Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: TOURIST TRAP (08/20/15)
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TITLE: Seagull | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hannah Gaudette
08/27/15 -
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The forlorn cry of a seagull drew my eyes open and once more the commotion of the crowded beach filled my ears. Why on earth had my husband insisted we come here, to Old Orchard Beach, in the middle of tourist season, no less? He said we needed to celebrate Susanna's birthday differently this year.
Shrugging off the boredom and weariness, I stood up from the beach-chair. My eldest, Edith, sat nearby, engrossed in the hair-raising, heart-stopping fifteenth chapter of a book.
My eyes began scanning the hordes of bodies for the rest of my family. There was Danny and little Fredrick . . . there was Alison with Andy . . . and there was my husband, Wyatt, coming our way with some french fries.
“Thanks,” I said when he handed me one of the paper plates. “Where's Susanna?”
“I thought she was with you and Edith,” he replied.
“She was when I fell asleep.” I glanced down at our daughter. “Edith, have you seen your sister?”
“Which one?” she asked without looking up from the page.
I sighed. “Susanna.”
“Yeah, she went with Danny to play in the water.”
For a moment, I was relived, but when I looked out to where our two boys, Danny and Fredrick, were splashing in the waves, there was no Susanna.
“Boys!” Wyatt called. “Where's Susanna?”
“I haven't seen her!” Danny called back.
Fear gnawed at my brain, but Wyatt remained calm. “Edith, go check with Alison and Andy, see if they've seen her. Your mom and I will start looking around here.”
My husband and I turned to start searching, and I grabbed his arm. “Wyatt, she knows not to wander off in a place with hundreds of people.”
He glanced back at me. “We'll find her. She can't be far.”
“I'm going to head down to the water.”
We split up, and my heart started racing. Our six-year-old girl was smart – she never wandered away from one of us at home, much less in a crowd of hundreds upon hundreds of strangers. My discomfort was quickly forgotten, and my fear was turning into panic.
Edith, Alison, and Danny jogged up to me. “We haven't seen her,” they all said at once.
My heart nearly stopped. “Okay, split up in groups and start looking.”
They started off and I kept going toward the ocean. Dread washed through me as cold as those waves themselves. She never wandered off on her own, but what if she had trailed after her brothers and followed them into the water? She didn't know how to swim.
I'd never been so terrified in my life. Desperately unwanted images tormented my brain.
A man stood near the water's edge, taking pictures. I called after him. “Sir? Have you seen a little girl, six-years-old? She has blonde curls and blue eyes . . .”
The man shook his head. “Sorry, no. I haven't seen her.”
I continued down the beach. Every persons' answer was the same: no. It began echoing in my mind, then my ears, so loud it was audible. A frantic cry clawed at my throat until I finally let it loose.
“God, please! Please!”
Wyatt appeared beside me, his face deathly pale as he wrapped his arms around me.
In that horrible moment, I once again heard that forlorn cry of a seagull and it drew my eyes to where the bird hovered over the water. It was there I saw a child laughing and playing, splashing and giggling. Blonde curls, blue eyes . . .
“Susanna!” I screamed.
I raced across the hot sand to reach her. Wyatt was right behind me. We reached the water and our little girl raced into our arms.
“There were too many people,” she said. “I didn't see you, so I played with the seagulls.”
Prayers of thanksgiving skyrocketed at lightning speed toward heaven.
Today, Susanna is an adult and she can only vaguely recall that day. But the one thing she remembers most about it is the calls of the seagulls that comforted her and kept her from wandering too far away. And even now, we often return to that beach, and I keep a special ear out for the seagulls. When I hear them, I thank God for sending them to watch over my daughter.
Fiction
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Well done.
God bless~