By Olivia

Beep, beep, beep, I woke up startled. It had been months since I had woken up to that annoying noise which seemed to ring through my head like a siren. It took me a whole five minutes to realise where, who, what when, why, everything was happening.
Once I finally managed to haul myself out of my bed, I got dressed in my uniform which had been collecting dust in my drawer for the past three months. Suddenly my mother called ‘’Lucy! breakfast’’.
7.30 am: We were driving to school after three months of lock down and only then did the nerves hit. I had been so excited, but all of a sudden, all I could think of was ‘’Is my hair done nicely, does my uniform look nice, and most of all will my friends be excited to see me?’’ While all of this was going on in my head, I hadn’t realised we had arrived at school. I jumped out of the car, grabbed my bag and my Lulu Lemon snack bag. I put my mask on and headed into school. When I got in everyone jumped out of their seats and shouted ‘’Lucy’’, ‘’Lucy’’, ‘’Lucy’’.
8.30 am: I had spent the morning chatting to my friends. I was so relieved to find out that they did not hate me. I found my seat in my new pod, with six girls including me. I liked them all. We sat through assembly, then watched this boring video on how to wear your mask properly. Gosh! masks are so annoying. I wasn’t really listening; I was too busy fidgeting with my mask. Then all of a sudden, the girl in the video said ‘’you should never touch your mask.’’ I stopped fidgeting with my mask. I looked up and realised that everyone in the class has been touching their masks as well.
9am -1pm: Nothing happened, just maths. Maths is such a drag! Then we had English, but English is worse, what is it with the verbs and adjectives? I get so confused! We had Irish which is fun as I am exempt… thank you dyslexia. As far as my teacher was concerned, I was reading but if you ask my friend Charlotte, we may have been passing notes. Then we had lunch and playtime which was fine, always fun.
Then finally it was 1pm and we were going to PE with my favourite teacher Ms Waters. We always get sweets and she let us call her by her first name. Today she was holding a two-meter stick in front of her and jokingly telling us to ‘’get back, get back’’. We were playing tennis, doubles, so Charlotte, Sophie, Chloe and I were all playing together. We played tennis for the next two hours. Then it was home time and we got off homework! Could this day get any better? It could, we all got ice-cream and went to the park.

“This story has a nice combination of both the ordinary and the extra-ordinary in
telling what happens on the first day of school after lockdown. This story shows some
Joycean attention to detail.”
— Dr Sam Slote, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland