Young Writers Society

This is something I found in an old folder I didn't even know I had. I started reading it and was laughing almost the whole way through. This is the question I want you to answer: is this just good and funny to me because it describes so exactly the way my family is? If so, I won't try to add on to it. This is the first chapter...slightly long, but a quick read.

chapter the first ~ in which i complain about normality and study the meanings of the expression: 'hmph'

Our house looked normal enough. It just goes to show you...

Our big, white, friendly, placid house, standing on the corner of Bonny Doone and twenty-second avenue, shining matronly and tenderly on all of those who skated and biked down the long, glorious hill that was twenty-second avenue. It had such a wonderful, friendly, farm-house look, and the little white picket fence that surrounded it completed the picture. Of course, that little fence wouldn't have done much to keep in our big husky, Samson, but he never tried to get out, being the old, comfort-loving dog that he was.

Our lives, too, looked normal. My older brother and I went to school at the community college, we played music at school and had a little band of our own. Our little siblings - well, I wouldn't call them normal, exactly. They did have a tendency to run around in the yard in twenty-degree weather dressed as the noble savage...that is to say, naked. But, I mean, they weren't, like, extraordinary or anything. And our dad just had a normal job working for Children's Protective Services. So in short, yeah, our lives and our house and everything around us...looked and acted completely normally.

The big problem was, though - it was normal. There's not a thing to add after the classic "Or so I thought" or "Until one day." There's just - well - life. That was the main thing that plagued and pestered me throughout most of my teen years...the fact that nothing extraordinary, nothing life-threatening, nothing romantic - we were simply and completely, in all ways, a totally ordinary family. Hmph.

I sat back and sighed, gazing with satisfaction at the italicized words on the page. This was exactly how I felt, and it was good to get what I felt on the page. Of course, written like this, it looked as if I was a bored adult looking back at my even more boring younger years, whereas I was, in fact, still a teen. Making it extremely difficult, you see, to actually win any sympathy from those of higher intellect - adults - about my boring and ordinary life. They just smile wisely and put their fingers on their noses in the classic gesture of wisdom and secrecy and say "Ah, my dear, just feel lucky. When I was your age, I thought the same thing, but now I'm glad that I didn't have any excitement. Didn't you see that story in the Yakima Herald Republic about that poor little kid who got..." and they'd go off into some tangent about 'kids these days.' I echoed my thoughts from the page in front of me;

"Hmph."

The perfect expression of a disgruntled grunt. I took a sip of my coffee and smiled, rubbing my hands in front of me. It was not a satisfied rubbing of the hands, but a 'my hands are cold' rubbing of the hands. Our basement tends to be slightly chilly in the winter and slightly chilly in the summer and slightly chilly all the time.

"Nick, I'm sorry, but I just don't understand you!" The words burst out of my mouth before I could stop them.

I swiveled in my soft, old brown office chair and glared at Nick. He stopped and looked up at me, the saxophone mouthpiece hovering eagerly two inches from his mouth. The evil mouthpiece...strikes again.

"You have the ability to make wonderful, beautiful, balladic sounds on that instrument, and you insist on making devilish squeaks and trying your best to sound like a gigantic mouse caught in a flaming blue-cheese mouse-trap!"

I stopped, and we stared at each other for a moment. Then, with a slow sigh and a groan, my old office chair sank down of its' own accord, lowering me - and my dignity - gently to the ground. Nick and I burst out laughing. He pushed a hand through his wavy brown hair and grinned.

"Seriously, Sarah, you of all people should understand. The way you torture your violin is sometimes unbearable."

With that he turned back to his saxophone and began to once more emit horrible noises. I sighed loudly, then turned to my computer. I stared at the screen. My last words had been...oh. My last word had been 'hmph.'

Okay, what goes next, I thought. Maybe it didn't need anything else.

Seriously, what can you possibly say that has more weight and oomph to it than 'hmph'? Besides, if everything was completely normal, and remained completely normal, what else was there to say? Add entries ever day saying, "Everything remains normal!" It would certainly challenge my creative skills; "All normal on the western front!" "Sir, normal, sir!" "Normality is resumed, having not once been broken." "Well, normal is as normal does. And normal does do - therefore, normality is."

I grinned and shook my head. I sipped my coffee - well, half creamer, quarter hot chocolate, an eight sugar and an eight coffee, a special blend - and reached over to scratch my dogs' head. I felt like a real writer. This is what writers did, right? Real writers sat and drank coffee-like substances and petted their...dogs? Dogs? What the...? I turned and stared down at Samson, who was lying placidly on the floor, panting through his big, reeking open mouth and shedding on the floor. Samson never came in the basement, never! What was he doing here? And why was he shedding? It was winter, he should be conserving his hair for the summer, when he could release it into the air for us to breath and for mom to vacuum and for him to gloat. Weird. I looked up to see if Nick had noticed, but he was gone. I sighed and got up, grabbing my nearly-empty cup.

"Come on, Sam, you're not allowed down here. Besides, why would you come down here? You never do."

He looked at me and I could swear I saw some sort of flicker of a little doggy shrug before he got up and trotted in front of me up the stairs. He pushed the door open and went out into the light of day. I followed, holding the railing as I ascended the steep, dirty, carpeted stairs. Both of the staircases in our house were very steep - a good thing if you want to be in good shape, but when you're lazy like me - not such a good thing. I straightened my shirt and pushed my hand through my hair in my customary clean-up-when-coming-up gesture, then took the final step into the mysterious world of Upstairs. Well, okay, so it wasn't really mysterious, but during the school year I almost felt like I lived at school and in the basement. We were a one-computer family, and that computer was in the basement, so all of my college papers were written on that huge, old computer the size of a desk.

The stairs led directly from the basement to the outskirts of our little kitchen, and I stepped carefully when I saw that the yellowed tiles were wet from a recent mopping. I tiptoed on my bare feet to the right and down the hallway.

"Mom? Mom, where are you?" I yelled up our second flight of stairs.

I heard her voice waft down faintly.

"I'm up here, Sarah! Can you come up, please?"

I sighed and began the seventeen-step ascent up the narrow, carpeted staircase. I'd never thought about it before, but the only carpeted places in our house were the stairways. I wondered why as I dug my bare toes into the last step.

"Mom, something really weird happened. Sam came down into the basement. Were there fireworks that spooked him or something? And look - he's shedding. Oh my gosh! Now he's upstairs! He's never upstairs! What is he doing?"

I looked down in shock at the handsome face of the noble dog. He wagged his tail and licked his chops. I sighed and rolled my eyes. Whatever. I walked down the short, pale-brown hallway and turned left to my mom and dad's bedroom.

"Hey, mom...what are you doing?"

I looked in. She was standing in the middle of the room, grinning from ear to ear and holding a green dress up to herself. Her waist-length brown braid hung over one shoulder.

"Sarah, look at this new dress! I got it at the Olde Lighthouse for three dollars. Great sale. What in the world is Sam doing up here?"

I shrugged in bewilderment, then held up the folds of the green skirt.

"It's nice, mom. Wear it with that new cream-colored blouse. Hey, where's Nick? And where are Emma and Stephen?"

She frowned.

"I told Emma and Stephen to clean up the playroom. They'd better be doing it. And as for Nick...no clue. Probably in the basement."

She opened the accordion-style doors of her closet and pulled out a padded hanger. She hung the green dress on it and hung the dress in the closet.

"Okay, well, I'm going to walk to Safeway and get a pop, mom. Seeya!"

She stalked over to me, putting her hands on her hips.

"Get diet, okay? And get one for me while you're at it, please."

I sighed.

"Fine, fine. I'll be back in fifteen minutes or something."

I ran down the hallway and down the steep stairs, and in my hurry, I carelessly let gravity take care of my descent. That is to say, I fell. Suffering only a few minor head injuries, but nothing I couldn't handle, I got up and brushed my bruised elbows.

"It was deliberate, it was deliberate," I called out to whoever would be listening.

It was a quote from The Lord of the Rings - Gimli the dwarf said it after falling off of his horse, and people tended to compare me with Gimli. Also bull in a china closet, elephant, whale, and any generally stocky and clumsy animal. I wasn't, like, whale-sized, but I was slightly overweight most of the time, (although during tennis season I usually slimmed down a lot) and I carried my weight all over my body, presenting the physique of an out-of-shape football player. I had hair rather like my brothers; brown, wavy and thick. My hair curled on my neck and over my ears - no longer than that, though. People said it was the best haircut that I'd every had and it was perfect for my face. My face, by the way, was slightly heart-shaped, with big, soft lips and brown eyes that sort of...well, twinkled, for lack of a better word, when I laughed - which I did often. I had many amusing stories of when women had come up to me randomly in grocery stores and told me they liked my blush and asked me what kind it was. I always laughed, because I never wore any kind of make-up...sorry, I digress. I guess I like talking about myself. Where was I? Oh, yeah...

I slipped on my black, dusty, square-toed shoes and wrapped a mustard-colored scarf around my neck. Pushing my arms into the thin embrace of my hardly-adequate red coat, I turned at the sound of my brothers' voice.

"Hey, going to the store? Can you grab me a pop?"

I sighed.

"Okay, you got any money?"

He handed me a crumpled dollar and sauntered off into the basement to partake of the pleasures of warmth and security while I was out in this eighteen-degree weather getting refreshment for everybody. Hmph, I thought once more.

I opened our white, wooden door and gazed out with dismay at the beautiful but frozen world of our neighborhood. Then, taking a deep breath and pulling my coat about me, I opened our heavy glass outer door and into the freezing air of outdoors. I strode briskly down our five steps, skipping one or two to get my blood moving, then out the gate of our white picket fence. Sam stood at the gate, whining at me.

"No, you can't come! I'm going to the store, anyway. Why would you want to come? Go inside and be warm," I said rather crossly to the big, thick-furred husky. He wagged his tail at the sound of my voice, but when he saw me walking out of our driveway without him, he set up his customary mournful howling whine. I shook my head and sighed. The neighbors would be pleased to have such a wonderful sound permeating their neighborhood, no doubt.

I took long, fast strides down the frozen street to the corner. We lived only two blocks away from the all-purpose Safeway/Rite Aid duo. Needless to say, we got everything there, from gas to food to party favors. As I arrived at the corner, I looked to the left and the right, and saw that there was a huge line of cars, a mega-buildup, in either direction. Of course...it being Martin Luther King day, everybody felt the pressing need to go places and do stuff. I sighed and scuffed my feet, feeling a slight temptation to make a sign that said; "It's not just a good idea...it's the law! Stop for pedestrians!" As I amused myself with seeing how far my steamy breath could blow a little frozen, forlorn leaf, I spotted something moving in the gutter. I stooped down and pulled aside some frozen mud and leaves to see a little bird. Its' color was indistinguishable beneath the mud that covered it.

It was still alive, but just barely. I sighed, expelling a dragon-sized mouthful of steam. I slowly reached out a finger and prodded it. It squeaked in protest, but otherwise seemed incapable of moving. I stopped, torn. It was still alive, but it wouldn't be for long. I wasn't much on bird hypothermia, but I figured that even if I did get it inside and cleaned it up, it still wouldn't have long for this world. Yet, I couldn't just leave it here...it wouldn't be right. I'd never be able to forget it, I knew myself. I'd constantly be thinking...

Yeah, it would have died, but...what if it wouldn't have? Could I have saved it?

The thought of eternal worry decided my mind. I gently slid my fingers underneath it and lifted it up. I brushed most of the mud off with my fingers and cupped the tiny, frail, trembling body in my hands. I smiled as it lifted its' head and cheeped weakly at me. Forgetting my mission, I held the bird underneath my coat, letting my body heat warm it as best as it could. I turned back towards my house and walked in huge steps, feeling the birds' trembling quicken on my palm. I vaulted over the gate and raced up the stairs. I burst inside and yelled as loudly as I could,

"Mom! Come quick!"

Stephen came running out of the playroom, his huge brown eyes even bigger with fright, and Emma clutched the doorframe in terror. She always over reacted to any situation...it was just her way. I smiled reassuringly and pulled the bird out from underneath my coat. Mom came down the stairs quickly, saying,

"Sarah! What is it?"

I held out the bird. She stopped suddenly and laughed. She rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Oh, Sarah...I was wondering when your turn would come. You've waited too long."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, every girl that I've ever known has felt this strange obligation to bring a bird home one time in her life. You never did, and I wondered if something was wrong."

I grinned.

"No, I'm guessing it's probably more of a matter of a dying-bird deficiency in Yakima. Come on, let's see what we can do."

She went to the kitchen and turned on the faucet, heating up some water.

"Emma, go get an old towel. Stephen, get come soft rags from the cupboard," Mom dished out the orders like a sergeant.

Emma and Stephen scurried to do her bidding, whispering among themselves. I carried the dirty little bird over to the sink. It had a small, perfectly triangular beak and large black beads of eyes set on either side of its' small head. Stephen returned with the rags and Mom got them damp with warm water.

"Give it to me,"

she said calmly. I handed the bird gently into her calloused palm and she rubbed the warm cloth gently over its' trembling body. Then she rinsed it out twice and washed it again. After a few passes with the warm cloth, the birds' feathers began to take on more of an actual color. I saw little flashes of green, red and yellow, but before I could see any more, Mom took the bird over the table where Emma had set the towel. She carefully laid it down on the faded towel and arranged its' stick-like legs.

"Some...hmm...warm water, or milk, something warm to get inside of it."

She shrugged.

"I don't really know much about birds, so for now let's give it some warm milk. See if it drinks it."

Luckily for itself, the bird did drink the warm milk. After we had coaxed it to drink, it finished the milk in less time than it took for me to explain to Emma and Stephen what had happened.

"Well, it should sleep now, and we'll see what happens."

Mom went to the sink to wash her hands. "We'll wash it more thoroughly if it gets stronger," she finished. I went over and looked at the bird. I folded the corners of the towel over its' little body and smiled.

"Wow, I never thought I was the bird-saver type, but I'm kind of glad I did, you know? I wonder what kind it is."

Mom had gone out of the kitchen and herded the kids back to the playroom to finish cleaning, so I was talking to myself...and the bird. Well, at least I didn't have to go carry pops from the store for everybody. I now had an excuse to stay home. But I still didn't have my pop.