The Saviour

• Isabelle Pearson, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2019

One day on the lovely streets of Waikiki Hawaii, there lived a homeless man. He sits on a dirty step outside a shirt shop. His hair ruffled, clothes dirty and he smells of sea water.
He had a piece of cardboard with big writing in texta sitting in his lap which said, ‘Please help me, I need money, clothes and food’. Some boys passing by were gawking at the man and sign and said, “Hahaha, why would anyone would help you when you look like that!”
A little girl was watching from across the street. She heard all the laughter and ran to find her parents.
“Mum, Dad, I saw some boys teasing a homeless man, and I’d like to help him,” she said compassionately. She told them how upset he looked when the kids were teasing him. Her Father gave her some money and was happy for her to give it to the homeless man.
The little girl walked up to the homeless man and said, “Excuse me, I’d like to give you this.” She held out her hand full of coins.
“Thank you my dear, I’ll buy some dinner with this,” he said with a tear in his eye.
“Have you always been homeless?” the little girl asked inquisitively.
“I haven’t always been homeless,” he started, “In fact until about 10 years ago, I had a lovely house in Honolulu!”
“Oh, what happened,” questioned the little girl.
“Well I was married to a beautiful lady,” the homeless man began, “And she got sick and needed to go the hospital. She needed surgery, and medicine that cost a lot of money!” he explained.
“This continued for about 2 years and we ended up having to sell our house to pay for her hospital bills. She got sicker and sicker every day and eventually died. It was the saddest day of my life,” he said weeping. “I have no family, my parents both passed away and my brother died when we were young,” he said despairingly.
The little girl wiped her tears away and said, “Wait here, I have an idea!” She bolted across the street to her apartment. She found a big piece of cardboard and wrote on it, ‘Please HELP this man, his wife died 10 years ago and he has no family. He is a good man and we need to take care of him.’
When the little girl returned to the homeless man, she sat next to him and held her sign. The homeless man shed a tear.
That day, they made $30. The homeless man was able to buy dinner and new clothes. The next day, she sat with him again and they made $50. This continued for the rest of the week.
He soon had enough money to rent a house and someone even offered him a job at the local ABC store. The homeless man declared the little girl his saviour.
They were friends for life.