Heart

• Eesha Sonje, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2014

Cassandra didn’t know what to do. She got teased each and every day and she didn’t have any friends. People made fun of her all the time. Her parents had died in a car crash and she didn’t have any relatives or people who would look after her. So here she is at this rotten old orphanage with mean Mrs Craytenburg. ‘All I have is a diary that I got for my birthday and an old heart necklace that had once belonged to my mother. I don’t know who killed my parents’ said Cassandra to Belle, a budgie who is her only companion. ‘Cassandra, come do your chores!’ shouted Mrs Craytenburg. ‘Ok bye Belle, got to run’ Cassandra groaned.
After doing a lot of chores, Cassandra went back to her dormitory. When school would start again tomorrow, she would get teased again for being alone. ‘Well goodnight belle’ whispered Cassandra. Now she was alone for the rest of the night. None of the other children wanted to be in the same dormitory as her, as they thought she was weird. She put her mother’s necklace under her dirty pillow.
She had a spectacular dream. Her parents had somehow come back to life when she visited their graves. Then she saw her mother’s necklace hovering in the air. Then she woke up suddenly. ‘Mum, Dad?’ asked Cassandra. She thought her dream had come true. But it hadn’t. She was still in the orphanage, still her old self.
Cassandra waited for the Christmas holidays so she could go to the graveyard. Meanwhile, she tried to find as much as information as she could about her parents and what happened before they died- or if they died. She still wasn’t sure if her parents had actually died.
Finally, when the Christmas holidays came, she and Belle went to the graveyard. When they got there they looked everywhere for her parent’s graves. Finally, they found Cassandra’s mother’s grave. Carved on it were the letters HEART. She pulled out the heart necklace that she was wearing and inserted it into a hole that was in the shape of a heart. The grave opened and the ghost of her mother came out. Cassandra was shocked. She almost fainted. She hadn’t ever seen anything like it. ‘M-mum?’ stammered Cassandra. ‘It’s me, your mother darling.’ said her mother, soothingly. ‘Please leave this necklace here, it was from Egypt, and it will release my soul, allowing me to go to the afterlife’ continued her mother.’ B-b-but what about me?’ questioned Cassandra, blankly. ‘Don’t worry, I really love you, but this is best for you’. Replied her mother. ‘Bye’ said her mother, full of tears.
So then Cassandra went back to having a completely normal life with Mrs Craytenburg, who retired after a few years and was replaced by a really nice person, Mrs Jenny. Everyone heard Cassandra’s story and she had many friends and was never teased again. She had a happy life after that, with her sweet children.