Words by Grace E Hall

“But Mr. Wilbur—I can't possibly get all these people done before eight!” I stared at the line of customers waiting for their orders to be taken. My manager, a stiff, balding man, merely raised his eyebrows. “Eight's closing time and we need everybody taken care of. I've got to get back to the make line.” The “Food Makers Italian Restaurant” was a busy place at this hour. As a new member of “Team Food Makers” I was finding myself a little bit overwhelmed. Great billows of steam rose from the pans of deep fried chicken and noodles. Cooks shouted different orders at different people. The customers in the dining room talk, laugh, and clatter their forks. Speakers blare the latest popular radio station. And Willy would not stop setting his pots down with a crash after washing them. I leaned forward over the register, trying desperately to hear the mumbling voice of my first customer. I had to get this right—if I called the manager again, surely I would be fired. “. . . ...

Mrs. Toadstool Haliflax stood watchful as a shepherd in the forest clearing.   “Remember, class: be sensitive and alert!” She called, and she raised a hand with the bell glimmering like a golden dew drop on her palm. “Return to your place when the bell rings again!” Olive Shroom stood on tiptoe. If she could win this, it would prove she was just as good as the sighted ones. Ding! The teacher rang her tiny bell and the foraging contest had begun. A chorus of excited scurryings and squeakings burst out as the class scattered into the undergrowth. Olive ran to keep up but the soft brown fur and pink tails of her fellow wood-mice had already vanished. Stumbling through bracken and pine needles, she felt the sun warm on her face. This must be a clearing. For unknown reasons Olive had been born with a hazy cloud obscuring her vision, and though her eyes were as black and bright as two glass beads, and though she could hear the excited squeakings of her competitors as they snatc...

How had this happened?   In one short moment, my life had gone from a normal and boring afternoon to sheer disaster; and I could see my entire evening collapsing before my eyes. I stood in the midst of a once-peaceful back yard, now flooded with an army of chickens who seemed intent on destroying everything they came across---including Mum's strawberries and the gardener's cherished rosebushes.   “He told me not to—” I panted aloud, thrusting a stick between a rosebush and an incoming hen. “If I had only listened—” I stabbed at a busily pecking Wyandotte. “If I hadn't tried—” I lunged for a rogue Rhode Island Red. “to get those eggs—” I stumbled after a group of cackling Barred Rocks. “I would have to deal—” I hurled myself at a marauding Beilefelder. “---with this. O bother.” I tripped over a root and collapsed in a sweaty heap on the opposite end of the yard, where I eyed the chicken coop door (swinging gently on its hinges) with a mixture of reproach and fury. ...

The stairs creaked in protestation of my stormy steps. The attic door swung open with a bang, knocking loose a cloud of dust into the candle-lit air. I flung myself down onto the nearest crate without bothering to check for spiders. After staring moodily at the opposite wall for several minutes, I quit trying to reason with my brain, which was composed of too many complaining voices to make sense of. Writing sometimes helps me to calm down, so I fumbled for some paper. Surely there was something up here I could write on. I spotted a horrendously old notebook in a corner and seized it. Swiping my ever-present pencil out from behind my ear, I scribbled furiously. My name is Elmer Creek, and in case you can't tell by my handwriting, Im angry. Swiftly I poured out the day's events onto the yellowing page. I had just received word from my parents that they had apprenticed me to the local blacksmith. All I want to do is read. It's not fair. Nobody understands me. I turne...