Writing my first short story this March for Neilson Hays Young Writer competition was both entertaining and challenging, as I usually write academic essays, and I wanted to try something new. I also wanted to win the competition 🙂 However, in hindsight, winning the competition was not my priority. I just wanted to write a story, and I wish to share it with others.

Often, writers say they do not wish to share their first stories. I feel the same embarrassment of sharing my first story, but I do not want to keep it as if a teenage girl hiding the diary from her parents. What is the point of writing a story if nobody can see it, anyway? So, here you go:

“She’s an orphan,” the girl in front of Leslie whispered to her friend. 

Leslie said nothing, but she pressed her lips so hard they turned white. Her knuckles tightened on the pen she was holding. 

I can hear you, you know, her mind retorted, but Leslie sat still, afraid that if she talked, her voice would crack. 

This had been going on for some months now. Ever since she moved in with her uncle and his wife, and got into this new school, somehow, rumors spread that she was the new kid whose parents died in a car accident and that same accident that caused deafness in her older sister. They weren’t rumors if they were true, though, right? 

Things couldn’t have been more messed up in her life. She suddenly couldn’t wait to go back home. 

Home… she sighed, bringing her forehead to meet the desk. The home was never home without her mom, dad, and sister.

*** 

Through the thin wood of the door, Leslie could hear her aunt and uncle arguing. 

“We have our own to take care of! Come on, Pat. There’s no way you’re thinking that—“ 

“I made a promise to my brother, and I intend to keep. I can’t use the money from their college fund!” 

Leslie stifled a gasp with her hands, stumbling backward. Fortunately, they were too caught up in their argument to see Leslie. 

“How else are we going to foot the bills for Samantha’s surgery? Therapy, too?” Samantha was Leslie’s sister, and her interest was so piqued at this point that she leaned in further, her ear smack to the door. 

“We’ll find a way. It’s not going to be from their college fund, though. We’ll ask the lawyer.” Uncle Pat didn’t sound so firm, though, Leslie thought worriedly. 

“You better do or having pop tarts for breakfast will be a luxury!” Finished her aunt on a gloomy note.

Leslie turned and ran out of the suddenly small house. Her heart was beating out of her chest. She got on her pockmarked bicycle and rode the distance to the hospital. 

*** 

She felt better as she alighted from the bicycle, brushing her breeze-tangled hair from her lips, with a slight grimace, and waving to the nurses on duty — everyone knew Leslie and her sister and made efforts to be nice. The girl wasn’t unaware, though, of the whispering nudges and pitiful stares. This was the same hospital where her parents were pronounced deceased and where Samantha was doing therapy. 

With her stomach suffering from food poisoning, she hurried to the ward her sister was in. 

Most of the patients were either sleeping or eating, and Leslie’s eyes roved over everyone until she got to her sister. Samantha was in a sitting position, with her hand subconsciously rubbing the bald patch on her head. Leslie waved as she approached, and her older sister smiled tiredly. 

“How are you?” 

Samantha winced in reply, adjusting her hearing aid. After fiddling with it for some seconds, her face grew disgruntled, and she took the portable whiteboard, which had a marker attached to it.

“Sorry, I’m not used to it,” her sister scribbled. Leslie shrugged, mildly uncomfortable, unknowing whether to speak or be still. Something had changed between them. 

The silence and the awkwardness that followed must have lasted for centuries. 

Samantha wrote something on the board again, and Leslie mouthed the words as she read through. 

I can talk, you know. 

“Sorry. You can talk if you want to.” the younger girl laughed sheepishly. Her sister laughed with her and wrote something else. 

I can talk to you, but you have to write to me. 

Leslie’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears, and she hugged her sister so tight, a surprised “oof” came out of the latter. 

“What happened?” Samantha finally spoke. Her voice was raspy from unuse, and the modulations didn’t sound exactly right. Wiping her eyes, Leslie took the board and started to scribble.

I think Uncle Pat’s wife wants to use the funds mom and dad saved up to pay for your therapy. And people call me a freak at school and say I’m unlucky because everyone around me dies or gets hurt. I just want to stay with you. Let’s live in our real house please. 

Leslie’s tears fell to the ink on the board and made the words runny. “Leslie…” Hugging her to herself, Samantha stroked her sister’s hair. “It’s okay.” 

“I’m going to be eighteen soon, okay? It’s just a matter of months now. And we’ll move back to our old house, I’ll be your guardian, and I’ll take care of you. You tell those bullies in your school that weird is the new normal anyway, and they should take their jealousies and shove it up their big mouths. Tell them that, do you hear me?” 

Leslie grinned and looked at her older sister through tear stained eyes. Her sister winked at her. 

“You got this.” Samantha held her hand out for a fist bump. Suddenly, Leslie didn’t feel like the world was upside down.

*** 

The teasing carried on into the following weeks, and slowly, slowly, Leslie’s classmates weren’t only jeering at her, but pinching, prodding, and picking on her. 

“Hey. Pockface.” Someone called during recess. 

Her hand went to her face on autopilot. She’d had acne since she was nine, and it hadn’t gotten any better. There were red spots on her face from the old ones she’d popped when she didn’t know any better. Although her sister reassured her repeatedly that there was nothing to worry about and that it was a ‘growing up thing’, she still fretted about it. 

When a spitball landed in her hair, she twitched but otherwise did or said nothing. The boy grew bolder. 

“I’m talking to you, Pokémon!” Another spitball sat in her ear. Leslie flushed in anger and turned around suddenly, catching the boy in the act as he prepared to lob another.

“Will you stop that! Why do you do it, huh? Pick on people? My name is Leslie! Not pockface or whatever other nasty names you’ve thought up. And if you ever call me or my sister freaks ever again, I’ll punch you in the throat, so shut your big mouth! Capiche?” 

She didn’t know what the last word meant, or how it was spelled, but she’d read it in books so many times she wanted to try it out. 

With her face solemn but her heart and mind soaring, she sat back in her seat triumphantly, leaving her classmates shell shocked. 

*** 

“Happy birthday, dear Samantha, happy birthday to you,” Leslie motioned in sign language and sang simultaneously. 

“Thank you!” Sam, excited, hugged her younger sister, who was already flushed in anticipation of the day. 

“I hope you are having a good day. Today is your final therapy session!” Leslie added in sign language, concentrating as she tried to get the gestures right. She’d been learning it as a surprise for Samantha, who thought that she wasn’t excited about learning the language.

“I’m proud of you.” Sam ruffled her sister’s hair, which made her blush furiously. 

“Can we go to the lawyer today?” Leslie asked, stuffing a bunch of fries into her mouth. 

“No,” Her older sister laughed. “Let’s wait until I’m older, alright? But since I’ve told Uncle Pat, and he’s agreed to come in occasionally to check on us, it’s going to be okay.” 

“Okay. Are you going out with your friends?” Leslie asked innocently. 

Her sister smiled sadly. Since the incident, her contacts with her friends had been dwindling day after day, but she still had some that had been checking up on her in the hospital. 

“They’ll come around,” Leslie said. 

“Some of them might not, but it’s going to be okay. Are those people still bothering you?”

The younger girl grinned. “Not anymore. And I made a new friend! His name is Gabriel.” 

“Maybe I’ll get to meet this Gabriel sometime. On your birthday?” 

Leslie squealed excitedly, and Samantha beamed, signing and lip-reading to each other at the table. Others looked at them in confusion. Perhaps some still look with pity. But it didn’t matter to them. Who liked being normal, anyway? What mattered was that they had each other.