Rekindling My Childhood Love for Writing

It looks like I owe you all an apology; I've been telling a white lie.

I've been going on and on about how people keep asking me if I've written a book, and I keep saying I haven't.

Not only have I written a book, I've written five books.

My parents have just come to visit, and they bought some of my belongings that I had stored, which included these little gems that I wrote as a child.

As I read these stories I'd created with my childhood imagination, I wasn't sure whether to be proud or concerned.

I was quite surprised by what I'd forgotten from my youth. I always assumed I'd found my love for horror movies in my teens, but while reading these, it became apparent that I had a love for blood and gore quite early on. I remember enjoying drawing as a child, so I was also amused by the little effort I'd put into my illustrations for these stories. Obviously, I wanted to focus all of my energy on the writing.

As a special treat, I'd like to share with you a story I wrote when I was about 10 years old. I had to make some edits to spelling and grammar, but I've tried to keep it as close to its natural form as possible. Excuse any quirks in punctuation; I was going crazy trying to figure out where to place the speech quotation marks due to the frame narrative.

One Spooky Thing

Deanna slept over once. We slept in my room. We didn’t let Holly (my sister) in because we hated her.

When we got bored, we told each other horror stories.

I said, "Have you heard of the Gremlin Grebelies?"

Deanna jumped and then said, "No."

I said, "The Gremlin Grebelies live in the sandpit."

"I can’t see anything."

"Because it’s not 11 p.m. yet."

"At 11 p.m., they dig their way through the sand, and one spooky thing is that they murder people."

“How do they murder people?”

“They turn the fan on when you’re asleep and freeze you to death. I heard one case on the news where someone got burnt in boiling water.”

“Yuk,” said Deanna.

“Well this story is very true.”

“How big are they?”

“When they’re in the sandpit, they’re smaller than mice. At 10:55 p.m., they come out, and at 11:00 p.m. they grow to the size of human. But if they don’t get out by 10:55 p.m. they get stuck in there.”

“How do you tell the difference between a human and a gremlin?”

“The gremlins have green fingernails. Now I’ll tell you the story.”

"One night, two little girls from grade six, just like me and you, were camping in a tent. They put the tent right near the fence. Has it been scary so far?"

There was no answer.

Deanna was asleep, so I went to sleep too.

At about 12 a.m., we woke up.

"Want me to go on with the story?"

"Yes."

I continued, "There were two girls in a tent, okay? Now, the girls were sitting outside the tent. They heard rumbling coming from the sandpit. At first, they didn’t know what it was. Then they saw the sand moving. They looked inside the tent, then they looked at the sandpit. There was a kid helping other kids out of the sandpit. They gasped."

"One of them said, ‘Those kids weren’t there before.’"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you their names."

"Whose names?" replied Deanna.

"The girls from grade six. Their names were Jennifer and Kathie."

"They walked up to the fence. The kids decided to be friendly, and then, at 2 a.m., they would murder them."

"The kids said, ‘Come over and we’ll have a party.’"

"Are you sure?" said the girls.

"Sure," said the kids.

"Okay."

So they went under the house.

They had the best party of their lives. Then a kid came under the house with two cupcakes. He gave them to the girls. They ate them.

"Yum," they said.

Then they both turned into snakes, hissing across the floor.

Their skin came off, and then there were just bones hissing across the floor. The skull had the eyeballs in it still. Then the eyeballs popped out and the bones scattered across the floor.

I asked, "I hope that wasn’t too scary for you?"

"Ah, um, oh, ah, nah, not scary at all... well, maybe some parts were a bit scary. It was a bit scary. Well, it was scary."

"When did all this happen anyway?"

"Last night."

"How can we get rid of the Gremlin Grebelies?"

"Well, ah, we can block the sandpit."

"But how can we do that? I have to go home at 9 a.m."

"Easy, I’ll ask if you can sleep over another night. Then I’ll say, I have to go next door and refill the sandpit. We’ll sleep outside in the tent."

"Yeah, what a great idea."

The next morning, I asked Mum if Deanna could stay over another night.

Mum said yes.

Deanna’s Mum said yes.

We put the tent near the sandpit.

Me and Deanna went to the shop with $40. We bought four meters of plastic, and we covered the sandpit and put some bricks on it.

That night we watched and waited outside the tent. Then we saw the sand in the sandpit move. I heard some people bumping their heads on bricks. Deanna heard someone saying, "I’m going to die."

Someone muttered, "I’ll be back."

So that’s the end of the story.

But, this story is very old. I’m 200 years old, and the Gremlin Grebelies never came back.

The End

I knew I had these stories in storage, but I could only remember vague details about them. I was so happy to see them again because I'd forgotten how much I loved writing as a child. It's sad that somewhere in the business of growing up and becoming an adult, I'd forgotten one of the things I enjoyed doing.

I just love that this year, at a time in my life when I've recently become a mother and have the least amount of spare time I've ever had, I've somehow stumbled back into writing.

I will always cherish these stories I wrote as a reminder to stay young at heart and keep doing the things I love.