OH NO!

• Jack Bartlett, Grade 5
• Poetry
• 2009

It was a humid summer’s day and I was strolling down the road to the toy shop to buy my son a new Playstation. As I was approaching the shop an advertisement for a new Game Boy so I changed routes but what I didn’t notice was a drain right ahead of me suddenly I tripped on the smallest of pebbles and “plonk!” My keys fell out of my pocket and down the drain.
“Oh no“, I yelled in frustration.
I looked around for help, my head span round many times furiously. It seemed like the world had been drained from any life but me.
“I’m the only one that can fix this”, I realized.
As I lifted up the grate, that was rusted and had a horrible stench, I peered down and then I slipped. It was a very short amount of time before I hit the bottom with a thud. I felt a small animal scamper over my hand and it lead me to the most disgusting, grossest and rat infested place I had ever been in all my thirty seven years.
“Oh my god”’ I gasped.
A man was lying on a rock, I checked his pulse. He was no longer with us. I thought that if this man didn’t make it out. Could I?

I was as scared as a man on a bull’s back. Suddenly I heard what sounded like an old woman’s voice echoing through the grubby old sewer’s pipes. Suddenly she appeared right behind me. I had no time for her so I splashed murky green sheets of water on her while running away. I saw a small shining object on the ground it was my keys I was so surprised. As I was running toward a faint light at the end of a tunnel out of nowhere a hole appeared but I took no notice of it so I leaped over it like an Olympian over a high jump pole. I was feeling so disappointed that I had missed some of my son’s birthday.

I arrived home and gave my son a birthday hug luckily his mother had bought him the new Game Boy.

I wonder what my wife will say when I tell her what happened.