Children's writing: Escape! (a story) - by Priyoti

Wow! You always surprise me with your writing, Priyoti. I didn't expect Queen Victoria to make an appearance in this, but it works really well because it adds to the creepy historical mood.

And, what a powerful opening to this story. You have taken the reader backward in time to set the scene and you've used lots of techniques to draw the reader in, such as starting with an -ed verb, strong verb choices (slammed) and well-chosen adjectives (blunt, dusty).

Thanks so much for sharing.

Let's read ...

ESCAPE!

Tossed around, we got slammed into a blunt, dusty door. I heaved the handle hoping for it to open. “Oh wait, did I start too early?”  Let me describe what happened a short while ago.

It was my twelfth birthday, and a grand party that my mum and Dad arranged, though it was not in the best of places. It was in a deserted looking hall with a grey, blunt door isolated in a dark, eerie corner. A lot of relatives and friends came over.

My two besties, Amira and Flo, were invited as well. The party was very crowded, and we got pushed into the door, so I heaved the handle and the door swung open. We stepped inside…

The door shut behind us and we heard a key rattle and turn. A deep voice boomed and said, “Will you play, decipher and conquer?” That frightened the stuff out of us. Flo uttered, “Sure, go on then, give us the challenge!” That shook me to death. Us three sensed that the room was getting warmer by the minute. We started to get toasty. I turned around to see that a fire was crackling on an object hanging from the ceiling, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I called Flo and Amira, “Guys, look!”

They turned around. Amira screamed, “AAAAAGH. We are going to be burned alive!” I scanned the room for any fire extinguishers or water. Flo had a bottle of coke, so I snatched it from her hand and sprayed it all over the fire. The fire finally slowed down and died. Amira gave a sigh of relief.

“Right, so we are trapped in here and have no way out”, Amira said in a very annoying voice. Flo screamed as a face appeared in a puff of smoke which hissed, “Hold your hats, we are going for a ride.”

“Huh! “we said surprisingly. Suddenly, it felt like the room started to move. CRASH!!! The wall gave way and we were into another room. This room was totally different .

This one had a chessboard right in the middle. A red substance was smothered all over it. Framed pictures of the queen, Victoria, had knives struck at her chest and face. To our surprise, an intruder broke in and muttered, “Maybe I should have just come in through the door”, then he said, “you better be against the queen or else! “I think we are in the Victorian era!”, Amira said in a guilty voice. Flo stepped up and threatened the intruder, “Or else what! Don’t you dare threaten us!” The intruder backed away. “Amira, what on earth are you talking about, we are not in the Victorian Era!”, I spluttered.

“Mee...Mee...Mee… We are not in a Victorian era,” Amira mimicked. Flo uttered that we had to do something about the intruder.
“What are you girls bickering about in the corner?” he exclaimed.

“Let’s play a chess game; do you know how to play chess?”

I said, “Yes, who doesn’t?”

The only reason that I wanted to play chess was that if I won, I could ask him to help us to get out of here. If he won, we three would have to be against the queen. I set up the chessboard, I had the white pieces, he had the black ones. It was my turn first; I moved my pawn forward two spaces. He moved his pawn two spaces. Diagonal hit, I was able to capture the pawn with no effort. He moved his queen diagonal to face my castle. Wrong move! I pushed my castle forward to knock down his queen. Ha! He lost his best piece.

After multiple tries and efforts to win, the intruder lost, but I would say he is a good loser. Victory for me, yay!! As I was still celebrating, I heard a loud thud! He dropped to the ground, as I was still wondering why, a blunt door came into view. The same voice from the beginning said in glory, “You three have accomplished the challenges, you are free to go. But wait, there is one condition. You must try and revive the intruder.” Amira and Flo ran to the intruder and started to toss him around to try and wake him. He jumped up in a startle. That scared me!

“He is awake!”Flo and Amira exclaimed. Then the three of us ran towards the blunt door and heaved it open. That was a lot of adventure. I hope this place will not be so scary for the people in future.

-ends-

                                                       The End