Grade 9 Creative Writing Examples (AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1 Q5)

The last train had already left when I saw it.

I'd missed the 23:47 because of course I had—spent too long arguing with Mum about curfews and whether sixteen was old enough to make my own decisions. Now I was stuck on Platform 3 with a dead phone and forty-five minutes until the next service, if it even bothered turning up.

The station was emptier than I'd ever seen it. Just me, a flickering light that kept threatening to give up entirely, and the kind of silence that makes you notice your own breathing. I sat down on the bench, pulling my jacket tighter even though it was August. There's something about empty stations that feels cold regardless.

That's when the fox appeared.

At first, I thought it was a cat—just a flash of russet moving between the tracks. But then it stopped, right there in the middle of Platform 2, and looked directly at me. Not the way animals usually look at you, all skittish and ready to bolt. This was different. Calculated, almost. Like it was deciding something.

I'd seen foxes before, obviously. You can't live in London without seeing them rummaging through bins at 3am or screaming like someone's being murdered. But I'd never been this close to one, never really looked at one properly. This fox was smaller than I expected, scrappier. One ear had a chunk missing from it, probably from some fight I didn't want to imagine. Its fur looked matted in places, and there was something in the way it held itself not quite wild, not quite tame. Surviving, I suppose. Making do.

We stared at each other for what felt like ages but was probably only thirty seconds. The light flickered again. The departure board scrolled through its useless information. The fox didn't move.

I don't know why I did what I did next. Maybe because I was angry at Mum, or because missing the train felt like the perfect metaphor for my entire year so far, or because sometimes you just want to feel like something matters. I reached into my bag, slowly, so I wouldn't scare it and pulled out the Tesco meal deal I'd barely touched. Ham and cheese sandwich, squashed from being at the bottom of my bag all day.

"Want this?" I said, which was stupid because obviously it couldn't understand me.

But I unwrapped it anyway and tore off a piece, tossing it gently onto the platform between us. It landed with a soft thud that seemed too loud in the quiet.

The fox tilted its head, considering. Then, with movements so deliberate they almost looked rehearsed, it stepped forward. Not rushing. Not cautious either, exactly more like it had decided I wasn't worth worrying about. It picked up the sandwich in its jaws, and for a second our eyes met again.

I thought it might leave then, disappear back into whatever urban wilderness it came from. But it didn't. Instead, it sat down right there on the platform, about three metres away, and started eating. Not frantically like a starving creature, but methodically. Taking its time. Like we were just two Londoners having a late-night snack at the station.

"Rough day?" I asked it.

The fox paused mid-chew, as if genuinely considering the question. Then it went back to eating.

I laughed, actually laughed, for the first time that day. Because here I was, having a crisis about curfews and independence and whether anything I did actually mattered, and this fox was just... existing. Surviving. Finding food where it could, fighting when it had to, making homes in places that weren't meant for it.

The departure board beeped. 00:32 train now approaching.

The fox finished the last of the sandwich, looked at me one final time with those amber eyes that reflected the fluorescent lights, and trotted off down the platform. It squeezed through a gap in the fence I'd never noticed before and vanished.

I stood up as the train pulled in, doors hissing open into the empty carriage. Through the window, I could just about make out a flash of red disappearing into the darkness beyond the tracks.

Maybe Mum was right about some things. Maybe she wasn't. But as the train lurched forward, I thought about that fox—scarred and scrappy and still going—and decided that making it home alive, on your own terms, in a world that wasn't built for you... well, that counted for something.

Dad swerved and I screamed, and the deer just stood there watching us spin.

Everything happened in that weird slow-motion way that people always describe in films but you never really believe until it's you in the passenger seat, watching the headlights catch the trees at completely wrong angles. The car was screaming too, brakes shrieking like something alive, and I could smell burning rubber and see Dad's knuckles white on the steering wheel.

Then we stopped. Just... stopped.

The engine cut out. In the sudden silence, I could hear both of us breathing too fast, could feel my heart doing something complicated and painful in my chest. Dad's hand was reaching over before I'd even processed what happened, grabbing my shoulder.

"You okay? Evie, are you okay?"

I nodded because my mouth wasn't working properly yet. My hands were shaking. We were diagonal across the lane, halfway into a ditch that had appeared out of nowhere, and when I turned my head slowly, because everything felt fragile I could see what had caused it all.

The deer was still there.

It stood in the exact middle of the road, caught in the red glow of our taillights. A stag, massive, with antlers that branched out like bare winter trees. It should have run. Should have bolted the second our car came round that corner. That's what deer do—they're supposed to be skittish, terrified of humans, programmed to flee. But this one hadn't moved an inch. Not when we'd nearly hit it. Not when we'd spun out. Not now.

It was just watching us.

"Wow" Dad breathed. His voice had that shaky quality that meant he was more scared than he was letting on. "That was close. That was so close, Evie"

"Why isn't it moving?" I interrupted.

Because it wasn't. And the longer I looked at it, the weirder it seemed. Its eyes were reflecting the light in that animal way that's always slightly disturbing, like there's something glowing inside its skull. But it wasn't the eyes that got me. It was the way it held itself. Perfectly still. Not frozen in panic I'd seen rabbits freeze in panic before and this wasn't that. This was something else. Choice, maybe. Or judgement.

Dad tried the ignition. The engine turned over once, twice, then caught with a rattling cough that didn't sound promising. We were at a weird angle, one wheel definitely in the ditch, but the car was alive at least.

"Right," Dad said, more to himself than me. "Right. We're okay. We just need to"

The deer took a step forward.

I grabbed Dad's arm without meaning to. "Dad."

"I see it."

Another step. Then another. It was walking toward us, slow and deliberate, antlers swaying slightly with each movement. This wasn't right. This wasn't how animals behaved. They ran from cars, from noise, from humans. They didn't approach.

"Dad, go. Just go."

"The wheel's in the ditch, I can't just—"

"Try!"

He must have heard something in my voice because he put the car in reverse without arguing. The engine whined. The wheel spun uselessly. We didn't move.

The deer was three metres away now. Then two.

I could see details I didn't want to see: the steam of its breath in the cold November air, the scars along its flank, the way its muscles moved under the dark fur. It was huge this close. Properly huge. Those antlers could smash straight through the windscreen if it wanted them to.

"Dad," I whispered.

"I know. I know, just"

The stag reached the bonnet of our car. It lowered its head slowly, antlers scraping against the metal with a sound that made my teeth hurt. Then it looked directly at me through the windscreen, and I swear - I absolutely swear - there was something intelligent in that look. Something that understood exactly what it was doing.

For ten seconds that lasted approximately ten years, we stared at each other.

Then it lifted its head, turned with impossible grace considering its size, and walked calmly back to the middle of the road. It stood there a moment longer, silhouetted in our lights like some ancient thing from a myth nobody remembered properly.

And then it leapt, one powerful movement, over the opposite hedge and disappeared.

The car finally found traction. Dad reversed us onto the road properly, hands still shaking, neither of us speaking. But I couldn't stop thinking about those eyes, about that deliberate walk toward our car instead of away from it.

About how it had looked at me like it knew something I didn't.