Parents Never Stop Yelling

• Karina Wells, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2009

Have you ever thought about running away? If you said no, maybe this would change your mind. You are a little 5 year old girl and your mum and dad wont stop yelling at each other and one of your big sisters always smells like smoke.

Well, I know two girls who have thought about it and their names are, Nalliah ( the 5 year old) and Sarah (the 16 year old). They have an older sister who’s name is Sammy (she is 18), and Sammy is always smoking. This story is about Sarah and Nalliah. Their parents, Freda and Charles, won’t ever stop yelling at them because they might forget to do the laundry or clean the cat litter box. Besides, you can’t expect a 5 year old to do chores. So, one day, when Nalliah walked into Sarah’s room crying, Sarah said “ I think I know what is wrong with you, you want to go to the park, don’t you? Well I want to get away from this place so bad that I think I’ll take you now, even though its dark out.”
“But, but, I already asked mummy and daddy, and they just said to ‘shut up’. So we can’t go Sawa” Nalliah said.
“Yeah, well I want to run away” said Sarah.
“Oh, that’s bad, your not awoud to wun away” said Nalliah.
“Well I don’t care any more, you cummin’ or not”.
“Ummm... yep”.
“Good, then come on”said Sarah.

So, the two girls climbed out the side window. Sarah first, then Nalliah jumped down right into Sarah’s arms.

It was about nine o’clock when they left the house and it only took about fifteen minutes to get to the park. Sarah said “Hey, Nalliah do you want to go play on that swing, I’ll let you through the gate and I can turn all the lights on for you?”
“OO, yes please” Nalliah answered sounding very eager.

So that’s what Sarah did. Then, when she shut the gate she saw that one of the shops was open. It was the bakery. Sarah knew Edward, who worked at the bakery, he was a nice guy, 18 years old, and he always gave the girls free cookies. Sarah walked over to the shop and asked for two meat pies for her and her sister. He didn’t make her pay, which was nice of him.

Sarah was still standing and talking to Edward when they heard an ear pearcing scream. They both ran over to see what was wrong, it was Nalliah, she was lying on the groung about 5 feet from the swing. She must have been using the older person swing not the baby swing, and fallen off.
She was crying, holding her arm and rolling around in pain. Edward said “just stay still I’ll go call an ambulance”.
“Thanks, Edward” Sarah said.
Edward was only two years older that Sarah, and Sarah had always liked him but only as a friend.

So Edward ran back into the shop and grabbed his mobile. He called 000 and came back over to us. Nalliah was still crying, but Sarah managed to get a good look at her arm and it was definitely broken, she could see that the arm was all out of place.
Sarah was always the strong person in the family, she knew that if the family was in trouble that she could fix it. But this time she couldn’t take it, she burst into tears, just sitting there crying with her sister.

Edward came back over to calm the two girls down. “Shhh ... its OK. Shhh.” Edward comforted, with his arm around the two girls. “The ambulance will be here in about two minutes. Shhh.”

The three of them sat there, and waited.
“Do you want me to call your mum or dad for you?” Edward asked.
“NO!” Sarah and Nalliah said at the same time.
“Family trouble?”
“Yeah” Sarah said.
“OK” Edward whispered..
Then the ambulance pulled up next to the shop and the crew ran around the side of the ambulance to get the stretcher. They came over and asked “what happened? Did she fall of the swing? And what is her name?”
“Yes, she fell of the swing. And her name is Nalliah. Her arm is broken” Sarah said.
“Yes it is. Thank you. Nalliah my name is Carl. I’m going to put you on the stretcher and take you to the hospital” Carl said.
The other men came over to Sarah and asked where her parents were.
“Um, they’re just up the road. Please don’t go get them. Our mum and dad have a mental illness and they wont stop yelling at us and they would just go crazy if they knew we were down here.”
“Yes, Ok, but I’m sorry we have to tell them.” the other man said.
“Yeah” Sarah said.

So the man went up the road to the house and spoke to their parents. He must have been able to tell that they had an illness because when he came back he asked if Sarah had known of any medication that they had been taking.
“No I can’t think of anything that they have been taking” Sarah replied.
“Well they can come with us and we might be able to find something that they can take. They must get really angry at you don’t they?”
“Yeah they do. But is there something that they can take that will make all the anger go away?” Sarah said.
“Yes, there are a lot of things that they might be able to take”.
“Wow that would be great”.

Then their parents came walking down the road and looked worried and angry at Sarah.
Then Carl walked over and said for them to get in the Ambulance. They did as they were told.
“Thank you” Sarah whispered to Carl.
He walked over to the ambulance and waited until the other two men got in and then they drove away.

Two days had passed with only one phone call to Sarah which was from Nalliah. Then on the afternoon on the second day a silver car pulled up out the front of the house and her mum and dad got out of the car...and... they ...were actually smiling at each other.
That night Sarah’s mum and dad sat her down to explain things to her -which was a first,- but it turns out that Carl was a doctor and he had given them a special medicine that helped people with depression problems, like her mum and dad.
They said that they felt much nicer and that they wanted to be a family again.
At that moment Sammy walked in and said that she would give up smoking for good. Then Nalliah came in and said that this would be great.

We all started to cry with happiness. And that’s the story of Nalliah, Sarah, Sammy, Freda and Charles.