The owl that lived

It was August. I was two years old, and there was a war. My dad fought in the war and my mum was sneaking out of our home rescuing both of us. But she got spotted by a soldier and got shot while my auntie ran away with me. I didn't know that my father had died until my sixth birthday. My auntie was horrible so when I was 11 years old I ran away but two soldiers spotted me and chased me to a small cabin.

I slept there for the night and in the morning a lady named Victoria and a man named James came and they raised me for a year until James had to go to war. He never came back even after the war had finished. Victoria was crying for days and days when one night she got robbed and she also got murdered so I ran away.

I ran across a field when a farmer saw me and got his gun out. Something did die, it wasn't me though, the farmer kept aiming at me then he fired a couple more times. Something else had died. I looked up above me and there was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was an owl, it was white and only a baby.

"You're just like me," I said looking at the owl. She came right down near me and she tweeted. It was almost a week without food then finally we found ourselves sneaking in a party. The party had lots of soldiers in and people were so happy because we won the war.
"Oh look here, an owl and a child," said a soldier coming up to us.
"Why are you talking to me?" I said to him, grinning.
"You look hungry, eat as much as you like, BUT don't feed the owl," said another soldier.
I had a plan, I ate and ate and hid Claudia, that's what I named her. But I hid her somewhere she could hunt rats and mice. Afterwards, I took Claudia with me and ran away.


For about a year me and Claudia stayed in an abandoned barn. We stole some crops from a farmer's field. But one day, Claudia was acting really different. She was sleeping, then she opened her eyes. "Claudia I love you," I said crying. That's when her heart stopped.



By Samia Syed (age 9)