Student Work: Story-in-Progress Excerpt by Skyler Grogan

         Excerpt from a story in progress at The Story Hatchery. This story will appear in its entirety in the 2011 anthology coming out this summer. 

Story-in-Progress Excerpt

by 

Skyler Grogan, age 13   

            The screen door creaked as Donna trudged into her rusty trailer. The sounds of crickets and frogs chirping leaked into the musky living room air, signaling the beginning of spring. Life finally blooming in the empty winter’s lungs.

            Dan, her son, sat at the TV, eating a microwave dinner. He was hunched over the lukewarm corn, shoveling it into his gaping mouth. Donna sat next to him, stirring dust from the mushy cushions.

            “Hey, sweetheart. Sorry I couldn’t be here earlier. I was working overtime for Matilda,” she said, taking off her shoes and massaging her calloused feet. Her cheekbones sharply jutted from her narrow face, supporting fat bags under her eyes. Once she had been a beautiful girl, but hours of slaving at restaurants had sucked most of the beauty from her like a ravenous leech.

            “That’s what you always say,” mumbled Dan through a mouthful of watery corn. Donna guiltily looked at the dingy carpet.

            “At least you don’t have to work,” she said. “There’s a poor boy at the bakery who’s so skinny, if he stood sideways he’d disappear.”

            “At least he has a mom.” Dan kept staring at the TV, but what he said was sincere.

            “I don’t believe he does. He’s a nice boy, doesn’t talk much. I’m not even sure he has a home. His name’s Jeremy.” Donna continued up her leg, soothing the raw muscles in her calves. Dan looked at Donna, furrowing his brow.

            “Jeremy? Jeremy what?” He dropped his spoon.

            “I think it was Mabe, or May, or something. Why?”

            “No reason.” Dan leaned and dropped his empty tray into the wastebasket. “I’m going outside for a little.”

            Donna didn’t look up from her leg. “Be back by 1.”

            Stepping into the crisp air, Dan gulped in breaths. He dragged a hammer off the porch and smashed it into a rock. It chipped and showed white specks. He smashed and smashed, sending sparks everywhere. The rock turned to minute pebbles, and Dan began striking bare ground. He threw the hammer across his yard and dropped. He was silent.

            Jeremy knew his pain. And it made him sick.