Advanced English 2009 Trial HSC Examinations, Section II, question 2, d.

Creative writing piece on belonging using source material of an image of toys in a box labelled 'broken toys'. Written in half an hour.

Excuse my infinite grammar, punctuation and other miscellaneous errors. Marks received: 14/15.

Our owner, she was all glamour and suffering like those third world countries. She'd have little money for books and pens and she'd want at least a jar of honey with any of her medicines. She was healthy, we thought occasionally, until her mother would undress her and rub the richly scented oils and ointments into her beautiful and weak skin.

Our owner, who would run to the shops when she received her allowance, smile prettily at the shop keeper; her eyes gleaming with greedy excitement. Her mother would wonder off to the books section, "Wouldn't you rather buy a book? Learning is fun and good for you." But our pretty little owner, all arms and legs would run to her mother to reply, hands full of new toys, chocolate and candy smeared obscenely on her pink lips and pinker dress, "Of course not, mother. I'd rather buy more friends to keep my company, and lollies to have at my tea party."

Our owner would return home, stumbling past the broken toys, turning around and frowning at them with a nasty sneer, "I hate you. I wish mummy would let me get rid of you. You don't belong here. You're ugly." And then she'd turn around again, leaping onto the soft, silken bed, her dirty little lips stretched tight into a fearsome grin as she eyed her new friends. "I'm going to have lunch, and then you're all coming with me to have a tea party."

Our owner changed out of her cute little dress before changing into a pristine white one and bounding ceremoniously out of the room for her feeding. We trembled as her footsteps thundered down the hall and shook the sturdy old floorboards. We eyed each other from across the vast room, down from the walls, out from the boxes, across the dunes of her sheets and pillows. United momentarily from the sheer horror. We belonged with each other, we all did. Even the ones, new and shiny off the shelves, after soem time would know our strained expressions of hopeless loneliness. These moments have never lasted long however.

Our owner would re-emerge to her estate, tired after the day's shopping spree. But for some reason, she was always still hungry. Perhaps because she'd always spill her food ungracefully. Her stained, white dress an incriminating testimony.

Our owner would play with us until we broke, untul she tossed us away into a box labelled 'broken toys', and there we'd stay for countless days. And as our owner would say to us, each time she'd trip over us, "That's where you belong."