First Grade
A short story by Diana Weeks
First grade, it was all my neighbor and best friend, Ruth Junior, talked about the summer of 1941. Her mother, Ruth Senior, was telling my mother “Betty, I can barely wait for school to start…Joseph is on my last nerve.” Ruthy’s brother Joe is ten. We’re six, me barely.
My mom …never shy…spoke up. “Joan” that’s me…”says he’s been killing the girls’ horned toads”. .
We were collecting horned toads because they were mascots for Texas Christian University, our cow town’s higher education school…It was my Uncle Pinky’s idea…to collect horned toads.
He wanted them to dissect for a science project…they ran out of frogs.
My red haired Uncle “Pinky” lived with us…Pink marches with the TCU band. …Grandpa pays his room rent. His clarinet playing… got him a college scholarship.
Ruth sighs. “Joseph denies being a horn toad murderer…he claims it was an accident.”
Mom coughed. “The stolen red brick from the pile at the new house down the street…accidentally… fell squarely on the frog in the center of the girls back yard path… to your house…where our innocent girls… would… for sure find it”
Ruth sobered. “Well, I’ll have to tell his father…but the toads life was going to be taken by science….the toads weren’t going to escape and join the circus.” Mom gave a thumbs down sign…that means she doesn’t except the excuse. Both women laugh…Ruth Sr. adds “I don’t think Joseph was mad at the frog…he was mad at Ruthy for eating the last cookie yesterday.
Ruthy stood just behind me… huddled against the yellow flower covered paper on the hall wall… where we hold our breath and listened to grown ups talk. No crime is discussed in our presence.
Their next topic concerned where to have the doctor vaccinate us, a necessity to start school. Ruth Sr. did not want a big round scar on her daughter’s upper arm…where people can see it…like Joseph’s small pox scar had turned out.
We have appointments with the same doctor this afternoon. School starts next Monday, but we had to wait for payday to get the three dollar shot. I don’t care where I’m vaccinated just so the needle doesn’t hurt. They say it won’t… but it always does.
When our mom’s started talking about recipes…we quietly back away to cut out paper dolls in Ruth’s room.
Ruth has her own room. I’m back in my parent’s room since Uncle Pink arrived. Ha, he says I’m disrespectful for calling him “Pink” instead of Pinky.
Joe comes to the door of Ruthy’s room with his hand behind his back. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” Then he hands her a candy box and runs outside. Ruthy opens the box and screams…and drops the box and a green snake peeks out.
I picked it up. “Shhhh, it’s just a grass snake.” I dropped it out a window.
Ruthy made a fist. “We’ve got to get Joe back….We’ll tell him the snake escaped to Mom and Dads’ room… we’re for- bidden to enter!
Good idea I agree. “That will make him sweat. And that’s always fun.”
THE END
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
War Time
War Time
A short story by Diana Weeks
I was supposed to be listening to “Terry and the Pirates” on the radio with Buddy… my black mailer brother… but I was leaning towards the radio to give a “glance over the shoulder” reassurance look…I was listening to my mother and her close friend Gertrude talk…about the war with the Japs and the Not-zees”.
I’m not allowed to ease-drop…but that only makes it more fun…more a game that can be won or lost… Mother did not allow any talk about the war at our dinner table “War… is not… a fit subject… for children. We were always sent from the room… when an adult came into a room I was in… with another adult. I had to walk out or wait 10 seconds and get kicked out.
Mother might slowly say “Children, go play monopoly” to us and in a slight whisper she’d tell her companion…adult conversation is forbidden…for children
No argument about the unfairness…we live here too…Children are children and adults are adults…as adults they are given “free will”…do they give us children any “free will”…No “free will’s not for youth…kids need to be sheltered.. reality needs the wisdom you gain by living any way you want to…but not kids…they don’t know anything.
Me and my best friend Patricia. Pat is the niece of my mom’s best friend, Gertrude, whose two boys aged ten and six were on the floor close to the radio exiled like us…But they didn’t care to listen to women talk when Terry and his Pirates…straight from the funnies…were adventuring. Personally, I was “Brenda Starr”
I heard Gert thanking Mother and Daddy…he in absentee…for saying she and the boys could come stay at our house because of the housing shortage. Our house is a frame two bedroom, painted white with green trim. The war started just as we moved in. We did have the highest see – saw in the world.
I went to get a drink in the kitchen… to use the phone to call Pat and tell her the forbidden secret…that Gertrude was still in love with Uncle Al who was coming to visit us in a few months…he’s a civilian engineer with T B scars on his lungs.
Well she wasn’t even surprised as she had secretly read a letter Al had sent Gertrude. ..yesterday. But she didn’t know my mother and dad were going to let she and her boy move in with us.…at least til Al gets here…or…What if Gert’s Navy husband’s boat sinks?
Pat had taught me how to steam open letters. When we weren’t together …we were spies …trying to figure out what reality is…I have to practice and learn so when…? I do grow up…”I’ll free will… all over every body.
THE END
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
A short story by Diana Weeks
I was supposed to be listening to “Terry and the Pirates” on the radio with Buddy… my black mailer brother… but I was leaning towards the radio to give a “glance over the shoulder” reassurance look…I was listening to my mother and her close friend Gertrude talk…about the war with the Japs and the Not-zees”.
I’m not allowed to ease-drop…but that only makes it more fun…more a game that can be won or lost… Mother did not allow any talk about the war at our dinner table “War… is not… a fit subject… for children. We were always sent from the room… when an adult came into a room I was in… with another adult. I had to walk out or wait 10 seconds and get kicked out.
Mother might slowly say “Children, go play monopoly” to us and in a slight whisper she’d tell her companion…adult conversation is forbidden…for children
No argument about the unfairness…we live here too…Children are children and adults are adults…as adults they are given “free will”…do they give us children any “free will”…No “free will’s not for youth…kids need to be sheltered.. reality needs the wisdom you gain by living any way you want to…but not kids…they don’t know anything.
Me and my best friend Patricia. Pat is the niece of my mom’s best friend, Gertrude, whose two boys aged ten and six were on the floor close to the radio exiled like us…But they didn’t care to listen to women talk when Terry and his Pirates…straight from the funnies…were adventuring. Personally, I was “Brenda Starr”
I heard Gert thanking Mother and Daddy…he in absentee…for saying she and the boys could come stay at our house because of the housing shortage. Our house is a frame two bedroom, painted white with green trim. The war started just as we moved in. We did have the highest see – saw in the world.
I went to get a drink in the kitchen… to use the phone to call Pat and tell her the forbidden secret…that Gertrude was still in love with Uncle Al who was coming to visit us in a few months…he’s a civilian engineer with T B scars on his lungs.
Well she wasn’t even surprised as she had secretly read a letter Al had sent Gertrude. ..yesterday. But she didn’t know my mother and dad were going to let she and her boy move in with us.…at least til Al gets here…or…What if Gert’s Navy husband’s boat sinks?
Pat had taught me how to steam open letters. When we weren’t together …we were spies …trying to figure out what reality is…I have to practice and learn so when…? I do grow up…”I’ll free will… all over every body.
THE END
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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