The journey of Hope

I am sorry I haven't been writing on this blog for a while, I have been busy with college. 5 years ago  I started writing a book as a hobby, however I forgot about it for 4 years until now. I will appreciate any comments to help, thank you.

Chapter 1-Something weird Is going on

Hope Smithleton, a ten year old girl, was considered different from everyone else. She was always described as slow minded by everyone who knew her, including most of her school teachers; of course they did not say to her face. She was always in the lower class at school, no matter how hard she tried; she just could not understand the work like the other pupils could. This led to Hope feeling depressed and feeling self-conscience, as she just wanted to make her parents proud of her, and to find an ambition.

Her parents, called Freya and Jack Smithleton, made her go to Kingsthorne Primary School. It was just a normal typical school, with light blue gates that you had to go through and out every day to get into the school, and most likely at these gates you would see parents having a chat, or children kicking and screaming to get home. In the school playground there was loads of equipment, such as a big train, which had loads of games to keep the children entertained, but what the children loved most of all was the big red horn on the train. When the children could see a teacher was busy they would  keep pressing the horn, which once resulted in the teacher getting a shock of her life and she toppled backwards revealing her underwear, she quit her job straight after; while commenting on how uncontrollable the children were.

The inside of the school was very colourful and all the walls had pieces of work that all the previous and current students had done, of course none of Hopes work was found anywhere, as her work ‘was not good enough; the walls were known as the walls of fame.

The headmistress of Kingsthorne was Mrs Ager. She had curly ginger hair, and she was always smiling, and had a good taste in clothing. Mrs Ager understood Hope more than the other teachers did, she believed that every person has potential in life, some just take longer than others to find what that is. In fact if it was not for Mrs Ager, Hope would have probably been kicked out the school ages ago. She admired her head teacher for giving her chance after chance. Hope always got sent to the headmistress’s room, if not twice a day, then at least every day by her teachers, for not paying attention, or having an argument with another pupil, because she used to always defend herself, no matter how hard it was for her.

She always dreaded the end of the year when her parents got her school year report; it always said something like:

Dear Mr and Mrs Smithleton,

I would very much appreciate it if you could come to the school on Wednesday 11^th July, at 4:00 so we can discuss your daughter’s progress, as there seems to be some concern, if you can’t make this meeting, please ring up the school with the number printed at the bottom of this letter.                    

Kind regards Head Teacher Mrs A. Ager.”

When Hopes parents came back from all the meetings, they were usually stressed and angry, and they took their anger out on Hope. “How come you can’t be like your sister, why can’t you just work harder, instead of starting arguments with other pupils,” Shouted Hopes Mother after coming back from yet another meeting. “They are thinking of expelling you, the amount of times you have been sent to the headmistress’s office, I have lost count” commented Hopes Mother.

Hope definitely did not act like her fifteen year old sister Nicole, and she certainly looked nothing like her. Her sister had brown, thin, mid length hair and brown eyes, and was very tall for her age, and she had very good hearing, perhaps the reason for this is because Nicole was always on the phone. Nicole looked a lot like their dad, Hope always heard people saying this to her when they went to visit a family member or to visit some friends. Hope on the other hand looked more like their mother, with long silvery thick hair and bright big sky blue eyes, and fair clear perfect skin, and was always being criticized about something; such as ‘You need to gain more weight’ or ‘you look ill.’

However what made Hope different from everyone else was not her looks, or the way she acted, it was because she had something called turner syndrome, which made Hope smaller than most people. Hope did not like being small, but people always told her “Having turner syndrome does not make you much different from everyone else, it makes you special, only 1 in 2,000 people have this, you don’t want to be tall do you, at least when you are a bit older you can wear high heels and not look silly.”

Despite being called slow minded and being sent to the teachers office every day, Hope enjoyed spending time with the friends she had at school, and most importantly she loved the adventures her and her friends pretended to have at break time.           

Hopes favourite adventure was pirates, where her and her friends pretended to be pirates and find the lost treasure, which involved them using conkers that fell onto the ground from the conker tree on the way to the swimming baths for lessons every Monday, and using the train with the big red horn as their ship. They had different adventures every day until the bell went for the end of lunch. Little did Hope know that all this was about to change, this is where the story truly begins.

One day Hope was waiting in reception for her mother to pick her up, she was half an hour late, and she had never been late to pick her up before, unless you count the time when she had to go to the doctors and her father was at work, but at least then she warned her about it first. She waited an hour till her mother finally picked her up, and she looked like she had been crying, “what’s wrong mother?” Hope asked, knowing that something was wrong. Freya looked at her daughter, and replied “Me and your father will tell you when we get home” Hope knew that it was not good news, most news her mother and father had was not good news, so she picked up her bag and walked home with her mother slowly, wondering what the news could be.

When Hope and her mother walked in the room, she saw Nicole and Her father Jack arguing, “Is someone going to tell me what is going on?” Hope asked anxiously. “I would sit down if I was you dear” Said Jack softly, so Hope sat down. Her father had never called her dear before, this was definitely something serious.

“Well, you see I have got a new job” explained Jack; “Congratulations dad, but what’s the bad news?” replied Hope.                                                                             

“The thing is, the new job is not around here, it’s by your auntie Anne’s” explained Jack “We are going to try and sell this house, and go live with your auntie for a while, at least until we can afford to get our own house over there.” "but she lives in the middle of nowhere, that means I will be leaving school, leaving my friends, what about going to the hospital every 6 months for a check up on my turner syndrome” cried Hope. “Darling, we spoke to her, and she is going to try and get you into your cousin Sarah’s school, it’s a boarding school called Maryvale Primary, it’s not far from where she lives, it is hidden, and not many people know about it, I am sure you will make new friends” Explained Hopes mother.                                                         

Hope and Sarah never had gotten on; whenever they met they always used to argue about something; once Sarah stole Nicole’s make-up which she got for Christmas and blamed it on Hope. Sarah was small for her age also, and she had light blonde hair which she always used to have in a bun, and she had brown narrow eyes. Hopes auntie Anne used to always stick up for her daughter, even if she was in the wrong, she would make some sort of excuse.                                                               

Anne had dark blonde hair and hazel eyes, and she always looked very stern and always used to give Hope the eye whenever she and Sarah had an argument. “And your sister will be going to the secondary school at Maryvale, so you won’t be far from each other, and there is a special nurse in the school itself, so you will be going there from now on for check-ups”.                                                                                                                                   

“And you want to leave as well do you Nicole?” Hope asked her sister in a stern voice. “Of course I don’t but I haven’t really got a say in the matter, and neither have you, so that’s the end of it, if I was you I would go and start packing as we are leaving in three days, I will come and help you in a minute” said Nicole.                       
Hope ran into her room in a temper, and started crying, she did not want to leave her friends, however she could not help thinking having a new start might perhaps be a good thing.