Let It Go

• Rowena Mcphee, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2012

“Just don’t worry about it, mate. It doesn’t matter right now.”
“But mama! I can’t just leave it! It’s on my mind and I won’t be able to sleep until it’s solved.”
“Well, look here, imagine you’ve got a big hook, and you can hang things there that you’re worried about, to get them off your mind. So hang it up, and you can deal with it in the morning, yeah?”
Hang it on a hook, eh? I wonder what sort of hook. I like red hooks. Big, red hooks. In fact, I like lots of red stuff. When I have a house I’m gonna have lots of red stuff, like a red letter box and a red bin. And my house is gonna be near a bakery, like, so I can get fresh bread every day. Yeah, fresh bread every day sounds good. I really like white bread, but mama never buys it, says it’s not good for you, like. I don’t mind eating a little bit a unhealthy stuff, though. I’d rather be happy and fat than sad and skinny. There’s a girl at school who’s skinny. Real skinny, like. Ye can see her bones and everything, but she eats a lot. Eats more than me, in fact, and I eat a lot! One time, I ate four plates of lasagne! And it wasn’t even that nice. I tell ye, though, I had the nicest lasagne another time. It was heavenly! My teacher made a big dish for our whole class. My teacher is nice like that. Another time, she took us out to the playground for the whole block! My favourite part of the playground is the monkey mars. I’ve got blisters on my hands from going on them so much. Mama says I’ll get callouses eventually. My dad has callouses from carving things out of wood. He carved me an elephant with a sticky-uppy trunk for Christmas. In Thailand, elephants with sticky-uppy trunks mean good luck. I have a key that means good luck to me. It used to unlock a cupboard, but the cupboard burnt and all that was left was the key. I remember when…
“He should be able to sleep now. I told him to just let his mind go blank.”