First Day At School: By Lavinia Urban

First day at school

Lavinia Urban

It was the first day back at school and Erin skipped happily out of her home. She couldn’t wait to get to school and see all her friends and teachers. As she got to the school gates, she quickly spotted her friend Jamieleigh.

“JAMIELEIGH!” She shouted loudly, as she ran into the playground to see her friend

“ERIN!” Jamieleigh replied and ran towards Erin to give her a big hug.

Suddenly there was a loud whoosh, followed by a cackle, and then all of a sudden the school vanished.

“Oh no!” chorused the children.

“The evil witch has made our school disappear.” Erin’s friend Kenzi squealed.

“What are we going to do now?” Jamieleigh asked.

“There’s only one thing we can do” Erin replied, putting her hands on her hips angrily. All the children looked from Erin to where their school use to be “we have to go and make her put it back.”

The evil witch lived in a huge house, on top of a big hill. No matter if it was sunny, there was always a dark cloud above the house. Everyone knew how much the witch hates schools, but no one ever knew why. She didn’t have any friends and hardly ever came out of her house, unless it was to cause trouble. No one knew how long she had lived there or where she came from.

“So who is coming with me to get our school back?” Erin asked and everyone said they would go.

They all set off to climb the big hill to get to the evil witches house. As they climbed the hill, the children noticed that all the plants were dead and there were no animals. The further they climbed, the colder it got.

“It’s so cold.” Juliet exclaimed, as she stopped to pull a cardigan out of her school bag.

Once they’d reached the top of the hill, they all stopped and looked at each other nervously.

“I think we should knock on the door first.” Tammy said nervously, hiding behind Kieran.

“I’ll do it!” Ben announced bravely, and before anyone could stop him he marched boldly up the steps at the front of the house and banged loudly on the front door. The sound echoed loudly, making some of the children jump.

“HELLO?” Ben shouted loudly when no one came to answer the door “hello?” Without thinking he reached forward and tried the handle “It’s locked.” He turned and told the rest of the children, who were all standing nervously waiting.

“We have to find a way to get in there.” Erin announced.

“Why don’t we check the windows?” Chyna suggested.

“Yeah maybe there will be one open that someone can climb through and open the door.” Rebecca added.

“What a brilliant idea!” Erin said - a smile now on her face.

With that everyone went and started trying all the windows, but all were locked, until.....

“I’ve found one!” Samantha shouted. All the children ran to where Samantha was “It only opens a little bit.”

“Who is small enough to fit through?” Scott wondered

“There’s me” Marcel quietly pointed out “and Chloe and...” before he could finish Adam started to jump up and down.

“And me........ I’ll do it! I’ll do it!”

Before anyone could reply Adam quickly ran over to the window and pushed it open a bit more and started to climb in, and before you could say PIFF PAFF PUFF, he was gone, and within a few seconds you could hear the locks opening on the front door. All the children stepped back, worried in case it was the evil witch. To their relief it was Adam with a triumphant smile on his face

“Easy peasy.” he laughed

“Now what?” Jodie asked in a shaky voice. She sounded very scared. She looked around at her other class friends seeing who would reassure her that everything would be ok.

“I think we should go in and look for the evil witch.” Lewis stated matter-of-factly “I’ll go first.” He started to walk inside then stopped. He looked back and saw everyone still standing there “You coming?” With that he turned back and continued in. Everyone else looked at each other then started to follow.

The house was dark and cold and had a very unusual smell that no one had smelt before. Lewis stopped at the end of the hallway then looked back “Shhhhhhh. Listen.” Everyone stopped and listened very carefully then they heard the faintest of sounds.

“What’s that?” Maryam asked.

“It sounds like someone crying” Erin said then pointed to the door on the right “And it sounds like it’s coming from in there.” All the children moved towards the door.

“I don’t think I want to go in there.” Nicole squeaked. Ben put an arm around her to reassure her everything would be ok.

Taking a deep breath, Erin reached out her hand and turned the handle and opened the door. There seemed to be a startled rustle and a squeak of a chair as it moved back on the cold kitchen floor tiles

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?” the evil witch roared, making some of the children jump and squeal.

“We want our school back!” Maryam demanded. Then the evil witch sighed and sat back down.

“Why?” she asked with a puzzled expression as she looked into the faces of all the children. “School is a horrible place.”

“No it’s not.” Jamieleigh fiercely shook her head “I love school.”

“Me too.” all the children started to say one by one.

“No, no, no.” the witch bellowed. “It’s full of nasty people who like to bully other children.” She said with sad eyes. “I did you all a favour.”

“But we love school, and we don’t fight.” Erin told her.

“We are all friends.” Kenzi quietly pointed out, looking around at all her friends.

“Yeah.” Everyone replied in unison. The witch was confused by this, which made Erin step forward and place a hand on top of the witches.

“Were you bullied?” Erin asked sympathetically.

The witch had never ever experienced such kindness before and started crying. With the tears, came the story of her time in school, when she was a little girl. Other children had teased her and hit her. She would frequently run home from school crying. No one wanted to be her friend and she used to sit alone at lunchtimes. Because of this her schoolwork suffered, and she left school without learning anything at all. When she was old enough she left home and moved into this big house and vowed she would never let any other child suffer the way she had.

By the time she had finished her story, she looked up to see the sad faces of all the children. Some were even crying. Before she knew it, they all came over and gave her a big group hug.

“That was horrible!” Erin exclaimed. “Poor you.”

“But we are not like that.” Juliet told her.

“We’ll be your friends.” Kenzi said.

“And if you give us back our school you can come and see for yourself that we are all nice.” Nicole added hopefully.

The witch looked at all the hopeful faces of the children. She was thinking long and hard about this.

“What’s your name?” Chloe suddenly asked, which seemed to catch the witch off guard as she had never been asked that question before.

“Sarah.” The witch stuttered. Then one by one each child started to tell the witch their names.

“Ok, I will give you back your school.” All the children started to clap their hands and squeal with excitement. “On one condition.” The children stopped and all looked at Sarah. “You have to promise to all be nice to each other and never bully anyone.”

“We promise.” All the children all cried out. They didn’t even have to think about it, as they all knew that bullying was very bad.

From that day on, they all continued to be kind to each other. They also saw a lot of Sarah. She even came to their school and started to learn that school really was fun, and how wonderful it was to have friends.

Something else changed too. There was no longer a dark cloud over Sarah’s house. There were lots and lots of green, green grass, and lots and lots of pretty flowers. Her home was just beautiful and so was Sarah. She was happy and she was no longer known as the evil witch, but a wonderful kind lady.

Book one in Erin The Fire Goddess Series is FREE:

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