“I have to get out of this house!” Screamed David in frustration. David Pelzer is a young boy. His father was a fireman and, according to David, his mother was once a loving, kind, and wonderful person that would do anything for her family. But it turned out, later in his life, that when his father gave up on him, so did his, now, alcoholic mother. And he found out that she was abusive toward him. It was even at a point where she began to make him go without food for exstensive periods of time. So his only way of getting something to eat, was to steal from the kids at school.
One day, David was on his way to school. His mother made him run sometimes in order to get there faster, because she didn’t feel like driving him. When he got there, he noticed it was a little too late because all of the kids were already inside and had there lunches with them. “No food today.” Sighed David. As he was on his way into his classroom, he saw another kid playing on the swings. He had looked a little worn out, so he decided to go into school late and see what was up. David ran up to him and gave him a quick hello.
“Hi, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Alfred. But you can call me Al for short. You?”
“My name is David, and you can call me Dave if you want.”
“So where are you doing here?” asked David.
“Oh, I’m just trying to get away from my old town.”
“I’ll tell you right now that this isn’t a town to come to, too get away.”
“Right now for me it doesn’t matter.”
David asked Alfred about himself. To start off, he said that his full name was Alfred Brooks. He told David that he has to go through many changes, both physical and emotional. He told him how he was growing up in a dangerous neighborhood, has financial struggles, drug and crime temptations, lack of education and lack of confidence. He told him about his best friend, James, who was into all the drugs and crime. Last, he told him about his job in the grocery store and how he is training to be a boxer. David immediately thought about how alike they were. So even though he wasn’t supposed to, he told Alfred about his abusive mother and all the awful things that he does to her, Alfred felt terrible after David told him everything.
“Why don’t you move out of that house?” asked Alfred.
“Because I don’t want to get in trouble with my mother.”
“You should come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Even though I don’t have a wonderful life, it is better then being abused.”
“Look Alfred, I just can’t.”
“But, I didn’t mean for you to…” and before he could say anymore, David ran off.
In the distance, Alfred could hear David screaming not to tell anyone about what he told him. He was going to scream back ok I promise I won’t, but it was too late.
When David got to his house, he quietly sneaked in, knowing he was a little late to the time he was supposed to be getting home. He was lucky today, his mom wasn’t waiting for him at the door like usual. So he just went into his room in the dark, musty cellar. He heard his mother calling him upstairs. He was scared, but he obeyed her and slowly went up the steps one by one until he reached the devil on the top. She pulled him by the ear and went into the bathroom to do her routine of putting him into a bathtub full off ice cold water. He was petrified of her, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Meanwhile, Alfred met up with James at his clubhouse cave they went to. Alfred told him about how he met David. But he didn’t tell him about his abusive mother, obeeying his promise. James was just worried about stealing stuff from the grocery store that Alfred had worked at. And Alfred was trying to get him to stop. Alfred had to accomplish many situations with James to stay friends with him. He wanted to help him. And that is the reason why he also wanted to help David with his mother’s problem. Soon after, Alfred remembered his appointment at the gym he had with his coach, Mr. Donatelli, so he had to leave.
The next day of school came, and again, Alfred was there on the swings. David tried to not let Alfred see him going into the classroom. But it was too late, and he saw him. So he decided to skip school again today.
“Hi.” David said quietly
“Dave, I am going to do something about it.”
“About what?”
“You’re mother’s problem”
“Please don’t Al. I don’t want to get in any more trouble with her.”
“You won’t get in trouble if I help you. You can live with me!”
Soon afterwards, Alfred finally convinced David to take him home with him. David was still very scared of his mother and didn’t no what she would do to him if she found out were he was. When they got to his house, Alfred introduced his Aunt Pearl to David.
“Well it’s nice to meet you David.” Said Aunt Pearl.
“You too.” Replied David.
“So what brought you here to day?”
“Oh, he’s just…”
“It’s ok Al, I think it’s best to tell an adult.” Said David.
“Tell an adult what?” Aunt Pearl started getting worried.
When David told Alfred’s aunt, she immediately called D.S.S and told them the situation. She decided to adopt David so he could live a normal life. David told Alfred how much he appreciated him to convincing him to come to his house.
“You don’t need to thank me Dave.”
“Yes I do! If it wasn’t for you to convince me to come to your house, I would have never had the guts to do anything about it.”
“Well, I never thought of it that way”
So everything turned out alright and pretty soon, Alfred and David became “brothers”.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Well I like your story line and the fact that David got away from his abusive mother, But I felt there could have been more umph to your story. I saw David and Alfred sitting on the swings talking, but I couldn’t really picture David’s room in the cellar. The story really made me go back to the book and realize how much pain and suffering David must have gone through. With his mother abusing him every day, it must have been hard on him.
The dialogue didn’t seem like it was enough and there could have been more things talked about. The setting wasn’t very well described and I wasn’t really sure what was going on the entire school day. I didn’t feel like David would have skipped school, because if his mother found out he would get into a lot of trouble. Also Alfred wouldn’t have gone back to see his trainer if he had runaway.
My favorite line of the story was “I have to get out of this house!” Screamed David in frustration.” I liked this because it was a good beginning to the story and it kind of led into it. This line stood out to me because it tells me who the main character in this story was, and it showed that David wasn’t happy living a life full of abuse. Also because I like first lines of story that have dialogue that pretty much says there is dialogue in the story and I like dialogue in stories.
One thing I found distracting was that you didn’t really explain what really happened for the six hours he missed school . You just said they talked about stuff,… for SIX hours? I think you could improve this by adding more detail to the setting. Also you could improve this by adding more dialogue.
I feel that next time you should try adding more dialogue. Also What do you think would happen if you had Alfred go to David’s house and try to tell David’s mother to stop abusing him? Try doing something more with the characters like having them walk down the street and talk, not just sitting on the swings talking. Overall the story was pretty good. by chris annis
My reaction to the story was that it was kind of predictable and I knew what was going to happen. After reading it I feel that some stuff were left out, or there could have been more to it. I could see them talking on the swings pretty vividly, but I couldn’t see the cella that much, there coul’ve been more description there. The story made me think about how awful abuse is, and how most kids are scared to say anything.
The dialogue seemed somewhat authentic. Although it seemed kind of odd that david told Alfred the first time he saw Alfred about the abuse. What did make it seem real was how david yelled to tell Alfred not to tell anyone. The only thing that seemed unreal was the fact they told eachother everything the first time they saw eachother.
“I have to get out of this house!” Screamed David in frustration. This line was my favorite because it basically sent him over the edge. It showed that he wanted to put an end to it and finally get away from his drunken mother. It made it really seem real that he was finally ready to get away.
One thing that confused me was why was Alfred at the school? It seems sort of out of place for him to be at the middle school when he was a teenager and a dropout. And, what did they talk about for six hours? All it said while David was at the school was they talked, there could have been more detail there. And the cellar, I couldn’t picture that at all.
One pice of advice that I give is more detail. Put more time into describing the setting. Also, there should be more dialogue. And if people are talking don’t just say, they taked, mention some of the important stuff that they were talking about for that time.
Post a Comment