Young Writers Society

Elias barely had time to register what Lil was mumbling before Mr. Yorkie spat out some sick medieval poem, and he only realized too late that he should have recorded it on his phone because he would've made a bop out of it. Like, one of those viral compilations remixed into a song. Didn't that one "ain't nobody got time for dat" song go viral because of a similar reason? Wasn't that because of an interview? Did their stuff ever get recovered from the fire because the lady said she didn't have time to get it?

Although Elias was grinning at the thought of making Mr. Yorkie viral, he blinked and realized he missed everything he said. Something about love poems, probably. He wasn't paying attention, and he didn't even have any time to ask questions since Hazel started talking fast.

He blinked again, barely catching any of that since his brain was lagging. Something something about math and science? Oh, she liked carrot cake. That was important.

Hazel and Lil went back and forth, but then Lil went on this whole spiel about herself too. One thing really struck out to Elias, though...

Leaning back on his chair at a slight tily, Elias squinted at the ceiling above and spun his pencil around his fingers quickly over and over, which he learned to do as a makeshift fidget spinner.

L... I... L... oh. So that was how she spelled her name. Why'd she say L-L-I? Did she mean L-I-L? Well, that was okay. People make mistakes sometimes. Sometimes Elias spelled his name as Elius by accident. That was mostly because his a's look like u's sometimes, but still.

Lil then called his name, and he abruptly caught the pencil in his hand and leaned forward so the legs of the chair were flat on the ground. Elias peered down at Lil, grinning like he got this all figured out.

"My name's spelled as E-L-I-A-S," he said. "No L-L-I's for me. Just L-I's."

Lillian forced air between her teeth in a silent release of exasperation. "I think there's pretty much just one spelling of Elias, Elias. But um, thanks for clarifying that."

Enthusiastic bubble of existence, he / loves brown eyes, though / if it's due to colour, or just general eye-ness is / as of yet undetermined. I wonder if the mental mantra of all his friends is / Shut up dude, you're insane -- or is that just me?

She rubbed the space between her eyes, trying to knead those sarcastic lines out of her head. If she wasn't careful, she'd start saying this stuff aloud and -- well, that wouldn't be ideal for group dynamics. Like it or not, Elias was one of her group partners for the semester and, like, it could be worse. The way she saw it, he might not be the sharpest pencil in the pencil holder, but at least he was a good-natured writing utensil.

Lillian realized in embarrassment that nobody had said a single word in the duration it had taken her to mentally compose the lovely acrostic. "So, Elias. We were actually wondering, like, if you could also tell us a bit about you? For the introductory acrostics we're supposed to be writing?"

Hazel continued to jot down notes hoping there was enough material to pull together an acrostic here - hmm Lillian.. cats, zebra finch, not a people person... Hazel smiled a little bit - loved the honesty, okay and Lil liked snuggling her pets, noted. Hazel doodled a small zebra finch on the edge of her page - finches were neat.

Lil, Lil, Lil, lots of 'l's Hazel thought to herself, perfect for some alliteration -- " Lilly-like named, lots of light floral energy, / I wonder is she thinking or waiting in this pause? / letters matter to Lillian, as they should / likes include her cat, her bird, her books / interesting mix. / apologetic? or non-confrontational? / not quite sure yet.



She turned to Elias as it was his turn to give them some info to work off of for the acrostic, and was a bit perplexed as Elias just spelled his name and left it at that. Hmm... this was going to be trickier than she thought. Hazel wished there'd been a worksheet or something to figure this out - equations and poetry forms were straightforward, but people were ... complicated.

There was a lingering silence as Lil and Hazel began to write down who-knows-what, but Elias paid no mind to it. He was busy balancing his pencil on top of his outwardly pursed lips, tapping his fingers on the table to the beat of I Will Survive because apparently that was the tempo used for CPR chest compressions. Man, he should really get re-certified because he lost his card. What if someone in this room choked on a piece of gum? Mr. Yorkie probably didn't know CPR. Hell, he would probably choke on gum since the dude talked like one of those auction bidding guys. Hey, maybe this was why the school banned gum...

His attention was suddenly shifted back to Lil when she asked if he could tell them more about himself. And something about acro-what-now?

"Uh, yeah, for sure," he said as he picked up his pencil again, spinning it around his fingers and trying to play it cool. He thought back to what they shared about themselves. "My favorite food is tacos. Uh... What else do you wanna know?"

The only thing he could remember Lil sharing was the spelling of her name, which Elias already shared. And the only thing he could remember Hazel sharing was that she liked carrot cake, no naturally he shared his favorite food too.

"Also..." he added, glancing back and forth between both their papers. "Are we supposed to be taking notes on all this, or...?"

Hazel brought her hand up to rub her temples in frustration and drew a bigger question mark by Elias' name on her notes. Tacos? Tacos? Elias didn't even have a "T" in his name for this to be remotely useful. Sigh. It's not going to matter anyway, she'd drop this class by the end of the week, she repeated to herself.

"You know what, I think we've got enough info here, acrostics aren't sonnets, I'm sure we'll be fine. I'm going to get to writing mine for a bit, if you need any help just say so." she said to the group - noting that Elias still had a somewhat absent look on his face and Lillian still looked very worried. She hoped she hadn't said anything embarrassing that would make itself into their acrostics about her, but was hoping that Mr. Yorkie wouldn't have them read them for this session, but then again... the man seemed to thrive off of spontaneity and chaos, something Hazel decidedly did not enjoy.

She tried her hand at writing a quick acrostic for Elias, writing slowly as she turned over what she had learned so far - "Excitable, distractible, boy / listening to crickets just beyond our ears / I'm unsure of much else except that he enjoys tacos / a familiar looking mystery you might suppose. / Spells his name with a single "L"."

She grimaced at her writing... wondering how the other two were doing with their own writing.

"Are we -- are we supposed to write two acrostics each? One for each partner?" If there was one thing Lillian hated more than awkward interactions, it was open-ended instructions. What had Mr. Yorkie said? Do some introductory poems to introduce each other. First of all, "introductory poems to introduce" was way redundant. But also, do poems? How do you do poems? He could've meant they had to collaborate on three poems total, or they had to write one each about themselves, or they had to write two each about the other two -- but then there would be multiple acrostics for each person -- and --

She felt her breathing go shallow and forced herself to swallow some air. Relax, Lilli. Just ask the teacher what he meant. She glanced over at Hazel, hoping she and Elias hadn't noticed her freaking out, then reached her arm up.