The Life of Katy Jackson

Disaster Strikes

Katy’s view:

As I walked into the principals office it seemed everyone was starring at me. Alex was right behind me but that didn’t seem to matter right now.

The principal’s office was quite nice, it had big book cases filled to the brim with every book you could imagine on one wall, with a desk in the middle of the room with large windows that looked out into the school garden behind it. It also had leather chairs around the room to fit the need of each area.

In each chair sat one of my teachers. The principal sat behind the desk with glasses hanging on the end of his nose. He was handsome for his age, he actually looked a lot like Alex, he had the same brown hair and eyes that Alex had.

“Please sit down you two,” the principal said as we stood in the middle of the room. “Umm...I don’t quite know how to say this as this is my first time faced with this situation but...I’m afraid I have some bad news Katy.”

“What seems to be the problem?”  I answered almost in a whisper. I felt my heart speed up and it was getting harder to breathe.

“There’s been an accident,” he paused for a moment to let it sink in and to see my reaction. As I starred in silence he continued as if his throat were closing up too “This morning on the way to work, your parents were in a car accident.”

“Are they ok?” I barely managed to get out.

“Not exactly,” he paused “They were both killed in the crash.”

The room felt as if it had shrunk and his words were echoing in my head. I had to get out of here. I stood up abruptly, knocking my chair over in the process and ran out of the room. I barely even heard Alex yelling my name.

I didn’t even know where I was going, I just ran and ran until I could hardly breathe.

When I could breathe again I started to look around me, hoping to forget what I had just heard. Where am I? The houses were all so grand. Each house a perfect mansion, like the ones you saw in the magazines.

I straightened up and leaned against a fence. No cars were using the road so all was silent except for faint footsteps rushing down the sidewalk towards me but I didn’t care enough to see who it was. As they got closer I felt a hand touch my shoulder but I was too stunned to react. As the hands turned me around I recognized the face. Alex had followed me all the way here and was gasping for breathe.

“Katy...where...are...you...going?” he managed to get out between gasps for air.

“I don’t know,” I said faintly.

I don’t know why but at that moment my tears just started coming down my face and I started to spill my guts to Alex.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have any more relatives and all my friends are back in Tokyo,” I started to just full on cry. Alex took me in his arms and hugged me until the tears began to fade away and the sobbing stopped.

“You can stay with my dad and me,” Alex finally said after I was quiet. “My mom died when I was just a few years old and I’m an only child. Since my dad is the principal he’s away from home a lot so I could use someone to help me clean the place and keep me company. We have a spare room too.”

Before I knew what was happening Alex had taken my hand and had lead me down the street and into a house at the end of the road. He led me up some stairs and to a room at the end of a long hallway.

“You can stay here if you want. We can go and get your stuff tomorrow.”

I barely even heard what he said, all I wanted was to cry again. It still wasn’t sinking into my mind that they were really gone. Why did it happen on today of all days? Why did it have to happen at all?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recognized this place somehow, but why was I here? I’m sitting in the backseat of my parent’s car, I could see the car behind us speed up I’m screaming out trying to warn them about the car behind us but no matter how hard I try they can’t hear me. Then, right before the car hits us……….

 I start to scream with all my might, I can hear someone calling my name and shaking me.

“Katy, you need to wake up.”

I wake up to a face that I barely recognize, but then the events of today rush back to me. This face is Alex’s. But where am I? And why is he here?

“Alex?”

“Yeah,” Alex confirmed what I was thinking. “You had a really bad dream, didn’t you?”

Suddenly, I started to cry again. He pulled me into his arms to comfort me until I stopped crying.