StoweAway [two]

I'm ba-ack!

Miss me? ^.^

And I got my kitteh! We'll critique this together. What say you? Sweet. I knew you'd understand. ^_^ Oh, dude! I can go all grammar-guru on you! =D

Grammar and First Impressions

The sunlight sprinkled over East Bristol, England, like sugar sprinkled over a cake. The dawn cracked over the horizon, and the small city was illuminated from the dark of night.

Andy thinks you should combine them. I think it's repetitive, but an awesome attempt at description. ^_^ I think, actually, it's reversed. It you put the dawn cracked before the sunlight sprinkled, it would make a bit more sense and not as repetitive. But definitely keep building on this. Maybe the windows reflected the light, making a sparkly... scene.. thing. Give me more time. I'll think of something. But you know what I mean.

Just [s]passed[/s] past the sentry gates laid the tall mill, and next to that was a factory that occasionally sent smoke spiraling into the cold, spring air. East of the factory [s]were[/s] was where the cabins began, and they continued on for rows and rows, full of families who were trying to make a living.

June pounced on this paragraph. Pay attention to her. ^_^

The sun [s]glinted over the top of the houses,[/s] glaring [s]into[/s] through their windows, [s]making[/b]stirring[/b] all who resided [s]in them to stir and[/s] inside and encouraging/causing/something them to turn away from the sunlight. The further down the rows [...of houses? We were just talking about inside the houses.], the more separated each house was from each other. Farms took places of gardens; sheds took places of large cattle barns.

The part when you say the people want to turn away from the sunlight is optional. You don't really need that part of the sentence if it screws everything up. The reader can/not assume that the people don't want to wake up. ^^

Near the end of the rows and rows of houses lay the Stowe's place [s]farm[/s], a cottonseed and onion farm. When the sunlight burst through the small, and somewhat shattered, windows, Aly Stowe’s mischievous face lit up like a candle. She was by her bedside, in her bedroom that she shared with the family cat, Zekyll.

Underlined: A bit repetitious, but it's fine if you can't replace it.

Italicized: The commas around this aren't needed.

Both: Rephrase this. Her bedside is obviously in her bedroom, so why say twice that she's in her bedroom? She sat by her bedside with the family cat, Zekyll.

The wooden floorboards creaked as she stepped lightly [s]on them[/s], but even her light weight was no match for what she called the ‘squeakers’.

Repetition of light/lightly. And the second half of this is a bit awkward. After reading it a few times, I understood it.

“Zek, try to not step on the squeakers. You’ll wake up Auntie Clair and Uncle Steven! Hush, now, or we’ll never get out to the Rats on time,” Aly quietly warned her cat. Zek purred and obeyed her, as if she could understand what Aly [s]was speaking about[/s] said.

Now there's a repetition of squeakers, so be careful. I think the tag should be before this quote or behind the first sentence. By the end of this quote, the reader already figured out Aly is warning the cat and it's just annoying to read what we just figured out [Aly quietly warned her cat].

Zek was a black cat with lemon yellow eyes. Uncle Steven, while out in the fields of endless cotton and onion, spotted her wounded by a dog. He had brought her inside, and Aly helped nurse her back to health. While she was doing so, she fell in love with the cat and gave her a name.

1. AWW! Where'd the snow leopard go? ):

2. The transition into this was poorly done. It's a very random piece of information. Maybe Aly saw the cat's...crooked leg and remembered the time she had to help heal the kitteh. Get a little creative, and if now's not the time to describe the kitteh's past, then now's not the time.

“All right. Calm down!” Aly whispered, [s]walked[/s] walking/and walked [deleting comma] over to the breadbasket.

You didn't. >< *fixes*

Zek purred again and licked her small lips, [no comma] as Aly made her way towards the door, a chunk of bread in her hands.

“Sorry. I was hungry. And y’know how I am when I eat. All grumpy and mean. I want today to be extra nice today, [no comma] because You-Know-Who is gonna be there.”

Ouch, Harry Potter flashback. >< Hope that won't last. xD

She could instantly [s]smell[/s] detected [?] a fresh smell [s]that[/s] which originated from the onion plant that she adored farming with Uncle Steven.

Aly was eleven years old to this day. She had planned to stay the entire day with a group of restless boys that called themselves the Rats. Of course, Aly wasn’t allowed to officially become a Rat. You had to be a boy, Aly knew. Still, that didn’t stop her from creating mischief around the town with the Rats.

Again, a poor transition from the story to the random bit of info. You could try making this a flashback as well or just transition better. You went from the farm to Aly's relationship with the Rats. They don't go together. xD

There were seven different boys in the Rats. One of them, Percy Smith, lived next door to Aly. He was thirteen and the nicest out of all of the Rats, or so Aly thought. Zek recognized that Aly liked [s]to[/s] the boy from the moment she saw him, [dash instead] four years ago. It had been Zek herself [s]that[/s] who had found the rats playing beside the canal, [no comma] behind the factory [s]that[/s] which spewed smoke like a nasty gash. It was from the moment that Aly had finished nurturing Zek from her poor health when Uncle Steven had found her. They had both escaped outside to explore the city together. Zek led the way and found the Rats playing by the canal.

This was very confusing. With all the her's and they's, I was unsure who you were talking about. Try to play around with this and make more sense of it. If you gotta split it up into paragraphs, so be it.

Aly and Zek walked [s]side by side[/s] side-by-side down the [s]many,[/s] many lanes and rows of houses, [no comma] [s]each house getting closer together[/s] as they neared the Town Hall, the factory, and the mill. Aly was wrapped up in a long dress that covered her ankles; she hated dresses, but Auntie Clair refused to let her wear anything else.

Whew, I'm discovering a transition issue. We went from their walk to Aly's dress? I see no connection.

“Let’s go then!” Aly muttered, [no comma] and turned around. Her group of friends followed her.

It's her group of friends? Or is she just tagging along? >< I got the impression she was tagging along the group of friends named Rats. I didn't think the group belong to her or any such thing [like she was center of attention or something].

[s]Old[/s] Mr. Wilson was a crabby old man [s]that[/s] who [that is used for inanimate objects, not living people ] lived alone, [no comma] except for the two birds that he kept locked in his cages. There was a rumor going around, Aly heard, that he ate people for dinner. That would explain why some of the people in the city were going missing.

Woah! People missing? Since when? o_O Again, this is a random bit of information.

It was a topic rarely spoken about. Four people had gone missing. Two children from totally separate families, and then two [s]newly-weds[/s] newlyweds disappeared. Uncle Steven, along with some of the other men of the town, traveled to North Bristol to search for the missing people, but they never found them.

Theeere's the explanation. This would be awesome to speak about earlier. Like when Aly was leaving the house. The reader was already confused then, so plug this in there. Aly was curious about the missing people.

So when the rumor began that said old Mr. Wilson ate people for dinner, it was a reason to investigate his house. Aly didn’t know what to expect there. There could be anything. Maybe she’d find a boiling pot of eyeball soup. Maybe a human liver baked into a cake. Aly shivered; the thought disgusted her.

I hope the adults were sane enough not to believe this. XD Unless there's a good reason they can assume Mr. Wilson's a cannibal?

The Rats, Aly and Zek finally arrived at old Wilson’s place. It was still early morning, so not many people were up yet. Especially not Mr. Wilson. He usually was never seen before two o’clock in the afternoon. [s]He was such a strange old man[/s] [useless].

Marvin’s father was the only locksmith in town, so it was no surprise he had made a key to get into Mr. Wilson’s house. The Rats and Aly stood in a circle, quietly whispering to each other. Zek stood behind Aly, [no comma] as if guarding her from some unseen monster.

Aly [s]absent-mindly[/s] absentmindedly knelt down beside her cat and scratched her ears.

I think absentmindedly is rather... useless. If you can avoid adverbs by using awesome descriptive sentences, you're...well, you're awesome. ^^

The house was deadly silent, almost as quiet as the night of Aly's birth. Shadows hung on the walls, glaring at the children as they noiselessly entered the house. The floorboards, much like the Stowe's home, creaked when you stood on them, so Percy told the children to move as slowly as they could [s]with[/s] but still being productive.

Ahh, the usual haunted house.

Wait, they just walked right into the house? Through the front door? Well, they're eleven, I guess.

There were pots and pans lining the kitchen sink; they were filled to the rim with cold water. The old man apparently didn't like to do his dishes, [ellipses or dash] or wash the floor. There was almost an [s]inch think[/s] inch-thick dust bunny in the corner of the kitchen, [no comma] hidden under a table. As Aly made her way through the small house, she spotted four dirty wooden bowls placed underneath a table. She grimaced as she noticed mold growing in them.

The old man could be heard snoring in the other room. Aly's stomach grew a knot the size of London,[s] or so she though[/s]. It pulled tighter and tighter, realizing the potential danger of this house.

In fact, the entire last sentence here is unneeded. ^^

There were portraits on the walls. Paintings of family members, trees, waterfalls, and bushes and such. They were all [s]water colored[/s] water-colored; [dash instead] a technique Aly hadn't seen before. Auntie Clair[s], the schoolteacher,[/s] rarely allowed [s]the children[/s] her students to work in the arts. She didn't have the skill to teach them how to draw. Instead, she made them work out problems with their slates and chalk.

Slates and chalk. Excellent.

The old man snored again, [no comma] and then began wheezing. The Rats, Aly, and Zek all froze where they were standing. Was the old man waking from his slumber? No. No, not here! Not now!

He wore no shirt, so Aly saw chest hair infesting the old man. He wore a long beard Aly thought looked like four of Uncle Steven's beards tied in a knot. There was only one peculiar thing about the man: his eyes. Aly bit her tongue as she looked into his eyes. They looked unseeingly back at her. She was surprised. No one had told her that the old man was blind!

I dunno if that's reason enough for him being blind. Give me more. Sometimes the eyes just dart randomly about or the man has to feel around. Maybe a dog is leading him around the house. But even I can just stare into outer space in your direction.

Marvin's jaw dropped, and Percy raised his index finger to his mouth, telling them silently to not make a sound. The old man staggered out of his bedroom and down the hall, where he then entered the kitchen, doors swinging open and shut.

This is a freakishly long sentence. Just by the way. XD

The man stood at the head of the kitchen, [no comma] where the dust bunnies and moldy bowls were at, [no comma] under a table.

"Food. What shall aye do for food?" he muttered to himself, completely oblivious to the children in the kitchen, [no comma] frozen in place. Zek was even [Is she normally not frozen?] frozen at Aly's heels.

With those terrible, nasty, yellow rotting teeth?

That's a lot of adjectives. ><

He silently crept back into the hall, [no comma] from where old man Wilson had just come [s]from[/s].

None of the other rats were.

Shouldn't that be capitalized?

He roared and bounded for any source of noise, but by that time, all of the Rats, including Aly and Zek, were out of the house and into the yard, yelling and screaming all the way back to the canal, [no comma] where they lay down on the dirt road, panting like a dog after a long run.

"What I never thought I would see in my life. It was... terrible," he muttered, staring into the [s]green watered[/s] green-watered canal.

"Tell us about it!" one of the other Rats exclaimed. Everyone huddled around Percy as he began to tell them what he had seen.

Shouldn't they be tired or catching their breaths or something?

"Well," Percy said, completely ignoring the other Rats, "I'm always ready to face danger to save the ones I love, you know."

What? XD I thought they were only eleven? Maybe I'm underestimating preteens.

Her heart fluttered again, [no comma] like a bird [s]in a cage, [/s]wanting to escape its cage.

"Aly, may I walk you home?"

[New paragraph]

"Oh! Of--of course!"

They walked home, hand in hand, with Zek [s]growling[/s] nipping jealously at their [s]nipped-at[/s] heels.

Randomosity's The Best Policy

But not in prose.

I've noticed quite a bit that you insert random paragraphs of information. It's good information--information that the reader probably really needs--but they don't fit where you put them. I've pointed it out before countless times here, but you have to be patient. Make sure you can ease your way into such information. The information about the Rats is probably important enough to include in this chapter, so try putting it when you first mention the Rats or somewhere around there. And the missing people issue. Mention that much earlier to help explain why Aly was escaping the house.

Will You Marry Me?

The romance scene at the end was beyond adorablility. xD But it makes me question their age. Aly's only eleven, and if I remember correctly, I was disgusted with romance. Kissing a boy? No! And I'm pretty sure the guys were stuck with the whole playing with worms thing too. But maybe I'm underestimating the preteens? Maybe Percy is older than I think/remember.

I Know You And You And You...

...But not these guys.

Percy is a huge issue for me, not just the Rats. It seems like a forced romance. Could we do the kissing...later? Have the reader get to know Percy. Give them some time to find out why Aly likes him. Don't just say Percy's muscles either. Not many preteen boys have muscles. >< They usually start looking buff around junior/senior year of high school. xD *pats Baer*

Aly is obviously a tomboy 'cause she hangs out with a group of boys, but she looks more feminine when thinking about Percy or doing girly things like worrying about people and "Oh, you're sooo braaaave!" I wouldn't think the guys would include a girly-girl in their exhibitions, so it's a little awkward. And remember: She's eleven.

Zek. I loved Zek. ^_^ A giant snow leopard and just... Zek. Now she's just a cat, and the only thing that gave her personality was the dialogue with Aly in the beginning and the end when she's nipping at their heels. Give her more character. It sounds like she's a determined cat who's maybe street-smart? Knows this guy stuff that Aly doesn't. I dunno, but you're attempting to make a character with this black cat, so keep working at it.

Flesh out Marvin a lot more. The reader wouldn't mind getting to know the Rats. ^_^ Unless, of course, they're completely useless to the plot; in which case, why are we reading about the Rats? Let's just assume they're important. ^_^

The Rats just seem kind of there. Percy and Marvin were the only ones that were singled out. So... like I said with Marvin, hopefully we get to know the Rats later? Otherwise, why are they here?

Overall

Overall, this was not as impressive as the last part. This seems much more forced and thrown together... kind of like NaNoWriMo.

Any questions, just fetch me. You know where and how.

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Hey Jared.

The sunlight sprinkled over East Bristol, England, like sugar sprinkled over a cake. The dawn cracked over the horizon, and the small city was illuminated from the dark of night.

Try to combine the sentences together somehow. It seems sort of repetitive at the moment.

There were sentry guards with swords at their waists standing nigh over the tall trees below them.

Rephrase. It reads as though the guards are flotaing in midar above the trees lol.

When the sunlight burst through the small, and somewhat shattered, windows, Aly Stowe’s mischievous face lit up like a candle.

Burst through? From my experiences of staying up till dawn, it's much more subtle than that.

The wooden floorboards creaked as she stepped lightly on them, but even her light weight was no match for what she called the ‘squeakers’.

No match? Dude, this isn't a competition or a match. It just doesn't really seem to fit.

He was thirteen and the nicest out of all of the Rats, or so Aly thought.

Why not give an example of that instead of telling us?

“Ladies are always to be seen with dresses, Aly,” Aly remembered Auntie Clair telling her once.

This memory seems to just randomly pop up out of nowhere. There isn't an effective trigger present to make this convincing.

Overall impressions:

I'll be blunt, this was a chore to read. The pace of the story is ludicrously slow. I think the actual story itself started at like 20% through the story. And even after that, I'm still confronted with wave after wave of pointless description.

I don't really get why you didn't start with action or from Aly's focus. The descriptions at the start don't really say much. For example, the high walls. Walls are used to confine people within a certain area. So what does this mean? Well it's kind of a double edged sword. It can protect the people inside and/or limit their sense of freedom. What's the point of describing this wall if it doesn't seem to have an influence on the narrative nor the characters? From what I've read of this piece, it focuses on Aly and the Rats going to this house to see if the rumour were true. My point is here that if you are using descriptions, they must help tell the story in some way, not just to help paint a picture in the reader's mind. That's what paintings are for. The onion farm seemed to have more relevance since Aly lives there and has experience of such a life, but I would like to see more of that integrated with Aly's character.

While I'm at it, what was the point of having the cat in this piece?

The actual plot in this was rather thin. What occurred in this novel didn't invoke a strong reaction with me. There was nothing for me to search for in this piece. It was rather predictable as to what would happen. In a majority of narratives, characters would often find danger when they enter a house despite warnings of doom or if the house seems suspicious. What you could to make it not so predictable is if you had focused more on both external conflict and internal conflict.

This is a house where there have been some rumours no? So make that fear more evident. Why isn't there a debate amongst them if they should go or not? Doesn't Aly herself have any self doubts? Even after the event, doesn't Aly seem to care about what she encountered? Make that fear more evident, I find it a bit unrealistic that they would go in like that.

With that said, the characters were boring. It didn't seem as though you made an effort to distinguish them apart. The best way to describe as to how boring they were would be to compare them to children's stories like The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Bean stock etc etc. They don't each seem to have their own personal views on the situation or seem to bring in their own unique spirit/ function into the group (in this case, the Rats group).

They were simply just there.

I can't actually help you with characterising characters with this piece as the way you excecuted the story actually blocks it out (not to mention that I didn't get any attachment with the piece). Going from them meeting up and then going to the house and then the aftermath all in one chapter is a bad move. It would had been better if this whole chapter was dedicated to them meeting up and discussing the plans of going to the house rather than shoving all your eggs into one basket. When they are together, it is easier to characterize them as you can show how they talk, their actions, what clothes they wear, their thoughts/feelings with one another and interactions/conflicts. It is also easier to integrate descriptions with characterisation during such a time. That way, when it comes to the house section, it will be easier to feel for them and the perils they will encounter. It is inappropriate to characterize them during the house section as you should be focusing on suspense more.

Lastly, the romance between Aly and Percy was just forced. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but I would like to see more of motivations and reasons as to why there is this romance going on.

I hope this helped. Good luck.

Andy.

P.S: Thought I should stress this further. If you want to fix your characterisation problem, you must understand the purpose of having those descriptions in the piece first. It is only then that you will be able to find a way to characterize your characters further. For example: The onion farm. Think about it, what do you associate with farms? Growth? Poverty? Isolation? If you didn't know, these factors have a great influence on how characters behave/view life.

BigBadBear wrote:Yes. This is long. Yes, I love you so very much if you read it.


(Yay! Finally, it's up! To me this wasn't long, it was beautifully lovely. Very few things to crit, just my little nit-picks.)
-

Chapter Two




The sunlight sprinkled over East Bristol, England, like sugar sprinkled over a cake. The dawn cracked over the horizon, and the small city was illuminated from the dark of night.

There were sentry guards with swords at their waists standing nigh over the tall trees below them. The sentry gate walls stood higher than any tree could grow in the city. There was one way into the city and one way out. One of the guards rubbed his hands together to warm them, for the night brought a chilly breeze.

Just passed (I think this should be past) the sentry gates laid the tall mill, and next to that was a factory that occasionally sent smoke spiraling into the cold, spring air. East of the factory (was where) were where the cabins began, and they continued on for rows and rows, full of families who were trying to make a living.
The sun glinted over the top of the houses, glaring into their windows, making (I think "causing" sounds a little better here) all who resided in them to stir and turn away from the sunlight. The further down the rows, the more separated each house was from each other. Farms took places of gardens; sheds took places of large cattle barns.
Near the end of the rows and rows of houses lay the Stowe farm, a cottonseed and onion farm. When the sunlight burst through the small, and somewhat shattered, windows, Aly Stowe’s mischievous face lit up like a candle. She was by her bedside, in her bedroom that she shared with the family cat, Zekyll.
“Shh,” Aly whispered to Zek. The cat purred and rubbed against Aly’s leg as she attempted to silently open her bedroom door. The wooden floorboards creaked as she stepped lightly on them, but even her light weight was no match for what she called the ‘squeakers’.
“Zek, try to not step on the squeakers. You’ll wake up Auntie Clair and Uncle Steven! Hush, now, or we’ll never get out to the Rats on time,” Aly quietly warned her cat. Zek purred and obeyed her, as if she could understand what Aly was speaking about.
Aly reached the door and cracked it open, while Zek uttered a quiet yawn. Her aunt and uncle were not awake yet, thank heavens. Aly slid out of her bedroom and tiptoed down the hall, being extra cautious as she passed the other bedroom. Once she entered the tiny kitchen, Zek skid past her and to the front door. She leaped up and scratched it gently with her long paws.
Zek was a black cat with lemon yellow eyes (This sentence needs an adjective!) . Uncle Steven, while out in the fields of endless cotton and onion, spotted her wounded by a dog. He had brought her inside, and Aly helped nurse her back to health. While she was doing so, she fell in love with the cat and gave her a name.
“All right. Calm down!” Aly whispered, walked over to the breadbasket. Inside of it were two loaves of bread, which Auntie Clair had purchased with the last of the money she had received from her job as the schoolteacher.
Zek purred again and licked her small lips, as Aly made her way towards the door, a chunk of bread in her hands.
“Sorry. I was hungry. And y’know how I am when I eat (...when she eats? or doesn't eat?) . All grumpy and mean. I want today to be extra nice today, because You-Know-Who is gonna be there.”
Zek raised one of her eyebrows at Aly.
“What? You know I like ‘em.”
Zek purred again and clawed at the door, beckoning for Aly to open it. She did so, and they both escaped out of the house and into the cold, spring morning. She could instantly smell a fresh smell that originated from the onion plant(s) that she adored farming with Uncle Steven. The fact that things could grow in her own area amazed her.
Aly was eleven years old to this day. She had planned to stay the entire day with a group of restless boys that called themselves the Rats. Of course, Aly wasn’t allowed to officially become a Rat. You had to be a boy, Aly knew. Still, that didn’t stop her from creating mischief around the town with the Rats.
There were seven different boys in the Rats. One of them, Percy Smith, lived next door to Aly. He was thirteen and the nicest out of all of the Rats, or so Aly thought. Zek recognized that Aly liked to the boy from the moment she saw him, four years ago. It had been Zek herself that had found the rats playing beside the canal, behind the factory that spewed smoke like a nasty gash. It was from the moment that Aly had finished nurturing Zek from her poor health when Uncle Steven had found her (This confused me. I think it should be more like "After Uncle Steven found her..") . They had both escaped outside to explore the city together. Zek led the way and found the Rats playing by the canal. (Repetition! You mentioned "playing by the canal" already)
Aly and Zek walked side by side down the many, many lanes and rows of houses, each house getting closer together as they neared the Town Hall, the factory, and the mill. Aly was wrapped up in a long dress that covered her ankles; she hated dresses, but Auntie Clair refused to let her wear anything else.
“Ladies are always to be seen with dresses, Aly,” Aly remembered Auntie Clair telling her once.

One they reached the factory, Zek and Aly slipped behind it into the canal (They go into the canal?) . The dirt road was laid by the stinking, green water. They traveled down the dirt road for a minute or two, and then they caught sight of the Rats.
The first thing Aly noticed was that Percy wasn’t there. She was sorely disappointed as she approached the group of boys.
“Hello,” she said. The boys nodded to her.
“You ready?”
Aly’s eyes lit up. “Am I ever!”
“We’re meetin’ Marvin, Peter and Percy at old Wilson’s place. Percy told me that he already started,” Taylor, one of the older members of the Rats, stated. Aly nodded in excitement. Zek growled in her throat.
“Let’s go then!” Aly muttered, and turned around. Her group of friends followed her.
Old Mr. Wilson was a crabby old man that lived alone, except for the two birds that he kept locked in his cages. There was a rumor going around, Aly heard, that he ate people for dinner. That would explain why some of the people in the city were going missing. (This is improper; but seeing as the tone of the story is informal, this could work... but it should be "had gone missing")
It was a topic rarely spoken about. Four people had gone missing. Two children from totally separate families, and then two newly-weds disappeared. Uncle Steven, along with some of the other men of the town, traveled to North Bristol to search for the missing people, but they never found them.
So when the rumor began that said old Mr. Wilson ate people for dinner, it was a reason to investigate his house. Aly didn’t know what to expect there. There could be anything. Maybe she’d find a boiling pot of eyeball soup. Maybe a human liver baked into a cake. Aly shivered; the thought disgusted her.
The Rats, Aly and Zek finally arrived at old Wilson’s place. It was still early morning, so not many people were up yet. Especially not Mr. Wilson. He usually was never seen before two o’clock in the afternoon. He was such a strange old man.
Just as Taylor had said, they found Percy, Marvin and Peter waiting on the man’s front porch. Marvin was fiddling with something in his hands, and when Aly approached him, she recognized it as a key.
Marvin’s father was the only locksmith in town, so it was no surprise he had made a key to get into Mr. Wilson’s house. The Rats and Aly stood in a circle, quietly whispering each other. Zek stood behind Aly, as if guarding her from some unseen monster.
"So, what are we going to do first?" Aly asked quietly, trying to keep her voice down so she wouldn't wake the man sleeping inside the house.
"Well," Marvin stated, "I had my dad make this key right here." He held up the shiny brass key in his hand; it gleamed in what little light it could catch. Aly nodded, and Zek purred around her ankles. Aly absent-mindly (absentmindedly) knelt down beside her cat and scratched her ears.
"Let's do this thing," Percy exclaimed, cracking his knuckles. Aly admired the way some of his veins stood out on his large biceps.
"Exactly how and what are we going to be doing?" Aly asked Percy as he took the key from Marvin. Percy shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Marvin.
"Look for evidence of cannibalism, I guess," he muttered, and stuck the key into the lock. Aly's gut churned as the door opened. What if the man woke up and caught her and baked her into his morning omelet? She almost vomited.
The house was deadly silent, almost as quiet as the night of Aly's birth. Shadows hung on the walls, glaring at the children as they noiselessly entered the house. The floorboards, much like the Stowe's home, creaked when you stood on them, so Percy told the children to move as slowly as they could with still being productive.
There were pots and pans lining the kitchen sink; they were filled to the rim with cold water. The old man apparently didn't like to do his dishes, or wash the floor. There was almost an inch think dust bunny in the corner of the kitchen, hidden under a table. As Aly made her way through the small house, she spotted four dirty wooden bowls placed underneath a table. She grimaced as she noticed mold growing in them.
The old man could be heard snoring in the other room. Aly's stomach grew a knot the size of London, or so she though(t) . It pulled tighter and tighter, realizing the potential danger of this house.
There were portraits on the walls. Paintings of family members, trees, waterfalls, and bushes and such. They were all water colored; a technique Aly hadn't seen before. Auntie Clair, the schoolteacher, rarely allowed the children to work in the arts. She didn't have the skill to teach them how to draw. Instead, she made them work out problems with their slates and chalk.
The old man snored again, and then began wheezing. The Rats, Aly, and Zek all froze where they were standing. Was the old man waking from his slumber? No. No, not here! Not now! (Heha, he would have to wake here, wouldn't he?)
They heard footsteps coming from his bedroom. He had indeed awakened. The doorknob jiggled for a moment. Its hinges were rusting (This sentence is a bit awkward) . When the door finally opened, the man walked out of the bedroom, half dressed.
He wore no shirt, so Aly saw chest hair infesting the old man. He wore a long beard Aly thought looked like four of Uncle Steven's beards tied in a knot (you repeat "wore" in both of these sentences. It may help to say something like; "his beard was long and tangled...") . There was only one peculiar thing about the man: his eyes. Aly bit her tongue as she looked into his eyes. They looked unseeingly back at her. She was surprised. No one had told her that the old man was blind!
Marvin's jaw dropped, and Percy raised his index finger to his mouth, telling them silently to not make a sound. The old man staggered out of his bedroom and down the hall, where he then entered the kitchen, doors swinging open and shut. All of the Rats held their breath as the old man Wilson paused for a moment.
"Eh," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Eet was probubly just theez rodents." Aly sighed, trying not to make any sound. The man stood at the head of the kitchen, where the dust bunnies and moldy bowls were at, under a table. The man ran his long, thick fingers through his hair and sighed.
"Food. What shall aye do for food?" he muttered to himself, completely oblivious to the children in the kitchen, frozen in place. Zek was even frozen at Aly's heels.
Old man Wilson walked through the kitchen, nearly bumping Percy over. The child quickly dodged the man soundlessly. Aly envied his agility to do everything.
The old man opened one of his three cupboards and rummaged through it, his fingers feeling the different textures. He slid out a hardened loaf of moldy bread. Instead of cutting it with a knife, old man Wilson tug his teeth into it and ripped it apart like someone would a piece of meat. Aly flinched. What if that was how he ate the children and the bride and the groom? With those terrible, nasty, yellow rotting teeth? She shuddered.
"Eh?" Wilson muttered. "Eez there someone in 'ere?" He chewed with his mouth open. No one replied, save for Zek's tiny movement of her paw.
"No. I wezz just dreamin'," he murmured, and ate the rest of the moldy bread. Aly bit her tongue to keep from saying anything. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Percy take a tiny step. And then another.
"Are you crazy?" Aly mouthed. Percy didn't reply. He silently crept back into the hall, where old man Wilson had just come from. One of the floorboards creaked, and Wilson jumped up into the air.
"I know 'ou are in here! 'ou filfthy critta! 'ou abhorred scum! Out, aye say! Out!" Wilson shouted, bread falling from his rotten teeth. Aly didn't know whether to move or not to move. None of the other rats were.
Suddenly, there was a scream from the hallway. It was Percy. Aly's heart turned cold as she thought of the possibility that he had found the dead bodies, perhaps cut up with blood everywhere. She shivered.
"Eet iz 'ou! Out!" Wilson started towards the bedroom as Percy came sliding out of the hallway.
"Everyone!" he shouted. "Run! Run! Fast!"
Aly took off as soon as he had said "Run!" Old man Wilson was slightly confused for a moment, until he registered that there were more than one child in the house. He roared and bounded for any source of noise, but by that time, all of the Rats, including Aly and Zek, were out of the house and into the yard, yelling and screaming all the way back to the canal, where they lay down on the dirt road, panting like a dog after a long run.
"What did you see?" Marvin asked Percy, whose face was pale and cold, even though he was really hot.
"What I never thought I would see in my life. It was... terrible," he muttered, staring into the green watered canal.
"Tell us about it!" one of the other Rats exclaimed. Everyone huddled around Percy as he began to tell them what he had seen.
"Well, I heard some noises from the back room, right, so I figured that I best check it, for who knows if indeed there would be dead bodies cut up into pies. When I opened the back door, it was a gruesome sight indeed."
He stopped talking, and Aly and the rest of the Rats urged him to continue.
"Okay," he muttered, still panting heavily from the long run. "First, when I opened the door, I saw blood on the floor. I knew right then that there was going to be a corpse, or even maybe there was a body or something. Me stomach almost overthrew me. I didn't know what to do except push the door open some more. And then I saw it. Flesh and blood everywhere. It was like he had skinned some kind of animal or something. The flesh looked like the kind that Father took out of our cow last year. All red and thick looking. So I start screaming, right, because I know that the old man had killed someone again, and he had skinned 'em, and he was going to eat them right up." (I love how he describes that!)
Aly's breath caught in her throat.
"You're kidding!" she exclaimed. He solemnly shook his head.
"I indeed wish I was."
"You were so brave!" Aly said in wonder and awe. "I can't believe that you dared to go into the slaughtering room!"
"Well," Percy said, completely ignoring the other Rats, "I'm always ready to face danger to save the ones I love, you know."
Aly blushed. Percy gave her a quick wink and then turned his attention back to his other friends. Aly's heart flipped inside of her, making her feel light and happy.

It was about noon when Aly began walking home with Zek at her heels. The cat hissed and pounced on different inanimate objects on the ground. She revisited the memory of Percy saying the words,(This sounds like it needs to be... more dreamy like "her mind wandered back to.." or, "she daydreamed about..." Just my opinion :p) "I'm always ready to face danger to save the ones I love." That last part struck her at an amazing chord. 'The ones I love' he had said. Did that mean he secretly loved Aly? Her heart fluttered again, like a bird in a cage, wanting to escape. Darest she ask him next time she sees him? She couldn't comprehend what to think anymore. The whole adventure was beginning to mesh in together.
"Aly, may you wait for a second? I need to talk to you," Percy shouted. Aly instantly swiveled around and grinned at Percy, who held his finger up in the air, signaling for her to stop.
"Of course!" she shouted back, for they were about a hundred feet away from each other. Percy was talking to Marvin. He quickly slid the key Marvin's father had created back into Marvin's pocket, and then hustled over to Aly and Zek, who remained motionless. Aly's eyes were fixated on the way his body moved. The way his hair flowed with the wind. The way—
"Aly, may I walk you home?"
"Oh! Of--of course!"
They began to walk home, and Aly's heart threatened to jump out of her throat the entire walk
. "That was quite an adventure we had today," Percy exclaimed, patting Zek, who was now at his heels.
"Yeah, it was," Aly whispered.
"I have a question to ask you," Percy said, clearing his throat. Aly's heart flipped as she turned to face him.
"Yes?"
"Uh," Percy said, continuing to walk. Aly caught back up with him.
"I've been thinking about some things, you know. Something has been on my mind for quite a long time, and I've wanted to tell you for the longest time, but I never could."
Aly remained silent, fearing her voice might break the serenity that Percy's brought.
"And I was wondering if I could kiss you." She blinked, for she had not been expecting that. Kissing a boy had never been something Aly was particularly fond of doing. It always seemed slightly revolting to her. But because it was Percy asking, things were quite different.
"Oh," Aly muttered, her breath quickening. "Why on earth would you want to do that?"
"Let's keep walking," Percy mentioned, letting Aly scoot in front of him. It seemed only polite that ladies went first. Aly didn't particularly like that idea though. She wanted to stay close to him.
"Ever since you joined the Rats, I've started thinking about you. Thoughts that I've never thought before. Feelings I've never felt. You know, right? Because I heard from someone that you kind of like me too." Aly blushed and closed her eyes. This was too much to bear.
"So, I was wondering if you'd like to kiss me," he asked kindly. Aly stopped where she was and turned to face him.
"Percy, I would love to kiss you."
They stood together awkwardly, not knowing how to approach the problem. After a few moments, Percy leaned his head in towards Aly, and Aly leaned in towards Percy. The moment their soft, innocent lips touched, Aly pulled back, her face scarlet and swollen.
They walked home, hand in hand, with Zek growling jealously at their nipped-at heels.

Only Jare-Bear can write such a perfect story . I love it, and the way the story is told suits their ages... they don't sound like grown-ups struggling to create a childish story. 'Twasn't too long, and I can't wait for the next part. I hope my nit picks don't sound too harsh , I loved the story; just a few slight errors you missed, which is nothing to worry about.

100/10!

June