Creative writing using the first line from Home by Vanessa Haley
It is years since I’ve been here,
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It is years since I’ve been here. There’s a sign on the door: No Stilettos. The chairs didn’t look so small when I was six or seven or ten but the smell of chalk is the same, clogging noses, clagging throats when the blackboard duster is thrown at an inattentive head, and the greasy, gritty feel of the wax crayons is as familiar as the thwack of leather on an outstretched hand.
The ghost of Mr Duncan the janny patrols the playground, reminding us that grass is for looking at not playing on. We run around with scabbed knees and broken arms on concrete and tarmac and play British Bulldog on the red blaes pitch until the game is banned along with Space Dust and clackers and the craze for crushing ourselves up like little mushrooms and holding our breath until we faint.
Questions echo, swirling like autumn leaves in the breeze.
What’s the time Mr Wolf?
Who wants a game of Cowboys and Indians?
Kiss, Cuddle or Torture?
They ripped up the old tarmac, laid some fresh, turned it into a car park. Never a paradise, it’s less of one now. It is years since I’ve been here.