Old Mrs. Bell: a fractured "fairytale"

Well, actually a Christmas song. My least favorite Christmas song.

(Warning: Silliness ahead! Okay, carry on.)

In the backyard, Grandma Bell's green-cloaked figure lay stretched out, half sunk into the snow.

My brothers and I looked at each other with wide eyes. What kind of creature would be tough enough to best her? Even at 112, she could have won a fight with most of the younger wizards in the neighborhood. Nobody tangled with old Mrs. Bell. She was a grandma to be proud of, and all of us younger Bells adored her. If she was hurt...!

I recovered first and sprinted as best I could to reach her side. Then I looked back. The other boys huddled in the safety of the porch, watching me like owls.

"You chicken or what?" I hollered, but my voice cracked and betrayed me. I wagged my head with exaggerated pity. The act bolstered my deflating courage enough that I dared to wade the last few steps.

"Grandma?"

She groaned. "Sinterklaas!" came out like a muffled curse.

I knelt near her. "Are you okay?" I tried to ignore the ants crawling over my skin. What if it came back? What kind of deer had tracks that big?

She coughed and spit out snow. "Oh, honey, I'm fine."

There were rips in her cloak! And she said she was fine? "Grandma! What happened?"

"A Hyperborean deer! Knocked me down, insolent oaf!" Spitting out more snow, she sat up and took stock of herself. Her gnarled hands searched through the snow. "It's the third time this winter!"

I dug my mittens into the snow and uncovered her broomstick. "Here."

"Thank you, Daniel." She shook snow from her robes and mounted the broomstick. "Oh, I'll have his hide this time, if I have to chase 'im till morning!"

Sparks shot from the bristles and she sped away from us into the wintry night.
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The idea came from a list of parody song titles, here.

I write like. . .

I write like
Neil Gaiman

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

I put Cecilia and the Bansídhe in. I really like this result. :D Even though I've never read anything by Neil Gaiman, I loved the episode of Doctor Who he wrote.

Conundrums of "Twilight"

I visited Forks, Washington the summer I was sixteen, and adored it - I'd wanted to go to Olympic National Park ever since I knew it existed. It's soo beautiful. A few years later, I decided to read Twilight before I knew much more than the setting, just because I had loved the forest so much. (I found the book disappointing.) I lived in the Olympic Peninsula area for a summer a few years later, so I know a lot about the geography and what the place is like. We ate pizza in the diner in the exact same booth Bella and her dad do in the movie, without even knowing it. . . not sure how I feel about that. :P

Anyhow, I know lots of details in Twilight that are pretty ridiculous, and this one is my favorite.

In the book, as Edward drives Bella home from Port Angeles, he goes way over the speed limit, insanely fast, and says that he can do that because of his superhuman reflexes. (Let's try to ignore the fact that she went there because she wanted books. I mean, come on. UPS delivers in Forks! And the library's pretty decent, actually. They have books about local Native American myths and everything. I know, I know, I'm being too picky.)

source

Highway 101 between Port Angeles and Forks snakes along the shore of Lake Crescent in tight curves. It's narrow, has blind curves and crazy drivers from Seattle, and it's wet and slippery in the winter. There is no way at all any car, not even one driven by the Stig, could go 110 mph around those curves. Cars are heavy and affected by physics. The only way Edward could manage it is if he had a magical car. A special vampire car. One that can go intangible whenever it meets a normal car, so it doesn't crash. If that's actually what it was, that would be cool, but it's just a Volvo!

If Edward tried, he would end up in the lake. He might not mind, but Bella probably would. :P

It's no wonder they didn't try to put that in the movie, because special effects/computer animation would definitely be required. :D