STAY WITH ME ON THIS

Hannah Pattenden

They’ve been in that box house for days and days. It must be nice to be in a pretty house now. The mum is preparing tea and humming along to Meghan Trainor. She’s making cake while the dad sits, keeping her company. Once the cake is in the oven, the mum goes to check on the girls who are watching YouTube in the living room.
            CRASH! BANG!
            The whole family screams while the dad flies up the stairs to see what on earth is going on. Suddenly, the mum and girls hear yelling.
            ‘Stay right here,’ the mum says. She leaves the girls to go and check on her husband.
            ‘AHHHH!’ The dad gets thrown down the stairs. He crashes at the bottom – his leg bent. ‘Robber!’ he yells.
            ‘Oh no!’ The mum runs through the kitchen and grabs a frying pan. She climbs over her husband who is still scrambling at the bottom of the staircase and runs up to the robber.
            ‘No, Jennifer!’ he shouts and follows her up the stairs.
            They saw the robber in their bedroom stealing the mum’s jewellery. The dad shouts and charges at him but the robber picks him up easily and shakes him. So Jennifer creeps behind him, taps him on the shoulder so that he drops the dad and turns to face her. Immediately, she kicks him – right in the balls! He yells in pain, and she whacks him over the head with the frying pan, knocking him out. Jennifer and the dad sigh in relief. But in all the kerfuffle, the cake started burning!
            BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!
            Downstairs the fire alarm is going off, the girls are crying and there is smoke filling the kitchen. The mum quickly pulls the cake out of the oven, nearly burning her hand off. Luckily, the cake hadn’t burnt, and they were all able to sit around the table and eat tea.
‘Evie! Tea!’ my mum calls.
            I put down my dolls and leave them out of the toybox so that I don’t forget to fix the dad’s leg later. I hope we’re having cake ...