Writers-and-Artists

The Real Mr. Vankos

When Mr. Vankos painted a giant portrait of himself on the side of his house, I heard many mentions of him being totally out of his mind. Everyone in my neighborhood had a house of solid color with shutters of the opposite shade. It seemed to anger them that someone would paint their house more than two colors, like it was a sacred tradition to be dead boring. With so many people against him, I had no reason to disagree with the statement. My natural curiosity got the better of me, though, as usual. For as long as I could remember I had been expected to find things to do, to play by myself if I must. My parents were always working and I was left alone with Anita, who had her hands full with all the housework, and my three younger brothers. When my friends weren’t available, or when no one could drive me somewhere, I would just wander around and try to catch pieces of conversations between the neighbors or see who was putting a new addition on their house next. So I have always been extremely curious—even nosy—and I was no less than captivated by the strange man with the colorful house. “Who would do such an absurd thing?” my nanny Anita muttered early one morning as she was ironing my shirt. “That lunatic was slaving over some portrait for weeks, knowing the only thing he’ll get from it is the whole block thinking he’s nuts. Well, I tell you,” she continued with a littie smirk, “he succeeded in doing that.” She pressed the last crease out of the shirt and handed it over to me, sighing. “That house was so nice before he moved in,” she breathed, putting her hands on her wide hips. “He must have been a very deprived child, wanting all this negative attention. Why doesn’t he move back to the city where they’re used to all this weirdness?” “Who would do such an absurd thing?” Anita muttered early one morning as she was ironing my shirt I took the shirt and scampered down the hall to my bedroom. I flicked on the light and changed out of my pajamas into my school clothes. Ignoring Anita’s cries to hurry up, I crossed the room and pulled back a lacy curtain. A soft morning glow came filtering through as I peered out the window and tried to get a glimpse of the painting. Mr. Vankos’s house was two away, but it was set back farther than the other houses, so I could see the side of it. Unfortunately, the only thing visible above the fence at the edge of his yard was what seemed to be the forehead of a giant face, topped by a disheveled mass of black hair. It seemed to be slightly grainy in appearance, as if not all the colors had totally mixed. I stood on my tiptoes to get a better look, but just then, Anita hurried into the room. “Lynn, speed it up or you’ll be late for school,” she hissed impatiently. “Your mother will have my hea- . . .” She suddenly saw me craning my neck toward Mr. Vankos’s house. “Sweetie, you stay away from that loony Vankos or you’ll never leave this house again on your own. Understand?” “Oh yes, Anita, I was just curious about that big picture you were talking about . .” I replied, trying to sound as if I wasn’t truly interested. “Well don’t be,” Anita snapped, pulling the curtain closed in one hasty motion. “Now slip your shoes on and let’s go!” My nanny waved to me from the window as I began the walk toward school. I could see the tiny form of my friend Jill waiting for me at the corner. I picked up the pace, my breath fogging up the frigid air in front of me. My backpack bounced along on my back, my cold feet tingled as I splashed through a slushy puddle, my hands swayed unsteadily as I tiptoed around a patch of ice, until suddenly, I halted. I had arrived at Vankos’s house. It looked pretty normal with its white shingles and black shutters, but as I took a step backward I could see the left side. The painting was gigantic. I stood there in awe and gasped. Below the hair and the forehead were two sharp green eyes covered by tiny gray glasses with a long, pointed nose between them. Two thin black lips were frowning near the bottom of the waxy, white face. For some reason, the whole thing mesmerized me. I stood there and gaped, breathless. “That is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. How can you even look at it, Lynn?” a girl’s voice moaned. I hadn’t realized Jill had walked up beside me. I jumped slightly at her words. “Wha-?” I asked in confusion. “I said that thing on his wall is gross,” Jill complained. “Vankos looks like a madman.” “How do you know it’s a picture of him?” I asked, my eyes still glued to the house. “I mean it could be anybody— no one’s ever seen him, have they?” Jill shrugged carelessly and said, “C’mon, let’s get to school.” With one last glance at the painting, I reluctantly followed her down the street. All day I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking about the evil green eyes on that horrible pale face. Although frightening, the portrait intrigued me and I had to know more. I knew the only way to calm myself was to knock on the lunatic’s door and ask him about the portrait. I was wondering if he really was insane and he’d try to attack me or something when someone asked me, “Lynn, do you have a story for your newspaper article?” I took a deep breath and glanced around the room. I was in my Young Reporters class and the teacher was making sure we were preparing for our articles. “Yes I do,”

The Boy Fictionalist

For all my life, I had hated writing. In fact, I had loathed it. When we were at school, our class would have to do writing exercises every day. My teacher, Ms. Sanders, would write a seemingly random topic on our whiteboard every morning. Before the end of class, each and every one of us had to write at least ten sentences about it. I remember doing this day after day, and I found it tedious and time-consuming but also quite pointless. Although I didn’t like it, I would write my ten sentences anyway. This continued for the first couple months of the school year, and after a while, it wasn’t so bad. One day, I came into my classroom. There was change in the air, and I realized what it was very quickly. Rather than “Current Canadian Holidays” or “Early Wind Instruments,” there was something unusual written on the whiteboard. It said, in large lettering, “Free Writing—write whatever you want.” I wasn’t going to waste any time. I expeditiously began writing a short story that I called “The Ghost Child.” As I sat at my desk and commenced work, a boy named Robert walked up behind me. Robert was fairly tall for his age with a pasted-on smirk, jet-black hair, and constant bad breath. “The Ghost Child,” he said mockingly, leaning over my shoulder. “That has to be the stupidest name I’ve ever seen. Out of all the kids in this room with cutesy titles like ‘Little Dead Hiding Wood’ or ‘Jack and the Leanwalk,’ yours is the worst.” While I don’t want to call anyone the meanest kid, Robert was pretty mean and quite annoying. “Mom, I wrote this, and I thought you might want to read it” I rolled my eyes, the best tactic for getting him to leave me alone. “Robert, please just do your writing.” “Ha!” he scoffed. “Let me get right on that, Griffin Boy. What should mine be called? Hmm… How about ‘Peter Griffin Writes Hit Story!’ But I’m sure my lowly writing could never compete with ‘The Ghost Kid,’ could it?” I rolled my eyes again. “Very funny. And it’s ‘The Ghost Child.’” I resumed writing my story as Robert walked off to find someone else to put down. For the rest of the week, Ms. Sanders would write the same thing on the whiteboard: “Free Writing—write whatever you want.” Working in the mornings, after completing lessons, and sometimes at home, I was able to finish writing “The Ghost Child” over the course of the week. Creating that story, I was opened to a better and more enjoyable side of writing—fiction. I decided to show my newly written story to my mother, Anna Griffin. She has curly brown hair and beautiful green eyes. She is a fantastic singer, would eat key lime pie every day if she could, and loves the color yellow. She’s also the sweetest, most encouraging mother in the entire world. Once I finished perfecting the details of my story, I went downstairs and walked into our living room where my mom was sitting on a red chair, using her computer. “Mom,” I said. She looked up from her computer. “I wrote this, and I thought you might want to read it.” I held out the papers that made up my story. “Of course I would, honey,” she replied as she took the papers. I watched as she adroitly scanned the page. When she finished reading, a smile emerged on her face. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “This is really good! When did you write it?” “I started about a week ago at school, and I just finished.” “At school?” She looked taken aback. “I thought you didn’t like the writing that you did at school.” “That was before,” I said, “back when all we wrote about were Prehistoric Amphibians and Civil War Leaders.” “And that’s not what you write about anymore?” “That’s right. One day I walked into the classroom, and Ms. Sanders had written: ‘Free Writing—write whatever you want.’ I think she might do that for a while because that’s what she’s written this whole week.” “Well, that’s fantastic! Promise me you’ll write another story soon. I really like ‘The Ghost Child.’ It’s hard to believe that a ten-year-old wrote it!” “I’ll write another story soon, Mom,” I replied. “I promise.” “Great!” My mother leaned over her computer and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you, Peter. More than you’ll ever imagine.” *          *          * Over the next few months, I was able to write five original short stories. My mom would always love them no matter what and encourage me to write more and more. The only conversation I recall from that time period occurred when I was feeling discouraged about my writing. “Mom,” I said, “it’s not any good.” “Of course it is, Peter,” she replied. “It has to be good. It was written by you, after all.” “OK, whatever,” I said, handing her the sheets of paper. She took them and began reading. As she finished, I anticipated her telling me that my story was great and I was kidding myself to think that it wasn’t. That didn’t happen. “Peter, you see only the bad things in your writing. You may think that it’s bad now, but when you’re my age, you’ll see how good it truly is.” “When I’m your age,” I said, “that story will be somewhere underneath a golf course. There’s no way I’ll still have it for that long.” “Then let me word that differently. Your children will surely write stories, and sometimes they will only see the bad things. At that point, you’ll be my age, and you will see the good things.” That actually made a lot of sense. “I guess I see what you mean.” “Hopefully, you can see the good things about your story now. Just try looking as hard as you can.” I began to notice some small details, little snippets of writing that were

Sunrise

My eyes opened. Sitting up, I glanced at my clock on my nightstand, and read the green, fluorescent letters: 4:42 AM, three minutes before my alarm was due to go off. I stretched out my arm and turned off my alarm. Scrambling out of bed, I changed from my pajamas into a tank top and shorts. I yanked a brush through my frizzy brown hair, and stuffed it up into a ponytail. I left my room and tiptoed down the hallway, trying hard not to make any noise. Creeping down the stairs, I forgot about the step that always creaked, and as it did, I winced. I hated how small sounds were always magnified in the quiet. I stayed where I was for a moment, and, holding my breath and crossing my fingers, I listened for stirrings from my family. When they didn’t come, I let my breath go, and uncrossed my fingers, relieved. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t bother with breakfast, as I wasn’t really hungry yet. I pulled my sandals on, and walked out the screen door into our backyard, and then began trudging up the back pasture to the top of the hill. The date was June 21, the summer solstice, the day with the longest sunlight hours of the year. I had gotten up early to watch the sunrise. I know it sounds a little weird, but it’s a tradition of mine. I’ve always done it, as long as I can remember. The sunrise has always been special to me, put in the same category as the unicorns the six-year-old me believed in. My older brother Ian used to come watch them with me, but now, at sixteen, he thinks it’s dumb, and immature. Last night when I made the mistake of asking him if he wanted to accompany me, he just came up with an excuse in his wannabe manly way. “Can’t, Beth, I gotta sleep well. I have a big all-star baseball game this weekend, and Coach will be really mad if I’m tired.” I felt as if there was nothing in the world but the sunrise and me “Now Beth, dear,” added my mother, who had been listening, “don’t you think you are getting a tad old for that? I mean, you are thirteen years old.” Folding his Wall Street Journal, my father agreed. “Yes, Beth, you should call up one of your friends. Maybe they could pry your nose from that notebook of yours.” In response, I nodded to show I had understood. My parents seemed satisfied, and went on to more interesting conversation. So often I feel like an alien in my own family, traded with their real daughter at birth. I mean, with the exception of me, my family is the typical American family. My father is a lawyer in a successful firm, my mother is a homemaker, and my brother the star of every sports team he plays on. The only reason we live in Vermont instead of New York City is that Mother needs to take care of her failing parents, who were prescribed “good, healthy air” along with many pills by the doctor. I am the misfit of the family. I am quiet, studious, prefer the company of the characters in my books and stories to the flighty ditzy girls at my school, and am nearly always writing. My parents don’t understand my writing. They think it is a little, silly hobby of mine, and hope I will outgrow it and become what they think of as “a normal girl.” But I am far more serious about writing than they know. I want to be an author, and win the Pulitzer Prize. I know this is a big dream, but I also know it is what I desperately want to do. If only my writing came out on paper as it was in my mind. I reached the top of the hill, and pulled myself out of my thoughts. In the west, the sky was still dark with night, a deep navy blue. Overhead that blue was blending with almost purple shades, which in turn were mixing with reds and pinks. In the east, I could see the glimmering pinks and yellows of the sun beginning to rise. My watch said 5:19. According to Internet data, the sunrise had begun. Sitting down, not minding the dew on the grass, I just watched. The blue and purple, once overhead, were slowly moving backward, opening up the sky to a whole palette of new colors. Oranges, coral-like pinks, reds, and yellows were streaked and blended in the whole sky in front of me. They were colors so amazing that I was sure there had never been a sunrise as beautiful as this. There was an upward shaft of sunlight, so intense at the bottom it dazzled my eyes. Surrounding it was a sea of pinks and reds and yellows, which seemed to ripple as a real ocean does. I had never known there to be so many different colors! I felt as if there was nothing in the world but the sunrise and me. It was then, as the sun burst from the horizon, so magnificent and regal, a ball of yellow fire, that I heard the voice. “Your dream,” it said, “follow your dream. You can make it. Keep on trying. Don’t give up hope!” I was dazed. Who is this voice? Who, or what, was speaking to me? “Don’t give up hope!” the voice said again. And then I knew who was speaking. It was the birds, and the crickets, the trees, and the grass, the wind, the clouds, the sun, and the colors of the sunrise. But mostly me. It was I who wanted my dream to come true and I who would have to work for it. “I’ll get there,” I replied. “I’ll do the work; I’ll make my dream come true.” Emily Blackmer, 12Hopkinton, New Hampshire Anjali Thakkar, 12San Jose, California