n the first of January, I, Timothy Legonawy was sitting in a stale attic on Meadowlark Lane in a small town in New York state, wrapped in blankets. It was a large house with multiple rooms, beautiful furniture, wonderful décor, and two stories, not including the attic. The Mrs.’ favorite item was a large family portrait that hung above the fireplace.
Mr. Farrington was a broad man with deep brown skin, a black suit and blue tie, and a shining, bald head like a watermelon. He rarely smiled- since he was a prestigious prosecution lawyer- unless his granddaughter, Patricia, was visiting, bringing drawings she made and a kiss. Mrs. Farrington was a short, slim woman with light brown skin, a tight, dark bun that remained on her head after she retired from the journalism business, and preferred floral print. Mrs. Farrington ran a Garden Club for the other wives on Meadowlark Lane. The couple was celebrating the New Year with a party, complete with wine and a 5-course meal. The guests invited were the Wells', the Dandridges, the Anworths, and the Winfields.
As the guests arrived, I began reading Anne of Green Gables to my dear friend, Les the Possum, although Les the Opossum is his full title. He was a lazy marsupial with a thick coat and a rather large middle, who preferred classic books over modern novels. I had brought him a large piece of fruit to nibble on as I read aloud. Les did not seem interested in this chapter, although I found it quite enjoyable. The most enjoyable thing he seemed to find up until this point in our evening was the fruit he was eating. In fact, it was rare Les seemed interested in a book, although in particularly emotional or intense chapters I swear I could see him emote. Granted, it is hard to tell with possums.
Eventually, I got distracted and began listening to the conversation happening below. Mrs. Farrington was chatting with Mrs. Dandridge, a blonde woman with a large fur coat, about her garden, and how her roses were flourishing from a dose of Frank Sinatra every morning. Mr. Farrington was talking about a particularly complicated case he was working, which involved the murder of Mrs. Jones and her pet boa constrictor. The details were gruesome, so I continued reading the cheerier book of Anne of Green Gables.
As one tends to do when sitting in an attic with a possum with no manners, I began thinking about the first time I met Les. I climbed into the attic of Mr. and Mrs. Farrington after a dinner of meatloaf with my grandmother. Her group of card players came, and she ordered me to my room to complete my homework. My grandmother was a short, bony woman with thin, frizzy white hair that revealed a pink scalp, and had pale skin. She was not a maternal woman and often sent me out in the cold to care for her garden. I dislike admitting it, but I look much like my grandmother. I am two feet taller than her but am also lanky and skinny and have pale skin. I also have thick, brown hair, which I wear in the same style every day.
Not wanting to stay in my grandmother’s house with the often-unruly cardplayers, I decided to take a trip to the Farrington’s. Knowing a possum lived in the attic, I wanted to make a good first impression, and looked up “Opossums,” in the Encyclopedia. They eat an assortment of things, including fruit. So, I brought some left-over honeydew from my fridge, sneaking past the card players, who were now drinking alcohol.
In the attic, Les pretended to die, which I had read is normal behavior for possums, but was incredibly impolite, since I had brought him some fruit to eat. I knew, of course, that he was not dead, but all the same, it was frightening. I knelt next to him, praying he would not bite me, and began saying “Wake up, little possum,” in a squeaky whisper, knowing full well he was not sleeping, nor was he little. He decided I was trustworthy enough to sit up after I repeated the lie for the hundredth time. He stared skeptically at the plate of honeydew. He must have decided it was better than the food he would have scavenged that night because he began to eat it- gorge it, I would say- as I pulled out my eleventh-grade math homework. Slowly, we became friends, and he let me name him.
Now that I was deep in thought and thoroughly cut off from the outside world, I did not hear a figure climbing up the lattice to the attic.
“Hello!” She announced, sticking her green-eyed, snow-covered head inside the attic, avoiding the low beams. She startled me, causing me to shriek, and she startled Les, who pretended to die, fruit juice trickling down his fur onto his straw bed. “I’m Trini Abasolo Abel.”
“What was that?” Mr. Farrington said from downstairs. After months of peacefully sitting up in this attic, above the Farrington’s, without ever alerting them of my presence, Trini Abasolo Abel had caused me to shriek and startle the guests below.
“Heavens, it could be a rat!” Mrs. Farrington screeched as Trini continued talking. She said she was gloomy because her classmates had made fun of her hand-me-down clothes and large glasses, but she thought I would not, since I spent most of my evenings in an attic of a house which I did not live in. Oh, and what was my possum's name?
“I’ll see what it is,” Mr. Farrington announced.
I quickly grabbed my book, Les, still lying belly-up on the floor, and the arm of Trini, trying to drag her out of the attic. But before I could, Mr. Farrington opened the cobweb-covered hatch to the attic and called for someone to dial the police.
There were two robbers and a dead possum in his attic.
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*This is an entry for a Realistic Fiction Competition on another writing site.*
Draft #: FINAL
Word Count: 1,000
This is based on my November Grab Bag entry " A Bag of Stories Involving a Possum and an Interdimensional Letter, Among Other Things" where Les the Possum and the interdimensional letter from Dimension 2 Yaya were the most popular. But I really had no idea what I could write that would be (semi) realistic until I thought of this and I was like "YES!" I introduced a few new characters and went in more depth on who the characters were, hopefully.
I was playing around with a different style when I originally wrote this; I was trying a Roald Dahl style. Now I added some style from I book I read called Lake Wobegon Days (although I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you're cautious, because there were cussing and a few inappropriate scenes), which parts of were really funny. Hopefully, this is too.
Thank you for reading!
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