CARBON
FOOTPRINT
Granddad
waited to pick Emily up from school.
“Granddad!”
cried Emily. She ran over and gave him a great big hug.
“Hello,” he
said, “I’m going to walk you home.”
Emily looked
puzzled. “Walk?” she said, looking around for the car.
“Yes,” said
Granddad, “it only takes a minute. Come on.”
Emily held
Granddad’s hand as they walked home. On the way they saw a front garden full of
gnomes; one of them was fishing in a well. Emily found that very funny and
laughed. Then they met a nice lady with a friendly dog. Emily stroked its soft
fur and the dog wagged its tail and licked her hand.
“I like
walking,” said Emily. Granddad smiled and pointed to a furry caterpillar eating
a leaf. “If you’re quiet, you can hear it munching,” he said. Emily put her ear
to the leaf. “Wow,” she said, “I can hear it.”
When they
arrived home, Emily told her mum all about her lovely walk with Granddad.
-------------------------------------------------
Next morning,
Emily got ready for school.
“Can we walk,
Mum?” Emily asked.
“No time.
We’ll take the car,” said Mummy.
Mummy helped
Emily into the car seat. The car was so big that Emily’s entire class could
have fitted inside.
Mummy drove
the car backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards and
forwards to get it out of the garage and into the street and then zoomed off to
school.
They passed
the nice lady walking her friendly dog and the front garden full of funny
gnomes, but Emily was sad because she was a small girl stuck in a big car and could
hardly see out of the windows.
Lots of cars
were parked when they arrived at school so Mummy had to find a space. She went
backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards
and the other car drivers went “beep, beep, beep”. And Mummy went “beep, beep,
beep” and shouted bad things. It was so noisy that Emily put her fingers in her
ears.
Emily got out
of the car and waved to Mummy, but was left in a cloud of smoke when the big
car roared away. Emily coughed and had to use her inhaler. And she was late for
school.
Carbon Footprint By Andy Waterhouse 2015
