Sunday, September 7, 2008

Dave’s Mentor from the Closet by Nicole C

It was a quiet peaceful day in the suburbs of California, except for the Pelzer house. Poor young Dave was getting the toxic treatment his mother gave him every so often. He just got set free of the nasty smelling bathroom. Dave knew he would survive this life, he knew that his body would pull through, but sometimes he doubted if he would make the night. He hadn’t eaten in what felt like forever. In school he was learning about the Holocaust and concentration camps for the Polish, Gypsy, homosexual, and Jewish. Sometimes he thought that his home was his mother’s concentration camp for him. Dave ran down the stairs tripping over his own weak feet, to get to the one place he felt relatively safe, the basement.
“Dave! Dave! Come to the Closet!” mumbled a voice.

“Who is that? Who’s there?” Dave shouted. Dave proceeded to the closet, and surprised himself b not being afraid. When he opened the closet door he saw a small detailed figure, belonging to an old, brittle, man. By the glow to his body, Dave knew this man couldn’t have been alive and thought of it as a hallucination.

“Who are you, or what are you?” Asked Dave abruptly.

“My Name is Joseph, and no I am no longer a living man. You will find out why I am here momentarily.

“I don’t believe this. I don’t believe you. There is no way that a ghost has appeared in my closet. I’m just imagining you.” Dave skeptically.

“You have to believe me,” started Joseph. “I’m your last hope. Without me your life will be filled with more terror and horror then known to man.

“Okay, so say you were really a ghost…what would you want to do with me? I’m just a kid, just a normal kid.”

“Well Dave, we both unfortunately know that you are not a normal child. I know you don’t need the reminder but you do get harshly abused by your mother. I know what it feels like to be abused and tormented for no reason. Sure, I was polish and homosexual but it never seemed logical to torture me over reasons beyond my control.”

“I don’t even know why my mother beats me. She just tells me I’m a bad kid, and I don’t deserve food.“ Dave admitted.

“Yes and this is why I’m here. I see your way of life as a modern concentration camp,” Joseph started. Dave thought about telling him that he thought of that earlier, but decided to let him finish.
“You see, in the camp I was taken to, I decided that I had a purpose. I had to help everybody that lived like me. I was very old and brittle and still strong enough to tell the stories of my life.”

“Can you tell me a story? Please?” Dave begged. He wanted to hear a story so badly.

“Alright alright. The story of Becca and the Briar Rose. So Becca was a young girl looking for the castle of her grandmother who she called Gemma. It turns out that her Gemma was the princess, who died. I kissed her to life and may I say that she was the only girl I had ever kissed. It turns out I was the prince that the story told about.” Joe explained.

“Wow, what a small world.” Dave exclaimed.

“Yes but I must go soon so listen carefully.” Joseph sternly directed, “you will get out of this situation with you mother. It won’t last forever. Please, take this experience and use it wisely in the future. You can work on doing what kids like you need when you’re older. You can help them out, and get them out.”

“Okay…okay, I will” Dave agreed.

“I must go, but take what I told you and use it.”

When Dave grew up, he worked as a social worker, helping kids. He also joined a California child abuse prevention group.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I liked this story alot. I think it was a really good peek to inside both of the books.It was a little uncomforatable the way it ended so abruptly, besides that is was good.

The diolog between the characters was really natural. The only thing I would change would be that all of the diolog was bunched together into one section. It would have been nice to see a scentence or to here and there.

My favorite line in the story had to been "Dave knew he would survive this life, he knew that his body would pull through, but sometimes he doubted if he would make the night." I liked that line because it was really detailed but and it really gave you an insight into how he was feeling and really made the character seem more real.

The only thing I would sugest changing would be to ease into the ending more and give a little more detail to it so it wasnt so abrupt.Also to add more detail on the general plots of the story because it didnt have much and was a little confusing. I think if you worked on those things you could make a great story even better !

Anonymous said...

I feel very happy. It is good you put Josef trying to help Dave out. I think it is nice how you gave dave the privilege of hearing a story.
It felt real because Dave realized there is no reason why his mom should treat him this way. The dialogue was definitely the way I imagined it.
My favorite part was when the voice called from the closet. “Dave! Dave! Come to the Closet!” mumbled a voice. I liked it because it tricked me I thought dave was being sent into a closet by his mother.
One thing I found distracting was that you had a lot of improper word usage. It was okay but it could have been better. For example when you said, “By the glow to his body, Dave knew this man couldn’t have been alive and thought of it as a hallucination.” That didn’t make sense to me.
You could work on using more descriptive words. All in all I enjoyed your story very much.

Anonymous said...

Nicole-
I think your story was great! It wasn't some old boring story that I have read. It made me want to keep reading because you picked such good parts in both books. You intertwined them very well.

I think your dialog flowed very well because it was like normal conversations. It seemed realistic because I could tell the emotions. I could just picture Dave realizing that this shouldn't be the life he’s living.

My favorite part of the story was when Dave said “Who are you, or what are you?” because I can just picture Dave kind of frightened but confused about a random voice coming from the closet.

I think the only thing that was a little distracting was when you didn't say who said the dialog. I mean I could understand it but I had to think about more then if it just said.

The only advice would be to use more descriptive words and have more dialogs. This would make the story flow better and be more realistic.

Anonymous said...

My reaction to this story was an odd one. The story does make sense if you read A Child called “It” like I did because David does grow up to become an influence to stop child abuse, hence the book. The ghost is an interesting why to explain why he decided to help out the children. It’s obviously not logical but fun to think about. It also makes sense that David might hear some voices after coming out of a Chamber of chemical gases.

I believe the dialogue was a bit unrealistic. For instance, a boy would not just except that he was seeing this and listen to them. He would be at least a little freaked out. It seems as though David already knows the ghost and much about it even though it says they have never met before which I didn’t quite get.

My personal favorite part of this story is “Dave proceeded to the closet, and surprised himself not being afraid.” This is because I believe the only person I can think of that would approach a ghost and not be the least bit scared is David. Most likely the reason is because he goes through so much torture every day that a ghost might be a good thing because it might be taking him away. Why he even walked over to the closet I’m not sure, but if there is someone that would, it’s David.

One problem I have with this story is the tale the ghost tells. It seems to have no relevance with the rest of the story. David just accepts it with no questions and moves on too which puzzles me. I don’t see how it helps him at all. Maybe I missed something, but it doesn’t seem to be needed. So my suggestion is to either cut the little tale out or replace it with a more meaningful one.

One thing I think the author would like to consider is describing the characters better and giving them more background information. The ghost had a pretty thorough explanation, but I was still clueless as to why it was there and what it really was. David would be the same way if I had not read the book.