The Hurricane

THE HURRICANE

I awoke suddenly to the sound of a loud crashing noise outside. I thought nothing of it and once seeing by
the luminous arms of my clock that it was barely five o’clock in the morning, I tried to get back to sleep.
Although I was tired and my eye lids were heavy, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should get up and
investigate the noise to see if it was more than next door’s cat falling out of a tree onto a dustbin. Just as I
decided against further investigation into the noise, another, almost identical, occurred. At this I drowsily
pulled my tattered old duvet across me and got to my feet. My room felt strangely cold even though I was
sure that I had turned the radiator on the previous night, so, with my bare arms folded to maintain as much
heat in them as I could, I walked over to the radiator in the corner and knelt down beside it. According to the
knob on the side, the ugly appliance was on full heat which surprised me greatly. As I stood up again, I felt a
cold rush of air rush past my face.

I pulled my curtains away from my window clumsily and saw that my window had two fairly large holes in
it. Outside I could see stones flying about all over the place and an old woman from across the road rushed
into the centre of the street, grabbed her lanky old tabby cat whom she adored almost too much, and then she
sprinted back into her house faster than I had ever seen any woman of her age run! Out of nowhere, a tyre
appeared and bounced across the street as if it bore no weight at all. It was followed by a garden table and
I’m sure if I had stayed to watch, more strange objects would have hurtled across the street.

“MUM!!!!!! WHAT’S GOING ON!?!” I yelled.

Moments later my mother came into my room blurry eyed and squinted at me.

“What d’ya mean?”

“Its like a tornado outside or something ...”

She walked to my window, gaped for a minute and then turned back to me with a look on her face like I had
never seen before.

“I think this is going to be a Hurricane. We need to act fast otherwise the house is going to be ripped apart
... I have some shutters in the cellar that just attach straight onto windows and they’re meant to be designed
for this sort of thing. I’ll go and get those, and I think there is one for the door as well. There’s not much we
can do about the roof I suppose but never mind. You should ring the neighbours if the phone lines aren’t
already down and warn them if they’re not already awake.”

Without another word, she disappeared. Although warning the neighbours was a good idea, I had plans of
my own already. My mum had evidently forgotten about my dog, Romulus, whom was in his little kennel
under the giant oak tree in our garden. Without a word to my mother, I grabbed my gum boots and coat,
shoved them on, and walked out the back door.

The cold wind hit my face as a bucket of ice would have done. I could just about make out the oak tree in
the distance. I grabbed the lead from a hook to my left on the outside of the house and I began to run. As
soon as I was out of the shelter of the house I was blown over. I landed on my knees but then immediately
got up again and continued towards the tree. Again, I was on the ground. The wind whipped my face and it
was at this point that I wished that I had brought a hat. My eyes were watering and I could hardly see where
I was going. One foot after another. I was so close. I wielded the lead in my hand as if it was a weapon, and
then I threw one one of it towards the tree as hard as I could. To my surprise it caught one of the knots on a
larger branch and when I pulled my end of the lead, it seemed like it would hold. I hoisted myself forwards
at a steady pace and finally I came to the kennel. I bent down, lifted up a large rock and retrieved a small
silver key which I then used to unlock the kennel. The door swung open and Romulus dashed out
whimpering and whining with his tail between his legs. Not bothering to put the key back or close the door,
I clipped the huge German Shepard onto the lead and started to run back to the house again. This time we
were moving so fast that the wind had no time to trip us up until we were only ten feet away from the house.
Although I was sent plummeting to the ground, the dog was not and since I was still clutching onto the lead,
he dragged me along the grass until we reached the house where I opened the door and we both hurried in.
The door was closed. We were safe. Just as these thoughts passed through my mind, the window on the door
we had just entered through shattered into a million pieces.

We ran out into the kitchen and then into the dining room, then up the stairs. I hesitated for a moment ...

“THE PHONE LINES ARE DOWN AND ROMULUS IS IN MY ROOM”.

Into my room we sped. I closed my door and I didn’t have to worry about the window because my mother
had put one of her shutter things on it. I had just sat down on my bed, hoping that maybe now I might get a
little sleep when Romulus was sick on me.