Star Wars - Episode I Journal - Anakin Skywalker

The battle is over. There is peace again on Naboo. Through my window I am watching the people of Theed clear away the rubble. Wrecked Trade Federation tanks and the burned battle droids are being towed off. Shattered statues are being put back together. The job of rebuilding this beautiful city will be hard, but the people of Naboo don’t seem to mind. I think they are thankful that they are alive.

I am thankful to be alive, too. I could have been killed many times. I should be happy, but I’m not. A great man gave his life so that these people could live. I will never forget him.

That is why I am writing this journal. So much has happened… I’m afraid it’s too much for me to fully remember. Yet I sense even greater and more important things are coming soon.

The air here on Naboo is damp and warm. As I sit beside the window, the sun feels good on my skin. It is so different from the place I come from.

I am only here for a while. I’m not sure what will happen when I leave, but until then, I will work on this journal.

My name is Anakin Skywalker.

I am nine years old.

Something strange happened to me. I was working in the junk heap behind the shop when Watto yelled at me to come inside. He is always yelling at me from under his long snout. He hovers around the shop on stubby blue wings that make a humming noise. He is my master and I am his slave. So I have to listen.

“Come into the store,” Watto yelled. His store is just a dusty junk shop. Like most of the buildings here in Mos Espa, it is domed and made with thick walls to keep the heat out.

I usually work in the junkyard in the back. My job is to look for parts in the small mountain of busted-up space vehicles Watto has collected. Sometimes I hate the work, but it’s taught me a lot. I doubt there are many nine-year-old Humans around Tatooine who know half as much about mechanical stuff as me.

I normally don’t mind getting out from under Tatooine’s two suns. Around midday they can really roast you. But just when Watto called me I was pulling a cooling unit out of a Podracer. I’d been looking for a cooling unit like it for weeks. I wanted to give it to my friend Jira, the old lady who owns the fruit stand in the marketplace.

I ran into the store. If there are customers, Watto always yells more. It’s his way of showing off and proving to people what an important junk dealer he is. A small group of people and an astromech droid were inside. That was pretty unusual.

One of the people was an older man who looked like a farmer. He was tall and had a beard, long dark hair, and strange eyes. Right away I noticed he was different. He didn’t have the scarred, calloused hands moisture farmers usually have.

There was also a creature who looked like a cross between many species. He stood upright on two legs like a Human. He had a mouth shaped like a bill, and a frog’s big eyes rising out of his head. He was not really that unusual compared to some of the creatures who pass through Mos Espa. But I’d never met anyone like him before.

Tagging along with them was a small, blue, dome-topped R-2 astromech droid.

And finally, there was
her
. At first I didn’t notice anything unusual because she was small and dressed in rough peasant clothes. But on second glance I noticed that, like the older man, something wasn’t quite right about her. She was older than me, but not old. She may have been wearing coarse clothes, but there was something delicate about her. Her long, braided brown hair shimmered. There was a glint in her brown eyes and her skin was too perfect for a farm girl.

My heart started to beat a little harder, and I felt strangely drawn to her. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I looked closer and instantly knew that she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. In fact, I was certain that I was in the presence of an angel, even though I’d never met one before.

Tatooine is probably the last place in the galaxy you’d expect to find an angel. It is a hot, dusty planet. And people don’t follow the laws of the Galactic Republic here. Tatooine is run by the Hutts, who are known throughout the universe as gangsters and cold-blooded killers. Our planet is populated by misfits and criminals who have nowhere left to go. I think it is one of the few places in the galaxy where you can buy and sell slaves, like my mom and me.

A bunch of hyperspace trading routes meet here on Tatooine. This means we get visitors not only from our galaxy, but other galaxies as well. A lot of strange types come into Watto’s junk shop looking for parts. We get bounty hunters, hired blasters, spice pirates, and all sorts of deep-space pilots traveling to and from places you’ve never heard of before and will probably never hear of again.

It was an old deep-space pilot who told me about the angels. He said they lived on the moons of Iego and were the most beautiful creatures in the universe. They were also supposed to be good and kind—two words you don’t hear much on Tatooine.

Watto took the older man and the astromech droid out back to look for parts. That left me with the frog man and the angel. Of course, I didn’t know
for sure
that she was an angel. I only suspected it. So I just sat on the counter and pretended to clean a transmitter cell.

The angel was sweating and she dabbed her forehead with a cloth. I had a feeling she wasn’t used to the kind of heat we lived with on Tatooine.

She must have known I was staring at her because after a while she gave me a funny smile. That’s when I asked her if she was an angel.

She looked surprised, then said she’d never heard of angels. I think she was telling the truth. So I told her maybe she was one and didn’t know it.

We started to talk, and the next thing I knew, I was telling her that I was a pilot, and how Watto had won my mom and me from Gardulla the Hutt on a bet.

She seemed surprised to hear I was a slave.

Meanwhile, the frog man couldn’t keep still. He poked through the bins and shelves. It seemed as if he had to touch everything in the shop! Finally he accidentally activated a small pit droid. The droid started marching, knocking things over, and dragging the frog man around the store.

It was a funny sight, and the angel girl and I laughed together. She had an easy laugh, and I knew I didn’t want her to go away.