GCSE Creative Writing Bolton ( #Lockdown Writing Tips with Phoenix Writers) Repetition Continued!

I wrote this story in just over an hour. See my previous blog about Repetition for the advice on the use of repetition in writing creatively. The rapidity of the writing shows how helpful repetition might be for you in an exam situation. The word ‘perfect’ operates as an anchor for my story and was great fun to follow through the narrative!

Having fun in writing encourages the creative flow!

Practically Perfect in Every Way.

Timothy and Mia were perfectly happy,  thank you very much. Their wedding photograph with its tastefully exotic backdrop of turquoise seas and pure white sand testified to their immaculate, perfect love. A solitary diamond set on a perfectly discreet, platinum ring caught the sun’s light whenever Mia waved to neighbours or guided her supermarket trolley in the direction of all things organic for perfectly presented meals with Timothy, and their few but highly treasured friends. At parents’ evening, their cleanly pressed smiles and linen suits beckoned to others and they were never short of sympathy for those parents of students whose lives were somehow more short-changed than theirs.

‘We love the underprivileged,’ they chorused together at the gym.  ‘We adore the unfortunate because we have been so very fortunate in our love.’  

Occasionally, there were rumours, easily squashed of course, attributed only to the less than perfect, that their love was more theatre than truth. But then, how could anyone doubt their happiness when their daughter Aphra wore such perfectly pink bows or when their gym trainers were so white and so coordinated?

Their local Sunday school depended on their perfect goodwill too.  They perfectly brimmed with faith.  Their goodness transparent to all. In fact,  Aphra communicated their perfection to the world every Sunday morning at 9 am precisely. Her hair always in silk bows. Her demands sugared always by perfectly enchanting pouts and stomps of her Mary Jane- shoed feet.

So very pretty. So perfectly happy in every way.

‘And Aphra draws so well,’ said Mrs Stokes one day before the Carol Service. ‘She has an eye for faces, captures details so perfectly: she has a gift.’  For once Mia hesitated to agree. In fact, she blushed. And for a moment Mrs, Stokes sensed a chill in the Presbytery.

 But then Mia smiled her perfect smile again and brushed her blush away. Modesty so suited her thought Mrs Stokes and decided there and then to collect all  Aphra’s drawings into a special folder, as a gift. Perfect for Christmas,  Mrs Stokes decided. Strangely, Aphra only agreed with her teacher’s scheme after much-furrowed thinking. Then they both decided her drawings would be a real surprise for her mummy and daddy. ‘A perfect present from Santa Claus’ Aphra said showing an innocence that endeared Mrs Stokes all the more.

The Sunday before Christmas, they had started to wrap the folder in perfectly shiny crimson paper when Aphra asked politely if she might add just one more picture that she had created all by herself at home. ’As a surprise.’

‘May I see?’  asked Mrs, Stokes who was devoted to Aphra, though sometimes a little dazzled by the child’s perfection.

Aphra pulled a shiny pound coin from her pocket, no doubt in readiness for the church collection.

‘Heads you get to see. Tails you don’t. Your call Mrs Stokes.’ Aphra’s eyelashes settled shyly on her cheeks and stayed there long enough to be admired.

‘What an astonishing child you are,’ said her Sunday school teacher. ‘I hope this is not like gambling Aphra?’

Aphra said nothing and held out the tempting coin.

Mrs Stokes took the coin and was relieved to see that her favourite smiled again. She threw the coin clumsily into the air and then sighed as it clattered to the Presbytery floor. 

It landed near Aphra’s left foot,  who nudged it with one Mary Jane shoe so her teacher couldn’t see it.

This was not like Aphra at all.

‘Guess’ said Aphra. ‘Guess.’ Aphra widened her eyes and her lashes seemed more feral creature now,  than human. 

Mrs Stokes held her right hand to her ample bosom and prayed for the right answer. ‘Heads’ she said firmly.  

‘Wrong’ said Aphra giggling and yet didn’t move her foot. ‘Wrong’ she whispered in a voice that became a hiss.  ‘Wrong. Wrong, Wrong.’

Mrs Stokes frowned. Authority needed to be restored.  This was a side of Aphra that needed correction evidently. 

‘I hope you are not cheating now, Aphra. This is a Sunday school after all.’

Aphra lifted her foot slowly. Mrs Stokes peered down to stare at the coin. Her eyesight was not what it once was. But the coin was heads up. She didn’t understand. She checked the top button of her paisley blouse. ‘ I was right’ she whispered,  more a question than she realised.

Aphra sighed heavily.’ I wasn’t talking about the coin, silly billy ’ said Aphra.’ I was talking about the picture.’

‘Oh’  said her teacher, with a sense of dread. With an unsteady hand, Mary Stokes reached out for the half-wrapped folder. She bit her lip and pulled the last picture away from the rest. Divorcing it from the Sunday School attempts.

‘Heads you get to see,’ said Aphra. ‘Just like you wanted.’

Mary Stokes peered closely at the bold picture.

Aphra had drawn a large suitcase, adorned with a luggage label large enough to be read.  Strange how the child seemed to have forgotten all about perspective thought her teacher.

‘ Qantas Airways: Mr and Mrs Hamish Mathews,’ it said. Just that. With a date. Christmas Eve. Only three days away. 

‘Who’s Hamish, Aphra?’  asked Mrs, Stokes quietly.

‘Hamish is a man’ said the child sweetly. ‘He lives just next door-but-one. Sometimes, he repairs poorly cars.

’

‘How neighbourly said Mrs Stokes faintly.

‘ Daddy’s new car is often poorly’ continued Aphra.  Mummy says  ‘Hamish is such a Perfect Godsend that she can’t possibly live without him. ‘