It is a warm spring night in New York City, New York. It is around 6 p.m and all of the kids are outside playing hopscotch and baseball, all of the kids except for me that is. I am stuck inside this boring house with nothing to do. Heather wouldn’t let me go outside past 5:30 even if I told her I would clean the whole house, try my best at school and cook dinner. Sometimes I wish I were back with my real mom.


“Anna” Heather yells up the stairs at me.

“Hold on one second I will be down in a minute.” I yell back at her. I wanted to cry because I knew that when I got down stairs I was going to get yelled at for something really stupid. That’s why I wish my real mom were still alive.

I can picture her long brown hair blowing in the wind, her light brown eyes that glisten under the sun and most of all I can see her smile, that smile could make the most angriest person happy. It’s too bad that she had to go so soon. I’m only fourteen years old and she left me when I was eight. I know it’s not her fault but sometimes I just wish she hadn’t left so soon. So that’s why I’m stuck here with Heather. I don’t even call her mom even though she tells me to. I would rather be stuck at that stupid orphanage instead of living here with her. She had no business adopting me in the first place. I told the people in the orphanage that I was fine just where I was, but of course they didn’t listen to me. I hear Heather walking up the stairs, her heavy feet hitting the wooden steps and making a noise loud enough to wake the neighbors. I could tell that she was mad at me.

“Anna why didn’t you clean off the kitchen table like I told you to?” She shouted at me.

“I didn’t clean it off because you also told me to go do my homework so I thought my homework was more important.” I said to her in a quiet polite voice.

“Well you always have something smart to say don’t you Anna.” She crossed her arms around her waist and she raised her eyebrows up really high. “Well when you get done with your homework just go to bed!” She yelled.

I didn’t say anything else to her, I just watched her stomp back down the stairs. It was only 6:45, and she was already telling me to go to bed. I didn’t really care because I was tired anyway. So I put my homework back into my folder and I put my folder back into my backpack. I got into bed and quickly fell asleep.

RING! RING! RING! The alarm went off at 5:30 in the morning. It was really early but I had to go take a shower. I sat up in my bed and I felt this really sharp pain go through my side. My stomach also hurt too. I went into the bathroom because it felt like I had to vomit. This had been going on for a couple of weeks now but this morning it hurt more than ever. So I went into Heather’s room. I was really scared to wake her up at first but I knew it had to be done.

“Heather,” I said very quietly.

“What do you want Anna?” she said in a low voice.

“Heather, my stomach hurts really bad and this has been going on for a while now,” I took a deep breath, “so I was wondering if you could take me to the doctors office later.” My voice was shaky and I had a feeling that she was going to start yelling at me.

I was right she did. There was a lot of cussing and half of what she said went into one ear and out the other. I just stormed out of her room and I went back into my room and slammed the door. I am so tired of her treating me like this. Most of the time I don’t even do anything wrong. I grabbed this rope out of my closet I studied the rope for a minute and I thought about all of the things I could do with it. All of a sudden I heard footsteps coming down the hallway so I hurry up and put the rope back into the closet because she doesn’t know that I have the rope in the first place. She came into my room and she started apologizing to me.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you, I am just really tired and I didn’t get any sleep last night.” She was actually being nice to me. “Well if your stomach hurts then I will take you to the doctors office when it opens.”

I just nodded my head. I figured that I didn’t have to go to school so I just laid back down in my bed and thought about my mother. I thought about the lullaby that she used to sing me. Remembering her soft soothing voice, I quickly fell asleep.

Heather woke me up around 10:00. She came into my room and told me that I had a doctor’s appointment at 10:30 so I had to start getting ready. I got up out of bed and the sharp pain was still there. I got dressed. I put on a pair of sweat pants and a white t-shirt. I slipped on a pair of Docks and I went down stairs. I figured I would eat something to see if the pain in my stomach would go away for a while. It was already 10:13 so I just went into the kitchen and I grabbed a bowl of cereal and I ate it like a pig who hadn’t eaten in days. Just as I was finishing Heather came down stairs.

“It’s time to go.” I was already ready to go so I just wiped the milk from my chin and I went outside and got into the car. I was pretty sure that the doctor would just take my blood pressure, check my pulse and then just give me an antibiotic like they always do.

When we got there they did more than I had expected. They made me do a urinalysis and they had to do draw blood from me. I just sat there, I felt like I was about to pass out. Through the window in the office I could see my mom and the doctor talking about something. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. I could see this look in Heather’s eyes. I hadn’t seen that look in her eyes before. I hoped nothing was wrong with me. I prayed that the doctor would just tell her that I had the flu and he would prescribe me some medicine and everything would be fine. Deep inside I knew everything was not fine; I knew that something was wrong. I just had this feeling. Heather came back in and she didn’t say anything. The doctor didn’t say anything either.

“Get your coat on,” Heather said. So I got my coat on and we went back home.

When we got home Heather sat me down on the couch. I didn’t even have time to take my shoes off. I was scared and it looked like Heather had tears in her eyes.

“Well Anna,” she started the conversation off, “you most likely have colon cancer.”

I started crying. I ran upstairs and I slammed my door. First I get stuck in this house with this bitter old hag that wants to be my mom but she has no clue how to be a mother and now I find out that I have colon cancer. On top of that my real mom is dead and she left me with nothing. Life can’t get any worse that this. Heather was nowhere around me and I figured that she was down stairs still. Colon cancer is a bad thing to be diagnosed with. I’m only fourteen years old and I shouldn’t have to deal with any of this. I had to think of a way to get out of this. I can’t live like this anymore, life is just way too hard. So I go into my closet and I grab the rope from earlier. I sit there with it for a minute just looking at it. I then grab the chair in the corner of the room. I tie one end of the rope to the ceiling fan. I stand on top of the chair, my body is shaking really badly. I tie the other end of the rope around my neck. I kick the chair out from under my feet.

I had finally solved all of my problems.