Ain't No Water Going To Stop Me

The rain shot down like bullets from the sky on the top of mum’s grey Holden Captiva. Jade and I were sitting in the back, with our puffer jackets thrown over our school uniform. When we arrived at school, we ran to math class, only to walk in on Mr Walker lecturing everyone.

“Just because it’s raining doesn’t mean you have to be late!” He exclaimed, with an all-too familiar tone. Jade and I ran to the back of the class, and took our seats. “Now everyone, we seem to be pretty chatty today about all of the rain and what not, but a little rain isn’t a threat -” 

“Sir, we had 200 millimetres of rain yesterday.” Ethan shouted, interrupting him. Oh how he liked to push Mr Walker over the edge. 

“Boy that’s enough, just get on with your work or else I’ll send you to the dean.” Mr Walker snapped. 

After what seemed like hours and hours of school work and endless chatter about whether the Rangitiaki river was going to burst its banks, I finally met up with my sister and was able to walk home. However walking home wasn’t extremely pleasant due to the absolute vicious downpour of rain.

When we got home, I went out to feed Jeff, our golden retriever. My little sister Daisy thought that name was absolutely splendid. She is ridiculous. Either way, Jeff was still our dog, and somehow my responsibility. I went outside to the back garden and put some biscuits in his kennel and locked him away for the night. When I got back inside, all you could hear was the rain. The streets were dark due to it being so overcast, and it was only 4:00.

Because mum hadn’t come home and my older sister Ruby had a part time job, it was my responsibility to look after the ever so pleasing 12 year old Daisy. “Hey sis, ‘ave ya got any homework to do?” I asked. 

“What’s it to you! It’s not like you ever do anything, you're too busy hanging out with your boooooooooooyfrieeeeeeeeeend.” She snarled, as if she was trying to prove a point. 

“I’ll tell on you Daisy.” I grunted. 

“You wouldn’t dare,” 

After an hour of doing the necessary, it became clear that Ruby and Mum weren’t going to be home anytime soon, so I decided to put Daisy to sleep, and then go to the dark haven of rest myself. 

All I could hear was, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop. The rain was not going to stop. I then realised that it really wasn’t just a plop, plop, but more of a thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. I was wondering if it was actually starting to get serious. My mother could be out there in the heavy rain somewhere, maybe even in danger, and I wouldn’t even know. I then heard a creak, from the old wooden front door of our house. I prayed that it was mum coming home safe and hopefully dry. “Tiana, you up?” It was Ruby. 

“Yes Ruby.” I sighed, hoping she wouldn’t ask anything of me. I got out of bed, and went to see her in the entry. I flicked the lights on, and as soon as my vision became clear, I could see that Ruby was absolutely drenched. From head to toe. She looked as if she had just been on a swim across lake Taupō in her raincoat. I mopped up all of her wet remains which she had dumped in the entry after she went to take a shower. 

At 1:30 that morning, I had woken up hungry, so I went to the pantry to get some food. I was 2 minutes into a packet of chips when I realised that it was still raining. Was it ever going to stop? Or was I going to drown because of the Ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie? Either way, I wasn’t taking any chances. I realised that we weren’t really prepared for a flood, as we only had 2 days left of food, due to mum’s fortnightly pay. I slumped down against the fridge, with the green packet of salt and vinegar chips in my hand, and my head in the other. I then picked myself up, and tried not to worry about it. I placed the chips on the bench, and returned to bed. 

My alarm sounded at 7:00 that morning. I went and woke Daisy up, hoping that she would get herself together and get ready for school. Ruby was already awake, but she looked as if the storm had taken all of the life out of her, and used it all in the rain. After that, Jade came and knocked on my door, as per usual, so that mum could drive us to school together. “Hey, um is your mum there to drive us to school?” she asked, already soaked from the two minute walk from her house to mine.

“No.” I said, defeatedly. I brought her inside and we started doing homework on the wooden dining-room table. I looked out the large glass window in the dining-room, that viewed the road. The drains were trying their best to keep up with the amount of water that was flowing their way every second. Suddenly, our phones all sounded off with a siren.

“An emergency alert!” Ruby practically screamed from the kitchen. I checked my phone. There was an email there, from my principal.

“Due to the unreasonable conditions of Cyclone Debbie, and the ever-lurking burst of the floodbank holding the Rangitaiki river away from the town of Edgecumbe, we have decided to close the school to all students and staff, for concerns of their safety.” The email read. Another notification popped up on my phone. The emergency alert. The Rangitaiki had burst its banks. Daisy started crying. Jade tried to call her brother but no answer. Ruby was trying to get hold of mum. It was all happening. I ran to the study room, in search of the key to the large filing cabinet in the corner of the room. I threw things out of the drawers, out of the folders, but there was no luck. If this house was going down, by the looks of it, our birth certificates were going down with it. 

I ran back out into the dining room to see Daisy sitting there in a state of delusion. “This isn’t really happening is it?” I grabbed her arm, and pulled her into the kitchen. 

“Daisy, you need to get all of the food out of here that you can, you know, the stuff you won’t have to cook.” she nodded, and started piling random foodstuffs onto the bench. Because our house was a reasonable distance away from the river, we had time. I started collecting things out of my room, and putting them into shopping bags.

“My brothers are fine, but I don’t know about my parents, is it okay if I stay with you guys for now?” Jade pleaded, while looking quite stressed.

“Jade, it’s fine, but we need to get up to the highest point in our section, maybe the roof?” I said while still shoving my school books into some bags. I then heard a piercing scream coming from the living room.

“IT’S HERE!” Ruby shrieked, and the water came, gushing down the street. I dumped the bags on my desk, and ran outside to get the ladder. Ruby started running around grabbing raincoats and wet weather gear. I then saw Jeff.

“JEFF!” I screamed. What on earth was I going to do with a fully grown golden retriever? I let him out of his kennel, and he quickly ran towards the porch. Within a matter of seconds a wave of strong, dirty water swept me off of my feet and into the wooden fence behind me. My arm shielded me from the force of the water, and I fell onto the ground, with the water still aggressively flowing through the backyard. 

I got myself up, and started trudging over to the garden shed in the back of the yard. I rattled the door off of its hinges, and got inside the corrugated metal shed. I found the ladder, and waddled my way back through the yard. I put the ladder up on the deck, which was already ankle-deep under water, and adjusted it so that we could get up on top of the roof for safety. My arm was in unbearable pain, but that didn’t matter right now. I yelled at Daisy for her to come out first, and she climbed up, wearing her pink raincoat and carrying a backpack full of homework in the other. She got up and was finally safe - for now. I then got Jade and Ruby to climb up while Jeff and I waited down on the deck supporting the ladder. The water was getting deeper, and I could feel it rising up to my knees. I then had to figure out how to get Jeff up onto the roof safely. I carried him with my good arm, while supporting my weight on the ladder with the other. I was about halfway up the ladder when I realised Ruby had her arms out to grab him.

“Come here boy! Yes, that's a good boy!” She exclaimed, while Jeff managed to jump up the rest of the ladder. 

When I myself had finally made it up the ladder, We all tried to create some description of shelter on the roof. In Daisy’s backpack was a small tarpaulin, so we placed what was left of our valuables underneath it, and tried to create attention for someone to pick us up, and get us out of this horrid, still vicious rain. 

After about two hours of waiting for help, a farmer with a big John Deere tractor and bale trailer came around our street, picking our neighbourhood up off their roofs. When it got to us, Ruby lifted the ladder, off from where I had previously put it, and onto the tractor’s trailer. We let Jeff down first, and he ran straight into Ethan’s arms. “Ethan! You’re okay! Oh thank goodness!” I cried. I realised how much I missed the others from my town. Especially mum. She had to be out there somewhere. She was the only parent we had left. She couldn’t just disappear because of this flood. 

We were taken to the nearby area of Thornton, and I was getting kind of nervous. Thornton was closer to the coast than Edgecumbe. What if they then flooded too? I didn’t want to take any chances, but did I really have any other choice? 

As soon as we got to the local hall, I organised my sisters and Jade, to make sure that they were warmer, and dryer, and the volunteers at the hall made sure they felt nice and cosy. Not me though. I wasn’t letting mum go that easily. I tried to leave, when a nurse grabbed my arm. I screamed in pain. She slowly turned my wrist around to show the bruising of where I had landed on it when I was bashed against the fence.

“Sweetie, this is broken, you will need to have it checked out by some of us ladies here, you can’t go, sorry darling.” She said calmly. Her face was sweet, with her dreamy blue eyes and her blonde-grey hair. I couldn’t speak. I had to go and see mum. I removed the nurse’s fingers from my arm, and went back outside into the rain. She said something as soon as I left, but I couldn’t listen. I had one goal and one goal only. And nothing was going to get in my way. 

I saw the big green tractor still parked outside of the hall. It hadn’t left yet. I ran up to it and asked the farmer if I could get a ride back to Edgecumbe. He looked at me, confused. “Why on earth would you want to go back there? It's basically a lake now.” he said.

“I forgot my cat.” I told him.

“Aight, get in then.” He said as he slapped the passenger seat. I was still drenched, and I felt kind of bad, but I climbed up the steps and into the tractor cab. 

As soon as we got back to Edgecumbe I asked the farmer if he could drop me off on the main street, he agreed, and found some people who needed evacuating on the way. When I jumped out of the tractor, I was almost waist deep in water, due to the main street being so close to the river. I nodded to the farmer and he proceeded with the evacuation. I waded through the water across to mum’s office. She had to be there. She told me the morning before that she was going to be working late, so I assumed this was going to be a good place to start. I finally reached mum’s office building and I could see her Holden parked in the parking lot behind the building. She must still be in there! I tried to pull the door open with a great heave, but there was no luck, the water was too strong. All of these emotions built up inside of me. I remembered how I had lost Dad a couple of years before. I was only 12. I can’t just lose another parent 3 years later. I can’t let her go. With everything built up inside of me, I raised my fist on my good arm and punched it into the glass window beside the door. The glass shattered, and I tried to climb inside. It was seemingly difficult, due to the blood pouring out of my knuckles on one hand, and a broken wrist on the other. Still, I made it through and tried to run through the sludgy water. I looked behind the reception desk. The lights were on, but no one seemed to be present. All of the desks in the office to the side were pushed up against the wall due to the power of the water surge.

“Mum, are you in here?” I said, awaiting a response. I was pushing through the water trying to reach all of the desks on the other side of the room. I was starting to get really, really tired. I couldn’t give up, not now right? I was starting to lose hope.

“Tiana!” someone croaked. It was Mum. It sounded like she was falling under the ever rising water. That’s when I knew I had to keep going.