War Struck

• Stephen Perry, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2012

And then it happened. The Round-head soldier leapt through the open door waving his sword threateningly. He threatened us out our house and took our house. Why our house?
Suddenly we saw an oral barrel of a gun pointing between our white lace curtains. All three of us sprinted to our sleek, black carriage, that was outside the house.
We’re a mile away from where our house was. So I’ll introduce us, I’m James, I’m vaguely related to James I, first king of the Scots and the English, that’s where I got my name from. My dad is a brave cavalier and my mum is a just a rich aristocrat.

BANG!!! There was a loud thud from our carriage roof and then the carriage stopped. The door was slammed open carelessly, and there stood a round-head pointing an oral pistol at us. What a surprise, not. We got out and the carriage sped away.

‘Stand and deliver your money or your lives!’ bellowed a highwayman while striding onto the road.
‘Eek!!!’ screamed mum. ‘Take my wedding ring and this sixpence’ said mum miserably.
‘Wait; let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First I’ll have to ask you a few questions,’ he said, pulling out a scroll. ‘Are you a parliamentarian or in any way, against the king?’ asked the highwayman.
‘No, we’re royalists,’ answered mum fearfully.
‘Oh, so happens I’m one, myself,’ explained the highwayman.
‘Oh, really?’ stuttered dad.
‘Are you suffering bad fortunes, neutral fortunes or good fortunes?’ asked the highwayman.
‘Um, our estate has been stolen, our carriage has been stolen, all my sons, except this one, have been killed and my daughters have also been killed, except two, who were kidnapped,’ replied dad mournfully.
‘Bad fortunes it is, all this crime, it’s horrible,’ said the highwayman, ‘do you consider yourself very rich, rich, poor or very poor?’
‘Well, that sixpence is basically all we have,’ replied dad.
‘Very poor it is. Well, there’s only one thing for you,’ there was a long pause ‘here’s a bag of gold for your trouble,’ said the highwayman.
‘Um... from experience robberies don’t work this way,’ said dad confusedly.
‘Well, if you were a parliamentarian it would be different situation, indeed,’ explained the highwayman. ‘I’ll leave you to it’ he said, and started to walk away. We continued to walk to the Whitehall Palace, to visit our gracious king, King Charles.

I just got news of the battle. My father died. I wish I was there, yes it would have been gruesome, with bit of people flying around, but still, I could mournfully pay my respect to my passed on father.
I sprinted to the Whitehall palace, where I heard King Charles was, but then stopped dead in my tracks. There was the king, being executed. And there, next to him stood none other than Oliver Cromwell.