The Ancient Teddy in the Mysterious Package

One hundred years ago there was a nine-year-old boy called Tom who liked to sneak out at night and watch the bombs. One day he was sent a package. There was no label to say who it was from or who it was for.

A few hours later Billy came to his door and said, “Did you get a package?”

Tom said, “Yes.” Billy said, “It’s MY package.” Tom said, “Well, there’s no label on it!” Billy grabbed Tom’s package. Tom screamed, “Give me that back. How do you know it is yours? It came to my house!” Billy said, “How do you know it’s yours? It has no label!”

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Tom snatched the box. He turned his back, not knowing what to do. He walked into the kitchen and asked his mum what she thought he should do. Tom’s mum said, “What is in that package and where did it come from?”

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Tom was speechless, he didn’t know what to say.

Mum said, “Right, that’s it, I am opening up the box.”

After that Tom snatched the box out of his mum’s hand and ran to his room to open it himself. He opened up the box and saw that there was a teddy bear inside.

He was surprised. He didn’t expect to have a teddy coming to him and he didn’t know why Billy wanted it so badly. His mum came in and asked, “Why did you snatch it?!”

Tom said, “I’m sorry. I wanted to see for myself what was in it, and I wanted to be alone for a little while to open it.”

He wondered why it was so important…

The 100 Years project is part of the Decade of Centenaries 2012-2023 initiative of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in Ireland. Fighting Words and Fighting Words NI organise creative writing workshops and projects with school students at primary and post-primary levels, inviting them to cast their imaginations 100 years to both the past and future. Presented here is a small collection of stories from those workshops.