What an Ambush!

“Toreka wake up!” my older brother yelled, “We’ll be late for Cross Country!” I opened my sleepy eyes to see him staring at me. “Okay, okay. No need to get all worked up. Gosh” I moaned, “ Anyway, the Cross Country is probably postponed today. I hope we don’t have to run. My netball shoes smell gross when they’re wet.” He walked out muttering, “Girls these days”

When I arrived at school I greeted Mr Burt with a Good Morning" - As usual. And he replied, good morning-As usual. But that morning he spoke with a sly grin. Hmm. Principals these days I thought in my mind. I walked in to class to see that everyone was whispering something that sounded like...”Cross Country today!” the speaker yelled. My jaw dropped. My heart sank. Cross Country?? What an ambush! Well, that was certainly unexpected. Maybe Mr.SlyGrin over there tried to capture everyone before they could get out the old “sick note”. I have to admit, teachers can be smart like that.

“Okay” Mr Barks signalled, “Bring in the 10 year old girls.” I panicked. We were going first? My confidence dropped even more. I dragged myself to the starting line. I sighed loudly. “Who cares Reka.” Sylvia said. “We’ll all run together” Mino smiled at me.

“Okay ladies” Mr Burt practically laughed, “ On your marks...” “Oh boy” I groaned. “Get set...” “Remember don’t sprint” Mino quickly said “ BANG” We were off. Most people kept sprinting past. Whereas, I was happily jogging with my friends.

Unfortunately, that little spark of happiness didn’t last for long. This thick icky gooey mud was sticking to my shoes. Great! Absolutely positively great. My shoes would be saturated by the time I finished a quarter of the way there. My shoes would stink, and I knew this would all happen eventually. I was NOT looking forward to the rest of this race. If I came anything other than 10th and upper, my brother would be teasing me the whole walk home. Plus, I’d be walking in my soaked netball shoes. Why does he get the bonus?

My heart skipped a beat when I noticed the race went longer than usual. Oh no. Daniel would be teasing me for sure. But the least I could do is try, even though I knew I was doomed with the curse of older brother’s insults. I loped past Miss Burne and my joy lifted. “Come on Toreka, you can do it!” I told myself as if I were a dog. It sounds ridiculous, but it was a huge help.

Side by side, Seini-Mino and I jogged past Ms Squires, then Miss Lavakula. I enjoyed doing this because they each had a bit of encouragement.

I squinted trying hard to see if any one had crossed the finish line. Sadly, someone had. So my hopes of coming 1st were crushed. I started to slow down because my heart couldn’t take the disappointment. I had to get used to being teased now.

I gathered momentum as I ran through the gates. As soon as I passed the playground I opened up the throttle and the crowd was cheering me on. I crossed the finish line with a boost of enthusiasm.

At the end of the day, I realised that I had survived the Cross Country. And, if you think about it, it wasn’t that bad. Plus, I came 8th, but I still had the smelly netball shoes to look forward to.

Cross Country Narrative

Cross Country Narrative

Strolling into school, I had a very weird feeling that we were going to be doing Cross Country, and a sick feeling came into my tummy. Opening my eyes, I saw the chairs lined up in a row, they were also in order from year 1 to year 6. I cringe. Mr Burt had tricked us. “OHHHH” I groaned. If he had told us that we were going to do Cross Country, I would have got my sick note.

‘BRIINNNGGG’ the bell went at 8:50. Only had 10 minutes to think how to stop myself from racing, and my heart was pounding. I didn’t know what to do. “THINK, THINK, THINK”.

I sat in my age line, which was 11 and waited restlessly for Mr Burt to start talking. I was relieved thinking that it would be going from 5 year olds to 11 year olds unfortunately, I was wrong. 1 minute after I said that, he said “Today it will be different because the 5 year olds and 11 year olds will go together”. He had to say that! I was really nervous from then.

“On your marks, Get set, and GO!!!” As soon as Mr Burt said that his clapper went ‘BANG”! I was so stressed out. People were spurting pass me and I was so embarrassed because I knew that I would come last, I knew my team Maatatua would be unhappy. It was half way and I tried really hard to tell myself “You can do it”. I was exhausted by then.

There was spongy mud all over the field. It was gross and annoying. I could feel it, it was gluey and disgusting. I just hated it. Everybody was going fast over the mud, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t used to mud. OF COURSE it slowed me down even more!

About 20m away from the finish line, my friend Ala tripped. I was shocked. Her knee was aching. I cheered her up by saying some positive encouragements. She got up and started to run, we ran together.

As I was very close to the finish line, I legged it. It was quite like a marathon, I had never ran like that. I zoomed past 2 people. As I was about 5 metres away from the finish line, I opened up my throttle and whizzed. 2 metres away and I could hear the crowd cheering. Who were they cheering for Me or Ala? “They would never be cheering for me” I said. I heard carefully and I was wrong, they were cheering for me. As I crossed the finish line I felt happy. It felt really good.

I didn’t care that I came 5th, at least people cheered for me, a person that is always last. I was also happy that Ala had came 1st and I had came 5th. ‘THIS WAS GREAT”, 5th is a great position. I just hope in our next race, nothing so bad like people falling down happens again.

Mubasshira