This is one I ‘read to myself in my head’ on the way to school pick up. Interestingly, it developed from more regular collecting of things to collecting that was a polite way of saying less friendly habits.
I decided it needed a slightly more positive ending – and looked for some good habits to counteract the others.
Some of these belong to people I know – and others came in the musing.
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Billy collects bottle tops. He’s not fussy: in the recycling box, out of the hedge, scooped up out of the gutter.
He likes the pictures on top – and the sound of them jingling in his pocket.
Sarah collects pebbles. She’s always on the lookout: on the cycle path, off the drive, out of walls of houses (if she can winkle them out with her nails).
She likes picking them up, one by one, and turning them over in her fingers.
Navid collects jokes. Books, TV programmes, sometimes his own inventions.
He’ll store them up for train journeys, boring queues, and the middle of Mum’s conversation with someone else.
Kaylee collects pop stars. The posters, the facts, the clips on YouTube (when Dad’s left his laptop about).
(The stars collect as well: adoring looks, and kisses too, sometimes. They’re pinned to the wall – they might as well.)
Greg collects bruises. Sometimes cuts.
Mostly he finds them after he’s come off walls, before he’s looked (but after he’s leapt), and during football games before the school bell rings.
Tamsin collects habits. She’ll try on someone else’s laugh, another’s way of showing she’s annoyed.
Mostly she tries them on at the bus stop, on the way home. Sometimes people think she’s trying to be funny.
Duncan likes collecting food. Usually other people’s. At breaktime. For someone who eats a lot, he sure moves fast.
I tuck my snack into my coat sleeve, so he can’t see it. It gets a bit sticky after a while.
Samantha likes collecting friends. Sometimes she collects other people’s friends and takes them off somewhere else.
Sometimes she collects my friends and I don’t see them again, all lunchtime. I don’t like it.
Marcin collects people’s names. The boy on the bus, the girl who arrives at the same time, the cool kid three classes higher up.
He’s generous with them too: he’ll call out as many as he can, if he sees you in the morning before school.
Juliette collects games. Tag, hopscotch, shoot the hoop, act out the show.
She’ll have one for you if your toes are touching the wire fences at the side of the playground, unsure where to stand.
Mary collects words. New ones, old ones, ones held together in the middle with little bars.
She pours them all down on the page, and moves them around with her finger, working out which one comes first.