Creative Writing Competition Entry 5

This fictional story is the property of (5). Any resemblance it bears to any other person, (living or dead) character, incident or other known literary works, screen play or Television programme World Wide is coincidental.

Willie

At any rate, you could say that Willie's mind wasn't exactly on the class. Nowadays, he'd-a-been wired up on drugs for an "Attention Deficit," but it was 1975, and it was the deep South, so people just figured he liked to "daydream." When grown-ups asked hopefully how he liked school, he really wondered if they were crazy or just mean for asking. It was another hot and steamy September in South Carolina … the kind of sweaty afternoon that made you wonder how anyone ever had enough energy to put two words together to have a complete thought. The heat wrapped your brain like a wet blanket, and what little concentration Willie had at his disposal went right out the window.

Ah … there it was … the particular flight of fancy that would get Willie through the next 35 minutes before he would be allowed to escape the wasteland of formal education until tomorrow morning. It came to him. Francis Marion … the "Swamp Fox." Willie was now a trusted lieutenant of the Swamp Fox, stepping silently through the swamps of the Carolinas … fighting the red-coats … slipping past the alligators, cottonmouths, copperheads, hiding behind the Spanish moss and smelling the breath of the reptiles and sea life … and the acrid smell of black powder muskets. Willie would make King George pay for his tyranny (although Willie wasn't sure if he would recognize tyranny if he saw it on the street). For some reason King George reminded him of his elementary school principle, although maybe King George didn't really have a wooden paddle for punishing upstart colonials. Those foolish British soldiers (who now looked like the school safety-patrol) would carelessly follow Willie and their renegade band to their untimely ends in the marshes … accidentally stepping on copperheads or eaten by the alligators.

"What …?!," Willie stammered. Snickers were all around him. The class was looking at him and as through a fog, he could make out that the teacher was also looking in his direction. He shrugged. More laughter. "Would you care to tell us what you are looking at?" "I'm not looking at nothin'," he said mustering all the defiance he could in his small frame, "I was just thinking." He hoped that thinking was a reasonable activity in which to engage while sitting in class, but somehow knew he was very wrong here and very alone in this notion. "About what?" asked Miss Williamson, and apparently this was the question on everyone else's mind. Oh, the agony … the horror. If he could only think of a reasonable excuse to have a tantrum, he could at least get out of class by being sent to be paddled by King George. Nothing came to mind. If he just started yelling incoherently, it would be a little too obvious … or just confirm their suspicions that he was a crazy. He put his head down on his desk and hoped she would just lose interest in her prey. He had heard this sometimes worked with Grizzly Bears or angry Hippopotami. Maybe it would work with his fourth grade teacher. Or, wait … hippos you were supposed to zigzag through the brush, because they like to protect their bellies.

After the final bell, he wrestled in his mind with the best way to get away from the other students … his exit strategy. He settled on walking with imaginary purpose … after waiting patiently for a chance to get out of the one-story, cinder-block building. He made his way past the bicycles and playground equipment. Apparently he had started running through the gravel and red-clay parking area without realizing it and Mike (the Safety Patrol) stood in his path. "Ok, you have to go back and walk it over," Mike tried. Mike was a good guy. A little older, and not really too full of it, but still … what was he gonna do? Willie made his move. A move that might have impressed a football coach, under the right circumstances: …drop low … fake left …spin and cut to the right, before they know what happened. Poor Mike never had a chance. In seconds Willie had gained the tree-line, and in the blink of an eye he was hidden by the pines and the undergrowth.

At last, he found the freedom and comfort he only knew in the stand of pines between the little school and the street on which he lived. But now he was no longer Willie Heinz. He was Tecumseh, the great native warrior … walking silently through the undergrowth … a hero to his people and a terror to the Americans. He made his way towards the British encampment where he would plot against the territorial encroachments of the cruel and treacherous "Americans." He talked to the spirits of the trees, the sky, the wind and the waters … summoning their wisdom, and he saw with great sadness the bitter future of his people.

By the end of the 15-minute walk through the woods, he had become a trusted companion of Sojourner Truth on the Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape to freedom in the North. Out of unfortunate necessity, he had a pistol pressed to the temple of a passenger who had become frightened and was trying to run back to his master. If he did not use threat of force, the passenger would endanger everyone else and the entire Underground Railroad. He hated to point a gun at anyone. Desperate times though … desperate measures.

As Willie emerged from the path through the woods, he stopped to lovingly pet his family's beagle hounds. They were great dogs. Much better than the dachshunds next door who were about as dumb as rocks. At least rocks weren't so loud about it. The beagles were a gift from his great-Uncle who raised hunting dogs. Uncle Josh had been behind enemy lines in World War II, but you weren't supposed to ask him about it.

Willie's Mama and Daddy were in the backyard tossing horseshoes and sipping cheap red wine with their friends from up the street, Mr. and Mrs. Ruben. Mr. Ruben taught art to all the children in town, and never lost his exuberance for the subject … no matter how little his students had to give back to him and no matter how little they may have appreciated what he had to offer. Mr. Ruben had a tattoo on his arm … also from World War II … but you weren't supposed to ask him about that either.

The Rubens looked up and smiled at Willie. Willie looked at his shoes. "Oh Willie, how are you," Mrs. Ruben said with such pleasure and enthusiasm that Willie was completely confused. He really didn't feel he had earned such warmth, but still … it felt nice. "You must be happy to be back in school, no?" She looked so hopeful. He really did not have it in his heart to disappoint her. Why or how anyone could be glad to be in school was completely beyond him, although he supposed there were all kinds of people in the world. Why anyone might think he would enjoy school … that was an even bigger puzzle.

"Willie … has trouble concentrating …" his mother explained. "He'll concentrate on something he's interested in, I suppose." His mother was just trying to give Willie a way out of the conversation. She did not find it necessary to explain that Willie's teacher was on the verge of refusing to let him come back to her classroom. "Ah well …" Mrs. Ruben sighed "I used to love school when I was a little girl. There were so many things to learn … so many books to read." Willie looked at her and he wanted to believe. She made reading sound as good as fishing on an early Sunday morning in the Pee Dee River. When he thought of school, he thought of bad lunches, being tortured by classmates, fighting on the hard red-clay, being paddled, wetting his pants in the back of class, shame, pain, boredom, … and shame. He looked at her … he wanted to believe that school … learning could make a person smile like that. In all his daydreams, he just could not think of a reason why.

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