Month: September 2010

          The next morning, I mailed my letter. I didn’t really expect a reply until at least Monday because tonight (Wednesday) through Saturday are sacred days and we’re not able to write or do any work.  Despite that I knew Kate and I couldn’t write to each other, I still checked the mail daily to check if my letter was returned because I wrote the wrong address or some other mistake. I’m a bit neurotic that way. Actually, in every single way. Truth is, I’m really neurotic about everything. I always check to make sure I did all my homework right and that I did things such as dialing a friend’s phone number right or wrote the right address on a letter or e-mail.

          The next few days were basically the same thing as the day before. I read books, comic books, checked the newspaper for the MLB standings and the score from last night’s Mets game. I went for walks. I did that for a few days and I actually liked it. Except Thursday. That day I mainly hid out with my sister, sometimes alone because my parents were fighting and my father was very cranky.

   Now allow me to explain my interests. I love books. I especially love Archie Comics comic books and have three boxes full. I also like baseball. I’m a New York Mets fan. They totally suck, but I don’t care. I like them anyway for some strange, twisted reason I don’t  remember. I also like my computer.

 On Saturday night, I logged on to my computer and played some games online. I had a nice holiday so far, I suppose.

Dear Kate,

     Since we won’t see or talk to each other face to face for two weeks, I thought we might “talk” via “snail mail”.       Since I know your phone number but not your e-mail address and I didn’t want to call you, I thought it might be fun to contact you a more traditional way.  Besides, it’s more fun to wait for a letter than a phone call.

        Anyway, have a nice vacation. R.A.S.A.P. (Reply As Soon As Possible!)

                            Signing off,

                            Diana

P.s. Not trying to act all buddy- buddy, just felt like writing.

          I know you have a bunch of questions. Who’s Kate? Why am I writing a letter to her? Well, I’ll explain all of that later, promise. Let’s get back to our story now, shall we?

          I wrote Kate’s address in the top-left corner of a plain white envelope along with my address in the center and slipped it in to the postage machine. I punched in the weight and amount of postage I want. I pulled it out and saw the postage stamped on it.

Cool, I thought. I set down my letter next to me and turned around…

          Now, that back story I promised. Well, I’m Diana Duchan. I’m ten years old and am Jewish. I go to a yeshiva and live in Brooklyn, New York. My friend is Kate Lester. She also is ten and lives in Brooklyn.

          Now about that letter. We won’t see each other for two weeks because we have a vacation for Succoth, also known as Tabernacles.  So I decided to try to get in touch with her the more traditional way, via “snail mail”, as I said in the letter.

Now a little more back story before I go back to the REAL story. I live in a neighborhood called Marine Park. I have a dad who’s a psychologist at a public school out on Long Island, a mom who works as a nursery teacher in our school, and a sister named Melissa who we call Mimi or Mimono, who’s 12 and is in eighth grade. Now back to our story, everybody.

He couldn’t bring himself to answer the phone. He just stared at it until the third echoing ring went off. He knew what they were going to say. It would just be what they had been calling about from before. Something along the lines of ‘The body that was found in the river wasn’t hers. We’re still searching.’ was what the person on the phone said, ut he didn’t care enough to listen. He did care, but he didn’t want to hear it.

That girl. That dreaded girl. Not dreaded, really, it was more like adorable. Something along the lines of that, maybe. He didn’t known if she was dead or alive. She stabbed herself in the shoulder before running off, and when she rounded a corner and disappeared, he called authorities. They started searching the area almost immediately, but she was long gone.

The ‘Have you seen the woman?’ signs were everywhere. He payed good money to have them up everywhere he could. The girl probably hadn’t left the state, if she was still…alive. Unless someone took her, there was just no possible way. It was killing him, not knowing, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Write when it turned midnight-not a second early, not a second late-the phone rang. The call was simply listed as UNKNOWN. He answered it, not really caring about who it was. There was a quiet, girlish voice on the other end.

“I still like you.”

Sorry about the cliffhanger, there. This is like one of those spur of the moment things that happen when I listen to music. Ironically, the song I was listening to was the one I was listening to when I first wrote TMOL.

I was considering having this focus on Gale/Daven, but I wouldn’t dare let Gale hurt herself…….yet. Therefore, I will be considering letting other peeps on the site help me choose the names of the characters. I hope to turn this into a series, and will try to let my writing style expand while doing so. This will be needed, of course, since Tania and I are planning on starting a co-op story. From what I understand, we won’t be posting anything but frgaments on here.

P.S. Whoever guesses what the “I still like you.” meant, and/or why it was used instead of “I still love you.” gets a virtual cookie or something.

It’s my birthday. I hate birthdays!!! At least I get to pick where we go next. That is a plus. Well, and cake or happy cake well both. Now that I think of it it’s sooo awesome and I feel great!!! Know why? I like birthdays now!                   P.S. from Cacarrier: Little sis wrote this one as well.                                        

The girl walks up to the water

hurls a flat stone into it

with a faint splash, it sinks

down

             down

                            down

touches bottom

with thousands of other pebbles,

cast off like litter

and sits

the white pebble

the girl walks off