This is a narrative essay I wrote at the end of senior year for my honors english class. It was a bit of an open-ended assignment, one option being a rite-of-passage/coming-of-age type deal. That's the one I chose, and this is the product. It's not as complete as I'd like, but this is pretty much what I turned in - the current title is Twelve.
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The passerby didn't mean it. A word born in transit, tossed without second thought. Well, likely not even first thought. It wasn't that harsh, but it hit its mark. The recipient, a teenage reader-girl, bent her head over her book and wished the slew of hateful, sticky thoughts away. Years of ignoring those screeching bats hadn't made it any easier to do today. Some things just never get better with time, she figured. Like certain people. The sun was out, though. Quite out, unlike the reader-girl. She was quite in, hiding behind the farthest bookcase to the rear of the murky shop.
The shop didn't get on well with the sunlight; it was accustomed to similarly murky weather. It seemed always to be squinting in the crisp light of day, hoping for a cloud to intercede and let the little shop disappear once more in all its dusty splendor. The reader-girl felt dusty too, sometimes. She was great friends with the little shop. It would shelter her from all the passers-by, lending her a quiet escape in which to immerse herself, explore foreign worlds, and live daring tales of true love, gut-wrenching sacrifice, and idyllic friendship. She often wondered how true these stories were, and if adventure really existed the way it did those dusty afternoons in the little shop.
This particular day, the reader-girl folded her book back together, and paused to gaze overhead at the yellowing wooden ceiling. Lazy breezes drifted towards her from the ceiling fan swaying above the stout shelves. It was a rather useless fan, she thought. Its highest calling in life was to circulate the heavy air in the shop, but it couldn't spin very fast anymore. The reader-girl imagined it had grown dizzy and tired after watching the shop go around and around for so long. Now it glided along, content to float on a chance cross-breeze from the back window whenever the front door opened. She wondered if it ever wanted to be more than a ceiling fan.
Life was bearable behind the bookcase in the tiny shop that dozed on a quiet street on the outskirts of a nameless town. Life was bearable.
Four years ago... Things are different. Life is wondrous, albeit wondrously innocent. The reader-girl is a flower-girl. A sunshine-girl. A dance-in-the-rain girl. Granted, she only has twelve years to her name, but the years have beamed a wide easy smile upon her with a perpetual promise of spring. She lives in the same forgotten town, but the heavy air and dusty buildings are nothing but exciting places to explore and imagine.
Her favorite place is the town schoolhouse. This is mostly because of the teacher-ma'am. The teacher-ma'am is the sunshine-girl's favorite person in the whole wide world. She smells of lemons and sugar, and wears the most exquisite clothes. She has an air of confidence and beauty that the sunshine-girl admires with everything in her. Most of the children think she is cross, but to the sunshine-girl, the teacher-ma'am is the most perfect-est person on the planet. The teacher-ma'am can do no wrong in her eyes.
Every day, the sunshine-girl walks to school very carefully, mindful not to stir up the dust along the road and soil her dress. She knows how the teacher-ma'am likes her students to be clean. She sits up straight in her desk during class, in constant awe, dreaming of the day she might grow up and be beautiful like her dear teacher-ma'am.
This day, she leaves early to pick fresh flowers along the way. She had once read a story about a lady whose affections were won by a gentleman. The lady only loved the gentleman once he presented her with a product of his labor – a picnic basket full of fresh bread, ripe fruits, smooth butter, and honey. He also gave time, in order to take her to a beautiful sunny spot overlooking a churning river. The sunshine-girl often imagines the delight on the lady's face as the story described, and determines to give her teacher-ma'am the same joy.
She ties her bouquet of flowers with a ribbon she had bought with her own hard-earned money. She is in high spirits as usual, and can't wait to present her gift to the teacher-ma'am.
The sunshine-girl bounces into the classroom where class had already begun.
The sunshine-girl proudly holds up her bouquet of wild flowers, offering her heart with them. “These are for you, ma'am.”
“I care not for weeds that cause my students to be tardy, as well as stain the hems of their dresses. Take a seat.”
The sunshine-girl hesitates, “I... I can put them in a jar for you, ma'am; they'd be pretty. I picked them myself. Oughtn't that count for something?”
“You think you're enough?” the teacher-ma'am exclaims. “You're only twelve, for heaven's sake! Please sit down immediately and open your lesson.”
The sunshine-girl stands frozen, hands limp at her side. Her mind races, spinning responses that merely fall to the ground before they can fully form on her tongue. “If... If you please, ma'am... Forgive me.”
“There's nothing to forgive, unless you continue to stand there with your mouth hanging open.” The teacher-ma'am turns to finish the phrase on the blackboard. “Copy this two hundred times, girl. Stay in from recess if necessary.”
The sunshine-girl feels a cloud forming on the horizon of her innermost being. Thunder echoes in the distance: Only twelve. Only twelve. It draws nearer, edging itself between the girl and the sun.
In a daze, she begins writing; over and over, the phrase that names her spills out on the page. Her cheeks later burn red as the other students snicker and run out to play.
She wants to run away and shrivel up forever, but at the same time longs to prove everyone wrong and stand tall and be someone important and be like the beautiful, proud teacher-ma'am...
The sunshine-girl crumples in a heap on the desk. It isn't supposed to be like this. The story doesn't ended like this. The story tells of sunshine and warm grass and love. There is no river except that from her tears, and the cruel scratch of the chalk bears witness to the disillusionment. As the salty puddle slips off the edge of her desk onto the floor, she thinks of the story and woefully resolves to return to it after school; it will always end the same way – the correct way. No teacher-ma'am can change that.
Time passed. The reader-girl raised her head and continued weaving the string of words. Life was bearable.
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