Betsy Weymouth

Betsy was the competition winner for Joff Winterhart's masterclass 'Comics with Character' with 'A Better Way', and a runner-up for Derek Owusu's masterclass ‘Starting Your Own Novel’ with 'Hell. Tour.'

"My comic entry is about a teen attempting to cheer themselves up after an argument with their mum; they soon accept that they should instead apologise. Inspiration wise, it was based on my own arguments with my mum, which don’t occur often, making them particularly hard to ignore – I tend to end up apologising. Though, the punching and screaming into pillows isn’t a stress relief tactic I personally use. This is my first finished comic: the requirements for the competition were short and simple, enough so to help motivate me to make something. There are other comics I want to make, whether now or in the distant future, though not like this entry, as I prefer writing and drawing fantasy. This is evident in my runner-up (start of a) novel entry, which, whilst not entirely evident in the amount written, is a fantasy novel about wizards and other worlds."

Below are Betsy’s winning and runner-up competition entries for What if YOU spoke? You can click here to see more of Betsy’s artwork.

A Better Way

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Hell. Tour.

I don’t remember how this day started. Every time I think back, it always starts at this particular moment, and I can never quite reach the memories of the hours before – not even the seconds before. I don’t think any of it was particularly important, I more so wonder why I remember it from this exact moment. Maybe it’s symbolic, the way I lit up those damned skinny jeans Alice gave me for my fourteenth birthday, right before I set my own life ablaze at sixteen and left her and everything I associate with her in the ashes.

Time was tight, but I wasn’t in any rush that day. Though, from the nagging sound of “knickers” and “booties” flowing ever so indignantly from Alices mouth as she urges me to get a move on, she seemed to be in enough of a rush for the both of us. Here is the moment I stepped out of my room for the last time, assured Alice that I had changed my underwear and my boots were neatly placed on the mat next to the front door, before holding out the skinny jeans Alice had requested I wear and with little effort left them a pile of dust and scolding metal buttons on the carpet. With a light tap of my foot on a growing flame, I saved the house from burning down. All in a days work, I suppose.

A face of disappointment greeted me from the bottom of the stairs – peeping through the banister. After about three seconds of a disgruntled frown, the corners of her pale lips stretched into a grin that no angel in all the heavens could match. On a day like this, I can always use one, but it also pisses me off to no end.

“Stop smiling. You look like a blob fish.” Which of course only left her smiling more. Anyone else would raise a brow at me calling a plus-sized teenager a ‘blob fish’, but Alice knows me well enough to automatically assume I’m insulting her very happiness. She calls me ‘cynical’; I say I’m a realist.“It’s like you want to be placed on a chopping block and gutted. Can’t you just let me be upset?”

“Can’t you just not set fire to a gift given to you by a dear friend of many years?” Alice is, I believe, one of the biggest reasons I don’t understand why I can’t remember the rest of this day. In all the years I’ve known her, I’ve never been able to forget a single millisecond I’ve stood in the same room as her. “And I’m not stopping you from being upset; I’m just not going to visit ‘down’ town with you.”

Slumping over like I hold the weight of all my past sorrows on my neck, I give one long petty sigh of indignation before dragging my feet to the bathroom. It was a mess and I was slightly irked at the idea of leaving it like this, but Hatty and Sam would be home soon, so it’s not like it’d be left like this forever. But, they’ll take one look at it and immediately know that we don’t plan on coming back. Alice doesn’t tend to make a big mess when getting ready unless it’s something big, and I never leave a room messy unless I don’t have enough time to clean it up. Maybe they wont catch on – it’s not that obvious. It’s only obvious to me because I’m aware of what’s about to happen.

Once again, I found myself contemplating whether Alice was right to burn the letters and keep this all from her parents. Would Alice really prefer her parents assume we’ve run away or gotten kidnapped and murdered by some sexual deviant over just telling them the truth. Sure, it’s not a nice one, but if she can keep a smile on her face during such adversity, then what’s letting her parents in on our unwilling plans?

I’d sure have preferred they threw a funeral a year after we left rather than sit waiting with minuscule ounces of hope that we’d return almost a decade later.

© Betsy Weymouth, 2021