Bang! Slam! Squish!

• Lilani Hale, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2009

BANG! I slammed the broom onto the floor. I brought the broom up slowly, flipped it over, damn! I didn’t get it!

There’s this cockroach right, it’s been living in our house for about 3months. We didn’t care when we first saw it, then a month past, everything we picked up, it was in it!
Every night for two months now, we sit on our chairs after dinner with our feet on the seats, everyone with something in their hands.
My mother, a fly squat, my father, a newspaper he was reading earlier on, my brother, a shoe, and me, a broom. Tonight, I nearly got it, but not quite.
How do we know it’s the same cockroach every time? It has white patches on it and it’s as big as a small toy car.
It has white patches because my brother, Dillon, thought if he put bleach on it, it would crawl into the garden and die. Well, no. It just made it stronger.
But, tonight will be the night where it gets taken out.
We climb onto our chairs. Feet up. All quiet. It creeps out, and then stops. We’ve put a piece of old apple on the floor so it will come out again. It comes closer, and closer. Dillon and dad go for it at the same time, score! Dad lifts up his paper, Dillon lifts up his shoe, and it’s on the ground. Motionless. Dead. Then, it scurries away under the cupboard. “Damn it Dillon!” dad roars.
“That was your fault!” Dillon exclaims.
“it’s both of your fault!” mum says quietly.
“Lets, just go to bed” I say keenly.
“Fine” dad hisses.
As we walked away, I caught a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye.
“Wait!” I whisper. “I saw something” I say. I turn around to see the cockroach, trying to push the apple underneath the cupboard.
Dad pushes me and Dillon out of the way to see it.
He taps the newspaper on his hand and slowly walks toward it. I grab his arm, he turns, I whisper “Dad, honestly, do you really think you can squish it?”
“No” he says sadly and walks back next to mum with his head drooped.
“I’m gonna get it” I hardly say to anyone but myself.
“Yahhhh” I shout as I run to the cockroach.
I slam the broom hard on the ground.
Once again I flip my broom.
YUK!
It’s dead alright. Everyone jumps up and down hugging.

The next day we where so full of energy that we decided to move the kitchen around. We grunted and groaned as we tried to move the cupboard, it moved about 1 meter. I saw something in the corner of my eye.
I said “wait, stop.” We put the cupboard down slowly and went to check it out.
“What is it?” mum said turning her head.
“It looks like some kind of, eggs” dad says scratching his head.
“Eggs, what kind of eg….”I said.
Then mum said “No!”
Dad says with a frown “Cockroach eggs!”
Dillon ran to his shoe and screamed “GET YOUR WEAPONS!”

The End!

Written by Lilani Hale