Don’t Answer The Door
Clodagh Delahunty-Forrest
(Walsall)
Playing the scene over and over again in my head I knew this would haunt me forever: my life would never be the same again. I remember us driving we turned the corner and a green blur whizzed past us, I felt the car jerk and everything went black. I woke up in hospital with tubes and nurses all around, my parents were nowhere to be seen. I soon learned why. My parents had been killed outright.
My social worker collected me from hospital and took me to a Children’s home, I had read books about orphans I couldn’t believe I was now one. The home was no dumping ground though. There were chains everywhere locking up all the cupboards, I don’t know why because the food was awful.
After nearly two years an unusual looking man appeared at the home, he wanted to foster a child. I was called to the office to meet him; he sat in silence with no real expression on his face. After a very uncomfortable few minutes he said he wanted to foster me. I was very concerned but my social worker said he had lost a son like I had lost my parents; we would be a perfect match with all things considered. It took weeks of paper work before I could leave. Once the paper work was sorted Michael collected me, I was taken to his house. He was not very friendly and I could not think why he wanted to foster me, he was not interested in me and I was left to my own devices.
The most striking thing about the house was the front door, I found myself sitting on the stairs most days looking into the glass, seeing all sorts of weird and wonderful things. I could sense Michael looking at me but he never said a word, he just locked him self away in his room.
I woke to hear tapping, Michael was in bed. I followed the noise and it lead me to the front door, it was dark but I could see a boy’s silhouette. He was banging out SOS on the glass in Morse code, I tried to reply but accidently in my excitement hit the glass too hard, it shattered into tiny pieces on the hard stone floor. Michael would go mad when he sees this I thought.
The boy was now in the hallway laughing, suddenly an unexpected portal appeared. I thought it was for him, but to my horror it was for me I screamed as he pushed me, landing with a bump everything was hazy. Trying to get my bearing I scrambled onto my feet I could see the front door everything was going to be alright , I ran to the door looked through the glass and to my horror I saw Michael and the boy hugging . Michael said: “Everything will be alright now you are home, my boy.” They both looked at me and walked away smiling.