Student sample for assessment
Written by a Year 9 student in Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia.
Jess sat at the library table with the wallet in her hands. Twenty minutes ago, it had been on the ground beside the chair where an older man had been sitting. She had picked it up and watched him leave, his grey coat disappearing into the crowd. Inside were bank cards, a driver's license, a faded photo of two women in old-fashioned clothes, and three hundred dollars in cash. She could give it to the librarian. Mrs Chen would take it, write down her name, maybe even mention to Jess's parents that she had turned it in. 'Your daughter found a wallet,' she would say. 'Very responsible.' Jess knew how that would feel. She had turned in other lost things before. That warm, certain feeling of having done the right thing, with proof that she had done it. Or she could track down the owner herself. The licence had a name and address: Robert Tran. The address was three suburbs away. Jess could message him on Facebook, or find his phone number and call him. But then she would have to explain where she got the number. And he would ask for her name. And she would be a stranger who had somehow followed him and found him, which sounded creepy, even if her intentions were good. It would be easier just to hand it to Mrs Chen. But Jess thought about the photo in the wallet—two women, one with her arm around the other. She thought about Mr Tran walking home and noticing the wallet was gone. She thought about him calling the banks, cancelling cards, feeling like the world had taken something he could not get back. The money did not matter. The cards did not matter. But Jess knew—somehow she was sure—that the photo mattered. That the wallet mattered because of what it held. She opened her laptop and searched for Robert Tran at that address. She found him. She sent him a careful message, not saying how she had got the address, just that she had found his wallet and could return it. When he messaged back, his reply was short: 'Thank you.' Then: 'How did you know it was me?' Jess wrote back: 'Lucky guess with the address on the licence.' It was not a lie, exactly. It was not the whole truth either. She did not explain any more, and he did not ask. When she met him to return the wallet, at a cafe near her house, Mr Tran opened it and looked at the photo. His eyes went shiny. He did not thank her again, or ask her name properly, or offer her a reward. He just held the wallet like it was precious, and Jess realised something. The whole time, she had been worried about what he would think of her—whether he would think she was strange or intrusive or too young to be trusted. But he did not care about any of that. He was just grateful that someone he would never know had cared enough to return something precious. He did not need to know who she was, or why she had done it, or what credit she should get. What happened between them in that moment—the returning, the gratitude—that was enough. It was real and complete without having a name attached to it.