That Night

• David Iskander, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2014

I just came back late from a hard day at Uni. The street in Quakers Hill was rather empty, usually at night the streets would be flooded with late workers. It felt weird but stomach took over my mind and all I could think about was food. I headed towards subway looking for a quick bite. Subway was empty and cold; I approached the bench of which to order from as a suspicious ethnic man looked at me. I asked for a steak foot long but he looked as if this was his first time ever making it so I as it was getting awkward so I looked at the TV on the wall pretending to be interested in what I was staring at. After a good five minutes he finally finished preparing my foot long. He waited at the register as I handed him my credit card. He read my details, “ Hello Anthony, you are twenty one, that is the age of my daughter.” For some strange reason he had grin on his face and I left as fast as I could.

I approached my house only to hear a scream. I ran towards my house and my heart began to beat as I realized our front door was open this late as night. I ran in and as I took my first sight of the living room I became light headed, my greatest fear was finally upon me. There stood the weird ethnic man standing in front of my mum Karen, sister Linda and brother Adrian. They were tied up in chairs with tears running down their faces. This has always been my greatest fear since my father walked out on us and I became the man of the house. With a grin he spoke.

He said “Look Anthony I don’t want to hurt you or your family like I hurt your father. He was a very wealthy man and honorable too. When I asked him for his money he said that he would die to give his family a good life and that’s why you have all this money. I know he gave the money to you Anthony so hand it over and no one gets hurt.” The words like I hurt your father replayed in my head as I built up this great rage. The amount of times I had cursed my father and how hard our life was without him was all because of this man.

He pulled out a gun as a rush of anger and energy rushed threw my body. I ran towards him and tackled him into the wall where he smashed his head and broke threw the wall. He was unconscious and the police was here within a minute. I was later intensely interviewed by the police. All this time I was scared about be the man of the house.