Saturday, April 5, 2008

Why must everything have a title?

It's Saturday!!! I slept in! It was amazing! And it's conference weekend, which makes me happy. For all of you readers that are not LDS, it's the weekend where the leaders of our Church speak from Salt Lake City on broadcast and give us guidance. It's a two day thing, very exhausting for them and very invigorating for us.
Anywho, I decided that Saturdays are going to be my writing days. The days where I share with you all tiny snippets from my collections. They will be however long or short I decide, and you may insult, comment, or praise at your leisure.
Today's selection is another short story for my creative writing class, in which I got high score for this piece, thank you very much. It's more light hearted than my last, so no worrirs about tears, Erin, though you may still hate me. And so, without any further ado, I present, for your reading and entertainment pleasure, Truth Or Dare.

“I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I CANNOT do this!”
Callie trudged her way through the four inches of snow that were steadily deepening and somehow managing to find a way through her boots, through her pink and green striped toe socks, and simultaneously drenching and freezing her toes, wishing she could turn back and forget this whole dare. What had she been thinking?
Truth or Dare. The one game her mother had always ALWAYS ALWAYS told her not to play, especially not in her house. But her mother and father were out tonight, and didn’t know that her “sleepover” with a few friends was actually an excuse to rout out her mom’s “secret” stash of Reese’s Cups and Snickers and Mint Milano Cookies as they chatted about how horrible and yet incredibly cute the boys at school were, all the while watching movies that they all knew their moms would not have allowed, had they any idea.
Ugh, if only she hadn’t invited Danica over. The little weasel. Danica, the popular one, who had only been invited to up Callie’s own social status, had suggested this horrible game. And who did she think should go first? Why, the hostess, of course. Callie wished that she had poked out those flashing green eyes when she’d had the chance. But no. She had to go along with it like a stupid lemming, following the leader blindly until they all fell off of a cliff.
And died on the jagged rocks below.
And then, to top it off, when asked the ever-important “Truth or Dare” question, Callie had lifted her chin and bravely said, “Dare.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid. You ALWAYS say truth! So much safer. But she hadn’t wanted to look like a scaredy cat in front of everybody. These were the High School Gossip elite! There was no way to salvage a reputation when they were through with it.
Well, she looked really cool now! Her silky red pajama pants stuffed deep into the faded gray polyester of her 15-year-old hand-me-down snow boots with the scuffings on the toes, her thick gray cardigan buttoned up to her chin, and a bright yellow scarf wrapped at least seven times around her neck, compliments of her ex-best friends. Oh, and one mustn’t forget the hat she was wearing. It was a penguin. Literally. The ball on top of the hat was the head, complete with a little yellow beak protrusion.
Callie sighed in frustration and stepped quickly around the strange puddle of yellow snow that she had almost missed.
“Lovely. Compliments of his dog,” she muttered. The only dog in four blocks and it had to do that in her path.
She stopped dead in her tracks and swallowed hard as she realized that meant she was there…here…at the end. This was his house. That was his horribly ugly wreath on the front door. Those were his Christmas lights that he probably put up with his father.
Waves of panic washed over her and her stomach turned into swarms of angry bees. Oh, why did Tracie have to tell Danica that she was in love with Troy? Why oh why oh why? What kind of friend was she?
It had been a horrible moment. Probably the worst in her life, and she didn’t foresee any future moment surpassing it. Danica and her posse of preps had put their heads together to come up with a truly horrendous dare, when Tracie, probably too chock-full of sugar to notice what came out of her mouth, said, “Well, Callie’s been in love with Troy Francisco since eighth grade!” And from the looks on those girls’ faces, Callie thought the devil himself had possessed them.
And now here she was. A veritable freak show standing in front of the home of the single most attractive guy to ever grace a high school’s hallowed walls.
Callie looked around anxiously. No one was around, no one would know. She didn’t have to go through with this. She could lie. She was a rather good liar.
Then she heard giggling and whispering from somewhere in the street behind her.
She closed her eyes in anguish. Of course they’d followed her.
She heard the rather loud whirl of a camera zooming in.
Of course.
Taking a deep breath, and finally understanding that whole ‘lamb going to the slaughter’ thing, she walked up the neatly shoveled path.
Stepped onto the porch.
To the front door.
And rang the doorbell.

Bwah hahaha. I am mean, I know. Well, back to my studies. Test in 1 WEEK!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!

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