The Barn Roof

Text 1: Silver Leaf, by Isobel Kerrigan

An original short story extract.

Mattie was not supposed to be at the window. Her mother had said so twice, and then a third time, sharply, before going out into the yard with the torch. But the wind had a voice tonight that Mattie had never heard, a long howl that rose and fell and rose again, and she could not stay in bed with that voice outside.

Through the rain-blurred glass she could see the old barn at the bottom of the yard, its roof a pale grey shape under the clouds. It shuddered. She saw it shudder, the way a horse shivers its skin to shake off a fly. A sheet of tin at the corner lifted, flapped, banged down; lifted again, higher. Then, with a shriek of nails, the whole edge of the roof peeled back like the lid of a sardine tin.

It went up into the dark. For a moment it seemed to hang there, turning, slow and almost graceful, a great silver leaf. Then the wind flung it across the field and it was gone. Mattie pressed both hands against the glass. Her breath fogged it, cleared, fogged. Down in the yard, the small light of her mother’s torch had stopped moving.

How does Isobel Kerrigan use language and structure to show the power of the storm through Mattie’s eyes?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.