Here You Go.
The Big Red Dog
(1st published 2009-10-6)
They say big dogs age faster,
but this one, the biggest I've ever seen, has been around for years.
His friends - the little poodle, the sweet-faced bulldog - died ages ago
and now he wanders around the island by himself, growling at nothing,
his giant feet shaking the ground as he walks.
The
tourists stopped coming a few years back. We told the media that it was
an accident, but you know how it is when people get something into their
minds.
Emily came back from university after only a
week. Everyone in the town thought it was for the best. Now she stays in
her house most of the time. Sometimes at night I think I see her
passing by my window, walking with her giant dog.
In the light of the moon, you can't see that he is red.
In the light of the moon, he looks like a giant black dog wandering the island.
I think I can hear her voice talking to him, but I can never hear the words that she says.
I think they walk to the graveyard, maybe. Someone in town swears she saw Emily standing by the graves of Charley, of
Jetta, of that nice boy Emily dated in high school. Accidents, the town agreed. All accidents.
The tourists stopped coming anyhow. Now the stores are empty and all of the Big Red Dog
souvenirs
are covered in dust. This year's Big Red Dog Festival was attended only
by the townspeople and a few reporters, Emily blinking in the bright
sunlight as she rode on the giant dog's back, the floats from other
years following behind, faded and old.
Emily only walks around the town at night now, her giant dog beside her, shaking our houses as he walks.
I think he stopped outside my house last night. In the light of the moon, he looked black.
Halloween Story 2
Goodnight.for
Kelly
(1st published 2009-10-7)
She always closed the bedroom door behind her gently.
He
knew right from the first night that the gentle door closing was not a
good thing, that someone who did not mean harm would close it in the
regular noisy sort of way. Or not close it all all.
He does not like this big green room, with the mice scratching in the walls at night.
He does not like the nightly bowl of mush that he must eat while she watches him, her large dark eyes unreadable.
"Hush," she says, if he tries to speak. "Hush." And like the door closing gently, the word is a warning.
Why is the moon so bright? he thinks.
Who is this old woman?
Why are we dressed like rabbits?"Hush," she says.
Halloween #3
The Trouble With Papa(1st published 2009-10-9)
It was a beautiful fall day in
Bearville, but Sister wasn't out playing with the other kids. She had something on her mind.
"Mama,"
said Sister, "Why does Papa always wear the same overalls? Why does he
always eat in the shed? How come Doctor Bear has been here so much this
week?"
"Now, now, Sister," said Mama. "There is nothing for you
to worry about. Have an oatmeal chewy caramel cookie and go play with
Brother."
"Oh boy!" said Sister and happily ran to the park. Papa was thumping and yelling in the shed.
Brother and his friends were throwing a baseball around and having a friendly argument.
"I think zombies are a curse from God!" said Freddy, throwing the ball to Too Tall.
"Ha!" said Too Tall. "That's because you're stupid. Everyone knows that someone becomes a zombie when another zombie bites 'em."
"I think -" said Brother and stopped when he saw Sister coming. "Let's talk about something else now, boys!"
They
played ball until suppertime, and then Brother and Sister walked back
home together. Papa was still thumping and yelling in the shed.
"Papa sure is busy right now!" said Sister.
Brother looked sad. "Hey Sister!" he said. "Look at that neat cloud!"
That's funny, thought Sister. It was almost like Brother was changing the subject.
Doctor Bear was just getting into her car as the cubs got to their house.
"Is everything all right, Doctor Bear?" asked Brother.
"Everything is much the same, Brother," said Doctor Bear. "Remember what I said about helping Mama look after Sister."
"I don't need Brother to look after me!" said Sister. "I am almost eight years old. I can look after myself."
"Of course," said Doctor Bear, but she
seemed distracted. "Goodbye, cubs. I'll be back tomorrow morning."
Mama
called them in for supper. "Cubs," she said while they were sitting at
the table. "Tomorrow, Papa and I are going away on a long... vacation.
You are going to go stay with Gram and Gramps! Won't that be fun?"
Sister
thought it did sound like fun, but she wondered where Mama and Papa
where going. She wondered what Papa was making in the shed that was
keeping him in there all the time. She wondered why he was thumping and
yelling so much.
All of a sudden, Sister had a great big idea.
After everyone was in bed, she would sneak out of the house and go see
what Papa was making in the shed! It would be such a good surprise!
Halloween 4#
(1st published 2009-10-13)
"Class, today we're going to learn about the food chain," said Mr. Owl.
Franklin and his friends took out their science books.
"Some
animals are herbivores," said Mr. Owl. "They eat plants. Some animals
are omnivores. They eat plants and other animals. And some animals are
carnivores."
"I know!" said Snail, waving his appendage around. "Carnivores just eat other animals!"
"That's right, Snail," said Mr. Owl. "Some common carnivores are wolves, coyotes and foxes."
The
recess bell rang. "Don't forget, kids!" called Mr. Owl. "We are having a
math quiz after recess!" The kids dashed into the yard.
All except for Fox, who was sitting thoughtfully at his desk.
"Hey,"
said Fox out loud. "I'm a fox." And he slowly looked out at the yard
full of rabbits and turtles and beavers. "I'm a fox," he said again. And
with that, he walked out into the school yard.
Halloween 5#
(1st published 2009-10-16)
Once there had been a mother.
He remembered her, a bit - her
breath that smelled like communion grape juice and cigarettes, her harsh
laugh and her sudden rages, the way he was frightened and small and
hiding underneath his bed, in his tent, under the slide at the
playground, hiding from her giant hitting hands and her loud voice.
Ruby made her go away.
He
didn't remember much of that night - nothing much more than Ruby giving
him warm funny tasting milk at bedtime and then his sleepy awareness of
raised yelling female voices and a sudden loud noise and then silence.
Then he woke up the next morning to Ruby bright and extra cheerful and
the kitchen extra clean and a new vegetable garden in the backyard.
He
likes working in the garden. He likes putting his hands in the dirt,
likes watering the fat jolly vegetables. Ruby smiles and brings him
lemonade and they have picnics for lunch and sometimes he sits on the
swing even though the swing is getting smaller and smaller all the time.
He
keeps forgetting to ask Ruby about the shrinking swing. He forgets
sometimes that Grandma went away a long time ago and finds himself
standing in front of her house where strangers live now. He forgets that
Mom went away, too, and hides under the piano bench, hides under the
front steps, until Ruby lures him out with gummy worms and trips to the
ice cream store.
"
Ruby," says their neighbour Mrs. Huffington over the fence. "
You're doing a wonderful job looking after him, but your whole life is passing you by."
He
remembers that sometimes, the way he remembers the surprising bits of
red in the kitchen, the loud sound, his mother's sharp breath and giant
hurting hands. But then it's time for a picnic and the sun is bright and
it's time to work in the garden again, their special garden where the
vegetables come up so big and ripe.
Halloween #6
(1st published 2009-10-17)
"
Rooby roo!" brayed the arthritic Great Dane, painfully hobbling into the brightly painted van.
"Good
job!" said the bespectacled young woman, her brown page boy hanging in
her face as she reached over to give the dog a biscuit. She offered one
as well to the unkempt young man sitting beside the dog, but he shook
his head and turned away to look out the window.
"We've got a really tricky mystery today,
Scoob,"
said the blond young man, driving the van. "There's been a..." His
voice broke. The red-haired young woman in the seat beside him sobbed
loudly and blew her nose into a designer
handkerchief.
"There's been some really mysterious
hauntings at your vet's office!" said the young woman with a forced cheerfulness in her voice.
"
Ruh-oh!" said the dog. "
Rosts!"
"Yes!" said the young woman. "Ghosts."
The
blond young man pulled the van into a parking space at the vet's
office, but no one hurried to get out. The unkempt young man beside the
dog still did not say anything, his shoulders shaking.
"Ghosts," the young woman said again and sighed, unbuckling her
seatbelt and reaching across to the elderly Great Dane, who was staring out the window with a mixture of trepidation and
excitement. The red haired girl blew her nose again.
Halloween #7
(1st published 2009-10-19)
She is the strongest girl in the world.
At night, her names float in my head like wild songs: Comestibles.
Delicatessa.
Windowshade.
Mackrelmint.
That house is empty, my mother says. Little girls are not allowed to live by themselves like that. Stop talking foolishness.
Her red hair stands out like fire. Her monkey chatters on her back.
You are too old to have imaginary friends, my mother says.
She
rolls out cookies on the kitchen floor, has a treasure chest full of
gold. Her father is a pirate king. She can lift her horse over her head,
outrun a thousand policemen.
I'm afraid we are going to have to
take you to the doctor, my mother says. The pastor visits and they have a
hushed discussion behind a closed
livingroom door.
She scratches at the kitchen window and grins in, her eyes sparkling with green.
I have two pistols, she says. One of them is for you.
Halloween #8
(1st published 2009-10-20)
The Hundred Acre Woods Is Heaven(with deep and slightly heartfelt apologies to Ray Bradbury)
Christopher
Robin - Chris to his friends - got to his feet and felt the wincing
sore spot on his head. He was standing in a wooded area, and felt almost
at once a startling rush of
deja-
vu. Where was he? Why did this place feel so familiar? Where had his friends gone?
"Peregrine!
Jemima!" he called. But the sound merely echoed around him, and only a
flying bird answered. "Phillipa?" he called again. There were no
answers.
I must have fallen farther than I thought, he said to
himself, regretting listening to Jemima's teasing requests to explore
the old forest on her father's estate, regretted his fumbling bravado
that had resulted in his falling down that seemingly endless hole and
ending up... here. Wherever
here was.
He
tentatively
started walking forward. "There will be a path on the other side of
this tree," he thought and indeed, there was one. He followed the path
and found himself blinking in the startlingly bright sunlight of an open
clearing.
"Christopher Robin!" a voice called. A handful of
small animals were running towards him. They stood looking at him
expectantly. He stood confused for a moment and then had a horrified
rush of remembrance.
Sh*t, he thought.
They're my bloody stuffed animals.
For
years - for 15 years , he had avoided thinking about them as much as
possible, feeling an overwhelming shame when he recalled his childhood
obsession with them, the elaborate fantasy games that had overwhelmed so
much of his terrifyingly lonely early childhood. And yet here they were
again and his head was throbbing with pain and he couldn't remember how
to get back.
"Christopher Robin!" said the small yellow bear again. "You came back!"
What was his name? Chris thought desperately and then remembered - Pooh. The freaking
bear's name was Pooh. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I came back. You're all... um, looking good. How have you all been?"
"
Whoo hoo!" said the bright orange tiger. "We've been waiting for you, buddy boy! We've kept everything just the same!"
"Oh,
that's great," said Chris, looking around for a path that led out of
the forest. "Say. Any of you guys know the way out of here?" There was,
he remembered, a path out of the forest, but for the life of him he
could not remember quite where it was.
If I could get in, he thought,
I could get out,
and he thought of Phillipa and her surely growing anxiety as he did not
return. He looked back at the stuffed animals gathered around him and
was startled to see their hurt faces.
"You don't want to be here, Christopher Robin?" asked the yellow bear. "You aren't happy to see us?"
"Oh no, no!" said Christopher
hurriedly.
"I'm delighted. Yes. So very pleased." The animals looked slightly
mollified, and the yellow bear stepped forward, his paw raised.
"Let me show you around, Christopher!" he said. "We have so much to talk about!" Christopher nodded and let himself be led off.
I can watch for the path out,
he thought, with a feeling of rising panic. The bear chattered on,
seemingly without restraint, although Christopher caught him - Pooh,
what a name, he thought - watching him out of the corners of his eyes.
If a stuffed animals eyes could have corners.
"Let's play Pooh Sticks!" said the bear, leading him to a small bridge.
"Pooh
what?"
said Chris, repulsed. The bear mutely picked up a stick and threw it
over the bridge and looked pointedly back at him. "Oh. Um, okay," said
Chris, and threw a stick over half-
heartedly.
"Not
in the mood for Pooh Sticks?" said the small bear. "All right, follow
me! We have a giant party planned for your homecoming!" He took off down
the path at a surprisingly quick rate, and led Chris up a small hill
and down around a corner - how big was this forest? where was he? - and
sitting at a long table under a spreading tree were nearly a dozen
stuffed animals - the tiger from earlier, a
kangaroo with a joey in her pocket, an owl, a small pink pig wearing a sweater, and others hopping around in their small chairs.
"Sit!" said one. Chris
awkwardly
sat in the small child's chair. "Wear your hat!" commanded another.
Chris snapped the elastic string of the party hat under his chin. "Eat!"
"Pour the tea!" "Speech! SPEECH!" Their voices were a cacophony.
"
THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!" screamed Chris, his panic nearly unbearable. The animals all looked at him silently, rising to their feet.
"What was that, Christopher Robin?" said the yellow bear, his voice full of menace.
How could I have ever thought they were small? thought the young man as the animals crowded around him, blocking out the sun, and his last, desperate thought:
Where DID the path out GO?
Note from me - I'm skipping the Arthur one, because I've always felt like it was the least artistically successful one in the whole series. Poor Arthur.
Halloween 10
That Time Of Day Between The Afternoon And Full-Out Evening.
(1st published 2009-10-26)
"Darling,"
he said, the sunlight causing him to sparkle like a big shiny pair of
gold lame leggings from Ardenes. He was as handsome as a Calvin Klein
underpant billboard but totally hot and also in full colour and ALSO a
vampire.
As always, she was thrilled to see him. And
she was also wearing a white eyelet sundress, black high-tops, some
colourful rubber bracelets, knee-length argyle socks, fingerless
motorcycle gloves and a denim jacket that she'd carefully bedazzled to
say "My Boyfriend Is A Hot Vampire." All that bedazzling had made her
fingers bleed, but that was cool - he liked blood.
"
Yeah," said some snarky inner voice, "
Way more than he likes making out."
"
SHUT UP!" she had told her inner voice. "
Waiting is sexy. And cool.
Those
people who say that attractive male vampires are a metaphor for
sexually unavailable gay men don't know what they're talking about!"
He
was walking towards her now, striding like some He-God, coming to claim
her, a plain mortal. His black cape flapped in the wind. His purple
skin was luminous in the sunlight. His unibrow was like some holy
caterpillar of manliness.
"
One!" he cried. "
ONE sexy girlfriend! MWAH HA HA!"
Thunder crackled. They embraced. Chastely.
Halloween #11
Are You There, God? It's Me, Maggot.
(1st published 2009-10-27)
One morning, after a night of anxious dreams, Sheila Tubman awoke to find herself
transformed
into a monstrous bug. She lay on her squishy bug back and wiggled her
tail around - her arms and legs having vanished painlessly during her
sleep.
"What has happened to me?" she wondered. She looked around
her room that she shared with her sister Libby. Libby was squeezing
pimples while frowning at herself in the bedroom mirror.
"Libby! A little help here!" Sheila called out.
Libby grimaced at her. "You are SO immature!" she said and stomped out of the room.
Sheila
sighed and attempted to roll off of her bed. Finally, she landed with a
heavy thump on the carpet and lay panting on the floor for a few
minutes.
"Sheila!" her mother's voice called. "It's ten past seven! Hurry up and come out for breakfast!"
"Coming,
mom!" yelled Sheila. She was startled by her voice, which was her
regular voice, interspersed with a series of loud crackling sounds.
Well, that's weird, she thought. She discovered that she could move
around quite quickly by squirming, so she squirmed down the apartment
hallway and into the kitchen.
"Oh, that reminds me," Sheila's mother said. "You need to clean that room of yours up TONIGHT."
Sheila
attempted to heave herself up onto her chair. "Um, mom?" she said. "Can
I eat my breakfast down here this morning?" Her mother sighed and
placed her cereal bowl on the floor.
"Sheila," said Libby. "Stop making that disgusting crackling sound. FATHER! Make her stop!"
Sheila's dad looked down at her.
"Sheila," he said, sternly. "Stop showing off."
Sheila was hurt. And then she was distracted by the full garbage can in the corner.
"Hey," she thought. "Yummy!"
Halloween, Finally
It Was A Dark and Scary Afternoon
(1st published 2009-10-31)
My dog thinks he is a
WWI flying ace, I told my mother. She sighed and stared out the kitchen
window and told me to go play outside.
"But it's dark out today," I said. "And there's that weird buzzing noise."
"Just go outside, please," she said and so I go.
I
hate playing outside. The other kids avoid me, run from me laughing and
shouting insults. I stand alone, the shadow of my head making a perfect
circle on the ground.
"I'm having a party," catcalls Violet. "We
are having snacks and pop and fun party games and you are not invited."
All of the other girls - even my sister, my own golden haired sister -
titter behind her, their eyes narrowed with malice. The dark skies
crackled and the sun was hidden.
"Last one to the treehouse has to kiss
him!"
calls one of the girls and they all turn and run, shrieking, their feet
throwing up gravel. My dog and a small yellow bird watch me silently as
I walk by and as I pass I swear they laughed.
There is a boy on our street I sometimes spend time with.
He
used to be the Sunday School champion, able to memorize each week's
verse, coming home each week with gold stars and roles in the church
play. But lately he's been spending all his time alone, muttering to
himself and dragging his filthy blanket behind him.
"See that star?" he says, pointing upwards. There, in the mid-afternoon sky, is a falling star.
"The name of that star is Wormwood," he says.
A bird flies overhead. "Woe, woe," it cries.
The little girls cackle and laugh.
"And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year
were
released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops
was two hundred million. I heard their number," he says.
Everything
was quiet. Then a loud roaring sound filled the air and a great
darkness began to descend. The little girls stopped throwing rocks at a
cat and looked up, their eyes big. My dog moved his flying goggles off
his eyes and clutched the yellow bird to him.
"During those days
men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but
death will elude them," cried out the boy.
I saw the flying star
come crashing down in the nearby woods. Something huge stood up,
throwing a giant shadow that blocked out the sun. The other boy covered
his head with his blanket, shaking.
Fairly Odd
(1st published 2012-10-12)
Daphne
was probably the least popular kid in the school. It wasn't just that
she was weird looking - although she was, with big jug ears and bug eyes
and a too-small nose and giant teeth - but she also dressed like a
mutant and never brushed her teeth and laughed too loud and smelled
pretty bad and picked her nose in the middle of class and was pretty
dumb. The kids didn't like her and the teachers rolled their eyes at her
and tried not to touch her very much. Some kid stole her bike and some
kid would follow her home and yell names at her and and some kid would
steal her pencils off her desk and leave her looking around, wondering
where her pencils had got to.
"That poor kid doesn't
have a chance," my mom said to my dad as they watched Daphne bike - on
her brother's too-big bike, now hers was gone - up and down the street
all by herself. Her mom was gone - taken off with some old guy because
she'd decided that she was "an artist" now - and her dad drank and my
mom called Daphne "one of life's victims" to my dad when she didn't
think I was listening. But I am always listening.
Keep
Away Daphne, all the kids called her. She ate by herself and ran around
the schoolyard by herself and even the teachers didn't like her and that
was the way it had always been. Then I got chicken pox and was home
scratching for two weeks.
My mom brought me in
mid-morning, after listening to me whine that I was just fine, moooom,
and we stopped at the main office while she explained that my scabs were
healed over and to call her if I couldn't stick it out and then she
walked me to my room - mom! - and I noticed, just out of the corner of
my eye, that the big Student Of The Week spot on the bulletin board was
Daphne. That never happens, I thought.
And then I walked into my classroom and everything was different.
All
of the girls were sitting in a big cluster around Daphne, who was
sitting right in the primo middle of the room spot, and Daphne had a big
smile on her face... and her face looked
changed,
somehow. Prettier and cleaner, definitely, but after I looked at her
for a second, I could still see the old Daphne underneath, like the
prettiness and the cleanness was just a mask. She looked at me and
smiled but the Daphne underneath - the
real Daphne - did not.
Sit with me at lunch, Daphne! said Emma, the most popular girl in class.
Want to play Four Square with us? the boys in the corner called to her.
Oh, Daphne! said the teacher.
Your test was perfect! And she knelt down and gave smelly old Daphne a hug, just like she never did before.
Rutger,
the big kid who was always really mean to Daphne, was just gone. His
running shoes were still underneath his desk and his books were still
open on it.
Where'd Rutger go? I asked Melinda, my best friend, and she wrinkled her face up and said
Who? and went back to smiling at Daphne.
There was a pink pencil and a green pencil on her desk.
I
walked home after school - by myself, because my friends were walking
home in a huge mob around Daphne - and went out onto the patio to think.
My house is a few houses away from Daphne's and I can see into her
yard, if I wanted to - and her mom came walking out of their patio door
and shook out a rug. Her
mom, the one who had left her whole family to paint naked ladies and live far away.
Daphne walked into her backyard.
Hi baby! said her mom.
How is my favorite girl? I made you cookies!
There
was a pink squirrel and a green squirrel with Daphne. One of them - the
pink one- pulled on Daphne's pant leg and pointed at me and Daphne
stopped hugging her mom and looked across the yards right at me and I
went into my house pretty quickly.
I wasn't that bad to her, I think.
Sure, her bike is my shed.
Sure, I used to follow her home and say some mean things. But a lot of kids did that.
Sure, I would take her pencils.
But I wasn't as mean as Rutger. A lot of kids were as mean as me, and they're still here.
Maybe
I'll wake up in the morning and I'll forget all this and Daphne will be
the prettiest girl in the world and Queen of the Playground and who
knows what else. Maybe. I hope.
Maybe I will just be gone.
I'm writing this down just in case.
And wishing - oh, wishing - that I had grabbed that pink pencil and that green pencil off her desk as I walked by this morning.
