Advanced Warning
Tiny hands were wrapped around my bicep. I groaned.
She shook harder.
“Maggie it is the middle of the night!” I whispered.
“I know, I tried to sleep for a really long time but I couldn’t do it!” She said.
I blinked open my eyes and glared at her. As always this had no effect on her. My little sister had an ego made out of the stuff they build space ships with, there was no denying it. She was dressed with officious neatness in her yellow duck themed pyjamas and white, fluffy dressing gown. She was six years old and had the air of an elderly librarian who was disappointed in you. It was clear I wasn’t going to get to sleep any time soon.
I sat up, “Alright, what’s the problem? Do you need a glass of water, are you too hot, too cold?” These were the usual complaint. My room was next to hers, while our parents slept on the other side of the house, so I was the one she relied on to fix things at. I looked at the time and groaned, 2:47.
“My frog is missing,” she said.
I blinked and screwed up my face trying to make sense of this, “The night light?”
“Yes.”
“It plugs into the wall and doesn’t move how can it go missing? It just sits there.” This seemed like a simple question, but Maggie sighed like it was a terrible imposition to answer me.
“It’s all Kris’ fault, when she came over she wanted to play adventurers and the frog glows in the dark so she said it was perfect to be the lost jewel of the froggy king of the pond. So she was the adventurer who had come to steal the jewel from me, only I had managed to corner her, and she knew that she was doomed to be captured. But she didn’t want to let me have it either because it was the crown jewel of the froggy kingdom, so she threw it out the window, and now it’s in the garden.”
Listening to this explanation was a bit like falling down a set of stairs. It took me a minute to gather my thoughts. I didn’t even know where to begin. “Your friend threw your night light out of the window?”
“The rebel princess of the frogs threw it out the window,” she corrected.
This did not seem like an important distinction, but I let it pass. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I forgot! And then I thought I could sleep without it, but I can’t, so I need you to come and help me find it,” she put her hands on her hips and with a scowl asked, “Now come on, I can’t go outside in the middle of the night by myself!”
This wasn’t an official rule that she was quoting, but if my mum heard that I’d sent my baby sister out at an ungodly time of the night without anyone to keep an eye on her, it wouldn’t need to be one for me to get some very official punishments.
“Uuuugh, fine,” I said, before reluctantly rolling out of bed. Once I had grabbed my phone I pulled a hoodie over my head and followed the brat out the door. Our rooms were at the back of the house, looking out at the garden. Neither of my parents were very ambitious gardeners, but the people who had lived in the house before us had been. It had turned into a bit of a jungle.
“How far did she throw it?” I asked, unlocking the back door and shooing her ahead of me while I stuffed my feet in my wellies.
A shrug, “I think it landed in the bushes at the back.”
That was a pretty hefty throw for a kid her age.
“Alright, well, it glows in the dark, so I guess it won’t be too difficult to find,” I said, trying to cheer myself up. It wasn’t working.
The night had gotten cold. It had been a sunny day and without a covering of clouds, the day’s heat had disappeared once it was dark. Looking around the lawn that surrounded the back door, I let out a sigh. It had been too much to hope that Maggie’s prediction was wrong and that Kris had just lobbed it out onto the grass.
I trudged through the grass, making my way to the back of the garden. I couldn’t see any green glowing frogs. “Are you sure you can’t sleep without it, babe?”
“Yes!”
I sighed and started to push branches out of the way. It took what felt like forever for me to find it. Maggie was clinging to me, which wasn’t speeding up the process. But eventually, a soft green glow caught my eye, “OK, found it!” I reached forward and closed my hand around the round plastic body, but before I could do anything more, there was a blast from the house behind me and my head collided with a tree.
***
For the second time that night, I was woken by someone shaking me.
“Sweetheart!”
I opened one eye and grimaced at the pain, “Dad?”
“Oh thank god,” he let out a deep sigh of relief, “I thought the worst when I came out here and saw you!”
I sat up, pushing against the wet grass, “What happened?” I looked past him, my jaw dropping open in shock. The back of the house was pulverised. Something that looked a lot like my bedsheets lay in shreds on the grass.
“A gas leak, we think,” he said, shaking his head, “How did you know to get your sister out?”
“I didn’t. One of her friends threw her nightlight into the garden, we were looking for it…” I stopped. He was frowning.
“Sweetheart, Maggie hasn’t had any friends over in ages?” He looked frantic, “Oh my god, what am I doing? You hit your head! Can you stand?” He started to pat me down to check me over for injuries, but I pushed past him and wobbled to my feet.
Maggie appeared to be having a similar conversation with our mother a few steps away. I looked at Maggie; despite everything, the half-demolished house, frantic parents, she looked bizarrely calm. My breath hitched as she looked up at me, and I realised something.
I had put my wellies on at the back door, and she hadn’t. I looked at her feet. She had about twice as much grass and mud on her boots as I did.
She saw me looking. Her jaw stiffened, but she didn’t look away from me, just brazening it out. I was the one to look away.
Hi, thank you for reading my short story! I hope you enjoyed it, if you did you can either read more of my work here on Medium or you can check out my writing website! You can find me at www.watchedplotneverboils.com
I hope I’ll see you there!
