We are sharing the next story in our series, Featured Short Stories, written by students in the Creative Writing Club.
Every week, the students in the club work on writing stories, sometimes from their own ideas, and sometimes from story prompts.
This story was written by Amy, aged 10. Enjoy!
Banishing my Mom
“No, Freya, you can’t wash them all at once!”
“No, Freya, you must not use that!”
“No, Freya, go do your homework and stop making trouble here!”
Yes, that’s all I get to hear every day around the house. Every time I try to help out with chores or errands, my mom screams at me and picks on what I didn’t do well at. Sometimes I think it’ll be better if she’s not around, so that I could take care of myself rather than hear her screaming and scolding me all the time.
I came back from school one Friday afternoon. It was a day to my eleventh birthday, and I was excited to help with the preparations, but that didn’t keep Mom from screaming at me. I was thinking of helping her with baking a cake. But Mom was cooking dinner, and she chased me out of the kitchen. I was determined to make her satisfied about something I did so I went out to the backyard. There wasn’t much to do, so I decided to water the flowers. Mom had a beautiful garden there, and it looked like that it needed watering. I turned on the garden hose and let water out. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing since I was just looking at one of our neighbours walk his dog, when Mom suddenly raced into the backyard.
“No, Freya!” She shouted. “You’re making a mess!”
I looked down at the garden to see all the flowers faded and a small pond.
“What are you thinking Freya!” Mom scolded. “Turn it off!”
I turned the hose off as commanded and watched as Mom tried to get the water out of the so-called garden while scolding me.
“What were you thinking?” She yelled while I was having dinner. “If you had taken a look this wouldn’t have happened! You’re just making a bigger and bigger mess around here!”
After dinner, mom went to the supermarket to buy supplies and I was left alone at home. I was determined again to do something for her, and pay attention to what I was doing. The sun was still shining, so I looked around the house and discovered that the rosebush needed trimming, so with Mom’s garden scissors, I “fixed” them with a quick snip. After I stood from a distance to admire my “handiwork”, I wasn’t getting a good feeling. The whole thing was slanted and it was an alarming sight.
After Mom came back and scolded me for the second time that day, I was in no mood to do anything else for her. So I just did my homework and went to bed, thinking about how Mom was so angry.
There was an angel floating inside my bedroom. Maybe it was some problem with my eyes, I thought. I rubbed my eyes and blinked. It was still there.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m the birthday angel, of course.” It said with a sweet, crispy voice.
“And what do you do?”
“I don’t answer questions like these.” The angel said. “Now tell me, what do you wish for your birthday?”
“Why that?”
The angel looked offended.
“I grant birthday wishes for children turning eleven. Tell me, what do you wish for your birthday?”
“I wish to have my mom banished from the house.” I said. “Without her knowing it.”
The angel thought about it for a moment.
“If you like it, the wish will become permanent after twelve hours. If not, you can ask me to take it away. But as soon as you have decided, you cannot change it.” The angel said.
“Yes, please.”
And then I woke up to the sound of birds singing.
I looked around the house to check if the dream was real. My mom was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t in the yard, the kitchen, or even at the neighbourhood shop.
I happily went home and into the kitchen. I was going to have a happy and peaceful birthday! But first, I needed to have breakfast. I looked inside the fridge for something to make. Mom usually cooked me fried eggs and cereal every Saturday, and this would be the same. I got out the large box of cereal and poured a full bowl of it. Then I added the milk. Unfortunately, I had put too much cereal in. The milk leaked down the sides of the bowl and on the floor, and the cereal remained mostly dry with the milk bottle empty. What a waste of milk.
I left the bowl of cereal on the kitchen table and turned to the eggs. It seemed easy. I turned on the fire, put the pan on, then poured in the cooking oil, and cracked two eggs. What followed was a loud splash and nothing else. I noticed that it wasn’t like the eggs mom cooked me. They glued to the pan and just wouldn’t come off. Finally, I was able to get the eggs off the pot, which resulted in a mess. Also, the eggs were burnt and tasted strange. What a waste of eggs.
After a breakfast of dry cereal and burnt eggs, I tried washing the clothes. Mom sometimes washed things without the washing machine, and it seemed quite easy. I filled the bathtub with water as I didn’t really know what mom used, and put the clothes inside. I got the washing powder and dumped the whole box in. The whole tub became cloudy and it was almost impossible to see the clothes clearly. Once I started washing, the water became even cloudier and bubbles started forming everywhere so that I couldn’t even put my hand inside the tub without getting bubbles and water everywhere. At last, I gave up and let the water down the drain, rinsing the clothes in clean water and letting them dry outside in the yard. What a waste of water and washing powder. And I had to clean up the mess.
By the time I got the water cleaned up, it was already seven in the evening, and I haven’t even had lunch yet, not to think about dinner. My perfect day without mom was more like a huge disaster. I hadn’t had any food except for the dry cereal and burnt eggs. I had done nothing but waste milk, cereal, eggs, water and washing powder. This wasn’t the way I had expected my birthday to go. Feeling helpless, I did some homework and went to sleep, thinking that this wasn’t such a nice day and I would like to have my mom back.
The next day, I woke up to the smell of normal fried eggs. I raced downstairs to see my mom back and cooking breakfast, as usual. I ran to her and gave her a big hug. She looked surprised, but didn’t say anything. I was just so relieved, I almost cried. After a breakfast of fried eggs and cereal, Mom went out to re-trim the rosebush, and I followed her to see how she did it.
I learnt that you had to learn from your mistakes, and sometimes you need your mom to help you understand that.
The End
If you have a child who loves writing stories and you want to encourage them to explore their creativity and their imagination, then we would love to have them join our writing club! Just click on the link to register, and we will be in touch. Creative Writing Club – Registration Form.
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