Race me if you can

• Sokhing Chan, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2005

One sunny morning a boy named martin got out of bed, had breakfast and a shower, While having his shower he knew he had forgotten something important about today. His mum shouted out “Are you ready for Sports Day?” Martin became nervous. He got out of the shower as fast as he could and found a shirt in his sports day colour and said goodbye to his mum. He ran outside to get to school on time for his relay race. On the way to school he was thinking of all the ways he could screw up. Tripping over his leg, twisting a calf or even falling face first on the ground.

When he got to school he was more nervous than a teenager driving a car for the first time. He saw some students from his class were practicing racing each other. His best friend Ben said “Do you want to race me” martin said in a nervous way “no thanks”. A boy named Tim asked “why aren’t you racing, Martin? Too chicken? Brawk, Brawk, Brawk, Brawk!” All the students started laughing at Martin. A teacher named Mike came along and told everyone to go into their class. He saw that martin was nearly crying. Mike put his hand on martin’s shoulder and said “I bet you can beat everyone in the class if you try.” Martin turned his head and suddenly mike was gone. The bell went and Martin went into his class. After two minutes the teacher called roll. The teacher told everyone to do their best.

They went outside and about ten minutes later it was martin’s turn to race. He was racing against the fastest people in the school, including Tim. They got ready to run the sprints. They were behind a white line on the oval. Martin’s PE teacher said “ready, set, GO.”

Everyone was running. Martin felt like he was in a different place like the Olympic Stadium but bigger and audience was the whole school. Suddenly he tripped and hit his face on the ground. Martin saw Mike cheering for him. He got back up and ran as fast as he could. No-one in the whole school had never seen a student run as fast as him. Martin passed everyone except Tim. Then Tim tried to trip Martin, but he rolled over the finish line and was FIRST!

Martin received a Trophy from the Principal and was so happy he ran to show his mum.