the day they met, the two were inseparable, glued together by the hip until something broke that glue. One accident. One car. One survivor, but it wasn’t Livia. Now, the only thing Effie had left of Livia was the garden of their youth. They had spent almost every second of their childhood in that mythical world in their corner of the Earth. The memories they had were like a treasure trove. Pretending they were magical princesses or evil pirates. It was the one place where their imaginations had run wild and their youth was eternal.

Now, walking into that garden, where Livia lay, it felt like Effie was being transported back in time. The cold half-circle shape of stone etched with ‘Livia Katz, gone too soon’ caught her eye.

Holding a nearby tree behind her for support, Effie lowered herself to the ground into a comfortable position leaning her back against the tree. Out of her bag, she grabbed a tattered piece of parchment and a pink envelope which had ‘Livia’ written on it in a cursive font. Effie grasped a pen and let it dance across the paper forming the goodbye she never got to say.

Dear Livia,

My best friend, I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye to you like this, or at all. I just hope you know how thankful I am for you, I know that I've never told you that, but losing someone is realising how quiet the world is when they aren’t there to make you laugh.

I just wanted to come back here and cherish the times we had together, like the time we planted our favourite flowers, your Peonies and my Poppies. Or the time when we chased after butterflies until our legs gave out on us. Even when we had planned to hang out here and play dress up, you showed up as Princess Aurora and I showed up as Captain Jack Sparrow because we had communicated wrong. Now looking over those memories I realise that even the small moments in life are gifts of a lifetime. 

I hope that you are doing well, and that you’re watching me right now, waiting for me, so that someday we can see each other and laugh together again.

Until we meet again,

 Effie. 

Folding the paper stained by tears and sealing it in the envelope, Effie picked herself up and walked forward to the gravestone, carefully placing down the note in hopes that maybe, someday, somehow, it would get to Livia. As she dragged her feet across the path, tears coursed down her face. The wind started to pick up, bringing an all-too-familiar voice along with it. ‘I treasured my life, now it’s time for you to treasure yours. Goodbye, Effie.’