by P K Stadnyk
“We need to get this thing off his face or he’ll suffocate,” I said.
“You can try. How do you expect us to take it off? It’s all slippery and probably very heavy,” said William.
It just sat there looking lazily at us, completely unaware of our plans. It was about 20 kilograms I would say and half of my size.
We had to try. I couldn’t lose my other friend. So I grabbed the giant snail first and tried to push him off by his shell. Nothing. Then they helped me and we were able to push the monster off him. It hid in its shell with eyes looking at us full of offence. It crawled somewhere into the bushes. I bet Alvin won’t be playing in this garden anymore.
Alvin’s face was free but it was still covered by a thick slime so he couldn’t breathe. We took him home to my mom, who, with a pale but brave face, cleaned his face and he took a deep breath.
“I think you should take your shoes outside,” she said. We looked at our shoes. They were all covered with slime and dead or injured snails. We closed all windows and doors. Alvin looked disgusted with what happened to him, but after few minutes, we all laughed about it. He kept throwing up for some time.
If you wonder what happened to the snails, well, Charlie was cleaning the streets for a week loading the snails inside his van. He even bought a bigger van to take them all to France to sell. He told us he’d be rich when he came back. I wondered why the French would give him money for disgusting snails...
Weeks were passing by, and the weather was absolutely unpredictable, Oliver and Mary were still unconscious, but they babbled a lot, Bob was pretty much all the time in our house, and we all tried to live as normal as possible.
CHAPTER 13 - A NIGHTMARE
One night in the middle of December I was awakened by a strange noise. I opened my eyes and saw Oliver standing next to my bed, staring at me with a stupid crazy smile and drooling.
“Oliver? You scared me to death! What are you doing here? Are you alright? Does my dad know you’re awake?”
“Grrrgghrrr...”
“What? I didn’t get it.”
“Grrrgggggrrrrggggrrrrhhhh....”
“Oliver, I don’t understand what you’re saying! Stop playing with me! You’re scaring me!”
“GGGGGRRRRRGGHHHH!”
“DAD!”
Dad ran into my room. I was pressed up against the wall as Oliver tried to grab me. Was he laughing?”
“What are you doing here?” my dad asked Oliver as he took hold of him, then turning to me, he asked, “How long has he been awake? Why didn’t you wake me up? Are you okay?”
Oliver kept speaking gibberish and pointing at me, drooling to one side.
“That’s interesting. Let’s go downstairs, Oliver,” said my dad, and they left. I couldn’t fall asleep. I got up and went to see what was going on down there. Oliver was very talkative in his very own language which now made me laugh.
“Good thing he’s awake but too bad he can’t talk,” said my dad. I hope it’s only a side effect of being asleep for so long and the drugs I gave him.
“Wrrrggggaaaaarrr.....”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Do you want some paper and a pen?” My dad was hardly hiding a smile as he gave Oliver some writing materials. “Stay with him and I’ll check on Mary,” he told me/ You owe him anyway.
Oliver started writing something down on paper and there was a lot of it. Finally he finished and I read it:
What happened to me? Last thing I remember you were crossing the street without thinking. It wasn’t very smart. I would never do it but what can we do? It’s just you, right? What am I doing here? How long have I been here? Does my mom know I’m here?
I owed him answers at the very least. Otherwise, I’d be the one growling. I started to write answers on the paper, but he just took the paper and wrote, ''IDIOT!'' That was right; I could speak instead of writing. I took a deep breath and answered all his questions. When I finished, he became a little calmer and yawned. How could he be tired after sleeping all this time? Before I realized it, he was back on ''his'' sofa. In the morning, my friends came over and we played outside. Then his mom came and took Oliver home. We had to keep from laughing at Oliver, but it didn’t always work. He returned to my dad every day for a health check, and his speech was getting back to normal.
About two weeks after Oliver went home, I was awakened again by the same noises. Mary was standing next to my bed with the same crazy looks that Oliver had before. What was wrong with them? Why did they have to come to my room and scare me?!
“Ggggrrrrhhhhfff....”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. DAD!”
The same story happened as with Oliver, only it took longer for her to recover her speech, as she was older. She went back to their house with her husband. I missed his snoring at night. It was quite rhythmical and often helped me to fall asleep. He always slept in a chair next to her sofa.
CHAPTER 14 - SWIMMING IN MY LIVING ROOM
We had a very hot Christmas. Yes, that’s right! Very hot for winter! Of course the Weather Channel told us something else, but what could we do? The Weather Channel actually told us about -30 degrees, but then they said it was a mistake and meant it to be +30. Always a way to get out of a problem.
Later, we had a hot January and February and, in March, we had a very heavy snow. We couldn’t even open our front door. In April, we experienced something unique. Just when we thought we had been through the worst, we found that we were wrong...
At the beginning of April, the big meltdown came. We hadn't been outside for two weeks. Bella was going out through my window and only a little bit where the snow was very hard. When the meltdown started, we had a flood inside the house. Our chairs, tables, and everything else that was downstairs was pretty much floating. We lived like this only for a week. Extremely hot temperatures hit our town again. It was so hot that I had to go downstairs to swim around to cool off. In two days, the water was gone.
Did I mention that the Weather Channel stopped broadcasting? Yeah, they stopped broadcasting since people were getting furious and the weather didn’t make sense anymore. Not even one of their forecasts was right. They blamed something like “globalic worm” for it. Most of us didn’t take it seriously; we thought it was another explanation to get out of trouble.
It was very hot and the thermometer in my room reached between 30-45 degrees inside, so I wasn’t going out much; nobody was. I heard that the little river not far from us has dried up in three days. My dad had to take the fish out of the garden and keep them in our bathtub. He had to keep filling it up with water. Since we came returned from the shelter, the fish kept growing, making a bathtub too small for them. They kept splashing the water all over the bathroom. Thankfully, we had two bathrooms. Finally, it was so hot for so long that the lawns and gardens dried up and our town looked like a little desert.
We even had little dust devil tornadoes running through our street. They were very little and didn’t do much damage, only a couple of fences and one cat. I never saw anything like this before. Neither did my parents. I don’t think anybody saw them in England before. I wasn’t bothered as long as they weren’t too big and didn’t take my home like the ones I had seen on the Storm Chasers TV program. They were smaller than me and were moving funny like they were dancing or running after each other.
One day, I heard noises outside. I went to the window to check it out. I saw Joe and William throwing stuff from their room window at a tornado, trying to feed it.
“Come on, give me something else!” shouted William.
“What am I supposed to give you?! You already threw all my stuff at this thing!” cried Joe.
“You still have slippers!”
“What’s that noise? What are you up to now?” screamed their mom.
“Nothing, Mom. Sorry, we’ll be quiet now. Really.”
When I thought it was over, they went outside with a big box and tried to capture one of the tornadoes inside. Of course, it didn’t work. The
tornado had a different idea and chased them inside the house.
“MOOOM!
I only heard a lot of noise after that. Their parents had a hard time getting that thing out of the house. Joe and William got grounded again. But soon, they were out and about. I don’t think I was grounded so many times in all my life as those two were in a month.
The tornadoes were gone after few days.
The extreme temperatures continued for about a month and our town was running out of water. We started to save it, which was hard when you’re thirsty all the time.
I was very bored. I hadn’t gone out for weeks. The school was closed, and nobody wanted to play.
I was lying on my bed one day, thinking of the sky and going to the moon when I heard a loud noise. I went to the window to check it out. It was amazing... The sky, which had stayed without even one little cloud for weeks, was about to change. A massive cloud, which didn’t seem to have an end on either side, was moving slowly our way. At first, it was white, so I didn’t expect it to bring anything bad like before, but as it got closer, I changed my mind. At least it was getting a little chiller. Within 30 minutes, it blotted out all the light. The massive cloud was dark and made me shiver just like before. When it reached our town, it stopped and just hung there. Storm noises were coming from the inside of it. I thought my parents should know.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but there’s something you should see.”
We went outside. When I stood directly under it, I could see it better. It looked like it wasn’t even very high above us. It looked very dense and turned in circles with the smallest inside. To me, it looked like stirred coffee or hot chocolate. It kept turning clockwise. Now I knew where all the clouds were. We could hear the thunder but didn’t see any lighting or rain. I thought I could play with my friends when it no longer was hot, but I didn’t want to anymore with that thing above my head.
CHAPTER 15 - HUNGRY FLOWER
I went to sleep, as there was nothing else to do. I was awakened by a very sweet smell. I wanted to find out what it was; perhaps it was something delicious. It wasn’t in my room or downstairs. I followed the smell into the garden. The ground was wet-but I didn’t go back to get my slippers. It probably rained a little at night and the cloud was still there.
I finally found the source of the fragrance. It was a flower bigger than me with such a beautiful smell. Flower’s head was too big for its stalk and bent down. I loved the way it smelled but I was soon to hate it. As I came closer, I didn’t notice anything unusual and put my nose inside its pretty yellow head to smell it. And then it closed with my head trapped inside. Soon, I was out of breath and started to kick the plant so hard that I broke its stalk. Eventually, I got some air but it still it wouldn’t come off. So I panicked and started to run where I thought my dad would be. It took a little time because I didn’t see where I was going and kept banging into things. At least my head-was somewhat protected by the flower’s head and I almost didn’t feel a thing when I fell down or hit something. I started to panic more, since I felt like I was running with this thing in circle. Then I heard a terrible scream and I fell to the ground.
“Mom, is that you? Can you please help me?” But no one replied. When I was about to continue running, I heard Dad’s steps. He was probably drawn there by the screams. He couldn’t stop the screaming but, at least, he somehow managed to get it off my head. I checked if I still had two eyes, two ears, a nose, and mouth. Everything was in its place and I felt a lot better. I looked around and the screams were really from my mom. She had fainted. Dad looked pretty pale too and couldn’t get his eyes of this “flower.” Later that day, I showed him where I found it. He pulled it out, but every morning more of them grew back. So when pulling it out didn’t work, my dad just put them behind a barbed wire fence..
Dad was spending a lot more time in the shelter. I tried to go down to see what he was doing but they didn’t let me. What was a big deal if I had already been there? I was very bored and a bit lonely. I missed the days when the three of us spent time together. I didn’t mind my sister; we could spend it with her too. It was soon my birthday, but it didn’t promise to be fun. People were very anxious because of the cloud. Sometimes, I had trouble going to sleep at night just thinking about it.
I couldn’t play in the garden, it wasn’t safe anymore. Flowers tried to eat me; fish stayed in our bath permanently. We tried to put them back, but after two disappeared from the pond, the bathroom became their new home. Trees started growing upside down somehow which made our garden looking like a horror place. It wasn’t only our garden that looked like this. It was all over our neighborhood. Maybe it was just my imagination. Perhaps leaves just stopped growing, making branches look like roots.
We didn’t go to school because of a potential danger from the cloud. Our parents were getting emails and teaching us at home, sending our homework to teachers.
The night before my birthday, I was so excited, I couldn’t fall asleep. I wondered what I would get and who will come to my house party. Before, it used to be a parade and big parties, but this year was different. My eyes were getting heavy and I was just about to fall asleep when I heard the noise from outside. The cloud had awakened. A flash went through it, looking like an evil smile. I wasn’t going to sleep in this room. I ran with Bella to my parent’s room. My dad wasn’t there yet. He had gone to the shelter early in the morning before I got up and didn’t come back yet. But we didn’t go to my mom. The spare bedroom had a massive bed with drawers on the bottom of the bed filled with pillows, quilts, and blankets. The drawers were where I often slept with Bella. They were very comfortable and quiet, unlike my room.
CHAPTER 16 - MY BIRTHDAY AND A PLANE
I woke up in the morning full of happiness, excitement, and energy. My parents were already gone from their bed. I ran to my room to get changed and when I was looking for my shirt and trousers, Bella started to bark.
“Bella! Be quiet.” I commanded. She didn’t stop and when I didn’t react, she started pulling my trousers to the window.
“Okay, fine. What is it?” I looked outside and beyond my window was another window… from a plane. A huge plane was outside my house in the middle of the street! I went outside. As I expected, everybody was out there.
“Wow...”
“What do you think happened?”
“Is the captain on this plane?”
“Can we fly it?”
“It must have fell from the cloud...”
I looked in the crowd for my family. I couldn’t see them, but I noticed something else in the distance: a black car like the one I have seen before. I looked at it and had a strange feeling that the occupants were looking at me too.
“Hey, boy! There you are.” Dad put a hand on my arm, making me feel better and comfortable.
“Dad, look there,” I said, pointing at the car. He started walking toward it very fast. “Dad, no!” I didn’t want to lose my dad, especially not on my birthday! But when he got close, they drove away quickly. I breathed a sigh of relief. My dad came back to me. I looked at him and noticed that he appeared so different! He needed a shave and seemed very tired and much older with messy hair and bags and dark circles under his eyes. “Who was it, Dad?”
“I don’t know, Son, but don’t worry about it. It probably was a TV reporter or someone taking pictures. Anyway, happy birthday, Max! Let’s go find your mom.
“Dad, where are the passengers and pilots?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they landed here for a break and will come later and fly away.” Even I didn’t believe that. I saw that the plane was from Germany from the German flag and words on the side. It wasn’t very big but could probably have 100 people on board. Weird place for a break but who knows what Germans thought about it. Maybe it was right for them. I heard they were famous for doing things like that.
“Do you think they fell from the cloud?”
“No, I think they landed here for a break and they’ll come back w
hen the cloud is gone. It’s hard to fly in such a bad visibility. Can you see how thick it is? Pilots can’t find a right direction in such a weather.
“Can I go inside?”
“No! Sorry, not now. Maybe later.”
“We went to look for Mom. She was inside getting everything ready for the party. When food and decorations were ready, I got on my bike and went to invite everybody for dinner. I invited Alvin with his sister and parents, Tom, Nancy with husband baby, Mary and Bob, Oliver with his mom, Joe and William with their parents, and good old Cedric. Everybody's mind was on the plane, and that was the main topic at the table. After dinner, Mom brought a big cake with ten candles on it. They all sang Happy Birthday to me. It sounded like an audition for the worst group singing. No one had a good voice? Even Bella’s howling sounded better. I couldn’t wait until they finished. It was so peaceful. Finally, I got presents, lots of them. I got some new astronaut posters for my wall, a star map, some toys, a mini laptop, a farting cushion (from you know who” together with jumping spider that attacked my face when I opened the box, a compass from Mary and Bob, and a big old book from Cedric. On the first page was a note:
