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Chapter 1

I'm sitting on our front porch, paint chips poking in through my worn out hand me down blue jeans, listening to the yelling.

My brother, Eric, got into another fight, this time with the most gossipy lady in town, Mrs. Melbrook's son Kipp. I'm not encouraging my older brother's violence, but I know Kipp very well-- he had it coming to him. He'll march around with the other neighborhood boys, and usually me, acting like the sweetest boy around the adults. But when it's just kids, he isn't such a good guy.

"Eric, what the hell is wrong with you? Kipp is a good kid! I don't see why everyone is beating up on him!" Mom yells, loud enough for everyone on our street to hear.

"So you'd rather I fight with another kid?" my older brother asks, all smart assy. Pinder Obring and Jackson Reddings climb up the steps of our thousand year old porch, sitting down beside me.

"Maggie did you see Kipp? He looks like road kill!" Pinder says, his breath hot and sticky, reaking of bubblegum.

"Shhh!" I hiss, scooting closer to the screen door. "I'm trying to hear."

I hear Eric yell a swear word, then a door slam. Huh? What happened?

"Dangit Pinder, I missed something!" I say, hitting his shoulder as hard as I can. Ow! My hand is on fire! I wince, shoving my hand into my pocket, as I stand up and brush the dirt off of my butt.

Pinder gives Jackson a look, and the both bust out laughing, standing up.
"Your lucky you're a girl, or you'd get your butt whooped with a punch like that!" Jackson says through howls of laughter.

Stupid boys. I look down the street towards Cole's house, wondering if he's in trouble again. His crazy drunk mom is always grounding him for weird reasons like wearing yellow. She says yellow is the color of evil. Like I said, she's a crazy drunk.

"So whaddya wanna do Maggie? We could try out that bike jump I made in the empty lot on Fourth Street." Jackson says. I'm not prim and proper, but he could at least do something about his hair. Blonde rats nests everywhere. He should just shave it before something crawls up and dies in it.

I look down at the huge scabs on my knees. I've already tried out the bike jump. "You know what? I'll just watch you two try it. My bike has a flat,"

"Ok," the both say.



We're walking towards Pinder's house, the two boys bloodied up, and not from the bike jump. "Don't you touch me with those bloody hands Pinder," I say as he reaches out to pully my waist length brown hair. Usually I would pull his back, but he got his auburn curls shaved this summer.

"Kipp is such a-- nice kid!" Pinder says, sounding nervous.

"Huh?" Jackson says.

"Oh hi Mrs. Melbrook!" I say, waving at the fat woman in an eyesore of a dress. She ignores me completely. Bi-otch. Maybe we should just show her what a nice kid Kipp is. He just wanders up to us, while we were minding our own buisness, and starts calling me names like Raggie, (not very creative that boy) and chucking rocks at the boys. That annoys the crap out of me since I've never been in a fight in my life, since the boys won't hit girls, and the grils in our neighborhood hate me, but dont't want to mess up their stupid hair. It starts a huge rock war, Pinder even tried to catch one, and practically blew his hand off.

"Margaret! Get inside right now!" my mom screams from our screen door. Uh-oh, Dad's home.

I point to the truck in our driveway. "Got to go guys," I say, jogging back home, my torn up sneakers slapping against the pavement. Flip, flop, flip, flop, help, me, help, me.


"You know you're supposed to be home when your dad get's home so we can eat dinner," my mom says right after she tells me to stay inside for the rest of the evening. I'm laying across my pink bedspread, my feet on the wall.

"But you weren't even finished making dinner until ten minutes after I got home!" I say, slamming my heel against the wall. Little dent... uh no big deal.

"And now you're screwing up your walls. Real nice Margaret." she says, turning around, stomping out of my room.

Just in time. "Welcome to the grounded club!" a voice says, coming out of my two-way-radio.

"Hey Cole, How'd you know I was grounded?" I ask, pressing the button on it.

"Everyone on the street knows, your dad got home before you did!" he says.

"Margaret get off the walkie-talkie!" Mom yells from in the kitchen.

"Got to go," I say, turning it off.


"So I'm singing this song. Duh nuh nuh nuh. About a girl locked in her roooom. While her friends are all out.Duh nuh nuh nuh. Playing basebaaaaaall! Duh nuh nuh nuh." I yell. This is not even fair. Even Cole's mom ungrounded him so he could play baseball.

Oh, maybe I can too, since a baseball just flew through my window.

"MARGARET? WHAT WAS THAT?" my mom screams.

I think in the beginning maybe explain why Kipp isn't as nice as the adults think he is. Don't just tell us, maybe show us an incident that proves it?

Pinder gives Jackson a look, and the both bust out laughing, standing up.

The should be they.

I look down at the huge scabs on my knees. I've already tried out the bike jump. "You know what? I'll just watch you two try it. My bike has a flat,"

"Ok," the both say.

The comma should be a period and again the should be they.

I say as he reaches out to pully my waist length brown hair

No y at the end of pully...

This is definitely a very, very nice start. It's very engaging and pretty realistic and entertaining. Although there was a few typos and whatnot like I pointed out, so mebbe watch for them as you're continuing this, but nothing major. Sometimes when you switched scenes it was kind of confusing, especially the last one, although that might just be me. Otherwise I can't think of much else to say about this...good job! Maybe a little more detail would be nice though...

Well, I definitely thought you did a good job with character development. By the end the main character was fully developed. I felt like I got a sense of who she was, and who all of the other characters were, too. Of course, this comes from a combination of a good use of dialogue and narration... the dialogue was cute... what you'd expect from someone around their age (relatively young?). The rock war was kind of funny in a sort of awkward-funny way (it might hurt a bit, but it's silly).

I did find small things while reading it that you might want to take a look at...

"with the most gossipy lady in town, Mrs. Melbrook's son Kipp."

You might want to rearrange this part... It starts out sounding as if he got into a fight with Mrs. Melbrook. Take out 'with the most gossipy lady in town' and then add that detail later.

"I'm not encouraging my older brother's violence, but I know Kipp very well-- he had it coming to him. He'll march around with the other neighborhood boys, and usually me, acting like the sweetest boy around the adults. But when it's just kids, he isn't such a good guy."

This paragraph is awkwardly written. In the first sentence, take out 'to him' at the end. Take out 'usually me' in the second sentence, and insert an 'and'. Take out the last sentence and mention how he's not such a good guy while he's marching around with the neighborhood boys. The second sentence creates confusion because it implies that he's marching around with the neighborhood boys around adults, and he's not.. they're two separate events, right? They should be contrasting events based on what we know about Kipp's personality.

"Mom yells, loud enough for everyone on our street to hear."

Are you deliberately choosing to keep your story in present tense? Most stories are written in past tense... it's your choice, but just.. different, I guess.

"reaking of bubblegum."

'reeking' is the correct spelling.

"Ow! My hand is on fire! I wince, shoving my hand into my pocket, as I stand up and brush the dirt off of my butt."

This is sort of confusing... it'd be helpful to address the source of the feeling of fire on her hand directly.

"Your lucky you're a girl"

Replace your with you're.

"get's home so we can"

No contraction necessary. You can take out the apostrophe.

Nice! The character really did develop there, and we understood the story as it rolled along. Here is my most major criticism/critique of your story:

The reader cannot just start reading from the middle of the action. When the reader starts reading a story, they need to have expactations from the beginning. When I started the chapter, the only thing I knew was that the character has a brother who's fighitng with another boy named Kipp. In the end of the chapter, I knew that she was a tomboy. That's all I understood.
Maybe you should include a prologue, or even a few words about the story you are about to write. Best yet, as it fits with your chapter, include a setting. Don't just start with an action--I know everybody says it draws the reader in, but it really only makes him think "cliche cliche". Say, "The sun was rolling down the sky. The sticky asphalt under my bare feet scorched like what I expected the metal roof tiles of our house to be, and I darted down the streets in order to yell at my older brother--he was fighting..." and so on and on. Of course, this isn't an excellent proposal of a setting, but you could make yours up. And we need a little foreshadowing here and there to actually be intrigued by Margaret. Otherwise, what will keep us up at night, pondering her life?

Also, make sure your character doesn't just tell. You created a first-person account in order to show her feeling, not just say "I ran to the boys, I played with them, I became mad mom grounded me." That's just like saying "She ran, she played, she became mad." Maybe, you should say "I craved to play with the boys. I leaped to them with incredible want. Sitting alone, grounded, is the worst thing for a girl who just wants to be outside." etc. etc.

Nice going, but maybe just a bit of revision here and there.