As we quietly strolled down a cobbled street our footsteps echoed all around us. My mum said it wouldn’t take us long to get there but I felt like we had been walking for ages. I had met my friend at the park and we set off together. While I was walking I noticed the street getting narrower. At first the houses were new with red bricks and shiny front doors. But as we continued further down the street the buildings became taller and strange. The bricks were faded and broken. The wind blew and rattled the windows. We could see cobwebs and broken pipes. As the rain came down it splashed on the cobbles but we didn’t mind because we enjoyed splashing in our wellies.
Suddenly I saw a green flower above a creepy door. Mum told us that’s what we would see. The red paint around the door was starting to fade because of the stormy weather. As we crept towards the door I felt cold and started to shiver. Maybe this wasn’t the door mum told us about?
What was inside? We had to find out. We couldn’t see as the dark shadows filled the doorway. We would have to go in. The dark shadows were all around us. The creepy stairs made a sudden creaking sound! Mysterious smoke wafted down the stairs with a nasty petrol smell. The shadow grew longer and longer. I felt a shock run down my spine and goosebumps on my arms. What could it be? What was it, I thought?
Then all of a sudden, green, hairy, bumpy hands came out of the smoke. Next, two ghostly feet came down the stairs, followed by dirty scales on his back, a wide lumpy head and enormous wet eyes. He stomped down the stairs. “LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!” I screamed and grabbed my friend’s hand.
“Hi, I’m Dave,” said a voice, “Please, wait a minute!”
We stopped!
I couldn’t believe his name was Dave, he sounded quite familiar. Maybe this is would be the beginning of the adventure that mum had told me about.
“I would like to show you something secret in my garden,” he said excitedly. We backed away towards the red, chipped door, just as he said, “Don’t worry you don’t have to be scared!”
Dave began shuffling through the house, heading to what I presumed was the garden, he beckoned for me to follow. We crept, shivering with fear behind him, past ragged, ripped wallpaper with sinister paintings of skeletons and terrifying creatures.
Suddenly, we reached the greasy door to the garden, as I stepped nervously through it I realised the door was made from wolf bones. Dave continued through the overgrown garden, where creepy, spiky branches seemed to grab me like sharp, pointy claws as I passed. Eventually he stopped in front of a dark slimy river that had deep purple smoke rising in puffs from it. The smell was disgusting, it smelt of old rotting fruit and smelly, cheesy shoes.
“I came from this river,” explained Dave “If you step into it you…”
But before Dave could finish his sentence I slipped on the deep, sloppy mud and went tumbling into the river with my arms flailing and landed in the water with a SPLASH!
I heard a roaring sound. There was a water tornado and a whirlpool sucked me down to the bottom of the river. I could see a tall shadow when I touched the river bed. As my eyes got used to the murky water, I realised that it was Dave. Among the things my eyes could see were….old boots, cans and bottles and a supermarket trolley.
Dave had remembered that in the back of the house he had a pipe that was used to suck people up from the river because people often slipped on the mud when they came to visit. I was terrified when the pipe sucked me up. It felt like an enormous monster but it was the pipe. When I finally came out the other end I ran to Dave and cuddled him because I was so happy. Dave was smiling at me, his recycling bag in his hand. I realised then that he wanted me to help him tidy up the river bed. ‘Let’s get started,’ he said, ‘We have a job to do!’
I smiled back and we both jumped back into the river.
by Year 1 pupils from St. Edmund’s , Stanley, Trafalgar Infants and Sheen Mount primary schools