A Child Of War

• Anna Ritchie, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2008

The days of war, the icky, cold feeling of dread in your cold veins. I remember this awful feeling of death and tears. I remember my father whispering “Mary-Anne I will be okay” but yet I did not understand the heartbreak I was in.
The thought of one horrible night still haunts me day and night, the nightmares, the tears but still that suffering night. Bombs being dropped ferociously, sirens everywhere and mother crying in the bomb shelter her hands trembling with the hurtful letter in her pale grip.
“Why you, why do you have to go”? I said faintly to Father. I hugged him. Tears running down my cold pale cheek, eyes full of water.
The train station was loaded with people; people weeping not only mothers, but young sad children gasping for air. Then at that sad moment I wondered, “Where are the fathers?” Two long dreaded days on the old train just made me more and more upset.
I jumped off the old rusty train and wondered if my father was jumping off logs and vines. Then to my surprise an old looking woman came up to me and grabbed my suitcase right out of my bony grip and said, “Mary-Anne Collins”.
The fire was so cosy to my pale hands, but not cosy enough. I could not help thinking about my father and at that point I had to find him.
It was pitch black as I walked out of the old rusty Manor. I had been walking for three hours until I reached the wharf and boarded the old rusty ship. The ship was old and in a mess. I sailed for weeks and weeks. Then the ship anchored with a sudden bump and I ran off at once.
I ran into the dark wet forest and there I looked. A man was lying there right at my feet and I realized it was a soldier. I turned the man over. He was still breathing, but I fell to the ground in pain as I saw who it was – my father, my father dying in my arms.