Brooke: POV Shift?

She usually didn’t go into the Elliot’s room. With Eliza and Meredith she trespassed boldly–marching in like she had every right–dusting behind the blinds, shaking out the sheets, pairing their socks, vacuuming their closets. Sweeping through their bedrooms like an army inspector. And how they loathed her for it! They howled and they hollered about privacy and boundaries and nosy mothers.

She took no notice. She just hummed and told them she was “doing the cleaning.” She liked knowing that her daughters had nothing they could hide from her, nothing they could stash away that she couldn’t find.

But she usually didn’t go into Elliot’s room. Except for maybe once a week to deliver clean laundry.

His room was the smallest one, at the far end of the hallway. He kept his blinds closed in the summer. It was dark in there. He had an old cherry oak desk pushed into one corner. Stacks of fat books, maps of oceans and mountain ranges, a ceramic piggy bank clanking with quarters. He kept it fairly clean though, for a boy his age. And she didn’t like to go inside. She wasn’t sure why, but she usually felt like things worked best when she just left him well alone.

That was until she found the angels. They were pinned neatly around his headboard, littering his tabletop. Paints and brushes, jam jars filled with murky water. She was dropping off a load of fresh sheets, and there they were. Blushing lightly, swathed in color, wide eyes peering up at her from crinkled papers all around the room. Peering up from the past–a strange resurrection. Her hands were shaking, and her breath caught in her throat. She should have known that boy was up to something. The way he hid away every day. Well, now she knew where he was going. She dropped the sheets, and went straight to the attic. She started cleaning.

She shouldn’t have to feel tense like this. Shouldn’t have to wonder at every turn if the boy would turn up, if he were watching her. But somehow she knew he would find her. She was stacking the last box up with paintings when she heard his footsteps. Her skin prickled. She could feel him in the room. She heaved up the box, turned around nice and slow, letting a deceptive calm wash over her features.

There he was. Dark-haired and deliberate. Small for his age, always frowning. Her hand could fit easily around his wrists. But oh he was frowning, and his dark eyes were squinting at her. He was stopped in the doorway, a look of stunned indignation, like she was invading some sacred haven, some treasured hideaway. Didn’t he know this attic belonged to her? She could hear the words before he said them. Hear their accusatory slant.

“What are you doing?” he asked. An innocent question. But oh how he policed her.

“Just cleaning.” She smiled. Began to hum. Brushed it off.

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s a mess up here Elliot, that’s why!” She didn’t mean to sound so defensive.

“But where,” his eyes darted to the corner where the angels used to sit, then to the box of paintings in her arms, “where are you taking those?”

She began stepping forward, she wanted to skirt around him, proceed to the truck without all this questioning. She wanted the angels to disappear.

“I’m taking a whole load of stuff to Salvation Army.”

She was almost to the door. He was the only thing in her way.

“You can’t take those!”

Now she was getting angry. “Of course I can take them Elliot. They’re mine!”

She could see him start to panic. See how he started to rage. She knew he didn’t understand– had no idea.

“They aren’t yours, mom!” His voice was high and harsh. “You can’t just throw them away like that… they’re mine!”

“I don’t think you understand dear,” she lifted a painting out of the box. “They are mine.” Her fingers tapped at the corner of the painting. Elliot squinted carefully.

She was pointing to a set of initials, etched faintly in the corner: ALB. Elliot shook his head, he still didn’t understand. Of course he didn’t. He would never think, never guess. Never in a million years.

“My name,” she said quietly.

And then there it was–the slow and heavy dawning, the light bulb going off. Elliot’s face fell. ALB, Abigail Larson Blythe. “Yours,” he repeated.

“That’s right…And I don’t appreciate you just coming up here and taking my stuff.”

Brooke: Seashore

Is this descriptive enough? Does it employ all of the 5 senses? Hopefully! Because that was the assignment. I had fun with it. This is a loose description of what the beaches are like in Arica:

—

The sand gave way beneath her feet, pouring over her toes and dusting her ankles. It was a light gray color. Not white. Not a perfect burnt yellow. Gray–like a dry stretch of cement with an uneven peppering of black.

This beach was far from the tropical dream. The coast was wide and flat, with little vegetation and certainly no exotic palm trees or hibiscus bushes lining the sand. Greenish sea foam bubbled up during high tide and left a frothy residue along the shore, dragging with it stray twigs and rocks and little pieces of shell and fishing line.

It didn’t smell like a tropical dream either. No coconut oil, or sunscreen, or sweet papaya juice. It stank. Of salt, and fish and bird droppings. Beachgoers were constantly scanning the sky warily–making sure not to sit below the rowdy flocks of gulls circling above. The air was gritty and thick with salt, too. And breathing in, she could taste the ocean. It filled her mouth, made her tongue curl with its briny punch.

The wind blew in wildly from the west and whipped at the edges of her clothing, wrenched her hair from its ponytail holder. After a few times she stopped fighting it, and let the loose strands fly up and over her face–let the wind create a tangled halo of hair around her head. She felt like Medusa.

In the winter the waves were too big for swimming, the waters too cool. Families brought blankets and sat on them quickly, all at once (before they caught in the wind and blew away).

There was something soothing about it, quiet and serene. The subtle stink of fish, the muted gray sand blending with the muted gray sky. She sat near, but not next to the huddling families and listened. Listened to the waves smacking and the gulls squawking, listened to the soft lullaby of the ocean shore.

Brooke: Variations on a Theme

The summer days felt endless, they blazed up and melted together-sticky and uncomfortable. Elliot hated everything about them. There was too much daylight, too much time, too much of that muggy Southern heat, and far too many bugs. The bushes shook with the constant low buzzing of the jar flies and Elliot always cringed as he scooted past them, averting his gaze from their long wax-paper wings and bulging black eyeballs.

Summer meant too many hours feeling cooped up. Too much time listening to Eliza and Meredith argue over who had the cuter cut-offs or who went to the better pool party, and mom humming idly all the while as she chopped up zucchini–like they weren’t making any racket at all. Too much of Him drinking on the porch, slamming screen doors, starting up the truck with long noisy sputters and driving off for hours at a time.

Elliot much preferred the refuge of Fall. The slight chill in the air, the back-to-school scuttle, the fresh notebooks and clean classrooms. The crispness, the quiet–far from his hot, leaning house. Far from Meredith and Eliza who went to Jackson Creek Junior High now. Far from his mother’s zucchini, or the constant dull buzzing of the vacuum (like the jar flies). She was always cleaning, always humming. And most of all, far from Him.

But the sad truth, Elliot discovered, was that summer was an inevitable, unavoidable season–and he simply had to learn to suck it up and bear it. When he couldn’t escape to a quiet classroom, when he couldn’t find refuge in fall–he found it in the attic.

Father told him not to go up there once. He said the floorboards were weak. He said they weren’t strong enough to support some snot-nosed little boy stomping all over them. But what did He know? He just didn’t want Elliot to find all the old boxes stuffed with those nasty magazines of his. Well, he’d found them. And a lot more. They were lodged in between piles of yellowing bank records and the tottering heap of Grandma Lois’s furniture. Elliot made a hobby of unearthing these ancient family relics–he picked through the mess carefully, counting each item as a mini discovery.

Brooke: Painted Angels

When Elliot was young he had visions of painted angels–like the ones he found on dusty canvases in the attic. Most of them were unfinished; roughly sketched lines with dabs of color only in their cheeks and wings. His mother was the artist. The angels had been her hobby at one time–her escape. They had perfectly folded wings, gentle hands, and white flowing robes like smoke billowing around their naked feet. Sometimes there were no wings. Just a warm glow, healthy flushed white skin stretched over slight and elegant frames that stood suspended like magic in midair.

Elliot was surprised when he discovered his mother had made them. He found them there in the attic, tucked away like a treasure hidden and forgotten and thought: Michelangelo! Da Vinci! Raphael!

Then he noticed etched faintly in the corners of each of them 3 delicate letters: ALB–Abigail Larson Blythe. No Michelangelo. Just mom.

Mom who used to paint angels until life got in the way. Until the kids came and so did the late nights and the endless chauffeuring and the meetings and the dishes and the doctor’s appointments. After that the angels were stacked up together and stowed away with grandma Lois’s old furniture and boxes of family records. They were unfinished projects, unfit to hang on any wall or in any gallery. Stacked away and forgotten.

But Elliot found them; he traced their rough outlines with his fingers, and made them his own. Elliot found them when he went to the attic to hide.

Scott: Ashok

Catching Houdini the Rabbit was anti-climactic.  Martha saw him eating some Cherios on the kitchen floor one morning and decided to start a conversation.

“So… nice weather, huh?” she said in her most nonthreatening voice.

“My mom can smell storms coming an hour away… I bet you can smell ‘em, what, two hours away?”

Houdini looked up from his meal and wiggled his nose.

“Wow, four whole hours in advance?!  You should work for the weather channel.”

They went on to discuss politics and the pros and cons of marshmellows.  Then Martha picked him up and put him in a box without a struggle.  Now it was time to round up the gang.

She got out her seasoned violin from its case and played a familiar snippet from Robin Hood the musical that had somehow become the cattle call for Martha’s posse of third-graders.  All the walls inside the apartment building were paper-thin and at times seemed to have an amplifying effect on various instruments and especially “personal” sounds.  The four exterior walls, in contrast, were dungeon-thick – giving the occupants the feeling of living in the improvized honey-comb of a swarm of bees who were forced to settle in a man-made structure.  It was determined years prior that such an unfortunate acoustic situation would allow for only one resident musician.  For about a week the hive buzzed with impromptu auditions.  Martha won and so the cry of her violin now wrang out unimpeded.

Darwin answered first.  He ran through the front door and was immediately blinded by the orange sunset flooding in through the window, obviously suffering from a post-nap hang-over.  A wave, a “Hey” and a plop on the living room chair.

Roger was next.  He strutted in with a look of forced indifference, brandishing a protuberant bulge in his right pocket.

“Hi Roger.  Watcha got there?”

“Oh…just a walky-talky,” he said, struggling to take it out with some degree of proficeincy.

“That’s cool.  Hey, when you talk to people with that they can say ‘Roger that Roger’” Martha observed.

“I already know that” Roger informed her.

Martha had baby-sat the three since they were toddlers.  She didn’t really need the five-dollars-an-hour anymore.  She continued spending time with them because they were, quite simply, cool.  At least she recognized the possibility for genuine coolness, an attribute that she believed comes naturally at birth and is systematically rooted out of us all.  Her sacred duty was to preserve this essence, or at least get a better understanding of how it is destroyed.

Ashok was always last.  Martha may very well have lost interest in the bunch if it weren’t for this most peculiar boy.   

Brooke: Milk Baths

Edgar never bought milk at noon. It was one of his unwavering rules. The curious young man would stand every day outside the store until at least 12:15 before he was willing to enter.

Penny Jenkins, on the other hand, bought milk every day at noon. It was an unwavering routine. And not only one gallon, but always three at a time.

Edgar was a keen strategist–his no-milk-at-noon policy stemmed from his careful avoidance of Ms. Penny Jenkins. He calculated his daily entrance into the grocery store to correspond directly with Penny’s exit.

You see, the first and last time he ever bought milk at noon, he embarrassed himself terribly and vowed he would never do it again.

This unfortunate occasion had also been carefully thought-out (Edgar was a strategist in every respect). He had not always avoided Penny Jenkins. In fact, he spent many years of his life strategically placing himself in her presence. On this particular day, Edgar placed himself (very strategically) in the dairy aisle at 12:00 precisely. When Penny walked in, he straightened his shirt, and mustered up his best smile-prepared to employ his finest polite-conversation skills. Unfortunately, Penny Jenkins in her bright yellow sundress left him positively dumbstruck. She leaned down and grabbed her three gallons of milk so quickly (and with such little notice of Edgar) that all he managed to stammer before she walked away was-”Hello Ms. Penny why do you buy so much milk all the time?”

With this Penny Jenkins swung around, milk jugs balanced in her arms.

“You really wanna know?” She asked, stepping forward.

Edgar gulped and nodded. A playful smile played on Penny’s lips and she leaned forward, so close.

“Milk baths.” She almost whispered.

“Milk baths?” Edgar asked.

“Milk baths. For smoother skin.”

Then she flounced away to the checkout counter, bought her milk and left.

Edgar bought 3 gallons of milk that day, and tried taking a milk bath in hopes he would have silky smooth skin.

All it managed to do was make him smell funny.

Scott: Waiting

Researchers in Germany recently did a study of how long the average person spends waiting in a life time. You know…waiting for your Bare Naked Ladies music video to download, for the peanut butter on your Eggo to melt, for the commercials to end during TGIF, for the commercials to start during the Super Bowl, for your laundry, your girlfriend, your poky little brother. It all adds up to approximately three years, they say.

What does Germany know anyway?

Will had been waiting for a good solid three months now.

-

“Trust me, it’s gonna be epic! Did I mention Elliot Smith killed himself there?”

“Okay, cool people stab themselves in the heart there, I get it. Why does that mean it’s gonna be epic? You planning on going down with ‘em?”

“It’s not like my school killed him. He was gonna do it anyway and he figured why not go out in style at the most epic college around.”

“Whatever…he was on the edge and your school pushed him over.”

Will and Allen continued picking up Tootsie Rolls from amongst the strips of mangled piñata flesh. They knew they wouldn’t be eaten when they put them in. The plan was to use them as poker chips after Allen’s little brother’s birthday party but they now found themselves throwing them in the trash without thinking.

On the plane ride to Los Angeles Will found a plastic bag Allen must have slipped into his backpack. Inside was a Batman T-shirt and same plastic vampire teeth. Batman had been their favorite show growing up and the plastic teeth was just Allen being Allen. For several seconds Will forgot how to breathe. It must have been the change in elevation.

…

Brooke: Show Don’t Tell

Guess what character traits each of these little excerpts portrays. Then tell me how brilliant I am because I SHOWED and did not TELL.

1. Owen watched as Mama Morse set down the large chocolate cake on the table. It had 4 layers and was smothered in fudge sauce, with white chocolate shavings and delicate little red roses made from icing. Written in an elegant cursive down the middle were the words “Happy Birthday Addie!”
Owen’s eyes flitted from the rich gooey pastry to the face of his little sister, the birthday girl. She was beaming—mouth caught open in a shameless grin, fingers twitching in anxious anticipation. Owen frowned. That was his cake. The same one he asked Mama Morse to make for his birthday last month. He even picked out the recipe! Only his cake only had 2 layers, and no pretty little red icing roses.
“Well are you just going to sit there and smile at it?” Owen asked finally, cutting through the admiring silence. Addie shot him a look.
“No No!” Mama Morse hushed as she pulled 6 tiny candles from her apron pocket and sunk them into the cake and lit them. “Now let’s all sing to the birthday girl!”
Following Mama Morse’s loud cue, the whole rowdy throng of birthday-goers exploded into song. Except for Owen. He just sunk his chin into his hands and stared at that cake—counting the layers, gazing sullenly at the pretty cursive lettering and the perfect red icing roses. (Character Trait: _______)

2. It was 8:04. Nora stared at the classroom door, bracing for it to open. It did. In slipped Patrick Meany, just as expected. He lumbered to his 2nd row seat, yanked out his headphones and slid down his hood.
8:05, Mrs. Lambert tapped her fingers on her desk, called out “All right! All right! Let’s get started.” She would say this at least 3 times before the class finally settled down.
8:07 Paul Short came in; cheeks flushed and backpack bouncing heavily. He did his best not to disrupt…still, he hardly ever escaped an angry Mrs. Lambert making some snide comment like, “late again, Paul?” Nora didn’t think this was fair. He was only 3 minutes later than Patrick and even then it was only because he had to drop off both of his younger sisters before he came to class. Patrick, on the other hand, was late because he liked to hang around the B-building bathrooms and smoke.
Nora had the school day down to a rhythm. It was an elaborately staged dance—and it was nearly always the same. She knew everyone’s names, their destinations, their motivations, cues, entrances, exits. Everything. And she—the silent wallflower. She liked to sit in every class, back left corner, and watch it all unfold. (Character Trait: _________)

Scott: “Rotund” Regis

“Rotund” Regis fit his name.  There was a superstition in the Ravioli family that the fat gene clung to the eighth son.  Regis’ father, “Corpulent” Carl, was the eigth son of an eighth son.  For that very reason Carl and Alfonsino tried to stop having children at six but, as Granny Ambrosia so elegantly put it, “sometimes you just can’t deny that glimmer in the eye.” 

This particular glimmer eventually took the form of twins.  The nurse who gave the sonogram said it looked like an orange and a cinnamon stick.  I won’t go into detail about what the nurses said the day of the birth, but “Cinnamon” Savio came out a good fourteen and a half hours before his brother Regis.            

Brooke: Aftermath

Minutes later Beulah sat breathlessly at the kitchen table. Hands shaking, mind whirring.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Her mother was no longer distractedly scanning her test papers. Now she looked directly at Beulah, brow creased in genuine alarm, her red ballpoint spilling ink in large blots onto one of her papers. “Get the phone book. Look up the number for the coroners office.” She said, and then paused as if something just occurred to her, “She doesn’t have any children?”
“No,” Beulah shook her head. “I mean, none we could call…” Her voice trailed and she shot to her feet ready to root around the kitchen drawers, the den, beneath the coffee table, for a phonebook. Her mother grabbed her arm. “Beulah?”
“Huh?”
“Are you sure?”
“About the children?”
“No, that she’s not just sleeping. Or running errands. I mean, you didn’t say you actually saw the—”
“Look, I could just tell,” Beulah said. She jerked her arm free and began searching the kitchen.