A Smidgen of Green
Martin Hooijmans | Lars de Ruyter
“Meg, we have to leave, now!”
Glass shattered all around, ice pellets the size of golf balls crashing down. Sam felt the fragments tearing at his skin, could taste a trickle of blood running down from his nose.
Meg did not budge. She was bent over a small patch of grass. The only one.
“Meg!” Sam shouted.
“I can’t leave, Sam!” Meg finally called back. “This is our last chance!”
Sam cursed his friend’s obsession with plants. Meg was risking everything. Everything for a smidgen of green.
A pellet hit Sam on the back of his head, and he was on his knees, his vision swimming. In it he managed to see Meg, face down in the grass she had been trying so hard to rescue.
He moved, legs swaggering wildly, oblivious to the throbbing pain in his head. He heaved, swinging the limp body over his shoulder, and made for the shelter.
When Meg opened her eyes, she saw Sam leaning over her, a batch of sloppy stitches littering his face. He smiled. Outside, the hailstorm was fiercer than ever, pounding away at the reinforced trapdoor.
“You got me,” she whispered.
Sam nodded.
A lump dropped in Meg’s stomach. “The project?”
“Gone,” Sam said. “The greenhouse is wiped.”
“Even the…?” Meg began, but Sam shook his head and made room. In a little stream of daylight stood the bit of grass, undamaged.
“You’re badass, you know that?” Sam said with a grin. “Even unconscious, you still hung on to that. I didn’t see it until I got you inside.”
Meg couldn’t speak anymore. Tears ran down her cheeks. She let them flow freely.
Sam locked her in a tight embrace. “We’ll make it, Meg,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, smiling thinly. “Yes, I think we will.”
