TODAY I’LL DO the English essay of the 11-Plus exam paper I began three Mondays ago in sympathy with the children who sat the real thing. I’ll do all five topics in one, or there’d be no challenge to a man who’s made his living writing compositions in the papers for the last 24 years.
You have 30 minutes to write an essay on (for me, all five) of the following topics: 1. My dream vacation; 2. How I care for my pet; 3. Everyone was plunged into sadness; 4. The most memorable thing my best friend and I did together; 5. Complete the story beginning: “My family and I stood at the window and gazed in amazement as the winds howled.”
My family and I stood at the window and gazed in amazement as the winds howled. My dream vacation of a weekend in sunny Barbados was shattered by Tropical Storm Tomas and everyone was plunged into sadness and also darkness when the electricity went. How I cared for my pet during that frightening experience was, I asked my friend to help me – and that was the most memorable thing my friend and I ever did together.
Check that out: did the whole thing in one paragraph.
Now, let’s try to get a little more meat on the bones. Let’s pretend Prime Minister Freundel Stuart is writing the five-in-one essay, his family is the Barbados Labour Party government, and the essay is set in Parliament.
My family and I stood at the window and gazed in amazement as the winds howled. “That’s not the wind,” said my brother Chris, the one everyone seems to prefer to me, “that’s Cousin Owen keeping noise again! And we best turn ’way from the window, Freundie-Boy, and look ’pon Mr Speaker before we get in trouble.” I turned and said “Owright den!” and Chris started snickering,like a schoolboy in assembly.
My best friend Mia is not one of the family but I like her because I don’t think I would have my dream job of PM of Bim without her, and that’s the truth. I say “dream job” but in truth, it’s more like a dream vacation. I don’t really do anything, just let everything go on as long as it can without intervention. For six months, I didn’t even speak.
Everybody asking questions about everything and I giving them the same stony silence. Alexandra School students don’t go to school for two terms and I keep quiet. Rumour of plans to unseat me and I keep quiet. But when Sir Roy say “Egyptian Jew”, I keep noise.
How I treat my pet is my business, and my pet peeve is the pretence in Barbados that everything always all right for everybody, when everything is always all right for only some people, and everybody else have to suffer. But in politics, you learn to plan long, long ahead, and I know where I going with Egyptian Jew.
Everybody was plunged into sadness when cousin Owen stopped leading the Dems; but getting rid of him was the most memorable thing my friend and I ever did together.
• B.C. Pires is hoping for a place in Queen’s – better than QEH!