The+Runaway+Girl

by Niveditha School: International Community School of Abidjan Age:13
I was sitting and enjoying a meal at the Chinese Restaurant. The fortune cookie started to scare me. But it was true. “Runaway from this village and never come back. Don’t tell this to anyone and if you, you won’t to see the next day.” The next minute I went home and packed my bags. I ran away from this country ditching everyone when I was only 13. By everyone I mean the ones I loved and cared. I was no Chinese to believe in fortune cookies but something about that fortune reminded me of a nightmare I had when I was a little. Let me tell you all about it in a short song. “I was walking alone in this street Looking at the houses that were burning down With all the memories Fainting away like they never existed I was scared to hear the people screaming The children crying Everyone panicking This is the time for the weirdest things of your life What you are going to discover What you are going to loose Thinking about it will make us feel worse” Well what you think about it. Explains a lot. But it’s really scary. You won’t believe what happened next. Immediately I fled away from home, there was a huge fire from the rainforest nearby. Many people died, some fled like me but I have no clue what happened to the rest. My parents, my brothers, uncles, aunty, grandparents and cousins. But I had a choice to make. Well now my life is going on pretty well. I am 15 now. When I first came here 2 years ago some people took me straight to an orphanage in India. After rotting there for a few weeks and writing sad songs in a corner, a family adopted me. It was a family of a rich singer-songwriter wife and an actor husband. They took me from India straight to New York where I met their other 3 kids. All of them were boys. Me as an only girl. Well those people gave me the the hugest room I have ever seen in a huge bungalow. They invited me very warmly. 3 boys ages- 13, 11 and 15. Luckily I wasn’t the smallest one unlike in my family where they treat the smallest one as a loser. They give them a lot of hand me downs and no love or respect. The younger ones never get to go to school in my village in India. I thought my life was going to be over as those 3 boys while bully me and tease me for my accent and the way I look. But I was totally wrong. The treated me like their own sister. Teasing me when they can but having a lot of fun and laughter around. The house was really nice. First they took me shopping to a very huge mall. They told me I could choose whatever I want. That was the first time I got new clothes. I was really happy though they were surprised to see I was a tomboy and I preferred boy’s clothes. They said that liked my style as it was different. I liked their family a lot. It was very lively. Every night all of us have fun and eat in the dinner table. They are the best people I have ever met. Soon I forgot about the fortune cookie, I am adopted and I left my parents alone. I used to have so much fun. Play games with my brothers, go to an awesome school and just have fun. Until I turned 14. I saw that me and one of my brothers have the same birth date. That was totally weird for me. But until I saw the birth time. Our class was going on a field trip to London and they wanted to see our birth certificates. My bro was sick so he told me to take it for him. When I opened I saw that he was 10 minutes older to me and we have the same last name. There is no first name. I was really shocked to what I discovered. When I went home I told my bro about the discovery I made. He was as shocked as me. So when only both of us were at home, we went up to the attic and started finding clues. We found an old photo album, a camera roll which was not developed and an old secret diary with a lock in it. I took all those things we found down do my room. Next we went to the basement. The basement was really huge. We thought it will take days to look through it. So we decided to look one part one day. We took the first side with 2 huge brown boxes. But by the time we could look through the contents our parents came with our brothers. So we had to go up. For the next few days we were really busy as me and my bro were travelling to London. For a few days we forgot about all this until we came back from London. I went into my room and I remembered about the diary, pictures and the camera roll. I called my bro to my room and told him we will go to the basement at night. He asked me what time and I told me we will go at 12 am as that the time when everyone will be asleep. We had dinner very quickly and started planning what we need to take. This what I wrote on a piece of paper- I set the alarm to 11:45 so that I can get ready with all the things before g0ing to the basement at midnight. We went down exactly when the clock struck 12. It was scary and dark. We could hear weird noises but we tried our best to be brave. We found a box. We carried it to my room. We closed the door, turned on the lights and started looking through stuff. First we tried opening the diary but it was unsuccessful. Then we tried looking through the pictures. They were kind of old and a little hard to see. We though we will hold on to it. They we though tomorrow we will go develop the camera to see the pics in it. Following that we opened the box. It was super scary as it had some stuff no would imagine. It had some weird mask with glowy eyes and a video camera. We took the video camera and kept it under the box were we kept all the other things. We wrapped up and finished around 1 a.m. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">The next day was a holiday and a concert. I went to the concert acting as if I was really happy and excited. But, inside I was feeling all weird and angry. I mean what if my adopted parents where my true parents. What will I do? What will happen to me? I might die…. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">But something happened at the concert that changed my life. I met my parents who I stayed with in India. It was scary. I just wore a hat and shades so that they would not recognize me. But apparently they did. I was shocked how did they survive but I didn’t want to go back to my village where they are so superstitious. Live here is better though occasionally I miss my sisters and parents. My parents were shocked to see I was there adopted. They had a huge conversation with my adopted parents and they told me that I should return back with them to India. I didn’t want to do that. Though I missed my country a lot, I liked this life better. In India, we could hardly go through our normal life with someone crying or dying. It was really sad. I think this was only in my village but I don’t know what. I wasn’t exactly an Indian myself. I have a blondish brown hair and we were not living in India. We were living on the outskirts of India, along the borders in the east. This place doesn’t exist on the map. No-one knows about this village. It’s a nobody. No offence to the village. Well now my parents wanted me to come back there with them. They said they came here as they heard a girl looking like me had been adopted and taken to New York. I didn’t want to go back. How do I tell my parents this? I ran away from that play and went to the car. My oldest brother-Jaan and my kind of twin brother-Jake came running behind me. When they saw me going into the car crying, they stopped me and asked me what was up. I told them the WHOLE TRUTH even my ability to write songs and rap. They were super shocked they didn’t believe me. I showed them a song I wrote and sang it to them. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Looking at you makes my heartbeat in a different way <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Very hard to express and harder to tell <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Looking at you makes wanna die <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I can’t live without you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Cuz baby you are mine forever and ever and ever <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I can’t survive without you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">In this cruel world <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">But I am going to take my chances <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Yeah baby you won’t understand this <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">But you are going to with me  <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">No matter how hard you try to break free <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I am going to hold you here forever and ever and ever <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I know you wanna be here <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">And I know I wanna be with you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">The answer I got was a clap from three of my brothers. Super shocked. They said they loved it and were angry with me for not telling this to them. I had no clue what to say except for blush. My 2 sets of parents’ game. Now, my mom forced me to come to India with her and she told me I had no choice. They forced me to go with them. I cried as hard as I could so they could see that I was sad to go away from New York. They didn’t listen to me one bit. Forced me and started calling me names in Hindi. I know sounds weird. Not Indian but still know Hindi. Not weird for our village. People only speak Hindi there. No-one knows English. I learned English only after coming here. Though I knew a little bit. My parents took me away with them. We landed in India and then to a bullock cart to go to my village. When I went there, I saw the whole village changed. It was worse than what it was at that time. New people came in as they were a war going on in our neighboring country. It was crowded and more and more people were begging. The air was thick with the smell of sickness. It was a very sad site for a human eye. I lived there for 1 month. I still wrote songs. A lot of them. But everything turned to be really really sad. Like this one- <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I thought I meant something to you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">You never told me what you knew <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Lettin’ me find out on my own <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I never got this without you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I need a new life <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">To start from the beginning <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Cuz baby you were something to me  <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I just turned out be free <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Making me happy and making cry <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Yeah, I just wanna be myself <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">When I am round you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I go crazy seeing you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I go crazy looking at you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I go crazyyyyy <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Looking at you <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I imagine us together again <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Together again <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I go uphill and I go down <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I try stay original <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I just wanna stay <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">I just wanna be myself <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Trying hard to be me  <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">But no-one cares <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Yeah us together, trust forever <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> This is one of my rap songs. Supposed to be like a love song but now it’s about New York. Love for a place. I didn’t know what to do. I cried every night remembering of my parents and my brothers but that was all a dream. A dream which will never last forever. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">2 months later……… <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> At last I reached the place where I belong and found out a lot about my family. Something which I never knew about myself. My life like a diamond right now. And nothing can happen to change it. Oh I wish I didn’t just jinx that. It turned out that my adopted parents in New York were my real parents. And I have a twin brother and 1 older brother and 1 younger brother. My life I perfect. And that doesn’t mean I left my adopted parents in that village. They are living in New Delhi, the capital of India. My dad got a job there. This turned out to be really good. Now let me show you a flashback of what happened. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">2 months ago……… <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I was crying as usual at 10 pm in the night and my mom caught me. She started talking in Hindi and asked me what and happened and why am I crying. I replied her back in broken in Hindi. She said that tomorrow is my birthday and that she has the biggest surprise of my life. I thought nothing about it and just went to sleep. The next morning the whole village wished me a happy birthday and my mom said the surprise was on its way and I should close my eyes. When I saw my surprise I screamed. Not because I was sad or angry, just because I was really really happy. The surprise was my adopted parents and brothers coming to visit me. My mom told me though this is my birthday, I think your old enough to know this. My adopted mom but a hand around me and told. I was her real mother and those were my real brothers. The color of happened drained from my face. I was angry and mad and sad and happy. I screamed at them at the top of my voice telling them this is not the way my 15th birthday should go. But I also owned up about me and my bro searching for clues. Well even my bro didn’t know this though his reaction was more calmer than mine.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">1. Diary
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">2. Camera roll
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">3. Laptop
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">4. Picture book
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">5. Flashlight
 * 6) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">6. Key to the basement