Question

Include one sentence at the top of your document to explain which option you chose. Be specific. For example: "I chose to write an alternate ending that begins after George finds out what Lennie has done." New student example: "I wrote a prequel to Harry Potter that takes place when Harry's parents were kids."

Using Microsoft Word (Download Microsoft Office for Free), write a fictional piece using ONE of the options below.

1. Rewrite the ending of Of Mice and Men.

2. Write a "missing" scene from Of Mice and Men.

3. Write a prologue to Of Mice and Men (before the novel begins).

4. Write an epilogue to Of Mice and Men (after the novel ends).

5. NEW STUDENTS ONLY: Write a fan fiction scene based on something you have read or watched OR write a new story of your own. Include a theme of friendship and follow all other requirements.

For any choice above, you must include a theme of friendship OR loneliness and write 500-1,000 words (word count is displayed on the bottom left in Word as you type). Use Times New Roman black font, sized 12. Double space your work (How To Double-space in WordLinks to an external site.).

Use characters from the novel and EITHER make it in the same time period as the book OR change it to modern time. Do NOT include any inappropriate language (even if it is used in the novel).

Answer 1

I chose to write a "missing" scene that takes place the evening before George and Lennie arrive at the ranch—by the Salinas River—where George tells Lennie more about their dream and why he stays with him.

The sun had folded back behind the cottonwoods and the river glittered low and slow, bringing a cool hush over the patch of grass where George and Lennie sat. Lennie had a handful of clover and kept picking the leaves one by one, pressing them with his thumb like he was smoothing something he could keep.

"George?" Lennie said, looking up at the dim plain of the sky. His voice had that small, earnest tone that had always made George harder to be rough with.

"What is it, Lennie?" George asked, tossing a pebble into the water without watching where it went.

"Do you really get the rabbits if we get the place?" Lennie put the clover in his pocket as if tucking a promise close to his heart. "You said I'd tend 'em. I'd keep 'em safe."

George let out a short laugh that was half a sigh. "Sure. You'll tend the rabbits. You'll do good work. Ain't no one gonna bother 'em."

Lennie scrutinized his hands. "You won't let nobody hurt 'em, George? Not even Curley..."

"Nobody's gonna hurt 'em," George said. He had to be careful—Lennie's mind bent things until they were as plain and soft as the rabbits he loved. "That's the whole point, Lennie. We'll be safe. We'll have our own place. You remember the bunkhouse? This is different."

Lennie nodded hard, the way he always did when he wanted to make sure George heard him. "An' we'll live there. Ain't gonna be no boss. We'll have alfalfa and rabbits. An' you can tell me stories."

George watched the river slide by, thinking of all the summers when he'd been a step ahead of trouble but never quite free of it. He'd grown used to looking after Lennie as a thing that never ended, as usual as the night coming on. Yet sometimes the thought of an ending like the little farm glowed sharper than the usual dull hope. "I been thinking," he said, quietly, "about how things could be different."

Lennie smiled, the kind of grin that made his face seem younger than it was. "We can do it, George. I remember, I remember how to do the fences. An' I'll milk the cows and the rabbits will—"

"You'll milk what we got," George cut in, light but sure. "You got a steady hand, Lennie. Sometimes I think you don't know how much you got."

Lennie beamed at that. "You ain't mad 'cause I like to pet soft things, George?"

George rubbed the back of his neck. He'd been mad a lot of times—angry at the trouble Lennie got them into, angry at the way life kept pinching them between jobs and bosses. But when he looked at Lennie's wide trusting eyes, anger shrank to something else. "No," George said. "I ain't mad. It's just—" He stopped. The words were like trying to push a heavy load up a hill.

"Just what?" Lennie demanded gently, as if George owed him some plain truth.

"Just that it's hard for folks to understand," George said. "They'd think it foolish to tend rabbits when there's no one askin' you to, or that it's ridiculous to save for a place when you could be spendin' your pay on a bottle or a night with drinks. But I know better. I seen enough of them folks who got no one. No one to say 'I'll goin' to the bank' with or 'I'll meet you at noon.'"

Lennie turned the clover in his fingers. "You ain't never gonna leave me, George, are you? You said you'd watch out for me when I was a kid."

George felt the heat rise in his chest, not from the day's labor but from the pile of things unsaid piling up. "I ain't never gonna leave you. That's a promise. Sometimes I think it feels like we're nothin' but two guys walkin' along—but it matters. It matters I ain't alone with you, and you ain't alone with me."

They fell quiet then, the river's whisper filling the gap between their breaths. In the hush George thought of the thousands of miles he'd walked watching for trouble and for work, and how different those miles might have been if he had been truly on his own. He pictured the empty nights, the echo of his own footfalls, the way loneliness can make a man see shadows where there ain't none.

"You don't got to worry," Lennie said, as if sensing the direction of George's thoughts. "We'll have a little house. You'll make the coffee how I like it. And—an' I'll get to tend the rabbits."

George laughed, a small, wet sound. "That's right. You'll get to tend 'em. An' when we got the place, I'll get to rest. Might even get a chance to dance at the Saturday socials like you'd want me to. Maybe you can bring me one of them big smilin' rabbits, huh?"

Lennie laughed too, a bright delighted sound that chased some of the dimness from George's face. He reached out and bumped George's knee with his fist in a private gesture of fellowship. "George—"

"Yeah, Lennie?" George said, because he didn't trust himself to say more than that.

"Thank you for stayin'."

The words sat between them like something sacred and simple. George looked across at the small man who could break a man's neck with a handful and who could make grown men feel like boys again with nothing more than his trust. In that instant he saw not burden but company, not obligation but choice. The world was mean and thick with trouble, but there, by the river, all that counted was the two of them and the thin golden thread of a dream.

"All right," George said finally. "We stick together. We look after each other. Tomorrow we'll go down, do the best we can, and maybe—maybe sooner or later—we'll get that little place."

Lennie nodded, satisfied. He put his hand in George's and squeezed it with the innocent force of a child. They sat that way, two small shapes by the water, bound by the ordinary miracle of a friendship that kept them walking through a world that often tried to walk them down.