story idea
This is weird. I was thumbing through some old story ideas in an old notebook, and somehow....this formed in my head. I wrote an outline for a whole story in about an hour (and I never finish an outline. It's a curse or something), and then wrote a whole chapter. It's now 2330 and I need sleep something fierce because I have to go to work in 6 hours, but I feel the need to post at least part of it.
Megan, forgive me the liberties I took.
Genesis
“Always remember how powerful words can be; visualize how you want the world to be and then write it as if it were a fact already. Good luck! - Mrs. Birch”
Commandment the first: Upon reaching your new domain, you must choose a Goddess-in-training as soon as possible.
I was a mutant lobster the day I met the most important person of my life.
It’s hard enough being thirteen in a new school without waking up one day and realizing that you have a terrible allergy to the shrimp you ate for dinner last night. I begged and pleaded with my mother to let me skip school - how could I face hundreds of strange kids with my cheeks swollen and red, my skin blotchy and rough with rash marks, and my eyes almost black around the edges?
But the doctor said the rash would last at least four days, and for my practical mother that was way too long for me to skip school. So I did what any thirteen year old girl would do - I threw a fit, cried until I realized how badly the tears stung my sensitive face, and went to school.
I’d been there a month before the Shrimp Allergy From Hell. I was a quiet girl, more given to reading than gossiping, and shopping and celebrities were about as boring as it got in my opinion. So no, I hadn’t made a whole lot of friends. And suddenly, that first day that I sat in the cafeteria and tried to keep my face oriented at the wall as much as possible, I realized just how much that truly sucked.
To this day, I don’t know what caused the madness, the inexplicable and abrupt ascent into boldness, but the urge to do something other than sit silently in the corner and pray nobody looked at me drove me to stand. Lunch tray held out in front of my like a shield, I scanned the bustling cafeteria.
And then I saw her.
She was sitting in the opposite corner from me, reading. Her blonde hair hung down in front of her face, obscuring her features almost as much as mine, and what the hair couldn’t hide, the glasses and the book did.
She looked like me, I thought. Sans gruesome disfigurement.
Plenty of stories have started with the classic line, “Hi, do you mind if I sit with you?” I don’t know if any of those stories continued with an immediate, “I swear I’m not contagious!” but I bet it isn’t many.
She nodded. “My name’s Melissa,” I offered. Another nod.
I sat, pulled out my own book, and we read. When the bell rang, she slammed the book into her bag as if it owed her, muttered “See you,” and that was that.
Thus I met Megan Chiara Zamie, Goddess of the Many Names.
And everything changed.
------------
“He’s just an ignoramus,” she told me, scowling at the laughing eighth grader at the next table. “Ignore him, or he’ll think he’s important.”
“Ignoramus?” I repeated. “What, is that the word of the day or something?”
Megan rolled her eyes. “A good vocabulary is the key to a successful life,” she said, as if reading it off the ceiling. “My dad tells me that a lot.”
“Ignoramus. I like it. Makes me think of hippopotamus.”
“He’s certainly got enough fat,” she answered darkly, glaring over the edge of her book at the boy and his gang of friends.
“He looks kinda skinny to me.”
“Only ‘cause it’s all in his head.”
I giggled a little, then shrugged, trying to act as casual as a humiliated teenager could. “I’ve thought up worse names for myself than that.”
“Worse than Rash-head?”
“Much worse.”
“Like what?” Megan leaned forward, lowering the book she’d been reading. Wishing I hadn’t said anything, I laid my own book down on the table and wiggled a little in my seat. “Elephant Girl.”
She giggled a little. “Nah, the Elephant Man had some kind of bone thing going on - this is just your skin or something.” She pushed at her glasses a little. “You’re more like Chipmunk Girl.”
My gut twisted. Three days we’d sat together, reading, almost ignoring each other except for a greeting glance and brief nods or finger-waves. And now she was laughing at me, just as much as any other kid here. I felt my still-swollen face getting warm. Great, like I needed to highlight the rash any more. Why didn’t I just wear a big neon sign on my forehead that said “FREAK!” and get it over with?
Somewhere around that train of self-pitying thought, it filtered into my brain that Megan wasn’t laughing.
I risked a glance at her face, and it took me a second to realize that she was glowering at the table, that her hands hovered over the book she’d set down like she was only a moment away from snatching it back up and diving behind it. She looked irritated, and for a second I wondered what the heck I’d done to piss her off. And then it occurred to me that she hadn’t looked irritated until she’d spoken. She’d just said something mean, and was gearing up for the inevitable argument.
I licked my lips. “Rabid Chipmunk Girl,” I agreed.
The tight expression on her face relaxed into a startled sort of smile, and she took her hand away from the book long enough to gesture in the air. “Pustule Princess.” This time the insult was a little less tentative. I felt my own shoulders loosening, and the beginnings of laughter growing in my chest as I considered this moniker.
“I give you points for alliteration, but thumbs down for sheer grossness.” I stuck my hands out, demonstrating my point, and turned opened and closed my fingers several times, like claws pinching the air. “Mutant Lobster.”
“Lobsters are already mutants.” She sniffed at my poor imitation of a crustacean. “Pink Puffer!”
“Wobble Blob!”
“Toad Chops!”
As if we were trying to outdo each other, our voices rose, until we were practically shouting with laughter. The boy at the next table and his friends looked at us like we were the strangest things he’d ever seen, and somehow, that only seemed to encourage us. For the first time in my life, looking like a weirdo didn’t feel so…scary. It felt a little bit like victory.
“Splotchy Spleen!”
“Manky Cat!”
I wrinkled my nose, noting with glee that it was finally close enough to it’s normal size to allow that kind of movement again. “What exactly does that look like?”
“Nasty,” she said, and raised a hand as if to forestall any further questions. “Trust me, I know.”
There's more, which I think I'll put up later.
Megan, forgive me the liberties I took.
Genesis
“Always remember how powerful words can be; visualize how you want the world to be and then write it as if it were a fact already. Good luck! - Mrs. Birch”
Commandment the first: Upon reaching your new domain, you must choose a Goddess-in-training as soon as possible.
I was a mutant lobster the day I met the most important person of my life.
It’s hard enough being thirteen in a new school without waking up one day and realizing that you have a terrible allergy to the shrimp you ate for dinner last night. I begged and pleaded with my mother to let me skip school - how could I face hundreds of strange kids with my cheeks swollen and red, my skin blotchy and rough with rash marks, and my eyes almost black around the edges?
But the doctor said the rash would last at least four days, and for my practical mother that was way too long for me to skip school. So I did what any thirteen year old girl would do - I threw a fit, cried until I realized how badly the tears stung my sensitive face, and went to school.
I’d been there a month before the Shrimp Allergy From Hell. I was a quiet girl, more given to reading than gossiping, and shopping and celebrities were about as boring as it got in my opinion. So no, I hadn’t made a whole lot of friends. And suddenly, that first day that I sat in the cafeteria and tried to keep my face oriented at the wall as much as possible, I realized just how much that truly sucked.
To this day, I don’t know what caused the madness, the inexplicable and abrupt ascent into boldness, but the urge to do something other than sit silently in the corner and pray nobody looked at me drove me to stand. Lunch tray held out in front of my like a shield, I scanned the bustling cafeteria.
And then I saw her.
She was sitting in the opposite corner from me, reading. Her blonde hair hung down in front of her face, obscuring her features almost as much as mine, and what the hair couldn’t hide, the glasses and the book did.
She looked like me, I thought. Sans gruesome disfigurement.
Plenty of stories have started with the classic line, “Hi, do you mind if I sit with you?” I don’t know if any of those stories continued with an immediate, “I swear I’m not contagious!” but I bet it isn’t many.
She nodded. “My name’s Melissa,” I offered. Another nod.
I sat, pulled out my own book, and we read. When the bell rang, she slammed the book into her bag as if it owed her, muttered “See you,” and that was that.
Thus I met Megan Chiara Zamie, Goddess of the Many Names.
And everything changed.
------------
“He’s just an ignoramus,” she told me, scowling at the laughing eighth grader at the next table. “Ignore him, or he’ll think he’s important.”
“Ignoramus?” I repeated. “What, is that the word of the day or something?”
Megan rolled her eyes. “A good vocabulary is the key to a successful life,” she said, as if reading it off the ceiling. “My dad tells me that a lot.”
“Ignoramus. I like it. Makes me think of hippopotamus.”
“He’s certainly got enough fat,” she answered darkly, glaring over the edge of her book at the boy and his gang of friends.
“He looks kinda skinny to me.”
“Only ‘cause it’s all in his head.”
I giggled a little, then shrugged, trying to act as casual as a humiliated teenager could. “I’ve thought up worse names for myself than that.”
“Worse than Rash-head?”
“Much worse.”
“Like what?” Megan leaned forward, lowering the book she’d been reading. Wishing I hadn’t said anything, I laid my own book down on the table and wiggled a little in my seat. “Elephant Girl.”
She giggled a little. “Nah, the Elephant Man had some kind of bone thing going on - this is just your skin or something.” She pushed at her glasses a little. “You’re more like Chipmunk Girl.”
My gut twisted. Three days we’d sat together, reading, almost ignoring each other except for a greeting glance and brief nods or finger-waves. And now she was laughing at me, just as much as any other kid here. I felt my still-swollen face getting warm. Great, like I needed to highlight the rash any more. Why didn’t I just wear a big neon sign on my forehead that said “FREAK!” and get it over with?
Somewhere around that train of self-pitying thought, it filtered into my brain that Megan wasn’t laughing.
I risked a glance at her face, and it took me a second to realize that she was glowering at the table, that her hands hovered over the book she’d set down like she was only a moment away from snatching it back up and diving behind it. She looked irritated, and for a second I wondered what the heck I’d done to piss her off. And then it occurred to me that she hadn’t looked irritated until she’d spoken. She’d just said something mean, and was gearing up for the inevitable argument.
I licked my lips. “Rabid Chipmunk Girl,” I agreed.
The tight expression on her face relaxed into a startled sort of smile, and she took her hand away from the book long enough to gesture in the air. “Pustule Princess.” This time the insult was a little less tentative. I felt my own shoulders loosening, and the beginnings of laughter growing in my chest as I considered this moniker.
“I give you points for alliteration, but thumbs down for sheer grossness.” I stuck my hands out, demonstrating my point, and turned opened and closed my fingers several times, like claws pinching the air. “Mutant Lobster.”
“Lobsters are already mutants.” She sniffed at my poor imitation of a crustacean. “Pink Puffer!”
“Wobble Blob!”
“Toad Chops!”
As if we were trying to outdo each other, our voices rose, until we were practically shouting with laughter. The boy at the next table and his friends looked at us like we were the strangest things he’d ever seen, and somehow, that only seemed to encourage us. For the first time in my life, looking like a weirdo didn’t feel so…scary. It felt a little bit like victory.
“Splotchy Spleen!”
“Manky Cat!”
I wrinkled my nose, noting with glee that it was finally close enough to it’s normal size to allow that kind of movement again. “What exactly does that look like?”
“Nasty,” she said, and raised a hand as if to forestall any further questions. “Trust me, I know.”
There's more, which I think I'll put up later.