"Wake up!" Ginger exclaims poking at my elbow. Mrs. Crawford would skin us both alive for sleeping in her class. She would usually threaten to call our mothers if we did. "The Battle of Chickamanga in 1863 was the last major Confederate victory in the Civil War," Mrs. Crawford paused. Yes, they still talk about the Civil War around here. In the deep south, especially Georgia, those roots run as far as the ground itself. In my opinion they sound like a bunch of sore losers. It's a wonder the whole class hasn't fallen asleep yet. I scratch the dried up drool off my face and glance at Monica off to my right. Her hands are on the table and head is down. Ginger pats on my shoulder again. "Get Monica up 'fore the teacher gets her," Ginger whispers loudly. I had always teased her about her thick southern accent, that's how we became friends. Right now however, is was annoying. I slowly command my hands to tear out a sheet of paper and make a papeball. We're at the back of the class so the teacher can't see us, unless she's right next to us. I throw a huge piece of paper right at the back of Monica's hot pink hair. "And where was the Battle of Columbus fought at, Ms. Harper?" Mrs. Crawford asked. She's walking towards us now. "Wake up!" Ginger whispered loudly again.
We have the whole class's attention now, facing towards us. I felt a white hot blush threaten to rise to my cheeks and rolled another paper out of my spiral notebook and threw it at the crown of Monica's head. An evil green eye glanced towards mine until I pointed at the approaching teacher. "What did she say?" Monica quickly asks. I was about to answer when Mrs. Crawford reached the front of my desk. "Detention for two, I see," she glances from Monica back to me. "I expect more of you, Lara. After school," she says in a bored voice and turns her back on us to walk to the front of the classroom. That earned a few giggles and snickers, except Mandy, who's sitting directly in front of me. Mandy turns around and tilts her head. "Aw, look who didn't get enough sleep last night. Were you and your lover Monica up all night again?" She bats her eyelashes ever so innocently. She is the resident evil at our school, but a lone wolf. Not like many other packs that harass students to no end. She's not much better though. "Go to hell Mandy." I say in a bored voice. Mandy should be glad Monica didn't hear that or Monica would've done something much worse. Apparently, though she caught the look on my face and joined in. "Knock it off Mandy before I tell everyone what you did last night," Monica said in every way vicious. Mandy's lip tightened and then she smiled again before turning around. Ginger giggled, sending Monica and I aiming to keep a straight face. Mandy's back is hunched over the desk.
Mrs. Crawford looked at us students. "Make sure you've copied down all the notes I've wrote on the board today," she says, tapping on the whiteboard. A kid in the front of the class with a red shirt with white stripes raises his hand. "What about the homework from last night," he asks in a cheerful voice. All of us, including me, groaned at the kid. He must be a new. "Ah, yes, I will check that tomorrow, class is almost dismissed for today," she says, almost smiling. "But I-" Monica piped in, "Be quiet dude! Some of us didn't do our homework!" That got some amens and nods of approval. The guy in the front of the class looked straight at Monica. She just rolled her eyes at him. "Do you want to go for two Ms. Harper," Mrs. Crawford asked. "No ma'am," said, looking down. A loud ringing came the hallway and into our room. "Don't forget to bring your homework from last night and we will be going over those notes tomorrow," she said before sitting down in her chair. Mandy turned around again and opened her mouth. Monica was there in an instant and Ginger was watching as well. I suppose you could call us a pack as well, we're just one of the good ones I guess. "Nevermind," she mumbled and walked off. Ginger pushed me playfully while exiting the room. "Leave it to me to save ya'll butts from being underwater," Ginger said. I snickered and my hair out of my face. "Thanks. I see you've changed your hair again," I say. She bobs her head like a doll. "Finally someone noticed! I changed it to blonde on the top and black on the bottom, ya know Johnny doesn't like blondes." Johhny is her ex boyfriend. She's giving herself a new everything, as long as Johnny doesn't like it. "Your hair was fine before," Monica said without looking at her. Ginger dismissed the comment. There was a silence between us until Ginger reaches her class. "I'll catch up with ya'll later," Ginger said. I waved at her and Monica nodded.
More silence, this time with awkward tension.
I don't actually know when it started. It just happened over time I guess. One day we were walking through the parking lot of the school and Monica was pressuring me to ride her motorcycle. "Come on L! It's just one ride," Monica exclaimed. I shook my head. "You know I think my step dad's gonna be here any minute," I say quietly, not even convincing myself it was true. He would always run late picking me up from school. She scowled. "Bullcrap L, and you know it," she says and throws her leg over the motorcycle. She's been trying to get me on that motorcycle since before she got it. She starts to put her helmet on-
"Wait," I exclaim.
Monica stops and looks at me. My throat is closing in on me fast. "I'll go," I say weakling. She narrows her eyes at me. "You sure," she asks in a soft voice. I walk towards the blue Sukuzi. "Let's just go before I change my mind," I say, throwing caution to the wind. I throw my leg over the motorcycle and she hands me the helmet. Our fingers brush for just a second and the electric current shoots through me. I gasp and quickly place the helmet on my head. Monica looks down at her hands, and then at me for what seems like an eternity. "You should probably hold onto me before I start the engine," she says slowly and turns around. I'm silently happy that I could have the helmet on so she can't see my blushing face. "Right," I say through the helmet. She probably didn't hear me. I inch towards her and put my arms around her waist.
That was the first and last time I will ever ride on a deathcycle.
We silently walked through the hallways. There was no one else out because most were in class or finishing up lunch. "So...," Monica says so quietly I wasn't sure she intended for me to hear. I cleared my throat. "Did you really know Mandy was doing that or were you just saying that," I asked trying to diffuse the tension. "Who gives a crap? She probably did do it with some dude she met a gas station." And with that, the tension was dissolved into nothing. I grinned. "So I guess It's a date in detention," Monica says with a sly look on her face. "So it is," I say and giggle into her shoulder.
* * * * * * * *
The stain of blood stayed with her, no matter how many trees she rubbed her nose against. The thrill of the chase always excited her. Always. She loved running through the forest on four legs in wolf form. It brought her peace, after long days of hunting. As she trots through the forest on four legs, she hears a tree branch snap behind her. She turns just in time to see a brown coated wolf coming straight at her. Shit, she thought as she barred her fangs at the unknown werewolf. She knew this wasn't her territory and that someone from another pack would be patrolling soon. Let's dance then, she thought. She looked into the unknown wolf's copper eyes for what seemed like an forever. The unknown wolf was the first to pounce. Jaws wide open she dodged the bite within a few millimeters. The wolf didn't waste any time striking again and soon both were locking in a deadly tango, mocking each other's moves, waiting for the other to strike, until eventually both of them tumble through the woods. One after another, the unknown wolf tries to bite her jugular while she tries to bite his leg. Both wolves hit a tree, breaking their lock. Again she launches herself at the wolf's leg before he has time to get up. A howl, which could be heard if you were close enough sounded through the forest. She twisted and bucked until she heard a snap. Blood filled her mouth again. The wolf lay on the ground, it's howls turning into whimpers. She ran through the woods. Only minor injuries to her stomach where he was clawing at her and and her front right leg. She would heal quickly, which means that the other wolf will probably do the same, although he has more injuries. It will be a problem especially when his packmates find him with all the blood. She needs to get out. Now. But not before she makes a quick stop into town.
Hi Asorted!
I like what you have going here! It surprised me a little because I didn't expect to be into the story, since the title didn't grab me too hard. Your writing is easy to read and very interesting, the story flowed well and I found myself far more interested than I expected. The girls seem like a good mix of personalities and I enjoyed their interactions.
You have some spelling errors such as here "I slowly command my hands to tear out a sheet of paper and make a papeball. " < paper ball. and here: "Make sure you've copied down all the notes I've wrote on the board today," < written. Check through the rest of your work and use a spell checker where you can, if your spelling is bad. Little errors like that distract from the work and when a work is solid like yours, it's much easier to notice the little mistakes, because they're all we can comment on!
The interaction between Mindy and Lara is excellent. The tension was done incredibly well and I like how you didn't make a huge deal out of it. I would have liked a little more about the bike ride, how long it lasted or if they got back in time for Lara to be picked up, but you can easily insert that kind of thing in a following chapter if you reference Lara riding the bike again.
So I don't even know what happened with this change in scenes! I'm going to assume that this werewolf is actually Mandy because Mandy seems like the lone wolf type, haha! Even though wolves are often pack animals, you took pains to mention she's always alone - which is fine! I'd keep that happily. This was a really weird switch though because it felt like it came from nowhere, I might have preferred a little more to the chapter if we were going to understand the interaction. But it does also work on a cliff hanger angle, which YWSers and the public always love! Nothing like a bit of scary tension to keep us on our toes. My suggestions for the next chapters are to try not to fall into a pattern with your swaps to wolf information. I assume they will eventually merge together, covering the same events, but if you have it in the same format all of the time (normal interaction followed by wolf etc) then we might get a bit bored of the same old thing all the time. Keep your spelling and grammar in mind before you post. The YWS has a spell checker built in, so use it before you actually post and that will help some of those smaller issues.
Thanks so much for the read. Please hit me up if you have any questions or queries, if you want to chat and if you add another chapter to this, I’d love to read it.
~ Pen.
Hey there!
I'll be your reviewer today.
I guess I'll just jump right into it:
- In the first sentence, Ginger "exclaims" - aren't they in class? Exclaiming implies something being said very loudly, which is not what you would want to sound like in the middle of class, unless you purposefully want to give away to everyone that your friend was sleeping:)
- Leave out the sentence where you say that Mrs Crawford would threaten to call their moms. The sentence previously, about the "skinning alive" sounds very harsh in contrast to simply calling parents. Overall, it doesn't quite sound right.
- I like how you show what the character is thinking - it's simple, and helps me to get to know her more.
-If you tease someone about their accent, how do you grow to become friends after that? Doesn't seem like a normal reason for friendship.
-"I slowly command my hands" - sounds slightly awkward. Consider rephrasing. Maybe, *I teared a piece of paper slowly, so not to make any noise, and scrunched it up into a ball*
-I think that after you've had a piece of dialogue, you should start a new line. I sometimes get a little confused on who's speaking.
-In the beginning of the 2nd paragraph, you switch from the present to the past. Choose one tense;)
-*After school,* - after school what?
-Once again, I notice you're switching tenses. In the 2nd paragraph especially.
-There is awkward tension - why?
-The first sentence of the last paragraph makes little sense to me. Who rubs their noses against trees?
- Oooh, she's a wolf, alright. That was quite the switch.
- I really like the wolf scene, the dancing. It's well written, and exciting.
Alright, now that's over, let me make some notes on the plot. Overall, the first scene is, I hate to say, very typical. Too typical. I can see that there is something interesting evolving with the wolves, but the scene inside the classroom - the boring teacher and bored kids is not the most exciting thing to be reading. If you do want to keep it, consider having something more original and interesting inside the classroom. For example, how Monica and Lara try to get Mandy to slip up and make a mistake, or embarrass herself in front of the class - even that might be more exciting than a new guy reminding the teacher of the homework.
Overall, your writing is good - just sort out your tenses, and space out your paragraphs instead of just big chunks. I look forward for the continuing of this story! Keep up the good work, and I hope I helped;)
~polinka
Thank you so much. I will make those changes and your review was very helpful.