The orange ribbon

Source: an original fiction extract.

“On the morning of the hill race, Eli tied an orange ribbon to his rucksack so his mother could recognise him from the village. The course was twelve kilometres, climbing to the old quarry before returning along the ridge. He had trained alone for six weeks. At the start, his friend Saira asked whether they should run together. Eli said they would only slow each other down. He checked his watch while he said it, which made the answer sound more certain than he felt.

The first slope rose ahead like a wall someone had forgotten to finish. Loose stones slid beneath Eli's shoes, whispering downhill after every step. Wind pressed cold fingers through the gaps in his jacket. Above him, runners flickered between patches of mist, appearing and vanishing before he could decide how far ahead they were. The ribbon snapped against his shoulder, a small impatient flag urging him on.

Near the quarry, he passed a runner sitting beside the path. The man had one shoe off and was staring at his ankle. Eli slowed. Behind him, feet approached over the stones. Someone else would stop; someone older, someone who knew what to do. He took three more steps. Then he turned back. The man said he had slipped and could not put weight on his foot. Eli took out his phone, but the screen showed no signal.

Saira appeared from the mist. She crouched beside the man and asked whether he had a warm layer. Eli wanted to explain why he had been running alone, but there was nothing useful to say about that now. They helped the man put on his jacket. Saira stayed with him while Eli went downhill to the nearest marshal. To mark the turning from the main path, Eli untied the orange ribbon and fixed it to a low branch. It hung there, suddenly still.

By the time he returned to the village, the finish clock was no longer running. His mother had been told what had happened. She handed him a cup of water and did not ask about his time. Across the square, Saira was pulling mud from the sole of her shoe with a twig. Eli went over and asked whether she wanted to train on Tuesday. 'Together?' she said. He nodded. The ribbon remained on the hill until a marshal brought it down that evening.”

Refer only to the second paragraph. Analyse how the writer uses language to present the difficulty and urgency of Eli’s climb. Support your ideas with quotations from that paragraph. You could consider words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.