Story Competition 2007, winner's story - Bradley Lowe
What I would do if I was ruler of the country for a week by Bradley Lowe
"Good night, brads"
"Good night mum"
It was a Sunday night and Bradley Lowe was going to bed, He had to decide what the school should do as he was in the school council. He slipped into bed and read "SCORPIA" it was about a boy named Alex Rider who was a spy. Bradley was up to where Alex was in a meeting at 10 Downing Street and then fell asleep. it was quite late.
"Right, this is where you will be working, and here are you files and forms that you need to fill in and your assistant, Sebastian."
"Thank you", "A maid will bring you a cup of tea and some biscuits." "Right" It was mid-morning and it was a frosty start to the day, after all, it was mid-November and winter was approaching. The new Prime Minister glanced out the window at the icy
Downing Street and smiled, but then realised that he had to fill in all these forms and files, it would take some while, he was grateful when a maid briskly walked in a put down a boiling cup of tea and some Hobnobs.
5 hours later PM Bradley Lowe had finish all the filling in and writing when his assistance
strode in and said importantly “we have a meeting in the meeting room about education so would you come this way if you please” “Okay, I’ll come in a second” “Right” 5 minutes later, all the important leaders, politicians and Sir Bradley Lowe Prime Minister at the head, were all sitting around an immaculate table and waited for the Prime Minister to start the meeting. “Hello everyone, today we are going to change education, the schools are getting out of hand and many children are suffering a poor school life. The food is unhealthy, the schools are in a poor condition and many teachers are not sufficiently qualified. We desperately need to change the schools; otherwise our national education will be a world wide joke, Edwin” “So Prime Minister, what are we going to do?” asked the Education Secretary, Edwin StanleyKnott.
“We need to for a first make sure that every single child has a decent local school because too many children have to travel miles to their schools and that might be why children struggle because they just travelled many miles just to go to school.”
“And anything else?” “Yes, in secondary schools, the lesson changes cause havoc and the schoolbag idea should not be allowed. Children should be able to keep their equipment at school so they don’t have to carry it to and from school. Too much time is spent packing bags and the pupils forget to pack their books and their bags are too heavy, when they grow up, their backs will be crooked and shoulders hunched as they are put under too much strain nearly everyday!”
“Yes, but children should not have such a predicament” said Edwin Stanley-Knott. “Everybody has the same rights, no matter whether they are a child or adult, every soul is the same!”
He went suddenly silent; he would have the sack if he was to be rude to the Prime Minister. “Right as I was saying, schools need teachers who are sufficiently qualified, there are some language teachers who don’t really know the language they are teaching or if they are foreign they can not really speak English. And also, some teachers don’t actually teach the subject that they are trained to teach. For example a French teacher teaching physics to a class.”
“One last point before I finish, is the condition of the schools, they look desolate and abandoned and have graffiti defacing them. We need to repair the schools and have good care takers, and then the schools should look like a working environment. Any Questions?”
A few days later, everyone had a recycling box for glass, plastic, paper and metals and no one used carrier bags, they used reusable ones. No deforestation took place and damaging the environment was illegal after a few more meetings.
All over the country, every town had its own spots centre being built and every child had swimming lessons at school. Their schools had been informed about the new decisions and nearly all children had better school lives, they also had a drop in homework amount.
In the middle of London the new Prime Minister was filling a form in about making Christmas non-commercial when Sebastian came in. “Hello, I just been informed that the pipes in the attic have burst due to the cold temperatures and some of the water is going into your bedroom in number 11.” “Oh dear, is anyone going to fix it?” “Yes” “Mind you it was according to the BBC that it was -11 last night and I heard that it might snow soon. Anyway tell the mechanic thank you from me. Do that won’t you Sebastian?” “Of course, good day Prime Minister”
However, he had barely gone when he came back with a letter in his hand. He exclaimed “I have a letter from someone who is situated in Maidstone in Kent, about disabled accessibility.” Prime Minister Bradley took it and read it, it wasn't very long:
Dear Prime Minister
This is corm Wallis school writing here, we would we would like to ask you whether you would like to make good access to large print books and other disabled facilities, our students struggle to find large print books and other things. Please would you reply before long and hope to see the country change for the visually impaired.
Yours sincerely
Corm Wallis
He observed the letter and called up Sebastian “I am going to write back and say that disabled children do need to have more access to facilities.” The Prime Minister printed back:
DEAR CORM WALLIS
I WILL MAKE SURE THAT YOUR STUDENTS AND OTHER DISABLED CHILDREN WOULD HAVE ACCESS TO FACILITIES AND LARGE PRINT BOOKS, IN A FEW WEEKS TIME YOUR STUDENTS WILL ENJOY FULL FACILITIES AND YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS WILL HAVE A HAPPY SCHOOL LIFE.
YOURS SINCERELY
PRIME MINIsTER
BRADLEY LOWE
“Right, send off Sebastian if you please while I go and have a drink.” “Right, Prime Minister” He sat back and sighed being Prime Minister was hard, and tiring. All these forms and meetings, his barely had any time to do what he liked.
A week had passed since he was shown his office and introduced to Sebastian and the maid served him that cup of tea and biscuits. The Prime Minister was talking to his allies when they told him a group of terrorists had got into the country and planned attacks of the nation. He immediately ordered for secret security measures to be taken and him to be taken to a top secret defence meeting with foreign ambassadors and the defence secretary, in a remote building just outside London.
“Good afternoon everyone, thank you for coming.
As you have probably heard, we have had notice that a terrorist group has entered the UK and are thought to be in London but apart from that there ware bouts are unknown. I have already taken anti-terrorist action “code blue ASi 5 TUO7F” I have thought this to be sufficient measures taken on how to take the terrorist threat seriously. They could attack at any time, any place, or on any one.”
At that moment, an agent came in and said urgently “I have just been notified that the terrorists have been spotted about I mile from here. I don’t feel good about this as we are near there and they seem to have missiles and they could- BOOM! As if in answer, a missile struck and the building exploded into a hundred burning parts. Perhaps the building was not so remote on the terrorists found out that the prime minister was inside it. The Prime Minister was thrown into the air as another missile struck, this time making a creator in the ground and more explosions took place.
The Prime Minister looked up and saw as if in slow motion, a missile heading straight for him, he saw the pointed end and the code on it before it hit him and exploded into blackness.
“Bradley get up, get up!”
He groaned and turned over. He had a council meeting today and would make decisions on what to do for the school. He thought he had a dream about it like that but he was the Prime Minister, but he couldn’t remember much of it. He packed his bag but he wished he could leave it at school. He had breakfast and went to school on that cold and frosty November morning.