When a Bed Became a Boat

By Liam Martin

Rain thundered against Lucy’s window.

It must be something like in one of those old, horror films out there, she thought. The scene played out in her mind, the black sky, the haunted house on the cliff edge, the leafless trees that looked like weeping old ladies, and the lightning bolt that dramatically forked to the ground.

Lucy shuddered and turned over.

The bright pink lights of her alarm clock stared back at her.

She rolled back over.

She faced a poster of a bright-eyed boy-band.

Lucy sighed dreamily and closed her eyes.

She had almost gotten back to sleep when she heard the hiss of running water. Sitting up, she peered over the end of her bed.

Water was gushing through the gaps in the door. There was already a giant puddle in her room, but as the water kept on rushing in, it quickly became more like a pond, and then a pool.

Lucy hid beneath the covers, just as the bed began to shake.

She clung on to the mattress. The water had risen so high that the bed was beginning to lift off of the ground.

Lucy wrapped herself up in the duvet and shut her eyes tight.

First, one of the legs lifted, then the second leg, then a third, and finally, the bed was afloat.

It went up.

And up.

Until the corner posts hit the ceiling.

The ceiling creaked.

One of the posts made a cracking sound.

Lucy lay as flat as she could, fearing the worst. Then, there was a loud crash!

After a few seconds of heart-pounding panic, she decided to peek out to see which had given way.

It had been the ceiling!

As Lucy rose through a bed-shaped hole in the roof, she thought to herself how she would explain this to her mum in the morning. She would normally blame her older brother when anything bad happened, but this time she realized that might be a little tricky. The entire town was flooded.

Once she was far above the rooftops, the bed stopped rising. It floated through Lucy’s village, just like a boat!

While the bed gently swayed from side-to-side, Lucy gazed up at the twinkling night’s sky. She joined up the stars with her fingers so that they made pictures. First, she made a gerbil, and then she made a cat, then, she got bored and imagined the two fighting.

And while the gerbil danced out of the way of the cat’s ferocious swipes, and while the bed bobbed through the sea of chimneypots, Lucy found herself drifting to sleep.

‘Lucy!’ Her mother screamed. ‘You have overslept again!’

The door to her bedroom burst open, and her mother stormed in.

Lucy hesitantly uncovered herself and looked around.

Everything was exactly the way she had left it the night before. She sighed with relief. It had all just been a dream, she thought to herself.

- Total nr. of readings: 10,565 Copyright © The author [2020] All Rights Reserved. This story may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author except for personal use.