It was an ordinary day at school. I was in English class boring through one of my teacher’s lectures on writing an essay on the topic of multiculturalism in our country when the fire alarm went off––hold on, I should probably back up a little. I mean you don’t even know who I am. I’m Joey, I’m fourteen years old, and I am female, I also live in Perth, Australia. Now for those who aren't Australian or don't live in Australia- no. it does not look like a desert every where and we do not all have a pure Australian accent. It is actually quite rare to find someone with an Australian accent and says "put anotha shrimp on the barbie" these days. No, we do not ride kangaroos or see koalas and crocodiles every where. We speak normal, honestly. I don't even use the words "mayte" or "g'day" or the word "crikey". I think that should be enough.
Anyway, after the fire alarm went off the class, which was nearly half asleep before, began to buzz again. “Alright, alright class get in to two lines and we’ll go to the west oval,” said our teacher Mr. Luke. Naturally everyone just started walking towards the door in the most noisy and unorderly fashion possible. As for me, well, instead of leaving my bag behind like we were supposed to I picked it up and joined the mass of fourteen year olds pouring out the door.
You’re probably wondering why I would bring my bag with me since it’s a basic rule of safety to leave your belongings behind. But before you start thinking how stupid I am, let me just explain. You see, my best friend Clary and I used to like watching movies where a group of people living in some town in a first world country for example America would have their town attacked by a bunch of terrorists or something and then would end up having to survive on their own. The two of us being very paranoid people came up with a plan of what we would do if our school got attacked. We made survival packs which we would keep in our school bags containing things I’m not going to go in to. We also did our best to learn how to drive a car and used the internet to learn how to hotwire one–– no we weren’t trying to learn how to steal cars. Last of all we created a strategy so we would be able to meet up if this attack should happen. There were a lot of trees in front of our school and we picked out one where we would both run to if anything happened.
On second thought, I guess you could say that grabbing my bag was pretty stupid, especially after reading my reasons. But no matter, I did what I did.
When we got to the west oval –– our school has two ovals, one on the far west side and one on the far east–– Mr. Luke finally noticed I was wearing my school bag. “Joey, why did you bring your school bag with you?”
“I thought this was just a drill so I didn’t think it would matter,” I said pulling a confused expression.
he probably believed it because he just sighed and said, “Never mind. Just, next time don’t bring it whether you think it’s a drill or not.” At that he walked away and told all of us to sit down on the ground.
While everyone was busy chatting to their friends, I sat there looking like a complete loner.
“Hey, Joey,” a voice broke in to my thoughts. I turned to find the grinning face of Parker with his friend Ely sitting next to him. Parker was a skinny boy with a palecomplexion with dark hair and blue eyes. As for Ely, he was both shorter and chubbier then Parker with green eyes and probably paler, too. His hair was dark as well but had a lighter brown hue to it.
“Do you want to see a magic trick?” said Parker. The two who had sat behind me in class had spent much time asking me if I wanted to see one of their latest magic tricks and since I had the options of either humoring them or doing my English work I usually chose the former.
I rolled my eyes and said, “Sure, why not?”
“Alright so I’m writing something in this piece of paper and scrunching it up––here take it–– alright so ––no don’t open it! Here, just give it back, ugh, never mind. Anyway, think of a number between 1 and 4.”
“Alright,” I said.
“Okay, what was the number?” said Ely.
“Two.”
“Oh, then, never mind give us back the paper,” Ely said.
“What? No, I want to see what’s in it.”
“It’s just the number three,” said Ely rolling his eyes at me.
I gave them a questioning look.
“You were supposed to pick the number three,” said Parker accusingly, “Everybody else normally does. What’s wrong with you?”
I was about to reply with something witty when I saw a figure behind him.
“What?” said Parker, “What is it?” He and Ely turned around and saw it as well.
“Who is that?” said Ely.
A man who by then was already half way across the oval was limping towards us, his movement was rather odd even though he was limping. On his face you could just see blood smeared across it, especially on his mouth. I thought he was also making a weird groaning sound which I thought would be impossible seeing since everybody else was so loud. A teacher from another class noticed him and ran towards him to help. I don’t know why but I started to grab my bag next to me. And that was when it happened.
Instead of the teacher helping the man, she got part of her neck bitten off instead. Without even thinking, I put on my bag and ran in the opposite direction––towards the rest of the school. I found myself running toward the tree Clary and I picked out in front of the school and started to climb. After climbing the tree I heard the familiar voices that had bothered me so often during English class.
“Are you sure you saw her run this way?” said Ely.
“Yeah, definitely,” said Parker, “Joey! Are you here?”
Have you ever felt the impulse where you don’t care, you don’t think, you just want to get out of there? Well, that was what I was feeling at the time and the only thing keeping me in that tree was the thought that was so well memorized of having to wait for my best friend. That teensy weensy little bit of actual thought in me to wait kept me in that tree instead of running for dear life. So when I heard Ely and Parker’s voices calling for me, I did nothing, I said nothing. It only made me more desperate for Clary to come. I’m not going to lie, their calling for me made me nervous, I wanted them to stop and I wanted them to leave. When they finally wandered somewhere further off to look for me I was relieved.
I sat in that tree for what felt like forever watching as people ran around and listening to their blood curdling screams–– though it was probably only a minute––before Clary came by.
