Meanwhile, the whistle blew and we all filed up in to our classes. Nasira and I ran to the same one, as usual, down the aisle of buildings and turned right into one of them. Our teacher, Mrs Harris, gave instructions about the school trip. All of us got our bags and belongings ready.
We were soon on the coach, heading for London and I’ll tell you… it took a-gg-ees! And of course it did, since we lived in southern England, far below London, near the sea.
Zoe, Frankie and Lucy pushed to get the very back seats. Mabel and Sara followed them and took the last two seats in the very back of the coach, next to Zoe. However, Nasira and I didn’t even try to get them; we took the middle seats. Okay, Nasira always goes on about warnings (I think she’s some kind of… earthquake predictor). She said that if the bus crashed, the middle would be safest and anyway, it was close to the emergency exit, in case of something like a fire (which of course I hoped would not happen, EVER) … But, uh, it was also close to the portable toilet. And I'd witnessed something with a coach portable toilet… well, um, our teacher in year five ate a bit too much and, well… she got a bit… stuck in one of those.
After our one hour not journey, everyone bustled out of the coach. The London Eye was in view and everyone was taking millions of snapshots of it.
Unfortunately, it had been banned to bring cameras, except a disposable one, so I hadn’t brought one along. But others had gone against the rule and as Mrs Harris’ favourite student, Kathy, (the most popular, annoyingest girl in the school) had, she let everyone off.
We entered the Sea Life Aquarium and as soon as we saw the sea creatures, everyone immediately started going, “WOW!” “Awesome!” “Come see this, guys!” And yes, so far, everything was so cool and interesting… but only at the moment.
We spent the whole day there, having fun learning about the sea animals and looking at them all. Everyone was amazed at all the different sea creatures and people kept huddling round to see the interesting ones. I loved the turtles. There were baby ones and they looked so cute.
Anyway, we went upstairs when it arrived to lunch, and my classmates chattered as usual, some talking of the hottest songs, others debating that their Nintendo Wii had the best games and so on.
We finally got to go back down and resume our looking-at-the-sea-creatures. We soon arrived to the large pool for the sharks. I really mean it - LARGE. It was about five times the deep end in an ordinary swimming pool… no, way bigger than that.
A shark kept coming up to the screen and people were going, “Woaaah!!” and taking photos. I couldn’t see at this moment – they were crowding the circular see-through screen.
Once they’d cleared off and Nasira and I were on our own, Nasira told me to hurry up as the rest of the class had gone off to see the other exhibits. I promised I’d catch up; I knew they weren’t too far and what could hurt having a quick look at the shark for a minute?
So Nasira ran off and I looked at the shark. It was pretty big and scary. I mean, you definitely wouldn’t want to be its McDonald’s Happy Meal… no way.
Suddenly, I heard a rumble. The shark was knocking itself at the screen. “Huh?” I said, aloud. But no-one heard me; no-one was there at the moment.
The shark kept bashing on the screen. My heart raced so fast that I swear I could have fallen unconscious. I backed away by instinct, my face white with fear. The shark was looking right at me, crossly (if sharks can be cross)… right at me, yes, right at me.
It made one last, big slash on the screen.
Just then… it transformed, right there, in front of me. My throat was stuck with worry – I couldn’t scream. I wanted to do it right there and whizz off, letting the security guards deal with it. But I froze like a statue - I would have been a good chess player.
Then… it shattered. The shark shattered. Literally, to pieces. But it reformed, right in front of me. I was helpless. I had no cover, no-one to help me and absolutely no armour.
It reformed into a monster. Okay… a monster. It had the head of a shark, right down to its neck with a fin and then the body of a jaguar, including its knife-sharp claws and paws. It was seriously the strangest thing I’d EVER seen. My jaw dropped. Its blade-sharp teeth were just about to crunch me up…
In that split-second, a bow appeared in my hand. What was I supposed to do? Use it? Run for help? I’d never used one before, except in archery on a residential school trip.
Something whispered in my mind, as clear as someone speaking to me right there. “Fight,” it said.
We were soon on the coach, heading for London and I’ll tell you… it took a-gg-ees! And of course it did, since we lived in southern England, far below London, near the sea.
Zoe, Frankie and Lucy pushed to get the very back seats. Mabel and Sara followed them and took the last two seats in the very back of the coach, next to Zoe. However, Nasira and I didn’t even try to get them; we took the middle seats. Okay, Nasira always goes on about warnings (I think she’s some kind of… earthquake predictor). She said that if the bus crashed, the middle would be safest and anyway, it was close to the emergency exit, in case of something like a fire (which of course I hoped would not happen, EVER) … But, uh, it was also close to the portable toilet. And I'd witnessed something with a coach portable toilet… well, um, our teacher in year five ate a bit too much and, well… she got a bit… stuck in one of those.
After our one hour not journey, everyone bustled out of the coach. The London Eye was in view and everyone was taking millions of snapshots of it.
Unfortunately, it had been banned to bring cameras, except a disposable one, so I hadn’t brought one along. But others had gone against the rule and as Mrs Harris’ favourite student, Kathy, (the most popular, annoyingest girl in the school) had, she let everyone off.
We entered the Sea Life Aquarium and as soon as we saw the sea creatures, everyone immediately started going, “WOW!” “Awesome!” “Come see this, guys!” And yes, so far, everything was so cool and interesting… but only at the moment.
We spent the whole day there, having fun learning about the sea animals and looking at them all. Everyone was amazed at all the different sea creatures and people kept huddling round to see the interesting ones. I loved the turtles. There were baby ones and they looked so cute.
Anyway, we went upstairs when it arrived to lunch, and my classmates chattered as usual, some talking of the hottest songs, others debating that their Nintendo Wii had the best games and so on.
We finally got to go back down and resume our looking-at-the-sea-creatures. We soon arrived to the large pool for the sharks. I really mean it - LARGE. It was about five times the deep end in an ordinary swimming pool… no, way bigger than that.
A shark kept coming up to the screen and people were going, “Woaaah!!” and taking photos. I couldn’t see at this moment – they were crowding the circular see-through screen.
Once they’d cleared off and Nasira and I were on our own, Nasira told me to hurry up as the rest of the class had gone off to see the other exhibits. I promised I’d catch up; I knew they weren’t too far and what could hurt having a quick look at the shark for a minute?
So Nasira ran off and I looked at the shark. It was pretty big and scary. I mean, you definitely wouldn’t want to be its McDonald’s Happy Meal… no way.
Suddenly, I heard a rumble. The shark was knocking itself at the screen. “Huh?” I said, aloud. But no-one heard me; no-one was there at the moment.
The shark kept bashing on the screen. My heart raced so fast that I swear I could have fallen unconscious. I backed away by instinct, my face white with fear. The shark was looking right at me, crossly (if sharks can be cross)… right at me, yes, right at me.
It made one last, big slash on the screen.
Just then… it transformed, right there, in front of me. My throat was stuck with worry – I couldn’t scream. I wanted to do it right there and whizz off, letting the security guards deal with it. But I froze like a statue - I would have been a good chess player.
Then… it shattered. The shark shattered. Literally, to pieces. But it reformed, right in front of me. I was helpless. I had no cover, no-one to help me and absolutely no armour.
It reformed into a monster. Okay… a monster. It had the head of a shark, right down to its neck with a fin and then the body of a jaguar, including its knife-sharp claws and paws. It was seriously the strangest thing I’d EVER seen. My jaw dropped. Its blade-sharp teeth were just about to crunch me up…
In that split-second, a bow appeared in my hand. What was I supposed to do? Use it? Run for help? I’d never used one before, except in archery on a residential school trip.
Something whispered in my mind, as clear as someone speaking to me right there. “Fight,” it said.