Winter Strike

Part 3- The March

"Well behaved women rarely make history."Eleanor Roosevelt

It was dark and cold, Hunter, Chanel and the rest of the girls waited behind by the shed while I gave them the signal to go. The guard blocking us slowly yawned and leaned against a nearby pillar. In less than a few minutes, he was fast asleep. I signaled for the girls to come as I crept on to the main road all of the lights were shut off so I tiptoed down. I hid behind street lamps with if the smallest of creaks.

After passing Cambridge the hard part was still ahead of us. When the sun rose, we were hiding inside stores two at a time to keep it unsuspicious. But by noon we had over two hundred people join us so we marched on the streets. Once or twice the police came barging through the crowd looking for me. We all huddled in a tight circle then not letting any of the police through. More people joined us and some people left. But the fifty or so foxes kept marching.

It was four in the evening when Father came. Before I even heard his car coming up the road I had a sinking sensation that something bad was going to happen. As his car road closer something unbelievable happened. Men and women in the village made a line across the road. It blocked the car from coming any further but the people wouldn't budge. My father must have caught a glimpse of me for he glared in my direction. Just as I turned away out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow get off of the car. Who was that? I dismissed the thought we had been walking for hours I was probably hallucinating.

We kept walking by now lots of girls were shivering in the snow. We left in such a hurry that everyone brought only one jacket not enough to withstand the snow. We were a half an hour past London with close to 7 hours left, when one girl fainted. This caused quite a ruckus as everyone was tempted to stop. Luckily we were passing by the nearest towns hospital and the nurses carried her away. Our feet were filled with blisters and some of us had frostbite.

At 7 I saw her. In the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow again. Chanel cautiously came up to me, bringing someone with her. She murmured something to the person and they threw off their hood. I couldn't believe it, it was Mother.

"Hello, Winter." She said in her soft melodious voice. "I finally came to my senses about everything I don't know what happened to me. I was almost in a trance too weak to move. When I heard your father talking about the foxes I was perplexed, I was proud of that young girl that took the initiative to start this. But I couldn't figure out who it was until I saw you girls at the shed last night. Then I put the pieces together and ran away in his car to find you. I am so proud of you my Olive."

The girls next to me were obviously listening so I leaned in close and asked. "Did I listen to your advice and live up to my name?"

"You did" She answered, "You did that and so much more." She smiled at me this smile I hadn't seen for a long time. We talked and talked and before I knew it we were almost in Windsor.

I was tired hungry and hurt but I had friends and family with me. I was going to power through this. By the time we were in the city, I realized that I didn't know what I was going to say. I went over in my head but I couldn't think after I realized that it was eerily quiet. Approaching us from behind were men with guns. I froze, this couldn't be happening, Father wouldn't kill us knowing that his wife and daughters were in here. But wait he didn't know that mother was in here he didn't care about me only Chanel. I prayed that he would stop this, we were almost at the palace gates just one more minute.

As they raised their guns to fire, Chanel said to me, "I am sorry." I held on to her my eyes begging her not to do what I thought she was going to do. But she shrugged my arm away and headed to the back of the crowd.

"Stop your fire," She shouted, startling Father who sat right in the front. "I know that all of you disrespect us, but you can't shoot us! There is no law that states that you can kill us if we try to fight for our rights. What did we do wrong? We didn't use violence and what we did didn't affect you in any way." I joined in with Chanel.

"We are just young girls fighting for what we believe in! You can't hurt us just for wanting to go to school. Did it ever come to your mind that if we go to school, we can be smarter which means that we will be more of a help to you? Or is our only job to be housewives-" Just as I said that a bullet shot through the air, right at me. These were the longest seconds of my life, standing there frozen in fear as the bullet came toward me. Right before it hit me Chanel shoved me away. Before I could say anything I blacked out.

"You can wake up now!" I heard a voice that I couldn't recognize. I woke to this random nurse smiling at me. Where was I? What had happened?

But most importantly, "Where is Chanel?" I blurted. Her face fell, and she frowned.

"After your Father hit the bullet at you she blocked you." What? If she had a bullet in her she would have certainly died in the time it would take to bring her to the doctor. It couldn't be. Then the nurse added, "Her funeral is next Sunday. She has only a few minutes left, but the doctors already know what will happen. Would you like to speak with her?"

I ran down the corridor looking through the windows for her. When I found her room I burst in the door. Lying there on a bed was Chanel, most of the blood was sucked out of her body and then I saw Mother crying in a chair nearby. I hurried to the bed in tears, "Please don't die," I hiccupped through the tears.

"Don't cry for me," she said surprisingly calm. "We got it, Winter! They repealed the law. The queen, Alexandra, herself found what we did so compelling, she convinced Congress to get rid of the law!"

"But it cost you!" I moaned, "If only I had known that I would listen to anything that you said!" I ignored the fact that they had let women go to school. Without Chanel, I didn't care. She was wheezing now, finding it hard to breathe.

"The foxes accomplished their mission, that is more than I could hope for. If I die, I want to die happy, and now I can." With that, she turned her head to the side and fell into an endless sleep. "Goodbye Winter."