1st : Lee Min Xuan Mitchelle, 13, Tanjong Katong Secondary School
Meijing
She was dressed simply. She had full lips, a rare olive complexion and wavy dark hair
which fell down her back in silky tresses. Her vulnerable and precious good looks had always
garnered unwanted attention. Her name was Meijing. It means beautiful scenery, but unlike her
fragile appearance, she was a warrior inside. With her head held high, she defeated all types of
obstacles in her path. She was a fighter and always will be.
Meijing and I had been friends since the first day of primary school. She was a kind-hearted
soul who shared everything she had. Her voice was the sound of church bells and I loved her very
dearly. She was an industrious student who worked her hardest to attain quality work. Even
Mathematics, her poorest subject was done without complain. She rarely ate though. I remember
how I would always chide her to eat school lunches. I remember feeling that she was really a
peculiar and fascinating person. She likes eating vegetables and hates meat. She hates eating
chocolates or sweets and she loves to draw. All those memories of her would be forever in a little
corner of my heart. Seeing her angelic face being full of radiant smiles, it is hard to imagine the ill-
fortune that befell on her the previous year.
I remember the day as if it was yesterday. I remember how her expression of peaceful
beauty was distorted to one of anguish instantaneously. I remember how her eyes widened in
disbelief before turning frantic. The day when she got that phone call was probably one of the worst
days in her life.
The school bell had just rung. The sweet sound of freedom released the caged students from
their respective classes, signalling an end to another lacklustre and uneventful day school. I had
finally persuaded Meijing to eat lunch at the school canteen. I was glad that she was finally getting
some nutrients into her body. “Ugh, why must food always be so disgusting?” she muttered out
loud, prodding at the piece of chicken on her plate. I laughed lightly, finding her completely absurd.
Ring! Ring! Her trusty red mobile rang out loud, drawing Meijing’s attention. “Oh it’s my mom.”
She lifted her mobile to her ear. “Hi mom! ........ Sure thing! ……… “ Just then, her eyes widened in
disbelief before her face blanched. Whack! Her phone thudded on the canteen floor. Anxiously, I
asked her what was wrong. She simply apologised and ran out of the school canteen.
It was only days later when I found out what was wrong. Her beloved father was diagnosed
with stage three liver cancer and tuberculosis. To make matters worse, after the procedural blood
tests from other members of the family, she herself was diagnosed with dormant tuberculosis. Her
father had to quit his job as tuberculosis was contagious and he did not want any if his co-workers to
contract it. Meijing’s strain of tuberculosis was inherited from her father, thus it could not be spread
to others around her. That year when disaster struck twice in her family was the PSLE year. You
would think she would crumble under all that pressure and flunk her exams. However, because of
all the hardship she faced it made her even more determined. She wanted to pursue excellence, she
wanted to make her father proud in his last days. She really strove to accomplish a great many things
that year. She told me this once, “I do not feel sad, I just want to prove to the world that whatever
nonsense it throws at me, I will always make the best out of it.”
She was really a changed person. She studied so rigorously and with such verve, that her
arms was sore from writing. She practised her worst subject doubly hard and did loads of difficult
questions in her exercise book. She joined numerous writing contests which had monetary prizes to
support her mother’s sole income. She won almost all the contests she joined, giving all the money
to her mother to pay for her father’s medication. She even became very religious and prayed to her
deity fervently. She prayed that her father would pass peacefully and without pain.
I am immensely proud of Meijing. She is truly an incredible person. She reaped what she sowed
and went on to study in a prestigious secondary school in the East. She has made her father
proud and even helped her mother through this difficult time. Today, her father’s conditioned had
advanced to stage four liver cancer, but she is spending every minute she possibly can with him. I am
astonished at her positive outlook in life, but she tells me with a smile, “We should be grateful for
what we have.”
2nd: Seri Afiqah Bte Zuraimi ,15 Marymount Secondary
I Survived the Waves
The sun hung in the sky like a blazing fireball. I was curled up comfortably on a plush
armchair, sipping a glass of cold lemonade. The gentle sea breeze caresses my skin,
blowing my hair ever so lightly. If there was paradise on earth, this was it.
“Run!” someone suddenly shouted, his cry of terror punctuating the serenity of the
moment like a knife slicing through hot butter. The scream jolted me out of my reverie.
I squinted in the sunlight, trying to make sense of what was going on. People were
scampering like crazy monkeys in all directions. “Run! Before it is too late!” another
frenzied shout pierced my eardrums.
The sea had begun to recede, as though it were being sucked gradually out by an
invisible and gigantic vacuum cleaner. Normally, such a spectacle would have been
a wondrous sight to behold for the unsuspecting man on the beach; but thanks to
the deluge of tsunami information that had swamped news websites and national
tabloids in the aftermath of the 2003 tragedy, all of us knew better now. The receding
sea phenomenon was anything but a good omen. Rather, it signaled the brewing
wrath of Mother Nature; it heralded death and destruction, in the form of gigantic and
tempestuous waves called tsunamis.
In that instant, fear clutched tightly at my heart, causing it to palpitate wildly. Never in
my life had I come face to face with a situation as grave and as life-threatening as this.
Hastily, I disentangled myself from the lazy armchair, almost choking on my lemonade
in the process.
‘Argg! Ahhh!” I sputtered breathlessly as I took a dreadful tumble, snared by the unruly
straws that were protruding out surreptitiously from below my beach mat. Murphy’s Law
had raised its ugly head again- if something can go wrong, it will.
As I scrambled to my feet, I saw the waves. Even from a distance, I could feel their
power and ferocity. Surging at a rate of a hundred kilometers an hour, they appeared
out of the horizon like a terrifying curtain of water, bearing down inexorably and
threatening to decimate everything and anything in their path. At that moment, as the
waves rumbled relentlessly towards the shore, I could have sworn that I felt the earth
shake.
Around me, total chaos reigned. Footsteps clattered about agitatedly. Men were
screaming and women were hollering. I did not bother. I ran and ran. With all the energy
I could muster. I scampered helter-skelter, away from the hysterical masses, aiming for
the hillock a short distance away from the hotel. Alas, it was too late!
The sound of thunder rumbled ominously behind me. Fearfully, I cast a look over my
shoulder. The terrifying sight that greeted my shell-shocked eyes was something which
will remain etched in my memory for the rest of my life. I glimpsed a huge wall of
rampaging waves- foamier, bigger and angrier than anything I could have imagined.
The waves had finally reached me!
Lifted by the surging tide, I was swept off my feet and carried inland for nearly half a
kilometer. In the ensuing mother of all roller-coaster rides, I vaguely recall being washed
over a coastal road and a set of railway tracks before finally landing with a terrific thump
at a point where the land began to rise. Other than suffering from a hazy sensation
of being trampled upon by a million elephants, the blurry irritation associated with
water-clogged ears and the soreness of a bruised back, I had miraculously emerged
unscathed!
Groggily, I surveyed the scene around me. A Toyota car was wedged against a tree.
Another lorry had turned turtle and was half buried in the mud. The old-fashioned brick
railroad station was missing its roof and sides. The smashed houses in the vicinity
resembled a row of broken teeth. Downed power lines were everywhere. However, they
did not matter to me. Surviving a tsunami and living to tell the tale was all that mattered.
I sank to my knees and started to weep.
3rd Prize: Amelia Tan, 14, East Spring Secondary School
The Escape
I sat there staring out the window, wondering when this nightmare was going to end. It had
been two years since I was taken from my mother and sold to this horrible family. They seemed to think
of me merely as an ornament. Something to amuse them, something with no feelings or emotions. I had
no choice but to listen to them, for they would beat me if I disobeyed. I tried to tell them how I felt.
They never seemed interested nor did they seem to understand what I was saying. Of course they
wouldn’t understand. I was a foreigner after all. Someone who spoke a different language. I decided that
enough was enough. I couldn’t stay with this abusive family any longer.
I knew it was going to be difficult to survive out there in the world at my age. I considered
everything that I needed to survive and for a second I hesitated and thought about my life in the house.
Sure, they did beat me and all but I had food, although very little, and a shelter over my head. But then I
thought about the times they called me names. The times that they hit me. The times that they took my
food away. I walked out of the house. I was free for the first time ever. I walked out onto the street and
looked around me. When I walked past people on the street, there seemed to be something strange
about them. Mothers would shield their children as they walked past me and people would give me
unforgiving scowls. I never hated anyone else other than my adoptive family, but I found myself starting
to resent the half-pitiful and half- disgusted looks they gave me.
It was harder than I thought. I had to live on scraps and I had to run from humans because I was
so scared of them. One incident was when a woman accidentally walked into me because she wasn’t
looking where she was going. I bit her out of instinct and she flung her handbag full on my face. I walked
around with a sore nose and it became so hard to survive because I couldn’t smell anything and it
caused me to miss out on a few golden food opportunities.
I had been on the streets for around a month. Nobody had picked me up or asked me whether I
was okay. I had just been living on my own, scavenging food from wherever I could find. It was strange
how my character had changed so drastically within a month. I started staring back at the people who
stared at me. I started to become angrier. It came to the point where I had so much pent up anger that I
ran at a man from across the street. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the car to my left. It was a blur after that.
Loud screech, flying sensation. I screamed as loud as I could, but all the passerby could hear was a dog,
barking in the night.
I awoke to a harsh white light. I panicked and thought I was going to be put to sleep. I had
heard of this from my mother when I was younger. They would put other dogs to sleep because they
had outlived their usefulness or were simply too old to sell off. I saw a man clad in green looking over
me, but he didn’t have any resentment of me in his eyes. That was the last thing I remembered before
passing out again. When I awoke, I saw a human family, a mother, a father, a son and a daughter. They
looked at me curiously, and I overheard the man in green saying “adoption…loving family… history of
abuse”. Then it clicked in my head. They were going to adopt me. Me, a dirty and abused animal. This
was what I had dreamed of ever since I left that house. I realized that against all odds, I had survived.
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