I Am A Convict

• Ela Gulhan, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2015

"Get back here you filthy brat’’ I had just stolen a loaf of bread. My name is Lily and I have been a orphan as long as I can remember and I am poor , living , eating , and sleeping on the streets of England . There is a lot of poverty in England so if you’re poor you have to steal to get what you need .I am only 8 years old and have been caught stealing just a loaf of bread and I am still going to jail. I am lucky that it’s not a death sentence or lashing. I had to go to court for that and then I was taken to jail for locked up behind bars .I soon heard the prison guards saying there wasn’t enough space for prisoners in the jails of England , and that they needed to do something about it . A few days later, a prison guards came to each of the cells to tell us that we were going to be taken to the other side of the world because there wasn’t space in the prison cells for filthy prisoners like us. We were told that we were going on a ship to Botany Bay . There were 6 ships and mine was the Friendship and our Captain was Arthur Phillips. But I’m not happy about it , what am I doing here ? I am only 8 years old and I stole because I couldn’t afford to buy it myself.


4 months later…

We were half way on our journey to Botany Bay, our roster was strict, and the conditions were harsh.

5 months later…

We stopped but we didn’t stop in Botany Bay, we stopped in Sydney Cove . So we all exited the ship and had time to stretch,later on Captain Arthur Phillips and his crew will sail off back to England and leave us convicts here. I walked away and sat on the stump from the tree that the Guards just cut down. Glum and tired from that horrible journey. I heard something laughing at me in the distance , I ignored it and sat there as birds swooped over and past me. Suddenly, I heard the laughter and turned around. Soon enough I figured out that it was the bird. Was it rare? There were other creatures lurking in the bush. I turned around as I heard rustling in the bushes and I was scared , I didn’t know what it was but it scared me enough when they came out of the bushes and approached us they were black and had fuzzy hair I was speechless and I didn’t know what to do. It was covered in welts that were red and soggy . I thought it was small pox that’s right it is smallpox I felt sorry for them. Soon enough we made friends and they came on our boat to England and became one of us.

TO BE CONTINUED…