{1} June 14, 2013 10:15 a.m.
The three of them sat bent over their desks, waving their pens like magic wands over the paper. It was only the third day of Mr. Yates’ summer writing workshop, but I was frustrated that my writing couldn’t reach the level of the others’. Cameron, to my left, was probably whipping out some hilarious dramatic irony. She swung her feet impatiently because her pen couldn’t keep up with her imagination. I stared at my blank page. We were supposed to compose a scene in which something unexpected happened. How much more generic could you get? Something unexpected... wasn’t that all that happened in stories?
“Writer’s block?” Elaine offered a look of sympathy from across the semi-circle of desks. I nodded. Elaine was the shiest in our group. She hated reading her works aloud, but I couldn’t see why. Her work with adjectives was always brilliant. “Just start spitting out words.” She whispered. “They’ll take you somewhere.”
“Shhh! I can’t think when you’re talking so loud.” Sanders drawled sarcastically. “That is, if I wanted to think.”
I rolled my eyes. Sanders may have acted like he couldn’t do anything, but he had a bigger vocabulary than Webster. I think he tried to make up for the lack of boys in the workshop by adding extra gore to his stories.
“About eight more minutes.” Mr. Yates said, squinting at the clock. “Then we’ll hear what you guys came up with.”
I tried to take Elaine’s advice and wrote the first sentence that came into my head:
Bob didn’t expect this to happen.
With a groan of frustration, I scribbled out the sorry excuse for a sentence.
“I have to print out copies of our next exercise. I’ll be right back.” Mr. Yates walked out. Even though it was summer and he wore T-shirt and jeans, he still walked like a teacher. Maybe it was the authoritative, deliberate steps or the confidence with which he navigated the halls. I wondered if all teachers used a certain walk in school or if it was just at Anderson High School.
Elaine wandered to the window. She tugged at her blond hair and chewed her lip. I joined her. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s so nice outside.” She gazed at the wind bending the long grass behind the school. “See how sunny it is? And we’ve been sitting so long in here...”
“Elaine, really. You looked forward all month to this workshop. Why-”
“Shhh!” Sanders hissed at us. “Only six minutes left.”
I stuck my tongue out and turned my back to him.
“I need inspiration.” Elaine whispered, still staring out the window. “And if I happen to miss my turn for reading aloud, that wouldn’t be the end of the world...” She tore her gaze from outside and looked at me hopefully. “Will you cover for me? I’ll only be gone a few minutes.”
“What should I say?”
Elaine grabbed her cell-phone and stuffed it in her pocket. “Tell him I’ve gone to the bathroom or that my mom called me or... you’ll think of something. I promise I won’t stay too long.”
With that, she had slipped out of the room. I sighed and sat back in my chair, clicking my pen on my desk until Sanders told me to stop.
Click. Click.
“I asked you to stop.” He was really frustrated now. Maybe his character hadn’t died as dramatically as he had hoped.
But I had stopped clicking my pen. I held my empty hands up to show him.
Click-click. Click.
I turned to the only other person in the room. Cameron was still scratching away at her paper, so fast I could have sworn sparks were flying from her pen. My jaw dropped. Sparks were coming from her pen. Each time one appeared, a sharp clicking noise could be heard. They faded into ash and harmlessly drifted to the ground. Cameron could feel both Sanders’ and my stares. She slammed her hands over her paper, like she was afraid we would read it. The sparks stopped as soon as she took her pen off the page.
“What?” She asked accusingly. Her expression was hard to read. Had she seen the sparks? I just shook my head. Maybe it was just the sun shining on dust motes, but what about the clicking noise?
Before I had much time to wonder, their was a prolonged smacking sound, like someone knocking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. It came from under Cameron’s desk, so naturally that is where I looked. I stifled a squeal. A real, live, brown mouse scurried over Cameron’s shoes and then disappeared, vanished, poof. Like magicians do into clouds of smoke. Only the mouse did it without smoke.
Cameron jumped at my small scream. “There wasn’t a mouse under my chair, was there?” I nodded, speechless. Cameron’s eyes widened, then she laughed. “Never mind.... forget you saw it.” She giggled a little more and kept writing.
Never mind? Forget I saw it? “Sanders,” I whispered and poked him. “Did you see that? Am I going crazy?”
He didn’t look up from his writing. “You are crazy if you think I’m going to fall for that. There is no mouse. Now, shush. I’m trying to finish my scene.”
“But you saw the sparks, didn’t you?”
Sanders had a slow, deep voice, so anything he said sounded sarcastic or condescending, even if he didn’t mean it to. “I saw my three hours of sleep and double espresso.”
SNAP!
A fist-sized red crystal appeared somewhere in the air and fell right on Sanders‘ desk. He couldn’t ignore this. “How did you do that?” He asked.
“I didn’t do that! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. First, these sparks, then a mouse, now this rock...”
When Cameron spotted the rock, her face contorted, like she was torn between being pleased with herself and terrified.
“Are you alright?” I asked her.
“Fine, Nicole. I’m fine.” She answered hurriedly while writing.
The rock vanished out of Sanders’ hand. He looked under his desk to see if it had fallen, but no. It was gone, just like the mouse. Cameron giggled.
“Hold it.” Sanders eyed Cameron. “Let me see what you’re writing.” He snatched her notebook before she could refuse and scanned the pages.
“No- wait. It’s- it’s not me!” Cameron stammered. What was she talking about?
“Hmm... It’s only talking about a sunrise... and now a country landscape... this guy- it doesn’t mention his name, yet. Ah, just as I thought. There’s a fire and a mouse, no, the mouse is actually...” His voice trailed off, but his eyes still went back and forth over the pages. “Oh, the guy’s name is Bar-”
A popping sound like someone had blown a bubble gum bubble as big as a house, then poked a hole in it filled the room.
“Barnabus Lansky.” Sung a deep Irish accent.
For a split second, I wondered if Mr. Yates had walked back into the room. But Mr. Yates does not have an Irish accent. We turned toward the voice. There, just as the sparks, the mouse, and the stone had appeared (only much larger than any of these) was a man in a green three piece suit, twirling his mustache. He had dark hair and freckles. A gold wrist watch hung out of his pocket. Cameron’s smile was so big, I thought her face might crack in half.
“He’s just like I imagined.” She sighed, happily. “All except the lederhosens.”
“But you forget.” Barnabus said wearily. “This is the first day-”
“This is the first day you decided to not wear lederhosens!” Cameron finished excitedly.
Sanders and I were too in shock to react yet. I kept blinking, wondering when this man would disappear. Sanders was making some sort of gagging noise. Suddenly, I remembered our last writing exercise.
“My writer’s block is gone.” I muttered to myself. “I know just what to write about.”
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