Fire, FIRE

• Matilda Handbury, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2018

It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when the Fire Department received a mysterious call about a fire. However, it didn't sound like one person, it sounded like fifty, screaming down the line with a fire blazing and crackling in the background. The address of the catastrophe was choked down the line before it was cut dead.

The firemen rushed to the scene, getting ready to put out the fire and save as many people as they could. But what they saw was very unexpected. No rising smoke, no screams of terror, no falling pieces of wall. The building was perfectly intact, not a sign of firey ash insight.

The firemen still evacuated the premises as a safety precaution. When everyone was outside, the fire chief was about to ask who had tried to prank call them when the whole lower half of the apartment burst into flames, hissing and crackling to the ground.

Once the fire was under control, they tried to call the mysterious caller and thank them for the tip-off about the fire. But all they heard a shallow, one-tone voice crackling down the line saying. "I'm sorry, but this number doesn't exist anymore. Please check the number and try again later...

and thank you for saving them... "