9 June 2012
Martha Greenway ( A talented girl of twelve) stared out at the bustling platform which was now swarming with girls and their parents waving furiously. A state of the art train was parked beside the pavement and children were all getting on desperate to find a free compartment. Martha happened to be starting St. Emily's academy for girls on that very day. Shyly dragging her huge suitcase across the platform to be loaded on the train, she observed the different girls that were boarding the grand carriages to pass the time. "Martha," her mum whispered into martha's poppy red curly hair, " I'll miss you! Good luck with your studies. See you at the end if the term!" Martha kissed her mum and stepped onto the train. " Bye Mum! Love you!" martha screamed over all of the noises so her mother could hear. Slowly, the train heaved itself away from the station and turned around the corner, out of sight.
Exhausted already, Martha found an empty compartment and flopped down dramatically onto the springy seats. It wasn't long before a girl came along and asked: "Do you mind if I join you? Everywhere else is full." She had long honey coloured hair long enough to sit on and watery blue eyes just like the ocean. " Sure, take a seat," Martha replied politely. The girl sat down opposite martha and flung her shoulder bag on the remaining seat. " I'm Keira. Keira Smith," she smiled cheerily. " My name is Martha Greenway." Keira stared at martha blankly for a few seconds before finally announcing, "You're the new girl aren't you?" Martha nodded. "Nice. You'll soon fond your way around the school, although its massive, it only take a couple of days to memorise all the corridors and passages." Excitement was gathering up inside of martha, this school seemed extremely awesome. " Oh i hope I will, Im rubbish at finding my way around places!" martha giggled and Keira laughed along. "What house are you in?" Keira asked curiously, " I am in Hummingbirds." Looking down at the sheet of paper in her hands, Martha soon found the answer to that question. " Im in hummingbirds too!" Martha exclaimed. "Lets be friends." Keira said enthusiastically. "Yeah!" Martha replied happily, overjoyed that she had made a new friend within a few minutes of beginning her marvellous adventure at St. Emily's academy. The girls chatted away for the next hours until their source of lunch arrived- the snack trolley. Martha enjoyed a cheesy lasagne to tuck into, whereas Keira munched her way through sausages and mash. After lunch, they changed into their school uniforms which were very smart. They consisted of brown blazers with the St. Emily's crest embroidered on the front; brown checked dresses; a shirt with an orange and brown striped tie; short skirts and black polished shoes. Once they had completed this, they had already arrived at their destination. Although they could not see the school yet, they were deposited in fine carriages pulled by elegant Arabian horses which transported them there. After only a couple of minutes travelling, they saw it... The magnificent view of the towering school. " It looks just like a fairy tale castle," Martha breathed, stunned "It is." Keira remarked. When they reached the gates, everyone was in a mad rush to get inside. Crowds of pupils barged through the welcoming doors of castle St. Emily's. Keira led Martha through to the grand dining hall where most of the children were already sat eating. It was only then that Martha noticed that a massive feast had been laid out for them. Plates of huge succulent turkey, chicken and pork lay untouched on serving plates, roast potatoes, carrots, sweet corn and Yorkshire potatoes by the truckload were staked in dishes. Everything was do mouthwateringly delicious. Martha sat alongside her fellow housemates in hummingbird house, and she could recognise, if not name every single one of them. Lucy and Sophie were the head girls, Nina and lily the prefects and Alice and Delilah the house councillors. By the time the feast was over, it was very late so the girls all retreated to their dormitories to unpack and go to bed. There were six girls to each dorm, Hannah, Lisa, Ellie,Keira and Nancy shared a dorm with Martha. She seemed to particularly like everyone in her dorm, especially Keira and the creative Hannah. It wasn't until past midnight that evening that the girls eventually went to bed therefore leaving everyone so sleepy that they all fell asleep the moment their heads hit their pillows.
Chapter Two The next morning, the girls were awoken to a breakfast bell at eight I clock in the morning. Everyone got washed and dressed in their uniforms before making their way down to the great hall to engage in breakfast. Over the next weeks, they managed to find the great hall two time out of five without getting lost. Lessons didn't go too well at the start either. You had to find one classroom out of about none thousand of what there were. It was hard to navigate your way around one huge castle without getting into a mess at least once or twice everyone in the corridors stopped you to ask your name if you were new, Martha wished they didn't because she wanted to concentrate on finding her way to lessons. The first lesson she was late to was first period maths. As soon as Martha and Keira had entered the room, Mrs Potter eyed them sternly and glanced back down to her work. Slipping quietly into their seats, Martha and Keira decided to do the same. As time went by, Martha began to familiarise herself with the places in the castle and gradually became more confident with finding her way around. After s while, everything started to feel normal to Martha. As autumn drew to a close, everyone began to start to celebrate the spirit of Christmas. Christmas trees the size of big grizzly bears were dotted around the school covered in sparkling baubles. Alongside them were various decorations including wreaths, stockings and wrapped up gifts. On Christmas week, all lessons were prosponed to make way for Christmas celebrations. A day after that martha and her friends awoke to find a thick layer of glistening snow laying untouched on the ground. Shortly after discovering this, the girls rushed outside to play around in the snow. This was a weird experience for Martha as she had extremely rarely seen snow before, let alone played in it. The pair of them had great fun: they had long snowball fights which literally lasted forever, they made snowmen and decorated them, they even made igloos to shelter in when it got too cold, the fun went on and on. On Christmas eve, everyone gathered in the common room and ate cookies and milk before bedtime. The next morning, everyone woke up especially early to unwrap presents. Martha was pleasantly surprised with the amount of gifts that she received. One from her sister Rosa, two from mum and two from dad, one from Keira and one from Hannah. Her favourite was the Asian silk scarf from Keira. That day at lunch, the remaining few students who decided to stay for the holidays gathered in the main hall for a traditional Christmas roast. There was chicken, turkey, beef, pork, duck any meat you could imagine and veggie along with all the cheesy extras. Nothing was wasted, not even a single scrap of good was left for the dog ( not to say there was even a dog) Everyone just relaxed after the feast, bellies full of delicious food. That was except Martha, Keira and Hannah. The threesome were now best friends and they absolutely loved to play tricks on people. Not nasty ones, funny jokes. One particularly memorable prank was the one when Keira pretended to have a broken leg so she kept falling all over the place and knocking things over in her path, it all got extremely funny when she knocked Mr Richards over who happened to be carrying a jug of water at that moment,so the water didn't end up in a glass, it ended up all over him. The girls were sat at a single table deciding what joke to play next. Eventually they came up with a genius plan...
The first day of term dawned bright and early and Martha, kiera and Hannah joined the breakfast table as usual, but this time with cunning looks on their faces Their plan was all organised and they knew exactly what they were going to be doing at the right time. Mrs Potter was their target. How they all hated her, tall, strict and stern Mrs Potty Scotty (they only called her that behind her back or they would get hours of horrid detention writing lines- 'I must not call teachers names.') After a normal breakfast of toast and cereal, Hannah,Martha and Keira headed to Maths with Mrs Potty Scotty. They walked into class earlier than everyone else to give mrs potter a good impression. They slid silently into three empty seats at the back of the gloomy classroom and began to unpack their pens and pencils whilst whispering quietly so only they could hear their plans again. They had a very sky procedure which was sure to scare the life out of mrs potter. Mice. How mrs potter hated mice! At that moment, a flood of pupils entered the classroom including Delilah, Jay, Vicky, Cathy and Mary all the girls from hummingbird house. Martha recognised a few of the green tit girls, from hummingbird house's arch rivals. They glared at everyone as they glided into the classroom, whispering and giggling as they went. Finally the time arrived when they were to spring into action...
Chapter Three Mrs potter started to drown on and on about things which no one was paying attention to. Now came Keira's Que. She rummaged around in her bag for something and finally withdrew a small brown cardboard box. She opened up the flap to reveal a little white mouse with devil red eyes staring back at her. Perfect! Carefully lifting the delicate creature out of the box, Martha put it on her lap where no one could see it and let it run down her leg and onto the cold stone floor. Within a matter of seconds, arising screams could be heard miles away from the classroo
A New Adventure • Opuss № I