The Phone Call

• Helena Mcardle, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2013

They saw blood.
They saw two body bags with people in them.
This is the story of one of Bella and Andrew’s miserable days.

Their mother worked. Their father worked.
Empty; that was how they found their house every single day after school.

When Bella and Andrew got home they went to the living room and turned the television on. They talked about their day as they ate a bag of chips. It was getting late. Bella knew that her parents were working more hours than usual today. They said that they would be two to three hours late, but not this late.
Bella and Andrew waited four hours. Nothing happened. No one came home.
Bella was getting worried because she knew that her parents would call her if they were going to be any later than 6.00pm. Bella finally decided to ring her parents. No answer. She felt confused and anxious. She waited a bit for them to call back, no call.

She tried to ring them again, still no answer. Bella and Andrew were concerned that their parents weren’t answering their phone because they told Bella that they would have their phone with them the whole day in case something went wrong.
Andrew and Bella figured that their parents were at a meeting, so they went back to the couch and played a board game.

Not five minutes later the phone rang, they jumped up in surprise and walked over to the phone.
“Hello?” Bella answered.
“Run to the end of the street, NOW!” At the other end of the phone line wasn’t their parents at all; it was an old lady who sounded desperate and scared.
“Why?” Bella was sweating and shaking with fear, as was her brother who had tears swelling in his eyes. Bella knew she should show no fear for her little brother’s sake, so she held the tears in, and bit hard on her lip.
“Just go, NOW, there is no time for an explanation.” The lady hung up without warning. Andrew had never seen his sister as scared as she was right now. Her eyes were showing a lot of white, and her hands were shaking uncontrollably. He was scared, too. It was something they’d never felt before in their lives. It was something they were definitely not used to feeling.

Bella dropped the phone and she and her brother both sprinted out the door and down the street when suddenly they were stopped by a policeman; there were people everywhere, their faces aghast with shock.
There were tiny gaps in between the crowd; through which the children got small glimpses of what the people were looking at.
They saw it.
They saw two cars that had collided with each other.
One of the cars was their parents.
They saw blood.
They saw a shattered windscreen.
They saw two body bags with people in them; the children instantly knew who the people were.