1. Rain

Stella_S

by Stella_S

Story

Madeline Redfern was a very average five-year-old girl. She had a gap between her front teeth that caused a slight lisp whenever she proclaimed her loud opinions, she preferred to wear her hair free and tangled because anyone holding a brush was seen as an enemy to her scalp and her favourite pastime by far was fishing earthworms out of puddles whenever a shower wet the asphalt.  

The only slightly remarkable thing about her was her truly unmeasurable bad luck. 

If there was one hair in the food it would be on her plate, if there was one chair in the room with a faulty leg, she would sit on it and if a bird flew over her head she was sure to get a small present. 

And bad luck shouldn’t be confused with clumsiness. Madeline was actually quite dexterous for a child her age, but it was the environment that seemed to have it out for her, tripping, bumping and scratching her whenever possible. An assortment of small band-aids decorating either her elbows, knees or chin was such a common sight that the absence of them inspired comments, not their presence. 

It was on a late afternoon in the early days of April that her already bad luck took a turn for the worse. 

Madeline was squatting on the curb next to a dip in the street. Rainwater had gathered into a clear oval, thin, pale bodies wiggling in its cool depths. Her pudgy fingers braved the water and carefully gathered one squirming worm after the other in the palm of her hand, forming a squishy clump Madeline intended to present to her mother proudly. 

Just when she was reaching for the last worm in need of saving, Madeline was distracted by a loud horn, a hair-raising screech, her head shooting up. For one suspended moment in time, Madeline’s death loomed in the form of bright headlights and rain-slick tires before a hand ripped her away by the bright yellow hood of her raincoat. 

She tumbled backwards, cradling her precious handful close to her chest, coming to stop lying safely away from the street. But when she turned around to see who had saved her, the sidewalk behind her was empty. 


© Stella_S 2024-07-29

Genres
Novels & Stories
Moods
Abenteuerlich, Unbeschwert, Mysteriös, Lighthearted
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