Various School Essays

All Summer In A Day Ending

      Hi! This is an essay written in 9th grade of a continued ending of "all summer in a day" by Ray Bradbury. 

                         Karma

      Margot stood trembling on the threshold of that small closet in the underground, in a forgotten tunnel leading to a forgotten room and forgotten closet. She stood much like the other children in her class had stood while staring out as the sun disappeared behind the clouds once again and the sky cried hard clear beads onto the ashen jungle on the lonely planet of venus below. Much like they had stood before they slowly closed the door and walked away. Margo stood, with dried blood caked onto her fingertips and crystallized tears in streaks on her delicate face.  She looked at the mixed faces of guilt and shame. The children still had a rosy blush and, in their eyes, under the rough blanket of guilt, was an inerasable spark that had been placed there by the warm, welcoming hands of the sun. The very sun she didn’t get to see. She let out a small, anguished cry that only the most sensitive ears could hear. Her body deflated as if the energy it look to release the breathless sound was all she had. Then she turned on a heel, her pale hair spinning behind her, and was gone.

Gone.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The children stood in stunned silence for little more than a moment, their soaked clothes and hair leaking onto the cold concrete floor. That moment was all it took for one of the boys in the class to push through the group and wiggle through the small opening at the bottom left corner. One by one they squeezed through the hole, little pieces of drywall and plaster sticking to their wet bodies. They each landed with a cold splash into the dank room below.

“Margo?”

William called into the darkness that plastered onto the children like cold honey. By the sound of his echo, the room was fairly small. They slushed slowly through the thin layer of water with their arms waving around blindly. They discovered moldy old wooden crates and decaying pipes scattered and stacked throughout the room. It must've been an old storage room from when the firsts were building the Underground.

  Instead of the intoxicating giddy excitement that would have usually filled the school children in finding something new, they felt a writhing sense of dread slithering into their insides. There was a dim shard of light coming from the hole in the closet, but it was over six feet off the ground. The children knew something was not right here. They huddled together in the middle of the thick pitch, shivering violently and stilling when a few feeble calls for teacher were made. The children that were staring wistfully at the patch of blissful light, they caught sight of a skeletal thin face with flat pale hair hanging limp, pooling over into the room they were trapped in. William saw Margo first and said her name with urgency. Her face, seeming more gaunt than ever, creepingly split into a wide grin. This was not Margo. Before they could exclaim, her voice, loud but quiet, whispered echoes into the room around them, “nothing happened today,” she paused letting the children hear the steady

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Of wet clothes before continuing, “right?” Her face and hair pulled out of view before the door to the closet, the last ray of hope, was slammed shut.