Julius’s Gift
“Octavia, do not hold your threads so clumsily; you are not an animal,” Cassia said. Her young mistress frowned and then suddenly threw the ball of dyed yarn on the floor. “Cassia, you may be...
Stories
Original fiction by young writers ages 8-13
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“Octavia, do not hold your threads so clumsily; you are not an animal,” Cassia said. Her young mistress frowned and then suddenly threw the ball of dyed yarn on the floor.
“Cassia, you may be my slave but I cannot weave even to a quarter of your abilities,” Octavia said with derision. “Weaving is useless; why must women get all the dull jobs?
INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY
It was just one of those foggy afternoons when, suddenly, my dad’s phone rang. Of course, his phone rings a lot considering he’s a marine biologist, and people call him about sea lions, seals, and whatnot. But this call was different. It came from a local fisherman, fourteen miles off the coast of Northern California.
Our memories define who we are. They are the things that tie us to meaningful places as well as to the people we have loved. Memories are a part of us.
So who are we without them?
Who are we with nothing but lost, scattered memories?
Who is my grandma?
* * *
The car ride to the retirement home is short.
It was a beautiful spring morning. My irises and daisies were beginning to bloom. The crepe myrtles had put on their finest display, and pink flowers littered my driveway. It was a perfect day in North Carolina. I stepped out of the house and got into my old truck. Slowly, I drove the few miles to the Carl Sandburg home. On the way up the hill, I met one of my fellow workers, Amy.
I walked home with the poster for the spring musical heavy in my arms. I looked at it again, hoping that I had seen it wrong. Nope. The block letters were still dominating the page, telling me once again that I didn’t want to perform this spring. “Finding Broadway,” it said, “A Musical Without Words!” There wouldn’t be any lines, just solos.
Jasper stared out the window of the van and thought. He thought that he would not like his new home. His friends and his father were at his real home, the home he wanted to be his. The home that used to be his.
His mother and father got divorced six months ago and his mother wouldn’t let her husband take Jasper.
Jasper would rather have gone with his father.
The mouse was a smooth-furred, jittery-nosed, small-as-grass field mouse. I remember sitting on the roughly carpeted floor early in the mornings, when it was too cold to go outside, and watching him swipe food before the chipmunks and birds, who were at least two times the size of him, got at them beforehand.
It is super hot, humid. Sweat is running down my back like a brook. I am waiting. The A train is mine. I am on the east side of the Forty-Second Street platform for the southbound A train. People are running, late people walk slowly, lost people are walking purposefully.
A woman pushes a rattling, clanking cart. She is dirty, a wrinkled old woman. She bumps to a stop next to me.
One warm summer evening, when the sun was just beginning to set over the sea, a single bird chirped melodiously. His fellows one by one joined in, each singing a different melody and pitch, but somehow all truly going together. The soft, sad song of the cricket gently burst through the birdsong at random intervals, yet sounded perfectly orchestrated.
The day I abandoned my best friend was the day I lost myself. With her I was everything, and without her I was nothing.
It was a rainy day, and I was lying on a fluffy pink mat in Ashley’s room. There she was, standing, legs crossed, but not enough to hide the trembling. There she was, long dark hair tied back in a messy ponytail, unwashed and uncombed. There she was, biting her nails.