Thunder Liz, Pt. 1

I'm fighting with the following story, since it was begun at the request of a family member and just never felt right. Lately, I feel like my short stories are a hair away from a fight with the family -- so I'm hoping that as the story progresses, the irritating main character will GROW UP! Why inflict them on harmless blog trawlers? I'm assuming that the vast filtering capacity will break the story down into easily digestible pieces. We'll see.

Thunder Liz, Chapter 1

I saw the van from the maroon velvet ledge of the window. My arm was canted across the glass behind my head and my cheek was pressed against the window, flattened agains the cool rhythm of a pelting storm. The water sheeted over the other van. He had parked sideways across an empty asphalt lot, showing off the paint job of thunderclouds that rolled over the edges and down the panels. Faint green swells glowed under the curves of the clouds, half-alive in the deep gray afternon.

We stopped early, just as the light turned yellow. Dad had been waiting for minute when a strip of electrons fused and dropped a shaft on the van. Light slammed down with a stomach-turning shimmy, bursting through the tires and crackling over the paint. Tiny balls sizzled over the puddles. Shocked blind and still, the window slapped away from my cheek as the thunder shuddered through our van.

Mom is usually pretty nervous about things like that, but she was fuming silently, lips curled under as the frustration of the lunch date burned in the sacred chimenia at the back of her throat. "Did you see that? Why are we out in this weather, Liz?" Dad looked back to see if we were okay. I slid back into the seat and shrugged my shoulders and arms inside my sweater. "You kids okay? Don't often get to see lighting bolts that close. Almost 20 million volts just grounded into that car. Did you see the tires blow?"

"Yea, Dad." I was back to staring out the window, wondering if anyone had been in the van. I closed my eyes, but that only sharpened the dizzying vision of a pitching van recoiling from the strike of a hot serpent of electricity. I hissed under my front teeth, trying to calm my stomach. My head was hurting from the storm, fatigue, and hunger. I'd skipped a meal or two on the strength of a new sweater and I was ready to heave the rest of them out after that show.

The light changed and the van crawled forward. "We'll just get to the restaurant, eat lunch, and go home. Aunt Bert isn't staying," she growled.