Girls In The Sun

• Laura Kim To, Grade 6
• Poetry
• 2007

“Aww…come on you wuss!” sneered Camilla. “I know you’re fast and always win races but you don’t have to brag about it, and what if I don’t want to run in the race?” Karen gently protested.
She woke to the feel of her mum softly wiping a rough cloth against her scratched brown in which Camilla and ‘her gang’ had striked hard. “Violent children,” her mum muttered under her breath. Karen had no choice but to run in the race around the school grounds. She knew she had been born with a mishap in her legs, and could not even run moderately fast.
Karen attempted once more to persuade Camilla to allow her to run in the race, but why did she even bother, no chance.
“On your marks, get set, BANG!” went the pistol, and off sped Camilla. Karen limped as fast as she could, which wasn’t very fast at all. There were many, many times that Karen felt that she could not go on. But she pushed herself, and after many long tiring hours she finally found that she just had to stop, but to her surprise, up ahead was Camilla, sleeping soundly under the widely spread shady leaves of a tree.
That was enough to give her energy to keep going. There was just one catch, Camilla’s friends were on the play equipment and were calling out to Camilla, which was slowly waking her up. Camilla then realised what was happening, and fury spread over her face like a red tomato.
“Thump, thump, thump!” went Camilla’s big strides against the concrete ground. Little Karen had so much determination in her heart that she ran, faster than she had ever run before.
So fast that with the last step, she crossed the finish line…
FIRST!!
Karen glowed with pride all the way home, and in her heart, she knew she could run faster than Camilla any day.