The Last Portal Read Online Free

ferocity of the weather
was unprecedented. At school, several trees lost large branches and
some classrooms developed leaks that quickly turned into floods
when the wind peeled off sections of roofing.
    The rain had
cleared by the time school had finished, but the sky still looked
threatening. Chris, Susie and Joe decided to take the bus home, but
as it neared Chris’s home the sky darkened to the south and the
wind dropped. Although it was only a little after four in the
afternoon, the light dimmed to the point where passing cars had to
use their headlights, and the streetlights came on. Chris loved
storms, and this one showed real promise. He could see the whole
sky flick on and off like a faulty light switch. Always the
optimist, he never took a raincoat to school, figuring there were
always enough trees to hide from the rain between the bus stop and
his home. This time he was proved wrong. The sky opened up. Despite
sprinting from tree to tree, he got drenched, and then pounded with
hailstones.
    He arrived home
with a collection of the biggest hailstones in his trouser pocket.
But when he proudly showed his mother, she just looked horrified
and got mad at him for collecting hailstones in the middle of a
hailstorm. Since he also looked like he had just crawled out of
someone’s swimming pool, she shooed him upstairs to the shower,
growling at him for not having a raincoat.
    When he came
back down later, he found his parents sitting in the lounge
watching the family’s new widescreen TV. The images showed flooded
streets, houses with missing roofs and people moving down flooded
streets in motor boats. The commentator was standing on the roof of
a house surrounded on all sides by water and explaining that the
number of droughts, freak storms and floods was unprecedented. She
went on to describe similar events across the world, concluding
this weather pattern was a world-wide phenomenon.
    Chris’s father,
a tall, balding man with the same cleft chin as Chris, was shaking
his head slowly. ‘We’ve caused all of this,’ he concluded slowly.
‘Too much greenhouse gases and not enough will to change.’
    His mother
pushed back some strands of brown hair behind her ears and nodded
her agreement. ‘I worry for the next generation,’ she said, looking
up at Chris. ‘I wonder what you will inherit.’
    The front door
opened and Fiona burst in wearing a raincoat, but still completely
soaked. ‘I accidently fell into a pool of water on the way home,’
she explained.
    Fiona, like
him, loved playing in the rain. More than likely she was jumping in
water puddles on the way home, Chris thought. She was also ordered
upstairs to change.
    When the hail
stopped Chris looked through the window, the garden and street were
buried under a layer of glistening white hailstones.
    ‘Come on, let’s
go outside.’ Fiona was back downstairs, pushing her hair under the
hood of her raincoat, her anger at Chris momentarily forgotten at
the thought of a hail fight.
    Amid calls from
their mother to come straight back inside if it started to rain
again, they ran outside and started pelting each other with
hailstones. Chris was always a better aim than Fiona, and soon
scored several direct hits. But Fiona cheated by trying to turn the
hose on him when his back was turned. The game only ended when more
rain arrived and the wind picked up, accompanied by loud thunder.
When they ran back inside, the TV was filled with more reports of
fallen trees and broken roofs across the city.
    Then the power
went off. In the growing dusk, the house was plunged into near
darkness. Their parents scratched around in the kitchen and came
back with a battery- powered lantern and an assortment of
torches.
    Their father
placed the lantern on the lounge table and started examining the
torches. He picked up the largest torch and inserted four
batteries.
    ‘Can I have
that one?’ Chris asked.
    ‘But I’m really
scared,’ Fiona said. ‘Can I have it?’
    ‘You