Shortlisted
Power of Sacred Fire
British International School Shanghai, Puxi, Lydia Hanninen,11
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our task for the Chinese New Year break is to create a project of any kind with your
partner. The subjects are in this bowl and your partner’s name is here. Since there is
an equal amount of boys and girls, ladies get to pick out the partners.” Ms. Helena
instructed. I got up at the same time as my friend Evelyn and strode toward the bowl.
Each girl took out a slip and read out the name of the person they were working with. I was about
to reach into the bowl just as my name was called, “Holland Summers”.
I looked up and saw the popular girl, Amber, standing there in front of the class. Retracting
my hand from the bowl, I strode to the other bowl where I picked out the subject: The Gobi Desert.
Below was a fact file.
Name: Gobi Desert
Area: Southern Mongolia, Northern and Northwestern China
Size: 1.3 million square kilometers
Climate: Cold, yet not much snow.
Showing Amber, she grunted and went to sit back at her desk. I knew that she wouldn’t like
this. Strutting angrily away in her high heels, the teacher spoke up. “Everyone has their pair?
Good.” She paused and looked around “You will find the rules when you arrive. Good luck.”
The room started swirling and everything else other than Amber and I was a blur. There was
a shot of white light in front of us, blinding our eyes. We felt like we were falling. Clearly yes
because we crashed to the ground in a matter of seconds. Wait, scratch that. We crashed into sand.
Looking around, the huge whirl around us fell down and I looked at the surroundings. Amber was
standing next to me, removing her high heels. Her body language was telling me she was annoyed
“Sand really? Most importantly of all, how on earth did Ms. Helena do that?” Amber raged on.
“Tick, tock, tick, tock…” Something sounded. Frantically spinning around, I looked up at the
sky. There was a huge, red timer ticking. 3 hours? Something then exploded. Sand and rock flew
out of place in the distance as a tattered scroll appeared in front of my eyes. Amber appeared next
to me and stared at the explosion. On the scroll read:
“An explosion has been triggered toward the east. Run to it and grab the ring. Throw it high
into the air and run away. A poem will fall from the sky and you will have to solve it. Each
challenge will have an article that needs to be retrieved. Collect them and they will open the portal
back to the classroom. Good luck. You have 3 hours.”
After our eyes finished scanning the text, the scroll disappeared into thin air in my hands.
I shared a quick stare with Amber, we decided to run toward the east. Our feet blistering on the
rock and our arms were covered in goosebumps from the coldness. I guess it was because we were
so high and the wind was picking up. It was still smoking because of the explosion. There was a
huge crevice in the rock. Sand was seeping in. I spotted something gold. I dived into the crevice
and swam through the heavy sand as Amber stayed on top. My hand gripped the cool metal and
I lifted it up. I threw it into the air as high as I could, seeing it explode into a million pieces. A
scroll came floating down. Amber caught it and read it aloud.
“
