WA 7 Final

Ben's Story

My name is Ben Christopher Thompson. Ben is not short for Benjamin and no one calls me Benji. I read a book about a dog named Benji once. He had seven brown spots on his back. I go to Henson Elementary School. My teacher is Mrs. Godfrey. She wears red lipstick everyday. I hate Mrs. Godfrey and I hate red. She told me to draw a picture of an apple once. I drew a green apple and she said it was wrong because no one eats green apples, you only use them for baking into apple pie. I threw my marker at her head, which meant I had to visit Mr. Lee in the Office.

Today is March 14, 2006. Today is my favorite day of the year because it is Pi day. Pi is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to its radius. The symbol for pi is π. Pi is approximately equal to 3.1415926. I have memorized pi to 230 digits. Whenever I feel scared I recite the number in my head.

This morning I rode the bus to school. It took 37 minutes. We passed 9 blue cars and went through 17 stoplights. We always go through seventeen stoplights because we always go to school the same way. I got off the yellow bus (Number 34) and walked up the steps into the building. My class is on the second floor in room 201. I walk 23 steps up and 10 steps to the doorway. I can’t walk straight to the door the way my friend Jeremy does, though, because my feet would touch the green tiles.

At 10:37 AM, the fire alarm rang. Mrs. Godfrey told everyone to line up by the door and walk outside. I did not do what Mrs. Godfrey said to do, which is bad. My mother will be angry with me for disobeying the teacher. Instead of getting into the queue, I ran out the door and into the hall. I hopped down the hall (careful not to step on any green tiles) and ran down the steps. I opened the door that said "EMERGENCY EXIT" on it and another alarm rang. Putting my ears over my head, I ran across the playground and into the street. I was very scared and I wanted to go home, but I didn't know which way to go. I ran up the street for two blocks and sat down on the black pavement in the street and curled up. I started to recite pi, all the way to the 230th digit.

I started over at the beginning, when I heard a loud noise. A car was coming over the hill, honking its horn at me. I tried to move but I was frozen and my legs wouldn't work. The man in the car yelled a lot of bad words and slowed his car down. When the car stopped, I looked up and saw that the man was getting out of the car and coming towards me. He was big and wore a yellow shirt and blue pants. The shirt had 14 buttons and his pants were ripped at the knees. He kneeled down on the road and asked me what my name was. I told him "My name is Ben"

He said “what are you doing in the road?”

I said “I’m scared and I want to go home.”

He said “Do you want me to take you home, son?” I knew I wasn’t his son, but I said that I would like to go home.

He asked “Where do you live?” and I said “1594 Washington Street.”

He said he was on his lunch break, and he could take me home after he had lunch. I said that would be okay and got in his truck. The truck was green and had the license plate, J6G-HYT8. I rode in the front seat because his truck didn't have a back seat like my mom's car.

The man drove to a restaurant called Wendy's and parked in the 3rd space from the entrance. He got out of the truck and helped me get out of the seat because it was really high up. We went inside the restaurant and the man ordered food. He bought me a vanilla milkshake. I thought it was nice of him. I drank the milkshake--which was very cold and thick--and he ate a hamburger.

After we finished eating, We left the restaurant and got into the truck. The man knew where I lived, and he drove me there. I arrived home at 12:20 PM. My mom didn’t know why I came home from school early, so the man told her about the fire and me in the road and the restaurant.

The next morning my mom told me that my school burned down. There was a picture in the paper of a big fire truck that sprayed water on the building. All of the teachers and students got out safely, but our class hamster, Ruby, died.