The judges nominated The Paw Posse by Poppy Meadows as the winner of our writing competition. Well done Poppy!!

The Paw Posse by Poppy Meadows

Daphne is a very dangerous dragon. The trouble is that she doesn’t know quite how dangerous she is. Well she’s only six and six year old dragons tend to have other things on their mind. Daphne had football on hers. Ever since she’d watched some fab football games with her brothers Donny and Dez, Daphne wanted to play football too. Donny and Dez wouldn’t let Daphne play with them so she decided she would go out and make some new football friends instead and form a fab football team.

Off she set on her mission. She wasn’t sure where to look for friends but she saw a sign saying Paws-A-While and thought that it looked promising place to start. She opened the gate and starting walking down a long path. On one side of the path there was a huge grassed area with white stripes painted on it. On the other side of the path there were lots of trees, a pond, and some nice little wooden huts dotted here and there.

What a lovely place, she thought, and when she came across a big bench, she couldn’t resist pausing a while and sitting down to rest. As soon as she managed to spread herself across the bench she heard a buzzing in her ears. Buzz, buzzzzz, buzzzzzz
.
“Oh no,” she said “just when I was enjoying a bit of peace.”

The buzzing continued and Daphne looked up and wasn’t too surprised to see it was a buzzing bumblebee.

“Hello, I’m Bea,” buzzed the bee.

“Hello bee, I’m Daphne,” Daphne replied.

“I haven’t seen you before Daphne, “ Bea said.

“No, it’s my first time here,” Daphne responded. “I’m here looking for new friends. I want to form a football team.”

“Oh how exciting,” buzzed Bea. “Can I be in it?”

“Be as in bee?” smiled Daphne. “Yes Bea, you’re in!”

“Well follow me,” said Bea “and I’ll help you find some more players.”

“O.K.” said Daphne.

Bea flew further down the path and Daphne followed.

A few minutes later they came across a frolicking frog. He took one look at Daphne and quickly hoped away.

“Come back Frank,” buzzed Bea, “this is my new friend Daphne, she’s forming a football team and looking for players.”

Frank kind of reverse hopped back to where he was but you could tell he was feeling very nervous. “Isn’t Daphne a dangerous dragon, he asked?”

“Well I am a dangerous dragon,” Daphne replied “but not all dangerous dragons are dangerous and I’m one of the definitely not dangerous dangerous dragons.”

“Oh, O.K.” said Frank. “Football sounds fabulous. You can count me in.”

Frank, Bea, and Daphne continued along the path. Then, they were suddenly aware of movement above their heads.

“What’s going on?” asked Daphne.

“We thought it wouldn’t take long,” Bea and Frank both laughed.

“Thought what wouldn’t take long?” Daphne shrugged.

“Wait and see Frank” ribbited.

And Daphne didn’t have to wait long. She looked up and there swinging in the trees was a monkey! “Meet Martha,” smiled Bea. “Martha’s a meddling monkey”.

“Hello, hello, hello,” shrilled Martha. “I hear you’re looking for a football team?”.

“How did you know that?” enquired Daphne.

“Don’t ask,” said Frank. “Martha knows everything. It’s because she’s such a meddler. I bet she was hiding behind the bench when you and Bea were talking earlier.”

“Meddler indeed!” said Martha “As if!”

But Martha had actually meddled. She had overheard Daphne and Bea and she had already been over to the pond and recruited Douglas, a delightful dolphin and Grif, a great whale to join the team.

“I hope you don’t mind?” said Martha “but they’re just so up for it.”

“Mind?” said Daphne. “No, of course I don’t mind. I’m delighted. We don’t need many more players now.”

”Players, players, whose looking for players?” a voice roared.

“What was that?” asked Daphne.

“That,” said Frank “is Lennie.”

“Lennie?” Daphne asked “Who’s Lennie.”

But then she looked up and saw a huge mouth of teeth bared in her face.

“Errrrrr,” she gulped. “Are you a roaring lion?”

“What else?” Lennie roared.

”Aren’t roaring lions carnivores?” Daphne enquired nervously

“Well yes,” said Lennie, “but that doesn’t mean I’m going to eat you all; just the opposition.”

“Oh no you can’t do that,” said Daphne. “That would break all the rules.”

“Only joking,” Lennie laughed. “I’ve already eaten, thank you. I’m just here to play football.”

“Well” said Bea, “I think you should be our Centre Forward!”

“We just need some big strong defence now,” said Daphne, and with that Ellie appeared.

“Will I do?” asked Ellie?

Daphne, Bea and Lennie all giggled. Daphne had said big and strong and now, out of the blue, here was Ellie, a might elephant, offering her services.

”It was if I made a trunk call,” laughed Daphne “Yes, you will do very nicely indeed. I think we have a team!”
”So, now we just need a strip and a name and then we can all play fab football.”

It didn’t take them too long to decide on these. Black and yellow for the strip. Can you guess why? Because these are Bea's natural colours and it would save them the cost of one shirt. And the name of the team? Well, this one’s obviously really.

They’re The Paw Posse!




Poppy Meadows © www.writebuzz.com 2009. Reproduced with the permission of www.writebuzz.com under their terms and conditions.