Y10 - English Lang - Section A Q5
Year 10 - English Language - Autumn 1 - Section A Question 5
For this piece, we had to choose a book/film and base our writing on our chosen text. However, we had to change something about it. For example: you could change the ending, or even the entire plot, whilst still keeping the theme/style of the story. I chose Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow.
Tilting my spinning head back against my headrest, I attempt to slow my heavy breathing having finally reached my journey’s end. One of my shaking hands drops to my side, my other remaining completely motionless as I escape the cage I’d been trapped in throughout this frightening ordeal. Darkness. Silence. Has there ever been a time in your life that you’ve been so scared you just freeze? No emotion. Nothing.
The blurring dazzle of blue lights distorting my vision; the screeching sound of wheels tearing up layers of tarmac as they pulled up in front of my house; the putrid stench of bile rising from my throat. Their fingers, bruised and red, prying open the handles swinging either side of the ambulance. They wheeled me inside in a usual disorderly fashion and the sound of my friends voices rang in my ears, whilst we all exchanged apologetic looks to one another.
It was Tuesday again, my body felt numb at the thought. Every Tuesday at 1pm: our covers get thrown back, a dishevelled ham and cheese sandwich is placed just off-centre on a plastic plate in front of us, a neatly ironed gown to place over our clothes is handed to everyone, the hasty speed of Nurse Anna bundling Luisa, Violet and I into the dining room, followed by the spiteful nurses.I had a bad feeling about this particular afternoon, but I couldn’t place my finger on what or why. After being dragged from my cramped bed, force-fed a revolting sandwich, and had my pockets checked several hundred times by several hundred nurses, I realised this wasn’t the worst day ever. I’d been here for two weeks and already bickering and shouting at the red-faced nurse, no dismay reflecting in her silver-rimmed frames as she opened the windows. That didn’t matter though, because I’m used to it by now. It didn’t matter because Luisa, Violet and I had made a plan to escape; as dense as it seems, we’ve learnt to think self consciously rather than practically.
Our footsteps echoed through the cavernous halls, quick and staccato, like drumming fingernails. The noise ricochets off the walls, snaking its way under the heavy doors of each room. Reflexively, I clutch Nurse Anna’s keys tighter in my hand. The smooth brass digs into the tender flesh of my palm and I wince at the trickles of pain that branch across my skin. I would die one hundred times; endure any kind of pain anyone could inflict on me; sit in a room with my worst enemy for the rest of my life, before staying in this place for one more day. Our footsteps stopped. I can practically taste her presence: the noise of her radio is replaced by an agonising silence, a prolonged nothingness that stretches out, flat and eternal, like the surface of the sea. My breath sits uncomfortably in my throat. My stiff fingers scramble to hide the stolen keys, hurriedly concealing it in my gown. Somewhere, in the centre of the silence, footsteps are heard.
Suddenly, she was in front of me. I froze in my tracks. All emotion immediately washed from my face. A frown spread across Nurse Ava’s repugnant face. Her pale complexion making her rosy red lips pop more than I’d ever seen before. She was as white as snow. Bloodless to say the least. Practically translucent. So translucent that you could see her cobalt veins like rivers twisting and turning under her flesh. I knew she knew what we were doing the minute she came around the corner. As I focused my vision on the hallway floor, shadows began to grow. It was as if they had appeared from nowhere. I close my eyes. The walls hold their breath. Broken prayers, earnest pleas and a thousand painful questions tease at my cracked lips. They rattle my teeth and scratch at my throat because they know how desperately I want to spit them out. I want to throw my head back and scream at the heavens, pierce the gods with my cries and let them know the betrayal and doubt that burns, and churns, inside of me. I want to ask them: why?
Everything in my consciousness, from that moment, felt as though it was suspended by a thread. For days, begging screams have convulsed the hallways, leaking into each and every room to touch them with my stinging agony. Tomorrow, could be their turn.
