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「故事·听力」I Earn More Than My Foster Parents

LearnAndRecord 2022-07-26

I Earn More Than My Foster Parents But They Steal EverythingI

Hello everyone, my name is Gillian. I'm 16 and I was able to turn my hobby into a very profitable job that made me a lot of money. But life didn't get any easier, because I got in trouble when my parents found out about it.


First, I have to say that I didn't live with my biological parents. It's actually my aunt and uncle. They were appointed as my guardians after social services pulled me out of the hell that used to be my home. From that moment, I moved to another city and lived with my guardians for 5 years. You know, if I knew what kind of people they were, I probably would have rather stayed in that hell. But I was 11 years old, and I had no choice. So I moved into this house, and things got even worse. My aunt and uncle already had a large family, and they had absolutely no space for me. I swear to you, they put me in the closet, because the other rooms were occupied by their children. I lived in this closet like Harry Potter. Only, I knew that there was no such thing as a miracle, and the owl wouldn`t bring me the invitation to study at Hogwarts. I always got the worst version of everything my cousins had. I was given my older sister's worn-out clothes, the toys I had were usually already broken by my younger brothers, and of course my "guardians" didn`t want to spend any money for simple things like a normal phone, so I couldn't even text my friends from school. Of course, I was always scolded for the slightest offense, and they always referred to my mother, who they regarded as a spoiled and terrible person. I always hated to hear that, because I loved my mother and missed her very much, despite what had happened in our family.


My mother was a good woman, and she didn't deserve to be treated like that. You might think, "Then why am I living with guardians?" OK, I'll tell you everything. Until I was 11, I lived with my birth parents. But, as you know, I ended up at my aunt`s house, where nobody wanted me. So something bad did happen. My dad was an intern at a company that works overseas, and he went away for a few months. After he came back, our happy family started falling apart. I think he found another woman, and he just wanted to get away from us. So my parents divorced, my father left, and it was just me and my mom.  My mother was sad for a long time because of the divorce. At one point, she had a boyfriend, and I thought that soon everything would be fine, but I was wrong. Damn Bill. He began to have a bad influence on my mother. And from that moment on, everything went to hell. At first they started hanging out somewhere until late, and my mother began to be late for work all the time. She began to treat her work negligently, and soon she was fired. Mom and her boyfriend were pulling out all the stops, and mom became a completely different person. She was nervous and irritable. She clearly had a drinking problem and lost control of herself. She even showed up drunk at a parent meeting at my school. My teacher noticed this and wanted to talk to her, but my mother started swearing and insulting the teacher. It was a huge mistake. The teacher called social services and inspectors came to our house. They saw the mess, and they knew what was going on. Then my mother was deprived of her parental rights, and here I was.


But I still loved her, and I didn't think it was her fault. It was Bill who turned my mom into an alcoholic. So all I had left was to just miss her, and occasionally chat on the phone with her, with my aunt's permission. I tried to get rid of my boredom by doing what I loved — embroidering with beads. My mom taught me how to do it and it was my only hobby. On the weekends, I just sat in my closet and embroidered all day. But one day, I had a cool idea. I decided to create not just abstract patterns, but some pictures. At first I practiced on portraits of celebrities, and tried to repeat the famous paintings, like the Mona Lisa. And I was pretty good at it. One day a friend of mine suggested that I start selling these pictures. I thought, "Why not?" 


Then we went to a flea market and put my paintings up for sale. And it was a success! People were interested not only in the fact that these pictures were beautiful, but also in the fact that they were made by a 12-year-old girl. I sold small pieces for 20 bucks, and I was really glad that people liked them. But then I had another brilliant idea. I decided to embroider beaded portraits of people, like made to order. Adults liked this kind of thing, so I set up this mini-business. They would give me a picture, and a couple of months later I would sell them embroidery.

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