Whitefield High: Chapter 1

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Ceilings were strange inventions.

I mean, they were like floors... but they were above you.

Yeah, I guess you could say I was officially bored out of my mind. And seeing as I had been trained to never, ever get bored, that was saying something. Then again, I never got good grades back in that unit. Cat? Oh, Cat had gotten straight A's. Then again, she always made good grades, on everything. Me and Kaia often questioned her resources. And, knowing Cat, I wouldn't doubt that she had hacked into the CIA database and gotten every answer.

Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear. My laptop beeped. I shook the mouse, and the screensaver jolted back to the desktop, which was covered in a sheet of black, striped with strings of green numbers, letters, and various characters in various languages. A little blue edged box was set, a little off center, in my screen, reading, "PASSWORD DETECTED." I clicked activate and sat back again.

Hacking government agency's databases was a hobby of most Whitefield girls, and the daughter of the headmistress was no exception. Heck, the daughter of the headmistress was expected to even more. I minimized the screen as I started to smell... BROWNIES.

I don't know about you, but whenever the scent of brownies reaches my nose, I must have them. Immediately.

Might be a fifteen year old girl thing. Don't know. Could be a good project for General Manipulations, though.

I tore out of the room and down the spiral staircase no one knew about but me and the girls. As I rushed past my mom, I heard a loud, "Blaire Allen! Why are you running?!" but I paid it no heed. My train of thought was speeding down one track: brownies, brownies, brownies, brownies, brownies.

When I reached the kitchen, Chef already had a plate out for me, as well as a glass of milk. Dear old Chef. I have no idea what we would do without him. And by we, I mean the school. That's where I was now; Whitefield High, an Academy for Elite Young Women. It was a boarding school, so me and Mom had been able to stay over the summer. I thanked him earnestly. He shrugged it off, beaming. He was always put in a better mood when people enjoyed his food.

I was licking the caramel off my fingers when I heard a plane land out back. My ears pricked up. I knew that roar... Kaia! I pushed the plate over the counter and sprinted to the field in back of the school. I was one of the single fastest girls in the school, and it showed. I went from the front to the back of the school in literally fifteen seconds. Think that's not much? You try crossing a mansion in that time.

I ran straight into Kaia's arms, laughing giddily into her blonde hair. She pulled away and held me by the shoulders. She's strong enough to do that, trust me. Her sapphire blue eyes (I'm not kidding, they look like freaking sapphires) scanned over me.

"Well, look at you, Blaire! You look good!" I beamed at hearing her lightly Irish accented voice.

"As opposed to?"

"The way you did after the Soviet assignment."

I shuddered. "Good example. C'mon, Chef made brownies!"

Kaia had been my best friend since we had met, halfway through last summer. I had been arguing with someone (I don't remember who) about if spies should be considered dead after a certain period of being missing. I said they shouldn't. My challenger said they should. Kaia had kindly come up and punched said challenger in the nose. And the friendship needed no further encouragement. We had met Cat at the beginning of the year. We were all roomies, hurrah! It barely took any time to warm up to her. Sweet Cat, with her infinite genius-ness and lack of confidence in everything else.

Me and Kaia chattered all the way to the kitchen, and from there to our dorm -room- whatever you want to call it. She dumped her stuff down on her bed and gestured to my computer. "Been working on hacking, have you?"

I nodded. She nodded at my nodding. "Good. I hear they do more computer-oriented assignments in sophomore year." We promptly launched into a conversation about different codes and how we could bend them for different styles of hacking.

"You can only bend that one one other way to get into CIA database," a voice said from the doorway.

"Cat!" Kaia and I shouted at the same time. She smiled. Black haired, hazel eyed Cat, skinny and small as anything. She hugged us both and handed us sleek black... somethings. At our puzzled expressions, she laughed.

"I call them the Minis. Phone, computer, iPod, pretty much anything. Translates whatever you put into it, audio or otherwise. All sorts of cool things. And yes, I made them." Cat said proudly. "Best part? You don't have to pay anything."

"Cat, you've outdone yourself." I mumbled, tapping at the touch screen. She beamed. I fell back on my bed, toying around with my new phone-computer-iPod-weapon thingy. I blew a chocolate brown lock out of my face and continued tapping the screen, tongue poking out slightly.

At some point, I went to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror for the first time in nearly a week. (I'm not much for vanity.) My eyes looked sleepy, I realized, if bright green could even look sleepy. Well, since mine did, I supposed it could.

I really needed to stop having conversations with myself.

I walked back out to Kaia dozing off, hand fumbling around. "Knife...knife...need my knife..." she was mumbling. I looked at Cat, who shrugged.

Why would she need her knife?

And I don't mean why-does-she-evidently-think-she-is-in-danger. You get used to that after your first week at Whitefield.

I meant why-is-she-using-a-weapon-that-we-have-deemed-not-good-for-fighting?

You do that after your first week at Whitefield, too. Kind of important to when you go to a school for young female spies.
Last edited by NinjaCookieMonster on Wed Jul 07, 2010 2:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.
hey, Jude, don't make it bad
take a sad song and make it better
remember to let it into your heart
then you can start
to make it better.

~make books, not war~

"Not vampires, fish from space."




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Oh my gosh that is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!! Great job, wow... you have to keep writing!A few critiques is to stop using the whole "thingy" words and stuff like that. But, you NEED to keep writing!!!!
Laugh, Smile, Have Some Fun, You Only Live Once!

People say the pen is mightier than the sword, but I don't know, a sword can actually kill you while a pen can just hurt your feelings...




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I must say that I simply adore your narrator! Her random thoughts, musings of the world, and conversations with herself are really entertaining to read, and she has a personality that I can instantly connect with. I also liked how you established the fact that Blaire is familiar with her surroundings by having her say what was usual and what she recognized. It was all in-character, too, and I didn't feel like I was being overwhelmed with exposition while reading.

I also like the interesting setting that you have in place. A school that teachers girls hacking, programming, and other espionage related topics is definitely something I'd want to read, especially with a narrator like Blaire. There are still some things I don't know about Whitefield, but, based off what's been established with the viewpoint character, it feels like you know where you're going with the setting and will explain any hows and whys later, and I'm interested in finding those out.

With so many things I like about this piece it was difficult to find anything wrong, but there are still bits I think could use fixing. I felt like you used the word "beaming" too many times to describe satisfaction. While it's not coming up every sentence or paragraph it still got old quickly, and it started jumping out at me after the first few times. I feel that it would be better if you used different words to express how a character is feeling. You might even find a better word to use. Another thing I'd like to suggest is figuring out different ways to describe emotion, because I didn't get a strong sense of how the characters outside the narrator felt. All I saw was some generic adverbs, verbs, and nouns for emotions. Perhaps body language and tone could be added?

I also think that you should watch your use of commas. I read a few bits aloud to myself and I instinctively thought that some sentences sounded better without the pause from a comma. I suggest that you try the same and see if you agree with me.

All in all, this was a lot of fun to read. Keep up the great work! PM me if you have any questions or comments.
Lumi: I hate it when plans require faith in competence.
Jagged: You should know better by now.




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Oh wow, this is really cool! I agree with Celdover, I love your narrator!
The mood throughout this entire chapter is amazing, energetic, and enthusiastic. I really want to read more because your characters are so cool. I don't know why I like them so much, it's weird really, but I do.
One little teeny thing.

Cat? Oh, Cat had gotten straight a's.

A should be capitalized.
Cat? Oh, Cat had gotten straight A's.
See? :)

That's about it. Sure there were a few more things like genius-ness that you probably wouldn't find in a dictionary- but you aren't writing a book on the meaning of words. So I think it doesn't really count.

Yup. That's about it. Strange how a story like this can make the reader feel so bubbly. That's how I feel right now. Keep up the awesome work! And post more soon. I mean it!

Crazy :P
Looking for someone who won't disappoint you?
Look to Jesus.:)



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