I wasn’t always in the well.
The well is a house to me now, spacious and comfortable, but I am no fool. I am here for a reason, and my captors are very much still alive. They send the food, you see. That much I am grateful for. But while their cunning allowed them to trap me here, I know they’ve let their guard slip. Because tonight, someone, perhaps a servant of theirs, forgot to replace the lid to my well after they had dropped the usual calves down to feed me. I am certain if I stayed here, when they discovered the well open in the morning, they would assume I had escaped into the night, punish their servant and close the well off for good. I would wither away. Of course, knowing they would spend the rest of their sorry lives searching for me to no end does bring me some joy, I doubt it would sate the hunger that eats away at me. So tonight, I climb. Up and out.

The excited shakes make it difficult to hold on to the smooth wet stones, but when I fall back to the bottom with a splash, I laugh and begin again. The stones are black, speckled with white flecks. I remember the well’s walls once having a coat of moss, before I tore it off to chew in my boredom. This well felt like a world in miniature, a tunnel of dark space and stars. Perhaps, there will be stars tonight. Real ones. I feel cold air, bitter as seawater, hit my face. I drink it in. My skin can feel a change in the stones here. One hard to explain, the stones aren’t just dryer, they feel… brittle. Breakable. Like they could come apart in black, flaky fragments in just one clench.

And when I look directly up, I notice the moon first, the starry sky next, and finally, the face of the lord. His eyes are wider and whiter than the moon as he realises what is happening, his mouth opening and closing in a mute horror. I take my chance, and slither out. He’s gone in one snap of my jaws.

The night air feels wonderful on my skin, and it makes me think of the sea. I miss it. I know how they think of me, a brainless, unending hunger. They are almost right. I am hungry for my home. The cold, lonely and vast water where I was born. Not hunger for cattle, or their crops, or their children.

​I take what they give but it is like stones lining my stomach. I was not meant to be here. I was not meant to be seen. I was meant to grow, grow long enough to stretch over the sea bed, end-to-end, grow large enough to swallow ships. And I cannot grow here. My birth place calls me. I will return to the River Wear. And I will be home again.

​Follow the stars, just follow the stars and you’ll find me...”. Those were my moms last words to me as she hid me under the leaves behind some bins. Even in my deep sleep I could hear the distant shouts of the angry, drunk men that were chasing her. As she said this over and over she slipped a small star charm over my tiny, balled fist. Then she ran and left me at the wrath of the cold, cruel night. And although I was only a baby, I knew she wasn’t coming back. And now in my 13 year old self my question is, how can you follow the stars if you can’t see them? Ok, listen, let’s get one thing straight, right off the bat. No, I’m not blind, yes my vision is terrible, on the verge of being blind, but no, I’m not blind. Also, I’m not by myself. I’ve got Milo. Milo is the jack russel who “found” me that cold, dark night. He cuddled up to me and most likely kept me alive. He also stopped my crying and it’s been me and Milo ever since. By the way, I’m Ivy. I’m almost blind and an orphan since I was 1 and a half. Milo and I went into town in attempts to, “borrow”, some breakfast. Hey, I know what you're thinking, “Why can’t she buy her own breakfast like a normal person?” We’ll let’s get another thing straight; I’m not a “normal person.” We wandered around the streets for a while before some high end scones and tea caught our eyes. Well mostly Milo's but still. And no I’m not going for the people outsides food, way too obvious. But you see, if fancy and fine fellows are eating there I want in. Don’t worry, we do this almost everyday and it usually works, I mean yes sometimes it doesn’t work but I choose not to talk about it. Anyway, Milo basically just walks in, distracts the manager while I sneak around back. Then we run back to our beloved alleyway. We ate and made our way to the Italian restaurant around the corner. I always go there when I’ve got something on my mind. For some reason today I couldn’t stop thinking of my moms last words, follow the stars... What does that even mean? So I turned to the chubby man who runs La Familia. He claims to make the best Napolatena pasta in town which is pretty hard to disagree with once you’ve tried it. Whenever I go he always has a spare cannoli or a few meatballs for me and Milo. By the way, I’m a scrawny, small 13;year old with olive skin and dark features with green eyes. Mr Perez always says I look like a real Italian, whatever that means. I’ve always wanted to ask him about my family, he’s the only other person I’ve ever known, and although he named the restaurant he changes the subject or looks away when I ask him. But the other day, I was looking in the dumpster for food when I saw a small, cracked picture of a beautiful young woman holding a baby and a man, who I’m guessing was her husband. I took it with me back to the alleyway and as I kept looking I realised that the man looked just like Mr Perez. I decided right then and there that I would ask him about it. So we walked in and he waltzed right out in his dirty apron “Ahhh, it’s little Ivy and her little doggie, hello little doggie.” “Hello Mr Perez, I really need to talk to you about something.” I paused and then said, “In private.” His smile dropped and looked at me for a minute with his little eyes and then whisked me away into the back room which he likes to call his office. Well, Milo walked, I just kind of felt my way until he had to grab me and drop me into the chair. He sat me down with some hot chocolate and cookies while he looked at me very seriously. He steadied his stare on me for a while until I worked up the courage to talk, “So, um, I came to ask you about..” “I KNOW WHAT YOU CAME TO ASK ME ABOUT” he yelled at me. I was stunned. He’s never raised his voice at me let alone screamed. As soon as he did Milo started whimpering and burrowed his head in my grubby lap. He must have seen my stunned expression so he said, “Apologies little Ivy, I did not mean to lash out, I had just started hoping and eventually believing that this day would never come, but here I am..” “What was supposed to happen on this day..” I trailed off, I felt like I was about to find out something that I didn’t actually want to know. He didn't answer right away so after a minute I quietly asked, “Mr Perez..” He took my hand and looked me in the eye. “ I didn’t want this day to come because it was going to destroy everything you thought to be true.” “Mr Perez, what are you talking about..” I was so confused and slowly becoming scared of the truth. “Ivy, that man in the picture is me.” Yeah I figured, I thought to myself. On the outside I had no emotion but I was silently terrified. “That woman, is your mother.” That was when I showed some emotion. My body kind of stopped working for a second and it lurched forward. I caught myself and was steadied, Mr Perez got me some water and told me to take some deep breaths. After a minute or two of that, he told me something that was exactly how he said it. It destroyed everything I had known to be true. “Ivy, the baby, is you.” And that’s when my world plunged into darkness.

Based on my favourite book ‘The Great Gatsby’; I chose words from the book and created a poem that reflected Gatsby’s deteriorating mental health as his dream of Daisy dissipates and he begins to lose her.

By Ava Healy 

Establishment
The Creative Writing Club was established in September 2014 and currently has fifty-two members. Membership is completely voluntary and those students who are involved range from 1st to 5th year. There is a huge range of abilities and learning styles in the club; some students are serious aspiring writers and others simply enjoy accessing a relaxed and informal opportunity to explore this skill. 

Weekly Meetings
The club meets every week before school for thirty minutes between 8.15am and 8.45am in the Lecture Theatre. This time is used to practise writing in a wide variety of genres. Students are led in composing poetry, non-fiction, short stories, dialogue, etc. We employ an array of prompts to aid students in their writing and activities are designed to appeal to the multiple learning styles which exist in the club. Images, games, kinaesthetic activities, drama, aural resources, group work and discussion all play an integral part in prompting student writing. 

Author Visits
Over the last four years we have had the opportunity to welcome a number of prolific writers into the school. Students have had the opportunity to attend talks and workshops with these individuals. We have made a significant effort to invite a variety of different writers into our fold and have had the opportunity to work with authors, bloggers, journalists and poets. Many of these visits are stand alone events but we have also hosted a six week writer in residence scheme with Dave Rudden and a series of poetry workshops with Paul Muldoon and Phil Lynch.
To date, the club has welcomed:

• Louise O’Neill (author)
• Paul Howard (author)
• Joseph O’Connor (author)
• John Connolly (author)
• Lorna Duffy (blogger)
• Rebecca Barker (Irish Sun news editor)
• Dave Rudden (author)
• Lisa Williamson (author)
• Sarah Webb (author)
• Sarah Maria Griffin (spoken word poet)
• Paul Muldoon (poet)
• Phil Lych (poet)
• Liz Nugent (author)
• Helen Corcoran (author)

Other Events

• The club ordinarily takes charge of the World Book Day celebrations in school. This has involved the World Book Day noticeboard, our Guess the Titles competition, writing the World Book Day morning prayer and our Blind Date with A Book event. 
• We published our “Women in Our World” book in conjunction with the school’s Justice and Peace Group and Jospeh O’Connor.
• We visited the DLR Lexicon Library to tour their writing exhibitions. 
• We visited Fighting Words Creative Writing Centre to take part in one of their writing workshops.
• We attended a writing workshop with Narrative 4 and followed this with a story exchange with Sue Ryder, Dalkey. The work which resulted from this story exchange was exhibited at Dalkey Book Festival. 
• We publish a large collection of writing annually in our school yearbook. 

Successes to date 
Our members routinely enter writing competitions and have had a number of successes to date. Most recently Cayla Rose O’Sullivan and Kate Hamilton have had their writing published in The Irish Times, Caoimhe McWilliams has had her work published in the Irish Independent and Ciara Murray was announced as the overall winner of the Specsavers Short Story Award. 

​By Kim Boland