My talent by Jordan Brunswick (phonics story books TXT) 📕

Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above, but if you close your eyes does it almost feel like nothing changed at all, and if you close your eyes does it almost feel you’ve been here before. Thats what I was thinking as I stood on top of one of the many hills in the dark mid-afternoon in summer, it was peaceful and quiet up here, it is where you could escape all the noise of the town below, you could only hear a whisper of the Roar flow up to the hill tops. The wind whipping and lashing at my back, making me shiver slightly.

Noise sucks, you don’t get any peace and quiet around here, just imagine if you can, the annoying fact that you could everyones thoughts, what they are thinking and feeling, you can’t escape it, at night you can hear it it is called dream noise, but you get used to it after a while. I’m walking out into the dark cutting out a different path, through the bush-scrub. I’m tearing through the scrub, weaving past trees, jumping over rocks and trying to stop myself from falling. The Roar is growing louder as I run towards the town also known as the Haven, my lungs and legs are killing me as I run down the steep hill, I finally reached the outskirts of the Haven, but keep on running until I had ran down into the town square, from then on I walked, when I got to my house the sun was just starting to set because it is on the other side of the town.

“You home”? I yelled as I walked through the doorway

“Yes, dinner’s ready and your dad wants to talk to you, oh and by the way how was school”?

“Good”

I saw my dad sitting in my room with the door open as I walked up stairs, he spotted me walking past and said “Hey, ‘bout time you got home, I want to tell you something”

He patted the spot next to him on the bed, my dad and mum were on the council and so were some of their friends which sometimes made their talks kinda boring. I don’t know all their friends names but one of them is blind and he uses other guys noises to make his way around.

I went and sat next to him, he was taller then me and kind of scary looking but he was nice funny and had heaps of friends, but I only am friends with his friends kids.

“I learnt this of… let's just say he was an old friend, but if you want to learn this you just have to ask” he said after a long wait

“Get on with it, I don’t have all day” I said

“Ok, if you want to keep your noise quite I have a trick you could use”

I was astonished with what he had said because only the council had quite noise and the rest of their friends. So I replied but not too fast, I waited before I said “Um...ok”

“Cool, so when do you want to start”?

“After dinner, if thats ok with you”

He had a huge sunny smile written across his face as he said “Yep thats fine”

We walked together down the stairs to dinner, just in time to because she was just about to call us. Mum was dishing up food, my little sister was setting the table and we were standing in the doorway watching it all. As we sat down for dinner we started to talk as usual.

“Lucy, how was your day at school”?

“Good, mama” said my little sister

“What did you two do”? dad asked both of us

“Read” Lucy said

I frowned and said “School work” This was our usual conversation, and that is what I always said, but tonight mum asked “What did you do”? this was a question a took a little while to answer but when I did I pulled out a piece of paper and placed it in the center of the table so they could see it. It was a drawing that I had drawn in art today, by the look on mum and dad’s face they were astounded, I had drawn a war landscape, I put another piece of paper next to it, it was of mum, dad, and Lucy, they were both pretty accurate of the actual thing but the only problem was I had never seen a live war.

Dad was looking at the battle ground but his face was unreadable, then I said something that shocked them both “I haven’t finished them yet, but I will soon I hope”

“How did you…”? he didn’t get to finish his sentence when we heard a knock on the door.

“I’ll get that, and stay here” he said, he obviously wasn’t expecting this

He opened the door and the council members were all standing there, this was a rare occasion all of them had never came over, and uncle Ben was here to.

“Todd, Viola” he said “There’s an urgency outside, can we”?

“Yes, follow me” dad replied “Have a look at this, and she’s never seen one before” he whispered although I could still hear him.

Ben and the others looked at my drawing, Lee was the blind man’s name and he was looking at it through Ben’s noise.

“I’ll talk to you later about this” Ben said

I swallowed and looked back at mum and she just shrugged and said “I’ll just put these two to bed and I catch up with you, ok”

He nooded and they all walked up stairs, we followed after them and mum put Lucy to bed and then got me into bed, kissed me good night and said not to eavesdrop and get to bed straight away. I was laying on my back and staring up at the roof because that’s where the were, the were in the room that I’m not aloud in which is above my room so I can eavesdrop which I did.

It was a bit muffled but still hearable they were saying

“She drew that”? Ben said “At school”?

“Yep” dad replied

“Wow, I mean how did she she had never been or seen in a war” that was Sophie

“Can we get to the point already”? Lee said

“Sorry, yes, ok, we are for what happened outside” Ben

“I thought the was peace, but obviously not” Wilf

“Why what happened” mum

“Well I saw someone running from the hills on the other side of town and then heard a weird sound it was kinda like the noise was louder than usual” Ben

I felt guilty at that I should of been carefully than I was. Then I heard it it was like a low moaning sound, it howled on the wind like a dog lapping up some water out of it’s bowl. I heard footsteps coming down stairs and they stopped at my door and opened it, Ben was standing there and beckoning me up stairs, so I followed and ended up in front of the room I wasn’t supposed to enter.

The door had a bit of paint flaking off it, the door was pale white I think it used to be a cream colour, the door looked like it hadn’t seen a lick of paint in decades. Uncle Ben lightly rapped on the door with the tip of his knuckles, the door swung open with ease, everyone was looking at us just lingering there it the doorway. He walk forward and so I followed him into the room, the room was a bit small, it’s walls were also once painted a cream colour and flaking, in the actual room sat a couple of chairs surrounding an old looking table, up against one of the walls sat a small sort of cabinet thing, the table had the paint striped of it and looked very plane on the table sat some paper, maps, and other thing that weren’t recognizable from where I was standing. I looked around at the people sitting at the table, some I recognized and some I didn’t. The ones I did recognize weren’t looking at me, they were looking at the paper on the table.

Mum beckoned me to sit next to her, and so I did, Ben across from me, mum next to me, dad next to her, Wilf next to on the of the other side of me and Lee next to him, the others I didn’t know were up the other end of the table. Then they started talking, the fist crap I didn’t care about but then they started askin’ me questions.

“You drew this”? Ben asked gently, talking to me like I was a kid… jesus christ I’m 15, for god sakes

“Yep” I replied

The council members whispered amongst themselves for a few minutes until Ben quieted them all down.

“Wow… it’s amazing, where did you get your inspiration for it”? Lee asked in barely a whisper, I’m surprised I heard him at all, he was looking through Wilf’s noise.

“I…based it on” I paused trying to think of how to word this “A memory, sorry this must sound really weird for you guys to hear this from a kid that never heard of it” I paused for a second “But, it will be our next topic in class, I think they will speak on it vaguely”

I waited for someone to say something but no one did, then just unexpectedly something flashed before my eyes… I blinked and frowned, but I wasn’t thinking about it. After a long time of silence someone I didn’t know said something to me.

“What for, what from” she asked nobody knew what she had said but I did so I replied

“Because the teacher said to draw something that you remembered or that was important, I did both”

They all started to whisper amongst themselves but no one tried stop them, I just sat there watching them all. Since they were all whispering to themselves I was able to start thinking, I don’t think that I was supposed to draw the war thing. I thought, although I have noise it’s naturally a bit quite, but I can also hear girls noises like my little sister’s.