"Elizabeth can you please help me make your brothers swing," shouted my father, George Brown. He's a tall man, with what looks like a hairy black caterpillar wriggling above his top lip, matching his thick, scruffy looking hair. Luckily, he has a saving feature, his diamond blue eyes that twinkled like a star when he smiled and laughed. Mother has always said it was his eyes that had made her notice him originally, and made her fall deeper in love with him each day.
My Mother, Rose Brown, is more of a natural beauty, with a petite build and masses of soft curly brown hair. Her eyes were a deep brown, that she used to convince my father to do anything for her. She has fair skin, and blush pink cheeks. I have always believed that if the wind blew hard enough, it would pick her up and whisk her away, never to be seen by civilisation again.
My brother is named Clyde Brown. He has inherited our father's blue gaze but his curly, blonde hair takes after our grandmother who died three years back. Clyde is tall and thin but naturally strong; the lack of food doesn't seem to be affecting him the same way it does me.
I have straight ginger hair, normally pinned up into a bun and my eyes are piercing shade of green. Rather annoyingly, freckes litter my pale face, like paint splatters over my nose and cheekbones. I also blush annoyingly quickly, and I resemble a tomato when I do so. I look nothing alike to the rest of my family so I always feel like the odd one out. However, I have inherited my sharp wit from my father, and unfortunately inherited my stubbornness from my mother. Unlike my brother Clyde, no matter what I do, I always seem to resemble a broomstick, tall and so thin you could look at me in a crowd and not even notice I was there.
"Elizabeth," father called again sounding a little irritated.
"Okay father," I replied softly. I sigh, wishing that someday my life wouldn't be like this anymore, but I knew it would never change. We have always had so little money; as far back as I can remember. I've only ever had homemade, wooden toys and rag dolls with no distinguishable features, never the shiny, china dolls in the shop windows that I love to stare at in the rare times I'm not helping mother do housework. The worst thing, however, is having to sleep on nothing but the painfully hard floor with nothing to protect us from the harsh bitter cold. I'm always so cold; I wonder what it must feel like to be warm and not have a constant, bitter draft blowing though our house.
When I finally went outside I found father holding a piece of driftwood (covered in a thick layer of dirt) and some frayed rope. He was staring at me, clearly annoyed at how long it took me to come outside to him. All I had to do is hold the wood still whilst he tied the pieces of rope to either side and attach it to the tree.
"It's going to be Clyde's birthday present." He said with such pride that I had to smile at just how caring he could be. Clyde will be celebrating his thirteenth birthday tomorrow and I know father hopes this will keep him out of trouble, at least until he can start working at the docks with him next year. Luckily, we were able to put it up while he is out playing with his best friend, Ray.
YOU ARE READING
1886 Elizabeth
Historical Fiction"We need to tell you something," said father. "We have been dreading telling you this but now we have no other option, all our money has been stolen, and we could lose the house and end up in a workhouse," explained mother, tears still streaming do...
