Problems with Authority

By Molly

I have a problem with authority. I will admit it. It is why I have been suspended from school, kicked out of roller derby, fired from two jobs and it is the reason I try to fight men in bars who are much stronger than me. I think I may have an idea where it all stems from.

My mom used to make my teachers cry when I would misbehave and get in trouble. I would tell my mom "what happened," and she would cook up some way to make my teachers cry. The first time we took on a teacher I was in second grade. I laughed and giggled with my friends during church service which we went to every day at school. My teacher called my mom and said I was very unladylike. My mom took offense to this statement. That night she helped me pick out my outfit for school the next day. She found a long black dress for me to wear. She paired that with some white old-fashioned gloves. On my head I had a retro small white hat that had a small black bow on the side. My mom taught me how to curtsy that night. She also taught me how to talk softly and other "ladylike" qualities.

I showed up at school the next day and curtsied to everyone. I wore my gloves and hat all day. I talked softly all day. The teacher caught on. She told me to remove my gloves. "Ladies never remove their gloves in the presence of men," I replied. Eventually she called my mom. My mom told her that I was just being ladylike. I believe there were a few other words exchanged too, the end result was my second grade teacher crying.

This was followed by the time I had to stay after school and copy from the bible. I sat for an hour and wrote lyrics to the songs I liked. When my mom was called in and was showed what I had written, she told the teacher I skipped around the Bible. The teacher had never said I had to copy the bible in order. My mom knew how to get around every rule they threw at her.

Eventually I had enough of the small catholic school. I begged my mom for a year to switch me to the public school. She was against it until I got in trouble for teaching a boy how to belly dance.

After my little brother Timmy was born my mom joined a belly dance troupe. I learned a few moves. I tried to teach a boy at school those moves. The teacher sent a note home that said I was enticing the boys. Finally, I got to switch schools. The day of the big switch my mom took me to school to say goodbye. The teacher hid. We didn't see her the whole time. My mom took every piece of paper out of that school that said my name on it. There were a lot of pictures on the wall of me and my classmates. She scratched my face out of all the pictures.

Every time I am at a bar and some stupid guy pisses me off so much that I want to beat him up I will call him out. Why? Because I know eventually my mom will show up and make him cry.

Fairies

By Bridget

While writing my first story, I noticed I was the only one writing a story about myself. I think that's ok, because no one else wrote a story about me, Molly wrote about Mary, Mary wrote about Theresa, and Theresa wrote about Molly. I was forced to write about myself. Also, I barely remember anything that happened to me when I was young, much less anything that happened to anyone else. I even wonder about my own memories as I've been proven wrong before. There was a clown doll that had zippers, buttons, snaps and ties to teach children. I always thought it was Molly's, but Molly always said it was Theresa's and that is my first memory of having a poor memory. Although now I feel I have this memory wrong also and maybe it was Molly's, but I said it was Theresa's. Ask Molly, she'll know.

The other story that stands out in my mind is about fairies. Our mom told us many fairy stories. She said when she was living in Ireland after Danny was born, one windy, stormy night she was all alone and got scared, so she dressed Danny in girl's clothing so the fairies wouldn't steal Danny. Everyone knows fairies have no use for girl babies, so she managed to keep Danny. In our pasture there were shallow indentions in the earth. Our mom called them fairy beds and said that was where the fairies slept; acorn tops were fairy hats and the marshy rings we had around the farm were fairy rings, where fairies lured people to their death or something. Perhaps that's just from a story I read about leprechauns playing music and people dance and dance until they die and they do it in marshy areas, unless you walk home backwards. But our mom always said the rings had a lot of energy and so did the big white rock and the big tree that you could see from the freeway and they made some sort of magical energy ring around our farm.

I always wanted to see the fairies. I'd hang out by all the gnarly oak trees imagining the fairies living in the whorls and crevices. One day after coming back from Cash Wise, the best grocery store ever, I had a ring from those bubblegum dispenser-things that instead dispensed rings. I decided to give it to the fairies, because after an offering like that they had to show themselves to me.

So we got home, unpacked all the groceries and I took a strawberry-banana yogurt, a spoon and my ring in its little plastic container and walked across the road, to the top of the hill to sacrifice it to the fairies. And this is what Molly says is her story. She says she was the one who took a vending machine ring to the fairy ring in the pasture across the road and that I only remember it because she told me about it. But no, I took it over there, eating my yogurt, climbing over the fences, because it was way too hard to open the gate and then pull all that barbed wire on a stick back into the piece of wire that held the gate shut. I walked past the small grove of oaks and up the hill to the fairy ring. I told the fairies I was giving them the ring so that I could see them, then I dug a hole, right at the northwestern edge, where it was soft and moist, but not yet where the water was, then I buried the ring in the container. I hung out for awhile, hoping they'd come then, but decided they wanted to see and examine the ring first, so I left.

I came back a few days later and the ring and the container were gone. I knew right where I'd buried it, but could never find it again. Damn fairies, they took my ring and never showed themselves to me. I doubt Molly saw them either, if she ever did give a ring offering to the fairies.

The fairy ring was in the cow pasture at the top of this hill.