“Oh my God!” I shouted. We had just turned off the A12 and in front of us was Scream Park with Screamer looking so high that the carriages were almost above the clouds. We passed through the big metal gates and made our way to one of the long queues for the entrance tickets. I was getting impatient, it seemed, as all the other queues were moving twice as fast as our one.
“You’d better get used to it,” said mum, “You will have to queue like this for every ride we go on today”.
Finally, we were heading towards our first ride ‘The Roller Coaster of Doom’. Outside the ride entrance was a sign saying forty minutes queueing time from here. “Great” I thought, the whole day is going to be queueing, but mum and dad insisted that it was worth it. After Emma had her height measured we entered the end of the queue. It seemed like hours in the queue. There was a drift of smoke coming from the family in front of us, which started to make me cough. There were no seats in the queue line and I really needed to sit down. I was also desperate for the toilet. As we were a few turns away from getting on the ride, I started to feel sick, really sick! I read the notices about the ride having twenty great loops, each and everyone making you lift off your seats. Our carriage came; I looked at the people’s faces as they came off the ride. Some were smiling and laughing, but some looked terrified, almost as if they were going to cry. I sat down in my seat and fastened the safety belt. It was really tight around my chest and I found it hard to breathe. A man came to the front and warned us of the safety rules. “Keep your hands and feet in the carriage at all times,” he said. Then the carriage jolted forward and chugged its way up the slope to the top.
“Oh my God!” I was saying to myself. “Don’t look down, don’t look down.”
We reached the top and I couldn’t help but look down. I saw thousands of people queueing and pointing.
“I wished I never complained about queueing,” I thought. I wished I were still in the queue now.
As we were about to drop, I heard the screams and roar from the other carriage. Then, seconds later, we were screaming too as our carriage came hurtling down like it was out of control. Then, chug, chug, chug again, as we climbed ready for the next traumatic part of the ride, a double loop. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out! As I was totally upside down I felt my bottom lift off the seat, then seconds later it was all over. I shakily undid my belt and hobbled over to the exit feeling like I had cheated death.
Now it was getting near to the end of the day. We had been on many great rides, but all of my family, including me had been avoiding Screamer. As we walked past the huge ride, I realised this was my last chance to go on the best ride and be a ‘hero’ at school, especially as Michelle, the most popular girl in the year hadn’t gone on it. I turned to mum and asked, “are we going on Screamer then?”
“Um, well, I thought we were going to leave that one for today darling” mum said unenthusiastically.
“No we weren’t,” I said. “We have to go on it. Just look at it!”
We looked up at The Screamer. It was at least three times taller than all the other rides. It had big brown posts holding up the base and the people coming off were soaking wet.
“Emma isn’t tall enough and we can’t leave her on her own,” dad said with a look in his face, which meant don’t keep on.
“Please, here is always someone at the end of the queue to look after Emma.”
I had no idea why I was begging mum and dad to go on this ride; I was terrified just looking at it!
“Okay, but this will be your very last ride Kate,” dad replied looking at his watch.
“Yes,” I shouted, making a few people look around.
We entered another long queue, although from this queue you could see the ride if you stood on the wooden posts. This queue was longer than all the other queues, which meant we would be waiting for hours. In front of us in the queue there was a group of girls who were about seventeen years old. They were very noisy and some of them were smoking. We had been in the queue about one hour. We were in the middle of a huge crowd of people, but it was an organised crowd, with everyone shuffling up and down the grid like sheep in a pen. All of us waiting patiently for that magic moment when we were front of the queue and able to get quick adrenalin rush on the ride.
We must have been about half way there when an announcement came through on the speaker. It said that the log flume was experiencing problems, which they were trying to fix as soon as possible. At that point everyone was standing on the posts, there was a lady and a small boy in it, the boy was crying. Everyone had started to get slightly restless by the time the next announcement came through.
“We are sorry to say we are experiencing minor problems at the moment, we are trying to fix these as soon as possible, feel free to leave the queue at any time.”
“Do you think we should go now?” mum asked, “We could be waiting for hours.”
“No!” I pleaded, “The ride will be going again soon.”
Every now and then a few more people left the queue. By the time the third announcement was said it was getting dark outside. The remaining people in the queue were getting impatient and angry. The park was due to close in ten minutes and there was no way anyone was going to leave until they had had a go on Screamer.
The ladies voice was beginning to sound more and more nervous as she said “we are just removing a floated log and then the ride will be up and running.”
Everyone in the queue cheered as if we were at a pop concert with Gareth Gates coming on stage. The queue started to move along again and the carriages were going up and down safely. A man came to the front and told us that they had obtained special permission to keep the park open until we had all gone on Screamer, even though it would be in the dark and it would not be suitable for children under six.
My family gave a sigh of relief as the announcements stopped and the screams started. The screams seemed louder as everything else in the park was dull and quite. Everyone else had gone.
Finally, after three and a half hours of waiting, we were next to go on the ride. I had waited so long now that I didn’t care how scary the ride was. As I stepped into the log flume I had a strange feeling, as if something was going to happen, something good or bad I wondered, but I just ignored it and sat at the front. Then we were off, sailing along and turning the sharp corners of the track. A few seconds later we started to chug up the rails to the very top. Now there was no turning back! We were almost tilting on the top, when there was an almighty crunch and everything came to a grinding halt. The lights around the park went off like a Mexican wave. We were left, mum, dad, and myself, in total darkness with nothing but an eerie breeze brushing against our cheeks in the still of the night. It seemed like hours before we heard the voices of the staff from Scream Park. They were saying that we should all move to the back of our carriage as anything could happen if we tipped over the edge. They said this several times until I realised that I was at the front. The staff were telling me what to do, but I didn’t have time to think. All I knew was that I some how I had to stand up, step over the seats and sit with my mum and dad. Everything was down to me. Slowly, and steadily, I turned to reach for my mum’s hand. I couldn’t see her face, just her hair swaying in the breeze and the outline of her face. I touched her hand and slowly tried to move backwards, then I lost my balance and everything went black.
“Kate, Kate, how are you feeling?”
I opened my eyes to see a nurse bending over me.
“I can’t believe all that happened just yesterday,” I said shivering.
“Yesterday?” said the nurse; “You’ve been in a coma for three weeks.”