by A R Dent
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Many years before, the school at Null was a solitary one-room building. The school at Null increased in size along with its population. Penny Dawson was just another student and life changed after her admission to New Brunswick High.
Penny Dawson settled in to New Brunswick High School with a lot of study to catch up on. Her homework assignments were finished immediately she arrived home with special detail to her reading of literature she had never heard of. Books became more of a passion for Penny. Writing was only an interest to Penny but now that interest became a full-blown passion. Penny’s English teacher was also a gifted poet and entered many writing competitions. Encouragements for her writings were once rare for Penny, but now, a national writing competition, was given her as her goal.
‘Success is the only option,’ said Mr Hetherington.
The pressure of having a goal that would put Penny into the limelight took its toll. At home, her mother became worried. Betty Dawson, a gifted visual artist, knew of the pressures of the creative process. Betty, as an artist and mother, also knew teenage girls could be slightly emotional at times, if their ego and self esteem clash. Betty was known to have cut up many paintings in her teens simply because they were not good enough. “If I were an artist worthy then you would not criticise my work” was what Betty said, as a teenager, after destroying her best art painted in a contemporary style. Hence Betty’s concern for Penny.
‘Penny, you’re walking around like a cattle dog without a top paddock to run around in. What’s up? Tell me what’s going on. Is there a bully at school? It is to do with your new schooling. You were told you’d have to pull your socks up, put your head down, and study to keep up. Penny is that what’s troubling you?’ Betty Dawson said.
‘No mum. Well in a way it is. I don’t know. The teacher said my book is good enough to enter into a high school writing competition. How can he say that when I haven’t even got into the juicy bits. I don’t know. I’m writing half fact and half fiction about our new dog. Charlie is here and I made up some things we don’t know about. Oscar is being a pain to Charlie. Oscar has always wanted to be the top of the pecking order and you know cats are the top. Escere just sits and stares at Charlie. Oscar is being his top dog stuff. Charlie feels alone so I sit with Charlie and he tells me things mum. So how am I going to write to finish my story when I don’t know what the end is. Mr Hetherington said, “Just keep writing, and it’ll come to me.” Mum, what about dad goes over all those stories he told us? I have several ideas but I love the stories that dad told and the teacher tells me to forget it. No one is interested in my theories in the way I want to write,’
‘Penny, the one person in the village who could help is Father Fred. He’s a man who has read a lot. Priests love literature so go and have a chat with him. Your dad can’t help. All he ever did was told stories. He made them up as he went. Go and have a word with Father Fred. My friend Mary tells me his collection of books is as big as the local library,’
Penny took her mother’s advice and changed into her wet weather clothes, along with an umbrella, with her manuscript covered over and left her home and walked to the presbytery.
‘Father, are you there?’
‘Well who do we have here? Penny, Penny Dawson, yes come in my child and what is it I can do for you?’ Father Fred said.
‘I’m writing a book for a school writing competition and mum suggested you might read it and tell me what to do next. I’m stuck half way. I want to write about Oscar and our new dog Charlie. I’ve been told there is not enough drama in what I plan to write. Nothing happens here in a quiet fishing village that’s exciting so I have to make up some drama or conflict. I’m happy with the story so far,’
‘Well, literature happens to be one of my great loves in life. Besides serving the community, that is. What type of book is it? Romance, Thriller, Historical, what genre is it?’
‘I don’t know much about genres. It’s about two dogs that talk and how Charlie came to live with us. Charlie is our new dog. We got him after his owner died so I wrote part about what happened and the rest I made up. It’s difficult to work out what is fact and what is fiction,’
‘Penny, I can help. If you want, I will teach you the secrets of the sages, the ideals of the great poets, the bards of old inspire me to write too and they are the benchmark to aim for. Penny, leave your manuscript here of what you have written so far and whilst the sun is rising in the east, I will be here to tell you the next step to writing glory. Is that what you want Penny?’
‘Thanks Father. Here’s what I have written so far. How soon can I get it back?’
‘What I will do is ask Mary my personal secretary to listen to it. I will ask Mary to sit and I will read it out loud to her. That was one of the secrets of a great Vatican writer around the time of the Renaissance. Penny, I can feel it in by bones. You will be a great writer one day Penny,’
‘Thanks Father.’
Later that day Father Fred had a visitor who called on him to attend to things that could help the church and Father Fred. Mary was Father Fred’s unofficial secretary.
‘Hello Mary. I have a favour to ask of you. Mary, what I would like you to do is listen, and take notes of anything that seems out of place. If the story is fragmented and you don’t follow it, then note down where. That is all. Oh, and how you feel as you hear each word. The power of the written word is mightier than the sword. The passions of all the mighty writers of the Vatican knew all about it. Shakespeare, Goethe, and Wordsworth come to mind. Penny will be a great writer one day, you will see. Now make yourself comfortable. There are not a lot of pages. Here we are. . . printed page one. . . .
