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 Charlotte and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1.ferry  2.determined  3.box  4.convey  5.paste  6.first  

and/or: 

1.family  2.astonish  3.obtain  4.avoid  5.magnificent

also including Charlotte's colour of the month: writing passion purple.

Here is my story:

I stared at the neat row of coloured inks lined up across the back of her desk, “One of these won’t do?” I asked. Dramatically she answered,” Purple is the colour of passion. My passion is writing, so of course the ink must be purple! I simply cannot produce my usual magnificent work with any other colour!”

I studied my ten year old daughter, wondering how on earth she was so different from her peers, every day she managed to astonish me. Carly stared back, unblinking and challenging. “Well, alright then, let’s get you that purple ink, where do we go to obtain it and how much does it cost?”

“Daddy would remember,” she muttered. “Daddy has to be away right now, this international meeting is very important for his company.” Carly nodded, then said  "We catch the Midland ferry and get off at the Greenfields dock, the Big Box Warehouse is a mile away on the eastern track. It’s a great store, I can get more of my favourite paper there too and a couple of buckets of paste for the collages to go with the poems.”

“Buckets?” I said, “how big are these buckets? Should we bring the four wheeled cart?” She pointed to the row of two inch tall paste buckets already on the shelf, “that size Mum, just a basket will be big enough to hold everything.” I looked at her determined little face, so much like Ian’s and wished he was here, he understood Carly so much better than I did.

I remembered what he had told me before he left. “Compromise,” he’d said. “She wants something, she has to earn it.” I took a deep breath. “We can do this,” I said, “but you need to do something for me. One household chore in return for the trip and the supplies.” I hoped I’d conveyed the message without sounding panicked. Carly’s face hardened a little, fire flashed from her eyes. Her therapist had declared her ready to try being part of our family without his help and so far we had managed to avoid confrontation.

We knew she was clever enough to want to try, and that our first loyalty would always be to her. She wanted to belong, to learn, and had worked hard to control the tantrums. “I agree,” she said. “What is the chore?”  “You need to make your own bed from today, every day, including sheets changing days, though I can help you with that part.” “I would prefer to learn to use the washing machine,” Carly said. “We can add that once you master the bedmaking,” I replied. Her stance relaxed and she almost smiled. “Let’s go catch that ferry,” she said.