Princess

I wake up in the left side of my bed trying to reach lily for warmth but when I stretch my hand to feel her head I only feel a soft pillow. She must be awake getting ready to go to school. Lily is my sister, she is twelve years old and I love her so much. She is very skinny, and she has long blonde hair, deep blue eyes. she doesn’t look like me, because I have long brown hair, honey brown eyes, and tan skin. We live with our grandmother because our parents died in a car accident.

As I stand up to open a drawer to pick my clothes for school I hit my toe with my bedside table. I don’t own that much clothing because we are poor, we are barely surviving with the money my grandmother and I make. My grandmother works in sewing dresses and stuff that has been ripped apart. I work as a waitress and in cleaning houses. When I am done dressing I check myself in the mirror, I am wearing a simple white shirt and ripped jeans with old sneakers.

“Lizzy, I am hungry!” Lily’s voice comes from the kitchen.

“Wait a minute lily, I am cleaning our room! Grammy left early for work so she couldn’t clean it up!”

While I make my bed and my grandmother’s, I sing a lullaby my Grammy used to sing to me. I sweep the floor and clean the little furniture we have. In our room there is only two beds, two bedside tables and a chair where I put my back pack on. Lily is reading a book when I come out of the room.

“Hey Lily, what do you want to eat today? Scrambled eggs or cereal?” I ask.

“Cereal please, we ate scrambled eggs yesterday!” Lily says.

The cereal box that is on a counter was there two months ago, but we can't throw food away, not in this condition anyway. We only have two bowls and two plates in our kitchen so I take out the two bowls from a drawer, and fill them with cereal and milk. We eat in the living room since we don’t have a table.

“Are you going to walk me to school Lizzy?” Lily asks.

“Yeah sure, grab your back pack because it’s time,” I say.

After I drop Lily off in school I am going to Upper Lake High school. That is where I study, they only accepted me there because I am smart, if I weren’t smart I wouldn’t have been able to get in to that school because of money.

Lily and I walk out the door and walk five miles to her school.

“Bye Lizzy, I will walk home alone after school because today is early release day here,” Lily says once we get to her school.

“Are you sure Lily? I can ask permission to leave school early so I can pick you up,” I say.

“No, it’s fine,” Lily gives me a kiss in the cheek and walks away.

Ugh! I have to walk another five miles to get to my school. I am normally not lazy, so I don't know what is happening to me.

When I get to school Maritza comes up to me and asks, “Hey Elizabeth! Can you stay after school today so you can help me with my math?”

“Sorry Maritza I can’t, I have to work today!” I say and go to my English class.

Maritza is a very friendly girl. She has blonde hair, blue eyes and freckles. She is very pretty, in fact she was the first one to befriend me. When I enter class I notice that my English teacher is about to start class so I go quickly to my seat.

“Today you are going to keep writing the essay showing how Fredrick Douglass suffered in slavery, and how brave he was during those times. Get to work everyone!” Mr.Johnson says.

Mr. Johnson is a very nice teacher, he dresses very fancy for work and he helps everyone who needs help. He used to give me writing lessons during lunch with other girls and boys in my grade. Once he saw that I didn’t need them anymore he let me go to eat in the lunch room.

In my writers notebook I start writing the conclusion for this essay, since I'm already done with all the other paragraphs.

In conclusion Fredrick Douglass was very brave in starting an escape plan for him and for the other slaves to be free. He did not let anything stop him even though a slave

I couldn’t keep writing because I was interrupted.

“MS. ELIZABETH, PLEASE REPORT TO THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE, MS. ELIZABETH PLEASE REPORT TO THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE, THANK YOU!” the principal’s voice came from the microphone in the ceiling.

What did I do? I think as I stand up and walk out the door to the office. When I get there the principal’s face looks sad. Uh oh, what happened now?

“You wanted to see me?” I ask nervously.

“Yes. Your grandmother’s boss called and said that... that your grandmother passed away while working, I am so sorry,” the principal said.

“What do you mean passed away?” I ask.

“She... she died Elizabeth, I am sorry.”

I sit down on a sofa and stare at the floor. What the principal said is very hard to get through my head but it finally does. My sight becomes blurry and I feel my cheeks get wet. How? Maybe the principal is lying to see how I react? But I know better, she isn’t lying about anything.

“You should go home with your sister, she has already been informed,” the principal says.

I nod and walk out of the room to English class. It can’t be, I think, She can’t be dead! My Grammy can’t be dead! When I pick up my stuff, I walk out the door.

“Elizabeth, what are you doing? we are in the middle of class!” Mr. Johnson’s voice comes out of the room. I go back in and tell him that I was excused from class for a reason.

As I walk all the way to my house I am crying, I even trip once because I couldn’t see well. When I open the door of my house I hear sobs. Lily’s sobs.

“Lily?”

She comes up to me and hugs me. She is sobbing so hard I can’t help but sob even more. Did she walk all the way from school to home in this condition?

“This can’t be true Lizzy, Grams can’t be dead, she is not d-dead!” Lily says gasping for breath.

“I am sorry Lily, she is, I am s-sorry!” I say.

We sob for several hours until we can’t anymore. My eyes feel sore for so much weeping, all I want to do now is sleep.

“Come on Lily let’s go to sleep,” I say.

“Okay, but Lizzy where is Grams’s body?” Lily asks.

“Maybe her boss has it, I don’t know, but I bet we’ll get it tomorrow.”

As soon as we lay down we fall asleep. Usually when something very bad happens I have happy dreams, but today I am dreaming of something very scary. It’s about my Grammy. She comes out of the grave yard, very dirty and bloody and she is hunting me down through all Saskaria. Saskaria is the name of this kingdom, queen Alice and king Sebastian are very nice governors of the kingdom. Anyway, my Grammy is hunting me down and finally she catches me and says it’s my fault she died and that now I have to pay for it.

I sit up very fast looking around for any scary grandmothers, but there aren't any. I start to relax. When I am about to lay down again I hear a beeping sound. beep, beep, beep, beep. I get out of bed and go to the living room.

“Hello?” I call.

No answer.

I am starting to get scared, then I notice the phone is the thing that is beeping.We have an old fashioned phone, because we can't afford to get the new ones. But all of the phones have the same sound. The person that is calling is my Grammy’s boss. I quickly pick it up.

“hello,” I say.

“Hi, is this Elizabeth Roberts?” The boss asks.

“Yes.”

“Oh okay, my name is Martha, sorry to call so late but I just wanted to tell you that my workers and I are making a funeral for your grandmother, she was the best lady I ever met.”

“Thanks, how did she die?” I ask barely audible.

“She had a heart attack, one of my workers was being silly scaring everyone and when he scared your grandmother, she... she died, but don’t worry the worker is already in jail, are you coming to the funeral?”

“Of course, when and where is it?”

“It’s tomorrow in western village park. eleven a.m”

“Okay, t-thank you.”

“You’re welcome my dear.”

When I hang up tears start rolling down my cheeks. oh my god! so she really is gone then? I think. When I stop sobbing I don’t go back to sleep. I clean our little bathroom, our little kitchen, and our little living room. I'll clean the bedroom later because Lily is still asleep. By the time I am done It’s six in the morning, so I take a shower and I put on a black shirt, white pants and shoes.

I sit in the sofa with my knees to my chest. I sigh and start drawing roses in my notebook, just waiting for Lily to wake up and for the funeral to come.