Vengeance

• Sara Hibma, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2021

I stare in between my shoes, as the swing pushes me back and forth in favour of the wind. Mother’s laugh echo in my head,
No, don't think about that.

Even imagining her laughter or the serious smile she wore or even her glassy eyed stare can make me fall apart. But it takes me longer to build myself up than to fall apart.
Of course I’ve thought about revenge, who wouldn’t when they watched their Mother being blown to smithereens? But no, a 14 year-old shouldn’t think about that. Cold lead seeps through my veins as I think about them, the people who were responsible for her death. I will get my revenge.
Eventually.

Her screams fill my dreams, and I realise that I will never be content unless I seek them to be finished.

The hard metal feels cool against my skin as my fingers wrap around the gun that I found, there is only one person who knows where they are and that's Barnaby. I set to his place at a stroll, tucking the gun under my waistband. I reach his crumpled old home in a few minutes. I bang on the door, waiting for him to open, but instead it’s someone else who I don’t recognise. A man who appears to have spent his whole life grimacing, he has grey fraying hair sticks up on one side.
‘Hello m’dear, what can I do for you on this fine morning?’ His voice wheezes and gasps.
‘I’m looking for Mr. Barnaby. He and I have some unfinished… business,’ I say, my voice sounding like honey.
‘He is out, sorry. But you’re welcome to come in and enjoy some biscuits and tea.’
He smiles a crooked smile that appears to be painful for him, his teeth are yellow and rotten, well the ones that are still there.
‘Ummm,’ well it would be rude not to. ‘Yes but I can’t stay for long.’
‘Follow me please,’ he says, as if he hadn’t heard what I had said.
We enter an odd room that has decorative furnishing, that you wouldn’t see all mixed together, a sofa covered in dust and a stool with a lamp on it. Sitting on the sofa is a man with flat brown hair and a long pointy nose.
‘Hello Miss Jane,’ how does he know my name? ‘We have been expecting you. Now sit.’ It isn’t a question, it's a command.
‘Now tell me how you liked watching your Mother being blown off the face of the earth. Hmmm? Well I watched everything from my penthouse! It was quite a pleasure.’
He smiles a toothy grin, and a shiver creeps up my spine.
It’s him who did it.
I put my hand on my hip and slowly inch it towards the gun, I close my eyes as it fires.
Nothing else matters now, I have my revenge. I watch as the other man takes out a gun. Perhaps now I can finally join her.