MISSING 

By Tessa Harvey

The older children had scampered over the wet fields to the river. They watched for a few moments in awe at the tumbling, surging water, foaming crests swollen in great flood.

    They headed over the bridge and through the woods to the deep bend where all the best dead wood collected in a huge floating raft. Carefully they reached for as much as they could salvage. Robert and Jack sorted it into manageable piles and Lisa tied ropes into harnesses and then around the branches. Sandy's pile was smallest. The older ones could haul much more.

    Roger barked before they could move. He was a rescue dog of indeterminate  breeding and rarely barked. So they all looked and saw what they had missed - a bundle of sodden rags - blue and red and yellow, caught up at the edge of the still water.

    Uninterested, they moved to go, then stopped as though they had been shot, for Sandy said loudly and shakily "I can see a foot. It's a foot." And time stood still, and the world trembled and shook.

    Instinctively they all swiveled and stared, but the foot was no longer visible. The boys turned to look at Lisa, the eldest. Even Jack, the obstinate second child. Sandy knew then it was serious. No poor cat, dog or sheep was stuck, because the rags were clothes.

    "What will we do," thought Sandy. Lisa looked at him and he knew she was thinking: "Police." "Come on," she said aloud, shakily. "Call Roger, Jack. He comes for you."

    Mollified at being acknowledged, Jack whistled and the dog reluctantly followed them up the steep slope past the poor fallen wild cherry tree, and back towards home. The sky was turning grey, a light drizzle falling and the light was fading.