The Scarlet Ibis [Alternate Ending]

As an assignment for my High School english class, I was to write either a continuation or an alternate ending to the short story; "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst. Enjoy :)

                "I’m not hungry,” said Doodle. He kept staring at the ibis as he slowly walked back to the house. The look on his face was sheer astonishment and horror.

               

                “Come on Doodle…” I coaxed, “let’s go for a walk.” He looked up at me, and back to the scarlet ibis.

               

                “All right” he said.

                               

                “I want you two back in about an hour,” Mama called from the kitchen. And with that, we were off to Old Woman Swamp. We meandered around the swamp for about twenty minutes before choosing a place to rest; Doodle looked as if he would collapse. We sat beneath the shady trees along the water.

               

                “I feel so bad for that bird,” he said, almost out of breath.

               

                “Doodle, it was just a bird, it’s just life,” I said smirking.

               

                “Yeah, but it came all that way just to die.” He looked very troubled.

               

                “Is there something else wrong?” I asked with a puzzled look on my face.

               

                He vacillated for a moment and then said, “I’m scared” as he looked at me with worried eyes.

                               

                “What could you possibly be scared of, Doodle?”

               

                “That I might be like that bird, maybe it’s a sign.” He looked away from me and down to the dark, shallow water. I sat in amazement at the complexity of his thought. I had nothing to say because I knew that it could be true.

                With levity, finally I managed to say “nah…you’re just listening to Mama too much.” He glanced over and gave me a weak smile.

 

                The next day, my hopes of going outside diminished as the rain came pouring upon our little house. It didn’t help that mama told Doodle and I to go clean up our messy room. Though we didn’t want to, we did it anyway. There was certainly an abundant supply of trash in that room. Doodle got busy cleaning up all of his stories that were strewn across the floor. As I was going through my old clothes, I came upon a bright red jacket. I didn’t remember getting it from anywhere, and it was too small.

 

                “Hey Doodle, you want this old jacket?” I asked as I glanced over my shoulder.

 

                “Really?” he asked as he peered over his huge stack of books and papers.

 

                “Sure, it’s too small for me.”

                “Yeah, that’s a real nice jacket…thanks” he said as he took it from my hand.

               

                “No problem,” I said while I got back to cleaning. I was hoping that it would stop raining by the time we finished.

 

                Surprisingly the rain had stopped, it seemed, just as we were cleaning up a few things that were left.

 

                “Hey Mama, can we go outside now?” Doodle called from the bedroom. Mama came and stood in the doorway examining our work. “All right, but it’s a little chilly, and I want you two to be careful” she said.

 

                “I’ll wear my new jacket,” said Doodle with a smug look on his face, I chuckled. And once again we were off to Old Woman Swamp, he and I went there nearly every day just because we could. That day the air was thick with fog. I looked over at Doodle as he walked awkwardly with his hands in his pockets. His vivid red jacket was almost too great a contrast with the dim haze.

 

                As we entered the swamp, the fog seemed to thicken. We chose to hang around the edges of the swamp, knowing we could get lost if we went further into the shadowy murk.

 

                “So what do you want to do?” I asked.

 

                “Eh, I don’t know,” he said shrugging his shoulders. I thought back to when he was born and of my high expectations. I wanted a brother who I could run and climb with.

 

                “Hey, first one to the top of this tree get’s the last of the peach cobbler!” I exclaimed as I pointed to a tree nearby. Doodle looked at me and smiled, his nose crinkling up.

 

                “You know I’m going to win, I love peach cobbler” he said still grinning.

 

                “Well, we’ll just see how much you really love it.” I darted to the tree and began to climb, Doodle did the same. As we climbed, we laughed and joked. I was getting near the top and I couldn’t see where Doodle was, for the thick fog seemed to close in on us.

 

                “Brother!” Doodle cried. His cry snapped me back into reality. I heard a soft thud, and almost slid down the tree. I knew what had happened but I couldn’t see. As I jumped to the ground, I ran to the other side of the tree. There lay Doodle in his bright red jacket, not moving.

 

                “Doodle, Doodle!” I yelled, but he laid there still. I began to cry and barely could see anything through the fog and my tears. In my mind I heard Doodle’s words ‘maybe it’s a sign”. I bent down and held my scarlet ibis in the thick murk of Old Woman Swamp.

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Warrior]

Great story telling. This did justice in the realm of getting the message across. Great message.

[ChrisM]

I found Scarlet Ibis here (it's very short) -

http://209.184.141.5/westwood/academ/depts/dpteng/l-coker/virtualenglish/englsih%20i/english%20ia/scarlet_ibis.htm

I really enjoyed the alternate ending, The scenes and dialogue flow naturally from the story and accomplish so much with little apparent effort. Small suggestion: maybe the red jacket could be camouflaged with another word not so close to scarlet, maybe "my old school colors, carmine and yellow"? The characters were more fully developed. Excellent work.

[TLK]

It's hard to understand this without having read Scarlet Ibis... perhaps if you quickly summarised the story first? On its own terms, though, and worrying less about plot, the style is nicely descriptive and keeps things going right until the end.