I have a confession to make.
I used to lie. A lot.
It all began in preschool, when I found a book that I think was entitled “Barbie: A Fairy Secret” sitting, forgotten, on a couch in our little classroom. I picked up the grime-covered book and flipped through its pages, wishing I could understand whatever the story was about.
Well, I thought, unsatisfied, if I can’t read this story, I guess I’ll have to make my own.
I flopped down onto the couch and opened up to the first page, saying,
“There once was a girl named Janie…”
“Hey Gwen, whatcha reading?”
My preschool teacher stepped over to me with a curious look on her kind face. Embarrassed, I closed the book and placed it at my side.
“I’m not reading anything,” I replied simply.
She raised an eyebrow, glanced towards the Barbie book, then sighed,
“If you say so,” and walked away. As soon as she was out of earshot, I hastily opened the book again and continued my story. I can’t possibly remember what it was about now. All I know is it was about a girl named Janie who was doing something much more interesting than sitting alone on a couch, talking to herself.
My heart would flutter a little whenever one of my classmates came over to listen to any of my stories. I craved attention and approval. I wanted them to raise their eyebrows and say,
“Wow, this is such a good book!”, and I’d reply with a smirk,
“Actually, I wasn’t reading the book at all…”
Of course, this never happened. Most of the time, they’d get bored and go play with some action figures or join the game of tag that was making a mess of the room. Whenever a teacher came over, though, I’d stuff the thing away because I figured they’d think I was stupid. Strangely, I was much more scared of what the adults thought of my stories than my peers.
This inherently wasn’t lying, but the more I came up with stories about Janie and her great adventures, the more I wanted to be Janie. I wanted Gwen to be the Fairy Queen, not this “Janie,” some girl who never had to deal with the woes of needing to hide your book whenever an adult walked by. So, in first grade, when my grandmother gave me a necklace in congratulations for the talent show, I made this my call to action. This necklace was not made of plastic beads, but ancient elven opals. This necklace was not given to me by my grandmother, who probably bought it at Macy’s, but passed through my family for generations. This necklace was not made in China, it was made by witches who cursed it so that I would die if ever took it off.
“Okay,” my best friend said after I explained the story to her.
“That’s it?” I asked, my voice faltering a little.
“It’s cute,” she shrugged.
That night, I looked at myself in the mirror and took the cheap little necklace off. The night before, I’d sworn I’d wear it until the day I died, but plans change. I needed a better lie.
I tried to convince my family I knew a magical, invisible girl named Annie who lived in the clouds. I tried to play the role of a hairdresser (also named Annie) who did my grandmother's hair whenever she visited. I tried to make myself a beach babe whose surfing skills were godly, since I totally attended surfing (spelled, sorfing) school every summer. I tried to be Gwen the Hippie, a high school girl who was obsessed with peace signs and rainbows. I tried to force myself to like football and be born in San Francisco just to impress a boy I liked.
Some may say this was normal behavior of a little girl my age, that I was simply playing pretend, but to me, these were not just lies, they were changes of character. I wanted to be anything but myself, because, in my eyes, my life was just too boring. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my life, I just needed more. If someone asked,
“Hey Gwen, have you ever been out of the country?” I’d say,
“Totally! I went to Africa just a few months ago to meet my great great aunt who owns a mansion with at least fifty butlers and maids…” and boom, done, I was a much more interesting person.
My real great aunt lived in Ingram, but no one needed to know that.
Unfortunately, their replies were never good enough, especially whenever someone asked if I could read and I’d say, “Yeah, yeah, I read the biggest books in the library!” making myself Gwen the Bookworm. They’d always just nod as if reading was normal, which made me feel even worse for the fact that I actually went to a class for special help in reading. My best friend always bragged about how many books she read, checking out stacks and stacks of books from our school library, and soon it became a competition on who could check out the thickest books. Looking back, I bet she was lying about how much she read, too.
Eventually I learned to read, and that’s when things really started changing for me. It began when, instead of making up my own stories about Janie, I read the actual book. My voice, rambling on about Janie’s adventure in fairyland, would fade away as I recognized the words on the pages and submersed myself in the written story. I still needed an outlet for my own stories, though, so I kept lying.
“Can anyone come see me in my ballet recital tomorrow?” my friend Camilla asked one day at lunch in third grade.
Suddenly I was Gwen the Busy, showing up at every sports game, every dance performance, and maybe bringing a cup of steaming hot Starbucks coffee for the journey.
“Yeah, I can come!” I replied.
Her face lit up with joy.
“Really?”
“Sure,” I said coolly, just like the busy, busy business executive I knew I was inside.
I forgot to even mention the event to my parents that night. In my mind, I had already gone to see my famous ballerina friend in her show. A week later, my mom sat me down at the dinner table all serious like, her face solemn.
“Gwen, I need to talk to you about something.”
I felt my heart do a little somersault in my chest.
“Yeah?”
“I saw Camilla’s mom in the store today. She said something about Camilla’s ballet recital?”
If my heart did a somersault before, it was doing an entire acrobatics routine now.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Apparently, according to her, Camilla was looking around the auditorium all night for you because you said you’d come. When exactly were you going to tell me about this?”
Tears formed on the rim of my eyes, blurring my vision, hot and thick with guilt.
“I-I didn’t mean to!” I cried. “I didn’t think--”
“That’s right, you didn’t think,” Mom said, her voice stern and steady. “You can’t do this, Gwen. Imagine how I felt, having to tell Camilla’s mom I had no idea what she was talking about.”
“I never meant for it to go that far! I figured she’d forget!”
“Well, she didn’t forget,” Mom frowned. “She’s probably really hurt.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I wailed, feeling horrible and lonely and a whole bunch of emotions all at once.
The next day at school, I marched right up to Camilla to apologize. As I explained myself, my horrible guilt creating a fat frog in my throat, Camilla’s face turned a blotchy light pink.
“Oh, yeah, it’s nothing,” she said. “It’s not a big deal.”
But it was a big deal, if not for her, for me. As I stood there, watching her try to change the subject of the conversation, I swore to myself I’d stop lying for good. The problem was, lying was my way of sharing my stories and creativity with people around me. Now I had to come up with something else.
I was sitting in my bedroom, “reading” aloud a story of my creation to no one in particular when it hit me. I didn’t need to tell my stories to empty air anymore. I was in third grade, and I knew how to write. Like some crazed animal running for a hunk of fresh meat, I scrambled out of my chair and sprinted downstairs to my mom’s laptop. I pulled open a fresh Word Doc and started typing.
This story, I thought, my mind running wild and quite mad, this story is going to be amazing!
“Gwen, what are you doing on my computer?” my mom asked slowly, stepping into the room.
“Type now, talk later!” I said, already fleshing out the first chapter of Legends of St. Sesame, a story about a girl whose father owned a hospital that contained a portal to a secret world. This girl, Taylor, was led by a wizard named Germantano on various adventures.
Where the idea really came from, I’ll never know. At the time, I wasn’t much of a reader, that was more of my sister Grace’s thing, so it wasn’t inspired by any books. Maybe it was because I was snacking on some crunchy sesame sticks at the time.
Either way, Taylor the Adventurer was like a rebirth of Janie the Fairy Queen, and by writing down her adventures, I felt like I was experiencing them myself. I was Taylor.
I had my opportunity to share my newfound love of writing that Halloween. Legends of St. Sesame was way too long to share with our class, but with the holiday coming up, I figured a short little story about a girl who hated Halloween would suffice. I spent one long, dreary October night typing away in our dining room.
“Come on Gwen, we’re watching a show!” my mom called from the living room.
“Can’t, I’m writing!” I yelled back. I was too busy writing about Cailey Kpay and her reasoning behind why she just absolutely loathed Halloween. I smiled at my cleverness as I finished the story with a twist. I believe the last line ended with at least six exclamation points and capital letters as Cailey exclaimed how she realized she loved Halloween. When I showed it to Mrs. Talarico, my third grade teacher, she gave me the widest smile.
“This is impressive, Gwen!”
That was probably the first time I ever felt the giddy, fluttering feeling in my chest that comes to me whenever someone praises my work.
“Can I...can I share it with the class?” I asked.
“Of course!” she grinned. “We’ll do it at the end of the day.”
So, that afternoon, I read my story aloud to our little third grade class. After I finished, they all clapped in that crazy I-bet-I-can-clap-louder-than-you way that third graders do. It was the best feeling in the world.
But just because I’d reached the top, I was far from finished. I wrote countless stories and shared them with my class, some so long they pushed us overtime and after dismissal, which I’m sure my classmates loved. It was almost like a Gweninian Renaissance. Some notable works were Oscar and Alphonse, the timeless epic about a group of kids who discover a new world, Thanksgiving Cousin, a classic comedy of errors, and later, in fourth grade, a plethora of stories about Minecraft I made with my friend that eventually were “published” in our school library. We wrote under the name “Minecraft Sisters”, but as our company grew, we changed our name to “Pixel Sisters” for legal reasons. I can brag for days about how I suddenly became the prolific writer, bringing in pages of my work to school at least every other day and demanding I share it with the class. I had a reputation. In fifth grade, I was voted most likely to become an author in our memory book. Whenever I shared a new story, people would lean back in their seats, thinking, here we go again, another one of Gwen’s stories, and I smiled, because they were right.
One day in fifth grade we were working on some solo work. The classroom was dead silent, save for the scratching of pencil on paper. Suddenly, my teacher, Mrs. McGinnis, laughed aloud, causing everyone in the room to look her way.
“What is it?” my friend asked her.
“I’m reading Gwen’s story,” she replied, still laughing.
My friend sent me a jealous glare, but I didn’t pay any mind, because that right there was probably one of the best moments in my life. The giddy feeling in my chest was warmer than it had ever been, and it was then that I discovered what that feeling was: pride. Pride because I earned her approval, as well as so many other people’s approval and recognition, just from doing what I loved.
When I think about it now, I suppose I still am lying. None of these stories ever happened. Harper Devalor, the protagonist of a book I’m currently writing, never really traveled the fantasy world of Senarius. Still, if I type fast enough, and weave the words in just the right way, maybe I can make somebody believe.