IGCSE 1ST LANGUAGE

THE NEAR ESCAPE

TOPIC: WRITE A STORY THAT STARTS WITH "The teacher looked distraught, said 'That's it! I can't take any

more', and walked out of the classroom."

The teacher looked distraught, said 'That's it! I can't take any

more', and walked out of the classroom. We looked at all the

burly men stationed around our room, still impassive and

motionless, but we weren't fooled. Every single one of us

knew that Mrs Lovely was going to get punished. We never

stepped out of line for there were always consequences.

The ten minutes that followed Mrs Lovely's departure were

engulfed in silence.There was utter silence except for the

frantic thuds of our hearts and the ticking of the cuckoo

clock. Some of us were listening for the screams that we

knew would follow and others desperately clinging to the

hope that our warm-hearted teacher who helped us to stay

sane during the entire time we were held hostage wasn't

harmed.

As soon as ten minutes passed Becky, who was sitting beside

me, let out a sigh of relief. That was when we heard it. The

piercing shriek resonated through the classroom, scaring the

children, but not fazing the guards. We had seen and heard

so many other hostages get punished, but what they did to

Mrs Lovely must have been something much more torturous

than the usual whipping. Her screams were the most

tormented ones we had ever heard. We were frozen. No one

moved. That was until the clock struck twelve.

The moment it did and the bright yellow cuckoo popped out,

we cracked. It was as though we were a bunch of bulls seeing

red. We sprang up from the wooden chairs and dashed

across the room out of the clay hut that had been

transformed into our classroom during the last few months.

The guards might have been massive and strong, but we

were agile. I took one last look at the brown clay walls and

wooden furniture then sprinted out with the rest of my

classmates.

The moment we stepped out of the hut the guards stopped

chasing us. We weren't the only ones bound by rules and

punishments; they were too.

We scurried across the yard, trudging through the then

muddy African plains. We didn't have to talk or even look at

each other. We knew our mission was to cross the metal

fence that was used to outline the school's land. It was ironic

how all our parents sent us to this school after the war for

our safety, but the war would have been much less vicious

than the daily torture that we had to endure.

A booming bang snapped me out of my train of thought,

dragging me back to reality. Bullets were whizzing past us

and ricocheting off the fence and walls. We were so close.

We had to escape. Those were the last thoughts that went

through my head as I felt a sharp pain in my thighs and fell

face first into the ground.

I stood up as soon as I was able to ignore the pain my leg, but

it was too late. We were surrounded by guards; these ones

more burly than the ones that were stationed in our classes.

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