The ringing alarm felt like it shot through my whole body, I lifted my head off the desk in a daze to look around the room at my other classmates. The lesson can’t be over already. But the bell kept ringing, meaning that it was that pointless time of the term where we missed ten minutes of our lesson to practice what we do in case of a fire, like we don’t already know.
As I emerged from my classroom I caught a glimpse of my friend Scarlett from across the corridor. Well you couldn’t really miss her with her white and red hair; yes I said it, white and red. She always liked being different from everyone else. Fortunately for her it really suited her pale features but I would never be brave enough to dye my own hair, not even the simplest of colours, so I’m just left with my long blonde out of control hair.
It was easy walking down the hallway when we had fire drill because everyone had to go the same way, which was the only good point about this; the worst thing was the cold. I never really minded the cold but when you had just come from a heated classroom and had to go outside in the middle of November, it was freezing! Once we were outside we all found our form lines and filed in alphabetical order. I was right at the back of the line as always, because my last name was Wright, but I didn’t mind. I’m not much of a leader, never had been. Our school always tries to encourage us to become leaders; they say the followers are like sheep. It was at that point I decided to never be a leader, as at least if I was a sheep I would never be alone. Scarlett was the type that could be a leader; she always took control, and spoke her mind which sometimes wasn’t a good thing.
A women’s voice disturbed my thoughts “Autumn?” Her smooth voice was taken by the wind and I hardly heard it.
“Oh...umm...yes, I’m here” I said through my chattering teeth. But she didn’t start to move to the front; instead she looked at me with her evil brown eyes as if she was expecting more. “Oh, err, I mean yes miss.” Satisfied she lifted her head up so she could look down her nose at me and walked back down the line. I had only been in her tutor for three months and she already hated me.
After waiting ten more minutes outside in the freezing weather we were finally dismissed back to our classrooms where I still had half an hour left of history. I found my way to my seat as soon as I was back in the room, but everyone else took this opportunity to have a good gossip with their mates. None of my close friends were in my history class, so I just sat in the corner of the class next to, Corey. He had moved here at the beginning of the year and had caused nothing but trouble, so I’ve heard. He was only in two of my classes but in both of them he was just like any other student. When I got to my seat he was slouched over looking down at the table like usual. His dark hair covered most of his face but the rare times that he looked up I caught a glimpse of his black eyes and a small scar that ran from the side of his eye to the middle of his cheek.
Once Mr Cooke was back in the room everyone settled down to watch the rest of the documentary about the Industry Age. After a further twenty-five minutes of the film the lunch bell finally went and I started to make my way to the canteen at the front of the school where I had my lunch every day.
The school canteen was a bright and spacious room filled with wooden tables and chairs. As I entered the canteen I was welcomed by the smell of freshly cooked bread and sound of chatting as friends greeted each other. I made my way to my normal table, which was by the other door to the canteen. Scarlett, Oliver and Lewis were already there. I’ve known Scarlett for most of my life and since the first day we met, we were best friends. Oliver and Lewis had moved here just over a year ago, they’re identical twins. They have the same blue eyes and the same slightly tanned skin that blended with their short blonde bouncy hair. The only way I could tell them apart is the fact that Lewis was slightly shorter than Oliver, which doesn’t make Lewis very happy.
“What idiots make us do fire practice in the middle of November!” Scarlett complained as I sat down at the table.
“At least we missed a bit of history; I was falling asleep.” I said.
“I didn’t have history, I had art! Art’s my favourite lesson and I only have two weeks left to finish my project” She grumbled. I looked over to the other side of the table to see Oliver biting his lip trying to hold back a laugh. When I caught his eye, I raised my eyebrow and he let out a giggle.
“Find something funny Oliver?” Scarlett demanded.
“Oh...ummm, no of course not, I’m sure you’ll do fine” Oliver reassured her promptly.
“The last time you said that I got a B.”
“Oh no disaster” I said, sarcastically.
“Look you.” She turned to me pointing her finger. “If you don’t shut it, you won’t get your birthday presents tomorrow.” She dropped her finger and then winked at me.
I huffed. “Look guys, I don’t want anything from you.”
“Well tough now, cause we’ve got them. Anyway if you didn’t want us to buy you anything you should have told us before” She teased.
“I did!” I argued.
“I don’t remember that” She looked at me, then back to the twins. “Do you guys recall her saying that?” They both shook their heads at the same time. I knew I was defeated so I just shut up and got my lunch from my bag and started to eat.
The last lesson of the day was geography with Mrs Clayton. She looked old enough to have retired already but unfortunately for me and Scarlett, she hadn’t.
“Sit down in silence! There is no need to talk, you’ve all just had lunch,” she bellowed before dropping two piles of green books in front of us. “Hand them out” She said abruptly then she turned on her heels and walked away, her little steps making her grey bun bounce up and down.
“Please wouldn’t go a miss,” Scarlett muttered under her breath after Mrs Clayton was far enough away that she knew her comment wouldn’t have been heard.
After an hour long lesson which seemed more like a lifetime of sitting in silence and copying from the text book the final bell finally rang. Everyone graded their stuff as quick as they could and were out of the room in a flash.
On the way home I walked halfway with Scarlett until we got to the top of my lane and then we split off. The long and stony narrow road led up to the four bedroom house I call home. The path was shaded under the trees which is a good thing when England has its unusual sunny spells.
When I got to the front door I saw my twelve year old sister sat on the step tapping away at her phone, as always.
“Where’s your key?” I asked her, even though I knew I wouldn’t get much of an answer, if any. It’s not that she was shy or anything, trust me, she could talk the hind legs off a donkey. She just decided that when she came to secondary school it was “un-cool” to get along with your older sister.
“Forgot it, mums out, dads at work,” she answered still drumming away at her phone. I just rolled my eyes, got out my own key, and let us in.
As I kicked off my dolly shoes in the porch I was greeted by my German shepherd, Riley. After I fussed over him for a while and then let him out into the garden, I carried on up the stairs to my room. When I was in my room I placed my bag on my bed. Then I noticed something very different and wrong about my room...there, on the other side of my room was my sister’s bed and her desk. What was this?
From the other side of the house I heard my sister, Bliss scream. “What the hell is this? Where’s my room gone, my bed?”
Then from the bottom of the stairs I heard my mum’s voice yell “Girls, I need to speak to you about something.”
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138,393 Literary Works • 672,114 Reviews
First off, this is an excellent beginning!
Your characterization is wonderful, detailed, and clear. I love how you show how Scarlett is different, a little aggressive (I love the aggressive characters), leader-like, bossy, and over-achiever. And the twins are just pushovers to her.
The way you describe the teachers is also good.
Maybe a little more detailing on what your characters actually look like. Maybe say what they wear, to give further ideas to the readers of their personality.
Here's the grammar nitpicking part.
Some of your sentences, I noticed, were run-ons.
The word "a miss" should be "amiss" one word.
"I’m not much of a leader, never had been." should be "never have been" so this implies she still isn't- from the past up till now in the present.
I also like how you add a little cliffhanger with the mother's dialogue. That was a nice tough.
I look forward to checking up on this work. I really like where this is going, as well as your writing style. Very good control and mastery.
Hello there! Good job on this... but first thing first! I shall proceed to nitpick!
Alright, so overall this was a great piece - I really like the characters! But, you have got to use more commas! As long as you put them in the right place, they won't mess up the flow of the writing - in fact, they'll improve it! (Again, that's only if you put them in the right place, so be careful.) One of the biggest things that bothers me is when someone doesn't use commas - just because it may or may not sound like there's a pause when you say it, in writing it's just a grammatical necessity. (I hope I spelled necessity right - my spellcheck is broken.) Either that, or it's not necessary, but there would be a pause in the wording if you said it aloud, in which case you should also place a comma in there for style's sake. This piece could also use some more descriptive words, rather than 'said' or 'walked', and just more imagery in general. I like your this-is-what-happened-and-that's-all style, but just a little description would fill out the story a lot more and add to the mental image readers tend to get when they read a good piece like this.
I really did love your characters, though, and the dialogue was excellent - you can tell they're friends, and it's very relaxed and natural. (For some reason I always manage to make my dialogues really awkward. I think I try too hard on them...) I also like the school - it reminds me of just about every school I've ever been to. (And that hits home for me right now, because it's the last day of summer vacation!)
So overall, I'd call this good. The punctuation leaves a little to be desired, but your style and characterism is great! Keep it up!
Hi Chelsea.
I'd gladly read the next chapter. :=D
Wow. This is so well written, I kept on reading without getting distracted. I love the Main Character, her personality is so real. Each character has a different personality, and we can see it as we read the dialogs, so kudos for that.
Now, there's something about the grammar I spotted.
The dialogs... like for example here:
There should be a comma in a dialog before every "she said, he said, she whispered, she screamed, etc", I noticed that most of the time you used a period instead.
Another thing is this...
If you don't want to write the whole word for it to look more normal and coolie, you should write "'cause"... 'cause you know, that's more correct.
However, you did an exellent job. Very, very cool! So keep writing it, and feel free to PM your next chapter. xD
~Solvy <3
Hi there!
This is a great start. Your characters are real and I find myself relating to them. This made me think back on a school day in December when we had a fire drill. It turned out it wasn't a drill, but there was a small fire in the cafeteria. We were all standing outside for about a half hour! It was horrible.
Anyway, getting back to the story: your descriptions are good and I can visualize everything. You had a couple grammer and spelling errors, but I'm pretty sure IcyFlame covered all that already. I like the way you leave us hanging at the end. It's a great lead into chapter 2.
Overall, good job. Keep writing!
I'm heeeeere!!! And this could turn out good or bad - I don't tend to review on my phone much....
I can't quote single bits either... Eugh!!
Right, that's pretty much the extent of my nitpicking - I hope it works (I had to type the formatting codes in by hand!!) Anyway, this draft's looking better, it's just a case of jumping between scenes and making the chapter a good hook. You don't need to fixate on this one for a while. I find I rewrite it continuously as the story progresses