“Methinks thou dost protest too much,” said the woman from her arm chair, cigarette in hand, smoke winding slowly up through the lampshade chimney.
“Everyone else is going. THEIR parents let THEM.“
“If everyone was jumping off the Brooklyn bridge would you jump just because everyone else is? The answer is NO.”
Mathilda turned and waltzed out of the room. It was hopeless. Her friend, Adelaide, was waiting in the back yard for the verdict.
“Well?”
“No. I got the Brooklyn Bridge thing.”
“I HATE the Brooklyn Bridge thing. My parents do that, too.”
“Parents.”
“Yeah. You want me to go talk to her? Maybe I can talk her into it.”
Mathilda shrugged. “I don’t think it would work. The Brooklyn Bridge is usually the end of the conversation. “
“I’ll try. She’s not MY mom. She has to be nice to me.”
“OK, but…”
“Just stay here.”
The shade of the house slowly covered the back yard, the picnic table where Mathilda was siting, the Rose of Sharon bush and Adelaide still hadn’t come back. “I wonder what happened?” Mathilda went inside and found her mom cooking dinner.
“Where’s Adelaide?”
“I sent her home. If you have something to say to me, talk to ME, don’t send in your attorneys.”
“What?”
“I told you no. You knew my answer. Then you went out there and got your little friend to come in and try another tactic.”
“She wanted to come in and talk to you. I didn’t make her.”
“Be that as it may, in this house I’m judge and jury.”
“Her parents are letting her go.”
“So I heard. Well, your parents AREN’T letting you go. You’re only eleven years old. You have plenty of time for movies like that. Set the table. Your dad will be home any minute.”
Mathilda wondered what her mom meant by “movies like that.” She decided to ask Adelaide during recess. Adelaide knew everything.
The prompt this morning is the word “spruiker.” Here’s the definition: “noun at spruik verb. DEFINITIONS1. 1. (Australian English) someone who tries to persuade people to buy something, use a service, etc often in a dishonest or exaggerated way.” Since the one example that came to mind is someone and something I don’t want to write about this’ll have to suffice. 🙂
“Summer is the season of inferior sledding” - Inuit proverb 
Creative use of the prompt!
Thank you! My new resolution is a story every morning no matter what. 🙂
I’ve been enjoying them, when I get the opportunity to read. A goal is good to have. I should consider setting one.
I am bereft of inspiration and suffering ennui, plus it’s incredibly hot and impossible to get out. I think some of my ennui is a hangover from last year and just holding all together. So I figure writing stories is fun and every one so far has given me a writing lesson, a certain point where turning the corner wrong would wreck the story. That’s very good. I figure times like these are times to get better at the basic craft of something.
I get the ennui and the heat. I’ve always on written in the morning, but that has changed, so I’ve been finding it a struggle too. I like your point of view on using this time to get better at the craft.
It’s an act of faith that this is only a moment in time. 🙂
Is spruiking not a thing in your part of the world?
“Spruiking” is definitely a thing in my part of the world, but it’s not a word we use. I think we say the guy is a shyster (from German Scheisser) and I don’t know what the verb would be other than conning, lying, deceiving that kind of thing. The prime example, of course, is Trump followed by the Evil X and my mom. 😀
There is a lot of that type of spruiking going on.
One of my favourite images of spruiking is at closing hour on a Sunday afternoon at some weekend fruit markets. The fruito start calling the price of fruit and veg and it ends up like a reverse auction to sell off the last of the produce. They don’t do that so much anymore.
That sounds like fun, actually!
Loud, but fun.
but I’m really disappointed that no one picked up on the Australia allusions in my story. “Mathilda waltzed out of the room” and her friend is named Adelaide. 😦
Haha. I did miss that. 😄 I got so carried away with the notion that spruik was an Australian word that I just focussed on that.
I leave you Easter eggs whenever possible, Tracy! 😀
❤