Young Writers' Competition

Have you ever walked on the beach? Early, I mean, just after dawn, when no one has been there yet. The cold grey light of the morning, with the sun just beginning to seep over the horizon. I have. I like to go there, before anyone’s awake, wrapped up warm in my windbreaker and old red-and-yellow scarf, to think, and contemplate what’s happening.
This particular morning, what happened to be happening was Sophie. Sophie is my daughter. She’s just fifteen… although I probably shouldn’t say ‘just’. She’d kill me if she knew – ‘I’m not a child, mum, I’m a young adult.’ That’s how she said it. In italics, just like that.
It’s the sand, you see. It’s not ruffled up by hundreds of feet, there’s no litter, it’s just smooth wavy ridges where the sea laps the shore; short tracks of exquisitely delicate birds’ feet; a lone set of footprints winding their way out of sight; a crumbling sandcastle that houses the laughter of its young creator. Always a totally unique picture, never the same; fresh each day. Like divine mercy. New every morning.
She’d crept in at 01.57. As if I wouldn’t notice that she hadn’t come home, hadn’t even called. Honestly. I sometimes wish she would credit me with a little more intelligence than she seems to at present. Of course, I asked all the usual questions. ‘What time do you call this? Why do you think I bought you that mobile, if not to call us? Who were you with? That Daniel boy? Why do you do this to me?’ It was that last one that did for it. She really exploded then – Why does she do this to me, what about what I do to her, keeping her prisoner in this isolated hole of a cottage in the middle of nowhere… you get the general idea.
It’s so beautiful here. Like a white canvas, a new beginning. I always feel so forgiven when I come here in the morning to pray. You know the rainbow? God’s promise to Noah? Well, this beach is my rainbow. My promise of a clean start to the day.
That’s when she walked out. It’s funny, it wasn’t the melodramatic style she delivers when she wants attention, she just sort of stared at me for a while, then walked silently and purposefully upstairs, and when she came down she had her trainers on and a rucksack on her back, and the next thing I knew the front door was closing in my face with a quietly determined ‘click’.
It blew me away. Completely. I have never heard anything so damning as that ‘click’. I stood there, shell-shocked, for about ten minutes before grabbing my windbreaker and scarf and coming here.
Sometimes I look for shells. Once I found an oyster shell and I took it home to put on my windowsill, because it reminds me so much of the beach. I mean, the outside has almost exactly the same pattern as the waves make on the sand, and the inside is a rainbow, my promise. David laughed at me when I took it home, but Sophie didn’t. She understood.
We’ve always been so close. I thought we knew each other inside out. She can always find me here, and I can always guess what she’s thinking. But I guessed wrong, I suppose. I thought she liked living here, liked the peace of our little cottage.
The thought that she’s gone makes me want to curl up tight, you know, like a hermit crab, curl up into my shell in a tight hard little knot. I’ve stopped crying though. I think I’m all out of tears.
What’s my promise? Forgiveness. What’s forgiveness? Mercy. Love. Trust. Truth. Reconciliation? Yes.
I can see her coming in the distance. She’s seen me, too. I can see the new pattern her footprints are making, mingling with mine, weaving a beautiful tapestry of promise, of reconciliation. The grey dawn has blossomed into day, now, and I can see the tear run off her face into the sea, to be lost, taken as far from us as the east is from the west. Forgiveness of sins, my rainbow, my promise. And my colours are the patterns, new every morning. l.

Shortlisted

Nine to eleven-year old group: Second Prize Ciara Grace Elwis, Kinross; Third Prize: Murdo Elwis, Kinross. Shortlisted: Rowan Ellis, Minster, Kent; Jacob George, York; Angeline Hunt, Lowestoft; Timothy Jasper, Sedgefield, Co Durham; Eve Laycock, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire; Rachel Norman, Pinner, Middlesex; Ella Simpson, Ilkley; Harrison Ward, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex; Ione Wells, Chelsea, London.
Twelve to fifteen-year age group: Second Prize Jenny Messenger, Silloth, Wigton, Cumbria; Third Prize: Anna Horner, Lindfield, Haywards Heath. Shortlisted: Sarah Austen, Cambridge; Stephen Benson, Cardiff; Oliver Bond, Todmorden; Louise Crawford, York; Jack Kennedy, Abernethy, Perthshire; Bridget Leary, Ashwell, Hertfordshire; Elizabeth McLaren, Newmarket; Sarah Morrison, Bromsgrove; Emma Norman, Pinner, Middlesex; Daisy Whittingham, Shifnal, Shropshire