Breaking Part

A short story about a young boy's Christmas in his 13th year.

  He was only thirteen years old, but at that ripe age he knew what he wanted to be: A writer. For Jimmy, this was his everything, his life. As a young child, he enjoyed watching and reading stories, anything from mysteries to the fantastic. When he was only in fifth grade, he devoured every Sherlock Holmes story he could find, often reading and re-reading each one. His favorite was A Study in Scarlett, the first of many Sherlock Holmes novels. Conan Doyle’s style intrigued the young boy, and he tried his hands at writing and even solving mysteries. Much to the chagrin of his classmates.

Jimmy was different from the other kids in his class. He didn't care much for girls, but neither was he homosexual.. He wasn’t always smarter than everyone in his class, and his grades proved that. Poor Jimmy spent many hours staring at a corner for his misbehavior and bad grades. Unfortunately, his parents had to confiscate his tapes and toys in an effort to help the  child learn. However, Jimmy was never alone. He had his imagination, his creativity. What did he need a toy for when he could create a character that could overpower everything? Who cared what tapes he listened to, when he could write a story of his own?

And write he did. During his seventh grade year, Jimmy’s grades grew worse and his parents caught on to what he was doing. How could he study at home? He was creating new worlds and mysteries with his characters. In fact, one of his sixth grade teachers paid him 5 Jolly Ranchers for a story a week. Even when he passed the grade and went on to the seventh, Jimmy was still writing a story a week for that teacher, Mr. Green. And he had other teachers who helped him with his passion for writing, none more than a man named Dr. Ferguson. Dr. Ferguson put pressure on his seventh grade English class to use their imagination and create something completely of their own; a story. To Jimmy, he might as well have been in heaven. For he came up with many short stories.

Jimmy’s classmates didn’t much care for his stories. After all, they lived in Wyoming. This was cattle country. How dare he not love cattle? How could he possibly like anything beyond a rope? Who were the popular kids in his class? The sports heroes, the ones who wanted to wrestle cattle and proved it by bringing rope to school to practice after school. Jimmy didn’t play sports, had no interest in them, and couldn’t care less about them. “Sports people get paid too much money for nothing anyway,” he thought. “Who needs them.”

Sadly, Jimmy could’ve used a sports hero to help him out. After school one day, he was practically chased home by girls. Not because they found him attractive, but to taunt him. “Your stupid! All you do is write!”

“You’re ugly! I’d never go out with you,” he would yell.

“You’re too dumb for us,” they would yell back.

When the taunting was over, Jimmy would go home. But things weren’t always pleasant there. The house was an ugly shade of yellow, and when you walked in the door there were two sofas and a radio. Beyond a small corner was the dining room, which bled into the kitchen and in the back of the house was a living room and greenhouse. Inside the living room was where the TV was, but on Saturdays Jimmy didn’t like joining his younger sisters for the silly cartoons. He would listen to radio dramas and write. Solitude and his own heaven. These seemingly pleasant surroundings often brought out the worse days in young Jimmy’s life. On this same day he had been taunted by the girls, he brought home his progress report. And he didn’t at all want to give it to his parents.

English was a solid A as usual, with excellence written in the notes. But then the science and math grades often lent themselves further downward. He failed in math, had a D- in science and geography was a C- with “Needs improvement.” It was the first report of the semester, and he was in for trouble. That evening, after dinner, his father made Jimmy take all of his tapes and toys, books, and put them all in a box. He wasn’t allowed to look at them for the rest of the semester. He had TV restrictions too. But then, there was worse to come.

“You are not allowed to write,” his father told him.

“What?” screamed Jimmy.

“You heard me. You are not allowed to write any stories when you are home.”

“What if it’s homework?” Jimmy yelled with tears in his eyes.

“That’s different. But otherwise, you are not allowed to write. No stories. Get your grades up.”

Jimmy screamed and ran to his room in the basement, jumping on his bed, punching the pillow. Moments later, his father came into his room and took his notebooks. Reinforcing the “You must not write” command.

It was hard for Jimmy to understand all this. His father was a musician, and surely knew that musicians had to practice; even when his sister the trombone player got bad grades she could practice. But no, not for the writer. He cried deep into the night, and got very little sleep the next morning. Over the next few days, Jimmy felt castrated. Like his best friend had been ripped away from him for good. Those were hard days to get through, and got even harder when a creative idea hit him. And one of those great ideas was for a mystery. Most of his short stories had been mysteries and one week after the “thou shalt not write” commandment,  Jimmy came up with an idea for a story. But he couldn’t write it. . . . .at home. “If I can’t write at home,” he thought, “I can write at school.”

Study halls were monitored, but his study hall teacher was relaxed. Most kids used their study hall for homework, and to play a game if they were done. And since the teacher didn’t check to make sure everyone was doing homework, Jimmy decided to use the notebook he had in his locker for a story. His father didn’t take that one away, because it was at school. So, every day in study hall, Jimmy would put his homework next to his notebook and write the story. No one caught on, because he did the rest of his homework at home. Jimmy’s scheme was working.

Jimmy created a story about a sixth grader named Samuel DeLong Marce, Sam for short. Sam’s friends were Josh and Chance, names taken from Jimmy’s real life friends after he asked if he could use them. The setting: A school, where else? The story? “The Mystery of the Crying Wolf.” A story about wolf cries heard in the school and no one knows where they are coming from. By the end of the mystery, Chance is found to be the one.

“The Mystery of the Crying Wolf” took little Jimmy over a month to write in study hall, and became the story that saved his sanity. By the end of that term, Jimmy had 24 pages handwritten of his completed story and his grades had improved. He was able to get back his tapes, books and notebooks just in time for Christmas. A wonderful Christmas gift indeed. But there were two more exciting Christmas gifts for Jimmy. His teacher, Dr. Ferguson was impressed with the fact that Jimmy wrote an unrequired story and asked the boy to use it as his seventh grade writing project. Jimmy was so happy! “The Mystery of the Crying Wolf,” the story that saved his sanity was now going to save his whole school year from boredom!

But there was another wonderful Christmas gift coming. Jimmy’s parents sat him and his sisters down at the dinner table one December evening to tell them that they were moving to Massachusetts. They couldn’t tell anyone until May, though, because their mom was a schoolteacher and needed to finish the year. Little Jimmy’s excitement couldn’t be contained. Finally, he would be away from those kids who snickered every time he wrote a story. Or said, “What do you write for?” when every break came by. “You’re stupid.”

Breaking part of this life and turning to a new beginning sounded like a wonderful idea for Jimmy. In Wyoming he was so misunderstood. Maybe, just maybe things would be better in the East. “I can’t wait,” thought Jimmy. “This is such a very Merry Christmas.”

And indeed it was.

The End