As the sun rose high above the great big city of Santiago, Evelynne lay silently in her warm, cozy bed. She dreamed of the marvellous things that might happen in school. Then her alarm went off. Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz! Her reaction to the alarm wasn’t like how normal kids would. Most kids would stay in bed longer, turn on snooze, or even scream and cry. Instead, Evelynne quickly got out of bed as she yawned and stretched.
Evelynne looked and dressed like any normal tween. As it is, she’s already 12 years old. Evelynne has long black hair that turns brown in the daylight and brown eyes that sparkle as bright as the stars. One thing you should know about Evelynne is that she hardly talks. Her earliest memory was being pushed as a baby at the park. After that day, she is so cautious of her surroundings and becomes so shy. The only person she talked to was her mother. She is the kindest mom you would ever want to have. Evelynne gets most of her personality from her mother (Ada) than from her dad (Edward). Evelynne’s dad’s job is to fly to different countries to do architecture stuff so she hardly got to see him.
She dressed in her favourite attire: a jumper, jeans, and long socks. Evelynne wore that just because it was comfortable. She didn’t really care about the fashion; she wasn’t really noticed anyway.
After brushing her teeth, Evelynne walked down stairs to see her mom packing her favourite food for lunch: spaghetti! She was so excited, but she didn’t show it as usual. She sat down at the table and started to eat her cereal. Although Evelynne never showed her emotions, Ada always knew if she was happy or sad. Like when Ada saw Evelynne walk into the room, she knew she was excited to eat her lunch.
‘Did you have a good sleep, honey?’ asked Ada as she combed Evelynne’s hair.
Evelynne nodded.
‘Good then. Did you see the spaghetti I packed?’
Evelynne smiled, then nodded happily. She continued eating her food when she heard the radio glitching. Big…waves…flooding…evacu—Then it turned off.
‘Is there going to be a flood, Mom?’ asked Evelynne in a soft and quiet voice.
‘Umm, I’m not sure; why did you ask?’ replied Ada. Evelynne was about to mention that the radio said something about flood, but she thought it wasn’t important.
‘No reason,’ Evelynne said hesitantly.
Evelynne finished her breakfast; she packed her bag, put on her sneakers and hopped in the car. She was terrified to go to school and it wasn’t even the first or last day of school. She was always scared every day because of the bullies, the grades, and most of all, being a disappointment to her mom. Even though her mom is very understanding, Evelynne doesn’t want to upset her. Ada parked in the parking lot next to the school. Evelynne got out of the car and said to herself, “I’m ready for failure,” even though she is the smartest, kindest, and most obedient girl in her class.
‘Have a good day at school, honey,’ Ada said as she kissed Evelynne on the forehead. ‘You’ll do great like you always do.’
Evelynne nodded and slowly walked off. As she entered the hallway that was overflowing with children, she noticed the bullies shoving a little boy in a locker. Evelynne knew it was wrong, but she didn’t speak up. No one would care about her thoughts anyway. She made her way into her classroom and sat in the front row, where it was not crowded. Everyone always wanted to go to the back of the room but Evelynne was too afraid to ask why.
‘Alright, everyone get in their seats.’ Ms. Smith, their teacher, said as she put on her glasses. ‘Let’s start the day with a rhyming test.’
Then everyone groaned.
Evelynne hated tests, not because of the test itself, but because she has to share your answers. Oh, and it also goes into your report so if Evelynne is too scared to answer, her grades will get lower.
‘First up..’ The teacher said, looking into the front row, ‘Rory and Evelynne. Please stand up in front.’
Evelynne felt like Ms. Smith did that on purpose. “Going first, what could be better than that?” Evelynne thought to herself.
Rory and Evelynne stood in front, waiting for the first word.
‘Ok, find a word that rhymes with “through”.’ Ms. Smith said as she prepared to write their answers down.
Evelynne knew a lot of words that rhymed through: blue, glue, knew, bamboo, preview and much more… but she stayed silent. It turns out Rory doesn’t know any words that rhyme with through. Well, he was that one kid in the class who had his grades suffering. They both stood so silently that you could hear a pin drop.
Then Ms Smith said ‘Come on, there are many words that rhyme with through.’
Finally, Rory said something.
‘Oh! Orange!’
‘Umm, that word doesn’t rhyme with through but I will give you a mark for effort. You two can sit down now.’ Ms. Smith said as she wrote in her book.
“Orange?” Doesn’t even rhyme with though! Evelynne was so disappointed with herself for not speaking up. As soon as she sat in her chair, she just stared out the window, saying to herself, “You are such a disappointment.”
The thoughts in her head blocked out all the different noises the whole class made. Now the teacher will think I’m stupid! Why can’t I speak up properly?! I hate myself!
Suddenly, just as she thought things couldn’t get worse, she felt a rumble. At first, Evelynne thought it was her imagination, but it got more intense. Chills went up her spine and she could almost scream in fear. It looked like no one else felt it but she didn’t speak up.
‘Ms. Smith, I think the ground’s shaking,’ Rory said, looking up on the roof.
‘I don’t think-’ Ms. Smith paused because she noticed a crack on the roof with dust falling from it. Now the rumbling was more obvious.
‘Everyone, evacuate the school,’ Ms. Smith said as she opened the door so everyone could get out. All the kids stumbled over each other as the stampede of students filled the hallway. Evelynne was pushed and kicked and was almost left behind in the classroom. Then she glanced back at the window and saw a wave the size of a mountain coming towards the school. That’s when Evelynne freaked out. Almost everyone was outside and Evelynne was stuck behind all of them. Finally, she was near the door that led outside the school. She could finally escape. Then she heard a yelp.
‘Help!’
Evelynne looked behind her and saw the boy that was shoved in the locker was still in it. And he was stuck. She looked at the open door, then the little boy and then the big tsunami that was coming. It was getting closer every second. She had a choice to make: leave the little boy in the locker and escape the wave, or come back for the little boy and probably get hit by the wave. Then her instincts took over. She chose to save the boy even though it might be risking her life. She ran back and pulled on the locker door that the boy was behind. She swung the door open but she didn’t say a word. The little boy and Evelynne ran to the door the teachers were about to close. Then they saw a group of girls running back.
‘Find my phone; I cannot live without my phone!’ One of the girls said as she opened her own locker. She browsed through all her books and kept panicking.
‘Julene, your phone is not important right now. You’re going to get us killed!’ One of the other girls said.
‘Maanvi, what’s more important, a phone or escaping the waves? The answer, by the way, is a phone.’ The girl said as she checked her pockets. ‘Oh, never mind, it was in my pocket. Let’s go!’
Now everyone inside was running for the door. Evelynne and the little boy were almost at the door, but suddenly, Boom! A huge piece of the roof crashed right in front of the door, only leaving a small gap to crawl in and that was the only way out. Evelynne carried the little boy so he could reach the opening. He climbed out and ran towards his teacher. She was about to climb out of there until one of the girls pulled her out of the way.
Then, the big wave hit them and before they knew it. The strong current was pushing them side to side. Evelynne held on to a locker door with all her might. When she looked around, she found no sight of the girls, but she did see the staircase. Using the locker doors, she climbed her way through the water to reach the staircase. When she got there, she noticed the water rising, so she climbed up the stairs.
It was very slippery so Evelynne held on to the door handles. Just as she was almost at the second staircase, she heard some shouting. Evelynne looked behind her and saw the same three girls climbing up as well. It looks like they all had the same idea: get to a higher area. The water was still rising though, so Evelynne kept climbing higher and higher. The third floor was messy so Evelynne was careful not to step on anything slippery or wet. She could still hear the girls coming but that didn’t stop her. Her goal was to make it to the top, and there was only one staircase left to climb.
Finally she made it to the top and the water was rising slower there. Evelynne closed all the doors so not much water could come in. She left the staircase door open because she knew the girls were coming. And she was right; they did come. They rushed into the room, not noticing Evelynne. One of the girls laid down on the floor; the other one sat down and caught her breath. The last girl stared at them and said, ‘Great, now we’re stuck here!’
Evelynne was watching the water get higher from the window. She was scared that they would be fully underwater. The glass on the windows was starting to crack and Evelynne started to pray. Finally, it all stopped. If she was completely honest to herself, the view of the window being halfway in the water and halfway dry was pretty cool to see. The sad thing was that there were no fish; instead, there was trash and plastic floating in the water. Even though she could stare out at the view forever, she went straight to work.
She grabbed all the lunch boxes that weren’t wet and put them on the table. If there was no flood, it would be eating time, so Evelynne wanted to eat something. Her lunch box was in her locker that was downstairs. She would risk her life trying to get it, so she ate what she could find.
One of the girls handed her friend a clean lunchbox. Then she grabbed a sticky and dirty one and handed it to the other girl.
‘Hey, why did you give me this one?’ the girl with the dirty lunchbox said.
‘Well, you get what you get and you don’t get upset,’ One of the other girls replied.
They continued talking about something, but Evelynne was not listening. She kept wondering if the teachers knew that they were stuck or if her mom was ok. She didn’t know what to do. She tried to keep her mind off the negative stuff by listening to the girl’s conversation from time to time. Just by listening to them, she learned that the one who couldn’t get her phone was Julene; the girl who was handed out the lunch boxes was Maanvi; and the girl who received the clean lunch box was Gursheen.
Hours passed and Evelynne was still thinking about a lot of things. Was it a bad choice to go after the little boy? Would people think she’s dead? Why does Julene care so much about her phone? Anyway, it was getting close to nighttime so Evelynne took another lunchbox and started to eat. Maanvi handed out the lunch boxes and gave Julene the dirtiest one.
‘Why?’ Julene said as she opened the lunch box. ‘Just why’
Maanvi ignored her and gave Gursheen a clean lunch box.
Evelynne was thinking again. She was thinking about ways to get out because they were stuck. All the water pressure is pushing on the doors, making them impossible to open. Evelynne wasn’t sure if the others knew that. Anyway, she was still staring out the window until… she saw something amazing!
A boat! Evelynne looked around to see if there was a way out. She needed to call for help but they were stuck. Good thing the other girls noticed too. Everyone got on their feet and looked around. They looked behind tables, chairs, lockers, and even behind the TV. They couldn’t find anything and the boat was drifting further away. Evelynne did find an empty metal coffee cup and a spoon. She thought that they could use it to call for help by banging them together. It would probably make a loud noise. They all searched the whole area but found nothing. They hoped to find a loose window or an unlocked door that was not under water. They were panicking. Until Gursheen found the emergency exit that was next to the reading area. It was elevated so the exit wasn’t underwater, but it was only small enough to fit one person at a time. All the girls, including Evelynne, ran to the small exit door. They all tried to get out through the door but they were pushing and shoving each other instead of escaping. Evelynne knew it was no use but she did speak up. Evelynne noticed that the boat was slowly drifting away and it was almost too far from them to call for help. The girls continued fighting but it took them nowhere.
Finally, Maanvi squeezed through the door and called for help as loud as she could, but it was too late. The boat was already impossible to see. It was too far. Julene looked like she was about to start an argument, but then there was another rumble. It was even harder than the earlier one. It shook the buildings and house. Evelynne realised it was an earthquake. Not a flood, but an earthquake. Evelynne could feel the school about to break. Suddenly the rumbling stopped. That wasn’t so bad, Evelynne thought, until…
The crumbling startled Evelynne and before she knew it, the floors sank and brought the girls with them. Pieces of the wall scratched them while chunks of the roof crashed into them. With all the commotion, Evelynne had no time to think of a plan. The only thing she thought about was bracing herself.
Although water is not solid, crashing into the water was extremely painful. Walls of water threw her left and right as if she were lighter than a tissue. It looks like the earthquake made the water mad. Evelynne looked for something to hold on to but the current was so strong, she could hardly see anything. She looked for a locker door or a door handle—anything that she could hold on to. Then she saw a metal beam sticking out. Evelynne swam through the hard current, grabbed the beam and just waited for the water to calm down.
After waiting for minutes that felt like hours, the water calmed down. Evelynne was exhausted. She was lucky to find the staircase, which wasn’t wet, to rest on. She was tired from head to toe. She was so tired that she barely noticed the girls climbing on the staircase as well. But they looked more tired. They had bruises and cuts on their legs and arms and they all looked like they were about to pass out.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Evelynne heard a bell ring. She looked around and saw nothing first. It took another ring for Evelynne to see that there was another boat. It was another chance for survival. Evelynne was about to tell the other girls when she realised that they had no energy left in them. Evelynne had a choice to make: stay quiet and let the boat pass by, or for once, speak up to call for help.
If she chose to speak up, she would have to yell across all the buildings so the boat could hear her. If she chose to be quiet, she and the girls would be stuck there for even longer, even though the girls were in bad condition. Evelynne looked at the boat, then the girls, and then the boat again. This was the hardest choice she had to make. She had to step outside her comfort zone. What was she to do?
Then, the most unexpected thing happened. Evelynne stood up, walked to the edge of the building, took a deep breath and yelled!
‘Help!’ At first there was no response. So she said it even louder. ‘Help! No one heard her again. So Evelynne straightened her back, focused herself, and roared as loud as she could.
‘HELP!’
Her voice echoed across the valley. She was so loud that she made the whole earth shiver in fear. The boat suddenly started heading in their direction. The bell rang again, signalling that they were coming. As the boat got closer, Evelynne noticed that it was a big boat with lots of survivors on it. When the boat was almost up close, Evelynne noticed someone on board. It was her mother.
‘Evelynne!’ Ada called out. Once the boat reached the school, Evelynne ran to her mom. They hugged each other so tight that they could squeeze the air out of each other.
‘Oh, my dear girl! You were amazing! How did that happen?’ Ada said, wiping a strand of hair out of Evelynne’s face. Evelynne paused. Most of the time, these types of questions were hard to answer for Evelynne. But today, she knew the exact answer.
‘That’s easy when whispers roar,’ Evelynne proudly said.
About the Author
Marianna Janae Sindanum Winfield
Marianna is an 11-year-old incoming Grade 6 student. Aside from reading & writing, she also loves swimming, singing, dancing, and just goofing around with her younger siblings. A lover of nature and animals, she wants to be a vet when she grows up.