Student Work: "A Surprise in the Woods"

A Surprise in the Woods

by

Maris Bey

            The day the stock market crashed, it was my sixth birthday, the day I got my first bicycle. The next day it was gone, sold to pay the bills. Sarah’s bike was sold two days later, then Mama’s car, and finally Papa’s car, too. Everything went, until finally we had an almost empty house, which was eventually sold, too.

            We now live by Lake Erie, and for my eighth birthday, I got a blanket of my very own to wrap up with on cold nights in the tent. My sister Sarah and I had been sharing one, but now she was glad to have one to herself, even though it was itchy and brown. The winds that came off Lake Erie were bone chilling, so I still snuggled with Sarah for warmth.

            Papa had been trying to get a job for two years, but none were available.

            That changed the day after my birthday. He had found an old fisherman’s boat and had been repairing it for weeks. He had made makeshift fishing poles out of long pieces of oak and had attached strings he’d taken from our tent. He had made what he called hooks, but they looked like little twigs that would break with the smallest fish clamping its mouth over it. Papa was going to try to catch enough for us to eat and to sell at a store. I highly doubted him, but I didn’t say so as he left our tent. The tent was supposed to be hunter green, but it had faded to the color of split pea soup, which was all we had to eat now. Well, except if Papa actually caught some fish. “Good luck,” I yelled just before he was out of sight, past the cluster of bare oaks. He didn’t say anything. Perhaps he didn’t hear me.

            Sarah yelled at me from the woods where she was collecting fire wood. “Amanda, come here! Look what I found. Hurry!”

            I ran as fast as I could. What could it be, a bike? I still dreamed of owning a bike, but it seemed impossible now.

            I nearly ran into Sarah, dressed in Papa’s old overalls, which Mama had tightened and patched and shortened, until they looked as good as new.

            I realized Sarah was leaning over the most pitiful little creature and, at first, I couldn’t tell what it was. It was covered in dirt and blood, and I didn’t even know if it was alive, but it was. I suddenly saw it was an infant deer, a fawn, living in the leaves. The smell of blood made me gag and cough.

            “We have to take it back to the tent,” I said. “Mama won’t like it, but she has a soft spot for animals, especially for baby animals.”

            I still had my blanket wrapped around me to keep off the chill, so I wrapped up the fawn, taking my chances of getting blood stains on the soft baby blue wool, my birthday gift.

            We carried the fawn back to the tent. Mama wasn’t back yet from getting more bags of disgusting split peas, so we had a little while to think up good reasons to keep it. We got out the white strips of cloth Mama kept for wounds, hair ties, and anything else we could think of.

            We bandaged up the poor creature. The whole time it was bleating pitifully. Sarah asked, “What can we name it?”

            “Well, it’s a girl, so that limits the choices. How about Willow?”

            “Perfect.”

            At that moment, Mama walked in.

            “What’s perfect?” she asked.

            “Well,” Sarah said, buying herself some time to think. Luckily I came up with the perfect excuse to keep Willow.

            “Mom,” I said, “you know how you wished you had a lawn mower to trim the grass outside the tent? Well, we found a solution.” I sounded like an Arm and Hammer radio ad. “We found a deer in the woods today and it’s injured and we brought it home and fixed her up and she won’t be difficult…and…and…please?” If there had been a race to see who could talk the fastest, I would have won.

            Mama only stared at me. “I…I guess so,” she answered. “As long as she eats only grass. And she has to sleep outdoors.”

            All I could do was grin. I might not have had a bicycle, or a home, or fancy dresses, but I had a deer and that was all I wanted. I thought I could never be happier, but I was when Papa came home with more trout than I had ever seen in my life. Even though I had to give up my new blanket for Willow, and Sarah and I had to start sharing again, I felt we had a home again.

The End

Maris Bey has won first place in The Inaugural Story Hatchery Writing Contest, 13-15 age category. Look for her winning story, "La Decisión" in the upcoming May issue of the Winston-Salem Monthly. 


"A Surprise in the Woods" first appeared in The Story Hatchery Anthology last year. Our next anthology will come out this summer!