Life On The First Fleet As A Convict

• Rio Sato, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2018

Dear Diary
It’s the 13th of May,1787, the 3rd week of this journey. I feel like I’m going to vomit onto 8years old Eliza,the girl who has been sent 7 years transportation for stealing 1 small loaf of bread to share with her family. I know she feels lonely. But to be honest,I kind of do feel the same. It feels like you’re the only fish in the ocean. That is until this morning...

No one can find fine jobs around London anymore because of the industrial revolution, which had made every life in London poor. Everyone is poverty,even the families live in a castle-like house who were once hugely rich. Their daily routine is to be walking around and looking at the only thing in the world: brown grass.

The way I got transported away from my dear family is because of light-fingering. In my employer’s chimney, who had been once rich, I saw some rosy-golden buttons on his desk with a tiring, upside-down pose. I knew that they were just sitting there waiting to be taken from me,so I did it. I took them. But then,an awful situation had arisen. My plump master came in like a squirrel after doing an acorn eating race, and seemed to be stalking me.

I tried to escape,it was no use though. My commander called the cops. They took me loving heart that was dwelling with fear away from the beautiful buttons. I felt they were smirking at me so gave a few last kicks and punches at them until one of the sniggering cops grabbed the scruff of my neck and half dragged me out of the room. Jail. So now, I’m in this derylict ship, The Lady Penrhyn, getting nowhere near the Great South Land:the place we’re heading to.

No one has any energy in The Lady Penrhyn,it’s really difficult to breath. One girl,I would say about 14 years old, is crying against a wall calling for he beloved mother (still in London). We are all all hoarded into cabin, approximately 1.8 metres square, that means we all have to crouch with the gloomy atmosphere. But it’s changed for me now. Happy emotions filled the air when I found a rusty pick lock that I washed, leading to a soldier ‘s room. That’s how I am writing with a pencil and paper which were discovered promptly. I am just going to creep slyly here everyday at this time when the soldier is out eating his breakfast. I will be writing a lot. It looks like writing a diary will change my journey to the land of horrendous. See you tomorrow!
The end