1st 5 Pages Feb Workshop - Li Rev 1

Name: Sophie Li

Genre: Young Adult Mystery and Sci-Fi

Title: Children of the Sun

It seemed like her homemade radio didn’t work after all. Sprawled on the open lawn, Meredith pressed the telephone receiver to her ear, static crackling through the cord like bacon in a frying pan. She frowned and laid the receiver back down onto the grass beside the tangle of wires and circuits. Two huge metal antennae reached high into the sky, though they weren’t fetching any information.

She flopped onto her back on the grass beside a backpack twice her size. Blowing a frizzy red strand out of her face, she stared into the blue sky. Think, think.

Her ingenious teenaged mind had never failed her before. She rolled over and rummaged in her backpack to take out a half-eaten sustainable beeswax-wrapped sandwich carefully labelled “Tuesday lunch.” She unravelled the sticky sandwich paper and took a bite, chewing with her mouth open.

An open space. Check.

Short distance to the nearest radio station. Check.

The longest radio antennae she could find, borrowed from an old TV in their storage. Check.

She inhaled the rest of her sandwich, balling up the beeswax wrap and tossed it aside. She fiddled with her homespun contraption, checking the connections between the wires and the phone cord and the diodes.

Ah!

A piece of loose tape where the alligator lead connected to the coil. She searched her backpack again, dumping out a workbook, sandpaper, pliers, an extra glue stick, a weather-worn and dog-eared copy of Othello. There it was- the blue electrical tape. Tearing a small sliver of tape with her teeth, she stuck it over the alligator lead.

The crackle of radio static streamed from the phone receiver, this time much louder.

Ecstatic, Meredith picked up the landline receiver and placed it to her ear. Words interspersed between the hiss of static.

“… code five… foot five… ten…”

Her heart leaped as she gathered the circuit board under her arm and darted onto her feet. Leaving the rest of her things behind, she paced around the park in search for a location with better signal. Her footsteps stopped underneath the maple tree. Interwoven between static, the rustle of autumn leaves, the chatter of neighbourhood kids on a sunny day, were the threads of a stern conversation. Gruff voices exchanged words with military-like efficiency.

“… confirmed Deviant activity reported… fire-user.”

“Go ahead.”

“… One-oh-five Oak street.”

Oak street. That was just two blocks away. Meredith looked around the park to reorient herself, trying to remember if it was behind the swings where children played, or in the direction of the soccer goal posts. But before she could dwell on the idea further, shadows swirled in her peripheral vision. She turned and squinted in the bright afternoon sun.

Above the tree line of the residential neighbourhood rose a plume of smoke. A regular old house fire. Or the more exciting alternative, Deviant activity.

The corners of her mouth flicked up into a grin at the thought of seeing Deviants in action. Life was going to get so much more interesting. She dashed towards the scene of the crime.

Adrenaline surged through her veins as she ran past the old Kensington neighbourhood. She leaped over a big dog lounging on the lawn. She shouted an apology as she flew through a street hockey game. Cars honked as she sprinted past intersections.

A small crowd had begun to gather around the property on the edge of Chinatown. A grey haze obscured her vision. Beyond the screen of smoke was an outline of an old home. Flashes of flame burst from within charred black walls. Smoke entered her mouth and her nostrils and she broke into a cough, her eyes burning. A broken tree branch sailed towards her and she threw herself onto the ground behind a bush. It scraped past her mane of curls, missing her skull by a narrow margin.

Meredith clutched her makeshift radio under her arm, the coil of wires pinching tight into her palm. The radio signal had gone dead, a steady stream of static. In the distance were the sound of sirens. Red lights flashed through the grey smoke. Shapes of police and fire department vehicles came into view.

Firefighters in reflective clothing charged in with hoses, dousing the house with jets of water. Vapour and mist splattered onto Meredith’s cheeks. Shouts erupted as the first responder personnel fended off smoke and flames. Paramedics disappeared into the building to search for survivors. The police vehicle remained parked at the side of the road. Through the dim haze, Meredith crouched forward to see what they were doing, staying low to avoid the smoke.

Her heart pounding fast in her head, her breaths laboured and short, Meredith peeked over the hedge to see shadows of a family scurrying through the front entrance, two firefighters herding a child outside. The mother raced back inside the house before the first responder personnel dragged her back.

In the whoosh of flames, Meredith picked up another sound. A soft whimper, a hacking cough. She twisted her body to peer in the other direction. At the back of the house and on the second floor balcony, a boy squeezed himself to the very edge of the railings, his body veiled in smoke. He was huddled in a tight ball, scared and crying. He was eleven or twelve, only several years younger than her.

Fire was all around him, about to chew him up. Yet when she looked closely, the flames appeared to hover just centimetres away from his skin, as if repelled by an invisible shield.

Fire-users were immune to the flames that they create, but they were not immune to smoke, nor were they immune to a collapsing house.

Meredith glanced back at the front of the house where the first responder personnels were gathered. No one made an effort to rescue the boy. She wasn’t sure if they couldn’t see him, or they just chose to not help him.

She had to help him. But how? The back entrance was sealed by a wall of fire and smoke. Her eyes traveled from the balcony to a tree branch that extended from beyond the metal fence of the backyard. It hovered just above the balcony, high enough that it hadn’t yet caught in flames, thick enough to support her weight.

She ditched her radio on the dirt ground and ran towards the fence. Her fingers and the toes of her sneakers hooked into the metal links. She scrambled up to the top, then grabbed the branch where it bifurcated from the trunk. Swinging a leg over the branch, she hauled herself up.

Straddling the tree trunk, Meredith eased herself down the length of the branch and towards the balcony and the boy. Her heart dropped to her stomach when the branch bent downward with her weight.

“Hey-“ With the smoke, Meredith broke out in a coughing fit that threw her balance on the tree branch. She clung tight with her hands to stabilize herself.

The boy turned to look at her with wide, tearful eyes. Despite being surrounded by fire, his skin caked by dust and debris, there were no hints of burns on his exposed arms.

“Get onto the railing, then grab onto my hand.” She reached out towards him.