Today, we have been role playing scenes from our class novel; the Nowhere Emporium.

We worked very well in our groups to think about our facial expressions and movements to portray our scene of the story. See if you can work out what is happening in each section. 

The shop from nowhere arrived with the dawn on a crisp November morning. Word travelled quickly around the village, and by midday the place was abuzz with rumour and hearsay. “There were four shops in the row yesterday. Today there are five!” “Did you hear? It sits between the butcher’s and the ironmonger’s…” “The brickwork is black as midnight, and it sparkles strangely in the light!” By evening time, a curious crowd had begun to gather around the mysterious building. They jostled for position and traded strange and wonderful theories about where the shop had come from and what it might sell, all the while hoping to catch a glimpse of movement through the darkened windows. The shop was indeed built from bricks the colour of midnight, bricks that shimmered and sparkled under the glow of the gas streetlamps. Blocking the doorway was a golden gate so fine and intricate that some wondrous spider might have spun it. Over the windows, curling letters spelled out a name: The Nowhere Emporium There was a glimmer of movement in the entranceway, and a ripple of excitement passed through the crowd. And then silence fell – a silence so deep and heavy that it seemed to hang in the atmosphere like mist. The shop’s door swung open. The fine golden gate turned to dust, scattering in the wind. The air was suddenly alive with a hundred scents: the perfume of toasted coconut and baking bread; of salty sea air and freshly fallen rain; of bonfires and melting ice. A dove emerged from the darkness of the shop and soared through the air, wings flashing white in the blackness. The enchanted crowd watched as it climbed until it was lost to the night. And then, as one, they gasped. The black sky exploded with light and colour, and a message in dazzling firework sparks and shimmers spelled out: THE NOWHERE EMPORIUM IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS. BRING YOUR IMAGINATION… The writing hung in the air just long enough for everyone to read it, and then the words began falling to the ground, a rain of golden light. The crowd laughed in delight, reaching out to catch the sparks as they fell. Everybody who’d gathered outside the Emporium was entranced. No one had ever seen a spectacle such as this. One by one they walked forward, touched the sparkling black brickwork, examined the tips of their fingers. And then they stepped through the door to find out what was waiting. *** Two days later, when the shop had vanished, a stranger arrived in the village. He was polite, and he paid for his room with stiff new banknotes. But something about him – his startling height perhaps, or the hungry look in his cold blue eyes – troubled the villagers. He asked questions about a shop built from midnight bricks. But the tall man couldn’t find a single person in the village who could recall the Emporium. Within a day he too was gone, and all trace of these strange events faded from the history of the place. Those who’d walked through the Emporium’s doors had no memory of anything they might have seen inside. More importantly, none of them recalled the price of admission – the little piece of themselves they’d given for a glimpse at the Emporium’s hidden secrets and wonders. Bring your imagination, the sign in the sky had requested.