Pompeii

We have been using our Infobyte stories to help us with our writing.

We read a story about Pompeii, a city long ago that was covered in twenty four hours by pumice and ash from Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that was nearby. Pompeii completely disappeared and three quarters of the people died. We imagined we were there at the time and managed to survive the eruption. This is what Olivia wrote:

Pompeii:My story

It all started in Pompeii as me and Trinity were doing each others hair.  Suddenly the ground started shaking. We looked out the window and no one was panicking because they thought it was an ordinary earthquake.  

The earthquake had made Trinity  pull my hair.“Ow Trinity! ”I screamed. I looked out the window as a big puff of smoke, boulders and ashes launched out of Vesuvius the volcano that has always been considered as a mountain.  

Everyone started panicking and they were shouting “We're all going to die!” We're all going to die!”

Then the hot rocks and ash covered the sky like an ebony black blanket. By now everyone,including me and Trinity, was running around screaming and shouting because we were all scared and frightened about what could happen.  The burning smell that was coming from the smoke made me block  my nose with my fingers, but I could still taste the smell in my mouth.

Just at that second the hot rocks started to cool then they turned into pumice stone,which made a huge crash on the ground.  I raced to higher grounds and then I called Trinity to follow so she did.

But my other friends and family didn’t make it because they got smothered by pumice and ash.

So we watched the amazing and frightening sight that was in front of us. I felt quite lucky that I had survived but I was also sad because my family didn’t make it.

Pompeii: My Story

I was outside in the meadow moving the cattle with Mum, Dad and my best friend Reagan.  The sky was turning dark very quickly, so we started heading towards the house  when suddenly the ground started to shake and the cattle headed in all sorts of different directions. “Don’t worry girls, it’s only another silly earthquake,”sighed Dad.

“Yeah, this always happens,” I replied.  I searched the sky for the darkest clouds in the sky, for that’s what I always do, but it turned out that the darkest clouds were hanging motionlessly right over the top of Vesuvius.  However something wasn’t right, it all looked different it all felt different, but I couldn’t figure out what.  By now everyone had seen what I’d seen, but I just couldn’t figure out what any of this was.  Then it came to me, I’d had this described to me before by my friend who had survived the terrible volcanic eruption in northern France.  Out of the blue there was a fierce crack and booms shaking through Pompeii, and men were busily gathering their over-panicked families who were screaming their heads off, and running around the streets like headless chickens.   I knew exactly what I had to do, it was simple:“RUN” I yelled furiously. Streams of bright orange lava flew over the sky.  Suddenly all became dark, a sheet of hot gas had risen in the sky and blocked the sun.  I don’t know what I was feeling I don’t know any words to describe it.  We ran down the rickety streets, it seemed like it wasn’t real, everything was a blur.  It was then that I realised nobody was with me, I had ran to fast maybe no one had heard me, but I couldn’t go back to the horror I had to keep running no matter what.

Ella