STUDENT ANTHOLOGIES EXCERPTS
 Ashley Lee’s “Goodbye Sammy”
in Everything's Different Now: Stories of Change by San Francisco Youth
Sammy was a normal-sized yellow-orange goldfish. He was always excited to see me.
When I went to the fish bowl, he wasn’t there. I was worried. I thought maybe he was under the seashell, but he wasn’t. When I looked to the side of the bowl, there he was—dead. He had jumped out. Once I saw him, I yelled for my parents.
I started to cry. My parents knew I was very close to Sammy. I was only seven or eight years old. Sammy was my first pet. I talked to him every day. We decided to bury Sammy in the garden. We had a wonderful ceremony. During the ceremony, we put him in a nice box, said a few words and put fish food in his box, so, if he got hungry, he would have something to eat.
“I’ll miss you very much, dear old Sammy.” I wept.
“I enjoyed seeing you every day,” muttered Mom.
“Sammy, you were so cute. I hope you have a nice time in heaven,” I whispered.
“Goodbye, Sammy,” everyone said.
Later that evening, my family and I were talking and we think Sammy might have died because Dead Fred died. Dead Fred was my brother’s fish. They lived in the same bowl, and we think Sammy died of loneliness. From that day on, we put a cover over the fish bowl and always had more than one fish. So, that’s the end of my fish story about Sammy.
A year later we got two new fish. Their names are Stubby and Goldie. They are guppies. I also got a bird three years later. Her name is Topspin. She is a cockatoo. They all live happily together in the dining room of our house.
Ashley Emily Lee is eleven years old and lives in San Francisco, California. She attends school at Claire Lilienthal. She has one brother named Ryan. She likes to read, talk to friends, crochet and do arts and crafts. She wishes that Sammy were still alive.
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