[pirate witch]: 524.Contest Entries.Five Words 2

this story won first place in the five words contest for february.

Ryan liked the sound of cattails in the wind. They sounded... soft. Like autumn leaves as they float downstream, only more comforting. Leaves make a harsher sound when they strike the water’s surface. He shut his eyes and smiled up into the sky, allowing the sun to warm his face for a few minutes, just listening. Ryan listened a lot more than most boys of ten.

He opened his eyes when something bumped against his bare foot. A turtle looked up at him contemptuously. It was small enough to fit in his palm, with purple swirled among the greens and browns on its shell. Ryan almost laughed at the pretentious glare he was receiving from the little thing. Almost, but not quite. Every ten year old boy knows better than to laugh at something that could easily bite your pinky toe and make it bleed.

“Roberto!” A girls voice drew Ryan’s attention away from the turtle. The second his gaze was averted, chop! The little turtle bit down hard on Ryan’s foot. A little squirt of blood bubbled up near the base of his big toe, but everything remained attached. 

“Roberto!” The girl’s voice came from right behind him. Ryan whirled around to see a girl a few years older than him searching madly through the cattails. “Where are you?” She called, as though she were looking for a lost sibling or pet.

“Who is Roberto?” Ryan asked. The girl looked startled for a split second, but her face relaxed into a genial smile when she realized that Ryan was not a threat.

“He’s my painted turtle.” She continued her search through the cattails. “Not painted turtle as in the species of turtle, painted with acrylic paints. I painted his shell purple, but most of it has worn off by now.” The girl straightened up and sighed the way Ryan’s mother sighed when he came home long after supper time. “I’m Casey.” She said, and extended a slightly dirty hand for shaking. 

“I’m Ryan.” He shook her hand vigorously, as he had seen his father shake the hands of business men at the office. Casey had bright blonde, curly hair, that bounced as she moved. An array of rainbow clips tried their best to keep it away from her face, but stray curls fell into her eyes in spite of their efforts. “I think I saw your turtle over there by the rock.” He showed her his bleeding foot as proof. “He bit me when I lost at a staring contest.”

Casey’s smile widened, and she jogged over to the big, moss covered rock at the widest part of the river where Ryan had been enjoying the afternoon moments before. Ryan walked behind her, enjoying the sight of her hair bouncing about. A violet clip fell onto the riverbed, and was quickly swept away by the tide.

A cry of youthful despair shattered the afternoon of sun and fun. “Roberto!” Casey screamed into the clear blue sky. An eagle flew away, clutching a tiny, wriggling turtle in it’s claws. “Bite his legs!” Casey screamed, but it was all for naught. Roberto had become the catch of the day.



Ryan sat on the rock next to Casey, who had finally stopped crying. He didn’t know what to say, so he just sat and dangled his feet in the water. Casey was pulling the rainbow hair clips out of her hair and dropping them one by one into the river. When the final one had floated downstream, the two children just sat on the rock in silence, listening to the wind in the cattails.