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The Telling Room: 'Whaleback'

The Telling Room

Every Friday this summer, we're featuring the work of young writers in partnership with the Telling Room In Portland. Our first installment is called "Whaleback," a piece inspired by the Patriot's Day storm of 2006, when writer Anna Mitchell was only 4 years old.

The red suburban crept along the sea foam blanketed pavement, carrying us like a faithful steed into battle. The wind blew at an unruly pace, lifting wave after wave into the somber sky. The tires rolled. The ocean rolled.

Buoys and traps were strewn around us, as if left behind by a child called to dinner from his play, forgotten with the promise of something more significant. I turned my head, and was met by the once menacing view of the ocean, a set of stormy, evergreen eyes, perplexed as the titanic body jived a tango. And in a heartbeat, again, the sight made me crumble. It was fickle that day, in the tradition of ages.

We skidded to a salty, rain-driven halt. I savored the strange sense of calm that settled over us. It muffled the howl that rocked the vehicle. A steady hand reached for the handle, shook it so as to loosen its age-clenched grasp, and pushed outward against the force of the rain, thus opening the door.

Greeting the wind, we were consumed by the raging storm. Picking our way to the shore, it was clear this visit would last no longer than the moment one of us children began to cry. Maybe merely a whimper would inspire a departure in this treachery, for it felt as if the tautness of the moment could be plucked, echoing the enchantments of naivety and dissipating into the extremity of our little minds.

It was called Whaleback, our lithic destination, named for its appearance. We had adorned our sun-bleached curls with our flowered dresses and we seemed out of place. We were too much concentrated light, when this day seemed in closer relation to the night.

The four of us crawled with vigor as far as the wind permitted, and then we stood. We stood tall, braced by our solid souls, braced by the strength of what we are raised to become. Free. And all around us was chaos. The beautiful, savage kind that you can't help but admire, like heaven and hell, and everything in between.

Anna Mitchell, 13, is an eighth grader at King Middle School in Portland, and one of 26 students to be selected for publication in the annual anthology of the "Telling Room" a nonprofit writing center dedicated to the idea that children and young adults are natural story tellers.