Rainy Day

• Sophie Hamilton, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2011

Rain galloped across Andrew’s tin roof as he scooped down his breakfast as quick as he could.
“If only that silly old alarm went off!” He muttered to himself. He threw his bowl in the sink and ran out the door. Andrew was a grey wiry haired man with olive skin and deep brown eyes and he needed to get to work in time.
With a broken umbrella in hand Andrew realised he wasn’t wearing a tie for his important meeting, he rushed back inside as fast as his legs could carry him. Chucking his keys on the bench, he went to get a tie. Andrew had ten minutes to get to the meeting. How am I ever going to get there in time? He thought to himself. He sprinted to the bus and just made it.
Sitting on the bus in a puddle of water, Andrew was relieved. Casually strolling into work, Andrew passed a man sitting on a bench, the man stood up and said “Excuse me sir, do you have the time?” Andrew went to look at his watch only to find a bare wrist. This meant he had no idea of the time, so he was even later than he originally thought. Andrew dashed to the conference room but he stopped on the way to grab his thumb drive from his office. The thumb drive was not there!
“Oh no!” Andrew shrieked aloud when he came to the conclusion that he had left his keys on his bench at home with the thumb drive on the key ring.
“I am so hopeless” Andrew waled to himself, he had no choice but to go to the meeting empty handed. When he got to the conference room he only found one person standing at the door, his boss, Mr Honterbotton.
“I’m sorry I am late I, I, I, forgot my thumb drive I can’t do the presentation,” said Andrew his voice quivering. Mr Honterbotton looked up at Andrew’s face, his boss’ eyebrows knitted together and his face turned bright red.
“I have had the entire assembly of clients waiting in there, this is a million dollar account if we don’t win this our company could go bust!” roared Mr Honterbotton. He grabbed Andrew’s wet arm, dragged him inside and pushed him towards the front of the conference room. Andrew was sick with fear that the presentation would be a complete disaster and he would lose his job.
Andrew faced the clients who had their arms folded, some were looking at their watches and some were frowning at Andrew. His hands started to sweat as he adjusted his tie which he went to so much trouble to collect, his forehead started to become moist as impatient faces stared at him. His throat was dry and no words came out of his frozen mouth.
Suddenly the first sentence just came to him and he said it without having to even think then it was followed by another and the words just seemed to roll off his tongue. The audience sat up and started to listen. Andrew took a deep breath, rolled up his sleeves and continued. He actually was not as hopeless as he may have thought.
The following hour went by quickly with Andrew confidently delivering his presentation, as it came to the stage where the clients started filing out of the conference room, the manager stayed behind and said that he thought the speech was convincing and he would be back first thing Monday morning to sign the deal.
Mr Honterbotton was as happy as a bee in a honey jar. When Andrew arrived home that afternoon he was very proud of himself and happy he managed to remember his speech on the spot (this was after he yelled at his keys!) Andrew put all his keys back on their hook and told himself to always remember a tie!