A creative writing club assignment, starting with an excerpt from Fit the Fifth of Lewis Carrol's The Hunting of the Snark; an agony in eight fits.
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‘They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with forks and hope. They threatened its life with a railway share; They charmed it with smiles and soap.’ She raised a trembling hand to her cap, ‘I don’t know what that lad’ll do next, I’m at the end of my tether! It isn’t very long, either.’ She made vague motions towards the Tether strapped around her wrist, then brandished a flour-caked rolling pin at the girl. ‘Do you think he’s right to treat me like this? His own mother?’
The girl said nothing, and stared up at her through a curtain of tangled, muddy hair.
‘What did you say, girl?’
The girl continued to stare up through her curtain of hair, and replied; ‘Nothing, ma’am.’
‘Why not?’
‘Couldn’t think of anything to say.’ She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. ‘It’s taken me ever so long to get here, I wouldn’t want to be thrown out again.’ She frowned. ‘The people here do have a tendency to throw me out rather violently.’
‘So you say Nothing?’
‘Yes ma’am.’
‘When you see Nothing, tell it I’m looking for it. It’s got my best cookie-cutter. Now,’ she plonked herself down on a rickety chair, which complained bitterly at how it was being treated, and that its Workers Union would be hearing about it soon enough. The woman slapped the chair and turned back to the girl. ‘You wanted to talk to my son? Go wait for him in his room. It’s two tugs on the rope, and you’ll be there.’
The girl vanished without a sound over the perilous ledge, though she did leave some muddy footprints for the woman to clean up.
‘What a silly girl. Rather like my boy, in a way. Can you imagine trying to corner a great beast like a Tintle Spryte with thimbles,Care, and forks? Care’s a lovely girl, but rather off with the Rhinobees, if you ask me. She wouldn’t be much use if the Tintle Spryte decided to unleash a deluge of scalding tea from the Great Teapot, now would she?’
‘She might,’ wheezed the chair, ‘If she liked tea, she could drink it.’
‘Oh shush.’ She slapped it again.
The chair collapsed under the strain, leaving the woman to sit on her dusty floor amidst the ruins of her favourite kitchen chair. A broom broke open the door to its cupboard, shuffled over to her, and began to sweep again the splinters.
Somewhere in the distance, a kettle whistled ominously.
Subject: The Kettle 
Sat 1 Mar 2008 - 11:01
