Art Classes and Story-tellingI have a larger group of art students this week for Drawing Pets camp. And all girls, what's more. This makes life simpler for me in a way . . . if I play "The Little Mermaid" soundtrack in the background, they remain happy as clams, and life is good. What's been particularly cute about this class, however, is their love of stories. They keep begging me at random intervals each day, "Tell us a story! Tell us a story about when you were growing up!" I make them wait until snack-time, of course. We are supposed to be drawing and painting. But come snack-time, I'm lucky to get a mouthful before they're at it again. "Tell us a story about when you were little, Miss Annie! Tell us, please!" So I do. With a little embellishment. I tell them about growing up in England, right next to the wild Common Grounds where the rabbits lived in a village of gorse bushes across Crater Valley from the Old Stone Church with its picturesque--and remarkably spooky--graveyard, complete with the Monument in the center. I tell them about the Phantom Tree, which I alone could climb, and the Castle Tree where the faeries held court. I tell about the Tangle Tree with all its knotted vines prepared to catch any wandering children. And, of course, I tell them about the trolls. All the trolls on the Common were invisible unless they were disguised as rabbits. You could always tell the troll rabbits, though, because they were black. Sometimes, we even saw little baby black rabbits . . . erh, trolls. And I tell about my Brave Big Brother with his King Arthur sword, who was ever ready to fight off any trolls. And Fritz our stout-hearted schnauzer, Papa with his strong acorn-throwing arm, and me. I'm the central character, but somehow I don't end up playing much part in these stories, which are more observations of everyone else. I told them about the dragon we found on the Common one day, a dragon my father named Spitfire. I described her as such: "She had long sharp claws, and long, sharp teeth, and instead of scales, her body was covered all over with fur! She wasn't a big dragon, not even as big as Fritz. But she was fierce and she was deceitful. One minute, you'd think she was your friend, rubbing around your ankles. The next minute, she'd lash out with her claws, growling and spitting, which is why Papa called her Spitfire." Students: "Was she a real dragon, Miss Annie!" AE: "As real a dragon as you'll find in all of England! But don't worry, she wasn't big enough to cause any real harm." Students: "You had the most exciting life when you were growing up, Miss Annie!" AE: "I certainly had an imaginative one." I told them almost-ghost stories about travels in northern England, about exploring the Lochs in Scotland and the time I thought for sure I'd seen the Loch Ness Monster. I told them about the green, scaly dragon I saw in the dungeons of a castle in France (no fooling!) and all sorts of marvelous things. Then they come back to me the next day. Student: "Miss Annie! Miss Annie!"--whispers in my ear--"I told my mom all your stories from yesterday!" Oh dear. I can just imagine the letters to the Learning Center next week. To whom it may concern: I finally broke the news to my child last December that Santa Claus is not real. Now they are convinced that faeries and trolls abound in England, not to mention dragons in dungeons in France! And it must be true, because Teacher Said. We disapprove. Oh well. It totally ruins a good story like that to have to finish up with, "But that's all make-believe, you know? None of it was real." Because in my mind, it was plenty real enough, thank you very much. Thought I'd share with you a short story I wrote a few years ago based on my childhood in England, during the Gulf War. You might enjoy it. Rainy Morning It always rains in England at the most inopportune times. Sometimes rather spitefully, I think. I remember it rained on my sixth birthday when the day before had been a blaze of sunshine, bright enough for Mummy to promise me a birthday picnic. “As long as the weather’s good,” she said. But when I woke to the sound of rain on my roof and Timmy screaming for his bottle downstairs, I nearly rolled over and went back to sleep. Why bother turning six on a morning like that? Still, I’d have to face the day eventually, so I slugged myself out of bed, hunted up my kitty slippers with the tails that tended to trip me up, and sat in the middle of my bedroom floor, surrounded by gloom. I watched the rain dripping down my windowpane while heavy clouds rolled by. On a clear day, I could look down on the little brick houses, at the cars driving slowly by on the left side of the road, at my old Welsh neighbor’s perfect garden. There weren’t many trees in the neighborhood, but if you followed the street to the left for a few blocks, you’d come to the common grounds. That’s where Fairyland begins, Pa said, there among the ancient oaks and gorse bushes, all a-flower in yellow this spring. But today I simply sat on the floor and watched the clouds roll by. No picnic today. No cake outside, no tree climbing, no nothing. My door squeaked open, and I looked over my shoulder to see my brother Todd, wearing his plaid pajamas, slip in. “Mor’in’,” he said. “Happy birthday.” I smiled and turned back to the window. Todd joined me on the floor. His legs were much longer than mine, and his feet ten times bigger. My knees were knobbier, though, and more scabbed. “No picnic today,” he said. I shrugged. “Pro’lly won’t get outside,” he said. “Nope.” “Maybe Mummy’d let us out in our wellies?” “Not without Pa,” I said. “Yeah.” He was silent a long moment, and since Timmy had finally stopped screaming downstairs, there was only rain to fill the silence. “When Pa comes home we’ll go out in the rain,” Todd said. I shrugged. “Yeah we will. Don’t you remember last time? When it rained, and McArthur was stolen by the troll?” “That didn’t really happen,” I said. “Whaddya mean!” Todd jumped up and stood over me, his arms crossed over his chest. “’Course it happened! You were right there, don’t you remember?” I shook my head. “Yes you do! It was last fall, just after school started, worst time of year for trolls, Pa says. He came home from the base and pulled off his big flight boots and said, ‘We should go on a troll hunt tonight.’ You were right there. You remember.” I nodded slowly. “But there aren’t any trolls.” Todd rolled his eyes. “Are you crazy? How could you forget?” “So what happened?” I asked. “Pa whistled for McArthur and jangled his leash, and McArthur started yelping and hollering the way he does, you know.” Todd dropped to all fours and crawled around, barking and prancing, a perfect mimic of our dog, until I giggled and kicked my kitty slippers. “Timmy was too small to go of course, he was only a few weeks old, so Mummy had to stay behind. She was worried that it was going to rain, so she made us wear our wellies and slickers, and Pa got out his walking stick.” “I remember,” I said. “‘We’ll need one of these if we find a troll,’ he said. And I brought my King Arthur sword and shield.” “What did I bring?” I asked. Todd, still on his knees, looked around the room and grabbed my plastic fairy wand out from under the dresser. “You brought this! Pa says you’re the only one who sees fairies, so you have to have the magic wand.” He handed it to me with great solemnity, and I took it and held it before me in the manner of a queen. “What happened when we got there?” I asked. “Did we go to Rabbit Town?” “To look for trolls?” Todd snorted. “You think you’re gonna find a troll drinking tea with a buncha rabbits? Nah! We took the path to the Phantom Tree. And it was starting to get dark, and thunder growled almost as loud as McArthur’s howling. And McArthur barked and hollered all the way to the Common, then suddenly went all quiet. “‘You know what that means,’ Pa said. ‘There’s trolls out tonight.’” “I remember,” I said, and shivered. “So we went down the path to the Phantom Tree, and Pa said you should climb it, since you’re the best at climbing things, and ask the fairies inside where we could find a troll.” “What did they tell me?” I asked. Todd took my magic wand from me and waved it mystically. “You listened really hard and tapped the tree, and said, ‘Pa, what are they saying to me?’” “My voice isn’t that squeaky!” Todd ignored me. “And Pa said, ‘Well, I can’t hear them as well as you can, but I think they’re saying there’s a troll by the Tangle Tree, near the old graveyard.’ ‘That’s right!’ you said. ‘I can hear’m now!’” “My voice isn’t that squeaky!” Todd handed me my wand, then gripped in his right hand an invisible sword, which he brandished like the noble knight that he is, transforming his jammies into silver armor. “I led the way, to the Tangle Tree,” he said, “and you and Pa followed behind. Halfway there, Pa decided to let McArthur off his leash. ‘He can sniff out trolls better this way,’ he said. And he was right too!” “Was he?” “Of course. Don’t you know, when we were almost there, McArthur bolted after what looked like a rabbit.” “Wasn’t it a rabbit?” “No, no! You know what Pa says. Trolls are the trickstiest creatures. They can make themselves look like anything they want . . . rabbits, squirrels, cats . . . they come in all kinds. And this one, it dashed off ‘cross the path in front of us and into a gorse bush, and McArthur went right in after him. ‘You were right about what those fairies said, Wee Chick,’ Pa said. ‘That troll’s leading McArthur straight to the Tangle Tree!’” I smiled. “Pa always calls me ‘Wee Chick.’” “Course you were scared.” “Was not.” “Yes you were.” “How do you know, you a mind reader or something?” “No, I could see you was, so I said, ‘Don’t worry, fair maiden,’ ‘cause that’s what knight’s call the ladies. ‘Don’t worry, fair maiden, I’ll save him!’ And I tried to hack my way through the gorse, but it was enchanted like Sleeping Beauty’s thorns, and I couldn’t get through. And we could hear McArthur scuffling with that old troll somewhere, and soon even I was scared!” “I remember. You cried.” “Did not!” “I remember!” “Well, those stupid gorse stickers stuck my eyes, but that wasn’t real crying.” I let the matter go. “So what did we do?” “Well, just when things were looking worst, Pa found us a way through the bushes, a path we hadn’t seen. It was starting to misty-rain by then, and we knew we’d better find that old troll soon or he’d take McArthur down to his cave and . . . and eat him maybe!” “And Mummy wanted us home for dinner,” I said. “Yeah, that too. So we came out of the bushes, and there was the Tangle Tree, just like Pa—just like the fairies said, and the graveyard after that. Pa turned on the flashlight then ‘cause it was getting so dark.” “Nu uh!” I said and held up my glittery wand. “I made the light with this! Remember?” “Oh, yeah.” Todd grinned. “And when you did, do you know what we saw?” “What?” I asked. He scrambled onto my bed, hanging over the footboard. “McArthur!” Then he leered, showing every tooth in his head, and curled his fingers into claws. “And the troll! He was climbed up on that big old Ethelbert Gorst headstone, and making faces at us like this!” He growled in proper troll fashion, and I screamed and shook my wand in his face. Todd pushed it out of the way, rolled off the bed, and held up his invisible sword once more. “‘Get him, quick!’ Pa said, and I ran at that old monster, swinging my sword, and you waved your wand and shot magic sparks all over the place, and they sizzled in the rain, and that troll, why he let out a yell like you wouldn’t believe! YEEEEHAAAOW! And I chased him off into the stones until he was cleared out. ‘That’ll teach you to steal our dog . . . foul varlet!’ I said, ‘cause that’s what knights say to monsters and bad knights and things.” “What’s a varlet?” I asked. “I think it’s some kind of vegetable. Like Brussels sprouts, maybe.” “Oh. Yuck. So what did I do?” “Don’t you remember? You healed McArthur with your magic wand. That troll had scratched him up good, nearly mortally wounded him, I think! Mummy thought he was just scratched up a bit in the gorse, but we know better. You healed him, saved his life, and Pa said we were regular heroes, like Galahad and . . . and some lady hero too.” “A fairy princess,” I said, and primly arranged my nightgown over my scabby knees. “Whatever.” Todd rolled his eyes again. “By then it was raining good and hard, so we had to get back home. Mummy was sure amazed when we told her, and glad to have McArthur back safe!” I sighed and looked down at my wand, glittering dully in the dim room. “I wish we could hunt trolls today.” Todd, his story spun out, sat beside me and patted my hand chivalrously. “We will when Pa comes home, I told you.” “When will Pa come home?” I asked, twirling the wand between my thumb and finger. “Silly,” Todd said. “He told us he’d come when he can, but there’s all those trolls overseas he’s got to fight first. He’ll come home just as soon as the war’s over.” I smiled. “Maybe it will be over today? For my birthday?” “Yeah. Maybe.” Todd nudged my shoulder with his own. “I think Mummy’s making muffins for breakfast. Come on, let’s go see.” | 
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