Tell Me

• Eliot Cudmore, Grade 4B
• Short Story
• 2013

“Finally,” I cried. We’d been on a ship called the HMS Charlotte. Hi, my name is Emily. My family is a family of convicts. We all got in trouble for stealing hankies from rich people’s pockets. Anyway, we got sentenced for six years in this new land. I don’t know what it’s called, but who cares? My brother was born on the ship right after we departed so he is already one year old.

I get really over excited really easily, but I can’t help it. We’re like one of the first people here. I hope people in the future might find my diary and I’ll be famous, when I’m dead at least.

My papa told me that this new land is full, I mean full, of new opportunities for everyone like us. That reminds me. My mama died halfway through the trip here. Her body was never found and Papa won’t tell me how she died. I have a feeling that Papa doesn’t know either.

We found and claimed some land, then we found out that some people, who were obviously not English, were on our land. So Papa got his shotgun and scared most of the people away. Some of them got really protective of their camp which was on our land and Papa shot them in the head. I screamed! I was a wreck, I was crying. I hate it, absolutely hate it when people die, even people I don’t really know. I just hate it!

I tried to run to them to see if they survived, but as it was most likely, they were dead. My hope didn’t prevail. I laid there so long, crying on my stomach, that Papa had to pick me up and carry me away.

We were cutting down some trees to build our house. Papa said it would take a couple of months, so we had to stay in the tents of those poor people whom Papa killed.

I suppose seeing what I saw made me think about Mama and I wondered about how she died. I just felt like interrogating Papa to find out how she died. We were in our house, I was warming up to the fire. Papa was feeding my brother that we still hadn’t named.
“Papa!” I said weakly, “Please tell me how Mama died, and tell me the truth please, I need to know.”
“Why?” Papa questioned me.
“Just because!” I replied. “Doesn’t anyone want to know how a relative dies?”
“It’s a sad story, but at one of the ports we stopped at she tried to run away with your brother. But the guards caught her and put her below deck in the lock up. They let your brother go. She died of malnutrition and they threw her overboard and didn’t tell anyone but me.”

It was such a shock for me I broke down and cried like she had just died then, right then, right in front of me.