Year 10/28

'Actually, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but...' At the age of 10, I can read three languages and speak three languages. I can read German, English and Arabic. I can speak German, English and Urdu. The seventh volume of the Harry Potter series has finally been released. The finale. The library lends it out for free for a week, after which it costs 50 pence per week. We don't have that kind of money. So I had to start on Monday after school and finish by Friday afternoon. I think that's when I really honed my fast, focused reading skills. The writing style fascinated me so much that I didn't read, I saw. The question that preoccupied me was: what does it look like inside the author's head? Is it exactly as I imagine it? All this reading and storytelling left such a deep impression on me. One day, I had to rewrite an essay. I remember it clearly: Mrs Hobel, my German teacher in Year 5, gave those who had to rewrite their essays a more difficult task. It was about a dialogue between three Greek goddesses that we had read about shortly before. Everyone got their test back after about two weeks, but I didn't get mine for four weeks without any comment. I was extremely afraid that I had failed. Then my English teacher came up to me during break time and said: 'I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you haven't received your test yet because it was read aloud in the staff room and we can't understand one thing: how can a 10-year-old fifth grader write an essay at the level of a sixth form student?'