À l’école primaire, les classes travaillent sur un thème différent chaque demi-trimestre. Dans la classe de Zoé, ils ont parlé du Titanic pour commencer l’année.
À chaque fois, il y a une liste de devoirs dans laquelle piocher. Et Zoé choisit toujours la rédaction !

Cette fois-ci, il fallait donc qu’elle raconte son expérience de passagère du Titanic. Je vous recopie l’intégralité ci-dessous. (Si vous avez du mal avec son anglais, essayez Google Translate. Pas parfait, mais ça aide !)
Elle a aussi réalisé la peinture à côté.

Pour récompenser tous ces efforts, elle a reçu ce “home learning certificate”. Oui, c’est vrai, tout le monde en reçoit un, mais c’est quand même sympa !

Bonne lecture…

Dear diary…

My name is Rita Saxon. I am 28 years old and was born in England. I didn’t realise it then, but I was born in a rich family. It does make sense though, since we were friends with the royals. Growing up, I always had a passion for writing. Every time it was my birthday, I would ask for fancy new pens or special paper. I also loved reading any kind of non-fiction books. Learning something new every day was so special for me. When I was around thirteen, a thought hit me. A thought that would later change my entire life.

Something that I enjoyed just as much as learning things was making other people learn. I was quite obsessed with traveling all around the world and observing how people from other countries do things differently. So then I thought. What was I going to do when I grow up ? A thought like this one had never hit me before. Being so important to the royal family always made me think that I HAD to follow in my siblings’ and/or parent’s footsteps. But I realised, I am not part of the royals. What would I do? Where would I go? Could I maybe be… an explorer? No, there wouldn’t be any writing. And then, just like that, the life-changing thought came to my mind. I would be a journalist!

My parents, however, were not as keen. I think it is actually safe to say that they weren’t keen at all! Long story short, though, I got so fed up about this topic that I ran away. You may think that this was a horrible mistake, but I was old enough. I ended up getting my very well payed job (since my parents refused to send me any money) that is absolutely perfect for me. My boss is very nice, too. In fact when I got a promotion, he sent me to write a very detailed report on The Titanic : Ship Of Dreams. My ticket was first class, and everything was paid by my company; The Daily. If you didn’t know, it is the most popular newspaper company in England.

I was ecstatic when my boss, who by the way is called Mr Dolly, told me this. A free trip to New York on THE TITANIC?! It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I was NOT going to waste it.I rushed home as soon as I could to pack my bags and send my parents a letter to tell them the good news. Even after a couple of hours, I could not believe what I had heard! Could this really be true? Was I dreaming? Who knew! But I was happy because it had been a long time since I was this excited. I would be travelling in First Class as well! And everything was free! I decided to put quite a number of things in my bag. Here, I made a list;

• A beautiful summer hat
• My fanciest evening dresses ( I had to look elegant for I was going to be in first class)
• A nightgown
• A good, big book in case I got bored
• My favorite jewels
• A watch my father had given me the I was little
• A coat with real fur
• Some more dresses for any kind of occasion
• A marvelous pink gown with sparkling sequins all over and a single strap over one shoulder

That pink gown is definitely the favorite dress I’ve ever had. My mother had bought it for me when I was little. Obviously, it was much too big for me, but she insisted on me wearing it saying that it’ll ‘last longer’.

Finale, the day had come. It was the day I would board The Titanic! As I stepped foot on The Titanic, one of the crew members immediately escorted me towards my room. Oh, how the ceilings were high, and the rooms were big! My room had a giant bed with as many pillows as one could wish for. A door on the right would lead you to a blindingly sparkling bathroom, where I realized that all of this had never been used before. But little did I know that I would be the only one using it. The first couple of days were a dream come true. I would say that I felt like a movie star going on holiday, but even for a celebrity everything was so… exciting, as an understatement! From the lavatories and dining rooms, to the bedrooms and gym! Of course, I wrote a very thorough paragraph on everything that I saw for the article if I do say so myself. And then came the day of Titanic’s doom.

At about 23:00, I was just getting ready for bed when the engine started making these weird moaning sounds. I decided to try and find one of the crew members to see what was going on. As a journalist, I had to be curious about everything. Eventually, I found someone who told me not to worry. I tried to get some more information out of him, but he seemed a rush so I didn’t keep him. I can’t bear to write the next part down, dear diary. Long story short though, I came across a poor child who had lost her parents. She was about six years old, and couldn’t stop crying. I later found out that as soon as her parents found out that The Titanic was going to sink, they jumped off the ship and had now froze to death. I, being a woman in first class, was one of the first to go in a lifeboat. As the lifeboat went down towards the deep blue sea, the orchestra played ‘Nearer My God To Thee’. It was… the most touching moment of my life.
At some point, another ship came to get us. When we finally reached New York, I ended up being a surprisingly famous journalist. As for the child, I raised her up as my own. After my article on The Titanic went out, it was translated and sent to many other countries. After that, I never heard from my family again.