Hayley

I’m tired, I want to sleep but I can’t. I’m still grieving over the loss of my dear eight year old sister. Hate is swelling in me. I wish that stupid supervisor hadn’t told her to go under that machine. I’m also worrying, not for me but for my poor five year old little brother who works in the same factory as me but as a chimney sweep. I heard a rumour yesterday saying that a boy called William who slept with the other 20 boys in my brother’s room got stuck up a chimney and died of the poisonous fumes. I do not want my brother to suffer the same fate, he can’t. He is my only living relative I know now, but come to think of it I don’t even know if he is alive still or not. Boys are separated and treated differently to us girls. We are not allowed to see each other let alone talk to each other. I can hear my roommates calling to me now. They are telling me to get into bed, they can hear the supervisor coming. I can’t I can’t hear small sounds; it comes of being boxed on the ears too many times. I don’t get into bed though. I stay awake, sitting on the end of my bed and pray the supervisor doesn’t come in. I’m also recalling on the events in the past, one event in particular, the London orphanage selling me and my brother, sister and a lot of other children to this dreaded factory. Here I am a sweeper. Here I, Mary Downe am a sweeper, I have to clean under the machines. Of course the machines aren’t even stopped for us. I hate this place. All it is is whip, whip, whip one after the other. Someday I want to escape and help protest against child labour. I want to help free my brother. I want to break the chains of every little child labourer. Then I will find my brother and we will have a little cottage of our own someday, maybe.