The other half

 

It’s the hundredth anniversary of the border being closed. We're all standing around the tree that lines the border.Happiness isn't allowed over the border and the same for the sadness but they can’t come over to the happy side.

There’s a legend that there are no sad people, just happy people. I don’t believe there has to be at least one or two sad people. I reckon someone needs to go over to the other side, find all the people that are sad and bring them here.

Finally we can go home. I walk home with my family once we get home we eat and go to bed since it’s late. We have been at the tree all day. Once i'm pretty sure everyone's asleep i'm going to sneak out to the sadness side.

I get to the border I step across and I get a big chill down my spine. It’s so different here. Everything is grey, dark and gloomy. I thought I knew what sadness was, apparently not it’s much worse than I thought.

I walk around and see a small cottage, my brain is debating with its self should I go in or not. I slowly walk up to it and look in a small window on the side. I peak inside to see a little girl she looks very nice and doesn’t look very sad. 

I slowly approach the door and knock lightly. She opens the door in shock 

“ I'm sorry I didn’t mean to scare you”

“ It’s alright I've never seen you before aren't you from the other side” she say in confusion 

“ yes but I thought that everyone deserves to be happy”

“ you do” she says in a quiet shy voice 

“ Of course!” I say happily 

“ follow me we will go over to the happy side and we can be best friends and live happy together”

She hesitates but starts walking. We cross the border and the girl looks around and smiles

“ It’s beautiful it's so bright and colourful, I've never seen anything like it” 

As we walk to my house she is still looking at everything around her. We get to my house and I set up a blanket and pillow on the floor so she can have my bed. I give her a pair of my pyjamas and we go to sleep. 

In the morning I don’t know what to do or what to say to my parents. I can’t say that I went to the sad side. Ill just say that I heard her crying on the street or something.

She wakes up and I realise I didn’t get her name.

“ morning I just realised that I didn’t get your name, I'm Taylor”

“ oh i'm Layla” 

We go to the kitchen and my mum looks at Layla and looks at me and says 

“ who is this” 

“ Oh this is Layla she was on the streets and I felt bad” Layla went to say something but I bumped her and looked at her and mouthed “don’t” 

“ well it’s good to have you here Layla”

We went back to my room to get dressed. I didn’t mind sharing my clothes. 

“ why did you lie to your mum” 

“ because I would actually be on the streets if I told her I went over to the sad side” We went back into the kitchen and we ate some breakfast. 

We went for a nice fresh walk to start the day on the way we saw a lady and she looked at Layla and started crying. Layla smiled and ran over to the lady and hugged her. I'm so confused is this lady Layla's Mum. 

I walk over and ask who she is Layla said “ this is my mum”

“ why were you on the sad side and you were on the happy side?” I ask

Layla mum said

“ I didn’t want to get rid of her or give her up but I had no choice she had a very tough childhood. We had nothing and her father left when she was very little and left me with nothing so we spent the days on the streets so I decided to put her on the sad side and put her in a cottage so she wasn’t alone on the streets because I was worried someone would take her while I worked. I had a very low paid job so it wasn’t enough for a house. I was coming to find you Layla to tell you that we got a house” 

Layla laughed and smiled in joy. I smiled and hugged Layla and asked “ can we still be best friends?”

“ Of course we can” 

I walk home by myself smiling and knowing that the rest of my life i'm going to be much more happier than I have ever been before.