Young Writers Society

What's happened in this novel so far:











Charlie - Continued

“You’re actually kind of funny, you are.” Once again, Will elbowed me hard. “Seriously? You’re kidding? This is a joke.”
“Shut up, alright?” I moved away from him. “How the hell did you even know I was here, Will?”
“I was with one of my friends who’d been on the France trip with me when I saw you around this neighbourhood, so I followed you. It’s not rocket science.” He was soon laughing again. “Sophie’s daughter explained it all to me just then. Sorry to disappoint you, Charlie, but while tutoring is good and all, you kind of need a brain to be able to do it: something we both know you lack. There was a reason that college rejected you, you know.”
I seriously wanted to wring his neck in. I clenched my fists, but instead of letting my violent thoughts spill out into my actions, I simply glared at my brother. I knew I wasn’t the sharpest kid in the world, so I didn’t need reminding by him. It turned out that not responding to Will was a bad idea though because it only caused him to continue.
“Hey, I’m trying to be nice. I don’t want you to waste your time doing something you’ll fail at.” He paused. “God, wait until I tell Dad about this. That’s going to be so funny. I mean, you know how he feels about wasting time on things like this.”
“Dont!” I hissed. “Please, Will, don’t!”
There was a badly hidden pleading tone in my voice. I was like Will’s toy right now, and he knew that he had me in the palm of his hands just as well as I did. Why didn’t I have the sense to check that no one was following me on my way here? I knew Will was coming back from that school trip of his today, and I knew he hung out around here sometimes, so I should have thought to at least check. I was too stupid to do that though. Too bloody stupid. I ran the nail of my index finger along my right palm in frustration.
At least that settled any thoughts about my dad knowing about my tutoring plans though. He was irked at the fact that I’d applied to get into a college to study music, and I knew that if he found out about me getting taught by someone in a posh neighbourhood, it would have bothered him even more. Not only that, but I’d technically been lying to him. I’d done this tutoring junk in secret, and if there was one thing my old man hated, it was me doing things behind his back.
“You’re friends with Sophie’s kid, right?” Will asked.
“Huh?” I paused. “Zoey?” He nodded. “Well, yeah, I guess. Why?”
“I’ll tell you what then, we’ll make a deal.” He shrugged. “I like Zoey; I've seen her around here now and then, and she seems cute. Get her into me and I won’t breathe a word to Dad. You’ll be able go along with your delusional little education game and Dad will never know.”
I gazed at him. Was he serious? He wouldn’t tell my dad anything if I got Zoey interested in him? That was all? I scanned his face. I could tell when Will was lying because he showed it in the exact same way as I did, but there was no sign of anything sly on his expression right now. The sound of soft rain filled the brief silence once more.
“Really?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Yeah, why not? She’s pretty, I don’t have a girlfriend, and I want one.” He pressed his lips together to avoid laughing again. “Wait, you’re not interested in her, are you?” Some chuckles escaped. “I think she has standards, no offence.”
“No, I’m not actually,” I muttered. “Okay then, deal. I help get Zoey,” to become delusional and be, “interested in you, and you don’t say anything to our old man about the tutoring.”
Will nodded with a shrug, and as he did so, I realised that there was probably more to this than I first assumed. Will had something he could hold against me now and he could use that to his advantage. I cursed inwardly, but soon allowed my thoughts to settle. Whatever he could do couldn’t have been any worse than anything my dad would have done if he knew I’d been lying to him.
“Hey, how was Dad while I was away?” Will rested his arm across the back of the sofa, which seemed to be getting lumpier the longer I sat on it. “He wasn’t home when I dropped my stuff there. Any problems?”
I didn’t see how it made a difference to him. Will was practically a gift to mankind in my dad’s mind, so any problems he’d have had wouldn’t have concerned my brother. My mind attempted to crawl back to that evening about a week ago, but I stopped it just in time. I’d gotten good at that now: controlling what I did and didn’t think about. I pulled my jacket’s sleeve up to cover my wrist completely.
I glanced at Will. “No, he’s been fine. No problems.”
Not too long after that, Sophie had returned to the room. We’d decided on it then. I was going to have lessons three times a week at five in the afternoon, and so long as everything went according to plan, I’d be able to sit some exams at the end of it all. Judging by the amount of things that had been going according to plan lately though, the chances of that actually happening were pretty screwed up. It was worth a shot though, I guess. Besides, I had a lesson tomorrow, so I may have been able to see what my chances were like from that.
The moment I stepped out of Sophie’s office, I more or less sprinted towards the front door. The sound of Will’s heavy footsteps followed behind me as well as his high-pitched whistling, but he didn’t say a word. I wasn’t quite sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing.
“France was good, by the way,” Will muttered as he pulled on one of his shoes. “Thanks for asking.”
I opened the front door. “Here was shit. Thanks for asking.”
Will gave me the dirtiest look before shoving passed me and leaving the house. The rain seemed to have transformed into an almost non-existent drizzle now, so I didn’t need to lift my hood over my head or anything. When I felt the bottom of my foot against the wood of the front porch, I released a long sigh. I just felt like going home and sleeping or something now, so hopefully, my dad was still ou--
“Charlie!”
I snapped my head up, then peered at Zoey’s driveway to see Austin almost galloping towards me. Beth was holding a bright orange basketball as she, Zoey and some other girl with short, dark hair were standing on the large patch of grass in Zoey’s front garden. Austin called my name again. Great. What the hell did he want? More importantly, why wasn’t he spilling graffiti over some brick walls with Lee Pritchard? Will quickly stepped off the porch, then locked his gaze onto something else before licking his lips. I followed his eyes until I stopped at the sight of Zoey. I turned back to my brother. Perv.
“Charlie! Where have you been?” Austin grabbed my arm and pulled me off the wooden porch.
I forced his grip off me. “In my house. Where’d you think?”
“Whoa, what’s up with you?” He raised his eyebrows, but I said nothing. “It’s not about that thing with Lee the other day, is it?”
While Austin’s question lingered in my mind, I watched as Will jogged over to the girls on the grass. I returned my attention back to Austin. ‘That thing with Lee’? Having him yell at me due to not trusting or believing what I said, then buggering off with the neighbourhood’s idiot was hardly just a ‘thing.’
“Mate, I tried calling you, not forgetting that I tried going to your fricking house about that.” He pulled me further away from the porch.
“Yeah, and I told my dad to tell you to bog off.”
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain.” Explain what? “I acted overly pissed off with you, then wandered off with Lee so that I could get on his good side. I tried explaining it to you, but you got all touchy. I think I kinda took it too far...”
“What?” I stared at him. “Hang on, so all of that crap you had a go at me for was just a load of made up rubbish?”
“Yeah! I’ll admit that I was a bit peed off at first 'cause... look, I guess I was just shocked that someone had called for help. I mean, like Lee said, we were that close to getting caught... and c'mon, mate, you're basically the only one out of the guys who were there that night who'd do something like call emergency services." I tried to say something defensive, but Austin stopped me. "Don't worry, I believe that it wasn't you now, but I had to think fast, so I thought it was a good idea to act like you'd pissed me right off. That way, Lee would think that I was on his side, which potentially means him not ever turning either of us in.”
Austin began walking towards the group and I slowly followed beside him. Will was talking to Zoey now, probably embarrassing himself by using endless words that I swore he made up half of the time. I narrowed my eyes at them both when I noticed Zoey laughing. Really? She didn’t actually, well, like him, right?
“Charlie?” Austin clicked his fingers in front of my eyes and I turned back to him. “So, are we cool then?” He stopped on the spot and so did I. “I probably should have gone over the whole plan with you before actually doing it, so it’s my fault, I know. Please don’t be peeved off with me though ‘cause as gay as it sounds, I swear I’ve never spent more than three days without seeing you and it’s weird when I don’t. See you, that is.”
I delved my hands into my pockets and began rubbing my palms against the denim. Austin’s eyes were wide as though they were drowning in innocence, and the longer I looked at him, the looser my insides began to feel as though they were unravelling from the knot they’d been in all week. It had been weird to not contact him for a number of days, let alone not see the guy. He cocked his head to the side and the wideness of his eyes grew even greater.
I sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess we’re cool.”
A huge grin tugged at Austin’s lips as he jumped to my side and put his arm around my shoulder, and then ruffled my hair. “I swear to actually tell you next time I come up with a plan like that. Lee wasn’t actually that bad, you know. He has the brain of a toaster, but we did some pretty fun stuff.”
“Really?” I said, stopping Austin from moving forward again. He shrugged with a casual look on his face. “Well, make sure you invite me to the wedding then.”
He saluted at me with the hand that wasn’t draped over my shoulder. “Will do.” We began ambling towards the girls, Will included, as Austin continued speaking. “You know, I saw this Facebook group thing the other day and it was really wise. The title was something like this: friends are like condoms. They protect us when things get hard.” He paused. “Deep stuff, mate.”
For the first time in a week, I laughed. The funny thing was that Austin genuinely thought that was an exceptionally wise saying. As we reached the girls and Austin carried on blabbering, I began to wonder why I hadn’t bothered trying to contact anyone all week. I mean, this sure as hell felt better than spending hours on end in my house, especially when my dad was there. It was weird just to think that a mere few minutes ago, I wanted to head straight home. That was the last thing I wanted now. When we reached Zoey and Will, my smile faded slightly. She was still laughing. Was she mentally ill or something? Will had the humour of a dead fish, so what could he have possibly been saying to her?
“Charlie, hey!” Zoey turned to me and her smile grew. “I thought I’d scared you off or something... As in, scared you off from the tutoring business.” Her cheeks flushed red. “But yeah, hey.”
“Hey, Zo,” I said with a smile.
Austin lifted his arm off my shoulder and wandered over to the other two girls. When he reached Beth, he grabbed her around the waist and tried to snatch the basketball out of her hands, which followed by the both of them laughing. Their lips were soon pressed together. Sheesh, the guy seemed pretty eager. Classic Austin, I guess. I turned back to Zoey.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to just disappear. I had some... stuff on my mind. It looks like I’m gonna do this tuto--”
“So, Zoey,” Will interrupted, briefly stabbing me with his eyes. “I didn’t get to finish what I was saying about the day in Bayeux.”
Zoey tapped Will’s arm before turning back to me. “And you didn’t tell me you had a twin brother.”
“Fraternal though,” Will and I said in unison.
I received an even harder glare from Will before he turned back to Zoey. “Do you mind if I speak to Charlie for a second?”
“Go ahead,” Zoey replied.
Without me having any kind of say in it, Will locked his fingers around my arm and yanked me away from Zoey. As my brother led me away, I spotted Beth with her back against the wall of Zoey’s house while Austin was now practically chewing up her face. Ew. I’d definitely have to ask him about that one later.
“Can you go, please?” Will hissed at me as he came to a halt. We were a few steps away from the porch. He nodded at Zoey who was now chatting with the other girl whose name I still didn’t know. “You’re distracting her. Oh, and what happened to not being interested in her?”
“I ain’t interested in her. Besides, geez, Will, you don’t own her.”
“Do you want me to tell Dad about you and your pansy tutoring?”
Will grasped my arm again, except this time, it was my right arm. A sharp pain shot across my wrist as I flinched and pulled myself out of his hand. It didn’t help much though because the pain still lingered, almost as though it was harshly tickling my wrist.
“What did you do to that?” If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought Will sounded concerned for a millisecond then.
I glanced at my arm. “Nothing, I just sprained it.” I pulled my jacket’s sleeve down. “I’ll leave then, okay?”
Thankfully, Will didn’t question me about my arm again. Instead, he relaxed his body and put his hands into the pockets of his perfectly ironed trousers. His bright orange tie almost made him look like he had a slice of raw salmon slapped on his shirt.
“See you at home then,” he muttered as a smirk placed itself onto his face.
Quite frankly, the last thing I wanted to do now was leave. As unbelievable as it seemed to be, I was actually beginning to enjoy myself. I didn’t want to drag myself back to the grey walls and the bitter smell of alcohol that was my house. I couldn’t risk it though: risk Will telling my dad about the tutoring. I sighed. Maybe I could have gone somewhere else instead, and had a stroll or something. Actually, that sounded like a decent idea. I could have had a wander through the forest, or gone to the cliff for a while.
As I ambled along the driveway once again, Austin called out my name. He must have finished his meal with Beth then.
“Hey, where are you going?” he called, jogging over to me.
“I’ve got to do something at home.”
“What?” He groaned. “Mate, you’ve only been here five minutes. C’mon.” He tapped my arm. “Stay for a bit.”
I shook my head and a shrug followed. While Austin tried encouraging me to stay again, I concentrated on Will as he stopped besides Zoey. I wasn’t interested in her... not in that way. I didn’t think so, anyway. I mean, I had too many other things on my mind. I was just baffled about the fact that she managed to hold a conversation with Will without falling asleep. I mean, come on, Bayeux? Was that even a place?
I turned back to Austin. “Look, I really do have to go. I’ll call you later, okay? We’ll do something then.”
He groaned even louder this time. “Fine, whatever.” He was about to walk away when he paused. “You’ve been acting weird lately, by the way, Charlie.” Austin’s voice softened. “You are alright, ain’t you? You ain’t still bothered about... you know?”
“No, I’m cool. Honestly.”
As I made my way out of Zoey’s street, I kept on glancing back at the guys. Zoey and Will still appeared to be talking, and now Austin, Beth and the dark-haired girl were playing with the basketball. I faced away from them. I hadn’t been acting weird lately. It might have seemed like that to Austin because of me disappearing for a week, but I did have a reason for doing it. I mean, I was peed off. I was fine too. Completely fine. Why wouldn’t I have been? 


Zoey

Just smile, nod and laugh. As though I was trained perfectly to do so, I repeated what my thoughts were telling me. William was discussing who knew what with me as well as cracking some jokes that made me cringe, but my forced laughter seemed to be successful in convincing him that I was genuinely interested because his entire face lit up when I did that. He must have been speaking to me about Bayeux and the Bayeux tapestry for over fifteen minutes now, and at this rate, I doubted he was planning on stopping any time soon.
“... and created by Queen Matilda, but chances are that it was commissioned by the half-brother of Wi--”
“Yo, guys!” I’d never been so relieved to hear Austin’s deep voice. “Fancy going to get a Chinese? I’m starving.”
William cursed under his breath and gave a blatant look of agitation towards Austin: exactly like the ones he kept on giving Charlie when he was speaking to me. Don’t get me wrong because I was flattered that this boy seemed to be interested in me, but it was as though the longer I spoke to him, the more I began to hate France.
“Yeah, sounds good to me. We only had some chips in the bowling alley,” Jade replied and we soon continued walking, now following Austin.
We'd been wandering around my neighbourhood and as of now, I could recognise that we were about a street away from where the forest was that led to Amber Fountains. William had been discussing the Bayeux tapestry since we’d left my house. It was only Beth, Jade, Austin, William and I though because Charlie had just, well, disappeared. Again. William had merely said that he’d gone to sort something out at home. I hadn’t noticed him leave though, and he hadn’t said goodbye or anything. There was nothing wrong with that, but it would have been nice for him to have at least acknowledged me in some kind of way. He certainly had a thing for disappearing.
“Hey, Zoey, don’t tell Charlie I told you this.” William suddenly broke out of his discussion on France. “But he was talking to me about you earlier.”
I lifted my eyes up to William’s face. “Oh, really? What did he say?”
“Well, it’s not that he doesn’t like you, but he thinks you’re a bit annoying.” He paused. “Okay, maybe a more than a bit annoying, but that’s just what he’s like, so don’t take any notice of it.” I noticed William edge closer towards me. “Sorry, I just thought I’d better tell you. You deserve to know.”
My heart sank. I’d kind of figured that he didn’t like me as anything more than a friend, but I never believed he thought I was annoying or anything. I bit down onto my lip as realisation slapped me in the face. God, I probably was really annoying, wasn’t I? I always had these weird habits, to begin with, and my history with boys wasn’t exactly astoundingly incredible.
“Oh...” was all I could manage.
“Honestly, don’t take it personally. He calls more or less everyone a freak, not just you. He’s always been pretty up himself and judgmental. I know he doesn’t seem like it, but you’d be surprised.” He smiled at me. “That’s one way I’m glad we’re not alike.”
When William turned away with the grin still intact on his face, I continued dragging my feet along the pavement. Charlie didn't really say that, did he? He wasn’t like that either. I mean, he seemed so, well, down to earth. I pulled my hair over to one side of my head as I sighed. I had no idea what to think. William soon restarted his lecture on the Bayeux tapestry, but I wasn’t even trying to listen this time. My thoughts had wandered so much, I hadn’t realised that we were now ambling along the forest pathway. As I lifted my head up and observed my surroundings, I froze.
“Um, guys?” I asked, silencing William and causing the group to look behind them at me. “Where are we going?”
“To the Chinese. It’s in the Fountains. We did say,” Jade answered me.
“Oh... sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
I didn’t like being here in this forest. At all. The longer I stared at the murky colours dotted with flashes of mouldy green, the dryer my throat became. I hadn’t been here since the night Aimee... disappeared. It looked so different in the light of day. The trees were still towering over me, but it was as though there were even more of them. Despite that, the main pathway was far clearer, and it would have been easy to spot a colour that wasn’t green or brown. If she’d wandered off in the daytime, I would have been able to stop her. I would have found her far easier, wouldn’t I? There must have been some kind of look of distress on my face because I noticed Austin and Beth glance at each other.
“Um, do you want to go back?” Beth said in a soft voice.
I began tapping my foot against the muddy ground. I couldn’t just act as though this place had the potential to swallow me up because it didn’t and I was perfectly safe here--I knew that. It wasn’t as though anything dangerous could have happened when we were in a group of five in the middle of the afternoon. I blinked slowly. I just had to relax, that was all. Inhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Exhale. I needed to get over whatever fear I had. It was just a forest.
“No.” I cleared my throat. “No, it’s alright. Keep going.”



Click here to read STOP AND STARE (PART SEVENTEEN)

Hey there Smurf!

I got all excited when I saw you'd posted this *Has no life evidently* But this story is sooo good

I knew I wasn’t sharpest kid in the world,

You need 'the' after 'wasn't'

He stopped in the spot

'in' would be better than 'on'

His bright orange tie almost made him look like he had a slice of raw salmon slapped on his shirt.
“See you at home then,” he muttered as a smirk slapped itself onto his face.

I love the imagery here, with the tie, but the two uses of 'slapped' is a little repetitive.

me as anymore than a friend,

I think 'anymore' would be better as 'anything more'

***

God I hate William. I want to strangle him with his stupid tie

I love the new twist you added in this chapter. Having William blackmail Charlie was cruel, but having it involving Zoey was genious. Not only is Charlie going to be constantly thinking about the fact that Will has one up on him, but he's also going to be hating himself for making the girl he likes, like his dimwit brother. Did I mention I don't like Will?

The plot really is starting to deepen now and I'm wondering how long all of these secrets can be kept. And what the consequences will be when they're aired.

So exciting!

Post more please

Anna

Ah Skinsy, you good writer you!

As always I find myself holding a hatchet ready to maul apart your story only to find that there is nothing to maul because you're LAME and won't leave me anything to do. So as usual this is going to be a fan girl squeal about just how good this peice is and how much I love your writing. You have the force, young one, the writing force! I've skipped five chapters (don't worry, I'm going to go back and read them now) and still I have a good enough idea what is happening which is not a very easy thing to do.

And your characters are wonderful, and absolutely hilarious! I love William even though he is a prat. He's just got that air about him, the one that makes you go 'I should hate you but I can't help but loving you in some weird kind of way,'. I think he treats Charlie pretty badly though but I guess that is part of the overall story. I'm just saying' no one picks on my Charlie and gets away with it *picks up hatchet*. They would have to be my two favourite characters by the way.

Oh wait, I think there is something I could pick up on even though it is not that much of a problem. I've noticed that you add in a lot of character which takes me some time to register who is who. No don't worry this isn't between the main characters but between the back droppie ones. Like the random girl playing basket ball. If you're not careful you're going to end up like I did. Because I had so many back droppie characters I had to ditch the story I've been working months on. They all got away from me! Think of trying to squeeze all these things into a jar and then BAM, when you try to place on the lid they go spurting everywhere. I'm going to refer to a famous author: JK Rowling, who is very talented may I add. You may have heard of her books: Harry Potter Series. Nothing to big, you know? She's only a rookie!

JK uses all of her characters and twists them into future plots so that nothing is ever forgotten. Characters from the first book appeared in the last and that's definitely hard work but it pays off because it makes the readers feel smart. Makes me feel smart anyway because I remembered them all. What I am trying to say is don't be making up to many random characters because they could get away from you and you should also always try to chuck a JK by bringing characters from the first chapter into the sixth. Just remember: too many characters makes it hard for the reader to keep up and also makes for duller characters as you have so much to control and then histories and different personalities are thrown out of the window.

Other then that little speel, I've got nothing. You really do have talent, and I like the way you write your characters. Anyway, I'm off to read more of your chapters. I can't wait for the next one, I want to see what happens to my two knights in shining armour! Oh and you should listen to this song. It's called Believe me, I'm Lying by Forever the Sickest Kids. I was listening to it as I read your story and I think I've found a theme song for this story.

Heyo Skinsy! Here for a review!

H'okay, this chapter was brilliant. Seriously, I devoured it and am now desperately hoping you're going to post the next part soon, because I need to find out what happens next! Your characters were great again, as usual (except for Will, but even he's great being a conniving jerk), and I think you've just really emphasized the characters' different personalities, in this chapter especially, making them all seem so individual and unique.

I've got to say, there really isn't a lot for me to critique. The way Will blackmails Charlie into getting Zoey interested in him was a great twist, and at first I was groaning when Charlie saw Zoey laughing at what Will was saying...and then I read Zoey's POV and was so relieved.

I had a bit of a shock at the fact that Austin and Beth started kissing randomly (it seemed to me, anyway) while their friends are there and it sounded like they were in the middle of playing a game or something...I don't know, it just felt a little abrupt, but that could just be me.

“Fancy going to get a Chinese? I’m starving.”

“Yeah, sounds good to me. We only had some chips in the bowling alley,” Jade replied

These two sentences are separated by such a long paragraph of explanation that, when I read Jade's reply, it totally confused me and made me wonder what she was talking about. If there's some way you could switch a few paragraphs around to keep those closer together, or maybe make a point of noting that Jade was replying to Austin's suggestion of Chinese or something, I think it wouldn't make for such an abrupt transition.

All right, so I feel pretty useless right now, because I've got nothing really review-worthy. This is good for you, though, so I'm happy. And I'm expecting to see the next part up soon. Or else I'll have to resort to serious measures including an alligator, jellybeans, and a pickup truck. Keep up the great work!

Hey there Skinsy! Tis me, to the rescue!

Ok, as everyone else said, this was a great chapter. A thing or two to mention, though.

Austin's apology? Lame. He does not explain why he felt he had to be on Lee's side. It made him sound like a whipped dog, trying to please his master. But . . Austin is no one's dog, least of all whipped. I mean, come on! He doesn't explain why he pretended to be pissed and he said he was annoyed at first, but not as much as he led on. Why in the world was he annoyed and at who? Charlie? For what? He could have said he was suspicious at first, because maybe the thought had occured to him that goody-two-shoes Charlie had called. Unless Austin did. So why would he be annoyed?

Will's reasoning for not telling Dad is . . . Weak. Maybe you could say that he's seen her around before and he was intrigued. After all, Charlie mentions that he hangs in this neighbourhood, so maybe he's seen her? Because if he likes to torture his brother that much, it's suspicious to me that he would give up so easily, blackmail or no blackmail.

Other than that, I liked this chapter. The interaction was good and smooth and I can't wait to see how Zo lets Will down lol

Thanks for letting me know about this!

Tanya