Leaving

• Amie Thomas, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2011

August 31, 1939: the Nazi’s have declared war against Poland. They’re arriving tomorrow. Everyone’s scared. Fathers, uncles, sons and brothers are being asked to fight and are leaving with just the clothes on their backs. I’m scared. I’m terrified. My dad has been sent away and my mum is trying to calm the children. It’s not working.
We have to leave immediately and I am only allowed to take one item. I have chosen to take my teddy bear; I would never leave without it. My mother is packing all the food, water and money that we can take. I don’t want to leave; I love this house. I am only nine and I feel like I’ve seen and felt everything that a 70 year old has. I find it unfair. Why couldn’t the Germans have waited two years until I was 11 then I would be big and strong like my father and older brother? Then I would be strong and help my mother.

We are 10 miles out of town and have been walking for hours. There are people everywhere on the sides of the roads. Some are dead and others are struggling to move any further, with their belonging and children on their backs. It is getting dark now so we walk a bit further to a shelter in a run-down bus stop. I can’t sleep knowing what chaos tomorrow will bring. All I can think about is keeping my family safe and praying for my dad and brother.

In the morning I wake to find two men sitting next to me. I start to ask who they are, then l I realize that it is my dad and brother. I can’t believe it! They are real, sitting beside me and they are alive. I reach to touch them and listen to hear them breathing. In this moment I feel the happiest of my life.

Before I ask dad why they are here and how he found us, he reads my mind and starts explaining. The army called a headcount of all the people they called up then called my brother and father off the ship until they are needed. They were then escorted away at night. My mother had told my my dad and brother that she was going to keep heading south along the road until it got dark. My father, determined to find us searched until he saw our
familiar faces in the shelter.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a dive bomber starts racing down towards us. "Run", I yell. I forget that mum is still asleep and I get the girls while my dad grabs my mother. We sprint. I have never run this fast before but the fear in me drives the adrenaline through my body and I know why.

This is just the beginning.