Are Lemmings Contagious?

First draft, so let's be harsh and see what happens. Thanks.

“Every human being has a story, y’know? The problem is, no one takes an interest in other people’s, so the world is full of these really great stories that go untold. You walk down the street and know that they’re passing you by. It’s s**t.”

 

I’m saying this to my best friend Stephanie, who’s flinging a small orange ball at the wall and catching it on the first bounce. There are purple swirls and flecks in the ball, the kind you can win in a Christmas cracker and from gumball machines; I think about how the ball might get dented in the exact place as a purple fleck and how that would wipe out the fleck forever. Ka-put.

 

“You swear too much,” she says, without taking her eye off the ball.

 

“I only said ‘s**t’ and I only said it once.”

 

“You just said it again.”

 

“Ok, twice then.” Sometimes Stephanie tries to act like a teacher and it annoys me. She’s annoying me right now, not caring about what I said, the ball making that stupid noise every ten seconds; not even a satisfying ‘pock’ sound like with a tennis ball. “Did you win that in a cracker?” I ask.

 

“No,” she scoffs. “You’re so weird.”

 

“Do you think that, right now, there’s a kid somewhere far away like Africa, playing with a bouncy ball just like you, only facing the opposite way, and he feels completely alone…but he’s technically not, because it’s like you’re bouncing the ball to each other?”

 

“I’m bouncing it off the wall,” she sneers.

 

I want to roar ‘oh, for f**k’s sake!’ like my mum does when I drop a spoon on the floor or she sees me struggling to put the Hoover back in the cupboard, but I don’t because it’s not Stephanie’s fault that she’s only nine. Instead, I tell her,

 

“Sometimes you really exasperate me.” I either got that word from The Famous Five or from the dictionary. Dictionaries are very cool, and so am I; it’s me the other kids come to when they want to laugh over stuff like ‘b*****d’ and ‘sheath’ - which was a condom in medieval times - in the printed word. There's a field by my Gran’s house that sometimes has condoms in it. Once, when I was hanging out there, a Year Six boy lifted one up on a stick and flicked it at me.

 

Stephanie keeps muttering ‘weirdo’ each time the ball returns to her hand, like she’s keeping count except every number has turned into ‘weirdo’. I don’t like numbers – they’re too changeable and don’t make any sense. Maths is a complicated thing that lets me know I’m not clever. My mum is another. Last week we started doing negative numbers and it made me feel sick; you can add two numbers together and get nothing, just because one number has a minus sign. And sometimes the more numbers you take away, the bigger they get, even though they don’t exist. Zero is the basement with a concrete floor; there’s nowhere else to go. I tried that out on my mum to see if she thought it was good and she slapped me.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

I dart forward and snatch the ball from the air. “It means please talk to me.”

 

“No it doesn’t. Give that back.”

 

“Sometimes it does.” I hold onto the ball and plead with my eyes.

 

“Not everyone writes stories,” Stephanie says, which seems completely random until I realise she’s referring to my rant from about five minutes ago. So she was listening. Sort of.

 

“I didn’t say people write them down, I meant their lives are like stories and we never get to read them.” I bounce the ball gently in her direction: a truce.

 

“Like when people keep secrets?”

 

I should have known she wouldn’t get it, but I can’t act frustrated now because of the truce. Answering suddenly seems to require lot of effort, and my face tightens like it wants to cry. “What kind of secrets?” I manage to ask, like I’m prompting her down the right track of thought, but it’s useless.

 

“Like your secret about being poorly.”

 

This throws me. Have I told her a lie about being poorly? Sometimes I invent stuff to make life more interesting, like when the optician told me I had to have glasses and I informed my friends that I was going to go permanently blind.

But I can’t recall lying to Stephanie about being poorly.

 

“What d’you mean?”

 

“I heard my mum tell Dad that you’ll probably be dead before you're twenty and he said ‘what of?’ and she said suicide – and when I asked Dad what suicide was, he said it's an illness.”

 

Well, this is interesting.

 

“I don’t want you to die!” she continues, “And now I’ve probably got it because if you hang around with someone who has suicide, you catch it.”

 

“You can’t catch suicide,” I assure her. “It means jumping off a building.”

 

“Well, Mum told Dad that she doesn’t want me talking to you, so that must be how you catch it.”

 

Sometimes, standing at the top of the stairs, I feel that I’m on the brink of flight and want to leap off, but that isn’t the same and I know it.

I find it disquieting that two adults who barely know me are predicting my fate behind the scenes.

 

Author's Note

This, like most writing out there, is semi-autobiographical. But please treat it as fiction.
Let me know if I've got the voice right (a smart nine-year old), and whether I can write in the present tense or should stick to other styles.
Any feedback on this will be really appreciated. Thanks.

Reviews

[Emily B]

It sounds like the nine year olds I know. Only you're not allowed to use words like exasperate in my house unless you know how to spell them. Kids are smart and have ideas about stuff we don't even touch on. Too smart some days. Kids knows sometimes that adults aren't smart enough to predict the future. Some adults are barely able to function through their own miserable existences much less have an idea about someone else's future. There are lots of layers to this story. I like it as is. But can also imagine it as part of a larger work. . .

[L.V. Ana]

I really like this. It has a very refreshing feeling, and a very introspective feeling. The kid does seem a bit older than most nine year olds but that might have something to do with the fact that I'm an American and over here, most nine year olds...well, let's not get into that. This is brilliant writing.

[Rain]

This style you use is compelling. I wouldn't tinker around. The realism just hooked me from the first paragraph. This has to be part of a larger piece, right ? I'm not easily hooked, to want to read more. This is exceptional, C. Rain..

[TL Boehm]

I think the present tense of the voice adds to the power and the draw of this story, I can see this expanding into a longer work if you want to take it in that direction.

[F. Nazarov]

Kids make me laugh, plain and simple. I love smart kids by the way, they are pretty amazing. I agree who everyone has a story to share, and it irritates me when people hold back, well from me anyways. I like the style it's written in, I don't see a problem with it. I think that it could be longer, but I don't feel like I have a right to say or suggest those things, due to the fact that I am not the writer and I usually don't suggest things like that unless I am asked. Really it all depends on how you want it, what do you think it should be and how you think it should end. Overall, I thought it was perfect, so go brag now.

[Alex J. Griffin]

Needs more; it ends too quick. Follow Mejasha Love's lead with the errors, I would try to tighten it up. There are instances where you could substitute one word for two or three. i.e.) "...catching it on the first bounce." --> ...catching it on the rebound. see how that makes a little more sense?

Christmas cracker --> It could be a regional thing, but I have no idea what a 'Christmas cracker' is.
"...she wouldn't get it, but I can't act frustrated now because of the truce." --> word choice
"...It suddenly seems a lot of effort to answer" --> word choice
"I'm prompting her down the right track of thought,..." --> word choice

You said, "First draft, so please don't judge too harshly." Don't ever say that. The worst thing for a writer's first draft is to be considered "good with few errors". Always assume there are at least 20 errors -depending on length- and work from there.

[Melanie Jane Boicourt S..]

"There's a field by my Gran's house that sometimes has condoms in it; once when I was hanging out there, an older boy lifted one up on a stick and flicked it at me."

****This could be two sentences but it doesn't have to be.****


"we never to get to read"



"Maths is a complicated thing that lets me"


*****Anyway, that is all I found. Just simple things. That is why I didn't bother telling you.*****
Love All, Mejasha

[Melanie Jane Boicourt S..]

I liked it a lot. I found a few mispellings and misplaced words but you said not to judge too harshly so I overlooked them. The story line was great! Keep it up. Thanks for sharing.
Love All, Mejasha

[Bubo]

Children!!
Really stepping into young minds is not easy..........and how cruel some children can be, and how adults
influence a childs thoughts and actions................you could so extend on this and I would love to read where its going to go.
Great dialogue!

[Kevin Andros]

Well All this thing is really cool, or I'm somewhat biased towards Kids attitude. This is great, more or less, superb peice. I particularly Liked the first paragarph:

Every human being has a story, y’know? The problem is, no one takes an interest in other people’s, so the world is full of these really great stories that go untold. You walk down the street and know that they’re passing you by. It’s s**t.

This is so cool thing to be observed by a kid you know. Superb thinking. I did find few typos, but altogether it is a great peice. ~KA~

[Andrew Dunham]

Nicely dark and disquieting. Loved the bit about the hoover, for f**k's sake. If you adapted this a bit it would make a great play, I think. Children, having no confidence to walk away from a situation, will hang in until things get dire or someone intervenes. When I look back at my own childhood and remember the fucked up situations I endured, I realize I could have saved myself a lot of insanity. But we try to fit in, to remain, to impress and belong. All for nought. You're so weird. Ha! Present tense is fine, child-like naturalism. Nine year old voice is great.