Time of Your Life Competition

TIMELINE

Memo to all Staff.

Further to our meeting last week, the time capsule is to be buried under the new flag pole on Wednesday. Each classes contribution is to be handed to me by Tuesday lunchtime.
Chris.

Dear Stranger,
In 2050 I'll be sixty. Now I'm only ten and this letter is for our school time capsule. We have to write to someone in the future and tell them what we think the world will be like. When you get this you'll see what we were thinking before you were even born..
You can see if our ideas were really stupid or if it all came true. She says that this time capsule that we're putting in the ground under our new flagpole will be opened by year five and six kids in fifty years time.

2050. What is it like? Are you standing around in school uniform like we are? Well actually I'm in the wrong colour tracksuit pants because CousCous our cat slept on my school ones and left her fur all over them and that makes me itchy so Mum had to wash them and they didn't dry in time and we don't have a clothes drier. Do you? Do you dry all your clothes inside in a big machine and you never have to race out in the rain and get the clothes off the line like I do?

Last night I asked Mum and Dad what they thought and they said there'd be robots to do the housework and to carry kids off to bed at exactly nine o'clock. I said that would only work if the robot did the homework first and who could get their homework done in our house when there is only one computer and my sister Jess is on it all the time. Jess said it won't matter because you'll have a chip in your brain to log on to the net and then you won't need a computer. You'll just think of what you want and your brain waves will dial up the ideas and download the stuff straight into your skull. Screening inside your head like a dream. Unreal. Is it really like that? But what happens to your real dreams? If you think about something really scary like dinosaurs or inter galactic space monsters doesn't that dial up other even more scary pictures inside your head/screen?

I reckon you must have little computers you can hold in our hands and sometimes you log on from home and you don't have to go to school. You'll be able to do it all from staying home in bed! Except maybe your Mum won't let you stay home although the robot could look after you.

And are your cars programmed to drive everywhere and to stop at stop signs and to know the best way to get there? And does the telephones have pictures so you see who you're talking to and you can't answer it with no clothes on like Mum does sometimes if she's just got out of the shower?
And in the paper it says that there will be smart fridges and micro waves and you can just ring them up and key in the numbers and they'll tell you what shopping you need to do and they'll put the dinner on when you're not even at home to do it yourself. And they say it will be really polluted and warmer and the sea will rise over the islands.

Do you still play elastics? And handball? And are big sisters horrible to little sisters and do you have to sit next to kids you don't even like and do you have good nicknames for teachers? Ours is Mrs. Disher and that sounds like fisher and you catch fish with a line and a hook. So she's called Hook and we can talk about her and she doesn't even know.
We have to finish now. Hook is giving us that look. (Joke! Ha! Ha!)

Yours sincerely,

Nina
p.s. Do you watch the Simpsons?

Dear Nina, This is really weird writing to you because I don't know if we'll find you or not. Mr. White says we have to write to you as if we know you and then we're going to advertise in the paper to see if you are still around here and we can meet you. So, here goes.

We dug up the time capsule yesterday. Your Ms Disher(Hook) was there as the guest of honour. She told us she's ninety-one. I thought she looked about a hundred and ninety one.

It was a special assembly and the kids who come to school for morning school did performances about the past and stuff like that and the ones who come in the afternoon - my group - got to open the capsule.

Lots of letters got read out and Ms Disher laughed and said she never knew she was Hook. There were people from the historical society who showed us film on the big screen and tried to teach us games from your time. They showed us elastics but they couldn't do it any more themselves. Sasha who's my best friend tried it but she fell and hurt her ankle and they wouldn't let anyone else try in case they broke something and their parents sued the school. We got to try the clothes on though. I liked the jeans with those funny zipper things. And none of us could work out why the hats were wrn with the sticking out bits at the back. We had a go on the old computers they brought in. Those keyboards are so slow. I kept making mistakes too and it didn't even tell me. Not like my new Bookman. Your idea of robots and chips in the brain would be wow on.

You were right about the cars and the fridges. What exactly was a microwave? We only cook at the weekends and we've got the solar oven for that. The whole town is solar. You have to. I think that's why the stuff about the pollution and the sea hasn't happened.

The other thing you were right about was the names. Remember I said our teacher was Mr. White? Well, we call him The Book, because White rhymes with write and sometimes we get to write in a book. So he's The Book and he doesn't even know. Like your Hook, he's giving me that look! (Ha! Ha!)

Yours sincerely

Elizabeth.
p.s. Who were the Simpsons?

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