The Frightening Forest

The Frightening Forest(peter) The Frightening Forest


Mum shouted, “Come on James you’re going to be late”. My mum and I live in a little shack-like building we call home. As you have probably rounded up already my name is James and my mum is…Mum. My Mum and Dad recently got divorced. Unfortunately enough for me, my father lost the battle of custody, and that’s how I went from living in a £1.9,000,000 mansion to “a shack-like building”. Today I am going on a school trip to Bolton Abbey. My friend’s Will and Ben convinced me to go on the trip, saying, “It would be great fun”. Will is a short lad; he stands about 5 foot and 3 inches tall, while Ben is about 5 foot and 5 inches. I often refer to them as “midgets”, but this is only when we get into an argument.

Today I woke up at 5:00 am; with special thanks to my, loud, annoying mother shouting, “Get up!” “Get up!”. I slowly got out of bed, after this long and tiring process, I picked up my toothbrush, had a shower and went down to have my daily breakfast of beans, two sausages and a piece of toast. At 6:00am my mum called out to me, demanding I enter the pre-owned manual car she had purchased in an auction. The car reeked of the stale, off-putting cheese and urine mixed together. I had a strong guess that the previous owner was fat, lazy and in no way whatsoever, lactose intolerant.

We drove from our house in Burnley, along the M65 to Stonyhurst College in Clitheroe. I’m going to cut the whole irony chain now. I go to Stonyhurst college; a school with fees ranking up to about 30,000 pounds per year simply because in the whole custody dispute between my parents my mother luckily enough got the benefit of my dad paying my school fees and the best part was she got the choice of school. This school was filled with people any layman might refer to as a posh ‘toff’ or ‘totty’.

After an uncomfortable ride in the Volkswagen; which despite its name the “people’s car” was actually more like the other people’s car, I arrived at school and hurried to the Lakeland coach, my mum embarrassingly enough decided to shout “remember to carry sun screen off the bus with you”, I shouted in a fake enthusiastic manner “sure Mum”. No doubt was I the laugh of the bus. I sat down with Will and Ben. They shared jokes about my mother and also made inappropriate comments towards her; they are what society would describe as “randy”. We talked about what we normally would, girls, watches and cars; I’ve only known Ben and will for two years now so, neither Ben nor will knew my financial status, all they knew was that my name was James, I live in Burnley, My dad is an investment banker and my mum is “fit”. Our teacher has just informed us that we have thirty minutes left. I am starting to feel a bit skeptical about this trip, I’m not really an outdoorsy person; my Dad tried changing this with the countless golf games but all of his efforts where in vain.

So finally we have arrived at what seems to be a forest, I was pretty sure this was supposed to be a field trip to an abbey once inhabited by monks but instead we are in the Godforsaken forest, I don’t know any way else I can express my anger. I’ve tried talking to the driver but he just replied “calm down kid, just a fault in the engine, won't be a problem”…he was wrong. I knew this unqualified driver was wrong, because my teacher told us to get off the bus. a fault would involve only the driver getting off. So we were told we would be stopping here for a break. Call me superstitious all you want but this unexpected halt was ominous of worse things to come... I could feel it.

Hours drifted by and soon it was dark. A turbulent wind wafted hurriedly past the wobbly branches of aged kernel trees and the sounds coming from the depths of the forest were a little more than unsettling. I clung tightly to my good luck handkerchief while making silent prayers to whatever deity it was that little kids were to place their unfailing trust in and hoped that this haunted night would be over soon and I would be returned safely to my loving, though I much hated to admit it, mother. At exactly 6:23 pm, a rescue team had arrived. I looked up to the skies with gratitude, giving thanks for these brightly dressed men with minibuses, finally I would be home with a cup of coffee in my hand. My good luck was soon cut short when the rescue team announced to us that the two minibuses could only occupy 34 people, 17 in one bus and 17 in the other, however we had 37 in the group so me and my friends decided to stay. Hopefully this good deed would gain us some ‘cool points’. It's now 8:15, so we’ve been in this forest for…one hour...fifty-two minutes. It’s cold, wet and miserable and the rescue team have not yet arrived. We’ve asked our teacher to call the so-called ‘rescue team’ but she replied, saying “I have, calm down, they say the are just dropping off the last 21 students.”

My mates and I are now really annoyed. What could be expected when we are stuck in a stupid forest. Our teacher called us all together and in a tone of despair said, “The rescue team have just been involved in a car accident so we are going to be delayed for at least another three hours.”

The irony, a rescue team involved in an accident, wait till I tell my mum.