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    The Storm: American Chapters
    The Storm: American Chapters
    The Storm: American Chapters
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    The Storm: American Chapters

    By Greta Gorsuch

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    About this ebook

    American Chapters presents short stories in vivid and easy-to-read, 500-word chapters, perfect for English language learners internationally and adult literacy learners in countries where English is commonly used. All stories are also offered as audio books for learners who want to hear the sounds of American English.

     

    Cecilia Hunter lives in Sunflower, a little town under the big West Texas sky. She runs a home health care business for the elderly. Cecilia visits her clients, cleans their houses, and helps them run errands. At the end of the day, she visits sweet Mrs. Lee, who tells her in a strange voice that "a storm is coming."

    That night while driving home, Cecilia encounters a desert storm. Terrible wind and rain force her off the road for a while. But in the days that follow, Cecilia sees another storm brewing. Mrs. Lee's son and his family are moving back to Sunflower. This should be happy news. But Mrs. Lee's granddaughter Anita is acting strangely. Something is wrong.

     

    And then the real storm comes, beginning with a terrible fire. Will Cecilia and the Lee family ever be the same?

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWayzgoose Press
    Release dateApr 26, 2019
    ISBN9781386373230
    The Storm: American Chapters
    Author

    Greta Gorsuch

    Greta Gorsuch has taught ESL/EFL and applied linguistics for more than 30 years in Japan, Vietnam, and the U.S. She is an experienced materials writer who actively researches foreign language reading and pronunciation. Greta’s work has appeared in journals such as System, Reading in a Foreign Language, Language Teaching, Language Teaching Research, and TESL-EJ. She recently co-authored Second Language Course Evaluation and Second Language Testing for Student Evaluation and Classroom Research (both from Information Age Publishing). She lives in beautiful wide West Texas and goes camping whenever she can.

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      Book preview

      The Storm - Greta Gorsuch

      Chapter One

      Storm clouds and lightning above a desert

      Cecilia woke up before the alarm clock went off. The alarm was set for 6 AM, but she was out of bed at 5:45. She felt good. She went to bed early the night before. She slept well. She was ready for the day ahead.

      It was getting light in the east. The sun would rise soon. There was enough light for Cecilia to see her back yard stretch off into the distance. The only other thing she could see were her three white wind turbines. Their long white blades were busy this morning. They moved quickly in the dark, cool air, going whish whish whish. The Windspeed turbines made electricity for her house. Cecilia had not paid for electricity in three years.

      Cecilia felt a little pulse of happiness. All that space, and only grass and wind in it. Cecilia lived in the country. There was a lot of open land around her house. She lived in West Texas, after all. It had only a few small towns, and they were far apart. She could drive twenty miles before she saw a town ahead, way off in the distance. Five more miles of driving might bring her a little closer to the town, although not much. Cecilia’s closest neighbor was a ten-minute drive away. It was an hour on foot if your car wouldn’t start.

      It was already October. The terrible heat of the Texas summer was fading away. This morning, before the sun came up, it was cool. Early morning made Cecilia think of colors, like cool blues and purples and silvers. This was how the morning sky looked.

      Cecilia’s taste in clothes was different. Usually she liked to wear pinks, oranges, and reds. She sometimes wore red shoes and pink socks together. Cecilia liked having nice fingernails and hair.

      One of her clients, Mrs. Gold, was used to seeing Cecilia wear all sorts of colors. One morning, Cecilia wore orange fingernail polish to match her new orange I Take Care of It work t-shirt. She wore an orange ribbon in her long dark hair. Mrs. Gold, seeing the triple orange combination, sat stunned in her easy chair. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything.

      Cecilia handed Mrs. Gold a cold drink of water. Cecilia found that was a good way to help people get over something they were not expecting. The glass of water worked.

      After a few minutes, Mrs. Gold said, My goodness Cecilia, that’s a bright fingernail polish you’re wearing.

      Yep, it’s pretty bright, Cecilia said, moving around and sweeping Mrs. Gold’s floor.

      It was 6:30 in the morning. Cecilia looked out at the sun coming up. She thought about what she wanted to wear. She had three houses to visit for her I Take Care of It business. The visits would take until 2 PM. She could wear jeans and her orange I Take Care of It t-shirt for that. Then, she had some banking business in Sunflower. She might have enough time to drive home to get something to eat. She needed to change her clothes for her night class in Lubbock. Class was at 6 PM. Lubbock was the largest town in the area. It was a ninety minute drive away. She couldn’t leave her house any later than 4 PM. Time would be tight.

      For her night class, Cecilia wore different clothes. Somehow, her oranges and reds and pinks didn’t fit in. When she thought of the night class on home care for the elderly, she got the same image she got from early mornings in her back yard: Cool blues, purples, and silvers. Cecilia decided what to wear that night. She took out some dark slacks and a purple shirt and laid them on her bed for later. It was time to get started on the long day ahead of her.

      Chapter Two

      Cecilia’s orange I Take Care of It t-shirts were a sign of a big change in her life. Just four months earlier, Cecilia owned a house cleaning business. She wore pink I Clean It t-shirts then. I Clean It was the name of the business she had with her partner, Frannie Clifton. Frannie died. It was a huge shock. Even worse, Cecilia then learned that Frannie cheated Cecilia and their clients out of money. Before she died, Frannie became a gambling addict. She used her laptop computer to gamble on websites. She used the money she stole from their clients.

      The idea of Frannie taking money that wasn’t theirs was like looking into a deep black hole. Cecilia couldn’t understand it. She still wasn’t over it.

      All of this made Cecilia think about things. She saw her life in new ways. In her I Clean It business, she cleaned houses for anyone who paid her.

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