MyStory

"Arte (factually) Speaking" Story-Writing Competition

Shortlisted Entry (Upper Primary Category)

Contest ID: 75

Name: Jaslyn Peh Yun Xuan
Gender: Female
Age: 10-year-old
NRIC: SXXXX784J
Nationality: Singaporean
School: Chua Chu Kang Primary

Artefact: ERII Red Posting Box

Museum: Singapore Philatelic Museum

Image Courtesy of Singapore Philatelic Museum

In the Nick of Time

Once, there was a girl named Rachel. She had something very amazing in her house. It was a magical red posting box which could communicate with Rachel and her parents. It was an antique red post box that her father bought at an auction many years back. It had an unusual ability of keeping Rachel's family informed of in-coming letters or parcels as well as to post out items for the family. The family called it Red.

One sweltering hot afternoon, Rachel was carrying her heavy bag and was trudging home from school, feeling very exhausted. When she reached home, Red told Rachel, "Rachel, a postman dropped a letter into me. The letter is from your mother."

Rachel was on cloud nine when she heard that. She quickly went into her room and opened the envelope.

The letter read, "Dear Rachel, both your daddy and I are working in Hong Kong now. We will be back one month later and mummy wants you to be good and study hard. Love, mummy".

After reading the letter, she quickly wrote her reply to her mummy. Then she quickly got changed and dropped her letter into Red before going out to buy her lunch.
She was about to leave the food court when she heard someone laughing rambunctiously. Rachel was curious and wanted to see who the person was. She saw a group of girls near her bungalow home. They were smoking and chatting happily. One of the girls noticed Rachel and invited her to join the gang.

Initially, she rejected their invitation as she felt that they were not behaving in a socially acceptable manner. However, as times went by, she felt lonely without her parents at home so she started getting involved in the girl gang's activities regularly. She also started smoking.
When Red came to know about it through a chat with Rachel once, it was boiling with rage with her. Without any hesitation, Red knew that if it did not help Rachel, she would be in big trouble soon. It wrote a letter about Rachel's misdeeds and posted it out to her mother.

Meanwhile, Red also helped to convince Rachel not to mix with bad company any more.
After Rachel's parents received the letter from Red, they quickly flew back to Singapore. They had a good chat with Rachel and soon she realised her mistakes. She asked her parents for forgiveness. Her parents forgave her and Rachel promised to be a good girl and to study hard again.

After the incident, Rachel's parents were grateful and thanked Red. They lived happily ever after.

(433 words)