Week 9 Storytelling: Need of Help

"Be careful on the slide, honey," said Molly.

Molly is a single mother of a beautiful daughter named Elizabeth. Elizabeth had curly blond hair and a smile as big as the sun. Today, in the gorgeous New York City, she decided to take her daughter to the park nearby their house. 

"Mom, look at me!" Elizabeth squealed while climbing up the rock wall. 

The weather had been so nasty recently with thunderstorms and hail that Molly decided to get some fresh air the second the sun peeked out. Molly sat reading a book she had just bought at the bookstore a couple of days before. 

New York City (pixabay) 

"Watch me, watch me!" yelled Elizabeth from the swing. 

The park was fairly small but there were many other kids there as well. Everyone had been so cooped up because of the weather that everyone was wanting to enjoy the sunshine. Molly sat on her bench watching Elizabeth, reading her book, and enjoying the fresh air.

"Is anyone sitting there?" asked a woman looking for a place to sit. 

"No one is sitting here. Please, sit down!" said Molly. 

Molly started a conversation with this other woman who had also taken her kids to the park to play. They talked of mutual friends, life in the city, the struggles of being a parent, and more until Molly noticed that Elizabeth wasn't calling out for her like she usually did when playing at the park. Molly searched for Elizabeth and she wasn't in sight. She had been so distracted meeting a new acquaintance that she didn't check on her daughter for quite some time. 

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Where are you? Can you hear me?" shouted Molly. 

As much as Molly screamed there was no answer. In panic, she asked all of the children and adults who were at the park if they had seen where she might of gone and no one really knew. 

"I think she was on the swings. It looked like she was with her dad. They left a little bit ago going towards the hot dog stand," said a little boy named James. 

Hot Dog Stand (wikipedia)

James' father, Roger, heard his son and graciously told Molly that they would help her find Elizabeth. 

Roger was a single dad who's wife had died the past year. He took his son James to the park to get him away from the television in this nice weather. Roger grabbed his son and asked if he had seen a little girl named Elizabeth while playing in the park. 

"Ma'am, I will help you find your daughter; she must not be far." reassured Roger. 

They first called 911 and told the police officers the whole story, but Molly could not wait around. Molly, Roger, and James all took off towards the hot dog stand and asked pedestrians as they walked by if anyone had seen Elizabeth. There wasn't much luck at first but a man had recognized a picture of Elizabeth and said that they had turned down the next block to the right not took long ago. 

"I am going to run ahead to see if I can catch up. Look after James and continue on this way. Give me your number so that if I find them I can give you directions. We'll find her." said Roger. 

They exchanged numbers and Roger took off running and turned onto the next block to the right. He ran and ran, searched and searched, until he saw in the distance a man holding a little blonde, curly haired girl's hand a couple of blocks ahead. He took off on a sprint and gradually caught up to Elizabeth and the man. He followed them down the street for a little while so that he could come up with a plan to safely retrieve Elizabeth while not losing the man as well. 

He called Molly and told her of the news. Roger told her of his location and a rough estimate of where they were headed. 

"Call the police back and tell them of where we are so that the man will not get away," Roger told Molly. 

Police (flickr)

After a couple of minutes when the police were in sight driving down the street, the man holding Elizabeth's hand noticed the sirens. Before trying to maneuver and go a different way, Roger grabbed Elizabeth and forced the man to let go. Roger safely held Elizabeth in his arms and told her that he was a friend of her mom's and that she was on her way. While the man was trying to run away the cops caught up to him and arrested him on the spot. Minutes later Molly and James came running down the street in search of Roger and Elizabeth. Elizabeth ran into her mother's arms being happy to see her. 

"I'm sorry!" cried Molly to Elizabeth. 

Because of the help of Roger, Elizabeth was safe and back with her mother. He didn't have to be the one to help them, but he did anyways because he knew that if it were him in that situation he would want the help. 

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Author's Note: This week I read the story, The Woman Stolen by the Killer Whales, from the book, Tales of the North American Indians, located in the Native American Marriage Tales Unit. In the original story, a woman is stolen from her husband by killer whales and taken into the ocean. She was captive there underwater. Her husband found the help of a shark to save his wife. The shark came up with a plan to save the wife and tricked the whales. The husband and wife swam to safety while the shark stayed behind to fight off the killer whales. This story is about a person giving up his or her freedom and helping people in need. It is not their job to but they do it anyways. In my story I decided to make it about a mother who lost her child at the park. A kidnapper steals the child and the mother is hopeless by herself. Roger becomes the shark in the original story and goes out of his way to help Molly, the mother, find Elizabeth, her stolen daughter. In the end they find Elizabeth making it a happy story, just like in the original story. I decided to also not hurt Roger as much as the shark probably was in the original. 

Bibliography: The Woman Stolen by the Killer Whales. Tales of the North American Indians. Stith Thompson. 1929.