Susanna Leonard Hill (see link below) is an author who offers encouragement and opportunities for wannabe children's authors like myself. In this particular contest the requirements are:
- Write a Valentine's story or poem
- For children (aged 12 and under)
- 214 words or less (this is exactly 214 words excluding the title)
- In which someone is confused.
Here is my entry (which earned me a tie for seventh place!):
Sebastian, Say Something
Nell held
in her hands three Valentine’s cards
She made in
her class during Art.
Miss Polly,
her teacher, had helped her to trace,
Then
carefully cut out each heart.
Nell glued
them on paper she’d folded in half.
Miss Polly
had said they looked good.
She wrote
on each inside, “I love you so much!”
As well as
an eight-year old could.
But now as she
held them, while perched on the bed
She slept
in the end of each week,
Nell said
to Sebastian, her step-mother’s cat,
“Sebastian,
I wish you could speak!”
“I know I
have known you for only two years.
And
clearly, at first I was mad.
I wanted my
parents to stay as they were,
But your
mommy married my dad.
“I hated to
come here; I hated you all.
Leaving my
mother was hard,
But your
mommy, Susan’s, been ever so nice.
Now, I want
to give her this card.
“Sebastian,
the problem’s my mother still cries.
I’m worried
what harm I might do
By giving
to Susan this Valentine’s card
And telling
her I love her too.
“So, give
me some signal, a simple meow
Or purr to
convince me I’m right,
But hurry
Sebastian; she’s coming in soon
To hug me
and kiss me goodnight!”
