I'd always hated wasps. Several has stung me when I was little, and I couldn't be in the same room
as one.

Mum broke the news to me the other days We had about three wasps' nests in the house; one in each
storeroom upstairs, the ones in the eaves. I just wanted to go. Get out of the house as quickly
as my short stuuby legs would take me. I'd stay at Ruth's, or maybe Sally's, and if they went
anywhere, I could go and stay with Dan. But only in extreme circumstances. No way was I staying
in a wasp-infected house. Not a chance. Not for a million-zillion pounds. Not even because my
evil mother happened to think I should. My room was upstairs, between two storerooms. Between two
wasps' nests. If they did anything, I'd be caught in the middle. Right in the middle.
So you see I simply had to get away. So I did, I ran away, but Dad found me. He knew where
I'd go. The garages. I'd gone there before, but only to think. This time it was so different, so
very different.

That night I couldn't go to slep. I heard their buzzing. I couldn't settle down in my sleep
position. Face against the wall, breathing the sweet, cold air from the window, back to the rest
of the room and the storeroom doors. Tonight I had to face them. Had to face the those doors. I
kept imagining all those wasps. Thousands of them, millions, and they were all surrounding me.
All round me. Buzzing. Buzzing. Endlessly buzzing. And it suddenly struck me then, that I didn't
have an escape route. There wasn't anything beneath my window and I always kept my door locked.
Key, where's the key? Oh, there it was. I clutched it under my pillow, covering it in cold, slimy
sweat, and then the buzzing got louder, and louder, and louder... I had to get out. I leapt out
of my bed and ran to the door. The key slipped in my sweaty hands, the lock wouldn't open. And
the wasps were getting louder... I shook the door desperately and it wouldn't budge and the
buzzing was getting still louder, looming on me from two sides. I was trapped, trapped with the
wasps. I must have been screaming, because then I heard my parents' voices on the other side of
the door, telling me to calm down, soothing me. But I couldn't. And then I was crying into my
father's arms on the sofa, crying, crying, crying... I couldn't stop, I wouldn't. Dad was
whispering in my ear, holding me tight. But I couldn't stop crying.

Key Stage 3 mock exam, 14 years old.

Question: Write about an incident, real or imaginary, when you came face to face with an animal
you are scared of.