I Know

• Sienna Ashcroft, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

Life for me felt pretty normal I had a normal house even though my friends had bigger, nicer houses I always have food on my plate and I always have clean clothes. My life seems normal but I know it isn’t. I know my father’s secret, he has no money.

I know that when I go to school he tells me that he goes to work but I know he is begging for money. I know that the house we have is only because it was on my mother’s will before she died. I know that the only reason I have food on my plate is because he steals it. I know that my grandparents donated all of our clothes, and I know that I can help him if I could get some money.

I needed some help so I went to my teacher, she gave me an idea that I could use to help my dad. She helped me organize everything and even a few of my class mates helped. We organized a stand selling things to collect money, my teacher brought in some stuff to sell as well as me making some toys out of wool and felt. My classmates helped me run the stand and we all made posters and put them up around the town, and school.

My teacher gave me a letter to give to my dad and a few of my class mates came home with me to surprise my father. We waited for about ten minutes in till my dad came home. He threw him empty suitcase he used to beg and went to get changed so I wouldn’t see he is poor but before he left we all jumped out and surprise him. We explained everything I gave him the letter my teacher gave me and the $70 we raised. He opened the letter it said
Job interview at k-mart tomorrow at 3pm no experience needed
All welcome

My dad dropped the letter “thank you thank you all this means so much to me words can’t tell you how much this all means to me,” he started to tear up. Later that day we went shopping for a suit and he got a haircut. The next day dad went to his job interview. We got no reply, we had lost hope, but then two weeks later we got a call. It was the people from the job interview we looked at each other, then he answered the call and put it on speaker and then we listened closely and when we heard the lady say that dad got in we almost cried. Dad hugged me and said “I know times have been tough but I’m glad you have always seen the positive, from this day on, our lives are going to be so much better.” And they were.