Better on our own - English

In the Middle of the Storm

"PENNY!" Sam shouted for what must have been the hundredth time.

By now we were almost halfway gone in the direction of Pontypandy, if I got my bearings right, and the wind had picked up. Simply standing in one place required an immense amount of effort to keep us on our feet. The snow we had to fight through was now up to our shins. We constantly protected our faces with at least one arm raised so that too much snow wouldn't blow into our eyes when the wind blew it around our ears.

"PEEENNYYYY!" I also shouted into the darkness, but we heard nothing except the wind blowing around and into our ears, no matter how hard we listened. "What if she went a different way?" I shouted then over to Sam.

"There is no other way into the city. When the weather was good she used to go through the fields, but never in winter and especially not when there was a storm coming," he explained to me and he seemed to be pretty sure about that.

"Maybe she didn't knew about the storm?" I objected and he looked at me skeptically. He had to know that Penny preferred reading a book as to watching TV, right?"I'm just thinking. It could be that she hasn't watched or listened to the news today. It's Sunday and when she's alone, she actually hardly ever listen to the radio or television then. At least I never heard anything of that then," I explained to him what I meant and he paused for a moment, staring thoughtfully into the darkness in front of us.

"It's certainly a possibility," he then admitted, turning back to me. "All the more reason to find her as quickly as possible. How long did you say she's been gone?"

"About an hour and a half now," I answered him after a quick glance at my watch and folded the sleeve of my jacket back over it.

"The storm started just before seven. She had only been out for ten minutes then," Sam wondered aloud. "Snow had already fallen beforehand, so she couldn't have left the house without appropriate clothing. Ten minutes..." , he continued to think, and it wasn't quite clear to me what he was actually getting at. "She must have been caught in the storm about halfway between Pontypandy and her cottage," he then stated.

"And then what?" I replied, perplexed. That didn't really help, except that we had to keep our eyes peeled because we had to be pretty close to where she probably was.

"I'm sure she went a little further, as far as she could, or in the worst case scenario, turned around again. But since I didn't see her again on the way over to her, she must have already sought shelter somewhere by then," he then remarked and looked around. However, we were completely blind to the rear because the wind from that direction hit the snow directly in our faces, so that it felt like a thousand little pinpricks when it hit our skin. However, we didn't see much more towards the front, where the snow was being blown into the darkness, because the blowing snow was so thick and the wind was also picking up snow from the ground that everything actually just seemed to be white.

"Where do you look for shelter on an otherwise completely deserted street?" I asked him, perplexed. There was nothing here except wide fields, a tree now and then and the walls that lined the road on the left and right, but were only a little more than half a meter high.

"Always indoors or in hollows during a snowstorm."

"There's only one house in about a mile here and nothing else except the walls on the left and right of the streets," I stated resignedly. Or could it be that Penny had perhaps made it to the house? My house?

"The walls provide a fairly good windbreak, at least in the curves. The wind hasn't changed since it started. You walk along the right wall and I walk along the left. Stay on the wind-sheltered side and, above all, keep your eyes open! Look behind every tree, into every hollow and take a close look at every snowdrift! It could be Penny who is covered by the snow!" he said to me a task like the one and in a tone like that, I automatically saluted him without thinking.