Henry Wang Hengle, Grade 8, BASIS International School Shenzhen

Chapter 5 The School

The dog and I were not walking for long when a small village came into view.

Proceeding forward on the road, I finally reached a long building thatched over with straw. I knocked on the great oak front door and a kindly-faced lady appeared. She had wrinkles on her face and several gray hairs streaking through the black, with an expression on her face that couldn’t have been warmer.

“Oh, come in please. We are just learning about Latin declensions and you can learn with us. And by the way, my name is Miss Jennings, and yours is...?”

“Jack,” I answered shortly and stammering. “I’m not here to l-l-learn, but I’m on a journey to find hope.”

“Well, if you are finding hope, education will be the perfect way. We can teach you all sorts of things to use in life. That will give you hope, I am sure of it.”

I joined the class that day and even though I didn’t understand a single bit, the feeling of listening to knowledge was wonderful. And therefore I stayed at the school for that day and the next day. It was all fine until the third day, when a big boy of around 16 came wondering up to me and said aggressively, “What is yer name?”

“Jack,” I replied feeling the uneasiness rising in my stomach.

“Well, Jack, Jacky, Jack. How er ya? Are yer a beggar fr’m the streets? Been havin’ enough food lately?” He laughed at his own joke noisily and I felt the color rising in my face. It was a feeling unparalleled by any feeling of misery that I had yet experienced along the way — the feeling of shame.

Tears had started to gather in my eyes, and I felt my eyes itching as I restrained to hold them back, not to show my weak side to the bully.

I walked away, and I didn’t say anything. I walked through the ancient arch. I walked through the great oak paneled front door, and I walked to the world outside.

The rain now streaking down through the dark and thundery sky, I moved up the hillside road without a sound. I walked on the muddy road that was becoming more and more unclear. I stopped suddenly; where was Sawyer?

But as I turned around my head, the dog also bounded into view. I was happy that I would have my companion at my side. But that instant of happiness quickly flickered away as the magnitude of the difficulty in front of me came into focus. Since I couldn’t and wouldn’t go back, there was no other choice but to go forward.

Chapter 6 The End

Things had changed so quickly, things had altered so much. It was now winter, the horrors of the Nebraskan winter presented to me outright in my difficult situation. The wind howled through the space between the trees and the relentless rain poured down on the canopy of leaves so that a roaring sound like that of a lion was always heard.