The Run Away Girl
Harrow International School Hong Kong, Molly Fox, Fiction: Group 2
I
t was six o’clock in the morning. Arianna had just risen from her thin blankets on the
mouldy floorboards. She stood up with sleepy eyes and tousled hair; she walked down the
hallway that leads from the room with blankets to a room with a couple of cupboards and
homemade table with rocks as seats. She went to the first cupboard and pulled out some
homemade bread and goats milk. She gulped down some goats milk and nibbled on the bread. She
left it all on the table and walked out of the door into the cold outside.
“Arianna? Arianna? Arianna are you out there?” Arianna’s stepmother was calling. “Cleo, I
am coming!” shouted Arianna angrily. Arianna didn’t call her stepmother mum she just called
her by her real name: Cleo. “Come inside now! I will beat you if you do not come in!” Cleo left
all the work to Arianna and would beat her if it was not done in two seconds. Arianna hated her
stepmother, she would have preferred her father not to remarry after her mother’s death, but he
did. And now he was gone too. “Why is life so unfair?” Arianna muttered as she walked back up
to the house. Cleo stood in the doorway glowering at Arianna. She was incredibly fat unlike her
six stepchildren. “OW!” screamed Arianna. Cleo was beating her with a strip of leather. “OW!” she
screamed again. “Oh, be quiet child,” said Cleo with a mixture of disgust and annoyance. “The
whole town could hear you.” Cleo slapped her. Arianna turned around. “What do you think you’re
doing?” Arianna screamed.
“Beating me for no good reason? My father thought that you would do us some good. Like our
life back in London. And guess what? You drive us into the middle of the Gobi Desert to a small
town.” There were tears in Cleo’s eyes. She had loved the Gobi Desert all her life; it was the only
place she had ever wanted to live. “And you sit on your backside all day, while I have to do all the
farming and all the house work!” Arianna carried on. Cleo stared at her amazed; no one had ever
dared to stand up to her, and here her stepdaughter was shouting at her. Cleo opened her mouth to
shout back, but Arianna was already out the door.
Arianna ran and ran. She didn’t feel the cold anymore, her brain wasn’t concentrating on that,
it was concentrating on running. The further away from that tiny village the better. Suddenly
Arianna stopped. She heard a muffled scream. Where was it coming from? She thought. She only
had to walk a couple of metres to find out.
There on the side of the path was a young man, he was gagged and his hands were tied
behind is back and his feet tied together at the ankles. Beside him was a group of what looked like
highwaymen, they were laughing over something that was apparently hilariously funny. “Here
she comes,” jeered one of the highwaymen.
“You told us your girlfriend would be coming.” The young man struggled with ropes that
were stopping him from running. Arianna stared at the highwaymen. “You look familiar,” said
Arianna. They all laughed. ‘No, seriously, I know you.” She glared at them. “Should we tie her
up as well?” Asked one of them. The others shook their heads. “You are people who live in the
wooden huts!” Said Arianna. “I knew there was something strange about your part of town.”
The highwaymen had disappeared. They had let Arianna go since she had nothing with her.
Arianna had hidden round the corner waiting for them to go. She had waited two long hours, but
finally they left, and the young man stayed tied up on the ground. Arianna walked over to the
