Saturday, March 24, 2007

The Next Line 4

The sand was marbled with dark goo, and not far from us, a seagull struggled across a shallow rock pool. He toppled over again and again, flapping one wing to struggle back on to his feet and stagger a few steps, only to topple over again. The other wing hung from his side.

"What happened?"

"Listen to you, all talky talky. Don’t waste your few golden words on stupid questions. You know what happened. I’m sure you’ve never even kissed a boy, but you do biology, you know where babies come from."

"That’s not what I mean."

"I can’t tell you what happened. I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone we were even going out, let alone . . . you know, doing it."

"Does he know about the baby?"

"No."

"You’ve got to tell him."

"I will when I get the chance." Down at the rock pool, the seagull toppled over onto his side.

"Does anyone else know?"

"Chatty today, aren’t you? Lots of questions."

"This is important. I can talk if it’s important."

She looked at the seagull for a while, and I didn’t think she would answer, but she did. "Nobody else knows. And don’t get any big ideas about telling anyone, because I will kill you, I mean, literally kill you if you open your big mouth."

"I'm not gonna tell anyone," I said. "Heck, I didn't even know it was possible to do it with a seagull."


Dialogue: McKoala.....The Next Line: Pacatrue

No comments: