Chapter 2
The Men In The Snow
“Charlie! Charlie!” I yelled, as I ran around in the snow, throwing snowballs at my best friend.
“Lila, I bet I can make a better snowman than you,” he laughed.
“No!” I giggled. “Let’s have a compteton,” I said, stumbling on the last word. Charlie laughed at me.
“Competition Lila.”
I shrugged, and began to roll a snowball. Charlie was two years older than me, so he was always mocking my speech. And it wasn’t like I had been to school. I pushed my snowball around in a huge circle, enthralled as it collected more snow, and grew bigger, and bigger. I became tired quickly though, and I stopped to rest. I took my hands off the snowball, and wiped sweat from my forehead. I surveyed our street; Charlie and I weren’t the only children playing in the snow. Many boys my age were running up and down, throwing snowballs at each other, and at the houses. I noticed that I was the only girl outside, but it didn’t worry me. I had always liked to think of myself as an adventurer anyway. The houses that lined the road were all old, run down, and ugly, but they looked pretty today, because the roofs were covered in snow. I took out a pencil stub and a drawing that I had started yesterday. I began to finish it. I drew Charlie pushing a snowball, and me standing and looking at the road. I corrected some of the houses, and added snow covering the ground. I looked up towards the end of the road, preparing to draw the old oak tree that grew there, but as I looked I was surprised to see two men standing there. They wore suits, and they both looked very out of place. If they had looked poor I wouldn’t think anything of it, but men in posh suits didn’t often venture into Avenue Road.
“Lila,” Charlie laughed. “My snowball is bigger than yours...” He looked up from what he was doing, to see why I hadn’t responded. “Lila?” He questioned and followed my gaze. “Who are they?” He wondered aloud.
The men were talking there heads lowered. After a brief discussion the shorter of the two looked up, directly at me. He whispered something to the other, and they advanced forward further into our street. The shorter one was still looking at me. I didn’t like it. There was something not right about the men, a sort of eerie feeling seemed to advance down the street ahead of them, and my instincts told me they were trouble.
“Lila, one of them is looking at you,” Charlie said. He looked at me, a worried expression on his face. I nodded.
“I don’t like the look of them Lila, you’d better go home.”
I nodded again and turned to look at him before, running down the street back to my house. I could feel the eyes of the shorter man locked onto my retreating figure. The men nodded to each other, and followed at a distance, slowly so as not to draw attention to themselves. My house was shabby and draftee, but it was home and as soon as I was through the door I felt safer. But I was still worried. I ran into the bedroom where my mother was sitting.
“Mother! Mother some men are following me and they are coming to the door,” I blurted out. I was scared; I didn’t know what they wanted. She looked shocked, but she tried not to show it. She hugged me, and told me not to worry. It didn’t help. She went to the door, opening to find that the shorter of the two men was about to knock.
“Hello?” She enquired, stepping out of the house and closing the door behind her. The noise was blocked out, and I could hear no more. I sat on one of the only two chairs in the house, and waited. I heard a cry from outside, and I was shocked to hear that it was my mother’s voice.
“No! Not my baby! No! She’s only eight years old!” I ran to the door and pulled it open, to find my mother trying to push some money back into the hands of the strangers. The taller stranger grabbed me, and twisted my arm behind my back. I cried out in pain and shock. My mother dropped the money, and grabbed my other hand, trying to pull me away from the men. I counted £10 pounds and sixpence on the floor and realised what the men were. Traders. The shorter of the men slapped my mother across the face, pulling my other wrist from her hand. She fell to the floor crying but she still tried to reach out to me and pull me away. I screamed at the top of my lungs, calling out to my mother, but the men pushed a rag into my mouth, and threatened to kill her. They dragged me away kicking, and trying to scream through a mouthful of cloth. I reached out a hand towards my mother, who was still crumpled on the floor, trying to tell her not to worry. She looked back at me with sad eyes, tears streaming down her face. I tore my gaze away from her and saw the other children, frozen, shock, and horror clear on their faces. Some of them ran away, back to their houses, crying for their parents. And then I saw Charlie, across the street, his hands resting on his snowball. His jaw dropped in horror, and a single tear trickled down his cheek. He reached out to me advancing a few steps. I shook my head quickly; I didn’t want him to get involved. I hadn’t realised until then, how much Charlie meant to me. I still had my drawing screwed up in my hand, and I looked meaningfully at him before dropping it to the ground. Tears ran down my cheeks, and I gave up resisting the men, as they dragged me away from my home, my family, and from everything I had known, and loved.
As we left the street, I saw Charlie run to the scrap of paper and pick it up, he visibly crumpled with tears when he saw it. I was forced around to face away from Charlie. Right then and there I mentally destroyed all my happy memories. What was the point of thinking about my loved ones, when all it was going to do was hurt?
Instead, I turned my mind to the one thing I couldn’t ignore. What was going to happen to me now?
