Do Not Judge a Book by Its Cover

For the penultimate assignment before the PSLE, the Advanced Composition classes were asked to work on this theme:

You and your brother were visiting your grandparents in a housing estate. As both of you were walking towards a block of flats, a big fierce dog pounced onto your brother. Your brother was knocked onto the ground. You were afraid the dog would attack you next so you started to run.

One discovery that I've made over the years is that at the tender age of 11 and 12, most children do not have the emotional complexity to cast themselves as the villain in the story. Most still picture themselves doing the right thing in any make-believe scenario, even if the right actions would come with a very high price. Such purity is of course laudable.


I enjoyed a couple of stories that creatively twisted the original premise that I gave and allowed the stories to unfold in such a manner that the narrator ('I') was not cast in an entirely negative light. Here's the first one:

DO NOT JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER

Sweat trickled down my cheek as I strolled along the pavement under the hot sun. My younger brother Tyson was trailing behind me. We were on the way to visit our grandparents at their place. We were ambling towards their flat when a big fierce dog appeared from nowhere.

The beast stood as tall as my waist. It bared its teeth at us. I always had a soft spot for dogs, but not this one. It looked muscular and strong. Saliva drooled from its mouth as it approached us. ‘Doggy!’ my five-year-old brother exclaimed as he reached out to stroke the dog. The canine actually looked as tall as him. Before I could pull him away, his fingertips brushed against the grey fur of the beast. That set the dog off. I could only watch in numb horror as the dog flung itself onto Tyson. He was knocked to the ground. I was afraid the dog would attack me next so I spun around and took to my heels.

I ran blindly, not seeing where I was going and not knowing what I was doing. Tyson’s laughter and the dog’s excited barks echoed in the void deck. Hey wait, laughter? I stopped dead in my tracks. Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar figure hurrying down the path. It was my cousin, Thalia.

Her face lit up when she saw me. She sprinted towards me. Her hair was dishevelled and her voice grew shrill with worry as she greeted me. ‘What happened?’ I asked her.

‘My…dog…went missing…just now,’ she explained between breaths. It seemed that something just occurred to her as she looked around. ‘Hey wait, where’s Tyson? Grandma said both of you are coming.’

Nervously, I swallowed a lump in my throat and tried to change the subject, ‘Erm, you mean the new dog you just got last week? How did it disappear? I was looking forward to playing with it! What does it look like? Maybe we find it together?’

Thalia beamed, ‘Really?’

I nodded.

‘Her name is Mrs O’Leary. An Alsatian. About this tall.’ She lifted her hand to her waist, palm faced down as she described her dog. ‘It ran away when I brought it here for a walk on the way to Grandma’s house…’

My thoughts turned to the dog that attacked Tyson. Without hesitation, I turned and sprinted to where Tyson was attacked. When I reached there, the dog still had my brother pinned to the ground. As I was only focusing on getting the beast off my brother, I did not realise there was a smile on Tyson’s face. Oblivious to Thalia’s shouts for me to wait for her, I picked up a fist-sized rock from the ground and aimed it at the canine. As soon as the rock left my hand, I regretted it. Thalia sprinted onto the scene. ‘Mrs O’Leary!’ she screamed as the rock hit the dog. The dog yelped as it leaped away from Tyson. It did not look hurt at all. It sprinted towards Thalia.

‘Thalia!’ I screamed. To my amazement, Thalia tackled it with a hug.

‘Brother, why do you need to spoil my fun? I was having a whale of a time!’ Tyson complained.

‘Thanks for helping me find Mrs O’Leary, so I’ll forgive you for throwing the stone at her!’ Thalia said, her voice cheerful as it was before and as Mrs O’Leary licked her face fondly. Realisation dawned upon me. I blushed at my recklessness. Fortunately, Mrs O’Leary was not hurt.

I looked at the furry creature and it blinked back at me with its big round eyes, its tongue hanging out of its mouth. I must admit that it looked cute. It also looked friendlier than it had minutes before. It bounded up the stairs as we made our way to our grandparents’ apartment. Why did we take the stairs? It we took the lift, there were two possibilities. One, Mrs O’Leary would squash us. Two, we all managed to squeeze in, but leaving little space for us two-legged humans and Mrs O’Leary would fidget a lot or whack us with its tail.

Huang Xinyi (P6)

Chongfu Primary School

I had one issue with this story and that was the strange fact that the narrator did not recognise his cousin's pet. Hence I added the words in red to address this loophole.