Day One!

YAY!  It was my last day of school yesterday, and that means more time to write!  I've had the book Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted, The Wish) for a while now, but I've been too busy to try any of the writing excercises in it yet.  There are about 30 chapters, each with great information and interesting prompts.  I've decided that every day until I finish the book, I will complete one of these prompts and post it here on KidPub.  This one was pretty easy.  There was a list of first sentences, and you had to write for twenty minutes using one of those prompts.  I wrote this really slowly, only about 30 words a minute, so I only have about a page.  But, if any of you want to join me on this challenge, I really encourage you to. Or, if you have the book, write along with me!  I'll be sure to read anything you write for this competition!  :D

CC, please!

Alison was the runt of the family, born small and ill-favored, and by the time she was thirteen, she was still small and ill-favored.  It was remarkably easy to overlook the pale girl, but, later in life, when biographers clamored for her captivating story, it was said that she liked it best that way, being overlooked.  These same biographers would- in a dang nosy manner, I might add- snoop around the little country town where she grew up, searching for childhood friends who knew the inside-scoop.  Their efforts were in vain.  It seemed sort of like Alison had been a mouse in more ways than her appearance when she was young.

            Perhaps, if anyone can honestly say they befriended the gray-faced girl, I can.  I am not quite sure what she thought of me, if she thought of anything at all, but all our old school teachers sent the big city, hustle and bustle biographers to me when looking for friends.  I slammed the door in all of their upturned noses.  I wouldn’t trade away all of Alison’s secrets to a few reporters, no, that wasn’t me.

            Nevertheless, all the talk and questions got me thinking about her again.  I hadn’t really talked to her since we were ten and three, just starting eighth grade in Azure Falls, Nevada.

            It was the brutally hot summer ‘56.  All the other girls were running up to the falls with polka-dot swimsuits and rubber inner tubes, but not Alison.  She stayed cooped up in her backyard, playing with the dog and poking the little insects that hopped through the grass.

            July was rolling to a close, and that mousy haired girl hadn’t done anything all summer.  I was sitting on her back porch swing, sipping vaguely tepid Coca-Cola out of a glass bottle.

            “Alison,” I said, looking at her hunched back as she knelt in the lawn.  “All your brothers and sisters are up at the Falls, and it’s too hot to bear doin’ much of anything else but swimmin’.”

            She turned around and stared at me with colorless eyes.  “Danny, if you wanna go join ‘em, why don’t you?  I’m just fine all by my lonesome.”  Alison turned back around.

            I thought about doing just what she said, going up to the falls and having a good time.  I could just splash in the water with the other guys, leave the quiet mouse here in her own backyard.  I took another sip of soda, rocking back and forth.  I didn’t stand up.

            It occurs to me now that I felt pretty dang bad for Alison.  I had plenty of friends, or, at least, I could have if I didn’t give up all my free time for Alison.  I think I was likeable enough.  The girls thought I wasn’t too bad on the eyes.  If I had up and left for the Falls that day, I might have felt a little sorry.  Alison never did much of anything with other people, she just seemed to shy.  It had to be hard, I reasoned, growing up in a family like hers.  She had one older brother off at some big-shot university, the other as quarterback of our high school football team.  Her sister, Margaux-call-me-Maggie was drop dead gorgeous- Miss Azure Falls three years running.  Then there was Alison, trying to live in all those shadows.  Maybe that was why she was so pale.  She never spent a moment in her own sun.

            Anyway, I was sitting there, sloshing Coca-Cola back and forth in the clear bottle when the noise started.  Alison hardly looked up, but I was wild eyed at that strange sound.