2018 Writing Scrapbook

The Girl Who Annotates

Note: This is a Christmas present for my friend Noelle. 

No children approached the girl. They scampered off in fright when they saw her, for nothing was to be ignited from her but terror. Children weaved around each other to dodge her in her straight black skirt and shoes that were always a bit too shiny. Adults, on the other hand, looked at her with respect. They recognized her atrocious gift. So on the corner of Main Street sat a squat brick building perched on the edge of the curb.

And in this squat brick building sat the squat little girl in a squat little chair that swirled round and round. Her lips were pursed tight, her eyebrows narrowed, her eyes ablaze with fire. In her hand, she held a pen, and on her desk was a stack of paper.

As her assistant walked through the door, trembling, she snapped at him. "Edward, what do you think you're doing? I need to do my work in peace."

"Just bringing you another report from the governor, Miss Madeleine-" he stuttered. "It seemed... urgent..."

"Urgent enough to barge in on me while I'm working?" she jumped off her squat little chair and with pudgy arms crossed over her chest moved her glasses a few inches up on the bridge of her nose. She circled around him, looking at his frightened brown eyes with her own pair of squat little eyes.

"No- no, it wasn't, Miss Madeleine-" he dropped the papers on her desk and with a whimper ran out of the room.

She sighed and ran back. "They just don't understand, dear pen," she comforted her inanimate friend. "Annotation is more important than they shall ever know."

Yes, Miss Madeleine was cold. Heartlessly cold. She was a viper striking her prey through the work of her pen. At two she could read, at three she was deciphering college essays, and at four, she performed miracles- her writing, her annotating, in particular. She scaped the area of her essays, documenting every last error, every incorrect syntax that came her way. Her hand sketched words until it ached. She was a calculating artist, working with red paint on a black and white canvas.

"Our work is magnificent," she breathed. The work had begun to funnel in once she was discovered by a squat little businessman at a methodical business party in which her parents had been attending. Seeing the benefits of their daughter's methodical ways, they discussed her opening a business of her own, and therefore it came to be known for what it was- an annotation shop with Madeleine's methodical annotations being jotted on every document sent her way.

She worked up quite a temper in an office of power. "A pushy, ignorant little brat she is!" Edward shouted out of her earshot. "Who would think that such a nine-year-old girl could be so rude?"

But it was true- everything that she did was fantastic, spectacular, and every error she ever found was corrected upon return. After all, she was the "Girl Who Annotates".