Keeping On

• Liam Grant, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2014

I found this journal. I found it yesterday. Just lying on the floor, seeming to be in near perfect condition. Pretty cool if you ask me. Also pretty weird, but I’ll accept God’s gifts as they come. I could never buy a book anyway, and I’ve always been quite passionate about stories and all that jazz. But I’ve never had anything to write on, nor anything to write with. All of our pencils were burnt down, along with my house-I guess I should explain.
I’m poor.
Very poor.
So poor that all our coin is all inside one small pouch.
And our struggle didn’t end. Our house got burnt down by our broken stove one night. Having to escape was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done in my life. But I’ve lived through that, so I’ll stay alive through poverty. But our house being burnt down isn’t why we’re poor now. You could hardly even call that a house anyway, it was more like a hut. We’ve been poor so long; I don’t even remember how we got like this. We, being my mum and I.
But we’ve been through so much now, I feel like we’ve been turned into totally different people than we were before. But what would I know? We’ve had no rest for a while-about a week and a half. I just want shelter and I want to sleep.
Ugh, mum’s telling me we have to get off the highway road.
I’ll write more in here tomorrow.

The sun is coming up after a long night. We have a little campfire a few miles away from the road we were on. We’re just trying to find some abandoned shelter or something. The city is no use to us anymore. Everything and I mean everything, costs money, or something else that we hold dearly, like our supplies. Even though we’re desperate, we can’t give up everything at once.
Anyway, we’re in the middle of nowhere with a low supply of food. My mum says that I’m very tall for a thirteen year-old. At least I think I’m thirteen, I’m kinda unsure. My birthday is sometime in July and its September now, so I always have to wait until after July, ‘till I can call myself older. We still keep track of the date and year and things like that, but somehow my birthday got forgotten. Don’t know how that works.
You might be wondering how I know how to read and write if I’m ‘poor’. Don’t know if anyone else will read this besides my mum, but I’ll explain anyway. My mum once upon a time, was a school teacher. We weren’t always poor, but I was real little when we had money. She taught me English very well, but other subjects like Math or Geography is all gibberish to me.
Anyway, we have to move again. Mum says that she remembers a settlement somewhere around here.
Guess we’ll find out, I’ll write more later.