Young Writers Society

"Hm, okay." Jeff tapped his fingers on the desk in front of him. "It's Monday, so that means we have plenty of time, and yeah, I, uh, don't have much going on either."

He flushed, feeling shy all of a sudden. "I think maybe just try as many days as we can starting this afternoon if it's alright with you, 'cause like, who knows how long it takes two people to write together."

Matt nodded and gave him a small smile. "Alright! I don't know where you live, but I'm right down the street - I walk. So it's awfully close if you want to meet at my house. My dad's not home until pretty late, either, so it'd just be us."

Jeff scratched his head, and grinned sheepishly. “I wouldn’t want to bother you at your home or anything, but yeah that’d be great actually. I live a while from here cause we weren’t expecting to go here at first.”

He chuckled a little. “This should be fun, hopefully.”

He shook his head and laughed a bit awkwardly. "I-it wouldn't be a bother at all. H-honestly, no one's been over for a long time. I th-th-think it'll be a blast. I can't vouch f-f-f-for the neatness of my abode but...it's something."

"Oh, okay, uh, cool." Jeff nodded. "I think that would be great, then."

The bell rang, startling him into nearly falling out of his desk. He laughed a little at himself.

"Smooth, Jeff, smooth," he muttered. "Uh, I guess see you after school, then? We can meet outside this room at 3, is that okay?"

Mattathias, too, jumped out of his skin as the bell interrupted their conversation. After he'd taken a moment to reorient himself, he smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'll see you then!"

Jeff whistled quietly as he passed through fellow students walking. He glanced down at his watch just to make sure he was early. It read 2:55. He took a moment to breathe. Why was he so worried about making it on time?

Jeff didn’t want to seem rude by not making it to their suggested meeting. This was someone that really seemed like a neat person to be around, so he didn’t want to mess this up.

He rounded the final corner to see Matt standing in front of their English class.

“Hey, Matt!” Jeff called out. “Hope you weren’t waiting long for me.”

Matt looked up and felt himself smile as he saw Jeff. He wasn't really used to much friendship aside from Neil, and it'd been a long time since he'd had a friend he saw in person much. Granted, he and Jeff had only just met, but so far, he had a good feeling about the guy.

"Not at all! I just got here. I was hoping I wasn't keeping you waiting," he said as the final bell rang, marking the end to their school day.

Jeff smiled in relief. “Great, okay.”

He pulled out his notebook that held a few notes. The next step would probably be to start writing to figure out what perspective to use.

“So, uh, I guess, it’s go time.” He didn’t want to invite himself over to Matt’s house, but he also wanted to leave the campus if he could. Jeff didn’t want reminders of past friendships or awkward times.

Matt shouldered his backpack and slipped out of the school building and onto the sidewalk, leading the way. "Seems so!" he agreed. "So, I was thinking about our story, and I thought it might be cool to try first-person. We might even get more points for it with Mrs. Pine because it doesn't seem to be a very popular choice. And as for our protagonist, I thought it might be good to make he or she relatable. In fact, maybe we could even have them go to an alternate version of this school - then the students will have a way of connecting before we throw in magic!"

Jeff shuffled around his things, then moved by Matt, stating to follow him.

“That sounds really neat!” He exclaimed, nearly throwing his arms out. “I think having first-person would be really cool and like, we’re gonna blow people away!”

He flushed realizing how loud his voice got at the end. “Uh, sorry, I just get excited, sometimes.”

He laughed. "Don't worry, I d-d-do too, sometimes. I guess we just need to figure out our MC, then."

Jeff grinned. That was a relief for him. "Let's see, uh, we could have a random kid, but have them be happy in their role of life. Like, they're looking forward to getting out of school and into real life, except, y'know, they get magic-ed!"

"Maybe they're a senior about to go to college, and they've been accepted to the university they were hoping for," Mattathias add. "But we should make it so that they're pretty average, too, I think. We also have to figure out Nezzy's motivation."

"Huh, yeah that works," Jeff replied. He jumped over a crack in the sidewalk. "Since this is a short story, we could probably put something simple for Nez, like that he was bored or something, and decided to mess around with some kids. Maybe he has someone in his past, that like our MC reminds him off?"