The winning story was credited for its gentle conversational style. Photo / 123rf
The annual school short story competition run by the Northland Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors always attracts lots of entries.
The secondary schools section was judged by Deborah Jowitt and Susan Barker.
There were a record number of 92 entries from students.
The judges said they were impressed by the variety of themes the students tackled, and the innovative structure and characterisation of many of the stories.
‘She Painted Over It’ rose to the top of the short list with its gentle conversational style providing a surface under which preconceived beliefs about home schooling are met with calm responses.
The writer showed a mature style: it is what is not said as much as said that lingers long after many reads, they said.
“Who’s the artist?” the woman asks, picking up a print on my stall. It’s one of my favourites, the one with native birds arranged in a heart. Her eyes are misted over, remembering something.
She’s wearing a jacket that might have been blue once.
“I am!” I say proudly. “I hand drew them all myself.”
She blinks. “Really? Your art teacher must be good. I wish my daughter had stuck with art. But she dropped it the moment grades started to matter.”
Here we go. Another lecture about the virtues of school.
“Yeah, my mum is incredible. But I learnt to draw by practising until I’m happy.” I watch as realisation dawns in her eyes.
“You’re homeschooled? So, you’re not getting a real education? You just … do this?”
She says “real education” like I’ve been raised by wolves with crayons.
Then she seems to realise that she was being rude, and says quickly, “No offence, I just meant … you know, not formal.”
I’ve heard that before. From my dad. From friends’ parents. From just about everyone who doesn’t know me.
“Unschooling, really,” I correct patiently. “This is basically my schooling.”
Her face scrunches. “So, you don’t have a curriculum or … anything? What about maths?”
“Maths?” I grin. “I use it more than I want to, trust me. Giving people change counts.”
She doesn’t laugh.
“My daughter,” she says faintly, “would have been in Year Nine. She had to write essays on Dickens. She said it was boring. But, well, she needed the marks.”
“Cool,” I say. “I read David Copperfield last year. We spent weeks trying to talk like Uriah Heep.”
She looks confused for half a second, but then carries on.
“My daughter wanted to be an artist,” she murmurs, almost to herself. She runs her thumb along the edge of the print, not looking at me. “She used to draw on the walls. I painted over them.”
A pause. Then, quietly, “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t.”
Her mouth tightens, but her voice is softer now. “I hope you know what you’re missing.”
That one lands.
Am I missing something? Maybe.
But every time I try to imagine it – the halls, the bells, the cliques, the rules – I feel like I can’t breathe.
Still ... I wonder what it’s like to be one of them. To be accepted. To belong.
I look down at my money box. It’s full. And I can’t stop thinking about the monarch butterflies I want to draw next, and how I’ll get them to feel like they’re about to fly off the page.
I look at her. “Maybe I am missing something,” I say.
She nods, a little too fast.
I look her in the eye. “Maybe we both are.”
She goes quiet, her hands still on the print. Then, slowly, she sets it down.
And walks away like someone who’s just remembered a dream they can’t get back to.
With my body limp on the hard linoleum floor, my black, round eyes reflecting the artificial light, I had watched. I had watched for a long time.
I had watched as the boy who used to love me screamed at the woman who had first taught him to love. I had watched as a large, burly man slapped the boy for being disrespectful, rude.
My short white hair had started to wear out, fall out, my eyes growing dimmer and dimmer by the day. My pink nose had faded to grey, and my squeak had turned to a whimper. I had become a part of the ground, almost completely gone. Forgotten. My family no longer loved me, because who had the time to love a pathetic, old bear? Who had the time to cuddle me when they were all screaming and shouting at each other?
I had watched, scene after scene, day after day, fight after fight, hoping, praying, wishing that my fate would be reversed. That someone would pick me up gently and say they loved me. Say they would never let me go. That’s what the boy had once told me. Long ago. Before the fighting had begun.
Before I was damned to spend the rest of my life on the hard, linoleum floor, my black, round eyes reflecting the artificial light, watching.