Three Minutes Waiting for Spring

Normanday #69: The robins are playing hopscotch with the earthworms.

Write for three minutes about…

…the moment you realize it’s finally spring.

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day March 31 (put “Norman Beat the Easter Bunny in an Arm Wrestling Match” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want 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 children’s or young adult writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.

Here is the single entry from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes about…

…extinction.

Schae D. Lane

When I was in the 6th grade, our teacher gave the class an art assignment. We were to draw an insect. Not one we have seen before, not one from around our area. Her instructions were to imagine it and then draw it, color it and name it. 

I imagined my insect was a large flying one, at least 18 inches long, with a wing span of over two feet. The color of the double pair of wings, one slightly larger and rounder than the other, was iridescent with darker hues of blues, pinks, and purples along their edges. The three sections of the exoskeleton, head, thorax and abdomen, were enlarged and in varying shades of rich purples and dark greens. My insect’s eyes were large, oval and black. The antennae were fuchsia and stood up straight on top the head. Of course all insects have the standard issue of six legs, and the legs on my creation were yellow, short and slender, and had a dusting of fine brown hairs. I quickly got to work, trying my best to convey my mental image of the majestic insect to paper. 

When the class finished the project, our teacher told us that our insect most definitely exists or existed. Insects make up the largest group of animals on Earth and new species are being discovered every year. I believe my insect lived millions of years ago, searching for food, avoiding being eaten, darting quickly around large plant life and flying high above dinosaurs.

I remember that I named it. I believe it was a clever name, at least clever for a 6th grader. Sadly, both the name and picture have been lost.

Three Minutes in Pondering the Fate of the Dodo

Normanday #68: Here today, gone tomorrow.

 

Write for three minutes about…

 

…extinction.

 

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day March 24 (put “Norman is Charming” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want 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 children’s or young adult writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.

 

Here is the single entry from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes about…

 

…something you lost or something you found.

 

 

Tren Rewy Steb

We got a puppy. We argued what to call her. We all wanted her to sleep in our bed. One afternoon we couldn’t find her. We walked around the house calling her name. No puppy came running. We walked down the busy highway. No puppy there. I was glad for that. The cars moved so fast. We went down a dirt road. Evergreens along the side were surrounded by high weeds, sticks, and wrappers. Just the kind of place a puppy would love. We weren’t walking any more. We ran, calling and calling, but no puppy came running. I wanted to keep looking, but Dad said we had to go home. I walked slowly, peering into the brush, hoping to see the tip of a sweeping tail. No puppy. Home again and in a daze. The puppy had been a surprise. I never thought I’d have a dog and now she was already gone. How could I go back to being a person without a dog? Mom asked if we’d had any luck. She was sorting laundry. Jeans and dark shirts in one pile, wet towels and underwear in another. And there she was. Curled up, lost in sleep like only a tired puppy can be, curled in a tight ball under a pile of dirty laundry. Home the whole time.

Three Minutes in the Lost and Found

Normanday #67: Finders keepers, losers weepers.

 

Write for three minutes about…

 

…something you lost or something you found.

 

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day March 17 (put “Norman Can Whistle While Eating Crackers” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want 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 children’s or young adult writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.

 

Here is the single entry from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes about…

 

…a family vacation.

 

 

Tren Rewy Steb

We were staying in a cabin by a lake. We’d take little day trips sometimes. One of the trips was to a cemetery. We had to drive up a hill on a long dry dirt road to get to it. There was nothing else nearby. A bright white picket fence enclosed the little cemetery. I saw all those old tombstones and decided to stay in the car. I watched my family walk from stone to stone, reading the names and dates. They seemed far away. I heard sounds. Sounds that anywhere else would be normal. That constant summer insect buzz. The cooling engine popping. The movement of my leg making the vinyl seat creak. Here, alone in the car parked at the top of a county road next to a cemetery in the middle of nowhere, they were the sounds of the dead. I held still, hoping they wouldn’t notice me, convinced if they did they’d get in the car and hitch a ride back to the cabin by a lake.

Three Minutes on Vacation, Take Two

Normanday #66: I bought a salt shaker in the gift shop.

 

Last week I asked you to write for three minutes about a family vacation. You all must have been on vacation because I didn’t hear from anybody. Not so much as a postcard. So, once more, write for three minutes about…

 

…a family vacation.

 

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day March 10 (put “Norman Needs a Vacation” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want 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 children’s or young adult writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.

Three Minutes on Vacation

Normanday #65: Are we almost there?

 

Write for three minutes about…

 

…a family vacation.

 

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day March 3 (put “Norman Should Be on Mount Rushmore” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want 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 children’s or young adult 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 you miss.

 

 

Sweettooth Miracle

My favorite candy bar of all time was the Marathon bar. It was around in the United States from 1973 to 1981. At the time, I would save up the quarter from my allowance to get one. The Marathon Bar was a foot long of braided caramel covered in chocolate. It was chewy and light. I do believe, if measured, it probably would have fallen short of 12 inches, though. But they had a measuring tape on the back of the package to make you think you were getting a foot of candy. The chocolate coating was probably a little darker than milk to offset the sweet caramel, which pulled into strings when you bit into it. Today, England makes a similar bar called the Curly Wurly bar. And it’s good. It’s not a foot, mind you, but closer to six inches. They are hard to find too. But they aren’t nearly as good as the Marathon Bar. You can’t even find one today. No one makes them. I know. I did a lot of research. If I were a rich person, I would put them back in production. I miss them to this very day.

 

MGray

I don’t remember the year. I think I was around seven years old. I had a Stretch Armstrong doll that I loved. My brother got one first. He is four years older than me and the Stretch Armstrong toy was geared towards boys, not girls. So my parents didn’t think to get me one. My brother liked it too, but preferred to experiment with it as he was getting a little old to just play with things at that age. He loved slowly destroying his toys. Stretch Armstrong was a “muscle man” doll with a hard plastic head and stretchy arms and legs. Do you know what Silly Putty is? Think of a doll filled with Silly Putty. His arms, chest, and legs were made of rubber and filled with some sort of gel substance that I am sure is not BPA free and probably quite hazardous to your health. But it was the late 70s and early 80s, so no one thought about that. I know he was filled with a green substance because my brother cut his open. I was so obsessed with his toy that my mom got me one of my own. And when that one died from being stretched out too often and getting left in the sun a few times, she got me another one. I loved the texture and weight of this doll. If I look around, I may be able to find a picture of me on Christmas Day with Stretch in my arms. I recall there being one. Unfortunately, Stretch Armstrong did not hold up well to the elements. I would often put him in the bath with me. And I would take him outside to play. He got dirty pretty quickly and we had to clean him off often. Plus the sun made his rubber skin crack. Eventually, he would develop a tear. I would put a Band-aid on him to keep the green ooze inside, but it didn’t really stick so well. At some point, I would cover his cuts with electrical tape. Eventually, he would stiffen up to the point where he couldn’t stretch anymore. I think after the second was thrown out, my parents decided not to get us anymore Stretch dolls. By this point, they had others. They had a Stretch Octopus and some Stretch bad guy. But my favorite was the blond hair muscle man.

To this day, I miss Stretch Armstrong. I miss the weight and texture. I am sure he is all sorts of bad for you, but I did love that doll for a couple of years and kind of wish he was around today.

 

 

Cranberly

My sister is eight years older than me. She started dating at a young age—I think she was 12 or 13. But she seemed so much older to me. And I suppose to everyone else. Everyone always said she very mature for her age. She was perfectly curvy. She had the same measurements as the girl mentioned in that song “Brick House” (36-24-36). Evidently that was the ideal curviness for a lady. I have never had those same numbers, although I did strive to get them all through college. Anyway, I remember she had been dating this guy for a few years. We all just assumed they would get married. She must have been 16 and I was eight. My memory is hazy on how or when they met. I imagine they had been seeing each other for a year. I was a small child. I have always been short or little for my age. But I remember when her boyfriend used to come over and pick me up and swing me around. I loved the feeling of the spinning around, arms out, wind blowing through my long, sandy blond hair. One day, he came over and tried to pick me up but couldn’t. He said I was too big to be picked up anymore. I remember being so sad. He was just one of many who started telling me I was too big to be picked up. I had a number of uncles who had already told me that, but I figured it was just because they were old. But here was this young guy—fit and strong, a couple years older than my sister. And I was sad. I don’t remember if I cried by myself in my bedroom, but I imagine I looked pretty sad even as he told me, because he apologized pretty profusely. I think my sister must have kicked me out of the living room then, so she and her boyfriend could be alone.

So I missed being picked up and swung around. Funny thing is, years later, when I was 14, a guy a couple years older than me picked me up and I hated it. He didn’t swing me around. I didn’t like the lack of control I had on the situation. Also, he did do it to annoy me and to stop me from doing something he didn’t like. I was wearing roller skates at the time and threatened to kick him if he didn’t put me down. He didn’t put me down. I kicked him, not hard, but since I had roller skates on, it didn’t have to be hard. So, I suppose I miss being so little and innocent and enjoying having someone else spin you around. It seemed like time stopped when that happened. And when they told me I was too big, I knew I was getting older and I missed the innocence of my youth.

By the way, if you kick a boy while wearing roller skates when you are in junior high or high school, you become known as the girl with roller skates who kicked a boy. As I always tell people, you can’t threaten something and then not go through with it. It did garner me a bit of protection as a small girl in a big high school. Everyone knew I was someone who would follow through on my promises.

ReRunday: Two Book Reviews by Penny

Originally posted on September 2, 2010.

~

Let me pose this question to you: Is everything that happens predetermined? Like, from the day I was born, was it inevitable that at this exact moment in my life I would be here asking you if everything that happens is predetermined? Or could I have chosen to ask you instead what your favorite flavor of ice cream is? Or maybe I could have seen you from a distance and quickly turned around and gone the other way so I wouldn’t have to talk to you at all. (This is just hypothetical. I wouldn’t actually do that. I like you.)

Both the books I’m about to recommend to you share that question in common. Is the future written in stone? Or is it written in butter? You know, so it can be changed. In a melty way. Or spread. Maybe I should have said sand. Or wet cement. I totally should have said wet cement! Let’s pretend I did. Is the future written in stone or wet cement? But wait. Wet cement eventually dries and becomes like stone. Oh, brother. In the words of my friend Beverly, let’s just get on with it already!

Beverly and Bigfoot get annoyed with me when I tell them about books I like. They say I give too much away. So, I’m going to try to tell you how good these two YA novels are without ruining the endings for you. Or the middles. Or any of the parts, really. No promises or anything, but know that if I tell you too much, it will be on accident, not because I’m trying to be a jerk. I hope you’ll forgive me. Bigfoot and Beverly always do. So far.

In THE MARK by Jen Nadol (Bloomsbury, 2010), Cassandra Renfield sometimes sees a certain glow around a person. At first she doesn’t know what it is, but eventually she figures out that the person she sees surrounded by the glow will soon die. How cool is that? I mean for a story. It would be horrible in real life. But it’s a freaky premise for a book, and that’s why I wanted to read it. I love supernatural stuff.

I would have liked THE MARK if it was just about Cassandra’s different experiences in foreseeing people’s deaths. But I loved it because it was much more than that. Cassandra’s struggle to understand her ability opens up a lot of questions. Like, she wonders if, when she sees the glow, she should warn the glowing person so that they can try to avoid dying. But then she wonders if it’s really her place to intervene. Maybe everybody’s time to die is written in stone (insert tombstone pun here), and it’s not for her to try to change what is meant to happen. And then she wonders, if that’s true, why does she have this creepy ability in the first place? I won’t tell you more than that, but I will say that there is going to be a sequel out next year that I’ll definitely want to read.

On a side note, I wonder: Was it predetermined that Jen Nadol write this book, or could she have decided to pursue a career in synchronized swimming instead? For the record, I’m glad she’s a writer. (I’ve never met her, though. Maybe she does both.)

The other book I want to recommend is THE RETURNERS by Gemma Malley (Bloomsbury, 2010). I’ll have to be extra careful when telling you about this book because one of the things I liked most about it was being almost as in the dark as the narrator.

Will Hodges, the narrator, has been having nightmares about terrible atrocities. If that’s not bad enough, a bunch of stalkers approach him to tell him that he is a “Returner.” I don’t think I’m giving too much away by telling you what that means, do you? I don’t want to make you mad. I’m going to chance it. It means he’s lived previous lives. The people who have been stalking him are also Returners. They knew him in those previous lives. There. I hope that wasn’t giving away too much. I think you had probably already figured that out.

The other Returners tell Will that the future is predetermined and that Will has a role to play in making that future happen. Will is not happy with his part, or the future as the Returners see it. Just like Cassandra in THE MARK, Will wonders if he has the power to stop certain events from taking place.

Will’s world is a lot like ours. Fear and hate make people do horrible things to each other, and the strong stomp all over the weak. A lot of times we think of atrocities as events we read about in history books. But THE RETURNERS is a reminder that those types of things go on in the present, too. THE RETURNERS is also a kick in the pants that we each need to do our part to keep injustices from happening again and again and again. You’ll have to read the book yourself to see what Will does. Or doesn’t do. (Did I leave that open enough?)

There are a lot of books that explore whether we have a set-in-stone destiny or buttery free will. It’s probably because most of us can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen tomorrow. It can be kind of scary not knowing. It can be extra scary thinking that something we do (or don’t do) today might mean something terrible will happen tomorrow. Like, say I eat an English muffin today and get food poisoning. The next day I still feel sick, so I stay home. I was supposed to go fishing with Bigfoot, but now he decides to take a hike. Campers catch Bigfoot on video and that night the video is posted on YouTube. Within the hour it has had half a million views, and within two hours the Paparazzi are ruining Bigfoot’s vacation.

But say I eat an apple instead. A piece of it gets stuck in my throat. It’s okay, though, because Beverly is swimming nearby and she performs the Heimlich maneuver. The next day my throat is sore, so I go to the drug store for some lozenges. When I go to pay, I drop all my change on the floor and knock over a candy rack. I'm so embarrassed that I run out of the store and into the street. Wouldn't you know it? I get hit by a bus.

Just think about it. If everything is predetermined, it wouldn’t matter whether or not I eat an English muffin or an apple. That’s kind of comforting, isn’t it? I mean, if everything is set in stone, we don’t have to worry that our actions will cause any bad stuff to happen. But then, I suppose that also means that if there’s bad stuff in the future, there’s nothing we can do to avoid it. That’s kind of depressing, isn’t it?

You know what? I’m going to go find another good book to read to take my mind off all this. And I’m kind of hungry. An apple would hit the spot. Or better yet, an English muffin. With butter.

Three Minutes Pining for the Past

Normanday #64: If I had a time machine, I’d go back and stop myself from getting rid of my stuffed animals. 

Write for three minutes about…

…something you miss.

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day February 24 (put “Norman is in a Bowling League” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want 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 children’s or young adult writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.

Here is the single entry from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes about…

…the ventriloquist you met while standing in line at the movie theater.

 
Bigfoot

There was a long line to see Red Venom Sundae. It was opening night. My friend had the flu, so I was alone. There was an argument going on behind me. I tried to ignore it. I didn’t want to eavesdrop. But it was impossible since the two voices kept getting louder and louder, until finally they were yelling.

“I paid last time!”

“With what? You never have any money.”

“And why is that? I’ll tell you why. They pay you and you never give me my share.”

“Your share. That’s a laugh. Why should you get paid anything. I’m the one who does all the work. You’re just a dummy.”

I didn’t like somebody being called a dummy, so I turned around to give the bully a piece of my mind.

Wouldn’t you know it? The guy really was a dummy.

I bought my ticket and went into the theater, hoping the ventriloquist and his dummy wouldn’t talk during the movie.