Three Minutes with a Missing Unicorn

Normanday #4: One Good Point

Write for three minutes about the time you…

…were asked to unicorn-sit while your friend was out of town. The unicorn really didn’t like you and the first chance he got, he bolted. You looked everywhere for him. Just when you thought you’d have to tell your friend his beloved unicorn was gone forever, you spotted the unicorn…

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of this Saturday (put “Norman is a Genius” in the subject line). I’ll post three of my favorite entries next Monday. Include your first name (or, even better, use a pen name) and age (unless you’re tortoise-old). If you’re a published writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.

Here are the entries from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes about…

…something that happened to you on a playground…

Chris

It happened on a playground…

I remember the day very vividly; it was cold and had just snowed. All the kids were out running on the playground after lunch. The teachers were probably happy for the break from the loudness. I was excited because I always played football during recess. Today would be no different, only more exciting with the new snow, it was always fun to slide around and try to maintain your traction. The game started out as usual, my friend threw me a bomb perfectly wobbling and I made a diving catch in the snow. Then I was “two-hand” tapped for the tackle. The rules at our school allowed for football, as long as it was two hand touch. The ball popped out from my grasp and someone on the other team started running as if I had fumbled. My anger got a hold of me, I was already down, I bolted slipping in the snow and laid a hard tackle on the ball carrier. The ball bounced out again, this time I picked it up. Immediately, someone screamed, “Get him!” I had no other choice but to run with the football dodging tacklers as if I was Earl Campbell. I ran through the blacktop of the playground as swarms of kids chased me, our game had expanded greatly beyond just those playing football. I was now running out of panic, it felt like hundreds of kids chasing me. I could not keep it up and tripped and fell on the cold hard pavement. A pile of kids jumped on top of me in shear joy, they had caught their prey. I couldn’t breathe, I was smothered. I knew they didn’t want me, but needed the ball to continue the play. I panicked, I couldn’t get the ball out, it was smashed between the ground and me. It eventually came out and the herd quickly chased after. I was free, this close from what I felt was sure death. Just then the bell rang, time to run back in. My friends and I made it first to the door, only to be greeted by an older man with a limp as he walked. He grabbed my shoulder firmly, close to the point of hurting, but not quite. A fear filled my head worse than the suffocation I had felt moments earlier. It was our principal and we were about to get it. The “it” was unknown, and that is what made it so scary. This was in the day when your principal wasn’t your buddy, or lacked the power to truly discipline you. What would our punishment be? We were slowly escorted to the office, a place I had only heard of. We were given our punishment…not a spanking. Something almost as bad. We were told we would have to stay in for recess for a month.

Bigfoot

It happened on a playground…

The slide on the playground at Sasquatch Elementary was tall. Too tall. The other kids liked it. They’d stand in line the whole recess period for a three-second ride that would shoot them off so hard and fast they’d land on their butts a foot away from the base. Even the kid who broke both his arms when he fell off the top of the ladder was back in line the day after his casts came off. I’d stand in line, too, pretending I wanted a turn. But I didn’t. I’d give cuts in line. Everybody thought I was being nice. When it was my turn to climb the ladder, I’d cock my head like I’d just heard somebody calling for me. “You go ahead,” I’d say to whoever was next in line. Then I’d jog toward the school, like maybe a teacher was waiting at the door for me. One day my cover was blown. A classmate started telling everybody I was scared to go down the slide. I don’t know how he knew. By the end of recess I had a new nickname: Bigfear. The next day I rushed out to the slide. I wasn’t trying to be first in line. I didn’t want anybody to see me make a cold chicken soup puddle at the bottom of the slide. I didn’t stand in line. There was no point in pretending any more. I watched from the edge of the playground. The first one down the slide and into the soup was also the last. After that, everybody spent recess on the swings.

Lenny the Levitating Puppy

It happened on a playground…

I was watching a bunch of kids play on a playground. They were playing with a big bouncy red ball. It made a funny sound like it was hollow. They were throwing it at each other, and I thought that was mean, but they were laughing so I guess they were having fun. One kid threw the ball so hard that it bounced right over the fence and landed right next to me. It kept bouncing, first high up bounces and then smaller bounces and then it just rolled a little bit. All the kids ran to the fence and were shouting at me to give them the ball. But I pretended not to hear them because I wanted to play with the ball myself.