Journal+Entry

Dear Diary,

Sally Thompson has not been improving at all. I have been coming into class every day checking to see if she is getting any better, but each morning it seems that she is getting worse and worse. Sally has been wearing the same clothes every day for the past 3 months, her hair is always a mess, and she falls asleep on her desk. At the beginning of the year Sally was at the top of the class, then in December her grades started slipping and she was tardy at least 3 times a week. Then she started to come in with bruises on her arms and legs. I only noticed this because it was the middle of winter and she was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Sally was a very chatty girl as well, but then she completely stopped talking. I asked Sally if everything was okay with her family at home after about a month and a half of her strange behavior. She said that everything was just fine and that she was just very clumsy, and all her other clothes were ruined. After about three more weeks of her odd behavior, I decided to call her house. When I called a man with a very deep and rather frightening voice picked up the phone. After a short phone call, I had found out that he was Sally's father, and Sally's mother had been away at war for over a year. He sounded like a very nice man, and all my suspicions went away...for a little while at least. For the next month things started to look much better with Sally, her grades were improving, she wore different clothes, and she started talking to kids again. I thought everything was back to normal with her again, and things continued to look like this for the next couple of weeks. Then one day Sally didn't show up to school, no one thought nothing of it because we figured that she was just sick. After two weeks without Sally in school I started to worry, so once again I called her house to check and see if everything was alright. This time I heard a little girls voice that I did not recognize, it turns out that the little girl was Sally, and she was not in good shape. She told me that I shouldn't have called and if her daddy find out she would be in big trouble. She quickly hung up the phone and when she returned to school the following day she acted as if nothing had happened. I noticed lots of bruising all over her body, and of course I asked her what happened. This time though, her reaction was different. Sally would usually quickly come up with an excuse for her bruising. Instead, Sally winced and turned away, when I made her look in my eyes and tell me what had happened, tears came to her eyes, and she explained that she had been a very bad girl. I asked her what she meant by that, and she said that she has always been a bad girl, and her daddy got so angry with her and beat her terribly. She immediately burst into tears after she had finished telling me, I embraced her in a long hug, and told her that everything was going to be alright. We had a conversation that lasted almost an hour and she explained everything that has been happening. Sally told me that I couldn't tell anybody, so I kept her secret, I kept her secret for months, locked inside of me. It was killing me, this little innocent girl was suffering every day and I have done nothing to help. No I cannot do this anymore, I have been praying for this child for too long, I am going to tell the police about this. I physically can't keep this secret inside of me any longer. I am going to call the police now, hopefully everything will go as planned! Pray for me!

Mrs. Johnson Sally Thompson's Second Grade Teacher