Chapter One of My NaNoWriMo Novel

CHAPTER ONE

Shaddy wasn’t a patient person. From the moment she was conceived, she was anxious and in a hurry. Nothing much pleased her either; she blamed her impatient nature on her extraordinarily early thought processes.

While Shaddy was growing in her mother’s womb, she used the senses that were developed at any given time, to absorb the goings on of the outside world, through the walls that surrounded her. She pressed her ear, as soon as it began functioning, against the wall of the womb and with astonishing speed learned language and thus kept herself company by talking quietly to herself.

*

Shaddy had a critical view of the outside world from her hidden perspective. It began around the third month of her development. Since she was closest to her mother, she was the first target of Shaddy’s discerning mind.

Early on, she felt her mother was much too active. Shaddy would be relaxing and ruminating when suddenly she’d be yanked from her reverie when her mother quickly rose from her chair and set to work. Work, work, work. Shaddy couldn’t imagine there could be that much mopping, vacuuming, dusting, cooking, laundry and so on to do for a family of four. How hungry and dirty could they be?

“They” refers to Shaddy’s mother, father and two brothers. The story of Shaddy’s initial days "on the outside" and her encounter with the entire family and the place they called home are of great interest and will now be revealed.

The day Shaddy was born will long be remembered at Memorial Hospital. The doctor who delivered her and the attending nurses were smiling when her head and shoulders became visible. The journey down the birth canal had been nearly more than Shaddy could bear. Totally exasperated from the laborious trip, she dug her heels in, bent her knees and thrust herself like a bullet out into the delivery room. Fortunately, the umbilical cord and the young doctor’s quick reflexes prevented Shaddy from sailing head over heels straight into the wastebasket.

To this day, Dr. Carlson swears that when he caught Shaddy, she smiled and winked at him. While the nurses scurried back and forth, the doctor cut the umbilical cord. Shaddy’s mother simply sighed while Shaddy checked things out with newly opened eyes. The loud noises and painfully bright lights were making her head spin. She decided to sit back and chill until her eyes adjusted to the light and the strange, new sounds made sense to her.

While Nurse Charlene was washing Shaddy, she noticed the scowl on the child’s face and the glare in her eyes. Shaddy followed Charlene’s every move and the expression on her face was indeed hostile. In the nearly twenty years of her career, the nurse had never seen anything like this in a newborn. She searched the room and eventually caught Nurse Nancy’s eye. She motioned for her to come over. “Get a load of this little bundle of joy or, more accurately, this little parcel of tricks. Baby Shaddy’s got quite the attitude. "

“I can see that. She’s looks pretty alert and wise considering she’s brand new,” said Nurse Nancy.

*

What are they staring at? Shaddy wondered. Without hesitation, she stuck out her tongue. The nurses looked at each other with eyes open wide with astonishment.

“How are we going to write this up in our reports, Charlene?” Nancy asked. “Thank God we're both here witnessing these unusual events. Even then, I’ll still think twice before I put all this down in black and white and sign my name to it.” They turned to Dr. Carlson who was scrubbing at the corner sink.

"That Shaddy’s something else, Dr. Carlson. She was sure in a hurry to be born and nothing was going to get in her way. She scared me to death. I was sure she'd land on her head and then what!" Charlene said.

“Right,” Dr. Carlson mumbled as he dried his hands. He took extra time with the towel and shook his head as he spoke. “She’s something else, alright.” With that, he walked out of the room.