Skeleton
in the Cupboard
In our class text book, “Exercise Your English” there
is an extract from “Midnight for Charlie Bone” by Jenny Nimmo. In the extract
Charlie, the principle character explores a dangerous and crumbling building
called the Da Vinci tower with his two classmates, Billy and Olivia. The
extract ends on a cliff-hanger as Olivia falls off the spiralling staircase and
into the darkness below.
The pupils in 6th class were tasked to write
a concluding paragraph. This is the intriguing paragraph that Sam Daly wrote.
“We’d better go and see if she’s okay!”, said
Charlie. “Yeah..” replied Billy, looking
down nervously at the spiralling staircase.
As they started to climb down there was suddenly light below them. “Dammit!”, Charlie grunted, “Someone’s opened
the door!”. One hooded figure stepped
into the tower, judging by the figure it was a woman. They stopped moving;
knowing that if the woman went up or down at least Olivia would be caught. Charlie had turned off his torch when the
woman came in, leaving Billy and him in darkness except for the small amount of
light coming from the entrance. The
woman carried a lantern and started heading downwards, following the
moaning. The boys followed her, keeping
a minimum of thirty steps between them and not making a sound. When the woman finally reached the source of
the moaning she pulled something small and rectangular out of her robes. The boys realised it was a mobile phone. She dialled a number and spoke into it with
an accent that Charlie didn’t recognise.
“I have a girl down here with a broken leg, arm and collarbone, what
will I do?” she rasped. The boys were
too far away to hear the reply but she nodded and said back to the phone “See
you in five!”. The boys stared to climb
back up to the entrance and mercifully they weren’t seen exiting. They decided to hang around for ten minutes
to see what was going to happen. Two
burly men passed and went right into the tower and around five minutes later
they emerged with Olivia being carried between them. She saw the two boys and mouthed “Don’t worry!”
When Olivia returned to school she got detention for half a year and extra
homework for a week. She was in a wheelchair for a couple of days before she
could walk with crutches. But the adventure did not end there…
