Never Give Up

• Alexander Bills, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2013

This is a story about a homeless man named Ronald who fell on hard times.
Ronald was a successful business man, however his investments spread over lots of different areas. With the downturn of the market, Ronald lost all of his money and was forced to live on the street. He found himself in a position where he had to beg for money to be able to eat. It wasn’t uncommon for Ronald to be ignored or spat on as people thought he was a worthless man or a druggo. Ronald felt ashamed that he had been a successful business man, but hadn’t made the right choices financially to sustain his lifestyle. Every night, he found it extremely difficult to find a suitable place to sleep and unfortunately he’d have to share with other homeless people. He went most days without being able to have a morning routine such as having breakfast, brushing his teeth, having a shower and getting dressed for the day ahead of him. This really started to affect Ronald’s ability to function as a normal person and made him become depressed and lose his self-confidence.
Most nights, a group of teenagers would come up to him and gave him a hard time, but one night they took it a little bit too far, and in their pack mentality, they ended up bashing him. The next day, when people had started to go to work, a woman came up to him and saw the bruises all over his face, arms and legs. She asked him what had happened and he told her that a group of teenagers came up to him and bashed him up. The woman then called the Police and they came to investigate the incident. Also the Ambulance came and took Ronald to the hospital. Luckily, Ronald got a good look at two of the men’s faces and was able to thoroughly describe them to the police. Ronald was also able to tell the police where the men had run off too afterwards.
While Ronald was in hospital, Mark and Susan from the Salvation Army came and saw him and were able to give him emergency accommodation while he recovered from his injuries. They were also able to help him look for employment so that he could get himself back on his feet. Luckily, with lots of help from Mark and Susan, Ronald was able to go to a number of different interviews for all kinds of jobs, from office jobs, to labouring jobs. It was while he was looking at these jobs, Ronald realised that he wanted to be a plumber. Luckily, Mark had an old school friend that was a plumber, so he gave him a call and he said that he was actually looking for an apprentice. This was excellent for Ronald because he had a trade that he could always fall back on in hard times.
To Ronald’s credit, he was able to complete his apprenticeship and begin to start his own business as a plumber.