Keep Warm
I ran past all the old, rusty houses, stepping in a big puddle of murky water and almost slipping in the dense, thick mud. My boots now covered in layers of sticky mud. I cough as I run past homes with smoke coming from their wood fires. I reach the end of the street, passing the only car in the whole street and enter my house. Mother sits on her rocking chair in the corner of our tiny living room. She sits there with not one little bit of expression on her face. Ever since father left us to go fight in the war, mother became ill, I've heard some say mental illness and she's lost a lot of weight. So, me being the eldest child, I have to go out and get our supplies and help the family stay strong.
"Mary." Weeped my four year old sister as she shivered on the floor in the kitchen.
"Bessie, what on earth is the matter?" I say as I kneel down and hug her. Bessie doesn't answer. There's nothing I can do but be angry at mother. "Mother! What is wrong with you? All you do is sit in that chair everyday, you don't eat much, you make your nine year old daughter go outside whilst a war is going on and you can't even care enough to see that your own daughter is crying!" I yell, noticing that Mother is avoiding eye contact. She looks in the corner of her eyes at Bessie. Mother just sits there, silent. I groan and climb the wooden ladder up to the room that father built for Bessie and I. I find a blanket lying on the bed Bessie and I share. I climb back down the ladder and wrap Bessie in it.
I pull off my knitted beanie that Mother made when she was her normal, high-spirited self. I lay that on the kitchen bench where the corners look as if they've been nibbled on by a mouse. I then, take off my backpack and get out the loaf of bread from the bakery that I traded for half a dozen eggs that our chicken laid. We find trading is our best way of getting supplies. We trade things like our eggs from our chickens, our herbs from the garden which Bessie and I decided to make a few months ago. Also, we have a goat that I found an old man giving away for free. It was a good thing I took the goat because she eats the grass, and she gives us milk which we trade. Bessie enjoys playing with it too! Sometimes we have to go up to the farm which is up on the top of the hill to take some grass down to the goat. The owner of the farm doesn't mind, she's a nice young lady. Sometimes she'll even help us. She thinks that i'm very mature for my age. Which I sort of am. I also pull out a chutney I got from the man down the street. I traded a bunch of herbs for it. He said the chutney has our herbs in it and that it also has lots of protein, so I thought that it would be good for our health.
I grab a knife from the cutlery drawer, slice the bread. It isn't the freshest bread, but it'll do. I only slice half of the loaf. I open the jar of chutney and spread that on most of the slices.
Bessie jumps up onto one of the four chairs at the round wooden table as I lay out the plate with the bread. She quickly takes the biggest slice there. She tries the chutney and licks her lips after the first bite.
"Is it good?" I ask. Bessie nods, she's concentrating on the food too much to speak. She's right, the chutney is really tasty.
Half way through the meal, mother comes and sits down and join us. She reaches out to grab a piece of bread, but I grab her scrawny wrist and stop her.
"What do you say?" I look deep into Mothers scared eyes.
"Thank you." She says quietly. If anything, I feel like the parent around here.
Night came quickly, Mother crawled into her small bed at the back of the house, underneath Mine and Bessie's room. Mother was normally the first to go to bed. I don't think she sleeps much though.
I followed Bessie up the ladder. She wriggled her way into bed and I tucked her in as usual. Then I reached over the edge of our room and pulled the chain to turn off the light. I then wandered into bed and kissed Bessie on the forehead. "Keep warm." I say as I normally do. Its been something, i've always told Bessie to do, which is why she gets upset whenever she's cold. Then, I roll over and fall asleep.
But, Suddenly, I've been awakened by lots of noises and commotion going on outside. I can here deafening screams from children and babies crying. I can hear big bangs and booms and through the cracks in the house I can see flashes of bright red, orange and yellow. Suddenly, its very warm.
I jump out of bed and scoop Bessie up. I hear her yawn as she clings onto me and wraps her arms around my back. Then I hear the panic in her breathing.
"Mary..." She begins. Her voice sounds distraught.
"Shhh." I say calmly. I figure, if I seem calm, we might be alright. I hear the car engine from outside begin and drive away. The engine revving. Mother has gotten out of bed, she's quiet but grabs my hand. She takes us outside, the heat is burning. There's a fire just down the street. The house where the man who traded me the chutney, is on fire. Bessie lets out a scream.
"Madam!" Calls out a man from up the hill. He jumps in the air, signaling for us to come up there.
I hear an unusual whooshing, buzzing noise from above. Its a plane. One of the new inventions made to drop bombs. That explains the fire. We run as fast as we can. I'm struggling because of Bessie's weight pushing down on my shoulder. Piercing screams and cries coming from Bessie don't help either. Mother is also struggling because she hasn't had exercise for a long time, she's not used to it. I go to grab her arm and help pull her up the hill but before I do, the man who called us up here, has lifted her off of the ground and onto his back. I follow him behind his house which is diagonally across from our house. To the left, in the corner of my eyes, I see another bomb go off towards the farm. I suddenly get a ringing in my left ear and things suddenly seem quieter. The man has a latch door which leads underground. Most of the other people from our street are inside the latch as well.
The man passes Mother down to another man and then he slips into the hole. I hand him Bessie and just as i'm about to slip in, I think of the goat. I take one look down the hill. Now without Bessie's weight I can sprint back down to the house. Which is exactly what I did. The man tried to stop me and Bessie screamed out to me.
I tried not to trip over my own feet and luckily I didn't. Just as I was about to grab the goat, I heard a baby's terrified cry. My head snaps to the direction of where its coming from. I can't see the baby, but I use my right ear to hear where its coming from. I follow the noise till i'm almost one-hundred percent sure its coming from a pile of boxes. Its awfully hot where I am because the fire from the house is getting bigger and it seems to be spreading. I rustle through the boxes and toss them onto the ground. There's the baby. I quickly grab him. He has scratches on his face and some of them are bleeding. Why would someone leave him here? I rapidly turn around and run back up to my house. I untie the rope that the goat is tied to and I manage to stop it from booting me whilst its in my arms. The weight of the goat is a little heavier that Bessie plus the baby. I run as fast as I can back up the hill. The man isn't coming out to help me this time. My heart is racing and pumping faster than it ever has before. I come to the latch and everyone sighs in relief. I pass them down the baby, then the goat. Bessie is crying really loudly and she is scrambling around in a man's arms screaming my name out.
"I'm here!" I say. I look up to the sky to see a plane above us...The buzzing sound is loud. "Keep warm." I say, with tears streaming down my face as the bomb kills me...
