My Journal

This post is a personal journal that I wrote from Dave’s point of view. Dave is the protagonist from Dave Pelzer’s The Lost Boy.

Winter 1970: I’m alone, I’m hungry, and I’m shivering in the dark. I sit on the top of my hands at the bottom of the stairs in the garage. My hands became numb hours ago. My neck and shoulder muscles begin to throb. But that’s nothing new-I’ve learned to turn off the pain. I am Mother’s prisoner. I’m nine years old, and I’ve been living like this for years. Everyday I wake up from sleeping on an old army cot in the garage, perform morning chares, and if I’m lucky, eat leftover breakfast from my brothers. I run to school, steal food, return to ‘The House’ and am forced to throw up in the toilet bowl to prove that I didn’t commit the crime of stealing food. I receive beatings and play another of her ‘games,’ perform the afternoon chores, then I sit at the bottom of the stairs until I’m summoned to complete the evening chores. Then and only if I have completed all of my chores on time, and if I have not committed any ‘crimes,’ I may be fed a morsel of food.

My day ends only when Mother allows me to sleep on the army cot, where my body curls up in my meek effort to retain any body heat. The only pleasure in my life is when I sleep. That’s the only time I can escape my life.

I have no home. I am a member of no one’s family. I know deep inside that I do not now, now will I ever, deserve any love, attention or even recognition as a human being. I am a child called ‘It.’

March 5, 1973: I received the long-awaited answer to my prayers. Today I was rescued. My teachers and other staff members at Thomas Edison Elementary School intervened and notified the police.

Everything happened with lightning speed. As I said my heart felt good-byes to my teachers I somehow knew that I would never see them again.

I passed my homeroom teacher, Mr. Ziegler, bent down and said that he would tell my homeroom class the truth about me. Mr. Ziegler’s statement meant the world to me. I so badly wanted to be liked, to be accepted by my class, my school-by everyone.

As the police officer nudged me through the door a million thoughts raced through my mind, all of them bad. I was terrified of what Mother would do when she found out. What I knew for sure was if she ever fog a hold of me she would kill me.

March 6, 1973:  The police officer that took me away from ‘The House’ became my hero. I didn’t even know his name.

He took me to a foster home that was out of state. The elderly woman that ran the place introduced herself as Aunt Mary. She introduced me to the seven other children who, like myself, for one reason or another no longer lived with their parents.

I was instantly accepted. I felt a surge of energy erupt from inside. I ran through the home as if my pants were on fire. I joked, laughed, and screamed with joy, releasing years of solitude and silence.

I think I’m going to like it here.

Posted in Independent Reading, The Lost Boy