Backstory Excerpts for Hardcore Fans
Channing's Earliest Memories, age 2-4 years old
Hi there!
As requested, I’m going to start releasing scenes that didn’t make it into Firetender in its final published form. So for those who have read it and want some background details, this is for you. I don’t recommend reading these Backstory Excerpt posts unless you’ve read the book, but I also can’t stop you if this is the way you’d rather meet Channing. None of these scenes further the plot, but they give insight into who the characters are and what shaped them into who they became. All this unpublished writing served me well: I got to know my characters better through this exploration of their backstory. So these are unpolished excerpts, not final published quality.
A side note - if you have read Firetender or are planning to do so, please leave a review on Amazon if you enjoyed the story. Book reviews help small authors so much in spreading the word about their book. The more reviews, the more likely Amazon is to promote the book and get it visible to people browsing their website.
This first installment of Backstory Excerpts for Hardcore Fans is for those who want more from Channing, sidekick of protagonist Dallas Malone. I had an entire section called “Channing’s Memories,” written (somewhat) from his perspective prior to meeting Dallas in middle school. I still don’t understand Channing as well as I understand Dallas. I can’t get into his head the way I can Dallas’s, because if I did so, it would diminish his mystery and quirkiness. I understand Channing the way Dallas understands him, from the outside looking in as a close observer. These scenes are from Channing’s preschool years, and you will get some of his perspective, but it is not as close as Dallas’s in the style of writing.
A last note: This was first written over twenty years ago, when I was maybe in college (unfortunately, I did not date the handwritten version I kept). There have been some tweaks, but the last time I touched these portions of Channing’s story was about two years ago, and I’ve improved in writing technique since then. But I hope you enjoy these as a peek into Channing’s early childhood and seeing some of the snapshots of his life that made him who he became in Firetender.
SANDBOX
He pushed the sand together, making a small pile between his feet. He poured more sand on top of it using a plastic bucket. Then, with one swift motion of his left hand, it was demolished and he began the cycle again. The monotonous repetition was the best way to keep himself occupied as he waited.
It was an overcast day in early autumn. It was almost dusk, and the setting sun gave everything a soft, golden texture. The ground was barren, all the grass being dead, and a few orange and brown leaves were scattered across the small, flat lawn. The dilapidated house looked cold, like a looming shadow, devoid of life and character. There was a light breeze picking up in the air.
Channing paused momentarily and looked up. The breeze caught his light brown hair and blew it back from his forehead. The temperature was beginning to drop, and he could feel it. He was dressed in only his underwear and a little tan t-shirt that was so short that it revealed his navel.
In the distance, he heard the sound of a car engine. Channing knew that sound meant one of his parents, or sometimes both of them, were coming home. He stood up unsteadily, sand falling from his lap. After a moment, a green Ford pickup truck drove past the house. That wasn’t his parents’ car.
Channing remembered that morning, when his mother had picked him up from his bed (really just a mattress that had been placed on the floor in a corner) and carried him outside, placing him in the sandbox and telling him to be a good boy and play there for awhile. He had whimpered something about wanting his pants, but she hadn’t heard him in her rush. She had, however, remembered to put his sandals on his feet, which he had removed soon after she had left. He didn’t know where his father was, but he hadn’t seen him in the past few days. Channing’s clothing was uncomfortable because he had spilled some juice on himself the day before, and his shirt and underwear hadn’t been changed that morning. He felt dirty and sticky, and now the sand was sticking to his body, causing him to feel as if he was sitting in some sort of gritty filth. But his mother had told him to wait here for her, so he remained in the sandbox.
A boy at the age of two and a half years old, not frightened of being left alone, not crying for his mommy, but rather, staring with a hardened face at the empty street. He did not need her to return to comfort or hold him, to smile and talk to him, but only to feed him, change his clothes, and provide for his other physical needs. Channing felt a gnawing deep inside, a feeling of hunger for dinner, but also a different kind of hunger: a longing for something from his parents that he had never experienced.
PLAYGROUND
The playground was full of life, completely brimming with activity. The warm sun shone down to create a bright glow which reflected off the children’s shining faces. They were the faces of joy, the faces of blissful youth. Some were gathered by the swings, conformed in a line to wait their turns. Others were on the jungle gym, seeing who could climb to the top first and become “king of the mountain.” There were others in the sandbox, each one holding their own important job in the construction of a sand castle. Others ran through the soft grass, laughing and jumping as they attempted to tag one another. All were happy, all were included in the childhood games.
The playground was still, seemingly lifeless. It was dark and cool in the shade. Sounds of laughter were heard in the background, sounds of the joy of others. The sunlight was absent, although it was hidden somewhere… somewhere in the outside world. In the outside world, children played together in their typical games… on the swingset, in the grass, on the jungle gym and the slide. Their world was bright and swarming with excitement. But not in Channing’s world.
Channing sat beneath the low platform leading to one of the short slides coming off of the playfort. It was a cool spot, dark from the shade. He was sitting in a hollow he had created for himself in the sand. There was only room in this place for him, and it was his own spot. No other children came under the platform; in fact, it was so secluded that Channing was virtually concealed from everyone on the outside. Occasionally a joyous shout would break through the barrier into his world, but he did not seem to hear. And no children ran over to invite Channing into their happy games, and he did not invite himself. He remained in his cave and played alone.
Channing held a blue Crayola marker in his left hand. His shoes were off, and he was coloring his feet with the marker. His teacher had not permitted him to bring paper outside, saying that he needed to use the playground to run around with the other children and get exercise. But at that moment, Channing had an urge to create, and so he created.
When his foot art was complete, Channing began to dig in the sand. He pushed all the excess sand to the side, and pretty soon he had a hole about a foot deep. He crawled into the hole and curled into the fetal position. It felt cool and comfortable. After a moment, Channing decided that he was hibernating like the bears in a book that his teacher had read aloud the other day. Then he remembered that he would need to store food in the cave to eat while hibernating all winter. The bears in the book had stored nuts and berries to eat.
Channing slowly emerged from beneath the platform on all fours. His grey eyes squinted as they adjusted to the light. The glare of the sun was bright white on Channing’s pale skin. He rose and walked across the bustling playground, paying no heed to the other children swarming about, and they didn’t acknowledge him, either. Channing began picking up pinecones and acorns from the ground. One boy approached and asked him what he was doing, but when he got an answer of silence, he turned and ran off to the slide. When Channing’s pockets and shirt were full, he returned to his spot. Channing buried his “food” in the back of the cave, in a corner. Then he got back in his hole and curled up. Suddenly, Channing found himself being pulled out from under the platform by two firm hands. It was Ms. Nora, one of the teachers.
“Channing, what are you doing under here?” she asked him as she stood him up and brushed the sand from his clothing. Channing looked at the ground and didn’t answer, holding the blue marker behind his back.
“You should be playing with the others, running around and getting exercise,” the teacher continued. “You need to be with the other children and make friends with them. Get out in the sun and put some color in your skin. And what happened to your foot? Where are your shoes? Channing, are you listening to me?” She tilted his head up until his eyes met hers.
“I don’t want to play with the others,” Channing said quietly, and then looked away.
“Why not?” Ms. Nora asked. He did not answer.
“Come with me,” she said, reaching under the platform and pulling out Channing’s shoes. “We’re going to inside to wash that marker off your foot, and then you’ll come back out and find somebody to play with.”
She led him into the school and sat him on the edge of the sink, placing his socks and shoes on the floor. The teacher put Channing’s blue foot in the sink and ran the water until it was warm. Then she took the bar of soap and rubbed it on his foot, creating a sinkful of blue suds.
“This is not what I’m paid to do,” Ms. Nora complained. “Four year olds know that we only use markers on paper, not on ourselves or the wall or anywhere else. That’s just a dumb thing to do, Channing. You don’t have much sense. You don’t even know how to play. Even when some of the other boys try to join you, like Johnny and Peter did this morning, you get up and leave… but I suppose that’s better for them, anyway. They like to use the toys for their intended purpose. Nobody except you wants to push the blocks around in idle circles. Normal boys want to build towers with blocks and then knock them down.”
Channing broke his silence with a small giggle at the use of the word “idle.” He felt it was much better suited to the latter description of how to play with blocks.
“Oh, you think this is funny, that I have to wash your foot? Is that what you think?”
Channing became straightfaced again and sighed, thinking to himself, “I could wash my own foot if I wanted to. If I had wanted my foot to be clean in the first place, I wouldn’t have drawn on it. She doesn’t have to be washing it if it’s such a bother to her.” Her underestimation of him shrouded her from the humor he saw from his point of view. But still he did not speak. Why answer questions or attempt to explain himself? It would always be like this, and, even at the age of four, he didn’t expect people to ever change.
Ms. Nora finally decided that any further attempt to clean Channing’s foot completely was futile, and she began to dry him off with paper towels. She then put his shoes back on and told him he would be punished if he took them off again, and she double-knotted them to show that she meant it. She didn’t seem to notice how tight they were on his feet and that one of the soles was coming loose.
“I have enough children here to take care of without constantly having to be worried about making sure you’re functioning normally,” she grumbled. “Your social skills are way behind for your age… but we all know that you’re slow with communication, so that could be the problem.”
She did not usually speak like this to the children at the day care center, but since Channing didn’t even appear to hear her, she believed it was impossible that he understood the gist of what she had said. By saying what she thought of him in a complaining, angry way, she only hoped by her tone that he would realize it was bad that he had drawn on himself. When she really wanted him to listen to her, she used much smaller words and spoke loudly to him. Channing felt it was insulting, really.
“Let’s go back to the playground,” she said. “You can play with the boys in the playfort.” She took him back outdoors and led him to the ladder of the playfort.
“Boys, Channing is going to come up and play with you,” she said.
“Really?” asked one of them.
“Yes,” she answered, giving him a little push up the ladder. He climbed into the fort, which seemed to satisfy the teacher, because she went back to her seat on the bench.
Channing watched the boys. They were going down the slide and running back around the fort to climb back up the ladder and go down again. Channing found that boring, and he decided to play his own game. He slid down to the ground and got a bucket, which he filled with sand. Then he carried it up the ladder to the top of the slide and waited for one of the boys to go down the slide. After it was clear, Channing dumped the sand down the slide.
“Why’d you do that?” a boy asked from behind. Channing turned around and realized the boy was addressing him. Maybe this boy wanted to join in his game.
“I’m playing mineshaft,” he said. The other boys stopped to listen to Channing. They rarely heard him speak and wanted to know what he had to say. He looked down shyly at the bucket in his hand.
“What’s that?” a boy asked.
“Umm… it’s a bucket,” Channing said, looking quizzically at the boy as if he had just landed here from Mars.
“I know that,” said the boy. “What’s mindshaft?”
“Mineshaft,” Channing said. “It’s a game I just invented. I’m a worker in a coal mine, and I have to remove the coal from the ground and send it down the shaft.” Channing gingerly waited for approval.
The boys looked at each other in a curious way. They didn’t understand what Channing meant, exactly, but they did think it would be fun to throw sand down the slide. So they got buckets and began pouring sand down the slide. Channing watched the process for a minute, imagining that he was the boss of the mine. Maybe later he could make himself a name badge that said “Channing – Mine Operator.” He went back down the ladder to join the boys in filling buckets with “coal.” He didn’t want to be a lazy worker even if he was the boss.
As Channing looked up from the bottom of the fort, some of the boys began to go down the slide with the sand. Then others started filling their buckets by catching the sand as it fell off the end of the slide.
“No,” Channing tried to tell them, “you’re not supposed to slide down the mine shaft! Only the coal! The coal pile at the bottom of the slide is getting messed up! Stop!” He ran to the bottom of the slide and tried to protect the pile of sand that was getting trampled, but a child coming down the slide landed on him and knocked him out of the way. “Stop it, everyone, or there won’t be any coal to ship to the coal-powered plant! The electricity will go out all over town!”
The boys didn’t know what the big deal was. They were having fun and didn’t know why Channing was telling them to stop. But Channing was getting very frustrated. He looked over at the group of boys still standing at the bottom of the slide and announced, “The electricity went out. This mine is being shut down because of incompetent workers.” And seeing that none of his peers could play by the rules, he left the slide to play by himself.
No sooner had Channing crawled back under the low platform to resume his previous game when he was again pulled out by another teacher. “Here he is, Brenda,” she called out as she clutched Channing’s upper arm tightly.
One of the boys from the slide was crying as Ms. Brenda, one of the teachers, tried to comfort him. Another boy with short red hair followed behind her, and all of Channing’s other former coal mine employees were now standing at the bottom of the slide, handing over the buckets to a teacher.
Ms. Brenda left the crying boy with the teacher who held Channing by the arm and then assumed the job of yanking him off to the edge of the playground. The red-haired boy was still following her.
“He did it first,” the boy whimpered.
“Channing,” Ms. Brenda said in a low voice, “what did you tell the other children to do with the sand?” Channing looked at his feet and wiggled uncomfortably. She only tightened the grip on his arm.
“He told us to throw the sand down the slide!” the boy said.
“So is that how David got sand in his eyes, Paul?” Ms. Brenda asked him.
The boy nodded. “I was playing Channing’s game, and David was at the bottom of the fort. The sand got poured on him.”
“Channing, your game has gotten out of control. You’ve caused all this excitement, and throwing sand off the side of the fort can hurt people. Especially when whole buckets are getting dropped along with the sand. You should never have started this. I don’t know what’s gotten into you. You haven’t ever caused trouble with other children before. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Channing tried to avoid looking at her, but she got down on his level and looked at him squarely. “Well?” she asked.
“They didn’t play it right,” he whispered.
“Yes, we did!” shouted Paul. “He threw sand on the slide first! He started it! I’m gonna get in trouble for playing Channing’s game!” And Paul began to sniffle a little.
Ms. Brenda looked at him. “Calm down, Paul. I want you to be more careful when you play with sand. Now, did Channing tell you to throw the sand? Because you don’t have to do things just because your friends tell you to.”
“He told us to do it, and then he told us to stop,” Paul whined. “He made us all confused.”
Channing didn’t know what he had to do with Paul throwing sand on David. He had tried to stop them from messing up the game. Why did Paul think it was his fault? If they had played the game correctly, it wouldn’t have gotten “out of control,” as Ms. Brenda had said. Channing had tried to explain the game. He didn’t want to explain it to Ms. Brenda, because he was already ashamed to be in trouble. Talking usually made for even deeper trouble.
She and Ms. Nora, the teacher who had washed Channing’s foot earlier, were now talking to each other. Then they looked at the two boys.
“Paul,” began the other teacher, “I know you were trying to play Channing’s game, but you know it is not safe to throw sand. Channing, do not play the sand game any more. No more sand in the playfort. Okay?”
She looked at Channing, waiting for him to respond. “Channing, you won’t throw any more sand in the playfort, will you?”
He looked up slowly and said quietly, “No. I won’t.”
“That’s a good boy,” said Ms. Brenda as she patted him on the head. “Now you boys are going to sit out for five minutes and think about how to use the sand the right way.” She motioned to the fence behind a nearby bench. “Go sit by the fence. We will tell you when you can go play again.”
Channing sat down with his back against the fence, and Paul sat down a few feet away with a huff. He didn’t look pleased to be punished. Channing felt embarrassed to be sitting behind the teacher’s bench. Only bad kids sat there. “Why did my game turn out that way?” he wondered. “Why didn’t the boys listen when I explained it? Why did they want to mess up the coal mine?”
Channing’s thoughts turned toward home. What if they told his mother that he had to sit out on the playground? She would tell his father, and then they’d both wallop him for sure. He had learned that explaining to them what had happened never helped. Channing’s words only got him a more severe beating at home. “Smart-mouthed excuses,” his father called it. It was in part why he was so quiet at day care.
As Ms. Brenda and Ms. Nora took their places on the bench, Channing heard them talking softly.
“I don’t think he knew what he was doing, really,” said Ms. Brenda. “I think Paul and the others saw him throwing sand on the slide, and they just copied him and it got out of hand. I don’t know that Channing actually told any of them to throw sand – you know, he barely speaks - but I’m sure they thought it looked fun when they saw him doing it.”
“He is difficult for the children to understand,” the other teacher replied. “He hardly says a word all day. Then they see him throwing sand. But when they start throwing sand, he tells them to stop! I don’t understand it myself.”
“Maybe he wanted to be the only one throwing sand down the slide,” suggested Ms. Brenda.
“I don’t know that he thought about it that much,” replied Ms. Nora. “I truly don’t think much goes on in his head.”
“I wonder if he even realizes why he’s being punished,” mused Brenda.
Ms. Nora turned around and looked at Channing, calling to him, “Hey, Channing. Why are you in trouble?”
Channing stared back at her blankly with cold eyes, then slowly looked back down at his hands, which he was wringing in his small lap.
“You see?” Nora said as she turned back to Brenda, as if Channing’s silence had proven her point.
Under his breath, Channing whispered to himself, “I am in trouble because the other boys didn’t think like me. They took my idea and twisted it, and I got in trouble for it. From now on, I will keep my ideas to myself. I can’t play right with normal kids.” He picked up a small stick and began to write his name over and over in the dust. Channing, Channing, Channing.
Ms. Brenda turned and said, “Okay, boys, you may go play now. Remember to play carefully with the sand.”
Paul leaped up and raced off to find his friends. Channing continued to write in the dirt.
“Channing, aren’t you going to go play?” Brenda asked.
Channing looked up at both teachers, broken from the trance of name-writing. They stared, waiting for an answer. Channing looked at the stick in his hand and then back at his teachers’ faces. And in a loud, clear voice, he replied, “I am playing.”
If you want to share your reaction or chat with me about Channing’s character, please drop a comment below! I’d love to hear from you!
Erin