30. The Rest of the Story About the Icy, Freezie Day in Autumn
The story about the icy, freezie day in Autumn was quite different from Nory’s other stories because she had written it down at Junior School, as an assignment for Mrs. Thirm, rather than just telling it aloud to one of her dolls. So unless she lost the notebook that it was in she couldn’t possibly forget it. The story so far was:
Event One and Intorduction of Characters
It was a cold icy freezie day in Autumn. A poor girl dressed in rags shiverd, she was huddled by the side-walk. Long brown hair swept across her face, and tangeled though it was, if it had been brushed and combed it would be lovely hair. She could hear barking in the distance, she sighed, how nice it would be to have a dog to play with to always be at your side. ‘Oh Well it probably already belongs to someone,’ she thought. She blew the hair out of her face. The barking seemed to be geting closer by the minet. She lisened very cearfully and heard the raket came from a Sealyham she new alot about dogs they were her favorit thing in the world she used to get around at night by listening to the barking of the dogs now the barking was so close so could almost hear the padding of the dogs foot hit the ground. She turned in the direction she thought the barking was coming from there was a small black figure who seemed very pleased inded for making the loudest noise anyone could hear for miles, with no leash no person behind him only people trying to soo him away this what at the bottem of her heart she was wishing for. she couden’t control her self she ran as fast as she could to him and throgh her self around his neack. and It was nice to feel his warm breath on her hands, and his soft fur on her face. The dog stoped barking, and looked at her out of his lovely black yees. He was a large dog for a Sealyham, he was also quite strong. She gathered her self and knelled by the dog. She smiled at him, What is your name? The dog looked content, then he barcked three times quickly, and it sounded like rour ran roph. Since he looked so content she figured he had sucsessfully told her his name was Ranrof. She sayed ‘Ranrof is a lovely name.’ She looked round her self and every one seemed to be staring so she and the dog slowly walked away. Mines Marielle she sayed how old are you she asked the dog, rine barked the dog. Which Marielle thout was nine, ‘I’m nine too’ she sayed. ‘It’s time we get somthing to eat’ she sayed agin. They had come to a bush full of ripe berrys, they almost were more berrys than bush, and they had a lovely dinner of berrys.
Event two: the complecation
Marielle woke up from a long sleep to find that Ranrof was gone, she was upset ‘Perhaps it was only a dream’ she thought. how she longed for Ranrof, his beautiful black eyes, his soft fur and his warm breath ‘I wish dreams came true’ she sayed. ‘It coulden’t hurt calling for him’ So she stood up and called ranrof again and again but nothing happened. So she sat down and looked for traces of him to, prove he wasn’t a drea. there were footprints but it could have been something else. She fell back and was going to relas, When she notesed the ground was very soft in one part she sat up and saw that a trace of a what seemed dogs foot-print. but It seemed to be thear on purpose. Not just a dog was ramdomly walking and happened to step there, but really worked hard to make a deep foot-print. Mayby its a sort of signiture to say it was that dogs property but, maybe just maybe it was tring to take place of a card in which case there might be a present inside a sort of goodby persent. And she decided that it would be better to open it and have it not be hers, than it be hers and not open it because of corse if it wasen’t herse she could cover it back up agin, and any way she wanted all the eviedence she could get to prove Ranrof wasn’t a dream and if it was from any dog it might be as well from Ranrof.
Then she heard strage issing noises very cloes. She looked behind her and there were two large cats hissing and meowing at eachother they seemed to be arguing, hey hey she sayed dont argue but they kept on so she had to sit inbittween them so they couden’t go on. Now now she sayed slowly for theas cats were sort of fritening becase they were so lage. The cats looked embarassed, and gave Marielle the look of ‘what do you want.’ So she ansered there look of ‘what do you want,’ with a look of ‘you know perfectly well.’ Then the cats seemed to be wispering at eachother. In fact they were wispering so quietly that she could almost hear her heart beeting, for it was beeting rather louwdly because of the size of these cats. Then a thout struck her mind, wouden’t It be best to become friends with these cats maybe somehow they could tell her, somehow if they had seen Ranrof, and besides they were huge things. Itwas then that she deicided she should look at them becaus she hade been looking at the sky this whole time. They were onely showing off. They had their tails lifted high in the air (as they say) and where swaing while walking slowly cicleling her. They where going in oppisite directions so when they bumped noses, they would turn around at the same time and start off in the other direcion So they realy looked as if one was in the miore. She stood there for a few minutes just staring, and sometimes realy did beleve that one was a riflection in a mior. Oh! because I forgot to tell you they where totaly idenical and I bet they could trick people as to wich one they were. After staring at them for about 5 minets her eyes got tired and she glased away for a minut, they sat down and curruld up as if that was what they were wating for in wich case she wondered what would happen if she had stared all night just then she felt something lick her with their tounge.
Event Three
…TO BE CONTINUED.
31. Oatmeal
Nory liked writing ‘TO BE CONTINUED’ at the end of stories, and of course she could go right ahead and continue them. But she had very old stories that she’d written when she was seven and eight that had that in big letters at the end, and when she came across them stuffed in her desk in Palo Alto she thought, ‘Wow, I haven’t exactly done what I said I would do, have I?’ Basically, when she wrote ‘To Be Continued’ at the end of a story it almost always meant ‘To Never Be Continued,’ that is, ‘To Be Dropped Like a Hot Potato.’ This made her a little sad when she realized it. She had gotten the idea of ‘To Be Continued’ from the movie Back to the Future, which ends with those words in huge letters. Back to the Future was another movie where the second movie, Back to the Future II, was equally as good as Back to the Future I, like Neverending Story and Neverending Story II.
So probably she wouldn’t write any more of the story of Ranrof, because by the time she got around to it she would have become a little older and she would think some of it was kiddish and she would be on to other unexceptional things. Also everyone had to read their stories aloud in class and when she she read hers some of the boys made low gurgles and snickers when she read the part about the girl throwing herself around the dog’s neck. They thought it was girlish and sweetsy-cue, which didn’t matter one bit because Nory liked the story. But it was true that after they gurgled she stopped working on it.
Her mother came in while Nory was still dozily under the covers thinking of what project she should do that morning and she said it was time for Nory to hop to. A few minutes after that her father came popping in and said, ‘Let’s go, kiddo, let’s go, let’s go.’ So it was a school day, was it? Well well! How fair was that? Nory chatted to herself for not a very long time in the mirror, pretending to be surprised by her toothbrush flying in from the side, and trying out different surprised expressions. Then she tucked in all her dolls for the day, which took a good amount of time. She had only been able to take eleven dolls to England from America, not including Raccoon. By then her mother was calling out, ‘Urgent call for Nory!’ and her father was calling out, ‘Extreme two-minute warning!’ So she bustled on her school outfit and tied her tie and tucked the ends of it in her skirt, since they were always much too long to be becoming since basically the tie was too big for a child her age, and she went downstairs to have oatmeal.