I’ve been organizing my office as I make a transition to a new one that’s out of the house. I’ve been discovering many things, like this brilliant story I wrote in November of 1979. I was in third grade, the same grade where I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.
Even then, I had this propensity of putting myself in my stories. And for scary things.
“Travis In Wonderland”
Once upon a time I was walking in a little forest when I slipped. I went falling down and down and then I came too a stop. Boom! Where was I? There was a man near by. I ask the man where I was, and he said, “We are in Wonderland and I fell through that hole.”
“I did too.” Then he said, “Let’s be partners.” So we went on a little path and then the man stoped. “Whose house is that?” We went inside it. We looked around the house and then man screamed. There in front of him was a skellton.
We went out of the house and we saw a band of pigs jumping and laufing. We followed them to a circus. “I and you will see what’s inside,” the man said. So we went in it and we saw pigs.
We ran to an under-ground house. We ate and drank but then we floated up in the air. And we went to the cookie house where the cook lived. Was I dead? There was a airaid house near by. I went in it and I got lost in it. The airaid house was dirty. Then I heard something. I looked around and I saw a light.
“Who are you” I asked? “I am the gohst of Sammy Brown. And I am going to eat you up”! Then I ran as fast as I can. I went out of the airaid house. I ate some cookies out of the cookie house. Then I ran to the hole and climbed up the hole. I ran to my house. Where are my mother and father? I looked around and I saw my dog. Then my mother and father where home. “Where have you bin and why are you so dirty?” I told my mom and then my dad the story. Then I went to have supper and then I went to bed. And I dreamed of Travis In Wonderland.
Note to reader: My favorite line in this is “Was I dead?”
Children do have a way with the written word that is all their own. I love stories written by children, and as a teacher I'm always sorry to have to correct spelling and grammar despite the fact that they have to conform for their own future selves' sake!
That is so much more exciting than the stories I wrote as a kid…