Hennessy
doodled in the margins of her notebook as she tried, and failed, to focus on
the droning voice of her history professor as attempted to lead a discussion
about Mesopotamian culture. Despite growing up on a farm and being used to
waking up early to feed the sheep before jazz band in the morning, Hennessy
wished she would have never registered for an 8 am class. She resolved that
when she signed up for classes next semester, the earliest she would schedule a
class was 10 am.
College 8 am was
not equivalent to high school 8 am, never mind the fact that jazz band had been
at 7 am. The last two weeks had been a blur. She had agreed to join Writer’s
Anonymous, and in addition to her classes and the resultant workload, she had
been ruminating on an idea for a short story, and the first chapter was finally
written and ready to post to the site. Adam had been right, setting time aside
for some creativity had helped center her, even if it was only a few minutes
each day. It was liberating to work on something that was not required, but
rather was something she chose to do.
She and Adam had
also started meeting in the library to study in between classes. Hennessy had
discovered that she was much more productive studying in there, rather than her
dorm room with its tempting promise of non-homework related fun with her floor
mates. Hennessy credited these study sessions and the focused work she was able
to accomplish with creating the time she could use to write before bed each
night. While studying together did not necessarily allow Hennessy and Adam a
lot of chatting time, their class schedules aligned fairly well, so they were
to converse on their way to class. Hennessy had discovered that while Adam did
seem to focus on fun, he also had a firm desire to help those around him. He
volunteered one afternoon a week at an elementary school helping struggling
students discover a love for reading.
Hennessy admired
that he was able to find this balance between fun, serving others, school, and
writing. She found it a struggle to balance school, self-care, and writing. She
often joked that he would give Mother Teresa a run for her money, to which he
responded with a sardonic grin that he could never survive a vow of chastity,
which was typically met by an eye roll from Hennessy.
Hennessy was
pulled from her thoughts by the sound of a bell. Her class was now over, and
she had a few hours before her chemistry class. The autumn sun warmed her face
as she walked through the doors of the Reneke Building. The leaves on the trees
were starting to turn, and she was greeted by shades of red, orange, and
yellow. It felt like a shame to waste an hour of the autumn warmth, especially
with the threat of the winter chill looming closer and closer, so she found a
picnic table under the shade of an oak tree and settled in.
She knew she
should work on finishing the Epic of Gilgamesh. Her essay on the poem was due
in two days, but she was not feeling like reading about the adventures of the
ancient king. She had set a soft deadline to post the first chapter of her
short story by tonight, and it was almost ready, but she wanted to reread it
before doing so. Although Adam had reassured her numerous times that Writers
Anonymous was a group of friends, not a group of critics, Hennessy still did
not want to embarrass herself, or more especially, Adam, by submitting shoddy
work. Yes, she was a bit of a perfectionist, but it had suited her so far in
life, so she did not see the need to change.
Hennessy pulled
out a pink folder with a picture of a leopard on it from her bag, and started
to read the printed version of her first short story, red pen at the ready.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lizzie
Mucks a Barn
Elizabeth Clara Maynard, otherwise known as
Lizzie, was not pleased. She was currently grounded. For something she did not
do. Okay maybe she did do it, but that was beside the point. Her twin sister
Maggie, otherwise known as Margaret Eleanor, was just as much at fault as
Lizzie was, yet once again, somehow Lizzie received all of the blame. And now
she was responsible for mucking out the sheep barn. By herself. So what if she
was the mastermind behind the plan that led to the goats escaping the field and
eating their next door neighbor, Mrs. Bouffant’s prized peonies. Anyone could
have accidently left the gate open in the goat field. Lizzie had been absorbed
in pretending she was Brigitta von Trapp and had been signing “Do-Re-Mi” at the
top of her lungs and frolicking in the meadow.
Lizzie jabbed
the pitchfork into dirty straw, then grunted as she lifted it into the
wheelbarrow. At least the day wasn’t too hot, so she was able to work at a
fairly decent pace. However, it still felt like she would be here forever.
There were so many other things the ten-year-old would much rather be doing.
Like watching a musical, practicing piano, even doing the dishes, but here she
was in a stinky barn slaving away while her sister was probably in their room
reading a book.
A group of lambs
ambled up to Lizzie to see what she was doing. Lizzie smiled, and reached out
to pet the closest lamb, Jumper. Jumper was one of her show lambs she planned
to take to the county fair this year, and she had been taking him on walks
regularly. Ashley, her thirteen year old sister, had warned her that it was not
a good idea to name a show lamb, as it would make selling that show lamb at the
end of summer so much harder, but Lizzie could not stand to not name him,
especially as he followed her everywhere, which may have had something to do
with the fact that Lizzie had been bribing him with grain to be her friend
since he was old enough to eat solid foods.
This was Lizzie
and Maggie’s first year to join their siblings in the show ring. Sheep shows
had been a family tradition for as long as Lizzie could remember, and her
parents relayed their experience in the show ring on occasion at family dinner.
Her parents had even met each other one summer at a sheep show when they were
twelve and the rest was history. Lizzie thought that this was so romantic and
hoped that she met someone that could be her best friend when she started going
to shows. Although, as she was ten, she did acknowledge that she had a while
before she had to worry about getting married.
Raising show
lambs had been harder than Lizzie thought it would be. Although she had kind of
helped her older siblings in the previous years, this year she was solely
responsible for ensuring that Jumper and Reginald (her other show lamb)
received an adequate amount of exercise. Haltering a lamb, and then attempting
to teach the stubborn ovine to follow you while you were pulling it behind you
had been difficult, but she had now reached the point where Jumper and Reginald
trusted her, and she was actually able to walk them together, instead of having
to take them on separate walks. She was still attempting to overcome the
embarrassment that came from walking a sheep like a horse or a dog; however, at
least she didn’t have to take a herd of pigs for a walk like her friend
McKenzie who would be showing pigs at the county fair. Now that had to be
embarrassing. Plus, pigs smelled so much worse than sheep.
“Hey Lizzie-bug!
Enjoying your time mucking out the barn by yourself? “
Lizzie glared at
her older brother, Luke. He was of course attached to his girlfriend Veronica.
They never went anywhere separately it seemed. Personally, Lizzie couldn’t see
what Veronica thought was so cool about Luke. He had dark red hair, freckles,
and his width had not caught up with his growth spurt over the past year, and
in Lizzie’s opinion he was kind of tall and scrawny despite the fact that he
ate twice as much as a normal person should. But Veronica was attached to his
hand, smiling moronically like he was the hottest guy in the world as she
playfully slapped Luke’s arm.
“Luke,” she
protested, “don’t be such a jerk to Lizzie. I think I remember a time that you
also left the gate open and the goats raided Mrs. Abernathy’s flower garden
when you were fourteen and having to muck out the barn by yourself.”
Lizzie rolled
her eyes, Veronica and Luke had been practically inseparably since the second
grade when Veronica moved to Fairfield Village. The googly eyes were a new
development, but if Lizzie remembered right it had actually been Veronica that
had left the gate open, but a short and scrawny Luke had taken the fall, as he
was desperately trying to impress Veronica while trying to simultaneously act
like he wasn’t interested in her. Teenagers were so weird. And yes, Lizzie’s
memories might be a little cloudy as she was seven at the time, but she did
remember their oldest brother Daniel rolling his eyes at Luke’s attempts to be
the knight in shining armor. Veronica had snuck over and helped Luke clean the
barn. After that, she and Luke had come to an agreement that neither should
take the fall for the other and that they would face their punishments
together.
Veronica
detached herself from Luke’s hand and grabbed a pitchfork leaning against the
fence and started scooping dirty straw into the wheelbarrow between her and
Lizzie. Luke rolled his eyes and likewise grabbed a pitchfork; however he was
not quiet for long.
“It’s a good
thing you are my favorite youngest sister.”
Lizzie rolled
her eyes as she shoveled a scoop of straw and manure in the wheelbarrow. She
was not amused by Luke reminding her yet again of her entrance into the world
mere minutes after Maggie.
“I’m your only
youngest sister,” Lizzie retorted. “Maybe if you said that I was your favorite
younger sister, I might take more stock in your words.”
“Yeah, but you
don’t tell me that I’m your favorite older brother.”
“Maybe that is
because Daniel is actually nice to me, or at least he is not around to bug me
much since he graduated high school and went to college. And Sam is just cool.
He downloads his music to my mp3 player. And he has much better taste in music
than you.”
“You wound me,
bug.”
“He likes
musicals. You like country music. Musicals are just so much funner to dance
to.”
“Someday, you
will be old enough to go country swing dancing and you will understand the
amazingness that is Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, and Shania Twain.”
“Ah-hem!”
Veronica interjected, as she threw a pitchfork full of muck in the wheelbarrow,
“As I recall I am not the one that lives here and these are not my sheep, so
why am I doing all of the work? Let’s get done, so that Lizzie can get back to
singing her musicals and we can get ready to go dancing. And just for the
record, Celtic music is the best.”
Lizzie and Luke
looked at each other, guiltily at each other and quickly got back to work.
Veronica was making good time mucking out the barn, even with a brief interlude
to do an Irish jig with her pitchfork to punctuate her love for Celtic music.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eliza had just
finished reading the short story, when she noticed a shadow. Looking up, she
smiled as she realized it was Adam.
“Is this bench
taken?” he asked as he sat opposite her.
“You didn’t want
to waste this beautiful morning for the library either?” Hennessy queried.
“Nope, and I am
glad I’m glad I found you,” he answered.
“Why? I mean I
am pretty cool, but we usually don’t meet this early. I didn’t think your first
class was until eleven.”
“It’s not, but I
was just wondering how the writing was going, and if you wanted to meet today
to eat lunch together.”
Hennessy smiled
up at Adam. She had never noticed before, but he had the bluest eyes and the
longest eye lashes. Hennessy suddenly felt slightly embarrassed that she had
been staring at Adam’s eyes so intently and hurried to look away.
“That sounds
like a great idea,” she said with a smile looking back at him, trying not to
make the moment as awkward for Adam as it was for her at that moment. What was
wrong with her? Adam was her study partner. They were friends. Why did she feel
butterflies all of the sudden in her stomach at the thought of eating lunch
with him in a crowded cafeteria full of college students?
“As for the
first part of your question, I have my first short story to submit. Well, it is
not really a short story, as it is only 1300 words, but it is my first foray
into the world I want to create. I think I’m going to focus on little snippets
at first, rather than a full story. I think that will be a bit more sustainable
with how busy I am. During my Wikipedia rabbit hole last now, I think the genre
would be either a sketch story or vignette. How is your writing going?”
Hennessy felt
relieved to return to a safe subject rather than one that forced her to evaluate
her reaction to lunch with Adam. Introspection was not her favorite past time.
“It’s going. I
actually have an idea that has been ruminating for years, and it seems like I
am finally able to get my words down on paper, or at least computer screen,” Adam
smiled revealing a dimple, which did not help Hennessy’s struggle to avoid
introspection.
“Great! It
always is a great feeling when you are able to get the words out. I’m really
glad that you talked me into this writing gig with you. It is providing a lot
of stress relief. I just really hope that others will find my ideas worth
reading, so that they can give me feedback and I can improve.”
“That is the
focus of the group. Every time you post a story, you are giving the link for 5
other entries to read and review. That way you get feedback, and you get to
read other people’s work and learn from critically reading another’s work to
provide feedback. Some of the reviewers can be brutal in their honesty, but
really that is what is needed when you are a writer. It is better to experience
that in the draft phases rather than later when you are trying to sell your
ideas. And yes, I know you don’t necessarily want to be a professional writer,
but it can be a nice side gig. And you can submit your stories for contests and
potentially win a little bit of extra cash here and there. Or at least that is
what my friend Rick says. He actually created the forum, and he is using his
freelance writer income to help pay for college and eventually PA school.”
Hennessy bit her
bottom lip as she thought of the implications of what Adam just said. Yes,
reading and critiquing five other stories or chapters would take time, but she
also knew that there had to be some give and take. She couldn’t expect to
receive feedback if she was unable to return the favor. Plus, it would give her
a break from her course work. Although she loved to learn, being told what to
learn was not as entertaining. She appreciated the breadth of knowledge that
she was gaining, but sometimes she did not really understand how stoichiometry
or ancient Sumerians would help her on her career path helping others, even if
she did not know exactly how what the path would end up looking like.
“That actually
sounds like a good idea. The shared editing part, not necessarily the freelance
writer gig; I don’t think I am ready to commit to that yet. I would rather have
some feedback, rather than just silence,” Hennessy responded.
“Well, I am
always here if you need a reader too. However, right now, I need to give myself
a crash course on mitosis for my biology class. However, with this awesome
weather, I think I am going to stay out here with you and try to focus on the
dry words of cell reproduction, rather than the beauty that surrounds me,” he
said with a cheeky grin as he grabbed his Bio 100 textbook.
Also Available on:
Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/story/233598841-hennessy-the-shepherdess,
FictionPress: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3348903/1/Hennessy-the-Shepherdess.
Inkitt: https://www.inkitt.com/stories/humor/551847
