176

LATE FOR SCHOOL!

Sam woke up with a start, one morning and was surprised to find that his alarm clock was not making a single sound.

"I must have been dreaming", he said to himself, but the clock showed that he would be late for school if he didn't get out of bed and get moving straight away.

The house seemed terribly quiet, but Sam had heard his Mum and Dad laughing and talking late into the night, while they watched a show on the television, so he guessed they were going to be up a little later than usual today.

It wasn't unusual for Sam to get his own breakfast and he decided a bowl of cereal would be the quickest meal to prepare, followed by a banana from the fruit bowl. which he would eat on the way to school.

Sam's shoelaces had been getting a bit frayed lately and he was cross with himself for forgetting to mention the fact to his Mum when one of them chose that moment to fall apart. There wasn't time to do anything else, so Sam just tied the bit that had broken off back onto the rest with a knot and did his right shoe up as best he could with the short end that was left over.

As he walked down the street, eating his banana and trying to comb his hair into some sort of order with the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding the fruit, Sam guessed that he must be late, as he couldn't see any of his friends heading for the bus stop, even in the distance. There was nobody at the bus stop, when he reached it, so he must have missed the bus too!

Breaking into a run, Sam grabbed his rucksack and hung onto it, to stop it banging all those heavy books against his backbone and tried to remember what lesson came first, so he could quickly get the right books out as soon as he arrived at school. 

Try as he might, Sam just couldn't remember what day of the week it was and he ran a little faster to try and make up for the time he was going to lose at the other end, finding out.

Luckily, the school was only three stops from the bus stop nearest his home and Sam knew a shortcut too, so he figured he would just be able to squeeze into the classroom in time to avoid missing the roll call if he just ran as fast as he could.

At last, the school came into view but, to Sam's surprise, the big gates at the entrance were shut and there was no sound at all coming from behind them. As Sam stood panting and trying to work out what was going on, a lady appeared from around the corner, walking her dog. Seeing Sam standing in front of the closed gates, his chest heaving with the effort of running so fast, she crossed the road to speak to him. 

"It's Sunday!" she said, smiling kindly at Sam. "Did you think it was a school day?"

Sam was surprised to receive this news but more surprised by the fact that, as soon as she had told him the reason for the quietness of the playground, the woman just disappeared, dog and all, before his very eyes! Before he had time to worry about how she had managed that feat, Sam got another surprise.

"Wake up Sam!" his mother was saying, from the doorway of his bedroom.

"I thought I'd get you up a bit early so that you can put your new shoelaces in before you set off for school. Your breakfast will be ready in five minutes so don't dawdle in the bathroom. Oh, and you may as well switch off the alarm clock as you'll be downstairs by the time it goes off"...

Written by Linnet Woods for Story Time