Task: Story Composition
Input (English): Fact1: James friend Ryan Quinn is being forced to put on wellington boots to go to visit father, Fact2: Ryan 's mother gives James on day of leaving pair of brown sandals, Fact3: Ryan brown sandals that 'd bought on day of death, Fact4: James ends up in outskirts of city, Fact5: new housing estate outskirts of is under construction city
Output (English): The film opens focused upon James friend Ryan Quinn, who is being forced to put on his wellington boots to go to visit his father, who is in jail. But Ryan chose to play with James instead, and runs off while his mother is not looking. Ryan meets James at the canal and during some roughhouse play he is drowned, clearly with James bearing much of the blame for not having raised the alarm. James believes his inaction has gone unnoticed. Ryans family is eventually rehoused and on the day of leaving, Ryans mother gives James the pair of brown sandals that shed bought for Ryan on the day of his death. The film follows the sensitive James as he tries to come to terms with his guilt, and make sense of the insensitive aspects of his environment. James one escape comes when he takes a bus to the end of the line and ends up in the outskirts of the city, where a new housing estate is under construction. He explores the halfbuilt houses, and wonders in awe at the view from the kitchen window: an expansive field of wheat, blowing in the wind and reaching to the horizon. In a scene central to the film, he climbs through the window and escapes into the blissful freedom of the field. James befriends a girl, Margaret Anne, who he tries to help after her glasses are thrown into the canal by the local gang. James and Margaret Anne become close friends. She is his only other relief from his home environment. Margaret Anne has problems of her own, and one of them is allowing herself to be abused by the local gang. The duo find comfort in each others company. One of James friends, Kenny, receives a pet mouse as a birthday present. After the gang throw the mouse around in the air to make him fly, Kenny ties the mouses tail to a balloon, and the film shows it floating to the moon. Then, Kennys mouse joins a whole colony of other mice frolicking on the moon. Kenny later falls in the canal and is rescued by James father, making him briefly into a local hero. Though the military eventually comes and cleans up all the garbage in the neighbourhood, James realizes that his situation will most likely never change. He plunges himself into the canal, and a brief scene is shown, in which James family is moving into a new neighbourhood.