Congratulations to Year 7 student Tanwen at Fairfield High School (FHS) for coming Highly Commended in her age group in the National Book Tokens and Puffin Short Story award, for her story ‘In a world full of cream be the crimson’, earning her £50 of book tokens.

FHS caught up with Tanwen to ask what her inspiration was to write this creative and unique story.  She shares that, upon hearing who the judge was – Robin Stevens, her favourite author – she immediately put pen to paper! As for the story itself? Tanwen explains, “I like ski-ing and it is set in a resort. I like the story The Woman in Black, so this is the Woman in Crimson! Red suggests a great contrast with snow.”

It would appear Tanwen has always had a flair for English with it being her favourite subject. Since a young age, she has written stories. Tanwen comments: “Narrative is my favourite thing to do in English and I love reading and get ideas from that.”

Asking Tanwen what the future holds, she states that her ambition is to have a better planet than the one today. Literacy wise, Tanwen quite fancies becoming a horror writer – the female version of Stephen King.

Many of the Fairfield community may remember Robin Stevens, (author of the critically-acclaimed and award-winning ‘Murder Most Unladylike’ series), who visited FHS two years ago to share her rise to fame. In doing so, she inspired Year 7 students with her infectious energy, knowledge and enthusiasm, before treating students to a special book signing.

You can read Tanwen’s short story below.  Well done, Tanwen, on your short story success!

In a world full of cream be the crimson

Are you afraid of heights? Because I’m the only of my tiresome family that’ll ski the tallest, iciest mountain in Switzerland. Ever since I was a freckled, short-haired six-year-old I’ve wanted to ski this. As I sat in the rickety cable-car, I stared at the pristine, shimmering snow as it glistened and dazzled my eyes. Like a giant land of whipped cream, the mountains tempted me.

Gradually, the cable-car came to the top.  Although I still had two shaky cable-cars to take, I don’t think in my whole adventurous life I’ve ever felt so joyful – my major dream was coming true! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tall, thin lady in a crimson dress wearing a crooked smile standing about one metre away from me. What was she thinking? Did she want to die of hyperthermia? And where were her skis? I gave a puzzled look and hopped back onto the next cable-car. All the way up there, I couldn’t stop thinking about that mysterious, doll-like lady.

The penultimate lift came to the top and I stepped onto the powdery, icing- sugar land. Curiously, the crimson-dressed lady was standing outside. How? There’s only one lift so surely I would have seen her take it with me. Surreptitiously, she walked towards me and stopped when she was 50 cm away or so. Quickly, I ran to the next lift – however I was dreading getting to the top in case I saw her again.

Strangely, Miss Crimson Dress wasn’t anywhere to be seen – so I knew it must be my wild mind playing tricks on me. “Ruby!” a scary, yet sweet voice said behind me. For a second the world stopped spinning; I turned around and yelled a scream ear-piercingly loud and so high-pitched the whole mountain could probably hear it…