Something for Creative Writing Class

This is my first post and I thought I'd kick this blog off by sharing some of my work. In my Creative Writing class my teacher Ms. Frazier assigned the class to pick out some philosophies that we live by and then write a story that shows how you learned this philosophy. Then we are to put these stories in a book making what she calls "an excerpt from your autobiography." So here's one of the stories I have wrote:

Mama said” Your good name is all you have don’t lose it over a lie”

She said this just before I confessed to my crimes. She gave me that death penalty look. Being that I was 9 and had no concept of punishment I felt like I was confessing to serial murder. I mean how would you feel if your mother made it seem like you were going to get capital punishment for even breathing wrong!

What’s my crime you ask? I was accused of talking in class and getting a bad mark in my agenda. And when questioned by my dad aka the prosecution/judge, if indeed I had actually been talking…I plead not guilty. Little did I know that my dad already had the best case against me…he had eye witnesses! Now how was I supposed to compete with that? Yep, my big mouth teacher Ms. Pulphus had already called him and let him know of my “suspected unlawful activities.”

I was under the impression that the prosecution was supposed to share all evidence with the defense. Apparently, this was not the case. So unaware of the artillery the prosecution was equipped with I got on the stand and did what any nine year old would do --- I lied. See the thing about a lie is if you tell one you have to tell another to keep the first one straight. Eventually, it gets confusing. So there I was on the stand testifying on my behalf lying up a storm.

The prosecution asked me, “So what happened at school today?”

I replied, “Oh nothing much. It was ok.”(I knew good and doggone well I had gotten in trouble for excessive talking.)

The prosecution shot back, “Oh, Really? Well let me see your agenda?”

“OH SNAP!” I thought to myself. What was I going to do? I thought quickly and told another lie. I protested that I had left my agenda at school and that I would bring it home tomorrow.”

The prosecution looked at me smiled and said, “Ok then, you do that. Talk to you later.”

In my mind I was saying “Really? That’s it! OMG! I can’t believe I got out of that one.” Little did I know that was only part one of the trial. We were only taking a brief recess and proceedings would continue later on. As promised my dad did talk to me later. I happened to be in the car with my mom when we talked. See my mom was going to Wal-Mart and on the way to Wal-Mart there was a Blockbuster’s. And of course this would be the day I would want a video tape. (Yes I said video tape! DVDs weren’t popular then) Like any little kid I asked my mama could I rent a video tape? She looked at me and said peculiarly, “Well I don’t know ask your dad.” Ok I’m 9 not stupid, by now I knew something was up! So I called my dad on my mama’s dinosaur of a cell phone and asked could I get a video tape. Even though I knew something was funny I figured if my dad was a sucker for that lie earlier then he’d probably let me get the video tape.

Unfortunately, the trial was back in session and I was put on the stand again. The prosecution wasted no time “I don’t know if you can get the video tape, why don’t you tell me what really happened at school today?”

OH SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! I wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t know what else to do…so I did what any little 9 year old girl with some sense would do…I played my daddy card. Yep that’s right, I cried like a little (insert curse word here). I broke down and confessed to everything! I thought for sure he would forgive me right then and let me have my way! You know what he did instead? He told me that he knew the whole time I was lying and that Ms. Pulphus had already had called him. I came to terms with that part but what baffled me was that after all that confessing I still couldn’t get my tape! I expressed this to my mama and that’s when she said that I was foolish if all I was worried about was losing a few privileges, she told me there was more at stake. That’s when she laid down the famous quote, “Your good name is all you have don’t lose it over a lie.” It all had come full circle for me I understood exactly what she meant. Ever since then I have done my best to refrain from lying. There are sometimes when I’m not completely honest but 9 times out of 10 the guilt would get to me and I’ll confess.

So there you have it, the trial was over. The jury had deliberated and found me guilty on all counts. According to 9 year old me the judge sentenced me to life without parole. But in actuality I had to get good marks in my agenda for the rest of the week to earn a trip to the video store. And on the plus side my sentence was handed out Wednesday so I only had two days to prove myself!