Parent Trap

• Cate Moore, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2013

This was the day I realised that my holiday was going to turn into a plan to make my parents get back together. No one knew if it was going to work but I might as well try. My name is Anna. I wake up to the sounds of birds chirping and the wind in the trees. Something tells me that this day is going to be great. As I’m getting changed my mother calls out to me from the kitchen so I go straight to her, taking in everything as I walk through her lounge room. There are photos of me everywhere; school photos, family photos and my first ever photo as a baby. I arrive at the kitchen bench, and I see my mother holding a pile of books. She says that they are overdue and that I should take them back to the library so I can have a look around the town centre. I take the books out of my mothers’ hands and get on my way straight away. As I arrive at the library, I pass the books over to a handsome looking man that looks like my father. He says he recognises me from photos he has seen. He asks me that if I want to go for afternoon tea later on. It sounds like a good idea so I go with it. As I walk home I think of a plan for this afternoon to try and get them back together. When I reach home, I run inside to tell my mother that we are going somewhere. She sounds so happy, which is great.
We arrive at a little cottage in the middle of a forest and I see if the man from the library was there. He was standing at the front door. I feel a wave of nerve and happiness as I don’t know if my plan will work. We walk in, completely ignoring the man, well my mother does. We find a table and sit down to order. The man walks over and finds a vacant chair and pulls it over to our table. He makes himself comfortable as my mother doesn’t pay any attention to him because I think she knows what’s going on. Soon, they turn to each other and they find the strength to apologise for the mayhem that they caused for each other. They even hugged each other, which wasn’t expected. I hug my mother as I whisper to her my plan to get her and my father back together. She is so happy, but at the same time a bit confused, for me. She decides to invite my father over for tea. He thinks that it’s a great idea and that he will meet us later. When I get home, I feel so happy and proud of myself. When I realised that my life had changed, I was determined to find a way to get them back together.