Here are the top three winning entries from our recent competition on the theme of “mistakes”. See here for judge’s comments.
THE LAST NOTE YOU BRING HOME by Anne Howkins
You leave it in your locker before escaping the pitying faces of your classmates. You try to ignore the jealousy niggling your belly, swallow the it’s not fair and why me like some vile medicine. The next day you scrawl something like your dad’s name on the note and hand it in.
Or the note came home in your bag. Dad’s booze-soaked snoring on the sofa, so you creep upstairs and stuff it in the taboo box of tampons on your dressing table. You take it back to school in the morning, add your forgery, hand it in.
Or dad’s home, sober enough to be hungry, hankering for an excuse to get a bit handy, and he goes through your school bag.
In this version, his nicotine-ochred fingers twitch for the cool of his belt buckle. The warning vein on his forehead throbs at the speed of light. His puce face mimics the bruises on your thighs. His chest so tight you’d swear you could see his heart pounding out his anthem. His lips chew the air and somehow his alcohol-sloppy tongue finds its pace.
ignorant little cow, bastard girl, not mine, waste of space, useless, you’re nothing, bad as your mam
He lurches towards you…
There are two more versions.
Both involve wake-the-dead screams. The gut-claw crack of a skull hitting a door frame. A seep of blood, a rust-scented tsunami. An inert body, somehow heavier than anyone could imagine. Trembling fingers misdialling. Blue lights. An empty house.
Both involve a coroner’s sorrowful ruling – mistakes made, things that should have been noted. Lessons that should be learnt.
Whatever version, you didn’t go on the art trip to Paris. La Gioconda didn’t smile her wistful understanding at you. Whatever version, you’re free.
A GIRL NAMED MISTAKE by Martin Costello
Everyone knows about my eldest brother, Sue. Of course they do. From the song? How he had a bad life on account of his mean sonofabitch father calling him Sue? Alright, the song wasn’t about my brother. But he did have a mean sonofabitch father who liked Johnny Cash and that song, so Sue got called Sue and sure enough, he had a tough life. He’s in prison now.
It wasn’t all because of the mean sonofabitch father though. My mother was there when they called my brother Sue and she often laughed about it when he came home from school with a black eye and a report for fighting. And when I say ‘my brother Sue’ I should say my half-brother, because the mean sonofabitch father ran out on mother and Sue, and I came later, and mother didn’t even know who my father was. Like my name says – I was a mistake.
You think that’s bad? At least my mother had in her a little love for me, and for a time when I was small I got pretty dresses fixed up from charity shop cast-offs, ribbons and cheap bracelets and the occasional intimacy of having my hair brushed, albeit roughly. After me came Little Zero, and she didn’t care for him at all. He’s inside with Sue now.
I haven’t had the heart to tell them both, on my regular visits, that I went to change my name to something more respectable after mother died, and found I wasn’t called Mistake at all. I was mistaken. Or rather, misled. I mean I wasn’t called misled – that would be ridiculous. She never told me, but mother registered me as something else. If I’d known that, I might have been a happier person.
MOLTON-IN-THE-WOLD BIRD PROTECTION SOCIETY – FIRST YEAR HIGHLIGHTS by Chris Cottom
The inaugural meeting was held at the Town Hall in January, with 8 members attending and 31 apologies (the meeting coinciding with a reported, although in the event erroneous, sighting of a snow bunting).
In February, 23 people joined the Bird Box Build, erecting 37 boxes. After discussion, one edifice was repurposed as an insect hotel.
The March Migrant Census was abandoned when it became clear that some members were including non-feathered migrants.
The open meeting in April included a lively, although inconclusive, debate on the (possible) dangers of using permanent marker pens to decorate hens’ eggs for the Easter Egg Hunt.
Approximately 11 people attended the May Moorland Hide Saturday. On Sunday, participants resolved that in future all children must be accompanied.
The Robins’ Nest Live-Stream received 2 likes on YouTube in June. The society continues to seek someone with appropriate technical skills.
In July, the secretary wrote to the district’s most prominent landowner, advising that the members alleged to have trespassed on his property were engaged in ornithological work of international importance.
In August, the committee noted that (a) its July letter to the district’s most prominent landowner had included an assertion that ‘property is theft’ and (b) that the position of secretary was now vacant.
Rare sightings in September included an uncorroborated and, it must be said, controversial report of a nightjar. The chair encouraged the committee to set high standards in identification accuracy and pointed to an attractive current offer at Specsavers.
The species tally over the October Wetlands Weekend was confirmed at 52 or 53, after Mr Brown accepted that he may have included a frog.
In November, 6 members held a silent roadside vigil to protest against pheasant shooting.
At the Christmas Dinner Dance, 86 members opted for the roast turkey.
Fosseway Writers 