Download to read offline
Amy Gudgeon - 4 Elements Story
- 1. Fire I am theonly one left, the only surviving witness. I’ve told this story dozens of times, to the newspapers, the police, families, curious people and the mountain rescue team, and now I’m going to share it with you for the last time ever and then I will let it go. I will let them go: my friends. It was the first day of the summer holidays, which meant that I, Kirstie Dawson, and my classmates were leaving secondary school. For nine months we had been planning a two week trip to New Zealand to celebrate leaving. We set off on our long journey and I can tell you it was tiring. When we landed we had to make the final step of our journey by helicopter- which we had to hire so it took up a lot of our spending money. As soon as we were dropped off, we collapsed with exhaustion or maybe jetlag. There were seven of us – not the whole yeargroup, because we had all split up into groups as there were so many of us – and we all had our own tent. We set these up and fell asleep. It was only when we woke up that we saw the full beauty of our environment: massive eucalyptus trees enclosed us, and streams flowed gently next to our camp, then formed small rivers, and a bit further on they turned into a waterfall. We could see everything at the waterfall. It felt as if the whole of New Zealand was under our noses. There were some edible mushrooms around that Tallie, my best friend, wanted to cook, but Don said that fried mushrooms wouldn’t go very far with some people. So we had hot beans and toast. Well, that’s what we would have wanted, but not all of us had been camping before, so it was more like lukewarm beans on warm bread. Nobody really knew what time it was as we only had British time on our watches, not having changed them on the flight. We reckoned it was about midday, however, so we got our swimming costumes on and climbed down the left side of the waterfall where, at the bottom, there was a good sized pool. We splashed, we swam and we laughed – a haunting memory. That night back at the camp we managed to get a decent campfire going and we suspended a wire rack above it. Don cooked sausages and baked some potatoes over the now roaring fire. The potatoes were black but even so quite filling. As the flames died down, Ellie took out her violin, Johnny his guitar, and I had my penny whistle. We played many traditional tunes and finally we played “Auld Lang Syne” to begin to say farewell to our lifelong friends. I couldn’t sleep that night. Something about the air. It was warm. I think everyone else felt the same as we were sleeping late into the morning. I tried to get back to sleep when I heard what sounded as if someone was up before me, and had lit the fire for breakfast, as I could hear the crackling noises. I thought I should go to help, by getting some wood. I unzipped my tent and was immediately blinded by the glaring sun. I stumbled out and looked about, and soon enough it all came into focus: large, roaring and bright, the heat not from the sun but from flames. I could feel the heat closing in around me.
- 2. “Get out ofyour tents! Get out of your tents!” I screamed, running about all of them. Our holiday camp had been bombed, or it felt like that. Tallie emerged, followed by Don. “What’s going on? Why is it so hot?” she called. “Oh my word!” whispered Don. We looked around in panic trying to find an escape route out of the scary flames that were now getting alarmingly closer. I saw it. I saw a gap. I ran and called to the others to follow. Tallie tried, but fell. Don was helping others out of their tents, then he tried to help Tallie up off the ground. Everyone was running towards me… A tree gave way. The flames had weakened its trunk. They were all killed instantly. The firefighters rescued only me from what seemed to be the flames of hell. That is the end of my story. The end of my memories. Now I will let them go: my friends. Amelia, S2