Frog Legs

When I was eight, or I could have possibly been nine, my dad went out to eat with my grandpa and left me home alone. I was furious with him. I loved going out to eat and I loved spending time with my grandpa, why wasn't I going?
About an hour before my dad was going to leave, he told me him and grandpa were going to a restaurant. Naturally, In my mind, this meant I was also going. I ran to my room and dug through my heaps of clothes that scattered the floor and finally found something I believed was satisfactory. In all honesty, it was some red leggings and a blue and purple shirt with butterflies that didn't even match, but, in my mind it looked elegant enough to go out to a fancy restaurant. I found my broken purple comb hiding under some scary looking socks, that probably should have been washed a long time ago, and ran it through my hair vigorously. Combing my hair was one of my least favorite things to do, I favored the "rats nest" look. I went into the bathroom as my dad was spraying his horrible peppery cologne and bumped him out of the way for my pink ladybug barrette that was laying on the counter he was hovering over.
My dad raised his eyebrows and put down the cologne bottle. "And where do you think you're going missy?" He asked me.
"I'm going out to eat with you and Grandpa!" I eagerly told him.
He sighed and gave me a sympathetic look.
"No, you're going to stay here and watch Coco, we can't leave him alone. I want you to lock the door and the windows and get into bed and watch some TV while I'm gone. If I hear from anyone that you left the house you'll be in big trouble."
Blah blah blah. That's what I heard. I was so terribly angry with my dad it wasn't even funny. My chocolate cocker spaniel Coco trotted up to me and licked my hand. I stuck my tongue out at him and stomped away.
I finally settled into bed and watched some cartoons for the TWO HOURS my dad was gone. As the time passed I slowly got less and less mad. I didn't even want to go to that STUPID restaurant anyways. I jumped out of bed when I heard a car door slam, and the key turning in the lock. At this point, I was just hoping my dad brought me back something. Even if it wasn't food maybe it was a stuffed unicorn from the claw machine, because we all know no fancy restaurant is complete with out a claw machine. He came inside carrying a bag with what looked like left overs. I gave him a quick hug and tackled the bag.
My dad put the food in the microwave and fixed me up a plate. It was chicken! I sat down at the table and discreetly passed Coco some chicken under the table. I mean, after all, he had to stay home, too, and he's never even been to a fancy restaurant! I put some on my fork and tasted it. It was all dark and mushy, and when I chewed it was dry. It wasn't very good chicken. The whole time I was eating my dad just stared at me, smiling.
"What's so funny?" I asked him.
"Do you know what you're eating?"
I stared at him like he was stupid.
"Ch'yeah. Some pretty gross chicken." Duh. Sometimes my dad wasn't the brightest crayon in the box.
"No, you're eating frog legs." He said, looking at me for my reaction.
"Oh, well they're pretty good!" I told him, and took another bite and continued chewing. He just stared at me like I was crazy. It was pretty nasty, but I wasn't going to let him not take me out to eat AND play a trick on me.

Awwww.

Seriously, that was what I was thinking the whole way through. "D'awwww, so cute!"

The voice for the whole piece was so fussy, so grown-up, so perfect for an indignant eight/nine year-old. They know exactly what is going on in the world and won't take any crap from anyone. You captured it so wonderfully.

One thing I want to comment on is actually more formatting than anything else. Rather than writing emphasized words in all-caps, try italics. It just makes it look a bit better than the screaming capital letters. Or, since the all-caps do sort of lend it a sense of genuine child-like indignation, maybe sprinkle them a bit more throughout? As is, the few instances of it all at the end seem out of place with the rest of the normal font.

Also

He just stared at me like I was crazy. It was pretty nasty, but I wasn't going to let him not take me out to eat AND play a trick on me.

The way these two sentences run together, it almost sounds like the dad's staring was nasty. I know what you mean, still continuing the thought about the chicken, but it needs to be a little bit clearer in the writing. Maybe something like "...like I was crazy. The food was pretty nasty, but..." just to make it clear that you are talking about the food being nasty and not the dad.

Loved this though. So adorable. A thumbs up to you, m'dear.

~GryphonFledgling

Hi!

So, I really liked this piece. It was a breath of fresh air after some of the absolutely atrocious works that I've critiqued recently. When did you write this, may I ask? Reading it, I loved how it genuinely felt like we were inside the mind of an eight year old rather then just a flowery, flat narrator that felt more like twenty with their thoughts.

Anyway, in addition to what Gryphon told you, there was one problem that I noticed, and that was with repetition. It seemed like you would say something in one sentence, and then with the next, just word it differently. See what I mean:

When I was eight, or I could have possibly been nine, my dad went out to eat with my grandpa and left me home alone. I was furious with him. I loved going out to eat and I loved spending time with my grandpa, why wasn't I going?
About an hour before my dad was going to leave, he told me him and grandpa were going to a restaurant.

Read it through for a second. I can see that you may want to have the first sentence as a jumping off point as well as a place to introduce age, but neither really are needed. If what you want to do is introduce what the story is going to be about, and then actually start it, you have a couple of options. The first would be to just simply say that you have had frog legs-after all, we know the by the title that that's what it's going to be about, right? The second (and this I would recommend) would be for you to write out the scene with dialogue. It's the difference between showing and telling-if you show us what the father said, it will add a lot more detail and imagination to the piece.

That's really all that I had. You're an exciting, imaginative writer, and I think this perfectly captures the interesting little memories that we have as a child. I'll be looking forward to seeing more of your work! Good luck, and PM me if you have questions.

-Elinor xo

Let's see. The only problemI found in this was that in the beginning I thought that it was a little boy not a little girl, it wasn't until the dad spoke to her that I realized it was a she. Oh well. That really isn't a big deal though. This was, utterly and completely, a moderately great little peice of work. I got this vibe from it which felt similar to A Wolf At the Table by Augusten Borroughs.

8 out of 10.