Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > Short S. > I Believe in Biscuits
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 1369 guests online and 5 members online |
Shorts
| print friendly version | |
| I Believe in Biscuits | |
| By Glossa | ||||||||||||||||||
| 16 March 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||
|
I think this could stand alone as a short story but I'm thinking of including it in an extended work about uneven power in relationships - bullying. There might be too much dialogue so I'm also toying with trying to write it as a script, something new for me. I Believe in Biscuits “ I believe in biscuits,” she said. I looked at her blankly. “ I don’t mean that I believe they exist, of course they do. I just believe you should eat biscuits when you drink your coffee.” “Yes.” I said flatly. “Stefan used to say his drink was too wet without one. And I agree.” “That was a TV advert. It wasn’t his idea.” “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.” “Like you saying you believe in biscuits. Trish said that, her first day. At the staff meeting. To break the ice.” “So?” I wanted to provoke her. “So you are saying stuff as if it was original. When it isn’t” “So?” she said again, looking at me suspiciously. “Most things people say are things they’ve heard elsewhere. It’s how people talk. It’s comfortable.” “Like saying something is “existentialist crap”, for instance?” She looked as if I was talking scribble, or as if she’d forgotten that she’d said those very words ten minutes ago when I was talking about a book I was reading that I thought was excellent. “People often say stuff like that. It’s like spraying toast crumbs over your newspaper and muttering ‘bastards’.” I decided to let it drop. I wanted her to know I’d felt put down and I think she did, otherwise she wouldn’t have been trying to joke it away so glibly. She’d never have apologised, not Sal. Besides, I wanted to work out what she meant by existentialist crap, in relation to the book I’d described so enthusiastically. Then I could find out whether she’d actually read it and have a suitable put down ready for her. I was glad I hadn’t over reacted straight away. I was learning. “Your coffee’s getting cold.” “Yeah. Shame we’ve no biscuits.” “It’s a bit wet without them” We laughed. I thought that both Sal and I hadn’t changed a great deal since we were at school, in the fifth and sixth forms. Covering up our ignorance with a street-swagger of bravado. Sneering at the girls who still admitted to being virgins. That reminded me. “How come you call him Stefan. He was Steve when we were at school and the teachers called him Steven.” “I hate the sound of “Steve”. It sounds like something you say when you are mocking. Like “Steeeve”. She stretched her mouth sideways and gave a slight ducking nod to emphasise the falling intonation. Just like my dad would have said it. I laughed! “We went to German evening classes a few years ago and had to make our names sound German. Steve became Stefan and I just kept on using it. Some of our friends copied me and it kind of stuck. My mum still calls him Steve though, in that funny way. She never thought we’d stay together, she didn’t.” “What did they call you?” I asked, “In German.” “Oh, Sara of course. With a hard S and a long aa.” “Sound’s good. Very grown up.” “Which is probably why everyone still calls me Sal!” She stood up and carried her cup out to the draining board. “I gotta go.” “Ok. Call me soon, or email. We’ll “do lunch” as they say.” “Great. See you then.” She dashed off quickly. We hadn’t started hugging and cheek kissing, like a lot of others our age. We’d only been seeing each other again for a few months and our relationship was still as it had been when we were teenagers, before such continental fashions had caught on. After she’d gone and I was doing a bit of housework, I remembered that I used to say Steve in that mocking way sometimes. As if I didn’t believe that he was a real boyfriend. . Everyone, I believed, invented and conflated anything to do with “Boys”. I did. We all wanted our friends to think we were “with it” and “doing it”. I remembered a nasty scene in the sixth form loo, where I’d been sharing a fag with Sal and Janie instead of going on prefects’ playground duty. “Haven’t seen much of you lately since you started going out with Steeeve.” “Don’t you love us any more, Sallie?” Janie pouted. It was trendy to add “ie” to everyone’s name that term. Except mine, which was Judy. Instead of Judie, I’d become Jude because of the Beatles song. Hey! “Yeah! But I can’t have it off with YOU!” she blurted, just as the door opened and our dear head girl Sandra (Sandie of course) came in. “Ouch!” she said. Janie and I looked at Sal. She’d sounded bitter rather than joking. I wonder, if Sandie hadn’t come in, would we have just laughed after a moment? We bustled around, picking up dog-ends and spraying the air-freshener that we kept in a shoe bag hanging on a spare coat-peg. Sandie rescued us, taking her coat from its peg. “She fancies ME really!” We laughed and put the fag ends in Terrie’s pocket. Teresa was a virgin.
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||||||||||||||||||
 Previous item
|
Next item
|
|---|