Stuck At Home - by Zahra Albadran 9E

From the middle of the most wonderful dream you were abruptly woken by the shrieking, wailing cry of your alarm clock. You force your heavy eyelids open, stifling a yawn. Whilst carelessly tossing the covers of your bed, you throw your legs over the side. Your gaze falls onto your rather messy desk, a desk which temporarily replaces the job of a school locker. Folders which were once stacked neatly and with care, soon became a large mountain of paperwork. Pens and pencils were scattered along the extensive desk and crumpled pieces of paper tossed on either side of it. The invisible yet appetizing aroma of breakfast climbed its way from the kitchen, up the staircase and made its way to your room. An irritated sigh slips out of your lips as you heave yourself up; you must face another life-threatening six hours of online learning. You roll your head, hoping to loosen the knots in your neck and squeeze your eyes shut. After rubbing them you settle back to staring wearily at your bright laptop screen, whilst also hunching. A quick sideways glance at your digital clock tells you that you’re only two hours through school. You slam your head lightly onto the desk, groaning in the process. “Who’s busy groaning? I need someone to hang out the laundry,” your mum calls out, quizzically poking her head through the doorway of your room. You flatten out the slight creases in the towels, smoothing them out along the line. Slowly, you bend down to grab the last peg from the freshly-cut grass. One you finally clip it on, you go ahead and grab the laundry basket, clutching it tightly as you walk back home. Your eyes quickly scan the same paragraph for the fifth time, trying to make some sense out of it. Your vision goes a little bleary and the words begin to merge, until you notice that you are leaning far too close towards the laptop screen. For the hundredth time today, you go ahead and check the time on your laptop. 2:34 pm. You shrug and decide to call it a day, going ahead and closing all the applications on your laptop. You are about to shut it down when a small notification icon to the bottom-right corner of your screen appears. You go ahead and click so you can read it more clearly. Congratulations sir or madam, You have won an 18 month supply of toilet paper! As you are one of the five lucky customers to be chosen, we commend you and hope you keep shopping at our retail stores. All you have to do to receive your supply of toilet paper is to click on the link below. Happy flushing! “No way am I falling for that.” You sneer, shaking your head in dismay. As you leave the page that email took you to, your laptop begins to glitch up badly. You curse softly when your laptop begins beeping and gasp when the whole screen goes black. You fold your arms over your chest in annoyance and frustration. On top of the fact that you’re in quarantine to avoid a virus, here comes a whole other one. The irony is too great.