I Won A Competition!!!

OMG. Wow. Wowee zowee! WOWEE ZOWEE!!! 
Okay, I am just a little out of breath at the moment because I literally just ran up and down the stairs clapping, jumping and screaming more than a little over-excitedly! Really. You should have seen me. (Actually, on second thoughts, maybe it's better that you didn't.) I was hopping around uncontrollably, burbling random, incoherent noises and clapping like a maniac. 

'Has she finally gone absolutely MAD?!' you are thinking.
Fear not, my friends! I am not mad! (At least, I hope not...!)
But I have just received an email that MADE MY DAY!!! :D
Actually, no, and email that MADE MY WEEK!!! :D :D :D

Not long ago, I entered a competition on the Spinebreakers site. (By the way, if you haven't joined Spinebreakers, you might want to go check it out - they have cool reviews, creative stuff and competitions going on down there...) 
The description of this competition was:

"We all know distractions come thick and fast (and too easily) during exam season, so we want you to write a short story (no word count) about the things that do and could distract you the most whilst you try to revise!"

 AND...

The winner of the best short story (selected by Fever author Dee Shulman!) will get a signed copy of Fever as well as a £50 Topshop/Topman voucher.
5 runners up will also get a copy of the book (unsigned).

Now, imagine my excitement when I checked my email inbox today to discover an email waiting for me notifying me that I HAD WON THE COMPETITION!!!

My face probably really did look like this!

 I am so incredibly happy - this is maybe the third time I've ever entered a writing competition, and the first time I've ever won one! Thank you SO MUCH to Dee Shulman, the author of Fever for picking my story!


This has given me hope that my writing is not just a rambling mess of words that only makes sense to me, and maybe there is some hope of me becoming an author in the future after all!

So, anyway, I thought I'd share the story I wrote with you guys. I hope you like it! :)

 MY STORY:

As willingly as a deer might approach a lion and shake hands with it, (if the two animals in question were not lacking in the necessary anatomical facilities to perform the action in question, that is) I opened my Biology book.  If I was to be the deer in this situation, then that dreaded book was most certainly the lion – something dangerous, something to be avoided at all costs and definitely not something to be getting too friendly with. I glared at it.

Making sure to maintain a sufficient distance between myself and the offending object, I leant slightly closer – not too close! – and recoiled immediately. Clearly, if the careless, barely-legible scrawl I had apparently been trying to pass off as my handwriting was anything to go by, I had been just as delighted in September by the prospect of a whole year of Biology looming ahead of me as I was now with the prospect of having to revise that same whole year of Biology.

Well, to be truthful, ‘revise’ was perhaps not the most accurate of word choices. ‘Learn’ a whole year of Biology work would be more like it – considering the rather insignificant percentage of what we had covered in class that had actually made its way through to my brain.

I sighed. A big, long, deep sigh.

I sighed again. A bigger, longer, deeper sigh.

I sighed once more for good measure.

I screwed my eyes shut and strained my ears for the sound of my mother’s hurried footsteps up the stairs, hoping she would burst in with her motherly intuition and say –

“Oh, darling! I heard you all the way from downstairs! Is the stress getting to you? Are you coming down with something? Oh, sweetheart, maybe you should forget about revision for the rest of today – no, for the rest of the week. Why don’t you come downstairs and I’ll make you a nice, creamy hot chocolate?”

I opened my eyes. The room was empty except for me and my Biology book. Hooray. What a perfect opportunity for some quality ‘getting to know each other’ time. Oh, joy of joys, just what I wanted.

I slumped down in my seat, defeated by the knowledge that there really was no choice now but to buckle down and attempt to begin deciphering my handwriting which, really, made tears spring to your eyes with the mere effort of trying to read it.  

But wait! What was that dry, tickling sensation I could feel at the back of my throat? Oh goodness me, all that sighing had made me so incredibly thirsty! There was absolutely no way I could embark on my long journey down Biology Revision Lane without first replenishing my water supply.

I made my way downstairs – not too fast of course, for fear of over-exerting myself. Wouldn’t want anything to keep me from my beloved Biology book, would we now? I reached the kitchen far too soon.

I took a sip of water and flinched as I felt my throat filled with iciness. Oh dear, now ice-cold water just would not do for my poor throat! I needed warm water. I put the kettle onto boil.

Blissful minutes passed as I stood in the kitchen enjoying the undisturbed silence.

‘Hang on a minute,’ I thought, ‘silence? Kettles don’t often boil silently.’

I checked the switch. It was off.

 ‘This must be a sign,’ I thought. ‘I am evidently not in the right mindset for revision if I can’t even remember something simple like turning the kettle on!  No, it would be a waste of my time to put my efforts into Biology right now.  I’ll just wait until the right time for revision comes, whenever that might be, and, meanwhile, I’ll go and do something useful and productive like –’ My eye fell onto the laptop on the kitchen table. 

Before I knew it, I was logged into Facebook, my fingers flying furiously over the keyboard as I engaged in a heated discussion about the many evils of school exams with my best friend, a fellow revision-hater.

Twenty- eight minutes later, however, the conversation was beginning to dry up...

Me:                 I hate revision

Friend:           Same

Me:                 I hate Biology

Friend:           Same

Me:                 I hate exams

Friend:           Same

Me:                 I hate people who make us do exams

Friend:           Same

Me:                 I think this conversation has kind of reached its end

Friend:           Same

           

So, we logged off. For a moment, I contemplated heading upstairs to tackle that book that still lurked upon my desk like a parasitic organism. But the thought was quickly squashed by enticing thoughts of the endless list of things that I’d much rather be doing. Really, was it my fault that there were just so many things that were way more fun than revision?

It’s quite amazing how much time you can pass just dawdling about on the Internet. It’s like a never-ending web full of mystery and excitement and, in general, things that are just way more interesting than the likes of the lives of plants and animals – which is pretty much all Biology entails.

And so there I was, happily wandering about on the Internet, learning about anything and everything – from books to films, celebrity break-ups to celebrity make-up, what to do in the case of an alien attack and how to find a unicorn – when I stumbled across a page that caught my eye. I looked closer and began to smile. 

‘This looks like my cup of tea,’ I thought. ‘A competition...how interesting...’

All thoughts of revision and exams that had stubbornly remained lingering in my mind vanished, and I knew they would not be returning anytime soon.

‘A writing competition...’