This is my college english final that is due at 8 tomorrow morning! If you could please help me out that would be fantastic! Thanks so much!
Final Project Assisngment:
Write a short story in the style of one of the authors we read in class. (I chose the lottey).
You can write the same storyline from the viewpoint of one of the other characters, a new character(which I chose).
however, you must write an entirely new story. It cannot be in the original author's wording. (I did use names of characters from the original text.)
Sorry about the spacing, it doesnt seem to come out quite right.
Chaz Morse
4/28/13
P. J********
Can't Wait to Play The Lottery (Ttitle)
"Oh John, it's just perfect!"
"It sure is Mary, been saving up for something like this for a long time now, and with the transfer from the office, it's just the perfect timing too."
Suzy comes running into the room.
"Mommy Mommy! Billy stole my room! It's my room! I was there first!"
"Now now sweetie, no one's decided on their rooms yet, there's absolutely nothing to worry about."
Suzy runs back upstairs, continuing to fight with Billy about their new rooms. John and Mary continue to discuss the new move, and plan out a date for when to officially move in. Already having sold their old house, they plan on moving in as soon as possible to get out the hotel they've been staying at for the past week.
* * *
One week later.
"Okay! Looks like we've got everything here!"
"But daddy what about mommy? Where's mommy?"
"She went to the store to get dinner for tonight, she'll be home shortly."
John and his wife Mary had now spent their first night in their new home, with the whole moving process working out much better than they had excepted. They even had met their new neighbors and seem to get along well.
Then next morning after breakfast the doorbell rings. John goes and opens the door to two new faces who he hasn't met yet.
"Hello! I'm Tom, and this is my wife Nancy."
"Hi Tom, Nancy. I'm john, it's nice to meet you two. You must live nearby?"
"We actually just live two houses down that way. Figured we'd give you a warm welcome and bring you a nice housewarming gift."
"Well thank you very much Tom, it's very nice of you."
"Oh don't thank me, Nancy made this strait from scratch! If you ask me, She's the best cook in town!"
"It really does mean a lot for you to bake this Nancy so thanks again."
"Well we've already heard so much about you, I couldn't do anything less than make my famous blueberry pie! I made it with extra fruit just for the occasion too!"
"Well Nancy, we'd better get going, it was nice meeting you John."
"Yes very nice to meet both of you too, thanks again for the pie Nancy."
The next night John gets home very late from work, somewhat stumbling in the door. Mary looks at him with a questioned look on her face.
"And where have you been mister?"
"The guys at work took me out to the bar for a drink, 'breaking me into the new office' they said."
"You don't usually drink like this john, I don't like it at all."
"Look it was just this one time, come on Mary, cut me some slack. What was I going to say, no? Well anyways, I'm off to bed, got to get over this for the morning."
* * *
A few weeks pass by, John and his family are completely enjoying their new home. Suzy and Billy are still not getting along great, but what little brother and sister do anyways? Mary has made good friends with one of their next door neighbors Jackie. Her and her husband Dan have been living here for almost 10 years now, they have no kids, and are about the same age and John and Mary too. Mary and Jackie were talking about the neighborhood one evening, and Jackie remembered one of the annual town events coming up very soon.
"Oh! I can't believe that I haven't mentioned this before now Mary. Every year this town has an annual lottery, everyone in the town participates. It's been going on ever since I've lived here, and probably for much longer before I lived here too!"
She merely only mentions the lottery, then diverts to some more gossip talk of the town, even though Mary seemed to be still interested, and somewhat excited about the lottery. When Mary got home an hour or so later from Jackie's house, she instantly tells John about the upcoming lottery.
"So what is this again Mary?"
"It's a lottery that the town puts on where everyone participates! It only happens once a year too!"
"What kind of a lottery?"
"Well, what do you mean what kind? A lottery is a lottery John, I wonder how much money they're going to give!"
For the next couple of weeks coming up on the lottery this is all that Mary thinks about. Considering what she would do with the money they gave her, how she would react to her friends about winning. Mary was almost obsessed with the thought of the lottery, being a house wife and staying home all day while having not much to do, could really get to someone after a while.
Now it's the day of the lottery. Mary is completely elate that this day has finally come, she has been waiting and waiting for what seems like months to her. She even prepared a special breakfast for the day's event, even though no one else really knows what she's so excited about.
"Alight everyone! Breakfast is ready! I've got French toast, bacon, eggs, hash browns, and of course your choice of milk or orange juice!"
"What's all this about honey?"
"Don't you know?"
"Know what?"
"Why today is the lottery!"
"Oh yeah, that lottery you've been talking about. I completely forgot about that."
"How could you forget something like a lottery? With the amount of people in this town, we've got a pretty good chance on the prize if we're lucky enough. Come on kids! Breakfast is only getting colder!"
The time is now 11:55. The lottery is said to start around noon time, so by now everyone in the town has gathered up and gossiping amongst each other for the while that they wait for Mr. Summers to show up. The men mostly talked about sports, and about their last golfing trip, while the women were talking more or less of cooking recipes and about their bad behaved children. The women and men seem to have separated completely, even though they would eventually have to gather up together as a family. The children, running off all around the adults with no rhyme or reason somehow not disturbing much in their paths. Eventually the Mr. Summers walks out of his office and into the center of the jumbled crowd, along with his assistant who is carrying a small black box and a barstool.
"Hello Everyone!" A weak response is shown from the crowd, but everyone slowly ends their conversations. The black box is placed carefully on the bar stool, the tradition of using the black box is said to be before Mr. Summers was even born. "As you all must know by being here, today is the lottery. Congratulations to everyone first of all for making it another year of the lottery!" Moderate chit chat from the crowd in response to Mr. Summers' comment. "Well we might as well start already, I'm assuming everyone's here by now, it's already 10 past. I'll make this quick so as we can all get back to our day."
Mr. Summers calls off the first name. "Adams." Mr. Adams separates himself from the crowd and takes a paper from out of the box for his family. He said hi to Mr. Summers but usually he's a pretty quiet guy. As Mr. Adams makes his way back into the crowd the Mr. Summers calls off the next name. "Allen . . . Clark . . . Delacroix."
"That's my man," Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath as her husband went forward.
"Martin . . . Watson . . . Zanini."
After the last name, there was a long quiet pause, like as if no one wanted to breath to break the silence.
"Well, who's got it?" Mr. Summers said as he held up his blank paper in the air.
Mary looks at John with disappointment when she opens up their slip. "Damn it! I swore we were going to get John, it's all summers fault, he rushed me when I went up and took the slip."
"Mary calm down, it's not a big deal, you don't even know what the prize is so don't be so down about it, it could just be nothing, you know."
Some voices in the crowd began to say, "It's Hutchinson", "It's Bill", "Bills got it".
Bills wife began complaining about the drawing, but Bill hushed her up as Mr. Summers mixed up Bills slip with 3 other slips so that his whole family would each get one. Each of their family grabbed their own slip, even their youngest little Dave. Harry, another member of the crowd, held the paper slip for Dave. Tessie, Bills wife, was the most reluctant to grab her slip. Everyone was holding their slips in their hands reluctant to open them. Each opened theirs one by one. The last to open theirs was Tessie, and she knew she got it. Tessie starts complaining about the drawing even more furiously now.
"Why is she so mad that she got the lucky ticket?" said Mary, who is completely confused by this whole process. "This isn't like any lottery I've ever played before!"
The crowd starts to pick up rocks off the ground and are no starting to toss them at Tessie.
"Mary, we need to get out of here now!" John and Mary attempt to disappear from the crowd who is now stoning Tessie to no end. Unfortunately for them, one of the older towns people sees them try to get out of the crowd.
"Hey! Look everyone! They're try to leave the lottery!"
"Where do you think you're going?" Said Mr. Summers as he was standing in front of them stopping them in their tracks. "Take them too! They tried to get away from the lottery!" Mr. Summers pushed John and Mary back into the center of the crowd in a rage. "No one gets away from the lottery!" By now, Billy has joined the other kids in the stoning along with the rest of the townspeople. He turns around to face his parents lying on the ground behind him. Now they are being stoned right to the ground along with Tessie. So without even thinking he picks up the nearest rock and trusts it down with all his might, unrelentlessly, into his next victim.
Notes:
Not sure if I was allowed to change the story line, but I did so that it would fit the new perspective of the characters moving into the neighborhood, and give them some background info and make it more personal than just another townsperson.
