This is a story that I came up with in my year 12 semester 1 exam. I really had no idea what I was doing and was sure it was awful until the head of english marked it 28/30 (and he NEVER does that). To give you an idea of what he's like, he said (to his class) he probably would have given it 30/30 if he wasn't so depressed from reading all of his class's crappy essays. I like it, and I hope you will too :)

P.S. This is the exact manuscript that I came up with and wrote in those 25 or so minutes so please understand if it's a bit rough around the edges.

Question:

"I am happiest when I can look in the mirror and say that I did the best with what I had."

Write a response in a form of your choice to this statement.

Response:

CAP – Ian McEwan's Atonement 2003

This is a piece of creative writing of an internal monologue of Briony as an older women looking back on her life and her mistakes.

After My Mistake

I think I did my best with what I had.

I hope I did.

I was young and inexperienced. I have attempted to make amends.

I tried my best, but am I happy? I do not know.

I cannot help but think: 'What if?'

I let the memories wash over me.

Before My Mistake

I was young. I was happy then.

I was consumed with my writing and my world, trying to make it more interesting, more like a fairytale.

I resented Lola for messing with my small and feeble attempt at perfection.

The play.

I suppose I should have listened to my own warning.

"My darling one, you are young and inexperienced, and though you think the world is at your feet it can rise up and tread on you."

Or it was something along those lines, I forget. But I cannot forget what I did, and I cannot ever forgive myself.

I was stupid.

I had it all, and I lost it.

Though, in truth, perhaps I always knew.

That night, I was consumed in self pity. How could I show off when the play was in ruins? It was Lola's fault. My crush on Robbie forgotten for the moment. Though some details fail me, I can still see that word on that piece of paper. I can still see my sister and him in the library. They were happy.

Everything happened so fast then, and suddenly, I wasn't happy.

The twins were gone, and Lola was sobbing, and I was determined to be the centre of attention once again. So I said the words I never should have said and it sealed my fate:

'I saw him.'

I was so sure. Yet I was so stupid.

I was not happy. I didn't do the best with what I had. I was wrong, and my reasons were flawed and I just wanted there to be a play. For my family to all be together and to hear the applause and to know I was home. I never meant to lie or mislead, I just wanted to be special.

Yet I can still remember Mrs Turner running up to the police cars yelling 'Liars!' until she broke her umbrella whacking it on their car.

Then he was gone.

And she was gone.

And I was gone.

I wonder is any of us will ever truly come back.

I spent the following years trying to atone, in any way I could. Just as I felt my identity slipping away, my patients at the hospital looked so little like humans that any one of them could have been a lump of meat, already dead. Any one of them could have been Robbie.

Was I happy? No.

I was doing the best with what I had. I wonder if my unhappiness stemmed from the fact that no matter however many bedpans I cleaned, and sheets I changed, and organs I saw of men that should never have been open to the world I couldn't change what I had done.

Every nightmare that came in on a stretcher could have been Robbie, and I knew I could never atone for that.

Yet still, I tried.

I wrote drafts, all of them merciless. I hated myself for what I had done. I never spoke to my parents. That house and those people and that life was the reason I was here. I wouldn't, couldn't go back.

I buried my emotions. I had no right to feel happy. I had destroyed a life. I wasn't happy.

Finally I convinced myself to go and apologise. I walked up the street and almost knocked on her door.

Almost.

But not quite.

Coward.

The last chance I had to atone, and I didn't take it.

How could I be happy?

After My Mistake

Looking back, I'm not really surprised.

It was my vanity and my cowardice that got me into the situation, so how could a lack of them get me out?

Did I do the best I could with what I had?

I tried, so hard to.

Maybe the attempt is all.

Maybe Robbie and Cee would have forgiven me, if they had lived.

I cannot be sure, and for that I will continue to atone, to do the best with what I have, to keep trying. I have to.

Am I really, truly happy?

Ask me tomorrow.

Mr Taylor's Notes (couldn't resist )

Love it!

Really easy to read, engaging and demonstrates a lovely grasp of the text and the workings or Briony's mind.