Margaret Chatwin's Blog - Posts Tagged "101"
101 character interview
Today in Shenaya blog spot is featuring the book 101 all week long. Check in often to see the updates and enter to win a copy. On Wednesday, Seth, from the novel Pledged by Gwynneth White will post his review of the book. And on Friday,7/6/12, he and Erin will be interviewing Trigg, Ren, Ace and Riker.
http://todayinshenaya.blogspot.com/
http://todayinshenaya.blogspot.com/
101 Giveaway
I'm giving away two paperback copies of 101. You know you want to enter. :)
101 character interview has posted.
Hi, everyone!
I am so excited to share this link with you. Seth and Erin from the fabulous YA novel Pledged by Gwynneth White (which will be released September 1st, and is really good, btw) has interviewed some of the characters from the book 101. Stop by and see what you think. PS you can enter to win a copy of 101.
http://todayinshenaya.blogspot.com/
I am so excited to share this link with you. Seth and Erin from the fabulous YA novel Pledged by Gwynneth White (which will be released September 1st, and is really good, btw) has interviewed some of the characters from the book 101. Stop by and see what you think. PS you can enter to win a copy of 101.
http://todayinshenaya.blogspot.com/
To: Yzabel and Tiffany (and anyone else who may be wondering.) From: Trigg
Yes, my adventure started long before that night in the living room when Ren sealed our fate by pulling the trigger. I actually think it started the day I was born, but who wants to be dragged that far back? Not me. Bad enough I had to live it once.
So – my dad. You probably figured we’d start with him, huh? Everything always starts with him. Not sure how that’s even possible, but it seems to be true.
His name is Kent Hale and I don’t know what he was like as a kid or teen. Never had one of those father/son get-to-know-you talks. You know the kind where, for a second, you can close your eyes and pretend your parent is really your friend? Where the two of you can find yourselves in each other? Where something they did as a kid is so similar to what you did just five minutes ago that you feel a connecting bond? Yeah – just never happened with him. When he wasn’t screaming, he was silent. That weird, vacant kind of silent. A stupor that, I’m sure was induced by the liquor.
His parents were no help in getting to know him. His dad died before my sixth birthday in some work related accident. Or so they say. Rumor has it the guy had an enemy on every corner.
Shocking how my dad turned out to be the stalwart individual that he is.
Dad’s mom – well she remarried a few years later and moved to some place I can’t even pronounce. Ren and I never saw her again.
I wasn’t heartbroken over it. Not like we were all that close, anyhow. We seldom got together, but when we did – I mostly just remember all the bickering. I hated the feeling that type of behavior always left in the back of my throat so I’d go outside to find something to do. Ren though, man, she had more of a stomach for it. She’d sit there and take it all in. Eyes darting back and forth from Shouter to Screamer.
I think she was learning how to load that gun way back then. She must get her spirit of fight from that side of the family.
So how did my mom end up with a guy like my dad?
He back handed me across the mouth one day when I was about ten and while I was still fuming over it, I confronted her about that. She’d smiled sadly, handed me a bag of frozen peas from the freezer to put on my face and said, “He wasn’t always like this.”
I beg to differ, though. I mean, my dad even admitted, the night Ren shot him, that when he was half my age he was fist fighting his ol’ man out on the front lawn.
Bet that was quite a spectacle for the neighbors to see.
Anyway, I have a hard time believing my dad was ever anything other than mean. But, I guess I do have to admit that I saw times when he stepped up his game. Like when he got fired and went several years without even looking for a new job. Years when it was just my mom that worked. He started drinking more then, and you saw how he is when he’s drunk.
Trust me, when he’s loaded, his actions and motives make absolutely no sense, at all, to me either. All I know is to look out because he gets mad at the drop of a hat. Yells when there’s nothing to yell at. And hits anything within reach. I tried to make sure that was never Ren.
My mom use to ask me not to go home after school. She’d tell me to keep Ren with me and go to the park or a friend’s house until she got off work. I did, and I’m glad. Not only did it keep Ren safe, but I had good friends with good families, and we got to have somewhat of a normal childhood because of them.
The next time my dad raised the bar on his temper and drinking was after my mom died.
Don’t really even want to talk about this part, but I guess I must.
My mom – she was perfect in my eyes. A lot like me, a peacemaker. She had a way of soothing the savage beast in my dad. She could never completely destroy it, but like I said in 101, ‘living with my dad had been tolerable when my mother was alive.’
She was coming home from work when the semi-truck hit her head on. The guy who witnessed the accident said she was gone by the time he climbed out of his car and raced to her’s.
I’m glad. Wouldn’t want to think of her hurting.
Speaking of hurting. Wow did that ever hurt me. I missed my mom like crazy. So did Ren, which drew us even closer than we already were. She was the only one who knew how I truly felt.
I guess my dad missed my mom too. Even though he kept his pain well hidden by the bottle.
He had a job when she died, but maybe that welfare check was just to tempting to pass up, because he quit a few months later and never has gone back.
In the years that followed, Dad got meaner and meaner, drunker an drunker, and Ren and I tried to avoid him as much as was humanly possible. Not a terribly difficult task given the fact that he spent a lot of time at the bar.
Okay, now down to those two burning questions. Why didn’t I report his abuse to the authorities? And why didn’t I fight back? They might both have the same answer. Fear. And not necessarily fear of being hurt physically, though that did play a roll. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize I don’t back down just because someone’s fist finds a nice place to create a lump on the side of my head.
This was fear of losing Ren.
Fear that she’d be taken into foster care and we’d be separated if I reported it.
Fear that if I retaliated and fought my father back that he’d call the police on me and I’d end up where I ended up anyway, but without Ren. And she’d be left in the one place I never wanted her to be left alone. Home.
Being humble in a situation like that – just standing there taking it – well, that isn’t as easy as it seems. True, I didn’t know how to fight with my fists, but believe me, it took all the strength I had to keep the peace by doing nothing.
So – my dad. You probably figured we’d start with him, huh? Everything always starts with him. Not sure how that’s even possible, but it seems to be true.
His name is Kent Hale and I don’t know what he was like as a kid or teen. Never had one of those father/son get-to-know-you talks. You know the kind where, for a second, you can close your eyes and pretend your parent is really your friend? Where the two of you can find yourselves in each other? Where something they did as a kid is so similar to what you did just five minutes ago that you feel a connecting bond? Yeah – just never happened with him. When he wasn’t screaming, he was silent. That weird, vacant kind of silent. A stupor that, I’m sure was induced by the liquor.
His parents were no help in getting to know him. His dad died before my sixth birthday in some work related accident. Or so they say. Rumor has it the guy had an enemy on every corner.
Shocking how my dad turned out to be the stalwart individual that he is.
Dad’s mom – well she remarried a few years later and moved to some place I can’t even pronounce. Ren and I never saw her again.
I wasn’t heartbroken over it. Not like we were all that close, anyhow. We seldom got together, but when we did – I mostly just remember all the bickering. I hated the feeling that type of behavior always left in the back of my throat so I’d go outside to find something to do. Ren though, man, she had more of a stomach for it. She’d sit there and take it all in. Eyes darting back and forth from Shouter to Screamer.
I think she was learning how to load that gun way back then. She must get her spirit of fight from that side of the family.
So how did my mom end up with a guy like my dad?
He back handed me across the mouth one day when I was about ten and while I was still fuming over it, I confronted her about that. She’d smiled sadly, handed me a bag of frozen peas from the freezer to put on my face and said, “He wasn’t always like this.”
I beg to differ, though. I mean, my dad even admitted, the night Ren shot him, that when he was half my age he was fist fighting his ol’ man out on the front lawn.
Bet that was quite a spectacle for the neighbors to see.
Anyway, I have a hard time believing my dad was ever anything other than mean. But, I guess I do have to admit that I saw times when he stepped up his game. Like when he got fired and went several years without even looking for a new job. Years when it was just my mom that worked. He started drinking more then, and you saw how he is when he’s drunk.
Trust me, when he’s loaded, his actions and motives make absolutely no sense, at all, to me either. All I know is to look out because he gets mad at the drop of a hat. Yells when there’s nothing to yell at. And hits anything within reach. I tried to make sure that was never Ren.
My mom use to ask me not to go home after school. She’d tell me to keep Ren with me and go to the park or a friend’s house until she got off work. I did, and I’m glad. Not only did it keep Ren safe, but I had good friends with good families, and we got to have somewhat of a normal childhood because of them.
The next time my dad raised the bar on his temper and drinking was after my mom died.
Don’t really even want to talk about this part, but I guess I must.
My mom – she was perfect in my eyes. A lot like me, a peacemaker. She had a way of soothing the savage beast in my dad. She could never completely destroy it, but like I said in 101, ‘living with my dad had been tolerable when my mother was alive.’
She was coming home from work when the semi-truck hit her head on. The guy who witnessed the accident said she was gone by the time he climbed out of his car and raced to her’s.
I’m glad. Wouldn’t want to think of her hurting.
Speaking of hurting. Wow did that ever hurt me. I missed my mom like crazy. So did Ren, which drew us even closer than we already were. She was the only one who knew how I truly felt.
I guess my dad missed my mom too. Even though he kept his pain well hidden by the bottle.
He had a job when she died, but maybe that welfare check was just to tempting to pass up, because he quit a few months later and never has gone back.
In the years that followed, Dad got meaner and meaner, drunker an drunker, and Ren and I tried to avoid him as much as was humanly possible. Not a terribly difficult task given the fact that he spent a lot of time at the bar.
Okay, now down to those two burning questions. Why didn’t I report his abuse to the authorities? And why didn’t I fight back? They might both have the same answer. Fear. And not necessarily fear of being hurt physically, though that did play a roll. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize I don’t back down just because someone’s fist finds a nice place to create a lump on the side of my head.
This was fear of losing Ren.
Fear that she’d be taken into foster care and we’d be separated if I reported it.
Fear that if I retaliated and fought my father back that he’d call the police on me and I’d end up where I ended up anyway, but without Ren. And she’d be left in the one place I never wanted her to be left alone. Home.
Being humble in a situation like that – just standing there taking it – well, that isn’t as easy as it seems. True, I didn’t know how to fight with my fists, but believe me, it took all the strength I had to keep the peace by doing nothing.
