Writer's Group Post - Carbon Footprint By Andy Waterhouse

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.

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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