Finny (aged 7) loves Newt from Fantastic Beasts and especially enjoys crafting the magical creatures and making up stories for them. He has been working on writing this story independently and has enjoyed keeping it under wraps.

He typed it up and has also been working on creating some illustrations on Procreate.

Below is his unedited version of the story.

Teddy The Niffler And The Portal

by Finny Curley

Teddy is a niffler. A niffler is a magical creature who likes shiny things. That is why his thick, tickly pocket is always bursting with stolen treasure! He has short black fur with a tiny tail and his hands and feet are very pale. With a long beak and gleaming eyes, shinier than his golden prize!

Teddy was walking around and he could do whatever he wanted to. Everywhere it was very snowy and he had the best time of his life. But his only problem was he stood out a lot and he didn’t want himself to be too visible because his fur was jet black. Luckily the snow was two feet deep so he sank into the bottom of it so he was unnoticeable. 

On the next day, the 1st of September, Teddy scampered along the Wizarding Worlds streets of London, picking pockets cheerfully. He went on and on continuously and didn’t stop… Or did he? He weaved in and out happily, leaving shops with empty tills and BANKS with wailing sirens.He went on (and in) vehicles like taxis, sneaking his hands out and  reaching for pence and pounds. And even robbing robbers! Hours passed in this way until he spotted a POLICE officer. With his haul jangling heavily in his pocket, he scuttled faster, faster and faster! Suddenly he came to a halt near King’s Cross Station. There right in front of him stood a shimmering sparkly circle. Not knowing what it was, Teddy had his eyes on the prize.

It was a portal with only one control. Teddy pressed the red shiny button, unknowingly closing the portal. As it vanished, Teddy sped on to the platform and tried to stop before he crashed into the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

He squeezed his eyes tightly waiting for the crash. When it didn’t happen he peered out through squinted eyes. He had come to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, a place where the muggle police would never find him. 

He said hello to a pair of young wizards. One was tall, thin and gangling, with freckles and the other had black hair and glasses. Teddy thought they had been painting because the first boy had a black smudge on his nose and the second, that Teddy thought was called Barry Potter, looked like he had red paint splattered on his head. 

Before anyone could spot his overflowing pocket, he jumped into the portal. Inside it was dark and gloomy. He curled up tight, squeezed his eyes close and shivered. His quivering body accidentally knocked the red button. Before long he was outside again and the damp coolness of the station had been replaced by sun and heat.

He appeared on a  stranded island and saw an unusual looking creature with two claws, six normal legs and two swimming legs, a hard shell, antennas and two little eyes. And then it picked up Teddy and started walking. It was a crab. Suddenly he was surrounded by them and then one said, ‘hello’. They started to talk to him. ‘Cici the crab went missing in the Ocean. We need you to find him on this raft because we can not go too far away in the sea. It’s too deep and we just like shallow water, not deep deep water please can you… eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’ Teddy pressed the green button then he left.

He had arrived at the AfrIcan planes on the top of a rock. Beside him stood a monkey with face paint who was chanting strange sounds and waving a long, twisted wooden staff around. The stick looked hard and painful so Teddy decided to escape before the stick smacked him. He quietly shuffled on.

It was scorching! The sun was baking hot and it felt like every part of his fur was growing thicker by the minute. It drove him onwards in search of shade. Baking hot and feeling he was slowly roasting, Teddy reached a jungle. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the niffler slept all night.

He woke to the sound of singing. There was a whiny sounding creature that looked like a tall, skinny cat standing on two legs. He was dancing between a fat pig and a lion singing akuna MC. tata Teddy tried to sneak off but his jangling treasure gave him away.

‘What are you  doing here?’ the  cat, which was actually a meerkat, shouted. 

‘What are you doing here Tall cat and B B B B B Big chubby pig?’ anserd Teddy.  

‘Did you say chubby?’ said the pig, which was actually a warthog. He ran back and deleted that scene out of his head terrifiedly but he accidently fell PLOP! into an elephant graveyard where he saw three thousand one hundred and ninety nine blurry faces with evil eyes, chainsaw  teeth and inky coloured paws. HYENAS!

He was worried about being eaten, until a heard of wilderbeast came running towards him. Teddy leaped on to a delecate branch of a small tree. The branch (and Teddy) shook because of the trampling wilderbeast but they also scared away most of the hyenas. He scampered down the tree and was spotted by the three remaining hyenas. They charged at him… but not for long! The angry warthog came back and trampled the hyenas in his hurry to get to Teddy. 

Before Teddy could move, he stood face to face with Pumba the warthog. They both started to rumble, Pumba from his tummy and Teddy from his pocket, as out came a deafening shower of money that scared away the warthog.

Teddy climbed out of the empty grave yard and saw the same lion that was in the Jungle. He was puzzled. So he just jumped into the glimmering portal. And before long he was asleep. But it wasn’t a normal sleep, it was a long sleep. 

To be continued…

DfES Outcomes for EYFS and National Curriculum (2013)

English Year 2 programme of study

Writing – Composition

• Develop positive attitudes towards and stamina for writing by:
  • writing narratives about personal experiences and those of others (real and fictional)
  • writing about real events
  • writing for different purposes
• Consider what they are going to write before beginning by:
  • planning or saying out loud what they are going to write about
  • writing down ideas and/or key words, including new vocabulary
  • encapsulating what they want to say, sentence by sentence
• Make simple additions, revisions and corrections to their own writing by:
  • evaluating their writing with the teacher and other pupils
  • re-reading to check that their writing makes sense and that verbs to indicate time are used correctly and consistently, including verbs in the continuous form
  • proof-reading to check for errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation [for example, ends of sentences punctuated correctly]
• Read aloud what they have written with appropriate intonation to make the meaning clear.

Writing – vocabulary, grammar and punctuation

• Develop their understanding by learning how to use both familiar and new punctuation correctly, including:
  • full stops
  • capital letters
  • exclamation marks
  • question marks
• Learn how to use sentences with different forms:
  • statement
  • question
  • exclamation
• Use expanded noun phrases to describe and specify [for example, the blue butterfly]
• Use the present and past tenses correctly and consistently including the progressive form
• Subordination (using when, if, that, or because) and co-ordination (using or, and, or but)