1st 5 Pages March Workshop - Saunders

Name: Merriam Saunders
Genre: Middle Grade, Light Fantasy
Word Count: 45,000


SUNDAY AFTERNOON

I’m a total screw-up. That’s what most people think, anyway. Especially my math teacher, Mr. Widelot. And the kids formerly known as my friends. My dad, too. I think they’re right, but I wish they weren’t.

I sit on the sofa while Grandma’s folding the blue flower sheets she’d pulled out of the dryer. She piled the warm sheets next to me while I cut out comics from the Sunday paper and Dad and Pops watch football. I dig a little tunnel into the toasty pile. I’m not thinking about what I’m doing, I’m thinking about the comics, how I love to draw, and how maybe someday I could draw comics too. Then my mind wanders to what it would feel like to cut sheets instead of newspaper. Before I know what I’ve done, Dad screams at me.

“West! What’d you do that for?” He practically leaps out of the brown lounger chair.

I look down at my hands. Uh-oh.

“I didn’t mean to!” And I really hadn’t meant to. But I’d taken the scissors, and cut a hole in the blue-flowered sheets.

“Westin Scott Hopper!” Grandma closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I just bought these sheets on sale. Why would you cut a hole in perfectly good sheets?”

What could I say? I had no idea why. I just did. I do stuff like that all the time.

“Stupid. Stupid.” I hit myself on the head.

Dad takes a swig from a silver can and sets it on the glass coffee table in front of me. “You can’t do stuff like that, West. Use your brain.” He looks at me like he does a lot, like I’m the stupidest kid on the planet. “You’ll have to pay Grandma out of your allowance.” He glances at his watch.

I know what’s coming. Actually, what’s leaving. Him. Because of me.

I’m at Grandma’s house. Dad and I come here every Sunday on the weeks that I’m with him. Sometimes he stays all day and sometimes he drops me here and goes to see Cindy. Cindy is Dad’s girlfriend. Mom calls her my Nanny, but not in a nice way.

“Your mom will pick you up in an hour. You’re her problem now, buddy. Don’t forget anything at Grandma’s.” He leans over and tousles my curly brown hair. “See you next Sunday night.”

I follow him into the kitchen and watch him leave. He’s tall, so tall he has to duck through the doorway of Grandma’s old house. And strong. So strong when he slams the door, sometimes the walls shake. Like now. I watch through the side window as he peals out of the drive-way in the bright red Evidence on his way to see Cindy. The Evidence is what Mom calls his new Porsche—because she thinks it shows he can pay more child support.

Dad doesn’t actually call me a screw-up. He doesn’t have to. It’s what he’s thinking, because he thinks it all the time. Like most people.

Mom says it’s not my fault. I don’t pay attention very well. And I move – like all the time. And make noises, which mostly the girls hate. "Cut it out, West. You’re so annoying." I think they’re annoying for saying I’m annoying.

Also, I do stuff before I think about whether I should, like the stupid thing I did to Peter Madsen, which is how I lost most of my friends. And like cutting holes in Grandma’s sheets. Someone else’s Brain might have been like “Hey, Dude. Bad idea to cut a hole in your Grandma’s sheets.” And that Brain’s kid would’ve been like, “Thanks, Brain. I’ll cut the comics instead. Good thing I have you to stop me from doing stupid stuff like cutting holes in sheets.”

But I don’t have a Brain like that. Mine’s different. The part that stops you from doing stupid stuff, the same part that forces you to pay attention even when something is super terrifically boring (like math class)—that part of my Brain is on vacation in Hawaii most days. Or at a baseball game. Or canoeing on the Amazon. Wherever it is, it’s not in my head doing its job.



STILL SUNDAY

I pull a soda from Grandma’s fridge. Mom and Dad don’t let me drink soda, but Gram doesn’t care. When I shut the fridge, the picture I drew last time—a flying blue dragon—falls from its magnet and floats to the floor. Dad’s knocked this drawing off three times today getting a beer out, and Grandma puts it back up every time. She loves my drawings.

I’m sort of good at art. When it’s report card time, the only teacher that writes good stuff in the comment section is Ms. Blackhouse, the Art Teacher. “Westin is very creative. His drawings are imaginative and show a good use of color. He is very focused in class.” I wish she wouldn’t write that. Because it makes Dad say that if I can pay attention in Art class, I should be able to pay attention in Math, too. But, it’s easy to focus in Art class, because Brain likes it so much, he never wanders then. I like to draw funny creatures from my mind. It calms me. This is one of my favorites. It’s a Fire Monster:



[ILLUSTRATION HERE]



But I left my drawing stuff at Mom’s, so I have nothing to do. Grandma doesn’t have any good colored pencils at her house. Or anything else to play with. She lives on the busiest street in Possum Grape, California and her neighbors are all old people.

Grandma is short, chubby and probably the nicest woman on the planet. I’m not that tall for twelve, just normal. But I already tower over Grandma. She loves to squeeze me into her chubby chest whenever she sees me, which is every other Sunday. I pretend I don’t like it, because I’m a boy and I’m not supposed to like hugs anymore, but really I do. She and Mom are where I get my hugs. Even though Grandma is so nice to me—she always gives me a bag full of homemade sugar cookies when I leave—she won’t talk to Mom when she picks me up. At all. I don’t get it. If I can still love my Mom and Dad both the same after the divorce, why can’t Grandma love them both too?

She and Pops are sitting on the sofa watching TV, like they do every Sunday afternoon. Football is over, so they’re onto some old movie where people are kissing all the time. Gross. And so, so boring. Mom will be here in thirty painfully crawling minutes. I’m throwing a tennis ball against the door to the basement, biding my time. Catch. Ba-dump. Catch.

“Westin Scott! Stop throwing balls in the house,” Pops yells.

I sigh. I tap my fingers against my thigh, staring at the old basement door. It’s all scratched under the knob from where Jessup used to claw at it. But Jessup died last year. The oldest dog in the world. I’m not supposed to go into the basement, but before I realize what I’ve done, I’m already on the stairs. Not even aware of it until I hear the errrt stair creak under my foot.

The basement smells weird. Like wet fur, stale barf and old cardboard. Most kids would be scared down here. It’s dark. Midnight under-the-ground dark.