Tomorrow, When the War Began

by John Marsden

‘Ellie,’ Homer said solemnly, ‘I’ll never call you a stupid dumb obstinate slagheap again.’ ‘Thanks Homer.’ It was a sweet moment.

You know how psychic I am, and I could feel a presence in there, a being. I knew I was not alone. I got about half way across and suddenly there was this unearthly scream from above, and the next thing, I was being attacked. Devilish claws were tearing at me and a ghostly voice was howling in my ear. And that’s how we found that Fi’s cat was alive and well and living in the rafters.

Homer was becoming more surprising with every passing hour. It was getting hard to remember that this fast-thinking guy, who’d just spent fifteen minutes getting us laughing and talking and feeling good again, wasn’t even trusted to hand out the books at school.

Cold, fear, excitement. They were all contributing generously. But the greatest of these was fear. That rang a bell – a quote from somewhere. Yes, the Bible: ‘and the greatest of these was love’. My fear came from love. Love for my friends. I didn’t want to let them down. If I did, they would die.