MrJ

"Yes Michael, pass the ball", I shouted. Michael passed the ball to me and I shoot...GOAL!
"I have to go now. But i'll see you tomorrow." Just as I walk up to the house I hear a car engine turn on. Then a white van comes out of the drive way and drive away. I ran in the house and seen the house had been trashed and items were stolen. I knew then that we had been burgled. At that same moment my dad's car keys twinkled in my eye. I grabbed the keys and ran out to my dad's BMW. I didn't think twice. I jumped into the car and chased after the thieves. I could see the yellow number plate that read S003 GBS. Then the car took a tight right turn and I followed. My heart felt like it was ripping out of my chest. Just as we turned the cops drove past and followed. As the van turned left the cop car hit me. I flew left, right, up, down and went right into a tree. My leg was crusched and I was in serious trouble.
An ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I had broken my leg in 2 places. I got crutches and couldn't do sport for 8 months. When my mum and dad came to pick me up, they didn;t look happy.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?!? shouted dad.
"You could have been killed", moaned mum. I went in the car holding my leg because it was so sore. In the car it was just total arguing. I was glad to get home because i could just get away from all the noise and arguing. When the car stopped my mum or dad didn't even help me out of the car and into the house. But when I did get in mum and dad told me we were moving to Florida. I didn't bother in trying to make them change there mind but I really didn't want to move. The house was a mess and when I walked up to my room pretty much everything was gone. My i-pod, T.V, and my room was totally wrecked. The police were here aswell trying to get some evidence of what happened. I just went to bed on the floor because my bed was total smashed up but my leg was in so much pain I couldn't get to sleep. It was at about 02:00am when I got to sleep. The next day I went to school all my friends were asking what happened so I told them. They thought it was really cool but it was so sore. I didn't tell them about the house getting burgled because they would never stop talking about it. When school ended my mum came to pick me up because my leg was really sore. There was no talking in the car or when we got home. We did talk about the move to Florida. My dad showed me the house that we would be living in. I thought, mabey moving wasn't going to be to bad. Nice houses. nice beaches and nice weather. We ordered the plane tickets for 2 weeks on saturday. The police found the people who stole all your items and we got them all back which was good because I got my 32" TV back. We started getting all our stuff together instead of waiting till the last night to do it. At school I told all my friends that we were moving and they weren't happy that I hadn't told them before. It was only 3 days till we moved and I was getting really excited. We went to my grannie's to say goodbye one more time and then went back home to finnish packing all our clothes.
The morning of the move I got up at 05:30am and my leg felt like it was ripping off so i got Ibeprofen to help the pain. we took a 3 hour car journey to the airport in Manchester. We had to take a 9 hour plane journey but we had 1st class plane tickets so it was awesome. We got waited on hand and foot and we had little TV's on the back of each chair so we could watch films and play games on it. We got tones of leg room aswell so my leg wasn't squashed and making it even more painfull. When we got off the plane the heat hit me straight away. It was so warm. Outside the airport we got a bus journey to our new house. It was called The Apple Pie house. When I walked in the house with my crutches there was massive chair infront of me. There was 3 toilets, 4 bedrooms, a sitting room and a kitchen. Outside there was a pool. I thought it was the best house ever.

I wanted to live here when I was older. School started in a week. I didn't need to go straight away. That night I got to sleep easy. The next morning i went in the pool. I had to put a plastic bag over my leg so the water wouldn't get to it. The weather was so good. I couldn't believe we were going to live here. We went in to the bus stop and when it came we went into the city center to do some shopping. I really wanted to go to the school to meet some new people and get some friends. Monday morning mum woke me up. I couldn't be bothered to go but I was really excited. I had to wait for the bus outside my new house. When it came I got on and took the seat right at the front of the bus. There was only about 7 other people on the bus aswell. It took 45 minutes to pick up everyone before we got to the school. When we got there I thought it was massive. Loads of people were outside it waiting for the bell to go to make them go to class. My first lesson was maths. 
When school ended I didn't really meet anyone. I just used my map to help me know where to go. I got back on the bus to go home. When I got there the vans with all our things arrived so we could un-pack it and put everything in each of its rooms. My room had all its same things in it which made it feel like home.

The next couple of days got even better. I met 3 new friends at school. David, Stuart and Michael (but everyone calls him Micky). The next night we got invited to a neighbourhood BBQ to meet everyone. The family was called the Adams. When we got there most of the neighbourhood was there. Everyone was shaking our hands and welcoming us to the street and America. The night was so fun. The people who lived here were so kind and friendly. My leg got taken out of plaster in a week so I was really exited. The first thing I wanted to do was jump in the pool but it would be really sore. After I get it taken off I still can't do sport for 3 weeks. I started learning where everything was at school so I didn't need to ask anyone where the classes were or use my map. My new friends helped me aswell and they were in almost all of my classes. School was easy at the moment because I had done all of it already in my last school. I just looked like a geek which was ok because I got in all the good books of my new the teachers.

But when we did other stuff I wasn't very good at it. My cast came of the next day so I was really exited. I didn't have to go to school tomorrow either. I went to sleep easy that night. The next morning I woke up at 10 instead of 7. Mum woke me up. I went to the doctors at 12 so I had lots of time to get ready. Mum went to the doctors with me because dad was at work. He worked in a big factory making toys and all that kind of stuff. I got dressed and went into the car. When we got to the hospital we had to wait for ages because mum had to sign loads of sheets and it took forever. Aventually I went into a room with a doctor. To get the cast of they used a big saw. It was ok because it didn't cut your skin, just tickled it. The cast was half way cut and it started getting really tickly then it just poped of my leg. It was so sore. It felt really weak and flimsy. I didn't want to just try stand on my leg because that would hurt. After it came of I had to do some stretches with my leg to loosen up the muscles because they hadn't been used in 8 months. I was only out of sport for 3 weeks now and I was really exited to try some American sports like basketball, football and ice-hockey. I didn't need totry soccer because I played it at home all the time. That night I went on MSN to my friends at home. They told me all the gossip and what new things had happened. It was really cool to see them.

Sometimes I wish I was back in England. Still, living here was like heaven. The weather was always sunny. At least in 2 weeks now I can play sports. School from then on just got easier. It just felt like home, kind off. 2 weeks later I went to football training. It was really different from sports in England. In football you had to be focused on the ball at all times. When the ball gets thrown to you, you have to be focused on catching and then run away from other players. Only 10 yards you had to run (but it felt like 100). People tried to tackle you, you couldn't stop running or you got cleaned out and might fumble the ball (and that wasn't good). Each quarter was 15 minutes but a hole game lasted about 2 hours. I was quite good at it. I played WR(wing receiver). I got mates with a couple of the other players. The coach told me to come every week because he said that I was talented and might a future in it. I didn't think I would. But anything could happen. Mum didn't want me playing sport so earlie but I really wanted to. I was bored when I wasn't playing it.

I was quite popular at school but not with one boy. Jeremy Maguire because he plays wing reciever and he didn't like any competition! I didn't let it bother me. At training i was getting better. My speed was top class and my catching was, well it was easy. I got gloves from the coach that had grip on them so i could catch the ball easily. Jeremy was my main competition. Our first game was next saturday and we were home. The coach had picked us both to pay. I was really excited. When i came to the match i started of sub. I wasn't bothered because I had just started. Our team started very well. The whole team played like a group, but them in the 3rd quarter Jeremy caught the ball and hurt his arm. It was my time to shine. First play the quarter back got sacked but that wasn't going to harm my play. It went into the 4th quarter and the score was 7-7. I really wanted to win the game for our team. There was 9 minutes left in the game and we had just turned the ball over. The QB throwed the ball towards me... the ball landed right in my hands and I ran like I had never ran before. 30,20,10... TOUCHDOWN! We were leeding because of me. My smile streched from one ear to the other. We converted the kick so the score was 7-14. At the end of the game all the players loved me for winng the game. At home it was the only thing I talked about.

Mum and Dad were happy for me because I was doing good at school. This Saturday I was going to some theme parks with some of my mates. It was called Aquatica. When we got there the first ride we went on was called the tunnel. It was a black tunnel and you had to sit in a rubber ring and go down without seeing were u are going. Swoosh! I went flying down the slide like I was falling of a building. It felt like I was going faster and faster but then I seen a light and went shooting out of it and the water bounced up and went all over me. I had never been on a water slide before but I loved them! We went out of the park after being on alot of rides and we took a 30 minute bus journey to a park called Bushe Gardens. The ride that scarred me was the Shikra. It was a 150 foot drop at 90 degries. That was the first one we went on. We got on and when we were going higher and higher I heard the ticking of it going up. When we reached the top it stopped. I wondered what had happened but then we went flying down. My stomach felt like it was flying out of my body. But I liked it. We went on tones of rides there. And after every ride I got a photo of me and my mates in it.

This weekend me and my friends wanted to do something awesome, so we went to an old theme park. We bought rubber rings and we went flying down them really fast until we got to the bottom and flew out the bottom. The next day on Sunday we all went to the skate park. All the best skate borders were there and after it we went to Stacey Coopers house to go in her pool. Loads of people were there and there was a BBQ at the same time. It was the most fun I've had since I've been in America. But Jeremy Maguire was there aswell, and he wasn't happy to see me. He walked up to me and hit me in the face. I fell to the floor but fot back up and hit him back. It turned into a massive fight between me and him and the only way out was to beat him so I tried my hardest. I gave a right hook left hook and he was down. That wasn't the end of it. He stood up and looked right into my eyes and swung but i ducked and hit him again and again until he was on the floor and some other people pulled me off him.

It was the morning of the trip to Spain. I had to get up at 6 o'clock for the plane. When I got to the airport I was about 7th there. Everyone came and we all got on the plane. It was an 8 hour plane journey. Half way through the plane we started getting really bad turbulance and the plane was going everywhere. It started heading down getting quicker and quicker. Everyone was really scared. We could see out the window because it was light outside and when I looked out all I seen was the cold wet ocean. They opened up the doors and just told us to jump because all the engines had failed and we would die if we didn't jump. Some of my eam mates had already jump so I went aswell. I didn't realise how high up we were. I looked down and saw my team mates falling, then I looked up and the plane was darting down really fast. I wit the water and then it all went blank... I woke up cold and coughing up water. All I could taste was the salt water from that horrible sea. I was lucky to be alive. I stood up and I was on a beach. Nobody was near me. I ran into the jungle and I kept running until I found another person.  Then I was at another beach. I was on an Island. "hey" someone shouted. I ran over and it was David. I was really glad to see another person. We found abut 7 more people that day. We decided that we had to make a camp. We all went around the island trying to find food and wood to build a shelter. There was loads of fruit on the island. Bananas was the main fruit. There was massive bunches of them in almost over tree. I through rocks at the to make them fall. We all collected things from the island.
 We had lots of fruit and wood. We started building a house and to tir the wood together we stripped leaves and used them for rope. After about 2 weeks we had 1 shelter put up. We needed another one because there was about 12 of us. We didn't know where the other peope were but we hoped that they were ok and not died somewhere out at sea. We really wanted someone to sve us. Just a boat or plane to gopast and see us so we gathered loads of rocks and spelt HELP on the beach. 2 months went past and nobody had came to see us but I bet our family's were really worried about all fo us. We made 3 shelters now and the had leaves over the tops of them so that nothing could get through. Or so we thought. It suddenly started raining and it never stopped. The leave didn't work and water just came pouring in. It never stopped raining. We all got totally soaked. Just when everyone was loosing hope we all heard something. It sounded like something peeting and then outof the clouds we seen a plane. all at the same time everyone ran out to get its attention and it worked. The plane came swooping down onto the beach eeryone was so happy. The plane flew away to get help.

We waited about 1 day and then we seen loads of planes flying over the top of the island. We were saved We knew we were going home. When I walked in the door my hole family was there and they were all glad for me to be back home. I had a party and I got of school for 2 weeks. I found out that everyone else got picked up by a big cruse liner in the middle of the sea when we were on the island. 

What an exciting opening. You present your hero as a football hero who scores a goal only to go home to find his house has been burgled. Nice contrast.

You make good use of short sentences for dramatic effect. Lovely choice of verb in ‘ my dad’s car keys twinkled’ because this shows us how tempting it was for him to take the car without permission.

You SHOW how annoyed his parents are through their actions – by not helping their injured son out of the car. Well done.

I love the name of the house in America! Names are an effective way of creating feelings about places or people. Apple Pie House makes it seem tasty and so we imagine the house is gorgeous.

Some tips –

1 try to describe without using adjectives (describing words) – try only using metaphors.

2 watch your spelling.

It is good to write about things you know about – your descriptions about your broken leg are realistic as are your descriptions of the football match.

This works well as a story in a Diary style because each paragraph is very definitely a separate entry. Your reader will feel like he/she knows the character through his thoughts and feelings.