The Lucky Map by Gillian (age 11)

Jennifer or Jenny as she was called, was tall and pretty, with blue eyes and light brown hair. Oliver was nearly the opposite in looks, he was tall with brown hair and eyes, and a very ugly face.

Jenny and Oliver both loved each other dearly, though Jenny hardly spoke at all. On this particular day they were looking at a scrap of paper which jenny had found.

"I'd say that it was a map," said Oliver, "a treasure map!" Jenny just pointed to the torn part of the map to which the arrows were pointing, then she pointed at the arrows themselves.

Soon after, Oliver realized the horrifying truth. The place where the treasure would be, was on the part of the map that was missing!

"Where is the place that you found the map? Show it to me, quickly!" Oliver swung round on her and shouted, "If we hurry, we may still get to it before it gets blown away."

Jenny nodded, then she hurried off, with Oliver following close behind her. She didn't stop until she had reached their favorite spot, then she stopped and pointed in.

They looked about them and saw a pile of boxes. Jenny walked over to them then started picking them up and shaking them out. Oliver comprehended her meaning and started to help her.

Very soon the pile of boxes was finished and they had to look somewhere else.

They searched all over the space between the houses, but with no success. Then Oliver gave up that area and started to look outside it.

Then Jenny saw a slip of paper jammed in one of the windows above the alley. So she climbed onto the pile of boxes and gingerly grabbed the paper.

She looked at it, it looked as if it could be the right one. Oliver then came running to see. "Good girl," he panted, "You've found it. Now where is the other piece."

Jenny climbed down from the pile of boxes, took the other piece of map from her pocket and put the two together. To their surprise there was a poem at the end of the arrows. It said

Here is the telescope, you shall mind
Until you go behind, behind,
Then the treasure, you shall find.

Jenny found the way to the place that the poem was on the map. It turned out to be a city square, quite nearby. The square had an old telescope in the middle.

The two of them walked over to the telescope and looked over it thoroughly. On it was this verse.

This is the telescope you had to find
Now you go behind, behind
Look through to the treasure you shall find.

"I know the meaning of that!" shouted Oliver, in delight. He went over to the telescope and looked through the eyehole, but he could not see anything because he had bad eyesight.

"You look," he said to Jenny, "I can't see a thing." Jenny nodded and looked. With the corner of her eye, she caught a faint gleam of gold.

She rushed over to it and picked it up. It was a shining gold coin. She showed it to Oliver and they started to walk slowly home.

When they were nearly home, a gentleman, who had seen the coin in Jenny's hand, stopped them and asked "May I please have a look at that coin, young lady?" Jenny gave it to him to look at, after which he said gravely "This coin is very valuable, may I please purchase it from you for three hundred pounds. I would also like to hire your services as a maid, for ten pounds a week for as long as you wish."

After a brief consultation with Oliver, Jenny said "Sir, we exept your kind offer and we thank you for it. I am sure that our parents will agree to my being your maid, but I must ask them first." The gentleman smiled appreciatively and nodded, "I'd say that, that would be the best thing to do. Meet me here this time tomorrow with your answer," he said.

They did accordingly and Jenny went and was a maid for ten years. By that time the family was quite rich, so that this story ends as so many other stories end "and everybody lived happily ever after.

Needless to say Jenny and Oliver kept the map and visited the city square often. To this day, the map is hanging on a wall in the living room at their house.


/1972
PS from Gillian-of-2013 I mourn the lack of spaceships (and now I come to think of it, I wrote one about spaceships, though obviously not in my Grade 6 test book.) I had a very fine grasp of the two line paragraph when I was eleven. I also had a strong need of colons, semi-colons and various kinds of dashes.

PPS I think I was reading too much 19th century children's literature at that point. I suspect, in fact, that Jenny's real name was Phoebe.

PPPS We were in decimal currency in Australia by 1972, which is why I have the above suspicions.

PPPPS It worries me that I was a child who could spell 'appreciatively' but got 'accept' wrong. My teacher corrected 'exept' to 'except' which worries me even more.

PPPPPS My official report for Written English was "Very capable" and - you will be pleased to know - I was deemed suitable for promotion to high school.