I've written a story which I am linking to a blog hop at Denise's Girlie on the Edge's Blog. The cue is a different word each week. This week we were given Six Sentence Stories - Habit. Click the link so you can read the other stories written in just six sentences.
Hoping to fit in with some of the girls at her new school, Marylou again joined a small cluster of girls sitting on the grass during their lunch break.
They all seemed to have something to say to one another, but not to her and neither did she interject.
Finally, one of the older girls, gazing directly at Marylou's hands asked her why she always sat like that.
Shrugging, without making eye contact, Marylou's cheeks flushed in embarrassment as she glanced down at her hands while slowly opening them until her fingers were fully extended between the blades of grass.
Another girl held up her own fingers admiring her pink polished nails, and told her about how her mom used to put hot pepper sauce on her fingernails to make her stop chewing them.
The thought of that playground encounter was all it took for Marylou to begin breaking her recently acquired habit.
Oh wow. You so brought me back in time. Only after reading this story did I remember I had a nail biting problem when I was very young, younger than the girl in your story. I'm glad my mom didn't put hot pepper sauce on my fingernails!
ReplyDeleteAnother engaging SSS, Pat ☺
Thanks, Denise.
DeleteI'm glad my mother never didn't resort to such drastic measures either.
Like Girlie (Denise), i used to bite my nails, too. Was i glad i'd stopped years before when we were in biology class and looked at cultures from under our nails with the microscope!
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness. How intriguing that would have been to look at cultures grown from the stuff under one's fingernails! I can only imagine the crud that would show up, especially from the nails of a child.
DeleteNot a big nail biter. I did like the (small) scene of life in your Six. All of these are like (old person warning!!) polaroids...with those little triangular tab things (before putting on the cellulose-whatever clear plastic thingie in the photo album.
ReplyDeleteFunny, we never had a polaroid, although many did.
DeleteYeah, those clear plastic thingies in the photo albums proved to be pure death to photos. The photos stuck to the sticky page, the plastic covered the photos, and then if the photos weren't removed, before too many years the acid did it's dastardly trick.
Fortunately once the anti-acid and papers became available photos had a better chance.
Glad you like the small scene of life in my Six.
A well told tale of a common habit. Cool how you showed why Marylou chewed.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I thought it important to try to indicate why she might have been chewing her fingernails.
DeleteIt's a habit I never had. Funny that we both went in the same direction ... sort of...
ReplyDeleteYou possibly were a more relaxed sort of kid. :-)
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