Don’t play in the rain
Tony Reid loved the outdoors. He loved exploring. Climbing trees, wandering through fields and hillsides with his dad and border collie “Max”. He also loved being on top of the biggest pile of rocks and jumping into streams, rivers and fishing in a boat.
You name it. Tony was an adventurer. And nothing never stopped him from ever going outside. Which is why he hated school. He didn’t want to be sitting in front of a desk putting numbers into a jotter or reading old people books. He wanted to be running out of breath from doing something fun and exciting.
So when break and lunch time happened for him, he spent as much time as he could running around the playground, jumping over fences rescuing lost footballs for the other school kids and collecting conkers to put on his window sill to ward off spiders (if you hate spiders, they hate the smell of conkers. Works like a charm).
But one day. On a rather miserable Wednesday. It rained. The day started with rain and carried on through the whole day.
“Ok class” saying Tony’s teacher Mr.Vass who spoke to the class in his frameless glasses, “because of the heavy rain outside, today break and lunch time will be held inside the school.”
The classroom let out a massive groan of disappointment.
“Now now, It’s not so bad. You can catch up with school work or play maths games!” No child anywhere thinks maths is fun. So making it a game wasn’t going to be fun. “But as you know we cannot let you go outside and play in the rain. If we sent you home soaking wet, you could catch a cold and miss out on school work…Just like the last students did”
Tony put his hand up to get his teachers attention. “Mr Vass. I’ve been out in the rain before and i’ve never gotten a cold. I’ve been swimming in water colder than outside. Can’t we just go out for a while and-”
Tony got cut off mid sentence. Mr.Vass lowers his voice but was loud enough for the class to hear. Much like thunder in a distance. “No. I’ll say this again. Don’t play in the rain!”. Tony listened to what his teacher said. But that only made him want to go outside more.
The class carries on as normal up until half past 10 when the bell let out a massive “RIIIIIINNNNGG!. It was now break time. Mr. Vass pulls out a coffee mug from his desk. “Ok class. See you in half an hour” says Mr. Vass, as he makes his way out of the classroom and makes his way to the teachers lounge.
Tony stayed sitting at his desk, rocking back and forth bursting with pent up excitement and energy of wanting to just go outside. Eventually he couldn’t take it anymore.
“This is so boring. I don’t wanna be sinschall at all. Now i’m trapped in school during break time?! We’ve gotta do something to get outside!” Tony says trying to rally up his classmates to his level of energy like an army.
“What can we do? It’s not the schools fault the weather is bad” said a soft spoken voice sitting behind Tony. This was Lily. Tony’s classmate and friend. Though Tony and Lily were best friends, the two were the complete opposite.
While Tony was energetic and excited with energy, Lily was much more quiet and timid. Not much for excitement but more for standing at the side being supportive. Though Tony thought she was great. He even helped hang conkers on her window sill. (she didn’t like spiders either).
“But we came here in raincoats. We’re still dry. We can go outside and play”
“I don’t know Tony. Maybe Mr.Vass is right. Maybe going outside in the rain is a bad idea. Nobody has fun in the rain”
“WE COULD BE THE FIRST!” Says Tony bursting with enthusiasm. “I’m not gonna let the rain stop me from having fun. I had to walk to school in the rain now i’m find the fun in it”.
Tony jumps from his seat ,puts on his green plastic raincoat and leaves the classroom.
As he walks through the hall, past the janitor who is mopping after spilling paint on the floor. Tony jumps over the paint and lands in front of the door leading out to the playground.
Just as he goes to open the door, from behind, Tony hears a voice from the distance catching up to him.
“Tony wait! You can’t go outside and play in the rain by yourself” Lily says pleading him to stay.
“Why not? It’s break time. I deserve a break”.
“But we’re not supposed to go outside. You could get in trouble”.
“Not if everyone else joins in. Tell the class to look out the front window when you get back up stairs. When they see me having fun they’ll want to join in. Then the playground will be full with kids and we’ll all be having fun as always”.
With such enthusiasm put into that statement, Lily sighs and agrees with Tony.
“I’ll give you 5 minutes. But you better look like you’re having the best time ever”.
Lily makes her way back upstairs to the classroom.
Tony walks through the fire exit door heading to the playground. As he makes his way outside, he feels the rain fall from above him, soaking his hair and bouncing off his raincoat.
He starts to run and jump around the playground, landing in puddles and splashing water all over the place. From the far end of the playground, a puddle was getting bigger and bigger and taking up one half of the playground.
As Lily was told, the classmates looked down from the window of the classroom and saw Tony playing all by himself. Seconds go by and Tony’s classmates share his excitement. They all grab there raincoats and race outside.
Not long after they were outside, the playground was back to having boys playing football, girls practicing dance moves and Tony exploring again. The playground was back to being a playground. This was the way Tony liked it.
As the boys were playing football on the soaking wet ground, Matthew kicks the ball past the rest of the footballers and into the the massive growing puddle at the the other end of the playground.
“I’ll get it” Matthew says running over to the massive puddle. He walks all the way into the middle of the puddle to get the ball. He’s surprised and amazed to see that the puddle went all the way up to his knees.
“How deep is this puddle?” Matthew thinks to himself. He grabs the ball which floating gently on the puddle, when strangely the ball is hard to move. As if someone else had grabbed the other side of it. With one mighty pull Matthew flies back, throwing the ball and landing in the water.
As he goes to pick himself back up, he feels something grabbing him from inside the puddle. A tight grip like what gripped the ball now wraps itself around Matthew’s ankles.
He grabs his legs and tries to break free from whatever is holding on to him.
“HEY. HELP! I’M STUCK!” Matthew begins to scream. The kids gather around the massive puddle, none of them went in to end up like Matthew.
“HEY MATTY. TAKE MY HAND! Tony says holding his hand out to Matthew. Matthew reaches out to grab Tony’s hand, but the hands keep slipping off from the rain and water.
“Where are those bubbles coming from?” Lily asks looking into the puddle. Tony,Matthew and the rest of the class look down to find air bubble bursting out of the puddle. The puddle explodes as if something or someone erupted out of it.
The puddle grabs onto Matthew’s side and pulls him down into the deep of the water. As if by some strange magic…Matthew was gone.
How could a boy disappear inside a massive puddle? The class walks into the puddle, feeling nothing underneath their feet other than the ground and water soaking into their shoes. It wasn’t long before the puddle would attack again. It grabs 2 more students and drags them into the water.
Everyone immediately ran out of the puddle before it grabs on to anyone else.
Lily ran behind everyone else but gets caught by the puddle.
“IT’S GOT ME! HELP! IT’S GOT ME!” She screams at the top of her lungs.
Tony turns and runs towards Lily. He takes her hand and begins to pull. But whatever has a hold of Lily was holding on tight. Tony grabs Lily’s arm by putting both his arms round hers and pulls with all his might. However the rain was soaking through him just like Matthew and was making him slip of Lily’s arm.
As he looks around, hoping to find someone in his class that would help him, he found instead a drainer in the center of the playground.
“Lily. Try moving to the right” screams Tony. They wade there way through the water over to the drainer. As soon as Lily stood next to the drainer, she broke free from the grip of the puddle and she and tony fall back lying on the ground.
From they drain they hear a gurgling, low rumbling from the inside.
“What the hell was that?” Lily says getting her breath back.
“I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s gone away.” said Tony. From behind a booming voice appears through the rain.
“I’ll tell you what is for you two. Big trouble” Mr.Vass said with water dripping of his long nose
Sitting inside the head teachers office. Tony and Lily are sitting soaking into there chairs in front of the radiator. But the heat of anger coming of their head teacher Mr.Campbell was the closest thing to standing next a volcano.
“In a stupid decision when you were told NOT to go outside, we find you two almost getting sucked into the puddle. And because of your reckless thinking 3 students were swallowed whole by the puddle in the playground”. Mr Campbell says through his thick glasses.
“We didn’t know” said Tony/ “I didn’t know the puddle was gonna come to life and start-”
“Don’t repeat what happened boy. We told you and the rest of the school for your safety to not play in the rain. This happens whenever it rains at this school. Its asif the puddle has a mind of its own”
“But i think we can stop it” says Tony, eagerly in an attempt to win over Mr. Campbell. “I moved it over to a drain and flushed it down the-
“It’s not something that can be stopped. It’s the rain. The rain is evil. It can only stop when the rain stops” Mr. Campbell says getting his point finally across.
“Now I’ve called your parents and the parents of the pupils who drowned in the puddle. You are temporarily suspended until this mess is all sorted out. Now stand in the hallway and wait for your parents coming”
Lily and Tony leave the office a little bit drier than before, however Tony was only more curious.
“There’s got to be a way to stop it”. Tony begins to ponder.
“How Tony? I don’t want to make things worse for us” says Lily hoping to talk Tony out of his pondering. It didn’t work.
“Things can’t get any worse. We’re already suspended. There has to be something in the puddle that we can stop. All we have to do is find it”.
“I’m all for that. But it’s hard to find something scary when it comes at you out of nowhere. Especially when its in water”.
As they walk through the hallway, the janitor is still cleaning the paint off the floor from the spill. Tony saw that when the paint was mopped up the water was dyed the same colour.
“I’VE GOT IT! But were going to need some paint” Tony exclaims.
While the janitor cleans the floor, Tony and Lily sneak away 2 tubs of paint.
“Well now what? We’re gonna paint the water?” Lily as normal is unsure of Tony’s plan.
“Grab your raincoat. We’re going back outside” Tony says in his usual adventurous way.
They make there way back to the puddle in the rain. Tony and Lily unscrew the tops of the tubs of paint. A breeze of paint hits them in the face as the rain drops into the paint tubs.
“WOO! This paint stinks” says Lily.
“Good. Because we’ll be able to see AND smell this thing” Tony added more enthusiasm to this moment.
They arrive at the puddle and make there way into the center with the water reaching up to their knees. They begin to pour the thick black and white paint into the water. The tubs empty and the pair throw them over their shoulders, landing in the playground. Nothing happens as the paint begins to set into the water. Then air bubbles appear…Like before.
“Its working” says Tony. He starts staring into the water. The paint in the water then begins to take..shape.
“That’s odd” Tony leans closer to the paint.
“What’s odd?” Lily asks.
“It looks like the paint is…making a shape”.
Out of the water a hand bursts out from the water and grabs Tony by the neck. A skeletal figure draped in seaweed like strands of black and white paint emerges from the water and keeps getting bigger and bigger. Almost to the size of the puddles length.
In a blind panic, Lily runs back to get the empty tub and throws it at the puddle monster. But the tub goes right through it like a stone thrown in a river. The puddle drops Tony and he falls into the water with a massive splash. The puddle then looks towards Lily.
From behind, as the paint trails off and strands next to Lily, much like a snake feeding on its prey, it coils itself around Lily. She tries to break herself out but the water is holding on to her tight.
“Oh no. Not again”
Tony opens his eyes and sees he’s in open water. He’s deep in water like the deep end of a swimming pool. Holding onto his breath, he swims around to see where he is. Swimming in no general direction. From a blurry distance, he sees something floating in the water.
He swims towards it, the closer he gets, the closer he reachers it, he finds it looks very familiar. As he approaches what it is that’s been floating in the water he puts his hand on its back and it turns around. Tony has had to hold his breath but he wants to scream, after seeing the drowned body of Matthew. 2 other bodies float up from behind Tony. He is now feeling a fear he has never felt before. In water. You have to try to not scream. However. He hears a scream.
A muffled scream as if it came from somewhere on the outside. He looks around to find a light shining through a thick substance above the bodies. He puts his hand on what the wall is, but his hand goes straight through it. He pulls his hand back and find his hand washes off black and white paint.
He swims to the top to reach the light and puts his head through the hole where the light is coming from.
He feels a hit of fresh air. Tony looks and sees he was inside the puddle the whole time.
“Hold on Lily” Tony yells.
He pushes his hands through the puddle and forces himself out of the water like getting out of a pool. The weight of the water trying to drain him back in, trying to force him not to leave. The more he tries, the water resists.
Tony looks towards Lily and finds she standing next to the drain like before. With one big massive push with all his might Tony burst out of the puddle and lands on the ground away from the puddle.
Lily then starts to get picked up into the air moving towards the puddle.
Tony runs and grabs the bottom of her legs and begins to drag Lily towards him. A tug of war between a puddle monster and a excitable 10 year old boy.
Tony pulls and pulls moving the puddle closer to him and Lily feeling stretched. He gets to the drain and stands over it. Not able for the puddle to go into it. If he lets go then Lily goes to the puddle and ends up like the others inside.
Tony looks and reaches for the second paint tub. He picks it up with the tips of his fingers by the handle and swings it to the face of the puddle. It goes through his face, letting go off Lily as she falls and lands on Tony. Breaking her fall.
They get themselves back up and grab the drain lid from underneath them. With one massive pull they open the drain and like a plug pulled from a bath, the puddle gets sucked into the drain. It tries to find another puddle big enough to escape into but there is nothing in sight.
The puddle gets smaller and smaller as it shrinks down into the drain.
“It worked” says Lily.
From behind what was left of the giant puddle had disappeared. The school had gotten the ground back. What was left instead was 2 kids..left soaking wet.
So when the sky is grey. If it starts to rain. Whatever you do. Don’t play in the rain.