Grabbing Life Back At The Keys

A beach story

GRABBING LIFE BACK AT THE KEYS

 

A storm was rolling in onto the shore like a bowling ball about to meet its last standing pin.  Chuck raised his eye brows and cheerfully yelled at me to entice me to come down from my tree house, "An East wind is blowing, better bring your bike inside and get ready for dinner!"  He's always so over protective when it comes to me, nothing is insignificant.

 

As I was sliding down my knotted nylon rope, I sliced my hand open.  It's burning like a paper cut.  I winced as my bare feet hit the soft warm sand.  A few grains of sand got stuck in the tiny crevices between my two webbed toes that I inherited from Chuck.  He always told me that webbed toes were twice as good for you when it came to swimming with the dolphins in the warm ocean and winning swim meets.  I hope he's right about next week's swim meet!

 

I ran towards my house that was surrounded by a rusty wrought-iron gate and climbed over it as any healthy eight-year-old girl would do.  Why push it open with the palm of your hand, when climbing was much more fun to do.  I brought my little huffy with the training wheels inside and swiftly shut the sliding glass door.

 

"Hey Tiny Trinkets, wash-up and help me set the table.  It's almost ready!" Chuck said as he winked at me.  I ran into the bathroom and took a quick shower to rinse off all of the excess sand and take off the bathing suit that I'd worn for the last two days.  I can't wear it to school tomorrow.  It is Key West? ...But still, Chuck wouldn't allow it.  Besides, my blue dress with dolphins and rainbows is already ironed and ready to go.

 

Briefly, I closed my eyes as the warm water sprayed my dirty face with a fine mist.  I started lathering up with my favorite grape shampoo and singing about silly moon beams in a jar.  I was catching a faint whiff of the sweet, cinnamon smell of apple-butter pancakes and hot sausage wrap slowly around me, and invade the moist grape-scented shower air.  I finished my shower, quickly zipped-up my pink polka-dotted romper and braided my long, pony-tail.  My stomach was starting to growl like Nessy the Lochness Monster.

 

I started to set the table, carefully arranging the knives, forks and spoons. Then I noticed that there was one less candle in the candelabra that Chuck always lit on our traditional Sunday night dinner, with his signature pancakes and sausages.  Oh well, change is common place to me by now.  Since my Mom died, hardly anything has stayed the same anymore.

 

Tomorrow's my first day of school.  I'm so happy and elated this feeling might just intoxicate me.  I get to see all of my friends from last year.  I can't wait for the swim meet too! 

 

I got the Bible out and placed it by Chuck's seat.  He always read's me a story about truth and virtue before every meal.  That way I'll grow up to be an angel, just like Mom!

 

Author's Note

I wrote this last year. Just wanted an opinion.

Reviews

[Mary Evans]

Sweet little story. I think its a bit short but it might be just me. Its just that i feel i want to know more about the characters, their life and feelings.
And one other thing, if you're writing in past tense make sure everything is in past tense. Like "It's burning like a paper cut." is in the middle of a past tense paragraph and is in present, there are few other sentences like that.

Otherwise nice piece, the style and flow are good. I like the subtle twist about the mother.
Keep up the good work.

[Chellie]

This was a cute story. I agree with T. Hawkins review though. I think it does need to be longer. You don't really know the characters that well by the end of the story. There are a lot of questions left unanswered, like why the mother died. You really need to put more of a background to the characters, let us know more about them. Also just read through the story and pick out the mistakes with past tense and present tense. There are a few of them. If you read it out loud to yourself it I find that it makes it much more easy to find the mistakes.

It was a great read. I would like to read more of it.