Sadness left behind

In the kitchen was a mahogany floor and wooden cupboards. They were locked, for the keys needed to escape the cruelty of Amboard house were inside. The children were kept there illegally, for all had been kidnapped and made to be servants, paid little. The house was beautiful and so was the owner, Mrs. Cabell. The Servants got £1.00 a year and were forced to stay in a shed (one each) full of rats and had only one outfit and a sleeping bag.

 

They woke at 5.00am and worked and served until 12.00pm. They each owned a list of rules:

                                 1. No talking at any time

                      2. No eating until porridge time (for 15                              minutes at 9.00PM)

                               3. Go to church on a Sunday

                                  4. Get up on time

                                  5. Do choirs well

                                     6. BEHAVE!!!

 

It might as well be the Victorian era though it was the 21^st century. Mrs. Cabell, also known as “Madam” seemed quite sweet when you saw her wavy blonde hair and freckled face with dimples when she smiled, but was not. Nobody suspected her as a kidnapper with 1,000 servants (once children) whipping them and tying them to chairs, which was all the better for her.

 

Escaping seemed impossible. The large Mansion was the only house on Cromwell Road and all the land around it was owned by Mrs. Cabell and fenced off by an electric fence and around that was an amazingly tall brick wall to keep out nosy neighbors for inside was all the tatty sheds the girls lived in. The Mansion stood in the middle separating the land into two fields. Cameras were everywhere, watched night and day by Mrs. Cabell’s private security. In the corner of the field were the girls lived was a shadowy willow tree. The other field was for Mrs. Cabell’s pleasure, with bathing chairs and a HUGE swimming pool.

 

You might be wondering who I am, as you’ll have noticed this story of me and many other girls is written as “I”. Well I am Isabella, and I have never met my true mother so spent my life at a care home. I was eating ice cream in a skate park when a hand crept up behind me. It covered my mouth and plonked me on the head so I became unconscious and when I awoke I was in what was now “my shed”. On the front was my new name, Servant 077. Somebody called on me and took me to the grand hall to meet Mrs. Cabell so she could tell me the details of my new life. She greeted me with a frosty smile and her dimples disappeared.                   “Well, Servant 077, Welcome to Amboard house” she had said which had scared me. Now I know the rules very well because I’ve been here twelve years and two weeks.

 

I’m terribly thin with only porridge and a glass of water each night but I’m used to it, though you can never get used to the cruelty of living here. I just can’t stay like this. It’s simple. So I planned. I stayed up late planning, when I got into my shed at 12:00 pm. This resulted in sleepiness which caused being whipped constantly by “Madam” but that only urged me on to get out. It unpleasant doing my planning in the dark but security would have spotted any light from the camera in the corner of my shed. I had to do it under my bedclothes.

 

I figured that there was no camera covering the willow tree so when the night came I climbed onto the branches of it, fearless, despite the darkness and danger. I climbed as high as you could go without being seen, high enough to jump over the electric fence and wall at the same time. I had stolen a parachute from a security guard and opened up that. I landed safely. I knew about the cameras at the front of Amboard house so I crawled alongside the shadowed wall.

 

I soon found a police station and told the plump officer to arrest Mrs. Cabell and set the others free, I was given a piece of cake and a drink of tea. I was ready to start my new life but had not learnt nothing in the 12 years of non- education, a valuable lesson that you will be caught for all crimes and should be kind, and that me and the girls I worked alongside would leave our sadness behind.

 

Then I got the arrangements made for us. The oldest servant Amelia was to own Amboard house, which she made into a care home for some of the girls who had worked there. She was to run it with some of the other “big ones” and the girls to stay there were Molly Brown age 6, Jenna age 9, Kate Chamblee age 12, Mia Rennie age7, Miranda age 13 and Lilly age 10. The ones who had parents were returned home and seeing as I was fifteen I was not sent into care for one of the adults who had been kidnapped as a kid signed up to adopt me and live in her new flat, the same for many other children once worked for Laura Cabell. My new guardian was 24 and called Anne Brown, so I was now Isabella Brown. She looked a touch like me, she had fair hair and big blue eyes. Her style was wooly jumpers and jeans and she tied her hair back in messy buns. I had fair hair like her and big blue eyes but my style was loose hair and football shirts and shorts with a pair of boots….