CLASSIFIED

This is my first post, and first chapter of my unfinished novel. It's told through two points of view: the male lead and the female lead. The next chapters will be coming soon. Critique away!

Chapter One:
HEIDI

"Well, in the dream there was a muffin.... Does that help?" Julie asked. Her British accent was so crisp and brisk-sounding. We were the only two foreign students in our grade, which is mainly what brought us together. I, being from Australia, and her from England, we always got people commenting on our accents. Our other best friend was Floë Starks, the school's head cheerleader.

"Not really, Julie. You've got to give me more detail. Why was the muffin there? Come on. You can't find out what is causing these weird dreams if you don't tell me why they're weird."

"It was Orlando Bloom's muffin. It was banana nut. He's allergic to nuts, so he choked. I rushed in, responsible young woman that I am, to give him the Heimlich. He spat it out, but still had his allergic-thing going on, so I called 911 and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The paramedics got there and rushed him off to the ER. I followed in my car. I waited in the waiting room for five hours. Finally, he came out all better, and he swooped me into his arms and told me that he owed me his life. I told him that was nonsense, but he started making out with me and told me he loved my modesty and he wanted to stay with me forever. So, I told him that my boyfriend was a lying, cheating, ass hole, and that I would be utterly glad to have a real man in my life. Then, we dated for two months and eloped, and had two kids, and lived into our nineties, and we died of old age, kissing each other. You figure that out."

"You're one crazy Brit. But, it means that your hormones are affecting your dream state, and planting an ideal reproductive mate in your mental arsenal, so that you can compare every other male to him. In this case, since you like Orlando Bloom so much, he is the physical image represented in your mind, and his personality is simply your dream guy." I smiled, proud of my analysis.

Julie smiled, but a frown soon replaced it. "So, it's not, like, meant to tell me that I shouldn't have sent Orlando that lemon-poppy-seed muffin last May? I mean, you are a budding psychlogist. Gimme answers!" She began to hyperventilate.

"Julie, dreams are unconscious. You can't see the future in a dream, or something you've never seen. Just chill. He's still alive."

Julie got a mischievous smile on her face. "Speaking of ass-hole boyfriends, somebody's got fifteen texts from Hayden," she sing-songed holding my cell phone in front of my face

I put my head in my hands. "I hate this. Why did my mother insist that I go out with him, just so she could get close with his mom? She's using me and I want to slap her."

She nodded sympathetically. "Look, honey, your mom doesn't deserve your help if she's not getting it in a nice, non-hustler-esque way. Just end it with Hayden, and kill your mom's hope for little, strawberry-blonde mini-Hayden Joneses."

My long blond hair tickled my face as I shook my head. "I wish it could be that easy, but it's not. She's my mother. She birthed me. I cannot just deny her. Then what? I'd live on the streets? She'll give me the lecture about how much time and money I take from her. How much she works to keep house, nourish my 'adolescent appetite', and tame my 'hormonal tendencies'. It's like I'm an animal in a zoo, and she's the keeper. Making sure that I don't misbehave, or make messes. Then she uses me like this, and she acts like it's all justified. I hate it. All of it."

"Live with me."

"What?"

"Live with me. I have plenty of room and we'd—"

I frowned and cut in. "Julie, it's not that simple." I sighed. "Maybe she'd forgive me this someday, but I'd be on her bad list for years. She holds grudges like no other. Plus, she likes Hayden. She thinks he's sweet and friendly and romantic. She hasn't seen the real him."

"Tell her that you want to live in my apartment to help her, to give her space. Then she wouldn't have a clue as to where you were, so you could end it with Hayden."

"Mrs. Jones would tell her," I said, sure of it.

"If she's anything like her son she won't. She'll sulk and ignore her, and lash out unexpectedly at other people. But she'd never speak to your mom again." She wore a triumphant look.

"Knowing my mother, she'd assume. Assume that I'd broken up with him, or said something rude, had a fight, cheated on him, or whatever else she could think up. I know her too well. She's that kind of person—one that pushes blame onto other people."

"Get a new cell number. You keep saying that you need a new one so Hayden can't keep bothering you, right. Well, change it. Your mother can't reach you and your problems are solved."

"Ugh. My mother would march right over here and force me to get back together with him. Honey, it's not that simple." I rolled over onto my back. "There are so many things that could go wrong."

Julie wasn't paying attention to me. "We could set up a shrine to Orlando Bloom and his sheer awesomeness."

I laughed and hit her with a pillow. "Let's set it up in your room. I don't have the urge to see him every day when I wake up."

She hit me back. "Fine. You have to bring Sheila!" I'd gotten Sheila, my beagle puppy, only three weeks prior, and she was still glued to me. She hated my mom with 'the fire of a thousand blazing suns', as Julie put it, and she wouldn't go near her if her life depended on it. Or so it seemed, since she was a dog, and they can't talk....

"Julie, I was joking.... But it sounds like fun...." I contemplated for a while.

Julie bounced on her toes. "Please? Pretty please?"

"Fine."

Julie screamed, ecstatic. "We can go to get your stuff tomorrow while your mom is at work. It's a weekend, and it's totally acceptable to decide to move in with your best friend whom you spend every waking moment with anyway, right? Leave your mom a note. You're sleeping over tonight anyway."

I couldn't help but feel her infectious enthusiasm start to spread to me.



"We should probably sleep," I said. We'd spent over three hours talking; it was now two in the morning, and I was tired.

Julie yawned in agreement. "I guess I could try."

She was out in five minutes.

I thought about my situation. If I backed out now, I would burst Julie's bubble. And that wasn't ever good. Besides, I kind of liked her plan—the best friend bonding part, not the mad mom part. That part was bad.

I suddenly felt exhausted. It was so much to be decided in just an hour or so, and I was drained. I brushed my hair, got changed, and, finally, went to sleep.

Hello!

Well firstly, I noticed a few spelling and grammatical errors so maybe go back and read through it?

Hmm okay, well I liked the way you wrote this, your writing was very good but I have to say this didn't hook me much. There was nothing in it that really made me want to read more and find out what happens.
You also need to give us some more information. Why does her mother want to get close to this guy Hayden's mum? Things like that. You don't need to have a huge paragraph on it or anything just a line or two to explain.

There's nothing else really that I found to critique! Just those things which I think you should maybe look at.

If you have any questions just PM me

Sofi

Hello again!

Okay, the spelling errors which I thought I noticed turned out to be right after all so just ignore that, it was me mis-reading!

I noticed that you use commas a lot in this piece and there are lots of places where they simply aren't needed...

"It was Orlando Bloom's muffin. It was banana nut. He's allergic to nuts, so he choked. I rushed in, responsible young woman that I am, to give him the Heimlich. He spat it out, but still had his allergic-thing going on, so I called 911, and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The paramedics got there, and rushed him off to the ER. I followed in my car. I waited in the waiting room for five hours. Finally, he came out, all better, and he swooped me into his arms, and told me that he owed me his life. I told him that was nonsense, but he started making out with me, and told me he loved my modesty, and he wanted to stay with me forever. So, I told him that my boyfriend was a lying, cheating, ass hole, and that I would be utterly glad to have a real man in my life. Then, we dated for two months, and eloped, and had two kids, and lived into our nineties, and we died of old age, kissing each other. You figure that out."

I underlined the commas I don't think you need (I'm sorry, I know it's hard to see I just couldn't figure out another way of showing them )

You're one crazy Brit. But, it means that your hormones are effecting your dream state

This should be affecting and again, I don't think the comma is needed.

She's using me, and I want to slap her."

Again, I don't think you need the comma here.

I cannot just deny her

Also, as i read over it a second time, I noticed this and think maybe it would sound better as 'I can't' ?

Julie screamed, totally ecstatic. "We can go to get your stuff tomorrow while your mom is at work. It's a weekend, and it's totally acceptable to decide to move in with your best friend whom you spend every waking moment with anyway, right?

Here, I didn't really like the repetion of 'totally' I think it sounds better in the speech and I think that the sentence would work fine as 'Julie screamed, ecstatic' ?

I hope I helped! PM me when the next part comes out and I'll take a look!

Sofi.

Chapter Two:
JACOB


I picked at my soggy rice. It usually wasn't this difficult to eat Emmy's meals, but I had a lot on my mind. And when I say 'a lot', I really mean it.

"Jacob," Emmy whined. "It's really insulting of you not to eat stuff I cooked. I don't see you making anything better, and we can't just live on Wild Berry PopTarts and Cool Ranch Doritos—we have to eat real food. Besides, sesame chicken and rice is perfectly edible. I followed the directions exactly."

I rolled my eyes and pushed my plate away with the palms of my hands. "Emmy, your cooking is okay, but the rice is overcooked and you didn't add salt to the water. That's not why I can't eat, though."

Emmy stood up and grabbed our plates. "Fine, then. Explain to me what is so stressing that you can't even force down my rice." I could tell she was pissed because I'd commented on the flavorlessness of her food. Though she was perfect at everything else, she failed miserably at cooking. Luckily, the school board had given her a partner who would eat anything.

"Em, you can't seriously not know what is making me so uptight." She gave me a blank look. "Emmy, it's our assignment! They gave us one that was practically impossible! Did you see Octavian High? Did you see how small that school is? There's no way we could ever fit in at a school with 400 people in it. People already have their cliques, and they're sure to be quick to judge us. Can't you hear the gossip? 'Did you see those freaky new kids? What, were they under a rock their whole lives?', 'Those new kids think they're so cool', 'Those new kids are totally fake'." I began to hyperventilate. "See? 'Those new kids' will crop up in every conversation. We'll be the talk of the school, and that's not a great way to start out at a new school when you're a spy."

Emmy looked overthrown. It took her a few moments to regain her composure, but when she did, she said, "Oh, Brendan. You're worried about that? We're spies-in-training. We're the best liars in the world—why else would we be chosen to be the next generation of CIA Operatives? Just act like yourself, and you'll be popular in no time. I promise!" Her face looked earnest, and she had stopped her angry façade, so I let it go, even though I was still worried. Popularity didn't come that easily.


Our tiny two-bedroom house in the suburbs was just part of our cover. Our parents weren't really divorced and our Mom didn't really live with us. We weren't even brother and sister. Just classmates. Best friends. It was probably part of the reason why we were picked to be together for this little project—because we connected on a very high level. We also looked alike, which helped quite a lot. The only true bad thing about having Emmy as a partner was the fact that I knew that she had a crush on me. According to my other friend, James Hugo, whom we just called 'Hugo', Emmy's crush was devastatingly strong. And it was made all that much worse by the fact that I didn't like her that way, so her love was unrequited.

Christianwood Academy, our training school, was run by CIA retirees. Sometimes, we'd be assigned a teacher for a semester who was still fresh and in their prime—still in the field. It was always good to get more current updates and training from those who were still out there, but just on a break. That was what had happened with Marc-Antoine Bellamy.

Mr. Bellamy was our new Operations teacher, and still thriving out there on the field. Due to injury, Bellamy was out for a few months, and Headmistress Andrews couldn't resist the urge to employ him. Since Operations is the most important class—the class that trains us for our time out in the real world—and Bellamy was one of the best agents out there, it only made sense that he should fill in that position....

None of our sissy mini-missions could prepare us for our semester-long assignment: The Real World. No, not the MTV show. No, this was, according to Bellamy, as close as a trainee could get to a true deep cover mission.

We were going to high school.

Each of us was assigned a partner that we would have to pose with—as siblings, transfers, anything—for the rest of the semester, and, if required, longer. It came as a huge shock, and none of us had it completely registered in our brains until we were shipped off for our separate destinations.

Since all of us could speak 27 languages fluently, many pairs were shipped to other countries. Not us. No, we didn't even move out of state. Our Arizona-stationed spy school was only an hour and a half away from our temporary home in Octavian Valley, Arizona. Such luck.

Could this possibly get worse? Apparently. Octavian Valley happened to be just about the world's smallest small town. It was tiny. We were stuck.


I pulled on my pajamas. I knew it was too early for sleeping, so I pulled out a book. It was one of my favorites, Harry Potter. I had always identified with Harry and his difficulties with being a wizard. A freak. I was never happy with the spy life, even though it wasn't all that bad. I still longed to be in the perfect family pictured in sitcoms, and have a normal school with normal, non-deadly friends. I guess, despite the spy DNA and the fact that I excelled naturally in anything physical and mental, I just wasn't cut out for spy-hood itself.

I closed the book after coming to the Draco Malfoy parts. My imagination almost guaranteed me that I'd have a Malfoy at Octavian High. Instead, I focused on my cover story.

Name: Jacob Brent Shannen
Age: 17 years
Date of Birth: Jan 10
Parents' Names: Katherine Avery (Lives with), Laurence Shannen
Place moved from: Rochelle, Alaska
School Grade: 11 (Junior)
Other Immediate Family: Alexandra; 16 (Sister, lives with), Trey; 13 (Brother, does not live with)
Previous school: Rochelle High School


The rest could be decided by me: likes, dislikes, hobbies, style of clothing. I could be any person I wanted to be.

Right now, all I wanted was sleep. Sweet, peaceful, dreamless sleep.



The morning was a little better, but barely. My head ached from the sleep that had not been dreamless, and arms hurt from typing out my required mass email to Bellamy and the rest of the class. I couldn't wait for the day to be over.

The ride to school was silent. Emmy's, or, rather, Alexandra's, irritation had reoccupied her mind, and she refused to say a word to me. I made a silent vow to make dinner that night.

I tried to think of Emmy as Alexandra as much as possible. I decided to shorten it to 'Xandra'. It was nice enough, and easier to say. Xandra. Xandra. Xandra. Xandra. I thought the word over and over in my mind while picturing Emmy's round, pale, light-brown haired face. It worked. She really looked like a Xandra.

We finally showed up in the school parking lot. The campus was larger than its small population would indicate. It was a much smaller version of a typical college campus, spread out into almost a dozen smaller buildings. It was clear that the largest, marked as building '1' was likely to house the main office. I already had my schedule, and knew it by heart. Hacking the school system was easy when you were a spy. I'd traced my daily route around campus on my map, and knew that by heart, too. The only reason I really needed to go to the front office was as a courtesy. I was sure they didn't even give a tour.

Since Xandra was registered as a sophomore, we had no classes together, and I could only trust that she wouldn't slip up with her cover story. However, we were born to have genius IQ's and photographic memories, so I doubted that anything would happen.

Sure enough, the entrance to the main building led right into the main office. An overweight secretary with glasses greeted us.

"Jacob and Alexandra Shannen?"

We both nodded.

She smiled. "I am Mrs. Tanner. Please, take your schedules," she said, offering us slips of paper. "You simply need to report back to here after your last class is dismissed so that you may hand these back in. Each teacher knows what to do with them."

"Thank you," I said. Xandra just nodded.

Mrs. Tanner smiled back unknowingly. "I think that's it. Well, you can head off to class now."

Alexandra and I left together.

"Good luck, Em," I whispered.

"Good luck, Brend," she replied.

And we parted.

Hey!

Ok im finally getting round to reviewing this now i have my internet back properly!

Alright..

This hooked me a lot more. It was interesting and made me want to know what happens next. I'd consider switching the order of the two chapters so that Chapter 2 becomes Chapter 1? I think Chapter 2 grabs the readers attention so much more and it would work better that way?

Can't you hear the gossip? 'Did you see those freaky new kids? What, were they under a rock their whole lives?', 'Those new kids think they're so cool', 'Those new kids are totally fake'." I began to hyperventilate. "See? 'Those new kids' will crop up in every conversation. We'll be the talk of the school, and that's not a great way to start out at a new school when you're a spy."

Here, you make it seem like they have already started school when you talk about the gossip. Maybe add something in here to make it clearer that the gossip they've been hearing has been from outside school (I assumed it was)

None of our sissy mini-missions could prepare us for our semester-long assignment: The Real World. No, not the MTV show. No, this was, according to Bellamy, as close as a trainee could get to a true deep cover mission.

I don't think you should repead 'No' twice here. 'No, not the MTV show' sounds fine but then another 'No' immediatly following it in the next sentence cuts up the flow a bit and makes it sound a bit awkard. I think that sentence would sound fine as 'This was, according to Bellamy...'

Since all of us could speak 27 languages fluently

I wasn't sure if you meant that every student could speak 27 languages fluently (which would be a bit un-realistic) or that all of them combined could speak 27 languages? If this is the case then I'd add in the word 'combined' to 'all of us' or something similar to make it more clear

I guess, despite the spy DNA

were/are his parents spies? because I wasn't sure if it was something he inherited or he was just born with the qualities of a spy?

Emmy's, or, rather, Alexandra's,

The second comma isn't needed I don't think.

Those are all just nit-picks really because it was all very well written and I enjoyed it

I was wondering how old Emmy and Brendan are though? I wasn't sure if they were as old as they are posing to be in school or if they are older and are pretending to be younger in their cover? I think you should add something in to explain this. If they are only 16 and 17 maybe add something into Brendans thoughts about how he thinks they are too young to be doing an assignment like that? I don't know, you decide

I hope I helped. PM me with any questions!

Sofi.