- Chapter One - "I don't have much time for thinking."
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FIVE MINUTES LEFT. That's all that Amanda Bowers had of the school year. Then she would be free to do whatever she wanted, that would probably involve staying inside all summer with the TV all to herself when her father went out for work. Not very exciting, but she would be happy to have the break. Sleep, eat, watch TV and then sleep again. It sounded like the perfect way to spend the months she had off.
The clock in her English classroom was passing by painfully slowly, ever second seemed like ten seconds and every minute felt like five. Mrs. Emory was droning on and on about creative writing and how the class should use the five paragraph plan she created in order to make the perfect story for their exams that wouldn't take place for another couple of years. Amanda didn't like Mrs. Emory.
One lesson the woman had them analyse the opening chapter of Jaws. The downside to that was that Amanda was deathly afraid of sharks so when the book cover came into view, she opened it as quick as she could and almost shed a tear at the pure fear that filled her up. She thought she would mostly be okay because it was only reading.
It was not okay. Her stomach had churned throughout the whole passage she had read, flipped when the woman had felt only half her leg and almost threw up all over her desk partner when the shark had swam up and chomped the bottom half of her off. The author had described the injury as jelly-like and Amanda thought that was the final straw.
She closed the book and flipped it so she was only looking at the blurb. For she could not look at the cover, if anything the book increased her fear of sharks. She'd been lucky enough to go 13 years without seeing the film and she intended to go further, seeing the posters was bad enough.
Amanda would write a thousand short stories instead of reading that chapter again.
"And so since the lesson is nearly over, I think it'd be appropriate to give you your summer homework." The woman at the front of the classroom said, adjusting her glasses that sat perched on the edge of her nose. The children in their seats all groaned. "Which will be to complete one summer experience essay, talking about what you did during the holidays, what adventures you went on. Two pages at the least, please."
Amanda pursed her lips, she could easily tell her the whole plot of the show she planned to watch everyday. But that might be too obvious as it'll be daytime TV. She could always make stuff up, lie and base her summer experience off of a creative writing story. That meant she could get it done in the first couple of days and then never have to worry about it again. Easy.
"I want to see you all writing that down in your journals." She said loudly and the students sluggishly took out their pens again and started scribbling the work reminder down in their books, Amanda did nothing. "Miss Bowers..."
