NEVER LOSE HOPE

• Casey Covill, Grade 7N
• Short Story
• 2011

2001
I remember crying into my fairy pillow because it was my 5th birthday party and no one showed up. I remember being so upset that I locked myself in my room for hours. I remember falling asleep and waking up to a women screaming.I went to my bedroom door and that’s when I heard a soft voice telling me from the other side of the door to go back into bed, close my eyes and go to sleep. Then to my amazement the woman started singing a soft lullaby and it was making me feel relaxed. But before I shut my eyes I listened to the woman’s voice, it sounded like my mothers voice so I went back to bed.
I was a 5 year old girl whose parents were killed. The future wasn’t looking very bright for me. But I survived and I was taken in by a foster family. About a month later I was called by the police to be questioned. They asked me if I saw the traders faces. I had to go back in time to remember that awful night. I had been blocking that night out for so long that I could barely remember. I finished telling them that I never saw the traders faces. My stomach gargled inside of me I thought I was going to be sick.
At that time I realised it had to be someone that I knew because my parents weren‘t fools. They would never let people into our home who they didn‘t trust. But I couldn’t guess who it might’ve been and I didn’t want to think about the fact that it had to have been someone my parents trusted and were possibly good friends with. It was heartbreaking to think about it.
5 years later
I had completely forgotten about that tragic event.I guess when your young, when terrible things happen, you block them out and erase them from your mind and that’s exactly what I did. I had moved on two years after the incident and being moved around in foster care I settled down and my old next door neighbours adopted me. They took great care of me. I had friends and I was so happy until my 10th birthday.
I wasn’t allowed a sleepover party but I was allowed a get together after school . I had never called my neighbours mum and dad until this night. My new mother would tuck me into bed every night but this night she sung to me a lullaby that sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite think of where I’d heard it before. Then as I fell asleep I realized where I had heard that lullaby, it was the one that was sung to me the night of the home invasion. That night I didn’t get any sleep. I was too busy trying to figure out what this meant.
Then it hit me like a gush of wind, it was my neighbours who had killed my parents in the invasion. I had to leave so I waited until they had gone to sleep and then I made a run for it. I lived in a halfway home for 4our terrifying days. A day later I packed up my things and started walking to find a place to stay for good. At least one thing was certain I was never living with those people who murdered my parents ever again. A month later I discovered that my mother was alive and that she’d been looking for me all this time and she had never lost hope.