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Best Seller
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Segovia, Spain
Gender: Male
Posts: 504
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Stealing Apples (approx. 1000 words)
Another narrative I had to do for school, fictional:
I awoke from bed and began my day. Taking a breath of the cool air created by the spinning of my fan, I threw on my clothes, grabbed my sneakers, and headed for the door. The sunlight hit my eyes and they immediately began to water. I shielded myself from the light with the back of my hand, and I could soon feel the heat trying to get through to me, it was burning on my hand. I was stepping higher on one foot, so I wouldn’t trip on the untied shoelace on my right sneaker.
I picked up the pace towards my destination, the empty field, but found I could remove my hand once more and stare straight ahead. My eyes had adjusted. That was the one thing that turned out for the better that day, and when my hand was taken away, I saw the only place that felt right. It was so peaceful and calm, the wind was blowing through the tall grass and it comforted me.
“Alright,” a raspy voice called to me, “what are you waiting for? Get over here!”
“Yeah! What are you waiting for?” rang other voices in the field.
This was the group of friends I had met at the beginning of my first summer in Marietta. They were all older, bigger, and meaner than I was, but I knew that the new kid in town can never pick his friends. Just great. This was what I got stuck with. Take what you can get, right?
“We…are…waiting!” The biggest member had spoken through gritted buckteeth, and I jumped out of my mind’s conversation. I realized the option of turning and running for home was out of the window now, and the window had closed.
“Yeah,” I muttered to myself, “I’m comin’!”
“What’d you just say, kid?” He glared. This kid was the epitome of the “bad boy”. He was a lot of muscle, but only a little of manners, and an even smaller amount of common sense.
“Nothing,” I spluttered, “I didn’t say anything. Now will somebody please explain to me why I had to wake up so early this morning?” I glared right back. Maybe they’d see that I meant business.
There was a line of teenagers, talking amongst themselves, holding spitting contests, and getting into fights over the slightest disagreement. I pictured two of them wrestling, screaming back and forth: “That cloud looks like a duck!” “Are you stupid? It’s the spitting image of my mamma’s tea kettle!” I was snapped back to reality by a figure pushing through the line.
“Now, now, gentleman,” the littlest kid, a girl named Jessica, stepped forward, “let’s not make a fuss.” She was tiny – really tiny, but I had forgotten that I was just overly tall. I later found that she packed a lot of punch, but right now I almost laughed at her bossiness. Who was she to tell me what to do? She smiled and took a deep breath.
"As you all have heard – well, except for you,” she pointed at me, “have come to know how sick and tired I am of money. The concept itself makes my blood boil. I want to go to a store, see something I want, and just take it! What else is needed? Scanning one of those stupid cards that I can’t even have? Phooey!” She spit.
She seemed very smart, very well-educated; but she still lacked something.
“Let’s just go,” Jessica said to herself, and then more loudly, “I’ll explain on the way!”
I was completely lost at first. Did she want free stuff? I would buy her stuff, just as long as I don’t get in trouble. Her speed walking speech had explained it all. She wished to steal from the local market.
There were five of us, the others wanted out along the way. I wasn’t going anywhere; I needed these kids to like me. What else would I be able to do over the summer?
We entered the store. We were going to start out small, by only taking an apple each, since they didn’t have any bar codes on them that could set off the alarms. “Grab one, now!” Jessica trotted over, licking her lips. She was truly excited. No one suspected that it was not at all foolproof.
After we each grabbed one, we tried to fit them into our pockets. Most were able to, but neither me nor another boy, Matt, could. He and I just clamped over the apple with both hands.
Now, this store wasn’t the most luxurious, or the largest, and they didn’t get too many customers. It was a small town, and everybody knew everybody. All throughout the store the kids, and my partners in crime, received hello’s and how do you do’s, but they didn’t flinch, or turn and talk about how nice the weather was…They had a goal. They were focused.
One, two, three kids made it to the outside. They were free as the birds in the sky, and the smiles on their faces could match the sun in strength. Their eyes egged me on, they were saying, “You are almost there! Just walk through the door, just act natural!”
But, I wasn’t next in line. It was Jessica’s turn. “See you on the outside,” she smiled but added, “If you chicken out, you won’t have anymore teeth to bite into that apple with!” I grimaced and stared at the apple, gulping. Laughing, she stepped coolly through the doors.
I was the last man in the jail cell, and a few feet away I could see my freedom and my new friends. I couldn’t chicken out now. With my teeth chattering, and my legs wobbling, I began the walk. I reached for the door, looked around, and pushed. But then, I heard a voice.
“Hey, kid!” With that voice calling, my heart dropped. It was over, I was finished. How could I have been so stupid? If I got out of this alive, I would never do it again, not once more. I would pay them for this apple even though I had lost my appetite. I would pay for a whole crate of apples, whatever it took. I turned, cheeks red, to face the voice. It was a relatively young man wearing an apron with the market’s logo.
“Your shoelace is untied.” He pointed at my right foot.
I dropped the apple, and ran towards home.
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