It was the fall of 1929, a beautiful morning in my beautiful house. My dad was ready for another day at the bank while my mom cleaned up the house. The fall leaves were all colored in different shades of browns, oranges, reds, and yellows. My mother called me down to breakfast.

       “So many investors,” my dad commented. “The bank is crowded with people interested in the stock market.”

       “Who knew so many people would be interested in buying,” my mom stated.

       I turned on the radio to hear the news that the stock market had crashed, and several investors lost their money and jobs! It has been announced that there will be a sale on the 24th of October because they need to make money to keep it going. I turned off the radio and thought nothing of it. I got my books and walked to school. I saw everyone in a panic when I got there, worried about their homes. I walked into school, and I was confused. What was wrong? Should I be worried? Why is everyone else like this? I walked into my classroom and saw my teacher.

       “What’s going on?” I questioned.

       “Haven't you heard?” he stated. “The stock market?”

       “What?” I said with confusion.

       “The stock market crashed,” he answered.

       “How?” I questioned.

       “It’s unreliable, why would someone even invest in anything,” he stated.

       “Why aren’t you mad?” I questioned.

       “Because I don’t have enough money to invest in the first place,” he answered.

       I walked back home and ran through the yard to see my parents sitting at the kitchen table. My mom was crying, and my dad was mad.

       “What’s wrong?” I said nervously.

       “The stock market crashed,” my dad said.

       “What does that have to do with us?” I said. “We didn’t invest in anything.”

       “I did,” my dad said in an ashamed way. “We lost our house, and I lost my job.”

       My mom stormed off crying, stomping loudly like an elephant. I then marched upstairs back to my room which had already been packed up and emptied. I felt like the walls were caving in on me. I had to leave. I needed to get out. My mom came up and said we were going now. I grabbed my stuff. My dad pulled his car around the corner. I got in, and they were absolutely silent. 

       “Where are we going?” I asked.

       No one responded. My mother looked at my father and scowled. My father rolled his eyes, thinking my mom was childish. I sat there in the back of my dad's car not knowing what to say or do as I felt that my parents never wanted to speak to each other ever again. My dad turned on the radio to hear jazz music playing. Then suddenly the music got interrupted.

       I heard nothing else, and my dad turned off the radio. We arrived in the middle of nowhere. We drove into the complex, and I saw a small sign that said Hooverville. No grass on the ground, only dirt. The dirt flew up in the air like it was dancing in the wind. It was a big wooden shed, next to a row of other sheds. I walked in and saw a spider on the ground. My dad threw his stuff on the ground, and the whole structure shook.

       “Welcome home,” my dad announced.

       That night the moon glared over our shed like a big bright flashlight. We sat there in silence until finally my father got up and went outside. My mother followed him, and they were screaming. They thought I wasn’t listening, but I was.

       “What do you think you're doing?” my mother screamed, “You bought more money in stock than our house is worth.”

       “Our house?” my father argued, “You don’t work at all. I made the money, and I bought my house.”

       “So you think that you don’t need me?” my mom said angrily.

       “Yes,” my dad stated. “And I’ll prove it. I’m leaving. For good.”

       My mom stomped back inside as my dad left. She picked up the picture of him in the picture frame and threw it across the room. 

       “Mom,” I said nervously, “will he come back?” 

       “No. We’ll have to make do without him,” my mom insisted.

       I walked across the room angrily and crying because the thought stayed in my head that I would never see my father again. I picked up the loud ticking clock and threw it on the ground. My mom ran up to me and hugged me.

       That night she set up sleeping bags. We laid in the sleeping bags listening to the radio. My mom was listening to her favorite actress, Shirley Temple, speak on the radio. We both fell asleep in silence like there was no sound left in the world.

       I woke up hungry the next morning because I hadn’t eaten in a day. I knew that I had to find a job so I could provide for me and my mom. I just didn’t know how yet. My mother woke up.

       “I’m gonna go get us some food,” she announced.

       “Okay,” I said.

       I waited in the wooden shed for her to come back. It took about two hours. She came back coughing hard like she was sick.

       “Are you okay?” I asked.

       “Yes,” she said, “but I think I should go to the doctor.”

       “Let’s go,” I demanded.

       We walked to the car and drove out of Hooverville. We paid for the doctor visit by selling a blanket. We went into the doctor's office.

       “You have influenza,” the doctor said.

       “Can we get medicine?” I asked.

       “Yes,” the doctor answered, “but it’s gonna cost you.” 

       “How much?” I asked.

       “A lot,” said the doctor.

       He handed me the bill for the medicine. My face widened, and I knew that we would not be able to afford it. My mom and I left. 

       When we got back to Hooverville, my mom immediately went to sleep in her sleeping bag. I took a newspaper to search for jobs. I found one for yard work and went to the location. The man who worked there offered me a nickel for the whole yard. I knew that it was probably the best job I could get. When I got back that day I saw my mother sleeping and even sicker than before. I used the money to buy food for us. The only thing I got was a loaf of bread because that was all I could afford after the medicine.

       When I woke up the next morning I tried to wake my mother up.

       “Mom, Mom!” I yelled.

       I checked her pulse.

       Nothing.

       She was dead. I was crying and pounding my fists against the wall. I was parentless. I was an orphan who would never see her parents again.

       It has been 11 years since I’ve been back to my lousy shed my parents called home. I turned on the radio in my car to hear the song “Happy Days Are Here Again.” No more money problems. No more worrying about what I was going to eat the next day. I rubbed my hand along the side of the shed to feel that the dust was still there. The shattered yellow clock was on the ground in the corner of the room. I shuffled through the junk that my parents left there. I saw the broken picture frame on the ground that my mother smashed. 

       I stepped out of the house and went to the front to see the old wooden door sitting there, thinking that if my greedy father didn’t invest that money, we would have still been together as a family. I looked over Hooverville, and it looked so small. I saw all the other homes, and I was thinking that all of those other people were as greedy as my father. They all put what they wanted before what they needed. I stood there knowing that know one lived there anymore but knowing that part of me would always be there.

-Abigail N.