This year’s October fiction project is a short middle-grade horror novel. The working title is “Turning Leaves,” but that will probably change.
Here are the rules (which I am making up as I go along!):
- Write every day.
- Write about a thousand words every day.
- Write words the same day the characters would be writing them, for the most part (that is, Oct 1 words in the story = Oct 1 words in real life).
- Don’t plan ahead.
- Don’t quit.
I don’t have an outline or even a plan.
It’s been a while since I wrote middle-grade fiction. This should be fun.
…
October Fiction Projects to Date:
2017 – October Nights – General flash fiction short horror-ish stories.
Website – Ebook
2018 – Tales of the Normal – Twilight Zone-style surreal stories.
2019 – Crime du Jour – Short crime stories.
2023 – Turning Leaves – Middle-grade horror.
Website – And sign up for the newsletter to get updates about the final ebook!
Turning Leaves (Working Title): October 4 - Replacements
Note under Mr. Henderson’s note in Jayla’s journal entry from October 3:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956.
October 4 – Jayla
So. My old school.
This isn’t my first school. We moved here after my dad died in the middle of fifth grade and my mom got married to Stepdad Dave. We used to live on the north end of the city, in a brand-new house surrounded by brand-new houses.
I feel like I fit in here better than I fit in at my old school.
Not like that was hard. My old elementary school sucked. It was full of people whose parents were racist, so their kids were racist, too. I tried hard to fit in. We had to wear uniforms every day, we had to have our hair cut to a certain length or else pulled back out of our faces, our fingernails couldn’t be too long, girls could only have two earrings and they had to not stick out past the ends of ears. Boys all had to wear belts.
I acted totally different than I do now.
I tried really, really hard to fit in.
It didn’t work.
I didn’t have any friends at my old school. I didn’t have anyone to hang out with. It sounds so lame now. The people I thought were cool, they didn’t think I was cool.
The fact that they didn’t like me meant everything.
Now I know better.
The people I thought were cool weren’t cool. They were jerks.
I wrote a different word there and had to scratch it out.
Should I fold this page over?
Maybe.
I feel kind of committed to leaving the pages unfolded, though.
Write it all down for someone to judge me.
Am I brave enough to write the truth today?
Maybe?
Maybe not?
Today I’m up in my bedroom writing. Stepdad Dave has been pacing around downstairs in the living room and talking on the phone since I got back home from school. He sounds angry about something. He says things like, “Well?” in a mean tone of voice, and then listens for a long time.
When I went downstairs for supper, mom wasn’t in her room, so I looked for her.
She was in the basement.
Which was weird.
She was watching the same movie I watched on Monday, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
It’s an old black-and-white movie, no big special effects. Lots of talking and soft background music. People are always dressed up in suits and fur coats and there are flowers in vases just sitting around on tables. The books are all leather with gold foil on the spines.
The story is slow.
They’re fighting off an alien invasion and they still have time to drink martinis.
You don’t have to keep your eyes open to watch the movie, not really. All the sounds are clear enough that you can close your eyes and just listen, and you can still see it perfectly clearly.
The movie was about halfway through, the part where they’re having a party in the back yard and the pod is opening in the greenhouse.
The doctor sees it and shouts and everyone comes running to look.
If someone starts screaming at school, nobody comes running to look to see what the problem is. Instead we all try to hide or evacuate.
Mom is wrapped up in the itchy downstairs blankets with the light of the black and white movie reflecting on her face.
Then the pretty brown-haired lady is crying and saying that her father has been replaced.
Sometimes I feel like my mom has been replaced.
By a pod person.
When she is having a good day, she won’t explain what’s wrong. She just smiles and tells me not to worry about it right now.
The other days, she doesn’t really talk much at all, just “yes” and “no” and “whatever Dave says.”
Which one is the real mom? I don’t know.
Maybe neither.
I don’t know why she got married to Stepdad Dave. He barely seems to notice that she exists.
I’m not brave enough to write it all down today after all.
Sticky note from Mr. Henderson on Lola’s October 3 entry: Ms. Shaltrow, would you take a look at this? I can’t make heads or tails of it.
Answer from Ms. Emma Shaltrow (Librarian): It’s quite playful and indicates a very well-read child; while she is reading at a precociously adult level, it doesn’t seem to be doing her any harm. Twelve-year-old girls can be quite forward in their exploration of newly relevant adult territories. I’ll make sure to recommend Miss Ault additional reading material to help broaden her perspective on the subjects she’s interested in, the next time she stops by at the library. Just let her stretch her wings 😉
October 4 - Lola
Wednesday.
I feel as though my every move was being watched this morning at breakfast. Teachers are staring at me. Students are staring at me. Janitors are staring at me.
It’s not paranoia if people are actually spying on me.
I am wearing red jeans and a pink and white sequin shirt where the sequins flip over, so one way it’s metallic and pink and the other way it’s pearly and white.
I am wearing my heart-shaped red glasses with it and staring at people over the tops of my glasses while chewing on the end of my pen.
Perfectly normal outfit for me.
I tell you, I am being watched.
MUAHAHAHAHAHA!
#lifegoals
❤
Okay so what happened was that I expected to get called up front or sent to the office by Mr. Henderson after he read my last journal entry but nope. I was sure I was going to get in trouble. I had my arguments all figured out. Down with censorship! Up with freedom of speech!
Instead I got sent to the library.
And…it was okay?
I don’t normally go to the library. Librarians are always trying to get me to read VERY IMPORTANT BOOKS about kids my age and magic treehouses or schoolbuses or babysitting or Canada or Narnia.
BORING STUFF, FORSOOTH.
But Ms. Shaltrow was okay. She gave me a stack of non-middle-grade books in a canvas tote bag and said, “I understand that you have a love of books and writing, yes? And a very active imagination. Here are some supplemental reading materials for you to consider.”
Then she winked at me.
Afterwards I used my phone to look up the books. Mostly romance? But not all?
LIST OF BOOKS:
Indigo by Beverly Jenkins.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.
Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (I’ve read that one already, it was pretty good, kind of light?).
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer.
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin.
Am I supposed to read all these? Write a book report? Rank them? SET THEM ON FIRE?!?!
Hide them from the book banner parents?!?
Ms. Shaltrow, I’m too young to die!!!
Although if I do die, dying in the service of books is pretty cool.
[Lola stares meaningfully into the sunset.]
I don’t understand. Is this a secret message from one book nerd to another? And all I have to do is figure out the code? I looked for code words and secret marks inside the books but did not see any. HOWEVER, stuck inside The Stepford Wives is a gray bookmark. It is weird and floppy and almost sticky, like it’s a dried fruit strip? I held it up to the overhead lights to see whether there was secret writing on it but I didn’t see anything.
I don’t get it.
When I got back from the library, I flipped through the books for a while. Jayla turned around in her seat and looked at them, then picked up The Stepford Wives.
She said, “I didn’t know you read horror.”
I said, “I don’t? But the librarian gave me this one?”
“It’s good,” she said. “Weird but good. About women who—”
Then the bookmark fell out of the book with a pwap! and we both stared at it.
“That’s weird,” Jayla said.
“Right?”
She poked it with her finger but all her fingernails were chewed off, so I picked it up and gave it to her. “It was in Stepford book. You can have it if you want it.”
“Thanks,” she said, then held it under her nose and sniffed it. “What does this smell like to you?”
I leaned over and sniffed it. “Bananas and fingernail polish?”
“I thought so, too. The question is, why would anyone leave this in a book?”
“Bandaid for rubber monster costumes,” I said, then stuck out my tongue and flopped my arms around like a dork. “For when they get attacked by raging townspeople who mistake them for the real thing.”
She laughed, then turned around in her seat.
Mr. Henderson, I don’t know whether to glare at you or thank you.
We bonded!!!!
❤
Jayla’s Spell for Getting Mom to Wake Up
– Unknown
– Unknown
– Unknown
P.S. What is this bookmark thing? I can’t even cut it with one of Stepdad Dave’s super fancy kitchen knives. GAH.