Lilly the Explorer of Cappadocia
There once was a girl who lived in the time period at the end of the Ottoman €empire, in a place called Cappadocia. The name of the girl was Lilly. Lilly was 14, she loves exploring, and she lives in a cave house. Lilly lives with her mom, Mandy and dad, Henry but her dad is off at work. Henry doesn’t come home until late on Thursday, then stays with his family Friday for the Muslim holy day, and leaves very late on Friday. Even though Henry is away working, their family is one of the poorest family’s in the village. Lilly is forced to wear a raggedy old head scarf. Lilly really wished that she had a better looking head scarf, but Lilly never says anything to her parents because she knows that they are already having a hard time and doesn’t want them to feel worse. Lilly thought that if she gave it another wash it would be ripped beyond repair (the way they washed their clothes was by rinsing it and then beating it with a stick).
Lilly has black hair, from her dad, blue eyes, from her mom and is tall from both sides of the family. Lilly is skinny from her mom and also because they don’t have enough to eat lately. Some animals have been getting into their store of food that they keep in a separate cave. So now, they don’t have as much food as they did the other years.
Every morning Lilly goes exploring in abandoned caves. Except Lilly is supposed to be weaving Kilim every morning with her mom and putting it in a dowry chest. A dowry chest is a chest girls get when they’re born and special items are put into it until she is married. Kilim is a thin type of rug and much lighter than a carpet. Very good pieces would be put into the dowry chest and passed down from generation to generation. Lilly hates weaving so she sneaks out in the morning before her mom is awake and explores the caves. One day, Lilly was exploring a cave that had been abandoned for years. As she was exploring,, going deeper and deeper into the cave, she found a room full of treasure. Lilly ran as fast as the wind to tell her mom. Lilly wished her dad was there, he loved exploring but he had to be away at work.
When Lilly got to her mom and told Mandy what she found, Mandy didn’t believe her daughter because Lilly had reputation to make stories up. So Lilly had to beg her mom to come see. When they got to they room that had the treasure, Mandy nearly fainted. Never in her life had Mandy seen so much treasure. Mandy said that they should probably search the room to see who these riches belonged to, so they could return it. Mandy found a piece of paper with a message. Mandy read the note aloud. It read “For Mandy, Lilly, and Henry. You are the most honest people I know. For your honesty, I give you my fortune”. In the room there was gold, diamonds, emeralds, silver, jewelry, silverware, drinking goblets, coins, and lots more. When Henry got home, Lilly and Mandy had brought every thing to their home. At first he thought he came to the wrong house! But when Mandy and Lilly came out, he asked how they got all the riches.
They ended up giving a lot of the treasure away but they kept a little less than half. They gave the other treasure to their poor friends in the village and lived happily ever after!
By: Eliza Pelton November 15, 2008
