GOING HOME
Kellett School, Emma Large, Fiction: Group 3
A
cool breeze wafted around, swirling around my ears and refreshing my dry mouth
that had started to feel like sand. I smelt the clean air that cleared my watery eyes,
and I felt my energy start to build. “Almost, just a few more steps and I’ll be there.” I
promised myself. I had been telling myself this for the whole of the journey, ever since
I started off three hours ago, that now felt like years. I was on my way to the pastures, to watch
over Papa’s cattle and rams, which is what I do everyday and what I have been doing ever since I
can remember.
I decided to sit and take a break on the sandy bank along the river which was officially my
‘life contemplating’ spot. It was my only highlight along my daily journey, the only time I could
be alone and think and dream and be angry and sad, where I can laugh or I can cry, and no-one,
nobody in this entire, huge world will know. Today I thought about school. It is a regular topic
I like to think about, since I really wanted to go. Mama gave me a school book for my törsön
ödör, which I know is birthday in English, since the book was an English book to help me learn
languages-which Papa says are very important. Anyway, there is no school in my village, so all I
can do is work on the crops under the watchful eye of the beating sun. I sit in my thinking place
and envy all the schoolchildren that the boys in my village told me about. There are very few girls
in my village that I can talk to, but they are mostly working. Of course, there was Antonio, who
was this boy that Papa hired to work on his field and help me with the cattle. I always hoped he
wasn’t there. Eventually, I stood, shook off my weariness and braced myself for the hot day ahead.
“Oyun! Hi! It’s so hot today, isn’t it? The cattle are boiling! Anyway, about that task your Papa
asked me to do, I …..” Antonio shouted across the pasture. I kind of zoned off after that sentence,
because nobody can help falling asleep while he’s talking, mostly because he just doesn’t stop.
Ever. I obviously had no luck with hoping he wasn’t going to be at the fields.
After the long day of listening to Antonio’s droning and sweating and getting kicked by those
nasty cows that seem cute but are really devils underneath, I slumped towards the exit of the
field. Just 3 more hours until a cool glass of soothing ice cold water and a plate of sticky rice, I
thought, trying to entice myself forward. I walked confidently, encouraging myself. But it was so
hot…. I barely noticed myself walk past my contemplating spot and suddenly I was drooling all
over my shirt and then my vision went all weird and blurry and uncontrollable thoughts went
through my mind, making me dizzy. And then everything went a dark shade of red, and then all
there was ,was black, black, black and black.
“Ohh...” I moaned out loud. My mind was swimming and I felt sick. I threw up on the ground
beneath me and rolled over, covered in gooey stuff that I had had for breakfast. I was slightly
disgusted, but I hadn’t the heart to scold myself. So I just lay there looking up at the clouds and
feeling queasy. Suddenly, I sensed something stiffen behind me. My heart started to thump loudly
in my head, my blood pumping and my veins were a purplish blue with the effort. Something
growled and sniffed my sleek black hair while I lay dead still, begging silently for my life. I know
about Gobi Bears. I was told legends about them by Papa and Ovoo -my grandfather, and how they
can kill a dozen armed men with single bites and I know that there are only 50 in the world and
are very dangerous. I know everything about endangered animal species, because I want to be an
environmental biologist when I am older, and study at a university in Darkhan, a big educational
city on the edge of the Gobi with heaps of schools. Every wealthy child in Mongolia goes there to
