Just something I had to write for my honors class that I kinda like. I had to read it aloud and everyone was all… ::silence:: … literally. I always get terribly flustered when I have to share something I wrote, so its nice to know that people go speechless… in a good way… ::grins::

SCRAP DRIVE

I wish there was something more I could do. As much fun as it is collecting spare bits of stuff, I really wish there was something more… anything more. However, a sixteen year old isn’t quite old enough to join the military.

Scrap metal, old rags, waste paper, old rubber… I write in a bold red crayon I borrowed from my little sister, making yet another poster to hang around school. Anne, one of my close friends and the ‘accountant’ for our scrap drive, sits next to me and relays the current numbers for everything we’ve collected.

“… Seventy-nine pounds of brass, 147 pounds of steel, 228 pounds of rags, fourteen oil drums, and seventeen tires. Joel, do you want to work inside?”

I look up at the question, pushing my blond hair out of my eyes and shake my head in answer, mouthing, I’m fine. I lost my voice yesterday at the rally our group had to get more students to donate.

“You sure? You’re the one sitting in the sun,” Justin, my brother, says quietly (although he’s always like that). I shrug.

If Anne’s hair was blond instead of brunette, the three of us would look like siblings. We share the same blue-grey eyes and fair complexion, but for Justin and I, it comes from being predominately Swedish. Anne’s French.

I pick up the blue crayon and start writing under the red every little bit count! Help build the newest Destroyer and turn your aluminum cans into ammunition!

I’d rather be on the front line, where I could see my hard work in action…

Aiden sits near by. He’s seventeen and decidedly Italian. He tends to make lunch for us as we work, and he’s our runner, getting us almost anything we ask for.

… It’s not like I don’t want to do what we are now. I love how much people are willing to give to help our soldiers, but I want to be a soldier…

Aiden and I bounce down the road in his old pickup, taking our school’s donations to the main center. It’s relatively quiet, except for the growl of the engine and the creaks of the struts every time we hit a bump.

“To think all this could make a plane,” he murmurs quietly, more to himself than to me.

“I’d like to fly one one day,” I reply, just as softly as him.

“A plane?”

“Yeah,” I lift my chin proudly, “I want to be a pilot in the United States Army Air Force and fly the best plane out there.”

He chuckles, “dream big, don’t you?”

“Mmhmm… what about you? What do you want to do?”

“Me… I’d rather be on the ground, thank you very much. I have problems with this truck, as high as it is. I don’t think I could ever be in a plane.”

“Well, maybe all this,” I jut my thumb back towards the bed of his truck, “could make you a tank?”

“My tank, rifle and all my bullets, too, with the way it’s going.”

“… Why not join the military?” Aiden asks as we head back to my house, the bed of the truck empty.

“I’m sixteen, you’re barely seventeen… any way you look at it, we won’t be old enough to sign up within the next ten minutes.”

Sarcasm practically oozes from the words he replies with: “Of course, mother.”

I huff. Yes, I’m quite aware that I’m a goody two shoes.

“I don’t think they really care, Joel,” he continues, “I’ve heard of guys younger than you joining. All they do is lie about their age.”

“But you aren’t supposed to lie to the government!”

“Like it stops people,” he chuckles.

And that’s how I get suckered into joining the military.

X-x-X

The prompt was something along the lines of, its during WWII and you’re too young to go to war, so you host a scrap drive at your school. What do you collect and how is it used? Written as a narrative. Yay.