Rachel knelt carefully by the side of her bed. A fat, blond curl fell over her eye. Patiently she swept it back into place behind her ear.
"God," she began. Then she stopped. Hm, maybe the maker of trees and rain might not want to be addressed so formally, without feeling.
She cleared her throat and started again, "Dearest God. I would like to ask you for something. You see, at school we have every instrument you can imagine in our music class. I wanted to play the French horn, but Johnny got to it first. He's fast.
"So, then I tried to get the Tuba, but Jenny said I was too little for such a big instrument. I tried to tug it away from her, but it wouldn't budge. Jenny's right. It's way too big.
"All that's left was a sad little xylophone. It was sitting all by itself on the shelf. Old and worn out. I looked up at the teacher, hoping that there was something else. he said, 'You're a lucky little girl. You get the Glockenspiel!' He sounded so excited I didn't want to disappoint him, so I picked it up.
"Jenny laughed at me, so I told her to mind her own business. I hope that was OK. Was it? Um, so I'm figuring, since you're all knowing and all, you probably saw me stick my tongue out at her. I'm sorry about that too.
"So, I'm asking you for forgiveness. That's what mama said I should do. But since we're talking, I thought, while I was at it, I'd ask if you could maybe turn Jenny's tuba purple. I thought that would be really funny."
She stood up and then knelt back down quickly. "Sorry, I forgot. Amen!"
THE END
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Laura Sherman is a freelance writer and chess coach who lives near Clearwater, Florida with her husband and three young children. She blogs at Friendly Writer and Say Yes to Chess
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Thank you again to all who entered this contest. The rest of the entries -- all wonderful indeed -- will be posted over the course of the next two weeks. I hope everyone will stay tuned and read all of these fantastic short pieces. Trust me, you will be entertained!
5 comments:
Ha! I like it. It's very sweet. :)
Thank, Simon!
And thank you Karen for the kind accolade! This was such a fun contest. I can't wait for the next one!
That was a deslightful story. I very much enjoyed it. :-)
I'm thinking the author has had this conversation, or been tempted to, hmmm, Laura?
Thank you, Brian!
Diana, you know me too well. Actually, since my favorite color is in fact purple, it is more of a reward than a punishment.
When I was a kid I did really want to play the tuba in our school band. Someone else got to it first, so I was relegated to another instrument. I don't remember which one now, but it wasn't the big, exciting tuba, I can tell you that.
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