A+Flicker+of+Light,+by+Theresa

As Anne picked up the steaming hot tray filled with delicious food that made her mouth water, she couldn’t help but think about how much she wanted to walk right out of the stuffy, cozy restaurant and give that food to her family. But instead, she walked gracefully and with charm over to the richer family than she and set it down before them – so carefully, ever so carefully. There was a happy-looking father, a mother that seemed amazingly, not to care about fashion and was wearing about two coats over each other, and three nice, bundled-up children.

“Rough day out there, eh?” the father said, and he looked nice, nice and warm in his fuzzy coat and wool hat “Just brought my family over here for some hot chocolate after a hard day of shoveling snow off our street. Snow’s so deep out there ma youngest son Russell could get buried in there!” He laughed gruffly, patting his son, presumably Russell, on the back.

Anne smiled, laughed, and nodded back, adding a few words about her family and all. She loved coming to work for these families; the families that would talk and laugh with her. That’s how she had met one of her best friends, Ashley, who lived in the suburbs of downtown Orchid and did indeed have more money than she, but their families were friends, best friends at heart.

“Well you take care there, dearie, and I hope this helps your family through the winter,” the mother said, and winked at Anne as if she were sharing a special secret, while she pressed a fairly good tip into Anne’s hand.

As the clock struck five o'clock, her shift was over and so Anne pulled on her well-loved coat and gathered up her earnings for the day. That last family had given more than usual, and Anne walked home with a happy heart (//in high spirits?)// while she trudged through the snow and the woods to her little house in the village outside of the city, Orchid.

“Anne, Anne!” her little brother and sister cried when she opened the door. Giggling, they pestered her until she picked them up and //swooped(find another word here)// them around.

A fire crackled in the fireplace; her father must have gathered more wood since it was burning nicely. She could smell the stew coming from where her mother was cooking, and all with all the windows closed, their little house in the woods felt very cozy.

“Anne, you’re late, and you know it’s your turn to set the table tonight.” her mother scolded. Being half Scottish and half British, she kept order in this house, and everything was neatly organized. Anne sighed, but set it without complaints.

Anne sighed again. She hoped her family would have enough food to last through the winter. It was getting more expensive to buy food by the minute, her father often grumbled. The winters were long and tiring in London, and Anne knew that this winter they’d have to ration. She only hoped that the plan she had made with her best friend Colin would work.

Every week, Anne and Colin dressed for the weather appropriately and gathered the tips they’d been so secretly and //horribly//(choose another word) hiding from their families, and they bought lottery tickets. And Colin and Anne kept hoping, secretly hoping, that they’d win something that could help their families. With winter approaching, and the weather getting colder and life getting harder every day, they needed it badly.

There wasn’t much of a chance, they both knew, but Colin had a thing for getting lucky. If anyone were to win the lottery that Anne knew, it would be Colin, her best friend. He lived two houses down from her and she’d known him since they were born. Nobody ever moved away from Orchid, there wasn’t really any other place to go that they knew of.

Thomas and Bridget chattered happily throughout dinner, but Anne stayed quiet, nodding and smiling when her siblings addressed her, but after a while they got bored talking with her and focused on their mother. Since they didn’t have heaps of food on their plates, Anne finished quickly and lay on the couch, drifting in and out of sleep.

“Anne, Anne, wake up!” Startled, Anne jumped off the couch and looked around. Thomas was looking at her, his eyes wide with horror and shock. It wasn’t like Thomas to be scared, he always wanted to prove that he was not a little baby.

“Tommy, what’s the problem?” she said tiredly. All Anne wanted to do was lay down and go back to sleep. What was she doing on the couch, anyway? She couldn’t remember. And what was Thomas doing waking her up in the middle of the night? Half of her wanted to punish him for being so rude, but his voice sounded so urgent that Anne didn’t dare stop him. It must have been something really important…//it better be.//

“Nick and Dad are back! And they say…well, they say that the Main Clock has stopped working!” He trembled. Anne stared at him, dumbfounded. The Main Clock of Orchid couldn’t have stopped! It powered everything! How else would they get electricity, water, and most importantly, the time? In Orchid, nobody had such things as watches on their wrists. They only had one big, main clock in the middle of the city and that powered the one clock in the house per family.

“But…but how? I thought they said it could never stop working!” Anne cried, shaking Thomas by his shoulders. She ran to the small kitchen where she knew Nickolas and her Father would be. Indeed, there they were, talking frantically to her mother. She was holding a very small Bridget and Jessica, who had obviously just woken up.

“Is it really true?” Anne asked. They didn’t need to ask her what she meant, there could only be one thing she was talking about and they all knew what it was.

Her father sighed, and he looked so tired and worn-out. This wasn’t like her father, but indeed they were sitting by candlelight with the main power source for their city off and most likely all the men over twelve years of age would be required to go to the main part of town for a meeting and then have to help try and fix it.

“Yes, Anne, it finally happened. The generator shut down, and the city is just a mess in there. People are everywhere. It’s just horrible. And now, if you’ll excuse us, Nick and I have to go back into town. All men are required to go.” //Just like always//, thought Anne. //The men have to give up their nights when something important happens but the woman are never allowed a chance//.

“I know, John but can’t you just stay and rest a little? You haven’t even eaten anything yet. And Nickolas needs his sleep. I can’t allow Nick to go, as a mother. Please, John, just eat a little bit, for Nick’s sake!” For once, Anne thought worriedly, her mother looked a bit scared. //What if they can’t fix it//, Anne thought. //What will we ever do?// The Main Clock powered their entire city, as well as the suburbs around it. It was the main generator, and Anne couldn’t remember how long ago it had been made, but she was sure it had been a long time ago.

“I’m fine, Mother, thanks anyways…” But everyone could tell that Nickolas wasn’t so fine, he sounded weak and tired and hungry, “Papa, let’s go."

“//Colin(or Nickolas?)// is coming with me,” Anne’s father said firmly, but Anne’s mother shoved a bread roll into each of their hands, and with a last good-bye they all wished her father and //Colin// good-luck. Anne closed the door and shivered, for their kitchen was now freezing from the cold winter air. They looked at each other and shivered, and so Anne's mother quickly sent everyone to bed. All night Anne and Jessica tossed and turned in bed, fully under the covers.

In the morning, there wasn’t any sign of the Main Clock working. Anne and Jessica entertained their younger siblings, and their mother made them small cups of the precious hot chocolate. All afternoon they waited for the rest of their family, but Nicolas and his father didn’t arrive until suppertime. No new news about The Main Clock, they told them. At least they got to sleep the night in their own house because their shift was over.

The next morning, they were gone, and said that they probably wouldn’t be back until the clock was fixed.

“But that could take months!” Anne’s mother wailed. “Honestly, where are you going to sleep? And what are they going to feed you? John, don’t send Nicolas! He’s just a young boy!” But of course, they couldn’t disobey the town’s orders, so in the end Anne's father and Nickolas had to go.

Everyone could sense the uneasiness rising up in the air over the next week. Anne’s mother yelled at them more than she used to, and often took long naps in the day. Jessica snapped at Thomas and Bridget, and Anne hopelessly stared outside, longing for some kind of sign that the Main Clock was close to working again. With Nick and her father gone, their mother was frazzled and restless and worried all the time. All work and school had stopped, so Anne and her siblings had nothing to do. At first Bridget and Thomas were excited and happy about having no school, but soon they wished it would start again; they had run out of imagination ideas to play. The weather outside was cold and dreary, and a gray mist covered outside of their house. Soon enough, it snowed, and when they woke up the next morning Anne couldn’t even open the door. "It looks as if we’re in for a snowed in winter," Mother said, not very happily.

At one point in the night, about a month and a half later, (the people in Orchid had no idea what time it was for because there were no clocks, they couldn’t tell if a year or a week had passed) Anne woke up because she felt a bit warm. Startled, she looked around. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed like the air in the small bedroom she shared with Jessica was warmer. Anne stood up and looked out the window. She could see the few clusters of houses in the suburban neighborhood where she lived in the front of the small forest, and farther than that, Orchid.

She squinted harder at Orchid. //Could it be?// she wondered. Hurriedly, she ran to the front porch and looked out. vThe starry night sky was above her, and Anne felt warm and cozy with her pajamas and coat on. vAnother layer of snow had fallen earlier that night, but that’s not what caught her attention. vIn the distance, just for a millisecond, Anne saw a flicker, a tiny, yellow flicker, which flashed so quickly Anne wondered if she’d imagined it. But no, that wasn’t her imagination. Anne watched and watched, but no other flickers of light came from the direction of the town.

One was enough, though. One tiny, small flicker made the flicker of hope inside of her leap up into a fire. Anne knew that her father and many other fathers were working hard to get their city working again. And Anne also knew that they were almost done. That night, she’d seen a flicker of hope; a flicker that meant her family would be back soon and they’d be all right. //In the next week//, Anne thought, //she’d see Nick and Father again and the Main Clock would be working. Maybe next week Colin and her would even win the lottery, who// knew?

It was getting cold outside, so Anne closed the door and climbed back into her bed. Tomorrow, she’d tell her family what she had just seen; they’d stop getting on each others nerves and finally, they’d be reunited with the rest of their family within the next week. Of this, Anne was sure.

A flicker of light; it was a flicker of hope that set Anne burning inside with happiness.