Drowning in My Bedroom by Steve Cole

Author:Steve Cole [Cole, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2024-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Wardrobe

Junjun

Let me fill you in on what happened after that red Nissan car swept towards me.

I thought I was dead. I thought I’d never see Mum and Eloisa and any of my family again. The Nissan should have crushed me, but no. Get this! The same currents carrying it along sucked me out of its path just in time. The car ran up against the telegraph pole and stayed there.

I broke the surface of the water, choking and spluttering. I was clinging to the cable, dangling down from the pole like a fish hooked on the end of a line. I was pretty glad I looped the cable round my wrist or my grip would have slipped for sure. Then I’d have been a human pinball bouncing off buildings all the way to Manila Bay.

I tried to haul myself up the cable. But no way did I have the strength to climb. Fighting the current, I pulled myself towards the Nissan – maybe I could climb onto its roof and wait things out? But just as I neared it, a banged-up Jeepney came swerving through the water.

I ducked down beside the Nissan as the Jeepney slammed into it. The Jeepney was open at the back, and I thought maybe I could climb inside and from there onto the roof of the car.

I pulled myself along the side of the Nissan. But the Jeepney was slipping in the current. Just as I gripped hold of its left-side wing mirror, the whole thing was swept away – towards the Disabled Centre.

It was scary, getting dragged along for the ride through the water with the Jeepney. I managed to pull myself into the back of it, and then it slammed into the building. I was thrown around like a sack of potatoes.

But I clung on. I’m still clinging on.

The Jeepney is wedged up against the centre like a boat run aground on a sandbank. I see a broken ground-floor window just ahead. I climb over the windscreen, scale the bonnet, then swing myself onto the sill. My best hope is to get inside the flooded centre and up to the roof …

That’s when I see her. The girl in the wheelchair. Or rather, out of her wheelchair. She’s alive, standing on the bed while leaning against the wardrobe behind it. The water is up to her thighs. She has her eyes tightly shut, her legs are flailing about and she’s groaning.

I’m kind of scared, to be honest. But I feel bad for her. This has been her world and now it’s trashed. I am so used to my little house being knocked over in the floods, I wasn’t so surprised. But she is.

And if I help her, maybe she will help me too.

So I splash through the water onto the bed. She opens her eyes and yelps.

“It’s OK, I won’t hurt you,” I say. “I’ll help you get on the wardrobe.”

She stares at me, her head and shoulders rocking about. “What?” she says.

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