FLOOD 

By Tessa Harvey

    She wondered how nan was, still alive she hoped and prayed. Sylvia had been feeling angry lately. Her fake dad had ordered blokes to attack her as some kind of revenge.
    Then she had crashed her car - her own fault, she knew, but she had found her real father, and that made her feel tremendous.
    She struggled on, holding the fence. Her pyjamas were sodden and the wind was rising. She began to shiver, finding it very hard to keep going. Tiredness gripped her, and biting cold.
    The door of the granny flat was open, water surging freely.
    Panic gripped Sylvia. "Where was nan?" She tried to pray, as if God was real. Where is nan? "God help me find her. Please, please help me find her.
    Hazel was not a direct relation, but she loved the elderly lady. Without hesitating, she had accepted Sylvia as a real granddaughter, just loving her so much and genuinely caring about her.
    She groped in the turgid waters swirling around the small loung. Nothing. 
Just ornaments, photo frames. A cat wailed and launched herself from a tall wall unit. The cat stared near Sylvia's feet. Something banged her legs.
    The girl bent down and gripped sodden clothing, hauling as hard as she could. the large couch was still anchored and Sylvia sank down, holding the older lady, trying to free her lungs from water. The little tabby cat pushed against nan's face.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FLOOD  By Tessa Harvey     Ian was trying to do exactly as his twin brother - to keep still. The teacher was watching them. He was on playground duty. Eric knew why he was watching them - he was trying to figure out which one was which. "Keep still, Ian!" he hissed. But Ian could not do that.     After a few minutes he was tapping his fingers or his toes in time with an internal metronome. For the very first time in his eleven years, Ian prayed God help me have music . Just then Mr. Jacobs came over. "Ian, would you like to join a music group? Eric is welcome also.     Eric scowled. Even the other kids just called them "the McKenzie brothers." He was very annoyed this dumb teacher had figured them out.     Then he saw the look of longing on his brother's face, and his heart melted. Time to grow up, he thought, a trifle sadly.     "Is there a chess club, sir?" he asked instead. "Ian can do music if he likes." He shrugged nonchalantl...
Read more
THE SENTINEL AWAY WITH WORDS  By Tessa Harvey     Polly Stanton leaned back against the wide oak tree and closed her eyes for a few moments, feeling exhausted. The young lad at the bus stop when she queried where the school was sited had smiled down at her. "Nowt but a lar walk," he had said.     She remembered the lovely Cumbrian accent and how it had cheered her all those years ago returning from London on the overnight bus. Just a wee walk then.      So she had set off walking the narrow lane which had meandered and curved. Imagining herself again a student, the time had seemed to fly by. Then her years had caught up with her. Old age, she thought, remembering how an older woman had once said "never get old, dearie!" Polly had thought that funny. "Move ominously," another person had said, "life is a......" - which it could be, she thought, ruefully.     Sinking down among the slowly falling leaves, she wondered at the impuise to seek ...
Read more
THE SENTINEL (continued)   By Tessa Harvey     "So," Eliza finally said with embarrassment, "I took drugs and drank and I think your father is a man called John Dixon. We were engaged to be married but he went away to do some hard training in the police force and do specialised work and, well....."     Sylvia was livid with rage. "You couldn't wait?" she queried, her voice rising.  "We got carried away," her mum began.     "NOT THAT! Why didn't you wait for him? What's wrong with you mum??!!"     "I didn't know I was pregnant." Her mother Eliza was getting angry too, "and ayour stepdad, Karl was so nice. He had a way with words...." the older woman said, dreamily. But Sylvia was glaring at her harshly. With a sudden pang, Eliza remembered how much she had despised her parents as a teen. 'The sins of the parents,' she thought. Is it always a cycle that will never end.      Sylvia thundered out,...
Read more