First Creative Writing Post of the Year!

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you are all well.

Today's awesome super fun blog post is just some writing that I did at uni over the past few weeks. Partly in lectures, usually in tutorials, lol. Probably should have been concentrating...

Anyway, it's not particularly good and I wasn't really working on anything in particular. I mean, it's from a male point-of-view and written in the third person when actually I really need to be practising writing a first person female voice. Whoops!

Its temporary title is "Chris and the Mr Whippy Van" but please someone come up with a better title than that, because frankly it's ridiculous.

Also, as I think I mentioned in my last post, I am acutely aware that it's completely predictable. I mean clearly the two characters are going to get together, am I right? That's what I was thinking, but if anyone can see some other really obvious direction to take this story in then I am open to suggestion.

Comment plz? Kthnx.

Oh, and one last note: too much dialogue. I know. Please don't tell me that. Thanks.

And here it is. Enjoy! ♥Nancy♫

It was late in the day and late in the season for the “Mr Whippy” van to be coming by. But it was coming by, driving slowly past the bus-stop where thirty - maybe forty - school children had just disembarked. They stood there still, loitering before they needed to head home. “Greensleeves” played from the van speakers.

“Mr Whippy!” yelled some of the children.

Others yelled, “ice cream!” or even, “do you have any money? Can I borrow two bucks?”

And suddenly the van had stopped by the side of the road and a line of children, all jingling with money, had formed up to the window. The man in the van slid open the window and began to serve the children swirly white mountains of soft serve ice cream.

A teenage boy was jostled by the other students and forced to be the final person in line. He sighed and then shifted the position of his heavy backpack to get more comfortable for his long wait. A moment later, his patient wait was interrupted by the appearance of a short, pudgy child who was already covered in ice cream and chocolate.

“Chris, Chris,” he yelled, causing a few people in line to turn around to see who was making the racket. “I got chocolate, look!”

“I can see, I can see Petey,” he said, trying to silence the overexcited annoyance next to him. “Are you going home with your friends today?”

“Yeah, with Gavin and Jesse and Cindy and-”

“Well go, then,” Chris interrupted, “you know you’re not allowed to walk by yourself.”

“‘Kay, bye Chris!” Petey yelled, and ran to catch up with the group of friends he wanted to walk home with.

The ice cream line had moved so that only a few children remained queued behind the window. Chris began to walk to catch up. But then he saw her, digging in the pockets of her backpack and clumsily travelling in a half-run-half-walk from the far bus-stop towards the “Mr Whippy” van. The bus from which she had disembarked left behind only a few school children. They, and the one girl hurrying towards the ice cream van, were much more strictly uniformed than Chris and the students from his school; it was immediately obvious that they were from a private school, not a public one.

“You’re the last one, then,” said the ice cream vendor, nodding at Chris as he took his place at the window. “I’ve gotta get going.”

“Uh... yeah. May I just have a single, please?”

He looked to his left again. She was still hurrying towards them.

“And a flake,” he added, to drag the process out some more. He prepared to hand over the coins required to pay for his ice cream.

“Hurry up, then, lad,” said the ice cream vendor.

The girl was still on her way towards them. Chris could tell, though, it was obvious, that the ice cream man was going to leave before she got there.

“Oops!” he said, and dropped all his coins. He ducked down to gather them up from the curb. He heard the ice cream man begin to grumble. A flash of straw colour and navy blue went by - the girl’s hat had fallen off. She kept hurrying towards the van. Chris gathered up the coins as slowly as he could. By the time he had completed the transaction and received his ice cream cone, the girl was standing behind him.

“Oh,” said the ice cream vendor, “just one more then.”

Chris walked over to his left and picked up her hat. He used his tongue to catch a drip of his ice cream, then took a huge bite and discovered that he had nearly finished off the entire icy sweet. When he took the hat back over to the girl, she had an ice cream in one hand and her wallet in the other.

“My hat!” she said, in a soft voice, “umm...” She waved her hands around a bit, trying to indicate that she couldn’t take the hat from him. “Would you?” she said, and leaned forwards a bit, with a gesture towards the top of her head.

Chris put the hat onto her head.

“Thank you,” she said, and then licked her ice cream.

Chris finished off his ice cream in two more bites.

“You dropped those coins on purpose, didn’t you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer before she continued, “thank you for that, too. You’ve no idea how much I needed an ice cream today.”

“Uh... you’re welcome,” Chris replied. He was blushing very red, but so was she, so he figured it would be all right.

“You walk home across the park, don’t you? I see you sometimes, from a bit of a distance, though.”

“Because your bus comes later,” he pointed out, stupidly.

“Yes, of course. You walk with your little brother sometimes - he seems very cute.”

“Petey? He’s a terror!”

“He can’t be half as bad as my little sister, she’s just horrible.”

There was a silence. She licked her ice cream some more. Chris began to panic inside. He didn’t talk to girls, or they didn’t talk to him, and he certainly didn’t know the best way to act with them, especially in a one-on-one, face-to-face basis like he was experiencing now. What he did know, however, was that he had to say something, otherwise this encounter would be over all too quickly. His panic grew - what could he say? He thought about complimenting her: those pretty eyes, her shiny hair...

“Can I walk you home,” he said, surprising them both. It was as if his mouth had acted separately from his brain.

“Of course!” she said, cheerily. “I was hoping you’d offer - I never feel safe walking across this park all by myself.”

They began to walk away from the bus-stops, over the grassy meadow that preceded the dense forest of the park.

“Umm...” Chris said.

“Sofia,” she said.

“Oh. Thanks. Chris,” said Chris. He watched as she continued to eat her ice cream.

“So you’re at Whitewall’s, then? What grade are you in?”

“Twelve. I’m nearly finished.”

“Oh, me too!” she began to nibble of the edge of the sugar cone. “At St Marta’s, though, obviously.”

Chris nodded and smiled dumbly. He was so bad at this.

“You’re lucky that you don’t have to wear so much uniform.”

“We do too! We have to wear a white shirt and black trousers and black shoes!”

“We have to wear regulation school socks,” she said. He realised that he had just lost that argument.

“Well... at least you look nice in them.” He blushed very red and looked down at the ground; that proved to be a bad decision because it drew his attention to Sofia’s regulation school socks. She did look very nice in them.

“Thank you,” she said, “you’re very sweet.”

“Oh,” said Chris. He’d heard about guys being called “sweet.” It was never a good sign.

(The End)