A Tulip

A Sudden Situation

"Sister, why do you keep hugging the blanket? It's noon and you are still in bed. Get up Rui," said Anjali as she shook her sister, who clinged on to the quilt, holding it tighter. The sun shone on the blinding white landscape, making it glitter and a chilly mid winter breeze shook off a dust of snow from the fir tree that grew beside their house. The house was really ordinary, a small single storeyed one, with two rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and sloping roofs. It stood near the edge of the secluded hillside, which was a kilometre away from the village, and perhaps the only thing the sisters were grateful to have inherited from their parents. "It is cold out there and I don't want to freeze," cried Puja. "Just let me be sis." "I found a blue tulip by the frozen stream. There must be more there, help me find them, come on." "No, no, no." "Okay stay here, you and your blue blanket, I'll go by myself," said Anjali as she stormed out of the house. "What does she even have against my blanket, always teasing me about it?" Snorted Puja as she got up and set the bed in order, sheets, blankets and pillows perfectly stacked. She then proceeded to make breakfast and sat down with a plate of omelette and a cup of milk, looking out of the window.
The sky was by then a shade of grey, overcast with dark clouds. No one could predict the weather at such a time of the year. "I hope she is already on her way back. Looks like its going to snow again" No sooner had she thought these words that snowflakes started falling. However, much to her distress, in a very short span of time, the light snow was joined by a violent wind and it turned totally dark outside. With a sudden snow storm raging on one side of the window and a discarded breakfast on the other, Puja, clad in the only fur coat she had and an umbrella in her hand, was ready to defy the laws of nature and bring back her sister.
But the door would not budge.
She had underestimated the blizzard. It had already piled one foot of snow in front of the door and the wind was too strong for any kind of force to break through, let alone an eleven year old who had nothing but the will to save her 14 year old sister.