ANGELIQUE TAVERAS
9th GRADE
UNTITLED
Jim sat in his creaky wooden chair
every day. I would come to visit him
in the Auburn Asylum for the mentally
ill. I would read stories to him, but he
never seemed to pay attention.
The nurses had warned
me about visiting him. They said he
was brought to Auburn because he
murdered his two sisters.
I always knew when
someone was dangerous, even before I
started working at Auburn. Dangerous
people gave me a bad feeling in my
stomach. But I never felt this way
about Jim. Jim never spoke or
made any movements after he killed
his sisters, so the jury tried him as
mentally insane.
I began visiting Jim
because I saw potential in him. I truly
believed that, with my help, he could
get better. After a while, I saw Jim
getting better. He would smirk at the
comics that I read to him. Sometimes,
he would even stand up and walk
around the room.
Margaret, one of the
new nurses, had a necklace around
her neck with a missing piece. I asked
her where the piece was, and she said
it had gone missing years ago.
HPAC Young Writers Review
Unfortunately, Margaret claimed that
Jim attacked her aggressively when
she entered his room to give him
his medication. I went to visit him
after that, even though he still hadn’t
taken his medication. I found it very
surprising that Jim would act up in
that way towards one of the nurses,
since he had been doing so well.
As soon as I walked
in, he began to pace around the
perimeter of the room. I asked him
what was wrong, and he simply
looked at me, almost as if he
wished words could convey
all that he desired to say.
I told him to sit down and chat with
me.
We had had many chats
before, and they’d always consisted of
him quietly listening to everything I
had to say. But this time, he sat down
and took a deep breath in, and began
to speak.
“I didn’t do it,” Jim said.
I didn’t understand what
he was saying. I was just in shock
that he had spoken. I went home
that night and couldn’t stop thinking
about what Jim said.
I looked up the murder of
Jim’s sisters, but all I found were the
newspapers about his trial and their
deaths. It got to be 4:30 in the morning,
so I decided to look at one last website
before I went to sleep. I found a picture
of the items they found at the murder
site. I saw a picture of the missing half
of Margaret’s necklace.
Suddenly everything
began to add up. Jim didn’t murder
his sisters. Margaret did, and she
managed to escape before the
investigators came. That was why
Jim attacked Margaret, because he
remembered her from when she
killed his sisters. Margaret must have
been at the Asylum to kill Jim and
get rid of the last piece of evidence
that was left from the crime she had
committed 15 years ago.
It was morning already,
so I put my clothes on and ran to
Auburn Asylum. I went into Jim’s
room but he wasn’t there. I ran to
the main office where I found all of
the nurses together in silence. I asked
them where Jim was, and they said
that they found him dead in the closet
that morning. Margaret had the night
shift to take care of Jim and she had
disappeared.
I couldn’t believe it was
too late. HY