A Change In The Weather

• Isaac Chittendon, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2008

It was on that day long ago that I realised for the first time that it had all gone terribly wrong.

I was walking home from school. It was a mild day in the middle of spring and I was listening contentedly to the bird song as the sun began its descent. I was almost home. As I rounded a corner I found the sun glaring into my eyes, so I looked down. After a few more paces I looked up again to find that the sun was no longer glaring at me, instead there was a dark mass of cloud where the sun had been. A light breeze began to pick up, then after a moment it turned into a decent wind. Before I knew it the sky had been completely shrouded by darkness and rain had started falling from the storm clouds above. I heard a clap of thunder in the distance and started to ponder over the sudden change in the weather.

But I soon stopped pondering because then it all started to happen far too quickly for that. Suddenly there was a terrifying flash, as a bolt of lightning struck the earth not far from where I was standing. Only then did I fully realise the danger of my situation. I started to panic and ran for home through the now pouring rain and increasingly heavy hailstones. I heard a distant roar and turned around astonished to see a dark, whirling mass in the distance ripping through houses, trees and roads destroying anything that got in it’s way. This cannot be happening I thought as I began to sprint for home and the safety I thought, for some strange reason, that I’d find there.

I continued to be battered by the most fearsome storm I had ever seen. It soon became obvious as I rounded another corner and came to my street that there was no sanctuary here. Another storm had devastated this area and before me I saw scenes of destruction the likes of which I had never seen before.

It was then, as I stared at what was left of my home, that I realised that climate change was real. And life would never be the same again.