7th Grade Free Writing: Family stories

(retrospection)

My little sister Jessica has put up with a lot in these retrospection stories so far. And, with apologies, she is going to have to put up with a little bit more.

When I was in 4th and 5th grade, my little brother Kyle was 4 and 5 years old. Just about that age where he was starting to say and do a lot of funny things. And I was just at the right age where I thought his antics were hilarious. I used to collect "Kyle stories" and share them with my friends at school.

By the time of 6th and 7th grade, it was Jessica who was 4 and 5 years old, and most of the stories in my repertoire were about Jessica then. Good fodder for any creative writing or free writing assignments in English class.

As a lot of young children do, Jess went through a Klepto phase, and I was right there to document it in school assignments.

I actually wrote a much longer version of some of this story with all the details back in 6th grade, when we were assigned to write something introducing our family. (I remember my mother being appalled at the time that I was using the story for a writing assignment.) Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) that version got lost somewhere along the way, along with most of the other stuff I wrote during 6th grade. My 7th and 8th grade English teacher, however, gave us a folder to put all our writing assignments in, and so most of those have survived the years and now provide good fodder for these retrospection posts.

Because this was already the second time I had told this story, I didn't really have a lot of enthusiasm in rewriting it the second time, and you can probably tell my heart isn't in it. It just skims over the story, and doesn't take a lot of care with either details or style. Also it ends pretty abruptly as well (probably because the bell ran just about that time, and the free writing time was over).

Anyway, now that I've given an introduction that is longer than the actual piece, here it is below:

My little sister Jessica was in the habit of stealing people's things. Once when my other sister Kirstin went to camp, Jessica stole her money and hid it under her [Jessica's] bed. She would go around the house carrying some of the money with her and giving it to Kyle. I guessed that this money didn't belong to Jessica, but nobody would listen to me when I said something was funny. Until Kirstin got home from camp. I told Kirstin and she ran immediately upstairs to check her money, and came back down crying because her money wasn't there. A search of the house followed, and we found the money under Jessica's bed. She was given a spanking, but that didn't stop here from stealing.

That was the first time she had ever stolen something, but not the last. She stole more things from Kyle, me Kirstin and even Dad, although she never stole anything from mom and she never stole anything from someone who was not a member of the family. She did these things sometimes with Kyle's help and sometimes without Kyle. Kyle, who has the ability to coax out of Jessica anything he wants, usually ends up with most or all of the loot either way.

For example, once Jessica took ten dollars from dad. A few minutes later she was caught, but the money had already mysteriously ended up in Kyle's piggy bank by that time. When questioned, Jessica said she had given the money to Kyle, which really means he was able to coax it out of her once again. Of course it must have been obvious that it was stolen money, because Jessica, being in Kindergarten only got an allowance of one coin a week, usually a half dollar or silver dollar from my dad, which she [Jessica] usually immediately loses afterwards. Sometimes Kirstin gives Jessica some money because she is very fond of Jessica, and because Jessica will sometimes cry if Kirstin doesn't. Kirstin once gave Jessica as much as one dollar, but she would never give her ten dollars.

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