Young Writers Society

Crackers
By Mack Jenkins

This summer I worked as a first-year counsellor at Cairn Camp. The first week of camp is Girls’ Week. So for my first cabin of the summer, it was Sr. Girls’ Week. I had the oldest cabin on site; the girls were a year or two younger than me. They were regular teenaged girls. There were eight of them and they didn’t like to listen … at all!
About halfway through the week, we were at lunch; the kitchen staff had made soup that day – Italian wedding and minestrone, if memory serves me correctly. This one girl, Jackie, wanted soup. Now, I said none of them liked to listen but Jackie, she was the worst. She’s the kind of girl we all know at least one of in our lifetime: a stuck-up princess who always gets her way. Jackie didn’t like me because I never gave people special privileges, which meant she didn’t always get her way. Jackie asked to go get soup and I said sure, but no more than four crackers. She said okay and headed up to get her soup.
I was happy. For once Jackie was actually listening to her counsellor – or so I thought.
When Jackie got back, her bowl had about an inch and a half of crackers piled above it. It looked like there was a mountain of crackers in her bowl with a tiny, almost non-existent puddle of Italian wedding soup. I asked her how many crackers there were in her bowl and she said 20. I told her that was an obscene amount of crackers to put in one bowl of soup. I took the bowl away from her and said no more crackers for the rest of the week. She then told me I had no heart or soul. I told her those were strong words and were ridiculously inappropriate to say to anyone, let alone a counsellor. Her response was “Rot in hell!” Needless to say, her words caused heads to turn.
Later, I took Jackie to the head counsellor to have a talk. She was straightened out, or at least she acted like she was for the rest of the week. But either way, I don’t think she understood how powerful her words were. And she probably still doesn’t.
Later on, I talked to my friend Aaron, another counsellor. He told me to just get over it and walk it off. “You’ve had worse,” he said. Though that may be true, it didn’t help much or even at all.
Words are strong and powerful things; they’re something you can’t just forget like that … or walk off.

I know exactly the kind of spoilt princess you mean - there are lots of those in another form class in my year.

I really liked this piece, and I know what you mean about words are hard to ignore.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But words will never hurt me" ?

Yeah right. A well thought out insult can hurt more than a thousand stones.

One little crit though. You should explain a little more why the line "Rot in Hell" upset you. I'm guessing you're religious, but it's hard to tell from the article.

Other than that, great job!!

Keep writing!!

Pgsgirl x

I have just a few things to say:

1. Personally, I have had experiences like this one, so bravo for capturing it in words.
2. These kind of girls are everywhere, we have to learn to live with them,

and

3. This is a really good short story.

Nice short story indeed.I like reading articles like reality captured in words.Would like to read more of such work if you come across something interesting .

Words are strong and powerful things; they’re something you can’t just forget like that … or walk off.

I agree.