Alone

Nothing. Empty. Deserted. These words popped to mind when you saw the blank streets of London on that day, only one little person, Sophie scared out of her skin at the deathly silence. Usually the marketplace was bustling with life, everybody trying to get the best deals, but on that day, it was different, nobody was there…

Sophie heard the silent whimper of a child; she tried to find it but it kept moving further away.

“Hello…is anybody there?” shouted Sophie into thin air, she thought no-one would answer, or would they? Suddenly a hand grabbed Sophie’s arm.

”Yes, I am!” the male spoke boldly. A sharp gasp of breath was in taken by Sophie, she panicked. The tall dark figure towered above her. “You were easy to catch,” he said boldly.

The figure pulled out a recorder from his deep pocket; the whimper of the child, the one Sophie heard before, repeated several times on the machine.  She tried to escape from the clutches of the man behind her, but it was useless. All of a sudden, the figure’s phone rang.

“Yeah, I’ve got her. Come to the corner shop. Okay. Bye.”

Minutes later a van, uncontrollably, skidded around the corner, the back doors open, ready for Sophie to be thrown in. The man, who was now sweating, hauled Sophie into his arms and threw her into the back of the dusty van. Her arm gave a bone-crunching crack; she let out a piercing scream.

“Shut up,” a voice came from the front, but this one was unlike the voice of the bold man from before - this one was more of a sharp tone. Sophie sat in silence, not knowing what was around the corner for her…

It seemed like hours before the van grinded to a halt, Sophie was asleep, head between her knees.

“Out. NOW!” the voice pulled firmly at her arm, she tumbled to her feet and stood awkwardly in front of the broad man. This was not the man she had met first but, possibly, the man from the front of the large van. Sophie looked wearily around her.

“This is worse than London,” she mumbled to herself.

The terrain that she was in now was just a rocky road and a few mountains on the border of the remote area. She noticed more and more children being thrown out of other vans, each one with tears in their eyes, streaming down their cheeks and into the dirty sand below them.

Meanwhile back in London, more and more children were going missing, although no-one knew. Somehow Sophie knew this was the end, the end of her normal life… she dashed over to a small child about 4-5 years old to comfort them.

“It’s okay, you’ll be alright.” Sophie told the small child, trying to comfort herself as well.

The little boy looked up at Sophie, his sky blue eyes meeting her emerald green ones. Sophie thought the blonde haired boy could not speak, to her surprise he whispered the words, “Thank you” into her ear,

“We’re going to get out of here, trust me,” she replied…

After that, Sophie had a mission; a mission to get Troy, the boy with the beautiful sky blue eyes, home…to Liverpool; everyone said it was impossible, but Troy and Sophie didn’t. Each day they monitored the times that the men came into the cramped rooms and found the results were that they came in every five hours, which was, in their mind, enough time to escape from this prison. The next morning they were up bright and early, packing what little they had. Gingerly they stepped over the arms and legs of other people, being careful not to make a sound. As they reached a creaky door, so far their luck had been at the best point, was it about to end?  Fortunately the door, for once, did not creak; they took a deep sigh of relief. There was a rumble from the other side of the room, one of the twenty children in the room had rolled over and opened his eyes. Quickly Troy jumped on to Sophie’s back and they sprinted out the door towards the distant mountains.

The next few days were a mist of excitement and fear. Sophie noticed that Troy seemed to grow up a little; he started to act like Sophie in many ways, such as: he never had any fun anymore, he helped Sophie in hunting and fishing in the nearby river, and he would keep watch at night while Sophie slept.

Finally, after about two weeks, they found a small town close to Liverpool; they knew this because of a map in the town. Then she both remembered something, if there weren’t any adults in London, why were there adults here? They also remembered that they had no money to buy what they needed the most, food, so they started to stare in the direction of the bulging bins; they jogged over to the bins in hope that they could find some edible food.

Stuffing their faces with the delicious food that they found, they feasted on the chicken breast and two thick slices of white bread, but being careful to save enough for next time. Sophie picked upTroy, who was now asleep, and started to once again walk into the forest. About an hour later, Troy awoke from his sleep and quickly jumped up and sprinted further into the forest.

“SLOW DOWN!” Sophie shouted at him, “COME BACK!” she repeated.

Obediently Troy returned, “Sorry I had a dream that Liverpool was coming up and my mum was there, so I tried to see if it was there.” 

Then, just then, they heard the sound of several cars ahead. Sophie threw Troy onto her back and she quickly climbed a branch on a tree to see more clearly. Up ahead she spotted a city, “Could this be Liverpool?” she thought. Troy instinctively looked at her as if they were thinking the same thing. Carefully they climbed down the rugged tree, Sophie helping Troy, and ran towards the sound of the cars.

Eventually they got to an open road, just across the bridge was Liverpool; they finally got there. Sophie and Troy stood in awe, gazing at the bridge, inside of them was a cauldron full of excitement, relief and guilt (they were guilty because they left all those poor children in that awful prison) but they were here. Dashing quickly Sophie grabbed Troy’s hand and they ran over the bridge to safety, but would they be safe?

Suddenly trepidation set in, “What have we done? Why did we do that?! It was a ridiculous idea!” Sophie looked around her fearfully; like someone, or something, was watching her, but they were already over thirty miles, at least, from the prison. There was no turning back now. Walking deeper into Liverpool Troy noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

“Mum? MUM!” he shouted, he dashed towards her. The figure opened her arms and he jumped into them with such force that she toppled to the side. Meanwhile Sophie watched them closely; she knew that she would not have a family like that. Troy looked behind him and saw Sophie. He jumped out of his mother’s arms and ran towards her.

“You’ll always be family,” he whispered into her ear as he had done when he first met her. Then he ran over to his mother and asked quietly so Sophie could not hear, “Can Sophie be my sister? Please!”

“Of course darling,” she replied, her golden locks flowing over her shoulders as she bent down. While Troy told Sophie the news, their mother was about to burst with happiness. After that Sophie lived a blissful life in Liverpool with Troy and her mother, never to return to the awful prison or London again.

By Jayme (Yr6) -who wrote this at home