Shook

Shook

By:Abby Henry

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Dedicated to my friends and family.

Maple Leaf Writing Project

Brattleboro, VT

Copyright 2019

April 25 1906, 9:00 a m

As I look around at the hospital room, I can see so many people who are in much worse conditions than me, I’m thinking how lucky I am compared to them. I’m in my hospital bed right now doing nothing but writing. The room feels cold and damp. All the lights are flickering and it’s giving me a headache. The bed is also made of straw which makes it very uncomfortable.

Our house fell over during the earthquake which means we are unable to live in it. When we get out of the hospital we will go live with my grandparent house in Arizona.

Living in San Francisco is fun, but it has its downs too. We get to go to the beach and the weather is nice. My family is on the wealthier side of San Francisco. We paid 25,000 dollars for our house, and our car is 600 dollars. But since we are a wealthy family we get threats from homeless people wanting our money. When it comes to just my life it’s pretty boring. All I do during the day is read, write, and play with My little sister Isabel who is 8 years old. We are a family of all girls. My mother, my two little sisters Isabel and, Kayla who is only 6 months old. Isabel and I have to share a room together, although I do not mind.

My father works far away so we don’t get to see him very often. I’m in the hospital right now because I was just in an earthquake. I have scratched up knees, a broken leg and, a few broken ribs.

I’ve been in a couple earthquakes before but none were as bad as this one. It’s probably one of the worst earthquakes in history.

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April 18,1906 8:12 am

It was early in the morning and I had just woken up. I was on my bed reading The Wizard of Oz, and all the sudden my bed started shaking. I thought it was just a trolley passing by my house because they always make a big commotion. But then I realised that the ceiling and the the floor were starting to cave in. Everything was starting to fall off my shelves and break. I did not know what to do at the time so I immediately hid under my bed.

I could hear people screaming,loud bangs,and glass shattering. It was all so loud I had to cover my ears. I started crying and yelling for help but no one could hear me through all the loud noises.

My bookshelf had fallen on my leg that was sticking out from under my bed. For some reason it didn’t hurt that much.I tried to remove my leg from under the bookshelf but my leg was stuck. I pulled and pulled but the shaking was making it impossible to get it out. All this was happening so quick I didn’t realize that the shaking had stopped. Suddenly the shaking stopped and I had a chance to get my leg out. It took me such a long time to get my leg out that by the time it was out my leg was black and blue. I was so shocked because I hardly felt it.

While I was getting out I hit my head on the top of my bed. I hit my head so hard I thought I might faint. I got out from under my bed and attempted to walk out of my room but it was near impossible with the torn up floor.

Once I got into the hall I realized that our two story house had completely fallen sideways on to our neighbors house. It was so crooked I had to lean against the wall while I was walking. I had to move broken pieces of thing out of my way the entire time I was walking and it made it much harder.

8:45 am

Once I got into my mother’s room I saw her hovering over Kayla’s crib checking over her. My face was wet with tears as I walked as quickly as I could over to her

“Are you okay darling? Are you hurt? Why is Isabel not with you?” she asked with a bit of irritation

“I’m okay mother but I assumed Isabel was with you getting on her gown and shoes,” I say still shaking.

We were going to a nice restaurant later that evening so my mother had to help her get ready.

“I asked her to go to your room and read.”

“Isabel has not come once to our room,” I told her raising my voice.

I told my mother that I wanted to go outside to try and search for isabel but she protested very quickly.

“You could get hurt very badly and I will not let that happen.

“I know Mother but I will be careful, I swear.”

“No.” she said sternly.

She turned away to tend to Kayla because she had started crying. I thought about leaving her quickly without her knowing but then I thought about how she would get very mad. My mind was racing with both ideas going back and forth inside my mind, I finally decided to quickly leave and find Isabel.

Walking out the door was like you were in a war. Buildings were knocked down everywhere. You could barely see anything because the smoke was so thick.

I was going to go to the park first because Isabel always wanted to go there in her free time. I started to walk on a closed road but a worker stopped me and told me to go home. I pretended to walk home but immediately turned back around to find a different way. As I was about to walk onto another road. I crouched down onto my hand and knees and crawled past the workers hoping they wouldn’t see me. Doing this hurt my hands and knees so badly I had to get up, so I did and started walking towards park.

I got to the park and looked around for Isabel but it was so crowded. The park was one place that was in fine condition. There were only a few swing sets that fell over and the grass was a little torn up. I started to panic. If Isabel had come here she would have stayed.

I decided to go to her favorite ice cream shop near our house. I walked back to the road I came from and started to head back towards my house. I took a left to go to the ice cream shop. It was completely destroyed. I saw the shop owner who we know very well, and went up to him.

“Mr. Greer,” I said panting. “You didn’t happen to see Isabel have you?”

“I’m so sorry, Maggie, I have not. Is everything okay, how’s your mother after what just happened.” He asked with concern.

“My mother is fine but Isabel ran away before the earthquake.” I replied trying not to cry.

“Oh, really that doesn’t sound like her. I’m so sorry to hear that. I wish I could help you find her but I’m a little busy right now.”

“Thank you so much. I understand,” I shouted while running away.

As I ran away I could hear him shout “I wish you the best of luck finding her!”

I didn’t know where Isabel was and I was starting to lose hope. I kept trying to think of places we’ve been that she liked but I just couldn’t come up with anything. Then it hit me, she loves the toy store. She must have seen one of her friends with a toy and thought it was something she and I could play with. She might have thought that since mom was busy getting ready she wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t with me. I had a gut feeling she was there so I decided to go. Once again I started limping my way down the road. I reached the end of the road and couldn’t see the store from all the dust.

I eventually found it. Once I saw the toy store I ran as fast as I could to see if Isabel was there. There were a bunch of broken bits of things everywhere and I had to be careful not to trip on anything. I saw the manager talking to someone. When he turned around I saw that the person he was talking to was Isabel.

I ran so fast my legs started to hurt. When I got to her she jump into my arms and we both started crying. We cried for a long time in each other’s arms.

“Are you okay?” I asked her still sobbing. “Why did you leave the house when you know your not supposed to

“I thought It would be good idea to get a toy that we could play with,” she whimpered in a voice that sounded like she was sick.

“Why would you do that?” I yelled frustrated.

“I don’t know!” she yelled back.

We stopped talking and stood there in silence for a second and then started walking home. Halfway through our walk home I realized we didn’t turn at the end of the road and we were completely lost.

“Hey Isabel, let’s turn around,” I say trying to stay super calm.

“Why? Are we lost?” she said panicking.

“No,no,no I just want to see if there’s a quicker way home.”

“Okay I guess so but my feet are starting to hurt,” she said in a tired voice.

“We can stop and take a break in a little bit.”

We walked for five minutes holding each others hands the entire time. We found a bench that looked in perfect conditions to sit on for a little bit when all the sudden a huge aftershock knocked the bench over.

“Are you okay, Isabel?”

“I’m fine.” I heard her say quietly.

We started to walk again. It took us so long because I was sabel. We finally reached the house and walked in. We looked around the house to see where my mother was but she wasn’t anywhere. I thought she was just busy with Kayla but it turns out she wasn’t even home and neither was Kayla.

“Where is Mommy Maggie.” she whispered.

“I don’t know let’s go find her”

My heart was skipping beats. I didn’t know were my mom was. All I wanted to do was sit down and cry but I didn’t want to scare Isabel.

We walked outside to an officer and asked him if he had seen a woman with a baby walk outside. He said no and kept on walking. I was starting to worry a lot now. What if she didn’t come back? What if Isabel and I were stuck alone with no adults? My mind was racing with all the ways this could end up. All of a sudden I heard a faint yell that guided me to our neighbor’s house.

“Maggie! Maggie, darling. I’m over here.”

“Mother!” I screamed “You’re here!”

“Don’t ever leave me like that again,” she said with tears filling up in her eyes. “Where is Isabel?” she asked me hoping for good news.

“She’s right there,” I said pointing at Isabel.

She ran over to Isabel, embracing her in a hug with kayla still in her hands. I quickly ran over to join their hug and we all started crying again.

Once we left one another’s arms we went to the front of the house. All of a sudden, an old man with dirty clothes and greasy hair ran out of our house with my mothers wallet and a few other valuable things. My mother screamed and started chasing him.

While the man was running out of our house he must have hit the door hinges to make the door fall over. I quickly pushed Isabel out of the way before the heavy glass door fell on me, crushing my ribs making it so I could barely breathe. Along with it crushing my ribs. the door knob also smashed into my leg breaking it.

Isabel quickly screamed for help and a bunch of officers picked the glass door up all together. My mother then rushed back over with her wallet and told the officers to call over an ambulance. While we were waiting for the ambulance my mother sat by me and told me it was going to be okay. A few minutes later an ambulance came and took me away while I was crying.

April 29, 1906 12:00 Pm

That’s all I remember from that day. While I was writing about that story It gave me chills down my spine and made my eyes teary. I am still recovering mentally and physically but I am out of the hospital and in Arizona with my family while our house gets rebuilt.My grandparents are letting us stay in their house but we are leaving soon.My life has changed ever since that earthquake but in a good way,and it still is changing every day. My life will never be the same after the great San Francisco earthquake.