Continuing a story

A de­ci­si­on at the beach



The sun was shi­ning bright­ly while Maya was wal­king slow­ly along the beach. She was lis­te­ning to the sound of the waves and thin­king about her grand­mo­ther, who had lived on the is­land all her life. The Ca­rib­be­an is­land, which was fa­mous for its beau­ti­ful be­aches, usu­al­ly made Maya feel happy, but today she was fee­ling ner­vous.



Ear­lier that mor­ning, Maya had been sit­ting on the woo­den steps in front of her grand­mo­ther’s house when she found an old let­ter. It was a let­ter (that) her grand­mo­ther had writ­ten short­ly be­fo­re she died. While Maya was re­a­ding it, tears were run­ning down her face.



Her grand­mo­ther had al­ways been a woman who be­lie­ved in hon­es­ty and re­spect. She often tal­ked about va­lu­es that were im­portant for the com­mu­ni­ty, like hel­ping others and ta­king re­spon­si­bi­li­ty for your ac­tions.



Now, as Maya was stan­ding near the old fi­shing boats, she noti­ced her cou­sin Jay and two boys (who were tal­king loud­ly). They were ar­gu­ing about so­me­thing. When Maya came clo­ser, she saw a wal­let lying in the sand.



While the boys were dis­cus­sing what to do, Maya was wat­ching them quiet­ly. Jay was hol­ding the wal­let and smi­ling. “The tou­rist who lost this wal­let will pro­bab­ly never come back,” he said. “We need the money more than he does.”



Maya re­mem­be­red the words her grand­mo­ther had writ­ten in the let­ter. While the waves were cras­hing against the shore, Maya was thin­king about what was right and what was wrong. She knew Jay was in trou­ble, but she also knew that kee­ping the wal­let would not be fair.



Jay tur­ned to her and asked, “You’re not going to tell an­yo­ne, are you?”



Maya was ta­king a deep breath while ever­y­o­ne was wai­ting for her ans­wer…









Task: Con­ti­nue the story.