This is a story I wrote today for the writing exercise outlined here as part of the All-Purpose Writing Thread. It’s called “Transformations” and because it’s 2,600+ words I’ve hidden it behind one of those jump thingies if you are looking at it on the main blog page.
Transformations
by Stan James
Oscar Adams took the assignment from Miss Buckingham and scrunched up his nose as he started to look it over, a habit he had developed over the last few years. It didn’t mean anything, it was just a habit.
The crisply-printed paper was still warm from the laser printer. Miss Buckingham always printed exactly the number of pages needed, no more. She was the very model of efficiency. After distributing the 24 copies Miss Buckingham returned to the head of the class and stood next to the chalkboard. The way she stood reminded Oscar of Vanna White, about to reveal letters on Wheel of Fortune. But there was nothing to reveal here because Miss Buckingham, being the very model of efficiency, had already written everything she needed on the chalkboard before the grade eight English class had started.
She tapped the board just below a word written out in capital letters: TRANSFORMATIONS. Then she read from her own copy of the assignment, something she always did. Oscar didn’t know why. He was 13 and everyone else here was about the same age (except Miss Buckingham, of course. She was old, at least 30, he figured). They all knew how to read.
She adjusted her glasses, which were slight and narrow, as if she had chosen them because she didn’t want to appear to be wearing glasses. Brenda—two rows over and one desk back— told Oscar she couldn’t wear contacts because it made her eyes bleed. Really bleed, she said, blood pouring out and everything. Oscar wasn’t sure if he believed that because it was frankly just too cool to be true.
Miss Buckingham’s voice was not unpleasant but her volume was set to 10 and it never varied from that. It was an addressing-an-assembly-in-the-gymnasium voice. No one ever had to ask her to repeat something because they didn’t hear it, though, so Oscar figured it was part of the efficiency thing. As she delivered each word like the report of a rifle, Oscar returned to studying the simple assignment:
Write about a transformation. This must be a real transformation and not something fictional. Explain the significance of the transformation.
Minimum length is 500 words.
Oscar’s nose scrunched up again but this time it was conscious. He got an image in his mind of someone squeezing a thumb and finger around a candle’s wick, snuffing out the flame with a quiet sizzle. That was his brain trying to figure out what the assignment meant. He knew he couldn’t ask questions. Miss Buckingham didn’t like questions. Her answers were usually just more questions.
What do you think the assignment means, Mr. Adams?
Do you know the definition of ‘transformation’, Mr. Adams?
Do you know the difference between fiction and the truth, Mr. Adams?
Do you know how to count to 500, Mr. Adams?
Then why are you asking questions and wasting our time, Mr. Adams?
Mr. Adams would have to wing it. He was no dummy but he didn’t like his chances here. Miss Buckingham demanded precision and clarity of thought. Mostly she liked students to stick to the letter of the assignment.
Miss Buckingham was now reminding the class that the assignment was due first thing the next day and if anyone was late their mark would automatically be reduced by 10%, the standard penalty. After that the assignment would not be accepted.
That would be an F, Mr. Adams. An F for Failed.
Her volume-at-10 voice changed pitch slightly to indicate she was moving from formal instruction mode to benevolent, generous teacher mode. To improve everyone’s chances of getting the assignment done on time the rest of the class would be devoted to it. Her formal voice clicked back on. There would be no talking during class.
She pulled out the chair from her desk and sat down, the motion mechanical and smooth, popping open her laptop as she did so. It whirred to life and the screen threw light onto her face, making it appear even paler than normal. There was much speculation about what she did on that laptop while the class worked. No one knew because if anyone had to get up—preferably because of some unavoidable emergency because if you have to use the washroom, that’s what the five minutes between classes is for—Miss Buckingham would expertly turn the laptop away from the student as he or she walked by.
She started to type, her fingers assailing the keyboard the same way her voice assailed the room, in loud staccato bursts. Miss Buckingham had a lot to say about things, whatever those things were.
Oscar clicked twice on his mechanical pencil to pop the lead out. Miss Buckingham wouldn’t accept assignments done in pencil, of course, but Oscar liked to correct on the go if he needed to. He’d carefully ink over the final draft with a ballpoint pen later. Everyone else usually just typed their assignment on the computer, printed it out and brought it in the next day but Oscar’s inkjet was out of ink and he didn’t have enough money to get more ink until his allowance at the end of the week. That was practically a lifetime away.
He began to write, although to be technical it was printing. He had given up cursive in grade five when he his sloppy penmanship became difficult for him to read, let alone anyone else. He wasn’t sure why his writing turned so sloppy but it got worse and worse so he finally just stopped. He carefully printed out his first words of the assignment:
TRANSFORMATIONS
BY OSCAR ADAMS
It would be sweet if he could count that—four words already! But Miss Buckingham—and if he was honest with himself, every other teacher—would never accept that as part of the word count. Besides, it was only four words. Oscar was stalling and he knew it.
He tried imagining the thumb and finger again, except this time with a match. They’d light the candle and he’d be off. But he couldn’t see the thumb and finger, all he could see was a big black spot where the candle would be.
He closed his eyes and waited. He couldn’t wait long because he knew what would happen. The machine gun fire of the laptop keyboard would stop and Miss Buckingham’s voice would pierce the air like a sonic boom.
Are you falling asleep, Mr. Adams? Would you like an extra assignment to help keep you awake?
He began to write. Sometimes it was the only way to get things going. He could fix whatever he wrote later, probably by balling up the paper and seeing if he could get three points on the wastebasket in the corner of his bedroom and then starting over again from scratch.
If I could transform into anything this is what I would do.
At night I would transform into Toad, our dog. He sleeps solid but I always wake up at every little noise, even if there’s nothing there and sometimes in the morning I feel like I hardly slept at all. It’s like my brain doesn’t know how to shut off when I go to bed. Toad’s brain spends most of the time shut off.
At school I would transform into Albert Erickson for algebra class. He’s the only kid I know who can do any algebra in his head so when I got an assignment I would switch my brain with his and then maybe algebra wouldn’t suck so much. I’m not terrible at it, I get B’s and C+’s and stuff which is okay but every time I see all those numbers and lines and brackets it starts a headache, like my brain just isn’t wired for it. You know, like if you put the batteries in a flashlight backward, you get no light. But with Albert that would never happen. To him algebra is fun, like a game. Kind of weird, really. He’s a decent guy but I’d only transform into him for algebra.
For lunch hour I’d transform into an eagle and just fly really high in the sky, circling around and doing loop-de-loops if eagles can do that because otherwise I’d have to go out to the yard and then Tom Lervick would come over and demand my chocolate bar because he knows mom always puts a chocolate bar in my lunch and he says I can give it to him or else. He never says what else means but I once watched Tom Lervick set a frog down on the sidewalk and squash it under his cowboy boot. He let out a big whoop when he did it and looked all around with a big smile on his face, like he was in some frog-squashing competition and he wanted to see if he’d won. I figure Tom sees me as the frog so I always give him the chocolate bar. He’ll get rotten teeth because he never brushes, anyway. The only downer here is if I was an eagle for lunch hour I wouldn’t be able to eat my lunch. Maybe I could transform into one of the Hanson sisters. There’s three of them and Tom doesn’t like them and he leaves them alone because all they do is giggle at each other and it weirds him out. I could be one of them for lunch. Being a girl would be kind of freaky, though. I’ll have to think more about this one.
In gym class I’d transform into Tyler Craig. He’s not the biggest guy in gym class but he’s probably in the best shape. He can swing a bat and hit the ball almost every time. I can sometimes hit it but every time it’s the same, it just pops straight into the air and someone catches it. Tyler can run. I can run, too, but I get winded easy, like my lungs are a size too small or something. I remember once we were playing soccer and Tom Lervick told me to play “off field” and he was pointing to the teacher parking lot. No one would ever say that to Tyler. Only problem is he has way too much hair. I think he’s already shaving but he’s part gorilla and it kind of grosses me out. I think I could deal with it for gym class.
Once I got home if my mom and dad were yelling at each other because dad stopped at The Downside for a couple of beers on the way home from work or maybe more than a couple I would transform into Mr. Oakley, our next door neighbor. Mr. Oakley is giant and has the widest shoulders I’ve ever seen, like you could fit two heads up there. Mom is a little afraid of him. I know because I’ve watched him talk to her and her eyes always flick a little when he does and that means she’s afraid. She does the same thing when we watch a scary movie on TV. And when she’s afraid she wouldn’t yell or say anything and if she doesn’t yell Dad also won’t yell because she always starts the yelling. But Dad shouldn’t drink so many beers, too. That’s dumb.
Oscar sat back and looked at his notebook, then began counting. How did he manage to write so much stuff already? He was way over 500 words and wasn’t even done. He’d have to cut some stuff out because Miss Buckingham never let anyone go more than 10 words over or under the word count. But he still had to finish. He wrote on.
I think about all these transformations and I guess I want to escape. I want to escape from other people who upset me or want to hurt me. I want to escape from my stupid brain that keeps me awake all night or burns like a bad engine when I try to do math. I want to escape from my body because I’ve never been too good at using it.
But then I look two rows over and one desk down and Brenda Westlake is sitting there writing with a fountain pen and her face is so intense it’s like she’s got the biggest thought in the world taking shape. She’s the only person I know who still uses a fountain pen. I don’t even know where she gets the ink for it but she never messes it up. I remember using a fountain pen of my dad’s once and the ink all shot out in a big glob, like the pen just blew its nose. I don’t even know how that can happen. But with Brenda it’s always perfectly neat. And I think about the times we’ve walked home after school and talked about lots of things, nothing important, just little stuff but it’s always incredibly natural and fun and interesting. Once when we stopped at her place (she lives closer to the school) and as I walked away she said, “Hey” and I turned around and looked at her and she said, “You have a nice butt, you know. Va-va-voom.” Va-va-voom is what Brenda says when giving something her seal of Ultimate Approval. I must have blushed pretty good because she just laughed and waved but that was the nicest thing a girl ever said to me.
I think I might ask Brenda out, go on a real date to a movie or something and I think she will say yes. Then I think about all those transformations and realize I don’t want anything to do with them because those would change who I am and even if it was temporary it might still break whatever it is about me that Brenda likes ( besides my butt, which is already va-va-voom) and no transformation is worth that.
Oscar read over the conclusion and was satisfied. More than that, he realized this was the first time he’d given serious thought to asking Brenda out. It was time to make a move. He smiled dreamily but the smile snapped off when he realized he hadn’t followed the assignment properly. He quickly jotted down an addendum.
The caterpillar wraps itself into a cocoon and over a period of weeks it begins a transformation. The transformation turns the caterpillar into a butterfly so that it can live the rest of its life as a graceful and beautiful insect.
Not great but maybe he could jazz it up later at home.
When the assignments were handed back the following week Oscar took his and immediately saw the letter grade at the top of the page, carefully printed in brilliant red ink and enclosed in a circle that was so perfect it may have been drawn using a compass.
C-. Shallow attempt to follow assignment at end is insufficient. Schoolwork is not your personal diary, Mr. Adams. If you are having difficulty completing assignments please come see me for remedial work.
Oscar looked up at Miss Buckingham. She was stooped over the laser printer, collating the next assignment. He imagined her transforming into the chocolate bar sitting in his lunch bag, then being handed over to Tom Lervick. He imagined her wrapper being peeled back by his stupid fat hands, her body being shoved into his mouth full of crooked ugly teeth. Chomp chomp chomp and Miss Buckingham would be no more. That would be one seriously cool transformation.
After class he met Brenda at the edge of the field. A few kids were kicking around a soccer ball behind them but they faded into the background of the late spring afternoon. He asked if she would like to go with him to see a movie and maybe they could get a bite to eat at the mall food court after. Brenda smiled and simply said yes. They walked home together, talking about what movie they wanted to see and lots of other little things, just like they always did.
Oscar couldn’t imagine anyone else he would rather be.
