Transported

2. Black Dress

My Mum always helped me with my spellings at school. We had a list of words we had to learn every week so that we could be tested on them on a Friday. I was sitting on one end of the sofa while my Mum sat at the other end. She held my notepad which had the list of spellings in it.

"How do you spell 'generation'?" I paused and stared up at the beautiful chandelier dangling down from the ceiling.

"G-E-N-E-R-A-T-I-O-N. Generation!"

My mum smiled. "Well done! Okay, how do you spell 'funeral'?" I paused, once again, staring up at the graceful chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

"F-U-N..." I trailed off. "...E-R-A-L. Funeral."

"Well done!" my Mum smiled again.

"Mum, why does "funeral" have the word "fun" in it? They are never fun." Mum sat up and looked at me.

"Well, no they usually are not fun. But please, at my funeral, have as much fun as possible. Don't dress in black. Don't cry for me. Just smile and turn up in the most colourful dress you can find!" she laughed. "Promise?" she stretched out her little finger. I bought out mine. They both inter-locked.

"Promise," I confirmed.

But I broke that promise. When we had the funeral, everyone was crying and mourning. I wore a black dress that looked ghastly on me. My ginger red hair clashed with the velvet black. I looked more like I was dressed for Halloween.

I had to say some words about my dear parents, but when I stood there infront of close friends, I found myself crying and walking back down and sitting in the church pew again.

None of my family went to the funeral. All my family were in New Zealand. My parents both lived in New Zealand but decided to go England for University. My parents met at University, since then, they stayed together. I don't know why, but they chose to never go back. I had seen photos and painting of New Zealand, and it looked truly beautiful with it's grassy meadows and beautiful white tipped mountains.

A few days later, I went back to my burnt down home to see if their was anything left. My possessions meant nothing to me. What was the point in having anything if I didn't have my parents? But I went back again.

The smell of the smoke wafted into my nose. It was a bitter smell that made my eyes water.

I didn't see much. Most of these items were not worth anything since they were covered in ashes or had been destroyed.

I knew where every room was, even though there were no walls to separate the rooms. I reached an area where the kitchen would have been. There were no ceilings anymore, so if anything survived in this area, they could also be from the living room or my parents' bedroom.

I scanned the room without much hope of finding anything good. There was a man with me who had looked through the house to investigate how the fire started. He was kind enough to decide to help me. He was in his 40's I would say and wore jeans and T-shirt. It didn't look too scruffy, but you could tell he didn't put much effort into his clothes.

I brushed the ashes away. I didn't think the man did much, but he did. When I was just about to give up, I heard the man's voice.

"Will this be any use to you?"

I turned, I saw the man holding out his hand. There, in the centre of his palm, was a red button.

This was not just any button. It was a button which had the letters 'H' and 'F' on it in yellow. My Mum was a very quick sewer. Whenever she went out, she would sew the button onto her clothing. I always loved it. I asked her if I could have it one day. She promised me I could.

At the first glimpse of the button, I almost snatches it out of the man's hand. I hold it tight as I bought it in and close to my chest. I looked back at the man and smiled.

"Thank you so much!" I said. The man smiled. He seemed happy for me.

There was nothing left to be found. Everything had been destroyed apart from that button and a lighter that was picked up to be used as evidence for how the fire started.

As I left the pile of ashes and destroyed walls, I looked down at the floor, watching where I trod since there was lots of stuff I could have tripped over.

As I trod, something caught my eye. I was curious to know what it was so jogged over to it. I picked it up and brushed some ash and dust off it. I saw two smiling faces with glowing tanned skin, then a little ginger girl who had bunches and lots of missing teeth. It was the family photograph. A teardrop fell from my eye and landed onto the picture. This was not a tear from the foul smelling smoke, it was a tear of joy.