[I tend not to write fictional prose. I feel I don’t have the patience, stamina or aptitude for it. I prefer to write either cold academic discourse or short poetic texts in a splurge of inspiration, or, sometimes, somewhat incongruously, mingle the two genres. That has not, however, stopped me from trying privately to write novels, short stories and screenplays. This post, in response to today’s Finding Everyday Inspiration prompt involving an image of a girl in the woods https://dailypost.wordpress.com/blogging-university/writing-everyday-inspiration/, presents a small first part of one of my many attempts to produce a more extensive narrative. It dates back nearly two decades now and is, like most of my work in this genre, unpolished and incomplete. The idea was to write a dark murder mystery entirely from the point of view and in the voice of a ten-year-old boy loosely based on a remembered version of myself in the 1970s—a sort of cross between P.D. James and South Park. I would be interested to know what people think of it.]

Sally in the Woods

 Chapter 1

The Accident (Part 1)

Sean and Reb Grainger’s mum and dad died in a car crash driving down the hill to Hayford. A lorry braked sharply in front of them to avoid running over a hedgehog and they ploughed straight into the back of it. They were killed instantly. Tommy says both their heads were shorn sharp off. But I don’t believe much that Tommy says these days.

Tommy told me once that the weird old man who lives in the old lodge just outside of school hunts for toads in the night and eats them for breakfast. So we went to his house one day and Tommy said he had to go to the toilet and, while the old man took him there, I looked into the larder and the fridge and all I found was ordinary things. So I don’t believe anything Tommy says any more.

But it is true that Sean and Reb’s mum and dad were killed outright in a car crash driving down the hill to Hayford. Daddy went to their funeral. I felt a bit sad and Sally, my big sister, couldn’t go to the funeral, because she was so upset and cried a lot in her room I suppose.

No-one goes into Sally’s room; but she spent longer than usual in there back then and I saw her eyes were very red when she came out occasionally to go to the loo. Daddy had a long talk with Sally after that and said he thought she was so upset about this because she still wasn’t over Mummy. She didn’t say very much as usual. But, I know that she was upset because she was soft on Sean and thought she would never see him again.

Sean was a sixth-former and old enough to look after his little sister on his own. And after a few months staying at their auntie’s they came back to live in the big house on the hill up our road that was now theirs.

I wish I were a sixth-former. I imagined what they got up to up there; staying up late playing video games, eating pizza every day, going to school when they felt like it, sleeping in the same bed, or in the garden if it was warm enough. They missed school quite a lot and the rumour was going round that social workers would be brought in. I don’t know what social workers really are, but they don’t sound very nice and I told Reb that she’d better tell her brother to bring her to school or she’d be taken away and locked up. And she cried.

Daddy told Sally that she should go visit them, since they must be very lonely and still very upset up there. And wasn’t she a friend of Sean’s? Sally twisted her nose the way she does when she doesn’t like something. Sally doesn’t like most things.

“And what am I going to say to them. Oooh, I’m soooo sorry your mum and dad are dead. Would you like me to bring them back for you? Besides, that Sean’s a pervert. They say he’s screwing his sister now. It’s all around school.”

Daddy said that wasn’t a very nice thing for a young lady to think and that it almost certainly wasn’t true. The Graingers were nice respectable children and had suffered a terrible tragedy and he was shocked at Sally’s sarcastic and insensitive attitude. He told her to go to her room instantly and stay there for the rest of the evening. She pouted, sighed and obeyed.

“Can I take my homework?” she added, “I suppose you want me to do that.”

“Go to your room!” Daddy ordered. Sally climbed the stairs as slowly as possibly, grabbing the satchel with her homework in it lazily from the bannister as she passed by, as if it were an afterthought. Her door slammed and the bang was immediately followed by a blast of loud pop music.

“And no music!” Daddy shouted up the stairs. A few seconds later the music stopped. Daddy looked concerned and then noticed I was on the floor in the hall, playing with my toy soldiers. His expression changed.

“Sorry, about Sally,” he smiled, “It’s her age.”

I beamed back at him. I knew what “screwing” meant.