My new Elmo shoes sparkled brightly as I stumbled to keep with up with my mother. I never understood how adults could walk so fast, it always felt like I was always racing to try and keep up but for every step I took, they took two. My hand clung around three of my mothers fingers, and to the right of me my brother did the same. Hardly anyone could tell us apart if not for the very small difference of our hair colour; his was what my mother's friends called "dirty blonde" and mine was referred to as "sunshine blonde". I knew this was grown-up talk for his hair was darker than mine, but the way they talked about it, it's seemed forbidden to phrase it any other way. It had to be "dirty blonde" or "sunshine blonde". As we reached the school gates both my brothers hand and mine slipped from our mothers hand, to our sides. We each got a kiss on both cheeks before our mother drove away. I quickly ran towards my favourite tree as soon as she appeared out of sight and started grasping for branches until the masses of copper leaves camouflaged me. My brother would usually chase me, and create a race out of who would stagger their way to the top first. Today I saw him huddled in a group of three, swinging his arms as he talked to a few of the classmates I didn't recognise. They laughed and picked up three branches from the ground, each swinging them at each other with no care and breaking one of the frail branches within seconds. The wind swirled around me ferociously and leaves stuck all down my navy blue uniform. My hands quickly went to brush the auburn pads off my shorts and face, as a result I was left vulnerable to a sequalling gust of wind. In a split second I found myself off-balance and falling; flailing limbs around frantically un...
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...st a classroom wall, with the familiar blank stare that brought unwelcome chills up my spine. I didn't ask him what happened to his pirate crew, because I didn't really want to know. I don't think he really wanted to talk about it anyway. He stood up as he saw me, not raising his head, almost embarrassed to be found alone. "Do you wanna play?" I asked quietly, tilting my head to try and see his expression. His face light up and eyes shined with the invitation. I gestured him to follow me, but changed my mind before he even took one step away from the wall. "There is just one thing," I chimed and spun around on my red Elmo heel to face him, and give a cheeky smirk, "I hear lemon's make your hair lighter." As I finished the sentence I splashed the last of my juice box on his dirty blonde hair and ran away chuckling, with my brother chasing me up my new favourite tree.
cold, harsh, wintry days, when my brothers and sister and I trudged home from school burdened down by the silence and frigidity of our long trek from the main road, down the hill to our shabby-looking house. More rundown than any of our classmates’ houses. In winter my mother’s riotous flowers would be absent, and the shack stood revealed for what it was. A gray, decaying...
When I was 5 years old I was an adventurous, outgoing little girl. Somehow this all changed when I reached my sixth year of age. It was as if my personality drifted far away from me, across the oceans, to somewhere I didn’t know. It all started on the first day of 1st grade. My teachers were not the type of people that I was used to having in my life. It was like a huge barrier had been put between the world I knew, and the world I was thrust into. As for my teachers, they shut me out. They put a huge clear wall between myself and them, and I ran smack into it, not knowing what was coming my way. As the years went by, the wall began to crumble. Slowly crumble, as if it would never fall. The unexpected came out of nothing, but let me tell you,
“ Yeah, it was good,” my brother smiled proudly. The responsibility lecture washed over me and before I knew it, I was freaking out.
I had on my bright sapphire blue uniform. I drew blue war paint on my face and sprayed my hair blue. I was excited to say the least. This was a huge day for me. I had worked so hard to be there and I could not wait to get the game started. As we arrived, my dad mentioned that my friend’s mom was going to drive me home from the game because he had to go to a meeting. I gave my dad a perplexed look and said, “wait…you’re not staying for the game”? I was heartbroken. My dad had become my good luck charm. He came to every game and stood beside the flock of soccer moms and cheered me on, even when I was on the bench. He said he did everything he could to get out of the meeting, but that meant nothing to me. As childish as it sounds for a sixth grader, I needed my
Arriving in the small parking lot, I instantly hopped off from my mom’s old brown car. Getting hit with a breeze of fresh air outside, smelling the wet grass, hearing the bees buzz near the blue trash cans, causes my heart to start beating fast like popcorn being microwaved. Moving my head as if I was an owl, searching for my mom, “mom can I go play” repeatedly like a broken record, she responds, “yes, go ahead!” Jumping with glee, sprinting like a cheetah on the black pavement leading to my favorite playground I called “The Yellow one.” Then, as I left my head up my eyes began to open wide.
Ellen and I were growing up and along with getting older, came increased responsibility and a bit of independence. Now, our mother allowed us to pick up a few groceries unchaperoned, happy to do so, we carried our willow shopping basket, money in one hand and a grocery list in the other, with a note to give to the store clerk who would gather the required items for us. We felt so grown up as we moseyed to the Abtsweg together, not in a group as we did when we walked to school with friends, but just the two of us; my sister and I, wearing matching brown coats and perfectly starched bows in our hair. When we returned home and proudly handed Mom the basket filled with all the correct items, she praised us endlessly and when Ted’s parents phoned,
I only had a few friends at school, but Chief stood above everyone as the best of my friends. While I was at school everyday, I would daydream about being home with Chief and all the fun we would have. There were hardly any people at the school that I would talk to. It was a prison to me, but my sanctuary was waiting on me at home. Everyday when I arrived home from school, Chief awaited me with a wagging tail and a smile on his face. I would smile back, and if I had a tail it would have been wagging along with his. We would play for hours with anything we could find. It could’ve been an old ball or a pair of shoes; it didn’t matter to Chief. Once it turned dark and it was time for me to go to bed, my mother would yell, “Come in and go to sleep. You have school tomorrow.” Just the thought of school changed my mood entirely. I would go from a overjoyed mood, to one of sorrow. I’d give Chief a big hug and go to my bed. I would lay there praying that the two of us would be able to spend our whole lives together. As I drifted away, I would think of what Chief and I were to do the next
Ow. My head hurts. It has been lying against this wall for at least an hour now. I scratched the back of my head to move around my dark, curly hair. It was beginning to feel plastered against my scalp. It was a bit tangled from not brushing it for a day and my fingers did not run through it with ease; nevertheless, it felt good to keep the blood flowing. I was lying on a thin, light blue mat on the floor. My head was propped up against the cold wall as if it were a concrete pillow. My chin dug into my chest and I could feel the soft, warm material from my sleeveless sweater cushioning my jaw. I looked down. I could see the ends of my hair cascading over my shoulders. The red highlights matched quite nicely with my maroon sweater. My arms were folded over my belly and they appeared more pale than usual. My knees were bent, shooting upward like two cliffs. My baggy blue jeans covered the backs of my fake brown leather shoes. ("Christy, let me borrow your pants, the baggy ones with the big pockets. I can hide more stuff in those.")
I looked around, the room had exposed pipes on the ceiling and the entire room smelled faintly of Clorox wipes. Around me girls and boys talked and caught up. The majority of them had apparently gone to Kindergarten together. While I was the new kid, the outsider. Seats were scarce. I looked for a familiar face, for some reason. I settled next to a girl with fiery red-orange hair. “Hi, I’m Halley.” She introduced herself. Her smile was the fake kind, seen in school pictures everywhere. I smiled and responded, “Hi, I’m Lorna. I just moved here from Texas.” Her smile became increasingly forced, “Um, cool.” She turned her body away from me. Ok, I though, sorry I offended you, I guess. In my head, I was sneering and thinking rude thoughts to no end. In class, however, I upheld my morals. I was silent for the rest of the
Growing up, I always felt out of place. When everyone else was running around in the hot, sun, thinking of nothing, but the logistics of the game they were playing. I would be sat on the curb, wondering what it was that made them so much different from me. To me, it was if they all knew something that I didn’t know, like they were all apart of some inside joke that I just didn’t get. I would sit, each day when my mind wasn’t being filled with the incessant chatter of my teachers mindlessly sharing what they were told to, in the hot, humid air of the late spring and wonder what I was doing wrong. See, my discontent
My friends Jeff and Randy lived next door to me. Jeff was a tall dark haired boy who was a year older than I. Randy was similar in build as his brother, who was the same age as I was, and he had blonde hair that was very long. Jeff was different from his brother Randy. Jeff was a daredevil. He liked to take chances that were sometimes dangerous. Randy was more laid back, and easy going. Summertime in Indiana was the paramount of school vacation. I lived on an old country road, where fields of corn touched the blue sky. I loved watching the wheat fields on windy days, as the wheat would sway back and forth.
The fleeting changes that often accompany seasonal transition are especially exasperated in a child’s mind, most notably when the cool crisp winds of fall signal the summer’s end approaching. The lazy routine I had adopted over several months spent frolicking in the cool blue chlorine soaked waters of my family’s bungalow colony pool gave way to changes far beyond the weather and textbooks. As the surrounding foliage changed in anticipation of colder months, so did my family. My mother’s stomach grew larger as she approached the final days of her pregnancy and in the closing hours of my eight’ summer my mother gently awoke me from the uncomfortable sleep of a long car ride to inform of a wonderful surprise. No longer would we be returning to the four-story walk up I inhabited for the majority of my young life. Instead of the pavement surrounding my former building, the final turn of our seemingly endless journey revealed the sprawling grass expanse of a baseball field directly across from an unfamiliar driveway sloping in front of the red brick walls that eventually came to be know as home.
The echoing didgeridoo invaded the awkward silence, and the chairs scraped the wooden floors, marking the conclusion of the period. I attempted to bolt through the large crowd, squeezing through the narrow doorway of the class. I was shoved into a row of desks, “Step back loser or I will get Bulan to give you another reminder.” I waited, head down, looking at my hideous pale legs, wishing they were dark. When the laughter was fading down the hall, I ...
...g that smile. Is he going to leave now? I stop kicking the floor and sit up, watching him. But instead of walking over to the door, he stands up and walks towards the piano. I stand up and follow him anxiously, almost certain he knew my secret.