Month: February 2020

[This story, dated 7 July 2013, is the third of three that I recently rediscovered from when I was hoping to set an example that would inspire my kids to write their own stories.]

“I want to be a shark for Halloween,” Davey told his parents. So a couple of days later, Davey’s dad came home with a shark costume from the Halloween store.

“This looks fake,” complained Davey, standing in front of the mirror while trying on the shark suit. “A real shark doesn’t have legs that stick out.”

“Well your legs have to stick out,” explained Davey’s dad. “How else will you get from house to house?”

“Swimming, like a shark,” said Davey.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Davey’s dad. “There’s no water between the houses in our neighborhood to swim through.”

“Anyway, a shark’s skin isn’t fuzzy like this. And my face shouldn’t be poking out between the shark’s teeth. I want to be like the sharks in the aquarium.”

“Well that’s the only shark costume they had,” said Davey’s dad. “If you don’t like it, think of something else so I can take this back for a refund.” He left the room, muttering something about “constant unreasonable demands.”

Davey’s heart was set on being a shark for Halloween, and on being a more realistic one than a store-bought costume would allow. He sulked at his father’s brusque dismissal. Davey’s mom saw this and turned to Davey with a reassuring smile. She told him in a low voice, “Your dad’s having trouble at work. But don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”

Several days passed. Davey’s dad didn’t notice how busy Davey’s mom was in the garage. Didn’t notice the length of tubing she brought back from the hardware store, or that the lawnmower was lying half-disassembled in the back yard. He was too distracted to think about Halloween. He had had an argument with his bosses at work. He felt like a hard worker and asked for a raise, but they said no, explaining that he always did the least expected of him and never went “the extra mile.” Davey’s dad was frustrated. He didn’t understand how he could get everything on his list done, on time, and still be told he doesn’t do enough.

Before he knew it there was only one day left. He turned to his wife and asked, “Did Davey ever choose something else to be for Halloween?”

“He wants to be a shark,” she said as she walked through the room smelling of hot-glue.

“I know that’s what he wanted, but he didn’t like the costume, remember? I told him to pick something else.”

“No, he still wants to be a shark,” said Davey’s mom as she disappeared through the doorway on the way to who-knows-where.

“Poor kid,” said Davey’s dad to himself. “Eh, we can always stick a cap on his head and call him a baseball player.”

The next day was Halloween. Davey’s dad got home from work a little late. Trick-or-treating had already begun. He wondered what costume Davey’s mom had put on him. He shrugged and put some dinner in the microwave, waiting for Davey and his mom to return.

As he ate he noticed the sound of a lawnmower engine in the distance, which was unexpected. Who mows their lawn while trick-or-treating is going on? A moment later he realized the sound was coming closer up the street, which was even odder. Davey’s dad got up and looked out the door. What he saw astonished him.

There was Davey’s mom, pushing what looked like a shopping cart whose large wire basket had been removed. In its place was a clear tub filled with water, and in the water was a shark, about the size of Davey. The water must have made the cart enormously heavy, because a lawnmower engine was attached to the wheels of the cart to help Davey’s mom push it.

The shark was sleek and shiny, made from a sheet of rubber cleverly folded and padded. It had a fin that stuck up above the surface of the sloshing water. Looking closely Davey’s dad could see that a clear plastic tube ran from the tip of the fin down into the shark’s body: an air tube that allowed Davey to breathe. The shark had black glassy eyes, gill slits, and pectoral fins that moved around. Davey’s dad guessed that Davey’s hands were in them. With a small movement of his head Davey could make the shark’s mouth open, showing a row of pointy triangular teeth.

As Davey’s dad watched, Davey’s mom wheeled the contraption up to a neighbor’s house, killed the lawnmower engine, set the brakes on the cart, and rang the doorbell. A moment after the door opened and the neighbor shrieked, Davey pushed himself up to his knees with his pectoral-fin hands, sticking up out of the water and pulling open a seam in the shark’s belly to reveal himself. “Trick or treat!” he shouted with glee.

Davey’s dad backed into the house, mouth agape, and sat down at his half-eaten meal, now totally forgotten. He finally understood something important. “The extra mile,” he said to himself in wonder.

[This story, dated 30 June 2013 and recently rediscovered, is another of a few that I wrote for my kids when they were in grade school in the hope of inspiring them to write their own stories.]

I have a secret power. I’ve never told anyone, but in the summer I sometimes like to show it off, just a little. Not enough to freak anyone out, just enough to impress them. When my friends come over to play in our pool, I challenge them to breath-holding contests. One by one they submerge, and one by one they come back up gasping. Twenty seconds. Thirty. Forty-five. Then it’s my turn. I stay down for sixty seconds or seventy. After that people start to get scared, so I don’t stay down any longer than that. But I don’t really have to come up. I can stay down as long as I like. I’m an amphibian.

I know that sounds impossible. I’m obviously a human boy, and everyone knows humans are mammals, and mammals are not amphibians. Some mammals can stay underwater for a very long time, but only because they can hold their breath. I don’t hold my breath, and I don’t breathe the water through gills like a fish. I don’t have gills. But I never feel the need to come up for air. Amphibians can breathe through their skin, and I guess that’s what I do.

Of course when I do my holding-breath trick I make sure to gasp for air when I come up even though I don’t need to. It would be too weird for everyone if I didn’t.

One day a new girl moved into the neighborhood, and to help the new family feel welcome my mom made me invite her over with my friends for a pool party. She didn’t know anyone, and I’m a little ashamed to admit my friends didn’t include her in things as much as they should. Neither did I.

Inevitably my friend Billy insisted we do the breath-holding challenge again. He’s the one who can stay under the longest, besides me, and he always thinks he’ll beat me someday. Maybe one day I’ll let him, but on this day I didn’t plan to. I guess I wanted to show off a little bit for the new girl.

Once more we took turns going under the surface. Once more we compared times as we came up. I stayed under extra long this time, seventy-three seconds. When I came up, I was a little self-conscious about my fake gasp, maybe because of the new girl, and maybe I didn’t quite do it right, because the new girl gave me a curious look. After everyone congratulated me as usual, the new girl blurted out, “Let’s have a long-jump contest.”

That was a new one on all of us. We’d never tried a long-jump contest. But the side of our pool deck was the perfect spot for it, and I had chalk to draw a jumping line, and to mark where everyone landed. One by one we jumped. Some jumps were far, some weren’t. Mine was somewhere in the middle. Poor Billy, who wanted to be best at something, wasn’t best at jumping either.

Then it was the new girl’s turn. Since the rest of us were boys, and boys are stronger than girls, we didn’t expect much from her jump. But she sprang from the ground right at the jump line and sailed right over everyone else’s marks! At the last instant before touching the ground she seemed to… glide a few extra inches, stretching it out, as if she’d stopped falling back to earth for an instant.

There was a lot of wounded pride, and some of my friends tried jumping again to beat her mark, but they couldn’t. It was my turn to give her a curious look.

A short time later the party broke up and everyone went home. I couldn’t stop thinking about the new girl. Had I imagined that extra little float of hers? Had anyone else noticed it? Could she be concealing a secret like mine? I have amphibian powers. Could it be that she’s hiding… bird powers?

I never thought much about girls before, but none of them were ever special before. I want to find out a lot more about the new girl. Maybe we can be friends. Maybe I can tell her my secret.

[This story, from 2 June 2012 and just recently rediscovered, is one of a few that I wrote for my kids to model creative writing for them and to whet their appetite for doing it themselves.]

Once upon a time there was an old cat. The cat was so old that he was losing some of the fur on top of his head. “Meow,” thought the cat, which meant, “I wish I had a nice hat to cover my bald spot.”

As it happens, there was a nice hat that the cat’s person sometimes wore. But it was high on a shelf — too high for the old cat to jump.

“Meow,” thought the cat, which meant, “That hat would look great on me. I wish I could reach it.” But try as he might, he couldn’t.

At that very moment, the cat’s old enemy, the mouse, appeared from his hole. “Meow,” thought the cat, which meant, “A nice mousey meal will make me feel better.” The cat pounced at the mouse, but being so old, his pounce was very slow, and the mouse had plenty of time to disappear back into his hole. “Meow!” shouted the cat in frustration, which meant, “Not only am I going bald, but I can’t even catch a mouse anymore!”

The mouse heard the cat’s “Meow” and understood it (because at mouse school they teach cat language for self-defense). Even though the cat had been trying to eat him for years, the mouse felt bad for him. Then the mouse had an idea. Maybe he could cheer up the cat. Maybe then the cat would stop chasing him!

“Squeak!” said the mouse from his hole, which meant, “If you’ll promise to stop trying to eat me, I’ll help you get that hat.”

The cat (who understood mouse language thanks to an after-school mouse-language class he once took) laughed and said, “Meow!” meaning, “If I, a cat, who’s an expert at jumping and climbing, can’t get that hat, how can a mouse possibly get it?”

The mouse poked his head out of his hole. “Squeak,” he said, which meant, “Oh I can get it, alright.” He added, “Squeak?” meaning, “Do we have a deal?”

“Meow,” the cat nodded skeptically.

The mouse disappeared back inside his hole. For a moment, the cat heard nothing; but then there came the sound of tiny mouse feet marching up through old tunnels he’d dug in the walls over the years. Then silence again for a moment; and then to the cat’s astonishment, a tiny hole appeared in the wall just above the shelf, right behind the hat. A moment later the mouse’s nose appeared through the hole, and as his tiny claws dug the hole wider, the rest of the mouse emerged.

“Squeak,” called the mouse from high above the cat, meaning, “We have a deal, right?”

“Meow,” agreed the cat admiringly. So the mouse gave the hat a push and down it tumbled from the shelf — right onto the old cat’s head.

The mouse re-entered the wall, scampered down his tunnels, and came back out through the hole near the floor. “Squeak,” he said to the cat, meaning, “That hat looks nice on you.  You should go look in a mirror.”

The cat went to a nearby mirror and took a look at himself. “Meow,” thought the cat, meaning, “I look years younger! I’ll bet I could catch that mouse now!” And with one quick pounce, the mouse was trapped beneath his paws!

“SQUEAK!” said the mouse, meaning, “HEY! WE HAD A DEAL!”

The cat brought his face closer to the trapped mouse. Terrified, the mouse watched the cat’s mouth open and thought, “Squeak,” meaning, “This is the end.”

And then the cat poked out his tongue to give the mouse a grateful kiss.

“Meow,” said the cat, and meant it.