Hand in hand Luisa and Matthew barely noticed the sky darken, and as they begin the ascent to her grandmother’s house a flash of lightening suddenly lit up the sky, followed almost immediately by a loud crack of thunder.
“Uh oh...” said Matthew.
They heard the rain before they felt it. A great crashing all around as the sky opened to douse the countryside with lashings of rain. They rushed up to the house standing outside, shoulders hunched in the rain outside. The rain was hammering down, Luisa could feel it trickling down her back.
“God, Matthew, you can’t go back, this storm is crazy, you’ll get well lost.”
“I could probably make it… I mean, I might make it…maybe.”
Luisa giggled as the rain puddled around them, “Ahhhh crap…”
They looked at each other. Luisa took a breath, “Let’s sneak you in.”
“Oh my god,” he whispered. “Well, I suppose it would be kind of dangerous to send me out into this storm by myself, I could get eaten, by a bear or a rabbit or something”
“Yeah or struck by lightening.”
Luisa touched his arm and looked at him seriously, “OK Matthew, wait here alright?”
“What outside? Luisa I feel like a criminal waiting about out here in the rain.”
Luisa stifled a laugh. “Just hide behind a tree and try and try not to look weird!”
Luisa had to take a few moments by the door to straighten her face and do her best drowned rat impression.
Luisa entered the house to see her grandmother reading a book by a crackling fire, the notes of classical music playing demurely in the background. Her grandmother looked over the top of her glasses at Luisa. She let the book flop down and sighed.
“Disappointed Luisa. Very disappointed.”
“I am sorry Grandmother, I just lost track of time, and I um, just…”
“Enough.” Her Grandmother waved her hand. “Just go and dry yourself off Luisa. You will catch a cold and we need you healthy for Ruthin. Go to bed immediately. It is passed your bedtime. You and your brother are coming to church with me first thing tomorrow.”
“I’m bloody not.” Luisa muttered to herself when she was out of ear shot. She rushed up the stairs, and pushed open her window to the thunderstorm.
“Matthew!”
“Hey!” He appeared from behind a tree.
“My Grandmother is downstairs, you are going to have to climb up!”
“Oh what? Really?”
Luisa laughed, “You can do it!”
“Bollocks!”
She watched as Matthew took a grip on the wet drainpipe and using footings from the ivy that adorned the front of the house managed to shimmy up to the ledge outside Luisa’s room. Luisa helped him though the window.
“Good job but, shh, you have to be quiet!”
Matthew blinked in the room shivering; completely drenched through.
“Wow this is a sweet house!”
“OK Matthew, my Grandmother is an absolute nutcase, if she finds you in here she will go insane. Stay here I’ll get us some towels.”
A few moments later they wrapped up in warm towels and sat cross-legged on Luisa’s bed.
Another crack of thunder.
YOU ARE READING
Cataindar
Action#1 for a month on the Fantasy-Action Hotlist. Wattys2015 Winner. Fourteen-year-old Luisa is focused on staying under the radar at her rough London school, relieved that the summer holidays are soon to begin. Exploring the ruin of an abbey at ni...
