Monday, October 18, 2010

Newspaper time.

Writin' stories for the school newspaper. For every month, I am re-doing an old fairy tale, which is proving to be quite fun thus far.
Now, this one is meant to be next month's story, but since I am so terribly kind, and since none of you (so far as I know) have access to our newspaper, I shall post it here for you to enjoy or, if it so suits you, spit at.
It is not entirely finished, but I like what I have so far.

Rapunzel Redone.
Once upon a time, there lived a young man and woman who had wished for a child but had been unsuccessful in producing one. “Honey,” the young wife wheedled her husband, “I have been wishing with all of my might for a baby, so why is it we do not have one yet?” Her husband rolled his eyes and rubbed his temples in an irritated way. “Darling,” the man said, struggling to keep the agitation out of his voice, “I have explained over and over again that one cannot simply wish for a child to appear. Must I explain the birds and the bees again?” The young man was just about to get out the puppets and demonstrate for what seemed like the 50th time, when his wife inadvertently stopped him by gaping like a moron out of the window. (Well. A bigger moron, that is.) “What is it?” the young man asked cautiously, squinting out of the window as well, “Is that squirrel back again?” The young woman continued to stare blankly past the neighbor’s tall wall and into the garden. “I bet,” she said slowly, “if we got some of that delicious-looking rapunzel from that garden, we’d get a baby in no time.” Now it was the husband’s turn to gape stupidly. “What the-?” he thought, confused. “How on earth did she come up with that? Why would eating a salad of all things produce a child? Maybe I should have made her take an IQ test before marrying her.” The young man took a deep breath before responding. “And how, dear wife” he said through clenched teeth, “do you think the rapunzel will help?” His wife smiled pleasantly at him, completely dissipating his annoyance with her (for the moment, anyhow,) and said, “I just know it will. Please?” She batted her eyes repeatedly for effect. Her husband sighed loudly and dramatically, saying, “Fine.” He sighed again, even more obnoxiously this time, and stomped out the front door.
Several hours and many bruises later, the young man had successfully scaled the high wall surrounding the neighbor’s property. He took a moment to catch his breath and to really think about what he was about to do. “Okay, Tom.” (For that is his name, you see. It seems I’ve not mentioned it up until this point, and for this, I apologize.) “Let’s think about this for a second or two. You have just, quite awesomely might I add, scaled the neighbor’s wall in order to steal some sort of cabbage that you could have just gone down to the market to get. And now you are about to trespass on the property of, if the rumors are correct, a particularly cranky and vegetable-obsessed witch just because your wife batted her eyes at you. Is that about right?” Tom nodded in response to his own question. “Just making sure. Well, we’ve already gone this far, Tommy ol’ boy; might as well finish the job.” He nodded once more and jumped down off the wall into the garden.

DUN DUN DUN.
That's all for now, I suppose.
Adieu.