Category: Writing

Conner breathed heavily, supporting his back on a large wall. After managing to hide behind the smelly, revolting and gruesome bins with flies hovering above and making sure that everyone was out of sight, Conner didn’t miss a chance to rest. After all the weird happenings of the night, all Conner wanted to do was slump down and fall into the wonderful black hole of sleep, and dream about mice floating around his head. But Conner knew that there was no time to sleep. It was time for action, time to prove to the cat world that he was innocent. So, using all his might, he heaved himself up and started thinking of a plan.

Meanwhile, in the dirty house of Trevor, Pip, Kim and Limmy, the four disgusting cats were howling with malicious laughter. The television reporter, a pretty snowy white cat with light blue eyes was now talking about the breaking news, which was about Conner’s rude speech and that now he was in hiding and that police cats were all over the place looking for him. “Sweet, sweet revenge,” sighed Trevor happily, as he ripped open another out of date crisp packet and poured mouldy cheese and onion crisps in his mouth.

The sports news was coming up, and as the four cats laughed at people, sorry, I mean CATS falling and bumping their heads in sports like wrestling, Conner was taking a bath with a water fountain and a scrub somebody had left in the bin (Conner had washed it very thoroughly with the water fountain before he began to scrub himself). Yes, I know what you’re probably thinking right now, that you thought Conner was planning an epic plan to prove him innocent, and act all heroic, and that taking a bath wasn’t very epic or heroic. But this was the most important part of his plan, and as Conner rinsed himself once more with a water fountain, there was no longer a sleek, shiny cat with long whiskers and a smart bow tie. Where that cat once stood several minutes ago, was a skinny cat with jet black hair and bright blue eyes. Conner’s old self was back, and I hope you are as happy as I am to see him, because let me tell you a secret, I didn’t really like Conner when he was all dressed up and made up. I thought he was a bit big-headed and all. Like me, Conner was also secretly pleased to be his old self again, mostly as the makeup on him was starting to itch terribly.

Anyway, while Conner was putting the rest of his plan into action, Trevor had a funny feeling something was wrong. Which was weird, seeing as his favourite show when cat celebrities get embarrassed was on, and he was sitting on the comfiest spot on the rotten sofa. But he knew something was wrong, because is left arm hairs were tingling, and once he had been careless enough not to listen and ended up with a burned patch on his hand. Trevor twisted around uncomfortably, supposing that it was the wind, but even when he closed the window shut and turned on the heating, the hairs on his left arm were tingling harder than ever, as if they were fish desperate to wiggle out of a net. I would want to wiggle out of Trevor’s disgusting arm if I was unfortunate enough to end up as one of his arm hairs, but the point was that Trevor was freaking out, because there was only one time when his left arm hairs tingled that hard, and that was when he was in a major crisis.

He suddenly thought about his mum, but quickly pushed that thought away as he turned around and said in a grave voice to his crew, “Boys, we have a huge problem.” Pip, Limmy and Kim exchanged fearful looks at each other, then Pip asked in a quivery voice, “What is the big problem?” “I don’t know!” said Trevor in an irritated voice. “That’s the problem. I know that there is a huge problem because my left arm hairs are tingling, I just don’t know what exactly the problem is!” when none of the cats said anything, Trevor continued. “Just do as I say, and we will solve this big problem in no time.” so, on Trevor’s orders, the four cats went out on to the empty streets. “What now?” asked Kim, looking around. Trevor thought and thought, but nothing came to his mind except for prawn cocktail flavoured crisps, probably because his tummy was rumbling very loudly indeed. You see, the problem with trying to solve a big problem without knowing what the problem is was that try as you might, you don’t know what to do, and then after a few seconds you start thinking about food. Anyway, whilst Trevor was thinking, a skinny black cat with other black cats were walking towards him. Trevor was so immersed in his thoughts that a girl black cat sneaked behind him, then said in a very loud voice, “BOO!” right in his ear. “AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGG!!!!!” Trevor screamed, jumping up like he’d been struck by electricity. There was a silence, before everybody started to laugh loudly. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” “This is so definitely going to make 10 Million likes on Mew Tube!” said another girl cat with glittery eye shadow who had been videoing the scene the whole time. Trevor stood up, fuming. “This is NOT the time for games!” he bellowed at Pip, Kim and Limmy, who hastily stopped laughing and stood beside Trevor, looking grim. “And you!” he shouted, turning around to face the black cats. “Go back to the sewers where you BELONG! I have some important work to do,” and with that, he walked away, Pip Kim and Limmy at his heels.

After a few seconds, the skinniest black cat said quietly, “I don’t live in the sewers. I actually live in a mansion you know.” Trevor turned around, before bursting into fits of laughter. “You really think, really think that I’d believe that!” he spluttered, spit flying everywhere. “I mean, look at you! You’re as thin as a pin, your fur is all scruffy, and you smell!” he said incredulously. “Surely if you’re rich enough to buy a mansion then at least you could’ve had baths and enough food!” “First of all, no matter how much food I eat I will always be thin and scruffy,” the skinny black cat said, before turning around and nodding at four boy cats, who cracked their knuckles menacingly. “And second of all,” he said, smiling slightly, “I am Conner, the cat who is 100% innocent and who is blamed for YOUR crime!” the second the words came out of his mouth the four boy cats lunged at Trevor and his crew, holding them back. “YOU used your computer skills to insert a video of a hairy cat with my head on saying BAD stuff about the environment so that the cats would hate me. My sister claims she saw you clicking a button to change what was on the big screen. And when we went to the studio of the stage, we found THIS!” he exclaimed, brandishing a small piece of black cat fur. There was a silence, in when Trevor digested in all the things Conner had just said. Then, slowly, a smile came to his lips. “Proof. In all of this, you forgot the most important thing. Proof. Your sister, the one who had witnessed this scene might be seeing things for all we know. And that,” he pointed at the piece of black fur in Conner’s hand. “Can be anyone’s fur for catness sake. Why, it might even be yours,” he finished with a triumphant look.

Conner wanted to slap himself. Why, WHY in all the things he had done had he forgotten about bringing evidence that actually proved Trevor’s crime. He deflated. Now, the cat world will always know him as a criminal, a bad cat, a- “Proof? We got proof,” said the glittery eyeshadow girl cat, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper and smoothing it out. It was a picture of Trevor pressing a red button and the screen changing to the video. “Make sure you think before saying that I am just SEEING things, because I ALWAYS take pictures of things I think are fishy,” she narrowed her eyes at Trevor. “And YOU certainly are.” By the way, if you are wondering who these cats were (apart from Conner) they are, of course, Conner’s brothers and sisters, who were helping Conner after he’d told them that he was absolutely DIDN’T have magical powers to make his face beautiful, and that it was just makeup. Anyway, Trevor managed to slip past the big cats arms and run away, shouting, “EVEN IF YOU DO HAVE THE EVIDENCE OF MY BAD DOINGS, YOU WON’T EVER SEE ME AGAIN! GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE!” “Too late,” muttered Conner under his breath. As soon as they could, Conner and his brothers and sisters had phoned the cat police, and sure enough, sirens were blaring as Trevor was surrounded by angry cat police. After everything was explained, one of the police laughed and took hold of Trevor. “What did you think, that if you did this you would be a STAR? Well, doing this just makes you a criminal, laddie.”

Suddenly, flashbacks of his mum came back to Trevor in a whirl, his mum softly kissing him on the cheek and saying softly, “You are going to be a STAR when you grow up, my little Trev,” his mum being captured kicking and screaming by masked criminals with heavily armed tattoos, and as Trevor looked down at his own tattooed arms, he couldn’t help thinking that through all of his hard work for his mum to fulfil her dream for him to become a star, had he turned into a criminal? A criminal like the ones that had taken his beloved mum away. A wobbly feeling started to overcome Trevor, as he thought of all those precious seconds with his mum, him and her baking tarts in the kitchen, reading stories on the sofa, and even though the tarts got burned and all Trevor’s pronunciations were all wrong, they just laughed, because all that mattered was that they were together. Tears streamed down Trevor’s face as he said “Take me to prison. I deserve it. And you don’t need to take them,” he pointed his finger at Pip, Kim and Limmy. “Their only involved in this because I told them to.” Then he turned to Conner. “I’m sorry. For all of it. All the trouble I caused you.” And then he was led away into the police car with tears still silently pouring down his face. “Well,” said Conner, turning around to face his family (Pip, Kim and Limmy had scarpered when they could) “I think this calls for fish burgers and chips at MewDonalds!” everybody cheered, and that’s where we leave them before we travel to the future. You might be thinking: how on earth can we even travel to the future? Well, its easy, seeing as this is a book and when books are involved you can do anything. All you have to do is close your eyes, make high pitched beeping noises, run in circles 3 times and then carry on reading this book.

                     THE FUTURE

(only for people who have done the instructions above)

 After 6 months of jail, Trevor turned into a nice, friendly ice-cream cat. And he did become famous if you counted children. Pip, Kim and Limmy fulfilled their dreams into becoming prima ballerinas performing Cat Lake and The Catcracker. And last of all, Conner stayed himself and became a makeup artist (he did have a talent for making makeup on people’s faces look like natural beauty after all!). So yeah, that is the ultimate story of Conner, the skinny cat with jet black fur and a charming life.

                    THE END

Copyright © 2021 Pham Ha Mai. All rights reserved

 With her long, bushy brown hair, loyal and incredibly brave soul, and that mind bursting with all kinds of amazing knowledge, Hermione Granger sure deserves to be the girl heroine of the Harry Potter books. She is admired mostly for her genius mind, but what I see most in her is an incredible spirit. Instead of telling girls that they should smile, strike a pose and become Barbie dolls, Hermione shows us that we can roughen up, fight for good and be heroes, instead of turning into frilly pink giggling divas. 

 Of course, like anybody, Hermione does have some faults. She does tend to take work too seriously, stressing herself out too much with the piles of homework resting on her hands. And she seems to never be able to resist a question she knows the answer to, and could yell it out, which sometimes caused angry glares in her direction. But nobody can be entirely perfect, and as far as I am concerned, there are no people in this world called Nobody. 

Hermione, once received her Hogwarts letter, began furiously working very hard and studying all the schoolbooks her professors said for her to buy and look over. On the Hogwarts Express, she changed immediately to her clean, crisp school robes, and helped a boy called Neville Longbottom find his toad. She was a bit unfriendly towards Harry and Ron at first, but after battling a ferociously warty and smelly troll together, they found themselves the best of friends.

Throughout the rest of the books in the series, Hermione is either the bossy know-it-all who shoots her hand up like a rocket whenever a question is asked, earning (and losing) a considerable amount of Gryffindor house points, or she’s the rough, brave, fiery girl who stands up for her friends, fights evil-doers and stays loyal no matter what, even if it ends her up being tortured almost to death. At the end of the books she is a responsible grown-up woman, married to Ronald Bilius Weasley with two children, Rose Granger-Weasley, clever like her mum, and Hugo Granger-Weasley.

 My favourite scene with Hermione in it was not when she was battling along her friends, or being rolling her eyes as she fixed Ron and Harry’s badly done work, but it was when she slapped Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter’s deadly enemy. He was being awfully insulting at that time to Rubeus Hagrid, a nice friendly half-giant who was the Gamekeeper of Hogwarts. As Malfoy jeered about the “Oaf”, Harry and Ron were about to act, but Hermione got there first. With a cry, she lunged forward and made a tremendous slap, hard across the face. I think that part was awfully funny and amusing, and I couldn’t help but snigger a bit at Malfoy’s stupidity for getting himself slapped. I also thought that he deserved it, because he was being very rude to somebody who was amazing. And I’m sure that was what Hermione was thinking too, as she made the blow.

 And that is why I have chosen Hermione Jean Granger as my character. Her cleverness, Braveness, and epic life story.

Copyright © 2020 Pham Ha Mai. All rights reserved

It was Conner’s biggest night yet. Right now, every single cat in the world was going to see him strike a pose, smile grandly and sign autographs. The ticket stand was now so crowded, the officer couldn’t see himself. “Ladies, gentlemen, will you all please get in a straight line! I’ve got tickets for everyone you know!” said the poor officer, now horribly squashed. But the crowd just ignored him and kept on yelling for a ticket. It was an hour before everybody managed to get a seat in the stadium, and the poor officer slumped to the ground, tired out. But in the stadium, the noise was deafening. There were exited chatters as the curtains rose, and there stepped out, the one and only Conner! There was gigantic applause. Conner bowed here and there, loving life.

Four gruff cats appeared at the ticket stand. “Tickets, please.” Said one of them. The poor officer went on his feet, and gave Trevor, Pip, Kim and Limmy each a ticket. Then he took the change and collapsed back on the ground. When they walked in [ the four cats], they saw how crowded it was. Pain filled all their hearts as they saw how many people had come just to get a glimpse of Conner. But their faces soon became sniggers, because they were sure Conner was the one who was going to suffer after what they were going to do. So, they sat on their seats, and waited impatiently for Conner to start speaking. “Oh, bless you all,” Conner said fondly to his audience. “coming here just to see me” “Mr photographer!” he added in a much clearer voice. “take my picture and make sure it goes on the front page of the daily mew!” he exclaimed. The Photographer, a dirty cat with an enormous belly who really was called photographer, waddled over eagerly to where Conner stood and started to take unprofessional pictures of him. All of them were either lopsided or blurry, but if you want to know how on earth the photographer got his job, go ahead and buy his Mum’s book, Sam Photographer, a brief history of why and where he got his job. I read it myself, and it was good, totally worth it for 2 million pounds.

Anyway, Trevor must have thought it was time, so he whispered something to his friends and pressed a red button from a remote that he had smuggled in all along. Whilst he did it, he thought he heard a faint clicking sound, but didn’t take notice of it. At once, the big screen behind Conner that flashed the words CONNER IS THE BEST vanished, and it was replaced with a body of a hairy cat. Now you might notice that I only said the body. The head had unmistakably Conner’s face, his bright blue eyes glowering at the audience. With his not so extraordinary computer skills, Trevor had hacked into the stages big screen and replaced it with a Mew tube video he’d found about a hairy cat who said a bunch of things. Then after he realized a cat shouting a bunch of stuff wouldn’t make people hate Conner, he replaced the hairy cat’s head with Conner’s own head and pressed a bunch of buttons that would change what the cat was saying. If it all went to plan, the head of Conner would say nasty comments about the environment, and if you didn’t know, cats hate it when you talk about hating the environment. But if it didn’t go to Trevor’s devilish plan, the head of Conner would just say some things about butterflies and make the audience, including Trevor and his crew dreamy about chasing butterflies. Unluckily for us, Trevor’s plan worked. The audience stared open-mouthed at the big screen as they saw their hero say more and more despicable things. On the stage, Conner was………………. well, amazed. He had remembered quite correctly that he had never said anything bad about the environment, but then what was he hearing now? Nasty words about the environment tumbling out from HIS own mouth. When the video ended, there was an intense silence. Then, breaking it, there was a splat as a rotten tomato landed fair and square on Conner’s nose. Then there was another splat as an out of date banana got hurled at Conner’s feet. Soon there were flying fruits everywhere, and now it was safe to say that Conner had officially became a half-cat half-fruit and vegetable monster with a spot of soup. Trevor and the rest of his crew were now cackling with laughter. The audience, luckily for Conner, had run out of things to throw, so Trevor pulled a beetroot with something growing out of it that he had tried to ignore, and then hurled it at Conner. Except there was no Conner. A moment’s hesitation from the audience was enough for him to escape. Panting, Conner looked back to see if there was anyone following him. There was nothing but an eerie silence.

And then it came. There was a loud rumble, and the source of it was 3 million cats running out of the stadium, straight at CONNER. And they were looking angry. Conner yelped, and then ran as fast as he could away from the stampede. “GET HIM!”, roared an old cat, who seemed to lead the cats, and at his word, all the cats began to run faster than before, roaring with rage. Conner gave a scream of pure terror then ran and ran as fast as he could.

To be continued…

Copyright © 2020 Pham Ha Mai. All rights reserved

For Mum.

One day, a cat named Conner was born. Conner had a skinny figure with jet black fur, and he was as different from his bigger brothers and sisters as can be. They were big and loud. He was small and quiet. They liked to bang drums and sing at the top of their voices. He liked to sit quietly and purr. Because he was so meek and small, the others would tease him a lot. “Pooh, look at tiny Connie wonky!” “Ha, ha, teeny weeny can’t even reach his tuna!” This made Conner both upset and angry. Every night he would sob quietly on his pillow. Quietly. If he was too loud, he would get teased as a cry-baby again, even though he was. He would even cry at the happiest moments. Like his birthday. That was another bad thing. Conner was everything he didn’t want to be. A cry-baby, a scaredy-cat and a teeny tiny. He wished he wasn’t him. And one day, his wish came true. He was just running away from his brothers and sisters when his leg caught on something. A hairbrush, hair curlers, some makeup, dye and some other fancy stuff. Suddenly, a smile crept to his face. “Bye, bye Conner” he thought, as he sprayed and brushed and squeezed. Finally, he looked at the mirror to see if his appearance was better. He gasped. He looked better all right. No, better than better. In other words, outstanding. “I look amazing” he said proudly, as he strode outside to show his brothers and sisters. When they realized it was Conner, they were bursting with questions “How did you do that Con? Is that really you? Did you do magic or something? C’mon, we’ve got to show mum!” 

And so Conner’s celebrity life began. Millions of cats from all over the world rushed to the now humongous mansion of Conner, the world’s most famous cat. Posing and smiling, Conner let his fans snap pictures of him from head to toe to send on Instacat. Millions of television reporters travelled miles just to film a single clip about him. He let them yell “we love Conner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” repeatedly. He didn’t realize that far, far away, there were four heavily tattooed cats, grunting at their television.

“Not that stupid show of cat again!!!!” groaned one of them, who was called Trevor. “Yeah, that smelly faced Conner, strutting his butt saying, “ooh, ain’t I pretty, ain’t I flipping ridiculous!” said another cat, whose name was Kim. Trevor, along with two other cats whose names were Pip and Limmy, rocked with laughter. Now, you might wonder why these cats hated Conner so much. The reason to this question was because these cats had always dreamed of being famous, had done so much just to get an autograph, that it was such a pain in the eye to see Conner being famous. They were like that with any celebrity cat, from Caty Perry to Taylor the swift cat. Their laughter became howls, and then the howls became a made-up song about their sorrow for not becoming famous. Then they all slumped on the moth-eaten sofa, crunching past by date crisps and moaning about how sore their paws were and some other moan-able things. “Will someone please turn off the telly?” moaned Limmy, turning on his back. “That smelly faced cat is doing my head in.” Kim sighed, pressed the red button on the remote control, then sat back down on the sofa, squeezing several small fleas to death.

They all sat there for a moment, in an awkward silence. Suddenly, an idea popped in Trevor’s mind. An idea so terrible and delicious, Trevor had no idea why he hadn’t thought of it before. “What are we doing?” he demanded, standing up, hands on hips. They all stared at him. “what are we doing?” he demanded again, getting impatient. “Err, sitting on the sofa eating past by date crisps?” Pip answered hopefully. Trevor was always a kind of leader to the cats, so getting appreciated from him was a treat. Trevor threw Pip a dirty look, which clearly showed he was not pleased. “No, you fool! We are clearly sitting on the sofa eating past by date crisps doing nothing!” he yelled. “That’s what I said” moaned Pip. “You didn’t add the last bit,” Said Trevor. “Now, obviously we’ll never be famous if we carry on like this. So, tell me, what can we do to improve?” “Get a new sofa!” yelled Limmy. “Eat correct dated crisps!” shouted Kim. “Really!” said Trevor, staring down at his team. “This is who I have? A bunch of bozos!” “Yes!” all three of the cats yelled. Trevor looked as if he wanted to smack Pip, Limmy and Kim hard on their faces. But he took a deep breath, and stared at them all directly in the eyes, so it felt as if they were all being hypnotised. “I’ve got a plan.” He said in a dark voice. “And we’re all going to follow it.” “No buts!” he added, as Pip opened his mouth to speak.

To be continued…

Copyright © 2020 Pham Ha Mai. All rights reserved

                       

On an ordinary day at the park, you would expect a walk, nature sightseeing with your parents, and the occasional “Please can I have an ice – cream?” or “Please can I go home?” moans. What you would not expect is a snarling, growling bear advancing towards you and a guard who’d just fainted lying at your feet. Well, that’s what I remember from the previous day.

My Mum and Dad had just brought me to the park. They left me in a corner with my gran and told me to stay there whilst they did their “Important business”. Well, the “Important business” they were talking about was cherry cocktail in a nearby café and chocolate croissants. How do I know? Because every day I make sure to read my parents’ diaries (please don’t tell them though. All I can say is that if they knew, things would get very shouty and somebody would get grounded till they are old and wrinkly). Anyway, gran had fallen asleep on a bench and I was very bored and very hot. I drank the last drips of water in my water bottle and took out my binoculars. However, the only thing I could see in them were long, thin cracks, seeing as they had broken in a bicycle accident yesterday. “Why is life so unfair!” I moaned. Just then I spotted a group of merry children playing football nearby. I didn’t like football much but… I glanced at gran. She was still snoring steadily. And after all, mum and dad got to sip cocktails, right? So I slipped off the bench, and ran towards the children. “Hey! Can I play too?” I asked. The children nodded, and I started to kick the ball.

While I was playing, I noticed a very unusual boy. He kept on groaning and scratching himself with weirdly pointy nails. And then it happened. Brown, messy fur started sprouting out of the boy’s clothes. His blue eyes were replaced by beady black one’s, and sharp, pointy teeth emerged from under his chin. All the children except me screamed and ran, and a patrolling officer fainted on the spot. The bear started stomping towards me, snarling. I was frozen on the spot, not able to move or say a thing. The bear kept advancing towards me, growling. When it was inches apart from me, it opened its mouth wide. And then let out a loud, mighty burp. Right in my face. “Oops,” it said. “I must’ve eaten too much cheese puffs this morning.”

And that’s how I spent a day in the park.

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Copyright © 2020 Pham Ha Mai. All rights reserved

There once was a very foolish boy who lived in a village. One day he found that he had ran out of food. There was a super market right next to his cottage, but for some reason he wouldn’t go there. A sign of foolishness. So he decided to ask for food at his neighbours, miss Polly. “Alright. but only if you make Mr Hender return my chickens,” was her remark when he asked her. So the boy went to Mr Hender’s house and asked for miss Polly’s chickens back. “Alright,” he said in a gruff voice. “But only if you ask Mrs Lottie to lend me a pound.” so the boy went to Mrs Lottie’s house to ask her to lend Mr Hender a pound. “Only if you give me the horn of a bull to sell,” she said. Now, as everyone knows, bulls don’t just give you their horns. So when the boy went to the nearest bull and asked for it’s horn all he got was a nasty bruise on the shin. he ended up with an itchy cast on, no food and a mob of angry people outside his door.