Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Again, my 11-year-old prose here cracks me up but (I adore the underlined “utterly”): even though I made none of this up (meaning: I was just writing out the television movie that I had loved) – the last scene kinda got to me when I reread it just now. Also, imagine Glenn Close in the part of Gloria (which she did play in the film – although the character’s name in the film was “Jessica” – like I mentioned, I wrote this whole thing strictly from memory, so obviously I couldn’t remember the character’s actual name) – you can see how moving the scene was in the production! And I must point out that Miss Sims still “sighs” left and right. It is all she does.
CHAPTER 7
“Come along, Sara. We must hurry to the kitchen. There are a lot of clothes set out there. If you want some we had better hurry.” Miss Sims rapidly turned a corner until they were on the soup kitchen street.
When they were in the kitchen Sara looked around. Instead of soup on all of the tables there were clothes. Children were gathered around each of the tables picking out clothes.
A small fight broke out at one of the tables.
“I want that dress!” cried a little girl.
“But it fits me better!” yelled another child.
The two of them started tugging at it. One was on each end.
Miss Sims rushed over and desperately tried to stop the fight. “Children, children, stop it. There’s plenty of clothes here. Plenty for everyone.”
“But I want that dress!” the girl glared at the other girl.
“Well, so do I!”
“Would any of you like this dress?” Miss Sims held up a dress from the other table. It was light blue checked and it looked almost new.
One of the girls grabbed it. “I’ll have this one. You can have that other one.”
The other girl looked at the ragged pink dress in her hand and sighed.
Miss Sims sat down and watched the children dismally.
All of a sudden the door opened and in walked Miss Sims’ friend Gloria. She had two baskets under her arms and in each of them were 4 loaves of bread. They smelled scrumptious and they looked freshly baked.
“Thank you, Gloria. They look delicious.” Miss Sims cried when she saw them.
“Good luck on your journey,” Gloria planted a kiss on Miss Sims’ cheek.
“Thank you, Gloria, but it looks like we won’t be able to go.” Miss Sims looked away to avoid Gloria’s stare.
Gloria set the baskets down on the table with a “thump”. “Why not?”
“I spent the money that was supposed to be for our coach,” Miss Sims stated.
“You! Why, you never spend money! What did you spend it all on?” Gloria was utterly surprised.
Miss Sims sighed. “I spent it on a child. She was unhappy and she wanted to come West,” and slowly she unfolded the whole story.
“Oh, dear. Well.” Gloria raised her head high. She took off all of her rings, bracelets and necklaces and handed them over to Miss Sims.
“What? Gloria, what are you doing?”
“These are all pure gold. Very expensive.”
Miss Sims looked questioningly at Gloria. “But they’re all of your rings and jewelry!”
Gloria shook all of those kind of thoughts out of her mind with a shrug. “Rings and jewelry you can replace, a child’s happiness you cannot.”
Miss Sims stood up and hugged Gloria tight. “Well, it looks like we are going. Everything seems perfect, except somehow I have the feeling I forgot something, but that always happens before a journey.”
Gloria nodded. “I know just how you feel. Well, I must go. Enjoy the bread!”
“We will! It smells heavenly!”
“Good bye. Good luck.”
“Goodbye, Gloria and thank you so much.”
