To Narnia!- Says the Cockroach

She crouched on the edge of the bed like a praying mantis, the extra long ruler clasped firmly in one hand and the bug spray grasped firmer in the other. Like a tiger she eyed the red suede back and dared the cockroach to show its face. That coward wouldn’t know what was coming for it.

She waited. She had two fears and she wasn’t sure which one was the greater. The first was that she’d lift up the bag and the cockroach would come scuttling towards her. The second was that she’d lift up the bag and the cockroach would be nowhere to be seen, roaming wildly in her room. The idea of a cockroach sharing a midnight kiss with her was not romantic.

Taking a breath, she dangled one foot from the edge of the bed and left it touch the ground. Holding her breath now she dropped the other foot, and positioned herself in the ninja position everyone did in the movies. Extending the ruler she hooked it under the strap of the bag and lifted.

She saw nothing as she jumped back, then, like a dash of lightning the cockroach bolted out and rushed into her nearby dirty jeans. In a way she was glad; she hadn’t been able to spray the cockroach but unlike her bag she was happy to envelope her jeans in a big bug spray hug.

With a newfound courage that perhaps she was on the upside she turned her jeans over with the ruler.

Perhaps the cockroach’s fatal mistake was the pause. Like a person who is being brandished at with a machete but too drunk to notice, for a moment it didn’t move. Then, realising it was threatened it took off, but not before it had gotten a long dose of the fast-action bug spray.

The girl sighed as it moved off towards her door. She didn’t care about it now, it wouldn’t be able to climb into bed with her and it should die soon.

With a victory fist pump of triumph she sat back on her bed. There was no need to be a praying mantis anymore, it was time to be a sloth. She settled herself back, resigned to comfort.

Unfortunately the cockroach did not understand the meaning of a victory fist pump. At first the small sound of a scuttle didn’t bother her, she knew the cockroach shouldn’t be dead yet and it had gone behind her bookshelf. Then, as she listened closer, she found the sound rather higher up than she would expect from the ground.

A glance towards her bookshelf almost made her scream. Even if the cockroach wasn’t affected by the chemicals the sheer weight of how much she had sprayed it should’ve stopped it from climbing. But there on the third shelf was the cockroach peeking out behind her books. She wondered whether to just let it be. If it had been her old maths book she might have let the cockroach die but instead it had decided that its last wish would be to see Narnia before it died.

She grabbed at the books, piling them quickly into her hands so they wouldn’t topple on the cockroach. She didn’t want its guts tainting Aslan.

The cockroach was at least dying. It struggled its way around, flipping onto its back and waving its scraggly feet into the air. If she wasn’t so tired she may had even felt sorry for it. That fast-action spray really wasn’t fast action enough.

Satisfied the rest of her books on the shelf were out of reach of the cockroach she climbed back into bed. From where she lay she would see it, the legs still waving into the air, crying out for something magical to come save it.

“I can spray you more buddy,” she said to it reassuringly.

As she watched the movements lessen, she wondered whether to shed a tear for the poor creature. Her adventure with it had made her rather attached and she was sure the extra long ruler would always remind her of the cockroach.

“I’ll bury you in the bin in the morning,” she promised it.

Satisfied it would get a fitting burial she settled in and turned off the light, ready for a good night’s sleep. Unaware to her deep below the floorboards the cockroach’s friends squirmed, preparing themselves for their appearance at the morning funeral.