The Mum Who Hates Stories

• Felix Kurian, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2022

My mum hates stories! She doesn’t let me read or write stories even though I want to. Not letting someone do something that they want to do is practically torture. It’s simply not fair and plain wrong. I can’t believe that my mum hates stories. She’s nuts!



It all started when I came home from school with an assessment task which was to write a story about anything. I was super excited as I loved writing stories at school. I started writing, in my opinion, a wonderful first paragraph. I listened to music as I wrote my story, not realizing that my mum was calling me to come downstairs.



Suddenly, I heard loud footsteps stomping towards my bedroom. ‘Oh no! Mum’s going to ground me for not listening to her’ I thought, but as always, I was wrong. Mum stomped her way into my bedroom and shrieked. “Why are you writing a story?! Never! Nonsense! You are grounded for a week!” she screamed. “But mum......” I trailed off. “Zip! Zop! Nada! I want to hear nothing. Two weeks grounded! No seeing friends! I never, ever want to see you reading or writing a story!” mum roared. “Gosh! She’s insane!” I mumbled. “What’s that?” mum strictly asked. “Nothing.” I spoke.



Mum was starting to act weirdly. She banned me from using TikTok but like I always do, I disobeyed her. I used TikTok all the time, that is, until she caught me. I was recording my favorite dance when she unexpectedly barged into my room at full speed. I tried to quickly get off TikTok, but my mum saw my phone. “You obnoxious little child, I told you not to go on Tiklock.” she shouted. “Um... Mum this is TikTok not Ticklock if you already didn’t know.” I said in a sassy tone. “How dare you back chat me!” She gave me a tight and hard slap, so I had a bright red hand mark on my face.



I was starting to hate mum, but that quickly all changed. One day, mum came to my room and sat me down. She told me that the reason why I can’t write stories is because after dad divorced mum and left us, he wrote bad stories about mum and how she is a bad influence. I felt so guilty because I thought mum was insane! “I am so sorry mum! Please forgive me!” I asked. “Of course, I will forgive you” mum said. “Just no TikTok and no stories” she said. “Okay” I replied.



From that day onwards, I always obeyed mum because I knew the struggles and difficulties she was going through. I hope soon that ‘dad’ stops writing about mum and minds his ‘own business’.