Stacey Stormcloud
by Madeleine Armstrong

Stacey Stormont brought the rain. Stacey Stormont brought the gales. It was bad enough when she was a baby. Her mother dutifully cut cucumber sticks, halved cherry tomatoes, prepared a broccoli puree. Stacey turned her nose up at it all.

Her mother pressed the spoon to Stacey’s mouth, compelling her to at least have a taste.

Stacey wailed and the broccoli puree swirled through the kitchen in a mossy cloud. The cherry tomatoes formed tiny tornadoes. Cucumber batons rained down.

“Stop it,” Stacey’s mother ordered, but the storm wouldn’t stop.

Before Stacey turned two, her parents had another daughter, Susan. The new arrival loved to lie in her cot, watching her mobile twirl above. She gurgled instead of crying. She smiled early, and often. Susan Sunshine, her parents called her.

When Susan began to crawl, she wanted to be wherever Stacey was. She wanted to play with whatever Stacey was playing with. The first time Susan took one of Stacey’s toys, Stacey screamed, unleashing a deluge of crayons.

Their mother dragged Susan under the dining table, sheltering from the pink and purple hailstones.

“Share, Stacey!” she yelled.

But Stacey didn’t want to share, not even when her father came home and shouted and smacked. All for her own good, because a child needs to learn how to play well with others.

The next time one of Stacey’s storms started, her parents wrestled her into the garden, ran inside and locked the doors. They watched through the patio doors as Stacey shouted herself hoarse, throwing herself at the ground as rained battered the earth, thunder boomed, and the sky flashed with lightning.

After an hour the storm petered out, leaving Stacey lying wet and exhausted in the mud.

“Serves you right,” her father said, making her strip off before she came back into the house, lest she trail mud everywhere.

“Why can’t you be more like your sister?” her mother asked.

Susan said nothing. She was colouring in, singing to herself.

When Stacey entered her teenage years, things went from bad to worse. The other kids knew that if they riled her up, there’d be a hurricane and lessons would be cancelled – so they riled her up as often as possible.

“Sticks and stones,” her father said.

“Don’t let them get to you,” said her mother.

Stacey tried, but she couldn’t stop herself. When she lost the 100-metre dash, there was a downpour that cut short sports day. A bad grade in English spurred a snowstorm that blocked the school gates. And when Stacey’s crush, Darren Copeland, asked out Susan, a fork of lightning took out the building’s power and the year 10 disco was abandoned.

Stacey Stormcloud, everyone started calling her – which only made the storms more vicious.

“No one will like you if you carry on like this,” her mother said.

“Why can’t you be more like your sister?” her father asked.

Susan said nothing. She was too busy getting ready for her date with Darren.

Stacey learned, then, to keep her storms inside. Every time she felt a tempest build, she’d shut her mouth hard, swallowing the taste of sea salt and scattered leaves. The rainwater welled in her eyes, but she’d blink it away. The wind whistled through her, but she never let it go.

Her parents nodded. Her teachers breathed a sigh of relief. Her classmates kept trying to get a rise out of her, but her mouth stayed closed and the skies stayed dry.

But the gales had to go somewhere. Instead of raining outside, it rained in Stacey’s body. Her organs became wind-blown and waterlogged. One by one, they started packing up. First her appendix and spleen. Stacey felt lethargic, but if anything it just made her easier to manage.

Next it was her kidneys and liver. Stacey started finding it hard to get up in the mornings. Her parents said she should stop malingering.

Stacey’s eyes yellowed. Sores formed on her skin. Her parents finally realised something was wrong. They took her to doctor after doctor, but all the tests came back negative and no one could work out the cause of her illness.

Stacey stopped going to school. Then her heart started to go, and she stopped getting out of bed.

Her parents tiptoed into her room, prodded her.

“Wakey wakey,” her mother said.

“You can’t just lounge around all day,” said her father.

Stacey wanted to tell them, but she couldn’t open her mouth. She couldn’t risk the storm escaping.

A doctor came back with a diagnosis. It was all in Stacey’s mind. They gave her pills.

Still, she couldn’t get up.

“It wasn’t like this in my day,” her father said.

“People just got on with things,” said her mother.

The low pressure pushed through Stacey’s lungs and exploded out of her mouth in a peal of thunder.

Outside, the storm finally broke. Rain lashed the windows, wind howled, the air crackled.

Stacey’s parents jumped, clinging to each other.

With an almighty gust the roof was swept off their house. A torrent poured onto Stacey and her parents, soaking their clothes, making wet ribbons of their hair.

Her parents screamed, but Stacey laughed as the pressure inside her finally eased. She threw back the sodden duvet and jumped out of bed. She began to dance, her bare feet sploshing on her bedroom carpet, flashes of lightning illuminating her howling, grinning face.

THE END

Madeleine is a Pushcart Prize-nominated author who has won the Hammond House short story prize, and been published by BULL, Bunker Squirrel, Flash Fiction Magazine, Fussub Mag, The Hooghly Review, LISP, Literary Garage, Moonflake, Micromance, National Flash Fiction Day, Punk Noir, Trash Cat Lit, Underbelly Press, Waffle Fried and WestWord. She’s a journalist and runner, and lives in south-east London with her husband, son and two cats. Twitter/X @Madeleine_write; Bluesky @madeleinewrite.bsky.social