This first sample of the children's work is a story based around the theme focus text "The Secrets of Vesuvius." 

24^TH August 79 AD

"Lena, Lena, come here at once, and don’t forget my new robes!’’ I said, trying to sound just as nasty and grumpy as Lavinia Claudia does. She is a grumpy old witch. If only I could get revenge! She treats everybody like they aren’t important and we can’t decide for ourselves, but we slaves do!

I really… huh what was that, something had shook the ground so hard that the plates which had been placed so carefully on the table for the Banquet had now been smashed on to the floor. I looked out of the front door to find a red sky with black clouds reaching down as far as the front door steps. My heart stopped pounding, and my blocked nose from the cold I had last week cleared. All of a sudden Julius started to cry and Lavinia started ordering everyone what to do.

‘‘ Petronia, hurry and collect all the jewellery you can!’’ I could see that Petronia was worried about Julius.

‘‘ Don’t worry Petronia, I will go and get Julius.’’ She smiled at me, I could tell she was happy.

She ran around the room collecting all the jewellery she could. I skipped up the stairs and went to the room where Julius sleeps. He was still crying. Oh… poor baby I thought. I… oh not again one of these shaking things, this is getting serious, I can hear screaming and the thumping of bare feet on the ground outside. I quickly grabbed Julius and ran down the steps making sure not to hit Julius’s head. I was looking for Petronia when I suddenly noticed a bag of jewellery lying on the table, they must of left it there. All of a sudden I felt a weird feeling crawling up my back. It wasn’t good… but it wasn’t bad either. Something was telling me to grab the bag and ru… not another one this is hopeless, Julius doesn’t have a chance. And I couldn’t see him die!

I should grab the bag, she won’t ever find me, and this is my chance to have revenge, mmm… sounds sweet!

I quickly put down Julius and grabed the bag, and ran! While I was running towards the beach, I noticed that not only rich people were running in all directions but also slaves. I forced a smile on my face, for the first time in my life I felt that slaves had a mind of their own! Maybe these are the gods punishing the rich people to show them that we have a mind of our own. I decided that I was right, that I can just sit down at the side of the street and look at my beautiful treasures I have just gained. In less than an hour every rich person in the city will be dead, and the slaves will live happily ever after. By now it was hailing. After a few minutes I decided that I was right, that I can just sit down. As I sat down I noticed a few people looking at me funny. All of a sudden a weird feeling started creeping over me just like the one before. I started screaming out all these weird things like that slaves don’t have to worry because soon the rich people will all die. Then I saw a man wearing a black hat looked at me strangely and then shouted out," Weird woman, she caused it everybody, she’s a witch, that idiot, she’s killing us all!’’ 

He opened his leather jacket and pulled out something that I had never seen before. He pointed it at me and screamed ‘‘DIE!’’ A loud noise filled the air. Suddenly a string of pain streamed through my stomach. I looked down and found blood everywhere. I looked up and said ‘‘ You’ll see, I’m right.’’

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