Short story- 'The Eskimo Girl'
Living in the Arctic wasn't easy. There were always problems, but this was different. Sophie had never been in such a desperate situation...
She walked and looked around her. Sophie had lived in this part of the North Pole with her Inuit tribe for thirteen years. The Eskimos knew the land well. Sophie often explored the vast lakes and ancient mountains and had never got lost; but this time was different. She hadn't meant to walk far, but then she hadn't anticipated a snowstorm either. She knew she must be miles away from her tribe's camp. It was her mum's fault really; if her mum had let her go out in the first place she wouldn’t have stormed off, she wouldn’t have had an argument with her and she certainly wouldn't have told her she hated her.
Sophie sat down slowly on a snowy log, shut her eyes and tried to think of what to do next. She pulled her fur hood up over her dark black hair to keep out the furious wind that was building. Her mother was right. There was a snowstorm coming. Now she was lost. She felt tears welling up in her eyes and all she wanted was to be back home sat by the nice warm fire drinking her mum's special soup. She stood up and knew she had to find somewhere to shelter. Otherwise could find herself in serious trouble. While she walked she tried to think of a way to raise the alarm that she was missing. Sophie knew that as she didn’t have her full outside clothing on, she was at very high risk of getting hypothermia. She had been walking for about five minutes when she came across a large hole in the snow. She climbed in and huddled herself into a ball. Sophie sat there and thought about all her friends and her tribal life, just the normal things: collecting the fish in the morning from the holes in the ground which the elders made, collecting the fire wood and helping to run the camp. She thought of her best friend- she didn’t see him very often as he lived in the developed town a few miles away. Tom was richer than Sophie and her tribe and he owned things that Sophie could only dream about. He had been given a brand new snow mobile that Christmas and Sophie thought of the day he had come and taken her for a ride on it and how she had loved every minute. She could feel it now, the hard rain hitting against them and the rushing of the air while she held on tight to Tom’s waist. She finally drifted into a troubled sleep.
