Landing On Your Feet

• Jacinta Crookes, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2011

I can hear her. Her footsteps are dull thuds coming closer and closer towards me from around the corner. I can hear her evil, girlish giggles echoing down the corridor coming to get me. I peak around the corner and just escape her gaze. I turn and make a run for it but almost collide with the large leather couch that is pushed up against the wall. My ears just manage to brush the cushion before I skid under the couches padded frame. I can see two little shadows from my hiding place. She is standing just in front of the couch, the creature that they call “Claire”. She bends down and before I know it she has grabbed onto my back. I screech but then quickly wriggle myself out of her grasp and bolt out of the room. She is getting angry now and comes running after me down the hall. I have little time to lose and so I jump behind the pot plant with a little too much enthusiasm, as I crash land on some dead leaves that had fallen behind. I slowly start to catch my breath and my heart rate returns somewhat back to normal. There is something wrong though. I can’t hear her anymore. There are no more heavy thumps coming towards me and I can’t hear her frustrated breathing ringing in my ears. I slowly and cautiously tiptoe out from behind the pot only to be met by Claire with an evil grin on her face. She throws a large pink blanket at me and I become trapped. I struggle with the sheet but it restricts me like a straight jacket and I fail to free myself. All of a sudden I am being squeezed around the waist as the floor disappears beneath my feet. I am doomed. I can’t bear to see what happens next.

We have been walking for around five minutes now and I can’t tell where I am. I am pretty sure we have gone up a flight of stairs because I felt a wave of nausea pass over me as I was being jostled around like I was on a boat being rocked back and forth. We suddenly come to a halt and the blanket is lifted off of me. I find myself staring down at the backyard and all of the trees that surround the house. I am so distracted by what I am faced with that I only just hear Claire say “Bye bye!” in her evil voice. Before I know what is happening, I find myself falling. I am tumbling through the air like a trapeze artist without any ropes. I look back up and see Claire clapping her hands with delight from the balcony. Suddenly everything catches up with me. She has just thrown me off the balcony. I wander to myself whether I really have nine lives. Fear is pulsating through my body and then the adrenaline kicks in. I am nearing the ground at a roaring speed and then I collide with hard earth. I look around me and relief settles over my body as I realise nothing is broken. Oh well, luckily as a cat I always land on my feet.