The Everlasting Story of Nory

17. A Story About a Girl Named Era and Her Brother

There was a little girl named Era. She lived in a beautiful cottage near Blickling Hall with her brother. It was so lovely, everything was perfect. Her mother and father were perfect, they never were angry, and always were nice to them. Era was walking in one day, after playing outside in her favorite place to play. But, ooh, she fell into horrible mud.

‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘I have just spoiled my lovely dress. Oh no.’ And she began to cry. She got up out of the ditch and walked over to her mother.

‘Oh dear,’ said her mother, ‘your favorite dress, too. Well, I’ll just have to make you a new one, and patch up that one.’

‘Thank you, Mother,’ Era said, and bowed politely, or curtsied, as you might say. She walked along, putting her school things away in the proper places. ‘Mother,’ she said, ‘is Father out of the hospital yet?’

‘Yes, he is, he’s in the breakfast room, if you go in there, you’ll see him.’

Era walked in, and there was her father. He smiled brightly at her. She played games all morning. But her dress getting mud on it was not the only tragedy of that day. She was walking on the street with her brother, who was eight, coming back from the market with all the goods. She put her brother down, and she, being a thirteen-year-old, went off to do some homework, or prep.

Her mother was making dinner, and went off in another room to get her laundry, and her father stayed in the breakfast room, unable to walk still, because of his injury about a month ago. She walked happily through the living room as she went to her room. There was her brother, taking out the matches slowly one by one.

‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘Help, no!’ And she grabbed the matches away from him. But just as she grabbed it away, the match in his hand flung against the matchbox, and a fire started. She dropped the matchbox and called out. But her mother could not hear her. She was covered in laundry from head to toe, bringing it into the kitchen.

‘Fire!’ screamed Era, pulling her brother out with her. But they tripped over her matchbox and he burned his legs badly. She carried him out, quickly, but she tripped again, falling on him, then picked him up and ran out with him screaming in pain, from fire. She had stepped on a knife that had cut through the back of her shoe. Oh, she was scared, running. It was horrible. They had tripped on the thing where you scrape your shoes, when the snow and dung had been there. ‘Oh no,’ she thought, ‘my poor brother, my mother, my father.’

Her father, unable to walk, and her mother, unable to hear, sadly died in the fire. It was awful, she wiped tears from her face and sobbed. Her brother was bleeding terribly now. She picked him up and got out. He was screaming with pain again. Oh, she could almost feel the pain herself. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘brother, don’t cry, don’t cry.’ And she wiped his tears. She could see the pain in his face, but he was very obedient, he did whatever his sister would ever wish him to do. He quietly was carried by her. She could see the pain in his face, easily. She could see that he was struggling.

‘Oh, brother, you may cry.’ She saw a small tear drip across his face, which was wiped back by his shaking hand. He could not resist that tear, she knew, there was no way of helping it.

‘Oh, sister, I can walk,’ he said.

‘You will fall,’ she said, because he could only barely walk with his injuries, and tumble over himself. She brought him carefully to the hospital, with blood stained all over her white and now brown dress.

‘Oh, no,’ she cried, going in the revolving door. She walked slowly over to the desk, carrying her lovable brother. ‘Oh, no.’ She wiped her tears away and tried to fix her hair, which was horrible now. The curl was coming out, the one that was in the back. It hung almost straight down now. She was scared. Her hair always hung straight down when she was scared. Maybe it was the sweat that pulled it down by getting it wet, dripping. Her brother was horrified. The doctors took him.

And for a while after that you never got to see her clean white prim dress or her nice hairdo, but you saw blood and mud and things like that on her dress. She became very poor, without the tiniest bit of money. She walked to a stone. In the stone, she carved her mother’s name, sadly. She couldn’t do it, but the stone was covered with mud, so she tried scratching a message in the mud. She walked along, four days she spent without her brother. Finally she went over to the hospital and picked him up. Fortunately he was better. Soon he was well enough to be picking berries and peeling oranges again, and they had lovely suppers together.

She carried him wherever he went. And, the end.