No Place Like Home

By Mabel Jennings

Quinn woke up, checked the clock and sighed as she saw 5:00am ticking slowly by. She couldn’t sleep last night, coughing all through the night, she thought she might take a nap in the day if she could manage it. She knew her family would be up soon so she strolled into the kitchen and opened the fridge, took out the plastic wrapped strawberries and took off her oxygen mask and began to eat them with her finger as she refused to use a plastic fork, she ate chucks of plastic as she went but it didn’t bother her she was used to it by now.

She sat there doing nothing, staring out the broken window. ‘This is not how it’s supposed to be’ she thought ‘this is torcher’. Then she got a sharp pain in her ear and scowled, they were listening.

After a while her mother ambled in looking miserable. Quinn gave her a quick smile and her mother returned it.

“Morning, heard you last night, are you alright?” she said muffled under her oxygen mask.

“Yes, fine, ready for the rounds?”

“20 minutes, better go and wake your father and sis-“ she stopped dead in her tracks, “sorry”

“It’s ok”

Quinn and her family lost her sister, Melissa, in the war, Melissa protested against them and they killed her.

Her mother left the room as tear started to fill her eyes. 5 minutes later her dad and mum came back down, her father looking weak gave her a hug and began to eat his berries.

Spontaneously there was a big *whoosh* and 3 big grey masses of smoke appeared right before their eyes.

They stuffed there oxygen masks away so they wouldn’t know they had them as it was unknown if they were aloud. The clouds of smoke glided through each of them to detect any illegal or unwanted technology, then one mass of smoke and emissions stayed with Quinn and her family and 2 other went and searched the house, they came back simultaneously and then with a silent *whoosh * of wind they were gone.

They put back on their oxygen masks and brought there hazmat suit with them as they planned to go to the beach and it was scorching hot, Quinn’s family stepped outside to the yellow and orange path way, no greenery in sight.

The started there journey to the beach and along the way they came across a little girl, her hands cupped over her face, drenched in tears, her hand seemed to be scared and there was a dog on her lap , a Yorkshire terrier, and it had a deep, long gash on the side of it’s body. They ran over to her.

“What’s happened? Quinn queried

The girl seemed to be contemplating whether to tell Quinn or not.

“They hurt him! M-my dog, they really hurt him” she sobbed, the dog was still breathing but with such contaminated air, not for long.

Quinn picked up the dog from the girls eyes and ran to her house trailed by her parents and the little girl, Quinn ran down the stairs and got the first aid kit and applied some disinfectant, while she was doing this her mother asked sympathetically “Why did they hurt him?”

“they…took my-my dad” she wailed “I don’t know where but, canter ran after then and then the cut him! I-I’m so afraid of what the-they are going to do to my da-dad, and I –I don’t want to loose either of them” tears still streaming down her face like a water fall

“Why did they take your dad” Quinn’s father frowned

“He disagreed and talked back to them, oh I told him not to! But he did anyway!

Quinn’s parents shared a look of worry. Quinn was now wrapping the cut in a bandage and took of her oxygen mask and put it other the dog’s head, it was a little bug but worked all the same because in a matter of minutes the dog was breathing normally or as normally as he could now.

Her mother towered over her “Quinn, put that back on now!”

“No Jackie, she’s making a statement” Quinn’s father intervened

The little girl cried with relief at the sight of her dogs eyes twinkling back at her.

Quinn picked up the dog and strolled out to a large black shinny building and she started to shout.

“This is not fair!, no matter how much you hurt us, no matter how much you shut us up, we will shout and have our voices heard and you will listen.

3 of the big grey smoke clouds came out of the building and turned in to 3 government officials. “You are just a kid, you don’t know anything” one of them smirked

You can’t do this to our planet, you are abusing her, she is in pain! Let her grow!”

The smoke clouds were never a thing, they were never an enemy they represented the real enemy. They was a loud crack and Quinn lay on the floor, her last words

“The Earth is our home and there is no place like home”