Chapter 3

Goodbye As they ran across the beach, the warm sand seeped between their toes. Then they reached the water. In the water it was not too cold and not too hot. Sarah suddenly glimpsed a paddleboard, floating expectantly for someone to get on it and ride it. “Where are you going” shouted Beatrix, “Paddle boarding, but sorry their is only one” apologised Sarah “What do you mean?” Beatrix cried “Are you blind? There’s two” “No guys, I think you are both blind, there is three” giggled Rafael “Oh yeah” giggled both of the girls, “I guess we are blind” Sarah loved paddle boarding. When her dad was alive, he would take days of work just to have fun with her and teach her to paddle board, (but her dad couldn’t paddle board very well himself) and gave up teaching her when she became way better than him. Her mum would sit on the side giggling when her dad fell off and she stayed on. “The student becomes the master” she would laugh.

“I feel so free” cried Sarah excitedly lying down on her paddleboard, then she stood up on her paddleboard and dived into the sea. The shock of a colder atmosphere made her jump and she frantically swam back to the paddleboard. Once she was on board again (as her mum would say). Suddenly she saw something in the distance something familiar.

It seemed to be getting larger the closer it got. An ear splitting scream erupted from some of the surfers and everyone rushed away from the beach and through the door. Butterflies flew in her tummy, Sarah’s heart was in her mouth. This thing in the distance felt familiar to her, the thing that killed her parents. “S…s…Sarah” trembled Beatrix, “W…w…what is t…th…that?”.

“A Tsunami…” Sarah said reluctantly, “Well what are we standing around here for? It is coming closer, so we best either evacuate or die” piped up Rafael bravely. The two girls stared at Rafael in utter amazement: he would never say anything like that. In Sarah’s point of view he was a shy boy. They all rushed towards the door, ran through it and shut it behind them, just as the tsunami crashed. “He is coming” shouted the calm voice of Beatrix.

The voice may have been calm but it was not on the right side of the door. “Rafael, where is Beatrix? ‘Cause she isn’t here,” asked Sarah, trembling like mad. As soon as they were sure that the tsunami had passed, the opened the door and walked inside. There it was. Beatrix’s lifeless body. Rafael burst into floods of tears followed by Sarah, so many they could have flooded the beach. Without warning, Mr Magpie came rushing in. Sarah figured he knew what had happened. “B…b…Beatrix” he trembled in floods of tears, “I told you not to write in the Book”, “I’m sor…” cried Sarah but before she could finish her sentence, he had run away taking Beatrix’s body with him. They did not see him again until…