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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

A Narrow Escape...

Here is a story, I wrote for my mid-year English exam. I didn't do pretty well for my English paper this time. Sigh. I suppose I still can't write Grade A essays. Well, here it goes.

Last Friday, my friends and I decided to go to the beach for a picnic. It was sunny, just perfect for a picnic. This beach was one of the few remaining beaches that was still clean.

After packing and getting ready for the picnic, we took off and headed for the beach. We bought quite a number of things there. Among the things were spades, pails, for building sandcastles, food to eat, extra change of clothing, because we wanted to go swimming, and other stuff needed in our picnic.

When we reached there, we were surprised to see that the beach was quite empty. It was a public holiday and usually it would be full to the brim. Abu, my friend, said that it was still early and told everyone to look for a comfortable spot before the place filled up. After 10 minutes of searching, we finally found a nice spot under the trees. We quickly unpacked and got ready. Since everybody helped, everything was ready in 20 minutes. By the time we had unpacked, the beach was already almost full. Good thing we came early!

After unpacking, Jason and Abu took the spades and pails and started digging to build the biggest sandcastle on the beach. May and Janice decided that they would read under the shade of the trees, while Zhean, Soan, and I decided to take a swim.

When I was admiring the sandcastle Jason and Abu was building, May suddenly shouted "Look out! There is a shark behind you!". I thought she was joking because she always liked to crack jokes. But when I saw the frightened looks of Zhean and Soan and all the people swimming back to the shore, fright filled me. Goosebumps appeared everywhere, and I began to sweat. I turned and saw a black fin heading towards me at great speed. I didn't want to be the shark's lunch. Caught aware, I moved away, and started swimming to the shore as fast as I could. The shark missed me by inches. When I next looked up to the shore, my friends had already reached the shore, signaling and shouting for help, "Help! Help! A shark is chasing my friend!". I was still quite far from the shore, because I went to retrieve a ball that I had thrown too far when I was playing with Soan and Zhean in the sea.

Suddenly, I felt something bit my leg. A sharp pain on the leg and something pulling me. I struggled, but the shark was stronger than me. I could see the water around me turning red in blood. I struggled to get free and get to the shore, but I seemed going further and further away. I thought this was the end of me. Suddenly, I heard a long Bang!", then my leg was free! By that time, I had already used most of my strength. But I still fought on to the shore. Suddenly, the world just turned black.

When I next opened my eyes, all of my friends were beside me and a doctor was there bandaging me, Soan and May told me what had happened after I fainted. They had called for help and the lifeguard came. When he saw what had happened, he called the other lifeguards had a shotgun. The lifeguard aimed and fired at the shark. The shark died instantly. After listening, I thanked the lifeguards for their plucky action. If it wasn't for them, I would be not here now. It was indeed a narrow escape!

So, what do you think of my essay?

2 comments:

Lai Yu Zeng said...

I can't believe we chose exactly the same question and what's more, we wrote the same topic-sharks. But I end up the story with "me" on the bed of hospital :P

Daniel Ting said...

Haha...