Here’s a little excerpt from my book, Mystery At Pine Borough.
Background: Rosa, Elliot and Rosa’s Dad were driving to their new house when they got a flat tire. They go in search of a house (so they could use the phone), and here, you can just read the rest:
“Oh no, do you see what I see?” Elliot asked after we had been walking for about ten minutes, looking in vain for a house.
“What?” I wondered, looking all around. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“The sky,” Dad said right away.
Looking up, I saw a dark, angry looking sky.
“I’ve been watching it this whole time. I even thought about turning back, but there almost has to be a house somewhere around here,” Daddy told us.
He then suggested that we sing, and so we hurried along, hoping to out run the storm, singing at the top of our lungs.
“Times like this are what memories are made of!” Daddy declared as the huge, dark, billowing clouds overhead started to drop rain.
I zipped my jacket up, and then almost ran to keep up with Daddy and Elliot who were taking giant strides with their long legs. Overhead, the thunder roared and lighting started streaking down from the sky, making the sky look as if it was cracking. I prayed we would be safe, and the lightening wouldn’t come near us. After all, we were in the woods; and the thought of lighting striking one of the trees wasn’t a good one.
“Do you think you can go any faster, Rosa? I think we’d better run.” Dad looked at me with concern, but didn’t slacken his pace any.
Taking a deep breath, which ended in a cough, I nodded my head, and then started to run. Daddy and Elliot still weren’t running, but they sort of jogged to keep up with me.
“Look, there’s a barn!” Elliot shouted above the roar of the wind, the booming of the thunder and the thumping of the rain.
“Great, do either of you see any house?” Dad started toward the barn.
I looked all around, but couldn’t see far at all in the rain, it was really coming down hard, and besides, darkness was falling rapidly.
“We should go and look for the house, but I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to find our way back to the barn in all this rain and darkness. Let’s just go and pray that it’s unlocked.”
“The door’s not locked.” Elliot pushed the door open. “Praise God!”
We all hurried into the barn, Elliot closing the door behind them. All of us just stood there for a minute, breathing in the nice, rain-free air. I decided the roof of the barn must have been tin, because the sound of the rain pounding on the roof was a great roar, louder than when we had been out in the rain. But it didn’t matter, we hadn’t come in to the barn to get away from the noise, we had come in the barn to get out of the rain.
Daddy sniffed the air, “It smells more like a workshop than a barn in here.”
“I wish I could see what I’m standing next to,” Elliot said. “I’m not leaning on anything, ’cause I’m afraid I’ll mess something up.”
“Hey Dad, you got the flashlight out of the tuck, didn’t you?” I asked. I hoped he hadn’t forgotten it.
“Yep; it’s right here in my pocket.” Daddy pulled out the flashlight and the turned it on, shinning it at the floor.
“Wow, that’s one powerful flashlight, Uncle Paul.” Elliot clearly liked the flashlight.
“We’ve always kept one of these in the truck, just in case anything happens. It was Louise’s idea. A good idea too. I’ll have to thank her when we get home.”
“Aunt Louise and my Mom are a whole lot alike, always thinking ahead.” Elliot laughed. “Mom’s thinking ahead abilities have helped us more than one time.”
“Can we see the rest of the barn?” I asked. For some reason, Dad and Elliot were just standing there with the beam from the light shining on the floor where it really wasn’t doing much good at all.
“Oh, yeah!” Dad swung the flashlight up to our left.
The sight that we saw almost stopped my heart. I felt it miss a beat and I gulped. Staring at us from high off the ground were two cold, glowing yellow eyes!
Noveltea 