Drama Collection

Christmas Decorations

The small, dark haired girl sits on her bedroom windowsill, watching a long legged spider scuttle across the grubby glass. She observes the arachnid with a serious expression, her eyebrows furrowed in a deep frown. The window in front of her is layered in a sheen of light misting, the condensation from the night before refusing to abate.

‘Joanna, can you come here a minute?’

The dark haired girl reluctantly tears her gaze from the silk spectacle and lowers herself from the perch on the sill. A gust of wind whips up, rattling the loose window frame. Joanna glances over her shoulder and widens her eyes in surprise. The spider has vanished. She rushes back to the sill and searches desperately for the absent arachnid.

‘Joanna, did you hear me?’

‘In a minute mum.’ Joanna replies and presses her face up against the cool pane.

Heavy footsteps reach Joanna’s ears and she scans the window more frantically. The creaks and groans of the stairs tremble through the house.

‘There you are.’ Joanna exclaims, as she spots the fearless spider, hanging precariously by a thin thread of its web.

‘Don’t get up.’

Joanna jumps and nearly slips off the sill. She climbs down carefully and sways from side to side to her mother, giving the impression she is skating on ice. Her mother watches her with the same furrowed brow as her daughter’s.

‘Glad to see your eagerness to help out.’

‘I was checking the spider was alright.’

‘Oh right.’ Joanna’s mother says with raised eyebrows.

Joanna rocks back and forth with her hands behind her back, waiting expectantly for her mother to push the matter further. However, much to her surprise, Joanna’s mother turns and leaves the room.

‘I need you to get the Christmas lights down from the loft.’ She calls from the hallway, used to her daughter’s peculiar interests and train of thoughts.

Joanna groans and stamps her feet stubbornly.

‘But its dark up there and it smells.’

‘You should be right at home then.’

‘But mum…’ Joanna whines and karate chops her pillow off the bed.

Joanna’s mother reappears at the doorway and stares stubbornly at her daughter.

‘Pick up the pillow and get in that loft. Otherwise you will get no Christmas presents.’

‘Alright, alright.’ Joanna mumbles, returning the pillow to the bed and dragging herself into the hallway.

The rickety wooden ladder stretches up into the small, black hole in the ceiling. Joanna shivers in front of it, as a gust of wind rushes through the darkened gap.

‘Well go on then.’ Her mother instructs, barging past with an overflowing basket of dirty clothes.

Joanna swallows and climbs onto the bottom rung of the ladder. She clutches onto its edges with a death like grip. The draught from the loft above buffets the already wobbling ladder and Joanna speeds up, eager to get off the wooden deathtrap. Reaching the top, she pokes her head through the shadowy gap and finds herself face to face with an impenetrable wall of darkness. Despite the butterflies in her stomach, she scrambles forwards into the loft.

Her eyes slowly adjust to the poor lighting. Piles and clusters of non-discernable objects fill the interior of the loft around her. A thin slit of light peeks into the room through a gap in the window blinds. Joanna sits up and looks down at her hands. They are covered in murky, grey dust. She wipes them on her dress and climbs to her feet.