Shoe the horse

Ella Verberne

It was early in the night at Berwick camp and Mr Phillips was taking us up to the Gym for a game. No one knew what game we were playing. We walked inside the big open-spaced gym and sat in a circle. Talking was a bit weird in there because the area was so open that everything echoed. Mr Phillips and Miss Walsh arranged four chairs in the middle of the circle and then got four volunteers (Zara, Storm, Harlem and Liam A) to sit in the chairs. Right said Mr Phillips this game is called shoeing the horse. In this game we have four people sitting on the chairs, he gestured to Zara, Liam A, Storm and Harlem. “They are all blindfolded and have and have to find cups that we will place round the circle”. Once they find one they then have to find a chair and place the cup under the leg of the chair. When a chairs has a cup on every leg you can sit on it and then you win. I put my hand up. Ella he said. How will you know which chair is yours? I said. Well you won't said Mr Phillips. So you just have to find a chair and if it happens to have four cups on it then you win I thought. Mr Phillips gave those four people a blindfold. Once they were blindfolded Mr Phillips and Miss Walsh placed some cups inside the circle and then when they had no more cups left he stood back and said GO! They hopped off their chairs (some crawling some standing) and searched for some cups. A burst of shouts broke out, everyone trying to direct their friend to a cup. I blocked my ears. Everything was so loud in the gym. I couldn't imagine how the blindfolded people felt, not being able to hear any individual person properly. They wandered around until someone found a chair and claimed it. We had a few more rounds and then someone gave me a blindfold. I jumped up and sat in one of the chairs. I lipped my blindfold on and waited. As soon as they were ready Mr Phillips shouted go! And we were off. I scrambled onto the floor and moved my arms around on the ground trying to find some cups. I desperately scrambled around trying to make out the directions people were shouting at me. It wasn’t easy since everyone was trying to talk at once but eventually I found a few cups and then then finally after that a chair. I could hear everyone getting excited which meant that someone was about to win. Everyone told me I could take my blindfold and I did. I gave the blindfold to someone else and sat back down. We played a few more rounds and then we went inside. I liked that game it was great fun.