The Hot Day

• Dahliya Assaad, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2016

The hot ball of sun was right on top of a boy while sitting and watching old black rocks getting hit by crystal, clear, soda waves as his hands and legs were covered by sizzling golden sand, his name was Leo.
Leo was 10 years old, out with his family, having a sun bake and watching his little sister Mary, 5 years old having a swim in the crystal clear beach water.
Leo’s mum called out, “Time for sandwiches.”
“Ok mum,” Leo shouted back. When Leo was eating his mum said, “I’ll be back in five” as she walked away.
After a while, Leo noticed that five minutes had passed and his Mum hadn’t returned. She had disappeared... He then went to tell his Dad, but his Dad was watching his sister and didn’t take any notice.
Leo quickly finished his sandwich and went looking for his mother. He looked at the water as it was crystal clear, but she wasn’t there. “Mum, where are you?” he called out, confused and worried.
His Dad soon realised it was true, his wife had disappeared. He called his daughter Mary and went to help Leo look for his mother. Leo’s father asked Leo, “When was the last time you saw your mother?” Leo thought for a minute and said, “I think she walked down to the sand area, where it is shallow.”
“What direction, right or left?” Dad murmured.
“Hmmmmm let me think, I’m pretty sure she went right,” replied Leo.
“Then let’s go.” They all started running to that area, but then stopped suddenly because the place was silent and all the cars were gone, but theirs.
“That means Mum is here somewhere.” They looked around the beach and found her tangled up in seaweed. “At least we found mum, but how do we get rid of all the seaweed?” said Leo.
“Help, help!” mum cried. They ran into the water and tried to rip off the seaweed to let her free. Leo and his dad were able to rip the seaweed from around her hands so she could help them rip up the rest from around her feet. They then ran back to where they had been sitting.
But when they got back, somebody had taken all of their things, only leaving their clothes behind, so that was good enough. They got dressed and drove home. When they were driving home, Mary asked, “Why are we going?” But nobody replied. When they got home, they had showers, had dinner and went to bed.
When they woke up in the morning, Leo asked his mum, “What are we doing today?”
She said, “You have school today.” He then went to school and told everybody in his class what had happened at the beach the day before.
Hopefully that will never happen again! The End