I’m cleaning the chicken coop in my mother’s five-inch stilettos when I hear a car pull into the driveway.

So many questions from this opening line and I don’t know where to start. Like all good opening lines, it makes you want to read more - to find out why someone would be cleaning the chicken coop in their mother’s five-inch stilettos -  then find out who is pulling into their driveway. To add confusion to the final story before the winner of the One Teen Story contest, here is a video by Editor-in-Chief of OTS, Patrick Ryan.

 

* Spoilers *

So this story is about a girl, Sam – short for Samantha, who cleans a chicken coop in her mother’s stilettos. Easy. Until you read that she is a 17-year-old girl who is freaking out that her younger 14-year-old sister is going to the senior prom with a douchebag, Sam’s words – not mine, named Ken. Less easy. Sam has a date, but is only planning on attending so as to keep an eye on her sister, but her date never shows up and so he could also be called a douchebag, again – Sam’s words, but he has an excuse that I won’t spoil, and you should really read the story. Tricky.

As Holly Hilliard writes in the interview with Patrick Ryan:

I’m from a small town in southern Ohio, so a lot of my friends and classmates had farm animals. We actually used to get a week off from school every September for the county fair, since so many students had livestock. I lived in the middle of town, so I didn’t have farm animals, but I have some good memories of hanging out at my friends’ farms.

I grew up in a similar setting in Kent County and went to school with a few kids who had to get up in the morning and milk the cows or feed the chickens before going to work or school. This idea might seem foreign in today’s world as more people move to cities and suburbs and have nothing to do with farms and where our food comes from. With the fact that this setting and situation might seem foreign, or at the very least different, adds to Sam’s isolation and the reader’s sympathy for her.

She has to care for animals on a farm no matter the weather, the time of day, her mood, or what else is going on in her life. The animals depend on her as if she were their parent. And it feels real. This story felt as real as the holes in the mud made by those stilettos.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, this is the 8^th and final story before the winner of OTS Volume II is announced. Actually, I am late reading and writing this, and the winner has already been announced. So, if you want to know you can click here to see. If you want to wait, I’ll be publishing that article soon.

 

Happy Reading, ORB

 

The Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College serves as one of the cultural centers of campus, bringing together students, faculty, alumni, and local community members from across the disciplines. Our literary programming provides access to a wide variety of genres, including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, scholarly prose, playwriting, and hybrid forms; our letterpress studio and Literary House Press introduce participants both to old and new technologies. We are dedicated to promoting the articulated word and to supporting students through professional, on-the-job training.