Stuck in the 1800's | Teen Ink

Stuck in the 1800's

June 4, 2014
By Kyri7, Aston, Pennsylvania
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Kyri7, Aston, Pennsylvania
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Author's note: It's about being a slave so it's a little races. Though please don't find it offensive

The author's comments:
This is really just a short story, but thank you for reading!

This is really just a short story
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Sitting there her dark brown chocolate eyes they peaked from under her caramel colored eye lids.
"Grandma." I whispered
It was more to myself than her. I took her hand just like six years ago. When we walked across the street to the local candy store. This time there was no warmth in her hand, and there was no bustling cars on the busy streets. This time there was the heart monitor in the corner left of her bed. On the monitor was a straight long red line that became instantly apart of my nightmares. Sadly indeed of that sweet pretty white smile I had tears of sorrow leave a wet trail down my cheeks. I wanted her back, and I would do anything including making a stupid wish that would always regret.




The depressed thirteen year old Lucy Liles that was me. The tall skinny girl looking like a dull pencil. The weak kind of pencil one that could break at any moment. Yet Great Grandma Liles' death was enough to break me inside and out. She died out of the blue from a heart attack dying weakly in her hospital bed the next day. Next thing I knew I was stuck living with my dad at his uncomfortable home and his rude new wed wife Mary. If your wonder (at the time I was too) they got married with me. No notice nothing like I wasn't even here, and obviously I wasn't. After mom died at my birth I got handed off to my Great Grandma Liles. Which I was okay with since my father was never turkey interested in me. Now I had to live with him after 13 years of being without him.





It was a few weeks after a Grandma Liles depressing funeral. By then I was living with my dad, something I wasn't looking forward too. I sighed softly when dad told me it was time for dinner. I sat down and said my grace while dad and Mary gawked at me, like I just murdered someone. What did I do wrong? After I was finished I looked to see there on my white foamed plastic plate was a pepperoni pizza.
"I don't eat meat." I muttered
while Mary snickered she did it on purpose! I picked off the meat just to show her I could still eat my food. Though I wasn't to fond of pizza myself I forced down. Both of them watched my every move when I was done. Walking into the kitchen I felt their awkward stares burn tiny stares into my back, as I did the dishes. Hearing the warm water run from the tosses plow down into the sink. When I was done I turned the sink putting the fishes into the dishwasher. Suddenly the tense silence remaking without a word I ventured into my bedroom hearing their voices from my behind the closed bedroom door.
"We should just despise of her Jacob!" Mary hissed referring to my dad when she uttered his first name.
"She my daughter." Dad insisted I felt a proud smirk tug at my lips.
"Sadly." Mary added under breath.
"Let's just send her to some boarding school!" Mary suggested I could picture her excited smile.
"Maybe." Dad replied stretching out the word.
"I don't feel comfortable having her head anyway." Dad replied
That's when the tears came down.






I back away from the heavy door. My frail body funding it extremely hard to breath. The dark sorrow of tears plowing its way down. I need to see her face. I could only think of one thing. I scrambled to my feet their under my bed was the box. The hand carved wood reminding me of her, my sweet old grandma. It was extremely old you could tell from the light pink color already fading. The was a key on the front side the way to open it. I took off the silver chain necklace slowly at the end of the chair was a glimmering key. It's beauty giving me a second glance at my ugly reflection. My big puffy red eyes, and tear stained face looking back at me. I quickly ignored the feeling I was feeling at the pit of my stomach. Was it Nervousness? I thought it was be excitement. I ignored that too sticking the silver key carefully in the old box then slowly turning it. Seeing inside for the first time a few years. Their wax a picture of a grandma. As lullaby music softly echoed in the back ground of my room. I softly closed my eyes and whispered to myself nine words that I would soon regret.
"I wish I was reunited with Grandma Liles!"





Suddenly I was engulfed in a nice breeze. I jerked open my big brown eyes only to realize I was not in my room. I was standing in front of a Caucasian men smirking at the sight of me. While my hands were chained together with might iron cuffs. Dirty rags for clothes covered most of my body. Although I knew I had bigger problems than clothes. I knew that by there sickening smiles these men gave me. I was soon pulled off the wooden platform; my dirt covered feet shuffling along. Soon twelve other people across from me in the hay covered wagon. We sat there across from each other afraid to move afraid to touch each other. Their were what they considered adults. I knew now where I was. I was a slave in the eighteen hundreds!





The old wagon bumped over the poorly built cobble stone roads of town finally making it to the country we found it was an easier ride. With the smooth dirt gliding other the wooden wheels of the wagon, you could no longer hear the sounds of the chestnut brown horses clamping along the roads. Although their mighty nays still stand. The wagon letting me and the other slaves know we reached put destination. I closed my eyes bracing myself for what u was about to see. I slowly opened them giving me a heart breaking view of hunched over African America people working in the plantation. I recognized the plant, it was Indigo. Mean while the slaves bodies glistened in the blazing sun. The man who bought us soon let us get out of the wagon. Even though for a second I hadn't noticed I was still in there I guessed the rest of the slaves felt the same way judging by their disoriented facial expressions. The slaves soon got out bug I guess I took to long because the man from the auction climbed into the wagon and yanked me by my arm throwing at the ground only to fall face first. He muttered something unintelligent and preceded to assign everyone their jobs.
"Your work'n with my wife." He exclaimed
Then clamping his left hand on my skinny wrist he dragged himself to the fairly sized home. Inside their was a women who I guessed was he wife, who had looked appalled at the sight of me. Which made me look slowly at the ground ashamed by my appearance. With her dark brown hair firmly curled her body confined in a into beautiful dress. The man smirked and left leaving me with the stranger. I knew what brought me here. The music box and I had to get it back!





After work which consisted on chores the women---who preferred being called Mistress---showed me where I'd be sleeping for now on right after handing me some clothing. It was a tightly packed shed with toots hanging on the wall. It was connected to the house slaves, women, men, and what I considered children like me were tightly packed together sleeping on the cold earthy floor. I decided the ask a women if she knew my Grandma since I couldn't find Grandma Liles anywhere. I wished to be reunited with her so I was wondering naturally where she was.
"She slave?" she asked I nodded my head slightly. While the women cleared her throat whole heartily then started to speak.
"She messed up her chores on purpose always speaking of freedom, and how we should join her failed attempts. Mistress was always yelling at her finally Master sold her." Before I could ask she added "To where? I don't know." She replied. She spoke in her native tongue so I tried my best to figure it out.
"Do you know where a music box is?" I asked finally she looked at me confused.
"What's a music box?" she whispered.









I knew I had no chance of going back to my own time period. I couldn't do anything without the Music Box. I sighed and started to clean Mistress' bed room. Something pink and shiny glimmered behind her dresser I'd picked up the box all shimmering and new. I picked it up holding out before me I closed my eyes, but before I could make the width he box was snatched from my hands.
"How dare you steel from me!" Mistress hissed
"I-I didn't!" I stuttered nervously
"Liar!" She exclaimed as my eyes began to water.




Her hand whipped across my face making it sharply turn to the right. It was burning but I pressed my fingers to the newly formed bruise that lay there. It sent me I instant pain that I tried to ignore. I was failing miserably to try and keep my cool. Knowing what would happen if I showed any type of anger that burned inside of me. Will power forced me to stop the pathetic sobs that threaten to escape my lips. She smirks at me only letting me know there was more to what I was about to face.
"What's important about this box anyway?" She taunted much like a school bully.
She let g of the box having it smash into the ground. All the parts scattered across the wooden floor boards. My last hope was gone, and I was stuck here.




I don't want to speak of what happened next when Master returned from town that day. Since the lengthy jagged scars on my back say it all. So that night in the corner of the dirty wooden shack I laid with my hair hanging low. I was tinkering with my fingers to get the Music Box to work even if it was hopeless. Only to hide it the next day in the floor boards Mistress' room. When dawn creeps up on me the rest of the slaves stand up some limping with small grunts and groans. Though tears slide down my cheek I quickly wipe it away I don't want them to see me cry. I've done enough crying. So I look up with my head held high and start work.





I've been here in the eighteen hundreds for about three years. Though nothing is the same as it was before. I couldn't stay at the plantation I was at even if I wanted too. I was sold off once again treated like property though it was far worst. Yet that's a story for another time. Though I was sold because Mistress found me with the Music Box one day. Still I try to explain my reasons for doing so, and was called mad. She was also surprised of my English, and how it kind of resembled hers when I was suppose to be a slave. I told her I had learned English from my old master which she believed but the rest went in one ear, and out the other. She had enough of me, and so did her husband. I could blame the music box but I choose to blame myself. I should have talking to him and Mary myself about everything. Maybe we could have gotten along but instead I should have been ignoring the possibility I wish to go back it I could I would. Yet I can't now there's nothing I can do about it.



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