Short Story: Katie The Collector

Short Story: Katie The Collector

Katie loved collecting things. She collected anything; shells, cards, even sweet wrappers. Her mother called her ‘my little magpie.’

It was Thursday afternoon and in class 3B that meant show and tell. Katie had shown her collection of rubber bands that her dad had made into a ball by winding them around each other. She daydreamed through Jennifer’s photo of herself dancing on stage at the Playhouse and Ben’s story of how he scored the winning goal for Weston Juniors last Saturday. Then it was Joshua’s turn. He held up a card, the same size and shape as the ones in Katie’s playing card collection. But this one was beautiful. It sparkled when the light caught it. Katie felt a shiver of longing buzz from her head to her toes.

“I found this card in the park a few weeks ago. I call it my trouble card.”

Our teacher, Mrs Bell, looked puzzled. “What do you mean, your trouble card?”

“It gets me into trouble all the time,” Joshua said, “Even when I’m not there I get the blame for everything.”

“You have been getting yourself into a lot of bother lately, haven’t you?” Mrs Bell replied, “But I don’t think you can blame a card for that.”

Joshua decided to say no more about his card and he sat back down, but Katie’s mind was racing. Joshua had been good in school until a couple of weeks ago, and now he was always getting into trouble. In just the last week he had flooded the boys toilets at dinner time, thrown all the coats in the cloakroom on the floor, snapped pencils and screwed up Jodie’s work. His mother was always being called into the classroom at the end of the day for a little chat with Mrs Bell.

When they were getting their coats from the cloakroom ready to go home, Katie waited to speak to Joshua. He was the last one out, because Mrs Bell had to talk to him.

“Would you swap your trouble card?”

“No, never,” Joshua replied, turning from Katie and knocking her PE bag off her peg as he stomped back to class.

Katie sighed and bent to pick up her bag. Underneath it was something small and shiny. It was Joshua’s card.

Katie took a quick look around to make sure no one was looking. If no one saw her pick up the card then she wouldn’t have to give it back, she could add it to her collection.

With a flutter of excitement she quickly stashed it in her coat pocket.

She was met by Mrs Bell standing in the classroom doorway.

“Katie, I think I need to talk to your mum at hometime.”

Katie looked puzzled. Mrs Bell continued.

“I’ve had a report of you using extremely bad language in school.”

“No, I didn’t…” Katie started to say. She put her hands in her coat pockets. Her fingers curled around Joshua’s card.