Winner!

Just validated my word count for Camp NaNoWriMo. Over 31k words edited and revised in April for my upcoming Young Adult novel, In the Middle.  
Can't wait to share it with you guys!  It's a cool, creepy story... but that's all I'm going to say right now. I don't want to give away too much.  :-)

The Court

This was the other half of the writing challenge for my group.  I'm not on this team, but I decided to give it a half-hearted shot.  For this prompt, we were to write describing setting only.

The Court  

This is a pretty picture that belongs to someone. I just don't know who.

The voice of the breeze carries above all others, hushing the chatter of birds and humming of the insects.  They rush among the crowd and tap each one on the shoulder announcing the presence of the king. Throngs of green bow in reverence to the victorious fingers of the mountains.  The rocks thrust themselves into the blue sky, challenging the threatening clouds.  

The only ones brave enough to stand against the hills are the Juniper trees.  Few they be, they stand straight as warriors.  Wielding their prickles and thorns in gnarled fists, their scarred bodies defy the wind.  They grit their teeth and squint against the rain.  

***

How would you describe this picture?

Lines

In one of my writing groups, we were given a few pictures to choose from and the task to write a story either based on the character or setting to see which stories were more appealing to the readers.  We were asked to keep the story under 1000 words, and told that it didn't need to be a complete story, a scene was okay.

With that being said, here's the picture I selected followed by my vision of this man.

Photo credits to whoever took this picture. You know who you are.  

Lines – Character/Plot

S.J. Henderson

Lines. Ain’t that the story of my life? Always been standing in one line or the other, my whole blasted life.

Today I’m stuck in the soup line behind the old lady with rollers sticking out of her hair like pussywillows and tufts of cat hair clinging to her pink housecoat. Always bumped into by the guy waving his hands like he’s conducting at Carnegie Hall while talking three octaves too loudly about politician so-and-so to his buddy. Who cares about the crooks in office? I sure don’t. All those suits ever done is send innocent people to their death while they’re busy signing ridiculous bills and screwing some floozy on the side.

It was a handful of them crooks who gave me the lines above my right eye--my sightin’ eye. The one that saw every last second. I’d poke the cursed thing out if I thought I had the balls to do it. But I lost those as soon as I let that kid die.

He couldn’t have been more than 11 or 12, the age of my little cousin, Ben. They’d sent a kid into the stinking paddy with a rifle bigger than he was. And now the kid was a murderer. His big black eyes grew wide as he watched my buddy crumple, dead before he even hit the mud. Ray--that was my buddy’s name. Had a girl he planned to marry if we ever made it back home, and four younger brothers and sisters to help care for after his Dad passed.

The Vietnamese boy, the enemy, turned his rifle from Ray to me. The spot where my heart should have been. Truth be told, my heart stopped beating a long time ago, when I took my first step on this blood-soaked ground.

“Do it,” I said, opening my arms to expose my chest. “I don’t want to live another day in this hellhole.”

The boy blinked. His finger shook on the trigger. I may as well have been recitin’ the ever-loving Constitution, for all the English he knew.

I pointed at my heart, my fingers in an L-shape. A gun. “Bang!”

The tiniest bump at his throat bobbed as he gulped. He doesn’t want to kill me or he’d have done it already. I wish he’d make up his mind already, or at least run off before something worse happened. But he didn’t.

Another soldier, a guy named Lou, came around the corner and his boots slid in the muck. When he spied poor Ray on the ground, and me and the boy in our stand-off, his rifle locked on the boy with a click.

“Wait!” I don’t know who I was talking to, the kid or Lou. All I know was that I didn’t want to see another river of blood or another broken body.

Lou grunted then fired a round. The boy was too slow. His round eyes focused on mine as he fell to his knees, and then facedown into the muck. I didn’t cry for him, or for dead Ray who wouldn’t get to marry his sweetheart or provide for his family.

Instead, I stand in lines. Lines for food. Lines for shelter. Lines for everything because I’m not free to be me.

Well-dressed women with their manicured nails and little yappy dogs shrink to the other side of sidewalk when I scuffle by. Men in business suits with cell phones attached to their ears tell me to get a job as they plink pennies at my feet. Problem is, no one wants to hire a ghost of a man who jumps every time a hammer strikes a nail or hits the dirt when someone drops a load of wood.

The lines will take me, though. I blend in here among the outcasts, the forgotten, the spooks.

Daniel the Draw-er Is Alive... I mean, LIVE!

This has been the longest week and a half of my life, but I'm happy to say that my children's novella, Daniel the Draw-er, is now available for purchase as a digital book on Amazon.  Within the next day or so, readers who prefer physical books to eBooks will be able to purchase "Daniel" in paperback form.  

Daniel the Draw-er

About the Book

"This pencil is no ordinary pencil,” says the cat sitting on the end of nine-year-old Daniel’s bed. "It's magic."

Everything Daniel draws with his enchanted pencil comes to life, from a talking cat named Whiskers to a group of pizza-loving aliens from the planet Beezo.  Daniel’s mom said she wanted him to make new friends. This probably isn’t what she meant.

Join Daniel and his fantastic creatures on this fun-for-the-whole-family adventure as he discovers that friendship is the greatest magic of all . . . and that it can be found in the most unusual of places. 

Ways You Can Help

~ Buy the book. If you have Amazon Prime, you can borrow it for free from the Lending Library. I've even enabled lending so you can let a friend borrow it for a couple of weeks at no charge. 
~ Share the link to my book with your friends and loved ones. If you have a blog or some kind of following that would be receptive, share with your followers. 
~ Leave a review on Amazon. Please be honest, and only leave a review if you or your child have read the book. My goal is to help future readers find a book they'll enjoy.


~ If you're on Goodreads, add Daniel the Draw-er to one of your shelves or post a review!
~ If you're on Twitter, follow me - @SunnyJHenderson 
~ If you're on Facebook, "like" my Author Page 

I'll write more about my experience creating and publishing "Daniel the Draw-er" in another blog post. For now, I wanted to say thank you for believing in this little bit of magic... and thank you for passing it on.  

Third Time's a Charm

On July 22, 2011 I met Claire Darling for the very first time.  At the time, Claire was an 18-year-old high school student by morning, horse trainer by every spare hour after that.  She quickly became a friend of mine because she's sarcastic and self-deprecating, a good soul.  Two-and-a-half years and three books later, she and I are pretty tight.  I've fought for her to fall in love and I cried with her (over and over) when her heart was shattered into pieces.  She's struggled and she's endured.  She's no Super Woman, but that's why she's real.  Well, real is a relative term, but you know what I mean.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to adore good guys Liam and Graham.  I've loved to hate all those shady characters--Rayna, Rowan, and Maureen.  Maybe you've found the strings of your emotions tugged by one or more of them, too.  If that's true for you, then I thank you for investing yourself in my humble words.

There's so much I want to say, but so much I can't because I don't want to give anything away.  That, and I'm so overwhelmed by the day that I don't know where to begin and where to end.  

Maybe Liam says it best in the last paragraph I wrote today that brought the third and final novel to a close:  

"With any luck, tomorrow his big heart will eclipse anything he lacks. At least, this is what I pray as I stare out at the stars strung in the deep blue. I want him to find his own place to belong, because I’ve found that place for myself, a home, and I’m homesick."


Like Liam, I've found a home in Hope Creek and I'm already homesick. 

Thanks, guys, for everything you've given me.  You'll never know what you've done for me.

A Doll For Daphne

I press my lips together and follow him as he leads the way toward the nuns in the back.  He’s so focused he doesn’t realize a soft doll slips from one of the bags under his arm and falls to the ground.

“Liam!”  I call out.  “You--”

A girl with brown ringlets framing her round cheeks runs toward the doll before I catch Liam’s attention.  She looks both ways to be sure no one sees her, then snatches it up and into her arms.  The doll fits perfectly in the crook of her arm and a smile brightens her face.  

“Hey!  Little girl!”  I say.

She freezes and clutches the doll tightly to her body.  Her fearful blue eyes dart to me and back to the doll as I step toward her.     

“Hey!”  I repeat, coming closer.  From a few yards away I can see the tremble in her shoulders.  The little girl drops the doll and runs from me.  

I stoop down and pick the doll up from where she’s landed in a heap.  There’s a smudge of dirt on its plastic cheek and I wipe it away with my thumb.  Liam’s over talking with the nuns, and he glances my way.

“That girl--who is she?”  I ask when I reach them.  I don’t wait for introductions.  One of the nuns, the younger one with round spectacles and a pointy chin, looks like she really wants to give me a quick lesson in manners.

“I’m sorry, dear?”  The older nun says, wrinkling her forehead beneath her habit.

“There was a girl, maybe four years old.  Curly brown hair, blue eyes--or at least, I think they were blue.”  I scan the yard as I describe the little one.

The older woman smiles, bouncing the child on her hip.  “Ah.  You must mean Daphne.”

Do I mean Daphne?  I have no idea.  

“She ran from me.  Do you know where she might have gone?”

The thin, bookish nun nods towards a strand of trees near the rear of the property.  The trees are short and sparse, obviously very young, and don’t offer much shelter.  A little form huddles at the base of the one in the middle, facing away from us.

I peel back the corner of the foil around the cookies and grab a couple, then hand the tray to the young nun.  When I reach Daphne’s hiding spot, I find her with her knees tucked into her chest.  Tears streak her face, which she presses to her knees.

“Can I join you?”  I ask.  I don’t expect an answer, and she doesn’t disappoint.  I sink to the grass, leaving several feet between us.  “My name is Claire.  They told me your name is Daphne.”

She remains quiet except for a soft shudder.

“Daphne’s such a pretty name,”  I continue.  “A pretty name for a pretty girl.”

The little girl raises her head to glare at me.  Blossoms of crimson burn at her cheeks.  “Go away.”  She hides her face again.

I place the doll next to her gently, so gently I’m not sure she knows I’ve done it.  “That’s a nice doll you have there.”

Daphne brings her head up again and starts to say something angry.  Our eyes connect and I glance down at the doll laying next to her.  She looks down, too, and then back at me.

“It’s okay, pick her up.”  I say.  “I brought her for you.  I knew you would take very good care of her.”

The girl scoops the doll into her arms again and snuggles her little cheek against its plastic face.  Her eyes squeeze shut in joy.  When she opens them again, I smile.  “Would you like a cookie?”

She nods and tentatively takes the cookie from my outstretched hand.  Daphne reminds me a lot of Taran--flighty, suspicious, and upset.  Like Taran, I don’t push her.  I eat my cookie as she eats hers. When it's gone I stand up and slip away.  She doesn’t follow behind me like the horse does, but that’s okay.

Right Away, Great Captain!

I'm guilty of turning on an album and leaving it on repeat for days.  Months, even.  My husband hates this about me because he and I tend to have very opposite tastes in music (him:  Anything Country.  Me:  Florence + the Machine, which is totally a genre, by the way!).  Though it's not working at the moment, we had an iPod jack in our room where we could plug in our iPods or phones and play our music over speakers in the ceiling or on the porch.

At some point while Moe was sick, I turned on Right Away, Great Captain and left it on.  I remember walking away from  his still-warm but lifeless body on the grass and wandering back to the house wondering what could possibly be left without him.  The only thing to do was crawl into bed in the middle of a sunny day and cry.  Right Away, Great Captain crooned me to sleep on that horrible, beautiful day.  I let it play on in the days to follow because it held Moe and I together, this thread of mournful music.

Tonight I'm getting ready to say good-bye to one of my characters and I don't want to because it's like letting my boy slip through my fingers again.  My heart hurts and it feels right to play Right Away, Great Captain! again to pull myself back into the grief.  

It's no more than two lines into the first song before I can see him stumbling and feel his slick neck against my cheek.  The curl of dread tightens in my belly as I watch the vet check his pupils and slowed breathing over and over and over until he is satisfied and I know it's done.  I'm broken, with pieces that will never go back together quite right.

Sixteen months and it surprises me how sharp the pain still is and how little it takes to bring me back to that good-bye.  That is the power and wonder of art.

Oh.  How will I ever do this?

The Problem

Liam

When I finally felt steady enough to rejoin Alfie, he'd moved on to replacing a broken fence board in one of the paddocks.  He didn't say a word about my breakdown, and I’m thankful for it.  I helped him in silence, holding the plank steady as he secured it to the fence post with a hammer and several nails.  Alfie was getting on in years, he shouldn’t be doing this work on his own.  

He took a breather after the next board was up, and stared off towards the few horses still living here.  

“Tell me about the horses, Alf.  It’s nice to see you, but they’re why I’m here.”

Alfie swiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand then gave a short nod.  “I hated to bring you back, y’know, but with Rowan out of the picture, I didn’t know who to ask.  Besides, you always were better with the horses than him.  He’s got a wicked temper, that one.”

“That he does.”  I agreed.   

We walked down the fence row until we stood in front of one of the few occupied enclosures.  “We’ve got six horses still here, but no one with any horse sense at all wants to help with them, especially the one mare in particular.”  I turned my head in the direction he's looking, toward the rear of the paddock to our right.  When she noticed us watching, the dark horse inside snapped her body into alert, her head high, eyes wide, and ears pricked.  Minus her sun-bleached coat from living outdoors, she was a nice-looking horse and would make someone a fine jumper.  The bone structure was all there, I could see it, but so was the fear.  The longer we stared, the more her terror echoed back.  Without taking her eyes or ears from us, she shrank back against the fence.

“That’s Tarantella.”

I scrunched up my face.  “Tarantula?  Like the spider?”  

“No, no.  Tarantella.  It’s a dance--Spanish, you know?”  Alfie hummed a tune and snapped his fingers as he crossed and uncrossed his arms a couple of times and shuffled his feet.  It looked like no dance I’d ever seen or probably would ever see again, thank heavens.  

With a shake of my head, I said, "You'd better stick to horses, Alf."  

He chuckled and stopped dancing, "Anyway, Tarantella... she was going by the name ‘Taran’, but some of the kids started on with calling her ‘Spider’, so you’re not so far off.”

Spider wasn't a friendly kind of nickname. I wasn't sure what to think about that.

I unlatched the gate to her paddock and walked inside.  Taran pinned herself up against the boards of the fence in response, but otherwise regarded me with curiosity.  “She looks all right,”  I said, fastening the gate closed behind me.  “So, then, what’s the problem?”

It happened then, quite literally, with the blink of an eye.  The dark horse studied me for all of three seconds before blinking her eye and charging after me.  There was no time to fumble with the gate--she’d be on me before I could have made it that far, anyway.  My only option was to climb the fence, and with any luck I would be faster than her.  With thundering hooves at my back, I launched myself at the fence and scrambled over.  Taran clamped her teeth around the heel of my boot before I could swing it over.  The old man was doubled over laughing at me dangling in a rather unpleasant position, with one leg in safety, the other in a wild horse’s mouth, and my crotch somewhere in the middle.  

“That,”  He sighed, wiping the tears from his eyes, “is our problem.”

I Don't Want to Fight

The young couple doesn't see it coming, their convertible top down and wrapped up in the warmth of the day.  My family and I see it, though.

We're waiting in a line of cars at a stoplight when half a dozen guys pile out of a car ahead of us, and it's clear they're up to no good.  Some of the men have wrapped their knuckles with thick chains, and others clutch empty beer bottles by their necks.  They're stalking towards the cute couple who haven't noticed them yet, and my stomach twists with realization.

My son-in-law, Bert, jumps out of the car before we can stop him.  My daughter claws at his shirt and tries to scream some sense in to his brain, but it's no use.  Bert's always had a strong sense of justice.  Either that or he doesn't put much value on his own life.

The light changes and the convertible speeds off before the thugs reach them, but their group is still looking for a target and they set their sights on the most likely target:  Bert.  It happens in slow motion, but it still happens.  One of the guys smashes his bottle over Bert's head and blood trickles in his face.

I don't want to fight.  There's three times as many of them as there are of us.  I'm not much of a gambler, but those odds aren't good, even with a firecracker like Bert on your side.  Like it or not, though, I can't leave him out there alone.  They'll kill him.  With a backward glance at my wife, daughter, and young son, I bolt from the car and into the battle.  I still don't want to fight.

Two-to-one.  If we survive this, I might kill Bert myself.

I don't see the guy until he's clocked me in the side of the head and I'm sprawled on the ground.  He brings the pointed toes of his boots to my face and kicks me over and over, sending spikes of pain through my jaw and behind my eyelids.  It's not enough to him that I am on the ground, that I didn't want this fight.  It's obvious that he won't stop until he's made his point clear.  As far as I'm concerned, the point of his shoe has done quite enough talking.

Elise flies from the car and launches herself on the back of my attacker.  On her way out of the car, she grabbed the closest thing in reach, a can of oil, which she now uses to hammer away at his thick skull.  She stuns him long enough to give me a chance to stagger to my feet, but I can't stop him from wrenching her free and kicking her in the face with those horrible, awful boots.

I didn't want to fight.

We drive ourselves, licking our wounds, to General Hospital.  Bert needs stitches, and I'm not sure what Elise and I need.  A uniformed officer comes to arrest us for beating up a group of men, but his mouth and the charges drop when he surveys our assortment of injuries.  

A couple days later our friend Benny takes in Elise's cuts and bruises and asks us to name names.  "You'll never hear from those guys again," he vows.  I don't doubt Benny one bit, and I appreciate the gesture, but I don't tell him anything.

Our bruises haven't healed up before one of the smaller thugs struts into the store.  He's alone and looking for another fight.  The tips of Bert's ears flame as he orders him off the property.  I keep an eye on the man as he slinks away toward the restaurant next door.  A wave of rage courses through me and I think how easy it would be to get my revenge on just one man, the runt of the bunch.  With a shake of my head, I turn away from the window where I have a clear view of him glaring over at us.

I don't want to fight.

Rear View Mirror

I expect him to pass her by.

He doesn't, and I should have seen it comin'.  My older brother, Joe, never missed an opportunity to tease me.  Then again, he didn't pass up a chance to flirt with a pretty girl, either.

"Cut it out, Joe!"  I growl through gritted teeth.  Heat creeps up from my neck to my cheeks, and the sprinkling of freckles there fade into red.  There's only so far I can shimmy down in the Model A's bench seat to hide myself from her sight.  I'd like very much to slug my brother for his fooling.

"Hey, Toots!"  He calls out the open window to the dark-haired girl walking behind our car.  "Want a ride?"

She doesn't even give him the satisfaction of looking our direction, which, in a way, makes his grin broaden.  Instead, she trains her deep brown eyes on the gravel immediately before her own two feet.  We all know that even if she wanted to ride with a troublemaker like my brother or mortified me, she'd have to pass it by her daddy.  Besides, she's nearly reached her destination and doesn't need our kind of help, if you could call it that.

I steal a peek in the mirror and watch her curls bob in time with her determined march.  If I wasn't so mad at Joe, I'd thank him for giving me more time with her.  Not that we ever really spent time together.  My brothers and I watched her walk past our house on her way to her job at the golf course all the time.  They watched, maybe, but I salivated.   Someday I'd work up the nerve to ask her on a proper date, but today wasn't going to be that day, thanks to my obnoxious brother.

Daniel the Draw-er Makes a Friend

“Did you make any new friends at school today?” Mom asks, smiling up at me as she wipes crumbs from the counter.  Every day it’s the same question, and every day I give the same answer.  They say adults are supposed to be smart, but maybe no one told Mom.

I grab the carton of milk and take a gulp before she notices, then wipe away my milk moustache with my sleeve.  Today I feel dramatic, so I puff up my chest and place my hands on my hips like a superhero before booming, “Annie is the only friend I need!”  

If I owned a cape I would make sure it flapped in the breeze behind me the whole time, but capes weren’t on the shopping list for school clothes this year.  Mom looks disappointed.  I’m disappointed, too.  Capes are cool.  Not as cool as samurai swords or skateboarding dogs, but still pretty awesome.

“Daniel.  Annie is a nice girl, but it’s not healthy to have only one friend.”

Parents always said stuff wasn’t healthy for you.  Candy bars weren’t healthy.  Staying up all night watching t.v. wasn’t healthy.  Now being friends with Annie wasn’t healthy?  Unless Mom meant the time Annie sneezed right in my face and I ended up sick in bed for two days, I didn’t understand how having a friend could be bad.

“Really, Daniel.  What if Annie moved away?  Then you wouldn’t have any friends.”

“She’s not going anywhere.  She told me so.”

Her face grows serious.  “Promise me you’ll try to at least talk to the other kids.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I roll my eyes, but make sure I turn my back to her first.  Mom hates it when I roll my eyes.  Only she can roll her eyes and get away with it.  “What’s for dinner?”

“Meatloaf, your favorite!”

Gross!  I stick out my tongue and make a gagging noise.

“I was going to warn you that Tommy’s in the living room waiting for your sister, but since you’re being a smarty-pants, maybe I won’t...”

Tommy.  Ugh.

My sister Lila’s latest boyfriend was the worst one yet.  He plays in a band and has just enough hair on his chin to make it look like he’s super-glued a caterpillar there.  Tommy also likes to call me “buddy” and punch me in the arm.  I figure he can't remember my name.  When we first met, Tommy called me Fritz for an entire day before Lila finally put a stop to it

I tiptoe down the hall past the living room door, but knock into the coat rack with my backpack.  Like a hungry lion, Tommy pounces, jumping over the back of the couch and directly in front of me.  Great.

“Bud-dy!”  He punches me in the arm, as always.

“Ow!”  I whine.  Before he can hit me again, I slip off my backpack and hide my arms behind it like a knight with a shield.  

“What’s up, big guy?”

I try to answer him, but it’s kind of hard since he’s put me in a headlock, his skinny forearm pressing into my windpipe.  Up close, Tommy smells like microwave burritos and cat litter.  He rubs his knuckles on the top of my head and I yelp.  When the torture portion of our meeting ends, he lets me go and acts like nothing ever happened.

“Lila says you’re a draw-er.”

I’m pretty sure he means artist, but my head and arm still hurt so I keep my mouth shut.

“Uh, I guess so,” I shrug.

Tommy smiles, making the caterpillar wiggle.  “Well, keep practicing, buddy.  Maybe if you get good enough you can draw a cover for Revenge of the Lunch Lady.”

I back around him so I can keep an eye on his hands.  “Yeah, okay.  Thanks.”

Like that’ll happen.  Revenge of the Lunch Lady was the name of Tommy’s band, and their biggest show so far had been at the bowling alley.  No one had been able to hear them over the thumps of bowling balls and crash of falling pins.

The rest of the way to my room, I think about Mom’s words, What if Annie moved away?

It’s impossible to imagine life without my best friend.  While all the other girls at school dress in pink and smell like flowers, Annie always smells like peanut butter and wears her brother’s old jeans.  Back in kindergarten she ate an earthworm and that’s when I knew she was the one.  

The other kids tease us and say we’re going to get married when we grow up.  They make kissy noises when we walk past together, but that’s gross.  I don’t want to kiss Annie.  Annie eats earthworms, after all.

Mom’s being silly.  Annie’s not leaving.

Once I reach my room, I sit down at my table and get to work.  Dad put my table in front of the window so I could look out and draw nice pictures of trees and birds, but mostly I use the window as a launchpad for paper airplanes and plastic parachute men.  Instead of trees and birds, I draw animals and monsters and super-awesome machines nobody else has thought of yet.  My favorite was a robot named Pi-zzabot that could bake a pizza and do my Math homework at the same time.  I drew a toaster that could tie shoes and smear peanut butter on bread for Annie, too, but I still think Pi-zzabot is better.

Today I want to finish the animal I’ve been working on for a few days.  I mean, I guess he’s an animal.  His head is round and soft like a teddy bear with shiny black eyes, but he’s no ordinary teddy bear.  The rest of his body will have long tentacles like an octopus--once I finish.  

In the middle of drawing Octobear’s third oozing tentacle, my pencil lead snaps off.  I growl and fling my wounded pencil out the open window before I realize that was my last pencil.  

Lila’s in her room with her door open when I stomp by.  She leans in close to the mirror on her dresser and dabs at her eyelashes with a tiny black brush.  Girls are weird.  You’d never catch me poking myself in the eye with anything to make myself look pretty.  

I peek my head in her room.  “Hey, you got a pencil?”  

She stops and looks at me with the brush hovering near her eyeball.  I flinch and look away.  Even though Lila is my sister doesn’t mean I want her to become a cyclops or wear a patch over her eye.  

“No, Daniel,” she replies.  “I do not have a pencil.”  

Who died and made her an English teacher all of the sudden?  She probably needed to help poor Tommy out, not me, since he couldn’t even come up with a better word than “draw-er”.  I stalk away, taking back all the nice things I’d ever said about her, which weren’t that many.

I want to ask Mom about pencils but Tommy and his fists still lurk in the living room.  Octobear needs more legs, but if Tommy punches me one more time my arm’s going fall off.  Without my arm, it’ll be hard to draw.

The only other place to look is the attic.  I’m not really supposed to snoop around up there because Mom says I make a mess.  This one time I found a bunch of brand new action figures Dad hadn’t even opened yet.  His face turned purple when he found me playing with them a few days later.  Since then, the attic has been off-limits for me.  Octobear needs me, though.

It takes a while, but I find a box of old art supplies buried under a fake Christmas tree and a bin of my old baby clothes.  The stuff inside the box is mostly junk.  I push aside a stack of paper with brown water spots and small containers of dried-up paint until I feel something smooth and wooden.  The wooden thing ends up being a case, and when I open it up there’s a half-used pencil wrapped in green velvet.  Yes!  Why anyone would put a plain old pencil in a box like that, I don’t know, but Dad is weird and keeps his toys in boxes, too.  With a shrug, I toss the box to the side and hurry back down to my room.

I finish drawing the last of Octobear’s limbs and start on a cat who will have a jetpack on his back - I’m saving that part for last! - when Mom calls me down for dinner.  The meatloaf is extra dry tonight and Dad talks for a whole ten minutes about some market on Wall Street, wherever that is.  As soon as I choke down the last awful bite, I run back to my room, ready to send a cat into orbit.

Only one problem.  There’s a cat on my desk and he looks kind of familiar.  

The cat stands up and puffs his snowy fur.  “Hey, pal,”  he says.  

I rub my eyes and blink, then look over my shoulder towards the stairs where the rest of my family is still talking about James Bond or something.  I knew this day would come--Mom’s meatloaf had finally driven me insane.  

“Not gonna answer me?”  He closes his yellow eyes and shakes his head.  “That’s fine.  But do me a favor, kid?”

My mouth hangs open.  If I try to speak, the words get stuck inside of me.

He turns to the paper lying on the desk next to him and I see an empty space where his back should be.  With his paw, he pats my cat drawing on the page.

“Finish drawing me.”

I slam the door behind me and run downstairs as fast as I can.  Mom said she wants me to make new friends, and I guess I had.

Part 2 of the Story You Wrote.

From the corner of my vision, I catch movement inside the restaurant.  The woman at the table is on her feet, shoving the large book into a tote bag.  She is following me, I'm sure of it.  I don't know how I know this for certain after the nonsense with the cashier, but I know it.  Before I step off the curb and cross the street, I shoot one more glance over my shoulder towards her.  Our eyes meet through the glass, clear, despite the bubbled layer of window tinting.  The blood in my veins chills at the hardness of her expression and the hurried way she slings the bag over her shoulder.  I run.

Unfortunately, I run right into traffic, breaking the cardinal rule of kidhood.

The white sports car--the one about to take me out at the knees--squeals to a stop.  The bumper pushes my calf hard enough to knock me off my feet and onto its scorching hood.

"Hey, jerk!  Get off my car!"  The driver yells, and he fumbles with his seatbelt like he's going to get out of the car and finish the job the car didn't.

Despite the heat from the engine on my bare arms, all I can do is stare at the young man through the windshield.  I recognize him, I recognize that ridiculous pompadour hairstyle, but the shock from near-death has erased his name from my memory.  

"GET. OFF. OF. MY. CAR!"  His eyes are deadly.  The dark-haired girl in the passenger seat looks frightened and embarrassed, her pink lips pressed together in an apologetic smile.  The pieces click together too slowly.  I raise myself from the hood and slide off the side.

Finally, it comes to me, and my heart drops into my shoes.  "I'm so, so sorry, Mr. Bieber.  I didn't mean to--"

The look on his face as I scrape across the hood is one of pure malice.  I cringe and drop to my feet on the asphalt, unwilling to acknowledge any damage I'd done to the sports car.  Somehow I'd scraped up just enough for a dumb taco filled with meat of questionable origin.  There was no chance I'd ever be able to afford a new paint job for The Biebs.

He clenches his jaw and slams his aviator sunglasses across his face.  "I don't need this publicity.  Leave me alone."  Without another word, without promise to make my life miserable, he speeds away.

The dark-haired girl turns to watch me, and all I can think is, "Why, Selena?  Of all people... Why him?"

My very next thought is to keep running.

TO BE CONTINUED...

What Happens When Friends Give Me Random Words To Write About...

I wanted to write, but I didn't know what to write about, so I asked you.  The list of words you so, uh, graciously offered are as follows:

Where's Waldo?
soup tendinitis
gun
cigar
beer
pink smile
Bieber & Gomez
dogs/monkeys riding horses
fragulous
Jaws
Godzilla
shark/dino porn
Taco Bell
Moon
South Park Chef
Jedi squirrels

So, without further ado, here is your story

***

"They're coming, you know."  The cashier hisses then pauses to shoot an anxious look left, then right, like we're being watched.  Judging by the thickness of his round glasses, I imagine all that movement of his beady black eyes must be dizzying.  He doesn't seem to be the least bit bothered, though, and instead leans closer toward me over the counter separating us.  "The government doesn't want us to know--they're in on it, too!"

A line of perspiration beads on his forehead at the edge of his red-and-white striped knit hat.  He's crazy, I'm sure of it.  You'd have to be crazy to work behind the counter of a Taco Bell in a long-sleeved shirt and a winter hat.  It must be a billion degrees in here!  Lucky for me he's not the one handling the food, because the thought of him sweating in my Hard Taco Supreme makes me gag a little.

Sure enough, a couple over at one of the tables in the corner of the restaurant is watching us.  They consult a big book in front of them like it's a field guide or something, then point and stare like they've spotted a Dodo bird or a unicorn.  I'm neither of those things, just a hungry girl with not enough money to buy anything at a burger place.  Kind of pathetic, really, and not the kind of thing that would earn me any kind of notoriety.  Still, the couple keeps looking our way.  Now they're not even trying to pretend they are interested in something else.

The couple's attention, paired with the cashier's conspiracy theories, make my stomach roll.  Before things get any more weird, I take my change from the counter and snatch the paper bag from his outstretched hand.

"Uh, thanks for the... tip."  I mumble as I turn away.

"Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at--"  The door seals behind me, cutting off his words.

TO BE CONTINUED...