I was angry and hungry and I wanted to go home. I was almost sure that Gamma would be awake by now, she had been sleeping most of the day, and would be back home cooking Christmas dinner and making my birthday cake and baking her delicious cookies. My mouth just about ached with the craving of her tender sweet perfect cookies.

I decided to make a run for it when they finally left me alone in their side room. I silently opened the front door and ran tip-toed across their yard until I got to the sidewalk, then as my lungs hurt so much it felt like I was breathing fire, I continued to run all the way back to Gammas house.

I hit the back door with a thud and grabbed the knob with both hands. They were cold from the chilly air and wouldn't work right, I couldn't turn the knob.

I struggled and kicked the door and screamed for Gamma to let me in but the door and the knob didn't budge in the slightest. I tried to look in the windows but I couldn't see anything in the dark rooms just inside.

Scared of the empty house, I went to my tree house and curled up inside and tried to figure out how to fix this. Why were my mother and Gamma playing this horrible game? Why was my mother so angry with me that she left me with the church lady that everyone makes fun of?

I was so cold that it was beginning to make my face and toes hurt, and then I remembered the box of matches that I had used to light a small campfire during the summer.

I pulled out the small box of wooden matches from the corner of the cupboard and pulled together in a pile of the dried leaves and small sticks and bunched them up in the middle of the floor.

If I could just get warm then I would be alright until Gamma and my mother came home from church.

I struck a match but the flame jumped up and startled me and I dropped the match. Fire is very dangerous, mother warned me in my head. The next match that I lit, a gust a wind blow it out before I could get the leaves to catch fire. So I put a couple of the matches on the pile and decided to light the matches instead of the leaves.

Soon I had fire, it was warm and wonderful and I held out my hands to the lovely small heat. I soon noticed that there was a lot more smoke than air to breathe so I pushed the little door open with my foot and pushed myself back away from the breeze coming in as the smoke escaped the small house. I sat in satisfaction at my own resourcefulness and basked in the delicious heat of the flames.

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