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American Turtles

  Short Stories Inspired by the Works of Neil Gaiman

  By Students in Honors 87W: The Art of Neil Gaiman at UCLA

  Copyright © 2016 by Tara Prescott. All rights reserved. Please note: The copyright for each story contained in this volume is retained by the respective author.

  Honors 87W Editorial Board: Melanie Gharehptian, Cynthia Huang, Kimberly Juarez, Alexander Kim, Erik Knall, Rachel Maples, Brandon Pham, Tara Prescott, Ranger Saldivar, Melissa Smith, Dalia Sherif, Shabnam Tabesh, Andrew Takeda, Shuming Wang.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author(s) except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Prescott Publishing

  PO Box 951384

  Los Angeles, CA 90095

  For

  the

  Queen

  of

  Melanesia

  Acknowledgements

  We would like to extend our thanks to UCLA’s Writing Programs, the College of Letters & Science Honors Collegium, and the Honors Faculty Advisory Committee for supporting Dr. Tara Prescott’s proposal for a writing course dedicated to the work of Neil Gaiman.

  Thank you to Wendy Morris, Director of Programs at UCLA’s Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden, for arranging a tour for this project, and Phillip Kwan and the talented group of volunteer docents who share their passion for conservation and conversation in the garden. If you’re ever on the UCLA campus, you simply must stop by the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden. It’s a treasure.

  Thank you to Marty Brennan, the Copyright and Licensing Librarian at UCLA, who advised our class about permissions for their creative work. If you are interested in publishing any of the stories in this collection, or want to ask the authors to see more of their work (or to offer them jobs!) please contact Dr. Tara Prescott or the individual authors.

  And most importantly, thank you to the brave and bold writers who shared their stories in this collection. They dedicated a lot of time to analyzing Neil Gaiman’s work, dreaming up their own stories, and completing several rounds of revisions. Thank you Cynthia, Melissa, Erik, Shabby, Alex, Kim, Mel, Brandon, Shuming, Ranger, Dalia, Rachel, and Andrew (whose story lent its title for this collection). If life were a Gaiman story, you’d clearly be the everyday students suddenly thrust into UCLA Below, ready to conquer the Beast of the Trojans and save the incoming freshmen, all in time for a cup of tea.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction by Tara Prescott

  Penny for Your Thoughts by Cynthia Huang

  Wendla and the Boy Next Door by Melissa Smith

  The Moments That Haunt Us by Shabnam Tabesh

  Lunch with the Gardens by Erik Knall

  A Flash and a Pop by Alexander Kim

  The Silence of Silas Shaw by Kimberly Juarez

  I Am Matt Gallagher by Melanie Gharehptian

  The Man of Sand by Brandon Pham

  81 Verses by Shuming Wang

  Nightmare Fuel by Ranger Saldivar

  After Cinnamon by Dalia Sherif

  Acknowledgments by Rachel Maples

  American Turtles by Andrew Takeda

  About the Contributors

  Introduction

  Tara Prescott

  I grew up loving and respecting short stories. They seemed to me to be the purest and most perfect things people could make: not a word wasted, in the best of them.

  —Neil Gaiman, Trigger Warning

  In the winter quarter of 2016, nineteen students enrolled in Honors Collegium 87W: The Art of Neil Gaiman at the University of California, Los Angeles. This writing course, designed and taught by Dr. Tara Prescott, introduced students to a wide range of Gaiman’s texts, including his jewel-like short stories. The class met twice a week to talk about stunning stories and scary tales and what lessons students can learn about their own writing by reading Gaiman. They wrestled with Reddit, read picture books on the floor to each other, and even held class on their own one day when their professor was stuck in a meeting.

  Learning to write requires a lot of reading, and one of the best ways to improve your writing is to read writers you love and try to practice a bit of their magic on your own.

  So that’s what the class set out to do. On January 28, 2016, the class met at the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden on UCLA’s campus for a special writing assignment. The garden is named for a former professor in UCLA’s Department of Botany (one of the few women faculty members at the time), and director of the Botanical Garden from 1956 through 1974. Dr. Mathias was a horticulturalist, environmentalist, and champion for the protection of tropical forests and her legacy lives on in the garden, which is open to the public and hosts events to promote knowledge about biodiversity, environmentalism, and appreciation for nature. The Mildred E. Mathias Garden is a “living museum” filled with trees, flowers, plants, grasses (and yes, turtles)—an essential resource that contributes not only to UCLA’s teaching and research mission, but also to the well-being of its students (https://www.botgard.ucla.edu). We all need a place to connect with nature, especially when living in a metropolis like Los Angeles.

  On that day, the class met in the Nest, an outdoor classroom, and volunteer docents took students on a brief tour around the garden, talking about its history and some of the incredible specimens it contains. The assignment was to explore the garden, observe its features, and use it as inspiration for writing a story in the style of Neil Gaiman. How they interpreted this topic—in terms of theme, writing style, rhetorical choices, narrative structure, etc.—was up to each student. American Turtles offers a selection of stories that hatched from that sunny winter day in the garden.

  In his 2015 collection Trigger Warning, Gaiman describes the short story collections that he loved most as a child. “My favorite collections would not just give me the short stories but they would also tell me things I didn’t know, about the stories in the book and the craft of writing,” Gaiman writes (xv). In that behind-the-scenes spirit, we present thirteen stories written by thirteen students, with each story followed by a short author’s note that offers a glimpse into the genesis of the story and the aspects of Gaiman’s work that inspired it.

  We hope you enjoy them.

  Penny for Your Thoughts

  Cynthia Huang

  A lone Wind wove through the bamboo grove, extending her long fingers to brush the leaves as she passed. From the smooth, dark green stalks that glided under her tender touch, to the light and fibrous bamboo leaves that laughed with her every tickle, the peaceful ambience calmed her. She recalled the popping firecrackers and clinging cymbals from the village below earlier in the night, peppered with the sounds of children laughing and the whiny twang of instruments guiding the lion dance. She could still remember the majestic, playful lion blink his friendly eyes at the children before standing up on his hind legs to greet the parents. The festive Lunar New Year Celebrations were too lively for Wind, but she still enjoyed the happiness that radiated from every corner as enemies and neighbors alike put aside their differences to wish each other good fortunes for the upcoming year.

  Wind quietly smiled to herself when a sudden coldness burned her finger. She glanced at the bamboo stalk she was touching and was surprised to find it black. Slowly, the plants around it absorbed this new dark pigment, as if a calligraphy brush had painted them all. As Wind slowly backed away, the leaves stopped their conversations and the bamboo creaked towards her. She began to panic and turned around to run when she locked eyes with the dark figure behind her. A red face, frozen with sad eyes but a hyena-like smile, with dagger teeth to match.

  The creature cocked its head at Wind before swiftly wiping his hand across her fo
rehead. Wind felt herself turning cold, ice cold, then she burned with the power of ten suns. She raced away from the clearing, leaving only scorched tracks behind.

  Toni cocked his head, panting like a dog, before he turned towards the sleeping village below and stumbled onward.

  At the first house he slipped into, he heard three bodies breathing, then a fourth, soft, whisper of a breath. A baby. Eyes gleaming, he let his senses guide him towards the little body. Oh, he could barely contain his excitement. Babies always contained such pure energy, perfect for a tired demon like him. He followed his senses into a small room, where a lone baby slept peacefully in a small bed. Toni panted for a while, just staring at the baby. The baby began to rustle before opening her big eyes. Baby and demon stared. As the baby was about to begin crying out, Toni passed a quick hand over her forehead, leaving her cold, then burning hot and slowly turning an inky black. As the baby began to wail, Toni quietly crept out of the house and into the neighboring house, leaving behind a pair of groggy, then terrified, parents.

  It wasn’t an easy life for Toni. Unlike snakes and other cold-blooded creatures, he couldn’t just bask in the sun to receive warmth and energy. No, he had to obtain it from other living beings. The sources were those who were newly born, still containing lots of energy and love from their parents. It was a hard life, but eh, it’s not like anyone would miss those babies. They hadn’t had time to make an impact on anyone’s life, really. After visiting a third of the village and waking up every household in the village, Toni trotted happily back to the bamboo grove, never noticing a pair of curious, alert eyes that stared at him from a small window just a few feet away.

  “We must do something about this,” Long thought to herself.

  Long was a mysterious girl. With sesame black hair, her stunning green eyes stood out. Upon her arrival on earth, it was said that fireflies danced around her family, welcoming her. These fireflies would later be known to her, and her only, as fairies sent to protect her. Rather than cry, she roared so fiercely, her amazed parents immediately named her:

  Long, dragon. She was very observant and quite intelligent. Even before she began school, Long helped to explain their decrease in rice production from a broken water pipe, and that the presence of bugs came and ate their tea leaves at night to explain the year the tea never matured. Her secret, of course, was the fairies that talked to her and guided her. In fact, it was those fairies who had woken her up that night and pointed out the demon to her. She knew what she had to do.

  The next day, Long bravely took a knife and made a small slit in her palm. She let the blood drip onto a white envelope usually used to give money to family members of recently deceased relatives. As it slowly stained red, each fairy made a mark on the envelope so that it would curse whoever touched it. They also tucked small coins inside, stained with poison.

  That night, Long attended a baby shower for one of her neighbors. As the adults were drinking and celebrating in the kitchen, she quietly snuck into the nursery, where the baby was sleeping, and slipped the envelope under his pillow, making sure not to touch the baby. She also made sure that a few coins stuck out and were easily seen. Then, she drifted back to the party and left with her parents a few hours later.

  That night, the entire village was awakened by a horrible shrieking from the house that had hosted the baby shower. As the parents rushed into the nursery, they saw a small demon slowly dissipating into the air, a red envelope clutched in his hands. Their baby continued to sleep peacefully. Long went to see the house with her family and seeing the red envelope on the floor, warned everyone not to touch it.

  “You see, a demon has been cursing our children. Demons love money even more than energy and youth, so by placing this poisoned envelope underneath his pillow, the demon went for the money instead of the baby, saving him from harm,” Long explained calmly.

  The entire village was shocked by her wisdom. They thus made it a tradition from then onwards to always give children red envelopes filled with money to sleep on top of during the Lunar New Year’s to ward off any demons and evil spirits.

  * * * Author’s Note * * *

  Neil Gaiman once said that fairytales are some of the most important stories a child can read. Following suit, I decided to re-imagine the meaning behind the Chinese tradition of receiving red envelopes during Lunar New Year’s by incorporating Gaimanesque elements such as the use of natural elements, having a strong female protagonist, and the fight of good vs. evil. While I could not achieve the same mysteriousness that Gaiman effortlessly creates, I hope that my story had a bit of a darker side, albeit less gruesome than usual.

  Wendla and the Boy Next Door

  Melissa Smith

  Wendla had spent the entire weekend on the couch and was proud to say so. She had finally completed her mission of watching every retelling of Peter Pan she could find, from the childish cartoon version to the teen romance retelling she knew and loved. She had set this goal at the start of her weekend, unlike her peers who were setting goals for how much alcohol they could steal out of their parents’ stash without them noticing. Wendla was comfortable being alone, and told herself that she had made the choice to be alone every weekend, and not that her peers had made that choice for her.

  As the last credits of the weekend scrolled the screen, she assured herself that the sense of accomplishment she got from a good marathon must far outweigh any potential enjoyment she would get from surrounding herself with her peers. The screen soon turned black as Wendla repeated this self-assurance and was off to bed.

  One can only imagine her surprise as she finally settled into her pile of blankets and was swiftly rattled by a banging noise coming from her window. She decided to ignore it and blame it on the wind, as one learns to do towards the end of childhood, and soon settled into sleep.

  It felt as though it couldn’t have been more than a blink of an eye when Wendla was harshly awoken two hours later by the sound of a door slamming. Knowing that her parents were on vacation and the neighbors wouldn’t be back until the morning to check on her, she decided this noise she could not ignore. Wendla decided to confront the mysterious sound and swiftly armed herself with an old bat from her childhood softball days. Sure it was smaller than preferable, but she convinced herself it offered at least a guise of protection.

  Wendla slowly made her way towards the sounds now coming from the kitchen, silently yelling at herself to just call the police, oddly reminiscent of what she always yelled at the characters in her horror marathons. Against her best sense, Wendla continued in the direction of the noises, and found herself almost too nervous to turn the final corner into the kitchen to face her foe.

  Suddenly, she got a burst of confidence and rushed into the kitchen with her eyes closed and bat swinging side to side as though that could help protect her. When she heard nothing in response to her frantic attack, she garnered the courage to open her eyes and found a young man who appeared her age, though it was dark and hard to tell. The young man was staring at her amusedly from behind the protection of the refrigerator door, awaiting the end of her clumsy attack. This was a far cry from the psycho-ax-murderer-zombie that she was expecting; in fact this was a pleasant surprise in the form of a mildly attractive young man.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing in my house in the middle of the night?!” cried Wendla accusingly.

  Though she found the boy attractive and was in an odd way happy to see him, she wasn’t about to let a home-intruder go without a few questions.

  “I came all this way just for you to yell at me? I thought after the weekend you’ve had, you would be overjoyed to see the legend in the flesh,” stated the boy mischievously.

  Wendla knew this couldn’t be true, she knew that the boy who never grows up was a fairy tale, nothing but fodder for the imaginations of children.

  As she stared in puzzled awe at the fictional being in front of her, the boy continued his kitchen raid biting into anything that looked to be vaguely
edible. Just as the boy was about to mistakenly bite into a raw egg, Wendla was brought back to her senses and continued her incredulous interrogation of her surprise guest.

  “Even if you are who you seem to think you are, why would the infamous Peter Pan come for me? And how would you even know I was watching your story?” questioned Wendla.

  “Well you see, I have always been fond of stories, especially those involving myself, I couldn’t miss your marathon!” teased the mysterious young man.

  He continued his search for something to satisfy his seemingly insatiable appetite as Wendla stumbled through thoughts of what to do next. She knew this couldn’t be happening, knew that “the boy who never grows up” was a myth, and most importantly she knew that no one was around in her house but her and this stranger. And that last fact both excited her and made her all the more nervous.

  “Assuming you are who you say you are, where’s your fairy? And why aren’t you flying, like the stories say you do?” Wendla questioned accusingly.

  “Well you see, my fairy isn’t too fond of loaning me pixie-dust when she knows I am traveling to see another girl, possessive little creature that she is. I’m afraid she hardly loaned me enough to make it here. I’m grounded for the time being. That is, until she misses me terribly and comes to rescue her poor Peter,” the snarky boy explained.

  This impossible story was adding up and Wendla’s curiosity about the young man was growing with every word out of his mouth. This was the mythical boy that her childhood fantasies were full of. He was here to finally rescue her from her lonely benign life, here to make the change she had been praying about for years. The young boy was cunning and able to read the thoughts crossing his counterpart’s mind as he saw the waves of emotion pass over her face. He knew that he had accomplished just what he had come here to do.

  “Why don’t you go back to sleep, in the morning we can figure out how to get enough pixie-dust to get us both back to Neverland,” suggested the young man as he inspected a small vial with a powdery residue coating the bottom. “It looks like I have just enough in here to cast a small spell. Surely not enough to take flight…How about I guarantee you good dreams for the night? Just a small sprinkle overhead should do the trick!”