Donna Jo Napoli was one of the writers I met at Chautuaqua. She’s a really cool lady, very petite and sweet and writes some of the darkest children’s books you’re ever likely to read. Zel gave me the shivers for days (in a good way). I got her to sign my copy of Ugly which is a very masterful retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s story of The Ugly Duckling. Since the misfit theme is one that crops up regularly in children’s writing, I figured it would make a good writing prompt for today.
(NOTE: I know I said I was going to do these exercises every day but I had a really wierd health issue crop up–vertigo with some facial numbness–which is now resolved, I hope. I’m getting back to a regular writing schedule, finally, and am also going on with my blog.)
MERVIN
“Above is cold and light and terrible. Below is warm and dark and safe. Below is home,” all the little moles chanted together.
Mervin the mole nudged his brother, Mel. “Want to go peek out of the tunnel entrance?” he asked.
“Ugh! No! You are so wierd, Merv. You’re the only mole I know who wants to see what’s Above.” Mel shouldered his way past Mervin and began digging a new tunnel out of the school space.
Mervin sighed and made his way back to his family’s burrow. He could dig, but not nearly as well as the other moles. He preferred to travel by the old tunnels whenever he could.
“Mervin, there’s something we have to tell you,” his father said that night once all the mole family was together. It was a tight squeeze in the burrow. It was nearly time for the young moles to move out.
“What is it, Papa?” asked Mervin. He tried to get his back leg up so he could scratch his neck, but there wasn’t room.
“The thing is, Mervin, you’re not a mole.”
“What?’
“That’s right, dear” Mervin’s mama said. “Your papa found you in the entrance tunnel. You weren’t much bigger than my babies and I had plenty of milk, so we took you in.”
“You’ve been a good son, Son,” Papa Mole said. “But you’ve grown so big that you just can’t stay here any more. You dig pretty well, considering how scrawny your paws are, but you’re just not one of us. You’re not a mole, and that’s that.”
“If I’m not a mole, what am I?” Mervin asked, swallowing hard to keep from bursting into tears. He was a big mole–or whatever–and big moles don’t cry.
“We don’t know. The High Mole says you must leave the colony.”
“Leave? But where would I go?”
“Above. The High Mole says no animal who lives Below has your kind of ears. He says you must seek your fortune up . . .there.” Papa mole motioned upwards with his snout and shuddered. Mervin shuddered, too. But, deep inside, he felt something stirring that felt more like excitement than fear.
All his brothers and sisters nuzzled Mervin one last time. His mother licked his nose. His father lovingly bumped shoulders with him. In a daze, Mervin crawled along until he came to the entrance to Above . It was night, but even the light of the stars was more than his eyes were used to. He crawled out of the tunnel and hunched up, shivering and blinking, in the cold air.
“Hello. I’m Rosebud. Who are you?” A soft voice asked.
Mervin looked up and beheld the first creature he’d ever seen. (It was too dark in the mole tunnels to see anything.) She had soft fur, a sweet, button nose and big eyes with long eyelashes. Oh, thought Mervin, she’s beautiful.
“H-hello,” whispered Mervin. “I’m Mervin the mole.”
Rosebud threw her head back and laughed. “What a funny fellow you are. You’re certainly dirty enough to be a mole. And you do look a little bit like one with your ears plastered back like that. But you’re most definitely not a mole. You’re a rabbit, just like me.”
Mervin sat up slowly. One by one, his ears, that had lain flat along his back all his life, pricked up. He could hear crickets courting and Rosebud breathing and leaves rustling in the wind. His button nose quivered. He could smell sweet clover and juicy grass and acorns turning into oak trees. He shook himself off and scratched his neck. He took a tentative hop. Then another. Then another. Soon Mervin and Rosebud were chasing each other all over the meadow.
“I’m a rabbit!” Mervin cried. “A rabbit!”
“Of course you are, silly,” said Rosebud. “Come on. I’ll show you the best place to see the sun come up.”
Mervin the rabbit couldn’t wait to see his first sunrise.
