The Chronicles of George

1 - The Calm before the Storm

1

The calm before the Storm

Me, my mum, Sarah, and my little brother, Andrew, arrived in muscat at the beginning of March. My dad, Reese, had already been here since the beginning of January. he came out early to start his new job at the dental collage, to find us a house to live in and to enrol us into school. Now we had come out to join him. 

It was not how I expected a county in the Middle East to look.  I had looked at some books in the school library before we left and I was not impressed, it showed pictures of a hot land with lots of sand and no grass! It was early morning when we landed at Seeb airport, as dad drove us to our new home. i was very surprised to see there was grass all the way along the main road. On the left Every now and then I got glimpses of the sea. To the right in the distance were red brown mountains which stretched as far as  I could see. There was not so much grass when we left the main road. Just by the back of our house was a wadi, which I found out was a river bed, although there was no water in it just the ever present sand and large smooth stones.

Andrew and I started school at the British school in Medinat Qaboos the week after we arrived. As schools go it was not too bad, we had a wide range of after school activities to choose from. we were staying in an huge house off 49th street, behind Al Khuwair, much closer to the mountains than the sea. It was the beginning of June 2007, We only had a few more weeks of school, then we were off back to England to stay at our grandma's for 2 months. thankfully, as it was getting way too hot here. Apparently most people left for the summer.

It was Tuesday 5th of June, one more day of school before the  weekend, and every one was concerned about the weather, namely cyclone Gonu, that had been in the gulf for the last few days and that it may be headed for Muscat. I thought the weather today was fab, it had cooled a little, the sky was all grey and cloudy, with a nice cool breeze. which ment no standing outside sweating at break time. I had my 14th birthday in February, and since coming here had had to start wearing deodorant a combination of age, hormones and heat. So I was more than glad for a cool cloudy day.

We  had gotten home from school, and were out playing football on a sandy area down the road from the house with some boys and girls who lived close by. well, Andrew was playing, I wasn't really into football but Andrew was almost fanatical about it, he was pretty good too. I was shattered, i had done beach rugby after school today.  i was Sitting on the side watching as Andrew scored another goal! He would be unbearable later that was the third one. I saw dads car, a bright red GMC, turn in to the road, he honked the horn and waved, I waved back as he carried on down the road. I called Andrew, he said good bye to his football buddies with promises to meet up tomorrow, this was all done with a combination of sign language and broken English, as we spoke only a few words in Arabic and they spoke only a little English. He ran over.

"George, George did you see that last goal?" I nodded "wasn't if super? And that was the third one! And I didn't even have any help!"

He said all this without taking a breath. I laughed "watch out David Beckam"

"really? You think I could be that good?" his bright blue eyes brighter at the thought, "of course, anything is possible" i chuckled.

We walked home chatting about the goals he scored. We were quite different in looks as well as likes. complete opposites, he had pale blonde hair, bleached almost white by the sun and big blue eyes, with quite fair skin, he didn't burn though, mum was always plastering us with sun screen, but he never seemed to go brown, not like me, I could pass as a local. I had dark brown eyes, my hair is a dark, dark brown, and my skin had gone as brown as a nut since being here, like mum she went brown in the sun, but dad just went red.

We reached the front wall just as dad was coming out. " ah boys I was just coming to call you, supper is ready" he looked up at they sky " I have a bad feeling about the weather" he said almost to himself, his blue eyes seeming to turn grey as he looked up at the clouds.

 "do you think it will rain?" i asked, he looked at us

"I hope that is all it does, the forecast does not look too good" he ran his hand through his hair that was the same colour as Andrews, he grabbed us and twisted us round to face the mountains, he pointed to over the mountains, away in the distance, "can you see way way over there? where it looks grey and misty in the sky?"

we both squinted and looked to where he pointed, "yes" we said at the same time we looked at each other and grinned "jinx" we said again at the same time, and then we burst out laughing, dad looked at us shaking his head.

"well" dad said making us look up "that is the rain falling in the distance, which I have been told is not good" I looked back up at the sky

"why?" I asked laughter still in my voice

"well the rain has to run out to sea, and the water comes down the wadi's, which sometimes overflow"

"REESE, DID YOU GET THE BOYS" Mum called from inside

"YES JUST COMING" he called back, then to us "come on lads, lets get in before cyclone Susan strikes" he laughed at his own joke, chuckling to himself, as we all went into dinner.

After dinner I had some homework to get done. I kept getting distracted by the wind whistling round the house, then my mind would wander. I packed up my books, I had all weekend to do it, I couldn't concentrate right now. I took my bag up to my room, and went to look for Dad, he was on the other side of the house in his and mums room, they had a balcony, he was standing at the window with the lights off. 

"whatcha looking at Dad?" I asked, he obviously had not heard me come in to the room, as he jumped, banging into the window.

"George" he sighed "you shouldn't creep up on people" he turned back round to the window.

"sorry" i rolled my eyes, knowing he would not see. i walked over and looked out the window, the wind had really picked up, I could see the trees and bushes being blown about, there was now a small river running in the Wadi. the sky looked dark and angry with big dark grey and purple clouds. As we stood there watching, it started to rain. not like the rain we have at home, no, monsoon style rain.

"Wow, that's some downpour" i had never seen such heavy rain.

we stood in silence watching for a few more minutes, I was still shattered, and decided to go grab a shower and go to bed. I had my own bathroom, and a big double bed, which i stretched out in, under the duvet in a big star shape in the middle, i laughed to myself as Andrew came in, he was wearing Sonic pyjamas, "George can I come sleep with you tonight?, the rain is hitting off my window, and I cant get to sleep, can I?" he said the last bit with big puppy eyes. man i hated the puppy eyes, noway i could say no to those.

"sure you can, come on in, but you better not wet the bed" I warned

"no, no i promise, I have just been" he said as he jumped in and snuggled into one of my pillows.

after a few minutes I could hear his breathing had slowed and become deep, so much for not being able to sleep I though jealously. I lay there listening to the wind, my eyes slowly closing, my mind swirling with thoughts of nothing in particular.