Realistic novels

A REALISTIC NOVEL ABOUT MODERN SOCIETY The story takes place in Málaga. The main character is a girl called Lucía. Her father, Francisco, used to work as a telephone operator but he was fired because of new technologies. Her mother, Lola, had a car accident and she was paralytic, she received a disability allowance but her subsidy was reduced because of the crisis. So they all had to live on one salary which was the one of her mother. They lived in a not very luxurious house near the beach.

Lucía was 16 and she went to ''Litoral'' high school, she was in 4th of ESO. She had a big problem but she didn't want to talk about it with her parents or even with her friends. She was pregnant and she wasn't able to say it to her boyfriend. One day she told her best friend Susana that she was pregnant and Susana was so scared that she phoned Lola and explained her Lucías problem A new law about abortion was approved, it said that only raped and ill women could abort.

Lola talked with her daughter, all the family was really worried and scared, but they couldn't do anything at all because Lucía was already four months pregnant. Lucía's boyfriend didn't want to know anything about the pregnancy or the baby and he even moved to another place because he didn't want to see Lucía anymore.

Two months after, when Lucía was six months pregnant, her mother died because of a cancer. Her father was arrested three months later because he stole a bag of food in Mercadona.

Lucía got a depression because she didn't want to give birth to the baby, she knew that she wasn't able to pay for all the expenses and she was really affected because of the loss of her parents. She decided to give her baby for adoption but this was a very hard decision and she was really depressed.

Some days after her baby's birth Lucía couldn't face the situation anymore and finally she committed suicide.

Cristina Soler García, 4º ESO-B

The key to happiness It was cold, as always.

The streets were empty, as always.

The streets were full of people, as always.

They were full of emptiness, as always.

There were children, there were parents, there were grandparents. There were aunts, uncles… but they were empty. They were only skin and bones. They didn’t have money, they didn’t have bread, they had no soul anymore.

As always.

They slept one next to each other. They only had their own heat to warm themselves. But most of them didn’t have - because they were all dead.

‘What’s the difference between a person who breathes and a person who doesn’t? They both don’t laugh, they both don’t eat, they both don’t speak. They don’t have a job, they don’t have somewhere that they can call ‘home’. They only sleep. They won’t wake up.’

I never thought I could see their faces. I never thought someday I would look them straight in the eye, without saying a word. ‘I’m sorry’ is a word that only hypocritical people would dare to pronounce.

But It was cold. The streets were empty because they were full of empty people. And I was there. I was new in that alleyway. From now on, it was going to be my new home. I felt the freeze on my knees, I felt the freeze of their bodies and their inexistent soul. I sat next to a drain. Their bloody eyes checked on me, and they closed again. I curled up and slept.

And I understood why we weren’t people. In the first darkest nights, I moaned and cried until I fell asleep again. My eyes were always wet, until that wet started to burn. I couldn’t cry anymore. When I realized I didn’t cry anymore because I didn’t have more water inside the armour I used to call body, I just closed my eyes. I understood that If I didn’t move I wouldn’t feel hungry. I didn’t feel tired. I didn’t feel dead. As always.

And a man met me. He sat on the drain and started to speak to me. I hadn’t spoken in months, so I had problems at pronouncing words, but I felt warmer. We didn’t talk about anything because nothing happened. But we forgot for a moment that we weren’t citizens of those streets anymore. ‘I want to show you something’ ‘what?’ I asked ‘The key of happiness.’

I met my parents again. They were cheerful, they were happy. ‘My darling, you’ve succeed in life’ They said. I laughed and I hugged them. I wasn’t with dirty rags, I had meat between my bones.

‘We’re so proud of you’ ‘Can I stay with you forever?’ ‘Forever.’

Sometimes we had a really colorful background. It wasn’t a rainbow, but I could see the most beautiful colours ever. With that key I met old friends. With that key I met new people. It was a dizzy whirlwind. Everytime it moved faster. I couldn’t distinguish my parents, my friends, my life. I was a prisoner of my own love.

Suddenly, the wheel stopped. ‘Darling’ My mother said. ‘I’m worried’ She touched my cheek. ‘I told you a thousand of times.’

‘But… what are you talking about?’ I asked her.’

‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you.’

‘I don’t understand anything.’

‘You love something that’s destroying you’ She explained.

‘What?’

‘Drugs.’ She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were all black. Her mouth was giant, her teeth were sharped. She didn’t have a face anymore. She jumped into me. I screamed. The wheel of my happiness started to move. Faster. Faster. Faster. Even faster. I ran away. I ran away from my paradise, from my happiness.

The man who was sat on the the drain held me tight.

‘Hey, hey, hey, calm down!’

‘What did you do to me?’ I shouted. ‘What did you do to my life? Why I have been in this dream, in this nightmare? I can’t see the difference between them.’

‘I didn’t do anything. I just gave you the key of happiness.’

‘It was an hoax!’ I yelled ‘The happiness I have lived has been a joke!’

‘But you lived. You said it before. For you, we are not people anymore. We don’t have soul. If this kills my spiritual being, and I don’t have it anymore, what does it exterminate? I regret nothing’ I hushed and closed my eyes. I discovered that I was alive. Maybe I wasn't a doctor, maybe I didn’t raise a family. Maybe I didn’t know when I last had a shower. But I was alive. I still felt emotions.

With that key, in my imagination, I was the person I always beloved to be. But, that day, I couldn’t do anything to change the misery in which I was sunken. So I slept again.

As always.

Nuria Luque Maldonado 12/03/2014

Writing: a realistic novel about modern society

OBSESSIONS AND ADICTIONS”

“

“Where to stay when you have nowhere to go?” - questioned Mr. Robinson himself“Now that I have lost everything I had: my house, my money, even my family... What am I supposed to do? From where should I start?”. Everything seemed so difficult to Mr. Robinson in those times. That was the first night he had to sleep in the cold, hard marble park bench next to his old house; but it was not the only one, not at all. Now he had nothing but himself to move forward. He was not used to be on his own for a long time, and at the moment (and who knows for how long) he was forced to be so. It was a very hard time for this businessman, who lost all his fortune because of his addiction to gamble.

Money played a very important role in his life, sometimes being as important as his family, or even more. It was crazy and insane how he was wasting his money in the casinos, playing stupid games which did not give him more money, but made him fall into despair.

First, it was only a hobby for him, and Mr. Robinson hardly ever went to these kind of places; but, some months later, he started gambling, and he could not stop. His wife noticed that something was wrong a few days later, when her husband arrived late at night at home and told her that it was because of his work; but, obviously, she did not believe him. So, secretly, she started investigating where her husband was going in the afternoons. And, finally, the truth came to light. Mr. Robinson told his wife how sorry he was because of it, and promised her that he would not gamble again in his entire life. It was, clearly, the biggest lie he ever told her.

Days went by, and money was “disappearing” from his bank account. His sons started worrying about him, who was never at home now. When he arrived at midnights, they were sleeping (usual thing in children); so they could not see him at all. They asked her mother about it, because it was kind of bothersome for them, but she did not find an answer, she neither knew it. One of those nights, her wife waited for him to come back, sitting on the sofa of his homely living room. At half past eleven, Mr. Robinson opened clumsily the door with the key, while telling illegible words. He was, at least, drunk, because his breath smelled of alcohol; and who knows if he had also taken drugs or something, because he also looked like it. The woman got horrified of the man in which his wonderful and charming husband had turned into, and she ran to his room crying. Mr. Robinson did not notice anything of it, because he was “as high as the Empire State,” and suddenly fell asleep on the floor. Next morning, he got up a little bit disappointed and did not remember anything about the previous night, until he found this little note in the coffee table written by his wife, telling that she and the kids had gone away forever.

Sadness invaded him completely. That was the moment when he realized how he had destroyed his life. Now that he did not have his family by his side, he was all alone. At least, he still had a home, and his job like businessman to make a living. But there was a problem, a very big one, in fact: his boss sacked him that afternoon, because he forgot about an important international business meeting, crucial for his company; so he did not have a job neither. He got really worried about his actual situation, and looked into his bank account in order to know how much money he still had on it. “Oh my god! What am I going to do now?” - screamed Mr. Robinson when he saw he was in the red-. He remembered about that big bet on which he gambled a lot of money, and he lost it all because of his addiction to bet. That was really, really bad. “How am I supposed to earn money now that I don’t have a job?” - started asking himself the poor man-. Right after

that, he had an idea. It was illegal, dangerous and crazy, but it was the only way out he found in that desperate moment of his life. He got into the world of drug dealing, but he did not obtain enough money, and he could not afford the mortgage on his house. So, the bank took away his house and soon he became homeless. At the time, he has to live in the streets, sleep on park benches or carton “shelters” he makes by himself, and eat just twice a day in soup kitchens or by the charity of shop owners or neighbors who give him food for free. He has no idea of what to do with his life. He would never be able to see his two children again because of a restraining order that keeps him away from them and their mother, his wife.

What a hard life, you see. That is one of the biggest problems of nowadays society: addictions. Addictions which can be of many different types: maybe addiction to gamble or to bet, or maybe it could be alcohol or drug addiction... There are too many. As you see in this story, they destroy oneself’s life, making it seem like a nightmare. Think twice before start being addicted to any of them. Maybe you could become “Mr.Robinson” one day...

Life is long, and anything can happen to you if you don’t prevent yourself to not go the wrong way in life. Is this a moralizing writing or something? It could be, or it could not be.

It is up to you, anyway.

LUCÍA FÉLIX PRIETO 4ºB

A FAIR REPUBLIC Shofu is an enciclopedia seller who works for Encycloysters, in Barcelona. He's married to Mrs.Tamashi. Mrs.Tamashi used to be a Maths teacher, but she was fired seven months ago. Then both have a son called Nexus.

One day, Shofu got fired because "the company didn't have enough money to pay all the employees". However, Encycloysters boss was earning as much money as he used to. He didn't really need it all, but kept it for himself.

After getting fired, Shofu was desperately looking for a job because his family didn't earn enough money to live, at least not for too long. After three months Nexus and his parents had to leave their house because they couldn't continue paying it. That day they literally started to live under a bridge.

They got to the point where they had to steal in order to live. So they did it. They didn't have any choice.

It didn't work for too long though; Shofu and Mrs.Tamashi were caught by the police when attempting to steal some food from a supermarket.

Nexus was taken to social services and sent to another family. Nexus felt collapsed. At least I have a house - he usually thought.

Shofu met people in jail that were there for the same reason as him. There were lots of them with families outside, just like him.

A couple of days after Shofu's arrival they told Shofu they were planning a rebellion, something that could change the world. At first Shofu thought they were all crazy. This is what causes spending too much time in jail - he said to himself.

But after hearing the words of Nappy, the one who told Shofu about the rebellion, he started to see and think about the world in a different way. The world was full of selfish people who took everything from people who had nothing. Rebellion was the only way to fix that.

Some days later they all met while having lunch. "Let's start a riot" is what they all had in mind.

Fortunately, Nappy was leaving jail in two days. They could start a riot inside jail. But what for?

They were trapped. They needed support from the outside.

They had a plan. As Nappy was leaving soon, he would convince people from the outside to help.

People from the streets, people that were like them before going to jail. When they were enough to do it, when the whole city was prepared, a rebellion would start. Inside jail, outside jail, the same day, at the exact same hour every single citizen would go to prison to set everyone inside free. Then they would go to the City Hall to get rid of the mayor and take charge of the city. But that was just the first step. It took quite a long time, but their republic spread around the whole country. A fair country where no one was rich or poor.

By Jesús García Sánchez

Realistic story People nowadays have a certain dependence on new technologies. Hans is one of those teenagers who loves playing videogames, chatting with friends and using the mobile pone all day. We all think social networks are good for us to communicate with friends whenever we want to and of course, to meet new people from any place in the world, but…first, I think it is more important to have and keep your friendship with real people who are always by your side caring about you.

Hans used to go out with friends only on weekends because of high-school and the studies, but now, when some of his friends go out they’re just caring about their mobile phones chatting with others or doing something else; that’s not logic, because if you are there with your friends it’s because you are there to talk and have a good times with them. Hans was one of those boys. He didn’t hear a thing from his best friends and he was just like disconnected of his real life. He was living in his own world on Internet, where he thought he was the most popular and important person, but that wasn’t the truth. He started staying at home even at weekends and people started avoiding him because of his selfishness and obsession with technologies. He didn’t care what people thought about him, so people didn’t care about his lonely soul.

When you wake up in the morning and you think: ‘What I’m going to do today?’ and you feel no one is by your side, you know you are alone, and there’s always a reason for it. That was when Hans realized that all the ‘life’ he had been ‘living’ on Internet was a lie and he was totally suffocated because of his loneliness. Then he looked at his mobile pone and he just threw i tinto the endless emptiness.

Paula Guzmán Jiménez 4º ESO B

MARY, THE MISERABLE The aspects I have included in my novel are, above all, the way people in Africa live.

The story takes place in Somalia, in Africa, in a little village, and the main character is a poor girl who works in a textile factory. It has a happy ending.

Mary is a sixteen years old teenager whose parents are dead. She works in a textile factory at the weekends but her salary is very low and she has to live in the streets, in which she asks people for money or food. During the story, her life conditions become worse and worse and she has to face many problems, for example, one day when she is fired from the factory.

At the end, when she is about to die because of starvation, some people from an ONG come to her village providing help for everyone. Mary’s life conditions improved and she was provided with a place where to live; a public house they built, and a job as helper in a hospital they also built in order to help people in the same conditions as Mary, and the main problem in Africa; starvation.

Luis Miguel San Martín Fernández 4ºeso B