RIF's Back-to-School Writing Contest: Winning Essay

The First Day of School 
By Annie K.
Age 12

Today is the best day of the year: the first day of school!  Bus eleven (the sixth grade bus) is packed with chattering students, moving from compartment to compartment trying to talk to everyone at once.

Our compartments have everything; breakfast set out on a small table in the corner, a nice bed to sleep in on our way home, a TV complete with a DVD player, VCR, surround sound, bookcases filled top to bottom with DVDs, movies, CDs, disks, floppy disks, video games, and books; a laptop computer with a printer; a bathroom with fluffy carpets, a tub, and shower, toilet and sink; plus a walk-in closet with only the best clothes.

 Fretta (our rosy cheeked, plump, merry bus driver) stopped in front of the school and watched us all fight over who went first on the slide on our way out.  We were so excited in the confusion of getting off the bus; we forgot to close the compartment doors.

 “Sixth graders this way!” we heard Ms. Sanford call, as she pointed over to the playground for morning recess.

Ms. Sanford was the sixth grade teacher.  She was a tall skinny woman with blushed cheeks, red lips, bottle green eyes, ginger hair, and tanned skin.

For a half an hour, we rode the rides you would find at an amusement park, and ate junk food, that we would see later if it didn’t agree with us.

We took the elevator with Ms. Sanford to the sixth floor: for sixth graders.  Most of the rooms we pasted were filled with games, flashing lights, and the best part of all: food.

However, Ms. Sanford took us to a large room filled with teachers’ desks with our names on them and a small pile of large textbooks.

 “Take your seats,” Ms. Sanford instructed as she walked to the chalkboard at the front of the room and wrote here name on it.  She told us to introduce ourselves to one another while she got our reading books and passed them out.

 “We will start out with reading.  We will be reading The Lord of the Rings, the trilogy.  Then, after our class discussion, we will watch the DVDs and compare them. You have until 12:30 to read.”

 The three hours of reading the best books ever, made the hours pass quickly and 12:30 came way too fast.  When it did come, Ms. Sanford took us down the hall to the rooms we had passed earlier labeled Student Rec Room, Sixth Grade, Room # 301.

 We ate as much food as we could and partied like there was no tomorrow. An hour later, Ms. Sanford came back and took us outside to the amusement park-like playground.  Recess was too short.

 Ms. Sanford reluctantly led us back into school and up the elevator to class.  We watched Pirates of The Caribbean; The Curse of the Black Pearl, until bus eleven came to take us home.

 We all took turns on The Lazy Seat 3000, with carried us down the track in the aisle to our compartments, where it dropped us off.

Our laptops read: Homework: Reading The Lord of the Rings.

We were so worn out by the party and amusement park that we totally forgot the dinner sitting on the little table in the corner, and dropped onto our beds where we slept for a very long while.

Most kids headed over to Terry Brown’s compartment, where he was hosting a party, while I stayed behind to admire my own compartment.  By the end of the week people will have personalized them by bringing things from home.

I looked out the window and watched Heywood Elementary School edge out of sight and them slipped under my covers to watch The Lord of The Rings on my big-screen TV. Life was good again; I’m back in school.

Back to Winner's List