'A Windfall' by Debbie Young

I didn’t know that it could rain money, but all of a sudden money was falling down from the sky. It wasn’t round money, because that would hurt, but paper money, floating down like snow.

We were waiting for the green man so that we could cross the road. Some buses and lorries were going past and they were noisy and scary so I looked up at the sky.

There was a helicopter in the sky and I watched it because I really, really like helicopters.

Then suddenly something happened up there and because money started coming down from the helicopter.

“Mummy, why is it raining money?” I asked and the green man started going beep, beep, beep.

“Quickly, now, over we go,” said Mummy and she pulled my hand.

“Mummy, don’t! I want to catch some money!” I said and she stopped pulling and looked up at the sky.

“Oh my god, you’re right!” she said and she let go of my hand so that she could catch some.

Then everybody was looking up at the sky and jumping to catch the money. The tall people caught it when it was still up in the air, before the short people and the children, but I got some because I saw it first.

Some people in cars were tooting because we were in the middle of the road when the man was red. But then they got out of their cars and started jumping too, and my mummy was putting lots of paper money in her pockets with both hands.

“This is my lucky day!” said a man with a yellow car.

He was very tall and he had orange hair and orange dots on his face which was smiley.

The money was getting boring now because I had some in each hand and I couldn’t catch any more. I looked for the helicopter and more things were falling out of it now. Then something went BANG and bits landed on cars or made people shout or not shout when they landed on people. There was black smoke in the sky and the helicopter wasn’t there anymore.

Then there was a really loud noise that hurt my ears and I coughed, and people were falling over and crying, but the man with the smiley face was still smiley because he had his hands full of green and brown and pink money, even when something from the sky fell on his head and he lay down where he’d been standing in the road.

“My baby, my baby!” my mummy was shouting and she threw all her money on the road and picked me up and started running, even though the green man was red.

She went running into a shop and sat down on the floor under some clothes. She started to cry, and she hugged me and hugged me until it hurt and I cried too.

After that I changed my mind. Now I don’t like helicopters any more.