After Midnight

Chapter 2

The next day, school was canceled due to floods. And because we lived in the suburbs, we heard all the people outside. We heard almost everything around here. It was a small, quiet town. Everyone seemed to know everyone. Everyone seemed to know us.

My six year old sister Bailey ran into my room singing a song from frozen at the top of her lungs. I picked her up and spun her around, singing along with her. I set her on my bed and she grabbed my shoulders for balance.

"So he's a bit or a fixer upper!", We shouted until Dane walked in my room and glared at us until we stopped.

"Can you please shut up?", He asked calmly.

We stared at each other for a while.

"Let it go!", I sang at the top of my lungs."Let it go! I am one with the wind and-"

"Shut up!", He shouted.

"Your shade never bothered me anyway!", I turned around and let Bailey jump on my back. I ran out of my room and downstairs singing loudly as Bailey giggled and sang along with me.

There was a knock at the front door and Dane walked over to it and opened it. A man with gray hair and a glass pan in his hands stood in the doorway.

"Hi, I'm Link Ellis, I'm your new neighbor", He handed my brother the pan and shook his hand. I dropped Bailey on the sofa and walked over to the door.

"Hi", Link smiled and held his hand out."I'm Link. And you are?"

I shook his hand."Arin"

"You mean Rain", He said. I shrugged.

"That's what everyone's calling me", I dropped his hand and smiled at him.

"I just wanted to thank you guys. From our entire town, we genuinely thank you for this", He said.

"But we didn't-", Dane started but Link cut him off.

"It used to rain a lot here. And then the school was built...it completely stopped. We believe that it was built on ancient grounds and that it may have been cursed. And then you came. The day you came was the day it started raining again. I know it's not much, but we all wanted to put something together for you guys and we decided that we couldn't really do anything except make you some food. But again, thank you so much"

Dane and I exchanged awkward glances. Why was everyone praising us? All it did was rain. We don't deserve this kind of attention just because it rained the day we moved here. We can't control the weather.

I heard someone shout my name outside. Link stepped aside and I looked outside. I saw the tall ginger boy from yesterday wave at me. I waved back at him and he motioned me out to him. I looked down at what I was wearing. I had pajamas with smiling planets on them and a sticky fingers shirt that reached down to almost my knees. My hair was knotted and in a bun that was falling out, I had no makeup on and I was wearing pink fuzzy slippers with red ducks on them. I shrugged and walked towards him, but before I could step out into the rain, Dane pulled me back to him and cleared his throat.

"What?", I asked.

He nudged his head towards Link and Link smile at me.

"Oh, right. Thank you for the food, Link. That was really nice", I said.

"You're welcome. Thank you for the rain"

Instead of arguing about it, I just nodded in agreement and walked outside to the ginger. I couldn't remember his name.

"Hey, Rain", He said.

"Hello..", I trailed off.

"Tom", He said."Nice slippers", He said jokingly and laughed.