Amber and Saffron had put a blanket over the table in the back room, so they could pretend it was a tent.  That way, they could imagine they were camping out in the middle of the thunderstorm.  They could be daring adventurers in the deep dark woods, with only a thin bit of canvas protecting them from the typhoon outside.

“What do you think would happen if the house got struck by lightning?” asked Saffron, her eyes still on the window.

Amber felt a pang of annoyance- they were supposed to be pretending they weren’t in a house- but answered her sister as quickly as possible, because she knew Saffron worried a lot about things.  “That wouldn’t happen.  There are too many trees around.”

“What difference does that make?”

“The lightning wants to strike the trees instead.  That way, it gets down to the ground quicker.  The roof’s made out of stone- the lightning would just bounce off.”  The lightning didn’t fork and zigzag the way it did in pictures.  Mostly, it just looked as if the clouds had little lightbulbs inside of them and somebody was turning to switch on and off.  As if God had a great big celestial circuit-breaker in His hand.  “Hey, how much do you think it would have to rain before the whole town flooded?”

Saffron shrugged her bony little shoulders.  Amber was pretty certain that Saffron was the smallest girl in Year Five.  In fact, she was pretty certain that there were girls in Year Three and Four who were bigger than Saffron.

Amber looked back at the rain, splattering against the window, and imagined having to row a boat to school, or hop between rooftops to avoid the churning waves.  She didn’t know why she loved that idea so much, but she did.  Sometimes she thought she might join the navy as soon as she left school, just so she could go and have adventures on the wide, endless water.

The door creaked open behind them, and they heard Mum’s voice say, “Time for bed.”

Amber’s reply was almost an instinct at this point.  “Awww.  Can we have five more minutes?  Pleeease?”  Sometimes it worked.  Or at least, sometimes it worked on Mum.  On nights when she stayed up in London, Uncle Christian couldn’t be budged- the second the clock struck nine, he was hovering over their shoulders and making them brush their teeth.  “Early to bed, early to rise,” he said.  Sometimes it felt like they lived in the Victorian times.

Anyway, today it didn’t work on Mum, either.  “You can watch the storm just as easily in your bedrooms.”  The clouds lit up again, and a few seconds later, there was a rumbling sound.  Mum glanced at the window, looking thoughtful.  “Five seconds.  That means the storm’s about a mile away.”

Amber nodded.  Uncle Christian had told them about how you could work out how far away lightning was by how long the thunder took.  Maybe he’d told Mum that too, when she was a little girl.  “How far away is a mile?”

“Well, your school is two miles away, so…. what’s halfway between here and there?”

“Um…  The big garage, I think?”  Amber didn’t spend much thought on this, because she’d just had an idea.  “So, wait, if it was two miles away, could the lightning hit the school?”

Mum laughed.  “The school building has lightning conductors.  You’re not going to get a day off because of a storm.”

“What about if it flooded?  Like, if it carried on raining for days and days…”

“It’s a tough old building, Amber.  It can withstand the elements.”  Mum hadn’t crouched down to talk to them like she sometimes did when they were sitting down.  From here on the floor, she looked as tall as a skyscraper.  “Anyway, you like school.  All your friends are there.”

“Yeah, but there’s teachers there, too,” Amber muttered.  If she was honest, it wasn’t so much that she didn’t like school; more that she liked being in other places a whole lot more.  For instance, her friends’ houses also had her friends in them, and nobody ever made her do a Maths worksheet there.

“I like school,” said Saffron, just to suck up.

Mum seemed to remember where she was.  “Anyway, speaking of school, you need to go there tomorrow morning, so off to bed.”  Mum pointed out into the hallway, in the direction of their rooms.  Amber grumbled a little, but did as she was told.  As she did, she thought about something Mum had told her once.  Mum had always liked school when she was a little girl.  But that was mainly because she hadn’t liked being at home much.

Amber remembered Mum’s stories about the strict boarding school she’d gone to when she was twelve.  Mum said it had been freezing cold, there were spooky creaking sounds all night, and half the teachers acted like they wanted to murder you.  But Mum had even had fun there, because she got to pretend that she was in a horror movie.  Amber didn’t think she’d be able to do that, if she ever got sent to a boarding school.  She loved imagining things, but it would be terrible to know you couldn’t stop.

(To be continued)