This week’s Futures story is Duck, duck, duck, a tale about childhood by Samantha Murray. You can keep track of Sam’s writing at her website. Here, she kindly takes a moment to discuss the origins of her latest story — as ever it pays to read the tale first.

Writing Duck, duck, duck

I don’t have all that many memories of my childhood. (I have a fantastic short-term memory for learning lines in a play, or memorizing a textbook, but long-term stuff, not so much.) But one thing I do get a strong sense of when I look back is how different my thinking was as a child. There were so many things happening in my head that the adults were unaware of, and little things could take on enormous significance.

And, as with Candice and the kids playing the game, children are always more aware of things than we think. They may process that information differently inside their heads, but they pick up on what’s going on.

I have my own children now, and it can be easy to forget these things, to think that they are just miniature people, less experienced but fundamentally the same. But they’re really not. In fact they are a little bit … alien.