Tick... Tick... Tick... It was never ending.
Heather Summerfield sat in her last class of the day, drumming her fingers on the surface of her desk in time to the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the wall. She had been staring at it for so long and so intently that the numbers and lines and the ticking hand were all a blur. Two minutes had gone by, three to go. The school days always ended this way, with the minutes ticking by like hours, especially so close to summer. Tap, tap, tap. Her fingertips continued to tap in rhythm to the ticks of the clock. Tap, tap, tap. Tick... Tick... Tick... Freedom was practically at her fingertips!
Tick... Tick... Tick...
RING!
Finally! Heather pushed back her chair, swung her backpack onto her shoulders, and hurried out of the room along with her classmates. Freedom!
"See you at the exam on Monday, Heather," called her friend Kelly as she waited to board the bus.
"Yep, see you!" Heather called back. She spotted her twin brother, Ricky, and hurried to join him. This last day of classes marked the final day of Heather and Ricky's time in middle school. That fall they would be moving onto senior high, joining their older sister, Jennifer, who would start her grade twelve year.
Heather caught up to Ricky. "Race you home?"
He grinned. "Last one there's a rotten egg!"
The twins broke into a run, no weight in their backpacks to slow them down. A warm breeze brushed against Heather's face. Ah, summer. It was just days away and she could hardly wait — summer vacation just couldn't come soon enough!
Living within walking distance – and for that matter, running distance – to the school had its perks, like beating your brother in a race home. The siblings both ran up the front stairs of their house at the same time, threw the front door open, kicked off their shoes, and practically fought their way to the kitchen.
Heather slid onto a stool at the counter. "Beat ya. You're the rotten egg."
"No, you didn't," Ricky protested. "And if there's anybody who's a rotten egg, it's you."
"No, it's Jenn." Both laughed in agreement.
"Ah!" Ricky shrugged off his backpack and unceremoniously dropped it on the floor at his feet. "One more week and then it's summer!"
"Yeah," agreed Heather. "No homework, getting together with friends, going to the movies, getting ice cream, staying up late..." The list went on and on.
In the next room, they heard the back door open. "Ricky, Heather, Jenn?" It was their mother. When she entered the kitchen, she had her arms full of grocery bags.
"Hi, Mom. We walked home, Jenn's not home yet," said Heather.
"Ran home," corrected Ricky.
Their mother set the bags down onto the counter. "How was your last day of school?"
"School was school, like always," stated Ricky.
"Yeah, it was fine. Just school." agreed Heather. "Glad to be done." The twins slid off their stools to help put away the groceries.
"Any homework?" Mom joked. "Any last-minute assignments?"
"Nope, just studying for exams." Ricky let out a dramatic groan.
With the three of them unloading the groceries, it didn't take long for everything to be unpacked and put in its rightful place in the kitchen cupboards. Heather grabbed a can of soda and went to go cool off upstairs. She opened the window and put a Diana Ross and the Supremes record onto the player. She then flopped down onto her bed with the latest mystery novel she was reading and flipped to the page where she had left off. She could continue with studying, but that was how she would be spending a lot of her time in the days to come, so it wouldn't hurt to relax a little first. Also, a mystery was much more interesting than math and science, in her opinion.
YOU ARE READING
Sincerely, Marketa - A Story of the Holocaust
Teen FictionAnd they went into hiding... While struggling with a sense of home, friendship and belonging after her family moves to Austria from Canada, Heather becomes unexpectedly intrigued by a story of their new home from thirty years earlier. Cover design...
