Never Letting Go

The Storm Before The Storm

Everything was silent until I hear Lachie scream, “RUGBY!” I jump up excitedly but I accidently miss place my footing and fall into the river.

“Damn it.” I mutter. I walk up to the house leaving a small trail of water droplets behind me. Lachie notices me slipping into the house.

“Come on, Darci! We have some rugby to play.” He jumps around and attempts to crump. I crack up laughing as I walk into my room to get some dry clothes. I change into a black singlet and a pair of camouflage shorts I run out side to join the boys.

I step out the door just to get picked up and thrown over Blake’s shoulder, “Darci’s on my team” Blake announces. Matthew steps out onto the deck and laughs when he sees me hanging upside down over Blake’s shoulder. He comes back out with Tess.

“We’re playing too.” Matthew states.

“We have Matthew!” I yell, “No offence Tess.”

As per usual Lachie complains. “That’s not fair! We have Dad!”

“Nah, we have Dad that way there is a girl on both teams.” Lachie finds no way to argue with Blake’s logic. Blake and I smile triumphantly.

“Uh, Blake? Can you put me down now?”  Blake almost drops me to the ground, catching my just before my head connects with dirt and a well-placed rock. I stand up and hit him in the chest softly so he knows I wasn’t impressed.

Kyle tells everyone where the field is, it’s a bit bigger than usual because we have to more players. Everyone stands and wait for Lachie to touch the ball, once he does the game goes into full out rugby.

I run down the sideline with the ball, ducking under Lachie’s arms as he goes to grab the ball. I can hear Lachie’s foot falls coming up behind me, I throw to the ball to Matthew’s waiting arms and when Lachie goes to change course to go after Matthew, I slip my foot out in front of him tripping him up.

I run towards Matthew when I see Kyle running towards me and tackling me to the ground but before Matthew can keep the ball he throws it in my direction just in time for Tess to jump over me and Kyle, running back to her line to score the winning point. I relax in defeat; I take in a few deep breaths and then shove Kyle off me. The wind picks up and some soft drips of rain fall from the sky. Kyle offers me his hand and helps me up.

We all go inside and Tess turns on the news. The weather man stands in front of the green screen telling us all about the weather, “There have been predictions to be a massive storm in Glenhope Valley. It should hit between 5 and 7pm.”

We all go outside and bring things inside or into the various sheds we have around the place. All our deck furniture was put in the garage and Matthew and I went down to the river to make sure nothing was left down here that could be taken away by the water when the river swells.

We all huddle in side, its 6:13pm and the storm hit about 5 minutes ago. The water is pouring down and all electricity has been cut.

I found it rather amusing when the boys tried to turn on the gas cooker and failed, Tess and I are now in charge of cooking dinner. We are having spaghetti and toast that has been cooked in a pan.

After dinner we all sit in the lounge around the small coffee table playing various card games. “I’m out!” I state triumphantly, “I’m president!” Blake and Kyle groan, they were both so close to going out. I was president and Blake got vice president then Matthew and Kyle are middle men and Tess was vice scum and Lachie was scum.

“I’m not playing any more, this is boring.” Lachie gets up and walks into his room.

Blake yells out to him, “It’s only boring because you lost!”

I get changed into a pair of track pants and a jersey, it’s almost the middle of winter and we have no way of heating the house and I’m freezing!

Kyle comes over with the blanket off my bed and wraps it around both of us; we sit and listen to the falling rain that is now smashing against our roof. I slowly warm up and sleep starts to beckon me so I follow into the world of fluffy clouds and warmth.