WALKING THROUGH THE TOUGH LIFE

• Darren Kandaramage, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2022

“Indy! Come help me out.” Shrieked Indy’s mum.
Indy ploddingly stood up from her mat, stretched her arms out and slowly headed to the kitchen. She could see her mum cooking the usual flatbread and her dad and brother getting ready to go to the faraway farm.
In a tiny house built with clay in a petite rural village called Riverside near Bristol, Indy's family barely got on their feet with no beds and ragged clothes. To earn something, Indy’s father goes to the farm along with her brother Tom who is seven.
“Indy I’m waiting for the water!” Bellowed her mother.
Indy plunged out of her chair and capered out of the house. She furiously looked at the sun as she stepped onto the craggy road assuming it was midday. It was a lengthy way to the river. Sweat oozed from her pores. Finally, she reached the lake and fetched water. A tonne of cuts on her feet, she made it home.
Mum was grinding flour outside as the sun burnt her wrinkled face. She gave a tiny grin and took the water inside the house. Indy was so hungry. She drank some dirty river water.
The sun was setting, but Indy was still outside, watering the plants. So the little ones stopped playing and stepped inside. Indy barely saw her father and brother coming home from the secluded farm in the dark. Her little brother Tom looked burned out. Indy hastily rushed inside to give her mum a hand in the kitchen. The little ones were already sitting near the fire with their starving bellies. Finally, dinner was ready. It was cabbage soup again.
However, things were going to turn worse. The long-term drought hit everyone’s lives so dramatically. It became so hard to survive while Indy’s mum gave birth to a cherubic baby boy named Samuel. Things became more and more calamitous with each passing day.
Indy just turned sixteen years old. Her mother insisted Indy get married and start raising her own kids. But Indy disputed with her mum. As the drought intensified Indy’s father could not get much to harvest.
Despite that, things changed suddenly for the good. As the situation became unbearable, she clandestinely planned to leave home.
Every day, she counted the coins in her hidden piggy bank. Once Indy realised she had just enough money to take a train to London she packed all her ragged clothes and her few possessions in a big wooden trunk.
That night she could not even close her eyes for a second. A couple of hours later, she carried her wooden trunk and rushed into the train station in the dark, which was only a few miles away.
Clunk! Clunk!
The midnight city train returned back to the station. Finally, she boarded. Sitting near the window of the slow-moving city train, Indy closed her eyes as she thought about her family and her new city life chapter. But there was still positivity swarming throughout her body.