Storytelling Mentorship Group # 1 Introductory Post

A Redheaded Fairy Tale

all photos courtesy of Pixaxbay

A chubby little 5-year-old girl, Ceci, with soft ginger curls, sits on the cold stone porch mindlessly playing with her favourite rag doll. She is totally bored. She wants something different but what?

A neighbour boy passes her riding his new bright red scooter. Suddenly he pauses, turns around and stops in front of her.

“Hi. I is Kevin. You wanna come to the park? They gots slides and teeter-totters and other stuffs too.”

“I can’t. My mommy won’t let me.”

“She don’t know if yous comes wifs me.”

“The gate is shut. The latch is way high up and stuck.”

“I can does it! Look how big I is!”

Kevin stretches to his full height and slides the lock open. The old rickety wooden gate squeaks open and Ceci makes a dash for it. She puts her chubby finger to her lips and urgently whispers, “Its gots to be secret. Shhh!”

The two kids slink off in the direction of the park, trying to be as quiet as they can be…

They had almost made it to the park entrance. Ceci could hear the peels of laughter coming from within. She could see the brightly coloured play equipment and the multitude of happy kids swarming it through the picket fence.

She felt it before she knew what was coming. The hard, stinging bite of the leather strap that cut across the back of her bare legs. So hard that it made her knees buckle. She dropped like a rock to the cement sidewalk, skining her knees as she fell. Tears threatened to pour down her chubby cheeks.

Not for long did she linger there, for her mother had her pulled up by her ear. She couldn’t make out what she was saying because her ear was ringing from the cuff she had gotten as she stood up. Her mother had a vice grip hold on her wrist and was marching her in the direction of home, slapping her bare legs with the strap all the way.

As luck would have it, her granddad had shown up for a visit. Thank goodness! He took her in his massive blacksmith arms, wiped her tears with his huge calloused hands and whispered softly in her uninjured ear. All would be right in the safety of her granddad’s arms.

She soon found herself locked in the small backyard along with the ducks and geese. No way to escape. The geese were nasty and pinched her legs and arms. The only safety Ceci had managed to find was on the old rope swing that granddad had put up for her.

She swung and thought, thought and swung. It didn’t seem right. To entertain herself, she began to think of stories that made her happy; of puppy dogs, ponies, gallant knights in shining armour, fairies, rainbows and magical animals. These stories made her smile.

Soon the family moved out to the country. Ceci found her life had changed and not necessarily for the better. She was given chores and because she was the eldest, the task of caring for younger siblings as well. There was also the very large garden to tend. Not much time for a little girl to daydream of fanciful stories.

Then came the day she could go to school! A time when she could be with other kids and learn new stuff. She could hardly wait until she learned that there would be a very long walk to the new school. 4 km takes a lot of walking especially when you have short legs! If she was lucky, some days she could catch a ride with the neighbours, sometimes her dad or mom would take her, but most days she trudged off by herself until she met up with some other kids halfway to the school.

She wanted to read and write so badly, she could taste it. The classes were too slow. She was disappointed and frustrated at her lack of progress. Her favourite teacher, Mrs. Romani found her crying in the school yard one afternoon and asked her to share her problems. The biggest one was that she wanted to write. She had taught herself to read before starting school, but she desparately needed to know how to write!

Mrs. Romani, a mother herself, took pity on her. She would help Ceci learn to write. So everyday, while the other kids were playing outside at recess, Ceci would be inside diligently learning to write. Now she could put her words on paper! This was progress!

At Christmas, Mrs. Romani gifted Ceci with her first ever journal along with a special unicorn pencil and sharpener. This was a book where she could write whatever she wanted! She had a place to put her stories!

Ceci took the gift home and very carefully hid it in her room. Every evening after chores and dinner, she would go and sequester herself in her room. There in the relative quietness she would write in her journal. This became a life long habit. A time when she could be alone with her thoughts and write to her heart’s content.

Flash forward a few short decades, Ceci is still journaling but she feels she wants to do more. Inside her there is a writer screaming to be let out. She is a story teller. Her children and grandchildren know this.

How will this fairy tale end?