I just finished a MOOC at Coursera called Writing for Young Readers: Opening the Treasure Chest. I found it quite useful, although the New Zealand accent was a trip for my American ears. I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. The last section, the one on editing, manuscript preparation and submission, is quite good. I especially enjoyed the interviews with Uma Krishnaswami and Tololwa Mollel--I went straight to Amazon and downloaded books by both authors to study.

Anyway, as part of the course, I wrote this fragment. I don't think I'll ever do anything else with it, but I thought you might enjoy reading it.

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A Trip With Dad

Les was contemplating the beat-up hospital vending machines when Dad appeared in the doorway.

"Trust a teenaged boy to find the food," he said. "Anything good in there?"

"Depends on your definition of good," Les answered. "You done?"

"They want me to come back for some tests. They want your mother to come, too."

"I can't come with you?"

"They... I guess you can, but they want a grown-up."

"Mom."

"Yeah."

Mom thought there was something wrong inside Dad's head, and she was being a pain about it. Everyone forgot things from time to time. Mom forgot things, too, but nobody sent her to any Veteran's Hospital two counties away to get her head examined. If anyone had done such a thing, they wouldn’t have made a sixteen year old kid go with her, or sneaked a packed suitcase into the trunk of their old blue Buick.

"So," Les asked again, "are you done for today? Did you get your travel pay?"

"Oh! Not yet," Dad said.

Upstairs, Dad and Les stood in line in the dark hallway until the lady at the tiny barred window handed Dad the travel money that the Veteran's Administration gives patients who don’t live near a hospital. Dad didn't say anything the whole time, but he chewed his lip and his eyes kept checking all around like he thought somebody was after him.

Once they had the money, Dad stuffed his wallet in his pocket and stalked out of the building and across the scorching hot parking lot to the waiting Dodge.

“Can I drive?” Les asked automatically.

“No,” Dad replied, equally automatically. He said nothing else as he navigated the side streets to the Interstate highway’s on ramp. Rush hour traffic zoomed both ways across the overpass.

Dad drove right past the ramp.

Les almost asked why, but he didn’t want to imply anything. It was bad enough that Mom thought Dad was crazy. He didn’t need Les making like he believed her. Besides, maybe they were going somewhere else before they went home.

Then they turned up the off-ramp.

“Dad!” Les cried. “We’re going the wrong way!”

Dad stopped the car only a few yards up the ramp.

“Well, isn’t this the way we came?” he demanded.

“Yeah, but… Dad, maybe you’d better let me drive.”

Les saw shock on Dad’s face as the realization hit. Dad grabbed the door handle like a lifeline, and then he opened the door.

“Yeah,” he said to Les. “You drive. You need the practice.”

They changed places. Thankfully, there wasn’t another car in sight, although Les could still hear the traffic up on the highway. He backed down off the ramp and drove away from the Interstate.

“Where… where are we going?” Dad asked, his voice quavering.

“We’ll take the old highway,” Les said. “I don’t think I’m ready to drive on the Interstate.”

Les certainly wasn’t ready to drive in heavy traffic, particularly not when he was this upset. Not when he had to consider whether or not Dad was really losing his mind.