Rose reached up for the ruby apple on the high tree branch.
The basket hanging off her elbow had a pile of fresh apples that went up to the brim and beyond yet Rose thought that one or maybe two more would make her collection for tonight’s pie complete. She didn’t notice that, as she wavered on her tiptoes and jerked her elbow when she made a jump for the teasing fruit, the apple on the top of the pile was slightly shaking.
Swearing in Goblin, Rose went back down the yellowy green hill she was on, ran up and bounded for the apple. She missed, fell, and the apples she’d already collected toppled everywhere. Rose got up, faltered a little in her steps, placed her foot on one apple and fell down again, hitting her head on a sharp rock sticking out of the ground. She cried out and wept.
Munch, munch, munch.
Rose stopped. She rubbed away her tears, sat up and looked around.
She sniffed and picked up a smudged apple. Rose rubbed it with her pink patterned sleeve but found that there was a horrible brown bruise on it. Rose thought about the apple-pie, the pie that mother had been waiting to bake ever since they got here. She thought how expectant her mother would then be to have a complete set of perfect red apples and then feel sad, disappointed, when she found that one apple, that her own daughter, had collected, was ugly and bruised and soft. Rose cried again.
Munch, munch, munch.
She shot up, caught off-guard this time. Somebody was here. She spun around slowly, her eyes darting to every detail in the area. She saw the tree with the slender trunk, the beautiful sandy bush lying next to it that was conjoined to an even more beautiful rocky hill; the bush crawled steadily up it, interweaving with every crack and joint of the stones, before gradually shrinking down into a yellow patch of grass. In height, as it sat next to the tree-trunk, the bush was taller than Rose and wider than three copies of her fat father side-by-side.
Rose shrugged but hurried when she bent down to pick up the apples. When she had come to the last one she saw that the pile only reached to the brim. Thinking this as extremely odd, Rose looked around: there were no more apples left on the floor.
She raised her eyebrow, turned away from the tree, bush and rocky hill, carefully placed two apples on the floor, and pretended to sob into her hands.
Munch, munch, mu-
She jumped around, just in time to hear the ending of the last ‘munch’ and saw a flash of blue before it disappeared into the bush. Rose puffed out her chest and swallowed her worry of the apple-pie or her safety, thinking that, if she survived whoever or whatever was in the bush, she’d be classed as a hero and idol by her would-be star-struck little sister and jealous older brother. She grinned at the thought of it and pushed a hole into the branches and leaves.
Rose jumped back, screaming.
A big black eye wtih a furry blue background, was staring at her. It wasn’t blinking; Rose trembled.
Her heart beat rapidly and Rose couldn’t recover her breath, however she managed to in the end when the eye’s lids flickered and moved to look at the basket. A grumbling noise came from it.
A paw the size and width of a baby dolphin crept out from under the bush, elongated and edged towards the basket. Rose, overcoming her fears for the second time, took this chance to feel it. The fur was soft, thick and warm, like how her bed-covers would feel when she’d been sleeping in them for the night. She never wanted to lift her hand off its paw. She felt her way down to the shining claws, like the ones she’d see on a dog, noticing how slender and perfectly curved and pointed they were. The paw was long, longer than the tall apple-tree’s trunk.
Then it snatched the basket handle and swooped back under the bush.
“HEY!” yelled Rose, lunging forward. Her hands caught the basket just in time but she heard, in agony, every apple being eaten: munch, munch, munch! Munch, munch, munch!
The basket was pushed back through and Rose held it to her chest. The force of the pull she and the paw both had on it was so great, that Rose rolled backwards. She threw the basket away and rushed around the tree and bush to meet the strangest sight that she had ever seen.
The giant paw belonged to a giant creature with a blue body that was enveloped in so many masses of long fur that it’d be impossible to make out its true form. The creature had a thick walrus-moustache that covered its mouth but Rose could clearly see a mound bulging out on each side of its body above the moustache, which she thought were its cheeks, and she suspected that the creature hadn’t finished eating the apples yet and had only stuffed them in for a quick escape, but it wasn’t as quick as Rose.
It turned to Rose with a look of pure innocence, she thought, and she scowled. Its cat-like ears flicked up in surprise when Rose began to shout at it.
“You better sick-up them apples, right now, or I’m telling!” she demanded.
The creature leaned back then let out a sharp regurgitating noise. Rose cried out in pain when an apple-core, drowned in orange-coloured slobber, struck against her forehead. Rose fell back and, even though she hated it, she felt herself beginning to cry.
The loudness of her tears caught the creature’s attention. It stared at her for a minute as she sat, rubbing her eyes and wailing with a red mark below her brown fringe, then glanced at the apple-tree. Its paw rose up from under the layers and layers of fur and it plucked an apple, lowering it to Rose. Rose stopped crying and stared at the apple’s blurry skin. It was bruised, but as nature intended; still, Rose cried, shaking her head.
The creature stared at her again and, feeling its stomach growl, a red wide tongue slid down from the moustache and slurped up the apple, and spat out its core to the side.
—
If you may, can you please, in your answer,
involve: 1) your personal opinion on the overall passage, 2) the style and fluency of the writing, 3) and your view on Rose and the Creature.
Thankyou! and Happy February!
lovee your story it flows and makes sense and i could imagine it all happening because of the detailed description. Honestly lovinn the characters so continue writing it!! :))