The Red F.

Once upon a time a Primary School celebrated Book Week. There was a dress-up parade where students came as their favourite character from a book.

And there was a book-writing competition.

At this school was a boy called Climber. He wanted to enter a book for the competition, so he started a book about a Uni-pus (a one-limbed Cephalopod) ...

... and another book about Useful Spells ...

... which his mother found in many strange places around the house. But it was not until Climber's mother went to school for her regular classroom session that she realised why there were so many little books around the house. Climber's teacher had only told the students about the competition and assumed the children would tell their parents. Hmmmm.

So Climber's mother and Climber started work on a book for the competition. They had 2 days in which to get it done. Not long to come up with a whole book. But then they remembered a story that Climber had started writing back in April ...

... and they decided to finish it off together.

Work began. At Climber's insistence ("it has to be neat, you're supposed to type it"), Climber's mother typed up Chapter One ...

... and Chapter 2, while Climber started on the illustrations.

Then Climber dictated Chapter 3 ...

... and they finished the book with Chapter 4. A rousing good ending he dreamed up all by himself.

All that was left to do was a Cover Page and The Red F was complete.

They entered it for the competition and waited for 2 weeks. Climber's mother hoped that signs of parental involvement did not weigh against him. She included a copy of his original work in the back of the book so that the judges could see that he did in fact write it himself. She also emphasised to Climber that it was immaterial whether or not he won the competition, because the main thing was he had written his first book and that it was wonderful. But she allowed herself to hope.

Alas.

He did not win.

Climber's mother assumes that the winning entries were of Booker Prize-winning standard to have edged out her child's masterpiece but she refrains from saying that in front of him.