I was with two of my friends, John and Paul. We were bored. We had just finished an energetic game of hide-and-seek, but now we were looking for something else to do. “How about dares?” I asked the other two.
“How can we play that, without cards or a dice?” asked Paul.
“By you daring me, me daring John and John daring you, okay?”
“Hm, yes all right.”
“Good, the dare has to involve bringing something back here, and we all go off to our dared spot. Do you understand?”
“In a way,” said John.
“Right, you dare me first, Paul.”
“Right, I dare you to go to the workman’s hut on that building site over there, and bring back a spade.”
“Cripes!” I exclaimed. “John you’d better give Paul a dangerous dare, but before you do I’ll dare yer. See that house over there with the daffodils in the garden, go and pick one!”
“But, yeah all right, I’ll dare you now Paul. Umm, ah, yes. You can go to that building site and bring back a trowel.”
“And if I don’t?” said Paul.
“We’ll throw you in the beck.” I said.
“Come on, let’s go and get on with it,” said John as he walked off.
“We can go to the site together,” said Paul.
“No way, I’m running there. See yer,” I said, then ran off.
When I got to the wire fence round the building site I crawled under it and made a mad dash for the half-built house. The wall shielded me from the watchman’s hut, but I had to stoop for all my body to be hidden from view. There were a lot of piles of bricks around with holes in, which looked like eyes and they seemed to stare at me accusingly. I was trespassing now, if I was caught it could mean the police. Suddenly I heard a police siren. My heart missed a beat, the watchman must have seen me and called the police. I listened to the siren, hardly daring to breathe and not moving. I listened to it getting louder as the police car came nearer, but it started to get quieter as it went away in the distance. It was then when I realised the police car wouldn’t have its siren on for a trespasser. I breathed again.
I was at the end of the house wall and the workman’s hut was at least ten metres away, but in between me and the hut was a big, open space where I would be in clear view of the watchman.
Suddenly there was a loud bang as some bricks hit the floor, Paul perhaps or some other person trespassing. Anyway, the crash was past me and the watchman would have to pass me to investigate the crash. Unfortunately, there was no place to hide, so I presses myself tight against the wall and waited for the watchman to go past me and when he did I realised what a great opportunity this would be to get to the workman’s hut, so I made a mad dash for the hut. The wind I made as I ran seemed to say “Tressspassssuur.” I got to the hut and dived for cover.
I looked around me and saw a sign with some words on which I couldn’t make out, but one was ‘trespassers’. And I saw a spade. I picked it up and looked for the watchman. He wasn’t near or in his hut and I couldn’t see him anywhere else, so I ran for the space between two half-built houses. Then I saw the watchman. He was standing with his back to me and was saying “Flippin’ kids, always stealing or trespassing.”
I jumped over one of the walls, but he must have heard me because he turned round sharply. “Hey you, c’mere!” he yelled at me, but I just dropped the spade and ran and I thought to myself “This will be easy, he’s only old, so I should get away.” I got to the wire fence and over it when I heard another voice.
“What were you doing in there?”
I turned and saw another man in workman’s clothes. I stared at him then I turned and ran again, but I didn’t stop till I got to some bushes. I hid in there and watched what would happen. The watchman was talking to the other man who waved a carefree hand in my direction and walked off. The watchman stood for a bit then joined the other man. I wouldn’t dare go back to get the spade and I wouldn’t like to face my friends, so I went home.
Teacher’s Comments
B
Well paragraphed except for speech – always start a new paragraph, when the speaker changes.
(c) M. Robert Gibson
First written 1976-05-18
School exercise.
Don’t forget, it was written by a schoolboy.
It is published here for purely selfish vanity reasons.
M. Robert Gibson 