2017 Kipling Award Finalist: Hanna Risner

How the Sky Got Clouds

Once upon a time the sky had no clouds. In that time all people lived in a place called the Hardleme where most people were farmers. Some farmers grew fruit and vegetable crops but many grew cotton. The sky there was blue. Clear blue. Pure clear blue. Many people complained about the sun. Some people said ‘’The sun is so hot we could roast marshmallows under it.’’There were two big cotton farms.

One big farm was owned by farmer Lily and the other big farm one was owned by farmer Dune. Dune and Lily were the ones that gave the sun compliments but sometimes they said mean things to the sun. Dune would say to Lily ’’That grumpy sun keeps on burning my cotton until it burns!! Lily would say to Dune,’’Same with my dang cotton.

Every day the sun was scorching hot and there was nothing to block the it! No trees and no clouds. All they had were very small bushes.

The farmers had a very big problem. Every year there would be one time that out of the ground there would

come just a little water. The farmers would try to collect as much water as they could to help them through the rough summer. But alas, they ran out of water so so so very quickly.

The little village was surrounded by a wall that no one had ever crossed. The wall was what held up the sky.

In the village there was a boy and his name was Yak. He had a brother named Sak. 

Yak was very mischievous. One day he decided to see what would happen if he destroyed the stone wall that held up the sky. First, he would ask his brother if he thought it was a good idea. When he asked his brother, his brother said’’Yak, I don’t think that that would be a good idea.’’ Just after his brother had said that, Yak thought that he could do it and he wanted to do it. 

So he told that to Sak and then the two brothers got into a big fight. Sak said ‘’no you won't and Yak said yes I will,No you won’t yes I will, no you won’t yes I will, no you won’t yes I will, no you won’t yes I will, no you won’t yes I will ‘’and on and on and on. Finally Sak gave in and left the room. 

Yak took a huge drilling machine and started bit by bit to take down the wall. Day after day he worked under the blue sky. The clear blue sky. The pure clear blue sky. Finally he only had to move one more rock and the whole wall would fall down. With one small tap, the whole wall, with the blue sky, collapse...! The sky slowly came down and settled just barely brushing the ground.Everyone looked over to where the stone wall had stood.

Everything was black. When they tried to lift the sky it only moved the tiniest bit.

Now in this village(or better said, the remains of this village)there were some animals. Here are the names of some of them. The Chade, the Dart, the Reowns, the Qualyt and the Chard Eill.

Now all the animals were very scared and so they started to make a plan. One of the animals, the Chade, could speak the human language.The animals asked him if he could tell the humans of their plan to get the sky to go up again and he said yes.

The Chade came up to the people and said ‘’You have to search all over the ground for long sticks that could hold up the sky.’’ So all of the people and the animals felt around on the ground for long sicks.

As soon as all the people and animals had a long stick they picked the sky up, put the long sticks under the sky and with all their might, they slowly pushed the sky back up. But as the sky got higher in the air, it got much lighter and soon the sky got to a point that it just floated up. 

With all the pushing it had gotten it went higher into the air than ever before! All the farmers cheered! But when the sky could not go any farther up the people and the animals looked up to see all the cotton from the fields stuck in the sky.

So, even now, after all this time, you can still see all the farmers cotton up in the sky. But now they are called clouds.