My Writing

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 ~~~Uncle Ted~~~

Well, here we are.
In the last place I’d like to be right now.
I think I’d rather die.
I’m at my uncle’s house.
“Come on, honey, it can’t be that bad,” says mum consolingly. “Think of it as a holiday. What have you got against Uncle Ted anyway?”
“Everything,” I mutter. And I have a good reason. Uncle Ted can’t do anything for himself. The house is filthy. And mum is making me stay here.
I refuse to get out of the car. Mum opens her door and says, “Really now, what could be so bad?”
But at that moment there was a loud BANG! And a bullet misses the door by inches.
“Well then, nothing wrong is there? Grandpa’s here,” I say weakly.
I laugh nervously and open my door while another bullet hits the shed behind us. Grandpa is sitting in a rocking chair, polishing his gun. Mum pushes me forward and gets back in the car. She is such a sook.
“Bye honey,” mum says. “Say hi to Ted for me.”
No need to say hi to Grandpa, he can’t hear a word we say, and even if he could, he wouldn’t understand it anyway. He doesn’t even know it’s a water pistol he’s polishing and the so-called “bullets” were actually stones he was throwing. Poor Grandpa. He still thinks he’s in the war. If something is L-shaped, he thinks it’s a gun and will “shoot” everyone. I pat his shoulder as I step onto the porch.  I knock on the door and go in, even though Ted didn’t answer. I find him in the lounge room reading the newspaper. Well, not reading. He doesn’t know how to read, he just pretends so everyone thinks he’s smart. But no one comes over except me, so I don’t know why he does it. Mum and I know his little secret, but we don’t tell him or he’ll get upset.
Anyway, Ted doesn’t see or hear me come in. He’s half deaf and more than a little blind, and he’s so absorbed in his paper he doesn’t notice me at all.
“Hi Uncle Ted!” I yell.
“Get me a coffee,” was the grunt I heard in reply.
Yuck. Dirty water, milk that was past its use-by date and cockroaches in the coffee jar. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. But I did it anyway and brought the mouldy cup back to Ted.
“Now get one for Grandpa then help him make tea. Do you hear me?”
“Yes Uncle Ted.”
Uncle Ted isn’t a bad person. He just needs help around the house. This is why I come over every holiday. I have no choice.
I don’t want to talk about making dinner. The spider in the potatoes, the mice in the pantry, the bugs in the gravy. It was horrible.
That night I couldn’t sleep, even though the bed was the best thing in the house. OK, the mattress might be made of straw and the blankets covered in fleas, but the straw made the bed so insulated I didn’t care.
So I got up, in the middle of the night. It was freezing, like an iceblock found in the middle of Antarctica. I crept downstairs and into the lounge room, sinking into the squashy armchair. Only it wasn’t the cushions I sank into, it was something hard, cold and bony. I froze. The thing I was sitting on didn’t make a sound. I stood up and slowly turned to face the armchair. My eyes widened and I screamed, though there was no one to hear me. There, on the armchair, with a newspaper over his chest and a mug of coffee by his side was Uncle Ted, his glazed eyes staring into space and his mouth slightly open. I turned around on the spot and saw a hole in the wall and through that was the glint of metal in the moonlight. Again, I turned and reached out with a shaky hand to take away the newspaper. I screamed again. There was a bloody stain on Uncle Ted’s shirt over his heart. I run out the door and onto the porch. “Oh no,” I whisper, hardly able to breathe. There was a gun lying on the rocking chair, pale in the bluish moonlight. And on top of that, a note. I snatch it up and cling to it, reaching for something, anything, to tell me that everything was OK, Uncle Ted wasn’t dead. But on the note there was only one word, written in shaky scrawl over the otherwise blank page. Sorry. Shock comes with sudden realisation as that one word tells me everything that has happened. In my mind’s eye, I see blurred pictures racing past. Grandpa, polishing a real gun that he found in the old shed. Accidentally setting it off, making a blast. Realising that that gun had had a bullet in it. Scribbling a quick note, hoping that I would understand. Running off into the darkness.

Uncle Ted has always told me that he has no phones in his house. He says he doesn’t need them, who was there to ring? But then again, he has always forbidden me to go into his room. I think I have a good enough reason to go in now. I need help. Someone, anyone, to help me. I sprint upstairs, not caring about anything but the hope that there might be a phone in Uncle Ted’s room. To my surprise, the door is unlocked. I search high and low, but no avail. There is no phone to be found. I turn to leave, but then an idea strikes me like lightning that hits the same place twice. Inside the mattress! The oldest trick in the book. I search around all the sides of the mattress and find a small row of stitches that looks like it’s been opened many times and stitched up again. I tear it open and shove my hand inside, savouring the soft cotton inside. But not for long. My hand closes around something small and hard. I take it out and marvel at the small black mobile phone in my hand. I turn it on and immediately start dialling. The phone picks up on the first ring.
“Hello?” says mum.
“You don’t know how relieved I am to hear your voice mum,” I sigh. “Everything has gone upside down.”
“What happened?”
“I-“is all I manage to say before I burst into tears.
“I’ll be right there, honey,” says Mum. That’s what I like about her, find out first, ask questions later.
 Ten minutes later I hear a car pulled up, then another one.
Afterward mum explained that she “knew something had happened” and the other car turned out to be the police.
Another fifteen minutes later the whole story was told and a police car was sent to find Grandpa. Mum takes me straight home and I get into a clean bed. Before I fall asleep I think “nothing good has come of this” but then I realise I don’t have to go to Uncle Ted’s ever again. Because he won’t be there. Oh, no, is my last thought, there’s always Aunty Mary!

                                                                       THE END
                         
Well, here we are.
In the last place I’d like to be right now.
I think I’d rather die.
I’m at my uncle’s house.
“Come on, honey, it can’t be that bad,” says mum consolingly. “Think of it as a holiday. What have you got against Uncle Ted anyway?”
“Everything,” I mutter. And I have a good reason. Uncle Ted can’t do anything for himself. The house is filthy. And mum is making me stay here.
I refuse to get out of the car. Mum opens her door and says, “Really now, what could be so bad?”
But at that moment there was a loud BANG! And a bullet misses the door by inches.
“Well then, nothing wrong is there? Grandpa’s here,” I say weakly.
I laugh nervously and open my door while another bullet hits the shed behind us. Grandpa is sitting in a rocking chair, polishing his gun. Mum pushes me forward and gets back in the car. She is such a sook.
“Bye honey,” mum says. “Say hi to Ted for me.”
No need to say hi to Grandpa, he can’t hear a word we say, and even if he could, he wouldn’t understand it anyway. He doesn’t even know it’s a water pistol he’s polishing and the so-called “bullets” were actually stones he was throwing. Poor Grandpa. He still thinks he’s in the war. If something is L-shaped, he thinks it’s a gun and will “shoot” everyone. I pat his shoulder as I step onto the porch.  I knock on the door and go in, even though Ted didn’t answer. I find him in the lounge room reading the newspaper. Well, not reading. He doesn’t know how to read, he just pretends so everyone thinks he’s smart. But no one comes over except me, so I don’t know why he does it. Mum and I know his little secret, but we don’t tell him or he’ll get upset.
Anyway, Ted doesn’t see or hear me come in. He’s half deaf and more than a little blind, and he’s so absorbed in his paper he doesn’t notice me at all.
“Hi Uncle Ted!” I yell.
“Get me a coffee,” was the grunt I heard in reply.
Yuck. Dirty water, milk that was past its use-by date and cockroaches in the coffee jar. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. But I did it anyway and brought the mouldy cup back to Ted.
“Now get one for Grandpa then help him make tea. Do you hear me?”
“Yes Uncle Ted.”
Uncle Ted isn’t a bad person. He just needs help around the house. This is why I come over every holiday. I have no choice.
I don’t want to talk about making dinner. The spider in the potatoes, the mice in the pantry, the bugs in the gravy. It was horrible.
That night I couldn’t sleep, even though the bed was the best thing in the house. OK, the mattress might be made of straw and the blankets covered in fleas, but the straw made the bed so insulated I didn’t care.
So I got up, in the middle of the night. It was freezing, like an iceblock found in the middle of Antarctica. I crept downstairs and into the lounge room, sinking into the squashy armchair. Only it wasn’t the cushions I sank into, it was something hard, cold and bony. I froze. The thing I was sitting on didn’t make a sound. I stood up and slowly turned to face the armchair. My eyes widened and I screamed, though there was no one to hear me. There, on the armchair, with a newspaper over his chest and a mug of coffee by his side was Uncle Ted, his glazed eyes staring into space and his mouth slightly open. I turned around on the spot and saw a hole in the wall and through that was the glint of metal in the moonlight. Again, I turned and reached out with a shaky hand to take away the newspaper. I screamed again. There was a bloody stain on Uncle Ted’s shirt over his heart. I run out the door and onto the porch. “Oh no,” I whisper, hardly able to breathe. There was a gun lying on the rocking chair, pale in the bluish moonlight. And on top of that, a note. I snatch it up and cling to it, reaching for something, anything, to tell me that everything was OK, Uncle Ted wasn’t dead. But on the note there was only one word, written in shaky scrawl over the otherwise blank page. Sorry. Shock comes with sudden realisation as that one word tells me everything that has happened. In my mind’s eye, I see blurred pictures racing past. Grandpa, polishing a real gun that he found in the old shed. Accidentally setting it off, making a blast. Realising that that gun had had a bullet in it. Scribbling a quick note, hoping that I would understand. Running off into the darkness.

Uncle Ted has always told me that he has no phones in his house. He says he doesn’t need them, who was there to ring? But then again, he has always forbidden me to go into his room. I think I have a good enough reason to go in now. I need help. Someone, anyone, to help me. I sprint upstairs, not caring about anything but the hope that there might be a phone in Uncle Ted’s room. To my surprise, the door is unlocked. I search high and low, but no avail. There is no phone to be found. I turn to leave, but then an idea strikes me like lightning that hits the same place twice. Inside the mattress! The oldest trick in the book. I search around all the sides of the mattress and find a small row of stitches that looks like it’s been opened many times and stitched up again. I tear it open and shove my hand inside, savouring the soft cotton inside. But not for long. My hand closes around something small and hard. I take it out and marvel at the small black mobile phone in my hand. I turn it on and immediately start dialling. The phone picks up on the first ring.
“Hello?” says mum.
“You don’t know how relieved I am to hear your voice mum,” I sigh. “Everything has gone upside down.”
“What happened?”
“I-“is all I manage to say before I burst into tears.
“I’ll be right there, honey,” says Mum. That’s what I like about her, find out first, ask questions later.
 Ten minutes later I hear a car pulled up, then another one.
Afterward mum explained that she “knew something had happened” and the other car turned out to be the police.
Another fifteen minutes later the whole story was told and a police car was sent to find Grandpa. Mum takes me straight home and I get into a clean bed. Before I fall asleep I think “nothing good has come of this” but then I realise I don’t have to go to Uncle Ted’s ever again. Because he won’t be there. Oh, no, is my last thought, there’s always Aunty Mary!

                                                                       THE END
                    ~~~CoCo Pops Story~~~

At school our teacher gave us a starting paragraph and we wrote the rest. Here it is:

From the moment I got up, looked into yesterday’s bowl of Coco Pops and found ants forming the word UNLUCKY, I knew that today was not going to be a good day. The hot water was not working and i had a cold shower. all my undies were grubby and I missed the bus.

How much worse can this day get? I thought gloomily as I trudged the muddy route to school via an old cow paddock littered with thistles. I was sure I had it as bad as it comes until ‘Ouch!’ I hadn’t been looking where I was going and had trodden on a particularly large thistle. The spikes made tiny holes in my uniform and lodged their tips in my skin. One had even found its way into my shoe, getting stuck between my big toe and second.

Great, I thought miserably, now I have to pull them all out.

I sat down on a thistle-free patch of grass and started dislodging thistles. Each one felt like a tiny needle determined to bury itself in my flesh and wouldn’t come 1out. I winced as I pulled an enormous thistle spike out of my knee, then another one. The one in my foot hurt a lot. I only just managed to pull them all out, but I had temporarily forgotten my other problems.

I checked my watch. “8:50!” I yelp. “I’ll be late!” I started sprinting to school, not caring about how muddy I got, though I was cautiously avoiding thistles. But even though I ran as fast as I could, it was still 9:15 when I slowed to a walk outside the school gates.

I peered up at the sign as I usually do. ‘Liliac Primary School,’ the sign read, then underneath, ‘The Only and Therefore the Best,’ was the motto engraved in the granite arch looming above me and casting a shadow over the school, making a giant sad face. The buildings were worse, painted lavender purple in a disgusting attempt to make the place more welcome and friendly. They looked like giant purple toes to me, but I walked inside my grade’s building anyway. Now, I thought, which room is my class in? Do we have Music or Maths? I prayed silently for Music as I listened for the sound of students talking.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted and convinced that I had a curse hanging over me. I don’t even want to think about what happened at school, how much trouble I got into for being late and muddy, and that it was Math Test Day.

It was the worst day of my life, I thought as I slipped into bed a few hours later, but I was partly relieved.

At least tomorrow can’t get any worse!

The next morning I woke up, feeling rather happy. When I got into the kitchen I found not my old Coco Pops, but a new Cornflake box, complete with honey and milk. And no ants in there either, just a spoon. I wolfed down the breakfast, grinning, and then returned to my room, elated. In my undies drawer were stacks of clean undies, ready for wearing. I was on the bus early, but when I sat down all the students and driver were staring at me. Why was that? When the bus arrived at school, I stepped off and suddenly felt cold. Then I realised why they were all staring at me and muttering. Oh no! I realise with a horrified jolt or shock running through me. I’ve left my clothes at home!

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