Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Alex J. Cavanaugh and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. spectre 2. mountains.3. puppies 4. nature 5. cockamamie 6. burnt 

and/or: 

1. carving 2. zombie 3. dongle 4. foliage 5. candlelight 6. crapulence

Also including Charlotte's colour of the month: mint green

Here is my story:

With the looming spectre of possible failure hanging over us, we glumly trudged into the examination room. On most days this was the gym, but during exam times it was fitted out with metal desks and chairs from an office supply shop that dealt in secondhand goods. Wooden desks from our classroom might have answers scratched onto them and that would never do!

We found our assigned seats and sat waiting for the officials to enter and hand out question sheets. Morning exams would be Math, History and English, afternoon exams would be Geography, and “free writing” on a subject chosen by the officials.

Tomorrow the girls would be in the Home Ec section cooking meals for the officials and the boys would be showing their woodworking skills for grading. I just knew Janet would be terrified of serving burnt offerings to any official. I worried about my carving skills. My hands were never destined for knife work, in our home, roasted chickens were torn apart with barbecue forks!

I gazed out of the newly cleaned windows towards the mountains, wishing I could be out there in the fields with the new puppies who were finally weaned enough to take on walks. The mountain tops still wore their frosty shawls, but the trees that made up their skirts were showing the bright mint greens of new spring growth through the older foliage. “Nature at work,” I thought, happy that the warmer weather was finally arriving.

The gym was cold though, very little sunshine ever made its way through those south facing windows. “Whose cockamamie idea was it that we shouldn’t be allowed to wear our blazers?” muttered Julie. “The officials,” said Heather, “last term some kids were caught with answer sheets up their sleeves and in their pockets.” Peter said, “me and George stayed up so late last night cramming knowledge into our heads we both woke up feeling and looking like zombies. He gets his turn in here tomorrow and Mum said I have to stay at Auntie Jill’s tonight so I can’t tell him about the questions.”

“If I pass with good grades in everything, I’m getting a candlelight dinner at a posh restaurant,” bragged Amy. “Well la-di-da,” said Peter, who then muttered to Roger, “she’s just full of crapulence that one.” The first of the officials arrived just as they both burst out giggling and we all nervously shuffled our feet and sat up straighter. “Hello everyone, My name is Mrs Wilson and I am in charge here today. Gosh it’s cold! I’ll just raise that thermostat a couple of degrees.” She smiled brightly, probably in hopes of calming our nerves.