A couple of blogs ago, I announced the submission of my manuscript, DRY FAITH, to an editor who, as a kind favor to my sister, author Han Nolan, had agreed to read it. Instead of the three-book contract with a sizable advance allowing me to quit my law practice in order to begin my spring book tour, I received a kind, encouraging critique of, among other things, my unleavened characters. As is usual when forced to lick my wounds, I found a physical expression for this handy metaphor. I licked the frosting off many a chocolate cake, and devoured the cake-part too. This two-month act of "self-aggrandizement" is now coming to an end, thanks to a shove and a kick from my writing group.The shove came in the form of a teaching assignment. In one week, I'm to lecture my writing group for twenty minutes on creating round, interesting characters. Sources I've read in the past but obviously need to review include Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, John Gardner's The Art of Fiction, and anything by Flannery O'Connor. Once I've put the lecture together I'll provide highlights in this blog.
The kick came in the form of a writing assignment. The writing group was given a picture of a familiar-looking symbol--three orange triangles whose points meet in the center of a black circle background. We were instructed to write two pages on whatever came to mind, in any form--poetry, prose, essay--didn't matter. I was only able to start writing at the last minute because I'd spent the previous day with my granddaughter and was feeling a little low. I'd let her down terribly by failing to produce princess shoes when she needed them. This incident inspired the story below.
Fallout Shelter
On her walk to school, Martha speculated as to whether her grandmother would bring pricness shoes when she came for her next visit. Martha's own mother had proven stingy in the princess shoes department, so she'd had to count on her grandmother to grasp that, no matter whether of pink satin or blue sequins, princess shoes were essential when the mood to dance struck.
Martha entered her classroom at 8:15 a.m. and shouldered her way through the other second-graders to hang her coat up in the cloakroom. Only when stuffing her lunchbox into her cubby did she remember that it was Tuesday, the day for science, show-and-tell and Fallout Shelter. Miss Kelly, Betty Kelly, was interesting on Tuesdays, expecially now that she was covering the unit on Bathyscaphes. Words like vessel and ballast filled Martha with wonder, as did the lonely image of a man in his diving suit watching silently at the porthole as he sank 35, 791 feet to the bottom of the sea.
While Martha gave Miss Kelly high marks for leading the class to the Pacific, her second-grade teacher was just that--second grade. For one thing, Miss Kelly smelled funny, which condition Martha's brother, Mike, had memorialized in a poem and set to music three years before, when he had Miss Kelly. It went,
"Sweaty Betty! Sweaty Betty! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Martha liked the song and she and her classmates jumped rope to it at recess.
"Sweaty Betty! Sweaty Betty! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
There was another reason she had misgivings about Miss Kelly. Just last Friday, as she'd been returning to the classroom after taking a sick note to the Office, Martha found herself following, unobserved, behind Miss Kelly and the principal, Mr. Olmquest. Anyone would know that he was the prinicpal as he towered over everyone else. He always wore the same dark blue suit and shiny black shoes. On the one occasion when she'd stood close to Mr. Olmquest, she'd noticed his lips didn't move, though she could understand every word he said. Even with practice, Mike could not do this trick. But the singular thing about Mr. Olmquest was that he wore a toupee, at least according to Mike. Martha was never able to get quite close enough to the principal's head to verify Mike's observation. Besides, what concerned Martha was that the slick, black mound down the center of Mr. Ohmquist's head reminded her of one of Midnight's newborn kittens, licked clean. Walking down the hall, Martha saw Miss Kelly lean toward Mr. Olmquest so that her face was quite close to his neck and she'd whispered something that might have been, "How is the cafeteria?" but sounded more like "How is your diarrhea?" That evening, Martha's mother had explained that if Miss Kelly was discussing "diarrhea" with Mr. Olmquest, it meant that the principal had been ill and Miss Kelly was simply asking him if he felt better, that's all.
Usually a highpoint for her, Martha decided to sit out show-and-tell this week. Last time, Marie Percantini, teacher's pet, had just been to see "The Music Man" and volunteered to sing "76 Trombones" in front of the class. Martha had only seen pictures of "The Music Man" in the newspaper, and thought how much she'd like to be the man wearing a uniform and leading a parade with his trombone all the way down Main Street. She could visualize her classmates lining up to march behind her. So when Miss Kelly asked who else had seen the movie, Martha's hand shot up. She was thrown off-balance when Miss Kelly called both girls to the front of the room to sing "76 Trombones". It was hard for Martha to mouth the words when she didn't know them. She struggled to follow the movement of Marie's lips, but as the girls stood side by side, it was too hard and Martha gave it up. Instead she marched back and forth in front of Marie, whipping her trombone slide like a pro.
Tuesday was also Fallout Shelter Day. Miss Kelly had explained all about Fidel Castro in Cuba, and his atomic bombs aimed at Florida, where Martha's other grandmother lived--the one who smelled funny, not the one with the princess shoes. Martha learned that mushroom clouds soared to heights of 45,000 feet, higher than a bathyscaphe would sink. On Tuesdays before lunch, all students were lined up, two by two, and led to the basement to stand in front of an assigned locker. Martha stood before #305, easy to remember, Mike said, because if you added the numbers together, they totalled her age. It was important to get to #305, he said, so their mother would know how to find her in case Castro attacked. Mike also cautioned her to hold her breath during drill because if the mushroom cloud made it to their school, she didn't want to breathe in radioactive material, which would burn her face off.
But when the clock struck 11:00 a.m. and the class began counting off by twos for the trip to the basement, Martha's day took a decided turn for the worse. Mr. Olmquest showed up, whispered something to Miss Kelly and stepped back out into the hallway. As her name was called to join him there, Martha realized what crime she'd committed and who her accuser was.
Louie Percantini, Marie's brother, was the meanest hood in school. Even his mother had told Louie to "get lost" on Christmas Eve. Lately, Louie had been terrorizing girls during recess, grabbing their jump ropes and tying the girls to the playground fence. Inspired by Mike, Martha planned to retaliate with her deadliest of weapons--words. She'd practiced over the week-end so when Monday came around and he'd grabbed her rope she'd sung out,
"Percantini bit his weany! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
That is why his weany's teenie! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
All the girls jumping rope joined in. Even Marie Percantini accompanied them on an imaginary trombone. It was a triumph unparalleled. Indeed, the playground incident was the cause of Mr. Olmquest's visit. Leaning over her to murmur his disappointment, Mr. Olmquest gave Martha a bird's eye view of the toupee. She searched for kitty whiskers, hoping to at least solve that mystery. But she was also worried about getting to #305 and wondered why Mr. Olmquest wasn't worried too. Or maybe he was. Perhaps, she thought, a kind word of concern would assure him of her remorse and goodness at heart and speed up the discourse on playground deportment. She asked, "How is your diarrhea?" but immediately realized this was a misstep. The man's face turned the color of vanilla ice cream. As he pulled himself together and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, Martha asked that he please watch out for the kitten, whereupon Mr. Olmquest directed her to join her classmates in the basement.
Posts
