Preparatory School Writer's Festival 2019 | Page 21

Guildford Grammar Preparatory School
Writing Festival
2019
Narratives
Student writing sample:
Mistakes Were Made
by Ella Velupillay
I knew this would happen. I stood there in the still darkness and
waited. Sound had vanished and I could only hear the thump of
my heart beat in my chest. There was a strong reflection of light
coming off the dark aqua blue water. It was coming from the
old lighthouse that stood on top of Rainfall Hill. The lighthouse
overlooked the whole of the south coast waters. My family has
experienced many cherished memories on that hill, including the
marriage of my parents. Then I saw it! A large shadow emerged
and got bigger and bigger and bigger. My heart beat got faster
and faster and so did my impatience for him. The whole reason
for me waiting at the beach on a brisk night at 2 o’ clock in the
morning was to meet up with Jim to check out a cool abandoned
house. Who knew this would turn out to be one of the scariest
nights of my life?
I started to run away from this unknown creature but I tripped
onto an unseen rock and sliced my dry skinned foot. The blood
trickling down didn’t stop me from running. I couldn’t face
whatever it was so I turned to see if it had shown itself and
quickly turned back. I had seen something familiar, wait, it was
Jim laughing hysterically.
I hobbled back because of my lacerated foot. I was furious. This
was just a silly prank. I soon forgave Jim and we set off to explore
this house. I was already petrified from the shadow incident
before and the air tasted salty like the ocean water and my hands
clenched up from nerves. We approached the door slowly and
reached for the handle. It turned slowly, opened and revealed an
old house full of empty rooms, which smelt like a wet dog. There
was a crack in the wall near the old kitchen. It looked bitter and
cold. Jim and I turned to leave and went out the back door and
stumbled through the long grass, back to the beach.
Two police officers were scanning the bay and found us sneaking
back to our homes in the brisk night and somehow found it
suspicious. We were dragged back to our houses by the two
grumpy and tired cops. Our parents were also angry and tired
and were not happy when they were woken in the very early
morning and told that their kids were caught sneaking around
the beach at night without any permission. The police let us off
with a warning which was lucky, but what was not lucky was the
scolding we got from our parents. The number of hours we slept
that night was not enough.
The next morning was crisp with a lovely breeze but Jim and I
didn’t get to experience it or any more mornings for the next two
weeks. We were grounded. We definitely learnt our lesson that
very cold night.
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