SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

Today’s word is dreep, and it’s one of my favourites. Dreep means to drip, to ease yourself down or over a wall to the ground, slowly. Every time I hear it, I smile and think of my granda and how, when questioned by my mum about scuffs on his new shoes, he swore that I had forced him to dreepie off a six-foot wall. He suggested the dreepie, and it was only a three-foot wall, but my mum was four-foot-ten of scary. He did take me to the Botanic Gardens to make up for it ? .

Anyway, here’s my response to today’s prompt:

Wizzen dreepit fae the treetaps doon tae the forest flair. A burd owerheid wheeplet a dancin mad tuin jist ootside Cammy’s howe hidie-hole. Hit wis a shottie.

Seelence.

The air chynged, a lithe thit hid the herr oan the cuff o the neck staunin oan en. Sumbody wis comin. She graitht hir faither’s Colt 1911 as quate as she cuid.

Knack.

Cammy’s hert lowpt. He wis nar noo. A gliff o bleck skept throu the trees towards hir.

Dae or dee, Cammy.

She keeked oot o hir hidie-hole an teuk wice it the man sent tae fell hir. The man she luved.

And now in English.

Life dripped from the treetops down to the forest floor. A bird overhead whistled a frantic tune just outside Cammy’s hiding spot in a hollow in the ground. It was a warning call.

Silence.

The air changed, a stillness that had the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Somebody was coming. She readied her father’s old Colt 1911 as quietly as she could.

Crack.

Cammy’s heart raced. He was close now. A flash of black moved through the trees toward her.

Do or die, Cammy.

She peeked out of her hidey-hole and took aim at the man sent to kill her. The man she loved.