The Importance of Listening, Part One
October 20, 2012 by Diana Nesbitt Leave a Comment
This is the first part of a children's story that I'm writing – I'm killing two birds with one stone and using it as my blog posts for today and tomorrow. 🙂
It was a dark, dreary night. Jimmy and Janet were in their beds, huddled under the blankets trying to keep warm. There had been a bad thunder storm earlier that evening, and the electricity had gone out. It was very, very dark in their house. Outside, the wind was blowing, making the trees rustle and drop the rest of the water clinging to their leaves onto the roof. Plop, plop, plink, plop… went the raindrops….scratch, scratch, scratch… a branch scraped against the side of the house above the window. Janet pulled the covers over her head and tried to ignore all the strange noises.
"Janet?" her twin brother's whisper sounded loud in the room. "Are you awake?" Janet pulled her blanket off her head, letting the chilly air in the room bite at her nose.
"Yeah," she whispered back. "Are you scared?"
"Are you?" Jimmy answered her question with his own.
"I asked you first." Janet said. Jimmy never wanted to be the first to admit anything.
"A little." He finally answered.
"Me too. It's really dark in here." Janet said. She snuggled back down under her warm blankets so only her eyes were showing. She opened them wide, trying to see in the dark room. She could only make out a few shadowy shapes where she knew Jimmy's bed and their closet and toys where.
"Should we go get Mom and Dad?" Janet finally asked Jimmy.
"I don't know. They're awful far away." Jimmy and Janet's room was upstairs, and their parent's room was downstairs.
"Do you want to go all the way down there in the dark?" Jimmy asked.
"Not really." replied Janet. The room was silent once again, until a big gust of wind blew the branch outside their window hard, making it scrape all the way across their window with a loud scratching noise. Janet jumped out of her bed and ran across the room, leaping onto Jimmy's bed.
"Oooof," Jimmy let out a groan as Janet landed on his stomach. "Ow, get off!" he said in a grumpy voice, pushing Janet off of him.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, "Hurry up and let me get in!" Jimmy scooted over and pulled the blanket back, and Janet scrambled in beside him.
"What are you doing over here?" Jimmy asked.
"The branch is too loud by my bed," Janet told him, shivering a little. "It's so dark. I wish we had a light."
"Yeah, me too." agreed Jimmy. The twins lay there side by side for a moment. Suddenly Jimmy sat straight up in bed. "I know!" he exclaimed.
"Brrr, you're letting in the cold air!" Janet said, tugging on his arm to make him lay down again. "What did you think of?" she asked.
"We can light a candle!"
"Where will we get one?" Janet asked, puzzled.
"Daddy put some in the bathroom, remember?" Jimmy reminded her.
"But didn't he tell us not to touch the candles when the power went out?"
"I don't remember him saying anything about that. I think he was just showing us where they were in case we needed them." Jimmy said.
What Jimmy didn't remember was that their father had talked to them earlier that evening and very clearly told them not to touch the candles or the matches, but to come and get him or their mother if they needed a light. But Jimmy had been distracted by the big storm and hadn't listened to what his father was saying. Janet had been making sure that her dolly wasn't scared at the time and hadn't been paying full attention, either, so she couldn't remember for sure what their father had told them. All she knew for sure was that the room was dark and she was scared.
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Filed Under: Fiction, spiritual, Uncategorized