Crackle! Crackle! Crash! The dreadful storm went on. The flooded city kept lighting up every few minutes as lightning flashed brightly. The growls and crashes of thunder were absolutely deafening.

I was huddled up on the old brown armchair in the lounge, squinting at the text in my book through the dim light of the lamp. The house seemed to get larger by the minute, and I was completely alone. I had dashed home from school in the initial drizzle, an old textbook held over my head, to find the house empty, except for a note from my mum explaining that she’d be back soon after running some errands. Thus, I had curled up in the armchair with a book after changing into dry clothes.

It had been fun, at first. It had started to drizzle at about 1:00pm in school. My friends and I had eagerly anticipated the dismissal bell, so that we could enjoy the unusually good weather. When we finally rushed outside, we found the usual happy scene during a rainy day: puddles on the ground, children happily skipping through them and water everywhere.

I ran home a bit faster than usual as my school bag wasn’t waterproof and I had a lot of textbooks and notebooks inside it. I can easily enjoy the rain at home with my family, I thought as I stepped into my quiet home. When I had finally finished puzzling over why no one was at home, I found a note taped to my room’s door, explaining that my brothers had gone over to their friend’s house, my grandparents were at an ill relative’s house and my mum was out running some errands.

I sighed after I finished reading the note, put down my bag, ate a snack and settled down to read my new library book. All of a sudden, the lights went out.

‘Great, a power outage! What am I supposed to do now? I can’t see a thing,’ I groaned. Even though it was still daytime, the sky was full of dark clouds and so the house had turned dark too. I somehow found my slippers and felt the walls around me to reach the table and grab my torch from it. Once it was on, I felt relieved.

The long white beam that spread forward like an arm guided me to the front door. I was almost knocked off my feet by a great gust of damp wind as soon as I had opened it. I held the side of the door to balance myself and peered out into the terrible thunderstorm, trying to see if my mum or anyone else from my family was standing outside. Nope, no one. I turned back inside.

I was beginning to get quite worried. My mum or somebody else would usually be at home when I got back from school. I had never, ever been left at home alone before. I tried to call her from my cellphone, but I wouldn’t connect with her. I was now panicking. Every passing minute felt like an hour.

Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door. I ran and opened the door. There was no one. I felt so scared. I locked the door and stood by the window to see if any member from my family was returning.

I felt nervous at each sound that the heavy winds outside made. I sat down on the sofa. I was about to cry when I heard a sharp knock on the door again.

This time I was trembling and slowly undid the lock of the door. To my immense relief, my grandparents stood outside, arms laden with steaming paper bags.

They smiled and greeted me as my entire story of being left at home alone poured out of me. We opened up the mysterious paper bags and, to my surprise, they were takeaway boxes of fish and chips, freshly fried. As we started on the aromatic meal, my mum and brothers joined us, promising not to leave anyone at home alone ever again.

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 26th, 2019