The Storm

   Curled up in bed, hugging her teddy bear. The lightning
creates a false daylight for a second, thunder shakes the
house.
   She throws the covers over her head and cries. The wind
picks up and the house sighs. Mama and Daddy fighting
across the hall.
   Mama's voice rises and falls like the wind outside the
windowpane. Daddy's voice booms like the angry thunder.
Their voices rise in frightening crescendos.
   The little girl gets out of bed. She gets her little suitcase and
fills it with clothes, dolls and her piggy-bank.
   No one hears her as she opens the door into the rain,
lightning and thunder. She walks down that road and
never looks back.