My Last Jump

• Hannah Trinkle, Grade 10, Craigmore Christian School
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'The Write Track 2015' competition

My parents died before I was old enough to appreciate them. My father went out to the local take away shop and never returned. Our neighbour reported that he had watched a P-plater in a green Subaru flatten him. The driver never stopped but there wasn’t much we could do about it. My mother met her end while I was having a sleepover at my grandma’s. We found her dead in the laundry, which was filled with gas. It is possible that someone murdered my mother. After that I lived with my grandmother till she died in 2014.
After this I was alone in the world, I walked up and down the streets hoping that somewhere I would find a home. It seemed as if everywhere I turned there was bad luck. I couldn’t find any food anywhere, no one took any notice of me and the hair on my legs stood on end from the cold. Even the tears that ran slowly down my cheeks froze.
Then I discovered a place that seemed deserted. I took a look around; there were cobwebs all over the place, the garden was overgrown and there was a bicycle rusting away in the corner. It was too good to be true; I had found myself a home. I slipped in the back door, it wasn’t even locked. All this while there was a nagging feeling that told me I shouldn’t be there.
Once inside I began to explore. The room that I was in smelled just like my grandmother’s kitchen after she had finished dinner. I was so happy, I started to cry. As I wept I heard something moving. My instincts told me to run and hide but I couldn’t, I was frozen with fear. Then I heard something howl, it wasn’t just a normal howl, it was a howl that shook my whole being, a howl that woke me from my frozen state.
I sauntered to the stove and started to climb, I had just climbed into the range hood when a woman stormed in with a baby. She marched straight for the stove and placed three pots on it. Each contained something different. One was filled with water and had orange sticks with green and yellow things floating in it. Another had a brown concoction with big lumps of black floating in it and the last was just filled with water.
I decided that I needed to escape. I tried to creep up the chimney, but soon found that this was impossible due to a coating of grey slime. The only other option was to risk exposure and run out the door. As I pondered my escape the woman turned the range hood fan on and it began to spin. It got faster and faster and I couldn’t hold on. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and jumped, into the pot of boiling water.
That was the end of my short, but eventful life as a spider.