What Happens Next?

This is how a story begins for me. Poor Emily, here, is about to have something happen to her. I'm not sure what, yet, but it doesn't look at all good:

At 3:15 that Tuesday, had you looked out the front window of your sitting room, you’d have seen Emily walking past your house. She was on her way home from school, her backpack so much too big for her that it banged on the backs of her knees as she went.  Her thumbs were hooked through the straps, and she would not have seen you. She was watching the sidewalk in front of her feet, or maybe the scuffed toes of her black boots. Her hair, long, red, and hanging down either side of her face, would have welcomed the attention of a brush. Just visible past the fall of hair was a small, pointed chin and a nose, slightly turned up, which was covered with freckles.

You would have heard her as she went by. She was walking alone, but there was an endless stream of words falling out of her mouth as if someone had left a tap running. If you knew her well enough, you would know that she began talking the moment her feet touched the floor in the morning, and seldom stopped until her eyes fell shut again at night. Emily filled her waking hours with words. Filled the empty spaces around her with stories.

Take a good look at Emily as she walks past. She does so every day. She’s in grade six and has walked past your front window pretty much every school day since she was in junior kindergarten. But take a good look today. She won’t be by tomorrow, or the day after that. In fact, at this moment, it seems unlikely she’ll ever be walking past again.

And there it will sit for a while, while my mind continues with other things: finishing other stories, planning out yet another, coming up with more scenarios (which will join Emily in my idea drawer), editing and editing and editing. Then, one day, Emily will reach out and tap me on the shoulder, ready to tell me what happened.