by Chloe Carpenter
One Monday morning, Penny set off to walk the short distance to work. Most people hated Monday mornings, but not Penny. She loved Monday mornings - even one such as this with the rain teeming down from a leaden sky and a fierce wind gusting. As she happily splashed through puddles, her mind was on Rick Morgan. As a peripatetic music teacher, he regularly visited the school where she worked as a library assistant, and over the past few weeks had taken to chatting with her in the library before his first class started at 9:15. She was thrilled when he asked her out for a drink, and since then, they'd had dinner together twice.
Penny adored him. He was in his late thirties, clean shaven, with dark brown hair, brown chocolatey eyes and a voice to match. The sound of his voice made her catch her breath, and when he fixed her with that certain look of his, she felt her knees turn to jelly. She thought he was sexy as hell in an understated way - and she wasn't the only female who shared that view. It seemed as though every female in the school had the hots for him, pupils and teaching staff alike. And yet, she thought to herself, it's my company he seeks. She sighed happily at the thought and continued on her way.
The rain was bouncing down now, falling hard and fast, channels of water flowing over the pavement, puddles forming at an alarming rate. Penny loved puddles. She had never been able to resist jumping into puddles. Part of the pavement up ahead was blocked off by a barrier and a Men at Work sign. There was another sign pointing to the kerb and it was clear that pedestrians should veer off the pavement at this point and walk on the temporary walkway. But Penny had no intention of doing that. Her eyes lit up as she saw a giant puddle ahead. Taking a little run at it, she jumped high ... and then ... SPLAT!
"Ohhhhh!!" she shrieked, for it wasn't a puddle she had jumped into, but a bloody great hole! And here she was, almost waist deep in the middle of it. "Oh noooo!" she wailed as she floundered around in the water, her feet scrabbling for purchase against the slippery sides of the hole. The more she struggled, the more the water churned, now thick and horribly muddy.
Penny began to whimper in panic. She placed both her hands on the slippery surface at the top of the hole and tried to lever herself up and out, which was doubly difficult, given that she was only 5 ft 1, and the rain continued to torrent down. The force of it stung her face, making her screw up her eyes and gasp for breath. Inadvertently, she took a step sideways... then howled in shock and pain. Somehow, she had managed to trap her right foot behind a pipe, and though she wriggled her foot frantically, it was stuck fast, and the more she tried to pull it free, the more her right ankle hurt.
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