Food Under Fire
I'm waiting in a long, boring queue for food, holding my ration book. I could name you all the delicious food I smell, but I don't want to make myself more hungry.
When I get into the shop, I ask the man for a fishcake. As soon as I get it in my hands, all I want is to run home and eat it, but the siren sounds. A raid!
I make my way instead down to the claustrophobic shelter. I can barely breathe. The floor is damp and sticky. Outside booms and smoke. I wonder whether I should eat, but I don't want to share. Everyone else in the shelter is hungry too. I hear a woman complaining that their windows shattered in the last raid, and glass fell in the butter, spoiling the lot. So I just wait until the bombs stop falling.
When we are let out, I run for home, taking a bite of my fishcake just as I turn the corner, because I cannot wait. But then, such devastation...
My house is on fire, and all the bricks are scattered around. My house is lost. My family is lost.
This food doesn't mean anything to me any more. The fish and bread rattling and rocking inside my dry flavourless mouth. I wonder what I am supposed to do now.
I see another child watching the flames for ages. I hand her the rest of my fishcake, so it does not go to waste.
From writing by students of Little Thurrock and Aveley Primary Schools and Grays Convent High School
When I get into the shop, I ask the man for a fishcake. As soon as I get it in my hands, all I want is to run home and eat it, but the siren sounds. A raid!
I make my way instead down to the claustrophobic shelter. I can barely breathe. The floor is damp and sticky. Outside booms and smoke. I wonder whether I should eat, but I don't want to share. Everyone else in the shelter is hungry too. I hear a woman complaining that their windows shattered in the last raid, and glass fell in the butter, spoiling the lot. So I just wait until the bombs stop falling.
When we are let out, I run for home, taking a bite of my fishcake just as I turn the corner, because I cannot wait. But then, such devastation...
My house is on fire, and all the bricks are scattered around. My house is lost. My family is lost.
This food doesn't mean anything to me any more. The fish and bread rattling and rocking inside my dry flavourless mouth. I wonder what I am supposed to do now.
I see another child watching the flames for ages. I hand her the rest of my fishcake, so it does not go to waste.
From writing by students of Little Thurrock and Aveley Primary Schools and Grays Convent High School
