Polly

By Susana Oliva and Antonio Oliva

The book is about a young girl who wonders away from her home without realizing it, she becomes lost and is on her journey back to her home and family. She is encountered by many adventures and people she meets along her journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Dec 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796008845

Susana Oliva

Susana Inés Oliva Fuentes "Susy" born in Santiago, Chile on 26 April 1964, immigrated to Australia on 8 November 1970 with two brothers and parents when only 6 years old. Fluent in Spanish and English. Divorced Mother of 5, now all adults and grandmother of 3. Grew up in Sydney Australia and Santiago Chile, lived in Melbourne Australia for 8 years, been living in Canberra ACT Australia for the past 24 years. Has Diploma in Business Administration, acquired at The Canberra Institute of Technology, Woden Southside Campus in 2010. Unemployed as of: 11/11/2019

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COPYRIGHT © 2020 BY SUSANA OLIVA.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/10/2019

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

805495

Contents

Author’s Introduction

Chapter 1    Polly’s Cottage

Chapter 2    Polly’s Curiosity

Chapter 3    The New Day

Chapter 4    Polly Slips in the River

Chapter 5    The Stranger in the Woods

Chapter 6    Stéfan’s Home

Chapter 7    The Back Gardens

Chapter 8    Stéfan Sends for a Search Party

Chapter 9    Back at the Cottage

Chapter 10    Setting Sail in Search for Polly

Chapter 11    The Stables

Chapter 12    Missy

Chapter 13    The Valley

Chapter 14    Back at Stéfan’s Cottage

Chapter 15    Oasi

Chapter 16    Oasi’s Village

Chapter 17    Father and Thomas Find Stéfan’s Cottage

Chapter 18    The Caves

Chapter 19    The Storm

Chapter 20    After the Storm

Chapter 21    The Journey Back Home

Chapter 22    Downstream Traveller

Chapter 23    Home Sweet Home

Chapter 24    The Storm at Stéfan’s Cottage

Chapter 25    Thomas Learns the Truth of His Origins

Chapter 26    The Plan

Author’s Introduction

The author wrote this book intending to attract the reader to a way of thinking inspired by the pure thoughts and innocent manner and early experiences of an innocent girl who grew up in a perfect world and discovered what was beyond her boundaries.

The author is highly aware of life’s dangers and insecurities and people’s suffering and confusion and takes into account how people’s thoughts or actions can lead to a good outcome when administered with pure faith and a good zest for life.

Many books and movies have captivated audiences via impure thoughts, acts, immoral speeches, as well as violence involved in some part of the movie or other.

In this book, the author concentrates on her own emotions and shares her views of life through the adventures of Polly in a world far away from her own.

Intense woodlands and moral differences in the upbringing of the characters in this book separate the two worlds. The author views the differences in both worlds portrayed by the main character in the story.

The author invites the reader to read along and join a journey of innocence seen through the eyes of a young woman living through experiences that she had never imagined before. What she finds is what she never expected to find until she realises that what she had always had gave her a love for life that she was willing to share with anyone she met.

Read with an open mind to the possibilities of what this world would be like if we could all live in harmony, surrounded by cherished families and loved ones on a regular basis in an almost perfect world.

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CHAPTER 1

Polly’s Cottage

Polly lived in a faraway land that was uninhabited by people except for her family. Her parents lived in a cottage settled by a river surrounded by flowers of all kinds. Polly’s parents had originated from a town that was over the other side of the mountains. They had travelled many days and miles to find a perfect place for them to settle and start their family.

Polly loved her home and surroundings. She would always play with her brothers and sisters before sunset and dinner time just outside their cottage while they smelt their mother’s home-baked cooking in the fresh sunset breeze.

The children were always happy and smiling and were well behaved. They felt comforted by their parents and home and feared no evil as they had never experienced it, so to them, it did not exist.

Each morning, the singing of the birds and the crow of their rooster awoke the family. Mother would rise up and prepare herself a cup of tea with some biscuits baked the night before and sat and ate them while she thought of all her daily duties of the day ahead.

There was breakfast to prepare. She would collect the eggs from the chook pen, bake the bread, and have so many other duties just to start the day. However, she could never do anything without her cup of tea and home-baked cookies first thing in the morning.

The children would wake up to the sweet sound of their mother singing and birds chirping in the background with the sweet smell of fresh-baked bread in the air.

They knew that it was time to get up, brush their teeth, wash their face, get dressed, and make their beds before they could come down for breakfast. They all took turns in the bathroom one after the other from eldest to youngest.

Polly always made sure that her brothers and sisters were ready and dressed and that their beds were made before going down for breakfast. As the eldest, she had the responsibility to keep order of all the children. Each child respected Polly’s reasoning and point of view since she had never disappointed them before.

When they heard their mother say, ‘Breakfast is ready,’ they would be ready to gallop down the stairs and slide on the polished floors in the kitchen. They would all stop in order of age, kiss their mother on the cheek, and greet her with a ‘Good morning, Mother’ each morning.

Father was at the head of the table when the children came in to the kitchen. He was the first one to get up in the morning, even before Mother. He would fetch the firewood and start the stove fire for Mother to cook and bake breakfast and make herself a cup of tea before she could start the new day.

All the children would gather around the table beside their chairs and would say good morning to their father; their father would respond with a smile on his face and say, ‘Good morning, children. Take a seat.’

Mother would bring her freshly made cup of tea and sit at the table. All the family would rise just before she sat down, and when she would sit, she would always say, ‘Thank you, children’ and ‘Father, let us give thanks for the food that we have today and for all our many blessings.’ All would sit, bow their heads, and listen to the words of thanks their father had to offer and then eat when he had finished speaking.

Breakfast felt like the best meal of the day. It was the first and the best. The bread was freshly baked, and the eggs were nicely scrambled. They had a choice of melted cheese on toast or scrambled eggs on toast, all cooked on their wood stove.

Father would go out and pick oranges from the orange groves for our breakfast juice each morning. Mother would look after making the orange juice in the morning, while Father would milk the cow and bring a warm bucket of milk to the cottage for breakfast.

Mother had churned the milk and made cheese the week before to last throughout the week. What more could Polly ask for? She had it all!

As soon as they had enjoyed and finished eating their delicious breakfast, the children would excuse themselves before leaving the table; once excused, they would collect their plates, cups, and cutlery and put them neatly beside the kitchen sink.

Being the eldest, Polly normally had to do the more complicated chores like washing the dishes. She would fill the basin with warm water preheated on the stove. Polly would wash the cups first just as Mother had taught her, then she would wash the plates and kitchen utensils that were used for the eggs, cheese, toast, and the greasy things.

As she placed the dishes beside the kitchen basin, her brothers and sisters were ready to collect each item and dry them with a clean towel. Each cup, bowl, plate, and cutlery were neatly placed in its place and ready for next time’s use.

After the breakfast chores were over, the children would leave the house and play amongst the flowery fields with the animals, birds, and the bees. The bees never hurt the children because the children never hurt them. Whenever they needed honey, Father would go near their beehive, and all the bees would move out of his way for him to collect the honey. The bees knew that Father always kept their flowery gardens blossoming, so they always had plenty of pollen to make more honey so they did not mind sharing at all.

Mother and Father enjoyed this time of day because it gave them an opportunity to do the grown-up chores like chopping wood, mending, and fixing anything that needed repairing in their little cottage house and land.

Father also collected the water needed for cooking and washing the dishes; he would collect it from the creek that ran past their cottage. The children loved it. Every day before sunset, they would go for a swim in the creek and bathe in an area where the sun kept the water warm.

Even the fish in the creek would stop and play with the children. They let the children pick them up, say hello, give them a kiss, and put them back in the water. It was so funny; the fish loved it so much that they always came back for more.

Sometimes, the children would swim underwater and play with the fish. The fish swam, and the children tried