An impressive writing talent takes out the Tamaraki category at the Queenstown Writer's Festival!

Izzy Crawford (Y7) won this prestigious competition with her story 'Flipped'. Congratulations Izzy! Sit back and enjoy this wonderful story Izzy has created

Flipped!

Kayla woke with a thud. She opened her eyes and gasped with surprise. She lay on a smooth white surface adjacent to a lightshade and peered up at her bed above her on the ceiling. No, the floor! The ceiling was now the floor, and the floor now the ceiling? “Wacky!” Kayla thought.

Kayla’s father Dave was an inventor. Most of the time you’d find him in his basement workshop. Recently, Dave had been working on his latest creation called ‘The Flipper’. This invention literally flipped the house upside down, meaning the basement was now at the top of the house and the attic at the bottom.

Suddenly, Kayla broke out in a cold sweat. With this whole ‘flipped’ thing, how would she ever get to her competition on time? Kayla was 11 years old and today was a very important day for her. She was a gymnast and her big competition was this morning.

“Beep!” went Kayla’s phone. She scanned the room and located her phone above her on her bedside table. She scaled her window frame and stretched up to grab it. It was a text from Dad.

“R u gd? Help me turn off machine!”

Besides all her questions, Kayla knew what she needed to do. She would use her gymnastics skills to manoeuvre her way up from her attic room to the basement above. Their house had two stories plus the basement and the attic so four all together.

“Now my challenge has begun!” Kayla thought. To get out of her room she needed to prise open the trapdoor and crawl up the ladder. “Here goes nothing!”

Kayla swung on her bed frame to the trapdoor above and grabbed the ladder. She gripped it with both hands and hauled herself up the

ladder rung by rung until she found herself on the top floor of the upside-down house.

This floor’s obstacle was how to get up the reversed staircase at the end of the hall. Kayla had an idea. Hurdle, step, run, run, run, roundoff, back somersault, jump !… ‘And the crowd goes wild!’ Kayla clung to the stair bannister like a limpet. ‘Breathe in… breathe out… just like in a competition.’ She swung her body along the bannister like monkey bars, soaring across the gap in the next floor railing like a transfer on the uneven bars.

Next step: she vaulted across the first floor ceiling and leapt up to the basement stair railings, the next moments felt like slow motion. She launched the basement door open and with a ‘cast back-hip-circle’ she appeared in the basement. There was her dad sitting on the basement ceiling…

“W-what happened Dad?” Kayla said in horror. On his forehead was a crimson welt about the size of a golf ball. “I… I… think w-when the-e-e house flipped-flipped my head hi-hi-hit the machine and I-I got knocked out-t for a while. B-bu-t I-’m f-fine, j-just turn off-f-f th-the machine and g-get to y-y-your gym c-comp! G-g-gg-ooo!!!!!”

Kayla cartwheeled across the ceiling floor and leapt up to bump the big red off button, and in seconds it was over.

Kayla and her Dad dusted themselves off and climbed up the stairs to the kitchen, as if nothing had happened. Just then, a sleepy mum sidled into the room rubbing her eyes in a daze. She studied Kayla and Dave

“ I suppose we better get hustling, your gym comp starts soon, and what happened to your head Dave?”

“Its a story with lots ups and downs Mum, we’ll tell you later” Said Kayla with a grin.