Nora Murphy aged 12 from St Mary's Secondary School
It was a dark, misty Halloween night. The trees were rattling,swishing and you could hear the screech of cats.
My friend and I were walking along the small road. We got lost while we were trick-or-treating.
The sky was pitch black. There were speckles of stars across the sky, and the moon shone the road in front of us. We could hear dogs barking in the distance.
Then we heard something else.
The panting of some one behind us.
We looked back, we saw someone coming...
I've always wondered why bullies exist...
Why do they?
Life would be much easier without them. Loads of people are suicidal because of them. It makes no sense. Why do they decide to treat people the way they do? I don't think anyone knows what goes through their head. They seem to think they are better than any one else. It's like they're celebrities in their minds. They find every ones weak spot and pick at it until they have no confidence left. They get even worse with the taunts and teases until you wish you were dead. They force you to do things that you would never have done if you were not being bullied.
Things like taking drugs...
Then, when things seem as if they can't get any worse, they do. They threaten to tell everyone – to make everyone hate and despise you..
. You don't think you matter so, it wouldn't matter if you were gone. No one would miss you.. So, you kill yourself. But, the thing is, you do matter.
You're probably wondering how I know all this. I know because, my best friend, Ria, committed suicide.
She was so perfect.
I always was her best friend. We told each other everything. She told me what she was going through with the bullies. She told me about the drugs.
I wanted to tell someone, but she wouldn't let me. She threatened me that she would never speak to me again if I told anyone about her secret, about her drug-taking...
I wish I had told someone, because a week of silence from her is better than the rest of my life.
Why is there such thing as drugs? They ruin peoples’ lives. Some people hate themselves because of them. It's not fair.
Well, my best friend, Ria, was taking drugs. She took drugs because of being bullied.
They were the ones that drove her to this.
And they were the ones that blackmailed her.
It all came to light for everyone on that Halloween night, that I was telling you about.
Ria and I were out bringing my little sister, Celia , out trick-or-treating. We went down a scary looking road. There were no lights and the moon was the only source of light that we had. There were screeches of cats, howling of dogs and rattling of branches. WE heard panting behind us.
We started to run.
The panting got louder.
We ran faster.
A hand came out and grabbed Celia. We started hitting the person/thing that had Celia. A light shone on us and Ria screamed. She started panting, and after about five seconds of panting she fell to the ground. The person shone a light on her as a dropped to the ground shaking her. One of her eyes was open and the other one was half closed.
"She's dead! WAKE UP RIA!" I screamed. Celia ran over to us and started shouting at Ria to stop messing and that it wasn't funny. The person bent over and felt her pulse. He said,
" There's no pulse, Here's my phone. Ring the ambulance while I do CPR!" I rang the ambulance. As soon as a person answered the phone, it went dead.
"IT'S DEAD!" I roared,"THE PHONES DEAD! HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET SOMEONE TO HELP?!?!"
Celia had given up shouting at Ria and came over to me wailing.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
I first found out about Ria taking drugs at our friend’s party. I was an amazing party. Great music, great fun and everyone that was there were having a great time. I found it a bit hot inside so I went outside to get a breath of fresh air. I stepped outside the door and saw someone familiar at the end of the garden talking to someone who had his or her hood up. I was frozen to the spot and couldn’t move and couldn’t force a scream to come out of my mouth. The person handed her a small bag and she handed the person a ball of money.
The person left and Ria was coming over to me. When she came over to me I forced the words, “ What was that?” out of my mouth.
Ria replied, “ What does it look like?”
“Well to me it looks like you were buying drugs, but that’s not what my best friend does…” I said, astonished.
“So, what? What are you going to do? You’d swear you were going to call the police by the look on your face ! Get a life! This is life, people take drugs. GET OVER IT!” Ria said looking high.
“ Don’t go there, Ria. Just stop. You obviously had something earlier. I think I might ring your parents to bring you home.” I shouted to her as she walked away from me. I picked up my phone and started to dial her parent’s number in. My fingers were so shaky I had to put it in a few times.
“Hello?” Ria’s mother answered the phone.
“ Hi Mrs. Anderson, um , I saw Ria buying some drugs off a p-p-person and, well, she’s a bit h-high and I thought you should come and pick her up in c-c-case she does something to herself,” I explained to Mrs. Anderson while stuttering, a lot.
“Not again! OK… keep an eye on her and I’ll be there in a minute… OK?”
“Yeah, I’ll look after her,” I replied.
“Thanks Tracy,” she said sounding really sad.
I ran over to Ria who was huddled in a ball beside the bush.
“RIA!” I screamed, “ PLEASE RIA! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!” Ria was trying to get up. I could see that she was crying, thanks to the streetlights. I started running like I never ran before. I finally reached. I grabbed her by the wrist and swung her round. I looked into her eyes. They weren’t the eyes I met every day of my life for the past 14 years.
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Cora Harrison says
I still have feeling that you might be rushing to get out all of the material in your head (that's where a plan is a good idea - write it all down then organise it into chapters).
However, it is your story and I don't want to interfere. Do put down what you were feeling in between what you are saying. Dialogue should have thoughts and feelings interspersed within it - otherwise it can get a bit tedious. You can give your own thoughts but you can also give someone else's thoughts by putting in something like 'I could see by her eyes that she was thinking... or that she felt...
How do you think this comes together now, Nora?
I think now you need to go back - to write down what your friend Ria told you about how she was gradually sucked into the world of drug-taking - starting off with a party, perhaps...
