09/04/2024 – tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice

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It was the first day of Olivia’s first summer at camp. Her parents had sent her, and she was enthusiastic to go. She wanted to meet new friends and join in cabin raids on the boy’s side of the river. She wanted to be up to her elbows in tempera paints during arts and crafts. She longed to send people on the snipe hunts she had heard about from Dad. She wanted to tell stories around the campfire at night.

That first day, Olivia and eight other girls her age got assigned to cabin eight. Their counsellor was a high school girl named Amanda. Olivia thought Amanda was beautiful. She had long, straight blonde hair. She was cool, and her voice sounded like song. She was everything that Olivia aspired to be. Each cabin had their table for lunch so the girls could get to know one another. That day at lunch, Amanda asked each of the girls what they were looking forward to most this year in summer camp.

Maddie wanted to roast marshmallows over the campfire.
Beth was eager to swim in the river,
June looked forward to arts and crafts,
Christine wanted to write letters home.
Then it was Olivia’s turn, she said, “Telling spooky stories around the campfire at night.”

“Do you know some good spooky stories?” Amanda asked her.

“Oh yes, I do,” Olivia said, “Wanna hear one?”

“Sure, we all do!” Amanda seemed excited.

Olivia launched into the story about a young couple. He was a woodsman. She was a school teacher with a job at the one-room schoolhouse in Putnam County. She always wore a yellow ribbon around her neck… and yada, yada, yada. “Don’t ever remove the ribbon.” Yada, yada, yada, her husband removed the ribbon on their wedding night and… her head fell off.”

All the girls moaned, even Amanda.

“Was that a great story, or what?” asked Olivia as she scanned the faces of all the other girls. “Wasn’t that scary?”

“Not particularly,” answered Beth. Christine was sitting, shaking her head from side to side. Maddie and June were asleep.

“I don’t think it was all that scary.” answered Amanda, “but perhaps, it’s because it’s lunchtime, and it’s not dark, and there’s no campfire. The ambience isn’t conducive to scary stories.” There was a long pause, “After dark, maybe you can try again.”

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This week’s prompts were: