The Sound of the Sea
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...
Stories
Original fiction by young writers ages 8-13
View:
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.
"S’bongo!” I hear my mother’s voice ring clear and loud across our homestead. I look up. There in the sky are the unmistakable brown and purple feathers of the Jago bird. Its massive wingspan blots out the sun and its black shadow twin chases me as I start running toward my mother.
Underneath the fluffy white clouds that rested peacefully in the cheery blue sky, the waves pushed me and my boogie board in to shore. Riding the white water was better than anything I dreamed of doing this vacation. Since the moment I first splashed into the waves hours earlier, I hadn’t come out; there is nothing better than riding your boogie board on the waves with your cousins!
The branch shook silently as the wind whistled through the oak trees. The little ball of fur jumped to another branch as I pointed the flame-red sight at it. It hopped around a little, found himself a nice, big acorn, and settled on a branch. He gnawed on the nut silently as I sat below, watching, thinking, and most of all, scared. I aimed the tip of the barrel up at the squirrel.
The night was black and warm, the air thick and smoggy and choking with every breath. The girl and her father, walking home from the movies, did not speak. This was partly because of the empty humid night but mostly for some other reason, one that neither the girl nor her father understood. They were not close. The father tried but gave up when the girl avoided him or ignored him.
At last, Carrie thought, as “Fourth grade, Miss Ann” was called over the intercom. She grabbed her backpack and fought her way through the teeming hallway filled with excited children calling out goodbyes. Her first year at Crestview Middle School had been overflowing with new friends and experiences, but she couldn’t wait to be in the woods.