BETTY’S BAY –There was great excitement in the Hubbard household when Isabella (10) heard that she has won the Second prize in the Western Cape Education Department’s Story Stars writing competition. She received her award on 20 February from the Provincial Minister of Education, Mr. David Maynier at Durbanville Primary School, where the winner of the competition is at school.

Isabella was only nine when she wrote her story, Felix and Felicity and the Dragon Kingdom here at Kleinmond Laerskool. The competition runs annually for Western Cape learners in Grade 4. Their imagination is prompted by a story: The amazing adventures of Felix and Felicity. Learners must put themselves in the main character and write their own adventure.

“I love cats and dragons, so I chose my own cat as my main character: Bella the Misty Cat Dragon, with our family’s hyperactive dog Vicky, as the baddy in the story: Dimwiff the Dogal Dragon. I love story books – actually I could read before I went to school. I need a story every day,” Isabella says.

The story is about Bella the Misty Cat Dragon landing on a new planet and telling Felix and Felicity about Dimwiff the Dogal Dragon who has captured all other dragons of her tribe. At the end Bella, Felicity and Felix succeed to overpower Dimwiff and turn him back into an ordinary shameful dog. “I don’t really plan my stories – I just get my characters and sit down to write anything that comes to mind,” says Isabella.

“She started writing stories during COVID – something about a vicious germ,” her mother, Sarah, adds smiling. She was only six years old then.

Isabella’s award included a school bag stocked with an array of school stationery, a tablet, and a certificate that marks her outstanding achievement. She doesn’t have any plans yet for after school. Maybe engineering, because she is good at Maths and Science.

But nevertheless she is en-joying a very active life now as it is: doing Grade 3 in music, having art lessons, swimming, ballet…

“Maybe I will try to also illustrate my next story, because I love drawing and painting,” she smiles.