The House on the Hill.

In my town, there is this house that sits above all the rest on this hill. Half the house is on the top of the hill, and the other half is not. The half that is not on the hill looks like it is going to fall off the top of the hill. Into the pit of doom. That's not the real name for it, but it's what we call it because of the dark and ominous hole. It is very deep, no one can see the bottom of it. As hard as you may try, you cannot. The little old woman who lives there refuses to leave. She barely leaves the house. She has some sort of attachment to it or something. She is really lovely though and doesn't disturb anyone. So we just let her live there.

It's not like her house is the only one. The entire town is teetering on the edge of the pit of doom. But her house especially is on the edge. I don't think she minds very much because she is so relaxed about it. I'm nine years old currently, and I joined the girl scouts when I was four years old. None of the other girls are nearly brave enough to sell cookies at her door. So I'm the one who gets put on that job. The first time I was to sell cookies at her house was an adventure. My leader walked me to the bottom of the hill and offered me a badge if I sell her a box of cookies. I agreed and went up the winding path. It was a long and treacherous path to get there, but yet I made it.

Her house is grey, as we live in a grey-toned town. I was scared because some shingles were missing and it looked like it was falling apart. I knocked on the door anyway. She came to the door, looked down, and smiled broadly. She asked what I was doing at hers. I gathered she had little to no visitors, not even her own family. No one ever came into town looking for her. So I put on a big smile, knowing she wasn't mean, and asked if she wanted to buy some cookies. She said to hold on a second. I waited. She came back with ten dollars, enough for three boxes. I gave her the boxes that she wanted and she gave me the ten dollars. I happily went skipping down the path with the money in hand and a couple of boxes still in my arms.

She became my one and only customer from that day on. Sometimes I would just go to her house to hang out with her. My dad, my only parent, worked in the market. She would come to buy from us sometimes too, and she would always say hello. My girl scout troop apparently didn't really trust her or like her. It didn't matter what I said, she was the scary witch who was going to fall into the pit of doom. No way of saving her. And that she deserved to live alone on the verge of the pit. I reminded them that we lived on the edge too, but that didn't matter to them. One day, I noticed some people at her house. Immediately after school, I ran to her house. "What's happening?" I asked a tears woman. I gave her my handkerchief.

"They say it's too dangerous for me to live here anymore. They have to knock down my house and destroy it. I can't leave my house! It's all I have left." I went to go protest with her that they couldn't knock it down. And they just kept going. I started screaming to stop. And they ignored me and kept going. And boom. It was knocked down. We started crying. We had so many good memories in the house. I took her to my house. She moped around, but acted like a housemaid, so that way my dad would keep her. But she really was more of a mother. We didn't have much money for anything. So food and things like that were a problem sometimes. But she was like my mother. My dad and I had an idea. I talked it through with my scouts, and they looked around and agreed.

So we started to build it. A new house, on the edge, but much safer. We didn't tell her about it, but the entire community helped us to make it. Before we knew it, her new house was built. And we moved her in. She had the biggest smile on her face and even cried a little bit. She loved her new house. Not to mention, her house was next door to ours. We had an amazing welcome home party, and she loved it. The entire community pitched in to make it a great house for her. As comfortable as we can make it. And she loved it. I had never seen her so happy. She had been so depressed since she had lost her house. But she was back to normal, in fact, better when she got her house. We visited every day.

So you can imagine that when she passed on, a few years later, the entire world was burning. I had never felt so alone or sad in my entire life. It was so sad and depressing. Her funeral brought me to tears. I couldn't believe that such a great person had passed on. It was completely undeserved. She should be alive and instead, she was gone. I cried for weeks. When I was older, I lived in her house. And for the first time in a long time, I felt happy again. I started to think that everything was fine. I began my own family. And I started adding color to the town. And I made a monument for her. On the edge of something dark, she kept me grounded. And she deserved to be monumented.