Rainy Days Suck

• Samantha Levick, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2009

How could Mum and Dad leave me here, alone, when it’s raining! Rainy days suck. Why couldn’t I come to Auntie Lyn’s engagement party? Just because I ate all the prawns before the last party. They asked me to set up, I thought they were a reward or something. Anyway it doesn’t matter, at least I can watch television without interruption. I turned on the TV. Static, static and more static.
“No, No! “ I screamed to the empty house. “The rain must have knocked out the satellite”
Doesn’t matter, I’ve seen Dad fix the dish plenty of times. I’m sure I can do it. I went into my room and got supplies: raincoat, rope, and screwdriver.
I went outside in the pouring rain to get the ladder from the outside shed. I looked around to try and find it.
Mop, hedge clippers, shovel, my annoying big sister’s handbag (haha!) There it is in the corner! I grabbed it and propped it up against the side of the house. I put the screwdriver in my pocket and tied one end of the rope around my ankle to make sure I didn’t fall. I didn’t rely want to go on the roof but I had to fix the satellite. I took a big breath and started up the ladder.
I grabbed the first tile on the roof and pulled myself on. I took another rely big breath and carefully, grabbed higher tiles and slowly walked up to the satellite dish at the very top. I tied the other end of the rope to the concrete that supported the satellite. I pulled the screwdriver out and carefully moved around the back of the dish.
All I had to do was screw in the loose bolt at the back. I stood up straight ad took 1, 2, 3 steps. I could feel the rain pelting down on my back. I took a fourth and landed on a loose tile. “AHHH!” I fell head first and slipped down the roof. I tried grab something, anything. I closed my eyes and I felt the soft splash of the rain rebounding off the backyard tiles on my face and was pulled back by the rope.
So there I was hanging upside down, by my ankle, in the pouring rain, when I was home alone with no one to save me.
“I’ve been hanging here for ages where are Mum and Dad?” I thought. I was lucky to hear myself think through the rain. Then I herd the sweet sound of the family car pulling into the driveway.
“Yes” I said to myself and tried to do a sort of upside down happy dance.
They got the shock of their lives when they came home and saw me hanging there in the rain. Dad raced to me, untied my ankle and caught me as I fell. The rest of the night and the next morning were an angry blur because not only did I fracture my ankle because of the rope but I ended up breaking the satellite. The gross looking guy who came to fix it said it could be weeks before it works again.
Rainy days suck.