Emily’s Escape

/ Liz H-H
Sign in French saying no unleashed pets on the beach

© Ayr/Gray

Many thanks to Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr for their photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge (05/17/2024). No more than 250 words in length.

Emily knew one thing for sure: she was sick and tired of lassoing sheep in her Midwest town and pined to live on the beaches in France. She didn’t know French, or anyone in France, or anything about France except that she liked their fries, which for some reason, they called “Pomme Frites.” But the country called to her. She had to go, and had to have a job to stay.                       

As backward as her community seemed, it did have decent internet. She planned her escape by searching the web for images. She could have downloaded an online app to learn French, but she’d failed her other high school language class (nothing seemed to stick). She figured she’d pick it up once she got there. Everybody else in the world spoke English, right?

After midnight, a month before graduation, Emily was getting desperate. No way was she going to summer school to pick up that failed language credit.

Then she saw it: an image of a beat-up sign and a bit of sandy beach, with a dog inside a red circle, a line across its body. She knew that meant “no dogs” even if she couldn’t decipher the rest, except for one word: “LAISSE.”

Her heart leapt. Stealing her parents’ credit card, Emily snuck out of the house, backpack and sheep-wrangling gear slung over her strong shoulders. She might suck at languages, but she absolutely knew how to work a lasso.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2024)

31 thoughts on “Emily’s Escape”

  5. Love it, Liz – so funny and yet at the same time a bit of a dig at our anglophone assumption that the world speaks English.
    And this girl has has just the right attitude for life – great story.

    PS I hope you got your dinner cooked OK! 😉

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • All success to Emily, and she’ll be fine learning that what she’d been told growing up was wrong. Maybe just needs a more natural context for things to stick?
      Dinner was delish, the bevvie delayed for another evening. 😊

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