1st 5 Pages May Workshop- Veile

Name: Adam Veile

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Title: The Big Fairy Tale

Lucy Samsa felt like she was glued to her mattress. She’d left her window open, but she couldn’t make herself get up and close it. She watched the blades of the ceiling fan whirl above her, spinning air around her dimly lit bedroom. Loose sheets of paper blew off her desk, and the superhero posters on her wall pulled at their thumbtacks. She hugged her pink giraffe, the last stuffed animal she kept on her bed. Something was wrong with her. She was tired, too tired to even brush her teeth before bed, but she was more than tired. Not sick, exactly. Something just felt wrong.

Lucy clicked off her lamp, hoping that sleep would fix her, and she pulled up her sheet. She always covered up with at least a sheet. She didn’t believe in monsters, but she felt like if she stuck her feet out of the covers something might reach out from under the bed and grab them. That night she pulled her quilt up, too. She was warm, but she burrowed deeper under the covers. She still didn’t feel comfortable, and she didn’t know why, only that something felt wrong.

Lucy yanked and tugged at her quilt as the night wore on, wrapping herself in a big Lucy cocoon. Most of the night, she was in between asleep and awake, swearing she hadn’t slept, only to realize hours had ticked by since the last time she’d checked her glowing clock. As tight as she wrapped her blankets, she felt like it wasn’t tight enough, and she pulled them tighter and tighter. She knew she was practically baking, but still she pulled the blankets tighter.

She heard her mom’s voice: “Lucy!”

“Wha?” Her voice cracked.

She was surprised to see light streaming through the window. The sweet smell of blueberry muffins wafted up the stairs. Her head ached, and her eyes would barely open. She groaned and half-heartedly tried to get free from her blanket cocoon. The sheets were gross with sweat.

“Lucy!” her mother called from downstairs. “It’s 6:45!”

Lucy quit her struggle against the blankets. She didn’t have to leave the house until 7:15, so she didn’t see why she had to get up now.

“Lucy! You’re ten years old! I’m not going to do this every day until you go to college!”

Lucy unwrapped herself and tumbled out of bed. The heat from the blanket dissipated, and the cool air brought her back to life. She stretched as wide as she could.

Buzzzz. Something buzzed behind her. The sound triggered something in her subconscious, something from her dreams she couldn’t quite recall. She noticed the papers that had blown across the floor and remembered she’d left the window open. Any number of creepy-crawlies could have come in during the night. She scanned the room for buzzing bugs, finding nothing.

“Your tiny hiney better be out of bed!” her mother called.

Normally, Lucy would stay in bed until her mom came and knocked on the door—that’s how she knew it was really time to get up—but today she didn’t feel like waiting around. She slid out of bed to collect the scattered papers, worried she might lose some of her artwork. She picked up pencil sketches she’d made of cartoon characters and then found an assignment sheet under the corner of her bed. The homework was to make an eclipse viewer, which turned out to be just a piece of cardboard with a hole in it. She scoffed. She’d been waiting for the eclipse for a whole year, and after seeing the assignment, she wondered if she’d be disappointed.

As she stood back up, papers in hand, she noticed a strange sensation on her back. She spun, brushing her hand across her shoulders and connecting with something. She looked at the carpet to see if she had knocked anything off and, finding nothing, craned her neck to see what was on her back.

What? Lucy’s heart raced. She hurried to her closet and shoved her hanging clothes aside, the plastic hangers clacking together. There, in the mirror at the back of her closest, stood Lucy, but something certainly wasn’t right.

Her hands trembled. What’s happened to me? Two small wings flicked back and forth on her back. Wings! They weren’t bird wings or even angel wings. They were a translucent cream color that pulsed with streaks of gold and blue. The wings spread, extending just inches beyond her shoulders, and her heart raced. They hummed faster and faster until she could barely see them. Wind from the wings swirled her hair and rocked her hanging clothes.

Lucy looked around the room for signs this was another dream, but everything else looked normal. She felt the wings, hoping they were fake, but she could feel the pressure from her fingertips just the same as if she were touching any other part of her body. These wings were a part of her.

“Lucy, please, I’m begging you!” Her mother was on the stairs now, coming toward Lucy’s room.

Mom can’t find out I’m a mutant! Lucy told herself. In a panic, she tried to pull the wings off, which sent a bolt of pain through her shoulders. She tried to peel off her black tank top, but there was no way to get it over her wings. If she ever wanted the shirt off, she’d have to use scissors.

Then, came a knock on the door.

“Don’t come in!” Lucy shouted to her mother. She knew right away it was the wrong thing to say. Of course her mother would be coming in now.

Lucy pushed on the left wing, and it easily folded across her back to her right hip like origami. When she let go it sprang back up. She grabbed a baggy purple sweater off the closet shelf and tried to jam it on. The knob to her bedroom door turned, but Lucy was stuck with a sweater over her head.

“Wait!” Lucy slammed her closet door shut, just as her mother opened her bedroom door.

 “Lucy?” The floor creaked as her mother crossed the room.

Lucy yanked on the sweater, trying to force her wings down. The closet door swung open as Lucy was pulling the bottom of the sweater to her waist.

Lucy smiled sweetly at her mother, and her mother stared back with a curious look on her face.

Please don’t see the wings, please don’t see the wings, Lucy thought, but her mother asked, “Why are you standing in your closet in a winter sweater in the middle of September?”

 “The Farmer’s Almanac said it’d be chilly today,” Lucy answered. She had no idea if that was true, but there was no way her mom would argue with The Farmer’s Almanac.

 “At least you added some color to your wardrobe. You look so dreary in black and gray.” Her mother looked her over one more time and shrugged. “Your grandma would have been happy to see you finally wearing one of the sweaters she gave you.”

 “I was just waiting for the right time,” said Lucy. Her grandma said she had to wear sweaters because she was old and had cold bones, and Lucy always thought the right time for a sweater like this would be when she turned eighty or so.

“Well, let’s get going.”

Only then did Lucy think about the horror of going to school with wings.