Chapter 3: The Storm

Throughout the next couple of days, one natural disaster came after another. First came the storm as predicted with loud, thunderous bangs and downpours of rain after rain which almost flooded the boys' garden. Then came the earthquakes with the strong winds that made roadworks impossible to do even when the winds came blowing into view. Finally, came the forest fires. The entire forests in Venture Falls were nothing but dark and crispy remains of trees and grass, which upset Lucas quite a lot during his discussion with Nick one day.

But then came one Saturday when everything seemed to calming down when…

It started to be the usual sunny skies when the grey cloud once again appeared. Nick observed the weather from the window. 'The same grey sky as the last storm?' he thought confusedly. 'Didn't we have enough storms in the past few days?'

His thoughts were interrupted by Toby bursting into the room.

"Nick! Glad I'm glad I found you! It's-"

"Ugh. Toby could you not interrupt me while I'm thinking!" moaned Nick, turning towards his older brother with a sigh. "I was just thinking about how we had two grey skies in one-"

Toby's face suddenly turned into a serious tone of frowning. "I'm not joking. Mum and Dad want to see us. NOW."

The brothers both went downstairs into the lounge are where both Mr and Mrs Tripp were sitting on one of the two blush sofas that were usually in the lounge.

Mrs Tripp began the conversation. "So umm… as you may probably have noticed, the sky umm…has once again turned into the same grey as the last storm we had. So…"

"Does that mean another storm is coming?" asked Nick, hoping that his assumption was right.

Mr Tripp nodded. "I'm afraid so, son," he replied with a heavy sigh, then turned his head to the boys. "But…we just saw the news today and they say it might be longer than we expected than the last storm,"

"Ok, so we know that there's a longer storm coming but what's actually going to happen?" asked Toby.

"That's the bad news," explained Mrs Tripp, crossing her arms, and standing up from the sofa. "Because the storm is said to be an aggressive one, we decided to keep you two safe in the kitchen pantry,"

Toby immediately jumped up from the sofa in frustration. "What? You can't do that!"

"I'm so sorry, dear," said Mrs Tripp, placing her hands on her son's shoulders. "But it's for the best. We know that you're both old enough to do your own thing, especially you Toby, but can't take any risks to keep all of us safe,"

Nick also rose from his seat. "Let's just take it as a positive thing. After we, we could pretend we're in the World War II,"

Toby shrugged at the thought of doing history with his little brother while be stuck in the pantry. Yes, although he and Nick did play a lot when they were little, he would have preferred to play with his action figure while Nick was interested in reading books even from a young age. Still, he couldn't believe that this was all happening. And it was all because of storm.

"We made sure all of your stuff and important things are in there," began Mr Tripp, leading the boys out of the lounge and into the kitchen. As expected, the pantry door was there with a wooden louvre design and can be easily opened and closed as people come and go. Both Toby and Nick had never been in the pantry beside from when Mum asked them to do the washing but staying in for a storm? That was strange even for the boys to comprehend what would they be doing.

Nick opened the wooden door and saw that their parents were right. Inside were a pile of things that the boys could do; games, drawing, some of the boys' favourite action figures and more. Nick, in particular, noticed some of his books on top of the washing machine. 'That's good' he thought. 'At least we'll be able to study while we're here'.

Over on the over side of the pile of things were two bottles; an blue bottle filled with juice for Toby and an orange one filled with water for Nick.

So far, the area looked fine. If it wasn't for the tiny area of space Toby was thinking.

"I hope you two will be fine in there until the storm is over," smiled Mrs Tripp. "I'm sure you two will have a fantastic adventure no matter what happens next…"