When Ben had finished, he was met by an unfamiliar face. His sister Laura without makeup. Laura was thirteen, two years younger than Ben, and she hardly ever left her room, let alone the house without putting makeup on. It was quite a scary sight to Ben. She looked like a cross between a monkey and a pile of hair. She charged past him, into the bathroom and slammed the door in his face.
Usually, Ben would have got Laura back for that but it was too early in the morning. Ben went into his room and got dressed for school.
Ben’s room was not small, but it wasn’t large either. He had cupboards on the left, opposite the windows, and a bunk-bed, with a desk underneath, in the middle of the room. Well, it should have been a desk, but Ben just used it as a place to dump anything he couldn’t be bothered to put away.
Once Ben was ready for school, he went downstairs to have breakfast, where he saw his mum, still in her dressing gown, cooking him a big fry up. Bacon, eggs, sausages, beans, hash-browns, mushrooms. Ben’s mouth was watering. Having almost swallowed everything whole, Ben said goodbye to his mum, who was clearing up, to Laura, who shouted at him for disturbing her whilst she was putting on her makeup, and to his dad, who still hadn’t stirred from his slumber even though builders had started demolishing the house next door.
On his way to school, Ben passed the builders who had stopped working to decide weather to blow up the garage or just knock it down.
Ben met his friends at the bus stop and they all boarded the number 142 bus. They went to the same school and wore the same boring plain black suit with a white shirt.
The day went quickly for Ben. First he had maths, then a chemistry test that the previous class had gone through and left all of the answers on the board. English, Latin and history followed. None of them were Ben’s best subjects.
After lunch was sport. Ben was good at football and had managed to make it into the A team. He scored some good goals and was disappointed that football practice was only one hour long.
Ben and his mates took the bus home. When they were nearing Ben’s stop, several people were pointing out of the window into the distance. Smoke filled the air and almost completely blocked out the sun. Ben jumped off the bus and followed the smoke
Ben darted round the corner only to see a huge crowd of people around his house. He approached the crowd. People were talking. ‘I heard that the builders blew up the garage and accidentally blew up the house next door,’ one man said to another.
‘No, no, no. It was terrorists,’ another man said.
‘Or a meteorite’
‘Whoever or whatever it was, it was bad. A woman got trapped inside!’
At that moment, something inside Ben told him to run. He dropped his school bag and charged through the crowd. When he reached the house, he realised that the first comment that he heard was correct. The builders had misjudged how much explosive was needed and had blown up most of Ben’s house as well as the garage. In fact, where the garage once stood, was a huge crater filled with bits of burning car. Ben did not stop to look at the damage; instead, he rushed inside his own house and shouted,
‘Mum! Mum, where are you?’ there was silence. Ben scrambled over bits of house that had fallen into the hall, and ran into the kitchen.
‘Mum?!?’ The kitchen was almost normal apart from the fridge which had fallen onto the floor.
Ben ran upstairs and into Laura’s room which had a ‘KEEP OUT’ sign on the door. Ben chose to ignore it.
‘Mum?!?’ the ceiling collapsed. Ben ran into his room.
The smoke was now forcing its way into Ben’s lungs. He knew that he didn’t have much longer. ‘Mum?!?’ still no reply. He was about to leave when he saw her. Lying underneath his upturned bed was his mum. Ben tried to pull her out but all of his junk from his desk had pinned her to the floor. Smoke had got into Ben’s blood stream and was flowing around his body. He collapsed onto the floor. The room was spinning around. A pair of hands grabbed Ben’s mum and hauled her out from beneath the bed.
‘Mum!’ Ben squeaked. He was weak and slipping into unconsciousness. A different pair of hands grabbed Ben and pulled him towards the door.
‘Don’t struggle,’ a stern, evil voice said. ‘You will only make it harder on yourself.’
Ben passed out.
