Thanks awfully for the review. You make some very valid points especially about the voice. This was a quickly written piece for my writing group and I will try a rewrite. Everyone there just stared at me with dumb astonishment when the cat came out of the bag.
Short Story / The truth about hide and seek
The truth about hide and seek
My brothers are missing. We were supposed to play together today. Those were the very words my mother used before she turned us out this morning. Rat and Phil are my older brothers. They are thirteen and fourteen, I am only nine so they don’t care to hang round with me much.
“Let’s play hide & Seek!” they said grinning like hyenas.
“You’re it!” shouted Rat. “Stand there and count to 5,000.” That said they both turned and ran. They had stolen a bottle of cider from my Dads stash and were going to drink it on the park. I did as I was told; I began to count really slowly. I never minded the time to myself. 1-2-3-4….I leaned against the wall of the corner shop, my eyes were tight shut, but my ears twitched. I could hear everything going on around me.
My Mum was in the corner store. I could here her voice; she was talking to Mickey Brown, who owned the place. I knew she would be in there for ages; she loved to natter, my mum. She could talk for England. She appeared to like Mickey, she always seemed to come out of there with a bottle of something for free, she did little bits of things for him. I don’t know. He scared me something rotten. Mickey looked like a character from the Old Testament; with a great, grey, bushy beard ; rusty round the mouth with nicotine. His finger nails were long and dirty and he rarely changed his clothes. The impression he gave me was of someone who had escaped a labour camp and opened a shop.
As I stood there with my hands over my eyes, a van pulled up next to me in the street. I heard the rumble of low male voices inside. They contrasted with the higher pitch of my mothers words. She was telling Mickey about my Dad. He was back inside, for another six month stretch. I tried to stop listening, I didn’t like her talking about my Dad in that voice. I concentrated on my counting. 400, 401, 402….
The van doors opened, I heard the men lifting a heavy object from the back of the vehicle. The vans springs squeaked and groaned with relief. I peeked out from between my fingers; the men were pulling a long black creature from under some sacking towards the shop door. It brushed against me as they passed; I felt damp fur and stiff, wiry whiskers brush my leg. A musky feline odour followed the inert beast. The last thing I saw of it was a long snake-like tail flicking lazily as it vanished through the door way into the store.
“Can we leave this here until it comes around?” said one of the men.
“No problem, Stick it in the back room, but keep it away from those monkeys.” Here Mickey’s voice tailed off.
I picked at the peeling paint of the shop front. 400, 401, 402…
A car passed in a near by street then there was silence broken by my mothers voice.
“Anyway, I know the other two are definitely his….But I don’t know about the young one. He is a different matter. I was knocking about with you a lot in those days and… well….All I’m saying is. Well he doesn’t have to find out….”
411, 412, 413…I suddenly didn’t feel like counting so much. In fact I felt pretty tired of the whole game. I wanted to go and see my Dad, all of a sudden. But that would have to wait. I couldn’t go into my mum after I had seen that big cat go in there. I opened my eyes and walked off down the road towards the park. Something seemed to have changed in me. I couldn’t put my finger on it.
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retardedpigeon reviewed Version 1 -
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This is a brilliant piece of writing and i would to read more on it. i dont think there’s one thing i could pick fault with it. i loved the way you drifted away from the game of hide and seek as the main character had been fooled instantly, even though he knew what was going on, he also knew that it would be far less hassle just to go along with it. Was that cat thing a panther? the dialogue was fantastic and it really took me there, and some of the expressions in your writing were familar in a way that triggered memories for me. (she could talk for england.) all in all, good work, im adding this to my faves.
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amy234 reviewed Version 1 -
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I like the concept, however; I feel that the language used in this piece is a bit mature coming from a nine year old storyteller. If you want to keep the protagonist as a nine year old child, I would possibly “dumb” down the language a bit…or make the character an adult looking back on thier childhood.
Also, you have numerous punctuation mistakes….semi-colons are only there to connect two relating sentences. You have many situations where you are connecting sentences that either don’t relate or are fragments.
Overall, a good job.
duddbudda reviewed Version 1 -
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‘here her voice’ = hear
I’m confused that the twins could find the stash of someone who’s inside for 16 months
The tone, for me, is a little inconstant (I’ve not had the courage to do so myself yet) and it felt to me that at one moment he was reminiscing (area’s where the language or syntax is mature and complex), and at the next he was living it (where the language is more simple, mainly at the start). This may be the effect you were going for, but i would argue that the confusion of being more IN the story should be more noticable later on.
Also, I was lost by the big cat? Why was one being taken into a corner shop? why could he feel its whiskers and fur when it was under sacking? Is it a motif? If so, I’d argue for its use less physically and if he could clearly see it, without the sacking, and perhaps not being guided by anyone, then that would maybe feel better in my head.
Cheers
Josh
ewilly75 reviewed Version 1 -
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as a reader i am left wondering what is happening here. i think the boy’s character has some promise, he’s young, nervous, abandoned by older miscreant brothers and left to a mom keeping creepy acquaintances. there is something here. the ending just falls apart, what is this change? does it have anything to do with a big cat? and what does this big cat have to do with anything? this seems more like a tiny piece of a story than a story itself. on the bright side, the boy’s character does have good potential to be expanded upon.
metaphoricalsimile reviewed Version 1 -
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In the space of a few words, you have described a child listening to a life-changing conversation wonderfully. The dialog is extremely well-done and realistic, and the detail of the men delivering the large cat to the store adds a bit of surrealism that enhances the impact of the story; what the little boy is hearing is so important the passing of an animal that could eat him seems to be almost ignored. Great stuff!
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