The Door
is a short story by Kanvi, a Year 6 student, written as part of the "Factory Feedback" writing program, held by the Australian youth creative writing center Story Factory.
The young protagonist spends her birthday on a class excursion to the Grand Heritage site. She reads a storybook called "The Door" on the bus ride there, but has to stop just before the reveal of what's behind the titular mystery door. At the site itself, the girl discovers a dilapidated wall and a discolored door, almost beckoning to her to open it...
The Door contains examples of:
- Birthday Beginning: Downplayed since the Dream Intro comes first, but the mother hugs her daughter and wishes her "happy birthday" before she joins the bus for the Class Trip.
- Catapult Nightmare: The protagonist is startled awake by a nightmare of being chased through a dark street, yelling "Arghh, Help! It’s trying to eat me up! Please help!" upon waking, only to be met with relief at the fact that it was just a dream. The mother blames last night's horror film.
- Class Trip: The protagonist enthusiastically follows her class on a trip to the Grand Heritage site for the history subject. There are many attractions about life in the 1900s and how construction and conventional living was conducted during those times.
- Crystal-Ball Scheduling: The story-within-a-story "The Book" features a girl discovering a mysterious door, but the student's bus arrives right at the climax, so what's behind the door is never revealed. On the other hand, the student finds an odd door and is encouraged to open it to answer her questions on what may be on the other side.
- Dream Intro: The story starts with the protagonist's nightmare of being on a dark street and going from walking briskly to being chased by an unknown tenebrous figure... much to her relief, waking from the Catapult Nightmare proves that it wasn't real.
- Face Your Fears: The cafe lady suggests to the girl to conquer her fear of the odd door by following her to open it."Wait, aren’t you scared of some monster jumping out of the door or some ghost possessing our souls?" I asked perplexed.
"Nah, I have conquered more terrifying things in mi life, some silly door isn’t going to scare the nerves out of mi!" she said courageously. "Not let’s face your fear and find out what’s behind that door!" - Foreshadowing: The protagonist notes two similarities between the cafe lady Georgia and their grandmother; they both call others "dearie" and make similar tasting coffee drinks. Georgia is in fact her Grandma Rosemary in disguise, and she's the one to encourage her granddaughter to open the door to her birthday Surprise Party.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: After her daughter wakes up from a Catapult Nightmare and tells her about it, she says "Well I guess that’s the last time you’re gonna watch horror movies on a school night."
- Metafictional Title: The protagonist has a book titled "The Door", just like the story she's in. It's about an impoverished girl who discovers a hidden door in her run-down one-bedroom house, but the reader is cut off from reading what's behind the door. Then she finds a mysterious door and finds what's behind it.
- Riddle for the Ages: A lighthearted example in the ending, where the protagonist asks how her mother went behind the door without her noticing, to which she replies, "Well that’s surely another mystery for you to solve!"
- Stock "Yuck!": The girl orders a vanilla cake and a coffee at the cafe, and while she finds the former delectable, the cappucino takes her taste buds completely by surprise and she doesn't drink any more of it. Not even cold water can totally flush out the taste.
- Surprise Party: Once the girl opens the door, the lights turn on and her parents yell "Surprise!" They explain that they planned this for her birthday, that the cafe lady is her grandma, and to go to her friends outside, who also wish her "happy birthday".
- Tempting Fate: The student reads on the bus, and is about to reach the climax, which is fortunate since she hates being interrupted at that point in the story. That's when she's forcibly cut back to reality by the bus' arrival.I love getting to the exciting bit of a story, and I hate when peo-
"Everyone off the bus!" roared our group supervisor.
