Hi all, PenNPaper here. This is a short one, not much, but still working on it. Hope you like it. Reviews wanted.
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I waved good bye as my Dad set off to work. He was wearing that same smile he always did. He was a good Dad, always making time for me. He wasn’t driving that day, I didn’t know why, nor did I bother to know. He turned his head back and waved, just as a car appeared and knocked him down.
I woke with a start, it was still dark. I was awake now, I looked at the clock. 6.30am.
What just happened? It all seemed like a dream, scary though. I got out of bed and realised it felt colder than usual. Of course, it was winter. Snowdrops were beating against my window, I looked outside. Dad was already in his car, going to work. Wait, work? It was his day off.
I rushed downstairs; the stairs creaked as I took two steps at a time. I ran into the kitchen, Mum was making breakfast.
“Where’s Dad gone to? I saw him drive off in his car,” I said.
“Something happened at the office, he had to go back to work,” she replied.
“But he promised to take me fishing today,” I protested.
My dad was a detective, police or whatever. He never really told me what he worked as. His office was in town; in a building they called Crime Prevention Office. I always thought it was a lame title for something as cool as crime prevention. My Dad worked privately, whatever he was working on was classified. Top-secret, sounds cool. I had never been to his office, only seen the building. We never really spoke about it. He said he rather not talk about it.
After breakfast, I got bored. I switched on the television. My Dad was on the news. The reporter interviewed my Dad about his most recent, the one about the murder, I think. I loved seeing my Dad on the news. It made me proud.
“David, your Dad has a lot of work to do, you should be proud, he’s the chief”
“Fine, whatever, I going off, bye Mom”
“Bye David,” she said as she kissed me on the cheek.
I arrived at school as usual, just on time. I ignored the stern glare of Mr. Davis, the headmaster, as I walked past him to my class.
I knocked politely, waiting for the teacher to allow me in. She didn’t. I waited there, unsure if she had heard me.
“Are you going to stand there or come in?” She finally asked.
I hurried inside, keeping my head low. Mrs. Coral hated me. She thought that I wasn’t living up to my father’s standard. With him being the head of the police, it was hard to imagine his son was lousy at school. I always failed, except for Physical Education lessons. I had begged my mother to let me go to a sports school instead, but she would always say, “Studies are more important, you need it to find a good job.”
The lesson carried on, boring. I stared at the numbers on the board, maths gave me a headache. I was starting to fall asleep when there was a knock at the door.
A police officer was there, Mrs. Coral hurried over. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but the officer glanced in my direction.
“David, the officer would like to talk to you,” she said.
Me, what could he possibly want with me? I walked towards the door, hardly noticing the eyes of the whole class on me.
“Come outside, please,” he said.
He led me out of school, to a police car parked at the side of the road. He asked me to get inside. Panic started to rise up in me.
“Have I done anything wrong, officer?” I asked, my voice trembling quite obviously.
“There’s no need to worry, actually maybe there is, we are not taking you to the police station, you have not committed any crimes. What we want you to know is something quite devastating”
“What…what is it?”
“Your Dad,” he began, drawing a deep breath. “Did not arrive at work today, we thought he was late, which he usually was not. When he did not show up after an hour, we began to get worried. We traced the route he always took and found something. David, your Dad….was murdered”
And the flow of the story was quite good too.
