Brooch, The Subject...

It's time again for the Weekly Writing Prompt! (trumpets sounding...) When I first found Nicole's site (it can be found: HERE), I would write my story (sometimes, stories...) that very day. Lately, however, life has hindered me somewhat. Here's this week's tale taken from the above picture and these five words:

Noise

Nurse

Cockroach

Pride

Brooch 

 

Other rules, one week to write the story, 500 word limit, and it must be linked to Nicole's and Carrie's sites. Enjoy!

Brooch, The Subject…

Amy Turner —teacher, not student—sat alone in her 5^th grade classroom long after the last bell rang dismissing both child and adult alike. She had but a few more papers to grade and then she too could leave the edifice built for the pursuit of knowledge. The middle-aged woman slowly took off her reading glasses and rubbed the indented spaces caused by the nose pads in a vain attempt to remove them from her tired face. Her efforts proved unsuccessful.

“Let’s see,” Amy said to the silence. “Peter Hopkins…I wonder what he has for me today.” Amy returned the glasses and shook the papers causing them to stand erect in her hand; the sound made by the papers was the only noise audible not only in her room, but most of the school as well. “This ought to be good.”

For Amy, Peter Hopkins proved time and time again, the proverbial bane of her existence. Can’t really blame him, Amy thought. His mother worked swing and graveyard shifts as a nurse and his dad was “who knows where?” When Peter was working hard on Amy’s remaining nerve, she had to remember not every childhood was idyllic.

 

Interesting title, Amy thought. She wondered if Peter even knew what a brooch was. Very few of today’s kids, and especially not the boys, seemed to have an interest in anything other than cell phones and video games.  

THE BROOCH

The first time my Grandpa Hopkins saw Annabelle Jespersen he knew he would        someday marry her. They met at the county fair. Grandpa ran the calliope and he told me…

“What the…” Amy stopped reading. “Seriously child? A calliope?” She hadn’t seen the word in three decades, let alone be used by a 10-year old struggling student. The boy even included a picture on the second page, a picture downloaded from the internet, just in case she didn’t know what the word meant. The calliope appeared to be in some sort of antique shop. Amy read on.

…that once he saw her, the music from the steam organ (music that usually drove him crazy) never sounded sweeter. From that day on, she was his pride and joy.

The teacher finished the short, sweet story. Peter described how his grandfather bought his future bride a brooch and gave it to her on the night they first met—the same brooch he placed in her casket just before they lowered her body into the ground.
Amy put down the papers and opened her purse. She took out a photo collection, old pictures incased in aging, yellowing plastic. From the pictures Amy withdrew a singular photo; it was her favorite. The lonely teacher looked at the picture of herself and her grandfather, back when she was six-years old and her grandfather was alive and healthy.

“Peter,” Amy said as tears welled up on her eyes. “That little cockroach made me cry.”