MY FIRST DRIVE

Costas Chandolias

I was ten years old when I first tried to drive a car. I was left all alone in my dad’s car, with the engine on. My parents were a few metres away from the car and didn’t notice me jumping into the front seat. I knew nothing about cars, so I started playing with the pedals. When I pushed the right pedal the car started moving. I was excited by the idea that I was driving. In fact the car was moving alone because the road was a slope. By the time I realised this, it was already too late. I was striving to stop the car but I couldn’t. I was in a very precarious situation and nobody could help me.

Meanwhile my father saw the car moving and ran after it. He didn’t manage to run so quickly and he stopped in the middle of the road. I was screaming and shouting looking desperately for help. The car was going straight to a tree, a big apple tree full of apples.

The crazy course ended in a bad way. The car crashed into the tree trunk and the whole bonnet was destroyed. I was safe and sound with not even a scratch. My only injury was hitting my head on the roof of the car. My father arrived a few seconds after the crash and I ran to his arms.

I was shocked by what had happened to me because of my stupidity. It was then that " I promised myself that I would never do anything like this again".

Costas Chandolias is a fifteen-year-old student at the Fourth Lykeio in Katerini. He has a wide range of interests including basketball, swimming, (he has taken part in the Greek national Championships in Athens) music, stamp collecting and current affairs. He passed the Cambridge FCE exam in 1999 and has recently passed the Michigan Proficiency Preliminary exam. He started learning English with John Foss when he was 10 years old.