The Spy who Shoved Me - Another Short Story

Well, hello there, friend! How's it going?

We had another S.P.O.G.G.L.E. meeting on Thursday, and I thought I'd (again) share what I wrote for it. This short story is:

• possibly a cautionary tale
• drawn very closely from my own experiences and quirks
  
• written to encourage readers to have godly role models
  

It does have a few words that readers may or may not gel with: brat, stupid, and moron. (ok, obviously, no-one's going to gel with that... XD) What I meant was; I did put these words in, but it was for the purpose of emphasising the sin of one particular character. I don't think anyone should use these words, and I wouldn't normally put them in my books, were it not for the fact that people (and short story characters) do sin, and sometimes sin needs to be pointed out to teach a lesson.

You may be curious; how is this drawn from my own (mis)adventures? Well, obviously I haven't been spirited away to meet a person of my imaginations! (Or have I? ;D) In fact, when I was younger (and even not so long ago), I used to often wish that I was a secret agent - a sarcastic, witty, couldn't-care-less, techno-genius kind of spy. And then, I realised that this wasn't a godly role model to have and be constantly trying to copy. A really worthy model would be someone who was loving and sacrificially forgiving; someone you would always want for a friend. So, I thought it would be cool to write a story from my own experiences - but... I better stop before I give away too much more! :D

So, without further delay, please enjoy this short story fresh from my pen!

                                                                    

The Spy Who Shoved Me

Sacha froze. She paused, heart pounding, and looked over her shoulder. The street lights only gloomily lit up the bridge onto which she was just stepping. Behind her was grey, quickly merging into a black so jet black that her mind played tricks ion her. Or did it?

She could hear nothing but the quiet rustling of the trees, and the lap of the water beneath her. But she could sense, somehow, that she was being followed. Keen senses and a spy's intuition told her that behind her, a figure in black was sneaking, following her, tracing along the shadow and blackness the same way she had just minutes before.

Adrenaline kicked in, and with a strong effort she stopped her legs from sprinting forward in mindless terror into the light, which would quickly betray her. Instead, she stepped forward a few paces, and then crouched down and swung herself under the bridge.

A quick glance had revealed a few steel ladders below, and one of these went horizontally across the underside of the bridge. Sacha shimmied down a pylon a little, then reached up and pulled herself so that she was hanging upside down, clinging to the ladder with her legs and elbows crooked through the rungs. The metal was ice cold and dug into her painfully, but she held on, completely still.

She caught her breath – above, getting louder, came the sound of footsteps. If her pursuer found her now, she would be helpless and unable to fight back. Her only defence would be a plunge, ten feet into the icy waters below. Her arms ached numbly and her heart whooshed in hear ears as the steps came closer, so close the shadow of a person could be seen cast over the oily water far below. It hesitated, stooping a little.

Sacha's every muscle burned, but she dared not shift position. Slowly, so slowly that she could count the fingers and see that one was missing, a hand slid down, inches from her face. Just as slowly, Sacha released her elbows from the bars and tensed every muscle in her body to lower herself until she was hanging by only her knees, head downwards, completely upside down. The blood rushed to her head: but she was not a second too late, for the hand reached where her head was just before and touched thin air. Then came the head, peering down until -

“Taaamsin, will you c'mon already?” The aforementioned Tamsin let out her breath in a mixture of huff and delicious sigh. Sacha was so cool. Too bad she was left hanging... literally. “

“Alright, I told you I was coming!”, she yelled, quite aware of the fact that for the last five minutes she had been standing next to the dress up box, absorbed in another world, instead of selecting the outfit her little brother would be wearing for the game. This time., she resisted the urge to finish Sacha's adventure and instead grabbed the clothes.

“So, what are we playing, exactly”, said Tamsin, as she put the finishing touches on her brother;s costume. She stepped back to survey her work. A top hat balanced on Callum's head, a monocle and painted on moustache for his freckled face, and a vest of their grandfather's along with a shockingly green tie completed his... hmm, was it... Victorian attire?

Bethany, who was trying to keep the wiggling Callum from smudging his mascara moustache to see what he looked like, glanced up in surprise. “Well, you really were off in la-la land!”, she exclaimed, laughing. “didn't you hear? We're playing spies.” Cal is the evil time travelling guy, and we're the good spies”

Tamsin's attention was fully engaged from the word “spies”. “Ok, then, I'll be a girl called Sacha – Sacha... Hil-, no, Mac... MacMurrell! Ok, so I'm called Sacha MacMurell, and I had platinum blonde hair and really blue, like as blue as Isabel from church's eyes. And I'm really good a karate and gymnastics, I'm from the Netherlands, and my parents died when I was eight.” Tamsin stopped here, satisfied.

“Sacha? I didn't know you liked that name?' said Hannah, another younger sibling. “Well, I do now.”, said Tamsin, oops, I mean, Sacha MacMurrell with an air of decision. “What's everybody else going to be?” Instantly the room erupted with the 6 children's voices, all at once describing their characters as they ran off to start the game.

Later that night, Tamsin lay, snuggled under her bed covers, Her face was turned towards the wall, but her eyes didn't see the creamy blue paintwork or the chip in the plaster she privately thought looked like an upside-down lion. No, she was far away, inventing more of her heroine's adventures and narrow escapes, till her eyes closed at a time, I regret to say, was far past her usual bedtime. That night, Tamsin dreamt she was running with a pack of wolves, snapping and howling as they chased an exhausted moose, their paws churning the beautiful snow into muddy slush.

When she awoke, it was barely dawn, and someone was bending over her – shaking her roughly. Tamsin wanted to crossly pull the covers back over her and fall asleep again, but something made her sit up quickly instead. Grey dawn was seeping through the thick black curtains, and she could see a blonde haired woman with striking blue eyes looking at her impatiently.

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Hope you found that inspiring or exciting enough to come back... because that's not all! *winks* I will be posting the conclusion to The Spy Who Shoved Me next post!

Blessings,

~ Jemima