Poppy Child

Life.... I guess

Hello, my name is Jamie Dean, I'm sixteen years old and I'm writing this because I need everyone to know the truth  about my little sister. My little sister is called Maisy and no this is not about her having pretend tea parties with her teddy bears, it's about her life and how quickly and brutally it was taken away from her.

We live in a small country village with lots of farms, I live in a small cottage with my mum, we've lived there  seven years. When we moved there I was six and my sister was four. She loved it! She has always loved the great outdoors and animals. Ever since she was able to talk she begged for a pet dog so when she was six and we had lived in our cottage for two years we went to the kennels to look for one, we found one straight away! We saw a middle aged sheep dog and she fell in love with it! I wanted to name it but because Maisy was the youngest she got to choose. She called it Poppy, she had a big obsession of poppies!

Maisy loved Poppy and took her everywhere with her! Even to the supermarket, even though she knew Poppy would have to be locked outside. I also loved Poppy but no where near as much as Maisy did. We owned a field that was just next to our house, and just by chance it was full of poppies! Everyday Maisy and Poppy used to run down to the field and sit in the middle, Maisy would be picking a few poppies and Poppy would be sat next to her. Then after about half an hour Maisy would get up and run around and Poppy would chase after her. Sometimes I would join them but most of the time I would leave them to it I didn't want to interrupt Maisy's secret games with Poppy.

I always felt some kind of respect for Maisy although I would never tell her! If I told her that she would never let me forget about it! I felt respect for Maisy because she never ever lost her temper with anyone, not even me! I used to try and wind her up and she would shout at me but she never really lost her temper with me. She always had a look of knowing-ness in her eyes, even when she was little she knew where she was going or what she was doing! Although once when she was four and I was nine we were at the beach she saw a necklace on a rock near the water, she just looked at it. She was amazed by its beauty and how it was just there, I think it was a pearl necklace. She spent the rest of the day with this happy but puzzled look on her face, she searched and searched for mermaids, she thought the necklace belonged to one. That evening she left the necklace on a rock in a small cave, she made me write a note saying something like "Hello mermaids, I left your necklace here. Its beautiful! Love Maisy xxx". We were staying at a nice beach hut that night, in the hut there was one window overlooking the beach, you could just about see the rocks where Maisy had left the necklace and the note. She spent about four hours sat by the window waiting for the mermaids to come, but they never did. When she went to bed that night and me and mum knew she was fast asleep, probably dreaming of mermaids, mum sent me to the beach to collect the necklace and write a new note saying "Thank you Maisy, we shall be forever grateful to you, but we think you should keep it, it will bring you luck wherever you go. Love the Mermaids xx" I had to make sure I wrote with different handwriting otherwise it would be obvious that I wrote it. Maisy always recognised my handwriting so I had to disguise it well.

Anyway, one year when I was thirteen and Maisy was ten we went camping in the poppy field, all we took was two sleeping bags, a few blankets, a dog toy for Poppy, and some snacks. We wanted a proper night in the wilderness. To Maisy it seemed like we were in some far away jungle (with lots of poppies!) and we had to keep our guard up in case a tiger spotted us! I played along to although I knew this was just our poppy field. In her mind she saw butterflies as big as her, tigers prowling in the darkness, twenty foot tall trees surrounding us! Her mind amazed me, the way she could just conjure up all this, I was never able to do any of this, I wish I could of! She also acted like everything had feelings, for example if she made tea for one of her teddies she would have to make some for all of them so that none of them were left out!

When she was eleven everything was perfect for her, she had just moved school and she had lots of friends, Poppy was now five but still had the energy of a puppy! Maisy usually had one of her friends over once a week, usually a girl called Anna. I didn't usually have friends over, I just went to the local town with my mates, I preferred it that way. I wasn't one of the most "social" people in the school... Anyway like I was saying, everything was going brilliant for Maisy, she had friends, she wasn't being bullied, didn't have any worries and she had a few boys eying her up. Yes, there were two boys in year eight that were constantly flirting with her and  trying to take her out, silly Maisy could be a bit late on the uptake sometimes. She didn't even realise they had a crush on her! Once I saw those boys having an argument which I think turned into a fight, they were fighting over Maisy! 

A few weeks later Maisy came home and wrote me a note, apparently she didn't want mum to know her latest secret... the note said "Jamie! JAMIE!! I've got a boyfriend, yh me! Omg! Shhh don't tell any1 kk? Hes name is Charlie, u might no him?" Her spelling is terrible I know, although apparently she's in top English group! Somehow I doubt that... Anyway she wrote me the note and when I read it I just stared at her, I knew these two guys liked her but I didn't reckon they'd have the guts to ask her out all I replied to her note was "meet me in the poppy field in ten minutes" I passed the note back when mum had her back turned.