Charlie’s lips curled as he smiled, his milky eyes twinkling. “Pretty girl,” he said in a husky whisper. “Pretty girl, come to me.” He shifted from the bed to reach out for the girl’s hand, his eyes becoming even more desperate as the girl took a step back. “Pretty girl!” he cried. “Don’t leave me!”
The little girl looked up at the man standing behind her and, when she saw his stern face, she stepped over to Charlie, slipping her hand in his. “Here I am,” she said, her voice treble. She gave another glance at the man behind her, but his face was calm, so she calmed down as well.
“So how are you feeling?” the other man said, standing closer to Charlie and slipping his hand in Charlie’s other hand. Charlie smiled and closed his eyes.
“Tired.”
“But not in a bad way, I hope,” the man added. When Charlie didn’t say anything to this, the man frowned, looking over the little girl. She was trying to inch away from Charlie, but when he looked at her again, she stopped, a defeated expression on her face.
“I brought someone for you.”
“What?”
“I brought someone for you. This is Petunia.” The little girl made a face.
“Daddy…”
“Petunia,” the man warned. Charlie just looked blank. The man smiled weakly and sat down on the chair beside the bed. Petunia looked at him pathetically, her eyes begging him to take off Charlie, who was stroking her wrist tenderly. The man ignored her.
“Did you hear?” the man said to Charlie when Charlie didn’t respond. “Her name is Petunia.”
“Petunia?” he said carefully. “What a pretty name! Can I have a kiss?” The little girl once more looked at her father desperately, but he just shook his head. Petunia bent over and let him kiss her with his fuzzy lips.
“Don’t you remember me?” she asked when his hand returned to her wrist again, a tiny blush on his face.
“What?”
Her father quickly intervened. “Her name is Petunia. Do you remember her? She is your granddaughter.”
But Charlie didn’t understand. “What’s yours?”
“Pardon?”
“What’s your name?”
“Michael.”
Charlie frowned at this. “Do I know you?”
“I am your son.”
Charlie was not quite sure how to respond to this, but he squeezed Petunia’s hand harder. “Are you related?”
“She is my daughter. She is your granddaughter.”
Charlie smiled. “That’s nice.”
Petunia looked at her father hopefully and he finally relented, standing in between the little girl and Charlie. “Petunia has something she made for you. Would you like to see it?”
“She made it?”
“Yes. Why don’t you tell Poppa all about it?” he said, handing Petunia a nice folder with a rainbow horse. She grinned.
“I made it just for you!” she said, happy that she was released from his grip at last and happier still that she could show off. Charlie smiled at her enthusiasm and smiled even more when she presented him a picture of several fruit trees, all crammed together. Petunia leaned closer to him. “See? That’s an apple tree and that’s an orange tree. Isn’t it good?”
Charlie looked at it critically. “That looks like a fig tree,” he said, pointing to one of the trees.
“Really?” Petunia snatched it out of his hands and peered at it. “That’s a bluebird,” she said at last, pointing at what he saw. “See? It’s nesting. That’s why it’s hiding.”
He smiled. “Ah, I see.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Petunia beamed. “Really?” When he said nothing to this, she smiled more. “I’ll find a pretty spot on the wall for you so you can remember me. I even signed it with my name, so now you have no excuse!”
Michael sighed.
Just before she could find a place, the nurse came in and pointed at her watch. “It’s five o’clock.” When there was no response to this, she said, “ It’s time for dinner. He has to eat, you know?”
This put Petunia in even higher spirits. “Bye bye Poppa!” she cried. “See you later.” She gave him a slight kiss and then tossed the picture on his lap. “Hang up the picture, won’t you?”
“Bye Petunia,” he said, waving her .
“Bye Dad,” Michael said and kissed him. “Sorry about Petunia, she doesn’t know better.”
“That’s okay.”
“Don’t be too much of a pain to the nurses, all right? I’ll see you next week.”
“Bye.”
He watched them go out, the little girl skipping and the man walking slowly, trying to stop the hyper girl. Charlie smiled.
“It’s nice to have family visit you, isn’t it?” the nurse said absently once the two were out of sight. Charlie nodded, looking back down at the picture in his lap.
“I think I saw a bluebird once,” he said slowly.
“That’s nice.” The nurse struggled with the wheel chair for a minute, putting it closer to the bed, but it had a jammed wheel and it wouldn’t work right. Finally after another minute, she straightened up, triumphant. “There! Now we can go to the cafeteria.” She glanced at Charlie, who was stroking the waxy bluebird. “Forget about that,” she said, tugging the picture out from Charlie’s fingers and setting it on the side table. “Come on, Charlie. It’s time to go. Don’t you want to eat? Aren’t you hungry?”
He glanced at the picture once more, a confused look on his face. “Petunia?”
“What about her?” When Charlie didn’t say anything to this, she tapped her fingers on her smock. “Well?” she said. “Are you ready to go?”
Once more, the confused look came in his face. “I think so.”
“Good. Sit up then.”
“Okay.”
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,742 Reviews
Nah, the word is treble.
Hey Snoink,
Long time no see. I really liked the middle and the end. I didn't like the beginning. The reason why is because it just appears like something bad is going to happen. The tone of that first paragraph just has a bad feeling to it like the little girl is going to get molested or something of that sort. I would recommend giving some setting clues that they're in a nurse home or in a hospital so the tone of the story definitely stays the same the whole way through.
Other than that, nothing caught my eye except the word 'treble', I figured you meant tremble but that has all ready been mentioned by a previous critiquer. Good story!
~aero
Ay de mi! Pesky little errors... well, I fixed it. Hopefully it reads better now?
Hey Snoink.
Just came to read this, and it ended up being totally different than I would have guessed. xD
“Here I am,” she said, her voice treble.
Do you actually mean treble, or trembling? I guess treble actually works, if it is what I'm imagining. Odds are, I'm just not understanding here.
“So how are feeling?”
*How are you feeling
That's all I found. or all I think I found lol. I'll just say, for a while I thought Charlie was a little boy. Which is the impression you're trying to give, I think, but you could try to make it more obvious so the reader can feel more for him.
Hello!
It almost seemed like I was there in the room, standing at the foot of Charlie's bed. I was mad when the nurse cam to kick us out of the room.
It's great when an author can do that to her reader.
It should read, "Bye-Bye, Poppa!" Because, she is talking to Poppa not about Poppa. When you talk directly to a person, you insert a comma between his name and the rest of the sentence. (Same thing with the other byes).
Great job,
MM
Thanks for both the critiques!
Rieda>> I did check it in spell-check, and I got a clean pass. Which probably means Word is being stupid again, lol. Do you remember where the words are, please?
And lol, yeah. The beginning was weird, but it developed into Something Completely Different, which was pretty awesome. ^_~
And thanks for the missing quotation! That kind of mistake is always embarrassing. ^_^;;
nickelodeon>> Ah, thank you! The title was mostly out of desperation, but I'm glad it caught your eye.
Someone having fuzzy lips? Well... old people seem to have fuzzy lips. Once I kissed this old lady and she had peach fuzz surrounding her lips. It sounds weird, but it's the only way I can describe it! -_-
Nah, I guess it didn't go anywhere, at least plotwise. I don't know. I suppose what's interesting (to me, the writer, lol) is how they left him and once more he's alone. Then again, it is very weird, lol.
Hmmm... a comma? But it doesn't look right! *squints* Oh well, thanks for pointing that out.
Nice story overall. You picked a very appropriate title. It caught my interest and surprised me; it certainly wasn't what i was expecting.
Question: Can a person have fuzzy lips? Interesting description. Not sure if it totally makes sense.
Miscellaneous: The whole story didn't really go anywhere. You found out about Charlie, he got a picture, they left, it's over. Not a very complex plot.
I'm going to guess that's just your style, which is totally okay as well. Just something to think about...
I'm not sure about this, but i think when you say "Hi, Susie." or "Bye, Bob." you put a comma after the greeting. (Obviously you didn't use susie and bob as names, but you get what i mean.) Either way, it isn't going to add or detract from your writing either way.
=)
This was really good Snoink. I like how we found out one thing at a time and how you didn't crowd it with information in the first sitting. The way you ended it was wonderful. It has a couple spelling errors though:
“Forget about that, she said, tugging the picture out from Charlie’s fingers and setting it on the side table.
**you need another set of quotation marks. There are also other actual spelling mistakes. lol, but that could easily be solved with one more run through spellcheck, there aren't many at all.
Otherwise, your characters are very interesting. I admit that at the beggining I felt like something bad was going to happen to Petunia, but after that passed I understood perfectly. This should be a very nice peice! The title works perfectly. Great job!
Keep at it!
~Rieda