A Day In The Life Of Lily Brooks

• Emily Connor, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2021

“Beep, beep!”
“Quick, everyone evacuate!” Lily ran as fast as she could away from the fire. But the fire was in front of her, she was running towards it. She turned around, and everyone had disappeared, abandoned her. Then...Lily sat up in bed. The beeping was her wake up alarm. She grabbed her clothes to go and have a shower. After her shower, she went to the dining room to have her breakfast, porridge as usual.
“Now, hurry along and get your bags packed,” Mother instructed her and her older brother Aubrey, getting their lunch ready. Lily grabbed her bag from her room and stuffed her books inside, then took the lunchbox Mother gave her and put it in with the books.
“Bye Mother, bye Father,” she said, kissing them both. Then she and Aubrey walked out the door. Aubrey and Lily went to different schools, so they only walked together half the way.
When Lily arrived at her school, there were a few people playing with a ball, so she joined in. Students slowly milled in; the closer they lived to school, the later they were (see if you can work out the logic in that!).
A few minutes later, the bell rang, and the children filed into school. The school was small enough that there was one building, and one room for each year. First up was English. Lily watched her teacher write on the board: Poems; Haiku’s. She felt excitement welling up in her chest, and the excitement overflowed into her fingers, and onto the page, where she wrote two haikus in the time a friend had written one line.
Next was Geography, one of her favourite subjects. They were studying the water of the world, and they had to make a poster representing all the ways water is used. She got about halfway through the poster, but she still had two lessons to finish it.
The bell rang again, and Lily pulled out her recess: a chocolate muffin. Her group of friends were currently talking about maths; half of them liked it, half of them didn’t. Lily, of course, was on the extreme side of liking it.
Next they had Science, which was, in Lily’s words, The-subject-you-ask-lots-of-questions-in. After Sport (which was soccer) they had lunch. Lily had leftover stir fry, with some homemade apple crumble. After lunch was Maths. Lily got her test result’s back: 100%! There was another boy who got the same mark as her. Lily’s challenge in Maths was to beat him; harder than it sounds when you both keep getting 100%.
After school, Lily walked home. Aubrey’s school had six periods, so she walked home by herself. Once home, she went out to feed the chickens. Then she came back in and did some homework.
“Dinner’s ready,” Mother called. Dinner was roast lamb: a special treat. After dinner, Lily collapsed into bed, falling asleep soon after her head hit the pillow, getting well rested for the same routine the next day.